CJi,'~... ~,!S
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H ARRINGTON:
A STORY OF TRUE LOVE.
BY  T  E AHUTHORHAT CHEER," "THE  GHOST: A
CHRISTMAS STORY," 6 "A TALE OF LYNN," ETC.
"'Herein may be seen noble chivalrye, curtcsye, humanyte, friendlyensse,
hardyenesse, love, friendshype, cowardyse, murder, hate, vertue and synne.
Doo after the gcod, and leve the evyl, and it shall brynge you to good fame
and rencmme."-SIaR T'HOMAS MALOPY: PrEface to Morte D'Arthur.
BOSTON:
THAYER & ELDRIDGE,
I 4  & I 16 WASHINGTON STREET.
I 86o.




0~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~P




I DEDICoATE~
THIS BOOK
TO   "Y  WI " F E..








CONTENTS.
PAOE.
PROLOGUE.                                            7
CHAPTER I.-THE REIGN OF TERROR.                            69
II.-THE FENCING SCHOOL,...  81
III.-QUARTE AND TIERCE,...                  90
IV.-MURIEL AND EMILY,.                            116
V.-LA BOSTONIENNE,.                               127
VI.-AN EPISODE OF THE REIGN OF TERROR,.. 138
VII.-Roux,.....      146
VIII.-THE SHADOW OF THE HUNTER,..... 163
IX.-SCHOLAR AND SOLDIER,.                          173
X.-CONVERSATION,.....181
XI.-NORTH AND SOUTH,....          191
XII.-STARTLING DEVELOPMENTS,....      210
XIII.-THE FAIRY PRINCE,.... 228
XIV.-THE ANTI-SLAVERY CONVENTION,..      240
XV.-WAR AND PEACE,..                      252
XVI.-THE GLIMPSES OF THE MOON...   268
XVII.-NOCTUNAL,..                         276
XVIII.-THE PRETTY PASS THINGS CAME TO.... 290
XIX. —TE ROAR OF ST. DOMINGO,.... 302
XX.-EXPLANATIONS..                                  316
XXI.-THE BREAKING OF THE SPELL,.           328
XXII.-INTERSTITIAL...            340
XXIII.-THE BLOOMING OF THE LILY,.                   349
XXIV. —THE BLOWING OF THE ROSE,.                     358
XXV.-WITHIRLEE,. 376




Vi                   CONTENTS.
CHAPTER                                           PAGE
XXVI.-A MAN OF RUINED BLOOD,.         402
XXVII.-REVELATIONS,......... 412
XXVIII. —THE SABBATH MORNING,.                   421
XXIX.-HELL ON HEAVEN IMPINGING,....    428
XXX.-THE HEARTS OF CHEVALIERS....    443
XXXI.-WRECK AND RUIN,.             453
XXXII.-HERALD SHADOWS........ 467
XXXII.-THE OLD ACHAIAN HOUR,......              485
XXXIV.-IN LIBERTY'S DEFENCE,...                 502
XXV.-PALLIDA MORS,........517
XXXVI. —Io TRIUMPHE,......                      534
EPILOGUE,........ 549
NOTE,.............557




HIARRINGTON.
PROLOGUE.
As hot a day as ever blazed on the lowlands of Louisiana,
blazed once in mid-April on the plantation of Mr. Torwood
Lafitte, parish of Avoyelles, in the Red River region. Perhaps it was because the heat was so unseasonable that it
seemed as if never, not even in midsummer, had there been so
hot a day. One might have been pardoned for imagining that
heat not of this world. Mr. William  Tassle, overseer to
Lafitte, was a profane man, but he might have been considered as only a profane poet aiming at the vivid expression
of a mystical dark truth, when, speaking of the day, he said it
was as hot as Hell.
It was the Sabbath, but an active fancy, brooding over the
general condition of man and nature on Mr. Lafitte's plantation, might have thought it rather the Devil's Sabbath than
the Sabbath of the Lord. Through the vaporous atmosphere,
simmering with the heat, swarming with insect life, and reeking with the dense, sickly sweetness of tropic plants and
flowers, the fierce sun poured a flood 6f stagnant, yellow light,
which lay in a broad and brassy glare over the low landscape.
Veiled by the cruel radiance, rose afar in the west and north
the Pine Woods of Avoyelles, and in the southern distance the
solemn masses of gloom formed by the cotton-woods, live7




8                     PROLOGUE.
oaks and cypresses of the Great Pacoudrie Swamp. The eye
wandering backward from the depths of the morass, saw the
smouldering fire of the atmosphere envelop the enormous
trees, draped everywhere with long streamers of black moss,
and kindle the broad palmetto bottoms, and the multi-colored
luxuriance of tropical vegetation, which sprang into ranker life
beneath the vivid and sullen ray. The sluggish tide of the
bayou basked with snaky gleams in the quivering lustre; the
red marl of the plantation where mules and negroes were toiling
painfully under the oaths and blows of the drivers and overseer, darkly glowed in it; the bright, rank green of the lawn
before the mansion was afiare with it; and the mansion itself,
with its rose and jasmin vines drooping around the posts
of the veranda, looked scorched to a deeper brown in the
hot, thick, yellow, intolerable glare.
Shadows that day were the demons of the landscape.
Shadows of intense and peculiar blackness, so compact
that they seemed to have a substantial being of their own,
lurked in the yellow light around and beneath every object. A
dark fancy might have dreamed them a host of devils, disguised
as shadows, and mustered to prevent the escape of a soul from
Hell. Black with a strange blackness, shaped to an ugly goblin
resemblance of the thing they accompanied, they were scattered like a host of demon sentries all over the scene, and had
watch and ward of everything. The gaunt, stilted bittern standing motionless near the water, had his black goblin duplicate
beneath him on the glistering clay. The mud-hued, warty-hided,
abominable alligator, as he raised himself on his short legs, had
his black, misshapen, shadow-caricature to lumber up with him
on the trodden mire, and it went with him as he took his lumpish plunge into the foul bayou. Every plant or shrub had its
scraggy imp of shadow sprawling beneath it, and darting and
dodging as if to catch it whenever it moved. Every treecypress, live-oak, sycamore, cotton-wood, or gum, all solemnly
draped with black moss-had its scrawny phantom to toss and
flicker fantastically with the tangled motion of a hundred darting arms, if the branches or their streamers swayed in the
furnace-breath of the light wind. Every fallen trunk, or log,




PROLOGUE.                      9
or stump, or standing post had its immovable, black sentinel
shape of shadow projected beyond it,'or crouching by its side.
Along the running fences on the plantation ran black, spectral bars on the red marl.  In the fields, among the newsprung corn, sown with the pain and sweat of slaves, a demoncrop of shadow mocked with its ugly color and fantastic shape
the green beauty of the pennoned grain. The reeking mules,
panting and straining, with drooping heads, as they dragged
the groaning ploughs through the soil of the cotton fields, or
pulled the clanking harrows over the furrowed rows, had their
monstrous jags of sooty shadow, like the malformed beasts of
a devil's dream, jerking along with shapeless instruments
beside them. The black drudges, men and women, plodding
and tottering in the sweltering heat, behind the ploughs,
beside the harrows, or dropping seed into the drills, had
hunched and ugly goblin dwarfs of shadow, vigilantly dogging
their footsteps, and bobbing and dodging with their more
active movements. The burly overseer on horseback had his
horsed demon of lubber shadow, which aped his every gesture
and movement, ambling fantastically with him hither and
thither among the rows, and grotesquely motioning into
squirms of phantom glee the shadows of the writhing slaves
on whom his frequent whip-lash fell. Up around the planter's
mansion, shadows as fantastical, as black and demoniacal as
these, wavered or lay in the fierce, yellow glow. And among
them all there was none uglier or more seemingly sentient than
one within the room opening on the veranda-a black,
hellion shape which floated softly as in a pool of oil, on an
oblong square of sluggish sunshine shimmering on the floor,,
just behind the chair of Mr. Lafitte.
Angry words had been uttered in that room within the last
few minutes —angry at least on the part of Madame Lafitte,
who sat away from the sunlight, opposite her husband, with a
table laid with fruit and wine between them.  She was of the
superbest type of southern beauty-and there is no beauty
more exquisite; but now her lovely olive face was dusky white
with fury and agony-its pallor heightened by contrast with
her intense black hair, which she wore in heavy tresses droop1*




10                     PROLOGUE.
ing almost to the broad gold ornaments in her ears. Silent
at present, she sat with her white arms tightly clasped below
her bosom, which convulsively rose and fell beneath its muslin
folds, and with dilated nostrils, and pale lips curved with hate
and grief, kept her dark eyes, lustrous with passion, fixed on
the evil visage of her husband.
"You are well named," she broke forth again, her voice, a
rich contralto, trembling with vehemence; "but you are
worse than your pirate namesake. Worse than the worst of
that Baratarian crew. Lafittel Lafitte, indced! You are
worse than he. Worse than Murrell. Worse than anybody.
Devil that you are!"
She paused again, speechless with fury. The tornado which
many thought the brassy flare upon the landscape portended,
had its proper fulfillment in the raging whirl of passions within
her.  Mr. Lafitte sat at ease, slowly tilting his chair to and
fro, the jewelled fingers of his brown left hand clasped around
the stem of a crystal goblet on the table, his right hand
carelessly thrust into a side pocket of his white coat, and regarded her with a sardonic smile on his dark visage, while
slipping to and fro in the sluggish pool of light upon the
floor, his shadow, like a black familiar, moved with an oily
motion behind him.
" Anything more, my angel?" he asked in a soft, smooth,
courteous voice, habitual with him: "any more epithets?
Pray continue. Go on, light of my life, go on. Indulge your
own Lafitte-your pirate lover. He loves to hear you."
Maddened by his calm mockery, she did not reply, but kept
her blazing eyes fixed upon his face. A weaker man than
Mr. Lafitte might have shrunk from that gaze. But its
burning fire was wasted on his eyes as flame upon asbestos.
Strange eyes had Mr. Lafitte-true tokens of the nature
which else his other features might have betrayed less surely.
His form was muscular and manly, and his face, though dark
and sinister, might have been justly called handsome, if only
for the richness of its brunette complexion.  Dark, wavy
auburn hair, which he wore long, and a thick moustache of the
same color, drooping over the mouth, conferred a certain




PROLOGUE.                     11
lordly grace upon the countenance.  The nose, not finely cut,
was bold, aquiline, and deeply curved in the nostrils, and the
line of the jaw and chin was vigorous and masterful. In the
full visage, suffused with the dense and sultry glow of a highly
vascular organization, tropic passions basked in strong repose.
But the motor passion of all was evident in the eyes. Large
eyes which at a yard's distance might have seemed grey, but
nearer were tawny and flecked with minute blood-specks.
Steadfast, watchful, glossy, unwinking eyes-without depth,
without sympathy —obdurate, rapacious and cruel-they confirmed the expression of the receding brow above them,
which, broad and full, with a marked depression down its
centre, was thus divided into two lobes, and bore resemblance
to the forehead of the tiger. A physiognomist, looking at
that face, would have declared Mr. Lafitte a man organized
for ferocity as the beast he resembled is organized. A believer
in the doctrine of transmigration might have held that the
spirit of a tiger dwelt in his frame, and looked out of those
tawny, blood-specked orbs.
It looked out of them now as with a feline playfulness he
spoke his smooth taunts, meanwhile swaying slowly to and
fro in his chair, as though balancing for a spring.
" Go on, my beautiful one," he continued.  " Favor me
with more of those choice similitudes. Choice? And yetas a matter of taste, my angel, purely as a matter of taste —
that phrase-pirate, though bold and graphic, I admit,
might be artistically improved. Corsair, now. What do you
think of corsair? Is not corsair better, more poetical, more
Byronesque? Yes," he went on reflectively, as though the
proposed change were a matter of vital seriousness, "yes,
corsair is a finer word. Soul of my soul, let it be corsair.
Suffer Lafitte to be your Conrad; you shall be his Zuleika.
Have I'one virtue,' my Zuleika?  You will readily concede
me the'thousand crimes,' I know, but have I the'one
virtue?'"
"Why," she wailed passionately, taking no heed of his
badinage; "why am I treated thus I Why am I kept here
on this hateful plantation, in this remote parish, without life,




12                    PROLOGUE.
without society, without pleasure of any kind. Nothing but
this routine of dull farm life. No faces but your servants'
and your overseer's around me.  No company but these
planters, these planters' wives, these planters' daughters, these
people that ride over here sometimes, that I fatigue myself
with visiting, that I care nothing about, anyway.  Bad
enough to come here once a year for the hot months-but
three years, winter and summer, have I spent here. Three,
Latitte. Not once have I been in New Orleans for three
years. Not once near the house where seven years of marriage with you were endurable with friends, with society, with
life, with pleasures, with things I cared for, and which diverted
me. Cut off from them all. You go when you please.
Weeks, months, you are away, and leave me here sick, mad,
frantic with ennui. Here, up the river, alone, what have I
here to enjoy?"
"Here, my Josephine," he replied, in an unruffled voice;
"here, do you ask? What have you here? Here you have
books, novels, without end, music in reams, your guitar, your
piano, this elegant simplicity, this charming country prospect,
your own sweet thoughts, the pleasures of imagination, the
pleasures of memory, the pleasures-yes, even the pleasures of
hope. And then, too," sinking his voice to a softer tone,
while his smile became a shade more sardonic and his eyes
more cruel, "then, too, you have me."
" You," she raved, her pallid face convulsed with the
refluent, fury, and her eyes flashing. "You   Yes, I have
you. Whom I hate, whom I loathe, whom I abhor I Yes, I
have you; you who torture me."
"I who torture you?" interrupted Mr. Lafitte blandly.
"And yet, my angel, they say we are a model couple. They
are never tired of talking of my unvarying gallant courtesy to
you. You, yourself, could not name this moment in a court of
law one word or action that would seem incompatible with the
tenderest affection for you."
"I know it," she moaned.  " Yes, that is the misery of it.
I am insulted, I am profaned, I am outraged, I am tortured
till I could go mad, or kill myself; and it is all done —my




PROLOGUIE.                     13
God I I know not how.  Done with smoothness and calmness
and courtesy; done with civility; done with sweet stabbing
words.  Others could only see the sweetness; none but I can
feel the stabs. But they kill me daily, and you know it.
Subtle and sweet is your cruelty to me-cruel, cruel devil that
you are I Cruel to me, cruel to your slaves, cruel to everyone."
"Cruel to my slaves, eh," said Mr. Lafitte, tranquilly, his
voice still equable, his face still wearing its sardonic smile:
"Cruel to you and cruel to my slaves.  Antony, for example."
" Yes, Antony," she replied, speaking in a calmer voice, as
of one whose sufferings, whatever they might be, were remote
from her, or as nothing to her own, "Antony is one.  I saw
the wretch just now, as I went down to the cabins. There
you have him bucked in this scorching heat, his head bleeding
where you and Tassle beat him with your whipstocks, and the
flies tormenting him. Is there another planter in the parish
that would treat that boy so?  No wonder he ran away, like
his brother before him.  He might as well be in Hell as on this
plantation.  They might all as well be in Hell-as they are.
Sweltering in the cotton-field, on a Sunday, too, there they
are, fifty miserable wretches-hark, now-! Tassle is laying it
on to some of them. That is the howl of some of the wenches.
Listen to that I"
Softened by the distance, but heard distinctly in the sultry
stillness, came up from the cotton-fields a confusion of dismal
screeches. Madame Lafitte sullenly listened, till they wailed
away, the planter meanwhile calmly drinking his goblet of iced
claret, and then filling the glass again from a slender bottle
standing in a cooler on the table.
"These are the sounds I have to listen to, day after day,
and year after year," hoarsely murmured Madame Lafitte, her'
bosom heaving convulsively above her clasped arms, and her
eyes burning with dark fire in the pale gloom of her face.
"Every hour in the day they come from the field. All
through the evening from  the gin-house.  Day and night,\
night and day, the yelling of those unhappy creatures is dinned
into my ears. That is my music."'




14:                    PROLOGUE.
Mr. Lafitte, who had resumed his former attitude, and was
still tilting his chair, paused, with his eyes fixed upon his wife,
and shook with long, silent, devilish merriment, his black
familiar wobbling meanwhile in the pool beneath him. Then,
in his softest, smoothest voice, he began to curse and swear, if
what was rather a flood of profane exclamations may be so
described. All names held sacred, grotesquely conjoined with
secular names and titles, and poured forth in fluent and rapid
succession, composed the outflow of a profanity inexpressibly
awful, both from its nature and from the smooth and serene
tones in which it found utterance. Madame Lafitte listened
to him  aghast, for she had never heard this from his lips
before, and a dim, blind foreboding that it portended some
horrible change in his attitude toward her, filled her soul.
Ending it presently in another spasm of chuckling merriment,
as if what seemed a mere depraved desire for blasphemy was
satisfied, AIr. Lafitte took up the conversation.
"It is positively delightful, Josephine," he remarked, " to
hear you lamenting the trouncing of the dear negroes.'But,
not to dwell upon this touching outbreak of philanthropy, permit me-for I feel refreshingly wicked to-day-permit me to
ask you, my angel, if you know what made me marry you?"
She looked at him for a moment with a face of mingled
wonder, scorn and loathing.
"What made you marry me?" she repeated, " your love, I
suppose-at least, what you call love."
" Indeed, no Josephine," he coolly replied. " It was not love
at all. What makes a man keep a mistress? For that was
it, and nothing more."
At this atrocious declaration, Madame Lafitte, the very inmost temple of her soul profaned and defiled, as it never had
been till then, bowed her head in an agony of shame.
"Yes, Josephine," he continued, "that was it. You were
a queen of a girl when I first saw you. Young, innocent, gentle, enchanting, the most beautiful woman then, as I think
you are now, that I ever beheld, and though your family was
poor, you were accomplished as few of your sex ever become.
I wanted you for one of my mistresses, and I got you at the




PROLOGUE.                     15
little expense of a marriage ceremony. A strict moralist
might say that, at best, you were only my - ah, tihe coarse
word I but in this country you are called my wifo.  And,
apropos, do you know what they call this union ot ours, contracted on my part from such a motive? They call it holy
matrimony."
Mr. Lafitte, with a negrine ptchih, went off in a spasm of
devilish merriment, keeping his eyes fixed on the bowed and
pallid face of the woman opposite him.
" You were in love with young Raynal when I married
you," he continued, " and you were bullied and badgered by
your amiable family into wedlock with me. Of that, however,
I will not speak now. But suppose, Josephine, that you wish
a divorce. How are you going to get it? On what grounds?
iNow apropos of my mistresses: by the law of Louisiana, were
you false to me, I could get a divorce from you. By the same
laws-oh, how I love them! —you could only get that divorce
from me if I kept my mistress in your dwelling, or publicly
and openly. Suppose you emigrated to another State where
they grant divorces on the ground of the husband's infidelity.
Could you get a separation then? No. Why not? Because
you have no evidence, and I have taken good care that you
can have none. Ha! my dear, what do you think of your
position?"
"My God, my God!" she moaned, "what have I done
that I should be outraged thus I How have I borne this life
-how can I bear it I I tell you, Lafitte," she cried, raising
her voice, hoarse with anger and agony, into a higher key,
and throwing out her arms with a furious gesture, "I tell you
that this life is Hell. I know now, what I wondered when I
was a child-where Hell is and what it looks like. It is here
and it looks like this. This is one of its chambers, and this
one of its mansions. These walls, those books, those pictures,
this furniture, that fruit, that wine, they all belong to it.
Those are its flowers clambering around the windows —this is
its light and these are its shadows-this scorching heat is the
heat of it, that sun is the sun of it, these slaves swelter in itI,. a slave like them, amin tortued in it, and you are the fiend




16                     PROLOGUE.
of it, hard, cruel, sensual, heartless, pitiless devil that you
are!"
Flinging her arms together again in a convulsive clasp on
her bosom, her frame shuddering, her breath coming and
going in quick gasps through her clenched teeth, which
gleamed behind lips deadly white and tensely drawn, she
glared at him with fixed nostrils and flaming eyes, like a beautiful maniac. Save that he had ceased his balancing, that his
eyes were a shade more tigerish, and that his form crouched
slightly forward in his chair, Mr. Lafitte was as cool and collected as ever, and his face wore the same sardonic smile.
" Now Josephine," he remarked in a tone more nonchalant,
serene and soft than before, if that could be, " let me close
this delightful conversation by a few brief observations on the
value of opportunity. First, with regard to the dear negroes.
I am a rich, but I have my little desire to be a very rich
planter. Therefore I lay plans for a large cotton crop, on
which, by the way, I have heavy bets pending. In order that
I may have the large crop, which means a great. deal of
money, and in order that I may win my bets, which are considerable, I make the dear negroes work furiously. But in
order that they shall work with due ardor, and lest that tender bond of fidelity and devotion to their master's interests
which the good divines up north expatiate so eloquently upon
-lest that should not sufficiently inspire them, I get my excellent William Tassle to stimulate them with a plantation
whip, and I stimulate them myself with another when I feel
like it, which I often do. And they labor like angels-dear
me I how they do spring to it, to be sure! It is enchanting.
Indeed I get a great deal out of them. But in order that I
may get a great deal out of them, I must flog them up handsomely at their work, and punish them profusely after their
work if their work has not been what the ardent soul of
Lafitte could wish. Hence the cruelty, as you harshly call it,
my Josephine-hence the floggings, the paddlings, the buck.
ings, hence the howlings that annoy you, my angel, and which,
by the way, I really cannot help, since the black beasts will
make a clamor —unless. indeed, I could induce some of those




PROLOGUE.                     17
cursedly ingenious Yankees to invent me a patent anti-howling machine for their abominable throats. Positively, it is an
idea, and I must reflect upon it. But see now. In doing all
this, I only avail myself of my legal opportunities. Could I
do it if I had not my opportunities? Alas, no. Could I do
it up N orth? Alas, no. I should not have my opportunities.
I should have to ca.lculate, and circumvent, and plot and
scheme till my poor brain would be fatigued, and then be
bothered and baffled with strikes for higher wages, and ten
hour systems, and God knows what else. Now here, thanks
to our good Livingstone, who was really a fine jurist, I have
a code which gives me all the advantages and puts my black
laborers completely and comfortably under my thumb. They
have no opportunities, and so they work without wages and
are well flogged into the bargain. I have my opportunities,
which I improve, and hence they work for me. Ha I it is
charming I They get their two plantation suits a year, their
three and a half pounds of bacon and their peck of meal
apiece a week, which is not costly, and keeps them in working
order. They are up early and down late, and so profits accrue.
Hence the value of opportunities with regard to the dear
negroes —my little exactions of whom wound your sensibilities,
my angelic Josephine."
He paused to drink his claret slowly and refill his glass,
keeping his eyes fixed upon his wife, who sat secretly wondering what he meant by all this devilish frankness.
"Now," resumed the planter, " observe again the value of
opportunities in relation to yourself, mza chere. I marry you.
Good. We live in much elegance, to your soul's delight, in
New Orleans.  Good again. But one fine day I bring you
up here, and here I keep you, where you don't want to stay.
Why do you stay, then? Ah! the beautiful social system
gives me the opportunity to make you. Could you bring me
up here?  Oh, no.  Could you make me stay?  Oh, no.
The beautiful social system does not give you that opportunity."
" No," she cried, "it gives me nothing."
"And why?" he continued.  "Is it because you are




18                    PPROLOGUE.
morally, mentally, or in any way, my inferior? Oh, no.
Why, then? Simply because you are a woman. You are less
than I by virtue of your sex, my angel. Ha! it is curious.
The beautiful social system makes you something like my slave,
dear wife. I bring my negroes here, and I bring you here.
None of you want to come, but you can't help yourselves, and
so come you do. But my negroes cannot bring me here. No.
Nor can you bring me here. No. Do my negroes run away?
I set Dunwoodie's hounds after them, and run them down.
Do you run away? That dear old Mrs. Grundy sets her
hounds after you, and runs you down. Ah!"
He paused to drink a little claret, keeping his eyes fixed
upon her face.
" Meanwhile," he pursued, " I keep you in perpetual torment, as you say. Try divorce. You have no cause in law,
for I take care to give you none. IMy little, delicate, subtle,
intangible, polite aggravations-all my skillful outrages and
profanations of your soul and body, which drive you mad, or
kill you slowly like poison, are not recognized in law. My
courteous, maddening words and actions, which work, it is
true, the effect, and worse than the effect, of the most brutal
physical cruelty-they are all perfectly legal. It is doubtful
whether they could even be stated for the purposes of a
divorce suit. They are so subtle, so veiled in good nature,
courtesy, kindness, legality, that if they were stated, people
probably would laugh at you, and think you dishonest or
deranged. At all events, though they slowly madden or murder you, they constitute no breach of holy matrimony."
" They do," she cried.  " I do not care what the law says;
such matrimony as I live in is not holy. It is ""Ah, no, dear Josephine," he interrupted.  "Decidedly
you are wrong. Go to court-swear that you hate me, loathe
me, abhor me-swear that life is insupportable with me, and
plead for release, and the blessed old law will tell you that
you are living, and must live, in holy matrimony I Go to any
southern State-go to South Carolina, and state my refined
and delicate cruelty. Why, Judge Somebody or other, in the
next State, boasts that it is the unfading honor, as he calls it,




PROLOGUE.                     19
of South Carolina, that she never has granted a divorce for
any cause whatever. Well, go North-go to New York, for
instance. Why, their great Panjandrum up there, the'Tribune' man-what's his name-Greeley-he will tell you that
you are living, and must live, in holy matrimony. Bless him!"
said Mr. Lafitte, piously. " I love him. I love him well. I
hate him for his Abolitionism: I love him for his views on
holy matrimony. I hate him because he tries to weaken my
power over my slaves: I love him because he tries to
strengthen my power over you, my angel. So do the rest of
them. Go to any State you like, and they will all tell you that
you are living, and must live, in holy matrimony. Every one,
except that naughty, naughty Indiana. Ah, the bad State!
The wicked, wicked State, that says a discordant marriage is
hell, and saves people from it at the expense of holy matrimony I But you couldn't go there even with your complaint
of cruelty, for you haven't a single witness —not one; and if
you had, you wouldn't go there, and presently I'll tell you
why. Meanwhile, the result is, that there's no help for you anywhere. As for alleging any little infidelities on my part, that
is clearly absurd. Thanks to our good Edward Livingstone's
code, you can get no testimony from the yellow girls, for
slaves are not witnesses, you know, in law; and as for getting
any legal testimony on that point, that I take care you can't
get, and your convictions are not evidence, my angel. Then,
too, observe how the beautiful social system favors me. My
little gaieties are reported, for instance, in New Orleans.
Well, society does not taboo me. Mrs. Grundy smiles blandly
upon me still. The men laugh, and say,'Ah, Lafitte, you
gay dog!' The women are soft as cream, and sweet as sugar.
Whereas you-suppose even a whisper of that sort about you
-even an idle rumor-ah, what a fine howl I You are quite
finished at once, my dear."
He shrugged his shoulders, and elevated his eyebrows with
a grimace of mock pity, keeping his carnivorous eyes still fixed
upon the raging silence of her face.
" And now," he went on, " why do I keep you here? Why
do I torture you daily? I answer-are you listening, my




20                     PROLOGUE.
cherished one?-I answer that it is my little vengeance.
Harken, Josephine.  You and that handsome young Raynal
were in love with each other when I first saw you. You were
both poor. Raynal has got rich since, but he was then poor
as charity. I, on the contrary, was wealthy, and your family
wouldn't let you marry Raynal, but were anxious that you
should marry me, for they wanted to make a rich match for
you. You liked me well enough then, for you only knew the
best side of me, which the ladies say is charming; but you did
not love me. I pressed my suit, however, and your family
worried and drove you-poor young girl of fifteen, that you
were-till, unable-for I will be strictly fair to you, Josephine-unable to resist longer, you yielded, and I got you."
"Yes, you got me with a lie," she passionately cried.
"Never would I have yielded, had you and they not lied me
into believing Raynal had abandoned me and engaged himself
to another."
"Oh," returned Mr. Lafitte, with a leer, "you have found
that out, have you? No matter. I got you, and you discovered your mistake in yielding as time passed on. Then,
the year before I brought you here, when you were in much
suffering-for I will be just to you, Josephine-you and
Raynal had a little correspondence. Ha I you thought I did
not know it I But I found it out. Your treacherous young
Creole wench sold me your secret, and I took copies of every
letter you wrote before I let her carry them to Raynal. I
took copies also of his before they went to you. They are all
eloquent, and I love to read them. And they put you both
in my power, my lady I"
He saw that the blow struck home. She sat mute and still
as marble, but all expression had gone from her face; the fire
had faded from her eyes; her arms, still clasped on her bosom,
were relaxed; and her bosom had ceased to heave. The
planter watched her with an infernal smile on his dark
visage.
"With those letters in my possession," he continued, "you
could not seek release even in Indiana. For writing them, you
have to be tortured most exquisitely till you die, as before you




PROLOGUE.,                    21
wrote them, you had to be tortured for having loved Raynal.
And yet, Josephine, I believe you and Raynal to be people of
honor, and, though you loved, to have written those letters
with innocent hearts. You were in loveless suffering, and you
wanted the consolation a friend could give, and which Raynal
gave. See how justly I state it! I will go further-I will
admit that the letters are such as two friends might have
written to each other. There is really nothing wrong in them.
But they are full of passages which are too equivocal to be
read in a court of law. There innocent words are made to
seem guilty. And those letters, without much twisting, would
convict you of conjugal infidelity, my beloved Josephine."
He looked at her with fiendish enjoyment, but she sat still,
and her face did not change.
" Ah yes, ma chere!" he observed after a long pause, slowly
beginning his rocking again, and thus setting in motion the
lurking shadow beneath him —" you and that dear handsome
young Raynal are certainly compromised. Still there is one
consolation for you, Josephine. Really a great consolation.
Namely, that you are reputably married. You have the
honorable position of a legal wife, my dear. Is it not consoling?"
He sat for a full minute sardonically smiling at her. She
did not turn away, nor did her face lose its blank immobility.
"That is your consolation, sweet wife," he continued.  "It
is the- Hallo, there I Tassle, is that you? Come in."
He had the ear of a cat to have heard the steps of the overseer coming up the grassy lawn. It was a full half minute
before the heavy sluff of boots was audible to an ordinary
ear. Then came their lazy thud on the veranda, and the
overseer lounged in. A short, stocky, burly man, with heavy,
sallow, stolid features. He had a broad, straw hat set back
on his head, was dressed in coarse, light clothes, and was
revolving tobacco in his open mouth.
" Ha!" said Mr. Lafitte, "it is he.  Good William Tassle.
Faithful William Tassle. Excellent William Tassle."
The overseer, with his dull eye fixed on the planter, stopped
chewing, and closing his mouth, slowly smiled.




22                    PROLOGUE.
"It is hot, my Tassle," blandly observed Mr. Lafitte.
"Hot as-beg pardon, madame "-said Mr. Tassle, checking himself in a torrid comparison, with a rude gesture of
deference to the planter's wife, who took no notice of his
presence. "It singes a man's nostrils to breathe it, Mr.
Lafitte."..,
" Yes?" replied the planter, as if the fact were of great
interest. " Then how it must singe that Antony's nostrils,
William. That poor Antony. We must have him up here.
I must admonish him. Fetch him along, Tassle. And Tassle "
— the overseer, who was going, paused-"just bring that iron
collar that hangs in the gin-house. You know."
II.
The overseer nodded, and chewing stolidly, lounged out into
the yard, where stood the kitchen, smoke-house, and other
outbuildings, and going on through the orchard, emerged
upon a blinding space where a row of white-washed cabins,
with the gin-house hard by, glared in the hot light. A few
negro children, half naked, with a lean and sickly old hound,
were grouped in the shade of the gin-house. Near them, in
the full blaze of the sunlight, a negro man, in coarse plantation clothes of a dirty white, sat on the ground in a squatting
posture, feebly shaking his bare head, to keep off the swarm of
insects that tormented him. This was Antony. He was
bound in a peculiar manner —bucked, as the plantation slang
has it. The ankles were firmly lashed together —the knees
drawn up to the chest-the wrists also firmly pinioned and
passed over the knees, and between the elbow-joints and the
knee-pits, a short stick was inserted, thus holding movelessly
in a bundle of agonizing cramp the limbs of the victim. This
infernal torture-practised by the tyrants of our marine on
their sailors-that class whose helplessness and wrongs most
nearly resemble those of slaves-practised also on wretched
criminals by the tyrants of our jails-Antony had endured
from midnight till now, about two o'clock in the afternoon.




PROLOGUE.                     23
Nine years Lafitte's chattel, he had been badly used from
time to time, and, of late, dreadfully. HTe hadlearned to read
and write a little before he had come to the plantation, and a
week before the present time he had picked up a scrap of
newspaper on which was a fragment of one of those declamatilon about liberty, which southern politicians are fools enough
to be making on all opportunities, amidst a land of slaves.
The fragment had some swagger about the northern oppression of the South, which Antony did not understand ally more
than anybody else; but it rounded up with Patrick Henry's
famous " Give me Liberty or give me Death!" which he understood very well; for from that moment Liberty or Death was a
phrase which spoke like a voice in his mind, urging him to
escape from his bondage. The next thing was to write a pass,
make a package addressed to the house of Lafitte Brothers,
exvw Orleans, and with this evidence of his assumed mission
endeavor to reach that city, where he. meant to smuggle himself into the hold of some vessel northward bound.
Clad in an old suit of Mr. Tassle's, which he had taken from
the gin-house, and boldly riding away the night before, on a
mare borrowed from Mr. Lafitte's stables, he had been suddenly met on a turn of the roadc-unaccountably met at midnight-by his master and the overseer, who seized him and
found his forged credentials upon him. At once, he had been
violently beaten over the head with their whip-stocks driven
back to the plantation, reclothed in his plantation suit, securely bound, and left with horrid threats of torment on the
morrow. The morrow had come, and here he was in utter
misery, half crazy, and more than half faneying that he was
in Hell.
Mr. William Tassle, his tobacco revolving slowly in his open
mouth, stood and stolidly surveyed him. A  pitiable object,
truly   His face was bruised and swollen, and from wounds
in his brow and cheek, made by the blows of the whip-handles,
a dull ooze of blood, thinned by his sweat, had spread its stain
over the whole countenance.  Around the wounds buzzed and
clung greedy clusters of black flies, hardly driven off by the
feeble motions of his head, and returning every instant. His




24                     PROLOGUE.
dark face, ashen grey and flaccid under the crimson stain, and
faint with suffering, wore a look of dumb endurance; his eyelids drooped heavily over his downcast eyes; and his breath
came in short gasps through the bloody froth that had gathered on his loose mouth. His wrists were cut with the tight
cords that bound them, and his hands were discolored and
swollen, as were his ankles. Even the overseer felt a sort of
rude pity for him.
" Well, Ant'ny," said Mr. Tassle, slowly, pausing and turning his head aside to eject a vigorous squirt of tobacco juice,
which lit upon a small chip and deluged a fly thereon, throwing
the insect into quivering spasms of torture; " you're in for it,
you poor, mis'ble devil. Yer master's goin' to admonish ye, so
he says. Know what that means, don't ye?  It's all up with
you, Ant'ny."
The dumb, bruised face, with its blood-shot eyes, feebly
turned up to his for a moment, then drooped away.
"Come, now," said Mr. Tassle, cutting the negro's bonds
with two strokes of a jack-knife, " up with ye."
Antony, suddenly released from his cramped posture, fell
over; then made a feeble effort to crawl up on his hands and
knees, tottered, sank down, and lay panting.  Mr. Tassle
started with alacrity for the gin-house, the black piecaninnies
scampering and tumbling over each other in their scramble to
get away, and the old hound sneaking after them. Presently
he came back with a bucket of water and a gourd. Antony
raised himself and drank from the gourd; then sat up, panting,
but relieved.
"strip," said Mr. Tassle.
Antony tried, and was helped roughly by the overseer, who
then dashed the bucket of water over his naked body. It revived
him, for he presently began to wipe himself feebly with his
trowsers. In the midst of this operation, Mr. Tassle seized
hin, rolled him over from the wet ground to a dry spot, and
began to rub his arms and knees vigorously with his horny
hand, chewing and expectorating rapidly as he did so.  Soon
the arrested circulation began to be restored, and Antony, getting his clothes on, was able to walk up and dpwn in a brisk,




PROLOGUE.                       25
tottering walk, the calves of his legs loosely shaking, and his
legs trembling with exhaustion.
" That'll do," said MAr. Tassle, at length; "you'll be ready
for your floggin' right soon.  Here, you darn cuss of a nigger,
drink a swallow of this. That'll set you up."
Antony took the proffered whisky-flask-MAr. Tassle's pocket
companion-and gulped the liquor.  It went to his poor,
famished heart like fire, and shot some vigor through his
numbed veins.
"Damned if I aint a philanthroper," growled Mr. Tassle.
" Lettin' a hell-bent cuss of a sooty nigger drink my whisky.
No matter.  Have it out o' yer hide, Ant'ny, afore supper
time. Now pick up yt;r feet for the house. Yer master has to
settle with yer."
Antony went on to the house, Mr. Tassle following, and
contemplatively regarding, as he spat and chewed, the shaking
calves of the negro's legs, which he had a chance to do, as the
old trowsers, too short in the first instance, were now split up
the backs, nearly to the knees, and feebly flapped as the slave
tottered on.  Antony himself, giddy with his long exposure in
the sun, and with the glow of the liquor he had drank, felt his
poor mind wander a little, and was conscious of nothing so
much as of the queer tattered shadow that bobbed around him,
and which he half fancied would trip him up if he were to try
to run away now.
An indefinite sense, which fell upon him as he entered the
house, and slowly walked through the passage, that this
guarding shadow  had fallen behind and left him, was succeeded by a sense as vague, that the shadow he now saw lurking in the sunlight on the floor beneath his master's chair,
was the same, and that it had gone on before when he came
into the passage, and would leap from that place and chase
him were he to flee.  Dimly conscious of this fancy, he kept
his hot eyes fixed upon the shadow-conscious also of a dreadful sullen hatred rising in his heart, and prompting him to
spring upon his -tyrant and strangle him, though he died for it
afterward.  Beyond this, he was vaguely aware that Tassle
had put something that clanked on the table, and had gone;
2




26                      PROLOGUE.
and that the madame, as he would have called her, was present,
eitttilng very still, and apparently incliferent to him or anything
that might happen to him.
Suddenly hce heard the smooth and quiet voice of his master, seeming nearer to him than it should have seemed.
"~Well, Antony, so it appears that I have a learned nigger
on my plantation.  Cousin to the learned pig, I suppose.  Did
you ever hear of the learned pig, Antony?"
" Never did, Marsterl."
" Illdeed.  Then you never heard what happened to him?"
" N ever did hear, Marster."
" Alh! Indeed! Well, he ran away, and was caught, and
flogged, and bucked, to begin with. Just like you, Antony.
After which lie was treated so that he wished he was dead,
Antony.  Just as you are going to be, my learned nigger.
Do you understand?"
" Yes, Marster."
In this colloquy, Mr. Lafitte's voice was as smooth and
tranquil as though he were promising his servant pleasures
instead of pains. Antony had answered mechanically, in a
voice as quiet and subdued as his tyrant's, with the slightest
possible quaver in his husky tones.
"So you can readf and write, Antony," said the planter,
after a pause.
" A little bit, Marster."
" A little bit, eh? Yes. Come, now, let's have a specimen. Here's the'Picayune,' with something that suits your
case."  Mr. Lafitte took the paper from the table as he spoke.'A little bit of abolition pleasantry that your British friends
fling at the South, and this booby editor circulates. Here,
read it out."
Antony saw his master's hand extending the paper to him,
with the thumb indicating a paragraph.  Moving nearer, he
mechanically took the paper.  The print swam dizzily before
his eyes, as, with a halting voice, he slowly read aloud what
was, in fact, one of the most punglent anti-slavery sarcasms of
the day 
"'From the-London- Aorning Advertiser.  One million




PROLOGUE.                     27
dollars-reward. PRan away-from-the-subscriber-on the
18th August-a likely —iMagyar fellow (Antony boggled terribly over' Magyar' which he thought must imean mlulatto),
named-Louis-Kossuth.  Hie is-about-45S-years old —
5 feet-6 inches-high.  Dark-com-plexion, marked-eyebrows, and-grey eyes."'
" _Not a bad description of you, Antony," interpolated Mr.
Lafitte.  " Quite like you, in fact.  Go ahead."
Antony stammered on, losing the place, and beCginning
lower down.
"' Captains and-masters-of vessels-are-particularlycautioned —against —harboring-or- concealing-the saidfugitive-on board-their ships-as the-full —penalty-of
the law-will-be-rigorously-enforced."
"You see, Antony," again interrupted the planter.  "You
reckoned, I suppose, on getting off in a ship, when your nice
scheme got you to New Orleans. Didn't you, my nigger Kossuth? You'd be advertised though, and caught, just like him.
Go on."
Unheeding this sally of Mr. Lafitte's cheerful fancy, Antony
went on, losing the place again, and getting to the bottom of
the paragraph.
N"'N.B.-If  the-fellow-cannot-be  taken-alive-I
will pay-a-reward-of (Antony boggled again over the'250,000 ducats' named, and called it twenty-five dollars), for
his-scalp. Terms as-above.  Francis-Joseph-Emperor
-of-Austria.'"
"Good," said the planter.  " Your scalp, you woolly-headed
curse, wouldn't bring that in the market, or I'd have it off, and
your hide with it. Lay the paper down. You read atrociously."
Antony laid the paper on the table, and without looking at
his master, fixed his blurred eyes on the floor again.
"You see," continued the planter, "how  runaways get
served. You have been told both by Tassle and myself that
even if you got North you'd be sent back. We've got a Fugitive Slave Law now for runaway niggers, and back they come.
You go to Philadelphia. That good Ingraham —that good
Judge Kane-that dear Judge Cadwallader —they send you




28                     PROLOGUE.
back. You go to New York.  Lord! There everybody
sendls you back! You go to Boston.  That dear Ben Hallett
grabs you. That good Sprague-that good Curtis-all these
good people grab you, as they grabbed that nigger Sims, and
back you come. Yet you try it, you foolish Antony. Your
cursed brother got off friom: me nine years ago, and so you
think you'll try it too.  Fine fellows both of you.  I-le
leaves Cayenne pepper in his tracks, which plays the devil
with the hounds, and off he gets. But you've had to smart
for him.  All you've got since has been on his account. Now
you'll get something on your own. I'll teach you to steal my
horse and make off for the river with your forged pass and
package.  Do you see this?"
Lifting his dizzy eyes to the level of his master's hand,
Antony saw that it held a heavy iron collar with a prong, on
which he read in stamped letters, LAFITTE BROTHERS, NEW
ORLEANS.
"My brother h ad a nigger that wore this collar once," said
the smooth, cruel voice, "and now you'll wear it. If you
ever get away again, which I'll take care you never will,
people will know who you belong to, my fine boy. Kneel
down here."
Antony felt the sullen hatred seethe up in his heart, and his
brain reeled.
" I won't have that collar on me, Marster," he huskily
muttered.' You may kill me, Marster, but I won't have
that collar on me."
" You won't, eh?" returned Mr. Lafitte, tranquilly.  "Oh,
well then, if you won't, you won't. By the way," he pursued,
carelessly taking the paper from the table, and fanning himself gently, "do you know how I knew you were going to run
away?  I'll tell you. I was standing near the gin-house last
night when you came there to steal Tassle's old clothes, and I
heard you say to yourself-' Now for liberty or death.' Ah,
ha, Antony, you shouldn't talk aloud! Tassle and I saw you
go to the stable and take the mare, and then we saddled and
headed you off, my nigger. That's the way of it.  Pick up
that paper."




PROLOGUE.                     29
Raising his eyes to his tyrant's feet, Antony saw the folded
paper there where it had been dropped.  Approaching, he
painfully stooped to pick it up, when he felt himself seized,
thrown down upon his knees, and the collar, which opened in
the centre on a strong hinge, was around his neck.!  IIe
struggled to free himself, but he was held, and the collar
closed. In an instant a key of peculiar wards inserted in one
of the cusps of this devilish necklace, shot a bolt into the
socket of the other, and Mr. Lafitte, taking out the key, and
putting it into his pocket, quietly spat in the face of the man
whose neck he had just fettered, and spurning him violently
with his foot, hurled him backward from his knees with a
dreadful shock over on the floor.
Stunned for a moment, Antony lay motionless on his side.
He knew that his master had risen, for as he turned his head,
he saw the hideous shadow dart suddenly from the pool, and
vanish, as though it had entered the planter. On his feet
the next instant, with a dark cloud of blood bellowing in his
brain, he saw with bloodshot eyes, Lafitte standing before
him, with a calm, infernal smile on his visage, and all the tiger
in his tawny orbs.  The next second Madame Lafitte swept,
like a superb ghost, between him and his revenge.
" Stay, Josephine," yelled the planter, his voice no longer
issuing smooth and soft from the throat, but tearing up from
his lungs in a loud, harsh snarl-" remain here.  This entertainment is for you. You object to the howls of my black
curs. I bring one here-into this room-whose howls shall
split your ears."
She turned, as he spoke, on the threshold of the room, and
advancing toward him, paused.;For one instant she stood,
imperial in her beauty, her magnificent form drawn to its full
height, her haughty brow corrugated, her eyes burning like
bale-fires, her outraged blood flooding her countenance with
one vivid crimson glow. The next instant she strode forward,
and smote him a sounding buffet on the face. Then, without
a word, and with the step of an empress, she swept from the
room.
Lafitte turned purple and livid in spots, and tottering back,




30                     PROLOGUE.
fell into his chair. Struck! By her! Before his slave!
Glaring up, he met the blood-shot eyes of Antony.
"Dog!" he yelled; "you are there, are you! Wash my
spittle from your face with this!"
For' a second, Antony stood holding his breath, with the
wine the planter had dashed into his face, dripping from him,
and steaming in his nostrils. For a second afterward, he
stood unwincing, the fragments of the shattered goblet which
followed, stinging his flesh. The next, his whole being rose in
a wild, red burst of lightning, and the throat of Lafitte was in
his right hand, his left crushing back the hand which had
struck at him with a bowie-knife as he sprung. With his right
knee set solid on the abdomen of the planter, pinning the writhing form to the chair, he saw the devilish face beneath him
redden in his gripe, and deepen into horrible purple, and
blacken into the visage of a fiend, with bloody, starting eyeballs, and protruding tongue. Still keeping that iron clutch
of an aroused manhood on his tyrant's throat, he heard the
mad, hoarse gurgle of his agony, and felt the struggling limbs
relax and lose their vigor beneath him. And then yielding to
an impulse of compassion his master never knew, and which
rose louder than the bellowing voices of his revenge, he
unclasped his hold, and saw the body slide flaccid and gasping
to the floor.
Away, Antony I The bitter term of your bondage is over,
and there is nothing now but Liberty or Death for you 
Death? Ay, Death in the land of Liberty for the man who
repays long years of outrage with one brave grip on the
throttle of his oppressor! Death, when the savage planters
muster to avenge their fellow, and drag you down to you
bayou, to shriek and scorch your life away among the sappy
fagots of the slow fire! Death like this, or else by gnawing
famine, or the beasts and reptiles of the swamp whose beckoning horrors soon must close around you I Liberty or Death —
and Liberty a desperate chance, a thousand miles away.
He stood for an instant, panting, with a wild exultation
pouring like fire through his veins. Then snatching the heavy
bowie-knife from the floor, he sprang from the room, and leapedl




PROLOGUE.                       31
on the veranda just as the overseer, who had come up again
from the fields, had set one foot on the steps to ascend.  Flying
against him full shock, he threw him backward clear and clean
off his feet, and saw his head bounce with a terrific concussion
on the grass as he sped on over the stunned body. Hle did not
pause, nor look behind, but flew with the rush of a race-horse
for the swamp. The light wind had risen, and the grain in
the fields and the scattered trees on either side, and in the
skirting wbods beyond, and all the lurking shadows, waved,
and tossed, and lifted under the sultry vault, as he sped his
desperate course, while the hot landscape rushed to meet him,
and ran whirling by, closing around and behind him, and seeming to follow as he flew.  Across the lawn, its grass and wildflowers sliding dizzily beneath him —up with a flying leap
across the fence, which vanished below him —and down with a
light shock on the red plantation marl which rose to meet
him, and reeled from under him as he bounded on.  Away,
with frantic speed, over rows of cotton-plants, bruised beneath his feet, and gliding from under him —away, with a
wilder leap, as the loud shouts of the slaves in full chorus struck
his ear, and he saw them  all, men and women, with open
mouths and upthrown arms, stand with the mules and ploughs
in the field on one side, and vanish from his flying glimpse as lhe
fled by. Away, with every nerve and sinew desperately strung
-with his pained heart knocking against his side-with his
held breath bursting from him in short gasps —with the sweat
reeking and pouring down his body, and dropping in big drops
from his face, to be caught upon his clothes in his speedwith the bright knife, as his last refiuge, clutched in his grasp,
-with the one thought of Liberty or Death burning in the
whirl of his brain.  Past the plantation now, his feet thudding'
heavily on a hard, black soil-on, with the swarming hlum of
innumerable insects, murmurously swirling by-on, with the
light and rapid current of the hot south wind cool onL the pain
and fervor of his face, and swiftly purring in his ears-on, over
rushing grass and flowers, and stunted shrubs and butts of
trees-up again with a furious leap over a fence that sinks,
and down again with a heavy thump on ground that rises



32                     PROLOGUE.
on and away at headlong speed over a field of monstrous
stumps, scattering the light chips as he flies-in now with a
bound amongr the bright-green leaves of a thick palmetto
bottom, and on with a rush through the swish, Swish, swish of
their loud and angry rustle, as he crashes forward to the still
gleam of the bayou. Now his feet swash heavily on a grassy
turf that yields like sponge, and water fills his shoes at every
bound. Now the water deepens, and he sinks above his
ankles or midway to his knees, as he splashes forward with
headlong velocity, half-conscious and wholly careless in his
desperate  exultation  that black  venomous  water-snakes
writhe up behind him as he plunges through their pools.
Now he bounds over a bank of black mire, and swerves in his
course as something like a dirty log changes to an alligator,
and lumbers swiftly toward him with yawning jaws.  And
now  splashing through the green slime of the margin, he
bursts with a plunge into the glistening wa.ters of the bayou,
and swims with vigorous strokes, while the gaunt bittern on
the bank beyond scrambles away with squawking screams.
Swimming till the water shoals, he flounders on again through
slime to mire, and over another bog of pools and water-plants
and spongy sod, till gaining the outskirts of the dense forest,
and reaching a patch of damp, black earth under anl enormous cypress-tree, he slackens his pace, stops suddenly, and
throwing up his arms upon the trunk, drops his head upon
them, panting and blowing-and the first mile-heat of the
dreadful race for Liberty or Death is run I




PROLOGUE.                       33
III.
For a few minutes, exhausted with the terrible speed he
had maintained, Antony leaned upon his arms with closed
eyes, his breath suffocating him, his heart painfully throbbing,
his limbs aching and trembling, and the water dripping from
his clothes and trickling away on the black soil in small
streams.  The trees whispered over him as he panted beneath
them, and their mysterious murmurs were the only sounds,
save his own stertorous breathings, that were heard in the
dead stillness. Recovering his breath in a few minutes, he
lifted his head and turned around, letting his pained arms fall
heavily by his side.  He was no longer oppressed with heat,
for the plunge in the bayou had cooled him; but his whole
body ached not only with the exertions of the last few
minutes, but from the previous torture of the bucking, and
already his strength, heavily taxed by his long abstinence
from food (for it was now more' than fifteen hours since he
had eaten), and only sustained by the intense excitement he
had undergone, began to flag.  His brain reeled and whirled
still, and his apprehension was confused and dull.  Gradually
he began to be more sensible of the sore and swollen condition
of his wrists and ankles, of the smart of the wounds in his
forehead, and the stinging of the fragments of glass in his
face.  There was one sore spot in his chest just beneath his
shoulder, which for a few moments he was at a loss to account
for, till hle suddenly remembered that his tyrant's foot had
struck him there when he had kicked him over upon the floor.
At the same instant he felt the chafe of the iron collar on
his neck, and raising his hand suddenly, it struck against the
blunt point of the prong.  Gnashing his teeth vwith rge as
the scene in that room rose in his mind, he seized the collar
with both hands, and with a fierce imprecation, strove to rend
it asunder.  But the lock remained firm, and convulsed with a
bitter sense of humiliation, as he thought of that accursed
badge of his servitude inexorably riveted to his neck, the
miserable man burst into tears.
It was but a brief spasm, and summoning up new courage
2*




34                      PROLOGUE.
to his failing heart as he renmemberecd that his dreadful journey
lay still before him, he cast his eyes around into the swamp.
Softened by the foliage of the wilderness of gigantic trees, and
duskily lighting the long streamers of melancholy mloss which
greyecl their green, the sultry sunlight, slanting athwart the
enormous trunks, and tinting with sullen brilliance the scarlet,
blue and yellow blossoms of parasitical plants which sprinkled
the boles and brainches in thiclk-millioned profusion, glistered
on the muddy shallows of the mnorass, whose dismal level,
broken here and there by masses of shadow, and huge bulks
of fallen timber, stretched far away, like some abomrinable
tarn of slush and suds, into vistas of horrid gloom.  Here and
there, stranded on shoals of mire, or basking on pieces of
floodwood, alligators, great and small, sunned their barky
hides; while from  every shallow pool, or wriggling around
drifting logs or trunks of fallen trees, the venomous moccasinsnakes, whose bite is certain death, lifted their black devilish
heads by scores, and made the loathsome marsh more loathsome with their presence.   Over the  frightful quagmire
brooded an oppressive stillness, broken only by the mournful
and evil whispering of the trees, or by the faint wriggling
plash of the water-serpents.  Thick, sickly odors of plants and
flowers, blent with the stench of the morass, burdened the
stagnant air, through whose lang'uid warmth chill breaths
crept from the dank and dense arcades of the forest.  Vast,
malignant, desolate and monstrous, loomed in the eyes of the
wretched fugitive, the awful road to Liberty or Death.
His soul shrank from treading it." The fire had faded from
his heart, and in that moment death by his own hand, for he
would not be captured, seemed preferable to the terrors of the
fen.  Faint, weak, famished, weary unto agony, his whole
body ofe breathing ache, his spirit all unnerved with the sense
of his past and present misery, and nothing but despair before
him, how could he hope to go oni and live.  Yet he could not
remain here.  Soonl the hounds would be on his track-they
would cross the bayou he had swanm, and strike his trail.  He
must plunge still further into the swamp to distance them, or
he must die here by the knife in his hand.




PIOLOGUE.                       35
He turned and looked over the bayou far up the lowland to
the plantation a mile away.  Suddenly he started, clutching
the knife with a firm  grasp, his eyes flashing, his teeth and
nostrils set, and his manhood once again flooding his heart
with fire. Figures near the mansion-figures on horseback,
guns, flashing in the sun, in their hands-one, two, three,
four, five, six —six mounted horsemen-and, lower down on
the lawn, what are those things running ifi circles?  Hark 
Far off a long, harsh, savage, yelling bay.  The hunt is afoot,
and the hounds have struck the trail! Away, Antony, for
Liberty or Death!
Eyes flashing, teeth and nostrils set, every nerve and sinew
valorously strung, he turned with a leap, and rushed straight
into the morass.  Before the headlong, desperate courage of
his charge, the loathsome tenants of the swamp gave way.
Plunging from the floodwood, the affrighted alligator trundled
off, and the startled moccasins slipped and writhed from  his
path at the lnoise of his coming.  Hark, again! Nearer than
before the booming yell of the hounds.  Speed, Antony! it
is the Sabbath of the Lord our God, and we hunt you down.
What muan shall there be among us that shall have one slave,
and if it fly into the nlorass on the Sabbath day, shall he not
set hounds upon it ancd hunt it down?  Speed on, dark chattel I The good Christians of St. Landry and Avoyelles are
spurring hard upon your trail, and in the land over which the
memory of Christ stretches like the sky, well-doing such as
theirs is lawful on the Sabbath as on every other day!
Splashing and swashing on over the slushy surface of the
quagmire, now sinking no deeper than the soles of his shoes,
now plashing up to his shins, now to his knees, now nearly to
his thighs, now bounding upon logs and fallen trunks, or rushing over masses of brushwood and briers, which switched and
stung his ankles, he could still hear, at brief intervals, the
savage yowling of the hounds.  As yet there was no safety,
for the dogs could still scent his trail, here and there, on the
shoals of mire or clumps of bog over which he had passed.
His hope was in reaching deeper water, or arriving at some
bro'ad bayou which would effectually impede their course.




36                     PROLOGUE.
Goaded by his imminent peril, for he soon heard the long
yells much nearer, and knew that the cruel brutes were
rapidly gaining on him-he floundered frantically on, his heart
leaping in his throat at every howl, and the sweat gathering
in cold drops on his face. Soon, to his great joy, the foul
lagoons began to deepen, the water reaching more uniformly
above his knees, and at length he came upon a space through
which he floundered for more than half an hour, sinking to his
thighs at every plunge, and knew  by the confused and
lessening clamor of the dogs, that he was leaving them. He
did not slacken his pace, though the depth of the water made
it still more difficult to travel, till at last he entered a horrid
grove of gloom, where the pyramidal clumps from which shot
lup the straight, dark pillars of the cypresses, were submerged
in the inky flood, and sinking above his hips, he was forced to
move more slowly. Fiercely plunging on through the cold
black tarn, over a soft bottom of leaves and moss, which sank
loathsomely beneath his tread, like a subfluvial field of sponge,
he heard again the harsh yells of the dogs, and they now
seemed nearer than before.  He strove, but vainly, to move
on faster, and his fancy ran riot as he thought of the hounds
slopping on through the fen, and coming into sight of him.
Already, in his delirious fancy, he heard the wild and savage
yowls of that moment, and the exulting halloos of' his pursuers. The dogs would leap into the shallow ponds-they would
swim faster than he could wade-he would hear their savage
panting close behind him-he would turn and feel them flop
upon him, and their sharp teeth crush into his flesh-he would
strike them with his bowie-knife-he would see the black
water redden with their blood-they would overbear him and
drag him down with yelling, and howling, and frantic splashing and struggling, while the shouting planters would come
riding through the swamp and seize him. Lashed into frenzy
by the anticipated drama, he brandished the knife, with a
hoarse cry, and staggering forward, suddenly sank to his armpits. An instant of alarm, succeeded by wild joy, for the
water had deepened, and striking out, he swam. Clogged by
his heavy shoes, now filled with mud, and soaked to an added




PROLOGUE.                     37
weight with water, it was hard swimming; but his fear and
fiury gave him superhuman energy, and nerved with unnatural
vigor his weakened thews. He swam for a long time, with
the solemn night of the dense cypress dusking his form and
shadowing the tarn. At length the dreadful twilight of the
grove began to lighten, and far beyond he saw the sunlight
illuminating the grey and green of the trees, and the many
colored parasites and flowers, and shining on the mud and
water of the marsh. Presently he struck bottom, and wading
again for a long distance, emerged at length into the sunlight,
among the shallows and mud-shoals, and rushed on as before, till
at last, as the sun wgs near its setting, he stood on the banks
of an unknown river, which, whispering sullenly past its margin of sedge and water-flowers, moved, with an imperceptible
motion, through the solemn and horrible wilderness of forest.
He stood gazing across it with a hag^gard and mournful
countenance. The croak of frogs came faintly from its border,
and mingled with the distant quacking of crowds of mallard
ducks from the opposite shore, the vague hooting of owls in
the swamp beyond, and the occasional plunge of an alligator
from the adjacent margin. Dreary and ominous sounds, which
yet hardly disturbed the stagnant stillness around him. The
wind had lulled, and no whisper came from the bearded trees,
which stood like boding shapes on every side. Hope was faint
in the heart of the fugitive. Relieved from the engrossment
of the immediate peril, his spirit began to come under the sole
dominion of the brooding horrors around him, and as he vainly
pondered on the dark problem of his deliverance, Death seemed
ever gathering slowly toward him, and Liberty lessening in evergrowing distance.
Liberty or Death. The historic phrase came to him again
like a voice that urged him forward. He paused only a little
longer, to tear a strip from his coarse shirt and tie the bowieknife at the back of his neck to the iron collar. Then tearing
another strip, he pulled off his heavy brogans, shook the mud
out of them, and passing the strip through the eyelets, he also
secured them to the collar, one on each shoulder.  So accoutred, he braced himself anew for effort, and taking up a sleu



38                     PROLOGUE.
der sapling from  the ground to beat the pools between him
and the bayou-for he now feared the moccasins-in a few
moments he was in the water, steadily swimmilng forward, with
the sapling held in his teeth.
Gaining the opposite bank, he stopped on a patch of black
mire, to put on his shoes, and then went forward, beating the
path before him.  Dreadful apprehensions of the beasts and
reptiles which inhabited the swamp, now crowded on his mind,
while to add to his distress, the sunlight in the forest spaces
was stealing rapidly upward from the foliage of the loftiest
trees.  Quickening his pace, he staggered on through the
haunted dusk of the tree-trunks, witlh the hooting of the
swamp owls, the quacking of innumerable ducks, the bellowing
and plunging  of alligators, the screeching and screaming of
strange, semi-tropic birds, the howling of distant beasts, and
the multitudinous croak of frogs, sounding on every side
around him.
He broke into a heavy run, came at length to a* thinner
part of the forest, and presently emerged upon a vast open
space of quagmire, stretching two or three miles away, with
scattered trees standing and leaning in all directions in its
broad expanse.  Here he paused.
The sun had sunk behind the distant forest, tinging the
misty sky far up the zenith with lowering red, and suddenly,
as by some fell enchantment, the swamp had become a sullen
slough of blood. Shadows of inky blackness stretched athwart
the red expanse, and the distorted trees that crossed and intercrossed each other here and there, were giant eldlritch
shapes of unimaginable things.  Lank and hairy-all askew
and bristling-clothed as with fearful rags-with monstrous
heads - ahunch in unnatural places, and shaggy jags of drooping beards, and dusky arms grotesquely forked and twisted,
and huge lengths of gaunt body that abruptly splayed and
sprawled in malformed feet-they loomed from  the fen of
murky gore against the angry color of the sky, like some
black congress of ambiguous mongrel wizards whose speil was
on the scene. All around beneath them, protruding from the red
lagoons, huge butts of logs, gnarled stumps, and black knees




PROLOGUE.                        39
of cypress, squatted and crouched like water-fiends.  Through
the dusky air, laden wi-thi the damp smell of the swamp, frightful brown bats whirled clacking to and fro in the red light like
lesser demons on the wing.  From  every si-de came hootings
and croaking's, screechings and wailings, howlings and bellowings and sullen plunges, lile the riotous clamor of devils at
some tremendous incantation.  A sense of supernatural horror
pervaded all, and weighed upon the appalled heart of the
trembling fugitive.
He hesitated a few moments whether to cross this dreary expanse, or strike off into the denser forest, but decided to go
forward.  Whipping a p ool before him which dicd not move,
he was just setting his foot in it, when the venomous face of
a moccasin rose at him with a dark slapping flash.  He sprang
back simultaneously, and saw the mgnster vanish, feeling at
the samle time a sharp pang just above his ankle.  lHe was
bitten! A11 was over I
Stooping slowly, with a wild terror shuddering through his
veLns, eli looked at the wounded limb.  But no, theere was no
bite.  The snake had missed him.  In his bac kward leap, he
had struck his ieg against the upturned spike of a broken
branch which lay behind him.  The revulsion in his spirit at
this discovery was so great that he brok-e into a quaver of
hysterical laughter, which echoed dismally through the swanmp,
and woke such an answering chorus of demoniacal hooting
and screeching in the acdjacent boughs, that he vwas aifrightedl,
and turning away from the open space, he was about to rush
into the forest on his flank, when he saw with a leap of heart,
two round glistening  balls in the dark foliage of a tree a few
yards before him, and somnething' long and darki crouchinl
alonog the bough.  (It was a panther 1i  Le wheeted at once
rit a  a      ai fnd led hea, f id!oo- into thle red morass.
i necovein1s' ple   iiol IS:s sh o c oi a'lar0m,  h  t'd,: id  1
alo-6  h l6;OhE 4-the inky waot, qusverhig' at eve::,y sItep Itest lie
shuldc feel tile stino of the  icmcca in, or tile cracl in' gipe
of tohe all'i-ator.  It   jour'neyv a     cross tue epes i 05n.1
ThIe red lit had faded froni  say and  aervaer, and the fail
moon,, which had lain like a pallid shell ii the heavens when




40                     PROLOGUE.
he left the forest behind him, had deepened into a lustrous
orb of silver, and glistened on the gray water, as he approached
the solid sable gloom of the thick-wooded wilderness.
An awful fancy had haunted his mind during his journey across the open fen-quiet, but very awful.  A strange
man, with a single dog, had followed him, at a considerable
distance the whole way. A strange man, silent, with a
silent dog, and  plodding just at that distance, without
coming, or trying to come, any nearer him.  He knew that
this was so, though he didc not dare to turn his head to see if
it was so.  He knew too just how the man looked-a dark
figure with a dark slouched hat, and the dog, also dark, by his
side, just a little behind him.  Oh, God!
The fancy fell from him as he came under the black trees
again. Staggering on through thick darkness, broken only here
and there by an uncertain glimmer or a pale ray of moonlight, or the blue flicker of a dancing and vanishing fen-ight,
he found the water still ankle or knee deep, and tlhe walking
difficult and dangerous, with logs and fallen trees and stumps
and masses of bushes and briers, and with the deadly tenants
of the pools.  The fen seemed alive with the latter, and all
about himr, and in the branches overhead, there were such
plulgings and crashings, and such a clamor of flutterings and
hootings and screechings, that his blood ran cold.  Hie held
his course, however, hoping to come upon some dry spot in the
great swamp where he could stop and consider what to do to
escape from this dreadful region.  Rest he must have soon, for
his body was giving way with hunger and fatigue.  He was
drenched from head to foot, and spite of the exertion of walking, he shivered with cold.  His vitals were weak and aching
for want of food; his head was light with sleeplessness; and
insane fancies ran riot in his terror-goaded and horror-laden
imind. One was that his legs, which felt numb and seemed
heavier every time he lifted them, were slowly changing to
iron, and tha-t lie would soon bIe unlable to raise them for their
weight, and would be obliged to stand there in the quagmire.
Then in the glimmering darkness the moccasins would rise
from the pools and surround him in a circle.  They would




PROLOGUE.                      41
gather in from all the swamp around, and pile on top of each
other, till they made a high, high writhing wall about him of
devilish serpent faces, swaying and bristling, and above them in
the branches all the panthers would gather, savagely grinning
at him, and every one would have the visage of Lafitte. Then
all at once the writhing wall of snakes would sway forward, and
strike him with a million fangs, and rebound and strike again
with a regular and even motion, while his body would slowly
swell, and his shrieks would ring in the darkness, and the panthers would look on with the face of his master, and laugh
softly with the smooth voice of his master.  And the writhing wall would dilate and expand till every snake was vaster
than an anaconda, and the mass together would fall away at
every rebound to a horrible distance, and reach up to the sky,
and his body would swell at every million-fanged stroke till its
monstrous bloat filled the dark world, and his shrieks would
rise and resound through space, and the panthers and the
tigers would dilate with the rest, and look on with enormous
faces like his master's, and their smooth laughter would grow
louder and louder into smooth thunders of laughter, and the
bristling and the striking and the swelling and the shrieking
and the roaring mirth, would go on increasing forever and forever.
" Lord God Almighty help me! I'm going crazy I"
The words burst from him suddenly, as he felt the horrible
fancy rush upon him with dreadful reality, and almost master
him.  All aghast with a new terror at the foreign and incongruous effect of his own tones in that haunted darkness, and
amidst the unhuman voices around him, he was utterly appalled
and confounded the next instant at the frightful clamor which
rose with a simultaneous outburst, volleying tumultuously
around him  on every side like the multitudinous rush and
uproar of devils when the silence of the magic circle has been
broken and the enchanter is to be torn to pieces.  Whooping,
hooting, screaming, wailinog, yelling, whirring, flapphig, cackinlg, howling, bellowing and roaring-all rose together in a long
continued and reverberating whirl and brawl, filling the darkness with a deafening din.  Staggering madly forward, the




42                      PROLOGUE.
terrified fugitive broke into a blind and frantic run, feeling as
in a horriblle dreanm, that the pools had changed to ground which
was slopinig rapidly up to strike him in the face and stop him;
till at last with a sudden lightening of the darkness, something
caufght his feet and  threw him  headlong, and with an awful
sense thoat he was seized, and with the hideous tintamar swirlin(g downward like the gurgling roar of water in the ears
of a drowning man, he swooned away
IV.
Slowly that sluggish sea of swoon gave up its dead, and life
revivedc.  olow long he had lain in that blank trance, he knew
not.  He felt that he was lying on bare, damlp ground, and
that the moonli-ght was around him.  The din had sunk into
confused and broken noises, sounding and echoing distantly
through the darker depths of the moonlit forest, and the air
around him was desolate and still.  A clear, cold, remote stillness filled his mind.  Gradually a dinm sense of the former terror, mixed with consciousness of all he had passed through, and
of the place he was in, began to invade the silent vacancy,
and crept upon him as from  afar.  Shuddering slightly, with
icy thrills crawling through his torpid blood, he slowly raised
himself to his knees, and looked around him.  With a vague
relief, which was almost pleasure, he saw that he was kneelinlg
on dry ground-a low acclivity sloping from the morass, clothed
with giant trees, and barred with large spaces of grey moonlight and sable shadow.  Behind hih  was the tough cordage
of a ground-vine, in which his foot was still entangled.  Disengaginn  the limb without rising from his knees, he continued to
gaze, gradunally yieldinga to an overwhelmling sense of awe, as
he took in note fnlly thle dark ad d  ea d ul I1manificenece of the
forest whi:ha loomned before hn1m, like the interior of soumse infelrnal cathei-al. a Far away, throunh imsalense irregunlar vistas,
diminishin3' in intcerminable perspective, the     r ro Lund stretched
in vast mosaics of srble and silver, bunched  ad an1rid    with
low flowers and herbage and running vines, all moveless and




PROLOGUE.                       43
colorless in the rich pallor of the moonlight, and in the solemn shadow, as though wrought in stone. Upborne on the enormous clusterecl columns of the trees, every trunk rising sheer like a massive
shaft of rough ebony, darkly shiniing, and fretted and starred
with the gleaming leaves and flowers of parasitical vines —
masses of gloomy frondage; touched here and there with sullen
glory, spread aloft and interwove like the groined concave of
some tremendous gothic roof, while from the leaf-embossed and
splendor-dappled arches, the long mosses drooped heavily, like
black innumerable banners, above thle giant aisles. The air was
dank and chill, and laden with thick and stagnant odors froml
the night-blowing flowers.  Fire-flies flitted and glimmered
with crimson and emerald flames; fen-lights flickered and clquivered bluely down the arcades in the morass; and all around
fromn the bordering quagmire, and from the crypts and vaults
of the shadows, the demon-voices of the region, sounding from
above and below, and rapidly swelling into full choir, chanted
in discordant chorus.  Listening to their subterranean and
a6rial stridor, which rose in wild accordance with the ghastly
pomp, the horrible and sombre grandeur of the scene, a dark
imagination might have dreamed that some hellish mass in celebration of the monstrous crime against mankind which centered
in this region, was pealing through the vaulted aisles and
arches of a church whose bishop was the enemy of human
souls.  Here, to this dread cathedral, might gather in his wide
and wicked diocese-the millions callous to the woes and wrongs
of slaves-the myriads careless of all ills their fellows suffer,
while their own selfish strivings prosper, and wealth and sensual
comforts thrive around them.  Peopling the vast and drear
nocturnal solitudes, under the moonlit arches, here they might
come, while the screaming, hooting, bellowing chant resounded,
and kneel, a motley andc innumerable  concourse of base
powers, in fell com-munion.  Statesmen who hold the great
object of government to be the protection of property in man,
and wield the mlighty engine of the state for the oppression of
the weak; place-men who suck on office, deaf and blind to the
interests of the poor; scurvy politicians, intent on pelf and
power, who plot and scheme for tyranny, and legislate away




44                      PROLOGUE.
the inalienable rights of men; Jesuit jurists, mocking at natural law, who decree that black men have no rights that white
men are bound to respect; scholars, bastard to the blood of
the learned and the brave, who prate with learned ignorance
of manifest destiny and inferior races, to justify against all
human instincts the cruel practice of the oppressor; hide-bound
priests, who would turn the hunted fugitive from their doors,
or consent that their brothers should go into slavery to save
the Union; traders and slavers, an innumerable throng, madravening with never-sated avarice, and furious against liberty
and justice as lesseners of their gains; these, and their rabblement of catch-poles, and jail-birds, and kidnappers, and menhunters, and slave-law commissioners-here they might assemble to pray that their conspiracy against mankind might
prosper, and love and reverence for the soul die down in darkness, and man degrade into the brute and fiend. Fit place and
time, and fit surroundings for such rites as these; fitter far
than for the trembling murmurs of a solitary slave, kneeling
in the dreary moonlight, and pouring out the forlorn agony of
his spirit in prayer to the God of the poor.
Some dim association of the aspect of the forest with the
cathedrals he had seen many years before when he was a slave
in New Orleans; some dim sense that he was on his knees in
the attitude of supplication, had mixed with the overwhelming
consciousness of his helplessness, his wretchedness, and his
danger, and impelled him  to pray.  Fervently, in uncouth
words and broken tones, he poured forth the mournful and
despairing litany of a soul haunted with horror, encompassed
with perils, and yearning for deliverance.  The demoniac
clamor of the forest rose louder and louder as he went on,
breaking his communion with God, till at length, appalled by
the unhallowed din, he ceased, and rising to his feet, unlomforted and terrified, staggered weakly on his way.
le was very feeble now, and his strength was so nearly
gone that he tottered.  His setting forward again was a mere
mechalical action, but it continued for some minutes before
the dull thought came to himn that his movement was useless.
In his agonizing desire for sleep, he tried to climb a tree, where,




PROLOGUE.                       45
lodged in a fork of the branches, he thought he would be safer
and more comfortable than on the ground; but even with the
advantage of the parasitical vine which covered its trunk, his
strength was not equal to the effort.  He was in the last stages
of exhaustion.
Sitting upon the ground, he resolved to keep awake till
morning, when there would be less danger of wild beasts, and
he might dare to repose.  He sat for a long' time shuddering
with cold, and watching intently all about him, lest some
panther should spring upon him unawares.  Once or twice,
with a start of terror, he caught himself nodding; and at
length, affrighted at the possible consequences of his dropping
off into slumber, he strove to occupy his mind by observing
minutely the various details of the scene before him.  He had
been busy at this for some time, when he became suddenly and
quietly perplexed with the feeling that there was something he
ought to take notice of, but was unable to remember or define
what it was.  All the while he was vacantly gazing at the
bole of a gigantic cypress rising from a dense'lump of dwarf
palmettoes, slightly silvered by a faint ray of moonlight, and
from time to time he saw, without receiving any impression
therefrom, a dim  vapor glide athwart the palmetto leaves.
Suddenly but quietly it came to him  that what he ought to
have noticed was a peculiar odor, and startled a little, he
strove to shake the torpor from'his mind, and think. What
could it be? As suddenly and quietly as before it came to him,
and at the same moment his eye took in the meaning of that
curious mist gliding over the palmettoes.  It was the smell of
smoke, and yonder was its source.- Thoroughly roused now,
and vaguely alarmed, he scrambled up on his feet, with a little
strength returning to his body, and gazed in stupefaction at
the misty ringlets lazily stealing across the leaves.  It certainly
was smoke; he smelled now very distinctly the dry scent of
burning wood.  Who could have. a fire in the heart of the
swamp at this time of night?  At first, superstitious fancies
rose in his mind, for the thought that any personl could be here
with him  was inconceivable.  But gradually recovering selfpossession, he resolved, f or he was natur.ally courageous, to go




46                      PROLOGUE.
forward and solve the mystery; and taking the knife from the
back of his neck, he cautiously approached the palmettoes, his
blood thrilling, and his heart beating, azd all the forest resonant around him.  Peering through the leaves, he saw with
amazement a pile of smnoulideriug embers duskily glimmering in
front of a large hole in the trunk.  The tree was hollow.  A
sort of fright fell upon him, and he retreatedl; but recovering
instantly, he again advanced, and nerved to desperation, spoke
in a voice faint both from weakness and trepidation:
" Ho, there! Ho, you in there! You there, whoever you
are!"
There was no answer, nor movement, but at the sound of
his voice, a tremendous uproar burst forth again in the forest.
Desperate at this, he again spoke in a louder tone:
"Ho, now, you in there I You just say who you are.  I'm
coming in now!"
No answer, but the uproar in the branches and from  the
swamp increased like a tempest.  Strung up now to his higihest
pitch, Antony clutched his knife, and setting his teeth hard,
plunged in through the hole.
It was densely dark within.  The immense cypress was completely hollow, as he could feel, for stretching out his arms he
encountered nothing.  He began to grope about, but stopped
suddenly, thinking it better to get a light.  Quite overcome
by the strangeness of his discovery, and by the novel circumstance of a fire being found smouldering before an empty tree,
he stooped cdown throu-gh the low entrance to the brands, and
blowying upon one till it flamed, withdrew himself again into
the tree, and looked axroulid.  Suddenly, with a hoarse gasp
of horror, he totterel back, falling from his squatting posture
over upon the grround, and, dropping' the brand, which at once
went out, leavin- hin in utter darkness.  In that instant lihe
had cau ght a gClimpse, by the fitful flame, of a lank figure,
duskily clothed, lfyinl, on its back, with a mop of thick white
hair, a leatherti n fae" hideously grinning, andi glassy eyes which
had met his; and le felt like one 7who had entered the lair of a
tienid.
So paralyzod w,'as he with affright, that instead of scrambling




PROLOGUE.                       47
out of the tree, he sat motionless, leanino  back on his hands,
with hi blood curdling, and cold thrills crawling under his
hair.  A wild fancy that he would be instantly sprung upon
by this thing, held hiln still and breathless.  But all renmained
silent and moveless, and at last, venturing to stir, he got up
on one knee, and pressed his hands on his heart to stop its
mad beating.  By degrees his courage came baclk to him, or,
at least, his dreadful fear became blended with desperation.
Then came wild wonder at the horrible strangeness of that
figure, and slowly this imelted into a savage and fienzied curiGosity.  Seizing the smoking brand from the earth, he backed
out through the hole (for he absolutely did not dare to turn
his back to the dread tenant of the cavern), and, once outside,
blew upon the stick till it reflamed.  Waiting a momenlt till
the light burned strongly, he thrust it through the hole, and
holding it above his head, glared with starting eyes upon the
face of the figure.
He saw in a moment that it was nothing unearthly-only
the form of an aged woman, and of his own race.  Instantly
it struck him that she was a fugitive, probably a dweller in the
swamp.  Reuiitering the tree, he approached and held the
blazing brand over her countenance.  With a terrible sensation of awe he saw that it was the countenance of the dead.
She lay on a couch of the forest moss, her gaunt figure
decently composed, with the hands crossed, as if she had
known that she was dying.  She was apparently very old; the
woolly hair was white; the black face was deeply wrinkled,
and much emaciated; the mouth was open, and had fallen
back, showing the white teeth, which were perfectly sol.und as
in her youth  and the glassy eyes were unclosed and fixed
aslant with that look which had so terrified the fugitive.  He
felt no terror now, however, only awe; for with the discovery
of the truth, thle hideousness of the face was gone.  Bending
down, he touched the cheek.  It was still tepid —almost
warm; the life had not been long extinct, a fact of which the
smouidering' bsands of thle fire she had kindled was another
evi(ence.  Poring upon  the  features, a confused  feeling
gathered in his mind that  he had seen them before, and he




48                      PROLOGUE.
strove to resolve it into certainty.  Suddenly, as the flickering
of the burning brand he held brougtlt out a new expresion on
the dark, withered lineaments, it flashed upon him  that this
was old Nancy.  She had been a slave on 1Mellott's plantation, near Lafitte's, and had disappeeared five or six years
before, after a terrible whipping.  They had hunted the
swamp for her without avail, and it was supposed that she
had perished.  Here she had lived, however, and here she was
now, all her earthly troubles over.
Turning away from the body in wild wonderment, the fugitive looked around him.  The space within the tree must have
been at least six feet in diameter.  It had been hollowed out
by time in the form of an upright cone, the apex of which was
at least a dozen feet above the ground.  The bole had probably been eaten out by a sort of dry rot, or perhaps by insects,
for the wooden walls were not damp, nor was the corrugated
floor.  The only furniture was the couch of Spanish moss on
which the body lay, a block of wood fashioned for a seat out
of the butt end of a log, and a long paddle, bladed at bloth
ends, which leaned  upright against tlhe wall.  Looking
around further, Antony noticed somne little niches cut irn the
walls, with the handle of a hatchet stickingl  out of one of
them.  On the blade was a parcel wrapped in cotton cloth, in
which he found three or four corn-cob pipes, a bundle of dried
tobacco-leaf, bunches of matches, and two or three knickknacks of no great use. Evidently Nancy had made occasional
excursions from  her hiding-place, for these things must all
have been borrowed from the race of the taskmasters.  This
was still more evident as Antony pursued his observations.  In
another niche, he found at least half a peck of corn done up in
a cloth, and in a wooden quart measure there was some more,
parched.  His hunger rose so suddenly and fiercely at sight
of the food that he at once crammed a handful of trhe parched
corn into his mouth, and with the measure in his hand, continued to crunch; although his throat was so swollen witil his
long fast that he could scarcely swallow.  Continuing his
search nwhile he ate, he found in a third niche an oblong tin
pan and a gourd, but in the pan, to his astonrislimeilt and ic




PROLOGUE.                       49
delight, there was a dead opossum  and a small fish.  They
were both freshl —Nancy must have captured them that very
day.  She had lived a woodman's life in the heart of the
morass, setting her fishtraps on the bayou, and catching the
smaller animals in the forest.  Forgetting to pursue his search
further in the desire to appease his ravening hunger, Antony
only paused to lay one of the pieces of cotton cloth over the
face of the dead, and then set to work to rake the fire into a
bed of coals, and hastily dressing the meat with his bowieknife, broiled it, and ate with the eager voracity of a man
half starved.
A mad repast, not given to appetite, but famine, and void of
all enjoyment. Not himlself, but his hunger as a thing apart from
himself, was fed by those gross gobbets.  Kneeling before the
embers, in the dusky glimmer, le hurried down the half-cooked
food, tasting of smoke and cinders, as to some wild wolf that
gnawed his vitals.  in th1e dalrkness behlind him l. ay the swart
corpse, and the thought of it was a quiet horror in his mind.
Blent with that horror, and with his raging famine, was a dull,
stupefied sense of the chafe of the collar on his neck, the
swollen pains and weakness of his limbs, the steady suck of
the sleeplessness in his jaded brain, the tepid clinging of his
wet clothes, the filthy smell of the muck and slime that
covered him, and all was mixed confusedly with a dimmer
apprehension of the smoky warmth of the cavern, the sullen
smoulder of the embers, and the resonance of the vast drear
forest.
His meal ended, he still knelt in the murk contraction of all
his sensations and apprehensions, before the dull fire.  The
fierce gnawing at his stomach had changed to an uneasy distention, as if something huge and bloated lay dead within him.
His horror of the corpse had grown stronger even than the
heavy weariness and frowsy misery of body and spirit, and he
now begun to consider what he should do with it.  It ought to
be buried, he felt, but in his utter torpor of fatigue, he shrunk
from the labor of making it a grave.
Slowly his inertia yielded, and he set to work with the
hatchet, chopping out a burial-place in an oblong space near
3




50                    PROLOGUE.
the tree between the palmettoes, and scooping up the soft soil
with his hands. It was a long and paJinful task for his weak
and sore body; but at length it was elnded, and brhing'[' out
the corpse, he laid it in the cavity, heaped the earth over it,
and left it to its rest.
The forest was still resounding with the unhuman noises
when he entered the cypress hollow again. He heard them
dully, with torpid indifference. The tree seemed strangely
empty to him now.  He sat for a moment on the block,
watching, with an utter prostration of heart, the dusky glimmer faintly lighting the smoky gloom. Rising presently, he
arranged the embers so that they would outlast the night to
keep away the wild beasts; and then throwing himself upon
the heap of moss where the corpse had lain, he sank away in a
dead slumber. Soon the hooting and flapping, the screaming
and the howling sunk away also, and the vast forest lay still
and weird and desolate in the pallor of the moon.
He woke with the feeling that he had dropped off and slept
a minute, but at the same instant gazing with stiff and smarting eyes through the brown dusk of the hollow, he was confused at seeing the palmetto leaves at the entrance plainly
visible, and of a deep, cool green. He knew now that it was
broad day, and that he had slept long. Raising himself suddenly, a mass of cramping stitches wrenched his frame, and
made him gasp with pain. He remained for a minute supporting himself on his hands, and then slowly and painfully arose.
Refreshed in mind by his slumber, he was even worse off in
body than when he had lain down. His limbs were stiff, and
every joint and muscle ached. His wrists and ankles were
much swollen where the ropes of the bucking had cut them.
He felt as if he had been switched all over wvith nettles, fi'om
the stings and scratches of the thorns and briers through which
he had travelled.  His face pained him especially, the atoms




PROLOGUE.                     51
of glass still smarting in the cuts, and all its wounds and
bruises sore and burning. Worse than all to his sense at
that moment were the weight and chafe of the accursed collar.
His flesh was raw with it.  It hurt him so much that almost
the first thing he did was to tie one of the pieces of cotton
cloth around his neck for the edge of the iron to rest on.
Relieved somewhat by this, he began to limp to and fro, gasping and panting at every step with pain.
After a few minutes of this exercise, he felt a little easier,
and stopped walking to examine the paddle. It convinced him
that Nancy must have a boat somewhere, and the pilfered articles he had found in the hollow confirmed his belief. To get
away from the swamp was his fixed purpose, and hi that
land of streams, if he could only find INancy's boat, he might
avoid the loathsome and dangerous journey across the morass.
Nancy's boat, he thought, must be a periagua, and the
question was, where did she keep it.  Crawling out of the tree
to commence a search for it, he saw it right at the base of the
trunk under the palmettoes. But Nancy's periagua was a
canoe I A canoe of buffalo hide on a frame of slender wattles.
Had she purloined it from  the Indians in the Pine Woods
of Avoyelles, and had it been a present to them from some
visiting tribe from Texas or the Indian Territory? For all the
boats Antony had ever seen among them were periaguas. At
all events here it was, and elated with its discovery, the fugitive
instantly brought forth the paddle, the hatchet, the bowieknife, the corn, the tin pan, and the matches, and placed them
in it.  Going in again to see if there was anything else that
might serve him in his flight, he saw an end of dyed cotton
cloth hanging out from the couch of moss. With a pull out it
came-an old blue cotton gown. Turning over the moss, he
uncovered an old blue flannel shirt, an old pair of grey trowsers, a jean jacket torn up the back, a slipper and one stocking.  Rejoiced that Nancy's purloinings had furnished him
with a change of clothes, he put the gown, shirt and trowsers
into the canoe, and lifting the latter, plunged out through the
palmettoes into the forest.




52                      PROLOGUE.
A thrill of alarm shot tlhrough him as he saw by the sunlight that it was late in the afternoon.  So accustomed had
lhe been in trhe, eniforced habits of plantation life to rise at
daybreak, that onl wakingi in the hollow lie naturally thoughtll
he had awakened at the usual morning hour. Hle shuddered
now with thle consciousness that so much time had been lost,
when the dogs, guided by some professional expert at mailhunting, might be coming straight toward him.  That Lafitte
would, in his burning lust for vengeance, hunt the swamp for
weeks to find him, he had no doubt, and he must at once speed
away.
He stood for a moment debating which direction to take,
when looking down he happened to see a spot where the earth
had been harrowed by the claws of some wild beast, and upon
the scratches was the distinct imprint of a naked foot.  It
came to him at once that this was a footmark Nancy had
made going up from the water, and he at once resolved to pursue a track, in a bee-line from  the heel of the print.  Limping along painfully with the canoe on his shoulders and cautiously, for by the sudden slipping and rustling in the grass
and herbage he knew that snakes were around him, suddenly
his heart and blood jumped, and he sprang  backward with a
leap that shot a flood of wrenching pangs through his whole
frame.  le had nearly stepped upon a rattlesnake which lay
in a faint glimmer of sunshine on a strip of thinly tufted earth.
The slag'gish reptile quivered slightly throughout its imottled
leng'th, and lifting  its head with venom  in its sparkling eyes
a-nd devilish yawning jaws, sounded its rattle and swiftly slid
from view.  Antony shuddered, and the old clark fa ncy that
he was in Hell flickered through his mind.  Trembling in spite
of himself at every buzzard that flew from his path, or small
animal that crossed it, and feeling that everything was watching him, and that the multitudinous chatter of the birds that
filled the forest was concerning him, he went on his way.
Soon he came to the pools, and beating the moccasins from
his path, arrived at a shoal of black mire, and a narrow bayou.
A fallen tree lay with its branches dipped in the stream, half
way across; a rotten log floated in the water; stumps and




PROLOGUE.                       53
snags projected here and there; waifs of moss, slivers of
branches, broken boug'hs, leaves, 1flowers, and bits, of forest
debris floated idly on the shinling  surlace or ameono  the
shadows.
Hurriedly casting off his foul rags, the fugitive washed himself with the old gown, and put on the shirt and trowsers.
Then laying the canoe on the water, where it lightly danced,
he cautiously got in, grasped the paddle in the middle, and
plying the blades first on one side and then  on the other, shot
slowly off with a beating heart up the dull stream.
Heading northward, the brown skiff yawed from right to
left, and darted with an uncertain forward motion, trembling
beneath him like a living thing that shared his agitation.
Black banks of mud, pierced here and there with alligator
holes, swamp grass, and pools, and luxuriant clumps and
masses of strange many-colored flowering verdure, fallen trees
and trees leaning to their fall, and trees uptowering in leafy
pride, and the vine-enwreathed and flower-gemmed wilderness
of massive trunks uplifting their vast moss-bearded and leafladen branches, spread and loomed in solemn and splendid confusion on either side as the boat lightly darted on its sinuous
course. Alligators swam through the bayou, or plunged from
floodwood, or raised themselves with brutal bellowings on the
margin as it glided on. Cranes and bitterns fled away from
the banks squawking and screaming; strange birds of gorgeous plumage flew rustling through the branches; scarletgilled black buzzards rose and soared with broad and steady
wing; myriads of ducks and water-fowl of many kinds flapped
and swam away continually before it. Paddled steadily forward, now on one side, now on the other, on sped the brown
canoe, while the shadows grew inkier on the sombre water,
and again under the red reflection of the sky, the dull bayou
became a stream of blood.
Awed by the solemn desolation of the scene, the gloomy
color of the water, the gathering darkness of the wooded fen,
the motions and the voices all around; troubled at the thought
of the long and perilous distance that stretched between him
and his far bourn of safety; yet with a fearful joy and a sustain



54                     PROLOGUE.
ing hope within, the fugitive oared his swift darting skiff at
length into the river he had swam last thle day before.  The
red glow had died from sky and water, and the moon silvered
greyly the stream as he paddled on bet.ween the black forest
on either side.  Hfeading his prow to the east, and plying his
paddle vigorously, he flew lightly up the streaml.  Voices of
bird and beast called and answered weirdly in the darkness of
the black shores; trees towered and leaned in ambiguous sable
shapes over the dusky stream, and watched him as he shot
swiftly by; the solemn sky spread far above him  like a
doubtful thought, half-boding, yet clearing slowly into deepwithdrawn tranquillity, in the increasing lustre of the tawny
moon.  Overarched and palisaded by the phantom sentience
of the hour, his dark skiff, gliding and darting with light tremlors and waverings still held its way like a dumb intelligence
over the mysterious water.
Hours went on, and  save  the scattered  hooting  and
screeching of owls in the forest, and the occasional clacking
of some vagrant bat whirling by, the moonlit night was still.
Only once the fugitive oared his canoe in to the shore, where
on a low projecting bluff under a great tree, he lit a small fire,
and hastily parching some corn in the pan, ate a hurried
meal. Then slaking the fire, he entered the canoe again, and
paddled on.
An hour or two later he turned the skiff into a narrow
bayou which debouched into the stream, thus changing his
course to the north.  His object was to gain the Red River,
where he hoped to smuggle himself on board some steamboat,
and getting to New Orleans, escape from the steamboat, and
hide himself in the hold of some northern vessel. It was his
former plan, and he still clung to it with tenacity, bitterly
aware of its hazards and dangers, yet unable to think of a
better.  The bayou he was now in was very narrow, hemmed
in on either side by the forest and the fen, and mlch obstructed
by stumps, snags, fallen trees and lodgments of logs.  To steer
his course through these in the uncertain darkness, for the
branches almost shut out the moonlight, was difficult, and
several times he was obliged to clamber on the fallen timber,




PROLOGUt.S:                  55
and pull the canoe over, or shove aside thle huddled floodwood
to clear a passage. But his efforts brought him at length to
a sluggish stream, which he judged to be the Pacoudrie —the
stream he had swam first in his escape the day before, but at
a point several miles below the Lafitte plantation. He was
now approaching dangerous ground, and his heart began to
beat faster. Turning his prow eastward again, he paddled
down the stream, looking for another debouching bayou. He
soon came upon one, into which he turned, heading north, and
through which his passage was as dark and impeded as before.
He exerted himself ta the utmost, and at last, heated and
panting, he saw that he was leaving the morass, and that the
moonlit ground, thinly scattered over with trees, and thickly
covered with verdurous underwood, was gradually rising on.
either side of him. The bayou, too, grew deeper and less
impeded, and presently he saw on his left, beyond a cluster of
huge trees, the grain of a plantation, and further up, a mansion with outbuildings. Who lived there he did not knowhe only knew that he was again in the region of his enemies.
Light thrills shot through his heated blood, and the canoe
yawed and trembled beneath him, as if conscious of danger.
Paddling forward, he saw before him in the clear moonlight,.
for the trees on either side were thinly scattered now, a huge
trunk fallen sheer across the stream, sloping down obliquely,
with its crown of branches dipping in the water, and barring
half the passage. From the other side, crossing the first
trunk, a leafless tree, withered or blasted, had also fallen, and
lay, dipped in the water, half way across,' with its broken
boughs sticking upward like jagged spikes or horns. Steering
to the left of these, with the intention of shooting through the
space under the large trunk, he gave three or four vigorous
strokes of the paddle on either side of the skiff. The canoe
darted forward, quivering with the impetus of the strokesstopped suddenly with a tearing and griding shock, and
yawed around, with the water welling up swiftly through its
bottom. Antony, who was kneeling on one knee, had just
time to spring up, catch at the trunk before him, and lift himself up on it. When he turned, the rim of the canoe was




:56                  PPROLOGUE.
settling in the water. It had struck one.of the jagged spikes
just below the surface, which had ripped its bottom, and it
had gone down forever.
Sitting on the tree, stupefied at this unexpected accident,
Antony watched the circling ripples on the moonlit water
where his boat had sunk, and thought with bitter regret that
he was now without a single weapon to fight his way against
any opposing white man, or to end his own existence, should
the odds be against him. His hatchet had sunk with the
boat, and his knife also. With a fierce imprecation, he rose,
ran up the trunk, sprang ashore, and pausing only to wrench
off a branch, and strip it of its leaves for. a club to defend himself, rushed on through the underwood.
Hleading to the northeast, he gained the plantation, and
running over rows of corn and springing cotton-plant, pale in
the paling moon, he struck upon a fenced road lying between
the plantation, with another road diverging from it in -the
course he was travelling. Into the latter he turned, but afraid
to take the open path, he kept within the fences and hedges
skirting its side, ready if he saw anybody in the distance to
hide in the rows, or if anybody came upon him, to fight till he
was killed.
Rushing on, haggard with apprehension and desperate resolution, with his teeth set, his large nostrils dilated, and his
glaring eyes roving warily about him, he came to a plantation
divided from the one he was on by a hedge of the osage-orange,
and with a similar hedge skirting the road. To break through
this would be difficult, so he took the road and ran on, with
the fresh wind of the coming morning blowing upon him, and
illcreasing his fear with the thought of the new dangers the
daybreak would bring. It was a large plantation, and it took
him some time to arrive at its terminus, at which a road
diverged from the one on which he was journeying.  He
reached this road, and there, clad in shabby light clothes, and
coming down the path, not three yards distant from him, was a
man!
Antony swung up his club, and stood with opened nostrils
and glaring eyes, his black face alive with fierce courage. The




Pi:OLOGUE.                     57
man halted, and looked at him with a sullen scowl.  In the
blank pause all-life seemed to have died from the air, alnd the
moon lay fided in a vacant sky, ghast and grey in the pale
light o'f the morning. The man was a large, gaunt fellow,
with a harsh and sallow taciturn face, but to the dark, half
demented fancy of the fugitive, he dimly seemed a devil, and
the place was still vaguely tHell.
"See here, nigger," he said, in a stern, strident voice, "yer
a runaway.  There's their name as owns yer on yer collar, and
I know Lafitte Brothers, New Orleans, want yer. I'm goin'
down in the first boat, and.yer comin' with me, right away,
and no fuss. What yo' say, nigger?"
He drew a revolver from his breast, and held it idly, watching the fugitive with'a scowl. Sense flickered through the
mind of Antony.  Here was a chance to get safely down the
river-beyond, a chance to give -his captor the slip when he
reached the city.  tHe flung his club away.
"I'll go with ye, Marster," he said, sullenly.
The man put up his pistol.
" What's yer name, boy?" he asked.
" Bill, Marster."
" Bill, eh? You're the Fugitive Slave Bill, I suppose," said
the man, with a dull grin.
" Yes, Marster."
"Well, Bill, I collect bills for a livin', and I reckon I've
collected you, Bill.  Hope. I'll collect something on yer, too.
Come along."
Antony followed him.  Not a word further was said on
either side. Aleanwhile, around them  the pallor of the sky
lightened into *daybreak; horns sounded over the plantations;
the black gangs were coming forth into the fields on every
side; the birds darted and sang; the fragrant wind blewfreshly
from the east, and the life of day began anew.
Weary, and sore, and aching, with insane fancies flitting
through the horrible lethargy which was creeping on his mind,
Antony followed his taciturn captor, and just' as the rising
sun shot a low, broad splendor over the landscape, they came
3*




58                     PROLOGUE.
to a solitary landing-place, with a shanty and a wood-pile, on
the border of the wide, gleaming river.
It was all a dim, dread dream.  In it came a huge monster,
puffing, and snorting, and clanking, vomiting clouds of black
smoke, and lifting and washing back the drifting trees and
logs and refuse on the shining surge. Then a dream of hurry
and tumult, a great heaving mass, a swarm of people, an air
blind with light and heavy with smoke, a roar of voices laughing, and talking, and hallooing, the clanging of a bell, piles of
cotton and goods of all sorts, the clank of engines, the wallowing of water, ponderous snorting, and heaving, and surging, all mixed together in inextricable confusion, and he
who dreamed it vaguely knew that he was sitting, like one
drugged, on a heaving deck, with heaps of merchandise around
him. Gradually he sank away into a still heavier lethargy, in
which everything became even more dim and distant, and
from thence he slid into a blank and stupid sleep.
Once again the dream seemed to swim heavily into that
death-like slumber-a vague, spectral dream, in which some
one gave him a hunch of corn bread, which he ate slowly in a
glimmering light, remotely conscious of a dark figure standing
near, of distant voices, a far-off snorting and clanking, a shuddering motion beneath him, and formless bulks around him.
Presently it drowsily dissolved into darkness and silence.
Like one who dreams of awaking, he awoke again, and
stupidly strove to remember where he was and what had befallen him. In the dull gleam of a hanging lantern, he saw
masses of bales and boxes, casks and furniture, and miscellaneous merchandise, lying in murky gloom. A few dark,
uncouth forms of sleeping men, heavily breathing, were strown
about in various grotesque attitudes on the piles of cotton.
In the stillness, he heard the regular snort and clank of the
engine, the rushing of the water, and felt with a dull giddiness the floor rocking and swaying in long, regular undulations.
Somehow, a minute afterward, he found himself out on the
edge of the deck, sick and dizzy, steadying himself against i
heap of bales, and looking out on a broad, dim river, rolling



PROLOGUE.                     59
in mighty, languid surges under a large, low, yellow moon.
Logs and trees and masses of chaff and refuse lifted blackly in
the tawny light on the long swells. All around the water
fled by, churned into a mill-race of seething froth and foam.
Beyond was a huge steamboat; black smoke trailing from its.double funnels; fire flaring from them and from its escapepipes; balls of light gleaming from hanging lanterns here and
there; light streaming out from.the rows of oblong windows,
and from every hole and cranny; the strong current beaten up
into a flood of foam beneath its wheel; and the darks and
lights of an inverted phantom steamboat hung below it in the
water..Far away were low, black shores, with here and there
a gaunt spectral tree, and dull lights glimmering.'He was on
the mighty tide of a river which ran through Hell.
Sick and dizzy, and with a horror on his mind, he staggered
back with the heavy drowse on all his faculties, through the
tortuous lane of cotton-bales, and sinking down on one of
them, fell into his former lethargy.
He did not sleep through the night, but lay in utter torpor,
thinking of nothing, fearing and hoping nothing, only vaguely
conscious of where he was, and of the forms around him.
Overstrung for many years with the unnatural toils of a slave,
and still more tensely overstrung with the terrible labors of his
journey through the morass-overstrung both in body and
spirit, as few but slaves ever are —he had sunk back, now that
a season of relaxation had come, into lassitude as excessive as
were the fatigues and agitations of which it was the reaction.
Safe for the present, with no immediate stimulus to urge him
into activity, he lay, body and spirit, as in the sentient sleep
of the tomb.
Toward morning he sank away again into a heavy, dreamless slumber.  Once during the day he dreamed that he was
aroused by some one whom  he did not recognize, and bidden
to come along and get something to eat. In his dream he
tried to shake the stupor from his bleared eyes, which even the
dim light among the bales pained, and to obey. - But the
drowse was heavy upon him, and he could only mumble out
that he didn't want to eat, and the dream instantly dissolved




60                     PROLOGUE.
in oblivion. ie was left undisturbed, for his captor was
not without pity for him, and saw that he.was terribly
fatigued.
But late that night, when midnight was two hours gone,
and the moon was weltering palely from the sky, the trump
of Liberty or Death sounded again in the ear of -the fugitive,
and.his spirit arose from its tomb.  A hand shook him, a
voice shouted in his ear that they were near the city, and
instantly springing to his feet; with fresh blood leaping through
his veins, with new pulses throbbing in his heart, and all his
faculties awake and alive, and armed with their utmost cunnink, their fullest courage, and their-most desperate resolution,
he followed his captor out on deck. The boat was within a
mile of the. city, which lay beyond a forest of masts and
hulls, and scattered lights hung in the rigging, or glimmering
on the levee, dark and silent, with its roofs and spires massed
against the purple sky, and glittering in the moon: The night
was hot and still, and a heavy languor. hung over the great
breadth of regular rolling swells. Ships lay at anchor all
about the stream, lifting with the lifting of the surge, and
here and there a flat-boat with lights on board, and the men
plying their long sweeps, lazily steered its way on the drift
between the hulls. Antony watched' the scene, with his heart
fiercely beating at the thought of the coming trial.
Meanwhile the boat, with her bell ringing, was slowly clanking and snorting on through the foaming and brattling flood
around her bows and wheels, and the passengers were pouring
forth, men, women and children, on her decks. The fugitive
stood silently by his captor, on the lower forward deck, amidst
the tumult and crowding of the risen multitude, biding his
time.  The m6ment the boat touched the levee he was determined to quietly slip aside firom his companion and lose himself in the crowd.  To this end he stood a little to one side of
him, watching his every movement.
Suddenly the clatter of conversation and the trampling of
feet were stricken still by a wild yell, above which was heard
the slow, impassive snort and clank of the engine, and the
brattling wash of the water.  Then burst forth a shrill clamor




PROLOGUE.                         61
of cries and screams from the after deck, followed by a trampling rush which threw all forward, as by a galvanic shock, into
mad confusion; then behind the pouring- crowd, suddenly lightcned a red flare, followed by a tremendous volume of black smoke,
and at once, amidst terrific disorder, uprose a dreadful storm of
yells and screams from the horror-stricken multitude. The next
instant the'uproar of voices was stifled in a multitudinous
choking and gasping, as the thick, poisonous smoke swept over
the decks, and presently up shot a sheeting burst of clear
flame, with shrivelling ringlets of black vapor -writhing and
vanishing away in it, lighting the ghastly pallor of the hundreds of terrified faces, all turned one way, and throwing its
lurid glare on the churning froth and the lifting swells, and on
the myriad masts and spars and rigging of the surrounding
vessels, which started out suddenly in lines and bars of tawny
splendor against a background of gloom.
Even in that awful moment Antony did not lose sight of
his captor.  With his whole soul fiercely bent on getting away
from him, he saw him start back and shout with terror. With
his eye fixed upon him, he heard the rapid jabber of a terrified
man behind him shrieking out that a lantern had fallen and broken, setting fire to a pool of turpentine which had leaked from a
barrel on the after deek, and the fire spreading at once to the barrel, it had clburst andi flooded the boat with flame. Still watching
him, he heard the screamed order to reverse the engines, and
amidst howls and cries of anguish and despair, and cursing'
and praying', and the heavy thump of men and women falling
in swoon upon the deck, or trampling and fightingr over each
other in their frantic desperation, while the advancing  flame
leaped and writhed, crackliing and bristlimng and roaringo furiously on-amidst all the horror and Bedlam  confusion of that
minute-for it was but one-standing  still, with  his eye
riveted on his captor, lie heard theponld eroeus clank, the long'
w-rash a llw srallow, and felt the boat drift backward to gain.the middle of the stream.  That instant he sprang backward,
and rusthing  through  the crowd, kicked off his shoes, and
leaiped into the river.
-ie emerged uresently fro m his plunoge, amidst a shower of




62                    PROLOGUE.
fiery cinders, with the lifting surges all aglare around him, and
struck boldly forward for the levee, seeing at a glance the burning mass drift behind him, and all the illuminated ships at the
piers and in the stream suddenly alive with shouting figures.
Turning for an instant, and treading water, he saw the boat
clanking backward, with her black funnels rising from a leaping and coiling mountain of smoke and flame, her passengers
all huddled forward in a dense, shrieking mass, black against
the fiery glow, and figures jumping into the water-which was
already dotted with dark, swimming forms, and looked like a
turbulent sea of flame ignited from the spectre of a burning
boat below its surface. Among the swimming figures there
was, perhaps, not one but was his enemy-not one who would
not hale him back to the bondage from which he was struggling away. Turning again, he swam on, heading against the
ponderous current which would bear him down past the city
and out to sea. Boats were putting out in all directions from
ships in the stream, and from the shore, to pick up the swimmers, many of whom were swimming in front of him, or clinging to pieces of drift-wood or furniture.  To avoid being
picked up by any of the boats was a necessary part of his
task, for they, too, were manned by his enemies. Reaching a
large brig anchored in the stream, with a few sailors standing
on the bulwarks and in the rigging, watching the burning vessel, he resolved to cling to its rudder a few moments to recover
breath, and as he approached it, looking up through the
shadow, made luminous by the wan light of the moon, and the
reflected glare of the water, he read on the stern, in white letters, the words, " SOLIMAN, BOSTON."  His heart throbbed
wildly, and clinging to the rudder under an overhanging boat,
he listened to the talking on the deck above him, and presently
heard a voice say:
" Devilish lucky we weren't set afire, Jones, and we just
ready to sail."
Just ready to sail! He heard those words with his brain
aflame.  His chance had come. Setting his knees to the
slippery rudder, he began to climb. It was hard work, for
the helm was coated with sea-slime, but at length he got his




PROLOGUE.                       03
toes upon the slight projection of one of the iron clamps that
bound the wood together, and scrambling upward, laid hold
of thle boat swinging astern, and softly clambering in, remained
still, and listened.  He had not been discovered.  The talking
above him  was still going on, and presently he heard the
tramp of the two men as they moved away forward.  Raising
himself in the boat, he cautiously peered in at the cabin window.  A  swinging lamp was burning within, and all was
quiet.  He put in his head, looked around him for a moment,
and then stealthily got in.  Going to the cabin door, he
peered out on the deck.  Everybody was at the bows, standing
on the bulwarks and in the rigging in the wild glare, watching the steamboat, which was now one mass of leaping flame,
half a mile away up the river.   Cries and screams and
shouts were resounding from  the water in all directions.
Looking at the deck, he saw that the hatch nearest him was
open, and nerved to desperation, and almost choking with
excitement, he went lightly forward, his bare feet making no
sound, and, unseen by any one, so intent was the general gaze
on the conflagration, stooped and dropped into the hold.
He fell on a cotton-bale, three or faur feet from the top,
and lay in the thick darkness, reeking with sweat, and listening, with a wild jumping in his throat, for any sound that
might tell him his entrance had been observed. He heard
none.  The talking went on above him, and it was all about
the burning steamboat.  He knew that he must not remain
where he was, for there he could be seen, and in a moment he
began to grope for a hiding-place.  He was in a sort of
square well, formed by the cotton-bales around him.  Above
them was a horizontal space under the deck, and clambering
out of the well, he wormed himself into this, a few feet forward, and lay, panting and fatigued, hot, wet, hungry and
thirsty, halfl stifled by the foul and musty air of the hold,
and by the smell of the bilge, but safe for the present.
He lay in a sort of stupor, and gradually heard acll sounds
die away.  For a little while his mind was filled with strange
recollections of the passions and events of the last hour; thel
lying prone in the foul and musty dlarkness, he lapsed into a




641                    PROLOGUE.
sleep haunted with dreams, in w.hich he was again rushingllo'
through the swamp, which somiehow chang-ed into rolling
water on which a ste amboat was burning, and he was holdcing
up Madame Lafitte, who suddenly turned and bit him on the
hand. Starting up in the thick darkness, he struck his head
against the deck, and then remembering where he was, lay
still. The hatch had been closed. In the darkness he heard
light scampering and squealing, and felt the ship shuddering'
beneath him.
He forgot his dream  in the wild whirl of emotion with
which he became aware that the vessel was on her way. Presently he felt a sort of pricking in his hand, and touching the
spot, found that it was wet, and, as he again heard the scampering and squealing, he  knew that a rat had bitten him.
Startled a little at the new danger of being set upon by these
vermin, and auspicious of poison, he sucked the wound, resolving to keep awake now as long as he could. Hle did not
know how long he had slept, but he could hear the incessant
snort, snort, snort, of a steamboat, with the long unbroken
wash of the vessel, and knew that the brig was in the tow of a
steam-tug, and so not yet out of the river.
At length there was a change in the noises.  Orders were
shouted above, heavy feet were rushing about, there was a
bustle of pulling and hauling, griding and flapping, thudding
of ropes on deck, chanting of sailors, amidst the receding snort
of the steaml-tug, and in the darkness, Antony felt the vessel
lean and roll and stagger with a sound of swiftly rushing
water, and knew that she was standing out to sea.
Who'll send me back after all I've gone through?  Who'll
be mean enough to do it?  That was his constant thought
now, alid it came in those words to his imind. He knew the
penalties imposed on any captain who took away a fugitive in
his vessel. He had thought of them before, but dimly; now
they came to him vividly, and he trembled. He was resolved to remain in the hold as long as he could, but he knew
the time would come when he must leave his hiding-place, and
face the captain.  His plan was to tell him all he had suffered,
to show him his wounds and scars, to beg him on his knees not




PROLOGUE.                      65
to send him back to the Hell he had escaped from. Who
would do it?  Who'll send me back after all I've gone
through?  Who'll be mean enough to do it?
Soon the motion of the vessel threw him, already sickened
by the horrible smells and closeness of the hold, into agonies of sea-sickness, and he lay on the bales vomiting violently, and feeling as if his soul were rending his aching body
asunder.  By and by, he crawled down into the well-like
cavity under the hatch, where there was a little more room to
breathe in, and there he lay without food, without drink,
almost without air, for three days.
Days of sickness too loathsome to be described, too dreadful for permitted language to convey. Days of utter prostration, of griping pain, of wrenching convulsions, of horror indescribable, of tortured death-in-life.  Days when the ropy and
putrid air was sucked into the feeble lungs as if it were some
strangling substance; when the oppressed heart beat slowly
with dull knocks as though it would.burst the bosom, and the
bosom labored as though it were loaded down with tons of
iron. Days when sleep came down like a weight of lead upon
the brain, and struggled with inferda! dreams, and was broken
to fight off an..r.-returning swarm of rats-invisible vermin
that swarmed over his invisible body when it lay still, and
were heard squeaking and pattering off in the sightless darkness when he feebly flung*about his limbs to beat them away.
Days whose mad, disgustful horror was desperately borne for
the hope of liberty, for the hatred of slavery —borne till he
could bear it no longer, and he resolved to beat upon the
hatch and cry aloud to let those above him know what a hell
of agony raged beneath their feet.
How long he had been immured he did not know.  Count
time by anguish, and it might have been centuries. Fearful of
discovering himself till he was too far from  the land from
which he had fled to be returned, he had resolved to endure
till endurance became impossible.  For this he had clung to
life, for this he had silently borne the horrors of his tomb, for
this he had striven a hundred times against the desire to end
his imprisonment by shouting aloud to those above him.




66                        PROLOGU.E
Now when heavy torpor,and gradual giddiness were steling
upon hilm, aCnd the instKiiet of hi:s soul toltl J1rh J-! i - il f ro 7 wavs
drawingx   near, he  vrotsd   hims     jRf for  tlim..':.....' 
effort.
The ship   a         s.   e...y      hha-1' li.     _ 
linug  of -e-t on th1e defck, aes, otvtin  dz ie  1eel  i.. I'l, te
feebly andI sloNrly crawled up on his hanlds a;1 k-ed s.      1 its
strength was almost oone.  An iifant newily  orn0 e11otl hi tve
been hardly Pmore helpless than he fulld himself.  He slo owy
lifted one hland to lay it on the bales beside him —lifted it a
few inches like somethingo over which he had no comuainudand it fell heavily, and losing his balance he tumbled  down cil
his side.  An aweul  feeling stole across his mind tha-t ho  h-ad
delayed too loig-that ihis resolution had outlived his plav'l-ical powers.  Turlinlg  over on his back, feebly pantig,  slodwly
suffocating, he drew in his breath for a will cry:for helpo   I"t
rushed  from hUi in n a hoarse whistling vwhisper.  tlis voice had
left him!  
He lay still now, painfully breathing, but resigned to die.
Quietly-qnietly —the fears and desires of the present, tlhe
hopes of the future withdrew, and the vision of all his past
floated softly through his tranquil brain.  It faded, and he
lay rushing on a fast-rushing tide, and dilated with a wonderful and mystic change.  Power and beauty ancd joy ineffable
began to glow and spread divinely through his being with the
vague beauteous glimmer of a transcendant life afar.  All
fierce and dark and sorrowful passions and emotions gone-all
sense of pain aniid horror and disgust fled forever-himself
happier, greater, nobler than he had ever dreamed —he lay
swiftly drifting to the last repose.
What sound was it that jarred so dully on his failing ear?
What sudden liaght was it that fell upon him?  What faces
were those that looked on him so strUangely from abovex, -iid
vanished with cries that brought down darkness and silence on
him once more?
0  blue sky of the nineteenth century, what is t-his?   0
pale, fresh light streaming into the noisome hold, what is this?
O wonder-stricken, silent faces, gazing aghast upon that swLart




PROLOGUE.                        67
and loathsome figure lying in the shallow well, with an iron
coliar on its neck, -what does this mean?
The men stood staring at the motionless body on thlie boles
below them, and then, lost in a t-rance of wonder, stared at;
each other.  Their wild amazement alt thle sigttht vwhich inet
their eyes when they had unbattened the hatch, had burst
forth in one cry, and then left them  still and dumb.  Presently there was a sound of heavy, hurrying feet, and the captain, a short, powerfully-built man, came flying over the deck,
with strong' excitement working' in his sun-burnt face, reached
the hold, looked in, turned livid with rage, slapped his straw
hat dowvn on his hlead with both hands, and rushed awayr Cnr'sin( and raving  like a madman.  It was higilly natural.  A
commercial Christian of the nineteenth century breed, tllhe
captain had been educated to think of nothing but his ship
and trade, and his special reflection was of the penalties thalt
would ensue if it became known that he had carried wa-ay a
slave from New 0rleans.
Recovering from their amazement, the sailors, wvith uneoati.
and profane ejaculations of horror and pity, V!itred the  ainwimate body of Antony, diskgusting even to tleir run-e senses,
and touehinil even to their rude senlsibiities, oit of tile hold.
They had hardly laid it on deck whe-n the captain caiine rush -
ing back again, shouting with oaths ani ordCer for a loo k-Out
up aloft, with the hope of mceeting  some vessel boaulnd, ir tiho
city he had left that would take the slave back.  Then  giving
the prostrate body a furious. kick, he rushed away  o agail,
storming and stamiping   and swearing.
At the direction of the rcmate, the saiiors -tok the fnii-lybreathing  body of Antony forwarid to thle o.aioy,v wahere the
black cook busied himself in rev;ill'g the i-Utngive.  IEHal a
dozenA tlies a dtay the captain came to tIhe spot wi'ler th;e iwole
mjau recl nled,   and;glared at hin without 5s ayin g a wo.    0 n O
the third C day, Ailtony nbeing then We-aak baut oil   o   staa a-il. d
t l,      tde e1   Captin dem anded ihinm to g- iv  an accout of l I:iU;t i. lli
IFeebly standing  before ifim, vith 1aI th11    viie'  ao ) e  Ii'oi Im
his emaciated formn, and with the deep -marks of avwful suffering graven on his wasted lineaments, Antony told his story,




68                    PROLOGUE.
As he finished, imploring the captain in earnest and broken tones
not to send him back, the mate, who stood by, turned away with
his mouth twitching, saying it was a damned shame. The captain burst into a fit of passion, and stamped on the deck, gesticulating with clenched hands.
" A damned shame, is it, Mr. Jones?" he roared, perfectly
livid with rage. "I should think it was! Rather! A
blasted nigger to smuggle his ugly carcass aboard my brig
-what d'ye think they'll say about it at Orleans, and what'll
they do about it, Mr. Jones, and what'll Atkins say when he
hears of it, Mr. Jones, and a load of cotton aboard from the
very house whose junior partner owns this dingy curse, Mr.
Jones! Look at the name of the house on his neck, man.
Blast ye," he howled, turning upon Antony, and shaking both
fists at him, "I'd send ye back, you beggar, if they were to
fly ye in your own black blood when they got ye I Send ye
back?  If I don't, may I be eternally "He finisbed the sentence by a gasp, and dashed both
clenched fists into the haggard and imploring face of the fugitive, who fell to the deck, covered with blood. Shouting and
cursing, the infuriated captain leaped on him, and seizing him
by the hair, beat his head against the planks; then jumped
to his feet, capering like a madman, and brandishing his
clenched fists. The mate stood looking away to the horizon,
with a mute, flaushed face, and two or three of the sailors
standing not far distant, dumb witnesses of this brutal scene,
glanced at each other with mutinous brows. Striding off a
dozen paces, the captain turned again, bringing down his
clenched fist with a slap into the palm of his hand, and stamping with his right foot on the deck as he shouted:
" Keep a sharp look-out, Mr. Jones I The first vessel that
heaves in sight for New Orleans shall take him if it costs me a
hundred dollars. And if he gets to Boston, I'll tie him hand
and foot, and send him or fetch him back the first chance, or
my name's not Bangham!"
He foamed off into the cabin. Who'll send me back after
all I've gone through? Who'll be mean enough to do it?
Antony had received his answer




]IARRINGTON.
CIIAPTER  I.
THE REIGN OF TERROR.
IF, on or about the twenty-fifth of May, 1852, a fugitive
from Southern tyranny were to arrive in Boston, he would
probably very soon discover two things-first, that he must
seek refuge with the people of his own color, in the quarter
vulgarly known as Nigger Hill; secondly, that though they
had once lived there in safety, neither he nor they could live
there in safety any more.
There were, at that period, about three thousand colored
people, a large proportion of them fugitives, residing in Boston, and the greater part of them lived in the quarter above
mentioned., It was on the slope of Beacon Hill-one of the
three hills which gave to the town its old name of Trimount.
On the crown of the hill towered the domed State House;
behind and around it rose, street on street descending, the
dwellings of the aristocracy; and behind them, a deep fringe
of humble poverty, rose, street on street, the dingy dwellings
of the fugitives. There was a maxim of statesmanship then
current:  "Take care of the rich, and the rich will take care
of the poor." It had been acted upon. The rich had been
taken care of, and they had taken such care of these poor,
that at that period there was no safety for them, as for two
years previous there had been no safety for them in the city
of Boston. Sidney's Latin blazed in gold on the walls of that
State House: Enqse petit placidam sub libertate quietem-The
State seeks by the sword the calm repose of liberty. But the
holy legend was dim, and not with the sword of Sidney, nor
with the sword of the Spirit, sought Boston the calm repose
of liberty for the poor fugitives who had fled from the meanest
and the vilest tyranny that ever blackened the world.




Yet it was the city of fugitives, and fi5gitrives had  alid its
old foundationls  1own in pain and p-I'ayr.    int!hroCp and
Duciley, BelliIghoam,  Levorett, C~oddi.'to-i Ite star-swoee1
La5ody  Arabella,   O.with thleir coipeers, tn    aid wlomeOn of tr1ue
and oenAtl  blood, and fNgitiveo all, hacd 1 reLtd it firom  the
wldeniless.  Fuoitives wh'o   n1aIugh) i tyranit tihat he had 
joint in his neck, had fled thither iwhen thle reborn tyranny
agoain arose in their own laknd   Fugnitiven, dwelling' there who
remembered in their own sufferiigs the sufferings of others,
had helped framle the noble statute of 1641, welcoming to
State and city any strangers who might fly thither firomi the
tyranny or oppression of their persecutors.  Fugitive handsthe hands of thle Huguenot Faneuil-lhad dowered it wiit-hI the
cradling Hall of Liberty named with his nam-e. Over it all, and
throutogh  it all, and tincturingl its history in the very grain,
was tlhe tradition of the fi-gitive.  Still, in modern days, fugitives fled thither from the broken hopes, the'baffled efforts, the
lost battles of continental freedom.  Ger man fugitives, Italian
fugitives, French fugitives, Irish fugitives, flying from  their
persecutors, arrived there and nestled under the broad w-ing
of the old statute.  At that period, too, the great Hungarian
fugitive, Kossuth, had comne, witlh a host of other Hungarian
fugitives at his back, and- the town, like the land, had roared
and blazed in welcome.  All these fuglitives, of whatever
nation, were safe in Boston.  No tyrant could molest them.
But the fugitives from  the South-the black Americans, men
and  women, who  had  fled thither for I,'otection from  a
tyranny in no wise different from  any other, save in its sordid
vileness and abominable excess of cruelty and? ontragffe-there
was no safety for them.
They were, for the most part, humble people-their souls
crushed and bruised, as Plato says, with servile employments.
Their lives had  been obstructed by slavery  slavery had nurtured in thelm  some  vices, had dwarfed andi crippled in them
many virtues.  They we:re, in the mlLass, 1e'uncouth, grotesque,
ungainly, repulsi ve to the eye; they were degraded, imbruted,
low, ignorant, weak and poor; and, therefore, the heart of
every gentleman should have leaped, like Burke's sword from




BARRING'TON.                        71
its scabbard. to avene even a Iook t mli, tibr'at eneci them with
insult.   Yet on t...,: r.y a  _i  t      jonr them
too comiely and nIo' 7a? neda thie' j..... 1t.u' 7,-i' -s of chevaliers fingo a;'    TI at o: o,  w.o m,Zva  e....;,;,    h.   V - been
unkind.'TIn  t hae   o-go  cont        ~M.           s1!vS L -am b,
" you wrill often meetL Nvi-~h.......  W'"  5r
iyou!al o; uo o            i;:iy.    I have
felt yearnings of tenderneess towTard somae of these faces, or
rather masks, that have looked  olt lkind;V uipon one inl casual
encosunters inl the streets and  hli3b., ys    ove  lr what Fuller
be.autifully  calls-those' ilmaces of CGod  cL ut in ebony.'"
Tlhe gentle Londoner could haveo sad it Iall and( more, of the
negro faces one met in Boston, as:' hle mi.:-ht h   av.-e added a far
prouder word for the cltwllra eter that matheod the faces.  For
all that is manliest in manhood, all that is womanliest in
woman'nood, rose here and; ere, -withi tIropic  energy, uncrushed by the load of past slavery and present social wrong,
among those people.  Piety, rude and simple, it may be, yet
fervent and mightty as ever clasped wit*h tuealrs the  Savior's
feet, or rose through eternity to faint in the raptures of prayer
before the throne  of Jehovah; love, none more loyal and
tender, for the father, the mother, the husband, the wife, the
child, the home, the country; compassion, quick and strong
for mutual succor; flush-1handed hospitality; courtesy born
not of art but naturse; patience; cheerfulness; self-respect;
laborious industry; ambition to rise and to excel, despite of
fettering disabilities and thick-strewn obstacles; heroic bravery
and endurance, such as blanch the cheeks and shake the hearts
of those who read or hear the pains and perils negroes have
dared for their own freedom, and nobler still, the freedom  of
their fellows  these, and many other virtues, bourgoonedcl and
blossomed in the hearts and lives of the black fugitives.  For
these people, whatever pro-slavery snobs and sciolists might
soay of t4lehl or hC ever tiley might piate of their inferiority,
nevethos0 h$ s   o5 Irt1yl blood.  Take as one sure proof
of the neogro s znative 0ell  ance and gentility of soul, his7 loe
and t'alenit i-r music.  The old genius of Africa wwhich taught
thie lips of Mlemnon those weird auroral tones which enchanted
the valley of the Nile, still haunts th!e broken souls of the race




on this continent. America has no distinctive music but her
negro melodies. Listening to those merry riHgadoon tunes,
wonderful for their jovial sweetness and facile celerity of movement, or to those melancholy or mournful chants, ineffable in
pathos, which thrill the spirit with their wild, mysterious
cadences, he would have little wit who could deny the spiritual
worth of the race whose fugitives at that period found no safety
in Boston.
No safety.  None at all. Yet Boston had it to remember
that one of the first five' martyrs of her freedom and of the
freedom of America, was a negro-Crispus Attucks.  But
Boston's remembrance of that fact seemed at that time to be
almost confined to a certain literary slop-pail who periodically
emptied himself upon the fame of the hero whom John Hancock and Samuel Adams had thought worthy of funeral honors.
Boston had, for many years, paid her debt of gratitude to
Attucks by treating the men and women of his race something
after the fashion that Jews were treated in the Middle Agoes.
They had their Ghetto at the west end of the town; there
they lived by sufferance, despised, rejected, borne down by a
social scorn which, to the noblest of them, was daily heartbreak, and which the lowliest of them could not bear without
pain. They had a narrow range of humble employments and
avocations, such as window-cleaning, white-washing, boot-black
ing, cab-driving, porterage, domestic service, and the like; keeping a barber's shop or an old clothes shop, was perhaps the highest
occupation open to them; and these they pursued faithfully and
industriously. They were shut out of the mechanic occupations;
shut out of commerce; shut out of the professions. They
were excluded from the omnibuses; excluded from the firstclass cars; excluded from  the theatres unless the manager
could make a place for them where seeing or hearing was next
to impossible; excluded from some of the churches by express
provision, and from most, if not all, of the others, by tacit
understanding; excluded from the common schools, and allotted
caste-schools where to learn anything was against nature;
excluded from the colleges; excluded from the decent dwellings; excluided from  the decent graveyards; excluded from




IIARnINGTON.                      73
almost everything.  They were, however, freely admitted to
the gallows and the jail.  But these, somehow or other, saw
less of them than of the race that despised tlhem.
For all the years anterior to the period under notice, th-se
people had been, speaking in a general way, safe in Boston.
There had, to be sure, been occasional instances of private kidnapping, little known; andcl there had been an abortive attempt
to legally clutch into slavery one negro, Latimer.  Still, Boston cherished, sentimnentally, at least, free principles, and the
New England traditions and laws, all favoring liberty, had
been strong enough in her borders to protect the fugitives.
Moreover, the caste prejudices against them  had for twenty
years or so preceding been slowly breakingt down.  During
that time, thanks to one heroic saint, Emerson-thanks to one
saintly hero, Garrison-the dawn of a new era was broadening
up the northern sky, and all things had begun to come under
the sovereignty of reason.  Emerson had shed the new and free
disclosing light of a poet's soul and a scholar's mind on the
great problems of spiritual and secular life: straightway the
primal soul held session; the old decisions were unsettled;
everything was to be reaxamined; thought awoke; the breeze
streamed; the sun shone; the Dutch canal fled into a rushing
river; all that was generous, all that was thoughtful, all that
was intrepid in New  England uprose from  lethargy; and
N~hile he- "with low tones that decide,
And doubt and reverend use defiedWith a look that solved the sphere,
And stirred the devils everywhereGave his sentiment divine,"
the contest of reason against authority and precedent began,
and amidst much theolo ical mud-flinging and unable-editor
jeering, continueit fi'ol   year to year, awakening the distinctive
intellectual lit'e of Amlriec;.  On the other han(l, Garrison
had impeached Slaveryv beftcre thle nation, as the giant foe of
civil and political libi;ty, xldemocracy, society, humanity, in a
word, civilization; and armidt a  roaring storm of rancor, and
the howls of slavers and tradeers, that tremiendous trial also
4




HARRINGTON.
began, and continued from year to year.  At the outset, Boston  maerehants, convulsed  with sorllid fear lest their southern
trade should suffer by this arraignnelnt of the oligarchy, gathered in a mob to hlalng the galilant citizen-had, in fact, the
rope already around his nee, wvhen the A2'Iyor put him in jail,
as,a dastardly way of saving him.: At the outset, too, the
gentle Governor of Georgia issuted  an official proclamation
offering five thousand dollars reward for his assassination..
Happy; free America! But Garrison had in his heart all that
made patriots and Puritans, and amidst a tempest of persecution unequalled since the Dark Ages, dauntless with pen and
voice, he held his course against Slavery like the thunder
storm against the wind. To his aid gathered a little group of
gentlemen and'gentlewomen, writers and orators of marked
power.  Abby Kelley, fair and eloquent for liberty as ever
the Greek iHypatia for science: Lydia Maria Child, whose
generous and exquisite literary genius all know: Mrs. Chapman, her thought shining in a terse, crystalline diction, like
gold in a mountain strenam: Angelina and Sarah Grimke,
Carolinians, who knew  what Slavery was, and knew how to
flash the heart's light upon it: Beriah Green, a master of the
old ignited logic: Theodore Weld, a resplendent and indomitable torrent of brave speech: Edmund Quincy, wit, humorist, satirist, gentleman, with the best spirit of the days of
Queen Anne in his thought and style: Wendell Phillips, mrith
a fiery glory of classic oratory, strange, but for him, to the
air of America: Burleigh, Francis Jackson, in later years
Theodore Parker, these, and a score of others gathered around
Garrison, sacrificing name and fame, genius, scholarship, wealth,
everything they had to sacrifice, to the heroic task of redeeming their country from  its shame and wo.  Outside of this
organization was Channing, with words like morning: John
Quincy Adams, too, during those years, fought the battle of
free speech in the halls of Congress: Webster, also, poured
the lightning and thunder of his mind against the extension
of slavery, though never, save in the abstract, against slavery itself: the Whig party backed him; the men of the Liberty
party, and in later years the Free Soil party, came to the side




HARR INGTON                      75
issues of the war. But these were not the Abolitionists proper; the Abolitionists were those who stood with Garrison,
and their work was with Slavery itself. Against it they
reared Alps bf testimony and argument; they exposed it
utterly; they bent every energy to the task of rousing the
nation to its annihilation.  Part of their task was the elevation of the fugitives in Boston, and it was owing to their
efforts that the caste prejudices were breaking down. The
comparative triumph of the present time, whose signal is that
the black child sits on equal terms in the Boston schools with
the white, was not then achieved, but still, at the period under
n.otice, much had been done. The cars were open to the negro, the omnibuses, the decent dwellings, some mechanic
occupations, some of the churches; and one or two colored
lawyers had been admitted to the Boston Bar. The theatres
still held out; the "respectable" churches, of course-spite
of the black bishops of the days of Paul and'Augustinem;
commerce, also; the schools and colleges, likewise; but the
Abolitionists were battering on the wall, and it was breaking,
breaking, breaking slowly down.
Suddenly over these struggling tides of light and darkness
swept the black refluelit surge of barbarism. In the year
1850, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Law. The great
tHumboldt justly called it " the Webster law "-for with Webster against it, it either could not have passed, or having
passed, it never could have been- executed. Webster hostile
to it, and the North would have risen around him as one man.
But the time had come for the Presidential candidates to
make their game, and on the seventh of March, 1850, Webster made his game. The draft of a speech for freedom lying
in his desk, he stood up in the Senate, spoke a speech for
slavery, which was at war with every other speech of his previoums life, and his game was made.  He made it, played it,
lost it, died, and lies cursed with forgiveness, ntd buried in
tears.
A cold, hard Southern tyrant, Mason of Virginia, created
the black statute; a sleek, pleasant Northern traitor, Fillmore
of New York, then sitting in the Presidential chair, unleashed




Zi~6            wE. BARRLNGTON.
it, and it burst forth in mischief and ruin, upon the homes of
the poor. Such a law! The fugitive to be haled before a
Commissioner;, no, Judge, no Jury; his former slavery sworn to
by any unknown claimant, he was to be sent into bondage;
five dollars to the Commissioner if'he set him free, ten dollars
if he made him a slave. - Six months imprisonment, and fifteen
hundred dollars fine to any person who gave a fugitive food to
eat, water to drink, a room to rest in. Happy, free America l
At first Boston was horrified at the law, and aghast at the
course of Webster.  But the first shock over, Boston became
filled with patriotic ardor, and the black statute not only rose
in favor, but slavery itself became the theme of eulogy. It
was about that period that an eminent Philadelphia surgeon
rushed one morning, with a glowing face, before the collegeclass, and holding up a horrid mass before their astonished
eyes, screamed, in a voice trembling with passionate enthusiasm: "Oh, gentlemen! gentlemen, what a be-au-~tiful cancerl"
With an enthusiasm not less rapturous than his, the Whig
and Democratic politicians of that period expatiated upon the
charms of the obscene and filthy oligarchic wen which hung
from the neck of the South, and the black, accursed conglomerated pustule of a Fugitive Slave Law, which inoculated from
it, now deformed the whole face of the North. Slavery was a
perfectly paradisaical and divine institution; agitation against
it must cease: the Fugitive Slave Law was instinct with the
purest and noblest patriotism -  the fugitive men, women
and children must be hunted down by it with alacrity, or the
South would dissolve the Union. To this effect the beautiful
emasculate eloquence of Everett moved forth in balanced
-cadence; to this effect raved rancorous in Bedlam beauty, the
intervolved, inextricable, splendor-spotted snarl and coil of
Choate's bewildering orations; to this. effect, all up and down
the land, for two years, rolled Webster's dark and orotund
malignant thunder.  Everywhere in their train a host-of
blatherers and roarers spouted and bawled-stop agitation-execute the Slave Law-save the Union!  It was
a period of absolute insanity. The Union was not in the
slightest danger-proof of that, the stocks never fell.




3 ARRRINGTON.                   77
The South would no more have dared to dissolve the Union
than a man would dare to swim in the Maelstrom. But the
Southern insanity of tyranny demanded the North for its manhunting ground; the northern insanity of avarice yielded the
demand to get southern trade; between the slaver and trader,
the politicians' insanity of power made its game; and the pretext for all was the salvation of the Union.  Millions of the
people  cried, "Save the Union I"  A  thousand presses
reechoed the cry. An immense majority of the clergy echoed
it again from their pulpits.  The things ministeirs said in defence of slavery and its black statute were only less incredible
than the manner in which they were received. For instance,
the Rev. Dr. Dewey, an eminent divine, was reported to have
declared in a public lecture that he would send his own mother
into slavery to save the Union; a storm  of rebuke at once
burst upon him from the anti-slavery people, and this sentiment was not considered satisfactory even, by citizens of the
highest respectability: whereupon Dr. Dewey explained that
he had not said he would send his own mother into slavery to
save the Union, but that he had said he would consent that
his own brother or his own son should go into slavery to save
the Union-and the citizens of the highest respectability considered this sentiment as highly satisfactory I So amidst such
talk and such applause as this, the pro-slavery furore pothered
on, and the North was incessantly urged to enforce the black
statute as the price of safety to the nation, and incessantly ret
minded of the priceless privileges the Union secured to us.
Perhaps it did-but not least prominent among them was the
priceless privilege of paying the debts of South Carolina, and
the other priceless privilege of hunting men and women on the
soil of the old patriots and Puritans.,Meanwhile the Reign of Terror had begun, and the hellhound of a law was ravening on its victims. It raged chiefly
in the great cities, and from these the fugitives, their years of
safety over, were flying by thousands to the wild Canadian
snows.  But the Abolitionists were upon the law. Upon it
Theodore Parker dashed the bolted thunder of his speech.'Upon it burst the inextinguishable Greek fire of eloquence




78                    IJARRINGTON.
from the fortressed soul of Wendell Phillips. Upon it, in a
word, all the men and women, the Britomarts and Tancreds
of the glorious minority, hurtled like a storm of swords. The
Free Soilers, too, were up, and did gallant service.  Giddings,
Seward, Wilson, Burlingamne, Mann, Sewall, Chase, Sumner,
all the gentlemen and chevaliers of that league, were in the
field. Charles Sumner shqok Faneuil Hall with words that
beat with the blood of all the ages. In New York, Beecher
burst upon the monster with tempests of generous flame, and
the Hebraic speech of Cheever fought with the prowess of
the Maccabees. All over the North, in country towns and in
some city pulpits, there were valiant clergymen, whose souls
went forth in arms; BTIe Free Soil presses everywhere, became
catapults and mangonels, showering a hail of invective and
argument upon the law. But the monster, panoplied in legal
forms, and girt with a myriad of defenrders, was hard to kill.
Beaten from some places, crippled sorely, it still lives, and even
at this hour, in New York, in Philadelphia, and in other cities,
drags down and devours its victims.  At the period under notice, its power was strong in Boston.  Boston, in the branding phrase of Theodore Parker, had gone for kidnapping.
Her Webster, her city officers, her aristocracy, her courts, her
prominent newspapers, her traders and her rabble, were all
hostile to the unhappy fugitives. That law, however, was
doing the most powerful anti-slavery service ever done in
America.  But its results-for it broke up the Whig party,
sowed death in the bones of the Democratic party, sent Charles
Sumner to Congress, made the Republicans a power in the
land, and. taught the. people a detestation of slavery which
they had never known before-its results were not then fully
deposited, or at least clearly seen; they were still operant to
their end; and all noble hearts were bowed in sickening sorrow, for it seemed as if liberty, humanity, civilization, all, were
going down forever.
It was,. then, this hell-dog of a law that had made it no
longer safe for the fugitives in Boston.  And who is he who
shall undertake to paint the agony of those men and women?
E-l6 must dip his pencil in the hues of earthquake and eclipse.




HARRINGTON.                      79
who aims to do it. Their years of security were over. The
first news of the passage of the law drove scores of them 4o
Canada, and day by day they were flying.' Numbers of theirpeople had already been taken from other cities into slavery,
when the first slave case, that of Shadrach, occurred in Bos-'ton. Ten or twelve gallant black men burst into the courtroom, and took Shadrach from Jhis foes.  Boston howled.
Soon another fugitive, Sims, was dragged before the Conmmissioner. No rescue for him; the court-house was ringed
with chains, under which' the Chief Justice of Massachusetts,
and other Judges, crawled to their -seats; the cutlasses and
bludgeons of the Government begirt the captive, and fifteen
hundred Boston gentlemen offered to put muskets to their
shoulders, if desired, to insure his being taken into bondage.
" The Fifteen Hundred Scoundrels," Wendell Phillips christened
this brigade of wretches, praying that bankruptcy might sit
on the ledger of every one of them. Nine days the Abolitionists and Free-Soilers fought the case, impeded the Jedburgh
justice-the bitter mockery -of that infamous trial; then Sims
was environed with cutlasses and pistols, marched, at early
dawn, to the vessel K Boston merchant volunteered for his
rendition; and sent into slavery. The only iews of him after
that, was that he had been scourged to death at Savannah.
His capture and murder completed the ghastly alarm of the
Boston fugitives. From that hour they lived in an atmosphere of unimaginable fear and gloom.  Frequent reports
that kidnappers were in town, harried many of them off to
join the thirty thousand fugitives who had fled from the tender mercies of America to seek refuge in the bleak wilds or
towns of  Canada.   Churches were suspended; business
arrested; families were broken up; wives and husbands sepa-.
rated; fathers had to leave their sons; sons their fathers;
parents their children; for the peril was often immediate,
and there was no time for delay.  At every fresh rumor
that kidnappers were in towin, the colored people would
hurry-up from their occupations to their homes-some to fly,
aided by their richer brethren, or by the compassion of the
anti-slavery people-others to gather in the streets in excited




80                    HARRINGTON.
discussion-and others,. with  that desperate and splendid
courage which is one of the distinctive virtues of the negro, to
fortify their dwellings, and prepare for a death-grapple with
their hunters. Thick-crowding cares and fears, distress, alarm,
foreboding, agony, few friends, a thousand foes, this was their
bitter portion.
Such, briefly and faintly.sketched, was the state of affairs
among these poor people in the City of the Fugitive at that
period.  What wonder men of heart desponded?  It was not
a despised Abolitionist, but an Abolitionist whom none despise —the Lord of Civilization standing calm above the ages,
he whose spirit slowly wins the world from wrong; it was
Francis Bacon of Verulam  who said that when Commerce
dominates in the State, the State is in its decline. Commerce
dominated  then.  Science, arts, laws, religion, morality,
humanity, justice, liberty, the rights, the hearts of mankindall must give way to it. Rapacious and insolent, it ruled and
flourished over all.
Yet there were rays of hope and auguries of better days in
Boston even then, and the new was stirring in the old. Emerson was saturating the intellectual life oIf the city, and through
it the mind of America, with the nobleness of his thought.
Theodore Parker, gigantesque in learning, courage, devotion
to mankind, less a man than a Commonwealth of noble powers,
was in his pulpit, with a strong and growing hold on the minds
and hearts of the people. The Abolitionists were toiling terribly with all their splendid might of conscience, their genius
and their eloquence, to rouse the North to a settlement with
the Slave Oligarchy. The Free-Soilers were indefatigably laboring to prevent the base and brutal Democrats from crowding
out free American labor from the Territories and incoming
States with the labor of Congo and Ashantee; and laboring
also to get the Government out of the control of the Slave
Power. In a word, Liberty was fighting her battle with
Trade, and even the defeats of Liberty are victories.
Add to all that a fair ray of hope and promise still lingered at that period in the air of Boston, cast from a little
society of Socialists, under the leadership of William Henry




HARRINGTON.                       81,ilanning, which had been dissolved about two years before.
They had lit their torch from the old faith that Human Life
has its Scienlce, discovering wlhich we rear earth's Golden Age.
It was the old idea of Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras; it was
the dream of Campanella and More; it was the divine and
deathless purpose of Bacon, and the holy labor of Fourier.
The Socialists in Boston had made a limited but profound
impression with it, which had outlasted their dissolution.  The
light of the torch still lived when the torch itself was extinguished; and amidst the sordor and selfishness and cruelty of
the period, it showed that the tradition and the promise of the
Good Time Coming were immortal.
CHAPTER II.
THE FENCING SCHOOL.
AMONG otlher things in Boston at that period there was a fencing school and pistol gallery, kept by an old soldier of the First
Empire, Monsieur Hypolite Bagasse.  The way to it was up a
long, narrow boar(ded alley which led out of Washington street,
ran straight for about twenty steps, and then with the natural
disposition of every street, avenue, alley, lane or court in Boston,
made an effort to achieve the line of beauty and of grace by slanting off to the left, in which bent it was followed by the blind,
brick walls, covered in one spot with a patch of theatre
posters on the left hand side of it, and by a large dingy old
brick buikling, preternaturally full of windows, on the right
hand side of it.  In this building was the fencing school.
A large, longl, dim, unfinished interior, lighted on one side
only by a row of windows looking on the alley, clap-boarded
all around on the other sides, and with rafters overhead.  Cool
and dry, with a faint acrid smell of powder-smoke pervading
its musty aLtimosphere.  One section of the oblong space, to
the left of thie door, unwinctowed, and lying in complete
a;




82                    HIARRINGTCN.
shadow. Three or four square wooden posts, down the long
centre, supporting the raftered ceiling.  On the left hand,
under the windows, the pistol gallery-a fenced lane, with a
target at one end, and a bench, with arms and ammunition on
4it, at the other. Near this a wooden settee with a tin can of
cheap claret wine upon it. Opposite, hanging on the boarded
wall in the rear of the pistol bench, and in the range of two or
three of the windows, rows of foils and yellow buckskin fencing-gloves, black wire masks for the face, leathern plastrons
for the breast, and a few single-sticks and blunt broadswords.
No other furniture, save three or four old chairs, scattered
here and there about the room.
It was about half-past seven o'clock in the morning of the
twenty-fifth of May, and Monsieur Bagasse was waiting for
pupils to arrive. John Todd, a young fellow about fifteen or
sixteen years of age, was at the bench, absorbed in cleaning
pistols. Monsieur Bagasse himself, slowly shuffling up and
down in front of the fencing implements, with a halt in his
step, occasioned by one leg being shorter than the other, was
absently smoking a short pipe, which he held to his mouth by
the base of the bowl.  Ile was a figure fit for the pencil of
Callot or Gavarni. Sixty years old, but not looking more than
a weather-beaten forty; of middling stature, brawny, roundshouldered, slightly bow-legged, with large splay feet, cased in
shambling shoes, with an old cap on the back of his head, and
his coarse, black hair, dashed with grey, showing under the
crescent-shaped visor above his low, broad, corrugated forehead; with a dilapidated, old-fashioned stock around his neck,
a slate-colored worsted jacket buttoned with horn buttons up
to his throat, the sleeves of a red flannel shirt showing at his
wrists, and coarse, dark, baggy trowsers on his lower limbs.
His  visage  swarthy, ferruginous, picturesquely ugly, but
suave and kindly, with a constant expression of curious interrogation upon it-an expression to which the ever upturned
jaw contributed-to which the mouth, shaded by a rusty
black moustache, and always inquiringly open, contributedto which the eyes, one bleared and the other bright as a
darkly-glowing  coal, and both surmounted by shaggy eye



HIARRINGTON.                     83
brows, contributed-and which had its contribution from the
horn-rimmed goggles worn half way down on the bold aquiline nose, above which the eyes looked from the upturned face
as though they were sighting at a mark along a cannon.
Wrinkles, of course-wrinkles, and seams and crowsfeet in
profusion; two noticeable fissures sloping deeply down the
cheeks from  the big nostrils; and on the right cheek a dim
red scar-the record of a Frenchman's last service to his Emperor at Waterloo.  Add to all a general association of
tobacco, snuff, and garlic, and you have the idea of Monsieur
Bagasse.
A step on the stairs announcing the approach of a visitor,
Monsieur Bagasse halted, took his pipe from his mouth, and
stood in a habitual attitude, his arms hung stiffly, his palms
turned outward, his big feet also turned outward and visible
from heel to toe, and his face sighting' with curious inquiry at
the door.  The door opening presently, in came a young man
of seven or eight and twenty, rather boyish-looking for his
years, modishly, though tastefully, attired, whose name was
Fernando Witherlee.
" Good morning, Monsieur Bagasse.  How de do," he said,
touching his moleskin hat with a kid-gloved finger, as, smiling
constrainedly, and cringing into a super-elegant bow, he came
forward.  " Whew! how you smell of powder in here."
"Ah! good monning, good monning, Miss'r Witterlee,"
rejoined the old Frenchman, politely, with a quick salute of the
hand.
Privately, Monsieur Bagasse had a supreme contempt for
his visitor. Nobody could have guessed it, however, who saw
the bland suavity on his grotesque visage, as he curiously
scanned the face before him. A plump, smooth, colorless,
bilious face, handsome in its general effect, subtle, morbid,
fastidious, supercilious, reticent; but with all its traits
masked in a cool assumption of impassibility.  With thick,
brown hair gracefully arranged; handsome, expressive brown
eyebrows; brown eyes, with a restless glitter on them when
they were in motion, and a perfect opaqueness in them when
they were still; lips which were rigid in their contour,




84                    HARRrIGTON.
usually slightly parted, and which moved but little in their
speech.  Primarily, the face of an epicurean and a dilettante; a face, too, that bespoke cynicism, conceit, arrogance,
and indescribable capacity of aggravation and insult. Such
was the face which Monsieur Bagasse smilingly and suavely
interrogated.
" Where are our friends this fine morning?" Witherlee asked,
carelessly, with an affected elegance of utterance, which was a
cross between mincing and drawling. "Not arrived yet? The
lazy fellows! Perfect sloths, both of them.7"
"Lazee? Oh no! It is vair early yet," returned Monsieur
Bagasse.  "Miss'r Harrin'ton an' Miss'r Wentwort' are not
lazee yet, Miss'r Witterly."
" Oh, they're up early enough, I know," replied the other,
"for I met them an hour ago, idling along Temple street with
some ladies."
" Maybe zose ladee was zere sweetheart.  Ah, Miss'r Witterly, pardon me, it is not lazee for ze young men to promenade
wis zere sweetheart-sacre blem, no I"
Witherlee laughed-a chuckling laugh, as though his throat
was full of turtle.
"I was struck with the contrast," he remarked.  "Went.
worth was dressed in his dandy artist rig-spruce as Beau
Brummel, and Harrington wore those superannuated old clothes,
looking for all the world as if he had just been let out of the
watclhouse. Splendid girls they were with too. Wentworth
beside one of them was like a bizarre creature, of some sort or
other, walking with a princess, and Harrington like a strapping
young rag-picker along side of a queen."
"Ah, zey is vair fine young zhentilmen," tranquilly replied
Monsieur Bagasse.  "Vair fine."
Witherlee made no reply, but slightly elevated his handsome
eyebrows in expressive disparagement.
"You know zose ladee, Miss'r Witterly?" inquired the old
Frenchman.
"Oh yes, very well. I walked along with them this morning.  One is a Miss Eastman-she lives in Temple street with
her mother.  Quite rich. The other is a Miss Ames, who is




IHARRINGTON.                      85
visiting the Eastmans.  Her family are all rich.  They live at
Cambridge."
" Vair fine ladee?  Wis beautee-wis dollair, eh?"
" Oh yes, indeed. Very much sought after too, both of
them.  With crowds of admirers, I assure you."
"Ah, Miss'r Witterly, I am so glad for zat.  It please me
vair mush that Miss'r Harrin'ton and Miss'r Wentwort' sail
marry zose vair fine ladee."
"IIHoity, toity, my dear Monsieur Bagasse, what in the
world are you thinking of? Your pupils are not so lucky as
that yet.  Wentworth might have a chance, for his father's
rich, and in good standing, though I judge from the way things
go on lately that Miss Ames cares precious little for him. But
Harrington-why he's as poor as a church mouse, and doesn't
move in good society at all.  How Miss Eastman tolerates his
visits, I can't imagine. I suppose it's her kindness though.
Seems to ile Harrington must have a great deal of assurance
to visit her at all. As for marrying her, why it's perfectly
absurd! She'd as soon marry a man out of the poor-house.
Good gracious! look at the old coat the fellow wears I Why
the lady belongs to our first society-a su-pairb person-perfectly dis-t-a-nguay."
Monsieur Bagasse grinned broadly, possibly with rage, possibly at the affected drawl with which Witherlee had pronounced the French word distingue, and then growing grotesquely serious, burst forth in orotund, hoarse, fluent tones,
very politely, but with great earnestness.
"Pardon me, Miss'r Witterly," he said, "but why is zat so
odd zat ze vair fine distingu6 ladee sall lof Miss'r Harrin'ton?
Ah, MAiss'r Witterly, you make one vair big mistake.  You
zink ze pretty girl all so fond of ze dollair-ze rank-ze grand
posetion, eh?  Bah-no! I tell you, no. Ze duch-ess-ze
count-ess —ze great vair fine ladee-zey lof so offen ze wit, ze
brave heart, ze gallantree, ze goodness wis ze old coat over
him.  Omf!  Look now.  Attend.  Was I great vair fine
ladee, what sall I do wis myself?  I tell you.  I see Miss'r
Harrington lof me.  I make vair sure.  Zen I say-here, you
brave, good man, so kind, so handsome, so gallant, so like zo




86                   HAR1RINGTON.
superb chevalier of ze old time-look-I lof you! I lof you
wis you old coat! I lof you old coat, too, for it covair you
so long. Come —I marry you-you take my fine house-my
dollair-you take me-all, for evair and evair.  Sacrebleu,
Miss'r Witterly, zat is what I say to Miss'r lIarrin'ton was I
vair fine ladee."
To this outburst, which was delivered with great vivacity
and many shrugs, grimaces, and odd gesticulations, Witherlee
listened with opaque eyes and parted lips, and an expression
of perfect immobility on his colorless, plump, morbid countenance. At the end, he lifted his expressive eyebrows,
slightly curled a contumelious nose, and curved a supercilious
lip, with an insolence at once so delicate and so intense, that
Monsieur Bagasse, with the most suave smile again on his
uncouth visage, felt a strong desire to deal him a thumping
French kick under the chin.
" I have no doubt, my dear Monsieur Bagasse," was the
rejoinder after a pause, " that you would do as you say if
you were the lady in question. But you're not, you know,
which makes the difference. However, I won't discuss the
point with you. Harrington is not quite so great a fool, I
hope, as to expect any such good fortune. As for Wentworth,
if you could have seen his face this morning when Emily-that
is Miss Ames-gave Harrington a bunch of violets, you
would have thought that his hopes, like his prospects, were
rather down."
" Eh, what was zat?" inquired the old Frenchman, curiously.
"Why you see," replied Witherlee, with a spirting chuckle
at the remembrance, "after the walk we were in the parlor,
and Miss Ames went into the conservatory and came back
with a little bunch of violets. She was at a table in the
further end of the room, dividing the violets into two nosegays,
and, just for a joke, I went over to her and whispered that
Wentworth would be delighted to receive a true-love posy
from her. I don't know what made her color, but she did, and
instantly tied up all the flowers in one nosegay, with a piqued
air, and went over to the two fellows. You should have seen
Wentworth's mortified air when she sailed past him, and gave




HARRINGTON.                     87
them to Harrington.  He walked across the room, trying to
look indifferent, but it was no go. Miss Eastman went out
and came back with another bunch of violets which she gave
him with her most gracious manner, but I guess she couldn't
console him for that rebuff.  He made his adieux to Miss
Ames stiffly enough, though he was extra cordial to Miss
Eastman, at which Miss Ames looked colder than ever. Altogether, for a little matter, it played the deuce with Wentworth
everyway."1
" Pardon me, Miss'r Witterly —ex-cuse me, sir, please,"
interposed Monsieur Bagasse, with immense civility of manner,
and deprecating grimaces:  "Zat was not wrell-sacreb'le, no.
You make zat misdheef-ex-cuse me —you vex zat ladee and
you wound Miss'r Wentwort' wis you littel gay talk.  Ah,
you was not right-no indeed.  You make maybe littel miff
wis zose young peeples-it grow, grow, grow evair so big maybe,
and zey nevair, nevair, come back togezzer.  You duty sail
be to make ze amende honorable-ex-plain-yes indeed,
Mfiss'r Witterly.  You tell.Miss'r Wentwort' what you sayzen he know, zen it is again right."
"Not at all," replied the mischief-maker.  "I don't think
so. I only made a playful remark.  If Miss Ames chose to
act as she did, that is not my affair.  I said all I could to
console Wentworth.  I told him  I was truly sorry that Miss
Ames had treated him so rudely-very sorry indeed."
" _Mille tonnerre!" exclaimed the Frenchman, grinning and
grimacing desperately: "you say zat to Miss'r Wentwort'!"
"C Of course I said it," coolly replied Witherlee.  "What
less could I say? It didn't console him much, though. He
tried to look indifferent, thanked me coolly enough, and remarked that it was of no consequence."
Monsieur Bagasse gave a sort of snort, still grinning and
grimacing.  The whole proceeding was quite in Fernando
WTitherlee's style.  A piece of boyish malice, perpetrated with
mischievously subtle talent-swith an expressiveness of manner
which had injected the words and action with a wicked meaning
not purely their own; afterwards foolishly tattled of, and
defended with pig-headed perversity.




88                    hEAPRTNGTON.
"I am very sorry the thing happened," resumed Witherlee,
in a cool, sympathizing, soliloquizing tone, looking, meanwhile,
at the wall with his opaquest gaze.  " And I'm  still more
sorry to notice that Wentworth and Miss Ames are not so
intimate as they were a short time ago. It really seems as if
they were becoming estranged. It's odd to see how attentive
Wentworth is lately to Miss Eastman, though I'm  sure he
only cares for her as a friend.  Then Miss Ames, on the other
hand, is very agreeable to llarrington, which galls Wentworth,
I know.'Pon my word, I believe he is getting jealous of
Harrington, and I shouldn't wonder if those two fellows had a
falling out presently.  It's dreadfully absurd of Wentworth,
for I'm sure that if lIarrington cares for either of them, it's
Miss Eastman."
The case was pretty much as Witherlee had stated it, but
the explanation was, that he had been lifting his eyebrows
and modulating his tones and dropping his intangible innuendoes
to Miss Ames with regard to Wentworth, and the result was,
that she had become filled with indeterminate suspicion and
distrust of her lover, and had almost alienated him from her
by her manner toward him.
"Miss'r Witterly, you are ze friend of zose young men,"
placidly observed -Monsieur Bagasse.  "See, now, suppose you
tell Bvliss'r Wentwort' zat he sall not be jalous of Miss'r Harrin'ton- zat Miss'r IHarrin'ton haf not lof Mees Ame nevair.
Zen you make zem fine young zhentilmen still good friend of
ze ozzer.  You say zat now to Miss'r Wentwort'."
" Dear me, no; that wouldn't do at all," was the reply.
"It's not my business, you know, and I might only make
trouble.  Better let them alone.  It'll all come right, I guess.
Wentworth's in no danger from our negro-worshipping friend,
and I guess the best policy in this case, like the national policy
in regard to Kossuth, will be non-intervention."'
"Neeger-worship friend?  Who is zat you mean?" inquired
Monsieu:r Bt3agasse, with grotesque perplexity.
Witherlee laughed his turtle-husky chuckle.
"I was only joking," he returned; " I meant Harrington.
You know he's a furious Abolitionist."




HIARRTNGTON.                      89
"Ah, Miss'r Witterly," said the old Frenchman, with a
deprecating shrug and grimace, "zat is not good fon.  AMiss'r
THarrin'ton  is vair fine young zhentilman.  If he worsheep ze
neeger, pardiem, Hypolite Bagasse worsheep ze neeger wis
him. Zat is only what you call ze attachment zoo libertee. Ah,
AMiss'r Witterly, zat ~Miss'r Harrin'ton, so kind, so strong, so
good, he is friend of ze neeger, of ze Iris'man, of ze Frenchman, of ze poor fellow, of ze littel child, of ze small fly on ze
window-; of ze vair old devail himself, of evairybody.  See,
now.  Attend.  I was seek-vair seek wis fever in ze winter.  Nobody come to me-of my pupeel not one.  Zat
Atiss'r Harrin'ton he come.  He find John Todd, and inquire
where I live, and he come.  He breeng ze doctor —he breeng
MIiss'r Wentwort', he breeng ze littel jellee, ze grape, all zem
littel tinlg zat he say ze vair fine ladee give him for ze poor old
vair seek Bagasse. Sacreblem, he nurse me; he sit up wis me
in ze night when my wife tire herself out wis me, and go sleep;
he get me well, and zen he go zoo ze pupeel and make- ze subscripsheon for zere old fencing-mastair.  Feefty dollair-dam!
it is sub-lime! Ze wolf he cut off from ze door of Bagasse so
queek as his dam leg will trot I Zen AMiss'r Harrin'ton he advise Madame Bagasse zoo keep ze boarding-house.  Ah! it is
grand.  She accept-ze boardair come-ze French, ze Italian,
ze G-erman man zey board wis me.  Hah! zat Miss'r Harrin'ton he set me up on my leg, wis my heart big wis gratitude.
You make mock of zat old coat, Miss'r Witterly.  Bah! He
wear zat old coat zat so many poor devail sall wear any coat
at all.  Sacrebleib! was I ze great Nap-oleon, I sall put ze
grand cross of ze Legion-ze Legion d'Honneur —on ze breast
of zat old coat for evair."
There was such emotion in the deep, hoarse rolling tonessuch a dark glow on the grotesque, brown, wrinkled visagesuch fire in the one eye under its shaggy eyebrow-such martial energy in the uncouth, shabby figure, that Witherlee felt
the danger of pursuing any further his detraction of Harrington.  At the same time, he felt an envious itching to continue
it.  To hear anybody or anything praised, and not be roused
to oppositiveness, was not in the organization of Fernanrdo




90                   HIARRINGTON.
Witherlee.  A  peculiarly aggravating rejoinder was in his
mind, and the temptation to utter it was prodigious.' TWhile
he hesitated between the temptation and the imminent prospect of having a quarrel on his hands with Monsieur Bagasse,
steps and loud talking on the stairs, announcing the approach
of pupils, at once decided and relieved him, and he sauntered
away to a chair, sinking into which and tilting it back against
the wall, he proceeded to select, light and smoke a cigar.
CHA P T E      I III.
QUARTE AND TIERCE.
MONSIEUR BAGASSE, meanwhile, resuming his equanimity,
stood sighting beyond the muzzle of an invisible cannon, as if
the door was the mark, looking very much like some slovenly,
awkward old artilleryman, of an uncouth pattern, and not at
all like a fencing-master. The door flew open presently with a
bang, letting in two smart young men not yet out of their
teens, who swaggered forward with a very rakish, gasconading
air. Milk street clerks-Fisk and Palmer by name-snobbish
in dress and rude in manners.
"Bon swor, MIonsoor," said Palmer, loud and patronizing.
This address, couched in a purely domestic French, was
intended both as an elegant recognition of the nationality of
Monsieur Bagasse, and as a way of bidding him good morning. The old man, who with ready politeness had silently
saluted the new comers upon their entrance, surveyed the
speaker over the rims of his round goggles, with open mouth,
and an odd smile on his upturned visage.
Ha,  Miss'r Panmmer,' he said with vivacity, " you zink ze
day is gone, eh?"
Palmer, who was taking off his coat, stopped and stared.
" I don't understand you, Monsoor," he rejoined; "I'm
going to take my lesson."




HARRINGTON.                     91
" Iah! Zat is well," said the old man.  "But you say,
bon soir, Miss'r Pammer.  Zat is, good. night. You intend
bon joumr; zat is, good day."
Palmer, seeing the grotesque, good-natured face of the
fencing-master smiling at him, and beginning to comprehend
what his domestic French had meant, grinned rather foolishly,
and turned off.  His companion, who stood in his shirtsleeves with a wire-mask already on his face, burst into a rude
guffaw at the blunder, and slapped him on the back with a
fencing-glove. It may be mentioned here that these young
cubs, in process of getting their taste for the wolf's milk of
trade, had come upon the heady wine of Dumas' "Three
Guardsmen"-which admirable romance had so intoxicated
their ardent fancy with excited day-dreams of D'Artagnan
and Porthos, that, filled with the spirit of the sword, they
had resolved to take fencing-lessons of Monsieur Bagasse.
This practical recognition of the literary genius of the great:French mulatto, was one incident in their joint career.
Another, not so creditable, was their participation in a mob
of clerks and salesmen, who not long before had brawled down
an orator of Dumas' own color-Frederick Douglass-at the
Thompson meeting in Faneuil Hall. It is to be feared that
the gallant Alexandre himself would have fared no better at
their hands, or their employers' either, had he ever been fool
enough to leave the democratic streets of Paris, for the colorphobic pavements of Boston.
Monsieur Bagasse put away his pipe and spectacles, shuffled
across the room to shut the door which the cubs had left open,
and returning took down a foil and glove to give the lesson.
Fisk was buckling on Palmer's plastron, as the leathern breastplate is called, an operation rathei hindered by his sense of the
supercilious smile with which Witherlee regarded his efforts
from his chair against the wall, as well as by the circumstance
of his having his face ineased in the wire mask, and his arms
hampered by the heavy leather gloves which he was holding'
with his elbows against his sides. While Monsieur Bagasse
waited, standing in an awkward drooping posture, with the foil in
his gloved hand, a firm step was heard bounding up the stairs,




92                   HARRINGTON.
the door flew open, and, with a light, springing tread, a young
man, flushed and smiling, and so handsome that any one would
have turned to look at him, darted in, bringing with him a
warm gust of fragrance into the chill musty pallor of the room.
An odd, fond smile shot at once to the visage of the fencingmaster.
" Ha, good monning, good monning, Missr Wentwort'," he
chirruped, returning with a military salute the quick gesture of
gay cordiality the young man made on entering.  " How you
feel to-day?"
" Capital! most potent, grave and reverend seignior! My
very noble and approved good fencing-master, how are you?
Hallo, Fernando," his eye catching sight of the equably-smoking Witherlee: " here you are again, old fellow-?"
" Just so, Heliogabalus," coolly drawled the bilious-cynical
youth from his chair. "Say, Heliogabalus —do you know how
to get that smell out of your clothes? Bury'em I"
There was a decided flavor of verjuice in the manner of
Witherlee, as he let fly this borrowed jest at the perfumed
raim-,ent of the other. Wentworth, though he took it as a
jest, could not help wincing a little at it, and was made even
more uncomfortable at the application to him of the name of
one of the most bestial of the Roman Emperors.
"Well, Fernando," he returned with a smile, "if ever there
was a prickly cactus, you're one. You're a perfect Diogenes.
Get a tub, Fernando, do."
" Quarte and tierce, Heliogabalus," responded the cool Fernando, with his turtle-husky chuckle.
Wentworth turned away, and met the smiling look of admiration and fondness on the upturned visage of the old manat-arms. A  handsome youag fellow, in the very flower of
youth and May, elegantly dressed-who could look at him
without admiration and fondness?  An  artist-one could
have told that at the first glance. Long auburn locks curled
in a thick cluster under his dark Rubens hat, and around his
florid cheeks. He had a gay, electric, passionate face; bright
blue eyes; a fair complexion; red lips, shaded by a light
brown moustache coquettishly curled up at the ends, and quick




IHAIRLNGTON.                    93
to curve into a proud, brilliant smile.  His figure was compact, well-knit, shapely, of middle-height, and seeming taller
than it was by force of its gallant carriage.  The quality of
his face was in his voice —-so quick, lively, clear and ringing.
"Ah, Missr Wentwort'," said the old man, in hoarse tones,
which were yet soft and facile, "you bring me back ever so
far-you look so gay I You look as I sall feel wis my young
blood tirty, tirty-five years ago. We marsh zen wis ze great
Nap-oleon dis mont', all so proud, so gallant, for zat dam
Waterloo.  Hah! I feel zen jus' like you.  So young-so
gay I Wis my littel flower like zat at my bouton-ze flower
zat ze pretty girl haf give me. Jus' so."
He touched a nosegay of violets in the young man's buttonhole with the hilt of the foil as he spoke. Wentworth laughed
lightly, taking out the nosegay.
"Jupiter! Bagasse," he cried, " you shall have the flowers
for the sake of the memory. What are you grinning at, Fernando I"  This to Witherlee, whose cynical grin changed into
a cool lift of the eyebrows.  " Now, Bagasse," resumed Wentwortil, " I'll give them to you since they remind you of old
times.  Here, let me fix them in your jacket.  There nowguard them well against every foil. Violets, you know, Monsieur Bagasse! Worn in remembrance of Corporal Violetthe great little corporal!"
The old man bowed low, with the violets on his breast.
With the rush of thrilling souvenirs which the pet name of the
beloved Emperor revived, a dark glow came to his rugged
visage, and the one bright eye grew suddenly dim, leaving the
face blind. Wentworth saw that he was touched, and with a
quick regret that he had brought a tear to the old heart,
turned away, humming an air.
"But where's Harring'ton, I wonder?" he burst out, whirling a round again.  " He said he'd be here before me."
"He will come   retty soon, I zink, Mlissr Wentwort',"
replied Monsieur Bagasse.  "You haf seen him  dis morning?"
"Oh, yes. I found him, as usual, pegging away at the
oolis, and we walked out together.  Afterward we went




94                    HARRINGTON.
with him, Witherlee and I, to his room, and then started out
again to come here.  He left us on the way, saying he'd be
here before us, and I left Witherlee on the way, saying I'd
be here before him.  Two promises of pie-crust, those.  I'll
bet a denier, Fernando, that dog has something to do with
his absence," and the young artist laughed.
"No doubt," returned Witherlee, smoking, with a sarcastic
smile.  " Perhaps he's commencing his education-developing,
on Kant's principle, all the perfection of which the doggish
nature is capable."
" Dog?" inquired Monsieur Bagasse, curiously.
" Oh, it's a dog we passed this morning," explained Wentworth; "a miserable old vagabond white cur, with just about
life enough in him to crawl. Some Irish and negro boys were
lugging the poor old devil along by the ears and tail, and
whacking him with sticks, as we came along, and llarrington,
of course, stopped to order them off."
"Bright in Harrington," put in Witherlee, with a sneer;
" as if they wouldn't be at him again before we'd gone twenty
yards!"
" Yes, by Jupiter, but before we had gone twenty yards,
Fernando, you and I went into the shop, you know, where
you bought the cigars, and it was there that Harrington said
he had to go back to the house for something, and made off
with himself. It never occurred to me till now-but I'll bet
a f-rane he went back to those boys!"
He burst into a peal of laughter at the idea.
" I'd give:something to know what Harrington did with
the old cur," he said in a moment.
" Took him off to the butcher's perhaps, and sold him for
sausages," suggested Witherlee.
"Ah, Missr Wentwort'," said the old man, grotesquely
serious, " you friend, Missr Harrin'ton, is vair fine, vair mush
humane, vair fine zhentilman.  I feel vair mush warm  to
him."
"Rather too much of the Don Quixote order, though,"
drawled Witherlee, affectedly, giving the Spanish pronunciation
to the'Don Quixote' and calling it Don Kehoty.




HARRINGTON.                    95
"0  you be hlanged, Fernando," burst in Wentworth.
" He's no more like Don Kehoty, as you call it, than you're
like Sancho Panza. He's the grandest fellow that ever lived,
and makes me ashamed of myself every day of my life. Hallo,
I guess he's coming."
Witherlee, biliously pale with spite at the double injury of his pronunciation of "Don Quixote" having been
mimicked, and Harrington having been so warmly praised,
busied himnself with adjusting the loosened skin of his cigar,
while Monsieur Bagasse and'Wentworth turred to the door,
which voices and trampling feet were nearing. Presently
the door opened and a group of seven or eight poured
in with a, confusion of salutations.  Four or five of them were
young mercantiloes, and instantly swarmed around Fisk and
Palmer, who were still fussing over the plastron.  One was a
heavy, taciturn man-a Pennsylvania Dutchman-with blue,
fishy ey es, a, sodden face and a yellow beard. His name was
Whilt, and he kept a wine-cellar, and boarded with Monsieur
Baasse. With him was another of the fencing-rraster's boarders —a tall, slender, handsome, swaggering young man, halfsoldier, half-coxcomb in his bearing, with bright dark eyes, brilliant color, long black hair, well oiled and curled, and a long,
slim, black moustache, shaved into two sections, and clinging
to his upper lip, and curving around his moist, scarlet mouth,
like two flaccid leeches. He was fancifully clad in bright blue,
tight-fitting trowsers, a short, rakish coat, gay vest and neckerchief, wore his falling collar open at the throat, and had a Kossuth hat, with a black plume, set smartly on his head. This
was Captain Vukovich, a young Hungarian officer, who had
come over in the train of Kossuth. Though it was only eight
o'clock, he and Whilt had a strong smell of Rhine wine about
them, which they diffused through the room upon entering.
"How are you, Whilt," said Wentworth, carelessly nodding.
" Captain, how are you?  I thought youi had gone on to New
York with Kossuth."
Wentworth had the Kossuth furor, prevalent about that
time, and saluted Vukovich with a touch of enthusiasm.
" No," responded the Hungarian, in a soft voice, conceitedly




96                     HA ItINGT0N.
fing'ering his moustache, and swaying on his shapely legs as he
spoke.  "No, I stays.  So Gofernor go on, an' I stays back.
I sink to keep cigar shop in Bosson pretty soon.  So I stays.
Goot tay, Mossieu Bangasse.  How you feel?"'
He begun to talk in French to the fencing-master, and
Wentworth, full of fiery sentiment for liberty and Iunglgaiy,
moved away to the foils, humming the Marseillaise.  Presently,
Palmer and Fisk were ready, and Monsieur Bagasse, after
much preliminary effort to get Palmer into strict position,
began to give him his lesson.
Both Witherlee and Wentworth were very sensitive to all
forms of artistic beauty, and they now sawv, with strange
pleasure, as they had often seen before, the wonderful transformation of the fencing-master's awkward, sloven figure. Looking at him in his ordinary aspect, nobody would ever have
imagined that he was cut out for a pillar of the school of arms.
But now, as he threw himself into the noble attitude of the
exercise, every deformity seemed suddenly to have dropped
from his face and figure, and vanished.  The head erect and
proud-the lit face turned square in rugged, grand repose, with
the visor of the old cap looking now like the raised visor of a
helmet-the one eye firm and jewel-brighlt, fixed on his adversary's-the left arm  thrown up and out behlind in easy
balance-the body set in perfect poise, on legs as strong as
iron, as flexible as steel-and the lithe foil gently playing from
the extended ease of his right arm over the stiff g'uard of his
antagonist, like a line of living light —so, with every trait aild
outline of his figure blended into an indescribable ensemble, he
stood, an image of martial grace, superb and invincible.  For
one instant, the two youing men drank in with eager eyes the
beauty of that military statue —the next, Palmer's  blade lunged
in swift and stiff-was parried wide aside with a liglit, almost
imperceptible, deft motion, and a flashing clash —andi the figure
of Bagasse had changed into another statue of martial grandeur, the left arm down aslope with the left lcg, the body
heaved forward on the bent right knee, the righlt arm up and
out in strong extension, and the foil, a gleaming' curve of steel,
with its buttoned point on the breast of the adversary.




HARRINGTON.                    97
Only a second, and while murmurs of applause ran round,
the first position was resumed.
" You see now, Miss'r Pammer," politely said the fencingmaster, breaking the spell, " I hit you zen, be-cause you longe
off you guard. Now see-I show you how."
He dropped his point, and explained to Palmer where he
had done wrong, showing him with his own foil the way the
pass should have been made. Palmer promised to remember,
and the lesson went on.
Presently, while they were on guard, Palmer was wrong
again-this time in his position. Bagasse, smiling politely,
lowered his point; whereat, Palmer, with immense haste,
lunged in, and triumphantly bent his foil on the breast of the
fencing-master, who, of course, made no effort to ward. The
young mercantiloes, delighted with this evidence of their friend's
proficiency, set up a cry of bravo.  Witherlee sneered to
himself, and Wentworth laughed and exchanged glances with
the surprised Hungarian, and the imperturbable Whilt. As
for Monsieur Bagasse, he stood, with upturned visage, smiling
with grotesque placidity, then made a grimace, and limping
off to the claret-can, gulped a mouthful, and came hurrying
back. Palmer instantly threw himself on guard, thrilling with
vanity, and confident that he was getting ahead of his fencingmaster.
" See, now, Missr Pammer," said the old man, with great
vivacity, smiling good-naturedly as he spoke; "you parry,
now-it is simple quarte and tierce-vair, vair easy. Hey,
now! Hey, now I Hey, now! Hey, now I Four."
Quietly, at every exclamation, Monsieur Bagasse, without
effort, bent his foil almost double on the breast of his antagonist. Palmer could no more parry the deft lunges than he
could fly. Bagasse stood grinning good-naturedly at him, and
lowered his point. Palmer instantly made a desperate lunge
at the unguarded breast, and the same instant found that
his foil had flown out of his hand, and that the blade of
Bagasse was resting in a firm curve on his bosom.
All present, Palmer included, burst into a roar of laughter.
All but the master, who stood silent, with his curious, good5




98                    1TAPRITNGTON.
natured smile on his upturned visage.  It was quite plain to
the pupil now, that he could not touch Maonsieur Barasse on or
off guard, unless the latter chose to let him.
Suddenly, like a light magnetic shock, a silence fell up30n the
uproarious mirth, as with a surprised and startled ft'eling, all
present recognized a new figure, serene in ypul-hlful majestyt
standing quietly at a little distance near them, in the full light
of the windows.  It was Harrington.  They all knew himn, but
somehow the unexpectedness of his appearance gave him the
momentary effect of a stranger.  He was a young- man of about
twenty-five, tall and stalwart, and of regnant and martial bearing. His face, looking out from under a black slouched felt hat,
was long and bearded, singularly open and noble in its character, firm, calm-eyed, straight-featured, broad-nostrilled, and masculine, but very pale. The beard was light-brown, and the hair,
chestnut in color, and darker than the beard, curled closely, and
was worn somewhat long.  A loose, dark sack, with large
sleeves, buttoned with a single button at the throat, showed the
spread of his chest, and added to the commanding grace of his
figure.  This was the coat which had been so opprobriously
celebrated by the esthetic Witherlee. It was an old coat certainly, but it was not the less a well-chosen and graceful garment, and it is questionable whether if it had hung in tatters, it
would have diminished the effect of a presence in contrast with
which the others seemed common-place and inferior. Witherlee himself, set in comparison with Harrington, looked unmanly
and contemptibly genteel. Whilt was nobody, Vukovich a simpering fop, the mercantiloes simple snobs. Even the handsome
and gallant Wentworth seemed of a lower order beside him,
and Bagasse, in his uncouth and shabby grotesqueness, though
not degraded by the contrast, was so removed by his essential
unlikeness, as to be out of comparison altogether.
Wentworth was the first to recover from the momentary
ghostly trance into which they had all dropped on discovering
Harrington in the room.
" Jupiter Tonans!" he exclaimed: "How-when-wherein what manner did you arrive, Harrington I"
"Well," returned Harrington in a sweet and cordial bari



HARRINGTON.                      99
tone voice, affably saluting the company, "I didn't exactly
step out from  behind the air, though you all look as if you
thought so.  I came in just now prosaically at the door-not
stealthily either, for John rodd, there, both heard and saw me.
But you were all in such a tempest of merriment that no one
but Johnny noticed me.  Come —go on with the fun.  Tell
me what it's all about, that I may laugh too."' O, I just disarmed Monsoor-that's all," said Palmer.
This quip, though slight, was sufficient to set the group off
again in a confusion of jests and laughter, in the midst of
which Harrington wandered over to the pistol bench, and
began to chat with the young fellow while the bout between
Monsieur Bagasse and his pupil went on.  In a few minutes
Monsieur Bagasse came over to the claret-can in that region,
drank, and took the opportunity to shake hands with Harrington, and ask for his health.
"0  by the way, Mr. Bagasse,"' said Iarrington, after due
replication to the old Frenchman's polite inquiries, taking from
his breast pocket as he spoke, a bunch of violets inclosed in a
funnel of stiff white paper, "here's a Mlay gift for you. I
thought of you and your Corporal Violet so instantly when
I got this bouquet, that I resolved to present it to you.
HIallo, though! you've got one already."'He had just caught sight of the nosegay in the old slatecolored jacket.  Like his own, it was tied with a pink string.
A comical look of surprise came with a slight flush to his
frank, pale face, and his eye glanced quickly at the young
artist who, he saw, was eagerly watching him from the other
side of the room.  At the same instant he saw Witherlee
looking with opaque eyes over in his direction, very intent
upon the iron vice on the bench near by, andit with a face
entirely discharged of expression.  Itarrington's intelligence
was almost clairvoyant, and he felt that Witherlee was watching him and not the vice-felt also that Wentworth's gaze
meant something connected with his present action. With the
feeling, which was as instantaneous as his glance had been, he
caught sight of the eye of the old Frenchman, roguishly twinkling at him. Harrington was puzzled.




100                   HARRINGTON.
" Ah, ha, Missr Harrin'ton," said Monsieur Bagasse in a
bantering whisper, "zere are two ladee zat gif ze vilet, an'
two zhentilmen zat gif ze vilet too! Eh, now, zem zhentilmen sall not be so vair mush fond of zem ladee zat zey gif
away zere littel bouquet I Ha?"
" Two ladies!" exclaimed.Harrington.  " How do you know
there are two? I didn't say so."
Monsieur Bagasse was caught, and shrugged his humpy
shoulders with an odd grimace.  A feeling of honor withheld
him from saying how he came by his information, since that
would involve the exposure of the blabbing Witherlee.
Witherlee, meanwhile, fully conscious of the ridiculous impropriety he had been guilty of, in tattling about his friends'
affairs to any person, much less the old fencing-master, and
momently expecting to be subjected to the rage of Wentworth,
and the rebuke of Harrington, stood nervously dreading the
reply of Bagasse, and looking pale in spite of himself. Wentworth, for his part, taking a true-lover's stand-point, was considerably amazed to see Harrington, whom he thought the
secret lover of Miss Ames, so coolly bestowing her nosegay on
the old Frenchman.  As for larrington, he was divided
between wonder at Wentworth, for having not only given to
the old Frenchman the flowers he had received from Miss
Eastman-whom  he in turn  thought Wentworth secretly
loved —but having also, as he naturally supposed, made the
old Frenchman his confidant, at least to the extent of telling
him. of. the two ladies and of their gifts. Fisk and Palmer
were at it, quarte and tierce, with the foils. Meanwhile, there
was a game of quarte and tierce of another sort begun between
four, all against each other, and Monsieur Bagasse had just
been buttoned.
larrington smiled good-naturedly, and silently gave the
violets to the fencing-master, who took them and bowed without a word. Just then Wentworth approached with a composed air, which was so evidently assumed that Harrington
began to laugh. Wentworth's florid color had paled a little,
but he answered Harrington's laugh with a constrained smile,
looking meanwhile in his face.




HARD:I~'G'TON.                101
"Well, Harrington," he said, with an unsuccessful attempt
at carelessness, "what the deuce is there in my giving
B agasse the violets, to make you show your maxillary muscles
and the teeth under your beard so delightedly? Hanged if I
see anything to laugh at."
The maxillary muscles, which were unusually developed in
IHarrington's cheeks, and always wrinkled them when he
laughed, relaxed at this, but his white, regular teeth still
showed in a curious, half-sad, half-absent smile, as he fixed his
clear, broad gaze wistfully on the face of his friend. Wentworth, nettled at the mystery of a look he could not
fathom, became peevish, and began to twirl his moustache,
half smiling, half irritated.
" Don't be vexed, Wentworth," said Harrington, throwing
his long arm affectionately around the latter's shoulder, and
moving away up the room with him, while Bagasse shuffled
off to his pupils.  "I laughed thoughtlessly-but, frankly, I
was somewhat surprised to see that you had given away the
violets. That was all."
"All I" exclaimed Wentworth.  "And why shouldn't I
give them away? They were mine, weren't they.? Why,
you gave yours away too, didn't you?"
"To be sure," replied Harrington, with a bothered air,
adding tranquilly, "Emily gave them to me, and I gave them
to Bagasse."
"Well," retorted Wentworth, "Muriel gave them to me
and I gave them to Bagasse also. What of it?"
Harrington, who could not see into this matter at all, was
silent, and stroked his beard with his hand, a habit of his when
he was very much puzzled.
"No matter-it's a trifle," he said lightly, after a pause.
"Only, Richard, to be very plain with you —I hope you'll not
think me intrusive-well, I thought it was-odd-that you
should have given away the flowers Muriel gave you."
He spoke these words with marked, but delicate significance
-stammering and hesitating a little in his speech, which was
unusual with him. It was the first allusion he had ever made
to Wentworth's supposed love for Miss Eastman. Loving




102                   HARRINGTON.
her himself, it was not made without a pang. If Wentworth
had been cool, he could not but have understood it. As it
was, it only put him in a rage.
"Well, if I ever heard the like of this!" he sputtered.
"To be very plain with me-what in thunder-blast it all,
Harrington, what are you driving at?  Why, I was struck all
of a heap at the oddity of your giving away Emily's nosegay,
and here you turn upon me and tell me it's odd —yes, odd, that
I should give away Muriel's! What's the difference, I'd like
to know?  Now, just tell me!"
Harrington was silent, and again stroked his beard, wondering what sort of cross-purposes they were playing at. Wentworth stood for a moment with flushed face and passionate
eyes, angry with Harrington for the first time in his life, and
then walked away in great exasperation.
Perplexed and amazed at this state of affairs, and grieved
to think he had, however unwittingly, angered his friend,
Harrington  stood looking after him, irresolute whether to
follow and attempt an explanation now, or wait till his
fume was over. Presently, he resolved to wait, and sadly
musing, began to pace to and fro at the upper end of the long
room.
On his way down to the fencing-ground, Wentworth was
met by Witherlee, who had been watching the conference, and
though he could not catch a word, knew well enough by Wentworth's excited tones then, and by his flushed cheeks and
sparkling eyes now, that there had been some difference between the two.
"What's the matter, Richard?" he asked, kindly.
" 0 nothing, nothing!" fretfully replied the vexed Wentworth, taking off his Rubeas hat, dashing back the thick curls
from his handsome, sloping forehead with a hasty hand, and
passionately slapping on the hat again.
"I am very sorry, very.  Harrington is really very aggravating sometimes," ventured the kind Fernando.
At any other time Wentworth would have resented this insidious speech, as a slander upon the gentle Harrington. But
now



nIARIZINGTON.                 103
"He's the most aggravating Iellow I ever knew in my life,"
was his hot answer.
" Well, I wouldn't go so far as thet,," returned Fernando,
with mild moderation.' By no means.  Harainugton has fine
qualities, you know. You should remember that the best of
us are apt to be a little forgetful when our own personal interests, or wishes, or affections are involved."
Blandly and kindly said, with just a shade of hesitating
emphasis on "personal" and " affections " —just a shade.
" That do you mean by that, Fernando?" asked Wentworth, almost choking, and catching at the insidious hint,
which the good Fernando had made almost impalpable by
throwing it out with the easy manner of one uttering a mere
generality.
" Mean?" he asked, with a delicate shade of bewilderment,
"why nothing particular, that I know of."
But he smiled slightly and lifted his handsome eyebrows
very slightly, and then lapsed into an expression of soft compassion.
"Yes, I understand," said Wentworth, walking away in
passionate misery.
What particular meaning the good Fernando's vague words
and mysterious looks expressed, nobody could have told. It
was their especial beauty, perhaps, that they really expressed
nothing definite at all, and were merely random spurs to. the
imagination of the listener, goading him on the path he happened to be pursuing. Wentworth's path at that moment was
the vague suspicion that Harrington was selfishly supplanting
him in his relation to Emily. It was a path out of which he
had turned several times, urged by his strong sense of Harrington's perfect nobility, but he was now in it again, and with
the talented Fernando's last bunch of thorns insidiously tied to
his galloping fancy, and stinging it on, he was going at a headlong pace for mad jealousy and outright hostility, and would
soon be there.
WTitherlee, meanwhile, highly gratified at the success of his
insinuations with Wentworth, was enjoying the young artist's
distress when he caught sight of larrington standing at the




104                 BHAiRINGTON.
upper end of the room, and lookinlg at him. It was embarrassing, and he was about to avert his eyes, but at that instant
Hlarrington beckoned to him. He hesitated, and then with
considerable trepidation, for he did not know what was coming,
he walked up the room.
Harrington's face was introverted and sad, and his eyes were
fixed on vacancy. Witherlee felt glad that the broad gaze did
not rest on his face, for he feared its inquest.
"Fernando," said Harrington, calmly and kindly, though
with evident embarrassment, "I want to speak with you on a
very delicate subject. You have known Miss Eastman and
Miss Ames a long time-much longer than I have. You "Harrington paused for a moment. Witherlee's heart beat
an alarmed tattoo, though his colorless face was perfectly
impassible.
"Richard is in a strange state lately," resumed Harrington,
smiling vaguely.  "You must have noticed it, Fernando.
Just now, he spoke to me in a manner which I do not understand. Something frets him. Have you any idea what it is?"
"Not the least, though I've noticed it," returned the imperturbable Fernando.
"Well, I haven't either," said Harrington.  "But see here.
You remember what you said to me at my room about a week
ago. Previous to that conversation, it was my own fancy that
Richard was very much attached to Miss Ames.  You surprised me very much when you told me you thought his feeling
was for-for Muriel. I never should have guessed it. You
astonished me still more by what you told me after that. But
something Richard said just now made me fancy that you may
have been mistaken, and I want to ask you if you are perfectly
sure of what you saw."
Harrington paused again, nervously twitching his beard
with his large shapely hand. Before Witherlee could reply,
he went on again.
"Let me recall that conversation," he said.  "You sat in
my arm-chair smoking, and you were praising Muriel, which
was pleasant for me to hear. Presently, you remarked,'she'll
make Wentworth a superb wife,' and then you quoted from




HARRINGTON.                    105
Tennyson's'Isabel'-' the queen of marriage, a most perfect
wife.' I was, I own, amazed.'Why, Wentworth?' I asked.
You looked surprised, and said,'Why not Wentworth?' Then
you added-' When people love, don't they marryy?''Certainly,' I returned,'but you are mistaken, I think.'  I think
not,' you replied, with a manner so cool and positive, that I
was, to be frank with you, a little annoyed. I was about to drop
the subject there, for it seemed to me hardly fair to canvass
such a matter, when you remarked,'In fact, I know I'm not.'
I replied,'It is quite impossible that you should kanoo it,
Fernando, though you may have what seem to you strong
reasons for believing it.' You answered, rather unkindly it
appeared to me-' Do you doubt my word?''Not at all,' I
said.'How can you think so-it's not a question of veracity
at all, but of judgment?'Well,' said you,'I have proofocular proof-I wouldn't say it if you didn't put me to it.'
And then you told me that you visited the house the previous
afternoon, and as you were entering the parlor, you saw
Richard and Muriel standing together at the other end of the
room, with their arms around each other, and saw them kiss
each other.  You drew back instantly, you said, without having been perceived by them, and made. a clatter in the hall
before you entered again.  I could hardly forgive you at the
time for having told me what you saw, or myself for having
listened to you, for it was not a thing to be either told of or
listened to. But I grant it happened naturally enough in the
heat of the moment, and after all, I am glad to have known
of an occurrence, the knowledge of which may prevent misunderstanding and trouble."
Harrington paused once more, with vague emotion strugglingr in his features and his eyes fixed sadly on vacancy. The
truth of the matter was this   Witherlee had seen on the occasion referred to, two persons in the attitude described, one
of whom was Wentworth, and the other a young lady who,
at the first glance, he thought was Muriel, inasmuch as she
wore a lilac dress such as Muriel wore at times.  He had, as
he had said, retreated instantly-quite astounded too, for he
had made up his mind that Emily was Wentworth's sweet-.rat




106                   HAXRINGTON.
heart.  But on entering again, he saw that he had been mistaken, and that the lady with Wentworth was not Muriel, but
Emily.  The illusion, however, made a Wtrong impressioc on
his fancy, and his Inind teemed with temlptinbw imagining's
of Wentworth and iMuriel in thle Romeo and Juliet tableau.
It was an easy step in his controversy with Hariington, begun
simply for aggravation and continued with an obstinate desire
to establish what he had so impudently assumed, to present
his fancy as a fact, and insist upon it.  This was a fair spedimen of one of the good Fernando's lies, which were rarely
sheer inventions, but generally had a basis of truth in them.
" Now, Fernando," resumed Harrington, " I want to ask
you whether it is possible that you could have been mistaken?
Are you absolutely sure that it was Muriel you saw with
Wentworth, and not Miss Ames?"
Fernando's drowsy conscience awoke just enough to give
him a lethargic pinch, and dozed off again.
"I do not see, Harrington," he replied with an injured air,
"' how I could be mistaken.  There was nobody else in the
room  but Wentworth and Muriel when I first looked in.
Emily was coming in through the conservatory door at the
end of the parlor as I entered, but she was not there before."
This was an ingenious transposition of the fact.  It was
Muriel who came in. at the conservatory door, and not Emily.
But Fernando had covered his position famously.  In the
event of the truth coming out, he could swear that in the
confusion of the moment he had mistaken one lady for the
other, apologize profusely, and make the explanation seem
plausible.
"It was certainly Muriel," he resumed.," Still the affair
may be susceptible of a different interpretation.  You mIust concede at least that Muriel and Wentworth like each olther very
much, and they might kiss each other and still he only
friends."
"No," said Iarrington, firmly-" that is not possible.
That is not like Muriel.  I know her too well to suppose that
for a moment.  If she kissed Wentworth, she loves him.  I
do not doubt you, Fernando.  Their present close intimacy




IAURRNGTON.                    107
with each other confirms your story, I own.  But something
Richard said just now shook my belief-made me think, in
fact, that you were in error, and I wanted to be doubly sure
that you were not.  Let me only say that I have a better
motive for this inquiry than curiosity-and now let all this be
forgotten.  Never mention it again, I beg of you, to any
person. Let it all pass forever."
Witherlee's conscience smotd him terribly, and he felt maddened at his meanness, as llarrington strode away.  But he
was fully committed to his course, and to own his fault was
impossible with him.
Wentworth, meanwhile, was standing apart with a gloomy
face, listlessly watching the fencing.  His fancy was still galloping furiously with him to the goal of the jealous lover, but
it began to swerve from the track in spite of him, as he saw
Harrington coming down the room.  Harrington's mere presence was a constant demand on every person for the best that
was in them; and before the conquering sweetness of his smile,
Wentworth's jealous doubts and suspicions at once scattered
and fled, and his nobler feelings rushed forward.  The tears
filled his bright eyes as Harrington came straight up to
him and caught his hand.  He tried to speak, but his lips faltered.
"Richard, I ask your pardon," said Harrington.  "I am
sorry to have annoyed you; but it was entirely unintentional.
I want to have a talk with you, that we may understand each
other better.  Not now-another time.  In the meantime, let
us be friends."
Wentworth wrung his hand, wholly vanquished, and unable
to say a word.
"Come," said Harrington, gaily, with the muscles in his
cheeks wrinkling again, and his teeth gleaming in his beard,
with a rich smile-" come, that was only a zephyr.  Let's go
fence."
No more was said, and they went over to the fencing-ground,
where Fisk was being punched and poked and interjected at
and admonished by Monsieur Bagasse, to his utter bewilderment.  In a few minutes, the master got through with him,




108                 IHARRINGTON.
and set him and Palmer to practise against each other  He
then turned to Wentworth, who had taken off hat and coat,
and was chattering like a mercurial magpie, with his handsome
face enveloped in a mask.
"Come, now, Missr Wentwort'," said Bagasse.  "You
pink zat ozzer vilet if you can.  En garde."
Wentworth laughed, and, crossing blades, they fell to. The
young artist fenced briskly and*well, though somewhat rashly.
Once he contrived to touch the fencing-master on the arm, for
which lucky stroke he got paid with half a dozen in succession
on his breast.
"Thunder!" he exclaimed as he got the last, "what's the
use of fencing with you, Bagasse?  Nobody can touch you,
and you're as light on your pins as though you were twenty."
The old man chuckled grimly, relapsing into his clumsiest
and most ungainly attitude.
" Light!" put in Witherlee.  "I guess he is. His legs are
made of caout-chouc, I should think, judging by the way he
can kick."
" Oh, yes, I can keek," returned Bagasse.  "I haf iny leg
pretty su-ple."
He turned toward the post against which Witherlee was
leaning, and laid his grimy finger on a notch a little above his
own head. Witherlee stood aside, and every eye followed the
fencing-master. Suddenly, rising on one foot, he dealt the
notch a furious kick, amidst cries of "good" and "bravo."
Sure enough, the leg had flown up to the mark, like a leg of
india-rubber.
" Ha!" he exclaimed, complacently, " you do zat, you young
men. Try now-evairy one."
Wentworth tried first, kicked high, but did not come within
a foot of the mark. Whilt came next, stolid and taciturn,
kicked, and tumbled over, amidst general laughter. Vukovich
lifted his shapely leg, kicked within half a foot, and split his
blue trowsers, at which he looked grieved, and swore softly in
Hungarian, while the rest laughed at him. Then came Fisk
and Palmer and the others, with poor success, and amidst
much merriment.




IIARRINGTON.                   109
In the quiet that followed, Whilt, who had been as dumb
as a skull, suddenly began to shake and whinny so with guttural mirth, that everybody looked at him  with surprise.  It
came out, after some inquiry, that he was laughing at Vukovich for having torn his trowsers, an incident which had just
touched his sense of the ludicrous when everybody else had
almost forgotten it.  Of course there was another obstreperous
roar of merriment, and Witerlee told Whilt he laughed too
soon-he ought to have waited till next week-with other
sarcasms of the same nature, which the slow Dutchman took
into sober consideration.
" Come, Harrington," said Wentworth, "you try."
Harrington had stood apart, smiling amusedly, through all
this clatter.
"Ah, Missr Iarrin'ton, he can keek wis me," exclaimed
Bagasse.  " He keek sublime."
Harrington laughed, and advancing, took up a bit of chalk
from the floor, and marked a line on the post, as much above
his own head as the notch had been above the fencing-master's.
Then poising a second, he threw  up his leg, and brought
away chalk on his boot. There was a general burst of acclamation.
" Ah, ha I it is grand-it is superb I" cried Monsieur
Bagasse.  "Missr Harrin'ton, he can keek wis me, he can
fence wis me, he can shoot wis me, he can engage wis me in
ze broadsword-ze single-steek, he can do everysing so I can.
It is his talent.  Sacreblem! He is for-r-mi-dabble."
larrington laughed, with an expression and gesture of
deprecation.
"How many men could you fight together, Monsoor?"
asked Palmer.
" Me? I fight you all. Evairy one. Togezzer," replied
the Frenchman.
" Mawdoo!" ejaculated Palmer.  "Isn't he a trump!"
" Come, Bagasse, that will do for the marines," said Wentworth.  "You can't do it."
"Ah," replied the fencing-master, " you zink not?  Bah I
Come, I show you."




110                   HARRINGTON.
In a minute he had seven or eight of them, Wentworth,
V ukovich, Palmer and Fisk included, masked and foiled.
Then putting his back to the wall, he directed them  to set
upon him. It was agreed that if he was touched the contest
was to end there.  On the other hand, every combatant
touched was to withdraw.
" Pardoo! It is splendid I" exclaimed Palmer.
" Mawdoo! It is fine!" returned Fisk.
The domestically-pronounced French oaths which prefixed
these asseverations, were, of course, borrowed by Messrs. Fisk
and Palmer from the " Three Guardsmen," and figured extensively on all possible occasions in their general conversation.
" Come, Harrington, you too," cried Wentworth.
"No, no-ex-cuse  me-pardon,"  interrupted  Monsieur
Bagrasse, smiling, grimacing and bowing all at once; "not
Missr Harrin'ton.  Zat will be too mush —vair many too
mush."
Harrington  colored  slightly, and  laughed.  Monsieur
Bagasse put on a mask, threw himself on guard, and stood
girt with antagonists, with his foil playing like a pale gleam,
menacing them  all.  Suddenly it darted-there was a brisk
clatter of parries-and Vukovich was touched. It was a compliment to the skill of the gallant captain that Bagasse had
got rid of him thus early in the game, and he came off simpering, and stroking his moustache complacently.
" He keel me fery queek, Meeser Haynton," he observed
to the young man, who stood attentively watching the contest.
"Ah, Captain," returned Harrington gaily, addressing him
in French, " but your ghost can fence better than most of us
still."
The captain's vanity was evidently flattered by the compliment, for he swelled a little with an air of increased complacency, though he made no reply. Witherlee, who was
standing behind him, a silent observer of the sport, glanced at
him with a bilious sneer. Meanwhile, amidst shouts and
laughter, and noisy appels and glizades, the young men were
assailing Bagasse, trying all sorts of feints and tricks to penetrate his guard.  Harrington watched him  admiringly-so




HArRIN GTON.                   11
statue-still in the tumultuous press, his awkwardness and shalbbiness gone, the wire globe of the mask giving a weird look to
his head, his bent arm holding his assailants at bay, and the
pale gleam of the foil glancing nimbly all about the are of the
ring.  Presehtly the guarding foil whisked and rattled with t
confusion of brilliant coruscations, playing like elfin liglltning'
all around the semli-cirele-the bent arm of the invincible figure at which all were lunging, straightened and darted thrice,
rapid as a flash-and amidst mock groans and cries and
laughter, Wentworth, Fisk, and Palmer withdrew.  They
came away vociferously mirthful, and before they had well got
the masks off their flushed faces, the others were all touched
and followed them, leaving Monsieur Bagasse standing alone,
erect and martial, his one eye glowing like a coal in the proud
grotesque smile of his swarthy visage, his left arm  akimbo,
holding the mask on his hip, and the victorious foil held aloft
in his right hand, and quivering above his head like a rod of
wizard lustre.
There were loud bravos and clapping of hands.  The next
instant.the statue of military triumph dropped into the clumsy,
sloven figure of Bagasse, and hobbled off to the claret-can.
He came hurrying back presently with the foil and mask in
one hand, and stood, the centre of a great smell of garlic,
grinning curiously at Fisk and Palmer, who, in an ecstasy of
excitement from  their recent engagement, were playing they
were D'Artagnan and Porthos, and poking furiously at each
other with all the "Guardsmen" oaths and epigrams in full
ventilation.
"Well, Missr Wentwort', what'you zink now?" he asked,
triumphantly.
" What do I think?  I think you could have let Harrington come on too, and then have beaten us all," was the gay
reply.
"Ah, no," returned  Monsieur Bagasse, "not wis AMissr
HIarrin'ton."
"Come, Meeser iaynton," said Vukovich; "you  an'
Mossieu Bagasse.  Oblise me and dese sentilmen."
At once there was a clamor of beseechings, to which the




112                   HARRINGTON.
parties addressed presently yielded.  Witherlee, who hated to
see Harrington fence, because he fenced so well, quietly
slipped away from the room.  Fisk and Palmer stopped, and
gathered with the others around the fencing-place.  Meanwhile, Monsieur Bagasse took the violets from his jacket and
laid them away; then put on a plastron-an honor he had
not paid to any other of his pupils that day, and resumed his
mask. Harrington took off his coat and vest, and arrayed
himself also in mask and plastron.
They took their places, and after performing the beautiful
elaborate salute of the exercise, fell upon guard. Every eye
was riveted on the stalwart grace of Harrington as he crossed
blades with his antagonist.  As for the French gladiator,
excited by the coming contest with one who could call into
play all his powers, his attitude was superb, and his transformation more complete than before.
The contest was begun by a feint, quick and light, on the
part of the fencing-master, and in a second it was pass and
parry with a rapturous flash and clash of steel. Presently the
right foot of Bagasse beat the floor with the loud rat-tgt of the
appel, and foot and arm and body sprang forward with a terrific lunge.  Harrington, immovable as a pillar, met it with a
swift twirl of the wrist, and the next second both combatants
were still, with their foils locked in a complete spiral from
hilt to point.
Disengaging presently, the combatants saluted amidst suppressed murmurs of applause, crossed blades once more, and
stood with each point seeking an opening.  In a moment or
two, Bagasse feinted again, and lunged in tierce.  Harrington
parried in seconde, letting his point fly up and his arm extend
in the parry, and pushing home, his foil became a curve with
the button resting on the bosom of the fencing-master.
It was the first hit, and everybody hurrahed. Presently
the hurrah burst forth again for Bagasse, who had hit Harrington. In less than five minutes the combat grew almost as
exciting as a duel with swords. To follow the dazzling rapidity of the lunges and parries became impossible. The gazers
could only see a nimble play of rattling light between the two




IJA2RING'TON.                 113
-the lines of the foils lost In curves and gleams of brilliance
-and the gloved sword-arms of the antagonists flying like
twirling and darting shuttles above the clashing coruscatLons. The interest now centred in the aspect and expression
of the combatants.  Bagasse, throwing his whole fiery nature
into the soul-entrancing action of the duel, was in an ecstasy
of martial joy, and lunged and parried with exulting shouts
and cries-a darting, swaying figure, terribly alert and alive,
with the spring and strength of a fury. Harrington, on the
contrary, was silent as death, impassible, elastic, swift-a
regnant form of muscular grace poised in superb aplomb, that
fell to half its height in the long lunges, and rose magnificent
in the quick recoils.  An atmosphere of fiery ether seemed to
envelop the combatants, spreading its glorious delirium through
the veins of the gazers, and kindling the delight of battle in
their eyes. But as the combat continued, the wild passion of
the action became so intense and real that the heroic glo.w
began to pale and mingle with a cold affright, and Wentworth,
beginning to feel his agitation master him, was on the point
of shouting to Harrington to stop, when there was a sharp
snap, followed by sudden silence, and the combat was over.
Bagasse stood panting through his mask with a broken loil in
his hand.  Harrington breathing audibly in long, regular
breaths through his, remained in attitude with his point lowered, like one awakened from a dream. The next instant,
Bagasse broke the silence with a wild shout, and throwing
away mask and foil, flung his arms around Harrington in a
joyful embrace, and bursting away, vented the remnant of his
joy by dealing the high notch on the post a kick that might
have brought the roof down.
There was a ringing hurrah, followed by a burst of hearty
laughter, congratulations, and shaking of hands all round.
" But, by Jupiter," cried Wentworth, " I'm glad its over,
for, upon my word, I began to get frightened. B~ lessed if I
ever saw you two have such a bout before! Bagasse, you old
reprobate, I believe you were in earnest."
Hie turned with a peal of laughter upon the old man, who
stood exhaling garlic, and wiping his hot face with a snuffy




114                  HARRINGTON.
old red pocket handkerchief. Bagasse grinned good-naturedly,
gave his old moustache a dab with the handkerchief, and
thrusting out the latter with a joyful gesture, replied:
"I was teepsy, Missr Wentwort' —daid-drunk wis ze joay
of ze beautifool en-countair. Hah I by dam I'zat make me
feel young."
"I should think so, you blood-thirsty old rapier I" bawled
Wentworth.  "And you," he continued, turning upon Harrington, " you were in earnest, too, I verily believe, and bent
upon taking your fencing-master's life. A nice pair, both of
you, for a peaceable young man like me to meet in a dark
alley going home late."
Harrington, who was leaning against the wall, getting his
wind, as the saying goes, laughed without replying. His
usual pallor had given place to a faint pink, and his broad
winged nostrils were lifting with his deep breaths under his
lighted eyes and white forehead, on which the brown locks lay
damp. Wentworth thought he had never seen him look more
princely.
" But no," Wentworth rattled on, " I don't believe it of
you, Harrington.  For you're what Kingsley calls a muscular
Christian.  As for Bagasse, he's a muscular pagan, who lives
on raw meat, gunpowder and brandy, and there's nothing too
bad for me to believe of him. Is there, Bagasse?"
He patted the old man on the shoulder as he said it, looking smilingly in his face.  Bagasse gazed with grotesque
fondness at the handsome and gallant countenance, as' on that
of a privileged pet, and continued to mop his glowing visage.
"What's the time, Richard?" asked Harrington, beginning
to dress himself.
" Quarter of ten by all that's good!" exclaimed the other,
looking at his watch.  "Time for me to be at the studio, and
you at the books. But I won't say that, for upon my word,
Harrington, you study too hard. The Pierian spring will be
the death of you, young man."
" O, no," replied Harrington, laughing gaily.  "I'm  in
good health. The daily bout with the foils or broadswords
balances the hours at the books."




HARRINGTON.                    11
"Nevertheless you look rather lamletish in your pallor,"
returned Wentworth.  "Though to be sure the pale prince
was a special good hand at the rapier, in which, as in other
respects, you resemble him.'The scholar, soldier, courtier's
eye, tongue, sword-the expectancy and rose of the fair State'
of Massachusetts-that's you, Harrington."
"Seems to me, Richard, the quotation bung and the head
of the soft-soap barrel are both out together this morning,"
bantered Harrington.
"' I paint you in character,' " returned the mercurial Wentworth, with another Shaksperean reminiscence.  "Being a
member of the Boston Mutual Admiration Society, and this
being Anniversary week, soft-soap is perfectly in order. Therefore, I affirm that you are of the Hamlet order plus Crichton,
plus Raleigh, Sidney, Hatton, Blount, Southampton ""Shakspeare and Verulam," jeered Harrington.
"Together with Shakspeare and Verulam.  And now that
I have made a clean breast of it, and as you are dressed, suppose we depart.  Young Mephistopheles, alias Witherlee, has
gone already, I notice.  Our mercantile friends are off, too,
and a proper rowing they'll get for being late at the store this
morning.  Oh, Bagasse, Bagasse! you've much to answer
for-corrupting the mercantile youth of this realm by traitorously erecting a fencing-school! Apropos of fencing, it's more
than a week since we've had a bout with our dear fairy prince.
By Jupiter I what a pleasure it is to see Muriel at the foils!
I'm so glad you persuaded her to learn ""Oh, you're wrong there," interrupted Harrington.  "It
was she persuaded me to teach her. Muriel has a passion for
liberal culture, and fencing is part of her programme."
"Isn't she glorious!" cried Wentworth with enthusiasm.
"A woman?-a young goddess rather I By Jove! the best
swimmer of all the girls last summer at Gloucester. The best
skater last winter on Jamaica pond. Climbed the mountains
in October with the best of us. Runs like Atalanta. Dances
like Terpsichore. Sings like a seraph. Talks in a voice like
Israfel's.  Studies almost as hard as you do, Harrington.
And now she fences like an angel. I declare she's a perfect




116                  nHARRINGTON.
young Crichtona.  And yet how womanly withal  Not a
touch of the masculine about her.  Gay, free, strong, sweetoh, fairy prince, there's none like you, none."
Harrington listened to this ardent celebration of the charms
of her Wentworth called the fairy prince, in perfect silence
and with a secret astonishment in his pale, controlled countenance. He believed Wentworth loved Muriel, but for the life
of him he could not reconcile this lavish panegyric with that
belief.  For love is reticent, and we let expressive silence
muse the sweetheart's praise.  How then could Wentworth
thus blazon his beloved? Harrington was puzzled.
"There's a curious element of surprise in Muriel, too," resumed
Wenltxvorth, with a musing air. " She is so gentle, so reposeful and graceful, that when she flashes out in these courageous physical accomplishments I always feel a little astonished.
Don't you, Harrington?"
" Oh, no," returned Harrington.  "She has a rich, versatile, inclusive nature.  You know that this union of feminine
gentleness and manly spirit is not so uncommon. There was
the Countess Emily Plater, for example, the heroine of
the Polish Revolution; yet with all her bravery, she was
peculiarly tender and gentle.  There, again, was the Maid of
Saragossa, who fought for her country over the body of her
lover; but Byron, who saw her often at Madrid, says she was
remarkable for her soft, feminine beauty.  Muriel is a woman
of the same style, I suppose. Come, Richard, let's go."
They saluted the old Frenchman, who stood with the Hungarian at the pistol bench, and left the room.
CHAPTER IV.
MURIEL AND EMILY.
TEMPLE street slopes steeply down Beacon Hill, an aristocratic
street of the aristocratic quarter.
In Temple street lived Muriel with her mother..Mrs. East



BARRINGTON.                    117
man was a widow. Her husband, a young scholar, primarily
a lawyer, had died three years after their marriage, when 3Muriel was but two years old. The effect of his death on his
wife was peculiar. Fitly named Serena, so gentle and lovely
was her nature, his death had not made her unhappy, but it
had breathed a deeper quiet. into her gentleness, and her life
had been, since then, as calm as evening. She had been a
poet-some of those exquisite little anonymous lyrics, of which
America produces so many, and which float about through the
press, scattering delight but winning no fame, were hers. But
his death had stilled her muse forever.  It seemed to have
cloistered her spirit from the world.  Never very fond of comnpany, his decease had made her in love with solitude, and she
spent much of her time in her own chamber, alone.
She was wealthy, having inherited from her husband a considerable property.  Muriel, too, was rich in her own'right;
Mr. Eastman's brother, who had a great affection for her, having died a bachelor four or five years before, and left her a
handsome fortune.
It was a large, sumptuously furnished house they lived in.
Into its library, the fresh spring light, which lay so palely in
the long, musty, powder-scented fencing-school, streamed that
morning through crystal and purple panes, and filled the perfumed air with a gold and violet glory. The library was rich
and dark in color, with walnut bookcases, deep-toned walls,
and violet-velvet furniture. Its prevailing sombrous hue seemed
to confine and intensify the cheerful radiance which filled it,
like some ethereal lustrous liquid in a cup of ebony, touching
the dim gilding of the picture-frames, the delicate ornaments
here and there, and resting on a distinctive feature of the
apartment, a large parlor organ, of dark oak and gold.
But the library's chief ornament that morning was Muriel
-as lovely a blonde as ever grew to the gathered grace and
vigor of twenty summers, and with that pervading glimmer
of natural elegance and fine courtly breeding in her loveliness,
which we express in the word debonair. She was standing
very still, rapt in deep musing, with an open volume of Dante
held in her left palm, and her white, nervous right hand rest



118                   HARRINGTON.
ing on the page. A lilac dress of some soft tissue, stirred only
above the light pulsations of her bosom, flowed in graceful
folds, as she stood with one arched foot advanced ilnd partly
visible at its margin, and revealed the enchanting harmony of
her tall and stately figure.  The dress came quite up to the
neck, flowering over there in a charming ruffle of lace, above
which bloomed her exquisite countenance, virginal and gracious
as the morning, as dewy-sweet, as fresh, as spiritually pure. The
complexion, fair and clear as a pond-lily, was radiant with perfeet health.  Color, faint as the dawn, tinted the oval cheeks,
and the sweet, curved mouth wore the hue of the wild-brier
rose. The large grey eyes were softened with a golden sheen.
Amber hair, with a tint of gold in it, parted over the serene
and open brow, and rising from the head, as we see it in the
Greek statues, rippled down in wavy tresses around the delicate
ears, to gather behind in soft, thick loops of antique beauty.
Noble and debonair from head to foot, and all imparadised in
charm, so on that morning stood Muriel.
Who would have dreamed that the reverie in which she
was absorbed was too solemn to have grown upon her spirit
from the mighty Tuscan page before her? Who could have
imagined, gazing upon her calm loveliness, that a great and
awful, though silent, struggle had shaken her heart? Yet it
was so. The event which can most convulse a woman's life
had come to her. She loved Harrington, and it had dawned
upon her that he loved her friend Emily.
She had met it bravely. With that revelation her heart
had risen to the level of heroic story, and in the spiritual strife
which makes life tremble to its centre, she was the victor.
She knew that the world lay lonely and disenchanted before
her, but she was calm.  She knew that life's fairest hope was
unaccomplished, life's loveliest dream dissolved, but she was
strong.  She saw afar the dark battalia of the coming years
of sadness, and her heart rose to meet them with the pulses of
Marathon. It was love's crowning hour with her —the hour
of sacrifice, renunciation, the high soul's rapture of martyrdom
-the hour of bravery and sad, generous joy.
But now the immediate strife in her spirit was over, and in




HARRINGTON.                      119
the deeps of her reverie, she saw, strangely distinct as in a
dream, tie phantom  face of Harrington smiling palely upon
her from an illimitable distance.  It had never before been so
vivid in her vision, nor had it ever come to her with such a
sense of being mystically far-removed.  As she dreamed upon
it, its visionary remoteness seemed less a symbol of the distance of unanswering love than of love immortal withdrawn
by death to smile upon her from the depths of Eternity.  But
it was Love, not Death, that had divided themi: he had receded from  her to love her friend.  She was resigned that it
should be so-happy still, though lonelier, that it was so.
Hers was the true love which gives and needs, but asks not;
and aspiring only to the happiness and good of the beloved
one, willingly, for that, resigns all that makes life most precious and finds a sad joy in the sacrifice.  It was her loss, but
another's gain.  There was joy still in the belief that he was
happy in his love for her friend-in the faith that sahe was
worthy of that love-in the trust that the lofty purposes for
which spirits work on earth in wedded lives would be achieved
by them.
Calm, tender, solemn and regal flowed her reverie, haunted
ever by the phantom  face that was never to be near her again
-never to smile henceforth in her dreamis save at this visionary distance, which seemed to her prescient spirit ever less and
less the distance of unanswered love, ever more and more the
distance of love responding from the serene depths of Eternity.
" Muriel!"
A hushed, wondering voice spoke her name.  A figure stood
before her at a little distance.  Voice and figure were alike
remote and dim to her tranced mind.
" Muriel!  Good heavens! auriel!1"
It was Emily.  She saw her standing before her, astonished
-she herself tranqail, clearly cognizant, and utterly unsurprised.  A superb brunette, attired in rich brown silk, with a
brilliant scarlet scarf on her shoulders, admirably contrasted
with her dark hair, and the sunny gold and iose of her complexion.
" Why, Muriel, you frightened me!  I spoke, and yet you




120                   HA RRINGTON.
did not hear.  What a strange, still shine there is in your
eyes! One would think you were aJ som.nambulist.1"
The happy'and noble face smiled at her as she spoke, and
two bright tears flowed upon it.  A moment, and the book
fell to the floor, and embracing  Emily, she kissed her crimson
mouth, and fondly gazed into her countenance.  At the pressure of the soft bosom against her own, at the touch of the
fragrant and dewy lips, Emily's spirit rose in fervent affection, and in that moment her heart clasped Muriel like her
arms.
" I was a dreamer, and not a somnambulist, dear Emily,"
said Muriel.  " I was lost in a reverie, deeper than I have
ever known, and it gave me the peace of a holy thought."
" What was the thought, dear Muriel?" asked Emily.
"One that you can appreciate, dear lover," was the tender
and gay reply.  "The thought that life is truliest life in the
greatness and sweetness of love."
A refluent jealousy vainly strove at that moment to enter
the heart of Emily.  The charm of her friend's gracious countenance, and of her mellow silver voice, was strong upon her.
But the rich color came to her golden face and over her broad,
low brow to the roots of her hair, and her lustrous brown
eyes wandered into vacancy.
" Yes, Muriel," she answered, after a moment's hesitation,
"I agree with you.  Life is truliest life in loving and being
loved."
" No, that is not agreeing with me," said Muriel, with a
frank smile.  "Life is sufficiently life in loving.  To love is
enough.-But come, dear Emily, your chocolate voice shall
not be used in discussion, but in confession.  We must talk
this morning, for I fancy you have some little grudge against
me, and it is time for us to understand each other, like good
friends.
Emily colored again, and the tears were very near her eyes.
She loved iluriel, yet could not help being jealous of her,
believing, as she did, that she was her rival for the love of
Wentworth.  But she laughed lightly, dissembling her emotion, and asked:




FJARRTNGTON.                  121
"Why is my voice a chocolate voice, Muriel?  That is an
odd epithet."
" A very good one, dear," replied Muriel, laughing, and
picking up the Dante from the floor.  " Your voice is a contralto. Sounds, you know, have their analogical colors, as
Madame de StaSl knew when she said the sound of the
trumpet was crimson.  Now  the analogue of contralto is
brown.  Chocolate, too, is brown.  Hence your voice- is
chocolate."
"Well done, Muriel   Come, now, that is really ingenious."
Muriel laughed her clear and mellow silver laugh, and
looked playfully at Emily.
"Thank you for the compliment, mig'nonne. I shall make it
over to the gentleman from whom I stole the idea."
" Stole? It's not yours, then?"
" O yes! It's mine, because I stole it."
" And who from?  Harrington?"
" Guess again, dear! But n'importe-no matter. Come
and sit here with me."
Muriel moved smilingly away to a couch of violet-velvet,
and sinking. upon the cushioned seat, waved her hand to her
friend.  Emily stood unheeding, in an attitude of sumptuous
repose, with her rounded arms folded, a faint smile on her
face, and her lustrous and lambent eyes half-veiled by their
long lashes. The damask color was bright on her cheeks and
on her parted lips, and with every slow breath, her bosom
slowly lifted and fell, stirring the rich and heavy attar-of-rose
odor which brooded slumberously about her form.
"Thou gorgeous queen-rose of Ispahan, why dreamest
thou?" said MIuriel's voice of silver mockery. "Didst thou
not hear me call? Come, I say!"
The beautiful brunette did not obey, but raised her proud
patrician head from its drooping curve, and vaguely sighed.
Muriel rose, lightly glided over to her, clasped her waist with
both arms, and standing a little on one side and bending forward-a fresh and full-grown lily-a fair, gay woman, with
the grace and glimmer of a bewitching child in her woman6




122                  HARRINGTON.
hood —looked with a naive and radiant, half-mocking, halfserious smile, into the face of her she had called the gorgeous
queen-rose of Ispahan. Presently she began to lead her to
the cbuch. Emily held back, but Muriel's clasp tightened, and
yielding to the firm, fairy strength with which, though strong,
she was unable to cope, Emily suffered herself to be conducted
to the seat.
" Ah, stayaway," blithely said Muriel, sitting beside her,
and playfully shaking a finger at her in sportive reproach,
" who is the stronger now? You are fairly captured, and I
hold you my prisoner until peace is concluded."
Emily, amused by this pleasantry, showed the pearls of her
red mouth in a brilliant laugh over her indolently folded
arms.
"And if you could only fence," continued Muriel, in the
same tone as before, "I would conquer a peace at the point
of my rapier. Can't I persuade you to learn, for that especial
purpose?"
~" Indeed you can't," said Emily.  "It's not in the line of
my accomplishments, though you have included it in yours.
Bless me! Muriel, what will you be learning next? Dancing
on the tight-rope, I suppose, or standing on one. toe on the
back of a galloping horse, like a circus girl."
"That would be fine, dear, wouldn't it!" returned Muriel.
Decidedly, I never thought of the tight-rope or the circus
horse before. It is really an idea! But let us cry truce to
this nonsense, for indeed I have something to say to you."
Moving a little nearer to Emily as she spoke, her frolic
manner vanished, and her face grew sweetly serious.
" When you found me so entranced this morning," she said,
after a, long pause, " I was thinking of you, dear Emily-in
part of you. You know how much I love you. We grew up
together from girlhood, and among all your friends there is
none whose happiness is more closely entwined in yours than
mine."
Emily's heart beat fast, and the moisture gathered in her
down-dropped eyes. She did not look up, but she felt that the
clear eyes of Muriel were fixed on her face.




HtARRrINGTON.                 123
"We have had many happy hours together, Emily," murmured the low, sweet voice; "and when you came here two
weeks ago, on this visit, it seemed that the happiest hours of
all, both for you and me, were beginning.  Happiest for me
because I thought that what makes life sweetest to us all had
come to you —here-in this house."
There was another pause, in which Emily bowed her head,
with an inexpressible sense of passionate sorrow.
" And it has come to you, Emily," continued Muriel. " You
did not tell me —you kept your heart's secret closely —but I
saw it-I felt it-though I so strangely mistook its object. I
did not think my intuition could so mislead me, but it did.
For I thought your feeling was for Richard and his for you."
Emily smiled serenely, but under the serene smile her wild
grief raged.
"How could you think so, Muriel?" she lightly asked.
" I judged so from his manner toward you, and yours toward
him," replied Muriel.
Emily laughed gaily.
"I cannot imagine," she answered, "how you could think
his attentions meant anything more than the ordinary reckless
gallantries it is his nature to lavish on young women. And as
for myself, I should indeed be weak to love such a person
as he."
She said it with the most bland and tranquil indifference of
voice and manner-grief and scorn and the wild resentment of
slighted love all hidden and raging in her heart.
"Emily!"  The silver voice was raised in mild reproach,
and she felt the nervous hands suddenly clasp her arm. " How
can you speak so of Richard! Indeed, you do him great
injustice. I know him better than to think that of him.
Emily, you amaze me! Why, how can you imagine him such
a person!"
Emily smiled blandly.  She may well defend him, was her
thought, for she loves him. Calmly lifting her lustrous eyes,
she saw Muriel's wondering face all suffused with generous
color. Yes, she thought, it is her love for him.
" Why Muriel," she remarked quietly, "everybody knows




124. HARRTNGTON.
he is a handsome young flirt. It is his general reputation.
His words, his looks, his manner toward women are proof
enough of it, I'm sure. Nobody thinks more highly of him
than Fernando, but even Fernando, spite of his friendship,
says it is the great fault of his character."
Muriel laughed suddenly, then looked very grave.
"I'm afraid, Emily," she said quickly, "that it is Fernando who has put this strange and ridiculous idea into your
head."
"Not at all," quietly responded Emily.  "Fernando only
corroborates my own judgment. But if you cannot trust the
opinion of a man's intimate friends and associates, what can
you trust?"
"I would not trust Fernando's opinion of anybody," said
Muriel.
" Why?" asked Emily, coolly.
" Why, dear? Because our good Fernando is nothing if
not critical," piquantly answered Muriel.
" Do you think him false?" said Emily.
"Hum!"  Muriel looked doubtful-then laughed.  "To
tell the truth, mnignonne, I think he is, on a small scale, the
Iago of private life."
" You are witty, Muriel, but you are not just," was Emily's
cold reply.
Muriel'was silent for a moment.
"Never mind," she resumed.  "We will not discuss Fernando.  You will yet think better of Richard, I am confident, but as you are not in love with him, it's no matter."
As I am not in love with him! thought Emily. She could
hardly keep from shuddering with the flood of conflicting passion that shot through her.  The wild impulse to tell Muriel
that she had cast her life upon him, burst into her mind.
What?  Tell her that she loved him, and that he had slighted
her love; that he had won her heart from her; that once, in
one electric moment, his arms had enfolded her, his lips had
pressed hers, and then, his whim gratified, he had left unspoken the words her soul panted to hear, and coldly' alienated
himself from her  Tell all this to her, whom he was now woo



HARRINGTON.                    125
ing, and who loved himI Passionate pride arose, and held the
impulse down.
"Yes, I own that I was mistaken," pursued Muriel,
" strangely mistaken, in dreaming that you and Richard were
lovers. Still, there was love. It is my joy to think that you
love another dear friend of mine, and that he loves you. And
my joy is all the greater to feel that you are above our social
prejudices-that you are great enough to love one whose
wealth is in his manhood. You and Harrington " 
Emily turned quickly, her face calm, but all aglow with
rich scarlet, and lighted with an indefinable smile. Muriel,
pale with love and sacrifice, her clear voice trembling, and her
eyes humid, stopped as she met that singular look, and changed
color.
" Forgive me, dear Emily," she said quickly. "I would not
speak of it —I would not touch a subject cloistered even from
ine-but for one reason, which I will tell you presently. But
first let me say that I was again surprised when I read in your
mutual attentions for the last few days-yours and Harrington's-the tokens of your love. For I had thought Harrington's heart was not free-that he loved another. Now let
me "
"Who?" interrupted Emily.  "Who did you think he
loved? Tell me. I am curious to know."
"Nay, dear," replied Muriel.  "It would be unnecessary
to tell that. Since I was wrong, is it not better to let it go
unmentioned? Surely it is."
Perhaps Emily might have guessed who it was, had
she looked then at Muriel's face. But her eyes were downcast, and she was vainly striving to imagine who Muriel
could mean. Then the remembrance of how constant and
reckless had  been her recent attentions to  Harrington,
and, though paid only to  abate Wentworth's supposed
triumph by convincing him that she cared nothing for him,
how good a ground they afforded to Muriel for her present
belief, came into her mind, and she almost groaned. But what
would have been her grief had she dreamed of the effects of
her conduct on Muriel?




126                   HARRINGTON.
" Now, dear Emily," resumed Muriel, " let me come at once
to the only sad thing in all this-in a word, to the reason
which compels me to speak thus frankly to you for the sake of
our friendship, which I cannot bear to see disturbed even for
an hour. You know I have known John for a long time, and
that he is my best, my most cherished friend. I cannot tell
you how much he has been and is to me-with how many
noble hours he is associated. Since I have thought you loved
him, I have been conscious-painfully conscious-that your
manner has not been what it once was to me-that you have
felt our communion-his and mine-as something that interfered with your relation to him."
Muriel paused, earnestly gazing in the face of her friend, to
be certain that she was not offending her. The hot color
suffused Emily's face, but she was calm and even smiled. Yes,
I am jealous of her, was her thought, but it is because she
loves Wentworth and he her. And she thinks I love Harrington! Then came the impulse to undeceive Muriel in this
regard. Pride arose on one side, taunting her to confess that
she had paid court to a mAn she did not love. Shame arose
on the other side, urging her to conceal the thoughtless folly
of having lured that man to love her. Both together held
the impulse down.
"Dear Emily," pursued Muriel, in tender and pleading
tones, "do not let this be so. Do not think of me as your
rival because I am your lover's friend. There cannot be in
our relation-his and mine —anything to weaken his faith to
you. Oh, believe that, and let there be no discord between
you and me I There, I have said all. I might have waited
till he or you told me that you were lovers. But I could not
bear to see you tortured with the feeling that there was
rivalry between us, or to see our friendship inl any way impaired.
Forgive me for my haste-for my brusque plain-speaking;
and love me truly as I love you."
Leaning over to her, as she ended, Muriel, the bright tears
welling from her eyes, embraced her tenderly. Emily, smiling
wanly, her brain whirling with affection, with self-scorn and
passionate despair, clasped the loving form to her breast, and




HARRINGTON.                    127
held it there. In a few moments Muriel disengaged herself,
her happy and noble face radiant, but wet with tears, smiled
at Emily, and smiling, rose and glided from the room.
CHAPTER V.
LA BOSTONIENNE.
EMILY covered her face with her hands, and for more than
fifteen minutes sat in silent stupor where Muriel had left her.
At length she sprang up, throwing her clenched hands from
her in agony, and walked the library.  Her eyes were hotly
lustrous, her damask cheeks vivid with heightened color, her
parted lips wore an unnatural bloom, and the flush of fever
deepened the sunny gold of her complexion.  Slowly, with
measured steps, to and fro, up and down, she paced the room,
with rustling robes, like a doomed Sultana.
"Great Heaven I" she murmured, stopping suddenly in the
centre of the floor, and clasping her hands; "to know that
it has come to this! She thinks I love HIarrington. How
shall I undeceive her! How shall I undeceive him! How
extricate myself from this maze I 0, for a friend, a counsellor! Richard, Richard, how can you treat me so basely I
To turn from me-and in my very sight to turn from me to
her I O, that I could die, that I could die I"
Wringing her clasped hands, a wild heart-break in her face,
she heard a light step in the passage. The door opened, and
Muriel reappeared, gay and elegant as usual, and bending into
a graceful courtesy, half playful, half unconscious, as she came
forward. As for Emily, no one could have discovered a trace
of emotion in her. At the sound of Muriel's footsteps, she
had dissolved into a sumptuous beauty, with a rich, indolent
smile on her brilliant-colored face, her bare, rounded arms
folded on her bosom, and her figure in nonchalant and queenly
repose.




128                   HARRINGTON.
"Ah, neglectful one," said Muriel, shaking a finger at her,
"to let your moulding drop to pieces for lack of a little
water I I told you yesterday that you ought to wet the clay.
Just now I looked into the studio, and saw the poor Muriel
almost crumbling.  Thou naughty girl I"
"I declare I forgot it," replied Emily.' I meant to water
the bust yesterday, and it slipped my mind. I will see to it
presently."
" If you don't, I'll never give you another sitting," returned
Muriel. " So take notice."
All sorts of studies and arts were pursued at the house in
Temple street. Muriel, amidst her botany, drawing, moulding,
music, Latin, French, German, Italian, miscellaneous reading,
and her vigorous calisthenics, had for a year past interpolated
the art of fencing, which Harrington had taught her, and
which was at present her, grand passion. Emily, wht had
been absent at Chicago for the last ten months, had previously
learned from Wentworth and Muriel how to mould in clay,
and upon her return, urged on chiefly by him, had resumed
this crowning accomplishment of hers, and began to develop
in it unusual talent.. The bust referred to was one of Muriel,
which she had been working on. Lately, the check she had
received in her love for Wentworth, had sadly damped the
ardor of her passion for sculpture, and the bust had been
neglected.
"Don't let your belief in Wentworth's flirtations interfere
with your pursuit of the fine arts, mignonne," continued Muriel,
gaily.
"Dear me, no!" languidly returned Emily.  "His flirtations are nothing to me."
" Certainly not," said Muriel, sportively patting her on the
shoulder.  " And as you owe the bad boy a debt of gratitude
for showing you how to mould, be civil to him, I pray."
" Civil?  And am  I not civil to him?" returned Emily,
smiling with lazy serenity.
"Ah, wicked one, no," said Muriel, silverly murmuring the
words into Emily's ear, as she stood behind her with her arms
around her waist, and her face looking jestingly over her




HABRINGTON.                   129,ioulder.  " Not a bit civil.  Didn't I see that freak of the
violets this morning! I know that hurt Richard's feelings.
Not because you did not give them to him, but on account of
your manner, which was indescribably disdainful. I verily
believe Fernando had something to do with that transaction.
What was it he said to you at the table when I saw you
color?"
"Oh, nothing," replied Emily, blushing.  "It was something he meant for a joke, though I thought it rather impudent. To tell the truth, Muriel, I did intend to share the
violets between Harrington and Wentworth, when Fernando
observed to  me that Wentworth would be delighted to
receive a true-love posy from me, or something of that sort.
Now that provoked me, and I knew Wentworth had put him
up to say it, for I saw them whispering and laughing together
just before, and I ""My dear Emily," said Muriel, in a beseeching tone, coming around in front of the speaker, " how can you be so unlreasonable as to jump to such a conclusion?"
"Oh I I know he had something to dco with it," returned
Emily, obstinately; " so I just punished him by giving all the
flowers to Harrington.  I know it piqued him, and I'm glad
of it."
Muriel sighed, and then laughed, feeling painfully the littleness of this conduct, yet excusing Emily out of her sense of
the provocation of Witherlee.
"NV'imnporte, Emily dear," she said lightly, after a pause.
"It matters not. But I blame Fernando for it all. I am
not unjust to him, for I appreciate his power and talents, and
very often find him agreeable enough. But I do not like his
carping and cavilling and the envious spirit of him, and I cannot help thinking that he is untruthful, and given to mischiefmaking. What he said to you was really impudent-and, by
the way, it was quite matched by the impudence of his joining
us this morning, uninvited, and so coolly walking into the
house with us unasked. If I had not been amused at it, I
should have been indignant.  It was a cool proceeding, faith,
-positively arctic."
RS




130                  HARRINGTON.
Muriel paused to laugh delightedly at the drollery of the
recollection.
"However, let it all go," she continued.  "Only, Emily,
beware of being influenced by Fernando. That's good counsel. For my part, if I catch him at any of his tricks, we shall
quarrel outright. I believe I never quarrelled with anybody
in my life, and perhaps the experience may be refreshing.
But come-business before pleasure. What are you going to
do to-day? I must go on a tour-will you come with
me?"
" Where are you going?" asked Emily.
" First and foremost, I am on a Pardiggle excursion among
two or three families of my parish," replied Muriel.
Dickens' "Bleak House," was coming out in serials at that
period, and Muriel, with the rest of the town, was full of it,
and was particularly delighted with Mrs. Pardiggle, to whom
she jestingly likened herself when she made visits of charity.
" The Pardiggle path will first lead me to poor Mrs. Roux,"
continued Muriel. " Mrs. Roux, in Southac street, the. wife of
the colored man who was here the other day to white-wash
the studio. She had another child born a couple of months
ago-did I tell you?-and we must take care of the black
babies as well as the white ones, you know, and the black
mothers, too, as well as the white mothers, most gorgeous
honey-darling."
Emily smiled at the pet name Muriel bestowed upon her,
admiringly gazing meanwhile at the fair face, half arch, half
serious, which looked at her over the lace ruffle.
"Poor IRoux was very sick in March," continued Muriel,
"and has only got to work again recently-so as times are
hard with them, mother and I have taken them under our
wing."
"How did you find them out, Muriel?" asked Emily.
" Oh, through Harrington;" answered her friend. "Harrington is the general repository of the grievances and troubles
of everybody he falls in with, and when he can't help, he tells
us, and we help. We are a Pardiggle society. He is the
President, and mother and I are the Board of Directors."




HARRINGTON.                    131
"I have a mind to become a member," said Emily, smilingly.
"But where next?"
"Next," answered Muriel, "I am going to make a call on
the Tenehans. That's an Irish family in North Russell street.
Then there is Judith, the sempstress, for whom I have some
sewing.  Let's see-that's all to-day, I believe.  Then I'm
going to see Captain Greatheart."
"Who's that?" interrupted Emily.
" Mr. Parker, of course."
" Mr. Parker?  Pray what entitles a lawyer to that Bunyanesque ". -
"A lawyer I Bless me, Emily, where are your five wits!
It is the Mr. Parker I mean-Theodore Parker.  And is he
not a model Captain Greatheart?  T'e nineteenth century
Apollyon has reason to know him in that character, at all
events. So too have the poor Christians and Christianas, for
whom he is guarding shield and smiting sword."
Emily bowed her head in assenting abstraction.
" I'm going to see if he has in his library a book I want,"
continued Muriel.  " Then, perhaps, I'll go to the Athenaeum,
and refresh my art-sense-no I won't either, for I remember
Fernando said he would be there, and I can't enjoy pictures
with his everlasting cavilling in my ears."
" Fernando has exquisite tastes," said Emily, musingly.
"Fernando has exquisite distastes," returned Muriel, piquantly.  "Which I shall not enjoy this morning.  So instead
of the Athenoeum, I'll go to the Anti-Slavery Convention at
the Melodeon.  Uncle Lemuel was here last evening, you
know, talking up Union-saving and the Fugitive Slave Law,
and Mr. Webster, and all that sort of thing, and I shan't feel
right again till I hear the voices of the Good Old Cause from
the platform of the Garrisonians."
"Well, Muriel, you are the most astonishing Bostonienne I
know," said Emily, laughing.  "I should just like to analyze
your melange. Let's see now. In the first place, you defy
fashion, and insist on wearing dresses that show your shape,
when all the rest of us are swaddled in half a dozen starched




132                  HARRINGTON.
petticoats, and are pining in secret for the hoops of our grandmothers to come into vogue again. You"
"How  many have you on, honey-bird?  Come,''fess,' as
Topsy says," demanded Muriel, mischievously.
"I?  Oh, I'm moderate," returned Emily.  "I only wear
six."
Muriel put up her hands, orbed her mouth, and opened her
large eyes in mock horror.
"Goodness me!" said Emily, laughing and smoothing her
bounteous skirts, "Six is nothing.  Why everybody wears
seven. Eight and nine are not uncommon. And there's
Bertha Appleby wears twelve."
Muriel burst into low, silver laughter, in which she was
joined by her friend.
" To resume," continued Emily when the mirth had subsided, "you won't wear low-necked dresses at parties. You
don't waltz. You don't flirt. You don't care to be admired.
You don't run after the lions. You pay court to all the
taboo people, visit those who are voted out of good society,
ask them to visit you"
"And cry' a bas la Madame Grundy,'" put in Muriel, with
a free and frolic toss of her arm.
"Yes, and cry,'down with Mrs. Grundy,'" continued
Emily.  "Then you cultivate the most miscellaneous and outlandish set of characters-authors and actors, and actresses,
and reformers, and clergymen, and musicians and comeouters
and people respectable and disrespectable all meet here, higgledy-piggledy, in the most heterogeneous mixture-the most
chaotic "" 0 no, Emily dear, not chaotic," interposed Muriel, " not
chaotic but cosmic. I accept them all as Nature accepts them
all. Down with the walls! That's my principle.  No castes
-no factitious distinctions. Let fine people of all sorts come
together and learn to know each other. Democracy forever!"
" Yes, indeed —but doesn't good societty get horrified at your
doings I" laughingly exclaimed Emily  "Doesn't the whole




HARRINGTON.                   133
neighborhood hold up its hands at you? Why, your aristocratic acquaintance look at you with perfect horror."
"Well," rejoined Muriel, with nonchalant gaiety, " you
know what Mercutio says:'Their eyes were made to see and
let thenr look.'"
"And then your studies," ran on Emily.  "Perfectly omnivorous. French, German, Italian, Latin, music, drawing,
painting, moulding, science, poetry, history, oratory, philosophy, Shakspeare, Bacon, Dante, Plato, Goethe, Swedenborg."
"And Fourier," interpolated Muriel. " I've added him to
my list, you know, and Uncle Lemuel says I ought to blush to
own that I read him. The poor man thinks Fourier had hoofs
and horns and a harpoon tail."
"Yes, I know," rejoined Emily with a laugh.  "He says
such works loosen the foundations of society and are fatal to
the interests of morality," she added, mimicking Uncle Lemuel's
stock phrases, which he used in common with a great many
people of the highest respectability. " But to resume, Muriel:
there are your muscularities.  You skate, you swim, you
climb mountains, you ride horseback, you walk ten miles on a
stretch, you saddle or harness your horse like a stableman, you
catch up your horse's feet, and look at the shoes like a blacksmith, you dance, you row, you lift weights, you swing by your
hands, you walk on the parallel poles ""And fence," suggested the amused listener.  "Don't forget the fencing!"
"Yes, and fence with Wentworth and Harrington, besides
turning the studio up-stairs into a gymnasium. Then you go
on these tours, as you call them.  You have a regular
parish of negroes and Irish people, and all sorts of forlorn
characters, on whom you shower food, and clothes, and
books, and goodness knows what else.  And you go to
theatres, circuses, operas, lectures, picture-galleries, woman's
rights conventions, abolition meetings, political gatherings of
all sorts at Faneuil Hall, with the most delectable impartiality. Then you used to attend church at William Henry
Channing's, which our best society thought horrid."
" And now Theodore Parker's " ---




134:                  HARRINGTON.
"Yes, and now Theodore Parker's, which they think worse
still. And you have harbored fugitive slaves in your house,
and helped them off to Canada. And you swallow Garrison
and Parker Pillsbury ""And adore Wendell Phillips."
" Yes, and adore Wendell Phillips. And subscribe for the' Commonwealth' newspaper, which your uncle says ought to
be put down "" And the' Liberator.'"
" Yes, and subscribe for Garrison's'Liberator,' which is
your uncle's bete noire: In short, Muriel, I wonder how you
keep your popularity. I'm sure I couldn't do all that you do,
and have these cozy old citizens, these formal and fashionable mammas, these mutton-chop whiskered, English-mannered
gentlemen, and Beacon street belladonnas, so fond of me as
they are of you. But then, I suppose they don't know the
extent of your heresies."
" My dear Emily," returned Muriel, "please to remember
that you're from the rural districts. You live at Cambridge
half the year, and you've been off there in Chicago for the
last ten months, so you don't know how many Boston ladies
do all, or nearly all, that I do. I'm not half such an original as.
you imagine. But see here, bird of Paradise, time passes.
Are you going with me, or not? I'll go anywhere, or do anything you like, after the Pardiggle excursion is over. That
must be attended to, anyway."
Before Emily could reply, the door opened, and Mrs. Eastman came in. A beautiful, fair-complexioned,-gentle lady, of
middle age, with silver-grey hair falling in graceful tresses
beside her face. As beautiful in her waning day as Muriel in
her matin prime.
"Not gone yet, dear," she said, with a bright smile.
"Just going, mother."
"Well the carriage is below, and here is little Charles come
to say that Mrs. Roux is rather poorly. And he says, dear,
which I hope is not true, that some of those dreadful men are
in town."
Muriel's face grew grave, and she flew to the door.




HARRINGTON.                    135
"Charles!" she called.  " Come up-stairs, Charles."
"Yes, Miss Eas'man.  Comin' right up, Miss Eas'man,"
thirruped a shrill, smart voice, from below, followed by the
softened bounce of feet on the carpeted flight, coming up two
stairs at a time.
" What is it?" asked the wondering Emily.
"The kidnappers," returned Muriel.  " Come in, Charles."
A most astonishing fat negro boy entered, cap in hand,
ducking and bowing, with a scrape of his foot, and showing a
saucy row of splendid white teeth in the droll grin which
expanded his big mouth and nostrils; his great eyes meanwhile revolving rapidly around the library, and momently
vanishing in their whites with a facility curious to behold.
His face, surmounted by a mass of ashen-colored wool, parted
on one side into two great shocks, was exactly the shape of a
huge d'Angouleme pear, the great blobber cheeks making the
forehead, which was respectably large, seem small.  His complexion was a clean, warm, dark grey. He was not tall for his
age, which was about ten years, but he was broad. Breadth
was the characteristic of his figure.  His short arms were
broad; his short legs were broad; his body was broad; and he,broadened his face at present with a grin.  He had big feet,
clad in battered old shoes; and big hands, which just now
played with his cap. He wore a grey jacket thrown back
from his fat chest, which was covered with a blue and white
small-striped shirt; and his legs were incased in grey trowsers.
Grey, in fact, was the prevailing color of him all over. The
face was intelligent, and full of precocity, assurance, and
supreme self-importance, with what people call a little-oldman-look pervading it all, though this was only seen when he
was in his grave moods, and now was not visible.
"' What is it, Charles?" anxiously asked Muriel.
"Please, Miss Eas'man," he began, suddenly stopping his
grin, and looking preternaturally demure, with a portentous
roll of his saucer eyes, " please, Miss Eas'man, I jus' run up
here like a bob-tail nag for to say-to wit, that Brudder
Baby is fus' rate; so is Josey; so is Tom; so is I; so is father;
and mar isn't not nearly so well, an' she feels right bad




136                   HARRINGTON.
lest father should be took off, an' them kidnappers is in town,
an' we'll all be took off, jus' so sure's my name's Tugimutton,
Miss Eas'man-yes, Miss Eas'man, there aint no sort of a
chance for us anyway, jus' so sure as you're born."
Having delivered himself in shrill, fluent tones, to this effect,
the young imp grinned cheerfully, and stood rapidly twirling
his cap on his hand like a pin-wheel, and rolling his eyes at
the three ladies.  Muriel looked at him with a still face, but
Mrs. Eastman smiled, and Emily, who had seen him once before, laughed amusedly.
" What an odd creature he is," said the latter.  "To think
of his preferring to be called by that droll name? Don't you
like to be called Charles?" she asked, addressing the boy.
"Like it extrornerly, Miss Ames-never git done likin'
that name noways, Miss Ames," he asseverated, with great
earnestness.  " But you see, Miss Ames,'taint so familiar like
as Tugmutton. Father calls me Tugmutton, an' mar, an'
Josey, an' Tom, an' everbody, since I was knee-high to a
toad, Miss Ames.  Tugmutton's my Christian name, Miss
Ames, and Charles's my given name as Miss Eas'man give
me, Miss Ames."
" Look here, Charles," said Muriel, suddenly, " are you sure
the kidnappers are in town?"
" Dead sure, Miss Eas'man-jus' as sure as can be."
" How do you know?  Who told you?"
"Laws! Miss Eas'man! Why it's in the newspaper!"
blurted out the imp, rolling up the whites of his eyes at her
with a look of amazed reproach.
" O, no, Charles I It's not in the newspaper, for I've read
the papers this morning," said Muriel, smiling, and shaking her
finger at him..
Tugmutton looked demure for a second, then smiled sheepishly, furtively rolled his eyes one side at the wall, and fidgeted
on his feet, and with his cap and jacket.
" Laws, Miss Eas'man I it's goin' to be in the paper. Paper'11 be chock full of it to-morrow."
" O, I guess it's not true," said Muriel, slowly, with a relieved smile.'" It must be a false alarm, Charles."




HARRINGTON.                   137
"My gosh, Miss Eas'man, I don't believe there's one word
of truth in it," said Tugmutton, puckering out his great lips
with an air of precocious contempt, and whirling his cap on his
hand. " Never could make me believe one word of that story.
It's jus' nothin' but a weak invention of the enemy."
The phrase, which Tugmutton had picked up from somebody,
was so odd in his childish mouth, and so oddly expressed, that
Emily burst into a fit of laughter, and threw herself into a
chair, while both AMrs. Eastman and Muriel smiled. Tugmutton grinned delightedly at the effect'of his speech, and then
looked awfully demure and dignified.
" Anyhow," he continued, "all them foolish colored folks
are believin' that story. Them folks has jus' got no gumption,
anyway. Talkin' about that story in the street, now-millions of them."
"Are the colored people out in the street, Charles?" asked
Mrs. Eastman.
"In the street?  Laws, Missus Eas'man, Southac street's
full of'em," returned Tugmutton.
" There may be something in it, after all, mother," said
Muriel.  "I'll go."
" Bless me, Muriel, are you not afraid?" exclaimed Emily.
" Afraid! Not at all. What possible danger is there?
Besides, I want to see what's going on. Come, let's go."
Emily rose and followed Mluriel, who left the room for her
bonnet.
"Come, Charles," said Mrs. Eastman, moving to the door;
"come down-stairs, and I'll give you something to eat. Little
men like you are always ready for pie."
Tugmutton, with the prospect of pie in his delighted vision,
flashed into a huge grin, which displayed all his ivories, and
lit his blobber-grey face; and checking the impulse which
prompted him to execute a shuffling breakdown on the spot, he
dodged out at the door after Mrs. Eastman.




138                  HARRTNGTON.
CHAPTER VI.
AN EPISODE OF THE REIGN OF TERROR.
IN a few minutes the two young ladies, cloaked and
bonneted, came out into the sunlit street, where stood the carriage, which Patrick, the inside man, had brought up from
Niles's stables. Emily, characteristically indifferent to the
driver, swept in and took her seat. Muriel, on the contrary,
who was on friendly terms with everybody, courteously bent
her head to him as she passed. The driver took off his hat
to her, and stood waiting for orders.
"Wait a minute, please," said Muriel.
Presently, Patrick, a grey-haired, decorous old Irishman,
came out with a basket, covered with a white cloth, which he
deposited on the seat of the carriage.
"Bless me, what's that!" exclaimed Emily, laughing.
"Pardiggle tracts for the poor," said Muriel, jestingly.
"Patrick, tell Charles to hurry."
Patrick went in and soon returned with Tugmutton, who
jumped down the steps, and scrambled into the carriage.
Tugmutton's fat face was all agrin and shining like satin-wood.
The happy youth had devoured a whole pie, and was in a state
of supreme exhilaration. His repletion, however, did not prevent him from ogling the basket by his side, and he would
have. liked nothing better than to make his dessert on its contents.
Muriel gave the driver his directions, and the vehicle started
off down Temple and into Cambridge street to the corner of
Garden. They were turning up Garden street, when Tugmutton opened his great eyes, and said.
"Well now, I declare! If there ain't Mr. Harrington I"




HARRINGTON.                    139
Muriel leaned forward, and caught sight of the noble
soldier-figure of lHarrington striding up the street before
them.
" Hullo! Mr. Harrington! I say!" screeched Tugmutton.
Harrington turned, with the sun on the martial lines of
his face and beard. He caught sight of the inmates of the
carriage instantly, and signaling to the driver to stop, he came
down the street, to the side of the carriage.
" What is it, John?" asked Muriel.
" Nothing," he replied, smiling, and bending his head to
Emily. " It's a false alarm, I find. But these poor people
are very much excited, and I was going up to quiet them."
"Come in. We're going to Roux's," said Muriel.
Harrington entered, sat in Tugmutton's place, taking him
on his knee, and the carriage went on till it reached the corner
of Southac street, where it stopped.
" There's considerable of a crowd here," cried the driver.
They all looked out at the carriage window upon the squalid
neighborhood.  Only a Dickens or a Victor Hugo could fitly
describe the strange and picturesque scene which met their
eyes. Huddled together in excited groups, or moving hither
and thither in straggling masses, hundreds of colored men and
women, clad in every variety of costume, and lawless and unhuman in aspect, swarmed over the street with a loud, dense inarticulate confusion of voiced, the bright sunlight bringing out their
motley forms and bronze faces in grotesque and vivid salience.
So uncouth and various were the costumes-coats and hats of
extinct styles and patterns, frowsy and shabby raiment of every
fashion within the last half century, intermingling with the
many-colored gowns and head-dresses of the girls and women
-that but for the heavy-lipped, sombre faces, with their flashing teeth and wild-rolling eyes, and the menacing gestures and
threatening hum of the multitude, it might have seemed some
masquerading mob, arrayed in the garments of the old clothes
shops.  Protruding from every window in the dingy and dilapidated houses on either side of the street, bit clusters of heads,
mostly those of women and children, some with great shocks
of wool, some bullet-shaped and closely shorn, some wearing




140                  HARRINGTON.
white mob caps and red and yellow bandanna kerchiefs, were
bobbing restlessly over the excited multitude below. Up and
down cellar-ways, and in and out of numerous alleys and
yawning doors, uneasy shoals were constantly pouring, passing from or mingling with the mongrel and fantastic concourse
in the street, which continually moved in the sunlight with a
hoarse, turbulent, swarming undertone, like the far-off roar of
insurrection.
A deep flush came to the broad-nostrilled face of iarrington as he gazed.
"What a sight for Boston in the nineteenth century!" he
exclaimed. "Vaunting her civilization while terror invades
the refuge of her poor!"
Emily, deathly pale, leaned back in the carriage, and
shuddered.
At that moment, a portion of the crowd, seeing the carriage, set up a clamor of cries, and surged down toward it.
Two or three stones were thrown, which rattled on the pavement around the vehicle, and the horses began to plunge and
rear. Instantly Muriel flung open the carriage-door, and
springing into the street, calm and fearless, held up her hand.
Harrington quickly leaped out after her.
"Halloa, there!" he shouted, with a commanding voice,
which, like Muriel's gesture, fell like magic upon the thoughtless assailants. He was well known in the quarter, and the
negroes recognizing a friend, set up a cheer of welcome. Tugmutton meanwhile had pounced from the carriage upon the
boys that threw the stones, and assaulted them with a showei
of cuffs and kicks. He came back, presently, full of victory, his blobber cheeks puffed out with rage and self-importance.
"Them miser'ble young niggers haven't got no more gumption than just nothin' at all," he spluttered.  " Guess they'll
mind now, though. Gosh! I lit on'em like a duck on a June
bug. When I fall afoul of'em guess they think it's General
Washington and the spirit of seventy-six.  Miser'ble young
bloats I"
Harrington could not help smiling as he looked down on




HHARRINGTON.                   141
the fat imp, who was delivering himself in these figurative
#terms, with an indescribable swell and swagger. The horses
were still pawing and trembling, and Muriel went to their
heads, and stood with one gloved hand grasping the reins, and
the other patting and stroking the cheeks and noses of the
alarmed animals. The driver, who sat on his box, white as
a sheet, firmly holding the reins, looked down admiringly on
the fearless and graceful sunlit figure, and the negroes standing around, stared with delighted awe.
larrington, meanwhile, was at the carriage door, assuring
Emily, who protested that she was not afraid, as indeed she
was not, for she was naturally courageous.  Presently Muriel
came around to the carriage door, her face bright and
calm.
" Now," she said, " I will go on to Roux's. The carriage
had better stand here. Emily, will you come with us?"
"But you're not going through that crowd, Muriel!" exclaimed Emily.
"Why certainly," replied Muriel, laughing.  "I wouldn't
miss the chance for the world.  Goinig through that crowd
is part of my culture. Besides, dear, the crowd won't eat
us."
"I think I will stay here," returned Emily. "I am not
afraid, but this scene is terribly painful to me, and I could
hardly bear to go among the poor people. Do you think this
will drive some of them off to Canada, Muriel?"
"I fear so," replied Muriel, with a wistful glance at the
concourse.
Emily colored, and her eyes filled with tears.
"Let me give something for them, Muriel," she faltered,
taking out her porte-monnaie.  "You may know some of them
who want means, and if you do, give them this."
She held out a little roll of bills-fifty dollars. It was
money she had intended for shopping, and it was all she had
with her.
"But, dear Emily," said Muriel, looking at her with humid
eyes, "I do not know that I shall meet with any one who
will need it."




142                   HARRINGTON.
"No matter," replied Emily; "take it with you in case you
should. I wish I could help them all."
Muriel took the bills with a tender smile, and Harrington
caught the profuse hand, and looked fervently in the face of
the giver. At that look Emily cowered, for she thought it
the look of love she had wickedly evoked, and her soul quailed
in grief and shame. Muriel, too, misread the look, and her
spirit rose in generous feeling at the token of a lover's happiness in his beloved one.
" Ah, thou noble one!" she said, with playful sweetness.
"Thou rose of the rose-garden I Well, it shall be as you say.
Come, Charles; you can carry the basket. John, you will
stay here to keep Emily company."
Before Emily could reply, Muriel moved away, followed by
the triumphant Tugmutton with the basket on his arm. Presently she was passing through the parting concourse, bending
her head in acknowledgment of the bows, and curtseys, and
doffing of hats which saluted her. The negro in his lowest
estate is a gentleman in his courtesy, superior in this to
many a white of high and low degree. The weight of social
wrong had crushed out or bruised down many an excellence in
these humble people, but politeness was one which society
could not destroy in them. As Muriel went on through the
swarming hum, the clatter of voices would cease, the men and
women would step aside from the path, the hats would be
taken from the heads with a courteous recognition of her presence, which a snob might not have the wits to honor, but
which Philip Sidney's pulse would surely have quickened to
behold. Low Irish, in their place, would have stood stolidly and
gazed. Low English would have shambled aside with clownish
loutishness. Low Americans would have stared and leered,
and perhaps spat tobacco-juice on her skirts as she passed them.
The low negroes were civil as Frenchmen.
In the heart of the grotesque and motley throng, Muriel
came upon a black man whom she knew-an erect and stalwart figure, straight as an Indian, with a fine, masculine face,
and the full swart negrine features. He was standing in a
doorway in his shirtsleeves. Instantly bowing low, and taking




HARRINGTON.                     143
off his felt hat when he saw her, he came forward in courteous
posture as she stopped. Muriel smiled graciously, and gave
him her hand as freely and firmly as she would have given it
to.her most aristocratic friend. He took it reverentially,
yet without bashfulness, while all the black people around
stared.
" Have you heard the news, Mr. Brown?" she asked.
" Yes, madam," returned the negro, bowing low.  "It's
sad news, too, madam. As yet we don't know which of us
they're after, but I was just going down town to see the Vigilance Committee, and find out about it."
"I!am  happy to tell you that it's a false alarm," replied
Muriel, smiling.  " Mr. Harrington says so, so you can be at
ease. Won't you please to spread the ilews among your
people here, so that they may be relieved."
The news was spread already, for she had no sooner said it,
than it was taken up and passed from lip to lip with joyful
confusion. Presently it reached the depths of the crowd, and
instantly there was a straggling shout, followed by a surge of
the whole concourse toward the direction from whence the
information had proceeded.
"Stand back," roared the negro in a tremendous voice.
"There's a lady here. Don't crowd the lady."
Instantly the cry, " don't crowd the lady," was taklen up,
and the dense masses surged back, every man turning upon his
neighbor, and shouldering him away in officious zeal, till there
was a great bare space left around Muriel and her companion,
with a circular crowd around its border, and further behind in
the throng, negroes jumping up and down, to catch a sight of
"the lady."
Muriel laughed, and at once the negroes in front laughed,
and the laugh spread till it became a universal, jovial guffaw,
while some of the lighter spirits threw themselves into grotesque contortions, and capered and stamped up and down in
extravagant glee. Presently a conviction came to the crowd
that they were at an unnecessary distance, and at once there
was a forward movement of the whole mass to within a yard
of Muriel, every one nervously ready to turn again upon his




144                   HARRINGTON.
neighbor, and crowd him off, at the slightest hint that they
were too near, and some of them looking anxiously at Tugmutton, who, taking upon himself very important airs by virtue of
his attendance upon MAiss Eastmall, stood holding the basket,
with his blobber cheeks and big lips puffed out in ludicrous
dignity, as wondering at their impudence.
"I trust, Mr. Brown," continued Muriel, "that none of
the poor people will be frightened by this, into going to
Canada."
The negro looked sombrely into vacancy for a moment
before answering.  He was one of the influential men of the
quarter, and knew  pretty much all that went oni there.
Brave, faithful, generous himself, he added to his good
qualities that of keen sympathy for his people.
" I'm afeared, madam," he said, "that this aLffair will scare
off some of them. I advise every one to stay that can, and
fight it out. I don't go myself, and I wouldn't give two cents
for the chance of taking me, so long as I have this.1"
He opened his waistcoat as he spoke, showing  a huge
sheathed bowie-knife in a side-pocket of the garment.
"I carry this, madam, night and day," he continued.
" Whenever they want me, they'll find me ready. But there's
a lot of folks here that ain't up to my way, and the poor
cre'turs go. There's two boardin' with me nowr that have
about made up their minds to git away right off, and as
they're bent on it, I shall have to help them all I can, though
cash is rather low with me just now. Then I've been told
that old Pete Washington is goin', too, with his folks.
Pete's proper scared, and thinks he's sent for every time he
hears kidnappers are in town. I haven't heerd tell of no
more."
He said it with a kind of mechanical sadness, fumbling
slowly as he spoke with the handle of the knife under his
waistcoat, his eyes roving absently, meanwhile, over the gaping
faces of the motley crowd.
" Mr. Brown," said Muriel, "here are fifty dollars, which I
want you to divide at your discretion among those that need
means to get away. It is from a lady who is sitting down




IARRINGTON.                    145
there in my carriage. She wanted it given for this purpose.
If you need any more, come to my house at any time. And
if I can do anything, please to let me know, for I want to
help if I can."
lie took the money quietly, put his large black hand over
his mouth, and bowed low. Then throwing back his head and
shoulders, and extending his brawny arm with the bills in the
hand, he suddenly fronted the crowd.
" Ladies and gentlemen," he said, with a grandiose manner,
pouring his tremendous bass into the concourse, "a lady in the
carriage gives fifty dollars to help the brethren that are leaving us for Canada. The lady here has often helped us, and
will help again. In my humble opinion, they're both of'em
God's ladies, and "The great voice broke. Muriel, astonished by this unexpected outburst, was yet so overcome by the electric passion
of the negro's speech and manner, that she lost her self-possession, and knew not how to interpose.
"'Three cheers," screeched Tugmutton, at this juncture,
thinking that some cheering would be highly appropriate.
Three?  They cheered till they reeled! Roar on roar
went up in solid volume, till the sky seemed to swoon above
them. Muriel, disconcerted for once in her life, turned to
Brown, who stood grimly smiling, and begged him to quiet
them and get them to disperse. He put out his hand, and at
once the tumult immediately around them dropped, though
broken shouting still went on in the rear. Turning to the.
fat squab who had given the word for this ovation, and
played fugleman with cap and voice to it all, Muriel silently
beckoned him to follow, and hurriedly bowing and smiling
to the calm negro, went on.




146                  HARRINGTON.
CHAPTER VII.
ROUX.
SHE had not gone half a dozen paces, before some one c:ame
striding to her side. It was Harrington, and she instantly
put her arm in his, with a gesture so sudden and joyous, that
the young man thrilled.
" I am so glad you have come," she said.
Emily had insisted on his leaving her, and attending upon
Muriel, lHarrington remarked.
"But you are pale," he pursued, looking into her face,
which colored and smiled under his kind and searching eyes.
" And now you are not pale," he added, laughingly.
Muriel laughed silverly, and told the reason of her momentary agitation, which amused Harrington vastly.
Presently they reached the dingy alley in which Roux lived.
It was a corner house, inhabited by several families. A
flight of wooden steps led up to the second story, in which!Roax had two rooms.
Roux was a white-washer, window-cleaner, boot-black and
what not by occupation. He had come up from his little shop
in Water street, down in the heart of the city, at the rumor
which Tugmutton had brought him, that kidnappers were in
town; for he was a fugitive, and since the passage of the
Fugitive Slave Law he had never felt safe in Boston, where
he had previously passed nearly nine secure years.
He was sitting on an old chair, in an attitude of deep dejection, crooning to his babe, which he held in his arms, with his
other two children, a boy and girl, sitting on either knee.
The baby was a pretty little boy, with negrine features, clear
saffron skin, and glittering dark eyes. Josey, who sat on his
right knee, was a slender, bright-eyed, brown-skinned little girl,




HARRINGTON.                      147
six years old.  Tom, sitting on the other knee, was like his
sister, and four years of age.  They were both pretty children,
neatly dressed in clothes which Muriel and her mother had
provided for them.  Roux himself was a good-looking negro,
athletic in build, dark-complexioned, with short, woolly hair,
and heavy eyebrows.  He was attired in an old sack coat and
blue overalls, specked with white-wash, for he had come up to
the house in his working clothes.  The room in which he sat
had received a touch of his art, as the yellow-washed walls and
white-washed ceiling testified.  It was a poor, low-browed
apartment, but neat and clean, though pervaded by that
frowsy odor which one often scents in the dwellings of the
poor. The floor was bare. Three or four cheap colored prints
hung in veneered frames on the walls.  There was a trundle
bed in one corner for the children; a small cookin g-stove near
the fireboard, with an immense deal of gawky funnel zigzagging up to a hole in the wall near the ceiling; a small clock
ticking faintly on the mantelpiece, with some gaudy ornaments
near it; a table, and half a dozen old-faslhioned, second-hand
chairs. Behind the family group was an open door, giving a
view of another room, with a rag-carpet on the floor, a bureau,
and a bed, on which lay, in her clothes, a mulatto woman,
Roux's wife.
Roux ceased his crooning as the broad-limbed, blobbercheeked squab of a Tugmutton threw open the door, grinningl
from  ear to ear, and lumbered in with the basket, which he
deposited in the middle of the floor.
"You ain't goin' to be took back, father, this time," bawled
the cheerful youth.  "It's a false alarm.  Gosh! I knew it
wasn't nlothin' but a false alarmn.  There ain't no kidnappers in
Boston, an' never will be neither."
" Tugmutton, what's that?" demanded Roux, eyeing the
basket.
The imp drew up his chunky figure with severe dignity, and
rolled his saucer eyes and jerked his thumb over his shoulder.
At the same moment Muriel7s courtly face and figure appeared
at the door, with Harrington's countenance smiling over her
shoulder. The poor room was suddenly adorned by these fair,




148                  HARRINGTON.
strong presences, and its frowsy air was sweetened and softened
with delicate fragrance. Roux's children scrambled down at
once to run over to their smiling angel, who entered with affable and cordial grace, and stooped to fondle and kiss the little
ones, while Roux himself rose, with the baby on his left arm,
bowing confusedly, and smiling with considerable pompousness
of manner, as of one who thought himself highly honored.
"How are you to-day, Mr. Roux," said Harrington, coming over to the delighted negro, and shaking- hands with him.
"And how is your wife?  And this little one," he added,
putting his large hand on the head of the staring baby.
"All right, Mr. Harrington," returned Roux.  "Though
the madam's not as well as she might be, sir," he continued, in
a grandiloquent tone.  " She got a sort of a shock, Mr. Harrington, when this news come, and went right off into spasms.
Clarindy's awful scared lest some of these here days old master
should send for me, and I'm right skittish myself, sir, in view
of that catastrophe."
Another person might have smiled at Roux's half-anxious,
half-pompous tone, but Harrington looked at him with a kind
and concerned face, knowing how much real apprehension and
distress his words covered.
"I am extremely sorry that your wife should have been
alarmed," said the young man. "But it's true, as Charles
said, that this is a false report."
"Yes, Mr. Roux," added Muriel, coming forward from the
children, and giving him her hand, "it's nothing but an idle
rumor, so keep a good heart."
"Thank ye, Miss Eas'man, and I am extrornerly rejoiced at
the reception of this unlooked for intelligence," returned Roux,
bowing reverentially, while his manner grew more pompous,
and his language more grandiloquent.  " And the madam," he
continued, "will hear the glad tidings with great joy, likewise,
Miss Eas'man. I heerd the shoutin' and hoorawin' in the
street, though I wasn't able to spekilate with any certainty as
to its cause, an' with the chil'ren here, an' Clarindy a-lyin' on
the bed, feelin' ruther weak, I found it on the whole, inexpedient to go out and see what was a goin' on."




IARRITNGTON.                   149
He addressed the last sentence of this speech to Harrington.
Muriel had gone into the other room, and was leaning over
Mrs. Roux, speaking in a low, soothing voice, with her hands
on the sick woman's head. The children were prattling with
each other, and Tugmutton was standing apart, with his short
arms akimbo, the hands spread on his hips, and an expression
of ineffable scorn on his fat, grey face, which was turned toward
Roux.
"Now, father," said the squab, taking advantage of the
pause, " ain't you ashamed? My gosh! I'm goin' to blush
at ye, father."
"What's the matter, Tugmutton," asked Roux, with comical
deprecation.
"What's the matter?  That's a pretty question!" was the
reproachful reply.  "There you stand, and never ask Mr.
lHarrington to take a chair. That's the matter. Do you call
that doin' the honors of the establishment?"
Roux looked abashed, while Tugmutton, with his face
puffed out, and his eye sternly fixed upon the offending party,
brought forward a chair, dumped it down under Harrington's
coat-tails, and retreating a couple of paces, put his arms
akimbo again, still sternly regarding Roux.
The whole proceeding was so ineffably droll, that Harrington, sinking into the chair, with a hand on each knee, laughed
heartily, though quietly, with his eyes fixed on the fat pigmy.
Roux, who was very fond of Tugmutton, and submitted
meekly to all his odd humors, regarding him, indeed, with an
absurd mixture of puzzled curiosity and reverential awe, such
as the good-natured Welsh giant might have bestowed upon
Jack the Giant-killer, stood now, with the baby on his arm, uneasily eyeing his chunky mentor, and smiling confusedly. Nothing could be more amusing than the relation Tugmutton occupied toward him, and the rest of the family. They were all
under the domination of this small, fat chunk. Tugmutton's
grand assumption of importance, and his authoritative airs, conjoined with his genuine affection for them all, which took the
form of perpetual wardenship, had prevailed over the age and
experience of both Roux and his wife. He was so old-fashioned,




150                  HARRINGTON.
so queer, so mysterious and inconceivable a creature to them,
that they looked upon him almost as a superior being, and
petted and humored him in all possible ways.
" Just look at you, now," continued the irate fat boy. "Do
you call that thle way to hold a baby?  With his head hangin'
down, and every drop of blood in his body runnin' into it 
My gosh! that child'll never have one speck of hair, father,
an' water on the brain, beside."
Without feeling any apprehension of the capillary and hydrocephalous catastrophe thus ominously predicted as the inevitable consequence of his way of holding the baby, Roux
glanced at the little one, whose head was drooping back over
his arm, and whose fat, yellow fists were contentedly inserted
in its mouth, and then gently shifted the position of the child,
so as to rest its head on his shoulder.
" Just you give me that baby, father," blurted out the fat
boy, starting forward, and receiving in his short arms the infant which Roux readily abandoned to his charge.  "There's
nobody knows how to take care of this poor child but me,"
he indignantly continued, bearing off his burden, and sitting
down with it in a short chair near the wall. " Lord a mercy!
If it wasn't for me, I don't know what'd become of this family!
Chick-a-dee-dee-chick-a-dee-dee-honey-honey —pretty Brudder Baby," he chirruped, showing all his ivories in a jovial grin
to the infant, and dancing it up and down in his short arms.
" Tugmutton's great on takin' care of the chil'ren," remarked
Roux to the smiling Harrington. " There aint no better boy
than Tug nowhere, Mr. Harrington.  He helps Clarindy a
mighty deal, an' he's a reel comfort, I tell you."
"Why, yes, Mlr. Roux, so I see," smilingly returned the
young man.  "And he learns the lessons I give him, very
well. I shouldn't wonder if Charles came to be a great man
one of these days. He says he's going to be a lawyer like
Robert Morris."
Robert Morris was a colored man, who had fought his way
up against the prejudice of the many, and with the aid of a
few, to an honorable position, which he then held, at the Boston Bar.




HARRING'TON.                 151
"Tell you what, MIr. Harrington," said the proud Tugmutton, "Danel Webster won't be nowhllere when I come on
the scene of action. I'll matke him stand round. Fugitive
Slave Law's bound to go then, an' all the kidnappers'11 be
hung right up."
At that moment steps were heard, and Emily appeared at
the door, coloring with the novelty of her situation, and followed by a short, thick-set man, in a straw hat, with his head
bent sideways.
" Why, Emily!" exclaimed Hlarrington, starting up. "And
with the Captain! MBiss Ames, Mr. Roux.  Captain Fisher
you know."
The superb beauty curtseyed low, with a sweeping rustle of
silks, and Roux, fluttering at heart in the presence of the aristocratic lady, bent himself as if he had a hinge in his back.
lHarrington handed Emily a chair, into which she sank, smiling
and nodding to the enchanted Tugmutton, and Muriel came
floating out from the inner room with her natural urbane
curtsey.
"Why, Emily!" she exclaimed, shutting the door behind
her. " You too. Good morning, Captain Fisher.
"It's my doin's, Miss Eastman," said the Captain, in a
cheery voice, looking at Muriel with his head on one side, and
his hat on, as he shook hands with her. " Comin' along, I
see Miss Ames in the hack, and she said you was here; so
I said, why not go too, and she took my extinded arm, and
up we come together."
He held Muriel's hand as he made this explanation, and
dropping it when he had concluded, stood looking intently
at her, as though some reply was expected.  He was a
short man, with a round face, yellow and rosy, like a winter
pippin; round, dark eyes, which never winked; a short nose,
shaped like a beak; and he had a way of bending his head
sideways, and looking at you like some odd bird. There was
a general aspect of the sea-faring man about him, and he had
been for many years the skipper of coasting vessels, in which
occupation he had amassed some property. He now lived in
the same house with Harrington, for whom he had a great




152                  HARRINGTON.
affection, and did a little business in collecting rents for a
number of house-owners.
"I just came up to let the folks here know," he continued,
"that there's no sneakin' soul-drivers come to Boston this time.
I was told there was some of a crowd here, but they're all
scattered now, and I met Brown, who said he'd been informed'twas a false alarm. No danger, I hope. The Vigilance Committee keep a sharp look-out ahead, and we're pretty sure to
know what's goin' on."
In those dark days, when Boston had gone for kidnapping,
there was an organization, composed of the leading Abolitionists, with a few anti-slavery people, young and old, who made
it their business to keep a watch for Southern man-hunters, to
warn fugitives of their danger, to assist them in their flight
with money and arms, and in every practicable way to baffle
the kidnappers. This was known as the Vigilance Committee,
and its existence and efforts were among the few bright rays
which lit the dark insanity of Boston at that period. Captain
Fisher was a member of it, as was Harrington.
"I got here before you, Eldad," said IHarrington, smiling.
" Charles came to the house with the rumor, and I ran down
town at once, and found there was no truth in it."
" Trust you for bein' on hand, John," returned the Captain.
" You're spry as a t6pman. When Gabriel toots that horn of
his, you'll be the first one up out o' your grave."
The Captain wandered over to Roux, and laying his hands
on the negro's shoulders looked at him steadily with his head
curved sideways, then shook him gently to and fro, then got
round to one side of him and took another look, and then
punched him with his forefinger in the ribs.
" Roux, how are you?" he chirruped in conclusion, as the
negro squirmed away from the fore-finger, good-naturedly
smiling.
"Firs'-rate, Captain," answered Roux.  "Got scared
though at that story."
The Captain stood oblivious of his answer, looking at Tugmutton who, swollen with pride, was exhibiting the baby to
Emily. Roux became absorbed in admiring awe at Tugmut



IHARRINGTON.                   153
ton's complacent familiarity with MIiss Ames. Tugmilutton was
in one of his lordliest moods, proud of his exclusive aristocratic
acquaintance, and conscious that Roux and the two children,
who stood timidly at a distance, were following him with reverent eyes.
"It's a very pretty baby," said Emily graciously, turning to
IRoux, who hastened to smile and bow.  "But, Mr. Roux,
these three children do not resemble Charles at all."
"Different style of beauty," remarked Tugnmutton, with preternatural gravity, rolling his great eyes up at Emily.
Emily laughed aloud a t this oracular suggestion, and Harrington and Muriel looked at each other and smiled, while
the Captain fixedly surveyed the squab with mute admiration.
" You know, dear," said Muriel to Emily, " or rather you
do not know, that Charles is only an adopted child of IMr. and
Mrs. ctoux."
" Oh!" returned Emily, suddenly enlightened, "that accounts for the different style of beauty."
"Yes, madam," said  Roux  elaborately  bowing, "that
accounts for it."
Emily smiled at the simplicity of the reply.
"And how did it happen that he got the name of Tugmutton, Mr. Roux?" she inquired.
"Well, Mladam," replied Roux, quite seriously, "it was a
sort of accidental.  When I firs' got to Boston, Tug's father
and mother treated me right handsome. I was ruther bad
off, an' they took me in till I got somethin' to do. They was
very fat folks, botlh of'em, an' Tug was an uncommon fat
baby. Somehow his father and mother never could fix on a
name for him, so lie groweil along without none. Bimeby
when he was three year old, his father died, and bimeby when
he was five, his mother died likewise. I was married to Clarindcly when that catastrophe hlappened, so feelin' right grateful
to Ezek'el and Sally Pitts-that was Trug's father and mother's
name, madam-I took Tug in.  That day we had a chunk of
baked mutton, wich you couldn't bite, madam, it was so tough,
an' after dinner we missed Tug' all on a sudden.  We got




154:                  HARRINGTON.
ruther skeered at not findin' him, an' went lookin' round the
streets, but couldn't git no news of Llim.  Long toward evenin' we heerd a stir under the bed, an' lookin' under, there he
was tuggin' away at that chunk of mutton, and there he'd hid
himself all the afternoon.  I'm  a miser'ble orphan, says he,
the minute we sot eyes on him, never leavin' off tuggin' at the
meat. You're a young Tugmutton, an' that's what you are,
says Clarindy.  Then we larfed, and so after that we got to
callin' him Tugmutton, an' he took to that name astonishin'
That's the way of it, madam."
Muriel and Harrington, who had heard this story before,
listened to it now smiling, while Emily and the Captain, vastly
amused during its repetition, laughed heartily as Roux ended.
Tugmutton, meanwhile, sitting in the low chair with the baby,
grinned sheepishly at the revival of this reminiscence of his
miserable orphanage.
"Are you-that is, did you-escape from  the South,
MPr. Roux?" inquired Emily, hesitatingly, after a pause.
" Yes, madam, I did," replied RPoux with anpther elaborate
bow.  "It wouldn't be well, madam, to have it mentioned
roundabout, lest ""0 never fear, Mr. Roux," she rejoined hurriedly.  "I
wouldn't speak of it for the world."
" In fact, madam, I believe I never told any one about it,"
continued Roux, falteringly, " with the especial exception of
Mr. llarrington and Miss Eastman.  But I did git away
from the southern country, way down in Louzeana, nine years
ago. And I've got a brother still there, madam, leastways if
he's alive, wich is not certain, seein' that he was with an
uncommon bad master, madam —in fact, one of the worst sort
of masters, madam."
" Why didn't he run away with you, Mr. Roux?"' inquired
Emily.
"He was ruther seared at the resks, madam  replied Roux,
"Says I, Ant'ny-his name was Ant'ny, madam —Ant'ny,
says I, iM~aster Lafitte-Lafitte was old  Master's name,
madam-Master Lafitte'il be the death of us, Ant'ny.  We'd
better try to git away to that Boston we've heerd tell of.




HARRINGTON.                   155
Ant'ny, says I, I've got three pounds of kian, Ant'ny,
says I "" Of what?" asked Emily.
" Of kian, madam-kian pepper, you know."
" 0, yes. Cayenne pepper."
" Yes, madam. Wich we can leave on the track, Ant'ny,
says I, and that'll throw off the hounds, I'm a thinkin'."
" The hounds!" ejaculated Emily, knitting her brow with
horror, and looking at the still face of Muriel and then at
Harrington.
" Certainly," said the latter, tranquilly.  "In this free and
happy country, they hunt men and women with hounds.
When hounds fail, they try Fugitive Slave Law  Commissioners."
" And were you hunted, Mr. Roux?" asked Emily, shuddering.
"Yes, madam," replied the negro, naively.  " Ant'ny was
afeared to try it, and then I thought I wouldn't nuther, for
he was my brother, and we'd been brought up together on old
Madam Roux's estate in ANew Orleans, and I was very fond
of Ant'ny, madam. But next day, you see, madam, I was
feelin' ruther sick, and fell short in the pickin'-cotton-pickin',
you know. So when night come, Master Lafitte he flogged
me awful, and then hung me up in the gin-house-hung me up
by the wrists, an' left me to hang overnight."
Roux, hearing Captain Fisher muttering, paused. The
Captain, with his head very much on one side, was swearing
awfully in a low undertone at slavery and slaveholders in
general. He usually contented himself with such mild oaths
as " by the great horn spoon "-as people who leave off chewing tobacco supply its place with spruce gum.  But as the
spruce-gum chewers sometimes backslide into tobacco again, so
the Captain, when he got excited, which was seldom, would
backslide from  his mild profanity into  such swearing as
sailors, who swear with genius, know how to express the passion of their souls withal.
"Bimeby, madam," resumed Roux, still addressing Emily,
who sat looking at him with a flush of fiery indignation on her




156                   HARRINGTON.
beautiful countenance, "I sloshed about, an' the rope broke
an' let me down. I jus' got out of that gin-house mighty
quick, I tell you. Then I went down a piece to the hollow
stump, where I'd hid the kian an' a carvin' knife, which I'd
took one day from the kitchen. I got the kian an' the knife,
an' put off hot foot for the north. Jus' about sunrise, I heerd
Dan Belcher's hounds a-comin' after me-two of'em, yellin'
awful. I was proper skeered, madam, but I jus' made a hole
in the paper of kian, an' run on, holdin' the paper low down
on the trail, so's to let the kian drop out along, you know.
Then when the kian was all gone, I got skeered, an' I run on a
piece, an' shinned up a live-oak'way into the thick of the
leaves, an' lay still.'Fore lonfg, I see the hounds comin', an'
Dan Belcher an' old Toler an' Master Lafitte ridin' after'em.
I got so skeered I like to dropped, but I lay hush, an' right
soon I saw the dog's run up, an' poke their noses into the
kian. Ki-yi-yah," cachinnated Roux, overcome with the reminiscence, "you ought to have seen them dogs, madam. They
jus' acted as if they'd got religion! They flopped down an'
rolled over, yellin' like mad, an' rubbin' their noses into the
kian, an' rollin' agin, an' hollerin'-hi N! ever saw nothin'
out of camp-meetin' act like them cre'turs.'Fore long up
come old Master an' Dan Belcher an' Toler, an' looked at
them  dogs. I couldn't hear a word they was sayin', but I
spekilated they was wonderin' what had got into them dogs.
Then Dan Belcher, he got down, an' dragged off the hounds,
an' poked his nose into the kian. Hi! I reckon he got a
smell, for he jumped up rubbin' his nose, an' stampin' round
awful."
Tugmutton, with the baby in his arms, burst into a screech
of eldritch laughter, kicking up his feet from the low chair in
which he sat, in phrenetic glee. All the others were silent,
with faces intent on [Roux.
"Bimeby," resumed the negro, " Dan Belcher he laid a hold
of the dogs, an' dragged them on a piece to find the trail with
no kian on it.'Twasn't no use, for the dogs didn't do nothin'
but snuff an' yell an' roll over. So'n about a half an hour,
I reckon, they all went back, an' I lay hush in the tree all




HARRINGTON.                   157
day. Along towards evenin' I got down, an' run on agin.
Bimeby I come plump on a man.' Where's your pass?' says
he.'Here it is,' says I, givin' him a dig with the carvin'knife.' Ugh,' says he" -
Everybody burst into a peal of laughter at the nonchalant,
matter-of-fact simplicity with which Roux said this.  Roux
himself was rather amazed at the interruption, and stood,
faintly smiling, with his whitewash-stained dark hand fimbling
over his mouth, and his eyes uneasily roving over the laughing
company.
"Well done, Roux," said IIarrington, jumping up, and
slapping the negro on the shoulder.  "'Ense petit placidam
sub libertate quietem,'" he continued, quoting the legend of
the Massachusetts State-arms.  "And you sought the tranquil rest of freedom with a carving-knife."
"Yes, quietem was the word, and you did quiet him,"
chuckled the Captain, punning upon the Latin.  "Sic semper
tyrannis, is another bit of that lingo, an' I guess old tyrannis
was rather sick when he got a touch of Roux's carving-knife.
By the great horn-spoon, that's the richest thing I've heard
lately!"
"But what did the man do then, Mr. Roux?" asked
Emily.,"Ugh, says he, madam, and then he doubled himself up,
an' I run on," replied Roux, simply.  "Bimeby I come to the
Red River, and I swum over. Then I run on agin, till I come
to the Mississip, an' hid in a wood-pile.  Long toward
mornin' a flat boat came up the river, and hitched. Then I
heerd the Captin say, says he, argufying with another man,
and gittin' mad with him, I'm Ohio, says he, and my men
are Ohio, an' we don't care a damn for slavery, says he.
Tother man went off, an' I run out, an' says, Captin, says I,
I've run for my freedom, an' won't you take me with you, I
says. Step right aboard, says he, an' I'm damned if I don't
wish I'd a load more like you, says he."
"Bravo," cried Muriel, clapping her hands.  " Good for
Ohio I"
"H-Iooraw for Ohio!" piped Tugmutton, bouncing up, and




158                   IARRTNGTON.
flourishing the baby.  "Chick-a-dee-dee, Brudder Baby, pretty
little birdy," he added, with a sudden change of key, wagging
his bushy head and grinning blobber cheeks over the complacent infant.  "Send him right down to Ohio.  Kidnapper
come to fetch Brudder Baby, won't have no more chance than
a bob-tail horse in fly-time when he gits to Ohio."
Alas I poor Tugmutton!-the dark days could come even
to Ohio! Broad and strong and generous the hearts of Ohio,
mighty in noble impulse, mighty in love and bravery, mighty
in truth to liberty and tenderness to man. But the rampart
of Ohio hearts prevailed not in the black hour when Margaret
Garner, with the hell-dog statute and the hunters upon her,
sublimely slew her children to save from slavery the souls Ohio
could not save.
" And so you escaped, Mr. Roux," said Emily.
" Yes, madam," returned Roux, " the captain took me all the
way up to Cincinnati.  Where are ye goin' now, William, says
he. Boston, says I. Men, says he, let's give him an Ohio
lift. Wich meant takin' up a collection, madam," explained
Roux, bowing.  "An' the collection was fifteen dollars and
thirty-three cents, madam, together with a suit of the captain's clothes, an' some vittles in a paper bag.  Captain, says
I, my gratefulness will never fail. William, says he, just hold,
on to that carving-knife, an' don't let yourself be taken.
Captain, says I, if I ever git to heaven, I'll make the Lord
acquainted with all you've done for me. William, says he,
don't you never acquaint anybody but the Lord with it, or
I'm a gone coon. An' now make tracks, says he. So I made
tracks, an' come on safe to Boston."
"Well, I declare I" exclaimed Emily, drawing a long
breath, and looking around her.  "It makes my blood boil to
think that men are treated so in this country. And you never
heard from your brother, Mr. Roux?"
" Never, madam. But I don't think he's alive.  I'm afeared
that Master Lafitte would kill him to be revenged on me, and
that makes me feel, sometimes, as if I'd murdered my own
brother."
He said this in low, ghostly tones, with a sudden agony and




HARRTNGTON.                    159
horror convulsing his dark face. It is impossible to describe
the shock of awful emotion which his words gave to Emily.
There was a moment of solemn silence, in which Roun stood
faintly gasping, with his swart visage ashen and distorted with
overmastering anguish, and she, gazing on him with a blanched
countenance, felt as if her very soul would die with pity.
"Couldn't he be bought?" she timidly stammered, at length,
half feeling that she was proposing an absurdity.  "That isI mean if he is-if he has not-died."
Roux despairingly shook his head.
"If I had the money, madam," he hoarsely faltered, "I'd
try to buy him. But that'll never be-never."
" I'll engage to furnish the money," said Emily, vehemently,
the generous color flooding her face like fire.  "I will," she
added, stamping her foot as she sat.  "If it costs me two
thousand dollars, or twice two thousand, it shall be done."
A dead silence ensued, in which she gazed at their mute
faces.  It was the brave New England scholar who did sweet
service to liberty when the guns of tyranny stormed on Rome
-it was Margaret Fuller who once gave away all her little
property, five hundred dollars, to a poor exile, a stranger to
her, whose distresses had touched her heart. Born of such an
impulse, and kindred to that splendid generosity, was this act
of Emily's.
" Why do you all look so?" she continued.  " I mean what
I say."
Harrington and Muriel, to whom she lifted her flushed face,
were standing near each other, Muriel's face still, solemn, and
turned toward the window, Harrington's noble countenance
rigid, and bent upon the floor. The Captain stood looking at
Emily with his head bent on one side, and his features all
atwist.  As for Roux, his black visage was wildly lighted with
hope, joy, awe, and startled amazement, while Tuginutton sat
in the low chair, with the baby in his arms, his mouth open,
his huge eyes staring, and the big shocks of wool on his head
seeming bigger than ever in his astonishment.
" It shall be done, I say," declared Emily.  "Harrington, I
depend on you to show me the way."




160                   HARRINGTON.
Harrington looked blank-like one who did not know how
to answer her; then furtively glanced at Roux, and then at
the fioor.
" You are the soul of generosity, Miss Ames," he said, after
a pause, smiling constrainedly.  "I should be happy to help
you.  We will see what can be done."
Roux clasped his hands and bowed his head. In that instant,
Harrington flashed a lightning glance at Emily, so stern, so
menacing, so agonized in its look of warning and entreaty, that
Emily was confounded.  The next second, Roux's face was
raised, and Harrington's wore an expression of such bland indifference, that Emily could hardly believe she had seen the other.
"We will speak of this another time," said Harrington.
" At present, I think I must go. Shall I see you to the carriage, ladies, or do you remain longer?"
Roux threw himself on his knees, and bending, grovelled at
Emily's feet. Then raising his black face, convulsed, and
streaming with tears, he faltered out the broken words of his
gratitude.
"I'll pray for ye, forever and ever, Miss Ames," he said.
"I'll pray to the Lord for ye, Miss Ames. And the blessing
of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, be on
ye, Miss Ames. I've had a good deal of kindness, but there's
never been no kindness like yours, Miss Ames, an' I don't want
ye to give away all that money, madam, for it's a mighty deal
of money, though it's for my brother, Miss Ames, and I'd clean
give my life to see my poor brother, madam. And oh, if
Master Lafitte will only sell him, if he's alive, madam, I'll
pray for him too, and for everybody, forever and ever, amen,
an' for you more especial than anybody, for there never was
such kindness as yours to a poor, miser'ble, forsaken black man
-no, never, never."
Uncouth words poured forth rapidly in a weak, broken
voice, with sobs and tears; but words that blanched the gold
and roses of the face that bent with swimming eyes over the
bowed and weeping figure on the floor. In the cold, succeed.
ing silence, there was no sound but the dim sobs of Roux.
The Captain stood with his features screwed into a hard rigor,




HARRtINGTON.                   161
gazing at the abject form beneath him.  Harrington's face was
waln and rigid, and fixed on vacancy. The two little ones,
frightened and almost crying', clung around the stupefied and
staring Tugmnumtton, who sat holding the baby, with the big
whites of his eyes glaring at Roux from the ashy pallor of his
fat visage.
" Mr. ROoux."
At the gentle, silver tones of Muriel, at the firm touch of
her hand on his shoulder, the negro lifted up his bowed head
from his breast, aid gazed with a haggard, beseeching face,
all wet with tears, at the benignant countenance that bent
above him. For an instant only, and then rising to his feet,
ashamed of his emotion, yet unable to repress it wholly, the
poor fellow stood awkwardly wiping away his tears with his
rough sleeve, with his breast heaving, and the stertorous sobs
still breaking from him.
" It will all be well," said Muriel, gently.  " Do not grieve,
Mr. Roux."
" Yes, Miss Eas'man, I wont; indeed I wont grieve.  But
sometimes I git desperate, Miss Eas'man," he faltered. "'Pears
sometimes as if everybody was against us colored folks, Miss
Eas'man."
" Cheer up, Roux, we are all your friends here."
It was the strong, sweet baritone of Harrington that
sounded now.  Roux looked up, smiling mournfully, into the
masculine, calm features, which strangely comforted him.
" Yes, Roux, cheer up's the word.'Tan't always goin' to
be slavery and slaveholders in this free and happy country,
mind that, my man."
Thus the Captain, shaking a fore-finger at the negro, and
then cheerfully punching him in the ribs with it.
"An' if I catch any kidnappers round this establishment,
I'll heave a brick at him," screeched Tugmutton, in a rage,
glaring with rolling eyes at everybody over the baby.
Emily, who had risen, and stood wiping her eyes with a
cambric handkerchief, burst into laughter, in which Muriel
and Hlarrington joined. Tugmutton looked awfully irate for
an instant, and then grinned sheepishly.




162                  HARRINGTON.
"Come, come," said Muriel, "we must be going. Where's
the basket?  Oh, there it is on the floor. Mlr. Roux," she
continued, stooping down to it, and unpacking, " I won't go in
again to your wife —by the way, I hope our talk has not disturbed her —but here are some baby-clothes which I wore
myself when I was a baby-old things which I found yesterday, but they'll do for the little boy. And here's some nice
beef and a pie, which my mother had cooked expressly for
your dinner to-day. And here's my copy of'Uncle Tom's
Cabin,' which you told me you hadn't read. When you and
your wife are done with it, Tugmutton, as you call him, can
bring it up to the house, with the plates and napkins."
The famous Uncle Tom had recently issued from the Boston
press, and begun its illustrious journey through Christendom.
Muriel handed the two volumes to Roux, who took them
timidly, with a low bow, immensely gratified. The napkined
meat and pie, she had already laid on the table, with the
package of baby-clothes.
" And that's all," said Muriel, arranging the remaining
contents of the basket under the fond eyes of Harrington.
" The other things are for our Irish cousins in North Russell
Street. You, John, shall carry the basket out to the carriage.
Now let's go."
" Miss Eas'man," said Roux, " I'm so much obliged " —
" Never mind, Mr. Roux," interrupted Muriel, smiling gaily,
"I see all that. Good bye."
She stooped to kiss the children, then with a curtsey,
glided from the room. Roux, timidly rubbing his hands one
within another, bowed after her, almost servile in his reverence.
Tugmutton, severely dignified, and swelling like the frog that
tried to be an ox, with the proud consciousness that something great had been done, and that it was all due to him,
stood in the centre of the floor, with the baby clasped against
his shoulder, and serenely waved his big paw in token of his
distinguished consideration. Emily smiled at him, and bowing to Roux, swept with a rich rustle of silk after Muriel,
followed by Harrington with the basket. The Captain lingered to bounce up Tom and Josey once apiece to the ceiling,




HARRfNGTON.                    163
and to poke Roux in the ribs with an anti-slavery forefinger,
and then, shaking his fist at the grinning Tugmutton, departed
also.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE SHADOW OF THE HUNTER.
MURIEL and Emily were sitting on the back seat of the carriage as the Captain came down Roux's steps, nodding as he
passed, and went down the street alone.
"Driver, North Russell street, and walk the horses," said
Harrington, leaping in on the front seat, beside He basket.
The carriage immediately set off as directed, and Harrington, leaning forward, took Emily's gloved hands in his, and
looked fervently into her beautiful face.  Emily did not turn
away this time, but forgetting that she that she thought him her lover,
in her perception of an expression which recalled the look he
had flashed at her in the room a few moments before, gazed
anxiously with a vague tremor into his countenance, in which
the winged nostrils were lifting.
"What is it, Harrington?" she faltered; " I'm afraid I have
done something wrong, though"
"No, dear Emily," interrupted Harrington; " nothing wrong
Only unfortunate. You spoke from impulse; but it would
have been better not to have said what you did before
Roux."
" I understand," she replied, hurriedly. " I have raised hopes
which may never be gratified. Heaven forgive me! O how
thoughtless it was!"
Muriel put one arm around her, and looked into her face,
with tender sympathy.
"You will think me ostentatious," faltered Emily, tears
wetting her long lashes; "but, Harrington, it is not so. The
pocr man's distress touched me so keenly, that I could not
forbear saying what I did."




164                   HAMRRINGTON.
" No, Emily," warmly returned Harrington, " you mistake.
I do not think your offer was made in ostentation. Don't
think me insensible to the splendid generosity that would give
so large a sum to bring joy to the home of a poor, despised
negro, and he a stranger to you. It is not a common heart
that could enter into the depths of his sorrow, and so promptly
seek to relieve it. But, listen, Emiily. Muriel and I have a
secret to tell you."
He released her hands to take a wallet from his breastpocket, from which he drew a letter.
" God knows," he resumed sadly, "it is at best a noble folly
to give away wealth, as you would do, to ransom one man
from that dismal pit of slavery when nearly four millions with
as strong a claim on our hearts must be left behind. And yet
these individual cases come to us so like special claims, that we
cannot deny them.  See now-in this noble folly there was
another heart before you. Yes, Emily, Muriel, too, was
touched to the ransom of Roux's brother."
" Muriel!" exclaimed Emily.
"We said nothing to Roux," continued lHarrington, "for
the result was doubtful. And we had to proceed with caution
lest this Lafitte should seek to capture him. I wrote a letter,
which I had mailed from  Philadelphia.  Here is the fiend's
answer, received two months ago. Don't read it unless you
have strong nerves."
Emily eagerly snatched the letter from llarrington, and
looked at the envelope. It was postmarked from Marksville,
Louisiana, and directed to John Harrington, Esquire, care of
Joseph House, Esquire, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
" Jo House is a young literary friend of mine-an editor,"
observed Harrington. " I explained the matter to him, telling
the reason for secrecy, and got him to mail the letter for me,
and transmit the answer. And by the way," he continued,
"to give you an idea of the risk of dealing with such a man as
Lafitte, let me tell you that since this letter was received,
Lafitte has been up to Philadelphia, and called on Jo for my
address, desiring, he said, to enter into negotiation witheme
for the sale of Antony."




ARRRINGTON.                      165
" Good Heavens!" exclaimed Emily, with sudden alarm, "I
hope your friend did not tell him where you were."
Harrington laughed.
"Not a bit of it," he replied.  "What do you think Jo
told him?  He told him  with the utmost gravity that I resided in London.  And when Lafitte looked incredulous, the
jolly young Bohemian produced a London Directory he happened to have, and showed him my name amonog the Harringtons, offering to copy the address for him."
Emily laughed delightedly.' That was a brilliant fib, I declare," said she.  "What
did Lafitte say?"
" Jo wrote me that he looked as blank as a board, declined
the offer, and went away. I can imagine that Jo's perfect
soberness-for he's an awfully solemn-looking fellow-together
with the circumstance of the London Directory being in his
possession, convinced Lafitte of the truth of the statement,
and I'll be bound he thinks Roux is on the other side of the
Atlantic with my namesake."
Harrington laughed, but his laugh ended in a deep and
weary sigh. Emily took the letter from the envelope, opened
it, and began to read, while Muriel looked with sad tranquillity out at the carriage windows. The letter, read slowly in
the swaying carriage, ran thus:
LAFITTE PLANTATION,
Parish of Avoyelles, Louisicana.
JOHN HARRINGTON, Esquire:
MY DEAR SIR: Your letter (appropriately dated the 7th of
March-a souvenir of dear Mr. Webster-bless him! I can't think of
that great speech without emotion-it was so noble) came to hand. In
reply I beg to say that the dear Antony is alive and well, and, vicariously, sends his love and this little bunch of his wool to his beloved
brother, whom you do not mention, but who is undoubtedly under
your wing. So penetrated was the dear boy with a refluent sense of
his brother's beastly ingratitude in leaving me, his affectionate master,
that he was really unwilling to part with the wool, which I finally tore
with loving violence from his black pate, and send in his behalf to your
charge for the wicked William. As for Antony, the dear boy loves me
so much that no money could persuade him to leave me, and for mv




166                      HA RRTONGTON.
part, I am so fond of him, that millions would not induce me to part
with him. Thus, my dear sir, you will perceive that Antony is not for
sale at any price.
I may add that dear Antony is a devout believer in the doctrine of
vicarious atonement, and was so overcome with a new conviction of
his brother's wickedness in leaving me, that he insisted on being trussed
ulp and receiving fifty lashes, which I administered with my own hand,
ot' course with tears in my eyes. I am sure that if the depraved William could have heard dear Antony's howls, he would have been
stricken to the heart with a sense of his own unworthiness, and of the
grandeur of this atoning love. To be frank with you, I am concerned
lest Antony should carry his vicarious notions to the extent of demanding to be crucified for William's sins. In which case, I should feel
compelled to oblige him. It would be difficult to carry out this sublime
design; but, at a pinch, I could send away my overseer, and ride with
Antony into the swamp, where we could readily extemporize a Calvary.
Give my love to Mr. Joseph House, w]ho does your Philadelphia mailing, and believe me, dear sir,
Affectionately yours,
TORWOOD LAFITTE.
M'a&rch 15th, 1852.
Emily turned white as marble over this insolent and horrible epistle, and, with her lips colorless, looked at Harrington,
who took the letter from her hand.
"Charles Sumner has been in the Senate for six months,
silent," remarked Harrington.  "I have a mind to send him
this letter."
"Now, John," said Muriel, smiling, "I won't tolerate any
reflections on my neighbor. Every time I pass his house in
Temple street, I think that he has not gone to Washington for
nothing. Wait a little, and you shall hear the leap of the
live thunder. In the meantime, as the knight Durindarte said
to the weeping queen Belerma,'patience, and shuffle the
cards.'"
"You are right, Muriel," returned Harrington, with a faint
smile, "we talk of his silence now, but we shall yet talk of his
speech.   Yes, the heart lives that shook Faneuil Hall for
liberty, and we must not be impatient.  But sometimes I despond, for it seems the destiny of our best men to lose power
and purpose when they get into Congress."




UARRINGTON.                     167
"No matter," replied Muriel.  "As King Pellinore said to
Merlin,' God may foredoo well destiny.'"
Harrington bent his head abstractedly.
"But to return," said he.  "You observe, Emily, that the
only result of my letter was to bring torture upon poor Antony. In the letter was a bunch of the poor fellow's hair,
which this moral idiot tore from his head.  You see, too, he
flogged him in mere wantonness of cruelty.  From  all Roux
tells me of the character of this man, I fear that he will end
by killing Antony; and it is not too much to suppose, that
with the opportunities the slave system gives him, he may
even do it in the manner he suggests.  Murders as dreadful
take place on those obscure plantations, as escaped slaves tell
us.  Just see the infernal nature of a system  which gives
a fiend like this absolute, irresponsible control over his
fellow creatures! Here is this pirate, with a pirate's name
and a pirate's disposition; and the law of Louisiana, as of
every Southern State in the Union, entrusts to his care as
many men and women as he may choose to buy; and while it
sanctions, by express statute, various degrees of cruelty toward
them, makes it impossible to hold him to account for the most
merciless torture and murder, by excluding the testimony of
slaves."
Emily listened, with a countenance deathly pale.
" I declare, Harrington," she said, "when I read that letter
I felt as if the earth had cracked and shown me a glimpse of
hell. Is It possible that there can be such men as this? Are
there many of them at the South?"
Harrington did not reply for a moment, and sat sadly looking into vacancy.
"It is not Southern nature," he said, at length, "it is human
nature. It is human nature depraved by a tyranny, and
licensed, practically licensed, even in its wildest excesses, by a
tyrant code.  Read Shakspeare; there you have in representative figures, the scientific account of man. Here is Shakspeare's Chiron, Demetrius, lago, Cloten —a moral monster
with statutory power to hold slaves, and treat them  at his
pleasure. But the blame is less with him than with the polity




168                   HARRINGTON.
from which he sprang-which organized him and reared him.
Bating for their life-long education in despotism, Southern men
are no worse than Northern men. Put the code of Louisiana
over Massachusetts, and you shall have the self-same results.
Look at our Northern marine-that blot on our democracy;
how does the despotism of it work on our captains, even with
some sort of a legal check upon them? Read the criminal
reports, or talk with seamen, and learn how Northern captains can maltreat the men under their command.  Nohuman nature is no more incapable of degeneracy in Massachusetts than in Louisiana. If people are better here, it is
because conditions are better."
"Such men as this Lafitte are more to be pitied than
blamed," said Muriel, gently.  "I wish we were great enough
to feel so."
There was a moment's silence, in which nothing was heard
but the slow rattle of the carriage-wheels over the pavingstones.
"You see, Emily," said Harrington, sadly, breaking the
pause, "that your promise to Roux cannot be fulfilled. It is
now our painful problem how to destroy his new hope, without
giving him the anguish of an explanation. We are in a very
difficult position."
" Oh, if I had only known of this!" cried Emily, in bitter
distress. " As long as Roux expected nothing, he had only
his ordinary pain. But I have lifted the poor man to this
height only to dash him into a pit of despair."
"Hush, dear Emily," said Muriel, tenderly.  "Do not
reproach yourself. You could not have imagined that an
effort had been made to buy Roux's brother. So don't feel
badly about it. We will devise some means of escape out of
this dilemma. What I am most afraid of is, that Lafitte
may, after all, find out Barrington, and get on the track of
Roux."
"In which case," said llarrington, tranquilly, "it would be
a good idea to take him to Southac street and show him
Roux's house."
" Harrington!" exclaimed Emily, almost shrilly.




HA RRINGTON.                   169
"Yes indeed it would," said Harrington, quietly.  "But before I showed him the house, I would say two words to
Elkanah Brown.  I'll engage that he would hurry back to the
pirate civilization that spawned him, resolved never to set
foot in Boston again.  The negroes here would sound a roar
in his ears that he would remember to his dying day."
" Good Heavens, Harrington," cried Emily, " they would
kill him!"
Harrington's face was calm, but his blue eyes gleamed, and
his broad nostrils lifted with passionate emotion.
" And if I were an American patriot, pure and simple," he
replied, " I would answer that it would be no matter if they
did, and that Bunker Hill is near enough to keep tyrannicide
in countenance.  You remember what one of our leading
Whigs said in convention many years ago-in the time, when
to be a Whig was not to be a Webster Whig, with a fine
speech for kidnapping.' Why, sir,' foamed a slaveholder,'if
your doctrines obtain, our slaves would cut our throats for us.''And in  God's name,' said our Whig friend, tossing the
words over his shoulder-' in God's name, why shouldn't
they!"
" Oh, Harrington, Harrington," said Emily, shaking her
head, "is this you?  I did not think John Harrington had
the heart to hate any man-not even Lafitte-much less kill
him, or see him killed."
" Nor has he," said Muriel, quickly.
" You are right," said Harrington, calmly; "at least so far
as the hating goes. It may be a defect in my organization,
but I have never known what it is to hate anybody.  I
hope  I never may.  As for killing men, or seeing them
killed, that is another matter.  I believe that I could do both
the one and the other without a pang. This Lafitte-a man
in whom there is not one trait worthy to be called human-I
could kill him or see him killed without the least regret.  It
is not his death but his life that should be regretted."
" But, Harrington," said Emily, "this is impossible.  How
could you beat a man, much less kill him, without hating
him?"
8




170                   HARRINGTON.
" Christ beat the money changers in the temple: Was that
hate?" answered Harrington.
Emily smiled vaguely.
"Well," she continued, "that is ingenious-but not conclusive.  Besides, to beat men is not to kill them.  You could
hardly kill a man without hating him."
"Xenophon says Socrates shore down a soldier in the battle, and blessed him as he died:  Was that hate?" answered
Ilarrington.
Emily colored slightly, and looked up smiling into the
calm countenance of the speaker.
" Death is not the worst fate that may befall a man," continued Harrington. " If to kill a man were to end his life,
we might well hold our hands. But the soul survives the
blow that slays the body."
" And to kill a man is only to shell him, Emily," said Muriel
with a smile.
"Mercy!" exclaimed Emily, laughing, "what a couple of
Robespierres!"
"Seriously, now," said llarrington, "I think Muriel is
right. A killed man is a shelled man, and not a dead man.'Where shall we bury you?' asked the friends around the
dying Socrates. And the escaping soul replied,'Wherever
you please, if you can catch me.' But with regard to this
matter. If I believed in free will and moral responsibility, and
all the doctrines professedly accepted by the mass of my fellow-citizens, I should hold that, on the principle of justice,
we had a right to terminate the life of a man who was
willfully using it to the injury of his fellow-creatures. For
I agree with Lord Bacon that men without goodness of
nature are but a nobler kind of vermin. But, as I happen to
think that such men are the necessary product of an unscientific order of society, and that society is responsible for them
and their misdeeds, I could only kill them  at the cry of a terrible expediency, not to punish them, but simply to arrest
their mischief.  At the same time I go with Shakespeare,
rather to'prevent the fiend' than to kill the fiend.  I would
not kill a rattlesnake lying harmlessly in the sun, simply




HARRINGTON.                    171
because he is a rattlesnake, and may bite to-morrow.  But if he
coils to strike, I slay him, purely as a measure of safety, not in
bate, not forgetting that forces external to him organized himl
for malice and venom. So, too, with the nobler vermin-the
human reptiles. I do not hate them; I pity them. I do not
forget that they are a consequence, and not self-caused. But
I cannot let them flesh their fangs in the innocent, when the
saving mercy of a death-blow can rescue their blameless victims to lives of human use and accomplishment. When such
men as Lafitte come here to hunt the poor, I baffle and drive
them away if I can, and, as a last resort, I kill them.  That
is not hate-it is love. It is stern love, but it is love. Wo to
the civilization that makes it necessary!  Wo to the state that
suffers an injury to be done to the humblest man or woman, or
leaves his or her protection to the chance charity of the private
citizen! And treble wo to the government that gives despotic
power to ruffians, and arms and guards them in their crime
against mankind with the prestige and forms of civil law!"
Harrington ceased, and they all sat in silence with brooding
faces.' Well, I trust that this wretch may never trouble Boston,"
said Emily, at length, with a sigh.
" I trust not," replied Harrington.  " He is shrewd and subtle though, and I have, I own, an anxious foreboding that he
will come this way. I am sorry I wrote that letter. You
observed the underlined sentence in his reply, didn't you? It
is curious that he should have so readily conjectured that the
letter was sent to Jo House to mail."
" Very curious," responded Emily.
"Here's North Russell street," said Harrington. "I'll
leave you, and rush home, for I have my article to finish."
"Harrington-whisper," said Muriel, bending  her face
toward him with a charming smile.
Harrington, who was just putting out his hand to unfasten
the carriage door, leaned forward, while Emily turned away.
The young man felt, with a delicious thrill, the balmy breath
of Muriel on his cheek, and her soft lips touch his ear, and the
hot blood fl6w to his face before she had spoken a word.




172                   IARRTNGTON.
"John," she whispered, "you write your article to make
some money. Hush, now! Let it go, and let me supply you
-just for once now, pray do. Don't be proud and foolish,
but let me make you a present, for I have plenty, and come
with us and have a day of recreation, for you are pale with
work and study-now, John."
" Now, John,." was said aloud with arch reproach, for Harring,ton had drawn back, flushed and laughing, with a gesture
of negation.' Not a bit of it," he answered, gaily.  "Did I ever?"
" No, you never did, bad young man that you are," returned
Muriel, aloud, with a face of playful reproach.  "But see
here, John "-she bent forward again to whisper, her face so
sweetly pleading that it was hard to resist giving the besought
audience.
" I won't-that's flat," said  Harrington, laughing and
blushing, and putting out his hand to the hasp, for he felt that
Muriel's entreaty was getting dangerous.
"' Very well," she said. "That's settled. But come up to
tea this evening-come up early, if you can, and we'll have a
fencing lesson, and then, after tea, we'll go to the Convention,
trusting our luck to hear Wendell Phillips. How will that do?"
" Capital," replied Harrington.  "I'll come."
" And bring Wentworth with you."
"Yes.  Good bye.  Good bye, Emily."
Emily turned and nodded, with her face scarlet at the mention of Wentworth's name.  She had been living in broader
life for the last hour, and now her heart was painfully sinking
back to its private love and sorrow.
Without stopping the carriage, Harrington opened the door,
sprang out, and walked for a moment between the wheels to
refix the hasp, then stepped back, touched his hat, and was
gone.
Muriel turned and watched from the oval window in the
back of the carriage his martial figure as it strode up the
street.
"There goes a chevalier," she said, gaily, as she turned
away.




HARRINGTON.                    173
"Yes," replied Emily.  " First in war, first in peace ""And first in the hearts of his countrywomen," concluded
Muriel.
They laughed merrily, and the carriage went on.
CHAPTER IX.
SCHOLAR AND SOLDIER.
HARRINGTON lived in Chambers street, not far from where
he had left thu carriage, and strode on over the pavement of
Cambridge street to his house, drawing in deep breaths of the
delicious, cool, spring air, and thinking with a rapt heart of
Muriel.
It was a perfect day. The long thoroughfare sloping gently,
and narrowing away into distance, with its descending row of
irregular, motley buildings of brick and wood, and its lines of
passengers, was fresh and salient in the morning sunlight.
Blown from the country, wafts of woodland odors, balmy as
the breath of Muriel, floated softly to his sense. Flowing out
of the west, the morning wind, light as the lips of Muriel,
touched his cheeks, and the young man's heart and blood were
full of love and spring.
0, blessed magic of one little moment, which had repaired
what hours and days undid! Her breath had breathed upon
his sense, her lips had met his cheek, and therefore, all thought
that she loved another, all evidence that her soul was not
in secret, firm alliance with his own, had vanished in the flash
of rapture which filled his being. And more —the phantoms
which surrounded him had vanished too. Born servant and
soldier of mankind, he was often made to feel how powerless
he was in the great social war of the many against the one;
and at such times, to his spirit, as to that of many a lover of
men, came gloomy spectres from the world of complicated wo
and wrong.  From  the grim-grotesque, sad, turbulent scene
of the morning street; from the low room of the fugitive's




174                 HARtIGTARroN.
humbleness and anguish, and the futile generosity of the patriclan girl; from the cloud on the horizon of his soul, where
glimmered the image of the coming hunter; from the whole
dark consciousness of a social order leagued against the poor
and weak, the invading phantoms had poured like midnight
ghosts around him. But they were all gone, and again there
was strength and morning  in his soul. The spring day was
sweet and beautiful; perfume and victory coursed through his
veins; the noble face of his beloved bloomed in his heart; her
wild-rose mouth had touched him like the envoy of a costly
kiss; her fragrant breath had shot his blood with ecstasy;
and past and future melted into the rich passion of the present
hour, which had renewed his manhood and left him with the
pulse and thews of a Crusader.
Flushed and throbbing with the bliss of his thought of Muriel, he reached his dwelling. It was an old, three-storied,
quaintly-fashioned brick house, with green blinds, windows and
window-panes smaller than those of modern date, and in the
centre, up three stone steps, a door with a brass knocker, and
a brass plate below it, on which was engraved the name, E.
Z. FISHER. The house breathed in an air fragrant with lilacs,
whose clumped green and purple bloomed pleasantly over the
top of a close board fence, with a gate in it, which extended
fiom the left hand side of the tenement to the blind side-wall
of the adjoining dwelling, and inclosed a yard within which
abutted from the main building a wing of two stories. In this
wing dwelt Harrington; the rest of the house was occupied
by the Captain and his family.
He opened the gate and entered the yard, which was in fact
a small garden. A planked footway led from the gate to the
two wooden steps of the door in the wing, and a similar footway crossed this, and crooked around the side of the abutment.
Lilac bushes were planted against the fence and the blind
wall of the dwelling on the left, and there were shrubs and
flowers on either side of the door, and around the wall of the
wing. It was a pleasant spot, full of fragrance and retiracy.
Without pausing, HIarrington unlocked his door and entered
his study. It was a square room, cool and quiet, lit by two




HARRINGTON.                    17?
green-curtained front windows which looked on the garden,
and containink several hundred volumes on shelves, row above
row, on three sides of the apartment.  In the centre was a
table loaded with books and papers, and an arm-chair. Four
or five choice engravings hung in spaces between the bookshelves, and on one side, on a pedestal, was a noble bust of
Lord Bacon. A set of foils and masks hung across the mantel, and a huge pair of dumb-bells lay on the floor in a corner.
A carpet of green baize, an old sofa between the windows,
and a few chairs, completed the furniture of the room, whose
only other noticeable feature was a slanting step-ladder on
one side, leading up by a trap in the ceiling into Harrington's
bed-chamber.
Throwing himself into his arm-chair, the young scholar took
from a drawer, and pressed to his lips, a little bunch of withered herbs, which Muriel had held in her hand one evening
two or three weeks before, and given him at parting.  Their
dry balsamic odor stole softly to his brain, freighted with the
thought of the white hand that gave them, and closing his
eyes, he abandoned himself to ecstatic dreams.
In a few minutes, a barrel-organ began to play outside his
gate.  It was a peculiarly sweet instrument-some people in
the region of Beacon Hill may remember it as the one they
used to follow from street to street on balmy summer evenings,
so loth were they to part with its melody. IHarrington was
fond of all barrel-organs that were at all melodious-the poor
man's opera, he used to call them, associating them with the
delight they gave to little children and the dwellers in poor
houses, and always pleased to have them bring Italy into the
street, as some one has felicitously phrased it. The organist,
sure of his reward whenever his patron was at home, came often
to the house.  On this occasion, Harrington had no sooner
heard the first notes, than he twisted up some change in paper,
and opening the door, tossed it over the gate. The instrument
stopped in the midst of the tune, and while the man was picking
up the largesse, Harrington opened his windows, and resumed
his chair to enjoy the music.
A rich light gush of lilac fragrance which seemed to blend




176                   HARRINGTON.
with the brilliant melody of the polacca the organ played,
poured in at the open windows, and melted into his mood.
He sat softly beating with his hand the dance of the tune,
with the debonair image of Muriel floating in melody through
his fancy. She came again, expressed in a tenderer mood, as
the music changed to a strain of yearning and dreamful sweetness, like a poem of deep love. Then followed one of the
negro melodies of the day, a simple and mournful air, with
notes of anguish, and still she was present in his mind linked
with a shadowy remembrance of the wrongs and sorrows of
the race to whose low estate her heart stooped so often to
help and console.  Soul in soul, he moved with her through the
rich and melancholy maze of the succeeding music —a sombre
and sumptuous Italian romanza, crowded with slow passion
and tumult, with notes that swelled and poured athwart the
central theme, like some dim innumerable host of love and sorrow gathering and forming, and dividing again in baffled and
harmonious disorder.  Air upon air came after, and sinking
away, the listener lost for awhile their melody and meaning,
and only knew that they were sweet and sad; till rising from
reverie he heard the last of a solemn and tender strain like
some delicious psalm of death and life immortal.
It ceased; there was a pause, and the world's hopes and
struggles surged in upon his kindled spirit, as the otPgan rolled
forth in golden sweetness the martial and mournful andante of
the Marsellaise.  The French hymn of liberty, whose sombre
and fiery tonal morning burst once on the birth-throes of
Democracy, like the light of God upon the chaos of the globe I
He never heard it without emotion, and now it rushed into his
soul, dilating and expanding into vast orchestral harmonies.
His eye gleamed and bright color lit his face as he listened to
the triumphal terror and glory of the thrilling strain. On and
on it swept in cadences of tears and fire; down and down it
darkened in weird and burning melody, fraught with the passion of all human wrongs; and rising into the pealing cry of
the battle-summons, and flowing into the proud, heroic tones
of mournful rapture which seem to exult for the dead who die
for man, it melted away.




BARRINGTON.                     177
Harrington sat, flushed and throbbing, in the fragrant
silence of the room. The organ had ceased and gone, and he
was alone.  Gradually the tnmult of his spirit sank into golden
calm, and with the charm of the music still lingering in his
mind, he put the faded herbs into the drawer, and prepared to
begin his talskls.
His unfilnislled article was the first thing to be attended to,
and he got it out and set to work upon it. The article, as
Muriel had said, he was writing for money, for -Harrington's
means sometimes ran low. His mother dying six years before,
when he was nineteen, had left him her little property, including this house. The house he rented to Captain Fisher, and
this rent, added to the interest of the money his mother had
left him, gave him a yearly income of about six hundred dollars.
An economical and selfish man might have got on well enough
on these receipts; but Harrington, though economical enough,
was anything but selfish, and between his own expenses and
his pecuniary outlay for others, he sometimes found himself in
want of money. On these occasions he was wont to interrupt
his studies to write for certain periodicals till he wrote himself
into funds again.  What he wrote sold well, and his pen was
in demand; but philosophy, Hegel said, has nothing to do
with dollars, and Harrington evidently thought scholarship
had not either, for when he had once filled the gap in his
finances, back he went to his studies, and the magazine editor
did not live who could tempt him from them into another
contribution.
For he was a scholar born, and in this room he kept alive
the traditions which have made the name of Harrington dear
to scholarship and man. It is a shining name in literature
and history, and bears the recorded honors due to names linked
with the memory of human pleasure or the cause of human
service. There was one Harrington in the days of the Eighth
Henry-a polished poet, who surpassed the verse of his time.
There was another, his child, the darling of Queen Elizabeth,
a sprightly wit and poet, who sunned his muse in the brightness of the &ight Britannic days, wrought well for belle-lettres
and history, and gave his country her first English version of
8*




178                   HIARRINGTON.
the fun and fire of Ariosto.  There was still another, the
Oxford scholar of a later age, of whom the chronicle records
that he was a prodigy in the common law, a person of excellent
parts, honest in dealing, and of good and generous nature.
There was one more, loftier far than these, whose mighty
pulses beat for liberty and justice, the brave Utopian of Sidney's time, who aimed to lay the deep foundations of the perfect
and immortal state-James Harrington, the author of Oceana.
And among the rest, skilled or famed in law and science and
poetry, there was yet another, James Harrington's true
brother by a closer tie than that of blood-the stout jurist
of Vermont, who spoke the decision of her Supreme Court
on the demand of a slave claimant, decreeing that his title
to a man was not good till he could show a bill of sale
from the Almighty God.  That was Judge Harrington, and
by that decree he earned his right to a statue from mankind.
Whatever was best and greatest in the works and days of
the ancestral HIarringtons, seemed likely to be renewed and
excelled by the young scholar who bore their name. Primarily, he was a Baconist.  There stood the bust of Bacon on
the pedestal in his library, and to him it was the treasure of
treasures.  Wentworth used to say jestingly, that Harrington
was a heathen and worshipped an idol.  For the idol, however,
Wentworth himself, with Muriel, was responsible.  H:arrington had been sadly disappointed in not being able to find any
bust of Verulam at the statuary's; so Wentworth and Muriel
had collected the various portraits of the great Chancellor,
moulded from them a bust in clay, somewhat larger than life,
cast it in plaster, and one day Harrington, entering his study,
was astonished and enraptured at finding the bust there on its
pedestal. It was a magnificent success, and well embodied
the noble sagacity, the tender and gentle sweetness, the regal
compassion and calm, massive intellectuality, which appear in
Bacon's enormous brow and face of princely majesty, as the
painters of his time have pictured him.
larrington now loved Bacon with tenfold ardor, and ttarrington's love for Bacon was something wonderful.  It was
absolutely a personal attachment, and there was no surer




HARRINGTON.                    179
way to rouse him than to speak disparacgingly of Verulam.
He put him above all authors or men.  He spoke of him as
the flower of the human race.  He resented any imputation
on his fame, scouted at the modern aspersions upon him of
Lord Campbell, Macaulay and others, as baseless and infamous slanders, and altered Pope's epigrammatic line, which he
thought the seed-cone of the whole modern libel, to read " the
wisest, brightest, noblest of mankind."   With a standing
promise to his friends to put the evidence together some day
in demonstrable form, having already, he said, begun to make
notes to that end, he meanwhile rested in the broad assertion
that Bacon's downfall was the work of the conservatism  of
his time-that the conservators of social abuses had smelt out
his concealed democracy and socialism, trumped up the charge
of malfeasance in office against him, ruined and def'ameed him
in his life and flung the mire of a traditionary calumny on his
to'ib.  It was another of Harrington's heresies that Bacon
in the seventeenth century aimed to do for the world what Fourier aimed to do in the nineteenth. This, he insisted, was the
key to his works and life-this the torch by which they were to
be read and interpreted.  It was evident that Harrington had
a very pretty affair on his hands, should he ever venture to
publish an idea so heretical.  The sin of connecting the worldhonored Verulam with the man whom modern society has endowed, as Muriel said, with hoofs and horns and a harpoon
tail, and of asserting that either or both had mn ant to bring
the kingdom of God upon the earth, would be only less than
the effort of both or either to so interfere with our highly respectable institutions.
However this may be, Harrington's heart was anchored on
the idea, and with this faith in him, he studied his Bacon, together with Montaigne and Shakspeare, who, he thought, or
seemed to think-for on this point he was mysteriously norncommittal-were in the interest of the Baconian design.  Possibly, he might yet come to different conclusions, for he was
young; and, like Sterne's Pilgrim, had just begun his journey,
and had much to learn.
Meanwhile he pursued his studies, though with the full con



180                   HARRINGTON.
ciousness that there was no accredited career open to him. To
a man who held unpopular convictions as he did; no more a
Christian of the modern sort than Christ was; no more a patriot of the modern sort than Sidney was; no more a believer
in the modern order of society than Bacon and Fourier were;
despising the Government as an engine of force and fraud;
refusing assent to the Constitution, and allegiance to the Union,
because in his view they legalized and fortified the crime and
ruin of Slavery —to such a man the church, the bar, the bench,the
senate, the official station of any kind were all closed. But Harrington had a solemn instinct at his heart, that the time was coming when his country would rise against slavery and social wrong
and call upon her outlawed sons for their best service.
Against that day he prepared himself to do his part, whatever it might prove to be.  In his conception of it, the utter
annihilation of slavery was first in the programme.  This involved the possibility of civil war.  It might come between
the dark millions of the South and the Government.  It
might come between the Government's pro-slavery liegemen
and the freemen of the North.  In either case, Harrington
was pledged to serve liberty, and that his service might be efficient, he had begun the study of military science, and had the best
text books, such as those of Mahan, Kinsley, Thiroux and
Knowlton, together with the chief standard works relating to
warfare, from the Commentaries of Cesar to the volumes of
Durat-Lasalle   To this end also went his varied practice with
Bagasse in the school of arms, with rifle practice elsewhere.
Hoping, too, that the period of social reconstruction would come
in his own time or follow hard upon it, he was preparing to add
his thought to bring it on, or shape his thought to guide it
when it should come, and to this end were his scholastic labors.  His shelves might have hinted as much. There
were the works of the masters of law and government, and
of those who have studied and schemed for society, Plato,
Aristotle, Pythagoras, Cicero, Justinian, Grotius, Burlamaqui, Vattel, Puffendorff, Heneicius, Milton, Sidney, tHarrington, Pothier, Montaigne, Machiavelli, Bacon, Montesquieu,
B3entham,  Burke, St. Simon, Fourier, Compte-legists, jurists,




HARRINGTON.                   181
scholiasts, works of practice and theory, statements of cod es,
and books that are the seed of codes. With them works of exact science in all its branches, and works of history, biography,
poetry, travel and fi4tion, classic and modern —for it was Harrington's design to grasp the thought and life of all the ages.
So toiled he. No dilettante litterateur; no student forgetful of his time and kind, or gaining lore to fortify or gild
oppression;-but kinsman to the golden blood of the gallant
scholars to whose graves the heart brings its laurels and
its tears.  No scholar, either of the modern sort, which
stores the brain and saps the arm-but of the large Elizabethan type, training his body in every manly exercise,
training his mind in equal skill and power. Such was the
budding promise of Harrington.
CHAPTER X.
CONVERSATION.
IN the young man's kindled mood, composition was easy,
and by two o'clock his article was done.
He was leaning back in his chair, enjoying the consciousness
of eighty dollars earned, when the door opened, and in came
the Captain, with his head very much on one side, and an
ominous gravity on his quaint features. He did not remove
his straw-hat, but stood surveying Harrington with a critical
eye, like a marine raven. A slow smile twinkled around the
young man's bearded mouth, for he instantly divined what the
Captain had come for.
" Well, Eldad," he said, " it's the rent, I know. I see rent
written in every lineament of your ingenuous countenance.
Come, sit down."
The Captain slowly lifted his clenched fist and shook it at
Harrington, then lounged about, seated himself on the sofa
under the windows, and cocked up his eye at the trap in the
ceiling.




182                   BARRINGTON.
" Could I smoke, John?" he asked, suddenly dropping his
glance at the young man.
"Certainly. Light up, and smoke away."
Keeping his head on one side, and hgs round, bright eyes
intent on the smiling Harrington, the Captain produced a short
pipe and a match from the hollow of his left hand, and putting
the pipe in one corner of his mouth, lit the match on his
sleeve, and igniting the tobacco, began to blow a cloud.
"And why didn't you come to dinner?" he blandly demanded, opening the war.
" Dinner I I declare I never thought of it till this
minute," exclaimed Harrington, coloring a little.
" It was a brile to-day, John," pursued the Captain, contemplatively, smoking.  " Briled steak, potatoes, spinach, with a
top off of bread puddin' and coffee," he continued, pensively
enumerating the components of the meal. " Together with
bread and butter, and apple-sarce. Joel James eat till he
thought his jacket was buttoned. Hannah says,' I wonder
where John is?' Sophrony answers,'he's in his room, for I
see him go in at eleven o'clock.''Better call him,' says John
I.'Better not,' says I,'or you'll scatter some of his idees.'
So we didn't."
larrington listened attentively to this account of the family
colloquy on his absence from the dinner-table. Joel James
was the Captain's son, a sturdy schoolboy of ten. Sophronia
was his daughter, a girl of fifteen.  John II. was the
youngest son, named after Harrington.  Hannah was the
Captain's wife.
"John," said the Captain, changing the subject, "two
hundred and fifty's not enough. I'm goin' to raise it to three
hundred."
"Good!" exclaimed Harrington, with a jovial air.  "I
knew it was the rent! Eldad, this rent is our standing
grievance. Well, I'm going to lower it to two hundred."
"In which event, I'm going to move, bag and baggage,"
retorted the Captain.
Harrington laughed aloud, and sat smiling at the Captain,
whose quaint features were screwed into a grin, and momently




HARRINGTON.                    183
lit in little flashes of red from the bowl of the pipe near his
cheek.
"Eldad," replied Harrington, "if I had my way, you
should have the house rent free."
" Which I wunt," said the Captain.
" Of course you won't," continued Harrington;   "but,
Eldad, you were mother's mainstay, and have been like a
father to me since she died, and it grates on my feelings to
have you paying me money.  Well, no matter.  Let it go.
But I'll be even with you one of these days."
"Well,' returned the Captain, " it's settled then?"'' Yes, I suppose so."
"Three hundred, you say.7"
" 0 no, Eldad.  Two fifty.
"Three hundred."' Two fifty."' Three hundred dollars."
"Two hundred and fifty dollars, Eldad.  Not another
stiver. I'm resolved now."
The Captain sighed, and smoked pensively.
" I lost a customer to-day, John," he remarked, after a long
pause.
"Indeed I Which induced you to increase your expenses,
by raising the rent," bantered Harrington.
" Collected for him these six years back," continued the
Captain, pensively.  " Lem Atkins, you know."
" Lemuel Atkins I" exclaimed Harrington, leaning forward.
6 Wrhy that's 3irs. Eastman's brother."'
" Certain.  Cotton merchant on Long Wharf, and a black
sheep he is too. Webster Whig-pro-slavery up to the hubreg'lar aristocrat every way.  He was one of the Fifteen
HIundred Scoundrels, as Phillips called'em. Ruther guess Mal
the bad that ever was in his sister and niece was drawn off
before they were born, and bottled up in him."
"And how came you to lose him?" interrogated Harrington.
"Well, I'll tell you," replied the Captain.  "You see, I've
collected the rents of eight of his houses for six years back



184                   HARRINGTON.
some of'em went ruther aginst my grain, too. Poor houses,
scacely fit for human bein's to live in, two or three of'em, and
sech as no decent man would own or let out to anybody.
Howiver. He gave me the memorandums of three more about
a week ago. Mighty big rents Atkins gits for these dwellin's,
thinks I to myself, as I entered them on my book. Spoon o'
horn I I niver guessed it till I went down there yesterday, an,
found out what sort of houses them are for which Atkins gits
his big rents."
"That's fine in Atkins," remarked Harrington.  "Always
talking about the duty of citizens to obey the laws, right or
wrong, and here he violates the statute against letting houses
for such purposes. But perhaps he didn't know who his tenants
were.."
"fHe know?  Lord I he knew fast enough," replied the
Captain. " Laws? All the laws he obeys are the laws that
go for his money. There's lots like him. They go for every
money law, from the Fugitive Slave Law upward, for I ruther
guess there ain't no downward from the Fugitive Slave Law.
Why, there's a Massachusetts law aginst over usury. Who
don't keep it?  Who lets out money for ten per cent.,
twenty per cent., any per cent. they can git? Them very sort
o' men that's always blatherin' about obedience to the laws,
right or wrong. Ony when a man's libaty's consarned, and
the law goes for takin' it away from him, then they're awfully
law-abidin' citizens. By the great horn spoon I I'd just like to
have the stringin' up of them law-abiders with a copy of the
Revised Statutes round their necks I"
Harrington leaned back in his chair, with his hands clasped,
and his brow knitted.
" Well, as I was sayin'," resumed the Captain, " I went into
one of them houses.'Young women,' says I, leavin','you'd
better repent, for the kingdom of heaven's at hand.' I tell you
I was mad when I found a similar state o' things in the tother
two, and I just bounced out, and went right down to Lem
Atkins.'Mr. Atkins,' says I,'you'd better employ your
former agent for them houses.'' What's the matter, Fisher,'
says he.'Matter is,' says I,' that I guess you don't know




HARRIINGTON.                    185
what sort o' callin's followed in them tenements.''It's not
my business, Mr. Fisher,' says he,'to busy. myself with the
occupation of my tenants.  How dare you speak to me in that
manner.' I looked him right in the eye.  He swelled up like
a turkey-cock, but he didn't look at me a second.'Mr.
Atkins,' says I,' no offince, but as I've got sons and a daughter,
the occupation of your tenants is a consarn o' mine, and you
must get another man to collect them reints, for I wunt do it,
an' I pity the man that will.'  He turned off to his desk.' Mr. Fisher,' says he,'you wunt do any more collectin' for me,
so just send up your accounts, and we'll be quits.''Very well,'
says I, and I left with his collectin' off my hands for good."
" Bravo, Eldad! That was done like a man!" cried iarrington.
"If it wasn't for bringin' disgrace on his sister and that
splendid daughter of hers," said the Captain, rising, with his
pipe in his clenched hand, " I'd just let the thing be known
around town, I would.  Say, John, she's a beauty, though,
ain't she?  John, she's the ony lady I know that's good enough
for you."
Harrington colored deeply, in spite of himself.' Well, the other one's splendid, too," said the Captain, as if
in answer to a private thought of the young man, scrutinizing
his countenance meanwhile, with his own head all awry.
"Yes, she's a regular clipper. I never was so took aback by
any human action as by that offer to buy Roux's brother.
That was ginerosity such as we read of-ony it's a pity she
didn't know the harm she was doin'. Yes, she's a glory, and
that's a fact.  Still, I wish it was tother one."
"Why, Eldad," said llarrington, laughing and fiery red,
"you're all at sea.  Surely you don't think I'm in love with
Miss Ames?"
The Captain looked hard at him.
"Well, so I've ben told, John," he replied.
larrington puckered up his mouth in wonder.
"Bless me, how people will talk!" he exclaimed.  "Why
there's not a word of truth in it. Of course I like Emily very
much"




186                   HARRINGTON.
" And she you," interposed the Captain.
" And she me? i declare! I shall hear next that she is in
love with mne, I suppose!" exclaimed Harrington.
"Well, so I've ben told," coolly responded the Captain;
"dead in love with you."
HIarrington stared at him, but the color ebbed away from
his countenance, and a flood of dreadfhl confirmations overswept him. Her recent sudden preference for his society, her
lavish attentions to him, the fervent and sumptuous fondness
of her manner, rushed in new light upon his consciousness.
Purblind fool that I am, he thought; I mistook it all for
friendship, and it meant love I For a moment, poor Harrington felt as guilty as though he had known and encouraged
Emily's passion for him.  But no, he thought, this is all a mistake; it cannot be.
"Eldad," said he, " this is rather a serious matter; more
serious than you may imagine. Come, now, be frank with me.
You say you've been told Miss Ames is in love with me. Now
who told you!"
The Captain, with his head all atwist, scanned him curiously,
slowly rubbing his chin, meanwhile, with the palm of his brown
hand.
"Well, John," he answered, slowly, "I was asked not to
mention it.  Howiver, I guess I will. That young Witherlee
told me."
"Oh l" said Harrington.
" Yis, John," continued the Captain.  "I come in here one
day about a week ago, I guess, an' found him sittin' in your
chair, smokin' his cigar.  He said he was waitin' for you, an'
we had a chat.  In the course of the conversation, he let that
out. I ruther thought he was tryin' to pump somethin' out of
me on that subject, but I didn't know nothin', an' if I did, he
wouldn't have been the wiser, I guess."
"What did he say?" asked Harrington.
"Well, not overmuch," replied the Captain.  "Seemed to
know all about it, howiver.  Talked as if he was in your confidence. Asked when you were goin' to be married. Well,
now, he didn't exactly say it, you know, but he somehow gave




HARRINGTON.                   187
me to understand that you were in love with Miss Ames, an'
she likewise with you; an' thought her family wouldn't make
no objections.  That was about all."
Harrington, with a look of pain, reddened while the Captain
was speaking, and his nostrils quivered.
" I am shocked and grieved that Witherlee should talk in
this way," he said, sadly.  " I shall certainly call him to account for this."
"John, you musn't mention it," said the Captain, anxiously.
"He said he thought I knew all about it, or he wouldn't have
alluded to it, and he made me promise not to speak of it. It
won't do, John. Fact is, I oughtn't to have said a word."
Harrington leaned his elbows on the table, and for a moment
buried his face in his hands. He had a clear glimpse into the
method of the good Fernando.
"Very well, Eldad," he said, calmly, leaning back in his
chair.  "Let it go, I won't speak of it. But I assure you
there's not a word of truth in this statement, so far as
I'm  concerned, and I hope there is not in regard to Mliss
Ames!"
The Captain did not answer, but lounged away, and during
the long silence that followed, walked up and down with a
ruminating air. At length he stopped and fronted the young
man, who was absorbed in musing.
"John," said he, "to-day's the day, you know."
Harrington, knowing what he meant, bent his head, looking
with half-absent sadness into vacancy.
"Twelve years ago to-day, John, the good ship Contocook went down," continued the Captain, in a hushed voice,
with a half-soliloquizing air.  "All the women an' children
saved. That was a comfort, John."
Harrington again bowed his head silently.  Every year, on
the twenty-fifth of May, he was accustomed to hear the Captain speak of this.
"And all the men saved, John," continued the Captain.
"That was another comfort. All but one, John."
The Captain paused, solemnly, and took off his hat.
"As good a seaman as ever trod the deck," he resumed.




188                   HARRINGTON.
"As fine a man as ever breathed the breath of life. Captain
John Harrington, aged forty-two. Blessed are the dead who
die in the Lord!"
There was a long silence.
" And he died in the Lord, John, continued the Captain."
I don't know as he ever got religion. But he died in the
Lord."
The Captain paused once more, muttering the last words
below his breath.
" Yes, John," he continued, " that's the way he died. I've
been thinkin' of it all day. It's been comin' to me how that
rollin' iceberg tumbled through the thick fog, in the dead of
night, and struck the ship, and stove in her bows.'Back
from the boats,' he shouts, catchin' up the hand-spike.'The
first man that touches a boat I'll brain. Women and children
first, men.'-'That's the talk,' sings out some of the sailors,
an' them that was goin' to take the boats fell away.' Now,
then, the women and children,' says he. Over the side they
went, one by one; he standin' by with the handspike.'Now
the other passengers,' says he. Over they went too.'Now,
men,' he says,'there's room in that boat for some of ye, and
the rest of us'11 go into the other. Over they went, likewise,
till only he and the black cook was left.'The boat's full,
captain,' says John Timbs, the. first mate,'but I guess
she'll hold another.''Jump in doctor,' says Captain Harrington to the darkey.' No,' they hollered,'white men
before niggers, captain, and we'll have you.''I'll stay,
captain,' blubbers cook,'No you won't,' says he.'Men,'
he says,'it's a favor I ask. Don't deny me, or you'll never
know peace. In with you, doctor,' an' he slung the cook over
the side.'Try now, captain,' says they, all beseechin'
together. An' he let himself down by the rope till he stood
in the boat, an' the sea begun to come over the gunnels. He
was up into the ship again in a minute.'It's no use, men,'
says he,'push off. Timbs,' says he,'give my love to my wife
and boy, if I never see'em again. God bless ye, men.' And
then the ship lurched for'ard, an' they pushed off, cryin' like
babes. Last thing they saw through the fog was the captain




HARRINGTON.                    189
flingin' a hatch overboard, and jumpin' after it. But that sea
was too cold for a man to be in long. Then when they lost
sight of him, they heard the wallow, an' saw the lazy swells
lift up round the boat, an' knew that the ship had gone
down."
The Captain paused, wiping away with his sleeve the salt
tears which the simple epic of a brave man's death brought to
his eyes.
" That was the story, and them was the last words Timbs
brought home to your mother, John," he continued. " An'
that's the way he died.  Women and children saved.  That's
a comfort.' An' all the, men saved, includin' the poor old
moke of a doctor.  That's another comfort.  But he died.
An', somehow, I kinder feel that's a comfort too, John.  For
he died in the Lord."
The light lay softly on the pale and kindled features of
Harrington, and the fragrance of the garden floated through
his brain like incense.
"It was a manly way to leave the world," he said.  "Life
is sweet to me with the memory of such a father."
" You think of him often, John," murmured the Captain.
"Often, Eldad, often. Never as one dead. Always as one
alive and well."
The Captain moved his head up and down, two or three
times, in token of assent, and moved away to the door.
" Well, good bye, John," he said, suddenly.
" Good bye, Eldad," returned the young man, rising and
following him to the door.
The Captain departed, and Harrington, closing the door
after him, folded his arms, and began to pace to and fro in
deep musing.  The sweet and solemn feeling which the anniversary of his father's death brought him, gradually melted
away in feelings of sadness and pain, as the torturing thought
came into his mind, that in his free and frank friendship for
Emily he might have won her to love him. The more he
reflected upon it, the more terrible grew the confirmations.
His conviction of a fortnight before, that she and Wentworth
were lovers-how could he have been so deceived I




190                   HARIINGTON.
The spell of the magic moment that had filled his soul
with morning, was disenchanted now, and darkness gathered
upon him. Darkness that was not without light, for he again
believed that Wentworth and Muriel loved each other, and he
felt a sorrowful and generous gladness in their happiness.  His
heart yearned to Wentworth-yearned to make him rejoice
with the assurance that he was not his rival-yearned to them
both in love and blessing.
He paused in his walk, as through his joy for them struck
the sharp pain of the consciousness that the costly treasure of
her love was not for him.
"Heart of my heart, soul of my soul," he murmured fervently, "I love you, though I lose you. All that is divine
and human is dearer and lovelier to me because I love you,
though you are lost to me. Lost, lost to me forever."
His head sunk upon his breast, and his eyes closed. The
lilac fragrance floated in and reeled in a warm gust upon his
throbbing brain. Some silent spirit seemed near him in the
sunlit room, and strange comfort stole upon him like the bliss
of a dream.
" Farewell, Muriel," he murmured, his blue eyes unclosing,
dimmed with a mist of tears, " farewell, farewell. It is one
hope the less, and life calls me still."
He sunk into his chair, and striving to banish her image
from his mind, began to think how he should deal with Emily.
In a little while he resolved that, however difficult and delicate
to do, he must frankly tell her of what he had heard, and let
her know his true relation to her.
His conclusion made, he still sat musing, his spirit clouded
with sadness and anxiety.  Suddenly he heard the gate fly
open and slam to, and a firm tread rush over the planked
walk, then the door opening, in darted Wentworth, flushed,
electric, panting, furious with rage.




HARRITNGTON.                  1 9
CIIAPTER  XI.
N OjTH AND SOUTH.
THE family of the Mr. Lemuel Atkins, of whom the Captain
had spoken, belonged to what is called Good Society; but let
no one suppose that they constituted a specimen of the Boston
aristocracy, with its men, too often, indeed, cold and careless
ill the interests of mankind, yet always polished gentlemen in
instinct and education, and with its women, cultured andc
noble, patrician from brow to foot, and many, very many of
them, angels of compassion and succor to the weak and poor.
The Atkinses were only of a large and dominant moneyed class,
vulgar mushrooms-no, toadstools-who spring up thickly
in the aristocratic quarter and call themselves Good Society:
These fine people were expecting a guest to dinner that afternoon, who would have been a skeleton at any possible banquet
of Harrington's, could he have known that such a guest was
in town.  Mr. Atkins's usual dinner hour was two o'clock,
but on this occasion it had been postponed to four, while the
merchant was showing the guest a few of the lions.
It was within an hour of the dinner-time, and the servants
in the kitchen were sweltering over the preparation of the
meal in the hottest possible hurry, and the greatest possible
trepidation, lest anything should be overdone or underdone, or in
any way done wrong.  For they had been duly impressed
with the magnitude of the occasion, and they were trembling
lest the magnitude of the occasion should be disgraced by
their humble efforts.
Meanwhile Good Society was filled with soft tremors in
the drawing-room above. He had not come yet, but he was.
coming. Anxious eyes glanced occasionally out at the front
windows on Mount Vernon street, to see if he was approach



192                   HARRINGTON,.
ing. Eager ears listened momently for the slightest intimation
of a pull at the bell-wire. Palpitating hearts leaped at every
footfall in the highly respectable street, and Good Society was
in a steady flutter of delicious expectation.
Good Society, then and there represented by Mrs. Atkins,
Miss Atkins, Miss Julia Atkins, Mr. Thomas Atkins, and
iMr. Horatio Atkins; and elsewhere represented by the highly
respectable father of this highly respectable family, Mr. Lemuel
Atkins, was not so honored every day in the week —by no
means. Distinguished gentlemen had come there to dine with
us; Count Blomanosoff, when he was in Boston, had come
there to dine with us; Lord Hawbury and Lord Charles
Chawles, when they were in Boston, had come there to dine
with us; and eminent clergymen, and able lawyers, and distinguished senators, and even a Massachusetts Governor, had
come there to dine with us.  But a rich Southern gentleman-oh I A child of the sunny South-ah! A gallant and
chivalrous son of Louisiana, who owns an immense plantation,
and nobody knows how many of his fellow creatures-decidedly, it is the next thing to having Mr. Webster to dine
with us.
The drawing-room in which the so highly honored family
were assembled in eager expectation, was a large oblong
square, papered with purple and gold-spotted paper, and full of
gaudy furniture. There were two chandeliers hanging from
the ceiling, all gilt and glitter; gilt sconces, with cut glass
globes, on the walls; a profusion of gold-framed pictures and
engravings; large mirrors over the mantels and between the
windows; red velvet, and blue velvet, and green velvet armchairs and sofas, all around; a huge piano; vases; ormolu
tables; tables of sienna marble; statuettes on brackets; a
bust of Mr. Webster on a pedestal; divers ornaments in
all directions; a vivid, huge-figured Brussels carpet on the
floor; and yellow and purple curtains to the windows. Taste,
not in its dying agonies, but murdered outright and horribly
stone dead, was the prevailing sentiment of the entire apartment.
Judged by a rigorous artistic eye, the same estheticide was




HARRINGTON.                       193
t,.iargeable upon the drawing-room's occupants.  They were all
excessively -lca-mode in their general appearance, and evidently
of the highest respectability.  Mrs. Atkins, the mother —who
sat lainguidly leaning in thle corner of a velvet sofa, with her
cheek resting- on her finagers-was a fair-haired, waxen-faced
lady of middle age, with pallid-blue eyes, a snub nose, a rabbit
mouth half open, and a receding chin.  She was expensively
arrayed in full dress of changeablle silk, with many flounces;
wore a lace cap, and had a general air of weak good-nature
and dawdling insipidity, enervating to behold.  NM1iss A'kins,
the eldest daughter, who occupied the other end of the sofia,
was a yellow-haired, waxen-faced youncg lady of at least twentyfive; the living suggestion of what her mrotler had been at her
age; with a chin even more receding,  a nose as snub,L  eyes as
pallidly blue, the same drooping rabbit mouth, and the same
air of mild vapidity and hopeless enervation.  She was also
expensively attired, in deep blue satin, cut low in the neck, and
fitting  closely to  her full and shapely bosom.  Julia, the
younger daughter, was an ultra fashionable miss of sweet sixteen; with a bold, saucy face, smooth dlnrk hair, a short, broad
nose, hard, black eyes, a prude's mouth, and a great length and
breadth of flat circular jaw.  The two youngl  men, who were
standing like highly respectable caryatides, at opposite corners
of the mantel, were snobs of the purest water, both in dress
and mlanner.  They were got up in the Engiisl style; for,
like some of tihe highly respectable Bostonians, they cherished
a noble passion for tllhat sort of Anglicism caricatured by Mr.
Punch.  Their black trowsers vwere of the tightest, on legs the
slimmest; their black dress coats were close in the body, large
in the sleeves, and small in the tail; their vests were very short,
their collars high and stiff, and each wore the Joinville neck-tie, a
horizontal bar of silk reaching from ear to ear, to the successful adjustment of which, as Punch observed about tlat time, a
man had to give his whole mind.  Whatever mind the two
young Atkinses possessed, had evidently been wholly given, for
the neck-ties were alarmingly perfect, and constituted, i n fhct,
an incontestable triumi ph of mind over mlatter.  Ini the solitude
of their aspiring souls, tile young men worshipped the memory
9




194                   HARRINGTON.
of Lord Hawbury and Lord Charles Chawles, and moulded
their whiskers after the style of whiskerage patronized by those
eminent nobles. It mattered not that the vulgar rumor had
crossed the Atlantic that Lord Hawbury, immediately on his
return to his ancestral acres, had been clapped into limbo by a
low British tradesman, on account of certain pounds, shillings
and pence owed by him the said Hawbury to him the said low
tradesman. It mattered not that the still vulgarer rumor had
crossed the Atlantic that Lord Charles Chawles, that bright,
consummate flower of the British aristocracy, who had deigned
to honor our humble homes with his august presence, had got
into a row in a theatre just after his return to London-had,
in the coarse language of the London newspapers, which love
to hawk at merit, got drunk; cruelly insulted a poor balletdancer behind the scenes; cruelly beat and trod upon the
manager, who had ventured a remonstrance; had thereupon
been borne away, roaring and fighting, to the nearest stationhouse, from whence he had emerged in the morning, to incur
the reprimand of a magistrate, and pay a brawler's fine.
What mattered such reports as these? mere evidence of the
rush and outbreak of a fiery mind of general assault, as
Horatio felicitously said, quoting from  Hamlet, when the
rumor reached him. Whiskers were whiskers still, and so
Horatio trimmed the sandy crop which was his own, after the
Hawbury model. The result was a scraggy mutton-chop,
depending big end down, in tawny, straggling moss of hair
from Horatio's cheeks, and between these manly hirsute ornaments loomed a bald, fiat, tallowy, superficial face, with an air
of sullen emptiness upon it; with short brown hair, parted
behind, and on the side, and brushed forward around it; with
a low, broad forehead; dull, boiled blue eyes; a strong, short
nose; a thin, lineless, resolute mouth; and a great expanse
of chin and jaw, bolder than, but like, his younger sister's.
Mighty in whiskerage and hair, and on the Lord Charles
Chawles model, was Horatio's brother Thomas. Hair, tawnybrown in color, parted on the left, sloping up and off crescendo
to fall in a mass on the right side, and bunching off in a round,
full tuft of lesser quantity on the other side. This, as the lob



HARRINGTON.                     195
sided crown of a puffy face, with the younger sister's chin and
jaw. Eyes, close together, hard, black and insolent; short
nose, a compromise between snub and straight, with a lift in
the nostrils, as if it snuffed offence; mouth, a short, stern,
small horseshoe curve, cusps down; and under this, on the
broad and long flat chin, a tawny short imperial, and over
this, curving down from the centre of the nose and rounding
up the cheeks, in a military pothook, the gallant whiskerage
of Lord Charles Chawles. Over the whole face an expression
6f sternly supercilious insolence, inspiring to behold. A fine
young man-two fine young men indeed; models of their
kind; full of the pride of caste and all its callousness.  Destined to be citizens of the highest respectability, when their
wild bats-and they were wild-were sown and come to the
hard and selfish harvest.  Already they had begun, and begun
well.  Furnished with their father's money, they had their
club, their boon-companions, their mistresses, their fast horses,
and drank and drove and gained and revelled in a manner
hardly outdone by Lord Hawrbury and Lord Cilailes Chawles
themselves.  They were, moreover, stanch young WThigsUnion men, Constitution men, Law and Order men, Fugitive
Slave Law men, sound on the goose in every conceivable particular. Proof of their devotion to their country, they had
only the Saturday before, foregone their customary drive on
the Cambridge road, foregone their supper and wine  at
Porter's, and stayed in town to hear Mr. Webster at Faneuil
Hall, and even now, Thomas, the younger and more ardent
spirit, was a little hoarse from cheering on that memorable
occasion. Proof again of their devotion to their country,
which always meant in one form  or another the SouthernSlavery part of their country, here they were, nobly sacrificing
their customary drive, to muster with the rest of the family and
greet the ardent son of the sunny South, the gallant and
chivalrous Southern gentleman then expected, and not yet come.
He was coming, though, for while this interesting group,
properly stilted for the occasion, were waiting and chatting, a
strenuous pull at the bell-wire was heard, with the answering
jingle of the hall bell.




196                   HARRINGTON.
" That's him, be Jove!" exclaimed Thomas, straightening
up on his slim legs, and adjusting the bows of his neck-tie,
while he looked with military sternness at the drawing-room
door.
Horatio, who, with the laudable desire to add brilliancy, as
was his wont on company days, to the dinner-table conversation, had been diligently storing his memory with the quaint
sayings of Charles Lamb-for Charles Lamb is quite the ton
with the young Boston aristocracy, as Alexander Pope is with
the old  laid the book, which he had brought down to study
till the last minute, on the mantel behind a large vase, and
with a glance into the mirror behind him to see that his necktie was all right, assumed a dignified and graceful attitude,
with his left thumb inserted in his vest pocket, and his head
turned solemnly toward the door. Mirs. Atkins, without moving, cast a glance along her flounces, and made sure in her
mind that she was seated so as to be able to rise gracefully
when the guest appeared.  Her eldest daughter, with a little
soft palpitation at heart, for the guest might be a bachelor or
a widower, and she was ready to fall in love with any child of
the sunny South, or son of the icy North, who had money and
social position, also cast an eye at her ample skirts, and a
mind's eye at her capabilities for rising. The other daughter,
Julia, started bolt upright in her chair, and with her hard,
black eyes fixed on the door as though she would look through
the panels, listened intently.
Presently they heard Michael shuffling along through the
hall, and then the hall door opening.
"Is Mr. Atkins in?" demanded a resonant, loud voice,
which was heard in the drawing-room.
A moment's silence, and Michael's reply inaudible.
"Will he be in soon?"
Another silence, and Michael's reply again inaudible.
"Well, I'll wait for him."
Michael was heard this time, explaining in a thin key that
Mr. Atkins had company, and wouldn't wish to see him.
" Can't help that," was the bluff answer, followed by heavy
feet stamping into the hall, and the dump of a heavy body




HARIZTNGTON.                   197
flinging itself on one of the hall chairs. "It's a matter of
business, and he won't thank you if I don't see him. Mind
that, my man."
" Humbug!" blurted out Horatio, taking up his book again.
" It's not him."
" O fiddlestick!" was the elegant exclamation of Julia, in a
pet, " he's not coming at all."
"Hush, my child," said her mamma in a soft, drawling
voice, " don't be impatient. Show your breeding, my child,
show your breeding."
" Well, be Jove, I'd like to know who that is!" exclaimed
Thomas, with some vehemence;" coming into the house like
the sheriff, be Jove."
Michael meanwhile, having probably stood still for a minute, was now heard shutting the hall door, and presently came
into the drawing-room, and closing the door behind him, gave
an account of the dialogue.?
" Who is the man, Mike?" demanded Thomas in the imperative mood.  "What does he look like?"
Michael replied that he looked like a sailor, though he was
not dressed in sailor's clothes.
" 0 it's some of father's people from the wharf," said Horatio.  "Better show him up into the library, and not have him
sitting there like a scare-crow."
"Yes, Michael, show him up into the library," said Mrs.
Atkins, "and tell him  Mr. Atkins will be in soon. If it's
business, your father will want to see him, for he always sees
people that come on business," she added, in a lower tone, as
Michael slid out of the room.
They were quiet again for a minute, while the heavy boots
of the visitor were heard thumping up over the carpeted stairs
into distance.
"Be Jove I" said Thomas, with a fierce air, "that chap goes
up like one of Dan Rice's elephants, be Jove! Now then,
where's our Southern friend?  That's the next question."
"Mamma," said Miss Atkins, in a soft, debilitated voice,
with a slight lisp, " do you know if he's married?"
"No, Caroline, I don't know," replied Mrs. Atkins, lan



198                   HARRINGTON.
guidly.  "But I think he's not, or he would have brought his
wife with him. These Southern gentlemen are so gallant, you
know, and they always bring their wives with them."
"Ecod, Carry," blurted Thomas, while Caroline was taking
the flattering unction of her mother's astonishing answer to her
soul-" if he's got a wife already, it's all up with your chance,
me girl.  Our Southern friends are the deuce and all among
the women, but Louisiana ain't Turkey, you know."
"Now, Tom, I should be ashamed," exclaimed Julia, bridling.
"One would think you were never brought fip in good society,
and I should be ashamed, I should."
"Oh, you cork up, Jule," was the fine youth's exquisite
reply.  "You girls allow yourselves too much tongue, be
Jove I"
"Hush, Julia," interposed Mrs. Atkins, with soft authority,
stopping the young lady's angry retort.  "Silence, this-instant.
You musn't spealk to your brother that way. It's low, my
child —very low, and you must show your breeding."
Julia was silent, but glared spitefully at Thomas.  It is
noticeable that Mrs. Atkins never reproved her boys. Her
girls she kept a check-rein upon constantly.
"Mamma," continued Caroline, perfectly unmoved by her
brother's late remarks, " does he own a very large plantation,
and how many negroes has he, mamma?"
"Indeed, I can't tell you, Caroline," replied Mrs. Atkins,
blandly. " I think he must have a great many of the horrid
creatures, for those Southern gentlemen all have a great many,
and numbers of the ungrateful things run away, which was the
reason why the Fugitive Slave Bill was passed, you know."
" Yes, and I wish the South would just march up back here
on Nigger Hill, and lug off the whole pack of them, men,
women, and children, for they're a disgrace to the neighborhood, and it's a burning shame to have them staying away from
their masters," growled Horatio, looking up from the gentle
and human pages of Charles Lamb.
"All I know about him," resumed Mrs. Atkins, continuing
her notice of the expected guest, "is what your father said in
the note he sent up to the house. Namely, that he belongs to




HARRINGTON.                   199
a great cotton-house in New Orleans, with which your father
deals largely, and that he owns a plantation, and that he is a
splendid fellow, and a real Southern gentleman, and one of the
chivalry, and all that, and that we must have an excellent
dinner, and treatliim with true Northern hospitality, and so
forth.  All which you saw in the note, and really I don't know
any more about him. But of course he is a perfect gentleman,
for all the Southern gentlemen are perfect gentlemen, and they
are as gallant and chivalrous as gentlemen can be, and as distingue as-as Count Blomanosoff, and I'm sure nothing could
be more distingue' than Count Blomanosoff, you know."
To compare anybody to the horrent-whiskered Russ who
had dined with the Atkinses on his way to Washington, was
the highest compliment Mrs. Atkins could pay. Count Blomanosoff was the god of her idolatry.
" Dear me, I wish he would come!" exclaimed Julia, fidgeting in her chair.
As if in response to her wish, and before her mother could
again entreat her to show her breeding, the door-bell rang.
" Here he is, be Jove!" cried Thomas, amidst a general flutter and movement.
Anxious silence succeeded, while Michael was shuffling to
the door. Presently, the noise of entering feet, a full, decisive
voice saying something, and a soft, smooth, courteous voice
answering; then, after a moment's pause, the drawing-room
door swung open, and behind the sturdy form of Mr. Lemuel
Atkins, the enraptured ladies saw the rich brunette complexion, the long waven hair and thick moustache, and the lordly
figure of their Southern guest.
At the first glance they were enchanted.  So handsome, so
gallant, so chivalrous!  Mrs. Atkins rose with a sweeping rustle of flounces, and stepped forward; and there was a general
rustle of rising anld moving as the two entered.
" Here we are," cried Mr. Atkins, in his rotund, energetic
voice, striding in as he spoke, with a smile on his hard visage,
and stepping aside to pause and turn with an extended hand
toward his guest. " Mr. Lafitte, I have the honor to present
you to my wife. IMy love, Mr. Lafitte, of Louisiana."




200                   HIARRINGTON.
Mrs. Atkins curtseyed low as she slid forward with outstretched hand, her waxen face slightly colored, and wreathed
with smiles.
"I am most happy to see you, Mr. Lafitte," she softly murmured, "and I am delighted to welcome youPto Boston."
"Madam, I am charmed with the honor you do me," courteously returned the Southerner, bowing low with her hand in
his, and serenely smiling.
"And this is my eldest daughter, sir," continued the merchant.  " Caroline, Mr. Lafitte."
Caroline looked very pretty, as with a fluttering heart, and
a faint sea-shell pink on her cheeks and lips, she wafted herself
forward, and dawdled down into Pa low clurtsey, with a languishing glance at the rich brunette visage of the Southerner.  Sir.
Lafitte glided up to her, bowing, pressed her hand in his, and
cast into her eyes a momentary ardent look, which threw Caro
line into feeble ecstasy.
"I am enchanted to meet you, Miss Atkins," said 2Mr. Lafitte, in a low, smooth voice, sweeter -than music to her ear.
Caroline was so overcome with rapture, that she could only
color, curtsey, cast another languishing glance at her adorer,
and withdraw a pace or two, while her father introduced Julia.
Then came Horatio's turn, and then Thomas's.  Horatio did
it in the aristocratic Hawbury style-a solemn  face, a stiff
bend of the back, the thumb of the left hand in his vest
pocket, and his right hand clasping Mir. Lafitte's fingers.
Thomas came the Lord Charles Chawles —head up, shoulders
back, coat-tail jutting out in the bow, legs wide, hand slowly
wagging Mr. Lafitte's, horse-shoe mouth agrin, and voice remarking, "Mr. Lafitte, yours-glad to meet you, sir; be Jove,
I am!"  To which Mr. Lafitte replied, that he was always
proud to make a gentleman's acquaintance, especially yours,
Jar. Atkins, on this happy occasion.
The introductions successfully over, Mr. Lafitte was invited
to take a seat near the hostess, and the rest of the company
settled into their respective chairs, Mr. Atrkins surveying them
all with an air of proud and smiling gratification.  He was a
strong, sturdily-built man, of good presence, dressed in black,




TARRINGTON.                    201
with a purple velvet vest, crossed by a short and thick gold
chain.  On his little finger he wore a heavy goldl seal-ring, with
a red stone.  His face was imore like Horatio's and Julia's'
than any of the others, but much finer and stronger than
either's, for AMr. Atkins's boyhood was cast in the robust life
of a country town, and he had fought his way up to wealth
and social position in Boston, battling with the forces of trade,
and hewing out for himself the character of a self-made man.
The black, hard eyes of his younger daughter, and the short,
bold nose and large round jaw of her and the sons, were stronglier seen in him than in them.  He was smooth-shaven, wore
his hair short, and had the blanched, resolute color of a man
whose days had been strenuously devoted to money-making.
Usually his face was decisive and stern, though now it was
relaxed into a proud and gratified smile, as he surveyed his
guest and family circle.
"Charmingr  weather you're having in Boston, madam,"
remarked Mr. Lafitte, addressing his hostess.  " Cooler though
than when I left Louisiana three weeks ago.  We had some
of the hottest days there in April that I ever knew.  It was
positively like midsummer."
"Ab, Mr. Lafitte," sighed  Irs. Atkins, "our climate must'
seem  cold to you, who have come so lately from the sunny
South.  Is this your first visit to Boston?"
"Yes, madam, it is the first time I ever had the pleasure
of visiting your beautiful city," courteously replied the Southerner.  " I was sorry not to be able to get here in time to
hear Mr. Webster, who spoke, they tell me, in your Faneuil
Hall, last Saturday.  Dear Webster! I positively love him
as if he were my brother. He is doing such a good work for
our common country."
" Oh, isn't he splendid!" lisped Miss Atkins, with a languishing air.  "So statesmanlike!    Te were all there to
hear him, Mr. Lafitte.  Oh, it was beautiful!"
I can well imagine that, Miss Atkins," replied Mfr. Lafitte,
smiling blandly at her; " and it was really patriotic in you to
lend the grace and beauty of your presence, ladies, to ornament such an occasion.  Dear Webster is giving abolition
9*




202                  BARRINGTON.
fanaticism its death-blow. By the way, speaking of fanaticism,
Mr. Atkins pointed out two of your notorieties to me in the.street to-day-Garrison and Wendell Phillips."
"Horrid wretches!" murmured Mrs. Atkins, in a die-away
tone.
"Be Jove I" blurted Thomas, "I'd just like to put an
ounce of lead into them two. I would, be Jove!"
" Very patriotic," said Mr. Lafitte, with a courteous inclination of his head toward the speaker, "and spoken in the
true Southern spirit."
"Those two men ought to be hung," said Horatio,
solemnly, emulous of Southern approbation.  "They make
me tbink of that anecdote of Charles Lamb, Mr. Lafitte.
You remember, sir, a stranger called on Lamb at the West
Indy House.'Are you Mr. Lamb?' said he.'Well,' said
Charles, feeling the grey whisker on his cheek,'I think I'm
old enough to be a sheep.'  Now, Garrison and Wendell
Phillips," continued Horatio, making the exquisitely felicitous
application, "they're old enough to be sheep, and I go for
making them dead mutton."
" Ha, ha, capital!" exclaimed Mr..Atkins, with a mild
bellow, locking around on the company, with a smiling, open
mouth of satisfaction in his son's wit.
" Very good, be Jove I" said Thomas, with a grin.
Mrs. Atkins feebly clapped her hands, and said, "good,
good," and Caroline giggled, and softly murmured, "Oh,
Horatio, you're so funny!"
What a set of damned boobies! thought Mr. Lafitte;
then aloud: "Yes, that's a capital story, and your application of it, Mr. Horatio, is one of the best things I've heard.
But I was surprised to see that Garrison is quite a mild, benevolent-looking man. We think of him down South, you know,
as a red-faced brawler, and I was struck with the contrast
between the original and the fancy portrait.  Phillips, too,
surprised me still more, for he has the air of a high-bred gentleman. I'll tell you who lie reminded me of. You are
aware, ladies, that the Mobilians are famous for their polished
grace and high breeding. Now, the flower of them all is




HARRINGTON.                   203
Tom Lafourcade. In fact his elegance and dignity of manner
and bearing are town-talk down there.  Well, if you'll believe
me, Phillips, though he has a graver and less pronounced air,
actually reminded me of Tom Lafourcade."
" Dear me! how surprising," softly exclaimed Mrs. Atkins.
" Why, yes, madam, very," returned Mr. Lafitte.  "It was
really odd to come North and have the arch abolition fanatic
remind one of princely Tom Lafourcade, of Mobile."
"Oh, he's very handsome," lisped Caroline, pensively. " But
so fanatical."
"I tell you, Mr. Lafitte, it's an awful pity about Phillips,"
broke in Mr. Atkins.  " He's very much of a gentleman, a
splendid orator, full of ability every way, and belongs to one
of our most respectable families.  Why, I heard Choate say
once that if he'd stuck to the bar, he'd have been the first
lawyer in America. Yes, sir. And there's no doubt that if
he was in our party he'd be second to no man in the country,
unless it was Webster.  But he's thrown himself away-positively sacrificed all his influence and wasted his talents by
joining that abolition crew."
"In short, Nicodemused himself into nothing, as Charles
Lamb says," observed Horatio.
"Nicodemused?" interrogated Mr. Lafitte.  "Might I ask
the meaning of that phrase, sir?  I am so dull, and I confess
my unacquaintance with Lamb."
It is not Charles Lamb, but another humorist, who, alluding to the obstructive influence of an ugly name upon its
owner's career, and giving parents a quaint hint for the christening, remarks, "don't Nicodemus a boy into nothing."
Horatio, who only remembered the phrase for its oddity, and
as usual with his quotations, lugged it into his remarks, without much thought of its relevancy, utterly forgetting the context and the meaning, was considerably disconcerted by Mr.
Lafitte's question, and reddened slightly.
" Nicodemused, Mr. Lafitte?" he stammered.  " Why, you
know, sir," he continued, as a happy means of extrication from
his difficulty, suggested itself-" you know that the Bible says
Nicodemus went to Christ."




201                    HARRINGTO)N.
"Oh, yes, I see.  And lost his influence by so doing,"
blandly answered Mr. Lafitte, with a furtive smile which noo
body noticed.  " Yes, yes.  That's very clear.  Very happi'y
said, sir, and I'm much obliged to you for enlightening my
stupidity.  So Phillips has Nicodemused himself into nothing?"
" Indeed he has, sir," replied Mr. Atkins.  "Just thrown
away his talents, and misused his eloquence in denouncing the
Compromise Measures, and Mr. Webster, and Slavery, and all
the best interests of his country."
"Be Jove, he's a fool, that's what he is," remarked Thomas,
caressing his military whiskerage.
"He's worse, Tom," replied his father; " he's a traitor, and
ought to be indicted for treason."
" Does he move in good society here, Mr. Atkins?' blandly
asked Mr. Lafitte.
"lHe!  Why, sir, he's a rank Disunionist!" exclaimed the
merchant.  " A Disunionist received into good society!  Mly
dear sir, what are you thinking of!"
"Pardon me," politely returned the Southerner, with a
courteous inclination of his head, and cherishing in secret, a
malicious desire to corner his host, though he must tell a lie to
do it-" pardon me, I did not know.  You are aware that I
am a Disunionist myself.  The difference I apprehend to be
this:  Phillips is for a Dissolution of the Union for the sake
of liberty; I am for a dissolution of the Union for the sake of
slavery.  I state it frankly, for I wish to plainly present the
fact that we are both Disunionists, though for different reasons.
Now am I to infer that the fact of my Disunion sentiments
would exclude me from good society here? For I have letters
to some of your leading citizens, and it would indeed be awkward were I to present them where I should not be welcome."
"No, sir, no indeed, sir," replied the merchant with sonorous emphasis.  "That is a different case altogether, sir.
Entirely different.  We honor the spirit of Southern gentlemen in defence of their property, sir, and our first society is
always open to them, Mr. Lafitte."
" You Southern gentleman are so chivalrous I" said Mrs.
Atkins, with languid playfulness.




HARRINGTON.                    205
"So ardent!" lisped Caroline, with a languishing glance at
the Southerner.
" Indeed, ladies, you overwhelm me," returned Mr. Lafitte,
gallantly; " and I am glad to perceive the true state of the
case, Mr. Atkins.  It is curious, however, if we look at it
from one point of view, that Mr. Phillips, who, as you say, is
very much of a gentleman, one of your most talented men,
and belonging to one of your most respectable families-it is
curious that he should be sent to Coventry by your first society
for his Disunion, and we received so handsomely for ours. But
then, he is for liberty, and we are for slavery, which, as you
happily observed, makes an important difference.  Yes, I see
the distinction, and it is both broad and just.  An admirable
distinction, indeed, and one that does your society great
credit."
Mr. Lafitte said all this so courteously-with such flattering
and affable sincerity of voice and manner-that his listeners
had not the slightest apprehension of the terrific sarcasm
which lurked in his words. They took it all as an elaborate
compliment, and sat smiling and simpering at him, each after
his or her respective fashion. The damned, mean, contemptible, servile curs-tabooing their own Disunionists, and ducking
and smiling to ours! —was Mr. Lafitte's irreverent mental
reflection, as, softly fingering his moustache, with the most
affable of smiles lighting his rich brunette complexion, he
equably surveyed them —floods of contemptuous disgust meanwhile raging delightedly in his lordly bosom.
"Oh, Mr. Atkins," said the lady of the house, "I almost
forgot to tell you that a-a person called to see you, and is
up-stairs in the library."
" A person. Who is he? I can't see persons now. Send
up word that I'm engaged," returned the merchant, somewhat
brusquely.
" Michael thoughthe was a sailor," drawled Mrs. Atkins,
in her fal-lal voice; " and he said he'd come on business of importance, and that you'd want to see him."
"Oh, business. That's another affair," returned her'husband,
rising and looking at his watch.  " Business before pleasure




206                  HARRINGTON.
always. You'll excuse me a few moments, Mr. Lafitte. I'll
be right down."
"Certainly, sir, certainly," said the Southerner, blandly
bowing.
Mr. Atkins at once left the drawing-room and went up-stairs
into the library. The visitor, a short, strongly-built man, with
a sunburnt face, who was slowly walking up and down, with
his hands in his pockets, came toward him as he entered.
"Why, Captain Bangham! You? How are you?" exclaimed the merchant, smiling, and shaking hands with him.
"All right, Mr. Atkins. How are you, sir?"
" Capital. And so the Soliman's in."
"Yes, sir. Came up this morning. I've been waiting at
the office pretty much all day "I
"Indeed. I'm sorry, captain. But, for a wonder, Lafitte
came to town, and I've been showing him round."
Captain Bangham started, and slapped his hips with his
hands.
" Lafitte in town I" he burst out.  "Which one of'em?"
" Lafitte the younger. Torwood, you know," returned the
merchant, taking an easy chair.
" The hell he is I" ejaculated the profane captain, reddening,
and thrusting both hands into his pocket.  "You don't mean
to say he's down-stairs now?"
"Why Bangham, what in the world's the matter with you,
man?" said the surprised merchant, staring at him.  "Down
stairs?  Of course he's down stairs.  Come to dine with
us."
"Well, I'm  damned!" vociferated the excited captain.
"If this ain't horrid."
He stamped off, with his hands in his pocket, while Mr.
Atkins stared at him, as if he thought the man had gone
mad.
"Captain Bangham," said the merchant, slowly, " will you
be so good as to tell me what you mean by this extraordinary
ebullition. What's the matter?  Isn't the Soliman all right?
Has the cargo ""The matter's just this, Mr. Atkins," broke in the sailor,




HARRINGTON.                    207
coming toward him, and flinging himself into a chair.  "Soliman, cargo, and all is right. There's nothing the matter with
them"
"Then what is the matter?" demanded the merchant,
angrily.
" The matter's this, Mr. Atlkins," roared Bangham, pounding his knees with his clenched hands.  " When we were
three days out we found a blasted nigger, half smothered
in the hold.  And that nigger belongs to Torwood Lafitte,
and you've got him down-stairs to dine with you. Yes, sir,
I've got the nigger tied up aboard the brig this minute,
and you've got his master."
Mr. Atkins turned white, and sat looking at the sailor with
rigid lips.
"Yes, sir.  That's the matter," continued  Bangham.
"' And matter enough, too, Mr. Atkins. Just think of what
Lafitte'11 say if he hears that his nigger got off on your brig.
Just think of the row there'll be in Orleans if it gets out.
They'll seize me for it, if the brig ever'touches the levee again,
Mr. Atkins."
" She'll touch the levee again with that scoundrel on board
of her," shouted the merchant, with an oath, thrusting his
thumbs into the arm-holes of his vest, and swelling proudly.
"They shall know in New Orleans that we're law-abiding citizens, Bangham. Back he shall go, and it will redound to the
credit of the house when it's known that we sent him back
promptly. I'm glad you came to tell me this, Bangham. Just
keep it quiet. He shall go back just as soon as the Soliman
can get ready for the return voyage."
" All right, sir," replied the sailor.  "But, Mr. Atkins,
we've got him here now in Boston Bay, and how are we going
to take him back without going to law about it? Hadn't
Lafitte better bring him before a Commissioner, and have a
certificate made out"
"No," interrupted the merchant, with strenuous emphasis.
"I'll have it said in New Orleans that a Boston merchant
can show his devotion to the interests of the South without
any ridiculous formalities.  It'll strike them well, Bangham,




208                   HARRINGTON.
and raise our credit there.  Besides, if we go before the Commissioner, those infernal Abolitionists will have another long
fuss about it, as they had about Sims, and who knows but that
they'll rescue him as they did Shadrach. No, I'll make sure
work of it. If the black villain were to escape, the effect on
mny trade would be as bad in New Orleans as if I hadn't done
my best to return him, and I won't have my trade injured.
Business before everything. I'm not going to have the delay
of the law, nor the risks either, in this matter. So just hold
on to the black reprobate, Bangham, till we can return
him."
" It's rather risky, Mr. Atkins," demurred the sailor.  " You
know it's illegal, sir, to take off the man without due process
of law, and if the Grand Jury gets hold of it, they'll be apt to
indict you for kidnapping."
"Indict me?" returned the merchant.  "Ho, ho, Bangham," he laughed, "you're verdant, my man. There's not a
Grand Jury would ever find a bill against me for that, Bangham.  Why, bless your soul, Bangham, the G —rand Jury's
made up of our most respectable citizens-property holders
every man of them-Fugitive Slave Law men to the backbone
-and do you think they'd indict me for an act in the very
spirit of the Compromise Measures, and for the best interests
of our Southern commerce?  Oh, no, Bangham! There's not
one of them that wouldn't wink at it-not one. No fear about
the Grand Jury, captain, not the least in the world. But you
haven't told me how this black wretch got aboard."
" And I'll be hanged if I know, Mr. Atkins," replied the
sailor, with another thump on his knees.  "All I know is,
that when we were three davs out we unbattened one of the
hatches to get an axe that had been left in there accidentally,
and there was the black beast, almost dead.  Lord, how he
smelt! It was horrid. And he looked like the very devil
himself.  Had an iron collar on his neck, with the namze of
Lafitte Brothers engraved on it.  He escaped from the Red
River, lived in a swamp with the snakes and alligators, got
clown the river somehow, and had a horrid time all round.
Didn't seem to know, or else he wouldn't tell, how he got




lAR1TNGTON.                   209
aboard the brig. Fact is, the black pig's not more than halfwitted now, with all he's gone through."
"Badly treated?" inquired Mr. Atkins, placidly.
"Oh, yes, treated bad enough," carelessly replied the sailor.
"Lafitte's a high-binder with his niggers, I reckon. This
chap's all covered with scars and marks, and accordin' to his
story, and that's true enough, I don't doubt, there's not a
worse treated nigger in the whole South than he was. He
wouldn't have run off, I guess, if he hadn't been desperate with
bad usage. I expect Lafitte'11 be the death of him when he
gets him again."
"That's his lookout," said the merchant, calmly.  "If Lafitte chooses to maltreat his own property, there's no one the
loser by it but himself."
At this moment Michael appeared at the library door with
the announcement that dinner was served. The merchant
rose, and Bangham took his straw hat from the table and rose
also.
"' I'll see you to-morrow, captain," said Mr. Atkins.  "In
the meantime, keep that fellow in limbo, and we'll arrange for
his return."
"All right, Mr. Atkins," returned the sailor, lounging out
of the room, with a relieved mind.
Mr. Atkins followed him down-stairs to the hall-door, and
then turned into the drawing-room, with a smiling countenance.
"' Now, Mr. Lafitte," said this manly, humane, high-souled,
law-abiding, patriotic American Christian and flower of mercantile morality, addressing the gallant and chivalrous son of
the sunny South, " now, if you please, we will go out to dinner."
" Shall I have the honor?" said Mr. Lafitte, rising and
offering his arm, with a bow, to the hostess.
She took the offered arm, and they swept out together, the
brave and the fair. Bouquet de Caroline streamed in their
wake, as Miss Atkins, leaning on the arm of her highly respectable papa, wafted on after them. Millefleurs and pomatrum
lent their sweetness to the desert air of the drawing-room, as




210                   HARRTNGTON.
the gallant Horatio escorted out the lovely Julia.  Following
up the rear, in martial state, and redolent of musk and marrowfat, came haughty Tllomas, caressing the whiskerage of
Lord Charles Chawles, and sniffing the rich odor of thle dinner from afar.
Meanwhile, low Antony, brother of Roux, bought chattel of
Lafitte, foodless, filthy, helpless, friendless, despised and accursed, lay bound in the dark and noisome hlold of a Boston
vessel-a negro with no rights that a white man is bolund to
respect-with no rights that a Boston merchlanlt   ighlt nlot,
and would not, take away, all for the good of party and of
trade-a good which, as every thoughtful patriot and Christian will allow, is the chief good of existence.
CHAPTER XII.
STARTING DEVELOPMENTS.
HARRINGTON lifted his calm eyebrows with some wonder at
the furious entrance of his friends and sat regarding him with
a firm mouth and steadfast eyes. Wentworth, out of breath
with the speed of his course, and the tumult of his emotions,
had flung his hat across the room, and himself upon the sofa,
and sat panting, with his handsome face flushed, and his bright
auburn curls damp with perspiration.
"Well, Richard, what's the matter?" said HaIrrington,
calmly. " Has the sky fallen?"
" Harrington, see here," panted Wentworth, " Johnny's
just been up to the studio."
" Johnny?  Who's Johnny?" interrupted Harrington.
"Oh, pshaw!  Bagasse's boy, you know. John Todd,"
fumed Wentworth, stopping to wipe his brow with a white
handkerchief.
" Well. Is that any reason for your running yourself into
a pleurisy?"' bantered Harrington.
"By George!" exclaimed the young artist, " it's a reason for




HARRINGTON.                     211
my running Fernando Witherlee into something else, and that's
a broken neck, I'm thinking.  Cursed rascal!"
" What's Witherlee been up to now?" inquired Harrington,
with sudden interest.
"Impudence," replied Wentworth.  "Impudence unparalleled.  Listen, Harrington.  John Todd says Witherlee came
into the fencing-school this morning, and had the atrocious
impudence-the abominable-the infernal "Wentworth stopped, gasping with rage.
"0  use of adjectives, descend!" jocosely cried HIari'ington,
lifting his hand in mock-heroic invocation, with his cheeks
wrinkled in a rich smile.
Wentworth, thus prayed for, began to laugh, even in the
midst of his fury.
"Well, Harrington," said he, "I know it's foolish to get
excited about it, but upon my word, Witherlee behaves scandalously.  Do you know that he has been telling Bagasse a
long rigmarole about Muriel and Emily, and you anld me.
Bagasse! Now just think of it! Think of his talking  of two
ladies like those, and in such a connection, and to Bagasse!
Yes, of all persons in the world, to Bagasse!"
Iarrington's color changed and his face puckered with
amazement, while he nervously grasped the arms of his chair.
"Is Witherlee possessed!" he ejaculated.  "Why, I never
heard of such conduct.  So boyish, so foolish, such all outrage
against the fitness of things "
"And so infamously inmpudent," put in Wentworth.  "It's
the impudence that strikes me."
" Certainly.  It's imlpudent, too, and I don't wonder you
were moved," murmured Harrington, slowly, with an absorbed
air.
" Moved!" snapped Wentworth.  "By Jupiter, I am imoved
to give himi a sound horse-whipping, and he'll get it, or my nalme's
not what it is. Why, look at it, Harrington.  In the first
place, Emily's a particular friend of his.  Now, wouldn't you
think that the commonest respect for her would have prevented him from bandying her name about in conversation with
anybody, much less old Bagasse?"




212                  IHARRINGTON.
"Eureka! I have it," exclaimed Harrington, bursting from
his abstraction.  " That accounts for Bagasse's remark about
the two ladies that gave the violets."
"What do you mean?" inquired Wentworth.
llarrington recounted what the fencing-master had said that
morning.
" You see, Richard," he added, "that set me wondering;
for how did Bagasse know that ladies had given us the violets?
How did he know but that I had gathered them from my own
yard?  Then, when I saw your nosegay in his button-hole, I
thought you must have told him, and I was astonished to
think that you should choose the old veteran for a confidant."
" By Jupiter, Harrington, you didn't think I would do such
a thing," exclaimed Wentworth, reproachfully.
"My dear Wentworth, it was absurd in me, and I beg your
pardon," returned Harrington.  " Certainly, it was not like
you; but then, somebody must have told him, and how could
I imagine it was Witherlee?"
Wentworth sat silent, thinking with mounting rage of
Witherlee's remarks to the fencing-master.  If he had been
cool and thoughtful, he might have at least suspected, from the
sample he had of the good Fernando's nature, that he was at
the bottom  of Emily's alienation from himself. But Wentworth's vivid temper only threw gleams and flashes on things,
and what he saw, he saw in salient points, without observing
their connections and relations.
"By George, I'll break his neck!" he foamed, stamping his
foot on the floor.
"Now, Richard, keep cool," said lHarrington.  "You can
depend that Fernando has been making mischief all round, and
let us just track it out. In the first place, let's hear Johnny's
report of what he said."
"Lord! I can't tell you! it's gone from me," fumed Wentworth, running his hhands through his curls, as if in search of
it. " Let's see. In the first place, he had some snob criticisms on your coat; which, he thinks, is not genteel enough
to entitle you to Muriel's friendship."




HARRINGTON.                    213
"Oh, indeed," said Harrington, with grand good-nature.
"Well, that's a trifle, anyway."
" He said," continued Wentworth, "that you looked like a
beggarman, who had been in the watch-house all night."
" Complimentary," jeered Harrington.
" Wondered how you had the assurance to visit Mliss Eastman at all, when your social position was so much beneath
hers," pursued Wentworth; "and thought it was very kind
in her to permit you."
larrington burst into a peal of hearty laughter.
"Positively," he said, " this is comic. The only tragic thing
about it is, that all this time, Fernando has been pretending
that he was the best of friends to me."
"  tell you, Harrington," replied Wentworth, "that fellow's a perfect snake in the grass. The next thing was to
pitch into my personal appearance."
" Yours!" exclaimed Harrington, laughingly. "Why, Richard, you're the pink of fashion. You're D'Orsay and Raphael
Sanzio, in one."
Wentworth smiled faintly; too angry at Witherlee to be
much amused.
" Nevertheless," he continued, " Witherlee poked his gibes
at me, too —something about the Anti-Slavery Bazaar. Do
they sell clothes there?"
" Not exactly," replied Harrington, laughing.
"Then, I'm hanged if I know what he meant by that," said
Wentworth.
"Well, probably he said you looked bizarre; and Johnny,
not knowing the word, mistook it for its fellow in sound," remarked Harrington.
"That's it I'll bet," burst out Wentworth, reddening.
"Bizarre! The cursed snob I  HIe wants me to cut my
hair off, I suppose, and wear a stove-pipe hat instead of
my Rubens. I'll see him hanged first."
" Well, go on Richard," said Harrington. "All this is unimportant."
"Then," continued the young artist, fidgeting in his seat
like a man who had to deal with an awkward subject, and




214                   HARRINGTON.
looking very fixedly at the opposite wall, with his face redder
than before, "then he proceeded to give Bagasse a sketch of us
two with Cupid's arrows stuck in our bleeding hearts-a regular Saint Valentine picture.  O bother, I won't report the
stuff!  It makes me crawl."
"Oh, go on, Richard, go on," urged HIarrington.
" No, I won't.  Let it go.  Come, Harrington, let's drop
it. Upon my word, I can't repeat it, and I won't," said'Wentworth.
Harrington saw that it was no use to urge him, and was
silent.  The fact was, Wentworth did not like to have Harrington think of him as the lover of Emily, and Witherlee's
portraiture of him as such was too faithful for exhibition. No
man likes to confess that he has been jilted by a woman, as
Wentworth thought he had been by Emily, and to say that
he had been reputed her lover by Witherlee was certainly an
approximation at least to such a confession.
" Very well," remarked Harrington after a pause, " if you
don't care to talk about it, let it go.  Now, Richard, I want
you to leave this matter to me. There's more in it, I'm convinced, than appears, and if you make a quarrel with Fernando we shall never know the whole of it.  Just keep cool,
say nothing to him of what you have heard, and let me track
the fox through all his doublings.  Will you promise?"
Wentworth hesitated, but his own suspicions were roused,
and he felt the good sense of Harrington's proposal.
"I agree, Harrington," he said at length. " Yes, I promise,
and I'll keep dark."
" Good," replied Harrington:  "I declare, Richard, I can't
help feeling, in view of the serious grandeur of life, that all
this is pitifully  petty.  These pigmy broils and imbroglios
seem all the more trivial in contrast with such scenes and passions as I have been in to-day.  I wish we could live only in
the larger life, unvexed by this buzz and fribble."
"What has happened to-day, Harrington?" asked Wentworth.
Harrington told him briefly of the scene in Southac street,
omitting to mention what passed in Roux's house, lest it




HARRINGTON.                     215
should lead to questions verging upon the secret which Emily
now shared with Muriel, himself and Captain Fisher.
"I wish I could feel interested as you do in these political
affairs," said Wentworth, lightly, when Harrington had concluded.  " Somehow, I can't though.  Of course, I'm  for
liberty in my own quiet way, and I pity the poor darkeys and
all that, but then it doesn't come home to me at all.  I'm an
artist in the grain, I suppose, and art-life and matters connected
with it, leave me no interest for other matters."
" Ah, Richard," replied Harrington, " you must outlive
these notions.  Art cannot thrive sequestered from life.  It
may live in the cell, but it will narrow and spire, and it can
only branch and broaden into Shakspearean greatness when
planted among the ways and walks of men.  No man can be
a great painter, sculptor, composer, poet, whose heart is not
deeply and warmly engoaged in the life of his own time. It is
the lack of interest and participation in human affairs which
makes our modern artists mere imitators and colorists, and
so much of modern art weak and pallid-a mere watery reflection of old models and forms of beauty."
"Come, now, that7s heresy?" said Wentworth, laughing.
"Talk of poets-look at Shakspeare.  What interest did he
take in human affairs?  He kept the Globe Theatre, studied
his part by day, played it at night, and wrote his dramas between whiles. That's the way his years were occupied. What
participation had he in Elizabethan politics?  What in the
life of his own time?  Why, Ulrici says, in substance, that
Shakspeare didn't care enough about the politics of his age to
have his mind even colored by them. The critics agree that a
more thorough aristocrat or conservative never breathed.
Jupiter I according to the critics, he was a perfect despiser of
the common people, and a man utterly without patriotism and
philanthropy."  Your Yerulam  there, now," pursued Wentworth, looking at the statue, "' was patriot and philanthrope.
He toiled for his country and wrought for'the relief of the
human estate,' as he phrases it. But the most powerful microscope couldn't detect anything of that sort in William."
Harrington laughed amusedly.




216                   HARRINGTON.
" Now, look here, Richard," he replied.  "In the first place,
I flatly deny that there is contempt for any sort of people,
common or uncommon, in the Shakspearlan pages. But let that
pass, for what I am going to say will cover it fully. I want
to call your attention to the distinctive peculiarity-the uniqueness —of the Shakspearean creations. In the Shakspearean
mind you have an unexampled union of the subtlest observation
and the profoundest reason. This author observed far more
closely than even Thackeray, and philosophized far more
greatly than even Plato. But this is not all. He constructed
a series of works which show the principles of human action as
they lie in the nature of man, and all the complex operation
of the human passions. And more, he created a number of
figures, which are not characters, but types. That is the
grand distinctive Shakspearean peculiarity. Nobody has done
that but he. The Don Quixote of Cervantes is a great figure,
but it is not Shakspearean.  The Greek Prometheus, the
German Mephistopheles are immense allegorical creations, but
they are not Shakspearean. He alone has made figures
which are types-representative men and women standing for
classes. In a word, he alone has given us in a series of models
or images, the Science of Human Nature. This it is that
makes him solitary, as the power with which it is done makes
him supreme, in literature."
"I understand," said Wentworth, "and I agree; but I
don't see what you're driving at, mine ancient."
" Wait a minute, and you shall see," returned Harrington.
"Bacon wanted this very thing done. Nothing that you can
do for the elevation of the world, he says substantially, is of
any value, unless this is done. The radical defect in all
science is, he says, that it has not been done, and he rates
Aristotle sharply for not doing it. He wants a work which
will give us the Science of Man, as he is, in order that we may
make him what he ought to be-a work, he says, which is to
contain the descriptions of the several characters and tempers
of men's natures and dispositions to the end that the precepts
concerning the culture and cure of the mind may be concluded
upon-a work which is also to contain examples in moral and




HARRINGTON.                    217
civil life. This is what Bacon wanted clone, and thle author of
the Shakspeare Drama did it.  Bacon's requiremelnt is fulfilled
exactly in the Shakspeare Drama.  Even our critics have got
hold of the idea that the Science of Human -Nature which B'acon wanted is in the Shakspeare Drama, and the purpose which
Bacon intended such a work to accomplish, is ill daily process of accomplishment through the agency of those plays.
And what is more, Bacon wanted that work to be in the
form  of poetry-the Georgics of the Mind, he calls it, with
a reminiscence of Virgil.  The poets, he says elsewhere,
are the best doctors of this knowledge; and again, for the
expression of such a purpose, reason is not so perspicuous,
nor examples so apt, as the dramatic or poetic presentation.
Very good. Bacon wanted it in poetry, and in poetry you
have it."
Wentworth looked at Harrington steadily, with so curious
an amazement on his countenance, that lHatrington smiled.
" Now, Richard, observe," he pursued.  "The Shakspeare
Drama contains the Science of Aian.  A Science of Man cannot be formed accidentally, or by the mere spontianeity of
genius; it involves design. The author of the Shakspeare
Drama knew, therefore, what he was about; and the fact that
his figures have the peculiarity of being types, sufficiently
proves it.  Now, science is preparatory to art, and a Science
of Man is a preparation for an Art of Human Life. This
makes of your'aristocrat' and'conservative' Shakspeare a
Socialist of the most daring order-the largest innovator the
world has ever known."
" By Jupiter!" exclaimed Wentworth, "it's precious odd
that nobody has noticed all this before."
"So it is, Richard," returned llarrington, smiling goodnaturedlly at him.  " About as odd as that Ulrici should have
said that Shakspeare took no heed of the politics of his time,
when Lear, Coriolanus, and Julius Caesar are occupied, under
the dramatic cover, and in the very face of the military despotism of the age, with the broadest sort of political discussion.
About as odd as that you should think Shakspeare had no
patriotism, when the historical dramas so overflow with pas10




218                    H-ARRINGrTON.
sionate love for England that London theatres, at this day,
rise and roar to it when Phelps or Macready gives it voice
from the stage."
"Well," said Wentworth, reddening and laughing, " I
spoke too fast, no doubt.  Besides, there's Brutus-a splendid
type of.the pure country-lover.  But the philanthropywhere's that?"
" So the man who drew up the Science of Human Nature,
subtle, vast, exact, complete, the inevitable prelimninary to the
relief of the human estate that Bacon schened for, had no
philanthropy," bantered Harrington.
"That's you exactly!" burst out WTentworth, coloring again,
and latughing.  "Thunder, I-Iarrington! that's the way you
hook in a fellow.  Of course, since I've accepted your first
proposition, the rest follows. Well, at all events, you may
show philanthropy as the genius of the plan, but I'm hanged
if you can name a character that has it in the plays."
" Can't I, then?" retorted Harrington, good-humoredly.
"What do you think of Lear?  Whose heart folds in poor
Tom, the social outcast from the lowest sinks of the Elizabethan wretchedness?  Who hurls forth that terrible invocation for the'superfluous and  lust-dieted man that slaves
Heaven's ordinance-that will not see because he does not
feel?' Who prays for the'poor naked wretches that bide
the peltings of the pitiless storm,' and dwells so eloquently on'their houseless heads and unfed sides, their looped and windowed raggedness.' Who is it, the impersonation of cold and
callous conservatism, that is made, as Burke says, to'attend
to the neglected and remember the forgotten,' and comes
face to face with houseless poverty and want to exclaim,' Oh, I have ta'en too little care of this?' Who demands that
the rich and fortunate shall expose themselves to'feel what
wretches feel,' in order that their superfluities may be shered
with them, and justice be more the law of social life? And if
this is not philanthropy, what is it?"
"Say no more, Harrington, I cave," replied Wentworth,
gaily.
"It is true," pursued Harrington, "that the Shakspeare




HARRINGTON.                       219
Drama has no figure of a philanthropist like Howard, no more
than it has of a religious saint like Xavier or MIonlca.  But
I do not think that such portraitures would consist with the
author's design, which, however vast, is still special, having for
its end the culture and cure of the human mind, and, as I have
said, the reconstruction of society.  Ah, hut the true philanthropist, the true saint of that Drama is its author!  No need
to add such a figure to his pages when he himself stands there
added to them by our thought, an image of the noblest love
that ever strove and suffered for mankind."
They both sat in silence for a few moments, lost in musing.
"It is strange," said Wentworth, at length.  "All we
know about Shakspeare personally, is in conflict with what you
have said-though I admit that his works sustain your view.
He seems to have lived a very common-place and vul-gar sort
of a life.  Certainly, his biography does not show that he had
large sympathies and designs for man, and it is indisputable
that he did not participate in the loftier life of his age."
" I look at it in this way," replied IIarring-ton.  " Set aside
the evidence we might collect from  his writings, and consider
only what must inevitably hlave followed from the nature of
his intellect.  The complex catholicity —the massive breadthin a word, the universality of his mind, inevitably involves a
corresponding vastness of interest and participation in the
public affairs of his time, and all the varieties of its thought
and life.  Isolation from  public life may coexist, and be perfectly compatible, with intensity of genius —with universality,
never.  Moreover, to be worldly wise, as the plays show their
author to have been, a man must follow the rule Bacon insists
upon as indispensable-namely, to  ally contemplation with
action.  Deny such a man experience, and you cannot get from
him the lessons of experience, as you get them froml this author.
Isolate such a man from affairs, andl lhis genius spreads aloft
into the vast air of. the abstract, and you never get in his
writings the voices of the street, the camp, the court, the cabinet-in a word, the voices of concrete practical life, as you do
in the Shakspeare Drama.  Take for example, the man nearest
Shakspeare, the many-sided Goethe: the corollary to his many



220                    HARR]IlGTON.
sidedness is the fact that he was a man of the world, a scientifician, courtier, statesman. So with the author of the Drama.
He must have been immersed in public life. He must have
held office. He must have administered the affairs of State.
It was the inevitable result of his genius, and it was the condition on which the manifestations of that genius depended.
Denied public life, and either his development would have been
arrested, or he would have become a vast dreamer or abstractionist."
"Upon my word, Harrington," said Wentworth, "that's
an astonishing thing for you to say I" D
" It's the truth, nevertheless," replied Harrington, smiling.
" But the facts of Shakspeare's life are against you," rejoined Wentworth.
" Well, you must reconcile them as you can," said Harrington.  "Meanwhile, there is the indestructible truth.  All
history, all facts, all reason testify to it. It is so."
" But look here, Harrington," said the amazed Wentworth.
" On the one hand, you infer that a man of Shakspeare's
genius must have been a statesman. On the other hand, is
the plain fact that Shakspeare was nothing of the sort. Now,
therefore, we must at once conclude that your inference is
wrong."
" Not necessarily," replied Harrington.
"'Not necessarily?"  Wentworth laughed, and fixed his
eyes with a puzzled look upon the floor. " Well, I don't see
how you can escape from so obvious a conclusion.  Now, let
me state it again. In the first place, who wrote the plays?"
Receiving no answer, Wentworth looked up, and saw
larrington gazing with rapt affection on the noble bust of
Verulam. For a moment the young artist held his breath in
utter stupefaction; then a deep flush burned upon his face,
and he laughed immoderately. Harrington colored, but took
his friend's merriment, as he took everything, good-naturedly,
and sat smiling at him.
"Bravo!" cried Wentworth, at length.  "Another sacrifice to the idol I Now, Harrington, I can't swallow the idea,
that the idol wrote Shakspeare's plays, but, for goodness' sake




HARRINGTON.                    221
do publish it I It will make such a jolly row. By Jupiter!
what fun it will be to see all the steady old ink-pots fizzing
into vitriol bottles, and foaming over on to your idea I Do
publish it."
"One of these days, Richard," said Harrington, gently.
"But I don't think Verulam alone wrote the plays.  He had
help from others-and some of them came from a lower order
of mind than his. But in all the great plays his intellect and
design are visible.  However, let it pass, and in the meantime,
say nothing about it to any one, for till it can come with solid
proof, it will meet with no favor from the Jedburgh justice of
a world that hangs your thought first, and tries it afterward.
But for your own sake, I wish you could believe that this
great poet could not have been the poet he was, if he had not
been concerned in everything that concerns mankind.  Especially must he have cherished the idea of political liberty, for
without that, poet or artist can be but little."
"Upon  my word, Harrington," said  Wentworth, "I
shouldn't be much astonished if you were to assert that the
author of Shakspeare's plays, as you call him, would be, if
he was alive, a Garrisonian Abolitionist."
"Well," replied Harrington, laughing in his beard, "you
know Montaigne says a man's books are his children, and I'm
sure this author's children don't vote with the Webster Whigs
or go union-saving or kidnapping with either Whigs or Democrats.  And as for Shakspeare being a Garrisonian, it's quite
clear to my perverted sense, that the man who makes his
patriot, Brutus, cry aloud, as the first demand of political
justice,'Liberty, Freedom, and Enfranchisement,' would not,
at any rate, if he were with us, be found in Mr. Ben llallett's
party."
Wentworth, touched at the idea of Shakspeare and Ben
Hallett being by any chance thrown together, laughed immoderately, while Harrington, highly amused'at his mirth, sat
and smiled at him.
" Harrington," said Wentworth, recovering from his merriment, "you almost tempt me to extend my studio among
the sons of men."




222                  HARRINGTON.
"That's where the great artists extended theirs," replied
Harrington.  " Raphael, Giotto, Cellini, Angelo, all those
superb artists, were politicians, country-lovers, friends and comrades of their kind. Their human sympathies gave their genius
its pulse of life. You young artists ought to blush when you
think of Michael Angelo."
" Well, Michael was a trump," returned Wentworth, gaily.
"A  trump?" repeated Harrington.  "I wish he was a
trump that could sound some of you fellows into life. Yes,
there was a man behind the (artist in Michael, and his works
are cryptic with his humanity. By the way, Richard, how
comes on the' Death of Attucks?'"
The " Death of Attucks" was a picture which Wentworth,
instigated by Harrington, had begun to paint in illustration of
the picturesque scene on that wild March night of the early
Revolution, when a black man flung himself on the bayonets
for a country which enslaves his race, and has scribes to defile
his memory.
"Well," replied Wentworth, with a look of momentary
sadness, " I haven't painted much lately-so the picture stands.
O me," he sighed, "I see intellectually the truth of all you
say about the relation of liberty to art, but somehow I don't
get kindled."
"Look here, Richard," said Harrington, "you ought to
hear Wendell Phillips."
"So I ought," answered Wentworth, "and I mean to sometime."
"You must," replied larrington.  " He will show you the
ideal beauty of anti-slavery. Many a young man has found
his eloquence the golden door to a life for liberty. Now Muriel
has planned to go to the Convention to-night, and you are to
go with us, and I hope you will hear him.
"Who are going?" asked Wentworth.
" We four," replied IHarrington.
"You three," responded Wentworth; "I won't go."
"Oh, but you must," replied Harrington.  " I promised to
bring you there to tea, and my word is at stake."
Wentworth was silent, and sat with his eyes fixed on. the




HARRINGTON.                     223
floor, and his face reluctant and uneasy.  Harrington watched
him, and felt that there was some reason connected with either
Muriel or Emily for his desire to avoid going to Temple street
that evening.  Suddenly the story Witherlee had told him
about Wentworth and Muriel flashed into his memory, and
with it came the sharp suspicion that Witherlee had lied.
Could it be, after all, that Wentworth and Emily were lovers?
Harrington's heart trembled, and he determined to question
Wentworth on the spot.
" Richard," said he, "why are you averse to going up to
Temple street this evening?  Is it on account of anything in
this talk of Fernando's which John Todd told you?"
"Oh, no," replied Wentworth, coloring.  "I don't careI'll go since you desire it."
" Richard," said Harrington, after an awkward pause, " pardon my rudeness, but-I want to ask you a frank question, and
I have a reason for asking it.  Are you in —vell, have you, as
Witherlee said, one of Cupid's arrows in your bleeding heart?"
Harrington tossed out the question gaily, but with a flushed
face, and his heart beating.  As for Wentworth he was scarlet
to the roots of his hair, and with his eyes fixed on the floor,
toyed with his moustache in great confusion.
" Oh, that wasn't Witherlee's phrase," he stammered evasively. " That was my way of reporting what he said."
" Well," returned Harrington, "but is it true or not?"
Wentworth was silent for a moment.
" Suppose it is true. What then?" was his answer.
" It is true, then?" faltered Harrington.
Wentworth was still for a moment, then nodded affirmatively.
"Good!" exclaimed Harrington. "' Richard, I give you joy.
But now tell me —pardon my inquisitiveness-tell me which is
the one?"
Wentworth felt himself in a corner, and with his face hot as
fire, and his heart throbbing furiously, cast desperately about
for some evasive answer.
" Is it Emily?" said Harrington hastily, in a voice which he
could not keep from trembling.




224                   HARRTNGTON.
Wentworth instantly took the tone as evidence of Harrington's love for Miss Ames, and with a bitter feeling filling his
heart as the sense of the injury she had done him, swept over.him, he became self-possessed and cold.
"Emily!" he repeated, affecting surprise and looking at
Harrington's flushed face with desperate placidity, while a
faint smile curved his proud lip.  "Indeed, Harrington) none
of Emily's lovers have a rival in me."
The answer was at once a taunt and an evasion, but to Harrington it seemed decisive, and spoken in plain good-faith.  It
fell upon him like a death-blow, but his heart, mailed in magnanimity, rose from under it, and he forced himself to smile,
lest Wentworth should be pained by perceiving that it gave
him pain. As yet, Wentworth had not the least idea that his
friend loved Muriel.  And, as yet, he did not perceive that he
had just given Harrington to understand that he himself was
her lover.
So, thought Harrington, Witherlee told the truth after all,
and I was not mistaken.
" Richard," he cried, springing from his seat, and crossing
over to Wentworth, who instantly rose, startled by his sudden
movement, as well as by the strange emotion which struggled
with a smile in his lit face. "Richard, I give you joy. I do
with all my heart and soul. You should have told me before,
that I might sooner have been happy in your happiness.  But
I am glad to know it now-from your own lips, for I knew it,
or all but knew it, before.  My love and blessing on you both
forever!"
All this poured forth impetuously, his hands grasping Wentworth's, his features convulsed and smiling, his kind eyes shining through tears.  An awful feeling swept down, like an
avalanche, on Wentworth. Petrified with the suddenness of
the revelation, he not only saw that he had inadvertently confessed himself Muriel's lover, but he saw that Harrington loved
her! Hle strove to speak, but his lips refused their office, and
no form of words came to his whirling mind. IHarrington saw
his pallor and agitation, and-mistaking them for the signs of a
young lover's emotion at being thus brusquely congratulated,




HARRINGTON.                    225
-wrung his hands once more, and turned away.  Wentworth,
too much overwhelmed to even think, sank down upon his seat,
and leaninl  his arm on the back of the sofa, covered his hot
eyes with his halcl.
At that moment a low, piteous whine was heard in the yard.
Hiarrington started and colored and went out inlstantly.
Wentworth, meoanwhile, hearing the noise, and aware of his
friend's exit, took no heed of either, but sat trying to compose
his mind to think of the new complication in which he found
himself.
Presently the deep sense of Harrington's splendid magnanimity in so joyfully giving up the woman he loved, rose upon
him  in contrast with his own passionate envy and jealousy
when he thought him the lover of Emily, and -wTith the tears
springing to his eyes, he felt as if he were the meanest man
that ever breathed,  To go and fling his arms around Harrington, ask his forgiveness, and explain the whole matter,
was his first impulse.  Then came the consideration that in
doing this, he mulst own that he loved Emily, for had ho not
said that he was in love with one? and he must own that she
had played the coquette with him, and left him with a wounded
heart.  He could not do i~.  Pride forbade it.' But what
should he do?  He could not leave.Harrington in error, and
such an error   Y Tet how explain that loving one of the two,
he did not love M uriel, nor yet Emily.  Altogether, mWentworth was in a dilemima!
Vainly revolving the matter for a few moments, he finally
came to the de-sperate resolution so say nothing at present,
but wait until he could be alone, and then think what course
he could pursue to extricate himself from this embroilment.
The clear rernembrance came to his mind how sedulously
Emily had been wooing Harrington of late.  Acquitting him
now of all knovw'ledge or blalme in this respect, his censure gathered into a fiercer focus on her.  It was plain that, havilng
played the heartless coquette withl him, she was trying the
same game on his friend.  A regular Lady Clara Vere de
Vere, he thoug-ht, rememblerilg the haughty beauty dowered
with manly scorn in Teluyson's poell.  Fiery rage at Emily
10*




226                   HARRINGTON.
contended in his soul with fiery love for her. Gnashing his
teeth with fury, scorning himself that he could love her
and she so false and base, scorning himself that he could hate
her when he so loved her, he walked up and down the room
for a minute or two; then suddenly,,with a violent effort,
grew cool, and picking up his hat from the floor, went out
into the yard.
He did not see Harrington at first, but stepping around the
corner of the house, he caught sight of him, and all his passionate agitation faded away in surprise as he became aware
of his friend's occupation. Harrington was stooping down in
an angle of the garden near a large square box set on end,
rubbing away with a gloved hand at the back of an old, *eak,
white dog, the same Wentworth had seen tormented in the
street that morning. Actually, thought Wentworth, he went
back to take that forsaken brute home with him!
"What in thunder are you doing, IIarrington?" he exclaimed, approaching the scene of his friend's operations.
Harrington started, and turned his glowing face with a half
ashamed smile upon Wentworth, then continued to rub the
dog's back~
"I couldn't leave the poor oldfellow in such a plight, Richard," he remarked, in an apologetic tone, "so, you see, I took
him in."
"Why, he's got the mange," said Wentworth, eying the
animal with a face of mingled disgust and curiosity.
"That's not his fault," returned Harrington, coolly, dipping
his gloved hand into a box of what appeared to be powdered
sulphur, sprinkling a handful on the dog's back, and rubbing
it in.
The dog, meanwhile, lying on the ground, was devouring
with feeble content a plateful of broken victuals which the
young man had procured from the house. He was a miserable, weak, red-eyed, flaccid-jawed, dirty-white old mastiff, and,
as the young artist had observed, he had the mange. As
ugly, forlorn-looking and worthless a cur in his life as that dead
dog which, the old Mohammedan apologue says, the Jewish
mob derided in the streets of Jerusalem, when a tall stranger




HARRINGTON.                   227
of grave and sweet aspect drew near, and paused to cast a
look of compassion on the object of their derision.  " Is it not
a miracle of ugliness!" jeered the crowd.  " But see," said the
stranger, " pearls are not equal to the whiteness of his teeth I"
And then, says the Mlpbammedan story, the people knew that
the stranger was the great prophet Jesus, for none but he
would look upon a dead dog with the beauty-seeing eye of love.
" Poor old fellow," soliloquized Harrington, "I quite forgot
I had him, till he whined for his dinner."
" How confoundedly dirty he is," observed Wentworth.
"Dirty?  Oh, no-that's his color," said  Harrington,
naively.  " He's not dirty now, for I washed him."
"The deuce  you  did I" replied Wentworth, laughing.
"Upon my word, Harrington, you're a regular Brahmin.
Though it's mighty good in you to take so much trouble for a
brute like that.  Faith, I'd have left him to his fate."
" Oh, well," replied Harrington, tranquilly, scanning the
dog's back, to see if any diseased spot had escaped him, " the
poor old thing has something to do in this world, or he
wouldn't have been sent, and lie has a right here, seeing that
he does no harm. There, I guess that'll do, and he'll be
comfortable till I get back."
He took off his glove, patted the old dog on the head, and
spoke to him. The animal, who had finished his dinner,
feebly wagged his tail, and licked the kind hand, then looked
up with bleared red eyes into the face of his protector, still
wagging his tail.
"Good," said Hlarrington; "see how  grateful he is I
Come, Wentworth, it's time for us to go," he continued,
rising to his feet. "It's after four o'clock, and I promised to
be there early."
Stooping again, he lifted the dog into the packing-case on
some old rags of carpeting, put a pan of water near him, laid
the tin box of sulphur and the glove on top, and turned away
to the house.
"What a good fellow Harrington is," muttered Wentworth,
following him.  " To think of his rescuing that old brute from
the boys, and taking as mauch care of him as if lie was Scott's




228                   IARRINGTON.
Maida I I wonder that I, who admire such things so much,
never think of doing such things."
He got into the room just as tIarrington was disappearing up the flight of steps into the room above, whither he
went to wash his hands and brush his clothes. In a few
minutes he descended again, closed the windows, put on his
slouched hat, and they set off together arm in arm.
CHAP T E R XIII.
THE FAIRY PRINCE.
THEY arrived in a few minutes at the house in Temple
street, and were let in by Patrick.  WVentworth had been
complaining that something was hurting his foot, and sat down
in the hall to take off his boot and see what was the matter,
while Harrington went up-stairs into the library.
The jewel of the rich room was Muriel, and Muriel lay on a
velvet couch, asleep. The young man noiselessly approached
her, and stood tenderly watching her beauty in its repose.
She lay in a glimmer of light from the western window, and
the faint radiance lit her dreamful face, whose beauty was like
a hymn of immortal joy. The draped arms lay restfully along
her form, with the white hands lightly clasped together, and
the expression of the figure was repose.  Gazing at her with
heavenly sadness, the lover saw her countenance gleam with
an evanescent smile, and the' lips murmured a word. It was
"Richard." A quick pang shot to his heart, and at the same
instant Muriel started and awoke.
"John I" she exclaimed, coloring and smiling as she sprang
up from her light sleep and gave him her hands, " you here I
When did you come?"
"Just come," he replied, holding her hands, and smiling
into her face. " Why, Muriel, you looked like the Sleeping
Beauty of the fairy tale."




HARRINGTON.                    229
"Oh, John! And you like the fairy prince that woke the
Sleeping Beauty up!" returned AMriel, gaily.' That's a compliment, I suppose," said Harrington.
"Compliment for compliment," said she.
" Oh, but mine was the truth," he replied.
"And so was mine," she answered.  " So it's arranged that
I am the Sleeping Beauty awakened, and you the fairy prince
that awakened me, and now I shall have to follow you through
all the world, as she did him in Tennyson's poem."
Harrington's color rose, and he dropped her hands.  Muriel
blushed too, for she felt that what she had said in thoughtless
play had carried some deeper sense to him than she had intended.
"Pardon me, John," she murmured, "I did not mean to
offend you."
" You offend me!" exclaimed Harrington, in astonishment.
"You, Muriel  Indeed, no."
" Then why did you color?" she asked archly, reassured
" I? Oh-no matter. I was thinking of something."
" Of what?  Come now.  Be frank, John.  I desire-I
command"
Harrington looked confused for a moment.  An impulse
came to him.
" It is you who must tell me, Muriel," he said in a low
voice.
" I?  What shall I tell you, John.  I will tell you anything you ask."
" Tell me then of the fairy prince who awakened you indeed, and whom you are to follow through all the world.
Tell me of him, that I may congratulate you and him together."
Muriel gazed at him in wonder.  If he had not spoken
with such sweet seriousness, she would have thought he'was
jesting.
"You said you would tell me anything I asked," said Harrington, gravely.  "Tell me this, then."
" I will, John," she replied slowly.  "I will tell you of him
-when I find him. Not till then."




230                   HABRINGTON.
She turned away, musing.  It was Harrington's turn now
to look at her with wonder.  What did she mean?  He had
never seen any tokens of duplicity in her, but what was
this?
JustIthen in came Wentworth, smiling.  Harrington saw
her face light as she went toward him, and wondered if she
had understood what he had said to her.  That's it, he
thought; she could not have understood me.
" Ha, Muriel.  Good afternoon," burst out Wentworth in
his airy way.  "Excuse me for not coming up at once, but I
was ransacking my boot. And see what I found. A damsoi stone.  Take it, Harrington, and be happy."
" Come, no nonsense, Richard," said Muriel.  "Let's go up
to the studio, and fence."
Wentworth darted at her, and she nimbly dodged him,
flashed out of the room and flew up-stairs, laughing, followed
by the young artist on the run. She vanished into the studio
before he could come up with her, and Wentworth turned to
wait for his friend, who was leisurely ascending the stairs.
"Lightfoot cannot outrun Atalanta," said Harrington.
" Exactly so," returned Wentworth.
They went up and into the studio, as it was called, together.
It was a large, square, sunlit room, the floor covered with a
thick, hard carpet, and it had two windows looking to the
west, with boxes on the sills, filled with heliotrope and
mignionette, which filled the air with their rich and delicate
fragrance. Muriel's table, with a small easel, cases of watercolors, and bristol-board, drawing paper, tinted sketches, and
other artistic paraphernalia, stood near one of the windows.
Not far from the other was a moulding stand, on which stood
Emily's bust of her friend, with a box of clay on the floor near
it. The walls were a warm grey, and ornamented with three
or four of Jullien's crayons, some plaster medallions and basreliefs, and a set of hanging-shelves filled with books. Parallelbars on one side of the room, a pair of large dumb-bells on the
floor, several iron weights, with rings for lifting them, near by,
and a set of gilded foils and masks on the wall, gave the studio
something of the air of a gymnasium.  A small piano, with




HARRINGTON.                    231
books of music upon it, a low sofa, and a few plain arm-chairs,
completed the furniture of the apartment.
The young men had sat talking a few minutes, waiting
for Muriel, when Mrs. Eastman and Emily came in, and they
rose again to make their salutations. Emily was in her most
sumptuous mood, and smiled serenely as she entered and curtseyed down into a chair.  Mrs. Eastman gave her hand to the
young men, whom she loved as much as if they were her own
sons, and standing near Harrington, with her arm in his, affectionately asked for his health.
" You are looking pale, John," she said, with motherly solicitude.  "Too much study I'm afraid."
"Not at all, mother," said Harrington, gaily —he always
called Mrs. Eastman " mother."  "Celestial pale, the student's
proper hue, you know; and spite of my paleness, I'm strong
and well."
"Nevertheless, I wish you had some of Richard's roses,"
she said playfully.
"Miy roses, indeed!" rattled Wentworth.  "Why, Mrs.
Eastman, I'm so much in love with Harrington's intellectual
pallor that I'm thinking of trying some of Jules Hauel's lilywhite cosmetic to get my face of the same tint.  For what is
— hurrah! Here conies the fairy prince!" he cried, breaking
off, as the door of a chamber adjoining the studio opened, and
a beautiful auid brilliant figure came forward into the room.
It was Muriel, transformed by the vivid and gorgeous dress
of a fairy prince —such a dress as the artists of fairy books
give to Pereinet or Valentine; and in it she was courtly and
noble as Shakspeare's Rosalind, when IRosalind wore "man's
apparel" in the gay greenwood of Arden.  A year before
when she had resolved to take fencing lessons of Harrington,
she had devised this dress, and with a woman's natural disposition to ornamentation, and with her own special wish to
throw festal grace and the hues of romance even on her hours
of exercise, she had brought to the fashioning of her attire all
the richness of her lavish fancy. To wear anything that was
ugly even at her gymnastics, or to make her exercise a sober
business and not a poetic pleasure, was quite impossible for




232                   HARRTNGTON.
Muriel. She must clothe her muscularities with beauty, as
Harmodius wreathed his sword with myrtle. So she gilded
her foils and mnasks, and fashioned her garb in fairy magnificence.  The dress was a cymar of vivid crimson silk, loosely
belted at the waist, and adorned with broidered arabesques of
gold. The bodice, cut loose to the form, with large sleeves,
ruffled with lace at the wrists, had a frilled ruffle of lace emerging from the bosom, and rising in a sort of fraise around the
neck, in exquisite keeping with the refined beauty of the countenance which bloomed above it.  A little crimson cap, with a
thick, swailing, white plume, rested lightly on the head, and
the glorious amber hair was arranged to lie on the lack of the
neck like the locks of a page. The skirt of the dress, also of crimson silk, broidered with golden arabesques, and deeply bordered
with heavy, gold fringe, fell in graceful folds, ending junt above
the knee, and white silk hose, with crimson satin slippers, completed the poetic and splendid costume.  Never had Muriel
appeared more fascinating than in this attire, which showed
the full perfection of a form, straight, supple, tall and strong,
whose every rounded outline was elegance, and whose free
strength was harmonized in grace and beauty.
" By Jupiter!" cried Wentworth, " I never see Muriel in
that costume, without thinking that the long skirts are a tremendous shame.  There's a figure for you I"
"Yes, but please remember," said Emily, " that there are
some of us women who are not endowed with such fine forms
as Muriel."
" Oh, I'm  pretty well," said Muriel, with a light laugh.
"But it's mainly due to my life-long muscular exercise,
Emily."
"Indeed, iMuriel," replied Emily, "nature must have contributed largely in the first instance, to a form like yours."
"Thanks for compliments," said Muriel gaily, doffing her
plumed cap and bowing.
" You're inclined to underrate muscular exercise, Emily,"
said Harrington, laughing.
" Well, perhaps so, John," she replied, with a slow smile.
" And yet," he pursued, "I'm not sure, that to make women




^ARITNGCTON.                     233
a race of gymnasts, wouldn't be one of the surest ways of securing their social enfranchisement."
"Why, John," returned Emily, laughiing, " do yot want to
make us athletic enough to get our rights by the stron(g hand?"
"Oh, no," he rejoined, anmusedly.  " But men could not help
respecting women, if women were on a grander scale, and justice might be born of that respect.  And, to make women all
they latently are, gymnastics are a very important instrument.
I am inclined to think physical training the foundation of all
noble culture.  You oget from  it health, strength, beauty of
form, grace of carriage, dexterity of movement and action, a
very potent safegumard aoainst all diseases, mental vigor, cheerfulness, courag'e, self-reliance,  a spirit that nourishes and promnotes self-respect, independence, generosity,  moral purity,
heroic desires, larve sympathies; in fact, all the virtues.  I
do not say that gymnastics bestow  the great intellectualities
and moralities; but they encourage, develop, and sustain
them.  You know what Dr. Johnson said-' a sick person is
a scoundrel;' and I think a pretty large sermon  might be
preached from that text, in these days.  At all events, I am
quite sure that you will see grander and more womanly women,
and an increase of social happiness, when a vigorous muscular
training is made part of women's culture."
"Bravo!" cried Muriel.  "I feel inspired.  The foils, Harrington -the foils!"
HIarrington-who had been admiring while he spoke, the
free, beautiful figure —started and went to the wall to take the
weapons down.
"First, some exercise to get the muscles in order," said
Muriel.
She threw down bler cap, and bounding forward, with the
light strong' spring of a bayaldere, to the parallel bars, put her
hands on the poles, and leaped up between them.  Then, with
a succession of springs,, she traversed the whole length1, leaping
along the bars on her hands; then, back ag'ain to thle centre,
where she swung to and flro for an instant  and, as she rose
again, vaulted over and alighted in the middle of the room,
tossing the air into perfume.




234                   HARRINGTON.
" Bravo!" cried Wentworth.  "That's religion, as Emerson says."
" Emerson!" chided Mrs. Eastman, amusedly.  "Emerson
never said any such thing."
" More shame for him," retorted Wentworth, gaily. " Kingsley says so, at any rate."
" Kingsley!" she replied, in the same amused, chiding tone.
"Yes, ma mere," asserted Wentworth.  "That's what
Kingsley calls muscular Christianity, and I'm going in for some
of it."
He bounded forward to the bars just as Muriel was running
up to them again. She stopped and stood a little one side,
watching him as he swung' and leaped forward.
" You don't do it half as well as Muriel," said Mrs. Eastman, very truly.
"Take care now, Richard, that's dangerous," cried Muriel
in a warning voice, as Wentworth was swinging, preparatory
to vaulting over.
Wentworth laughed recklessly, and flung himself over the
bars.  Muriel's warning was not without reason, for as he
came over, his foot struck the pole, and, with a cry from Emily
which proved her interest in him, he pitched head downward.
Muriel sprang on the instant, caught him with all her strength,
and set him on his feet. Wentworth reddened, and looked
dazed.
" Careless boy," she chided, playfully giving him a light cuff
on the ear, " you came nigh breaking your neck."
"That he did," exclaimed Harrington; and " indeed he did,"
exclaimed the others in chorus.
"Saved by a fairy prince," cried Wentworth in a mocktragic tone.  "By Jupiter, Muriel, but you're as strong as
you're quick. I wonder how many young ladies there are in
the world that could catch a fellow when he's tumbling over
neck and heels to destruction. Well, I guess I won't try that
again. Thank you, dear fairy prince."
He put her hand gallantly to his lips as he said the last
words.
" I declare," cried Emily, laughing, "what would society say




HARURNGTON.                     235
if it could behold these operations! I can't help thinking how
our minister at Cambridge, and all my Episcopal friends would
stare at you, Muriel."
"Yes, flower of the world," replied Muriel, "we should be
awfully scandalized, no doubt.  But there's virtue in our
g'nes, nevertheless, for health is there, and health is a virtue
that beckons the others on.  The fencing, however, is the perfection of. exercise."
" Why is that so superior?" asked Emily.
"Because it develops bodily strength  and activity more
harmoniously than ally other," replied Muriel.  " So Roland
says."
"Roland?" inquired Emily.
" Yes.  Roland is the author of the best modern work on
fencing," answered Muriel. " Stay, I'll read you what he says."
She went to the book-shelves, and returned with the volume
-Roland's " Theory and Practice of Fencing."
" Here it is," she observed, finding the page.  " Listen:'Perhaps there is no exercise whatever more calculated for
these purposes (developing and cultivating bodily strength and
activity) than fencing.  Riding, walkinlg, sparring, wrestling,
running, and pitching the bar are all of them certainly highly
beneficial, but beyond all question there is no single exercise
which combines so many advantages as fencing.  By it the
muscles of every part of the body are brought into play; it
expands the chest and occasions an equal distribution of the
blood and other circulating fluids through the whole system.
More than one case has fallen under the author's own observation, in which affections of the lungs, and a tendency to consumption have been entirely removed by occasional practice
with the foil; and he can state, upon the highest medical
authority, that since the institution of the School of Arms at
Geneva, scrofula, which was long lamentably prevalent there,
had been gradually disappearing.'"
Just then a tap was leard. at the door. Muriel dropped the
book, and made one nimble spring through the entrance inte
her chamber, while Harrington went to the door.  It was
Patrick come to say that Mr. Witherlee was down-stairs,




236                    HARRINGTON.
"Tell him we're engaged, Patrick, and ask him to excuse
us," rang the silver voice of uriel throu the silver voice of Muriel tehrouh the half open entra,nce of her room.
Patrick departed, and as the door closed, Muriel emerged,
laughing, from her hiding-place.
"That was a stroke of policy," she said.  "If Fernando
were to see me in this costume, it would be town talk to-morrow, and in the papers the clay after.  Fernando's mind is a
perfect colander-all that gets into it runs'out of it."
She was more than ever like a fairy prince the next instant
as she stood with the light bright foil in hler gloved land, and
her face covered by the gilt mask, over which waved a thick
crimson plume.  Harrington, similarly arrayed, save for the
plume, with the golden wires envisoring his features, advanced
toward her.
"You have not forgotten your plastron, have you?" he
said.
" No: it's under the dress," she replied.
Firm and true as he, she struck guard, and the foils crossed
with a clash.
" By George! this is delicious," exclaimed Wentworth, in
perfect rapture.
And so it was, for Muriel was like some unimagined fairy
chevalier as she stood in the beautiful attitude of the exercise,
the rich crimson lights of her dress glowing, and its golden ornaments tremulously flashing in the sun-ray, and the sumptuous
radiance resting on the proud and elegant flowing curves of
her figure.  Lithe, superb and strong, an image of health and
grace, a  form  of lyric beauty, she might have stood in her
armed posture for the spirit of the foil.
Emily had crossed over to the piano, and sitting behind it
with her eyes fixed upon the combatants, began to play a low
drumming strain of Bacchic fury in the pause preluding the
game.  Fierce, monotonous and dreamful, a congeries of
bass tones swarming grumly firom the keys, with low minor
notes faintly fchirping at intervals between, it suddenly rang up,
pierced -with one sharp tingling treble, like a cry, as with a
loud clash of the foils, the agile and vivid figure of Muriel




HARRINGTON.                    237
darted forward in a superb lunge.  Harrington uttered a low
ejaculation, for the thrust had nearly reached him, and he had
parried in the compass of a ring.  Muriel stood on guard again,
her gold and crimson tremulously glowing and flashing in the
sun, and her bright plume dancing, while the dark and furious
music, swarming and drumming loudly from the bass keys,
sunk away into the low, monotonous and dreamful strain, with
the chirping notes still fluttering and sounding in.  It did not
rise again, but ran  sombrely swarming on, as larrington
reached in his long arm in a quick and quiet lunge, which was
deftly parried with only a faint clink of the foils, and then,
with another splendid flash of glitter and color, Muriel sprang,
lunging nimbly home, and clash on clash, with a rapturous
clamor of steel, came pass and parry on either side, while the
hurrying music rose and rang in whirling riot, like a wild, tumultuous race of Menads, with heavy bars of thunderous sound
striking through the loud, triumphant swarming fury of the
melody.   Clash  and  flash, amidst the strumming  whirl
and anvil blows of the melodious choral, flew the bright foils,
and stamp and tramp, advancing and retreating, sinking and
rising, low to the lunge, and high to the parry, swayed and
darted the lords of the fairy duel-Muriel's crimson feather
tossing and dancing in time to the gathering and racing of the
music, like a delirious sprite of combat.
Suddenly-snap  jingle-the contest ceased, and the music
flittered off into a light and brilliant strain, like the tinkling
laughter of elves.  Harrington stood with a dazed air, looking
at the fragment of the foil he held, the rest of which lay on
the floor. Muriel broke into a merry peal of laughter, in
which Wentworth and her mother joined, while Emily, still
playing, smiled indolently over the piano.
"Plague!" exclaimed  Harrington.  "That's the second
foil I've seen broken to-day.  They make these things miserably bad."
" It's the last pair we have, so that ends our fun for this
day," cried Muriel, taking the gilt mask from her bright,
flushed face. "Serves me right for not always having half a
dozen sets on hand, a thing I'll do in future."




238                   HARRTNGTON.
" By Jupiter!" exclaimed Wentworth, while Muriel crossed
to hang up her mask and foil, " that was tall fencing, while it
lasted, anyhow. I'm sorry the foil's broken, Muriel, for I
wanted to fence with the fairy prince myself."
"You ought to learn, Emily," said Mrs. Eastman. " Then
you and Richard could match John and Muriel."
Emily stopped playing, and glanced at Wentworth with a
slight curl of her lip, which did not escape the young artist.
"Indeed, Mrs. Eastman," she said, "it's not in my line, and
I should make a poor figure at it, I know."
"But it's as beautiful as dancing," said Mrs. Eastman.
"And a great deal more womanly than waltzing," put in
Wentworth, interrupting, to have his fling at Emily, who was
very fodd of the waltz.
Emily reddened, and fixed her lustrous eyes on Wentworth,
hurt and angered by his remark.
" Come, come," interposed Muriel, gaily, "I won't have
Emily badgered into doing anything it is not her genius to do.
Fencing is not in her line, as she says; but music, dear Emily,"
she added, putting her arms around her friend, "music is in
your line; and charmingly you played for us. Your improvisation inspired our battle, and I should fence twice as well if I
always had you to play for me."
"Faith, Eniily, there's something in that, I believe," remarked IHarrington. " But you fence wonderfully, Muriel, for
one who has had only a year's practice."
" Are you sure you don't spare her, lHarrington?" said
Emily, slily.
"Spare her? Indeed I don't. I'd scorn to do such a
thing!" answered Harrington, with animation.
"That's right, John," said Muriel in a tone of gay gratitude; "it's always a shame for a woman to be treated like a
weak sister, and there's a subtle assumption of our inferiority
in the consideration we women get from men in this polite age,
which does not please me at all. No effeminate culture for
me I What I know or do, I will know or do thoroughly and
vigorously, or not at all.";Bravo, Muriel!" said Mrs. Eastman, rising, "so your




HARRINGTON.                    239
father would say, if he were with us. There's no reason, he
used to observe, why girls shouldn't be as vigorously trained as
boys, and even supposing woman's sphere to be purely and
simply that of a wife and mother, said he, she ought, on the
most ultra conservative principles, to have every power
and faculty fully developed that she may fitly educate her
children."
" Good I Woman's rights doctrine, that," said Wentworth,
playfully.  " Muriel, do you vote?" he added, with a quizzical
air.
"Yes," ans4vered Muriel, so naively, that Wentworth was
taken aback.  "Do you want to know how?  Every election
day, Patrick comes to ask me how he shall vote, and I tell him,
and he votes.  That is my ballot, for my judgment casts it.
But what do you think of the good sense of a community that
allowing me capable of instructing a man how to vote, will not
allow that I am capable of voting myself?  What do you
think of the good sense of a country that denies to a cultured:
woman a right which it accords to the uncultured man who
opens her street door?"
"Well," returned Wentworth, laughing, "we are not all
such fools, Muriel, as to think the arrangement you criticise
right and proper."
" Come, children," said Mrs. Eastman, after a pause, "since
the play is over, let us adjourn to the library."
_And she departed, followed by the others. Harrington,
seeing Muriel linger, half-absently, paused near her.  Becoming
aware that he was looking at her, she looked up from her
musing, with a quiet smile.
"Well, fairy prince," he said, lightly.
"Ah," she replied, with pensive playfulness, " you recognize
the fairy prince in me, then, do you? And that is the fairy
prince I am to follow through all the world."
She had approached him as she spoke, and while he looked
at her with an inquiring face, seeking to fathom the riddle of
her speech, she passed close by him, with a light waft of delicate perfume, and vanished into her chamber.
He stood for a moment, lost in a sense of some unravelled




240                   IBARRINGTON.
mystery lurking in her words and manner, and then suddenly
turned and went down-stairs.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE ANTI-SLAVERY CONVENTION.
TRANSFORMED again in lace and lilac from a fairy prince to
a fairy princess, Muriel joined her friends in the library.
Music and blithe talk filled up the hours till tea-time, and after
tea they prepared to go to the Convention.  Mrs. Eastman
had declined accompanying them, and they set out together
through the moonlit dusk, Harrington escorting Emily, and
Wentworth Muriel.
" Why, how cold it has grown!" exclaimed Emily, surprised
at the strange chillness of the air, as she and Harrington walked
up the shadowy street.
" Yes, indeed," replied Harrington, "and the wind has
changed to the north, I verily believe. After this warm,
delicious day, too! But no New Englander has a right to be
surprised at the freaks of the climate."
Engaged in conversation, they did not notice, as Wentworth
and Muriel behind them did, when they were passilng under
the walled plateau, on which loomed in the dim moonlight the
domed bulk of the State House, two young men who went by
considerably intoxicated. The young men were Horatio and
Thomas Atkins, who had been drinking juleps in honor of
Southern institutions with TMr. Lafitte at the Tremont House,
whither they had escorted him after dinner.  Thomas had
taken so many juleps that his hat was acock, his whiskerage
fiercer than ever, and his gait a swaggering stagger, while
Horatio was in that state of solemn and stubborn tipsiness in
which a man is upon his honor to walk straight.  Muriel
sighed as she passed them, and all the way across the broad
Common, its trees and sward dimly lighted by the moon, and




EIRRINGTON.                    241
chill in the fresher breath of the keen breeze, while she conversed with Wentworth, her thoughts rested with vague uneasiness on her uncle and his graoeless sons.  It was altogether
the most unpleasant topic that ever entered her mind, and it
was especially so on account of her mother. Mrs. Eastman
felt her brotiher's general course, particularly his political
course, to be a family disgrace.  All the old New England
traditions, laws, and habitudes had been at least passively for
liberty up to the insane yea' of 1850; and to have her kinsman one of the new brawlers for slavery and kidnapping was
a sore reflection for the gentle lady.  She had never recovered from the wound he had given her spirit, by enrolling
himself as one of the Fifteen Hundred Scoundrels. And on this
point, at least, Muriel felt as strongly as she did, particularly
since the report had arrived that Sims had been scourged to
death at Savannah.
The noise of life thickened around the party as they passed
down Winter street into Washington street, the main avenue
of Boston.  The street was processional, grotesque, and gay
under the moon.  Vehicles of all sorts dashed and rattled
over the pavement, and passengers were bustling and swarming along the irregular vista of lighted shop windows, under
the dark, motley buildings covered with their multitude of
golden-lettered signs.
Passing up the crowded thoroughfare, they arrived presently
at the Melodeon, where the Anti-Slavery Convention was
holding its evening session.  It was a hall rented most frequently for concerts and exhibitions of one sort or another,
but memorable in history as the church of Theodore Parker.
There, on every Sabbath, he shook the hearts of thousands
with the sacred and heroic eloquence of those sermons which
have passed to shine in pulpit literature with the strong splendors of Taylor and Latimer, and a nobleness and courage all
thleir own.
The hall was full as the party entered, and some one was
speaking from the platform.  They paused, looking over the
dense concourse for seats, and seeing none, were about to try
their chance in the gallery above, when a party of five left
11




242                    HARRINGTON.
theirs in the centre of the hall, and going down the aisle at
once, they took the vacant places.  Harrington had passed in
first, and leaning over to _Muriel, said in a wThisper 
"Did you see your uncle as we caine in?"
" Yes," she replied.  " Who was that with him, that looked
at you so strangely?"
Harrington turned his head and gazed up to the back of
the hall, where Mr. Atkins was sitting, scornfully listening to
the speaker.  By his side he saw a'dark, handsome face, with
a moustache, and the face was intently watching  him. With
a vague thrill he turned again to Muriel.
" I don't know him," he whispered.
"It is strange," she whispered in reply.  " I saw by Mr.
Atkins's manner that he was telling that person who we were,
and I know by the slight start the stranger gave, and the look
he cast at you, that my uncle had mentioned your name, and
that the stranger had some interest in you."
Nothinfg more was said, but Harrington felt disturbed even
to apprehension, though he could not have told why. In a
minute or two, looking around again, he saw the stranger still
watching him, and saw his eye wander away with a sinister
smile. Turning his face resolutely to the platform, Harrington,
with another mysterious tremor, tried to recollect if he had
ever seen that face before, and unable to recall it, he dismissed
it from his thoughts with a strong effort of will, and set himself to listen to the speaker.
Just then, the speaker ended, and sat down, amidst a rushing rustle of the audience, and some slight applause.  There
was a minute's intermission, during which Harrington's eye
swept over the multitude, seated in rows around him, and filling the gallery, which extended in a horse-shoe curve around
the walls of the oblong hall. Both sexes were about equally
represented in the concourse, which was dotted here and there
with the dark faces of negroes.  The platform was occupied
by a number of the anti-slavery leaders, men and wolhen. The
chairman, who was leaning from his seat in hasty conference
with two or three persons, was the gallant Francis Jackson, a
wealthy citizen, who, when the "gentlemen " of Boston had




HARRINGTON.                    243
broken up an anti-slavery meeting of women, fifteen years before, opened his house to the outcasts, at the imminent peril
of having it razed by the mob. But he was resolved to defend
free speech, and in this cause, said he, " let my walls fall if
they must: they will appear of little value after their owner
shall have been whipped into silence." Such was the Roman
deed, the Roman word, of Francis Jackson.  Near him sat
Garrison. The light of the chandelier shone full on the bald
head and high-featured, dauntless face of the grand Puritana face in which blended the austere gentleness of Brewster
with the stern integrity and solemn enthusiasm of Vane. Not
far distant was the antique and noble countenance of Burleigh,
with its long beard and lengths of ringlets giving it the character of some of the heads mediaeval painters have imagined
for Jesus. An orator he, whose massive' and definite logic ran
burning with Miltonian sweep, and could burst, when he so
chose, in an iron hail of Miltonian invective.  By his side,
Harrington saw the domed brow and Socratic features of the
mighty Theodore, with the lips curling in some rich stroke of
whispered wit, which brought a momentary smile to the face
of Burleighl.  Behind them was the rugged and salient visage
of Parker Pillsbury, a man whose speech rode like the Pounder
of Bivar, and smote with a flail.  Before Harrington's eye had
wandered from  him, the chairman rose, announcing a name
which was lost in the sudden pour of applause that swept up
from the front, and spread from rank to rank with loud cheers,
and then at once the whole concourse burst into a surging and
tossing uproar of acclamation, as a beautiful patrician figure,
dressed in black, came forward on the lighted platform.
It was Wendell Phillips-the flower of the anti-slavery
chivalry.  Memory recalls the words in which Robertus
Monachus describes the leader of the twelfth century Crusaders, Godfrey of Bouillon:  " He was beautiful in countenance," says the chronicler, " tall in stature, agreeable in his discourse, admirable in his morals, and at the same time so gentle,
that he seemed better fitted for the monk than the knight;
but when his enemies appeared before him, and the combat
approached, his soul became filled with mighty daring; like a




244                    HARRINGTON.
lion, he feared not for his person-and what shield, what
buckler, could resist the fall of his sword?" So might one
describe the great Abolitionist.  But a poetic heart would
take from that rich old world Past a more lustrous figure than
even Godfrey to stand as his representative. In England they
call Lord Derby the Rupert of debate; and far more aptly
might Wendell Phillips be termed the Tancred of liberty.  In
his personal appearance, as in the attitude of his life, the nature of his thought, and the style of his rhetoric, there was
that which recalled the image of the loveliest of the antique
chevaliers. As he stood on that brilliant platform, while the
enthusiastic applause swelled and tossed in a tempest of sound
and stir-one foot advanced, his hands lightly clasped behind
him, his head curved a little to one side, the light bringing
out in definite relief a face and form in strange contrast with
every other around him, and whose statuesque repose seemed
heightened by the tumultuous commotion of the audience-he
impressed the eye like a piece of exquisite sculpture when seen
among the alien shapes of men. A tall-browed, oval head of
severe and singular grace; long, clear-cut, Roman features; a
keen and penetrant eye; around the firm mouth a glimmer of
feminine sweetness; the face harmonized with an expression of
golden urbanity; and in the whole aspect the polished ease of
the gentleman blended with the lofty bearing of the Paladin.
And a Paladin he was-a star of oratoric tournament, proved
so by many a hard-fought argument in the chivalrous fields of
liberty, where his eloquence, that fiery sword wrought of Justice and Beauty, as his friend Parker has called it, flashed and
rang on the armor of the vile, and brought new courage to
the war. None listened to the bright and terrible music of
his speech unmoved; no bitterest conservative could- hear it
without owning its magic. Robbed of his just due of fame
by the unpopularity of the cause he championed, even his foes
could whisper that he was the greatest orator in Americaeven the scholars of the Boston " Courier", the representative
pro-slavery organ in that latitude, and the deadly enemy of the
Abolitionists, could call him, with strange warmth, the Cicero
of anti-slavery.




IBARINGTON.                    245
The applause sunk down, and an expectant, breathless hush
succeeded.  Slowly his lips curved apart, and the clear, persuasive silver of his voice flowed into words. It was a simple
and ordinary sentence, and yet what a fascination it had I It
was not a sentence-it was something bright that flew into
the souls of his audience; and as it flew, the magnetic glance
of his eye seemed to follow it, and every one was captive. His
address was at once exposition and criticism. The condition
of the nation, the aggressions of the slave oligarchy, the recent
plunder of Mexico for the extension of slavery, the servility
of the pulpit, the pro-slavery scheming of Northern merchants
and manufacturers-these were his themes, and how he treated
them! He was not in his loftiest lyric mood that night, and
his speech only rose now and then from its tone of exquisite
impressive colloquy into the long, imperial sweep of the oration; but still, as Thomas Davis said of Curran, his' words
went forth in robes of light with swords.  Shapes of severest
crystal grace that moved to Dorian music, an armed battalia,
a bright procession, the splendid phrases trooped, with strength
to strike and skill to guard for liberty and justice.  What
language-so finely chosen, so apt, terse, limpid, electrical I
What logic-proofr-mail of gold and steel around his thought,
or a smiting weapon of celestial temper I Now came some
metaphor so analogically related to the theme that it flashed
on the mind like a subtle argument. And now a sentence
shining upon the imagination with the beauty of an antique
frieze.  Here was an expression that memory would wear like
a gem-cameo forever. And here some jewel of classic story
re-cut more purely, or some historic picture that glowed sharp,
definite, in lines and hues of life, upon the eye of the mind.
Now it was the scimitar-glance of wit shearing the floating
film of some intangible popular delusion, or lie. Now some
homely illustration borrowed from the street, the shop, the
farm, yet suddenly interpenetrated with as strange a poetic
grace as though it had dropped from  the lips of Tully two
thousand years ago. Or here again invective, rising above
some gloomy wrong, and smiting bright, like the diamond
sword of Dante's black-stoled angel. Rhetoric, yet not the




246                   HARRINGTON.
artificial, decorative rhetoric of the schools, but an organic
growth of the man. Art, but art that seemed like nature, for
it was the art that nature makes. One felt, and truly felt, in
listening to the orator, that this was his natural normal speech.
It was beautiful, it was ornate, it was artistic, but it was of
the heart, it was of the life; and everywhere it was the stern,
the solemn voice of conscience, of honor, of virtue-everywhere
it was terrible and sacred with radiant pity for the poor and
weak, flaming scorn for the traitor and the oppressor, burning
love for liberty and justice.  But who is he that shall so nmuch
as hint description of the classic grace, the delicate fiery power
of the speeches of Wendell Phillips to the men of Boston? The
golden bees that clustered at the lips of baby Plato, must
swarm again from old Hymettus to the cradle of the child unborn who shall essay to tell the magic of that eloquence. Say
that in an age and land of muck-rakes it was the speech of a
gentleman-say that in its tones were heard the ancestral
voices from the blocks and battle-fields of liberty-say that it
touched with heavenly ardor and lifted to nobler life all uncorrupted hearts, and was light to the blind, and conscience to
the base, and to the caitiff whatever he could know of shame;
so leave it to worthier and more abundant praise, and to the
future.
The applause which had burst forth again and again during
the speech, now swelled into a tempest of acclamation as the
orator withdrew. Muriel still kept her lit face fixed on the
platform, and Emily, kindled into ardent color, leaned back
with a sigh. Wentworth, meanwhile, flushed with delight,
was splitting his gloves to ribbons with vehement applause,
when looking around, his eye fell upon Harrington, and stopping in the midst of his furore, he stared at him, amazed.
Harrington's strong face was white, his brow knitted, and his
nostrils tensely drawn.
" What's the matter, John?" cried Wentworth, alarmed,
and raising his voice to be heard amidst the cheering.
Muriel and Emily both looked at him suddenly, and the
young man recovering, smiled like one sick at heart, and rose.
They thought him ill, and unheeding the announcement of the




BARRINGTON.                    247
next speaker, they left their seats and went from the hall, Muriel and Harrington noticing, as they passed up the aisle, that
the seats occupied by MAr. Atkins and the stranger were
vacant.
In the vestibule, Harrington paused with Emily on his arm.
"Muriel," he said, "I want to speak with you a moment."
She left Wentworth instantly, and came to him, with a face
of inquiry.
" Muriel," he said, in a low, clear voice, taking her hands
in his, and looking into her eyes, " I feel a dreadful foreboding.
It struck upon me just now who that man is we saw with
your uncle."
" Who is it?" she said, quickly.
"'Lafitte! I know it is he.  I feel it in my soul," he replied.
For a moment she looked at him vacantly, with parted lips
and dilated eyes.
"Hurry," she cried, breaking from  him; " hurry home.
Come, Wentworth.  Oh, it's nothing," she said, with a vanishing smile, as she caught the astonished eyes of the young artist.
"Ask me no questions, Richard.  You shall know hereafter."
And putting her arm in his, they went off rapidly together,
followed by Harrington and Emily.
On the way, Harrington told Emily of his conjecture, and
they excitedly discussed the matter till they arrived with the
other two at the door of the house.
" Now, Emily and Richard," said Muriel, " you go in. John
and I are going to walk further. And, Emily," she whispered, "tell mother I shall bring home five people to stop all
night.  Remember.  Come, John;" and taking his arm, they
went up Temple street together.
"Well, by Jupiter!" exclaimed the mystified Wentwotth,
"this is decidedly odd I What does it mean, Emily?"
"I cannot tell you," replied Emily, coldly.  "Will you
please ring?"
Wentworth, bitterly recalled to her attitude toward him by
this frigid reticence, rang the bell, and the door opening
presently, they went in.




248                  HARRINGTON.
In the meantime, Muriel and Harrington went up the street
together, he vaguely thrilling with the electric energy of her
manner. She was silent for a few moments.
"John," she said, suddenly, "I respect an intuition like this
of yours, and I think you are right. IRoux is in danger. Now
this man only arrived to-day."
"How do you know, Muriel," he interrupted.
"Thus," she replied.  " On the way home from Mr. Parker's,
Emily and I overtook little Julia Atkins, and she said that a
gentleman from New Orleans had come to town, to-day, and
was to dine with them. I did not ask her anything on the
subject, for the conceit of the child's manner was not agreeable,
and I changed the subject. But that was the gentleman from
New Orleans, I am confident. No doubt, Uncle Lemuel and
he thought it would be amusing to visit an Anti-Slavery Convention."
"Yes, and the next thing a warrant will be out for IRoux,
and we shall have another fugitive slave-case in Boston," said
Harrington.  "But I shall stop that by taking Roux home to
my house, and sitting with him with loaded pistols till the hunt
is abandoned."
"Bravo, John," cried Muriel.  "But that will never do.
Mr. Atkins told that man your name, I know, and you are
likely to have an early visit from him. It will not do to have
Roux at your house. Roux must be hid where they will never
think of searching for him."
"True," he replied.  "But, by the way, Muriel, where are
we going now?"
"Have you just thought to ask?" she answered, gaily.
"Oh, John! But we are going to bring five people home to
my house."
" Muriel!"  He started as he spoke. The tears sprung to
his eyes, as looking into her noble face, he met its proud and
laughing gaze.
"We are going to Southac street, you know," she said,
"and we shall bring home Roux and his wife, Charles, and the
two children. That's five. The baby we don't count," she
playfully added.




BARRINGTON.                    249
HIarrington was speechless with emotion.
" In Temple street they will be safe for the present," she
continued.  "Then we can decide on the next step.  I think
Roux must remove to Worcester, for whatever they may do in
Boston, I believe they will never take a fugitive from Worcester. There's good blood yet in the heart of the Commnonwealth,
the heart of which, moreover, is the heart of Wentworth Higginson."
Wentworth iHigginson was, at that period, the gallant
minister of the Free Church at Worcester, a man with the
Revolutionary soul of fire,, and the incarnate nucleus of that
glorious public spirit which is still prompt to defend a man
against the kidnappers in the heart of the old Commonwealth.
"Meanwhile," pursued Muriel, " I'll take care of poor
Roux."'
"Oh, Muriel!" said Harrington, fervently, "there is no
nobleness, no tenderness, like yours."
In the wan moonlight he saw her color under his impassioned
gaze. She did not reply for a moment, but turning her face
away, she laid her hand upon his arm, and its almost imperceptible tremor sent a mystical, sweet agitation through his
being.
"It is nothing but a duty," she replied, presently, in a
gentle voice. " A clear and simple duty. Life opens plainlier
to me every day, and I see that I have wealth and strength
and youth, that I may succor and protect the poor I"
NTo more was said, but tranced in thoughts and feelings too
sacred and deep for words, they moved in silence through the
dim and solitary streets, vaguely lit by the wan lustre of the
moon.  There were lights in the houses as they passed, for it
was not yet ten o'clock, but save a few boys, white and negro,
fantastically playing in some of the streets, and half-dispirited
in their nocturnal galmes by the strange bleakness of the air,
they hardly met a person.
Lights glimmered dimly in the windows of Southac street,
but Roux's windows were in darkness.  Some negro boys,
sitting on the wooden steps of his abode, made way for them,
and ascending they entered the open outer door, and tapped
11*




250                   HARRINGTON.
at the panels of his room. No answer. They tapped louder.
No answer still. Harrington, oddly rememberine the strenuous
snoring of Tugmutton on the nights in.M[arch when RIoux
was sick, and hle had watched with him, put his ear to the
door and listened for those tokens of the fat boy's slumbers.
But no sound reached him.
"Pray Heaven nothing has happened," said Muriel. " Let
us try the other door."
Harrington turned to the opposite side of the passage, and
knocked loudly. There was an instant stir within, and presently the door opened, and a strange little wizened colored
man, not more than four feet high, with a pair of tin-rimmed
spectacles on his shrunken nose, and a long coat reaching
nearly to his heels, appeared, with a copy of the " Commonwealth" newspaper in his left hand, and in the other a tallow
candle stuck in a bottle which he held above his head. Harrington had seen himl before, though hle had forgotten his
name.
" Good evening, sir. Can you tell me where Mr. Roux is
this evening?" asked Harrington.
The little man stood still for a moment, gazing past them at
nothing, and looking like some fantastic little corpse, set bolt
upright.
"Good evening, Mr. llarrington. Good evening, Mrs. Harrington," he said, at length, in a voice like the squeak of a
mouse. Then he paused.  Muriel smiled faintly at the oddity
of being called Mrs. Harrington, and though the wizened
creature was not looking at her, he seemed to see the smile,
for he smiled also in a slow, fantastic, frozen way.
"Willurn Roux's been took off," he at length squeaked in
a deliberate tone.
Harrington and Muriel started violently, and holding each
other, looked at the speaker.
"Took off!" gasped Harrington.  " What do you mean?"
The little man made another long pause, then squeaked like
an incantation, " Ophelee!"
A large fat mulatto woman with a red kerchief tied round
her head, came from within, rubbing her eyes. Ophelia had




IIARRINGTON.                   251
evidently been asleep, but she nodded her head, bright and
wide awake, when she saw the visitors.
"What has become of tRoux?" said Harrington, looking at
her with his pale, startled face.
" Oh, they's all been took off to Cambridge," she replied
quickly, towering in good-natured bulk above her elvish husband, why stood like one magnetized.  " Clarindy Roux's married sister lives thar, Mir. Har'nton, an' her old man come in
with his wagon and took'm all out thar this afternoon. They's
to be fotched back to-morrow at dinner-time, so Tug says."
"Thank you," said Harrington.  " Good evening;" and
"good evening," said Muriel; both too much agitated with
the sudden relief that swept over them, to say another word.
"Laws bless you; good  evening," said Ophelia; and
"good evening, Mr. Harrington-good evening, Mrs. I-Harrington," squeaked the strange little creature, still standing in the
same attitude, as Muriel and Harrington departed.
" Well," said IMuriel, with a deep-drawn breath, and then a
laugh, as they gained the street; "that was as good a fright
as I ever got in my life."
"A fright, indeed," he returned.  "I felt as if I should
Swoon!"
They walked on in silence for a few moments.
"What a singular little kobold that is," she said, as they
went into the street.
"' Very," replied Harrington.' He's a tailor, and a great
Free-Soiler, as you may imagine by the newspaper he had.
Now, Muriel, it seems the Rouxs are fortunately away for the
night.  So they're safe for the present."
"Yes," she returned, gaily; "and my word is forfeit, for
where are my five captives!  N'imnporte.  I'll have them tomorrow."
"To-morrow, at noon, we'll come here together," said Harrington.
" Agreed," she replied.  "Punctually, at one o'clock, we'll
be here; and, like two fairy princes, carry off the Ogre's
victim."
They fell from this into a strain of talk, half-gay, half-serious;




252                   BARRINGTON.
and, satisfied that affairs were in a good state at present, returned rapidly to the house.
CHAPTER XV.
WAR AND PEACE.
AFTER the incidents of the evening, it was not a little discomposing to behold, as they did, upon entering the parlor, Mrs.
Atkins, Miss Atkins and Julia, together with Fernando Witherlee. The Atkins family had been there for a couple of hours,
making a family call. Muriel was a favorite with them, as
with everybody, and they saluted her affectionately; she responding with her usual affability. Harrington, too, was politely favored; though Mrs. Atkins (who had been a poor
country girl once) and her daughters, also, had their misgivings as to his being of sufficient respectability to deserve the
civilities due only to Good Society. But, despite this consideration, no woman could resist the sweet manhood of young
Harrington; and so he received from these ladies as much
politeness as though he moved, with mutton-chop whiskers and
modish clothes, In fashionable circles-which was unfair.
While Muriel was privately explaining matters to her mother,
Barrington joined in the conversation, in which all participated, save Wentworth, who was unusually quiet, and sat a
little apart, with a cold and reserved air, the result of his feelings for Emily. The conversation, which had been on topics
more or less commonplace, and had hovered frequently about,
and several times fairly settled on, the charms and graces of
Mr. Lafitte, dipped again to that enrapturing theme, by the
will of Mrs. Atkins. Miss Atkins, by the way, though still a
devotee of the chivalrous son of the sunny South, had suffered
some slight abatement of her rapture; having learned, by
chance, that Mr. Lafitte was already married.
" Oh, Mr. larrington," continued Mrs. Atkins, after much
eulogium of the Southern gentleman who had done us the honor




HARRINGTON.                    253
of dining with us to-day, " if you could only meet Mr. Lafitte,
you would have such different ideas of the Southern gentlemen."
"Indeed, madam," replied Harrington, courteously; "I
should be sorry to have my ideas of Southern gentlemen changed,
for I credit them with many fine and high qualities.  Don't
think that I imagine Northerners and Southerners in the absolute colors of good and evil-black and white; all the white
on our side, and all the black on theirs."
" Oh, no, of course not, " responded Mrs. Atkins in her fal-lal
manner; "but I thought you were so anti-slavery, Mr. Harrington."
" I certainly am anti-slavery, madam," good-naturedly said
Harrington, " and if I were living in Hancock's time, I should
be on the same principles anti-George the Third.  But I hope
I should not any the less pay due regard to the Tory gentlemen of that era.  As far as their Toryism went, I should of
course be their foe, and in like manner I am hostile to the
gentlemen of this day who are tyrants."
"But, Mr. Harrington," said Julia, pertly, "you don't like
Mr. Webster, and I know you don't, do you?  Now do tell
me, Mr. Harrington, why you don't like Mr. Webster.
Witherlee smiled furtively at Miss Julia's immature gabble,
and lifted his eyebrows in a faint sneer.
"Because, Miss Julia," replied Harrington simply, with a
gentle impressiveness of voice and manner which brought a
new sensation to the poor child's mind, and made her color,
" because AMr. Webster helped to pass a law which has made a
great many poor people very unhappy. You yourself wouldn't
like a man who made innocent people suffer, would you?"
" Oh, no, of course not," stammered Julia, while Witherlee
smiled maliciously, enjoying her confusion.
" Dear me! but they're only negroes, Mr. Harrington,"
feebly remarked Mrs. Atkins, in a deprecating tone.
"But, Mrs. Atkins, negroes have feelings," said Emily.
"Oh, well, dear," responded Mrs. Atkins, " but their feelings
are not the same as ours, you know. That is, they haven't
fine feelings."
"You remember the case that was lately reported in the




2.)4                 HARRINGTON.
newspapers. Mrs. Atkins," said Harrington.  "The rumor
came that the kidnappers were in town with a warrant for a
colored man, and his wife fell down dead with alarm when she
heard it. I think you must allow that poor woman had feelings, and it is hard to deny that Mr. Webster was responsible
for her murder. I saw those poor colored people in Southac
street to-day, in wild distress and alarm at the report that a
slave-hunter was in town, and no one who sees such things,
and realizes them, can like Mr. Webster."
"O Mr. Harrington, indeed I can't agree with you," returned Mrs. Atkins with feeble excitement.  "These things
are unpleasant, I admit, but Mr. Webster is a great statesman, you know-oh, there never was such a statesman as Mr.
Webster I He's perfectly splendid, and I'm sure if he was to
have all the negroes in the country killed-the horrid creatures! —I'm sure I would like him just as much as ever.
Indeed I would, and so would Mr. Atkins.  O if you'd only
heard Mr. Webster at Fanelil Hall last Saturday, I know
you'd have been converted. He didn't say a word about politics,
and he was so majestic, and so venerable and so —so pleasant
-oh, it was beautiful I"
And Mrs. Atkins fanned herself in a feeble fluster of admiration for Mr. Webster, whose speech, by the way, had been
very decrepit, rambling, and dull, with only a touch here and
there of the true Websterian massive power and energy.
"Well, Mrs. Atkins," said Witherlee in his cool, polite, provoking way, " for my part, I don't understand how you can
admire Mr. Webster's private life, I'm sure."
This change in the venue, as the lawyers say, and this impudent assumption that Mrs. Atkins had been admiring Mr.
Webster's private life, were both highly characteristic of the
good Fernando. His remark was not prompted by even the
pale esthetic anti-slavery, which he sometimes indulged in, but
by the simple desire to say something which he knew would
aggravate the lady. And Mrs. Atkins was aggravated, for
she colored and fanned herself nervously.
"I don't know what you refer to, Mr. Witherlee," she
remarked, pettishly.




HARRINGTON.                    255
"Why, you know what Mr. Webster's habits are, Mrs.
Atkins," said Fernando, lifting his eyebrows with an air of
painful regret, in which there was also a bilious sneer.  "You
are aware of his excessive fondness for old Otard.  And then
his relations to women"
"I don't care," interrupted Mrs. Atkins, bridling with
faint excitement.  "I don't care at all, and I think that God
gave Mr. Webster some faults to remind us that he is
mortal."
This was smart for Mrs. Atkins, and Witherlee, somewhat
nonplused, tu;'ned pale with spite, and lifted his eyebrows,
and shrugged his shoulders with a manner that was equivalent
to saying —Oh, if you talk in that way, Mrs. Atkins, there's no
use in wasting words upon you. His manner would have
been ineffably maddening to most men, but women are less
easily transported beyond control, and Mrs. Atkins, conscious
that she had the advantage of Mr. Witherlee in her reply,
fanned herself equably and took no notice of his insulting
gesture.
"For my part," said Hiarrington, gravely offended by
Witherlee's remarks, "I deprecate any reflections upon Mr.
Webster's private life. It seems to me that our concern is
with his public acts, and not with his personal habits."
" Oh, you're a gentleman, Mr. Harrington," said Mrs. Atkins,
in a tone that implied that Mr. Witherlee was not.
Witherlee looked at Mrs. Atkins with parted lips, and still,
opaque eyes, white with spleen, but perfectly cool.
"Now, fellow-citizens, what's the row?" blithely said
Muriel, approaching the circle with her mother.
" Oh, cousin Muriel!" exclaimed Julia, " how can you talk
in that way. It's so low!"
"So it is, dear," archly replied Muriel, " shockingly low,
and you must be warned by my example."
Julia looked a little foolish, and smiled.
" We were discussingr, Mr. Webster," said Fernando, tranquilly.
"Oh, Mr. Webster," said Muriel; "I used to admire him
very much when I was a girl."




256                   HARRINGTON.
"It's a pity you don't now, Muriel," said Mrs. Atkins, " for
he deserves to be admired, I'm sure."
"Yes, aunt, but I never recovered from a shock he gave
me in my' sallet days, when I was green in judgment,'" replied
Muriel.
"A  shock?  Dear me   I can't imagine Mr. Webster
shocking anybody," drawled Caroline, with weak surprise.
" Nevertheless," said Muriel, " iMr. Webster shocked me,
like a torpedo fish, and I'll tell you how.  There was a grand
party, at which he was present. Mother and I were there,
and I, who was a girl of fourteen, had no eyes for anybody
but Mr. Webster.  My great desire was to hear him  say
something, for I thought anything he said would be remarkable, and worth putting in an album, so I followed him whereever he went through the crowded drawing-rooms, with my
ears wide open, eagerly listening for the golden sentence. But
Mr. Webster was in a very silent humor, and wandered about
without speaking to anybody.  By and by he went up-stairs
to the supper room, and I followed him, in reverent admiration and expectancy. He approached the supper-table, bowed
solemnly to some ladies near by, took a fork, and began to
eat from a dish of pickled oysters. After he had eaten three
or four, he paused, with an oyster on his fork, turned his great
head slowly and majestically to the ladies, and opened his
lips. The golden sentence was coming, and I listened breathlessly.  Now what do you think he said?"
" Well, what?" inquired Harrington, after a hushed pause.
"Said he, in his deep, grum, orotund, bass voice, like the
low rolling of distant summer thunder,'What nice little
oysters these are!"'
Every one burst into hearty laughter, as Muriel mimicked
the tones of the Websterian ejaculation.' That was my reward for so long waiting," she continued,
when the laughter had subsided.  "That was my golden
sentence, which, of course, never went from  the tablets of
memory to the album.  It was an immense shock to know
that great statesmen said such things as common people
say."




HARRINGTON.                    257
"And you heard nothing else?" said Wentworth, vastly
amused at the anecdote.
" Not another word. He devoured the oyster, and wandered down-stairs again, leaving with me the ponderous sprat
which the flavor of the mollusc had conjured from the ocean
depths of his mighty mind."
They began to laugh again, when a ring at the door-bell
was heard.
" That's papa!" cried Julia.
Papa it was-come for his family. Ile came in presently,
robust and decisive, purseproud, as usual, and smiling, made
his salutations with a certain rude courtesy, and took a
chair.
"Well, young ladies," he burst out presently, " so you went
to hear Phillips harangue this evening."
" Yes, uncle," returned Muriel, sportively, " we had you to
keep us in countenance you know."
"Indeed I Well, I'm sorry if my example incited you.
Lafitte, our Southern visitor, thought it would be amusing to
hear some of the fanatical blather, and so I took him along,
and, just by chance, he got a dose of Phillips."
"I hope the dose did him good, Lemuel, and you also,"
said Mrs. Eastman, with some spirit.
" Oh, I don't deny Phillips's power, Serena," replied the
merchant, carelessly.  "It's all very fine, and if he were in
the Whig party, he'd be a man of mark.  It's a pity, as I
always say, to see such wonderful ability wasted."
" How did Mr. Lafitte enjoy it, sir?" asked Emily,
blandly.
" Oh, he —well, I was rather amused at the way he took it,"
responded Mr. Atkins, laughing. "It quite upset him, and in
his hot, Southern way, he said Phillips ought to be shot. In
fact, I thought Lafitte was rather thin-skinned about it,
though, to be sure, Phillips's words are enough to try a saint.
Anyhow, Lafitte felt'em rankle."
"He must certainly, to have had so murderous a spirit
aroused in him," remarked Mrs. Eastman.
"Murderous? Upon my word, Serena," replied the mer



258                   HARRINGTON.
chant, bluffly, " I think his spirit was not unworthy of a man
of high tone, and I shouldn't blame him at all if he had pistolled your orator on the spot."
" Like the assassin who bludgeoned Otis in Revolutionary
times," remarked Witherlee, blandly aggravating.
"Oh, you young men are all tainted with fanaticism." returned Mr. Atkins, reddening.  "When you're older you'll
know better.  I'm always sorry to see young men of talent,
like Mr. Harrington  here, misled by Phillips's eloquent
abstractions.  But live and learn, live and learn."
" I hope, Mr. Atkins, I shall not live to learn distrust in
the statesmanship that reprobates slavery," said Harrington,
urbanely.
" Statesmanship!" contemptuously exclaimed the merchant.
" Do you call such incendiary measures as Phillips and Parker
advise, statesmanship?  Sedition and treason! I declare, A1r.
Harrington-and I say this coolly, in sober earnest —that
if any one were to shoot down Phillips and Parker in the:street, and I were summoned as a Grand Juror to pass upon
the act, I would refuse to indict him  on the ground that it
was justifiable homicide. Yes, sir, justifiable homicide. I
have said it a hundred times, and I now say it again.  What
do you think of that, Mr. Harrington?"
Harrington met the insulting exultation of the merchant's
gaze, with a look quiet and firm.
" Since you ask me what I think of it, Mr. Atkins," he replied, tranquilly, " you must permit me to say that I think it
atrocious."
" And so do I," said Mrs. Eastman, crimson with indignation. "And you ought to blush, Lemuel, to say that you
would give legality to a ferocious murder."
" Ought I?" replied the merchant, coolly.  "Well, I don't,
Serena.  In such a case, killing's no murder.  Murder, indeed I Ia I men like those to dare to wage war on the institutions of their country!"
" What institutions do they wage war upon, Mr. Atkins?"
asked Wentworth, civilly.
"Well, sir, slavery for one," excitedly returned the mer



HARRINGTON.                    259
chant.  " An institution expressly sanctioned by the Constitution, and on the protection of which the safety of this Union
depends, Mr. Wentworth.  An institution, sir, which no
statesman would think of assailing for a moment. Where can
you point to one statesman, worthy of the name, from Webster back to Burke, or as far back as you like to go, that has
ever assailed a great politico-economical institution like slavery?
You're a scholar, I'm told, Mr. Harrington; now just answer
me that question."
"Mr. Atkins, I am surprised beyond measure that you
should ask me such a question," calmly replied Harrington.
"The real difficulty would be to name any statesman of the first
eminence that has ever defended slavery.  You mention Burke
and Webster. Why, sir, the whole record of Mr. Webster's life
up to 1850, is against slavery. It is only eight years ago since
he stood up in Faneuil Hall, and said-I quote his very words,
for I have been lately reading them-' What,' said he,'when
all the civilized world is opposed to slavery; when morality denounces it; when Christianity denounces it; when everything
respected, everything good, bears one united witness against it, is
it for America-America, the land of Washington, the model
republic of the world —is it for America to come to its assistance, and to insist that the maintenance of slavery is necessary
to the support of her institutions 1' Those are Daniel Webster's
very words, sir, and yet you ask when he ever assailed slavery!"
" Good l good!" cried Mrs. Eastman, amidst a general
murmur of satisfaction from all but the Atkinses.  Mr. Atkins
sat dumb, wincing under the crushing blow of the quotation.
Their new-born zeal for slavery and kidnapping gave the Boston merchants of that period terribly short memories.
"Faneuil Hall, crowded with Whig merchants, answered
those words with six-and-twenty cheers. Have you forgotten
them, Mr. Atkins?" said Harrington. " Now the cheers
are all for slavery. Now, in defiance of your own statesman's
declaration, you assert slavery to be necessary to the maintenance of your Union. And now, because Phillips and Parker
wage war upon slavery, as Webster did then, you would jus.
tify their murder."




260                   IARRINGTON.
Still dumb, with his strong lip nervously twitching, the merchant sat, whelmed in utter confusion.
"You mentioned Burke, Mr. Atkins," continued Harrington,
"and since you have mentioned him, let me ask if you have forgotten his speech to the electors of Bristol? Listen to the
words of the greatest statesman since Bacon-for they, too, are
fresh in my memory.'I have no idea,' said Edmaad Burke-' I
have no idea of a liberty unconnected with honesty and justice.
Nor do I believe that any good constitutions of government or
of freedom can find it necessary for their security to doom any
part of the people to a permanent slavery. Such a constitultion of freedom, if such can be, is in effect no more than another
name for the tyranny of the strongest faction.' Those are the
words of Burke, sir. If you doubt, Mrs. Eastman will get the
volume from the library, and you shall read them for yourself."
"No consequence, Mr. Harrington, no consequence," returned
the merchant, abruptly rising. " We will not discuss the matter
further, sir.  Come, Mrs. Atkins, it is time for us to go home."
"O  dear me," drawled Mrs. Atkins, leaving  her seat,
"you gentlemen are so fond of these horrid politics. Come,
children, come."
They all rose, with a flutter and rustle of movement.
Presently, while the Atkins ladies, cloaked and bonneted,
were moving toward the door, Harrington approached Mr.
Atkins, who had gone into the entry for his hat and returned,
and now stood, cold, harsh and moody, apart from the rest
of the company.
"I trust, Mr. Atkins," said the young man, with grave
courtesy, " that you are not offended by my plain speaking on
these matters, or at least that you will not understand me to
intend any disrespect to you personally."
The merchant glared at him with a sullen and insolent smile.
" Mr. Harrington," he hissed hoarsely, bending his face close
to the young man's, " such sentiments as yours find favor with
my sister and niece. It is politic in you to adopt them, and
so curry favor with the one that you may mend your poverty
by a rich marriage with the other."
And with these brutal words, the merchant threw back his




HARRINGTON.                   261
head, glaring at the young man with open mouth, and a frightful smile on his blanched visage, which was at that moment
the visage of a demon. Harrington met that glare with a look
of such majestic severity, such a stern glory of anger lighting
his calm eyes and brow, that the merchant's face fell, and he
slunk a pace away. The company had left the parlor, and
were talking in the hall, as Mr. Atkins had made his reply,
but Mrs. Eastman, who was standing nearest the parlor door,
had heard it all, and before Harrington could make any
rejoinder, if any he intended, she came quickly in, shutting
the door behind her, her silver tresses trembling and her beautiful face flushed with haughty and indignant emotion.
"Permit me to tell you, Lemuel Atkins," said she, confronting her brother, and speaking in a proud and steady voice,
" that the sentiments which you have not the wit to controvert,
nor the manhood to entertain, were held by Mr. Harrington
before we had the honor of his friendship, and let me further
say to you that while the choice of my daughter's heart, be he
rich or poor, shall be my choice also, I should esteem it the
best hour of my life which gave me assurance that she would
wed a man worthier of her than any man I know, and dear to
me as my own son I Take that home with you, sir, and do
us the honor to believe that in this house we value gentlemen
for what they are, and not for what they own."
He shrank from the serene and haughty magnetism of her
manner, and cowering under her rebuke, slunk away to the
door without a word, and went into the hall.  Harrington
stood like one thunder-struck, the slow thrill her words gave
him running through his veins, while she swept across the
room to close the door the merchant had left ajar, and turning
again, came quickly toward him, her beautiful face pale and
wet with calmly-flowing tears.
"Tell me, John," she said, seizing his hands, and speaking
in low, rapid tones, tremulous with emotion-" this pitiful
insult moved me to anger, and in my anger I have spoken the
true thought of my heart —tell me that so dear a hope is not
go vain. Oh, confide in me as in your own mother, for no
mother could love you more tenderly than I do."




262                   HARRINGTON.
In the spiritual passion of the moment, all cold prudence,
all reticence, melted, and fell away.  He clasped her in his
arms, and with sweet and sorrowful emotion, kissed her fair
brow and silver hair.
" I love her, my mother," he murmured, sadly smiling-" I
love her, but the love I once thought mine, is not for me."
" You love her-you love Muriel, and she does not love
you I I do not believe it-I cannot.  John, at my age
women are not easily deceived-they do not mistake the
tokens of love.  Take care that you are sure of what you
say"
"i am sure, mother, I am sure," he interrupted, in a low
voice. " Her accepted lover told me of his happiness to-day.
Do not ask me his name.  They themselves will tell you.
iiush I"
The hall-door was heard closing, and the voices talking
gaily in the hall. She looked at him wonderingly for an instant, then quickly pressed her lips to his drooping forehead,
and glided from his arms to the back-door of the parlor,
out of which she passed up to her chamber, as the others
came in.
Witherlee had departed as the escort of Miss Julia, his
natural impudence perfectly ignoring the rebuff he had received from her mother.
" Where's Mrs. Eastman?" said Emily.
" She went out as you came in," replied Harrington.
" John," said Muriel, coming up to him, and playfully shaking her finger.  "You quite discomfited poor Uncle Lemuel,
and he went off as cross as a bear."
" What a memory Harrington has!" laughed Wentworth.
"To think that he gave him Burke and Webster plump!
That was a double-barrelled shot, by Jupiter!"
"Oh, it was capital," chimed in Emily.
"Faith," said Harrington, "it was simply lucky. I happened to have been reading the speeches lately, and so had
the passages by heart.  But I wonder at Mr. Atkins making
such an absurd assertion."
"Oh, he remembers nothing previous to 1850," said Muriel.




HARRINGTON.                    263
"These people are perfectly wild with their Webster and
Fugitive Slave Law mania, and they repeat certain phrases
until their organs of intelligence are ossified, as Goethe says.
Come, Emily, let us have some music."
"Yes, do, Emily," said Wentworth, half absently, and
forgetting for a moment, as was frequent with him, the state
of affairs between him and Miss Ames.
Emily looked at him with cool serenity, as if she thought
his request impertinent.  Wentworth, recalled to himself, was
maddened by the look and all it brought him, and turning to
conceal his anger, wandered away to the piano, humming an
air.
" Come, Emily, we must go home, for it's getting late," said
Harrington; "so sing us that sweet song of Kbrner's-the
6 Good Night' song-to sooth us to dreams."
Emily smiled with superb languor, and half-reluctant, for
she was not in a songful mood, swept over to the piano, looking steadily as she advanced at Wentworth, who was leaning carelessly against the instrument, and regarding her with
stern eyes.
" I believe," said she, listlessly, as she sunk upon the musicAtool, and with a parting glance of cold hauteur dropped her
eyes from the steady gaze of Wentworth, " I believe that the
piano is out of tune."
" Do you know why, Miss Ames?" asked Wentworth suddenly, in a voice at once so quiet and so marked that both
Muriel and Harrington looked at him.
" Because," he said with bitter and terrible significance, a
scowl darkening his features-" because it has been played
upon!"
Muriel and IHarrington started with a low exclamation, and
glanced first at Wentworth, and then at Emily, with mute
amazement.  A smile arose on Wentworth's face, and mingled
with his scowl, as he slowly walked away. Emily rose from
her seat, and gazed after him, her form dilated to its full
height, her bosom heaving, and her face and neck suffused
with an indignant scarlet glow.  Turning, Wentworth looked
haughtily at her for a moment, and then, utterly reckless, with




264                   BARRINGTON.
heart and brain on fire, laughed a bitter and scornful laugh,
and moved toward the parlor door.  Emily's lip quivered, her
color faded to pallor, and bursting into a passionate flood of
tears, she covered her face with her hands, and swept by the
other door from the room.
Muriel and Harrington had stood transfixed with astonishment up to this moment, but as they saw both Emily and
Wentworth leave the parlor, they recovered with a start.
" Stay, Wentworth," cried Harrington, rushing to the door,
and "Emily, Emily," cried Muriel, flying after her friend.
But Harrington reached the hall, just as the front door
slammed at the heels of Wentworth, and tearing it open, he beheld him running up the street like a madman, while Muriel,
bounding up-stairs after Emily, saw her vanish into her chamber, and heard the lock of her door click behind her.
Both returned to the parlor at the same moment, and advancing toward each other, pale, agitated, and almost petrified with wonder at the lightning-like suddenness and inexplicable character of this incident, gazed into each other's faces.
The affair was like a flash on a dark landscape, giving a vague
glimpse of some mysterious form there, and vanishing before
its nature was revealed.
" Good Heavens, John! what does this mean?" exclaimed
Muriel, breaking the lonely stillness of the lighted parlor.
"I do not know," he murmured, vacantly gazing at her.
" Is Richard mad?"
She put her hands to her bosom to repress its throbbings,
and sank into a large chair near her.  Both were silent for
some minutes, each trying to think, with a whirling brain,
what this could possibly mean.
"What a singular day this has been I" murmured Harrington at length, as behind this last incident the tableau of its
many-passioned hours rose in his mind.
"Singular, indeed!" replied Muriel, in a low voice, "and
how singularly and sadly it ends!"
" Not so," he replied with sweet gravity.  "Let it end in
our good night, which is always happy with affection and
peace.  We will dismiss this scene, Muriel.  To-morrow we




HARRINGTON.                     265
can think more clearly, and we will know its iAeaning. Meanwhile, good night."
She rose from her seat, and they came toward each other
with outstretched hands.  It was strange, but for the first
time in all their long acquaintance, their hands passed each
other, his arms encircled her, and hers rested on his, with her
hands upon his shoulders. A trance seemed to glide upon
them.  The lighted room was very still; the sad wind sighed
in the hush around the dwelling; and gazing into each other's
faces, with a vague thrill remotely stirring in the peace of
their spirits, they stood motionless, as in a dream.
Thus for a little while, which seemed long, lasted their communion. Earthly cares and hopes forgotten, earthly strifes
removed and dim, and the sorrow of their hopeless love so
chastened and sanctified in the nobleness of mutual sacrifice
that it knew no touch of pain.
A long, mysterious sigh of the night-wind breathed around
the dwelling, and stole into the peace of their minds. lHarrington smiled, and his heart rose in benediction as he silently
laid his hands upon the fair and sacred head of his beloved.
"The night deepens on, Muriel, and we must part," he
gently murmured.
" Yes, we must part," she answered, in a low tone, " and our
parting to-night seems like a type of the greater parting."
" To me the same," he murmured, in a rapt voice. " Never
before has it seemed so like parting forever. I might feel thus
when passing through the dusks of death, with the dream of
all earth's sweet and vanished hours fading in visions of the
life to come."
There was a long pause, in which the cadence of his words
seemed to linger like the ghost of music on the air.
"But we shall meet there," she said.  "We who have
passed so many holy and poetic hours here —we shall meet
there.  The earthly'good-night' is but the prelude to'goodmorning.' So shall the last farewell of earth prelude the heavenly greeting."
"Yes, we shall meet there," he murmured.  " Have we not
met there already-friends, true and loving, dwellers in lea12




266 6HARRINGTON.
ven's happy str!  Who shall gainsay the alchemist who
wrote that'Heaven hath in it this scene of earth.' The true
life is there, and our existence here is but a fleeting hour of
absence from our heavenly home. Yes, we shall meet there,
reclothed with the divine memory, and keeping the memory of
all we wrought and were on earth, that earth might fulfill the
large purposes of God —meet there, old friends, true and loving, changed, and yet the same."
Again there was a pause of trancing silence, filled with the
floating ghost of visionary music, keeping the sweet tradition
of his words, and telling to the soul what music tells. Again
around the lonely dwelling swelled tle wind's mysterious eolian
sigh, rising in inarticulate wild prophecies, and wailing sombrely saway.
" Good night, good night," he softly murmured, with a
movement of departure.
" Good night," she answered, in a low and fervent voice,
"friend, true and loving, good night."
A sense of heavenly tenderness rose trembling in their
souls, and with meeting lips they were clasped in each other's
arms.  Oh, solemn ecstasy of prayer and peace! Oh, mystic
passion of a veiled true love!
Was it a dream? She was alone. Standing in the solitary room, her brow bent upon her hand, the dim sweetness
of the vision in her mind, she floated away in vague, delicious
reverie.  Soft light fled pulsing through her spirit; a sacred
and passionless perfume floated in her brain; a celestial tenderness tranced her soul.  He loved another; his love for her
was the love of friend for friend —no more; but she was happier, holier, nobler to have inspired such love, and stronger
than ever to resign him now, and to live her life alone.  So
thinking, like one lost in a blissful dream, she glided away to
her pillow.
Was it a dream? How strangely sweet and vague! He
was wandering noiselessly down the shadowy street in the wan
moonlight, with the cold air blowing on his cheek, as void of
coldness as though he had been a phantom, and not a man.
When had he left her-how? but his thoughts recalled only




HARRINGTON.                   267'
the peaceful passion of that moment, and between the lighted
room  and the moonlit street, there was a blank chasm
Dear moment, never to come again, dear magic flower that
bloomed in the sad garden of his love, never to be renewed,
yet sweetening life and life's submissive sacrifice forever.
Dear friend, true friend and sweet, whose clasp, whose sacred
kiss-the first, the last-gave tokens of no earthly love, but
rich memorials and previsions of the love that makes the hills
of heaven more fair! So ran the voiceless music of his
thought, while memory kept the phantom form of the
beloved one in visioned light and odor. To-morrow he would
meet her, and the day after, and on for many a day through
months and years to come, but never again on the height of
the ideal and intimate communionvhere their spirits had met
and said farewell. Years hence, and she a happy wife and
mother, how softly this hour would glide from the innermo(st
holiest cloister of memory, and lend a more pensive and tender
grace to her beauty, and shed a finer and more ethereal essence
on her happiness I Consecrating her forever, its consecration
would rest on his own life, pledging him more firmly to lofty
and generous effort, and sanctifying all low toils and struggles
as with the presence of an angel.
Softly, and without noise, he entered his dark and silent
house. A moment, and he had lit his shaded lamp, and conscious of the sleepless vigil in his mind, he opened the volume
which held for him  the rich lore of Verulam, his unfailing
pleasure, and the comfort of his saddest hours, and sat down to
read the night away. Within all was still. Without, the
wind swept drearily through the wan and shadowy street around
the silent dwelling, the lilac odors had died, and the pale moonlight shone with the blue glimmer of swords.




268                   HARRINGTON.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE GLIMPSES OF THE MOON.
THE gibbous moon hung midway down the zenith over the
vast and sleeping city, a lob of spectral light in the cold, blue
heavens, over a fantastic brood of dreams. Daniel Webster's
liegemen and victims slept, and Black Dan himself, liegeman
and victim to a darker poyer than he, slept also; but the
liegemen and victims of Dan Cupid had a more uncertain
chance of slumber, and four among them at least had wakeful
eyes that night as the moon was going down.
As the moon was going down, its pale gleam fell upon the
pallid face and disordered form of Wentworth. He had risen
from his bed, and was sitting, half dressed, at his open chamber
window, in an upper story of his father's house on Tremont
street, and brooding mournfully on the misshapen planet, which
hung like a huge, bulging drop of watery lustre above the roofs
beyond the Common trees. His bed, all tossed and tumbled,
glimmered in white confusion behind him, and faint rays of
moonlight touched the lines of the gilt frames upon the walls,
the books upon their shelves, the ghostly busts and statuettes
around the chamber, and the dark, goblin shapes of the disarranged furniture. Within the chamber all was dusk disorder,
and a dusk disorder was within the clouded mind and aching
heart of its tenant.
Passion had spent its fury; the frenzy and the fever of his
heart were allayed; and something like the wan tranquillity
of the night had succeeded. It was all over; the play was
played; she had lured him on to love her; she had trampled
on his love; he had repaid her with one bitter burst of scorn;
he had struck her heartless pride with insult into tears; it was
done; he would never see her more.




iARRINGTON.                    269
It was done, but was it well done?  The calm, rebuking
image of Harrington rose in his mind. Him, too, she was
deceiving, or seeking to deceive-but he-would he have
answered her so?  Oh, idiot that I am, he thought; he would
have shamed her even in her triumph by his silence, his compassion, his forgiveness, and. made her feel how poor a thing
she was; while I have shown her that my wound burns and
rankles that she may exult over it, and given her the advantage
by an insult which will only bring her sympathy and me
shame I
Convulsed for a moment by the turbulent rush of fury that
whirled through him, he suddenly controlled himself with a
strong effort, and leaning his burning head upon his hands,
thought on.  How would her wiles prosper on Harrington?
Ha I it was joy to think that she would be baffled there! She
does not know that he loves Muriel; she will not know it; she
will spin her seductive web; she will try every charm, and fail,
and fail-and know not why she fails! For he loves Murielyes, he loves Muriel. But that thought brought another
to the mind of Wentworth.  In vivid contrast with his own
mean and little jealousy of his friend when he thought him his
rival for the love of Emily, came Harrington's selfless generosity
to him  whom  he thought his rival for the love of Muriel.
This, too, had led Harrington to attach himself in all their
walks and meetings' to Emily-he had stood aside, he had
waived his claim to the contest for Muriel's love, he had left
the field clear and., open, with every advantange to him.
Brought to the full consciousness of this lofty magnanimity,
alive now to his own selfish selfness, hot tears, wrung from him
in the agony of his self-abasement, welled from his eyes. But
this could be atoned for. To-morrow, yes, to-morrow, he
would see Harrington-he would tell him all-he would confess his fault, and ask for pardon. This wrong could be undone
-so easily; a little sacrifice of pride-that was all; but
Emily-her wrong to him could never be undone-never, oh,
never! A ruined heart, a ruined life, love scorned, self-respect
crushed; oh, Emily, Emily, his wild thought wailed, loved,
idolized, adored still, despite your cruel baseness, your heartless




270                  HARRINGTON.
wrong, your life-long injury to me, how can I forget you, how
can I forgive you, how can I blot out your image from my
life, how be again as in the days of youth and love and hope
now gone forever and forever!
Weak, shaken, convulsed with passionate despair, he bowed
his head upon his nerveless arms, weeping bitterly in silence, as
the moon was going down.
As the moon was going down, its pale light shone into the
haunted shadow of a chamber, and on the lovely pallid face
and sumptuous form of Emily, dimly projected in the perfumed dusk against the velvet of a cushioned chair, in which
she lay reclining like a young empress doomed to die upon the
morrow morn. Her eyes were closed; her head rested back
almost in profile upon the velvet; and the pale and sculptural
features, relieved by the unbound blackness of her hair, were
like a dream of death. The white night-robe had fallen away,
and clearly outlined against the glorious length of ebon tresses
which sloped in thick profusion down behind her, bloomed the
polished ivory of one peerless shoulder, melting within the
crumpled tissue of the loose sleeve which covered her drooping
arm. Still, but for the slow heaving of her bosom, she lay in
pallid loveliness-a maiden queen of passional love, love-lorn,
discrowned, abandoned and brought low.
She had been warned of this-too late, too late for her own
peace-and the warning had come true. ~ How delicately, how
gently, yet how clearly, had Witherlee warned her to beware
of Wentworth's insidious honey tongue. Kind friend, wise
friend, whom they think treacherous and subtle, you were loyal
and true to me. But your warning came too late, for I had
already given my heart, my life, my peace to him. Had you
but spoken earlier, had you but warned me in time-but now,
too late, too late, cast off, betrayed, undone! a handsome
gallant's sport, his theme for mockery and insult-come Death,
best other friend, best friend of all to me, best friend and only
friend to me  take me from life to God, for all that made existence sweet is ended I
So ran the silent passion of her thought, with silent-flowing
tears. The solemn night was still around her vigil, and the




HARRINGTON.                    271
hush of the chamber was like the hush of the tomb. They
sleep, she thought, they sleep in peace, while I watch here
uncomforted. She sleeps, my noble-hearted AMuriel-she who,
misled by my proud, spleenful folly, thinks I have given my
heart to Harrington.  And he! oh, how can he forgive me
when I tell himl-but he will-that noble nature cannot scorn
me; he will understand and pity and pardon. Let me only
tell him frankly-let me atone for all my wrong by humbling
myself before him; let me crave his compassion and forgiveness, and so be fitter to go from earth to my Savior's rest.
To-morrow I will depart from  hence, and before I go I will
see H arrington and Muriel, and make my peace with them.
I who was jealous of her, even her, my sweet, deep-hearted
Muriel; I will own it, I will ask her forgiveness.  Punished,
justly punished, for my wrong to them both, let me be forgiven
by them, and then let me go away to die.
So ran the deep contrition of her thought, with mournfulrunning tears. Sorrowfully weeping, she turned her beautiful
and haggard face to the table near her, and took from thence
a single faded rose. It had been large and fresh in full-blown
crimson beauty, when he had given it to her, a little week ago.
Pledge of a love then in its seeming hour of radiant victory,
it was the withered token of a love all dead and disenchanted
now. Weeping, she pressed it to her lips; she kissed it with
gentle and passionate kisses. The sweet, dry odor of the soft
petals stole to her brain, with the mournful memory of the
vanished and delicious hour when the rose bloomed fresh in
the lover's giving hand, and his tender and gallant face was
the rose of all the world to her. Dear rose, she murmured,
memorial of hours when life was ecstasy, and heaven itself
seemed cold and far-you are all that is left me now I I will
keep you, I will love your while life lasts, and when I die,
they shall put you in my bosom, under the shroud, and lay us
together in the grave.  Gift of him I loved-of him  I love
forever-oh, Richard, Richard, you have wronged me, but I
do not scorn you-you have killed me, but I do not hate you;
I love you now; I love you, I forgive you, I bless you —with
my last breath I shall forgive, and love and bless you!




272                   HARRINGTON.
Murmuring the words, in an ecstasy of passionate fervor,
her voice trembling, and the tears streaming from her eyes,
she pressed the flower with both hands to her lips, and swooning slowly back upon the cushions, she lay motionless, a shape
of glorious pallid beauty, sculptured upon the odorous dusk,
as the moon was going down.
As the moon was going down, its pale ray streaming aslant
the drooping misty veils that fell in parted festoons from a
golden ring above the pure and cloud-like couch of Muriel,
threw a tender glory on her Madonna face, sweet in its waveni
fall of shadowy tresses.  She rested, half-reclined upon her side
against the broad bank of her pillows, in the soft suffusion of
gloomy bloom which insphered her couch from the darkness of
the chamber.  Her beautiful white arms flowing from an open
sleeve, which left them bare nearly to the shoulders, lay along
her form upon the silvery grey of the coverlet, and her eyes shone
like dim, rich gems. Alone and sleepless, in the still seclusion of
her chamber, the phantoms of her many-peopldl life thronged
her spirit, and the drama of the day lived anew. All the persons she had known from  her childhood upward-faces, too,
that she had seen and forgotten-came floating in a strange
air of dreams upon her vague and pensive musing. All that
had passed since morning-the places where she had been, the
people she had met, their shapes, their colors, their manners
and gestures; what had been said, what had been done-came
in spectral retrospection, singularly minute and circumstantial;
and now and then, some face, some glimpse of a passing form,
some room or fragment of sunlit street, half surprised her by
softly appearing to the inner visual sense, with the jut and hues
and vivid reality of actual life. Amidst the profuse and teeming phantasmagoria of her thought, came often the strong face
of her uncle —with the surly scowl she had last seen upon it,
melting into an ominous smile she had never seen, which
strangely altered it to the sinister face of the negro-holder.
And with this —sometimes preceding it, sometimes following
it, and mysteriously connected with it, almost as fantastically
as in a dream-came the agonized and imploring dark face of
Roux, which somehow seemed changed, and not his so en



HARRINGTON.                     273
tirely, but that it suggested a likeness to some other face
which she could not recall.  Following these-recurring again
and again, a hundred times, and linked with the inexplicable incident of the evening —came Wentwort h, pale, and bitterly
laughing, passing, with half-turned, scornful head, through one
door; and Emily, melting from haughty scarlet into pallor and
tears, and sweeping away, with her face bowed in her hands,
through the other.  Because it has been played upon —because it has been played upon.  The words came with every
return of these two figures-came wearily and strangely;
darkly significant, yet wholly meaningless, and leaving her in
quiet wonder as to what lurked beneath them.  In all this
spectral picturing, the form of Harrington was absent; and,
though several times, conscious of the viv;d life of her mind that
night, she strove to bring him before her, she could not succeed.
But again and again the thought of his love for Emily and
of hers for him, calne to her, never impressing her so singularly
as now.  The strange reticence of his demeanor to Emily,
courteous, frank, kind and loving, it is true, but yet so unlike
the abandonmuent she might have looked for in a lover; the
curious attentions of Emily to him, her lustrous looks into his
face, her fond, close leaning on his arm, her form bending so
near him, her restless desire to isolate herself with him even
when she and Wentworth were present, her low tones and
whisperings, and smiles, tokens of love, and yet somehow
vaguely unloverlike; all came to her vividly, and like an
ordinary page in a book which yet contained a lurking riddle
that distracted the mind from the ostensible reading.  Then
their strange reserve. Emily had never intimated aught of
her love to her, save in the conversation which she herself had
instituted to charm  down her lover-like jealousy, and the
admission then was rather tacit than direct.  And Harrington,
too-he had never breathed a word, or given the remotest
hint of his love to her-not even to her, his adored and trusted
friend. Why this secrecy? What imaginable reason had
they for this close conspiracy of reserve? She could not guess.
She could not even invent a plausible supposition to account
for it.  In the candid and vivid temper of her mind that night,
12*




274                   HARRINGTON.
she felt that the mystery of their relation and conduct would
be fathomed by her, could she but keep it before her thoughts;
but in vain, for as she held it, it would drop away, and be lost
in the phantasmagoric population which crowded and faded
upon her, and then appear again, and again be lost; and so
crowding and fading, and coming again, in quiet and spectral
complication, with a vague sense of mystery, and monition
and shadowy warning, all mingling indefinitely together, and
leaving no xesult in her mind, her phantom host of useless
reminiscence poured ceaselessly around her, as the moon was
going down.
As the moon was going down its sad, ray, filtering between
a tunnelled lane of roofs and walls across the garden gate of
Harrington, touched his drooping forehead, as he sat near his
open window, breathing the refreshing coolness of the night
air. His night-lamp left the lower part of the room in dusky
shadow, but threw a steady radiance on the open volume
from which he had risen when he could no longer abstract his
mind to the rich pages. He was thinking of his own futurehow he should arrange his life for the human service. The
dream of love was dissolved; henceforth it could never agitate
his heart; now he was wholly and only mankind's. She had
receded from him into the farthest distance of memory.  lie
thought of her as of one whom he had known and loved
many, many years ago. Now she was gone, and he was alone,
and for him there was only the clouded present and the
unknown future.
Rising from his seat, he paced the room. A strange and
solemn heaviness weighed upon him, and he yearned for the
morrow. With the sense of the night, the deep hush of the
air, the shadowy quiet of the room, the brooding sentience of
the ghostly hour, was mingled a vague, dark, unimaginable
portent which hung like lead upon his soul. Pausing in his
silent walk, he leaned his head upon his hand, alone in the vast,
haunted solitude of his being, and longing to be at rest. Musing on and on, a fleeting gleam of peace, like a ray shining
through clouds over a waste of midnight desolation, stole upon
his hour of lonely weakness, as across his mind floated the




HARRINGTON.                    275
image of Muriel sleeping-her lily face composed to rest in its
nimbus of bright hair, and sweet with happy dreams. So had
he seen her in her light slumber that day. It came into his
mind as he mused-how she had leaped up from her graceful
rest, with what ethereal summer lightning of a smile on her
awakened face, with what delicious laughter and what gay
replies.  Her words-' you are the fairy prince that awakened
me, and now I am to follow you through all the world.'
He looked up with a throbbing brain.  The dream of love
was dissolved; henceforth it could never agitate his heart:
now he was wholly and only mankind's-Oh, mockery of
mockeries I
In the dead stillness there was the sense of mighty pulses
madly beating, and the air was flame. All his being rose like
the torrent surge and thunder of a heaven-drowning sea, and
for one fierce instant the world of life quivered through and
through with agony.  tHe gazed before him  with tense and
burning eyes.  A faint radiance cast from  the funnel of his
lamp, lit the kingly-fronted statue of Verulam on its pedestal.
The light lay lucid on the vast and sovercign brow, melting
into fainter light below, and the face was as the face of a god
rapt in the white peace of Eternity.  It grew upon the convulsing storm of his passion with a diffusive calm. Slowly, as
he brooded upon the august countenance, tranquil in massive
majesty, its sweet serenity, its passionless and regal peace sank
upon him: a sad and gentle inflowing tide of feeling lifted himn
above his agitations, till at length, with clasped hands and
bowed head, and all the tempest of his spirit dying down in
streaming tears, he rose into communion with the man whose
life on earth began new ages.
No words breathed from his lips,'no thoughts came to his
mind, but in the ideal presence of the soul he loved, raptures
of solemn comfort arose within him, and he became composed.
A load seemed to lift from  his spirit, and turning away, relieved and exalted, he sank into his former seat, and sat in
tranquil musing as the moon was goilng down.




276                  HARRINGTON.
CHAPTER XVII.
NOCTURNAL.
GRADUALLY a desire to be out in the spiritual solitude of the
night came upon him.  He rose from his seat, closed the window, took his hat from the wall, and setting the night-lamp in
the open chimney, turned it down to a faint glinmmer, and left
the room, locking the door behind him.
A feeble growl reminded him of the dog, and he delayed a
moment to go to the kennel of the animal. The creature
knew him, and lazily yawning as he approached, pawed feebly
in its nest in the packing case, and wagged its tail. Patting
it on the head, and murmuring a kind word or two, he turned
from it, and abstractedly wandered out at the gate, and away
from the house, with his head bent upon his breast, and his
arms behind him.
It was the dead of night, and the shadowy streets, wanly
lighted by the setting moon, were intensely still. Tile air was
bleak and cold, but the wind, which had been stirring before
midnight, had gone down.  On that memorable night, as he
afterward remembered, he was in such a condition of mental
abstraction, that he took no note of the course his steps pursued, nor did he once lift his head to look around him. The
strangeness of the moon as he crossed the streets where it was
visible, would have roused himn to observation, had he chanced
to look at it. But he did not, and meeting no person, not even
a watchman, and unmindful of the route he took, he wandered
mechanically on.
What thoughts engaged him, if any, he never could recall.
It seemed to him, however, that his mind must have been in
blank vacancy, uncrossed by any shadow of mentality. Yet
he was remotely sensible of the echoes of his footfallh in the




HARRINGTON.                     277
solitary streets and of his passage under the overshadowing
bulks of the dark houses.  Remotely sensible, too, that there
was moonlight, that the air was ghast and cold, and that he
was loiteringi on, alone, with his head sunk upon his breast,
and his hands clasped behind him.
He knew, too, when he had reached Washington street,
though he did not look up, but he felt, as it were, the character of the street, and was dimly aware of the great multitude
of signs that covered the buildings. He was conscious of
wandering up the deserted thoroughfare for some distance,
then of returning, still in the same absent mood, of crossing
several moonlit spaces formed by the intersecting streets, of
passing the grey, towering spire of the Old South Church,
and of turning up School street. In all this route, he did not
meet a single person, or once arouse even for a moment from
his intense abstraction.
But as he turned up School street on the left hand side, the
solemn and funereal clang from the Old South steeple startled
him from his lethargy, striking with gloomy clangor the hour
of two.  He stopped, listening to the sombre and heavy
blare of the great bell as it tolled the hour, and then died
away in ghostly and aerial reverberations.  Hearkening till
the last faint dinning of the swarming tones seemed to fail
into soundless vibratory waves, he waited till these too failed,
and the awful silence of the night again descended brooding
on the air. Two. The hour when spirits, as some wild seer
avers, have power to enter from without, and walk the
earth till dawn.  Looking up, as the fancy crossed his mind,
he saw the street, a lonely vista darkling in blue and melancholy gloom, so strangely litten, so unearthly in its whole
appearance, that a sudden and silent diffusion of awe spread
softly through his being, and held him still.
Had he been brought there blindfolded, and the bandage removed, he would scarcely have known where he was, so
changed was the street from its familiar aspect. The gibbous
moon, a huge, misshapen mass of watery light hanging low in
the dead, dark blue, poured a flood of wan, metallic brilliance
down one side of the vista, bringing out its architectural fea



278.ARRINGTON.
tures in vivid lustre and ebon blackness, while the structures
on the side on which he stood, loomed dark and sharp in deep,shadow.  So lone, so ghast, so supernaturally still, so changed
in the weird and frigid glitter, so desolate and splendid in the
melancholy light, the haggard darkness, the mournful and
marble silence, that the gazer might have dreamed he stood in
the demon-city of the Hebrew story, where foot of man hath
seldom trod, and the evil night broods eternal.
Tranced with wondering qawe, he moved.slowly up the pavement, gazing upon the solemn palaces of ebony and silver, with
his imagination darkly stirred.  Beyond him lay a garden
space, breaking the line of the vista, with two chestnut-trees
in front on the pavement, whose thick cones of foliage seemed
sculptured in metal, and were dimly silvered by the moon.
Further on rose the square belfry and high-windowed wall of
the Stone Chapel, with its flank gleaming, and its panes glittering in the wan lustre. As his glance rested on this, he saw
a gaunt and spectral figure emerge from a shadowed angle, and
move slowly, with a strange, uncertain motion, along the base
of the chapel wall, with the unearthly light upon its shapeless
outlines, and its long, black shadow distinct upon the gleaming
pavement. Now creeping on, now halting and appearing to
waver, strange in movement, strange and alien in form, it intensified the ghastly and desolate solitude with its presence,
and seemed like some lone vagrant fiend slinking abroad from
his lair, in the pallor of the waning moon.
Vaguely attracted by the strangeness of its shape and movements, which had something unusual about them he could not
define, Harrington kept his eyes fixed upon it, as he moved on.
The figure halted and wavered in its shambling walk as he
drew nigh, and finally stood still, looking toward him. A secret tremor stirred his blood, for the nearer he approached the
figure, the more inexplicable was the gauntness and shapelessness of its outlines.  He was still some twenty or thirty yards
distant from it, and without well knowing why he did so, for
he had no intention of accosting it, he slowly crossed the
street, and walked as slowly forward. As he drew nearer, a
vague disgust mingled with the faint tremor of his veins, for a




HARRINGTON.                    279
horrible and poisonous smell, which grew stronger as he approached, burdened the cold air. What dreadful outcast is
this? he thought. Suddenly he stood still, aghast, petrified,
filled with an icy affright mixed with unutterable loathing, and
his eyes riveted to the awful shape before him. He was within
a couple of yards of it, and as it stood trembling in the weird
brilliance of the moon, it seemed some terrific scare-crow risen
from Hell.
It was the figure of a man, but save for the wild, dark face
that glared at him, the long, gaunt hands, like claws, that
hung by its side, the thin legs half bare, and gaunt, splay bare
feet on which it stood trembling, it seemed liker some monstrous rag.  A loathsome and abominable stench exhaled from
it.  Its clothes were a dark shirt and trowsers, which hung in
jagged tatters on its wasted skeleton frame. Wound round
and round its neck in a thick sug, which gave it that appearance of shapelessness he had first noticed, was what seemed an
old blanket.  Above this glared a face of livid swarth, lit by
the gloomy moon, the cheek bones protruding, the cheeks horribly sunken, the mouth fallen away from the white teeth, the
eyes hollow and staring, the whole face that of some appalling
mummy, burst from the leathern sleep of its Egyptian tomb,
and endowed with horrid life to make night hideous.
The blood of Harrington seemed turned to ice as he gazed,
and his hair rose.
" In the name of God," he gasped, " what manner of man
are you?"
The figure did not answer, but stared at him and trembled.
Harrington's heart was stout, and conquering at once his
affright and the sickening disgust which the stench gave him,
he made one stride nearer to the figure.
"Who are you?  Where did you come from?" he demanded.
The figure made no answer, but still stared rigidly at him,
and trembled.
Harrington closely scanned the ghastly and hideous face,
but could not determine anything concerning it.  In the wan
light of the moon, its horrible emaciation and livid duskiness




280                  HARRINGTON.
of hue, together with the terrific expression the fallen mouth
and exposed teeth gave it, made it seem like the face of a
ghoul.
" Where do you live?  Have you no home?" asked iHarrington, shuddering.
"No, Marster."
If a corpse could speak, its voice might be the weak and
hollow quaver in which the outcast made this answer. An
awful feeling rose in the heart of Harrington, for he knew by
the accent of the ghastly stranger that he was a negro, and
the title he had bestowed upon him indicated that he was a
runaway slave.
" Where do you come from? Where have you been?" he
asked quickly.
The outcast trembled violently throughout his lank frame,
and his jaws chattered.' Oh, Marster, don't ask me," he answered in his weak,
hollow voice.  "I've been in hell, Marster, and I've got
away.  I've been in hell, Marster, sure.  Don't send me
back, now don't. Have a little mercy, Marster, and let me
go."
So awful were the words in that lone hour; so awful the hollow and sepulchral voice that uttered them; so awful the motion of the face which writhed in speaking, as though in some
rending agony; so awful and so dreadful the black skeleton
gauntness, the monstrous raggedness, the Druidic filth of the
trembling figure, with its swathed neck showing like some
enormous circle of wen, and the poisonous stench sickening the
whole night with its exhalations, that Harrington instinctively
recoiled. Up from the lowest abysses of social wretchedness they
swarmed into his mind;-the degraded of every low condition
and degree-the neglected, the forgotten, the forlorn, the scum
and dregs and ordure of mankind-the thieves, the beggars,
the tatterdemalion sots and prostitutes and stabbers-the
bloated, brutal, malformed nightmare monsters of a Humanity
transformed to shapes more fearful than the foulest beasts; —
up from the dark and fetid dens of the filthiest quarter of the
city-up from the sinks and stews of the Black Sea-a wild




HARRINGTON.                     281
and grisly company-they swarmed upon him. In all their
misery, no misery like this-in all their number, no shape to
pair with this. Below the lowest abyss of their wretchedness,
yawned a lower, new-come from which, in the haggard pallor of
the moon, stood a figure from whose ghastly and abominable
Pariah shape the foulest and the vilest of them all would have
shrunk away. Below the lowest hell wherein, in sunless crime
and vice, their ruined natures were immerged, lay, as in the
Inferno of Dante, a hell still lower —the hell decreed by avarice for innocent men, new-risen from which, all loathly foul,
all awful with long suffering, stood the dark fugitive, afraid to
tell his name, afraid to say from whence he had come, afraid
to stand in the presence of his fellow, as though he were some
frightful felon dreading the vengeance of mankind I
Gasping and shuddering through all his frame, Harrington
gazed at him.
" O my country!" he murmured, " that such a thing as this
should be! That such a wrong as this should be wrought by
you!"
The fugitive seemed to hear some fragment of his words, for
he spoke instantly.
" Marster," he said, " you'll be a friend to me, won't you?
I've gone through a good deal to git away, AMarster. I have,
indeed, and I've got so fur now, you won't send me back. Oh,
Marster, don't send me back!"
He tried to kneel to him on the pavement. The tears
sprang to Harrington's eyes, and conquering his disgust, he
strode forward, caught the foul form, and raised it to its
feet. The fugitive shrank a little at his touch, and stood
trembling.
"You poor fellow," sorrowfully said Harrington, " don't be
afraid of me. I won't harm you. No, I won't send you back.
And if you'll trust in me, you shall be safe and no one shall
lay a hand upon you. But it's not safe for you to be out here
in the street. Come with me, and I'll give you a place to
sleep, and food to eat, and take care of you." 
The fugitive hesitated a moment, still trembling.
" Marster, I'll trust in you," he said at length.  "I'll trust




282                   HARRINGroN.
in you, Marster, and I'll go along with you, if you won't send
me back."
"I promise you, before God, that you shall be safe with
me," said Harrington, solemnly.  "Come."
He grasped, as he spoke, the thin arm of the trembling fugitive, and so assisting him, they moved slowly away together in
silence, across Tremont street, and up the slope of Beacon
street, with the light of the sinking moon in their faces. The
fugitive was very weak, and tottered as he walked, despite the
support the arm of his protector gave him. An overmastering
pity, mixed with sombre sadness, filled the heart of Harrington
as he felt the tottering motion, and heard the faint, stertorous
panting of the miserable creature beside him. The slow pace
at which they moved, combined with the nauseating odor of
the rags which covered the fugitive, was an added trial to him,
but he saw there was no help for it, and was patient.
Somewhat apprehensive about meeting a watchman, and not
liking to be interrogated with a companion whom it was prudence to hide as much as possible, Harrington took the least
public route he could under the circumstances.  As they
turned into Somerset street, the fugitive faltered, stopped, and
began to cough.  A terrible cough, weak, hoarse, incessant,
which shook his whole frame.  It ended at last, and with a
faint groan of exhaustion, he sat down on a doorstep, panting,
and breathing hard.
Shaken with pity, and doubly anxious lest the noise should
attract some wandering night-policeman, Harrington stood
over him, impatient to resume the journey.
" Do you feel better now?" he said, gently.  " We must
get on as fast, as we can."
"Oh, Marster," gasped the fugitive, slowly and painfully
rising.  "I feel as if I couldn't go no further.  I'm so powerful
weak, Marster."
He tottered as he spoke; and Harrington, thinking he was
going to fall, hastily, and somewhat awkwardly, threw up his
arms to catclhhim, and struck his hand against something hard.
Confused and startled, he withdrew his hand to rub it, wondering what could have hurt it.  He thought it had come in con



BARRINGTON.                    283
tact with the sug around the fugitive's neck; but, as that was
clearly only a wrappage of cloth, and as the fugitive's head
was bent at the time, he fancied he might have struck his hand
against the man's teeth."
" Did I hurt you?" he asked, hastily.  "Did I hit your
teeth?"
" No, Marster," replied the fugitive, fumbling with the folds
around his throat.
"Why do you wear that blanket so?" asked Harrington.
" Felt cold, Marster."
He said no more, but stood feebly handling the wrappage,
and trembling. Harrington thought it strange that he should
thus guard his throat, when his body was so bare, yet admitted
to himself that perhaps the cloth could not have been better
disposed for comfort, and thinking no more of it, he again
grasped the fugitive's arm, and drew him on. They moved
as slowly as before over the dark slope of Somerset street,
under the shadow of the dwellings. Presently, the fugitive
stopped again, and began to cough.  This time Harrington
formed a desperate resolution.
What was it? There are people who think they love mankind.  But among the natural barriers that divide us from our
fellows, there is none more impassable than a loathly uncleanliness. How many of the lovers of men. could so have conquered nature as to clasp that leprous form in their arms?
How many could have borne the test of their love which such
an act would impose? For this was the test that proved the
mighty heart of Harrington, and this was his resolution.
"Listen to me, friend," he said, when the cough had subsided. " It will never do for us to get on as slowly as this, for
we have some distance to go. Now you keep still, for I'm
going to carry you."
He quickly took off his coat and vest as he spoke-for he
did not wish to spoil them by contact with the filthy body of
the fugitive-rolled them up in a close bundle, which he secured
with his neckerchief; then without permitting himself to
feel the strong repugnance which the foulness of the poor
creature's apparel inspired, he flung his strong arms around




284                   HARRINGTON.
him, and lifting him across his breast, with his head above his
shoulder, deaf to his feeble remonstrance, set off at a rapid
stride.  The remonstrance ceased presently, and Harrington,
hardly feeling the weight of his burden, strode at a masterly
pace over the dark slope of Somerset street, turned into Allston,
from thence into Derne, crossed Hancock to Myrtle, wheeled
into Belknap, kept the grand stride down the hill to Cambridoge street, crossed into Chambers, and set his load down at
the garden gate.
A little heated by his exertion, he opened the gate with one
hand, rubbing his shoulder with the other, and with a nod of
his head invited the fugitive to enter, wondering meanwhile
what it was about the man's neck that had pressed so hard
against his shoulder all the way. Something as hard as iron,
and several times he had even felt a point, like a muffled spike,
press upon his flesh, through the folds of his blanket.  There
was something mysterious under those folds, he thought, as
he unlocked his door, and he was curious to know what it
could be.
Congratulating himself that he had been so lucky as not to
meet a single person during his nocturnal march, he held the
door open till the fugitive had entered, and then closing and
locking it, he took the glimmering lamp from the chimney, set
it on the table, and turned up the flame. The fugitive stood,
shaking on his gaunt legs, with his eyes wildly revolving upon
the rows of books all around him, and ever returning to rest for
a moment on the bust of Lord Bacon on its pedestal. Poor Tom
in Lear-that wild figure plucked up from the low gulfs of
the Elizabethan wretchedness, and set in Shakspearean light
forever-was tame compared to the lank and ghastly figure of
the lorn wanderer from slavery. Less unearthly in the light
which fell upon his visage from the funnel of the lamp, than in
the weird rays of the moon, he was not less hideously pitiable.
His face, which was naturally quite dark, was terribly emaciated,
with the skull almost visible through its wasted features, or, at
least, suggested by the prominence of the teeth and forehead,
the projection of the cheek-bones, the hollow pits of the cheeks,
and the cavernousness of the eyes, which were ridged with




HARRINGTON.                   285
heavy eye-brows. Harrington took in his aspect with one
firm glance, and mindful of his weakness, brought him a chair,
and made him sit down; then opened the windows, to let the
fresh air relieve the smell of his rags in the close room.
Going up his ladder the next minute, he lit a lamp above,
and turned on the water into his bath-tub.  He came down
presently, bare to the waist, the light gleaming on his muscular arms and massive chest, and stood fronting the fugitive
with his watch in his hand, his head bent toward him on the
kingly and beautiful slope of his white shoulders.
"Now, friend," said he, with naYve gravity, " you must be
washed.  In five minutes the bath-tub will be full, so take off
those things, and I'll give you some other clothes."
" Yes, Marster, I'm in need of bein' washed.  I ain't fit to
be in this nice house," quavered the fugitive abjectly, rising
feebly as he spoke.
Harrinlgton, without replying, watched him. curiously as he
fumbled at the blanket on his neck, and saw that he was loth
to remove it.
"'   Marster, Marster," he groaned, " I'm afeard to let you
see it. But, MAarster, you'll be friendly to me, and you won't
send me back, Marster?"
" Come, come, poor fellow, you know you're safe with me,"
said Harrilngton, kindly, all alive meanwhile with curiosity.
"Come, off with it."
The negro still fumbling at the blanket, without undoing it,
and sighing piteously, Harrington laid his watch on the table,
and stepping forward, nuwound the wrappage from his neck,
fold after fold, pulled it <ff, and disclosed an iron collar with
a prong, and the letters distinct upon it-LAFITTE BROTHERS,
NEW ORLEANS.
He did not start, nor stagger back, but stood, like a statue
struck by thunder, glaring at the collar with parted lips and
starting eyes, a pallor like death upon his countenance, and a
strong shudder quivering  through his bare chest and arms,
while the negro cowered with a hideous-piteous imploring
face, his form crouching, and his hands clasped before himl.
In the dead silence, nothing was heard but the loud running




286                   BARRINGTON.
of the water in the room overhead, and the faint gasping
breath of the fugitive.
"God Almighty!" shouted larrington, " what is this?"
The fugitive did not answer, but stood faintly gasping. The
next instant Harring'ton started, with a strong muscular convulsion of his frame, and strode a pace forward.
"Who put that collar on your neck I" he demanded with
awful anger.
" Marster Lafitte put it on, Marster."
" Master Lafitte? which one? That says Lafitte Brothers,"
cried Harrington, pointing with outstretched arm and finger
straight at the name.
"Marster Torwood Lafitte put it on, Marster," quavered
the fugaitive, affrighted at Harrington's manner.
Harrington's outstretched arm sank slowly, and dropped by
his side. A deep and burning flush mounted to his face, and
clenching his hands, he thundered a tremendous oath. Such an
oath as Washington swore when Lee chafed him in his legions.
Such an oath as had never before passed the calm lips of liarrington, but it burst from his heart's core.
HBe stood in silence for a moment, the flush dying from his
face, and his anger settling down from that explosion into
calm.
" Who are you? what's your name?" he demanded.
" Antony, AMarster."
Harrington was past surprise, but his brain whirled, and
blankness gathered upon it.  For a minute, he stood vacantly
staring at the fugitive.  Then, recovering from his stupefaction, he sighed vaguely, and wiped away the perspiration from
his face with the palm of his hand.  Glancing presently at his
watch, he saw that the five minutes had not expired, and going
to a drawer, he produced a bunch of keys.
" We'll have that collar off," said he, approaching the fugitive.
Key after key was tried, but none fitted.  Throwing down
the bunch, Harrirgton looked at the watch, and went up-stairs
f o stop the water.  He came back presently, took the shade
fronl the lamp, and holding the light to the collar, inspected




HARRINGTON.                     287
its make carefully. He saw that it opened on a hinge behind,
and was secured by a lock before.  Putting the lamp on the
table, he reflected for a moment.
"Lie down on the floor," he said, presently.
The fugitive obeyed, with as much alacrity as his feebleness
permitted. He already had the most entire and perfect confidence in his protector.
Bending over him, Harrington turned him on his side. Then
taking up the poker, he inserted it between the neck of the
fugitive and the under side of the collar, and putting his foot
on this for a purchase, thus holding the collar firmly to the
floor, he seized the upper side near the lock with both hands.
" Now lie still," he said.  " I don't know whether I'm strlong
enough to break the lock, but, by mankind!" lie shouted, " I'll
try!"
Slowly, the muscles in Harrington's arms straightened, his
bent leg grew firm as iron, the arms became two stiff, white
corded bars, the muscles in his back and shoulders tensely
trembled, the blood mounted to his face and body, and in the
midst of the slow, tremendous strain, there was a faint clicking
gride, a sudden snap, a screaking wrench, and one half the collar rose on its rusty hinge in his hands.  The deed was done I
Harrington stood up, and stepped back, exercising his arms,
while the bought thrall of Lafitte scrambled erect, ghastlily
grinning, and stood surveying the accursed necklace, which lay
open as his neck had abandoned it, with the bent poker lying
on its inner surface.
"To-morrow," said Harrington, quietly, "you are to tell me
all about this. Now undress yourself."
"Yes, IMarster," and the fugitive, with a sort of ghastly
joyfulness, hastily divested himself of his foul rags, which Harrington at once threw into the yard.
An awful sight was that black skeleton of a body. As it
lankly straddled across the room, and up the ladder, following
Harrington, Holbein might have taken it as Death come for
the Scholar-a grimmer and grislier figure than any in the
Dance Macaber.  Few men would have borne to abide even
for a moment in the same room with it. The very dotg in the




288                    HARBRINGTON.
yard, himself the Pariah of brutes, would have bayed at it and
shrunk into his kennel.
Our free and happy country had been at work upon that
form.  North and South had wrought together to bring it to
perfection.  The old scars which covered it, the horny wheals
of many a scourging, the thick ring of callosed flesh left by the
iron collar around its neck-these were the special tool-marks
of the South.  The recent cuts and bruises, the swollen contusions left by fist and boot upon it, the raw, blue sores, the
general offence and stench it had cohtracted in the noisome pit
of a vessel's noisome hold-these showed the tooling' of the
North.  That ghastly gauntness, that lank emaciation, that
livid swarth, those signs and tokens of ferocious abuse, of cold
and hunger and sickness and privation-our free and happy
country had done it all!
Servant and soldier of mankind, thy menial task of love is
set, thy work is here! Purge the pollution from this wasted
body, and with thy own hantd, tender and skillful as a woman's,
bind up these wounds, anoint and dress these sores! For him,
the lowest and the loathliest of thy brethren, are these mean
toils-the meanest man can do for man.  Thy free and happy
country would say thou doest ill; and "ill" the snickering
whinny and brute scoff from the jaws of her slavers and traders; and "ill" her hell-dog' statute dragging thee to the jail
and fine for helping the lorn wanderer.  Thou call'st the spirit
of the ages by another name than ours-thou  call'st it
Verulam, we call it Christ.  Oh, man beloved of Christ and
Verulam, thou doest well!
An hour passed on and the solemn task was done.  His
matted hair cut off, his body clean, his wounds dressed, the
fugitive, clad in a shirt and drawers of  larrington's,   a world
too large for his wasted frame, was placed by the young
scholar in his bed, and sitting there was fed with biscuit, and
wine and water —the only food and drink accessible then.  The
repast ended, Harrington washed himself, put on clean clothes,
arranged the room, and then turned to go down. The fugitive
lay weakly sobbing.
Good nigwht, Antony,'l. said -IJarrington, gravely, standing
ID ~ ~     CIL             -~VJ    JWLLL~




HARRINGTON.                   289
with the lamp in his hand, its light shining on his beautiful
and bearded countenance.
Suddenly, before he could  be stopped, the  fugitive
scrambled from the bed, and flinging himself at Harrington's
feet, embraced them with his thin wrists and huge hands, and
laid his head upon them.
"The Lord Jesus bless you, Marster," he sobbed in a
broken and sepulchral voice, " Oh, Marster, the Lord Jesus
bless you, for there's not no such Marster as you, Marster,
nowhere-Oh Marster "Harrington stopped him by suddenly starting away to lay
down the lamp, and returning, lifted him to his feet and got
him into bed again.
" I know all you feel, Antony," he said, pulling the clothes
over him; "but you musn't talk to-night, poor fellow. Now
go to sleep, and have a long rest, and to-morrow or the next
day, we'll talk.  Good night."
" Good night, Marster," sobbed the submissive negro.
Harrington took from a nail on the wall, an old camlet
cloak which had been his father's, and seizing the lamp, went
down.
The first thing was to take the collar from the floor, and
put it in a drawer; then untying his bundled coat and vest,
he shook them out, and hung them up; then opening the door
and windows, for the taint of the foul rags was still in the
room, he went into the yard, and stood breathing the cool,
pure air, and gazing, with a sense of boding at his heart,
upon the thick hordes of stars. The night seemed all wild
and alive. Something sinister and evil pervaded the atmosphere, and the dark blue spread like an astrologic scroll
bright with burning cyphers and diagrams of doom.
Returning to the house with a mind ill at ease, he closed the
door and shutters, leaving the windows open. Then taking a
revolver from its case in a drawer, he drew the charges, and
reloaded the weapon. It was altogether unlikely that the hunters
would come to his dwelling; still there was nothing like being
ready; and HIarrington with his Baconian faith that men without natural good were but a nobler sort of vermin, was quite
13




290                   HARRINGTON.
resolved both to "prevent the fiend and to kill vermin," as the
Shakspearean phrase has it, if they crept near the hiding-place
of the fugitive.
His pistol loaded, he laid it on the table, and sat a few
minutes thinking of the strangeness of his night's adventure.
How awful and marvellous it all was! The brother of Roux,
whom he had tried to ransom, in his keeping-Roux himself
in danger-Lafitte in the city, and master of the secret of his
locality! The air seemed thick with peril.
Rising presently, he put the lamp in the fire-place, and
turned it low; then taking the cushion of his chair for a pillow, he wrapped himself in the camlet cloak, and lay down
on the sofa. A few moments' dazed reflection on the events
of the night, and fatigued by his labors, he dropped away
into dreamless slumber.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE PRETTY PASS THINGS CAME TO.
As an iceberg sinks dissolved into the waters of the
Southern ocean, so sank the cold, blue night into the golden
crystal of a warm, delicious day. Again beneath the hiving
roofs of the great city, awoke the complex, many-actioned,
myriad-thoughted swarm of life, and again through the grotesque and picturesque crooked streets poured the motley varieties of civic existence, with the municipal clash and rattle, the
scurry of driving feet, the blab of many voices, the incessant
buzzing roar. The traders went to their trade; the merchants
to their stores and wharves; the mechanics to their labor;
the little ones to their schools; the women to their household
tasks; the lawyers to their courts; the clergy to their conventions; the anti-slavery people to their debate; the dark
children of the race of Attucks to their humble toils, and the
phantoms of the Reign of Terror with them.
In the fencing-school, Monsieur Bagasse fenced with his




HARRINGTON.                   291
pupils, pausing with curious eyes, and chin levelled at the
door whenever a new footstep was heard upon the stairs, and
wondering why Wentworth and Harrington, who had seldom
failed before, did not arrive.  Captain Vulkovich, too, with
thoughts intent on the cigar-shop he was going to open, and
bent on consulting the young men with regard to the best
situation, and perhaps invoking a little material aid, waited
for them, meditatively stroking his thin moustache, and wandering up and down the fencing-school. But they both waited in
vain, for the young men did not appear.       0
Harrington meanwhile, up after four hours' sleep, was
closeted with Captain Fisher, telling him his night's adventure,
the astounded Captain swearing tobacco at every pause in the
narrative, with his head all askew, like a marine raven who
had been taught nothing but imprecations on slavery and
slaveholders.
Wentworth, exhausted by his night of suffering, had gone
down to his studio, and lay there asleep on a sofa, pale and
haggard, in the dim-pictured, shadowy room. Among the paint-'ings and sketches around the chamber, was one canvas with its
face turned to the wall. It was the unfinished portrait of
Emily. On the easel, illumined by the pale slanting light from
the single unshaded window, was the canvas which held,
sketched in in dead colors, the Death of Attucks. Vaguely
through its confused gloom, loomed one dark figure with arm
uplifted in menace and defiance.
Emily had appeared at the breakfast-table, calm and pale,
with dark circles around the dimmed lustre of her eyes. To Mrs.
Eastman's anxious inquiries, she had simply pleaded indisposition, and after the meal, at which Muriel alone, paler than
usual, was chatty and gay, she had retired to her room to collect her thoughts for the coming hour of confession and departure.
Muriel, sinking from her assumed gaiety into sobriety, went
to market near by in Mount Vernon street, returned in a few
minutes, and, sitting alone in the library, resolutely shut out
all thought for the present regarding the mysterious complication of affairs, and resumed the studies she had begun before




292                   HARRINGTtON.
breakfast, bent on pursuing them till Htarrington came to go
with her to Southac street.
In the mean time things had come to a pretty pass in the
private  counting-room   of Mr. Atkins's  office  on  Long
Wharf.
" Yes, sir, things have come to a pretty pass when such an
infernal rascal undertakes to let a black beggar loose from
aboard my brig," foamed Captain Bangham, red with passion,
and'pounding the desk with his fist.
The merchant sat in an arm-chair near the desk, looking at
the captain, with iron-clenched jaws, his eyes sparkling with
rage in his set blanched face.
" IfI ever heard of such a thing in all my life, Bangham I"
he exclaimed, slapping both arms of his chair with his palms,
and glaring all around the little mahogany-furnished office.
" But where were you when this was done?"
" I, sir?  Asleep in the cabin, Mr. Atkins.  Never knew a
thing about it, sir, till this morning. Just for special safety I
didn't have the brig hauled up to the dock yesterday, but let
her lay in the stream.'Jones, says I, have you seen the nigger this morning?''No I haven't, says he, cool as you please.'I guess I'll take a look at him,' says I, and so I took a biscuit and a can of water, and toted down to the hole where I
had the nasty devil tied up, and begod, he was gone I I
tumbled up on deck:'Jones,' I shouted,'xwhere's the nigger?''I don't know where he is now,' says he, lazy as a ship in the
doldrums.' All I know is,' says he,'that I rowed him ashore
about midnight, and told him to put for it.' By " — gasped
Captain Bangham, with a frightful oath, " I was so mad that
I couldn't say a word. I just ran into the cabin, and when I
came out, Jones wasn't to be seen. —Hallo, there he is now!"
cried the captain, starting to his feet and pointing out of the
window to a tall figure lounging along the wharf, and looking
at the shipping.
The merchant jumped from his chair, threw up the window,
and shouted, " Here, you, Jones I Come in here."
The figure looked up nonchalantly, and lounged across the
street toward the office.




HARRTNGTON.                    293
" He's coming," said the merchant, purple with excitement,
and sinking back into his chair.
They waited in silence, and presently the tall figure of the
mate was seen in the outer office, through the glass door,
lounging toward them. He opened the door in a minute, and
came in carelessly, chewing slowly, and nodding once to Mr.
Atkins. A tall man, dressed sailor-fashion, in a blue shirt and
pea-jacket, with a straw hat set negligently on his head, and a
grave, inscrutable, sunburnt face, with straight manly features
and dull blue eyes.
"Mr. Jones," said the merchant, his face a deeper purple,
but his voice constrained to the calm of settled rage, " this is
a fine liberty you have taken. I want to know what you
mean by it?"
" What do you refer to, Mr. Atkins?" returned the mate,
stolidly.
" What do I refer to, sir? you know what I refer to. I
refer to your taking that man from my brig," roared the merchant.
"Mr. Atkins," replied the mate, phlegmatically, "Bangham, there, was going to take that poor devil back to Orleans.
You don't mean to tell me that you meant he should do it?"
" Yes, sir, I did mean he should do it," the merchant vociferated.
"Then you're a damned scoundrel," said the mate, with the
utmost composure.
Captain Bangham gave a long whistle, and sat mute with
stupefaction. Mr. Atkins turned perfectly livid, and stared at
the mate with his mouth pursed into an oval hole, perfectly
aghast at this insolence, and almost wondering whether he had
heard aright.
"You infernal rascal," he howled, springing to his feet the
next instant, purple with rage, " do you dare to apply such an
epithet to me?  You-to me?"
" To you?" thundered the seaman, in a voice that made Mr.
Atkins drop into his chair as if he was shot. " To you? And
who are you? You damned lubberly, purse-proud aristocrat,
do you want me to take you by the heels and throw you out of




294                   HARRINGTON.
that window? Call me that name again, and I'll do it as
soon as I'd eat. Yoz, indeed? You're the Lord High Brown,
aint you?  You're the Lord Knows Who, you blasted old
money-grubber, aint you! You, indeed!"
In all his life, Mr. Atkins had never been so spoken to. He
sat in a sort of horror, gazing with open mouth and glassy
eyes at the sturdy face bf the seaman, on which a brown flushl
had burned out, and the firm, lit eyes of which held him
spell-bound. Bangham, too-horror-stricken, wonder-stricken,
thunder-stricken-sat staring at Jones for a minute, then burst
into a short, rattling laugh, and jumping to his feet, cried, " Oh,
he's mad, he's mad, he's mad, he's got a calenture, he's got a
calenture, he's mad as a March hare," capering and hopping
and prancing, meanwhile, in his narrow confine, as if he would
jump out of his skin.
"You, too, Bangham," said the mate, making a step
toward him, with a menacing gesture, at which the captain
stopped capering, and shrank, while Mr. Atkins slightly
started in his chair, "you just clap a stopper on that ugly mug
of yours, and stop your monkey capers, or you'll have me afoul
of you. I haven't forgot your didoes with the men aboard the
Soliman. Just you say another word now, and I'll put in a
complaint that'll lay you by the heels in the State Prison,
where you ought to have been long ago, you ugly pirate,
you I"
The captain evidently winced under this threat, which
M3r. Jones delivered with ominous gravity, slowly shaking,
meanwhile, his clenched fist at him.
" And now look here, you brace of bloody buccaneers," continued the irreverent seaman, "short words are best words
with such as you. I untied that poor old moke of a nigger
last night, and rowed him ashore. What are ye going to do
about it?"
Evidently a question hard to answer. Merchant and captain, stupefied and staring, gave him no reply.
"Hark you, now, Atkins," he went on.  "We found that
man half dead in the hold when we were three days out-a
sight to make one's flesh crawl. The bloody old pirate he'd




HARRINGTON.                  295
run away from, had put a spiked collar on his neck, just as if
he was a brute, with no soul to be saved. I'm an old seadog-I am; and I've seen men ill treated in my time, but I'm
damned if I ever seen a man ill-treated like that God-forsaken
nigger. He'd run away, and no blame to him for running
away. He'd been livin' in swamps with snakes and alligators,
and if he hadn't no right to his freedom, he'd earned one fifty
times over, and it's my opinion that a man who goes through
what he did has more right to his freedom than two beggars
like you, who never done the first thing to deserve it. Mind
that now, both of ye I"
The mate paused a moment, hitching up his trowsers, and
rolling his tobacco from one side of his twitching mouth to the
other, and then, with his face flushed, and his blue eye gleaming savagely, went on.
"What's the first thing that brute there did to him?
Kicked him, and he lyin' half dead. Then in a day or two,
when the poor devil got his tongue, he told how he'd got
away, and the sort of pirate he'd got away from. God 
when we all a'most blubbered like babes, what did that curse
there do? Knocked the man down, and beat his head on the
deck, till we felt like mutiny and murder, every man of us I
And then when we'd got the poor devil below, sorter comfortable, down comes Bangham, and hauls him off to stick him
into a nasty hole under hatches, and there he kep' him the
whole passage, half-starved, among the rats and cockroaches.
Scarce a day of his life aboard, that he didn't go down and
kick and maul him. He couldn't keep his hands off him-no,
he couldn't. When I took the man ashore in the dead o'
night, he was nothin' but a bundle o' bones and nasty rags,
and he made me so sick, I couldn't touch him. That's the
state he was in. Now, then, look here."
The mate paused again for a moment, turning his quid, with
his face working, and laying the fingers of his right hand in
the palm of his left, began again in a voice gruff and grum.
"That infernal buccaneer, Bangham," he said, "was bent
on takin' the poor devil back to Orleans, after all he'd gone
through to get away. Well, he's a brute, and we don't ex



296                   HARRINGTON.
peet nothin' of brutes like him. But you're a Boston merchant, Atkins, and callin' yourself a Christian man, you put in
your oar in this dirty business, and was goin' to help Bangham. You thought I was goin' to stand by and see you do
it. No I" he thundered, with a tremendous slap of his right
hand on the palm of his left, which made both the merchant
and the captain start, "no! I wasn't goin' to stand by and
see you do it! I'm an old sea-dog and my heart is tough and
hard, but I'm damned if it's hard enough to stand by when
such a sin as that's afoot, and never lend a hand to stop it. I
took that man out of your clutches, you brace of pirates,
and I set him adrift I  You think I'm afraid to own it? No,
I'm not, begod I I did it. Ephraim Jones is my name, and I
come from Barnstable.  There's where I come from.  I'm a
Yankee sailor, and, so help me God, I could never see the
bunting of my country flying at the truck again, if I let you
two bloody Algerine thieves carry off that man to his murder.
That's all I've got to say. Take the law of me now, if you
like. I won't skulk. You'll find me when you. look for me.
And if James Flatfoot don't have his harpoon into both of
you one of these days, then there's no God, that's all!"
Turning on his heel with this valediction, which consigned
the merchant and the captain's future beyond the grave to the
Devil, who, under the name of James Flatfoot, occupies a
prominent place in marine theology, Mr. Jones carelessly
lounged out of the private room, leaving the glass door open,
and with a nonchalant glance at the three or four startled
clerks and book-keepers who sat and stood at their desks
wondering what had been going on within, for they had only
caught confused scraps of the stormy colloquy, he went down
stairs, with a load off his mind which had been gathering
there during the whole voyage of the Soliman.
For a moment after his departure, Mr. Atkins sat mute and
still, feeling'like one in a horrid dream. Roused presently by
a deep-drawn breath from Captain. Bangham, he wheeled his
chair around to the desk, and taking out his white handkerchief, wiped away the cold sweat which had started out on his
face and forehead.




HARRINGTON.                    297
"What are we going to do now, Mr. Atkins?" said the
captain.
" I don't know, Bangham," replied the merchant in a voice
like the faint voice of a sick man.  "I should like to have
that scoundrel arrested.  Such insolence I never heard in all my
life.  My God I what are we coming to in this country when
a low fellow like that can presume to talk so to a man of my
standing!"
He murmured these words feebly, and again wiping his face,
sat with his eyes glassy and his jaw working.
"Mr. Atkins," said Bangham, after a pause, "this black
curse has got off, but he must be somewhere in the city.  If I
should happen to meet him about town anywhere "" Just seize him," cried the merchant, with a start.  "Lay
hands upon him  at once, and carry him  aboard the vessel.
You can say, if anybody interferes, that he is a thief, and that
you're taking him to the police-office."
" I'll do it," exclaimed the captain, with an oath.  "I'll
hang around Nigger Hill, where he's likely to be, and if I
meet him, off he'll go.  It'll be horrid if we don't find him,
and they should happen to hear of it down in Orleans."
"Indeed it will, Bangham," replied the merchant. " Though,
o), course, we could explain it satisfactorily.  Still, there's the
trouble of the explanation, and it would be far better if we
could return the rascal. That would settle the whole thing at
OIlCe."
" By the way, have you told Lafitte anything about this?"
inquired the captain, anxiously.
" God  bless me, no!" replied  Mr. Atkins, hurriedly.
"Lafitte musn't know anything about this.  We must keep
it from n-him."
" What is it you must keep from me, my dear friends?" said
a smooth, courteous voice.
They both started, and turned around.  There stood Mr.
Lafitte, smiling a bland sardonic smile.  So still-so cool —so
unruffled. It almost seemed as if he had outgrown upon them
from  the air.  But he had come softly through the outer
13*'




298                  HARRING'TON.
office, and stood just within the glass door, which Jones had
left open.
"Better not keep anything from me, my dear friends,"
blandly continued the Southerner, smiling stilly down upon
their blank and ghlast faces.  "Because I am the very devil
for finding out things that are kept from me. Besides, frankness is a virtue-a positive virtue."
He closed the glass door behind him, and entering, took a
chair, and removed his Panama hat, smiling stilly all the
while, with his tawny, blood-specked, glossy eyes slowly and
almost imperceptibly roving from one to the other.' Lafitte," gasped the merchant, feeling as if he was about
to faint, "don't blame me. I meant it for the best."
" Blame you, my friend I" returned the Southerner,
smoothly, with an air of tender reproach which was atrocious;
" blame you I Could I be so cruel?  Alh, no I Bangham, my
love, how are you? It is long since I have seen you. The last
time I saw you, my Bangham, was at the St. Charles Hoteland oh, my friend, how drunk you were! But you are not
drunk to-day, dear captain. Ah, no I To-day we can appeal
from Philip Bangham drunk to Philip Bangham sober. Let
us then appeal to you to tell us what is the mystery."
The captain reddened under this address, and looking
exceedingly nonplused, fidgeted with his necktie as if it
choked him.
" Lafitte, don't joke," said Mr. Atkins, nervously. "Don't,
I beg of you. I feel ill already, and you disturb me. Listen.
Here is the trouble. One of your slaves was found in Bangham's vessel when he was three days out, and came on here to
Boston. We kept him bound in the hold, intending to have
him sent back to you, and last night the infernal scoundrel of
a mate let him go, and we've lost him."
"And you were going to keep this from me, were you?"
said Mr. Lafitte, blandly, all the tiger seeming to condense into his glossy, tawny orbs, while his smile remained serene and
still.  " Really, my dear Atkins, you were not frank."
" Oh, my God!" exclaimed the merchant, "don't talk so!
What was the'use of disturbing you? We were going to




HARRINGTON.                   299
institute a search for the negro, and have him returned to you
as quickly and quietly as possible."
"Good friend I good Atkins!" said the Southerner, with
gentle approval. " So considerate of you. I really hope you
may find the runaway, for if you shouldn't, and it gets noised
on the Levee, your house will suffer. Of course, I wouldn't
mention it myself, but these things always get out. The sailors, you know! Very indiscreet those sailors-ah, very, very!"
"Depend on my doing everything I can, Lafitte," hurriedly
replied the merchant, uncertain whether the Southerner's
words held a menace or no. " We will ransack the city.
Suppose you get a warrant out for him how will that do?"
"No," answered Mr. Lafitte, blandly.  "I should prefer
not. Since you lost him, you ought in justice to find him.
If you don't succeed, we may try the police. But, apropos,
you do not tell me the boy's name."
"He called himself Antony," replied Bangham.
They almost shuddered to see the silent change that came
to the rich brunette visage of the Southerner.  His complexion became purple and livid in spots, his nostrils dilated, his
eyes were steady orbs of cruel gloss, with the blood-specks
distinct upon their tawn. Slowly swaying in his chair for a
moment, he stopped in this movement, and spoke.
"It is Antony, is it?" he said, in a low, smooth voice.
" Gentlemen, I urge you to find that slave of mine. He is a
wretch whom I wish to see once more. When you told me
you had a boy of mine, I thought it must be one of my
brother's, who ran away the week before I left. I did not
imagine it was Antony, for I thought he was done for in the
swamp."
"Where, Mr. Lafitte?" asked the merchant.
"In the swamp," repeated Lafitte.  "That scoundrel, Mr.
Atkins, flew upon me, and left me for dead on the floor of my
house. Then he ran for the swamp, half-killing my overseer
on the way. We roused the neighbors and hunted for him
three days and part of a fourth, and at last fiading his clothes
near a bayou, we concluded he was food for alligators.
Though why we should find his clothes, and not him, was a




300                  HARRINGTON.
mystery to me. And so he got to Boston, after all. Now
where do you expect to find him, gentlemen?"
"Well, Mr. Lafitte, I don't exactly know," returned the
merchant, dubiously; "but Bangham here will look round
Nigger Hill, a quarter where the colored people herd together.
The best way would be to get out a search warrant, and put
the matter in the hands of the city marshal."
" Listen to me, Atkins," said the Southerner.   I've got
a clue. Several months ago I received a letter offering to
purchase this fellow. Now, eight or nine years ago his
brother William ran away from me, and it was clear to me,
when I received this letter, that whoever sent it knew where
William was, and was probably put up to it by him."
" Well, who did send it?" demanded MAr. Atkins.
" That letter," pursued Lafitte, "was postmarked from
Philadelphia, and the answer was to be sent to a Mr. Joseph
House, who, it seems, was to act as agent in the matter. I
called on House, and was told by him that the person who
wrote the letter lived in London. In fact, he showed me the
person's name and address in a London Directory, and he was
so serious about it, that I swear I was thrown off the track.
But I had my misgivings afterward, and the more I thought
of it the stronger they grew. Mr. Atkins, that letter was
signed John Harrington."
"John Harrington!" exclaimed the merchant, starting and
scowling.  " You don't mean to say ""Mr. Atkins," interrupted Lafitte, " when you told me that
fellow's name who came into the Abolition meeting last night
with your lovely niece, it flashed upon me at once that he was
the man that wrote the letter."
" Upon my word," said the merchant, " this is odd. But
this Harrington's poor as poverty. How should he be buying your negro?"
Mr. Lafitte shrugged his shoulders.
"Who knows?" he returned.  "Perhaps the dear William
has earned the cash, and wants to treat himself to a bit of
black brother in his old age. Perhaps," he added, with a sly,
sardonic smile, " your lovely niece wants to do a little philan



HARBRINGTON                    301
thropy for him, She's rich, you told me.  Your Boston
ladies are so fond of the philanthropy business, you kllow.
And Harrington's sweet upon hler, isn't he?  WAho knows
but that he has put her up to it. He looks just like one of
those noble fools we read of.  l7ow, what will yo u wager he
doesn't know this dear W-illiaml, and has't been touched by
the sorrows of that black angel?  Atkins, ke1p your eye on
HIarrington to find Williami, and findiacng  William, perhaps
you'll find Antony."
" Upon my word, Lafitte, you're the very devil," cried the
merchant, with a harsh laugh, looking  at the visage of the
Southerner, which was lit with an infernal smile.
" That's your clue," said the latter.  " Just follow it, and
you'll find I'm right."
"But how  aml  I to follow it?" returned the merchant.
"There's any quantity of black Williams in Boston, probably,
and who knows what name your man goes by now?'7
"Egad," replied Mro Lafitte, his face darkening, "'I didn't
think of that.'"
" Had your man William  any other name?" asked the
merchant.
"Name?" scoffed the Southerner. " The black cattle change
their names with their masters.  This fellow would be called
by mine, if he was called anything but William.  I bought him
and his brother with a lot of others off the estate of old Madame
Roux:."
" Roux?  Hold on!" exclaimed Atkins.  "R oux?  By.
George, that's the name of the colored man Serena-that's my
sister-recommended to us, and we got him to do some whitewashirjg and window-cleaning this spring I"
" Your sister?" interrogated Lafitte.
" Yes, my sister, 3irs. Eastman, - She's the mother of the
young lady you saw last night."1
MIr. Lafitte leaned back in his chair, and shook with long,
silent merriment, outward token of the raging floods of devilish joy which swelled within him.
"There you have it, dear Atkins," he chuckled, at length,
"There you have it,  Follow up IRoux, my boy, follow up,




302                    HAtRRNGTON.
Roux.  Set Banghanm to look after the dear William. My
own B3angham.  Wbhom   I love," and MAr. Lafitte ogled the
captain in a manner which would have been purely ridiculous
if it had not been superlatively infernal.
Bang'ham reddened,  and looked foolish and uncomfortable
under these affectionate regards.
"I guess I'll go out and see to the cargo," he said, rising.
" The stevedores are unlading, you know, Mr. Atkins."
" That's right, Bangham," returned the merchant.  "Come
back soon, and we'll make arrangements for this other matter."
"' Au revoir, Bangham.  God bless you," cried the Southerner, after the departing captain.  "' And now, Atkins," he
continued, drawing up his chair, "let's have a talk about
business, and get that off our minds, before we follow up that
dear William and that dear Antony."
CHAPTER XIX.
THE IROAR OF ST. DOMINGO.
CAPTAIN BANGHJAM, with a mortal aversion to Lafitte, hovered
about the outside of the glass door, and left the office several
times, before the talk on business was concluded. In those
beatific days Cotton was King, and His Majesty's concerns
required a great deal of mercantile, as well as political, attention.
It was about eleven o'clock when, the talk on business coneluded, Mr. Lafitte strolled up State street, with the intention
of dropping in at Parker's to lunch. If anything had been
needed to complete his elation, the warm and beautiful blue
day which shone upon the crowded city, would have done it.
Like Sir Ralph the Rover, in Southey's poem, his heart was
joyful to excess; and equally true was it that like that Rover,
this Rover's mirth was wickedness. He felt, as he himself
would have expressed it, refreshingly wicked.




HARRINGTON.                   303
Lunch over, and a drink taken, Mr. Lafitte thought it would
be pleasant diversion to visit that Nigger Hill he had heard so
much about, and see how the colored brethren were lodged.
Enchanted with the idea, he engaged a carriage, and lighting a
cigar, got in, and told the driver where to carry him.
The carriage set off, and Mr. Lafitte, lolling back on the
cushions, smoked placidly, and indolently gazed out of the
window at the passengers. Presently, instead of passengers to
gaze at, there were the elegant aristocratic dwellings in the
streets on Beacon Hill, and soon after there were the dingy
houses of the negro quarter.
His cigar smoked out, Mr. Lafitte enjoyed whatever there
was to enjoy in the prospect the carriage window afforded. It
was pretty near dinner-time in that region, and most of the
people were indoors. A few colored men and women stood at
some of the thresholds or looked out at the windows, and
colored urchins were playing in the streets. The carriage driving slowly, Belknap street, South Russell street, Butolph street,
Garden street, Centre street, May street, Grove street, and all
the streets of the quarter, passed in successive review under
the interested and inspecting eyes of the gallant Southerner.
In Grove street, a fancy came upon him to walk a few
steps and note the effect from the pavement.  Stopping the
carriage, he got out, and bidding the driver wait there for him,
he walked on, and turned the corner into Southac street.
Walking slowly, and contemplatively twirling his moustache,
while he softly hummed an air, he gazed with a roving eye at
the squalid and sunlit houses of mingled brick and wood
which stood in the vertical light on either side of the street.
There were few people about, fewer even than he had seen in
the streets he had passed through, and beginning to find it a
bore, he was turning to go back to the carriage, when his eye
chanced to rest on the closed window of a house obliquely opposite to him, and stopping in the midst of his humming, his
hand fell from his moustache, and he stood still.
There, behind the closed window of the second story, absently gazing out straight before him, stood William Roux t
Mr. Lafitte knew him at the first glance, and an infernal joy




304                  IARRIrNGTON.
bathed his heart. Afraid the next instant that he would be
seen, he drew back into a narrow alley near by, still gazing up
at the window. But he had no reason for apprehension, for
the negro was apparently lost in reverie, and stood with his
hands in his pockets, looking straight before him.
The entire abstraction of Roux's manner suggested to
Mr. Lafitte that there was no other person up there in the
room, and a demoniac idea'leaped at once into the brain
of the slaveholder and took possession of him. Here was the
carriage within fifty paces just round the corner. What was
to prevent him from quietly walking up into that room, taking
Roux by the arm, and quickly marching him off to it? It
flashed into his mind just how Roux would behave. The submissive, docile negro, so different from that sullen, fiery Antony, overcome with fright he would never think of struggling,
and with the old servile habit of instant obedience falling again
upon him, cowed by the stern mandate, paralyzed by the
strong grasp, thunder-stricken by the unexpected appearance
of his old master, he would just march along without a word.
Quickly he would walk him, cram him into the carriage, pull
down the curtains, and drive away like fury. Ha I the moment when he should have him safe, rushed upon his brain like
fire. One bold stroke-now for it I
Emerging from the alley, he quickly crossed the street, and
mounted the wooden steps which he saw led up to Roux's
room   The door was ajar, and pausing for one moment to
listen, with torrents of hellish exultation pouring through his
being, he recognized by the silence that Roux was alone.
Softly pushing open the door, which floated inward without a
sound, he saw his victim standing with his back to him at the
window, and crossing the floor on noiseless tiptoe, he tapped
him on the shoulder.
Roux turned with a start, and with his black face flaring into
ashen fright, he would have fallen to the floor, but Lafitte
caught him by the throat with both hands, and upheld him.
" Not one word, you dog!" he hissed, glaring into his bulging eyes.  "I have you! Stand I"
He released his throat, and Roux stood with a terrific look




HARRINGTON.                    305
of agony on his visage, which seemed at once to have grown
thin and grey.
" Oh, Master Lafitte!" he gasped in a horrified whisper, his
whole frame shaking as if he had the palsy.
" Silence, cur!" hissed the slaveholder, grasping his arm like
a vice.  " Come with me! Not a word-not a sign-or I'll
dash your brains out."
Roux, though not a strong nature, was no coward, and
under ordinary circumstances, he would have fought to the
death for his liberty. But this horrible phantom that had risen
upon him I It was not a man-it was Fate-it was the
anaconda, and he crushed in the vast and muscular gripe of
its folds I The deadening ether of utter horror fell upon him,
and passive as one falling from a precipice, with the iron clutch
of his master on his arm he moved with him to the door.
At the first step, there was a bounce in the entry, and Tugmutton appeared on the threshold. In less than a second, the
blobber-cheeked guffaw-grin of glee fell from the fat face of the
broad-limbed Puck into a shock-haired white-eyed stare of
goblin terror, and with a shrill yell he vanished. His chattering screech outside was heard by Lafitte just as he got within
a yard of the door with his victim, and at the same instant,
there was a bound, and llarrington bursting into the room
like a thunderbolt, dashed the slaveholder with a crash against
the wall.
Roux tottered back and fell prone in a dead swoon. Pale
as marble, dilated, regnant, terrible, eyes and nostrils open,
lHarrington stood over his prostrate body, his front turned in'
war upon his foe, while Muriel, brave and radiant, sprang like
flame into the room by his side.
"Spawn of hell I" howled the Southerner, " you die I"
With the hoarse snarl of a tiger, he came rushing at IHarrington, bowie-knife in hand. Muriel would have leaped between her lover and the weapon, but Harrington held her back'
with his left arm, and stood fronting his enemy with terrible and
dauntless eyes, which stopped the infuriated wretch in midcourse like a rampart of swords. Lafitte was brave as a brute
is brave, but the Bengal tiger will not spring against a man




306                  HARRINGTON.
when his godhood is in his eyes, and arrested by the regal
prowess of that bright and fearless gaze, the livid fiend stood
all acrouch, the knife gleaming in his hand, his wild-beast
orbs drained of their bloody fire, and his breath breaking in
gasping snarls on the silence. The next instant he slunk back
shivering, and stood with the knife in his nerveless grasp, conquered I
Harrington dropped his arm, which had lain like a bar across
the bosom of Muriel, and advanced upon the cowering wretch
before him.
" Listen I" said he, in a voice like bronze, deep, solemn and
awful. " Listen to those murmurs in the street I Hark 1"
In the dead hush, there was a noise like a coming sea,
pierced with shrill sounds like the distant screams of the curlew.
" Man I" thundered Harrington, "you came here to rob
your fellow of all God gave him I You dared to risk your life
among these plundered and trampled poor-despoiled and
outraged daily by you and such as you I Are you ready to die?"
Silent,'amidst the ominous gathering murmurs and inarticulate shrill sounds, the slaveholder stood, with his livid, ghastly,
sweat-bedabbled face turned toward Harrington's.  Suddenly
the surging ocean swelled and tossed in wild confiision,and sinking
into a pouring rush of running feet, rose again in a savage and
appalling roar.
" Hark to the coming of your doom I" cried Ilarrington,
his voice pealing up amidst the din, and his arms uplifted like
a prophet of ruin.  "Hark to the hoarse blood-roar I Hark
to the roar of St. Domingo I  They come, the people you
have trodden upon, they come to tear you limb from limb I In
five minutes your head will roll in that street-your body be
trampled into bloody mire I"
"My God!" shrieked the trembling wretch, "am I to die
here like a rat I Let me go-let me fight my way through
the hounds I"
Brandishing the knife, he rushed with forlorn bravery for the
door.
" Back I" thundered HE arrington.  " That way leads to certain death I"




HARRINGTON.                    307
He sprang upon him as he spoke, wrested the knife from his
hand, and hurling it across the room, flung. him back to the
wall. The wretched man covered his face with his hands I
" They come I they are here I" cried lHarrington.
He sprang to the open door, and stood on the threshold,
while amidst a tumbling sea of shouts and yells, came a tumultuous rush of feet on the wooden stairs.
"Save me, save me," wailed the miserable creature, rushing
forward, and flinging himself on his knees with clasped hands
at the feet of Muriel.
" Up, up," she cried, "quick, quick, and stay here."
She dragged him up on his feet as she spoke, and'hurrying
him into the inner room, closed the door upon him, and flew
with the courage of an angel to the side of Harrington, just
as the dense and raving mob of negroes poured headlong into
the passage-way.
He stood on the threshold, resolute and tranquil, knowing
well that his own life was in imminent danger at that moment,
as well as the slaveholder's.  Muriel stood by him, as calm and
brave in that terrible crisis as he. Arrested in their fury by
these strong, still presences, the sullen-browed and heavy-lipped
grotesque throng hung lowering and swaying for the rush of
the next instant.  In their front. stood the tall and muscular
form of Elkanah Brown, with his knife in his hand.
"Mr. Brown," said Harrington, with magnetic dignity,
"come here."
The stalwart negro stepped forward, with a face of fearful
fierceness, amidst a, deep hush in front, while shouts and murmurs still rose behind.
"Mr. Brown," said Harrington, in the same tone, "I want
to speak with you a moment in this room, and I want you to
ask our friends to remain where they are till you come out to
them."
The negro hesitated for a moment, fiercely glaring at HIarrington. Then, his glance falling on the sweet and solemn face
of Muriel, grew gentler; and slowly turning, with a limberhipped, insouciant movement, he waved his hand to his fellows.
" Just wait here till I come out," he said with a command



308                  HARRINGTON.
ing air; then turning again, he entered the room, amidst a
wild swarming of.voices, and Harrington, closing the door,
bolted it and faced him.
" Is William Roux dead?" asked Brown, glancing gloomily
at the prostrate body.
" No, he is unharmed-he has only fainted," said Harrington.
"Where's that soul-driving hound of a kidnapper?" roared
the negro, gnashing his teeth, and rolling his fierce and torrid
eyes around the room. " The boy said he was in here. Where've
you hid him? Let me at him, till I cut his heart out I"
" Listen to me, Brown," said Harrington, in a solemn and
majestic voice, fronting the roused passion of the negro with
his soul divinely splendid in his eyes. " You are a brave man
and the son of the brave. Your father fought in the black
corps with Jackson, at New Orleans. Face to face with
the foe, in honorable war. You yourself, walked from slavery
in Louisiana to freedom in Massachusetts, knife in hand, through
a land of enemies.  You slew the hounds that followed you.
You struck dead the armed hunters that opposed you. Man
to man, in honorable war, with the odds against you, you
proved yourself a brave man. Is it for you to stain the bravery
of your manhood now, with the blood of a murder?"
Half-subdued by the electric majesty of Harrington's bearing, for the speech had poured from him as by inspiration,
and he stood masterful and dauntless, the centre of magnetic
forces such as darted from Rienzi to quell the tempest fury
of old Rome; gratified, too, by the just tribute to his prowess
which the young man had paid him, and with his nobler nature
dimly rising through the black and bloody seethe of vengeance,
the negro remained for a moment in silence, with an irresolute
and startled air, while the shouts and murmurs swelled and
tossed like a rising sea of sound around the dwelling.
"Murder, Mr. Harrington?" he faltered.
"Yes, murder," replied Harrington.  "This base wretch
lies here, helpless and at your mercy. To kill him, and you a
thousand to one, is murder. You who never slew a man save
in fair fight, will you slaughter him and the helpless in your
hands? Think I When this hour of passion is over, will you




HARRINGTON.                   309
feel proud that this miserable wretch was butchered by you in
his helplessness? Think!"
The negro stood glaring at Harrington with parted lips,
and sombre and torrid eyes.
"He took the risk himself!" he answered sullenly, with
mounting rage.  "The soul-driving hound dared to come here
where we live, and try to drag off one of us. What right has
he to mercy? Look at that man there, scared into a dead
faint! He did it "" He did worse!" cried Harrington, with stern energy: "he
enslaved a hundred of your people! He heaped on them
every wrong and outrage worse than death. They were in his
power, and he never spared them. Now the power is yours.
How will you use it?  As basely as he did?  Will you
degrade yourself by following his example? Will you lower
yourself to the level of a brute that has not manhood enough
for mercy?"
The negro stood touched, but irresolute. Harrington saw
that the crisis had come, and that a feather either way would
turn the scale. A desperate inspiration came to him, and
with a bound he tore open the door of the inner room, and
dragged Lafitte front to front with the negro.
" Look at him!" he cried. " Helpless, miserable, merciless
wretch, I cast him on your mercyI Show him what it is to be
a man. Teach him the lesson that he never learned —how
the brave can spare; and let him crawl home with the shame
upon him that he owes his life to the compassion of the people
he would destroy!"
The words swept from Harrington's lips like a storm. An
awful moment of silence succeeded, disturbed only by the roaring clamor of voices that surged around the dwelling. In that
moment, the slaveholder, believing that his hour had come,
stood crouching and ahunch, stupefied with terror, his hands
clasped, his dead eyes staring on the visage of the negro, his
hair bedrenched and limp around his livid, sweat-bedabbled face,
his dark moustache hanging dank above his fallen jaw, his
breath coming and going in short, thick gasps, and his whole
frame shaken like an aspen. Muriel, calm, but still and pallid




.310                  HARRINGTON.
as a statue, stood gazing on him with a white sparkle in her
ashen eyes. The negro, dilated to his full height, like a man
in the presence of a wild beast, glared upon him for an instant
with a look of frightful ferocity, and then his expression
changing to contemptuous pity, he burst into a short, scornful
guffaw.
" You damned soul-driving tyrant," he bellowed at him, " I
could split your heart with this knife if you wasn't too mis'ably
mean for me to look at."
And with this address, and another short, scornful guffaw,
he turned away, snorting with contempt, and sheathed his
bowie-knife under his waistcoat.
Muriel started from her stillness, and with something of her
usual frank and cordial air, advanced and held out her hand
to him.  The negro, suddenly disturbed, as though just conscious of her presence, took the offered hand, half ashamedly,
and bowed low.
"Excuse my language, Miss Eastman," he said, "but I
kind o' forgot you were in here. Now, Mr. llarrington," he
said, hurriedly turning from her with a look of trouble, "I
don't know how we'll get this curse out of here. I'm afeard
the folks'11 fly at him when they see him. The women folks'11 be the worst to manage. Hold on there!" he shouted,
going to the door, which was straining with the outside pressure, and resounding with kicks and blows, "I'll be out in a
minute. The women folks, you see," he resumed, "they'll
have red pepper to throw, just as like as not. It'll be skittish business, I tell you."
HIarrington lifted Roux, who was recovering from his
swoon, from the floor, carried him into the other room, laid
him on the bed, and returned.
"Listen, Brown," he said, quickly.  "It's a hard matter,
but you must use all your influence to keep the people still.
Unless you can persuade them to disperse, there's only one
thing to be done. You and I must take him between us,
and go through the crowd."
Lafitte seemed to catch what was going on, and abjectly
slinking near Harrington, gasped out that he had a carriage




HAIRRINGTONo                  311
waiting for him round the corner, if they could only get him
to that.  Harrington instantly communicated this information to Brown.
" Ar. Brown," said Muriel, "suppose you let in twenty or
thirty of the men outside for a body-guard. Then we can
take him in the centre. How will that do?"
"That's a good idea," replied Brown.  " Mr. llarrington,
come and help me to stand the rush."
He moved to the door accompanied by Harrington.
" Hallo, there I" roared Brown.  "Stand back.  I'm going
to open the door."
There was a sudden retrograde rush, with a swarming
clamor of voices, and sliding back the bolt, Brown flung the
door open, and with Harrington by his side, sprang upon the
threshold.
"' Back, now I" he shouted.  "See here, I want some of
you in here.  Come in as I call you. The rest wait."
With his eye roving over the crowd, he called about thirty
names in succession, the men passing in between him  and
Harrington, as they were summoned. Toward the end of the
roll-call, Tugmutton appeared, and darted into the room
between the legs of Harrington, who tried to stop him.
" Now, then, gentlemen," said Brown, in his grandiose way,
addressing the gaping crowd of negroes and mulattoes outside,
" you wait there, and we'll be out soon."
With that, he and Harrington withdrew, bolting' the door
again. The first thing Harrington saw, was the infuriated
Tugmutton lightly prancing around the wincing and crouching
slaveholder, and punching and butting him without mercy, and
in perfect silence. Nothing could have more completely indicated Lafitte's utter prostration of spirit than his submission
to the pummelling he was receiving. Muriel was in the inner
room, bending over Roux, and the body of negroes, all grinning, were the only witnesses, besides Harrington and Brown,
of this extraordinary transaction.
" iallo there, Charles!" cried Hlarrington, " stop that!"
Tugmutton, who had just lifted his short, knurly leg for a kick,
which would have been like the kick of a Shetland pony, let




312                  IIHARINGTON.
his foot fall, and stood, his broad limbs all dispread, and his
blobber-cheeks puffed out with rage under his shocks of wool.
larrington's eye was on him, or he would have given the
enemy of his race a parting thump of one sort or another;
but as it was, he slunk off in the sulks to the adjoining
room.
"See here, gentlemen," said Brown, addressing the motley
group of negroes, who now stood fierce and open-mouthed,
rolling their eyes upon the slaveholder, " I've got something
to say to you. There's a lady here, and what you've got to
do is to behave like gentlemen."
There was instantly great confusion of elaborate ducking
and bowing to the lady, Muriel having come from the inner
room as Brown spoke. She acknowledged their grotesque
and extravagant politeness by smiling and curtseying, which
set them all going again with the added grace of much goodnatured grinning, and some spruce strutting on the part of the
younger men, especially the mulattoes. One could not help
noticing, as part of the general effect, the contrast between
this facile affability and anxious desire to please, and the
uncouth and outlandish figures of these courtiers, every one
of whom had something singular and nondescript about his
apparel or bearing.
" Now gentlemen," pursued Brown, after an embarrassed
pause, in which he kept moving his hand over his mouth as
one in doubt what to say next, " the reason I've asked you in
here is because I've most especial confidence in you. Fact is,
gentlemen, we shall all get into trouble and have the police
down on us, unless we get that man there off safe. That's got
to be done, gentlemen, and you've got to do it. What you've
got to do, gentlemen, is to form in a hollow square, and put
him in the middle of you, and walk him off handsome, to a
carriage round the corner."
They all stood staring open-mouthed with eyes revolving
wildly at the speaker. Lafitte, coming to his senses again,
was in an agony of apprehension, while both Muriel and Har-;ington stood with throbbing hearts.
"Deacon Massey," said Brown with some pomposity of




HARRINGTON.                   313
manner, "what's your opinion as to whether this thing can be
done?"
Deacon Massey, an elderly colored man of pragmatical aspect, with two bunches of white wool protruding from under an
old cap which he wore on the back of his head, and with a
general flavor of antiquity in his shabby garments, instantly
assumed an air of the profoundest deliberation.
"It my'pinion, Brother Brown," he said, with a very
important air, after a long pause, " that this thing can be done
if these yer brethren'11 put their trust in the Lord and stick
together."
There was an instant burst of declarations from the entire
group that they would trust the Lord and stick together, and
do the thing in first rate style.
" All right, gentlemen," said Brown.  "Now form."
Amidst much bustle, Harrington directing, and Brown
hustling them into place, a hollow square was formed in the
centre of the room.
":I will take Mr. Lafitte by one arm," said Muriel, " and.
you Mr. Brown, will take the other. Mr. Harrington will
follow behind."
Harrington  looked  grave.   "You  run great danger,
Muriel?" he murmured. " I think you'd better stay here."
" No," whispered Muriel, " with a woman on his arm, his
risk will be lessened. We must omit nothing that will protect
him. Don't fear for me. I'm not afraid."
"Miss Eastman," said Brown, approaching with a bow,
"you're the bravest lady I've ever seen by long odds. You
can't be beat, Miss Eastman."
"Thank you, Mr. Brown," she said with a curtsey, almost
gay. " Now, sir," she added gravely, turning to the shuddering Lafitte, " collect yourself, keep your head down, and don't
look around you."
She picked his hat up from the floor, and put it on him.
Ile tried to bow with something of his usual courtesy, but was
too much agitated to do so. Taking him firmly by the left
arm, she led him into the centre of the square, which closed
14




314                  HARRINGTON.
around them with locked arms. The awful moment was approaching.
" Now, gentlemen," said Brown, firmly, " rnind you stick
together. Don't march till I give the word."
He went to the door and unbolting it, threw it open.
" Gentlemen," he roared, in a tremendous voice, " this affair
is settled. We're going to escort this man away from the
neighborhood. Fall back, all of you, and clear the way."
He advanced upon them with waving arms.
There was an instant's hesitation, and then, with a sudden
movement, they receded tumultuously, and poured down the
wooden steps amidst a chorus of shouts and cries, which was
taken up below, and swelled into a ponderous uproar.
Returning hastily to the room, Brown entered the hollow
square, and grasped Lafitte by the right arm. Harrington
followed him and took his place behind, and the square closed.
" Forward, march!"
As the words burst from the mouth of the negro, they
marched from the room, only breaking their order to get
through the doorways. The moment they appeared on the
steps, the whole wild, tossing, sunlit multitude sent up an appalling and tremendous howling roar. Lafitte almost fainted,
but encouraged by Muriel, he rallied, and keeping his head
on his breast, without looking at the crowd, he was got down
the steps, and the next instant the little phalanx, joining together with locked arms, plunged into the living sea, which
closed around them amidst an awful din.
They turned up the sidewalk, stepping quickly, with the
mob parting before them, and following on their left flank and
behind them, and the tossing and roaring multitude in the
middle of the street crowding them hard, and at times driving
them to the wall of houses on their left.  Amidst the uproarious clamor, Brown's voice pealed incessantly, calling on those
before him to clear the way, and to those on his left to stand
back. As Muriel had foreseen, her presence was an invaluable
aid, for at the sight of the beautiful, calm lady, the foremost
of the flanking multitude would crowd back upon those behind
them, and driven forward again, would again crowd and strug



HARRINGTON.                    315
gle backward. Soon, too, the imitative faculty had its way,
and the phalanx deepened by the accession of other negroes who
locked arms with it, till it filled the sidewalk to the kerb-stone,
which in turn opposed a slight barrier to the dense press of the
multitude. But the passage through the stifling crush was
still arduous, and the heat and foul odors made it more so.
Awful, too, were the howls and cries and imprecations which
greeted every glimpse of the Southerner. At that moment,
Lafitte would have willingly given everything he was worth in
the world to be out of the danger which menaced him.
The height of the ordeal was when they reached Grove
street, where they had to cross to the carriage, with the multitude on each side of them.  It was but a short distance, but
the phalanx, struggling and swaying in the dense and roaring
press, had to literally tear its way through. There was already
hustling and pushing, with angry words flying, and Harrington saw that presently it would come to blows, when all would
be lost.  Bending forward, he shouted in Brown's ear to take
the lead and endeavor to clear the way. The negro instantly
dropped Lafitte's arm, which Harrington seized, and gaining
the van of the phalanx, he burst upon the crowd with all the
strength of his body and the thunder of his voice.  They
surged back for an instant, leaving a clear space in front.
" Quick step! forward I" pealed the trumpet tones of IHarrington.
The phalanx made a desperate rush, Brown flying in the van,
and in an instant the carriage was gained. Quick as thought
Lafitte was forced into it, and Harrington and Muriel sprang
in beside him. The crowd poured around with a clamor of
shouts and cries, and while the horses, with the frightened
driver at their heads, reared and plunged, the carriage itself,
seized by the crowd, began to sway as if it would be overthrown. Lafitte fainted dead away.
"Quick!" vociferated Brown to the driver.  "Mount the
box, and drive like mad i"
The driver scrambled to his seat, and lashed the horses,
while the negro sprang inside.  Away they rattled at a furious
pace, with the howling multitude surging along on either side




316                   HARRINGTON.
and behind them. Muriel and Harrington, flushed and bathed
with perspiration, sat, with disordered dresses, holding up the
inanimate form of the slaveholder, while Brown, in a reek of
sweat, busied himself with beating off the hands that clutched
momently at the carriage door.  Along Grove street into
May, and from thence up West Centre into Myrtle, the frightened horses tore like a whirlwind; but before they reached
Myrtle, the clamor was receding, and the crowd had thinned
and fallen behind, unable to keep up with them, but still following in the distance.
" We're safe!" cried Harrington, joyfully.
" Faith, yes," returned Muriel, gaily, her golden eyes glowing in the faint pink flush of her face, " but it was warm work
while it lasted."
CHAPTER XX.
EXPLANATIONS.
FOR a few moments they all were silent.
"Mr. Brown," said Muriel, breaking the pause, " we owe
you the most cordial thanks. You have saved this man's
life."
" I'm afeard, Miss Eastman, that his life's not worth saving," returned the negro, in an exhausted voice, wiping away,
with his shirt-sleeve, as he spoke, the streaming Mnoisture
which shone on his swart visage.  " He's in a fit, aint he, Mr.
lHarrington?" he added, glancing at the slaveholder, who
sat, flaccid and inanimate, between the young man and
Muriel.
"iNo, he has only fainted," replied Harrington.  "We
must revive him."
He removed the Southerner's hat, took off his neckeloth,
and opened his shirt, to give him air, while Muriel busied herself with fanning him, using his hat for that purpose.  She
had dropped her fan and parasol on the steps at the time




HARRINGTON.                  317
when Tugmutton had screamed to them what was going on in
Roux's room.
"I should just like to know the rights of this matter, Mr.
Harrington," said Brown, " for I've got no clar understandin'
of it, any way. The fust thing I knew, I heerd a hollerin' in the
street, and I caught a sight of that boy of Roux's tearin' like
mad from house to house, bawlin' somethin' or other, and the
folks comin' out and runnin' in all sorts of ways, shoutin', till the
street filled with'em. I stood a minute, and then I run down
to Tug.'Hullo, you young devil,' says I,' what's to pay.''There's a kidnapper luggin' off father,' he bawls, and off he
goes like a shot, hollerin' that into the houses, and dodgin'
about like a Ingy rubber ball. I sung out,'come on, men,'
and I put for Roux's, knife in hand, lickedy split. That's all
I know."
"Well, I hardly know more myself," replied Harrington.
"Miss Eastman and I were going up to see Roux. We met
the boy, who ran up the steps before us, and as we were
ascending, he came flying back screaming that there was a
kidnapper in there carrying off his father, and vanished past
us. I didn't know what to make of it, but I rushed up and in,
and sure enough there was this person, whom I had seen last
night at the Convention, grasping Roux's arm, and leading him
to the door. I flew at him, and dashed him to the wall.
Then came the noise in the street, and the people poured into
the house."
"Who is this man anyway?" said the negro.
" He is named Lafitte, and he was formerly Roux's master,"
replied lHarrington.
The negro threw back his head, and laughed, showing his
splendid teeth and pink gums.
" Well, if this don't beat all I" he exclaimed. " You don't
mean to tell me that he thought he could carry off Roux alone
right out of the midst of us?  Why, the man's crazy I"
" Well, it looks insane enough," said Harrington, " and what
put such a foolhardy idea into his head, I can't imagine. And
yet, Brown, reckless and crazy as this attempt seems, do you
know that I think it would have been successful? You should




318                   HBARRITNTON.
have seen Roux. The man was perfectly helpless with fright.
He looked fascinated, like a bird in the jaws of a snake. I
verily believe that he would have walked without the slightest
resistance to the carriage, and have been taken back into
slavery without our ever knowing what had become of him."
"I swear," cried Brown, "I didn't think Bill Roux was such
a coward."
"Coward?  I don't think he is," returned Harrington.
"Just think of the awful and unexpected shock it must have
been to suddenly find this man in the room with him!"
Lafitte, at this moment, showed signs of returning conscious-'
ness, and the conversation ceased.  The carriage, having
arrived at Mount Vernon street, was now going at a more
moderate pace, the crowd having, in the various turns it had
made, lost the track of it. If it had been going on a straight
road, those negroes would have followed it till they dropped
down.
Shuddering, as he returned to life, the ghastly Southerner,
so unlike the smiling and sardonic gentleman of an hour before,
looked around him, and his glance falling upon Brown, he
cowered.
"You are in safety, sir," said Muriel, gently.
He smiled, or tried to smile, sicklily, and his lips moved in
the endeavor to speak, but no sound came from them.
"Where shall we take you, Mr. Lafitte?" said Harrington,
after a pause.
After two or three ineffectual efforts, Lafitte contrived to
whisper that he was stopping at the Tremont House. Harrington gave the order to the driver, and in a few minutes
they arrived at the hotel. By that time Lafitte had recovered,
and Harrington assisted him to button up his shirt and vest,
resume his neckeloth, and get himself into something like decent
trim.
Leaning on Harrington's arm, he got from the carriage, and
stood, weak and ghastly, on the sidewalk. The flurried driver,
pointing to his horses, which stood reeking, and covered with
froth and pasty foam, remarked that "if them animals ain't
blown, it's nobody's fault-that's all."  Mr. Lafitte gave him a




HARRINGTON.                   319
handful of gold and silver, and appeased, he retired with
profuse thanks.
" And now, look here," said Brown, fronting the slaveholder.  "I don't want to say nothin' ugly to a man in your
state, but I'll give you my advice. You've had a taste of
Southac street to-day, and if you ain't dead, it's just because
this gentleman begged your life of me. You just leave this
city now as quick as convenient, for if any of our folks fall
afoul of you, you'll get knifed as sure as you're born. That's
my advice to you. Just you follow it, and bear in mind that
you can't carry on here as you do way down in Louzeana."
" That is good advice, Mr. Lafitte," said larrington, " and
Mr. Brown here means well by you in giving it. After what
has passed, you must not remain in Boston."
HIarrington spoke with ominous earnestness, and Mr. Lafitte
was evidently impressed by him. He stood, looking weak and
sick, while these remarks were made to him, with his eyes cast
down.
" I'll go," he faltered, " I certainly will. I am indebted to
you, Mr. Harrington, for your protection-much indebted, sir.
And to this lady also."
"You are far more indebted to Mr. Brown," said Muriel.' " Without his friendly aid, we could have done nothing for you."
Mr. Lafitte was silent. Even in his humiliation, his rank
and insolent Southern arrogance would not suffer him to make
any acknowledgments to a negro, though it was a negro who
had preserved him.
" Mr. Harrington," he said after a pause, "I drew my knife
on you to-day, and you made a generous return for the injury
I tried to do you. Indeed, sir, I am aware that you saved my
life."
Harrington's blue eyes flashed fire, and his nostrils lifted.
"Listen to me, sir," he said, with stern solemnity. " The
life you live is not human. Nothing is human that forgets the
kindness man owes to man. To-day I have helped to save
you, for I do not hate you, and I wish you no harm; but understand that a life like yours has small claims on my heart, and
I call it love and mercy to kill you when you attack the weak




320                   HARRINGTON.
and poor. Go now from this city, and never come here again
to lay your hand on one man in it. I do not seek your life;
I would guard it if I could; but while I am tender of you
personally, I bid you remember that the issues between tyrants
and freemen are the broad issues of life and death. Once I have
saved you-twice I will not.  Go in peace-but come here
again on such an errand, and I will slay you with my own
hand, for, by the Eternal God, never while I live, shall you
nor any one make Boston a hunting-ground for men I"
Lafitte, with his ghastly visage bowed, shook like a leaf
while larrington, with a white face and flaming eyes, and
with stern determination in every tone, uttered an admonition
which rose to the dignity of the great issue between Liberty
and Slavery.
" I regret to say this to you in your present condition,"
said the young man, after a pause, "but it is necessary that
you should hear it, and understand it well. Now I will help
you in."
Leaving Muriel on the sidewalk for a minute, he gravely
assisted Lafitte up the steps of the hotel, and left him.
" Now, dear fellow-soldier," he said, returning, " we must
go back and carry off Roux."
"Decidedly, yes," replied Muriel, taking his arm, "for when
the wolf gets well, he may have a hankering for the lamb.
Come with us, Mr. Brown."
They took another carriage which was standing there, and
drove back to Southac street.
It may be said here, that Harrington had left Antony,
soundly sleeping, in the care of Captain Fisher, who sat with
the door bolted, and the pistol by him, keeping watch and
ward, while the young man fulfilled his appointment with
Muriel. Arriving an hour earlier than that assigned, Harington had astonished her and her mother with the wild tale;f his nocturnal adventure. That the brother of Roux should
have arrived in Boston at this juncture, and that the young
man, of all persons on earth, should have come upon him,
were coincidences almost too marvellous for conception, and
the two ladies dwelt upon them with speechless wonder.




HARRINGTON.                   321
Not less marvellous to llarrington and Muriel, was their
fortunate arrival at Roux's house in the critical moment of his
dreadful peril. Three minutes later, and the negro would have
been a lost man.
Reaching Southac street again, they found Roux weak and
haggard with the terrible shock lie had received. He was
sitting in a chair near the stove as they entered. Tugmutton
was frying potatoes in a spider, accompanying his operations
with sage reflections on the recent incident, mingled with
lofty reproofs to Roux for not having "squashed in," as he
phrased it, the head of the slaveholder, together with ponpous
comments on his own promptness and courage in having first
roused the neighborhood, and then assaulted the kidnapper.
On this last feat, the fat squab dwelt proudly, as the crow-:'
the whole transaction, and Roux meekly listening, with great
admiration, looked upon Tugmutton as more than ever a,
superior being.
Tugmutton, a little apprehensive lest Harrington should
not take the same view of the crowning feat, fried the
potatoes in discreet silence, while he and Muriel questioned
Roux. It appeared that Roux's wife and the children had
been invited to remain a week in Cambridge, at the house of
the brother-in-law, who was a well-to-do colored man, Roux
himself having come into town, with Tugmutton, to attend to
his business. It was at once decided that Roux should take
up his abode for the present at Temple street, and that Harrington should write to his family, stating where he was, and
the reason for this step. Tugmutton, who was to keep his
father company, was to be dispatched with the letter.
This settled, the fire was slaked, and locking the door behind them, they all descended to the carriage. Tugmutton,
having objected to so speedy a departure, on the ground that
the fried potatoes would be sacrificed, which he regarded as a
serious breach of the domestic economy of the establishmenrt,
had been prevailed upon to compromise the matter by bestowing those edibles, together with the remnant of the meat and
whatever bread there was in the house, on big Ophelia and
her elvish husband in the room  opposite.  "You know,




322                   IARRINGTON.
Charles," Muriel had gaily observed to him, "that these are
the days of the Compromise Measures, and you must be in
fashion." Touched by this appeal to his statesmanship, the
fat Puck had made the donation with the air of one giving
away a million of money, and the donation having been graciously received, he had, by way of prudence, loftily added a
bouncing fib, to the effect that he and Roux were going out
to stay some time at his uncle's country-seat in Cambridge.
Two or three policemen had arrived in Southac street, just
after the exit of the Southerner. They had prudently abstained from interfering with the excited crowd; but the crowd
had dispersed, and few of their number remained in the street
as the carriage came for Roux and drove away again.
Arrived at'Temple street, iRoux was installed in an upper
chamber; books and pictures were left him to while away his
days of imprisonment, and Harrington and Muriel withdrew to
the library, to consult with Mrs. Eastman as to what was to
be done with Antony.
It was finally decided that the news of his brother's arrival
should be broken to Roux the next morning, and then, that
Antony, too, should be conveyed to the house and shut up with
Roux.  It was also resolved that all of them should take up
their future abiding place in Worcester, as soon as it should be
judged safe to remove them; for, with such a man as Lafitte
alive, they could no more go at large in safety in Boston, at
that period, than Italian patriots could in Naples, among the
sbirri of Bomba.
The council over, Mrs. Eastman retired to send up some
dinner to Roux, and Harrington, meanwhile, dashed off the
letter for Tugmutton to carry to Cambridge.
" Good I" said Muriel, reading what he had written. Harrington rose.
" I must leave you," said he, taking up his hat.
"Oh, but stay and dine with us," she pleaded.
"Indeed, I can't," he replied.  "I must go and relieve the
Captain, who is watching over Antony, and wondering what
has become of me."
"True," she answered.  "And I must go make my toilette,




HARRINGTON.                   323
for I am in a state. But, John, when shall I see you again?
You know we have this matter of Emily and Wentworth to
look into."
"I declare I forgot it. This business quite drove it from
my mind," exclaimed Harrington, quickly. " What have you
heard?"
" Not a word," she answered.  "Emily appeared at breakfast with the story of a sleepless night in her poor lack-lustre
eyes. I said nothing, for I had no chance, and since then she
has kept. herself locked up in her chamber. There is something passing strange in this.  Have you seen Wentworth?"
" No, Muriel. It is the first day I have not seen him for I
know not how long. I should have gone in search of him to
get at the bottom of this matter, but for my strange adventure last night. And Emily-I declare I must see Emily, for
I have something to say to her."
"About this, John?"
"No."  Harrington colored.  "About something else."
Muriel smiled faintly, thinking this the desire of a lover's
heart.
" Well, John," she said, " let my tell her you are here."
Harrington hesitated, thinking whether he ought to keep
the Captain on duty longer. On the other hand, he felt the
need of an immediate understanding with Emily. With this
mingled a sense of how painful and embarrassing an interview
it would be. Would this time be well chosen for it, when
Emily was already in sorrow? No. He concluded that he
must wait.
Muriel, while he deliberated, had moved slowly to the door,
awaiting his decision, and seeing that he seemed unable to
make up his mind, resolved to decide for him.
"I'll call her," she said, vanishing from the room, just as
Harrington had made his conclusion.
Harrington sprang forward to stop her, stumbled over a
stool, and nearly fell, and when he reached the entry Muriel
was,oc  to be seen.
"Good!" he muttered, with some chagrin.  "It seems the
Fates have decided that the explanation is to ensue now."




324                  HARRINGTON.
He threw down his hat, and tried to think what he should
say.  As usual in such cases he could think of nothing.
"A  pretty plight I'm in to see anybody," he muttered,
glancing at his dust-covered garments, and conscious that a
bath would improve him.
Suddenly, long before he had expected her, the door opened,
and Emily, pale as marble, with her eyes svwollen with weeping, came into the library with a movement so unlike in its
rapidity, her usual sumptuous and slow stateliness, that iHarrington was startled.  She came straight up to him with outstretched hands, her lips parted, the tears flowing from her
eyes, and so agonized and desperate a look on her face, that
it shocked him.
" John," she gasped, seizing his hands convulsively, "hear
me! Muriel told me you wanted to see me, but it is I that
want to see you-to talk with you-to ask your compassion
and forgiveness."
"Emily!-what!-forgiveness!-my forgiveness I"She broke in upon his stammered words, wildly, almost
fiercely.
" Hush? do not speak! Let me speak," she cried.  "Let
me atone for my baseness to you by my self-degradation-my
confession-my repentance ""Emily-Emily-silence!" cried Harrington, shocked beyond expression I "I cannot hear you speak of yourself so.
Baseness?  In you?  Never!  All the world would not
make me believe it-you yourself"  -
"John I hear me! hear me!" she wailed, her face agonized,
and the wild tears streaming-" hear me, I implore you!  I
have deceived you. I have beguiled you.  I have misled you
— I have made you think I love you "" No, Emily, you have not. You have won my affection,
but it is the affection of a brother who will be a brother to you
forever. You have made me think you love me, but with the
love of a friend and sister.  No more."
She dropped his hands, and receding a pace, looked att. him
with a hushed face, on which the tears lay wet, but ceased to
flow.  The solemn and fond avowal sank like dew on the




HIIRINGTON.                   325
burning passion of her brain.  For a full minute she looked
at him.
" Harrington!" she said slowly, in a deep still voice from which
the tremor had gone.   " Is it possible I Can this be so I
Mly whole attitude to you —my court to you-my words, my
looks, my actions —all that misled others-that made them think
I loved you-that deceived them utterly."
"They never deceived me, Emily. I looked upon them
only as the tokens of your friendship, of your sisterly regard.
No more."
She gazed at him in wondering awe. Suddenly a wild light
broke upon her face, and she clasped her hands.
" Oh, man without vanity!" she passionately cried, "simple, honorable heart-nature unspotted by the world, and
knowing nothing base-how  am  I worthy to live in your
presence I The arts that would have flattered the self-love
of the moths that flutter round me, were powerless on you,
and untempted, unelated, unsuspecting, you took my treacherous
homage as only the token of the love of a sister and a
friend!"
The words trembled away in a rapture of fervor. Ceasing,
her head sank upon her bosom, and her face was wet with a
solemn rain of tears.  Moved beyond speech, and sadly understanding all, Harrington stood with his flushed face mute, a
sweet thrill melting through his frame, and his eyes were dim.
" It is over," she sorrowfully faltered.  " The worst is over.
There is more to be said-much more, but I cannot say it
now. Not now-not now."
She stood in deep dejection, her head bowed, her hands
clasped and drooping, and her eyelids almost closed.
" I am very humble," she slowly murmured, in a voice like
the dropping of tears. " I stand in the Valley of Humiliation,
and the Valley of the Shadow, lies before me. Alone, I enter
it-forsaken-alone.'"
He heard the words, mournful as the sound of a funeral bell,
and he strove to speak, but could not shape his lips to
language that did'not seem to profane the sanctity of her
sorrow, Silently he held out his arms to her.




326                   HARRINGTON.
" O my brother!" She glided near, and laid her head upon
his breast, and her voice was weak and low. " Let me rest
here a little. Do not speak to me. I am very weary. Let me
rest here a little while-let me dream  of my childhoodc-of
the old sweet days that are gone —a little while before I go."
He had put his arms'silently and tenderly around her, and
she leaned upon his breast with closed eyes, pale and still.
No sound broke the hush.  A sad peace filled the air, and the
slow minutes ebbed away.
" Where am I?" she raised her head slightly, then let it
sink again upon his bosom.  " I am here-still here.  I was
gliding away-away.  It was very comforting and sweet. I
am better now.  I think I must have slept a little. I feel so
refreshed and light. Thank you, my brother, for this rest and
strength.  Now I must go. Kiss me, Harrington."
She turned her pale mouth up to his as she whispered the
words. Vaguely surprised at the strangeness of her request,
and deeply touched by its dreamful and chlildlike innocence, he
bent his head and kissed her. Her lips were not fevered, but
cool and dewy, like the lips of a child.  Wondering   at this,
he was about to unclasp his arms to release her, when her
eyes closed and her head sank again upon his breast.  Holding her so, with his gaze turned far away to the blue sky beyond the windows of the room, he heard her breathe gently,
and looking at her face, he saw that a light dew had started
out upon it, and that she was asleep. He knew at once that
this strange sleep was magnetic, and that its blessed rain of
healing would fall deep and long on the arid trouble of her brain.
Grateful that so sweet an influence had been shed upon her
through him, he held her for a few moments, and then gently
lifting her in his arms, he laid her on a couch. The sumptuous
pride and passion of her womanhood seemed to have fallen
from her, and pale, with her long dark eyelash sleeping on
her cheek, she lay in thrilling and exquisite marble beauty,
slumbering with the restful innocence of childhood.
He was about to ring and ask for Mrs. Eastman; then reflecting that she might be in the parlor, he chose rather to go
down to her on his way out from the house, but stepping on




HARRINGTON.                   327
tiptoe-to the door for this purpose, he saw Muriel clad in a
white wrapper, just ascending to her chamber, and beckoned
to her. She came instantly, all lily-fair from her bath, with
her bright hair rippling back from a face serious with inquiry,
and gazed with some astonishment on the reposing form of
Emily. Briefly explaining to her in a whisper the nature of
the sleep in which Emily lay, and advising that she should be
covered, and left there to slumber undisturbed, Harrington
softly quitted the room, promising to return as soon as he
could, and tell Muriel more.
"But John," murmured Muriel, in the corridor, "do give
me a little information about this before you go. You say
she fell asleep leaning on your breast, and that nature was
overcome with suffering. What was her trouble?  Surely
what Wentworth said to her could not have affected her so
terribly."
"Muriel," said Harrington, gently, after a pause, "this is
a secret, but it is one, I think, you ought to know. Briefly,
then-Emily imagined that she had won my heart from me,
and was stricken with generous grief to think that she had no
love but a sister's to give me in return. It was easy to rectify
her painful error, and I have done so."
Muriel stood gazing at him, as if she had turned to
stone.
" Good-bye," said Harrington, after an awkward pause.
She slowly bent her head in reply, and stood motionless,
with her lips parted in wonder, as he went down-stairs and
out at the front door.
" Yes," he murmured, as he strode off down the street,
"and she loves Wentworth. That is her heartbreak-that is
why she paid her desperate and reckless court to me. Oh,
Muriel, I would not have you know it for the world I"




328                  BARRINGTON.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE BREAKING OF THE SPELL,
RECALLED to herself by the shutting of the street door,
Muriel started from her trance, and flew upstairs into her
chamber. Falling on her knees by her bedside, she covered
her eyes with her hands, and buried her face in the coverlet,
floods of dazzling light pouring upon her brain.
"I see it all!" she cried, springing to her feet, and throwing up her hands, her face radiant, and a smile breaking upon
it like March splendors from the wild clouds; "I see it all
now! Wentworth and she are lovers. Oh, let me not die
with joy!"
Her luminous face upturned, her arms upthrown, she flew
across the room, stopped suddenly, and covering her eyes with
her hands, stood still, light, perfume, and victory rushling upon
her soul and mantling through her vein.
" Yes, I see it all!" she cried, flinging her hands from her
eyes, and clasping them  before her, "they love-they love.
It is a lover's quarrel.  To vex Wentworth, she paid court to
Harrington.  It was on _Richards account that she was jealous of me. And that is why Richard was so devoted to me
-yes, to vex her. And I who patronized him, that she and
Harrington might be together —ah, that made Harrington
think I loved Richard.  I see it-I see it I That is what he
meant when he asked me to tell him who my fairy prince was I
Oh, noble heart, you hid your pain-you sacrificed your love
-you tried to be happy in the happiness you dreamed for
me!  And I, who made you suffer-I, who could be so
misled, as to think, even for an instant, that you loved another
-Oh, blind, blind!"
Her eyes swam, and her beautiful head drooping like a




HARRINGTON.                    329
flower, she stood motionless, her fallen hands clasped before
her, thinking, thinking, thinking of it all. Swiftly, as in the
fairy tale at the touch of the prince's wand the tangled floss
unravelled, and all the colors lay assorted, so in her musing
the whole tangle of misapprehension and illusion unwound and
fell into orderly and candid form.
" Ah, Richard, you scamp!" she gaily soliloquized, half to
herself and half aloud, "you shall make amends for this I
But you, too, must have suffered. Now what could have
made them quarrel?  Let's consider. XWhat have I ever seen
Richard do to Emily? Nothing but look cold, and glum, and
piqued. All that was clearly in response to her manner.
Then that ugly speech he made-but that was the finale.
Stand aside, RPichard, my friend.  Now, Emily. What have
I seen Emily do to Richard?  Let me see. Why nothing
either for a commencement of the trouble.  My observations
began in the middle of it all. Stay —there was that little
affair of the violets for a sample. But that was in the middle,
too. And that was due to our sweet friend Fernando. Oho!"
she cried, opening her eyes with a comical air, "I have an
idea I Wait, wait, now, my little idea, till I put a pin in you I
Let's see. With one subtle speech, one artful tone, one delicate lift of those expressive eyebrows, one curious nonsignificant, all-significant, anything-significant look, this clever
Witherlee contrives to put it into my simple Emily's head to
slight and wound her lover. That was a delicious proceeding,
and I saw it in all its indescribable beauty. That was a
sample of Fernando's method. That was one of his fine
touches. Still that is but one. But suppose he has been
playing this sort of game with Emily from the first?  So
gently, so delicately, so skillfully poisoning her mind against
WVentworth.  Her intimate friend-so close with her, so confidential-ah, ha! my daughter of Eve, has the serpent been
at your ear, too 1 Oh, my poor Eveling, has he been putting
you up to this mischief?  Good!  I;ll engage that we sh'all
find Witherlee at the bottom of the whole imbroglio when all
is known."
And Muriel, ineffably delighted at her own sagacity, her




330                   HARRINGTON.
nimble mind having glanced from point to point to this con.
clusion, threw back her charming head, and gave way to a
rivulet of low, delicious laughter.
"Shame on me to laugrh about it," she resumed, looking
very grave.  "It has cost too much suffering to laugh about.
And yet," she ran on, rippling again into golden laughllter, " I
can't help it. I'm so happy! And it is such a pleasure to
have found the track of the fox that stole the grapes! Well,
Fernando I you're a nice young man!  And oh, Cupid,
Cupid, you weren't painted with the bandaged eyes for nothing,
you rogue! But, bless me, here am I chattering to myself,
and Emily to be covered, dinner nearly ready, and I not
dressed."
She broke off to hasten to a bureau, from a lower drawer
of which she took a grey silk coverlet to lay over Emily, and
went swiftly from the room.
Emily was sleeping deeply, with a faint color in her pallid
and lovely face. Bending over her, Muriel covered her with
the quilt, and kissing her forehead softly as a spirit, darkened
the room, and left her. Then going down to her mother, and
warning her not to disturb the sleeper, she hurried up to her
chamber, and finished dressing herself just as Bridget, a comely
little Irish girl who waited at table when they dined alone,
came up to summon her to dinner.
Charmingly attired in a robe of black silk, with an open
corsage of snowy lace, and looking more radiantly fair than
ever, Muriel came down to dinner, and during the meal entertained her mother with a circumstantial account of her noon
adventure. The story, of course, made a sensation, as the
popular phrase goes; but as far as Muriel was concerned,
Mrs. Eastman listened without shuddering or chiding.  She had
such perfect confidence in her daughter's ability to take care of
herself, and such a conviction that everything she did befitted
her-for, like Shakspeare's Cleopatra, Muriel shed the artistic
grace of her nature on all her actions, and compelled them to
become her ornaments-that she heard the part she had played
in the wild scene not only without discomposure, but with considerable pride and admiration, thinking at the same time how




HARRINGTON.                      331
proud Mr. Eastman would have been of the way his child had
borne herself.  As he would, for his wishes for Muriel were
well expressed in the noble lines of Ben Jonson, of which he
was very fond:
"I meant the day-star should not brighter ride,
Nor shed like influence from his lucent seat:
I meant she should be courteous, facile, sweet,
Free from that solemn vice of greatness, pride!
I meant each softest virtue there should meet,
Fit in that softer bosom to abide:
Only a learned and a manly soul
I purposed her, that should with even powers
The rock, the spindle, and the shears control
Of Destiny; and spin her own fiee hours.
A piquant incident occurred while they yet lingered at dessert.  The chief result, perhaps, of Muriel's narration, was to
lend an added blazon, in Mrs. Eastman's mind, to the character of Harrington; and, by the way, she still firmly believed
-his declaration to the contrary notwithstanding-that her
daughter loved him.
"I often think," she observed, during the conversation,
" how superior John is to all other men I know. The other
day I met him in the street, and my first impression was of
his superiority in contrast to those around him."
" Yes, that strikes one certainly," returned Muriel, with a
nonchalant air.
"Ah, there is none like him, none I" said Mrs. Eastman.
"I wish I had the rewarding of him."
Muriel laughed.
"Virtue is its own reward you know, mamma," she said,
playfully.  " But what other reward would you give him?"
"You I" quickly said Mrs. Eastman, smiling and coloring.
Muriel looked at her with a twinkling mouth and a demure
face.
" You do not mean to say, mamma," she replied, " that you
would choose Harrington from the crowd of my adorers for my
husband."
"Indeed," said Mrs. Eastman, with some warmth, "if I




332                   IARRIlGTON.
had the choosing, Harrington should be your husband to-morrow."
Muriel now looked at her with an indescribable air of
bewitching gaiety.
" To-morrow, mamma? So soon?" she said, jestingly.
Mrs. Eastman looked confused, like one who has been
betrayed into saying a foolish thing, and blushing deeply, began
to laugh.
"Well," she replied, with an air of raillery, " the day after
to-morrow."
" The day after to-morrov," repeated Muriel, her countenance beaming with gracious fun. "Well, my dear mamma,
I will reflect upon it, and if I decide to oblige you by
marrying Harrington the day after to-morrow, I will let you
know."
Mrs. Eastman laughed at this pleasantry, and thinking Muriel was evading the subject, said no more, but rose from the
dinner-table with her. Their relation as mother and daughter
also involved, as is not always the case, the relation of courteous friendship, and this was the nearest approach Mrs. Eastman had ever made to penetrate within the veil of any reservation of Muriel's.
Immediately after dinner, Muriel wrote a note to Wentworth, bidding him come to the house instantly.  This she
dispatched by Patrick, bidding him find the young artist, if
possible, and give it into his own hand; and Patrick, who
would have gone through fire and -food for his young mistress,
promised to find Wentworth if he was to be found, and started
off on his errand.
It was about four o'clock when Wentworth arrived. He
was shown up into the studio, where Muriel was waiting for
him. Pale and wan, and grave even to coldness, he was the
handsome and gallant Wentworth still; a man to be loved at
first sight by women and by men, even now, when a storm had
blown upon his Alay.
IHe bowed coldly and constrainedly to Muriel as he entered,
though he was struck by her exceeding beauty as she glided
forward with her natural affable smile and curtsey to greet




IARRINGTON.                    333
him. But Wentworth was sick of all the world at that moment, and affecting not to see Muriel's outstretched hand, he
looked aside and reached her a chair.
" What is it you wished to see me for, Muriel?" he said,
half coldly, half carelessly, drawing up another chair for himself.
" Richard?"  Her voice carried a soft rebuke, though it
was gentle and low.  "Not glad to see me, your friend, your
sister, Richard."
He kept his gaze fixed upon the floor, but his lip quivered,
and the faded colors of the carpet suddenly swawn. The next
instant he felt her arms around him, and blind with tears, lie
let his forehead sink upon her shoulder.
" Forgive me, Muriel," he faltered, in a moment, lifting his
face to hers, and wanly smiling through his tears.  "Indeed
I love you, but my heart is half broken, and I am weary of
the world."
" Ah, Richard," she said, with tender gaiety, " there is a
fairy prince here who mends broken hearts, and makes the
world-weary glad again."
Her arms fell from him, and as they fell, he caught her
hand and pressed it to his lips.
"Your magic is strong, dear fairy prince," he said, with
sad playfulness, " but there are spells no magic can unbind.
Come-let us speak of other things."
" Good I" said Muriel, sinking into the chair, while Wentworth also seated himself-" and since we must speak of other
things, let us speak of Witherlee."
Wentworth reddened instantly.
"And he is a thing 1" was his scornful answer.  "I abhor
him."
"Abhor the good Fernando i" she exclaimed, with a jesting
face.  "Why Richard, I am astonished at you! Abhor so
talented a young gentleman!"
"Talented!" scoffed Wentworth.  "What has he a talent
for?"
"A talent for poisoning, dear skeptic," she replied, lightly.
"A splendid talent for poisoning. No poisoner of the Middle
Ages was ever more skillful."




334                   HaRRINGTON.
Wentworth looked confused.
" Poisoning? What do you mean?" he murmured.
"Only those old poisoners wrought on life," she pursued,
"while he, you know, works on character, minds, hearts.
They could add a deadly perfume to a harmless rose. He,
now, can do the same with an innocent bunch of violets."
Wentworth looked at her silently, with a strange feeling
rising within him.
"Confess, Richard," she went on, "that you scented something deadly ~o your love after he had dropped a word over
those violets I"
"I understand you," he replied, slowly, "he said something
which prevented Emily from giving me the violets."
"' And that wounded you sorely," she remarked.
"I confess it did," he answered.  "It was a very trifling
thing, to be sure, but at that time it meant a great deal, and
to be frank with you, Muriel, I was hurt. No matter," he
added, "there were other things for which he was not responsible, which hurt me far more. I cannot now be hurt again."
"But consider," said Muriel, quietly.  "If that morning
Emily had given you the flowers, the gift would have gone far
to reconcile you to her. Would it not?"
"It would," cried Wentworth, vehemently.  "One little act
of kindness from her to me at that time, would have made me
forget all her former slights, and try to win her to me again.
But, Muriel, why dwell on this? It was her intention to trifle
with me from the first. Come, I must not talk of her. Let it
all go. It amounts to nothing."
"It amounts to just this," she replied, coolly. "That Mr.
Witherlee was interested in your affairs to the extent of making
fresh dissension between you and Emily, and that he widened
a breach already made. Now do you imagine his interest
extended no further than that moment? But, Richard, tell
me frankly, how did your difference with Emily arise!"
" Muriel," he replied solemnly, " as Heaven is my witness, I
do not know. I never did anything to cause it. I left her
here one afternoon, and I was happy, for though I thought she
loved me before, I was never sure of it till then, when we met in




HARRINGTON.                   335
the first embrace, the first kiss, and the last, she ever gave me.
Witherlee appeared at the parlor door, and retreated again for
a minute or so. Then you came into the parlor fiom the conservatory, and he entered at the same moment. You will
recollect that afternoon —you brought in a bunch of flowers,
and as he came in you held out the bouquet to him, which he
took from your hand. Do you remember?"
Muriel nodded.' Well," continued Wentworth, "I felt a little abashed at
Witherlee's entrance, for I thought he had seen us, and in fact,
it was so awkward for me, that I took my leave in a few
minutes."
"And that evening-I remember it well " —interrupted
Muriel, "he and Emily talked together in a corner the whole
time, while mother and I were busy with a roomful of guests."
"Did they I" said Wentworth, coldly, seeing nothing in the
circumstance worthy of notice. "Well, Muriel," he continued,
after a moment's consideration, "I called the next morning to
see Emily, happy as I could be, and full of love for her, and
she met me with such chilling hauteur that I was frozen. It
was like an ice-bath. I felt piqued and hurt, and though I
thought it only a passing freak, I could not help being cool to
her. Indeed, her manner prevented anything but coolness. I
thought, however, it would pass over. But the next day it
was the same, and the next and the next. I am proud, Muriel,
and I was innocent of any fault. Could I do less, and keep
my self-respect, than remain cool to a lady who was treating
me so?  Meanwhile, I saw her attentions to HIarrington, and
I made tip my mind that she had trifled with me for her amusement. So it went on, till last night when she heaped contumely on me, and I repaid her with the speech you heard.
There. I did not mean to speak of this, but you have led me
on. Now I am quits with her."
There was a moment's silence, and  then Wentworth
resumed:
" In all this, Muriel, I did, as far as she was concerned, only
one wrong thing. When I saw her wooing Harrington, to
show her that I could bear her injury, and to spoil her




33i6                  HARRINGTON.
triumph, I was very attentive to you. I knew you would not
mistake my assiduities for love, and I knew it would pique her.
I ask your pardon. It was wrong. I did another and a
greater wrong to Harrington, and I have sought him in vain
to-day, to beg his forgiveness. I thought he loved Emily, and
I was meanly envious and jealous of him-I was cold and
reserved to him-I treated him with hauteur, which I saw
he could not understand, and "" How did Harrington act to you when you treated him
with hauteur?" interrupted Muriel, quickly.
" Like the man he is!" replied Wentworth, with impetuous
fervor. " Like the nature too noble for this world I Great,
grand heart, he shamed me even in my very treason to him
with his unaltered kindness. He came to me frankly, unrepelled by my attitude to him, he came with a look, a word, a
generous hand, and he conquered me. My envy and my
jealousy arose again, and were wasted on him. I could not
alienate him from me. He overlooked-he forgave all. Let
me only see him again, let me ask his compassion and his pardon, and then let me go away, and hide my shame in Italy,
for I am not worthy to live on the same soil with him-I am
not worthy to be his friend."
Two bright tears flowed calmly down the face of Muriel,
and her smile was sweet and proud for her lover.
"Ah, Richard," she said, gently, "had you treated Emily's
hauteur as Harrington treated yours, you, too, might have
conquered her. It was not true love to answer her slights
with coldness and silence."
" Perhaps, so, Muriel," he answered with averted eyes, feeling her rebuke. "Perhaps I might. But no. It was not her
nature. She meant to play upon me. No matter. Let it
pass. And as for Witherlee, I hate him. Chiefly because I
believe his insidious words set me against Harrington."
"Ah," said Muriel, coolly, almost carelessly, "he set you
against Harrington, did he?"
" He did," replied Wentworth.
"And yet you loved Harrington," she continued, " you loved
him truly. But Witherlee could set you against him."




HARRINGTON.                  337
"He could," faltered Wentworth. "I own it to my shame,
but he could."
" And now, Richard," she said, gravely, "answer me this.
Would Emily be more to blame for having been set against
you by Witherlee, than you were to blame for having been
set against Harrington by him?"
Wentworth looked at her, and colored.
"No," he faltered. " I could not blame her if her feeling
against me arose from anything said by Witherlee. But what
right have I to suppose that he has said anything against
me?"
" Richard Wentworth," she cried, starting from her chair,
and her face lit, and her voice rang clear and free, " never
dare to condemn Emily till you know that this is not so.
Never condemn any person on any evidence till you have given
that person a hearing. Here is a man who goes about, dropping the hint, the innuendo, the shrug, the hum, the ha, the
meaning look, for aught I know the downright wicked lie, all
the poisons used by calumny, and while you know him to be
on terms of intimacy with Emily, you venture to suppose that
he is guiltless of having poisoned her mind against you. Permit me to say that you venture to suppose too much. I would
not condemn even him unheard, but what we know, though it
is not enough for proof, is quite enough to create a presumption. You have found him fomenting strife between you and
Harrington; you know him to have widened the breach between you and Emily. These things show him no friend of
yours. And between the evening of your happy parting with
Emily and the morning of coldness and alienation, he spent
several hours conversing with her. Ominous link, Richard I
Find out what it means. Do not assume that she meant to
trifle with you. I know better. I know Emily Ames better
than you do, and I know that a woman more honorable and
loyal in her love never breathed. Go, Richard Wentworth I
imitate the magnanimity of Harrington and niever let me have
it to say that the manliness of your friend was more than that
you showed to the woman that you love I'
Wentworth rose from his chair, his color flashing and fail15




338                    HARRINGTON.
ing, an awful sense of the justice of Muriel's speech mingling
with an awful suspicion of Witherlee, and his love for Emily
rushing like a torrent on his heart.
" Muriel," he faltered, " you are right.  I have been rash.
What shall I do? Oh, if after all I have wronged Emily —if
she loves me ""Richard," said Muriel, solemnly, " I know she loves you.
I have been blind till to-day, but now I see. No sleep came
to your poor Emily's eyes last night, and all day she has been
in agony.  A little while ago, Harrington was here, and he
has soothed her to rest. She lies now asleep in the library.
Come with me, and I will leave you to sit by her. Her wakening eyes must rest first on you, and you must make your
peace with her. But you must not awaken her. Promise me
you will sit patiently by her till she wakes-promise i"
Wentworth pressed Muriel's hand to his lips, and lifting his
blanched face, streaming with tears, to hers, faltered"I promise."
" Oh, my brother," she fondly said, affectionately encircling
his shoulder with her arm, "all will be well with you now.
Said I not that the fairy prince dwelt here?  Behold, he gives
you back to life and love! Come."
Smiling with her happy and noble smile into his face, she
led him  forth with her arm  in his and downstairs to the
library door.
"Remember your promise," she whispered.  " Now go in."
He entered softly, softly closed the door behind him, and
stood in the dim room with a beating heart.  For a moment,
he only saw the books in their cases, the sumptuous furniture,
the glimmer of the frames upon the walls, the rich, dark color
of the room. Stealing to the window, he parted the curtains
to let in a little light, and turning, in the faint ray he saw on
the low couch, the pale fAce of his beloved, with the long dark
eyelash sleeping on her cheek, and her black hair fallen in a
thick, soft tress along the exquisite and melancholy beauty of
her countenance.  Still, peaceful, void of scorn or pride, lovely
and mournful in her marble repose! The tears streamed from
his eyes, and gliding near her he knelt by her side, forgetting,




HARRINGTON.                     339
forgiving all, and resolved, though she woke upon him in anger,
with hate, with contempt, to answer her only with blessings,
and love her till his pulses were still forever.
The hours passed by. The room grew dark, and going to
the window, he put aside the curtains, and let in the
twilight. That twilight was yet early, for the sun had but
just set, and the grey light again lit the sleeping face of
Emily. As he watched it, he saw the color rise to itthe sunny gold and rose, the bright carnation of the
curved lips, behind which glimmered the dim pearls. With
his heart wildly throbbing, he kept his eyes fixed upon her
countenance.  Presently, a faint smile stole upon it, and
she murmured softlym-"he gave me that rose."  A thrill
surged through him.  He remembered the rose he had given
her in the sunrise of their love, and knew that she was dreaming of iband of him. Gazing upon her face, he heard her faint
regular breathing pause in a long respiration like a sigh; her
form moved slightly under the silken coverlet, and tossing out
her beautiful bare arms, they fell along her form, and she lay
still.  The next moment, her large and lustrous eyes unclosed
slowly, and met his. She did not start, but the eyes gradually
brightened, and the color rose upon her face and lips in rich
suffusion.  He did not move-he did not speak-he knelt
beside her, gazing into her face, with his heart throbbing, and
a still flush in his brain.
" It is a dream," she murmured.  "A dream of my love."
He did not speak, but his arms softly stole around her, and
hers enfolded him at first so lightly that he scarcely felt them.
Lightly and softly at first, till suddenly with a double cry they
were clasped together, and the disenchanted Fairyland of love
burst and streamed in music and light and odor around them.
" Richard I Is it you?"
Holding him from her, with all her strength, her face impassioned, her eyes like stars, she gazed upon him, with her fervent
cry still ringing in the twilight air.
"It is I.  Forgive me, Emily.  I love you."
She impetuously drew him to her, and locked in each other's
arms, they were still.




340                   1HARRINGTON.
The fairy prince had triumphed, and Witherlee's work was
quite undone I
CHAPTER XXII.
INTERSTITIAL.
THAT evening, visitor after visitor called, and the parlor was full of talk and music and laughter. Amidst her cbmpany, Muriel felt a lonely longing for the face of Harrington.
He sometimes dropped in late, for a little while, and this evening, as ten o'clock approached and the guests began to depart,
she half-hoped he would come. But he did not, and tired with
her last night's vigil, as with the fatigues of the day, *he went
to rest as soon as the last visitor had said good night.
The next day came bright and beautiful, and lHarrington
not appearing as he commonly did, Muriel went out to take
her early morning walk alone. While she was out, he arrived
and at once went up to the chamber where Roux was confined.
It was not more than six o'clock, but Roux was up and
dressed. He sat in a chair, and Tugmutton, squatted on a
stool by his side, was reading aloud to him from Uncle Tom's
Cabin. Tugmutton's reading was a treat to hear. It was,
when the text was at all serious, what is called at the theatres,
spouting, and spouting of the most grandiloquent order, at
that. Accompanied, also, by much and varied action of his
big paw, and interspersed not only with explanations and comments of his own, but whenever he came to anything that particularly pleased him, with chirrups and guffaws of goblin
laughter, and bobbings and waggings of his big head and
blobber cheeks over the page, the effect was, to say the least
of it, peculiar. On the present occasion, the fat Puck happened to have arrived at a chapter highly congenial to his
special views on the Slavery Question-to wit: that wherein
George ITarris and his fellow runaways fight the hunters of




HARRINGTON.                    341
men; and Roux was at some trouble to detach the sense of
the narrative from the luxurious overgrowth of dissertation,
interpolation, exclamation, cachinnation, and general outward
limbs and flourishes wherewith Tugmutton was embellishing
it.  Having got to the poiit where Phineas topples the slavelhunter down the rocks, the delighted squab leaned back and
gave vent to an uproarious guffaw, and in the midst of this,
while Roux, with a faint and curious smile on his simple, dark
face, was listening, lHarrington's knock was heard at the
entrance.
Tugmutton instantly grew sober, and sat staring with his
great white eyes at the door, as Roux crossed to open it.
" Good morning, Mr. Roux," said Harrington, entering, and
shaking hands with him.  "How are you?"
"Firs'rate, thank ye, Mr. I-Harrington," replied the smiling
Roux, bowing humbly, and shutting the door again.
The intuitive Tugmutton, instantly gathering from Harrington's slightly distraught air, that something was the matter,
remained perfectly motionless, squatting on his low stool with
the book in his hands, and staring open-mouthed at him, with
a look of preternatural curiosity on his fat face.
"Sit down, Roux," said Harrington, dropping into a chair
without noticing the boy, and gazing absently around the
room.
Roux resumed his chair, and with his hand fumbling over
his mouth as was usual with him, rolled his eyes timidly about
the room.
" Roux, I've got news to tell you," faltered HIarrington,
smiling.  "Good news. What would be the best news you
could hear?"
Roux smiled faintly, and still fumbling around his mouth with
his hand, while his eyes continued to wander, he appeared to
hesitate.
" Well, Mr. Harrington," he said, after a pause, " I ruther
feel oncertain as to what to say.  It would be the most
uncommonest best news, if I heerd that my brother Antlny
was to git away. But I'm  afeard that's not likely, Mr.
lIarrington."




342                   HARRINGTON.
Roux's eyes kept wandering, and Harrington looking hard
at the opposite wall, smiled furtively. The next instant both
he and Roux were startled by a sudden screech of eldritch
mirth, and by the apparition of Tugmutton pitching forward
on his hands, and slapping over in a somerset as quick as light,
coming up clean on his feet with a sober-staring face, and a
low "Hoo!" They both stared at him, Harrington with a
stir in his blood, for he had not seen the squab, and he was
completely startled by his appearance in this astonishing
gymnastic.
"Hi!" exclaimed Tugmutton, standing legs dispread, just as
he had landed from his flip-flap, and poiniting at Harrington
with his thumb, while a jovial grin slowly spread over his fat
visage.  " Hi! That nigger has arroven! My gosh I Mr.
Harrington, I smell a rat as if I was nothin' but nose I
Hooraw I Three cheers! Likewise a horse larf! O sing
you niggers, sing!" and chanting this line in a shrill voice,
Tugmutton stopped to fly into a furious double-shuffle and
breakdown, with his shock head bobbing like mad.
"Hallo, you, Tug, now," quavered Roux, looking frightened.
"Just you ricollect where you are now, Tug, in this nice
house. What's the matter with you, and what you goin' off
in that way for now? I don't see what you mean by sech
actions, noways."
Tugmutton stopped in his dance at the sound of Roux's
voice, and with his short arms akimbo on his ribs, and his
short, broad legs dispread, glared up at him with a look of
supreme indignation.
" My gosh, father!" he exclaimed, " if you ain't stupid now!
Why jus' you look at them liniments of Mr. Harrington!"
and he pointed with his thumb at Harrington's face, which
was wrinkled into an amused smile.  "Now, what's there
father, jus' as plain as print?"
Tugmutton ended with a snort, and ineffably disgusted at
Roux's unintelligence, dumped down on his stool, and looked
at Harrington.  Roux meanwhile gazed at the young man with
a timid and imploring expression.
6Charles is right, Mr. Roux," said Harrington, cheerfully,




HARRINGTON.                     843
while Tugmutton relapsed into a jovial grin of satisfaction,
showing all his ivories, and wagging his bushy head delightedly.
"But now, Mr. Roux," continued lHarrington, "I want you
to keep cool. The good news is that your brother is free.
Don't let it overcome you. Be cool."
" I will, Mr. Harrington," stammered Roux, terribly agitated, " I will be cool. I won't let it overcome me."
" That's right-dcon't," replied Harrington, with an a;ffectation of phlegm. " By the way, how is your wife? How does
she bear the letter I sent her?"
" Oh, she's pretty well, Mr. Harrington, and she says she
thinks I'll be safe here," said Roux, trembling all over.
Harrington led him on to talk of other subjects, diverting
his mind as much as possible from the matter in hand, and in
a few minutes got him tranquil again.
" Now, Mr. Roux,1" lie said, " Antony is free as I told you,
and I want you to prepare yourself to see him soon."
"Yes, Mr. Harrington, I will," said Roux with a wondering
face.'" Did Miss Ames buy him, Mr. Harrington?"
" Oh no," returned Harrinlton, "' how could she when it
was only a day or two since she knew of him? Antony ran
away. I have him at my house."
Roux sprang to his feet, wi:d with joy,.
" Let me go to see him, Mr. Harrington," he cried.
"No," said Harrington, rising and gently pressing Roux
into his chair again.  "You are not safe out of this room. I
will bring him here to stay with you.  Keep cool, Roux, and
be patient.  You must expect to see Antony very thin, for he
has been sick.  But he will soon recover.  Now I must go,
and to-night when it is dark, I will bring him  here.  Good
bye. Keep up a good heart.  He will soon be with you."
" Oh, I knew it from the very filst,'? complacently remarked
Tugmutton, taking his leg on his knee, and lolling back a little
with the most indifferent air in the world, " I ain't astonished.
My gosh I no, you can't astonish me. I'm above it."
" That's because you have a great mind, Charles," said Harrington, jestingly.  "Now just use your talents in cheering up
your father-that's a good boy."




344                   HAItRINGTON.
"I'll do it, Mr. Harrington,'" replied the cheerful youth,
jumping up to let Hlarrington out, with his pear-face shining
gleefully.  "I'll cheer him up so that nobody'l1 ever know
him again.  Good bye, Mr. Harrington.  Call again."
Nodding pleasantly, Harrington departed, while Tuogmutton
waved his big paw with a lofty air, like a king dismissing his
prime-minister after a cabinet council, and closed the door
after him.
In the passage below, Harrington met Mrs. Eastman, and
mentioned that he intended to bring Antony there that evening
after dark.
"Of course," he added, "there is no danger of the servants
mentioning that there are colored men in the house,  It would
not do to have it gossiped about."
"No, indeed," returned Mrs. Eastman, smiling.  " They
have all, except little Bridget, been with us for years, and are
like part of the family.  Not the least danger of them.  You
know, John, we have had fugitives here several times before.
"Yes, I know that," he replied, laughing.
After a minute's further conversation, he departed, and went
home to breakfast, without having asked for Emily, or seen
Muriel. To tell the truth, a feeling of trepidation-a sense of
some gathering mystery which made his heart tremble-had
grown upon Harrington since he had left Emily the day before,
and he shrank in spirit from meeting her or Muriel.  He felt
darkly that something of import, closely affecting him, remained
undisclosed in the mutual relations of himself and his friends.
The words of Wentworth —" because it has been played upon "
-rang in his memory like a bell. Undoubtedly, Harrington
would have unriddled the mystery almost as quickly as Muriel
had done, but the blundering avowal of Wentworth that he
was Muriel's betrothed, stood in the way of his sight, and
baffled him.
Restless; ill at ease; unwilling to think upon the subject,
which yet persisted in invading his mind; and in that state of
nervous incertitude, in which mysterious agitations and sudden
tinglings of the blood incessantly visit the frame, it was a positive relief to Harrington to get away from himself, among the




HARRINGTON.                    315
cheerful, familiar faces around the Captain's table. The family
were assembled in the dining-room, which opened off the kitchen.
A pleasant, old-fashioned room, looking on the street, and furnished with plain, old-fashioned, homely furniture. Curtains
of white dimity to the windows; a semi-circular stand, holding
rows of flower-pots, at one of them, from which the smell of
geraniums and roses was shed throughout the apartment; the
floor covered with a woven rag-carpet of soberly gay colors; a
bureau, spread ivith white linen at one side, with the miniature model of a ship full-rigged, upon it; straight-backed mahogany chairs, with horsehair seats; two rocking chairs, with
white tidies on their backs; a looking-glass between the windows, and on the opposite wall, on either side of the nim,itel,
two portraits, fearfully bad, of the Captain and his wife.   The
Captain, however, regarded these works of art with complacent
satisfaction, and held them  as chief among his household treasures.  The wandering country artist who had executed them,
had represented the Captain as a dark-eyed, rosy-cheeked, staring, marine Adonis, preternaturally blooming in complexion,
attired in an indigo blue coat with brass buttons, a buff waistcoat, and a frilled shirt-front, and grasping a spy-glass in one
hand and a quadrant in the other. To match this artistic
triumph, Mrs. Fisher appeared with sky-blue eyes, lily-white
complexion, pink cheeks and lips, an azure dress with a huge
broach, and a gold chain and penCil-case, on which the artist
had spent his finest genius and his brightest chrome.  To trace
a resemblance between the portrait, and the kind, quiet, paleeyed, colorless little woman in a gauze cap, who sat at the
head of the breakfast-table, would have been more difficult than
to establish a similar likeness between the other portrait and
the Captain. But the Captain was happy in the belief that the
portraits were gems of truth and art, and as he himself was
accustomed to observe on various occasions, putting it as a
profoundly philosophical conclusion, " What's the odds, so as
you're happyI"
A chorus of greetings welcomed Harrington, as he came in
and took his seat at the breakfast table.
15*




346                   HARRINGTON.
" We began to think you warn't comin', John," remarked
Mrs. Fisher, pouring out his coffee.
"I hurried home as quick as I could, Hannah," replied the
young man.  "Well, Sophy, you look as bright as gold this
morning.  The jewellers would put you in a box of pink
cotton."
Sophronia, a plump and pretty little miss, with blue eyes, a
charming little snub nose, and a dimple in her chin, smiled
coquettishly at this compliment, and glanced at the smiling
face of the speaker.
" My!" she exclaimed, saucily, "how smart you are, John!
I wish I could say such pretty things to you."
" Well, try," jested Harrington.  " Compliment me on this
beard which you admire so much."
"Beard indeed!" said Sophy, tossing her head, with a
playful pout of her ripe cherry lips, " I don't admire it at all.
The girls ought to set their faces against it."
"Maybe they do, Sophy," returned Harrington, with sly
significance.
Sophy was caught, and tossed her head, coloring and smiling, while the Captain, with his mouth full of bread and butter,
burst into a roar of laughter, in which Mrs. Fisher, John I.,
and Joel James joined, the latter beating the table with the
haft of his knife.
"That's all very well for you to say," said Sophy, with
another fling of her head, and pout of her lip.
"And that's all very well for the girls to do," bantered
Harrington, whereat the merriment burst forth again.
"Gracious! There's no use in me talking.  You're as
smart as a steel trap, John," she answered,
Joel James, a bluff and burly rosy-cheeked boy, with his
father's features and his mother's blue eyes, interrupted this
play of repartee, to say, with his mouth full of breakfast, that
his kite wouldn't fly nohow.
"She pitches about like as if she was crazy, John," he
grumbled, munching between.the words.
"That's because she hasn't bob enough.  We'll fix that,"




HARRINGTON.                   347
returned Harrington, as much interested in the boy's grievance
as if it was an affair of State.
"And I can't make my peg-top spin, John," complained
John H., looking dolefully at Harrington with his soft black
eyes and chubby countenance.
"Can't?  Well, after breakfast I'll show you how," said
Harrington, good-naturedly.  " The kite shall fly and the top
shall spin, as sure as the world goes round. By the way,
Eldad, how's our friend out yonder?  I haven't seen him
this morning."
The Captain glanced out at the open window looking into
the yard, before replying.
" He's up, eating his breakfast," he answered.  "I've
locked your door, and the garden gate too, and here's the
keys," he added, pointing to them by the side of his plate.
"Poor forsaken critter!" murmured Hannah compassionately. "It just made my heart ache to see him when I went
up there yesterday.  He looked so awful lean and sick."
"He looks a.great deal better this mornin'," remarked the
Captain.  The sleep's done him a beap of good. It's astonishin' how much those colored folks can bear.  You wunt
know that chap in about a week, he'll have fatted up so.
I've dressed him out, John, in some of my old clothes, and
made him look quite decent."
" That's right, Eldad," said Harrington.  "I'll make it up
to you."
The Captain laid down his knife, and with his head all
askew, looked at Harrington.
" You'll make it up to me, John?" he remarked, blandly,
with a great disposition to swear. " By the spoon of horn,
I'd like to catch you at it! The best suit of clothes I've got
in the house wouldn't be too good for a man that's gone
through what he has-leastways, if they was fit for him, which
they ain't; and I'm  not goin' to be paid for my Christian
duty, young man."
"I ask your pardon, Eldad," returned HIarrington.  " I
spoke hastily, and didn't mean to hurt your feelings."
" Of course you didn't," grumbled the Captain, mollified.




348                    IARRINGTON.
"It's only just your plaguy openhandedness that wunt let
nobody go to expense but yourself."
"By the way, Eldad," hurriedly replied the young man,
steering off the conversation from the approaching eommendations, "I'm going to take him off to-night.  He'll be safer
there."
"All right.  So he will," rejoined the Captain, curtly.
"That is, if he's safe anywhere in Massachusetts now.  It's
ebb-tide with us this year with a vengeance. If the people
haven't had enough of conservative legislation to sicken'em
this term of the General Court, they never will have. The
doin's of the Legislature have been shameful.  Half a dozen
righteous measures that passed the Senate, those black sheep
in the House have defeated.
" Yes," returned Harrinrgton.  "The Personal Liberty Bill
is lost —the bill to protect the property of married women is
lost, too-the bill""Anyhow, we've got the Maine Law," interrupted the
Captain, triumphantly.
" And that's tyranny, pure and simple," said Harrington.
"Sorry to differ, Eldad. I respect the temperance people,
and I would go for a law that would shut up every dram-shop
in Massachusetts; but this Maine Law is a downright violation of the doctrines of civil liberty, and I can't sacrifice
liberty to temperance or anything else."
Whereupon there was discussion, in which the Captain got
the worst of it; and rising, at last, with his head all awry,
and his features atwist, took his pipe from the mantel-piece,
preparatory to a smoke in the yard.  Harrington rose also.
" Why, John," said Mrs. Fisher, "you've made no breakfast at all."
" Oh yes, Hannah," he returned, cheerily.   " Plenty.
Now, Joel and John, the kite and the top."
The boys scrambled off to fetch the playthings, while Harrington went to his own apartments. The kite and the top
put in order, Captain Fisher volunteered to mount guard over
Antony if Harrington wanted to go out; and availing himself
of this offer, the young man posted off to the fencing-school,




HARRINGTON.                  349
and after an hour's vigorous exercise, returned. Wentworth
had called in his absence, and had left word that he was going
out of town for the day, but wanted to see Harrington for
something special to-morrow. Disturbed at this message-he
knew not why —and feeling his strange trepidation stronger
than ever, Harrington, who, like Goethe, always sought relief
from cares and troubles in intense application to his books,
immured himself for a long day's study, dreading to see
Wentworth, dreading to see Emily, dreading, above all, to
see Muriel, and yet he knew not why.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE BLOOMING OF THE LILY.
MURIEL, in the meantime, had returned from her walk, and
had a tender and happy hour with Emily. Emily was glorious that morning in her beauty, for the Valley of Humiliation
had burst and flamed into roses of life and love, and the Valley of the Shadow lay far withdrawn in radiance upon the
verge of life. There were soft showers still in the summer of
her sky, but those were tears of contrite gratitude to Muriel.
There were mellow thunders rolling in the summer oAf her sky,
but those were words of rich anger and scorn for Witherlee.
Muriel had guessed aright. The good Fernando had poisoned
Emily's mind against Wentworth, and the deed was done on
the evening he had spent with her after her parting with her
lover. It would not have appeared at all surprising to a
Court of Love that Emily, in blaming Wentworth for his
supposed desertion of her, never imputed that desertion to her
treatment of him. Quite overlooking her own conduct, she
had taken his as proof of Witherlee's assertions regarding
him. But now the films had dropped from her eyes, and in
her talk with Wentworth the night before, which had lasted
late and long, she had awakened to the perception of the game




350                   HIARRINGTON.
that had been played upon her by the good Fernando. How
she raved at him! But Muriel laughed her angers down as
they rose, till what might have been sheeting bursts were only
momentary jets of flame.  For Muriel was optimist and
socialist, and, referring the faults of people to mal-organization, mis-education, and the play of adverse influences upon
them, her golden charity spread even over Witherlee.
Breakfast came, and after breakfast Wentworth.  Another
tender and happy hour between the three, in which Wentworth made some revelations, poured out his soul in affection
and gratitude to his dear fairy prince, as he called her, and
lightened his scorn upon the good Fernando.  Then Muriel
having, in turn, toned down his meteor wrath, he and Emily
set off together to Cambridge to announce their engagement
to her parents, who were friends of his family, and very fond
of him. They were to return the following day, and Emily
was to continue her stay with Muriel.
A little whileafter they left, Mrs. Eastman went out to
spend that day and night at a relative's in Milton, a few miles
from Boston, and Muriel was left alone.
No work that day for Muriel; no study, no visiting, no
occupation of any kind. She summoned Patrick,. and bade
him deny her to every one that called, and then shut herself
up in the library to pass the day alone.
And all the long bright day-the sweet and beautiful deepbreathing sacred day-while the soft and opulent effulgence
of the sun flooded the chamber with a mist of violet and gold,
she lay at rest, or glided to and fro, lovely as some incarnate
angel from a more ethereal star than ours, and with a mystic
change upon her loveliness. For the summer of her life had
come to her, and all its virginal and dewy lilies were in bloom.
Summer languors filled her; Eden tremors melted through
her; and floating in light and perfume through the tenderlitten land of reverie and dreams, she heard the impassioned
melodies of Paradise. A more bewildering grace had fallen
around her form, and every negligent and flowing curve,
veiled in the soft and snowy drapery of the robe she wore,
seemed rounded to a contour more nobly and magically fair.




HARRINGTON.                     351
Faint witlh excess of happiness, dreaming upon the sweet and
secret purpose of her heart, and musing in a dim oblivion of
tenderness on all that had been, and was, and was to'be,
while ever on and on the lilies of her love grew glowing into
magic roses of red hymeneal joy-so passed the cloistered day,
and evening fell.
She rose from the couch on which she had sat, half reclining. The sunset light lay within the library, and rested on
the luxuriant symmetry of her figure, as she stood with her
hands crossed upon her bosom and her exalted face upturned.
"You were right, my Emily," she fervently murmured,
"life is indeed life in the greatness and sweetness of love, but
life is truliest life in loving and being beloved. And yet had I
asked love, could I have felt this stainless flame of joy!
Sweet, sweet when the two souls give the mutual undemanding love —sweet, sweet as the sweetness of Paradise I Oh, I
am happy, happy!"
She clasped her hands in a calm transport of joy, and with
her head bowed upon her bosom, like a flower drooping with
its wealth of bloom, she remained still and silent for a little
while.
"Ah, lovers who sadden without love, I think of you," she
said again, lifting a gay and radiant face, and speaking with
tender playfulness.  " For you, poor lovers, you who bear
love's cross, and may not wear love's crown-for you I pray!
Oh, doleful company, would that I could make you happy,
too!"
Laughing a little to herself, she let her clasped hands fall,
and with a slow, harmonious movement, glided, musing, from
the room.
She went up-stairs to the studio, and sitting by her desk,
wrote these lines to Harrington.
"Flos equitum!-flower of chevaliers!  Be sure to come this
evening. A matter of the greatest importance, so do not fail. This
is a vermilion edict. Hear and obey!            MURIEL."
" Good!" said she, laughing softly, as she folded the note.
" A  piebald epistle truly.  But, like Mercutio's wound, it is




352                   HARRINGTON.
enough. And now for some dinner, for no beautifulest poet,
as Carlyle says, but must dine, and lovers are subject to the
samt condition. Indeed, I think love gives one an appetite,
for I am quite famished."
Gaily talking to herself in this way, she went down-stairs,
dispatched Patrick with the note, and sat down to her solitary dinner, which she had ordered to be served at this hour.
It was well that she had written to Harrington, for the
young scholar, his mysterious trepidation increasing as the
hour drew near when he was to convey Antony to Temple
street, had decided, when the note reached him, to send Captain Fisher with the fugitive instead. Of course he revoked
his decision, when he read the missive, and quaking at heart,
and wondering what the " matter of the greatest importance "
could be, he set out about half-past eight o'clock, with
Antony.
He had previously told the poor man that he knew his
brother, and was going to take him to him that evening, and
Antony was lost between utter astonishment and delighted
expectation. To his simple mind, this strong, beautiful,
friendly, masterful Harrington, who lived in a house full of
books, who treated him as he had never dreamed even of
being treated by a white man, and who completed his wonderful benefactions by taking him to see his brother, was little
less than a god. Regarding him with actually servile reverence, Antony thought he knew everything and could do anything, and that he was the greatest man in the world.
Arrived at the house, they were let in by Patrick, who,
though he had been forewarned of the arrival of another colored man that evening, looked a little frightened as he caught
a glimpse under the hall-light of the black cheek-bones and
ghastly, hollow eyes of the fugitive. Nothing more could be
seen of his face, for Harrington bad taken the precaution to
muffle it almost to the eyes, and the black felt hat which the
fugitive wore, he had bade him keep on till he saw his brother.
Assisting his charge, who was still weak, up into the library,
larrington left him sitting there in the dark room, lighted
only by the moon, and went up-stairs to announce his arrival




HIARRINGTON.                   353
to Roux. Returning in a few minutes, he conducted the
trembling fugitive up to the door of the room where Roux
was, which was ajar, and bidding him push it open, and enter,
he retreated.
On the stairs he heard, with a thrill, the rush, the cry, of
that meeting, followed by the shrill laughter and hilarious
breakdown of Tugmutton.  He did not pause, but ran ligfhtly
down into the library, and flinging himself into a corner of a
cushioned couch, he covered his burning eyes with his hand,
and sat still, his heart swelling with compassionate emotion.
Harrington had none of those imperfect sympathies of which
Charles Lamb speaks with such gentle humor; and the meeting, after so many years of separation, of those two poor
black, uncomely brothers of a despised race, touched his
heart as much as if they had been the most beautiful and elegant people in the world.
Recovering in a few moments, he looked up, and the former
feeling of mingled anxiety and trepidation flowed back upon
his heart.  Patrick had said Miss Eastman wished him ushered
into the library, but had he not mistaken his instructions?for the library was unlighted.  Still there was light enough
for conversation, for the curtains were withdrawn, and the pale
moonlight streamed into fhe apartment.  He watched it for a
few minutes wanly glimmering on the glass cases, filled with
books, which lined the chamber; on the dim busts of bronze
which stood above them; the pictures on the walls; the statuettes of metal and marble on brackets and pedestals; the various ornaments here and there; the dark shapes of the rich
furniture, all softly salient in the dim light and vague shadows
of the perfumed air.  Gradually his mind lost its interest in
the phantasmal effects before him, and feeling weary and sad
at heart, he leaned his elbow on the arm of the couch, and
covering his closed eyes with his hand, sat without moving for
a long time.
How still the room was! Dropping his hand from his eyes,
as a ghostly sense of its intense stillness crossed his mind, he
saw, with a sudden thrill of surprise, the figure of Muriel in
the moonlight before him. She stood serene and motionless,




354                   HARRINGTON.
with a certain grave majesty of mien which awed him-her
beautiful bare arms lightly laid one upon another, and her
white robe falling softly around the perfect outlines of her tall
and stately form. The moonlight rested on the shadowy amber of her hair, and on her face, grave and sweet, from which
her dimly shining eyes looked calmly upon him. A little surprised at the suddenness of her appearance, as by her mystic
beauty he sat for a moment gazing at her.
" Do not rise," she said, quietly, as he made a movement to
leave his seat. " Remain where you are. I have sent for you
this evening, John, to converse with you on a matter of
moment to both of us."
Her voice had never seemed so serenely sweet as now. It
thrilled him like the low tones of some exquisite musical instrument. But wondering what she could mean, and filled with
strange wonder at her manner, he sat breathlessly gazing
at her.
"What is it, Muriel?" he said at length, in a hushed
voice.
"It is this, John," she replied, still remaining motionless.
" You have not seen Wentworth since I saw you last?"
" I have not, Muriel."
" Nor Emily?"
" No."
" I thought not," she said, after a pause.  "John, I talked
with Wentworth this morning, and he told me of a conversation that passed recently between Mr. Witherlee and your
master-at-arms-Monsieur Bagasse.  Wentworth, for certain
reasons which he will explain to you to-morrow, told you only
a portion of that conversation as it was reported to him,
There is a part which I want to tell you now."
Harrington, who thought when she mentioned that she had
spoken with Wentworth, that she was about to tell him the
meaning of the strange speech the young artist had flung at
Emily, looked at her, utterly puzzled to know what possible
importance could attach to the conversation between Bagasse
and Witherlee.
"The part I want to tell you, relates to you, John," she




HIARRINGTON.                    355
continued.  "Mr. Witherlee had led the fencing-master to
suppose that you ioved a lady whom he described as wealthy,
of high social position, and much personal beauty."
"Oh, yes," interrupted Harrington, quietly.  "I heard
that Witherlee has represented me as Emily's lover."
"No," said Muriel, serenely, "it was not Emily he mentioned.  It was another lady."
lHarrington's heart leaped convulsively, and, even in the
shadow where he sat, Muriel saw the color rush to his face.
"Monsieur Bagasse," she continued, " expressed his satisfaction that you were to marry so fine a lady, whereat Witherlee told him he was mistaken, that the lady would as soon
marry a man out of the poorhouse, and that it was very odd
that he should think a lady who belonged, as he said, to our
first society, would wed a man who wears such a plain coat as
you do."
Harrington, astonished beyond measure, sat in silence, wondering what object Muriel could have in telling him this, all his
being, meanwhile, one burning flush of grief and pain.
"To which," pursued Muriel,'" Mo:sieur Balgasse replied in
his French patois to this effect' Why is it odd that a rich
and beautiful lady should love MIr. Harrin(gton.  Is it odd
because he wears an old coat?  Al, Mr. Witherlee, there are
duchesses that love the old coat because it covers the nobility
of heart they also love I Listen,' said Mousieur Bagasse,'to
what I would do if I were a beautiful, rich lady, and knew that
Mlr. Harrington loved me.  I would say-you good, gallant,
noble man, so like the knightly gentlemen of the heroic time, I
know that you love me, and I love you for all you are. I love
you with your old coat-I love your old coat because it has
covered you. Take me to your heart-take me to your lifeshare my home, my wealth-I am yours forever I That,' said
Monsieur Bagasse, John,'that is what I would say to Mr.
Iarrington if I were a beautiful, rich lady, and knew that he
loved me.'"
Her voice, in saying all this, was so even, so low and clear
and sweet, so calm and unimpassioned, and she stood so motionless in her mystic beauty, with her arms serenely laid upon each




356                    HARRINGTON.
other, that Harrington, sadly listening, and gazing at her
seraphic face and gem-like eyes, as she bloomed before him in
the tender moonlight, had no sense of the climax to which her
soul was rushing, no hint of the meaning which her recital
concealed. But suddenly a thrill stirred his pulses, for she
stepped a pace forward, and her arms fell.
"Hear me, my Paladin," she said, and her voice rose into
fuller melody, and a proud and glorious smile kindled her features-" your Frenchman's speech was the voice of a manly
heart, and the lady of whom Witherlee spoke, responds to its
every word.  Knowing that you love her, and hoping she is
worthy of a love like yours, she has said-you, in whose frame
beat the pulses of gentlemen and chevaliers-you, in whose
soul the spirit of the antique chivalry lives anew-take me, for
I love you, and I have loved you long. Take me to your
heart-take me to your life-for I am yours forever I"
He sprang to his feet, and stood in the moonlight, dilated,
his eyes resplendent, and his features still and pallid as the features of the dead.  Her arms were stretched toward him, and
with all his being yearning to her, he could scarcely restrain
the impulse that bade him whirl every consideration to the
winds, and clasp her to his heart. But no: there was some
mystery here to be made plain; he must be sure that some
sudden passion had not made her forgetful of her plighted faith
to another; he must not wrong his fi'iend. The thought quelled
the tumult of his spirit, and held his struggling heart as a giant
holds a giant.
"Oh, I read you well," she exclaimed, her arms sinking
slowly, while she still looked at him with her proud and glorious
smile.  "My soul is clairvoyant to-night, and I read you well.
Love is strong, but it is chained by honor. You think me the
betrothed of Wentworth.  Ah, no I Emily is the betrothed
of Wentworth, and when he told you otherwise, it was his hasty
blunder-no more. John!" she faltered, and her voice grew
sweet and low —" you asked me once to tell you of the fairy
prince I was to follow through all the world, and I told you I
would tell you of him when I found him.  I have found himhere!"




HARRINGTON.                   357
The word rang from her lips in a fervent and adoring cry,
and she was in his arms. One wild, delirious instant, and then
the tumult of his joy mounted to his brain, and spread into the
stillness of a blissful dream. O solemn ecstasy of prayer and
peace! O mystic passion of true love unveiled! The moonlight rested on the noble beauty of their forms, with the dark
and rich phantasmal room around them. They saw it notthey knew not where they were. Tranced in the temple of
the night, they stood, silent, motionless, filled with ethereal
light, as if a rosy star had burst within their being, filled with
an all-pervading, holy tenderness. Ended now the strange
delusion-the restlessness and pain, the hopeless yearning', the
generous grief, the alternate hope and doubt and fleeting joy,
the sad renunciation, the selfless and submissive sacrifice, were
ended; they had passed away like clouds, and the sweet
heavens of love remained.
Slowly her head drooped back, and clinging to him yet,
h:er noble face, tranquil and wet with tears, gazed fondly into
his.
" Beloved Muriel," he said, and his deep voice was tremulous and low, " I came here sad and dark, and you have filled
me with light and life and joy. What am I that I should
invoke a love like yours-what am I that it should descend
to me so rich in blessing?"
"Not so, not so," she fervently replied. "It is I that am
bold, for I have chosen you for my beloved from all living men
I know. But I love you. Oh, should I not love you —for you
made life sweet to me, you taught me to make life noble I Dear
friend so long-my husband now-still help me to make life
noble, for I could not love you so much if I did not love the
world you live for more. Come; we have much to talk of.
Sit here by me."
She sank upon the couch near by, and he took a seat by her
side. Silent a little while before their talk began, they sat
folded in each other's arms, the hour of wonder sinking slowly
like a subsiding sea, and the moonlight resting peacefully upon
them.




358                  HARRINGTON.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE BLOWING OF THE ROSE.
DAY, ethereal and splendid, burst up the wide horizon like
a hymn, and filled the sacred morning with light and love and
joy. A morning ruled by a celestial sun —a morning blue and
golden, and throbbing with immortality. To breathe was happiness. To drink the cool aerial wine of the clear, sweet atmosphere,
was in itself rapture. In all the lustrous azure there was no cloud,
and the heavenly day seemed set apart and consecrate to love.
Its glorious ray streamed through the crystal and purple
panes of the rich library, and filled the perfumed air with floating lights of violet and gold. The chamber, decked and fragrant with a profusion of delicate and dewy blush roses, and
swimming in the sumptuous. colored radiance, had bloomed into
a hymeneal bower. But more than all its adornments, was
the youthful beauty of Emily and Wentworth.  They sat by
each other, her hand clasped in his, talking in gay, fond voices,
and the sun never shone on lovers more joyous and handsome
than they. His face, lit by the blue, sparkling eyes and the
proud, brilliant smile, with the thick cluster of auburn locks
carelessly curling on the passionate sloping brow and around
the florid cheeks, was turned to hers; while she, magnificent
in her Spanish beauty, her damask cheeks glowing through
the clear gold of her complexion, and heightened by the darkness of her hair, gazed at him with lustrous eyes, the pearls of
her curved carnation mouth half shown in her slow and indolent ambrosial smile. So sat they in the gold and violet glory
of the room-a sight to make an anchorite forswear his weeds,
and pray the saints to send him youth and love.
A bounding step was heard upon the stairs, and Emily
turned, while Wentworth looked toward the door. It opened




HARRINGTON.                    359
presently, and the martial figure of Harrington appeared.
The color flashed upon the face of the superb brunette, and
springing to her feet, she ran to him.  Then, with her arms
around him, she turned to Wentworth with a flushed and
laughing face, and
" Are you jealous, Richard, are you jealous?" she cried,
with riant gaiety.
"Jealous? Jupiter Pluvius I" shouted Wentworth, bounding to his feet, and rushing over to Harrington.
Clasping him with an embrace of steel; Harrington bent his
head, and kissed him on each cheek, then pushed him from him,
with his hands upon his shoulders.
"That is the kiss of France," he gaily cried.  "That is the
kiss of the Paris that I love.  And here," he added, grasping
Wentworth's hand, "here is the hand of the Old England and
the New-the hand of love and fkith and the oaken heart.
Yours, Richard, now and always."
Wringing the generous hand, his face convulsed, and his
lip quivering, Wentworth gazed at his friend with humid eyes.
A moment, and two bright tears rolied down his cheeks, and
his head fell.
" Ahli, John," he faltered, "I do not deserve the hand, nor
the heart that gives it.  I treated you basely, and you"
"Hush, Richard I Not a word of that.  I know it all,"
said Ilarrington, putting his right arm  around Wentworth,
and drawing him to his breast.  "Y' ou, too, Emily," and his
left arm encircled her.
There was a moment of silence, deep and sweet as prayer.
Standing so, with his beautiful and regal bearded face bent
down to them, he gazed upon their features, solemn in that
moment with the fervor of their love for him.
"Dear Emily-dear Richard," he said, in his strong melodious voice, "we will not cloud the joy of this sacred day with
any word of what has passed forever.  Let us not look upon
it with one regret. Let us think of it rather with gratitude
and blessing'; for it has bound us together closer than we were
before.  See, I had but two friends; and now, I, who have
no brother or sister of my own, have found a sister and a bro



360                  HARRINGTON.
ther in you. That is worth the mutual pain-that repays it
all. Behold, a new heaven and a new earth have come to us,
and the former things are passed away."
His voice ceased, and the silence came like a benediction.
In a moment, his arms fell, and he turned from them. There
was a pause, in which Wentworth and Emily wandered to the
windows, wiping their eyes.
"Ah, me," presently sighed Wentworth, breaking into his
volatile laugh, " as I always say, I feel as if I'd got religion.
In fact, I've got religion several times the last few days."
"So have I," cried Emily, dropping her handkerchief from
her eyes, and laughing merrily.  "John I" she exclaimed,
turning quickly, and sweeping, with a rustle of silks, toward
Harrington-" now, Richard, don't be jealous!" she archly
said in passing —  John, you restored me to life.  I was
dying with my long vigil of suffering when you held me in
your arms. You lulled me to that sweet sleep, and when I
awoke it was to happiness.  You gave me back my life, and
Muriel gave me back my love. How can I ever thank and
love you enough for all you did for me?  How can I ever
repay you? But I owe you one thing-the kiss you gave
me. Oh, I was like an unloved, weary child, dying for affection that hour when I asked you to kiss me. See-I owe you
that kiss, and I give it to you."
Wentworth, touched by the simple and tender fervor of her
voice, and by the child-like affection of her action, turned
away, filled with emotion.
" Good, now I" he exclaimed, in a moment, wheeling around,
and playfully assuming an injured air. " Just keep that up
all day, will you I Continue! I'm placid. I can stand any
amount of laceration. Don't stop for me. I'll bear it."
They laughed gaily, and came toward him, arm in arm.
"Well, you're a handsome couple anyway," pursued the
mercurial Wentworth, surveying them with an air of bland
admiration —genuine admiration, too, mixed with his affectation of it.  " As for Emily, she's just what Muriel calls herthe gorgeous queen-rose of Ispahan.  But you, Harrington
— what have you been doing to yourself? I never saw you




HARRINGTON.                    361
look so finely in my life. Walter Raleigh-the beautiful and
tall Sir Walter-must have looked like you, though I don't
believe he looked so well."
Emily, leaning on Harrington's arm, looked up into his
face, and saw that what Wentworth said was true.  A change
had fallen upon the masculine bearded countenance-a fine
rapture lit its regular features-a faint color lessened its pallor, and the pure blue eyes swam in brilliance.
"Indeed, Richard, you are right," said Emily.  "He looks
as beautiful as the sun-god."
"Exactly.'Hyperion's curls, the front of Jove himself' I"'
" 011, come now," interrupted Harrington, blushing.  "Is
this a meeting of the Mutual Admiration Society?  You pair
of gross flatterers I Praising my personal pulchritude to my
face in this way! But do I look well?  No wonder.  Last
night I slept the sleep of the blessed, and to-day I am happy.
You know why. Ah I and you haven't given me joy yet I
Yes, and I, too, haven't given you joy."
"We know why?  Given you joy?  Why, what do you
mean, John?"' cried Emily.
" Hasn't Muriel told you?" said Harrington.
"No," cried Emily, breathlessly; but Wentworth saw what
was coming, and a slow flush crept over his illumined face.
"Muriel and I plighted troth last night," said larrington,
simply.
Wentworth flew across the room with a shout, and with
the utmost deliberation began to dance.  Emily dropped Harrlngton's arm, stood for a moment pale, with her hands to her
bosom, glowed into bright color again, and burst into tears.
" Oh, John!" she cried, springing back a pace, and seizing
his hands, with a smile flashing splendid through the glittering
rain on her impassioned face.  " Oh, I am so happy! Joy,
joy to  you! I never dreamed of it-never I Joy, joy,
joy!"2
She wrung his hands in an ecstasy of delight, while Wentworth, breaking from his dance, came flying across the room,
and over a chair that stood in his way, and clutching away
16




362                   HARRINGTON.
the right hand from Emily, shook it as if he meant to shake
it off, his face flushed and his lip quivering, and his congratulations breaking from his lips like wildfire.
"Everlasting cornucopias of happiness poured out upon
you both for countless quadrillions of never-dying eternities!"
he hallooed.  " By the Capitolian Jove, John, but I'm  too
glad to say a syllable. Don't ask me to give you joy, for
there's not enough words in the beggarly English language for
me to do it with! Oh, thunder! if this is not the tip-top
crown and summit of it all, then I'm a Dutchman!"
He burst away, panting, and hurling himself at full length
upon a couch, burst into a ringing peal of jubilant laughter.
" Oh, Lord! I shall die!" he gasped, ceasing, and fanning
himself wixth his hand.  " Hallelujah! Hallelujah I"
Harrington, faint with mirth, sat down, and Emily, also
laughing furiously, scurried over to Wentworth, and shook
him  till he laughed again, and shook him till, aching with
laughter, he implored her to stop.
" Well,  Emily," exclaimed Harrington, as she relinquished
her hold of her lover, " I declare I never caw you romp before,
and I did not think you could."
"'Pon my word, she's as bad as Muriel," cried Wentworth,
with a comical look of mock anxiety.  "I'm afraid her aristocratic morals are getting corrupted by the company she keeps
in this house."
"Well, John," said Emily, a little flushed and panting with
her exertions, and laughing in short fits as she spoke, "I
believe you are right. Romping is, if not new to me, very
unusual.  But to-day  I am  so happy, I hardly  know
what I am doing. This glad news takes me out of myself
completely.  Oh, I am so rejoiced!  And to think that
Muriel never told me!  Cunning fox I  But I'll be even
with her for it.  I see now why she has decked the room with
such a wilderness of roses.  She is going to make it a fete
day in honor of her engagement."
"Why, yes," said Harrington, starting up.  "I didn't
notice all these exquisite flowers before, but I suppose that is
the reason why she has filled the library with them."




HARRINGTON.                     363
"You suppose," said Emily.  " Why, don't you know?"
"Not I," replied Harrington, laughing.  " Muriel asked
me to come and spend the day with her, and only said she was
going to give me an agreeable surprise.  She wouldn't tell me
what the agreeable surprise was, but I suppose this is it.
How  exquisite and sweet they are," he murmured, bending
over a shallow vase of Parian, filled with the roses, and inhaling
their delicate fragrance.
"When are you to be married, John?" asked Emily.
"I declare I don't know," said he naively.  "I never
thought of asking Muriel."
"Never thought-well, that's a good one!'  exclaimed
Wentworth.  " Why, almost the first thing I asked Emily
after our betrothal was ""Now, Richard," cried Emily, scampering up to him with
a laugh, and sealing his mouth with her hand.
Wentworth struggled to get free, and succeeding in a
minute, seized her hands, and held them, she, in turn, endeavoring to get them upon his mouth agaiit.
" Hear me, for I will speak I" he declaimed, with seriocomic dignity.  "The first thing I asked Emily, John, waswhen are we to be married?"
" And what did she say?" inquired Harrington, amusedly.
"Shle said October, John," replied Emily, laughing.  "He
shan't tell you. I'll tell you myself. Yes, John, we are to
be married in October.  See my betrothal ring. Is it not
beautiful?"
He took the fair hand in his, and looked at the exquisite
opal, whose soft, clouded flames of iridescent color shone on
her finger.
" Beautiful," he assented, pressing the hand to his lips.  " I
pray for your life-long happiness, dear Emily. Yours and
Richard's.  And may I be present at your wedding?"
" Indeed you must," she answered.  "It would be but half
a wedding if you were not there."
"My sentiments," cried Wentworth.  "Without you, John,
our wedding would be a fiasco. But it is to be a grand affair.
In open church, crowds of guests, Emily in full bridal array,




364                   HARRINGTON.
with a small army of bridesmaids, and I in gorgeous toggery,
with. a retinue of grooms which will astonish your Spartan
simplicity.  Oh, I tell you, we shall blow  out in splendid
hymeneal flower, amidst overpowering magnificence!"
" Hear the absurd fellow!" exclaimed Emily, smiling at
Harrington, who stood listening half-amusedly, half-pensively,
as the gay Richard ran on.  "Only listen to him. But it is
true, John —we are to have a splendid wedding."
" I am glad to hear it," he replied.  " You are both splendid, and it is natural and proper for you to put forth splendid
rays on such an occasion."
"Nevertheless, I'll bet you won't find Harrington and
Muriel flashing out like us, Emily," cried Wentworth, showingn
his fine teeth in a brilliant laugh.  "I wouldn't be afraid to
wager that you'll see that young man married in his ordinary
clothes, without a rag of a white kid glove, or an ornament of
any kind whatever, or wedding cake, or cards, or guests, or
anything."
"Why, Richard, I' don't know," said Hlarrington, smiling
good-naturedly.  "If Muriel were to wish the usual parade I
would agree of course. But you are right-my choice would
be as little external show as possible. Sonme simple rites
would be more grateful to me than any pomp or display.
Marriage to me is so private and spiritual a sacrament that it
seems a sort of profanation to make it public —or surround it
with factitious embellishments.  These flowers for example,
this sweet, rich room, Muriel lovely, and clothed as befits her
loveliness, I in this plain coat, not very new, but well-fitting
and graceful, Mrs. Eastman and you two loving friends here
-what more could I desire to decorate my wedding?  And
less than this-yes, nothing of this —Muriel and I alone in
some quiet room, or under the blue sky, or the forest trees,
pledging ourselves to each other in spirit and in truth-this
of itself would be enough, and would make the most imperial
bridals seem gaudy and theatrical."
"Then you object to our fine fashionable wedding, John,"
said Emily, playfully.
" Oh no-not object," returned Harrington, coloring, with




HARRINGTON.                    365
an embarrassed air.  " Have I said too much?  Have I cast
any personal reflections? I hope not, for I did not mean to.
I only meant to say that the ideal nobleness and beauty of
marriage are not very well expressed by the usual modish and
artificial ceremonials and decorations. The thing itself is holy
and poetic. Let the rites and adornments be holy and poetic
too. That is all."
Emily turned away, musing, and Wentworth twirled his
gay moustache with an abstracted air.
" But where's Muriel, I wonder?" said Harrington, after a
pause.
"Here she is —no, it's our dear mamma," exclaimed Wentworth.
"Your mamma it is, children," said Mrs. Eastman, coming
into the room, silver-gay, with her bonnet on.  "I have just
returned from Milton, and heard your voices, or rather John's
voice, as I came up-stairs.  But, bless me, where did all these
flowers come from? Why, the library is turned into fairyland!"
" Ah, mamma, " said Emily, " we are all in fairy-land to-day,
and the fairy-prince has done it, with the help of this fairy
chevalier," and she bent her head toward Harrington.
" Why, what has happened to you, children?" asked Mrs.
Eastman, laughing softly, as she removed her bonnet.
"Now, mamma," said Wentworth, fronting her with Emily
on his arm, " I'm going to surprise you. Prepare to be surprised."
" Well, I'm ready," said Mrs. Eastman, gaily.
" Emily and I are to be married in October," said Wentworth, suddenly.
"My dear children, I am more glad to hear this than I can
say," fondly replied Mrs. Eastman, kissing both of them.
"But, children, you don't surprise me at all," she added, with
smiling equability.  "I saw that you were lovers some time
since, and was expecting this."
Mrs. Eastman might have also said that she saw they had
quarrelled, and knew what was the matter with Emily during
her night and day of sorrow, but she was discreet and did not.




366                   HARRINGTON.
"There I" exclaimed Wentworth, with a grimace, "there's
my surprise now?  Mamma, you're a witch, and there's no
keeping anything from you!"
"Stop, Richard!" cried Emily.  "Let John try his hand
at a surprise."
Mrs. Eastman was well named Serena, she was so sweetly
calm, but the color rose to her face, and she trembled, as Harrington came toward her with outstretched arms.
"Mother," he fervently said, holding her in his embrace,
" you have your wish. I was mistaken.  Last night, Muriel
and I"Her eyes filled, and without a word she flew from his arms
and out of the room. Harrington covered his his humid eyes
with his hand, and stood still.  Wentworth and Emily moved
silently away, with hushed faces.
It was but a moment, and she came back with a swift, free
step, her calm face lighted between its silver tresses, the tears
upon her cheeks, and put her arms around him.
" Hush I" she whispered. " Do not speak to me. Let me
dream of this. I am too happy."
His arms had enfolded her, and with his eyes closed, and his
lips pressed to her beautiful silver hair, while her face lay upon
his bosom, they stood still.
" Yes," she murmured, after a long pause, looking up with
a still and radiant face into his noble countenance, "yes, I
have my wish, and I am happy."
She placed her arm in his, and moved with him across the
library.
"Well, mamma," said Emily, with her ambrosial smile,
"We did surprise you, after all."
" Yes and no, dear Emily," replied Mrs. Eastman, fondly
looking at Harrington.  " Yes and no.  It was the evening
star of my life; a cloud obscured it, but I still had faith that
my evening star was there."
There was a pause, filled by the pensive memory of her
voice. Suddenly Wentworth and Emily uttered a low exclamation, and Mrs. Eastman and Harrington turned, started, and
stood still.   It was Muriel, but Muriel transfigured in




BARRINGTON.                     367
resplendent beauty.  A robe of rich, ethereal vivid crimson,
at once soft and glowing, like the color of the rose, cut low,
and encircling the shoulders by only a narrow gathered band,
spread loosely around her bosom, and descending in many light
folds, expressed her perfect fdrnm, and heightened the dazzling
fairness of her complexion.  Color faint as the hues of the
blush roses whose ecstatic odors filled the room, bloomed on
her cheeks and lips; her amber hair, encircled by a slender
fillet of myrtle, bright green, small leaved, and terminating on
either side with a rose, drooped low in rippling tresses around
her radiant and hymn-like face; and her mouth rosy-pale
against its milk-white teeth, was parted in an enchanting
smile.  Gliding forward, with her noble harmony of movement, the floating gold and violet glory that filled the chamber
resting on her beauteous face and figure, and her sumptuous
drapery falling around her faultless limbs, she seemed some
wondrous vision of incarnate joy.  So sacred, so transcendent
was her bewildering loveliness, that they gazed upon her with
strange awe, as in the presence of her in her immortality.
Harrington looked at her, rapt, and passion-pale; then
with a thrill of melting tenderness, as if his soul was dissolving in his frame, he closed his giddy eyes and bowed his head
upon his clasped hands.
" Harrington, my beloved!"
He started at the deep eolian music of her voice, and holding her in his arms, gazed with an impassioned face into her
clear lambent eyes.
" Ah, Muriel, Muriel!" he fervently murmured, " I tremble
lest you make life too sweet for me.  Oh, dear friends," lie
cried, "you can bear to see the dance, for you hear the music!
Look at her; is she not beautiful?"
A low murmur of admiration ran from lip to lip, and Emily,
breaking from her trance, embraced Muriel and kissed her fervently.  Then her mother, with tender and pathetic,words of
endearment, folded her to her heart..
" Oh, my daugchter," she said, gently and mournfully, " what
would I give if your father could see you now! lie who hung
over your cradle so often in your infancy, and called you so




368                  ATRRINGTON.
fondly his glorious little child, what would I give if he could
see you now in your glorious womanhood!"
"Dear mother, he sees me," answered Muriel, her face lit
with a celestial smile, and her clear eyes upturned.  "In this
the best and brightest hour of my life, he sees me I He is
alive and well, and he sees me!"
In the solemn pause which followed, while they stood with
dim eyes and heads bowed, it seemed as if some silent spirit
stood among them in the rich glory of the room.~
The thrilling feeling slowly died away like failing music, and
timidly looking up, Wentworth saw the eyes of Muriel sink
from their celestial height and rest kindly and lovingly on him.
" Come to me, Richard," she said. " You alone have not
spoken to me-yqu alone have not expressed your joy."
"Muriel," he answered, moving near her, with a timid and
tardy step, "if so bad a boy as I am ""Bad? oh, no I You are not a bad boy," she said with
tender playfulness, caressing him as she spoke. " You are my
own dear brother Richard, gallant, and fond, and true. Could
I love you if you were not? Could I kiss you thus, and thus,
and thus, with magic kisses three?" she said, kissing him each
time as she said the word, and smiling at him with bewitching
gaiety.  "Ah! I am very happy this morning! That is the
reason you all admire me so. See: my joy has burst into its
fullest flower, and this is its color and its symbol."
Smiling upon them, she laid her hand on her gorgeous
crimson robe.
"I see," said Emily, " Madame de Stail said the color of
the trumpet-sound was crimson, and the sound of the golden
trumpet is the sound of joy. Oh, Muriel, I never saw you
dressed so admirably. You are splendid as the sun 1"
"Yes, and mark you now," said Wentworth, gaily, " there
is another symbol here. This is the color of the dress of the
fairy prince.  Ah, it is the same dress, too, if you only knew
it. The fairy prince wove a spell of weird, gave one touch of
the magic wand, and lo I the crimson cymar changed into a
crimson robe, and the fairy prince stands before you transformed
into a fairy princess 1"




HARRINGTON.                   369
"Bravo, Richard I" said lHarrington, "that is ingenious,
now."
"And then," continued Wentworth, "the gold embroidery
on the cymar melted into gold lustre, and passed into Muriel's
eyves. See how golden her eyes are this morning. Their clear
grey looks through a transparent sheen of gold."
"They are golden with love, then," said Muriel, laughingly,'for the cymar is up-stairs, with' all its embroidery intact. It
is Harrington who is the fairy prince, and I am the Sleeping
Beauty whom he waked from her sleep of twenty years, and
now I am to follow him through all the world. But come,
John, I promised you an agreeable surprise this morning, you
know."
"Well, and have you not given it to me?" said Harrington, smiling at her. " This beautiful room, all bedecked with
roses, and then yourself in your miraculous beauty-why, I am
in receipt of two agreeable surprises I"
"Ah, John," she replied, with enchanting gaiety, "but I
have a third more wonderful than those."
"What is it?" asked Harrington, amusedly.
"I'll tell you," she answered.  " Friends, attention I My
dear mother, do you remember the little conversation we had
at dinner the day before yesterday?"
"Perfectly," replied Mrs. Eastman, coloring slightly, and
looking at her charming daughter with some wonder.
" Well, my dear mother," returned Muriel, with bewitching
playfulness, "I reflected seriously all day yesterday on what:
you said, and I decided to oblige you. John, come here to
me."
Hlarrington, curious to know what was meant by this preface, approached, and stood before her with a sweetly smiling
countenance. Slowly her beautiful white arms stole around
him, clasped him lightly, and drew him to her. It seemed in
that moment as if, in the noble features upturned to his, all
the versatile expressions of which they were capable darted
magically together in a bewildering and harmonious play, like
the soft floating and intermingling of evanescent, tender rainbow hues on a clear and delicate air. But slowly through
16*




tlheir icri' dccisiv( c,(:iilflnlltteit br(,e a dl;azzliig'e siite, a fair'
tremor lifted her line nostril, the color bloomed deeplier on
her cheeks and lips, and her eyes glowed.
"John!" said she, in a clear, melodious voice, "this is our
marriage morn."
A splendid scarlet flamed on the face of Harrington, and
with a start he clasped her to his breast, gazing into her face
with eyes like wondering stars.  Mrs. Eastman, ineffably astonished, but more ineffably amused, that MAuriel had taken her
at her word, sank into a chair, with her countenance flushed,
and burst into low laughter; while Emily, with the rich color
suffusing her features and her eyes and mouth orbed in wonder, pressed her folded hands to her bosom; and Wentworth
stared vacantly, with his face as red as fire.
" This the morning of our marriage!" exclaimed Harrington.  "This!"
"' This it is, John," she replied, gaily, " and this is my third
agreeable surprise.  How do you like it?"
Harrington, with a, sudden motion, bent his head and
kissed her.
" Muriel, Muriel!' he la ughingly cried, " you are indeed a
fairy princess!  You touch the moment, and it bursts into the
unexpected miracle-flower of joy."
" Now by all the gods at once I" exclaimed the volatile
Wentworth, and bounding up with three distinct pigeon-wings
into the air, he came down again erect and gallant, and burst
into a peal of mellow laughter.
" Well I declare!" ejaculated Emily.  "Of all the splendid
freaks I ever heard of, this is the most splendid. To be
married this morning! But who's to marry you? where's the
minister?"
" Oh, he's coming," returned Muriel, smiling.  "I wrote a
note to Mr. Parker this morning, and he is to be here at
ten."
" Good!" exclaimed Harrington.  "If I am to have any
minister to marry me, let it be Mr. Parker. It will be an
added consecration."
" I knew you would think so," replied Muriel.




lHIAR'RI.NGO'-I i.             I-O) 4.
"To be sure," he answered.  " liTe wotld coisidter inc a
heathen, looking at me theologically, but that's no matter."
Muriel looked at his smiling countenance, and shook her
finger at him.
" Oh, you Verulamian heretic!" she exclaimed, gaily.
"Well, Muriel," laughed Emily, "I'm  sure you're very
obliging to have even Mr. Parker.  With your invincible
hostility to Madame la Grundy, it is positively a remarkable
concession."
" Ah, dear Emily," replied Muriel, smiling tenderly, "can
the words of a clergyman make more holy the union of lovers,
who love in spirit and in truth I Were Mr. Parker not in the
world, and were we in Pennsylvania to-day, and not in Alassachusetts, I would rather choose to stand up with John before
our friends, avowing our love in the sweet and beautiful old
simple Quaker fashion, and sparing every other rite beside.
To have the spiritual marriage publicly recognized would be
enough.  But then," she added, with gentle gaiety, " on this
point, Mrs. Grundy has the law on her side, so I curtsey and
submit, hoping to atone for the submission by a long series of
flagrant r'ebellions, against which there is no statute I For
while it is both proper and necessary, as things stand, that
Mrs. Grundy should be obeyed, it is also proper and necessary
as things stand, that the dear old woman should be defied.
So there's a paradox for you!"
" Bravo I" cried Wentworth.  "Centripetality and centrifugality for ever I"
" Exactly so," replied Muriel, with a frolic curtsey. " Now,
mother, there you sit without saying a word, and you haven't
told me yet whether you are going to lend the light of your
countenance to my extraordinary proceedings."
" Of course I am, dear," cried Mrs. Eastman, starting up to
kiss her bewitching daughter, while they all rippled off into
lively talk and the hilarity of the immortals.
"Come," said Muriel in a few moments, "let us have music
till Mr. Parker comes. Gluck and Mendelssohn and the divine
Mozart and Beethoven, shal speak for us to-day.  Color and
fragrance, and dancing, and silence can express deep joy, but




372                    IIARRINGTON.
music expresses it as nothing else can, and to-day is the flower
of my existence."
She moved as she spoke to the organ, and the gorgeous
tones of golden bronze rolled forth in sunset clouds of heavenly
harmony, with her seraph voice singing sweet among them.
Pass, hour of noble r:aptures, hour of the spirit, hour of celestial love and hope and joy, pass, fitting preludle for his coming
-the valiant soul and teider, now blest among the blessed,
whose disenchanted dust lies in the holy soil of Florence, and
lends one hallowed memory more to the land of Dante's
grave r
It was like a sacred dream in which he came-the mighty,
the well-beloved, the lion-hearted Theodore; he of the domed
brow, the Socratic features, resolute and tender, and stern at
times with the long battle he waged for Christian liberty; he
of the beautiful and dove-like eyes whose clear sweetness the
roaring hatred of his foes could never stain or change.  It was
like a sacred dream in which they heard the noble language
of his charge inspiring them to lives of holiest and highest
humanhood, and then while the dream  deepened into an interval of unutterable calm, and a stiller glory seemed to swim, a
more celestial fragrance seemed to flow, upon the quiet of the
room, the pledges of the nuptials were spoken, and his voice
arose in tender and fervent supplication to the Heavenly
Father of the world-Father and Mother, too —Father of
Love and Freedom and all that makes the world more fairLover of lovers, and Lover of' the world  ile made-that the
eternal spring-time of His Presence might rest upon their
wedded lives, greenness and strength and beauty to them forevermore.
It was still a sacred dream, when he had gone.  But the
very air seemed to tremble with an ecstasy of painful happiness, and Muriel, pale with a joy which was insupportable,
because voiceless, glided to the organ.
Softly again upon the glory of the air, drifted the molten
bronze of the rich music and her clear soprano, sweet and low,
arose and blended with the heavenly anthem. Sweet and low
as the mother's cradle hymn, and tender as the remembered




HARRINGTON.                    373
songs of childhood, it floated on above the mellow murmur of
the instrumental fow; and rising like a thrilling gush of perfume into more celestial melody, it rose again in rapturous
ascension, intermingled with the surging and dilating. swell of
the organ-tones, and rang in pealing hallelujahs, draining the
soul of every earthly thought and feeling, and lifting it pale
and throbbing on the burning wings of seraphs into the light
and odor of the Life Divine. Then sinking slowly, voice and
music failed upon the palpitating air, failed from the spirits
throbbing with the blended sweetness, and the room was still.
She rose from the organ with her face inspired, and turned
to be folded in the arms of Harrington.
"Ah, Muriel," he fervently murmured, "your songs are
more than' the benediction that follows after prayer!'"
She did not answer, but stood silently in his embrace, with
her face bent upon his breast. Lifting it to his at length, she
looked upon him with glowing eyes.
" We are married," she said.  " Do you realize it?"
"Hardly," he replied. "But it is true. We are one.
One in love for liberty."
" One in love for liberty," she echoed.  "One in love for
all mankind."
They stood in silence for a few moments. Then turning
with their arms around each other, they saw Emily and Wentworth sitting together in deep abstraction.
"Well, Richard and Emily, what are you thinking of?"
Muriel playfully demanded.
" I was thinking," returned Wentworth more gravely than
was usual with him, "that is before your singing, Muriel,
lifted me out of my mind, as it always does —I was thinking
what a man Mr. Parker is. How great and noble —how
beautiful were his words and manner. Ah, that was a true
marriage service!"
"And so was I," cried Emily, who had been weeping a
little.  "I was thinking the same thing.  I shall never hear
our own minister with comfort again."
"Oh, flower of Episcopalians, are you turning Parkerite?"
gaily exclaimed Muriel.




374                   HARRINGTON.
"I declare I believe I am," sighed Emily, so dolefully that
Wentworth began to laugh, and she herself followed his
example.
"Come," cried Wentworth, starting to his feet, "this won't
do. Here are John and Muriel married. Do you realize that
fact, Emily?"
"Yes, I do," she answered, bounding up, and rushing over
to the lovers to pour out the joy of her heart upon
them.
Mrs. Eastman and Wentworth followed, and inl a moment
the room rang with gay talk and frolic hilarity.
"And just take notice," cried Wentworth, amidst the affluent fun, " take notice that Harrington has his wish.  tie was
wishing, Muriel, or rather in a little discussion we had as to
the proper mode of doing the marriage ceremony up golden
brown, he was observing that to be married in this room, just
ai he is, with never a ghost of a kid glove on him, or any
wedding embellishments, and nobody present but us, would be
the height of his'ambition. So you see, his Spartan soul is
gratified!"
" So it is!" laughed Harrington.  "I had forgotten it
amidst the excitement; but that is what I said, and you, dear
fairy princess, have gratified me."
" Hold on now," burst in the mercurial Wentworth, interrupting Muriel in the gay reply she was about to make.
" Hold on! An idea strikes me. To wit, that nobody has
called this lady by her new name.  Sweet Muriel Eastman,
vale, vale, vale.  Adieu forevermore I  Vanish, floweer of
spinsters, vanish into the fragrant twilight of memory. Mrs.
liarrington, appear! All hail, Mrs. Harrington!"
"Bravo!" exclaimed Emily, clapping her hands, and undulating backward into a low curtsey.  "All hail, Mrs. Harrington!"
Muriel, still clasping her husband, looked at them in their
mirth with a pensive smile.
"I had forgotten it," she said gently, and almost dreamfully, "for I feel like Muriel Eastman, still, with unmerged
individuality."




HARRING'1ON.                   375
" And Muriel Eastman you shall be," laugnhingly said Harrington; "and with unmerged individuality, too."
"Nay," said Muriel, with tender gaiety.  "My new, sweet
name, John-Muriel Harrington.  I accept it.  At least to
the world I will be Muriel lHarrington, and you shall think of
me, and call me Muriel Eastman, still."
"As I will ever," responded Harrington.
" Bravo!" cried Wentworth.  "Alln amicable adjustment of
a serious difficulty. And now, what next?"
"Next, music," laughingly said Emily, moving to the
organ.
Her rich contralto voice rose with the instrumental surge
into a trumpet pmean, and so, amidst music and laughter, and
many-colored festal talk, the golden banquet of the day passed
by, and as they stood together at the single western window
of the library, the evening overspread them with a sky of
deepest azure, filled with vast louds of purple and amber
flame, like the wings of seraphim.
Slowly the burning magnificence of the celestial pageant
faded from the sky, and the enchanted twilight came with soft
and odorous southwind breathings. All the long evening, in
the dim bloom of moonlight, too faint to veil the brightness
of the stars, the long wafts of balmy odor hung swaying with
the airy poise of spirits around the dwelling, rising in low
whisperings, and slowly swooning away in sweetness.  Gradually the sounds of life died away, the moon sank low, the
shadows slept within the street, and the silence was unbroken
save by the passionate whispers of the fragrant wind.  Far
above the dark roofs, the bright stars were throbbing in the
divine blue gloom, and over the vast night brooded the infinite
presence of the triune Love and Life and Joy.




376                   HA RImGTON.
CHAPTER XXV.
WITHERLEE.
TREm next day the announcement of the marriage appeared in
the newspapers, and falling soft as a rose-leaf on the tail of that
great Chicken Little, Society, Society ran round clucking as if
the sky had fallen.  Great was the sensation-especially among
the score or so of lovers who for a long time had been vainly
endeavoring to get sufficiently intimate with Muriel to make
their love manifest, and whose fate was now sealed.
Not having been invited to the wedding, Society expected
the cards to arrive inviting it to the conventional reception.
But Society hearing presently, through some intimate friends
of the family, that Muriel and her husband had decided to dispense with conventionalities, took it kindly, as just what might
have been expected of that lady, and began to pour in a stream
of congratulatory callers at the house in Temple street. Among
the callers, the startled and enraged Atkinses were missing,
which was melancholy.  Amidst the family wrath, Horatio
kept contemptuously cool, remarking, like the fine young
American he was, that a social mesalliance always brought its
own punishment, as she (Muriel) would find to her sorrow;
while Thomas, on all occasions, when the subject of the marriage came up in conversation, observed, that that's what comes
of letting girls have too much head, be Jove!
Great was the sensation the next morning when Muriel and
Harrington appeared at Captain Fisher's, announcing their
espousals, and great was the joy, and immense the satisfaction.
Greater than all or anything was the large and lustrous happiness of the wedded lovers. The deep change that had come
upon their lives gave them a new and statelier beauty. So
might have looked the beautiful and tall Sir Walter, and so




HARRINGTON.                     3 f7
the fair Elizabeth Throgmorton, his bright Elizabethan flower
of wifely womanhood, in their happiest hour of wedded love.
At home in Temple street the day after their wedding, in the
new and fresh enjoyment of a marriage whose perfect nobleness
might have gladdened the pare soul of Swedenborg, they laid
their little plans for the future. It was first agreed that Harrington should permit himself a vacation, free from the toil of
study, in this the golden crescent of their eternal honeymoon.
It was next resolved that Harrington should keep his house in
Chambers street, and live there when he so chose.  Both he
and Muriel thought that married people are too intimate with
each other, see too much of each other, push too far and frequently into the sacred privacy which Nature sets around the
individual soul, and so lose the charm of freshness which is at once
the crowning delight and most potent safeguard of love.  If, in
married life, they thought, familiarity does not breed contempt, it
commonly breeds a sort of humdrum unappreciating indifference
which makes th-le wedded lovers seem less beautiful and noble to
each other than in the matin prime of their early passion. And as
Muriel and H-Iarrington designed to be lovers forevermore, they
resolved to maintain the relations which make love ever magical
and ever new. Counting himself fortunate, therefore, that he had
a house of his own to retire to in those golden-valleyed intervals
which Nature prescribes to checquer and enhance the tender
and holy beauty of the mountain land of love, and sadly wishing
that his fortune might be shared by all, as it might in a nobler
order of society, I-Iarrington agreed with Muriel, and she with
him, to use their new freedom of intercourse wisely, he spending his studious dlays as heretofore in his own house, she passing
her happy life as in her maidenhood in hers, both coming
tog'ether whenever their souls drew, or their duties bade, freely,
attractively, in Inutual ninistration and communion, living for
each other and for the world's great family of souls.
The next thing, that came under discassion was a proposition
from Muriel to settle half her fortune'on her husband, which
Harrington would not listen to on any condition.  It was
finally compromised, amidst much gaiety, by his agreeing to
let no want of his go untold, and to always accept from her




378                    HARRINGTON.
whatever money lie needed, instead of interrupting his studies
with compositions to supply his deficiencies.  Which bargain
Muriel closed with a frolic threat of banishment from  her
presence if she ever discovered him infringing the terms of the
compact, until he made atonement by accepting a double sum
for his disobedience.
Other matters talked of, and the business conference ended,
they were sitting together in the library, when Wentworth
arrived, handsome as usual, and full of gay greetings.  Presently Emily came in from a shopping excursion, and sat with
them.
"' And why is Raffaello out of his studio this morning?" she
said, in a gay tone, to Wentworth.
" Well,'" he returned, "fact is, I couldn't paint for thinking of our recent blind-man's buff game.  Now, look here,
friends, let's have a grand confession.  Here we are together,
and what I want to know is this:  How is it that we four
people, of tolerably good wits, contrived in our love affairs to
be so mistaken in regard to each other?  Grant Witherlee's
share in the matter, and our own duplicity-that is, yours and
mine, Emily dear-but after all, is it not singular that we
didn't see through it?"
They sat pensively smiling, with their eyes bent upon the
floor, while he, smiling also, with his brilliant teeth displayed,
looked at them.
"' Just think," he continued.  "Just think of the slightness
of the evidence which set every Jack of us against his true Jill,
and every Jill against her true Jack. Such evidence wouldn't
have misled us if any other matter but love was involved.
How is this? Now, Emily, perhaps it's not wonderful that
you should have thought that I loved Muriel, for who wouldn't
love her? but how could you for a moment imagine that she
-so manifestly my superior every way, so evidently made for
a nobler man than I am-could possibly love me?"
"I don't know," naively replied Emily, while Muriel and
Harrington, coloring at the compliment Wentworth so frankly
paid them, laughed amusedly.  "It was very foolish in me,
I'm sure, and it seems like a strange dream."




HARRINGTON.                   379
" Good," continued Wentworth.     "The next question is,
how could I imagine that Harrington, with his heaven-fated
wife before his eyes, could possibly love my Emily? And that
I don't know either, and can't explain, except on the theory
that I'm a complete fool, which I'm not."
They all laughed merrily, Wentworth louder than any.
"And you, Muriel," he pursued.  " How could you imagine
for a moment that Harrington loved anybody but you?  Both
of you in constant communion, in the fullest, and broadest, and
closest sympathy with each other, how could you think that
he loved Emily better than you?"
"Why, Richard," returned Muriel, with bewitching gaiety,
" since this is the hour of confession, let me confess that I don't
know."
Wentworth laughed uproariously, and the rest joined him in
his mirth.
" Well, Harrington," he continued, in a minute, " you now.
It's not singular, of course, that you should have thought I
loved Muriel; but in the name of all the gods at once, how
could you think that she loved me? Where was your insight,
Harrington?"
" Well, Richard," said Harrington, jocosely, "this whole
matter may be solved on the theory that we are not the wisest
people in the world."
" No, John, that won't do," returned Wentworth, "we're
not the wisest, but we're wise enough not to be made fools of
in anything but a love affair."
" Well then, let us concede our wisdom," replied Harrington, in the same jocose vein, " and solve the whole riddle with
that deep maxim of my beloved Vertlam,'Love is the folly
of the wise.' "
" Good I I rest there," said Wentworth, lauohing.  "Yes,
my Lord Bacon, you're right, love is the folly of the wise."
" But it is the highest wisdom, too," observed Muriel.
" Of course," replied Harrington.  " Verulam would be the
last to gainsay that. I understand him to only mean that the
mortal reason most exempt from the clouds of the other passions, is subject to the obscurations of this. It is one side of




380                   HA:RRINGTON.
his tribute to the potency of love, and all human experience
justifies it. Particularly ours," he jestingly added.
At this moment a tap was heard at the library door. It
was Patrick, who, all in smiles for the new-married couple,
announced that Mr. Witherlee was in the parlor below.
"Jupiter!" exclaimed Wentworth.  "Let's have him up
here, and give him a rowing."
"Yes, do," said Emily nervously. " Let's hear what he has
to say for himself."
Muriel looked dubiously at Harrington.
"I really think," said Harrington, in answer to her look,
" that Fernando ought to have a lesson on the danger and
folly of such detraction and mischief-making as he practises.
It would be salutary."
" Well then-but, Richard, you must promise me that you
won't get angry at Mr. Witherlee-that you'll talk to him
calmly," said Muriel.
" Oh, indeed I will!" declared Wentworth, rubbing his
hands gleefully, and all alive with eagerness. " Only have
him up here. I promise sacredly that I'll be as gentle as a
sucking dove."
"And you, Emily, you must engage to be calm," said
Muriel.
" Oh, I'll be calm. I despise him too much to be anything
but calm," returned Emily with an air of indolent scorn.
"Very well.  Patrick, show SMr. Witherlee up here," said
Muriel.
Patrick bowed, and departed.
" Now for a scene!" cried the gleeful Wentworth.  " His
impudence won't get him out of this scrape."
"Take care, Richard," remarked H-Iarington, " for in my
opinion you'll find it difficult to convict him of any misconduct."
"We'll see!" exclaimed Wentworth with a confident air.
Presently the door opened, and the good Fernando came in,
bowing low with an almost cringe in his courtesy, and smiling
with his usual constrained smile of elegance.  He was very
fashionably dressed, and looked, as he commonly did, handsome.




HAR1RINGTON.                  381
" Good morning," he said with courteous empressemenet, as he
came bowing forward.  "All together, as usual."
"Yes, all together," said Harrington, good-naturedly, giving
him his hand as he spoke, and taking no notice of the covert
sneer which lurked rather in the tone of his last remark than
in the words.
Muriel also gave him her hand, Wentworth his rather distantly, though he smiled, and Emily bent her head with a
sumptuous negative politeness, without rising from her chair.
In a minute or so, the good Fernando was seated, and gazing at them with opaque glittering eyes which restlessly flickered and seemed not so much to look at them, as toward them.
He began to feel, magnetically, that there was something mysterious and menacing in their manner, and his plump, colorless,
morbid face grew marble-cool and immobile, with the lips a
little parted and rigid, as the lips usually are when there is an
attempt at the concealment of emotion or purpose.
"' Well, Fernando, have you heard the news," said Wentworth, alluding to Harrington and Muriel's marriage.
"No," drawled Witherlee, with a face discharged of all
expression.  " What is it?"
" Haven't you seen the papers this morning?" said Wentworth.
" No; I rose rather late this morning," was the equable
answer, "and didn't breakfast at home. I went down to
Parker's and had a lunch with a bottle of Sotairne, and
it never occurred to me to glance at the paper. What is the
news?"
Wentworth paused a moment, conscious that Witherlee had
not heard of the marriage, and filled with an amused disgust,
especially at the affected  drawl with which the young
fop had pronounced the word Sauterne, and generally at his
ostentatious and unnecessary mention of his epicurean breakfast.
" The news is," replied Wentworth, changing his intention,
"that Emily and I are engaged to be married in October."
Witherlee looked at him for a moment with his eyes more
opaque, his lips more rigid, his face more expressionless than




] I'ABRtRIGTON('.
blefole, and slightly lifted his hatldsome eyebrows; then smiled
with immense cordiality.
"I am very glad to hear it," he exclaimed, with tender
empressement, "very glad  indeed.  But you surprise me.
I hadn't the remotest idea that such a thing would happen "" And you didn't mean it should, if you could help it,"
interrupted Emily, with bland tranquillity.
Witherlee looked at her with an astonishment so admirably
counterfeited, that she almost thought it genuine, and her
heart faltered in its purpose. Wentworth, with a strong disposition to laugh, bit his lip, and looked at the floor. Muriel
wore an air of sunny laziness, and Harrington, sitting a little
apart, kept his searching blue eyes fixed intently on Witherlee's
countenance, unnoticed by him.
" Why, Emily," said Fernando, slowly, after a long pause,
"what do you mean I If I could help it? Why how could I
hinder it, even if I wished to? How could I be supposed to
know anything about it?"
"You  knew  Richard  and I loved each other," stammered Emily, losing her self-possession as she thought how
intangible was all her evidence against her colloquist. "You
knew it, and you tried to prejudice me against him."
" I knew it?" repeated Fernando.  " Miss Ames, you must
pardon me for saying it-but you are very unjust to me."
And he assumed an injured air, which was really touching.
"It is utterly impossible that I could have known it, for neither
you nor Wentworth, nor anybody, ever told me. As for prejudicing him, I do not know what you refer to-but if you
mean our conversation one evening more than a week ago, you
must permit me to observe that that is only a proof that I
knew nothing whatever of this matter. For if I had, is it
likely that I would be so foolish as to injure myself in your
good opinion by saying anything against a man you loved?
Even if I were ungenerous enough to do so, would I be so
unwise?  I am  sorry, very sorry that you can think so
meanly of my good sense, not to speak of anything higher."
He said it all so mildly, so sadly, with such an injured




I- hi } A-; d. ToN. As. P
air, that Emily was toutflldcld, oit l lcld f ntiA-  tlle id}c toll tile
apparent justice of his plausible plea.  Yet a desperate sense
that he had tampered with her feelings, and maligned her
lover, still lingered in her mind.
" It may be as you say, Fernando," she faltered, "but at
any rate, you know that you made remarks affecting Richard's
character, which could not but make me think hardly of him."
"What did I say?" inquired Fernando, lifting his eyebrows
in utter astonishment.
Emily, at that moment, could not for the life of her recall
a single disparaging sentence.  All the delicate poisoned
phrases which had interspersed his lavish praise of Wentworth,
were as invisible to the eye of her mind, as would be the deadly
fragrance of some exquisite poisonous flower.
" Did I not speak of Mr. Wentworth in the warmest terms?"
he demanded.  "Did I not pay the warmest tributes to his
character and talents?"'
" I admit that you did," replied Emily, painfnlly coloring;
"but you, nevertheless, contrived to throw  a shadow on his
constancy and purity as a lover, and what could have been
worse to me who loved himn?"
"I contrived!" exclaimed Fernando, lifting his head with
an air of proud and disdainful injured innocence, which Harrington and Muriel alone saw was theatrically assumed and
overdone.  "I contrived   Miss Ames, I might answer this
charge with simple silence, and conscious of its untruth, might
bear it as a gentlemen should bear all injuries, with forgiveness
But, since you were so unfortunate as to receive a wrong impression from remarks which were made only in candor, and
which were not intended to injure any one, let me say this:
Did you not yourself ask me to tell you candidly what I thought
of Mr. Wentworth?"
"I own I did," replied poor Emily, wishing she had not said
a word, and sorry that she had so rashly blamed the good
Fernando for what was, she thought, her own fault after all.
"And when you asked me that, in the mutual confidence of
friendship," pursued Witherlee, " can you blame me for having
answered you with the candor you requested?"




384                 nHARRINCGON.
Emily, with the tears very near her eyes, and her face glowing, was silent.
" If I had imagined what your feelings for Mr. Wentworth
were," continued Witherlee, with touching mildness, "I would
never have uttered anything but;praise of him, though you
asked it ever so much. But I never even suspected that. As
for throwing a shadow on Mr. -Wentworth's constancy, I never
did it. I simply said, believing it to be true, and I'm very
sorry if it's not true, that he had had a great many love affairs,
and fell in love easily, and got out of it lightly, and so forth;
but I'm sure that's nothing uncommon with a handsome young
man whom all the young ladies are after, and no blame to anybody."
Wentworth colored up to the roots of his hair at the latter part of this speech, which the good Fernando delivered
with a nonchalant, jocose air, very different from the wicked
significance of manner with which, in speaking the words he
avowed, and others of the same nature, he had given Emily
to understand that her lover was a gay Lothario.
" You're mistaken, Fernando," stammered Wentworth, " if
you think I ever fell seriously in love with any woman, and
outlived it. I've had my fancy touched by a number of pretty
girls, it is true, and I've been uncommonly amiable to them,
no doubt, but they always disappointed me when I came to
know them a little, and there never was any heart-injury done
anywhere."
"I never supposed or said there was," replied Fernando,
coolly.  "It is Emily's misfortune to have exaggerated the
simple meaning of what I did say, and what you, Richard,
have confirmed. As for throwing any suspicion on Wentworth's moral character, Emily, I do not know what you can
mean, and I must ask you to explain, for this is the most
serious part of the whole misapprehension."
"You made no charge of that nature against Richard,"
said Emily terribly embarrassed, "but you told me of that
young lady's betrayal-I forget her name —by young Whittemore, and dwelt on the insidiousness of his addresses to
women in such a way, that I thought you were thinking of




HARRINGTON.                    385
Richard, or withholding something similar you knew of him,
and-Oh, I have acted like a fool I" she passionately exclaimed, dashing away the tears which sprang to her eyes.
Witherlee saw his triumph with an exulting heart, while his
fade was, save for a little dejection, perfectly immobile.
"I am very, very sorry," he remarked in a slow, kind
voice.  "It is unaccountablk. to me that you should connect
my narration, which was simply true, with Mr. Wentworth.
I never heard of anything so singular."
" Let it go, Fernando," said Emily, " and do forgive "" What is the young lady's name of whom you speak in
connection with Mr. Whittemore, Fernando?" interrupted
Muriel, with an air of phlegm which she had caught from Harrington, who occasionally wore it.  Muriel put the question, at
once because she wanted to know, and because she was
anxious to save Emily from the disgrace of asking Witherlee's
forgiveness, when, as she saw, he had only adroitly juggled
away his subtle slanders.
" Why it's Susan Hollingsworth," returned Witherlee, "you
know her."
"That pretty Susan Hollingsworth I" exclaimed Muriel.
" To be sure I know her.  But I hadn't heard of this. How
strange that I had not!"
" It is, certainly," replied Witherlee, lifting his eyebrows,
"for it's town talk, and Miss Hollingsworth's position in society is perfectly ruined.  She's taboo forever.  I was at a
party last night at Mrs. Binghampton's and you should have
heard the way the ladies cut her up. It was a treat to hear
it "-and Witherlee laughed with his turtle-husky chuckle.
"That young Mr. 1Mill undertook to defend her, and it was
perfectly ludicrous "to see the scrape he got himself into.
Miss Bean wanted to know instantly if he was going to come
out in favor of Mormonism, and Mill was completely dumbfoundered, and covered with disgrace in a moment."  And
again Witherlee laughed with his turtle-husky chuckle.
" Have you seen Susan lately?" asked Muriel, abstractedly,
with a face of sadness.
"No, I haven't called there since I heard of this affair,"
riF




386                  HARRINGTON.
replied Witherlee with a sort of stolid importance. "The
Hollingsworths have been sent to Coventry, and no decent
person visits them,"
Muriel colored, but very slightly, and only for a moment.
"I shall visit them," she said, quietly, " and I would have
visited them before if I had heard of this. What is more,
Susan is as good a girl as ever breathed, and I shall make it a
point to invite her to come and spend a month at my house."
Witherlee looked perfectly immobile, but secretly stung by
the rebuke Muriel's words conveyed to him, he felt the necessity of defending his attitude toward the Hollingsworths.
"I should be glad to still visit Miss Hollingsworth, if I
could conscientiously," he said, with an air of cold and lofty
virtue. " But when a young lady lets herself be led astray
by an ignis fatuus light, from  the paths of Christian morality "The generous color flashed to the calm face of Muriel, and
her golden eyes glowed on him so suddenly that he stopped in
the middle of his sentence.
" Fernando Witherlee," said she, in a slow and steady voice,
and with a dignity that abashed even him, " if there is anything that could make me despise a fellow-creature, it would
be such a speech as you have just made. Ignis fatluns light!
I answer you with Robert Burns, and I accept it in a profounder sense than he did, that even the light that leads astray
is light from Heaven.  Christian morality! Who was the
friend even of the Magdalen?-who was the friend and companion of publicans and sinners-the taboo men and women
of old Jerusalem?  Oh, shame upon you I A  poor girl
loving with the whole fervor of the sacrej nature God gave
her, guilty, at the most, only of a too absolute confidence in
the traitor she had cast her heart upon, deceived now and
abandoned, and suffering not only from her own private
anguish, the greatest a human heart can know, but from the
insolent and infamous scorn of society-and it is at such a
time that you can have the soul to avoid her I And worseyou can tell the cruel treatment she receives from her sex. and
laugh. Those graceless women-but I may well spare my




HARRINGTON.                    387
indignation at the inhuman way women treat any of their number who have fallen from what they call virtue.  Shut out by
the impudent assumptions of mankind from public life-shut
out from that experience which widens the understanding, and
thus, as the statesman said, corrects the heart —theirs may
well be twilight judgments I Well may they have constricted
minds and narrow souls, with life's best culture denied them I
Treated as vassals, theirs are vassals' vices.  But you-a
man! And society  Society whose mutual voice should
peal consolation and encouragement to this poor forlorn one,
howling her off into social exile, and, were she poor, to a life
of shame-howling her self-respect, her very womanhood out
of her.  Oh, what can I say of such a society I No matter.
You can do as you think best; but I, for one, will never taboo
Susan Hollingsworth, and she shall visit me if I can persuade
her."
Wincing secretly under this rebuke, which Muriel uttered
calmly, but with impressive energy, Witherlee sat in silence,
with his opaque eyes fixed on vacancy, and his handsome eyebrows lifted very high.  Harrington, without taking his gaze
from  him, expressed his gratification at what Muriel had said
by laying his large hand over hers, as it rested on the arm of
her chair. Emily sat with a dazed look, and her lover was
biting his lip all through the episode, to suppress any signs of
the satisfaction he felt at Witherlee's discomfiture.
" My sentiments exactly, Muriel," said Wentworth.  "But
now, Fernando, to resume.  You appear to have cleared
yourself of any blame in the construction Emily lint upon your
words, and so far so good.  But there are some other things
I want to talk with you about."
"Proceed," said Witherlee, coolly.  "Though  I really
think Emily ought to be permitted to make the apologies she
was about to make to me for so grievous an injury to my
feelings as I have sustained."
It is utterly impossible to describe the exquisite titillation
of insult which, despite his subdued manner, these words of
Witherlee conveyed.  Wentwo.rth reddened like fire instantly,
and was only checked in a tremendous retort by a glance from




388                  HARRINGTON.
the quiet eye of Muriel. But poor Emily, filled with contrition, started and colored, and was about to pour forth a profuse apology, when" Pardon me, Fernando," broke in the calm, deep voice of
Harrington, "but let me suggest that Miss Ames' apologies
will be in better place when you are entirely clear from the
accusations connected with her, which Wentworth has to
bring against you."
Witherlee turned very pale, though he showed no other
signs of emotion, and fixed his impassible eyes on Harrington's,
but unable, with all his stone opacity of outlook, to sustain
their broad blue gaze, he carelessly lifted his eyebrows and
looked away. Emily, meanwhile, having noticed Harrington's
determined face, suddenly felt a suspicion that all was not
so clear with Fernando as it seemed, and resolved to say
nothing till she saw the end.
"What I have to say, Fernando, is this," began Wentworth, having choked down his rage into smiling calm.  " It
seems to me that on one occasion, at least, you did make mischief, if you'll excuse the word, between Emily and me. You
said something that prevented Emily from giving me a bunch
of violets last Tuesday morning."
" I did not," returned Witherlee, coolly.  "I simply made
a playful remark to Emily-the most innocent remark imaginable-which I'm perfectly willing to repeat now."
" Nevertheless," said Wentworth, "your innocent remark, or
the manner in which you made it, incensed Emily against me."
"Am  I to blame for her misapprehensions, Richard?"
mildly asked' Fernando.  "You are aware now that Emily
was in an unusually sensitive state of mind at that time. You
see how she mistook the sense of otlher things I said, and yet
you yourself have admitted that I am blameless in respect to
those. Why, then, may she not have mistaken the sense of
the playful remark I made about the flowers, and if so, why
do you hold me to an account for it?"
Wentworth could not get over this. He was fairly checked
in the very outset. The devil take it, he said to himself, I
believe that Emily and I have been to blame after all I




IARRIN1GTON.                  389
"I was as much astonished as you were, Richard, at
Emily's conduct about the violets," continued Fernando.
"But I never imagined till this moment, that she was influenced by my remark. HIow could I? I thought she was
rude to you, and I felt sorry. You must remember that I
expressed my friendly regret to you at the time. Surely, I
wouldn't have done that, if I had instigated her to offend
you."
" Well, well," said Wentworth, hastily, "I pass that. I
own that Emily was in a mood to misunderstand things; but
see here. There were things you said to me in the fencingschool that morning which, to my shame, made me think
unkindly of Harrington. Now " —
" Pardon me, Richard," interrupted Witherlee, with an air
of great concern, " but this is the unkindest thing yet, and I
do not understand what has got into you people's minds this
morning.  Now, what in the world did I ever say to you
against Harrington? Just tell me candidly-were not you at
that time incensed with Harrington for something or other-I
don't know what?"
" I own I was," replied Wentworth, twirling his moustache
and blushing.
" Very well.  And did I ever express anything more
than sympathy with you in your irritation?" demanded
Witherlee.
"Well, I admit," replied Wentworth, "that what you
said was in the form of sympathy with me. But then it led
me to think more hardly of llarrington than I would have
done."
Witherlee laughed as if his throat was full of turtle at
this.
" You'll excuse me for laughing, Wentworth," he remarked,
"but this is exceedingly absurd. Here were you in a state of
nervous resentment at Harrington, and because your fiery
temper took my kindly-meant attempts at consolation as fresh
fuel, you blame me I Now I put it to you, as a reasonable
man, was I to blame because you wrong-headedly twisted my
consolations against your friend?"




390                   flARRINGTON.
Wentworth colored deeply, and did not answer. The deuce
take it, he thought: I am making myself ridiculous in all
this: the fact is, I was in such a miserably jealous and irritable state, that, as he says, I turned everything topsyturvy.
a"Ah, me I" sighed Witherlee, sadly lifting his eyebrows,
as one who thus expressed that this was the fate of friendship, loyalty, virtue of all sorts, in this wicked, wicked, wicked
world.
" Well, Fernando," said Wentworth, "I'm truly sorry —but
stay, there's another thing, and that's not so easily explained.
John Todd told me of a talk you had with Bagasse that same
morning, about us four."
Wentworth paused to look at Witherlee, expecting to see
him start and change color at this. Nothing of the sort.
Witherlee's eyebrows were up, and his eyes were their opaquest,
and his face was perfectly discharged of all expression. But
in his soul was the first shock of alarm, for he had not counted
on his conversation with Bagasse being reported to Wentworth.
" Well," said he, imperturbably, " what did John Todd say?
You will first allow me to observe that it is not very creditable in him to have played the eavesdropper on a private conversation. And you will pardon me for remarking, Richard,
that had I been in your place, my sense of honor would not
have permitted me to listen to any gossip from him."
Wentworth blushed deeply. Gallant, honorable fellow that
he was, he half-mistrusted that he had not done right in letting
John Todd make his report, and what Witherlee said, certainly seemed in the most punctilious spirit of chivalry. Witherlee, meanwhile, satisfied with having dealt Wentworth's case
a telling blow at the outset, rested in injured innocence, nervously impatient in spirit at the same time, to have the worst
over with.
"I won't excuse myself, Fernando," said Wentworth, hurriedly.  "But here is what the boy told me. In the first
place, you mentioned the names of these two ladies to Bagasse.
-Now, that was not decorous " —



HARRINGTON.                    391
" Why not?" demanded Witherlee.  "Just consider that
what I said to Bagasse was in the confidence of familiar
friendship, and the proof is, that Bagasse himself never spread
it abroad —only that sneak of a boy."
"Familiar friendship with Bagasse!" exclaimed Wentworth,
amazed.  " I did not imagine you would be so intimate with
the old fellow."
" And why not?" demanded Witherlee, with an air of noble
disdain.  " A gallant old soldier of the Empire-a brave old
Frenchman, who wears the cross of the Legion! Do you
think I'm such a snob as to shun his friendship because he's
poor and plebeian, and all that?  Indeed, no! Bagasse and
I," he added, lying desperately, " are on very intimate terms,
and I therefore felt justified in talking freely to him-which I
wouldn't have done if I had noticed the presence of that reptile of a boy."
"Well," said Wentworth, beginning to despair, "' but that
does not excuse your making fun of my dress, or of'""It's not true," interrupted Witherlee.  "I simply said,
jestingly, that you looked bizarre with your long curls and
your Rubens hat, and so you do. But it was lbrmless joking
enough, I'm sure."
" I don't think, at anyrate, it was harmless joking for you
to jeer at Harrington's coat, and say he looked like a ragpicker," remarked Wentworth.
" Well, if I ever heard of such malice and misrepresentation
as that little serpent has been guilty of!' exclaimed Fernando,
with virtuous indignation. "I never said anything of the sort.
I simply remarked that Emily looked all the more gorgeous in
contrast to the plain attire of Harrington, which was the simple truth.  And as for the rest, my remark was that if she
was dressed like a ragpicker, she would still be beautiful.
Upon my word, I will chastise that boy the next time I see
him!"
Wentworth looked perfectly confounded as Witherlee, with
an air of indisputable veracity, told these bold lies,
" By Jupiter!" he exclaimed, " Johnny must leave mistaken
what you said, Fernando, with a vengeance! Well-but see




392                  HARRINGTON.
here, you certainly gave Bagasse to understand that liarrington and I were in love with Muriel and Emily. Since you
are a friend of his, I won't blame you for what you say you
said in confidence; but still that doesn't excuse you for saying
contemptuously that Aluriel would as soon marry a man out
of the alms-house as Harrington, and scornfully calling attention, as you did in that connection, to Harrington's apparel.
You must have said that, for Johnny told me circumstantially
what Bagasse said in reply, and he seemed to remember that
better than what you had said. And by the way, your representing that John and I were these ladies' lovers, doesn't
square with your assertion just now to Emily, that you had no
idea of any feeling between her and me. By Jupiter, Fernando!" cried Wentworth at this point, elated to think that
he had really caught Witherlee in a contradiction, " you can't
make that square!"'
" Mr. Wentworth," replied Fernando with dignified severity,
"you go too far when you impugn my veracity, and you are
perfectly reckless in your assertions. I told Emily that I had
no idea there was any feeling between you two, and I told her
the truth." *
"Who did you think I had a feeling for?" demanded
Wentworth.
" Since you force me to say, I thought it was Muriel-and
Harrington can bear me witness," said Witherlee, severely.
" Yes," said larrington, laconically. "Fernando told me
so.'
" Now, then!" exclaimed Witherlee, triumphantly, "where
doesn't it square?"
Wentworth looked completely flabbergasted, as the sailors
say, and colored painfully.
" As for the rest," pursued Witherlee, "it is just one tissue
of misstatements. I never told Bagasse you and Harrington
were in love with these ladies. On the contrary, when he
got the notion into his head, I scouted it, as your own statement shows, for I did not wish him to believe what, though I
supposed it, I did not absolutely know was the case. It is
true that in endeavoring to convey to Bagasse that there was




HARRITNGTON.                  393
no foundation for his belief, I did say, rather splenetically, for
his pertinacity irritated me, that it was just as likely Muriel
would wed a man out of the poor-house as Harrington. But
I protest against the construction of those words which would
make.it seem that I compared Harrington to a pauper, or
insulted him in any way. I was only endeavoring to indicate
the distance between his social position and Muriel's. You
must bear in mind that I was talking to an illiterate man and
a foreigner, and I only adapted my language to his illiteracy
and to his imperfect knowledge of English, and used coarser
terms than I would to a different person, which explains my
use of that phrase, and the allusion to. Harrington's plain
coat. All I meant, and all I would have said to a person
of culture, was that Muriel would not marry beneath her
station."                              A
"You were right, Fernando," said Muriel, coldly.  " I never
would, and Harrington knows it."
"So I thought," complacently replied Witherlee, thinking,
oddly enough, that she concurred with him. "I knew that
you and Harrington were only friends."
"But this Bagasse, I am told, thought it would not be
beneath me to marry Harrington," remarked Muriel, with an
air of contemptuous hauteur which Witherlee had never seen
her wear before, and which surprised him.  Whew! he
thought, Harrington is catching it now for his presumption
with a vengeance! I wouldn't sit there, and have that said
to my face, for anything.
"Why yes," he replied, glancing at Harrington, who sat
with his face buried in his hand, and what was visible of it so
red that Witherlee thought he was smitten with agonizing
shame, as he was, but it was for Witherlee. "Yes, Bagasse
went into a fit of eloquence about it, and told what he
would do if he was'vair fine ladee,' and thought Harrington
loved him."  And Witherlee  laughed turtle-husky at the
reminiscence, without any more regard for Harrington's feelings than if he were a post.
"Well, Wentworth, are you satisfied?" asked Muriel,
quietly.
1 7*




394                   HARRINGTON.
Wentworth, who had gone off into deep abstraction, and
lost the conversation between Muriel and Witherlee (which
would have convulsed him, and which had sorely tried Emily's
power to suppress her mirth), started and colored.
" Why, yes," he replied, "I am bound to own that Fernando's explanation puts a different look upon the matter, though
I think he did wrong to speak to Bagasse in such terms of
Harrington, and I think he owes Harrington an apology for
language at the best too ungentlemanly-I must say it, Fernando-to be passed over in silence. There is no excuse for
it. It was shameful."
"Do you really think so, Richard?" said Muriel, with such
a contemptuous tone and expression that Wentworth turned
red, and stared at her, wondering what she could mean; while
Emily moved awany to the window, and hid herself behind a
curtain, that she might give some vent to her agony of
mirth.
" "Tell, Fernando," said Muriel, after a pause, " what do
you think about making AMr. Harrington an apology?"
Witherlee, emboldened to intense insolence by his monstrously silly supposition that Muriel was showering contempt
on her lover, curved a supercilious lip and curled a contumelious nose to that extent, that the fiery Wentworth positively
ached to knock him down.
"I do not think about it at all," drawled the good Fernando.
"Very well," said Muriel, holding Wentworth with her
eye. "Now, Fernando, since we are explaining things, let
me ask you how you came to say that you saw Wentworth
and I one afternoon more than a week ago, folded in each
other's arms in the parlor, and kissing each other?"
Muriel's tactics were capital. By diverting his mind from
the main subject of conversation, she had thrown him completely off his guard, and then suddenly sprung this question
upon him. Fernando positively changed color, and then turned
deadly pale. If a bomb-shell had quietly fallen into his lap,
with the fuze just fizzing into the powder, he could not have
been much more astounded.




HARRINGTON.                    395
There was a pause, in which Emily came gliding back to her
seat, all alive with curiosity at this unexpected turn in affairs,
while Wentworth stared blankly, and Harrington sat with his
face buried in his hand, watching Witherlee, as the marine
phrase has it, out of the tail of his eye.
" Well, Fernando, you turn red, and then you turn pale,"
remarked Muriel, quietly.  "What do  those two  colors
mean?"
" They mean astonishment," said Witherlee, recovering his
self-possession instantly, and looking at her with his most
brazen face, conscious that the tug of war had come, and with
an antagonist of another sort than Wentworth or Emily.
Oho, thought Muriel, surveying his admirably dissimulated
face. I wonder if I'm going to lose this move.  Let's see.
"You don't mean to deny that I did see you in such a position with Wentworth?" said Witherlee.
"Most assuredly," was Muriel's quiet reply.
" Most inevitably," said Wentworth, like an Irish echo.
"Why, this is perfectly unaccountable," murmured Witherlee, with superbly acted astonishment. " I certainly did see
you both, as I told Mr. Harrington in a rash moment, which
I can never too much regret. I was entering the parlor when I
saw you, and drew back instantly. I came in again in a
minute, and Emily had just entered the room, through the
door leading from the conservatory."
" It can't be," said Muriel.
"Can't possibly be," said the Irish echo, ineffably delighted
at Witherlee's fix.
"But how  could I be mistaken," persisted Witherlee.
"There you evidently were, both of you, in that position.
You, Muriel, had on the lilac dress you so often wear. It
was the first thing I saw, and I knew you by it instantly."
" Utterly impossible," said Muriel.
" Tee-totally impossible," said the gleeful echo.
Witherlee was silent, and gazed at them with admirable
dubiety, wishing in his heart that they would only say more,
for with these brief denials, he found it difficult to gracefully
gain the point he was driving at.




396                   HARRINGTON.
"It was I you saw, Fernando; I had on a lila-c dress that
evening," said the innocent Emily, blushing.
Muriel winced, for her game was weakened by this avowal,
which had brought up the point Fernando was waiting for,
and which she did not mean he should have.  Fernando, meanwhile, was delighted, for he saw his clear way out.
"You had on a lilac dress that evening!" he said, with an
air of surprise, to Emily. " Well, I declare I didn't notice it.
But how does that alter the matter?  Oh, I see!" he exclaimed, his face lighting.  "It was the lilac dress misled me,
for you wore your lilac dress that evening, Muriel. That's it.
My eye caught sight of the dress, and I mistook you for Emily,
and retreated before my eye could rectify the error.  What
an unlucky blunder! I'm very, very sorry. But in the confusion of the moment, I was naturally deceived. Well, well I
Muriel, I humbly beg your pardon, not only for having mentioned what I thought I saw to Mr. Harrington-but you
won't blame me for that, for it foolishly came out in the heat
of conversation-but for this unfortunate mistake of mine. It
was natural, under the circumstances, but it is not the less humiliating. Say that you forgive me, now, do!"
"Oh, well, Fernando," she replied, nonchalantly laughing,
" I must, of course, give weight to your plea of its naturalness
under the circumstances. Still, you perceive it was a rather
awkward blunder, and it ought to make you more careful for
the future."'Indeed, it will-I'll be.very careful not to make such a
mistake again," said Fernando, laughing turtle, and quite exhilarated by his lucky escape.
" That's right," said Muriel, gaily.  "For such a mistake,
Fernando, might break up our long acquaintance. At all
events," she pursued, with a laugh, " it might prevent your
being honored with such a theatrical reception as I gave you
that evening."
" Theatrical?" said he, smiling; "what do you mean?"
"Why, don't you remember," she lightly responded, " how
suddenly I struck an attitude, and held out the bunch of
flowers to you?"




HARRINGTON.                   397
"Yes, indeed," replied the jocund Witherlee.  "I had forgotten it, but I remember it now. Just as I came in at one
door, and you"
He paused blankly, but he was in the trap, and there was
no escape now.
" And I came in at the other," continued Muriel, finishing
his sentence.
He gazed at her, pale, with opaquest eyes; she at him, with
clear eyes aglow, and a solemn look upon her countenance.
Wentworth and Emily stared at both of them, not comprehending the point at all.
"And now, Fernando," said Muriel, calmly, "the question
for you to answer is —How could you think you saw me with
Wentworth, when you saw me come in from the conservatory,
holding out the bunch of flowers to you?"
A posing question I There was a long pause, in which
Witherlee kept his rigid face fixed upon her. Then, unable
to'bear her clear gaze, he meanly trembled, and his head fell.
"Ah I" said Wentworth, in a low voice, "catch the first I
A decided catch. Fernando, my boy, we have you ia a pure
and simple lie."
At this terrible speech, Witherlee lifted his livid and rigid
face with a forlorn attempt at dignity, but he could not sustain it. His glittering and unsteady eyes flickered away from
the open and gallant countenance of Wentworth; from Emily,
gazing at him with lustrous scorn; from  Muriel, looking at
him with solemn pity; from Harrington, sitting with his head
bowed in his hand, and fell. He could not bear to look at
them. Mischief-makers, like other criminals, usually mix folly
with their crime, and in the commission of their wickedness,
commonly leave the clue to its discovery. Thus had Witherlee
done. And now he was found out. To tattle and lie and
slander was nothing to him; but to be discovered, was death.
"Fernando," said Emily, with indignant composure, "this
wicked falsehood you have told makes it impossible to believe
a word you have said.  I do not now credit a single syllable
of your explanation-not one."
At the sound of her voice, Witherlee seemed to recover a




398                   HARRINGTON.
little self-possession, for he turned quickly to her, though his
unsteady eyes did not rest upon her face.
" You have no right to say that," he replied in a querulous
and tremulous voice, "no right whatever. I am willing to
own my fault, but it is not fair to argue from one fault to
another. I have told you the truth, and you saw its reasonableness, and acquitted me of blame. It is not fair to take it
back, not at all fair."
He rose to his feet with a look of received injury, which
even then touched Emily, and made her hesitate in her verdict.  But at that moment Harrington left his chair, and
came toward him with tears flowing from his eyes. Witherlee
cowered at the sight of this solemn and compassionate emotion, and his head fell.  In that moment he remembered the
hard and cruel insult he had so lately flung upon the man before him, and he trembled in an agony of shame.
" Fernando," said Harrington, calmly and tenderly, "I
pity you from the bottom of my heart. I could almost die
with pity for you. Do not, I beg of you, do not degrade your
soul by persisting in what you know to be falsehoods. You
know you are not telling Emily the truth now, and you know
there is not a word of truth in all you have told her,"
" I do not see what right you have to say that, Harrington," faltered Witherlee.
" Fernando!" exclaimed  Harrington, solemnly, "Alas,
alas I you poor fellow, I do not blame you I there is some virtue still in this forlorn attempt to clothe the nakedness of
your falsehood in the semblance of truth. But it is useless,
and it only does your nature a more grievous harm. Do you
not see that you have already confessed all? You have
admitted that you knew it was Emily and Wentworth you
saw together. You knew, therefore, that they were lovers.
How can you say then, that in your conversation with Emily
that very evening, you did not know of their feeling for each
other? How can you say that you did not know your terrible dispraise of Wentworth, so artfully clothed in praise,
would shock and grieve the woman who loved him? How
can you say you did not know your story of Susan Hollings



HARRINGTON.                   399
worth would throw its shadow on the thoughts with which
you had filled Emily?  How can you say you thought your
aggravating word a week later over the violets, was harmless? Ah, Fernando I how could you so coldly and cruelly
drop this subtle poison into the hearts of two lovers? You
gave Richard and Emily hours of terrible suffering. You
nearly alienated them from each other-you almost murdered
their love. How could you do it? You knew they loved
each other-you knew I loved Muriel; and yet you wantonly
saddened my heart by virtually telling me that Wentworth
and Muriel were betrothed. At the same time when you
knew that Emily loved Wentworth, you gave Captain
Fisher to understand that she was engaged to me. Fernando,
you are entirely discovered. Your talk with Bagasse is just
as transparent, and just as disgraceful to your better nature,
as all the rest. Alas, alas! I can only pity you I"
The deep voice was gentle, and tears still flowed from the
calm eyes.  Emily sat with her handkerchief to her face,
touched by the majestic sorrow of Harrington into compassion, and weeping silently. Muriel had covered her eyes with
her hand. Wentworth stood with folded arms, his face pale,
and fixed on Witherlee.  Witherlee, completely unmasked
even to himself, stood with bowed head, livid and trembling,
and there was a long pause.
" Harrington," faltered the poor rogue, in a weak, querulous
voice, " I am very sorry-I am indeed. I know I've done
wrong-very wrong, and I'm sorry. I feel very miserable. I
haven't a friend in the world now, and I know I don't deserve
to have. But I hope you'll forgive me, Harrington, though I
did you harm. I didn't quite mean "His faltering voice broke, and apparently unconscious of any
but the presence of the young man before him, he sunk his
head a little lower, and stood trembling.
" Forgive you I" exclaimed Harrington, in a voice so sudden
and sonorous that Witherlee started, and fell a pace away.
"Fernando, give me your hand I"
Tremblingly, as Harrington strode straight up to him, with
a frank outstretched arm, Witherlee put his nerveless hand in




400                    ARRINGTTON.
his, looked up for an instant into the masculine and noble
face, dropped his head and burst into tears.
A surge of emotion overswept them all, and for a minute
there was no sound but the thick sobs of Witherlee.
"Fernando," said Harrington, solemnly, clasping his hand,
and putting his arm tenderly around him, "let the past be
with the past, and live nobler for the future. See: your
repentance cancels all, and lifts you into better life. You are
not friendless-not forsaken. We are your friends, all of us,
and we will stand by you. Forgive you?  I do with all my
soul, fully, heartily, cordially."
"And I, too, Fernando," cried Muriel, bounding up, and
gliding swiftly toward him, with humid eyes and outstretched
hand. " Well I may, for you did me the greatest service ever
done to me, and I owe you much gratitude."
" I don't understand," faltered poor Witherlee, trembling
all over, and smiling, with an effort, a thin, gelid, arctic smile
through his abject tears, as he tremulously shook her hand.
"You introduced me, three years ago, to Harrington," she
smilingly replied, "and now he is my husband.  We were
married yesterday."
Fernando stopped trembling, and lifted his handsome eyebrows a hair's breadth, with something of his old manner, then
fell a-trembling again, and tried to smile.
"I am very glad to hear this," he wanly faltered, "very
glad indeed. I wish you much happiness. If you'll please to
excuse me, I'll-I'll take my leave."
He bowed with the ghost of his former affected elegance of
manner, and gelidly smiling, backed toward the door.
" Hold on, Fernando," exclaimed Wentworth, flying over
to him. "Tip us your flipper, my boy. There isn't a speck
of me that's not friendly to you-not a speck. Come and
see me as often as you can —that's a good fellow."
And Wentworth, smiling, shook his hand up and down
with great cordiality, as he rattled off this address.
" And I, Fernando," said Emily, with her slow, ambrosial
smile, sweeping over to him as she spoke, and also taking his
hand, " I am more your friend than I have ever been. I felt




HARRINGTON.                    401
terribly at what you said, but I don't now, so let it all go.
Come to see me soon, won't you?"
" Thank you. You are both very kind," faltered Witherlee.
" Let us see you as often as you can, Fernando," said Harrington, shaking hands with him.
" Yes, do, Fernando," said Muriel, also giving him her
hand. " Let us forget all this, and when we next meet, let it
be happily."
He bowed, with his face full of forlorn emotion, and backing
to the door, bowed himself out of the room. They stood in
silence. Presently they heard the shutting of the street-door.
HZe was gone.
" Good!" exclaimed Wentworth, with a deep respiration.
" Fernando's cured for life 1"
" I believe he is," murmured Muriel. "But he almost
missed his salvation, poor fellow 1"
"That he did," replied Wentworth.  "He got clear of
Emily, and he got clear of me. I never saw anything like
it. But you nailed him, Muriel, and Harrington finished
him."
" Ah, me I" said larrington, with a deep sigh, " it was an
awful lesson to give a fellow-being. But it was for his good.
Yes, he will be a better man for the future."
Emily. sat in silence, wiping the fast-springing tears from her
eyes.
" I wonder how he will look when we next see him," said
Wentworth, musingly. " And I wonder how soon he will call
here after this ""Nay," interrupted Muriel, her drooping hands clasped
before her, aidd her head bowed in pensive reverie, " he will
never call here again."
She was right. He never did-but once.




402                  IHARRINGTON.
CHAPTER XXVI.
A MAN  OF RUINED  BLOOD.
WHERE was Mr. Lafitte all this time?  Had he returned
to the sunny South, and to that particular part of its sunniness in which sweltered his negroes at their miserable
toil?
Mr. Lafitte had not. He was still in the city, at the Tremont House, and for the last three days he had kept his room,
sick and shattered with the terrible shock he had received, and
raging like a devil in his impotent fury. That he should owe
his life to the man he hated was bad enough; but to a woman,
and worse still, to a negro-oh, to his rank and insolent pride
this was the humiliation of humiliations I It had not come to
him at first, but several hours after Harrington had left him,
when he began to recover from the paralysis of spirit in which
he lay, it outgrew upon him, and increased in intensity, till he
raved in a phrenetic agony of infernal shame and rage.
In this delightful mood he had continued for three days.
Exhausted on the night of the third by the violence of his
frenzy, he had slept heavily, and awakened late on the morning of the fourth, calmer in spirit, and though still somewhat
weak, stronger and in better health than he had been. The
Atkinses, father and sons, had called severally three times,
during his illness, but he had left orders that he would
see nobody, and they had not been admitted to his presence.
Up now and dressed, his breakfast eaten, two juleps imbibed
and a cigar finished, he began to feel more like himself, and
look more like the handsome brunette devil he usually was. A
little less rich in color, to be sure, but still sufficiently so for
good appearance's sake; and as he walked up and down the
plainly-furnished chamber, in the space between his bed and




HARRINGTON.                       403
the window, he even felt something of his usual fiendish jocundity revive sullenly within him.
Three letters had arrived for him during his illness. He had
not even looked at them, but let them lie unopened on the
table where the servant had laid them. Now, however, when
his mind was able to attend to their contents, he paused in his
walk as his eye rested on them, and approaching the table,
took them up, and gazed at their superscriptions and post-marks.
" That's from  my brother," he muttered, "and that also,
and this-' Mobile  forwarded'-who can this be from?"
He tore it open, and ran his eye over the contents.
" Oh, pshaw!" he snarled, flinging it down.  "Business.
Business be cursed I I'm in no mood for business. Let's see
what Joseph has to say for himself. Which is the first-Oh,
this is it."
He opened the letter, deliberately smoothed it out, and
caressing his moustache with one hand, while he held the sheet
in the other, began to read with a face that flushed into a
horrid and tigerish smile as he read on.  This was the letter:
NEW ORLEANS, La., lffy 20oi, 1852.
DEAR TORWOOD:
There's been the devil to pay up on your plantation, and no mistake, and poor Tassle has gone the way of all flesh. On the 15th,
Tassle lashed that mulatto wench Sally three or four times for falling
down in the rows-the yellow beast pretending of course that she was
sick, as they always do. Precious little work, at all events, was got
out of her that day, and when night came, Tassle staked her down for
a good flogging. That black Jim of yours, her husband, tried to beg
her off the flogging, but Tassle wasn't to be wheedled out of it, and
struck Jim, so they tell me, across the face with the whip. Whereupon, Jim flew at him with an axe, and in a second it was all up with
poor Tassle. The boy actually cut him to pieces, and then ran for the
swamp. The planters were roused, however, got out the dogs, hunted
him down, and in less than no time, I may say, a fire was lit by the
bayou, and the black scoundrel trussed up and burned alive, screeching
like mad, with all the niggers looking on. They'll profit by the example, I reckon, and learn that it won't do to murder a white manthe cursed brutes.
I am hurrying up to fix business, so that I can go up river, and attend to the plantation for you, till you get back. But you'd better




404                     HIARRINGTON.
hurry home as quick as you can, for it's a busy season with us here,
and I can't well be away.      In haste, your aff.,
JOSEPH LAFITTE.
P.S. By the way, the wench Sally gave birth to a fine piccaninny, a
boy, that night-somewhat prematurely, I'm told. So you see there's
no small loss without some great gain.  As for Tassle, he's no loss at
all, for you can easily replace him, and I've got lly eye on a capital
overseer for you.                                     J. L.
The smile on the sardonic visage of Mr. Lafitte expanded
more and more tigerish, and as he came to the end of the letter, he burst into a smooth, soft roar of merriment, while
floods of devilish delight raged within him.
"And so William Tassle's food for worms," he soliloquized,
shaking with internal laughter.  "Poor Tassle, that's the end
of you.  And Jim's roasted.  Good! I hope they made the
fire slow. Infernal scoundrel! I wish I'd been there to hear
him screech the soul out of him. That's the way to keep the
black devils under.  God I if it wasn't for a good fire round
some of them when they lift their hands against us, I believe
that they'd be up in insurrection, and give us St. Domingo.
But that they never can do while the Union lasts. Ah, the
glorious Union I Rise on us if you dare, my black angels, and
see the short work the muskets of the Union will make with
you.  Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!  That's the ticket for you, my black cherubs!'"
And again Mr. Lafitte burst into raging laughter.
"Ah, me, ah me I" he sighed, subsiding.  "I feel refreshingly wicked to-day, spite of all. This news has done me
igood. But let's see what Joseph has to say again," he added,
deliberately opening the other letter, and smoothing it out as
he had done the first, with a sardonic smile on his brunette face..
Ah, Mr. Lafitte!  What is this?  As he began to read
the color of his face vanished, like the flame of a blown-out
lamp, his complexion became livid, with dark spots on its
ghastliness, his eyes grew glassy, and his jaw fell. He did
not drop the letter, but read slowly and steadily on-and this
is what he read:




HARRINGTON.                        405
LAFITTE PLANTATION, AVOYELLES, LA. 
1-aty 23d, 1852. 
ToRwooD, come home for God's sake as quick as you can. There's
worse news here than I wrote you on the 2oth. Josephine has eloped
with young Raynal. I'm sorry to tell you so abruptly, but I don't know
how to break it to you. This is evidently a preconcerted affair, for
Raynal, you know, was retiring from business just about the time you
left, and has since been turning all his property into money. Anyhow,
they're gone-gone to Italy-and they're out of the country by this
time.
I've just arrived here, and I never was so horrified in my life as when
I discovered this. I half suspected that there was something wrong
when I heard that Raynal had been in the neighborhood, for I knew
that he loved her before her marriage to you. But I didn't get any
idea of it till just now, when I came up to the house and inquiring for
Josephine, was told by your cook that Raynal came there the night of
Jim's barbecue, and that she had left with him, taking only a single
trunk with her.  Which way they went, up river or down, nobody
knows. But I went up-stairs into her chamber, and found a sheet of
note paper lying on her writing-desk, addressed to you, on which was
written just these words and no more: "Lafitte, I go away to-night
to Italy, never to return." That was every word.
Torwood, I'm devilish sorry for you. I had no idea that Josephine
would do such a thing as this, for everybody knows and says you've
been a good husband to her, and down in Orleans you wvere talked of
as a model couple, and your constant courtesy and kindness to her
was in everybody's mouth.  Well, women are the devil, and no
mistake.
But come home as soon as you can. Nobody but rme knows what
has happened, and I think we can keep this matter private, and save
you the disgrace. Of course her family must know it, but they'll feel
terribly cut up about it, and be willing to keep dark. I've spread it
around that Raynal has taken her up North to you, so the wonder of
her absence is explained. Then, perhaps, you can say that she died
suddenly up North, and put on the bereaved dodge, and so cover it
up for good.
Anyhow, come right along, and we'll consult together about it.
In great haste, your aff.,
JOSEPt LAFITTE.
He slowly laid the letter down, and stood still. Livid and
spotted as a corpse when decomposition has begun, his glassy
orbs fixed on vacancy, his jaw fallen and rigid, his whole form
motionless.  Thus for a full minute.  Then, his fallen jaw




406                   HARRINGTON.
slowly lifted, his lips came together, and a still and frightful
smile glided upon his features.
" God 1" he exclaimed, in a low, clear, distinct voice, "it's
over. Josephine has escaped from holy matrimony."
He said no more, but with the still and fright[ful smile upon
his face, stood motionless for some minutes. Slowly his color
returned, his glossy, blood-specked, tawny orbs outgrew again
from the glassiness, and opening his tiger mouth, he burst
into a long fit of smooth, soft, sardonic laughter.
"Yes," he soliloquized, subsiding from his fiendish mirth
into a fiendish smile-" yes, indeed, Josephine has escaped
from holy matrimony. Oh, what a blow to the interests of
morality I  What a shock to the foundations of society!
What a rupture of the sacred bonds of wedlock! What a
profanation of the sacrament of marriage! And Joseph proposes to keep it dark. Oh, Joseph, Joseph, how can you?
As a good Christian, as a friend of morality, and religion,
and society, and, above all, holy matrimony, could I do it?
Ah, never, never I And Joseph wants to save me the disgrace. The disgrace!" —and with a negrine ptchih, Mr. Lafitte
wepit off into a fit of chuckling merriment.
"No, indeed, Joseph," he resumed, " we must spread it, and
spread it wide. We must get it into the papers, my beloved
brother.  We must get it into the New Orleans papers, and
the Western papers, and the New York papers. Josephine
must have the disgrace as my last love-touch, and I must have
the sympathy of the Friends of Virtue, sweet Joseph. Oh,
Lord I" and he chuckled, "what fun I shall have in my affliction reading the homilies of the moral editors!  Let's see,
how will they go....  Melancholy Case of Conjugal Infidelity.....  Yes, that's pretty good.....  Free Love
Invading the Family Circle.... And that's magnificent.
The Results of Free Love Teachings.... That's magnificent, too.  Let's see....  Another Base Violation of the
Marriage Tie.... Shocking Case of Seduction, Elopement, and Crime....  Another Blow at the Foundations
of Morality....  Ruin of a Home and a Husband.....
Oh, they're all good-capital I Then the articles. Lord, but




HARRTINGTON.                   407
won't they be luscious I  How I shall weep over the tender
sympathy; how I shall mourn, yet say, it is just,. over the stern
condemnation of Josephine; what a moral glow I shall feel
through all my being at the severe rectitude and fidelity to the
best interests of morality which will pervade those high-toned
editorials I  Now let's see.  Let's compose an appropriate
one. It must be a piece of ignorant, stupid, brutal, sentimental twaddle, mal-apropos and blundering, and stuck full of
stale quotations, or it won't be in style.  Hold on now," and
in a declamatory voice he went on as follows: ".....  We
chronicle in another column a mournful case of conjugal perfidy, of which a too tender and confiding husband is the heartbroken victim.  To what vortex are we rushing?  Well may
we say, in the language of the immortal dramatist, that such
a deed as this-' makes marriage vows
As false as dicers' oaths. Oh! such a deed
As from the body of contraction plucks
The very soul; and sweet religion makes
A rhapsody of words! Rebellious hell,
If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones,
To flaming youth let virtue be as wax,
And melt in her own fire!'
Capital, capital I" roared Mr. Lafitte, with a spasm  of
chuckling merriment, rubbing his hands gleefully, as he spoke,
"that's the stock quotation, and doesn't it come in gloriously 1
Rebellious hell in the matron Josephine's bones-Oh, upon my
soul, but that's decidedly neat I Fire away, my boy.
In this melancholy tragedy which has laid low the Lares and
Penates of a once happy home, and brought the severest affliction on the fond and trusting heart of a highly respectable and
estimable citizen, we trace the pernicious influence of those
detestable and licentious doctrines which have become, alas!
too prevalent throughout the land. We allude of course to the
doctrines of Free Love, and let every man in his sober senses
look upon this domestic tragedy, the legitimate result of those
vile teachings whose poison is spread abroad through the very
air, and ask what is to be the end, when such tenets are openly




408                    HARRINGTON.
disseminated?  HIere was a woman-we call her woman, but
every true woman's heart will rise in just indignation to clutch
away the name from such a moral monster! a female fiend
rather, who could defile the inviolable sanctuary of wedded
life, listen to the insidious honeyed words of a base seducer, fly
from the tender endearments of home, ruthlessly abandon her
fond and trusting husband and innocent children-Oh, damn
it," broke in Mr. Lafitte, "that won't do! I've got no children.  Ah, me! what a pity.  It would be so pathetic if the
children could be in it-the clear, little innocent children! No
matter:.... abandon her fond and trusting husband,
with whom she had lived so many happy years, and who had
lavished on her his wealth, his good name, and all the priceless
riches of a generous and affectionate nature, surroundling her
with every comfort and ministering with the tenderest assiduity
to her lightest want-abandon all this, and depart with her
paramour to a life of shame on the voluptuous and luxurious
shores of Italy.  Ah, well may this modern Messalina go to
Italy!
"Tis the land of the East,'tis the clime of the sun,
Can he smile on the deeds that his children have done?'
Capital!" again roared Mr. Lafitte, rubbing his
gleeful hands, "Italy the land of the East! That's a regular
blunderbuss of a quotation, and therefore in exquisite keeping.
Oh, upon my soul, that conies in finely!  But fire away,
Lafitte, you delicious dog.  Let's see now.          What
makes the criminality of this shameful woman's conduct more
inexcusable and inexplicable is the fact that she had lived for
years in the most perfect harmony with her amiable and estimable husband, receiving from him the most unvarying tenderness,
and to the eye of every person most faimiliar with their domestic
life, evidently the happiest of the happy.  We have it from the
most reliable sources that no cloud ever appeared to mar the
horizon of their home, and among their intimate friends, the
courtesy and almost uxorious tenderness of his demeanor toward her, was absolutely proverbial. But why seek to trace
the causes of this base and ungrateful treachery? Alas I since




HARRINGTON.                   409O
Eve listened to the temptings of the serpent, how many of the.
sex have sacrificed their conjugal Eden for the bleak wilderness,
of illicit love! Frailty, thy name is woman i"
Mr. Lafitte stopped, and with another ptchih, went off into
a fit of infernal merriment, wagging his head from side to side
in the frenzy of his glee.
"That's the way they do it!" he exclaimed, resuming..
" Lord, I ought to be an editor! I was cut out for a highpressure moral editor of the purest water!  The blasted
idiots —that's the way they roll it out whenever one of these
inexcusable and inexplicable cases of shameful criminality on
the woman's side, and heavenly love and tenderness on the
man's side, or vice versa, come to their confounded eyes! The
owls-the bats-the insufferable fraternity of asses! Lord, Lord!
how often I've laughed till I ached over their moral gabble, thinking all the while of the sweet little hell the women or the men
they were pitching into had cut away from, and which the
witless ninnies hadn't brains enough to fancy! And then
their tender sympathy to the bereaved one-hold on-let me
fancy how they'll touch me off?... We proffer to the bereaved
husband, in his sad affliction, our tenderest sympathy, and may
God who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, give him strength
to bear this terrible trial which has thus desolated the sanctuary of his lonely and forsaken home.... and so forth, and so
forth, and so forth. Yes, that's the way they'll pour the oil
of healing into my aching wounds I Oh, but it'll be touching.
And then society-what sympathy I'll have from society. I
must be in New Orleans a few weeks to enjoy my affliction.
How melancholy I'll look-how interesting I And all the old
ladies flocking around me with such doleful and tender faces,
and oh, Mr. Lafitte, we feel so sorry for you, and oh, Mr.
Lafitte, we read that beautiful article in the paper this morning, and it was so sweet and so noble and so high-toned, and
so this, that, and the other.  And the young ladies ogling me
with melancholy eyes, and whispering to each other, oh, isn't
he handsome, and oh, isn't he interesting, and oh, doesn't he
bear it beautifully, and how much did you say he was worth?
-and dying to become Mrs. Lafitte, number two, every fool
18




410                   IARRINGTON.
of them. And then the Friends of Virtue, men and women,
young and old, in solid column, pitching into Josephine, and
scandalizing her sky-high, and raking up everything she ever
said or did, and twisting it against her. Oh, but it will be
sweet I Sweeter than to have Raynal's blood on my hands —
the dog! Then when the grand hallali begins to die out, I'll
apply for my divorce, and revive it all once more. Ah, delicious I And then by and by, perhaps, I'll marry againsome queen of a girl dead in love with the rich Mr. Lafitte,
the handsome Mr. Lafitte, the gentle and courteous Mr. Lafitte, with the steel claw in the velvet paw. Ah I and if
Fatima isn't docile, Bluebeard will take her into the Blue
Chamber where Josephine had a little private experience.
Good, good! Lafitte, you gay dog, you are positively witty 1"
Wagging his wicked head to himself, he walked slowly up
and down, laughing softly and smoothly, with his face bent
toward the carpet.  He stopped his walk in a minute or two,
and the smile on his visage faded slowly into a look of sullen
and evil moodiness.
" The revenge is sweet," he muttered, "but there is gall in
it. She has escaped from her hell with me, and she will be
happy with Raynal. Yes, there in that lovely Italy, far away
from all the howls of the slandering curs, she will be happy
with Raynal. For he loves her, and they are both young
still, and she is beautiful, and will be fond and sweet, and he is
tender to women, and manly-bah I I hate him I"
He walked up and down in silence for a few minutes, with
an evil and moody face, and finally paused with his gloomy
eyes fixed on vacancy.
" People will rave at them," he muttered, " but what matt& is it what people will say I  Fools I Look at it. What
was she?  The prey of my lust-the victim of my cruelty.
God! I will not lie to myself whoever else I lie to! That is
just what she was. I won her, a young, inexperienced, innocent girl-she lived with me as she did, and they call it holy
matrimony. She flies now from lust and cruelty to love and
tenderness, and they call it adultery.  Oh, world, world,
world! Should I have been what I am, if you had not been




IARRINGTON.                   411
what you are! Damn you I! you have ruined me!-from my
very cradle you have ruined me! I hate you-I despise you
-I have grown up hating and despising you-soured, and
corrupted, and depraved by you —and I shall be glad when
this wretched candle of a life goes out in the blackness of
darkness forever. Well, well I Be happy, Josephine, with
your Raynal. I hate you both, and what I can do to harm
you I will."
He sat down near the table, and leaned his head on his hand.
As he did so, a tap came to the door.
" Come in," he snarled.
It was a servant, who said a gentleman wanted to see him.
" What's his name? No matter. Show him up."
With an uneasy, furtive glance at him, the man departed, and
in two or three minutes appeared again with Captain Bangham.
"Well, what do you want?" snarled Lafitte, the moment
he appeared. " Have you found that curse, Antony?"
The captain looked savage and sullen at this reception, and
hated Lafitte ten times worse than ever, while, at the same
time, he was afraid of him.
"No, I haven't found him," he said, snappishly. "I've been
two or three times up where that Roux lives, and he's not
there, and nobody knows where he is; and as for the other, I
can't get any clue to him."
Mr. Lafitte rose from his chair, and with glossy, tigerish
eyes, and a ferocious face, advanced upon Bangham, who
winced a little as he came, as if he would like to run from the
room but for the shame of it. Bullies are not always cowards,
but this bully was.
"Hark you, Bangham," said Mr. Lafitte, in a low, smooth
voice, " I'm going home in the first train, and you may tell
Atkins I've gone, for I shan't see him again. That Roux I
don't want, so let him alone. But you find Antony for me, or
look out. You're in a fix, my captain, and you know it. You
can't bring any evidence against the presumption of the law
that you willfully refused to return that slave. Where are your
witnesses to the contrary? Your mate has left Atkins's employ-your sailors don't go back to New Orleans with you.




412                   HARRINGTON.
You know the penalty for not bringing back a slave you find
on board your brig-from three to seven years in prison, and
the payment of the full value of the slave; and I'll set that
value high, Bangham, you may depend. Let your brig touch
the Levee again and he not on board, and I'll make you suffer
to the full extent of my power, and spread stories around which
will ruin Atkins in New Orleans for good. Mind what I say
to you. Now go."
At the haughty mandate of the Southerner, spoken with an
outstretched finger, as though he was ordering away'his
meanest slave, Bang-ham slunk from the room without a
word.
"Whelp," snarled Lafitte, walking away from  the door
with a shrug of contempt.  "Yes, I'll let Roux go. I owe
so much to that good fool, Harrington, I suppose. Curse me,
if I don't almost hate myself for liking that fellow! There's
another happy pair.  lie and that bright creature will be
marrying presently, and going in for domestic felicity with a
rush.  Blast them, I hope they'll be miserable together
through life, and I wish I could make them so! Well-now
to pack up and leave this cursed city for home. I burn to get
at my black cattle again, and ease my heart of its hatred on
them.  I hate them and they hate me, and life is thick and
sweet with hate.  Oh, but I'll work, and flog, and torture
them worse than ever now I Thanks to the blessed laws of
Louisiana, I can do it, as long as the glorious Union lasts.
Till these northern curs dissolve that, my rule is secure, but
when they do, if they ever do,'ware Lafitte,'ware my Southern
brethren, for the black worm will turn, and hey for St.
Domingo!"
CHAPTER XXVII.
REVELATIONS.
WITHERLEE had not left the house in Temple street but a
little while, when a couple of ladies, intimate with the family.




HARRINGTON.                   413
who had seen the news of the marriage in the morning paper,
called, on a visit of congratulation. Presently more came,
and up to one o'clock there was a dropping shower of callers.
Last of all arrived Miss Bean, a fat and spectacled childish old
maiden lady, with a prude's face-the same who, when poor
Susan Hollingsworth was being flayed alive at Mrs. Binghampton's party, had brought ignominy on her defender, young
Mr. Mill, by inquiring if he was going to come out in favor of
Mormonism. Received graciously, and having found out all
she could about Mr. Harrington, and that the newly married
couple were not going on a bridal tour, and that there was to
be no reception, but that everybody was expected to call without formality, Miss Bean waddled off, and, as Muriel expected
she would do, never rested till she had gone the entire round
of her acquaintance, and spread the information she had
received to the remotest borders of society.
Left alone, Harrington and Muriel, accompanied by Wentworth and Emily, went to call on the tabooed Hollingsworths,
and returned in about an hour in great satisfaction. None but
Muriel, however, knew the sweetest part of that visit; for
poor Susan not appearing in the parlor, Muriel had begged to
see her, and at last had been admitted to the sad chamber of
her humiliation and anguish. And there, with all fond endearment, and sweet, wise words of sympathy and counsel, Muriel
had cheered and comforted her, and prevailed on her to make
the visit. It was not a deed that the lofty rectitude of a Bean
or a Binghampton could approve; but alas, the beautiful
blonde was not a Friend of Virtue I
That Susan was to make the visit, and that she was to come
some time next week, was all that anybody but Susan and
Muriel knew, but that was enough to set the party in a state
of great gratification, and in that state they arrived again at
Temple street.
Wentworth had been prevailed upon to spend the day, and
after dinner, Harrington having said to him, "Richard, you
are interested in Hungarian fugitives, come with us and see
some fugitives of another color," they had all gone up-stairs,
Mrs. Eastman included, to listen to the story of Antony.




414                   HARRINGTON.
It was a story till then untold to any of them, even to Harrington; for in Antony's weak health, and amidst the thickcrowding excitements and interests of the four preceding days,
time and opportunity had been wanting. Now, however, they'
had come, and the story was told.
A touching and an awful story. The story of a man who
had fled for Liberty or Death through the malignant horrors of
a Southern fen, with the hounds and hunters of a pirate civilization on his trail, and who had lain for weeks like years, in
cold, and stench, and hunger, with rats and vermin swarming
over him, in the black and filthy antre of a Northern vessel's
hold, with a Northern ruffian to maltreat him daily in his
wasting torture.; earning thus, with pangs and fears that freemen never know, his right to the freedom Nature gave him for
his own.
A touching and an awful story, whose dread reality had a
haggard, haunting shadow, more dreadful than itself.  For
the man's childish imagination had been unnaturally wrought
upon, and his tale involved a flickering and ghostly sense that
he had been in Hell, and that his tormentors were not men but
devils. He did not aver it, but it was strangely and indefinably implied in his grotesque narration, and reached the
minds of his auditors. Was he wrong? He had suffered
much; his reason had been a little shaken by his awful experiences; his superstitious, childish fancy had been insanely
stirred. And yet-was he wrong?
As people emerging from some dark cavern into the glad
light of day, so from the room of the fugitive, came the five
again into the cheerful library. Muriel's face was grave and
dreamful; Harrington was sad and silent; Mrs. Eastman
wore a disturbed look; Emily seemed a little frightened, and
Wentworth was red with indignation.
They took their seats again without speaking, and for a
minute or two nothing was said.
" Well, Richard," said Harrington, at length, "what do
you think now of Hungarian fugitives as objects of sympathy,
compared.with fugitives like that up-stairs?"
"Oh bother Hungarian fugitives!" blurted Wentworth.




HARRINGTON.                   415
"Here's Hungarians, as John Randolph said of the Greeks,
at our very doors. After hearing that man's story, I can't
help losing my admiration for Kossuth.  You know he censured the editor Gyurman, his countryman, for writing against
slavery, and I thought once he was right; but, by Jupiter, a
man who knows anything about slavery, as I do now, and
doesn't become a red-hot Abolitionist, has a stone in the
place where his heart ought to be, or I'm a Dutchman."
"Well," returned Harrington, laughing at Richard's vehemence, " don't go too far the other way, dear Raffaello.  We
must feel for the Hungarians too, you know. As for Kossuth, his only fault is, that he's so much of a patriot, that he's
willing to flatter American tyranny to serve Hungary. It's
wrong and weak, but let us still aspire for Hungarian independence as for American liberty."
" I agree," replied Wentworth.  "But how did you couic
across this poor fellow, Harrington?"
"I was out on a nocturnal ramble," replied Harrington,
"and I found him in the street, just escaped from the brig,
and took him home with me."
"Yes, Richard," said Mrs. Eastman, quickly; "but you
don't know all John did for him. He ""Now, mother," pleaded Harrington, coloring, "don't
mention that-please don't."
" I'll tell you, Richard, sometime when John is out of the
way," said Muriel, archly confidential.  " No objections,
John I We'll spare your modesty, and satisfy Richard's curiosity, and you are to know nothing about it."
" And my curiosity, too," said Emily, laughing.
" And yours too," replied Muriel.
" Well, I must say that that was very noble in John," said
Wentworth.  " But he's always "" No nobler than you're giving poor Vukovich house-room
till he found another friend in Bagasse," broke in Harrington,
laughing and coloring.
" Peuh!" said Wentworth, blushing.  " How did you find
that out?  No matter-he was only a Hungarian. But this




416                   HARRINGTON.
poor fellow-oh, what an account for a man to have to give
of himself! It actually made my blood boil."
"By the way," said Harrington, " we must try and discover
the name of that captain, and have this piece of infamy
properly made public. I can't help fancying that Antony is
wrong about the name of the brig. The brig Solomon.
Isn't Solomon an odd or unusual name for a vessel? Solomon-Solomon. But still —I don't know; she may be named
for her owner. I wonder who he is-1for this rascality must'have been known to him, and we must hold him responsible
-to the public for it, too."
Muriel, who was abstractedly thinking, suddenly started,
then closed her parted lips, and reflected again, with a painful,color stealing over her countenance.
"John," said she in a low voice, " an idea occurs to me.
You remember that;stevedore, Driscoll. Wasn't it on a brig
-that he broke his leg?"
"Yes," returned Harrington, wondering what she meant.
"It was on one of your uncle's vessels."
" And don't you remember the name of that brig? It was
the brig Soliman."
Mrs. Eastman started violently, and turned pale, while the,color came like red fire to the face of larrington.
"Heavens!" exclaimed the pale lady, clasping her hands.
"Oh, I hope you are wrong I I hope Lemuel has not been
lending himself to such work as this."
" Wait a minute;"  said Harrington, springing up and leaving the room.
He went up-stairs to the chamber of the fugitives.  Roux
and Antony were sitting near each other, and Tugmutton was:reading to them in his usual grandiloquent way.
"Antony," said Harrington, "what did you say the name
of that brig was?"
The fugitive, still lean and haggard, but wonderfully improved in aspect, stared at him with his hollow eyes and skulllike visage for a moment.
" Brig Solomon, Marster Harrington," he replied, quickly.




HARRINGTON.                    4t1
"You say you read the name of the brig when you were
in the water, before you boarded her?"
"Yes, Marster."
" Can you spell the name you read? Spell it for me."
"Yes, Marster.  S-o-l, sol, i, solo, m-a-n mon, Solomon."
" You're sure that was the way it was spelled."
"Yes, Marster."
"Very well," and Harrington turned to go.
"But th4t's not the way to spell Solomon," bawled Tugmutton.
No more it's not, thought Harrington, as he slowly went
down-stairs-but that's the spelling.  O Lemuel Atkins I
He entered the library with a face so grave that they all
saw what he had to tell.
" You are right, Muriel," he said, sinking heavily into his
chair. " It is the Soliman."
Mrs. Eastman burst into tears.
" My dear mother!" cried Muriel, flying to her side, and
folding her in her arms, while the astonished and agitated
Emily also came to her.
"No matter," said Mrs. Eastman, suddenly recovering, and
gently pushing them from her, while her pale face became severe. " It was but a moment's pain, and I am now filled with
indignation. To think that Lemuel, my own brother, would
join in oppressing that poor creature-6h, I cannot bear to
think of it I  I feel it as if it were my own sin.  I am disgraced by it. Every action of his, in his pro-slavery mania,
rests on me like a disgrace that I cannot bear.  But this is
the worst of all."
"My dear mother," said Harrington, approaching, and taking her hands in his, " let it all go. Fortunately, Antony has
escaped from their clutches, and the worst is over. We will
do nothing more about it, but let it rest in silence. You cannot help your brother's misconduct, and are not in any way
responsible for it, though I can well understand how it should
grieve you."
"It ought to be made public, John," she answered tremulously, with the tears in her eyes, " and it would be for his good
18*




418                   HARRINGTON.
if he were taught, by the indignation of at least a portion of
the people, that such things cannot be done with impunity.
Heaven forgive me, if I fail in my duty, but I cannot help
shrinking from the public outcry, and he my own brother."
She covered her eyes with her hand, as Harrington sadly
withdrew to his chair.
"But, look here, now," said Wentworth, "aren't you all too
fast?  There may be another brig Soliman, you know."
" Perhaps," replied Harrington; "but I fear not.  It is
unlikely, I think, that two vessels of the same name would be
in the New Orleans cotton trade."
" Who is this Driscoll, John?" asked Emily.
" Driscoll is a stevedore," he replied, " who fell into the hold
of the Soliman, last winter, as they were unlading, and broke
his leg. I heard of the accident through Captain Fisher, who
happened to be on the spot and knew the man, and as he had
a family who were thus deprived of their means of support till
he got well, I made bold to call on them, and Muriel and AMrs.
Eastman took care of the poor people till Driscoll got well,
and was able to work again.  Of course, I recollected him,
but the name of the vessel on which he met with his accident,
though I knew Atr. Atkins was her owner, had slipped my
mind."
" Oh, John," said Emily, impetuously, " how like you!"' WThat?  To forget the name?" said Harrington, innocently, misled by her tone.  " Indeed, no.  I usually remember names very well ""'Psha! no," replied Emily, laughing at his simplicity.
"But to visit the poor man, and have his family taken care of.
You, a perfect stranger to them all,  Now, I should like to
know who beside dyou would have felt called upon to interest
himself in such a matter?"
"Oh, pooh   A inere trife," said HIarrington, reddlening,
and looking extremely uncomfortable.  " Hundreds of people
would have done the Same thing.  It was Mrs. Eastman and
Muriel who did tihe real Iwork in this case.  So, you see, there
are more more  willinou- earts anad hands than, mine in the
world."




HARRINGTON.                    419
"I wonder if my grand Lord Bacon, Baron Verulam, and
Viscount St. Albans would have interested himself in the plebeian Driscolls," said Wentworth, slily, aiming a hit at Harrington's favorite.
"Indeed he would," replied tHarrington, with great animation.  "It is recorded of him that no case of distress ever
-came under his notice without being promptly relieved. Verulam'played Providence well, till the bloat king, and the
pack of Conservatives ruined him. Yes, till then, and afterward, till he left the globe. Bacon was the Theodore Parker
of his time, plus the Verulamio-Shakspearean intellect-so don't
you say one word in his dispraise, Master Wentworth, or you
and I shall quarrel."
Wentworth laughed at the gay threat, and said no more.
" Revenons a nos moutons- let us return to our Southdowns," said Muriel, playfully.  "I had a talk with Roux,
John, of which I was going to tell you when our company
came this morning, and I haven't'had a chance since. The
sum and substance of which is, that Roux is alive to his danger in - Boston, and consents to go to Worcester.  So on
Monday, John, you must.transport him and Antony there,
find them a boarding-house, see Mr. Higginson about them,
and let them be looking out for, a house and occupation, while
we arrange to send on the wife and children after them. So
there's work laid out for you, my husband!"
" Bravo I" cried Harrington, joyfully.  "I'll attend to it."
"In the meantime," pursued Muriel, "we'll put Roux on
salary sufficient to cover all expenses till he gets settled
again. Then, there's his shop to be closed up, and his furniture to be removed, all which is on your broad shoulders, my
Atlas."
"I'll bear the load!" said Harrington, gaily.
"For it won't do to have Roux burdened with it," -she con —
tinued, "lest in his removing he should be removed."
"See here. Can't I help?!' put in Wentworth.  "I burn
with ardor."
"Oh, Raffaello! bantered Muriel, with a gay and charming smile-" you?  Flower of painters, I fear me that you




420                   HARRINGTON.
will not find such anti-slavery service to your taste I However, we will see. Yes, Richard, seriously, you shall help if
you want to."
"Good!" said Wentworth, laughingly. "What a nest
of traitors to the blessed old granny of a Government we
are!"
"My faith I" said Muriel, with bewitching levity, " if they
will have their Fugitive Slave Law, they shall also have their
traitors to balance. But there was once a time," she fervently
added, "when a poor man could earn his bread in the city
which I love, with none to molest him or make him afraid, and
may that good time come again."
"Amen i" cried Wentworth.  "And, apropos, have any
of you seen the papers to-day? Have you heard the great
news?"
"I have not," said Muriel.; Nor I," said Harrington.  " What is it?"
" It came yesterday," replied Wentworth, "but to-day's
paper has a fuller account of it.  Charles Sumner has
announced in,the Senate that he is going to speak on the
Fugitive Slave Law I Hurrah I"
" Io triumphe I" cried Muriel, flying from the room to get
the paper, amidst a general chorus of delight.
She came back presently with the " Commonwealth," and
read aloud Mr. Sumner's brief remarks on presenting. the
petition of the New England Quakers for the repeal of the
Fugitive Slave Law-remarks which were the prelude to one
of the ablest and noblest speeches ever heard in the American
Congress.
" Bravo I" cried Harrington, when she had finished. "Now
we shall hear the old New England voice 1"
"By Jupiter, yes," said Wentworth. " Charles Sumner's
going in. It'll be like a giant slinging up an elephant by the
tail, and whacking the enemy with it."
They all laughed uproariously at this novel symbol of
aggressive eloquenee.
"Come now," said Wentworth, when the laughter had subsided, " this news calls upon us to round up Saturday night




IIARRINGTON.                   421
with music. Sing, you pair of seraphs, sing. Let's have
Theodore Kirner's' Battle-Hymn of the Berlin Landsturmn."'
Muriel and Emily moved to the organ, and on the rich and
passionate clouds Wf Weber's music, their noble voices stormed
in melody. But as the first exalting tones arose, Mrs. Eastman, sad and sick at heart, withdrew to her chamber, to
think with sorrow of her brother's baseness, to think and
think and think, and weep alone.
CHAPTER  XXVIII.
THE SABBATH MORNING.
THE Sabbath dawned calm and peaceful and beautiful, and
filled with Sabbatic stillness. Such a Sabbath as would have
waked the holy muse of Donne or Herbert, of Keble or Heber, to celebrate its restful sanctity in sacred song. But its
sweetest hymn was the gracious face of Muriel, as she sat at
the organ in the library, singing in a low voice a psalm that
breathed from heaven into the soul of David three thousand
years ago.
The spirit of the music lived in her countenance as she sang,
and lingered there when the tender and regal chant had failed.
Too happy for even music to express, she rose from the instrument, and rapt in heavenly reverie, wandered to and fro about
the room.
But a little while, however, for presently the bounding foot
of Harrington was heard upon the stairs, and he came in.
" Ah, truant!" she playfully exclaimed, gliding to his arms,
and gazing up into his smiling face, " where have you been. I
woke this morning to find myself a widow. Now give me the
morning kiss of which I was defrauded."
He folded her in his arms, and fondly kissed her again and
again.
"I have been to my house," he said, "and do you know




422                    HARRINGTON.
why? To see after my cldog. Positively, r had almost forgotten the existence of that delectable animal, and my conscience
smote me this morning lest he should have been neglected,
which he has not been, for the boys have bten his guardians.
So I stole from your side like a thief of the night. You were
sleeping so sweetly, and looked so beautiful in your sleep, that
I did not dare to disturb you.  Strange feeling I had in leaving you —it was almost like going never to return."
And I, too," she replied, melting from her blushing smile
into musing.  "I woke from  a singular dream of you.  I
dreamed that I was going about alone in the house and ia the
streets and among all sorts of people, and you were at an immeasurable distance above me, looking at me constantly from
behind the air, as it were.  The strangest thing was that I
could not see you, though at the same time I knew you were
there just as if I saw you. But we were separated.  And yet
I was not sad-incldec, the dream was happy.  Presently I
unclosed my eyes, and for a moment," she said, laughing, " 
really felt as if I were a widow, which I have no ambition to
be, I assure you."
lHarrington laughed gaily, and pressed his lips to her fore
head.
" Dreams are strange," he said, lightly.  "But how exquisite you are this morning! Every time I see you you look
new.  Stand back a pace, and let me admire you I"
She danced back a couple of yards, and stood playfully regarding him, with her beautiful and noble head bent a little on
one side, while his eyes dwelt on her delicately tinted features,
and wandered over the stately elegance of her form. She
was robed that morning in pale rose-colored silk, with lace
corsage and lace open sleeves.  About her hung that indefinable and delicious patrician odor which we sometimes perceive
around the persons of fair women, and which touches the inlagination like the aroma of a poetic nobility of soul.  A thrill
fled througrh the veins of Hatrington as he gazed on lher, and
then his eyes grew sad, and the smile on his face died slowly
away.
"Ah, Muriel," he said, in a low, rapt voice, " the beauty




HARRINGTON.                     423
that my eyes see in you is the token of the beauty my soul
knows in you. HIow could I bear to leave you!  Once it was
a joy to think of death, but now heaven could not tempt me
from earth with you."
She came quickly to him, with an agitatedl face, and passionately clung to him.  IHe folded her to his breast, and felt,
as his face drooped upon her forehead, a vague sense, as of
some luminous shadow resting on them.  In a moment, she
lifted her face to his, serene, though the clear eyes were dim,
and gazed ardently into his countenance.
"Do not speak of leaving me, John," she said.  "It was
my foolish dream put that into your mind.  Ah, we shall
neither of us leave each other.  Life is before us, and love.
Come, let us not dwell on this, but speak of other thilngs."
" So be it,' he replied.  "' Well, what shall we do with ourselves to-day?"
" I don't know," she gaily answered, swingiLng' around from
his breast to his side, and puttling her arm albout him, while he
encircled her waist.' Suppose we vary thle general impiety of
our proceedings by going to church."'
"Agreed.  To Mr. Parker's, of course."
"Most assuredly.  There's the breakfast bell."9
And, arm in arm, they  lescended to the breakfast-room.
Church-time came, with the aerial pealing of bells, and with
it came Wentworth, in gallant and perfumed attiri, to convoy
Emily to her devotions.  Elmily, however, had decided to go
with Harrington and AIuriel, and presently they a11 set out
together, Mrs. Eastman, who had recovered Ier serenity,
accompanying them.
The streets were full of chureh-goels, some of them  haply
wending their way to be regaled with exhortations to obey all
laws, right or wrong, especially the Fugitive Slave Law, and
to consent, if need be, to have their brothers go into slavery
to save the Union.  In that blissfual period, it was a-greed,
among all respectable people, that, ministers imust not meddle
with politics, unless they were pro-slavery polities, which were
considered perfectly orthodox, doelos of Christ having been
ascertained to mean, not servant, but slave of Christ, and Paul




424                  HARRINGTON.
having been proved to have sent back Onesimus, not at all as
a brother beloved, but as a runaway Thomas Sims. The sedulous inculcation of these soul-elevating views and this cheering
exegesis of Scripture, was understood to be in perfect harmony
with the dictum that ministers musn't meddle with politics, and
many ministers conducted themselves accordingly.
Debarred by their own hardness and frowardness of heart
from the holy solace of these ministrations, our little party
held their perverse way to the Melodeon. The choir was
singing as they entered, and the church was crowded as usual,
for no minister in Boston gathered such a concourse as the
mighty Theodore.  A little movable pulpit, on which bloomed
a vase of flowers, occupied the platform, and behind it, with
clasped hands, musing, sat he who shall heave his noble
thought in massive mountain-chains of strength and beauty
never any more. Living, his presence was the magic spell that
evoked and commanded Freedom. Oh, dying, was it less
strong-less strong when he had died?  Lo! lhe drew nigh
the shores of Italy, and she rose, in the red storm of Magenta,
from the bondage of ten centuries, free! Hle laid him down
to sleep in the soil of her Florence, and pale and radiant from
her long agony, all disenchanted of her doom, she stands
above his dust, bastioned with hearts and swords, free I Free,
and free forever, and secure of ever-broadening freedom, for
the land can never rest in tyranny that holds within its bosom
Parker's grave!
There are thousands who remember those Sabbaths in his
presence; but who shall paint them in hues that will not seem
faint and unfaithful in the light of memory? What words
shall revive his image as he stood behind the little pulpitSocratic-featured, strong, earnest, reverend-the large volume
of old Scripture open before him, the tinted flowers blooming
by his side, the faces of thousands all mutely turned toward
him, as once toward Luther, Savonarola, Abelard? Vhat
words shall tell of the firm eyes holding all those faces, the
resolute features stirring, the orotund and fervent deep voice
sounding, as he read from the sacred pages, lifting the verses
into their fullest significance and life, and flooding the soul




HARRINGTON.                     425
with all that is loftiest and sweetest in the old saints and prophets' lore?  Who shall bring back the hours when, as il that
hour, the deep voice rose in the tender and gorgeous prayer,
filled with the affluent sunshine, the flowers, the greenery, the
wild-bird melodies, the living glory of the spring, all musicrich with reverential thought and feeling, all overflowed with
gratitude and praise to the Giver, with faith, and piety, and
aspiration, all throbbing with immortal longings, and raising
the soul to the mystic's vision of God, and kindling the heart
with the hero's hope of the ideal future of man? A streaming
altar-flame, uprising rich with incense from hills and valleys
lovely in the blue day and pomps of spring-time, thronged with
the saints and saviors of all time, and echoing with the supplications and hosannas of mankind, might be the symbol of
that prayer. But what symbol shall gather within it the
strong and salient intellections of the following sermon-its
massive breadth and scope of statement, its valiint dealing
with the public sins and sinners of the time, its learning that
swept all history, its knowledge that swept all life, the broad
illumination of its eloquence, the prowess of its virtue, the
sweetness of its piety? A torch of burning splendor upheld
by Greatheart, and flashing on his brand and mail in the crash
of combat with Apollyon-its blaze poured strong and definite
upon the open midnight landscape of our mortal life, illumining the path of nobleness, lighting every danger, darting its
ray upon the secret pitfall, and into the ambush of the foe, and
streaming forward over all the perilous track to the gates of
God-such might be the visioned symbol of a speech which
yet no symbol can describe. Closed now in death that glorious eloquence, nor in a hundred years may such a bloom unfold
again; but the continents shall remember how in an evil time
burst forth its flower of flame, and its fragrance shall fill the
world from age to age.
Every high heart has felt the sense of renewal and reconsecration which follows the words of a great pulpit orator; and
with this sense strong within them, the little party left the
church when the service was ended. On their way home,
Wentworth stopped the others to announce that Emily was to




426                      ARRmINGTON.
dine at his father's house, and return to Temple street late in the
afternoon. A few moments passed in exchanging warm eulogiums
on tlhe sersnon, and then M[rs. Eastman, Muriel, and Harrington
left thle other two and walked across the beautefiil sunlit Conlmmon.
" Now, John," said AIuriel, gaily, " of course you have soume
criticism to make on Mr. Parkelr.'
"I declare no," he responded; "I haven't the conscience to
criticise him.  _He mllakes one's heart glow so with his manhood, that criticism must be cdumb. I pass his theology, everything in fact, I might differ on, and rest only on his magnificent public service, and the inspiration of his example."
Still,  she returned, " you would differ, if you could."
To lbe sale," he replied, smilingly.  " If I could critiCise, I
would own to a divine dissatisfaction.  For the sermon implied
no theory thlat adequately accounts for the scheme of thinlgs,
as my owvn theory does, at least to me.  However, I won't
grumble. I'have Emerson still for my refuge..All the modern
thinkers cramp me in a cell, more or less spacious, but in
Emerson, chiefly in his poems, I escape into the vast of space
and stars, and breathe blithely like the self-existent soul I
aam."
" Oh, heretic!" she gaily exclaimed.  " But I agree with
all you say, and especially about the poems.  They are incomparably beyoind all else the Muse has vouchsafed to our American bards."
"Now, John," said Mrs. EastLman, " I should really like to
know what your theory of things is.  Come, define your position."
"My dear mother," replied Harrington, laughing, " "will it
do to give it voice?  The tell-tale birds nmight hear me, and
Carry the news to the orthodox, and then I should have a
Yrand auto-da-fe, with all the great wits and little wits dallncing
iround me in my expiring agonies."
" Oh, but John," she banteringly answered, " this is the age
md landc of free thought, you know."
Yes, indeed.  Free thought meaning your fieedom to -'hink
Ls the mass of your fellow-citizens do.  Go bhey nl tl.i, alC,hey'll melt up Judas Iscariot and Casar Borogia, and all the




IARRINGTON.                     427
rascals, little and big, for colors, as Allston's Paint-King melted
up the lady, and paint your portrait in hues of earthquake and
eclipse, as Shelley's phrase has it.  Political liberty with us
includes the right to wallop your own nigger, and howl into
Coventry, or hang to a tree, any humane person who objects.
Social liberty means the right to make you submit to the
ordinances of Airs. Grundy, be they the prescriptions of a
French tailor or milliner in regard to your dress, or the fancies
of some conclave of bigots in regard to your actions, and if
taste or conscience rises in revolt, Mrs. Grundy. raps them on
the head with a stick, as Lear's cockney did the eels when she
put them in the pie alive, and cries,'Dbown, wantons, clown!'
Religious liberty involves the right to fling theological nmud and
fire on the good name of anybody who ventures beyond the
notions of clergymen, and liberty in general means your privilege to say and do what moderate and immoderate intellects
concede you may. Socially speaking, the very essential prinlciple of liberty, toleration, is tucked away in Roger Williams'
grave. The people of this country think they love liberty.
They don't.  They don't know what liberty means.  If they
did they'd love tyranny.   It is my deliberate conviction
that if the people of this country understood what the
doctrine of liberty involves and comprehends, as it lies in the
pages of the scholars who conceived it, they would deny it
utterly, and set up the despotism  of the Middle Ages as their
idol."
Muriel laughed heartily at this outburst.
"Bravo, John!" she cried.  "Methinks I hear you thundering that from the rostrum into the startled hearts of your
fellow-citizens."
"Yes, amidst groans and hisses," returned the smiling Harrington.  "But I should flash a bolder speech than that if I
were to address the public.  That is weak rose-water compared
to what I would say when I came to recite the special instances
of the civil or social abuses of which I complain."
"Heaven save the sinners from your sprinkling then if that
is only rose-water," jested Muriel.  "But here is mamma
bursting with impatience for your theory of the Universe."




428                  HARRINGTON.
"My dear mother," said HIarrington, laughingly, "another
time, when I can collect my vagrant ideas, I will confide to you
all I saw when I put my eye to a chink of this mortal prison,
and looked out on the True. Meanwhile, you will find some
slight hint of my notions in Goethe's poem of' The Festival.'"
" Which I shall read when I get home," replied Mrs. Eastman.
And talking in this strain, they reached the house in Temple
street.
CHAPTER XXIX.
HELL ON HEAVEN IMPINGING.
As Mir. Parker only preached in the forenoon, they did not
go to church again, but after dinner sat together all the afternoon in the library, reading aloud, and talking, and supremely
happy.
So the sweet and peaceful day wore slowly on to sunset,
and as the declining beams gilded the rich room, the trio
sank, as if by mutual consent, into a lapse of silence, and sat
enjoying the luxury of the happy hour, and glad in their own
society. Mrs. Eastman reclined in a fauteuil, her cheek pensively resting on her hand, and her serene, poetic face musing
between its graceful silver tresses on the lovers. The clouds
had melted from her mind, and she only thought with tranquil joy of the beautiful change that had come so silently upon
her daughter's life, sundering no tie and marring no relation,
and her soul was filled with gratitude to know that the love
of her child was anchored on a heart so noble.
Unconscious that she was the subject of such sweet reflection, Muriel sat in reverie, and Harrington, sitting at a little
distance, fondly dreamed upon her vision-like beauty. So exquisite in her delicate clear color, with the silken amber tresses
rippling low around her cheeks, and the perfection of her form
tenderly told by the pale, rose-hued robe, that she touched




HARRINGTON.                    429
his imagination with a strange sense of faery. He was so
happy, as he gazed on her, that he could scarcely believe in
his happiness. Mixed with his ethereal pleasure in her loveliness, was a dim feeling as of one who had wedded a princess
in his dream, and knew that he dreamed, and would awaken
soon to find himself unwedded and alone. Strange-strange
to think that this surpassing woman was his wife. But it was
true; it was indeed reality, and not a dream; it was indeed
reality, and it had flooded life with the tranquil ecstasy of
heaven.
Gazing upon her in deep abstraction, he became aware that
her sweet eyes were fixed upon his face, and saw, by the suffnsion on her countenance, as of the rosy color of the morning
that she was conscious of his ardent gaze. Confused a little
at being thus detected in his admiration, he started, blushing,
and then laughed, as she archly shook her finger at him.
"I caught you," she said.  "Now, John, what were you
thinking of?"
"Of you, Muriel.  Of our happiness.  I am  strangely
happy to-night. Were not you conscious, and you, mother,,
of a singular happiness as we all sat here in silence together?
The Sabbath peace of the evening was like the peace of
heaven."
They did not answer, but bowed their heads in assent, and
lulled by the sweet influences of the hour, remained in silence
It was but a few moments, and the sunset light died from the
room; and as it faded away, and the first grey of twilight
filled the air, Muriel and Harrington both rose, as if its
departure was the dissolution of a spell that had held them,
and approached each other with loving faces and outstretched
arms.
They were within a yard's distance, when suddenly the
door-bell rang with such a violent and furious clanging clatter,
that they stood still. It was like the scream of a fury warning them asunder. The love-look dropped from their faces,
and their arms fell. Only a second's pause, and again the
bell rang and rang and rang, clashing and clanging without
intermission, like the startling peal of an alarum from a chlam



430                   HARRINGTON.
ber where murder was being done, and the struggling victim
had seized the bell-rope.  Utterly amazed at this frightful
clamor, and wondering who could be ringing in such a manner
as this, they stood with a shock in their blood, blankly gazing
at each other. Suddenly they recovered, as AIrs. Eastman
flew past them with an indignant face, and flung open the
library door.
"Who dares "She stopped in the midst of her incensed exclamation,
for at that moment the hall-door was opened, and with a
wild clatter of angry words from  Patrick below, something
bounced in and- up-stairs, and rushed panting to fall before
t-em.
It was Tugmutton.  They gazed upon him in utter amazement. He fell prone, then rose suddenly on his knees as if a
spring in the floor had shot him up, and knelt gasping and
speechless before them, a fat open-mouthed face of ashen fright
glaring with white saucer-eyes upon them from its great shocks
of wool, and the two huge hands lifted like the paws of a begging dog, in an agony of supplication.  For a moment, they
looked at him astounded. Suddenly Ilarrington saw his cap
lying on. the floor-staggered back with a reeling brain, dashed
forward with a spring up to Roux's room, and flung open the
door.
Ronx was lying on the bed asleep, and did not waken. For
an instant Harrington's eye swept the chamber, then became
fixed. He heard the voices down-stairs.  He heard the re(ular breathings of the sleeping man. He heard the dinning of
his own brain. Then all seemed to grow still, and with a
dreadful feeling in his mind, he slowly turned and went down.
Tall, erect, terrible, white as death, he  entered  the
library. They gazed upon his face with draining eyes.  Ile
looked at them for a moment in silence. The boy still knelt
gasping and shuddering on the floor. But they were motionless-motionless as marble.
"Mother,"  His voice was clear and low. He paused.
"Mother-collect yourself. Be calm.  Has he told you?"
There was silence, intense and awful.  He did not look at




HARRINGTON.                     431
his wife, but he felt that she turned away. He looked only at
the pallid face gazing at him with parted lips and mute eyes
between its silver tresses, as if it had turned to stone.  Suddenly her voice rang.
"He has not told me. Speak! I can bear anything but this."
"Mother, the poor wanderer to whom you gave shelter is
gone.  He went out with the boy.  He has been kidnapped
in the streets of Boston."
She stood for a moment, ghastly, rigid, immovable.  Suddenly a low  cry wailed from  her lips and she fell.  He
sprang and caught her, lifted her in his arms and bore her to
a couch.  IMuriel glanced from the room.  Flying to the windows, he flung them open to let in the fresh air. Then, backL
to the lady in her swoon, and kneeling beside her, his quick
hands snapped the silken strings of her bodice, unclasped her
belt, and loosened her clothes. The boy softly sank on his
face, and lay gasping on the floor.
A light touch: lMuriel, calm, self-possessed, pale, was beside
him. He took from her hainds the glass of water, and sprinkled
the pallid face, while she drenched her handkerchief with
cologne and bathed the still brow and nostrils.  The evening
wind blew freshly into the room, and gradually a quiver of life
came to the marble features.  Harrington silently pointed to
the loosened bodice, moved away, and stood with his brow
resting on his hand.
Minute after milnute passed on and all was silent save the
fainter gaspings of the boy.  Gradually, low rustling   movements and faint murmurs, mixed with the sweet and soothhill
whispers of Muriel, came to him from the couch.  lie renmained
motionless, his mind blank and cold.  In a minute or two
Muriel spoke to him.
"She has recovered, John."
His hand fell from his brow as he heard her words, and lifting his white face, he moved noiselessly across the room, closed
the windows, and came to the pale lady's side.
"Motler," he said, kneeling by her, and tendlerly folding
her in his arms, " I would not have told yon if I could have
kept it fromn you."




432                   aURINRITON.
"Hush I" she murmured.  "You did well. It was terrible,
but I had to know it. Come, I am ready now for the rest.
Bring Charles here, and let me know all. I will lie here and
listen. Do not fear. I can bear everything now."
Rising to his feet, he crossed the room, lifted the boy from
the floor as lightly as though he were a baby, and held him
face to face at arms' length before him. The hapless Tugmutton, dangling broad-limbed and big-footed between the
strong supporting hands, stared with blobber visage, ashen
with fright and grief, and with mouth, eyes, and nostrils wildly
open, into the white face smiling into his, with a smile gentle
even in its ghastliness.
"Charles," said Harrington, in a low, consoling voice,
" don't be frightened, poor boy. See, I am not angry with
you. I feel badly for what has happened, but I am not angry
with you, Charles."
The miserable Tugmutton, inert in his suspension, opened his
big mouth wide, and burst into a roar of tears.
" My gosh I Mr. Harrington," he howled, amidst his grief,
" there aint a more mis'able young nigger this side of Jordan
than me. He's took off, and I'm  the guilty party, Mr. Harrington, when I didn't mean it. Oh, Lord A'mighty, I can't
provide for that family never no more, and the man that won't
provide for his family, is just wus than an infidel, and that's in
the Holy Bible, Mr. Harrington, and father's the victim of
misplaced confidence, and oh, my gosh, I wish I was in Canada,
as sure as you're born."
With which outburst, the wretched Tugmutton let his head
droop on the blue-striped shirt which covered his fat chest, and
with his grey-jacketed, short fat arms hanging over Harrington's hands, and his grey-trowsered, short broad legs dangling
motionless, he sobbed as if his big heart was breaking. Harrington, filled with compassion for his uncouth sorrow, took
him in his arms like an infant, and held him still, not even
smiling at the odd ideas and odd phrases which he had poured
forth, and which, even in that painful hour, might well have
moved a smile.
"Hush, Charles," murmured the young man.  "Don't cry




HARRINGTON.                   433
any more. Come, I want you to tell us all that has happened. I want you to tell the whole truth, and perhaps we
can find Antony again."
At this, Tugmutton started in his arms, and stopped crying
instantly.
"Let me down, Mr. Harrington, let me down," he excitedly
vociferated, wriggling like a conger eel from Hlarrington's hold,
and dumping upon the floor. "My gosh! if you'll on'y find
that Antony, I'll tell you every word of the truth and the
whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God."
larrington pushed a chair up to the couch for Muriel, and
seating himself in another, drew the boy near him, and at
once, in rapid and excited tones, Tugmutton began his confession, telling everything even to the most irrelevant details.
It appeared from what he said that his empire over Roux
had extended also over Antony, and that the latter, completely
subjugated by his grand airs and assumption of superior
knowledge, had in his simplicity come to look upon him as
one of the most powerful of his guardians. In this mood,
Tugmutton had regaled him with glowing accounts of the
attractions of the city, every inch of which, from Roxbury
Line to Salutation Alley, and further in all directions, was as
familiar to the Bedouin feet of the fat Puck as his own abode
in Southac street. Especially had he dwelt upon the glories
of Boston Common, and that day he had expatiated upon
them till Antony, filled with wonderment, almost imagined the
place some unheard of Eden. Roux falling asleep in the afternoon, Tugmutton had continued his ecstatic panegyric on the
Common, and finally wound up by proposing a short tour to
that romantic region during the repose of his father. After
some demurring on the part of Antony, and considerable domineering on that of Tugmutton, the former yielded, and they
stole softly down-stairs and out at the street door, while their
hosts were in the library. Reaching the Common, rich in the
sunset light, and its malls filled with gaily-dressed promenaders, the enchanted Antony wandered with his pigmy guide
across the inclosure, and emerged with him on the Park street
corner. There they stood on the pavement, while Tugmutton
19




434                    HARRINGTON.
descanted on the magnificence of the Park street church, with
especial reference to the height of the steeple, loftiness of
spire being in his view the chief end and crowningl perfection
of all church architecture.  As he was talkinl, a hack drove
up and stood at a little distance from them, and at the same
time his eye fell upon a gentleman standing Lear a side entrance
of the church, and smilingly beckoning to him. A little astonished at first, and then a little flattered at this affability,
he turned with a lofty and vain-glorious air to Antony, as
much as to say, you see the immense consideration paid me
by the aristocracy, and bidding him  wait there a moment,
crossed the street to the stranger, who, with a smiling nod,
retreated  into the passage, which happened to be open.
Thither Tugmutton followed him.  What the stranger said,
his subsequent fright drove out of his memory, and lie could
only recollect that he held him lightly by the arm as he spoke
to him; but in the midst of the interview, happening to glance
around, he saw a man rush, pushing Antony before him, crowd
him into the hack, and spring in after him, while the vehicle
rattled away down Winter street.  Of course Tugmutton
sprang to follow, but the stranger seized him by the throat,
and shook him so that he could neither speak nor cry.  Released presently, the wretched boy rushed into the street, and
after the carriage.  But it was out of sight, and running back
to the church, the stranger was gone.  Too much horrified to
make any outcry, Tugmutton had instantly run with all his
speed back to Temple street, where he had arrived as we have
related.
All this, involving details which under ordinary circumstances he would have suppressed as disgraceful to himself, but
which he now frankly disclosed in the full conviction that a knowledge of the entire truth would enable llarrington to recapture
Antony from the kidnappers, Tugmutton poured forth in his own
way to his pale and silent auditors, and ending, sat easerly
staring first at one and then the other, as wondering what was
to be done now that he had told all.
"Charles," said Harrington, "what kind of a looking man
was it you saw seize Antony!"




HARRINGTON.                    435
" My gosh! it was so quick that I scase got a sight of him,
Mr. I-Iarrington," returned Tuglmutton, stailng into the white
face of his questioner.  " I on'y saw he had on a straw hat
an' a sorter light coat, an' was tanned consid'ble."
Tanned,'  mused lHarrington.  "That nmust have been the
captain of the Soliman."7
He was right in his conviction.  It was B1angham.
"I see how it was done," he pursued.  "They were together, and came on Antony and Charles standing there.
One hailed the carriage -robably some passing hack —the
other decoyed the boy away to prevent his outcries-and the
rest we know.  0  Boston, Boston I I loved you onceevery stone in your pavement was dear to me; but I sicken
of you now, and I shall never walk your streets with joy
again I A poor, helpless, harmless Iman-a fugitive fromll the
worst tyranny that deforms the world-and in the streets of
this free city, in open daylight, on the Sabbath, with a crowd
standing around, he can be stolen, as a horse could not be
stolen, and not one person lifts a hand to prevent it, or asks
why!  -Not one-not one!"'
He covered his burning eyes with his hand, and sat still.
The doleful boy gazed piteously at the pale, mute faces of the
two ladies, his fat, ashen Visage quivering with the feeling that
he had done a mischief which not even H-arrington could
undo.
" John."  It was AtMrs. Eastman that spoke.  "You have
not asked who the man was that decoyed Charles."
Hle looked with mortal sadness into her agitated face.
"Need I ask, mother?" he drearily replied.  "A gentleman.  It was not Lafitte, for him  Charles knows.  There is
but one other person that wears the attire of a gentleman who
could be a party to this deed."
The tears flowed on her face, and as they flowed she wiped
them away.
"You are right," she faltered.  "It is the last, the worst
disgrace I can ever know.  A brother of my own blood, the
son of the mother that bore me-and with his own hands, not
preserving even the miserable decorum of an agent, with his




436                    IARRINGTON.
own hands he commits this crime. It almost kills me to think
of it."
"John," said 1[uriel, "listen to me."
He started from his lethargy of sorrow, and gazed into her
face. She was pale, collected, calm; her eyes firm and  clear,
and her voice and manner full of quiet energy.
"John," she pursued, " we must not waste these hours.
All is not lost yet.  We have the clues to this infamy in our
hands. That man has no doubt been taken on board the
Soliman. You must at once procure a writ of habeas corpus
and get" ----
She paused, arrested by the strange and ghastly smile that
changed his countenance.
"I have thought of it," he said.  "If it were not for this
Fugitive Slave Law, we might have a chance of success. But
see-perjury would be nothing to the men that could do this
deed.  When the writ is served on them, they will swear
that the man is not in their possession. Then a warrant will
be procured for his arrest, and after a pretended search, he
will be found, dragged before a commissioner, and sent into
slavery. And if I get a writ, who will I get to serve it?
From the sheriff to the lowest catchpoll is there one of them
that can be depended upon to do his duty in such a case?
Justice is drugged with slavery.  Law winks at kidnapping."
She looked at him with a still face, touched for a moment
by what he said, then refluent to its purpose.
"It must be tried, nevertheless," she said firmly.  "You
yourself, John, can serve the writ, or accompany the officer."
He gazed at her with eyes that filled with tears, as they
wandered from her countenance to her mother's. MIrs. Eastman shrank and covered her face with her hands. In an instant Muriel comprehended the deeper reason'which had made
him hopeless of a rescue, and with a feeling as nearly like despairing agony as her nature, organized for faith and hope and
joy, could feel, she sank back in her chair.
"Muriel," said he, in a solemn voice, "I have thought of
all, and I see no way open to us. Under other circumstances,




HARRINGTON.                   437
I would get the writ, and though he probably could not be
found, endeavor to save this man. But I cannot take the first
step without involving Lemuel Atkins. Can I do it? Think
how mother feels this already.  Think how she would feel it
then. Think of the position we are in."
"Tell me, John, tell me," faltered Mrs. Eastman, weeping,
"tell me what I ought to do. Ought I to have this made
public? What would you do if he were your brother, as he
is mine?"
"Mother," said he, solemnly, "I cannot guide you. Were
he my brother, though it might break my heart to do it, I
would never keep this wrong secret and silent. But my conscience cannot give the law to yours."
"I cannot do it," she sobbed.  "You will despise me, but
I cannot bear to think of the disgrace my consent would
bring upon him."
" Despise you?" he quickly answered.  "Never.  Your
feeling is sacred to me. I appreciate it. I respect it."
"At least," she cried, "give me time to think.  Let me
first go to him-let me implore him to undo what he has done.
He does not know that the man was sheltered here. Oh, perhaps I can prevail with him. Think of the shame it will be one
day to his wife and children.  When this slavery madness
ends, as it may soon, think of the awful shame his family will
feel if this act lives against him. How can I bear to have it
brought on them I At least for their sake let me try every
other effort, and then if I fail, perhaps "She faltered-her voice choked with emotion. She could
not bring herself to say, that perhaps she would consent to
publish her brother's shame, and bring the fury of anti-slavery
rebuke, and the scorn of the coming years of freedom upon
him.
They sat in silence thinking with hopeless sadness of the
terrible cloud that had rushed so suddenly upon their peaceful
and happy day, and the twilight began to darken around
them. Mrs. Eastman rose.
" I will go at once to see him," she said.
" Let me attend you," said Harrington, rising.




438                    IAnRRINGTON.
"No, John. Thank you. I will go alone," she replied, and
left the room.
"You must stay here, Charles," said  -lHarrington, turning
to Tugmutton.  "    no account must you go to your father
after wihat has happened, until we decide what to do."
Tug-autton said nothing, but sat dclown on a low stool in a
corner of the room, and leaned against the wall in deep despondency.
" And what are we to do, Muriel?" murmured HIarrington.
" How are we to tell Roux of this?  It will kill him.  Even
now, perhaps he is wondering where his brother is.  Poor,
poor man!  Oh, misery, misery!"
Ie turned away and walked the dim library with an aching
heart.  Muriel, silent, her mind in its futllest activity, was
vainly striving to think of some plan by which this sad stroke
of fortune could be retrieved.  Presently, I arrinigton rang'
for lights, and Patrick came in and lightedt the chldaelier,
whose moony globes of ground glass filled the library with
mellow radiance.
Alone ag'ain, Harrington turned to Mfuriel; shl-e rose from
her seat, and gliding swiftly toward hiln, clasped him inl her
arms.  Holding her to hin, he gazed, sadly smiliug, into her
face, exquisite in its pale beauty.
" Beloved," he murmured mournfully, "it is the first sorrow of our wedded life."
"The first," she calmly answered.  " But, oh, my husband,
let us be grateful that it is a sorrow that we feel for others,
and not for ourselves."
The tears ran down his face, and he fondly bent his head
and pressed his lips to her forehead.
"We were so happy," lie faltered.  " Never was my spirit
lulled in so deep and sweet a happiness as when this dreadful
tidings rushed upon me.  Strange, strange  to think this
heavenly day should end thus, in this blackness of darkness.
It quite iunilmans ume. "
Folded in each other's arms, they remained for a little while
in silence, while his agitation gradually subsided into sorrowful
calm.




HAIRRINGTON.                   439
"Do you remember, Muriel," he resumed, " the description
in the last chapter of the Revelations of St. John, of the
heavenly city where there is no night, nor sun, nor moon,
but the glory of God lightens it, and the Lamb is the light
thereof?  And without, you remember, the Evangelist says is
the horrible abode of the wicked.  You remember?"
"Yes, I remember," she answered, gazing into his abstracted and sorrowing face.
"When I was a boy," he continued, "I used to have a
dream, unspeakably awful, derived, I think from my reading
of that part of the Revelations. In my dream, I was in
heaven-a strangely beautiful dim land, filled with a still, mystic
glory. I cannot tell you the ineffable hush that pervaded the
happy region, and there I wandered tranced in an indescribable
tranquil ecstasy.  But in this dream, which I frequently had,
I always came to a spot which seemed the confines of the
place. The glory of the region ran to a point there, in a
shape like the apex of a triangle, and on either side a railing
of rich fretted gold separated it from  the region beyond.
Suddenly, as I stood, a dreadful perception of the outer
region would overwhelm me.  I saw a horrid realm of black
and grisly twilight, strangely mixed with black darkness-I
heard the savage baying of dogs, the confilsed jargon of unhuman blasphemies and demon laughter, and the hideous faces
of devils gnashed at me through the golden pales. It is
impossible to tell you the ghastly affright that suddenly struck
through my ecstasy when this came to me, nor can I say how
fearfully it was intensified by the contrast between the ecstatic
stillness and glory of the place, and the hideous and discordant sights and sounds beyond. I always awoke in horror,
drenched with perspiration, and afraid to be alone in the
darkness."
"What a dreadful dream?" she murmured, shivering
slightly, and clinging, a little closer to him.
"Yes," he responded, his voice low, and his white face
frigidly fixed on vacancy.  "Yes.  It was like a spiritual
symbol. And now it has come to me."
His countenance suddenly grew livid and convulsed with




440                    ARRIINGTON.
writhing anguish, and dark circles started out around his tearfilled eyes.
" It has come to me," he gasped, tremulously, shaken with
strong agony.  "I lhave wandered to the confines of my happy
heaven of love, and through the glory and the stillness, and
through my sacred ecstasy, the grisly land of slavery strikes
upon me, with its jargonic blasphemies and revelries of hate,
the gnashing of its devils, and the baying of the dogs that
hunt men. It has come to me. The dream of my boyhood
was its true symbol. A dreadful dream of reality, and I
wake from it in despair and agony and horror."
His low voice shuddered into silence, and convulsed through
all his frame, he tore himself from her, and covered his face
with his hands.  Sad as she had never been before, slhe turned
away and stood in her wonted attitude, her clasped hands
drooping before her, and her head bent upon her bosom.
Squatting on his stool in the corner of the room, the horrified
Tugmutton glared at therm, with his white eyes bulging from
his blobber face under his great shocks of wool, like some
lubber imp of darkness risen to work them bane.
In a few moments Harrington's hands fell heavily from his
face, and agile as lightning, Muriel flashed into his arms, and
clung to him, with a smile brilliant and tender as the morning
on her impassioned featurs.
" Oh, my beloved!" she cried, " do not sink from yourself
into despair —do not lose the immortal in the mortal! Think
of the briefness of this life —think of the endless golden reaches
of the life of which all our earthly experience is but a moment.
Heaven knows my sympathies are not imperfect; I could die
myself-ah, more, I could see you die —to save to a life of
human use this poor spirit, whom his fellow spirits, in their
incarnate madness, lave dragged away fronm us to wreak
their insanity of hate upon. But it is greater pain than my
death or yours, to see you mourn his fate with a mourning
that forgets the godhood within you.  You told me once
the divine sentence of the alchemist-' Heaven hath in it
this scene of earth.' Oh, remember it now —think how brief,
how fleeting is this term of grief and wrong —think of the




HARRJNGTON.                    441
eternal heaven in which the grief and wrong melt away forever, and be sustained and comforted!"
As at the harpings of the young shepherd of Israel, the
dark spirit sank from  Saul, so at the clear, fervent music
of her voice, the agony and horror passed from him, and he
grew calm. Fondly and sadly, with the tears still wet upon
his cheeks, he gazed into her exalted face, lit with a smile of
auroral tenderness.
"You are wise," he said mournfully, "and I know that my
sorrow is weak and unworthy. I sink from my faith —I lose
myself in this dark hour of trouble. A poor, helpless, despised, rejected man, more forlorn and wretched than the most
loathed outcast-I found him in the friendless streets, I took
him to my home, I nourished his feeble life-and they have
clutched him from me, and dragged him back to outrage and
torment and murder. If it were the act of some solitary
ruffian, I could bear it; terrible as it is, I could bear it; but
to think that society in all its structure makes it possible for
deeds like this to be done!  Oh, sleep of civilization I Justice, honor, compassion, love, have you gone from earth forever I Is human br-otherhood a Bedlam dream, vanishing
from the mind of man, and leaving him to the dark sanity of
one life-long mutual murder! Is this civil-suited swarm of
sordid devils and furies the vanguard of the new civilization
that is to oversweep the world! Let me not think of it-let
my sick heart swoon from the misery of it I Oh, that I were
dead this night, if death could hide from me this tremendous
shame! Better to be dead than stand here, tied hand and
foot, unable to lift a finger to prevent the commission of this
ghastly outrage.  Better death than to live poisoned to my
heart's core with the knowledge that society is one fell league
against the weak and poor."
The words which had begun in sorrow, rose into low
tempestuous agony and ended in a tone of heart-broken
desolate sadness which language cannot tell. Muriel gazed
at him mournfully, and the tears silently welled from her
eyes.
" My beloved," she said in a tremulous voice, sadly smiling
19*




412                    HARRINGTON.
as she spoke, " it grieves me more than a!l other grief, to see
you overmastered thus. What can I say to calm you?  Alas I
that I who love you so deeply, am powerless to lift you from
this dread sorrow l"
He looked at her with a spasm of self-control in his sad
face, and seemed to struggle into ealhn.
"Let me not grieve you," he faltcred. "See, it is over. It
shall not master me.  There: I am strong again.  For your
sake I will crush it down.  I love you-I will not pain you.
I will strive to forget it, and he again as in our happy hours
of love and peace before this "The faltering voice failed, and the mightv struggle to be
calm again wrought in his features.
C" ourage, courage," she cried, tenderly smiling upon him.
"Courage! All is not ended yet.  At worst we can say,
with King Francis, that everything is lost but honor.  But
everything is not lost.  We shall devise some means to
retrieve this stroke.  Oh, my poor mnotlher, if it were not
for your unlucky weakness, the victory would not b)e so difficult!
We would sound a blast in Master LelmulCL's cars that would
bring down his ambition for kidnliappling like Jericho.  But
there's no leaven of the Roman in poor motherls composition,
and we are fatally hampered by her feeling."
"Yes," said Itarrington, mournifully, "the necessity for
keeping this matter private is our ruin.  I know not what to
do, or which way to turn."
" At all events," she replied, " let us not despair.  Nothing
palsies one's faculties and energies like despair.  Come, sit here
by me, and let us coolly review our position, and see what we
can do."
She sat down on the couch, and he took his seat by her
side.




HARRTNGTON.                    443
CHAPTER XXX.
THE HEARTS OF CHEVALIERS.
THEY were about to commence conversation, when footsteps
and voices were heard upon the stairs, and presently Emily
and Wentwort-h, joyous and smiling, came into tile library.
" Here we are again!" cried Wentworth, in his hearty voice,
flinging his hat on the table, and running his hand through his
clustering curls.  "Here vwe are, in the height of felicity.
5Hallo, who's that?" he exclaimcd, catching siglht of Tugmutton squatting in the corner.  "Why, you ineffable young
goblin, what are you doing there?"
Emily, who was laying, off her bonnet and shla-,wl, turned
quickly in the direction he was apostrophizing, and laughed
half-amusedly and half-wonderingly at the doleful visage of
the boy.
" "Why, what's the matter with you, Charles?" she inquired.
"Well put," cried WTentworth.  " He looks as if he had a
bad attack of the mulligrubs."
" Now, Richard!" exclaimed Emily.  " I do wish that you
wouldn't talk slang.  You artists are perfectly incorrigible in
your use of slang."
"All due to the artistic faculty, Emily dear," he gaily
returned.  " Slang is the picturesque of language, aldcl Swe must
talk picturesquely, or die.  But, conscience alive 
lHarrington!  And  you, Muriel!  What's tile matter?
You look as if you had a touch of the ebony lamb's complaint too."
"Don't jest, Richard," said Harrington.  "We have had
an awful experience since we saw you."




444                  IARRINGTON.
"Awful!" exclaimed Wentworth, turning pale.  "Why,
what's happened?"
Emily came flying over to them, with her cheeks blanched,
and her lips parted in frightened inquiry.
"What is it?" she cried.  "Is anything the matter with
Mrs. Eastman?"
"No, Emily; she is well," replied Harrington.  "Richard,
the Hungarian fugitive is safe in the streets of Boston. No
hound of Vienna can track him here. But the American fugitive is not safe here from the Vienna of the Union. The poor
man, whose tale of suffering so moved you-he has been kidnapped in the streets of our city this evening."
"My God I" shouted Wentworth, stamping his foot on the
floor, and turning livid.
Emily burst into tears, and dropped into a chair.
"Kidnapped this evening!" pursued the young artist.
"Why, you had him here. How could this happen?"
" Listen, and I will tell you," replied Harrington.
Wentworth and Emily drew up their chairs, and sat facing
their friends. There was a moment's silence, and then in a
few clear, direct words, Harrington told them all.
Wentworth sat still and silent till he had finished,, and then
turned with a face of wrath upon Tugmutton, who immediately began to cry.
" Hush, Richard!" exclaimed Harrington, stopping Went.
worth in the furious speech he was about to pour upon the
miserable squab. " Don't use one word of reproach to him.
Poor boy! He suffers enough as it is. See," he whispered,
"it is a loving creature, and you have hurt his poor heart.
Now say something to soothe him."
Wentworth choked down his rage, and sat still for an instant. Then, forcing himself to smile, he rose, and went over
to Tugmutton, who was roaring in a muffled undertone of
heart-broken grief.
"'IThere, Tuggy, my boy, don't cry," he said soothingly,
patting him on the shoulder.  "I'm sorry I looked at you so,
but I didn't mean anything."
" My gosh, MIr. Wentworth, I feel as if the light of other




HIARRINGTON.                  445
days was fled," howled Tugmutton, reminiscent in his anguish
of a line from the song he had picked up somewhere.
Wentworth, mad as he was, felt a strong disposition to
laugh.
" Never mind, Tuggy," he said lightly.  "Cheer up. It'll
be all right."
"If I could on'y see Brudder Baby in my affliction," sobbed
Tugmutton, "'pears to me, it would be a reviver. But I can't,
an' I'm wus off than a bob-tail horse in fly-time."
" Cheer up, Charles," said Harrington, "you shall see
Brother Baby soon. Don't cry."
" Yes, don't cry, whatever you do," said Wentworth, "for
crying's bad for the liver. Here's something to remember me
by," and he gave him a half dollar.
Tugmutton, with a feeling that his liver was in immediate
peril, and touched by Wentworth's munificence, took the
money with a duck of his head, and immediately knuckled
away his tears with his big paws.
" The young devil," muttered Wentworth, walking back to
his chair. "Ought to have a sound flogging for his mischief, instead of a half dollar; but that's Harrington all over, and he
just makes a fool of me."
"What are you saying to yourself, Richard?" asked Harrington, with a wan smile.
" Nothing, nothing," said Wentworth, hurriedly. "But now
what's to be done with Roux?"
"I don't know," sadly responded Harrington; "when he
hears of his brother's capture, I fear it will kill him or drive
him crazy."
" Oh, by Jupiter! but he musn't hear of it," replied Wentworth-" at least not yet a while, till we see if this mischief
can't be remedied someway. We may get hold of Antony
again, you know, for he's not out of Boston yet. Meanwhile,
you must go up and tell Roux that while he was asleep you
sent Antony off to Worcester."
"No, Richard," returned Harrington, "I can't tell a lie.
If I could, how could I bear to go up, and look into that poor
man's face, and say that? I can't do it."




446                   HARRINGTON.
" You can't, eh?" returned Wentworth, reddening.  "Then
I can.  Hark you, Iarrington:: I may have told fibs in my
life, but I can say, with Alfieri, that I'm a man of as few lies
as anybody.  Still, when the time comes for a bouncer, let it
be a big one, I say, and handsomely done.  In my judgment,
the time has come now, and up-stairs I'm going to do the
deed. After which, if I don't grab Anltony back again, even
if I have to go all the way to Louisiana to do it, then Emily
Ames will never be Emily Wentworth.  So!"
And with his handsome face flushed and kindled, Wentworth walked out of the library and up-stairs to Roux's room.
" Where's my brother Ant'ny," cried Roux, with a wild face,
the minute he saw him.  "I waked up, and he's not here, and
I'm afeard of my life for him."
" My dear Mr. Roux, don't be at all alarmed, for Antony is
perfectly safe," said Wentworth, blandly, with an air of the
most perfect smiling composure.
Roux put his dark hand over his mouth as was his wont, and
looked at Wentworth with a wistful dubiety, as wondering if
he spoke the truth.  But there was truth in every lineament
of Wentworth's smiling countenance, and Roux's gaze wanderedc downward to the floor.
"I've been mighty skeered, Mr. Wentworth," he said,
timidly.  "I was afeard all wasn't right somehow."
"Perfectly right, AMr. Roux," pursued Wentworth.  "You
know we were going to send you up to Worcester on Monday
or Tuesday. But we had a chance this evening to send Antony on by private conveyance, and as we thought that safer
than the cars, we let him go. You were asleep, and as you
were to see him again so soon, we thought we wouldn't waken
you. Tugmutton's gone on with him, and to-morrow or next
day, you are to follow.  I thought I'd just come up and tell
you, lest you should be anxious."
"I'm very much obleeged to you, Mr. Wentworth," said
Roux, smiling and bowing, " and I feel mighty relieved to hear
this, sir, for I begun to be proper skeered." 
"Indeed?" said Wentworth, blandly, " I'm sorry.  But it's
all right. Good evening."




HARRINGTON.                      447
" Good evening, nMr. Wentworth," returned the joyful Roux,
bending himself double in response to the easy and graceful
bow with which Wentworth took leave.
They were all sitting in silence when he entered the library.
" There," said he, seating himself with an air of grave satisfaction, "I've told the biggest vwhopper I ever told in my life,
and if you only knew the virtuous glow and elevation of spirit
I feel, you'd all go and tell one apiece to get your souls in the
same condition.  I've saved poor Roux from  awfhl suffering,
maybe death or madness, and I'd do it again if it was necessary.
I never told a thundering lie before, but now I've done it, and
done it well, and, when Sterne's Accusing Angel bears it up to
Heaven's Chancery, if the Recording Angel doesn't drop the
biggest tear upon it his lachrymal glands can furnish, and blot
it out forever, then I trust the Lord will turn lhim out of office
for not understanding his duty, that's all.  I'm  sorry if you
blame me, Ilarrington, but there's a happy man up-stairs to
balance my side of the ledger."
"I am not your conscience, Richard," said Harriugton, simply.  " There are some truths that come from ihell, and there
are some lies that savor of heaven.  I believe such falsehoods
as yours to be among the latter.  I sometimes allost wish I
could tell them."
The tears sprang to Richard's eyes.
"Ah, Harrington," said he, dejectedly, "it's all very well
for me to talk, but I feel poorer in spirit, for having said, even
at such an urging, what was not true.  You are a nobler mnllan
than I, for you would not lie fori' the man you would die for.  No
matter,". he  added, recklessly, "I  could  not do  otherwise."
Harrington covered his eyes with his hand, and sat silent.
Emily, in a dazed condition, loolked  slowly from  one to the
other.  But AMluriel, after a mormentu's pause, rose fromt her
seat, put her armnis around ]Richard, and kissed him.
"I kiss away the good sin, dear Raffaello," she salid, with
sad playfulness, caressing  his curly  head.  "Thle brave atnd
generous good sin."
She stood by him a minute, with her hands resting on his




448                    HARRINGTON.
head, and her beautiful, exalted face upturned, then noiselessly
glided to her seat, and slowly sank down.
" Now, Harrington; what are we to do?" said Wentworth,
drying the tears from his eyes.  " My good sin, as Muriel calls
it, staves off Roux's trouble for a ceuple of days, but if we
can't get hold of Antony, it will be terrible."
"I have only one thought, and that is a forlorn one,"
replied Harrington.  "I am  waiting for Mrs. Eastman to
return.  If her brother does not consent to liberate this mapn,
or if she cannot bring herself to bear public action on this
matter, I shall go at once to my house, get my pistols, and
search the Soliman for Antony."
At this astonishing declaration, which Harrington made
very quietly, they all stared.  Even Muriel looked amazed.
But Harrington, unconscious of their wondering looks, sat in
sad abstraction, brooding on his forlorn determination.
" That will compromise no one but the captain of the brig,"
he said presently. " A writ of habeas corpus would involve
Atkins, but a rescue of this sort concerns only myself and that
captain."
" But, dear John," said Emily, with a slight shiver, " there
will be men on board the vessel, and they will never permit
this."
Harrington's broad nostrils quivered in the marble stillness
of his face, and his blue eyes gleamed.
" It will go hard with any men who step between me and
my purpose to-night," he said, in a low, quiet voice, which
made their blood thrill.  "The strength of ten is in me now,
and I will cripple whoever undertakes to oppose me. If they
outnumber these naked hands, I have my pistols. I will not
be balked. If Antony is on board the Soliman, I will take him
away with me, or leave my body beside him. Gladly would I
respect the law and order of society, but it is the day of
slavers and traders, and civilization sleeps."
" Yes," impetuously cried Wentworth, " and when civilization sleeps, up, gentlemen and chevaliers, for it is the hour of
chivalry!"
Harrington looked calmly into his glowing and electric face.




HARRrNGTON.                   449
"You say well, Richard," he replied. "When civilization
lies inert, and the organized mass either helps or does not
hinder the daily outrage to humaniWy, it is time for every gentleman to take upon himself the vow which bound the antique
chevaliers to suffer no injustice, and to succor the oppressed
and helpless. That is the time to try what redress lies in the
individual arm. That is the hour of chivalry."
There was a long pause, in which a subtle flame of enthusiasm, born from the colloquy, beat in the veins of all but Harrington. In him there was no enthusiasm, but cold and sad
determination.
"But, John," said Emily, at length, " you will not go on
this desperate adventure alone?"
"Yes. Alone," he replied.
"You shall not 1" she exclaimed, with flashing eyes and her
lit face aglow, stopping the fiery answer just bursting from the
lips of Wentworth.  " Richard shall go with you, and I wish
I had twenty lovers to send on such an errand."
Harrington looked at her with a faint color on his melancholy countenance.  As for Wentworth, he sank back
in his chair, flushed and throbbing with boundless pride in
Emily.
"Emily," said Harrington, "think! You yourself suggested
the danger of this expedition, and there is danger, for if we are
opposed, it will be by sailors, who are not slow to handle
knives in a quarrel. Now think coolly. It would be dreadful
if Richard were brought home to you dead."
She looked at him with a paling countenance, proud, though
the tears gathered in her lustrous eyes.
" If he died in trying to save a poor man from a life worse
than the worst death," she answered with a quivering lip, "I
would think of him as gone to our Savior's rest, and bear my
sorrow like a joy till I died and found him with God. Say
no more, Harrington.  He shall go with you."
"That I will," cried Wentworth, as springing to his feet,
and leaping to the large fauteuil in which sat Emily, he threw
himself by her side, and clasped her in his arms.  "Ay, marry
will I go, and wo to the nautical mind that shall conceive the




450                   HARRTGTON.
idea of assaulting me, after the. speech I have heard from you,
Emily, for on that depraved and abandoned sailor will I execute, with Berserker fury,'all that Bagasse has taught me, and
I swear it by this kiss I"
And with a kiss on her carnation mouth, that brought the
rich blood to her face like fire, he sprang up gaily with an
exulting countenance, and flung himself into his chair.
"Bravo!" cried Muriel, with a flash of her usual gaiety,
"Cupid and Mars in arms I Richard," she added more seriously, "you have my thanks.  And you, too, flower of Episcopalians, bright battle-rose of womankind. Yes, John, you
must take Richard with you."
"I will, I will," he impetuously cried.  " Oh, why should 1
despond when there are'hearts like. these I Would to God,
that I could sow the world with such as you, Emily; with such
as you, Richard I Yes, Richard, you shall go.  And you,
Muriel," he added, sinking into mournful playfulness, " you,
too, give me leave of what may prove eternal absence from you."
" Not eternal," she answered, with a radiant smile; " not in
the worst event eternal. Go, then, and even were it eternal, still
go!"
A vapor of fire mounted to his brain, and his heart beat
thick and fast.  He did not reply, but sat motionless, with his
eyes covered by his hand, and all his being pulsing in solemn
sweetness.
"Hark i" whispered Muriel, "she is coming. I hear her
step on the stairs."
Her ear must have been fine indeed, for listening they could
hear nothing.
" No, I am not mistaken," she said, seeing their incredulous
faces.  "Well I know tlhat soft, slow step.  She is coming,
and she has failed.  Oh, Lemuel Atkins, I pity you!"
There was a monlent's pause, and then the library door
swung slowly open, and with a face severe and ashen, and a
decrepit step, Mrs. Eastman came in. They all rose.
"I have seen him," she said, in a low, frigid, desolate voice.
" I have told him everything.  I have knelt to him in supplication.  Useless-useless.  He- refused ime."




HARRINGTON.                    451
"What did he say, mother?" murmured Muriel.
"I Do not ask me," she replied. i"I am heart-sick. Ask me
nothing.  I told him that it was in our house the man had
found shelter. And he said he was glad to hear it, for it was
a guaranty that he would not be disturbed in the execution of
~'his purpose.  He has a power of attorney from Lafitte, he told
me, to act as his agent in the matter, and if we presumed to
interfere further, he said, he would immediately bring the case
before a Commissioner, and have the man returned by law.
That was all."
They remained silent a little while, looking with pity on the
frozen desolation of her still and pallid features.
"Mother," said Muriel, "what shall we do?  Are you
willing to let, us act publicly in this matter now?"
"Do not ask me," she faltered.  " Give mle a little time to
think. I am going to my chamber.  Don't disturb me. I
want to be alone.  I will think, and to-morrow I will let you
know."
They stood with bowed heads, touched by the solemn winter of her sorrow, and she feebly glided from the room. Emily,
after a momeant's hesitation, followed her.
"Ah, me, I fear the case is hopeless," sighed Muriel.
" Everything depends now on your success in finding Antony
on board the Soliman."." Everything," replied Harrington.  " Yet, Muriel, on reflection, it is, perhaps, as well that we should not seek a public redress. For if the writ of habeas corpus failed in its execution, as it probably would, Mr. Atkins would at once get
out a warrant for Antony, and then he would be lost, indeed.
Yes, lost-but by the Eternal God I" he vehemently cried,
lifting his arms to heaven, "never should he, never shall any
fugitive, be taken from Boston without a desperate effort to
prevent it. I have seen one.slave dragged hence, and that
sent my brains to my hands.  Never while I live will I see
another. The hour that sees the next man baled before a
Commissioner, will see me burst into their court-room, armed
to the teeth, and I will take him from them, if I have to do it
through a lane of corpses, or leave my body beside him. Then,




452                  HARRINGTON.
if I live, let them try me for treason, and if I die, let them put
a traitor's stone upon my grave!"
His arms fell heavily, and he strode away toward the door,
"Think, Muriel," he cried, turning suddenly, " think of the
baseness of this uncle of yours. To refuse his own sister the
man her charity had sheltered I If he had found refuge in the
house of a stranger, I could conceive it; but to take him from
here I! And she knelt to him. Knelt to him in her agony,
and he could deny her I Oh, avarice, avarice I His wretched
cotton-trade is affected, and to that he sacrifices the ties of
blood, the feelings of a sister, honor, pity, charity, manhood,
everything. Let me not think of it. Come, Richard, come;
let us try our fortune."
At that moment Emily returned.
"I have prevailed upon Mrs. Eastman," she said, "to sleep
with me to-night. I could not bear to think of her being
alone in this affliction."
"Kind Emily," said Muriel, fondly embracing her.  "You
anticipated me. Alas! poor mother I  But, come, Emily,
say good bye to Richard, for he is going."
Emily ran to Wentworth's arms, and kissed him.
" You'll come back safe, I know," she said, cheerfully.
"That I will," he returned, with a gay laugh; "and wo
to the man of the tarry trowsers who interferes with my safe
return."
"Adieu, Muriel," said Harrington, embracing and kissing
her.  " We will not part forever," he added, with a sad smile,
"for I feel that I am to come back again."
"So do I," she replied.  "Good bye. We will wait tea
for you, gentlemen."
They departed, and Muriel and Emily sat down, under the
eyes of the silent Tugmutton, to await their return.
In two hours they came back disconsolate, for they had not
found Antony. They had found the Soliman lying at Long
Wharf, and had boarded her. Nobody happened to be in
the vessel but a stupid sailor, half drunk, who, when Harrington told him, very simply, that he came to look for a man hidden on board, imagined that he was a policeman, and got him




HARRINGTON.                   453
a lantern. With this Harrington and Wentworth searched
every hole and corner of the vessel, but Antony was not there.
In fact, Bangham had him tied hand and foot, and stowed
away in the back room of a low boozing ken on Commercial
street, whose landlord was a friend of the captain's. On
leaving the vessel, the young men found the sailor lying in a
sottish sleep, and as they were certain that he would remember nothing on the morrow of his visitors, they left him without buying his secrecy, as they had intended, and returned
with heavy hearts to Temple street.
" And so," said lHarrington, concluding his narration, " as
there is nothing more to be done till to-morrow, if then, let
us try to forget it all as much as we can. The Soliman'sails
on Tuesday night, the sailor told us. I shall not abandon the
hope of finding the man on board of her till she has gone."
He took a revolver from his breast pocket as he ended, and
laid it on the mantel, then wearily sat down.
"Come," said Muriel, "let us go to tea.  We shall all feel
better for a little refreshment.  Come, Charles."
Tugmutton, whose grief had not injured his appetite, which
was not the case with the others, bounced up nimbly, and followed them.
After tea, the doleful Puck was charged not to go near his
father, and was provided with a separate room. Slowly and
sadly the evening deepened on, till at last the hour of slumber
spread its dove's wings over all their sorrows.
CHAPTER XXXI.
WRE C K AND  RUIN.
THE next day arose in the dazzling effulgence of a fervid
sun. It was the thirty-first of May-the last day of spring —
but the light and heat of June filled the streets of the crowded
city under a cloudless and resplendent blue.




454                     HARRINGTON.
Anticipating' a crowd of callers, Muriel, unwilling to see
them wth. tlhis trouble on her mind, gave  Patrick orders to
admit nlo one but Wenitworthl and Captaini  isuier, llarrington
having sent for the latter.
The Captain arrived about ten o'clock, and his features
grew all atwist, and his head all awry, the momment lie lahid
eyes on Harrington.  There is no knowing thie ulimlagoinable
screw he would have got himself into coiuld he h1ave seen tLhe
ghastly face the young man had worn the evening before.
To-day Harrington was only intensely pallid, and his face was
resolute, stern, and calmu.  While the Captain yCet stared at
him, and before he could express his astonishment, Ha-rintton
bade'hinm sit doiwn, and at once told him the whole story.
*The monment hie had done, the Captain rose in awful wrath,
and began to sswear. Such oaths! No spruce-guLL imprecations
then, but tobacco of every conceivable brand, did tihe infriuated old seaman pour iforth in a steady stream.  The army that
swore terribly il Flanders, never swore worse than he in his
wrath. Lafitte, Atkins, Boston, Boston merchants, kidnappers,
slaveholders, and slavery in the abstract and in the concrete, did
he shower with curses.  Never ilad the Captain such a backsliding before.  Hlarrington, who perhaps thought of Sterne's
Recording Angel, with his disposition to blot out with tears
the record of what Muriel called good sins, let him  rip away
till, as the man in the play says, lhe got all the bad stuff out
of him, and tumbledl into his seat exhausted with his rage.
The interview lasted about an hour, and without result.
THarrington had thought it best to let the Captain knlow what
had happened, and did not hope that he could suggest any
action, as under the circumstances he could not.  Profoundly
depressed with the knowledge that MIrs. Eastman's invincible
feelingr shut oalt evenl thle forlorn hope of legal or anti-slavery
effort, the old man dceprtetd wlith a self-imposed piromise to remain all dlay on the vwhriitf anld watch t-he Solilman.
Mrs. Elastman's feeling was indeed invinciblo.  She said
nlothing,   bult as they saw her movillm  about the house like a
ghost, they understood froml her austere and ashen features
that she could not bring her heart to consent to her brother's




HARRINGTON.                   455
public dishonor, and her own related disgrace. The family
esprit de corps was mighty in her.
Muriel, meanwhile, thinking that the true disgrace and dishonor would be to have Antony sacrificed to any private feeling, however sacred, was holding busy audience with her teeming brain, as to the duty of disregarding her mother's feeling,
and resolutely taking matters into her own hands. The chief
consideration that withheld her decision now, was that the
captain of the Soliman might deny, when the writ was served
on him, that the man was in his possession, and that then, in
the interim of delay, Mr. Atkins would procure a regular warrant, which would be fatal to Antony.- Besides, she well
knew that the moment the fugitive was brought before a Commissioner, the dauntless larrington, thoroughly trained in the
use'of arms, and with the might of ten men in him, would
burst into the court-room like a thunderbolt of war, and slay
every man that stood between him. and the rescue, or be himself slain. There was good blood in the veins of young Muriel
-the old red blood of the Achlaian women who sent their dear
ones to Platea with the cry of "return with your shields or
upon them "-the old red blood of the New England women
who armed their husbands for Lexington; and strong in her
faith of the deathlessness of life, she did not shrink from the
thought of his death in such a cause; but still she preferred
that every peaceful means of obtaining the end should be employed before the last stern issue should be made.
While she yet debated with herself, Wentworth arrived. A
hasty council was at once held between the three, and it was
resolved that Harrington should wait on. Mr. Atkins, with a
proposition to buy Antony at any price within reason.
Accompanied by Wentworth, Harrington at once set out
for Long Wharf. It was then nearly noon, and the crowded
streets through which they passed were salient and swarming
in the vertical splendor. A few minutes' walk brought them'
to the place of their destination, and Wentworth agreeing to
wait outside, wandered across the street to the shipping, while
Harrington turned in to the counting-room.
He paused a moment in the dusky ware-room opening on




456                   IARRINGTON.
the street, and surveyed its contents.  Amongst other merchandise was visible a pile of dirty cotton-bales, burst here
and there with their fullness, and the white staple bulging
from the rents. The thick, musty, stifling smell of cotton
choked the air of the ware-room.  It was the same smell that
had stifled the conscience of the merchant, the conscience of
his fellows, the conscience of the nation-yes, honor, duty,
courage, compassion, manhood, independence, all that was
truly American.
Pausing only for a moment, Harrington went up-stairs into
the office, and glancing at the clerks by the desks, looked away
and saw the merchant sitting with his back to him in the little
inner counting-room, and by his side Driscoll, the stevedore.
He at once passed forward, noticing, as he entered the counting-room that Driscoll had a twenty-dollar gold piece in his
hand. Without thinking anything of this, larrington nodded
to the stevedore, and bowed gravely to Mr. Atkins as the latter
turned with a sudden flush and a half scowl toward him.
"Mr. Atkins," said the young man, courteously, "will you
favor me with a few minutes' conversation with you?"
The merchant's first impulse was to order him out of the
office, but Harrington's manner was at once so courteous and
so dignified that he found it difficult to treat him with incivility.
" Driscoll," said he, "just wait outside a few minutes.  Now,
Mr. llarrington, what is it?"
Driscoll withdrew just outside of the open door, where he
remained standing, while Ilarrington took a chair beside the
merchant, who turned his obstinate, energetic face straight to
the wall before him, and linked his fingers, with the air of one
who was resolved to hear patiently all that could be said, and
not be moved by anything.
"Mr. Atkins," began llarrington, "I have called to see
you about this man Antdny. I am aware that he escaped
from New Orleans in one of your vessels, and I fully appreciate the difficulties of the position in which his escape has
placed you. If it should happen to become known, it not only
injures the credit and character of your house in New Orleans,




HARRINGTON.                    457
but it renders your captain liable to imprisonment. Is it not
so, Mr. Atkins?"
" It is, Mr. Harrington," replied the merchant, somewhat
disconcerted by the gentle suavity of Harrington's manner,
and by his fair statement of the matter, which were not what
he had anticipated.' On the other hand, Mr. Atkins," pursued Harrington, " is
the fact that this negro escaped, as there is no reason to doubt,
from a master of unusual hardness, and only after being very
cruelly treated. Furthermore, he chanced to find shelter with
your sister, who feels a deep sympathy for his misfortunes, and
would be very seriously injured both in health and spirits if he
were returned to the unhappy life from which he has fled.
Now I assume of course that you do not wish to unnecessarily
afflict this poor fellow, still less to grieve Mrs. Eastman.  All
that you wish is to be rid of the unfortunate consequences
which his escape is likely to entail upon you in New Orleans.
Is not that the case?"
Mr. Atkins stared at the wall with an uneasy look, and
twiddled his thumbs.
"Something of that sort, Mr. Harrington, something of
that sort," he nervously replied.
"Exactly," returned Harrington.  "Now I take the liberty
to suggest that this matter can be readily arranged to the
satisfaction of all parties, and every unpleasant consequence be
avoided.  I am commissioned to say that the value of this
man, and even twice or three times his value, will be paid to
his owner. It will be easy for you to state this in a card in
the New Orleans papers, and also to state the circumstances
under which he got to Boston in your vessel. Everybody
will see at once that you and your captain were not at all
responsible for his escape, and this frank statement, conjoined
with your avowed willingness to reimburse the owner for his
loss, will not only free you from all suspicion of complicity in
his flight, but will raise your credit as an honorable man in
New Orleans, and also with the conservative portion of the
community at the North.  Besides, this compromise will spare
your sister and niece the real distress they will feel if the man
~0




458                   IIARRINGTON.
is returned, and this I think yo~u will be willing to do if you
can in justice to all other parties concerned. This arrangement will not only cost you nothing, but benefit you materially,
besides satisfying every person involved in the matter. Now,
candidly, is not this a fair and reasonable proposition?"
Mr. Atkins fidgeted in his chair for a minute, unable to
deny the force of what HIarrington had said.
"Well,, Mr. Harrington," he replied, "I admit that your
plan is feasible enough, and not unfair, certainly. But there
is one difficulty iii the way. Mr. Lafitte is unwilling to lose
this man. His value is not more than twelve hundred dollars,
but I am convinced that Mr. Lafitte would not take five thousand for him."
" Mr. Atkins, we will give him five thousand," said Harrington.
"But I tell you he wouldn't take it," replied the merchant.
" Well, then, we will give him ten thousand," said HIarrington.
Mr. Atkins stared at him.
"Pshaw I Mr. llarrington, you surely wouldn't be such a
fool as to give that sum for a worthless nigger," he contemptuously answered.
Harrington's blood grew hot, but externally he kept cool as
ice.
" My dear sir," he said, affably, "we will not mention the
negro. It is Mrs. Eastman who is concerned. Your niece
will willingly give ten thousand dollars out of her fortune to
spare her mother's feelings. And surely you would not deny
her the privilege of comforting her mother, even were this a
mere matter of prejudice."
Mr. Atkins really felt cornered.  He could not but see the
various solid advantages of this proposition. But Mr. Atkins
had considerable of the mule in his composition.
"Mr. lHarrington," said he, after an embarrassed pause,
"suppose Lafitte wouldn't be willing to take even ten thousand."
" My dear Mr. Atkins," replied Harrington, laughing-alas!




'HARRINGTON.                  4590
he found it hard to laugh, poor gentleman-" do you not see
that if Mr. Lafitte refuses to take so extravagant a sum, he
will only make himself ridiculous in the eyes of the New
Orleans people. Why, they will hoot at him! And besides,
they will extol your public spirit to the skies. It will give you
a name there no other merchant possesses. Just think of it I
Why, Lafitte would be forced to accept out of pure shame,
even were he indifferent to the advantage of having the
round sum of ten thousand dollars."
"I declare, sir, this is too preposterously absurd," said the
merchant, growing red with vexation at being thus tempted
out of his plan.  "To think of wasting so much money as that
for such a purpose."
"But, Mr. Atkins," replied Harrington, "' large as the sum
is, what is it compared with your sister's peace of mind? If
you only knew the dreadful state of distress she is in, you
would not think-so. True her distress may be nonsensical, but
still as a practical man you will be willing to allow that we
must take human nature as we find it. Besides, we need not
give so large a sum. We only wish to give enough to repair
matters, and set you right with the New Orleans folks.
Lafitte can appraise his slave, and regard for public opinion
will make him keep within reason. Still we are ready to do
anything rather than have you prejudiced in your business,
or your sister injured as, at her time of life, this matter would
injure her."
"I don't see why you should interest yourself -so much in
this affair, Mr. larrington," grumbled the merchant.
"Pardon me, I am only an agents" replied lHarrington, with
a sweet civility which not even Atkins could resist.  "I hope
you will excuse me if I have said anything to offend your sense
of propriety, but I only meant to suggest a way out of this
unpleasant embroilment, which I thought might not have
occurred to you, and which I am sure will commend itself to
your judgment as a practical business man, and one who only
desires fair play to all parties. I trust thereois no offence in
this Mr. Atkins."
" Oh, no. sir,.no sir," said the merchant hastily, with an awk



460                   IARRINGTON.
ward bow, his jaw working meanwhile with his embarrassment
at the deferential politeness with whichll Harrington presented
what he could not but admit was an unexceptionable way of
settling the whole matter. " No offence at all, siir. But-well
-what I-well the fact is, Mr. larrington, you know my
political views, which of course you don't agree with."
"We will not differ about politics, sir," replied Harrington with gracious affability.
"No, of course not, of course not," fidgeted Mr. Atkins.
" But this is the point: There has been too much tampering
with slave property in this country, sir, and I wanted to send
that man back that Southern men might see that we are devoted to their interests, and can promptly return their property
without putting them to the trouble of legal formalities."
" My dear sir," put in Harrington, "in what better way could
you prove your devotion to the interests of Southern men than
by the plan I mention? Consider how inferior the return of
the man would be to the magnificent offer to pay ten times his
value, publicly made, and promptly accomplished. The one
would be the theme of limited complimentary mention, but the
other would be blazoned far and wide, and loud and long. A
Northern merchant willing to sacrifice ten thousand dollars
even, rather than loosen one bond of political or business fellowship between the North and South I Why, it is impossible
that you should not see the superiority of this measure to accomplish the very end you have in view."
Mr. Atkins thrust his hands into his pockets, and working
his jaw convulsively, struggled between the temptation to
yield, and the obstinate desire to carry out his original purpose. Harrington saw that the crisis had come, and fearing
to irritate the merchant into refusal by his presence, he rose.
" Permit me to leave you to think of it," he said courteously. "' Just give it candid consideration, solely as a business matter, and with regard to your own interests and political feelings, and let me call again, if it is not asking too much,
at any time you may mention."
It is perfectly impossible to describe the fine tact of bearing, the sweet and winning courtesy and delicacy with which




HARRINGTON.                    461
Harrington conducted himself during this difficult interview.
If Lemuel Atkins had not been more stubborn than the unwedgeable and gnarled oak, he would have soon opened to
that subtle charm, and as it was, he began to open to it.
"Well, Mr. Harrington," he said after a pause, " I'll think
of it, and you can call in about-no you needn't," he cried,
with a sudden revulsion, turning red in the face with passion.
" I'll be damned if I'll do it I There. It's cursed folly, and
I won't consent to it."
Harrington's trembling heart froze, but he did not yet
abandon hope.
" Nay," said he, gently, "I trust you will not decide hastily.
I know it may strike you unfavorably in one view of it, but if
after careful consideration you do not approve the course I
mention, why then I will submit to your maturer judgment.
Only consider it calmly and candidly, and I do not fear the
result."
"I won't," snarled the merchant.  "I won't consider it at
all."
" But Mr, Atkins"
"I tell you I won't. Come, bother me no more with it."
" At least, sir, give one moment's consideration to the suffering your sister is in."
" Oh, damn my sister I What do I care for her suffering.
Let her suffer. I tell you, I'll send that black scoundrel back
in spite of her and you, and the whole pack of you," he roared,
purple with rage, and shaking his fist at Harrington.
"Mr. Atkins," said Harrington, with an impressive solemnity
which cooled the merchant even in the mad heat of his fury"you know the nature of Mr. Lafitte as well as I, for you have
had dealings with him. I pray you to consider that if you
send that man back, you send him to his murder. Murder by
the most merciless torture, Mr. Atkins. Can. you bear the
responsibility of that?  Now think of it coolly."
"I don't care for his murder," sullenly growled the merchant.
"I'll send him, whether or no."
Harrington saw that the case was hopeless.
"Mr. Atkins," he said, with touching gentleness, "do not




462                    HARRINGTON.
decide this matter in anger.  Pardon me, if I have said anything to offend you, and pray think of this again."
"I've heard enough," returned Atkins.  " Let me hear no
more, You have my final decision."
"At least," replied Harrington, mournfully, "think of the
future.  The clay may come when public opinion will change.
The old New England opposition to slavery may arise again even
in Boston.  Do not commit yourself by such an act as this, so
that a few years hence men may judge you harshly.  Think of
what your children will say of you if you leave them  a name
spotted with disgrace.  Think of that."
" It is a matter of perfect indifference to me what my children will say of me," coolly replied the merchant, with a yawn.
" Hark you, Mr. Harrington," he cried, rising to his feet, and
sternly facing the young man.  "I'll just give you my idea of
this slavery question, and one which involves my whole action
in this matter. When any nation conclules that it is for thle
best interests and prosperity of the country to make men " slavesI don't care whether those slaves are white or bllack-kto min11
nor body of men, nor any other nation, has a right to interfere
with, or in any way prevent that nation's making them slaves,
and keeping them in slavery.  White or black, it makes no
difference. This nation or any other nation, it's all the same.
Statesmen have settled that —older heads than yours or mine.
That principle of national right has come up, as a question of
national right, before the sober, sound, conservative statesmanship of the American Union, and that statesmanship has
answered it."
"How has it answered it?" put in Harrington, quickly,
fixing his stern and searching eyes on the flushed face of the
merchant.
" How has it answered it?" repeated iMr. Atkins, with a
sarcastic air.." Well, sir, how has it answered it?"
" It has answered it with the roar of Decatur's guns under
the walls of Algiers!" thundered Harrington, with a look of
fire.
Mr. Atkins, at this stunning demolition of his position,
turned red, and then pale, and then all sorts of colors, and




UARRINGTON.                     463
finally sat down with a working jaw, and a face of utter confusion.
"That is the way the sober, sound, conservative statesmanship of the Union answered that question of national right,"
sternly continued Harrington. " It answered from the blazing
muzzles of Decatur's cannon, that the nation that undcertakes
to hold innocent men in slavery is a nation of pirates.  By its
own answer it stands condemned.  Every State in this Union,
that holds innocent men in slavery, is an organized piracy.
The Union that sanctions the crime, and makes it possible, is
another.  And you, Lemuel Atkins, trampling on your sister's
heart, in your scoundrel zeal to thrust an ilnocent and,wretched
man into that pirate hell from whence his own bravery freed
him, you are the vilest, because the meanest, pirate of them all.
The most degraded slaveholder is white beside such,a wretch
as you.  Never let me hear again of Southern infaimy. You,
a Northern merchant, kidnapping your brother-kidnapping a
man whose right it is to say with you, in his prayers to Heaven,'Our Father'-not respecting even the miserable forms
of pirate law in your infernal zeal for wickedness-what
wretch is there, however black, that does not whiten into virtue beside you! Lafitte himself sees in you a depth of mean'
vice to which his self-respect will not permit lum to descend.
God forgive me, that I lowered myself to prune my speech,
and curb my heart, and strain my conscience, in the effort
to win and bribe you from your ghastly crime ag'ainst mankind.  Go on with it now.  Blacken down into your pit of
iniquity.  Wrench from  the world of living men to which
he yet clings, the poor victim of your accursed avarice, and
send him back as you and your muck-rake tribe sent Simns,
to shriek his life away under the bloody scourg-e.  So live
your life, and gorging on your miserable gains till you drop
into your grave, may you never know the fate it is to feel
the curses of the poor!"
Gazing aghast, with glassy eyes, like one fascinated, into
the white and terrible countenance of Htarringlton, with a
horrible, blind look on his own visage,  Atlkins sat petrified
under the low, macgnetic voice in which, like wind and rain




464                   HARRINGTON.
and fire and hail, these words burst upon him. A moment,
and Harrington had gone; and rising to his feet, and shaking
all over as in an ague fit, with that horrible blind look upon
his furious face, and a mad-dog slaver gathering on his loose
and livid lips, his sick-man's voice'strained and gasped into
speech, such as might unnaturally tear its way in agonizing
rage from the throat of one organically dumb.
"B-y G-a-ud, I'd sa-end him ba-eck," he drawled agasp,
" e-ff I-i ha-ed t-a be sa-ent t-a ha-ell I"
I would send him back if I had to be sent to hell. With
these words, which sounded as if they were torn from him, as
the fabled mandrake was said to be torn from the earth, with
low shrieks and dripping blood; and which seemed to cling as
they were wrenched away, as the demon vegetable was said to
cling when dragged from the soil, he tottered backward, and
fell with a heavy slump into his chair. There he sat gasping,
with his face turned to the wall.
Driscoll had slunk away into the outer office as Harrington left the counting-room, and the young man passed
down into the street without seeing him, and crossed to where
Wentworth was standing.  The young artist gazed with a
shocked expression into his colorless face as he approached
him.        a
"Heavens I Harrington, how white you are!" he murmured.
"I have failed, Richard," returned Harrington in a deep
and quiet voice.  "He has no heart, no reason even. Trade
has eaten the one and the other out of him. I made my plea
as well as I could. I aplpealed to his mean self-interest, so
that even he felt the force of my appeal, and wavered. But
he refused me, and I flung upon him the bitterest words that
ever passed my lips, and left him."
Wentworth looked in silence on the marble countenance,
white in the shadow of the slouched hat, with the vertical sunlight just touching the beard below.
" I am glad, Harrington," he said, after a pause, " that you
flung bitter words upon him."
"ZNo," replied Harrington, mournfully, "do not be glad,




HARRINGTON.                    465
for it cannot gladden me.  Yet I do not regret what I said to
him, nor do I think it were better unsaid.  Let him pass. He
lies, the saddest wreck I know, stranded on the shores of my
pity.  A3al-organized, miseducated, the imperfect infant taken
from his cradle, and every imperfection developed by the haphazard social culture, and all else eun1eveioped; yon have him
at last, what 1he is-at once the product and the victim of a
half-barbarous state of society.  Pity him.  He might have
been better had he lived in a better day and among better men."
"Well, no doubt,;" musingly replied Wentworth.  "Like
Dr. Johnson's Scotchmen-caught young, something might
have been made of him.  In the mean time, blast his eyes!"
They wandered on a few steps together. Suddenly Harrington stood still.
" There's no use in the Captain watching. the Soliman," he
said.  " The man is secreted somewhere, and will probably not
be taken on board till the vess~el is ready to sail.  Besides, it
may awaken suspicion if anybody should'happen to know Eldad's connection with me, and see him hanging about the brig.
Let's go down to him."
They turned and went down the wharf.
"What do youn think of boarding the Soliman again?7" asked
Wentworth.
"Better not," Harrington returned.  "Antony is not there.
It would only put them on their guard.  The sole chance now
is the writ of habeas corpus."
" And how about Mrs. Eastman?" said Wentworth.
" We must disregard her," Harrington replied.  "She will
thank us by and by for doinog so, especially if we succeed in
saving poor Antony.  The Soliman does not sail till Tuesday
night, so there is plenty of time.  We will return presently,
see Muriel, anad then I will at once procure the writ.  If I fail
with it, the last thing is to search the Soliman as she is on the
point of leaving the wharf, opposition or no opposition."
"Good," exclaimed Wentworth, with a proud thrill.
They went on in silence, and presently reached the Soliman.  The stevedores were busy ladingl her, and all was activity on board and on the wharf.  Looking about, Harrington
20*




466                   HARRNGTON.
presently caught sight of Captain Fisher on the opposite pavement, and at once went over to him. The two joined Wentworth in a couple of minutes, and they all went up the wharf
together.
"Now, Captain," said Harrington, as they walked on, "I
am going on to Temple street, and I will be at your house
soon. Then you and I will go together for the writ-so wait
for me:"
" All right, John," returned the Captain, who had been previously told by Harrington that Mrs. Eastman was to be disregarded.
Half way up, the Captain stopped and fixed an admiring
gaze on a pretty little sail-boat, sloop-rigged, which lay alongside, and which belonged to him.
" Pooty, aint she?" he remarked, ogling his property.
"Yes, indeed," returned Harrington, "we've had many a
pleasant sail in her in the old days."
He sighed vaguely, and they went on, up the busy wharf,
and into the noise and bustle of State street. It was the
great mercantile street of the city, the old street of solemn
memories, the proud street of Sam Adams and Paul Revere,
the brave street of the Boston Massacre, the dark street of
the rendition of Sims. Over those stones once wet with the
sacramental blood of Attucks, under the solemn eye of the
morning star, the child of his race, surrounded by sabres, had
gone to the vessel a Boston merchant volunteered to take him
to his murder. Side by side, amidst the weeds and rubble of
traffic, burst the black slaver flower and bloomed the bright
historic rose.
The merchants were thick on'Change as the three companions came up the street, and there was much lifting of hats
and fluttering and swarming, which for a moment they could
not account for. But presently, as they entered the crowd,
they met a figure which explained that decorous commotion,
and involuntarily made them start and for a second pause. It
was Webster. Not, alas! the dark Hyperion, splendid in
statued majesty, of a younger day, when those stern lips
thundered the speech of freemen; but him grown old, his




HARRIINGTON.                  467
leonine and massive features austere and sullen-grim, firescarred in swarthy grain with base ambition and battered by
the storms of state, yet kingly still in ruin, and with some
relic of their former sombre beauty. He lifted his hat to a
gentleman as they came up, and for an instant they gazed
upon the rugged and malignant grandeur of that imposing,
countenance, with its vast brow and iron majesty of mouth,
and its cavernous and torrid eyes. A moment, and they
had gone by. Wentworth looked awed, the Captain's face
was rigid and atwist, and Harrington was blind with tears.
" To meet him at such an houy as this 1" he gasped.  " He
who has done it all i He with the seventh of March upon his
face, and you and I and all of us with its shadow on our lives.
One speech for freedom then, and the cloud of this anguish and
dishonor would have passed away. That speech, half-written
in his desk, never spoken, but in its stead the speech for
slavery, which has made kidnapping a law. And he, fallen
forever, standing there amidst those muck-rake rogues, fallen
from all he was, fallen from all he might have been, sunk to
herd among the thieves of men I Oh, wreck of wrecks-grief
of griefs-ashes and dust and ruin I"
Touched by the solemn passion of his sorrow, they did not
speak, but went on in brooding silence, regardless of the passing crowds around them. In a few minutes they reached the
head of State street, where the Captain silently nodded and
left them, and turning in the opposite direction, they went on
to Temple street.
CHAPTER XXXII.
HERALD SHADOWS.
IT was about one o'clock when they arrived. After a hasty
dinner, Muriel withdrew to argue matters with her mother,
while larrington went into the library, and Wentworth. who




468                      HARPINGTON.
was suffering from  the heat, started for home to change his
clothes, 7p:o'.Lisiron    to meet his friend soon at the house in
Chambers street.
The conf.ell:ce uw-ith 1rs. Eastman lasted nearly an hour,
failed of ro1 ult o. course,  an'd w"'ithout telling her mother of
lher puripose, i-uriel went into tie libirary, anCd gave her decision in favTror of instant action.
Harrington imllmediatcly put, his revolver inh his pocket, and
took, in ease of' need, a hundred dolars n1 bills whichl Muriel, with
her usual foresigllt, had drawn  i'rom  tile ballk that morning.
Then receiving her fervent hopes for fims success, he I'olded her
in his arms and kissed her, anl  sallied forth upon his mission.
Hle was resolute and calm, vet- nervounslv alive with incertitudes and apprehellesiocns, which  fled like stragi'e shadows
across his burnin  brain.  Thel daT xwas still brilliant and sultry, but in thle stainless blue of the morning  masses of bright
wild clouds hlad gtlthered, and lay rfantastically changinig from
shape to shape in densely huddled  conicourse.  He watched
them as he strode alonog finding- in their totterilng transformations and fiaring  hbrightness, as in the mutalJte sh-apes they
assumed, some weird expression of his own moo d.  }lere thley
were unlelim.ba'ble alps of cloudy snow, up reared in a glittering
mass of mountainous g iddiness, and toppli g from their bases.
There they stretched in a carded drift of fierce white fire,
smouldering in the resplendent blue, and consumed by its own
intensity.  In one place they had heaped  into the form of a
defying giant, impotently meitinig away in fantastic dissolution.
In another they were a long cohort of crouchling lions looking
out of their manes.  Below the zenith, before him, a solitary
cloud shaped itself into a vapory hydra; beyond, another
wore the semblance of some mongrel dragon of the air; and
all were sphinxine, monstrous, dazzling, wonderful-a phlantasmagoric rack of intervolved chimeras.
With such a pageant brig ht and wild above his head, and
with a feeling corresponsive to it all within  his uind, he
strode on through the quiet streets of the neighborhood, and
arrived at his house in Chambers street.  For some reason or
other, the Captain had not yet arrived, and, expecting him pre



HARRIINGTON.                     469
sently, after a minute's kindly chat with  lannah and Sophy,
he weilt into his owni apartment.
The afternoon sun lay bright and cheerfu.l within the room
where he had spent so many sweet anld studious hlours, but the
first thing he saw on entering, brought night and winter on
his heart.  Below the empty pedestal, the bust of the beloved
Verulam lay shattered to fragments on the floor.  His head
sunik upon his breast, and he stood sadly gazing upon tile ruin.
Ile did not grieve for the loss of the treasured statue; he did
not even remember to think how the accident could have occurred; all considerations were lost in the feeling of mournful
significance which swept over his burning brain, as he brooded
on the broken ifmage of the majestic Lord of Civilization.
A few moments he gazed upon the wreck with a face of
marble; then, suddenly, his features became convulsed, and
his eyes filled with tears.
" It is well, it is well!" le cried, in a transport of passionate
sorrow.  " Oh image, why should you stand there when the
shamied land has lost her breed of noble blood, and civilization
sleeps, andl tyranny darkens back upon the world! Well
may you lie shattered, for all that is human and holy is shattered too.  Why should I keep you in this base city, where
all that is nfoble rests in the grave, or lives a dyi-ng life in the
forlorn grapple with hell!  Fade, fade, large memories of
saints and mlartyrs-dclrop, statues of heroes -melt, phantoms
of old honor from  the pictured wall-away, and yield your
places to the forms of clowns and knaves I  Come, yon
artists," he raved, in passionate bitterness-" come, you dilettante bastards-come, you anatolmies, whom- the ghost of
Angelo mocks and scorns-here is work for you.  God! the
serpentry a1nd maggotry of Power are all before you! Choose
from themn-choose -from them-m-ou!d us statues of slavers,
paint us pictures  of kildnappers to fill the vaccant places 
Down with the just andl grea.l  up wiith the small and vile!"
Quivering witll tle temlpest of his agony,  he tottered. away,
and flinging hlimsalf into his chair, c.overed lis face with his
hands.
A few minutes trailed by in deep stillness.  Gradually he




470                    HARRINGTON.
became calm, and his hands dropped from  his white and sorrowful features.
"I waste my heart in grief," he mournfully murmured.
"It will pass, it will pass. Oh, winter of Slavery you will
pass, and the spring-time of Freedom will emerge.  It is but
a season-only a season. Patience, patience, patience."
He sat for a little while, then rose, gathered up and laid
out of sight the fragments of the statue, bore the pedestal upstairs, and returning resumed his chair.
The minutes were wearing on in deep silence when a low
knock came to the door.
"Enter," cried Harrington, looking up from his mournful
musing.
The door opened and revealed the grotesque and sloven
figure of Bagasse.  He had on an old swallow-tailed coat, and
wore his usual dingy cap, with the visor turned down, under
which his swarthy, upturned face, with the mustachioed, lion
mouth open in a curious smile, and the nose adorned with the
horn-rimmed goggles, pointed with suave inquiry at lHarrington, while the hand performed a military salute.
"Why, Bagasse!" cried Harrington, smiling, and rising
from his chair to cross over and shake hands-" how are you?
Come in. I'm glad to see you."
" Ah, Missr Harrington," returned the old soldier, entering
and bowing low with a quick motion, over the hand he grasped
in his, "I am vair glad to see you. I haf not see you for so
long. Zen I fancee you are seek, and I call zoo be vair sure
zat it is not zat keep you from ze acadamee. How is you
helt?  Br-r-r I  Sacrebleu! but you haf been seek, eh?"' he
cried, with a sudden commiseration, expressed by a shrug of
his shoulders, a lift of his eyebrows, and a startled grimace of
his features, as he noticed the whiteness of Harrington's countenance.  " Ion Dicz! you is vair pale wis you eye circle wis
ze dark color!  0 my fren' IMissr Harrington, was is ze
mattair wis you?"
A  little moisture gathered in Harrington's eyes at the
pathetic anxiety of the old man's look and voice, but he smiled
cheerfully, and shook his head.




HARRTNGTON.                   471
" No, Bagasse," he replied, "I am not sick. I am as well
as I have ever been. Come, take a seat."
Bagasse removed his cap, and sitting on the sofa, kept his
upturned visage pointed in dubious inquiry at Harrington, who
had resumed his chair.
"You know I have been married," said Harrington smilingly.
" Marry! No   Mon Dieu, no   I haf not hear zat!"
exclaimed Bagasse, with a start, and his bright eye glowing
from a flushed visage.
" Yes," replied Harrington.  "To that beautiful rich lady
Mr. Witherlee told you of."
Bagasse turned the color of heated iron, partly with joy at
this intelligence, partly with wonder at Harrington's knowledge of what had passed between himself and Witherlee.
" By dam!" he exclaimed suddenly, "I am so glad I haf
ze desire zoo dance like ze vair devail! But how you know
what zat pup Witterly-ex-cuse me, Missr Harrington, but
zat is vair bad young man-ah, vair bad!-how you know
what he say zoo me?"
" No matter, Bagasse," returned Harrington, smiling, "we
won't talk of that.  But my wife heard of what you said
to him-you remember?-what you said you would tell me if
you were her-and she said that to me. Yes, she did."
Bagasse, with his grotesque ferruginous face all aglow with
a dozen emotions, sprang up with a stamp which shook the
room, dropped into his seat again, and slapped his heart with
his hand.
" Hah I" he hoarsely cried, "it is superb I By dam! I
sall fly. My heart is too big for his box. And zat beautifool, rich, vair, fine ladee say zat? Sublime! She is great,
she is grand, she is more zan ze great Empress Josephine of
ze great Nap-oleon.  Ah, Hypolite Bagasse my frien', you
haf ze biggest compliment I sall evair hear I"
"You must see my wife, Bagasse," continued larrington.
"She feels very grateful to you, first for defending me from
poor Witherlee's talk ""Sacre!" growled Bagasse, interrupting, " I catch zat pup




47T2                    ARRINGsrON.
Witterly in my acadazmee once more, and I break him in two
pieces ovair my knee!"
-" No," said Harrinlton, gently, "for my sake, don't touch
him.  He has been punished enough already.  Say that you
won't touch him, Bagasse."
"Missr Harrington, I do evairysing you want," replied the
pacified fencing-master.  "You say let Witterly off, I let him
off. I treat him wis civilitee."
"That's right," returned Harrington; "d co. But as I was
saying, my wife feels especially grateful to you for having
given her the charming idea of making that speech to me, and
she wants to see you, and know you,- and thank you herself.
So the first opportunity I get, I'am going to take you to her
house."
Bagasse turned swarthy-red at this, and looked embarrassed.
"Pardon me, - Missr Harrington-ex-cuse lme, sir, please,"
he said, with suave shamefacedness, bowing low as he sat.
"But it is too mush honor-vair many too mush.  You beautifool, vair, fine, ]adee wife, she is so high, she is so distingue,
she is ze count-ess, ze duch-ess, ze queen.  She is so far up like
ze beautifool sun.  I am so low down like ze pacving-stone ze
sun shine on. You zink now  I am ze poor old fencingmastair-ze man zat eat ze garleek and drink ze brandeebottel-ze ugly old devail Bagasse, so low down. Br-r-r-r! It
is not propair zat I make ze viseet zoo ze vair, fine, beautifool
rich ladee-wife —, zee poor way low down child of ze people.
Sacreblem, no I'"
" Oh, Bagasse, Bagasse," said Harrington, in a tone of good
natured chiding, "fie upon you to talk in that way!  Suppose my wife is the sun, as you say. Well, the sun is a democrat. The sun shines as sweetly on you as on the emperor.
Now my wife is like the sun in that particular at least. Ah,
Bagasse, she, too, is a child of the people, and she will be proud
to know a man who could make the'manly speech you made I
She is not a lady who respects coats and bank-stock, but heart,
honor, manhood. Come, now, you fancy her a bit of a Marie
Antoinette.  iNot at all, Bagasse.  Think of that dear child




HARRINGTON.                    473
of the people whom Frenchmen love-Josephine. That is a
better image of her., Don't say a word-you shall visit her,
and then you'll see how much at home she'll make. you feel."
All which Harrington said in French that Bagasse might
perfectly understand him. The old man sat, with a touched
face, looking at the floor for some time after the young scholar
had ceased to speak. Looking up, at length, with an unsteady
eye, he saw that the sad, introverted expression had returned
to the pallid features before him.  In fact, Harrington's
thoughts had dropped away to the trouble on his mind, and he
was wondering why the Captain did not come.
" Missr Harrington," said Bagasse, in a voice, a little lower
and hoarser than usual, "you make me vair proud-you do
me vair mush honor. But ah, my joay haf mush melancolee
wis him, for you look so pale, so bad.  Ex-cuse me, Missr
Harrington-but was is ze mattair wis you?  Why, you look
so white, so sorrowfool? Ah, tell you old Bagasse zat he may
say ze leetel word wis comfort ihi him! You marry ze beautifool, dear ladee wife —mon Dieu! zat sall make you so happy
zan evairybody. Why zen you haf zat face? Zat is not ze
face for ze new husband-sacrebleu, no I Now why is zat?"
Harrington paused a moment before replying, struggling to
repress the agitation he felt not only at the rude tenderness of
the old Frenchman's words and manner, but at the aching sense,
it brought him of the grief that had clouded his sweet and perfect happiness.
" Don't ask me, Bagasse," he faltered.  " Kind old friend, I
wish I could tell you, but there are reasons"
A low knock at the door made him break off in the midst
of his sentence.
"No, don't go," he said to the fencing-master, who had
moved to rise.  " Come in," he' cried.
The door opened slowly, and to the.astonishment of Harrington, Driscoll the stevedore entered.  Harrington smiled
vaguely; and bent his head with.an absent and wondering air
in reply to the abashed and awkward bow the Irishman made
as he came in.
"Why, Mr. Driscoll," he said, slowly, "I didn't expect to




474                    HAR1RINGTON.
see you, though I'm glad you came. Take a chair. How are
you?"
"Purty well, thank ye kindly, Mr. Harrington," replied
Driscoll, taking off his old straw hat, and wiping his forehead with his coat sleeve, without looking at the young
malln.
Harrington, wondering at his curious air of awkward bashfulness, and beginning to feel a rising perturbation, as he
remembered that he had seen the man in Atkins' office not
long before, blankly stared at him. He was a strong, thick-set,
stooping man, dressed in coarse canvas trowsers, all stained
with pitch and dirt; a soiled red flannel shirt; and a short
frowsy old coat with large horn buttons. He had what is
commonly called a thoroughly Irish face-which means not the
Irish face of Jeremy Taylor or Edmund Burke, but the face of
an Irish peasant after despotism, political, social, and religious,
has wrought on him and his ancestry for a certain period, giving
him some abjectness, some lawlessness, some clownishness, some
stupidity, some insensibility, an aspect of hard work and poor fare
and low condition, and degrading his forehead, clouding his eye,
lowering his nose, making his lips loose, his gums prominent,
his cheeks scrawny, his throat scraggy, and barbarizing the
manhood of him generally. Such, with the addition of tan
and freckles got from labor in the sun, and also the grime and'sweat of that labor, was the visage of Driscoll. The only other
thing Harrington noticed about him was that he kept his left
hand tightly clenched while he wiped his face with the rough
sleeve of his right arm.
"Well," continued Harrington, after a pause, " how goes
it, Mr. Driscoll?  How is your wife?  And the children?
And how is the broken leg? Won't you sit down?"' They're all purty well, sur, thank ye kindly," returned
Driscoll, ducking his head continuously as he spoke, and moving
up to the table.  " And the leg's sthrong as a post, glory be
to God, sur.  Sorra the word o'lie in it, but it's yerself that
it's owin' to, and divil a leg I'd have to stand on this minit
widout you, Mr. Harrington."
"Qh, well," said Harrington, smiling; "I'm  glad you're




HARRINGTON.                    475
over that trouble. But you came up to tell me something, I
suppose.  Did-did Mr. Atkins send you?"
"Deed he did not, sur," replied Driscoll.  "I kem  up to
make bowld to ask ye something, Mr. Harrington, if ye
wouldn't think it an offince, sur," he added, with a furtive
sidelook at Bagasse, who sat with an upturned face of curious
interrogation levelled at him.
" Certainly not," replied larrington.  " No offence at all.
Ask away. Never mind my friend, there."
" Bad scran to me if I wor to mind a frind o' yours, sur,"
returned Driscoll, coming close up to the edge of the table, and
looking uneasily at Harrington.  " It's a quistion I'll make
bowld to ask ye, sur."
"Well, ask on," said Harrington, blankly gazing at him,
with a mounting color, and his heart beating painfully with a
blind clairvoyant sense of what was coming.
"Are ye," confidentially asked the stevedore, with considerable burr on the " are "-" are ye opposed, sur, to it's bein'
done?"
lHarrington started so violently, and turned so pale, that
Bagasse sprang to his feet, and Driscoll's face grew stupid
with surprise.
" To what being done?" gasped  Harrington.  "Speak
quick. Tell me what you mean?"
"Are ye opposed, sur, to ould Atkins sendin' off the durty
negur? That's what I mane," said Driscoll.
"I am!" cried Harrington, with a lightning look at Bagasse, and a wish that he was out of the room.
Driscoll looked at the table, and looking at it, slowly swung
up his clenched left fist like one pelting a pool, and hurled a
twenty dollar gold piece ringing on the cloth.
"Then I'm dommed if I'll do it," he exultingly howled, with
a thump of his fist on the money.  "Hurroo for the bridge
that carries us over, and it's you that wor the bridge of goold
to me and the ould woman and the childher in the black hour,
Mr. Harrington.  Ould Atkins and his money to the divil, and
bad scran to him and his for an ould robber, for I'm dommed
if I'll do wan thing that ye are opposed to, sur. Arrah, bad




476                     HARRINGTON.
look to him, and may he niver know glory, for the black thafe
o' the world that he is; but it's yerself that dlhressed him down
thremindous this blissed day, Mr. liarrington.  Troth, but it's
the good blood that's in the Harringtons, and kings and imperors they wor in the ould country wanst, and sorra the word o'
lie in it!"
With which highly apocryphal assertion, Driscoll's excited
outburst ceased, and he fell to wiping his heated face, first
with one coat-sleeve and then with the other.
Harrington rose from his seat, white as death, his nostrils
heaving and his eyes aflame.
"Bagasse," he said, "will you be kind enough to leave
me"       He stopped, touched by the look of tender sympathy on the grotesque face of the fencing-mLaster.  " No," he
cried, " don't go.  Stay with me.  You shall know it-you
shall know what it is that is killing me.  But tell me," he
pursued, speaking in  French, " tell me, on the honor of a
soldier, tha.t you will never breathe one word of this to any
living being, for it is a secret which must be kept close as
the grave."
Bagasse struck hands with him with passionate and martial
energy.
"I swear it," he hoarsely cried in French.  "Let me know
it, for I cannot bear to see you suffer, and if I can help you, I
will!"
"Good I" exclaimed Harrington.  "Driscoll, attend to me.
Where is that nlegro?"
"They've got him, sur, in the cuddy of a boat down on
Spectacle Island," replied the stevedore, frightened into conciseness by the stern voice and flamingo eyes of Harrington.
"Who are they that have him?  Mlen employed by Atkins?"
" Yes, sur.  Siven o' thim, sur.  It's me that wor to be
eig'lt;."
"Seven men paid by Atkins.  Who  are they?   Steveclores?"'
" Stevedores and sailors, sur,  Twinty dollars apiece they
get for it, sur."




HARRDGTON.                     477
" What are they doing with him there?"'
" Howlclding on to him, sur, till the Soliman sails.  She's to
heave to, and take him on board, sur."
" When does the Solilan sail?"
"To-morrow morning at break o' dclay, snr."
"To-morrow morning?  No-you mean Tuesday nitght."
"'Deed I don't, sur.  She sails to-morrow morning, if there's
a breath o' wind.'"
Harrington drew his breath.  Lucky I found this out, he
said to himself; to-nmorrow I should have been too late.
" Driscoll," he continued, "are those men armed?"
" They've got their knives, sur."
" No pistols?"
"Sorra the wan, sur."
"Do they stay in the boat all the time?"
"'Deed they don't, sur.  Wan or two o' thim  stays in her
turn and turn about, and the rist o' thim  plays cards in the
little room o' the house on the island."'The house?  Oh, it's a hotel.  Does the owner of the
house know they have a negro in the boat?"'
"'Deed }he donlt, sur.  The negur's tied hand and fnt, and
kep' in the cuddy."
" WThat does the owner of the house think those men are
there for?"
" I don't know, sur.  Captain Bangham  paid him well for
the rooml they have, and he niver comes nigh thim at all."
" How long were you there?"
"This morning  early, I wint down with thim, sur."'
"How caime you to be up in the city this noon?"
"I kemn up, sur, with Captain Baugham.  He wint down
to the island in a boat of his own, along wid us this morning
early, and stayed wid us a while, clhrinkin' like a fish, till he
got purLlty dhlrunk.  So I kemn back widi him to help him manage the boat lest hle'dc get t cilrowne,  sur."'
"  ow came you to come up with him, and not a sailor?"
"We dhrew lots for it, siir, and I was the waif."
"And you were goin cl down to the island again?"
"Yis, sur.  I was goin' in the first boat that wint down the




478                  }ARXGTON.
harbor. I wint in to ould Atkins to take the pay, for the
others had got theirs, and there wasn't enough in his pocket
for me when he paid thim, so he tould me to come in whin
I kem up from the island, and begorra, I tuk him at his
word."
"Did Atkins pay those men himself?"
"Deed he did, sur. Early in the mornin' when they wint
down, he was there, and paid thim."
"This Captain Bangham is the captain of the Soliman, I
suppose?"
"Yis, sur."
" Where does the boat lie that has the negro on board."
" At the wharf o' the island, sur."
" This room in which the men stay-where is it?"
"It's in the outbuilding, sur. A little room nixt to the
kitchen, low down, wid the doore openin' on the ground, an'
wan step for the stairs, sur."
" Good. Now, Driscoll, you are not going to help these
men any more?"
" I'm dommed if I'll do it, whin you're opposed to me doin'
it, sur. Troth, I heard ivery word ye said to the ould thafe,
and says I to meself, if I do wan thing that Mr. Harrington's
set aginst, and he the gintleman that befrinded me and mine
in the black throuble, may the divil fly away wid me."
"Driscoll, take that gold piece back to Mr. Atkins, and tell
him you've thought better of it. Don't say another word to
him but that. Have no quarrel with him. Say that, put
the money on his desk, and leave his office. Do you understand?"
"Yis, sur. I'll do it."
"Good. You shall not lose by it. Take this from me."
larrington drew from his pocket the money he had
received from  Muriel, and counted him  out twenty-five
dollars.
" Here, Driscoll," he said, holding out the bills to him.
" Oh, begorra, Mr. Harrington, but I'll niver take it from
you. Plaise don't offer it to me."
" Driscoll, I insist upon your taking it. You shall."




IAkRRINGTON.                  479
He seized the stevedore's hand, and put the money into it.
"There. Don't thank me, but attend to what I say. Driscoil, that negro is a poor laboring man like you. He has as
good a right to his freedom as you have. When you joined
those men to keep him in that boat, you were guilty of a great
sin. Never do such a thing again I You say you are grateful to me. Then be kind to negroes for my sake. Be kind to
them for your own sake. You are a poor man, and you ought
to be kind to the poor."
Driscoll looked abashed and touched. Perhaps the words
moved him less than the solemn and gentle voice which uttered
them.
" Sorra the harm I'll ever work wan o' thim, sir," he murmured.  "Deed, I didn't know it was a sin."
"And now, Driscoll," pursued Harrington, " I have reasons
for wishing this matter kept secret, and I want you to swear
to me that you will never speak of this to any person whatever. Never tell anybody that you were in that boat-that
Mr. Atkins hired you-or that you came here and told me.
Never speak of this at all in any way."
" I'll swear it, sur. Deed I will."
Harrington turned to his shelves, and took down a Douai
Bible, its covers blazoned with a golden cross.
"Driscoll," said he, "you are a Catholic.  Here is the
Catholic Bible. It is opposed to slavery. There have been
great men of your chuirch who hated slavery. The Pope himself has cursed slavery.  See, here is the cross of your church
on the cover. Taake this book in your hands, and swear that
you will never speak to any person, man or woman, of what
you have done, of what passed between Mr. Atkins and you,
of what has passed between us here. Swear it."
Driscoll reverently received the Bible in his hands, took the
oath, and kissed the cross.
"That is all," said lHarrington, receiving the Bible, and
restoring it to its place. "' I am very grateful to you for having
told me of this, Driscoll. You have done me the greatest good
that any man could do me."
Driscoll stood in silence, awed and wonder-stricken at what




480                   HARRINGTON.
ihad passed, and subdued by the majestic gentleness of Hiarringtfon's demeanor. In a moment he took the gold piece from the
table, and moved to the door.
" God save ye kindly, sur," he faltered, ducking his head.
" Good bye, Driscoll.  Shake hands."
He awkwardly took the frank hand Harrington outstretched
as lhe came over to him, felt it grasp his own as never gentleman's had grasped it before, and with a wild and woful enthusiasm heaving within him, and repressed by shame and awe,
he turned away, and stole out at the door the young man
opened for him.
Harrington closed the door, and, all unmindful of Bagasse,
turned away with clasped hands, and a face of solemn
ecstasy.
" Oh, bread cast upon the waters," he murmured, "is it
thus I find you after many days?  I helped him in his trouble,
and he pays me back with life!"
His head sunk upon his breast, and he stood with closed
eyes, rapt and still, his heart swelling with gratitude and
thanksgiving.
Suddenly, from the barrel-organ in the street, a strain of
martial music arose and flowed in upon the dreaming silence. It
was the thrilling tonal glory of the Marseillaise.  The thought
of his heart came like flame to the broad-nostrilled countenance
of Harrington, and lie stood with kindled features and dilated
form, while the proud and mournful music swept like the
march of an army around him.  On and on in burning measure, rolled the sad and conquering lilt of liberty, and darkening down in fire and tears, voice of the passion of mankind,
voice of the wrongs and woes that redden earth while the
good cause lies bleeding, the weird strain arose and rang in
the clear cry for the sword, and wailed in the mournful glory
of those final tones whose melody is like a hymnn for the dead
who die for Man.
Harrington rushed from the room.  The Frenchman, left
alone, stood with a dark glow on his iron visage, and the red
light of battle in his eye, thinking of the old days of military
ardor, the old wars in which he had stormed on Europe, the




HARRINGTON.                    481
old Paris folding in her bosom the ashes of the Emperor, the
old France he himself would never see again.
The flush of memory the music brought him was paling into sadness, when Harrington returned from the street.
"I have paid him, and sent him away, Bagasse," said
the young man.  "After that air, I wanted to hear no
more. Now sit down, and I will tell you the meaning of all
this."
Bagasse took his seat on the sofa, and Harrington sitting.
beside him, in a few words told him all.
"And now." he joyfully said, in conclusion, "everything
begins to lighten, since I know where this poor Antony is to be
found."
"Ah, Missr Harrin'ton," returned the old man, smilingly
regarding him over an upturned chin, " zat face you haf is now
ze face of ze new husband! Ze dear ladee wife will lof zat
face so gay.  Missr Harrin'ton, you are ze most grand zhentilman I sall evair see. You feel kind for ze vair old devail
himself. You get white, you get ze dark round you eye for
zat neeger man so mush as he was you own self. Nobody, not
ze white man, not ze neeger man, not no man at all, feel so
bad for you like you feel for evairy ozzer man. Why is zat?"
Harrington's maxillary muscles wrinkled, and his teeth
flashed in an amused laugh, while his face grew scarlet at this
complimentary recognition of the human kindness that was so
mighty in him.
"Bagasse," said he, " don't praise me for having the feelings
of a man. If you could have seen the poor fellow when I found
him in the street, and if you could have heard his account of
the life he had been living, you would feel as badly as I did.
But here's Wentworth and the Captain at last," he added,
catching sight of them from the window near him, as they entered the garden gate.
They came in presently, and for a moment there was a confusion of salutations. Then the Captain, having been introduced
to Bagasse, turned to Harrington.
"John," said he, "I'm awful exercised about keepin' you
waitin', but "
21




482                   HARRINGTON.
"Never mind," interrupted Harrington.  "I shan't try to
get the habeas corpus writ now. Let me tell you what's happened."
"By Jupiter!" cried Wentworth, reddening at the sight
of larrington's kindled face. "Antony's got off I Good!
Hurrah!"
"Hold on. Not so fast, Richard," returned Harrington.
"Antony's not off yet, but he's going to be. Now listen."
And in a few words he gave them an account of the interview with Driscoll.
"So Antony's in the cuddy of a boat at Spectacle Island,"
he added, concluding. " And now, see here. Thank fortune
Mrs. Eastman's feelings can be spared, Antony saved, and yet
the whole affair be kept strictly private. I shall wait, Captain,
till the dead of night, when those fellows will all be asleep,
and I hope drunk —all except the one in the boat-and then I
shall run down in your craft, land, and capture the captured."
"Bravo l" shouted Wentworth.  " By Jove 1  I shall
laugh fit to kill when we get hold of Antony."
" We?" said larrington, jestingly. " Why, are you going?"
"Am I going 1"u roared Wentworth. " Of course I am. Do
you think I'd let you go alone?"
Captain Fisher, who had been sitting in silence, with his
winter pippin face agrin, burst into hearty laughter.
" By the spoon of horn!" he exclaimed, " but this is a leetle
the richest idee I ever heern tell on. But, John, look a-here.
Siven of them fellers, you know. Sposin you find them in the
boat all together, like Brown's cows, when he had but one?
What'll you do then?"
"It's not likely," replied Harrington.  "Men love their
ease too much to be out in the night when it's not necessary.
For my own part, I think Atkins has managed this matter
like a fool. Two men would have answered his purpose perfectly, and he puts eight there. I can't imagine what he was
thinking of."
Mr. Atkins was thinking of Harrington, if Harrington
could but hayt  known it. The moment Mrs. Eastman had
told him thl A untony had been sheltered in her house, a feel



HARRINGTON.                    483
ing had come to him that the young scholar, whose dauntless
temper he had.some notion of, might possibly attempt a rescue,
and he took his measures accordingly. This accounted, too.
for Antony not being on board the Soliman.
"But look a-here, John," pursued the Captain.  "Satan's
niver onready to play ye a trick, an' there's no countin' on
what's likely with him. Now sposin you find them siven fellers
in the boat when you git down?"
"In that case," replied Harrington, gravely, " there's nothing for it but a desperate fight. I shall tell them of the
illegality of their proceeding, and try to frighten them into
giving up Antony. If they refuse, I shall fall on them like a
fury. Here's Bagasse has been training me for years, and I
think I should do credit to his training even with seven men.
" Missr Harrin'ton," said Bagasse, with a grimace, " you
do me one favor. No, pardzeuZ, I take zat favor. Look. I
go wis you. Zat is settle. Zen if ze seven men wish zoo fight,
zey sail fight wis you and me, and zey find out, by dam, zat we
is fourteen I"
" Bravo, you old Gascon!" cried Wentworth, slapping him
on the shoulder. "Let him go, Harrington. Don't refuse."
" But, Bagasse," said Harrington, " you have a wife, and I
can't coisent that you should put your life in danger on
my affair."
" Chut! poo, poo I" answered the fencing-master. " Ex-cuse
me, Missr Harrin'ton, but zat is feedelstick I You haf ze
beautifool, dear ladee wife, and I take care of you for her.
Good. Zat is well. Now I go wis you."
"Don't deny  him, HIarrington," pleaded  Wentworth.
"Come, let's arrange the rest of this matter.  Where do we
start from?"
" Long Wharf, at about twelve o'clock," replied Harrington.
"Whoever gets to the boat first will wait for the rest. Then
about landing. Faith, it won't do to land at Long Wharf, if
any of us gets hurt.  We shall have the night police asking
questions if they see one of us limp. Besides, the less seen
of Antony the better.  We must land at South Boston,
where it's lonely as a desert."




484                  HARRIINGTON.
" And walk over to the city!" asked Wentworth, with a
laugh.
"No, we  must have a carriage," replied Harrington.
" Now who's going to drive the carriage out and wait there
with it? I can't, for I must go in the boat."
" And I must go wis you," said Bagasse.
"So must I," added Wentworth.
"It's me then," said the Captain, getting all awry. "Now,
that's a pity, for I want to be with you. And sposin there's
a fight. Then you're one able-bodied man the less."
" See," put in Bagasse.  "I tell you. We get John Todd
for to drive. You pay him money. Zen he go. Zat John
Todd lof money."
"Bravo!" cried Wentworth.  "That's an idea. I'll give
Johnu, ten dollars for the job."
"I hardly like to have another party in a matter so private," demurred Harrington.
" But he needn't know anything about it," said Wentworth.
" He needn't even see Antony. When we land, I'll go up and
get the carriage, letting him stay behind, put Antony in, drive
up again, take Johnny on the box, drive in town, set him
down, and go on to Temple street."
"Well," said Harrington, "that may do. Now who'll get
the carriage? We want a close carriage."
" I'll get it," returned Wentworth.  " I know a man who'll
let me have one. I'll attend to all that, and to engaging
Johnny. Where shall we have the carriage stand? Say Q
street,  Good. We'll all go armed, of course."
" Certainly," replied Harrington, " I will take my revolver."
" And I my pistols," said Wentworth.
" I sall carree ze good cavalree sabre wis my pistol," said
Bagasse.
" And I'll take that hickory stick of mine with the lead
knob, and that'll give any feller a headache that wants one,"
said the Captain, with his head ominously askew.
" Good, everything's settled," said Harrington.  "Now,
gentlemen, to-night at twelve. We shall get there by two at
the latest, if there's any breeze at all, and probably at one.




HARRINGTON.                   485
You'd better all meet here, and go down together. I will
meet you at the boat."
" Agreed," said Wentworth.  "Now, Bagasse, you and I
will go after Johnny."
" And I home," said Harrington.  "I'll meet you again at
twelve."
He lingered a few moments after they had gone, musing
with a kindled and exulting face, and then with a sudden
yearning to pour out his gladness to Muriel, he seized his hat
and left the room. In the yard he happened to think of the
dog, ahd he went for a moment to the kennel. The animal
was lying on its side, apparently asleep, and Harrington was
just about to turn away, when he chanced to notice that its
eyes were partly open. Surprised a little, he bent down, and
laid his hand on the animal. It did not move. The old dog
was dead.
He arose, and stood for a moment with a vacant and reeling brain; then turned, and with a dazed feeling, went into
the street and on his way. The clouds were still bright and
wild in the afternoon sky, and tottering fantastically into ever
mutable strange shapes, fierce, dazzling, sphinxine, wonderful.
He gazed at them far a little while as he strode on, until oppressed by their instability, and with a dark sense that they
were like an untranslatable hieroglyphic of something that had
been, or was, or was to be, and that could not be defined, he
turned his eyes from them, his heart throbbing thick and fast,
and his burning brain giddy with a fullness of life which, like
the clouds, seemed to reel in dissolution, and yet, like them,
did not dissolve away.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE OLD ACHAIAN HOUR.
A LOW and melancholy melody was dreaming from the organ
through the corridors, as Harrington entered the still and




486                   HARRINGTON.
darkened dwelling. He was about to ascend to the library,
when the parlor door opened, and Mrs. Eastman, severe and
ashen, beckoned him, with a ghostly motion, to come in.  He
entered at once. Closing the door behind him, and folding
her in his arms, he looked tenderly into her still and grief-worn
face, while the low music brooded above them in aerial and
solemn lamentation.
"John," she whispered, "where have you been?  John, an
awful feeling has been with me since you left the house-a
feeling that you are doing that which I cannot bring my heart
to have done-that you have already done it."
She stopped to pore with a ghastly gaze into his countenance.  In the dead stillness, tranced into deeper stillness,
as it seemed, by the low creeping music, he came into rapport
with the cold, dark terror that froze her soul, and he felt his
blood curdle and his hair stir.
"If you have done this," she whispered in a tone that
thrilled him, "it will kill me. I cannot survive it. Tell me
that you whom I love so dearly-tell me that you have not
been so cruel to me. Have you done it?"
" Mother," he said sadly, " be at ease. I have not, and I
never will.  But, oh! my mother, yo] who dread this disgrace and dishonor, think of the disgrace and dishonor it
would be if that wretched fugitive were sacrificed by us I
How can you bear to think of that?"
She shuddered and clung to him, wildly agitated, but smiling ghastlily with the joy she felt at the assurance of her
brother's safety from public obloquy; and still the low,
lamenting strain above them dreamed sombrely in hollow
murmurs through the darkened air.
" I know it; it is terrible," she whispered. "But it must be.
Yes, it must be. Hate me-despise me-never look at me again;
but it must be so, and I am glad-very glad. Glad in my
grief; full of grief, but glad. I am weak, I am degraded,
but it is for his sake, for my brother's sake. Oh, I bless you,
I bless you that you have spared him, and me through him;
I bless you.  Hate me, despise me, if you must. But he is
safe; the little child I played with once is safe; my brother




HARRINGTON.                   487
whose sins are many and grievous, he is safe, and I am
glad-I am glad!"
" Peace, peace, my mother I Let it go," he cried. "Do
not speak so to me. Do not load yourself with reproach.
Oh, I feel with you, and I am not removed from you. There
there-let it all be forgotten. Time will efface these sad
hours, and we will'be happy again."
She gently withdrew from his embrace, weeping, and
turned away; and gazing at her for a moment, full of mournful
pity, he left the room, and went slowly up-stairs, with the sad
music deepening around him.
It stopped as he entered the room, and Muriel rose from the
organ, and came swiftly toward him, clad all in white, and
noble in her beauty. He clasped her in his arms as if he had
not seen her for a year.
"Joy I" she cried, looking at him with brilliant eyes, and
a faint color mantling her face, " you come back to me with
a changed look! You have succeeded."
" Not yet," he replied, proudly smiling, " but we are going
to succeed.  Come, let us sit together. and let me tell you
what has occurred, and my plan."
They sat down, with their arms around each other, and he
told her all, and what he was going to do.  She listened to
the end in dreamful silence, smiling faintly, and ocecasionally
bending her graceful head in assent to his designs.
" Now, what do you think?" he asked in conclusion.
" How does the enterprise strike you?"'
"I like it," she replied, half gaily.  "It is bold, simple,
and I think you cannot fail of success. Go manfully then
to the little battle for the good cause. and come back with
your shield, or upon it. My soul goes with you."
He folded her to his heart, proudly smiling.
" Dear friend, brave wife," he said, fondly. "Thank heaven
that we are wedded for life's duties and life's ends! Oh,
blessed love that has not shut us in a private luxury, careless
of liberty and justice and the tears of man! Yes-I will go
on this enterprise of mercy, and I feel I shall succeed."
They sat in fervent communioa till the twilight fell. Emily




488                   HARRINGTON.
came in as it began to darken, and they had just finished telling her what was to be done, and were charging her to say
nothing of it to Mrs. Eastman, when Wentworth arrived in
great spirits.
"All right," he cried, upon entering.  "The deed is done,
and I feel like Benvenuto Cellini when he drew his rapier, and
fought the whole gang of the Pope's soldiers, single-handed,
pinking a couple of dozen of the rascals.  Ha!  that was an
artist for you I Oh, Benvenuto was a regular brick, he was."
"Now, Richard I Slang again," chided Emily.
"Slang?  I deny it," returned Wentworth, impudently.
"Now what did I say?"
"You said Cellini was a brick," said Emily, laughing.
"So he was," retorted Wentworth, gaily.  "A  regular
brick. Call brick slang? Why, it's one of the finest epithets
in the English language I What other -term could you use that
is half as expressive? And what was language made for but
to express our ideas with adequacy, propriety, and elegance?
Oh, by Jupiter I but I'll stick to brick like mortar!"
"So you have Johnny," observed Harrington, laughing.
"Yes.  He's to start from the stable at about half-past
twelve and drive over to Q street to bring home a small fishing-party," replied Wentworth, with a satirical air.  "A party
that goes down the harbor to catch black-fish."
"I hope the party won't catch a tartar," said Emily, jestingly.
"Nor a cold," added Muriel.  "But there's the tea-bell."
They arose and went down to the tea-room, talking and
laughing gaily.
After tea they returned for a short time to the library.
Presently, Mrs. Eastman, feeling unwell, left them, and retired
for the night, attended by Muriel, who, filled with compassion
for her poor mother, went with her to her chamber and stayed
till she was asleep.
She was gone about half an hour, and returning to the
lighted library at the expiration of that time, found the three
chatting together.
"Now, I am going to leave you two," said Harrington,




HARRINGTON.                   489
rising, and addressing Wentworth and Emily.  "Muriel, I feel
weary with the excitements of this day, and as I shall want all
my freshness and vigor for this adventure, I am going up-stairs
to sleep an hour or two. Richard, I'll see you at the boat."
" Good," responded Wentworth.  "Au revoir."
Harrington bent his head smilingly to them both, and putting his arm around Muriel's waist, drew her with him from
the room.
" Sleep will be twice sleep with you near me," he tenderly
murmured, bending his face down to hers, as they went up the
stairs together.
"Ah," she said, with pensive playfulness, " I was afraid you
were going to leave me in exile while you slept, and I do not
wish to be away from you now."
He did not answer, but clasped her a little closer to him,
and they ascended in silence to their chamber.
She silently lighted a sconce upon the wall, which shed
through its ground-glass globe a mellow moony light upon the
pure and virginal room, with its furniture of white and gold,
and its cloudlike couch, overhung with a drooping fall of filmy
gauze. Then going to a closet, she took from thence a slender
crystal flask covered with golden arabesques, and brought it
to him.
"See," she said, "My Greek friend, Kestor, made me a
present of this more than a year ago. It is Greek wine.
Yes-the vine that gave us this grew from the soil of the
antique heroes. I have kept it for some great occasion, and
to-night before you go, you and I will drink it."
Smiling, he took the flask from her hand and held it to the
light, looking at the clear rosy-golden glow of the fine liquid.
"It is beautiful," he said. "Too beautiful to drink. One,might fancy this such wine as Leonidas and the Three Hundred drank at the last banquet before they sallied from the
immortal pass and fell upon the hosts of Xerxes. It looks fit
for the veins of heroes."
"And heroes' wives," she playfully added, with a charming
smile. " Therefore, you and I will drink it, pledging the
enterprise. But we must have some glasses."
21*




490                  HARRINGTON.
She rang, and presently one of the maids came up, went,
and returned again with half a dozen small goblets on a
tray.
"Well," said Muriel, laughing as she looked at the tray,
"with six glasses we can drink pledges.  Good. Now let us
sleep."
Turning the light low, she unbound her tresses, and
lying down with him, kissed his eyelids with soft and dewy
kisses.
" Sleep sweetly, my beloved," she murmured.  "It is the
fourth night. A very little night, but the fifth night will be
sweet and long, and full of rest."
He did not reply, but gently kissed her, and with their souls
stilled with ineffable tenderness they sank away together in a
slumber, innocent and sweet as that of childhood.
The room was dim around that tranquil rest, and the faint
light softly showed the forms- of the reposing lovers. Locked
in each other's arms, with the snowy films drooping from the
golden ring in the ceiling in long and flowing festoons around
them, they lay like some fair picture of immortal love and
peace shadowed within the clear depths of a magic mirror in a
light of darkling dawn.
An hour melted slowly by, and during that hour, folded to
her bosom, and breathing the balm of her parted lips, the rest
of Harrington was sweet and deep. Then a strange dream
outgrew upon his brain from the oblivion of his slumber.
He was running cautiously along a vaulted archway of the
rude Saxon architecture, toward a flight of five or six stone
steps, which led up into the open air. It was in Saxon England, in some time of trouble, and he was a young Saxon.
He saw himself clothed in a short, brown tunic, belted at the
waist, and reaching nearly to the knees, which were bare, and
with leather buskins on his feet. As it often happens in
dreams, he both was that figure, and saw it. It was himself,
but utterly unlike himself both in aspect and character. The
head was uncovered, save by short, dark, curling hair; the
face was youthful, unbearded, mild and timid in expression,
with the cheeks rather wan; and the figure was that of a




HARRINGTON.                   491
slight and strengthless stripling. A sense of general carnage
was in the air of the dream, and it seemed as if in that form,
he was seeking to escape from enemies. Too gentle and weak
in nature to feel violent fear, he had only a timorous and innocent apprehension of his danger; and in this mood, running
on to the steps, and ascending, suddenly the opening of the
archway filled with armed warriors, and as he shrank on the
point of turning to flee, their long axes fell upon him, and he
was slain.
He awoke instantly, not with a start, but by simply unclosing his eyes. The dream was vivid, but not frightful, and
waking without alarm, his first and only thought was that it
was a memory of an old avatar in which he had lived on
earth in a different organization than he had now, and had
been killed young. For a moment this feeling came clearly to
him, and then sensible of where he was, and of the sweet face
breathing balm so near his own, his eyelids closed with an irresistible drowsiness, and he slept on.
His sleep was undisturbed for about half an hour when
another strange dream slid upon his mind. He was sitting up
awake in a bed alone by himself, and though the bed was in a
room, it was yet, by some singular ubiquity, which still was not
incongruous or wonderful, on the sidewalk of some unfamiliar
street. Sitting upright in it in his night-clothes in a broad,
grey daylight, and looking over his shoulder, he saw far, far
away an illimitable waste of snow, out of which thousands
upon thousands of piteous and imploring negro faces looked
toward him. He had the feeling that these were the faces of
the thirty thousand fugitives who at that period had fled to
Canada. While he gazed at them, he beheld coming down
the street on the pavement, a long procession of the Boston
merchants, all familiar to him, respectable and cosy citizens
whom he often saw about town, or on'Change. They all
wore their usual garb and aspect, but as they passed by his
bed they all changed, yet without seeming to change, into
medieval Jews, with long avaricious faces and drooping beards
and stooping shoulders, and eyes bent obliquely upon the
ground before them. Every hand clutched a money-bag, and




492                    HARRINGTON.
every form wore the conical hat and the long Jewish gaberdine
of Shylock. So they passed him, and when they had passed
they were Boston merchants again, while the rest coming on
changed, yet did not seem to change, into money-g-reedy Jews
as they went by, and resumed their previous forms, though
without seeming to resume them, when they had reached a
certain vague limit.  All this did not in the least surprise him,
or seem extraordinary, or unusual, but wearying at last of the
interminable and monotonous procession, he sighed and awoke.
Her dreaming face was still near him, and the cool balm of
her breath touched his sense with sweet and sad ecstasy.
There was a moment of unutterable weary sorrow, in which
the bitter symbolism of his vision lingered with him, and then,
with a feeling of melancholy comfort, his heavy eyelids drooped,
and he slept again.
He had a consciousness that he had slept long, and with
this in his mind, his sleeping soul awoke in a third dream.  He
had left his body and was in the air of the chamber. Spiritually light and poised, with the delicious sense of being abie
to float upward at will, he was looking down upon the couch,
with the quiet room  around him.  IIe saw his body lying
folded in her arms, the face sleeping close to her own.  He
saw how that face looked to others, and felt a dim wonder at
its strangeness to his own eyes. His gaze dwelt with calm
and holy tenderness, undisturbed by any regret, upon the beautiful and noble face of his beloved, sleeping in its shadowy
tresses, its curved lips slightly parted, and all its clear and
graceful lines composed in slumber. A thrill of silent blessing
and farewell stole softly through his being, and with the feeling that he must go, he slowly floated backward through the
wall, which made no more resistance than air. A trance fell
upon him as he passed through, and seemed to last, though he
had no sense of time, till he found himself alone in a rich and
holy garden. The strange flowers were thick and deep, and
wonderful in mystic beauty, and though of many rare and lovely
colors, the still and tender living glory that brooded on all, gave
them something of the rich pallor of flowers seen in some imaginary pearl and purple moonlight stiller and fairer than melts




HARRINGTON.                   493
from any moon of ours. Or rather, they seemed pale with their
own ecstasy of heavenly odor, for they filled the soft, self-luminous air with a fragrance which dissolved through all his being
in ethereal and tranquil rapture. Filled with celestial bliss, he
wandered on through the purpureal glory of the garden, under
the holy shadow of strange trees, and amidst the myriad-blowing
clusters of the flowers, while the songs of birds sounded in liquid
melody around him, and yet did not break the divine silence
of the solemn Paradise. And wandering on, he turned a
curve of the path, and came upon the gracious presence of the
man he loved. He knew the majestic front, the vast brow,
the sweet and piercing eye of Verulam, and like a younger
brother yearning with affection, he drew nigh and laid his
head upon his breast. The arms gently enfolded him; the regal face bent over his with a tender and benignant smile; and
thrilling with the slow sweetness of an unutterable ecstasy, he
seemed to sink into the swoon of the soul, and the vision was
gone.
Her arms had fallen away from him in her slumber, and noiselessly rising as he awoke, he sat on the edge of the couch, and
leaned his damp brow on his hand, his brain light and clear,
his frame drenched in the renewing dew of sleep, and throbbtng with the remembered bliss of his dream, and one still
solemn thought distinct in his mind. He was to die I The
meaning of that dream was death I A slow thrill ran through
his veins as he thought of it. Yes, that was its meaning. He
was to die I
He sat still for some minutes, with that thought in his
mind.  Gradually the sweetness of the dream failed from him,
merged in a ghostly sense of the quietude around him. He
looked up with a feeling of awe. The dim lamplight faintly
lit the pure and'shadowy chamber. All was vague, motionless, indefinite. Nothing seemed distinct or living, but that
strange and awful conviction, too strong for any doubt, that
he was to die.
Turning slowly, he gazed upon the face of Muriel. The
last lingering relic of the sweetness of his dream failed from
him as he looked upon her. His young wife. How could he




494                   HARRINGTON.
bear to leave her!  Four days of heavenly joy with herheavenly even in the sorrow that had lain upon the last; four
little days-the divine dawn of a long life of happiness-only
four, and this was to be the end I The golden gates of a
beautiful existence, affluent of use and influence and fame,
just opened to him with her, and now to close forever. To
lay down all the deliciousness, the joys, the hopes, the ambitions of life, for the happiness of two poor negro brothers.
For their poor trampled rights to abandon life —oh, above all,
to resign her I To die, and leave her on earth alone, her
bursting day-spring of happy and noble love quenched in the
black and blotting cloud of death. To die-to die and leave
her.
Icy cold, yet with a burning brain, and slow thrills creeping
through the horror of his veins, he turned away, and sat still.
Hark I In the silence came the distant sound from a steeple
striking the hour. He counted the slow strokes. Eleven.
He looked at his watch. It was eleven o'clock. In one hour
more he was to go.
He looked around the quiet room.  Life never seemed to
him so sweet as then. In contrast to the stillness and seclusioq, the peaceful comfort and warm luxury of the restful
chamber, came the vision of the bare and open night upon the
bleak waste of waters, and he in the lonely boat with those
rude men, thinking of the gentle being he had left behind him.
A sense as of one who shivers out under the winter stars, and
turns to the warm firelight and the cheerful faces of friends
in the cosy glow of home, came to him, and with it came
temptation like a voice. Turn from this purpose-turn to
love and life I You have been staunch and true in human
kindness to its uttermost demand, but your life belongs to her,
and not to another. Well to save this man from his doom,
but not to fling away your life for a single service, when
ampler service needs you. Think of her suffering, think of her
mother's grief for your loss, think, too, of the friends you are
leading into peril. Perhaps your warning includes themthink of those who will mourn them, and for their sakes turn
from this hopeless purpose. Turn, for this is warning and not




HARRINGTON.                    495
fate-or go, still in safety, and plead with those men for the
fugitive's release-threaten  them, menace them  with civil
penalties, and perchance they will yield him. But if they do
not, all is done that you are called to do, and life is more than
you are called to give; so turn away from them, and tell your
friends you cannot risk their safety, and come back here to
long years of happiness with her.
Sitting in icy silence, the temptings rose within his brain,
clear as if a still and gentle voice had breathed them, and mingled with a siren sense of honeyed music that seemed to circle
round and round him like an airy coil. Suddenly he sprang
up with a spasm of heroic grief and agony, and stood quivering with his eyes covered by his hands. Her eyelids unclosed,
and lying still, she looked at him. The next instant, she
leaped from the couch and clasped him in her arms.
There was a long pause of awful silence, in which he stood
with head uplifted and his eyes covered with his hands, while
she clung to him, her face still between its thick length of
waven tresses, and gazed with dilated eyes into his half-hid
features.
"My beloved I My own beloved, what is this? Was it
a dream? Be calm —be strong. I am with you. I hold
you in my arms. No evil thing can come to you when I am
near. Love clasps you, my dear and gentle lover, and nothing can harm you."
At the full, tender silver of her voice, the shadows and the
terrors rushed from his soul. His hands fell from his still and
pallid features, and putting his arms around her, he gazed
into her face.
" Hush!" he murmured.  "A moment I I will tell you in
a moment."
They stood in silence gazing at each other.
Presently his arms fell from her, and swiftly gliding away
she turned up the light, which at once filled the room with
mellow radiance. Hurriedly, he bound on his shoes, put his
pistol in his breast, and sat on the couch beside her.
"Muriel," said he, "you were right; I have had dreams.
Listen."




496                   HARRINGTON.
In a low, clear voice, he told her all. The narration occupied several minutes, and during that time she listened with a
still face and lips parted. He ceased at length, and there was
a long pause.
"What does this mean?" she murmured.  "Do you take
these dreams as augury?"
"Muriel," said he with solemn and passionate tenderness,
"do you remember what you said when we lay down to slumber? It comes again to me now. You said:' It is the fourth
night; a very little night; but the fifth night will be sweet and
long, and full of rest.' Oh, my beloved, sweet and long, and
full of rest may it be to you I Sweet and long, and full of
rest, it will be to me. To-night I go from you. Can you
bear that I should go when I am not to return? For the
dream meant death, and I am going away to die."
One spasm of overmastering pain convulsed her features,
and vanished. The next instant her face was calm, between
its fall of shadowy tresses; her lips were lightly closed; her
eyes were fixed on his. But a torrent rush of memories overswept her-memories of omens and presentiments that had
mysteriously foreshadowed this; and a mighty feeling rose
within her, and told her that this was the voice of the prescient
soul. Not for an instant did she think he was deceived, and
the calmness thatt sank upon her spirit was the shadow of
eternity.
"To die 1" she answered, in a slow, rapt voice.  "Going
away from me to die."
Her lips closed, and pressing one hand to her bosom, she
lifted her clear, still eyes to heaven, and her countenance
became pale and radiant as though it gazed upon the face of
God.
There was a long interval of terrible silence.
"It is true," she said at length, in low, abstracted tones,
"he is to leave me. Our happiness foreran the ages. The
world could not sustain it.  The music was too divinely sweet
to last, and it melts back from earth I Well, well, I know
it now.  The days have been filled with tokens and prophecies
of this, and now I understand them.  Yes-he is to die 1"




AHIRRNGTON.                   497.lowly her eyes grew back to him.  He sat motionless, his
face pallid in shadow, gazing with mournful awe upon her clear,
pale features.
" Have you had presentiments of this, Muriel?" he asked.
"Yes," she answered, in a hushed voice; "there have been
many. They crowd upon me now. You remember what I
told you of that morning when I thought you loved Emilyhow strangely your face smiled on me in my reverie from
that immeasurable distance. I know  now  what it meant.
That was a veiled prevision. Oh, my beloved, you smiled upon
my soul from the- depths of Eternity I!
A slow, cold thrill went through him at the solemn tenderness of her voice, and for a few moments his mind gathered
blankness. Gradually the prefigurations of this hour which
had filled his life for days past, came to him.
" I, too, have had spiritual warnings of this," he murmured.
"My soul has told me much lately. You remember my sad
fancy when I left you on Sunday morning, that I was not to
return. And on the evening of that day the event occurred
which separates us."
"Yes," she responded, " and that was the morning when I
dreamed that you were gone from earth, and were looking at
me as I moved through life alone."
Again a long silence succeeded.
" To wake from our happy sleep thus," she said, suddenly,
" is it not strange I Is it not awful I And yet I realize it
all. I realize that these are our last moments together. To
deny these presentiments is impossible. Yes —it is destiny. Is
it not? Is there any escape for us?"
" It rests with my will, Muriel," he answered.  "I believe
this dream  is only a warning. If I stay here with you I
am  safe. It rests with me to decide whether I will go or
stay."
"' Can nothing be done?" she hurriedly asked.  "Is there
no other way of saving this man?"
"None," he answered.  "It is too late now. The ship
sails in a few hours. There is nothing but for me to go
at midnight and rescue Antony, or leave him to his fate,




498                   BARRINGTON.
and Roux to death or madness.  One thing alone shakes
me.'
" What?" she asked.
"The suffering my death will give your mother," he
answered. " It may kill her."
" And if you die her brother's infamy will become known,"
she replied. " Public inquiry will follow, and all she wishes
kept secret will be exposed with the added guilt of your death
upon it."
He did not answer, and she remained silent for a few
moments, with her soul wildly stirred.
"Oh, Lemuel Atkins," she exclaimed at length, "if you
only knew the harm you have done us!"
" Pity him, Muriel," answered Harrington.  "Both he and
Lafitte are the cause of this disaster. Let us pity and forgive
them. They are the victims, and not we."
"I do," she responded, clasping her hands; "I pity and
forgive them."
"It only remains for me to decide," he said, after a pause.
"If I go to-night I feel I shall save Antony. But I
think it will not be done without a struggle, and I shall
be killed. On the other hand is your mother's grief, and
all the consequences of my death, and if I stay these will be
spared."'" What do you decide?" she said, quickly.
"Muriel," said he, tenderly, "I have not spoken once of
what you lose in losing me, for I know your nobleness, my
wife, and I know that you can resign me to duty."
She flung her arms around him, her eyes glowing and her
features kindling into flushed and exalted loveliness.
" Do not think of me," she said in a clear and fervent voice.
"Oh, my husband, we were wedded in love for liberty, in love
for all mankind, and we cannot be divided. Think alone of
duty —for death can only separate us a little while, and we
are wedded in love forever."
He gazed at her with lit eyes.
"I will be worthy of you," he answered, with proud fervor.'The Hereafter is ours. Many an earthly marriage is but




HARRINGTON.                     499
a tent of the night, folded by death, and never to be raised
again; but ours is a temple eternal in the heavens."
Drawing her to his bosom, he pressed his lips to hers; then
rose to his feet, and stood before her.
" My duty is clear, Muriel," he said, in firm, determined
tones.  "What is all suffering that will follow my death, compared with the suffering and the wrong my death will prevent?
Think of the scene we saw  at Roux's house, when Emily
wished to buy his brother. Think of Antony being dragged
back to torture and murder.  Think of that poor brother's
agony when he learns that Antony has been recaptured.
Think of all the misery and the outrage now impen(ling.  It
must not be.  And beyond it all is the duty I owe my
country and mankind.  I have sworn to balk tyrants-I have
sworn to stand up for the helpless and the poor.  ilever yet
has a man suffered wrong that I could prevent, or gone unsuccored when I could succor him.  Not now shall the weak and
friendless find me a dastard in their cause.  So then"
He paused, stifled with sudden emotion.
"So then"-  she repeated, looking at him  with a still
countenance.
A rapture of color blazed upon his pallid face, and he flung
up his arms.
"So then," he cried, in a ringing voice, "I must say like
him  of the old Commonwealth,'To heaven, my love, to
heaven, and leave you in the storm!'"
Her eyes flashed, and she rose to her feet with the rich
blood glowing in her kindled features.
" Brave heart 1" she passionately cried, " one hour of life
with you is worth annihilation!  Away with grief-let it
never come nigh me I I swear to you, IHarrington, never,
when you are gone, shall one pulse of sorrow stir within menever shall one tear stain the lustre of my soul's pride in you!
You die-die?-no!-it is not death, but life! It is the life
of life to die for man!"
" Ay!" he exclaimed, with rapturous fervor, " I feel it so.
It is life to live for man. It is the life of life to die for him.
It is sweet to die for one's country, and to-night I die for




o00                   HARRMGTON.
mine.  Far in the future I see it-my own dear land, my
America, the land where all shall be free and equal, the land
of lovers and of friends. Oh, my land, of you I dream, for
you I have lived, for you I die!"
She stood gazing at him as he poured forth these wordsher face white and radiant, her eyes brilliant, her hands pressed
to her bosom, which rose and fell in quick pulsations.
" And for you," he cried, as his eyes rested upon her, "for
my love of you I die. Oh, my wife, I love you greatly, or I
could not leave you! I could not love you truly if I failed in
love for liberty and justice. Dying for them, I prove my love
for you."
With a low, adoring cry she was in his arms, and clasping
each other, they moved to the centre of the chamber, with
sweet and passionate words of affection and farewell. The
burning moments of that last sublime communion sped swiftly
by, and the time for the earthly parting drew near.
"It is the last banquet," she said, with a bright smile.
"To-night is your Thermopylke."
" Ours," he quickly answered.  "Ours, for you, too, die.
Your death is to be divided from me-a sterner and loftier
death than mine."
"Yes," she answered, with solemn fervor, "it is indeed my
death. My heart is proud, my soul is filled with joy, but I
die, for life will never be truly life again till I meet you in the
land of the asphodel. So be it. I do not quail. For you,
for me, it is the old Achaian hour."
"'For you, for me," he fervently responded.  "I await you
in the Hereafter. My life will be but half divine until you
come. Now we must part."
She clung to him for a monient, then withdrew from his
arms.
"Come," she said, taking up the flask, "the last pledge.
Ah, wine of the land of Leonidas, little did I dream we should
pour you to the pledge of the immortals! But the old Greek
hour-the festal hour of death has dawned.
With a quick, deft blow on a marble console, she smote the
top from the flask, and filled the six goblets with the rosy



HARRINGTON.                   501
golden wine. Each took one. Holding up the glass, her pale
face lit with a dazzling smile, her fine nostrils quivering, and
the long, bright locks flowing over her white vesture, her
noble figure, in its debonair abandon, wore the old Greek
Bacchanal grace and glow.
"The wine from the land of the Three Hundred is fit to
pledge liberty's defence," she gaily said. " Come, let our first
pledge be-In Liberty's Defence!"
" Good I" he answered.  "In Liberty's Defence I"
The goblets clanged, the pledge was drank, and the glasses
were flung down. They took up two more.
" And now?" she said.
He looked at her with a sweet and solemn face.
"And now," he answered, "forgiveness and compassion.
For all injuries, for all baseness, for all trampling of the rich
upon the poor, for all trampling of the strong upon the weakforgiveness and compassion!"
"With my whole soul," she solemnly and gently replied.
"For the sordid and the cruel-forgiveness and compassion!"
The goblets softly clanged, the tender pledge was drank,
and the glasses were flung down.
"Now," said he, as they took up the last two, "the first
pledge was in wine from the land of Leonidas. But the
second was in wine from the land of Socrates. Let the third
be drank in wine from the land of both-the saint and the
hero; for the pledge is mighty."
"Speak it, my beloved," she said, in clear and thrilling
tones.
"Drink," his deep voice sounded, " drink the deep pledge
in the wine from the bright ideal shore, to the Spirit whose
wings span the world, whose life pulses through the universethe Spirit for whom we live and die!"
" I know, I know!" she cried.  "Spirit, we drink to thee
in the wine from the holy shore!  Spirit of every noble
thought and deed and passion, whose breath is life to liberty
and justice, and the soul of man-to thee, for whom we live
and die-TRUE LOVE, we drink to thee I"
They quaffed the fiery and aerial wine, and dashing the gob



5092                   HARRINGTON.
lets rin,in  and shivering on the floor, they sprang iito each
other's arms.  One long and close eirbiace-one long and
passionate clinging kiss-and they withdrew.
"Hereafter!"
Their voices rang together by a common impulse in the
word: aend with one long dreaming gaze of impassioned tenderness upon her proud and radiant face, he rushed away to his
death like a bridegroom to his bride.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
IN LIBERTY'S DEFENCE.
A Low, guttural mutter of distant thunder shuddered through
the air as Iarrington rushed into the night, and turning at the
head of the street, he saw the knotted snakes of the lightning
flash and writhe, and vanish, inextricable, on the slow-heaving
wall of heavy thunder-cloud that filled the western sky.  Black
poisonous vapors, the flying couriers of the coming tempest,
fled swiftly up the zenith, and half obscured the livid and tottering moon; and projected in the yet unclouded purple east
before him, redly glimmered the large few stars.  Hie did not
pause, but strode rapidly on, while the ffidfl gusts of the rising
wind swept the dim, deserted streets into storms of dust
around him.  It was a wild night, and heaven and earth
seemed to reel in the gathering darkness; but his soul was unshaken, and he was strong to die.
The moon was hid before he had reached Beacon street, and
a solid blackness, lit only at intervals by wild, bright flashes of
still distant lightning, filled the lampless streets.  Behilc him,
as he sped oenl, the low o:ninoils thunlrder shudfdered through the
black vast, and the dust swept aroundc him in rustling storms
through the darkness.  tie met no one-every person was
safely housed, and even the watchmen had crept away into
sheltered nooks from the tempest.




HARRINGTON.                   503
A melancholy and funereal sound of bells tolled vaguely
through the thick air, striking the midniglht hour, as he reached
the head of State street. The streaming gusts had lulled, and
in dead silence, broken only by the hollow tramp of his quick
footfalls, and by an occasional muffled shurdder of rolling thunder, he sped over the deserted pavement, while ever and anon
the sudden blue of the lig'htning lit for a moment the dark
bulks of the looming buildings, and gleamed ghastfully on
their multitude of gilded signs to vanish into sightless darkness.
Soon he reached the wharf, and saw beyond the dim wilderness of masts and yards, far out at sea, under the heavy canopy
of cloud, a broad half-sphere of clear purple sky with the
moonlit level of the distant ocean shining in lustrous silver beneath it.  Again the lightning quivered, bluely irradiating for an instant the dark vault into livid violet, and as it
vanished, and the darkness closed, a long, staggering roll of
heavy thunder resounded above him, and a few large drops of
rain fell.
Breaking into a run, he sped along- the pier, and presently
saw a vague figure standing and looking toward him. It was
Captain Fisher, dressed in an oil-skin coat and tarpaulin, on
which the sprinkling rain was pattering.
"Here I am," whispered Harrington.  "Have they arrived?"
"Yes," returned the Captain in a low voice. "We're all
here."
" In then, and away at once," returned Harrington, rushing
along the pier in advance of him to the boat.
They came upon it presently, and in a faint shimmer of
blue lightning Harrington saw Wentworth and Bagasse standing below him in the little vessel. Letting himself down from
the pier, he dropped lightly into it, followed by the Captain.
" By Jove!" murmured Wentworth, with a low laugh,
while the Captain was unhampering the sails, " this is a bad
night for our work."
"No, it's a good night," whispered Harrington, glancing
up at the hulls of the two vessels between which the boat lay,




.504                 HARRINGTON.
to be sure that no one was listening.  "The storm is a real
godsend, for it will be sure to drive those fellows in doors, and
I hope every man of them."
"Ah, ze dam rain," growled Bagasse.  "She will wet our
jacket for us."
Harrington turned away, cast off the painter, and the boat
moved out a little way from her moorings.
"How'll you have her, John?" whispered the Captain,
referring to the arrangement of the sails.
" There'll be a streaming wind presently," replied HIarrington, with a glance at the sky.  "We'd better have two reefs
in the mainsail and one in the jib. Then she'll drive."
The Captain and Wentworth seized the halyards, and up
went the sails. Harrington took the tiller, and while they
busied themselves at the reefing nettles, the boat moved silently
through the black water between the long vista made by the
dark hulls of the vessels on either side. The wind was ill the
lull preceding the tempest, but it was sufficient to belly the
sail, and push them with silent swiftness before it.  Large
drops of rain plashed on the little vessel and in the dark water
as they went on. Presently, Bagasse, with a Frenchman's
aversion to wet, went forward muttering, and crept into the
cuddy. The Captain sat on the thwart with the mainsheet in
his hand, and Wentworth beside him. Harrington, with one
hand on the tiller, was silently brooding on the ghostly effect
of the dark hulls and piers on either side, which made the place
seem like the black wharves of Acheron.
Silently, amidst the soft plashing of the sprinkling rain, they
glided out into the salt smell of the open harbor, and as the
blue lightning shook over the broad vault and dark sea, they
saw a boat with several rowers shoot across their bows at a
distance of about thirty yards. It was the harbor police, and
their boat at once hove to.
"HIallo there," roared a rough voice over the waters" who's that, and where are you bound such a night as this?"
"It's me, Belcher," shouted the Captain.  "Eldad Fisher
and the Polly Ann.  Goin' down on business."
The Polly Ann glided past the police boat as he spoke.




HARRINGTON.                    505
"All right," returned Belcher, with a laugh.  "Great night
though to go on business,'Dad. Row, men."
The oars at once fell with a roll in the rullocks, as the Captain would have phrased it, and the police boat shot away.
Nothing was said in the Polly Ann, and she moved on with
a steady motion, the drawing wind pulling her bulging sail.
The Captain had lit his short pipe, and had turned with his
face to the west, watching for the breeze. Harrington sat in
silence solemnly brooding on the strange scene around him.
Overhead a rack of solid darkness; underneath the inky swells
of the wide sea, like a sea of weltering shadow, which broke
as the boat clove its silent way into a flow of soft gloomy
phosphorescent fire from her prow and in her wake; before him
the uncouth crouching figure of the Captain, with the red glow
of his pipe momently lighting his cheek in little flashes, and
giving his face the grim, leathern look of some weird Charon
piloting them over the sullen lake of Death; and beyond in
the far distance, below the sombre canopy, that shape of clear
sky, smaller now, with the silver level of the sea beneath it,
calm and lustrous as the ocean of Eternity. A sense of sombre
sweetness melted into the young man's heart, as he gazed over
the solemn and awful flood of shadow to that melancholy glory
far away.  He thought of that last hour with her; of their
proud and exulting parting; he thought of her standing now,
graceful and radiant as a Greek goddess, and noble in her
widowhood, dreaming of him with the mellow light of the holy
room around her, while he drifted on over the sullen water
toward that bright line of jasper, like one drifting from eternal
Night to the ocean of eternal Day.
A moment, and the heavy canopy closed down over the
clear horizon, and all was impenetrable darkness. The wind
freshened with a long, mysterious sigh, the sails swelled and
strained, and the boat began to rush with the water gurgling
and brattli.ng around her bows, and flowing swiftly past her
sides and from her stern in a brighter gloom of phosphorescent
fire. Except that strange senescent light, and the red glow
of the revolving beacon far down the harbor, which every little while glared in the darkness like a sombre eye, there was
22




506                     HARRINGTON.
no gli-mmer on all the b!lack expanse under the vast and hollow
vault of sooty cloud.
Suddenly, while the broad blue sbluttle cf the lightning
shook over the wild and livid sea, the solid clarkness of the
rack split with a crash in a long, brig'ht jaogoed  crack of fire,
and closed again with a tremendous tiallniin2-g roar.  At once
through the blackness, the headlong torrunt dropped hisising
and seething on the water, the heavy w-indc streanm e  staegcring down, shook the craft, stopped and reeled, rose lhowling5
in a mighty forward gale, and amidst the cataract rushing of
the rain, the heeling boat tore like a fury tirou,-gh the level
sea with the spray flying over her bows, and tlhe vw vsh ripplfing
in at her gunnel.  On she fled, le-nig doowrn   ith hir buloing
sails strained as though they wonlld burst froom the bo-l Iopcs,
the water swishing swiftly past her side rand  rnslino florm her
stern in phosphorescent gloom, the rain plashl'nw in cli,ttering
riot on her planks and canvas, and the whole inky flood beat'en
into myriad-millioned jets of springine, flawne aroulnd her.
Again shook the broad blue shuttle of the lightning, illutminating the darkness for an instant with a -;hastly bloom, and
showing the wild shapes of the clouds, and again through the
following blackness burst the roar of the tumbling thunder,
dying away in the sweeping rush of thle headlong wind, and
the voluminous plash and clatter of the falliing torrent.  Not
a word was spoken on board the flying boat.  The Captain
sat grimly holding the tail of the mainsheet, ready to let fly
at a moment's warning; and Wentworth, with a tin-pail in 1his
hands, baled- out the water as fast as it came in, while Ha.rrington, bare-headed, for he had taken off his felt-llat to wrlap
around his pistol that it might be kept dry, an:l tucel e( both
into his bosom, sat graspirn  the tiller, drenched, iile ev.ry
one on board, save the mackintoshed Captain and B'a-.sse, to
the skin, his soul throbbinow withl stern glory in the slesL;d:d
terrors of the storml.  So, amidst winud and ra1n and Ct.1rk1:Ci:i,
and the incessant bursts of lightninTs, rosy-purple ioi', anId
the tumbling roll of thncler', the boat held her flyin' coulrse
through seething flood and showering spray.
At the headlong velocity with which she flew, with the wind




HArRTNGTON.                      507
right abaft and a level sea beneath her hull, it coulcl not talke
her long to reach the port to which the hand of Harringtort
steered her.  It was perhaps hardly half an hour before, in a
sheeting flood of rose and purple lightn-ing, he sa.w the lar;e.
humpy mass of the island loom  up froml the sea before him.
The darkness fell, followed by the thunder, an:1d the boat sped
on.  Soon came another sheet of lightning, and this time,
much nearer the island now, he saw the house upon it, and
caught a glimpse of two boats lying at the wharf on the
southern side of the shore.  The rain had begun to slacken,
and the wind to abate its violence.  He waited a moment till
the thunder had rolled away, and then called the Captain to
him.
"Captain," said he, " settle away the sails, call Bagasse,
and out with the oars.  I am  going to run the boat to the
northwestern side of the island, out of sight of the fellow
we're after."
The captain sprang away, cast off the main-sheet, while
Wentworth seized the jib, and amidst the clank and rattle of
hoops and halyards, the sails were settled and clewed, and
the boat swung masteriess upon the brine.  Bagasse came
creeping out of the cuddy at the call of We-ntworth, and Harrington securing the tiller rose and came forward.
" Hah I" said the Frenchman, hoarsely, " I haf my jacket
dry I  Br-r-r!  It is ze night of ze old devail wis his tonnerre and lirht and rain watair."  And with a shrug, he
looked out on the black expanse around him, and held out his
hand to see how much rain was falling.
"The rain is nearly over," said   alrrington, observing his
motion, as he stooped to take up an oar.  "Can you row,
Bagasse?"
"Oh, yes; I row vair fine," returned the fencing-master,
takieng up an.otler, and seating himself.
They all took their plalces, lEtrrinlgton at thle stlrolke-oar, the
blades fell into the w-ater, and tlhe boat turned and shot to the
northwestern  side of the island.   A  few  minutes' rowinl'o
brought them to the shore, and at the word of command they
rested, backing water, and keeping within about ten yards'




508                   IARRINGTON.
distance from the strand. At that moment the lightning
blazed, showing them the little beach covered with a mass of
huge pebbles, and the steep acclivity just beyond which led to
the grassy summit of the island.
A few moments' discussion ensued, llarrington having suggested that perhaps it would be better to make the attack by
rowing up to the boat of the kidnappers, instead of going
across the island as he had intended.  Presently it was
decided to carry out the original plan, as if the guard saw a
boat approaching, he might summon his fellows, and thus
necessitate a conflict.
"Now, friends, attention," said Harrington.  "Captain,
take my oar."
The Captain who sat by his side with one oar, took the
other, and Harrington stepping past the other two, turned and
faced them all.
"Listen," said he. " I am now going on shore to reconnoitre,
which can be best done by one person.  If there is only one
man in the boat, I can easily handle him. If there are more,
I will return and we will all go up together; for though I am
loth to imperil your lives, we must not put success at hazard.
Stay here, and wait for me. On no account leave the boat,
till I come to you. Remember now, for if you come on shore
when I have left you, it may cost me my life. Bagasse, I
trust you, old soldier, to see that I am obeyed."
He uttered the last sentence in French, that Bagasse might
not mistake him.
" It shall be so, my captain, since you command it," returned the Frenchman, in the same language.
"Good," said Harrington.  "Now row me in."
They bent to the oars in silence, and with one stroke the
boat shot in five yards, and with a vigorous leap from the
prow, Harrington sprang the other five, landed safely, and
ran swiftly up the acclivity.  The lightning blazed as he
reached the summit, and they saw him sink down. The next
instant the darkness fell with a peal of thunder, and he had
vanished. So thick was the night, that he could not be seen
after the lightning failed.




HARRINGTON.                   509
Left to himself, Harrington, with his body bent low, ran
swiftly over the wet, coarse grass, past the dark bulk of the
silent house, in the outbuilding of which a dim lamp glimmered,
and toward the wooden pier.  The lightning blazed rosypurple as he was midway, and fearful of being seen, he
dropped prone. The next instant he rose in darkness, and
ran on. Presently he approached the pier, and dropping on
his hands and knees, he crept down to it, and vaguely saw
the two boats, schooner-rigged, and both secured to the wharf
at the foot of a short ladder running down to the water.
Sinking still lower, he crept to the edge of the wharf, lay flat,
and gazed at the boats, through the dense darkness, with
straining eyes. In a moment the lightning flashed again, and
he saw a single man standing in one of the vessels, looking out
to sea, with his back to him, and his hands in the pockets of
a sou'wester. At a glance, Harrington knew, by the look of
his figure, that he was a sailor, and overjoyed that he had
but one to deal with, he instantly rose, drew his pistol from
his breast, put on his hat, and with a noiseless step glided
down the pier to the ladder.
The man turned just as he was within two or three yards
of it, and saw him.
" Oh, it's one o' ye at last," he growled, mistaking him for
a comrade.  "Egod, it's about time for some o' ye to bear a
hand in this dog's watch I've had of it."
Harrington's answer was to swing himself from the top of
the ladder into the boat, which rocked beneath him.  At that
instant the lightning shook out in vivid rose and purple, illuminating his stern bearded face and stalwart form, and the
man, burly fellow though he was, started violently.
" Who are you?  What d'ye want here?" he demanded.
" I want that negro in the cuddy. Hurry!" said Harrington, abruptly.
The man clapped his hand to his waist for his knife.
Harrington clutched his throat, and held the pistol to his
temple.
" Take your hand from that knife or I'll shoot you," he said,
sternly.




510                   HARRINGTON.
Aghast at the terrible gripe on his throat, and the touch
of the cold pistol-barrel on his brow, the man let his hand
drop, and would have sunk upon his knees only that Harrington upheld him.
"Mercy I" he gasped.
" Stand up," said Harrington, releasing him.
The man stood tp with shaking knees, trembling with terror.
"Go forward and take that negro from the cuddy," ordered
Iarrington.
The man paused an instant, then went forward, followed by
Harrington, and sprang for the ladder. But the long arm
clutched him by the throat, and again the terrified wretch
felt the pistol-barrel on his brow.
"Attempt that again and you die," said Harrington.
" Now take out the negro.  Quick I"
Shaking with affright, the man stooped, opened the cuddy
doors, and dragged out Antony, feet bound together, and
arms lashed above the elbows to his side.
" Oh, MarSter Harrington," cried the delighted fugitive;
"oh, I knowed you was comin' right along. Never guv it
up, Marster Harrington."
"Silence, Antony," said his savior.  "Take your knife and
cut those cords," he added, to the other.
The man instantly obeyed, and the fugitive scrambled to his
feet. The lightning blazed, and showed his lank figure, and
his skull-like face wildly lighted with joy.
" Put up your knife, and sit down in the bottom of the boat
where you are," said Harrington to the man.
The man obeyed without a moment's hesitation. He was
almost frightened out of his wits by this terrible armed apparition.
" Now, Antony, can you walk?" asked Harrington.
"Yes, Marster; fus'rate," returned the fugitive, with a
ghostly caper, which proved that the ropes on his ankles, and
his cramped position in the cuddy, had not materially impaired his circulation.
" Very well," replied Harrington.  "Now go up that ladder, and wait on. the wharf till I come to you."




HIARRINGTON.                  511
The man groaned, but Antony, with a cllhucle, instantly
grasped the steps, crept up the ladder, and stood on the pier.
" Now," said Harrington, turning to the squatting wretch,
" you follow him."
The man rose, trembling, and began to ascend, but he had
only gone three steps when he felt the vice-like hand gripe his
leg.
"Turn round and sit down on the ladder," said Harrington,
standing on the deck of the cuddy.
The man obeyed, and in the flash of purple lihtning that
came at that instant, sat livid, with glaring eyes, palsied with
terror.
larrington stuck his pistol between the buttoned lapels
of his coat, clutched the man's thigh with one hand, thus pinning him to the seat, and held out the other hand to him.
" Give me your knife," he said, imperatively.
" You're not going to murder me," gasped the sailor.
"No," said Harrington, curtly.
The man panted hard, and gave him the knife.  Still holding him by the thigh, Harrington grasped the ladder with the
hand in which he held the knife, put one foot on the lower
step, drew the boat round broadside to with the other, and
bore heavily on the gunnel.
"What are ye doin'?" stammered the sailor. "She's takin'
in water with your bearin' on her."
"I am capsizing your boat so that you can't follow me,"
coolly replied Harrington, amidst the gurgling rush of the water with which the boat was nearly full.
The man stared, breathing hard and trembling. Presently
the boat toppled softly and slowly over and her masts splashed
on the water. Harri~ngton at once cut the rope which secured
her, and she began to recede on the weltering swells.
Changing his position, Harrington put out his foot and
drawing the other boat to him, began to press on the gunnel.
"You're not g'oin' to capsize that boat, too," gasped the
man.
Harrington did not answer, but bore down heavily, and the
boat filled and toppled down with a splash. As it went over,




512                   HARRINGTON.
the man gave a smothered yell, frantically dashed both hands
on his tarpaulin, and with a sudden desperate effort tore himself free from the gripe which held him, scrambled up the ladder, and with loud shouts ran madly for the house.
Harrington nearly fell from his hold into the water, and in
the endeavor to save himself, his pistol dropped from the lappel and was gone. Recovering, he cut the rope which secured
the capsized boat to the pier, and in his haste thoughtlessly
flinging away the knife, sprang up the ladder.
" Quick Antony," he cried, " fly, for they'll be after us."
They rushed together up the pier, and fled past the house,
just as the entire gang poured from the outbuilding. At that
moment the vivid lightning blazed broad, and the wild yells
and the sudden furious thudding of feet behind them told
them that they were seen.
"Run, Antony, run for your life!" cried Harrington.
Spurred by his fear of being retaken, the fugitive ran by
Harrington's side as fast as he did. Had he fallen behind, the
young man would instantly have caught him up, and ran with
him, but he did not. Together they reached the steep sloping
edge of the island and plunged furiously down. But to the
sudden horror of Harrington, Antony, impelled by some
strange confusion of fear, instead of heading down with him to
the left toward the boat, swerved in his descent obliquely
away to the right and sped at a frantic pace in that direction
toward the water. It was a moment before Harrington could
stop in his headlong velocity, wheel, and rush after him, and
in that moment Antony got the start of him at least thirty
yards, and ran like a race-horse. Flying after him, Harrington heard the feet of the pursuers tearing down the slope,
and close behind.  Suddenly down went Antony on the
large pebbles close to the edge of the water.  The next
instant Harrington reached him, turned, and through the darkness saw his enemies coming fast, and not more than forty
yards distant. With one rapid glance to the right, he looked
through the thick darkness for the boat, saw it not, and knew
that the battle was now with him, and with him alone.
" Lie still, Antony; don't move," he cried, stepping close to




HARRINGTON.                    513
the prone body and standing with his back to the sea, like a
lion at bay.
They were coming. Had it been, not on those loose stones,
or in the night, but in broad daylight or on a fair field, not
those seven, no, nor twice their number, could have stood unvanquished before that agile vigor, that dauntless spirit of
assault, that roused and terrible magnetic front of war.  For
this was one of those rare men whose presence in a battle is
worth a thousand brands, and who carry death in their arm,
and victory in their eye. This was the Cid Rodrigo Diaz, at
the wind of whose sword-sweep ranks fled and fell. This was
Roland, storm of dread with the pine-branch in his grasp
among the cloven swarms at Ronceval. This was Tancred,
arm of fate among a thousand foes at Dosylteum.  This was
Gaston when with forty knights at his back he drove before
him  one hundred thousand weaponed Jacqueric.  All that
ever Paladin did in blazing powess was in him to do. But
there, on the brink of the salt flood, unarmed, in the murk
night, on the rough ground, with seven knived hands to conquer-oh, hopeless hour of doom and ruin!-oh, forlorn deathgrapple of the brave!
They came in a body-they spread from right to left in an
are of murder —they poised for the simultaneous rush-he
swayed back for the cleaving spring. But at that instant,
with a tremendous staggering clap of thunder, which rent the
sky with fifty glittering cracks of fire, and stunned them all,
the whole heaven, deep and vast and broad, and earth and
air and sea, upburst tn a long and lingering rosy flood of living flame. In that instant, as in a magic dream, he saw the
boat far down the beach, rise with a peal of cries and a silent
lift of oars, and shoot in silence to the shore-he saw the
great sea sink and swell in vast and weltering lustrous shadow
-he saw the seven assassins standing crouched with gleaming
knives around him-he saw the deep heavens open up in rosy
light to God. The next instant the darlkness fell like the
shutting of an eye; a surge of sLreng;thi rslhed like the blood
of the whole race to his heart-and with a terrific bound he
fell upon his foes.
22*




5S 14                 HARRINGTON.
Brief and awful was that battle. At the first leap he went
through them like a thunderbolt, and two went down crashing
senseless on the pebbles.  Turning with a flying spring, he
charged them as they huddled in a fierce knot of five, and (lead
thumped the sluff of the French kick, and the thud of the English blow. It was not more than a quarter of a minute in
which he raged among. their astounded junto, but in thait
quarter of a minute -something like a sense that this was a
statue of solid iron, preternaturally endowed with animate litf,
and flying among them with limbs of agile destruction, burst
through their terrified souls. Down they went in swift succe;sion, kicked and dashed and whirled hither and thither in
crashing overthrow, and not a man rose more than to crawl,
after he once fell. The last of the seven was-a brawny wretch,
who made a headlong rush and found no man in the place
where there was one a second before, but instead two crusliing
hands that jarred the marrow in his bones as they fell froim
behind around his bull neck, and swung him off. his feet to dash
him howling a dozen paces distant on the rocky strand.  Not
more than a quarter of a minute, and at the tail of it came
Bagasse with cries of fury, and the leaps of a Zouave, brandishing his cavalry sabre; and fast behind him Wentworth,
springing like a panther, with a pistol in each hand; and
behind him the Captain, with his loaden stave. But the field
was won I Groans and curses of anguish resounding from it
in all directions. One bruised assassin feebly tottering away
from it through the darkness; three more weakly crawling
over the stones on their hands and knees sand the other three
lying half senseless where the mighty limbs of Harrington had
hurled them.
Yes, the field was won, but after the battle there was going
to be massacre.  For the fierce Celtic blood of Bagasse
was up, and standing only for an instant, he swung up his
sabre and dashed with a yell upon a wretch who was essaying
to  rise.   Harrington  sprang  and  caught him  by  the
wrist.
"No, Bagasse," he cried.  "Spare them. They are hurt
enough already."




HARRINGTON.                   515
Bagasse stood for an instant, panting, then turned sullenly
away.
At that moment the Captain, who had stood looking in
blank stupefaction on the prostrate bodies, burst into screams
of eldritch merriment, brandishing his stave, and capering like
mad.
Wentworth, meanwhile, was hugging the panting Harrington, almost wild with exulting joy.
"By all the gods I" he shouted, bursting away and roaring
with laughter, "was there ever the like of this I Seven to
one, and he flogs the life out of them I Oh, Froissart, where
are you I Sieur Jehan Froissart, why did you die I Come
back, you old clerk of chivalry, and write it down I Seven to
one, and there they lie!" And Wentworth bent hitnself
double in a fresh convulsion of merriment.
" He fit'em," hooted the Captain, prancing deliriously, "he
fit'em all. Glory hallelujah, world without end, amen."
And with a lialloo, he subsided, and walked from body to
body, bending curiously over each, and dropping cheerful suggestions to the sufferers, as to the sort of medical treatment
they would better employ.
" Bagasse," panted Harrington, grasping the Frenchman's
hand, "I owe you this vickbry. Your training stood me in
good stead with these fellows."
"Ah, Missr Harrington," returned Bagasse, tapping him
on the chest with the hilt of the sabre, "you do me mush
credit. Zat was done vair brown."
"I'll bet it was," corroborated Wentworth.  "They'll
remember it to their graves, the cowardly ruffians.  Had they
knives? They had, eh?" he continued, as Harrington bent
his head'in assent.  "But why didn't you shoot them?"
" I lost my pistol," replied Harrington, breathing hard.
" And fought them bare-handed," said Wentworth.  " You
infernal dastards," he roared, turning toward the crawling
wretches, "you deserve to be slaughtered, every hound of you.
Yes, crawl off, you jackals of slavery. Curse you! I hate
you."
"Richard, Richard," said Harrington, feebly, " don't talk




516                  HARRINGTON.
so. It's enough to have half-killed the poor fellows, without
abusing them. Heaven knows I wouldn't have harmed them
if it hadn't been necessary.  Bat let us not stain victory with
insulting them in their misery."
"Insulting them!" snapped Wentworth.  " Come, I like
that. Insulting kidnappers!  By Jove, it's not possible 
Suppose they had killed you. I swear, Harrii:gton, it was the
merest chance that we came-though, to be sure, our comilg
was coming too late. We heard the running and shouting,
and didn't dare to leave the boat till we knew what it meant,
and where you were. But if I'd only heard your pistol, I tell
you I'd have been on shore, orders or no orders. Then the
next thing, we saw you in the flash, with the scoundrels
around you, and we put for the spot at once. The infernal
ruffians 1"
"Come, come," murmured Harrington, ending this hasty
colloquy, which had not occupied more than three or four
minutes, "let's be off. I am breathed a little, and I feel
exhausted, and want to lie down."
" But where's Antony?" said Wentworth.
"Oh, here he is," replied Harrington, turning to the fugitive, who in blind obedience to his unrevoked command, still
lay upon the stones near the sea.  "Get up, Antony. You're
safe forever, I hope, poor fellow."
The fugitive instantly rose, and followed the little party
over the shingle, delightedly sniffing in the salt air.
"There's no possibility of those wretches following us in
the condition they're in, and that's a comfort," said Wentworth.
"None, whatever," replied Harrington, in an exhausted
voice. "Besides, I capsized all the boats on the islahd."
"By Jupiter I" exclaimed Wentworth.  "Bagasse-Captain-do you hear that? He has capsized all the boats on the
island I Oh, well, there's no use in saying another word, for
of all the trumps in this world you're the trumpiest, Harrington I"
Bagasse and the Captain joined in with excited questions as
to how he did it, and Harrington gave them a hasty accougt




HARRINGTON.                    517
of the whole procedure as they went together along the shingle. Soon amidst great hilarity they reached the Polly Ann,
lying bound to the rocks by a grapnel, which the Captain had
flung as he rushed from her to Harrington's rescue. Antony
got in first and squatted down forward on the deck of the
cuddy, then the others, and last Harrington, who went aft to
the tiller and sat down. For a minute all was activity, then
amidst the clank and rattle of hoops and halyards up went
the mainsail and jib, the reefing nettles were unclewed, the
canvas filled languidly, and the boat moved away from the
shore with a faint brattle over the dark, lifting swells.
CHAPTER XXXV.
PALLIDA MORS.
FOR a few minutes they all sat in silence, all but Harrington flushed and throbbing with the excitement of the adventure, and joyous with their success. The storm had broken
with that last thunder-clap, the clouds were rolling away, and
already the moon appeared in the west in a clear sky, and
threw its still lustre upon the drowsy mass of the far distant
city, with its dim multitude of spars, and over the vast and
wild expanse of lifting and falling water which filled all the
open void with its invigorating odor. Low in the east the
golden lightnings flashed fitfully, lighting up fairy grottoes in
the sullen clouds, and overhead the stars bloomed large and
lambent through braided shadows, which were rapidly fleeting
away. Far in the distance over the flood, the red revolving
beacon glowed a steady ruby, and failed, and glowed again.
But the wind had almost died from the magic night, and
hardly bellied the sails as it flowed gently from the slumbrous
west, and the boat, gliding with a faint wash and ripple
through the swells, went but slowly.




518                   HARRINGTON.
"We shall have a long voyage tacking up to South Boston
at this rate," murmured Wentworth.
The Captain grunted assent, and for a few minutes they all
were silent.
"How  white you look, Harrington," said Wentworth
again, looking at the noble, straight-featured face of his
friend, as he sat, bare-headed, leaning against the stern grasping the tiller, with the moonlight resting on his pallid countenance.
Harrington did not answer for a minute, but sat looking at
them with still eyes.
"Friends," said he at length, in a sweet and hollow voice,
" come here to me. I want to tell you something."
A little startled at his tone and manner, they rose and sat
near him.
"Promise me that you will not let Antony know what I
am going to tell you," he said.  "I don't want to grieve the
poor creature, and besides, it is necessary to the preservation
of our secret. I do not know whether the secret can be preserved now, but it is possible, and we must try.  But promise
me that you will not tell Antony."
" Why, certainly, we will not," returned  Wentworth,
vacantly.  " What is it?"
"When we get back, Richard," pursued his friend, "you
must take Antony up at once to Charles's room; then, in the
morning, take him in to his brother, and tell Roux what has
happened to him, and why you concealed it from him, charging him, at the same time, to say nothing to anybody of this
matter. Then you must take both of them to Worcester in
the first train. But you must tell neither of them of what I
am now going to tell you;  Promise me all this."
"I do," responded Wentworth, tranced  with  wonder.
"But what is it?"
"Dear Richard," said Harrington, in the same voice of
hollow sweetness-" dear friends all, I am going to leave you."
They gazed at him.
"What do you mean?" faltered Wentworth, in a hushed
voice.




IIARIINGTON.                  519
"Look," murmured Harrington.
They stared aghast at the hand he held out to them. The
tips of the fingers were red with blood.
A slow horror sank upon them with an icy chill, and the
hair of the three rose as though they were one.
"I am hurt to the life," said Harrington.  " Here."
He laid the bloody hand upon his left side just over the
heart, as he uttered the last word.
Bagasse fell upon his knees before him with a yell, and flung
open the coat and vest, which were unbuttoned, while Wentworth and the Captain burst into tears.  There was a little
blood on the white shirt-very little.  Bagasse stared at it for
an instant, with a look of livid horror. Then, with a fierce and
sudden motion, he rent the shirt in two, put in his hand to the
slit of the undershirt, tore it down, and pulling the clothes
asunder with both hands, gazed. A little blot of thin red on
the silver skin-in the centre a short dark line-a little red
blood thinly oozing from it. They all gazed upon the wound.
"He is stab," said Bagasse, in a low, hoarse voice of heartbreaking pathos. "He is stab, and he bleed inside him. Ah,
my fren' is stab, and he die, die, die. Oh my old, old vair seek
heart, what will I do wis you?  My fren', Missr Harrin'ton, so
good, so kind, so brave, so tendair as ze woman, zat nurse me
like ze littel babe in my seekness, zat come to me when evairy
ozzer one stay off, zat look.at me and I was glad, zat take my
hand and I was glad, zat make my old life glad wis ze lof of
him, he is go away out of zis dam world to die, die, die. Oh,
miseree, miseree 1"
"Hush, hush, Bagasse!" faltered Harrington, hardly able
to speak for emotion. " Hush, old friend. We must all die
sometime. Don't grieve. There, there. It will soon be over.
Richard, dear Richard, don't weep so. Captain, friend, father,
do not break my heart. Come, come, bear up, bear up."
"Oh, Harrington," sobbed Wentworth, throwing himself
upon his breast, " what will life be to me if you die! And
Muril —my God, this will kill her! To lose you in this way,
three days after her wedding. She never can survive it."
"No, Richard," said Harrington, calmly.  " Muriel will




520                  HARRINGTON.
bear her loss with a brave heart. Both she and I knew that
we were not to meet again when I parted fiom her to-night.
We had spiritual warning of this."
"You had spiritual warning of this?" said Wentworth,
awed from his wild grief into calm.
"Yes," murmured Harrington, "in presentments and in
dreams. Both of us. We were both prepared for it. I came
here expecting to die, and I was surprised when the conflict
was over to find myself, as I believed, unharmed. I felt
strangely weak, but I thought it the exhaustion of excitement,
and it was not till I entered the boat that I became conscious
of a heavy feeling and a little smarting in my breast, and discovered that I was stabbed."
"Haven't ye no idee when it was done, John?" gasped the
Captain, weeping.
" Not the least," replied Harrington, hollowly. "I was not
aware that any of the men touched me during the whole fray."
Bagasse rose from his knees, and turning away, stood in a
stupor of despair, with his head bent upon his chest and his
arms tightly folded.
"Oh, Harrington, Harrington!" cried Wentworth, "how
could you go on this accursed enterprise!  How could you
leave Muriel, loving her so much, when you knew  that
you were to die! Your love for her should have kept
you ""No, Richard," interrupted Harrington, in his sweet, faint
tones.  "My love for her sent me. I could not love her so
much if I did not love mankind more. No-I might well
doubt the worth and truth of my love for Muriel if it made me
unwilling to lose my life for the rights of the humblest slave."
Wentworth rose to his feet.
"Dying, dying before our eyes," he wailed, in a low voice.
"1Oh, it cannot be. Bagasse, is there no hope? The wound
does not bleed much."
Baaasse shook his head.
"I haf see many wound, Missr Wentwort'," he sombrely
replied. " Nevair one in zat place where ze man will not die.
He bleed inside him."




IIARRTNGTON.                   521
"Bleeding internally," gasped Wentworth, wringing his
hands.  "Oh, if we could only get home to a phyNic:In.  To
wind-rthe boat dawdling along-and he dying' Look here,
Captain, down with the sails, and let's row.  We must go
faster than this.
Captain Fisher rose quickly, and as he did so, Bagasse suddenly caught up his sabre and faced him.
" See, Capitaine Fisser," he howled hoarsely, "you turn ze
boat to zat dam island. You let me go zere after zose rascail
for my revenge. Zey haf kill ze man I lof-zey ha- kill me
-zey have kill ze whole world, when zey kill ze man zat haf
lof in his heart for evairybody.  Now I kill zem.  See, Missr
Harrin'ton will die. Ze doctair haf not skill to make him well
-no nevair.  Good: you let me go for zose murdair devail,
and chop zem into small fragment wis my sabre.  You give
me zat sweet revenge, zen I go home and cry wis my old eye
into my grave. You do zat now."
"Bagasse," said the hollow voice of Harrington, "that
must not be. If you love me, do not think of harming those
men. No, let us go on. I want to get home. I am dying
slowly, but I hope to live till I get home."
Bagasse lifted his knee, snapped the sabre in two across it,
and flung the pieces into the sea.
" I nevair fight nobody no more," he said hoarsely. " I haf
not zat revenge, and I care for nossing.  Zey do to me
evairy insult-zey keek me, zey jump on me, zey roll me in ze
mud, I will not fight zem, for I haf not my revenge."
"Come, Captain," cried Wentworth, "let's settle away the
sails, and out with the oars."
He flew to the jib halyards, and the Captain to the mainsail. In a minute, both sails were clewed down, and the mainsail boom lashed one side to the cleat.  Wentworth and the
Captain, followed by Bagasse, threw off coats and waistcoats,
and seized the oars.  The Captain drew up the sliding-keel,
and took the stroke-oars.  Bagtasse and WNentworth had the
other two.  In a moment the blades fell, and the boat foamed
through the moonlit swells.
Of all this colloquy, conducted for the most part in low




522                  HARRINGTON.
voices, Antony, perched upon the cuddy-deck, and hid from
sight by the mainsail, heard little or nothing, and had no idea
that Harrington was in any way injured.  Now that the sail
was down, Harrington saw him, and beckoned him aft. He
came instantly, grotesquely sidling between the two front rowers, and skipping over Captain Fisher's oars, looking, with the
gleam of the moonlight on his dark, skull-like face, something
as he did on the night when Harrington found him.
"Sit down here by me, Antony," said the young man, in his
sweet, feeble voice.
Antony squatted beside him, and Harrington put his left
arm around his shoulder, feeling, in his dying hours, a mild and
compassionate affection for the poor creature for whom he had
laid down his life.
For a little while there was silence, broken only by the regular roll of the oars in the rowlocks, the plash and dip of the
blades, and the steady, seething, effervescing sound of the
water foaming from the bows and stern of the boat as she shot
through the lifting flood. The clouds had rolled down the
east, and Harrington sat weak and suffering, with his white
and beautiful face upturned to the millioned host of lambent
stars —a solemn and tremendous glory of golden rain that
seemed descending slowly under the frosted nebula and vaulted
blue.
Soon his face drooped from the midnight sky, and he smiled
palely on the fugitive, who was wistfully looking at him.
-" How do you feel, Antony?" said the hollow and gentle
voice.
"Fus' rate, Marster Harrin'ton. Right glad to git away
from them soul-drivers, Marster.  Hope you'll sense me, Marster Hlarrin'ton, for goin' out that Sunday, an' givin' you such
a heap o' trouble, Marster.  I aint wuth much trouble,
Marster."
" Did you think I would find you again, Antony?"
"Yes, Marster."
"What made you think so?"
"Thought you'd git it out o' some o' them books in your
house, Marster."




HARRTNGTON.                    523
"You can read, Antony?"
"Ruther p'orly, Marster.   Never had much chalce at
books. Often felt as if I'd like to git a chance, but couldn't
git none.  Had a hard time in this world, an' been kep' down
awful, Marster."
Hairington did not reply, and for a few minutes there was
silence.
"Feel tired, Marster Harrin'ton?" asked Antony.
"What makes you think so?" was the reply.
" Voice sounds tired, Marster.  Rather curis voice, an' not
zactly like yours, Marster.'Spect you fout them soul-drivers
oncommon hard to-night. I'd liked to fout, too, but fight's most
out o' me, Marster.  How do you feel, Marster Harrin'ton?"
" Are you ever ashamed of yourself, Antony, when you
think of all you don't know, and can't do?"
" Yes, Marster."
" You know you are a very poor man, Antony."
"Yes, Marster."
" Very humble, very low, very ignorant, perhaps wicked."
" Yes, Marster."
" Well, did you ever, for a little while even, feel that you were
greater and wiser and better than you had thought you were?"
"Yes, Marster.  Had that feelin' come over me once awful.
It was'long back when I was chokin' with  no air, anll'
most gone for somethin' to eat, lyin' on the cotton in the hold
of the Solomon, Marster.  Tried to make a noise to be let
out, Marster, and couldn't.  Then I guv up for good, an' felt
as if I was dyin', an' all on a sudden like, when I was sort o'
sailin' away, that feelin' come over me awful, Marster.
Oncommon grand feelin', an' I can't account for it nohow, but
it was oncommon grand, MIarster.'"
Harrington slowly lifted his tranced and peaceful face to the
sky, and gazed upon the solemn and awful golden rain of stars.
"That is the way I feel to-night, Antony," lie said in his
sweet and hollow  dying voice.  "That was your true self,
your soul.  That was God in you."
There was a long silence.
" Do you understand, Antony?" said Harrington.




524                  HARRINGTON.
"No, Mars.ter."
"It will be made clear to you," answered Harrington, after
a pause.  " When you are dying it will begin to be made
clear to you.  It will grow clearer and clearer as you leave
the world, and when you are dead you will understand."
The voice was thrilling, tender and low. Awed by its hollow music, the fugitive sat silently revolving the strange words
in his, simple mind. Gradually his thoughts went from him,
melted in the vast peace of the brooding night, and soon,
lulled by the regular sound of the rowing, he sank away in a
sort of waking doze.  Harrington sat motionless, dreaming
upon the stars, his tranquil soul ebbing in suffering from his
dying frame.  No word was said-no sound was heard but
the regular plash and drip of the rolling oars, and the steady
and continuous seethe of the sea.
A long and weary hour went by, and through the lonely
darkness, weirdly lit by the wan gleam  of the low crescent
moon, the dark shore and dim houses began to loom over the
weltering flood.  The rowers redoubled their energy, and the
boat flew seething through the brine.  IHalf an hour more,
and her keel grated on the sand.
Wentworth and Bag-asse sprang up hot and panting, flung
down their oars, and leaped ashore. The Captain waited till
they had seized the painter, then shipped his oars, and left the
boat followed by Antony. Dropping the painter, and hauling all
together on the boat, they drew it utp high and dry upon the sands.
"Take Antony on with you, Captain," whispered Harrington.
The Captain silently put on his clothes, and taking the fugitive by the arm, led him up the dark lane. Bagasse and
Wentworth hurriedly resumed their garments, and assisted
IlHdrrington to rise -and leave the leaning boat.  He was very
weak, his noble masculine vigor nearly drained away, but his
resolute soul still upbore him, and hle cofld walk feebly,
though with heavy and tottering knees.  Upheld by the
strong hold around him, and leaning on their shoulders with
clasping arms, he advanced with them up the lane. They
wanted to carry him, but not wishing to let Antony know his
condition, he refused.




HARRINGTON.                  525
The c6ol air was full of delicious summer fragrance, as they
went on through the glimmering darkness. In a few minutes
they heard the snorting and pawing of horses, and looking up
the road, saw the carriage at some little distance. Leaving
Harrington to the charge of Bagasse, Wentworth ran for.
ward, told John Todd to stay where he was, and mounting
the box, turned the horses and drove the hack down. Antony
and the Captain got in, then Bagasse and Harrington coming
up, entered also, and Wentworth turning the horses again
drove up the street, stopped for an instant to take up John
Todd on the box beside him, and away they rolled rapidly
over the smooth road.
It was then between two and three o'clock. Everything
had been successfully managed, and to his dying day John
Todd never knew who the occupants of the carriage were.
Wentworth was taciturn, and after a few remarks, finding he
got no answer, John left off talking, and they went on in silence.
Through the dark, deserted streets of South Boston they
rolled rapidly, and over the long bridge they rapidly rumbled,
silent within the carriage and without. Then over the rattl!un
pavements into Dover, and up Tremont street to Park, and
into Mount Vernon to Temple, where Wentworth reined in
the smoking and pawing horses.
" Get down, John," said he, "wait here for five minutes,
then walk down Temple street, where you'll find the carriage,
and drive it back to the stables.  I'll see you to-morrow.
Now do exactly as I tell you."
"Just as you say, Mr. Wentworth," returned the boy, getting down, and wondering what all this meant anyway.
Wentworth at once drove the horses down the declivity of
Temple street, drew them up at the door of the lighted house,
and with a bursting heart, leaped from the box, and went up
the steps. He laid his hand on the bell-knob to ring, but
shook so in his nerveless agony, that he had to pause.
Suddenly the door opened, and Muriel appeared standing
within the lighted entry, clad all in white, calm, beautiful and
radiant. Wentworth burst into tears, and staggering forward,
fell into her arms.




526                   HARRINGTON.
"Hush, dear Richard," she said, in a serene and tender
voice, "I know it all.  Be calm, as I am. Bring him to me."
Blind with tears, he tottered down the steps to the carriage,
and threw open the door.
" Richard," said the faint voice from within, "take Antony
up at once."
Antony got out from the carriage, wondering why his protector spoke in such a weak voice, and followed Wentworth in.
" Welcome back, Antony," said Muriel, with a grave smile.
" Go up with Mr. Wentworth."
She turned her face to the carriage, as the fugitive, cringing low, with his dark, skull-like face hideous with a reverential smile, passed her, dragged hastily up-stairs by Wentworth.
In a moment Bagasse sprang from the carriage, and turning, reached in for Harrington, who crept down presently,
supported from behind by the Captain, and before by the
fencing-master. The moment he touched the pavement, Muriel
flew down the steps, clasped him in her arms, and gazed for
an instant, with a pale, bright smile, into his dying face.
The two men gazed at her for a moment, their haggard and
weeping faces stilled with wonder at her seraphic smile of
calm, and the soft vision of her beauty in the darkness. Then
starting from their pause, they lifted Harrington from his feet,
bore him up into the library, laid him half reclining on a
couch, and as they did so, she came quickly with water and
wine, and knelt beside him.
Wentworth entered behind them, drenched and draggled
with the rain and spray, with his hair dishevelled, and his face
livid and haggard with grief, and went at once to Emily, who
lay on a couch in a dead swoon. The two men stood forlornly
weeping, Bagasse with his face buried in his hands, the Captain with his head bent on one side, his visage white with dark
circles around the eyes, and the tears streaming on his cheeks.
Save for their low, hoarse sobs, the lighted room was intensely
still.
"Beloved Muriel," murmured Harrington, "I thank the
kind fate that suffers me to see you again, and to die in your
arms."




HARRINGTON.                    527
"And I, my husband," she replied, in a subdued and tender voice, " I am happier that it has been ordered so. You
return to me, as I knew you would, living or dead, a victor."
" Yes," he replied, " we have triumphed.  All is retrieved,
and I can pass away in peace. I was alone; I lost my weapon,
and they were seven to one; but I mastered them all with only
one wound. Only one-here —but it is fatal."
She quickly undid his neckerchief and collar, laid bare his
massive breast, and gazed upon the stab. Then rising, she
went over to Wentworth, who was bending over Emily,
she having just recovered from her swoon.
"Richard," said she, "I d.o not think there is any hope for
John, but it is best to call in Dr. Winslow. Will you go for
him?"
Wentworth at once left the room.
" Dear Emily, be calm," said Muriel, gently.  "I told you
of this beforehand, that you might be saved the shock. Try
to be calm. Try, for my sake, to meet this sorrow bravely."
" Oh, Muriel," replied Emily, with the tears flowing upon
her blanched and agitated face, "is he hurt?  Don't tell me
he is killed I Don't tell me that   Where is he?  Let me
see him."
"Come here, dear Emily," said Harrington, faintly.
Tremblingly rising, assisted by Muriel, and weeping bitterly,
she crossed the floor, supported by her, and sinking down by
Harrington, who had covered his breast, she laid her head an
his shoulder, while he, in low murmurs, tried to comfort her.
Muriel knelt beside them with one arm  around Harrington,
and his hand held to her bosom. In a minute or two Emily
had stilled her grief, and nothing was heard but the low,
hoarse sobs of the two men. Watching Harrington's face,
amidst the sobbing, Muriel saw a faint expression of weary
pain flit across it.  She instantly rose, and turned to the two
mourners.
"Mr. Bagasse," said she, sadly smiling, as she laid her
hands on his arm.  "I am glad to see you, though I did not
think our first meeting would be at such a time as this."
He dropped his hands from his uncouth and lnartal i i furcalus




528                    HARRINGTON.
swarthy-white with grief, and bowed low, with the tears running from his eyes.
"Ah, madame," he faltered, hoarsely, "ze honor and ze
joay I haf to see ze beau-tifool ladee wife is all covait ovair
wis my sorrow.  31y old vair seek heart is cut all up wis
my des-pair."
" Nay, do not grieve so," she tenderly replied.  "We shall
all see the man we love again.  Ah, iMr. Bagasse, you could
bear to see men die for France.  Can you not bear to see one
die for humanity.
"Yes, I haf see vair many men die," lie answered, slowly
moving his head up and down. " I was conscrip' wis:Nap-oleon.
I see men die in big heap wis cannon an sabre and bayonet at
Ligny and Waterloo, an' I bear it.  I see my two brozzer kill
dead at Ligny, an' I bear it.  Not Missr Harrin'ton. RNo. I
see him kill —I see ze lof of my heart, so kind, so good, so
brave, so tendair wis evairbody, kill by zose murdair devail,
and I nevair bear it.  Ah, madame, nevair, nevair!"
She smiled sadly with dim eyes, and held out her beautiful
white hands to him.  He caught them quickly in his, pressed
them  to his lips, and with a convulsive flush darkly reddening
his grotesque and martial features, drew himself up, and looked
for an instant at her solemn festal loveliness.
"I bear it, madame," he cried hoarsely, with passionate vehemence. " You lof him so mush, and you bear it. You learn
me zat lesson, and I will bear it wis you.  Ah, madame, you
are ze brave, beautifool soldier wife. You was fit for his great
lof. I res-pect, I ad-mire, I wor-ship you."
He dropped her hands, bowed low, and falling back a pace,
tightly folded his arms, and stood sombre and calm, with his
one eye glowing like a coal.
She looked at him for a moment, and then her still eyes
wandered slowly to the weeping Captain, and she glided over
to him.
" Mr. Fisher," she said, in a calm, compassionate voice, " let
us endure this trial with fortitude. I grieve to see you suffer.
Try to be calm."
"I can't endoor it," moaned the Captain.  " He's every



HAR oNlGToN.                   529
thing to us. What'll Hannah and the children say when I tell'em he's gone I It'll be the house of mournin' foriver. Here's
the workin's of slavery. If John H., or Joel James, was in his
coffin this minute, it wouldn't compare with this bereavement.
I don't see how you can endoor it. I can't."
" He is the light of life to me," she answered, gently, " but I
yield him up with joy and pride. Can I feel one pulse of grief
when I think that he dies for the inalienable rights of man?
Can I remember that he dies to save a fellow-creature from
cruelty and wrong, and mourn? Think I He was rich, and
he dies for the poor; he was strong, and he dies for the weak;
he was a freeman, and he dies for the slave.  Is that a death
to mourn?  No I My soul is glad in him —my heart covers
him with glory."
The Captain looked at her calm and radiant face with a
startled visage, while a thrill ran through his veins.
"Well, that's noble," said he.  "Yis, that's high-minded.
Don't say another word, IMrs. Harrington. I'm done.  Yis,
John dies in the Lord.  His father died in the Lord, an' so he
will. It's hard to bear, but it's for libaty."
He turned from her, sobbing, with his head on one side, and
sat down. She looked at him compassionately, and then
glided away to Harrington.  He lay half-reclining, with tie
mellow lamplight resting on his face, sculptural now wihi the
pallor of dissolution, the eyes clear and still in their shadows,
the brow lit with the dews of suffering, and a sweet, faint
smile palely irradiating all. Emily, white as marble, sat by
him with her hands clasping one of his, magnetically calmed
by his tender words, and by the peaceful and noble passion of
his dying. Motioning to her not to move, Muriel pushed a
footstool near the couch, and kneeling upon it beside him, put
one arm around his neck, and the other across his bosom
over his shoulder, and clasping him so, gazed with adoring
tenderness into his eyes.
Kneeling in silence thus, and holding his soul to hers, a few
minutes passed away, and the sound of the shutting door
announced the arrival of the physician. Muriel and Emily
arose, and the former opened the door of the library. Pre23




530                    xARRINGT'ON.
sently the doctor, a courteous, elderly gentleman, with a
shining bald head, entered bowing, with his hands folded
together.
"My dear Mrs. Harrington," said he, "what is this?
Your husband stabbed! I am shocked to hear it."
He did not seem at all shocked, however, but was simply
kind, professional and affable, with a little approval and admiration of Muriel's beauty visible in his manner as he looked
at her.
" Yes, doctor," she replied, calmly.  "Will you look at the
wound?"
She turned toward lIarrington as she spoke, and  the
physician at once passed her; bowing, with his lips pursed up,
and laying aside the young man's clothes, looked at the stab.
Every eye was fixed upon him, and every heart, save Muriel's,
throbbed painfully in expectancy.  In a few  moments, he
turned away, and came toward them with a silent look on his
face, which filled them with cold despair.
" How did this happen, Mrs. Harrington?" he asked, with
affable gravity.
" Briefly, doctor, thus," she replied.  "'Mr. Harrington'-terfered to-night in behalf of a poor man, and was wounded
by onme unknown hand in the contest."
The doctor made a clicking sound with his tongue against
his teeth.
" What a plt+,y 1" he added. " Have you no clue to the perpetrator of this outiage.  The police should be set on the track
at once."
" Doctor," said she, "I will tell you of this hereafter.  Let
me only say now that I wish this matter to remain unknown
if possible.  The mischief is done, and it would only be painful to us to have it given t to thie public.  If you can serve me
in this way, I: will be deeply grateful to you."
" Oh, certainly, Mrs. Harrington," he replied.  "I can appreciate your feeling undler these distressing circumstances.
You may depend on nae. There is nothing to be done, I am
sorry to say. Plrobably one of the smuall coronary arteries has
been severed.  The wound will not bleed, externally.  Give




HARRINGTON.                    531
him water and a little wine occasionally, and plenty of air.
I will come in again in the morning; but I regret to say
that I can do nothing, and as I unfortunately cannot, I will
not intrude further."'
She bent her head in response to his affable bow, and he
backed bowing out of the library, and was gone.
Muriel opened the windows, then glided over to Harrington,
and knelt, murmuring inaudibly beside him, while the rest
stood in a common stupor of cold, blank sorrow. Presently
she arose, and gave him wine; then laying down the glass,
she turned to the dejected group:
"Friends," said she, with calm solemnity, "come here!"
They all approached slowly, and stood with bent heads,
gazing with mute and mournful faces on the white majestic
features of Harrington.  He lay, half reclined, his head
supported by the cushions, and rising with something of its old
martial carriage from the massive breast, while he looked upon
them, sweet and regnant, with bright, dying eyes.
"Dear friends," said he, in a voice hollow and low, but firm
and clear, "you will remember to keep all that has happened
secret. It is my last request."
There was a brief interval of silence.
"Come close to me," he said, looking at the Captain.
The old man knelt down beside him, weeping, and put his
arms around him.
" Kind father," said the low, sweet voice, "my own father's
friend, the true friend of my mother, so good and faithful to
me, I love you dearly, and I bless you.  Give my fond love to
the poor wife and the children, and tell them we shall all
meet hereafter.  I wish I could have seen them, but it has
been ordered otherwise.  No matter: we shall meet again."
There was a long silence. Then rising, still weeping bitterly, and unable to speak a word, the old man grasped for a
moment the cold hands of him he loved like his own children,
and turned away sobbing.
"Come, Bagasse," said larrington, trying to lift his arms
to him.
With a sudden movement, the Frenchman threw himself




532                   HARRINGTON.
upon one knee beside him, clasped him in his arms, and kissed
him on each cheek.
" Hah l I lof you," he cried hoarsely, with a visage of
glowing iron, and an eye of fire. "I lof you wis my heart, my
life. See: I die vair soon. It is sixtee year old wis me.
Soon I die and come to you. Ah, brave, kind, tendair zhentilman, you go off vair young I You lof evairybody so much zat
ze dam world will not haf no place for you. You go to ze
good God. Ask Him zoo par-don ze vair bad life of old
Bagasse zat he may come stay wis you. Zen I am happy,
happy."
" Fear not-soon you will see me," murmured larrington,
calmly smiling. "It is but a little while. Bend your face
down to me."
Bagasse did so, and Harrington gently pressed his lips to
each cheek.
" There. It is the kiss of France," he said.  "Take it with
my love. Farewell."
"Farewell, brave zhentilman, farewell," the Frenchman replied. " Farewell, till I meet wis you. I lay ze immortelle
on you grave."
He sprang back, erect and martial, and folded his arms.
Emily sank down beside Harrington, calm, though with a face
of marble, and Wentworth, white and stern with despairing
grief, knelt on the footstool, with one arm around his neck and
the other grasping his hand.
" Dear lovers," said Harrington, smiling with pale tenderness,
"when the wedding comes think of me as there.  Do not
think that you will be lost to my love, when I am lost to your
eyes. I will be happy in your happiness; and my memory
will be part of your joy. In all the good sweet hours, in all
the hours of earthly trial and sorrow, I will be with you. Our
happy days together are not ended-they will be ours again
hereafter."
"Oh, we have lost all in losing you," wailed Emily, with the
tears flowing from her eyes. "I wish that I had died before
this sorrow could come to me."
"And I," gasped Richard; "my heart is broken i"




HAI:, RI N G:'J(!N.           533
The fleeting soul rallied in the feeble frame of Harrington,
and with a convulsive effort he raised his arms, and clasped
them to his breast.  They clung to him, silently weeping, and
for a little while all were still.
" This is the grief of dying," he faltered, at length.  "Oh,
dear ones, death is bitter to me when I see you grieve."
"No, no, it shall not be," cried Wentworth, lifting his
streaming eyes to Harrington's.  "We will not pain you.
Emily, dear Emily, let us be calm-let us not make him suffer
whom we love."
"I will not," she answered, lifting her beautiful agonized
face, and controlling herself with a strong effort.  "I will be
calm. For your sake, John, for I love you as I never dreamed
I could love."
"Thanks, thanks," faltered larrington.  "Dear Emily,
dear Richard, think of Muriel.  She is here, she you love so
fondly remains to make life beautiful to you. Oh, think of
that, and be filled with gladness and gratitude I There. I
have much to say to you, but my strength fails me. Live
happy. Love much. Now farewell till we meet in the bright
land."
Emily bent down, folding him in her arms, and pressed her
mouth to his cold lips in a long, fervent kiss, whose memory
never left her life. Rising presently, she swept away to the
extremity of the room, and sank on her knees by a chair.
Wentworth remained for a little while, his arms around his
friend, his head resting upon his bosom. Then raising his
sorrowful and haggard face, he kissed him on the forehead,
grasped his hand and held it to his heart, and with one lingering, mournful look upon the noble and peaceful countenance
which smiled upon him, reverently laid the hand down, and
slowly wandering away, knelt beside Emily.
lHarrington looked at Muriel, with his white face kindled.
" Come to me now, my beloved," he said, in a faint and
fervid voice. " The shadows have passed. Come, and share
my dying hour of joy."
Pale, and glorious in her festal beauty, she moved to the
folding-doors.




534                   HARRINGTON.
"I will stay with him till he is gone," she said, calmly.
"Wait here till I come out to you."
She withdrew, closing the doors behind her, leaving the
mourners together.  The Captain and Bagasse seated themselves in silence. Presently Emily and Wentworth arose from
their knees, and sat on a couch, clasped in each other's arms.
An intense stillness succeeded, and the quiet light shone lonelily
on the four bowed and moveless forms.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
IO TRIUMPHE.
THE solemn time slowly wore away. Gradually the twilight
began to glimmer through the slats of the western window.
Wentworth rose noiselessly, opened the window, put back the
blinds, and withdrew the curtains; then extinguishing the
light, resumed his seat again beside Emily.
The glimmering twilight slowly melted into pale dawn
with a deep violet sky; and the few vague noises of reawakening life began to sound in the streets of the quiet neighborhood. Soon the violet of the sky changed into the light blue
of early morning, touched by the unrisen sun, and the pure
pallor of the daylight, lay within the chamber, and on its
bowed and silent occupants.
Day broadened, and the first fresh beams of the sunrise
reddened on the tops of the chimneys. A faint stir came to
them from the inner room, and the folding-doors unclosed a little,
and remained slightly ajar. They all rose, and stood in silence.
Looking through the aperture, they saw that the lamps were
extinguished within, and that a brighter day than theirs
flushed with light the silent room. Suddenly the foldingdoors swung wide open, and Muriel appeared, with a face of
cloudless radiance.  For a moment she stood in silence,




HARRINGTON.                     535
exalted, dazzling, a presence like intoxicating music; her
snowy drapery falling around her in holy bacchanal folds, her
amber hair rippling goldenly and  low, and  her features
kindled with a smile like morning.
"It is over," she said, her voice thrilling with a rapture of
tenderness.  " He has gone."
They stood in silence, gazing with awe upon her pure and
lovely face, and the light of her immortal joy and peace
floated in upon their cold and desolate sorrow, like heavenly
rays upon a winter sea.  Her sacred and auroral beauty interblended with their sense of the solemn presence of the dead,
and the feelings that arose within them were like the prayers
and hymns of resurrection.
Standing with bowed heads, the passing perfume of her
robes told them  that she moved, and they silently followed
her into the room where all that was mortal of the hero lay.
The curtains were drawn aside, and the light of the morning,
warmed by the coming gold of the sunrise, streamed tenderly
upon the white and noble features.  He lay reclined, tlhe head
resting upon a cushion, the hands crossed upon tOle bosom, the
bearded face beautiful in grand and sweet serenity, with the
lips and eyelids closed.  So peaceful and unchalnged was his
countenance, save in its marble pallor, that it mighlt have been
thought he slept.  But he was dead.  Nerveless now the
limbs so mighty in liberty's defence; pulseless now the strong
heart whose generous currents beat for man; the busy brain
that had wrought with such divine ambitions for the race, was
stilled; and all the godhood that had given that body its
majesty and beauty, was gone from it forever.
They gazed calmly upon the deserted form.  Grief had had
its hour.  It would but have profaned the sanctuary of that
holy and grand repose.  The beauteous peace of death was
there, and it made them still.  Silently, for a little while, they
looked with mournful and chastened spirits upon the clear and
lovely features, and as they turned away, Emily bent and
kissed the sacred forehead.
"Sleep sweetly, gallant and gentle heart," she said in a
voice like forvi.l S:usic.  "Sleep, folded in the rest of Heaven,




536                  HARRINGTON.
folded in our Savior's arms. Well for us if we had died like
you."
She rose with a rapt and pallid face, and moved away en.
circled by Wentworth's arm, with her own around him.
"I love you, Richard," she said. "I love you with my
whole nature I But far above me, I saw a nobler love than
mine. It was a love too great and sweet for me-a love to
which I never could attain; and with that love I loved him."
He did not reply, but clasped her closer to him, and they
all went out into the other section of the room.
While they stood in silence, a loud and violent ring, like
the jar of devils breaking in upon their solemn peace, came at
the hall entrance. Muriel paused a moment, then shut the
folding doors, and stepped into the passage. Patrick was up,
and was already shuffling along the entry below to answer the
summons. Presently the hall-door opened, and Muriel, leaning over the banister, heard a harsh.and angry voice say:
" Where's Mr. Harrington? I want to see him  immediately."
It was Lemuel Atkins.
"Patrick," said Muriel, before the servant could reply,
"show that person up here."
She retired into the library, and trampling rudely up-stairs
came Mr. Atkins, and strode into the library with his hat on,
livid with passion.
" Where's that ruffian husband of yours?" he brawled, fronting Muriel.  "I want to see him instantly.  Where is he?
Where have you hidden him?"
" Mr. Atkins," said Wentworth, stepping forward, with a
stern white face, "permit me to remind you that you are
speaking to a lady, and that you have your hat on in her
presence. Take your hat off at once, sir."
Mr. Atkins took his hat by the rim with both hands, pulled
it down more firmly on his head, and swelling out his chest
with vulgar insolence, fronted Wentworth with a blustering air.
" There, sir," said he.
" And there, sir," replied Wentworth, knocking the hat from
his head clear across the room.




HARRINGTON.                    537
Mr. Atkins, frightened a little at this decisive action, glared
at him with glassy eyes, but Wentworth, with a cold, stern
face, retired a few paces, with his gaze fixed on Muriel. Bagasse, meanwhile, the hat having fallen near him, crushed it
beneath his feet, and stood on it, with an eye like a red
coal.
"Well, sir," said Muriel, quietly, " you were asking after
my husband. What do you want with him?  What is the
matter?"
"The matter is this, madam," roared the merchant, bending
his livid and brutal face down to hers, with his horse-jaws wide
open. " I send a damned runaway scoundrel down the harbor
for safe-lkeeping, and your ruffianly husband goes down there,
and not only takes him away, but nearly kills the men I put
in charge of him. Don't you deny it, madam, and say it was
some one else, for one of those men heard the runaway rascal
call him by his name.  Now, where is he?  Out with him at
once I Here's one of those men just come up to me with the
news; yes, and there's another thing. He had to hail a boat
that was passing to take him up to the city, for your robber of
a husband upset every boat that was at the wharf. Yes,
madam, upset them! And then when the men endeavored to
retake their prisoner, he fell upon them with his fists and feet,
and nearly killed them. There they are, seven of them, all
mangled, and bruised, and battered, and —.  Where is he,
I say? Produce him at once I"
There was no change in Muriel's serene face while the merchant belched all this into it, save only a close contraction of
her delicate nostrils; and this was not caused by emotion but
by the fetor of his breath, which was abominable.
" How many men did you say, sir?" she asked quietly, the
moment he had done speaking..
"I said seven, madam; seven men all bruised and"
He stopped, arrested and confused nearly to choking, by her
still smile of scorn.
" Seven men, Lemuel Atkins," said she, derisively. "Seven
men with knives in their hands. Seven armed ruffians, and my
husband, bare-handed, crushed them all 1 Oh, my husband,
23*




538                    BAIARTNGTON.
but I am proud of you! And you, Lemuel Atkins, you have
the face to come here, and blazon the shame of your seven
hired assassins.  MTell done!"
Brutal and impudent as he was, Mr. Atkins could not but
be abashed at this sarcastic exposure of his inglorious colmplaint, and stood working his jaw in the effort to collect himself.
"And you want to see my husband?" pursued  Muriel.
"Good.  You shall see him.  Richard, throw open those
doors."
Wentworth immediately flung the folding-doors asunder, and
Muriel, grasping the merchant by the wrist, drew him into the
room, and up to the couch.
" There he is," said she, "murdered I By you!"
The merchant's visage instantly changed to a frightfal and
ghastly blue, his jaw- dropped, his hair rose bristlingf  and,
petrified with horror, he stood glaring at the corpse.  Like
many coarse natures, he had a natural vulgar dread of a dead
body, but added to that was the terrific shock of being brought
suddenly before the slaughtered corpse of his niece's husband,
the dreadful consciousness that he himself was morally responsible for this ruin, and the soul-sickening fear that now the
law would pursue its authors, and that his own wicked and
illegal act, with the blood of a murder on it, would be exposed
to the public view.  The simple illegal kidnapping, at a time
when Boston had gone for kidnapping, was nothing'; his tribe
would wink at that; but with this crime upon it, he never
could survive the consequences.
" See," said Muriel, laying bare the breast, " there is the
wound of the * knife that slew him. You, Lemuel Atkins,
through your agent, struck that blow."
She looked at him with clear and glowing eyes, but he did
not heed her, nor did the ghastly aspect of his visage change.
Transfixed with horror, he stood immovable, his gaze bound
by a dreadful fascination to the short purple line in an orb of
red suffusion on the white breast. But at last, his glassy eyes
wandered to her face.
"It'.ll kill her," he murmured in a horrible, low voice, talking




HARRINGTON.                   539
to himself as though she were not present. " She'll die of grief
for him."
Muriel smiled —a clear, still smile that made him shiver.
" You think so!" she replied, in firm and steady tones.
"You think I will die of grief for my slain husband?    Well
you may, for I loved him with a love of whose strength and
fervency a nature like yours knows, and can know, nothing.
Well may you think so, for he was the light of life to me.
But see —" she seized the merchant's hand, and laid it on her
wrist-" the pulse beats calm! Feel "-she placed his hand
upon her heart-" there is no throb of anguish there! Look
at my face-it is not the face of grief! Kill me?  No, it
will not kill me I Grieve me? N'o it can never grieve me!
Sorrow nor death can come not nigh me-for he lies dead in
the divinest death a man can die, and I am filled with gladness and with pride! Should I not be glad and proud? The
most forsaken of mankind, the Pariah of a despised and
trampled race, came from long years of misery to his charge,
and when you stole that most wretched being- that you might
send him back to the hourly murder from which he had
emerged, my spotless hero went from this house knowing that
he never would return alive, and willingly laid down his' life
to. save him. Yes-he knew that the price of that man's liberty was his own life, and he paid it. Alone he did it-alone
he took your victim from his captors-alone and naked-handed
he crushed the seven assassins who dared to front him in his
manhood-and with that red star of honor on his breast he
came home here to die in my exulting arms. There he liesdead in the noblest death a man can suffer-death in the service of the weak and poor. Dead-and on all his life the
splendor of that heroic devotion; dead-and on his breast that
red blazon of glory immortal; and I could rifle earth of its
roses to deck this hour, and break up heaven for the music of
my joy!"
The clear and fiery silver of her voice rang through him
like a hundred swords, and staggering back a pace, he fairly
crouched before the stormy effulgence of her beauty. For she
flamed upon him, dilated, with a terrible enthusiasm quivering




540                   HARXINGTON.
through her flushed and kindled features and an electric aureole of victory darting from her like a sense of rays. Not him
alone did she overwhelm-the air of the room was deluged
with the torrent magnetism of her spirit, as if it had been
flooded with a rushing ether of light flame, and every heart
beat as with the wings of eagles, and every cheek was pale
with the draining rapture of her ardor. Not him alone, but
him chiefly, and only him with dread. Had she flashed hate
and scorn upon him, he could have better borne it. But this
supernatural exultation over an event which he thought would
have bowed her in pallid agonies of grief-this sublime and
haughty glory in her husband's fate-astounded and terrified
him. It mingled with his sense of her ptean tones and words,
the patrician nobility of her figure in its snowy odor-breathing
raiment, all the fiery beauty and dazzling enchantments of her
presence-and it rushed into a consciousness worse than the
consciousness of her hate and scorn- the consciousness of the
thing he was contrasted with her. The very sight of her was
the insupportable verdict of his own utter baseness, and he
stood crouching and shuddering, with his glassy eyes bound to
her face, as if some judgment angel, dreadful in loveliness, had
burst upon him from the woman he knew.
She turned away, and his gaze slowly reverted to the corpse.
At once, with tenfold vehemence, his former fear and horror
rose within him.
" My God 1" he gasped, " this is an awful tragedyl"
Sudden as lightning she wheeled around, and the first slanting beam of the sunrise smote her forehead, and lit her noble
features with a new resplendence I
"It is not i" she cried, in a proud and ringing voice.  "It
is a triumph I You threw the interests of your party and
your trade into the scale against a man's liberty. He threw
the rich, red blood of his heart into the other side, and weighed
you down. It is a triumph I Call it no tragedy which breaks
one fetterlock, even at the cost of a sweet life! Oh, brother
of the despised and the rejected, well for earth's proudest if he
went to God like you, the savior of a poor spirit from the
curse of bonds, and bearing up to heaven the trophy of one




HARRINGTON.                   541
broken chain I Pass me, sorrow, pass, and come not nigh
me-for oh, my husband, you laid down your life for a weak
and lowly slave, and there is morning in my heart forever I"
Her pealing voice, proud and ringing while she spoke to
him, melted into clear and noble pathos as she turned to the
visioned image of her hero, and the words breathed in tones of
illimitable ecstasy upon an air that seemed to beat and swim
in rapture. The swiftly ascending sunlight rested upon her as
she stood with clasped hands, her tresses shining in golden
glory around her divinely kindled face, her soft, white drapery
flowing and trembling around her, and gazing upon her from
the inner room as through a veil of fire and tears, she seemed
to them like some splendid seraph of the morning, dilated with
holy and heroic joy.
A low groan heaved from the chest of the wretched Atkins.
She looked at him. He was gazing with a face of abject horror and despair on the majestic figure of the dead.
" Come away," she said, solemnly, taking the passive wretch
by the arm, and leading him  into the other room. "I
pity you from the depths of my soul. You are the tragedyyou and the social order that has ruined you. Would that I
could do you good! I cannot. You are made, and only
death can unmake you. Well will it be for you when your
sad failure of an earthly life is ended, and you can resume that
you were before you were born."
He turned toward her, dreadfully agitated, with the foul
tears flowing on his convulsed and livid visage.
"Spare me," he hoarsely faltered, clasping his hands, " spare
me the exposure! For the love of God, let it be hushed up I
It'll ruin me and my family, and-Oh, I beg of you let
it""Listen to me," said Muriel, interrupting him. "My
mother has not yet left her chamber, and therefore does not
know of what has happened. Spare her the anguish of seeing
you here with the body of her beloved son lying there. I
have already kept you too long. But hear this: the persons
present, and one other, are the only persons who know of this




542                   HARRINGTON.
transaction, and they are pledged never to divulge it. Keep
it secret then yourself. It ends here."
"Oh, thank you, thank you; I'm  very grateful, indeed I
am," he hurriedly replied, showing in his agitation a mean relief at his escape from the consequences of his wickedness:
"I'll go at once."
He looked around for his hat. Bagasse kicked it over to
him, with an eye that flashed red fire. Atkins did not show
the least resentment at the insult, but hastily picking up thle
crushed castor, hurriedly left the library straightening it
out, and presently they heard the hall-door close behind
him.
Muriel went to the body of Harrington, and arranged the
clothes over the bosom. In a moment or two the others followed her, and as they approached, she turned toward them.
" I must go up to tell mother of this," she said.  "It is
better that she should hear it in her own chamber."
"We ought to have called her, that she might see John before he died," said Emily.
" No," replied Muriel;  "I thought of it, but I feared to
have her here for her own sake.' And I fear the shock it will
give her now. I must go at once."
She moved to the entrance, but at that moment Mrs. Eastman entered the library in the section beyond the folding doors.
Muriel sprang, caught her in her arms, and gazed with all her
soul in her eyes, into her pale countenance. Mrs. Eastman had
not caught sight of the body, but she saw Bagasse and the
Captain, and knew at once that something unusual had happened, and with a startled glance at the averted faces of the
group, she looked with ashen features at Muriel.
" Mother," said Muriel, in a firm, proud voice, " look at me.
Am I not happy?"
Mrs. Eastman gazed with a wan smile at the radiant countenance of her daughter.
" Yes, dear," she wonderingly murmured; "I never saw
you look more so. But why are you joyful?"
" Because this is a day of joy, mother," replied Muriel.
"It is the joy of joys to-day. Heaven touches earth with me,




HARRINGTON.                    543
and I am happy. Mother, the poor man who was stolen from
us is saved! John has ransomed him I"
"Why I" exclaimed Mrs. Eastman, starting, with a bright
smile, in her daughter's arms.  "This is indeed good news.
But what do you mean-how did John ransom him?"
" With a great price, my mother," cried Muriel, a brilliant
smile irradiating her inspired features.  "A price which I am
willing and proud to pay. Are you?"
"I would pay any price for such a good as this," replied
Mrs. Eastman, with some wonder visible in her joy.
" Any, mother?"' Yes, any."'
" Alh, mother, let me try you. Suppose the price was your
whole fortune.  Would you give it?"
" I would give it all," answered Mrs. Eastman, fervently.
" I would give everything rather than go through life with the
shame and agony of Lemuel's sin and that poor man's murder
upon me."
" But, mother, suppose Heaven asked of you a greater price
than that. Suppose it asked, as the price of a poor man's
liberty, your daughter's life, or the life of your son. Woul
you give it?  Answer me yes," she cried, with flashing eyes.
" Tell me that yours is not a cheap devotion to the old New
England honor-the old New England liberty-the old New
England justice! Tell me that you are willing to offer up to
Heaven the dearest and the proudest sacrifice a soul can offer,
that I may love you with the love of love forevermore!"
To stand before that impassioned and magnetic fice, to le'aer
those burning and electric tones, and not be kindled by their
enthusiasm, was not in human nature.  The flane thrilled
through the mother's soul, and with a pale, proud countenance,
and quivering nostrils, while a vague and awful consciousness
of what had happened arose within her, she looked steadily
into the flushed and exalted features of Muriel.
" I have not your spirit, Muriel," she tremulously answered,
"and such a sacrifice would be hard for me to make, but I
would strive to make it-I would strive to be worthy of my
daughter."




544                   HARRINGTON.
" Mother of my heart I" cried Muriel, with passionate fervor. " Behold, the hour has come for you to strive with every
mortal weakness. Lean on me now —let me fill you with my
strength-let me dilate you with my joy. Rouse up your soul
to fortitude-nerve it to bear as only a woman's soul can bear
-for Heaven has asked the great sacrifice of us all. Oh, my
mother, Heaven has said to him we love-the price of the
ransom is your own life-and with his life he has paid it."
The mother looked at her with a pale, still countenance.
She did not swoon, she did not shriek, she did not weep nor
tremble.  The strong sustaining spell of Muriel's spirit was
upon her; her clear magnetic eyes upheld her; and she
breathed in the mighty ether of that electrifying sphere of
pride and joy. Left to herself she might have dropped dead
or mad; but interpenetrated with that effluent will, and
moved and kindled by the grandeur of her daughter's nobleness, she rose in courage like the courage of a spirit when it
leaves the serene regions to dare the doom of dark avatars.
"I hear you," she said, in a low, full, equal voice, sounding
more like Muriel's than her own.  "I hear you, and I am
filled with your life. You wish me to be calm and strong. I
am calm and strong.  I understand you perfectly.  You tell
me that he is dead."
"lothler," replied Muriel, with solemn fervor, " his earthly
life is ended, but he lives forever. He died a hero's death,
and all who made earth noble with their living and their dying, rise up to welcomre him."
There was a moment's pause, in which their eyes remained
bound to each other.  Then the low, full, equal voice spoke on.
" Tell me more, Muriel.  Tell nme how he died. I am calm.
I can bear to hear it all."
" I will tell you, my mother," Muriel replied.  "He heard
that the man was a prisoner in a boat at an island wharf in
the bay. Last night he sailed through the tempest, and captured him. Seven to one, they followed him to the beach, and
fell upon him. tle crushed them every one, received a deathwound in the fray, returned in victory, and died here at sunrise. That is all."




HARRINGTON.                   545
The pale face flushed slowly.
"I drove him to this," was the low reply.  "Did I not?
Have not I killed him?"
"No, mother," answered Muriel, calmly.  "It is not so. I
had determined to disregard your wishes, but this plan was
surer, and he. and I chose it."
The pale face lightened, and the flush died away in marble
pallor.
" No, it was not I that killed him," she said, slowly.  "It
was another, and him I renounce forever. Lemuel"
" Hush, mother," said Muriel.  "Not a word of him. Let
us pity and pardon him-but do not utter his name again.
Let him pass in peace."
There was a brief interval of silence before the mother
spoke again.
" Where is he, Muriel? Let me see him. Do not hold me
from him. Do not fear for me. I am calm and strong. I
can bear to see him now, though he is dead."
The pleading and pathetic voice touched Muriel to her
heart's core, though there was no sign of emotion on her
face. Her clasp tightened around her mother, and for a moment her clear eyes dwelt upon the pallid countenance.
"Can you bear to look upon him now?" she replied.  "Be
calm-be strong. Look into that room. He is there."
The mother, strongly held by Muriel's arms, slowly turned
her head, and gazed. A broad ray of sunlight rested on the
couch, and the sculptured face shone in white splendor. Long
and breathlessly she gazed upon it.
"Come," murmured Muriel.
Clasped in each other's arms, they moved slowly to the side
of the couch, and stood gazing on the white and noble features,
clear-cut and glorious in the dazzling stream of light which fell
upon them, and relieved by the violet velvet on which the
body lay. It was death, but death in the lustrous beauty of
a vision. The rich magic splendor that irradiated the majestic
countenance, seemed issuant from it-a blazing halo, in which
it would rest forever.
"He is beautiful," murmured Mrs. Eastman, in a hushed




546                   HARRINGTON.
and mournful voice.  "Beautiful as a dream.  My dead
son I"
Three little words, but in them what a large world of affection and sorrow  found room I A thrill of emotion came to
the silent group as her low, distinct voice, awful in its pathos,
gave those words utterance. Noiselessly and slowly she sank
from lMuriel's arms to her knees, and laid her head upon the
pulseless breast; for a little while she remained there, with
the strong glory lending a brighter silver to her tresses; and
rising again, her calm face was wet with tears.
"It is a great grief," she said, as Muriel again encircled
her in her arms.  " It is a greater grief, Muriel, than
when your father died. I wonder that I can bear it as I
do. And you, my poor child, widowed now like me, how can
you endure your loss-how can you look so beautiful and
happy, and he lying dead beside you?"
"' Look, mother," cried Muriel, "look at that sky i"
She drew her to the casement as she spoke, and flinging it
open, they stood, with the blithe, fresh air of the brilliant
morning around them, gazing together on the transcendent
pomp of the sunrise. Far up the blue zenith, the sky was
bannered with floating clouds of gold and purple and crimson,
and burst on burst of splendor streamed through them from
the dazzling orb which filled the broad day with haughty and
majestic glory.
" Is this a day for grief?" said Muriel.  "Behold, it throbs
with victory —it trembles with immortality! See how its colors
and its splendors deck the sky! They glow  and burn in
beauty and in triumph for the return of a conqueror. Dead
soldier of Democracy, the beautiful and bannered sky is for
you I Burst high, flash far, float wide, oh divine resplendence, and fill the vast with the gorgeous colors of victory, for
to-day all Heaven holds jubilee, and welcomes back one saint
and savior more!"
1Her low voice trembled with fervor as it uttered the passionate words, and her sunlit face shone like an angel's. Still
holding her mother in her arms, she turned with her to the
illuminated form of her lover.




HARRINGTON.                   547
"Think, mother, how he lived," she said; "think how he
died. In a city whose vice it is that its valor and compassion
run to brains, he was an arm.  A mind trained for the human
service, and an arm. An arm swift, and loving-swift to smite
the robbers of the poor; a heart that could feel tenderly and
gently even for them; a life which beat, in its every artery,
with the blood of his love for mankind. Oh, never can I
mourn him! The question that shakes the land and age
came to him-in the person of that forlorn wanderer it came,
saying, shall it be slavery or liberty for such as me-and not
with a word, but with a deed he answered, liberty I Ay,
with his life he answered, liberty I Look on him with joy as
I do, for grief is insult to the dead who die for man. Proud,
proud death I Sweet, sweet to die for liberty, and sweet to
look in life on him who has so died. Mourn him? Oh,
never I My own dear love, my friend, my husband, angel of
my heart and of my life, I do not mourn you-I think of you
with joy and pride. You smile upon me still, you wait for
me in the Hereafter, you see my life all festal with your
memory, you see my earthly years flow forward beautiful with
your presence and rich with the light of your Paradise.  Oh,
still be with me —let me never lose the dear consciousness that
you see me-let it endure to make my solitude divine, until I
meet you in the world of souls I"
Awed and thrilled by her tender and fervent ecstasy, Mrs.
Eastman slowly withdrew from her arms, and sank into a
chair. A deep and solemn silence tranced the rich room.
Muriel glided near her dead lover, and stood with the soft
summershine of June tenderly splendid on her golden hair and
noble features, her soul rapt in exultant joy and peace, and
her thoughts sweeping through Eternity. And as she mused,
Emily, with the color in her face and her eyes like stars, went
to the organ, and the deep surge of music fit for the buriel of
champions, rose and rolled in ravishing triumphal grandeur,
and swelled in a burning dream of joy immortal, and endless
glory for the brave.
Loud rolled and soared the paean of the music. Burst on
burst, the rays of haughty splendor streamed through the




548                  HARRINGTON.
bannered pomps that flamed and glowed against the dazzling
sapphire of the day. Tide on tide the effulgence poured
around the heavenly-hearted heroine; and kindling on the violet
velvet of the couch, as on the bier of an emperor, into a softer
rapture of triumphant flame, it lay in a blazing halo on the
folded hands, the broad heroic breast, the martial and noble
features of the dead soldier of Democracy.




EPILOGoUE.                  549
EPILOGUE.
THAT morning, at eight o'clock, Wentworth took Roux and
Antony, with the elfin Tugmutton, to Worcester, and delivered
them, with a note from Muriel, to the care of a friend. A
week later, and Roux's family followed him. Safe in the
uncorrupted heart of the Commonwealth, where. even in that
dark period, the old New England honor fortressed the rights
of the lowly-happy, because they knew not what had
befallen their strong friend —thenceforth their humble fortunes
flowed in peace.
Wentworth returned in the afternoon of that day, but even
before his return, the news of Harrington's death had spread
abroad among all who knew the family, and already a number
of friends had called. Mrs. Eastman and Muriel, however,
unwilling to be questioned, had decided to excuse themselves
to every one, and nobody was admitted. Harrington had lived
rather a reclusive life-at least, he went but little into what is
called society, and except to a number of poor and humble
people, he was little known. To most of the friends and
acquaintance of Muriel, he was a stranger, and to the neighborhdod only a stately figure, sometimes seen alone from the
windows, sometimes walking with her. Hence the interest the
neighborhood felt in his death was, as far as he personally was
concerned, vague, and keen only on account of Muriel, whose
loss, so soon after her marriage, excited a great deal of sympathy and comment.
The funeral was to be strictly private, and'Wentworth
returned to find the beauteous body already prepared for the
grave.  It lay in its casket in the library, garbed in the
clothes it had worn in life. The young man gazed upon it a
little while, then turned to Muriel.




550                    RPILOGV-U.
"Of course," he said, "the burial permit has been attended to."
"Yes," she answered.  "Dr. Winslow  gave the certificate."
" What cause could he have assigned for the death?" he
asked, with a startled air.
Muriel looked at him for a moment with a strange, faint
smile.
" Enlargement of the heart," she answered.
Wentworth's pale face became convulsed, and his eyes filled
with tears.
"Yes," he murmured, clasping his hands, "that was the'
cause indeed 1"
It was a day of grief to all but Muriel. The servants
moved about the house with eyes red with weeping. Patrick
seemed ten years older with his forlorn sorrow. Hannah and
the children came to the house, and remained for a couple of
hours, crying bitterly. Gracious and calm and sweet amidst
the mortal anguish, Muriel soothed and strengthened and consoled them all.
The next day was the day of the funeral. The library
where the body lay was decked as on the day of the wedding,
with a profusion of roses. All the windows were open, and
the rich, dark room swam in clear radiance.
In the morning, Mrs. Eastman, Emily, Wentworth, and
Captain Fisher, being present, Muriel produced a brief will
which Harrington had made the day after his marriage. The
few engravings which decorated his room, and a portion of his
books, he had bequeathed to Emily and Wentworth. The
bulk of his library was given to Muriel. His house to Captain Fisher, with the provision that the two rooms in which he
had lived should be kept for the refuge of any fugitive, exile,
houseless or outcast person of any description who might stand
in need of succor. His little income he had also given in
charge to the Captain to be expended for the relief of any
human distresses that might fall within his knowledge, or to be
used at his discretion for any charitable end.
The old man bent his head, silently weeping, and the rest sat




EPILOGUE.                     551
mute and still, thinking with swelling hearts of the kind spirit
that had left earth forever.
A little while, and they were gone from the room-all save
Muriel and Wentworth The latter stood bending over the
coffin and looking mournfully on the beautiful dead face of
his friend, and Muriel sat at the organ dreaming in music,
which brooded in sweet and glorious surges on the sunlit
air.
As the melody died away, Wentworth stole slowly to her
side.
"I forgot to ask you," he murmured, "about the burial
service. Have you sent for a clergyman?"
"No, Richard,"' she replied.  "He needs none.  Our
thoughts and memories are the fittest burial rites for him. He
was a type and harbinger of the day when religion shall be the
tender love and reverence of every soul for all. In the vision
of that day let us lay his dead form in the grave, hallowed by
our remembrance."
He bent his head in silence and moved away.
An hour passed by, and a low tap came to the door.  It
was Patrick come up to say that Mr. Witherlee was below,
and begged to see her. Muriel paused a moment, with a
strange feeling of surprise at this unexpected visit, and then
went down into the parlor.
Witherlee was there, standing hat in hand, in the middle of
the floor. He did not bow as she came in, but looked at her
with a rigid and wan face, and sad opaque eyes.  For a moment, Muriel, usually so collected and calm, lost herself in
wonder at his aspect, and blankly gazed at him. He was
singularly changed. All the affected elegance of manner was
gone; the contumeliousness, the superciliousness, the morbidity of the face were gone too; the handsome brown hair
was brushed flat; the handsome eyebrows seemed as if their
expressive lift was lost forever. He was attired in deep black,
with not a line of white visible, and his colorless and rigid
countenance wore a strange expression of wan, ascetic abstraction.
"Why, Fernando," said Muriel, in a slow, wondering voice,




552                    EPILOGUE.
recovering from her momentary pause, and approaching him
with an outstretched hand, " I am surprised to see you."
He took her hand and bowed slightly, with an abstracted
air.
" I ask your pardon for calling," he replied, looking vacantly
at her, and speaking as if in dreaming soliloquy. "I heard
of his death."
He paused, looking at her with his rigid lips slightly parted,
and his eyes like sad stone.
"Yes," said she, slowly, wondering more and more at his
strange manner.  "It is true. He died yesterday morning at
sunrise."
There was another long pause, in which she looked blankly
at his abstracted gazing face.
" I am going to join the Catholic church," he said presently,
looking vacantly at the wall, though his eyes had not seemed
to turn from her countenance.' Indeed I" she replied.
"Yes," said he, "in two or three days I am going to Baltimore. I intend to prepare myself for holy orders."
" Do you mean that you are going to become a priest?" she
wonderingly asked.
"Yes," he replied, "in the Catholic church.
She blankly looked at him, marvelling at what he had told
her.
" Would you be kind enough to let me see him?" said he,
vacantly.  "Only for a moment.  I would be very grateful."
So great was her wonderment at the strange alteration in
him, and so potent the deadening influence that radiated from
him, that for a few moments she remained still and silent,
fixedly looking at his face.
" Certainly, Fernando," she suddenly replied, starting from
her amazement. "Certainly, you shall see him.  Come with
me."
She went quickly from the room and upstairs, almost doubting
that he was following her, so noiseless was his movement. But
as she entered the library and turned, he was there, and moving slowly to the casket on the table, with his lips parted, and




EPILOGUE.                    553
his eyes fixed upon it. He laid his hat down as he reached it,
and gazed intently on the face of the dead. For a moment,
Muriel's eyes sank from him to the floor, and when she looked
up again, she saw that his hands were folded, his eyes closed,
and his lips moving in prayer. She turned away, with a
touched heart.
A few minutes went slowly by, and a dim sense of motion,
as if the air stirred, came to her. He was standing near her,
hat in hand. His face was mute, and sad, and very pale.
"Thank you," said he, in a low voice.  "I am very grateful. It has done me great good to see him once more. I feel
better for it."
Her heart rose to him, and with a sudden movement she
reached out her hand. He took it instantly, and his lip trembled.
" You were very good to me," he faltered-" you and
Richard and Emily. I do not feel fit to come here, and I
would not have come again if I had not heard he was dead.
I did not feel fit to see him while he lived, but I wanted to
see him when I heard he was no more. He was the best
friend I had in the world. He did me good. I think I really
never loved any one but him."
" Fernando," said Muriel, tenderly, "can you not let the
past be forgotten? Do not go away from us. Stay here, for
we are your friends, and you need to be sustained and comforted. Let us forget all that has happened, and meet happily
together now."
" Thank you," he replied, sadly.  "You are very kind, and
I am grateful to you. But I do not feel fit to live near you.
I do not deserve your friendship."
Her lips parted to answer him, but he retreated shaking his
head mournfully, and stepping noiselessly from the room, went
down-stairs like a phantom, and was gone. Muriel's head
drooped, and with her hands clasped together, she stood musing
for a long time.
The hours wore on, and as the time drew near to three
o'clock, which was the hour at which they were to bear the
dead to Mount *kuburn, Muriel went to her chamber to attire
24




554                     E;PILOGUE.
herself for the sacred journey. When she came down into the
library, all who were to go were there. Her mother, Captain
Fisher and his family, Emily and Wentworth, Bagasse, and
with him a new comer —his wife, a little middle-aged, brown
Frenchwoman, whose eyes were swollen and red with hours
of weeping for the dead gentleman who had nursed her husband in his sickness, and helped him and her to meet life as
they had never been helped before.  Muriel paused a few
moments to greet her kindly in her own language, and then
went to the body of Harrington.
As she reached the coffined form, illumined by the bright
light which filled the room, she saw something on the darkgarbed breast, which brought to her golden eyes the first
tears they had known since her hero died. It was the Cross
of the Legion of Honor I She knew at once who had placed
it there, and a mighty wave of emotion swept through her as
she gazed on the old soldier's great-hearted tribute to the
valor of her dead.
For a few moments she stood still, then turning with a sunflash in her dewy eyes, and her features flushed with generous
color, she saw the old Frenchman standing near her, looking
with a reverent and sombre visage, and an eye of dark brilliance, on the cross of the Legion.
" It is mush bettair zere zan here," he said, laying his hand
upon his heart, as his eye met hers. " Mon Empereur, he gif
me zat wis his own hand, madame. I was young conscrip' at
Ligny, and I take ze standard from ze Prussian. Zen he put
on my breast zat cross. I lof it wis vair mush lof, and I will
keep it for vair many year till I die.  Zen he die-zat is my
ozzer self, and I put it on him. It is his right. Ze brave
zhentilman, wis his gallantree, his goodness, his mush lof, he
lie in ze grave wis ze cross of ze Legion on his breast. Zat is
well. It is his right, madame."
She pressed his hand in both of hers, looking fervently into
his uncouth and martial visage.
"Thanks," she replied, speaking in French.  "You fill me
with gratitude.  I accept for him the great and noble tribute
of your love.  It is, as you say, his right, for he belonged to




EPILOGUE.                    555
the Legion of Honor. He was a soldier of the Guard-the
old Guard which dies, but never surrenders!"
The dark eye blazed as he took in the proud significance of
her words, and silent with emotion, he bowed, and retired.
Two hours later, and, the burial over, they stood in the green
and tender sunlit shadows of Mount Auburn. A still peace
filled the sweet sequestered shades. The birds sang in the
murmuring leaves; the soft warm odors of the flowers and
greenery breathed around them; the blue June sky was cloudless and calm; and the descending sunlight shone sweetly on
the quiet graves.
For a little while after the others were gone, Muriel and
Wentworth lingered looking at the gentle light which floated
with the shadows of the oak-leaves overhead, on the new-made
mound.
"It is all over," said Wentworth mournfully.  "Alas! I
never thought I would stand by his grave! He ir'ealized the
noblest dreams of chivalry-he was the last grand chevalierand he is gone. What is left us now!"
"Memories," she calmly answered, " memories of a life of
love. Love beat through all his life, love nerved him in the
strife in which he fell.  He smote like Socrates at Deliumlike the divine old Greek who clove his country's foe, and
blessed him as he died. So smote he with stern love, and in
all the wealth of memories he leaves me, that memory too, is
mine. Sweet memories, I treasure you in my heart of hearts!
Sweet blossoms of True Love, I fold you all. Stern blossom
of True Love, I fold you too."
He gazed with mournful tenderness at her noble features,
which were lit with a brilliant and fervent smile.
" True Love, indeed!" he answered.  "Who but he could
leave his beautiful Muriel, his adored wife, and go away to
die for one of the lowliest of God's creatures! Ah, were there
a thousand such as he, this land would be purged of every
wrong I But he was alone in nobleness."
"No, not alone," she said with sudden spirit.  "Not alone.
This is America-America, forming and emerging, with martyrs and heroes such as no land has seen. The Greek could




656                     EPILOGUE.
die for freemen; but when died he for the helot? Oh, I
see the heroes of all lands and times! They live and die for
country, for ideas, for religions, but in America they live and
die for man.  Land of Lovejoy's grave, land of Torrey's
grave, land of the graves obscure and countless, graves of
the lovers for whose love the lowest was not too low, I read
your golden augury I You prophecy the future; you herald
the America uprising-the beautiful divine land of lovers and
of friends I Shall it not come? Oh, graves of all who die
that it may be, answer, answer, answer!"
Her thrilling voice ceased, and as they silently moved
away, a long and sea-like swell of wind arose, and all the
leaves tossed and swept in an aspiration of innumerable rushing voices, holier than ever murmured in the dim groves of
Dodona.
Answer, answer, answer!  Oh, grave at Auburn, green
with summer beauty, folding beneath the oak-tree shadows
the ashes of the dead chevalier, answer, answer, fading as I
gaze I Answer, lone grave in the Adirondacks, fadeless and
immortal above the dust of the True Lover who tried to
save his country from her slaves, and died that the land of
lovers and of friends might be I  Answer, graves of the
strong score of heroes who flung themselves with the trueloving sword upon the Jacquerie of slavery, and perished
for the hope that makes America divine! Answer, graves of
all that made the country holy with the passion of their living
and their dying for mankind —answer, and tell us that America
emerges, the land of lovers and of friends I
It comes! It comes I Clear and sweet are your voices,
oh, graves I Raging clamors drown the voices of the living,
but clear and sweet are the voices of the dead, and it comes
-the bright land comes-the land of lovers and of friends, it
comes!
THE END.




NOTE.
I aM indebted for the sketch of the flight of a fugitive through the
Great Pacoudrie (or Cacodrie) Swamp, in the introductory portion of
this volume, to a couple of pages in the graphic and affecting narrative
entitled "Twelve Years a Slave," by Mr. Solomon Northup, a free
citizen of New York, who was kidnapped in that State, and sold into
bondage in Louisiana, from which he was fortunately rescued and
restored to his wife and children, After a dozen years of enforced
servitude.
Another acknowledgment remains to be made. The reader of the
twelfth chapter of this book may already have observed that Harrington, if he had lived, would have been a believer in the theory regarding
the origin and purpose of the Shakspeare Drama, as developed in the
admirable work by Miss Delia Bacon, entitled "The Philosophy of
Shakspeare's Plays Unfolded," in which belief I should certainly agree
with Harrington. I wish it were in my power to do even the smallest
justice to that mighty and eloquent volume, whose masterly comprehension and insight, though they could not save it from being trampled
upon by the brutal bison of the British literary press, yet lift it to the
dignity, whatever may be its faults, of being the best work ever composed upon the Baconian or Shakspearean writings. It has been scouted
by the critics as the product of a distempered ideality. Perhaps it is.
But there is a prudent wisdom, says Goethe, and there is a wisdom
which does not remind us of prudence; and, in like manner, I may say
that there is a sane sense, and there is a sense that does not remind us
of sanity. At all events, I am assured that the candid and ingenuous
reader Miss Bacon wished for, will find it more to his profit to
be insane with her on the subject of Shakspeare, than sane with
Dr. Johnson.
I am aware that in even making this acknowledgment, I do something to excite the rancor of the stupid and senseless prejudice which
finds no difficulty in assigning the noblest works of the human genius
to the fat peasant of Stratford-a man who, as Emerson justly says,
lved a profane and vulgar life, and whose biography, collected after
b567




558                          NOTE.
the painful labors of more than a century, does not present a single
point which bears any relation to, or correspondence with, the holy
and heroic pages which bear his name; while, at the same time, this
prejudice derides as a mad and monstrous impossibility, the theory
which ascribes those pages to Lord Bacon and his compeers-men in
whose lives and careers all the Shakspearean conditions are fulfilled,
and all the Shakspearealities included. But since I have decided, for
reasons, to advance again, though even thus slightly, the theory I
refer to, it is only fair to render due credit to its true author.  I
do so, earnestly wishing that her work might receive the respectful
attention it undoubtedly merits; and, though the hand which wrote
that glowing iliad of the glory and the genius of the Elizabethan men,
will write no more, that justice might be done to the great dead scholar
in her grave.
W. D. O'C.




ANTI-SLAVERY WORKS.
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BY JAMES REDPATH.
With an Autobiography of his Childhood and Youth.
With a Steel Portrait and Illustrations.  pp. 408.
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