i 
 
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Library of the 
 University of North Carolina 
 
 Endowed by the Dialectic and Pljiian- 
 thropic Societies. 
 
 c%\i>_6^u>; 
 
This book must not 
 be taken from the 
 Library building. 
 
••# 
 
 k 
 
 ^ 
 
In Connection with 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 By 
 
 Frances Hodgson Burnett 
 
 New York 
 
 Charles Scribner's Sons 
 
 1899 
 
Copyright, 1899, by 
 Charles Scribner's Sons 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 CHAPTEE I 
 
 High noon at Talbot's Cross-roads, with the mercury 
 standing at ninety-eight in the shade — though there was 
 not much shade worth mentioning in the immediate vicinity 
 of the Cross-roads post-ofhce, about which, upon the occasion 
 referred to, the few human beings within sight and sound 
 were congregated. There were trees enough a few hundred 
 yards away, but the post-ofhce stood boldly and unflinchingly 
 in the blazing sun. The roads crossing each other stretched 
 themselves as far as the eye could follow them, the red clay 
 transformed into red dust which even an ordinarily lively 
 imagination might have fancied was red hot. The shrill, 
 rattling cry of the grasshoppers, hidden in the long yellow 
 sedge-grass and drouth-smitten com, pierced the stillness 
 now and then with a suddenness startling each time it broke 
 forth, because the interval between each of the pipings was 
 given by the hearers to drowsiness or heated unconscious 
 naps. 
 <j- In such napping and drowsiness the present occupants 
 ni of the post-ofFice were indulging. Upon two empty goods 
 ■** boxes two men in copperas-coloured jean garments reclined 
 ^ in easy attitudes, their hats tilted over their eyes, while sev- 
 
 r I 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 eral others balanced their split-seated chairs against the 
 house or the post-porch and dozed. 
 
 Inside the store the postmaster and proprietor tilted his 
 chair against the counter and dozed also, though fitfully, and 
 with occasional restless changes of position and smothered 
 maledictions against the heat. He was scarcely the build of 
 man to sleep comfortably at high noon in midsummer. His 
 huge, heavy body was rather too much for him at any time, 
 but during the hot weather he succumbed beneath the weight 
 of his own flesh. Hamlin County knew him as " Big Tom 
 D'AVillerby," and, indeed, rather prided itself upon him as 
 a creditable possession. It noted any increase in his weight, 
 repeated his jokes, and bore itself patiently under his satire. 
 His indolence it regarded ^^^th leniency not entirely untinged 
 with secret exultation. 
 
 *' The derndest, laziest critter," his acquaintances would 
 remark to each other; "the derndest I do reckon that ever 
 the Lord made. ISTigh unto three hundred he weighs, and 
 never done a lick o' work in his life. Not one! Lord, no! 
 Tom D'Willerby work? I guess not. He gits on fine with- 
 out any o' that in his'n. Work ain't his kind. It's a pleasin' 
 sight to see him lyin' round thar to the post-office an' the 
 boys a-waitin' on to him, doin' his tradin' for him, an' sortin' 
 the mail when it comes in. They're ready enough to do it 
 jest to hear him gas." 
 
 And so they were. About eight years before the time the 
 present story commences, he had appeared upon the scene 
 apparently ha^dng no object in view but to make himself 
 as comfortable as possible. He took up his quarters at one 
 of the farm-houses among the mountains, paid his hostess 
 regularly for the simple accommodations she could afford 
 him, and, before three months passed, had established his 
 
 2 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 reputation and, without making the slightest apparent effort, 
 had gathered about him a large circle of friends and admirers. 
 
 " His name's D'Willerby/' Mrs. Pike would drawl when 
 questioned about him, "an' he's kin to them D'Willerbys 
 that's sich big bugs down to D'Lileville. I guess they ain't 
 much friendly, though. He don't seem to like to have noth- 
 in' much to say about 'em. Seems like he has money a-plenty 
 to carry him along, an' he talks some o' settin' up a store 
 somewhars." 
 
 In the course of a month or so he carried out the plan, 
 selecting Talbot's Cross-roads as the site for the store in 
 question. He engaged hands to erect a frame building, 
 collected by the assistance of some mysterious agency a 
 heterogeneous stock consisting of calicoes, tinware, coffee, 
 sugar, tobacco, and various waif and stray commodities, and, 
 having done so, took his seat on the porch one morning and 
 announced the establishment open. 
 
 Upon the whole, the enterprise was a success. Barnes^alle 
 was fifteen miles distant, and the farmers, their wives and 
 daughters, were glad enough to stop at the Cross-roads for 
 their calico dresses and store-coffee. By doing so they were 
 saved a long ride and gained superior conversational advan- 
 tages. " D'Willerby's mighty easy to trade with," it was 
 said. 
 
 There was always a goodly number of " critters " tied to 
 the fence-corners, and consequently to business was added 
 the zest of society and the interchanging of gossip. " D'Wil- 
 lerby's " became a centre of interest and attraction, and 
 D'Willerby himself a county institution. 
 
 Big Tom, however, studiously avoided taking a too active 
 part in the duties of the establishment. Having with great 
 forethought provided himself with a stout chair which could 
 
 3 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 be moved from behind the counter to the door, and from 
 the door to the store as the weather demanded, he devoted 
 himself almost exclusively to sitting in it and encouraging 
 a friendly and accommodating spirit in his visitors and ad- 
 mirers. The more youthful of those admirers he found use- 
 ful in the extreme. 
 
 " Boys/' he would say, " a man can't do more than a 
 thousand things at once. A man can't talk a steady stream 
 and do himself justice, and settle the heftiest kind of ques- 
 tions, and say the kind of things these ladies ought to have 
 said to 'em, and then measure out molasses and weigh coffee 
 and slash off calico dresses and trade for eggs. Some of 
 you've got to roust out and do some clerking, or I've got 
 to quit. I've not got the constitution to stand it. Jim, you 
 'tend to Mis' Pike, and Bill, you wait on Mis' Jones. Lord! 
 Lord! half a dozen of you here, and not one doing a thing 
 — not a derned thing! Do you want me to get up and leave 
 Miss Mirandy and do things myself? We've got to settle 
 about the colour of this gown. How'd you feel now, if it 
 wasn't becoming to her complexion? Just help yourself 
 to that plug of tobacco, Hance, and lay your ten cents in 
 the cash drawer, and then you can w^eigh out that butter of 
 Mis' Simpson's." 
 
 When there was a prospect of a post-office at the Cross- 
 roads, there was only one opinion as to who was the man best 
 calculated to adorn the position of postmaster. 
 
 " The store's right yere, Tom," said his patrons, " an' 
 you're right yere. Ye can "write and spell off things 'thout 
 any trouble, an' I reckon ye wouldn't mind the extry two 
 dollars comin' in ev'ry month." 
 
 "Lord! Lord!" groaned Tom, who was stretched full 
 length on the floor of the porch when the subject was first 
 
 4 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 broached. " Do you want a man to kill himself out an' out, 
 boys? Work himself into eternal kingdom come? Who'd 
 do the extra work, I'd like to know — empty out the mail-bag 
 and hand out the mail, and do the extra cussin'? That 
 would be worth ten dollars a month. And, like as not, the 
 money would be jiaid in cheques, and who's goin' to sign 
 'em? Lord I I believe you think a man's immortal soul 
 could be bought for fifty cents a day. You don't allow for 
 the wear and tear on a fellow's constitution, boys." 
 
 But he allowed himself to be placed in receipt of the 
 official salary in question, and the matter of extra labour 
 settled itself. Twice a week a boy on horseback brought 
 the mail-bag from Barnesville, and when this youth drew 
 rein before the porch Big Tom greeted him from indoors 
 with his habitual cordiality. 
 
 "'Light, sonny, 'light!" he would call out in languidly 
 sonorous tones; " come in and let these fellows hear the 
 news. Just throw that mail-bag on the counter and let's 
 hear from you. Plenty of good water down at the spring. 
 Might as well take that bucket and fill it if you want a drink. 
 I've been waiting for just such a man as you to do it. These 
 fellows would sit here all day and let a man die. I can't get 
 anything out of 'em. I've about half a mind to quit some- 
 times and leave them to engineer the thing themselves. Look 
 here now, is any fellow going to attend to that mail, or is 
 it going to lie there till I have to get up and attend to 
 it myself ? I reckon that's what you want. I reckon that 'd 
 just suit you. Jehoshaphat! I guess you'd like me to take 
 charge of the eternal universe." 
 
 It was for the mail he waited with his usual complement 
 of friends and assistants on the afternoon referred to at the 
 opening of this chapter. The boy was behind time, and, 
 
 5 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 under the influence of the heat, conyersation had at first 
 flagged and then subsided. Big Tom himself had taken 
 the initiative of dropping into a doze, and his companions 
 had one by one followed his example, or at least made an 
 eft'ort at doing so. The only one of the number who re- 
 mained unmistakably awake was a little man who sat on 
 the floor of the end of the porch, his small legs, encased 
 in large blue jean pantaloons, dangling over the side. This 
 little man, who was gently and continuously ruminating, 
 with brief " asides " of expectoration, kept his eyes fixed 
 watchfully upon the Barnesville Road, and he it was who 
 at last roused the dozers. * 
 
 **' Thar's some un a-comin '," he announced in a meek voice. 
 " ^Tain't him." 
 
 Big Tom opened his eyes, stretched himself, and gradually 
 rose in his might, proving a very tight fit for the establish- 
 ment, especially the doorway, towards which he lounged, 
 supporting himself against its side. 
 
 "Who is it, Ezra?" he asked, almost extinguishing the 
 latter cognomen with a yawn. 
 
 "It's thet thar feller!" 
 
 All the other men awakened in a body. AYhomsoever the 
 individual might be, he had the power to rouse them to 
 a lively exhibition of interest. One and all braced them- 
 selves to look at the horseman approaching along the Barnes- 
 ville Road. 
 
 " He's a kinder curi's-lookin' feller," observed one philos- 
 opher. 
 
 " AYell, at a distance of half a mile, perhaps he is," said 
 Tom. " In a cloud of dust and the sun blazin' down on him 
 like thunderation, I don't know but you're right, ISTath." 
 
 " Git out! " replied Nath, placidly. " He's a curi's-actin' 
 
 6 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 feller^ anyway. Don't go nowliar nor hev nothin' to say 
 to nobody. Jest sets right down in that thar holler with 
 his wife, as if b'ars an' painters wus all a man or woman 
 wanted round 'em." 
 
 " She's a doggoncd pnrty critter/' said the little man in 
 large trousers, placidly. He had not appeared to listen to 
 the conversation, but, as this pertinent remark proved, it 
 had not been lost on him. 
 
 His observation was greeted with a general laugh, which 
 seemed to imply that the speaker had a character which his 
 S2:)eech sustained. 
 
 " Whar did ye see her, Stamps?" was asked. 
 
 The little man remained unmoved, still dangling his legs 
 over the porch side, still ruminating, still gazing with pale, 
 blinking eyes up the road. 
 
 " AYent over the mountain to 'tend court to Bakersville, 
 an' took it on my road to go by thar. She was settin' in 
 the door, an' I see her afore she seen me. "When she hearn 
 the sound of my mule's feet, she got up an' went into the 
 house. It was a powerful hot mornin', 'n' I wus mighty dry, 
 'n' I stopped fur a cool drink. She didn't come out when 
 fust I hollered, 'n' when she did come, she looked kinder 
 skeered 'n' wouldn't talk none. Kep' her sunbonnet over 
 her face, like she didn't want to be seen overmuch." 
 
 "What does she look like, Ezry?" asked one of the 
 younger men. 
 
 Mr. Stamps meditated a few seconds. 
 
 " Don't look like none o' the women folk about yere," he 
 replied, finally. " She ain't their kind." 
 
 " What d'ye mean by that? " 
 
 " Dunno eggsactly. She's mighty white 'n' young-lookin' 
 V delicate — but that ain't all." 
 
 7 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 Tom made a restless movement. 
 
 " Look here, boys/' he broke in, suddenly, " here's a nice 
 business — a lot of fellows asking questions about a woman 
 an' gossiping as if there wasn't a thing better to do. Leave 
 ^em alone, if they want to be left alone — leave 'em alone." 
 
 Mr. Stamps expectorated in an entirely unbiassed manner. 
 He seemed as willing to leave his storv^ alone as he had been 
 to begin it. 
 
 " He's comin' yere," he said, softly, after a pause. " Thet's 
 whar he's comin'." 
 
 The rest of the company straightened themselves in their 
 seats and made an eifort to assume the appearance of slightly 
 interested spectators. It became evident that Mr. Stamps 
 was right, and that the rider was about to dismount. 
 
 He was a man about thirty years of age, thin, narrow- 
 chested, and stooping. His coarse clothes seemed specially 
 ill-suited to his slender figure, his black hair was long, and 
 his beard neglected; his broad hat was pulled low^ over his 
 eyes and partially concealed his face. 
 
 ^' He don't look none too sociable when he's nigher than 
 half a mile," remiarked ISTath in an undertone. 
 
 He ti^lanced neither to the ris^ht nor to the left as he strode 
 past the group into the store. Strange to relate, Tom had 
 lounged behind the counter and stood ready to attend him. 
 He asked for a few necessary household trifles in a low tone, 
 and, as Tom collected and made them into a clumsy package, 
 he stood and looked on with his back turned towards the 
 door. 
 
 Those gathered upon the porch listened eagerly for the 
 sound of conversation, but none reached their ears. Tom 
 moved heavily to and fro for a few minutes, and then the 
 parcel was handed across the counter. 
 
 8 
 

 In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 " Hot weather/' said the stranger, without raising his eyes. 
 
 " Yes," said Tom, " hot weather, sir/' 
 Good-day," said the stranger. 
 Good-day," answered Tom. 
 
 And his c-ustomer took his departure. He passed out as 
 he had passed in; but while he was indoors little Mr. Stamps 
 had changed his position. He now sat near the wooden steps, 
 his legs dangling as before, his small countenance as non- 
 committal as ever. xA.s the stranger neared him, he raised 
 his pale little eyes, blinked them, indulged in a slight jerk 
 of the head, and uttered a single word of greeting. 
 
 " Howdy? " 
 
 The stranger started, glanced down at him, and walked on. 
 He made no answer, untied his horse, mounted it, and rode 
 back over the Barnesville Eoad towards the mountain. 
 
 Mr. Stamps remained seated near the steps and blinked 
 after him silently until he was out of sight. 
 
 " Ye didn't seem to talk none, D'Willerby," said one of 
 the outsiders when Tom reappeared. 
 
 Tom sank into his chair, thrust his hands into his pockets, 
 and stretched his limbs out to their fullest capacity. 
 
 " Let a man rest, boys," he said, " let a man rest! " 
 
 He was silent for some time afterwards, and even on the 
 arrival of the mail was less discursive than usual. It was 
 Mr. Stamps who finally aroused him from his reverie. 
 
 Having obtained his mail — one letter in a legal-looking 
 envelope — and made all other preparations to return to the 
 bosom of his family. Stamps sidled up to the counter, and, 
 leaning over it, spoke in an insinuatingly low tone: 
 
 " She was bar'foot," he said, mildly, " 'n' she hadn't been 
 raised to it — that was one thing. Her feet wus as soft 'n' 
 tender as a baby's; 'n' fur another thing, her hands wus 
 
 U 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 as white as her face, 'n' whiter. Thet ain't the way we raise 
 'em in Hamlin County — that's all." 
 
 And, having said it, he slipped out of the store, mounted 
 his mule, and jogged homeward on the Barnesville Eoad 
 also. 
 
 10 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 Before the war there were no people better known or 
 more prominent in their portion of the State than the De 
 "Willoughbys of Dehsle County, Tennessee. To have been 
 born a De Willoughby was, in general opinion, to have been 
 born with a silver spoon in one's mouth. It was indeed to 
 have been born to social dignity, fortune, courage, and more 
 than the usual allowance of good looks. And though the 
 fortune was lavishly spent, the courage sometimes betrayed 
 into a rather theatrical dare-deviltry, and the good looks 
 prone to deteriorate in style, there was always the social po- 
 sition left, and this was a matter of the deepest importance 
 in Delisleville. The sentiments of Delisleville were purely 
 patrician. It was the county town, and contained six thou- 
 sand inhabitants, two hotels, and a court-house. It had also 
 two or three business streets and half a dozen churches, all 
 very much at odds with each other and each seriously in- 
 clined to disbelieve in the probable salvation of the rest. 
 The " first families " (of which there were eight or ten, with 
 numerous branches) attended the Episcopal Church, the sec- 
 ond best the Presbvterian, while the inferior classes, who 
 could scarcely be counted at all, since they had not been 
 born in Delisleville, drifted to the Methodists. 
 
 The De Willoughbys attended the Episcopal Church, and, 
 being generally endowed with voices, two or three of them 
 sang in the choir, which was composed entirely of members 
 
 11 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 of the attending families and executed most difficult music 
 in a manner which was the cause after each service of much 
 divided opinion. Opinion was divided because the choir was 
 divided — separated, in fact, into several small, select cliques, 
 each engaged in deadly and bitter feud with the rest. When 
 the moon-eyed soprano arose, with a gentle flutter, and 
 opened her charming mouth in solo, her friends settled 
 themselves in their pews with a general rustle of satisfaction, 
 while the friends of the contralto exchanged civilly signifi- 
 cant glances; and on the way home the solo in question was 
 disposed of in a manner at once thorough and final. The 
 same thing occurred when the contralto was prominent, or 
 the tenor, or the baritone, or the basso, each of whom it was 
 confidently asserted by competent Delisleville judges might 
 have rendered him or herself and Delisleville immortal 
 upon the lyric stage if social position had not placed the 
 following of such a profession entirely out of the question. 
 There had indeed been some slight trouble in one or two 
 of the best families, occasioned by the musical fervour of 
 youthful scions who were in danger of being led into in- 
 discretions by their enthusiasm. 
 
 The De "Willoughbys occupied one of the most prominent 
 pews in the sacred edifice referred to. Judge De Willoughby, 
 a large, commanding figure, with a fine sweep of long hair, 
 mustache and aquiline profile; Mrs. De Willoughby (who 
 had been a Miss Yanuxem of South Carolina), slender, wil- 
 lowy, \rii\i faded brunette complexion and still handsome 
 brunette eyes, and three or four little De Willoughbys, all 
 more or less pretty and picturesque. These nearly filled the 
 pew. The grown-up Misses De Willoughby sang with two 
 of their brothers in the choir. There were three sons, Eo- 
 maine, De Courcy, and Thomas. But Thomas did not sing 
 
 13 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 in the choir. Thomas, alas! did not sing at all. Thomas, 
 it was universally conceded by every De "Willoughby of the 
 clan, was a dismal failure. Even from his earliest boyhood, 
 when he had been a huge, overgrown fellow, whose only 
 redeeming qualities were his imperturbable good-humor and 
 his ponderous wit, his family had regarded him with a sense 
 of despair. In the first place, he was too big. His brothers 
 were tall, lithe-hmbed youths, who were gi-aceful, dark-eyed, 
 dark-haired, and had a general air of brilliancy. They fig- 
 ured well at college and in their world; they sang and danced 
 in a manner which, combining itself with the name of De 
 Willoughby, gave them quite an ennobled sort of distinction, 
 a touch of patrician bravado added to their picturesqueness 
 in the eyes of the admiring; and their little indiscretions 
 were of a nature to be ignored or treated with gentle con- 
 sideration as the natural result of their youth, spirit, and 
 Southern blood. But at nineteen Thomas had attained a 
 height of six feet five, with a proportionate breadth and 
 ponderousness. His hands and feet were a disgrace to a De 
 Willoudibv, and his voice was a roar when he was influenced 
 by anything hke emotion. Displays of emotion, however, 
 were but rare occurrences with him. He was too lazy to be 
 roused to anger or any other violent feeling. He spent his 
 leisure hours in lying upon sofas or chairs and getting very 
 much in everybody's way. He lounged through school and 
 college without the slightest klai attending his progress. 
 
 It became the pastime of the household to make rather 
 a butt of him, and for the most part he bore himself under 
 the difflculties of his position peaceably enough, though 
 there had been times when his weighty retorts had caused 
 some sharp wincing. 
 
 " You're an ill-natured de^dl, Tom," his brother De 
 
 Lo 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 Courcy said to him^ as he stood fingering the ornaments 
 on the mantel after one such encounter. " You're an ill- 
 natured devil." 
 
 Tom was stretched on a sofa, with his big hands under 
 his head, and did not condescend to look around. 
 
 " I'm not such a thundering fool as you take me for, that's 
 all," he answered, " I've got my eyes open. Keep to your 
 side of the street, and I will keep to mine." 
 
 It was true that he had his eyes open and had more wit 
 and feeling than they gave him credit for. No one under- 
 stood him, not even his mother, who had deplored him from 
 the first hour of his over-weighted babyhood, when she had 
 given him over to the care of his negro nurse in despair. 
 
 In the midst of a large family occupied with all the small 
 gaieties attendant upon popularity and social distinction in 
 a provincial town, he lived a lonely life, and one not without 
 its pathetic side if it had been so looked upon. But even 
 he himself had never regarded the matter from a sentimental 
 point of view. He endeavoured to resign himself to his fate 
 and meet it philosophically. 
 
 " I wasn't cut out for this sort of thing, boys," he had 
 said to his friends at college, where he had been rather popu- 
 lar. '^ I wasn't cut out for it. Go ahead and leave me 
 behind. I'm not a bad sort of fellow, but there is too much 
 of me in one way and too little in another. What the Lord 
 made such a man as me for after six thousand years' experi- 
 ence, I haven't found out yet. A man may as well make up 
 his mind about himself first as last. I've made up mine and 
 nobody differs from me so far as I've gone." 
 
 When he left college his brothers had already chosen their 
 vocations. Delisle County knew them as promising young 
 lawyers, each having distinguished himself with much fiery 
 
 14 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 eloquence in an occasional case. The cases had not always 
 been gained, but the fervour and poetry of the appeals to 
 the rather muddled and startled agriculturists who formed 
 the juries were remembered with admiration and as being 
 worthy of Delisleville, and were commented upon in the 
 Delisleville Oriflavime as the "^ fit echoings of an eloquence 
 long known in our midst as the birthright of those bearing 
 one of our proudest names, an eloquence spurred to its eagle 
 flights by the warm, chivalric blood of a noble race." 
 
 But the " warm, chivalric blood " of the race in question 
 seemed to move but slowly in veins of its most substantial 
 representative. The inertness of his youngest son roused 
 that fine old Southern gentleman and well-known legal dig- 
 nitary, Judge De "Willoughby, to occasional outbursts of the 
 fiery eloquence before referred to which might well have 
 been productive of remarkable results. 
 
 " Good God, sir! " he would trumpet forth, '' good God, 
 sir! have we led the State for generation after generation 
 to be disgraced and degraded and dragged in the dust by 
 one of our own stock at last? The De Willoudibvs have 
 been gentlemen, sir, distinguished at the bar, in politics, 
 and in the highest social circles of the South; and here we 
 have a De "Willoughby whose tastes would be no credit to — 
 to his overseer, a De Willoughby who has apparently neither 
 the ambition nor the qualification to shine in the sphere in 
 which he was bom! Blow your damned brains out, if you 
 have any; blow your damned brains out, and let's have an 
 end of the whole disfrraceful business." 
 
 This referred specially to Tom's unwillingness to enter 
 upon the study of medicine, which had been chosen for 
 him. 
 
 " I should make a better farmer," he said, bitterly, after 
 
 15 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 a prolonged discussion. "I'm not the build for women's 
 bedrooms and children's bedsides. De Courcy would have 
 suited you better." 
 
 " De Courcy is a gentleman — a gentleman, sir! He was 
 born one and would shine in any profession a gentleman 
 may adorn. As for you, this is the only thing left for you, 
 and you shall try it, by G ! " 
 
 " Oh," said Tom, " I'll try it. I can only fail, and I've 
 done that before." 
 
 He did try it forthwith, applying himself to his studies 
 with a persistence quite creditable. He read lying upon 
 sofas and lounging in the piazzas, and in course of time was 
 sent to attend lectures in Philadelphia. 
 
 Whether he could have gained his diploma or not was 
 never decided. Those of the professors who commented on 
 him at all, spoke of him as slow but persevering, and re- 
 garded him raJier as a huge receiving machine of orderly 
 habits. The Judge began to congratulate himself upon his 
 determination, and his mother thought it " a good thing 
 poor Tom was disposed of." 
 
 But one terrible morning just before the first course of 
 lectures was completed, he suddenly returned, walking into 
 the Judge's office without any previous intimation of his 
 intention. 
 
 When he turned in his seat and confronted him, the Judge 
 lost his breath. 
 
 "You!" he cried; "you!" 
 
 " Yes," said Tom, " I've come back." He was rather pale 
 and nervous, but there was a dogged, resigned look in his 
 eyes. " I've made up my mind," he added, " that I cannot 
 stand it. Turn me loose on one of your plantations to — 
 to boss niggers. You said once I was fit for an overseer. 
 
 16 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 Perhaps you weren't wrong. Say the word and I'll start 
 to-morrow/' 
 
 The Judge's aquiline countenance turned gray with fury. 
 His fine mustache seemed to curl itself anew. 
 
 "You — you accursed scoundrel! " he gasped. "You ac- 
 cursed, underbred hound! Tell me what this means, or I'll 
 strangle you." 
 
 " You'll say I'm a fool/' said Tom, " and I suppose it's 
 
 true, and — and " with a tremour in his voice, " I've no 
 
 need to be particular about the names you call me. I ought 
 to be used to them by this time." 
 
 " Speak out," thundered the Judge, " and tell me the 
 whole disgraceful truth! " 
 
 " It won't take long," said Tom; " I told it when I said 
 I'd made up my mind I couldn't stand it. I've been walking 
 the hospitals and attending the clinics for the last three 
 months, and I've had a chance to see what my life would 
 be if I went through. I've seen things to make a man 
 tremble when they came back to him in the dead of night — 
 agony and horror — women and children! Good Lord! I 
 can't tell you. De Courcy could, but I can't. I'd rather 
 be in hell than live such a life day after day. I tried to 
 stand up against it at first. I thought I might get used to 
 it, but I haven't the nerve — or something was wrong. It 
 got worse and worse, until I used to start up out of my sleep 
 in a cold sweat, hearing screams and groans and prayers. 
 That was the worst of all — their prayers to us to help them 
 and not to hurt them. Four days ago a child was brought 
 in — a child four or five years old. There was an operation 
 to be performed, and I was the man chosen to hold it still. 
 Its mother was sent out of the room. My God! how it 
 screamed when it saw her go and linew it was to be left 
 
 17 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 to us. They told me to hold it because I was the strongest, 
 and — and I put my hands on it. I'm a big fellow to look 
 at, and I suppose it knew there was no help for it when 
 I came near. It turned as white as death and looked up 
 at me with the tears streaming down its face. Before the 
 operation was half over it hadn't the strength left to scream 
 or struggle, and it lay and looked at me and moaned. I 
 should have given up the job, but somehow I couldn't make 
 up my mind to — to leave it. When it was all done, I gave 
 it back to its mother and went to my rooms. I turned sick 
 on the way and had to sit down to rest. I swore then I'd 
 let the thing drop, and I bought my ticket and came back. 
 I'm not the man for the work. Better men may do it — 
 perhaps it takes better men. I'm not up to it." And his 
 shaken voice broke as he hung his great head. 
 
 A deadly calm settled upon the Judge. He pointed to 
 the door. • 
 
 " Go home to your mother, sir," he said, "I've done with 
 you. Go and stay with the women. That's the place for 
 
 you." 
 
 " He's a coward as well as a fool," he said afterwards in 
 the bosom of his family; '^ a white-livered fool who hasn't 
 the nerve to look at a sick child." 
 
 It was a terrible day for the household, but at last it was 
 over. Tom went to his room in an apathy. He had been 
 buffeted and scorned and held up to bitter derision until 
 he had ceased to feel anything but a negative, helpless mis- 
 ery. 
 
 About a week later Delia Yanuxem appeared upon the 
 scene. Delia Yanuxem was a young cousin of Mrs. De 
 Willoughby's, and had come to pay her relatives a visit. 
 It was the hospitable custom of Delisleville to cultivate its 
 
 13 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 kinsfolk — more especially its kinswomen. There were al- 
 ways in two or three of the principal families young lady 
 guests who were during their stay in the town the sensa- 
 tion of the hour. Xovelty established them as temporary 
 belles; they were petted by their hostesses, attended by 
 small cohorts of admirers, and formed the centre for 
 a round of festivities specially arranged to enliven their 
 visits. 
 
 Delia Yanuxem bore away the palm from all such visitors 
 past or to come. She was a true Southern beauty, with the 
 largest dark eyes, the prettiest yielding manner, and the 
 very smallest foot Delisleville had ever fallen prostrate be- 
 fore, it being well known among her admirers that one of 
 her numerous male cousins had once measured her little 
 slipper with a cigar — a story in which Delisleville delighted. 
 And she was not only a pretty, but also a lovable and tender- 
 hearted young creature. Her soft eyes and soft voice did 
 not belie her. She was gentle and kindly to all around her. 
 ^Irs. De "Willoughby and the two older girls fell in love with 
 her at once, and the Judge himself was aroused to an elo- 
 quence of compliment and a courtly grandeur of demeanour 
 which rose even beyond his usual efforts in a line in which 
 he had always shone. The very negroes adored her and vied 
 with each other to do her service. 
 
 It was quite natural that a nature so sweet and S3Tnpa- 
 thetic should be awakened to pity for the one member of 
 the crav household who seemed cut off from the rest, and 
 who certainly at the time existed under a darker cloud than 
 usual. 
 
 From the first she was more considerate of poor Tom 
 than anyone who had ever been before, and more than once, 
 as he sat silent and gloomy at the table, he looked up to 
 
 19 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 find her lovely eyes resting upon his big frame with a ques- 
 tioning, pitying glance. 
 
 " He is so mnch too big, Annt Jule," she wrote home once. 
 " And he seems somehow to feel as if he was always in the 
 way, and, indeed, he is a little sometimes, poor fellow! and 
 everyone appears to think he is only a joke or a mistake; 
 but I have made up my mind never to laugh at him at all 
 as the other girls do. It seems so unkind, and surely he 
 must feel it." 
 
 She never did laugh at him, and sometimes even tried to 
 talk to him, and once drew him out so far in an artful, in- 
 nocent way, that he told her something of his medical failure 
 and the reasons for it, manifestly ashamed of the story as 
 he related it. and yet telling it so well in a few clumsy, rather 
 disconnected sentences, that when he had finished her eye- 
 lashes were wet and she broke into a little shuddering sigh. 
 
 " Oh! " she said, " I don't think you are to blame, really. 
 I have often thought that I could never, never bear to do 
 such things, though, of course, if there was no one to do 
 them it would be dreadful; but " 
 
 '' Yes," said Tom, " there it is. Someone must do it, and 
 I know I'm a confounded coward and ninny, but — but I 
 couldn't." And he looked overwhelmed with humiliation. 
 
 " But after all," she said, in the soft voice which had 
 always the sound of appeal in it, " after all, I'm sure it was 
 because you have a kind heart, and a kind heart is worth 
 a great deal. You will do something else." 
 
 " There is nothing else for me to do," he said, mournfully; 
 " nothing that won't disgrace the rest, they tell me." 
 
 It was small wonder that this was his final undoing, 
 though neither was to blame. Certainly no fault could be 
 attached to the young creature who meant to be kind to him, 
 
 20 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 as it was her nature to be to all surrounding her; and surely 
 Tom's great and final blunder arose from no presumption 
 on his part. He had never thought of aspiring to the proud 
 position with regard to her which Romaine and De Courcy 
 seemed to occupy by natural right. It was only now and 
 then, when they were unavoidably engaged, that he had the 
 courage to offer his services as messenger or escort, but 
 even those rare pleasures were a little too much for him. 
 He was so unused to such privileges that they intoxicated 
 him and set his mind in a whirl which prevented his think- 
 ing clearly, or, indeed, ever thinking at all sometimes. 
 
 Even when it was all over, he scarcely knew how he had 
 been betrayed into the weakness he wsis guilty of. It was 
 not like him to lose sight of his manifold imperfections; 
 but for once they were swept out of his mind by a momen- 
 tary madness. 
 
 It was on the occasion of a ball at the Delisle House. The 
 Delisle House was the principal hotel, and all important fes- 
 tivities were held in its long dining-hall disguised as a ball- 
 room. The ball was given by a gallant Delisleville Club in 
 honour of Miss Delia Vanuxem, and it was a very mag- 
 nificent affair indeed. The disguise of the dining-room was 
 complete. It was draped with flags and decorated with 
 wreaths of cedar and paper roses. A band of coloured gen- 
 tlemen, whose ardour concealed any slight musical discrepan- 
 cies, assisted the festivities, which — to quote the Oriflamme 
 of the next morning — " the wealth, beauty, and chivalry of 
 Delisleville combined to render unequalled in their gaiety 
 and elegance, making the evening one of the most successful 
 of the piquant occasions 
 
 When youth and pleasure meet 
 
 To chase the glowing hours with flying feet. 
 
 21 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 Usually Tom's part in such festivities was to sit uncom- 
 fortably in dull corners, taking up as little room as possible, 
 or piloting his way carefully through the crowd to the sup- 
 13er-table with an elderly lady or a wall-flower clinging tim- 
 idly to his huge arm. But during this one evening he lost 
 his equilibrium. Delia had been more than usually kind 
 to him, perhaps because she saw his unhappy awkwardness 
 as he towered above everyone else and tried to avoid treading 
 upon his neighbours. She gave him such a pretty smile 
 across the room that he obeyed the impulse to go to her and 
 stand at her side; then, when she left him to dance with 
 De Courcy, she gave him her fan and bouquet and fleecy 
 white wrap to hold, and somehow it seemed not unnatural 
 that De Courcy should bring her back to him as to a sentinel 
 when the dance was over. Thus it was as she sat, flushed 
 a little and smiling, her face uplifted to his, while she 
 thanked him for taking care of her possessions, that the 
 wild thought which so betrayed him rushed into his brain. 
 
 " Delia," he faltered, " will 3'ou dance once with me? " 
 
 It was so startling a request, that, though she was quick 
 enough to conceal her surprise, she hesitated a second before 
 recovering her breath to give him her answer. 
 
 " Yes, Tom, if you like," she said, and glanced down at 
 her programme. " The next is a waltz, and I can let you 
 have it because Dr. Ballentine has been called away. Do 
 you waltz ? " 
 
 " I have learned," he answered, rather huskily and trem- 
 ulously. " I do it badly, of course, but I know the steps 
 well enough." 
 
 He was so helpless with nervousness that he could scarcely 
 speak, and his hands trembled when they stood up together 
 and he laid his arm reverently about her waist. 
 
 22 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 She saw his timidity and looked up at him with a kind 
 smile. 
 
 " I must be very little/' she said, " I never Iniew before 
 that I was so little." 
 
 Pie had thought he should recover himself when the music 
 and motion began, but he did not. He looked down at the 
 delicate head which reached barely to his beating heart, and 
 a blur came before his sight; the light and the crowd of 
 dancers dazzled and confused him. The whirling movement 
 made him dizzy, and he had not expected to be dizzy. He 
 began suddenly to be conscious of his own immensity, the 
 unusualness of his position, and of the fact that here and 
 there he saw a meaning smile; Ms heart beat faster still, 
 and he knew he had been led into a mistake. He swung 
 round and round too quickly for the music, missed a step, 
 tried to recover himself, became entangled in his partner's 
 dress, trod on her poor little feet, and fell headlong on 
 the floor, dragging her with him and striking against a 
 passing couple. 
 
 It was his brother De Courcy with whom he had come 
 in such violent contact, and it was De Courcy who sprang 
 to Delia's rescue, assisting her to her feet with all possible 
 grace, and covering her innocent confusion with a brilliant 
 speech, but not, however, before he had directed a terrible 
 scowl at the prostrate culprit and sworn furiously at him 
 under his breath. But Delia was very good to him and did 
 not desert him in the hour of his need, giving him only 
 kind looks and managing to arrange that he should lead 
 her to her seat as if he had not been in disgrace at all. 
 
 But the shame and pain of his downfall were sharper 
 pangs than he had ever borne, and before the night was 
 half over he slipped away from the dancers and rushed 
 
 S3 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 home to liis o^n room, where he lay awake through the 
 long hours, cursing himself for his folly, and tossing in 
 a fever of humiliation and grief. 
 
 In the morning when he came down to the breakfast 
 table, the family were already assembled, and the Judge 
 had heard the story from De Courcy, who told it all the 
 more forcibly in the absence of Miss Vanuxem, who had 
 spent the night at the house of another relative. 
 
 When Tom entered, his paternal parent was ready to 
 receive him. 
 
 " Trod on Miss Yanuxem's dress and tore it off her back 
 in the ball-room, did you? " he burst forth. " Made a fool 
 of yourself and a bear-garden of the Delisle House ball- 
 room! "What were you trying to dance for? Leave that 
 to men who can manage their limbs, and don't inflict your- 
 self on women who are too high-bred to refuse to dance 
 with a man who ought to be a gentleman. Stay at home, 
 sir! Stay at home, and don't make a disgraceful spectacle 
 of 3^ourself in public, particularly when there are lovely 
 women present to witness your humiliation.'' 
 
 It was the figurative last straw. Tom's mind had been 
 dark and gloomy enough to begin with, but when during 
 his father's harangue he glanced up and saw De Courcy 
 bending his aquiline face over his paper with a slightly 
 sardonic smile, he could stand no more. 
 
 To the utter dumfounding of his mother and sisters, 
 and even the irate Judge himself, he pushed his chair back 
 and sprang to his feet with an actual roar of rage and 
 pain. His great body seemed to swell until its size over- 
 whelmed them; his eyes blazed, he shook his tremendous 
 fist. 
 
 *^ Leave me alone! " he shouted, ^^ leave me alone! Yes, 
 
 24 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 I did make a fool of m3^self ! Yes, I did knock a woman 
 down and tear her dress and look like an ass and set the 
 whole room laughing at me, women and all — the best-bred 
 and sweetest of them! It's all true, every word of it, and 
 more too — more too! And that's not enough, but my own 
 father serves it up again, and you fellows sit there and grin 
 over it to make it worse. That's right, pitch in, all of you, 
 and drive me mad and put an end to it." 
 
 He upset his chair and a small negro boy with a plate of 
 waffles, and, striding over the scattered ruins, dashed out 
 of the room with tears of fury in his eyes. 
 
 It was the turning-point of his existence. He made his 
 bitter resolve as he walked out of the house down the 
 street. Early as it was, he went straight to Delia, and when 
 he found himself alone with her, poured forth all the 
 misery of his sore heart. 
 
 ^' If I had been born a clod-hopper it would have been 
 better for me," he said. " I have no place here among men 
 with decently shaped bodies and clear heads. I'm a great 
 clumsy fool, and there's no help for it. If I'd had more 
 brain, I might have managed the rest; but I'm a dullard 
 too. They may well sneer at me. I think I will go away 
 and bury myself somewhere among the people I ought to 
 have lived among by rights. In some simple country place 
 I might find those who know less than I do, and forget the 
 rest; and perhaps be content enough in time. I shall 
 never marry. I — I suppose you know that, Delia." And 
 he took her little hand and laid it on his own open palm 
 and sat silent a moment looking at it, and at last suddenly 
 a great drop fell upon it which made them both start. He 
 did not look up at her, but took out his big white hand- 
 kerchief and wiped the drop gently away and then stooped 
 
 25 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 and kissed the spot where it had fallen. Her own lashes 
 were wet when their e3'es met afterwards, and she spoke in 
 a subdued voice. 
 
 " I have always liked you xery much, Cousin Tom," she 
 said; '' you mustn't talk of going away. We should miss 
 you much more than you think. I know I should be very 
 sorry." 
 
 " You won't be here to miss me, Delia," he answered, 
 sadly. 
 
 The hand on his palm trembled slightly and her eyes 
 faltered under his gaze. 
 
 *•'! — think it — is possible I shall live in Delisleville," 
 she whispered. 
 
 His heart bounded as if it would burst his side. He knew 
 what she meant in an instant, though he had never sus- 
 pected it before. 
 
 '"Oh! Oh!" he groaned. " Oh, Delia! which — which 
 of them is it? It's De Courcv, I could swear. It's De 
 Courcy! " 
 
 " Yes," she faltered, " it is De Courcy." 
 
 He drew his hand away and covered his face with it. 
 
 " I knew it was De Courcy," he cried. " He was always 
 the kind of fellow to win. I suppose he deserves it. The 
 Lord knows I hope he does, for your sake. Of course it's 
 De Courcy. AMio else? " 
 
 He did not stay long after this, and when he went away 
 he wrung her hand in his in a desperate farewell. 
 
 " This is another reason for my going now," he said; 
 " I couldn't stay. This — is — good-bye, Delia." 
 
 He went home and had a prolonged interview with his 
 father. It was not an agreeable interview to recur to 
 mentally in after time, but in the end Tom gained his 
 
 26 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 point, and a portion of his future patrimony was handed 
 over to him. 
 
 " I shall be no further trouble to you," he said. " You 
 mayn't ever hear of me again. This is the end of me as far 
 as you are concerned." 
 
 That night, with a valise in his hand, he took his place 
 in the stage running towards the mountain regions of 
 North Carolina, and from that day forward the place knew 
 him no more. It was as he had known it would be: no one 
 was very sorry to be rid of him, and even Delia's sadness 
 was at length toned down by the excitement of prepara- 
 tion for and the festivities attendant upon her triumphant 
 union with the most dashing De Willoughby of the flock. 
 
 When this event occurred, Tom's wanderings had ended 
 temporarily in the farm-house referred to in the first chap- 
 ter, and his appearance in this remote and usually undis- 
 turbed portion of his country had created some sensation. 
 The news of the arrival of a stranger had spread itself 
 abroad and aroused a slow-growing excitement. 
 
 They were a kindl}", simple people who surrounded him 
 — ^hospitable, ignorant, and curious beyond measure con- 
 cerning the ways of the outside world of which they knew 
 so little. 
 
 In the course of time, as the first keenness of his misery 
 wore away, Tom began to discover the advantages of the 
 chanoe he had made. He no lonsfer need contrast himself 
 unfavourablv with his neio:hbours. He knew more than 
 they, and they found nothing in him to condemn or jeer at. 
 To them he was a mine of worldly knowledge. He amused 
 them and won their hearts. His natural indolence and 
 lack of active ambition helped the healing of his wounds, 
 perhaps; and then he began to appreciate the humourous 
 
 27 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 side of liis position and his old tendency to ponderous jok- 
 ing came back, and assisted him to win a greater popularity 
 than any mere practical quality could have done. 
 
 The novelty of his role was its chief attraction. He be- 
 gan to enjoy and give himself up to it, and make the most 
 of his few gifts. Life was no longer without zest. His 
 natural indolence increased with the size of his great body 
 as the years passed, and his slow whimsical humour became 
 his strongest characteristic. He felt it a fine point in the 
 sarcasm of his destiny that he should at last have become 
 a hero and be regarded with admiration for his conver- 
 sational abilities, but he bore his honours discreetly, and 
 found both moral and ph3^sical comfort in them. 
 
 He insensibly adopted the habits of his neighbours; he 
 dressed with their primitive regard for ease; he dropped 
 now and then into their slurring speech, and adopted one 
 by one their arcadian customs. 
 
 AVhether the change was the better or the worse for him 
 might easily be a matter of opinion, and depend entirely on 
 the standpoint from which it was viewed. At least he 
 lived harmlessly and had no enemy. 
 
 And so existence stood w^ith him when the second great 
 change in his life took place. 
 
 28 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 Scarcely a month before the events described in the 
 opening chapter took place, the stranger and a young 
 woman, who was his companion, had appeared in the com- 
 munity. There was little that seemed mysterious about 
 them at the outset. A long, uninhabited cabin, a score or 
 so of yards from the mountain road, had been roughly 
 patched up and taken possession of by them. There was 
 nothing unusual in the circumstance except that they had 
 appeared suddenly and entirely unheralded; but this in 
 itself would have awakened no special comment. The 
 mystery developed itself from their after reserve and se- 
 clusion. They guarded themselves from all advances by 
 keeping out of sight when anyone approached their cabin. 
 The young woman was rarely, if ever, seen. The man 
 never called at the post-office for mail, and upon the few 
 occasions on which a stray human being crossed his path, 
 his manner was such as by no means encouraged the curi- 
 ous. Mr. Stamps was the only individual who had seen 
 the woman face to face. There was an unmoved pertinacity 
 in the character of Mr. Stamps which stood him in good 
 stead upon all occasions. He was not easily abashed or 
 rebuffed, the more especially when he held in view some 
 practical object. Possibly he held some such object m 
 view when he rode up to the tumbled down gateway and 
 asked for the draught of water no woman of the region 
 could refuse without some reasonable excuse. 
 
 29 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 ic >r 
 
 'Tain't airs they're puttin' on, Cindy," he said to the 
 partner of his joys and sorrows the evening after his ride 
 over the mountain. " Oh, no, 'tain't airs, it's somethin' 
 more curi's than that!" And he bent over the fire in a 
 comfortable lounging way, rubbing his hands a little, and 
 blinked at the back log thoughtfully. 
 
 They were a friendly and sociable people, these moun- 
 taineers, all the more so because the opportunities for meet- 
 ing sociably were limited. The men had their work and 
 the women their alwa3's large families to attend to, and 
 wdth a mile or so of rough road between themselves and 
 their neighbours, there was not much chance for enjoy- 
 able gossip. When good fortune threw them together 
 they usually made the best of their time. Consequently, 
 the mystery of two human beings, who had shut themselves 
 off with apparent intent from all intercourse with their 
 kind, was a difficulty not readily disposed of. It was, per- 
 haps, little to be wondered at that Mr. Stamps thought it 
 over and gathered carefully together all the points present- 
 ing themselves to his notice. The subject had been fre- 
 quently discussed at the Cross-roads post-office. The dis- 
 position to seclusion was generally spoken of as " curi's- 
 ness," and various theories had been advanced with a view 
 to explaining the " curi'sness " in question. " Airs " had 
 been suggested as a solution of the difficulty, but as time 
 progressed, the theory of " airs " had been abandoned. 
 
 " Fur," said Uncle Jake Wooten, who was a patriarch 
 and an authority, " when a man's a-gwine to put on airs, he 
 kinder slicks up more. A man that's airy, he ain't a-gwine 
 to shut hisself up and not show out more. Like as not 
 he'd wear store-clothes an' hang round 'n' kinder blow; 
 'n' this feller don't do nary one. 'X' as to the woman, Lord! 
 
 30 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 I should think all you'unses knows how womenfolks does 
 that's airv. Ef this vere one wus that war, she'd be a- 
 dressin' in starched calikers 'n' sunbonnets 'n' bress-pins, 
 'n' mebbe rings 'n' congrist-gaiters. She'd be to the meet- 
 in' eA'erv time there was meetin' a-showin' out 'n' lettin' 
 on like she didn't know the rest on 'em wus seein'. It 
 don't sound to reason that either on 'em is air}''." 
 
 It had been suggested by a bold spirit capable of more- 
 extended flights of the imagination than the rest, that they 
 were " Xortherners " who for some unworthy object had 
 taken up their abode within the bound of civilisation; but 
 this idea was frowned down as being of a wild nature and 
 not to be encouraged. 
 
 ■Finally the general interest in the subject had subsided 
 somewhat, though it was ready to revive at any new com- 
 ment or incident, which will explain the bodily awakening 
 of the sleepers on the post-office porch when Mr. Stamps 
 made his announcement of the approach of " thet thar 
 feller." 
 
 Up to the moment when the impulse seized him which 
 led him to take his place behind the counter as the stranger 
 entered the store, Tom De Vulloughby had taken little or 
 no part in numerous discussions held around him. He had 
 listened with impartiality to all sides of the question, his 
 portion of the entertainment being to make comments of 
 an inspiriting nature which should express in a marked 
 manner his sarcastic approval of any special weakness in 
 a line of argument. 
 
 Among the many agreeable things said of him in his 
 past, it had never been said that he was curious; he was 
 too indolent to be curious, and it may be simply asserted 
 that he had felt little curiosity concerning the popular 
 
 SI 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 mystery. But when he found himself face to face with his 
 customer, a new feeling suddenly took possession of him. 
 The change came when, for one instant, the man, as if in 
 momentary forgetfulness, looked up and met his eyes in 
 speaking. Each moved involuntariW, and Tom turned 
 aside, ostensibly, to pick up a sheet of wrapping paper. 
 The only words exchanged were those relating to the cour- 
 tesies and the brief remarks heard by the loungers outside. 
 After this the stranger rode away and Tom lounged back 
 to his chair. He made no reply to Stamps's explanatory 
 aside, and no comment upon the remarks of the company 
 whose curiosity had naturally received a new impetus which 
 spurred them on to gossip a little in the usual vague man- 
 ner. He gave himself up to speculation. The mere tone of 
 a man's voice had set his mind to work. His past life had 
 given him experience in which those about him were lack- 
 ing, and at the instant he heard the stranger speak this 
 experience revealed to him as by a flash of light, a thing 
 which had never yet been even remotely guessed at. 
 
 "A gentleman, by thunder!'^ he said to himself. 
 "That's it! A gentleman!" 
 
 He knew he could not be mistaken. Low and purposely 
 muffled as the voice had been, he recognised in it that 
 U'hich marked it as the voice of a man trained to modulated 
 speech. And even this was not all, though it had led him 
 to look again, and more closely, at the face shadowed by 
 the broad hat. It was not a handsome face, but it was one 
 not likely to be readily forgotten. It was worn and hag- 
 gard, the features strongly aquiline, the eyes somewhat 
 sunken; it was the face of a man who had lived the life of 
 an ascetic and who, with a capacity for sharp suffering, 
 had suffered and was suffering still. 
 
 33 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 " But a gentleman and not a Southerner," Tom persisted 
 to himself. " A Yankee, as I'm a sinner; and what is a 
 Yankee doing hiding himself here for ? ^' 
 
 It was such a startling thing under the circumstances, 
 that he could not rid himself of the thought of it. It 
 haunted him through the rest of the day, and when night 
 came and the store being closed, he retired as usual to the 
 back part of the house, he was brooding over it still. 
 
 He lived in a simple and primitive style. Three rooms 
 built on to the store were quite enough for him. One was 
 his sitting- and bed-room, another his dining-room and 
 kitchen, the third the private apartment of his household 
 goddess, a stout old mulatto woman who kept his house in 
 order and prepared his meals. 
 
 AYhen he opened the door to-night the little boarded 
 rooms were illuminated with two tallow candles and made 
 fragrant with the odour of fried chicken and hoe-cakes, 
 to which xVunt Mornin was devoting all her energies, and 
 for the first time perhaps in his life, he failed to greet 
 these attractions with his usual air of good cheer. 
 
 He threw his hat into a chair, and, stretching himself out 
 upon the bedstead, lay there, his hands clasped above his 
 head and his eyes fixed upon the glow of the fire in the ad- 
 joining room, where Aunt ]\Iornin was at work. 
 
 "A gentleman!" he said, half aloud. "That's it, by 
 Jupiter, a gentleman! '^ 
 
 He remembered it afterwards as a curious coincidence 
 that he should have busied his mind so actively with his 
 subject in a manner so unusual with him. 
 
 His imagination not being sufficiently vivid to help him 
 out of his difficulty to his own satisfaction, he laboured 
 v,dth it patiently, recurring to it again and again, and turn- 
 
 33 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 ing it over until it assumed a greater interest than at first. 
 He only relinquished it with an effort when, going to bed 
 later than usual, he made up his mind to compose himself 
 to sleep. 
 
 *' Good Lord! " he said, turning on his side and address- 
 ing some unseen presence representing the vexed question. 
 *' Don't keep a man awake : settle it yourself." And finally 
 sank into unconsciousness in the midst of his mental strug- 
 gle. 
 
 About the middle of the night he awakened. He felt 
 that something had startled him from his sleep, but could 
 not tell what it was. A few seconds he lay without moving, 
 listening, and as he listened there came to his ear the 
 sound of a horse's feet, treading the earth restlessly out- 
 side the door, the animal itself breathing heavily as if it had 
 been ridden hard; and almost as soon as he aroused to 
 recognition of this fact, there came a sharp tap on the door 
 and a man's voice crying " Hallo ! " 
 
 He knew the voice at once, and unexpected as the sum- 
 mons was, felt he was not altogether unprepared for it, 
 though he could not have offered even the weakest explana- 
 tion for the feeling. 
 
 *^' He's in trouble," he said, as he sat up quickly in bed. 
 " Something's gone wrong." He rose and in a few seconds 
 opened the door. 
 
 He had guessed rightly; it was the stranger. The moon- 
 light fell full upon the side of the house and the road, and 
 the panting horse stood revealed in a bright light which 
 gave the man's face a ghostly look added to his natural 
 pallor. As he leaned forward, Tom saw that he was as 
 much exhausted as was the animal he had ridden. 
 
 34 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 " I want to find a doctor, or a woman wlio can give help 
 to another," he said. 
 
 " There ain't a doctor within fifteen miles from here," 
 began Tom. He stopped short. What he saw in the man's 
 face checked him. 
 
 " Look here," he said, " is it your wife ? " 
 
 The man made a sharp gesture of despair. 
 
 " She's dying, I think," he said, hoarsely, '^ and there's 
 not a human being near her." 
 
 " Good Lord! " cried Tom, " Good Lord! " The sweat 
 started out on his forehead. He remembered what Stamps 
 had said of her youth and her pale face, and he thought 
 of Delia Vanuxem, and from this thought sprang a sudden 
 recollection of the deserted medical career in which he had 
 been regarded as so ignominious a failure. He had never 
 mentioned it since he had cut himself off from the old life, 
 and the women for whose children he had prescribed with 
 some success now and then had considered the ends 
 achieved only the natural results of his multitudinous gifts. 
 But the thought of the desolate young creature lying there 
 alone struck deep. He listened one moment, then made his 
 resolve. 
 
 "Go to the stable," he said, " and throw a saddle over 
 the horse you will find there. I know something of such 
 matters myself, and I shall be better than nothing, with 
 a woman's help. I have a woman here who will follow 
 us." 
 
 He went into the back room and awakened Aunt Mornin. 
 
 " Get up," he said, " and saddle the mule and follow me 
 as soon as you can to the cabin in Blair's Hollow. The 
 wife of a man who lives there needs a woman with her. 
 Come quickly." 
 
 35 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 "Wlien he returned to the door his horse stood there sad- 
 dled, the stranger sitting on his own and holding the 
 bridle. 
 
 Tom mounted in silence, but once finally seated, he 
 turned to his companion. 
 
 " Now strike out," he said. 
 
 There were four miles of road before them, but they 
 scarcely slackened rein until they were within sight of the 
 Hollow, and the few words they exchanged were the barest 
 questions and answers. 
 
 The cabin was built away from the road on the side of 
 the hill, and leaving their horses tethered at the foot of the 
 slope, they climbed it together. 
 
 When they reached the door, the stranger stopped and 
 turned to Tom. 
 
 " There is no sound inside," he faltered; " I dare not 
 go in." 
 
 Tom strode by him and pushed the door open. 
 
 In one corner of the room was a roughly made bedstead, 
 and upon it lay a girl, her deathly pale face turned side- 
 ways upon the pillow. It was as if she lay prostrated by 
 some wave of agony which had just passed over her; her 
 breath was faint and rapid, and great drops of sweat stood 
 out upon her young drawn face. 
 
 Tom drew a chair forward and sat down beside her. He 
 lifted one of her hands, touching it gently, but save for a 
 slight quiver of the eyelids she did not stir. A sense of awe 
 fell upon him. 
 
 " It's Death," he said to himself. He had experience 
 enough to teach him that. He turned to the man. 
 
 " You had better go out of the room; I will do my best." 
 
 36 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 In a little over an hour Aunt Mornin dismounted from 
 her mule and tethered it to a sapling at the side of the 
 road below. She looked up at the light gleaming faintly 
 through the pines on the hillside. 
 
 '' I cum 's fas' 's I could," she said, " but I reckon I'd 
 orter been here afore. De Lord knows dis is a curl's 'ca- 
 sion." 
 
 When she crossed the threshold of the cabin, her master 
 pointed to a small faintly moving bundle lying at the foot 
 of the bed over which he was bending. 
 
 " Take it into the other room and tell the man to come 
 here," he said. " There's no time to lose." 
 
 He still held the weak hand; but the girl's eyes were no 
 longer closed; they were open and fixed on his face. The 
 great fellow was trembling like a leaf. The past hour had 
 been almost more than he could bear. He was entirely 
 unstrung. 
 
 " I wasn't cut out for this kind of thing/' he had groaned 
 more than once, and for the first time in his life thanked 
 Fate for making him a failure. 
 
 As he looked down at his patient, a mist rose before his 
 eyes, blurring his sight, and he hurriedly brushed it 
 away. 
 
 She was perhaps nineteen years old, and had the very 
 young look a simple trusting nature and innocent untried 
 life bring. She was small, fragile, and fair, with the pure 
 fairness bom of a cold climate. Her large blue-gray eyes 
 had in them the piteous appeal sometimes to be seen in the 
 eyes of a timid child. 
 
 Tom had laid his big hand on her forehead and stroked 
 it, scarcely knowing what he did. 
 
 Don't be frightened," he said, with a tremor in his 
 
 37 
 
 (( 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 voice. " Close your eyes and try to be quiet for a few 
 moments, and then " 
 
 He stooped to bend his ear to her lips which were moving 
 faintly. 
 
 " He'll come directly/' he answered, though he did not 
 hear her; " — directly. It's all right." 
 
 And then he stroked her hair again because he knew 
 not what else to do, seeing, as he did, that the end was so 
 very near, and that no earthly power, however far beyond 
 his own poor efforts, could ward it off. 
 
 Just at that moment the door opened and the man came 
 in. I 
 
 That he too read the awful truth at his first glance, Tom 
 saw. All attempts at disguise had dropped away. His 
 thin, scholarly face was as colourless as the fairer one on 
 the pillow, his brows were knit into rigid lines and his lips 
 were working. He approached the bed, and for a few mo- 
 ments stood looking down as if trying to give himself time 
 to gain self-control. Tom saw the girl's soft eyes fixed in 
 anguished entreaty; there was a struggle, and from the 
 slowly moving lips came a few faint and broken words. 
 
 " Death! — They — never know." 
 
 The man flung himself upon his knees and burst into an 
 agony of such weeping that, seeing it, Tom turned away 
 shuddering. 
 
 " jSTo," he said, " they will never know, they who loved 
 you — who loved you — will never know! God forgive me if 
 I have done wrong. I have been false that they might be 
 spared. God forgive me for the sin! " 
 
 The poor child shivered; she had become still paler, and 
 the breath came in sharp little puffs through her nostrils. 
 
 " God — God! — God! " she panted. But the man did not 
 
 38 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 seem to hear her. He was praying aloud, a struggling, dis- 
 jointed prayer. 
 
 "0 God of sinners/' he cried, " Thou who forgivest. 
 Thou who hast died, forgive — forgive in this hour of 
 death!'' 
 
 Tom heard no more. He could only listen to the soft, 
 panting breath sinking lower and lower. 
 
 Suddenly the piteous eyes turned towards him — the 
 stranger — as if in great dread: perhaps they saw in the 
 mere human pity of his face what met some sharp last 
 need. 
 
 He went to his old place as if in answer to the look, and 
 took the poor little hand once more, closing the warmth 
 of his own over its coldness. He was weeping like a child. 
 
 " Don't be afraid," he said; "—not afraid. It's— it's all 
 right." 
 
 And almost as he said it, with her eyes still fixed upon 
 his own, and with her hand in his, she gave a low sob — and 
 died. 
 
 Tom touched the kneeling man upon the shoulder. 
 
 '^ There's no need of that now," he said; " it's over." 
 
 39 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 When a few minutes later he went into the hack room, 
 he found Aunt Mornin sitting before the big fireplace in 
 which burned a few logs of wood. The light the snapping 
 sticks gave fell full upon her black face, and upon the small 
 bundle upon her spacious knee. 
 
 As he entered she turned sharply towards him. 
 
 ^' Don't nobody keer notliin' for this yere?^' she said, 
 "ain't nobody comin' nigh? Whar's he? Don't he take 
 no int'rus' in the pore little lonesome child? I 'spect yo'll 
 haf to take it ye'self. Mars' De Willerby, while I goes in 
 dar." 
 
 Tom stopped short, stricken with a pang of remorse. He 
 looked down at the small face helplessly. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " 3'ou'll have to go in there; you're 
 needed." 
 
 The woman looked at him in startled questioning. 
 
 " Mars De Willerby," she said, " does dat ar mean she's 
 cl'ar gone?" 
 
 " Yes," answered Tom. " She's gone, Mornin." 
 
 With the emotional readiness of her race, the comfort- 
 able creature burst into weeping, clasping the child to her 
 broad bosom. 
 
 " Pore chile! " she said, " an' poor chile lef behin'! De 
 Lord help 'em bofe." 
 
 With manifest fear Tom stooped and took the little red 
 flannel bundle from her arms. 
 
 40 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Wilioughby Claim 
 
 " jSTever mind crjdng/' he said. " Go into the room and 
 do what's to be done." 
 
 When left alone with his charge, he sat down and held 
 it balanced carefully in his hands, his elbows resting on 
 his knees. He was used to carrying his customers' children, 
 a great part of his popularity being based upon his jovial 
 fondness for them. But he had never held so small a 
 creature as this in his arms before. He regarded it with 
 a respectful timidity. 
 
 " It wasn't thought of/' he said, reflectively. *' Even 
 she — poor thing, poor thing — " he ended, hurriedly, " there 
 was no time." 
 
 He was still holding his small burden with awkward 
 kindliness when the door opened and the man he had left 
 in the room beyond came in. He approached the hearth 
 and stood for a few seconds staring at the fire in a stupefied, 
 abstracted way. He did not seem to see the child. At last 
 he spoke. 
 
 " Where shall I lay her? " he asked. " Where is the 
 nearest churchyard ? " 
 
 " Fifteen miles awav," Tom answered. " Most of the 
 people like to have their dead near them and lay them on 
 the hillsides." 
 
 The man turned to him with a touch of horror in his face. 
 
 " In unconsecrated ground? " he said. 
 
 " It doesn't trouble them," said Tom. " They sleep well 
 enough." 
 
 The man turned to the fire again — he had not looked at 
 the child yet — and made a despairing gesture with his 
 hands. 
 
 " That she — " he said, " that she should lie so far from 
 them, and in unconsecrated ground! " 
 
 41 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 " There is tlie place I told you of/' said Tom. 
 
 " I cannot go there," with the gesture again. " There 
 is no time. I must ^o away.'' 
 
 He made no pretence at concealing that he had a secret 
 to hide. He seemed to have given up the effort. 
 
 Tom looked up at him. 
 
 " What are you going to do with this? " he asked. 
 
 Then for the first time he seemed to become conscious of 
 the child's presence. He turned and gave it a startled side- 
 long glance, as if he had suddenly been struck with a new 
 fear. « 
 
 "I — do not know," he stammered. ^^ I — no! I do not 
 know. What have I been doing? " 
 
 He sank into a chair and buried his face in his trem- 
 bling hands. 
 
 " God's curse is upon it," he cried. " There is no place 
 for it on earth." 
 
 Tom rose with a sudden movement and began to pace the 
 floor with his charge in his arms. 
 
 " It's a little chap to lay a curse on," he said. " And 
 helpless enough, by Gad! " 
 
 He looked down at the diminutive face, and as he did 
 so, a wild thought flashed through his mind. It had the 
 suddenness and force of a. revelation. His big body 
 trembled with some feeling it would have gone hard with 
 him to express, and his heart warmed within him as he felt 
 the light weight lying against it. 
 
 " No place for it! " he cried. " By God, there is! There 
 is a place here — and a man to stand by and see fair- 
 play! " 
 
 " Give her to me," he said, '^ give her to me, and if there 
 is no place for her, I'll find one." 
 
 43 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 " What do you mean? " faltered tlie man. 
 
 " I mean what I say/' said Tom. '^ I'll take her and 
 stand by her as long as there is breath in me; and if the 
 day should ever come in spite of me when wrong befalls 
 her, as it befell her mother, some man shall die, so help me 
 God!" 
 
 The warm Southern blood which gave to his brothers' 
 love-songs the grace of passion, and which made them re- 
 nowned for their picturesque eloquence of speech, fired him 
 to greater fluency than was usual with him, when he thought 
 of the helplessness of the tiny being he held. 
 
 " I never betrayed a woman yet, or did one a Avrong," 
 he went on. " I'm not one of the lucky fellows who win 
 their hearts," with a great gulp in his throat. " Perhaps 
 if there's no one to come between us, she may — may be 
 fond of me." 
 
 The man gave him a long look, as if he was asking him- 
 self a question. 
 
 " Yes," he said at last, " she will be fond of you. You 
 will be worthy of it. There is no one to lay claim to 
 her. Her mother lies dead among strangers, and her 
 father " 
 
 For a few moments he seemed to be falling into a reverie, 
 but suddenly a tremour seized him and he struck one 
 clenched hand against the other. 
 
 " If a man vowed to the service of God may make an 
 oath," he said, " I swear that if the day ever dawns when 
 we stand face to face, knowing each other, I will not spare 
 him! " 
 
 The child stirred in Tom's arms and uttered its flrst 
 sharp little cry, and as if in answer to the summons. Aunt 
 Mornin opened the door. 
 
 t3 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 " It's all done/' she said. " Gib me de chile, Mars De 
 AYillerb}', and go in an' look at her." 
 
 • • • • • * • 
 
 When he entered the little square living room, Tom 
 paused at the foot of the bed. All was straight and neat 
 and cold. Among the few articles in the one small trunk, 
 the woman had found a simple white dress and had put it 
 on the dead girl. It was such a garment as almost every 
 girl counts among her possessions. Tom remembered that 
 his sisters had often worn such things. 
 
 • " She looks very pretty," he said. " I dare say her 
 mother made it and she wore it at home. Lord! 
 Lord!" And with this helpless exclamation, half sigh, 
 half groan, he turned away and walked out of the front 
 door into the open air. 
 
 It was early morning by this time, and he passed into 
 the dew and sunlight not knowing where he was going; 
 but once outside, the sight of his horse tethered to a tree 
 at the roadside brought to his mind the necessity of the 
 occasion. 
 
 " I'll ride in and see Steven," he said. " It's got to be 
 done, and it's no work for liim!^^ 
 
 When he reached the Cross-roads there were already two 
 or three early arrivals lounging on the store-porch and 
 wondering why the doors were not opened. 
 
 The first man who saw him, opened upon him the usual 
 course of elephantine witticisms. 
 
 " Look a }• ere, Tom," he drawled, " this ain't a-g^vine to 
 do. You a-gittin' up 'fore daybreak like the rest of us 
 folks and ridin' off Goddlemighty knows whar. It ain't 
 a-gwine to do now. Whar air ye from? " 
 
 But as he rode up and dismounted at the porch, each 
 
 44 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 saw that something unusual had happened. He tied his 
 horse and came up the steps in silence. 
 
 " Boys/' he said, when he stood among them, " I want 
 Steven. I've been out to the Hollow, and there's a job for 
 him there. The — ^the woman's dead." 
 
 "Dead! " they echoed, drawing nearer to him in their 
 excitement. "When, Tom?" 
 
 " Last night. Mornin's out there. There's a child." 
 
 " Thunder 'n' molasses! " ejaculated the only family man 
 of the group, reflectively. " Thunder 'n' molasses! " And 
 then he began to edge awa}^, still with a reflective air, to- 
 wards his mule. 
 
 " Boys," he explained, " there'd ought to be some women 
 folks around. I'm gwine for Minty, and she'll start the rest 
 on 'em. Women folks is what's needed. They kin kinder 
 organize things whar thar's trouble." 
 
 " Well," said Tom, " perhaps you're right; but don't 
 send too many of 'em, and let your wife tell 'em to talk 
 as little as possible and leave the man alone. He's got 
 enough to stand up under." 
 
 Before the day was over there were women enough in the 
 hillside cabin. Half a dozen faded black calico riding-skirts 
 hung over the saddles of half a dozen horses tethered in the 
 wood round the house, while inside half a dozen excellent 
 souls disposed themselves in sympathetic couples about the 
 two rooms. 
 
 Three sat in the front room, their sunbonnets drawn well 
 down over their faces in the true mourner's spirit, one at 
 the head of the bed slowly moving a fan to and fro over 
 the handkerchief-covered face upon the pillow. A dead 
 silence pervaded the place, except when it was broken by 
 occasional brief remarks made in a whisper. 
 
 45 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 " She was a mighty piirty-lookin' young critter/' they 
 said. " A sight younger-lookin' than her man." 
 
 "What's the child?" 
 
 " GaL" 
 
 "Gal? That's a pity. Gals ain't mnch chance of bein' 
 raised right whar they're left." 
 
 " Hain't they any folks, neither on 'em? " 
 
 " Nobody don't know. Nobody hain't heerd nothin' 
 about 'em. They wus kinder curl's about keepin' to them- 
 selves." 
 
 " If either on 'em had any folks — even if they wus only 
 sort o' kin — they might take the chile." 
 
 " Mebbe they will. Seems to reason they must have some 
 kin — even if they ain't nigh." 
 
 Then the silence reigned again and the woman at the 
 bed's head gave her undivided attention to the slow, regular 
 motion of her palm-leaf fan. 
 
 In the room beyond a small fire burned in spite of the 
 warmth of the day, and divers small tin cups and pipkins 
 simmered before and upon the cinders of it, Aunt Mornin 
 varying her other duties by moving them a shade nearer to 
 the heat or farther from it, and stirring and tasting at in- 
 tervals. 
 
 Upon a low rocking-chair before the hearth sat the wife 
 of the family man before referred to. She was a tall, angu- 
 lar creature, the mother of fifteen, comprising in their num- 
 ber three sets of twins. She held her snuff-stick between 
 her teeth and the child on her lap, with an easy professional 
 air. 
 
 " I hain't never had to raise none o' mine by hand since 
 Martin Luther," she remarked. " I've been mighty glad 
 on it, for he was a sight o' trouble. Eander colicky and 
 
 4G 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 weakly. Xever clone no izood till we srot liim ofl the Lottie. 
 He'd one cow's milk, too, all the time. I was powerful 
 partickerler 'bout that. I'd never have raised him if I 
 hadn't bin. 'X' to this day ^lartin Luther hain't what 
 'Poleon and Orlando is." 
 
 " Dis yere chile ain't gwine to be no trouble to nobody," 
 put in Aunt Mornin. '' She's a powerful good chile to begin 
 with, 'n' she's a chile that's gwine to thrive. She hain't 
 done no cryin' uv no consequence yit, 'n' whar a chile starts 
 out dat dar way it speaks well for her. If ]\Iornin had de 
 raisin' o' dat chile, dar wouldn't be no trouble 't all. Bile 
 der milk well 'n' d'lute down right, 'n' a chile like dat ain't 
 gwine to have no colick. My young Mistis Mars D'Willerby 
 bought me from, I've raised three o' hern, an' I'm used to 
 bilin' it right and d'lutin' it down right. Dar's a heap in 
 de d'lutin'. Dis yere bottle's ready now. Mis' Doty, ef ye 
 want it." 
 
 " It's the very bottle I raised Martin Luther on," said 
 Mrs. Doty. " It brings back ole times to see it. She takes 
 it purty well, don't she? Massy sakes! How f'erce she looks 
 for sich a little thing! " 
 
 Later in the day there arose the question of how she 
 should be disposed of for the night, and it was in the midst 
 of this discussion that Tom De "Willoufrhbv entered. 
 
 " Thar ain't but one room; I s'pose he'll sleep in that," 
 said Mrs. Doty, " 'n' the Lord knows he don't look the kind 
 o' critter to know what to do with a cliile. "We hain't none 
 o' us seen him since this mornin'. I guess he's kinder wan- 
 derin' round. Does any of you know whar he is? "We might 
 ax what he 'lows to do." 
 
 Tom bent down over the child as it lay in the woman's 
 lap. No one could see his face. 
 
 i7 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 " I know what he's going to do," he said. " He's going 
 away to-morrow after the funeraL" 
 
 " 'N' take the child? " in a chorus. 
 
 " No," said Tom, j^rofessing to be deeply interested in 
 the unclosing of the small red fist. *' I'm going to take the 
 child." 
 
 There were four sharp exclamations, and for a second or 
 so all four women gazed at him with open mouths. It was 
 Mrs. Doty who first recovered herself sufficiently to speak. 
 She gave him a liveh^ dig with her elbow. 
 
 " Now, Tom D'Willerby," she said, " none of your fool- 
 in'. This yere ain't no time for it." 
 
 " ]\Iars D'Willerby," said Aunt Mornin, " dis chile's 
 mother's a-lyin' dead in the nex' room." 
 
 Tom stooped a trifle lower. He put out both his hands 
 and took the baby in them. 
 
 " I'm not foolin'," he said, rather uncertainly. " I'm in 
 earnest, ladies. The mother is dead and the man's going 
 away. There's nobody else to claim her, he tells me, and 
 so I'll claim her. There's enough of me to take care of 
 her, and I mean to do it.'^ 
 
 It was so extraordinary a sensation, that for a few moments 
 there was another silence, broken as before by Mrs. Doty. 
 
 " AVaal," she remarked, removing her snuff-stick and ex- 
 pectorating into the fire. '"' Ye've alius been kinder fond 
 o' chillun, Tom, and mebbe she ain't as colicky by natur' 
 as ]Martin Luther was, but I mus' say it's the curi'sest thing 
 I ever heern — him a-gwine away an' givin' her cl'ar up as 
 ef he hadn't no sort o' nat'ral feelin's — I do say it's curi's." 
 
 "He's a queer fellow," said Tom, "a queer fellow! 
 There's no denvincr that." 
 
 •J O 
 
 That this was true was proven by his conduct during the 
 
 48 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 time in which it was liable to public comment. Until night 
 he was not seen, and then he came in at a late hour and, 
 walking in silence through the roomful of watchers, shut 
 himself up in an inner chamber and remained there alone. 
 
 " He's takin' it mighty hard," they said. " Seems like 
 it's kinder onsettled his mind. He hain't never looked at 
 the child once." 
 
 He did not appear at all the next day until all was ready 
 and Tom De Willoughby went to him. 
 
 He found him lying on the bed, his haggard face turned 
 towards the window. He did not move until Tom touched 
 him on the shoulder. 
 
 " If you want to see her " he said. 
 
 He started and shuddered. 
 What, so soon? " he said. " So soon? " 
 Now," Tom answered. " Get up and come with me." 
 
 He obeyed, following him mechanically, but when they 
 reached the door, Tom stopped him. 
 
 I've told them a story that suits well enough," he said. 
 I've told them that you're poor and have no friends, and 
 can't care for the child, and I've a fancy for keeping it. 
 The mother is to lie out here on the hillside until you can 
 aiford to find a better place for her — perhaps at your own 
 home. I've told the tale my own way. I'm not much of 
 a hand at that kind of thing, but it'll do. I've asked you 
 no questions." 
 
 "Xo,'^ said the man, drearily. "You've asked me no 
 questions." 
 
 Then they went together into the other room. There were 
 twenty or thirty people in it, or standing about the door. 
 It was like all mountain funerals, but for an air of desolate- 
 ness.even deeper than usual. The slender pine coffin was 
 
 49 
 
 
 a T' 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 supported upon two chairs in the middle of the room, and 
 the women stood or sat about, the more easily moved weep- 
 ing a little under the shadow of their calico sunbonnets. 
 The men leaned against the door-posts, or sat on the wooden 
 steps, bare-headed, silent, and rather restless. 
 
 "When Tom led his charge into the apartment, there was 
 a slight stir and moving back of chairs to make way for him. 
 He made his way straight to the cofhn. When he reached 
 it and looked down, he started. Perhaps the sight of the 
 white dress with its simple girlish frills and homelike pretti- 
 ness brought back to him some memory of happier days 
 when he had seen it worn before. 
 
 The pure, childlike face had settled into utter calm, and 
 across the breast and in the hands were long, slender branches 
 of the thickly flowering wild white clematis. Half an hour 
 before Tom had gone into the woods and returned with these 
 branches, which he gave to one of the younger women. 
 
 '•' Put them on her," he said, awkwardly; " there ought 
 to be some flowers about her." 
 
 For a few moments there reigned in the room a dead si- 
 lence. All eyes were fixed upon the man who stood at the 
 coffin side. He simply looked down at the fair dead face. 
 He bestowed no caresses upon it, and shed no tears, though 
 now and then there was to be seen a muscular contraction 
 of his throat. 
 
 At length he turned towards those surrounding him and 
 raised his hand, speaking in a low voice. 
 
 " Let us pray." 
 
 It was the manner of a man trained to rigid religious ob- 
 servances, and when the words were uttered, something like 
 an electric shock passed through his hearers. The circuit- 
 riders who stopped once or twice a month at the log churches 
 
 50 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 on the roadside were seldom within reach on such an occasion 
 as this, and at such times it was their custom to depend on 
 any good soul who was considered to have the gift of prayer. 
 Perhaps some of them had been wondering who would speak 
 the last words now, as there was no such person on the spot; 
 but the trained manner and gesture, even while it startled 
 them by its unexpectedness, set their minds at rest. 
 
 They settled themselves in the conventional posture, the 
 women retiring into their bonnets, the men hanging their 
 heads, and the prayer began. 
 
 It was a strange appeal — one which only one man among 
 them could grasp the meaning of, though all regarded its 
 outpouring words with wonder and admiration. It was an 
 outcry full of passion, dread, and anguish which was like 
 despair. It was a prayer for mercy — mercy for those who 
 suffered, for the innocent who might suffer — for loving 
 hearts too tender to bear the bitter blows of life. 
 
 " The loving hearts, God! " he cried, " the loving hearts 
 who wait — who '^ 
 
 More than one woman looked up from under her bonnet; 
 his body began to tremble — he staggered and fell into a 
 chair, hiding his face, shaking from head to foot in an 
 agony of weeping. Tom made his way to him and bent 
 over him. 
 
 " Come with me," he said, his great voice broken. '^ Come 
 with me into the air, it will quiet you, and we can wait until 
 — until they come.'' 
 
 He put his arm under his and supported him out of the 
 house. 
 
 Two or three women began to rock themselves to and fro 
 and weep aloud hj'sterically. It was only the stronger ones 
 who could control themselves. He was standing at Tom's 
 
 51 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 side then; when they came out a short time afterwards, 
 walking slowly and carrying the light burden, which they 
 lowered into its resting-place beneath the pines. 
 
 He was quite calm again, and made no soimd or move- 
 ment until all was over. Then he spoke to Tom. 
 
 " Tell them/*' he said, " that I thank them. I can do 
 no more." 
 
 He walked back to the desolate house, and in a little while 
 the people went their ways, each of them looking back a 
 little wistfully at the cabin as he or she rode out of sight. 
 
 When the last one was lost to view, Tom, who had loi- 
 tered about, went into the cabin. 
 
 The man was sitting in the empty room, his gaze fixed 
 upon the two chairs left standing in the middle of it a few 
 paces from each other. 
 
 Tom moved them away and then approached him. 
 
 " The child has been taken to my house," he said. " You 
 don't want to see it? " 
 
 " Xo." 
 Is there anj-thing else I can do?" 
 ISTo, nothing else," monotonously. 
 
 " Are you going away ? " 
 
 " Yes— to-night." 
 
 Tom glanced around him at the desolation of the poor, 
 bare little place, at the empty bed, and the small trunk at 
 the foot of it. 
 
 " You are not going to stay here alone, man? " he said. 
 
 " Yes," he was answered. " I have something to do; I 
 must be alone." 
 
 Tom hesitated a moment. 
 
 " Well," he said, at length, " I suppose I've done, then. 
 Good-bye." 
 
 52 
 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 " Good-bye/' he was answered. " The Lord — the Lord 
 will reward you." 
 
 And then Tom crossed the room slowly and reluctantly, 
 passed out, and closed the door after him. 
 
 When he opened his own door, he struck his foot against 
 something and stumbled over it. It was a primitive wooden 
 cradle — somewhat like a box on rockers — a quilt of patch- 
 work covered it, and upon the small pillow rested the round 
 black head of his new possession. He stopped short to 
 regard it. Aunt Mornin had left it there while she occupied 
 herself with preparing supper in the kitchen. It really 
 looked quite comfortable. Gradually a smile established it- 
 self upon Tom's countenance. 
 
 " By thunder! " he said, " here you are, youngster, ain't 
 you? You've come to stay — that's what you've come for." 
 
 And, being answered by a slight stirring of the patchwork 
 quilt, he put his foot out with much cautiousness, touched 
 the rocker, and, finding to his great astonishment that he 
 had accomplished this much safely, he drew up a chair, and, 
 sitting down, devoted himself with laudable enthusiasm to 
 engineering the small ark with a serious and domestic air. 
 
 53 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 In two days' time the whole country had heard the news. 
 The mystery of Blair's Hollow was revived and became a 
 greater mystery than ever. The woman was dead, the man 
 had disappeared. The cabin stood deserted, save for the 
 few household goods which had been left just as they were 
 on the day of the funeral. Xot an article had been moved, 
 though the woman to whom Tom De "Willoughby, as the 
 person most concerned, handed over the discarded property, 
 did not find the little trunk, and noticed that articles had 
 been burned in the fireplace in the front room. 
 
 " Thar wus a big pile o' ashes on the ha'th," she said to 
 her friends, " sorter like as if he'd been burnin' a heap a 
 little things o' one sort or 'nother. It kinder give me cold 
 chills, it looked so lonesome when I shut the door arter the 
 truck was gone. I left the ashes a-lyin' thar. I kinder had 
 a curi's feelin' about touchin' on 'em. Xothing wouldn't 
 hire me to live thar. D'Willerby said he reckoned I could 
 hev moved right in ef I wanted to, but, Lawsy! I wouldn't 
 have done it fer nothin'." 
 
 But that Avhich roused the greatest excitement in the com- 
 munity was Tom De Willoughby's course. 
 
 At first Mrs. Doty's story of Big Tom's adoption of the 
 child was scarcely accepted as being a possibility. The first 
 man who heard it received it with a grin of disbelief. This 
 individual was naturally Mr. Doty himself. 
 
 94 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 '' Minty," he said, " don't ye let him fool ye. Don't ye 
 know Tom D'Willerby by this time? Ye'd orter. It's jest 
 some o' his gas. Don't ye s'pose he hain't got no more sense? 
 What'dhedowithit?" 
 
 " Ye can believe it or not," replied !Mrs. Doty, sharply, 
 *^ but he's g^vine to raise that young'n, as shore as your 
 name's Job. ^Mornin's got her this minute." 
 
 Mr. Doty indiilc^ed in a subdued chuckle. 
 
 "A niee-lookin' feller he is to raise a infant babe!" he 
 remarked. '* Lord a massy! if thet tliar ain't jest like one 
 o' his doggoned tales! He is the derndest critter," with 
 reflective delight, " the derndest ! Thar ain't nothin' in 
 Hamlin to come up to him." 
 
 But the next day even Mr. Doty was convinced. After 
 his customary visit to the Cross-roads, he returned to his 
 family wearing a bewildered expression. It became a sheep- 
 ish expression when his wife confronted him on the doorstep. 
 
 " Wal, Job Doty," she remarked, '' I guess you've found 
 out by this time whether I was right or wrong." 
 
 "ATal," answered Mr. Doty, throwing his saddle down 
 on the porch, " I reckon I hev. She's thar shore enough, 
 'n' it seems like he's gwine to keep her; but I wouldn't 
 hev believed it ef I hadn't seen it, doggoned ef I would! 
 But, Lord, it's like him, arter all." And he brightened up 
 and chuckled again. 
 
 " I reckon he don't scarcely know what he's tuk in hand," 
 said Mrs. Doty. 
 
 " Him! " answered Mr. Doty. " Tom! Lord! 'tain't a- 
 gwine to trouble Tom. He'll get along, Tom will. Tom'd 
 jus' as lief as she wus twins as not, mebbe liefer. It'd be 
 a bigger thing for him to engineer 'n' gas about ef she wus. 
 Ef you'd seen him bring her into the store to the boys 'n' 
 
 55 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 brag on lier 'n' spread hisself, I reckon ye wouldn't liev 
 minded 'bout Tom. Why, he's set on her, Minty, a'reddy, 
 as set as he kin be." 
 
 The Cross-roads post-office had indeed been the scene of 
 a sort of informal levee held by the newcomer, who had been 
 thns presented to her fellow-citizens. One man after an- 
 other had dropped in to hear the truth of the story related, 
 and each one had been diimfounded at the outset by Tom's 
 simple statement of fact. 
 
 " Yes, I'm going to keep her, boys," he said. " She's in 
 the back part of the house now. According to my calcula- 
 tions, she's drunk about three quarts of milk since morning, 
 and seems to stand it pretty well, so I suppose she's all right." 
 
 There were a great many jokes made at first, and a general 
 spirit of hilariousness reigned, but it was observed by one 
 of the keener witted ones that, despite his jocular tone, there 
 was an underlying seriousness in Tom's air which might 
 argue that he felt the weight of his responsibility. When 
 the women began to come in, as they did later in the day, 
 he received them with much cordiality, rising from his chair 
 to shake hands with each matron as she appeared. 
 
 " Come in to see her, have you? " he said. *' That's right. 
 She's in the back room. Walk right in. Mis' Simpson and 
 Mis' Lyle, I'd like some of you ladies to have a look at her. 
 I'll go with you myself and hear what you have to say." 
 
 He made the journey each time with a slight air of anxi- 
 ety, leading the way to the wooden cradle, and standing over 
 it like a Herculean guajdian angel, listening attentively to 
 all the comments made and all the advice given. 
 
 " She seems to be getting on pretty well, doesn't she?" 
 he enquired. 
 
 " Lor', yes! " said one matron; " jest keep her kivered up 
 
 56 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 V don't let no air strike her, 'n' ye won't liev no trouble 
 with her, I reckon." 
 
 " ISTo air?'' enquired Tom, in some trepidation; "none 
 at all?" 
 
 " Wal, thet's my way," was the answer. " Some folks does 
 diffrent, but I didn't never expose 'em none till they was 
 niore'n a month old. jSTew-born babies is tender things!" 
 
 " Yes," said Tom. " Good Lord, yes! " 
 
 His visitor started at him perplexedly for a moment. 
 
 " Wal," she said. " My man alius used to say they kinder 
 skeered him 'long at the first — he kinder felt as if they'd 
 mebbe come apart, or sumthin'. They alius sorter 'minded 
 me o' young mice. AYal, you jest tell Morain to giv' her 
 es much milk as she calls fer, an' don't let it bile too long, 
 'n' she'll come on fine." 
 
 The next visitor that entered uttered an exclamation of 
 dismay. 
 
 " Ye're gwine ter kill her! " she said. " Thar ain't a 
 breath o' air in the room, 'n' thar ain't nothin' a new-born 
 baby wants more 'n plenty o' air. They're tender critters, 
 'n' they cayn't stand to be smothered up. Ye'll hev her in 
 spasms afore the day's over." 
 
 Tom flung the doors and windows open in great alarm. 
 
 " It is hot," he said. " It's hot enough out of doors, but 
 Mis' Simpson told me to keep her shut up, and I thought 
 she'd had experience enough to know." 
 
 "Jane Simpson!" with ill-concealed scorn. "She'd or- 
 ter! She's had six to die in their second summer. I reckon 
 she told ye to give her half-b'iled milk as often as she wanted 
 it?" 
 
 Tom reflected in manifest trepidation. 
 
 " She did tell me not to boil it too much, and to give it 
 to her when she called for it," he said, slowly. 
 
 57 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 (C 
 
 Wal, if ye don't vrant ter kill her, take my advice an' 
 bile it a good half hour, 'n' don't give it to her oftener than 
 once in three hours. She'll cry fur it, but ye needn't mind. 
 Ye'll get used ter it. I don't believe in lettin' young uns 
 hev nuthin' out o' their reg'lar time." 
 
 The next caller found Tom somewhat discouraged. He 
 preceded her into the reception-chamber with less alacrity 
 than he had shown in his previous visits. 
 
 She was a younger woman than the rest, and when she 
 reached the cradle's side, she bent down and rearranged the 
 cover with a soft touch. 
 
 " She's gwine to be a purty little thing," she said; " she'll 
 be sorter dark-complected, but she's gwine to hev purty hair 
 'n' eyes. Ye'll be right proud of her, Tom, when she's 
 grown, 'n' I guess she'll be a heap o"' company to you. 
 Lord! " with a motherly sigh, " it seems sorter curi's her 
 bein' left to a man; but you'll do well by her, Tom, you'll 
 do well by her. I hain't no doubt o' that. You was always 
 mighty clever with children." 
 
 " I'll do all I can for her," said Tom, " though I suppose 
 that isn't much." 
 
 The young woman — she had left her own baby in the 
 store with her husband — patted the little pillow lightly into 
 shape. 
 
 " Ye'll larn a heap by watchin' her," she said. " Jest 
 watch her close 'n' she'll teach you herself. What do you 
 do about her milk? " anxiousty. 
 
 " I've been told to do several things," said Tom. " I've 
 been told to boil it half an hour and not to boil it at all, 
 and to give her all she wanted and not to give her all she 
 wanted. I'm a little mixed about it." 
 
 "Wal, I hain't had but five, but I've alius let it come 
 
 58 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 to a bile an' then kinder used my reason about givin' it. 
 Seems like the mejumer ye air with children, the better. 
 But, Lordy! I guess Mornin knows. She raised her young 
 mistress's." 
 
 She kissed the child before she left it, and when she re- 
 entered the store, hurriedly took her own struggling off- 
 spring from its father's arms, settled its pink dress and 
 sunbonnet with a nervous, caressing motion, and, carrying 
 it to the door, stood with it pressed against her breast while 
 she seemed to be looking out at the distant mountains. She 
 did not move until her husband had completed his pur- 
 chases and came to her. And when she followed him out 
 to take her place in the waggon, her eyes were bright and 
 moist. 
 
 " Don't ye take the Blair's Holler road, Dave," she said, 
 as he touched up his horses. " Go round by Jones's." 
 
 " What's yer notion, Louizy? " he asked. 
 
 " 'Tain't nothin' but a notion, I reckon," she answered; 
 " but I don't — I don't want to hev to pass by that thar grave 
 jest to-day. Take the other road." 
 
 And being an easy-going, kindly fellow, he humoured her 
 and went the other way. 
 
 In the store itself the spirit of hilariousness increased 
 as the day advanced. By mail-time the porch was crowded 
 and Tom had some slight difficulty in maintaining order. 
 
 " Say, boys," he said, " there's got to be quiet here. If 
 we can't carry on the establishment without disturbing the 
 head of the household at present asleep in the back room, 
 this post-office has to close and you can get a new postmaster. 
 That'd suit you, I daresay. Some fellow, now, that wouldn't 
 half 'tend to his business, not more than half, and that hadn't 
 legislative ability enough to carry on a precinct, let alone 
 
 59 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 a county. You want a man of tliat kind, I suj^pose. That's 
 "vvhat you're working for.'* 
 
 " Tom/' said one of the younger ones, " bring her out 'n' 
 let's see her. You've been braggin' on her all day, but ye 
 hain't let us see her." 
 
 Half a dozen others joined in the cry. 
 
 " Yes," they said, " bring her out, Tom." 
 
 Tom did not rise from his seat. He tilted his chair back 
 and balanced himself on his heels, his hands thrust into his 
 pockets. 
 
 " Boys," he said, " I'll bring her out on one condition, 
 and that is that there shall be no shines. I wouldn't 
 have her scared or upset for a good deal. There's a joke 
 in this sort of thing, I daresay; but it ain't all joke. If 
 I bring her out and show her, there's to be no crowding 
 and no row." 
 
 It was agreed that there should be none, and he left his 
 chair and went to the inner room again. When he returned, 
 the men who had been lounging in the porch had come in, 
 though perhaps not one among them understood his own 
 unusual interest in the affair. Babies were not rarities in 
 Hamlin County, every cabin and farmhouse in the region 
 being filled to overflowing with white-headed, sunburnt 
 youngsters. And yet when Tom appeared there was a mo- 
 ment of silence. The child was asleep, its tiny black head 
 resting peacefully against the huge chest of its bearer. There 
 was no trace of confusion or awkwardness in his face, he 
 seemed well content with his burden, and perhaps it was 
 the quiet of his manner as much as anything else which 
 caused the slight hush to fall upon those around him. 
 
 At last a middle-aged farmer stepped forward. He gave 
 the child a long and rather curious look. 
 
 60 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 " Gal, ain't it? " he enquired. 
 
 " Yes/' Tom answered. 
 
 " Wal, 'tain't a bad thing fer her she's got some un to 
 stan' by her; gals needs it." 
 
 Tom gave her a long look too. She was sleeping very 
 quietly; it might have been her mother's breast she was 
 lying against. 
 
 " Well/' he said, " here's a man to stand by her/' and then 
 he raised his head and looked at the rest of them. 
 
 " Boys/' he said, " that's a promise. Eemember it." 
 
 And he carried her back. 
 
 6t 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 The rooms at the back had never seemed so quiet before 
 as when, at the close of the day, he went into them. They 
 seemed all the quieter by contrast with the excitement of 
 the past hours. In the kitchen Mornin was giving the final 
 touches to the supper, and in the room which was at once 
 sitting-room and bedroom, the wooden cradle had fitted itself 
 in a corner near the fireplace and wore an air of permanent 
 establishment remarkable to contemplate when one consid- 
 ered how unlooked-for an incident it was. 
 
 On the threshold of this apartment Tom paused a moment. 
 Such silence reigned that he could hear the soft, faint breath- 
 ing of the child as it lay asleep. He stopped a second or 
 so to listen to it. Then he stooped down, and began to 
 loosen his shoes gently. As he was doing it, Mornin caught 
 sight of him in passing the open door. 
 
 " Mars Tom,'^ she said, " what's ye a-gwine fer to do? " 
 
 " I'm going to take them off," he answered, seriously. 
 " They'll make too much noise." 
 
 The good soul in the kitchen chuckled. 
 
 " Now," she said, " now, Mars Tom, dar ye go right now 
 a-settin' out to ruinate a good chile, 'stead o' ustin' it ter 
 things — a-settin' out ter ruinate it. Don't never tip aroun' 
 fer no chile. Don't ye never do it, 'n' ye won't never haf ter. 
 Tippin' roun' jest spiles 'em. Tell ye, Mornin never tipped 
 roun' when she had em' ter raise. Mornin started out right 
 from de fust." 
 
 Tom looked at the cradle. 
 
 62 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 " She'll rest easier," he said. '' x\nd so shall I. I must 
 get a pair of slippers." And he slipped out of his shoes and 
 stood ready to spend the evening in his stocking-feet. A 
 solitary tallow candle stood upon the table, shedding its 
 yellow light upon all surrounding objects to the best of its 
 ability, and, seeing that its flickering brightness fell u}X)n 
 the small sleepers face, he placed it at the farther end of 
 the high mantel. 
 
 " She'll be more comfortable," he said. And then sat 
 down feeling at ease with his conscience. 
 
 ]\[ornin went back to her supper shaking her head. 
 
 *' By de time she's a year old, dar won't be no managin' 
 her," she said. " Da's alius de way wid de men folks, alius 
 too hard or too soft; better leav' her to Mornin 'n' ust'n her 
 to things right at de start." 
 
 There seemed little chance that she would be so '' ust- 
 ened." Having finished his supper, Tom carried his pipe 
 and newspaper into the kitchen. 
 
 " I'll sit here awhile," he said. " The smoke might be 
 too much for her, and the paper rustles so. AVe'd better let 
 her have her sleep out." 
 
 But when the pipe was out and the last page of the paper 
 read, he went back to his own room. The small ark sti'anded 
 in his chimney corner was attractive enough to draw him 
 there. It was a stronger attraction than it would have been 
 to most men. He had always been fond of children and 
 curious concerning them. There was not a child in the sur- 
 rounding region who had not some remembrance of his 
 rather too lavish good-nature. A visit to the Cross-roads was 
 often held out as a reward for circumspect behaviour, and 
 the being denied the treat was considered punishment heavy 
 enough for most juvenile crimes. 
 
 63 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 « 
 
 Ef ye'd had 3'Oimg uiis of 3^er own, Tom, ye'd hev ruined 
 them, shore,'' the secretly delighted matrons frequently re- 
 marked. " You'd let 'em run right over ye. I reckon ye 
 keep that candy thar right a-jDurpose to feed 'em on now, 
 don't yer?'^ 
 
 His nunierous admirers, whose affection for him was 
 founded on their enjoyment of his ponderous witticisms 
 and the humour which was the little leavening of their un- 
 exciting lives, had once or twice during the past few days 
 found themselves unprepared for, and so somewhat bewil- 
 dered by, the new mood which had now and then revealed 
 itself. 
 
 " It's kinder outer Tom's way to take things like he takes 
 this; it looks onnat'ral," they said. 
 
 If they had seen him as he drew up to the cradle's side, 
 they would have discovered that they were confronting a 
 side of the man of which they knew nothing. It was the 
 man whose youth had been sore-hearted and desolate, while 
 he had been too humble to realise that it was so, and with 
 reason. If he had known lonely hours in the past eight 
 years, only the four walls of the little back room had seen 
 them. He had always enacted his role well outside; but it 
 was onlv natural that the three silent rooms must have 
 seemed too empty now and again. As he bent over the 
 cradle, he remembered such times, and somehow felt as if 
 they were altogether things of the past and not to trouble 
 him again. 
 
 " She'll be life in the place," he said. " When she sleeps 
 less and is old enough to make more noise, it will be quite 
 cheerful." 
 
 He spoke with the self-congratulating innocence of inex- 
 perience. A speculative smile settled upon his countenance. 
 
 64 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 " When she begins to crawl around and — and needs look- 
 ing after, it will be lively enough," he reflected. " She'll 
 keep us busy, I daresay." 
 
 It was a circumstance perhaps worthy of mention that he 
 never spoke of the little creature as " it." 
 
 " She'll need a good deal of looking after," he went on. 
 " It won't do to let her tumble around and take care of 
 herself, as a boy might. We must be tender of her." 
 
 He bent forward and drew the cover cautiously over the 
 red flannel sleeve. 
 
 ^' They think it a good joke, those fellows," he said; " but 
 it isn't a joke with us, is it, young woman? We've a pretty 
 big job to engineer between us, but I daresay we shall come 
 out all right. We shall be good friends in the end, and 
 that's a pretty nice thing for a lonely fellow to look for- 
 ward to." 
 
 Then he arose stealthily and returned to the kitchen. 
 
 " I want you to tell me," he said to Mornin, " what she 
 needs. I suppose she needs something or other." 
 
 She needs mos' ev'rj'thing, Mars Tom," was the answer; 
 
 seems like she hain't bin pervidecl fer 't all, no more 'n ef 
 she was a-gwine ter be a youn' tukky dat de Lord hisself 
 bed fitted out at de start." 
 
 " Well," said Tom, " I'll go to Barnesville to-morrow 
 and talk to Judge Kutherford's wife about it. She'll know 
 what she ought to have." 
 
 And, after a few moments given to apparently agreeable 
 reflection, he went back to the room he had left. 
 
 He had barely seated himself, however, when he was dis- 
 turbed by a low-sounding tap on the side door, which stood 
 so far open as to allow of any stray evening breeze entering 
 without reaching the corner of the chimney. 
 
 G5 
 
 
, In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 " Come in! " said Tom, not in a friendly roar, as usual, 
 but in a discreetly guarded voice. 
 
 The door was pushed gently open and the visitor stood 
 revealed, blinking with an impartial air at the light 
 within. 
 
 " Don't push it wide open," said Tom; " come in if you 
 are going to, and leave it as it was." 
 
 Mr. Stamps obeyed without making any noise whatever. 
 It was one of his amiable peculiarities that he never made 
 any noise, but appeared and disappeared without giving any 
 warning, making himself very agreeable thereby at inoppor- 
 tune moments. He shpped in without a sound, deftly left 
 the door in its previous position, and at once slipped into 
 a chair, or rather took possession of one, by balancing him- 
 self on the extreme edge of it, arranging his legs on the 
 lower bar with some dexterity. 
 
 "Howdy?" he said, meekly, ha^ang accomplished this. 
 
 Tom's manner was not cordial. He stretched himself, put 
 his hands in his pockets, and made no response to the greet- 
 ing which was, upon the whole, a rather unnecessary one, 
 as Mr. Stamps had been hanging about the post-office 
 through the whole day, and had only wended his way home- 
 ward a few hours before. 
 
 " Want anything? " he enquired. 
 
 Mr. Stamps turned his hat around in his hands hurriedly. 
 
 " No, I don't want nothin', Tom," he said. Then, after 
 a pause, he added, very softly: 
 
 " I jest thought I'd step in." 
 
 " Where are you going? " asked Tom. 
 
 The hat was turned round again. 
 
 "^Yha^ wus I a-gr^dne?" deprecatingly. "Whar? Oh! 
 I — I was a-gwine — I was a-g^'ine to Marthy's, I guess." 
 
 66 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 " You're pretty late/' remarked Tom; ^' better lose no 
 time; it's a pretty bad road between here and there." 
 
 " So 'tis," replied Mr. Stamps, apparently struck with the 
 originality of the suggestion. " So 'tis! " He appeared to 
 reflect deeply for a few seconds, but suddenly his eyes began 
 to wander across the room and rested finally upon the corner 
 in which the cradle stood. He jerked his head towards it. 
 
 "It's thar, is it?" he enquired. 
 
 "Yes, she's thar," Tom answered, rather crustily. 
 "What of it?" 
 
 " Oh! nothin', nothin', Tom, only it's kinder curi's — 
 kinder curi's." 
 
 " Well," said Tom, " I've not begun to look at it in that 
 light yet myself." 
 
 " Hain't ye, now? " softly. " Hain't ye, Tom? " 
 
 Then a faint little chuckle broke from him — not an intru- 
 sive chuckle, quite the contrary; a deprecatory and inad- 
 vertent sort of chuckle. 
 
 " That ain't me," he ventured, inoffensively. " I've been 
 a-thinkin' it was curi's all along." 
 
 " That ain't going to hurt anybody," responded Tom. 
 
 " Lord, no! " quite in a hurry. " Lord, no! 'tain't likely; 
 but it kinder int'rusted me — int'rusted me, findin' out what 
 I did." 
 
 And he ended with a gently suggestive cough. 
 
 Tom thrust his hands deeper into his pockets and covered 
 as large an area of floor with his legs as was possible without 
 upsetting Mr. Stamps's chair and at the same time that 
 stealthy little man himself. 
 
 " Oh! found out! " he replied, " Found out h " 
 
 He checked himself with much suddenness, glancing at 
 the cradle as he did so. 
 
 67 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 "What did you find out?" he demanded, unceremoni- 
 ously, and with manifest contempt. " Let's hear.'^ 
 
 Mr. Stamps coughed again. 
 
 " 'Twan't much, mebbe," he rephed, cautiously, " ^n' then 
 again, mebhe 'twas. It was kinder int'rusting, though. That 
 — that thar was a good prayer o' his'n, warn't it ? " 
 
 " Yes," admitted Tom, rather blusteringly. " I daresay 
 it was; I suppose you are a better judge of prayers than I 
 
 am." 
 
 Fm a purty good judge on 'em," modestly. " I'd orter 
 be, bein' a class-leader 'n' uster kinder critykisin'. I don't 
 never do it much in public myself, but I've alius critikised 
 them as did. Thet sounded more professionaller then they 
 air mostly — unless comin' fruni them as has bin raised 
 to it." 
 
 "Did it? "said Tom. 
 
 " Yes, it was more professionaller." 
 
 Then he turned his hat again, setting it more carefully 
 on his knee. He also fixed his eyes on Tom with a harm- 
 less smile. 
 
 " They wus Xorth'ners." 
 
 Tom started, but managed to recover himself. 
 
 " You might have mentioned that before," he remarked, 
 with sarcasm. 
 
 " I did," said Mr. Stamps, " along at the start, Tom; 
 but ye wouldn't none on ye believe me." 
 
 Tom remembered that this was true, it having been Mr. 
 Stamps who suggested the Northern theory which had been 
 so unitedly scouted by his hearers at the time of its pro- 
 pounding. 
 
 " I h'ain't stayed as stiddy in Xorth Carolina as the rest 
 on 'em," repeated Mr. Stamps. " When I was younger, I 
 
 68 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 kinder launched out wunct. I thought I could make money 
 faster ef I wus in a more money-makin'er place, 'n' I 
 launched out. I went North a spell 'n' was thar a right 
 smart while. I sorter stedded the folks' ways ^n' I got to 
 knowin' 'em when I seed 'em 'n' heerd 'em talk. I know'd 
 her for one the minit I set eyes on her 'n' heem her speak. 
 I didn't say nuthin' much to the rest on ye, 'cause I know's 
 ye'd make light on it; but I know'd it wus jest that ar way 
 with the Northerners." 
 
 " Well/' said Tom, "it's valuable information, I suppose." 
 
 Mr. Stamps coughed. He turned his hat over and looked 
 into its greasy and battered crown modestly. 
 
 ^^ It mout be," he replied, " 'n' then again it moughtent. 
 It moughtent be if thar' wus nuthin' else to go 'long with 
 it. They wus hidin' sumthin', ye know, 'n' they sot a heap 
 on keepin' it hid. Ef a body know'd the whole thing from 
 the start, thet'd be int'rustin', 'n' it 'ud be vallyable too." 
 
 " Valuable be d " Tom began, but he checked him^ 
 
 self once more on glancing at the cradle. 
 
 But Mr. Stamps was so far interested that he did not 
 read the warning he might have read in the suddenly re- 
 pressed outbreak. As he neared his goal he became a little 
 excited and incautious. He leaned forward, blinking rap- 
 idly. 
 
 "They wasn't no man 'n' wife," he said. "Lord, no! 
 ^N' ef the two as knowed most on 'em 'n' was kinder quickest 
 at readin' signs 'd kinder go partners 'n' heve confydence in 
 one another, 'n' sorter lay to 'n' work it out 'n' foller it up, 
 it ud be vallybler than stores, or post-offices, or farms to 
 both on 'em." And he leaned so far forward and blinked 
 60 fast that he lost his balance and almost fell off his chair. 
 
 It was Tom who saved him from his fall, but not from 
 
 69 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 that tender consideration for his physical security which 
 such an act would argue. Tom gathered up his legs and 
 strode across to him. almost before he had finished speak- 
 ing. For the time being he had apparently forgotten the 
 cradle and its occupant. He seized the little man by the 
 back of his collar and lifted him bodily out of his chair 
 and shook him as a huge mastiff might haye shaken a rat, 
 agitating the little legs in the large trousers with a force 
 which gave them, for a few seconds, the most active em- 
 ployment. 
 
 " You confounded, sneaking, underhanded little thief! " 
 he thundered. " You damned little scoundrel! You — 
 
 » 
 
 you- 
 
 And he bore him out of doors, set him struggling astride 
 his mule which was cropping the grass, and struck that 
 sagacious animal a blow upon her quarters which sent her 
 galloping along the Barnesville Eoad at a pace which 
 caused her rider to cling to her neck and body with arms and 
 legs, in which inconvenient posture he remained, unable 
 to recover himself, for a distance of at least half a mile. 
 
 Tom returned to the back room in some excitement. As 
 he crossed the threshold^ he was greeted by a shrill cry 
 from the cradle. He ruefully regarded the patchwork quilt 
 which seemed to be struggling violently with some unseen 
 agency. 
 
 " Doggone him! " he said, innocently, " he's wakened her 
 — wakened her, by thunder! " 
 
 And he sat down, breathing heavily from his bodily ex- 
 ertion, and began to rock the cradle with a vigour and gi^av- 
 ity which might have been expected to achieve great re- 
 sults, if Mornin had not appeared and taken his charge into 
 her o^vn hands. 
 
 70 
 
CHAPTER yil 
 
 The next day Tom went to Barnesville. He left tlie 
 Cross-roads on horseback early in the morning, and reached 
 his journey's end at noon. He found on arriving at the 
 town that the story of his undertaking had preceded him. 
 
 When he drew rein before Judge Eutherf ord's house and 
 having dismounted and tied his horse to the fence, entered 
 the gate, the Judge's wife came out upon the porch to 
 meet him with her baby in her arms. 
 
 She greeted him with a smile. 
 
 ^^ Well/' she said, " I must say I am glad to see you. 
 The Judge brought us a nice story from the country yes- 
 terday. What have you been doing at the Cross-roads? 
 I told the 'Judge I didn't believe a word of it. There, sit 
 down in this chair and tell me right away." 
 
 *^ Well," answered Tom in a business-like manner, " it's 
 true or I shouldn't be here to-day, I've come to ask your 
 advice about — well, about things in general." 
 
 Mrs. Rutherford uttered a little cry of delighted curios- 
 ity and surprise. 
 
 "Gracious!" she exclaimed, "I never heard such a 
 thing! Mother! " turning her head to call to someone in 
 the room beyond, " it's all true about the baby. Do come 
 and hear Mr. De Willoughby tell about it." 
 
 She sat down on the steps of the porch laughing and yet 
 regarding Tom with a half sympathetic, half curious look. 
 It was not the first time she had found him unexpectedly 
 mysterious. 
 
 71 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 "Where's the father?'' she said. "Didn't he care for 
 the poor little thing at all? The Judge heard that he was 
 so poor that he couldn't take care of it. Hadn't he any 
 friends ? It has a kind of heartless sound to me — his going 
 away that way." 
 
 " He was poor/' said Tom, quietly. " And he had no 
 relatives who could take the child. He didn't know what 
 to do with it. I — I think he had a chance of making a 
 living out West and — the blow seemed to have stunned 
 him." 
 
 " And you took the baby? " put in Mrs. Eutherford. 
 
 " Yes/' Tom answered, " I took the baby." 
 
 " Is it a pretty baby? " 
 
 " Yes/' said Tom, " I think it is." 
 
 Just then the Judge's mother came out and he was 
 called upon to tell the story again, when it was received 
 with interest even more excited and wondering than before. 
 The older Mrs. Rutherford exclaimed and looked dubious 
 alternately. 
 
 " Are you sure you know what to do with it? " she asked. 
 
 " Well, no/' said Tom, " I'm not. I suppose I shall have 
 to educate myself up to it gradually. There'll be a good 
 deal to learn, I suppose." 
 
 But he did not appear at all discouraged, and presently 
 broached the object of his visit, displaying such modest 
 readiness to accept advice and avail himself of all oppor- 
 tunities for acquiring valuable information, that his young 
 hostess was aroused to the deepest admiration, and when 
 he proceeded to produce quite a large memorandum book 
 with a view to taking an immediate list of all required ar- 
 ticles, and established rules, she could scarcely contain her 
 delight. 
 
 72 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 " I want to do it all up in the proper way," he said. 
 
 Thereupon he was borne into the house and a consulta- 
 tion of the most serious practical nature was held. Piles 
 of the last baby's pretty garments being produced to illus- 
 trate any obscure point. The sight of those garments with 
 their embroidery and man}^ frills fired Tom with new en- 
 thusiasm. He could not resist the temptation to pick up 
 one after another of the prettiest and most elaborate and 
 hold them out at arm's length, his fingers stuck through 
 the sleeves the better to survey and display them to ad- 
 vantage. 
 
 " Yes," he kept saying, " that's the kind of thing she 
 wants — pretty and with plenty of frills." 
 
 He seemed to set his heart especially upon this abundance 
 of frills and kept it in view throughout the entire arrange- 
 ments. Little Mrs. Rutherford was to take charge of the 
 matter^ purchasing all necessaries and superintending the 
 work of placing it in competent hands. 
 
 " Why," she said, laughing at him delightedly, " she'll be 
 the best dressed baby in the county." 
 
 '^ I'd like her to be among the best," said Tom, with a 
 grave face, " among the best." 
 
 Whereupon Mrs. Rutherford laughed a little again, and 
 then quite suddenly stopped and regarded him for a mo- 
 ment with some thoughtfulness. 
 
 " He has some curious notions about that baby, mo- 
 ther," she said afterwards. "I can see it in all he says. 
 Everyone mightn't understand it. I'm not sure I do my- 
 self, but he has a big, kind heart, that Tom de Willoughby, 
 a big, kind heart." 
 
 She understood more clearly the workings of the big, 
 kind heart before he left them the next morning. 
 
 73 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 At night after she had put her child to sleep, she joined 
 him on the front porch, where he sat in the moonlight, and 
 there he spoke more fully to her. 
 
 He had seated himself upon the steps of the porch and 
 wore a deeper reflective air, as he played with a spray of 
 honeysuckle he had broken from its vine. 
 
 She drew up her rocking-chair and sat down near him. 
 
 " I actually believe you are thinking of that baby now,'* 
 she said, with a laugh. " You really look as if you were." 
 
 " AYell," he admitted, " the fact is that's just what I was 
 doing — thinking of her." 
 
 " Well, and what were you thinking? " 
 
 " I was thinking — " holding his spray of honeysuckle 
 between his thumb and forefinger and looking at it in an 
 interested way, " I was thinking about what name I should 
 give her." 
 
 " Oh! " she said, " she hasn't any name? " 
 
 " No," Tom answered, without removing his eyes from 
 his honeysuckle, " she hasn't any name yet." 
 
 " Well," she exclaimed, " they were queer people." 
 
 There was a moment's silence which she spent in looking 
 curiously both at him and his honeysuckle. 
 
 " What was her mother's name ? " she asked at last. 
 
 '' I don't know." 
 
 lilrs. Eutherford sat up in her chair. 
 
 "You don't know!" 
 
 " She was dying when I saw her first, and I never thought 
 of asking." 
 
 "But her father?" 
 
 " I didn't think of asking that either, and nobody knew 
 anything of them. I suppose he was not in the frame of 
 mind to think of such things himself. It was all over and 
 
 74' 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 done with so soon. He went away as soon as she was 
 buried." 
 
 Mrs. Eutherford sank back into her chair. 
 
 " It's the strangest story I ever heard of in my life," she 
 commented, with a sigh of amazement. ^^ The man must 
 have been crazed with grief. I suppose he was very fond of 
 his wife ? " 
 
 " I suppose so/' said Tom. 
 
 There was another pause of a few moments, and from the 
 thoughts with which they occupied it Mrs. Eutherford 
 roused herself with a visible effort. 
 
 " Well," she said, cheerily, " let it be a pretty name." 
 
 " Yes," answered Tom, " it must be a pretty one." 
 
 He turned the bit of honeysuckle so that the moonlight 
 fell on its faintly tinted flower. It really seemed as if he 
 felt he should get on better for having it to look at and 
 refer to. 
 
 " I want it to be a pretty name," he went on, " and I've 
 thought of a good many that sounded well enough, but 
 none of them seemed exactly to hit my fancy in the right 
 way until I thought of one that came into my mind a few 
 moments ago as I sat here. It has a pleasant meaning — I 
 don't know that there's anything in that, of course; but 
 I've got a sort of whim about it. I suppose it's a whim. 
 What do you think — " looking very hard at the honey- 
 suckle, " of Felicia? " 
 
 " I think," said his companion, " that it is likely to be 
 the best name you could give her, for if she isn't a happy 
 creature it won't be your fault." 
 
 " Well," said Tom, " I've set out to do my best and I'd 
 like to give her a fair start in every way, even in her name, 
 though there mayn't be anything in it, but I'd like to do it. 
 
 75 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 I suppose it's time I should be having some object in life. 
 I've never had one before, and I've been a useless fellow. 
 "Well, I've got one now by chance, and I'm bound to hold 
 on to it and do what I can. I want her to have what 
 chances I can give her on her side, and it came into my 
 mind that Felicia " 
 
 He stopped to consult the hone^^suckle, as it were, and 
 Jenny Eutherford broke in: 
 
 " Yes," she said, ** Felicia is the name for her, and it's a 
 beautiful thought " 
 
 " Oh! " interrupted Tom, bestirring himself uneasily, 
 " it's a natural thought. She needs all she can get to bal- 
 ance the trouble she began life with. Most other little 
 chaps begin it in a livelier way — in a way that's more nat- 
 ural, bom into a home, and all that. It's a desolate busi- 
 ness that she should have no one but a clumsy fellow like 
 me to pick her up, and that there should be a shadow of — 
 of trouble and pain and death over her from the first. 
 Good Lord! " with a sudden movement of his big arm, 
 " let's sweep it away if we can." 
 
 The thought so stirred him, that he turned quite around 
 as he sat. 
 
 " Look here," he said, " that's what I was aiming at when 
 I set my mind on having her things frilled up and orna- 
 mented. I want them to be what they might have been if 
 she had been born of a woman who was happy and well 
 cared for and — and loved — as if she had been thought of 
 and looked forward to and provided for in a — in a tender 
 way — as they say young mothers do such things: you know 
 how that is; I don't, perhaps, I've only thought of it some- 
 times " his voice suddenly dropping. 
 
 But he had thought of it often, in his lonely back room 
 
 76 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 one winter a few years ago, when it had drifted to him 
 that his brother De Courcy was the father of a son. 
 
 Mrs. Eutherford leaned forward in her seat, tears rose in 
 her eyes, and she put her hand impulsively on his shoulder. 
 
 " Oh! '' she cried, " you are a good man. You're a good 
 man, and if she lives, she will tell you so and love you with 
 all her heart. I will see to the little clothes just as if they 
 were Nellie's own '^ (N'ellie being the baby, or more properly 
 speaking, the last baby, as there were others in the house- 
 hold). ''And if there is anything I can ever do for the 
 little thing, let me do it for her poor young mother's sake." 
 
 Tom thanked her gratefully. 
 
 " I shall be glad to come to you often enough, I reckon," 
 he said. " I guess she'll have her little sick spells, as they 
 all do, and it'll help wonderfully to have someone to call 
 on. There's her teeth now," anxiously, " they'll be coming 
 through in a few months, and then there'll be the deuce to 
 pay." 
 
 He was so overweighted by this reflection, that he was 
 silent for some minutes afterwards and was only roused by 
 a question requiring a reply. 
 
 Later the Judge came in and engaged him in political 
 conversation, all the Judge's conversation being of a po- 
 litical nature and generally tending to vigorous denuncia- 
 tions of some candidate for election who belonged to the 
 opposite party. In Barnesville political feeling ran high, 
 never running low, even when there was no one to be 
 elected or defeated, which was very seldom the case, for 
 between such elections and defeat there was always what had 
 been done or what ought to have been done at Washington 
 to discuss, it being strongly felt that without the assistance 
 
 77 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 of Barnesville, Washington would be in a sorry plight in- 
 deed. 
 
 To-day the Judge had been engaged in a livelier dis- 
 cussion than usual as he rode homeward with a select party 
 of legal brethren from court at Brownsboro, and conse- 
 quently made his appearance blustering and joyous. He 
 bestowed upon his wife a sounding kiss, and, with one arm 
 around her waist, shook hands with Tom in a gust of hos- 
 pitality, speaking to both at once. 
 
 " Howdy, Jenny? Howd}^, Tom? It's a coon's age since 
 we've seen you, Tom. Time you showed yourself. How 
 are the children, Jenny — and what's Tom Scott been do- 
 ing? What's this we hear about that stray young one? 
 Nice tale that is to tell on a fellow. Fowler heard it at 
 Brownsboro and like to have killed himself. Lord! how 
 hot it's been! I'm ready for supper, Jenn3^ Sit down, 
 Tom. As soon as I get through supper, we'll have a real 
 old-fashioned talk. I've been suffering for one for three 
 months. Jenny, tell Sophronia to spread herself on her 
 waffles, for Fve been getting some mighty poor stuff' for the 
 last few da3^s. What do you think of Thatcher running for 
 the Legislature? Lord! Lord! what a fool that fellow is! 
 Most unpopular man in the county, and about the meanest 
 too. Mean? Lord! mean ain't the name for it! He'll be 
 beat so that any other man wouldn't want to show his head, 
 and it won't make a mark on him. Nellie's asleep, ain't 
 she, Jenny? I've got to go and look at her and the rest of 
 them. Don't you want to come along, Tom? You're a fam- 
 ily man yourself now, and you ought to take an interest! " 
 
 He led the way into the family-room at the back and, tak- 
 ing the candle from the high mantel, moved it trium- 
 phantly over the beds in which the children slept. 
 
 78 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 " Here's Tom Scott! " he announced. " Tom Scott's got 
 to have a crib to himself. Look at him now. What do you 
 think of that for a hoy? He's five years old next month, 
 and he about runs Barnesville. The boys round here are 
 just ruining him with making much of him and setting 
 him up to tricks. He just lives round at the stores and the 
 post-office. And what Tom Scott don't know ain't worth 
 knowing. Came home with six jack-knives in his pockets 
 the first day Jenny turned him out in pantaloons. The 
 boys tried themselves to see who could do best by him. 
 You could hear them shouting and laughing all over the 
 town at the things they got him to say. I tell you he's a 
 case, Tom is. Last election he was as stirred up as any of 
 us. Hollered ' 'Eah for Collins ' until he was hoarse and 
 his mother brought him home and gave him syrup of squills 
 because she thought he had the croup. What do you think 
 he did, now? Went into Barton's store and ordered a 
 bushel of chestnuts to be sent down to my account and 
 brought 'em out and set on the horse-block and gave a treat 
 for Collins. I was coming up home and saw the crowd and 
 heard the hollering and laughing, and there was Tom in 
 the middle baling out his chestnuts and hollering at the top 
 of his voice: ^ Come on, boys, all 3^ou Collins men, here's 
 a treat for Collins! ' I thought Collins would have died 
 when he heard it. He laughed until he choked, and the 
 next day he came to see Tom and gave him a gold eagle 
 and a colt. He says he is going to give him a little nigger to 
 look after it, and he'll do it. Oh, Tom Scott's the boy! 
 He'll be in the White House forty years from now. He's 
 making a bee-line for it right now." 
 
 And he bent and kissed the little fellow's sunburnt rosy 
 cheek. 
 
 79 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 " His mother and his grandmother can't do a thing with 
 him," he said, rapturously, " and it's as much as I can do 
 to manage him. Oh, he's a case, is Tom Scott! " 
 
 And with this tribute to his character, he left him to his 
 slumbers, with his sturdy little legs occupying an extensive 
 area of crib and his face resting on his small brown arm. 
 
 After this, the Judge went to his supper and consumed 
 a large quantity of fried chicken, waffles, and coffee, after- 
 wards joining Tom on the porch, smoking his pipe and 
 stigmatising Thatcher in a loud and jovial voice as the 
 meanest man in Hamlin. 
 
 But for this resonant jovialness of voice, his denuncia- 
 tin of the Democratic Party, which was not his party, 
 might have appeared rather startling, 
 
 '^ There isn't an honest man among them," he an- 
 nounced. " Not a durned one! They're all the same. Cut 
 each other's throats for a dime, the whole caboodle. Oh! 
 damn a Democrat anyhow, Tom, 'tain't in the nature of 
 things that they should be anything but thieves and ras- 
 cals. Just look at the whole thing. It's founded on lies 
 and corruption and scoundrelism. That's their founda- 
 tion. They start out on it, and it ain't reasonable to ex- 
 pect an}d:hing better of them. Good Lord! If I thought 
 Tom Scott would join the Democrats, I believe I'd blow his 
 brains out in his crib this minute." 
 
 Tom's part in this discussion was that of a large-minded 
 and strictly impartial listener. This was the position he 
 invariably assumed when surrounded by political argu- 
 ment. He was not a politician. His comments upon po- 
 litical subjects being usually of a sarcastic nature, and 
 likely to prove embarrassing to both parties. 
 
 Yes," he said in reply to the Judge's outpourings, 
 
 80 
 
 <c 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 "you're right. There ain't a chance for them, not an 
 eternal chance. You can't expect it, and it ain't all their 
 fault either. Where are they to get their decent men from, 
 unless some of you fellows go over? Here you are with- 
 out a liar or a fool amono; you — not a durned on€ — made 
 a clean sweep of all the intellect and honesty and incor- 
 ruptible worth in the country and hold on to it too, and 
 then let out on these fellows because there isn't any left 
 for 'em. I'm a lazy man myself and not much on argu- 
 ment, but I must say that's a weak place in your logic. 
 You don't give 'em a show at the start — that's their mis- 
 fortune." 
 
 " Oh, go to thunder! " roared the Judge, amiably. " You 
 don't know the first thing about it and never did. That's 
 where vou fail — in politics. The countrv would be in a 
 mighty poor fix if we had many fellows like you — in a 
 mighty poor fix. You're a good citizen, Tom, but you ain't 
 a politician." 
 
 " That's so," said Tom. " I ain't good enough for your 
 party or bad enough for the other, when a man's got to be 
 either a seraphim or a Democrat, there isn't much chance 
 for an ordinary fellovr to spread himself." 
 
 Whereupon the Judge in an altogether friendly manner 
 consigned him to thunder again and, evidently enjo3dng 
 himself immensely, proceeded to the most frightful de- 
 nunciations of Thatcher and his party, the mere list of 
 whose crimes and mental incapacities should have con- 
 demned them to perdition and the lunatic asylum upon the 
 spot without further delay. 
 
 ■While he was in the midst of this genial loud-voiced 
 harangue, his wife, who had been in the back room with 
 the baby, came out and, on seeing her, he seemed suddenly 
 
 81 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 to forget his animosities and the depraved political condi- 
 tion of the country altogether, becoming a placable, easily 
 pleased, domesticated creature at once. 
 
 " Got Nellie to sleep again, have you? " he said, putting 
 his hand on her shoulder. " Well, let's go in and have 
 some music. Come and sing * The Last Eose of Summer.' 
 That's my favourite; it beats all the new-fangled opera 
 things all to pieces." 
 
 He led the way into the parlour, which was a large square 
 room, regarded by Barnesville as the most sumptuous of 
 reception chambers, inasmuch as its floor was covered by a 
 Brussels carpet adorned with exotics of multifarious col- 
 ours, its walls ornamented with massively framed photo- 
 graphs, and its corners fitted up with whatnots and shining 
 hair-cloth seats known in Hamlin County as " tater-tates/' 
 and in that impressive character admired beyond expres- 
 sion. Its crowning glory, however, was the piano, which 
 had belonged to Jenn}^ Eutherford in her boarding-school 
 days, and was the delight of the Judge's heart. It fur- 
 nished him with his most cherished recreation in his 
 hours of repose from political conflict and argument, inas- 
 much as he regarded his wife's performance seldom to be 
 equalled and never surpassed, and the soft, pleasant voice 
 with which she sang " The Last Eose of Summer " and 
 other simple and sentimental melodies as that of a can- 
 tatrice whose renown might have been world-wide if she 
 had chosen to turn her attention to its development. 
 
 " Lord! " he said, throwing himself into one of the shin- 
 ing arm-chairs. " There's nothing like music, nothing un- 
 der the shining sun. *^ Music hath charms to soothe the 
 savage breast.' " 
 
 This in his most sonorous quotation tones: " Let a man 
 
 82 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 get tired or out of sorts, or infernal mad at a pack of 
 cursed fools, and music's the thing that'll set him straight 
 every time, if he's any sort of a fellow. A man that ain't 
 fond of music ain't of any account on God's green earth. I 
 wouldn't trust him beyond a broom-straw. There's a mean 
 streak in a man that don't care for music, sure. Why, the 
 time the Democrats elected Peyton, the only thing that 
 saved me from bursting a blood-vessel was Jenny's play- 
 ino: * Mv Lodfjino^'s on the Cold Ground ' with variations. 
 I guess she played it for two hours hand-running, because 
 "when I found it was sort of soothing me, I didn't want her 
 to break in on the effect by beginning another. Play it 
 for Tom, Jenny, after you've sung awhile. There's one 
 thing I've made up my mind to — if I had fifty girls, I'd 
 have 'em all learn music if they didn't know anything — not 
 the operatic kind, you know, but enough to t^ach them to 
 sing to a man like Jenny does. Go on, Jennj." 
 
 The sustaining and cheering effects of Sophronia's fried 
 chicken and waffles probably added to his comfortable en- 
 joyment, which was without limit. He leaned back in his 
 arm-chair as far as the stiffly ornamented back would admit 
 of his so doing and kept time with his head or his feet, oc- 
 casionally joining in on a chorus with startling suddenness 
 in an evidently subdued roar, which, though subdued, was 
 still roaring enough, and, despite the excellence of its in- 
 tention, quite out of tune enough to cause the wax flowers 
 in their wax basket on the table (both done by Jenny at 
 boarding-school) to shake under the glass shade until they 
 tapped against its side with a delicate tinkle. 
 
 It was while this was going on that Tom, sitting near a 
 side table, picked up a book and almost unconsciously 
 opened it and read its title. Having read its title, an ex- 
 
 83 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 pression of interest showed itself on his countenance and 
 he turned over a leaf or so, and as he turned them over 
 dipped into them here and there. 
 
 He had the book in his hand when Jenny Eutherford 
 ended her last chorus and came towards him. 
 
 " Do you go much by this? " he asked. 
 
 She took it from him and glanced at it. 
 
 "I brought Tom Scott up on it/' she said. "Mother 
 wasn't with me then, and I was such a child I did not know 
 what to do with him." 
 
 " Seems to be a good sort of book/' said Tom, and he 
 turned over the leaves again. 
 
 " It is/' she answered, smiling at him. " There are lots 
 of things in it every doctor don't know. It was written by 
 a woman." 
 
 " That's the reason, I reckon/' said Tom. 
 
 He laid the book down and seemed to forget it, but about 
 an hour after when his bedroom candle was brought and 
 he was on the point of retiring for the night, he turned 
 upon the threshold of the sitting-room and spoke to his 
 hostess in the tone of one suddenly recollecting himself. 
 
 "Where did you say you got that book?" he inquired, 
 snuffing his candle with his thumb and forefinger. 
 
 " I didn't say at all/' answered Jenny. " I got it from 
 Brough & Bros., Baltimore." 
 
 " Oh, there! " he remarked. " Good-night." 
 
 "When he reached his room and shut himself in, he set 
 his candlestick on a table and proceeded to draw from his 
 pocket the memorandum-book, also producing the stump of 
 a lead pencil. 
 
 Then he made as he stood up before the looking-glass 
 and in the flickering light of the candle, an entry which was 
 
 84 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 as follows: "Advice to Young Mothers, Brougli & Bros." 
 He made it with a grave countenance and a business-like 
 manner, and somehow, owing it may be to the small size of 
 the room, its low ceilings and many shadows, or the flicker- 
 ing of the candle, his colossal height and breadth of body 
 and tremendous look of strength had never seemed so 
 marked nor appeared so to overpower the objects surround- 
 ing him. 
 
 Having completed the entry, he shut up the book and re- 
 turned it to his pocket with a relieved air. 
 
 " If a man ain't a young mother," he remarked, " I guess 
 he can get the good of it, if he gives himself time. And 
 what she wants " — rather hurriedly — " is to get as good 
 a start as if she had a young mother." 
 
 And he sat down and pulled off his right boot in so ab- 
 sorbed a frame of mind, that he aroused presently with a 
 start to find that he was holding it as if it had been made 
 of much less tough material and required handling ten- 
 derly. 
 
 85 
 
CHAPTER YIII 
 
 He was on his Tray homeward early the next morning, 
 and by noon his horse had climbed the rising ground from 
 which he could look down on the Cross-roads and the post- 
 office baking itself broT\Ti in the sun. Catching sight of the 
 latter edifice, he smiled a little and shook the bridle against 
 his steed's warm neck. 
 
 " Get along, Jake," he said. " I'm in a little more of a 
 hurry to get home than usual — seems that way anyhow." 
 
 The eagerness he felt was a new experience with him and 
 stirred his sense of humour even while it warmed his al- 
 ways easily moved heart. It had been his wont during the 
 last eight years to return from any absence readily but 
 never eagerly or with any touch of excited pleasure. Even 
 at their brightest aspect, with the added glow of fire and 
 warmth and good cheer, and contrast to winter's cold and 
 appetite sharpened by it, the back rooms had always suf- 
 fered from the disadvantage of offering no prospect of 
 companionship or human interest to him. After the supper 
 had been disposed of and the newspapers read and the pipe 
 smoked, there had only been the fire to watch, and it was 
 quite natural to brood as its blaze died down and its logs 
 changed to a bed of glowing cinders. Under such cir- 
 cumstances it was easy to fall into a habit of brooding too 
 much and thinking of things which had better been for- 
 gotten. When there was no fire, it had been lonelier still, 
 and he had found the time hang heavily on his hands. 
 
 86 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 {( 
 
 But now/' he said, shaking his bridle again, *^ there 
 she is, and it's quite queer, by thunder, how much she 
 seems to give a man to think of and what will it be when 
 she begins to talk." And his smile ended in a jovial laugh 
 which rather startled Jake, who was not expecting it, and 
 caused him to shy promptly. 
 
 She was not asleep when he entered her presence, which 
 was so unusual a state of affairs that he found it a little 
 alarming. 
 
 "Hello!" he exclaimed, "there's nothing wrong, I 
 hope." 
 
 " Wid dat chile ? " chuckled Mornin, delightedly. " I 
 sli'd think not, Mars' D'^yillerby! Dat ar chile's a-thriyin' 
 an' a-comin' 'long jes' like she'd orter. Dar ain't a-gwine 
 to be nothin' wrong wid dat chile." 
 
 " That's a good thing," said Tom. 
 
 He sat down by the cradle's side and regarded its occu- 
 pant with an interest as fresh as if she had just appeared 
 for the first time upon his horizon. She had been imbib- 
 ing a large quantity of milk, and the effect of this nourish- 
 ment had been to at once compose her spirits and slightly 
 enliven them. So she employed the passing moments by 
 looking at Tom with steadfast and solemn eyes — not, per- 
 haps, very intelligently, but still with a vacant air of in- 
 terest in him in his character of an object. 
 
 " Why," he said, " she's grown; she's growTi in thirty- 
 six hours, and she's improved too. Oh, yes! she's earning 
 alono^ nicely." 
 
 He touched her very carefully with his large forefinger, 
 a liberty which she did not resent or even notice, unless the 
 fact that she winked both eyes might be regarded as a token 
 of recognition. 
 
 87 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 (( 
 
 We'll have a box full of things here for her in a couple 
 of weeks/^ he said. " And then she can start out in life — 
 start out in life." 
 
 The last four words seemed to please him; as he repeated 
 them he touched her cheek again, carefully as before. 
 
 " xVnd start out fair, too! " he added. " Fair and square 
 — as fair and square as any of them." 
 
 He remained a little longer in his seat by the cradle, 
 talking to Mornin, asking her questions and delivering mes- 
 sages laden with advice from little Mrs. Eutherford, which 
 instructions Aunt Mornin plainly regarded as superfluous. 
 
 " Xow, Mars' D'AYillerby," she giggled in amiable scorn, 
 " didn't I raise f o' o' my young Mistes's ? Mornin ain't no 
 spring chicken. Dar ain't nuffin 'bout chillun Mornin 
 h'aint heerd. Leeve dis yere chile to Mornin." 
 
 " She ain't going to be left to anyone," said Tom, cheer- 
 fully, " not to the best w^oman in Hamlin County. We've 
 got to make up to her for two or three things, and we're 
 going to do it." 
 
 Having relieved himself of which sentiment, he went to 
 his place at the table and ate a mighty dinner, during his 
 enjoyment of which meal he did not lose interest in his 
 small silent partner at all, but cast proud glances and 
 jocular sallies at her every few mouthfuls, partaking of her, 
 as it were, with his mountain trout, and finding her add 
 flavour and zest to his hot corn-bread and fried ham. 
 
 When he had ended his repast with an astonishing 
 draught of buttermilk, and was ready to go into the store, 
 she had dozed off cosily again and was making the best of 
 her opportunities, so he only paused for a moment to give 
 her a farewell glance. 
 
 Yes," he said, " Felicia — that'll do. When you come 
 
 88 
 
 a 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 to tlie meaning of it, I don't know of anything else tliat'd 
 seem to start her out as fair — Felicia! ^' 
 
 And though he said the word in a whisper it seemed to 
 reach her car in some mysterious way, for she stirred 
 slightly, though not as through any sense of disturbance, 
 opened her eyes upon his big figure and, closing them the 
 next instant, sank into soft sleep again with the faintest 
 dawn or ghost of a baby smile upon her face. 
 
 So, nestling under the patchwork quilt and sleeping the 
 hours away in the small ark stranded in the chimney cor- 
 ner, she began life. 
 
 Felicia was received by Talbot's Cross-roads with some 
 difference of opinion. 
 
 rd rather had Mirandy or Lucrctia," said Mrs. Doty. 
 
 Flishyer ain't nigh as showy as a heap o' other names, 
 V like as not, folks '11 be callin' her F'lish. Now thar's 
 Vangerline 'n' Clementine 'n' Everlyne that'd ha' bin 
 showier then Flishyer." 
 
 " Tom,'' put in Mr. Doty, with his usual enjoyment of 
 his friend's weakness and strength, " Tom he'd a notion 
 'bout it. He said it meant som'n 'bout her a'bein' happy, 
 'n' he 'lowed it'd kinder give her a start in the right direc- 
 tion. It's jes' like Tom. He's full o' notions when he gits 
 started. I'll back him agin any man in Hamlin fur notions 
 when he gits started. Lord! it's jes' Tom all over! " 
 
 Through a disposition to take even names easil}^ and 
 avoid in all cases any unnecessary exertion, Mrs. Doty's 
 pronunciation was adopted at once, which was perhaps the 
 principal reason for a fanciful change being made not long 
 afterwards. 
 
 89 
 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 Against "F'lishyer" Tom rebelled loudly and without 
 ceasing, but without effect. 
 
 The fanciful change came about and was adopted in this 
 wise. In the course of a couple of weeks the box of little 
 garments arrived from Barnesville, accompanied by a 
 warm-hearted note from Jenny Eutherford. 
 
 The unpacking of the box — which was not a large one, 
 though it seemed to contain an astonishing number of 
 things, most of them of great length and elaborateness — 
 was to Tom a singularly exciting event, so exciting that he 
 found himself wondering and not at all sure that he under- 
 stood it. 
 
 When he opened the box — Mornin standing at his side, 
 her charge in her arms — he did it with tremulous fingers, 
 and when, having laid one article after another in a snowy 
 drift upon the bed, he drew back to look at them, he found 
 it necessary after a few moments' inspection to turn about 
 and pace the floor, not uneasily, but to work off steam as 
 it were, while Mornin uttered her ejaculations of rapture. 
 
 " I never seen nuthin' like 'em afore. Mars' D'Willerby," 
 she said with many excitable giggles. " Dis yer chile's 
 a-gwine to take the flo' shore as yo' ba^m! Sich a settin' 
 out as dat is! She'll git ter puttin' on airs afore she's a 
 year ole. We'll hev ter give her a settin' down wunce 'n a 
 while to keep her straight. Mis' Eutherford, she wus boun' 
 to do it up in style, she wus ! " 
 
 Tom took one hand out of his pocket and ruffled his hair 
 with it, and then put it back again. 
 
 " Your young mistresses now," he suggested, ^^ I suppose 
 they are about such things as their mothers made for 
 them." 
 
 " Lordy, dey's a heap finer, Mars' D'Willerby — a heap 
 
 90 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 finer! Dey vras rich folks' chillun, but dey never hed sicE 
 a settin' out as dis yere — not one on 'em/' 
 
 " They didn't ? " said Tom, with secretly repressed exul- 
 tation. " \Yell, if they didn't, I guess she'll do. They are 
 rather nice, I reckon — and I meant they should be. Say, 
 Mornin, suppose you dress her up and let me show her to 
 the boys." 
 
 He himself picked out the sumptuous long-skirted gar- 
 ments she was to wear and watched with the deepest inter- 
 est the rather slow process of her attiring. He was par- 
 ticularly pleased with a wonderfully embroidered white 
 cloak and lace cap, which latter article he abstractedly tied 
 on his great fist and found much too small for it. His tri- 
 umph, when she was given to his arms, he did not attempt 
 to conceal, but carried her into the store with the manner 
 of a large victor bearing his spoils. 
 
 " iSTow look here, boys," he announced, being greeted 
 with the usual laughter and jocular remarks. *' This ain't 
 the style of thing we want. Hand a man a chair." 
 
 His customary support being produced, he seated him- 
 self in it, keeping his charge balanced with a dexterity and 
 ease quite wonderful to behold. 
 
 *' What we want," he proceeded, " is a more respectful 
 tone. Somethins^ in the elaborate chivalric stvle, and we're 
 going to have it. What we want is to come into this es- 
 tablishment feeling that there's no risk of our being scared 
 or upset by any durned fool startling us and setting our 
 delicate machinery wrong. AYe've come here to stay, and 
 we expect to be more familiar with things as we grov>' 
 older, and the thing for us is to start out right without any 
 disagreeable impressions. We don't want to say when we're 
 brought in here — ' Why, here's the place where that fool 
 
 91 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 gave me such a start last week. I wonder if lie's here 
 again? ' What we want is to feel that here's a place that's 
 home, and a place that a person's likely to look forward 
 to coming to with the view to ah — I should say to a high 
 old time of an agreeable description." 
 
 '^ She's a-goin' to be a doggoned purty critter/' said a 
 lounger who sat on a barrel near by. 
 
 " She ain't nuthin' like her mother," said another; 
 " though she wus a purty critter when I seed her." 
 
 He had only seen her in her coffin. 
 
 *' She ain't like her father/' put in another. 
 
 Tom moved in his chair uneasil3^ 
 
 " She won't be like either of them/' he said. " Let that 
 
 go." 
 
 There was a tone in his voice which more than one among 
 
 them had now and again noticed with some slow bewilder- 
 ment during the last few weeks — a tone new to them, but 
 which in time they grew used to^ though they never under- 
 stood its meaning. 
 
 " Kinder/' they used to say, " as ef he wus mad or — 
 ruffed up, though it Avarn't that exactly, either." 
 
 "Black eyes, h'ain't she?" inquired the man on the 
 barrel. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "An har. That's my kind er women, black eyes an' 
 har, and kinder spirity. They've more devil to 'em. 'n' is 
 better able to take care of 'emselves." 
 
 " She's got some one to take care of her," answered Tom. 
 " That's my business." 
 
 " You've got ber mightily fixed up, Tom," remarked Mr. 
 Dot3% who had just entered. " You'll hev all the women 
 in the country flocking up. She sorter makes me think o' 
 the Queen o' Sheby. Sheby, she wus great on fixin'." 
 
 92 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 Every man who entered, seeing lier as she lay in state 
 in Tom's lap, was drawn towards her to stand and wonder 
 at her vaguely. There developed a tendency to form small 
 and rather silent groups about her. Infancy was no novelty 
 in this region of numerous progenies, but the fine softness 
 of raiment and delicate sumptuousness of infancy were. 
 More than one man, having looked at her and wandered 
 away, was unable to resist the temptation to wander back 
 again and finally to settle in some seat or box upon a barrel, 
 that he might the better indulge his curiosity and interest. 
 
 " Ye must hev spent a heap on her, Tom/' was said 
 respectfully again and again. 
 
 TJio fact that " a heap had been spent on her " inspired 
 the audience with a sense of her importance, which 
 amounted to reverence. That she represented an appar- 
 ently unaccountable expenditure, was considered to reflect 
 credit upon her, however vaguely, and to give her a value 
 not to be lightly regarded. To Mr. Doty the idea of the 
 " Queen of Sheby " appeared to recur persistently, all his 
 imaginings of the poetic, the dramatic, and luxurious be- 
 ing drawn from Scriptural sources. 
 
 " I can't think o' nuthin' else but Sheby when I look at 
 her," he remarked several times. " She 'minds me more 
 o' Sheby then anything else 'n Scripter. Minty'll jest hev 
 to come ter see her." 
 
 This boldness of imagery struck a chord in the breast of 
 his hearers which responded at once. It was discovered 
 that more than one of them had been reminded in some 
 indefinite manner of the same distinguished personage. 
 
 " When she was consider'ble younger then in Solomon's 
 time," said one gentleman with much solemnity. 
 
 Tom himself was caught by the fancy and when his 
 
 93 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 charge was referred to occasionally in a most friendly spirit 
 as " Sheby thar/' he made no protest against it. 
 
 *' It's a thimderation sight better than 'Flishyer,' " he 
 said, " and if it comes easier to you fellows, I've no objec- 
 tion. Sheba ain't bad. There's a kind of swing to it, and 
 you can't get it very far wrong. The other's a good name 
 spoiled, and it's a name I've a fancy for saving for her. I 
 gave it to her — I'll save it for her, and it shall be a thing 
 between us two. Call her Sheba if you like." 
 
 So it fell out that Mr. Doty's Oriental imaginings sealed 
 her fate and graduall}^ by a natural process, Felicia was 
 abandoned for Sheba, even Tom using it upon all ordinary 
 occasions. 
 
 Having in this manner begun life, a day rarely passed 
 in which she did not spend an hour or so in the post-office. 
 Each afternoon during the first few months of her existence 
 Tom brought her forth attired in all her broidery, and it 
 was not long before the day came when he began to cherish 
 the fancy that she knew when the time for her visit was 
 near, and enjoyed it when it came. 
 
 " She looks as if she did," he said to Mornin. " She 
 wouldn't go to sleep yesterday after I came into the room, 
 and I'll swear I saw her eyes following me as I walked 
 about; and when I carried her in after she was dressed, she 
 turned her head over her shoulder to look round her and 
 smiled when she had done it and found nothing was miss- 
 ing. Oh! she knows well enough when she gets in there." 
 
 The fancy was a wonderfully pleasant one to him, and 
 when, as time went on, she developed a bright baby habit 
 of noticing all about her, and expressing her pleasure in 
 divers soft little sounds, he was a happier man than he had 
 ever thought to be. His greatest pleasure was the certain 
 
 94 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 knowleclge that she had first noticed himself — that her first 
 greeting had been given to him, tha-t her first conscious 
 caress had been his. She was a loving little creature, show- 
 ing her affection earlier than most children do. Before 
 she could sit upright, she recognised his in-comings and 
 out-goings, and when he took her in his arms to walk to 
 and fro with her, as was his habit at night, she dropped 
 her tiny head upon his shoulders with a soft yielding to 
 his tenderness which never failed to quicken the beatings 
 of his heart. 
 
 " There's something in her face," he used to say to him- 
 self, " something that's not in every child's face. It's a 
 look about her eves and mouth that seems to tell a man that 
 she understands him — whether his spirits are up or down.'* 
 
 But his spirits were not often down in those daj^s. The 
 rooms at the back no longer wore an air of loneliness, and 
 the evenings never hung heavily on his hands. In the 
 course of a few months he sent to Brownsboro for a high 
 chair and tried the experiment of propping his small com- 
 panion up in it at his side when he ate his supper. It was 
 an experiment which succeeded very well and filled him 
 with triumph. From her place in the kitchen Mornin 
 could hear durins: everv meal the sound of conversation 
 of the most animated description. Tom's big, kind voice 
 rambling cheerily and replied to by the soft and unformed 
 murmuring of the child. He was never tired of her, never 
 willing to give her up. 
 
 " \Yhat I might have given to others if they'd cared for 
 it," was his thought, " I give to her and she knows it." 
 
 It seemed too that she did know it, that from her first 
 gleaming of consciousness she had turned to him as her 
 friend, her protector, and her best beloved. "WTien she 
 
 95 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 heard his footsteps, she turned in Mornin's arms, or in her 
 cradle, to look for him, and when she saw his face her whole 
 little body yearned towards him. 
 
 One afternoon when she was about eight months old, he 
 left her at the usual time. Momin, who was working, had 
 spread a big red shawl upon the floor and seated her upon 
 it, and when Tom went out of the room, she sat still play- 
 ing in the quiet way peculiar to her, wath the gay fringe. 
 She gave him a long earnest look as he crossed the thresh- 
 old, a look which he remembered afterwards as having been 
 more thoughtful than usual and which must have repre- 
 sented a large amount of serious speculation mingled with 
 desire. 
 
 Tom went into the store, and proceeded to the perform- 
 ance of his usual duty of entertaining his customers. He 
 was in a jovial mood, and, having a larger number of vis- 
 itors than ordinarily, was kept actively employed in set- 
 tling the political problems of the day and disposing of all 
 public difficulties. 
 
 "What's most wanted at the head of things," he pro- 
 claimed, " is a man that's capable of exerting himself (Mis' 
 Doty, if you choose that calico. Job can cut it off for you!) 
 a man who ain't afraid of work. (Help yourself, Jim!) 
 Lord! w^here'd this post-office be if some men had to en- 
 gineer it — a man wdio would stand at things and loaf in- 
 stead of taking right hold. (For Heaven's sake, Bill, don't 
 hurry! Jake'll give you the tea as soon as he's cut off his 
 wife's dress!) That's the kind of men we want in office 
 now — in every kind of office — in every kind of office. If 
 there's one thing I've no use for on God's green earth, it's 
 a man with no energy. (Nicholson, just kick that box 
 over here so I can get my feet on it!)" 
 
 96 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 He was sitting near the door which connected the back 
 part of the establishment with the front, and it was just 
 at this juncture that there fell upon his ear a familiar sound 
 as of something being dragged over the floor. The next 
 moment he felt his foot touched and then pressed upon by 
 some soft unsteady weight. 
 
 He looked down with a start and saw first a small round 
 face upturned, its dark eyes tired but rejoicing and faith- 
 ful, and then a short white dress much soiled and dusted 
 by being dragged over the bare boards of the two store- 
 rooms. 
 
 His heart gave a leap and all the laughter died out of 
 his face. 
 
 " My God, bo3^s! " he said, as he bent down, " she's fol- 
 lowed me! She's followed me! " 
 
 It was quite true. She had never crawled far beyond 
 the limits of the shawl before, but this morning her longing 
 had given her courage and strength, and she had set out 
 upon her journey in search of him. 
 
 Those about him burst into loud, admiring laughter, but 
 Tom did not laugh at all. He lifted the child to his knee 
 and held her encircled by one arm. She was weary with 
 her exertion and settled at once into an easy sitting posture, 
 her head resting against him while she gazed quietly from 
 under her upcurled lashes at the faces grouped about her. 
 Their laughter did not disturb her now that she had 
 reached her haven of safetv. 
 
 '•' To think of her a-followin' him! " said Mis' Doty, " 'n' 
 her never sot off nowhars afore. The purty little critter! 
 Lord! Tom, she's a-gwine ter be a sight when she's grown 
 — with them eyes and har! An' ter think of her a-slippin' 
 off from Mornin an' makin' up her little mind to follow ye. 
 
 97 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 I've never had a young 'un to try it that early in all I've 
 raised." 
 
 *' Lordy! " said Mr. Doty, " she's as sot on Tom 's he's 
 on her, 'n' ef ever a man wns a doggoned fool about a yonng 
 'un, he is about that'n; 'n' fur bein' a doggoned fool " — 
 triumphantly — " when he sets out ter be, I'll back Tom 
 agin any man in Hamlin." 
 
 Tom said but little. He made no more jokes. He kept 
 the child with him through the rest of the day, holding 
 her upon his knee or carrying her out upon the porch. 
 
 When at supper-time he carried her back to the room, 
 she was asleep and he laid her in her cradle himself. He 
 moved about very quietly afterAvards and ate his supper 
 alone with frequent glances at the sleeper. 
 
 " Don't take her away," he said to Mornin when she 
 came in; " leave her here." 
 
 " 'N' hev her a-wakin' 'n' disturbin' uv ye, Mars' Tom! " 
 she responded. 
 
 " Leave her here," he said, laying his hand on the head 
 of the cradle. " She'll not disturb me. We shall get along 
 finely together." 
 
 She vras left, Mornin taking her departure with manifest 
 disbelief in the practicability of the plan. And then, hav- 
 ing drawn the cradle to his bedside, Tom put out the light 
 and retired himself. 
 
 But he did not sleep for some time; having flung his 
 mighty body upon the couch, he lay with his arms thrown 
 above his head gazing at the darkness and listening to the 
 soft breathing at his side. He was thinking over the one 
 event of the day. 
 
 What might have seemed a slight thing to many men 
 had struck deep into his great heart. 
 
 98 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 <( 
 
 My God! " he said, a touch of reverential tone in his 
 whisper, " to think of her following me! " 
 
 And he stretched out his hand in the darkness and laid 
 it upon the side of the cradle lightly, and afterguards fell 
 asleep. 
 
 99 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 Just at this time, wliich was the year before the Civil 
 "War, that fashionable summer resort, the White Briar 
 Springs, was at its gayest. Earely before had the hotel 
 been filled with so brilliant a company. A few extra cases 
 of yellow fever had been the cause of an unusual exodus 
 from the fever districts, and in consequence the various 
 summer resorts flourished and grew strong. The *MVhite 
 Briar ^' especially exerted and arrayed itself in its most 
 festive garments. The great dining-room was filled to 
 overflowing, the Avaiters were driven to desperation by the 
 demands made upon them as they flew from table to table 
 and endeavoured with laudable zeal to commit to memory 
 fifty orders at once and at the same time to answer 
 *^ Comin', sah '^ to the same number of snajoped fingers. 
 There were belles from Louisiana, beauties from Missis- 
 sippi, and enslavers from Virginia, accompanied by their 
 mothers, their fathers, their troops of younger brothers 
 and sisters, and their black servants. There were nurses 
 and valets and maids of all shades from ebony to cream- 
 colour, and of all varieties of picturesqueness. All day 
 the immense piazzas were crov>^ded with promenaders, 
 sitters, talkers, fancy-workers, servants attired in rainbow 
 hues and apparently enjoying their idleness or their pre- 
 tence at work to the utmost. Every morning parties 
 played ten-pins, rode, strolled, gossipped ; every afternoon 
 the daring few who did not doze away the heated hours in 
 the shaded rooms, flirted in couples under trees on the 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 lawn, or in the woods, or by the creek. Every evening 
 there was to be found ardent youth to dance in the ball- 
 room, and twice a week at least did this same youth, 
 arrayed in robes suited to honour the occasion, disport 
 itself joyfully and with transcendent delight in the pres- 
 ence of its elders assembled in rooms around the walls of 
 the same glittering apartment with the intention of 
 bestowing distinction upon what was known as ^^the 
 hop/^ 
 
 Sometimes, in dull seasons, there was a scarcity of 
 partners upon such occasions ; but this year such was not 
 the case. Aside from the brothers of the belles and beau- 
 ties before referred to, who mustered in full force, there 
 was a reserved corps of cavaliers who, though past the 
 early and crude bloom of their first youth, were still mal- 
 leable material. AVho could desire a more gallant attend- 
 ant than the agile though elderly ]\Iajor Beaufort, who, 
 with a large party of nieces, daughters, and granddaugh- 
 ters, made the tour of the watering-places each succeeding 
 year, pervading the atmosphere of each with the subtle 
 essence of his gallantry and hilariousness ? 
 
 ^'I should be a miserable man, sir,'' proclaimed the 
 Major, chivalrously wpon each succeeding Thursday — " I 
 should be a miserable man in seeing before me such grace 
 and youth and beauty, feeling that I am no longer young, 
 if I did not joossess a heart which will throb for Woman as 
 long as it beats with life.'"' 
 
 Having distinguished himself by which poetic remark, 
 he usually called up a waiter with champagne and glasses, 
 in which beverage he gallantly drank the health of the 
 admiring circle which partook of it with him. 
 
 Attached to the Beaufort party were various lesser lumi- 
 naries, each of whom, it must be confessed, might well, 
 
 101 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 under ordinary circnmstances, have formed the centre of 
 a circle himself ; legal luminaries, social luminaries, po- 
 litical luminaries, each pla3'ing ten-pins and whist, each 
 riding, each showing in all small gallantries, and adding 
 by their presence to the exhilaration of the hour. 
 
 There was one gentleman, however, who, though he was 
 not of the Beaufort party, could still not be considered 
 am-ong the lesser luminaries. He was a planet with an 
 orbit of his own. This gentleman had ridden up to the 
 hotel one afternoon on a fine horse, accompanied by a 
 handsome, gloomy boy on another animal as fine, and fol- 
 lowed by a well-dressed young negro carrying various 
 necessary trappings, and himself mounted in a manner 
 which did no discredit to his owner. The air of the party 
 was such as to occasion some sensation on the front gal- 
 lery, where the greater number of the guests were congre- 
 gated. 
 
 *'0h," cried one of the Beauforts, ''what a distin- 
 guished-looking man. Oh, what a handsome boy ! and 
 what splendid horses." 
 
 At that moment one of the other ladies — a dark, quiet, 
 clever matron from South Carolina — uttered an exclama- 
 tion. 
 
 " Is it possible," she said. *' There is Colonel De Wil- 
 loughby.'"' 
 
 The new arrival reco2:nised her at once and made his 
 way towards her with the most graceful air of ease and 
 pleasure, notwithstanding that it was necessary that he 
 should wind his way dexterously round numerous groups 
 in and out among a dozen chairs. 
 
 He was a strikingly handsome man, dark, aquiline, tall 
 and lithe of figure; his clothes fitted him marvellouslyi 
 well at the waist, his slender arched foot was incased in a 
 
 102 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 marvel of a boot, his black hair was rather long, and his 
 superb eyes gained a mysterious depth and mellowness 
 from the length and darkness of their lashes ; altogether, 
 it was quite natural that for the moment the Beauforts 
 and their satellites should pale somewhat by comparison. 
 
 AVhen he bowed over Mrs. Marvin's hand, a thrill of 
 pleasure made itself manifest in those surrounding them. 
 He spoke in the most melodious of voices. 
 
 ^'The greatest of pleasures,^'' he was heard to say. ''I 
 did not expect this.'' And then, in response to some ques- 
 tion : " My health since — since my loss has been very 
 poor. I hope to recover strength and spirits," with an air 
 of delicate and gentle melancholy. '' May I present my 
 boy — Rupert ? " 
 
 In response to the summons the boy came forward — not 
 awkwardly, or with any embarrassment, but with a bear- 
 ing not at all likely to create a pleasant impression. The 
 guests could see that he was even a handsomer boy than 
 he had seemed at a greater distance. He was very like 
 his father in the matter of aquiline features, clear pale- 
 olive skin and superb dark eyes : his face had even a fine- 
 ness the older man's lacked, but the straight marks of a 
 fixed frown were upon his forehead, and his mouth wore a 
 look which accorded well with the lines. 
 
 He approached and bared his head, making his boyish 
 bow in a manner which did credit to his training, but 
 though he blushed slightly on being addressed, his manner 
 was by no means a responsive one, and he moved away as 
 soon as an opportunity presented itself, leaving his father 
 making himself very fascinating in a gently chivalric way, 
 and establishing himself as a planet by the mere manner of 
 his address toAvards a woman who was neither pretty, young, 
 nor enthusiastic. 
 
 103 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 There was no woman in the hotel so little prone to en- 
 thusiasm as this one. She was old enough and clever 
 enough to have few illusions. It was thought singular 
 that though she admitted she had known the Colonel from 
 his youth, she showed very little partiality for his society, 
 and, indeed, treated liim with marked reserve. She never 
 joined in the choruses of praise which were chanted daily 
 around her. 
 
 '^I know the De Willoughbys very well,^' she said. 
 ''Oh, yes, very well indeed — in a way. We hear a good 
 deal of them. De Coiircy's wife was a friend of mine. 
 This one is De Courcv, the other is Romaine, and there 
 was one who was considered a sort of black sheep and broke 
 with the family altogether. They don^t know where he is 
 and don't care to know, I suppose. They have their own 
 views of the matter. Oh, yes ; I know them very well, in 
 a way.''' 
 
 When questioned by enthusiasts, she was obliged to con- 
 fess that the hero of the hour was bountifully supplied 
 with all outward gifts of nature, was to be envied his 
 charm of manner and the air of romance surrounding him, 
 though, in admitting this, she added a little comment not 
 generally approved of. 
 
 *' It's a little of the Troubadour order," she said ; ''but 
 I dare say no woman would deny that it is rather taking. 
 I don't deny it, it is taking — if you don't go below the sur- 
 face." 
 
 ]N"ever was a man so popular as the Colonel, and never a 
 man so missed as he on the days of his indisj^osition. He 
 had such days when he did not leave his room and his 
 negro was kept busy attending to his wants. The nat- 
 ure of his attacks was not definitely understood, but after 
 them he always appeared wearing an interesting air of 
 
 104 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 languor and melancliolj^ and was more admired tlian 
 ever. 
 
 '^The boy seems to feel it yerymiicli/^ the lady remarked. 
 ''He always looks so uneasy and anxious, and never goes 
 away from the house at all. I suppose they are very fond 
 of each other." 
 
 " I dare say he does feel it very much/" said Mrs. Marvin 
 with her reserved little smile. ''He is De Willoughby 
 enough for that." 
 
 It was not acrreed to that he inherited his father's s^race 
 of manner however. He was a definitely unamiable boy, 
 if one might judge from appearances. He always wore a 
 dark little scowl, as if he Avere either on the point of fall- 
 ing into a secret rage or making his way out of one ; in- 
 stead of allowing himself to be admired and made a pet of, 
 he showed an unnatural preference for prowling around 
 the grounds and galleries alone, sometimes sitting in cor- 
 ners and professing to read, but generally appearing to be 
 meditating resentfully upon his wrongs in a manner which 
 in a less handsome boy would have been decidedly un- 
 pleasant. Even Mrs. Marvin^s advances did not meet with 
 any show of cordiality, though it was allowed that he ap- 
 peared less averse to her society than to that of any other 
 woman, including the half dozen belles and beauties who 
 would have enjoyed his boyish admiration greatly. 
 
 *'I knew your mother," said Mrs. Marvin to him one 
 day as he sat near her upon the gallery. 
 
 "Did you ? " he answered, in a rather encouraging way. 
 " AViien did you know her ? " 
 
 "When she was young. We were girls together. She 
 was a beauty and I wasn\ but we were very fond of each 
 other." 
 
 He gave his closed book a sullen look. 
 
 105 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 '' What makes women break so ? " he asked. *' I don't 
 see why they break so. She had pretty eyes when she 
 died, but, " 
 
 He drew his handsome black brows down and scowled , 
 and, seeing that he was angry at himself for having spoken, 
 Mrs. Marvin made another remark. 
 
 ** You miss her very much ?" she said, gravely. 
 
 He turned his face away. 
 
 '^ She's better off where she is, I suppose," he said. 
 '* That's what they always say of dead peojole." 
 
 And then still frowning he got up and walked away. 
 
 The negro servants about the hotel were all fond of him, 
 though his manner towards them was that of a fiery and 
 enthusiastic young potentate, brooking no delay or inter- 
 ference. His beauty and his high-handed way impressed 
 them as being the belongings of one favoured by fortune 
 and worthy of admiration and respect. 
 
 ''He's a D'VYilloughby out and out," said his father's 
 negro. Tip. ''Ain't no mistake 'bout dat. He's a young 
 devil when his spirit's up, 'n it's easy raised. But he's a 
 powerful gen'lman sort o' boy — powerful. Throw's you a 
 quarter soon's look at ye, 'n he's got the right kind o' high 
 ways — dough der ain't no sayin' he ain't a young devil ; 
 de Kurnel hisself cayn't outcuss him when his spirit's 
 up." 
 
 The Colonel and his son had been at the springs a 
 month, when the fancy-dress ball took place which was 
 the occasion of a very unpleasant episode in the annals of 
 this summer. 
 
 For several days before the greatest excitement had 
 prevailed at the hotel. A pleasant air of mystery had pre- 
 vailed over the preparations that were being made. The 
 rural proprietors of the two stores in which the neigh- 
 
 lOG 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 bonrliood rejoiced were driven to distraction by constant 
 demands made upon tliem for articles and materials of 
 which they had never before heard, and which were not 
 procurable within a hundred miles of the place. Bed- 
 rooms were overflowing with dresses in process of altera- 
 tion from ordinary social aspects to marvellous combina- 
 tions of imagination and ingenuity, while an amiable 
 borrowing and exchanging went on through all the cor- 
 ridors. 
 
 On the day before the ball the Coloners popularity 
 reached its height. As it was the time of a certain local 
 election, there was held upon the grounds a political 
 meeting, giving such individuals as chose to avail them- 
 selves of it the opportunity of expressing their opinions to 
 the assembled guests and the thirty or forty mountaineers 
 who had suddenly and without any warning of previous 
 existence appeared upon the scene. 
 
 The Colonel had been one of the first called upon, and, 
 to the delight of his admirers, he responded at once with 
 the utmost grace to the call. 
 
 When he ascended the little platform with the slow, 
 light step which was numbered among his chief attrac- 
 tions and stood before his audience for a moment looking 
 down at tliem gently and reflectively from under his beau- 
 tiful lashes, a throb of expectation was felt in every tender 
 bosom. 
 
 His speech fell short of no desire, being decided to be 
 simple perfection. His soft voice, his quiet ease of move- 
 ment, his eloquence, were all that could be hoped for from 
 mortal man. He mentioned with high-bred depreciation 
 the fact that he could not fairly call himself a politician 
 unless as any son of the fair South must be one at least at 
 heart, however devoid of the gifts which have made her 
 
 107 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 greatest heard from continent to continent. He was only 
 one of the many who had at stake their cherished institu- 
 tions, the homes they loved, the beloved who brightened 
 those homes, and their own happiness as it was centred in 
 those homes, and irrevocably bound in that of the fairest 
 land upon which the fair sun shone. 
 
 The applause at this juncture was so great as to oblige 
 him to pause for a few moments ; but it was to be re- 
 gretted that nine out of ten of the mountaineers re- 
 mained entirely unresponsive, crossing their jean-covered 
 legs and rubbing their lean and grizzled jaws in a soulless 
 manner. They displayed this apathetic indifference to the 
 most graceful flight of rhetoric, to the most musical ap- 
 peals to the hearts of all men loving freedom, to the 
 announcement that matters had reached a sad and signifi- 
 cant crisis, that the peculiar institutions left as a legacy 
 by their forefathers were threatened by the Northern 
 fanatics, and that in the near future the blood of patriots 
 might be poured forth as a libation upon the soil they loved; 
 to eloquent denunciations of the hirelings and would-be 
 violators of our rights under the constitution. To all these 
 they listened, evidently devoting all their slow energies to 
 the comprehension of it, but they were less moved than 
 might have been expected of men little used to oratory. 
 
 But it was the termination of the speech that stirred all 
 hearts. With a dexterity only to be compared to its easy 
 grace, the orator left the sterner side of the question for a 
 tenderer one to Avhich he had already referred in passing, 
 and which was the side of all political questions which pre- 
 sented themselves to such men as he. Every man, it was to be 
 hoped, knew the meaning of home and love and tenderness 
 in some form, however poor and humble and unpatriotic ; 
 to every man was given a man's privilege of defending the 
 
 108 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 rights and sacredness of this home, this love, with his 
 strength, with his might, with the blood of his beating 
 heart if need be. To a Southern man, as to all men, his 
 right to be first in his own land in ruling, in choosing 
 rulers, in carrying out the laws, meant his right to defend 
 this home and that which was precious to him within it. 
 There were a few before him upon this summer^s day, alas, 
 alas ! that Fate should will it so, who had not somewhere 
 a grave whose grass moved in the softness of the wind over 
 dead loves and hopes cherished even in this hour as naught 
 else was cherished. And these graves " 
 
 He faltered and paused, glancing towards the doorway 
 with a singular expression. For a few seconds he could 
 not go on. He was obliged to raise to his lips the glass of 
 water which had been provided for him. 
 
 *' Oh ! " was sighed softly through the room, ^' his emo- 
 tion has overpowered him. Poor fellow ! how sad he 
 looks." 
 
 Mrs. Marvin simply followed the direction his eyes had 
 taken. She was a practical person. Tlie object her eye 
 met was the figure of the boy who had come in a few minutes 
 before. He was leaning against the doorpost, attired in a 
 cool suit of white linen, his hands in his pockets, the ex- 
 pression of his handsome darkling young face a most curi- 
 ous one. He was staring at his father steadily, his fine 
 eyes wide open holding a spark of inward rage, his nostrils 
 dilated and quivering. He seemed bent upon making the 
 orator meet his glance, but the orator showed no desire to 
 do so. He gave his sole attention to his glass of water. 
 To this clever, elderly Southern matron it was an interest- 
 ing scene. 
 
 '^ If he sprang up in two minutes and threw something 
 deadly and murderous at him," she said to herself, ^'I 
 
 109 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 should not be in the least surprised ; and I should not be 
 the first to blame him/'' 
 
 But the rest of the audience was intent upon the Colo- 
 nel, who, recovering himself, finished his harangue with 
 an appeal that the land made sacred by those loves, those 
 homes, those graves, might be left solely in the hands of 
 the men who loved it best, w4io knew its needs, who yearned 
 for its highest development, and who, when the needful 
 hour arrived, would lay down their lives to save its honour. 
 
 When he concluded, and was on the point of seating him- 
 self very quietly, without any appearance of being conscious 
 of the great sensation he had created, and still wearing an 
 admirable touch of melancholy upon his fine countenance, 
 Major Beaufort rushed towards him, almost upsetting a 
 chair in his eagerness, and grasped his hand and shook it 
 with a congratulatory ardour so impressive and enthusias- 
 tic as to be a sensation in itself. 
 
 There were other speeches afterwards. Fired by the ex- 
 ample of his friend. Major Beaufort distinguished himself 
 by an harangue overflowing with gallantry and adorned 
 throughout with amiable allusions to the greatest power of 
 all, the power of Youth, Beauty, and AVomanhood. The 
 political perspicuity of the address was perhaps somewhat 
 obscured by its being chivalrously pointed towards those fair 
 beings who brighten our existence and lengthen our griefs. 
 Without the Ladies, the speaker found, we maybe politi- 
 cians, but w^e cannot be gentlemen. He discovered (upon 
 the spot, and with a delicate suggestion of pathos) that by 
 a curious coincidence, the Ladies were the men's mothers, 
 their wdves, their sisters, their daughters. This being 
 greatly applauded, he added that over these husbands, these 
 fathers, these brothers — and might be added '^ these lovers" 
 — the Ladies wielded a mighty influence. The position of 
 
 110 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 Woman, even in the darkest ages, had been the position 
 of one whose delicate hand worked the lever of the world ; 
 but to-day, in these more enlightened times, in the age of 
 advancement and discovery, before what great and sublime 
 power did the nobleman, the inventor, the literary man, 
 the warrior, bow, as he bowed before the shrine of the 
 Ladies ? 
 
 But it was the Colonel who bore away the palm and was 
 the hero of the hour. AVhen the audience rose he was 
 surrounded at once by groups of enthusiasts, who shook 
 hands with him, who poured forth libations of praise, 
 who hung upon his every word with rapture. 
 
 ^' How proud of you he must be,^^ said one of the fairest 
 in the group of worshij^pers ; ^^boys of his age feel 
 things so strongly. I wonder why he doesn^t come for- 
 ward and say something to you ? He is too shy, I suppose. ''' 
 
 '' I dare say,^^ said the Colonel with his most fascinating 
 gentle smile. " One must not expect enthusiasm of boys. 
 I have no doubt he thought it a great bore and wondered 
 what I was aiming at.^^ 
 
 '* Impossible," exclaimed the fair enslaver. ''^ Don't do 
 him an injustice. Colonel de Willoughby." 
 
 But as she glanced towards the doorway her voice died 
 down and the expression of her face changed somewhat. 
 The boy — still with his hands in his pockets — was looking 
 on with an air which was as insolent as it was remarkable, 
 an air of youthful scorn and malignant derision which 
 staggered even the enthusiast. 
 
 She turned uneasily to the Colonel, who faintly smiled. 
 
 ^'^He is a handsome fellow," he said, " and I must own 
 to being a vain parent, but he has a demon of a temper 
 and he has been spoiled. He'll get over it when he is 
 older." 
 
 Ill 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 It was a great blow to his admirers when it became 
 known the next morning that the Colonel was suSering 
 from one of his attacks, and even a worse one than nsnal. 
 Isel was shut up in his room with him all day, and it was 
 rumoured that the boy would not come down, but wan- 
 dered up and dov\'n the corridors restlessly, looking mis- 
 erable enough to have touched the stoniest heart. 
 
 During the morning quite a gloom pervaded the at- 
 mosphere ; only the excitement of preparations for the 
 evening could have proved an antidote to the general de- 
 pression. 
 
 It was to be a brilliant occasion. The countv had been 
 scoured for guests, some of whom were to travel in their 
 carriages from other watering-places for twenty or thirty 
 miles. The ball-room had been decorated by a committee 
 of ladies ; the costumes, it was anticipated, would be daz- 
 zling beyond measure. Xo disappointment was felt when 
 the festal hour arrived, but the very keen emotion attend- 
 ant upon the absence of the interesting invalid. 
 
 *' If he had only been well enough to be here,^' it was 
 said, 'Hiow he would have enjoyed it.'" 
 
 Major Beaufort, attired as a Saltan and appropriately 
 surrounded by his harem in sarsenet trousers and spangled 
 veils, gave universal satisfaction. Minnehaha in feathers 
 and moccasins, and Hiawatha in moccasins and feathers, 
 gave a touch of mild poetry to the evening. Sisters of 
 Charity in white cambric caps told their beads through 
 the mazes of the lancers. Xight and Morning, attired 
 respectively in black and white tarletan, and both pro- 
 fusely adorned with silver paper stars, combined their 
 forces to add romance and vividness to the festive scene. 
 
 There had been dancing and flirtation, upon which those 
 of the guests who did not join gazed for an hour or so as 
 
 113 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 they sat in tlie chairs arranged around the walls, doubtless 
 enjoying themselves intensely, and the gaiety was at its 
 height, when some commotion became manifest at one of 
 the doors. Those grouped about it appeared to be star- 
 tled at finding something or somebody behind them, and 
 almost immediately it was seen that this something or 
 somebody was bent upon crowding joast them. A loud, 
 insane-soundiug laugh was heard. The dancers stopped 
 and turned towards it with one accord, their alarm and 
 astonishment depicted on their faces. The spectators 
 bent forward in their seats. 
 
 ^' What is it ? '' was the general exclamation. '^ Oh! Oh !'' 
 
 This last interjection took the form of a chorus as two 
 of the group at the doorway were j)nshed headlong into 
 the room, and a tall, unsteady, half-dressed figure made its 
 violent entrance. 
 
 At the first glance it was not easy to recognize it ; it was 
 simply the figure of a very tall man in an ungirt costume, 
 composed of shirt and pantaloons. He was crushed and 
 dishevelled. His hair hung over his forehead. He strode 
 into the middle of the quadrille, and stood with his hands 
 in his pockets, swaying to and fro, with a stare at once 
 malicious and vacant. 
 
 ^^Oh,"*^ he remarked, sardonically, as he took in his sur- 
 roundinfTfs, and then evervone recoojnized at once that it 
 was Colonel De AYilloughby, and that Colonel De AVil- 
 loughby was mad drunk. 
 
 He caught sight of Major Beaufort, and staggered 
 towards him with another frantic laugh. 
 
 ^*^Good God, Major,'' he cried ; "■ how becomin' 'tis, how 
 damned becomin'. Harem an' all. Only trouble is you're 
 too fat — too fat ; if vou weren't so fat wouldn't look such 
 a damned fool." 
 
 113 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 It was to "be regretted there was no longer an air of refine- 
 ment about his intoxication, no suggestion of melancholy 
 grace, no ghost of his usual high-bred suavity ; with his 
 laugh and stare and unsteady legs he was simply a more 
 drunken lunatic than one generally sees. 
 
 There was a rush at him from all sides — Major Beaufort, 
 in his Turkish trousers, being the first to fall upon him 
 and have his turban stamped upon in the encounter. He 
 was borne across the room, shouting and struggling and 
 indulging in profanity of the most frightful kind. Just 
 as they got him to the door his black boy Neb appeared, 
 looking ashen with fright. 
 
 '' De Lord 0"* massev/^ he cried. '^I ain't lef him 
 more'n a minit. He sent me down hisself. One 0' his 
 cunnin' ways to get rid 0' me when he's at de Avust. Opium 
 'n whiskey, dats what gets him dis way. Bof togedder 
 agwine ter kill liim some dese days, 'n de opium am de 
 wustest. For de Lord's sake some o' you gen'men cum 'n 
 hep me till I git him quieted down." 
 
 It was all over in a few moments, but the effort made 
 to return to hilariousness was a failure ; the shock to the 
 majority of the gay throng had been great. Mrs. Marvin, 
 sitting in her special corner, was besieged with questions, 
 and at length was prevailed upon through the force of 
 circumstances to speak the truth as she knew it. 
 
 " Has he ever done it before ?" she said. '^ Yes, he has 
 done it before — he has done it a dozen times since he has 
 been here, only to-night he was madder than usual and got 
 away from his servant. What is it ? It is opium when it 
 isn't whiskey, and whiskey when it isn't opium, and 
 oftenest it is both together. He is the worst of a bad lot, 
 a'nd if you haven't understood that miserable angry boy 
 before you may understand him now. His mother died 
 
 114 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 of a broken heart when he was twelve years old, and he 
 watched her die of it and knew what killed her, and is 
 proud enough to feel the shame that rests upon him. 
 That's as much as I care to say, and yet it isn't the half/' 
 
 When those bearing the Colonel to his room turned into 
 the corridor leading to it they encountered his son, who 
 met them with a white-lipped rage, startling to every man 
 of them in its incongruous contrast to the boyish face and 
 figure. 
 
 **What?" he said, panting. '^You've got him, have 
 
 you?" 
 
 *' Yes," responded the Colonel hilariously ; '^ \e got me 
 safe 'nuff ; pick me up ad' car' me. If man won't go out, 
 tote 'm out." 
 
 They carried him into his rooms and laid him down, and 
 more than one among them turned curiously to the boy as 
 he stood near the bed looking down at the dishevelled, 
 incoherent, gibbering object upon it. 
 
 "Damn him," he said in a sudden outburst; "damn 
 him." 
 
 "Hello, youngster," said one of the party, "that's not 
 the thing exactly." 
 
 " Go to the devil," roared the lad, livid with wrath and 
 shame. " Do you think I'll not say what I please ? A 
 nice one he is for a fellow to have for a father — to be tied 
 to and dragged about by — drinking himself mad and dis- 
 gracing himself after his palaver and sentiment and play- 
 ing the gentleman. He ought to be a gentleman — he's got 
 a gentleman's name, and " — choking a little — " all the rest 
 of it. I hate him ! He makes me sick. I wish he was 
 dead. He's a liar and a bully and a fool. I'd kill him if 
 he wasn't my father. I should like to kill him for leing 
 my father I " 
 
 115 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 Suddenly his voice faltered and liis face turned white. 
 He walked to the other side of the room, turning his back 
 to them all, and, flinging himself into a chair, dropped his 
 curlv head on his arm on the window-sill and sobbed aloud 
 with a weakness and broken-down fury pitiful to see. 
 
 The Colonel burst into a frantic shriek of laughter. 
 
 '' Queer little devil," he said. '' Prou' lit'l devil I Like's 
 nioth' — don' like it. Moth' used er cry. She didn't like it." 
 
 116 
 
CHAPTEE X 
 
 As the Cross-roads had regarded Tom as a piece of 
 personal property to be proud of, so it fell into the habit 
 of regarding his protegee. The romance of her history 
 was considered to confer distinction upon the vicinity, and 
 Tom^s affection for her was approved of as a sentiment 
 worthy of the largeness of the Cross-roads nature. 
 
 " They kinder set one anuther off/^ it was frequently 
 remarked, " her a-bein' so little and him so big, an^ both 
 of 'em stickin^ to each other so clost. Lordy ! ^tain^t no 
 use a-tryin^ to part 'em. Sheby, she ain't a-goin' nowhar 
 ^thout Tom, an' Tom, he h'aint a-goin' nowhars 'thout 
 Sheby ! " 
 
 AVhen the child was five years old the changes which 
 had taken place in the store were followed by still greater 
 changes in the house. Uji to lier fifth birthday the expe- 
 riences had balanced themselves between the store and 
 the three back rooms Avith tlieir bare floors and rough 
 walls. She had had her corner, her small chair behind 
 the counter or near the stove, and there she had amused 
 herself Avitli her playthings through long or short days, 
 and in the evening Tom had taken her upon his shoulder 
 and carried her bacl\: to the house, as it was called, leaving 
 his careless, roystering gaiety behind him locked up in 
 the store, ready to bo resumed for the edification of his 
 customers the next morning. 
 
 '^He don't hev no pore folkses ways wid dat chile," said 
 Mornin once to Mrs. Doty ; 'Mie don't never speak to her 
 
 117 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 no other then gentleman way. He's a-raisin' her to be 
 fitten fur de highes\ He's mighty keerful oh her way ob 
 speakin' an' settin' to de table. Mornin's got to stand 
 'hind her cheer an' wait on her hersel' ; an' sence she was 
 big 'nuii to set dar, she's had a silver fork an' spoon 
 an' napkin-ring same's de President himself. Ah ; he's 
 a-raisin' her keerful, is Mars D'Willerby." 
 
 ^^Waal," said Mrs. Doty, '^ ef 'twarn't Tom D'Willerby, 
 I shed say it was a puttin' on airs ; but thar ain't no airs 
 'bout Tom D'Willerby." 
 
 From the first Mr. Stamps's interest in Tom's protegee 
 had been unfailing though quiet. When he came into 
 the store, which he did some three times a week, it was 
 his habit to fix his small, pale eyes upon her and follow 
 her movements stealthily but with unflagging watchful- 
 ness. Occasionally this occupation so absorbed him that 
 when she moved to her small corner behind the counter, 
 vaguely oppressed by his surveillance, he sauntered across 
 the room and took his seat upon the counter itself, per- 
 sisting in his mild, furtive gaze, until it became too much 
 for her and she sought refuge at Tom's knee. 
 
 ^' He looks at me," she burst out distressedly on one 
 such day. ^' Don't let him look at me." 
 
 Tom gave a start and turned round, and Mr. Stamps 
 gave a start also, at once mildly recovering himself. 
 
 ^^ Leave her alone," said Tom, *^* what are you lookin' 
 at her for ? " 
 
 Mr. Stamps smiled. 
 
 '' Thar's no law agin it, Tom," he replied. '' An' she's 
 wuth a lookin' at. She's that kind, an' it'll grow on her. 
 Ten year from now thar ain't no law es 'ed keep 'em 
 from lookin' at her, 'thout it was made an' passed in Con- 
 grigt. She'll hev to git reckonciled to a-bein' looked at." 
 
 118 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 *' Leave her alone," repeated Tom, quite fiercely. '* FlI 
 not have her troubled." 
 
 " I didn't go to trouble her, Tom," said Mr. Stamps, 
 softly ; and he slipped down from the counter and sidled 
 out of the store and went home. 
 
 With Mr. Stamps Sheba always connected her first 
 knowledge of the fact that her protector's temper could 
 be disturbed. She had never seen him angry until she 
 saw Mr. Stamps rouse him to wrath on the eventful fifth 
 birthday, from which the first exciting events of her life 
 dated themselves. Up to that time she had seen only in 
 his great strength and broad build a power to protect and 
 shield her own fragility and sraallness from harm or fear. 
 When he took her in his huge arms and held her at what 
 seemed to be an incredible height from the ordinary plat- 
 form of existence, she had onlv felt the cautious tender- 
 ness of his touch and recognised her own safety, and it 
 had never occurred to her that his tremendous voice, 
 which was so strong and deep by nature, that it might 
 have been a terrible one if he had chosen to make it so, 
 could express any other feeling than kindliness in its 
 cheery roar. 
 
 But on this fifth birthday Tom presented himself to her 
 childish mind in a new light. 
 
 She had awakened early to find him standing at her 
 small bedside and a new doll lying in her arms. It was a 
 bigger doll than she had ever owned before, and so gaily 
 dressed, that in her first rapture her breath quite forsook 
 her. When she recovered it, she scrambled up, holding 
 her new possession in one arm and clung with the other 
 around Tom's neck. 
 
 " Oh, the lovely, lovely doll ! " she cried, and then hid 
 her face on his shoulder. 
 
 119 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 '' Hallo," said Tom, liugging her, ^' what is she hiding 
 her eyes for ? " 
 
 She nestled closer to him witli a little sob of loving de- 
 light. 
 
 '^Because — because of the doll," she answered, be- 
 wiklered by her own little demonstration and yet perfect 
 in lier confidence that he would understand her. 
 
 "Well," said Tom, cheerfully, ''that's a queer thing, 
 ain't it ? Look here, did you know it was your birthday ? 
 Pive years old to-day — think of that." 
 
 He sat down and settled her in her usual place on his 
 knee, her doll in her arms. 
 
 " To think," he said, '^ of her setting up a birthday on 
 purpose to be five years old and have a doll given her. 
 That's a nice business, ain't it ? " 
 
 After they had breakfasted together in state, the doll 
 was carried into the store to be played with there. It was 
 a wet day, and, the air being chilled by a heavy mountain 
 rain, a small fire was burning in the stove, and by this fire 
 the two settled themselves to enjoy the morning together, 
 the weather precluding the possibility of their being dis- 
 turbed by many customers. But in the height of their 
 quiet enjoyment they were broken in upon by the sound 
 of horse's hoofs splashing in the mud outside and Mr. 
 Stamps's hat appeared above the window-sill. 
 
 It was Sheba who saw it first, and in the strength of her 
 desire to avoid the wearer, she formed a desperate plan. 
 She rose so quietly that Tom, who was reading a paper, 
 did not hear her, and, having risen, drew her small chair 
 behind the counter in the hope that, finding her place 
 vacant, the visitor would not suspect her presence. 
 
 In this she was not disappointed. Having brushed the 
 mud from his feet on the porch, Mr. Stamps appeared at 
 
 120 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 the doorwa}^, and, after liis usual precautionary glance 
 about him, made his way to the stove. His manner was at 
 once propitiatory and friendly. He drew up a chair and 
 put his wet feet on the stove, where they kept up a com- 
 fortable hissing sound as they dried. 
 
 " Howdy, Tom,^' he said, ^' howdy ? '^ And from her 
 hiding-place Sheba saw liini rubbing his legs from the 
 knee downwards as he said it, witli an air of solid enjoy- 
 ment which suggested that he was congratulating himself 
 upon something he had in his mind. 
 
 ^' Morning '^ responded Tom. 
 
 Mr. Stamps rubbed his legs again quite luxuriously. 
 
 "You're a lookin' well, Tom," he remarked. *^^Lord, 
 yes, ye're a lookin' powerful well.'' 
 
 Tom laid his paper down and folded it on his knee. 
 
 "Lookin' well, am I?" he answered. ''Well, Fm a 
 delicate weakly sort of fellow in general, I am, and it's 
 encouraging to hear that I'm looking well." 
 
 Mr. Stamps laughed rather spasmodically. 
 
 " I wouldn't be agin bein' the same kind o' weakly my- 
 self," he said, " nor the same kind o' delycate. You're a 
 powerfle hansum man, Tom." 
 
 ''Yes," replied Tom, drily, "I'm a handsome man. 
 That's what carried me along this far. It's what I've al- 
 ways had to rely on — that and a knock-down intellect." 
 
 Mr. Stamps rubbed his legs with his air of luxury again. 
 
 " Folks is fond o' sayin' beauty ain't but skin deep," he 
 said ; "but I wouldn't hev it no deeper myself — bein' so 
 that it kivers. An', talkin' o' beauty, she's one — Lord, 
 yes. She's one." 
 
 " Look here," said Tom, "leave her alone." 
 
 " 'Tain't a gwine to harm her, Tom," replied Mr. 
 Stamps, "'tain't a gwine to harm her none. What made 
 
 121 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 me think of it was it a bein' jest five years since she was 
 born — a niakin' it her birthday an^ her jest five years old/^ 
 
 *' What/^ cried Tom, '^ you've been counting it up, 
 have you ? " 
 
 " No/'' replied Mr. Stamps, with true modesty of de- 
 meanour, " I ain't ben a countin' of it up, Tom/^ And 
 he drew a dirty memorandum book softly from his pocket. 
 ** I set it down at the time es it happened/' 
 
 He laid the dirty book on his knee and turned over its 
 pages carefully as if looking for some note. 
 
 "I ain't much on readin' an' writin'," he said, "an' 
 'rithmetick it goes kinder hard with me now an' agin, but 
 a man's got to know suthin' on 'em if he 'lows to keep 
 anyways even. I 'low to keep even, sorter, an' I've give a 
 good deal o' time to steddyin' of 'em. I never went to no 
 school, but I've sot things down es I want to remember, 
 an' I kin count out money. I never was imposed on none 
 I rekin, an' I never lost nothin'. Yere's whar I sot it 
 down about her a-bein' born an' the woman a-dyin' an' him 
 a-gwine away. Ye cayn't read it, mebbe." He bent for- 
 ward, pointing to the open page and looking up at Tom as 
 if he expected him to be interested. " Thar it is/' he 
 added in his thin, piping, little voice, ''even to the time 
 o' day. Mornin, she told me that. 'Bout three o'clock in 
 the mornin' in thet thar little front room. Ef anyone shed 
 ever want to know particular, thar it is." 
 
 The look in Tom's face was far from being a calm one. 
 He fidgetted in his chair and finally rolled his paper into a 
 hard wad and threw it at the counter as if it had been a 
 missile. 
 
 " See here," he exclaimed, '' take my advice and let that 
 alone." 
 
 Mr. Stamps regarded his dirty book affectionately. 
 
 122 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 '^ 'Tain^t a-gwine to hurt notliin^ to hev it down," he 
 replied, with an air of simplicity. 
 
 He shut it up, returned it to his pocket, and clasped his 
 hands about his knees, while he fixed his eves on the 
 glimmer of red showing itself through a crack in a stove- 
 plate. . 
 
 ^' It's kinder curias I should hey happened along by thar 
 this morninV'' he remarked, reflectively. 
 
 '^By where ?'' demanded Tom. 
 
 Mr. Stamps hugged his knees as if he enjoyed their com- 
 panionship. 
 
 ^' By thar," he responded, cheerfully, '^ the Holler, Tom. 
 An' it 'peared to me it 'ed be kinder int'restin' to take a 
 look through, bein' as this was the day as the thing kinder 
 started. So I hitched my mule an' went in." He paused 
 a moment as if to enjoy his knees again. 
 
 'MYell," said Tom. 
 
 Mr. Stamps looked up at him harmlessly. '^ Eh ? " he 
 enquired. 
 
 *'I said ' well,'" answered Tom, ^'that's what I said." 
 
 ** Oh," replied Mr. Stamps. ^' Waal, thar wasn't nothin' 
 thar, Tom." 
 
 For the moment Tom's expression was one of relief. 
 But he said nothing. 
 
 ^' Thar wasn't nothin' thar," Mr. Stamps continued. 
 Then occurred another pause. '^ISTothin'," he added after 
 it, ^* nothin' particular." 
 
 The tenderness with which he embraced his knees at this 
 juncture had something like fascination in it. 
 
 Tom found himself fixing a serious gaze upon his clasp- 
 
 ing arms. 
 
 " I kinder looked round," he proceeded, ^^ an' if there'd 
 ben anythin' thar I 'low I'd hev seed it. But thar wasn't 
 
 123 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 notbin', nothin' but tbe empty rooms an' a dead leaf or so 
 es bed blowed in tbrongb a broken winder, an' tbe pile o' 
 asbes in tbe fireplace beat down witb tbe rain as bed 
 fell down tbe cbimney. Migbty lonesome an' still tbem 
 asbes looked ; an' tbar wasn't notbin' but tbem an' tbe 
 leaves, an' a bit of a' envelope." 
 
 Tom moved bis cbair back. Sbeba tbongbt be was 
 going to got np suddenly. But be remained seated, 
 perbaps because Mr. Stamps began again. 
 
 "Tbar wasn't notbin' but tbem an' tbe bit of a 
 envelope," be remarked. "It was a-sticken in a crack o' 
 tbe bouse, low down, like it bed ben swep' or blowed tbar 
 an' overlooked. I sbouldn't bev seed it" — modestly — "ef 
 I bed n't ben a-goin' round on my bands an' knees." 
 
 Tben Tom rose very suddenly indeed, so suddenly tbat 
 he knocked bis cbair over and amazed Sbeba by kicking it 
 violently across tbe store. For tbe moment be so far forgot 
 bimself as to be possessed witb some idea of falling upon 
 Mr. Stamps witb tbe intent to do bim bodily injury. He 
 seized bim by tbe sboulders and turned bim about so tbat 
 he had an excellent view of bis unprepossessing back. 
 AYbat Mr. Stamps thought it would have been difficult to 
 discover. Sbeba fancied tbat when he opened his mouth 
 he was going to utter a cry of terror. But he did not. 
 He turned bis neck about as well as he could under tbe 
 circumstances, and looking up into Tom's face meekly 
 smiled. 
 
 " Tom," he said, "5^6 ain't a-gwine ter do a thing to me, 
 not a dern thing." 
 
 "Yes, I am," cried Tom, furiously, "I'm goin' to 
 kick ^" 
 
 " Ef ye was jest haaf to let drive at me, ye'd break my 
 neck," said Mr. Stamps, "an ye ain't a-gwine ter do it. 
 
 124 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 Ef ye was, Tom, ye'd be a bigger fool than I took ye fer. 
 Lemme go." 
 
 He looked so diminutive and weak-eyed, as he made 
 these remarks, that it was no wonder Tom released him 
 helplessly, though he was obliged to thrust his hands deep 
 into his pockets and keep them under control. 
 
 '^I thought I'd given you one lesson,'^ he burst forth ; 
 '' I thought '' 
 
 Mr. Stamps interrupted him, continuing to argue his 
 side of the question, evidently feeling it well wortli his 
 while to dispose of it on the spot. 
 
 ^' Ye weigh three hundred, Tom,""^ he said, ^' ef ye weigh 
 a 23ound, an^ I don't weigh but ninety, 'n ye couldn^t handle 
 me keerful enuf not to leave me in a fix as wouldn't be no 
 credit to ye when ye was done ; 'n it 'ed look kinder bad 
 for ye to meddle with me, anyhow. An' tlie madder ye 
 get, the more particular ye'll be not to. Thar's whar ye 
 are, Tom ; an' I ain't sich a fool as not to know it." 
 
 His perfect confidence in the strength of his position, 
 and in Tom's helplessness against it, was a thing to be 
 remembered. Tom remembered it long afterwards, though 
 at the moment it only roused him to greater heat. 
 
 "Now then," he demanded, "let's hear what you're 
 driving at. What I want to know is what you're driving 
 at. Let's hear." 
 
 Mr. Stamps's pale eyes fixed themselves with interest on 
 his angry face. He had seated himself in his chair again, 
 and he watched Tom closely as he rambled on in his simple, 
 uncomplaining way. 
 
 " Ye're fond o' laughin' at me round yere at the store, 
 Tom," he remiarked, " an' I ain't agin it. A man don't 
 make nothin' much by bein' laughed at, I rekin, but he 
 don't lose nothin' nuther, an' that's what I am agin. I 
 
 125 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 rekin ye laugli 'cos I kinder look like a fool — an' I hain't 
 nothin' agin thet, nutlier. Lord ! not by a heap. A man 
 ain't a-gwine to lose nothin' by lookin' like a fool. I hain't 
 never, not a cent, Tom. But I ain't esbig a fool esl look, 
 an' I don't 'low ye air, uther. Thar's whar I argy from. 
 Ye ain't es big a fool as ye look, an' ye'd be in a bad fix ef 
 ye was." 
 
 *' Go on," ordered Tom, *' and leave me out." 
 
 *'I cayn't leave ye out, Tom," said Mr. Stamps, " f er 
 ye're in. Ye'd be as big a fool as ye look ef ye was doin' 
 all this yere fer nothin'." 
 
 *^ All what ?" demanded Tom. 
 
 ^' Gals," suggested Mr. Stamps, '^ is plenty. An' ef 
 ye take to raisin' 'em as this un's ben raised, ye ain't 
 makin' much ; an' ef thar ain't nothin' to be made, Tom, 
 what's ver aim ? " 
 
 He put it as if it w^as a conundrum without an an- 
 swer. 
 
 " AVhat's yer aim, Tom ? " he repeated, pleasantly, " ef 
 thar ain't nothin' to be made ? " 
 
 Tom's honest face flamed into red w^hich was almost 
 purple, the veins swelled on his forehead, his indignation 
 almost deprived him of his breath. He fell into a chair 
 with a concussion which shook the building. 
 
 ''Good — good Lord ! " he exclaimed; ''how I wish you 
 weighed five hundred pounds." 
 
 It is quite certain that if Stamps had, he would have de- 
 molished him utterly upon the spot, leaving him in such a 
 condition that his remains would hardly have been a source 
 of consolation to his friends. He pointed to the door. 
 
 " If you want to get out," he said, "start. This is get- 
 ting the better of me — and if it does " 
 
 Mr. Stamps rose. 
 
 126 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 *' Ye wouldn't do a dern thing, Tom," he said, peaceably, 
 "not a dern thing." 
 
 He sidled towards the door, and reaching it, paused to 
 reflect, shaking his head. 
 
 '^ Ef thar ain't nothin' to be made," he said, '' ye'v got 
 ter hev a aim, an' what is it ? " 
 
 Observing that Tom made a move in his chair, he slipped 
 through the doorway rather hurriedly. Sheba thought he 
 was gone, but a moment later the door re-opened and he 
 thrust his head in and spoke, not intrusively — simply as if 
 offering a suggestion which might prove of interest. 
 
 " It begun with a * L,' " he said ; *^ thar was a name on 
 it, and it begun with a ^ L \" 
 
 127 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 It wsls npon the evening after this interview with Mr. 
 Stamps that Tom broached to his young companion a 
 plan which had lain half developed in his mind for some 
 time. 
 
 They had gone into the back room and eaten together 
 the sujiper Mornin had prepared with some extra elabora- 
 tion to do honour to the day, and then Sheba had played 
 with her doll Lucinda while Tom looked on, somewhat 
 neglecting his newspaper and pipe in his interest in her 
 small 2:)retence of maternity. 
 
 At last, when she had put Lucinda to sleep in the 
 wooden cradle which had been her own, he called her to 
 him. 
 
 *' Come here/^ he said, ^' I want to ask you a question.^' 
 
 She came readily and stood at his knee, laying her 
 hands upon it and looking up at him, as she had had a 
 habit of doing ever since she first stood alone. 
 
 " How would you like some new rooms ? '" he said, sug- 
 gestively. 
 
 '^Like these?'' she answered, a pretty wonder in her 
 eyes. 
 
 " No,^"* said Tom, *^ not like these — bigger and brighter 
 and prettier. With flowers on the walls and flowers on the 
 carpets, and all the rest to match.'' 
 
 He had mentioned this bold idea to Molly Hollister the 
 day before, and slie had shown such pleasure in it, that he 
 had been quite elated. 
 
 138 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 '^It's not that I need anything different/' he had said, 
 '*but the roughness and bareness don't seem to suit her. 
 I've thought it often when I've seen her running about/" 
 
 " Seems like thar ain't nothin' you don't think of, Tom," 
 said Molly, admiringly. 
 
 " AVell,''' he admitted, ^' I think about her a good deal, 
 that's a fact. She seems to have given me a kind of imag- 
 ination. I used to think I hadn't any." 
 
 He had imagination enough to recognise at the present 
 moment in the child's uplifted face some wistful thought 
 she did not know how to express, and he responded to it 
 by speaking again. 
 
 *' They'll be prettier rooms than these,'" he said. " What 
 do you say ? '" 
 
 Her glance wandered across the hearth to where the cradle 
 stood in the corner with Lucinda in it. Then she looked 
 up at him again. 
 
 ** Prettier than this," she repeated, "with flowers. But 
 don't take this away." The feeling which stirred her 
 flushed her childish cheek and made her breath come and 
 go faster. She drew still nearer to him. 
 
 ^' Don't take this away," she repeated, and laid her hand 
 on his. 
 
 " Why ? " asked Tom, giving her a curious look. 
 
 She met the look helplessly. She could not have put 
 her vague thought into words. 
 
 " Don't — don't take it away," she said again, and sud- 
 denly laid her face upon his great open palm. 
 
 For a minute or two there was silence. Tom sat very 
 still and looked at the fire. 
 
 *'^o," he said at length, '^ we won't take it away." 
 
 In a few days, however, it was w^ll known for at least 
 fifteen miles around the Cross-roads that Tom D'Willerby 
 
 129 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 was going to build a new house, and that it was going to be 
 fitted up with great splendour with furniture purchased at 
 Brownsboro. 
 
 *' Store carpetin' on every floor an^ paper on every wall/' 
 said Dave llollister to Molly when he went home after 
 hearing the news. '^An' Sheby^s a-goin' with him to 
 choose "em. He says he'll bet fifty dollars she has her 
 notions about things, an' he's a-goin to hev "em carried 
 out, fer it's all fer her, an' she's the one to be pleased." 
 
 It was not many weeks before the rooms were so near 
 completion that the journey to Brownsboro was made, and 
 it was upon this day of her first journeying out into the 
 world that Sheba met with her first adventure. She re- 
 membered long afterwards the fresh brightness of the early 
 morning when she was lifted into the buggy which stood 
 before the door, while Mornin ran to and fro in the agree- 
 able bustle attendant upon forgetting important articles 
 and being reminded of them by shocks. AVhen Tom 
 climbed into his seat and they drove away, the store-porch 
 seemed quite crowded with those who watched their tri- 
 umphant departure. Sheba looked back and saw Mornin 
 showing her teeth and panting for breath, while Molly 
 llollister waved the last baby's sun-bonnet, holding its 
 denuded owner in her arms. The drive was a long one, 
 but the travellers enjoyed it from first to last. Tom found 
 his companion's conversation quite sufiicient entertainment 
 to while away the time, and when at intervals she refreshed 
 herself from Mornin's basket and fell asleep, he enjoyed 
 driving along quietly while he held her small, peacefully 
 relaxed body on his knee, quite as much as another man 
 might have enjoyed a much more exciting occupation. 
 
 '' There's an amount of comfort in it," he said, reflec- 
 tively, as the horse plodded along on the shady side of the 
 
 130 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 road, '^ an amount of comfort that's astonishing. I don't 
 know, but I'd like to have her come to a standstill just 
 about now and never grow any older or bigger. But I 
 thought tlie same thing three years ago, that's a fact. 
 And when she gets to blooming out and enjoying her 
 bits of girl finery there'll be pleasure in that too, plenty 
 of it." 
 
 She awakened from one of these light sleeps just as 
 they were entering Brownsboro, and her delight and awe 
 at the dimensions and business aspect of the place pleased 
 Tom greatly, and was the cause of his appearing a perfect 
 mine of reliable information on the subject of large towns 
 and the habits of persons residing in them. 
 
 Brownsboro contained at least six or seven hundred 
 inhabitants, and, as Court was being held, there were a 
 good many horses to be seen tied to the hitching-posts ; 
 groups of men were sitting before the stores and on the 
 sidewalks, Avhile something which might almost have 
 been called a crowd was gathered before the Court-house 
 itself. 
 
 Sheba turned her attention to the tavern they were 
 approaching with a view to spending the night, and her 
 first glance alighted upon an object of interest. 
 
 '' There's a big boy," she said. " He looks tired." 
 
 He was not such a very big boy, though he was perhaps 
 fourteen years old and tall of his age. He stood upon the 
 plank-walk which ran at the front of the house, and 
 leaned against the porch with his hands in his pockets. 
 He was a slender, lithe boy, well dressed in a suit of fine 
 white linen. He had a dark, spirited face, and long- 
 lashed dark eyes, but, notwithstanding these advantages, 
 he looked far from amiable as he stood lounging discon- 
 tentedly and knitting his brows in the sun. 
 
 131 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 But Slieba admired him greatly and bent forward that 
 she miglit see him better, regarding him with deep interest. 
 
 '* He's a pretty boy/' she said, softly, *^I — I like him/^ 
 
 Tom scarcely heard her. He Avas looking at the boy 
 himself, and his face wore a troubled and bewildered ex- 
 pression. His gaze was so steady that at length the object 
 of it felt its magnetic influence and lifted his eyes. That 
 his general air of discontent did not belie him, and that 
 lie was by no means an amiable boy, was at once proved. 
 He did not bear the scrutiny patienth', his face darkened 
 still more, and he scowled without any pretence of con- 
 cealing the fact. 
 
 Tom turned away uneasily. 
 
 '* He'd be a handsome fellow if he hadn't such an evil 
 look," he said. ^'I must have seen him before ; I wonder 
 who he is ? " 
 
 There were many strangers in the house, principally 
 attenders upon the Court being held. Court week was a 
 busy time for Brownsboro, which upon such occasions 
 assumed a bustling and festive air, securing its friends 
 from less important quarters, engaging in animated dis- 
 cussions of the cases in hand, and exhibiting an astonish- 
 ing amount of legal knowledge, using the most mystical 
 terms in ordinary conversation, and secretly feeling its 
 importance a good deal. 
 
 ^^ Sparkses"" Avas the name of the establishment at which 
 the travellers put up, and, being the better of the two 
 taverns in which the town rejoiced, Sparks6s presented 
 indeed an enlivening spectacle. It was a large frame 
 house with the usual long verandah at the front, upon 
 "which verandah there were always to be seen customers in 
 rocking-chairs, their boots upon the balustrade, their 
 hands clasped easily on the tops of their heads. During 
 
 133 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 Court week these customers with their rocking-chairs and 
 boots seemed to multiply themselves indefinitely, and, 
 becoming exhilarated by the legal business transacted 
 around them, bestirred themselves to jocularity and argu- 
 ment, thus adding to the liveliness of the occasion. 
 
 At such periods Mr. Sparkes was a prominent; feature. 
 Attired in an easy costume seemingly composed princi- 
 pally of suspenders, and bearing a pipe in his hand, he 
 permeated the atmosphere with a business-like air which 
 had long stamped him in the minds of his rural guests as 
 a person of administrative abilities rarely equalled and 
 not at all to be surjDassed. 
 
 " He's everywhar on the place, is Sparkes,^' had been, 
 said of him. " He's at dinner, 'n supper, 'n breakfast, 'n 
 out on the porch, 'n in the bar, an' kinder sashiatin' through 
 the whole thing. Thet thar tavern wouldn't be nothin' ef 
 he wasn't thar.'' 
 
 ItAvas not to be disputed that he appeared at dinner and 
 breakfast and supper, and that on each appearance he dis- 
 posed of a meal of such proportions as caused his counte- 
 nance to deepen in colour and assume a swelled aspect, 
 which was, no doubt, extremely desirable under the circum- 
 stances, and very good for the business, though it could 
 scarcely be said to lighten the labour of Mrs. Sparkes and 
 her daughters, who apparently existed without any more 
 substantial sustenance than the pleasure of pouring out cups 
 of coffee and tea and glasses of milk, and cutting slices of 
 pie, of which they possibly partook through some process 
 of absorption. 
 
 To the care of Mrs. Sparkes Tom confided his charge 
 when, a short time after their arrival, he made his first pil- 
 grimage for business purposes. 
 
 " She's been on the road all day," he said, '* and I won't 
 
 ia3 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 take her out till to-morrow ; so if yoii don't mind, Til leave 
 her with von until I come back. She'll be all rio^ht and 
 happy, won't yon, Sheba ?" 
 
 Secretly Sheba felt some slight doubt of this ; but in her 
 desire to do him credit, she summed up all her courage 
 and heroically answered that she would, and so was borne 
 oU to the dining-room, where two girls were cutting bread 
 and slicing ham for supper. They were Mrs. Sparkes's 
 daughters, and when they saw the child, dropped their 
 knives and made a good-natured rush at her, for which she 
 was not at all prepared. 
 
 ** Now, mother," they cried, ^^whar's she from, 'n who 
 does she b'long to ? " 
 
 Mrs. Sparkes cast a glance at her charge, which Sheba 
 caught and was puzzled by. It was a mysterious glance, 
 with something of cautious pity in it. 
 
 " Set her up in a cheer. Luce," she said, '^ 'n give her a 
 piece of cake. Don't ye want some, honey ? " 
 
 Sheba regarded her with uplifted eyes as she replied. 
 The glance had suggested to her mind that Mrs. Sparkes 
 was sorry for her, and she was anxious to know why. 
 
 *' No," she answered, '* no, thank you, I don't want any." 
 
 She sat quite still when they jiut her into a chair, but 
 she did not remove her eyes from Mrs. Sparkes. 
 
 ** Who does she b'long to, anyhow ?" asked Luce. 
 
 Mrs. Sparkes lowered her voice as she answered : 
 
 " She don't b'long to nobody, gals," she said. ^' It's thet 
 little critter big Tom D'Willerby from Talbot's Cross-roads 
 took to raise." 
 
 '* Ye don't sav. Pore little thing," exclaimed the girls. 
 And while one of them stooped to kiss her cheek, the other 
 hurriedly produced a large red apple, which she laid on the 
 long table before her. 
 
 134 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 But Sheba did not touch it. To hear that she belonged 
 to nobody was a mysterious shock to her. There had never 
 seemed any doubt before that she belonged to her Uncle 
 Tom, but Mrs. Sparkes had quite separated her from him 
 in her statement. Suddenly she began to feel a little tired, 
 and not quite so happy as she had been. But slie sat still 
 and listened, rendered rather tremulous by the fact that 
 the speakers seemed so sure they had reason to pity her. 
 
 *' Ef ever thar was a mystery," ]\Irs. Sparkes proceeded, 
 **'thet thar was one; though Molly Ilollister says D'Will- 
 erby don't like it talked over. Nobody knowed 'em, not 
 even their names, an' nobody knowed whar tliey come from. 
 She died, 'n he went away — nobody knowed whar ; 'n the 
 child wasn't two days old when he done it. Ye cayn't tell 
 me thar ain't a heap at the back o' that. They say D'Will- 
 erby's jest give himself up to her ever since, an' 'tain't no 
 wonder, nuther, for she's a' out 'n out beauty, ain't she, 
 now ? Just look at her eyes. Why don't ye eat yer apple, 
 honev ? " 
 
 Sheba turned towards the window and looked out on the 
 porch. A bewildering sense of desolation had fallen upon 
 her. 
 
 '^I don't want it," she said ; and her small voice had a 
 strange sound even in her own ears. ^' I want Uncle Tom. 
 Let me go out on the porch and see if he's coming." 
 
 She saw them exchange rapid glances and was troubled 
 afresh by it. 
 
 ^'D'ye reckin she understands ? " the younger daughter 
 said, cautiously. 
 
 ^' Lordy, no ! " answered the mother ; *"* we ain't said 
 nothin'. Ye kin go ef ye want to, Sheba," she added, 
 cheerfully. ^' Thar's a little rocking-cheer that ye kin set 
 in. Help her down. Luce." 
 
 135 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 But slie had already slipped down and found her way to 
 tlie door opening ont on to the street. The porch -was de- 
 serted for a wonder, the reason being that an nnnsiially 
 interesting case was being argued in the Court-house 
 across the street, where groups of men were hanging about 
 the doors. The rocking-chair stood in a corner, but 
 Sheba did not sit down in it. She went to the steps and 
 stood there, looking out with a sense of pain and loneliness 
 still hanging over her ; and at last, without knowing why, 
 only feeling that they had a dreary sound and contained 
 a mystery which somehow troubled her, she began to say 
 over softly the words the woman had used. 
 
 '' She died and he went away, nobody knows where. 
 She died and he went away, nobody knows where." 
 
 Why those words should have clung to her and made 
 her feel for the moment desolate and helpless, it would be 
 difficult to say, but as she repeated tliem half uncon- 
 sciously, the figures of the woman who had died and the 
 man wdio had wandered so far awav alone, that he seemed 
 to have wandered out of life itself, cast heavy shadows on 
 her cliildish heart. 
 
 ^''I am glad," she whispered, 'Hhat it was not Uncle 
 Tom that went away." And she looked up tlie street with 
 an anxious sigh. 
 
 Just at this moment she became conscious that she was 
 not alone. In bending forward that she might see tlie 
 better, she caught sight of someone leaning against the 
 balustrades which had before concealed him — the boy, in 
 short, who was standing just as he had stood when they 
 drove up, and who looked as handsome in a darkling way 
 as human boy could look. 
 
 For a few seconds the child regarded him with bated 
 breath. The boys she had been accustomed to seeing were 
 
 136 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 not of this type, and were more remarkable for gifts less 
 ornamental than beauty. This boy, with his graceful limbs 
 and hanghtily carried liead, filled her with awe and admi- 
 ration. She admired him so much, that, though her first 
 impulse was to run away, she did not obey it, and almost 
 immediately he glanced up and saw her. When this 
 occurred, she was greatly relieved to find that his gloom 
 did not lead him to treat her unkindly, indeed, he was 
 amiable enous^h to address her with an air of one relentino: 
 and condescendins: somewhat to her vouth. 
 
 " Didn't you know I was here ? '' he asked. 
 
 *' l^o/' Sheba answered, timidly. 
 
 '^ Whom are you looking for ? '■' 
 
 ^' For my Uncle Tom/' 
 
 He glanced across the street, still keejoing his hands in 
 his pockets and preserving his easy attitude. 
 
 " Perhaps he is over there," he suggested. 
 
 '^ Perhaps he is/' she replied, and added, shyly, ^' Are 
 you waiting for anyone ? " 
 
 He frowned so darkly at first, that she was quite alarmed 
 and wished that she had run awav as she had at first in- 
 tended ; but he answered, after a pause : 
 
 *' Xo — yes ; " he said, " yes — I'm waiting for my father.'^ 
 
 He did not even speak as the boys at the Cross-roads 
 spoke. His voice had a clear, soft ring, and his mode of 
 pronunciation was one Tom had spent much time in en- 
 deavouring to impress upon herself as being more de- 
 sirable than that she had heard most commonly used 
 around her. Tip to this time she had frequently wondered 
 why she must speak differently from Mornin and Molly 
 Hollister, but now she suddenly began to appreciate the 
 wisdom of his course. It was very much nicer to speak as 
 the boy spoke. 
 
 137 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 " I haven't any father/^ she ventured, '^or any mother. 
 That^'s queer, isn't it V And as she said it, Mrs. Sparkes's 
 words rushed into her mind again, and she looked up the 
 street towards the sunset and fell into a momentary reverie, 
 whispering them to herself. 
 
 '' What^'s that you are saying ? " asked the boy. 
 
 She looked at him with a rather uncertain and troubled 
 expression. 
 
 *^It was only what they said in there," she replied, 
 pointing towards the dining-room. 
 
 *^ What did they say ?'' 
 
 She repeated the words slowly, regarding him fixedly, 
 because she wondered if they would have any effect upon 
 him. 
 
 " She died and he went away, nobody knows where. 
 What does it mean ? " 
 
 ^' I don't know," he admitted, staring at her with his 
 handsome, long-lashed eyes. ** Lots of people die and go 
 away." Then, after a pause, in which he dropped his 
 eyes, he added : 
 
 ^*My mother died two years ago." 
 
 " Did she ?" answered Sheba, wondering why he looked 
 so gloomy again all at once. ^'1 don't think I ever had 
 any mother, but I have Uncle Tom." 
 
 He stared at her again, and there was silence for a few 
 minutes. This he broke by asking a question. 
 
 *' What is your name ?" he demanded. 
 
 '' De AYilloughby," she replied, ''but Fm called Sheba." 
 
 "Why, that's my name," he said, surprisedly. "My 
 name is De Willoughby. I — Hallo, Neb " 
 
 This last in a tone of proprietorship to a negro servant, 
 who was advancing towards them from a side-door and 
 who hurried up with rather a frightened manner. 
 
 138 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 }> 
 
 " Ye\I best get ready ter start right away, Mars Ealpli, 
 he said. ^^ He's wake at las', an' der's de debbil to pay, 
 a-cussin' an' roarin' an' wantin' opium ; an' he wants to 
 know whar ye bin an' what ye mean, an^ ses de bosses mns' 
 be at de do' in ten minits. Oh, de cunnel he's in de 
 wnstest kin' o' humour, dar's no doin' nuffin right fer 
 him." 
 
 ^' Tell him to go to h " burst forth the lad, flying 
 
 into a rage and looking so wickedly passionate in a boyish 
 way that Sheba was frightened again. ^'Tell him I won't 
 go until I'm ready ; I've been dragged round till I'm sick 
 of it, and " 
 
 In the midst of his tempest he checked himself, turned 
 about and walked suddenly into the house, the negro fol- 
 lowing him in evident trepidation. 
 
 His departure was so sudden that Sheba fancied he 
 would return and say something more to her. Angry as 
 he looked, she wished very much that he would, and so 
 stood waiting wistfully. 
 
 Bat she was doomed to disappointment. In a few 
 minutes the negro brought to the front three horses, and 
 almost immediately there appeared at the door a tall, 
 handsome man, who made his way to the finest horse and 
 mounted it with a dashing vault into the saddle. 
 
 He had a dark aquiline face like the boy's, and wore a 
 great sweeping mustache which hid his mouth. The boy 
 followed, looking wonderfully like him, as he sprang into 
 his own saddle with the same dare-devil vault. 
 
 No one spoke a word, and he did not even look at Sheba, 
 though she watched him with admiring and longing eyes. 
 As soon as they were fairly in their seats the horses, which 
 were fine creatures, needing neither whip nor spur, sprang 
 forward with a light, easy movement, and so cantered down 
 
 139 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 tlie street towards tlie high road which stretched itself 
 over a low hill about a quarter of a mile away. 
 
 Sheba laid her cheek against the wooden 2">illar and 
 looked after them with a return of the sense of loneliness 
 she had felt before. 
 
 ''He went away," she whispered^ ''nobody knows 
 W'here — nobody knows where.''' 
 
 She felt Tom's hand laid on her shoulder as she said the 
 words, and turned her face upward with a consciousness 
 of relief, knowing she would not be lonely any longer. 
 
 "Have I been gone long .^^^ he asked. " Where's Mrs. 
 Sparkes ? "' 
 
 "She's in there," Sheba answered, eagerly, "and I've 
 been talking to the boy." 
 
 " To the boy ?" he repeated. " What boy ? " 
 
 " To the one we saw," she replied, holding his hand 
 and feeling her cheeks flush with the excitement of relat- 
 ing her adventure. "The nice boy. His name is like 
 mine — and his mother died. He said it w^as De Wil- 
 loughby, and it is like mine. He has gone away with hia 
 father. See them riding." 
 
 He dropped her hand and, taking a step forward, stood 
 watchino: the recedinor travellers. He watched them until 
 they reached the rising ground. The boy had fallen a few 
 yards behind. Presently the others passed the top of the 
 hill, and, as they did so, he turned in his saddle as if he 
 had suddenly remembered something, and glanced back at 
 the tavern porch. 
 
 " He is looking for me," cried Sheba, and ran out into 
 the brightness of the setting sun, happy because he had 
 not quite forgotten her. 
 
 He saw her, waved his hand with a careless, boyish 
 gesture and disappeared over the brow of the hill. 
 
 140 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 Tom sat down suddenly on the porch - step. When 
 Sheba turned to him he was pale and his forehead w^as 
 damp with sweat. He spoke aloud, but to himself , not to 
 her. 
 
 ^'^Good Lord,'^ he said, ^''it's De Courcy and — and the 
 boy. That was why I knew his face/' 
 
 When they went in to supper later on, there was a great 
 deal of laughing and talking going on down the long table. 
 Mr. Sparkes was finishing a story as they entered, and he 
 was finishing it in a loud voice. 
 
 ^'They're pretty well known," he said ; ^^an' the Col- 
 oners the worst o' the lot. The nigger told me thar^'d 
 been a reg'lar flare-up at the Springs. Thar was a ball an^ 
 he got on a tear an' got away from 'em an' bust right into 
 the ball-room an' played Hail Columby. He's a pop'lar 
 man among the ladies, is the Colonel, but a mixtry of 
 whiskey an' opium is apt to spile his manners. Nigger 
 says he's the drunkest man when he is drunk that the 
 Lord ever let live. Ye cayn't do nothin' with him. The 
 boy was thar, an' they say 'twas a sight ter see him. He's 
 his daddy's son, an' a bigger young devil never lived, they 
 tell me. He's not got to the whiskey an' opium yet, an' 
 he jes' takes his'n out in pride an' temper. Nigger said he 
 jest raved an' tore that night — went into the Colonel's 
 room an' cussed an' dashed round like he was gone mad. 
 Kinder shamed, I reckin. But Lord, he'll be at it himself 
 in ten years from now. It's in the blood." 
 
 ^^ Who's that you're talking of?" asked Tom from his 
 end of the table. He had not recovered his colour yet and 
 looked pale as he put the question. 
 
 '' Colonel De Willoughby of Delisleville," answered Mr. 
 Sparkes. *^ Any kin o' your'n ? Name's sorter like. He 
 
 141 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 jest left here this evenin' with his boy an' nigger. They've 
 ben to Whitebriar, an' they're on their way home." 
 
 *' I saw them ride over the hill/' said Tom. " I thought 
 I wasn't mistaken in the man. I've seen him before." 
 
 But he made a very poor supper, and a shadow seemed 
 to have fallen upon his cheery mood of the morning. 
 Sheba recognised this and knew, too, that her new friend 
 and his father were in some vague way responsible for it, 
 and the knowledge oppressed her so that when they sat out 
 upon the porch together after the meal was over, she in her 
 accustomed place on his knee, she grew sad under it her- 
 self and, instead of talking as usual, leaned her small head 
 against his coat and watched the few stars whose brightness 
 the moon had not shut out. 
 
 She went to bed early, but did not sleep well, dreaming 
 dreary dreams of watching the travellers riding away to- 
 wards the sunset, and of hearing the woman talk again. 
 One of the talkers seemed at last to waken her with her 
 voice, and she sat up in bed suddenly and found that it 
 was Tom, who had roused her by speaking to himself in a 
 low tone as he stood in a flood of moonlight before the 
 window. 
 
 *' She died," he was sajang ; '^she died." 
 
 Sheba burst into a little sob, stretching out her hands to 
 him without comprehending her own emotion. 
 
 ''And he went away," she cried, ''nobody knows where 
 — nobody knows where — " And even when he came to 
 her hurriedly and sat down on the bedside, soothing her 
 and taking her in his arms to sink back into slumber, she 
 sobbed drearily two or three times, though, once in his 
 clasp, she felt, as she had always done, the full sense of 
 comfort, safety, and rest. 
 
 142 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 The New England town of Willowfield was a place of 
 great importance. Its importance — religious, intellectual, 
 and social — was its strong point. It took the liberty of as- 
 serting this with unflinching dignity. Other towns might 
 endeavour to struggle to the front, and, indeed, did so en- 
 deavour, but Willowfield calmly held its place and remained 
 unmoved. Its place always had been at the front from the 
 first, and there it took its stand. It had, perhaps, been 
 hinted that its sole title to this position lay in its own stately 
 assumption: but this, it may be argued, was sheer envy and 
 entirely unworthy of notice. 
 
 " Willowfield is not very large or very rich," its leading 
 old lady said, " but it is important and has always been con- 
 sidered so." 
 
 There was society in Willowfield, society which had taken 
 up its abiding-place in three or four streets and confined it- 
 self to developing its importance in half a dozen families — ■ 
 old families. They were always spoken of as the ^^ old fam- 
 ilies," and, to be a member of one of them, even a second or 
 third cousin of weak mind and feeble understanding, was 
 to be enclosed within the magic circle outside of which was 
 darkness, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. There were the 
 Stornaways, who had owned the button factory for nearly a 
 generation and a half — which was a long time; the Down- 
 in gs, who had kept the feed-store for quite thirty years, 
 and the Burtons, who had been doctors for almost as long, 
 
 143 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 not to mention the Larkins, who had actually founded the 
 Willowfield Times, and kept it going, which had scarcely 
 been expected of them at the outset. 
 
 Their moral^ mental, and social gifts notwithstanding, 
 there was nothing connected with the Stornaways, the Down- 
 ings, the Burtons, and the Larkins of such importance as 
 their antiquity. The uninformed outsider, on hearing it 
 descanted upon, might naturally have been betrayed into the 
 momentary weakness of expecting to see Mr. Downing moul- 
 der away, and little old Doctor Burton crumble into dust. 
 
 " They belong," it was said, with the temperateness of 
 true dignity, " to our old families, and that is something, 
 you know, even in America." 
 
 " It has struck me," an observing male visitor once re- 
 marked, " that there are a good many women in Willow- 
 field, and that altogether it has a feminine tone." 
 
 It was certainly true that among the Stornaways, the 
 Downings, the Burtons, and the Larkins, the prevailing tone 
 w^as feminine; and as the Stornaways, the Downings, the 
 Burtons, and the Larkins comprised AVillowfield society, and 
 without its society Willowfield lost its significance, the ob- 
 serving male visitor may not have been far wrong. If mis- 
 takes were made in Willowfield society, they were always 
 made by the masculine members of it. It was Mr. Stornaway 
 who had at one time been betrayed into the blunder of in- 
 viting to a dinner-party at his house a rather clever young 
 book-keeper in his employ, and it was Doctor Burton who 
 had wandered still more glaringly from the path of rectitude 
 by taking a weak, if amiable, interest in a little music teacher 
 with a sweet, tender voice, even going so far as to request 
 his family to call upon her and ask her to take tea with 
 them. It was Mr. Downing, who, when this last incident 
 
 144 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 occurred and created some sensation, had had the temerity 
 to intimate that he thought the Doctor was entirely in the 
 right; though, to be sure, he had afterwards been led to fal- 
 ter in this opinion and subside into cra.ven silence, being a 
 little gentleman of timorous and yielding nature, and rather 
 overborne by a large and powerful feminine majority in his 
 own household. Mr. Larkin was, it is to be regretted, the 
 worst of the recreant party, being younger and more unman- 
 ageable, having not only introduced to public notice certain 
 insignificant though somewhat talented persons in the shape 
 of young men and women who talked well, or sang well, 
 or wielded lively pens, but had gone to the length of standing 
 by them unflinchingly, demanding civility for them at the 
 hands of his own family of women in such a manner as 
 struck a deadly blow at the very foundations of the social 
 structure. But Mr. Larkin — he was known as Jack Larkin 
 to an astonishing number of people — was a bold man by 
 nature and given to deeds of daring, from the fatal conse- 
 quences of which nothing but the fact that he was a member 
 of one of the " old families ^' could have saved him. As he 
 was a part — and quite a large part — of one of these venerable 
 households, and, moreover, knew not the fear of man — or 
 woman — his failings could be referred to as " eccentricities." 
 
 " Mr. Larkin," Mrs. Stornaway frequently observed, with 
 long-suffering patience, '' is talented but eccentric. You 
 are never quite sure what he will do next." 
 
 Mrs. Stornaway was the head and front of all Willow- 
 field's social efforts, and represented the button factory with 
 a lofty grace and unbending dignity of demeanour which 
 were the admiration and envy of all aspirants to social fame. 
 It was said that Mrs. Stornaway had been a beauty in her 
 youth, and there were those who placed confidence in the 
 
 145 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 rumour. Mrs. Stornaway did so herself, and it had been 
 intimated that it was this excellent lady vrho had vouched 
 for the truth of the stat-ement in the lirst instance; but this 
 report having been traced to a pert young relative who de- 
 tested and derided her, might have had its origin in youthful 
 disrespect and malice. 
 
 At present Mrs. Stornaway was a large blonde woman 
 whose blondness was not fairness, and whose size was not 
 roundness. She was the leader of all religious and charitable 
 movements, presiding with great vigour over church mat- 
 ters, fairs, concerts, and sewing societies. The minister of 
 her church submitted himself to her advice and guidance. 
 All the modest members of the choir quailed and quavered 
 before her, while even the bold ones, meeting her eye when 
 engaged in worldly conversation between their musical ef- 
 forts, momentarily lost their interest and involuntarily 
 straightened themselves. 
 
 Towards her family Mrs. Stornaway performed her duty 
 with unflinching virtue. She had married her six daughters 
 in a manner at once creditable to herself, themselves, and 
 ^Yillowfield. Five of them had been rather ordinary, de- 
 pressed-looking girls, who, perhaps, were not sorry to obtain 
 their freedom. The sixth had narrowly escaped being dow- 
 ered with all the charms said to have adorned Mrs. Storn- 
 away's own youth. 
 
 " Agnes is very like what I was at her age," said her 
 mother, with dignity; and perhaps she was, though no one 
 had been able to trace any resemblance which had defied the 
 ravages of time. 
 
 Agnes had made a marriage which in some points was 
 better than those of her sisters. She had married a brilliant 
 man, wdiile the other five had been obliged to make the best 
 
 146 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 of things as far as brilliancy was concerned. People always 
 said of John Baird that he was a brilliant man and that 
 a great career lay before him. He was rather remarkable for 
 a curious subtle distinction of physical good looks. He was 
 not of the common, straight-featured, personable type. It 
 had been said by the artistic analyst of form and line that 
 his aspect did not belong to his period, that indeed his 
 emotional, spirited face, with its look of sensitiveness and 
 race, was of the type once connected with fine old steel 
 engravings of young poets not c[uite beyond the days of 
 powdered hair and frilled shirt-bosoms. 
 
 " It is absurd that he should have been born in America 
 and in these days,^' a brilliant person had declared. " He 
 always brings to my mind the portraits in delightful old 
 annuals, ' So-and-so — at twenty-five.' " 
 
 His supple ease of movement and graceful length of limb 
 gave him an air of youth. He was one of the creatures to 
 whom the passage of years would mean but little, but added 
 charm and adaptability. His eyes were singularly living 
 things — the eyes that almost unconsciously entreat and 
 whose entreaty touches one; the fine, irregular outline of 
 his profile was the absolute expression of the emotional at 
 war with itself, the passionate, the tender, the sensitive, and 
 complex. The effect of these things was almost the effect 
 of peculiar physical beauty, and with this he combined the 
 allurements of a compelling voice and an enviable sense of 
 the fitness of things. He never lost a thought through the 
 inability to utter it. When he had left college, he had left 
 burdened with honours and had borne with him the enthu- 
 siastic admiration of his fellow-students. He had earned 
 and worn his laurels with an ease and grace which would 
 be remembered through years to come. 
 
 147 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 "It's something/' it was once said, "to have known a 
 fellow to whom things came so easily/' 
 
 "When he had entered the ministry, there had been some 
 wonder expressed among the men who had known him best, 
 but when he preached his first sermon at Willowfield, where 
 there was a very desirable church indeed, with whose minis- 
 ter Mrs. Stornaway had become dissatisfied, and who in con- 
 sequence was to be civilly removed, the golden apple fell 
 at once into his hand. 
 
 Before he had arrived he had been spoken of rather slight- 
 ingly as " the young man," but when he rose in the pulpit 
 on the eventful Sunday morning, such a thrill ran through 
 the congregation as had not stirred it at its devotions for 
 many a summer day. Mrs. Stornaway mentally decided for 
 him upon the spot. 
 
 " He is of one of our oldest families," she said. " This 
 is what Willowfield wants." 
 
 He dined with the Stornaways that day, and when he en- 
 tered the parlour the first figure his eyes fell upon was that 
 of Agnes Stornaway, dressed in white muslin, with white 
 roses in her belt. She was a tall girl, with a willowy figure 
 and a colourless fairness of skin, but when her mother called 
 her to her side and Baird touched her hand, she blushed in 
 such a manner that Mrs. Stornaway was a little astonished. 
 Scarcely a year afterward she became Mrs. Baird, and people 
 said she was a very fortunate girl, which was possibly true. 
 
 Her husband did not share the fate of most ministers who 
 had presided over ^Irs. Stornaway's church. His power over 
 his congregation increased every year. His name began to 
 be known in the world of literature; he was called upon 
 to deliver in important places the lectures he had delivered 
 to his Willowfield audiences, and the result was one startling 
 
 148 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 triumph after another. There was every indication of the 
 fact that a career was already marked out for him. 
 
 Willowfield looked forward with trepidation to the time 
 when the great world which stood ready to give him fame 
 w^ould absorb him altogether, but in the meantime it exerted 
 all its power of fascination, and was so far successful that 
 the Eeverend John Baird felt that his lines had indeed fallen 
 in pleasant places. 
 
 But after the birth of her little daughter his wife was not 
 strong, and was so long in regaining vitality that in the 
 child's second year she was ordered abroad by the physician. 
 At this time Baird's engagements were such that he could 
 not accompany her, and accordingly he remained in America. 
 The career was just opening up its charmed vistas to him; 
 his literary efforts were winning laurels; he was called upon 
 to lecture in Boston and New York, and he never rose before 
 an audience without at once awakening an enthusiasm. 
 
 Mrs. Baird went to the south of France with her child 
 and nurse and" a party of friends, and remained there for 
 a year. At the termination of that time, just as she thought 
 of returning home, she was taken seriously ill. Her husband 
 was sent for and went at once to join her. In a few months 
 she had died of rapid decline. She had been a delicate 
 girl, and a far-off taint of consumption in her family blood 
 had reasserted itself. But though Mrs. Stornaway bewailed 
 her with diffuse and loud pathos and for a year swathed her 
 opulence of form in deepest folds and draperies of crape, 
 the quiet fairness and slightness which for some five and 
 twenty years had been known as Agnes Stornaway, had been 
 a personality not likely to be a marked and long-lingering 
 memory. 
 
 The child was placed with a motherly friend in Paris. 
 
 149 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 For a month after his wife's death Baird had been fever- 
 ishly, miserably eager to return to America. Those about 
 him felt that the blow which had fallen upon him might 
 affect his health seriously. He seemed possessed by a des- 
 perate, morbid desire to leave the scene of the calamity be- 
 hind him. He was restless and feverish in his anxiety, and 
 scarcely able to endure the delay which the arrangement 
 of his affairs made necessary. He had not been well when 
 he had left "Willowfield, and during his watching by his wife's 
 bedside he had grown thin and restless-eyed. 
 
 " I want to get home. I must get home," he would ex- 
 claim, as if involuntarily. His entire physical and mental 
 condition were strained and unnatural. His wife's doctor, 
 who had become his own doctor as his health deteriorated, 
 was not surprised, on arriving one day, to find him prostrated 
 with nervous fever. He was ill for months, and he rose from 
 his sick-bed a depressed shadow of his former self and 
 quite unable to think of returning to his charge, even if his 
 old desire had not utterly left him with his fever. He was 
 absent from Willowfield for two years, and when at length 
 he turned his face homeward, it was with no eagerness. He 
 had passed through one of those phases which change a 
 man's life and being. If he had been a rich man he would 
 have remained away and would have lived in London, seeing 
 much of the chief continental cities. As it was, he must 
 at least temporarily return to Willowfield and take with him 
 his little girl. 
 
 On the day distinguished by his return to his people, much 
 subdued excitement prevailed in Willowfield. During the 
 whole of the previous week Mrs. Stornaway's carriage had 
 paid daily visits to the down-town stores. There was a flour- 
 ishing New England thrift among the Stornaways, the Lar- 
 
 150 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 kins, the Downings, and the Burtons, which did not allow 
 of their delegating the ordering of their households to as- 
 sistants. Most of them were rigorous housewives, keen 
 at a bargain and sharp of tongue when need be, and there 
 was rarely any danger of their getting less than their money's 
 worth. 
 
 To celebrate his arrival, Mrs. Stornaway was to give an 
 evening party which was to combine congratulatory welcome 
 with a touch of condolence for the past and assurance for 
 the future. 
 
 " We must let him see," said Mrs. Stornaway, " that Wil- 
 lowfield has its attractions.'^ 
 
 Its attractions did not present themselves as vividly to 
 John Baird as might have been hoped, when he descended 
 from the train at the depot. He had spent two or three 
 days in Boston with a view to taking his change gradually, 
 but he found himself not as fully prepared for Willowfield 
 as he could have wished. He was not entirely prepared for 
 Mrs. Stornaway, who hurried towards them with exultation 
 on her large, stupid face, and, after effusive embraces, bus- 
 tled with them towards an elderlv woman who had evi- 
 dently accompanied her. 
 
 " See, here's Miss Amory Starkvreather! " she exclaimed. 
 " She came with me to meet you. Just see how Annie's 
 grown, Miss Amory." 
 
 Miss Amory was a thin woman with a strong-featured 
 countenance and deep-set, observing eyes. They were eyes 
 whose expression suggested that they had made many pain- 
 ful discoveries in the course of their owner's life. 
 
 John Baird rather lighted up for a moment when he 
 caught sight of her. 
 
 I am glad to see you. Miss Amory," he said. 
 
 151 
 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 " Thank you/^ she answered. " I hojDe you are as well 
 as voii look." 
 
 " We're so delighted," Mrs. Stornaway announced, as if 
 to the bystanders. " Everybody in Willowfield is so de- 
 lighted to have you back again. The church has not seemed 
 the same place. The man who took your place — Mr. Jeramy, 
 you know — you haven't any idea how unpopular " 
 
 *^ Excuse me/' said Baird, " I must speak to Latimer. 
 Where is Latimer, Annie? " 
 
 " Who is Latimer? " asked Mrs. Stornaway. 
 
 " Excuse me," said Baird again, and turning back towards 
 the platform, he disappeared among the crowd with Annie, 
 who had clung to his hand. 
 
 "Why, he's gone!" proclaimed Mrs. Stornaway. "But 
 Where's he gone? Why didn't he stay? Who's Latimer? " 
 
 "Latimer!" Miss Amory echoed, "you ought to know 
 him. His family lives in Willowfield. He is the man who 
 was coming home to take charge of the little church at Jan- 
 way's Mills. He has evidently crossed the Atlantic with 
 them," 
 
 " Well, now, I declare," proclaimed Mrs. Stornaway. " It 
 must be the man who took his sister to Europe. It was a 
 kind of absurd thing. She died away — the girl did, and 
 people wondered why he did not come back and how he 
 lived. Why, yes, that must be the man." And she turned 
 to look about for him. 
 
 Miss Amory Starkweather made a slight movement. 
 
 " Don't look," she said. " He might not like to be stared 
 at." 
 
 " They're quite common people," commented Mrs. Storn- 
 away, still staring. " They live in a little house in a side 
 street. They had very silly ideas about the girl. They 
 thought she was a genius and sent her to the School of Art 
 
 152 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 in Boston, but it wasn't long before her health failed her. 
 Ah! I gness that must be the man talking to Mr. Baird and 
 Annie. He looks as if he would go off in a consumption." 
 
 He was a tall, hollow-chested man, with a dark, sallow 
 face and an ungainly figui^e. There were suggestions of both 
 ill-health and wretchedness in his appearance, and his man- 
 ner was awkward and embarrassed. Two human beings more 
 utterly unlike each other than himself and the man who held 
 his hand could not possibly have been found. It was Baird 
 who held his hand, not he Baird's, and it was Baird who 
 seemed to speak while he listened, while with his free hand 
 he touched the hair of the child Annie. 
 
 " Well,'^ remarked Mrs. Stornaway, " Mr. Baird seems to 
 have taken a fancy to him. I don't think he's attractive 
 myself. Are they going to talk to him all day? " 
 
 *' Xo," said Miss Amory, '' he is going now." 
 
 He was going. Baird had released his hand and he was 
 looking in a gloomy, awkward way at Annie, as if he did 
 not know how to make his adieux. But Annie, who was 
 a simple child creature, solved the difficulty for him with 
 happy readiness. She flung both her small arms about his 
 ungainly body and held up her face. 
 
 " Kiss me three times," she said; " three times." 
 
 Latimer started and flushed. He looked down at her and 
 then glanced rather timidly at Baird. 
 
 ^^ Kiss her," said Baird, " it will please her — and it will 
 please me." 
 
 Latimer bent himself to the child's height and kissed her. 
 The act was without grace, and when he stood upright he 
 was more awkward and embarrassed than ever. But the 
 caress was not a cold or rough one, and when he turned 
 and strode away the flush was still on his sallow cheek. 
 
 153 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 The Stornaway parlours were very brilliant that evening 
 in a Willowfield sense. Not a Burton, a Larkin, or a Down- 
 ing was missing, even Miss Amory Starkweather being pres- 
 ent. Miss Amory Starkweather was greatly respected by 
 the Stornaways, the Downings, the Larkins, and the Burtons, 
 the Starkweathers having landed upon Plymouth Eock so 
 early and with such a distinguished sense of their own im- 
 portance as to lead to the impression in weak minds that 
 they had not only founded that monumental corner-stone 
 of ancestry, but were personally responsible for the May- 
 flower. This gentlewoman represented to the humorous 
 something more of the element of comedy than she repre- 
 sented to herself. She had been born into a world too narrow 
 and provincial for the development of the powers born with 
 her. She had been an ugly girl and an ugly woman, marked 
 by the hopeless ugliness of a long, ill-proportioned face, 
 small eyes, and a nose too large and high — that ugliness 
 which even love's eyes can scarcely ameliorate into good 
 drawing. 
 
 The temperament attached to these painful disabilities 
 had been warm and strongly womanly. Born a century 
 or so earlier, in a French Court, or any great world vivid 
 with picturesque living, she would in all probability have 
 been a remarkable personage, her ugliness a sort of distinc- 
 tion; but she had been born in Willowfield, and had lived 
 its hfe and been bound by its limits. She had been com- 
 
 154 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 fortably well off — she had a large square house with a gar- 
 den, an income sufficient to provide for extremely respect- 
 able existence in Willowfield, but not large enough to allow 
 of experiments with the outside world. She had never met 
 a man whom she could have loved, who would have loved 
 her, and she was essentially — though Willowfield would 
 never have dreamed it — a wom.an who should have loved 
 and mated. A lifetime of narrow, unstimulating years and 
 thwarted instincts had made age treat her ill. She was a 
 thin woman with burning eyes, and a personality people 
 were afraid of. 
 
 She had always found an interest in John Baird. WTien 
 he had come to Willowfield she had seen in him that element 
 which her whole long life had lacked. His emotional poten- 
 tialities had wakened her imagination. If she had been a 
 young woman she knew that she might have fallen tragi- 
 cally and hopelessly in love with him; as an old woman 
 she found it well worth her while to watch him and specu- 
 late upon him. When he had become engaged to Agnes 
 Stornaway, she had watched him and secretly wondered how 
 the engagement would end; when it had ended in marriage 
 she had not wondered, but she had seen many things other 
 people did not see. " He is not in love with her," had been 
 her mental decision, " but he is emotional, and he is in love 
 with her being in love with him. There is no foretelling 
 what will come of it." 
 
 Baird had found himself attracted by Miss Amory. He 
 did not know that if she had been young she would, despite 
 her ugliness, have had a powerful feminine effect on him. 
 He used to go and talk to her, and he was not conscious that 
 he went when he was made restless by a lack of something 
 in the mental atmosphere about him. He could talk to her 
 
 155 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 as he could not talk to the rest of AVillowfield. She read 
 and thought and argued with herself, and as a product of 
 a provincial dogmatic Xew England town was a curious de- 
 velopment. 
 
 " AYere you once a brilliant, wicked, feminine mover of 
 things in some old French court? " he said to her once. 
 
 They had been plunging deep into the sohdng of unsolv- 
 able problems, and she turned her burning old eyes on him 
 as she answered. 
 
 " God knows what I was," she said, "but it was notliing 
 like this — nothing like this — and I Avas not wicked." 
 
 " ISTo," Baird rej^lied, " you were not wicked; but you 
 broke laws." 
 
 " Yes, I broke laws," she agreed; " but they were hideous 
 laws — better broken than kept." 
 
 She had been puzzled by the fact that after his wife left 
 him he had had a restless period and had seemed to pass 
 through a miserable phase, such as a man suffering from 
 love and lons^nsr mio'ht endure. 
 
 " Kas he fallen in love with her because she has gone 
 away? " she wondered; " men are capable of it at times." 
 
 But later she decided mentally that this was not his special 
 case. She saw, however, that he was passing through some 
 mental crisis which was a dangerous struggle. He was rest- 
 less and often away from "Willowfield for two or three days 
 at a time. 
 
 " To provide the place with orthodox doctrine once a week 
 is more than he can bear, and to be bored to extinction into 
 the bargain makes him feel morbid," she said to herself. 
 " I hope he won't begin to be lured by things which might 
 produce catastrophe." 
 
 Once he came and spent a long, hot summer evening with 
 
 156 
 
In Connection with 
 
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 her, and when he went away she had arrived at another 
 decision, and it made her wretched. 
 
 '^ He is hired," she thought. " I cannot help him, and 
 God knows Willowfield could not. After this — perhaps the 
 Deluge." 
 
 She saw but little of him for two months, and then he 
 was called across the Atlantic by his wife's illness and left 
 the place. 
 
 ^' \Yrite to me now and then/' he said, when he came to 
 bid her good-bye. 
 
 ^' What can I write about from AVillowfield to a man in 
 Paris? " she asked. 
 
 " About AVillowfield," he answered, holding her hand and 
 laughing a little gruesomely. " There will be a thrill in it 
 when one is three thousand miles away. Tell me about the 
 church — about the people — who comes, who goes — your 
 own points of view will make it all worth while. Will 
 3'ou? " almost as if a shade anxiously. 
 
 She felt the implied flattery just enough to be vaguely 
 pleased by it. 
 
 " Yes, I will," she answered. 
 
 She kept her word, and the letters were worth reading. It 
 was, as he had said, her points of view which gave interest 
 to the facts that unexciting people had died, married, or 
 been born. Her sketch of the trying position of the un- 
 l^opular man who filled his pulpit and was unfavourably 
 compared with him every Sunday morning was full of astute 
 analysis and wit; her little picture of the gloomy young 
 theological student, Latimer, his efforts for his sister, and 
 her innocent, pathetic death in a foreign land had a wonder- 
 ful realism of touch. She had by pure accident made the 
 child's acquaintance and had been strongly touched and 
 
 157 
 
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 moved. She did not write often^ but lie read her letters 
 many times over. 
 
 Upon this evening of his home-coming she thought he had 
 sometimes the look of a man who felt that he walked in a 
 dream. More than once she saw him involuntarily pass his 
 hand with a swift movement over his eyes as if his own 
 touch might waken him. It was true he did not greatly 
 enjoy the festivities. His occasional views of Mrs. Storn- 
 away as she rambled among her guests, talking to them 
 about him in audible tones, were trying. She dispensed 
 him with her hospitalities, as it were, and was diffuse upon 
 the extent of his travels and the attention paid him, to each 
 member of the company in turn. He knew when she was 
 speaking of himself and when of her daughter, and the 
 alternate decorous sentiment and triumphant pleasure 
 marked on her broad face rasped him to the extent of making 
 him fear lest he might lose his temper. 
 
 " She is a stupid woman," he found himself saying half 
 aloud once; ^* the most stupid woman I think I ever met." 
 
 Towards the end of the evening, as he entered the room, 
 he found himself obliged to pass her. She stood near the 
 door, engaged in animated conversation with Mrs. Downing. 
 She had hit upon a new and absorbing topic, which had the 
 additional charge of savouring of local gossip. 
 
 " Why," he heard her say, " I mean to ask him. He 
 can tell us, I guess. I haven't a doubt but he heard the 
 whole story. You know he has a way of drawing people 
 out. He's so much tact and sympathy. I used to tell Agnes 
 he was all tact and sympathy." 
 
 Feeling quite sure that it was himself who was " all tact 
 and sympathy," Baird endeavoured to move by unobsers^ed, 
 but she caught sight of him and checked his progress. 
 
 158 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 '^ Mr. Baird/' she said, " we're just talking about you/' 
 
 " Don't talk about me/' he said, lightly; " I am not half 
 so culpable as I look." 
 
 He often found small change of this order could be made 
 useful with Mrs. Stornaway, and he bestowed this upon her 
 with an easy air which she felt to be very delightful. 
 
 " He's so ready," she observed, enraptured; '^ I often used 
 to say to Agnes " 
 
 But Mrs. Downing was not to be defrauded. 
 
 *^ We were talking about those people on Bank Street," 
 she said, " the Latimers. Mrs. Stornaway says you crossed 
 the Atlantic with the son, who has just come back. Do 
 tell us something about him." 
 
 " I am afraid I cannot make him as interesting to you 
 as he was to me," answered Baird, with his light air again. 
 
 *^ He does not look very interesting," said Mrs. Stornaway. 
 " I never saw anyone so sallow; I can't understand Annie 
 liking him." 
 
 " He is interesting," responded Baird. " Annie took one 
 of her fancies to him, and I took something more than a 
 fancy. AYe shall be good friends, I think." 
 
 " Well, I'm sure it's very kind of you to take such an in- 
 terest," proclaimed Mrs. Stornaway. " You are always 
 finding something good in people." 
 
 " I wish people were always finding something good in 
 me," said John Baird. " It was not difficult to find good 
 in this man. He is of the stuff they made saints and mar- 
 tyrs of in the olden times." 
 
 " What did the girl die of? " asked Mrs. Downing. 
 
 " What? " repeated Baird. " The girl? I don't know." 
 
 ''And where did she die? " added Mrs. Downing. 
 
 *' I was just saying," put in Mrs. Stornaway, " that you 
 
 159 
 
In Connection with 
 
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 had such a s}Tnpathetic -way of drawing people out that I 
 was sure he had told you the whole storv." 
 
 " There was not much story," Baird answered, " and it 
 was too sad to talk over. The poor child went abroad 
 and died in some little place in Italy — of consumption, 
 I think." 
 
 ^' I suppose she was sick when they went/' commented 
 Mrs. Downing. " I heard so. It was a queer thing for 
 them to go to Europe, as inexperienced as they were and 
 everything. But the father and mother were more inex- 
 perienced still, I guess. They were perfectly foolish about 
 the girl — and so was the brother. She went to some studio 
 in Boston to study art, and they had an idea her bits of 
 pictures were wonderful." 
 
 '' 1 never saw her myself," said Mrs. Stornaway. " ISTo 
 one seems to have seen anything of her but Miss Amory 
 Starkweather." 
 
 " Miss Starkweather! " exclaimed Baird. " Oh, yes — in 
 her letters she mentioned havinsr met her." 
 
 " Well, it was a queer thing," said Mrs. Downing, " but 
 it was like Miss Amory. They say the girl fainted in the 
 street as Miss Amory was driving by, and she stopped her 
 carriage and took her in and carried her home. She took 
 quite a fancy to her and saw her every day or so until she 
 went away." 
 
 It was not unnatural that at this juncture John Baird's 
 eyes should wander across the room to where Miss Amory 
 Starkweather sat, but it was a coincidence that as his eye 
 fell upon her she should meet it with a gesture which called 
 him to her side. 
 
 *^ It seems that Miss Amory wishes to speak to me," he 
 said to his companions. 
 
 160 
 
In Connection with 
 
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 <( 
 
 He'll make himself just as interesting to her as he has 
 made himself to us/' said Mrs. Storna^vay, with heavy 
 sprightliness, as he left them. " He never spares himself 
 trouble." 
 
 He went across the room to Miss Amor}\ 
 
 *• Can you sit down by me? " she said. " I want to talk 
 to you about Lucien Latimer."*^ 
 
 " What is there in the atmosphere which suggests Lati- 
 mer?" he inquired. "We have been talking about him 
 at the other side of the room. Do you know him? " 
 
 " I never saw him/' she replied, " but I knew her." 
 
 " Her! " he repeated. 
 
 " The little sister." She leaned forward a little. " What 
 were the details of her death ?'^ she asked. "I want to 
 know — I want to know." 
 
 Somehow the words sounded nervously eager. 
 
 *' I did not ask him/' he answered; " I thought he pre- 
 ferred to be silent. He is a silent man." 
 
 She sat upright again, and for a moment seemed to for- 
 get herself. She said something two or three times softly 
 to herself. Baird thought it was " Poor child! Poor 
 child ! " 
 
 " She was young to die/' he said, in a low voice. " Poor 
 child, indeed." 
 
 Miss Amory came back to him, as it were. 
 
 "The younger, the better/' she said. ''Look at me!" 
 Her burning eyes were troubling and suggestive. Baird 
 found himself trying to gather himself together. He as- 
 sumed the natural air of kindly remonstrance. 
 
 " Oh, come/' he said. " Don't take that tone. It is 
 unfair to all of us." 
 
 Her reply was certainly rather a startling one. 
 
 161 
 
In Connection with 
 
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 " A^ery well then/' she responded. " Look at yourself. 
 If you had died as young as she did " 
 
 He looked at her, conscious of a little coldness creep- 
 ing over his body. She was usually lighter when they were 
 not entirely alone. Just now, in the midst of this common- 
 place, exceedingly middle-class evening party, with the 
 Larkins, the Downings, and the Burtons chattering, warm, 
 diffuse, and elate, about him, she stirred him with a little 
 horror — not horror of herself, but of something in her 
 mood. 
 
 " Do you think I am such a bad fellow? " he said. 
 
 " No," she answered. " Worse, poor thing. It is not 
 the bad fellows who produce the crudest results. But I 
 did not call you here to tell you that you were bad or good. 
 I called you to speak about Lucien Latimer. When you go 
 to him — you are going to him? " 
 
 " To-morrow." 
 
 " Then tell him to come and see me." 
 
 " I will tell him anything you wish," said Baird. " Is 
 there anything else? " 
 
 " Tell him I knew her," she answered, *^ Margery — Mar- 
 gery! " 
 
 " Margery," Baird said slowl}^, as if the sound touched 
 him. "What a pretty, simple name! " 
 
 " She was a pretty, simple creature," said Miss Amory. 
 
 " Tell me " he said, " tell me something more about 
 
 her." 
 
 " There is nothing more to tell," she replied. " She was 
 dying when I met her. I saw it — in her eyes. She could 
 not have lived. She went away and died. She — I " 
 
 John Baird heard a slight sharp choking sound in her 
 throat. 
 
 163 
 
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 " There! " she said presently, " I don't like to talk about 
 it. I am too emotional for my years. Go to Mrs. Storn- 
 awav. She is lookinoj for vou." 
 
 He got up and turned and left her without speaking, 
 and a few minutes later, when Mrs. Stornaway wanted him 
 to give an account of his interview with the Pope, she was 
 surprised to see him approaching her from the door as if 
 he had been out of the room. 
 
 His story of the interview with the Pope was very in- 
 teresting, and he was more " brilliant " than ever during 
 the remainder of the evening, but when the last guest had 
 departed, followed by Mrs. Stornaway to the threshold, 
 that lady, on her return to the parlour, found him stand- 
 ing by the mantel looking at the fire with so profoundly 
 wearied an air, that she uttered an exclamation. 
 
 " Why," she said, " you look tired, I must say. But 
 everything went off splendidly and I never saw you so 
 brilliant." 
 
 " Thank you," he answered. 
 
 " I've just been saying," with renewed spirit of admira- 
 tion, " that your crossing with that Latimer has quite 
 brought him into notice. It will be a good thing for him. 
 I heard several people speak of him to-night and say how 
 kind it was of you to take him up." 
 
 Baird stirred uneasily. 
 
 " I should not like to have that tone taken," he said. 
 "Why should I patronise him? We shall be friends — if 
 he will allow it." He spoke with so much heat and impa- 
 tience that Mrs. Stornaway listened with a discomfited stare. 
 
 " But nobody knows anything about them," she said. 
 " They're quite ordinary people. They live in Bank 
 Street." 
 
 163 
 
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 " That may settle the matter for Willowfield," said 
 Baird, " but it does not settle it for me. AYe are to be 
 friends, and Willowfield must understand that." 
 
 And such was the decision of his tone that Mrs. Storn- 
 away did not recover herself and was still starinor after 
 him in a bewildered fashion when he went upstairs. 
 
 " But it's just like him/' she remarked, rather weakly 
 to the room's emptiness. "That's always the way with 
 people of genius and — and — mind. They're always hum- 
 ble.'^ 
 
 164 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 She had renewed opportunity for remarking upon the 
 generous humility the next morning when he left the house 
 with the intention of paying his visit to Bank Street. 
 
 " He's actually going/' she said. " Well^ I must say 
 again it's just like him. There are very few men in his 
 position who would think it worth while, but he treats 
 everybody with just as much consideration as if — as if he 
 was nobody.'^ 
 
 The house on Bank Street was just what he had expected 
 to find it — small, unornamental, painted white, and mod- 
 estly putting forth a few vines as if vdth a desire to clothe 
 itself, which had not been encouraged by Nature. The 
 vines had not flourished and thev, as well as the few flowers 
 in the yard, were dropping their scant foliage, which turned 
 brown and rustled in the autumn wind. 
 
 Before ringing the bell, Baird stood for a few moments 
 upon the threshold. As he looked up and down the street, 
 he was pale and felt chilly, so chilly that he buttoned his 
 light overcoat over his breast and his hands even shook 
 slightly as he did it. Then he turned and rang the bell. 
 
 It was answered by a little woman with a girlish figure 
 and gray hair. For a moment John Baird paused before 
 speaking to her, as he had paused before ringing the bell, 
 and in the pause, during which he found himself looking 
 into her soft, childishly blue eyes, he felt even chillier than 
 at first. 
 
 165 
 
In Connection with 
 
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 " Mrs. Latimer. I think/' he said, baring his head. 
 " Yes/' she answered, " and you are Mr. Baird and have 
 come to see Lucien, I'm sure.'' 
 
 She gave him her small hand with a smile. 
 
 " I am very glad to see you/' she said, " and Lucien will 
 be glad, too. Come in, please." 
 
 She led the way into the little parlour, talking in a voice 
 as soft and kindly as her eves. Lucien had been out, but 
 had just come in, she fancied, and was probably upstairs. 
 She would go and tell him. 
 
 So, having taken him into the room, she went, leaving 
 him alone. AYhen she was gone, Baird stood for a moment 
 listening to her footsteps upon the stairs. Then he crossed 
 the room and stood before the hearth looking up at a 
 picture which hung over the mantel. 
 
 He was still standing before it when she returned with 
 her son. He turned slowlv to confront them, holdino; out 
 his hand to Latimer with somethinsr less of alert and svm- 
 pathetic readiness than was usual with him. There was in 
 his manner an element which corresponded with the lack 
 of colour and warmth in his face. 
 
 " I've been looking at this portrait of your — of " he 
 
 began. 
 
 ^" Of Margery/' put in the little mother. " Everyone 
 looks at Margery when they come in. It seems as if the 
 child somehow filled the room." And though her soft 
 voice had a sigh in it, she did not speak in entire sadness. 
 
 John Baird looked at the picture again. It was the 
 portrait of a slight small girl with wistful eyes and an in- 
 nocent face. 
 
 166 
 
In Connection with 
 
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 <( 
 
 I felt sure that it was she," he said in a lowered voice, 
 " and you are quite right in saying that she seems to fill 
 the room." 
 
 The mother put her hand upon her son's arm. He had 
 turned his face towards the window. It seemed to Baird 
 thatjher light touch was at once an appeal and a consolation. 
 
 *' She filled the whole house when she was here," she 
 said; " and yet she was only a quiet little thing. She had 
 a bright way with her quietness and was so happy and busy. 
 It is my comfort now to remember that she was always 
 happy — happy to the last, Lucien tells me." 
 
 She looked up at her son's averted face as if expecting 
 him to speak, and he responded at once, though in his usual 
 mechanical way. 
 
 " To the last," he said; " she had no fear and suffered 
 no pain." 
 
 The little woman watched him with tender, wistful eyes; 
 two large tears welled up and slipped down her cheeks, but 
 she smiled softlv as thev fell. 
 
 " She had so wanted to go to Italy," she said; " and was 
 so happy to be there. And at the last it was such a lovely 
 day, and she enjoyed it so and was propped up on a sofa 
 near the window, and looked out at the blue sky and the 
 mountains, and made a little sketch. Tell him, Lucien," 
 and she touched his arm again. 
 
 "I shall be glad to hear," said Baird, "but you must 
 not tire yourself by standing," and he took her hand gently 
 and led her to a chair and sat down beside her, still hold- 
 ins: her hand. 
 
 But Latimer remained standing, resting his elbow upon 
 the mantel and looking down at the floor as he spoke. 
 
 "She was not well in England," the little mother put 
 
 167 
 
In Connection with 
 
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 in, "but in Italy he thought she was better even to the 
 veiy last/^ 
 
 " She was weak/' Latimer went on, without raising his 
 eyes, " but she was always bright and — and happy. She 
 used to lie on the sofa by the window and look out and 
 try to make sketches. She could see the x^pennines, and it 
 was the chestnut harvest and the peasants used to pass 
 alonsr the road on their wav to the forests, and she liked to 
 watch them. She used to try to sketch them too, but she 
 was too weak; and when I wrote home for her, she made 
 me describe them " 
 
 a 
 
 In her bright way! " said his mother. " I read the let- 
 ters over and over again and they seemed like pictures — 
 like her little pictures. It scarcely seems as if Lucien 
 could have written them at all.'' 
 
 " The last day," said Latimer, " I had written home to 
 say that she was better. She was so well in the morning 
 that she talked of trying to take a drive, but in the after- 
 noon she was a little tired " 
 
 " But only a little," interrupted the mother eagerly, 
 " and quite happy." 
 
 " Only a little — and quite happy," said Latimer. " There 
 was a beautiful sunset and I drew her sofa to the windows 
 and she lay and looked at it — and talked; and just as the 
 sun went down " 
 
 " All in a lovely golden glory, as if the gates of heaven 
 were open," the gentle voice added. 
 
 Latimer paused for an instant. His sallow face had be- 
 come paler. He drew out his handkerchief and touched 
 his forehead with it and his lips. 
 
 " xVll in a glow of gold," he went on a little more hoarsely, 
 *^ just as it went down, she turned on her pillow and began 
 
 168 
 
In Connection with 
 
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 to speak to me. She said ^ IIow beautiful it all is, and how 
 glad — , And her voice died away. I thought she was 
 looking at the sky again. She had lifted her eyes to it and 
 was smiling: the smile was on her face when I — bent over 
 her — a few moments after — and found that all was over." 
 
 " It was not like death at all," said his mother with a 
 soft breathlessness. " She never even knew." And though 
 tears streamed down her cheeks, she smiled. 
 
 Baird rose suddenly and went to Latimer's side. He wore 
 the pale and bewildered face of a man walking in a dream. 
 He laid his hand on his shoulder. 
 
 " No, it was not like death," he said; " try and remem- 
 ber that." 
 
 " I do remember it," was the answer. 
 
 "She escaped both death and life," said John Baird, 
 " both death and life." 
 
 The little mother sat wiping her eyes gently. 
 
 *' It was all so bright to her," she said. " I can scarcely 
 think of it as a grief that we have lost her — for a little 
 while. Her little room upstairs never seems empty. I 
 could fancy that she might come in at any moment smiling 
 as she used to. If she had ever suffered or been sad in it, 
 I might feel as if the pain and sadness were left there; but 
 when I open the door it seems as if her pretty smile met me, 
 or the sound of her voice singing as she used to when she 
 painted." 
 
 She rose and went to her son's side again, laying her 
 hand on his arm with a world of tenderness in her touch. 
 
 " Try to think of that, Lucien, dear," she said; " try to 
 think that her face was never any sadder or older than w^e 
 see it in her pretty picture there. She might have lived to 
 be tired of living, and she was saved from it.' 
 
 169 
 
 }f 
 
In Connection with 
 
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 " Try to help him/' she said, turning to Baird, " perhaps 
 yoTi can. He has not learned to bear it yet. They were 
 very near to each other, and perhaps he is too young to 
 think of it as we do. Grief is always heavier to young 
 people, I think. Try to help him.'' 
 
 She went out of the room quietly, leaving them together. 
 
 When she was gone, John B^ird found himself trying, 
 with a helpless feeling of desperation, to spur himself up 
 to saying something; but neither w^ords nor thoughts would 
 come. For the moment his mind seemed a perfect blank, 
 and the silence of the room was terrible. 
 
 It was Latimer who spoke first, stiffly, and as if with 
 difficulty. 
 
 " I should be more resigned," he said, " I should be 
 resigned. But it has been a heavy blow." 
 
 Baird moistened his dry lips but found no words. 
 
 " She had a bright nature," the lagging voice went on, 
 " a bright nature — and gifts — which I had not. God gave 
 me no gifts, and it is natural to me to see that life is dark 
 and that I can only do poorly the work which falls to me. 
 I was a gloomy, unhappy boy when she was bom. I had 
 learned to know the lack in m3^self early, and I saw in her 
 what I longed for. I know the feeling is a sin against God 
 and that His judgment will fall upon me — but I have no 
 power against it." 
 
 " It is a very natural feeling," said Baird, hoarsely. " We 
 cannot resign ourselves at once under a great sorrow." 
 
 " A just God who punishes rebellion demands it of His 
 servants." 
 
 "Don't say that!" Baird interrupted, with a shudder; 
 " we need a God of Mercy, not a God who condemns." 
 
 " Need! " the dark face almost livid in its pallor, " We 
 
 17Q 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 need! It is not He who was made for our needs, but we for 
 His. For His servants there is onlv submission to the 
 anguish chosen for us.'' 
 
 " Tliat is a harsh creed/' said Baird, " and a dark one. 
 Try a brighter one, man! " 
 
 " There is no brighter one for me," was the answer. 
 " She had a brighter one, poor child — and mine was a heavy 
 trouble to her. Why should we deceive ourselves? What 
 are we in His sight — in the sight of Immutable, Eternal 
 God? We can only do His will and await the end. We 
 have reason which we may not use; we can only believe and 
 suffer. There is agony on every side of us which, if it were 
 His will, He might relieve, but does not. It is His will, 
 and what is the impotent rebellion of iSTature against that? 
 What help have we against Him?" 
 
 His harsh voice had risen until it was almost a cry, 
 the lank locks which fell over his sallow forehead were 
 damp with sweat. He put them back with a desperate 
 gesture. 
 
 " Such words of themselves are sin," he said, " and it is 
 my curse and punishment that I should bear in my breast 
 everv hour the crime of such rebellion. AMiat is there left 
 for me? Is there any labour or any pang borne for others 
 that will wipe out the stain from my soul? " 
 
 John Baird looked at him as he had looked before. His 
 usual ready flow of speech, his rapidity of thought, his 
 knowledge of men and their necessities seemed all to have 
 deserted him. 
 
 " I — " he stammered, " I am not — fit — not fit " 
 
 He had not known what he was going to say when he 
 began, and he did not know how he intended to end. He 
 heard with a passionate sense of relief that the door behind 
 
 171 
 
In Connection with 
 
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 them opened, and turned to find that Mrs. Latimer stood 
 upon the threshold as if in hesitancy. 
 
 " Lucien," she said, " it is that poor girl from Janway's 
 Mills. The one Margery was so sorry for — Susan Chap- 
 man. She wants to see you. I think the poor child wants 
 to ask about Margery." 
 
 Latimer made a movement forward, but checked himself. 
 
 " Tell her to come in/' he said. 
 
 Mrs. Latimer went to the front door, and in a few seconds 
 returned. The girl was with her and entered the room 
 slowly. She was very pale and her eyes were dilated and 
 she breathed fast as if frightened. She glanced at John 
 Baird and stopped. 
 
 " I didn't know anyone else was here," she said. 
 
 " I will go away, if you wish it," said Baird, the sym- 
 pathetic tone returning to his Toice. 
 
 ^' Xo," said liatimer, " you can do her more good than I 
 can. This gentleman," he added to the girl, " is my friend, 
 and a Minister of God as well as myself. He is the Eev. 
 John Baird." 
 
 There was in his eyes, as he addressed her, a look which 
 Avas like an expression of dread — as if he saw in her young 
 yet faded face and figure something which repelled him 
 almost beyond self-control. 
 
 Perhaps the girl saw, while she did not comprehend it. 
 She regarded him helplessly. 
 
 " I — I don't know — hardl}^ — why I came," she faltered, 
 twisting the corner of her shawl. 
 
 She had been rather pretty, but the colour and freshness 
 were gone from her face and there were premature lines of 
 pain and misery marking it here and there. 
 
 Baird moved a chair near her. 
 
 172 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 ^' Sit down/' he said. " Have you walked all the way 
 from Janway's Mills? " 
 
 She started a little and gave him a look, half wonder, half 
 relief, and then fell to twisting the fringe of her poor shawl 
 again. 
 
 " Yes, I walked," she answered; " but I can't set down. 
 I h'ain't but a minute to stay." 
 
 Her clothes, which had been shabby at their best, were 
 at their worst now, and, altogether, she was a figure neither 
 attractive nor picturesque. 
 
 But Baird saw pathos in her. It was said that one of 
 his most charming qualities was his readiness to discover 
 the pathetic under any guise. 
 
 " You came to ask Mr. Latimer some questions, per- 
 haps? " he said. 
 
 She suddenly burst into tears. 
 
 " Yes," she answered, " I — I couldn't help it." 
 
 She checked herself and wiped her tears away with the 
 shawl corner almost immediately. 
 
 " I wanted to know something about /ier," she said. 
 " Nobody seemed to know nothin', only that she was dead. 
 When they said you'd come home, it seemed like I couldn't 
 rest until I'd heard something." 
 
 " "What do you want to hear? " said Latimer. 
 
 It struck Baird that the girl's manner was a curious one. 
 It was a manner which seemed to conceal beneath its shame- 
 faced awkwardness some secret fear or anxiety. She gave 
 Latimer a hurried, stealthy look, and then her eyes fell. 
 It was as if she would have read in his gloomy face what 
 she did not dare to ask. 
 
 *^ I'd be afraid to die mvself ," she stammered. " I can't 
 tear to think of it.- I'm afraid. .Was she? " 
 
 173 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 " No/' Latimer answered. 
 
 The girl gave him another dull, stealthy look. 
 
 " I'm glad of that," she said; " she can't have minded 
 so much if she wasn't afraid. I'd like to think she didn't 
 mind it so much — or suffer." 
 
 " She did not suffer," said Latimer. 
 
 " I never saw nothin' of her after the last day she came 
 to Janway's Mills," the girl began. 
 
 Latimer lifted his eyes suddenly. 
 
 " She went to the Mills? " he exclaimed. 
 
 " Yes," she answered, her voice shaking. " I guess she 
 never told. After that first night she stood by me. No 
 one else did. Seemed like other folks thought I'd poison 
 'em. She'd come an' see me an' — help me. She was sick 
 the last day she came, and when she was going home she 
 fainted in the street, I heard folks say, I never saw her after 
 that." 
 
 She brushed a tear from her face with the shawl again. 
 
 ^' So as she didn't mind much, or suffer," she said, '^ t'ain't 
 so bad to think of. She wasn't one to be able to stand up 
 asfainst thino^s. She'd have died if she'd been me. I'd be 
 glad enough to die myself, if I wasn't afraid. She'd cry 
 over me when I wasn't crying over myself. I've been beat 
 about till I don't mind, like I used. They're a hard lot 
 down at the Mills." 
 
 " And you," said Latimer, " what sort of a life have you 
 been leading? " 
 
 His voice was harsh and his manner repellant only be- 
 cause Nature had served him the cruel turn of making 
 them so. lie was bitterly conscious as he spoke of having 
 chosen the wrong words and uttered them with an ap- 
 pearance of relentless rigour which he would have made 
 any effort to soften. 
 
 174 
 
(< 
 
 In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 Baird made a quick moYement towards the girl. 
 
 " Have you any work? " he asked. " Do you need help? 
 Don't mind telling us. My friend is to take charge of your 
 church at the Mills." 
 
 The girl interrupted him. She had turned miserably 
 pale under Latimer's question. 
 
 " ^Tain't no church of mine! " she said, passionately; " I 
 h'ain't nothin' to do with it. I never belonged to no church 
 anyhow, an' I'm leadin' the kind o' life any girl'd lead 
 that hadn't nothin' nor nobody. I don't mean," with a 
 strangled sob, " to even myself with her; but what'ud she 
 ha' done if she'd ha' slipped like I did — an' then had 
 nothin' nor — nor nobody? " 
 
 Don't speak of her! " cried Latimer, almost fiercely. 
 'Twon't hurt her," said the girl, struggling with a sob 
 again; " she's past bein' hurt even by such as me — an' I'm 
 glad of it. She's well out of it all! " 
 
 She turned as if she would have gone away, but Baird 
 checked her. 
 
 " Wait a moment," he said; " perhaps I can be of some 
 service to you." 
 
 " You can't do nothin'," she interrupted. " Xobody 
 can't!" 
 
 " Let me try," he said; " take a note to Miss Starkweather 
 from me and wait at the house for a few minutes. Come, 
 that isn't much, is it? You'll do that much, I'm sure." 
 
 She looked down at the floor a few seconds and then up 
 at him. It had always been considered one of his recom- 
 mendations that he was so unprofessional in his appearance. 
 
 " Yes," she said, slowly, " I can do that, I suppose." 
 
 He drew a note-book from his breast-pocket and, hav- 
 ing written a few words on a leaf of it, tore it out and 
 handed it to her. 
 
 175 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 *^ Take that to Miss Starkweather's house and say I sent 
 voii with it." 
 
 When she was gone, he turned to Latimer again. 
 
 " Before I go," he said, " I want to say a few words to 
 you — to ask you to make me a promise." 
 
 " What is the promise? " said Latimer. 
 
 " It is that we shall he friends — friends." 
 
 Baird laid his hand on the man's gaunt shoulder with a 
 nervous grasp as he spoke, and his voice was unsteady. 
 
 " I have never had a friend," answered Latimer, monot- 
 onously; '' I should scarcely know what to do with one." 
 
 " Then it is time you had one," Baird replied. " And 
 I may have something to offer you. There may be some- 
 thing in — ^in my feeling which may be worth your having." 
 
 He held out his hand. 
 
 Latimer looked at it for a second, then at him, his sal- 
 low face flushing darkly. 
 
 " You are offering me a good deal," he said, " I scarcely 
 know whv — mvself ." 
 
 " But you don't take my hand, Latimer," Baird said; 
 and the words were spoken with a faint loss of colour. 
 
 Latimer took it, flushing more darkly still. 
 
 "What have I to offer in return?" he said. "I have 
 nothing. You had better think again. I should only be 
 a kind of shadow on your life." 
 
 " I want nothing in return — nothing," Baird said. " I 
 don't even ask feeling from you. Be a shadow on my life, 
 if you will. Why should I have no shadows? Why should 
 
 all go smoothly with me, while others " He paused, 
 
 checking his vehemence as if he had suddenly recognised 
 it. " Let us be friends," he said. 
 
 176 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 The respectable portion of the population of Janway's 
 Mills believed in church-going and on Sunday-school at- 
 tendance — in fact, the most entirely respectable believed 
 that such persons as neglected these duties were preparing 
 themselves for damnation. They were a quiet, simple, and 
 unintellectual people. Such of them as occasionally read 
 books knew nothing of any literature which was not re- 
 ligious. The stories they had followed through certain 
 inexpensive periodicals were of the order which describes 
 the gradual elevation of the worldly-minded or depraved 
 to the plane of church-going and Sunday-school. Their 
 few novels made it their motif to prove that it is easier for 
 a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich 
 man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Any hero or 
 heroine of wealth who found peace of mind and married 
 happily, only attained these objects through the assistance 
 of some noble though humble unsecular person whose ex- 
 ample and instruction led them to adopt unsecular views. 
 The point of view of Janway's Mills was narrow and far 
 from charitable when it was respectable; its point of view, 
 when it was not respectable, was desperate. Even sinners, 
 at Janway's Mills, were primitive and limited in outlook. 
 They did not excuse themselves with specious argument 
 for their crimes of neglecting church-going, using bad lan- 
 guage, hanging about bar-rooms, and loose living. They 
 
 177 
 
In Connection with 
 
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 were not brilliant wrongdoers and made no attempt at de- 
 fending themselves or pretending that they did not know 
 they were going to perdition. The New England mind is 
 not broad or versatile, and, having begun life in a Puritan 
 atmosphere, it is not quick to escape its influence. So- 
 ciety at the Mills recognised no social distinction which 
 was not founded upon the respectability of church-going 
 and the observance of social laws made by church-goers; 
 it recognised none because it absolutely hieio of none. The 
 great world was not far from Janway's Mills, but they did 
 not touch each other. Willowfield was near, Boston and 
 New York themselves were not far distant, but the curious 
 fact being that millions of human minds may work and 
 grow and struggle as if they were the minds of dwellers 
 upon another planet, though less than a hundred miles 
 may separate them, the actual lives, principles, and signifi- 
 cances of the larger places did not seem to touch the smaller 
 one. The smaller one was a villa sre of a few streets of small 
 houses which had grown up about the Mills themselves. 
 The Mills gave emplo5mient to a village full of hands, so the 
 village gradually evolved itself. It was populated by the 
 uneducated labouring class; some were respectable, some 
 were dissolute and lived low and gross lives, but all were 
 uneducated in any sense which implies more than the 
 power to read, write, and make a few necessary calcula- 
 tions. Most of them took some newspaper. They read of 
 the multi-millionaires who lived in New York and Chicago 
 and California, they read of the politicians in Washington, 
 thev found described to them the CTeat entertainments 
 given by millionaires' wives and daughters, the marvellous 
 dresses they wore, the multifarious ways in which they 
 amused themselves, but what they read seemed so totally 
 
 178 
 
In Connection with 
 
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 unlike anything tliey had ever seen, so far apart from their 
 own lives, that though they were not aware of the fact, the 
 truth was that they believed in them with about the same 
 degree of realisation with which they believed in what 
 they heard in the pulpit of the glories of the New Jerusa- 
 lem. No human being exists without an ambition, and 
 the ambition of Janway's Millers of the high-class was to 
 possess a neat frame-house with clean Nottingham lace 
 curtains at the windows, fresh oilcloth on the floor of the 
 front hall, furniture covered with green or red reps in the 
 parlour, a tapestry Brussels carpet, and a few lithographs 
 upon the walls. It was also the desire of the owners of such 
 possessions that everyone should know that they attended 
 one of the churches, that their house-cleaning was done 
 regularly, that no member of the family frequented bar- 
 rooms, and that they were respectable people. It was an 
 ambition w^hicn was according to their lights, and could be 
 despised by no honest human being, however dull it might 
 appear to him. It resulted oftener than not in the making 
 of excellent narrow lives which brought harm to no one. 
 The liA^es which went wrong on the street-corners and in 
 the bar-rooms often did barm. They produced discom- 
 fort, unhappiness, and disorder; but as it is also quite 
 certain that no human being produces these things with- 
 out working out his own punishment for himself while 
 he lives on earth, the ends of justice were doubtless at- 
 tained. 
 
 If a female creature at the Mills broke the orpeat social 
 
 o 
 
 law, there was no leaning towards the weakness of pity for 
 her, Janway's was not sufficiently developed, mentally, to 
 deal with gradations or analysis of causes and impelling 
 powers. The girl who brought forth a child without the 
 
 179 
 
In Connection with 
 
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 pale of orthodox marriage was an outcast and a disgraced 
 creature, and nobody flinched from pronouncing her both. 
 
 " It's disgustin', that's what I call it/' it was the custom 
 for respectable wives and mothers to say. " It's disgustin'! 
 A nice thing she's done for herself. I h'ain't no patience 
 with girls like her, with no fear o' God or religion in them 
 an' no modesty and decency. She deserves whatever comes 
 to her! " 
 
 Usually every tragedy befell her which could befall a 
 woman. If her child lived, it lived the life of wretchedness 
 and was an outcast also. The outcome of its existence was 
 determined by the order of woman its mother chanced to 
 be. If the maternal instinct was warm and strong within 
 her and she loved it, there were a few chances that it might 
 fight through its early years of struggle and expand into 
 a human being who counted as one at least among the 
 world's millions. Usually the mother died in the gutter or 
 the hospital, but there had been women who survived, and 
 when they did so it was often because they made a battle for 
 their children. Sometimes it was because they were made 
 of the material which is not easily beaten, and then they 
 learned as the years went by that the human soul and will 
 may be even stronger than that which may seem at the 
 outset overwhelming fate. 
 
 When the girl Susan Chapman fell into misfortune and 
 disgrace, her path was not made easy for her. There were 
 a few months when the vounsr mill hand who brouo^ht 
 disaster upon her, made love to her, and hung about her 
 small home, sometimes leaning upon the rickety gate to 
 talk and laugh with her, sometimes loitering with her in 
 the streets or taking her to cheap picnics or on rather 
 rowdy excursions. She wore the excited and highly pleased 
 
 180 
 
In Connection with 
 
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 air seen in young women of her class when the masculine 
 creature is paying court. She spent her wages in personal 
 decoration, she bought cheap feathers and artificial flowers 
 and remnants on " bargain days," and decked herself with 
 them. Her cheap, good looks reached their highest point 
 because she felt the glow of a promotive triumph and her 
 spirits were exhilarated. She was nearer happiness than 
 she had ever been before. The other girls, who were mill 
 hands like herself, were full of the usual rather envious 
 jokes about her possible marriage. To be married was to 
 achieve a desirable distinction and to work at home instead 
 of at the Mills. The young man was not an absolute 
 villain, he was merely an ignorant, foolish young ani- 
 mal. At first he had had inchoate beliefs in a domestic 
 future with the girl. But the time came when equally in- 
 choate ideas of his own manhood led him to grow cool. 
 The Xew England atmosphere which had not influenced 
 him in all points, influenced him in the matter of feeling 
 that the woman a man married must have kept herself re- 
 spectable. The fact that he himself had caused her fall 
 from the plane of decency was of comparatively small mo- 
 ment. 
 
 A man who married a woman who had not managed to 
 keep straight, put himself into a sort of ridiculous po- 
 sition. He lost masculine distinction. This one ceased 
 to lean on the gate and talk at night, and went to fewer 
 picnics. He was in less high spirits, and so was the girl. 
 She often looked pale and as if she had been crying. Then 
 Jack Williams gave up his place at the Mill and left the 
 village. He did not tell his sweetheart. The morning after 
 he left, Susan came to her work and found the girls about 
 her wearing a mysterious and interested air. 
 
 181 
 
In Connection with 
 
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 '' "Wliat are you whispering about ? " she asked. " What's 
 the secret? ^' 
 
 "' 'Tain't no secret," was the answer. " Most everybody's 
 heard it, and I guess it ain't no secret to you. I guess he 
 told you when he made up his mind to go." 
 
 "Who? "she asked. 
 
 " Jack Williams. He's gone out to Chicago to work 
 somewhere there. He kept it pretty dark from us, but 
 when he went off on the late train last night, Joe Evans 
 saw him, and he said he'd had the offer of a first-rate job 
 and was going to it. How you stare. Sue! Your eyes look 
 as if they'd pop out o' yer head." 
 
 She was staring and her skin had turned blue-white. 
 She broke into a short hvsteric lau2:h and fell down. Then 
 she was very sick and fainted and had to be taken home 
 trembling so that she could scarcely crawl as she w^alked, 
 with great tears dropping down her cold face. Janway's 
 Mills knew well enough after this that Jack Williams had 
 deserted her, and had no hesitation in suggesting a reason 
 for his defection. 
 
 The months which followed were filled with the torments 
 of a squalid Inferno. Girls who had regarded her with 
 envy, began to refuse to speak to her or to be seen in her 
 company. Jack Williams's companions were either im- 
 pudent or disdainful^ the married women stared at her and 
 commented on her as she passed; there were no more pic- 
 nics or excursions for her; her feathers became draggled 
 and hung broken in her hat. She had no relatives in the 
 village, having come from a country place. She was thank- 
 ful that she had not a family of aunts on the spot, because 
 she knew they would have despised her and talked her over 
 more than the rest. She lived in a bare little room which 
 
 183 
 
In Connection with 
 
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 she rented from a poor couple, and she used to sit alone 
 in it^ huddled up in a heap by the window, crying for 
 hours in the evening as she watched the other girls go by 
 laughing and joking with their sweethearts. 
 
 One night when there was a sociable in the little frame 
 Methodist church opposite, and she saw it lighted up and 
 the people going in dressed in their best clothes and excited 
 at meeting each other, the girls giggling at the sight of 
 their favourite young men — just as she had giggled six 
 months before — her slow tears began to drip faster and 
 the sobs came one upon another until she was choked by 
 them and she began to make a noise. She sobbed and cried 
 more convulsively, until she began to scream and went into 
 something like hysterics. She dropped down on her face 
 and rolled over and over, clutching at her breast and her 
 sides and throwing out her arms. The people of the house 
 had gone to the sociable and she was alone, so no one heard 
 or came near her. She shrieked and sobbed and rolled over 
 and over, clutching at her flesh, trying to gasp out words 
 that choked her. 
 
 "0, Lord!" she gasped, wild with the insensate agony 
 of a poor, hysteria torn, untaught, uncontrolled thing, " I 
 don't know what Fve done! I don't! 'Tain't fair! I didn't 
 go to! I can't bear it! He h'ain't got nothin' to bear, he 
 ain't! 0, Lord God, look down on me! " 
 
 She was the poor, helpless outcome of the commonest 
 phase of life, but her garret saw a ghastly tragedy as she 
 choked through her hysterics. Who is to blame for and 
 who to prevent such tragedies, let deep thinkers strive to 
 tell. 
 
 The day after this was the one on which little Margery 
 Latimer came into her life. It was in the early spring, just 
 
 183 
 
In Connection with 
 
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 before the child had gone to Boston to begin her art lessons. 
 She had come to Janway's Mills to see a poor woman who 
 had worked for her mother. The woman lived in the 
 house in which Susan had her bare room. She began to 
 talk about the girl half fretfully, half contemptuously. 
 
 " She's the one Jack Williams got into trouble and then 
 left to get out of it by herself as well as she could," she 
 said. " She might ha' known it. Gals is fools. She can't 
 work at the Mills any more, an' last night when we was 
 all at the Sosherble, she seems to've had a spasm o' some 
 kind; she can't get out o' bed this mornin' and lies there 
 lookin' like death an' moanin'. I can't 'tend to her, I've 
 got work o' my own to do. Lansy! how she was moanin' 
 when I passed her door! Seemed like she'd kill herself! " 
 
 " Oh, poor thing! " cried Margery; " let me go up to 
 her." 
 
 She was a sensitive creature, and the colour had ebbed 
 out of her pretty face. 
 
 " Lor, no! " the woman cried; " she ain't the kind o' gal 
 you'd oughter be doing things for, she was alius right down 
 common, an' she's sunk do^m 'bout as low as a gal can." 
 
 But Margery went up to the room where the moaning 
 was going on. She stood outside the door on the landing 
 for a few moments, her heart trembling in her side before 
 she went in. Her life had been a simple, happ}-, bright one 
 up to this time. She had not seen the monster life close 
 at hand. She had large, childish eyes which were the 
 colour of harebells and exquisitely sympathetic and sweet. 
 There were tears in them when she gently opened the door 
 and stood timidly on the threshold. 
 
 " Let me, please let me come in," she said. " Don't say 
 
 I ma}Ti't." 
 
 184 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 The moaning and low choking sobs went on, and in a 
 very few moments they so wrought upon her, that she 
 pushed the door farther open and entered the room. What 
 she saw was a barren, common little place, and on the bed 
 a girl lying utterly prostrated by an hysteric tempest which 
 had lasted hours. Her face was white and swollen and 
 covered with red marks, as if she had clutched and torn it 
 with her fingers, her dress was torn open at the bosom, and 
 her hair tumbled, torn, and loose about the pillow; there 
 was a discoloured place upon her forehead which was set- 
 tling into a bruise. Her eyes were puffed with crying until 
 they were almost closed. Her breast rose with short, ex- 
 hausted, but still convulsive sobs. Margery felt as if she 
 was drawn into a vortex of agony. She could not resist it. 
 She went to the bed, stood still a second, trembling, and 
 then sank upon her knees and put her face down upon the 
 wretched hand nearest and kissed it with piteous impulsive 
 sympathy. 
 
 "Oh! don't cry like that," she said, crying herself . "Oh, 
 don't! Oh, don't! I'm so sorry for you — I'm so sorry for 
 you." 
 
 She did not know the girl at all, she had never even heard 
 of her before, but she kissed her hand and cried over it and 
 fondled it against her breast. She was one of those human 
 things created by ISTature to suffer with others, and for 
 them, and through them. 
 
 She did not know how long it was before the girl became 
 sufficiently articulate to speak to her. She herself was 
 scarcely articulate for some time. She could only try to 
 find words to meet a need so far beyond her ken. She had 
 never come in contact with a woman in this strait before. 
 
 But at last Susan was lying in the bed instead of on its 
 
 185 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 tossed and tumbled outside. Margery had done the near- 
 est, simple things for her. She had helped her to bathe 
 her face with cold water, to undress and put on her night- 
 gown; she had prepared her narrow bed for her decently, 
 and smoothed and wound up her hair. Then she had gone 
 downstairs, got her a cup of tea, and sat by her and made 
 her drink it. Then she set the room in order and opened 
 the window to air it. 
 
 " There is a bruise on your forehead," she had said, as 
 she w^as arranging the torn hair. " You must have struck 
 it against something when you were ill last night." 
 
 " I struck it against the wall," Susan answered, in a 
 monotonous voice. " I did it on purpose. I banged my 
 head against the wall until I fell down and was sick." 
 
 Margery's face quivered again. 
 
 " Don't think about it," she said. " You ought not to 
 have been alone. Some — some friend ought to have been 
 wdth you." 
 
 " I haven't got any friends," Susan answered. " I don't 
 know why you came up to me. I don't guess you know 
 what's the matter with me." 
 
 " Yes, I do," said Margery. " You are in great trouble." 
 
 "It's the worst kind o' trouble a woman can get into," 
 
 said Susan, the muscles of her face beginning to be drawn 
 
 again. " I don't see why — why Jack Williams can skip off 
 
 to Chicago to a new, big job that's a stroke o' luck — an' me 
 
 left lie here to bear everything — an' be picked at, an' made 
 
 fun of, an' druv mad with the way I'm kicked in the gutter. 
 
 I don't see no right in it. There ain't no right in it; I don't 
 
 believe there's no God anyhow; I won't never believe it 
 
 again. No one can't make me. If I've done what gives 
 
 folks a right to cast me off, so's Jack Williams." 
 
 186 
 
In Connection with 
 
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 (( 
 
 You haven't pretended to love a person and then run 
 away and left them to — to suffer/' said little Margery, on 
 the verge of sobs again. 
 
 "Xo, I haven't! " said the girl, her tears beginning to 
 stream anew. " I'm not your kind. I'm not educated. I'm 
 onlv a common mill hand, but I did love Jack Williams 
 all I knew how. He had such a nice way with him — kind 
 of affectionate, an' — an' he was real good-lookin' too when 
 he was fixed up. If I'd been married to him, no one would 
 have said nothin', an' — an' 'tain't nothin' but a minister 
 readin' somethin' anyhow — marryin' ain't." 
 
 187 
 
CHAPTER XYI 
 
 This was before Margery went to Boston to try to develop 
 her gift for making pretty sketches. Her father and mother 
 and her brother strained every nerve to earn and save the 
 money to cover her expenses. She went away full of inno- 
 cent, joyous hope in the month of May. She boarded in 
 a plain, quiet house, and had two rooms. One was her work- 
 room and studio. She worked under a good-natured artist, 
 who thought her a rather gifted little creature and used to 
 take her to look at any pictures that were on exhibition. 
 Taking into consideration her youth and limited advantages, 
 she made such progress as led him to say that she had a 
 future before her. 
 
 She had never deserted Sue Chapman after that first morn- 
 ing in which she had gone to her rescue. Janway's Mills 
 was bewildered when it found that the Eeverend Lucien 
 Latimer's sister went to see Jack Williams' deserted sweet- 
 heart, and did not disdain to befriend her in her disgrace. 
 The church-going element, with the Nottingham lace cur- 
 tains in its parlour windows, would have been shocked, but 
 that it was admitted that " the Latimers has always been 
 a well-thought-of family, an' all of 'em is members in good 
 standin'. They're greatly respected in Willowfield; even 
 the old fam'lies speak to 'em when they meet 'em in the 
 street or at Church. 
 
 "Not that I'd be willin' for my Elma Ann to 'sociate 
 Avith a girl that's gone wrong. Maybe it's sorter different 
 Avith a minister's sister. Ministers' famihes has to 'sociate 
 
 138 
 
In Connection with 
 
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 out o' charity an' religion; go to pray with 'em, an' that, 
 an' read the Scripture to make 'em sense their sinfulness 
 an' the danger they're in." 
 
 But Margery did not pray with Susan Chapman, or read 
 the Bible to her. The girl held obstinately to her statement 
 of unbelief in a God, and Margery did not feel that her mood 
 was one to which reading the Gospel would appeal. If she 
 could have explained to her the justice of the difference be- 
 tween Jack Williams' lot and" her own, she felt they might 
 have advanced perhaps, but she could not. She used to go 
 to see her and try to alleviate her ph3^sical discomfort and 
 miserable poverty. She saved her from hunger and cold 
 when she could no longer work at all, and she taught her 
 to feel that she was not utterly without a friend. 
 
 " "\^liat I'd have done without you, God knows — or what 
 ought to be God," Sue said. " He didn't care, but you did. 
 If there is one, He's got a lot to learn from some of the 
 people He's made Himself. ' After His own image created 
 He them' — that's what the Bible says; but I don't believe 
 it. If He was as good and kind-hearted as the best of us. 
 He wouldn't sit upon His throne with angels singing round 
 an' playin' on harps, an' Him too much interested to see 
 how everythin's sufferin' down below. What did He make 
 us for, if He couldn't look after us? I wouldn't make a 
 thing I wouldn't do my best b}' — an' I ain't nothin' but 
 a factory girl. This — this poor thing that's goin' to be born 
 an' hain't no right to, I'll do my level best by it — I will. 
 It sha'n't suffer, if I can help it " — ^her lips jerking. 
 
 Sometimes Margery would talk to her a little about Jack 
 Williams — or, rather, she would listen while Susan talked. 
 Then Susan would cry, large, slow-rolling tears slipping 
 down her cheeks. 
 
 189 
 
In Connection with 
 
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 " I don't know how — how it happened like this," she 
 would say. *' It seems like a kind o' awfnl dream. I don't 
 know nothin'. He was common — just like I am — an' he 
 didn't know much; but it didn't seem like he was a bad 
 feller — an' I do b'lieve he liked me. Seemed like he did, 
 anyways. They say he's got a splendid job in Chicago. He 
 won't never know nothin' about what happens." 
 
 Margery did not leave her unprovided for when she went 
 to Boston. It cost very little to keep her for a few months 
 in her small room. The people of the house promised to be 
 decently kind to her. Margery had only been away from 
 home two weeks when the child was born. The hvsterical 
 paroxysms and violent outbreaks of grief its mother had 
 passed through, her convulsive writhings and clutchings and 
 beating of her head against the walls had distorted and ex- 
 hausted the little creature. The women who were with her 
 said its body looked as if it were bruised in spots all over, 
 and there was a purple mark on its temple. It breathed 
 a few times and died. 
 
 " Good thing, too! " said the women. " There's too many 
 in the world that's got a right here. It'd hev' had to go 
 to ruin." 
 
 " Good thing for it/' said Susan, weakly but sullenly, 
 from her bed; " but if it's God as makes 'em, how did He 
 come to go to the trouble of making this one an' sendin' 
 it out, if it hadn't no right to come? He does make 'em 
 all, doesn't he ? You wouldn't darst to say He didn't — you, 
 Mrs. Hopp, that's a church member! " And her white face 
 actually drew itself into a ghastly, dreary grin. " Lawsy! 
 He's kept pretty busy! " 
 
 When she was able to stand on her feet she went back to 
 the mill. She was a good worker, and hands were needed. 
 
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 The girls and women fought shy of her, and she had no 
 chance of enjoj^ing any young pleasures or comforts, even 
 if she had not been too much broken on the rack of the 
 misery of the last year to have energy to desire them. ISTo 
 young man wanted to be seen talking to her, no young 
 woman cared to walk with her in the streets. She always 
 went home to her room alone, and sat alone, and thought 
 of what had happened to her, trying to explain to herself 
 how it had happened and why it had turned out that she 
 was worse than any other girl. She had never felt like a 
 bad girl. ISTo one had ever called her one before this last 
 year. 
 
 Three months after the child was born and died, Margery 
 came back to Willowfield to spend a week at home. She 
 came to see Susan, and they sat together in the tragic little 
 bare room and talked. Tliough the girl had been so deli- 
 cately pretty before she left home, Susan saw that she had 
 become much prettier. She was dressed in light, softly 
 tinted summer stuffs, and there was something about her 
 which was curiously flower-like. Her long-lashed, harebell 
 blue eyes seemed to have widened and grown lovelier in their 
 innocent look. A more subtle mind than Susan Chapman's 
 might have said that she seemed to be looking farther into 
 Life's spaces, and that she was trembling upon the verge 
 of something unknown and beautiful. 
 
 She talked about Boston and the happiness of her life 
 there, and of her work and her guileless girlish hopes and 
 ambitions. 
 
 " I am doing my very best," she said, a spot of pink flick- 
 ering on her cheek; " I work as hard as I can, but you see 
 I am so ignorant. I could not have learned anything about 
 art in AVillowfield. But people are so good to me — people 
 
 191 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 who know a great deal. There is one gentleman who comes 
 sometimes to see Mr. Barnard at the studio. He is so won- 
 derful, it seems to me. He has travelled, and knows all 
 about the great galleries and the pictures in them. He 
 talks so beautifully that eyeryone listens when he comes in. 
 Nobody can bear to go on with work for fear of missing 
 something. You would think he would not notice a plain 
 little Willowfield girl, but he has been lovely to me, Susan. 
 He has even looked at my work and criticised it for me, 
 and talked to me. He nearly always talks to me a little when 
 he comes in, and once I met him in the Gardens, and he 
 stopped and talked there, and walked about looking at the 
 flowers with me. They had been planting out the spring 
 things, and it was like being in fairyland to walk about 
 among them and hear the things he said about pictures. It 
 taught me so much." 
 
 She referred to this friend two or three times, and once 
 mentioned his name, but Susan forgot it. She was such 
 a beautiful, happy little thing, and seemed so exquisite an 
 expression of spring-like, radiant youth and its innocent joy 
 in living that the desolate and stranded creature she had 
 befriended could think of nothing but her own awkward 
 worship and the fascination of the flower-like charm. She 
 used to sit and stare at her. 
 
 " Seems so queer to see anyone as happy an' pretty as 
 you," she broke out once. " Oh, Lawsy, I hope nothing 
 won't ever come to spoil it. It hadn't ought to be spoiled." 
 
 A month or so later Margery paid a visit to her home 
 again. She stayed a longer time, but Susan only saw her 
 once. She had come home from Boston with a cold and 
 had been put to bed for a day or two. 
 
 One morning Susan was in Willowfield and met her walk- 
 
 193 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 ing in a quiet street. She was walking slowly and looking 
 down as she went, as if some thought was abstracting her. 
 When Susan stopped before her, she looked up wdth a start. 
 It was a start which revealed that she had been brought back 
 suddenly from a distance, as it were a great distance. 
 
 " Oh, Susan! " she said. " Oh, Susan! " 
 
 She held out her hand in her pretty, affectionate way, but 
 she was actually a little out of breath. 
 
 " I'm sorry I came on you so sudden," Susan said, " I 
 startled you." 
 
 " Yes," she answered, " I was — I was thinking of things 
 that seem so far off. When I'm in Willowfield it seems as 
 if — as if they can't be true. Does anything ever seem like 
 that to you, Susan? " 
 
 " Yes," said Susan. One of her hopeless looks leaped 
 into her eyes. She did not say what the things were, but 
 she stared at Margery in a helpless, vacant way for a 
 moment. 
 
 "Are you well, Susan, and have you got work?" asked 
 Margery. " I am coming to see you to-morrow." 
 
 They spoke of common things for a few minutes, and 
 then went their separate ways. 
 
 Why it was that when she paid the promised visit the 
 next day and they sat together in their old way and talked, 
 Susan felt a kind of misery creeping slowly upon her, she 
 could not in the least have explained. She was not suffi- 
 ciently developed mentally to have been capable of sa}ing 
 to herself that there was a difference between this visit and 
 the last, between this Margery and the one who had sat with 
 her before. Her dull thoughts were too slow to travel to 
 a point so definite in so short a length of time as one after- 
 noon afforded. 
 
 193 
 
As 
 
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 " Your cold was a pretty bad one, wasn't it ? " she asked, 
 vaguely, once. 
 
 " Yes," was the answer. " It made me feel weak. But 
 it has gone now. I am quite well again." 
 
 After that Susan saw her but once again. As time went 
 on she heard a vague rumour that the Latimers were anxious 
 about Margery's health. Just at that time the mill hands 
 gossiped a good deal about Willowfield, because the Rever- 
 end John Baird was said to be going to Europe. That led 
 to talk on the subject of other AYillowfield people, and the 
 Latimers among them. In the rare, brief letters Margery 
 wrote to her protegee, she did not say she was ill. Once she 
 said her brother Lucien had quite suddenly come to Boston 
 to see how she was, because her mother imagined she must 
 have taken cold. 
 
 She had been in Boston about a year then. One afternoon 
 Susan was in her room, standing by her bed forlornly, and, 
 in a vacant, reasonless mood, turning over the few coarse 
 little garments she had been able to prepare for her child — 
 a few common little shirts and nightgowns and gray flannels 
 — no more. She heard someone at the door. The handle 
 turned and the door opened as if the person who came in had 
 forgotten the ceremony of knocking. Susan laid down on 
 the bed the ugly little night-dress she had been looking at; 
 it lay there stiff with its coarseness, its short arms stretched 
 out. She turned about and faced Margery Latimer, who 
 liad crossed the threshold and stood before her. 
 
 Susan uttered a low, frightened cry before she could speak 
 a word. 
 
 The girl looked like a ghost. It was a ghost Susan 
 thought of this time, and not a flower. The pure little face 
 was white and drawn, the features were sharpened, the hare- 
 
 194 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 bell-coloured eyes had almost a look of wildness; it was as 
 if they had been looking at something frightening for a 
 long time, until they could not lose the habit of expressing 
 fear. 
 
 " Susan," she said, in a strange, uncertain voice, " you 
 didn't expect to see me." 
 
 Susan ran to her. 
 
 " Xo, no," she said, " I didn't know you was here. I 
 thought you was in Boston. "What's the matter? Oh, Lawsy, 
 Margery, what's happened to make you look like this? " 
 
 " Xobody knows," answered Margery. ^' They say it's 
 the cold. They are frightened about me. I'm come to say 
 good-bye to you, Susan." 
 
 She sank into a chair and sat there, panting a little. 
 
 ** Lucien's going to take me to Europe," she said, her voice 
 all at once seeming to sound monotonous, as if she was re- 
 citing a lesson mechanically. " I always wanted to go there 
 — to visit the picture galleries and study. They think the 
 elimate will be good for me. I've been coughing in the 
 mornings — and I can't eat." 
 
 " Do they think you might be going into — a consump- 
 tion?" Susan faltered. 
 
 " Mother's frightened," said Margery. " She and the doc- 
 tor don't know what to think. Lucien's going to take me 
 to Europe. It's expensive, but — but he has managed to 
 get the mone3\ He sold a little farm he owned." 
 
 " He's a good brother," said Susan. 
 
 Suddenly Margery began to cry as if she could not help it. 
 
 " Oh," she exclaimed. " Xo one knows what a good 
 brother he is — nobody but myself. He is willing to give 
 up everything to — to save me — and to save poor mother 
 from awful trouble. Sometimes I think he is something 
 
 195 
 
In Connection with 
 
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 like Christ — even like Christ! He is willing to suffer for 
 other people — for their pain — and weakness — and sin." 
 
 It was so evident that the change which had taken place 
 in her was a woeful one. Her bright loveliness was gone — 
 her simple, lovable happiness. Her nerves seemed all un- 
 strung. But it was the piteous, strained look in her childlike 
 eyes which stirred poor Susan's breast to tumult. 
 
 " Margery," she said, almost trembling, " if — if — if you 
 was to go in a consumption and die — you're not like me — 
 you needn't be afraid." 
 
 The next moment she was sorry she had said the crude 
 thing. Margery burst into a passion of weeping. Susan 
 flew to her and caught her in her arms, kneeling down by 
 her. 
 
 " I oughtn't to have said it," she cried. " You're too ill 
 to be made to think of such things. I was a fool not to see — 
 Margery, Margery, don't! " 
 
 But Margery was too weak to be able to control her sob- 
 bing. 
 
 " They say that — that God forgives people," she wept. 
 " I've prayed and prayed to be forgiven for — for my sins. 
 I've never meant to be wicked. I don't know — I don't 
 know how " 
 
 " Hush! " said Susan, soothing and patting her trembling 
 shoulder. " Hush, hush! If there is a God, Margery, He's 
 a heap sight better than we give Him credit for. He don't 
 make people a' purpose, so they can't help things somehow 
 — an' don't know — an' then send 'em to burning hell for 
 lein' the way He made 'em. Tfe wouldn't do it, an' He 
 won't. You hain't no reason to be afraid of dyin'." 
 
 Margery stayed with her about half an hour. There was 
 a curious element in their conversation. They spoke as if 
 
 196 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 their interview was a final one. Neither of them actually 
 expressed the thought in words, but a listener would have 
 felt vaguely that they never expected to meet each other 
 again on earth. They made no references to the future; it 
 was as if no future could be counted upon. Afterwards, 
 when she was alone, Susan realised that she had never once 
 said "■' when you come back from Europe." 
 
 As she was leaving the room, Margery passed the bed on 
 which the small, coarse garments lay. The little nightgown, 
 with its short sleeves stiffly outstretched, seemed to arrest her 
 attention specially. She caught at Susan's dress as if she 
 was unaware that she made the movement or of the sharp 
 shudder which followed it. 
 
 Those — are its things, aren't they, Susan? " she said. 
 Yes," Susan answered, her sullen look of pain coming 
 back to her face. 
 
 " I — don't know — how j^eople hear it! " exclaimed Mar- 
 gery. It was an exclamation, and her hand went quickly 
 up to her mouth almost as if to press it back. 
 
 ^' They don't hear it," said Susan, stonily. " They have 
 to go through it — that's all. If 3'ou was standin' on the 
 gallows with the rope round your neck and the trap-door 
 under your feet, you wouldn't be bearin' it, but the trap- 
 door would drop all the same, an' down you'd plunge — into 
 the blackness." 
 
 It was on this morning, on her way through the streets, 
 that Margery dropped in a dead faint upon the pavement, 
 and Miss Amory Starkweather, passing in her carriage, 
 picked her up and carried her home. 
 
 Susan Chapman never saw her again. Some months after- 
 wards came the rumour that she had died of consumption 
 in Italy. 
 
 197 
 
 
CHAPTER XYII 
 
 "When, in accordance with Baird's instructions, Susan 
 Chapman took the note to Miss Starkweather, she walked 
 through the tree-shaded streets, feeling as if she had sud- 
 denly found herself in a foreign country. To the inhabi- 
 tants of Janway's Mills, certain parts of Willowfield stood 
 for wealth, luxury, and decorous splendour. The Mills, 
 which lived within itself, was easily impressed. Its — occa- 
 sionally resentful — respect for Willowfield was enormous. 
 It did not behold it as a simple provincial town, whose busi- 
 ness establishments were primitive, and whose frame houses, 
 even when surrounded by square gardens with flower-beds 
 adorning them, were merely comfortable middle-class abodes 
 of domesticity. It was awed by the "Willowfield Times, it 
 revered the button factory, and bitterly envied the carriages 
 driven and the occasional festivities held by the families of 
 the representatives of these monopolies. The carriages were 
 sober and middle-aged, and so were the parties, but to Jan- 
 way's Mills they illustrated wealth and gaiety. People drove 
 about in the vehicles and wore fine clothes and ate cakes and 
 ice-cream at the parties — neither of which things had ever 
 been possible or ever would become possible to Janway's. 
 
 And Susan, who had been a Pariah and an outcast at the 
 Mills, was walking through the best streets, carrying a note 
 from the popular minister to the rich Miss Starkweather, 
 who had an entire square white fram^e house and garden, 
 which were her own property. 
 
 The girl felt a little sullen and a little frightened. She 
 
 198 
 
In Connection with 
 
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 did not know what would happen to her; she did not know 
 how she would be expected to carry herself in a house so 
 representative of wealth and accustomedness to the good 
 things of life. Perhaps if she had not been desperate, and 
 also, if she had not known that Miss Starkweather had been 
 fond of Margery, she would have evaded going to her. 
 
 " I wonder what she'll say to me," she thought. " They 
 say she's queer." 
 
 She still felt uncertain and resentful when she stood upon 
 the threshold and rang the bell. She presented a stolid 
 countenance to the maid servant who opened the door and 
 received her message. When she was at last taken to Miss 
 Amory, she went with an unresponding bearing, and, being 
 led into a cheerful room where the old woman sat, stood 
 before her waiting, as if she had really nothing to do with 
 the situation. 
 
 Miss Amory looked rather like some alert old hawk, less 
 predatory by instinct than those of his species usually are. 
 
 " You are Susan Chapman, and come from Mr. Baird," 
 
 she said. 
 
 Susan nodded. 
 
 " He says he met you at Mr. Latimer's." 
 
 '^ Yes. I went there to ask something. I couldn't bear 
 
 not to know — no more than I did." 
 
 " About ? " asked Miss Amory. 
 
 About Margery," her voice lowering unconsciously. 
 
 How much did you know? " Miss Amory asked again. 
 
 ^' Xothin'," rather sullenly, " but that she was ill — an' 
 
 went away an' died." 
 
 " In Italy, they say," put in Miss Amory — " lying on 
 
 a sofa before an open window — on a lovely day, when the 
 
 sun was setting." 
 
 199 
 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 Susan Chapman started a little, and her face changed. 
 The unresponsiveness melted away. There was something 
 like a glow of relief in her look. She became human and 
 lost sight of Miss Amory's supposed grandeur. 
 
 " Was it like that ? " she exclaimed. " Was it ? I'm thank- 
 ful to you for telling me. Somehow I couldn't ask properly 
 when I was face to face with her brother. You can't talk 
 to him. I never knew where — or how — it was. I wanted 
 to find out if — if it was all right with her. I wanted to 
 know she hadn't suffered.'^ 
 
 " So did I/^ Miss Amory answered. " And that was what 
 they told me." 
 
 She passed her withered hand across her face. 
 
 " I was fond of her/' she said. 
 
 " I'd reason to be/' returned Susan. ^^ She was only a 
 delicate little young thing — but she came an' stayed by me 
 when I was in hell an' no one else would give me a drop 
 of water to cool my tongue.'' 
 
 " I know something about that/' said Miss Amory; " I 
 have heard it talked of. Where's your child? " 
 
 Susan did not reddem but the hard look came back to 
 her face for a moment. 
 
 " It didn't live but a few minutes/' she answered. 
 
 "What are you doing for your living?" 
 
 A faint red showed itself on the girl's haggard cheeks, 
 and she stared at her with indifferent blankness. 
 
 "I worked in the mill till my health broke down for a 
 spell, an' I had to give up. I'm better now, but Fve not 
 got a cent to live on, an' my place was filled up right away." 
 
 "Where's the man?" Miss Amory demanded. 
 
 " I don't know. I've never heard a word of him since 
 he slid off to Chicago." 
 
 200 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De WiUoughby Claim 
 
 " Humph! " said Miss Amory. 
 
 For a moment or so she sat silent, thinking. She held her 
 chin in her hand and pinched it. Presently she looked np. 
 
 "Could you come and live with me for a month?" she 
 enquired. " I helieve we might try the experiment. I dare- 
 say you would rub me when I want rubbing, and go errands 
 and help me up and down stairs and carry things for me. 
 It just happens that my old Jane has been obliged to leave 
 me because she's beginning to be as rheumatic as I am 
 myself, and her daughter offers her a good home. Would 
 you like to try? I don't promise to do more than make the 
 experiment." 
 
 The girl flushed hot this time, as she looked down on 
 the floor. 
 
 " You may guess whether I'm likely to say ^ yes ' or not," 
 she said. " I ain't had a crust to-day. I believe I could 
 learn to suit you. But I never expected anything as good 
 as this to happen to me. Thank you, ma'am. May I — 
 when must I come? " 
 
 " Take off your bonnet and go and have your dinner, and 
 stay now," answered Miss Amory. 
 
 When John Baird called later in the day. Miss Amory was 
 walking in the sun in her garden and Susan was with her, 
 supporting her stiff steps. She had been fed, her dress had 
 been changed for a neat print, and the dragged lines of her 
 face seemed already to have relaxed. She no longer wore 
 the look of a creature who is hungry and does not know 
 how long her hunger may last and how much worse it may 
 become. 
 
 " I am much obliged to you, Miss Amory," Baird said 
 when he joined her, and he said it almost impetuously. To- 
 day he was in the state of mind when even vicarious good 
 
 201 
 
In Connection with 
 
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 deeds are a support and a consolation. To have been a means 
 of doing a good turn even to this stray creature was a com- 
 fort. 
 
 Miss Amory removed her hand from Susan's arm and 
 allowed Baird to place it on his own. The girl went away 
 in obedience to a gesture. 
 
 " She wdll do/' said Miss Amory, " and it is a home for 
 her. She's not stupid. If she fulfils the promise of her 
 first day I may end by interesting myself in developing her 
 brains. She has brains. The gray matter is there, but it 
 has never moved much so far. It will be interesting to set 
 it astir. But it was not that I thought of when I took her." 
 
 " You took her out of the kindness of your heart," said 
 Baird. 
 
 " I took her for that poor, dead child's sake," returned 
 Miss Amory. 
 
 " For " Baird began. 
 
 " For Margery's sake," put in Miss Amory. " Margery 
 Latimer. When Susan was in trouble the child was a tender 
 little angel to her. Lord! w^hat a pure little heart it was! " 
 
 " As pure as young Eve's in the Garden of Eden — as pure 
 as young Eve's," murmured Baird. 
 
 "Just that!" said Miss Amory, rather sharply. " How 
 do you know it ? " And she turned and looked at him. 
 " You have heard her brother say a good deal of her." 
 
 " Yes, yes," Baird answered. " She seems to have been 
 the life of him." 
 
 "Well, well! " with emotional abruptness. " I took this 
 girl for her sake. Her short life was not wasted if another's 
 is built upon it. That's one of my fantastic fancies, I sup- 
 pose. Stop a minute." 
 
 The old woman paused a few moments on the garden 
 
 202 
 
In Connection with 
 
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 walk and turned her face upward to look at the blue height 
 and expanse of sky. There was a shade of desperate appeal 
 or question on her uplifted, rugged countenance. 
 
 " When the world gets too much for me," she said, " and 
 I lose my patience with the senselessness of the tragedy of 
 it, I get a sort of courage from looking up like this — into 
 the height and the still, clear blueness. It sends no answer 
 back to me — that my human brain can understand — but it 
 makes me feel that perhaps there is no earth at all. I get 
 out of it and away." 
 
 " I know — I know — though I am not like you," Baird 
 said, slowly. 
 
 Miss Amory came back to earth with a curious look in 
 her eyes. 
 
 " Yes," she answered, " I should think that perhaps you 
 are one of those who know. But one has to have been des- 
 perate before one turns to it as a resource. It's a last one 
 — and the unmerciful powers only know why we should 
 feel it a resource at all. As I said, it does not answer back. 
 And we want answers — answers." 
 
 Then they went on walking. 
 
 " That poor thing has been a woman at least," said ^Miss 
 Amory. " I have been a sort of feminine automaton. I 
 have been respectable and she has not. All good women 
 are not respectable and all respectable women are not good. 
 That's a truism so absolute that it is a platitude, and yet 
 there still exist people to whom it would appear a novel 
 statement. That poor creature has loved and had her heart 
 broken. She has suffered the whole gamut of things. She 
 has been a wife without a name, a mother without a child. 
 She is full of crude tragedy. And I have found out already 
 that she is good — good." 
 
 203 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 " What is goodness? " asked Baird. 
 
 Miss Amory gave him another of her sharp looks. 
 
 " You are drawing me out/' she said. " I'm not really 
 worth it. Goodness is quite different from respectability. 
 Respectability is a strict keeping of the laws men have made 
 to oblige other men to do or not to do the things they want 
 done or left undone. The large meaning of the law^ is pun- 
 ishment. Xo law, no punishment; no punishment, no law. 
 And man made both for man. If you keep man's law you 
 will be respectable, but you may not be good. Jesus Christ 
 was not respectable — ^no one will deny that. Goodness, after 
 all, means doing all kindness to all creatures, and, above all, 
 doing no wrong to any. That's all. Are you good?^' 
 
 " jSTo," he answered, " I am not." 
 
 " You would probably find it more difficult to be so than 
 I should," she responded. " And I find it hard enough — 
 without being handicapped by beauty and the pleasure-lov- 
 ing temperament. You were started well on the road to the 
 devil when you were born. Your very charms and virtues 
 were ready to turn out vices in disguise. But when such 
 
 things happen " and she shrugged her lean shoulders. 
 
 " As we have no one else to dare to blame, we can only blame 
 ourselves. In a scheme so vague every man must be his 
 own brake." 
 
 Baird drew a sharp breath. " If one only knew that early 
 enough," he exclaimed. 
 
 Miss Amory laughed harshly. 
 
 " Yes," she said, " part of the vagueness of the scheme — 
 if it is a scheme — is that it takes half a lifetime to find it 
 out. Before that, we are always either telling ourselves that 
 we are not going to do any harm, or that we are under the 
 guidance of a merciful Providence." 
 
 204 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 " That we are not going to do any harm/' Baird repeated, 
 " that we are not going to do any harm. And suddenly it's 
 done." 
 
 " And can't be undone," Miss Amory added. '' That's it." 
 
 The girl, Susan Chapman, was watching them from a win- 
 dow as they vralked and talked. She bit her lips anxiously 
 as she stood behind the curtain. She was trying to imagine 
 what they might be saying to each other. Suppose it was 
 something which told against her. And why should it not 
 be so? What good could be said? Janway's Mills had borne 
 in upon her the complete sense of her outcast state. While 
 professing a republican independence of New England spirit, 
 the place figuratively touched its forehead to the earth be- 
 fore Miss Starkweather. S]ie lived on an income inherited 
 from people who had owned mills instead of working them; 
 who employed — and discharged — hands. She would have 
 been regarded as an authority on any subject, social or moral. 
 And yet it was she who had spoken the first lenient word 
 to a transgi'essor of the unpardonable type. Susan had been 
 dumfounded at first, and then she had begun to be afraid 
 that the leniency arose from some mistake Miss Amory 
 would presently discover. 
 
 " Perhaps he's heard and he's telling her now," she said, 
 breathlessly, as she looked into the garden. " Maybe she'll 
 come in and order me out." She looked down at her clean 
 dress, and a sob rose in her throat at the realisation of the 
 mere physical comfort she had felt during the last hour or 
 two — the comfort of being fed and clothed and enclosed 
 within four walls. If she was to be cast back into outer 
 darkness again it would be better to know at once. 
 
 When Baird had gone away and Miss Amory was sitting 
 by her window, Susan appeared before her again with an 
 
 205 
 

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 In Connection with 
 
 The Dc Willoughby Claim 
 
 aslien complexion and a set look. She stood a moment, hesi- 
 tating, her hands clasping her elbows behind her back. 
 You want to say something to me? " said Miss Amory. 
 Yes," the girl answered. " Yes, I do — an' I don't know 
 how. Are you sure, ma'am, are you sure you know quite 
 how bad I have been ? " 
 
 " No," said Miss Amory; ^' sit down and tell me, Susan." 
 
 She said it with an impartiality so serenely free from con- 
 demnation that Susan's obedient sitting down was almost 
 entirely the result of not being able to stand up. She, so 
 to speak, fell into a chair and leaned forward, covering her 
 face with her hands. 
 
 I don't believe you know," she whispered. 
 By experience I know next to nothing," Miss Amory 
 answered, " but my imagination and my reason tell me a 
 great deal. You were not married and you had a child. 
 You lost your health and your work " 
 
 "I would have v\-orked," said the girl from behind her 
 hands, sobbindv, but without tears. " Oh, I would have 
 worked till I dropped — I did work till I dropped. I kept 
 fainting — Oh! I would have been glad and thankful and 
 grateful " 
 
 " Yes," said Miss Amory, " life got worse and worse — 
 they all treated you as if you were a dog. Those common 
 virtuous people are like the torturers of the Inquisition. 
 You were hungry and cold — cold and hungry " 
 
 " You don't know what it's like," Susan moaned. " You 
 don't know. When you get sick and hollow and cramped, 
 and stagger about in your bare room — and call out to your- 
 self to ask what made you and where is it. And the wind's 
 like ice — and you huddle in a heap " 
 
 " And there are lights in the streets," said Miss Amory, 
 
 206 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willou;^hbv Claim 
 
 " and it seems as if there must be something there to be 
 given to you by somebody — somebody. And you go out.'* 
 
 Susan got up, panting, and stared at her. 
 
 " You do know," she cried, ahnost with passion. '* Some- 
 how you've found out what it's like. I wanted you to 
 know. I don't want you — not to understand and then 
 of a sudden to send me away. I'm so afraid of you sending 
 me away." 
 
 " I shall not send vou away for anvthing vou have done 
 in the past," said Miss Amory. 
 
 "I don't know what I should have done in the future, 
 if you hadn't taken me in," Susan said. '' Perhaps I should 
 have thrown myself under a train. But, oh! " with starting 
 dampness in her skin, which she wiped off with a sick gest- 
 ure, " I did liate to let myself think of it. It wasn't the 
 beinc^ killed — that's nothinoj — but feelino: vourself crushed 
 and torn and twisted — I used to stand and shake all over 
 thinking of it. And I couldn't have gone on. I hated 
 myself — I hated everything — most of all I hated the Thing 
 that made me. "What right had it? I hadn't done nothing 
 to it before I was born. Seemed like it had made me just 
 for the fun of pushing me under them wheels and seeing 
 them tear and grind me. Oh! how I hated it! " 
 
 " So have I," said Miss Amory, her steady eyes looking 
 more like a hawk's than ever. 
 
 Susan stared more than before. " I suppose I ought to 
 have hated Jack Williams," she went on, her throat evi- 
 dently filling, " but I never did. I loved him. Seemed 
 like I was just his wife, that it did. I believe it always 
 will. That's the way girls get into trouble. Some man 
 that's got an affectionate way makes 'em believe they're 
 as good as married. An' then they find out it's all a lie." 
 
 207 
 

 In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 4 
 
 " Perhaps some day you may see Jack Williams again/' 
 said Miss Amory. 
 
 He wouldn't look at me," answered Susan. 
 Perhaps you wouldn't look at him/' Miss Amory re- 
 marked, with speculative slowness. 
 
 " Yes, I would," said Snsan, " yes I would. I couldn't 
 trust him same as I did before — 'cause he's proved he ain't 
 to be trusted. But if he wanted me to marry him I couldn't 
 hold out, Miss Starkweather." 
 
 " Couldn't you? " Miss Amory said, still speculative. " No 
 —perhaps you couldn't." 
 
 The girl wiped her eyes and added, slowty, almost as if 
 she was thinking aloud: 
 
 " I'm not one of the strong ones — I'm not one of the 
 strong ones — no more than little Margery Avas." 
 
 She said the last words with a kind of unconscious con- 
 sciousness. T\Tiile she uttered them her mind had evidently 
 turned back to other times — not her own, but little Mar- 
 gery's. 
 
 Miss Amory drew a deep breath. She took up hei: knit- 
 ting. She asked a question. 
 
 "You knew her very well — Margery?" 
 
 Susan drew her chair closer and looked in the old face 
 with uncertain eyes. 
 
 " Miss Starkweather," she said, " do you think that a 
 girl's being — like me — would make her evil-minded? 
 Would it make her suspicion things, and be afraid of them 
 — when there wasn't nothin' ? I should think that it would," 
 quite wistfully. 
 
 " It might/' answered Miss Amory, her knitting-needles 
 flying; " but for God's sake don't call yourself evil-minded. 
 You'd be evil-minded if you were glad to suspect — not if 
 you were sorry and afraid." 
 
 208 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 " Glad! " with a groan. " Oh, Lord, I guess not. But 
 I might be all wrong all the same, mightn't I?" 
 
 " Yes, you might." 
 
 '^ I loved her — oh, Lord, I did love her! I'd reason to," 
 the girl went on, and her manner had the effect of fright- 
 ened haste. " I've suffered awful sometimes — thinkin' in the 
 night and prayin' there wasn't nothin'. She was such a deli- 
 cate, innocent little thing. It would have killed her." 
 
 " What were you afraid of? " 
 
 " Oh, I don't know," Susan answered, hysterically. " I 
 don't. I only knew she couldn't bear nothin' like — like 
 lyin' awake nights gaspin' an' fightin' with awful fear. She 
 couldn't — she couldn't." 
 
 ^' But there are girls — women, who have to bear it," said 
 Miss Amory. " Good God, who have to! " 
 
 " Yes — yes — yes," cried Susan. She drew her hand across 
 her brow as if suddenly it felt damp, and for a moment her 
 eyes looked wild with a memory of some awful thing. " I 
 told her so," she said. 
 
 Miss Amory Starkweather turned in her chair with some- 
 thing like a start. 
 
 " You told her so," she exclaimed. 
 
 Susan stared out of the window and her voice fell. 
 
 *' I didn't go to," she answered. " It was like this. That 
 last time she came to see me — to tell me how ill she was 
 and how Lucien was going to take her away — I'd been look- 
 in' at the little clothes I'd got ready for — it." The tears 
 began to roll fast down her cheeks. " Oh, Miss Stark- 
 weather! they was lyin' on the bedpan' she saw 'em an' 
 turned as v^diite as a sheet." 
 
 " Ugh! " the sound broke from Miss Amory like a short, 
 involuntary groan. 
 
 209 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 " She said she didn't know how people could hear it/' 
 Susan hurried on, " an' I said — just like you did — that they 
 had to bear it." 
 
 She suddenly hid her face in her arms. 
 
 '* You were thinking of yourself," said Miss Amory. She 
 felt and looked a little sick. 
 
 " Yes/' said Susan, " I was thinkin' of how it is when 
 a girl's goin' to have a child an' can't get away from it — 
 can't — can't. She's got to go through with it — an' no one 
 can't save her. But I suppose it made her think of her death 
 that was comin' — her death that I b'lieve she knowed she 
 was struck for. When I'd said it she looked like some little 
 hunted animal dogs was after — that had run till its breath 
 was gone an' its eyes was startin' from its head. Her little 
 chest went up an' down with pantin'. I didn't wonder when 
 I heard after that she'd dropped in the street in a dead faint." 
 
 " Was that the day I picked her up as she lay on the 
 pavement?" Miss Amory asked. 
 
 Susan nodded, her face still hidden. 
 
 Old ^liss Starkweather put out her hand and laid it on 
 the girl's shoulder. 
 
 " She has had time to forget," she said, rather as if she 
 was out of breath — " forget and grow quiet. She is dust 
 by now — peaceful dust. Let us — my good girl — ^let us re- 
 member that happy story of how she died." 
 
 " Yes/' answered Susan, " in Italy — lying before the open 
 window — with the sunset all rosy in the sky." 
 
 But her head rested on her folded arms upon her knee, 
 and she sobbed a low, deep sob. 
 
 210 
 
CHAPTEE XVIII 
 
 Just before the breaking out of the Civil '\^'ar, Delisle- 
 ville had been provided with a sensation in a piece of singu- 
 larly unexpected good fortune which befell one of its most 
 prominent citizens. It was indeed good fortune^ wearing 
 somewhat the proportions of a fairy tale, and that such things 
 could happen in Delisleville and to a citizen who possessed 
 its entire approval was considered vaguely to the credit of 
 the town. 
 
 One of the facts which had always been counted as an 
 added dignity to the De Willoughbys had been their well- 
 known possession of property in land. " Land " was always 
 felt to be dignified, and somehow it seemed additionally so 
 when it gained a luxuriously superfluous character by merely 
 lying in huge, uncultivated tracts^ and representing nothing 
 but wide areas and taxes. 
 
 " Them big D'Willerbys of D'lisleville owns thousands of 
 acres as never brings 'em a cent," Mr. Stamps had said to 
 his friends at the Cross-roads at the time Big Tom had first 
 appeared among them. It was Mr. Stamps who had astutely 
 suggested that the stranger was possibly " kin " to the De- 
 lisleville famil}', and in his discreet pursuit of knowledge he 
 had made divers discoveries. 
 
 " 'Twarn't Jedge D'Willerby bought the land," he went 
 on to explain, " 'n' it seems like he would hev bin a fool 
 to hev done it, bein' as 'tain't worked an' brings in nothin'. 
 But ye never know how things may turn out. ^Twas the 
 
 211 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 Jedge's gran'father, old Isham D'Willerby bought it fer a 
 kinder joke. Some said lie was blind drunk when he done 
 it, bnt he warn't so drunk but what he got a cl'ar title, an' 
 he got it mighty cheap too. Folks ses as he use ter laugh 
 an' say he war goin' to find gold on it, but he never dug 
 fer none — nor fer crops nuther, an' thar it lies to-day in the 
 mountains, an' no one goin' nigh it." 
 
 In truth. Judge De Willoughby merely paid his taxes upon 
 it from a sense of patriarchal pride. 
 
 " My ancestor bought it," he would say. " I will hand 
 it to my sons. In England it would be an estate for an 
 earldom, here it means merely tax-paying. Still, I shall not 
 sell it." 
 
 Nobody, in fact, would have been inclined to buy it in 
 those days. But there came a time when its value increased 
 hour by hour in the public mind, until it was almost beyond 
 computation. 
 
 A chance visitor from the outside world made an inter- 
 esting discovery. On this wild tract of hill and forest was 
 a vein of coal so valuable that, to the practical mind of the 
 discoverer, the Judge's unconsciousness of its existence was 
 amazing. He himself was a practical, driving, business 
 schemer from New York. He knew the value of what he 
 saw, and the availability of the material in consequence of 
 a certain position in which the mines lay. Before he left 
 Delisleville he had explained this with such a presenting 
 of facts that the Judge had awakened to an enthusiasm 
 as Southern as his previous indifference had been. He had 
 no knowledge of business methods; he had practised his 
 profession in a magnificent dilettante sort of way which had 
 worn an imposing air and impressed his clients, and, as he 
 was by inheritance a comparatively rich man, he had not 
 
 312 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 been driven by necessity to alter his methods. The sudden 
 prospect of becoming a multimillionaire excited him. He 
 made Napoleonic plans, and was dignified and eloquent. 
 
 " Why should 1 form a company? " he said. " If I am 
 willing to make the first ventures myself, the inevitable re- 
 turns of profit will do the rest, and there will be no com- 
 plications. The De ^Yilloughby Mine will be the De Wil- 
 loughby Mine alone. I prefer that it should be so." 
 
 The idea of being sole ruler in the scheme made him feel 
 rather like a king, and he privately enjoyed the sensation. 
 He turned into money all the property he could avail him- 
 self of; his hbrary table was loaded with books on mining; 
 he invested in tons of machinery, which were continually 
 arriving from the North, or stopping on the way when it 
 should have been arriving. He sent for engineers from 
 various parts of the country and amazed them with the un- 
 professional boldness of his methods. He really indulged 
 in a few months of dignified riot, of what he imagined to 
 be a splendidly executive nature. The plans were com- 
 pleted, the machinery placed, the engineers and cohorts 
 of workmen engaged in tremendous efforts, the Judge was 
 beginning to reflect on the management of his future mill- 
 ions, when — the first gun was fired on Fort Sumter. 
 
 That was the beginning, and apparently the end. Sud- 
 denly the storm of war broke forth, and its tempest, surging 
 through the land, swept all before it. The country was 
 inundated with catastrophes, capitalists foundered, schemes 
 were swamped, the armies surged to and fro. The De Wil- 
 loughby land was marched and fought over; scores of hasty, 
 shallow graves were dug in it and filled; buildings and ma- 
 chinery were destroyed as if a tornado had passed by. The 
 Judge was a ruined man; his realisable property he had 
 
 213 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 allowed to pass from his hands, his coal remained in the 
 bowels of the earth, the huge income he was to have drawn 
 from it had melted into nothingness. 
 
 Nothing could have altered the aspect of this tragedy; 
 but there was a singular fact which added to its intensity 
 and bitterness. In such a hot-bed of secession as was De- 
 lisleville, the fact in question was indeed not easily explain- 
 able, except upon the grounds either of a Quixotic patriot- 
 ism or upon those of a general disposition to contradictori- 
 ness. A Southern man, the head of a Southern family, the 
 Judge opposed the rebellion and openly sided with the Gov- 
 ernment. That he had been a man given to argument and 
 contradiction, and always priding himself upon refusing to 
 be led by the majority was not to be denied. 
 
 " He is fancying himself a Spartan hero, and looking for- 
 ward to laurels and history," one of his neighbours remarked. 
 *' It is like De Willoughby after all. He would have been 
 a Secessionist if he had lived in Boston." 
 
 " The Union General George Washington fought for and 
 handed down to us 1 will protect," the Judge said loftily 
 himself. 
 
 But there was no modifying the outburst of wonder and 
 condemnation which overwhelmed him. To side with the 
 Union — in an aristocratic Southern town — was to lose social 
 caste and friends, to be held a renegade and an open, de- 
 graded traitor to home and country. At that period, to the 
 Southerner the only country was the South — in the North 
 reigned outer darkness. Had the Judge been a poor white, 
 there would have been talk of tar and feathers. As a man 
 who had been a leader among the aristocratic classes, he 
 was ostracized. In the midst of his financial disasters he 
 was treated as an outlaw. He had been left a widower a 
 
 214 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 few years before, during the war his son De Courcy died 
 of fever, Romaine fell in battle, and his sole surviving daugh- 
 ter lost her life through diphtheria contracted in a soldiers' 
 hospital. The family had sunk into actual poverty; the 
 shock of sorrows and disappointment broke the old man's 
 spirit. On the day that peace was finally declared he died 
 in his room in the old house which had once been so full 
 of young life and laughter and spirit. 
 
 The only creature with him at the time was his grandson, 
 young Piupert De Willoughby, who was De Courcy's son. 
 The sun was rising, and its first beams shone in at the oj>en 
 window rosily. The old Judge lay rubbing his hands slowly 
 together, perhaps because they were cold. 
 
 " Only you left, Eupert,'' he said, " and there were so 
 many of us. If Tom — if Tom had not been such a failure — 
 don't know whether he's alive — or dead. If Tom " 
 
 His hands slowly ceased moving and his voice trailed off 
 into silence. Ten minutes later all was over, and Rupert 
 stood in the world entirely alone. 
 
 For the next two years the life the last De Willoughby 
 lived in the old house, though distinctly unique, was not 
 favourable to the development of youth. Having been pre- 
 pared for the practice of the law, after the time-honoured 
 De "Willoughby custom, and having also for some months 
 occupied a corner in the small, unbusiness-like, tree-shaded, 
 brick building known as the Judge's ''office," Rupert sat 
 now at his grandfather's desk and earned a scant living by 
 endeavouring to hold together the old man's long-dimin- 
 ished practice. The profession at the time offered nothing 
 in such places as Delisleville, even to older and more ex- 
 
 215 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 perienced men. No one had any money to go to law with, 
 few had any property worth going to law about. 
 
 Both armies having swept through it, Delisleville wore 
 in those days an aspect differing greatly from its old air of 
 hospitable well-being and inconsequent good spirits and 
 good cheer. Its broad yerandahed houses had seen hard 
 usage, its pavements were worn and broken, and in many 
 streets tufted with weeds; its fences were dilapidated, its 
 rich families had lost their possessions, and those who had not 
 been driven away by their necessities were gazing aghast at 
 a future to which it seemed impossible to adjust their ease- 
 loving, slave-attended, luxurious habits of the past. Houses 
 built of wood, after the Southern fashion, do not well with- 
 stand neglect and ill-fortune. Porticos and pillars and trell- 
 is-work which had been picturesque and imposing when they 
 had been well cared for, and gleamed white among creepers 
 and trees, lost their charm drearily when paint peeled off, 
 trees were cut down, and vines were dragged away and died. 
 Over the whole of the once gay little place there had fallen 
 an air of discouragement, desolation, and decay. Financial 
 disaster had crippled the boldest even in centres much more 
 energetic than small, unbusiness-hke Southern towns; the 
 country lay, as it were, prostrate to recover strength, and 
 all was at a standstill. 
 
 Finding himself penniless, Eupert De Willoughby lived 
 in a corner of the house he had been brought up in. Such 
 furniture as had survived the havoc of war and the entire 
 dilapidation of old age, he had gathered together in three 
 or four rooms, which he occupied with the one servant good 
 fortune brought to his door at a time when the forlornness 
 of his changed position was continually accentuated by the 
 untidy irregularity of his life and surroundings. He was 
 
 216 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 only able to afford to engage the shiftless services of a slat- 
 ternly negro girl, rendered insubordinate by her newly ac- 
 quired freedom, and he had. begun to feel that he should 
 never again find himself encompassed by the decorous sys- 
 tem of a well-managed household. 
 
 It was at this juncture that Uncle Matthew arrived and 
 presented his curious petition, which was that he should 
 be accepted as general servant, with wages or without them. 
 
 He had not belonged to Judge De Willoughby, but to 
 a distant relative, and, as he was an obstinate and conserva- 
 tive old person, he actually felt that to be " a free nigger '' 
 was rather to drop in the social scale. 
 
 "Whar's a man stand, sah, if he ain't got no fambly?" 
 he said to Paipert when he came to offer his services to him. 
 " He stan' nowhar, that^s war he stan'; I've got to own up 
 to it, Marse Rupert, I'se a 'ristycrat bawn an' bred, an' I 
 'low to stay one, long's my head's hot. Ef my old mars's 
 fambly hadn't er gone fo'th en' bin scattered to de fo' win's 
 of de university, I'd a belt on, but when de las' of 'um 
 went to dat Europe, dey couldn't 'ford to take me, an' I 
 had ter stay. An' when I heerd as all yo' kin was gone an' 
 you was gwine to live erlone like dis yere, I come to ax yer 
 to take me to wait on yer — as a favier, Marse Paipert — as 
 a favier. 'Tain't pay I wants^ sah; it's a fambly name an' 
 a fambly circle." 
 
 " It's not much of a circle. Uncle Matt," said Eupert, 
 looking round at the bareness of the big room he sat in. 
 Tain't much fer you, suh," answered Uncle Matthew, 
 
 but it's a pow'fle deal fer me in dese yere days. Ef yer 
 don't take me, fust thing I knows I'll be drivin' or waitin' 
 on some Mr. Nobody from Xew York or Boston, an' seems 
 like I shouldn't know how to stand it. 'Scuse me a-recom- 
 
 217 
 
 « 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 mendin' myself, sah — I look ole, but I ain't as ole as I look; 
 I'se Tarnt to cook, sah, from three womens what I was 
 married to, an' I knows my place an' how to keep house 
 like it orter be kep'. Will you try me a mont', Marse De 
 Willoughby — will you try me a week? " 
 
 Eupert tried him and never regretted the venture. In 
 fact. Uncle Matt's accomplishments were varied for practical 
 reasons. He had been in his time first house servant, then 
 coachman; he had married at twenty a woman of forty, 
 who had been a sort of female mulatto A^atel. When she 
 had died, having overheated herself and caught cold on the 
 occasion of a series of great dinners given at a triumphant 
 political crisis, he had taken for his second wife the woman 
 whose ambition it had been to rival her in her culinary arts. 
 His third marriage had been even more distinguished. His 
 wife had been owned by some extravagantly rich Creoles in 
 jSTew Orleans, and had even lived with them during a year 
 spent in France, thereby gaining unheard-of culinary accom- 
 plishments. Matthew had always declared that he loved her 
 the best of the three. Those matrimonial ventures had been 
 a liberal education to him. He had learned to cook almost 
 as well as his first, and from his second and third he had 
 inherited methods and recipes which were invaluable. He 
 seemed to have learned to do everything. He dismissed the 
 slatternly negro girl and took upon himself the duties of 
 both man and woman servant. The house gradually wore 
 a new aspect — dust disappeared, windows Avere bright, the 
 scant furniture was arranged to the best possible advantage, 
 the scant meals were marvels of perfect cookery and neat 
 serving. Having prepared a repast. Uncle Matt donned an 
 ancient but respectable coat and stood behind his young 
 master's chair with dignity. The dramatic nature of his 
 
 218 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 race was strongly appealed to by the situation in which he 
 found himself. A negro of his kind is perfectly capable of 
 building a romance out of much smaller materials. The 
 amiable vanity which gave such exalted value to all the be- 
 longings of their masters in their days of slavery, and which 
 so delighted in all picturesqueness of surrounding, is the 
 best of foundations for romances. From generation to gen- 
 eration certain circumstances and qualities had conferred 
 a sort of distinction upon their humbleness; to be owned 
 by an aristocrat, to live in a great house, to wait upon young 
 masters who were handsome and accomplished and young 
 mistresses who were beautiful and surrounded by worship- 
 pers, to be indispensable to " de Jedge " or " de Cun'l,^' or 
 to travel as attendant because some brilliant young son or 
 lovely young daughter could find no one who would wait 
 on them as " Uncle Matt " or " Aunt Prissy ^' could — these 
 things made life to be desired and filled it with excitement 
 and importance. 
 
 To the halcyon days in which such delights were possible 
 Uncle Matt belonged. He was too old to look forward; he 
 wanted his past again; and to find himself the sole faithful 
 retainer in a once brilliant household, with the chance of 
 making himself indispensable to the one remaining scion of 
 an old name, assisted him to feel that he was a relic of de- 
 parted grandeur. 
 
 His contrivances were numberless. In a corner of what 
 he called the " back gyarden " he constructed an enclosure 
 for chickens. He bought two or three young fowls, and by 
 marvels of management founded a family with them. The 
 family once founded, he made exchanges with friendly col- 
 oured matrons of the vicinity, with such results in breeding 
 that " Uncle Matt's " chickens became celebrated fowls. He 
 
 219 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 displayed the same gifts in the management of the garden. 
 In a few months after his arriyal, Eiipert began to find him- 
 self sitting down before the kind of meal he had not ex- 
 pected to contemplate again. 
 
 " Uncle Matt/' he said^ " where do I get fried chicken 
 and vegetables like these — and honey and fresh butter and 
 cream? I don't pay for them." 
 
 " Yes, you do, sah. Yo' property pays for 'em. Dat 'ar 
 gyarden, sah, is black with richness — jest black. It's a 
 forchen for a pusson what kin contrive an' make fren's, an' 
 trade, an' kin flourish a spade. Dar's fruit-trees an' grape- 
 vines dar — an' room enuf to plant anything — an' richness 
 enuf to make peas an' taters an' beets an' cabbages jest jump 
 out o' de 3'arth. I've took de liberty of makin' a truck 
 patch, an' I've got me a chicken coop, an' I've had mighty 
 good luck with my aigs an' my truck — an' I've got things 
 to trade with the women folks for what I ain't got. De 
 ladies likes tradin', an' dey's mighty neighbourly about 
 yeah, 'memberin' yo' fambly, sah." 
 
 Rupert leaned back in his chair and broke into a hearty, 
 boyish laugh, which it was very good both to see and hear. 
 He very seldom laughed. 
 
 " I wish I was a genius like you. Matt," he said. " AVliat 
 luck I'm in to have you. Eaising chickens and vegetables, 
 and negotiating with your lad}^ friends for me! I feel like 
 a caliph with a grand vizier. I never tasted such chicken 
 or such waffles in my life! " 
 
 " I'm settin' some tukkey-eggs now — under de yaller 
 hen," said Matt, with a slyly exultant grin. " She's a good 
 mother, the yaller hen; an' de way dem fruit-trees is g^vine 
 ter be loaded is a sight. Aunt Mary Field, she's tradin' with 
 me a'ready agin fruit puttin'-up time." 
 
 220 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 Rupert got up from his chair. lie caught old Matt's 
 dusky, yellow-palmed paw in his hand and shook it hard. 
 His gloomy young face had changed its aspect, his eyes sud- 
 denly looked like his mother's — and Delia Yanuxem had 
 been said to have the loveliest soft eyes in all the South. 
 
 ^' Matt/' he said, ^' I couldn't do without you. It isn't 
 only tliat,^' with a gesture towards the table, "you — it's 
 almost as if you had come to save me." 
 
 " Cle nigger man like me, Marse Rupert," said Uncle 
 Matt, " savin' of a fine young gentleman like what you is! 
 How's I g\^'ine ter do it?" But his ^mnkled face looked 
 tremulous vnth emotion. " Times is gwine ter change for 
 you, they is, an' Matt's gwine ter stay by yer till dat come 
 to pass. Marse Rupert," looking at him curiously, " I 'clar 
 to Gawd you look like yo' young mammy did. Yo' ain't al- 
 ways, but jes' dish yer minnit yo' does — an' yer did jes' 
 now when yer laf." 
 
 " Do I look like her? " said Rupert. " I'm glad of it. 
 I want to be like her. Say, Uncle Matt, whenever I look 
 or speak or act like her, you tell me." 
 
 "When in the course of neighbourly conversation Matt 
 mentioned this to his friend Aunt Mary Fields, she put a 
 new colour upon it. 
 
 " He worshipped his maw, an' she jest 'dored down on 
 him," she said; "but Hain't only he want look like her, 
 he doan^ want look like his paw. Ev'one know what Cun'l 
 de Courcy was — an' dat chile Jest 'spise him. He was alius 
 a mons'ous proud chile, and when de Cun'l broke loose an' 
 went on one o' his t'ars, it mos' 'stroyed dat boy wid de 
 disgracefulness. Dar's chil'en as doan' keer or notice — 
 but dat boy, it 'most 'stroyed him." 
 
 The big, empty-sounding house was kept orderly and 
 
 221 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 spotless, the back garden exhibited such vegetables as no 
 one else owned, the fruit-trees and grape-vines throve, in 
 time the flower-beds began to bloom brilliantly, the rose- 
 bushes and shrubs were trimmed, the paths swept, and peo- 
 ple began to apply to Uncle Matt for slips and seeds. He 
 himself became quite young again, so inspired was he by 
 his importance and popularity. When he went into the 
 town upon errands, people stopped to talk to him; the young 
 business or professional men called him into their offices 
 to have a chat with him. He was such a respectable relic 
 of the times which had been " better days " to all of them, 
 that there were those who were almost confidential with 
 him. Uncle Matt would always understand their sentiments 
 and doctrines, and he was always to be relied on for any 
 small service. Such a cocktail or julep no one else could 
 prepare, and there were numerous subtle accomplishments 
 in the matter of mixing liquid refreshments which would 
 have earned a reputation for any man. 
 
 There was no more familiar figure than his in the market 
 or business streets of the hot, sunshine-flooded little town, 
 which the passing armies had left so battered and deserted. 
 
 Uncle Matt knew all the stories in Delisleville. He knew 
 how one house was falling to pieces for lack of repairs; he 
 heard of the horses that had been sold or had died of old 
 age and left their owners without a beast to draw their rick- 
 ety buggies or carriages; he was deeply interested in the 
 failing fortunes of what had once been the most important 
 " store " in the town, and whose owner had been an aristo- 
 cratic magnate, having no more undignified connection with 
 the place than that of provider of capital. 
 
 As he walked up Main Street on his way to market, with 
 his basket on his arm, he saw who had been able to " lay 
 
 223 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 in new stock " and who had not. He saw the new sign- 
 boards himg outside small houses which had been turned 
 into offices. He knew what j^oung scion of a respectable 
 family had begun '^ doctoring " or " set up as a lawyer." 
 Sometimes he even dropped in and made brief visits of 
 respectful congi-atulation. 
 
 " But/' he said privately to his young master, " de air 
 ob de atmosphere, it's jest full of dem young lawyers an' 
 doctors. Dar don't seem to be nothin' else for a gen'leman's 
 sons to do but to kyore people or go to law for 'em. Of cose 
 dey oughtn't ter hab ter work, gen'lemen oughtn'ter. Dey 
 didn't usen to heb ter, but now dey is gotter. Lawdy, 
 Marse Rupert, you'll hatter 'scuse me, but de young law- 
 yers, an' de young doctors, dey is scattered about dish yer 
 D'lisleville! " 
 
 There were certain new sign-boards which excited him 
 to great interest. There was one he never passed without 
 pausing to examine and reflect upon it. 
 
 When he came within range of it on his way up the street, 
 his pace would slacken, and when he reached it he would 
 stop at the edge of the pavement and stand with his basket 
 on his arm, gazing at the lettering with an absorbed air of 
 interest and curiosity. It read, " Milton January, Claim 
 Agent." He could not read, but he had heard comments 
 made upon the profession of the owner of this sign-board 
 which had filled him with speculative thought. He shared 
 the jealousy of strangers who came from " the North " to 
 Delisleville and set up offices, which much more intelligent 
 persons than himself burned with. He resented them as 
 intruders, and felt that their well-dressed air and alert, busi- 
 ness-like manner was an insult to departed fortunes. 
 
 "What they come fer?'' he used to grumble. *^Takin' 
 
 223 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 away trade an' business when they ain't none left for de 
 proper people nohow. How's we gwme ter live if all New 
 York City an' Bos'n an' Philadelphy pours in? " 
 
 " They are not pouring in very fast, Uncle Matt/' Rupert 
 answered him once. " Perhaps it would be better for us if 
 they did. They bring some money, at any rate. There are 
 only one or two of them, and one is a claim agent." 
 
 *' Dat's jest what I wants ter know," said Matt. " What's 
 dey layin' claim to? What right dey got ter claim any- 
 thin'? Gawd knows dar ain't much ter claim." 
 
 Rupert laughed and gave him a friendly, boyish slap on 
 the back. 
 
 " They are not claiming things from people, but fo?' them. 
 They look up claims against the Government and try to get 
 indemnity for them. They prove claims to back pay, and 
 for damages and losses_, and try to make the Government 
 refund." 
 
 Uncle Matt rubbed his head a minute, then he looked up 
 eagerly. 
 
 " Cun'l De Willoughby, now," he said; " doan' you s'pose 
 dar's some back pay owin' to him for de damage dat yaller 
 fever done him wot he done cotch from de army ? " 
 
 Rupert laughed a little bitterly. 
 
 " No," he said, " I'm afraid not." 
 
 "What dey gwine to refun', den?" said Matt. "Dat's 
 what I'd like ter fin' out. Dis hyer idee of refun'in' please 
 me mightily. I'd be pow'fle glad to come bang up agin' 
 some refun'in' myself." 
 
 From that time his interest in Milton January, Claim 
 Agent, increased week by week. He used to loiter about 
 talking groups if he caught the sound of his name, in the 
 hope of gathering information. He was quite shrewd enough 
 
 224 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 to realise his own entire ignorance of many subjects, and 
 he had the iDride which prevented his being willing to com- 
 mit himself. 
 
 " I ain^t nothin' but a ole nigger," he used to say. " I 
 ain't had no eddication like some er dese yere smarties what 
 kin read an' cipher an' do de double shuffle in de copy-book. 
 Matt ain't never rub his back 'gin no college wall. Bes' 
 thing he knows is dat he doan' know nothin'. Dat's a 
 pow'fle useful piece o' I'arnin' to help a man, black or white, 
 from makin' a fool er hesself bigger dan what de good Lawd 
 ^tended him f er ter be. Matt he gradyuated in dat 'ar knowl- 
 edge an' got he stiffikit. When de good Lawd turn a man 
 out a fool, he got ter he a fool, but he needn' ter be a bigger 
 fool den what he gotter.'' 
 
 So he listened in the market, where he went every morn- 
 ing to bargain for his bit of beefsteak, or fish, or butter, and 
 where the men and women who kept the stalls knew him 
 as well as they knew each other. They all liked him and 
 welcomed him as he approached in his clean old clothes, his 
 market basket on his arm, his hat set rather knowingly upon 
 his grizzled wool. He was, in fact, rather a flirtatious old 
 party, and was counted a great wit, and was full of a shrewd 
 humour as well as of grandiloquent compliment. 
 
 " I has a jocalder way er talkin', I ain't g^vine ter deny," 
 he would say when complimented upon his popularity with 
 the fair sex, " an' dey ain't nothin' de ladies likes mo' dan 
 a man what's jocalder. Dey loves jokin' an' dey loves to 
 laff. It's de way er de sect. A man what cayn't be jocalder 
 with 'em, he hain't no show." 
 
 " What dis hyer claim agentin' I's hearin' so much talk 
 about?" he enquired of a group one morning. "What / 
 wants is ter get inter de innards of de t'ing, an' den I'se 
 
 225 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 gwine to claim sump'n fer myse'f. If dar's claimin' givine 
 on, I'se a gen'leman what's gwine to be on de camp-meetin' 
 groun', an' fo'most 'mong de shouters." 
 
 "What did ye lose by the war, Uncle Matt?'' said a 
 countryman, who was leaning against his market waggon 
 of " produce " and chewing tobacco. " If ye kin hunt 
 up suthin' ye lost, ye kin put in a claim fer the vally of 
 it, an' mebbe get Government to give ye indemnity. Mebbe 
 ye kin an' mebbe ye cayn't. They ain't keen to do it, but 
 mebbe ye could work it through a smart agent like Janu- 
 ary. They say he's as smart as they make 'em." 
 
 It was a broiling July morning; only the people who were 
 obliged to leave their houses for some special reason were 
 to be seen in the streets; the market w^aggons which had 
 come in from the country laden,with vegetables and chick- 
 ens and butter were drawn up under the shadow of the mar- 
 ket house, that their forlorn horses or mules might escape 
 the glaring hot sun. The liveliest business hour had passed, 
 and about the waggons a group of market men and women 
 and two or three loiterers were idling in the shade, waiting 
 for chance-belated customers. There was a general drawing 
 near when Uncle Matt began his conversation. They always 
 wanted to hear what he had to say, and always responded 
 with loud, sympathetic guffaws to his " jocalder " remarks. 
 
 " He's SGch a case, Uncla Matt is," the women would say; 
 " I never seen sich a case." 
 
 When the countryman spoke. Uncle Matt put on an ex- 
 pression of dignified thoughtfulness. It was an expression 
 his audience were entirely familiar with and invariably 
 greeted with delight. 
 
 " Endurin' of de war," he said, " I los' severial things. 
 Fust thing I memberize of losin' was a pa'r of boots. Dar 
 
 226 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 was a riggiment passin' at de time, an' de membiers of dat 
 riggiment had been footin' it long enough to have wo' out 
 a good deal er shoe-leather. They was thusty an' hungry, 
 an' come to de halt near my cabin to require if dar warn't 
 no Tittles lyin' roun' loose for de good er de country. When 
 dey was gone, my new boots was gone, what I'd jest brung 
 home from de cobbler." 
 
 His audience broke into a shout of enjoyment. 
 
 " Dat 'ar incerdent stirred up my paketriotit feelin's con- 
 sider'ble at de moment. I couldn't seem to see it in de light 
 what p'raps I oughter seen it in. I rared roun' a good deal, 
 an' fer a moment er two, I didn't seem tar mind which side 
 beat de oder. Jest dat 'casion. I doan' say de sentiment 
 continnered on, but jest dat 'casion seemed ter me like dar 
 was a Yank somewhars es I wouldn't hev ben agin seein' 
 takin' a whuppin' from some'un, Secesh or no Secesh." 
 
 " What else did ye lose, Unc' Matt? " someone said when 
 the laugh died down. 
 
 " Well, I lose a wife — kinder cook dat dar ain't no 'dem- 
 nity kin make up fer when de Lawd's removed 'em. An' 
 'pears to me right dar, dat if I wusn't a chu'ch member, I 
 shed be led on ter say dat, considerin' what a skaseness er 
 good cooks dar is, seems like de good Lawd's almost wasteful 
 an' stravagant, de way he lets 'em die off. Three uv 'em he 
 'moved from me to a better worl'. Not as I'm a man what'd 
 wanter be sackerligious; but 'pears to me dar was mo' wuk 
 fur 'em to do in dis hyer dark worl' er sin dan in de realms 
 er glory. I may be wrong, but dat's how it seem to a pore 
 nigger like me." 
 
 " The Government won't pay for yer wife. Matt," said the 
 owner of the market waggon. 
 
 " Dat dey won't, en dat dey cayn't," said Matt. " Dat 
 
 227 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 las' woman's gumbo soup warn't a thing to be 'demnified 
 fer^ dat it warn't. But what I'm a aimin' at is to fin' out 
 what dey ivill pay fer, en how much. Dar was one mawnin' 
 I sot at my do' refleetin' on de Gawsp'l, an' de Yanks come 
 jest a tarin' down de road, licketty switch, licketty switch, 
 yelhn' like de debil let loose, en firin' of dere pistols, an' I 
 gotter 'fess I los' a heap a courage dat time — an' I los' a 
 heap o' breath runnin' 'way from 'em en outer sight. Now 
 I know de Gov'ment not gwine ter pay me fer losin' dem 
 things, but what is dey gwine pay for losin' ? " 
 
 " Property, they say — crops 'n' houses, 'n' barns_, 'n' truck 
 wuth money." 
 
 Uncle Matt removed his hat, and looked into the crown 
 of it as if for instruction before he wiped his forehead and 
 put it on again. 
 
 "Aye-yi! Dey is, is dey?" he said. "Property — en 
 houses, en barns, en truck wuth money? Dey'll hev a plenty 
 to pay, ef dey begins dat game, won't dey? Dey'll hev ter 
 dig down inter de Gov'ment breeches pocket pretty deep, 
 dat dey will. Doan' see how de Pres'dent g^vine ter do it 
 out'n what dey 'lows him, less'n dey 'lows him mighty big 
 pocket money." 
 
 " 'Tain't the President, Matt," said one of the crowd. 
 *' It's the Nation." 
 
 " Oh, it's de Nation! " said Matt. " De Nation. Well, 
 Mr. Nation gwine fin' he got plenty ter do — early en late." 
 
 This was not the last time he led the talk in the direction 
 of Government claims, and in the course of his marketings 
 and droppings into various stores and young lawyers' offices, 
 he gathered a good deal of information. Claims upon the 
 Government had not been so far exploited in those days as 
 they were a little later, and knowledge of such business and 
 
 228 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 its processes was not as easily obtainable by unbusinesslike 
 persons. 
 
 One morning, as he stood at the street corner nearest the 
 Claim Agent's ofhce, a little man came out of the place, and 
 by chance stopped to cool himself for a few moments under 
 the shade of the very maple tree Uncle Matt had chosen. 
 
 He was a very small man, wearing very large panta- 
 loons, and he had a little countenance whose expression 
 was a curious combination of rustic vacancy and incon- 
 gruous sljmess. He was evidently from the country, and 
 Uncle Matt's respectable, in fact, rather aristocratic air, ap- 
 parently attracted his attention. 
 
 " 'Scuse me, sah," said Matt, '^ 'sense me addressin' of you, 
 but dem ar Claim Agents ? " 
 
 " Hev ye got a claim? " said the little man in words that 
 were slow, but with an air that was sharp. " I mean, has 
 anyone ye work fur got one ? " 
 
 " Well, sah," answered Matt, " I ain't sartain, but " 
 
 " Ye'd better make sartain," said the little man. " Bein' 
 es the thing's started the way it lies, anyone es might hev a 
 claim an' lets it lie, is a derned fool. I come from over the 
 mountain. My name's Stamps, and Fve got one." 
 
 Uncle Matt regarded him with interest — not exactly with 
 respect, but with interest. 
 
 Stamps took off his battered broad-brimmed hat, wiped 
 his moist forehead and expectorated, leaning against the 
 tree. 
 
 " Thar's people in this town as is derned fools," he re- 
 marked, sententiously. " Thar's people in most every town 
 in the Union as is derned fools. Most everybody's got a 
 claim to suthin', if they'd only got the common horse sense 
 ter look it up. Why, look at that yoke o' oxen o' mine — the 
 
 229 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 finest yoke o' steers in Hamlin County. Would hev took 
 fust ticket at any Agricultural Fair in the United States. I 
 ain't goin' to sacceryfist them steers to no Stars an' Stripes 
 as ever floated. The Guv'ment's got to pay me the wuth of 
 'em down to the last cent." 
 
 He gave Matt a sharp look ^vith a hint of inquiry in it, as 
 if he was asking either his hearer or himself a question, and 
 'was not entirely certain of the answer. 
 
 "Now thar's D'Willerby/' he went on. "Big Tom— 
 Tom D'Willerby lost enough, the Lord knows. Fust one 
 army, 'n' then another layin' holt on his stock as it come 
 over the road from one place an' another, a-eatin' of it up 
 'n' a-wearin' his goods made up into shirts 'n' the like — 
 'n' him left a'most cleaned out o' everythin'. Why, Tom 
 D'Willerby " 
 
 " 'Scuse me, sah," interrupted Matt, " but did you say 
 De Willoughby?" 
 
 " I said D'Willerby," answered Mr. Stamps. " That's 
 what he's called at the Cross-roads." 
 
 There he stopped and stared at Matt a moment. 
 
 " My young master's name's De Willoughby, sah," Matt 
 said; " 'n' de names soun's mighty simulious when dey's 
 spoke quick. My young Marse, Rupert De Willoughby, he 
 de gran'son er Jedge De Willoughby, an' de son an' heir er 
 Cun'l De Courcy De Willoughby what died er yaller fever 
 at Xashville." 
 
 " Well, I'm doggoned," the little man remarked, " I'd 
 orter thought er thet. This yere's Delisleville, 'n' I recker- 
 lect hearin' when fust he come to Hamlin thet he was some 
 kin to some big bugs down ter D'lisleville, 'n' his father was 
 a Jedge — doggoned ef I didn't! 
 
 230 
 
 }} 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 EuPEET De 'W^'illoughbt was lying upon the grass in the 
 garden under the shade of a tree. The " office '•' had been 
 stifling hot, and there had been even less to suggest any hope 
 of possible professional business than the blankness of most 
 days held. There never was any business, but at rare in- 
 tervals someone dropped in and asked him a question or so, 
 his answers to which, by the exercise of imagination, might 
 be regarded as coming under the head of " advice.^' His 
 clients had no money, however — nobody had any money; and 
 his affairs were assuming a rather desperate aspect. 
 
 He had come home through the hot streets with his straw 
 hat pushed back, the moist rings of his black hair lying 
 on a forehead lined with a rather dark frown. He went into 
 the garden and threw himself on the grass in the shade. 
 He could be physically at ease there, at least. The old gar- 
 den had always been a pleasure to him, and on a hot summer 
 day it was full of sweet scents and sounds he was fond of. 
 At this time there were tangles of hone3'suckle and bushes 
 heavy with mock-orange; an arbour near him was covered 
 by a multiflora rose, weighted with masses of its small, deli- 
 cate blossoms; within a few feet of it a bed of mignonette 
 grew, and the sun-warmed breathing of all these fragrant 
 things was a luxurious accompaniment to the booming of 
 the bees, blundering and buzzing in and out of their flowers, 
 and the summer languid notes of the stray birds which lit 
 on the branches and called to each other among the thick 
 leaves. 
 
 231 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 At twenty-three a man may be very young. Eiipert was 
 both young and old. His silent resentment of the shadow 
 which he felt had always rested npon him, had become a 
 morbid thing. It had led him to seclude himself from the 
 gay little Dclisleville world and cut himself off from young 
 friendships. After his mother — who had understood his 
 temperament and his resentment — had died, nobody cared 
 very much for him. The youth of Delisleville was pictu- 
 resque, pleasure-loving, and inconsequent. It had little par- 
 ties at which it danced; it had little clubs which were vaguely 
 musical or literary; and it had an ingenuous belief in the 
 talents and graces displayed at these gatherings. The femi- 
 nine members of these societies were sometimes wonderfully 
 lovely. They were very young, and had soft eyes and soft 
 Southern voices, and were the owners of the tiniest arched 
 feet and the slenderest little, supple waists in the world. 
 Until they were married — which usually happened very 
 early — they were always being made love to and knew that 
 this was what God had made them for — that ihey should 
 dance a great deal, that they should have many flowers and 
 bonbons laid at their small feet, that beautiful youths with 
 sentimental tenor voices should serenade them with guitars 
 on moonlight nights, which last charming thing led them 
 to congratulate themselves on having been born in the South, 
 as such romantic incidents were not a feature of life in Xew 
 York and Boston. The masculine members were usually 
 lithe and shm, and often of graceful height; they frequently 
 possessed their share of good looks, danced and rode well, 
 and could sing love songs. As it was the portion of their 
 fair companions to be made love to, it was theirs to make 
 love. They often wrote verses, and they also were given 
 to arched insteps and eyes with very perceptible fringes. 
 
 233 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 For some singular reason, it seems that Southern "blood tends 
 to express itself in fine eyes and lashes. 
 
 But with this simply emotional and happy youth young 
 De "Willoughby had not amalgamated. Once he had gone 
 to a dance, and his father the Colonel had appeared upon 
 the scene as a spectator in a state of exaggeratedly graceful 
 intoxication. He was in the condition when he was ex- 
 tremely gallant and paid"* flowery compliments to each pair 
 of bright eyes he chanced to find himself near. 
 
 "When he first caught sight of him, Eupert was waltzing 
 with a lovelv little creature who was a Yanuxem and was 
 not unlike the Delia Tom De Willoughby had fallen hope- 
 lessly in love with. W^hen he saw his father a flash of scarlet 
 shot over the boy's face, and, passing, left him looking very 
 black and white. His brow drew down into its frown, and 
 he began to dance with less spirit. Wlien the waltz was at 
 an end, he led his partner to her seat and stood a moment 
 silently before her, glancing under his black lashes at the 
 Colonel, who had begun to quote Thomas Moore and was 
 declaiming " The Young May Moon " to a pretty creature 
 with a rather alarmed look in her uplifted eyes. It was the 
 first dance at which she had appeared since she had left 
 school. 
 
 Suddenly Eupert turned to his partner. He made her 
 a bow; he was a graceful young fellow. 
 
 " Thank you. Miss Yanuxem. Thank you for the dance. 
 Good-night. I am going home." 
 
 "Are you?" exclaimed little Miss Yanuxem. "But it 
 is so early, Mr. De Willoughby." 
 
 " I have stayed just ten minutes too long now," said 
 Eupert. " Thank you again. Miss Yanuxem. Good-night." 
 
 He walked across the room to Colonel De "Willoughby. 
 
 233 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 " I am going home/' lie said, in a low, fierce Toice; " yon 
 had better come with me." 
 
 " No sush thing/' answered the Colonel, gaily. " On'y 
 just come. Don't go to roosh with shickens. Just quoting 
 Tom Moore to Miss Baxter. 
 
 " Bes' of all ways to lengthen our days 
 Is to steal a few hours from the night, my dear.'* 
 
 The little beauty, who had turned with relieved delight 
 to take the arm of a new partner, looked at her poetic ad- 
 mirer apologetically. 
 
 " Mr. Gaines has come for me, Colonel De "Willoughby,'^ 
 she said; " I am engaged to him for this dance." And 
 she slipped away chnging almost tenderly to the arm of her 
 enraptured escort, who felt himself suddenly transformed 
 into somethino- like a hero. 
 
 " Colonel De Willoughby is so flattering/' she said; " and 
 he has such a queer way of paying compliments. I'm 
 almost frightened of him." 
 
 " I will see that he does not speak to you again," said her 
 partner, with an air of magnificent courage. ^^ He should 
 not have been allowed to come in. You, of course, could 
 not understand, but — the men who are here will protect 
 the ladies who are their guests." 
 
 Eupert gave his father a long look and turned on his heel. 
 He went home, and the next time the Terpsichorean Society 
 invited him to a dance he declined to go. 
 
 " Xice fellow I am to go to such places/' he said to him- 
 self. " Liable to bring a drunken lunatic down upon them 
 at any minute. No, the devil take it all, I'm going to stay 
 at home! " 
 
 234 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 He stayed at home, and gradual!}" dropped out of the 
 young, glowing, innocently frivolous and happy world alto- 
 gether, and it carried on its festivities perfectly well without 
 him. The selfishness of lovely youth is a guileless, joyous 
 thing, and pathetic inasmuch as maturity realises the undue 
 retribution which befalls it as it learns of life. 
 
 When poverty and loneliness fell upon him, the boy had 
 no youthful ameliorations, even though he was so touch- 
 ingly young. Occasionally some old friend of his grand- 
 father's encountered him somewhere and gave him rather 
 florid good advice; some kindly matron, perhaps, asked him 
 to come and see her; but there was no one in the place who 
 could do anything practical. Delisleville had never been 
 a practical place, and now its day seemed utterly over. Its 
 gentlemanly pretence at business had received blows too 
 heavy to recover from until times had lapsed; in some of 
 the streets tiny tufts of grass began to show themselves be- 
 tween the stones. 
 
 As he had walked back in the heat, Rupert had observed 
 these tiny tufts of green with a new sense of their meaning. 
 He was thinking of them as he lay upon the grass, the warm 
 scent of the mock-orange blossoms and roses, mingled with 
 honeysuckle in the air, the booming of the bees among the 
 multiflora blooms was in his ears. 
 
 " What can I do? " he said to himself. " There is noth- 
 ing to be done here. There never was much, and now there 
 is nothing. I can't loaf about and starve. I won't beg from 
 people, and if I would, I haven't a relation left who isn't 
 a beggar himself — and there are few enough of them left." 
 
 He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a well-worn 
 greenback. He straightened out its creases cautiously and 
 looked at it. 
 
 235 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 " I've got two dollars/' lie said, " and no prospect of get- 
 ting any more. Even Matt can't make two dollars last long." 
 The latch of the side gate chcked and the gate opened. 
 Presently Uncle Matt appeared round the rose-bushes. He 
 had his market basket on his arm and wore a thoughtful 
 countenance. 
 
 " Uncle Matt! " Eupert called out to him. " I wish you 
 would come here." 
 
 Notwithstanding his darkling moods, he was in a subtle 
 way singularly like Delia Yanuxem. He needed love and 
 tenderness, and he was boy enough yet to be unhappy and 
 desolate through lack of them, though without quite know- 
 ing why. He knew Uncle Matt loved him, and the affection- 
 ate care the old man surrounded him with was like a warm 
 robe wrapped about a creature suffering from chill. He had 
 not analyzed his feeling himself; he only knew that he liked 
 to hear his footsteps as he pottered about the house, and 
 when he was at his dreariest, he was glad to see him come 
 in, and to talk a little to him. 
 
 Uncle Matt came towards him briskly. He set his basket 
 down and took off his hat. 
 
 " Marse Eupert," he said, " dis hyer's a pow'fle scorcher 
 of a mawnin'. Dem young lawyers as shets up dey office 
 an' comes home to lie in de grass in de shade, dey is follerin' 
 up dey perfession in de profitablest way — what'll be likely 
 to bring 'em de mos' clients, 'cause, sho's yo' bawn, dere's 
 sunstroke an' 'cussion or de brain just lopin' roun' dis 
 town — en a little hot brick office ain't no place for a 
 young man what got any dispect fur his next birfday. 
 bat's so." 
 
 " I haven't much respect for mine," said Eupert; " I've 
 had twenty-two too many — just twenty-two." 
 
 236 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 {( 
 
 'SciTsin' me sayin' it, sail, but dat ain't no way ter talk. 
 A man boun' to have some dispect for his birfday — he houn' 
 to! Birfdays gotter be took keer on. AVhar's a man when 
 he runs out of 'em?" 
 
 " He'd better run out of them before he runs out of every- 
 thing else/' said Rupert. ^' Matt, I've just made two dollars 
 this month." 
 
 He looked at the old man with a restless appeal in his 
 big, deer-like eyes. 
 
 " I'm very sorry. Matt," he said, " I'm terribly sorry, but 
 you know — we can't go on." 
 
 Uncle Matthew looked down at the grass with a reflective 
 air. 
 
 " Marse Eupert, did 5'ou never heah nothin' 'bout your 
 Uncle Marse Thomas De Willoughby?" 
 
 Eupert was silent a moment before he answered, but it 
 was not because he required time to search his memory. 
 
 " Yes," he said, and then was silent again. He had heard 
 of poor Tom of the big heart from his mother, and there 
 had been that in her soft speech of him which had made 
 the great, tender creature very real. Even in his childhood 
 his mother had been his passion, as he had been hers. 
 Neither of them had had others to share their affection, and 
 they were by nature creatures born to love. His first mem- 
 ory had been of looking up into the soft darkness of the 
 tender eyes which were always brooding over him. He had 
 been little more than a baby when he had somehow known 
 that they were very sorrowful, and had realised that he loved 
 them more because of their sorrow. He had been little older 
 when he found out the reason of their sadness, and from 
 that time he had fallen into the habit of watching them 
 and knowing their every look. He always remembered the 
 
 237 
 

 In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 look they wore when she spoke of Tom De Willoughby, 
 and it had been a very touching one. 
 
 Yes," he said to Uncle Matt, " I have heard of him." 
 Dar was a time, a long way back, Marse Rupert — 'fore 
 you was horned — when I seemed to year a good deal 'bout 
 Marse Thomas. Dat was when he went away in dat curi's 
 fashion. Xobody knowed wliar he went, an' nobody knowed 
 quite li'liy. It wus jes' afore ye' maw an' paw wus married. 
 Some said him an' de Jedge quailed 'cause Marse Thomas 
 he said he warn't gwine ter be no medical student, an' 
 some said he was in love with some young lady dat wouldn't 
 'cept of him." 
 
 "Did they?" said Rupert. 
 
 " Dat dey did," Matt said; " an' a lot moah. But ev'ry- 
 body think it mighty strange him a-gwine, an' no one never 
 huntin' him up afterwards. Seemed most like dey didn't 
 keer nothin' 'bout him." 
 
 " They didn't, damn them! " said Rupert, with sudden 
 passion. " And he was worth the whole lot." 
 
 " Dat what make I say what I gwine ter," said Matt, with 
 some eagerness. " What I heerd about Marse Thomas make 
 me think he must be er mighty line gen'leman, an'' one 
 v>'hat'd be a good fren' to anyone. An' dishyer ve'y mawnin' 
 I heerd sump'n mo' about him." 
 
 Rupert raised himself upon his elbow. 
 
 " About Uncle Tom! " he exclaimed. " You have heard 
 something about Uncle Tom to-day?" 
 
 " I foun' out whar he went, Marse Rupert," said Matt, 
 much roused. " I foun' out whar he is dishyer ve'y instep. 
 He's in Hamlin County, keepin' sto' an' post-office at Tal- 
 bot's Cross-roads; an', frum what I heah, Marse Tom De 
 Willoughby de mos' pop'larist gen'leman an' mos' looked 
 up ter in de county." 
 
 238 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughb) Claim 
 
 " "Who — who did you hear it from? " demanded Eupert. 
 
 Uncle Matt put his foot upon a rustic seat near and leaned 
 forward, resting his elbow on his knee and making im- 
 pressive gestures with his yellow-palmed old hand. 
 
 " It was dishyer claimin' dat brung it about," he said; 
 " dishver claimin' an^ Memnification what's been a-settin^ 
 pow^fle heavy on my min' fur long 'nuff. Soon's I yeerd 
 tell on it, Marse Rupert, it set me ter steddyin'. I been 
 a-watchin' out an' axin' questions fur weeks, an' when I 
 fin' out " 
 
 "But what has that to do with Uncle Tom?" cried 
 Eupert. 
 
 " A heap, Marse Eupert. Him an' you de onliest heirs 
 to de De AVilloughby estate; an' ef a little hoosier what's 
 los' a yoke er oxen kin come down on de Guv'ment for 
 'demnification, why can't de heirs of a gen'leman dat los' 
 what wus gwine ter be de biggest fortune in de South'n 
 States. What's come er dem gold mines, Marse Eupert, 
 dat wus gwine ter make yo' grandpa a millionaire — whar is 
 dey? What de Yankees done with dem gol' mines?" 
 
 " They weren't gold mines. Uncle Matt," said Eupert; 
 " they were coal mines; and the Yankees didn't carry them 
 away. They only smashed up the machinery and ruined 
 things generally." 
 
 But he laid back upon the grass again with his hands 
 clasped behind his head and his brow drawn down thought- 
 fully. 
 
 " Coal mines er gol' mine?," said Uncle Matt. " Guv'ment 
 gotter 'demnify ef things er managed right; en dat what 
 make me think er Marse Thomas De AVilloughby when dat 
 little Stamps feller said somep'n dat soun' like his name. 
 ' Xow dar's D'Willerb}'/ he ses, ^ big Tom D'Willerby/ en 
 
 239 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 I jest jumped on liim. ' Did you say De Willoughby, sah? ' 
 I ses, an' from dat I foim' out de rest." 
 
 " I should like to see him," said Eupert; " I always 
 thought I should like to know where he was — if he was 
 alive." 
 
 " Why doan' you go an' see him, den? " said Matt. *^ Jest 
 take yo' foot in yo' han' an' start out. Hamlin County 
 ain't fur, Marse Eupert, an' de Cross-roads Pos'-office mighty 
 easy to fin'; and when you fin' it an' yo' uncle settin' in 
 de do', you jest talk ter him 'bout dem gol' mines an' dat 
 claimin' business an' ax his devise 'bout 'em. An' ef yer 
 doan' fin' yo'se'f marchin' on ter ^Yash'n'ton city an' a-talk- 
 in' to de Pres'dent an' de Senators, de whole kit an' bilin' 
 of 'em, Marse Thomas ain't de buz'ness gen'l'man what I 
 believe he is." 
 
 Eupert lay still and looked straight before him, appar- 
 ently at a bluebird balanced on a twig, but it was not the 
 bird he w^as thinking of. 
 
 " You'se young, Marse Eupert, an' it 'ud be purty dan- 
 g'rous for a onexperienced young gen'l'man ter Ian' down 
 in de midst er all dem onprinciple' Yankees with a claim 
 to hundreds of thousan's of dollars. Marse Thomas, he's 
 a settled, stiddy gen'l'man, en, frum what I hears, I guess 
 he's got a mighty 'stablished-lookin' 'pearance." 
 
 " I should like to see him," Eupert reflected aloud. " I 
 should like to see him." 
 
 240 
 
CHAPTEE XX 
 
 The years had passed for the child Sheba so sweetly, and 
 had been so full of simple joys and pleasures, that they 
 seemed a panorama of lovely changing seasons, each a thing 
 of dehght. There was the spring, when she trotted by Tom's 
 side into the garden and he showed her the little, pale-green 
 points of 1;he crocuses, hyacinths, and tuhps pushing their 
 way up through the moist brown earth, and when he carried 
 her in his big arms into the woods on the hillsides, and they 
 saw the dog^vood covered with big white flowers and the 
 wild plum-trees snowed over with delicate blooms, and found 
 the blue violets thick among the wet grass and leaves, and 
 the frail white wind-flowers quivering on their stems. As 
 they went about in this new fairyland, which came every 
 year, and which still seemed always a surprise, it was their 
 habit to talk to each other a great deal. The confidences 
 they had exchanged when the child had not been able to 
 speak, and which Tom had nevertheless understood, were 
 enchanting things when she became older and they strayed 
 about together or sat by the fire. Her child thoughts and 
 fancies might have been those of some little faun or dryad. 
 She grew up among green things, with leaves waving above 
 and around her, the sun shining upon her, and the moun- 
 tains seeming to stand on guard, looking down at her from 
 day to day, from year to j^ar. From behind one mountain 
 the sun rose every morning, and she always saw it; and 
 behind another it sank at night. After the spring came 
 the summer, when the days were golden and drowsy and 
 
 241 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 hot^ and there were roses and other flowers everywhere; wild 
 roses in the woods and by the waysides, heavy-headed beau- 
 ties in their own garden, and all the beds and vines a flne 
 riot of colour. After these there were blackberries thick 
 on their long brambles, and \Yild grapes in the woods, and 
 presently a delicious snap of cold in the clear air night and 
 morning, and the trees were dropping golden, amber, and 
 scarlet leaves, while under the pale yellow ones which rustled 
 beneath the chestnut-trees, there were brown, glossy nuts, 
 which fell one by one with a delightful suddenness of sound 
 at irregular intervals. There were big chestnut-trees in the 
 woods near their house, and Tom and Slieba used to go 
 before breakfast to look for the nuts which had fallen in 
 the night. Hamlin County always rose at sunrise, or before 
 it, and to go out in the heavenly fresh morning air and walk 
 through the rustling, thickly fallen yellow leaves under the 
 trees, making little darts of joy at the brown, glossy things 
 bursting through their big burrs, was a delicious, exciting 
 thing. Mornin's hot breakfast held keen delights when they 
 returned to it. 
 
 AVhen the big wood-fires were lighted and there was snow 
 and rain outside, and yams and chestnuts to roast in the 
 ashes, and stories to be told and talked over in the glow of 
 the red birch-log and snapping, flaming hickory sticks, the 
 child used to feel as if she and Uncle Tom were even nearer 
 together and more comfortable than at any other time. 
 
 " Uncle Tom," she said to him, as she was standing in the 
 circle of his arm on one such night, when she was about 
 ten years old. " Uncle Tom, we do love each other in the 
 winter, don't we ? " 
 
 " Yes, we do, Sheba," answered Tom. " And we're pretty 
 partial to each other even in the summer." 
 
 242 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 " "We love each other at all the times/' she said. " And 
 every morning that I get up I love you more than I did 
 when I went to bed — every morning, Uncle Tom." 
 
 Tom kissed her. He remembered what he had said one 
 morning in the cabin in Blair's Hollow ten years before. 
 
 " Perhaps, if there's no one to come between us, she may 
 be fond of me." 
 
 She was fond of him. He was her very little life itself. 
 No one had eA"er come between — nothing ever could. 
 
 She had by that time shot up into a tall, slender slip 
 of a girl-child. She was passing, even with a kind of dis- 
 tinction, through the stage of being all long, slim legs 
 and big eyes. The slim legs were delicately modelled and 
 the big eyes were like pools of gold-brown water, fringed 
 with rushes. 
 
 " I never seen a young 'un at thet thar young colty age 
 es was es han'some es thet child o' Big Tom's," Mis' Doty 
 often remarked. 
 
 By the frequenters of the Cross-roads Post-office she was 
 considered, as was her protector, a county institution. When 
 she had reached three years old, she had been measured 
 against the wall, and each year her increase of inches was 
 recorded amid lively demonstrations of interest. The small- 
 ness of her feet had also been registered, and the thickness 
 and growth of her curling hair ranked as a subject of dis- 
 cussion only second in interest to the development of crops. 
 
 But this affection notwithstanding, a curious respect for 
 her existed. She had pla)^ed among them in the store in 
 her little dusty pinafore; one and all of them had given her 
 rustic offerings, bringing her special gifts of yellow popcorn 
 ears, or abnormal yams unexpectedly developed in their own 
 gardens, or bags of hickory nuts; but somehow they did not 
 
 243 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 think or speak of her as they did of each other's chil- 
 dren. 
 
 Tom had built a comfortable white house, over whose 
 verandah honej^suckles and roses soon clambered and hung. 
 In time the ground enclosed about it had a curious likeness 
 to the bowery unrestraint of the garden he had played in 
 during his childhood. It Avas a pleasure to him to lay it out 
 on the old plan and to plant japonicas, flowering almonds, 
 and syringa bushes, as they had grown in the days when he 
 had played under them as a child, or lounged on the grass 
 near them as a boy. He and Sheba planted everything them- 
 selves — or, rather, Sheba walked about with him or stood 
 by his side and talked while he worked. In time she knew 
 almost as well as he did the far-away garden he took as his 
 model. She learned to know the place by heart. 
 
 ""Were you a little boy then. Uncle Tom?^' she would 
 say, " when there was a mock-orange and a crape myrtle next 
 to the big yellow rose-bush ? '' 
 
 There were even times when he found her memory was 
 better than his own, and she could correct him. 
 
 " Ah! no, Uncle Tom/' she would say; " the pansies were 
 not in the little heart-shaped bed; they were all round the 
 one with the pink harp-flower in the middle." 
 
 "When she was six years old he sent for some books and 
 began seriously to work with a view to refreshing his mem- 
 ory on subjects almost forgotten. 
 
 ^^ I'm preparing myself for a nursery governess, Sheba," 
 he said. " What we want is a nursery governess, and I don't 
 know where to find one. I shouldn't know how to manage 
 her if I did find her, so I've got to post up for the position 
 myself." 
 
 The child was so happy with him in all circumstances, 
 
 244 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 that it was easy to teach her anything. She had learned 
 to read and write before she discovered that the process she 
 went through to acquire these accomplishments was not an 
 agreeable pastime specially invented by Tom for her amuse- 
 ment. At eleven years old she had become so interested 
 in her work that she was quite an excited little student. By 
 the time she was twelve Tom began to shake his head at her. 
 
 " If you go on like this/' he said, " I sha'n't be able to 
 keep up with you, and what I've got to do is to keep ahead. 
 If I can't, I shall have to send you to the Academy at 
 Ealston; and how should we stand that?" 
 
 She came and sat upon his big knee — a slim little thing, 
 as light as a bird. 
 
 " We couldn't stand it. Uncle Tom," she said. " We have 
 to be together. We always have been, haven't we? " And 
 she rubbed her ruffled head against his huge breast. 
 
 ^^ Yes, we always have been," answered Tom; "and it 
 would go pretty hard with us to make a change, Sheba." 
 
 She was not sent to Ealston. The war broke out and al- 
 tered the aspect of things even at the Cross-roads. The bank 
 in which Tom's modest savings were deposited was swept 
 away by misfortune; the primitive resources of Hamlin 
 County were depleted, as the resources of all the land were. 
 But for the existence of the white, vine-embowered house 
 and the garden full of scents and bloom, Tom's position 
 at the close of the rebellion was far less fortunate than it 
 had been at the time the mystery of Blair's Hollow had oc- 
 curred. In those old, happy-go-lucky days the three rooms 
 behind the store and the three meals Mornin cooked for him 
 had been quite sufficient for free and easy peace. He had 
 been able to ensure himself these primitive comforts with 
 so little expenditure that money had scarcely seemed an ob- 
 
 245 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 ject. He had taken eggs in exchange for sugar, bacon in 
 exchange for tea, and butter in exchange for everything. 
 Now he had no means of resource but the store, and the 
 people were poorer than they had been. Farms had gone 
 to temporary ruin through unavoidable neglect during the 
 absence of their masters. More than one honest fellow had 
 marched away and never returned, and their widov\'s were 
 left to struggle with the land and their children. The Cross- 
 roads store, which had thriven so wonderfully for a year 
 or two before the breaking out of the war, began to wear 
 a less cheerful aspect. As far as he himself was concerned, 
 Tom knew that life was a simple enough thing, but by his 
 side there was growing up a young goddess. She was not 
 aware that she was a young goddess. There was no one in 
 the vicinity of the Cross-roads who could have informed 
 her that she presented somewhat of that aspect, and that 
 she was youth and happiness and Nature's self at once. 
 
 Tom continually indulged in deep reflection on his charge 
 after she was twelve years old. She shot up into the tall 
 suppleness of a lovely young birch, and she was a sweetly 
 glowing thing. A baby had been a different matter; the 
 baby had not been so difficult to manage; but when he found 
 himself day by day confronting the sweetness of child- wom- 
 anhood in the eyes that were gold-brown pools, and the soft- 
 ening grace of the fair young body, he began to be conscious 
 of something like alarm. He was not at all sure what he 
 ought to do at this crisis, and whether life confining its 
 experiences entirely to Talbot's Cross-roads was all that was 
 required. 
 
 " I don't know whether it's right, by thunder," he said. 
 " I don't know whether it's right; and that's what a man 
 who's taken the place of a young mother ought to know." 
 
 246 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 There came a Sunday when one of the occasional " preach- 
 ings " was to be held at the log-cabin church a few miles 
 distant, and they were going together, as they always did. 
 
 It was a heavenly, warm spring morning, and Sheba, hav- 
 ing made herself ready, wandered into the garden to wait 
 among the flowers. The rapturous first scents of the year 
 were there, drawn by the sun and blown by vagrant puffs 
 of wind from hyacinths and jonquils, white narcissus and 
 blue violets. Sheba walked among the beds, every few min- 
 utes kneeling down upon the grass to bury her face in pink 
 and yellow and white clusters, inhaling the breath of flowers 
 and the pungent freshness of the sweet brown earth at the 
 same time. She had lived among leaves and growing things 
 until she felt herself in some unexplainable way a part of 
 the world they belonged to. The world beyond the moun- 
 tains she knew nothing of; but this world, which was the 
 brown earth springing forth into green blades and leaves and 
 little streaked buds, warming into bloom and sun-drenched 
 fragrance, setting the birds singing and nest-building, giv- 
 ing fruits and grain, and yellow and scarlet leaves, and 
 folding itself later in snow and winter sleep — this world 
 she knew as well as she knew herself. The birds were sing- 
 ing and nest-building this morning, and, as she hung over 
 a bed of purple and white hyacinths, kneeling on the grass 
 and getting as close to them as she could, their perfume 
 mounted to her brain and she began to kiss them. 
 
 " I love you,'' she said, dwelling on their sweet coolness 
 with her lips; " I love and love you! " And suddenly she 
 made a little swoop and kissed the brown earth itself. " And, 
 oh! I love you, too! " she said. " I love you, too! " 
 
 She looked like young spring's self when she stood up 
 as Tom came towards her. Her smile was so radiant a 
 
 247 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 thing that he felt his heart quake with no other reason 
 than this sight of her happy youth. 
 
 " What are you thinking of, Slieba? " he asked. 
 
 " I am thinking," she said, as she glanced all about her, 
 the smile growing more entrancing, " I am thinking how 
 happy I am, and how happy the world is, and how I love 
 you, and," with a pretty laugh, " the flowers, and the sun, 
 and the earth — and everything in the world! " 
 
 " Yes," said Tom, looking at her tenderl}^ ^^ It's the 
 spring, Sheba." 
 
 She caught his arm and clung to it, laughing again. 
 
 " Yes," she answered; ^' and when it isn't the spring, it 
 is the summer; and when it isn't the summer, it is the au- 
 tumn; and when it isn't the autumn, it is the winter; and 
 we sit by the fire and know the spring is making its way 
 back every day. Everything is beautiful — everything is 
 happy. Uncle Tom." 
 
 " Good Lord! " exclaimed Tom. 
 
 " Why do you say that ? " Sheba asked. " Why do you 
 look so — so puzzled. Uncle Tom?" 
 
 " Well," said Tom, holding her out at arm's length before 
 him, " the truth is, I've suddenly realised something. I'd 
 like to know what I'm to do with tliis ! " 
 
 "This?" laughed Sheba. "Am I ^this'? Y^ou look 
 at me as if I was ^ this '." 
 
 " You are," Tom answered, ruefully. " Here you sud- 
 denly change to a young woman on a man's hands. Now, 
 what am I to do with a grown-up young woman? I'm used 
 to babies, and teething, and swallowing kangaroos out of 
 ISToah's arks — and I know something of measles and letting 
 tucks out of frocks; but when it comes to a beautiful young 
 woman, there you have me! " 
 
 248 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 He shook his head as he ended, and, though his face wore 
 the affectionate, humorous smile which had never failed her, 
 there was a new element in its kindness which, it must be 
 confessed, bordered on bewilderment. 
 
 " A beautiful, grown-up young woman," he said, glancing 
 reflectively over her soft, swaying slimness, her white frock 
 with its purple ribbon and golden jonquils, and up to her 
 tender cheek. 
 
 Sheba blushed with sweet delight. 
 
 "Am I beautiful. Uncle Tom?" she inquired, with a 
 lovely anxiousness in her eyes. 
 
 "' Yes, you are," admitted Tom; " and it isn't a drawback 
 to you, Sheba, but it's likely to make trouble for me." 
 
 " But why? " she said. 
 
 " In novels, and poetry, and sometimes in real life, 
 beautiful young women are fallen in love with, and then 
 trouble is liable to begin," explained Tom with amiable 
 gravity. 
 
 " There is no one to fall in love with me at the Cross- 
 roads," said Sheba, sweetly. " I wish there was." 
 
 " Good Lord," exclaimed Tom, devoutly. " Come along 
 to church, Sheba, and let's go in for fasting and prayer." 
 
 He took her to the " preaching " in the log cabin and no- 
 ticed the effect of her entry on the congregation as they 
 went in. There were a number of more or less awkward and 
 raw-boned young male creatures whose lives were spent chief- 
 ly in cornfields and potato patches! They were uncomely 
 hewers of wood and drawers of water, but they turned their 
 heads to look at her, and their eyes followed her as she 
 went to her seat. When she had sat down, those who could 
 catch glimpses of her involuntarily craned their necks and 
 sat in discomfort until the sermon was over. Tom recog- 
 
 249 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 nised this fact, and in secret reflected upon it in all its 
 bearings. 
 
 " Yes/' he found himself saying, mentally; " I'd like to 
 know how I'm going to do my duty by this. I don't believe 
 there's a derned thing about it in ' Advice to Young 
 Mothers.' " 
 
 The day wore on to its lovely end, and lost itself in one 
 of the sunsets which seem to flood the sky with a tide of 
 ripples of melted gold, here and there tipped with flame. 
 "When this was over, a clear, fair moon hung lighted in the 
 heavens, and, flooding with silver what had been flooded 
 with gold, changed the flame-tips to pearl. 
 
 Sheba strayed in the garden among the flowers. Tom, 
 sitting under the vines of the porch, Avatched her white figure 
 straying in and out among the shrubbery. At last he saw 
 her standing on the grass in the full radiance of the moon- 
 light, her hands hanging clasped behind her and her face 
 turned upward to the sky. As she had wandered about, she 
 had done a fanciful thing. She had made a wreath of white 
 narcissus and laid it on her hair, and she had twisted together 
 a sort of long garland of the same blossoms and cast it loosely 
 round her wai^t. 
 
 " She never did that before," Tom said, as he watched her. 
 " Good Lord! what a picture she is, standing there with her 
 face lifted. I wonder what she's thinking of." 
 
 " Uncle Tom," she said, when she sauntered back to him, 
 " does the moonlight make you feel sad without being un- 
 happy at all? That is what it does to me." 
 
 *^ It's the spring, Sheba," he said, as he had said it in the 
 morning; " it's the spring." 
 
 She saw that he was looking at her flower garlands, and 
 she broke into a shy little laugli. 
 
 250 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 " You see what you have done to me, Uncle Tom," she 
 said; " now you have told me T am a beautiful young woman, 
 I shall always be doing things to — to make myself look pret- 
 tier.'' 
 
 She came on to the verandah to him, and he held out 
 his hand to her. 
 
 " That's the spring, too, Sheba," he said. 
 
 She yielded as happily and naturally to the enfolding of his 
 big arm in these days as she had done when she was a bab}^ 
 No one but themselves knew what they were to each other. 
 
 They had always talked things over together — their affec- 
 tion, their pleasures, their simple anxieties and responsibili- 
 ties. They had discussed her playthings in the first years 
 of their friendship and her lessons when she had been a 
 little girl. To-night the subject which began to occupy 
 them had some seriousness of aspect. The changes time 
 and the tide of war had made were bringing Tom face to 
 face with a difficulty his hopeful, easy-going nature had 
 never contemplated with any realising sense — the want of 
 money, even the moderate amount the requirements of their 
 simple lives made necessary. 
 
 " It's the taxes that a man can't stand up against," Tom 
 said. " You may cut off all you like, and wear your old 
 clothes, but there's a liveliness about taxes that takes the 
 sand out of you. Talk about the green bay-tree flourishing 
 and increasing, all a tax wants is to be let alone a few years. 
 It'll come to its full growth without any sunning or watering- 
 Mine have had to be left alone for a wliile, and — well, here 
 we are — another year, and " 
 
 " Will the house be taken? " Sheba asked. 
 
 " If I can't pay up, it'll all go — house and store and all," 
 Tom answered. " Then tue shall have to go too." 
 
 251 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 He turned and looked ruefully at the face beneath the 
 wreath of white narcissus. 
 
 " I wish it hadn't come on us just now," he said. " There's 
 no particular season that trouble adds a charm to; but it 
 seems to me that it's not entitled to the sjDring." 
 
 AYhen she went upstairs she did not go to bed. The moon- 
 light lured her out into the night again. Outside her win- 
 dow there was a little balcony. It was only of painted wood, 
 as the rest of the house was, but a multiflora rose had climbed 
 over it and hung it with a wonderful drapery, and, as she 
 stood upon it, she unconsciously made herself part of a 
 picture almost strange in its dramatic quality. 
 
 She looked out over the sleeping land to the mountains 
 standing guard. 
 
 " ^Yhere should we go ? " she said. '' The world is on the 
 other side." 
 
 She was not in the mood to observe sound, or she would 
 have heard the clear stroke of a horse's hoofs on the road. 
 She did not even hear the opening of the garden gate. She 
 was lost in the silver beauty of the night, and a vague dream- 
 ing which had fallen upon her. On the other side of the 
 purple of the mountains was the world. It had always 
 been there and she had always been here. Presently she 
 found herself sighing aloud, though she could not have 
 told why. 
 
 *' Ah! " she said as softly as young Juliet. " Ah, me! " 
 
 As she could not have told why she sighed, so there was 
 no explanation of the fact that, having done so, she looked 
 downward to the garden path, as if something had drawn 
 her eyes there. It is possible that some attraction had so 
 drawn them, for she found herself looking into a J'oung, up- 
 turned face — the dark, rather beautiful face of a youth who 
 
 253 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 stood and looked upward as if he had stopped involuntarily 
 at sight of her. 
 
 She drew back with a little start and then bent her ISTar- 
 cissus-crowned head forward. 
 
 " Who — who is it? " she exclaimed. 
 
 He started himself at the sound of her voice. She had in- 
 deed looked scarcely a real creature a few moments ago. He 
 took off his hat and answered: 
 
 '' I am Rupert De AVilloughby," he said. " I beg pardon 
 for disturbing you. It startled me to see you standing there. 
 I came to see Mr. Thomas De Willoughby." 
 
 It was a singular situation. Perhaps the moonlight had 
 something to do with it; perhaps the spring. They stood 
 and looked at each other quite simply, as if they did not 
 know that they were strangers. A young dryad and faun 
 meeting on a hilltop or in a forest's depths by moonlight 
 might have looked at each other with just such clear, un- 
 startled eyes, and with just such pleasure in each other's 
 beauty. For, of a truth, each one was thinking the same 
 thing, innocently and with a sudden gladness. 
 
 As he had come up the garden-path, Robert had seen 
 a vision and had stopped unconsciously that instant. And 
 Sheba, looking down, had seen a vision too — a beautiful face 
 as young as her own, and with eyes that glowed. 
 
 " You don't know^ what you looked like standing there," 
 said Rupert, as simply as the young faun might have spoken. 
 " It was as if you were a spirit. The flowers in your hair 
 looked like great white stars." 
 
 "Did they?" she said, and stood and softly gazed at 
 him. 
 
 How the boy looked up at her young loveliness! He had 
 never so looked at any woman before. And then a thought 
 
 253 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 detached itself from the mists of memory and he seemed 
 to remember. 
 
 " Are you Sheba? " he asked. 
 
 " Yes, I am Sheba," she answered, rather slowly. " And 
 I remember you, too. You are the boy." 
 
 He drew nearer to the balcony, laying his hand upon the 
 multiflora rose creeper. 
 
 " Yes, yes," he said, almost tremulous with eagerness. 
 " You bring it all back. You were a little child, and I " 
 
 " You rode away," she said, " over the hill." 
 
 " AVill you come down to me?" he said. 
 
 " Yes," she answered, and that moment disappeared. 
 
 He stood in the moonlight, his head bared, his straw hat 
 in his hand. He felt as if he was in a dream. His face had 
 lost its gloom and yearning, and his eyes looked like his 
 mother's. 
 
 When he heard a light fofit ncarin^ him, he went forward, 
 and they met with strange young tniik-s and took each other's 
 hands. ISTearer than the balcony, she was even a sweeter 
 thing, and the scent of her white llowers floated about her. 
 
 As they stood so, smiling, Tom came and joined them. 
 Sheba had called him as she passed his door. 
 
 Eupert turned round and spoke, vaguely conscious, as 
 he did so, that his words sounded somewhat like words ut- 
 tered in a dream and were not such as he had planned. 
 
 "Uncle Tom/' he said, "I — ^Delia Yanuxem was my 
 mother." 
 
 254 
 
CHAPTEK XXI 
 
 The moment ceased to be so fanciful and curiously ex- 
 alted when his hand was grasped and a big, kind palm laid 
 on his shoulder, though Tom's face was full of emotion. 
 
 " I think I should have known it/' he said. " Welcome 
 to you. Yes," looking at him with an affection touched 
 with something like reverence. " Yes, indeed — ^Delia 
 Vanuxem! " 
 
 " I've come to you," the young fellow said, with fine sim- 
 plicity, " because I am the only De Willoughby left except 
 yourself. I am young and I'm lonely — and my mother 
 always said you had the kindest heart she ever knew. I 
 want you to advise me." 
 
 " Come in to the porch/^ said Tom, " and let us sit down 
 and talk it over." 
 
 He put his arm about Sheba and kept his hand on Eu- 
 pert's shoulder, and walked so, with one on either side, to 
 the house. Between their youthful slimness he moved like 
 a protecting giant. 
 
 '* "Where did you come from?" he asked when they sat 
 down. 
 
 *^ From Delisleville," Rupert answered. " I did not think 
 of coming here so late to-night, but it seems I must have 
 missed my road. I was going to ask for lodgings at a place 
 called Willet's Farm. I suppose I took the wrong turning; 
 and when I saw this house before me, I knew it must be 
 3'ours from what I had heard of it. It seemed as if Fate 
 
 255 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 had brought me here. And when I came up the path I 
 8aw Sheba. She was standing on the little verandah in the 
 moonlight with the roses all around her; and she looked 
 so white that I stopped to look up at her." 
 
 " Uncle Tom," said Sheba, '' we — we knew each other." 
 
 " Did you? " said Tom. " That's right." 
 
 His middle-aged heart surprised him by giving one quick, 
 soft beat. He smiled to himself after he had felt it. 
 
 " The first moment or so I only stood and looked," Eupert 
 said; " I was startled." 
 
 " And so was I," said Sheba. 
 
 " But when she leaned forward and looked down on me," 
 he went on, " I remembered something " 
 
 " So did I," said Sheba. " I leaned forward like that and 
 looked down at you from the porch at the tavern — all those 
 years ago, when I was a little child." 
 
 " And I looked up at you — and afterwards I asked about 
 you," said Eupert. " It all came back when you spoke to- 
 night, and I knew you must be Sheba." 
 
 " You knew my name, but I did not know yours," said 
 Sheba. " But, after all," rather as if consoling herself, 
 " Sheba is not my real name. I have another one." 
 
 " What is it ? " asked the young fellow, quite eagerly. 
 His eyes had scarcely left her face an instant. She was 
 standing by Tom's chair and her hands were on his shoulders. 
 
 " It is Felicia," she said. " Uncle Tom gave it to me — 
 because he wanted me to be happy." And she curved a 
 slim arm round Tom's neck and kissed him. 
 
 It was the simplest, prettiest thing a man could have seen. 
 Her life had left her nature as pure and translucent as the 
 clearest brook. She had had no one to compare herself 
 with or to be made ashamed or timid by. She knew only 
 
 256 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 her own heart and Tom's love, and she smiled as radiantly 
 into the lighting face before her as she would have smiled 
 at a rose, or at a young deer she had met in the woods. 
 'No one had ever looked at her in this way before, but being 
 herself a thing which had grown like a flower, she felt no 
 shyness, and was only glad. Eve might have smiled at Adam 
 so in their first hours. 
 
 Big Tom, sitting between them, saw it all. A man cannot 
 live a score of years and more, utterly cut off from the life 
 of the world, without having many a long hour for thought 
 in which he will inevitably find himself turning over the 
 problems which fill the life he has missed. Tom De Wil- 
 loughby had had many of them. He had had no one to 
 talk to whose mind could have worked with his own. On 
 winter nights, when Sheba had been asleep, he had found 
 himself gazing into the red embers of his wood fire and 
 pondering on the existence he might have led if fate had 
 been good to him. 
 
 " There must be happiness on the earth somewhere," he 
 would say. " Somewhere there ought to have been a woman 
 I belonged to, and who belonged to me. It ought all to 
 have been as much nature as the rain falling and the corn 
 ripening in the sun. If we had met when we were young 
 things — on the very brink of it all — and smiled into each 
 other's eyes and taken each other^s hands, and kissed each 
 other's lips, we might have ripened together like the corn. 
 What is it that's gone wrong? " All the warm normal affec- 
 tions of manhood, which might have remained undeveloped 
 and been cast away, had been lavished on the child Sheba. 
 She had represented his domestic circle. 
 
 " You mayn't know it, Sheba," he had said once to her, 
 *' but you're a pretty numerous young person. You're a 
 
 257 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 man's wife and family, ard mother and sisters, and at least 
 half a dozen boys and girls." 
 
 All his thoughts had concentrated themselves npon her — 
 all his psychological problems had held her as their centre, 
 all his ethical reasonings had applied themselves to her. 
 
 " She's got to be happy," he said to himself, '' and she's 
 got to be strong enough to stand up under unhappiness, if 
 — if I should be taken away from her. AVhen the great thing 
 that's — that's the meaning of it all — and the reason of it — 
 comes into her life, it ought to come as naturally as summer 
 does. If her poor child of a mother — Good Lord! Good 
 Lord! " 
 
 And here he sat in the moonlight, and Delia Yanuxem's 
 son Avas looking at her with ardent, awakened young eyes. 
 
 How she listened as Rupert told his story, and how sweetly 
 she was moved by the pathos of it. Once or twice she made 
 an involuntary movement forward, as if she was drawn to- 
 wards him, and uttered a lovely low exclamation which was 
 a little like the broken coo of a dove. Eupert did not know 
 that there was pathos in his relation. He made only a simple 
 picture of things, but as he went on Tom saw all the effect 
 of the hot little town left ruined and apathetic after the 
 struggle of war, the desolateness of the big house empty but 
 for its three rooms, its bare floors echoing to the sound of 
 the lonely pair of feet, the garden grown into a neglected 
 jungle, the slatternly negro girl in the kitchen singing wild 
 camp-meeting hymns as she went about her careless work. 
 
 *^ It sounds so lonel}^," Sheba said, with tender mourn- 
 fulness. 
 
 " That was what it was — lonely," Rupert answered. " It's 
 been a different place since Matt came, but it has always 
 been lonely. Uncle Tom," putting his hand on the big knee 
 
 258 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 near him, as impulsively as a child, '^ I love that old Matt — • 
 I love him! '' 
 
 "Ah, so do I!'' burst forth Sheba. "Don't you, Uncle 
 Tom?" And she put her hand on the other knee. 
 
 Eupert looked down at the hand. It was so fair and soft 
 and full of the expression of sympathy — such an adorably 
 womanly little hand, that one's first impulse was to lay 
 one's own upon it. He made a movement and then remem- 
 bered, and looked up, and their eyes met and rested on 
 each other gently. 
 
 "When the subject of the claim was broached, Sheba 
 thought it like a fairy tale. She listened almost with bated 
 breath. As Rupert had not realised that he was pathetic 
 in the relation of the first part of his story, so he did not 
 know that he was picturesque in this. But his material had 
 strong colour. The old man on the brink of splendid fort- 
 une, the strange, unforeseen national disaster sweeping all 
 before it and leaving only poverty and ruin, the untouched 
 wealth of the mines lying beneath the earth on which battles 
 had been fought — all the possibilities the future might hold 
 for one penniless boy — these things were full of suggestion 
 and excitement. 
 
 " You would be rich," said Sheba. 
 
 " So would Uncle Tom," Eupert answered, smiling; " and 
 you, too." 
 
 Tom had been listening with a reflective look on his face. 
 He tilted his chair back and ran his hand through his hair. 
 
 " At all events, we couldn't lose money if we didn't gain 
 any," he said. " That's where we're safe. "When a man's 
 got to the place where he hasn't anything to lose, he can 
 afford to take chances. Perhaps it's worth thinking over. 
 Let's go to bed, children. It's midnight." 
 
 2oD 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 When they said good-night to each other, the two young 
 hands dung together kindly and Sheba looked up with 
 sympathetic eyes. 
 
 " Would you like to be very rich? '' she asked. 
 
 *^ To-night I am rich/' he answered. " That is because 
 you and Uncle Tom have made me feel as if I belonged 
 to someone. It is so long since I have seemed to belong 
 to anyone." 
 
 " But now you belong to us/' said Sheba. 
 
 He stood silently looking down at her a moment. 
 
 " Your eyes look just as they did when you were a little 
 child/' he said. He lifted her hand and pressed his warm 
 young lips to it. 
 
 260 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 He awoke the next morning with a glow in his heart 
 which should not be new to youth, but was new to him. 
 He remembered feeling something rather like it years before 
 when he had been a little boy and had wakened on the 
 morning of his birthday and found his mother kissing him 
 and his bed strewn with gifts. 
 
 He went downstairs and, strolling on to the porch, saw 
 Sheba in the garden. As he went to join her, he found 
 himself in the midst of familiar paths and growths. 
 
 " AAliy," he exclaimed, stopping before her, " it is the 
 old garden! " 
 
 " Yes," Sheba answered; " Uncle Tom made it like this 
 because he loved the other one. You and I have played in 
 the same garden. Good-morning," laughing. 
 
 " Good-morning," he said. " It is a good-morning. I 
 — somehow I have been thinking that when I woke I felt 
 as I used to do when I was a child and woke on my birthday." 
 
 That morning she showed him her domain. To the im- 
 aginative boy she led with her, she seemed like a strange 
 young princess, to whom all the land belonged. She loved 
 it so and knew so well all it yielded. She showed him the 
 cool woods where she always found the first spring flowers, 
 the chestnut and walnut trees where she and Tom gathered 
 their winter supply of nuts, the places where the wild grapes 
 grew thickest, and those where the ground was purple-car- 
 peted with violets. 
 
 They wandered on together until they reached a hollow 
 
 261 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 in the road, on one side of which a pine wood sloped up 
 a hillside, looking dark and cool. 
 
 " I come here very often," she said, quite simply. " My 
 mother is here." 
 
 Then he saw that a little distance above the road a deserted 
 log cabin stood, and not far from it two or three pine trees 
 had been cut down so that the sun could shine on a mound 
 over and about which flowers grew. It was like a little gar- 
 den in the midst of the silent wildness. 
 
 He followed her to the pretty spot, and she knelt down 
 by it and removed a leaf or a dead flower here and there. 
 The little mound was a snowy mass of white blossoms stand- 
 incr thick too^ether, and for a vard or so about the earth was 
 starred with the same flowers. 
 
 '' You see," she said, " Uncle Tom and I plant new flowers 
 for every month. Everything is always white. Sometimes 
 it is all lilies of the valley or white hyacinths, and then it 
 is white roses, and in the autumn white chrysanthemums. 
 Uncle Tom thought of it when I was a little child, and we 
 have done it together ever since. "We think she knows." 
 
 She stopped, and, still kneeling, looked at him as if sud- 
 denly remembering something. 
 
 " You have not heard," she said; " she died when I was 
 born, and we do not even know her name." 
 
 " iSTot her name!" Eupert said; but the truth was that 
 he had heard more of the story than she had. 
 
 " My father was so stunned with grief, that Uncle Tom 
 said he seemed to think of nothing but that he could not 
 bear to stay. He went away the very night they laid her 
 here. I suppose," she said slowly, and looking at the mass 
 of white narcissus instead of at him, " I suppose when people 
 
 love each other, and one dies, the other cannot — cannot " 
 
 363 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 Eupert saw that she was unconsciously trjang to explain 
 something to herself, and he interposed between her and 
 her thoughts with a hurried effort. 
 
 " Yes, yes/' he said; " it must be so. "When they love each 
 other and one is taken, how can the other bear it? " 
 
 Then she lifted her eyes from the flowers to his again, 
 and they looked very large and bright. 
 
 " You see/' she said, in an unsteady little voice, " I had 
 only been alive a few hours when he went away." 
 
 Suddenly the brightness in her eyes welled up and fell in 
 two large crystal drops, though a smile quivered on her lips. 
 
 " Don't tell Uncle Tom/' she said; '* I never let him know 
 that it — it hurts my feelings when I think I had only been 
 alive such a few hours — and there was nobody to care. I 
 must have been so little. If — if there had been no Uncle 
 Tom " 
 
 He knelt down by her side and took her hand in his. 
 
 " But there was/' he said; " there was! " 
 
 " Yes," she answered, her sweet face trembling with emo- 
 tion; " and, oh! I love him so! I love him so! " 
 
 She put her free hand on the earth among the white 
 flowers on the mound. 
 
 " And I love her, too," she said; " somehow I know she 
 would not have forgotten me." 
 
 " Xo, no, she would not! " Eupert cried; and they knelt 
 together, hand in hand, looking into each other's eyes as 
 tenderly as children. 
 
 " I have been lonelier than 3'ou," he said; " I have had 
 nobody." 
 
 " Your mother died, too, when you were very young? " 
 
 " Yes, Sheba," hesitating a moment. " I will tell you 
 
 something." 
 
 263 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 "Yes?'*' 
 
 " Uncle Tom loved her. He left his home partly because 
 he could not stay and see her marry a man who — did not 
 deserve her." 
 
 " Did she marry someone like that?'' she asked. 
 
 His forehead flushed. 
 
 " She married my father/' he said, " and he was a drunken 
 maniac and broke her heart. I saw it break. When I first 
 remember her, she was a lovely young girl with ej'es Hke 
 a gazelle's — and she cried all their beauty away, and grew 
 tired and old and haggard before I was twelve. He is dead, 
 but I hate him! " 
 
 " Oh! " she said; " you have been lonely! " 
 
 " I have been something worse than that! " he answered, 
 and the gloom came back to his face. '' I have been afraid." 
 
 " Afraid! " said Sheba. " Of what? " 
 
 " That I might end like him. How do I know? It is in 
 my blood." 
 
 ^' Oh, no! " she cried. 
 
 " We have nearlv all been like that " he said. " He was 
 the maddest of them all, but he was only like many of the 
 others. We groAv tall, we De Willoughbys, we have black 
 eyes, we drink and we make ourselves insane with morphine. 
 It's a ghastly thing to think of," he shuddered. " When 
 I am lonely, I think of it night and day." 
 
 " You must not," she said. " I — I will help you to for- 
 get it." 
 
 " I have often wondered if there was anyone who could," 
 he answered. " I think perhaps you might." 
 
 Wlien they returned to the Cross-roads there were several 
 customers loitering on the post-office porch, awaiting their 
 arrival, and endeavouring to wear an air of concealing no 
 
 264 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 object whatever. The uneventful lives they led year after 
 year made men and women alike avid for anything of the 
 nature of news or incident. In some mysterious way the air 
 itself seemed to communicate to them anything of interest 
 which might be impending. Big Tom had not felt incHned 
 to be diffuse on the subject of the arrival of his nephew, but 
 each customer who brought in a pail of butter or eggs, a 
 roll of jeans or a pair of chickens, seemed to become en- 
 lightened at once as to the position of affairs. 
 
 "Ye see/' Tom heard Doty confiding to a friend as 
 they sat together outside a window of the store; " ye see, 
 it's this way — ^the D'Willerbys was born 'ristycrats. I dunno 
 as ye'd think it to look at Tom. Thar's a heap to Tom, 
 but he ain't my idee of a 'ristycrat. My idee is thet mebbe 
 he let out from D'lisleville kase he warn't 'ristycratic enough 
 fur 'em. Thar wus a heap of property in the family, 'pears 
 like. An' now the hull lot of 'em's dead 'cept this yere boy 
 that come last night. Stamps hes seen him in D'lisleville, 
 an' he says he's a-stavin' lookin' young feller, an' thet thar's 
 somethin' about a claim on the Guv'ment thet ef Tom an' 
 him don't foller up, they're blamed fools. Now Tom, he 
 ain't no blamed fool. Fur 7iot bein' a blamed fool, I'll back 
 Tom agin any man in Hamlin." 
 
 So, when the two young figures were seen sauntering along 
 the road towards the store, there were lookers-on enough to 
 regard them with interest. 
 
 " Now he's my idee of a 'ristycrat," remarked Mr. Doty, 
 with the manner of a connoisseur. " Kinder tall an' slim, 
 an' high-sperrity lookin'; Sheby's a gal, but she's got it too 
 ■ — thet thar sorter racehorse look. Now, hain't she? " 
 
 " I want you to see the store and the people in it," Sheba 
 WSLS saying. '^ It's my home, you know. Uncle Tom took 
 
 265 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 me tliere the day after I was born. I used to play on the 
 floor behind the counter and near the stove, and all those 
 men are my friends." 
 
 Eupert had never before liked anything so much as he 
 liked the simple lovingness of this life of hers. As she knew 
 the mountains, the flowers, and the trees, she knew and 
 seemed known by the very cows and horses and people she 
 saw. 
 
 " That's John Hutton's old gray horse," she had said 
 as she caught sight of one rider in the distance. " That is 
 Billy jSTeiFs yoke of oxen," at another time. " Good-morn- 
 ing, Mrs. Stebbins," she called out, with the prettiest pos- 
 sible cheer, to a woman in an orange cotton skirt as she 
 passed on the road. '' It seems to me sometimes," she said 
 to Eupert, " as if I belonged to a family that was scattered 
 over miles and lived in scores of houses. They all used to 
 tell Uncle Tom what would disagree with me when I was 
 cutting my teeth." 
 
 They mounted the steps of the porch, laughing the light, 
 easy laugh of youth, and the loiterers regarded them with 
 undisguised interest and admiration. In her pink cotton 
 frock, and blooming like a rose in the shade of her frilled 
 pink sunbonnet, Sheba was fair to see. Eupert presented 
 an aspect which was admirably contrasting. His cool pallor 
 and dense darkness of eyes and hair seemed a delightful 
 background to her young tints of bloom. 
 
 " Thet thar white linen suit o' liis'n," Mr. Doty said, 
 " might hev been put on a-purpose to kinder set off her 
 looks as well as his'n." 
 
 It was to Mr. Doty Sheba went first. 
 
 " Jake," she said, " this is my cousin Mr. Eupert De Wil- 
 loughby from Delisleville." 
 
 266 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 "Mighty glad to be made 'qnainted, sir/^ said Jake. 
 " Tom's mightily sot up at yer co^iin'." 
 
 They all crowded about him and went through the same 
 ceremony. It could scarcely be called a ceremony, it was 
 such a simple and actually affectionate performance. It was 
 so plain that his young good looks and friendly grace of 
 manner reached their hearts at once, and that they were 
 glad that he had come. 
 
 " They are glad you have come/' Sheba said afterwards. 
 " You are from the world over there, you know," waving 
 her hand towards the blue of the mountains. " We are all 
 glad when we see anything from the outside." 
 
 "Would you like to go there?" Eupert asked. 
 
 " Yes," she answered, with a little nod of her head. " If 
 Uncle Tom will go — and you." 
 
 They spent almost an hour in the store holding a sort of 
 levee. Every new-comer bade the young fellow welcome and 
 seemed to accept him as a sort of boon. 
 
 " He's a mighty good-lookin' young feller," they all said, 
 and the women added: " Them black eyes o' his'n an' the 
 way his hair kinks is mighty purty." 
 
 " Their feelings will be hurt if you don't stay a little," 
 said Sheba. " They want to look at you. You don't mind 
 it, do you ? " 
 
 " No," he answered, laughing; " it delights me. Xo one 
 ever wanted to look at me before. But I should hardly think 
 they would want to look at me when they might look at 
 you instead." 
 
 " They have looked at me for eighteen 3^ears," she an- 
 swered. " They looked at me when I had the measles, and 
 saw me turn purple when I had the whooping-cough." 
 
 As they were going away, they passed a little man who 
 
 2C7 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 had just arrived and was hitching to the horse-rail a raw- 
 boned " clay-bank " mare. He looked np as they neared 
 him and smiled peacefully. 
 
 " Howdy ? " he said to Eupert. ^' Ye hain't seen me afore, 
 but I seen you when I was to Delisleville. It wuz me as 
 told yer nigger ye'd be a fool if ye didn't get Tom ter help 
 yer to look up thet thar claim. Ye showed horse sense by 
 comin'. Wish ye luck." 
 
 " Uncle Tom/' said Sheba, as they sat at their dinner and 
 Mornin walked backwards and forwards from the kitchen 
 stove to the dining-room with chicken fried in cream, hot 
 biscuits, and baked yams, " we saw Mr. Stamps and he 
 wished us luck." 
 
 " He has a claim himself, hasn't he? " said Eupert. " He 
 told Matt it was for a yoke of oxen." 
 
 Tom broke into a melodious roar of laughter. 
 
 " Well," he said, " if we can do as well by ours as Stamps 
 will do by his, we shall be in luck. That yoke of oxen has 
 grown from a small beginning. If it thrives as it goes on, 
 the Government's in for a big thing." 
 
 " It has grown from a calf," said Sheba, '' and it wasn't 
 six weeks old." 
 
 " A Government mule kicked it and broke its leg," said 
 Tom. " Stamps made veal of it, and in two months it was 
 'Thet heifer o' mine' — in six months it was a young 
 steer " 
 
 " Xow it's a yoke of oxen," said Rupert; " and they were 
 the pride of the county." 
 
 "Lord! Lord!" said Tom, "the United States has got 
 something to engineer." 
 
 268 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 It was doubtless Stamps who explained the value of the 
 De Willoughby claim to the Cross-roads. Excited interest 
 in it mounted to fever heat in a few days. The hitching rail 
 was put to such active use that the horses shouldered each 
 other and occasionallv bit and kicked and enlivened the air 
 with squeals. No one who had an opportunity neglected 
 to appear at the post-office, that he or she might hear the 
 news. Judge De "Willoughby's wealth and possessions in- 
 creased each time they were mentioned. The old De Wil- 
 loughby place became a sort of princely domain, the good 
 looks of the Judge's sons and daughters and the splendour 
 of their gifts were spoken of almost with bated breath. The 
 coal mines became gold mines, the money invested in them 
 something scarcely to be calculated. The Government at 
 Washington, it was even inferred, had not money enough 
 in its treasury to refund what had been lost and indemnify 
 for the injury done. 
 
 " And to think o' Tom settin' gassin' yere ^u-ith us fel- 
 lers," they said, admiringly, " jest same es if he warn't noth- 
 in'. A-settin' in his shirt sleeves an' tradin' fer eggs an' 
 butter. Why, ef he puts thet thar claim through, he kin 
 buy up Hamlin." 
 
 " I'd like ter see the way he'd fix up Sheby," said Mis' 
 Doty. " He'd hev her dressed in silks an' satins — an' dia- 
 mond earrings soon as look." 
 
 " Ye'll hev to go ter Washin'ton City sure enough, Tom," 
 was the remark made oftenest. '' When do ye 'low to start? " 
 
 SG9 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 But Tom was not as intoxicated "by the prospect as the 
 rest of them. His demeanour was thoughtful and unexhil- 
 arated. 
 
 " Whar do ye 'low to huild yer house when ye come into 
 yer money, Tom?" he was asked, gravely. *' Shall ye hev 
 a cupoly? AVhar'll ye buy yer land? " 
 
 The instinct of Hamlin County tended toAvards expressing 
 any sense of opulence by increasing the size of the house it 
 lived in, or by building a new one, and invariably by pur- 
 chasing land. Xobody had ever become rich in the neigh- 
 bourhood, but no imagination would have found it possible 
 to extend its efforts beyond a certain distance from the Cross- 
 roads. The point of view was wholl}' primitive and patri- 
 archal. 
 
 Big Tom was conscious that he had become primitive and 
 patriarchal also, though the truth was that he had always 
 been primitive. 
 
 As he sat on the embowered porch of his house in the 
 evening and thought things over, while the two young voices 
 murmured near him, his reflections were not greatly joyful. 
 The years he had spent closed in by the mountains and sur- 
 rounded by his simple neighbours had been full of peace. 
 Since Sheba had belonged to him they had even held more 
 than peace. The end had been that the lonely unhappiness 
 of his youth had seemed a thing so far away that it was rather 
 like a dream. Only Delia Yanuxem was not quite like a 
 dream. Her pitying girlish face and the liquid darkness 
 of her uplifted eyes always came back to him clearly when 
 he called them up in thought. He called them up often 
 during these days in which he was pondering as to what 
 it was best to decide to do. 
 
 It's the boy who brings her back so," he told liimself. 
 
 270 
 
 i< 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 " Good Lord, how near she seems! The grass has been grow- 
 ing over her for many a year, and I'm an old fellow, but 
 she looks just as she did then." 
 
 The world beyond the mountains did not allure him. It 
 was easier to sit and see the sun rise and set within the 
 purple boundary than to face life where it was less simple, 
 and perhaps less kindly. It was from a much less advanced 
 and concentrated civilisation he had fled in his youth, and 
 the years which had passed had not made him more fitted 
 to combat with what was more complex. 
 
 " Trading for butter and eggs over the counter of a coun- 
 try store, and discussing Doty's corn crop and Hayworth's 
 pigs hasn't done anything particular towards fitting me to 
 shine in society," he said. " It suits me well enough, but 
 it's not what's wanted at a ball or a cabinet minister's re- 
 ception." And he shook his head. " I'd rather stay where 
 I am — a darned sight." 
 
 But the murmuring voices went on near him, and little 
 bursts of laughter rang out, or two figures wandered about 
 the garden, and his thoughts always came back to one point 
 — a point where the sun seemed to shine on things and 
 surround them with a dazzling radiance. 
 
 " Yes, it's all verv well for 7??6." he concluded more than 
 once. " It's well enough for me to sit down and spend the 
 rest of my life looking at the mountains and watching sum- 
 mer change into winter; but they are only beginning it all 
 — just beginning." 
 
 So one night he left his chair and went out and walked 
 between them in the moonlight, a hand resting on a shoul- 
 der of each. 
 
 " See," he said, " I want you two to help me to make up 
 my mind." 
 
 271 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 "About going away?" asked Eupert, looking round at 
 him quickly. 
 
 " Yes. Do you know we may have a pretty hard time ? 
 We've no money. We should have to live scant enough, and, 
 unless we had luck, we might come back here worse off than 
 we left." 
 
 *' But we should have tried, and we should have been 
 on the other side of the mountains," said Sheba. 
 
 " So we should," said Tom, reflectively. " And there's a 
 good deal in seeing the other side of the mountains when 
 people are young." 
 
 Sheba put her hand on his and looked at him \\dth a glow- 
 ing face. 
 
 " Uncle Tom," she said, " oh, let us go! " 
 
 "Uncle Tom," said Rupert, "I must go! " 
 
 The line showed itself between his black brows again, 
 though it was not a frown. He put his hand in his pocket 
 and held it out, open, with a solitary twenty-dollar bill lying 
 in it. 
 
 " That's all I've got," he said, " and that's borrowed. If 
 the claim is worth nothing, I must earn enough to pay it 
 back. All right. We'll all three go," said Tom. 
 
 The next day he began to develop the plans he had been 
 allowing to form vaguely as a background to his thoughts. 
 They were not easy to carry out in the existing condition 
 of general poverty. But at Lucasville, some forty miles dis- 
 tant, he was able to raise a mortgage on his land. 
 
 If the worst comes to the worst," he said to Sheba, 
 
 after w^e have seen the other side of the mountains, do you 
 think you could stand it to come back and live with me in 
 the rooms behind the store? " 
 
 Sheba sat down upon his knee and put her arms round 
 his neck, as she had done v/hen she vras ten years old. 
 
 273 
 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 *' I could live with you anywhere," she said. " The only 
 thing I couldn't stand would be to have to live away from 
 you." 
 
 Tom laughed and kissed her. He laughed that he might 
 smother a sigh. Eupert was standing near and looking at 
 her with the eyes that were so like Delia Vanuxem's. 
 
 273 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 Foe an imaginative or an untravelled person to approach 
 the city of Washington at sunrise on a radiant morning, is 
 a thing far from unlikely to be remembered, since a white 
 and majestic dome, rising about a white structure set high 
 and supported by stately colonnades, the whole gleaming fair 
 against a background of blue sk}', forms a picture which does 
 not easily melt away. 
 
 Those who reared this great temple of white stone and 
 set it on a hilltop to rule and watch over the land, builded 
 better than they knew. To the simple and ardent idealist 
 its white stateliness must always suggest something symbolic, 
 and, after all, it is the ardent and simple idealist whose 
 dreams and symbols paint to prosaic human minds the beau- 
 tiful impossibilities whose unattainable loveliness so allures 
 as to force even the unexalted world into the endeavour to 
 create such reproductions of their forms as crude living will 
 allow. 
 
 Tom leaned against the side of the car window and 
 watched the great dome with an air of curious reflection. 
 Sheba and Rupert leaned forward and gazed at it with dream- 
 ing eyes. 
 
 " It looks as the capitol of a great republic ought to look," 
 Rupert said. ^^ Spotless and majestic, and as if it dominated 
 all it looks down upon with pure laws and dignity and 
 justice." 
 
 " Just so," said Tom. 
 
 In the various crises of political excitement in Hamlin 
 
 274 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 County he had taken the part of an unbiassed but humor- 
 ous observer, and in that character had gained much experi- 
 ence of a primitive kind. What he had been led chiefly to 
 remark in connection with the " great republic '^ was that 
 the majesty and spotlessness of its intentions were not in- 
 variably realised by mere human units. 
 
 " Well," he said, as he took down his valise from the 
 rack, " we're coming in here pretty well fixed for leaving the 
 place millionaires. If we had only fifteen cents in our 
 pockets, it would be a dead sure thing, according to all the 
 biographers / ever read. The only thing against us is that 
 we have a little more — but it's not enough to spoil our luck, 
 that I'll swear." 
 
 He was not without reason in the statement. Few voy- 
 agers on the ocean of chance could have dared the journey 
 with less than they had in their possession. 
 
 " What we've got to do," he had said to Paipert, " is to 
 take care of Sheba. We two can rough it." 
 
 They walked through the awakening city, finding it 
 strange and bare with its broad avenues and streets ill- 
 paved, bearing traces everywhere of the tragedy of war 
 through which it had passed. The public buildings alone 
 had dignity; for the rest, it wore a singularly provincial and 
 uncompleted aspect; its plan was simple and splendid in 
 its vistas and noble spaces, but the houses were irregular 
 and without beauty of form; negro shanties huddled against 
 some of the most respectable, and there were few whose 
 windows or doors did not announce that board and lodging 
 might be obtained within. There w^as no look of well-being 
 or wealth anywhere; the few equipages in the streets had 
 seen hard service; the people who walked w^re either plainly 
 dressed or shabby genteel; about the doors of the principal 
 
 275 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 hotels there were groups of men who wore, most of them, 
 dispirited or anxious faces. Ten years later the whole aspect 
 of the place was changing, but at this time it was passing 
 through a period of natural fatigue and poverty, and was 
 not an inspiring spectacle to penniless new-comers, 
 
 " It reminds me a little of Delisleville, after all," said 
 Eupert. 
 
 Beyond the more frequented quarters of the town, they 
 found broad, unkempt, and as yet unlevelled avenues and 
 streets, where modest houses straggled, perched on high 
 banks with an air of having found themselves there quite 
 by accident. The banks were usually grass-covered, and 
 the white picket fences enclosed bits of ground where scant 
 fruit-trees and disorderly bushes grew; almost every house 
 possessed a porch, and almost every porch was scrambled over 
 by an untidy honeysuckle or climbing rose which did its best 
 to clothe with some grace the dilapidated woodwork and the 
 peeled and blistered paint. 
 
 Before one of these houses Tom stopped to look at a lop- 
 sided sign in the little garden, which announced that rooms 
 were to be rented within. 
 
 " Perhaps we can find something here," he said, " that 
 may suit the first ventures of millionaires. It's the sort of 
 thing that will appeal to the newspaper man who writes 
 the thing up; * First home of the De Willoughbys when 
 they arrived in Washington to look up their claim.' It'll 
 make a good woodcut to contrast T\dth ' The great De 
 Willoughby mansion in Fifth Avenue. Cost five hundred 
 thousand ! ' " 
 
 They mounted the Avooden steps built into the bank 
 and knocked at the door. Eupert and Sheba exchanged 
 glances with a little thrill. They were young enough to 
 
 276 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 feel a sort of excitement even in taking this first modest 
 step. 
 
 A lady with a gentle, sallow face and a faded black cotton 
 gown, opened the door. Her hair hung in depressed but 
 genteel ringlets on each side of her countenance; at the 
 back it formed a scant coil upheld by a comb. Tom thought 
 he observed a gleam of hope in her eye when she saw them. 
 She spoke with the accent of Virginia. 
 
 " Yes, suh, we have rooms disengaged. \Yon't you come 
 in? " she said. 
 
 She led them into a neat but rather painful little parlour. 
 The walls were decorated with photographs of deceased rela- 
 tives in oval frames, and encased in glass there was a floral 
 wreath made of hair of different shades and one of white, 
 waxen-looking flowers, with a vaguely mortuary suggestion 
 in their arrangement. There was a basket of wax fruit under 
 a shade on the centre table, a silver ice-water pitcher on a 
 salver, and two photograph albums whose binding had be- 
 come loosened by much handling. There was also a book 
 with a red and gold cover, bearing in ornate letters the title 
 " Life of General Robert Lee." 
 
 " The rooms are not lawge," the lady said, " but they are 
 furnished with the things I brought from my fawther's house 
 in Virginia. My fawther was Judge Burford, of the Burford 
 family of England. There's a Lord Burford in England, 
 we always heard. It is a very old family." 
 
 She looked as if she found a vague comfort in the state- 
 ment, and Tom did not begrudge it to her. She looked very 
 worn and anxious, and he felt it almost possible that during 
 the last few months she might not always have had quite 
 enough to eat. 
 
 " I never thawt in the days when I was Judge Burford's 
 
 077 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 dawtah of Burfordsville/' she explained, "that I should 
 come to Washington to take boarders. There was a time 
 when it was thawt in Virginia that Judge Burford might 
 reach the White House if he would allow himself to be nomi- 
 nated. It's a great change of circumstances. Did you want 
 board with the rooms ? " 
 
 " Well " began Tom. 
 
 She interrupted him in some little hurry. 
 
 " I'm afraid it wouldn't be convenient for me to board 
 anyone/' she said; " I've not been accustomed to providing 
 for boarders, and I'm not conveniently situated. If — if you 
 preferred to economize " 
 
 " We do," said Tom. " We have come to look up a claim, 
 and people on that business are pretty safe to have to econo- 
 mize, I've been told! " 
 
 " Ah, a claim! " she ejaculated, with combined interest 
 and reverence. " Indeed, you are quite right about its being 
 necessary to economize. Might I enqu'ah if it is a large 
 one?" 
 
 "I believe it is," Tom answered; "and it's not likely 
 to be put through in a month, and we have not money 
 enough to keep us in luxury for much more. Probably we 
 shall be able to make it last longer if we take rooms and buy 
 our own food." 
 
 " I'm sure you would, suh," she answered, with a little 
 eager flush on her cheek. '" When people provide for them- 
 selves, they can sometimes do without — things." She added 
 the last word hurriedly and gave a little cough wliich sounded 
 nervous. 
 
 It was finally agreed that they should take three little 
 rooms she showed them, in one of which there was a tiny 
 stove, upon which they could prepare such simple food as 
 
 278 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 they could provide themselves with. The arrangement was 
 not a luxurious one, but it proved to be peculiarly suitable 
 to the owners of the great De Willoughby claim. 
 
 As they had not broken fast, Tom went out to explore 
 the neighbourhood in search of food. He thought he re- 
 membered having seen in a side street a little store. When 
 he returned, after some wanderings, a wood fire was crack- 
 ling in the stove and Sheba had taken off her hat and put 
 on a white apron. 
 
 " Hello! '^ exclaimed Tom. 
 
 " I borrowed it from Miss Burford," she said. " I went 
 down to see her. She let us have the wood, too. Eupert 
 made the fire." 
 
 She took the paper bags from Tom's hands and stood on 
 tiptoe to kiss him, smiling sweetly at his rather troubled 
 face. 
 
 " All my life you have been doing things for me. !N'ow 
 it is my turn,'' she said. " I have watched Mornin ever since 
 I was born. I am going to be your servant." 
 
 In an hour from the time they had taken possession 
 of their quarters, they were sitting at a little table before 
 an open window, making a breakfast of coffee and eggs. 
 Sheba was presiding, and both men were looking at her 
 flushed cheeks adoringly. 
 
 "Is the coifee good. Uncle Tom?" she said. "Just tell 
 me it is good." 
 
 " Well," said Tom, " for the first effort of a millionairess, 
 I should say it was/ 
 
 )> 
 
 279 
 
CHAPTER XXy 
 
 The year before this Judge Eutherford had been sent 
 to Congress by the Republican Party of Hamlin County. 
 His election had been a wildly exciting and triumphant one. 
 Such fiery eloquence as his supporters displayed had rarely, 
 if ever, been poured forth before. It was proved by each 
 orator that the return of the Democratic candidate would 
 plunge the whole country into the renewal of bloodshed and 
 war. This catastrophe having been avoided by the Judge's 
 election, the nation — as represented by Hamlin County — 
 had settled down with prospects of peace, prosperity, and 
 the righting of all old grievances. The Judge bought a new 
 and shining valise, a new and shining suit of broadcloth, 
 and a silk hat equally shining and new, and went triumph- 
 antly to "Washington, the sole drawback to his exultation 
 being that he was obliged to leave Jenny behind him with 
 the piano, the parlour furniture, and the children. 
 
 " But he'll hev ye thar in the White House, ef ye give 
 him time," said an ardent constituent who called to con- 
 gratulate. 
 
 There seemed no end to a political career begun under 
 such auspices but the executive mansion itself. The confi- 
 dence of the rural communities in their representatives was 
 great and respectful. It was believed that upon their arrival 
 at the capital, business in both Houses was temporarily post- 
 poned until it had been supported by their expression of 
 
 280 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 opinion and approval. It was believed also that the luxury 
 and splendour of a Congressman's life was such as ancient 
 Eome itself might have paled before and envied. 
 
 " A man in Washington city with a Congristman's wages 
 has got to be a purty level-headed feller not to get into 
 high-falutin' ways of livin' an' throwin' money about. 
 He's got to keep in his mind that this yere's a republic 
 an' not a 'ristycratic, despotic monarchy." 
 
 This was a sentiment often expressed, and Tom De Wil- 
 loughby himself had had vaguely respectful views of the cir- 
 cumstances and possible surroundings of a representative of 
 his country. 
 
 But when he made his first visit to Judge Eutherford, 
 he did not find him installed in a palatial hotel and sur- 
 rounded by pampered menials. He was sitting in a back 
 room in a boarding-house — a room which contained a fold- 
 ing bedstead and a stove. He sat in a chair which was tilted 
 on its hind legs, and his feet rested on the stove's ornamental 
 iron top. He had just finished reading a newspaper which 
 lay on the floor beside him, and his hands were thrust into 
 his pockets. He looked somewhat depressed in spirits. 
 
 When Tom was ushered into the room, the Judge looked 
 round at him, uttered a shout of joy, and sprang to his feet. 
 
 " Tom," he cried out, falling upon him and shaking his 
 hand rather as if he would not object to shaking it off and 
 retaining it as an agreeable object forever. " Tom! Old 
 Tom! Jupiter, Tom! I don't know how you got here or 
 where you came from, but — Jupiter! I'm glad to see you." 
 
 He went on shaking his hand as he dragged him across 
 the room and pushed him into a dingy armchair by the 
 window; and when he had got him there, he stood over him 
 grasping his shoulder, shaking his hand still. Tom saw 
 
 281 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 that his chin was actually twitching in a curious way which 
 made his goatee move unsteadily. 
 
 " The legislation of your country hasn't made you forget 
 home folks, has it?" said Tom. 
 
 " Forget 'em! " exclaimed the Judge, throwing himself 
 into a seat opposite and leaning forward excitedly with his 
 hands on his knees. " I never remembered anything in my 
 life as 1 remember them. They're never out of my mind, 
 night or day. I've got into a way of dreaming I'm back 
 to Barnesville, talking to the boys at the post-office, or 
 listening to Jenny playing * Home, Sweet Home ' or ' The 
 Maiden's Prayer.' I was a bit down yesterday and couldn't 
 eat, and in the night there I was in the little dining-room, 
 putting away fried chicken and hot biscuits as fast as the 
 nigger girl could bring the dishes on the table. Good 
 Lord I how good they were! There's nothing like them 
 in Washington city," he added, and he heaved a big sigh. 
 
 " Why, man," said Tom, " you're home-sick! " 
 
 The Judge heaved another sigh, thrusting his hands 
 deeper into his pockets and looking out of the window. 
 
 " Yes, by Jingo! " he said; '^ that's what I am." 
 
 He withdrew his gaze from the world outside the window 
 and returned to Tom. 
 
 " You see," he said, " I've lived different. When a man 
 has been born and brought up among the mountains and 
 lived a country life among folks that are all neighbours and 
 have neighbourly ways, city life strikes him hard. Politics 
 look different here; they are different. They're not of the 
 neighbourly kind. Politicians ain't joking each other and 
 having a good time. They don't know anything about the 
 other man, and they don't care a damn. What's Hamlin 
 County to them? Why, they don't knovf anything about 
 
 282 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 Hamlin County, and, as far as I've got, they don't want 
 to. They've got their own precincts to attend to, and they're 
 going to do it. When a new man comes in, if he ain't a 
 pretty big fellow that knows how to engineer things and 
 say things to make them listen to him, he's only another 
 greenhorn. ISTow, I'm not a big fellow, Tom; I've found 
 that ont! and the first two months after I came, blamed 
 if I wasn't so home-sick and discouraged that if it hadn't 
 been for seeming to go back on the boys, durned if I don't 
 believe I should have gone home." 
 
 Big Tom sat and regarded his honest face thoughtfully. 
 
 " Perhaps you're a bigger man than you know," he said. 
 *' Perhaps you'll find that out in time, and perhaps other 
 people will." 
 
 The Judge shook his head. 
 
 " I've not got education enough," he said. " And I'm 
 not an orator. All there is to me is that I'm not going 
 back on the boys and Hamlin. I came here to do the square 
 thing by them and the United States, and blamed if I ain't 
 going to do it as well as I know how." 
 
 " Now, look here," said Big Tom, " that's pretty good 
 politics to start with. If every man that came here came 
 to stand by his party — and the United States — and do the 
 square thing by them, the republic would be pretty safe, 
 if they couldn't do another durned thing." 
 
 The Judge rubbed his already rather rough head and 
 seemed to cheer up a little. 
 
 " Do you think so? " he said. 
 
 Big Tom stood up and gave him a slap on his shoulder. 
 
 " Think so ? " he exclaimed, in his great, cheerful voice. 
 I'm a greenhorn myself, but, good Lord! I liioiu it. Mak- 
 ing laws for a few million people is a pretty big scheme, and 
 
 283 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 it's the fellows who intend to do the square thing who are 
 going to put it through. This isn't ancient Greece, or 
 Sparta, but it's my impression that the men who planned 
 and wrote the Constitution, and did the thinking and orat- 
 ing in those days, had a sort of idea of building up a thing 
 just as ornamental and good to write history about as either 
 one; and, what's more, they counted on just such fellows 
 as you to go on carrying the stones and laying them plumb, 
 long after they w^ere gone." 
 
 " Jupiter, Tom! " the Judge said, with something actually 
 like elation in his voice, " it's good to hear you. It brings 
 old Hamlin back and gaves a man sand. You're an orator, 
 yourself." 
 
 " Am I? " said Tom. " jSTo one ever called my attention 
 to it before. If it's true, perhaps it'll come in useful." 
 
 " Now, just think of me sitting here gassing," exclaimed 
 the Judge, " and never asking what you are here for. What's 
 your errand, Tom ? " 
 
 " Perhaps I'm here to defraud the Government," Tom 
 answered, sitting down again; " or perhaps I've got a fair 
 claim against it. That's what I've come to Washington to 
 find out — with the other claimant." 
 
 "A claim!" cried the Judge. "And you've left the 
 Cross-roads — and Sheba ? " 
 
 " Sheba and the other claimant are in some little rooms 
 we've taken out near Dupont Circle. The other claimant is 
 the only De "Willoughby left beside myself, and he is a 
 youngster of twenty-three. He's my brother De Courcy's 
 
 son." 
 
 The Judge glowed with interest. He heard the whole 
 story, and his excitement grew as he listened. The elements 
 of the picturesque in the situation appealed to him greatly. 
 
 284 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 The curiously composite mind of the American contains 
 a strong element of the romantic. In its most mercantile 
 forms it is attracted by the dramatic; when it hails from 
 the wilds, it is drawn by it as a child is drawn by colour 
 and light. 
 
 *' It's a big thing/' the Judge ejaculated at intervals. 
 " AYhen I see you sitting there, Tom, just as you used to 
 sit in your chair on the store-porch, it seems as if it could 
 hardly be you that's talking. Wh}', man, it'll mean a 
 million! " 
 
 " If I get money enough to set the mines at ^vork," said 
 Tom, " it may mean more millions than one." 
 
 The dingy square room, with its worn carpet, its turned- 
 up bedstead, shabby chairs, and iron stove, temporarily as- 
 sumed a new aspect. That its walls should contain this fairy 
 tale of possible wealth^ and power and magnificence made 
 it seem quite soberly respectable, and that Big Tom, sitting 
 in the second-hand looking armchair, which creaked beneath 
 his weight, should, in matter-of-fact tones, be relating such 
 a story, made Judge Rutherford regard him with a kind of 
 reverent trouble. 
 
 " Sheba, now," he said, " Sheba may be one of the big- 
 gest heiresses in the States. Lord! what luck it was for 
 her that fellow left her behind! " 
 
 " It was luck for me," said Tom. And a faint, contem- 
 plative grin showed itself on his countenance. He was 
 thinking, as he often did, of the afternoon when he returned 
 from Blair's Hollow and opened the door of the room behind 
 the store to find the wooden cradle stranded like a small 
 ark in the corner. 
 
 285 
 
CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 N"aturally Judge Eutherford gravitated towards the 
 little house near Dupont Circle. The first night he mounted 
 the stairs and found himself in the small room confronting 
 the primitive supper he had been invited to share with big 
 Tom and his family, his honest countenance assumed a 
 cheerfulness long a stranger to it. 
 
 The room looked such a simple, homely place, with its 
 Virginia made carpet, its neat, scant furnishing, and its 
 table set with the plain little meal. The Judge's homesick 
 heart expanded within him. 
 
 He shook hands with Tom with fervour. Eupert he 
 greeted with friendly affection. Sheba — on her entering 
 the room with a plate of hot biscuits which she had been 
 baking in Miss Burford's stove — he almost kissed. 
 
 " ISTow this is something like," he said. ^^ I didn't know 
 there was anything so like Barnesville in all Washington 
 city. And there wasn't till you people brought it. I don't 
 know what it is, but, by thunder, it does a man's heart good." 
 
 He sat down with the unconventional air of ease he wore 
 in Barnesville when he established himself in one of Jenny's 
 parlour chairs for the evening. 
 
 " Lord, Lord! '' he said; " you're home folks, and you've 
 got home ways, that's what it is. A month in one of these 
 fashionable hotels would just about kill me. Having to 
 order things written out on a card and eat 'em with a hun- 
 dred folks looking on — there's no comfort in it. Give me 
 
 386 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 a place where you can all sit up together round the table 
 and smell the good hot coffee and biscuit cooking and the 
 ham and chicken being fried in the kitchen/'' 
 
 Sheba had cooked the supper in Miss Burford's kitchen. 
 Her hot biscuits and coffee were made after Mornin's most 
 respected recipes^ and her housewifely air was tenderly 
 anxious. 
 
 " If it is not very good, Judge Eutherford," she said, 
 standing shyly at the head of the table before she took 
 her place, " it is because I am only learning." 
 
 " You have learned, Sheba," said the Judge, looking at 
 the plate of light golden brown and cream white biscuit 
 with the sensitive eye of a connoisseur. " That plate of 
 biscuit is Barnesville and Sophrony all over." 
 
 Sheba blushed with joy. 
 
 "Oh, Uncle Tom," she said; "do you think it is? I 
 should so like to remind him of Barnesville." 
 
 " Good Lord!" said the Judge. "Fact is, you've made 
 me feel already as if Tom Scott might break out yelling 
 in the back yard any minute." 
 
 After the supper was over and the table clear the party 
 of four sat down to talk business and make plans. The 
 entire inexperience of the claimants was an obstacle in their 
 path, but Judge Eutherford, though not greatly wiser than 
 themselves, had means of gaining information which would 
 be of value. As he looked over the papers and learned the 
 details of the story, the good fellow's interest mounted to 
 excitement. He rubbed his head and grew flushed and 
 bright of eye. 
 
 "By Jupiter, Tom! " he exclaimed, "I believe I can be 
 :of some use to you — I swear I believe I can. I haven't had 
 much experience, but I've seen something of this claim busi- 
 
 287 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 ness, and if I set my wits to work I can find out from otlier 
 fellows who know more. I'll — " After a moment's reflec- 
 tion. " I'll have a talk with Farqiihar to-morrow. That's 
 what I'll do. Great Scott! ^' in a beaming outburst, ^' if 
 I could, push it through for you, how pleased Jenny would 
 be." 
 
 When he went away Tom accompanied him downstairs. 
 Sheba and Eupert followed them, and all three found them- 
 selves lured out into the moonlit night to saunter Avith him 
 a few yards down the light avenue, talking still about their 
 fairy story. The Judge himself was as fascinated by it as 
 if he had been a child. 
 
 " Why, it's such a good story to tell," he expatiated; " and 
 there must be a great deal in that. I never heard a better 
 story for gaining sympathy — that fine old Southern aristo- 
 crat standing by the Union in a red-hot secessionist town — 
 actually persecuted on accoimt of it. He ivas persecuted, 
 wasn't he? " he enquired of Eupert. 
 
 " Well," Eupert answered, " everybody was furious at 
 him, of course — all his friends. People who had known him 
 all his life passed him in the street without speaking. He'd 
 been very popular, and he felt it terribly. He never was 
 the same man after it began. He was old, and his spirit 
 gave way." 
 
 " Just so! " exclaimed the Judge, stopping upon the pave- 
 ment, elated even to oratory by the picture presented. 
 " Fine old Southern aristocrat — on the brink of magnificent 
 fortune — property turned into money that he may realise it 
 — war breaks out, ruins him — Spartan patriotism — one 
 patriot in a town of rebels hated and condemned by every- 
 body — ^but faithful to his country. Friends — old friends — 
 refuse to recognise him. Fortune gone — friends lost — ^heart 
 
 288 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 broken/'' He snatched Tom's big hand and shook it enthusi- 
 astically. " Tom! " he said; " I'd like to make a speech to 
 the House about it myself. I believe they would listen to 
 me. How set up Jenny would be — how set up she'd be." 
 
 He left them all in a glow of enthusiasm; they could see 
 him gesticulating a little to himself as he walked down the 
 avenue in the moonlight. 
 
 "That's just like him," said Tom; "he'd rather please 
 Jenny than set the House of Representatives on fire. And 
 he'd undertake the whole thing — work to give a man a 
 fortune for mere neighbourliness. We were a neighbourly 
 lot in Hamlin, after all." 
 
 The Judge went home to his boarding-house and sat late 
 in his shabby armchair, his legs stretched out, his hands 
 clasped on the top of his rough head. He was thinking the 
 thing out, and as he thought it out his excitement grew. 
 Sometimes he unclasped his hands and rubbed his hair with 
 restless sigh; more than once he unconsciously sprang to 
 his feet, walked across the floor two or three times, and 
 then sat down again. He was not a sharp schemer, he had 
 not even reached the stage of sophistication wdiich would 
 have suggested to him that sharp scheming might be a 
 necessary adjunct in the engineering of such matters as 
 Govern:«ent claims. From any power or tendency to diplo- 
 matise he was as free as the illustrative bull in a china shop. 
 His bucolic trust in the simple justice and honest disinter- 
 estedness of the political representatives of his native land 
 (it being granted they were of the Eepublican party) might 
 have appeared a touching thing to a more astute and ex- 
 perienced person who had realised it to its limits. When 
 he rubbed his hair excitedly or sprang up to walk about, 
 these manifestations were indications, not of doubt or dis- 
 
 289 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 trust, "but of elated motion. It was the emotional aspect 
 of the situation which delighted and disturbed him, the dra- 
 matic picturesqueness of it. Here was Tom — good old Tom 
 — all Hamlin knew Tom and his virtues and witticisms — 
 Lord! there wasn't a man in the county who didn't love 
 him — yes, love him. And here was Sheba that Tom had 
 been a father to. And what a handsome little creature 
 she'd grown into — and, but for Tom, the Lord knew what 
 would have become of her. And there was that story of 
 the De Willoughb3^s of Delisleville — handsome, aristocratic 
 lot, among the biggest bugs in the State — the fine old 
 Judge with his thousands of acres lying uncultivated, and 
 he paying his taxes on them through sheer patriarchal 
 pleasure in being a big landowner. For years the Gov- 
 ernment had benefited by his taxpaying, while he had 
 gained nothing. And then there was the accidental discov- 
 ery of the splendid wealth hidden in the bowels of the earth 
 — and the old aristocrat's energy and enterprise. Why, if 
 the war had not brought ruin to him and he had carried 
 out his plans, the whole State would have been the richer 
 for his mines. Capital would have been drawn in, labour 
 would have been in demand — things would have developed 
 — outsiders would have bought land — new discoveries would 
 have been made — the wealth of the country's resources 
 would have opened up — the Government itself would have 
 benefited by the thing. And then the war had ruined all. 
 And yet the old Judge, overwhelmed with disaster as he 
 was, had stood by the Government and had been scorned 
 and deserted, and had died broken-hearted at the end, 
 and here were his sole descendants — good old Tom and his 
 little beauty of a protegee — (no, Sheba wasn't a descend- 
 ant, but Bomehow she counted), and this fine young De Wil- 
 
 290 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 loiighby — all of them penniless. Why, the justice of the 
 thing stared a man in the face; a claim like that must go 
 through. 
 
 At this juncture of his thought Judge Eutherford was 
 standing upright in the middle of his room. His hair was 
 in high disorder and his countenance flushed. He struck 
 his right fist hard against the palm of his left hand. 
 
 " Why, the whole thing's as straight as a string," he said. 
 " It's got to go through. I'll go and see Farquhar to- 
 
 morrow." 
 
 Farquhar was a cleverer man than the representative from 
 Hamlin County. He had been returned several times by his 
 constituents, and his life had been spent in localities more 
 allied to effete civilization than was Barnesville. He knew 
 his Washington and had an astute interest in the methods 
 and characteristics of new members of Congress, particularly 
 perhaps such as the rural districts loomed up behind as a 
 background. Judge Rutherford he had observed at the out- 
 set of his brief career, in the days when he had first appeared 
 in the House of Eepresentatives in his new broadcloth with 
 its new creases, and with the uneasy but conscientious ex- 
 pression in his eye. 
 
 " There's a good fellow, I should say," he had remarked to 
 the member at the desk next to him. " Doesn't know what 
 to do, exactl}^ — isn't quite sure what he has come for — but 
 means to accomplish it, whatsoever it may turn out to be, 
 to the best of his ability. He'd be glad to make friends. 
 He's used to neighbours and unceremonious intimacies." 
 
 He made friends with him himself and found the ac- 
 quaintance of interest at times. The faithfully reproduced 
 
 291 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 atmosphere of Barnesville had almost a literary colour. 
 Occasionally, though not frequently, he encouraged de- 
 lineation of Jenny and Tom Scott and Thacker and " the 
 boys." He had even inhaled at a distance vague whiffs of 
 Sophronia's waffles. 
 
 On the morning after the evening spent at Dupont Circle 
 Judge Eutherford frankly buttonholed him in the lobby. 
 
 " Farquhar," he said, ^' I'm chock full of a story. It kept 
 me awake half the night. I want to ask your advice about 
 it. It's about a claim." 
 
 " You shouldn't have let it keep you awake," replied 
 Farquhar. " Claims are not novel enough. It's my opinion 
 that Washington is more than half populated just now with 
 people who have come to present claims." 
 
 Judge Eutherford's countenance fell a little as the coun- 
 tenance of an enthusiast readily falls beneath the breath of 
 non-enthusiasm. 
 
 " Well/' he said, " I guess there are plenty of them — 
 but there are not many like this. You never heard such 
 a story. It would be worth listening to, even if you were 
 in the humour to walk ten miles to kick a claim." 
 
 Farquhar laughed. 
 
 " I have been in them, Guv'nor," he said. " The atmos- 
 sphere is heavy with carpet-baggers who all have a reason 
 for being paid for something by the Government. There's 
 one of them now — that little Hoosier hanging about the 
 doorT\^ay. He's from North Carolina, and wants pay for 
 a herd of cattle." 
 
 In the hall outside the lobby a little man stood gazing 
 with pale small eyes intent upon the enchanted space within. 
 He wore a suit of blue jeans evidently made in the domestic 
 circle. He scanned each member of Congress who went in 
 
 293 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 or out, and his expression was a combination of furtive eager- 
 ness and tentative appeal. 
 
 " I believe I've seen him before," remarked Judge Euth- 
 erford, " but I don't know him." 
 
 " He's been hanging about the place for weeks," said 
 Farquhar. " He's always in the strangers' gallery when 
 claims come up for discussion. He looks as if he'd be likely 
 to get what he has come for, Hoosier as he is." 
 
 " I want to talk to you about the De Willoughbys," said 
 Rutherford. " I can't rest until I've told someone about 
 it. I want you to advise me what to do." 
 
 Farcjuhar allowed himself to be led away into a more 
 secluded spot. He was not, it must be confessed, greatly 
 interested, but he was well disposed towards the member 
 from Hamlin and would listen. They sat down together in 
 one of the rooms where such talk might be carried on, and 
 the Judge forthwith plunged into his story. 
 
 It was, as his own instincts had told him, a good story. 
 He was at once simple and ornate in the telling — simple 
 in his broad directness, and ornate in his dramatic and emo- 
 tional touches. He began with the picture of the De Wil- 
 loughbys of Delisleville — the autocratic and aristocratic 
 Judge, the two picturesque sons, and the big, unpicturesque 
 one who disappeared from his native town to reappear in 
 the mountains of North Carolina and live his primitive life 
 there as the object of general adulation. He unconsciously 
 made Big Tom the most picturesque figure of the lot. Long 
 before he had finished sketching him, Farquhar — who had 
 been looking out of the window — turned his face towards 
 him. He began to feel himself repaid for his amiable if 
 somewhat casual attention. He did not look out of the 
 window again. The liistory of big Tom De Willoughby 
 
 293 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 alone was worth hearing. Farquhar did not find it necessary 
 to call Judge Rutherford's attention to the fact that Sheba 
 and the m3^stery of Blair's Hollow were not to be regarded 
 as evidence. He realised that they adorned the situation 
 and seemed to prove things whether it was strictly true that 
 they did so or not. The discovery of the coal, the fortunes 
 and disasters of Judge de Willoughby, the obstinate loyalty 
 abhorred and condemned of his neighbours, his loneliness 
 and poverty and death — his wasted estates, the big, bare, 
 empty house in which his sole known heir lived alone, were 
 material to hold any man's attention, and, enlarged upon 
 by the member from Hamlin, were effective indeed. 
 
 " Now," said the Judge, wiping his forehead when he 
 had finished, " what do you think of that? Don't you think 
 these people have a pretty strong claim? " 
 
 " That story sounds as if they had," answered Farquhar; 
 " but the Government isn't eager to settle claims — and you 
 never know what will be unearthed. If Judge De Willough- 
 by had not been such a blatantly open old opposer of his 
 neighbour's political opinions these people wouldn't have 
 a shadow of a chance." 
 
 " By Jupiter! " exclaimed Eutherford, delightedly; " he 
 was persecuted — persecuted." 
 
 " It was a good thing for his relatives," said Farquhar. 
 *^Did you say the people had come to AVashington? " 
 
 " All three of them," answered the Judge, and this time 
 his tone was exultant; " Tom, and Sheba, and Rupert. 
 They've rented some little rooms out near Dupont Circle." 
 
 " I should like to be taken to see them," said Farquhar, 
 reflectively. " I should like to have a look at Big Tom De 
 Willoughby." 
 
 " Would you? " cried the Judge. " Why, nothing would 
 
 294 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 suit me better — or them either, for that matter. I'll take 
 you any day you say — any day." 
 
 " It ain't the easiest thing in the world to put a claim 
 through/' said Farquhar. " It means plenty of hard knocks 
 and hard work and anxiet)^ Do you know that ? " 
 
 " I don't know anything about it," answered the Judge. 
 " But I'm going to get this one through if there's a way 
 of doing it." 
 
 "You'll be misunderstood and called names and slan- 
 dered," said Farquhar, regarding his rugged, ingenuous face 
 with some curiosity. " There may be people — even in Ham- 
 lin County — who won't believe you are not up to some big 
 deal. What are vou doingr it for? " 
 
 • ' CD 
 
 " AYhy, for Tom and Sheba and Rupert," said the Judge, 
 in an outburst of neighbourliness. " That's folks enough 
 to do it for, ain't it? There's three of 'em — and I'd do it 
 for ary one — as we say in Barnesville," in discreet correction 
 of the colloquialism. 
 
 Farquhar laughed a little, and put a hand on his shoulder 
 as they moved away together. " I believe you would," he 
 said; " perhaps that sort of thing is commoner in Barnes- 
 ville than in Washington. I beheve you would. Take me 
 to see the claimants to-morrow." 
 
 295 
 
CHAPTER XXYII 
 
 When Judge Eutherforcl piloted him up the broad, un- 
 paved avenue towards the small house near Dupont Circle, 
 the first objects which caught Farquhar's gaze were two 
 young people standing among the unkempt rose and syringa 
 bushes in the little front garden. The slim grace and bloom 
 of their youth would have caught any eye. They were 
 laughing happily, and the girl held a branch of rosy blos- 
 soms in her hand. 
 
 " Are they the claimants? " Farquhar enquired. 
 
 " One of them is," answered Rutherford. " But Sheba — • 
 Sheba counts somehow." 
 
 Sheba looked at the stranger with the soft gaze of deer- 
 like eyes when he was presented to her. There was no shy- 
 ness in her woodland smile. 
 
 " Judge Rutherford," she said, " Uncle Matt has come — 
 Rupert's Matt, you know. We can't help laughing about 
 it, but we can't help being happy." 
 
 The boyish Southern face at her side laughed and glowed. 
 Matt represented to Rupert the Lares and Penates his emo- 
 tional nature required and had been denied. 
 
 " If he were not such a practical creature," he said, " I 
 might not know what to do with him. But he worked his 
 way here by engaging himself for the journey as a sort of 
 nurse to an invalid young man who wanted to join his family 
 in Washington and was too weak to travel alone." 
 
 The further from romance the world drifts, the fairer 
 
 296 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 it becomes in its fagged eyes. So few stories unfold them- 
 selves sweetly from beginning to end that a first chapter 
 is always more or less alluring, and as he marked the youth 
 and beauty of those two and saw how their young eyes and 
 smiles met in question and response at every thought, to 
 Farquhar, who still retained the fragments of an imagina- 
 tion not wholly blighted by the House of Representatives, 
 it seemed rather as if he had wandered into a world where 
 young Cupid and Psyche still moved and breathed in human 
 guise. As central figures of a government claim, the pair 
 were exquisitely incongruous. Their youth was so radiant 
 and untried, their bright good looks so bloomed, that the 
 man looking at them felt — with a realising sense of humour 
 as well as fanciful sentiment — as if a spring wind wafted 
 through a wood close grown with wild daffodils had swept 
 into a heated manufactory where machinery whirred and 
 ill-clad workers bent over their toil. 
 
 " Uncle Tom will be very glad to see you," said Sheba, 
 as they went into the house. " Judge Rutherford says you 
 will tell us what to do." 
 
 An interesting feature of the situation to Farquhar was 
 the entire frankness and simplicity of those concerned in it. 
 It was so clear that they knew nothing of the complications 
 they might be called upon to face, that their ignorance was 
 of the order of charm. If he had been some sharper claim- 
 ant come to fleece them, their visitor knew this young 
 dryad's eyes would have smiled at him just as gratefully. 
 
 As they mounted the stairs, a huge laugh broke forth 
 above, and when they entered the small sitting-room Uncle 
 Matt stood before Big Tom, holding forth gravely, his gray 
 wool bared, his decently shabby hat in his hand. 
 
 " I'd er come as lady's maid, Marse Thomas De Wil- 
 
 297 
 

 In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 longhby/' he was sa3'ing, " ef I couldn't er got here no other 
 way. Seemed Hke I jest got to honin' atter Marse Rupert, 
 an' I couldn't er stayed nohow. I gotter be whar dat boy 
 is — I jest gotter." 
 
 Big Tom, rising to his full height to shake hands with 
 his visitor, appeared physically to cast such disparagement 
 on the size of the room as was almost embarrassing. Far- 
 quhar saw all his values as he met his honest, humourous 63^6. 
 I've been talking to my nephew's body-guard," he said. 
 
 All right, Uncle Matt. You just go to Miss Burford and 
 ask her to find you a shake-down. There's always a place 
 to be found for a fellow like you." 
 
 " Marse Thomas De Willoughby," said Matt, " dish yer 
 niggah man's not gwine to be in no one's way. I come yere 
 to work — dat's what I come yere for. An' work's a thing 
 dat kin be hunted down — en a man ain't needin' no gun 
 to hunt it neder — an' he needn't be no mighty Nimrod." 
 And he made his best bow to both men and shuffled out of 
 the room. 
 
 To Farquhar his visit was an interesting experience and 
 a novel one. For months he had been feeling that he lived 
 in the whirl of a maelstrom of schemes and jobberies, the 
 inevitable result of the policy of a Government which had 
 promised to recoup those it had involuntarily wronged dur- 
 ing a national convulsion. Upon every side there had sprung 
 up claimants — many an honest one, and hordes of those not 
 honest. There were obvious thieves and specious ones, brill- 
 iant tricksters and dull ones. Newspaper literature had been 
 incited by the number and variety of claims, and claims — 
 to a jocularity which spread over all the land. Farquhar 
 had seen most of the types — the greenhorn, the astute plan- 
 ner, the man who had a wrong burning in his breast, the 
 
 298 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 man who knew Low to approach his subject and the man 
 who did not, the man who buttonholed everybody and was 
 diffuse and hopeful, and the man who was helpless before 
 the task he had undertaken. He had never, however, seen 
 anything like the De AYilloughby claimants — big Tom tell- 
 ing his straightforward story with his unsanguine air, the 
 attractive youngster adding detail with simple directness, 
 and the girl, Sheba, her roe's eyes dilated with eager interest 
 hanging upon their every word. 
 
 " It is one of the best stories I've heard," he said to Eutli- 
 erford, on their way back. "But it's a big claim — it's a 
 huge claim, and the Government is beginning to get restive." 
 
 " But don't you think they'll get it through? " exclaimed 
 Judge Rutherford. "Ain't they hound to get it? It's the 
 Lord's truth — every word they speak — the Lord's truth! " 
 
 "Yes," answered Farquhar, "that's how it struck me; 
 but, as a rule, it isn't the Lord's truth that carries a big 
 claim through." 
 
 He broke into a short laugh, as if at an inward realisation 
 of the aspect of the situation. 
 
 " They are as straightforward as a lot of children," he 
 said. " They have nothing to hide, and they wouldn't know 
 
 how to hide it if they had. It would be rather a joke if " 
 
 And he laughed again. 
 
 "If what?" asked Rutherford. 
 
 " Ah, well! if that very fact was the thing which carried 
 them through," his laugh ending in a shrewd smile. 
 
 This carried the ingenuous mind of his companion beyond 
 its depth. 
 
 "I don't see where the joke would come in," he said, 
 rather ruefully. " I should have thought nothing else would 
 do it for them." 
 
 299 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 Farquhar slapped liim on the shoulder. 
 
 " So you would,-'' he said. " That's whv vou are the best 
 advocate they could have. You are all woven out of the 
 same cloth. You stand by them — and so will I." 
 
 Judge Rutherford seized his hand and shook it with affec- 
 tionately ardent pumpings. 
 
 " That's what I wanted to make sure of," he said. " I'm 
 going to work at this thing, and I want a man to help me 
 who knows the ropes. Lord, how I should like to go back 
 to Hamlin and tell Jenny and the boys that I'd put Tom 
 through." 
 
 And as they walked up the enclosed road to the Capitol 
 he devoted himself to describing anew Big Tom's virtue, 
 popularity, and witticisms. 
 
 • • • • • • • 
 
 For weeks Talbot's Cross-roads found itself provided with 
 a conversational topic of absorbing interest. Ethan Cronan, 
 who had temporarily " taken on " the post-office and store, 
 had no cause to fear that the old headquarters was in danger 
 of losing popularity. The truth was that big Tom had 
 so long presided over the daily gatherings that the new 
 occupant of the premises was regarded merely as a sort of 
 friendly representative. Being an amiable and unambitious 
 soul, Ethan in fact regarded himself in the same light, and 
 felt supported and indeed elevated by the fact that he stood 
 in the shoes of a public character so imiversally popular 
 and admired. 
 
 " I ain't Tom, an' I ca}Ti't never come a-nigh him," he 
 said; "but I kin do my best not to cast no disgrace on his 
 place, an' alius tradin' as fair as I know how. It's a kinder 
 honor to set in his chairs an' weigh sugar out in the scales 
 he used — an' it drors trade too." 
 
 800 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 During the passage of the first few weeks, horses, wag- 
 gons, and ox-teams crowded about the hitching-posts, while 
 excitement ran high at mail-time. The general opinion was 
 that any post might bring the news that Congress was " sit- 
 ting on "^ the great De "Willoughby claim, and that Wash- 
 ington waited breathless for its decision. That all other 
 national business should be suspended seemed inevitable. 
 That any mail should come and go without bringing some 
 news was not contemplated. The riders of the horses and 
 owners of the waggons sat upon the stone porch and dis- 
 cussed probabilities. They told each other stories they had 
 gathered of the bygone glories of the De Willoughbys, of 
 the obstinate loyalty of the old Judge and the bitter indig- 
 nation of his neighbours, and enlarged upon the strength 
 of the claim this gave him to the consideration of the 
 Government. 
 
 " Tom won't have no trouble with his claim," was the 
 general opinion. " He'll just waltz it through. Thar won't 
 be a hitch." 
 
 But after the first letter in which he announced his safe 
 arrival in the Capital City, Tom wrote no more for a week 
 or so, which caused a disappointment only ameliorated by 
 the belief that he was engaged in " waltzing " the claim 
 through. Each man felt it necessary to visit the Cross-roads 
 every day to talk over the possible methods employed, and 
 to make valuable suggestions. Interest never flagged, but 
 it was greatly added to when it was known that Judge Euth- 
 erford had ranged himself on Tom's side. 
 
 " He's the pop-larest man in Hamlin County," it was said, 
 '^ an' he's bound to be a pop'lar man in Congress, an' have 
 a pull." 
 
 But when the summer had passed, and a touch of frost in 
 
 301 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 the night air loosened the chestnuts in their burrs, and a 
 stray morning breeze shook them in showers down upon the 
 carpet of rusthng yellowed leaves, Tom's letters had become 
 few and far between, and none of them had contained any 
 account of the intentions of the legislative body with regard 
 to the claim. 
 
 " There's nothing to tell, boys," he wrote. " As far as 
 I've gone, it seems a man gets a claim through Congress 
 by waiting about Washington and telling his story to dif- 
 ferent people until he wears them out — or they wear him 
 out." 
 
 For some time after this they did not hear from him at 
 all. The winter set in, and the habitues of the Cross-roads 
 Post-ofhce gathered about the glowing stove. Under the 
 influence of cold gray skies, biting air, leafless trees, and 
 bare land, the claim seemed somehow to have receded into 
 the distance. The sanguine confidence of the community 
 had not subsided into doubt so much as into helpless mysti- 
 fication. Months had passed and nothing whatsoever had 
 happened. 
 
 " Seems somehow," said Jabe Doty one night, as he tilted 
 his chair forward and stared at the fire in the stove, " seems 
 somehow as if Tom was a right smart waj^s off — es ef he got 
 furder as the winter closed in — a'most like Washin'ton city 
 hed moved a thousand miles or so out West somewhars, an' 
 took him with it." 
 
 802 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 To Tom himself it seemed that it was the old, easy-going 
 moTintain life which had receded. The days when he had sat 
 upon the stone porch and watched the sun rise from behind 
 one mountain and set behind another seemed to belong to 
 a life lived centuries ago. But that he knew little of occult 
 beliefs and m3'steries, he would have said to himself that 
 all these things must have happened in a long past incarna- 
 tion. 
 
 The matter of the De Willoughby claim was brought be- 
 fore the House. Judge Eutherford opened the subject one 
 day with a good deal of nervous excitement. He had sup- 
 plied himself with many notes, and found some little diffi- 
 culty in managing them, being new to the work, and he 
 grew hot and uncertain because he could not secure an 
 audience. Claims had already become old and tiresome 
 stories, and members who were unoccupied pursued their 
 conversation unmovedly, giving the speaker only an occa- 
 sional detached glance. The two representatives of their 
 country sitting nearest to him were, not at all furtively, eat- 
 ing apples and casting their cores and parings into their 
 particular waste-paper baskets. This was discouraging and 
 baffling. To quote the Judge himself, no one knew any- 
 thing about Hamlin County, and certainly no one was dis- 
 turbed by any desire to be told about it. 
 
 That night Rutherford went to the house near Dupont 
 Circle. Big Tom was sitting in the porch with Rupert 
 and Sheba. Uncle Matt v:a3 digging about the roots of a 
 
 303 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 rose-bush, and the Judge caught a glimpse of Miss Biirford 
 looking out from behind the parlour curtains. 
 
 The Judge wore a wearied and vaguely bewildered look 
 as he sat down and wiped his forehead with a large, clean 
 white handkerchief. 
 
 " It's all different from what I thought — it's all different," 
 he said. 
 
 " Things often are/' remarked Tom, ^^ oftener than not.'^ 
 
 Eupert and Sheba glanced at each other questioningly and 
 listened with anxious eves. 
 
 " And it's different in a different way from what I ex- 
 pected," the Judge went on. " They might have said and 
 done a dozen things I should have been sort of ready for, 
 but they didn't. Somehow it seemed as if — as if the whole 
 thing didn't matter." 
 
 Tom got up and began to walk about. 
 
 " That's not the way things begin that are going to rush 
 through," he said. 
 
 Sheba followed him and slipped her hand through his 
 arm. 
 
 " Do you think," she faltered, " that perhaps we shall 
 not get the money at all, Uncle Tom? " 
 
 Tom folded her hand in his — which was easily done. 
 
 " I'm afraid that if we do get it," he answered, " it will 
 not come to us before we want it pretty badly — the Lord 
 knows how badly." 
 
 For every day counts in the expenditure of a limited sum, 
 and on days of discouragement Tom's calculation of their 
 resources left him a troubled man. 
 
 When Judge Eutherford had gone Eupert sat with Sheba 
 in the scented summer darkness. He drew his chair oppo- 
 site to hers and took one of her hands in botli of his own. 
 
 304 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 *' Suppose I have done a wrong thing,'^ he said. " Sup- 
 pose I have dragged you and Uncle Tom into trouble? " 
 
 " I am glad you came/' in a quick, soft voice. '*' I am 
 glad you came." And the slight, warm fingers closed round 
 his. 
 
 He lifted them to his lips and kissed them over and over 
 again. ''Are you glad I came?" he murmured. "Oh, 
 Sheha! Sheba!" 
 
 " Why do you say ' Oh, Sheba '? " she asked. 
 
 " Because I love you so — and I am so young — and I don't 
 know what to do. You know I love you, don't you? " 
 
 She leaned forward so that he saw her lovely gazelle eyes 
 lifted and most innocently tender. " I want you to love me," 
 she said; " I could not bear you not to love me." 
 
 He hesitated a second, and then suddenly pressed his 
 glowing face upon her palm. 
 
 " But I don't love you as Uncle Tom loves you, Sheba," 
 he said. *' I love you — young as I am — I love you — dif- 
 ferentlv." 
 
 Her swaying nearer to him was a sweetly unconscious and 
 involuntary thing. Their young eyes drowned themselves 
 in each other. 
 
 " I want 3'ou," she said, the note of a young ring-dove 
 answering her mate murmuring in her voice, " I want you 
 to love me — as you love me. I love your way of loving 
 
 me." 
 it 
 
 Darling! " broke from him, his boy's heart beating fast 
 and high. And their soft young lips were, through some 
 mystery of power, drawn so near to each other that they 
 met like flowers moved to touching by the summer wind. 
 
 Later Rupert went to Tom, who sat by an open window 
 in his room and looked out on the moonlit stretch of avenue. 
 
 305 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 The boy's heart was still beating fast, and, as the white light 
 struck his face, it showed his eyes more like Delia Yaniixem's 
 than they had ever been. Their darkness held just the look 
 Tom remembered, but could never have described or ex- 
 plained to himself. 
 
 *^ Uncle Tom," he began, in an unsteady voice, "I couldn't 
 go to bed without telling you." 
 
 Tom glanced up at him and learned a great deal. He 
 put a big hand on his shoulder. 
 
 " Sit down, boy," he said, his kind eyes warming. Eupert 
 sat down. 
 
 " Perhaps I ought not to have done it," he broke forth. 
 " I did not know I was going to do it. I suppose I am too 
 young. I did not mean to — ^but I could not help it." 
 
 "Sheba?" Tom inquired, simply. 
 
 " Her ejTs were so lovely," poured forth the boy. " She 
 looked at me so like an angel. Whenever she is near me, it 
 seems as if something were drawing us together." 
 
 " Yes," was Tom's quiet answer. 
 
 " I want to tell you all about it," impetuously. " I have 
 been so lonely, Uncle Tom, since my mother died. You 
 don't know how I loved her — how close we were to each 
 other. She was so sweet and wonderful — and I had nothing 
 else." 
 
 Tom nodded gently. 
 
 " I remember," he said. " I never forgot." 
 
 He put the big hand on the boy's knee this time. "I 
 loved her too," he said, " and I had nothing else." 
 
 " Then you know — you know! " cried Eupert. " You re- 
 member what it was to sit quite near her and see her look 
 at you in that innocent way — how you longed to cry out 
 and take her in your arms." 
 
 306 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 Tom stirred in his seat. Time rolled back twenty-five 
 years. 
 
 " Oh, my God, yes — I remember! " he answered. 
 
 " It was like that to-night/*' the young lover went on. 
 *^ And I could not stop myself. I told her I loved her — 
 and she said she wanted me to love her — and we kissed 
 each other." 
 
 Big Tom got up and stood before the open window. His 
 hands were thrust deep into his pockets and he stared out 
 at the beauty of the night. 
 
 " Good Lord! " he said. " That's what ougM to come to 
 every man that lives — but it doesn't." 
 
 Eupert poured forth his confession, restrained no more. 
 
 " From that first night when I rode through the moun- 
 tains over the white road and stopped at your gate — since 
 I looked up and saw her standing on the balcony with the 
 narcissus in her hair it has always been the same thing. It 
 began that very moment — it was there when she leaned for- 
 ward and spoke to me. I had never thought of a woman 
 before — I was too poor and sad and lonely and young. And 
 there she was — all white — and it seemed as if she was 
 
 mine.'* 
 
 Tom nodded his head as if to a white rose-bush in the 
 small garden. 
 
 " I am as poor as ever I was," said Eupert. " I am a 
 beggar if we lose our claim; but I am not sad, and I am not 
 lonely — I can't be — I can't be! I am happy — everything's 
 happy — because she knows — and I have kissed her." 
 
 "What did you think I would say when you told me? " 
 Tom asked. 
 
 " I don't know," impetuously; " but I knew I must come 
 to you. It seems a million years ago since that hot morning 
 
 307 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 in the old garden at Delisleville — when I had never seen 
 her.'^ 
 
 *' One of the things I have thought about a good deal/' 
 said Tom, with quite a practical manner, '' has been love. 
 I had lots of time to think over things at the Cross-roads, 
 and I nsed to work them out as far as my mind would carry 
 me. Love's as much an element as the rest of them. There's 
 earth, air, fire, water — and love. It has to be calculated for. 
 What I've reasoned out is that it has not been calculated 
 for enough. It's going to come to all of us — and it will 
 either come and stay, and make the old earth bloom with 
 flowers — or it will come and go, and leave it like* a plain 
 swept by fire. It's not a trivial thing that only boys and 
 girls play with; it's better — and worse. It ought to be pre- 
 pared for and treated well. It's not often treated well. 
 People have got into the way of expecting trouble and trag- 
 edy to come out of it. "We are always hearing of its unhappi- 
 ness in books. Poets write about it that way." 
 
 *' I suppose it is often unhappy," said Rupert; " but just 
 now it seems as if it could not be." 
 
 ^' What I've been wanting to see," said Tom, " is young 
 love come up like a flower and be given its dew and sun 
 and rain — and bloom and bloom its best." 
 
 He drew a big sigh. 
 
 " That poor child who lies on the hillside under the pines," 
 he went on, " Sheba's mother — hers was young love — and 
 it brought tragedy and death. Delia," his voice was un- 
 steady, '" your mother's was young love, and her heart was 
 broken. Xo, it's not often well treated. And when you 
 and Sheba came to me that night with your boy and girl 
 eyes shining with gladness just because you had met each 
 other, I said to myself, ' By the Lord, here is what it springs 
 
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 from. Perhaps it may come to them; I wonder if it 
 will?'^^ 
 
 " You thought it might, even then, " Paipert cried. 
 
 " Yes, I did,'^ was Tom's answer. '' You were young — 
 you were drawn together — it seemed naturah I used to 
 watch you, and think it over, making a kind of picture to 
 myself of how it would be if two young things could meet 
 each other and join hands and wander on among roses until 
 they reached the gate of life — and it swung open for them 
 and they passed through and found another paradise." 
 
 He stopped a second and turned to look at Rupert's 
 dreamy face with a smile not all humorous. '' I'm a sen- 
 timental chap for my size," he added. '*' That's what I 
 wanted for Sheba and you — that's what I want. That sort 
 of thing was left out of my life; but I should like to see 
 it before I'm done with. Good God! why can't people be 
 happy? I want people to be happy.'' 
 
 The boy was trembling. 
 
 " Uncle Tom," he said, " Sheba and I are happy to- 
 night." 
 
 " Then God have mercy on the soul of the man who would 
 spoil it for you,'^ said Big Tom, with actual solemnity. 
 *" I'm not that man. You two just go on being happy; try 
 and make up for what your two mothers had to bear." 
 
 Eupert got up from his chair and caught the big hand 
 in his. It was a boy's action, and he looked particularly 
 like a boy as he did it. " It is just like you," he broke 
 forth. " I did not know what you would say when I told 
 you — but I ought to have known you would say something 
 like this. It's — it's as big as you are, Uncle Tom/' ingenu- 
 ously. 
 
 That was his good-night. When he went away Big Tom 
 
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 settled into his cliair again and looked out for some time 
 longer at the bright night. He was going back to two other 
 nights which lay in the j'ears behind. One was the night 
 he turned his back on Delisleville and rode towards the 
 mountain with a weight on his kindly heart which he had 
 gi'imly told himself seemed to weigh a ton; the other was 
 the night he had been wakened from his sleep by the knock 
 on the door of the bedroom behind the Cross-roads Post- 
 office and had ridden out under the whiteness of the moon 
 to find in the bare cabin at Blair's Hollow the little fair 
 girl who had sobbed and died as she clung to his warm hand. 
 
 310 
 
CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 The world had heard and talked much of the Reverend 
 John Baird in the years which followed his return to Willow- 
 field. During the first few months after his reappearance 
 among them, his flock had passed through a phase of rest- 
 less uncertainty with regard to him. Certain elder mem- 
 bers of his congregation had privately discussed questions 
 of doctrine with anxiousness. Had not Xature already ar- 
 raigned herself upon the man's side by bestowing upon him 
 a powerful individuality, heads might have been shaken, 
 and the matter discussed openly instead of in considerately 
 confidential conclave. It was, however, less easy to enter 
 into argument with such a man than with one slow and 
 uncertain of tongue, and one whose fortunes rested in the 
 hands of the questioners. Besides, it was not to be denied 
 that even the elderly and argumentative found themselves 
 listening to his discourses. The young and emotional often 
 thrilled and quaked before them. In his hour he was the 
 pioneer of what to-day we call the modern, and seemed to 
 speak his message not to a heterogeneous mental mass, but 
 to each individual man and woman who sat before him with 
 upturned face. He was daringly human for the time in 
 which he lived, it being the hour when humanity was over- 
 powered by deity, and to be human was to be iconoclastic. 
 His was not the doctrine of the future — of future repentance 
 for the wrongs done to-day, of future reward for the good 
 to-day achieves, all deeds being balanced on a mercantile 
 
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 account of profit and loss. His was a cry almost fierce, 
 demanding, in the name of human woe, that to-day shall 
 hold no cruelty, no evil done, even to the smallest and most 
 unregarded thing. 
 
 By some chance — though he alone realised the truth of 
 the fact — the subjects of his most realistic and intense ap- 
 peals to his hearers had the habit of developing themselves 
 in his close talks with Latimer. Among the friends of the 
 man on whom all things seemed to smile, the man on whom 
 the sun had never shone, and who faithfully worshipped him, 
 w^as known as his Shadow. It was not an unfitting figure 
 of speech. Dark, gloomy, and inarticulate, he was a strange 
 contrast to the man he loved; but, from the hour he had 
 stood by Latimer's side, leaning against the rail of the re- 
 turning steamer, listening to the monotonously related story 
 of the man's bereavement, John Baird had felt that Fate 
 herself had knit their lives together. He had walked the 
 deck alone long hours that night, and when the light of the 
 moon had broken fitfully through the stormily drifting 
 clouds, it had struck upon a pallid face. 
 
 "Poor fellow!" he had said between his teeth; "poor 
 darkling, tragic fellow! I must try — try — oh, my God! I 
 must try " 
 
 Then their lives had joined currents at Willowfield, and 
 the friendship Baird had asked for had built itself on a 
 foundation of stone. 
 
 There was nothing requiring explanation in the fact that 
 to the less fortunate man Baird's every gift of wit and ease 
 was a pleasure and comfort. His mere physical attractions 
 were a sort of joy. "When Latimer caught sight of his own 
 lank, ill-carried figure and his harshly rugged sallow face, 
 he never failed to shrink from them and avert his eyes. 
 
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 To be the companion of a man wliose every movement sug- 
 gested strength and grace, whose skin was clear and health- 
 ful, his features well balanced and admirable in line — to 
 be the friend of a human being built by nature as all human 
 beings should be built if justice were done to them, was 
 nourishment to his own starved needs. 
 
 When he assumed his charge at the scjualid little town 
 of Janway's Mills, his flock looked askance at him. He 
 was not harsh of soul, but he was gloomy and had not the 
 power to convey encouragement or comfort, though he la- 
 boured with strenuous conscientiousness. Among the sor- 
 did commonness of the everj'-day life of the mill hands and 
 their families he lived and moved as Savonarola had moved 
 and lived in the midst of the picturesque wickedness and 
 splendidly coloured fanaticism of Italy in dim, rich cen- 
 turies past; but his was the asceticism and stern self-denial 
 of Savonarola without the uplifting power of passionate 
 eloquence and fire which, through their tempest, awakened 
 and shook human souls. He had no gifts of compelling 
 fervor; he could not arouse or warm his hearers; he never 
 touched them. He preached to them, he visited them at 
 their homes, he prayed beside their dying and their dead, 
 he gave such aid in their necessities as the narrowness of 
 his means would allow, but none of them loved him or 
 did more than stoically accept him and his services. 
 
 ^^ Look at us as we stand together,'' he said to Baird on 
 an evening when they stood side by side within range of 
 an old-fashioned mirror. " Those things your reflection 
 represents show me the things I was born without. I might 
 make my life a daily crucifixion of self-denial and duty done 
 at all costs, but I could not wear your smile or speak with 
 your voice. I am a man, too," with smothered passion; '' I 
 
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 am a man, too! And yet — what woman looks smilingly at 
 me — what child draws near unafraid? " 
 
 " You are of the severe monastic temperament," an- 
 swered Baird. " It is all a matter of temperament. Mine 
 is facile and a slave to its emotions. Saints and martyrs are 
 made of men like yon — never of men such as I am." 
 
 " Are you sure of the value to the world of saints and 
 martyrs?" said Latimer. "I am not. That is the worst 
 of it." 
 
 " Ah! the world," Baird reflected. " If we dare to come 
 hack to the world — to count it as a factor " 
 
 " It is only the world we know," Latimer said, his harsh 
 voice unsteady; " the world's sorrow — the world's pain — the 
 world's power to hurt and degrade itself. That is what seems 
 to concern us — if we dare to say so — we, who were thrust 
 into it against our wills, and forced to suffer and see others 
 suffer. The man wlio was burned at the stake, or torn in 
 the arena by wild beasts, believed he won a crown for him- 
 self — but it was for himself.'' 
 
 " What doth it profit a man," quoted Baird, vaguely, but 
 as if following a thought of his own, " if he gain the whole 
 world and lose his own soul? " 
 
 Latimer flung back his shock of uneven black locks. His 
 hollow eyes flashed daringly. 
 
 " What doth it profit a man," he cried, " if he save his 
 own soul and lose the whole world, caring nothing for its 
 agon}', making no struggle to help it in its woe and grieving? 
 A Man once gave His life for the world. Has any man 
 ever given his soul?" 
 
 " You go far — you go far! " exclaimed Baird, drawing a 
 short, sharp breath. 
 
 Latimer's deep eyes dwelt upon him woefully. " Have 
 
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 you known what it was to bear a heavy sin on your soul? " 
 he asked. 
 
 " My dear fellow," said John Baird, a little bitterly, " it 
 is such men as I, whose temperaments — the combination 
 of forces you say you lack — lead them to the deeds the world 
 calls * heavy sins ' — and into the torment of regret which 
 follows. You can bear no such burden — ^3'ou have no such 
 regret." 
 
 Latimer, whose elbow rested on the mantel, leaned a 
 haggard forehead on his hand. 
 
 " I have sinned," he said. " It was that others might 
 be spared; but I have put my soul in peril. Perhaps it is 
 lost— lost!" 
 
 Baird laid a hand on his shoulder and shook him. It was 
 a singular movement with passion in it. 
 
 "Xo! No! " he cried. " Eouse, man, and let your reason 
 speak. In peril? Lost — for some poor rigid law broken 
 to spare others? Great God! No!" 
 
 " Reason! " said Latimer. " What you and I must preach 
 each week of our lives is that it is not reason a man must 
 be ruled by, but blind, wilful faith." 
 
 " I do not preach it," Baird interposed. " There are 
 things I dare to leave unsaid." 
 
 " I have spoken falsel)%" Latimer went on, heavily. " I 
 have lived a lie — a lie — but it was to save pure hearts from 
 breaking. They would have broken beneath the weight 
 of what I have borne for them. If I must bear punishment 
 for that, I — Let me bear it." 
 
 The rigid submission of generations of the Calvinistic 
 conscience which presumed to ask no justice from its God 
 and gave praise as for mercy shown for all things which 
 were not damnation, and which against damnation's self 
 
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 dared not lift its voice in rebellion, had so far influenced 
 the very building of his being that the revolt of reason in 
 his brain filled him with gloomy terror. There was the 
 appeal of despair on his face as he looked at Baird. 
 
 " Your life, your temperament have given you a wider 
 horizon than mine," he said. " I have never been in touch 
 with human beings. I have only read religious books — 
 stern, pitiless things. Since my boyhood I have lived in 
 terror of the just God — the just God — who visits the sins 
 of the fathers upon the children even to the third and fourth 
 generation. I — Baird — " his voice dropping, his face pallid, 
 " I have hated Him. I keep His laws, it is my fate to preach 
 His word — and I cower before Him as a slave before a 
 tyrant, with hatred in my heart." 
 
 "Good God!" Baird broke forth, involuntaril3^ The 
 force of the man's desperate feeling, his horror of himself, 
 his tragic truthfulness, were strange things to stand face 
 to face with. He had never confronted such a thing before, 
 and it shook him. 
 
 Latimer's face relaxed into a singular, rather pathetic 
 smile. 
 
 "Good God!" he repeated; "we all say that — I say it 
 myself. It seems the natural human cry. I wonder what 
 it means? It surely means something — something." 
 
 John Baird looked at him desperately. 
 
 " You are a more exalted creature than I could ever be," 
 he said. " I am a poor thing by comparison; but life struck 
 the wrong note for you. It was too harsh. You have lived 
 among the hideous cruelties of old doctrines until they have 
 wrought evil in yoiu brain." 
 
 He stood up and threw out his arms with an involuntary 
 gesture, as if he were flinging off chains. 
 
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 "Ah, they are not true! They are not true I " he ex- 
 claimed. " They belong to the dark ages. They are relics 
 of the days when the upholders of one religion l)elieved that 
 they saved souls by the stake and the rack and thumbscrew. 
 There were men and women who did believe it with rigid 
 honesty. There were men and women who, believing 
 in other forms, died in torture for their belief. There is 
 no God AVho would ask such demoniac sacrifice. We have 
 come to clearer days. Somewhere — somewhere there is 
 light." 
 
 " You were born with the temperament to see its far-off 
 glimmer even in your darkest hour," Latimer said. " It is 
 for such as you to point it out to such as I am. Show it to 
 me — show it to me every moment if you can! " 
 
 Baird put his hand on the man's shoulder again. 
 
 " The world is surging away from it — the chained mind, 
 the cruelty, the groping in the dark," he said, " as it surged 
 away from the revengeful Israelitish creed of ' eye for eye 
 and tooth for tooth '^when Christ came. It has taken cen- 
 turies to reach, even thus far; but, as each century passed, 
 each human creature who yearned over and suffered with 
 his fellow has been creeping on dragging, bleeding knees 
 towards the light. But the century will never come which 
 will surge away from the Man who died in man's agony 
 for men. In thought of Him one may use reason and needs 
 no faith." 
 
 The germ of one of the most moving and frequently 
 quoted of Baird's much-discussed discourses sprang — he told 
 his friends afterwards — from one such conversation, and was 
 the outcome of speech of the dead girl Margery. On a black 
 and wet December day he came into his study, on his return 
 from some parish visits, to find Latimer sitting before the 
 
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 fire, staring miserably at something he held in his hand. 
 It was a littl-e daguerrotype of Margery at fifteen. 
 
 " I found it in an old desk of mine/' he said, holding it 
 out to Baird, who took it and slightly turned away to lean 
 against the mantel, as he examined it. 
 
 The child's large eyes seemed to light up the ugly shadows 
 of the old-fashioned mushroom hat she wore, the soft bow 
 of her mouth was like a little Love's, she bloomed with an 
 angelic innocence, and in her straight sweet look Avas the 
 unconscious question of a child-woman creature at the dawn 
 of life. 
 
 John Baird stood looking down at the heavenly, tender 
 little face. 
 
 There was a rather long silence. During its passing he 
 was far away. He was still far away when at length an 
 exclamation left his lips. He did not hear his words him- 
 self — he did not remember Latimer, or notice his quick 
 movement of surprise. 
 
 " How sweet she was! " he broke forth. " How sweet 
 she was! How sweet! " 
 
 He put his hand up and touched his forehead with the 
 action of a man in a dream. 
 
 " Sometimes," he said, low and passionately, " sometimes 
 I am sick with longing for her — siclc! " 
 
 " You! " Latimer exclaimed. " You are heart-sick for 
 her! " 
 
 Baird came back. The startled sound in the voice awoke 
 him. He felt himself, as it were, dragged back from another 
 world, breathless, as by a giant's hand. He looked up, dazed, 
 the hand holding the daguerrotype dropping helplessly by 
 his side. 
 
 " It is not so strange that it should come to that," he said. 
 
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 " I seem to know her so well. I think," there was a look 
 of sharp pain on his face — " I think I know the pitiful 
 child-like suffering her djdng eyes held." And the man 
 actually shuddered a lit-ile. 
 
 "I know it — I know it! " Latimer cried, and he let his 
 forehead drop upon his hands and sat staring at the carpet. 
 
 " I have heard and thought of her until she has become 
 a living creature," John Baird said. " I hear of her from 
 others than yourself. Miss Starkweather — that poor girl 
 from the mills, Susan Chapman — you yourself — keep her 
 before me, alive. I seem to know the very deeps of her 
 lovingness — and understand her. Oh, that she should liave 
 died! " He turned his face away and spoke his next words 
 slowly and in a lowered voice. " If I had found her when 
 I came back free — if I had found her here, living — we two 
 might have been brothers." 
 
 "No, no!" Latimer cried, rising. "You — it could 
 not " 
 
 He drew his hand across his forehead and eyes. 
 
 "What are we saying?" he exclaimed, stammeringly. 
 " What are we thinking of? For a moment it seemed as if 
 she were alive again. Poor little Margery, with her eyes 
 like blue flowers, she has been dead years and years and 
 years." 
 
 It was not long after this that the Eeverend John Baird 
 startled a Boston audience one night by his lecture, " Re- 
 pentance." In it he unfolded a new passionate creed which 
 produced the effect of an electric shock. N'ewspapers re- 
 ported it, editorials discussed it, articles were written upon 
 it in monthly magazines. " Eepentance is too late," was 
 
 319 
 
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 the note his deepest fervour struck with virile, ahnost ter- 
 rible, intensity. " Eepent before your wrong is done." 
 
 " Eepentance comes too late/' he cried. " We say a man 
 saves his soul by it — his soul! AVe^are a base, cowardly lot. 
 Our own souls are saved — yes! And we hug ourselves and 
 are comforted. But what of the thing we have hurt — for 
 no man ever lost his soul unless he lost it by the wound 
 he gave another — by inflicting in some other an agony? 
 "What of the one who has suffered — who has wept blood? 
 I repent and save myself; but repentance cannot undo. 
 The torture has been endured — the tears of blood shed. It 
 is not to God I must kneel and pray for pardon, but to that 
 one whose helplessness I slew, and, though he grant it me, 
 he still has been slain." 
 
 The people who sat before him stirred in their seats; some 
 leaned forward, breathing quickly. There were those who 
 turned pale; here and there a man bent his head and a 
 woman choked back a sob, or sat motionless with streaming 
 eyes. " Eepentance is too late — except for him who buys 
 hope and peace with it. A lifetime of it cannot undoJ^ The 
 old comfortable convention seemed to cease to be support- 
 ing. It seemed to cease to be true that one may wound and 
 crush and kill, and then be admirable in escaping by smug 
 repentance. It seemed to cease to be true that humanity 
 need count only with an abstract, far-off Deity Who can 
 easily afford to pardon — that one of his poor myriads has 
 been done to death. It was all new — strange — direct — and 
 each word fell like a blow from a- hammer, because a strong, 
 dramatic, reasoning creature spoke from the depths of his 
 own life and soul. In him Humanity rose up an awful real- 
 ity, which must itself be counted with — not because it 
 could punish and revenge, but because the lavrs of nature 
 
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 cried aloud as a murdered man's blood cries from the 
 ground. 
 
 As Baird crossed the pavement to reach his cab, the first 
 night he delivered this lecture, a man he knew but slightly 
 stepped to his side and spoke to him. 
 
 " Mr. Baird/' he said, '^ will you drive me to the station? " 
 
 Baird turned and looked at him in some surprise. There 
 were cabs enough within hailing distance. The man was 
 well known as a journalist, rather celebrated for his good 
 looks and masculine charm. He was of the square-shoul- 
 dered, easy-moving, rich-coloured type; just now his hand- 
 some eye looked perturbed. 
 
 " I am going away suddenly," he said, in answer to Baird's 
 questioning expression. " I want to catch the next train. 
 I want you to see me off — you.'^ 
 
 " Let us get in," was Baird's brief reply. He had an 
 instant revelation that the circumstance was not trivial or 
 accidental. 
 
 As the door closed and the cab rolled away his companion 
 leaned back, folding his arms. 
 
 " I had an hour to pass before keeping an appointment," 
 he said. " And I dropped in to hear you. You put things 
 before a man in a new way. You are appallingly vivid. I 
 am not going to keep my appointment. It is not easy not 
 to keep it! I shall take the train to Xew York and catch 
 to-morrow's steamer to Liverpool. Don't leave me until 
 you have seen me off. I want to put the Atlantic Ocean 
 and a year of time between myself and " 
 
 " Temptation," said Baird, though he scarcely realised 
 that he spoke. 
 
 " Oh, the devil! " exclaimed the other man savagely. 
 *^Call her that if you like — call me that — call the whole 
 
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 thing that! She does not realise where we are drifting. 
 She's a lovely dreamer and has not realised that we are 
 human. I did not allow myself to realise it until the passion 
 of your words brought me face to face with myself. I am 
 repenting in time. Don't leave me! I can't carry it through 
 to-night alone." 
 
 John Baird leaned back in the corner of the carriage and 
 folded his arms also. His heart was leaping beneath them. 
 
 "Great God!" he said, out of the darkness. '^ I wish 
 someone had said such words to me — years ago — and not 
 left me afterwards! Years ago!" 
 
 " I thought so/' his companion answered, briefly. " You 
 could not have painted it with such flaming power — other- 
 wise." 
 
 They did not speak again during the drive. They scarcely 
 exchanged a dozen words before they parted. The train 
 was in the station when they entered it. 
 
 Five minutes later John Baird stood upon the platform, 
 looking after the carriages as they rolled out noisily behind 
 trailing puffs of smoke and steam. 
 
 He had asked no questions, and, so far as his own knowl- 
 edge was concerned, this was the beginning, the middle, and 
 the end of the story. But he knew that there had been 
 a story, ^id there might have been a tragedy. It seemed 
 that thQ. ensity of his own cry for justice and mercy had 
 arrested m. least one of the actors in it before the curtain 
 fell. 
 
 A few nights later, as they sat together, Baird and Latimer 
 spoke of this incident and of the lecture it had followed 
 upon. 
 
 " Eepentance! Eepentance! " Latimer said. " What led 
 you to dwell upon repentance? " 
 
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 " Thirty 3^ears of life/' was Baird's answer. " Forty of 
 them/' He was leaning forward gazing into the red-hot 
 coals. "And after our talk/' he added, deliberately, 
 " Margery." 
 
 Latimer turned and gazed at him. 
 
 Baird nodded. 
 
 " Yes/' he said. " Her picture. Her innocent face and 
 the soft, helpless youth of it. Such young ignorance is 
 helpless — helpless ! If in any hour of ruthlessness — or mad- 
 ness — a man had done such tenderness a wrong, what re- 
 pentance — what repentance could undo?" 
 
 " None/' said Latimer, and the words were a groan. 
 " None — through all eternity." 
 
 It was not a long silence which followed, but it seemed 
 long to both of them. A dead stillness fell upon the room. 
 Baird felt as if he were waiting for something. He knew 
 he was waiting for something, though he could not have 
 explained to himself the sensation. Latimer seemed waiting 
 too — awaiting the power and steadiness to reach some re- 
 solve. But at length he reached it. He sat upright and 
 clutched the arms of his chair. It was for support. 
 
 "Why not now?" he cried; "why not now? I trust 
 you! I trust you! Let me unburden my soul. I will try." 
 
 It was Baird's involuntary habit to sink into "asy atti- 
 tudes; the long, supple form of his limbs anc iy lent 
 themselves to grace and ease. But he sat upright also, his 
 hands unconsciously taking hold upon the arms of his chair 
 as his companion did. 
 
 For a moment the two gazed into each other's eyes, and 
 the contrast between their types was a strange one — the 
 one man's face dark, sallow, harsh, the other fine, sensitive, 
 and suddenly awake with emotion. 
 
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 " I trust you/' said Latimer again. " I would not have 
 confessed the truth to any other hving creature — upon the 
 rack/' 
 
 His forehead looked damp under his black locks. 
 
 " You would not have confessed the truth,'' Baird asked, 
 in a hushed voice, '^ about what ? '' 
 
 '^ Margery/' answered Latimer. " Margery." 
 
 He saw Baird make a slight forward movement, and he 
 went on monotonously. 
 
 '^ She did not die in Italy/' he said. " She did not die 
 lying smiling in the evening sun." 
 
 " She — did not ? " Baird's low cry was a thing of horror. 
 
 " She died/' Latimer continued, in dull confession, " in 
 a log cabin in the mountains of Xorth Carolina. She died 
 in anguish — the mother of an hour-old child." 
 
 "My God! My God! My God!" 
 
 Three times the cry broke from Baird. 
 
 He got up and walked across the room and back. 
 
 "Wait — wait a moment!" he exclaimed. "For a mo- 
 ment don't go on." 
 
 As the years had passed, more than once he had been 
 haunted by a dread that some day he might come upon some 
 tragic truth long hidden. Here he was face to face with it. 
 But what imagination could have painted it like this? 
 
 " You think my lie — a damnable thing," said Latimer. 
 
 " No, no! " answered the other man, harshly. " iSTo, no! " 
 
 He moved to and fro, and Latimer went on. 
 
 " I never understood/' he said. " She was a pure creature, 
 and a loving, innocent one." 
 
 " Yes," Baird groaned; " loving and innocent. Go on — 
 go on! It breaks my heart — it breaks my heart! " 
 
 Eemembering that he had said " You might have been 
 
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 my brother/' Latimer caught his breath in a groan too. He 
 understood. He had forgotten — forgotten. But now he 
 must go on. 
 
 " At home she had been always a bright, happy, tender 
 thing. She loved us and we loved her. She was full of 
 delicate gifts. We are poor people; we denied ourselves 
 that we might send her to Boston to develop her talent. 
 She went away, radiant and full of innocent gratitude. For 
 some time she was very happy. I was making every effort 
 to save money to take her abroad that she might work in 
 the studios there. She had always been a delicate little 
 creature — and when it seemed that her health began to fail, 
 we feared the old terrible iN'ew England scourge of consump- 
 tion. It always took such bright things as she was. When 
 she came home for a visit her brightness seemed gone. She 
 drooped and could not eat or sleep. We could not bear to 
 realise it. I thought that if I could take her to France or 
 Italy she might be saved. I thought of her day and night 
 — day and night." 
 
 He paused, and the great knot in his throat worked con- 
 vulsively in the bondage of his shabby collar. He began 
 again when he recovered his voice. 
 
 " I thought too much," he said. " I don't know how it 
 was. But just at that time there was a miserable story 
 going on at the mills — I used to see the poor girl day by 
 day — and hear the women talk. You know how that class 
 of woman talks and gives you details and enlarges on them? 
 The girl was about Margery's age. I don't know how it was; 
 but one day, as I was standing listening to a gossipping 
 married woman in one of their squalid, respectable parlours, 
 and she was declaiming and denouncing and pouring forth 
 anecdotes, suddenly — quite suddenly — I felt as if something 
 
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 had struck me. I turned sick and white and had to sit down. 
 Oh, God! what an afternoon that was! and how long it 
 seemed before I got back home." 
 
 He stopped again. This time he wiped sweat from his 
 forehead before he continued, hoarsely: 
 
 " I cannot go over it — I cannot describe the steps by which 
 I was led to — horrid fear. For two weeks I did not sleep 
 a single night. I thought I was going mad. I laid awake 
 making desperate plans — to resort to in case — in case ! " 
 
 His forehead was wet again, and he stopped to touch it 
 with his handkerchief. 
 
 " One day I told my mother I was going to Boston to see 
 Margery — to talk over the possibility of our going abroad 
 together with the money I had worked for and saved. I had 
 done newspaper work — I had written religious essays — I had 
 taught. I went to her." 
 
 It was Baird who broke the thread of his speech now. 
 He had been standing before a window, his back to the 
 room. He turned about. 
 
 " You found? " he exclaimed, low and unsteady. " You 
 found ? " 
 
 " It was true," answered Latimer. *' The worst." 
 
 Baird stood stock still; if Latimer had been awake to 
 externals he would have seen that it was because he could 
 not move — or speak. He was like a man stunned. 
 
 Latimer continued: 
 
 " She was sitting in her little room alone when I entered 
 it. She looked as if she had been passing through hours 
 of convulsive sobbing. She sat with her poor little hands 
 clutching each other on her knees. Hysteric shudders were 
 shaking her every few seconds, and her eyes were blinded 
 with weeping. A child w^ho had been beaten brutally might 
 
 326 
 
In Connection with 
 
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 have sat so. She was too simple and \yeak to bear the awful 
 terror and woe. She was not strong enough to conceal what 
 there was to hide. She did not even get up to greet me, 
 but sat trembling like an aspen leaf." 
 
 " What did you say to her? " Baird cried out. 
 
 " I only remember as one remembers a nightmare/' the 
 other man answered, passing his hand over his brow. " It 
 was a black nightmare. I saw before I spoke, and I began 
 to shake as she was shaking. I sat down before her and 
 took both her hands. I seemed to hear myself saying, ' Mar- 
 gery — Margery, don't be frightened — don't be afraid of Lu- 
 cian. I will help you, Margery; I have come to talk to you 
 — just to talk to you.' That was all. And she fell upon 
 the floor and lay with her face on my feet, her hands clutch- 
 ing them." 
 
 For almost five minutes there was no other word spoken, 
 but the breathing of each man could be heard. 
 
 Then Latimer's voice broke the stillness, lower and more 
 monotonous. 
 
 " I had but one resolve. It was to save her and to save 
 my mother. All the soul of our home and love was bound 
 up in the child. Among the desperate plans I had made in 
 the long nights of lying awake there had been one stranger 
 than the rest. I had heard constantly of Americans en- 
 countering each other by chance when they went abroad. 
 When one has a secret to keep one is afraid of every chance, 
 however remote. Perhaps my plan was mad, but it accom- 
 plished what I wanted. Years before I had travelled through 
 the mountain districts of jSTorth Carolina. One day, in rid- 
 ing through the country roads, I had realised their strange 
 remoteness from the world, and the fancy had crossed my 
 mind that a criminal who dressed and lived as the rudely 
 
 327 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 scattered population did, and who chose a lonely spot in 
 the woods, might be safer there than with the ocean rolling 
 between him and his secret. I spent hours in telling her 
 the part she was to play. It was to be supposed that we 
 had gone upon the journey originally planned. We were 
 to be hidden — apparently man and wife — in some log cabin 
 off the road until all was over. I studied the details as a 
 detective studies his case. I am not a brilliant man, and 
 it was intricate work; but I was desperate. I read guide- 
 books and wrote letters from different points, and arranged 
 that they should be sent to our mother at certain dates for 
 the next few months. 
 
 " My stronghold was that she was quite ignorant of travel 
 and would think of nothing but that the letters came from 
 me and were about Margery. I made Margery write two or 
 three. Then I knew I could explain that she was not strong 
 enough to write herself. I was afraid she might break down 
 before we could leave home; but she did not. I got her 
 away. By roundabout ways we travelled to the North Caro- 
 lina mountains. AYe found a deserted cabin in the woods, 
 some distance from the road. We dressed ourselves in the 
 rough homespun of the country. She went barefooted, as 
 most of the women did. We so secluded ourselves that it 
 was some time before it was known that our cabin was in- 
 habited. The women have a habit of wearing deep sun- 
 bonnets when about their work. Margery always wore one 
 and kept within doors. We were thought to be only an un- 
 sociable married pair. Only once she found herself facing 
 curious eyes. A sharp-faced little hoosier stopped one day 
 to ask for a drink of water when I was away. He stared 
 at her so intently that she was frightened; but he never 
 came again. The child was born. She died.'' 
 
 328 
 
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 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 " When it was born," Baird asked, ^^ who cared for 
 her? '' 
 
 " We were alone/' answered Latimer, " I did not know 
 whom to call. I read medical books — for hours each day 
 I read them. I thought that perhaps I might be able to do — 
 what was necessary. But on the night she was taken ill — 
 I was stricken with terror. She was so young and childlike 
 — she had lived through months of torture — the agony 
 seemed so unnatural to me, that I knew I must go for help 
 — that I was not mentally calm enough to go through the 
 ordeal. A strange chance took me to a man who had years 
 before studied medicine as a profession. He was a singular 
 being, totally unlike his fellows. He came to her. She died 
 with her hand in his." 
 
 *' Did the child die too? " Baird asked, after a pause. 
 
 " Xo; it lived. After she was laid in the earth on the 
 hillside, I came away. It was the next day, and I was not 
 sane. I had forgotten the child existed, and had made no 
 plans for it. The man I spoke of — he was unmarried and 
 lonely, and a strange, huge creature of a splendid humane- 
 ness — he had stood by me through all — q mountain of 
 strength — the man came to my rescue there and took the 
 child. It would be safe with him. I know nothing more.'" 
 
 " Do you not know his name? " Baird asked. 
 
 " Yes; he was called Dwillerby by the country people. 
 I think he had been born a gentleman, though he lived 
 as the mountaineers did." 
 
 " Afterwards," said Baird, " you went abroad as you had 
 planned? " 
 
 " Yes. I invented the story of her death. I wrote the 
 details carefully. I learned them as a lesson. It has been 
 my mother's comfort — that story of the last day — the open 
 
 329 
 
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 In Connection with 
 
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 window — the passing peasants — the setting sun — I can see 
 it all myself. That is my lie. Did you suspect it when I 
 told it?'' 
 
 " Xo, God knows! " Baird answered. " I did not." 
 jSTever?'' inquired Latimer. 
 
 What I have thought was that you had suffered much 
 more than you wished your mother to know; that — perhaps 
 — your sister had suffered more than you would reveal; and 
 that you dreaded with all your being the telling of the story. 
 But never such tragedy as this — never — never! " 
 
 *^ The man — the man who wrought that tragedy," began 
 Latimer, staring darkly before him, " somewhere he stands 
 to-night — unless his day is done. Somewhere he stands — as 
 real a man as you/' 
 
 " With all his load upon him," said Baird; " and he may 
 have loved her passionately." 
 
 " It should be a heavy load," said Latimer, with bitter 
 gloom; " heavy — heavy." 
 
 " You have not once uttered his name," said Baird, the 
 thought coming to him suddenly. 
 
 " No," said Latimer; " I never knew it. She prayed so 
 piteously that I would let her hide it. She knelt and sobbed 
 upon my knee, praying that I would spare her that one woe. 
 I could spare her no other, so I gave way. She thanked me, 
 clinging to me and kissing my hand. Ah, her young, young 
 heart wrung with sobs and tears! " 
 
 He flung himself forward against the table, hiding his face 
 upon his arms, and wept aloud. Baird went and stood by 
 him. He did not speak a word or lay his hand upon the 
 shaking shoulders. He stood and gazed, his own chest heav- 
 ing and awful tears in his eyes. 
 
 330 
 
CHAPTER XXX 
 
 I^' later 3'ears, one at least of the two men never glanced 
 back upon the months which followed without a shudder. 
 And yet outwardly no change took place in their relations, 
 unless they seemed drawn closer. Such a secret being shared 
 between two people must either separate or bind them to- 
 gether. In this case it became a bond. They spoke of it 
 but little, yet each was well aware that the other remembered 
 often. Sometimes, when they sat together, Latimer recog- 
 nised in Baird's eyes a look of brooding and felt that he 
 knew what his thought was; sometimes Baird, glancing at 
 his friend, found his face darkened by reverie, and under- 
 stood. Once, when this was the case, he said, suddenly: 
 
 "What is your feeling about — the man? Do you wish 
 to kill him?" 
 
 " It is too late," Latimer answered. " It would undo 
 nothing. If by doing it I could bring her back as she was 
 before she had seen his face — if I could see her again, the 
 pretty, happy child, with eyes like blue convolvulus, and 
 laughing lips — I would kill him and gladly hang for it." 
 
 " So would I," said Baird, a-rimlv. 
 
 " To crucify him would not undo it," said Latimer, look- 
 ing sickly pale. She was crucified — she lived through terror 
 and shame; she died — afraid that God would not forgive 
 her." 
 
 " That God would not ! " Baird gasped. 
 
 Latimer's bony hands were twisted together. 
 
 " We were brought up to believe things like that," he said. 
 
 331 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 " I was afraid, too. That was the damnable part of it. I 
 could not help her. I have changed since then — I have 
 changed through knowing you. As children we had always 
 been threatened with the just God! The most successful 
 preachers gained their power by painting pictures of the 
 torments of hell. That was the fashion then/^ smiling hor- 
 ribly. 
 
 " It is a wonderful thing that even the fashion in Gods 
 changes. When we were shut up together in the cabin on 
 the hillside, she used to be overwhelmed by paroxysms of 
 fear. She read the Bible a great deal — because sinners who 
 wanted to repent always read it — and sometimes she would 
 come upon threats and curses, and cry out and turn white 
 and begin to shiver. Then she would beg me to pray and 
 pray with her. And we would kneel down on the bare floor 
 and pray together. My prayers were worse than useless. 
 What could I say? I was a black sinner, too — a man who 
 was perjuring his soul with lies — and they were told and 
 acted for her sake, and she knew it. She used to cling about 
 my neck and beg me to betray her — to whiten my soul by 
 confession — not to allow her wickedness to destroy me — be- 
 cause she loved me — loved me. ' Go back to them and tell 
 them, Lucien,^ she would cry, *I will go with you if I 
 ought — I have been wicked — not you — I have been shame- 
 ful; I must bear it — I must bear it.' But she could not 
 bear it. She died." 
 
 " Were you never able to give her any comfort ? " said 
 Baird. His eyes were wet, and he spoke as in bitter appeal. 
 " This had been a child in her teens entrapped into bearing 
 the curse of the world with all its results of mental horror 
 and physical agony." 
 
 "What comfort could I give?" was the answer. "My 
 
 332 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 religion and my social creed had taught me that she was a 
 vile sinner — the worst and most shameful of sinners — and 
 that I was a criminal for striving to save her from the con- 
 sequences of her sin. I was defying the law of the just God, 
 - who would have punished her with heart-break and open 
 shame. He would not have spared her, and He would not 
 spare me since I so strove against Him. The night she 
 died — through the long hours of horrible, unnatural con- 
 vulsions of pain — when cold sweat stood in drops on her 
 deathly childish face, she would clutch my hands and cry 
 out: * Eternal torments! For ever and ever and ever — could 
 it be like this, Lucien — for ever and ever and ever ? ' Then 
 she would sob out, ^ God! God! God! ' in terrible, helpless 
 prayer. She had not strength for other words.^' 
 
 Baird sprang to his feet and thrust out his hand, averting 
 his pallid face. 
 
 " Don't tell me any more," he said. " I cannot — I cannot 
 bear it." 
 
 " Slu bore it," said Latimer, " until death ended it." 
 
 " Was there no one — to save her? " Baird cried. " Was 
 she terrified like that when she died ? " 
 
 " The man who afterwards took her child — the man 
 D'Willerby," Latimer answered, " was a kindly soul. At 
 the last moment he took her poor little hand and patted it, 
 and told her not to be frightened. She turned to him as 
 if for refuge. He had a big, mellow voice, and a tender, 
 protecting way. He said: * Don't be frightened. It's all 
 right,' and his were the last words she heard." 
 
 " God bless the fellow, wheresoever he is! " Baird ex- 
 claimed. "I should like to grasp his hand.' 
 
 ii 
 
 The Eeverend John Baird delivered his lectures in many 
 
 333 
 
In Connection with 
 
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 cities that year. The discussion they gave rise to had the 
 natural result of awakening a keen interest in them. There 
 were excellent souls who misinterpreted and deplored them, 
 there were excellent souls who condemned; there were even 
 ministers of the gospel who preached against the man as 
 an iconoclast and a pagan, and forbade their congregations 
 to Join his audiences. But his lecture-halls were always 
 crowded, and the hundreds of faces upturned to him when 
 he arose upon his platform were the faces of eager, breath- 
 less, yearning creatures. He was a man speaking to men, 
 not an echo of old creeds. He uttered no threats, he painted 
 no hells, he called aloud to that God in man which is his 
 soul. 
 
 " That God which is in you — in me," he proclaimed, " has 
 lain dormant because undeveloped man, having made for 
 himself in the dark ages gods of wood and stone, demanding 
 awful sacrifice, called forth for himself later a deity as mate- 
 rial, though embodied in no physical form — a God of ven- 
 geance and everlasting punishments. This is the man-cre- 
 ated deity, and in his name man has so clamoured that the 
 God which is man's soul has been silenced. Let this God 
 rise, and He will so demand justice and noble mercy from 
 all creatures to their fellows that temptation and suffering 
 will cease. What! can we do no good deed without the 
 promise of paradise as reward? Can we refrain from no 
 evil unless we are driven to it by the threat of hell? Are 
 we such base traffickers that we make merchandise of our 
 souls and bargain for them across a counter? Let us awake! 
 I say to you from the deepest depths of my aching soul — if 
 there were no God to bargain with, then all the more awful 
 need that each man constitute himself a god — of justice, 
 pity, and mercy — until the world's wounds are healed and 
 
 334 
 
In Connection with 
 
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 each human thing can stand erect and claim the joy of life 
 which is his own." 
 
 On the morning of the day he said these words to the 
 crowd which had flocked to hear him, he had talked long 
 with Latimer. For some weeks he had not been strong. 
 The passion of intensity which ruled him when he spoke to 
 his audiences was too strong an emotion to leave no physical 
 trace. After a lecture or sermon he was often pallid and 
 shaken. 
 
 " I have things to say," he exclaimed feverishly to Lati- 
 mer. ^' There are things which must be said. The spoken 
 word lives — for good or evil. It is a sound sent echoing 
 through all the ages to come. Some men have awakened 
 echoes which have thrilled throughout the world. To speak 
 one's thought — to use mere words — it seems such a small 
 thing — and yet it is my conviction that nothing which is 
 said is really ever forgotten." 
 
 And his face was white, his eyes burning, when at night 
 he leaned foru'ard to fling forth to his hearers his final ar- 
 raignment. 
 
 " I say to you, were there no God to bargain with, then 
 all the more awful need that each man constitute himself 
 a god of justice, pity, and mercy — until the world's wounds 
 are healed and each human thing can stand erect and claim 
 the joy of life which is his own." 
 
 The people went away after the lecture, murmuring 
 among themselves. Some of them carried away awakening 
 in their eyes. They all spoke of the man himself; of his 
 compelling power, the fire of meaning in his face, and the 
 musical, far-reaching voice, which carried to the remotest 
 corner of the most crowded buildings. 
 
 '^ It is not only his words one is reached by^" it was said. 
 
 335 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 '^ It is the man's self. Truly, he cries out from the depths 
 of his soul.'' 
 
 This was true. It was the man himself. Nature had 
 armed him well — with strength, with magnetic force, with 
 a tragic sense of the anguish of things, and with that brain 
 which labours far in advance of the thought of the hour. 
 Men with such brains — brains which work fiercely and un- 
 ceasingly even in their own despite — reach conclusions not 
 yet arrived at by their world, and are called iconoclasts. 
 Some are madly overpraised, some have been made martyrs, 
 but their spoken word passes onward, and if not in their 
 own day, in that to-morrow which is the to-day of other 
 men, the truth of their harvest is garnered and bound into 
 sheaves. 
 
 At the closing of his lectures, men and women crowded 
 about him to speak to him, to grasp his hand. When they 
 were hysterical in their laudations, his grace and readiness 
 controlled them; when they were direct and earnest, he 
 found words to say which they could draw aid from later. 
 
 " Am I developing — or degenerating — into a popular 
 preacher?" he said once, with a half restless laugh, to his 
 shadow. 
 
 " You are not popular," was Latimer's answer. " Popular 
 is not the word. You are proclaiming too new and bold 
 a creed." 
 
 " That is true," said Baird. " The pioneer is not popular. 
 When he forces his way into new countries he encounters 
 the natives. Sometimes they eat him — sometimes they drive 
 him back with poisoned arrows. The country is their own; 
 they have their own gods, their own language. Why should 
 a stranger enter in? " 
 
 '* But there is no record yet of a pioneer who lived — 
 
 336 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 or died — in vain," said Latimer. " Some day — some 
 day " 
 
 He stopped and gazed at his friend, brooding. His love 
 for him was a strong and deep thing. It grew with each 
 hour they spent together, with each word he heard him 
 speak. Baird was his mental nourishment and solace. When 
 they were apart he found his mind dwelling on him as a 
 sort of habit. But for this one man he would have lived 
 a squalid life among his people at Janney's Mills — squalid 
 because he had not the elasticity to rise above its narrow, 
 uneducated dulness. The squalor so far as he himself was 
 concerned was not physical. His own small, plain home 
 was as neat as it was simple, but he had not the temperament 
 w^hich makes a man friends. Baird possessed this tempera- 
 ment, and his home was a centre of all that was most living. 
 It was not the ordinary Willowfield household. The larger 
 outer world came and went. When Latimer went to it he 
 w^as swept on by new currents and felt himself warmed and 
 fed. 
 
 There had been scarcely any day during years in which 
 the two men had not met. They had made journeys to- 
 gether; they had read the same books and encountered the 
 same minds. Each man clung to the intimacy. 
 
 " I want this thing," Baird had said more than once; " if 
 you W'snt it, I want it more. jSTothing must rob us of it." 
 
 " The time has come — it came long ago — " his Shadow 
 said, " when I could not live without it. My life has grown 
 to yours." 
 
 It was Latimer's pleasure that he found he could be an 
 aid to the man who counted for so much to him. Affairs 
 which pressed upon Baird he would take in hand; he was 
 able tb transact business for him, to help him in the develbp- 
 
 337 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 ment of his plans, save him frequently both time and fa- 
 tigue. It fell about that when the lectures were delivered 
 at distant points the two men journeyed together. 
 
 Latimer entered Baird's library on one occasion just as 
 a sharp-faced, rather theatrical-looking man left it. 
 
 "You'll let me know your decision, sir, as soon as pos- 
 sible,'' the stranger departed, saying. " These things ought 
 always to be developed just at the right moment. This is 
 your right moment. Everybody is talking you over, one 
 way or another." When the stranger was gone, Baird ex- 
 plained his presence. 
 
 " That is an agent," he said; " he proposes that I shall 
 lecture through the States. I — don't know," as if pondering 
 the thing. 
 
 " The things you say should be said to many," remarked 
 Latimer. 
 
 " The more the better," said Baird, reflectively; " I know 
 that — the more the better." 
 
 They sat and talked the matter over at length. The 
 objections to it were neither numerous nor serious. 
 
 " And I want to say these things," said Baird, a little 
 feverishly. " I want to say them again and again." 
 
 Before they parted for the night it was decided that he 
 should accede to the proposal, and that Latimer should 
 arrange to be his companion. 
 
 " It is the lecture ' Eepentance,' he tells me, is most in 
 demand," Baird said, as he walked to the door, with a hand 
 in Latimer's. 
 
 338 
 
CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 Frequenters of the Capitol — whether loungers or poli- 
 ticians — had soon become familiar with the figure of one 
 of the De Willoughby claimants. It was too large a figure 
 not to be quickly marked and unavoidably remembered. 
 Big Tom slowly mounting the marble steps or standing on 
 the corridors was an object to attract attention, and inquiries 
 being answered by the information that he was a party to 
 one of the largest claims yet made, he not unnaturally was 
 discussed with interest. 
 
 " He's from the depths of the mountains of North Caro- 
 lina/' it was explained; " he keeps a cross-roads store and 
 post-office, but he has some of the best blood of the South 
 in his veins, and his claim is enormous." 
 
 "Will he gain it?" ^ 
 
 "Who knows? He has mortgaged all he owns to make 
 the effort. The claim is inherited from his father, Judge 
 De Willoughby, who died at the close of the war. As he 
 lived and died within the Confederacy, the Government 
 holds that he was disloyal and means to make the most 
 of it. The claimants hold that they can prove him loj^al. 
 They'll have to prove it thoroughly. The Government is 
 growing restive over the claims of Southerners, and there 
 is bitter opposition to be overcome." 
 
 " Yes. Lvman nearly lost his last election because he had 
 favoured a Southern claim in his previous term. His con- 
 stituents are country patriots, and they said they weren't 
 sending a man to Congress to vote for Rebs." 
 
 " That's the trouble. When men's votes are endangered 
 
 339 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 by a course of action they grow ultra-conservative. A vote's 
 a vote." 
 
 That was the difficulty, as Tom found. A vote was a 
 vote. The bitterness of war had not yet receded far enough 
 into the past to allow of unprejudiced judgment. Members 
 of political parties were still enemies, wrongs still rankled, 
 graves were yet new, wounds still ached and burned. Men 
 who had found it to their interest to keep at fever heat 
 the fierce spirit of the past four years of struggle and blood- 
 shed, were not willing to relinquish the tactics whiah had 
 brought fortunes to them. The higher-minded were deter- 
 mined that where justice was done it should be done where 
 it was justice alone, clearly proved to be so. There had been 
 too many false and idle claims brought forward to admit 
 of the true ones being accepted without investigation and 
 delay. In the days when old Judge De Willoughby had 
 walked through the streets of Delisleville, ostracized and 
 almost hooted as he passed among those who had once been 
 his friends, it would not have been difficult to prove that 
 he was loyal to the detested Government, but in these later 
 times, when the old man lay quiet in what his few remaining 
 contemporaries still chose to consider a dishonoured grave, 
 undeniable proof of a loyalty which now would tend to the 
 honour and advantage of those who were of his blood was 
 not easy to produce. 
 
 " The man lived and died in the Confederacy," was said 
 by those who were in power in Washington. 
 
 " He was constructively a rebel. We want proof — proof." 
 
 Most of those who might have furnished it if they would, 
 were either scattered as to the four winds of the earth, or 
 were determined to give no aid in the matter. 
 
 " A Southerner who deserted the South in its desperate 
 
 340 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 struggle for life need not come to Southern gentlemen to 
 ask them to help him to claim the price of his infamy." 
 That was the Delisleville point of view, and it was difficult 
 to cope with. If Tom had been a rich man and could have 
 journeyed between Delisleville and the Capital, or where- 
 soever the demands of his case called him, to see and argue 
 with this man or that, the situation would have simplified 
 itself somewhat, though there would still have remained 
 obstacles to be overcome. 
 
 " But a man who has hard work to look his room rent 
 in the face, and knows he can't do that for more than a few 
 months, is in a tight place," said Tom. " Evidence that will 
 satisfy the Government isn't easily collected in Dupont Cir- 
 cle. These fellows have heard men talk before. They've 
 heard too many men talk. There's Stamps, now — ^they've 
 heard Stamps talk. Stamps is way ahead of me where lob- 
 bying is concerned. He knows the law, and he doesn't mind 
 having doors shut in his face or being kicked into the street, 
 so long as he sees a chance of getting indenmified for his 
 ' herds of cattle.' I'm not a business man, and I mind a 
 lot of things that don't trouble him. I'm not a good hand 
 at asking favours and sitting down to talk steadily for a 
 solid hour to a man who doesn't want to hear me and hasn't 
 five minutes to spare." But for Rupert and Sheba he would 
 have given up the claim in a week and gone back to Talbot's 
 Cross-roads content to end his days as he began them when 
 he opened the store — living in the little back rooms on beans 
 and bacon and friend chicken and hominy. 
 
 " That suited me well enough," he used to say to himself, 
 when he thought the thing over. " There were times when 
 I found it a bit lonel}^ — but, good Lord! loneliness is a 
 small thing for a man to complain of in a world like this. 
 
 341 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 It isn't fits or starvation. "When a man's outlived the habit 
 of expecting happiness, it doesn't take much to keep him 
 going." 
 
 But at his side was eager youth which had outlived noth- 
 ing, which believed in a future full of satisfied yearnings 
 and radiant joys. 
 
 "I am not alone now," said Eupert; "I must make a 
 place and a home for Sheba. I must not be only a boy 
 in love with her; I must be a man who can protect her from 
 everything — from everything. She is so sweet — she is so 
 sweet. She makes me feel that I am a man." 
 
 She was sweet. To big Tom they were both sweet in 
 their youth and radiant faith and capabilities for happiness. 
 They seemed like children, and the tender bud of their 
 lovely young passion was a thing to be cherished. He had 
 seen such buds before, but he had never seen the flower. 
 
 " I'd like to see the flower," he used to say to himself. 
 " To see it would pay a man for a good deal he'd missed 
 himself. The pair of them could set up a pretty fair garden 
 of Eden — serpents and apple-trees being excluded." 
 
 They were happy. Even when disappointments befell 
 them and prospects were unpromising they were happy. 
 They could look into each other's eyes and take comfort. 
 Eupert's dark moods had melted away. He sometimes for- 
 got they had ever ruled him. His old boyish craving for 
 love and home was fed. The bare little rooms in the poor 
 little house were home. Sheba and Tom were love and 
 affection. When they sat at the table and calculated how 
 much longer their diminishing store would last, even as it 
 grew smaller and smaller, they could laugh over the sums 
 they worked out on slips of paper. So long as the weather 
 was warm enough they strolled about together in the frag- 
 
 343 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 rant darkness or sat in the creeper-liung porch, in the hght 
 of summer moons; when the cold nights came they sat 
 about the store or the table and talked, while Sheba sewed 
 buttons on or worked assiduously at the repairing of her 
 small wardrobe. Whatsoever she did, the two men sat and 
 admired, and there was love and laughter. 
 
 The strenuous life which went on in the busier part of 
 the town — the politics, the struggles, the plots and schemes, 
 the worldly pleasures — seemed entirely apart from them. 
 
 Sometimes, after a day in which Judge Rutherford had 
 been encouraged or Tom had had a talk with a friendly 
 member who had listened to the story of the claim with 
 signs of interest, they felt their star of hope rising; it never 
 sinks far below the horizon when one's teens are scarcely 
 of the past — and Sheba and Eupert spent a wonderful even- 
 ing making plans for a future of ease and fortune. 
 
 At Judge Eutherford's suggestion, Tom had long sought 
 an interview with a certain member of the Senate whose 
 good word would be a carrying weight in any question under 
 debate. He was a shrewd, honest, business-like man, and 
 a personal friend of the President's. He was much pursued 
 by honest and dishonest alike, and, as a result of experience, 
 had become difficult to reach. On the day Tom was ad- 
 mitted to see him, he had been more than usually badgered. 
 Just as Tom approached his door a little man opened it 
 cautiously and sHd out, with the air of one leaving within 
 the apartment things not exhilarating on retrospect. He 
 was an undersized country man, the cut of whose jeans 
 wore a familiar air to Tom's eye even at a distance and 
 before he lifted the countenance which revealed him as 
 Mr. Stamps. 
 
 " We ain't a-gwine to do your job no good to-day, Tom/' 
 
 343 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 he said, benignly. " He'd 'a' kicked me oiiit ef I hadn't 'a' 
 bin small — jest game es you was gwine ter that time I 
 come to talk to ye about Sheby. He's a smarter man than 
 you be, an' he seed the argyment I hed to p'int out to you. 
 Ye won't help your job none to-day! " 
 
 " I haven't got a ' job ' in hand," Tom answered; " your 
 herds of stock and the Judge's coal mines and cotton fields 
 are different matters." 
 
 He passed on and saw that when his name was announced 
 the Senator looked up from his work with a fretted move- 
 ment of the head. 
 
 "Mr. De Willoughby of Talbot's Cross-roads?" he said. 
 Tom bowed. He became conscious of appearing to occupy 
 too much space in the room of a busy man who had plainly 
 been irritated. 
 
 " I was told by Judge Rutherford that you had kindly 
 consented to see me," he said. 
 
 The Senator tapped the table nervously with his pencil 
 and pushed some papers aside. 
 
 " Well, I find I have no time to spare this morning," was 
 his brutally frank response. " I have just been forced to 
 give the time which might have been yours to a little hoosier 
 who made his way in, heaven knows how, and refused to be 
 ordered out. He had a claim, too, and came from your 
 county and said he was an old friend of yours." 
 
 " He is not an old enemv," answered Tom. " There is 
 that much foundation in the statement." 
 
 " Well, he has occupied the time I had meant to give you," 
 said the Senator, " and I was not prepossessed either by 
 himself or his claim." 
 
 " I think he's a man to gain a claim," said Tom; " I'm 
 afraid I'm not." 
 
 344 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 ^^ It is fair to warn you that I am not friendly to claims 
 made by the families of men who lived in a hot-bed of 
 secession," said the Senator. He had been badgered too 
 much this morning, and this big, rather convincing looking 
 applicant worried him. " I have an appointment at the 
 White House in ten minutes.'^ 
 
 " Then this is no place for me," said Tom. " Iso man 
 is likely to be friendly to a thing he has no time to talk 
 of. I will bid you good-morning." 
 
 " Good-morning," returned the Senator, brusquely. 
 
 Tom went away feeling that he was a blunderer. The 
 fact was that he was a neophyte and, it was true, did not 
 possess the qualities which make a successful lobbyist. Mr. 
 Stamps had wheedled or forced his way into the great man's 
 apartment and had persisted in remaining to press his claim 
 until he was figuratively turned out by the shoulders. Big 
 Tom had used only such means to obtain the interview as 
 a gentleman might; he had waited until he was called to 
 take his turn, and so had lost his chance. When he had 
 found the Senator hurried and unwilling to spend time on 
 him he had withdrawn at once, not feeling Mr. Stamps's 
 method to be possible. 
 
 '^ I suppose I ought to have stayed and buttonholed him 
 in spite of himself," he thought, ruefully. " I'm a green- 
 horn; I suppose a man in my place ought to stand his 
 ground whether it's decent or indecent, and make people 
 listen to what he has to say, and be quite willing to be kicked 
 downstairs after he has said it. I'm a disgrace to my species 
 — and I don't think much of the species." 
 
 As he was walking through one of the corridors he saw 
 before him two men who were evidently visitors to the 
 place. He gathered this from their leisurely movements 
 
 345 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 and the interest with which they regarded the objects about 
 them. They looked at pictures and remarked upon decora- 
 tions. One was a man who was unusually well-built. He 
 was tall and moved well and had lightly silvered hair; his 
 companion was tall also, but badly hung together, and 
 walked with a stoop of the shoulders. 
 
 Tom walked behind them for some vards before his at- 
 tention was really arrested, but suddenly a movement of 
 one man's head seemed to recall some memory of the past. 
 He did not know what the memory was, but he knew vaguely 
 that it was a memorv. He followed a few vards further, 
 w^ondering idly what had been recalled and why he should 
 be reminded of the mountains and the pine-trees. Yes, it 
 was the mountains and pine-trees — Hamlin Count}^, but not 
 the Hamlin County of to-day. AYhy not the Hamlin County 
 of to-day? why something which seemed more remote? 
 Confound the fellow; he had made that movement again. 
 Tom wished he would turn his face that he might see it, 
 and he hurried his footsteps somewhat that he might come 
 within nearer range. The two men paused with their backs 
 towards him, and Tom paused also. They were looking 
 at a picture, and the taller of the two made a gesture with 
 his hand. It was a long, bony hand, and as he extended 
 it Tom slightly started. It all came back to him — the mem- 
 ory which had been recalled. He smelt the scent of the 
 pines on the hillside; he saw the little crowd of mourners 
 about the cabin door; inside, women sat with bent heads, 
 upon two wooden chairs rested the ends of a slender coffin, 
 and by it stood a man who lifted his hand and said to those 
 about him : " Let us pray." 
 
 The years swept back as he stood there. He was face to 
 face again with the tragic mystery which had seemed to 
 
 346 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 end in utter silence. The man turned his face so that it 
 vras plainly to be seen — sallow, rugged, harsh in line. The 
 same face, though older, and perhaps less tragic — the face 
 of the man he had left alone in the awful, desolate stillness 
 of the empty room. 
 
 The next moment he turned away again. He and his 
 companion passed round a corner and were gone. Tom 
 made no attempt to follow them. 
 
 " There is no reason why I should," was his thought, 
 " either for Sheba's sake or his own. She is happy, and 
 he feels his secret safe — whatsoever it may have been. Per- 
 haps he has had time to outlive the misery of it, and it 
 would all be brought to life again." 
 
 But the incident had been a shock. There was nothing 
 to fear from it, he knew; but it had been a shock neverthe- 
 less. He did not know the man's name; he had never 
 asked it. He was plainly one of the many strangers who, 
 in passing through the Capital, went to visit the public build- 
 ings. The merest chance might have brought him to the 
 place; the most ordinary course of events might take him 
 away. Tom went back to Dupont Circle in a thoughtful 
 mood. He forgot the claim and the Senator who had had 
 no leisure to hear the statement of his case. 
 
 Eupert and Sheba were waiting for his return. Eupert 
 had spent the afternoon searching for emplo3'ment. He 
 had spent many a long day in the same way and with the 
 same result. 
 
 They don't want me," he had said when he came home. 
 
 They don't want me anywhere, it seems — either in law- 
 yers' offices or dry-goods stores. I have not been particu- 
 lar." 
 
 They had sat down and gazed at each other. 
 
 347 
 
 u 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 ''I sometimes wonder/' said Sheba, "what we shall do 
 when all our money is gone — ever}' penny of it. It cannot 
 last long now. We cannot stay here and we cannot pay 
 our way back to the mountains. What shall we do? '' 
 
 " I shall go out every day till I find something to do/' 
 said Rupert, with the undiscouraged fervour of youth. " I 
 am not looking for employment for a gentleman, in these 
 days; I am looking for work — just as Uncle Matt is." 
 
 " He chopped some wood yesterday and brought home 
 two dollars/' Sheba said. " He made me take it. He said 
 he wanted to pay his ' bode.' " 
 
 She laughed a little, but her eyes were wet and shining. 
 
 Eupert took her face between his hands and looked into 
 it adoringly. 
 
 " Don't be frightened, Sheba/' he said; " don't be un- 
 happy. Lovely darling, I will take care of you." 
 
 She pressed her soft cheek against his hand. 
 
 " I know you will," she said, " and of Uncle Tom, too. 
 I couldn't be unhappy — we all three love each other so. 
 I do not believe we shall be unhappy, even if we are poor 
 enough to be hungry." 
 
 So their moment of dismay ended in smiles. They were 
 passing through a phase of life in which it is not easy 
 to be unhappy. Somehow things always brightened when 
 they drew near each other. His observation of this truth 
 was one of Tom's pleasures. He knew the year of waiting 
 had managed to fill itself with sweetness for them. Their 
 hopes had been alternately raised and dashed to earth; one 
 day it seemed not improbable that they were to be million- 
 aires, the next that beggary awaited them after the dwin- 
 dling of their small stock of money; but they had shared 
 their emotions and borne their vicissitudes together. 
 
 848 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 When Tom entered the room they rose and met him with 
 questioning faces. 
 
 " AVas it good fortune? " they cried. " Did you see him. 
 Uncle Tom ? What did he say ? '^ 
 
 He told his story as lightly as possible, but it could not 
 be transformed, by any lightness of touch, into an encour- 
 aging episode. He made a picture of Stamps sidling through 
 the barely opened door, and was terse and witty at the 
 expense of his own discomfiture and consciousness of in- 
 competence. He laughed at himself and made them laugh, 
 but when he sat down in his accustomed seat there was a 
 shade upon his face. 
 
 The children exchanged glances, the eyes of each prompt- 
 ing the other. They must be at their brightest. They 
 knew the sight of their happiness warmed and lightened 
 his heart always. 
 
 " He is tired and hungry," Sheba said. ^^ We must give 
 him a beautiful hot supper. Eupert, we must set the table." 
 
 They had grown used to waiting upon themselves, and 
 their domestic services wore more or less the air of festivities. 
 Sheba ran downstairs to Miss Burford's kitchen, where 
 Uncle Matt had prepared the evening meal in his best man- 
 ner. As the repasts grew more and more simple. Matt 
 seemed to display greater accomplishments. 
 
 " It's all very well, Miss Sheba," he had said once, when 
 she praised the skill with which he employed his scant re- 
 sources. *' It's mighty easy to be a good cook when you'se 
 got everythin' right to han'. The giftness is to git up a fine 
 table when you ain't got nuffin'. Dat's whar dish yer niggah 
 likes to show out. De Lard knows I'se got too much yere 
 dis ve'y minnit — to be a-doin' credit to my 'sperience — too 
 much. Miss Sheba." 
 
 349 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 He was frying lioe-cake and talking to Miss Burford when 
 Sheba came into the kitchen. He was a great comfort and 
 aid to Miss Burford, and in a genteel way the old lady found 
 him a resource in the matters of companionship and con- 
 versation. Her life was too pinched and narrow to allow 
 her even the simpler pleasure of social intercourse, and 
 Matt's journeys into the world, and his small adventures, 
 and his comments upon politics and social events w^ere a 
 Bolace and a source of entertainment to her. 
 
 Just now he was describing to her the stories he had heard 
 of a celebrated lecturer who had just arrived in the city. 
 
 " Whether he's a 'vivalist or jes' a plain preacher what 
 folks is runnin' after, I cayn't quite make out, ma'am," 
 he was saying. " I ain't quite thinkin' he's a 'vivalist, but 
 de peoples is a-runnin' after him shore — an' seems like 
 dey doin' it in ev'y city he goes to. Ev'ybody want to heah 
 him — ev'ybody — rich en pore — young en ole. De Eev'end 
 John Baird's his name, an' he's got a fren' travellin' with 
 him as they say is like Jonathan was to David in dese yere 
 ole Bible times. An' I heern tell ev when he rise in de 
 pulpit de people's jest gets so worked up at what he preach 
 to 'em — dey jest cries an' rocks de benches. Dat's what 
 make me think he might be a 'vivalist — cos we all knows 
 dat cryin' an' rockin' an' clappin' hands is what makes a 
 'vival." He was full of anecdotes concerning the new ar- 
 rival whose reputation had plainly preceded him. 
 
 " He gwine ter preach nex' Sat'day on ' 'Pentance,' " he 
 said to Sheba, with a chuckle. " Dat's his big lecture ev'y- 
 body want to hear. De hall shore to be pack full. What 
 I'm a-hopin' is dat it'll be pack full er Senators an' members 
 er Congrest, an' he'll set some of 'em a-'pentin', dey ain't 
 'tend to dere business an' git people's claims through. Ef 
 
 350 
 

 In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 I know'd de gen'leman, I'd ax liim to mensliun dat special 
 an' pertickler." 
 
 As they sat at supper, Slieba repeated his stories and com- 
 ments. All the comments were worthy of repetition, and 
 most of the anecdotes were snggestively interesting, illus- 
 trating, as they did, the power of a single man over many. 
 I should like to go and hear him mj^self," she said. 
 
 Uncle Tom, have you anything to repent? Eupert, have 
 you? Uncle Tom, you have not forgotten the Senator. 
 You look at me as if you were thinking of something that 
 was not happy.'^ 
 
 " The Senator was not particularly happy," remarked 
 Tom. '' He had just had an interview with Stamps, and 
 he certainly was not happy at the sight of me. He thought 
 he had another on his hands. He's in better spirits by this 
 time." 
 
 Sheba got up and went to his side of the table. She put 
 her arms round his neck and pressed her cheek against his. 
 Forget about him," she said. 
 
 I am not remembering him particularly," said Tom, the 
 shade passing from his eyes; I am remembering you — 
 as you were nineteen years ago." 
 
 " Nineteen years ago! " said Sheba. " I was a baby! " 
 
 " Yes," answered Tom, folding a big arm round her, and 
 speaking slowly. " I saw a man to-day who reminded me 
 of the day you were born. Are you glad you were born, 
 Sheba? that's what I want to be sure of." 
 
 The two pairs of young eyes met glowing. Tom knew 
 they had met, by the warmth of the soft cheek touching him. 
 
 " Yes, I am glad — I am glad — I am glad! " with grateful 
 sweetness. 
 
 " And I — and I/" cried Eupert. He sprung up and held 
 
 351 
 
 « 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 out an impetuous boyish hand to Tom. " You know ho"W 
 glad, Uncle Tom — look at her — look at me — see how glad 
 we both are; and it is you — you who have made it so/^ 
 
 " It's a pretty big thing/' said Tom, '^ that two people 
 should be glad they are alive.'^ And he grasped the ardent 
 hand as affectionately as it was offered. 
 
 352 
 
CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 The Eeverend John Baird and his friend the Reverend 
 Lucien Latimer were lodged in a quiet house in a quiet 
 street. The lecturing tour had been fatiguing, and Baird 
 was glad of such repose as he could secure. In truth, the 
 excitement and strain of his work, the journeying from 
 place to place, the hospitalities from which he could not 
 escape, had worn upon him. He had grown thinner, and. 
 often did not sleep well at night. He used to find himself 
 lying awake repeating to himself mechanically words from 
 his own lecture. *^ Repentance is too late,^' his voice would 
 whisper to the darkness. " Repentance cannot undo.'' 
 
 His audiences found him an irresistible force. He had 
 become more than the fashion of the hour; he was its pas- 
 sion. People liked to look at as well as to hear him. He 
 was besieged by lion-hunters, overwhelmed with attentions 
 in each town or city he visited. Reporters followed him, 
 interviewers besought appointments, agreeable people in- 
 vited him to their houses, intrusive people dogged him. Lat- 
 imer stood between him and as many fatigues as he could. 
 He transacted business for him, and interviewed interview- 
 ers; and he went to tiring functions. 
 
 " When I enter a room without you, and make your ex- 
 cuses, they must make the most of my black face; and they 
 make the most of it, but they don't love me," he said. " Still 
 it is a thing to be borne if it saves you when you need all 
 your forces. What does it matter? I have never expected 
 to be smiled at for my own sake as they smile at me for 
 yours." 
 
 353 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 In these days of close companionship each found in each 
 new qnahties increasing the tie between them. Latimer 
 felt himself fed by the public affection surrounding the 
 man who was his friend. He was thrilled by the applause 
 which thundered forth at his words; he was moved by the 
 mere sense of his success, and the power he saw him un- 
 knowingly exercise through mere physical charm. 
 
 " I am nearer being a happy, or at least a peaceful, man 
 than I had ever thought to he," he said to Baird; "your 
 life seems to fill mine, and I am less lonely." Which was 
 indeed a truth. 
 
 On the evening of the day on which big Tom had caught 
 his glimpse of the two strangers in the corridor of the Capi- 
 tol, Baird dined at the house of the Senator, whose adverse 
 mood had promised such small encouragement to the De 
 ^Yilloughby claim. And in the course of the meal the host 
 spoke of both claim and claimants. 
 
 " The man is a sort of Colossus,'^ he said, ^' and he looked 
 all the heavier and bigger because my last visitor had been 
 the smallest and most insignificant of the hoosier type." 
 
 " Is this man a hoosier? " was asked. 
 
 " !N'o. He has lived among the most primitive, and Euth- 
 erford tells me is a sort of county institution; but he is not 
 a hoosier. He has a large, humane, humorous face, and 
 a big, humorous, mellow voice. . I should rather have liked 
 the feUow, confound him, if I hadn't lost my patience before 
 he came into the room." 
 
 " Did he tell you the story of the claim? " enquired his 
 married daughter. 
 
 "Xo, I didn't let him. I was feeling pretty sick of 
 claims, and I had no time." 
 
 " Oh, father, I wish you had let him tell it," exclaimed 
 
 854 
 
^^ 
 
 ■a- 
 
 In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 the pretty young woman. " The truth is, I am beginning 
 to be interested in that claim myself. I am in love with 
 Judge Eutherford and his stories of Jenny and Tom Scott. 
 His whole soul is bound up in ' pushing tl^s thing through ' 
 —that's what he calls it. He is the most delightful lobbyist 
 I ever met. He is like a bull in a china shop — though I 
 don't believe anyone ever saw a bull in a china shop." 
 
 " He does not know enough to give his friends a rest," 
 said the Senator. " If he was not such a good fellow he 
 would bore a man to death. He bores many a man as it is, 
 and people in office won't stand being bored. He's too 
 ingenuous. The shrewd ones say his ingenuousness is too 
 good to be true. He can't keep De Willoughby's virtues 
 out of his stories of him — and a man's virtues have nothing 
 much to do with his claim." 
 
 " I met him in one of the squares yesterday," said Mrs. 
 Meredith, " and he almost cried when he spoke of the claim. 
 He told me that everything was going wrong — that it was 
 being pushed aside by all sorts of things, and he had lost 
 heart. His eyes and nose got quite red, and he had to wink 
 hard to keep back the tears." 
 
 " The fellow believes in it, at any rate," said the Sen- 
 ator; "he has that to support him." 
 
 " He believes in everything,'^ said Mrs. Meredith, " and 
 it would have touched your heart to hear him talk about 
 the claimants. There is a young nephew and a beautiful 
 girl creature, who is big Mr. De ^Yilloughby's adopted 
 daughter. She is not a claimant, it is true, but they all 
 adore each other, and the nephew is in love with her; and 
 if the claim goes through they will be happy forever after- 
 wards. I saw the nephew once, and he was a beautiful boy 
 with Southern eyes and a charming expression. Upon the 
 
 855 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 whole, I think I am in love with the young couple, too. 
 Their story sounded like a pastoral poem when Judge Euth- 
 erford told it.'^ 
 
 " Suppose you tell it to us, Marion," said the Senator, 
 wdth a laugh, and a glance round the table. " It may ap- 
 peal to our feelings and advance the interests of the 
 claim." 
 
 " Pray, tell it, Mrs. Meredith," Baird put in; " the mere 
 mention of it has appealed to my emotions. Perhaps Sen- 
 ator Harburton and Mr. Lewis will be moved also, and that 
 will be two votes to the good — perhaps more." 
 
 " The charm of it is that it is a story without a plot," 
 Mrs. Meredith said. " There is nothing in it but youth 
 and love and innocence and beauty. It is Eomeo and Juliet 
 without the tragedy. Eomeo appeared on a moonlight night 
 in a garden, and Juliet stood upon a balcony among roses — 
 and their young souls cried out to each other. It is all so 
 young and innocent — they only want to spend their lives 
 together, like flowers growing side by side. They want 
 nothing but each other." 
 
 " And the claim," added the Senator. 
 
 " They cannot have each other if the claim fails. They 
 will have to starve to death in each other's arms like the 
 * Babes in the Wood '; I am sure the robins will come and 
 cover them with leaves." 
 
 " But the big uncle," her father asked. 
 
 " Poor fellow," Mrs. Meredith said. '' Judge Eutherf ord 
 is finest when he enlarges on him. He says, over and over 
 again, as if it were a kind of argument, ' Tom, now — Tom, 
 he wants those two young ones to be happy. He says nature 
 fixed it all for them, so that they could be happy — and he 
 doesn't want to see it spoiled. He says love ain't treated 
 
 356 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 fair, as a rule, and he wants to see it given a show — a real 
 show." 
 
 At least one pair of deeply interested listener's eyes were 
 fixed upon her. They were the Reverend John Baird's. 
 
 " It might be a beautiful thing to see," he said. " One 
 does not see it. There seems a fate against it. The wrong 
 people meet, or the right ones do not until it is too late." 
 
 " I should like to see it myself," said the hos;!;, " but I am 
 afraid that the argument — as an argument — would not sup- 
 port a claim on the Government." 
 
 " I am going to see the claimants and hear all the argu- 
 ments they can bring forward," was Mrs. Meredith's con- 
 clusion. " I want to see Romeo and Juliet together." 
 
 " May I go with you? " asked Baird. 
 
 Latimer had not come in when he returned to their lodg- 
 ings. He also had been out to spend the evening. But 
 it was not many minutes before Baird heard his latch-key 
 and the opening of the front door. He came upstairs rather 
 slowly. 
 
 " You are either ill," Baird said, when he entered, " or 
 you have met with some shock." 
 
 " Yes; it was a shock," was the answer. " I have been 
 dragged back into the black pit of twenty years ago." 
 
 ^' Twenty years ? " said Baird. 
 
 " I have seen the man who — was with us in the hillside 
 cabin, through that night she died. He passed me in the 
 street." 
 
 Baird stood still and looked at him without speaking. 
 "VVliat was there to be said? 
 
 " He is such a noticeable looking fellow," Latimer went 
 on, " that I felt sure I could find out who he was. In the 
 mountains they called him ' Big Tom D'Willerby.' His 
 
 857 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 real name is De Willoughby, and lie has been here for some 
 months in pursuit of a claim, which is a great deal talked 
 about." 
 
 " The great De Willoughby claim? " said Baird. " They 
 talked of it to-night at dinner." 
 
 Latimer tapped the table nervously with the fingers of 
 an unsteady hand. 
 
 " He may be living within a hundred yards of us — within 
 a hundred yards," he said. " We may cross each other's 
 path at any moment. I can at least know — since fate has 
 brought us together again — I should never have sought him 
 out — but one can know whether — whether it lived or died." 
 
 " He has with him," said Baird, " a girl of nineteen who 
 is his adopted daughter. I heard it to-night. She is said 
 to be a lovely girl who is in love with a lovely boy who is 
 De Willoughby's nephew. She is happy." 
 
 " She is happy," murmured Latimer, biting his livid lips. 
 He could not bring himself back to the hour he was living 
 in. He could only see again the bare little room — he could 
 hear the cries of terrified anguish. " It seems strange," he 
 murmured, " that Margery's child should be happy." 
 
 358 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 It was not difficult to discover the abiding place of the 
 De Willoughby claimants. The time had come when there 
 were few who did not know who occupied the upper floor 
 of Miss Burford's house near the Circle. ]\Iiss Burford 
 herself had gradually become rather proud of her boarders, 
 and, as the interest in the case increased, felt herself be- 
 coming a prominent person. 
 
 *^ If the claim goes through, the De AYilloughby family 
 will be very wealthy," she said, genteelly. " They will re- 
 turn to their Southern home, no doubt, and restore it to its 
 fawmah magnificence. Mr. Eupert De Willoughby will 
 be lawd of the mannah." 
 
 She spent many hours — which she felt to be very aristo- 
 cratic — in listening to Uncle Matt's stories of the '' old De 
 Willoughby place," the rice-fields in " South Ca'llina," and 
 the " thousands of acres of gol' mines " in the mountains. 
 There was a rich consolation in mere conversation on the 
 subject of glories which had once had veritable substance, 
 and whose magnitude might absolutely increase if fortune 
 was kind. But it was not through inquiry that Latimer 
 discovered the whereabouts of the man who shared his 
 secret. In two days' time they met face to face on the steps 
 of the Capitol. 
 
 Latimer was going down them; big Tom was coming up. 
 The latter was lost in thought on his afi^airs, and was not 
 looking at such of his fellow-men as passed him. Suddenly 
 he found himself one or two steps below someone who held 
 out a hand and spoke in a low voice. 
 
 359 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 "De ATilloughby! " the stranger exclaimed, and Tom 
 lifted his eyes and looked straight into those of the man 
 he had seen last nineteen years before in the cabin at 
 Blair's Hollow. 
 
 " Do you know me again? " the man asked. " It's a good 
 many years since we met, and I am not as easy to recognise 
 as you." 
 
 " Yes, I know you," answered big Tom, grasping the out- 
 stretched hand kindly. " I saw you a few days ago and 
 knew you." 
 
 " I did not see you," said Latimer. " And you did not 
 speak to me ? " 
 
 " Xo," answered Tom, slowly; " I thought it over while 
 I walked behind you, and I made up my mind that it might 
 do you no good — and to hold back would do none of us 
 any harm." 
 
 "None of us?" questioned Latimer. 
 
 Big Tom put a hand on his shoulder. 
 
 " Since you spoke to me of your own free will," he said, 
 " let's go and have a talk. There are plenty of quiet corners 
 in this place." 
 
 There were seats which were secluded enough, though, 
 people passed and repassed within sight of them. People 
 often chose such spots to sit and talk together. One 
 saw pairs of lovers, pairs of politicians, couples of sight- 
 seers. 
 
 They found such a seat and sat down. Latimer could 
 not well control the expression his face wore. 
 
 "None of us?" he said again. 
 
 Tom still kept a friendly hand on his shoulder. 
 
 " She is a beautiful young woman, though she will always 
 seem more or less of a child to me/' he said. " I have kept 
 
 360 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 her safe and I've made her happy. That was what I meant 
 to do. I don^t believe she has had a sad hour in her hfe. 
 AMiat I'm sick of is seeing people unhappy. I've kept un- 
 happiness from her. We've loved each other — that's what 
 we've done. She's known nothing but having people about 
 who were fond of her. They were a simple, ignorant lot 
 of mountain hoosiers, but, Lord I they loved her and she 
 loved them. She's enjoyed the spring, and she's enjoyed 
 the summer, and she's enjoyed the autumn and the winter. 
 The rainy days haven't made her feel dull, and the cold 
 ones haven't made her shiver. That's the way she has grown 
 up — just like a pretty fawn or a forest tree. Xow her young 
 mate has come, and the pair of them fell deep in love at 
 sight. They met at the right time and they were the right 
 pair. It was all so natural that she didn't know she was 
 in love at first. She only knew she was happier every 
 day. I knew what was the matter, and it made me happy 
 just to look on. Good lord! Tiow they love each other — 
 those children. How they look at each other every minute 
 without knowing they are doing it; and how they smile 
 when their eyes meet — without knowing why. I know why. 
 It's because they are in paradise — and God knows if it's 
 to be done I'm going to keep them there." 
 
 "My God!" broke from Latimer. "What a heart you 
 have, man! " He turned his face to look at him almost 
 as if in reverent awe. "' Margery's child ! Margery's child! " 
 he repeated to himself. " Is she like her mother ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 " I never saw her mother — when she was happy," Tom 
 answered. " She is taller than her mother and has eyes 
 like a summer morning sky. It's a wonderful face. I 
 sometimes think she must be like — the other." 
 
 361 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 " I want to see her," said Latimer. " She need know 
 nothing about me. I want to see her. May I?" 
 
 " Yes. AVe are staying here to push our claim, and we 
 are hving near Dupont Circle, and doing it as cheaply as we 
 can. We haven't a cent to spare, but that hasn't hurt us 
 so far. If we win our claim we shall be bloated bondholders; 
 if we lose it, we shall have to tramp back to the mountains 
 and build a log hut, and live on nuts and berries until we 
 can raise a crop. The two young ones will set up a nest 
 of their own and live like Adam and Eve — and I swear 
 they won't mind it. They'd be happy rich, but they'll be 
 happy poor. When would you like to come and see her? " 
 
 ^' May I come to-morrow ? " asked Latimer. " And may 
 I bring a friend with me? He is the human being who is 
 nearest to me on earth. He is the only living soul who 
 knows — ^what we know. He is the Eeverend John Baird." 
 
 " What! " said Tom. " The man who is setting the world 
 on fire with his lectures — the ^ Repentance ' man? " 
 
 " Yes.^' 
 
 " She'll like to see him. No one better. We shall all 
 like to see him. We have heard a great deal of him." 
 
 They did not part for half an hour. When they did 
 Latimer knew a great deal of the past. He knew the story 
 of the child's up-growing, with the sun rising from behind 
 one mountain and setting behind another; he seemed to 
 know the people who had loved and been familiar with her 
 throughout her childish and girlish years; he knew of the 
 fanciful name given her in infancy, and of the more fanciful 
 one her primitive friends and playmates had adopted. He 
 knew the story of Rupert, and guessed vaguely at the far 
 past in which Delia Yanuxem had lived and died. 
 
 "Thank God I saw you that day!" he said. "Thank 
 
 362 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 God I went to you that night! " And they grasped hands 
 again and went their separate ways. 
 
 • •••••• 
 
 Latimer went home and told Baird of the meeting and 
 of the appointment for the following day. 
 
 " I felt that you would like to see the man," he said. 
 " He is the finest, simple being in the world. Soul and body 
 are on a like scale." 
 
 " You were right in thinking I should like to see him," 
 answered Baird. " I have thought of him often." He 
 regarded his friend with some anxiety. 
 
 " To meet her face to face will be a strange thing," he 
 added. "Do you think you can hide what you must feel? 
 It will not be easy — even for me." 
 
 " It will not be easy for either of us — if she looks at us 
 with Margery's eyes. You will know them. Margery was 
 happy, too, when the picture you have seen was made." 
 
 That — to see her stand before them in her youth and 
 beauty, all unknowing — would be a strange thing, was the 
 thought in the mind of each as they walked through the 
 streets together, the next evening. The flare of an occa- 
 sional street-lamp falling on Latimer's face revealed all its 
 story to his companion, though it might not have so revealed 
 itself to another. Baird himself was wondering how they 
 should each bear themselves throughout the meeting. She 
 would be so wholly unconscious — this girl who had always 
 been happy and knew nothing of the past. To her they 
 would be but a middle-aged popular lecturer and his unat- 
 tractive-looking friend — while each to himself was a man 
 concealing from her a secret. They must eliminate it from 
 their looks, their voices, their air. They must be frank 
 and courteous and conventional. Baird turned it all over 
 
 363 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 in his mind. When they reached the house the second-story 
 windows were lighted as if to welcome them. Matt opened 
 the door for them, attired in his best and bowing low. To 
 receive such guests he felt to be an important social event, 
 which seemed to increase the chances of the claim and point 
 to a future when distinguished visitors would throng to a 
 much more imposing front door. He announced, with an 
 air of state, that his master and young mistress were " re- 
 ceivin'," and took ceremonious charge of the callers. He 
 had brushed his threadbare coat and polished each brass 
 button singly until it shone. An African imagination aided 
 him to feel the dignity of hospitality. 
 
 The sound of a girl's voice reached them as they went 
 upstairs. They glanced at each other involuntarily, and 
 Latimer's breath was sharply drawn. It was not the best 
 preparation for calmness. 
 
 A glowing small fire was burning in the stove, and, plain 
 and bare as the room was, it was filled with the effect of 
 brightness. Two beautiful young people were laughing 
 together over a book, and both rose and turned eager faces 
 towards the door. Big Tom rose, too, and, advancing to 
 meet the visitors, brought the girl with him. 
 
 She was built on long and supple lines, and had happy 
 eyes and lovely bloom. The happy eyes were Marger3"'s, 
 though they were brown instead of harebell blue, and looked 
 out from a face which was not quite Margery's, though its 
 smile was hers. Latimer asked himself if it was possible 
 that his manner wore the aspect of ordinary calm as he stood 
 before her. 
 
 Sheba wondered at the coldness of his hand as she took it. 
 She was not attracted by his anxious face, and it must be 
 confessed that his personality produced on her the effect 
 
 864 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 it frequently produced on those meeting him for the first 
 time. It was not he who was the great man, but she felt 
 timid before him when he spoke to her. 
 
 No one was shy of Baird. He produced his inevitable 
 effect also. In a few minutes he had become the centre 
 of the small company. He had made friends with Eupert, 
 and launched Tom in conversation. Sheba was listening 
 to him with a brightness of look charming to behold. 
 
 They sat about the table and talked, and he led them 
 all back to the mountains which had been seeming so far 
 away. He wanted to hear of the atmosphere, the life, the 
 people; and yet, as they answered his queries and related 
 anecdotes, he was learning from each one so*nething bearing 
 on the story of the claim. When Tom spoke of Barnesville 
 and Judge Rutherford, or Rupert of Delisleville and Matt, 
 their conversation was guided in such manner that business 
 details of the claim were part of what was said. It was 
 Tom who realised this first and spoke of it. 
 
 " We are talking of our own business as if it was the 
 one subject on earth," he said. " That's the worst of people 
 with a claim. Tve seen a good many of them since I've 
 been in Washington — and we are all alike." 
 
 " I have been asking questions because the subject inter- 
 ests me, too,'^ said Baird. " More people than yourselves 
 discuss it. It formed a chief topic of conversation when 
 I dined with Senator Milner, two nights ago." 
 
 "Milner!" said Tom. '^ He was the man w^ho had not 
 time to hear me in the morning." 
 
 " His daughter, Mrs. Meredith, was inquiring about you. 
 She wanted to hear the story. I shall tell it to her." 
 
 "Ah!" exclaimed Tom; "if you tell it, it will have 
 a chance." 
 
 365 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 " Perhaps/' Baird laughed. " I may he ahle to help j^ou. 
 A man who is used to audiences might be of some practical 
 value/'' 
 
 He met Sheha's e3^es by accident. A warm light leaped 
 into them. 
 
 " They care a great deal more than they will admit to 
 me/' she said to him, when chance left them together a few 
 minutes later, as Tom and Eupert were showing Latimer 
 some books. " They are afraid of making me unhappy by 
 letting me know how serious it will be if everything is lost. 
 They care too much for me — but I care for them, and if 
 I could do anything — or go to anyone " 
 
 He looked into her ej^es through a curious moment of 
 silence. 
 
 " It was not all jest," he said after it, '^ what I said just 
 now. I am a man who has words, and words sometimes are 
 of use. I am going to give you my w^ords — for what they 
 are worth." 
 
 " We shall feel very rich," she answered, and her simple 
 directness might have been addressed to a friend of years' 
 standing. It was a great charm, this sweet acceptance of 
 any kindness. " But I thought you were going away in 
 a few days ? " 
 
 "Yes. But I shall come back, and I shall try to set 
 the ball rolling before I go." 
 
 She glanced at Latimer across the room. 
 
 " Mr. Latimer — " she hesitated; " do you think he does 
 not mind that — that the claim means so much for us? I 
 was afraid. He looked at me so seriously ^" 
 
 " He looked at you a great deal/' interposed Baird, 
 quickly. " He could not help it. I am glad to have this 
 opportunity to tell you — something. You are very like — 
 
 366 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 very like — someone lie loved deeply — someone who died 
 years ago. You must forgive him. It was almost a shock to 
 him to come face to face with you." 
 
 "Ah!" softly. "Someone who died years ago!" She 
 lifted Margery^s eyes and let them rest upon Baird's face. 
 " It must be very strange — it must be almost awful — to find 
 yourself near a person very like someone you have loved — 
 who died years ago." 
 
 " Yes," he answered. " Yes — awful. That is the word." 
 • When the two men walked home together through the 
 streets, the same thought was expressed again, and it was 
 Latimer who expressed it. 
 
 " And when she looked at me," he said, " I almost cried 
 out to her, ^ Margery, Margery! ' The cry leaped up from 
 the depths of me. I don't know how I stopped it. Margery 
 was smaller and more childlike — her eyes are darker, her 
 face is her own, not Margery's — but she looks at one as 
 Margery did. It is the simple clearness of her look, the 
 sweet belief, which does not know life holds a creature who 
 could betray it." 
 
 " Yes, yes," broke from Baird. The exclamation seemed 
 involuntary. 
 
 " Yet there was one who could betray it," Latimer said. 
 
 " You cannot forget," said Baird. " No wonder." 
 
 Latimer shook his head. 
 
 *^ The passing of years," he said, " almost inevitably wipes 
 out or dims all things; but sometimes — not often, thank 
 Fate — there comes a phase of suffering in some man or 
 woman's life. which ^^dll not go. I once knew a woman — 
 she was the kind of woman people envy, and whose life 
 seems brilliant and full; it was full of the things most 
 people want, but the things she wanted were not for her, 
 
 867 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 and there was a black wound in her soul. She had had 
 a child who had come near to healing her, and suddenly 
 he was torn out of her being by death. She said after- 
 wards that she knew she had been mad for months after 
 it happened, though no one suspected her. In the years 
 that followed she dared not allow herself to speak or think 
 of that time of death. ' I must not let myself — I must not.' 
 She said this to me, and shuddered, clenching her hands 
 when she spoke. ^ Never, never, never, will it be better. 
 If a thousand years had passed it would always be the same. 
 One thought or word of it drags me back — and plunges 
 me deep into the old, awful woe. Old — it is not old — 
 it never can be old. It is as if it had happened yesterday — 
 as if it were happening to-day.' I know this is not often 
 so. But it is so with me when a thing drags Margery back 
 to me — drags me back to Margery. To-night, Baird; think 
 what it is to-night! " 
 
 He put a shaking hand on Baird's hand, hurrying him 
 by the unconscious rapidity of his own pace. 
 
 " Think what it is to-night," he repeated. " She seems 
 part of my being. I cannot free myself. I can see her 
 as she was when she last looked at me, as her child looked 
 at me to-night — with joyful bright eyes and lips. It was 
 one day when I went to see her at Boston. She was doing 
 a little picture, and it had been praised at the studio. She 
 was so happj' — so happy. That was the last time." 
 
 " Don't, don't," cried Baird; " you must not call it back." 
 
 " I am not calling it back. It comes, it comes! You must 
 let me go on. You can't stop me. That was the last time. 
 The next time I saw her she had changed. I scarcely knew 
 how — it was so little. The brightness was blurred. Then 
 — then comes all the rest. Her growing illness — the anx- 
 
 368 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 iousness — the long days — the girl at the mills — the talk 
 of those women — the first ghastly, damnable fear — the 
 nights — the Ij'ing awake! " His breath came short and fast. 
 He could not stop himself, it was plain. His words tumbled 
 over each other as if he were a man telling a story in de- 
 lirium. 
 
 " I can see her/' he said. " I can see her — as I went into 
 her room. I can see her shaking hands and lips and childish, 
 terrified eyes. I can feel her convulsive little fingers clutch- 
 ing my feet, and her face — her face — lying upon them when 
 she fell down." 
 
 " I cannot bear it," cried Baird; " I cannot bear it." He 
 had uttered the same cry once before. He had received 
 the same answer. 
 
 " She bore it," said Latimer, fiercely. " That last night 
 — in the cabin on the liillside — her cries — they were not 
 human — no, they did not sound human " 
 
 He was checked. It was Baird's hand which clutched 
 his arm now — it seemed as if for support. The man was 
 swaying a little, and in the light of a street-lamp near them 
 he looked up in a ghastly appeal. 
 
 " Latimer," he said. " Don't go on; you see I can't bear 
 it. I am not so strong as I was — before I began this work. 
 I have lost my nerve. You bring it before me as it is 
 brought before yourself. I am living the thing. I can't 
 bear it." 
 
 Latimer came back from the past. He made an effort 
 to understand and control himself. 
 
 " Yes," he said, quite dull; " that was what the woman 
 I spoke of told me — that she lived the thing again. It is 
 not sane to let one's self go back. I beg j'our pardon, Baird." 
 
 369 
 
CHAPTEE XXXIY 
 
 " It's a curious job, that De "Willoughby claim/' was said 
 in a committee-room of the House, one day. " It's begin- 
 ning to attract attention because it has such an innocent air. 
 The sharp ones say that may be the worst feature of it, 
 because ingenuousness is more dangerous than anything 
 else if a job is thoroughly rotten. The claimants are the 
 most straightforward pair the place has ever seen — a big, 
 humourous, well-mannered country man, and a boy of 
 twenty-three. Eutherford, of Hamlin County, who is a 
 monument of simplicity in himself, is heart and soul in the 
 thing — and Farquhar feels convinced by it. Farquhar is 
 one of the men who are not mixed up with jobs. Milner 
 himself is beginning to give the matter a glance now and 
 then, though he has not committed himself; and now the 
 Eeverend John Baird, the hero of the platform, is taking 
 it up." 
 
 Baird had proved his incidental offer of aid to have been 
 by no means an idle one. He had been oblisred to absent 
 himself from "Washington for a period, but he had returned 
 when his lecture tour had ended, and had shown himself 
 able in a new way. He was the kind of man whose con- 
 versation people wish to hear. He chose the right people 
 and talked to them about the De Willoughby claim. He 
 was interesting and picturesque in connection with it, and 
 lent the topic attractions. Tom had been shrewdly right 
 in saying that his talk of it would give it a chance. 
 
 He went often to the house near the Circle. Latimer 
 
 370 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 did not go with him, and had himself explained his reasons 
 to big Tom. 
 
 " I have seen her/' he said. " It is better that I should 
 not see her often. She is too much like her mother.'' 
 
 But Baird seemed to become by degrees one of the house- 
 hold. Gradually — and it did not take long — Tom and he 
 were familiar friends. They had long talks together, they 
 walked side by side through the streets, they went in com- 
 pany to see the men it was necessary to hold interviews 
 with. Their acquaintance became an intimacy which estab- 
 lished itself with curious naturalness. It was as if they had 
 been men of the same blood, who, having spent their lives 
 apart, on meeting, found pleasure in the discovery of their 
 relationship. The truth was that for the first time in his 
 life big Tom enjoyed a friendship with a man who was 
 educated and, in a measure, of the world into which he 
 himself had been born. Baird's world had been that of Xew 
 England, his own, the world of the South; but they could 
 comprehend each other's parallels and precedents, and argue 
 from somewhat similar planes. In the Delisleville days Tom 
 had formed no intimacies, and had been a sort of Colossus 
 set apart; in the mountains of North Carolina he had con- 
 sorted with the primitive and uneducated in good-humoured, 
 even grateful, friendliness; but he had mentally lived like 
 a hermit. To have talked to Jabe Doty or Xath Hayes 
 on any other subjects than those of crops and mountain 
 politics or sermons would have been to bewilder them hope- 
 lessly. To find himself in mental contact with a man who 
 had lived and thought through all the years during which 
 he himself had vegetated at the Cross-roads, was a wonderful 
 thing to him. He realised that he had long ago given up 
 expecting anything approaching such companionship, and 
 
 871 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 that to indulge in it was to live in a new world. Baird's 
 voice, liis choice of words, his readiness and tact, the very 
 carriage of his fine, silvering head, produced on him the 
 effect of belonging to a new species of human being. 
 
 " You are all the things I have been missing for half 
 a lifetime,^^ he said. "I didn't know what it was I was 
 making up my mind to going without — but it was such 
 men as you." 
 
 On his own part, Baird felt he had made a rich discovery 
 also. The large humour and sweetness, the straightforward 
 unworldliness which was still level-headed and observing, 
 the broad kindliness and belief in humanity which v/ere 
 so far from unintelligent or injudicious, were more attrac- 
 tive to him than any collected characteristics he had met 
 before. They seemed to meet some strained needs in him. 
 To leave his own rooms, and find his way to the house whose 
 atmosphere was of such curious, homely brightness, to be 
 greeted by Sheba's welcoming eyes, to sit and chat with 
 Tom in the twilight or to saunter out with him with an 
 arm through his, were things he soon began to look forward 
 to. He began also to realise that this life of home and the 
 affections was a thing he had lived without. During his 
 brief and wholly unemotional married life he had known 
 nothing like it. His years of widowerhood had been presided 
 over by Mrs. Stornaway, who had assumed the supervision 
 of his child as a duty. Annie had been a properly behaved, 
 rather uninteresting and unresponsive little person. She 
 had neat features and a realisation of the importance of re- 
 spectability and the proprieties which was a credit to Wil- 
 lowfield and her training. She was never gay or inconse- 
 quent or young. She had gone to school, she had had her 
 frocks lengthened and been introduced at tea-parties, ex- 
 
 373 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 actly as had been planned for her. She never committed 
 a breach of discretion and she never formed in any degree 
 an element of special interest. She greatly respected her 
 father's position as a successful man, and left it to be 
 vaguely due to the approbation of Willowfield. 
 
 Big Tom De AVilloughby, in two wooden rooms behind 
 a cross-roads store, in a small frame house kept in order 
 by a negro woman, and in the genteel poverty of Miss Bur- 
 ford's second floor, had surrounded himself with the com- 
 forts and pleasures of the affections. It was not possible 
 to enter the place without feeling their warmth, and Baird 
 found himself nourished by it. He saw that Eupert, too, 
 was nourished by it. His young good looks and manhood 
 were developing under its influence day by day. He seemed 
 to grow taller and stronger. Baird had made friends with 
 him, too, and was with them the night he came in to an- 
 nounce that at last he had got work to do. 
 
 " It is to sell things from behind a counter," he said, 
 and he went to Sheba and lifted her hand to his lips, kissing 
 it before them all. " We know a better man who has done 
 it.'' 
 
 " You know a bigger man who has done it," said Tom. 
 *^ He did it because he was cut out for a failure. You are 
 doing it because you are cut out for a success. It will be 
 a good story for the reporters when the claim goes through, 
 my boy." 
 
 Baird perceived at once that it was a good story, even 
 at this particular period — a story which might be likely to 
 arouse curiosity and interest at a time when the a^wakening 
 of such emotions was of the greatest value. He told it at 
 the house of a magnate of the Supreme Court, the next 
 night. He had a varied and useful audience of important 
 
 373 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 politicians and their wives and daughters, the latter spe- 
 cially fitted to act as mediums of transmission to other audi- 
 ences. He told the anecdote well. It was a good picture, 
 that of the room on Miss Burford's upper floor, the large 
 claimant smiling like a benign Jove, and the handsome 
 youngster bending his head to kiss the girlish hand as if 
 he were doing homage to a queen. 
 
 " I think his feeling was that his failure to get a better 
 thing was a kind of indignity done her,'^ Baird explained. 
 " He comes of a race of men who have worshipped women 
 and beauty in a romantic, troubadour fashion; only the 
 higher professions, and those treated in a patrician, amateur 
 style, were possible to them as work. And yet, as he said, 
 a better man than himself had done this same thing. What 
 moves one is that he has gone out to find work as if he had 
 been born a bricklayer. He tells me they are reaching the 
 end of all they depend on." 
 
 " I'll tell you what it is," said Senator Milner to his daugh- 
 ter, a few days afterwards; " this is going to be a feminine 
 claim. There was a time when I swore I wouldn't touch it, 
 but I foresee what is going to happen. I'm going to give 
 in, and the other opposers are going to give in, and in the 
 end the Government will give in. And it will be principally 
 because a force of wives and daughters has marshalled itself 
 to march to the rescue. No one ever realises what a power 
 the American woman is, and how much she is equal to ac- 
 complishing. If she took as much interest in politics as 
 English women do, she would elect every president and 
 control every party. We are a good-natured lot, and we 
 are fond of our womenkind and believe in them much more 
 than other nations do. They're pretty clever and straight, 
 you know, as well as being attractive, and we can't help 
 
 374 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 realising that they are often worth listening to. So' we 
 listen, and when they drive a truth home we are willing 
 to believe in it. If the feminine halves of the two Houses 
 decide that the De Willoughby claim is all right, they'll 
 prove it to us, and there you are." 
 
 . " I believe we can prove it to you," answered Mrs. Mere- 
 dith. " I went to see the people, and you could prove 
 anything straightforward by merely showing them to the 
 Houses in session. They could not conceal a disingenuous 
 thought among them — the delightful giant, the boy with 
 the eyelashes, the radiant girl, and the old black man put 
 together." 
 
 In the meantime Judge Eutherford did his honest best. 
 He had been too sanguine not to do it with some ruefulness 
 after the first few months. During the passage of these few 
 months many of his ingenuous ideals had been overthrown. 
 It had been borne in upon him that honest virtue was not 
 so "Dowerful a factor as he had believed. The obstacles con- 
 tinually arising in his pathway were not such as honest 
 virtue could remove. The facts that the claim was " as 
 straight as a string," and that big Tom De Willoughby was 
 the best fellow in Hamlin were bewilderingly ineffective. 
 When prospects seemed to shine they might be suddenly 
 overshadowed by the fact that a man whose influence was 
 needed, required it to use for himself in other quarters; 
 when all promised well some apparently unexplainable 
 obstacle brought things to a standstill. 
 
 " Now you see it and now you don't," said Tom, re- 
 signedly. " That's the position. This sort of thing might 
 go on for twenty years." 
 
 He was not aware that he spoke prophetically; yet claims 
 resting on as solid a basis as his own passed through the 
 
 375 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 same dragging processes for thirty years before they were 
 finally settled. But such did not possess the elements of 
 unprofessional picturesqueness this particular one pre- 
 sented told to its upholders and opposers. 
 
 Uncle Matt himself was to be counted among these ele- 
 ments. He had made himself as familiar and popular a 
 figure in the public places of the Capital as he had been 
 in Delisleville. He made friends in the market-house and 
 on the steps of the Capitol and the Treasury and the Pension 
 Office; he hung about official buildings and obtained odd 
 jobs of work, his grey wool, his polished air of respectfulness, 
 his readiness and amiability attracted attention and pleased 
 those who came in contact with him. People talked to him 
 and asked him friendly questions, and when they did so 
 the reason for his presence in Washington and the impor- 
 tance of the matter which had brought his young master 
 to the seat of government were fully explained. 
 
 *' I belongs to de gen'elmen dat's here tendin' to de De 
 Willoughby claim, sah,'^ he would say. " Co'se, sah, you've 
 heern 'bout it up to de Capitol. I'se yere waitin' on Marse 
 Eupert De Willoughby, but co'se he don' live yere — till 
 ye gets his claim through — like he do in de ole family 
 mansh'n at Delisleville — an' my time hangs heavy on my 
 ban's, cos I got so much ledger — so I comes out like dish 
 yer — an' takes a odd job now an' agen." 
 
 It was. not long before he was known as the De Wil- 
 loughby claimant, and loiterers were fond of drawing him 
 out on the subject of the " gol' mines." He gathered a 
 large amount of information on the subjects of claims and 
 the rapid methods of working them. He used to come to 
 Tom sometimes, hot and excited with his struggles to com- 
 
 376 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 prehend detail. " What all dish yer 'bout Marse Eupert's 
 granpa'n' bein' destructively disloyal? Dar warn't no dis- 
 loyal 'bout it. Ef dar was a fault to be foun' with the old 
 Judge it was dat he was mos' too loyal. He couldn' hoi' 
 in, an' he qu'ol with mos' ev'y gen'elman he talk to. He 
 pass shots with one or two he liad a disagreement with. 
 He pass shots with 'em. How's de Guv'ment gwine call 
 a gen'elman ' destructively disloyal ' when he ready any 
 minit to pass shots with his bes' fren's, ef dey don' 'gree 
 with his pol'tics — an' his pol'tics is on de side er Marse 
 Ab'am Lincoln an' de Yankees?" 
 
 The phrase '^ constructively disloyal " rankled in his soul. 
 He argued about it upon every possible occasion, and felt 
 that if the accusation could be disproved the De Willoughby 
 case would be triumphantly concluded, which was in a large 
 measure true. 
 
 " I steddies 'bout dat thing day an' night," he said to 
 Sheba. " Seems like dar oughter be someone to tes'ify. Ef 
 I had de money to travel back to Delisleville, I'd go an' 
 try to hunt someone up." 
 
 He was seated upon the steps of a Government building 
 one afternoon, discussing his favourite subject with some 
 of his coloured friends. He had been unusually eloquent, 
 and had worked himself up to a peroration, when he sud- 
 denly ceased speaking and stared straight across the street 
 to the opposite side of the pavement, in such absorption that 
 he forgot to close his mouth. 
 
 He was gazing at an elderly gentleman with a hook nose 
 and the dashing hat of the broad brim, which was regarded 
 as being almost as much an insignia of the South as the 
 bonnie blue flag itself. 
 
 Uncle Matt got up and shuffled across the street. He 
 
 377 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 had become imconscioiisly apish with excitement. His old 
 black face worked and his hands twitched. 
 
 He was so far out of breath when he reached the stran- 
 ger's side that he could scarcely make himself heard, as, pull- 
 ing his hat oif, he cried, agitatedly: 
 
 "Doctah! Doctah Atkinson, sah! Doctah Williams At- 
 kinson! '' 
 
 The stranger did not hear him distinctly, and waved him 
 off, evidently taking him for a beggar. 
 
 " Tve nothing for you, uncle,'' he said, with condescend- 
 ing good-nature. 
 
 Uncle Matt found some of his breath, though not enough 
 to steady his voice. But his strenuousness was almost pas- 
 sionate. " Doctah Williams Atkinson," he said, " I ain't 
 beggin', Doctah Atkinson, sah; on'y axin' if I might speak 
 a few words to you, sah! " His shrewd insistance on the 
 name was effective. 
 
 The elderly gentleman turned and looked at him in sur- 
 prised questioning. 
 
 "How do you know me?" he said. "This is the first 
 time I have been in Washington — and I've not been here 
 an hour." 
 
 " I knowed you, Doctah Atkinson, sah, in Delisleville, 
 Delisle County. Ev'ybody knowed you, Doctah! I was 
 dar endurin' er de war. I was dar de time j^ou — you an' 
 Judge De Willoughby passed shots 'bout dat Confed'ate 
 flag," 
 
 "What do you want? " said Dr. Atkinson, somewhat un- 
 smilingly. These were days when stories of the Confederate 
 flag were generally avoided. ^Northerners called it the rebel 
 flag. 
 
 Matt had had the discretion to avoid this mistake. He 
 
 378 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 was wild with anxious excitement. Suddenly here had ap- 
 peared a man who could give all the evidence desired, if he 
 would do so. He had left Delisleville immediately on the 
 close of the war and had not been heard of. He might, like 
 so many, be passing on to some unknown point, and remain 
 in the city only between trains. There was no time to find 
 any better quahfied person than himself to attend to this 
 matter. It must be attended to upon the spot and at this 
 moment. Uncle Matt knew all the incongruities of the 
 situation. K'o one could have known them better. But 
 a sort of hysteric courage grew out of his desperation. 
 
 "Doctah Williams Atkinson, sah! " he said. " Mav I 
 take de liberty of walking jes' behin' you an' axin' you a 
 question. I mustn't keep you standin'. I beg you to 'scuse 
 me, sah. I kin talk an' walk at de same time." 
 
 Dr. Williams Atkinson was an amenable person, and 
 Matt's imploring old darky countenance was not without its 
 pathos. He was so evidently racked by his emotions. 
 
 " What is it all about ? " he enquired. 
 
 Matt stood uncovered and spoke fast. The hand holding 
 his hat was shakinsr, as also was his voice. 
 
 " I'm nothin' but a ole niggah man, Doctah Atkinson, 
 sah," he said. " It ain't for myself I'se intrudin' on ye; 
 it's cos dar wasn't time to go fer Marse De Willoughby 
 that could talk it like it oughter be. I jes' had to push 
 my ole niggah self in, fear you'd be gone an' we'd nevah 
 set eves on vou acrin." 
 
 " Walk along by me," said the Doctor. " What about the 
 De Willoughbys; I thought they were all dead." 
 
 " All but Marse Thomas and ^larse Eupert. Dey's 3'ere 
 'tendin' to de claim. Has vou done heern 'bout de claim, 
 Doctah Atkinson?" 
 
 379 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 " No," the Doctor answered. " I have been in too far 
 out West." 
 
 Whereupon Matt plunged into the story of the "goF 
 mines," and the difficulties which had presented themselves 
 in the pathway of the claimant, and the necessity for the 
 production of testimony which would disprove the charge 
 of disloyalty. The detail was not very clear, but it had the 
 effect of carrying Dr. Williams Atkinson back to certain 
 good old days in Delisleville, before his beloved South had 
 been laid low and he had been driven far afield to live 
 among strangers, an alien. For that reason he found him- 
 self moved by the recital and listened to it to its end. 
 
 " But what has this to do with me? " he asked. " What 
 do you want of me ? " 
 
 " When I seed you, sah," Uncle Matt explained, " it all 
 come back to me in a minnit, how you an' de Judge pass 
 shots 'bout dat flag; how you axed him to a dinner-party, 
 an' dar was a Confed'ate officer dar — an' a Confed'ate flag 
 hung up over de table, an' de Judge when he seed it he 
 'fused p'int blank to set down to de table, an' it ended 
 in you goin' out in de gyardin' an' changin' shots." 
 
 " Yes, damn it all," cried Dr. Atkinson, but melted the 
 next moment. " The poor old fellow is dead," he said, " an' 
 he died in disgrace and without friends." 
 
 " Yes," Uncle Matt protested, eagerly; " without a single 
 friend, an' all 'lone 'ceptin' of Marse Eupert — all 'lone. 
 An' it was 'cos he Avas so strong for de Union — an' now 
 de Guv'ment won't let his fambly have his money 'cos dey's 
 tryin' to prove him destructively disloyal — when he changed 
 shots with his bes' friend 'cos he wouldn't set under de 
 Confed'ate flag." 
 
 A grim smile wakened in Dr. Atkinson's face. 
 
 880 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 {( 
 
 What! " he said; "do you want me to explain to the 
 Government that the old scamp would have blown my brains 
 out if he could? '' 
 
 " Doctah Atkinson, sah/' said Uncle Matt, with shrewd 
 gravity, " things is different dese days, an' de Guv'ment don't 
 call dem gen'elmen scamps as was called dat in de Souf." 
 
 He looked up under the broad brim of his companion's 
 hat with impassioned appealing. 
 
 " I jes' 'member one thing, sah," he said; " dat you was 
 a Southern gen'elman, and when a enemy's dead a Southern 
 gen'elman don't cherish no harm agin him, an' you straight 
 from Delisleville, an' you deed an' heerd it all, an' de Guv'- 
 ment ken see plain enough you's no carpet-bag jobber, an' 
 ef a gen'elman like you tes'ify, an' say you was enemies — 
 an' you did pass shots count er dat flag, how's dey gwine 
 talk any more about dis destructive disloyal business? How 
 dey gwine ter do it ? " 
 
 " And I am to be the means of enriching his family — 
 the family of an obstinate old fool, who abused me like 
 a pickpocket and spoiled a dress-coat for me when dress- 
 coats were scarce." 
 
 " He's dead, Doctah Williams Atkinson, sah, he's dead," 
 said Matt. " It was mighty lonesome the way he died, too, 
 in dat big house, dat was stripped by de soldiers, an' ev'y- 
 body dead belonging to him — Miss De Willoughby, an' de 
 young ladies, an' Marse Eomaine, an' Marse De Courcy — 
 no one lef but dat boy. It was mighty lonesome, sah." 
 
 " Yes, that's so," said Dr. Atkinson, reflectively. After 
 a few moments' silence, he added, " Whom do you want 
 me to tell this to? It may be very little use, but it may 
 serve as evidence." 
 
 Uncle Matt stopped upon the pavement. 
 
 381 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 " Would you let me 'scort you to Senator Milner, sah? " 
 he said, in absolute terror at his own daring. '^ Would yon 
 'low me to 'tend you to Senator Grove? I knows what a 
 favior I'se axin\ I knows it doun to de groun'. I scarcely 
 dars't to ax it, but if I loses you, sah, Marse Thomas De 
 Willoughby an' Marse Eupert may lose de claim. Ef I lose 
 you, sah, seems mos' like I gwine to lose my mind." 
 
 There were a thousand chances to one that Senator Mil- 
 ner might not be where Uncle Matt hoped to find him; 
 there were ten thousand chances to one that he might be 
 absorbingly engaged; there were uncountable chances 
 against them obtaining an interview with either man, and 
 yet it so happened they had the curious good luck to come 
 upon Senator Milner absolutely without searching for him. 
 It was rather he who came upon them at one of the entrances 
 of the Capitol itself, before which stood his daughter's car- 
 riage. Mrs. Meredith had spent the morning in the Senate, 
 being interested in the subject under debate. She was going 
 to take her father home to lunch, and as she was about to 
 enter her carriage her glance fell upon the approaching fig- 
 ures of Uncle Matt and his companion. 
 
 " Father," she said, ^' there is the faithful retainer of 
 the De Willoughby claimants, and there is not a shadow of 
 a doubt that he is in search of you. I am convinced that 
 he wishes to present that tall Southerner under the big hat." 
 
 In a moment's space Uncle Matt was before them. The 
 deprecatory respect implied by his genuflections could 
 scarcely be computed. 
 
 " Senator Milner, sah," he said, " Doctah Williams At- 
 kinson of Delisleville has had de kindness to say he do me 
 
 de favior to come yeah, sah, to tes'ify, sah " 
 
 382 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 The large hat was removed by its owner with a fine sweep. 
 " The old fellow thinks I can do his people a service, Sen- 
 ator/' explained Dr. Atkinson. " He is the servant of the 
 De Willoughby claimants, and it seems there has been some 
 question of Judge De Willoughby's loyalty. During the 
 war, sir, he was called disloyal by his neighbours, and was 
 a much hated man." 
 
 Uncle Matt's lips were trembling. He broke forth, for- 
 getting the careful training of his youth. 
 
 " Dar wasn't a gen'elman in de county," he cried, " dar 
 wasn't a gen'elman in de State, mo' hated an' 'spised an' 
 mo' looked down on." 
 
 The lean Southerner nodded acquiescently. " That's 
 true," he said. " It's quite true. He was a copperhead and 
 a firebrand. We detested him. He insulted me at my own 
 table by refusing to sit down under the Southern flag, and 
 the matter ended with pistols." 
 
 " This is interesting, by Jove," said the Senator, and he 
 looked from Uncle Matt to his capture. " I should like 
 to hear more of it." 
 
 " Will you confer a pleasure on me by coming home to 
 lunch with us?" said Mrs. Meredith, who had begun to 
 look radiant. " I am interested in the De Willoughby claim; 
 I would give a great deal to see my father entirely con- 
 vinced. He has been on the verge of conviction for some 
 time. I want him to hear the story with all the details. 
 I beg you will let us take you home with us, Dr. Atkinson." 
 
 " Madame," replied Dr. Williams Atkinson, with an 
 eighteenth century obeisance, " Judge De Willoughby and 
 I lived in open feud, but I am becoming interested in the 
 De Willoughby claim also. I accept your invitation with 
 pleasure." And they drove away together. 
 
 383 
 
CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 " There is a man who seems to have begun to haunt 
 my pathway," Baird said to Tom; " or perhaps it is Lati- 
 mer^s pathway, for it is when Latimer is with me that I 
 meet him. He is small and sharp-featured and unwhole- 
 some." 
 
 " It sounds like Stamps/' laughed big Tom. 
 
 He related the story of Stamps and his herds. The herds 
 had not gained the congressional ear as Mr. Stamps had 
 hoped. He had described their value and the gravity of 
 his loss to everyone who would listen to his eloquence, but 
 the result had been painfully discouraging. His boarding- 
 house had become a cheaper one week by week, and liis blue 
 jeans had grown shabbier. He had fallen into the habit of 
 hanging about the entrances of public buildings and the 
 street corners in the hope of finding hearers and sympa- 
 thisers. His sharp little face had become haggard and more 
 weasel-like than before. Baird recognised big Tom's de- 
 scription of him at once. 
 
 " Yes, it must be Stamps," he said. " What is the mean- 
 ing of his interest in us? Does he think we can provide 
 evidence to prove the value of the herds? What are you 
 thinking of, De Willoughby?" 
 
 In fact, there had suddenly recurred to Tom's mind a 
 recollection of Sheba's fifth birthday and the visit Mr. 
 Stamps had made him. With something of a shock he re- 
 called thie shrewd meekness of his voice as he made his 
 exit. 
 
 384 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 ^' It begins with a ^ L/ Tom; it begins with a ' L.' " 
 
 The need of money was merely the natural expression 
 of Mr. Stamps's nature. He had needed money when he was 
 born, and had laid infant schemes to secure cents from his 
 relatives and their neighbours before he was four years old. 
 But he had never needed it as he did now. The claim for 
 governmental restitution of the value of the daily increasing 
 herds had become the centre of his beins:. His belief in 
 their existence and destruction was in these days profound; 
 his behef that he should finally be remunerated in the name 
 and by the hand of national justice was the breath of life 
 to him. He had at last found a claim agent whose charac- 
 teristics were similar to his own, and, so long as he was able 
 to supply small sums with regularity, this gentleman was 
 willing to encourage him and direct him to fresh effort. 
 Mr. xVbner Linthicum, of Vermont, had enjoyed several 
 successes in connection with two or three singular claims 
 which he had " put through " with the aid of genius com- 
 bined with a peculiar order of executive ability. They had 
 not been large claims, but he had " put them through " 
 when other agents had declined to touch them. In fact, 
 each one had been a claim which had been fought sh}^ of, 
 and one whose final settlement had been commented upon 
 with open derision or raised eyebrows. 
 
 " Yours is the kind of claim I like to take up," he had 
 said to his client in their first interview; ^* but it's the 
 kind that's got to be engineered carefully, and money is 
 needed to grease the wheels. But it'll pay to grease them." 
 
 It had needed money. Stamps had no large sums to give, 
 but he could be bled by drop?. He had changed his cheap 
 boarding-place for a cheaper one, that he might be able to 
 save a few dollars a week: he had left the cheaper one for 
 
 385 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 one cheaper still for the same reason, and had at last camped 
 in a bare room over a store, and lived on shreds of food cost- 
 ing a few cents a day, that he might still grease the wheels. 
 Abner Linthicimi was hard upon him, and was not in the 
 least touched by seeing his meagre little face grow sharper 
 and his garments hang looser upon his small frame. 
 
 " You'll fat on the herds," he would say, with practical 
 jocularity, and Mr. Stamps grinned feebly, his thin lips 
 stretching themselves over hungry teeth. 
 
 The little man burned with the fever of his chase. He 
 sat in his bare room on the edge of his mattress — having 
 neither bedstead nor chairs nor tables — and his finsfers 
 clutched each other as he worked out plans and invented 
 arguments likely to be convincing to an ungrateful Gov- 
 ernment. He used to grow hot and cold over them. 
 
 " Ef Tom 'd hev gone in with me an' helped me to work 
 out that thar thing about Sheby, we mought hev made 
 suthin' as would hev carried me through this," he said to 
 himself more than once. He owed Tom a bitter ffrudsre 
 in a mild wav. His bitterness was the bitterness of a little 
 rat baulked of cheese. 
 
 He had kept safely what he had found in the deserted 
 cabin, but, as the years passed, he lost something of the 
 hopes he had at first cherished. When he had seen Sheba 
 growing into a tall beauty he had calculated that her market 
 value was increasing. A handsome young woman who might 
 marr}^ well, might be willing to pay something to keep a 
 secret quiet — if any practical person knew the secret and 
 it was unpleasant. Well-to-do husbands did not want to 
 hear their wives talked about. When Eupert De Wil- 
 loughby had arrived, Mr. Stamps had had a moment of dis- 
 
 couragement. 
 
 386 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 £( 
 
 He's gvrine to fall in love with her/' he said, " but he'd 
 onghter bin wealthier. Ef the De AVillonghb3'S was what 
 they'd iisedter be he'd be the very feller as 'ud pay for 
 things to be kept quiet. The De AVilloughbys was allers 
 proud an' 'ristycratiC;, an' mighty high-falutin' 'bout their 
 women folk." 
 
 When the subject of the De Willoughby claim was 
 broached he fell into feverish excitement. The De Wil- 
 loughbys had a chance in a hundred of becoming richer 
 than they had ever been. He took his treasure from its 
 hiding-place — sat turning it over, gnawing his finger-nails 
 and breathing fast. But treasure though he counted it, he 
 gained no clue from it but the one he had spoken of to 
 Tom when he had cast his farewell remark to him as he 
 closed the door. 
 
 " Ef there'd hev been more," he said. " A name ain't 
 much when there ain't nothin' to tack on to it. It was 
 curi's enough, but it'd hev to be follered up an' found out. 
 Ef he was only what he 'lowed to be — 'tain't nothin' to 
 hide that a man's wife dies an' leaves a child. I don't 
 b'lieve thar wasn't nothin' to hide — but it'd hev to be proved 
 — an' proved plain. It's mighty aggravatin'." 
 
 One night, seeing a crowd pouring into a hall where a 
 lecture was to be delivered, he had lingered about the en- 
 trance until the carriage containing the lecturer drove up. 
 Here was something to be had for nothing, at all events — 
 he could have a look at the man who was making such a name 
 for himself. There must be something in a man who could 
 demand so much a night for talking to people. He managed 
 to get a place well to the front of the loitering crowd on 
 the pavement. 
 
 The carriage-door was opened and a man got out. 
 
 887 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 " That ain't him/' said a bystander. " That's Latimer. 
 He's always with him." 
 
 The lecturer descended immediately after his companion, 
 but Stamps, who was pushing past a man who had got in 
 front of him, was displaying this eagerness, not that 
 he might see the hero of the hour, but that he might 
 look squarely at the friend who had shghtly turned his 
 face. 
 
 "Gosh!" ejaculated the little hoosier, a minute later. 
 " I'd most swear to him." 
 
 He was exasperatedly conscious that he could not quite 
 have sworn to him. The man he had seen nineteen years 
 before had been dressed in clumsily made homespun; he 
 had worn his black hair long and his beard had been un- 
 shaven. Nineteen years were nineteen years, and the garb 
 and bearing of civilisation would make a baffling change in 
 any man previously seen attired in homespun, and carrying 
 himself as an unsociable hoosier. 
 
 " But I'd most sw'ar to him — most." Stamps went 
 through the streets muttering, "I'd most swar!'' 
 
 It was but a few days later that Latimer saw him standing 
 on a street corner staring at him as he himself approached. 
 It was his curious intentness which attracted Latimer. He 
 did not recognise his face. He had not seen him more than 
 once in the days so long gone by, and had then cast a mere 
 abstracted glance at him. He did not know him again — 
 though his garments vaguely recalled months when he had 
 only seen men clothed in jeans of blue, or copperas brown. 
 He saw him again the next da}', and again the next, and 
 after that he seemed to chance upon him so often that he 
 could not help observing and reflecting upon the eager scru- 
 tiny in his wrinl^led countenance. 
 
 388 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 " Do you see that man? " lie remarked to Baird. " I come 
 upon liim everywhere. Do you know him? " 
 
 " Xo. I thought it possible you did — or that he recog- 
 nised one of us — or wanted to ask some question." 
 
 After his conversation with big Tom De Willoughby, 
 Latimer heard from Baird the story of the herds and their 
 indefatigable claimant. 
 
 "lie comes from the Cross-roads?'' said Latimer. "I 
 don't remember his face." 
 
 " Do you think/' said Baird, rather slowty, " that he 
 thinks he remembers yours?" 
 
 A week passed before Latimer encountered him again. 
 On this occasion he was alone. Baird had gone South to 
 Delisleville in the interests of the claim. He had unex- 
 pectedly heard rumours of some valuable evidence which 
 might be gathered in a special Cjuarter at this particular 
 moment, and had set out upon the journey at a few hours' 
 notice. 
 
 Stamps had passed two days and nights in torment. He 
 had learned from Mr. Linthicum that his claim had reached 
 one of the critical points all claims must pass. More money 
 was needed to grease the wheels that they might carry it 
 past the crisis safely. Stamps had been starving himself for 
 days and had gone without fire for weeks, but the wheels 
 had refused to budge for the sum he managed to produce. 
 He was we-ak, and so feverish with anxiety and hunger 
 that his lips were cracked and his tongue dry to rasping. 
 
 " It's all I kin scrape, Linthicum," he said to that gentle- 
 man. " I kin get a few dollars more if Minty kin sell her 
 crop o' corn an' send me the money — but this is ever}' cent 
 I kin give ye now. Won't it do notlmi'f " 
 
 1^0, it won't," answered the claim agent, with a final 
 
 389 
 
 a 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 sort of shnig. " "We're dealing with a business that's got 
 to be handled well or it'll all end in smoke. / can't work 
 on the driblets you've been bringing me — and^ what's more, 
 I should be a fool to try." 
 
 " But ye wouldn't give it up! " cried Stamps, in a panic. 
 "Ye couldn't throw me over, Linthicum! " 
 
 " There's no throwing over about it/' Linthicum said. 
 " I shall have to give the thing up if I can't keep it going. 
 Money's got to be used over a claim like this. I have had 
 to ask men for a thousand dollars at a time — and the thing 
 they were working was easier to be done than this is." 
 
 " A thousand dollars! " cried Stamps. He grew livid and 
 a lump worked in his throat, as if he was going to cry. " A 
 thousand dollars 'ud buy me and sell me twice over, Mr. 
 Linthicum." 
 
 " I'm not asking you for a thousand dollars yet," said 
 Linthicum. " I may have to ask you for five hundred be- 
 fore long — but I'm not doing it now." 
 
 "Five hundred!" gasped Stamps, and he sat down in 
 a heap and dropped his damp forehead on his hands. 
 
 That night, as Latimer entered the house of an acquaint- 
 ance with whom he was going to spend the evening, he 
 caught sight of the, by this time, familiar figure on the 
 opposite side of the street. 
 
 The night was cold and damp, and rain was falling when 
 the door closed behind him. He heard it descending stead- 
 ily throughout the evening, and more than once the con- 
 tinuance of the downpour was commented upon by some 
 member of the company. When the guests separated for 
 the night and Latimer turned into the street again, he had 
 scarcely walked five yards before hearing a cough; he cast 
 a glance over his shoulder and saw the small man in blue 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 jeans. The jeans were wet and water was dropping from 
 the brim of the old felt hat. The idea which at once pos- 
 sessed his mind was that for some mysterious reason best 
 known to himself the wearer had been waiting for and was 
 following him. What was it for? He turned about sud- 
 denly and faced the person who seemed so unduly interested 
 in his actions. 
 
 " Do you want to speak to me ? " he demanded. 
 
 This movement^ being abrupt, rather upset Mr. Stamps's 
 calculations. He came to a standstill, looking surprised 
 and nervous. 
 
 " Thar ain't no harm done/' he said. " I aimed to find 
 out whar ye lived." 
 
 " Have you been waiting for me to come out of the 
 house?'' asked Latimer, feeling some curiosity. 
 
 Stamps admitted that he had, the admission being some- 
 what reluctant, as if he felt it might commit him to some- 
 thing. Having so far betrayed himself, however, he drew 
 something nearer, with a suggestion of stealthiness. 
 
 Ye're mighty like a man I once knowed," he said. 
 
 Yer powerful like him. I never seed two men more liker 
 each other." 
 
 "Where did he live when you knew him?" Latimer en- 
 quired, the wretched, dank little figure suddenly assuming 
 the haunting air of something his eye must have rested on 
 before. 
 
 " I seen him in iSTorth Ca'llina. He did not live thar — 
 in the way other folks did. He was jest stayin'. I won't 
 keep ye standin' in the rain," insinuatingly. " I'll jest walk 
 along by ye." 
 
 Latimer walked on. This dragged him back again, as 
 other things had done once or twice. He did not speak, but 
 
 391 
 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 strode on almost too rapidly for Stamps's short legs. The 
 short legs began to trot, and their owner to continue his 
 explanations rather breathlessly. 
 
 " He warn^t livin' thar same as other folks/' he said. 
 " Thar was suthin^ curi's about him. Nobody knowed noth- 
 in^ about him, an' nobody knew nothin' about his wife. 
 Now I come to think of it, nobody ever knowed his name 
 — but me." 
 
 "Did he tell it to you?'' said Latimer, rigidly. 
 
 " No/' with something verging on a chuckle, discreetly 
 strangled at its birth. " Neither him nor his wife was 
 tellin' things just then. They was layin' mighty low. She 
 died when her child was horned, an' he lit out right away 
 an' ain't never been heern tell of since." 
 
 Latimer said nothing. The rain began to fall more heav- 
 ily, and Mr. Stamps trotted on. 
 
 " 'Lowin' for store clothes an' agein'," he continued, " I 
 never seen two fellers favour each other as you two do. An' 
 his name bein' the same as yourn, makes it curi'ser still." 
 
 " You are getting very wet," was Latimer's sole comment. 
 
 "I got wet to the skin long afore you come out that 
 house where ye was," said Mr. Stamps; " but I 'low to find 
 out whar ye live." 
 
 " I live about a quarter of a mile from here," said Latimer. 
 "The brick house with the bay windows, opposite the 
 square. Number 89." 
 
 " I'd rather see ye in," replied Stamps, cautiously. 
 
 "I might go into a house I do not live in," returned 
 Latimer. 
 
 " Ye w^on't. It's too late. Ain't ye gwine to say nothin', 
 Mr. Latimer? " 
 
 "What do you want me to say?" 
 
 392 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 <i 
 
 Sheby's good-lookin' gal," Stamps said. ^' Tom's done 
 well by her. Ef they get their claim through they'll be 
 powerful rich. Young D'Willerby he's mightily in love 
 with her — an' he wouldn't want no talk." 
 
 " There is the house I live in at present," said Latimer, 
 pointing with his umbrella. " We shall be there directly." 
 
 " Ministers don't want no talk neither," proceeded 
 Stamps. " Ef a minister had made a slip an' tried hard 
 to hide it an' then hed it proved on him he wouldn't like 
 it — an' his church members wouldn't like it — an' his high 
 class friends. There'd be a heap er trouble." 
 
 " Xumber 89," said Latimer. " You see I was speaking 
 the truth. This is the gate; I am going in." 
 
 His tone and method were so unsatisfactory and unmoved 
 that — remembering Abner Linthicum — Stamps became des- 
 perate. He clutched Latimer's arm and held it. 
 
 " It'd be worth monev fur him to orit safe hold of them 
 letters. Thar was two on 'em. I didn't let on to Tom. 
 I wasn't gwine to let on to him till I found out he'd go 
 in with me. Them as knowed the man they was writ by 
 'ud be able to see a heap in 'em. They'd give him away. 
 Ye'd better get hold of 'em. They're worth five hundred. 
 They're yourn — ye wrote 'em yourself. Ye ain't jest like 
 him — ye're him — I'll sw'ar to ye! " 
 
 Latimer suddenly saw his mother's mild Xew England 
 countenance, with its faded blue eyes. He remembered the 
 hours he had spent telling her the details of the sunny days 
 in Italy, where Margery had lain smiling in the sunset. He 
 looked down the long wet street, the lamps gleaming on its 
 shining surface. He thought of Baird, who would not re- 
 turn until the day on which he was to deliver a farewell 
 lecture before leaving Washington. He recalled his prompt- 
 
 393 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 ness of resource and readiness for action. If Baird were but 
 in the room above in wliich the light burned he would tell 
 him! His mind seemed to vault over all else at this instant 
 — to realise the thing which it had not reached at the first 
 shock. He turned on Stamps. 
 
 "You say there were letters?" he exclaimed, forgetting 
 his previous unresponsiveness. 
 
 " Two. Not long 'uns, an' wrote keerful — without no 
 name. But they say a heap. They was wrote when he 
 had to leave her." 
 
 Latimer's heart seemed physically to turn over in his side. 
 He had never known she had had a line of handwriting in 
 her possession. This must be some scrap of paper, some last, 
 last words she clung to with such anguish of desperation 
 that she could not tear herself from them, and so had died 
 leaving them in their secret hiding-place. The thought was 
 a shock. The effort it cost him to regain his self-control 
 was gigantic. But he recovered his outward calm. 
 
 " You had better go home and change your clothing," he 
 said, as coldly as he had spoken before. " You are not 
 a young man or a strong one, and you may kill yourself. 
 You are making a mistake about me; but if you will give 
 me your address I will see you again." 
 
 " I thort ye would — mebbe," said Stamps. " I thort 
 mebbe ye would. They're worth it." 
 
 And he scribbled a few words on a scrap of paper with 
 a stump of a pencil — producing both rapidly from his 
 pocket — and thrusting it into Latimer's hand, trotted away 
 contentedly down the long wet street. 
 
 394 
 
CHAPTER XXXA'I 
 
 As he entered his rooms, Latimer glanced round at 
 Baird's empty chair and wished he had found him sitting 
 in it. He walked over to it and sat down himself — simply 
 because it was Baird's chair and suggested his presence. 
 Latimer knew how he would have turned to look at him 
 as he came in, and that he would at once have known by 
 instinct that the old abyss had been re-opened. 
 
 " If he were here/' he thought, " he would tell me what 
 to do." 
 
 But he knew what he was going to do. He must buy 
 the little hoosier's silence if it was to be bought. He should 
 see the letters. Through all those months she had hidden 
 them. He could imagine with what terror. She could not 
 bear to destroy them, and yet he knew there must have 
 been weeks she did not dare to go near their hiding-place. 
 They must have been concealed in some cranny of the cabin. 
 How she must have shuddered with dread when he had 
 accidentally approached the spot where they lay concealed. 
 He recalled now that several times he had been wakened 
 from his sleep in the middle of the night by hearing her 
 moving about her room and sobbing. She had perhaps 
 crept out of her bed in the darkness to find these scraps 
 of paper, to hold them in her hands, to crush them against 
 her heart, to cover them with piteous kisses, salt with scald- 
 ins: tears. 
 
 On one such night he had risen, and, going to the closed 
 door, had spoken to her through it, asking her if she was ill. 
 
 395 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 "ISTo, no, Lucien/' she had cried out, "but — ^but I am 
 so lonely — so lonely.'^ 
 
 She had told him the next day that the sound of the wind 
 soughing in the pines had kept her from sleep, and she 
 had got up because she could not bear to be still and listen. 
 
 He had known well what she meant by her desolate little 
 answer to him. She had been a beloved thing always. As 
 a child her playmates had loved her, as a school-girl she had 
 won the hearts of companions and teachers alike. Nature 
 had endowed her with the brightness and sweetness which 
 win affection. The smile in her eyes wakened an answer 
 even in the look of passing strangers. Suddenly all had 
 changed. She was hidden in the darkness, crushed and 
 shamed, an outcast and a pariah — a thing only to be kept 
 out of sight. Sometimes, after she had been sitting lost 
 in thought, Latimer had seen her look up bewildered, glance 
 at her little, deformed body, and sit white and trembling. 
 
 *' Everything is different," she panted out once. " It is 
 as if all the world was black. It is — because — because I am 
 black! " 
 
 Latimer had made no effort to wring from her the name 
 she had prayed to be allowed to hide; yet he had often 
 wondered that in some hysteric moment it had not escaped 
 her — that mere helpless anguish did not betray her into 
 uttering some word or phrase which might have served as 
 a clue. But this she had never done, and between them 
 there had been built a stone wall of silence. Yet, in spite 
 of it, he had known that her young heart was broken with 
 love for this nameless traitor — a love which would not die. 
 He had seen it in the woe of her eyes, in the childlike 
 longing of her look when she sat and gazed out over the 
 wild beauty of the land, thinking she was unobserved. In 
 
 306 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 his own soul there had been black, bitter hate, but in hers 
 only loneliness and pain. 
 
 There came back to him — and he sprang np and ground 
 his teeth, pacing the floor as he remembered it — a night 
 when she had wandered out alone in the starlig^ht, and at 
 last he had followed her and f oimd her — though she did not 
 know he was near — standing where the roof of pine-trees 
 made a darkness, and as he stood within four feet of her 
 he had heard her cry to the desolate stillness: 
 
 "If I could see you once! If I could see you once — if 
 I could touch you — if I could hear you speak — just once — 
 just once! " 
 
 And she had wailed it low — but as a starving child might 
 cry for bread. And he had turned and gone away, sick of 
 soul, leaving her. 
 
 He had told this to Baird, and had seen the muscles of 
 his face twitch and his eyes suddenly fill with tears. He 
 had left his seat and crossed the room to conceal his emo' 
 tion, and Latimer had known that he did not speak because 
 he could not. 
 
 The letters were written with caution. Stamps had said, 
 and the mention of names had been avoided in them; and, 
 though he ground his teeth again as he thought of this, he 
 realised that the knowledge brought by a name would be 
 of no value to him. Long ago he had said to big Tom in 
 the cabin on the hillside: "If ever we meet face to face 
 knowing each other, I swear I will not spare him." Spare 
 him? Spare him what? What vengeance could he work 
 which would wipe out one hour of that past woe? Xone. He 
 had grown sick to death in dwelling with the memories he 
 could not bury. He had been born cursed by the tempera- 
 ment which cannot outlive. There are such. And it was the 
 
 397 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 temperament to which vengeance brings no relief. ]N'o; if 
 they two met face to face, what words conld be said — what 
 deeds could be done? His forehead and hands grew damp 
 with cold sweat as he confronted the despair of it. 
 
 "Better tliat I should not know his name/' he cried. 
 " Better that we should never meet. Pray God that he is 
 dead; pray God the earth does not hold him." 
 
 The man who had followed him had plainly but one pur- 
 pose, which was the obtaining of money. He looked as if 
 he needed it directly. He would go to him and pay him 
 what he asked and get the papers. They must be in no 
 other hands than his own. When he had them, Baird and 
 himself would destroy them together, and that would be 
 the end. 
 
 He encountered no difficulties when he went in search 
 of the address Stamps had given him. The room he had 
 directed him to was over a small store on the south side 
 of Pennsylvania Avenue. When he entered it he saw at 
 once that the man whose circumstances reduced him to 
 living in it must be one whose need of money was great 
 indeed. It was entirely unfurnished, except for a mattress 
 lying on the floor, and Stamps was stretched upon it, cough- 
 ing and feverish. 
 
 *' Come in," he said. " I knowed ye'd be here purty soon. 
 Thar ain't no chair to ax ye to set down in." 
 
 " I do not want to sit," said Latimer. " You are ill. 
 You caught cold last night." 
 
 " I s'pose I did, durn it," answered Stamps. " I got 
 drenched to the skin, an' I hadn't nothin' dry to put on 
 when I got home. But I'd seen ye — an' told ye what I'd 
 'lowed to tell ye." 
 
 "Where are the papers you spoke of?" Latimer asked. 
 
 398 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 Stamps's feverish lips stretched themselves in an agree- 
 able smile. 
 
 " They ain^t yere/' he answered; " an' they won't be yere 
 till I've got the pay fur 'em. Ef thar was names in 'em 
 they'd cost ye a heap more than five hundred dollars — an' 
 they'd cost ye more anyhow ef I hadn't a use for that five 
 hundred jest this particular time." 
 
 " Where are they ? " enquired Latimer. He meant to 
 waste no words. 
 
 '' They're in Xorth Ca'lliny," answered the little moun- 
 taineer^ cheerfully. " An' I've got a woman thar es'll send 
 'em when I want 'em." 
 
 " She may send them when you wish." 
 
 Stamps fell into a paroxysm of coughing, clutching his 
 side. 
 
 ""Will ye give five hundred?" he panted when it was 
 over. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Ye want 'em pretty bad, do ye? " said Stamps, looking 
 at him with a curiosity not untinged with dubiousness. He 
 was sharp enough to realise that, upon the whole_, his case 
 was not a strong one. 
 
 " I don't want them for the reason you think I want them 
 for," Latimer replied; his voice was cold and hard, and his 
 manner unpromisingly free from emotion or eagerness. " I 
 want them for a reason of my own. As for your pretence 
 of recognising me as a man you have seen before, go out 
 into the street corners and say what you choose. M}- friends 
 know how and where my life has been spent, and you are 
 shrewd enough to know how far your word will stand against 
 mine. If you need the money now, you had better produce 
 what you have to sell." 
 
 899 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 " I could get ye mightily talked about/' said Stamps, rest- 
 lessly. 
 
 " Try it," answered Latimer, and turned as if to walk 
 out of the room. He knew what he was dealing with, and 
 saw the fevered cupidity and fear in the little, shifting eyes. 
 
 Stamps struggled up into a sitting posture on his mattress 
 and broke forth into coughs again. 
 
 " Come back yere," he cried between gasps; " ye needn't 
 ter go." 
 
 Latimer paused where he stood and waited until the fit 
 of coughing was over; and Stamps threw himself back ex- 
 hausted. His shifty eyes burned uncannily, his physical 
 and mental fever were too much for him. Linthicum had 
 just left him before Latimer arrived, and upon the produc- 
 tion of five hundred dollars rested the fate of the claim for 
 the herds. 
 
 " Ef ye'll bring the money — cash down — next Saturday," 
 he said, " I'll give ye the papers. I'll hev 'em yere by then. 
 "When ye've got 'em," with the agreeable grin again, " ye 
 kin go to yer friend's far'well lecture easy in ye mind. Ye 
 wouldn't be likely to go to many of 'em ef he knowed what 
 I could tell him. He's powerful thick with Tom D'Willeby 
 and Sheby. They think a heap of him. Tom must hev 
 guessed what I've guessed, but he don't want no talk on 
 accounts o' Sheby. Tom knows which side his bread's but- 
 tered — he ain't nigh as big a fool as he looks." 
 
 Latimer stood still. 
 
 *^Xext Saturday?" was his sole response. "In the 
 meantime, I should advise you to send for the doctor." 
 
 He left him coughing and catching at his side. 
 
 400 
 
CHAPTER XXXYII 
 
 DuEiXG this week Judge Eutherford's every hour was 
 filled with action and excitement. He had not a friend 
 or acquaintance in either House whom he did not seek out 
 and labour with. He was to be seen in the lobby, in the 
 corridors, in committee-rooms, arguing and explaining, 
 with sheafs of papers in his hands and bundles of documents 
 bulging out of his pockets. He walked down the avenue 
 holding the arm of his latest capture, his trustworthy coun- 
 tenance heated by his interest and anxiety, his hat thrust 
 on the back of his head. " There's got to be justice done," 
 he would protest. " You see^ justice has got to be done. 
 There's no other way out of it. And I'd swear there ain't 
 a man among you who doesn't own up that it is justice, now 
 all this evidence has been brought together. The country 
 couldn't be responsible for throwing the thing over — even 
 till another session. Everything's in black and white and 
 sworn to and proved — ^^and the papers Baird has sent in 
 clinch the whole thing. Xow just look here — " x\nd he 
 would repeat his story and refer to his documents, until 
 even the indifferent succumbed through exhaustion, if not 
 conviction. 
 
 He appeared at Dupont Circle two or three times a day, 
 always fevered with delighted hope, always with some anec- 
 dote to relate which prognosticated ultimate triumph. If 
 he could not find anyone else to talk to he seized upon Miss 
 Burford or Uncle Matt and poured forth his news to them. 
 He wrote exultant letters to Jenny, the contents of which, 
 being given to Barnesville, travelled at once to Talbot's 
 
 401 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 Cross-roads and wakened it to exhilarated joyfulness, draw- 
 ing crowds to the Post-office and perceptibly increasing the 
 traffic on the roads from the mountains to that centre of 
 civilised social intercourse. 
 
 " Tom's agwine to win his claim/' it was said. " Judge 
 Eutherford's walkin' it right through for him. Tom'll be 
 way ahead of the richest man in Hamlin. Sheby '11 be a 
 hairest. Lordy! what a sight it'll be to see 'em come back. 
 Wonder whar they'll build! " 
 
 In Washington it had begun to be admitted even by the 
 reluctant that the fortunes of the De Willoughby claim 
 seemed to have taken a turn. Members of substantial po- 
 sition discussed it among themselves. It was a large claim, 
 and therefore a serious one, but it had finally presented 
 itself upon an apparently solid foundation. 
 
 " And it is the member from the mountain districts, and 
 the old negro, and the popular minister who will have carried 
 it through if it passes," said Senator Milner to his daughter. 
 " It is a monumental thing at this crisis of affairs — a huge, 
 unpopular claim on a resenting government carried through 
 by persons impelled solely by the most purely primitive and 
 disinterested of motives. An ingenuous county politician, 
 fresh from his native wilds, works for it through sheer pre- 
 historic affection and neighbourliness; an old black man 
 — out of a story-book — forges a powerful link of evidence 
 for mere faithful love's sake; a man who is a minister of 
 the gospel, a gentleman and above reproach, gives to its 
 service all his interest, solely because he cherishes an affec- 
 tionate admiration for the claimants. Xobody has laboured 
 with any desire for return. Nobody has bargained for any- 
 thing. Nobody would accept anything if it was offered 
 to them. The whole a-ffair has been Arcadian." 
 
 402 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 "Will it be decided for the De Willoiighbys— will it?" 
 said Mrs. Meredith. 
 
 " Yes," answered the Senator; " I think it will. And 
 I confess I shall not advance any objections." 
 
 Meeting big Tom on the avenue, Ezra Stamps stopped 
 him. 
 
 " Tom/' he wheezed, hoarsely, " I heern tell you was 
 likely ter git yer claim through." 
 
 " There are times when you can hear that about almost 
 any claim," answered Tom. " What I'm waiting for is to 
 hear that I've got it through." 
 
 Stamps gnawed his finger-nails restlessly. 
 
 " Ye're lucky," he said; " ye alius was lucky." 
 
 ''How about the herds?" said Tom. 
 
 Stamps gave him an agonised look. 
 
 " Hev ye ever said anything agen me, Tom — to any man 
 with inflooence? Hev ye, now? 'Twouldn't be neigh- 
 bourly of ye if ye bed — an' we both come from the Cross- 
 roads — an' I alius give ye my custom. Ye won't never go 
 agen me, will ye, Tom?" 
 
 " I've never been asked any questions about you," Tom 
 said. " Look here, you had better go to some hospital and 
 ask to be taken in. What are you walking about the street 
 for in that fix? You can scarcely breathe." 
 
 " I'm a-gwine to walk about rmtil Saturday," answered 
 Stamps, with a grin. " I'm lookin' arter my own claim — 
 an' Abner Linthicum. Arter Saturday I'll lie up for a 
 spell." 
 
 " You'd better do it before Saturday," Tom remarked 
 as he left him. 
 
 Stamps stood and watched him walk away, and then 
 turned into a drug-store and bought a cheap bottle of cough 
 
 403 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 mixture. He was passing through the early stages of pneu- 
 monia, and was almost too weak to walk, but he had gone 
 from place to place that morning like a machine. Linthi- 
 cum had driven him. So long as he was employed in badg- 
 ering other men he was not hanging about the agent's office. 
 Linthicum was not anxious that he should be seen there 
 too frequently. After the payment of the five hundred 
 dollars there would be no more to be wrung from him, and 
 he could be dropped. He could be told that it was useless 
 to push the claim further. Until the five hundred was 
 secured, however, he must be kept busy. Consequently, 
 he went from one man to the other until he could walk 
 no more. Then he crawled back to his room and sent a note 
 to Latimer. 
 
 " I cayn't git the papers tel Saturday afternoon. Ef ye 
 bring the money about seven ye ken hev them. 'Tain't 
 no use comin' no earlier." 
 
 Latimer found the communication when he returned to 
 his rooms in the evening. He had been out on business 
 connected with Baird's final lecture. It was to be a special 
 event, and was delivered in response to a general request. 
 A building of larger dimensions than the hall previously 
 used had been engaged. The demand for seats had been 
 continuously increasing. The newspaper and social discus- 
 sion of the prospects of the De Willoughby claim had added 
 to the interest in Baird. This brilliant and popular man, 
 this charming and gifted fellow, had felt such a generous 
 desire to assist the claimants that he had gone South in the 
 interest of their fortunes. He had been detained in De- 
 lisleville and could barely return in time to appear before 
 his audience. 
 
 The enthusiasm and eagerness were immense. Every 
 
 404 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 man who had not heard him felt he must hear him now; 
 everyone who had heard him was moved by the wish to 
 be of his audience again. Latimer had been besieged on 
 all sides, and, after a hard day, had come home fagged and 
 worn. But he was not worn only by business interviews, 
 newspaper people, and applicants for seats which could not 
 be obtained. He was worn by his thoughts of the past days, 
 by his lack of Baird^s presence and his desire for his return. 
 His influence was always a controlling and supporting one. 
 Latimer felt less morbid and more sane when they were 
 together. 
 
 This same night Senator Milner and Judge Rutherford 
 called in company at the house near the Circle. When 
 Uncle Matt opened the door for them Judge Eutherford 
 seized his hand and shook it vigorously. The Judge was in 
 the mood to shake hands with everybody. 
 
 " Uncle Matt," he said, " we're going to get it through, 
 and in a week's time you'll be a rich man's servant." 
 
 Matt fled back to Miss Burford trembling with joy and 
 excitement. 
 
 "Do ye think we is gwine t'rough, ma'am?" he said. 
 " D'ye think we is ? Seems like we was the Isrilites a-cross- 
 in' the Red Sea, an' the fust of us is jest steppin' on de sho'. 
 Lordy, Miss Burford, ma'am, I don't know how I'se gwine 
 to stan' dat great day when we is th'ough, shore enuff. 
 Wash'n'ton city ain't gwine be big enufl to hoi' me." 
 
 "It will be a great day. Uncle Matthew," replied Miss 
 Burford, with elated decorum of manner. " The De Wil- 
 loughby mansion restored to its former elegance. Mr. 
 Thomas De Willoughby the possessor of wealth, and the 
 two young people — " She bridled a little, gently, and 
 touched her eyes with her handkerchief with a slight cough. 
 
 405 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 " When ^larse De Coiircy an' Miss Delia Yannxem was 
 married, dar was people from fo' counties at de infar/' said 
 Matt. " De fust woman what I was married to, she done 
 de cookin'/' 
 
 Senator Milner was shaking hands with big Tom upstairs. 
 He regarded him with interest, remembering the morning 
 he had evaded an interview with him. The little room 
 was interesting; the two beautiful young people suggested 
 the atmosphere of a fairy story. 
 
 " You are on the verge of huge good fortune, I think, 
 Mr. De Willoughby," he said. ^^ I felt that I should like 
 to come with Eutherford to tell you that all is going very 
 well with your claim. Members favour it whose expression 
 of opinion is an enormous weight in the balance. Judge 
 Eutherford is going to speak for you — and so am I." 
 
 Judge Eutherford shook Tom's hand rather more vig- 
 orously than he had shaken Matt's. " I wish to the Lord 
 I was an orator, Tom," he said. " If I can't make them 
 listen to me this time I believe I shall blow my brains out. 
 But, what with Williams, Atkinson, and Baird, we've got 
 things that are pretty convincing, and somehow I swear 
 the claim has begun to be popular." 
 
 When the two men had gone the little room was for a 
 few moments very still. Each person in it was under the 
 influence of curiously strong emotion. Anxious waiting 
 pfinnot find itself upon the brink of great fortune and re- 
 •^nin unmoved. Some papers with calculations worked out 
 n them lay upon the table, and big Tom sat looking at 
 them silently. Sheba stood a few feet away from him, her 
 cheeks flushed, light breaths coming quickly through her 
 parted lips. Eupert looked at her as youth and love must 
 look at love and youth. 
 
 406 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 "Uncle Tom," he said, at last, "are you thinking of 
 what we shall do if we find ourselves millionaires ? " 
 
 " iSTo," answered Tom. 
 
 His eyes rested on the boy in thoughtful questioning. 
 
 " No; I'll own I'm not thinking of that." 
 
 " Neither am I," said Eupert. He drew nearer to Sheba. 
 " It would be a strange thing to waken and find ourselves 
 owners of a fortune," he said. " We may waken to find it 
 so — in a few days. But there is always a chance that things 
 may fail one. I was thinking of what we should do if — 
 we lose everything." 
 
 Sheba put out her slim hand. She smiled with trembling 
 lips. 
 
 " We have been across the mountain/' she said. " We 
 came together — and we will go back together. Will you 
 go back with us, Eupert?" 
 
 He took her in his strong young arms and kissed her, 
 while Tom looked on. 
 
 "That is what I was thinkinof" he cried; "that it does 
 not matter whether we win the claim or lose it. The house 
 is gone and the store is gone, but we can add a room to 
 the cabin in Blair's Hollow — we can do it ourselves — and I 
 will learn to plough." 
 
 He dropped on one knee like a young knight and kissed 
 her little, warm, soft palm. 
 
 "' If I can take care of you and Uncle Tom, Sheba," he 
 said, " will you marry me? " 
 
 " Yes, I will marry you," she answered. " We three can 
 be happy together — and there will always be the spring 
 and the summer and the winter." 
 
 " May she marry me, Uncle Tom," Eupert asked, " even 
 though we begin life like Adam and Eve? " 
 
 407 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 " She shall marry you the day we go back to the moun- 
 tains/' said Tom. " I always thought Adam and Eve would 
 have had a pretty fair show — if they had not left the Garden 
 of Eden behind them when they began the world for them- 
 selves. You won't have left it behind you. You'll find it 
 in the immediate vicinity of Talbot's Cross-roads." 
 
 408- 
 
CHAPTER XXXYIII 
 
 The facts in detail which the Reverend John Baird had 
 journeyed to Delisle County in the hope of being able to 
 gather, he had been successful in gaining practical posses- 
 sion of. Having personal charm, grace in stating a case, 
 and many resources both of ability and manner, he had 
 the power to attract even the prejudiced, and finally to win 
 their interest and sympathies. He had seen and conversed 
 with people who could have been reached in no ordinary 
 way, and having met them had been capable of managing 
 even their prejudices and bitterness of spirit. The result 
 had been the accumulation of useful and convincing evi- 
 dence in favour of the De Willoughbys, though he had in 
 more than one instance gained it from persons who had been 
 firm in their intention to give no evidence at all. This 
 evidence had been forwarded to "Washington as it had been 
 collected, and when Baird returned to the Capital it was 
 with the knowledge that his efforts had more than proba- 
 bly put the final touches to the work which would gain the 
 day for the claimants. 
 
 His train was rather late, and as it drew up before the 
 platform he glanced at his watch in some anxiety. His 
 audience for the lecture must already have begun to turn 
 their faces toward the hall in which the evening's enter- 
 tainment was to be held. He had hoped to reach his jour- 
 ney's end half an hour earlier. He had wanted a few min- 
 utes with Latimer, whose presence near him had become 
 so much a part of his existence, that after an absence he felt 
 
 409 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 he had lacked him. He took a carriage at the depot and 
 drove quickly to their rooms. They were to leave them m 
 a day or two and return to Willowfield. Already some of 
 their possessions had been packed up. The sitting-room 
 struck him as looking a little bare as he entered it. 
 
 " Is Mr. Latimer out," he asked the mulatto who brought 
 up his valise. 
 
 " Yes, sir. He was called out by a message. He left a 
 note for you on the desk." 
 
 Baird went to the desk and found it. It contained only 
 a few lines. 
 
 " Everything is prepared for you. The audience will be 
 the best you have had at any time. I have been sent for by 
 the man Stamps. He is ill of pneumonia and wishes to de- 
 liver some letters to me. I will be with you before you go 
 on the platform." 
 
 Since he had left Washington, Baird had heard from 
 Latimer but once and then but briefly. He had felt that 
 his dark mood was upon him, and this reference to letters 
 recalled the fact. 
 
 " Stamps is the little man with tlie cattle claim" he com- 
 mented to himself. " He comes from the neighbourhood 
 of the Cross-roads. What letters could he have to hand 
 
 over? " 
 
 And he began to dress, wondering vaguely. 
 
 Stamps had spent a sleepless night. He could not sleep 
 because his last inter^^ew with Linthicum had driven him 
 hard, even though he had been able to promise him the 
 required five hundred dollars; he also could not sleep be- 
 cause the air of the city had been full of talk about the 
 
 410 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 promising outlook of the De Willoughby claim. Over the 
 reports he had heard, he had raged almost with tears. 
 
 " The Dwillerbys is ristycrats/' he had said. " They're 
 ristycrats, an' it gives 'em a pull even if they was rebels an' 
 Southerners. A pore man ez works hard an' ain't nothin' 
 but a honest farmer, an' a sound Union man ain't got no 
 show. Ef I'd been a ristycrat I could hev got inflooence ez 
 hed hev pulled wires fur me. But I hain't nothin' but my 
 loyal ITnion principles. I ain't no ristycrat, an' I never 
 aimed to be none." 
 
 The bitterness of his nervous enTj would have kept him 
 awake if he had had no other reason for being disturbed, 
 but most of all he was sleepless, because he was desperately 
 ill and in danger he knew nothing of. Cold and weeks of 
 semi-starvation, anxiety, excitement, and drenched gar- 
 ments had done the little man to death, and he lay raging 
 with fever and stabbed with pain at each indrawn breath, 
 tossing and gasping and burning, but thinking only of 
 Linthicum and the herds and the scraps of paper which 
 were to bring him five hundred dollars. He was physically 
 wretched, but even while he was racked with agonised fits 
 of coughing and prostrated with pain it did not occur to 
 him to think that he was in danger. He was too wholly 
 absorbed in other thoughts. The only danger he recog- 
 nised was the danger that there might be some failure in 
 his plans — that Linthicum might give him up — that the 
 parson might back out of his bargain, realising that after 
 all letters unsigned save by a man's Christian name were 
 not substantial evidence. Perhaps he would not come at 
 all; perhaps he would leave the city; perhaps if he came 
 he would refuse to give more than half or quarter the sum 
 asked. Then Linthicum would throw him over — he knew 
 
 411 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 Linthicum would throw him oyer. He uttered a small cry 
 like a tortured cat. 
 
 " I know he'll do it," he said. " I seen it in his eye yes- 
 terday, when he let out on me an^ said he was a-gettin' sick 
 of the business. I shed hev kept my mouth shut. I'd said 
 too much an' it made him mad. He'll throw me over Mon- 
 day mornin' ef I don't take him the money on Sunday." 
 
 He ate nothing all through the day but lay waiting for 
 the passing of the hours. He had calculated as to which 
 post would bring the letter from Minty. He had written 
 to tell her of the hiding-place in which he had kept the bits 
 of paper safe and dry through all the years. She was to 
 enclose them in a stout envelope and send them to him. 
 
 Through the long, dragging day he lay alone burning, 
 gasping, fighting for his breath in the attacks of coughing 
 which seemed to tear his lungs asunder. There was a clock 
 in a room below whose striking he could hear each hour. 
 Between each time it struck he felt as if weeks elapsed. 
 Sometimes it was months. He had begun to be light- 
 headed and to think queer things. Once or twice he heard 
 a man talking in a croaking wail, and after a few minutes 
 realised that it was himself, and that he did not know what 
 he had said, though he knew he had been arguing with 
 Linthicum, who was proving to him that his claim was too 
 rotten to have a ghost of a chance. By the time the after- 
 noon post arrived he was semi-delirious and did not know 
 how it happened that he at last found himself holding 
 Minty's letter in his hand. He laughed hysterically when 
 he opened it. It was all right. There were the two yellowed 
 sheets of paper — small sheets, written close, and in a pecul- 
 iar hand. He had often studied the handwriting, and be- 
 lieved if he had seen it again he should know it. It waa 
 
 413 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 small but strong and characteristic, though that was not 
 what he had called it. 
 
 " Ef I'd hed more time an' could hev worked it out 
 more — an' got him to write suthin' down — I could hev hed 
 more of a hold/' he said, plaintively, " but Linthicum 
 wouldn't give me no time." 
 
 The post arrived earlier than he had expected it, and 
 this gave him time to lie and fret and listen again for the 
 striking of the clock in the room downstairs. The wait- 
 ing became too long, and as his fever increased he became 
 insanely impatient and could not restrain himself. To lie 
 and listen for his visitor's footsteps upon the stairs — to lie 
 until seven o'clock — if he did not come till then, would be 
 more than he could endure. That would give him too long 
 to think over what Linthicum would do if the whole sum 
 were not forthcoming — to think of the reasons why the 
 parson might make up his mind to treat the letters as if 
 they were worthless. He lay and gnawed his finger-nails 
 anew. 
 
 " I wouldn't give nothin' for 'em ef I was in his place," 
 he muttered. " Ef thar'd been anythin' in 'em that proved 
 anythin' I should hev used 'em long sence. But then I'm 
 a business man an' he's a parson, an' doesn't know nothin' 
 about the laws. But he might go to some man — say a man 
 like Linthicum — who could put him up to things. Good 
 Lord!" in a new panic, "he mayn't come at all. He 
 might jest stay away." 
 
 He became so overwrought by this agonising possibility 
 that instead of listening for the striking of the clock, he 
 began to listen for the sound of some passing footstep — the 
 footstep of someone passing by chance who might be sent 
 to the parson with a note, With intolerable effort and suf- 
 
 413 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 fering he managed to drag himself "up and get hold of a 
 piece of paper and a pencil to write the following lines: 
 
 " The letters hes come. You'd as well come an' get 'em. 
 Others will pay for 'em ef ye don't want 'em yerself." 
 
 His writing of the last sentence cheered his spirits. It 
 was a support to his small, ignorant cunning. " He'll 
 think someone else is biddin' agen him/' he said. " Ef 
 there was two of 'em biddin', I could get most anythin' I 
 axed.'* 
 
 After he had put the communication in an enyelope he 
 dragged himself to the door almost bent double by the 
 stabbing pain in his side. Once there he sat down on the 
 floor to listen for footsteps. 
 
 " It's hard work this yere," he panted, shivering with 
 cold in spite of his fever, " but it's better than a-l3dn' thar 
 doin' nothin'." 
 
 At length he heard steps. They were the running, 
 stamping feet of a boy who whistled as he came. 
 
 Stamps opened the door and whistled himself — a whistle 
 of summons and appeal. The boy, who was on his way 
 with a message to another room, hesitated a minute and 
 then came forward, staring at the sight of the little, un- 
 dressed, shivering man with his head thrust into the pas- 
 
 sage. 
 
 " Hallo! " he said, '' what d'yer want? " 
 
 " Want ye to carry this yere letter to a man," Stamps got 
 out hoarsely. " I'll give ye a quarter. ^Yill ye do it? " 
 
 " Yes." And he took both note and money, still staring 
 at the abnormal object before him. 
 
 When the messenger arrived Latimer was reading the 
 letters which had arrived by the last delivery. One of them 
 was from Baird, announcing the hour of his return to the 
 
 414 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 city. Latimer held it in his hand when Stamps's communi- 
 cation was brought to him. 
 
 " Tell the messenger that I will come/' he said. 
 
 It was not long before Stamps heard his slow approach 
 sounding upon the bare wooden stairs. He mounted the 
 steps deliberately because he was thinking. He was think- 
 ing as he had thought on his way through the streets. In 
 a few minutes he should be holding in his hand letters 
 written by the man who had been Margery's murderer — the 
 letters she had hidden and clung to and sobbed over in the 
 blackness of her nights. And they had been written twenty 
 3'ears ago, and Margery had changed to dust on the hill- 
 side under the pines. And nothing could be undone and 
 nothing softened. But for the sake of the little old woman 
 ending her days quietly in Willowfield — and for the sake 
 of Margery's memory — yes, he wanted to save the child's 
 memory — but for these things there would be no use in 
 making any effort to secure the papers. Yet he was con- 
 scious of a dread of the moment when he should take them 
 into his hand. 
 
 Stamps turned eager, miserable eyes upon him as he 
 came in. 
 
 " I thought mebbe ye'd made up yer mind to let the 
 other feller hev them," he said. " Hev ye brought the 
 money in bills? " 
 
 Latimer stood and looked down at him. " Do you know 
 how ill you are? " he said. 
 
 " AVal, I guess I kin feel a right smart — but I don't keer 
 so's things comes my way. Hev ye got the money with ye ? ^' 
 
 *' Yes. "Wliere are the papers? " 
 
 415 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 ?> 
 
 " Wliar's the money? 
 
 Latimer took out a pocket-book and opened it that he 
 might see. 
 
 Stamps's countenance relaxed. The tension was relieyed. 
 
 " Thet's far an' sqnar/' he said. " D'ye wanter know 
 whar I found ^em? Tom Dwillerby never knowed I hed 
 more than a envelope — an' I tnk care not to tell him the 
 name that was writ on it. Ye was mighty smart never to 
 let no one know yer name; I don't know how you done it, 
 'ceptin' that ye kept so much to yerselves." 
 
 Latimer remained silent^ merely standing and letting 
 him talk, as he seemed to have a feverish, half-delirious 
 tendency to do. He lay plucking at the scanty bed-cover- 
 ing and chuckling. 
 
 " 'Twas five years arter the child was born/' he went on. 
 " I was ridin^ through Blair's Holler an' it come to me sud- 
 den to go in an' hev a look round keerful. I looked keer- 
 ful — mighty keerful — an' at last I went on my hands an' 
 knees an' crawled round, an' there was a hole between the 
 logs, an' I seen a bit of white — I couldn't hev seen it ef I 
 hadn't been crawlin' an' looked up. An' I dug it out. It 
 hed been hid mighty secret." He put his hand under his 
 wretched pillow. " Give me the money," he wheezed. 
 " When ye lay it in my hand I'll pass the envelope over to 
 ye. Count it out first." 
 
 Latimer counted the bills. This was the moment. 
 Twenty years gone by — and nothing could be changed. He 
 put the money on the bed. 
 
 Stamps withdrew his hand from under the pillow. A 
 stout, ill-directed envelope was in its grasp and he passed 
 it over to Latimer. He was shivering and beginning to 
 choke a little, but he grinned. 
 
 416 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 ^^ I reckin' it's all right/' he said. " D'ye want to read 
 'em now? " 
 
 " Xo," Latimer answered, and putting them in his breast- 
 pocket walked out of the room. 
 
 He passed down the stairs and into the avenue where the 
 lamps were lighted and which wore its usual somewhat de- 
 serted evening air. He walked along quietly for some min- 
 utes. He did not quite know where he was going. Having 
 left a line for Baird explaining his absence, he had time to 
 spare. If he wished to be alone^jhe could be so until the hour 
 of the beginning of the lecture. For certain reasons it would 
 be necessary that he should see Baird before he went upon 
 the platform. Yes, he must be alone. His mood required 
 it. He would go somewhere and look at the two yellowed 
 letters written twenty years ago. He did not know why it 
 was that he felt he must look at them, but he knew he must. 
 They would satisfy no curiosity if he felt it, and he had 
 none. Perhaps it was the old tragic tender feeling for 
 Margery which impelled him. Perhaps he unconsciously 
 longed to read that this man had loved her — that she had 
 not given her life for nothing — that the story had not 
 been one of common caprice and common treachery. As 
 he walked his varied thoughts surged through his brain dis- 
 connectedly. Every now and then he involuntarily put his 
 hand to his breast-pocket to feel the envelope. Once there 
 crossed his mind a memory of the woman whose boy had 
 died and who dare not let herself recall him, and so be swept 
 back into the black maelstrom of woe. To-night, with 
 these things on his breast, it was not twenty years since he 
 had heard Margery's dying cries — it was last night — last 
 night — and the odour of the pine-trees was in his nostrils 
 — the sough of their boughs in his ears. 
 
 417 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 He stopped near the entrance to the grounds of the 
 Smithsonian Institute. They were as secluded as a private 
 park at this time, but here and there was a seat and a light. 
 He turned in and found his way to the most retired part 
 where he could find these things — a bench to sit down on, 
 a light to aid him to read. He heard his own breathing as 
 he sat down; he felt the heavy, rapid pulsations of his 
 heart, as he took the papers from his breast his hand was 
 shaking, he could not hold it still. He took out more 
 papers than the envelope Stamps had given him. He drew 
 forth with this the letter which had arrived from Baird, 
 and which he had been reading when the messenger ar- 
 rived. He had abstractedly put it in his pocket. It fell 
 from his shaking hand upon the ground at his feet, and 
 he let it lie there, forgetful of its existence. 
 
 Then he withdrew the two letters from the large envelope 
 and opened one of them. 
 
 He read them through once — twice — three tim^es — four. 
 Then he began again. He had read them a dozen times 
 before he closed them. He had read them word by word, 
 poring over each character, each turn of phrase, as a man 
 might pore over an enigma or a document written in a 
 foreign language of which he only knew stray words. If 
 his hands had shaken at first, he had not turned a page 
 before his whole body was shaking and his palms, his fore- 
 head, his hair were damp with cold dew. He had uttered 
 one sharp, convulsed exclamation like a suffocated cry — 
 then he went on reading — reading — reading — and shud- 
 dering as he read. They were not long letters, but after he 
 had read them once he understood them, and each time he 
 read them again he understood them better. Yes, he could 
 
 418 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 translate them. They were the farewells of a man tossed by 
 a whirlwind of passionate remorseful grief. The child had 
 been loved — her very purity had been loved while she had 
 been destroyed and deceived. The writer poured forth 
 heart-sick longing and heart-sick remorse. He had not at 
 first meant to conceal from her that he was not a free man 
 ■ — then he had lost control over his very being — and he had 
 lost his soul. When she had discovered the truth and had 
 not even reproached him but had stood silent — without a 
 word — and gazed at him with her childish, agonised, blue- 
 flower eyes — he had known that if men had souls his was 
 damned. There was no pardon — he could ask none — par- 
 don would not undo — death itself would not undo what he 
 had done. "Margery! Margery! Oh! child — God hear me 
 if there is God to hear — I loved you — I love you — Death 
 will not undo that either.^' 
 
 He was going abroad to join his wife. He spoke of the 
 ship he sailed on. Latimer knew its name and who had 
 sailed in it. In the second letter he besought her to let 
 him see and speak one word to her — but knew she would 
 not grant his prayer. He had seen her in the street, and 
 had not dared to approach. " I did not fear what a man 
 might fear from other women,^' he wrote. "' I felt that it 
 might kill you, suddenly to see me near when you could 
 not escape.'^ 
 
 And after he had read it a third time Latimer realised a 
 ghastly truth. The man who wrote had gone away un- 
 knowing of the blackness of the tragedy he had left be- 
 hind. He plainly had not known the secret Death itself 
 had helped to hide. Perhaps when he had gone Margery 
 herself had not known the worst. 
 
 Latimer, having finished his reading, rested his head on 
 
 419 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 his hand for a dull moment and stared down at the letter 
 lying upon the ground at his feet — the letter he had dropped 
 as he took out the others. He felt as if he had not strength 
 or inclination to pick it up — he had passed through a black 
 storm which had swept away from him the power to feel 
 more than a dull, heavy, physical prostration. 
 
 But after a few minutes he stooped and picked the letter 
 up. He laid it on his knee by the other two and sat gazing 
 again. 
 
 " He did not know," he said, in a colourless voice. " I 
 told him. He heard it first from me when I told him how 
 she died." 
 
 The handwriting of the letters was Baird's — every char- 
 acter and word and phrase were his — Baird was the man 
 who had written them. 
 
 420 
 
CHAPTER XXXIX 
 
 The street in which, the lecture hall stood began t-o wear 
 the air of being a centre of interest some time before the 
 doors of the building were opened. People who had not 
 been able to obtain reserved seats wished to arrive early. 
 The lectures which had begun by being popular had ended 
 by being fashionable. At the outset an audience of sober, 
 religious tendencies had attended them, but after the first 
 one had been delivered other elements had presented them- 
 selves. There had been a sprinkling of serious scientific 
 men, a prominent politician or so, some society women 
 whose faces and toilettes were well-known and lavishly de- 
 scribed in the newspapers. On this last night the audience 
 was largely of the fashionable political world. Carriages 
 drove up one after another and deposited well-dressed per- 
 sons who might have been expected that night to appear 
 at certain brilliant social functions, and who had come to 
 hear " Repentance " instead. 
 
 " He has always had good audiences," said a member of 
 the Committee of Arrangement, " but he has never had 
 one like this — in Washington at least. There is the Secre- 
 tary of State with his wife and dauditer. I believe the 
 President is to be here. He has awakened an enormous in- 
 terest. The house will be literally crammed. Thev are 
 filling the aisle with seats already." 
 
 Baird was in the small retiring-room which had been 
 arranged for his convenience. His journey had somewhat 
 
 421 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 fatigued liim, and he was in the physical and mental con- 
 dition to feel glad that this lecture ^yas to be the last of the 
 series. He was going back to AYillowfield, though he was 
 not to remain there. He had received a call from an im- 
 portant church in New York and had accepted it. He was 
 endeavonring to make arrangements that Latimer could be 
 near him. On his return this evening he had found a 
 letter he had been expecting. It referred to Latimer, and 
 he was anxious to talk it over with him. Lie wished he 
 would come in, and felt a little restless over his delay, 
 though he knew they would have time to say but few words 
 to each other before it was time for the lecture to begin. 
 He walked up and down the room looking down at the 
 green carpet and thinking, his thoughts wandering vaguely 
 to the little pursuant of the herd claim and the letters he 
 had wanted to deliver. He smiled faintly, remembering 
 the small frame in the over-large clothes and the bucolic 
 countenance with its over-sharpness of expression. 
 
 The member of the committee looked into the room. 
 
 " They are beginning to turn people away from the 
 doors," he said. " Half the Cabinet is here — I never saw 
 such an audience." 
 
 As he went away smiling, someone passed him in enter- 
 ing the room. Baird, who was smiling also, changed his 
 expression of courteous appreciation to a smile of greeting, 
 for the man who had entered was Latimer. 
 
 He advanced, holding out his hand. 
 
 " I am glad you have come," he began to say. "I wanted 
 at least a word with you before I went on." 
 
 Then his smile died out, leaving blank amazement which 
 a breath's space later was alarmed questioning. He re- 
 called later how for a second he stood and stared. Latimer's 
 
 422 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 face \\'as white and damp with sweat. Its lines were drawn 
 and sunken deep. His e3'es were fixed on the man before 
 him with something whicli had a gliastly resemblance to 
 an unsteady smile which was not a smile at all. He looked 
 as if illness — or death — or madness had struck him. He 
 did not seem a sane man, and yet a stillness so deadly was 
 expressed by his whole being that it seemed to fill the small, 
 neat, business-like green-room. 
 
 Baird strode towards him and seized him by the shoulder. 
 
 " What is it? What is it? What is it? " he cried out. 
 
 Latimer's face did not alter in a line. He fumbled 
 stiffiy in his breast-pocket and held out some pieces of 
 yellowed letter-paper — this being done stiffly, too. He 
 spoke in a hoarse whisper. It seemed to search every corner 
 of the room and echo there. 
 
 ^* See! ^' he said. " These are two letters. A man wrote 
 them to a poor, half-mad child twenty years ago." 
 
 The door opened, and the member of the committee 
 looked in again, radiant with exultation. 
 
 " The audience waiting in such breathless silence that 
 you might hear a pin drop. Two thousand of them, if 
 there^s one. Ten minutes to eight.'^ 
 
 " Thank you," answered Baird. 
 
 The door closed again and he stood looking at Latimer's 
 rigid hand and the papers. 
 
 They were written to Margery," went on Latimer. 
 
 Stamps found them in a chink in the logs. She had hid- 
 den them there that she might take them out and sob over 
 and kiss them. I used to hear her in the middle of the 
 night." 
 
 Baird snatched them from his hand. He fell into a chair 
 near the table and dropped his face upon the yellowed 
 
 423 
 
 

 In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 fragments, pressing them against his lips with awful sob- 
 bing sounds, as if he would wrest from them the kisses the 
 long-dead girl had left there. 
 
 I, too! " he cried. " I, too! Oh! my God! Margery! " 
 Don't say ^ God! ' " said Latimer. " When she was dy- 
 ing, in an agony of fear, she said it. Not that word! An- 
 other!" 
 
 He said no other — and Latimer drew nearer to him. 
 
 " You wrote them," he said. " They are written in your 
 hand — in your words — I should know them anywhere. You 
 may deny it. I could prove nothing. I do not want to 
 prove anything. Deny it if you will." 
 
 Baird rose unsteadily. The papers were clutched in his 
 hand. His face was marred by the unnaturalness of a man's 
 tears. 
 
 "Do you think I shall deny it?" he answered. "It is 
 true. I have sat and listened to your talk of her and 
 thought I should go quite mad. You have told me of her 
 tortures, and I have listened. I did not know — surely she 
 did not know herself — of the child — when I went away. It 
 is no use saying to you — how should it be? — that I loved 
 her — that I was frenzied by my love of her innocent sweet- 
 ness! " 
 
 " Xo, there is no use," answered Latimer, in a voice act- 
 ually void of emotion, " but I daresay it is true." 
 
 " There is no use in calling myself by any of the names 
 invented for the men who bring about such tragedies. They 
 are true of some men perhaps, but they were not true of 
 me. I don't know what was true of me. Something worse 
 than has ever been put into words perhaps, for I loved her 
 and I have loved her for twenty years. I would have given 
 up my career — my life, anything she had asked! 
 
 424 
 
 )f 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 '^ But when she found you had acted a lie to her " 
 
 " It seemed to fill her with the frantic terror of a child. 
 I dare not approach her. I think she thought she would 
 be struck dead by Heaven. Great God! how I understood, 
 your story of her prayers. And it was I — it was 1! ^' 
 
 He turned on Latimer with a kind of ferocity. 
 
 " You have crucified me! " he cried out. " Let that com- 
 fort you. You have crucified me by her side, that I might 
 see her die — that I might hear her low little piteous voice — ■ 
 that I might see her throes and terrors. And I love her — 
 and remember every look of her loving child's eyes — every 
 curve and quiver of her mouth. Through all the years I 
 have been crucified, knowing I had earned all that I felt." 
 
 Latimer moved across the room, putting the table be- 
 tween them. He went and stood by the mantel. A mur- 
 mur of impatient applause from the audience came through 
 the door. 
 
 " You loved her/' he said, standing with his hand hold- 
 ing something in his breast. " And I loved you. She was 
 the one brightness of my life when I was a boy and you 
 were its one brightness when I was a man. You gave me 
 a reason for living. I am not the kind of man to be my 
 own reason. I needn't tell you what you have been to me. 
 You were the one man on earth I dared to confess to. I 
 knew you would understand and that you knew what pity 
 
 was." 
 
 Baird groaned aloud. He wiped the sweat from his fore- 
 head with his handkerchief as he listened. 
 
 " I knew you were the one man I could trust. I could 
 trust you. I could confide in you, and talk to you about 
 Margery. One day you said to me that you had learned to 
 love her and that we might have been brothers." 
 
 425 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 <e 
 
 'WTien I was left free I had but one thought," Baird 
 said, ^' to return to her — to atone, so far as atonement 
 could be — to pray of her upon my knees. But she was 
 dead — she was dead! " 
 
 " Yes, she was dead, and I had no one left to talk to 
 about her. You were my one comfort and support and 
 friend." 
 
 He drew his hand out of his breast. Baird started and 
 then stood quite quiet. The hand held a pistol. 
 
 "Are you going to kill me?" he said. "You know I 
 asked you that once before." 
 
 " No," said Latimer, " I am not going to kill you. I am 
 going to kill the man who loved you, and found you his 
 reason for living. It's all done with ! " 
 
 " Xo! no! " shrieked Baird, and he hurled himself across 
 the table like a madman. "Xo! You are not! Xo, Lati- 
 mer! Xo! God! Xo!" 
 
 They were struggling together — Baird hung to his arm 
 and tried to drag the pistol from his grasp. But it was no 
 use; Latimer's long, ill-hung limbs were the stronger. His 
 fixed face did not change, but he wrenched himself free 
 and flung Baird across the room. He set the pistol against 
 his heart and pulled the trigger. He gave something like 
 a leap and fell down. 
 
 The door opened for the returning member of the com- 
 mittee and the impatient applause of the audience came 
 through it almost a roar. 
 
 Baird was struggling to rise as if his fall had stunned 
 him. Latimer was stretched at full length, quite dead. 
 
 426 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 To:m walked up the staircase pondering deeply. Tlie De 
 AVilloughby claim was before the House. Judge Ruther- 
 ford was making his great speech, and the chief claimant 
 might have been expected to be sitting breathless in one of 
 the galleries. But he was not. He was going to Eaird, 
 who had sent for him, and Baird was sitting in the room in 
 which Latimer lay dead with a bullet in his heart. He had 
 been sitting there for hours, and when Tom had arrived 
 at the house he had been told that Baird had asked that he 
 should be taken to him in the death-chamber. He was 
 sitting on a chair by the bed on which Latimer was stretched, 
 rigid with a still face, which looked like a mask of yellow 
 wax, appearing above the exceeding freshness of the turned- 
 down linen sheet. Baird did not move as Tom entered, but 
 continued to gaze at the dread thing with dull, drooping 
 eyes. Tom went to him and laid his hand on his shoulder. 
 He saw the man was stupefied. 
 
 " There's nothing to say, Baird," he said after a silence, 
 *^ when it comes to this." 
 
 " There is something for me to say," Baird answered, 
 very quietly. " I want to say it before him, while he lies 
 there. I wonder if he will hear? " 
 
 " He may." 
 
 " It would not do any good to anyone if he did," Baird 
 Baid. " The blackness of it all lies in that — that he would 
 not be helped, she would not be helped — I should not." 
 
 "She? "said Tom. 
 
 427 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 Baird got up at once, stiffly and unsteadily. He stood 
 upright, the lithe-limbed slender form, which was so much 
 admired upon the platform, held rigidly. His face looked 
 lined and haggard. 
 
 " No other man shall feel an affection for me — I think 
 you are beginning to feel an affection for me — under a 
 false impression. That man loved me for long years, and 
 I loved him. I think I helped him to something that was 
 as near happiness as his nature would allow him to feel. 
 God knows I owed it to him. I was one of those who re- 
 pented too late. That is why I have preached of repentance. 
 I have done it with a secret, frenzied hope." 
 
 ^' Did he know your reason? " asked Tom. 
 
 " Not until last night. "When he knew it, he killed him- 
 Belf." 
 
 *' Because — ? " began Tom. 
 
 " Because he had loved and trusted me for half a life- 
 time — because I was the one human creature to whom he 
 had confided the tragedy of his life — knowing he would 
 be sure of comprehension and sympathy. It was to me he 
 poured forth the story of that poor child. You saw her 
 die. She was his sister. And I " 
 
 Tom turned and looked at the face of the dead man and 
 then, slowly, to the face of the living one, who stood be- 
 fore him. 
 
 " You — were the man? " he said. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 Tom turned to the dead man again. He put his big, 
 warm hand with a curiously suggestive movement — a 
 movement somehow suggesting protection — upon the stiff, 
 clasped fingers. 
 
 " No, poor fellow! " he said, as if speaking to him. " You 
 
 428 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 — no, no, there was nothing but this — for you. God have 
 mercy on us/' 
 
 " No," said Baird, " there was nothing else for him. I 
 know that. Everything was whirled away. I had hours 
 last night thinking there is nothing else for me. Perhaps 
 there is not. But first I shall take his body back to his 
 mother. I must tell her lies. This is the result of an ac- 
 cident. That is what I shall tell her. She is a little old 
 woman who will not live long. I must take care of her — 
 and let her talk to me about her son who loved me — and 
 her daughter." 
 
 He began to walk up and down the room. 
 
 " A man does not live — for fifteen years — side by side 
 with another — that other lovino^ him whollv — and see the 
 blackness of his own deed laid bare — and hear again and 
 again of the woe he has wrought — he does not live so in 
 peace." 
 
 " Xo," answered Tom. 
 
 ^^ I tell you — " wildly — " I tell you there have been hours 
 — as he has talked to me of her — when the cold sweat has 
 stood upon my flesh." 
 
 He came back to Tom. He was frantic with agonised 
 restlessness. 
 
 " In all the cruelty of it," he cried, " there seems to have 
 been one human pitying soul. It was yours. You were 
 tender to her in those last hours. You were merciful — 
 you held her hand when she died." 
 
 " Yes," said Tom, in a somewhat husky voice, since he 
 remembered it so well, " she was frightened. Her little 
 hand was cold. I took it in mine and told her not to be 
 afraid." 
 
 Baird flung out his own hand with a movement of pas- 
 sionate feeling — then let it fall at his side. 
 
 429 
 
In Connection with 
 
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 " We shall not meet again/' he said, " yon will not want 
 to see me." 
 
 Big Tom gave him a long, steady look. 
 
 " Good Lord, man! '^ he said, after it, " am I the man to 
 judge another? Fxq made nothing of life." 
 
 " You have done no creature a wrong," Baird said. ^^ And 
 you have helped some to happiness." 
 
 " Well," admitted Big Tom, " perhaps that's true. But 
 I've been a lumbering failure myself. I've just judgment 
 enough now to know that there's nothing a man can say 
 about a thing like this — nothing — and just sense enough 
 not to try to say it." 
 
 " If you go back to ISTorth Carolina," asked Baird, " may 
 I come to see you — and to see her? She need never know." 
 
 " I shouldn't want her to know," Tom answered, " but 
 you may come. We shall go back, and I intend to let those 
 two young ones set up a Garden of Eden of their own. It 
 will be a good thing to look on at. Yes, you may come." 
 
 " That is mercifulness," said Baird, and this time when 
 he put out his hand he did not withdraw it, and Tom gave 
 it a strong, sober clasp which expressed more than one 
 emotion. 
 
 When Tom returned to the little house near Dupont 
 Circle, Uncle Matt wore a rigidly repressed air as he opened 
 the door, and Miss Burford stood in the hall as if waiting 
 for something. Her ringlets were shaken by a light tremor. 
 
 " We have either won the claim this afternoon or lost it," 
 Tom said to himself, having glanced at both of them and 
 exchanged the usual greeting. 
 
 They had won it. 
 
 430 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 Judge Rutherford was striding up and down the sitting- 
 room, but it was Sheba who was deputed to tell the news. 
 
 She did it in a little scene which reminded him of her 
 childhood. She drew him to a chair and sat down on his 
 knee, clasping both slim, tender arms round his neck, tears 
 suddenly rushing into her eyes. 
 
 " You and Rupert are rich men. Uncle Tom, darling," 
 she said. " The claim has passed. You are rich. You 
 need never be troubled about mortgages again." 
 
 He was conscious of a tremendous shock of relief. He 
 folded her in his arms as if she had been a baby. 
 
 " Thank the Lord! " he said. " I didn't know I should 
 be so glad of it." 
 
 431 
 
CHAPTER XLI 
 
 The unobtriisiTe funeral cortege had turned the corner 
 of Bank Street and disappeared from view almost an hour 
 ago. In the front room of the house in which had lived 
 the man just carried to his grave, the gentle old woman 
 who had been his mother sat and looked with pathetic 
 patience at Miss Amory Starkweather as the rough winds 
 of the ISTew England early spring rushed up the empty 
 thoroughfare and whirled through the 3'et unleafed trees. 
 Miss Amory had remained after the other people had gone 
 away, and she was listening to the wind, too. 
 
 " ^\e are both old women," she had said. " AVe have 
 both lived long enough to have passed through afternoons 
 like this more than once before. Howsoever bad other hours 
 may be, it seems to me that these are always the worst." 
 
 " Just after — everything — has been taken away," Mrs. 
 Latimer said now; " the house seems so empty. Eaith," 
 tremulously, " even Faith can't help you not to feel that 
 everything has gone — such a long, long way off." 
 
 She did not wipe away the tear that fell on her cheek. 
 She looked very small and meek in her deep mourning. She 
 presented to Miss Amory's imagination the figure of a lov- 
 able child grown old without having lost its child tem- 
 perament. 
 
 " But I must not complain," she went on, with an effort 
 to smile at Miss Amory's ugly old intelligently sympathetic 
 countenance. " It must have been all over in a second, 
 and he could have felt no pain at all. Death by accident 
 
 433 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 is always an awful shock to those left behind; but it must 
 scarcely be like death to — those who go. He was quite 
 well; he had just bought the pistol and took it out to 
 show to Mr. Baird. Mr. Baird himself did not understand 
 how it happened." 
 
 " It is nearly always so — that no one quite sees how 
 it is done/' Miss Amory answered. " Do not let yourself 
 think of it." 
 
 She was sitting quite near to Mrs. Latimer, and she leaned 
 forward and put her hand over the cold, little, shrivelled 
 one lying on the lap of the mourning-dress. 
 
 " Though it was so sudden," she said, " it was an end 
 not unlike Margery's — the slipping out of life without real- 
 ising that the last hour had come." 
 
 " Yes; I have thought that, too." 
 
 She looked up at the portrait on the wall — the portrait 
 of the bright girl-face. Her own face lighted into a smile. 
 
 " It is so strange to think that they are together again," 
 she said. " Thev will have so much to tell each other." 
 
 " Yes," said Miss Amory; " yes." 
 
 She got up herself and went and stood before the picture. 
 Mrs. Latimer rose and came and stood beside her. 
 
 " Mr. Baird has been with me every da3V' she said. '* He 
 has been like a son to me." 
 
 A carriage drew up before the house, and, as the occu- 
 pant got out, both women turned to look. 
 
 Mrs. Latimer turned a shade paler. 
 
 " They have got back from the funeral," she said. " It 
 is Mr. Baird." 
 
 Then came the ring at the front door, the footsteps in 
 the passage, and Baird came into the room. He was hag- 
 gard and looked broken and old, but his manner was very 
 
 433 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 gentle when he went to the little old woman and took 
 her hands. 
 
 " I think he scarcely knew he had so many friends at 
 Janney's Mills," he said. " A great many of them came. 
 When I turned away the earth was covered with flowers." 
 
 He drew her to a chair and sat by her. She put her 
 white head on his arm and cried. 
 
 " He was always so sad," she said. ^' He thought people 
 never cared for him. But he was good — he was good. I 
 felt sure they must love him a little. It will be better for 
 him — now'' 
 
 Miss Amory spoke from her place before the fire, where 
 she stood rigidly, with a baffled look on her face. Her 
 voice was low and hoarse. 
 
 *^ Yes," she said, with eager pitifulness. " It will be 
 better now." 
 
 The little mother lifted her wet face, still clinging to 
 Baird's arm as she looked up at him. 
 
 " And I have it to remember," she sobbed, " that you — • 
 you were his friend, and that for years you made him 
 happier than he had ever been. He said you gave him 
 a reason for living." 
 
 Baird was ashen pale. She stooped and softly kissed the 
 back of his hand. 
 
 " Somehow," she said, ^^ you seemed even to comfort him 
 for Margery. He seemed to bear it better after he knew 
 you. I shall not feel as if they were quite gone away from 
 me while I can talk to you about them. You will spare 
 an hour now and then to come and sit with me?" She 
 looked round the plain, respectable little room with a quiet 
 finality. '^ I am too old and tired to live long," she added. 
 
 It was Baird who kissed her hand now, with a fervour 
 
 434 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 almost passion. Miss Amory started at sight of his action, 
 and at the sound of the voice in which he spoke. 
 
 " Talk to me as you would have talked to him," he said. 
 ^^ Think of me as you would have thought of him. Let 
 me — in God's name, let me do what there is left me ! " 
 
 Miss Amory's carriage had waited before the gate, and 
 when she went out to it Baird went with her. 
 
 After he had put her into it he stood a moment on the 
 pavement and looked at her. 
 
 "I want to come with you," he said. "May I?" 
 
 " Yes," she answered, and made room for him at her 
 side. 
 
 But he took the seat opposite to her and leaned back, 
 shutting his eyes while Miss Amory's rested upon him. 
 The life and beauty which had been such ever-present char- 
 acteristics of his personality seemed to have left him never 
 to return. Miss Amory's old nerves were strung taut. She 
 had passed through many phases of feeling with regard to 
 him as the years had gone by. During those years she 
 had believed that she knew a hidden thing of him known 
 by no other person. She had felt herself a sort of silent 
 detective in the form of an astute old New England gen- 
 tlewoman. She had abhorred and horribly pitied him. 
 She had the clear judicial mind which must inevitably see 
 the tragic pitifulness of things. She had thought too much 
 to be able to indulge in the primitive luxury of unqualified 
 condemnation. As she watched him to-day during their 
 drive through the streets, she realised that she beheld a 
 kind of suffering not coming under the head of any ordi- 
 nary classification. It was a hopeless, ghastly thing, a 
 
 435 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 breaking up of life, a tearing loose of all tlie cords to which 
 a man might anchor his existence. 
 
 When they reached the house and entered the parlour, 
 she went to her chair and sat down — and waited. She 
 knew she w^as waiting, and believed she knew what for. 
 In a vague way she had always felt that an hour like this 
 ■\yould come to them. They were somehow curiously akin. 
 Baird began to walk to and fro. His lips were trembling. 
 Presently he turned towards the rigid figure in the chair 
 and stood still. 
 
 " It was not an accident," he said. " He killed himself." 
 
 " That I felt sure of," Miss Amorv answered. " Tell 
 me whv he did it." 
 
 Baird bes^an to tremble a little himself. 
 
 ^' Yes, I will," he said. " I must. I suppose — there is 
 a sort of hysteric luxury in — confession. He did it because 
 there was nothing else left. The foundations of his world 
 had been torn from under his feet. Everything was gone." 
 His voice broke into a savage cry. ^^ Oh! in one short life- 
 time — the black misery a man can bring about!" 
 
 " Yes," said Miss Amory. 
 
 He threw himself into a chair near her. 
 
 '' For years — years," he said, " he hid a secret." 
 Miss Amory bent forward. She felt she must help him 
 a little — for pity's sake. 
 
 " Was it the secret of Margery? " she half whispered. 
 Did you know it? " 
 
 When a woman has spent a long life alone, thinking — 
 thinking," she answered, " she has had time to learn to 
 observe and to work at problems. The day she fainted in 
 the street and I took her home in my carriage, I began 
 to fear — to guess. She was not only a girl who was ill — 
 
 436 
 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 she was a cliild who was being l-illed with some horror; 
 she was heart-breaking. I used to go and see her. In 
 the end I knew." 
 
 " I — did not/' he said, looking at her with haggard eyes. 
 
 There was a long pause. She knew he had told her all 
 in the one sentence — all she had guessed. 
 
 " She did not know I knew/" she went on, presently. 
 " She believed no one knew. Oh, I tell you again, she was 
 heart-breaking! She did not know that there were wild 
 moments when she dropped words that could be linked 
 into facts and formed into a cliain." 
 
 " Had you formed it,'' he asked, " when you wrote and 
 told me she had died?" 
 
 " Yes. It had led me to you — to notliino: more. I felt 
 death had saved her from what would have been worse. It 
 seemed as if — the blackest devil — would be glad to know." 
 
 " I am the blackest devil, perhaps," he said, with stony 
 helplessness, " but when I received your letter I was grov- 
 elling on my knees praying that I might get back to her 
 — and atone — as far as a black devil could." 
 
 " And she was dead/^ said Miss Amory, wringing her 
 hands together on her lap; "dead — dead." 
 
 She stopped suddenly and turned on him. " He killed 
 himself," she cried, " because he found out that it was 
 you ! " 
 
 " Yes. I was the one man he loved — he had told his 
 secret to me — to 7nc! — the black devil. Xow — now I must 
 go to his mother, day after day, and be her son — because 
 I was his friend — and knew his love for ^largery — and of 
 her pvv'eetness — and her happy, peaceful death. He used 
 to talk to me for hours; she — poor, tender soul — will talk 
 
 437 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 to me again — of Margery — Margery — Margery — and of Lu- 
 cien, whose one happiness I was/^ 
 
 *' It will — almost — be — enough/' said Miss Amory, 
 slowly. 
 
 " Yes/' he answered; ^^ it will almost be enough — even 
 for a black devil." 
 
 And he turned on his chair and laid his face on his 
 folded arms and sobbed like a woman. 
 
 438 
 
CHAPTEE XLII 
 
 The springtime sunshine had been smiling upon Talbot's 
 Cross-roads all the day. It was not hot, but warm, and its 
 beauty was added to by the little soft winds which passed 
 through the branches of the blossoming apple and pear 
 trees and shook the fragrance from them. The brown earth 
 was sweet and odorous, as it had been on the Sunday morn- 
 ing Sheba had knelt and kissed it, and the garden had 
 covered itself, as then, with hyacinths and daffodils and 
 white narcissus. 
 
 Durino; the last weeks the Cross-roads had existed in 
 something like a state of delirium. People rode in from 
 the mountains and returned to their homes after hours 
 of conversation, semi-stupefied with enjoyment. Tom 
 D'Willerby had won his claims. After months of mysti- 
 fied discouragement, in which the Cross-roads seemed to 
 have lost him in a vague and distant darkness, life had 
 seemed to begin again. Xobody was sufficiently analytical 
 of mind to realise in what measure big Tom D'Willerby had 
 been the centre of the communitv, which was scattered over 
 miles of mountain road and wood and clearing. But when 
 he had disappeared many things seemed to melt away with 
 him. In fact, a large, shrewd humanity was missing. 
 
 " I'll be doggered," had been a remark of Mr. Doty's 
 in the autumn, " ef crops hes done es well sence he went." 
 
 There had been endless talk of the villanous tendencies 
 of Government officials, and of the tricks played whose 
 
 439 
 
' In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 end was to defraud honest and long-suffering claimants of 
 their rights. There had even been dark hours when it 
 had seemed possible that the vitiating effect of AVashington 
 life might cause deterioration in the character of even the 
 most upright. Could Tom himself stand it, and what would 
 be its effect on Sheba? 
 
 But when the outlook was the most inauspicious. 
 Fortune's wheel had swept round once and all was 
 changed. 
 
 A letter brought the news — a simple enough letter from 
 Tom himself. The claim was won. They were coming 
 back to Hamlin County, he and Sheba and Eupert De 
 Willoughby. Sheba and Eupert were to be married and 
 spend the first wrecks of their honeymoon on the side of 
 the mountain which had enclosed the world the child 
 Sheba had first known. 
 
 On this particular day every man and woman who had 
 known and played with her appeared at the Cross-roads. 
 There had not been a large number of them perhaps, but 
 gathered together at and about the Post-office and about 
 the house and garden, they formed a crowd, as crowds 
 are counted in scattered communities. They embodied ex- 
 citement enough to have exhilarated a much larger body 
 of people. Half a dozen women had been helping Aunt 
 Mornin for days. The house wore a gala air, and the 
 cellar was stored with offerings of cake and home-made 
 luxuries. The garden was a mass of radiant scented bloom 
 of spring. Mis' Doty sat at the open window of the kitchen 
 and, looking out on nodding daffodils, apple-blossom, and 
 pink peach-flower w^armed in the sun, actually chuckled 
 as she joyfully sniffed the air. 
 
 " The w^ay them things smells," she said, " an' the hum- 
 
 440 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 min' o' them bees goin' about as ef the world hadn't nothin' 
 but flowers an' honey in it, seems like it was all jest got 
 up for them two young uns. Lordy, I do declar', it's a 
 plum sight." 
 
 " That bin a heap got up for 'em, seems like," said 
 Molly Hollister, smiling at the nearest apple-tree as if it 
 were a particular friend. " Fust off, they're dead in love 
 with each other, an' we uns all knows how that makes 
 people feel — even in the dead o' winter, an' when they 
 ain't a penny in their pockets; they're as good-hearted 
 as they kin be — an' es hansum' — an' they're rich, an' they 
 was married this mornin', an' they're comin' home with 
 Tom D'Willerby to a place an' folks that loves 'em — an' 
 the very country an' the things that grows seems as if 
 they was dressed out for a weddin'. An' it's Sheba as 
 Tom took me to look at lyin' in her little old wooden 
 cradle in the room behind the store." 
 
 She laughed, as she said it, a little hysteric laugh, with 
 suddenly moist eyes. She was an emotional creature. 
 
 The road had been watched steadily for many hours be- 
 fore any arrival could have been legitimately expected. It 
 gave restless interest — something to do. At noon one of 
 Molly Hollister's boys came running breathlessly up the 
 road, waving his hat. 
 
 "They're a-comin'!" he shouted. "They're a-comin'! 
 Thev're in a fine carriasre." 
 
 " Let Tom D'AVillerbv alone for havin' the finest team 
 in Hamlin," said i\Ir. Doty, with a neighbourly grin. 
 
 Almost immediately the carriage was to be seen. The 
 horses lifted their feet high, and stepped at a pace which 
 w^as felt worthy of the occasion. Uncle Matt drove. Eu- 
 pert and Sheba sat side by side. They looked very young 
 
 441 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 and beautiful, and rather shy. Tliey had only been married 
 a few hours, and were bewildered by the new radiance of 
 things. Big Tom humanely endeavoured not to look at 
 them, but found it difficult to avert his eyes for any length 
 of time. There was that about them which drew his gaze 
 back in spite of himself. 
 
 " That's old Tom! '' he heard familiar voices pro- 
 claim, as they drew near the Post-office. " Howdy, 
 Tom! Howdy, Sheby! Wish ye much joy! Wish ve much 
 joy! " 
 
 Then the horses stopped, and the crowd of long-known 
 faces surged near and were all about the carriage. The 
 clamour of the greeting voices, the grasping of one hand 
 after another seemed to Sheba and Rupert like something 
 happening in a dream. They were too far away from 
 earth to feel it real just now, though it was part of the 
 happiness of things — like the sunshine and the soft wind 
 and the look in Tom's eyes, when, amid hand-shakes 
 and congratulations, and welcoming laughter, he himself 
 laughed back in his old way. 
 
 " Ye look jest like ye used ter, Tom — jest like ye used 
 ter," cried Jake Doty. " Ye hain't changed a durned bit! " 
 
 How did the day pass? Who knows? What does it mat- 
 ter? It was full of strange beauty, and strange happiness, 
 and strange life for two young souls at least. People came 
 and went, congratulating, wondering, rejoicing. Talbot's 
 Cross-roads felt that it had vicariously come into the pos- 
 session of wealth and dignity of position. Among the 
 many visitors, Mrs. Stamps rode up on a clay-bank mare. 
 She was attired in the black calico riding-skirt and sun- 
 
 442 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 bonnet which represented the mourning garb of the moun- 
 tain rehct. 
 
 " Fm a widder/' she said to big Tom, in a tone not un- 
 resigned. " Ye got yer claim through, but Stamps hadn't 
 no influence, an' he was took off by pneumony. Ketched 
 cold runnin' to Linthicum, I guess. His landlady was a 
 honest enough critter. She found a roll o' five hundred 
 dollars hid in his bed when she went to lay him out, an' 
 she sent it back to me. Lord knows whar he got it from — ■ 
 I don't. But it come in mighty handy." 
 
 By sunset the welcoming crowd had broken up and 
 melted away into the mountains. Horses and ox-waggons 
 had been mounted and ridden or driven homeward. The 
 Post-office was closed; no one was to be seen in the porch. 
 No one was to be seen anywhere except in the garden among 
 the blossoms where Eupcrt and Sheba walked under the 
 fragrance of the trees, talking to each other in low, softly 
 broken words. 
 
 Tom sat in the porch and watched the moon rise in 
 a sea of silver. The scents the wind wafted to him, the 
 occasional sound of a far-off night-bird, the rustle of the 
 leaves brought things back to him — things he had felt in 
 his youth. There had been nights like this in the days 
 when he had been a big, clumsy young fellow, wild with 
 hopeless love for Delia Yanuxem. On such nights the air 
 had been full of this night breath of flowers, the birds had 
 stirred in their nests with just such sounds, the moon had 
 mounted, as it did to-night, higher and higher in a sky 
 it thrilled a man's soul to lift his face to. 
 
 "Yes, it was all like this," he said, leaning back and 
 clasping his big hands behind his head. "Just like this! 
 And those two out there are living it over again, only they've 
 
 443 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 been fairly treated, and they are trembling with the joy 
 of it. They're pretty safe/' he ended. " They're pretty 
 safe. They've had a fair show." 
 
 Eupert and Sheba walked slowly side by side. They saw 
 and felt everything. If a bird stirred with a sleepy sound, 
 they stopped to listen and smiled tremulously at each other. 
 More than once Sheba knelt down and hid her face among 
 the flowers, kissing them. Her arms were full of white 
 blossoms. She and Eupert had made white garlands for 
 her hair and waist, such as she had worn the night he had 
 first seen her standing on her little balcony. "V\Tien Eupert 
 held her to his side, the scent from their crushed petals 
 filled the air they breathed. The early night was at its 
 stillest and fairest, and the moonlight seemed to flood all 
 the world, when Sheba stopped and looked up, speaking 
 softly: 
 
 " Shall we go now? " she said. " The moon will be shin- 
 ing down between the pines. It will be so quiet." 
 
 " Yes," he answered. " Let us go now." 
 
 They had planned weeks ago the things they were going 
 to do. They were going to say good-night to the small 
 mound at Blair's Hollow. 
 
 When they left their horses at the foot of the hill even 
 the pines could not look darkly under the fair light. The 
 balmy air passing through their branches made a sound 
 as if it was hushing a child to sleep. 
 
 The little mound lav in the soft brightness of clear moon- 
 beams. Sheba knelt beside it and began to lay her bridal 
 blossoms on the grass-covered earth. Eupert stood and 
 watched her. His heart beat with a reverent, rapturous 
 tremor. She looked like a young angel. 
 
 She bent down and laid her cheek upon the grass; her 
 
 444 
 
In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 arm was thrown out as if she clasped something to her 
 girl's breast. She spoke in a whisper — thrilled with love. 
 " I am happy," she said. " I am happy. Oh, do yon hear? 
 Do yon hear ? " 
 
 THE END. 
 
 44S 
 
THE NOVELS AND STORIES OF 
 
 Frances Hodgson Burnett 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers 
 
 " IV^e have no hesitation in saying that there is no 
 living writer (man or luoman) luho has Mrs. Burnett'' s 
 dramatic potver in telling a story." — X. Y. Herald 
 
 In Connection with 
 
 The De Willoughby Claim 
 
 J2mo. $1.50 
 
 MRS. BURNETT'S new novel is a literary event of the 
 highest importance. From first to last one reads on 
 with breathless interest of the winning of the great 
 claim which was to reinstate good-natured ''Big Tom" 
 De Willoughby in his birthright. Interwoven with it is the 
 story of a woman deceived by the man of whom the world 
 would have least expected it, his identity being effectually con- 
 cealed till the terrible revelation of the dramatic final chapters. 
 The fate of the heartless fanatic who stood nearest the loving 
 couple, brutal in his loyalty to his idea of the right, has a 
 dramatic significance which is intensified in the light of his 
 past conduct. 
 
 As if to compensate, however, for the mother's grief, her 
 child survives her; and in this beautiful child-life Mrs. Bur- 
 nett has added another charming portrait to her gallery of 
 juvenile characters. How Tom De Willoughby's life was 
 saved from blackness and desolation and made to overflow 
 with happiness — this the reader will learn for himself. 
 
 The tragedy of the story, intensified by the contrast of the 
 fanatical New England temper with Southern chivalry and 
 kindness, is not its only side. The love between a beautiful, 
 romantic child and a strong man who is her protector fills the 
 book with a sweetness that matches its dramatic fire. 
 
Uniform Edition of Novels and Stories 
 
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 deress, yet remaining withal the matchless Clorinda, and finding 
 her soul and her womanhood through all this stress and storm, is 
 indeed a bold conception, . . . always radiant, beautiful, 
 witty, triumphant, rose-crowned, the toast of the beaux, and the 
 envy of the belles, inimitable whether in conversation or equita- 
 tion, half angel, and half demon, and all a wonder and a wild 
 desire. . . . Few lady novehsts among her contemporaries 
 have excelled Mrs. Burnett, either in virility or in femininity, and 
 ' A Lady of OuaUty ' will add a new field to her already ample 
 province." — /. Zangwill.