THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA LIBRARY THE WILMER COLLECTION OF CIVIL WAR NOVELS PRESENTED BY RICHARD H. WILMER, JR. J£|LM£K THE COWARD. A NOVEI. OF SOCIETY AND THE FIELD IN 18 63. BY HENRY MOEFORD. AUTHOR OF "SHOULDER-STRAPS," "THE DAYS OF SHODDY," ETC. 4 » • • t PHILADELPniA: T. B. PETEKSOK k BEOTEERS, 306 CHESTNUT STREET. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S64, by T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS, [n the Clerk's Offlce of the District Court of the United States, In and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. TO THE PATRIOT PRINTERS OF AMERICA- THE MEN ■WHO HAVE FURNISHED MORE SOLDIERS THAN ANY OTHER CLASS IN COMPARISON WITH THE WHOLE NUMBER OF THEIR CRAFT, TO THE DEAD HEROES OF THE WAR FOR THE UNION AND THE LIVING ARMIES THAT YET BULWARK ITS HOPE, — THIS BLENDING OF THE FACTS AND FANCIES OF W A R - T I M E, IS DEDICATED BY THEIR BROTHER-CRAFTSMAN, THE AUTHOR. Xeiu York Cit>/, July, 1864. 603150 PEEFACE. Some persons, taking up tliis work with expectations more or less elevated, may possibly lay it down with disappointnient after perusal, because it does not discuss with sharp personalities, as the title may have led them to suppose,, the conduct of some of those well-known men connected with the Union Army, who have disgracefully faltered on the field. But the truth is that the Union Army has mustered very few cowards — so few, that a distinguished artist, not long ago called on to draw an ideal head of one of that class, said : " Keally it is so long since I have seen a coward, that I scarcely know how to go about it I" The aim of the writer, eschewing all such tempting personalities, and quite as carefully avoiding all dry didactic discussion of the theme of courage and its opposite, — ^has principally been to illus- trate the tendency of many men to misunderstand their own characters in certain particulars, and the inevitable consequence of their being misunderstood by the world, in one direction or the other. No apology is felt to be 21 22 PREFACE. necessary for the length at which the scenery of the White Mountains, their actualities of interest and possi- bilities of danger, have been introduced into the narra- tion ; nor is it believed that the chain of connection \rith the great contest will be found the weaker because the glimpses given of it are somewhat more brief than in preceding publications of the same series. In those portions the writer has again occasion to acknowledge the assistance of the same capable hand which supplied much of the war data for both of his previous volumes. New York City, July Ist^ 1864. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. A June Morning of Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-tliree — Glimpses of West Philadelphia — The Days before Gettysburg!! — The Two on the Piazza — Margaret Hayley and Elsie Brand — An Embrace and a Diflference — Foreshadowings of Carlton Brand, Brother and Lover 29 CHAPTER II. . The Coming of Carlton Brand — Almost a Paladin of Balaclava — Brother and Sister—A Spasm of Shame — The Confession — The Coward — How Margaret Hayley heard Many Words not intended for her— The Rupture and the Separation... 45 CHAPTER III. Kitty Hood and her School -house — DickCompton going Soldier- ing— A Lover's Quarrel, a bit of Jealousy, and a Threat — ■ How Dick Compton met his supposed Rival — An Encoun- ter, Sudden Death, and Kitty Hood's terrible Discovery.. 61 CHAPTER IV. The Residence of the Brands — Robert Brand and Dr. Pome- roy — Radical and Copperhead — A passage-at-arms that ended in a Quarrel — Elspeth Graeme the Housekeeper — The Shadow of Shame— Father and Daughter— The fall- ing of a parent's Curse 81 23 24 CONTENTS. CHAPTER V. The Birth and Blood of the Brands— Pride that came down from the Crnsades — Robert Brand as S^)ldier and Pension- Agent — How Elsie raved, and how the Fitther's Curse seemed to be answered — Dr. James Holton, and the loss of a Corpus Delicti 99 CHAPTER VI. The Residence of Dr. Pomeroy — Nathan Bladesden and Eleanor Hill — A kneeling Woman and a rigid Quaker — The ruin that a Letter had wrought — A Parting that seemed eter- nal — Carlton Brand alive once more, and a Glance at the fatal Letter 120 CHAPTER Vn. A return to 1856 — Nicholas Hill, Iron-merchant — His Death, his Daughter, and his Friend — How Dr. Pomeroj became a Guardian and how he Discharged that duty — A ruin and an awakening — The market value of Dunderhaven Stock in 1858 137 CHAPTER VIIL What followed the revelation of Betrayal — A gleam of Hope for Eleanor Hill — A relative from California, a projected Voyage, and a Disappointment — One more Letter-^The broken thread resumed — Carlton Brand's farewell, and an Elopement 164 CHAPTER IX. Dr. Pomeroy's purposed Pursuit — A plain Quaker who used very plain Language— Almost a Fight — How Mrs. Burton Hayley consoled her Daughter, and how Margaret revealed the Past — A Compact — Dr. Pomeroy's Canine Adventure — Old Elspeth once more — A Search that found Nothing. 174 CONTENTS. 25 CHAPTER X. Before and after Gettysburg!! — The Apathy and Despair which preceded, and the Jubilation which followed — What Kitty Hood said after the Battle, and what Robert Brand —Brother and Sister — A guest at the Fifth Avenue Hotel — A fire-room Visit, an Interview, and a Departure for Europe 200 CHAPTER XI.' Anomalies of the War for the Union— The Watering-place rush of 1863 — A White Mountain party disembarking at Little- ton — Who filled the Concord coach — The Vanderlyns — Shoddy on its travels — Mr. Brooks Cunninghame and his Family— '*H. T." and an Excitement 219 CHAPTER XII. Landing at the Profile House — Halstead Rowan and Gymnastics — How that person saw Clara Vanderlyn and became a Rival of " H. T."— The Full Moon in the Notch— Trodden Toes, a Name, a Voice, and a Rencontre — Margaret Hay- ley and Capt. Hector Coles — The Old Man of the Mountain by Moonlight, and a Mystery 237 CHAPTER Xni. Miss Clara Vanderlyn and her Pet Bears — A misadventure and a Friendly Hand in time — The question of Courage — Hal- stead Rowan and Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame on Geo- graphy—The Dead Washington, the Flume and the Pool — With the personal relations weaving at that juncture. 255 CHAPTER XIV. A disaster to Master Brooks Brooks Cunninghame — Exit into the bottom of the Pool— Nobody that could swim, and Mar- garet Hayley in Excitement—" H. T." in his element, in two senses — Another Introduction and a new Hero — Scenes in the Profile parlor — Rowan and Clara Vanderlyn —The Insult i 279 26 CONTENTS. PACT. CHAPTER XV. How Halstead Rowan arranged tliat expected Duel — Ten-pins versus bloodshed — Some anxiety about identity — The "H. T." initials, again— A farewell to the Brooks Cuu- ninghames — An hour on Echo Lake, with a Rhapsody and a strangely-interested Listener 293 CHAPTER XVL Cloud and Storm at the Profile — Sights and Sensations of a rainy- day ride to the Crawford — Horace Townsend and Halstead Rowan once more together — Unexpected Arrivals — A cavalcade of Miserables — An ascent of Mount Washing- ton, with Equestrianism and War-whoops extraordinary. 323 CHAPTER XVII. Horace Townsend with a Lady in charge — An adventure over the " Gulf of Mexico" — Clara Vanderlyn in deadly peril — A moment of horror — Halstead Rowan and a display of the Comanche riding — Townsend's eclipse — The return to the Crawford — Margaret Hayley again, and a Conversa- tion overheard 348 CHAPTER XVIII. Horace Townsend and Margaret Hayley — A strange Rencontre in the Parlor — Another Rencontre, equally strange but less pleasant — How Clara Vanderlyn faded away from the Mountains — And how the Comanche Rider "played baby" and disappeared 370 CHAPTER XIX. A strange Character at breakfast—" The Rambler," and his An- tecedents — What Horace Townsend heard about Fate — Going up to Pic-uic on Mount Willard — The Plateau, the Rope and tho Swing — Spreading the Banquet — The din- ner-call and a cry which answered it — A fearful situation. 392 CONTENTS. 27 PAGE. CHAPTER XX. Suspense in danger, iu two Senses — ^Horace Townsend with a Swing-rope — An invitation to Captain Hector Coles — A fearful piece of Amateur Gymnastics — Going down into the Schute — Success or Failure? — The event, and Mar- garet Hayley's madness — Two unfortunate Declarations. 410 CHAPTER XXI. The hearer of a Disgraced Name in England— A strange Quest and a strange Unrest — Hurrying over to Ireland — Too late for the Packet — The little Despatch-steamer — Henry Fitzmaurice, the journalist — The peril of the Emerald, and the end of all Quests save one 432 CHAFER XXII. Pleasanton's advance on Culpeper — Crossing the Rappahannock — The fight and the calamity of Rawson's Cross-Roads — Taking of Culpeper — Pleasanton's Volunteer Aide — Townsend versus Coles — The meeting of Two who loved each other — And the Little Ride they took together 452 CHAPTER XXIII. Once more at West Philadelphia— September and Change — Last glimpses of Kitty Hood and Dick Compton — Robert Brand and his invited Guest — The news of Death — Old Elspeth Graeme as a Seeress — The dispatch from Alexandria — The Quest of Brand and Margaret Hayley 478 CHAPTER XXIV. In the Hospital at Alexandria — The wounded Man and his Nurse — Who was Horace Townsend f— A Mystery explained — How Eleanor Hill went back to Dr. Pomeroy'a — One word more of the Comanche Rider— Conclusion 490 THE COWARD. CHAPTER L A June Morning of Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-threb — Glimpses op West Philadelphia — The Days before Gettysburg — The Two on the Piazza — Margaret Hayley and Elsie Brand — An Embrace and a Differ- ence — Foreshadowings op Carlton Brand, Brother and Lover. A WIDE piazza, with the columns made of such light tracery in scrolled plank-work that they seemed to be almost unreal and gave an appearance of etheriality to the whole front of the house. The piazza, flecked over with the golden June sun- shine that stole down between the branches of the tall trees standing in front and shading the house, and that crept in through the network of twine and climbing roses clambering almost up to the roof from the balustrade below. The house to which the piazza adjoined, large, built of wood in that half Flemish and half Elizabethan style which has of late years been made popular through cheap books on cottage architecture and the illustrations in agricultural newspapers, — two and a half stories in height, with a double gabled fron*: that belonged to the one, elaborate cornices and work over the piazza that belonged to the other, and a turret in the centre that belonged to neither. A wide, tall door opening from the piazza, and windows also opening upon it, sweeping 29 30 THK COWARD. down quite to the floor. Altogether a house which approached more nearly to the " composite" order of architecture so much affected by wealthy Americans, than to any one set down in the books by a particular designation ; and yet shapely and imposing, and showing that if the most unimpeachable taste had not presided over the erection, yet wealth had been lavishly expended and all the modern graces and ornaments freely supplied. In front of the house, and sweeping down to the road that ran within a hundred feet, a grassed lawn lying in the lovely green of early summer, only broken at irregular intervals by the dozen of trees of larger and smaller sizes, round which the earth had been artistically made to swell so as to do away with any appearance of newness and create the impression that the roundness had been caused by the bursting of the trees farther out of the ground through many years of vigorous growth. Beneath one of the largest of the trees — a maple, with the silver sheen almost equally divided between its bark and its glossy leaves, a long wooden bench or settee, with two or three sofa-cushions thrown carelessly upon it, as if it formed at times a favorite lounge for a reader or a smoker. On the piazza a triad of chairs, irregularly placed and all unoccupied. One of the two folding doors leading into the balls from the piazza, wide open, as became the season, and the other half closed as if a single puff of summer breeze coming through the hall had become exhausted before closing it entirely. One of the windows opening from the piazza into what seemed to be the better part of the house, closed entirely ; and the other, with the shutters " bowed" or half open, permitting a peep into a large parlor or sitting-room, with rich carpet and handsome furniture, but kept dusky under the impression (more or less reasonable) that thereby additional coolness would be secured. Near the house, on both sides, other houses of correspond- ing pretension though displaying great variety in st3ie of architecture ; and in front, across the wide road, still others m THE COWARD. SI showing to the right and left, and the whole appearance of the immediate neighborhood evidencing that it was neither country nor city, but a blending of both, suburban, and a chosen spot for tho residences of those who did business in the great city and wished to bo near it, and who possessed means and taste to make so pleasant a selection. Still farther away in front, as seen between the other houses and shrub- bery, and stretching off southward in a long rolling sweep, rich agricultural country, with some of the hay-crop yet un- gathered, broad fields of grain receiving tho last ripening kiss of the sun before yielding to the sickle or the reaping- machine, and fruit-trees already beginning to be golden with the apples, pears and peaches glimmering amid the leaves. A quiet, gentle scene, with evident wealth to gild it and per- fect repose to lend it character ; and over all the warm sun of a June morning resting like a benediction, and a slight shadow of golden haze in the air softening every object in the perspective. Occasionally a pedestrian figure moving slowly along one of the foot-paths that bordered the wide road ; and anon a farm-wagon loaded with early produce and on its way to market, rumbling by with such a sleepy expression on tho face of the driver and such lollings of the ears of the full-fed and lazy horses, that the episode of its passage rather added to than detracted from the slumberous quiet of the prospect. Then another passage, very different and not at all in keeping with any of the points that have before been noted. An officer in full uniform, with the front of his chasseur cap thrown high in defiance of the glare of the sunshine, spurring by on a high-stepping and fast-trotting horse, eastwai'd to- wards the city, with such life and haste in every movement of himself and the animal he bestrode as to momentarily dash the whole view with unquiet. Then the equestrian figure out of sight and the beat of his horse's hoofs heard no longer; and the scene relapsing into that languor born of the June morning verging rapidly towards noon. Then a sudden sound, still more discordant with the drowsy 82 THE COWARD. peace of the hour than the sight of the spurring soldier, and still more painfully suggestive of war in the laud of peace. The quick, sharp rattle of a snare-drum, but a little space re- moved, and apparently passing down one of the lateral roads in the neighborhood, dyin^ away with a light tap into the distance a moment after, aLd quiet coming back again yet more markedly after so incongruous an interruption. The place, West Philadelphia, half a mile or more beyond the Schuylkill, not far from the line traversed beyond the bridge by the Market Street cars, and near the intersection of that branch of the main artery known as the Darby Road, — in the outer edge of that beautiful little section with its tall trees and plats of natural green, out of and into which the shrieking monsters of the Pennsylvania Central Railroad dart every hour in the day with freight and passengers to and from the Great West. The time, late in June, 1863, a few days before Gettysburg, when the long-threatened inva- sion of the North by the rebels had become for the moment an accomplished fact, when Lee and Ewell had crossed the Potomac, swept on through Upper Maryland, entered Penn- sylvania, devastated the farms and carried away the stock of the farmers on the border, laid York under a contribution, burned the barracks at Carlisle, and threatened every hour to capture Harrisburgh and force the passage of the Susque- hanna. When women and children, and by far too many of the able-bodied inhabitants who should have shown more pride if they indeed possessed no courage, had fled away from the Seat of Government of the Keystone State, and the pub- lic records were following them to prevent their falling into the hands of an enemy known to be destructive and revenge- ful, and for the moment believed to be irresistible. When the rebels themselves boasted that they were about to teach the North all the horrors of war that had fallen upon the South in the long contest, — and that in a few days they would water their cavalry-horses in the Delaware, if they did not achieve the same success at the very banks of the Hudson ; THE COWARD ind wlicn the newspapers of New York and Philadelphia, for the moment completely discouraged, p:ave up the line of de- fence of the Susquehanna, and gravely debated whether a check could indeed be made at the Delaware, with the loss of the Quaker City, or whether the great struggle must at last be transferred to the Hudson hills of New Jersey. When the Reserves were mustering in Philadelphia, and the Coal Kegiments forming in the haunts of the sturdy miners. When the Pennsylvania coal-mines were to be set on fire by the in- vader, and left to burn on until all the fuel of the nation was destroyed, if the " great conflagration" of the whole earth did not follow as a result. When more placards calling for the defence of the State, were exhibited in the neighborhood of old Independence Hall, than had ever shown there, inviting the idle to amusement, in the most prosperous seasons of opera, theatre and concert-saloon— drums beating at every corner, brass bands blowing on every square, patriotic appeals and efforts to recruit on every hand, and yet the people ap- parently lying under bodily apathy or mental paralysis. When Governor Seymour, of New York, and Governor Par- ker, of New Jersey, waiving the political question for the moment, were calling out the troops of those States to the defence of Pennsylvania ; and when the militia of the city of New York and the returned nine-months volunteers of New Jersey w^ere showing themselves equally ready to respond to the call. When the Army of the Potomac seemed for the moment to be nothing, even for the defence of the North, Hooker discredited, no successor discovered, public confidence lost, the very darkest day of the struggle at hand, and no man able or willing to predict what might be the extent of disaster reached before the rolling back of the tide of invasion from the homes of the loyal States. Such were the place, the time, the surroundings, and the atmosphere (so to speak) of the house of the blended Flemish and Elizabethan styles of architecture, at West Philadelphia, of which, thus far, only the outward aspects have been pre- 34 THE COWARD. rented. Yet there may be an inexcusable neglect of the pro- prieties, in presenting a house, its green lawn, shady trees, and even the pleasant landscape stretching away in front of it, before those living figures which would certainly have at- tracted the attention of an observer in advance of any of the inanimate beauties of art or nature. Those figures were two in number, both standing on the piazza, very near the trellis of climbing roses, and where the flecks of sunshine f^U through the leaves upon them and dashed them with little dots and lines of moving light, as well as the floor upon which they stood. Both were girls — both young — both beautiful ; at least each possessed that combina- tion of features, fwm and manner, making her very pleasing to the casual observer, and certain to l)e reckoned beautiful by some ont- admitted to a closer knowledge of the spirit enshrined within. They were evidently dear friends ; for as they stood near the trellis, and the hand of the taller of the two plucked a half-open rose from one of the clusters, and she playfully tried to coax it to a fuller opening by breathing caressingly upon it and separating its clinging leaves with her dainty fingers, — the arm of the other was around her waist, and both the trim and graceful forms w^ere slightly sw^aying backward and forward in that pleasant, idle, school-girl motion which the grown woman does not easily forget until it has given the " fidgets" to half her elder ac- quaintances. The taller and perhaps by a year the elder — she of the rose —was the daughter of the mistress of that pleasant summer paradise, born to w^ealth and position, and her birth registered some two-and-twenty years before in the predecessor of the heavy family Bible with its golden clasps, which lay in state in the parlor so near her, as Margaret Hayley. She w^as a little above the average height of w^omanhood, and might have seemed too tall for grace but for the exquisite rounding of the lithe form, the matchless fall of a pair of sloping shoulders that could not probably be matched within a radius TIIECOWARD. 35 of fin hundred miles, the graceful carriap:e of a neck that would have been long if less elegantly poised, the beauty in shape and spring in motion of the Arab foot under which the water would have run as easily as beneath a bridge, and the supple delicacy of the long taper fingers with their rose-tinted nails, which seemed perfect and high-blooded enough to have a mission of playing among heart-strings as the fingers of others might do among the chords of a harp. In feature the young girl had quite as many claims to atten- tion. The hair was very dark and very profuse — so near to black that it needed the sunlight before the golden shadows in the dark brown became fully apparent — swept plainly down on either side, in the madonna fashion, from a brow that was very pure, high and clear. The face was handsomely moulded, rather long than broad, as beseemed the figure, rather pale than ruddy, though with a dash of healthy color in each cheek that belied any momentary suspicion of ill health ; the nose a little long and somewhflt decided, but very classic in out- line and finely cut at the nostril ; the eyes dark — so dark that a careless observer would have lost their brown and called them black, and their expression a little reserved if not sad and even sometimes severe ; the mouth small and well-shaped, with the lips as delicately tinted as the faintest blush-rose in the cluster near her, but a shade too thin for the exhibition of exuberant passion, and showing a slight curl of pride at the corners of the upper; the chin rounded, full, and forming a pleasant point for the eye to rest upon as it descended from the face to study the contour of neck and shoulders. The first appreciative glance at her was certain to be followed by the suppressed exclamation: " IIow very handsome!" and the second by a thought that the lips did not syllable : " How very proud and queenly 1" It might have needed many more than a third, before the gazer could go to the full depth of a very marked character, and say how much of that queenly bearing might be ready to bend at last to the magic touch of the softer passions, and how much of that evident goodness and firmness 36 THE COWART>. m\a;ht be employed in oonveying happiness to others than herself. Among her peculiarities, she seemed to despise stripes, plaids, sprigs, spots, and the other endless varieties of coloi in material ; and the la\Vn which swept that morning around her erect figure was of a neutral tint and as devoid of spot as were arms, ears and neck of any ornament in jewelry except a small cameo at the throat, a slight gold chain around the neck and descending to the bosom, and a single cluster diamond sparkling on the forefinger of the right-hand that was dally- ing with the spirit hidden among the rose-leaves. No more telling contrast to the tall, majestic girl could well have been supplied, than her neighbor and dear friend, Elsie Brand (Elspeth, baptismally, for reasons that will hereafter develop themselves, but always called Elsie by those admitted to the least intimacy.) She was at least four inches shorter than Miss Hayley, round and rather plump, though very graceful in figure, with a chubby face, ruddy cheeks, piquant nose, merry blue eyes, pouting red lips, full hair coming low down on the forehead and of that pale gold which the old Scotch poets immortalized as "yellow," in so many of their lays of the bardic era. Pretty, beyond question, but more good and attractive-looking than beautiful ; and if a second look at Margaret Hayley would have induced an observation having reference to her pride, a second at Elsie Brand was certain to bring out the thought if not the speech : " What a charming, good little girl !" Perhaps a third, with persons not too severely in training for the great Olympian races of morality, w^as ver}^ likely to create such a sensation as one experiences in gazing at a lusciously ripe peach, having par- ticular reference to the pulpy red lips with their fanny pout and kissable look, and ending in a wish that the crimson love- apples of the modern Hesperides were not quite so zealously guarded. Elsie had not yet passed her twenty-second birthday, though she had been " of age" for a good many twelvemonths, in the estimation of those who had come near enough to her T H E C O W A R D . 37 to feel the beating of her warm heart. Doctor James ITolton, graduate of the Pennsylvania Medical College, and la-tely a student with one who had been a student with David Ilosack, held his own peculiar estimation of Elsie Brand, and had almost been driven into rank atheism from the necessity of both holding and proving that the theory of our springing from one common father and mother could not possibly be correct, as the clay of which Elsie was made had been so very different — so much purer, sweeter and better — from that em- ployed in the moulding of ordinary mortals ! Eor some minutes the two young girls had been standing in silence, Margaret engaged with experiments on her opening rose and Elsie with one arm around her and lazily observing the operation — both apparently full of that indolent enjoyment born of ease, content, and the languid air of the summer morning. Then the little one spoke : " Margaret, do you know of what I have been thinking for the last two minutes ?" * " Haven't any machine by which I could pry into the droll secrets of your brain, Elsie, my dear !" answered the taller, pleasantly, but with no smile upon her lips meanwhile, and apparently with all her attention yet absorbed in her horti- cultural experiment. " Shall I tell you ?" queried Elsie. " Certainly, pet, if you like !" was the reply, the tone, as well as the w^ord of endearment, showing indefinably that Margaret Hayley thought of herself as a woman and yet of her companion (of nearly the same age) as little more than a child. "I was thinking," said the little girl, "how much of char- acter is sometimes shown in the action of a moment, and how very different we are." " Who thought your little head was so philosophical, Elsie ?'^ answered Margaret, and this time she for a moment deserted her rose and looked around with a pleasant smile. " Well, the application of your thought to yourself and to me ?" 38 THE COWARD. " Oh," said the little one. " It was only about the rose. I should have plucked it, if I plucked it at all, and enjoyed it as it was. You are trying to make something else out of it, and yet show no wish to destroy the flower. A cruel woman — different from either of us, I hope — would probably be plucking off the leaves one by one and throwing them away, without caring how much pain she might he inflicting on the life of the flower, hidden away down somewhere in its heart." "A very pretty idea, upon my word !" said Margaret, ceas- ing to blow upon and pluck at the leaves, and turning upon her companion a countenance showing something like sur- prised admiration. "And what do you make of my character, Elsie, as shown by my handling of the rose ?" "You must not be angry with me, Margaret," answered the young girl, a little in the spirit of deprecation, " But you see / should have been satisfied with the rose as it was, and the other ^vould have been cruelly dissatisfied with it ii^ any shape, and you " " Well, dear ? I " "You showed that you were not entirely satisfied with every thing as it was, and that you had a little self-will leading you to force things to be as you chose, by trying to make that poor little flower outrun the course of nature and bloom before it was quite ready." " I think you are right, Elsie," said Margaret, nodding her head in that slight and repeated manner indicative of answer- ing the mind within quite as much as any observation from without. " I am not satisfied with every thing in the world, Elsie. I am not cruel, I hope and believe ; but I am sharper, harder, more requiring than you, and consequently not formed for half so much true happiness. I do feel like forc- ing things to be what I require, sometimes, and then I sup- pose I grow uuamiable." " Yoa are never any thing else than a dear good girl, with a wiser head than my rattle-pate, and ray own sweet THE COWARD. 8^ sister that is to be !" and the arm of the speaker went still more closely around the slif^ht waist it encircled. A blush as delicately roseate as the first flushings of dawn crept over the more classic face that bent above her own, the lips above came down to meet those pontine^ below, and the two young girls were kissing and embracing as if they had been two lovers of opposite sexes but very much of one opinion as to the best office of the lips. Any delicately-nerved old bachelor who should have happened to pass in front of the house at that moment and catch a glimpse of the scene just then enacted on the piazza, would certainly have fainted away on the spot, at the idea of such a waste of the most delicious of "raw material." ,^ " You may have the rose for your lesson — you see I have not spoiled it, after all," said Margaret, when the kiss had been given and the rosy flush died away from her own cheek. " To give to Carlton ?" asked Elsie, as she held out her band for it. " No, Carlton must come after his own roses !" was the reply, with the least dash of pride in the curling of the upper lip. "And pluck them himself ?" asked saucy Elsie. " Certainly 1" " No matter where he finds them growing — on tree, or on cheek, or on lips I" continued the young girl, with a light laugh. For an instant the same flush rose again on the cheek of Margaret Hayley ; then she forced it away, smiled, and said : "Certainly! why not? Carlton Brand kisses me, some- times, and I have more than once kissed him back. What is that to you, sauce-box, when we are engaged to be married ?" " What is that to me ? Every thing ! Joy — happiness — to know that I am going to have so dear a sister !" cried the little one, throwing both her arms, this time, around the pliant waist of Margaret and hugging her in a perfect trans- 40 T H E C U W A li D . port of delight, which seemed quite shared in, though more tranquilly, by the object of the demonstration. The saddest, cruellest thing in all the lyric drama is the blast of De Sylva's horn on Ernani's wedding morning, calling him in one instant from happy love to dishonor or death. Neither in romance nor in nature should such sud- den transitions occur. Alas, for humanity ! they do occur in both, not occasionally but habitually. The Duchess of Richmond's ball — then Waterloo. De Joinville springs on board his flag-ship to sail for the attack on Vera Cruz, in the very ball dress in which he has been dancing the whole night through with the republican belles at Castle Garden. Tlie Pall is over every thing of earth : how sadly and how inevit- ably it droops above the Banner ! Xo scene upon earth could have been more exquisitely peaceful, and few could have been lovelier, than that which surrounded and compre- hended those two fair girls in their embrace upon the piazza. AYealth, youth, beauty, good feeling, happiness — all where there ; and love blent with friendship, for was not the em- brace, given by Elsie Brand and accepted by Margaret Hay- ley, both given and accepted quite as much for her brother's sake as her own ? It was fitting, then, according to the sad fitness of earth, that the element of discord should enter into the peaceful and the beautiful. The officer spurred by, as we have seen him do, gazing only with our incorporeal eyes. Both the young girls, just re- leasing each other from their embrace, saw the dark cloud of war sweeping between them and the sunlit grain fields. Elsie Brand shuddered and drew back, as if the incongruity jarred her nature. Margaret Hayley instantly lifted her proud neck the higher, as if something in Iter nature sympathized with every suggestion of the struggle, and as if she was, indeed, insensibly riding on with the hurrying horseman. "And what does the shudder mean, little one ?" asked Margaret, who had plainly distinguished it at the moment of release. THE COWARD. 41 " I hate war, and every thing connected with it I" was tho reply, the tone ahiiost petulant. "And I do not hate it, painful as it may be in many par- ticulars," said Margaret, " Force and energy are the noblest developments in life. Bravery is the nearest possible ap- proach to that divine character which knows no superior and consequently fears none." "Nearer to the divine than loveV asked the little one. Just for one instant, again, that roseate tint on the cheek of Margaret, as she said : " Nobler, if not nearer to tho divine ; and sorry as I must be to see tho bloodshed caused by a civil war in my native land, I am almost glad that it has occurred, sometimes, as a means of rousing the sluggish pulses of men who would otherwise have stagnated in trade and pleasure, and proving that we yet possess something of the hero spirit of old." "And / am sorry for it all the while, night and day, in my prayers and in my dreams," answered Elsie Brand, with a sigh. " Hark I" as the tap of the drum came across from the lateral road beforementioned. " There is another reminder of the curse, and one that comes nearer home. Do you re- member, Margaret, that I shall soon have a brother, and you a lover, separated from us and in terrible danger ? They say Harrisburgh must be taken, unless a very large body of troops can reach it at once. The Reserves will probably go on, to- night, and Carlton will probably accept his old commission again. I do want him to do his duty, Margaret, if it is his duty ; but I hope that he will not think so — that he will not go away." "And / hope that he wiYL^" answered Margaret, her tall form drawn up to its full height, and a look of stern pride upon her face that could not very well be mistaken. " To go into danger — perhaps to death ?" asked Elsie, looking sadly at the proud Sibylline face. " To a thousand deaths, if necessary, rather than towards the least suspicion of a want of true manhood !" 4.2 THE COWARD. "All, you do not know the trembling fear of a sister's love !" said Elsie, with a sigh. " I know a love fifty times deeper !" said ^Marpraret, the pride still on her face, and yet that ever-returniiifr flush coming up again to say that if love had not conquered pride it had at least divided the dominion. " Listen, Elsie Brand, to some words that you may as well understand now as ever. There is no one near to hear us, and so it is almost like speaking before heaven alone. I love your brother, deeply, devotedly, with all the power of my nature — so devotedly that if that love should be wrenched aw*ay from my heart by any circumstance, I know that my life would thenceforth be but one long, wretched mockery of existence. Happy natures like yours, Elsie, do not know the absolute agony that lies in such love. And yet I could give up that love, and my life with it, and would do so, before I would live, love, and yet despise /" " Despise ? — are you speaking of Carlton — of my brother ?'* asked the young girl, apparently a little lost in the myste- rious energy of her companion's words. " I said that I could not despise," Margaret Hayley went on. " I must not, or w^e have no future. Do you know that I should have reverenced your brother more, even if I did not love him better, if he had not refused the commission in the army tendered him at the commencement of the war ? I might have wept, perhaps mourned — but I should have idol- ized. Now, I only love a mortal like myself, where I might have been worshipping a hero 1" " Or sobbing over a grave !" said Elsie, with a sigh which told how easily she might have been brought to illustrate the word she used. " What then !" was the quick reply of Margaret. " The glory would have been his — the loss and grief would have been mine, and I could have borne them. But he did not choose to enter the struggle, prominent as he had once been in military movements. He had the excuse of business THE COWARD. 43 and occupation, and I have tried to believe that he needed no other." " Needed ? — what do you mean, Margaret ?" cried Elsie Brand in a tone and with a movement of starting back which evidenced both pain and alarm. " It is a painful thing, but I must say it, to you, as I do not know that I could say it to him," pursued Margaret. " I mean, that I have tried to believe that there was no flaw in my idol — that Carlton Brand, who held every pulse of my woman's heart responsive to his touch — did not lack the one manly virtue oi courage 1^'' "And would you dare to believe my brother — the man you have pretended to love — a cowardV^ There was something vexed and sharp, almost angry, in Elsie's tone, now, that did not promise another immediate embrace like that of a few moments previous. Margaret Hayley saw the expression of her face, but neither blenched before it nor seemed to feel any anger at the manifestation. " Elsie Brand," she said, her words slow, measured, and with a cadence that was somehow inexpressibly pained and mournful, " I am no school-girl, and I am speaking words that I mean. I know your brother to be patriotic, I know him to be in high health, athletic, vigorous and determined ; and have sometimes believed that if he had possessed that one requisite, animal courage, he would long ago have been fighting the foes of the republic. Grieve as I may to part with him, I am glad you believe that he is going with the Reserves. He had his choice, before, and I let my own heart instead of my reason have sway, and did not question its propriety. But were he to hang back now, when his native State is invaded and every arm necessary to drive back the rebels from Pennsylvania soil, I should know that he was a coward I" " I don't like you, Margaret Hayley, when your face looks so and you talk in that manner !" said the little girl. '' But I will not quarrel with you. Carlton is going with the 44r THE COWARD. Reserves, and some day when he is killed or you hear how he has shamed all the rest with his bravery, you will be sorry for the words you have just spoken !" Just then the little yellow-haired girl was the Sibyl, and her prophecy went upon record with the wild words of Margaret, to be afterwards re- membered — how sadly 1 " No — do not be angry with me, Elsie," said Margaret, taking the hand that had been temporarily released. " You have no cause. I have been speaking against my own heart all the while, much more than against the man whom I truly love. I know him to be noble and true, and I will believe him brave. Are you satisfied ? Kiss me 1" and the proud, statuesque face once more lost its gravity, to bring back all the joyousness into the rounder and merrier one from which it had temporarily departed. The light summer jockey-hat of Elsie lay just within the door, on a chair. With a quick glance at the watch hidden under her waist-riband, she stepped within the door, threw on her hat, and was about to terminate her somewhat pro- longed morning-call, when Margaret took it off again, dropped it into one of the vacant chairs, and said : " No — do not go away. You have nothing to do at home — mother has gone down to the city for the day, you know, and I shall be lonely. We shall have some lunch — you may call it dinner if it will taste any better, — very soon. Stay till the afternoon — cannot you do so, just as well as not ?" " I suppose so — no, I must see Carlton — yes, though, Carlton will be quite as likely to come here first as to go home, if he has arranged to go away — yes, I will stay if you wish it so much !" rapidly answered the little one. " That is a good girl," said Margaret Hayley, just as she might have patted a school hobby-de-hoy on the head. " Now run into the parlor and get the very nicest book you can find, draw the easy-chair out of the hall, and enjoy yourself the best you can for just twenty minutes, while I go down THECOWARD. 45 to the kitchen, in ma's place, and see what progress our new Dutch cook has been making." She disappeared with the words, and her injunctions were acted upon almost as rapidly. In half a minute Elsie had the arm-chair out of the hall, and an illustrated work ofl" one of the tables in the parlor, and was prepared for her short period of indolent enjoyment. CHAPTER II. The Coming of Carlton Brand — Almost a Paladin op Balaklava — Brother and Sister — A Spasm of Shame The Confession — The Coward — How Margaret Hay- ley HEARD Many Words not intended for her — The E.UPTURE and the SEPARATION. iNOT long was the young girl, left at the close of the last chapter bodily ensconced in an easy-chair on the broad piazza, and mentally absorbed in the attractions of one of the choicest books in Margaret Hayley's collection, allowed to pur- sue her reading undisturbed. Not two minutes had elapsed when a horseman, riding a chestnut horse of handsome ap- pearance and fine action, came rapidly up from the direction of the city, dismounted with the same practised grace that he had shown when in the saddle, threw the rein of his horse over one of the posts standing near the gate, opened that gate and came up the walk, without attracting the attention of the young lady on the piazza, or that of any other occupant of the house he was approaching. Lifting from his brow, as he approached the house, to wipe away the slight moisture which had gathered there even in riding, the broad-brimmed and low-crowned hat of light gray, which so well accorded with his loose but well- 46 T H E C W A R D . fitting: suit of the same color, he gave an opportunity for studying the whole man, which could not well have been attained under other circumstances ; and both narrator and reader may be excused for stopping him momentarily in that position, while due examination is made of his most striking outward peculiarities. He was at least five feet eleven inches in height, with a figure rather slight than stout, but singularly erect, sinewy, and elastic, every movement giving evidence that the body could not well be set to a task beyond its power of endurance. The foot was not very small, but well-shaped, and the un- gloved hand which held his riding-whip was almost faultless in shape and color. The hat removed, a brow rather broad than high was seen, with a head w^ell balanced in all the intellectual and moral requirements, densely covered with light, curling hair, of that peculiar shade which the poetical designate as " blonde" and the practical as "sandy." The complexion, though the cheeks were a little browned by the summer sun, was very fair, and that of the brow as stainless as any petted girl's could be. The features were nearly faultless in the Greek severity of their outline, the nose straight and well cut, the mouth small but with full curved lips, the eyes of hazel, widely set. The lower part of his face was effectually concealed by a luxuriant full beard and moustache, a few shades darker than his hair, and showing a propensity to curl on slight provocation. He was a decidedly handsome man of twenty-eight to thirty, erect, gentlemanly, dignified, and with something in his general appearance irresistibly reminding the spectator of the traditional appear- ance of those blonde Englishmen of good birth, who seem made to dawdle life away without exhibiting one of the sterner qualities of human nature, until deadly danger shows them to have that cool recklessness of life which charged tw^o hundred years ago with Prince Rupert and ten years ago with poor Nolan. Yet this was the idea more likely to be formed of him and his capabilities, by T n E C O W A R D . 47 strangers and those who lacked opportunity to examine his face and manner closely, than by those intimately acquainted with both ; for there was an occasional nervousness in the movement of the hands, and even of the whole figure, that to a close observer would have belied the first-assumed self- confidence ; and a something drooping, tremulous, and un- decided in the lower lip at the corners, was so w^ell matched by a sad and even troubled expression that often rested like a cloud over the eyes, that the whole man seemed to be made into another self by them. Such was Carlton Brand, the brother of Elsie, about whom the tongues of the two young girls had wagged so unre- servedly but a few minutes before. Such was his appear- ance, to the outward eye, as, hat still in hand, he approached the piazza. Elsie was sufficiently absorbed in her book, not to feel his presence ; and it was not until he was close upon her that the young girl saw him, flung down the costly illus- trated volume in her chair with less care than might have pleased the less impulsive owaer, sprang to the step and seized both the occupied hands of the new^-comer, with a warmth that showed how cordial was the affection between brother and sister, so widely different in appearance and indication of character. "How did you come here, pet?" the brother asked, as soon as his mouth was free from the kiss his sister tendered. " Oh, ran across the fields half an hour ago, and intended to be back home by this time, only that Margaret was alone and wished me to stay ; and besides " " Well— besides what ?" " Besides, I almost knew that you would stop here before you went home, and I should see more of you before you went away, by remaining." Could the young girl but have seen the quick spasm of agony that just then passed over the face of Carlton Brand — the agitation and trembling which seized upon lip and hands — . she might have been wiser the next moment, but she certainly 4*8 THE COWARD. would not have been happier. Just for that one moment there seemed to be lack-lustre vacancy in the eyes, total want of self-assertion in face and figure, and the handsome, noblo- looking man actually seemed to have collapsed, bowed, and sunk within himself, so that he was more an object of pity than of envy. But the sister's eyes were fortunately turned away at that instant, and she saw nothing. When she looked at him aj^ain, the spasm, whatever it might have been, was gone, and she only saw his usual self He did not reply to her last guggestion, but asked, after an instant of hesitation : " Where is Margaret ?" " Gone down into the kitchen for a few moments, to look after a new Dutch cook, but she will soon return. And so you are really going away, brother, and I shall be so lone- some 1" and the hand of the sister sought that of the dearly- loved brother again, as if every moment lost without some touch of one who was so soon to leave her, was lost indeed. Even to this the brother gave no reply, but made a remark with reference to the rapid ripening of the grain in the wheat-fields that skirted the road beyond. A duller wit than that of Elsie Brand might have become aware that he was avoiding an unpleasant subject; and the young girl recognized the fact, but gave it an entirely erroneous expla- nation, believing that he must have heard some peculiarly threatening news from the scene of the invasion, making the peril of the troops about to leave more deadly than it would have been under ordinary circumstances, and that he dreaded to enter upon the theme at all, for fear of alarming her. As a consequence, her next words were a disclaimer of her own fears. " Oh, Carlton, you need not be afraid to speak" of it to me. Much as I have dreaded your going away, I know, now, that it is your duty, when your own State is invaded ; and I have made up my mind to bear the separation, and even to think of you, my own dear brother, as in danger, without saying one word to hold you back." THE CO W A R D. ^19 " Have you V That spasm was again upon his face, and the words were hoarse ; but again the 03-0 and the ear of the sister missed the recognition of any thing unusual. "Yes; and so has Margaret." "Has she?-' The spasm had not gone off his fiice, and the second question was asked even more hoarsely than the first. For some reason that the young girl could not under- stand, he turned away from her, walked down to the end of the piazza, and stood looking oif. What he was suffering at that moment, with three or four of the most powerful passions known to humanity tearing at his heart-strings at onee, none may know who have not passed through the same terrible ordeal which he was then enduring. There were only the fays who ma3''have been playing among the green grass, and the dryads yet lingering among the whispering leaves of the maples, looking in at the end of the piazza upon his face : had they been human eyes, what of wrestling and struggle might they not have seen ! When he turned to walk back towards the spot where his sister was standing in surprise not unmingled with alarm, his face was again calm, but it would have shown, to the observant eye, a calmness like that of despair. His words, too, were forced when they came : "You and Margaret both, Elsie^ love me so well, I know, that you would give up almost any thing to please me ; but I do not intend to task either of 3'ou too far. I am not going — that is, business detains me so that I cannot — I am not going to Harrisburgh." " Business !" Elsie Brand had never before, in her whole young life, uttered a word so hardly or in a tone so nearly approaching to a sneer, as she spoke the single word at that moment. Were the words of Margaret Hayley ringing in her ear, and did she find some terrible confirmation, now, of what had before been so impossible to believe? "Business! — what business, Carlton, can be sufficient to keep you at home when the}^ seem to need you so much ?" "What do you know about it ?" and his tones were harsh 50 THE COWARD. and almost menacing. " Do we ask you women to decide what we shall do, where we shall go, and where we shall stay ?" " Oh, Carlton I" and the cry seemed to come from the very heart of the young girl. It was perhaps the first harsh word that had ever fallen on her ear, aimed at her from the lips of the brother she so adored. God only knew the agony under wliich that harsh word had been wrung out, as only he could know the agony it might cause I The cry instantly melted the heart to which it appealed. Carlton Brand toc>k the hand of his sister in his own, kissed her tenderly, and said : "Forgive me, Elsie, if I spoke as I should never speak to you! But you do not know, sometimes, what moves men to harshness which they afterwards bitterly repent." "But you are not going with the regiment ?" again she asked. "Xo ! — I have told you I was not, Elsie !" and the tone came very near to being a harsh one, ouce more. "I am sorry — very sorry, Carlton!" " Sorry ?" and the often-recurring spasm which again passed over his features, could not have been unobserved by the young girl, for her own face seemed to reflect it. " Sorry ? Are you indeed sorry that I am not going into — that I am not going to be absent from you ?" " Oh, no, Carlton ! heaven knows I am not !" said Elsie, and the merry blue eyes were filled with tears. " But I think you ought to go ; and you do not know, Carlton, how much may hang upon it. Do you love Margaret — really and truly love her ?" z " Love her ? as my own soul !" answered Carlton Brand. He did not say " as his own life^\^ " Why do you ask, after all that you have known of our attachment and our engage- ment ?" " Because, Carlton" — and the young girl, weeping the while under an impulse of feeling that she could scared}^ her- self understand, caught him by the arm and drew down his THECOWARD. 51 head towards her—" because I believe that if you do not go with the Reserves, Margaret will think that you do not do so becau.ot even her brother, who had but a few moments before been 5(5 THE COWARD. imploring her assistance, thanked her for what she had then spoken. At least he silenced her for the time with — ■ " You can do no good now by speaking, Elsie. It is too late. Miss Ilayley has something more to say to me, no doubt, after what she has accidently heard ; and I am pre- pared to hear it." He stood almost coolly, then, the bared head bent only a very little, and the face almost as calm as it was inexpressibly mournful. So might a convicted criminal stand, feeling himself innocent of wrong in intent, beaten down under a combination of circumstances too strong to combat, awaiting the words of his sentence, and yet deter- mined that there should be something more of dignity in his reception of the last blow than there had ever been in any previous action of his life. Twice Margaret Hayley essayed to speak, and twice she failed in the effort. If she bad been calmly indignant the moment before, Nature had already begun to take its revenge, and she was the woman again. Her proud head was bent a little lower, and there was a dewy moisture in the dark eyes, that could never be so well dried up as in being kissed away. Who knows that the proud woman was not really relenting — letting the old love come back in one overwhelm- ing tide and sweep away all the barriers erected by indigna- tion and contempt ? Who knows how much of change might possibly have been wrought, had the next words of Carlton Brand been such as indicated his belief that the chain between them was not yet severed utterl}"? Who knows, indeed ? — for his words were very different. " Miss Hayley, I have waited for you to speak what I feel that you have to say. You have heard words that no betrothed woman, I suppose, can hear from her promised husband and yet retain that respect for him which should be the very foundation of the marriage-bond." " I have." The words came from her lips in tones much lower than those in which she had before spoken, and she did not even look at him as she answered. THECOWARD. 57 " You have heard me declare myself— I know by the face you wore but a moment since, that you have heard all this — what you hold to be the lowest and most contemptible thing on God's footstool — a coward.''^ " 1 have. I would rather have died on the spot than heard those words from the lips of the man I have— have loved 1" The words still low, and some hesitation in those which con- cluded the sentence. One would almost have believed, at that moment, that of the two the culprit was the down-look- ing and low-voiced woman, instead of the man whose god-like presence so contradicted the dastardly vice he was confessing. " I have no defence to offer," the speaker went on. " If you have heard all that I believe, no further explanation is necessary. You know the worst ; and as a proud woman, with honor unspotted and beyond suspicion, you have a right to pass what sentence you choose upon my — my shame, my crime, if you will !" Perfect silence for an instant, then a broken sob from Elsie, whose face was streaming with tears denied to both the others, and who was leaning her forehead against the sharp corner of one of the columns of the piazza, apparently that the slight physical pain thus inflicted might do something to still the mental agony that raged within. Then Margaret Hayley, as if she had passed through a long struggle but conquered at last with a triumph slaying her own soul, raised her head, drew in a hard breath, shook back one of the tresses of her dark hair which had fallen over her brow, and spoke : "Do you know, Carlton Brand— I cannot call you Mr. Brand again, for that address is mockery after what we have been to each other — do you know what that sentence must be, in justice to myself and to you ?" " I can guess it, Margaret Hayley," was the answer, the prefix changed again in imitation of her, just as she a moment before had changed it in imitating him. The inci- dent was a mere nothing, and yet suggestive as showing how closely the two seemed to study each other, and how much 58 THE COWARD. of real sympathy there must after all have been between them. " I can guess it, and I will try to bear it." "You can guess it — you do guess it — separation!" said Margaret in a low voice that she could not quite render firm. "I was not mistaken — I supposed as much," he answered. " You are a proud woman, Margaret, and you could not marry a man for whom you failed to entertain respect — " " I am a proud woman, but a woman still," said Margaret. " You whom I have loved so truly, can best guess the depth of my woman's nature. But I cannot and will not marry a man to whom I cannot look up and say : * This man has the courage and the will to protect me in every peril !' " " Have you ever had reason to believe that I could not and would not protect you, if need came, against all the world ?" and his eyes momentarily flashed, at that thought, with a light which should not have shone in the orbs of a coward. " Words are idle, Carlton Brand !" said Margaret. " There is no protection so sacredly due as that of a strong man to his country. You know it, and I know it as well. The man who knows his duty to his country and dares not do it, through sheer bodily fear, could not be trusted in any relar tion. His wife would not dare trust him, if she knew it ; and you have opened my eyes but too painfully. And so, in mercy to both, all must be over between us — " " Oh, do not say that, Margaret, sister !" broke out Elsie, in a more faltering voice than she had ever used in pleading for herself since the earliest day of childhood. Margaret did not heed her, if she heard, but went on from the point at which she had been interrupted : "All is over between us, Carlton Brand, at once and for- ever, unless " " Unless? — what is the possibility you would yet hold out to me ?" and the speaker showed more agitation, at that one renewed glimpse of hope, than he had done when battling against utter despair. THECOWARD. 59 *' Unless you will yet obey the summons that has called vou with every other true son of Pennsylvania to the field, and prove to me that you did not know yourself or that you were endeavoring to play a cruel part in deceiving your sis- ter and me I" The face of Carlton Brand had been comparatively calm, ever since the coming out of Margaret. Suffer as he might, most of the suffering had been hidden. Now that face as- sumed an aspect that was really fearful to behold. The veins on his forehead swelled as if they would burst, his lip set hard, his eyes glared as if one touch might have made him a maniac, and his hands worked convulsively. All the symptoms of extreme terror and of a repugnance which no effort could overcome, were imminent in every glance and motion ; and something of those phenomena was exhibited which we may suppose the Highland seer of old time to have shown, when he was carried beyond himself by the invisible powers, and saw battle, defeat and horrible death for himself or others, slowly unrolling before his spiritual sight. Elsie Brand shuddered and drew back to the column which had before sheltered her. Margaret Hayley still stood erect, though she was evidently laboring under suppressed excite- ment, and none could say what the end of this scene might be. It was quite a moment before Carlton Brand could com- mand himself sufficiently to speak, and then he said in a low, broken voice : " Ko — I cannot. I cannot kill my poor gray-haired old father with the spectacle of the flight and disgrace of his only son." "And you have decided well," said Margaret. "It is a bitter thing to say, but I am glad that you have marked out my course as you have done. Think — oh heaven !" and she seemed indeed to be for the moment addressing the powers above instead of those regnant upon the earth — "think how near I came to being this man's wife and the possible mother of his children, each one marked with the curse set 60 THECOWARD. upon them bv their father !" No human ear could have heard the whisper which followed : " Enough of disgraces de- scending from parents — oh, heaven !" " You are right, Margaret Uayley — right 1" spoke Carlton Brand, his voice lower, more hoarse and broken than it had been at any part of the long interview. " You have re- minded me well of your duty and mine. The day may come when you will be sorry for every word thtrt has fallen from your lips ; but it may not. To-day you are doing right — let the future take care of itself Good-bye !" He took the long, slender white fingers in his, and looked upon them a minute, the tears at last gathering in his eyes. Then, when through the thickening drops he could scarcely see them longer, he raised them to his lips, pressed a kiss upon them, dropped the hand and strode off the piazza and away, never once looking back as he passed down the path towards the gate. Margaret Hayley had been overstraining both heart and brain, and the penalty asserted itself very soon. Her dis- carded lover was scarcely half way down the path when the revulsion came, and pride for the moment broke dowm before her terrible sorrow. The proud neck bent, she stretched out her arms after the retreating figure, the single word, " Carl- ton !" came half whispered and half groaned through her lips, her eyes closed, and she sunk fainting into the arms of Elsie. Carlton Brand did not hear the call. A moment, and still wn'thout another glance at the house where he was leaving behind the happiness of a life, he had unloosed the splen- did chestnut pawing at the gate, swung himself into the saddle and ridden away w^estward. He reeled a little in his seat as he rode, as a drunken man might have done — that was all the apparent difference between the man with a hope who had arrived half an hour before and the man who now departed without one. THECOWARD. 61 CITArTEU III. Kitty Hood and her School- house — Dick Compton going Soldiering — A Lovers' Quarrel, a bit of Jealousy, and A Threat — IIow Dick Compton met his supposed Rival — An Encounter, Sudden Death, and Kitty Hood's terrible Discovery. " I DO not care, Dick Compton ! You are a mean, good- for-uotbing fellow, and the sooner you go away and get killed, the better. I hope I may never set eyes on you again, as long as I live." A pleasant st3^1e of address, especially from a pretty woman ; and yet one to which a good many persons have submitted, first and last, from little people whom they could physically have slain with a single stroke and mentally dis- comfited with very little more trouble ! The time of this objurgation was the same morning on which the events took place which have already been re- corded as occurring at the residence of Margaret Hayley, and at a very little earlier hour than that which witnessed the departure of Carlton Brand from the place of his signal dis- comfiture. The place was in front of a little country-school- house standing half a mile from the Darby road, northwest- ward, and perhaps two miles westward from the Hayleys. The interlocutors were Richard Compton (already introduced as " Dick" by the flippant tongue of his companion), a young and well-to-do farmer of the neighborhood, about a quarter of a century old, perhaps some five feet nine in height, thick- set, strong-limbed, with a round, good-humored face guiltless of beard but browned a good deal by exposure in the field, generally smiling and content, but with a spice of the bull- dog in his nature which made him sullen occasionally and led him always to be very fond of his own peculiar way ; — and Kitty Hood, teacher of the district school of that particular 62 THECOWARD. section of the Keystone State, a short, round, rosy little lass, with merry brown eyes that only occasionally had a sterner kind of mischief in them, dark brown waved hair, aud just the last general appearance in the world that a phrenologist would have selected for the necessarily calm and dignified life of an instructress of callow youth. The old weatiier-beaten school-house, erected perhaps fifty 3''cars before but not yet swept away in the prevailing rage for staring new white baby-houses for the instruction of children in the country, stood at the base of a slight wooded hill, facing southward ; a fine old sycamore near the door holding the whole house and all its contents in flecked light and shade ; a group of locusts not far awa}^ to the left showing a motley jumble of benches beneath, that were evidently the favorite lounging-place of the children during play -hours ; and a little pond of a hundred or two feet in diameter; with one edge half covered with the leaves of the intrusive pond-lilies, and the other bordered by a juvenile wharf of stones, old boards and bark, supplying the youngsters with a place in which to paddle, sail boats and get very wet without any danger of being drowned, in summer, and with a reliable though limited skating-ground in winter. Its convenience for winter sports could only be imagined, at that season of the year when the wild-roses were clambering up the dingy boards of the in- closure, to the windows of the school-room ; but its inevitable use as a part of the great " highway of nations" was too plainly shown by a circumstance which, alas ! — at the same moment illustrated the vicisss^udes of commerce and the necessity for the existence of insurance companies. A stately vessel of the mercantile guild, twelve inches in length but with the dignity of three masts and each holding spitted on it as a sail nearly an entire half-sheet of foolscap paper, had evidently left the little wharf during the morning play-hour, freighted for the Spice Islands lying up among the pond-lilies, but suffered the fate of many sea-going ships, fallen under the power of foul winds or adverse currents, and stranded on a T H E C O W A R D . 63 reef of mud some paces from the shore, from which the in- g-eniiity of her factors had not 3'et been able to release her, and where she hiy " keeled over" in a manner equally con- taminating to her white paper sails and unpleasant to her possible passengers. No doubt anxious eyes were meanwhile glancing out of the windows, between two leaves of the geography which detailed the perils of navigation in the East Indian archipelago, to see whether piratical canoes or pirogues did not put off to burn that noble vessel and mas- sacre her crew, before noon should give time for any further efforts towards her release. Here the course of this narra- tion painfully but necessarily loses sight of the good three- master " Snorter, of Philadelphia," as many another of the fairy barks launched by inexperienced youth disappears from view and is known no more forever ; but let us hope that this particular venture was floated off at some early " springtide" of play-spell, and that she ''came safely to her desired haven !" Within the little one-story school-house, with its unpainted desks and benches of pine, dark with age and scarred by notch and inscription from the penknives of half a century of school- boys, — there was going on, at that moment, precisely what may be seen in any school from Windsor to Washoe, when the ruling power is temporarily absent. Wilkie painted not only from life, but from the inevitable in life, when he drew the "Village School in an Uproar;" for mobs have been put down by the military power and even savage communities have been made quiet by the exercise of powder-and-ball ; but no force has yet been discovered that could check (and who would wish it to be entirely checked, after all ?) the riotous mischief of the school-room when the terrible eye is removed I Five minutes before, Mistress Hood in the chair of authority, fifty heads of all hues and all textures had been more or less closely bent down over book and slate, and a low monotonous hum, something like the sleepy drone from a score of bee-hives, had been heard floating out on the summer 64 T H E C O W A R Lt . air. isow, Mistress Kitty Hood liad been just two ruinutes absent from the school-room, and a nice little Pandemonium was already established, that it would need some birchings and many strong words to annihilate. Half a dozen of the big boys had gathered into a knot, not far from the door, and were snickering aloud and pointing knowingly towards the point o^ interest without, with running comments on " Miss Hood's beau 1" Three little girls, forgetting their sex, were playing at leap-frog between and over two of the benches, to the disarrangement of their short skirts and the eventual tumbling over of one of the benches with a loud clatter. Two or three of the larger girls were in close conversation, about what there is no means of knowing except that one of them remarked that "it was real indecent and she meant to tell her ma !" One boy, who was the possessor of a mag- nificently national handkerchief, had stuck it on the end of the long ruler from the mistress' desk, and was going through a dress parade of one, with a feeble whistle as music. A young brute was taking the opportunity of pinching the ear of a smaller boy, and making him whimper, as a punishment for some previous alleged injury. Another had made a pair of spectacles out of blue paper, and stuck them on the nose of a little girl on one of the near benches, who blushed so rosily that her white dress, blue spectacles and red face quite sup- plied the national colors. And still another, with cheeks marvellously distended, was trying whether he could, in the short space of time during which the mistress might be absent, manage to choke down three early harvest-apples without dying by strangulation or requiring any assistance from bis companions. Such were the surroundings of the country school-house, and such was the aspect of Kitty Hood's little school-room during her temporary absence. And now what was the necessity which had for the moment withdrawn her from her charge, and what vras the provocation under which the words were uttered, given at the commencement of this chapter ? T 11 E O O W A R D. 0.) Perhaps the perRonal apponrance of Dick Oompton may pro ar. least a little distance towards the explanation. As ho Btood kickinp: his foot ap^ninst the lower step of the school- x.onse door and listenino: to the words of petnlance which his mistress so plentifully bestowed npon him, it was to be seen that while his coat was a sack of (n-dinarvlii^ht summer-stuff, lookinp^ civil and homelike enonprh, his pants and cap were both ^vay and military, accordins: to the pattern of the Reserves. Under his arm he held a bundle which mip^ht very easily have contained the coat necessary to make the uniform complete; and such was, indeed, the composition of the parcel. Dick Compton, never before connected with any military organization, had the night before determined to abandon home and the girl he loved, leave other hands to gather in the fast ripening harvest, intrust his favorite pair of farm-horses to the care of his younger brother and the liands on the farm, and make at least a small part of the response to the urgent call of Governor Curtin. He had been down to the rendezvous, to sign the roll of membership in the Res.erves, and to get his uniform, that morning. He was to leave with the regiment for Harrisburgh, that evening, and it was on his way home to the pleasant farm-house lying a couple of miles northward and across the main road leading up from Market street, that he had called at the school-hous*^ to make his adieux to Kitty Hood, wiiich seemed to be so ungraciously received. They were so indeed. Kitty, from the moment when Comp- ton tapped at the door and called her out amid the surprised glances and then the tittering of the school-children — from the moment when she had observed his military cap and pants — had understood the whole story and put herself not only on her dignity but her unamiability. She had not smiled even once upon him, or allowed him to take her hand, though he reached out for it; and though the jolly round face of the school-mistress was not by any means the pattern of coun- tenance that could be made stupendously awful by the greatest 4 6Q T H E «J O W A U D . amount of efl'ort, yet Kitty had done her best to be royal — not to say imperial. To his explanations she had been worse than the traditional "deaf" — insultingly interrupting; and to his asseverations that the country needed the heart and the arm of every true man, she had answered with that uu- romantic but unanswerable word : " fiddlestick T' She had tried wheedling, coaxing, scolding, every thing but crying, in the effort to make him forego his resolution and take off his name (supposing that he could do such a thing) from the roll of the Reserves. She bad no doubt, and expressed her- self to that effect, that if he went to Harrisburgh he would come back in a coffin, all cut up into little bits by the savages, or not come back at all and have his skull and bones used for a drinking cup and a few necklaces by the women of Seces- sia, or come back in a condition worse than either, with both legs cut off close up to the body, one arm gone and his skull broken in, and a pretty thing for a respectable young woman to marry ! It was very well, for the sake of his adherence to his patri- otic purpose, that Dick Compton had in him that dash of bull-dog tenacity to vrhich allusion has before been made ; for it is not every man to whom such words of spiteful proph- esy and determined discouragement, coming from the lips of a pretty woman who made her own love the excuse for uttering them, would have been without their effect. They might as well have been uttered to one of the granite gods of ■^Id, as to Compton, so far as moving him to any change of pur- pose was concerned ; but his temper was by no means of as good proof as his determination. In fact, Kitty Hood's spiteful expostulations very soon made him ill-natured if not angry ; and by the time the culmination already recorded was reached, he was quite ready to say, in a tone corresponding to her own : "Well, I will go, Kitty Hood, whether you like it or not. t was a fool not to go away without walking a mile further to iet you know any thing about it." THE COWARD. 67 " Nobody asked you !" was the petulant reply. "Nobody need to ask me, next time !" was the rejoinder. " I have a right to be killed, if I. please, and it is none of your business whether I am or not. A pretty world it would be, with half of it made up of women too weak and too cowardly to fight a cat, and the other half of men tied fast of their apron strings, so that they had to ask every time they wanted to go away, just as one of your little whelps of school-boys whines : ' Please to let me go out !' '^ Kitty Hood was finding a tongue quite as sharp as her own, by this time, and the effect was very much what is often seen in corresponding cases. Finding her lover growing as angry as herself, and a little more violent, the young school- mistress concluded that it was time to assume a less decided demeanor, so that if they must part they might do so without an absolute quarrel. "Well, Dick," she said, after a moment of pause, "there is no use of your being angry about it !" Just as if she had not been showing ill-temper from the beginning — the minx ! " Of course I cannot hold you, and do not wish to do so, if you prefer dressing yourself up in that ridiculous manner and standing up to be shot at, to remaining here with ??ie." " I don't prefer it, you know I don't, Kitty !" said Dick, aware that his flank of conversation had once more been turned and himself placed in a false position. But here came an interruption. A young gentleman of seven made his appearance in the door of the school-room, his hands blacker than the proverbial ace-of-spades, his nether raiments spotted, and his face drawn into a most comical whim- per, while his words came out between a sob and a hiccough : " Please, Miss Hood, won't you colne in to Jem Stephen- son ? He has gone and upsot the inkstand all over my hands and spoilt my new trowsers !" "Go in and keep your seat, you young villain, or I shall flog you and Jem Stephenson both !" was the consoling assurance with which the "young villain" departed; while (38 TIIECOWARD. the hum from the school-room was evidently increasing, and the 3^oung sehool-niistress felt that she must indeed suuu resume the reins of governnient if she was not to be perma- nently left without a realm worth ruling. But she took time to rejoin to Compton's last assertion. " I don't know any thing of the kind. I say that if you thought half as much of me as you did of public opinion and making a show of your fine new clothes, you would not stir one step." "Now, Kitt}', do be reasonable — " again began Compton. " Look at other people — don't they respect the wishes of those they expect to marry ?" the young lady went on, not heeding his last attempt. " See — there is Carlton Brand — who does not know that he has remained at home ever since the war broke out, though he could have been a Colonel and perhaps even a General — just because he was really in love with Margaret Hayley, and she did not wish him to leave her?" It is scarcely necessary to say, at this stage of the narra- tion, that Miss Kitty Hood was "begging the question." She had never heard one word to indicate why Carlton Brand had not accepted his opportunities, and she merely mentioned the two as people of prominence in the section, acquaintances, and the first pair of lovers of whom she happened to think. But she had made a terrible blunder, as many of us do at the very moment when we seem to be performing the very keenest of operations. Carlton Brand — one of the finest-looking men to be found within a radius of an hundred miles, a member of one of the liberal professions, and known to be wealthy enough to afford indulgence in any line of life which he might happen to fancy — was naturally an object of envy if not of suspicion to hundreds of other young men who did not feel that they possessed quite the same advantages. Young farmers, who chanced to catch him saying a polit-e 'wcrd to their sisters, looked at him through eyes not too confiding, in spite of the fact that not even rumor had pointed THE COWARD. 69 out a sinj^le instance in which he had indulged in a dishonor- al)le amour ; and those who detected him in glances of kind- ness (perhaps of admiration) towards demoiselles whom they had marked out as their own destined marital property, had a bad habit of even looking out of the corners of their eyes and scowling a little, at such manifestations. Carlton Brand, in all this, was only paying a very slight penalty for his triple advantage of wealth, position and good looks, while many others pay the same unpleasant toll to society for the posses- sion of even one (and sometimes none) of the three favors of fortune. The farm-house of the Comptons and the residence of the Brands (as will be hereafter made apparent) lay but a very short distance apart ; and the little house (perhaps it might with more propriety have been called a cottage) in which Kitty Hood had seen the light, and where she lived with her quiet widowed mother, was still nearer to the abode of the young lawyer. Though the Hoods were much more humbly circumstanced than their neighbors, intercourse between the two families had always been frequent, with a very pleasant friendship between Elsie and Kitty, and more visits of the young girl at the residence of the Brands, and of Carlton, accompanying his sister, to that of the Hoods, than at all pleased the lover and expectant husband of Kitty. Then the latter bad a head a little giddy and a tongue more than a little imprudent; and she had shown the bad taste, many times since their tacit engagement, to draw comparisons, in the presence of her lover, to his disadvantage^ and in favor of a man who had much better opportunities than the farmer for keeping his clothes unimpeachable, his hands unsoiled, and his cheek unbrowned. Only very imprudent people, and perhaps very unfeeling ones, use such words ; but thfty are used much too often, ignoring the pure gold that may lie within a rough nugget, and preferring the mere tinsel leaf on a bit of handsome carving. Kitty Hood was one of the 70 T H E C O W A K D . thoughtless, and she was likely, some day, to pay the penalty in a manner she little anticipated. Within the few weeks previous, without Kitty being at all aware of the fact, Mr. Dick Compton had allowed himself to ruminate more than was healthy upon the glances he had chanced to see interchanged between Kitty and her "stuck- up lawyer friend," as he chose to designate him, and upon the continual commendations which she chose to bestow on the latter — until rooted personal dislike and something very near to positive jealousy, had been the result. Walking over towards the rendezvous that morning, if one shadow of hesitation on the subject of going to Harrisburgh had passed through the mind of the young farmer, it was caused by his dislike of leaving Kitty out of view, with Carlton Brand in the same near neighborhood. All that difficulty had been removed by the understanding that the lawyer was to leave at the same time and on the same service with himself; but when Kitty at once revived the obnoxious name with a new phrase of commendation, and signified that the section was not to be relieved of the lawyer's presence during his own absence, it is not very strange that the unreasonable demons of jealousy began tugging again at his heart-strings, and that he felt like performing some severe operation upon tho Mordecai who sat in his gate, if he could only catch him ! " So you have got to quoting Carlton Brand again, have you I" he responded to Miss Kitty's citation. " I thought 1 had told before that I had heard nearly enough of that proud puppy I" "'Puppy' indeed!" and Miss Kitty fired in an instant. " He's nothing of the kind, but a man and a gentleman, and you know it, Dick Compton !" "Oh, yes, a geiitlemaii, and ih^t suits you to a turn, Kitty Hood!" was the sneering reply. "When your g*^'ntiemen arc in the way, you think that an honest hard-working man is nobody." If ever a man spoke an unjust word to a woman (and it is THE C O W A K I) . 71 to be feared that a great many have been uttered since the unfortunate gift of ppeech was conferred upon the race), Dick Compton was stupidly unjust at that moment. For the very quarrel (it was but little else, from first to last) in which they were engaged, had originated in the young girl's evident anxiety for his safety and pleading that he would nut go awav and leave her, even for a short period ! Kitty Hood felt the injustice, if he did not, and all the old rage came back again, in a varied form, but hotter than ever. Her eyes flashed, she choked for a moment, and then, before Dick Comp- ton could be at all aware what was about to happen, the scliool-mistress drew her little white hand back and ))rought him a ringing box on the ear and cheek, that the latter would not be very likely to forget for a fortnight, — while she flashed out : " Dick Compton, just take that for a fool 1 You are not worth any honest woman's loving, with your mean jealousy. You can go where you please, and I will never speak to you again until you learn better manners than to talk to me in that manner !" Before the jealous lover had half recovered from the blow she stepped away from him and put her foot on the sill of the door, to re-enter. Compton, spi.te of the tingle in his cheek, did not quite believe in the propriety of parting in that manner, when he was just going to the war ; and he made a step towards her. " Kitty ! — oh, now, Kitty — " " Keep off, Dick Compton ! Good-day and good-bye, and nobody cares where you go or how long you stay !" was the forbidding rejoinder, as the school-mistress swung herself round the jamb of the door and half disappeared. Her blood was at fever heat : that of her lover was likely to be at the same pitch in a moment. " You won't come back, then ?" " No, I won't !" " Then I will tell you something, Kitty Hood I" and the 72 T H E C O W A K D. young man was very angry and very earnest when Le made the threat. " If I ean catch Carlton Bran«l before I go away tornight, I will just flog him till he is the nearest to a dead man you ever saw, — and see how you both like it !'' Without another word the young farmer turned and strode round the corner of the school-house with his bundle and his intlignation, making hasty strides up the hill and towards the woods that lay in the direction of his home. Kitty Hood saw thus much, and realized that very probably she was look- ing at him for the last time. Then she realized, too, what she had scarcely felt before — that she had been terribly to blame in the quarrel — that she might have been wrecking the liappiness of a life by her ill-temper — and that it would never do to let poor Dick go away to the war, so angry at her that if killed his last thought would be upon every one else rather than her, and that if he returned he would never come near her again — never ! Then poor Kitty dropped her head upou her desk, heedless of the only partially-hushed randemonium around her and the necessity of settling with Master Jem Stephenson, spiller of ink and others, ■ — dropped her head upon her desk and sobbed loudly enough for some of the children to be quite aware of the fact, so that one of the little boys hazarded the remark, sotlo voce : " Wonder what is the matter W'ith her !" and a bigger one enlightened his ignorance with : " Why, didn't you see ? Her beau has got on sojer clothes and is going away — stupid !" Only a minute or two, and then Kittv Hood could endure the struggle no longer. She was very unhappy and not a little penitent. She could not remain any longer in the midst of those noisy children : she mu.,^ (with a terribly significant emphasis on the last word) and that he is not going one step with the regiment." " Dr. Pomeroy, I know better !" was the reply. " Mr. Brand, I know what I am talking about, a good deal better than you imagine !" sneered the doctor, who having by that time managed to get his face into that shape which he had no objection to being seen by his patient, now turned about and faced him, with his hands under the tails of his coat. ' "What do you know?" was the inquiry, a little trouble blending with the anxiety in the face. " Well, I will tell you, as perhaps you may as well learn the fact from me as from any one else," answered the doctor, his tones now very smooth, and his manner almost deferential, as should be the demeanor of any man towards his victim at the moment of stabbing him under the fifth rib, " I had occasion to call at the armory of the Reserves, an hour or two ago, to set the broken arm of one of the fellows who had taken too much Monongahela in anticipation of his start, and falhMi down-stairs. I learned there and then, with some surprise and not a little grief (the father ought to have caught the e.x- l)res6ion of his face at that moment, and thereby measured the " grief" indicated !) that Mr. Carlton Brand had been down at the armory, alleged his businef^s to be such that he could not possibly leave the city, and declined any further connection whatever with the regiment." " It is impossible !" said the father. 90 THE COWARD. " It is true, however, like a good many impossible things !" again sneered the physician. "And I have been thinking whether some others of members of the State militia would not be found like your amiable son — too busy to pay any attention lo the defence of the State !" " Dr. Pomeroy I" said the father, after one moment of almost stupefied silence. " Dr. Pomeroy, you have not been friends with my son for a long time, and I know it, though I do not know what could have caused any disagree- ment. But I do not suppose you would deliberately tell a falsehood about him that could be detected in half an hour; and T want to know what there is hidden in your words, more than you have chosen to convey." "You had better ask your son when he comes I" was the reply. " No — I ask you, now, and I think you had better answer me !" said the old man. " Well, then," answered the doctor, " if you insist upon it, my love for the young man is not so warm as to give me a great deal of pain in the telling, and you may know all you wish. Your son has been doubted a little, ever since the breaking out of the war, from his repeated refusals of positions in the army ; and — " " The man who says that my son is disloyal, lies !" cried the old man, interrupting him. " You, or any other man !" " It was not on the ground of his disloyally that be was suspected !" sneered the doctor. "And what ground then ?" asked the father, his face and his whole manner showing something terrible within that could be only partially suppressed. " The ground of his cowardice, since you will have it I" spoke the doctor, in such a tone of fiendish exultation as Mephistopheles may have used to Faust, at the moment of assuring him that the last hope of happiness on earth or pardon from heaven had been swept away in the slaughter of Valen- tine and the moral-murder of Marguerite. " There is not an THE COWAKD. 91 officer in the Reserves, who heard him refuse to join the regi- ment this morning, but believes him — yes, known him, to be an iirrant poltroon." " Doctor Philip Pomeroy, you are a liar as well as a traitor and a scoundrel ! If I had two legs, and still was, as I am, old enough to be your father, you would not leave this house without broken bones 1 Get out of it, send me your bill to- morrow, or even to-day, and never let me see you set foot in it again while I live !" The face of the old man was fearful, at that juncture. In spite of the pain of his disabled limb, he had grasped his cane and struggled to a standing position, before concluding his violent words ; and as he concluded, passion overcame all prudence, and the heavy cane went by the doctor's head, crashing through the window and taking its way out into the garden, at the same moment when his limb gave w^ay and he sunk back into his chair with a groan that was almost a shriek, clutching at the bell-rope that hung near him and nearly tear- ing it from its fastenings. Dr. Pomeroy said not another word, whatever he might have felt. He had dodged the flying cane, by not more than an inch, and such chances are not likely to improve the tem- per of even the most amiable. For one instant there was something in his face that might have threatened personal revenge of the violence as well as the unpardonable words, in spite of the difference of age : then the sneer crept over his face again, he stepped out through the parlor into the hall, took his hat, and the next moment was bowling down the lane into the road, behind his fast-trotting bay. It seemed likely that his last professional visit to the Brands had been paid, even if it had not yet been paid for I The terrible appeal of the master of the house to the bell- rope at his hand was answered the moment after by the appearance of a woman of so remarkable an aspect as to be worthy of quite as much attention as either of the personages who have before been called, in the same room, to the 92 T H E C O W A R I). reader's attention. Tier dress was that of a housekeeper or upper servant, thonirh the hcijrht of her carriage and the erectness of her figure might liave stamped her as an empress. And in truth that figure did not need any such extraordinary carriage to develop it, for, as compared with the ordinary stature of woman, it was little else than gigantic. The man who built a door for Elspeth Graeme, less than six feet in the clear, subjected her to imminent danger of bringing up with a " bump" every time she entered it; and her broad, square, bony figure showed that all the power of her frame had not been frittered away in length. Her hands were large and masculine, though by no means ill-shaped, and her foot had not only the tread supposed to belong to that of the coarser sex, but very nearly its size. In face she was broad yet still longer of feature, with hair that had been light brown before the gray sifted itself so thickly among it as to render the color doubtful, — with eyes of bluish gray, a strong and somewhat coarse mouth with no contemptible approach to a moustache of light hairs bristling at the corners, — and with complexion wrinkled and browned by the exposures of at least sixty years, until very nearly the last trace of what had once been youth and womanhood was worn away and forgot- ten. Yet there was something very good and very kindly amid the rugged strength of the face ; and while little children might at the first glance have feared the old woman and run away from her as a "witch," they would at the second cer- tainly have crept back to her knees and depended upon a protection which they w^ere certain to receive. It is only necessary to say, in addition, that she was Scot- tish by birth as well as by blood and name — that she had come to this country nearly forty years before, when Robert Brand was a young man, and attached herself to the fortunes of the family because they were Scottish by blood and she was the very incarnation of faithful feudality — that his daugh- ter h:id been named Elspeth (since softened to Elsie) at her earnest desire, because she said the name was " the bonniest THE COWARD. 93 ava" and she Imd hcrsc'lf bccni nnnuHl after a noljle lady wlio bore it, in her own hind, and who liad dotio mueh to give her that ni)riglit earringe by standing as her god-mother— and Ihat for many a long year, now, she had been the working head of Iho Brand household, scarcely more so since the death of its weak, hysterical mistress, a dozen years before, than >vhile she was alive and pretending to a management which she never understood. If any one person beneath that roof, more legitimately than another, belonged to the family and felt herself so belonging, that person was Elspeth Graeme ; and if something of the romantic, which the stern sense of the father would have been slow to approve, had grown up in both his children, it was to the partial love of Elspeth and her stories of Scottish romance, poetry, history, song and superstition, carrying them away from prosaic America to the wnmpling burns and haunted f o-lens of the land from which their blood had been derived, — • that such a feeling, fortunate or unfortunate as the future might prove, was principally to be credited. *' Did you ring, sir ? Ech, Lord, the men's deein' !" were the two very different exclamations made by Elspeth as she entered the room, after the departure of the doctor, and caught sight of the situation in which the master seemed to be lying. "No, Elspeth, I am not 'deein' as you call it," he growled out, when the pain of his exertion had again somewhat sub- sidud and he could find breath for words. " But I wish I was ! Is that cursed doctor gone ?" "He was gettin' to his carriage the minute, and he's awa by this," answered the housekeeper. " But what ava has he been doin' to ye ? Murderin' ye maybe ! — they're a dolefu' uncanny set, the doctors !" " If you ever see that man here again, and you don't have him shot or set the dog on him, out of the house you go, neck and crop, the whole pack of you— do you hear !" was the i-eply to Elspeth's comment on the medical profession. 94 THE COWARD. "Just as ye sav, master," said Elspoth. " I'll set Carlo at him myself, if ye say so ; and wo but tne brute w'ill just worry bim, for he does na like him and is unco fond of snap- pin' aboot his heels !" ".Where is Elsie ?" was the next question. *' Gone over to Mistress Hayley's the mornin'. Can I do any thing for your leg, sir? — for the wench in the kitchen's clean daft, and I'll be wanted there, maybe." " Xo — you can do nothing. My leg is better. l>ut send Elsie to me the moment she comes in." " Hark !" said the housekeeper, as a h'ght foot sounded on the piazza and came in through the hall. " There's the lassie hersel — I ken her step among a thousand. I'll just send her in to you the moment she has thrawn afl'her bonnet." And the old woman departed on her errand. There must have been an acuteness beyond nature, in the ears of old Elspeth, if she indeed knew the tread of the young girl ; for her step, as she entered the room, was so slow, lag- gard and lifeless, so unlike the usual springing rapidity of her girlish nature, that even her lover might have been pardoned for failing to recognize it. It was as if some crushing weight fettered her limbs and bowed down her brow. And a crushing weight indeed rested upon her — the first unendur- able grief of her young life — the knowledge of her only brother's shame. Robert Brand marked the slow step and saw the downcast head ; and little as he could possibly know of the connection of that demeanor with the subject of his previous thought, it was not of that cheerful and reassuring character calculated to restore the lost equanimity of a man in- sulted in the tenderest point of his honor and chafed beyond human endurance. His first words were rough and peremp- tory : " Why do you move in that manner, girl, when you come to see me ? I do not like it — do not let me see any more of it !" *'I was coming, father !" was poor Elsie's only answer. T H E C O W A R D . 95 " So I see — at the rate of ten feet an liour ! What is the matter with you '/" " Nothing." "Nothing?? — do not tell nic that, j,nrl ! I know better, or vou would never carry that gloomy face and move as if you wt'i-e going to your grandmother's funeral !" " Indeed there is nothing the matter with me, father ; but iiuTesoon will be, if you s.cold me 1" and the young girl, making a terrible effort to be cheerful, came up to his side, put her arm around his neck and pressed her lips to his fore- head with a movement so pure and fond that it might have softened Nero at the moment of ordering his last wholesale murder. It partially disarmed the pained and querulous father. He put his arm around the daughter's waist, re- turned the pressure and seemed to be soothed for a moment by resting his head against the bosom that pressed close to him. But the demon that had been roused could only sleep thus temporarily. Directly he put her away, though not roughly, looked her full in the face, and asked : " Where is your brother ?" "You know he went down to town this morning, and he has not yet come home," was the reply, with an effort not by any means a successful one, to keep the voice from quavering. The practised ear of the father detected the difference between that intonation and the usual unembarrassed utterance of his daughter ; and he naturally connected it at once with the re- straint of her manner, and noticed an evasion in her answer that might otherwise have escaped him. 'I know he has not come home," he said. "But that was not my question. You have been at Mrs. Hayley's where he spends quite as much of his time as here. Have you seen him ?" Elsie Brand would have given the proudest feature of her personal adornment, at that moment, to be able to lie I She saw that some undefined anxiety with reference to her brother must have moved her father's repeated questions, 96 TnE COWARD. and naturany she feared tlie worst — that Carlton's mad words had indeed been overheard, and that even in that brief space of time some messenger of evil had travelled fast and betrayed the fatal secret. If so, the storm was al)out to burst on tlie devoted head of lier brother, not the less deadly because she nmst bear the first brunt of its violence. Yes — Elsie Brand would almost have given her right hand to be aide to lie at that moment. But her education bad been as true as was her nature, and she ujunaged to falter out, yet more suspiciously : ''Yes, father!" " And you dared to trifle with rae, girl, when I asked you a plain question ?" and Robert Brand grasped his daughter by the arm so forcibh' that she nearly screamed with the violent pressure, and tears did indeed start to her eyes as she sobbed out — " I did not mean to trifle with you, father. I only thought — " " You thought that when I asked one question, I meant another, did 3'ou ?" and the face that looked upon her was set, hard and very stern. "You had better not try the ex- periment again, if you do not wish to suffer for it !" "Oh, father!" and the young girl, enough broken before, now wept outright. But he stopped her, very roughly. "No bawling ! not a whimper ! Now listen to me. You have seen your brother since morning — since he went down to the rendezvous." "Yes, father." " You saw him at Mrs. Hayley's." "Yes, father." "And he came there to bid Margaret good-bye, before he went away, and you are such a miserable whining school- girl that you are making all this fuss about his absence. Is that the fact ? Speak I" He still held her arm, tliough his grasp was less painful than it had been at first; and his eyes looked upon her with such a steady, anxious, almost fearful THE COWAPvD. 97 pazo, that it would have driven away the second temptation to falsehood, even had such a temptation once obtained power. There was nothing for it, at that moment, but to speak the truth so far as compelled. " iS"o,"father. Carlton is not going away." The last three words were uttered so low, and so tangled up among the sobs that she had not been able entirely to check, that they might not have been distinguishable except to the preter- naturally acute ear of the suspicious father, " He is not going ? Why ?" The first words were harsh and loud — the last one was almost thunder, easily heard, if any one was listening^ over the whole house. Before it the young girl shook like an aspen and broke out into fresh sobs as she attempted to answer. " Because — because his business will not allow — " "Because he is a coward! Answer me that question, girl, or never speak to me again while 3"ou live !" Robert Brand had apparently forgotten all his pain and risen from his chair, still holding his daughter's arm, as he hurled out the interro- gation and the threat. Poor Elsie saw that he knew all, too surely ; further dissembling was useless ; and she dropped upon her knees, that iron grasp still upon her arm, lifted up both her hands, and piteously moaned — " Yes, that is the reason ! Oh, how did you hear it ? Kill me, father, if you will, but do not kill poor Carlton ! He cannot help it — indeed he cannot !" They were fearful words that immediately thereafter fell from the lips of Robert Brand — words that no provocation should ever tempt a father to utter, but words which have been plentifully showered on the heads of the shamed or the disobedient, by the thoughtless or the unmerciful, who arro- gated to themselves God's power of judgment and retribu- tion, througkall the long ages. " Get up, girl, if you do not wish me to forget that you are not yourself the miserable hound for whom you are plead- ing' !" 98 THECOWARD. " Oh, father !" broke again from tlie lips of the frightened girl, who did not move from hor kneeling position. " Get up, I say, or I will strike you with this cane as I would a dog !" Elsie Brand staggered to her feet, she knew not how, but stood bowed before the stern judge in an attitude of pleading quite as humble and pitiful as that of prayer. The next words that fell upon her ears were not addressed to her, but seemed to be spoken for others' hearing than those who dwell in tenements of clay, while the voice that uttered them trembled in mingled grief and indignation, and the disabled frame shook as if it had been racked with palsy. "jl/// son a coward I a miserable poltroon to be pointed at, spat upon, and whipped ! My blood made a shame in the land, by the one whom I trusted to honor it ! God's blackest and deepest curse — " " Oh, father ! father !" broke in the young girl in a very wail of agony so pitiful that it must have moved any heart not calloused for the moment against all natural feeling, but that availed nothing to stop the impending curse or even to lower the voice that uttered it. " — God's deepest and blackest curse 'light upon the coward I shame, sorrow, and quick death ! He shall have neither house, home nor family from this moment ! I disown this bastard of my blood ! I devote him to ruin and to per- dition !" Few -men have ever uttered, over the most criminal and degraded of the offspring of their own loins, so dire an im- precation ; and no father, who has ever uttered one approach- ing it in horrible earnest, but is doomed here or hereafter to feel the bitterest weight of that curse resting upon his own head. Lear was clean distraught by wrongs beyond human endurance, before he called upon "all the stored veftgeances of heaven" to fall on the " ingrateful top" of iKronePIl, and hreatcned both his unnatural daughters with " such re- venges" that they should be the "terrors of the earth" ; and THECOWARD. 99 only that incipient madness clears him from the sin and leaves liim human to demand our after pity. There can be no excuse for such paroxysms of remorseless anger — it is dillieult to supply even a palliation. And yet there was somethini? in the blood, in the past life and associations of Robert Brand, coming as near to offering excuse for shame and indignation driving to temporary madness, as could well have been offered in behalf of any man of his day, commit- ting a sin of such nature. And to circumstances embodying these it is now necessary to revert, even at the expense of a temporary pause in the directness of this narration. CHAPTER Y. The Btrth and Blood of the Brands-^Prtde that came DOWN FROM THE CrUSADES ROBERT BrAND AS SOLDIER AND Pension-Agent — The Pensioners of the Revolu- tion — How Elsie rayed, and how the Father's Curse SEEMED to be ANSWERED — Dr. JaMES HoLTON, AND THE LOSS OF A Corpus Delicti. It has already been indicated, in speaking of the ties which bound Elspeth Graeme to the Brand family, that they were Scots by descent as she was by both blood and birth. Robert Brand himself stood in the fourth remove from Gaelic nativ- ity, without the spirit of his race being extinct or even mod- ified. When Archibald Alexander, father of that William Alexander who claimed to be Earl of Stirling in the peerage of Scotland while he was gallantly fighting as a Major-Gen- eral in the patriot army of the Revolution, came to America in 1*140, he was accompanied by a man who claimed to hold quite as good blood as himself, though he served in little less than a menial capacity to the heir of the attainted house of 100 THE COWARD. Stirlin.G:. This was Malcolm Brand, of Perthshire, a mem- ber of the Scottish and elder branch of the Brands of Hert- fordshire in England, who at a later day carried the two crossed swords which they had borne on their shields since the Crusades, to augment the threatening bulls, wolves and leopards of the Dacres, in the possession of that barony. It was in a victorious hand-to-hand fight with a gigantic Sara- cen ou the field of Askalon, that Gawin de Brande, laird of Westenro in Lothian, fighting close beside King Richard, won that proud quartering of arms ; and it is to be believed that no descendant of his blood, either in 1740 or in 1863, liad quite forgotten that exploit or the fact that the very name of the family was only another antique appellation for the sword. Malcolm Brand, the emigrant, was the father of a sou Robert, born in Xew Jersey, as Archibald Alexander was the sire of William, who so proudly outdid the exploits of his elder blood, fighting under the leadership of Washington. The two young men, resident nearly together among the Kew Jersey hills, entered the army at the same time, and while the one rose to the dignity of a Major-General, the other shared in his combats at Long Island, Germantow^n and Monmouth, always fighting gallantly, but never rising beyond the grade of a first-lieutenant, and dying at last a prisoner on one of the pest-ships of the Wallabout. His son William, named after Lord Stirling and born in 1768, had of course passed as a boy through the trying period of the great contest, known that identification with the patriot cause inevital>le from anxiety for a father engaged in it and grief over his lingering death by disease and privation for its sake ; and it could not be otherwise than that the ears of /ji.s- son, Robert (the man of 1863), should have been filled with relations calculated at once to keep 'SWfe the pride of bis blood and to identify him with the glory and honor of the land in which his lot had been cast. Theu had come another influence, not less potent — the THE COWAKl). 101 second breaking-out of hostilities against England, in the War pf 1812. The blood of the Brands was not cooled — it sprung to arms ; and Robert Brand, then a young lawyer, taking the place of his father already invalided, assumed the sword of his armorial bearings and ibught with Scott at Chippewa and Lundy's Lane, receiving so terrible an injury in the leg, at the close of the latter battle, that he was to be a tortured cripple from that day forward, but glorying even in the dis- ablement and the suffering, because his injury had not been met in some trivial accident of peaceful life, but sustained where brave men dared their doom. And yet another influence, not less potent, was still to come. Years after, when Carlton Brand was a child in arms, his father, then a practising lawyer in his native State, be- came identified with that most romantic and most picturesque body of men, of whom the present age remembers but little, and of whom the age to come will know nothing except as the knowledge is handed down from father to son, or carried forward in such desultory records as these — The Penaioners of the Revolution. At that time, not less on account of his spotless reputation than the crippling wound received in the service, he was appointed Pension Agent for the section ia which he resided, and duly commissioned twice a year to re- ceive from the War Department and pay over to the old men the somewhat scant and very tardy pay with which the land of Washington at last smoothed the passage to the grave of those who had been his companions. It was Robert Brand's privilege, then, to meet those men in the familiar intercourse of business — to listen to their tales, so often slighted by those wiser or less reverent, of foughton field and toilsome march, of cheerless camp and suffering in tiie wilderness, when this giant nation was a wnlful child un- justly scourged by a tyrant mother — to find in each some reminder of his patriot grandfather, and some suggestion of what that grandfather would have been had the fortune of war spared him to go down into old age and senility. 102 THE COWARD. Twice a year, as the pension day came round, one by one they gathered in the little room where the scanty pension was to be doled — each with the measured beat of his stick sounding upon the floor as he entered, regularly as when his foot had beaten time in'^the olden days, under the iron rain of Princeton, or on the suffering march to Valley Forge. One by one they gathered to what was their great semi-annual holiday, with the kindly greetings of garrulous and failing age — with the gentle complaint, so patiently uttered, over limbs that seemed to be bowing with the weight of time, and with the pardonable boast that it was not so when the speaker had been young, in such a winter on the Xorthern Lines, or with such an officer at Yorktown or Saratoga. When the winters — said they — were colder than they are now, when the men were hardier, and when the women (they had all long before gone to rest, in the family graveyard or the little plat beside the church,) were fairer far than their daughters ever grew I Harmless deception of age ! — pleasant coloring that dis- tance gives in time as well as in the material world, so that the forms we once loved may be even more beautiful in thought than they were in reality ; the grassy law^ns upon which we played in childhood, greener far in memory than they ever were beneath the sun of June ; and even those hours once filled with anxiety and vexation, so beguiled out of their uncomely features, that they have no power to harm us in after-thought, and almost seem to have been freighted with unalloyed happiness ! There may have been a thunder-cloud rising in the heavens, that afternoon when we went boating with Harry and Tom and Mary and Susan and Alice, all the way down from Lovers' Bend to the Isle of Kisses, with music, and laughter and loving words that were sweeter far than song ; and the thunder-cloud may have thickened and gathered, so that the young lovers were drenched afid very dismal-looking, long before their return at evening; but be sure that forty years after, when the day is remembered, only the sunshine, the smiling faces and the flashing water is seen, T JI E COWARD. 103 and if the thunder-storm has a place in niemor}' at all, it comes back more as a pleasure than a disappointment. Mary may have had a cloud upon her brow,^that evening at the garden- gate, from the absence of a ribbon lightly promised, or the presence of a recollection how some one flirted with Julia on the evening before ; and there may even have been a tiff verging far towards a lover's quarrel, before the reconciliation and the parting under tJie moon ; but when the hair has grown gray, and Mary is with the millions sleeping in the bnnist of our common mother, only the moonlight, that dear last kiss, and the rapture of happy love are remembered, and that checkered hour is looked back upon as one of unmixed enjoyment. Time is the flatterer of memory, as well as the consoler of grief, and perhaps has no holier office. So it w^as well that the old men's mental eyes were dim when their physical vision was failing; and when we grow old as they, if the scythe of the destroj^er cut us not away long before, may the far-away past be gilded for us as it was for them, by the rosy hue of fading remembrance, until all the asperities, the hard realities, the sharp and salient edges and angles of life, are smoothed and worn away forever ! Sitting side by side, they talked — those bent and worn and gray old men — of scenes long matters of honored history, glorying (ah I honest and natural glory !) in having stood guard at the tent of Wayne, or shared the coarse fare of Sumter in the Southern woods, but most of all if happily the eye of Washington had chanced to beam upon them, and his lips (those lips that seldom broadly smiled) approved or thanked their honest service. Few men, even of those who fought beside him, seemed ever to have known a smile from the Father of his Country ; but for those few there always beamed a light of glorious memory to which the all-repaying word and the intoxicating smile of the Great Corsican would have been empty and valueless. It was easy, twenty or thirty years afterwards, to remem- ber the fire that blazed in the dim eyes of old Job Marstou, as 1U4 THE CUWAKD. he told how "Washington conimended him for his good conduct on the afternoon of the dreadful day of Long Island, when Sullivan's legion broke and fled like frightened sheep, — and how the veteran straightened himself upon his staff as if the head which had once borne the praise of the Joshua of Ameri- can Liberty should scarcely bend even to time. Or the quiver- ing of the hand of Walter Thome, one of the men who bore, through every trial and danger, the pledge of faith of the Monmouth League — quivering yet with the anger which had brooded ft)r more than fifty years, — as he pictured so plainly the burning of his fathers house by the Refugees, the acres of broad land laid waste by them, the cattle driven towards the royal lines from his own homestead, the arming of his friends, the chase, the recapture, and the ghastly figure of the Refugee captain as they hung him on a spreading limb that spanned the road, a sacrifice not only for the home in ashes but to the manes of Captain Huddy, scarcely yet taken dowa from his oak-tree gallows on the heights of Xavesink. Or the quietly felicitous chuckle with which Stephen Holmes, who had been one of " Captain Huyler's men" in the operations of that patriot marine freebooter around the shores of the lower bay of Xew York, detailed the success of a night attack in boats pretending to carry live-stock and oysters for sale, by which one vessel of the British fleet lying in the bay was cap- tured, much welcome spoil fell into their hands for the use of needy families at home, and all the remaining vessels of tho squadron rode uncomfortablv in the bay for a long time after. Or the half playful and half indignant raising of the cane of Robert Grey, when told by his old companions, for the five- hundredth time beyond a doubt, that he was suspected of a tihare in ArnoUVs treason, for not stopping the disguised Andre as he passed his sentinel post below West Point, before he fell into the hands of the three very common and insignificant men made immortal by one single act- Williams, Paulding and Yan "Wert. There would have been no pretence in the motion, spite of his eighty years and T H b] U O W A K D. 105 faltering limbs, had the speaker hazar.led more than a jest ai::ainst the laitht'uhiess of the old man's service iu the '* darlc dav." But easiest of all was it to remember the story of Thomas West, wounded, and erii)pled from that day forth, iu assisting to bear the w^ouuded Lafayette from the field of Brandy wine, and named a subaltern otiicer at the close of that memorable action. His \vas the seat of honor ; and his was something more, even, than that measure of respect demanded bv all and so cheerfully paid to white hairs and honorable scars. Seldom was there a voice to speak one word of disrespect or undervaluation in the old men's company; and though the privilege of garrulous and failing age was often taken, and though the story once full of life and interest grew sadly tedious when again and again repeated, — yet there was no pardon, and deserved to be none, for him who forgot that reverence due to the men who bore the last personal recol- lections of the seven-years war. Only once, within ihe ex- perience of Robert Brand as a Pension Agent, was such dis- respect shown ; and then the punishment was so signal that there were no fears of the impropriety being repeated. Mart Tunison, a wealthy young landowner, rudely jostled old Job Marston on one occasion, and when called to account for the offence, snapped his fingers at the veteran as a "cursed old humbug, always in the way and always telling stories of bat- tles he had never seen." "You are rich, they say, Mart Tunison," said the old man, while the younger one could not read the flash that still lived in his faded eye. " I nm rich, and what is that to you, grand-daddy V was the nnswor, with a slap of the hand on the jingling pocket. " Yes, you are rich, and most people do not know how you became so!" almost hissed the old man, little knowing how he was point- ing a moral for a future day by speaking of the "shoddy" oT that bygone time. "1 will tell all your friends, and you, how you got so stuffed up that you can snap your fingers in uu old man's face ! You are living on the proceeds of tho 106 THE COWARD. money that your Tory G:randfathor, old Tom Tunij^on, made by stealing cattle, when he was one of the Refugee Cow-Boys, and driving them over the lines to sell to the British, before he ran away to Nova Scotia to save his neck !" ^lart Tunison, if he had ever before known the real origin of his wealth, which is doubtful, — would probably have given the best field of all his broad lands to prevent that revelation of the shame of his family, which afterwards followed him iike a thing of ill-omen, to the very grave ! There was at that time in the office of Robert Brand, a stripling youngster who promised very little good to the world and has probably as yet disappointed no one — who thought more of play than of work, of music than of mortgages, of Burns than Blackstone, and of a rosy-cheeked girl who came into the office on some little errand to the " 'Squire" than of the most proud and stately of his male clients. Among his vices, he had a fancy for jingling verse ; and one day when the semi-annual visit of the pensioners had just terminated and be had listened afresh to the same old tales of glory told over again in the same faltering accents that he had heard so many times before, his one virtue of reverence for the aged and the venerable rose into an idle rhyme, which ma}^ have 3 fit place in this connection, and which he called THE PENSIONERS. They come but twice a year, When the pension-day rolls round, — Old men with hoary hair And their faces to the ground. One leans upon his crutch ; And one is upright still. As if he bore Time's clutch With an iron nerve and will. And feeble are the steps That so patiently they feel ; And they kiss with trembling lips The old Bible and the seal ; THE COWARD. lij] And they lay witli care away, In wallets old and worn, The scant and tardy pay Of a life of toil and scorn. They love a cheerful pipe And a warm place in the sun. From an age so old and ripe To call memories one by one ; — To tell of Arnold's crime, And of Washington's proud form That beamed, in battle time, A beacon o'er the storm. — To tell of Yorktown's day. When the closing light was gained, — When Coruwallis went away And the eagle was unchained ; To show us, o'er and o'er, The seamed and withered scars That many a hero bore. As his passport from the wars. 'Tis pride, with these old men, To tell what they have seen, Of battle-fields, again With their harvest bi-ight and green: 'Twill be pride, when we are old, To say that in our youth We heard the tales they told And looked on them in their truth. They are the last sad link Of a race of men with ours. Who stood on ruin's brink And built up fair freedom's towers. They are passing, as the foam From the ocean wave departs, But finding yet a home In heaven, and in our hearts. 108 THE COW A 11 D . And when the last is gone, 'i o their memory we will build A pyramid of stone Whose top the sun shall gild When the name of patiiot weal And of tyrants' hitter wrong Shall be told but in a tale And known but in a song. The time then prophesied lias come ; though the monument then promised has not been erected, and though it may never be, because a later and grander though scarce nobler struggle to preserve what v^^as then first created, almost dwarfs the memory of the first contest and demands all the resources of wealth and art for its commemoration. The Pensioners of the Revolution are all gone, long ago, on the line of march to that great meeting where the last pension, whether of good or evil, shall be told cut. Almost every year, beneath the eye of the Pension Agent, one more withered leaf would drop from the bough where it had feebly fluttered, and sad comments be made by the sur- vivors when they met, with: "Ah, well-a-day ! — poor is gone !" and " Well, we are very old, and we must all follow him — some day!" with nervous shakings of the head and tremblings of the palsied hand, that told to all but themselves how soon the end must come. Thinner and thinner grew the group, reduced to six — to four — to three — to two ! Oh, that sad, mournful, heart-breaking two ! — enough gone to mark the coming extinction ; enough still left to hold their melan- choly converse ! And then one day there came but one, who looked vacantly round on the empty space and seemed to remem1)er that others than himself must once have lieeu there, but to remember no more. The "Last Man" had not then been written, and Geoff nj Dale was yet to spring from the imagination or the memory of the dramatist and supply poor f/cs-.sv Enrol Blake with one of bis best opportunities for throat-choking pathos ; but in the last of the pensioners bis THE COWARD. 109 history was sadly prefigured. One other lonely visit, and tlioii the survivor was gone. All the group had dropped away. Tiieir forms seemed to linger, long after the forms that cast them had mouldered into inipalpable dust. It was the most natural thing in life for Robert Brand, months and even years after, to turn when hearing the measured beat of an old man's cane upon the floor, and look to see if the comer was not one of the veterans of Yorktown or of Trenton, yet lingering far behind the time of his companions. But no — death had come to all, and as yet no resurrection. The last pittance had been paid them, and laid away for the last time by their careful fingers ; and they, too, had been laid away by the hoarding miser of human forms, in quiet graves in those humble country church-yards dotting the bosom of that land which they had helped to free and to cover with human glory ! Perhaps they died in good time — before the dark hour came back again after a glorious morning and a cloudless noon. Perhaps it is well that the last of the Revolutionary veterans had passed beyond acute pain and heart-felt shame, before the attempt at national suicide came to embitter their last moments with the belief that after all they might have labored and suffered in vain. But their memory does not die. Mecca and Jerusalem are blended in the sacredness of that pilgrimage which the reverent heart travels back through the years to pay them ; and if there is yet a leaven of self-sacri- ficing devotion in our national character sufficient to bear us on triumphantly to the great end, the yeast of true patriotism from which it is made was preserved through the long night of corruption and misrule, in the breasts of the Fathers of the Republic. Their children have long been old men now. Their very grandchildren begin to show gray hairs. Following close upon the steps of the Last Man of the Revolution — the last of the men who could say that they saw and took part in that throe which gave birth to a nation, — tread all those who can 110 THE COWARD. even say that they ever saw them and took them by the hand. A few years, and the last of. these, too, will be quiet and voiceless. The chain of personal recollection is growing thin, — it may break to-morrow ; and " the rest is silence." Such was the blood of Robert Brand, and such had been the influences and surroundings of his earlier life — himself a soldier when in possession of health and vigor, and the com- panion, friend and guardian of the noblest of all American soldiery when he became disabled and inactive. He loved bis native land with an idolatry bordering on insanity; and during the long struggle between the interests of the sections, preceding the war, he had imbibed love of free institutions and hatred of slavery to a degree little less than fanatical. No regret had weighed so heavily upon him, when the note of conflict sounded in 18G1, as the fact that his aged and crippled frame must prevent his striking one blow in a cause so holy; and if he held one pride more dearly than another, it was to be found in the remembrance that he had a noble and gallant son, too busy and too much needed at home, thus far, to join the ranks of his country's defenders in the field, but ready when the day of positive need should come,*to maintain unsullied the honor of his race. What marvel, all these surroundings considered, that the knowledge of that son being an abject poltroon should nearly have unseated his reason, and that he should have uttered words which only the partial insanity of wounded pride and rankling shame could supply with any shadow of excuse ? At the close of the last chapter, and before this long ex- planatory episode intervened to break the progress of the narration, Elsie Brand, the agonized sister and daughter, was seen standing before her father, with hands clasped in agony and lips uttering agonized pleadings. But the very instant after, when the terrible severity of that parental curse had been fully rounded from the lips and that fatal evidence given that for the moment all natural affection had given way to im- pious rage and denunciation, — the young girl stood erect, her THE COWARD. Ill blue eyes still tearful but flashing ang'cr of which they eom- inouly seemed to be little capable, and her lips utterinj^ words as determined as those of the madman, even if they were less furious and vindictive : " You may strike me if you like, but I do not care for you, now — not one ^nap of my finger I You are not my father — • you are nobody's father, but a bad, wicked, unfeeling old man, gray headed enough to know better, and yet cursing your own flesh and blood as if you wished to go to perdition yourself and carry everybody else along with you I" The very audacity of this speech partially sobered the en- raged man, and he only ejaculated in a lower but still angry tone : " What !" "What I say and what I mean I" the young girl went on, oblivious or heedless of any parental authority at the moment. *' I do not love you — I hate and shudder at you ! I would rather be my poor brother, a coward and disgraced as he may be, than his miserable father cursing him like a brute I" " Do you dare " the father began to say, in a louder voice and with the thunder again threatening, but Elsie Brand was proving, just then, that the gift of heedless speech "ran in the family," and that for the moment she " had the floor" in the contest of denunciation. " Oh, you need not look at me in that manner !" she said, marking the expression of the old man's eyes and conscious that he might at any moment recover himself sufficiently to pour out upon her, for her unpardonable impudence, quite as l)itler a denunciation as he had lately vented against her dis- graced brother. " I am not afraid of your eyes, or of your tongue. Y''ou have turned Carlton out of doors, for a mere nothing, and I am going with him, I will never set foot in tbis house again, never, until " llow long was the period the indignant girl intended to set for her absence, must ever remain in doubt, with many other things of much more consequence ; for the sentence 112 THECOTTARB. thus begun, was never eompletecl. In at the open front door, through the parlor and into the room of the invalid, at tiiat moment staggered Kitty Hood. Tiie phrase descriptive of her movement is used advisedly and with good reason ; for fright, exhaustion and the terrible heat of the June meridian had reduced the young school-mistress to a most pitiable con- dition. Her face was one red glow, her brow streamed with perspiration, and she was equally destitute of strength and out of breath. This strange and unannounced interruption naturally broke the unpleasant chain of conversation between father and daughter; and the eyes of both, during her moment of en- forced silence to recover breath, looked upon her with equal wonder and alarm. " Oh, Mr. Brand !" and here the breath gave out again and she sank exhausted into the chair which Elsie pushed up to her. "You are sick? Somebody has insulted or hurt you? What is the matter, Kitty ?" she asked. " Oh, no, no !" at last the school-mistress mustered breath to say, at short, jerky intervals. " Nothing ails me, except that I am out of breath ; but your son, Mr. Brand." ^"Well, what of him?" asked the old man, his tone sharp and angry and his brow frowning, confident that the coming information must have some connection with the disgraceful report of the morning — that Kitty Hood had only run herself out of breath in her anxiety to tell his family unwelcome news that they already knew too well. " Oh, sir, Mr. Carlton — your poor brother, Elsie ! — is dead !" " Dead !" The word had two echoes — one, from the lips of Robert Brand, little else than a groan ; and the other from poor tortured Elsie, compounded between groan and shriek. ** Oh, yes, how can I tell it ?" the young school-mistress went on, as fast as her broken breath would allow. " I found tiim lying dead, only a little while ago, by the gate, down at r II K CO \v A n ]). 1 1;; tho blind-rond, a.s I raine across from scliool ; ami I Iiin»' run all \Uo way liere to toll vou !'' " Mv })oor brotlu'r dead! oli, Carlton!" moaned Elsie IJrand ; then, but an instant after, and before the old man had fonnd time to speak ag-ain, the curse came up in connee- tion with tiie bereavement and she broke out, hysterically: " See what you have done, father ! You wished poor Carlton dead, and now you have your cruel wish ! Oh, my poor, poor brother !" " Silence, girl !" s])oke Robert ]5rand, sharply, with a not unnatural dislike to have the school-mistress made aware of what had so lately passed. Tiie old man was terribly nil'ected, but he managed to contral himself and to speak with some approach to calmness. " You are sure, Kitty, that yon saw my son lying dead ?" "Oh, yes, Mr. Brand, he was l\nng dead on the grass close by the gate." " Lying alone ?" The voice of the father trembled, in spite of himself, as he asked the question. " All alone, and he could only have been dead a few moments. He looked so." " Was there — " and the old lawyer tried to steady his voice as he had many a time before done when asking equall}^ solemn questions concerning the fate of other men's chil- dren — " did you see any thing to prove what killed him ? He went away from home on horseback — " " Yes, he was on horseback at Mrs. Hayley's only a little M-hile ago," Elsie mustered strength to interrupt. "Did you see his horse? — had he fallen from it — or — " and then the voice of the father, who but a few moments Ijefore had believed his love for his son crushed out forever, entirely broke down. Heaven only knew tiie agony of the question he was attempting to put; for the thought had taken possession of him that that son, overwhelmed by the knowledge that he would be pointed out and scoffed as a poltroon, had shown his second lack of courage by laying 7 11-i THE COWARD. violent hands on his own life and rushing unbidden into the presence of his Maker ! " No," answered Kitty Hood, setting her teeth hard as she realized that the time had come when she must prove her own honesty at the possible sacrifice of the life of the man who had been her lover. " No, I did not see his horse. He had not been killed by falling from it. I am sure. He had been murdered !" " Murdered !" Again the w^ord was a double echo from the very dissimilar voices of father and daughter ; the latter speaking in the terror of the thought, the former under the conviction that the dreadful truth was being revealed, and that, though the young girl did not suspect the fact, the crime would be found to have becui sp//-murder. " There was blood on his face and on the grass," poor Kitty went on, "and there was a bundle lying close beside him, that I had seen under the arm of — of — " "Eh, what? Under whose arm ?" asked the father, in a quick voice, as the relation took this new turn. " Richard Compton's !" choked out Kitty Hood. " Richard Compton's !" again echoed the old man. "Why he was your — " "We were engaged to be married," cried poor Kitty, at last overwrought and bursting into tears. " But I must tell the truth, even if it hangs him and breaks my heart. He was at the school-house only a little wiiile before ; he was angry with Mr. Carlton, and threatened him ; and I am afraid that he killed him." " Oh, this is dreadful !" said Elsie. "Dreadful indeed!" replied Robert Brand, whose own grief and horror were somewhat modified if not lessened by the thought in what a situation the honest young girl was placing herself and her lover. He reached back and pulled the bell-rope again, and again Elspeth Graeme made her ap- pearance, a little surprised to find three persons in the room where she had before left but two, the third coming unan- THE COWARD. 115 nounced, and all three of the faces looking a? if their owners had been summoned to execution. " Tell Stephen to get up the large carriage, instantly, and have it round witliin five minutes," was tlir ovdw to tlie old woman, delivered in a quick and agitated v()i(M>. "Are ye gaeia' out, sir ?" was the iiKpiiry, in rc])ly. " Yes, but what is that to you, woman V "Xaethin', maybe, only you're clean daft ifyc'r thinkin' of it, Mr. Robert Brand." " I am not only thinking of it but going to do it; and the quicker you do my bidding, the better." "Gang yer ways, then, for an uncanny, unmanageable auld ne'er-do-weel !" was the grumbling comment of the Scotch woman, as she prepared to obey the injunction. She strode half way through the parlor, then returned and fired another shot into the invalid's room before she finally departed : " Hech, but yeVe been sendin' away the doctor w^i' the grin on his grunzie, and wha' will I ca' when ye come back a' ram-feezled and done over — answer me that, noo !" Less than five minutes sufficed to bring the carriage to the door, with its team of w^ell-groomed bays, and wMth much exertion (of which the stalwart Elspeth furnished no small proportion) the invalid was placed in it and so surrounded with cushions that he could ride with comparative ease. Elsie's tearful request to be allowed to accompany him in his quest of the body of her brother was sharply denied, with orders that both Kitty and herself should remain within the house until his return ; and the carriage drove rapidly away towards the point designated by the school-mistress, while the housekeeper was learning the fearful tidings from the lips of the two girls, and uttering broken laments and raining tears down lier coarse cheeks, over "her winsome bairn that had been sae sair wanchancie !" Scarcely more time than had been consumed in getting ready the vehicle elapsed before the carriage, driven at rapid speed, dashed up to the spot that had been indicated by 116 THE C O W A n T). Kitty, the eyps of the father lookiji}! out in advnnce with on indescrihable horror, to catch the first olimjise of th«' body of a son whom lie half accursed himself, in his own heart, of murderinjii:. A doctor's top-sulky and a saddled horse, with two men, were seen standing near the irate as they approached ; but, strangely enough, they saw no dead body. One of these men, Robert Brand saw, was the young farmer, Richard Co'mpton, who had been accused by Kilty of committing that terrible crime; the other, standing by the side of his i>rofes- sional sulky, was a man of twenty-five, of medium height, very carefully dressed, fair faced, dark haired and dark eye an instant after the departure of the Quaker, Eleanor Hill stood erect as he had last seen her. Both hands were pressed upon her heart, and it might have seemed doubtful whether she had nerved herself to that position or lacked power to quit it. Then her eyes fell upon the letter which Bladesden, when she requested him to leave it, had dropped upon a chair; and at the sight the spell, whatever it was, gave way. The poor girl dropped upon her knees before another chair which stood near her, with a cry of such heart-breaking agony as must have moved any heart, not utterly calloused, that listened to it, — dashed her hand into her long, dishevelled hair with such a gesture as indicated that she would madly tear it out by the roots in handfuls, then desisted and broke out through moans and sobs into one of those prayers which the purists believe are seldom or never forgiven by the heaven to which they are addressed — a prayer for immediate death I "Oh God !— let me die ! Do let me die, here and at this 132 THE COWARD. moment I I cannot live and be so wretched I Let me die ! — oh, let me die I" Whether unpardonable or not, the prayer was certainly im- pious ; for next to that last extremity of crime which any man commits when he dismisses his own life, is his crime when he becomes a suicide in heart and wish, without daring to use the physical force necessary for that consummation. Despair is cowardice ; the theft of time is a sin that no amendment can repay ; and the robbery of that time which heaven allots to a human life, whether in act or thought, is something over which humanity well may shudder. But Eleanor Hill's impious prayer had no answer — at least no answer except the denial found in the breath of life which still fluttered from her nostrils and the blood which seemed to flow in torture through the poor frame sympathizing with the mind within. The aspiration was scarcely yet dead upon her lips when there was a footfall on the floor behind her; and she sprung up with one wild desperate hope darting through her brain, that the stem judge had at last relented after leav- ing her presence — that he had proved himself capable of a great sacrifice and returned to extricate her feet from the pit into which she was so irretrievably sinking. But that hope died on the instant, another and if possible a madder one taking its place ; for before her, as she turned, stood Carlton Brand, though so disfigured and changed in appearance that any one except the most intimate of acquaintances might have been excused for doubting his identity, r The young lawyer had always been noted for a neatness of personal appearance approaching to dandyism without reaching that mark ; and only an hour before, in face and garb, he would have attracted attention in any circle, from the perfection of every appointment. Now, his face was bruised and swollen ; his eyes were bloodshot and fiery ; one lappel of his coat was torn from the collar ; his coat and his nether garments were soiled and dusty ; his hat was crushed and out of shape ; and every detail of his presence seemed to THE COWARD. 133 be marred in corresponding proportion. A rough peasant's or a highwayman's disguise for a masquerade, would scarcely have changed him more than he had been changed, without the least premeditation, by that little rencontre with Dick pompton, to which we have already been unbidden witnesses. Absorbed as poor Eleanor Hill was in her own situation, she could scarcely suppress a scream when she saw the aspect of a man who always appeared before her so differently ; and there was fright as well as concern in her voice as she said : "Why, Carlton Brand I Good heaven I— -what has hap- pened to you ?" " Much, Eleanor I" answered the lawyer, dropping into a chair with every indication of weariness, and wiping his heated brow with a handkerchief which showed that it had been soiled in removing some of the grime from his clothing. "Your clothes are torn— your face is swollen! Have you been attacked ? — beaten ? Are you seriously hurt ?" inquired the girl, coming close to him and laying her hand on his shoulder with the affectionate anxiety which a sister might have shown. These women have no bounds to that sympathy which alternately makes them angels and lures them on the road to be fiends ; and there is probably no true w^oman, who had ever been wife, sweetheart or mother, but would forget at least one pang of her pain on the rack, in sympathy for Bome wronged and suffering person who approached her I " Oh, no !" and Carlton Brand tried to laugh and made a miserable failure of the attempt, with his bruised face and swollen mouth. " Do not be alarmed, Eleanor. I have simply been in a little encounter with one of my neighbors, and I scarcely know what has happened— I believe my clothes are torn and I suppose that I am disfigured a little." " Disfigured a little ! Good heaven, I should think you were !" said the girl, coming still closer and looking into his face. As she did so, the eyes of the lawyer, not too blood- shot for sight if they were for grace of aspect, detected the 134 THE COWARD. BwoUen condition of her face, the fearful redness of her cye3, and the various symptoms which told through what a storm of shame and sorrow she had lately been passing. He started to his feet at once, grasping her hand : " Eleanor, you are worse hurt than myself ! Tell me what has happened I Has he been torturing you again ?" " Oh, yes," answered the poor girl — " worse than torturing me ! I could bear his personal cruelty, for I have grown used to it. But he has just made me lose my last hope in life, and I have nothing left me but to die !" '' Your last hope V echoed Carlton Brand. " What ? Has Mr. Bladesden — " "Mr. Bladesden has just been here," answered Eleanor Hill, choking down the grief and indignation that w^ere so painfully combating each other in her throat, dropping her head as she had done a few minutes before in the presence of the merchant, and holding out in her hand the crushed letter which Bladesden had dropped as he left the house. *' Mr. Bladesden has just been here, and he brought this letter to read to me. It had been sent to his store, and he received it this morning. You can see, after reading it, what hope in life he has left me !" " Curse him I He deserves eternal perdition, and will find it !" Carlton Brand had momentarily forgotten his own troubles, in the evident anguish of the young girl, just as a few mo- ments before she had merged all those sorrows in anxiety for his personal safety. He took the letter she handed, smoothed out the crumpled folds made in it by the grasp of anger and shame, and read the damning words that follow — words so black and dastardly that one of the fiends from the lower pit might come back to earth to clear away from his name the suspicion that he had ever penned them. A few sentences of this bona fide communication are necessarily omitted, in an interest easily understood : THE COWARD. 135 West Philadelphia, June — , 1SG3. ; Mb. Nathan Bladesden : Sir : — You are a mercliant of respectal)ility, as vfell as a member of the Society of Friends — a society for wliicli I have the highest respect, although I do not happen to have been born a member of it. I should very much regret to see you made the victim of a designing woman, and linked for life to one who would bring dis- grace upon your name and family. Report says that you are en- gaged to be married, or that you very probably may be so at an early period, to Miss Eleanor Hill, the ward for some years of Dr. Philip Pomeroy, and who is still resident in the house of that medi- cal gentleman. I suppose that you know very little of the early history of the young lady, as, if you had known, you would never have allowed yourself to be entangled in that manner. Her father left her a few thousands of dollars in property, which she no doubt has ttie reputation of still possessing, while I have very good reason to know that it has really all (or nearly all) been used up in un- fortunate speculations by different persons to whom she intrusted it, and that she is little else than a beggar, except as the Doctor olfers her a home. As to her personal character, which is the thing of greatest consequence at the present moment, — Miss Hill was a very giddy girl, and many of her friends had fears for her future ; but none of them foresaw what would indeed be the issue of the unfortunate situation in which she was placed. I am writing this letter, as you must be aware, for no purposes of my own, and simply to serve an honorable man who seems to have been tricked and cajoled by unscrupulous people. As a consequence, I must ask of you as a right which you cannot disregard, that you will not show this letter to Dr. Pomeroy, who might know enough of the direction from which such a revelation would be likeliest to come, to awaken his suspicion and put him in the way of injuring me. This promised, I now go on to state what you will never cease to thank me for communicating to you, if you are the high-toned man of honor that I suppose. Dr. Pomeroy is well known to be a man of somewhat violent passions ; and though I believe that his conduct has been nearly spotless during his professional career, yet there are stains against him for which he is probably the sorriest of men in his calmer moments. Miss Hill, as I have said, was giddy and thought- less, if no worse ; and very soon after the death of her father, those who happened to see her in company with her guardian, noticed that she paid him attentions which showed a very warm personal attachment, while he received them as a bachelor man of the world 136 THE COWARD. could not very well avoid receiving gucli marks of regard from a young and pretty girl. How long this went on, I am not at liberty to say, even if I have any means of knowing : it is enough that, to my knowledge and that of more than one person with whom you are acquainted, the natural result followed. If there was any se- duction, I should be puzzled to say on which side the art was used ; but perhaps when you remember that the lady has, during all your acquaintance with her, (at least I presume so, from your continuing to visit her, j passed herself off on you as pure enough to be worthy of the honor of your hand, you may be able to form some idea whether she might not have been quite as much in fault as her partner in crime. I say "partner in crime," as I have no wish or motive to shelter Dr. Pomeroy. Perhaps I ought not to say more, and indeed my pen hesitates when I attempt to set down what I consider so lamentable, as well as so culpable. But I must go on, after going thus far. The secret of Miss Hill's remaining at the house of Dr. Pomeroy after her attainment of majority, is that a guilty attachment and connection has existed between them for not less than five years past, unsuspected by most persons who know them, but well known to myself and some others, at least one of whom has been the accidental witness of their crjme. If you should think proper to tax her with this depravity, and she should choose to deny this statement, by way of convincing yourself whether this is a foul calumny or a bitter truth, ask her * * -x- ******■»•»■)* I hope and believe that you will take the warning that I have thus conveyed, and not give yourself any trouble to discover the writer, who does not conceal his name from any other motives than those which you can understand and approve. A Tkue Fkiexd. Carlton Brand read through this precious document with- out speaking — a document not worse in motive than all other anonymous communications, any one of which should subject the perpetrator, if discovered, to cropped ears and slitted ^tongue, — but worse than all others of its evil kind in the atro- city of its surrounding circumstances, as the reader will have no difficulty in believing when a little additional light is shed u'pon the personality of the writer by the chapters immediately following. THE COWARD. 137 CHAPTER VII. A Return to 1856— Nicholas Hill, Iron Merchant His Death, his Daughter and his Friend — How Dr. POMEROY became A GUARDIAN, AND HOW HE DISCHARGED THAT Duty— A Rum and an Awakening— The market VALUE OF DUNDERHAVEN STOCK IN 1858. * Seven years before 1863, and consequently in 1856, died Nicholas Hill, a merchant of Philadelphia, whose place of business on Market Street above Third had been the seat of a respectable though not remarkably extensive trade, for nearly a quarter of a century. His trade had been in iron and hard- ware, but the material of his stock by no means entered into his own composition, for he was a man somewhat noted for his quiet and retiring manners and a pliancy of spirit making him at times the victim of the unscrupulously plausible. His pri- vate fortune met with sundry serious drawbacks on account of this weakness, though a generally prosperous business enabled him to keep intact the few thousands which he had already won, and gradually if slowly to add to the accumula- tion. He had remained a widower since the death of his wife ten years before his own demise ; and his pleasant though quiet little house on Locust Street, had only contained one member of his family besides himself, for years before his death— his only daughter and only child, Eleanor. The warmest and longest-continued friendships are very often formed by persons diametrically opposed in character and disposition ; and the rule seemed to hold good in the in- stance under notice. A friendship formed several years before between the merchant and Dr. Philip Pomeroy, when the latter was a practising physician resident in the city proper, had never died out or become weakened, at least in the heart of the confiding and quiet dealer in iron, and there was no reason to believe that the sentiment had been more 138 THE C W A K 1). transient in the breast of the physician. Mr. Hill had been suffering under the incipient threats of consumption, for years, and the doctor had been his medical attendant, as before the death of his wife he had filled the same confidential relation towards that lady and the other members of his household. Neither personally nor by marriage had the merchant any near relatives in the city or its vicinity ; and his retiring disposi- tion was such that while he made many friends in the ordi- nary acceptation of the word, he had few w^ho stood in that peculiar relation which the French, supplying a noun which has scarcely yet crept into our own language, designate as les intimes. It was not strange, then, that when Nicholas Hill was sud- denly seized with hemorrhage of the lungs and brought home in an almost dying condition from his store, one afternoon in November, 1856, Dr. Pomeroy, who was hurriedly summoned to his aid, was summoned quite as much in the capacity of friend as in that of medical attendant. The story of life or death was soon told. The merchant had believed, from the moment of attack, that his day of probation was over ; and, apart from his natural anxiety for the welfare of his only child, there was little tie to bind the sufferer to earth. His wife — his wife that day as much as she had been at any period of their wedded life, — had long been awaiting him, as he believed, in a better world ; and there is something in the facility with which those quiet, good people, who seem never to have enjoyed existence with the fiery zest which tingles in finger and lip of the sons of pleasure and sorrow, give up their hold upon being and pass away into the infinite unknown which lies beyond the dark valley, — something that may well make it a matter of question whether theirs is not after all the golden secret of human happiness, for which all ages have be.en studying and delving. The doctor came, with that rapidity which was usual with him, and with every mark of intense intejest on his face and in his general demeanor. He found the invalid sinking THE COWARD. ' 139 rapidly, and his attendants, the weeping Eleanor, then a handsome, promising but defectively-educated girl of near eighteen, and two or three of the ladies of the near neighbor- hood who had gathered in*to tender their services when it was known that the merchant had been brought home in a dying condition. A few words from the sufferer, uttered in a low tone almost in the ear of the stooping physician, and then all the others were sent out of the room except his daughter, whose pleading gesture, asking to be allowed to remain within the room was not disregarded, but who was motioned by the doctor to take her place at the window, beyond supposed hearing of the words that were to pass between the two friends. " Tell me the exact truth," said the low voice of Nicholas Hill, when these dispositions had been made. " I am pre- pared to hear any judgment which your lips may speak. There is no hope for me ? — I am dying ?" Either the doctor could not speak, or he would not. He merely bowed his head in a manner that the questioner well understood. ^ " So I thought, from the first," said the dying man. '' The life blood does not flow away in that manner for nothing. And I do not know that I regret the end, for I have lived almost as long as I could make myself useful, and I think I am as nearly prepared to die as poor, fallen humanity can hope to be." " I hope and believe that you are indeed prepared to die, my dear, good friend," answered the doctor, with feeling in his tone, and the feeble hand of the sufferer meanwhile within his. *'I cannot hold out a false hope to you— you cannot live. How gladly science and friendship would both join hands in doing something to keep you in the world, you know; but how much we shall all miss you and grieve for you, you do not know." ^^ ''That you will miss me, I hope," said the dying man. " But there is no occasion whatever to grieve for me. It is 140 THE COWARD. a peaceful end, I think, and in God's own good time. I have but one anxiety." He paused, and the doctor nodded his head towards the Bide of the room where poor Eleanor was sitting, trying to distract her own thoughts by looking out of the window. The father saw that he understood him, and pressed the hand that he held. " Yes, you have guessed rightly," he said. " My only- anxiety is for the fate of my child. Eleanor is a good girl, but she is yet very young, and she will need protection." " She shall find it !" said the doctor, solemnly. The face of the dying man lit up with an expression of the sincerest pleasure and happiness, and his feeble grasp again pressed the hand of high health which lay so near his own ebbing pulse. " I believe you and I thank you, my friend as well as physician," he replied. " I have not been afraid to think of this day, as they tell me that so many are ; and my affairs are in some degree prepared for it. I have a handsome property, though not a large one, and you will find a will lying in the private drawer of the safe at the store. With the exception of a few legacies to friends, a small one to yourself included — it all goes to Eleanor, and you will find yourself named my executor." "A confidence which flatters me, and which I hope I shall deserve," said the doctor, as the enfeebled man again paused for a moment. "I kiiow that you will," the sufferer resumed. "Thanks to my property, Eleanor will not be a burthen to you, except in the demand of care. Her few relatives, as you know, are distant ones, and none of them reside nearer than California. There will be none to interfere with you in guiding her aright, keeping her pure in her remaining years of girlhood, and watching over her until she becomes the wife of some honorable man, or in some other way ceases to need your protection. " THE COWARD. 141 " I accept the charge as freely as it is given, and I will perform it as I would for one of my own blood I" was the solemn answer of the medical man. " I knew that before I asked, or I should never have asked at all 1" said the dying man. "Eleanor, my daughter, come here." The young girl obeyed and knelt beside the bed, striving to restrain her sobs and tears. The father laid his hand on her head and gently smoothed the masses of dark brown hair with fingers that would so soon be beyond capacity for such a caress. "Eleanor," he said, "you are almost a woman in years, and you must be altogether a woman, now. I am going to leave you — I may leave you in a few minutes." " Oh, I know it, father ! — dear, dear father I Oh, what will become of me ?" and in spite of her efforts to restrain herself she sobbed and choked piteously. " You will be cared for, my child, not only by heaven but by kind friends ; and you must not grieve so over what does not grieve me at all," said the departing parent. "Dr. Pome- roy is to be the executor of my estate, and your guardian. Love and obey him, my daughter, in every thing, as you would love and obey me if I was allowed to remain with you. Do you understand me ? — do you promise me, Eleanor ?'' " I do understand you ! — I do promise you, dear, dear father I" sobbed the young girl. " I will obey Dr. Philip, and try to be good all my life, so that I can meet you where I know that you are going to meet my mother." " My dear, good child ! — you and the doctor have made me Bo happy ! Kiss me now, Eleanor, and then let me sleep a few moments." And directl}^ after that kiss of agonized love was given, he fell back upon his pillow — as if he was indeed dropping into a quiet sleep; but the doctor felt the hand that lay within his relax its pressure, one or two sighs fluttered from the quivering lips, while a light foam tinged with blood 142 THE COWARD. crept up to them and bubbled there, and the moment after Eleanor Hill was fatherless. And jet the poor girl who sobbed so heart-brokenly over the corpse of one who had been to her the truest and kindest of parents, was not fatherless in that desolate sense in which the word is so often used. The ties of blood might be rudely broken, but did not the hand of true friendship stand ready to assert itself ? Had not Philip Pomeroy promised the friend of years, that he would be father and protector to her — that he would shelter her with all the power given to his ripe manhood, and hold her pure as the very angels, so far as he ha(\ power to direct her course ? Xo — not fatherless : the weeping girl, in the midst of her sobs and unfelt caresses over what had once been the father of her idolatry, appreciated the truth and was partially comforted. It so chanced that Dr. Pomeroy, in his domestic relations, was admirably placed for offering a home to the daughter of his dead friend. Marrying did not seem to run in the Pomeroy family, for not only was the doctor a confirmed bachelor, some years past middle age, but his only living sister had kept her- self free, like him, of matrimonial chains, and presided pleas- antly over his household under her maiden name of Miss Hester Pomeroy. While the removal of a young girl of eighteen to a bachelor's residence, without the cover of female society, might have seemed grossly improper in spite of the color given to it by the guardianship so lately acquired, there could be no impropriety whatever in her becoming the com- panion and to some extent the pupil of the bachelor's maiden sister of forty. Dr. Pomeroy's residence was at that time within the city limits, though in that extreme upper section bordering on the Schuylkill ; but his practice had been gradually extending out into the country over the river; and ideas long cherished, of a residence beyond the reach of the noises of the great city, were gradually becoming realized. At the time of the death of his friend, that mansion which it has just been our sad THE COWARD. 143 privilege to enter, was in the course of erection ; and in the spring which followed he took up his abode within it, with his sister, his ward, and that array of domestics necessary for a man of his supposed wealth and somewhat expensive habits. It did indeed seem that Eleanor Hill was blessed among orphans if not among women. Her tears dried easily, as they had good cause to do. The residence to which she had been removed was a very handsome and even a luxurious one ; Miss Hester Pomeroy w^as one of those good easy souls who neither possess any strength of character themselves nor envy it in others,— with an almost idolizing admiration of her gifted and popular brother, and a belief that no movement of his could be other than the best possible under the circumstances ; and the doctor himself, a man of fine education, distinguished manners, admitted professional skill, and an uprightness of carriage which seemed to more than atone for any lack of suavity in his demeanor— the doctor himself appeared to be anxious, from the first, that no shadow of accusation should lie against his name, of inattention to the ward committed to his charge. From the day of her coming into his house, when- ever his profesgional engagements would allow, he spent much time in the society of Eleanor, greatly to the delight of Miss Hester, who had thought herself very unattractive company and wished that her gifted brother had some one in the house more worthy to be his companion. He selected books for the young girl; brought home others ; directed her studies into channels calculated to form her mind (at least some portions of it) ; invited the young people of the neigh- borhood to meet her ; drove her out frequently ; took such care of her health as he might have done of that of a darlin- daughter or an idolized sweetheart; and gave evidence tha°t none could doubt, of his intention to fulfil in the most liberal Jind conscientious manner the sacred promises he had made over the death-bed of her father. To the youug girl, meanwhile her surroundings became 144 , THE COWARD. Elysium. She had warm affections, of that clinging charac- ter which finds no diflBculty in fastening almost anywhere if permitted time and quiet. She had little force of will and still less of that serpent wisdom which discerns the shadow of danger before that danger really approaches. She was equally good, by nature, and weak by disposition — formed of that material out of which good wives and mothers are so easily made, and which may, on the other hand, be fashioned so easily into the most melancholy semblance of lost woman- hood. She was handsome, if not strictly beautiful, and the lips of her guardian, so strict to most others, told her so with smiles and low-breathed words. She was flattered by his preference, paid her deferentially in public and yet more un- reservedly when none but themselves heard the words he ut- tered, — proud to be thus distinguished by one so attractire in appearance and unimpeachable in position, — bound to him by that obedience enjoined by her dying father, and by that strong tie of gratitude which she felt to be due to her willing and unrecompensed protector, — and brought into that close communion with his strong mind which could not fail to sway an unmeasured influence over her, by those studies in poetry, romance and philosophy which he had himself directed. It is an old story, and melancholy as old. Before she had been six months an inmate of the house of Dr. Pomeroy, Eleanor Hill loved him as madly as young, defenceless and untrained girlhood can love that which supplies its best ideal and lures it on by the most specious of pretences. Not more than that time had elapsed, when she would have plucked out her heart and laid it in his hand, had he asked it and had such an act of bodily self-sacrifice been possible. Less than a year, and the tale of her destiny was told. For weeks before, the words of her " guardian" and " father" had been such as ill became either relation, but not warmer, still, than the snared heart of the young girl craved and echoed. Then came that promise of the dearest tie on earth, which falls on the ear of loving woman with a sweeter sound than any other / THE COWARD. 145 ever uttered under the sun or stars. He loved her — that proud, high-spirited, distinguished man, the friend of her father, and the man for whose hand (so he had told her, not boastingly but in pity, and so she had every reason to be- lieve) the wealthiest, the most beautiful and the most arro- gant belles of Broad Street and Girard Avenue had been will- ing to barter all their pride and all their coyness — he loved her, the poor young and comparatively portionless girl, held her worthy to be his wife, and was willing to share his high destiny with her ! What marvel that the untutored heart beat faster than its wont, when that golden gate of paradise was opened in ex- pectation to her eyes ? What marvel that all the lessons of childhood, which stood between her and obedience to tho master of her destiny, were forgotten or only remembered with abhorrence ? What marvel that the past became a dream, the present dull and unendurable, and only the deliri- ous future worth a wish or a thought ? What marvel that one evening when the full moon of August was peeping in through the trees which already began to cast their shade over the new home into the room where the " guardian" and the "ward" were sitting alone together — when the air seemed balm and the earth heaven — when the night-sounds of late summer made a sadness that was not sorrow, and temptation put" on the very robes of holy feeling to do its evil work — when the lips of the subtle, bad, unscrupulous man of the world repeated words as sweet as they were unmeaning, promises as hollow as they were delicious and prayers as be- wildering as they were sacrilegious — when the heart of the young girl had proved traitor to her senses and all the guardian angels of her maidenhood had fled away and left her to a conflict for which she had neither wisdom nor strength — what marvel that the moment of total madness came to one and perhaps to both, and that before it ended Eleanor Hill lay upon the breast of her destroyer, a poor dishonored thing, frightened, delirious, half-senseless, and yet blindly happier in 9 146 THE COWAPwD. her shame than she had ever been while the white doves still folded their wings above her I We know something of ends and something of intermediary occiirrences, but vcvj little of beginnings. The common eje can sec the oak from a tiny sprout to its lordship of the forest, but none may behold the first movement of the germ in the buried acorn. The unnatural rebellion of Absalom, the reckless treason of Arnold, the struggle for universal empire of Xapoleon, all stand out boldly on the historic page, as they appeared at the moment of culmination ; but who sees the disobedient son of David when he walks -out into the night with the first unfilial curse upon his lips, or the arch- traitor of the Western Continent as he starts from his sleep with the first thought of his black deed creeping under his hair and curdling his blood, or the victor of Marengo nursing his first far-off vision of the dangerous glory yet to be ! We can know nothing more of the beginnings of vice in the hearts of the great criminals of private life. It can never be known, until all other secrets are unveiled before the eyes of a startled universe, whether Dr. Pomeroy, (no imaginary char- acter, but a personage too real and very slightly disguised), in this ruin wrought by his hand had been acting the part of \ an unmitigated scoundrel from the beginning, a lie upon his lip and mockery in his heart when he promised the dying Nicholas Hill protection to his helpless daughter, and every act and word of his intercourse with her subtly calculated to bring about the one unholy end, — or whether he had merely X)ermitted himself, without early premeditation, to do the un- pardonable evil which proved so convenient. For the welfare of the victim, it seemed a question of little consequence : for the credit of humanity, alw^ays enough disgraced, at best, by its robbers and cut-throats of the moral highway, it may be at least worth a thought. After events make it doubtful whether the very worst had not been intended and labored for from the outset ; and certain it is that if there had before been one redeeming trait to temper the moral baseness of THE COWARD. 147 Philip Pdmeroy, from the moment when that ruin was accom- plished no obstacle of goodness hindered his way towards the end of the irredeemable. If he had before kept terms with Eleanor Hill and his own soul, he kept those terms no longer. The poor girl had of course no right to be happy in her new and guilty relation, and yet she was so for a time — almost entirely happy. She had been wooed and won (oh, how fearfully won I) under an explicit promise of marriage and with continual repetitions of words of respect which left her no room to doubt the good faith of the man who uttered them. She was more than a little weak, as has already been said ; very unsuspicious and clinging in her trust; and neither wise enough to know that the man who respected her suflS- ciently to make her his wife, no insurmountable obstacle lying in his way, would have made her so before laying his hand on the hem of the garment of her purity, — or precise enough to feel that any disgrace had really fallen upon her, which w^ould not be removed the moment that promise of marriage was fulfilled. Then, by a natural law which can be easily understood if it cannot be explained, the young girl a thou- sand times more deeply loved the master of her destiny be- cause he had made himself entirely so ; and for a time, at least, the conduct of the victor towards his helpless captive was full of such exquisite tenderness in private that she could not have found room for a regret had her heart even revolted at the situation in which she was placed. He did not speak of an immediate fulfilment of his promise of marriage — no, bat he had before hinted that owing to certain temporary cir- cumstances (oh, those " temporary circumstances" !) the hour when he could make her his own before the world must be yet a little delayed ; and so the young heart took no fright at the procrastination. Good Miss Hester, meanwhile, saw nothing suspicious and suspected nothing improper. Per- haps she saw a deeper light of tenderness in the eyes of the poor betrayed girl, when they beamed upon him who should 148 THE COWARD. have been her husband ; and perhaps she saw that her brother treated his ward with even more delicate attention than he had shown during the months before; but the spinster's eyes had no skill to read beneath the mask of either, and if she thought upon the subject at all her impressions were not likely to go farther than the mental remark : " How good Philip is to Eleanor ; how obedient to him she seems to be ; and how happy for both that he ever became her guardian and she his charge !" Under such circumstances the awakening, even a partial one, could not come otherwise than very slowly. But unless the young girl was an absolute idiot or utterly depraved, an awakening must come at some period or other. Though weak and ill-trained, Eleanor Hill was by no means an idiot ; and the angels of heaven could look down and see that through all that had occurred there had been no depravity in her soul, no coarse, sensual passion in her nature. If she had fallen, she had been sacrificed on the altar of man's un- scrupulous libertinism, and offering up the incense, mean- while, of a good, yielding, compliant, worshipping heart. The moral perceptions may have been blunted, but they were not annihilated ; the reason may have been choked and dizzied in the flood of feeling, but it was immortal and could not be drowned. Months had elapsed after the culmination of their inter- course, before the sense of right became strong enough and the heart bold enough, for the young girl to hint at the fulfil- ment of what had been so long delayed. The answer was a passionate kiss and an assurance that " only a little time more should elapse — just yet it would not be prudent and was In fact impossible." Eleanor wondered: she had not yet learned to doubt ; and for a time she kept silent. Again, a few weeks later, and the question was repeated. This time a light laugh met her ear, and there was more of the master toying with his slave or the spoiled boy trifling with his play- thing, than there had been in the first instance. Still the THE COWARD. 149 promise was repeated, and still there were "insurmountable obstacles." Another interval of silence, then a third request, this time with tears, that he would do her the justice he had promised. To this ill-nature responded, and for the first time the young girl learned what a claw of pride and arrogance lay folded in the velvet palm of the tiger. She shrunk away within herself, at his first harsh word, almost believing that she must have committed some wrong in speaking to him of his delayed promise ; and when he kissed her at the end of that conversation and said: "There, run away and do not bother me about it when I am worried and busy I" she almost felt — heaven- help her poor, weak heart I — that that kiss was one of needed pardon I The dullest eyes will recognize at last what only the quick and accustomed discern at first. Eleanor Hill had been blind, but her eyes gradualh' opened, — with an agony in the first gleams of light, of which her yielding, compliant nature had before given little promise. Nearly two years had elapsed after her becoming the ward of Dr. Philip Pomeroy, and more than one year after that fatal era in her own destiny, when the wronged girl, then twenty and within only twelve months of her legal majority, at last sounded the depths of that man's nature sufiBciently to know that he had been in- venting the existence of obstacles — that he had never intended to marry her, at least at any near period. At that moment of discovery a higher and prouder nature than hers might have been moved to personal upbraiding, despair and perhaps to suicide : with Eleanor Hill the only result was that a sense of shame, before kept in abeyance, came in and settled down upon her, making her more humble than angry or indignant, and unnerving her instead of bracing her mind anew for any conflict that might arise in the future. Aware, at last, of his deception, she could not quite believe in her guardian's utter baseness; and she still hoped that though he might demand his own time for the fulfilment of that promise which had won her from herself, in his own time he would render her 150 THE COWARD. that justice in reality so poor but to her so full of compensa- tion for all the past. "Would it not seem, even to one most fully acquainted with all the falsehood of the betrayer and all the cruelty of the torturer, that the cup of that man's infamy was nearly filled ? And yet — sorrow that the bitter truth must be recorded ! — not a tithe of that which was to curse him before the end, has yet been indicated. Slowly and surely the blackening crimes pile up, when the love of virtue and the fear of heaven have both faded out from the human heart ; and who can measure the height to which those mountain masses of guilt may tower, after the first foundations have been laid in one unrepented wrong, and before the coming of that day when the criminal must call upon those very mountains to fall and bury him away from the wrath that is inevitable 1 Dr. Pomeroy came home late one evening in December, 1858. Hester had long been in bed, and Eleanor, as was her habit, had waited up for his return. Some weeks had now elapsed since her discovery of his deception, but hope had not yet died out, nor had all her confidence been lost in that aftectiou for her which she believed underlay all the impro- priety of his treatment. So far, except in the one particular, he had treated her with almost unvarying kindness ; and while that pleasant status existed and hope had yet a little point for the clinging of her tenacious fingers, it w^as not in the nature of the young girl to despair. She met him at the door, as she had done on so many previous occasions, assisted him to divest himself of the rough wrappers by which he had been sheltered from the winter wind, and when at last he dropped into his cushioned chair before the grate, which had been kept broadly aglow to minister to his comfort, took her place half by his side and half at his feet. Perhaps there was some malevolent spirit who on that occasion, before the glow of the winter fire, once more brought to the lips of the poor girl that subject alwa3's lying so near her heart — marriage. She mentioned the word, and for the THE COWARD. 151 first time since be had given her shelter under his roof, Philip romeroy hurled an oath at her. Perhaps he had been taking wine somewhat too freely, in one of the tempting supper- rooms of the city ; or some other cause may have disturbed his equanimity and brought out the truth of his worst nature. The reply of Eleanor Hill to this was the not unnatural one of a burst of tears, and that outburst may have maddened him still more. The truth came at last, in all its black, bitter, naked deformity : " Eleanor, you have made a fool of yourself long enough 1 No more of this whining, or it will be the worse for you I When / marry ijou, I shall be very nearly out of business ; and if you have not had judgment enough to know that fact before, so much the worse for your common sense !" Eleanor Hill staggered up from her chair and cast one glance full into the face of her destroyer. Her eyes could read the expression that it bore, then, if they had never before attained the same power. There was neither the smile of reckless pleasantry nor the unbent lines of partial pity for suffering, upon that face. All was cold, hard, determined, cruel earnest, and the victim read at last aright what she should have been able to decipher more than two years before. And never the life of a dangerous infant heir went out be- neath the choking fingers of a hired murderer, at midnight and in silence in one of the thick vaulted chambers of the Tower, more suddenly or more effectually than at that moment the last honorable hope of Eleanor Hill expired, strangled by the hand of that '' guardian" who had promised beside a dying bed that he would shield and protect her as his own child I In that hard, cold face Eleanor Hill at last read her destiny. She had been weak, compliant and submissive, but never recon- ciled to her shame ; and at that moment began her revolt. "I understand you at last," she said. "After all your promises, you will not marry me !" *' Once for all— no !" was the firm reply, the cruel face not 152 THE COWARD. blenching in the least before that glance, mingled of pain and indignation, and so steadily bent upon it. " Then I have lived long enough in this house — too long 1'* broke from the lips of the young girl. " I will leave it to- morrow. You cannot give me back the thing of most value of which you have robbed me — my honor and my peace of mind ; but my father left my property in your hands — give me back that, so that I may go away and hide myself where I shall never be any more trouble to you or to any others who know me." " Humph ! your property I" was the reply, in so sneering a tone that even the unsuspicious ears of the victim caught something more in the manner than in the words themselves. " Yes, I said my property — the property my father left in your hands for me !" answered poor Eleanor, striving to con- quer the deadly depression at her heart dnd to be calm and dignified. " You have told me the truth at last ; and I will never ask you the question again if you will give me enough money for my support and let me go away from this life of sin into which you have dragged me." "You want to go away, do you !" again spoke the doctor, in the same sneering tone. "And you expect to support yourself upon what you call ' your property ?' " "I do want to go away — I must go away, Dr. Philip !" answered the victim, still managing to choke down the tears and sobs that were rising so painfully. " You have cruelly deceived a poor girl who trusted you, and we had better never see each other again while we live." " Your property, you said I Bring me that large black port- folio from^the top of the closet yonder," was the only and strange reply. With the habit of her old obedience the young girl went to the place designated, found the pocket- book and brought it to him. He opened it, took out half a dozen pieces of what seemed to be bank-note paper, and Sanded them over to her without an additional word THE COWARD. 153 " What are these, and what I am to do with them ?" she asked, in surprise. " They are ' your fortune' that you have been talking about, and you may do what you like with them if you insist upon leaving my house !" was the reply. " I do not understand you 1" very naturally answered the recipient, making no motion to open the papers. " If these are mine, I cannot tell what to do with them or how much they are worth." " Oh, I can tell you their value, very easily, though I migjht be puzzled to direct you as to the other part of your anxiety !" said the doctor, with a scarcely-suppressed chuckle at the bottom of his sneer. " They are the scrip for four thousand shares in the capital stock of the Dunderhaven Coal and Mining Company, in which, with your consent, I invested the forty thousand dollars left you by j^our father ; and their present worth is not much, as the company unfortunately failed about six months ago, paying a dividend of five-six- teenths of a centon the dollar. The amount would be — I re- member calculating it up at the time of the failure — -just one hundred and twenty-five dollars." "And that is all the money that I have in the world I'* gasped the young girl, tottering towards a chair. " Every penny, if you leave my house !" answered the model guardian. " If you remain in it, as I wish, and forget all the nonsense that priests and old women have dinned into your ears, about marriage, — your fortune is just as much as my own, for you shall find that there is nothing which I can afford to purchase for myself, that I will not just as freely purchase for you !" Eleanor Hill said not a w^ord in reply. She had sunk into a chair and covered her face with both her hands, through the delicate fingers of which streamed the bright tears, while her whole frame was shaken and racked by the violence of her mental torture. How utterly and completely desolate she was at that moment ! Refused the justice of marriage by 154 THE COWARD. the man for whom she had perilled all, and bidden no longer even to hope for that justice — then coldly informed that if she left the house of her betrayer she went away to beggary, as all the fortune left her by her father had been squandered by im- prudence or dishonesty, — what additional blow could fall upon her, and what other and heavier bolt could there yet be stored for her in the clouds of wrath ? CHAPTER Tin. What followed the revelation of Betrayal — A gleam OF HoFE FOR Eleanor Hill — A relative from Califor- nia, A projected Voyage, and a Disappointment — One more Letter — The broken thread resumed — Carlton Brand's farewell, and a sudden Elopement. Eleanor Hill should of course have left the house of her guardian, that had proved such a valley of poison to her girl- hood, the very moment when she made that discovery of her final and complete betrayal. But then, strictly speaking, she should have left it long before ; and the same compliant spirit that had once yielded, could yield again. Pity her who will — blame her who may — she bowed beneath the weight of her own helplessness and remained, instead of fleeing from the spot that very night and shaking off the dust of her feet against it, even if she begged her bread thereafter from door to door. Not with what she should have done, and not with what some others whom we have known w^ould have done under the circumstances, have we to do. She remained. Not the same as she had been before — Dr. Philip Pomeroy knew and felt the difference ; and yet submissive and apparently unrepining. Not the same in cheerfulness, as Miss Hester felt and deplored ; she spoke less, seldomer went out, even when THE COWARD. 155 Strongly tempted, and spent much more time in the solitude and silence of her own room. It is not for us to put upon record precisely what passed between the guardian and his ward in the months that imme- diately followed that revelation ; as unfortunately at that point information otherwise complete and uninterrupted, is* defective for a considerable interval. It is beyond doubt that in the breast of Eleanor Hill fear and hatred had taken the place of love towards the man whom she had once idolized — that the sense of shame weighing upon her had become everv day heavier and less endurable — and that she would have fled away at any moment, but from the fact that she was utterly helpless, pecuniarily and in any capacity for earning her own subsistence, and that she belieV^ed in the probability of Dr. Philip Pomeroy putting in force the cruel threat he had made, and publishing her shame to the world, distorted to suit his own purposes, the moment she should have quitted his abode and his guardianly "protection !" With reference to the wishes and intentions of Dr. Philip Pomeroy himself, it is not much more easy to form any accu- rate calculation. That he did not wish to follow the example set him by so many unscrupulous traffickers in female virtue, and drive awa}^ at once from his presence the woman whose life he had poisoned, is onl}^ too certain. That he had no in- tention of making her legally his own by marriage, his own tongue had declared. It only remains to believe that he held towards the poor girl some sort of tiger mixture of love and hate, which would not consent to make her happy in the oulv manner which could secure that end, and which yet would not consent to part with her at any demand or upon any ^ terms. Other than she was, to him, she could not be : as she was, she seemed to minister to some unholy but actual need of his nature ; and he held her to himself with an evil tenacity which really seemed to afford a new study in psychology. Circumstances were close at hand, calculated to show some- thing of the completeness of the net drawn around the feet 156 THE COWARD. of the young girl, even if they did not clearly point out the hand drawing the cord of continued restraint. Miss Hester Pomeroy died suddenly in the winter of 1860, alike guiltless and ignorant of the evil which had taken place under the roof which owned her as its mistress, regretted by her brother with as much earnest feeling as he had the capa- city of bestowing upon so undemonstrative a relation, and sincerely mourned by the forced dweller beneath that roof, to whom her presence had been a protection in the eyes of the world, and to whose cruel lot she had furnished more allevia- tions than she had herself capacity to understand. With this death, the introduction of a mere housekeeper to take the place which she had so worthily filled, the addi- tional loneliness which was inevitable when a hired stranger occupied her room, and the certainty that the last excuse of propriety for her remaining was removed, — it may be sup- posed that the struggle in the mind of the poor girl began anew, and raged with redoubled violence. The desire to be freed from the presence and the power of her destroyer had by that time grown to be an absorbing thought, ever present with her, and worthy of any possible sacrifice to give it reality. Any possible sacrifice : to poor Eleanor Hill, sacri- fices which many others would have embraced without a mo- ment's hesitation, seemed literal madness. The certainty of penury and the probability of open shame pressed her close ; and she could not shake off the double fetter. Her tyrant would give her no release ; and she succumbed to her living death once more. Months longer of weary waiting for deliverance, every spark of love died out from her heart, and yet soul and body alike enslaved. Oh, God of all the suffering ! — how often has this been, with no visible hand to deliver, with no pen to chronicle ! Months, and then came what seemed the oppor- tunity of the poor girl's life. It will be remembered that Xicholas Hill, at his dying hour, spoke of his only relatives, and even those removed by THE COWARD. 157 geveral degrees, residing on the Pacific coast. One of these, William Barnes, a distant cousin, and a man of forty, who owned a comfortable ranch near Sacramento, came on to the East in the summer of 1861, bringing his wife, and in one of his visits to Philadelphia casually heard of the whereabouts of the orphaned daughter of his relative. Within a day or two following he pursued his information by driving out to the Schuylkill and calling upon Eleanor, in the absence of the doctor as it chanced. Half an hour's conversation satisfied the large-hearted Californian that the young girl was unhappy, from whatever cause ; ten minutes more drew from her the information that all the property left her by her father had melted away in unfortunate speculations, though of course they won no w^ay towards the other and more terrible secret ; and the next ten minutes sufficed him to offer her a home, as a relative and companion to his wife, at his pleasant ranch in the Golden State. Girls were scarce in California, he said ; girls as handsome as Eleanor were scarce in any quarter of the globe ; and if she would accept his invitation they would astonish all his neighbors a little, on their arrival out, while she could select at will among fifty stalwart fellows, with plenty of money, any day when she might fancy a husband. Here was hope — here was deliverance. How eagerly Eleanor Hill grasped at it can only be known by the wretch who has once been so nearly drowned that the last gasp was on his lip, and then found a helping hand stretched out for his rescue — or that other wretch w^ho has wandered for hours over a trackless waste and then found a landmark at the moment when he was ready to lie down and die I William Barnes was to leave New York on his return to California within a fortnight : he would inform his wife of the arrange- ment, and she would be delighted with the thought of finding a companion; and on the morning of the sailing of the steamer Eleanor would appear, to fill the state-room already engaged. Somewhat to the surprise of the escaping prisoner, and 158 THECOWARD. immeasurably to her joy, when tliat evening, with an expres- sion on her lip that was nearer to triumph than any which had rested there during all the four years of her sinful slavery — Dr. Philip Pomeroy neither threatened her Avith poverty nor expo?^ure as he had before done (perhaps because he felt that when under Mr. Barnes' protection the former would be beyond his power and the latter of little conse- quence in a State so far removed as California) nor even seriously opposed her accepting the offer made her. At last, then, the cruel heart had relented, her shameful dependence was at an end, and the reformation of her life could find its late beginning. Three days later came a letter from New York, from William Barnes, reiterating what had been said personally, and accompanied by the indorsement of the arrangement by Mrs. Barnes. The last shadow of doubt, then, was removed out of the way, and the young girl's moderate preparations for removal went on with new vigor. One hundred dollars in money was all that she asked of her guardian for these preparations, and that sum was accorded without hesitation or comment. On the morning of the sailing of the steamer she left Philadelphia by the early train, the doctor himself bringing her down to the depot in his carriage, and bidding her good-bye with a word of kind regret, and a kiss which seemed chaste enough for that of a brother. Her small array of baggage had preceded her, and was no doubt already within the hold of the vessel that was to bear her to the Pacific, to a renewed life, and an opportunity of gathering up the broken threads of lost happiness. The steamer, the old Northern Light, of such varying for- tunes, w^as to sail at two. At half-past twelve, the carriage containing Eleanor Hill dashed down to the foot of Warren Street, among all that crush of carriages, baggage-wagons, foot-people with valises and carpet-bags, idlers, policemen, pickpockets. United States Mail - vans, weeping women, "whining children, and insatiate shakers of human hands, that THE COWARD. lo9 has attended the departure of every California steamer since the first ploiiglied her ocean way towards the land of gold. Mr. Barnes had promised to meet her at the gangway or on shipboard, but neither on the dock nor on dock could she dis- cover him. One o'clock was long past, and Eleanor had grown sick at heart under the idea that some mistake as to the steamer must have been made, when from the gangway fche saw a carriage drive up and her new protector alight from it. He was assisting out a lad}^ who could be no other than his w^ife ; and the young girl, fairly overjoyed, ran down the plank to meet and welcome them. The lady, who was just starting up the plank as Eleanor reached the foot of it, did not notice her, but continued her ascent : William Barnes did see her, and allowing his wife to proceed alone, he seized her arm and drew her hurriedly away down the pier, and beyond ear-shot. Eleanor noticed that his face seemed flushed, and his whole demeanor agitated ; but she w^as far from being prepared for the startling intelligence that burst from his lips, interlarded with oaths and expressions of honest indignation. The generous-hearted Californian was, in truth, very nearly beside himself with shame and mortifi- cation. Eleanor could not accompany his wife and himself to California, after all ! And the story of the disappointment, though a little mixed up with those energetic expressions and once interrupted by the necessity of the enraged man's pausing to throw into the dock a package of fruit which his wife had just been purchasing for her comfort on the voyage (the porter who brought it being very nearly included in that sacrifice to Xeptune), the story, in spite of all these hindrances, was far too quickly told ; and every word, after the first which revealed her fate, fell upon the heart of the poor girl as if it had been the blow of a hammer smiting her living flesh. Up to that morning — the Californian said — his wife had seemed not only willing to accept Eleanor's society, but highly pleased at the prospect. Her ticket had been bought 160 THE COWARD. and various presents selected by Mrs. Barnes' own hands, for the comfort of their guest on the route and in her new home. That morning, and not more than two hours before, the weather in the matrimonial horizon, never entirely reliable in the latitude of Mrs. Barnes, had changed entirely. On com- ing into the hotel from some business calls, among them a visit to the Post Office (though Mr. Barnes thought, very naturally, that the latter place could have nothing to do with the sudden barometric variation) — she had suddenly declared to him that "he might as well go down to the office and countermand the order for Miss Hill's ticket and save the money; as if she [Miss Hill] went to California with him on the steamer that day, she [Mrs. Barnes] would not stir one step but stay in Xew York." Inquiry and even demand bad failed to secure any explanation of this strange and sud- den veering of the marital weathercock ; and expostulation and even entreaty, with full representations of the contempti- ble position in which he would be placed by any change in the arrangements at that hour, had failed to secure any modi- fication of the sentence. She wanted no strangers in her house, or in her company on board ship ; and she would not have any — that was flat ! If Eleanor Hill went to California, she remained ! A full-blown domestic quarrel, lasting with different degrees of gusty violence for nearly an hour, had been the result ; and that other result had followed which nearly always follows when husband and wife commence dis- cussion of any matter seriously affecting the feelings (or whims) of the latter — the husband had succumbed, the arrangement had been definitely broken off, and the state-room which the young girl was to have occupied was no doubt by that time in the occupancy of a man with a red beard, long boots, a broad hat and a gray blanket ! Poor Eleanor Hill ! — it seemed too hard, indeed — this be- ing plunged back again into the pit of helpless sin and self* reproach, at every effort made for extrication ! There is a legend told of the great well in the court-yard THE COWARD. IGl of one of the old English castles, at the period of the Parlia- mentary wars, which comes into mind when the cruel facts of her life are rememtjered. Sir Hugh, the Cavalier, had seen bis castle surprised, taken and sacked by the Cromwcliiau troopers, guided and led on by a roundhead churl who owed him gratitude instead of ill-service — had been wounded and made prisoner, while the females of his family were maltreated and the pictures that made half his ancestral pride stabbed and hacked in pieces by the ruffians who could not enough outrage the living members of his race. Then the tide of fortune had turned ; he had once more regained his strong- hold, with manly arms around him, and those of his dear ones who had not perished by outrage and exposure, once more under his sheltering hand. Then the recreant roundhead neighbor fell one day into his hands, and the cruel blood of the Norman ancestors who had begun their robbery and rapine on English soil at Hastings, rose up in the breast of Sir Hugh and made him for the time a very fiend of revenge. The great well had been ruined by the corpses thrown into it at the sacking of the castle ; and into that well, in spite of his struggles, he had the poor wretch lowered by bis retainers^ then the slight rope cut away and the victim left to cling to the slippery stones at the edge of the water thirty feet below, unable to climb them, too desperate to sink, and wailing out his cries for merc\^, while a huge lamp, lowered by another rope, showed the whole terrible spectacle to the pitiless eye** that dared look down upon it. Then another rope was lowered by the great windlass, within reach of the struggling wretch, and he was allowed to seize hold upon it and climb a little way from the water, under the belief that his tyrant had at last relented and that he was to be allowed to save him- self after that dreadful trial. Then, when he had climbed for a few feet from the black ooze beneath him, the rope wo* lowered away and the poor wretch again submerged, to shriek, and wail, and climb again, and to be again dropped back at the moment of transient hope, until the wearied 10 162 THE COW A 11 Li . fingers could cling aad climb no longer and tlio life Ibus out- raged and the light which had revealed that sad refinement upon cruelty went horribly out together ! And how much less cruel was Fate, thus standing guard over the life of Eleanor Hill and dropping her back again into her own shame at every attempt which she made to escape from it or to rise above it, — than the grim and grizzled old Sir Hugh who had been made a human fiend by his past wrongs and the bandit blood of his race ? There was genuine regret blended with the anger and shame on the honest face of William Barnes, as he made that confession which dashed all the hopes of the young girl, — that he dared not take her to California. But who shall describe the expression of hopeless sorrow and despondency which dwelt upon hers at that moment ? Yet despondency was unwise as struggle was unavailing. This, too, must be borne, as a part of the penalty of — no, we cannot write the word " guilt" — the penalty of being unfortunate and abused ! The Californian took the privilege of blood, to urge the acceptance of such a sum from his well-filled wallet as would enable her to replace the clothing and other articles in her trunks, then too late to remove from the hold of the vessel, — bade her good-bye and sprung on board just as the last call was given. The poor outcast mustered courage to speak to a hackman as the steamer moved away that she had so lately hoped was to bear her to a more hospitable land and a better life ; and half an hour later she was speeding back towards Philadelphia on the Camden and Amboy boat ; with strange thoughts running through her mind but happily finding no lodgment there, that under some circumstances of desertion and despair there could not be such a terrible crime in slipping quietly overboard and going to a dreamless sleep in the cool, placid water. Had Eleanor Hill possessed that energy the want of which Las been so many times before deplored, she would have sought out another home, though in the most miserable alley THE COWAKD. 163 of the overcrowded city, before relurniug yet more disgraced to that place of misery once abandoned. But she lacked that energy, and perhaps her coming life was foredoomed, as the past had been. That night the bars of her cage closed again upon her. Dr. Philip Pomeroy receiv^ed her in all kindness, with some expressions of pleased surprise and a few sharp epithets hurled at the man who could be weak enough to change his mind in that manner at the bidding of a woman. But there was something in his tone and demeanor which left the girl in doubt whether he was really so much surprised as he pretended ; and later developments were rapidly approaching which made the doubt more tenable. Among the acquaintances formed by Eleanor Hill in the early days of her residence under the roof of Dr. Pomeroy, bad been the family of Robert Brand, which the doctor visited (as he did many others in the neighborhood) both as friend and medical attendant. In those days she had been visited by Elsie Brand and her brother, and had visited them in re- turn. Gradually all intimacy between Elsie and herself had ceased, as that great change, known only to herself and two others, affected the whole tenor of her life. But the friend- ship at that time formed with Carlton Brand had never weak- ened, and it perhaps grew the stronger from the hour when each became satisiied that no warmer personal interest would ever rise in the breast of the other. Perhaps Carlton Brand, to some extent a man of the world, and a close student of character by virtue of his profession, may have formed his opinions, long before 1861, of the relations existing: between the doctor and his ward ; but if so, he had not a thought of blame or any depreciation of respect for the poor girl on account of it; and during all those years, if he indeed harbored such suspicions, he had no means of verifying them, for Eleanor IlilPs lips had been and remained quite as closely sealed to him as to others. Between Dr. Philip Pomeroy and the lawyer had always existed, since the young girl had been an inmate of tlie house, 164: THE COWAKD. an antagonism which could not well be mistaken. Xo open rupture bad taken place, in the knowledge of any acquaint- ance of either ; but they never met without exchanging looks which told of mutual dislike and distrust. "Within the three years between 1858 and 1861 that antagonism, as even the un-» observant girl could see, had markedly increased, so that even in his own house the doctor, when he came upon him, seldom ad- dressed a word to his unwelcome guest. Had she known that in the investigations which followed the failure of the Dunder- haven Coal and Mining Company, in the later days of the great commercial crash of 185T-8, Carlton Brand had been one of the counsel employed to prosecute that great swindle in which her own fortune had been swallowed up with hundreds of others, — had she known this, we say, she might have imagined some reason for this increase of dislike which was certainly not founded upon jealousy. But she would not have guessed, even then, one tithe of the causes for deadly and life-long hatred which lay between tw^o men of corresponding eminence in two equally liberal professions. It is not possible, at this stage of the narration, to explain what were those causes, eventually so certain to develop themselves. On the eve of her attempted transit to California, of which we have already seen the melancholy failure, Eleanor Hill wrote but one letter of farewell, and that letter was addressed to Carlton Brand. On her way homeward from her great disappointment, she paused in the city to drop a- pencil note written on board the steamboat ; and that was also to Carlton Brand, informing him of her return. [N'o reply was made to the latter note, for three days : then the lawyer called upon her one day during the professional absence of the doctor. He had been absent, at the city of New York and still farther eastward, for more than a week previous. He had returned from the commercial metropolis only the day before, and had taken the very earliest moment to acknowledge the reception of her missive and to express his sympathy in her disappoint- ment — perhaps something more. THE COWARD. 165 After a few moments of conversation on that unfortunate affair, the lawyer remarked that he had chanced to stop at the same hotel in New York, patronized by Mr. Barnes and his wife, and having some recollection of the face of the former, from old Philadelphia rencontres, had made the acquaintance of both. He had known nothing whatever of the intention of Eleanor to accompany them to the Pacific coast, or even that any relationship existed between herself and William Barnes. But Mrs. Barnes had " cottoned to him" a little, ap- parently, he had been the possessor of a few spare hours, and he had become her companion and escort on some of her shop- ping excursions when Mr. Barnes was otherwise employed. He had been her escort on the morning of the day on which she sailed, and after her return from the Post-office had been present at her opening of several letters, over one of which she fell into a storm of rage requiring an apology for such an exposure before a comparative stranger. As a part of that apology, she had handed him the letter, bearing the Phila- delphia post-mark; and inadvertently, as he then supposed, but providentially, as he afterwards saw reason to believe, he had kept the letter in his hands, dropped it into his pocket with his newspaper, and forgotten to return it until he had parted from the enraged woman and left the hotel. It was only after his return to Philadelphia and reception of the two notes advising him of Eleanor's intended departure and her disappointment, that he had been able to connect that letter with any one in whom he possessed a personal interest. Eleanor Hill had been gradually growing paler during this recital ; and she was chalky white and almost ready to faint, when at that stage the lawyer paused and handed her a letter taken from his pocket, with the inquiry, "if she knew that handwriting." The letter was very brief, but very expres- sive, and ran as follows — the words being faithfully copied from the shameful original, lying at the writer's hand at this moment : 166 THE CO WARD. PniLADELPniA, , 1861. Madam:— I have accidentally learned that arrangements have been made hy your husband and yourself, to take a young lady back with you to your hoiae in California, on your return. When I tell you that I knew your husband and his family many years ago, you will understand my motive for taking part in what is apparently none of my business. If the report is true, that you do so intend, you have been shamefully deceived and imposed upon. The young lady, whose name I need not mention, has been for years the mis- tress of the man with whom she is living; and you can judge for yourself the policy of introducing such a person into your house- hold. I have no means of judging whether your husband is or is not acquainted with the real character of the lady ; but any doubt on that subject you can have no difficulty in solving for yourself. I have preferred to address you instead of him, with this warning, because in the event of his really being aware of all the circum- stances, any oommunicatiou to him would of course never have reached your eyes. With the highest esteem and regard for your- self, for your husband and his family, I am (only concealing my real name, for the present, from motives which I hope you will readily appreciate,) yours, obediently, D. T. M. **My God! — yes, I know that handwriting!" sobbed Eleanor Hill, covering her eves with both hands, after glancing over the precious epistle. " So I feared !" said Carlton Brand. " Oh, how can any man be so cruel !'' continued the poor girl. " How could he dare to utter such a falsehood ?" said the lawyer, glancing closely at the young girl meanwhile. Her face, that had the moment before been pale, was now one flush of crimson, and it seemed as if the very veins would burst with the pressure of shamed and indignant blood. Carlton Brand saw, and if he had before doubted, he doubted no longer. He spoke not another word. But the instant after, at last goaded beyond all endurance, Eleanor Hill started to her feet, and said : " Carlton Brand, I believe that I have but one friend in the world, and you are that friend. I have tried to keep my THE COWARD. 1C7 shame from you, because I could not bear to forfeit your good opinion. You know all, now, but do not believe me guilty and wicked ! That man—" " I do not believe you guilty, Eleanor, whatever may be the errors into which you have been dragged by that worst devil out of torment !" he interrupted her. " Expose that man to the world, then, or kill him ! Do not let my shame stand in the way ! I can bear any thing, to see him punished as he deserves, for this last cruel deed !" The girl was for the moment beside herself, and she little thought, just then, what was the penalty she braved ! It seemed that Carlton Brand better appreciated the peril, or that some other weighty consideration chained his limbs and his spirit, for his was now the flushed face, and he made none of those physical movements which the avenger inevitably assumes, even if beneath no other eye than God's, when he determines upon a course of action involving exposure and possible danger. He seemed to tremble, but not with anxiety : his was rather the quiver of inertiae than any nobler incitement. "Expose him?— kill him?" he gasped rather than said. "You do not know what you ask, Eleanor ! I cannot ! — dare not—" ''Dare not ?" echoed Eleanor Hill, her face that had ordi- narily so little pride or courage in it, now expressing wonder not unmingled with contempt. Eor the first time, she saw the countenance of that man who had seemed to her almost a demi-god, convulsed with pain and shame ; and the sad won- der that was almost pity grew in her eyes, as within a moment after, moved by her confidence and assured by it that he need fear no danger of betrayal, Carlton Brand entrusted her with the secret of that skeleton in his mental closet which made him powerless against the bold, unscrupulous and determined Philip Pomeroy. Each had the most dangerous confidence of the other, then ; and each realized, if nothing more, a cer- tain painful satisfaction in knowing that the burthen was not thenceforth to be borne entirely without sympathy. But to 168 THE COWARD. neither did there appear any hope of unravelling a villany which seemed to both so monstrous. All this took place in the summer oF 1861, it will be re- membered ; and between that time and the period at which we have seen Eleanor Hill kneeling piteously before Nathan Bladesden and afterwards greeting Carlton Brand with surh a sympathy of shame and sorrow, — nearly two years had tlapsed. During that time Carlton Brand had seemed to gather more and more dislike of the physician, and, as must be confessed, more and more positive fear of him ; while Dr. Pomeroy had more than once treated poor Eleanor with positive bodil}' indignity for daring to receive his- visits at all, though he was the last of all her old acquaintances who kept up the least pretence at iutimac}'. Finally, for months before the June of 1863, the lawyer had ceased to make any visits to the house, except at times when he knew the doctor to be absent ; and then he stayed but briefly at each infre- quent call, while one of the female servants, who was devoted to Eleanor, had confidential orders from her to keep watch for the sudden coming of the doctor, so that this man, who seemed born to be a Paladin, could skulk away by one door or the other and avoid a meeting ! A most pitiable exhibition, truly ! — but the record must be made a faithful one, even in this melancholy instance. Since Eleanor Hill's return from her temporary Hegira, for a long period, so far as the eye could see no change had taken place in the relations existing between the *' guardian" and his "ward." Perhaps he treated her with more coolness than of old ; and she may have been more habitually silent, while she had become a virtual recluse and seldom passed j^eyond the doors of that fated dwelling. Whatever the weakness which the fact may have shown on her part, what- ever of persistent evil on his, — the old intimacy of crime had been maintained, though the love once existing in the breast of the young girl had long changed to loathing, and there TILK COWAKD. 169 was every reason to believe that the ignoblcr passion urging on her destroyer had'quite as long before become satiety. This up to a certain period. One day during the winter of 1862, ISTathan Bladesden, a Quaker merchant of the city, gray- headed, eminently respectable and a widower, had found oc- casion to call at the residence of Dr. Pomeroy. In the host's absence he had been received by his ward ; and the blind god, ever fantastic in his dealings, had smitten the calm, strong man with a feeling not to be overcome. He had called again and again, sometimes in the doctor's absence and sometimes when he was at home ; out the object of his pur- suit had evidently been Eleanor Hill. His visits had seemed to be rather pleasing than otherwise to the master of the house, who could not fail to see towards what they tended ; and that he did see and approve had seemed to be evident from his entire withdrawal of himself from Eleanor's private society, from the time of the second visit. The poor girl's heart had leaped with joy, at the possibility of union with a noble man, that should finally remove her from her false position and make her past life only a sad remembrance ; and tliose precisians may blame her who will, while all must sorrow for the circumstances which seemed to render the de- ception necessary, — that she had not shuddered, as she possi- bly should have done, at the idea of marriage without full confidence. Two months before, while April was laughing and weeping over the earth, the grave, unimpeachable man, who already held so much of her respect and could so easily induce a much warmer feeling of her nature, — had asked her to be his honored wife and the mistress of his handsome house in the city ; and the harrassed girl, the goal of a life of peace once more in sight, had answered him that she would be his wife at any moment if he would consent to accept the remnant of a heart which had been cruelly tortured and to make no inquiries as to a past which must ever remain buried. To these terms the Quaker had consented ; this had been Eleanor Hill's betrothal ; and with such a redeeming 170 THE COWARD. prospect in view had her life remained, until that fatal day of June when the knowledge that her whole secret was be- trayed burst upon her in the presence and the reproaches of Kathan Bladesden. What passed between them has already- been recorded, at a stage of this narration antecedent to the long but necessary resume just concluded ; and we have seen how, only a few minutes after, Carlton Brand held in his hand the letter of her second denunciation, and what were his brief but burning words as he commenced reading. " Curse him I He deserves eternal perdition, and he will find it!" He read through the letter without speaking another word, though there were occasional convulsive twitches of his face which showed how his heart was stirred to indignation by the perusal. "You are sure, are you not?" Eleanor asked, when he had finished. " Just as sure as I was in the other case. The deed is the most black and damning that I have ever known ; and if I had before been an infidel I should be converted by the knowledge that such an incarnate scoundrel must roast in torment !" "And what am I to do ?" asked the girl, with that help- less and irresolute air which is so pitiable. " Heaven help us both ! I do not know I" was the reply, with the proud head drooping lower on the breast than it should ever have been bowed by any feeling except devotion. " I cannot remain here after this !" she said. " Can you not take me away — do something for me ? Does the — do the same obstacles stand in your way that stood there two years ago ?" " No — ^not the same, but worse !" answered the lawyer, bitterly. " Oh, there never was a child so helpless as I am at this moment. I have wealth, but I cannot use it for your benefit without exposing you to final and complete ruin in public opinion. And for myself — poor Eleanor, I pity you, T U K COW A U 1). 171 God knows I do, but I pity myself still worse. I came to tell you that I am going away this very day, — that I shall not again set foot within my father's house — perhaps never again while I live, — that my spirit is crushed and my heart broken." " What has happened ? tell me ! The old trouble, Carl- ton ?'' asked the young girl, in a tone of true commisera- tion. "Yes, the old trouble, and worse!" was the reply, fol- lowed by a rapid relation of the events of the morning, and concluding with these hopeless words: "An hour since, I parted with the woman I loved and hoped to make my own. To-morrow my name may be a scoff and a by-word in the mouth of every man who knows me. I cannot and will not meet this shame, which is not hidden like your own, but will be blown abroad by the breath of thousands of personal acquaintances, and perhaps made the subject of jest in the public newspapers. Think how those who have hated and perhaps feared me — criminals whom I have brought to justice and thieves whom I have foiled in their plunderings, — will gloat over the knowledge that I can trouble them no more — • that I have fallen lower, in the public eye, than they have ever been ! X am going away, where no man who has ever looked upon my face and known it, can look upon it again !" The tone in which Carlton Brand spoke was one of utter despondency and abandonment. There was nothing of the sharp, vigorous ring of that speech which contains and de- clares a purpose : the words fell stolid and lifeless as hung the head and drooped the arms of the utterer in her presence with whom he held a sad community of disgrace. "I understand you, and I believe that your lot is even worse than my own !" said Eleanor Hill, after & moment of silence. "You do right in going away, and you could not help me if you stayed. Nothing can help me, I suppose. Do not think of me any more. I can bear what is to come, quite as well as I have borne all that is past !" She bad 172 THE COWARD. been nodding her head mechanically when she commenced speaking, and at every nod it sank lower and lower until the face was hidden from the one friend whom she was thus losing beyond recall. At that moment there was a rapid foot on the stair-way above, and the house servant whom Eleanor had managed to keep in her interest spoke quickly at the door. " If you please, Miss, doctor's carriage is coming through the gate from the Darby road. Thought you would like to know it." And as rapidly as she had come down, she as- cended again to her employment in the attic. *' Oh, Carlton, you must not be seen here, now !" ex- claimed the poor girl, her face all fright and anxiety, and herself apparently forgotten. Something in that look and tone smote the heart of Carlton Brand more deeply than it had ever been smitten by the sorrow and disgrace of his own situation ; and with that feeling of intense compassion a new thought was born within him. " Yesterday I could not have done it — to-day I can !" he muttered, so low that the girl could not understand his words ; then he said aloud, and speaking very rapidly : " I cannot meet him, and you shall not ! Throw some- thing on your head and over your shoulders, quick ; and come with me I" For one instant the young girl gazed into his face as if in doubt and hesitation ; but the repetition of a single word decided her : " Quick !" A glow of delight and surprise that had long been a stranger to her face, broke over it; she ran to the little bed-room adjoining the apartment in which they were speaking, threw on a black-silken mantle and a sober little hat that hung there, and was ready in an instant. In another Carlton Brand had seized her arm, hurried her out of the room, down the stairs, through the hall and out into the garden which lay at the north side of the house and extended down almost THE COWARD. 173 to the edge of the causeway. Dr. Pomeroy was driving down the lane leading from the Darby road, and was conse- quently on the opposite side of the house from the fugitives. Fugitives they may well have been called, though perhaps so strange an "^elopement had never before been planned— an elopement over a comparatively open country in the broad light of a summer noon, by two persons who held no tie of bfood and no warmer feeling for each other than friendship, and who had not dreamed of such an act even five minutes before. But those operations the most suddenly conceived are not always the worst executed. Necessity, if not genius, is often a successful imitator of that quality. When the doctor drove up at the gate in front of the house, his ''ward" and her new companion were just dodging out of the tall bean- poles and shrubbery, over the garden fence, to the edge of the meadow ; by the time he had fairly entered the house they were on the causeway and partially sheltered by the elders that ran along it and fringed the bank of the singing brook ; and long before he could have discovered the flight and made such inquiries of the servants as might have di- rected his gaze in that direction, the lawyer in his strangely soiled and unaccustomed attire, and the girl so slightly arrayed for starting out on her travels in the w-orld, were within the circle of woods before mentioned, stretching northward to the great road leading down to the city. 174 THE COWARD. CHArTER IX. Dr. Pomerot's purposed Pursuit — A plain Quaker "who used very plain language — almost a fight — how Mrs. Burton Hayley consoled her Daughter, and how Margaret revealed the Past — A Compact — Dr. Pome- roy's Canine Adventure — Old Elspeth once more — A Search that found Nothing. It will be noticed that with the exception of the somewhat extended glance at the earlier fortunes of Eleanor Hill, all the occurrences thus far recorded, and affecting the after lives of so many different people, have occupied not more than two or three hours of a single June day. The Parcae were evidently very busy on that day of June, repaying the past and arranging the future ; and not less than three scenes of this veritable history yet remain, occurring on the same day, a little later, but within the same space as to dis- tance, that has been covered by those preceding. The first of these is that presented in the house of Dr. Pomeroy, ten minutes after he had entered it, and when two or three sharp inquiries after his "ward," whom he failed to find in her room, had elicited from one of the frightened ser- vants the information not only that she had left the house, through the garden, with hat and mantle and in great haste, — but in the company of the man of all the world towards whom the medical gentleman entertained that deadliest hatred which would have made his drugs safe and reliable had he been attend- ing him in a dangerous sickness ! He might not have known the fact quite so soon, from any of the other servants, as he certainly would not have discovered the truth under a twelve- month from the one who had acted as Eleanor's sentinel oa the watch tower ; but it chanced that he possessed one crea- ture of his own, who had been in the habit of playing spy around the house generally and making very considerable T UK C U W A li D. 175 additions to her wages from the " appropriation for secret service"; and from that open-mouthed person, who seemed to see with that organ as well as with the eye^s, he had no difticulty in extracting all the truth that could be known, in an inconceivably minute fraction of time. The rage which broke out in the face of Dr. Philip Pome- roy and set his eyes ablaze, at about that period, would not have been a pleasant thing to look upon, for any person liable to the penalties and inflictions which that rage denoted. Eor he was a sharp, keen, calculating man, jumping to a conclu- sion with great rapidity, and seldomer missing the fact than most men under corresponding circumstances. Eleanor Hill was gone — had left his house forever, so far as her own will had an}^ power : he knew the fact intuitively. She would never have dared to cross the threshold with Carlton Brand, knowing the hatred which he held against that man of all others, if she had intended to place herself again in a position where she could feel his displeasure. Then the doctor knew, as the reader may by this time be inclined to suspect, reasons w^hy the young girl w^ould have been much more likely to leave his house forever, that day, than at any previous time of her sojourn, if aid and protection chanced to offer them- selves. They had offered themselves, in the shape of the lawyer : they had been embraced ; and the good physician, hurling a few outward curses at the servant who had afforded him the intelligence, at all the other servants, at the house and every thing within it, — mentally included in his maledic- tion every patient who had assisted in luring him away from his home that day, while such a spoil was being made of his *' domestic happiness." The worst of the affair— and the doctor saw it — was that Eleanor Hill had attained her majority years before, and that he had no power whatever to compel her return, except that power still existed in the impending threat of public shame. But he was wronged — robbed — outraged ! He would pursue the fugitive — fmd her — force her to abandon her new pro- 176 THE COWARD. tection — drag her by main force from any arm that dared to interpose I If he failed, he would make such a general deso- lation in family peace, in the quiet neighborhood lying beyond that side the Schuylkill, as had never been known within the memory of the " oldest inhabitant" — such an expose, convul- sion and general explosion as would put out of countenance any thing in the power of the advancing rebel Lee ! All this in the two minutes following the knowledge of Eleanor's flight. The ostler had just led round his heated horse to the stable, before the discovery ; and that functionary had orders shot at him from the back piazza, in a ver}^ loud and commanding voice, to throw the harness on another of his fastest trotters, and have him round at the gate in less than half a minute, before his double-seated buggy, on pain of being flayed alive with his own horse-whip. It may be supposed that under such incitement the stable official handled strap and buckle with unusual dexterity ; and in very little more time than that allowed by the regulation, the vehicle dashed round to the gate, and the enraged owner stood whip in hand, ready to leap into it and urge a pursuit yet madder than had been the elopement. But Dr. Philip Pomeroy, having prepared to ride at once and with all diligence, found an unexpected hindrance, and did not pursue his journey until H much more advantageous start had been allowed to the fugitives. For while the doctor was preparing to spring into his vehicle, down the lane from the Darby road dashed the buggy and pair of Xathan Bladesden, which had so lately taken that direction-^dashed down, driven at such speed as flung the fine horses into a lather of foam, and utterly belied the calm reputation of the Quaker merchant. Nor was there any thing of the deliberation of the sect in the jerk with which he brought up the flying team by throwing them both back upon their haunches, or the suddenness with which he sprang from the buggy, leaving the horses unfastened, and strode to the open gate. THE COWARD. 177 The rencontre was most inopportune and vexatious to the doctor, to whom minutes just then were hours ; and he may have had motives for wishing, that day, not to be placed beneath an eye so sharpened by age and experience. But Nathan Bladesden was a man of wealth and a power in the city, and not even Dr. Pomeroy could afford to treat him with rudeness by driving away at the very moment of his arrival. He smoothed his bent brows, therefore, and accosted him with every demonstration of interest. " Glad to see you, Mr. Bladesden ! You seem to have been driving fast ! But you come just in time, for I was about starting in a hurry to — to see a patient." Had Dr. Pomeroy been aware of all the circumstances con- nected with the morning call of the merchant— the shameful revelations made in the little room overhead — the agony of spirit in which the Quaker had forced himself away from the presence of Eleanor Hill, deserting her utterly and leaving her in such a state of suffering as made suicide very possible — and the continued and ever-deepening conflict which had since been going on in his mhid, as he dashed along roads that led him nowhere, his horses foaming in the heat but the heat in his brain a thousand times more intense, until at last he had driven back determined to drag the young girl, at every hazard and sacrifice, from that moral pest-house which must be sure infection and death to her soul, — had Dr. Pome- roy known all this, we say, not even his hardy spirit might have been willing to brave the encounter. But he knew nothing, and some of the perilous consequences of ignorance followed. " I did not come to see thee, Dr. Philip," replied the Quaker to his salutation,'passing on meanwhile towards the ^ront door, and something short and choppy in his words indicating that he did not wish to open his mouth at full freedom. "I saw thy ward, Eleanor Hill, this morning, and I am going to see her again." "Ah, you have been here to-day, then, before ? And you 11 178 THE COWARD. are going to see her again, after — ."' It was sur]^rising, for a man of his age and experience, how near he came to saying a word too much ! "After receiving thy letter 1 — yes!" answered the Quaker, turning short and confronting his quondam host, the restraint on his utterance removed. ''My letter ? "What do you mean by ray letter ?" Had any one told Philip Pomeroy, half an hour before, that there was a man living who in five words could change the color on his cheek, he would have reckoned the informant a liar and grossly insulted him. Yet so it was ; and the flush, though it was already growing into that of defiant anger, had not been such when it began to rise. *' Thee does not seem to understand me, Dr. Philip," said the Quaker, his words still slow and no point of the sectarian idiom lost, but each dropping short and curtly as if a weighty substance falling heavily. "But thee will understand me before I am done. Thee wrote me a letter, signed 'A True Friend'—" " You lie !" A terrible word, to be flung into the teeth of any man ; and doubly terrible as hurled from lips then ashy w^hite. For just one instant the Quaker's large hands clutched, and he might have been moved to advance upon his insulter and avenge Eleanor Hill, himself and all the world, by choking the insult from his throat. But if such a thought really moved him, he controlled it and merely smote on with his words. " Thee wrote me a letter, signed 'A True Friend,' and thee shall have my opinion of it, before I go into that house and remove from thee, at any peril that may be necessary, the poor girl thee has disgraced." " Set a' foot nearer that house, if you dare !" was the reply. ■ " Thee is a base, miserable coward, Dr. Philip ! — a scoundrel, a seducer, a lying slanderer, the offspring of a female dog of the cur species, a disgrace to thy country and THK COWARD. 179 thy profession ; and if thee knows any more hard words that I forget, thee may put them all in on my account." "Xathan Bludesden, do you think that you will leave this spot alive, after using such words to me P^ and the hands of Philip Pomeroy were clutching at his wristbands as if rolling them up to put them out of the way of blood ! The purpose of attack was reversed : he seemed to be about to spring, tiger-like, at the Quaker's throat. ''Thee will not kill me, Dr. Philip, if I do not 1" the latter said. '' I am stronger than thee, and have a better cause. I think I will not touch thee, but leave thee to thy Maker, if thee keeps thy hands off ; but I have made up my mind, if thee touches me, to beat thee until thee has no shape of a man . — until thee is dead as yonder gate-post. If thee thinks that I will not, thee had better try it I" Dr. Pomeroy did not believe himself a poltroon, nor was he one in that senile relating to purely physical courage. And had there been merely involved a conflict with that larger, stronger and better-preserved man, in which one or the other might suffer severe injury and disiiguremeut, he would have carried out his thought and sprung upon him, beyond a question. But something in those slow dropping pellets of compressed rage falling from the Quaker's lips, told the medi- cal man (seldom too angry to be subtle and cunning), that in the event of a struggle, and the merchant getting the upper hand, he would probably carry out his threat and actually beat him to death with those heavy fists before any human aid could interpose. And to be mangled into a corpse by a Quaker bah ! there was really something in the idea, likely to calm blood quite as hot with rage as that of Dr. Philip— apart from the slight objection he may have had to being hurried into eternity in any way, at that moment. Then another thought struck him — a double one : how completely the Quaker would be at fault, searching through the house for Eleanor Hill; and how he was himself losing time, in that miserable quarrel — time that could never be regained. His horse and buggy 180 TUE COWARD. stood all the while just within the opened gate, where the ostler had left it and gone back to his care of the blown animal at the stable ; and as that important reflection forced itself upon his mind, he turned his back short upon the Quaker, strode to his buggy, stepped into it and dashed away, only pausing to hurl at his tormentor this one verbal bolt : " You infernal, snuffling, hypocritical ruffian ! I will settle with you for all this, when I have more time !" " Thee had better let the account stand as it does. Dr. Philip, if thee is not a fool as well as a scoundrel !" was the reply of the Quaker, but it is very doubtful whether the doctor heard half the words. He was already flying past the garden palings, at the full speed of his trotter, towards the causeway and the Market Street road, on his errand of reclamation and perhaps of vengeance. Then Xathan Blades- den pursued his way into the house, looking for the lost sheep, with that ill success rendered certain by Eleanor's flight, and that disappointment which often attends noble resolutions embraced one moment too late. The second of the supplementary scenes of that day was pre- sented in the parlors of the residence of Mrs. Burton Hayley — that parlor into which the reader had only a doubtful glance a few hours earlier, when events w^hich seemed likely to af- fect the life-long interests of some of the residents of that house, were occurring on the piazza. Rich furniture in rosewood and purple damask ; a piano of modern manufacture, the open bank of keys showing the soft coolness of mother-of-pearl ; carpets of English tapestry ; pier glasses that might have given reflection to the colonel of a Maine regiment or one of the sons of Anak ; tables and mantels strewn but not overloaded with delicate bronzes, gems in porcelain and Bohemian glass, and articles of fanci- ful bijouterie ; on one of the mantels — that of the front room —Cleopatra in ormolu upholding the dial of a clock with one THE COWARD. 181 hand, but with the other applying to her voluptuously-rounded bosom the asp so soon to put a period to all her connectioa with time ; — what need of more than this to indicate the home in which Margaret Hayley had passed the last few years of her young life and approached that crisis so momen- tous to her future happiness ? Yet one thing more must be noticed — the stand of rosewood elaborately carved, set not far from the centre of the front parlor, and bearing on it a large Bible in the full luxury of russet morocco and gold, with massive gold clasps and a heavy marker in silk and bullion dependent from amid the leaves, — the whole somewhat osten- tatiously displayed to the sight of any one who first entered the room, as if to say: " There may seem to be pomps and vanities in this house, but any such impression would be a mistake : this book is the rule by which every thing within it is squared." On the sofa, wheeled into that corner of the luxurious parlor upon which the closed shutter threw the deepest and coolest shadow, lay Margaret Hayley, her head buried in the white pillow which some careful hand had brought for her, and her thrown-up hands drawing the ends of that pillow around her face as if she desired to shut away every sight and every sound. Her slight, tall figure seemed, as she lay at length, to be limp and unnerved ; and there was that in the whole position which seemed to indicate that the mental energies, if not the vital ones, had recoiled after being cruelly overtasked, and left her alike incapable of thought and motion. She was not alone, for beside her sat a lady dressed in very thin and light but rich and rather showy summer costume, rolling backward and forward in her Boston rocker, waving a feather fan of such formidable dimensions that its manufac- ture must have created a sudden rise in the material imme- diately after, and talking all the while with such stately volubility as if she believed that the hot air of the June afternoon would be less unendurable if kept constantly in mo- 182 THE COWARD. tiou by the personal windmill of the tongue. This was Mrs. Burton Hayley, mother of Margaret, widow of the late Mr. Burton Hayley, railroad-contractor, snugly jointured with eight or ten thousand per annum, and endowed (as she her- self believed, and as we will certainly endeavor to believe with her, in charity) with so many of those higher gifts and graces of a spiritual order that her wealth had become dross and her liberal income rather a thing to be deplored than otherwise. (It may be the proper place, here, to say that the gilt Bible on the stand was the peculiar arrangement of this lady, and the sign — if so mercantile a word may be ap- plied to any thing really demanding all human respect and devotion — of that peculiar mental stock in trade which she was to be found most ready in exhibiting on all occasions.) Mrs. Burton Hayley was tall — even taller than her daugh- ter ; and her form had assumed, with advancing years, a fulness which the complimentary would have designated as "plump," the irreverent as "stout," and the vulgar as "fat." Her face, moulded somewhat after the same fashion as that of Margaret, must have been undeniably handsome in youth, though now — the truth must be told — it was not a specially lovable face to the acute observer. Her dark eyes had still kept their depths of beautiful shadow, and her intensely dark hair (though she had married late in girlhood and was now fifty) showed neither thinness nor any touch of gray. But the long and once classical features had become coarsened a little in the secondary formation of adipose particles; the possible paleness of girlhood had given place to a slight red flush (especially in that tropical weather) that was not by any means becoming to her ; and there were all the while two conflicting expressions fighting for prominence in her face, so different in themselves and so really impossible of amalga- mation, that the most rabid disciple of "miscegenation" could not have arranged a plan for blending them both into one. The outer expression, which seemed somehow to lie as a thin transparent strata over the other, indicated pious and resigned THE COWARD. 183 liiimility — that feeling which passes by the ordiuarj accidents and troubles of life as merely gentle trials of faith and of no consequence in view of the great truth rooted within. The second and inner, which would persist in obtruding itself through the transparent mask, was pride — pride in its most intense and concentrated form — pride in blood, wealth, per- sonal appearance, position, every thing belonging to and going to make up that marvellous human compound, Mrs. Burton H^ley. The eyes were trained to be very subdued and decorous in their expression ; but they did so want to flash out authority, if not arrogance ! The nose was kept ahvaj^s (or generally) at the proper subservient level ; but it did so itch and tingle for the privilege of lifting itself high in air and taking a nasal view, from that altitude, of all the world lying below it ! It was very evident, to any one observing the mother after having examined the daughter's face in the clear light of physiognomy, that the latter had derived from her maternal progenitor most of that overweening pride which youth and beauty yet wore as a crown of glory but age might wear as something much less attractive, — and that she must have inherited from her dead father that softness, frankness, and that better-developed love-nature which toned down in her own all the more decided features of the mother's face and made her worthy of affection as well as admiration. As we have said, Mrs. Burton Hayley was using her tongue with great volubility at the moment of her introduction to the attention of the reader, though really the mode in which her single auditor kept her head buried in the pillow and drew the soft folds around her ears with both hands, did not indicate that desire for steady conversation which could have made such a continual verbal clatter a thing of necessity. There is the more occasion for giving Mrs. Burton Hayley her full opportunity for speech, as she has occasion to utter but little hereafter, in this connection. " You should be very thankful, my child, for all that has occurred," the voluble woman was saying. ''A Power higher 184: THE COWARD. than ourselves overrules all these affairs much better than we could do ; and it is flying in the face of Providence to cry and go on over little disappointments." A pause of one instant, and one instant only, as if in expectation that some reply would be vouchsafed ; and then the band was again thrown upon the driving- wheel — as one of the machinery-tenders in a factory might say, — and the human buzz-saw whirled once more. " I have told you, child, time and again, that you would be punished for setting your affections on any person who had not given evidence of a changed heart— a man who had not passed from death unto life, but who still ran after the pomps and vanities of the world — those pomps and vanities which religion teaches us to despise and put away from us.'' (Oh, Mrs. Burton Hayley, why did you not catch a glance, at that moment, of the room in which you were sitting, redo- lent of every luxury within the reach of any ordinary wealth, and of your own stately and still comely person, arrayed in garments the least possible like those with which people con- tent themselves who have really eschewed the " pomps and vanities of the world," either from conscientious humility or that other and much commoner motive — the lack of means to continue them I) " You should be very glad that you have been providentially delivered from your engagement with an unbeliever and a man of the world — a man without principle, I dare say, as you have discovered that he is without courage ; aiid all the money there is in his family (and they do say that the Brands have not much and never have had much !) — all their money, I say, acquired in the disreputable practice of the law, so that if this thing had not happened and you had been left to depend for subsistence upon his fortune, you might have found it all melting away in a moment, as money dishonestly acquired is certain to do ; for does not the blessed book that I try to make my rule of life, say, my child, that moth is certain to corrupt and thieves break through and steal whatever has been wrung from the widow and the orphan?" THE COWARD. 185 Margaret Hayley had not replied a word during the whole application of that verbal instrument of torture, though it seemed evident from the context that some conversation em- ploying the tongues of both must have passed at an earlier period of the interview. She had merely writhed in body and groaned in spirit, as every moment told her more and more distinctly that in her dark hour she had no mother who could understand and sympathize with her — that cant phrases and pious generalizations were to be hurled against her at that moment when most of all she needed to be treated by that mother like a wearied child, drawn home to her bosom and cradled to sleep amid soothing words and loving kisses. But Margaret Hayley did something else than writhe when the accusation of having acquired his wealth by dishonesty was cast upon the man whom she had worshipped — yes, the man whom she worshipped still, in spite of the one terrible defect which seemed to draw an eternal line of separation between them. She started up from her recumbent position, her hair dishevelled, her eyes red with weeping, and her whole face marked and marred by the anguish she had been suffering, — sprang up erect at once, with all her mother's pride manifest in voice and gesture, and said : " Mother, are you a rank hypocrite, or have you neither sense nor memory ?" A strange question, from a daughter to her mother ! The reply was not quite so strange, and it seemed to have much more of earnest in it than any portion of the long tirade she had before been delivering : " Margaret Hayley, how dare you !" " We can dare a good many things, when we do not care whether we live or die !" was the reply. "And though I Jiave loved and respected you as my mother, I do not know that I have ever been afraid of you. Now listen. You have hated Carlton Brand, ever since he first came to this house, because he did not treat your religious assumptions with quite as much deference as you considered proper. He may have 186 THE C O W A R D. been right, or wrong : no matter now, as he is out of the way I But you have hated him, and you know it — because I loved him — I am not ashamed to own it ! — loved him with my whole soul, as I believed that he deserved — as any woman should love the man whom she expects to take her to his heart !" " Well, what if I did dislike him? I had a right to do that, I suppose !" answered the mother, her voice no longer religiously calm, but rough and querulous. " Do not interrupt me ! — hear me out !" said the young girl. " You liked Hector Coles for a corresponding reason — because he pretended to fall into all your notions, and com- plimented you on your * piety' and * Christian dignity,' when he was all the while laughing at you behind your back. You would have been pleased to see me discard the man I loved, and marry the man I could never love while I lived, — because your own likes and dislikes were in the way, and because you believed that in the position of mother-in-law you could manage the one and could not manage the other." ''Well, what else, to your mother. Miss Impertinence!" broke in the lady who had been so voluble. " Oh, a great deal more !'' answered Margaret, with a manner not very different from a sneer. " To-day, since you have known that for one spot on a character otherwise so noble, I have broken off all relations with Carlton Brand, you have done nothing but sit here and preach me Christian resig- nation in words that your own heart was as steadily denying. When a true mother would have tried to console, you have tortured. And you have ended all by alleging that Carlton Brand and his father have acquired their money dishonorably, because they have both been lawyers, — and that such money must be accursed in the hands of any one who holds it." " I have said so, and I hav£ a right to say so I" echoed the mother, " You may let loose your ribald tongue against the author of your being, ungrateful girl ; but the truth is from heaven, and must be told — wealth obtained in any manner by THE COWARD. 187 day, upon which a blessing cannot be asked at night, is itself accursed, and curses every one who partakes in the use of it." "And every dollar that has been dishonestly obtained, then, should at once be restored to the rightful owner, I suppose — in order to escape the curse ?" suggested Margaret. *' Every dollar, and at once ; for, as the Bible says, the spoiler cometh as a thief in the night, and no one can say how soon the judgment may fall 1" answered the mother, trium- phantly and in full confidence that she had at last silenced her refractory child by a strictly orthodox quotation. " How much are we worth, mother ?" was the singular ques- tion which followed this supposed annihilation of all argument. " Why, you know as well as I do that we have eighty thousand in stocks and in bank ; and this property and that at Pottsville is believed to be worth twenty or thirty thousand more. We are worth, as you call it, more than a hundred thousand, and the whole of it will be yours some day — not very long first, when I have gone, as I hope and trust I may say, to my reward. You are rich, my child, and I am glad to see that you think of these things at last, as you may be kept from throwing yourself away again.^' The voice and whole manner of the mother w^ere much more amiable than they had been at any time since the rising of her daughter from the sofa ; for nothing seemed to restore the tone of her agitated feeling like references, from whatever source, to her wealth and position. " A hundred thousand. There is not nearly enough, then !'* The words were half muttered, but Mrs. Burton Hayley distinctly heard them. And she saw something on the face of the young girl which she by no means understood, as the latter drew from her bosom the lower ends of the gold chain depending there, and unclasped the back of a rather large and very thick locket, the front of which presented a minia- ture in ivory of the handsome, well- whiskered and pleasant- looking Mr. Burton Hayley, her deceased father. Though she raised the locket to her lips and kissed it reverently, that 188 THE COWARD. something on the face had not changed when she took from its unsuspected concealment a small slip of newspaper, neatly folded and of size enough to contain some twenty or thirty lines of small type. The mother's eyes were by this time wide open with astonishment and partial fear that her daughter had lost her wits in the agitation of that day. The paper looked old and yellow. Margaret unrolled it and said : *' Mother, here is something that I have carried with me night and day for five years past. I found it at that time, when clipping old newspapers in the attic, for my scrap-book. I marked the date on the back — it is eighteen years old, and the paper was a Harrisburgh one of that time. Have you your glasses with you, or shall I read it ?" " Why, child, are you crazy ? What has that slip of paper to do with the subject of which we were talking ?" " Perhaps you can tell quite as well as myself, after I read it," answered Margaret.' And she moved nearer to the one unshuttered window of the parlor, to secure a better light for the small type and dingy paper, the face of her mother gradually changing, meanwhile, from the surprise which had filled it, to a whiteness which seemed born of terror. Mar- garet read : " SouTTER AND OTHERS VS. Hatlet ajtd OTHERS. — This somewhat remarkable railroad case closed yesterday, and the complaint was dismissed. Judge L , in granting the motion for a dismissal, took occasion to remark that he had seldom performed a more painful duty. That the railroad company had been defrauded to the extent of not less than eighty thousand dollars by Burtou Hayley, the contractor, was one of the conclusions — the learned judge said — in which all would unfortunately agree. But tho operation had been managed with great skill, and legal evidence of what was morally certain had not been produced. He should therefore grant the motion, with the regret expressed, and with the hope that in a future prosecution the evidence which was certainly demanded might be forthcoming, and the defrauded company at least find themselves in. a position to punish the wrong-doer. We hear it stated, upon authority which seems reliable, that Hayley has heretofore been known as a reliable man, and that he has un- THE COWARD. 189 doubtedly been urged to steps wliich he must regret during bis whole life, even if justice does not reach him, or conscience compel him to make restitution, — by the demands made upon him in behalf of a ruinously expensive family, and by evil advice which he has no doubt received from the same quarter. Hayley will probably leave Harrisburgh at once, to enjoy what may be left of his ill- gotten gains in some locality where his antecedents are less fully understood." Mrs. Burton Hayley had sunk back into her chair at the moment when Margaret read the first words, and she re- mained silent till the close. Her face was white, except that a single red spot burned in the very centre of either cheek. Her daughter looked steadily upon her for an instant after she had concluded. Still neither spoke. The mother's eyes had in them something of that baleful light shown by the orbs of a wild beast when driven to its corner ; and they, with the crimson spotted cheeks, were not pleasant things to look upon. At last Margaret asked : " Did you ever hear of this before ? Was that man my father ?" " What of it ? Yes !" The words were nearer spat out than spoken. Margaret glanced, perhaps involuntarily, at the ostentatious Bible on its carved stand. "Was that money ever repaid to the railroad company?" For just one instant the lips of Mrs. Burton Hayley moved as if she was about to utter a falsehood little less black than the original crime had been. If she had for that instant in- tended to do so, she thought better of it and jerked out : " How should I know ? I suppose there is no use in telling a lie about it, to you! 'No 1" "So I thought!" said Margaret Hayley. "That eighty thousand dollars, then, has been standing for fifteen years, and the interest upon it would nearly double the sum. We owe that railroad company, or so many members of the original company as may be yet alive, not less than one hun- dred and fifty thousand dollars. We have only an hundred 190 THE COWARD. thousand or a very little more, but that will be something. Of course, after what you have just said of the curse that clings to ill-gotten gain, you will join me in paying over every dollar in our possession, at once." Mrs. Burton Hayley sprang up from her chair with more celerity than she had before exhibited. "Margaret Hayley, are you a born fool ?" she almost screamed. " l!!i 0, nor a horn hypocrite !^^ the young girl replied. Again her eyes went round to the Bible, and those of the mother followed hers as if they were compelled by a charm. Then those of the latter drooped, and they did not rise again as she said, la a much lower voice : " You know the secret. I am in your power. But T am your mother, and it may be quite as well for you to be merci- ful to me as well as to yourself. Upon what terms will you give me that paper and promise never to speak of it or of the affair to any one without my consent ?" " I will not give you the paper upon an]/ terms !" was the answer. " That has been my shame and my torture for five years, and must still accompany me. But I will be your ac complice in crime and make the promise you require, on three conditions and those only. i^iV.s^, that you drop all hypocrisy when speaking to me, whatever you may do before the world. Second, that you never speak one disrespectful word of Carl- ton Brand, again, in my hearing. He is dead to me : let your hatred of him die with him, or at least let me hear no word of it. Third, that you urge no person upon me as a husband. Present me whom you please — throw me into any company you wish ; but say not one word to force me into marriage with Hector Coles or any other person. This will not break my heart — I know it. I shall marry some time, no doubt, when I find the man who can supply that place in my heart which has to-day been left empty, — without any foible or weakness to make him an unfit match for my own stainless blood !" There was a bitter emphasis upon the penultimate word, Til E C O W A K D. 191 and Mrs. Burton Hayley distinctly recognized it. She recog- nized, too, the somewhat singular prophecy made by a young girl on the very day of her final parting with the man she had loved so dearly — that she would yet find another to fill her heart more completely. Most young persons think very differently at the moment of the great first sorrow, believe that the vacant niche can never be filled, and make painful promises of hopeless lives and celibacy, to cancel those prom- ises some day amid blushes of regret or peals of laughter. Mrs. Burton Hayley recognized the singularity then, and she may have had reason to recall that prophecy at another day in the near future. But there was yet something that she must do, to seal that treaty of which her daughter w^as the dictator. Her own compact was to be made : she made it. "I will do as you wish, Margaret. They are hard terms to set, to your mother ; but I accept them." " Yery well, then. We understand each other, now ; and I hope there will never be another painful word between us. I will try to speak none, and for both our sakes I hope you will be as careful. Now leave me, please. I will draw to this other shutter, for I need darkness, silence and rest — ^yes, rest !" The closed blind left the room in almost total dusk. The mother left the room, stepping slowly and appearing to bear about with her a dim consciousness that within the past half- hour her relative position with her daughter had been most signally changed. Margaret Hayley threw herself once more on the sofa, buried her fevered brow and her dishevelled hair in the soft, cool, white pillow, and sought that wished- for "rest." Alas ! no tvrant ever invented a torture-bed so full of weary turnings and agonized prayers for deliverance or oolivion, as the softest couch whereon young love, sud- denly and hopelessly bereft, reachctj out its arms in vain, finds emptiness, and falls back despairing — moaning for the lost twin of its soul ! The agony may be all forgotten to- 192 THE COWARD. morrow, in the sunshine, and the intoxication of music, and the voices of friends, and the far-off dawning of a new pas- sion ; but oh, what is the martyrdom of to-night. The third and last of these supplementary scenes, occur- ring at nearly the same period in the afternoon as the second, has its location at the house of Robert Brand, and a part of it in the same room where we have before seen the testy^ invalid while receiving the news of his son's defection and disgrace. Robert Brand was once more back in his easy-chair, his injured limb again propped on the pillows, and his face show- ing all those contortions of extraordinary pain likely to be induced by his imprudent ride and the agitation attending it. Satisfied, now, that his son was not dead, the tender father had again died out in him ; but made aware by a succession of facts, which he could neither understand nor doubt, that that son, just characterized, even by himself, as a hopeless coward, had since that time been fighting, and fighting with- out any evidence of cowardice, in a species of hand-to-hand conflict likely to try the courage quite as seriously as the shock of any ordinary battle, — he was mentally in a state of confusion on the young man's account, altogether unusual with him and not a little painful. He did not curse any more, or at least no more of his curses were aimed at the head of his son. Poor little Elsie had been left without a hope of reconcili- ation between her father and her brother, after the hurling of that wild and wicked curse and the exile from his home which it involved. But the episode of the supposed death had made a diversion in Carlton's favor ; her father had returned from the search for his son's body, worried and unsettled if not mollified ; and the affectionate soul thought that the opportunity might be a favorable one for securing the reversal of the cruel sentence, with concealment from her brother that any such words had ever been uttered, and his THE COWARD. 193 eventual return home as if nothing painful or unpleasant had occurred. "Blessed are the peace-makers 1" says very high authority ; and most blessed of all are those who, like little Elsie, ignoring their own suffering and ill-treatment, strive to bring together the divided members of a once hapi)y household ! But the little girl was not half aware how stubborn was the material upon which she was trying to work, or how deeply seated was the feeling of mortification which had embittered the whole nature of the man who held cowardice to be the most unpardonable of vices. " Hold your tongue, girl !" was the severe reply to her suggestion that there might be some mistake, after all — that poor Carlton had enemies, and they had no doubt labored to place him in a false position — and that he would be sorry, to the last day he lived, if when Carlton returned hom'e, as he probably would do that night if nothing serious had really happened to him, he should say one word to drive him away again, to leave himself without a son, and her without a brother. "Hold your tongue, girU You are a little fool, and do not know what you are talking about. If you do not wish to follow your brother, you had best not meddle any more in the relations which I choose to establish with a son who has disgraced himself and me !" "But suppose poor Carlton should be dead, after all, father ? Who knows but some stranger may have come by in a wagon, seen the body lying on the ground, picked it up and carried it away to the Coroner's ?" "Eh! what is that you say?" For the instant Ilobert Brand was startled by the suggestion and his heart sunk as well as softened at the recurring thought that his son might indeed be dead. But the thought was just as instantaneous^ how general was the objection to touching an unknown dead body, and how unlikely that any such course should h^ye been adopted by strangers, while any acquaintance, removing the body at all, would certainly have brought it home to his 12 194 THE COWARD. own house. No — he was alive ; and that belief was once more full in the mind of Robert Brand as he said : " What do I care if he is dead ! I believe I could forgive him better, if I knew that he was, and that I should never again set eyes on the likeness of a man with the soul of a cat or a sheep ! if he is alive, as I believe he is, let him never come near this house again if he does not wish to hear words said that he will remember and curse the last thing before he dies !" A sharp spasm of pain concluded this unhallowed utter- ance, and words followed that have no business on this page. Elsie Brand fired again, when she found all her pleading in vain, and broke out with : " You are a miserable heartless old wretch, and I have a reat mind to go out of this house, this very moment, and never come into it again as long as I live, unless you send for me to come back with my brother !" " Go, and the quicker the better I" writhed the miserable man, in the midst of a spasm of Dain. " If I hear one more impertinent word out of you, you ivill go, whether you wish to go or not, and you will never come back again unless you come on your knees !" What might hare been the next word spoken by either, and \^'hether that next word might not indeed have wrought the separation of father and daughter, no one can say. For at that moment came a fortunate interruption, in the sound of irriage wheels coming rapidly up the lane, and easily heard trough the open doors — then the furious barking of a dog, he yell of a woman's voice, and a volley of fearful curses »oured out from the rougher lips of a man. Elsie, alarmed, ♦ut perhaps rather glad than otherwise to have the threaten- ^ig conversation so suddenly ended, rushed out of the room, '.hrough the parlor, to the front piazza, where she joined the j^eneral confusion with a scream of affright, hearing which, ihe invalid, who had before, more than once that day, proved jow superior the mind could be to the disablements of the THE COWARD. 195 bodv, hurled one more oath at the people who would not even allow him to saffer in quiet, started again from his chair, strapped his heavy cane and stumped hurriedly to the door, writhing in agony and half crazed with pain and vexation. There the sight which had the instant before met the eyes of his daughter, met his owa, though the effect pi'oduced by it upon himself ,was so very different that instead of screaming he dropped tigainst the lintel of the front door In a loud ex- plosion of laughter. There was a horse and buggy in the lane, very near the gate — the horse unheld, rearing and squealing, but making no attempt to run away as might have been expected. Close beside the vehicle, a man easily recognizable as Dr. Philip Pomeroy, was engaged in a hand-to-hand (or is it hand-to- mouth?) conflict with Carlo, the big watch-dog, using the butt of his whip, the lash of it, his boots, and any other weapon of offence in his possession, against the determined assaults of the powerful brute that really seemed disposed to make a meal of the man of medicine. The doctor fought well, in that new revival of the sports of the Pvoman arena, but he was terribly bested (by which it is only intended to use an old word of the days of chivalry, and not to make an atrocious pun upoil heast-ed ;) and just at the moment when Robert Brand's eyes took in all the particulars of the scene, the human combatant, following up a temporary advantage, lunged ahead a little too far, lost his balance or caught his foot, and went headlong on the top of the dog, the contest being there- after conducted on the ground and in the partial obscurity of the fence. At the same instant, too, the tall, bare-headed and bare-armed figure of old Elspeth Graeme appeared from behind the corner of the house, and the voice of that Caledo- nian servitor was heard screaming out: " Here, Carlo ! Here, lad ! coom awa, ye daft deevil ! Here ! here ! coom awa, lad !" Elsie joined with a feeble " Here, Carlo I" from the piazza; ?^nd Robert Brand, if he could have found voice, would prob- 196 THE COWARD. ably have assisted in calling off the dog; but Carlo, a for- midable animal in size, black, with a few dashes of white, compounded of the Newfoundland and the Mount St. Bernard, with a surreptitious cross of the bull-dog (such immorality has been known even in canine families, to the great regret of precisian dog-fanciers) — Carlo had no idea whatever of "throwing up the sponge," (which with a dog consists, we believe, in dropping his tail), and might have fought on until death, doomsday, or the loss of his teeth from old age, arrived to stop him — had not Elspeth closed in with a " Hech ! ye born deevil ! Ye'U aye be doin' more than ye'r tauld !" grasped the huge animal by the nape of the neck, and dragged him away very much as if she had been dealing with a kitten. Thus relieved, the doctor recovered his feet ; but he was — as Elspeth described him in a communication made not long after — " a sair lookin' chiel I" He had lost his hat, dusted his coat, and found a sad rent in one ]eg of his nether gar- ments, not to mention the rage which flashed in his eye and almost foamed from his mouth. For the first moment after the rescue he seemed to have a fancy for " pitching into" old Elspeth, unreasonable as such a course would have been after her calling off the dog and finalh^ lugging him off by mam force ; and he did hurl after her an appellation or two which might have furnished a rhyme to the name of the Scottish national disease ; but the stout serving woman quelled him with this significant threat, and went on her way, dragging the dog towards his kennel in the backyard : " 'Deed, if ye can't keep a ceevil tongue in yer heid, I'll no be holdin' the tyke awa from ye a bit langer, and he'll eat ye up, I doubt !" At that juncture the discomfited doctor caught sight of Robert Brand and his daughter, in the door and on the piazza, and he strode in to them without further ado, whip still in hand, rage still Jn his face, and threatening enough in his manner to indicate that he intended to cowhide so many of the familv as he could find, male and female. THE COWARD. 197 " Who let out that infernal dog ?" was his first salutation, without first addressing either the old man or his daughter by name. " lie must have broken loose, himself. Indeed, Doctor, we are so sorry—" began little Elsie, who had really been frightened out of her wits, and who had that organ unknown to the phrenologists, called Hospitality, very largely devel- oped. " Hold your tongue, girl, and let me attend to my own business !" was the surly interruption of the invalid father, who had stopped laughing, and who had at that juncture a very low development of the corresponding organ. '' We are not sorry at all. Dr. Pomeroy, I told you this morning, when I ordered you out of this house, never to come near it again ; and you had better paid attention to the order." " Then you had that dog set loose !" " That is a lie !" was the response. The doctor, who had used the same expression in a still more offensive form, not long before, was getting the chalice returned to his lips at very short notice. And the old man, in denying the act, in- tended to tell the exact truth — he had not turned the do"- loose, or set him upon the doctor, except secondarily. Some hours before, when the medical man had just been dismissed for the first time, he had told the Scottish woman that 'he would bundle her out, neck and crop, if she did not set the dog on that man if he ever came near the house again !' and she had promised to obey his orders : that was all I Carlo, a dear friend of his young master, had always hated the doctor, who was his enemy, and never passed without snap- ping and growling at him ; and the old woman well knew the fact. Consequently, when she saw the buggy dashing up the lane, and recognized it, she had religiously kept her promise, darted round to the kennel, unloosed the dog and directed his attention to the obnoxious individual, with a " Catch him, lad- die !" that sent him flying at the doctor's throat just as he stepped to the ground. And it was only when the old 198 THE COWARD. woman believed the punishment going a little too far and the victim likely to be eaten up in very deed, that she had inter- posed and dragged the enraged Vjrute from his prey. All this was unknown to both father and daughter, who merely sup- posed that the dog had broken loose at that awkward mo- ment ; and Robert Brand's disclaimer, though a very un- courteous one, had the merit of truth. But the doctor, just then enraged beyond endurance, literally " boiled overeat the word. " I lie, do I ?" he foamed. " If you were not a miserable cripple, I would horsewhip you on your own door-step, old as you are !" "Oh, Doctor I oh, father!" pleaded the frightened Elsie, who did not know what might be coming after this. " Hold your tongue, girl !" again spoke Robert Brand, who still stood leaninGT asrainst the lintel of the door. "Horse- whip me, would you, you poisoning Copperhead ! If I could not beat out your brains with this stick, I could set a woman at you who would take you across her knee and spank yea till you w^ere flat like a pancake !" Dr. Pomeroy thought of the woman who had dragged oflf the dog, and had some doubts whether she could not indeed do all that her master promised. He seemed to have the luck, that day, to fall into the way of people sturdy of arm and strong of w\\\ ! " What do you ivani here ?" was the inquiry of the old man, before the doctor could answer again, and remembering that there might be some special errand upon which he had a right to come. "You have remembered it, have you ?" w^as the response. " Well, then, I want your thief of a son ! Is he in this house ?" " Oh, he was a coward this morning : now he is a thief, is he ? What do you want of him ?" " He committed theft at my house not more than an hour THK COWAKD. 1^9 ago ; and I am going to find him if he is in the State. Oucq more— is he here ?" " What did he steal ?" asked the father with a sneer, wliila poor Elsie stood nearly fainting and yet unable to move from the spot, at that new charge against her brother. "A woman." Elsie felt relieved; the old man sneered. "Well, I can only say that if he took awny any woman belonging to you, he must have a singular taste !" "Robert Brand" — and the doctor spoke in a tone of low and c^^icntrated passion — "once more and for the last time I ask you whether your son is in this house, with Eleanor Hill, my — my adopted daughter, in his company." " Eleanor Hill !" gasped Elsie, but no one heard her. " Dr. Pomeroy," answered Robert Brand, " you do not deserve any answer except a blow, but I will give you one. My son, as you call him, Carlton Brand, is not here, and will never be here again while I live, unless to be thrust out like a dog. How many girls he has, or w^here he conceals them, is none of my business, or yours/ Now go, if you know when you are well oflF, for as sure as God lets me live, if I ever see you approaching this house again, I will shoot you from the window Avith my own hand." Something in the tone told Dr. Pomeroy that both the as- sertion and the threat were true. He turned without another word, stepped to his buggy, mounted into it and drove away. " He is alive, father — thank God !" said Elsie Brand, rev- erently, when the unwelconie visitor had disappeared and she was assisting the invalid back to his chair of suffering. That one assurance bad been running through her little head, putting out all other thoughts, since the remark of the doctoi that Carlton had been at his house not an hour before. " He is as dead to me as if he had been buried ten years !" was the reply of the implacable father, who stood in momen- tary peril of the grave from some sudden turn of his disease, and yet who had not even taken that first step towards prepara- tion for the Judgment, compiised in pity and forgiveness I 200 THE COWARD. CHAPTER X. Before axd after Gettysburoii — The Apathy and De- spair WHICH PRECEDED, AND THE JUBILATIOX WHICH FOLLOWED — What Kitty Hood said after the Battle, AND what Robert Brand — Brother and Sister — A GiiEST at the Fifth Avenue Hotel — A fire-room Visit, an Interviet7, and a Departure for Europe. It whs a dark day for the nation — perhaps none darker ! — that day of late June, 1863, marked by the occurrence of tha preceding events. Private interests, private wrongs, private sorrows seemed all to be culminating or laying down fearful material for culmination in the future ; but those domestic convulsions were only a faint and feeble type of that great throe agitating the whole nation. That day the bravest feared, not for themselves but for the country they loved ; and that day the miserable trucklers who would long before have had the republic veil its face and sink on its knees before the arrogance of rebellion, begging for "peace'' with dishonor, instead of demanding and enforcing victory, — that day they experienced such a triumph as they had never before known and such as their narrow souls could scarcely appreciate. "We told you so I" rung out from the throat of every "con- ditional loyalist," as the same paltry exultation had rung many an age before against the unsubmitting tribunes by the mad populace when the Tohcians threatened to devastate Rome — as it had been yelled into the ears of Philip Yan Ar- tevelde and his brother defenders, when Ypres and Bruges fell, and the fierce Earl of Flanders promised death to the burghers of Ghent ; and there was little, except bald defiance, that loyal men could reply. That long-boasted "invasion of the North" had come at last ; and tbfsre is always a disheart- ening effect in the drawing of war nearer to the doors it has heretofore spared, even as there is always a scum among any THE CO W A R D. 201 population, ready to cry "ruin !" and counsel "submission" or "compromise" when a single move in the great game of war has ended disastrous!}'. A more dreary spectacle than Philadelphia presented daring some of the days of that week, cannot very well be imagined. From Ilarrisburgh and many of the minor towns of the west and southwest of the State, the inhabitants bad fled by thousands to other places supposed to be less -easily within reach of the enemy; and, if in a future day of peace, those who at this juncture took part with the rebellion should chance to be shamed with a reminder of the panic in Rich- mond, and the removal of the Confederate archives, after Hanover Court-House in 1862, they may very pleasantly re- taliate by calling up the panic at Harrisburgh and the packing up of'the Pennsylvania State records, after York and Carlisle in 1803. Hundreds of wealthy persons removed their valua- bles even to Philadelphia; and there is no guarantee what- ever that many of them did not make a still further removal East, when they could do so without attracting disagreeable attention and running the chance of after ridicule. There seemed to be an impression just then, in fact, that there was no power whatever to check the disciplined but half-starved and desperate rebel hordes. Even those who did not view the affair as any matter of gloom or discourage- ment, still believed it one of heavy loss that must be submitted to with the best grace possible. One of the young Philadelphia merchants was recognized by a friend, on one of the very last days of June, knocking about the balls in the billiard-room of the Cattskill Mountain House, £lnd questioned by him as to the propriety of his being away from the Quaker City at a time when so heavy a misfortune as the rebel advance to the Delaware seemed to be impending. "Oh," said the raeroJiant, making an eight-shot at the same moment, "I do not see any good that I could do by etaying." 202 THE COWARD. *'And do you not believe that the rebels will reach Phila- delphia ?" asked the friend. " Well, yes, I rather think they will,'' answered the noncha- lant. "I should not be surprised if they should reach tliert to-morrow. In fact I telegraphed to my partner from Albany, yesterday, whenever they had taken Harrisburgh to pack up the most valuable of our goods and send them to New York." "And when they have taken Xew York ?" asked the inter- rogator, not a little amused at that new system of defending valuable property and the country. " Oh," said the merchant, as be sighted another shot and made his carom without the tremor of a pulse — " when they take Xew York, as I suppose they will in a week or two, we shall move them to Boston, and so keep on working East till they drive us into Canada or the Atlantic." And this was not all.a jest, by any means. The player had so telegraphed, and he more than half believed that his goods were at that time in course of removal, while he had no thought whatever of deserting his billiard-table and going down to assist in defendiug them. He was not alone, mean- while, in his reprehensible coolness, as history will be at some pains to record of that extraordinary crisis. Philadelphia presented many strange spectacles on those days. Apart from the blowing of a brass band on every corner, the patrolling of every sidewalk by a recruiting officer with fife and drum, and the requisite number of human "stool-pigeons," and the exhibition of the placard before noted, offering every inducement in money and every plea of patriotism for " State defence," — there were other and yet more marked indications of a period out of the common order even for war-time. The American and the Merchants', favorite resorts of mercantile buyers from the rural countie? of the State, were full of guests, but they lounged in the reading and smoking-rooms, and had no thought of com- mercial transactions. Gold was going up, its higher rate THE CO W A R D . 203 marking increased fever in the pulse of the national patient; and yet business was almost as stagnant in the broker's offices of Third Street as were wholesale transactions in the heavy houses on Walnut and Chestnut and Market below Second. The old Tonawanda and the still older Saranac, lyin^r idle at the foot of Walnut Street, their yards lank and bare as winter trees, and the ships waiting for freight that seemed to be long in coming, found a new use in illustrating the hopeless stagnation of the city. The theatres had nearly all closed before, and. the last hurried its unprofitable season to an end. The red bricks of old Independence Hall seemed more dingy than ever ; and those who glnnced into the hall where the gre^t Dt'claration was signed in Seventy-six, at tho cracke 1 bell and the other sad reminders of a past age and a by-gone patriotism, thought whether new masters would not claim t]iose relics for their own, before many days, issuing a new manifesto of slavery from that second Cradle of Liberty, while their gaunt steeds were picketed in Independence Square. Men saw the sleepless eye of the clock look down from the old steeple, at night, with a helpless prayer, as if something of protection which had before lived in the sacred building was to be found no more ; and the bell woke many a sleeper at midnight, with its slow and melancholy stroke, to a feeling of loss and sorrow like that which it might have evoked when sounding for the burial of dear friends. All day long crowds gathered and held their place, wearily moving to and fro, but never dispersing, in the open space in front of the historic pile ; and " peace" orators, who had before been awed into silence by the threats and demonstra- tions of earlier days, once more ventured treasonable har- angues to sections of those crowds, while the policemen scarcely found energy enough to disperse the hearers or arrest the disturbers. The bulletin boards were besieged ; the news- paper ofiices had a demand for extras unknown to the oldest inhabitant of the quiet city ; and the telegraph offices, busied alike with messages of public and private interest, had never 20JI THE COWARD. before known such a test of their capacity since Morse first set Prometheus at his new occupation of a messenger. A few troops marched away, the Reserves (with Dick Compton in their ranks) among the number ; and the New York militia regiments and some of the New Jersey troops passed through on their third campaign for " home defence ;'' but the public mind was not reassured. Once there was a rumor that McClellan had been called again to the command of the Army of the Potomac, or at least entrusted with the defence of the State, and then the general pulse for the moment beat wildly ; hut the inspiriting report died away again, the non- arrival of the morning train from Harrisburgh one day threw the whole city into panic, and the thought of successfully defending the State capital sunk lower than ev^er. The President, who had been bespoken to meet the Loyal Leagues and raise a new flag on Independence Hall on the Fourth of July, was too busy or too much discouraged, and would not come ; and what heart lacked an excuse for sinking down when so much was threatened and so little spirit shown for meeting the great peril ? This was the week preceding the Fourth ; and in that week, which closed with the National Anniversary, what changes had taken place ! The time and its vicissitudes seemed to be an exact offset to the hopes and the disappointments of the same period of 1862. Then, the Army of the Potomac had lain before Richmond, and the Fourth was to have seen the old flag waving in the rebel capital. It had really seen the little General driven back upon the James, and repulsed if not hopelessly defeated. The Fourth of 1863 was to see Harrisburgh in the hands of the rebels, and the national cause sunken lower than it had before been since the advent of the secession. What did it really see ? Thank God for a few such hours as those of the close of the Fourth, in the midst of whole centuries of loss and disappointment ! All was changed — all w^as saved ! Meade, a man of whom but few knew any thing more, a week earlier, than that he worS a THE COWARD. 205 brave man, a good fighting General, and a brother of the overslaughed Captain Dick Meado, of the North Carolina— Meade had arisen in doubt and culminated in glory. Bloodiest and most important of all the battles of the Continent, Getty sburgh stood -already upon the pages of the National history, soaked with the blood of the bravest— holy with the bravery and the energy which had there broken and rolled back the tide of invasion, and yet to be holier still as the Cemetery of the Battle-Dead of the Republic. Orators who began their Fourth of July addresses with only their pulses of anxiety stirred by the knowledge that there had been three days fighting, that Reynolds was killed, and that the conflict seemed to have been desperate and undecided, did not close them before they knew that the great victory was won, that Meade was to be thenceforth a name of honor in the lan^, that Lee and his hordes were in disastrous retreat, and that the "invasion of the North" was at an end for all the time covered by this struggle. The news of -Yicksburg was soon to come, another crowning glory for the Fourth, though not known for days after, and Grant w^as to be a third time canonized. But just then there was enough without Ylcks- burg, and the nation might have gone mad over the double tidings had they come at once. Who, that has one drop of patriotic blood surging in his heart, can ever forget the reading of those " victory extras" that flew wnde over the land on Saturday night and Sunday morning— the quavering voices of the readers, the reddening cheeks and flashing eyes of the hearers ? Never before did so much seem to have been won, because never before did so much seem to have been perilled. And Philadelphia, that had sunken lowest in despondency of any of the great cities, naturally rose highest when the word of victory came. Bells rung, flags waved, music sounded, gas blazed like the noonday, processions paraded, business revived as if Trade had a human form and a crushing weight had suddenly been lifted from its breast, and old Independence Hall once more boomed its bell 206 THE CO^VARD. and flashed over the city its midnight eye of fire, as if its defiance to tyranny and treason had never faltered for a moment. It was of Gettysburgh that Kitty Hood had been reading, at her little cottage home near the great road, after ner return from church on Sunday the fifth of July, when she dashed aw^ay the tears of agitation and anxiety that had been gather- ing in her eyes, and said : " Dick Compton was right, after all, and I was a fool to try to keep him awa}'- ! If he had obeyed me, I should have despised him now ; and if he has not been killed in that terri- ble battle and lives to come home again, I will tell him how wrong I was, and what a ninny I made of iny^^-If, and how Sony I am for every word I spoke that day, and hovv much better I love him because he obeyed the call of his country instead of the poor, weak, miserable voice of a frightened woman !" And it was of Gettysburgh and the desperate fighting around Cemetery Hill that Robert Brand had been reading, on the same Sunday afternoon, sitting in the shade of his own piazza, when he hurled out these bitter words, which poor little Elsie heard as she lay upon the lounge in the parlor within : , " This is what he has lost, the low-lived, contemptible pol- troon ! My son, and to shirk a great battle ! He might have been dead now, and in a grave better than any house in W'hich he can ever hide his miserable life ; or he might have had something to remember and boast of all his days — that he was one of the Men of Gettysburgh ! If I had two legs, 1 would go out and find him yet and shoot him with my own hand — the infernal cowardl}^ cur!" And then the disgraced and irate father tried to forget his son and to bury himself in other details of the great battle. The sister did not reply aloud to her father's renewed objurgation. 3he merely sobbed a little and took from her THE COWARD. 207 bosom a crumpled note and read it over again for perhaps the fiftieth time, muttering low as she did so : " Oh, father, father ! If you knew how far you would need to go to seek poor Carlton and make him even more miserable than he is, and how little chance you have of ever seeing him again while you live — perhaps you would not speak so cruelly of him." Then she kissed the crumpled note again and put it back into her bosom, and tried to compose herself once more to that sleep which the tropical heat invited and her aching heart forbade. From the tone of that letter, it would seem that Elsie had written to her brother, to his place of business in the city, when fully aware x)f the unreasonable indignation which moved her father, advising him not to risk serious personal insult by coming home until he should again hear from her, — and that he had replied, from a place much farther away, informing her of his intention to put seas between himself and the eyes of all who had looked upon his disgrace. But better even this long separation — thought the young girl — than a return which would induce words between father and son, never to be forgiven or forgotten while either held life and memory. Years might mellow the recollection and change the feeling — years when the country should no longer make demands upon her children to breast the battle storm in her behalf, and when the eloquent voice in the halls of justice and the active, busy life in deeds securing the common welfare, might be sufficient to win new honor and blot away any recollection of that single sad misstep in the career of man- hood. Poor, gentle, loving, faithful little Elsie Brand ! — it may be long before we have occasion to look upon her again, and indeed she becomes henceforth but a comparative shadow ; 80 let it be put upon record here that she seemed " faithful among the faithless" in practising the great lessons of hope and charity. The father might utter curses to be set down against his own soul in the day when human words as well as human actions must be called into judgment; friends mi^jht 20S THE COWARD. look askance and enemies gloat over the disgrace of one who had before stood high above thera in all the details of honor- able character ; even the sweetheart, whose pulses had once beaten so close to his that the twin currents seemed flowing into one — even she might find some poor excuse of pride to falsify her by-gone boast that she loved him better than all the world, and let that hollow, w^ordy "honor" work their eternal separation : all this might be, but the sinter had no such license to waver in the course of her affection towards one who had been fondled by the same hands in babyhood and drawn sustenance from the same maternal bosom as her- self. And no treason, all this, to the truths and, the eternities of other loves. All other relations may sooner change than that which binds sister and brother, whose fondness has not been tainted by some falsehood in blood -or chilled by some wrong in education. Wife or mistress, yesterday cold, may be to-day throbbing with the most intense warmth of absorb- ing passion, and to-morrow chilled again by instability in herself or unworthiness in the object of her regard : even the mother, that tendcrest friend of song and story and sometimes of real life, may scatter her affections wide among so many children that each has but the pauper's share, or form new ties and forget that ever the old existed. But the brother, if he be not the veriest libel upon that sacred name, clings with undying fondness to the sister: and the sister, ever faithful, clings to the brother "through evil and through good report," when one or even both may have become a scoff and a bye- word in every mouth that opens to speak their names. Happy those men for whom the bond has never been either frayed or broken : sad for those who ever look back through the long years and see some sunny head of childhood hiding itself beneath the falling clods of the church-yard, that might have nestled closer to them in after years than all whom they have grasped, and cherished, and chilled, and lost ! It now becomes necessary to inciuire the whereabouts of Carlton Brand, the subject of so much sisterly love and so T H E C O W A R D. 1:09 much fatherly indigiiatiou, at that second period when Get- tysburgh was a glorious novelty, its bloody splendors Hashing broad over the loyal States. And those whereabouts may very readily be discovered. On the register of the Fifth Avenue Hotel, in the city of Now York, his name had been inscribed on the Wednesday evening previous to Gettysburgh (the first day of July) ; and those among cur readers who may have chanced to be sojourners at the Fifth Avenue during that week, and who will take the trouble to read over again the close and accurate description given of the lawyer on his first appearance in the presence of his sister and Margaret Ilayley, in the second chapter of this narration, may not find much difficulty in remembering the appearance of so marked a man at the hotel ^t that period — the glances of admiration cast upon his handsome face and manly figure as he sat at table or moved quietly among the ever-changing crowd in the reading-room or down the long halls — the almost total silence which he maintained, seeming to have no acquaintances or to be anxious for escape from all conven-ation — his inquiring more than once every day at the office for letters which con- tinually disappointed him— and the expression of drooping- eyed melancholy in face and restless unquiet in movement, which gave rise to many side remarks and led to many sin- gular speculations. He was alone — at least alone at the hotel ; and Dr. Pomeroy, if he had entertained any actual belief in his suggested elope- ment between the lawyer and his " ward," might easily have satisfied himself, had he followed him to the commercial me- tropolis, that no such elopement had taken place or that the abductor had hidden his paramour carefully away and man- aged to keep continually out of her presence. Something indescribably dim and shadowy grows about the character and action of Carlton Brand at this time ; and the writer, without any wish or will to do so, yields to the neces- sity, very much as the proud man of the world yields to the pressure when events which he has assumed to direct grow 13 210 THE COWARD. too mighty for his liand and bear him au^aj in their rush and tumult, — or as a father — to use a yet stronger and more pain- ful image — submits with a groan and a prayer when the child of his dear luve shuts the heart again.st him and breaks away from that tender control which it has been alike his duty and liis pleasure to supply. Some of our n ental children, espe- cially when they are so real that time, ph ce and circumstance cannot be made for them at will, are s idly unmanageable ; and this instance furnishes an illustration which will be better nuderstood at a later period. Acts n ly yet be recorded,, while yet acts remain to record ; but the heart closes, motives become buried in obscurity, and the nirrator grows to be little more than a mere insignificant, povv'erless chroniclrr of events without connection and actions Without expl'iuation. Taking up his quarters at the Fifth Avenue Hotel on Wednesday, this man, on Friday, the third of July, while the city was in agonized anxiety over the conflicting accounts of Meade's first battle of the day before, and while the black frames for the Fourth of July fireworks were being erected in front of the City Hall in the Park, with some uncertainty in the minds of the workmen whether they would not be used for a pyrotechnic display over the death-throe of the nation, — this man, Carlton Brand, took one of the omnibuses of the Fifth Avenue line passing the door of his hotel, alighted at the corner of Fulton Street and Broadway, walked down to the Bowling Green and entered the office of the Cunard Steamships fronting that faded relic of the Colonial splendors of New York. When he emerged from the office, fifteen minutes later, the cash-box of the British and North Ameri- can Royal Mail Steamship Company was the richer by many broad pieces of American gold, and Carlton Brand bore, folded avv'ay in his wallet, one of those costly little pearl-white wings on W'hich the birds of passage bear themselves over the At- lantic. It was evident that he was about to desert his countrv — that country for which he had before refused to THE COWARD. 211 figlit, — to dosert it at the very moment when its fate before God and the world seemed to bang trembling in the balance. Coming out from the office of the Steamship Company, ap- parently wooed by the breeze from the North River, the lawyer bent his steps in that direction as if intending to make the tour of the shipping at the piers and resume his convey- ance at some point higher up the town. Past two or three of the piers ; and the dense black smoke pouring out from the fun- nels of one of the transport steamers on the eve of departure for the South with troops and munitions, seemed to attract his attention. He walked down the dock and observed more closely the movements on and around the vessel. The black smoke still rolled out, and steam was hissing from the escape- valves. Heavy wagons were discharging boxes at the gang- way, and with much puffing and clatter a donkey-engine was hoisting them on board. A marine stood at the plank, bayo- netted musket on shoulder, and close behind him an officer. To the civil inquiry of the lawyer, how long before the steamer would sail, the sentry replied that she was then steaming-up and would probably leave within a few hours ; and to a request to be allowed to come on board and see the arranjrements of a government transport on the eve of sailing, the officer, after a moment's glance at the unimpeachable dress and appearance of the visitor, assented with the stately bow of his profession. It certainly seemed strange that on that blazing day, when his errand at the Hudson side of the city had been to inhale the cool breeze from the river, Carlton Brand, within a mo- ment after stepping on board the transport, should have ignored all the details of decks, spars, cabins, and even ma- chinery, and descended the narrow stairways, little more than ladders, leading down to those flaming intestines of the sliip from which the hot air crept up through the companion-ways like breaths from some roasting and agonized monster. Yet so it was ; and regardless alike of the heat which fevered his Jips and the greasy rails upon which he soiled his gloves and 218 THE C ^^' A li d; risked the smirching of his spotless summer garments, the lawyer pressed down to the fire-room, whore the stokers were sweating great drops of perspiration tljat rolled down like beads from their broiled foreheads — where the coal was rattling and crashing as it was thrown forward, then crackling and hissing at its first contact with the flame, as it was dashed into the midst of the sweltering furnaces. Down, until he stood before those mighty furnaces and caught blinding glimpses, as the firemen momentarily opened the doors to dash in still other tons of the crackling coal of what seemed little less than a ship's-cargo of the fuel, seething, raging and lowirg in such a heat that it made the old fancy of the lower pit no longer a dream but a horrible present reality. "Terrible work for hpt weather, I should think," said the lawyer, when the shovels were still for a moment and the great fires raged, roared and crackled within. He seemed to feel the necessity of saying something to do away w^^h the impression of his being a sulky intruder, — and was addressing one of the bronzed old stokers who had paused to wipe from his grimy brovv^ the sweat that was actually pouring into his eyes and blinding him. " Yes, hot enough while we are lying at the dock," an- sw red the stoker. " Why hotxer now than at any other time ?" asked the lawyer, who had probably never happened to study that pe- culiar philosophy, simply because he had never been thrown into contact with it. " Why ? oh, Lord bless you ! — because we are lying still, now, and there is no draught. When we are going through the water, and of course through the air, the motion makes a draught and we do not more than /?a// roast." " Then it never gets very cool down here ?" was the nest inquiry. " Not very .^" answered the fireman, sententiously. " But we never have the worst of these hot fires," he continued, THE COWARD. 213 answenne: somethinn^ that had not been spoken but that seemed to be in the face of his auditor. '' Who then ?" " The passengers — at least some of them — on board any steamer that carries them over sea or down the coast." " You mean when they — when the steamers take fire and burn ?" The question was asked in what seemed to be a hurried and troubled voice ; and had not the reflected glow from the furnace made every thing red under its light, there might have been seen a face of ghastly white contrasting with the dark and grimy one so near. "No !" and the stoker laughed. "I did not mean that — only the thought of it. Steamers do not burn very often — not half so often as I should think they would, the way they are built, and with a w^hole Pennsylvania coal-mine on fire inside of them at once. When they do go, though, they make things howl ! No slow burning, as there is sometimes on sailing-vessels, so that they can batten down the hatches and keep :he fire under until there is a chance of help : every thing g0:;s in a moment, and all is over in an hour — iron steamer or wood, very little difference." *' Horrible !" said the lawyer. • The word seemed forced from him, and there could not be a doubt that he was at the moment fancying some terrible reality. "Yes, horrible enough!" answered the stok r. "But what I was speaking of, is the foolish habit that passengers have — I have seen it often in crossing the Atlantic — of coming down into the fire-room very soon after they start, and ta'dng a look at the furnaces. A good many of them never slet r; a wink afterwards, during the whole voyage, I believe, think- ing of that mass of red-hot coal lying in the middle of t^.-e ship, and wondering wJien she is going to burn. They are fools to come down at all : if they would jnst keep out of the way they would never know how badly it looks, and then at least they would never be burned until their time came I" Just then the raging monster within seemed to demand 214 THE COWARD. more blazing food, and the stoker turned away to attend to his duty. Had be remained conversing one moment longer, he might have seen Carlton Brand totter back against the bulk-head of the fire-room, literally gasping for breath — then grapple for the railing of the stairs, and ascend the steps with the staggering motion of a sick or drunken man, breath- ing heavily and giving painful indications of being on tho verge of falling insensible. When the lav^yer again emerged to the air of the deck, his face was ghastly white, and he seemed altogether strangely altered since the moment of his descent into those regions of fire and grime and terrible suggestion. What had so changed him ? — the heafe, choking his lungs and preying upon a frame unaccustomed to it ? — or had the curse of his nature again found him out, in the low of the furnaces and the heedless conversation of the fireman ? and did he remember that between himself and even that flight beyond the sea which only could shut out from his ears the voice of contempt and the cry of a neglected country, there yet lay the peril of the Amazon and the Austria ? This ocL;irred on Friday the third of July ; and between that day and the Sunday fcJllowing there was nothing in the movements of the sojourner at the Fifth Avenue, worthy of special record. But on that Sunday afternoon, perhaps at the very hour when Kitty Hood, in one spot of that section of country which had been his old home, was ulorying over her lover's having been at Gettysburgh, — and when Robert Brard, in another, was writhing and cursing over the absence of his son from the same great battle, — an incident took place at the hotel, apparently trivial, but which may subsequently be found to have exercised no slight influence on the fortunes of some of the difterent persons named in this chronicle. Unfortunately, again, over this little event hangs a mist and a shadow, and only slight glimpses can be obtained of what afterwards proved to he of such unsuspected importance. On that Sundav afternoon, at about two o'clock, Carlton THE COWARD. 21L' Brand went down from his room to the office of the hotel, to exchange a few words with the clerk, and to secure one of the battle-extras which he had just heard from his window cried in the street. Knots of men, guests, or passers-by, driven in by the pouring rain without, filled the long hall, every third holding a newspaper, every group in more or less animated conversation, and the one topic that great conflict which had just bloomed out into a great victory. The lawyer seemed to have company enough in his own thoughts, and did not join any of the groups. He secured his extra, transacted his brief business at the desk, and returned immediately up- stairs. The moment after he had left the desk, a young man advanced from one of the groups near th& door, asked a question of the clerk, was answered, overran a few pages of the register with eye and finger, and then passed up-stairs under the guidance of a servant. Carlton Brand had already thrown off coat and boots again, and was sitting at the open window in dressing-gown and slippers, glancing over the sensation-headings of the extra which gave the particulars of the Waterloo of Secessia, — when there was a tap at the door. Stepping hastily thither and opening it, with a muttered wonder why he could not be left alone to his reading, a weil-known figure stepped into the room and one of his Philadelphia bar-intimates — perhaps the nearest to a confidential friend in the whole profession, took him by the hand. For an instant the occupant of the room seemed to be displeased at the intrusion and an expres- sion of annoyance flitted over his face ; but old friendship was evidently too powerful even for shame and lacerated feeling, and the next instant he had cordially returned ibe grasp. The new-comer, strangely enough, bore no slight resem- blance to Carlton Bund. We z?j stranfrely, because the lawyer was by no means such a person, in general appear- ance, as could be readily duplicated. Henry Thornton, his professional brother, had the same tall, lithe figure with 216 THE COWAK D. evidence of great agility, the same mould of countenance in many respects, and with eyes of hazel only a shade darker than Brand's. But here the resemblance, which might other- wise have been extraordinary, became slighter and eventually disappeared. His complexion was much darker, even brown, from chin to forehead, indicating Southern blood or residence. His hair, curling a little, was of very dark brown, almost black ; and his heavy moustache, the only beard he wore, was so nearly black as generally to pass under that designa- tion. In spite of the similarity of form and feature, it may be imagined that these differences told very strongly on the general effect produced by the two men on the mere casual observer; and \yhile there was that indefinable something in the face of Carlton Brand, to which attention has before been called, denoting intellect and true nobility of soul, accompanied by an occasional pitiable weakness or want of self-assertion of the full manhood, there was that quite as plainly to be read in the face of Henry Thornton, which told of dauntless courage and iron will, a brain busy and scheming if not even plotting, and powers which might not always be turned to the service of the candid, the open and the honor- able. Lavater would have thought, looking at his face — Well for him and for the world if what he wills is in conso- nance with honor and justice, for what he wills he will pursue with the unfaltering courage of the lion and the untiring determination of the sleuth-hound ! But Nature, giving to these two men who held no known relationship whatever, so striking a resemblance in some particulars and so great a dissimilarity in others — had not quite ended her freak of comparison. It is doubtful whether either was fully aware of the fact, but the similarity between the tones of their voices, in ordinary times, was quite as marked as that between certain physical features ; and any person standing that day without the door, when the two had entered into conversation, might have been puzzled to know whether two persons were really speaking or one was THE COWARD. 217 carrying on a monologue. This, only at ordinary times : Thornton's voice was much steadier and more uniform under feeling, and it never broke into tones so low and melancholy as that of the other, when influenced by temporary depression. Such was Carlton Brand's visitor on that Sunday after- noon, and he it was who but the moment after was seated in the proffered chair near the window and chatting upon current topics with as much nonchalance as if he had merely called upon his entertainer at his little office on Sixth Street, Philadelphia, instead of visiting him at a hotel in a distant city. There was a little table standing between the two windows of the room and within reach of Thornton as he sat. On the table lay part of that miscellaneous collection of articles which every careless bachelor will persist in scattering about his room at the hotel ; and at the edge of what may be called the pile lay a paper more than half unfolded, which caught the observant eye of the visitor. With a quick : " Will you allow me ?" which brought an affirmative response, he reached over, took up the paper, unfolded it and read a receipt for a first cabin passage in the Gunard Mail Steamship to sail from New York to Liverpool, on the 8th July, for which $130.50 had been paid by Mr. Carlton Brand. "The Cunarder for Liverpool next Wednesday," he said, when he had finished running his eye over the passage-ticket. " Yer," answered the owner, and he answered nothing more. A ctrange expression passed over the face of his interroga- tor — an expression so doubtful that even Lavater, or any other man pretending to read the human coun^enance like an open book, might have been puzzled to say vvhether it con- ^veyed pleasure, scorn, wonder, or any one of the thousand different feelings whose outward show glints over our faces a- often and as transiently as the cloud-shadows fl mating over the mountain woods or the mottled sunshine flickering over the wheat-fields. There was something there — something 218 THE COW A ED. which the other did not appear to notice ; and with that fact we must be content. Five minutes later, Carlton Brand, through the medium of words growing out of the discovery of the passage-ticket, was in confidential conversation with Henry Thornton with reference to the disgrace which had driven him from home and must make him an exile for years if not forever. It may have been a serious weakness, tow^ards one who had never been even on terms of speaking acquaintance with her, to talk to him of Margaret Hayley and to confess the shameful dismissal which he had received. But Henry Thornton knew of the Hay leys if he did not claim an acquaintance with them ; he had it in his power to impart information of them and their probable movements during the summer, which the other might have found difficulty in obtaining through any other means ; and perhaps that knowledge gave some excuse for reciprocal confidence. At all events that confidence was given, and it elicited a return of apparently equal candor. Before the separation took place, at the end of an interview which lasted more than an hour, a strange bond seemed to have been established and cemented betw^een the two lawyers, very different from any which official intercourse can often river. That interview, in fact, appeared to have pre luced marked effects upon both, for while on the face of Henry Thornton, as he rose to take his farewell, there was a look of entire satisfaction that v^ould not have been without a meaning more or less creditable, — there was in the eye of Carlton Brand less of that troubled expression which had been for days resting there like a shadow, and he breathed as if a w^eight had been lifted from his breast. To one this new satisfaction and lightness of heart may have been no false presage : to the other, w^hat an omen of unsuspected evil, dis- aster and death ! They parted at the door of the lawyer's room, with a much warmer grasp of the hand than that w:'h which they had met little more than a hour before ; and each held the palm of the THE COWARD. 219 other ill his for a moment, as those should do who have how- ever slight a bond in common and between whom the waves of a whole wia? o^ean are so soon to roll. "A pleasant voyage and a happy return I" said the one, on the threshold. "A pleasant summer to you, wherever you are !" was the reply of the other. So parted, after that brief meeting, Henry Thornton and Carlton Brand. The bearer of that latter name, once so honored but now holding so doubtful a position, left New York by the Cunarder Scotia from Jersey City on Wednesday the 8th of July, looking his last that evening from the deck of bis steamer, on the dim blue line of the Highlands — a fading speck of that native land that the fates had ordained he should never see again with his living eyes ! And as at this moment we lose sight of him for the time, to trace the for- tunes of others remaining on this side of the Atlantic, it may be well to say that his outward voyage must have been a safe and prosperous one, for there was duly registered as having arrived at Liverpool, on the twentieth of July, (a date which it may afterwards be important to remember) " Carlton Brand, Philadelphia." CHAPTER XI. Anomalies op the War for the Unton — The Watering- place RUSH OF 1863 — A White-Mountain Party disem- barking at Littleton — Who filled the Concord Coach — The Yanderlyns— Shoddy ON its travels — Mr. Brooks Cunninghame and his Family — " H. T.," and an Ex- citement. The War for the Union has been unlike all other great struggles, throughout, in nearly every characteristic that can 220 THE COWARD. be named. Unnatural in its inception, the rebellion has seemed to have the power of making unnatural many of the details through which and in spite of which it has been car- ried forward — of changing character and subverting all ordi- nary conditions. There have been anomalies in the field : still more notable anomalies in society. Unflinching bravery and stubborn devotion to the fighting interests of the country have been found blended, in the same man, with pecuniary dishonesty which seemed capable of pillaging a death-cham- ber. The greatest military ability has been found conjoined with such inactivity and tardiness as to paralyze action and destroy public patience. Rapidity of movement has been discovered to be Avedded to such Utopian want of under- standing or such culpable recklessness as to make movement not seldom a blunder instead of a stroke of policy. Times which threatened disaster have brought triumph ; and the preparations made to celebrate a victory have more than once been employed in concealing a defeat. All things have been mixed in estimation. The Copperhead, detestable on account of his vievv of the national duty, has yet compelled some portion of respect by his real or affected reverence for a perilled Constitution ; the Radical, worthy of all credit for his active spirit and uncompromising position, has yet de- served contempt for a narrowness of view which made him almost as dangerous as disloyalty could have done ; and the Conservative, that man of the golden mean, that hope of the nation in many regards, has bargained for a part of the abuse which he has received from either extreme, by faulting the ac- tive measures of both and offering mean-while no active, prac- tical course to supply their stead. But amid the general anomaly perhaps fashionable (or would-be fashionaV)le) society, and the world of ease and amusement, have supplied the most interesting and the most astounding study of all. The status of the "non-productive classes" is and has been, during most of the struggle, literally inverted, and the conditions of costly enjoyment have been THE COWARD. 221 changing as rapidly as if we were rioting through a carnival instead of breasting a rebellion. No nation ever carried on such a war as that waged by this loyal people ; and no nation ever spent so much blood and treasure in accomplishing the same comparative results. Naturally, in view of the personal bereavement, it might have been expected that society should be quiet in its amusements and low-toned in all its conversa- tion : naturally, a people bleeding at every pecuniary pore for the public good, might have been expected to diminish per- sonal expenditure and husband those resources on the hold- ing-out of which so much must eventually depend. Instead of this, society, with the craped banners and the muffled drums every day appealing to eye and ear, has grown con- tinually louder in its tone and more pronounced and evea blatant in its mirth ; and reckless personal expenditure has quite kept place with any general waste that the highwaymen or incapables of government had power to entail. The theatre and the circus have never before been so full, the opera has never before been so generally patronized. Baby- lon could never have rioted more luxuriously on the very night before its fall, than have the people of our great cities dined, ridden, danced and bathed themselves in seas of costly music, any day since the first three months of the rebellion ended. Summer recreations have perhaps told quite as significant a story as any other feature, of the inevitable drift of society towards reckless expense and extravagant display. The summer resorts within the rebel territory may have grown desolate or deserted — the buildings of the White Sulphur and the Rockbridge Alum of Virginia may have been left empty or turned into hospitals, and Old Point may only have been visited for far other purposes than the meeting of the sea-breeze there in midsummer ; but a very different fate has awaited the favorite hot- weather resorts of the North. Sara- toga and Sharon of the chalybeates ; Niagara and Trenton of the cataracts ; the White Mountains, the Cattskills and the 222 THE COWARD. Allcghanies, of the high, pure air and the cloud shadow; Kevvport, Rockaway, Long Branch and Cape May of the south-eastern breeze and the salt aroma, — all have been, with the exception of a few frightened weeks of 1861, more densely filled during the war than at any former period in the memory of the pleasure-seeker ; and wealth and enjoyment have both run riot there to an extent but little in accordance with the sack-cloth and ashes which the observant eye saw all the while lying on the head of the nation itself. All this may have been inappropriate and a part of it painful ; but the result could not well have been otherwise. Some, with wealth honestly earned and no capacity for the public ser- vice, have needed rest or distraction and there found one or the other. Habitual idlers and professional students of society, never available for any other purpose, have naturally, a.s ever, found there their best ground of personal study. Young girls have needed the experience, and managing mam- mas have quite as sorely needed those fields for matrimonial campaigns. Invalids have needed their real or supposed op- portunity for the recovery of lost health. Shoddy, grown suddenly rich while remaining incurably ignorant and vulgar, and finding it no easy task to force its way into the coveted " society" in the great cities, has eagerly welcomed the op- portunities there afforded for at least learning the rudiments of what is called gentility, and creeping into that miscel- laneous outer circle which surrounds the charmed inner. Politicians have found it necessary to do, in such places, that particular portion of the great task of boring, button-holing, prying and packing which cannot be so well done either at the primary election or the convention as around the spring or on the b.ach — on the piazza of the Ocean House or the United States ; and oflBcers on furlough, who had fought enough for the time or had no intention to fight at all, have found no places like these for displaying jaunty uniform and decorated shoulder to the admiring eyes of that sex which descends from Athena and recognizes the cousinship of Mars. THE COArARD. 223 Add to all this the rise of exchange on Europe and the folly of steamship companies in charging gold rates for passages abroad, which have together almost checked the summer exodus to the Old AYorld, — and there is no longej reason to wonder at the watering-place crowds and the summer gayeties which have made carnival throughout the loyal States and lilled the wallets of enterprizing landlords. The year of grace 1863 saw an earlier beginning to the summer hegira than any other late year had done, as before its close it saw houses over-crowded, waiters over-worked, and cots at a premium, from Casco to Cresson. The smoke had not yet rolled away from Gettysburgh when " the great North River travelling- trunk" began its perambulations ; and by the middle of July everybody who was anybody (except a few in the city of New York, temporarily frightened or hin- dered by the riots) wa^ gone from the great cities, and they were given over to the temporary occupancy of those laboring starlings who could not ''get out," and the ever ebbing and flowing wave of transient visit. All this as a necessary reminder of the period and a back- ground to the incidents so soon to follow^, — and because the course of narration, at this juncture, leads us for a time to one of the favorite shrines of American summer pilgrimage and into the whirl of that literal storm of fashion and curiosity which eddies and sweeps, all summer lung, around the peaks of the White Mountains— the Alps of Eastern America. It was a somewhat varied as well as extensive crowd of passengers that disembarked from the cars of the White Mountain Railroad at Littleton, in sight of the IVead-waiers of the Connecticut, about five o'clock on Wednesday after- noon, the 29th of July. The dog-days had begun ; New York, Philadelphia and Boston were steaming furnaces, though partially emptied as we have before had occasion tc notice ; and those who had already visited them during the month, declared that neither Saratoga, the Cattskills, or even Lake George or Niagara, had the power to impart any coolness to 224 THECOWAKD. suffering humanity. The sea-shore or the northern mountains offered the only alternative ; and a very heavy list of passen- gers had come up that day by the Norwich and Worcester line from New York, the Boston lines falling in at Nashua Junction, and the Vermont Central throwing in its reinforce- ment at Wells River. Every portion of the loyal States (and no doubt a portion of the disloyal, if the truth could have been known !) had seemed to be represented in the crowd that thronged the platforms while lighting for a mouthful of lunch at Nashua Junction or crowding in to a hurried dinner at the poor sub- stitute for the burned Pemigawasset House at Plymouth. There were even half a dozen resident Europeans — English, Scotch, with one Frenchman who snuffed continually, and one Spaniard who smoked in season and out of season — people who had no doubt rushed over to see the " American war/' but very soon found the South too hot for comfort, in one sense or the other, — among the number destined to add vari- ety to the overfilled caravanserais of the Franconia and White ranges. A few had dropped aw^ay at Weir's Landing, for a day or two on Lake Winnipiseogee, enticed by the pleasant loom of Centre Harbor down the bright blue water and the romantic figure of the Lady of the Lake on the prow of her namesake steamer; and a few more had left the train at Plymouth for the long coach-ride of thirty miles through the mountains to the Glen House, or by the southern approach to the Profile or the Crawford. Two or three stage-loads, too, who had but one thought in their pilgrimage — Mount Wash- ington, — were bustling in for the immediate ride from Little- ton to the Crawford ; but there were still four heavy stage- loads — not less than forty to fifty persons — going on to the crowded Profile House that evening. Some of the occupants of one of those heavy stages, rolling away towards the Profile, require, for the purposes of this narration, a somewhat closer view than was probably taken THE COWARD. 225 of them by many of their fellow-passengors ; and that view cannot be more appropriately taken than at this moment. On the back seat of that vehicle sat two ladies, with a troublesome boy of ten years wedged in between them as if to come the nearest possible to getting him out of the way. Neither paid the youngster that attention which would have indicated that he belonged to them or was travelling in their company; and indeed they had every right as well as every inclination to wash their bands of his relationship if they could not wash from their travelling-dresses the marks of his taflfy-smeared fingers. The two ladies were evidently mother and daughter ; and at least one person in the coach had re- marked them as they came up from Concord, and seen that their sole chaperon and protector seemed to be a son of the one and brother of the other, some eighteen or twenty years of age. As he saw them then and "as he afterwards better knew them, they may be briefly described. The Yanderlyns were Baltimoreans — the widow and chil- dren of a man of large wealth and considerable distinction, who had died three or four years before in that city, after having amassed a fortune by property speculations and sub- sequently filled more than one responsible office under the State government. They had the true Southern pride in wealth and position ; and the hand of the daughter had al- ready been sought, however ineffectually, by scions of the best families in and about the Monumental city. Let it be added that they belonged, whatever may have been their pride and arrogance as a family, to the not-too-extensive class of loyal Marylanders,— and then a better title of nobility will have been enrolled than any that Clayton Yanderlyn's money and former public employments had power to supply. The widowed mother and her children were among the few resi- dents below Mason and Dixon's line who had not forgotten the pleasant summer days of old in the North, when Puritan and Cavalier met as friends and brothers ; and this summer 14 226 THE COWARD. tour, which was to include Saratoga and Newport before it closed, was a result of the old recollection. Mrs. Yanderlyn, the mother, seemed forly-fiv^e, but wa3 fine-looking and had evidently been handsome in her youth — with those splendid broTMi eyes that must then have sparkled so much more brilliantly than at this period, and that perfect wealth of chestnut hair, not yet in the least sprinkled with gray, which must then have been a charm and a glory. Her travelling-dress was very plain, but of the best materials ; and eveiy thing in her appearance— especially pride of look and action, — spoke of wealth, the habit of mingling in that indefinable but actual thing, good society, and a perfect con- sciousness of what she was and what she possessed. Those who looked twice upon Mrs. Yanderlyn, with keen eyes, had no difiSculty in deciding that she might be a very pleasant acquaintance for those in her own " set" and whom she con- sidered her equals, — but that she would be any thing but a pleasant acquaintance for those whom she despised or with whom she chanced to fall into feud. Clara Yanderlyn, the daughter, was a yet more interesting study than her mother ; and it seemed altogether probable that the same observer before mentioned, and who will be hereafter more particularly introduced, coming up in the same car from Xa.shua and again thrown into near proximity in the coach, had read and was reading that second page of the Yanderlyn genealogy with peculiar care and attention. She was of middle height ; slight, but well-rounded and evidently elastic in figure, with a clearly cut but very pleasant face, eyes a shade darker than Mrs. Yanderlyn's, and hair what that lady's had probably been twenty years before. A won- derful feature, indeed, was that head of hair — fine, silken, but perfectly massive in profusion, with more of a tendency to the wave than the curl, and of that rich golden chestnut or true auburn so seldom seen though so often lauded. At the first observation, it seemed that Clara Yanderlyn's hair was the great charm of her presence ; but those who had the good THK COWARD. 227 fortune to bo many liours in her company, learned that a still stronger and more abiding charm lay in the affability of her manners, the expression of thorough goodness in her whole demeanor, and the purity and sweetness of her smile. That f ice was certainly worthy of the fixed gaze which had rested upon it quite as often during the afternoon as delicacy per- mitted ; and it might even have furnished excuse for glancing at it a moment too long, and planting blushes on those cheeks that the lip could have no hope of gathering. The third and youngest of the family, Frank Yanderlyn, did not enter into the group under observation, as he was at that time on the top of the coach with half a dozen others, enjoying the cigar which had been impossible in the passenger- car. But the glimpses caught of him before disembarking, may suffice to complete the family triad. He seemed a well- grown stripling, verging upon manhood, with a face distantly reminding the observer of his sister's, but with darker hair than either Mrs. Yanderlyn or Clara, and with an expression of settl'ed hauteur upon his well-cut features, which very much detracted from the charm of a face that would otherwise have ])een singularly handsome. He was dressed a little too well for dusty travel, and wore more wealth in a single diamond in his cravat and a cluster-ring on the little finger of his right hand, than most young men would have been either able or willing to devote to such purposes of mere ornament. This description of the occupants of that singularly-fortu- nate coach may have very little interest beyond that of a mere catalogue ; yet it must be continued, for Fate, that grim old auctioneer who sometimes knocks us down at very low prices and to odd owners, may have some necessity for a mercantile list of his chattels. The occupants of the middle seat were three in number, and they could have furnished any needed information as to the personality of the troublesome boy with the tafified fingers, who had been wedged between Clara Yanderlyn and her mother. All of one familv — that second triad : Mr. Brooks 228 THE COWARD. Cunninghame, Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame, and Miss Marianna Brooks Cunninghame. The first, a squat man of fifty-five, with a broad, coarse, beardless face, bad teeth and bristly gray hair just sufi'ering under its first infliction of slaty-brown hair-dye. His large hands had been all day cased in kid gloves, spite of the heat of the weather ; and his gray suit, of really fine material, had a sort of new look, and did not seem to be worn easily. There was an impression carried about by the man and disseminated at every movement, that an6ther and a much shabbier suit hung immediately behind his bed-room door at home, and that in that he would have been easy and comfortable, while in the fashionable garb he was laboring under a sort of Sunday-clothes restraint. The second, a stout woman of fifty, with reddish hair, a coarse pink face, high cheek bones and" pert nose, corresponding well with her lord in conformation, while it wore an expression of dignity and self-satisfaction to which the countenance of that poor man could not have made the least pretension. She was only a Utile overdressed, for travelling — her bonnet of fine straw too much of a flower-garden for her years, a heavy gold watch-chain with the watch prominent, a diamond breastpin flashing hotly, and her voluminous blue lawn of costly fabric partiall}' covered by a long gray mantle which must have been recommended to her by some mautua-maker with a "spasm of sense." But if there was any restraint in the make-up of Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame, that restraint was fully compensated by the gorgeousness of the general arrange- ment of Miss Marianna. That young lady of thirty, with a large mouth, sandy hair, bluish gray eyes and freckles, a dumpy figure and no eye-brows whatever, was arrayed — . shade of Madame La Modiste forgive us while we pen the record — arrayed'' for that hot and dusty day of railroad and coach riding, in a rich pink silk flounced and braided to the extreme of the current fashion ; with a jockey leghorn and white feather which — well, we may say with truth that they relieved her face ; with a braided mantle of white merino that THE COWARD. 229 might have been originally designed for an opera-cloak ; white kid gloves in a transition state ; and such a profusion of gold watch, gold chain, enamelled bracelet, diamond cluster- breastpin, costly lace, and other feminine means of attracting admiration and envy, that the brain of a masculine relator reels among the chaos of finery and he desists in despair. The fourth of this family was Master Brooks Brooks Cunning- hame, cetat ten, wedged in between the two aristocratic rep- resentatives of the A^anderlyn exclusiveness, and the freckles on his coarse little face and hands about equally balanced by the dauby debris of more or less hardened taify to which al- lusion has before been unavoidably made. This group (the fact may as well be set down in this place as at any later period) — this was Shoddy on its summer tour. Mr. Brooks Cunninghame had been, a considerable number of years before, Patrick B. Cunningham ; and his name had been scraw^led, many hundreds of times, to receipts for work done as a petty contractor about the streets of New York City, with one horse and a dirt-cart, digging out cellars, and help- ing to cart the dirt of pipe-layings and excavations. Grad- ually he had crept up to two carts, and then to three. Even- tually he had reached the employing of a dozen or two, with the bipeds that drove and the quadrupeds that drew them. By that time he had removed from his shanty of one story and rented a house. Then he had gone into ward politics and contracts with the city, at about the same time, and emerged into possession of a couple of brown-stone-front houses and a seat in the Board of Aldermen, at periods not very far apart. People said that the seat in the municipal board, with the "ring" performances (more or less clown-ish) thereunto appertaining, were made the means of increasing the two houses to four and of causing Mrs. Patrick B. Cun- ningham to forget the whole of her husband's first name and merely use the initials "P. B.," which might or might not stand for 'Polio Belvidere. Then had come the war, with that golden opportunity for all who stood prepared for it. 230 THE COWARD. Mr. P. B. Cunningham bad been at that time the proprietor of some fifty or sixty frallant steeds used before dirt-carts, and his vigorous and patriotic mind had conceived the propriety of aiding the country by disposing of those mettled chargers as aids towards a first-class cavalry mount. He had sold, prospered, bought more dirt-cart and stage-horses with an admixture of those only to be discovered between the thills of clam-wagons, found no difficulty- in passing them as fit for the service, through the kindness of a friendly inspector who only charged two dollars per head for deciding favorably on the quadrupeds, — sold and prospered again and yet again. Mr. P. B. Cunningham had accordingly found himself, three months before the period of this narration, the lawful proprie- tor of half a million, acquired in the most loyal manner and without for one momont wavering in his connection with either Tammany Hatl, through which he managed the Demo- crats, or the Loyal League by which he kept in favor with the Republicans. So far Mr. P. B. Cunningham had been uninterruptedly successful — the monarch as well as architect of his own for- tune. But at that period (the three months before) he had suddenly been made aware that every man has his fate and the end of his career of supremacy. Mrs. P. B. Cunningham had proved herself his fate and put a sudden end to his supremacy. That lady, all the while emerging, had emerged, from the dust and darkness of lower fortune, and become a fashionable butterfly. She had ordered him to buy a four- story brown-stone front, finer than any that he owned, on one of the up-town streets not far from the Avenue ; and he had obeyed. She had ordered him to discard his old clothes, and he had obeyed again, though with a sincere reluctance. She had changed his name to Brooks Cunninghame, (observe the el) her own to Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame, that of Mary Ann to Miss Marianna Brooks Cunninghame, and that of the male scion of the house, cetat ten as aforesaid, to Master Brooks Brooks Cunninghame. The door-plate of the new THE COWARD. 231 house could not be arranged in accordance with the new pro- gramme, for door-plates had been voted vulgar and abandoned by the creme de la creme ; but the family cards had been made to bear all the blushing honors in steel engraving and round-hand. This done, the requisite jewelry bought, and some other little arrangements perfected which may develop themselves in due time, the lady had informed Mr. Brooks Cunninghame that both the health and the dignity of tho family required summer recreation, and dragged him away on that tour of which w^c have the privilege of witnessing one of the progresses. Some reference has been made to the array, rather gorgeous than otherwise, of Miss Marianna, for dusty travel. A few words which had passed between the three heads of tho family at one of the Boston hotels that morning, may give a little insight into the philosophy of this arrangement. • Mr. Brooks Cunninghame, yet retaining a little of the common- sense of his dirt-cart days, had ventured to suggest that " Mary Ann mought wear her commoner duds to ride in,, for thim fineries 'ud be spiled before night wid the dust intirely ;" and Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame, alike indignant at a sugges- tion so smacking of low life and grieved to find that her husband w^ould persist in retaining a few touches of the brogue of wdiich she had cured herself and her children so triumphantly, — had answered with a sort of verbal two-edged Bword that did fatal execution on both the others : " Brooks Cunninghame, you'd better keep your mouth shut if you can't open it without letting out some of that low Irish ! One would think you drove a dirt-'cart yit ! And you, my dear" — to Marianna (the mother had been " posting herself in some of the phrases of "good society," as w^ell as in some other things which may also yet develop themselves) . — "you, my dear, put on the very best o' them things that you've got I Ain't we rich, I should like to know ? We may see a good many folks to-day, in them cars, and who knows whether you mightn't lose a beau that'd take a fancy 232 THi: COWARD. to you, if you went slouchiu' around with your old things on ? Dress up, my dear !" Mt. Brooks Cunninghame had succumbed ; Miss Marianna had " dressed up," as per order ; and collective Shoddy was thus far on its way, without accident, towards the first halt- ing-place in the grand tour of the mountains. But what of the observer who has more than once before been mentioned, and who sat in the corner of the front seat, half buried under the voluminous skirts of two ladies who have nothing whatever to do with this narration, but looking so steadily (people who have habitually ridden in those Concord coaches know that the front is another back, and that the occupants of the front and back seats face each other) — looking so steadily, we say, at every permissible oppor- tunity, into the sweet face of Clara Yanderlyn ? He was a man of apparently thirty years of age, rather tall and very vigorous-looking even if slight, with curling dark hair, almost or quite black, and worn short, the face finely cut and showing no beard except a close, full moustache of raven blackness, the complexion (brow and all, as could be noticed when he lifted his hat from his head, as he often did, for coolness) of such a dark clear brown as to mark him of Southern birth or blood, clothes of thin dark gray material, with a round tourist hat and a duster, the small hands gloved in summer silk, and the whole appearance and manner that of a gentleman, used to good society, and very probably professional. He had been reading, nearly all the way up from Worcester, some of the other passengers noticed — though it must be confessed that a part of his reading had been over the top of the book at that attractive large type formed by a pretty human face ; and no blame is intended to be cast upon Clara Yanderlyn when we say that that young lady had more than once met the evidently admiring glance of so fine-looking a man, with the little tinge of color that was becoming, but without any expression upon her face or any thought in her mind, resent- ing any more than returning an admiration which she T il K COWARD. 255 believed that she had a right to receive and any gentleman to pay thus respectfully. He had spoken but seldom, during the ride, in such a way that any person then present had heard him ; but once he had taken (or made) occasion to apologize to Miss Yanderlyn and her mother for being thrown against their seat by the motion of the car while walking through it, on the rough road when coming up from Ply- mouth to Wells river; and his few words, as the lady re- marked, consorted well with the respectability (to say the least) of his appearance. As to his personality, which there did not seem the slightest occasion for his wishing to dis- guise, there was a big black trunk in the baggage-wagon following behind the line of coaches, and a small satchel strapped over his shoulder as he rode ; and the first bore the initials " H. T." and the direction '*' Cincinnati." While so much attention has been paid to the occupants of that single coach, leaving the others and even the noisy passengers on the roof of this, unnoticed, the vehicles had been buzzing and clattering along over the table-land lying at the foot of the mountains, past the little hamlet of Fran- conia, and nearing the mountains themselves. A glorious July evening it was, with the fiery air which had been so oppressive below gradually cooled by the approach to the presence of the monarchs, and the smoke from the fires in the woods playing fantastic tricks among the peaks, and compensating for the absence of the clouds which sometimes enveloped them. Not half the passengers in those four stages had ever seen the mountains before ; and not one, even of those accustomed to such scenery, but felt the blood beat- ing a little quicker as the mountain road beyond Franconia was reached, and they began to 'experience those rapid ascents, and yet more rapid descents, which accompany thence all the way to the Notch, with grand old woods over- hanging, steep and sheer ravines at the side of the road that made the head dizzy in looking, reverential glimpses of the awful peaks of Lafayette and the Cannon frowning ahead, 234 THK COWAKD. and of Washington, grander still, towering far away over tbe White range, and with all the other accompaniments of the finest mountain scenery on the Atlantic coast of the American continent. There was quite enough, indeed, to engage the attention of any except the most blase and ennuyee traveller, in the grandeur of the scenery and the excitement of being galloped in rocking, lumbering, four-horse coaches, down declivities of road which would have made a driver in any ordinar}^ hill-country draw tight rein and creep down with a heavy foot on the brake. Not a few nervous passengers, first or last, dashing up and down the slopes of the White Mountain roads, have been more or less frightened, and wished that they could be once more on terra firma without incurring the penalty of a laugh at their cowardice ; and in the present instance this little bit of locomotion was not to bo allowed to pass without an adventure. Half an hour from the foot of the mountain the coach went rapidly up a sharp ascent in the road, then dashed down again at full gallop, striking one of those necessary nuisances known as " breakwaters" when a few yards from the top, with a shock that sent the coach-body leaping on its leathern jacks like a yawl-boat in a heavy surf, made some of the outsiders on the top shout and hold on merrily to keep from being whirled off into one of the side-ravines, and created such a state of affairs inside the vehicle, generally, as effectually broke up the monotony. That shock drove the head of Mrs. Tanderlyn back against the leathern cushions with a force seriously damaging to the crown of her bonnet, brought a slight scream from Clara, who was frightened for the instant, made the troublesome Master Brooks Brooks yell and dash a dirty hand into the dress of each of the ladies who had the honor of the same seat, and elicited from Mrs. Brooks Cun- ninghame and her husband one of those brief but very signifi- cant marital displays which were no doubt afterwards to edify so many. Whether the lady had ascertained that fash- THE COWAKD. 235 ionable people must always fall and faint under any sudden excitement, or whether the shock really frightened as well as unseated her, is a matter of no consequence : certain it is that she at that juncture threw up her hands and rolled up her eyes, gave one scream that degenerated into a groan, rolled from her seat and subsided into the bottom "of the coach, under the feet of " II. T.," in what seemed to be a fit of somo description. Miss Marianna, really alarmed, with the affec- tionate if not classic words, " Oh, mammy !" made a grab at that lady, clutching the back of her hat and tearing it from the head it crowned, while Master Brooks Brooks changed his yell into a howl and Mr. Brooks Cunninghame stooped down, terror in his face and his hands feeling around at the bottom of the vehicle for any portion of what had been his wife, with the affectionate but not politic inquiry: ''Is it kilt ye are, Bridget ?" Not politic ? — no, certainly not ! A stronger word might be applied without risk to the unfortunate expression. Among the changes in family polity not before indicated, had been an indignant throwing over of her very honest name of ''Bridget" by the wife of the horse-contractor, and the adoption of " Julia" in its stead. More than one curtain-lecture had poor Mr. Brooks Cunninghame endured, before leaving New York, on the necessity of avoiding any blunder in that regard, when they should be "away from home" ; and he had not escaped without severe drill and many promises of perfection in his part. And now to have for- gotten the adopted "Julia" and used the tell-tale "Bridget'^ at the very moment of the family's entering upon their first essay in fashionable watering-place life, was really a little too much for patience not entirely angelic. Both the poets and the romancers tell of cases in which some word of heart-broken affection, uttered at the instant when the death-film was stealing over the eyes of the beloved one, has had power to strike the dulled sense and call back for a moment the fleeting life when it had escaped far beyond 236 THE COWARD. the reach of any other sound. Something of the same cha- racter — not quite so romantic, perhaps, but quite as real, — was developed in the present instance. The woman may have been falling into an actual faint ; but if so, that offen- sive word pierced through the gathering mists of insensi- bility, and she crawled out from the entanglement of legs before any effectual aid could be afforded her, and with such a look of contempt and hatred burning full upon her unfortu- nate husband that he must have felt for the moment as if placed directly under the lens of a sun-glass at focus. Mr. Brooks Cunninghame shrank into his number eleven patent- leathers, and Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame " swatted" herself (there is no other word in or out of the language that will quite so well express the act) down on the seat with an air that implied a wish for some one's head being beneath her at that juncture. Her glance had not at all softened, nor had " H. T." ceased looking out of the window or Clara Yander- lyn (behind her) yet taken her handkerchief from her mouth, when the female Cunninghame said, in what she thought very honeyed accents : " Mr. Brooks Cunninghame, I wish you would find some other time to go and call me nicknames, than when I am jolted out of ray seat in that way and a'most dead !" The stroke of policy was a fine one, and even the thick head of Mr. Brooks Cunninghame recognized the necessity of fol- lowing it up — an act which he performed thus gracefully and with a look intended for one of the staring ladies on the front seat : "Yes, mim, her name isn't Bridget at all at all, but Julia. It's only a bit of a way I have of jokin' wid her, mim !" This was satisfactory, of course — absolutely conclusive ; and so Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame grew mollified by degrees ; the redness which had come into the face of Miss Marianna gradually faded out; Master Bra|)ks Brooks Cunninghame took occasion to manifest his filial fondness by reaching over and hugging his mother with hands just re-coated with candy THK COWARD. 237 dug out of his capacious pocket; and the Concord coach, with its consorts, rolled and jolted and swayed along, up and down the mountain road to its destination. CHAPTER XII. Landing at the Profile House — Halstead Rowan and Gymnastics — How that person saw Clara Yanderlyn AND BECAME A RiVAL OF " H. T." — ThE FuLL MoON IN THE Notch — Trodden Toes, a Name, a Yoice, and a Rencontre — Margaret Hayley and Capt. Hector Coles — The Old Man of the Mountain by Moonlight, and a Mystery. Spite of the sometimes rapid speed, the toil up the moun- tain had been long and tedious ; and dusk was very nearly falling and the chill of the coming evening was sufficient to induce the drawing close of mantles and wrappers that only two hours before had been reckoned an incumbrance, — when the coaches with their loads broke out from the overhanging woods on a steep down-grade, the passengers caught a glimpse of Echo Lake lying like a sheet of molten silver under the evening calm, and the whole cortege swept down at a gallop and with cracking of whips, to the broad, level plateau lying before the Profile House in the Franconia Notch. Two of the coaches had been in advance of that to which the attention of the reader has been particularly directed, and still other coaches had just come in from Plymouth, the Glen and the Crawford ; so that when they drew up to alight the long piazza of the Profile was filled with sojourners satisfying their curiosity or looking out for fresh arrivals ; and coach- men, servants and every employee of the establishment, were busy hauling down from the racks and boots where 2i58 THE CO W A li D . thej had been stowed, immense piles of trunks, valises and every description of ba,2:gage that had not been entrusted to the van yet lumbering behind. Landlord Taft and superin- tendent Jennings were alert and busy; old comers were curious as to the number and nature of new arrivals ; new comers were glancing momentarily at the glorious scenery and anxiously inquiring every thing of everybody who knew no more of the things inquired about than did the askers themselves. All was charming bustle — delightful confusion : one of those peculiar scenes connected with summer travel and watering-place life, w^hich furnish the very best of op- portunities for study to the quiet observer. The coach door had been opened and all the inside passen- gers handed out, before the merry party from the roof made any attempt at getting down. Peal after peal of hearty laughter went up from that outside division of the vehicle ; and evidently the party there assembled had reached the Profile before achieving the end of the jests and story-telling in which they had been engaged. They had already attracted some attention from the piazza, and one boarding-school miss had been appealed to by her eye-glassed swain in attendance, to " heah those awful vulgah fellahs !" — when the laughter ceased, and one of the roof-passengers made a sudden spring from that elevation, over the heads of half a dozen of those standing on the ground, and came safely to his feet with a jerk which would have laid up a less perfect physical man for a week and completely shaken out the false teeth from the mouth of any victim of a dentist. The rapid man was followed by his companions, Frank Yanderlyn included among the number ; but they all seemed to choose the more popular mode of getting down, by the aid of steps and braces. "Pretty well done, Rowan !" exclaimed one of the others as he himself reached the ground. " Broke any thing ?" " Xo, nothing — except," and at that moment his eye caught the forms and faces of Miss Clara Yanderlvn and her mother, who THE COWARD, 289 were standing at the edge of the piazza, waiting while Frank descended and made some arrangement for the disposition of their baggage. "IT. T.," of the coach-load, was standing within a few feet of them, his little satchel still strapped over his shoulder and his eyes scarcely wandering at all from the woman whom they had scanned so long and well during the journey by rail. But he had glanced around, with the others, at the noise made by the singular descent ; and his eye met that of the man who had been called Rowan, as the latter made the discovery of mother and daughter. It was but a lightning flash that Rowan gave or the stranger detected, but few glances of any human eye have ever expressed more within the same period. He evidently saw the young girl for the first time, at that moment ; and quite as evidently he drank in at that one glimpse the full charm of her beautyand goodness. That was not all : in the one glance, too, he ap- parently measured her wealth and social position— saw and reckoned up the proud woman standing beside her— then took, it is probable, an introspective view of himself and his own surroundings, and found time to realize the utter hope- lessness of that impulse which for the tithe of a moment he must have felt stirring within him. Perhaps half-a-dozen seconds had elapsed before he con- cluded the answer he had begun. " Xo, nothing— except— my heart !" He had begun to speak in a light, gay, off-hand manner : he concluded in a low, sad voice, full alike of music and melancholy. "H. T." had been observing him very closely during that brief space of time, as had nearly all the other spectators, their notice attracted by his reckless mode of alighting. He was apparently about thirty years of age, a little less than six feet high— jlerhaps five feet eleven ; with a form undeniably stout, but rounded like a reed and as elastic as whalebone. His hands were soft and womanish in their contour, though they were rather large, nut-brown in color, and had evidently felt, as had his face, the meridian sun. His feet were almost 240 THE CO W A R D. singularly small for so large a man — highly arched and springy. His face and head, as he the moment after removed his hat, were capable of attracting attention in any company. The face was a little broad and heavily moulded ; the cheek-bones prominent and the nose slightly aquiline ; the eyes dark, dreamy and lazy ; the brow fair, and above it clustering dark, short, soft hair, curled, but so delicate in texture that it waved like silk floss with the veriest breath. The mouth would have been, the observer might have thought, heavy and a little sen- sual, had it not been hidden away by the thick and curling dark moustache which he wore without other beard. Only one other feature need be named — a chin rather broad and square and showing a very slight depression of the bone in the centre — such as has marked a singular description of men for many an hundred years. It needed a second glance to see that a broad, heavy scar, thoroughly healed, commenced at the left cheek-bone and traversed below the ear until lost in the thick hair at the base of the neck. Such was the pic- ture this man presented — a contradictory one in some respects, but evidencing great strength, power and agility, and yet more than a suspicion of intellectuality and refinement. A close and habitual observer of men does not often err in " placing" one whom he may happen to meet, even at first sight, — after a few seconds of careful examination ; but the keenest might have been puzzled to decide what was that man's station in life, his profession, or even his character. Any one must have been in the main favorably impressed : beyond that point little could possibly have been imagined by the most daring. A small black trunk came off the top of the coach at about the time that " H. T.,"' who seemed to be bargaining for a rival at that early period, had concluded his inspection ; and there was not much difficulty in connecting the name and address painted in white on the end with the appellation by which the stranger had the moment before been designated. That name and address read : " Halstead Rowan, Chicago, Illinois." THK COWARD. 241 Two men appeared to be travelling in company with Rowan ; one a man of something beyond his own age— the other five or six years younger ; both respectable but by no means afflu- ent in appearance. All were well dressed and gentlemanly in aspect; but neither Rowan nor either of his companions gave the impression of what might be designated as the " firi^t circles of society," even in the great grain-metropolis of the West. *'H. T.," the observer, had fixed his eyes so closely on the male party in that singular meeting, that he probably lost the answering expression of the lady's face and did not know whether or not she had returned that glance of wondering interest. Something like disappointment at that lost oppor* tunity may have been the cause of his biting his lip a little nervously as he took his way, with the rest of the new- comers, into the hall and reception-room, waiting opportunity for the booking of names and the assignment ^of chambers. Some of those in waiting no doubt found the tedium mate- rially diminished by finding themselves, in tlie reception-room, at that close of a blazing day of July, standing or sitting with a decidedly grateful feeling before a quarter-of-a-cord of Wrchen wood, blazing away in the open fire-place with that peculiar warmth and hearty geniality so little known to this coal-burn- ing age, but so well remembered by those who knew the old baronial halls of republican America in a time long passed ciway. Xot many minutes after the rencontre that has been de- scribed, the crowd had vanished from the piazza of the Profile House, the coaches had driven away, the baggage was being rapidly removed within doors, and the tired and hungry new- comers were booked for rooms and clearing away the soil and dust of travel, preparatory to supper. Soon the crockerv and cutlery jingled in the long dining-room, and the flakv tea- biscuits steamed for those who hurried down to catch them in their full perfection. It was a desultory supper and a somewhat hurried one. for 15 242 1 li Jbi Co W A K L> . the moon-rise was coming — that rise of the full moon which so many had promised themselves, and for which, indeed, not a few of the arrivals of that evening had timed their visit to the mountains. Then, hunger has but little curiosity, and sur- veys and recognitions were both waited for until the broader light and greater leisure of the morning ; and probably of the dozens of old residents (a week is " old residence" at a water- iug-place, be it remembered, and a fortnight confers all the privileges of the habitue) — probably of the dozens of old residents and new-comers who had acquaintances among the opposite class, not two found time or thought for seeking out familiar faces during that period when the sharpened appetite was so notably in the ascendant. " The moonlight is coming : come out, all of you who care more for scenery than stulSng !" said a high, shrill voice, after a time had elapsed which would scarcely have begun the meal under ordinary circumstances. It was an elderly man with white hair and white side-whiskers, an old habitue of the house and therefore a privileged character, who spoke, pulling out his watch and at once rising from his seat. He was followed by more than half those at table, and would have been followed especially by Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame, who had somewhere learned that fashion and a rage for moonlight had a mysterious connection, — but for the insatia- ble hunger of Mr. Brooks Cunninghame himself, who was en- gaged in mortal combat with a formidable piece of steak and a whole pile of biscuits, and who outraged Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame by declaring, sotto voce, that " he'd be some- thing-or-othered if he'd lave his supper until he was done, for any moonlight or other something-or-othered thing in the wurruld !" — and the obstrepcrousness of Master Brooks Brooks Cunninghame, who was up to his eyes in three kinds of preserves and bade fair to stick permanently fast to the table through the agency of those glutinous compounds. Out on the piazza and the broad plateau in front of it, the visitors at the Profile gathered, to see what is not often THE COWARD. 243 vouchsafed to the most devoted of nature-lovers — the rising* of the full moon in the mountains. Those who are familiar with the Franconia Notch well know how the mountains around the Profile always seem to draw closer after sunset, and how the frowning cliffs seem to form insurmountable barriers between them and the outer world, making it doubt- ful to the bewildered thought whether there is indeed any (.'j>Tess from that cool paradise of S'ummer — whether or not they can ride away at will and look again upon green fields and flashing streams and the faces of those they love. Ana they well know that moonrise there, over those encircling cliffs, is not the moonrise of the lower country, with the orb throwing its broad beams of light at once wide over the world, but an actual peeping down from heaven of a fair and genial spirit that deigns for the time to pour welcome radi- ance into an abode of solitude and darkness. The spectacle, then, is one to be sought and remembered ; and as storms habitually beat around those mountain tops and fog and mist quite divide the time with fair weather in the valleys, the tourist is mad or emotionless who allows the cloudless full moon to come up without catching its smile on cheek and brow. The intense blue of the eastern sky w^as already gone when the anxious groups clustered in front of the great white cara- vanserai, and the stars began to glimmer paler in that direc- tion. There was not a fleck of cloud, not a shadow of mist, to prevent the rounded orb, when it came up, flooding the whole gorge with the purest of liquid silver. The winds were still as if they w^aited with finger on lip for the pageant ; and the shrill scream of a young eagle that broke out for an instant from one of the eyries tinder the brow of Eagle Cliff and then died trembling away down the valley, seemed like profanation. Conversation was hushed, among all that vary- ing and even discordant crowd, as if there might be power in a profane word to check the wheeling of the courses of nature. The orient began to be flushed with that trembling 244 THK COWARD. light, and glints of it touched the dark pines on the brow of the cliff, a mile away. Then that light beyond the cliffs deepened and the dark pines grew still darker as fully re- lieved against it. Then at last, as they watched with hushed breath, a rim of silver seemed suddenly to have been set as an arch on the very brow of the mountain, and slowly the full orb rolled into view. As it heaved up, a broad, full circle of glittering and apparently dripping silver, it threw out the trees on the brow of the mountain into such bold relief as if a lightning flash had literally been burning behind them. There was one giant old pine, no doubt an hundred feet in height, so far away on the bold crest of Eagle Cliff that it seemed to be only a toy tree of three inches ; and this was thrown against the very centre of the- moon, every gnarled limb and pendant branch as plain to the eye as if it hung within a stone's throw, a dead pigmy of the same family shooting up its ragged point not far distant, and a tangled wilderness of broken trees and scraggy branches filling the remainder of the circle. Then, the moment after, the moon heaved slowly up beyond the trees, they fell back into dark- ness, and the broad glow streamed full into the faces of the gazers and flooded the whole valley with light. The great spectacle of the month had been exhibited to hundreds of ad- miring eyes, and the full moon of July shed its broad glory like a blessing upon the Franconia. It was at the moment when the pageant was just conclud- ing and exclamations of pleasure breaking from a hundred lips, that " H. T." (who has not as yet furnished us data for any fuller revelation of his name), standing at some distance out on the plateau from the piazza, and stepping suddenly backward to observe a particular effect of the light among the trees on the cliff, trod upon the foot of a lady immediately be- hind him and nearly overthrew her. He turned immediately, with a word of apology, at the same time that a gentleman near her, who seemed to be in her immediate company, sprang to prevent her possible fall, venting meanwhile on the THE COWARD. 245 presumed awkwardness of the aggressor a word of ill-dis- guised petulance : — ''You should be a little more careful, sir, I think, how you step upon ladies' feet and risk hurting them seriously." " I beg a thousand pardons !" was the reply. " Certainly I did not know that there was a lady immediately behind me, and — " The lady gave a sudden start, caught a quick glance at the speaker, and then recovered her equanimity so suddenly that perhaps not two of all the company observed the mo- mentary agitation ; while the gentleman interrupted the attempted apology, not too politely, with — *' Is your foot much injured, Miss Hayley ?•' The answer made by the lady was in the negative, and in a tone that, though it trembled a little, proved her less petu- lant than her companion. But it is possible that " H. T.," as he has been known, did not pay that answer any attention whatever. As he turned he must certainly have seen the lady more or less distinctly in the moonlight, and yet had manifested no surprise at what he saw ; but when the name was mentioned he gave a start that must have been notice- able by any acute observer. Had he really not noticed her before his attention wassailed by the mention of the name ? or was the face one which he did not recognize while the name bore a talisman that commanded all his interest ? Cer- tain it is that he saw the lady now, distinctly ; and equally certain is it that the face was the same which has met the gaze of the reader, a month before, on the piazza of the house at West Philadelphia. Margaret Hayley, in very truth, dressed so darkly that at the first glance her attire might almost have been taken for black, and with not even one ornament to sparkle in the moonbeams, while that peculiarity of her raiment was made more notable by a light summer scarf or "cloud," of white berlin, thrown over her head to guard it from the night air, in a fashion somewhat oriental. Her proud, statuesque 246 THE COWARD figure rose erect as ever ; and the same stately perfection of womanhood looked out from her dark eyes and beamed upon her pure, high brow, that had shone there before the falling of that blow which had so truly been the turning point of her life. The cheek may have been a shade thinner than a month before ; and there may have been a shadow under the eyes, too marked for her heyday of youth and health ; but if so the moonlight was not enough of a telltale to make the revelation. The gentleman who had so promptly attended to the com- fort of Margaret Hayley, an.d who did not seem averse to picking up a quarrel on her behalf, was dark haired and dark bearded, round-faced and rather fine-looking than otherwise, a little above the middle height, and wearing the uniform of a Captain on staff service. So much the eye of " H. T." took in at once, and he seemed to keep his attention some- what anxiously on the two as the moment after they turned away and walked back towards the piazza, as if he would gladly have caught some additional word conveying a knowl- edge of the officer's personality. Nothing more was said, however, that could afford such a clue if one he really de- sired ; and but a little time had elapsed when another subject of excitement arose, calculated to interest many of the hun- dreds who had already become partially drunk with the glory of the moonlight. *' The moon is high enough, now : let us see how the Old Man of the Mountain looks when his face is silvered !" said some one in the crowd ; and the happy suggestion was at once acted upon. There were quite enough old habitues present to supply guides and chaperons for the new-comers ; and in a moment fifty or more of the visitors went trooping away down the white sandy road through the glen and under the sweeping branches among which the moonbeams peeped and played so coquettishly. Two or three windings of the road, two or three slight ascents and descents in elevation : !=ome one said : " Here is THE COWARD. 247 the best view;" and the whole company paused in their scattering march. A sudden break, opening upon a dark quiet little lake or tarn, was to be seen through the trees to the right ; and a quarter of a mile away, hanging sheer over the gulf of more than two thousand feet sweeping down towards the foot of the Cannon — there, with the massive iron face staring full into the moonlight that touched nose and cheek and brow with so strange and doubtful a light that the unpractised eye could not trace the outlines, while the accustomed could see them almost as plainly as in the sunlight — there loomed the awful countenance of the Old Man of the Mountain. Some there were in that company, familiar with every changing phase of that most marvellous freak of nature, who thought that grand as it had before seemed to them when the sun was high in the heavens and the dark outline relieved against the bright western sky, it was yet grander then, in the still, doubtful, solemu moonlight. Among those who had gone down to the edge of the little Old Man's Mirror for this view, were two of the sterner sex who happened to be without ladies under charge and to be sep- arated from any other company. Directly, walking near each other, they fell together and exchanged casual remarks on tho beauty of the night and the peculiarities of different points of scenery. They were the two who had first seen each other at the moment of alighting at the Profile little more than an hour before — " H. T." of the initials and the lady's smashed foot, and Halstead Rowan of the gymnastic spring from the coach-top. The first glance had told to each that there was something of mark in the other ; and under the peculiar circumstances of that night they drifted together, without introduction except such as each could furnish for himself, but not likely to separate again without a much more inti- mate acquaintance, — just as many other waifs and fragments, floating down the great stream of life, have been thrown into . what seemed accidental collision by a chance eddy, and yet never separated again until each had exercised upon tho 248 THE COWAKD. other an influence materially controlling the whole after course of destiny. Eventually the two, both rapid walkers, had gone faster than the rest and become the leaders of the impromptu pro- cession to the shrine of the Old Man, so that when the halt was called they were standing together and apart from the others, forty or fifty feet further down the glen and where they had perhaps a yet better view of the profile than any of the company. Both were dear lovers of nature, if the word " reverent'' could not indeed be added to the apprecia- tion of both ; and standing together there, even in silence, the intuitive knowledge of the inner life of each seemed to bring them more closely together than introductions and a better knowledge of antecedents could possibly have done. Then the crowd tired of gazing and moved back towards the house, leaving the two standing together and probably sup- posing themselves alone. They were not alone, in fact ; for under the shadow of the trees to the left, half way between the spot where the new friends were standing and that which had been occupied by the body of the visitors, were three persons continuing the same lingering gaze. These were the officer and two ladies who each found the support of an arm — Margaret Hayley and her mother, the latter of whom, it would thus seem, was also at the Profile under the escort of the military gentleman. Unobserved themselves, they had the two men in full moonlight below and could see them almost as well as in the broader light of day. " Who are they, Captain Coles ? Anybody we know ?" asked the elder lady, speaking so low that the sound did not creep down to the two gazers. "Both new-comers, I think," answered the military gentle- man. "Yes, they both came in to-night; and one of them, Margaret, is the booby who stepped on your foot a little while ago, and whom I shall yet take occasion to kick before he leaves the mountains if he does not learn to keep out of people's way." THE COWARD. 249 *' I beg you will not allow yourself to get into difficulty on account of that trilling accident, and for me !" answered Margaret Hayley, while something very like a shudder, not at all warranted by the words, and that the Captain was not keen enough to perceive, swept through her form and even trembled the arm that rested within his. " Difficulty ? oh, no difficulty, to me, you know ; and for you, Margaret, more willingly than any other person in the world, of course !" and Captain Hector Coles, confident that he had expressed himself rather felicitously, thought it a good time to bow around to Miss Hayley, and did so. "You are quite right. Captain Hector Coles," said Mrs. Burton Hayley. " Low people, who do not even know how to walk without running over others, should be kept at their proper distance ; and of course gentlemen and soldiers like yourself find it not only a duty but a privilege to afford to us ladies that protection." This time Captain Hector Coles, immensely flattered, bowed round on the other side, to the elder lady. " Hark !" said Margaret Hayley, in a louder voice than either had before used, and a voice that had a perceptible tremor in it like that of fright. " What did you hear ?" asked the Captain. " Listen — I want to bear what that man was saying." " H. T." was speaking, just below. •' No, I have never been here before," he said. *' Strangely enough, some of the greatest curiosities of the continent are neglected by just such fools as myself, until too old or too busy or too careworn to enjoy them." "You speak like a jolly old grandfather, and yet you are scarcely as old as myself," answered the rich, sonorous voice of Halstead Rowan. "Well, that is your business. The White Mountains are no novelty to me, or any other moun- tains, I believe. North of the Isthmus." " Is there any thing finer than this, at this moment, among ^ hem all?" 250 THE COWARD. " No, and I doubt if there is any thing finer on earth !" was the enthusiastic reply. " And by the way, even I have not happened to see the full moon on the face of the Old Man, before. It is a magnificent sight — a new sensation." " How long has it stood so, I wonder ? Since creation ?" said the voice of "n. T.," " or did the Flood hurl those masses of stone into so unaccountable an accidental position ?" "Haven't the most remote idea I" answered Rowan, gayly. "I have often thought of it, though, when looking at the marvel in the sunlight. But I have never been able to get any farther back than the idea how the winds must have howled and the rains beaten around that immobile face, age after age, while whole generations of the men after whom the face is apparently copied as a mockery, have been catching cold and dying from a mere puff of air on the head or a pair of wet feet." "The eternal — the immovable I" said " H. T.," his voice so solemn and impressive that it w^as evident his words were only a faint representation of the inner feeling. " I know one thing that it has been, without a doubt," said Rowan. " When the whole country was filled with Indians of a somewhat nobler character than the miserable wretches that alternately beg and murder on the Western plains, there is not much question that they must have worshipped it as the face of the Great Manitou, looking down upon them in anger or in love, as the storm-cloud swept around it or the Bummer sun tinted it with an iron smile." Halstead Rowan was speaking unconscious poetry, as many another man of his disposition has done, while those who sought to make it a trade have been hammering their dull brains and spoiling much good paper in the mere stringing of rhymes bearing the same relation to poetry that an onion does to the bulb of a tulip ! Whether his companion caught the tone from him and merely elaborated it into another utter- ance, or whether he possessed the fire within himself and this rencontre was only the means of bringing out the spark, is THE COWARD. 251 soniethiug uot now to be decided. But he spoke words that not only made the other turn and gaze upon him for a mo- ment with astonishment, but moved the three unseen auditors with feelings which neither C(5uld very well analyze. His dark face, tinted by the moonlight as the stony brow of the mountain was itself touched and hallowed, seemed rapt as those of the seers of old are sometimes said to have been ; and bis voice was strangely sweet and melodious : " To me, just now," he said, " that iron face is assuming a new shape." " The deuce it is !" answered Rowan. " Where ?" "'In my mind's eye, Horatio !'■" quoted the speaker, and the other seemed to understand something of his mood. ' " Ho you know^ that face may be nothing more than sixty feet of strangely-shaped stone, to others ; but to me, at this moment, it is the Spirit of the Xorth looking sadly down over our fields of conflict and saying words that I almost hear. Listen, and see if you do not hear them, too !" How strangely earnestness sometimes impresses us, even when little else than madness is the motive power ! Halstead Rowan, by no means a man to be easily moulded to the fan- cies of any other, found himself insensibly turning his ear towards the Sphynx, as if it was indeed speaking through the still night air ! '" I am the Soul of the Xation,'" the singular voice went on,. speaking as if for the lips of stone. " ' Storms have raved around my forehead and thunders have shaken my base, but nothing has moved me ! Scarred I may have been by the lightning and discolored by the beating rain, but the hand of man cannot touch me, and even the elements can disturb me' not. I have seen ten thousand storms, and not one but was followed by the bright sunshine, because Nature was ever true to itself. Be but true to yourselves, loyal men of the great American Union, and the nation you love shall yet be throned above the reach of treason as I am throned above the 252 THE COWARD. touch of man — unapproachable in its power as I am fearful in my eternal isolation !' " Halstead Rowan had ceased looking at the Sphynx and gazed only at its oracle, long before the strange rhapsody concluded ; and Margaret Hayley, supported upon the arm of Captain Hector Coles, had more thaH once shuddered, and at last leaned so heavily upon that arm as to indicate that she must be suddenly ill. To the startled inquiry of the Captain as to the cause of her trembling, she replied in words that indicated her feeling to have been excited by the strangely- patriotic words, and by a request to be taken back at once to the Profile. That request was immediately heeded, and the three passed on up the road, where all the other company had some time preceded them. But one expression more fell from the lips of the strange man, as the three moved away, and Margaret Hayley heard it. " "Why, you must be a poet !" said the lUinoisan, when his companion had concluded the rhapsody. " Xo, I am only a lawyer, and you must not take all that we say for gospel, or even for poetry !" was the reply. " Come, let us go back to the house and imagine that we have had enough of moonlight.-' The two followed up the road at once and overtook the three but a moment after. As they passed, "H. T." recog- nized first the shoulder-straps of the officer, and then the figure of the lady upon his left arm. Turning to see her face more closely, his own was for a moment under the full glare of the moon, and Margaret Hayley had a fair opportunity to observe every feature. Shaded as were her own eyes, their direction could not be distinguished ; but they really scanned the face before them with even painful earnestness, a low, intense sigh of disappointment and unhappiness escaping her when the inspection had ended. She walked back with Captain Coles and her mother to the door of the Profile, and left them in conversation on the moonlit piazza, escaping up-stairs to her THE COWARD. 25S own room and not leaving it again during the evening. What may have been her thoughts and feelings can only be divined from one expression which fell from her lips as she closed the door of her chamber and dropped unnerved upon a chair at the table : " Who can that man be ? His voice, and yet not his voice I A shadow of his face, and yet no more like his face than like mine ! Am I haunted, or has this trouble turned my brain and am I going mad ? Another such evening would kill me, I think I" There was the sound of horn and harp and violin ringing through the long corridors of the Profile that evening ; and many of those who had shared in the glory of the moonrise and the solemn levee of the Old Man of the Mountain were joining in the dance that went on in that parlor which ap- peared largo enough for the drill evolutions of an entire regi- ment But few of the new-comers joined the revel for that evening ; most of them, fatigued at once with travel and ex- citement, crept away to early beds in order to refresh them- selves against the morning ; and nothing remained, of any interest to the progress of this narration, except Captain Hector Coles walking up and down the long piazza for more than an hour after Margaret Hayley had retired, his boot- heels ringing upon the planks with a somewhat ostentatious affectation of the military step, Mrs. Burton Hayley mean- while leaning upon his arm, and the two holding in tones so low that no passer-by could catch them, a conversation which seemed to be peculiarly earnest and confidential. Yet there was still one occurrence of that night which cannot be passed over without serious injury to the character of this record for strict veracity. Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame, during a large part of the night, was in serious trouble w^hich required the full exercise of her maternal vigilance — while Miss Marianna, deserted by her father who had surreptitiously smoked a short pipe in the edge of the woods and thence gone to bed and to sleep, wandered disconsolately round the parlor, 254 THE COWARD. dressed in more costly frippery than would have sufficed to establish two mantua-makers, unintroduced to any one, stared at with the naked eye and through eye-glasses, her freckles complimented in an undertone that she could not avoid hear- ing, the name of her dress-maker facetiously inquired after, and the poor girl, made miserable by being dragged by her silly parents to precisely the spot of all the world where she least belonged, suffering such torments as should only be in- flicted upon the most unrepentant criminal. But the peculiar trouble of Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame has not as yet been explained, and it must be so disposed of in a few words. Ill health, on the plea of which she had started on her " summer tour," had really attacked her interesting family, or at least one highly-important member of it. Master Brooks Brooks Cunninghame, naturally a little sharp set after his long ride and accustomed to regard any supper with *' goodies" on the table as something to be clung to until the buttons of his small waistband could endure no farther pres- sure — Master Brooks Brooks Cunninghame, as has already been mentioned, had remained at the table a little beyond the bounds of strict prudence. In other words, he had de- voured beef-steak and fruits, fish and milk, biscuits and pickles, tea, pickled oysters and sweetmeats, until even his digestive pack-horse was overloaded. Very soon after sup- per he had petitioned to be taken to bed, and then un- pleasant if not serious symptoms had been no long time in supervening. During a large part of the night there were a coaple of chambermaids running to and from that part of the building, with hot water, brandy, laudanum, foot-baths and other appliances for suffering small humanity; while Master Brooks Brooks kept doubling himself up in all imaginable at- titudes and crying : " Oh, mommy !'' in a manner calculated to wring the heart of that motherly person, — to make Mr. Brooks Cunninghame, who wished to sleep, growl out some reasonably-coarse oaths between his clenched teeth, — and to induce wonder on the part of people who had occasion to THE COWARD. 255 pass the front of the building or come out on the piazza, whether they did or did not keep a small menagerie of 3-oung bears, wolves and wild-cats in full blast on the second floor. CHAPTER XIII. Miss Clara Yanderlyn and her Pet Bears — A Misad- venture AND A Friendly ITand in Tlme — The Question OF Courage — Halstead Rowan and Mrs. Brooks Cun- ninghame on Geography — The Dead Washington, the Flume and the Pool — With the personal relations weaving at that juncture. Breakfast was over at the Profile, on the next morning; the stages had rolled away for Littleton, the Crawford and Plymouth ; and preparations were in progress for a ride of two or three wagon-loads down the glen to the Flume, — when "H. T.,'' cigar in mouth, passed out from the bar-room to the piazza and thence across the plateau in front, towards the billard-room and ten-pin-alley, standing a hundred yards away to the right, and at the very bottom of the slope of the moun- tain. He had seen, in the dusk and afterwards in the moon- light of the night before, that a couple of the rough pets of the mountain region were sojourning at the Notch, in the shape of half-grown black bears, chained to stakes some twenty feet apart, with a dog-kennel for their joint retreat, perhaps a hundred feet from the house and immediately in front of it, where 'their antics could be discerned and enjoyed from the piazza and the front windows. He had seen, too, going out earlier that morning, that they did not appear yet old enough to be dangerously vicious, and that they seemed very playful for that description of beast. Everybody was feeding them, from early morning to dusk, with nuts, raisins 256 THE COWARD and crackers surreptitiously taken from the table for that pur- pose ; and the young.>^tci'S no doubt consumed in feeding the young Bruins, quite as much food as they themselves man- aged to devour. Just then not less than a dozen persons were surrounding the household favorites, feeding them, putting them through their clumsy evolutions which principally consisted in sitting erect or climbing a short post to get a nut placed on the top, — or developing the usual human propensity for teazing. Most of them were ladies, and among the others, as he went by at a short distance, he recognized Miss Clara Tanderlyn, his fellow-passenger of the day before, — her face rosy with the excitement of a just-accomplished morning walk, her bonnet on arm, and her whole countenance radiant with amusement as she plied the dusky pets with her pocket full of nuts and raisins. She seemed to have acquired a wonderful ascend- anc}" over the beasts in a very brief acquaintance ; for while all the others shrank from coming absolutely within reach, she not only fed them without fear but rubbed their black coats and patted their gristly noses as if they had been pet kittens. Two or three men were lounging near, evidently admiring the new lady accession to Profile society, but none claiming an acquaintance. "H. T.," who either had a propensity for ten-pins that morning, overbalancing the admiration of Miss Tanderlyn which he had shown the day before, or a still stronger at- traction for company whom he knew to be at the alley — " H. T." was just passing on when Margaret Hayley, accom- panied by the inevitable Captain Hector Coles, came out of the door of the billiard-room and advanced towards the bear- stakes. It must remain a mystery whether this appearance from the door did or did not make a change in his own neces- sity for exercise : suffice it to say that he stopped, turned par- tially around and joined the group who were making levee to the Bruins. At that moment, when Clara Yanderlvn had succeeded in THE COWARD. 2C)7 luria. wonder which the latter expressed tliat the former "could not Hav that he had been down into a coal-pit without really p:oin{5 there." The woithy lady, as Rowan soon discovered by a few desultory words, had no corresponding objection, provided she could seem to have been anywhere; and there M'as little doubt that she had procured a guide-book or two and "read up," as Honorable ^lenibers very often do before making speeches on subjects of which they know nothing whatever, — and as snobs sometimes do in books on "Perfect Gentility" and the " Whole Art of Dining Out," before going into society which seems a little too weighty for their pre- vious training. How well she had succeeded, may best be illustrated by a little of her conversation with the lllinoisan, who took care, to introduce the subject of her "travels" (with what he had overheard, as a hint) very soon after the wagons rolled away from the Profile, and without waiting for any formal introduction. He broke the ice with the remark, equally tempting and flattering to his next neighbor: "You must enjoy this tine scenery very much, madam, as you have chances of comparison that some of us lack. You have travelled in Europe, I believe ?" " Yes — yes, sir," answered the lady, a little doubtful which of the two was the proper answer to so profound a sentence. If she was at all nervous about plunging into such untried waters with a total stranger, his disclamatory hint of his own experiences reassured her; and besides, one of the ladies was on the seat immediately behind, to whom she had been boast- ing that very morning, and it would never do to abandon the ground once taken. "Ah, how proud you must feel, madam, of having seen so many of the wonders of nature I" the wretch went on. " I have never yet been able to cross the ocean, myself, and the conversation of foreign travellers is naturally both pleasant and instructive to me.' " Much obliged to you, I am sure,"' the lady returned. T H E C O W A K J). , 265 Some of the passengers in the Ava . 2 I o laboring and creaking wagons, and pretty little screams that had no affectation in them emancipated themselves from rosy lips and took excursions out into the summer air. Then thun- dering over a rickety wooden bridge, almost at the bottom of the ravine, and up another slight ascent, the wagons stopped under a clump of wide-spreading trees at a rough platform, and disembarked their passengers, leaving all to follow their will in examining that wonder of nature in one of her frolio moods. And what was the Flume like, to those who that day saw it for the first time ? An irregular crack or fissure in the side of the mountain, half a mile long, and from ten to fifty feet in depth, such as the wedge of some enraged Titan might have made when he had determined to split the earth asunder, and used the thunder as a beetle. Whether he was frightened by the big oval boulder which fell into the fissure half w^ay up, and has ever since hung suspended there, touching only at the points, and apparently ready to fall at any moment — who shall say ? At all events, if he intended to disrupt the earth he desisted for the time ; and let us be duly thankful ! Walking laboriously over the broad flat stone platform at the mouth of the gorge, with the thin sheet of bright water straggling over it, then ascending the rough stairs of board that lay irregularly on either side, and anon climbing care- fully over the mossed and slippery rocks that offered such precarious foothold, the party ascended the Flume and stood at last between walls of less than six feet separation, the rock rising fifty or sixty feet on either side, and almost as square as if cut by the chisel of an artificer, impassable slimy boulders piled in confusion far ahead, the rough little stream tumbling away through tiie wilderness of stones beneath, and a ciiill dampness like that of the grave striking in to the very life-blood of those who had been imprudent enough to tempt the mountains without the protection of thick garments and warm flannels. Once, a little white Blossom of the company, just unfolding to the June luxuriance of woman- 17 274 T H K cow A R D. hood, and whose name has no interest in this narration, was tempted by a mischievous relative and protector to try walk- ing a rounded and slippery log that bridged the chasm, a few feet above the rough rocks and water below ; but her nerves failed and hev head grew dizzy when she was half way across, her lip quivered and then fluttered out a little cry of alarm, and her miijciiievous tempter retraced his own steps just in time to catch her and keep her from an ice-cold bath and limbs bruised on the rough stones lying in the stream underneath. There was another log spanning the Flume, a little higher up the chasm, and at a very different altitude from terra firnia — hanging, in fact, like a stout black fence-rail, not less than eighty or an hundred feet in the air. Encircled by tho eternal dampness rising out of the Flume, it could not be otherwise than slimy and slippery ; and only a moment before the nameless Blossom tempted the log below, some of tho company had looked up and remarked with a shudder that a firm foot and cool head would b^ necessary for the man who should tread over that frail bridge with its crumbling bark. As if the two had some mysterious connection, the moment after Blossom's misadventure, some one heard voices in that direction and looked up again. Two figures stood upon the brink, and not so far away but that at least sorae of the group below recognized them as " H. T." and Halstead Rowan, who had left the rest as they abandoned the wagons and commenced ascending the gorge. Among those w4io' looked up was Margaret Hayley, and her eyes were among those that recognized the two figures. What those people were to her, or why she said " Look !" in a quick and even agitated voice, probably the young girl could have told quite as little as either writer or reader ; but such was the fact, and the motion of her eyes at the moment, accompanied by the word, drew the regards of both Captain Hector Coles and Mrs. Burton Hayley, w^ho stood beside her at the bottom of the Flume. They, too, with the others, THE COWARD. 275 hoiird the words and saw tlie action that immediately fol- lowed. Ilalstead llowan hud one foot thrust forward on the log, his other on the firm ground behind. " II. T." stood on the rock beside him, making no motion to cross. There was evi- dently a banter between them, and though they were probably not aware of the fact, their words were readily distinguish- able beneath. '* None of my business, I suppose ; but it is folly !" they heard spoken by the voice of " H. T." " I suppose that every thing is folly which goes out of the hum-drum track of every-day life !" they heard Rowan reply. "But I like folly, and so here goes ! AVill you follow me ?" " Without wanting to go over ? — no I" was the answer. The words had scarcely left his lips when llowan sprang forward on the log, stepping lightly, but balancing himself with some care, towards the other side. Insensibly all who saw him held their breath. If he should be correct enough in his balance, who could say that the log might not be a rotten shell, ready to fall under the heavy weight of the stout athlete ? In fact, he had scarcely reached the middle when the tottering fabric seemed to give way and come top})ling down into the chasm below. Not in reality ; for had it done so, the career of the Illinoisan, with whom we have by no means finished, would have been ended for all time. The startling appearance was created by the dislodging of a large shell of the rotten bark by his. foot, more than half costing him his balance, and bringing out from the group beneath a chorus of cries that might well have disturbed what remained of equilibrium. One cry sounded sharper and higher than all the rest: there were those present who knew from whose lips it came : enough for us to say that it did not come from those of Margaret Hayley, whose eyes were still turned up- ward with a feeling in them very different from fear. Before the cry had fairly died away, the peril, whatever it might have been, was past, and Halstead Rowan stood on the other 276 THE COWAKD. side of the cbasm, bowing to the grroup wlio had been ob- serving him, as he learned from the cries, at the bottom. The\' saw " H. T." turn and walk awa}^ at the same moment ; and then, drawing a long breath, Margaret Hayley said, much more to herself than to her immediate companions : "What a thing beyond all admiration is that courage !" " AYhich our other friend does not seem to be troubled with in any great degree !" said Captain Hector Coles, finishing out the sentence with a tone perceptibly sneering. Margaret looked round at him with a look which might have been one of inquiry, then turned awayher face again and said : " No, I suppose not ! Not more than half the world can be demigods : the others must be common people, or worse I" Whether Captain Hector Coles liked the tone of the replv, or not, is uncertain. At all events he scowled a little and said nothing more, while Mrs. Burton Hayley stole a look into' the face of her daughter which had no hypocrisy in it and was full of wonder and trouble. Five minutes afterwards the company were all again at the mouth of the Flume, and there Halstead Rowan, a second time the hero of the day, joined them. " H. T." did not make his appearance : he had struck across, the Illinoisan said, with- out waiting for him, over the almost impassable fallen timber and through the spruce thickets, by the cross-path to the Pool. A few minutes more sufficed to re-seat the group in their wagons and to deposit them once more at the door of the Flume House, whence they took their way on foot, strag- gling in every picturesque variety of locomotion towards that equally-curious pendant of the Flume which is often missed by those who visit the better-known wonder. The Pool lay all alone, uniil this somewhat numerous com- pany came to disturb its solitude. A singular object indeed — an exaggeration of all the other mountain amphitheatre fountains, nearly round, a score or more of yards in diameter, with the toe of the horse-shoe scooped out of a solid rock thirty or forty feet in height, smoothed and rounded as if cut THE COWARD. 277 by human hands, a bright, clear stream dashing down at that point, the rocks further away from the toe rising broken and jagged to the height of perhaps an hundred feet, and the mode of approach of the passengers a jagged line of ricketty steps, terribly perpendicular, sloping down from that highest point and presenting no temptations to the decrepit or the nervous. At the bottom of this singular basin the water, bright and clear in the few places where it ran shallow over the bleached stones, but under the shadow of the ledge so deep as to seem black as midnight. , " Nobody here ! — it doesn't seem like old times !" said an elderly gentleman who had visited the Pool many times in other days, — as the ladies were with some difficulty assisted down the steps. " No boatman, and not even a boat I Where is Charon, I wonder ?" " Oh, yes, where is Merrill ?" asked another. '' The man with the leaky scow and the white muslin awning, who al- ways charged a York shilling for ferrying people over to the Elysian Fields lying among the rocks and logs yonder." "I remember, once," said the old gentleman, " that while his lieutenant paddled us around under the spray of the fall yonder, and over to the steps which used to hang from the rocks there on the opposite side, Merrill read us an autograph letter from Queen Victoria, dated in the kitchen at Buckingham Palace while the august lady said that she was rolling apple- dumplings, — and also gave us a lecture on geography, in which he proved that this spot was the very centre of the earth, from which all latitude and longitude ought to be cal- culated." " Well, he was right in some degree," said Halstead Rowan, who stood near, and who fixed his regards at the same moment on Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame, still looking after the welfare of that interesting child. There was not even the suspicion of a smile upon his face as he went on, and there certainly was not upon the face of the lady for whose benefit the discourse was evidentl}' intended. " I do 278 THE COWARD. not know about the latitude and longitude, but this Pool ig certainly the centre of the earth and exactly opposite to Cliina, so that a plummet, with o. line long enough, dropped here, would be certain to come out somewhere on the shores of the Hoangho or the Kiangku." " Nonsense 1" said one grave lady (not Mrs. Brooks Cun- ninghame) who did not appreciate the joke. " Not a bit of it, madajue !" said the scamp, who thereupon turned his battery at once in her direction. " There is no doubt whatever of the truth of the statement, for I have been here myself when the defunc* pig-tailed Chinamen came pop- ping up, who had committed suicide by drowning themselves on the other side of the world, on account of the cruelty of a copper-colored divinity with almond eyes and feet the size and shape of the last dumpling in the pot, or a trifling defi- ciency in the rat-crop or the dog-census." ** Impudence !" muttered that lady, who seemed to regard thre " whopper" as a personal insult ; but the majority of the company appeared to view the affair in a very different light and to be rather pleased than otherwise with the go-ahead fellow who could walk over verbal and physical bridges with the same charming recklessness. It may be anticipating to say that there was one among them, whose face had paled when he trod the log over the Flume, and who could not even laugh at the light words which she otherwise enjoyed, — so much deep and new and strange feeling lay at the bottom of the interest. And it may not be anticipating, in the minds of any who have perused the late foregoing pages with due attention, to say that that silent, thoughtful, observing one was Clara Yanderlyn, between whom and the Illinoisan there yawned a gulf of circumstance and position so wide and deep that no one but a madman (or what is madder still — a mad ivoman) could possibly have dreamed of stepping over it. THE COWARU. 279 CHAPTER XIV. A DisASTm TO Master Brooks Buooes Ctjnninqhamk- EXIT INTO THE BOTTOM OF THE P00t_ NOBOI.Y THAT CO.LB SVVIM, A.I, MAKOARET Ha.LEV ,N ExOTEMENT- " H T " IN HIS ELEMENT, IN TWO SENSES— ANOTHER InTRO- :,UCTION AND A NEW HeRO-ScENES ,N THE PROFILE PAR- MR-llOWAN AND ClAEA YaNDEELYN-THE InSULT. "BCT What has become of the crazy old philosopher.' asked the same elderly gentleman who had first Introduced the subject,_only a moment after Halstead Rowan had do- livered himself of his speculations concerning the centre of the earth, China and suicide, given at the close of the la=,t "^'-S'" answered Rowan, " I was asking Jennings about bim this morning, before we came away from the Profile^ Did you ever hear of the mode in which the two Irishmen conducted their little debate, which ended in a couple of broken heads ?" "I do not know!" laughed the old gentleman. .< Well thev debated phvsically-they held what they calh^d a little 'd'ishc^ssion wid sticks' ! Poor old Merrill got into a debate with the Sheriff of Coos County, last spring a year Jennings tells me, and he carried it on with an a.r. nearly killing the official. The result of all which was that he was lng<^ed oif to jail at Wells River and the Pool '^ bereaved. ^. Sorrv that his boat is not here, at least," said the old gen- tleman. '"We have just a nice party for circumnavigating the Pool : and I do not know that even the letter from Queen Victoria and the lecture would be so much of a bore, now that thei-e is no danger of them." . " Couldn't manage to get up a boat, unless we >n\P™^'^*'^ one out of a los," said the lUinoisan, " and that would be a lit- tle unstable, I>ancy. And by the way, I think I never saw 280 THE COWARD. a place more daDgerous-looking for a sudden tumble than that deep black pool, or one more difficult to get out of than it would prove without something afloat to depend upon. So we must give it up — the glory of the Pool has departed ! Sic transit gloria big hole in the woods !" At that moment, and when the attention of the whole com- pany had been drawn to the peculiar depth and quality of the Pool by the last observations — an event took place which may or may not have been paralleled in the earlier history of that peculiar wonder of nature. Sambo, of those days when the negro only half ruled the great Western republic instead of ruling it altogether, — related a story about a 'coon hunt of his, in which an episode occurred at about the time when be had climbed out upon an extending limb that was supposed to haye the 'coon at the end. "Just then," said Sambo, graphically — "just then I heard sumfin drap, and come to look, 'twas disyer nigger I" The party of visitors at the Pool heard " sumfin drap" about as suddenly and unex- pectedly ; and w^hen they had time to look around them, they discovered that one of their number was missing — not a very valuable member of the combination, but still one that was supposed to have the usual immortal soul and antipathy to sudden death. There never was a troublesome boy of an age correspond- ing to that of Master Brooks Brooks Cunninghame, who did not have the propensity for climbing developed in exact pro- portion to the incapacity for climbing at all ; and Master Brooks Brooks had not done half mischief enough that morn- ing to be content without making another effort. As the party climbed down to the Pool, some of the members had spoken of the clearness of the water and the coolness which it was said to possess even in the heat of midsummer ; and one of the ladies had extracted from her reticule one of those telescopic ring driuking-cups of Britannia which are found so convenient in touring or camping-out. Captain Hector Coles had volunteered to play Ganymede to the rest of the com- THE COWARD. 281 pany, and stepping down to the edge of tlic Tool, balanced himself witli one foot on a projecting stone, stooped down and dipped up some of the sparkling coolness, which was thereupon passed around from hand to hand and from lip to lip. That done, Master Brooks Brooks had been allowed to possess himself of the cup, very much to the disgust of the owner, but inevitably — and to make various demonstrations with it, around the verge of the water. For a moment every one had lost sight of him— his careful mother included ; and during that moment he had climbed round to the western side of the Pool, on the high rocks, where he stood brandishing the cup in a series of motions which varied between mischief and idiocy. Then and there an accident, not uncommon to persons who climb to high places and are not careful of their footing there, had happened to the young scion of the baronial house of Cunninghame, who, losing balance in one of his gyrations, tumbled down some twenty or thirty feet of rock and went splash ! into the Pool, just where the waters seemed deepest, darkest and most unfathomable ! Exit from view Master Brooks Brooks Cunninghame, with a fair prospect, to all appearance, that he would carry out the laughable theory of Halstead Rowan, and if he ever again came to light at all, do so in a drowned condition at the an- tipodes. Droll enough, in a certain sense, but by no means droll in another, for that he would be drowned, even in that insignificant little puddle of w^ater, was almost beyond doubt, and there were supposed to be maternal feelings even be- neath the ridiculous finery of Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame ! All heard the cry of fright that he gave in falling, and the splash as he struck the water ; and at least a part of the com- pany not only saw him disappear beneath the surface, but caught glimpses of him as he went on down — down — down towards the bottom with the unerring steadiness of a stone. They saw him sink, but they did not see him rise again — not even in the time which should have secured that result. Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame uttered a scream when she saw 282 THE C O W A K D . the boy strike the water, then yelled out: "Patsey ! oh, my poor Patsey !" an exclamation entirely enigmatical as refer- ring to a person bearing no such name, — then finally fell back into the arms of one of the old gentlemen in such a way as seriously to threaten his tumbling in after the boy, and with- out the least necessity for shamming nervousness to ape the *' quality." She had indubitably fainted. The situation was a peculiar one. Scarcely twenty seconds had elapsed since the boy's fall, but an hour seemed to have passed. He did not rise. It was likely that he must have been killed in the fall or struck a rock below and crushed his poor little head. Still other seconds, growing to more than a minute, and he did not rise. It was beyond doubt that he would never rise again, alive. And what could be done to save him ? Nothing — literally nothing, as it appeared. All the party were ladies, except five men — Captain Hector Coles, Halstead Rowan and three others, all the latter white-haired and past the day for heroic exposure. Halstead Rowan had his wounded hand wrapped in a heavy bandage which would have disabled him in the water as thoroughly as if he had lost the limb at the elbow. For either of the old men to plunge into the Pool would have been suicide. Margaret Hayley stood beside Captain Hector Coles, the only young and unwounded man, when the accident occurred ; and after one moment her eyes turned upon him with a glance that be too well understood. " I am ashamed to say it, but I cannot swim one stroke !" he replied to that glance of half appeal and half command. The glance — unreasonably enough, of course — expressed some- thing else the instant after. " Oh, shame ! — can nothing be done to save him ?" she cried with clasped hands and in a tone that manifested quite as much of the feeling of mortification as of anxiety. At that period nearly all the women present broke out into cries of terror, as if help could be brought to the helpless by the appealing voice. T 11 E CO VV A KL>. 283 " Good heavens, ladies, what is the matter ?" It was the voice of ''II. T." that spoke, and the man of the initials stood on the other side of the Pool, where he had emerged from his laborious walk over fallen trees and broken rocks from the Fhime. He had his hat in his hand and was wiping the perspiration from his hot brow. Margaret Hayley, more moved beyond herself than any of the others present (the poor mother had not yet recovered consciousness) was the first to answer; though she little tiiought that perhaps the destiny of a whole life was involved in the few words then to be spoken, '' Oh, sir, if you can swim, for heaven's sake try to save that boy ! He has fallen into the Pool, there — there — "and she pointed with her hand to the very depth of the dark water — " and he must be at the bottom !" " He in at the bottom, without doubt, if he has fallen in !" was the answer. " I saw him filling his pockets with bright stones, up at the Flume, and he has probably enough of them about him to keep him at the bottom till doomsday." Then, for the first time, the anxious watchers knew the reason why even in the death-struggle the body had not risen — the poor little fellow had been loading himself down with those tempt- ing, fatal stones, to make more certain the doom that was coming ! " Can you swim, sir ? I asked you if you could swim !" Margaret Hayley 's voice rung across the Pool, with no little impatient petulance blended with the evident anxiety ; and she seemed totally to forget, as people will forget on some occasions, that she had never been introduced to the man whom she interrogated so sharply. " I can swim !" was the answer and the only answer. With the word he threw off his coat and kicked off the con- venient Congress gaiters that enveloped his feet ; and in ten seconds more he had leaped high into the air and headlong into the dark waters at the spot indicated by the hand of Margaret. So sudden had been all this, that scarcely one 284: THE COWARD. realized, until he had disappeared, the whole peril he en- countered. " He will strike the stony bottom and kill himself !" said one of the elderly gentlemen. " Hot as he was, he will die with the chill, if he ever comes out !" said the second, who had medical warrant for knowing the probable consequences of such an act. Whereupon all began to realize that two deaths instead of one migiit be the probable event; and Margaret Hayley set her teeth hard and clasped her hands in the agonized thought that perhaps her words had driven him to the rash leap, and that he must be either that thing for which she had been so long looking, a man incarnately brave, — or willing to go out of his own nature at her command, after less than a single day's ac- quaintance — the latter feeling one not slow to awaken other and warmer companions in the bosom of a true woman ! After those words had been spoken, dead silence reigned except as broken by a sob of deadly anxiety from one of the ladies who could not control the fear that oppressed her. And how long that silence of oppressive anxiety lasted ! It might have been a moment — it might have been five years, for any capacity of measurement given to a single member of that waiting group scattered over the rocks. Only the whilome watcher by a sick bed which might be one of death, at the instant when the crisis of disease was reached and the next minute was to decide between a life of love and useful- ness and the drear silence of the grave — only the man who has lifted his faint signal of distress on a drifting wreck at sea, when a sail was in sight, the last crust eaten, and night and storm coming to end all, — only one or the other of these can realize the long agony of such moments and the eternity which can be compressed into the merest fraction of time ! They had perhaps waited sixty seconds after the disappear- ance of the would-be rescuer beneath the dark waters of the Pool, and already every one had given him up for lost, — ■ when a ripple agitated its surface, a white-sleeved arm came THE COWARD. 285 up, then a figure bearing anotlier. It battled wearily towardri the phoaler part of the Pool, touched bottom and struggled shoreward, dropped its burthen with one glance upon it, and then toppled over — both out of danger from the water, but both api)arently dead alike I In an instant all those above had rushed down to the mar- gin, and while some caught the drowned bo}^ and attempted to restore the life that seemed so hopelessly fled, others, and the medical man among them, devoted more than equal anxiety to the man who appeared to have paid so dearly for his heroism. He was senseless, but his pulse still beat — the doctor discovered so much ; and a fairer hand than that of the doctor sought the heart and found that the motion of that mysterious red current which bears the whole of life upon its bosom was not yet stilled forever. The hand was that of Margaret Hayley, who had drawn the head of the half- drowned man upon one knee while she kneeled on the bare stone with the other, and who seemed to feel that if that man died his blood would be upon her head and upon her soul I A dangerous position, Margaret Hayley, whether he lives or dies, for the w^oman who but yesterday dreamed that she kept her early love still undimmed in her heart, however the object of it might be clouded in shame and banished from her presence forever I Is that new ideal found already, and found in a man so wrapped in mystery that his very name has never yet been spoken in your presence ? ■ Fie ! fie ! if this is the eternity of love, about which lovers themselves have raved and poets worse raved in their behalf, any time these past five hundred years I There is no intention of mystifying this scene, or even of prolonging it. Whatever might have been the danger, that danger was past, and the shadow of death did not loom ghastly out of it. The vigorous shaking, rolling and rubbing to which the inanimate Master Brooks Brooks Cunninghame was exposed, under hands which proved themselves expert in that operation if in no other, soon restored the breath to his nostrils, 286 THE COWARD. though it left him a limp rag: to be taken up in arms and carried away by his now recovered and half-addled mother. There was a sharp cut upon his head, and the blood flowed freely, but the wound had no depth or danger. The insen.si- bility which had fallen upon his preserver, induced much more as was believed by the sudden chill of that ice-cold water acting upon a heated system, than even by his long exertion in recovering the little fellow's body from the bottom of the pool— this soon gave way beneath the continued rubbing bestowed upon wrists and temples, and the warmth induced by the wrapping of all the shawls and mantles in the company about his shoulders and feet. He moaned once, only a few minutes after the efforts for his resuscitation had been commenced, and a moment or two later opened his eyes and saw what face bent over him most closely. Something ehe than the chafing and the unaccustomed robes then sent blood to cheek and brow ; and with a strength which no one had believed him to possess he sprang to his feet, to sink down again the moment after into a sitting posture but un- supported. In that position he for the first time appeared to glance round upon the company and to recognize the whole situation. Especially his eye fell upon Captain Hector Coles, who stood at a little distance, his arms folded and nothing in his appearance indicating that he had taken any part in the labors of resHiscitation, while his face looked undeniably saturnine and ill-humored. Had the mere fact that the head of a half-drowned man lay for a few moments on the knees of a lady supposed to be under his peculiar protection, so much moved the gallant warrior of the Union army, or was something more decided lying at the bottom of his obser- vance ? Perhaps words already spoken during the late progress of this narration may have indicated the state of feeling in the breast of the captain : if not, future develop- ments will have the duty of making plain all that may be yet doubtful in that regard. At all events, something in THE COWARD. 287 that man's face gave to the brown cheeks of " H. T." a warmer color than they had before attained, and to his frame a strength which sent him once more to his feet, throwing off the shawls and mantles which enveloped him, and stand- ing bare-foot and in his shirt-sleeves, his hair yet plastered and dripping, his garments yet clinging to his person, the most unpicturesque of figures, and yet one of the noblest possible to employ the artist's pencil — a man fresh from one of the great perils of disinterested benevolence. Certainly Margaret Hayley saw nothing antagonistic to romance in that tall, erect figure, half-draped though it was and shivering yet with cold and weakness. It is not im- possible that the dusky brown of the face glowed with some- thing of a sacred light, to her eyes — a subject for her waiting hero-worship, after that sad feeling of an opposite character which it had so lately been her duty to manifest. Nothing else than such an estimation could well explain, in a woman of her overweening pride, movements which took place im- mediately after, and which bore their fruit, at no distant day, in placing her in a position of such terrible conflict wnth herself that no calamity occurring beneath the waters of the Pool but might have been reckoned a mercy in comparison. Halstead Rowan, too sure of his admiration of the conduct of his new friend to be in a hurry about expressing it, had done what his wounded. hand did not prevent his doing, by springing across the stream below and bringing the discarded shoes and coat from the rock where they lay. All the rest, except poor Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame, yet busy with her partially resuscitated boy, crowded round the new hero of the hour to offer their thanks and congratulations ; but it was Margaret Hayley who took him by the hand as he stood, unmindful of the scowd of Captain Hector Coles that gloomed upon her, and said : " I do not know, sir, by what name to thank you — " "I believe I am right in calling you' Miss Hayley," wa.3 the answer, in a voice as yet somewhat weak and tremulous. 288 T H K cow A It D. "My own Dame is Horace TowDsend, and my business is that of a lawyer at — at Cincinnati." So we, like those of the company who had noticed the initials without taking the trouble to possess themselves of the whole name by the arrival-book at the office, have the blanks filled at last, and may discard the use of the two mysterious letters. " I was only half intentionally the means, Mr. Townsend," the young girl went on, " of plunging you into a situation of danger without the least right to do so ; and yet I do not know that I can be sorry for the liberty I have taken, as it may have been the cause of saving a life that would otherwise have been lost, and of my witnessing an act of disinterested generosity which I can never forget, or forget to honor, w^hile I live." "You do me altogether too much honor," was the reply, in a somewhat steadier voice, " I have really done nothing, except to make an exhibition of myself by my weakness. There was no danger to me in the water, for I am a good swimmer and ought to be able to dive well ; but I suppose that I stayed too long under, for I could not find the little fellow at once, and the chill of the water no doubt affected me, after getting warm in climbing over those logs. That is all, and I really hope you will all forget that the unpleasant afi'air has occurred, as I shall certainly do after I have found a suit of dry clothes." He spoke pleasantly, but with nothing of the rattling gayety which seemed to characterize his rival of the day — the hero of the bear-stakes ; and once again while he was speaking, Margaret Hayley seemed strangely moved and partially shud- dered at something in the tones of the voice. As he finished, he bowed and turned away, as if quite enough had been said, and the lady also moved away a step or two and rejoined her escort. Halstead Rowan came up with the coat and shoes, and as he dropped them on the rock at the feet of Townseiid grasped his hand with his own unwounded one, with a pressure so warm and manly that it told volumes of respect and regard. "/ am nowhere !" he said. " I dared you over that log ; T U £ COWARD. -^y but you have gone where I should uot like to follow, aud douo it for something, while mine was merely a prank. And by the way—" they were at that moment a little apart from the others, and Rowan spoke low—" do you know where your head lay when you came to ?" • " Hush ! for heaven's sake, hush I" said Townsend, quickly and with something in his face that made the other pause in- stantly. The conversation, at that point, was not renewed there and then. A portion of the company had by that time commenced ascending the steps, carrying the abated boy-nuisance and accompanying his mother. Townsend managed to draw on the discarded shoes over his wet stockings, put on his coat and accompanied the rear-guard with very slight assistance, enjoying a continued walking-bath, but no doubt consoled for any discomfort by the reflection that he had been w^herc few men had ever plunged and come out alive,— and perhaps yet more moved by some other reflections of a much more mixed character. -r, /-i An hour later, the whole party had reached the Proh.o House once more, and Horace Townsend, as he named him- self and as we must continue to name him in deference to his own statement, was the happy possessor of a dry suit, a slight headache and an eventual nap which left him fresh as if ho had bathed in the Pool as a hygienic measure. Master Brooks Brooks Cunninghame needed longer renovating, but he camo round during the afternoon, with the fatal facility of those who are of no use in the world, and was quite ready for supper. And what a buzzing there was about the Profile ail the afternoon, while those who had witnessed the affair at the Pool detailed it, with additions, to those who had remained at the house, and those who had not caught the name or address of the stranger ran to the book to satisfy themselves, and speculations as to his married or single state were indulged in and the Cincinnati lawyer underwent, without his being thoroughly aware of the fact, all the mental manipulations 18 290 THE COWARD. and verbal remouldings incideDtal to any one who treads out of the common path, whether creditably or discreditably, among the half idle and more than half ennuyee habitues of a watering place. One or two additional peeps at events of that afternoon must be taken, before passing on to those of the evening, which were to prove quite as momentous in some regards. Peep the Jirst. Margaret Hayley kept her chamber all the afternoon, pleading headache and fatigue, while Mrs. Burton Hayley and Captain Hector Coles " did" Echo Lake and talked very confidentially. A large part of that time the young girl lay on her bed, her eyes closed but by no means sleeping — thinking, thinking, thinking, until her brain seemed to be in a whirl and all the world unreal. Peep the second. At a certain hour in the afternoon, un- known then to the other members of the Yanderljn family but too well known to them afterwards, as the sequel proved, Halstead Rowan, rapidly improving if not indeed presuming upon his acquaintance of the morning, enticed Clara Tanderlyn away to the ten-pin alley and inducted her into the art and mystery of knocking down bilstead pins with a lignum vitfe ball, apparently to the satisfaction of that young lady, who should certainly have held herself above such an amusement of the athletic canaille. If the lady, with two hands, beat her instructor with one, he was no more than justly punished. Peep the third. Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame, walking through one of the corridors, heard two young ladies, accom- panied by a gentleman, say : " Patsey ! oh, my poor Patsey !'* in such dolorous tones and with what seemed so meaning a look towards her, as tended to recall an unfortunate exclama- tion at the Pool very forcibly to her recollection, and to put her into a frame of mind the exact reverse of felicitous. This was not improved by the discovery that Mr. Brooks Cunning- hame had fallen into the company of certain stage-drivers, at the bar, and had imbibed whiskey with them to an extent which rounded his brogue but did not assure the steadiness THE COWARD. 291 of his perpendicular or add to the respectability of his gen- eral demeanor. And now to the event of the evening, which seemed emi- nently fit to close a day so full of adventure that the move- ments of a dozen ordinary days might have been compressed into it. Most of this, from reasons which will eventually de- velop themselves, is to be seen through the eyes of one who has been before called "the observer." When Horace Townsend came out late from supper that evening, after a meal at which the succulent steaks, the flaky tea-biscuit and the sweet little mountain strawberries had not been quite so fully enjoyed as they might have been with a little additional company at table, — harp, horn and violin were again sounding in the long parlors, as tliey had been the evening before, and much more attention was being paid to them than whea the full moon was their momentary rival. Perhaps not less than half the beauty, grace and gallantry then assembled at the Profile, were gathered under the flash- ing lights, dancing, promenading, flirting, and generally float- ing down the pleasant stream of moderate watering-place dissipation. The Russian ''Redowa" was sounding from brass and string as he entered the long parlor from the hall ; and among the figures sweeping proudly by to that most voluptuous of measures, he instantly recognized two whose identity could not indeed have been very well mistaken under any circumstances. The larger and coarser figure wore on one of its hands a glove several sizes too large — one, indeed, that might have been constructed by some glove-maker of the Titan period : Halstead Rowan was whirling Clara Tander- lyn lazily around in the dance. The strange introduction of the morning, then, had already produced its effect, and the possible romance to be built out of that rescue was coming on quite as rapidly as even a sen- sation novelist could have anticipated. Horace Townsend, whose eyes seemed to be v/andering in search of some face or figure which did not fall under their view, but who had 292 TUE COWARD. been gazing with undisguised admiration, for some hours tho previous day, on those of this very Clara Yanderlyn — Horace Townsend thought, as he saw the manly arm of Rowan span- ning the pliant white-robed waist of his partner, that seldom could the old illustration of the rugged oak and the clinging ivy be better supplied, — and that if fate and fortune had set, as they too evidently seemed to have done, an eternal bar between the two, they had predestined to remain apart one couple whom the fitness of nature would certainly have joined. His frank, hearty, manly energy, deficient in some of tho finer cultures and at times approaching to roughness, and her gentle, womanly tenderness, with almost too much of delicate refinement, seemed mentally to blend in the thought of the future and of the children likely to spring from such a union, as physically stood in relief and pleasing contrast the close- curled dark hair and the shower of waving gold. Passing still further down the room, either in that quest which has before been hinted at, or in the search for a vacant scat among the male and female wall-flowers, Townsend came upon the mother of the young lad}^ Mrs. Vanderlyn was standing beside a centre-table, under one of the chandeliers, an illustrated book in her hand, and apparently absorbed in the contemplation of some of the engravings after Landseer and Corbould. But books have been known, many times in the history of the world, to be used for the same purpose as fans or fire-screens, (or even spectacles, for that matter), and looked over ; and the lawyer felt a sudden curiosity awakened to examine the eyes, especially as the lady was standing in such a position as to command the dancers. He was not at all disappointed in the surmise which he seemed to have formed. The haughty matron had no eyes for her book, but really had her gaze fixed, with a close pres- sure of the eye-balls against the brows, on her daughter and Halstead Kowan. And no one who had only seen it under more favorable circumstances, would have believed it possible tljat a faco of ?;ich matronlv comeliness could be brought to THE COWARD. 293 look so harshly — even vindictively. The eyes were literally fierce ; and the mouth was set with a firm, hard expression which brought the full lower lip perceptibly over the upper. Suddenly the observer saw the features relax and the whole expression change. He turned instantly and half involun- tarily, and saw that a substitution had taken place in partners. Without quiv^ting the floor, Miss Yanderlyn had accepted the proffered hand of a 3'oung Boston exquisite who was already rumored around the Notch to be the heir of a paternal half million, — and was whirling away in another polka. Kowan was ^one. A second glance showed that he had not left the room, but that he stood far back in one of the corners, alone und silent, and his eyes, heedless of the amount of observation which their glance might excite, fixed in profound admiration on the beautiful girl whom he had just quitted. Then the expression of his face seemed for the moment to change, and the same emotions might have been read there that had startled at least one of the spectators the evening before at the piazza — the same emotions of contending pride and abase- ment, hope and fear, but intensified now so that there could be no mistaking their import. At that stage Horace Townsend left the room, perhaps to pursue the personal search which had so far proved unavail- ing. He, who had himself been originally observing tho j^oung girl with such admiration, saw, or thought that he saw, the materials for a very pretty if not a very painful romance, in which the two would form the chief dramatis personas. Two or three conditions, he thought, were already evolved : an unmistakable mutual interest — observation and dislike on the part of the aristocratic mother — to be followed by eventual discovery on tho part of the weaker and yet more aristocratic brother — an unpleasant eclair ciHsement — coolness born of the very warmth underlying — a parting in pleasant dissatisfacMon with themselves and each other — and perhaps a shadow of blended sweet and painful memory over the whole of two after lives ! 294 THE cow A ED. Then the lawyer passed out to the piazza and paced with measured step up and down that promenade and the plateau in front, for perhaps more than half an hour. He might have been entirely absorbed in the contemplation of the possible fortunes of Chicago and Baltimore; and he might have found matter for thought much more personal to himself. At all events the starlight and the coming moon seemed to be com- pany which he failed to find elsewhere ; and even the dusky shadows of the bears, deserted by their friends of the sun- shine and walking their weary rounds like sentinels, possibly supplied something denied him by humanity. His step was that of a man restless, absorbed and ill at case; his head had fallen forward on his breast ; and once, when he was so far away from the loiterers on the piazza that no ear was likely to catch his words, he muttered something that could scarcely have found an application to the persons of the drama in the parlor. That murmur ran : " I suppose this is the most dishonorable action in my life — planning to betray confidence and take an unfair advan- tage. Why did he tell me so much before he went to Europe ? Pshaw 1" and he put his hand to his brow and walked on for a moment in silence. " I will not go back — I will try the experiment — I will win that woman, if I can, under this very name, now that I begin to understand her weakness so well. And if I do — heavens, in what a situation shall I have placed her and myself ! And will she ever forgive the deception ? Xo matter ! — let the future take care of itself." Either the stars grew less companionable, then, at the thought that some strange deceit was being wrought beneath them, or the soliloquist felt that there yet remained something worth looking after within the parlor, for he looked up at one of the windows of the second story, said : " Ah, no light there, at last !" stepped back to the piazza and once more entered the house and the dancing-room. The music was still sounding as merrily as ever, and as he re-entered the room a new set was forming. In the very THK COWARD. 295 midst of those who were preparing to join it, full under the blaze of the central chandelier, stood Clara Yanderlyn. She was for the moment motionless, and he had better opportunity than before of scanning her really radiant loveliness. She wore a simple evening-dress of white, with a single wild-flower wreathed in her bright auburn hair and a single jewel of value set like a star at the apex of the forehead, confined by a delicate and almost unseen chain of gold which encircled her head. Frank Yanderlyn, in full evening-dress, was stand- ing a few feet off, in conversation with some young men with w^hom he had already formed an acquaintance, and did not seem to be preparing to join the set. A hurried glance around the room did not show that either Mrs. Yanderlyn or Halstead Rowan w^as present. The band struck up a schottische, and all began to take partners. At this moment Mrs. Yanderlyn came through the door-way from the hall, sweeping in with more of that pro- nounced haughtiness which seemed indexed by her face and carriage, than any of the visitors at the Profile had before seen her exhibit, and creating a kind of impression upon those near whom she passed, that they were suddenly taken under proprietorship. She swept very near the lawyer as he stood at the left of the door- way, and passing down the room touched her son on the arm. And the lawyer could not, if he would (which seemed not over probable) have avoided hearing the single word that she uttered, almost in Frank's ear, and in a low, concentrated tone : " Remember !" Frank Yanderlyn nodded, with a supercilious smile upon his face, as though he understood the direction; and the stately mother swept down the room and partially disap- peared among the crowd of quiet people below. Clara Yanderlyn stood for the moment alone, as the band struck up. Whether she had received and declined invita- tions to dance, or whether no one had found the temerity to offer himself with the chance of refusal, seemed doubtful, for 29G THE COWARD. bho certainly appeared to have no partner. Cut as the first couple moved forward to take their places, a tall form dark- ened the doorway for an instant, and Ilalstead Rowan wa-» again at the fair girl's side, his face literally radiant with pride and triumph. There was no word spoken at that mo- Tnent, and it would seem that there must have been somo previous understanding between them, for her hand was instantly placed v/ithin his arm when he offered it, and her face reflected his own with a look of gratification that any close observer could not well avoid noticing. Both had taken a step forward lo join the set, when an in- terruption took place of so painful a character as at once to call the attention of every one within hearing ; and Horace Townsend, standing very near, had a sudden opportunity to compare the reality with his unspoken foreboding of half an hour before. Frank Vanderlyn suddenly left the group with whom he had been conversing but a few feet away, stepped up to his sister, and before either she or Rowan could have been aware of his intention, drew her hand away from the arm of her escort, and somewhat rudely placed it within his own, with a bold glance at Rowan and the words : " Miss Clara Yanderlyn, if you wish to dance, your family would prefer that you should select a different partner from the first low-bred nobody who happens to fall in your way — a good enough ten-pin-alley companion, perhaps, but not quite the thing in a ball-room !" "Oh, brother!" The face of the poor girl, so foully outraged, first flushed, then whitened, and she seemed on the point of sinking to the floor with the shame of such a public insult and exposure. She might indeed have done so, under the first shock, had not the arm of Frank supported her. The next instant it was evident that all the pride of the Yanderlyns had not been ex- hausted before her birth, for she jerked away her arm from its compulsory refuge, and stood erect and angry — all the woman fully aroused. Her glance of withering contempt and scorn, THE COWARD. 207 then directed at the ill-mannered stripling who called himself her brother, was such a terrible contrast to the sweet and al- most infantile smile which rested on her face in happier moments, that it would have been no difficult matter to doubt her identity. As for Halstead Rowan — at the moment when the cruel act was done and the insulting words were spoken, he turned instantl}^ upon the intruder, evidently failing to recognize him in the sudden blindness of his rage. His right hand, though the injured one, clenched as it might have done under the shock of an electric battery, and Townsend savr him jerk it to the level of Iiis shoulder as if he would have struck a blow certain to cause regret for a lifetime. But he had no occasion to interpose, for the outraged girFs " Oh, brother !" came just in time to prevent the commission of the intended violence. Instantly his hand dropped ; Clara Yanderlyn's expression of angry contempt, easily read under the full glare of the chandelier, chased the fierce rage from his face if it did not root out the bitterness from his heart ; he bowed low to the sister, cast a glance upon the brother w^hich he did not seem likely soon to forget ; and in another moment, passing rapidly between the few who surrounded the door-way, he touched Horace Townsend forcibly upon the arm, nodded to him with a gesture which the latter readily understood as a re- quest to follow, and the two passed out from the parlor, the hall and the house. It is not easy to describe the scene in the parlor which followed the denouement that has been so feebly pictured. The music sounded on, but the set remained unformed and no one seemed to heed it. The room was instantly full of con- versation in regard to the strange event, more or less loud in its tone. Frank Yanderlyn, calculating upon the sympathies of a company principally composed of wealthy and fashiona- ble people, looked around him as if for approbation of what he had done, but did not appear to receive it. It was not difficult for him to read in the faces near him that the sym- 298 THE COWARD. pathies of the whole company were with the insulted person, most of the members of it, if they had no other reason for the feeling, remembering the event of the bear-steaks in the morning and thinking that if the Illinoisan was to receive any thing from the Yanderlyn family that day, it should have been gratitude instead of insult. Made painfully aware of this state of feeling, the young man paled, bit his lips, then passed rapidly out of the room and disappeared, leaving his sister still in the attitude of outraged sensibility and mortification, which she retained, uttering no word to any one and not even casting a glance around the room, until Mrs. Yanderlyn, who had apparently constituted herself the reserve force for the attack upon her daughter's dignity which Frank had so gal- lantly led, swept up from below and led her unresistingly away up the stair-case to their apartments. The set was finally formed, and a few more figures were danced in the parlor of the Profile that evening ; but the pain- ful incident just recorded had dulled the sense of enjoyment, and the company thinned out and eventually dispersed to earlier beds than they might have found under other circum- stances. CHAPTER XY. HoTT Halstead Rowan arranged that expected Duel — Ten-pins versus Bloodshed — Some anxiety about IDENTITY — The " H. T." initials, again — A farewell to the Brooks Cunninghames — An hour on Echo Lake, WITH A rhapsody AND A STRANGELY-INTERESTED LISTENER. This chapter must be unavoidably as fragmentary, not to say desultory, as some that have preceded it at considerable distance, the course of events in it seeming to partake in some THE CO W A R D . 299 degree of the broken, heaped and heterogeneous quality of the mountain rocks amidst which they occurred. It has been seen that Halstead Rowan, quitting the room in which he had met with so severe a mortification, touched Horace TowQsend on the arm and made him a signal to follow, and that the. latter obeyed the call. Of course this obedience was a matter of courtesy that could not well be refused, and yet it was accorded with a feeling so painful that it would scarcely have been asked had the torture been foreseen. Rowan, as the lawyer knew, had been insulted before a com- pany of mark and numbers, in so deadly a manner that more than usual forbearance would be necessary to forgive the out- rage ; and the insulted man belonged, as the lawyer also knew, to a class of Western men not much more prone than those of the South and Southwest, to smother down a wrong under good-feeling or expediency. He had refrained from striking the insulter on the spot ; but that forbearance might have been merely the effect of a recollection that ladies were present, and the one lady of all among them ; and Horace Townsend no more doubted, during the moment that elapsed wiiile the two young men stepped into the reception-room and secured their hats from the table, that he was being called upon in the sacred name of friendship to act in an affair that would probably cost the life of one or both the antagonists, than he questioned the fact of his own existence. It is doubtful whether he did not believe, before the affair was concluded, that so strange a task had never been set for his friend, by any man incensed to the necessity of mortal combat, since the day when duelling proper had its origin in two naked savages going out behind their huts with knives and a third to look on, for the love of a dusky she-heathen with oblique eyes — down through all the ages, when Sir Grostete set lance in rest and met Sir Maindefer in full career, over a little question of precedence at the table of King Grand pillard ; when Champfleury and St. Esprit, beaux of the Regency of Orleans, with keen rapiers sliced up each other like cucuin- 800 THE COWAKD. bcrs, bctwcon two bows and a dozen of grimaces, because one did not appreciate the perfume used bj the other ; until Fighting Joe of Arkansas and Long Alick of St. Louis cul- minated the whole art of single combat by a little encounter with rifles, followed by a closer embrace with bowics, at one of the Mississippi landings, instigated by the unequal division of the smiles of Belle Logan, of Western Row, Cincinnati. All which means, if the reader has not entirely lost the con- text, that the course pursued by Halstead Rowan, as a com- batant, was eventually found to be something out of the com- mon order. "You saw that, of course — I know that you did!" said rather than inquired Rowan, when they had reached the piazza and were out of hearing of any of the promenading groups. ''I did," answered Townsend, with some hesitation and a wish that he could deny the fact and thus escape the duties certain to be forced upon him. "Yes, I saw it all, and it was most disgraceful. But I hope — " That intended lecture was lost to the world, as so many others have been ; for Rowan interrupted him : "Are you poor ?" " 'No, I cannot say that I am, in money !" was the surprised reply. " Were you ever ?" " No — I must answer in the negative a second time. I have never been what the world calls poor, since I can re- member." " Then you do not know how it feels," said the Illinoisan. " I am poor — I have never been rich, and I do not know that I have ever really wished to be so until a few moments ago. I wanted to buy a puppy, so that I could tie a stone to his jiock and drown him ; but I felt that I had not money enough." Townsend, still surprised and in a good deal of doubt whither the conversation was tending, murmured something about the fact that however decided the insult of the brother had been, evidently the sister did not share in the feeling. T il E W A K D . 301 "She ? oh no, heaven bless her brown eyes !" he replied, rapidly and earnestly, while the other could see, in the light of the now fairly risen moon, that there was a strange sparkle in his own dark orbs. "As for the rest — well, heaven need not be particular about blessing them — that is all I But this gabble is not what I drew you out here for. I want you to do me a great favor, at once, and I ask you, because I seem to be better acquainted with you, after a very short time, than with any other person just now at the Notch." " XoW' it is coming — ^just what I dreaded !" said Townsend to himself; but he answered very differently, in a feeble attempt to stave off the trouble. " Than any other person ?" "Hold your tongue ! — you know what I mean !" was the reply. "Answer my question, yes or no — are you the man upon whom I can depend, to do me an immediate personal service that may involve some sacrifice of bodily comfort and perhaps of feeling ?" " I hope so — yes 1" answered Townsend. " But before you take any steps in this matter — " " Conditions already ?" asked Rowan. " I thought it was to be an unconditional yes or no !" " Well, it is 1" said Townsend, apparently satisfied that expostulation would after all be useless. "Enough said !" replied Rowan, catching him by the arm. "Come along with me to the alley, then, and roll me not less than five games of ten-pins." "But the business you wished me to do?" asked Town- send. " If it is to be done at all — " "Why, confound the man ! — what ails you ? That is the business !" " To roll you five games of ten-pins ?" "Exactly ! Why, what else should it be ? Oh, I see !'» and Rowan chuckled out a low laugh from his great throat. " I understand your tragic face, now. You thought that I wanted you as a friend, to — " 302 TUE COWARD. ■ ' "To challenge Frank Yanderlyn — precisely what I thought," said the lawyer, " and I consented to act because I thought that I might be better able than some other person to prevent any serious result." " To shoot her brother, merely because he is a fool ? — Oh, no, Townsend — you could not think that! Duelling is murder nearly always, and folly always when it is not a crime ; and if I should ever be driven into another duel, be sure that it would not be with an inexperienced boy who probably does not know half so much about a pistol as a pen-knife or a tooth-pick." " You are a true man, as well as a sensible one, and I honor you !" said the relieved lawyer, grasping him by the hand, and his face at the same time wearing a look, which, though unseen by the other, seemed actually to express per- sonal gratitude. " I do not know about the ' true man,' though I have tried to be so," answered Rowan, as they neared the door of the ten-pin alley. "But I suppose that perhaps I am the oddest mortal on the globe, and that may answer the same purpose. And now you are dying to know why I wish to roll ten-pin balls at this particular moment ? Simply because I need some way of working off this excitement that might lead me to commit a violent act if it did not find that very harmless physical vent. I have tried the experiment before, and I know what ten-pins are with a man of fiery temperan.iijt. Here, boy, set 'em up !" The alley was alone, except as to the sleepy boy ; but the loud call of the Illinoisan soon put the machiuery of the place into operation and the momentous games commenced. No matter how they progressed or how thjy ended in regard to winning or losing : it is only with some of the conversation which took place while the match was under way, that we have at present to do. " You are a law\-er and belong to Cincinnati, you said," THE COWARD. 603 observed Rowan, as ho paused a moment to wipe his brow after thundering down half a dozen of the ponderous globes. ** Yes, I said so," answered Townsend ; but he did not enlarge upon the answer, as he was obviously expected to do ; and one or two other questions, having the same scope, being parried at every point beyond the mere name, occupa- tion and place of residence, the Illinoisan began to suspect that there must be some motive for reticence, which he was at least bound to respect while he held the catechumen impressed in his own service. With reference to himself, a theme upon which the conversation seemed to turn very easily, (many of the stout, bluff, frank, go-ahead Rowans whom one meets in society have the same characteristic, fault or the reverse), — he manifested no corresponding nervousness ; and one mo- ment strangely silent as if under the influence of some thought which kept him too busy for speech, the next he would rattle on almost as glibly as the polished balls rolled down the pine floor. "You called yourself odd a little while ago, and I fancy that if you are odd you have the excuse of very wide expe- rience for a man of your age," said Townsend, a little later in the quintette of games, and certainly displaying a bit of the prying nature of the lawyer, if not the subtlety of the Jesuit, in the suggestion. " To tell you the truth, I (5annot quite place you in profession. A while ago I thought you possibly a steamboat-captain, but you have just upset that hypothesis by proving that you are nearly all the while on land ; and yet you seem to be perpetually flying about from one town to another. "What the deuce are you ?" " Oh, you cannot place me, eh ?" laughed Rowan, who was getting fairly s(5othed and mellowed by his creditable substi- tute for duelling. '' Well, I am a conductor on the Railroad, which you know has its terminus in Chicago, and I am off on a couple of months leave of absence from the Company. As to experience, I suppose that I may have had a little of it. I have been a civil-engineer, employed 304: THE COWARD. at laying out some of the worst roads m the West, and of course laying them out the \Yorst. Have crossed the plains to California twice, and back again, including a look at Brigham and his wives at Salt Lake City, very nearly getting my throat cut, I fancy, in that latter operation. Did a little at gold-mining, for a short time, but soon quitted it out of deference to a constitutional backache when stooping. Have been here at the East a good many times, and once lived in Xew York, (a great deal worse place than Salt Lake City, and with more polygamy !) for a twelvemonth, tele- graphing. Once ran down to Santa Fe with a train, and came very near to being speared by the Comanches. Then concluded to stay among those amiable savages for a while, to learn to ride, and spent six months in the study. Xo man knows how to ride a horse — by the way — except an Arab (I take the word of the travellers for that, as I have never been across), a Comanche or an Arapahoe, or some one they have taught. There, have I told you enough ?" " Humph ! — yes," answered the lawyer, eying the strange compound with unavoidable admiration and no little wonder. " Yes, except one thing." "And that is about this scar ?" "I confess that my curiosity lay in that direction !" laughed Towusend. " I think that scar has not been long healed — that you have been taking a turn in the present war." "Yes, a short one," said the Illinoisan, " and that scar is one mark of it. I was a private in the ranks of the Xinth Illinois for a few months last year, and got pretty badly slashed with a Mississippi bowie-knife, with Grant, two or three days before they took Fort Donelson. They took it — / did not — I suppose that I did not amount to^much at about that period, with a little hack in the jugular that came pretty near letting out life and blood together !" Before this conversation had concluded, and long before the specified five games were accomplished, half a dozen per- sons from the hotel, male and female, came strolling in. THE C W A K D . 305 Among them was Captain Hector Coles, with Margaret Haylcy upon bis arm. They stood at the head of the alley, looking at the game ; and Townsend, as he was about to make one of his most difficult rolls, recognized the lady and her slight nod and was sufficiently agitated by the presence of that peculiar spectator, to miss his aim entirely and roll the bail off into the gutter — a fact which did not escape the quick eye of the Captain. Directly, as the game still went on, some conversation oc- curred between the lady and her attendant, which, if over- heard, might have produced a still more decided trembling in the nerves of the ten-pin player. *'I know that I have seen that face before, more than once, and not in Cincinnati," the Captain said. " I believe that ho is a Philadelphian, and that his name is no more Horace Townsend than mine is Jenkins." " What motive could any one possibly have for coming to a place like this in disguise and with a feigned name ?" asked Margaret Hayley. *' Humph !" said the Captain, in a tone by no means good- humored, though it was low, as the previous words had been, " there are plenty of men who find it necessary to disguise names and faces now-a-days, for the very best of reasons." "Traitors ?" asked the lady. " Yes, traitors !" answered the Captain. ''And tliat reason he has not, I know !" said Margaret. *• The man who uttered the words that I heard last night, is no traitor, and I do not think that I should believe the very angels of heaven if they should come down to make the asser- tion !" "You seem strangely interested in the man !" said the Cap- tain, his voice undeniably querulous. "And I have a right to be so if I choose, I suppose !" an- swered the lady, in a voice that if it was not querulous was at least signally decided. 19 306 TUE COWARD. " Oh, certainly I certainly I" was the reply, coming out be- tween set teeth. Silence fell for a moment thereafter, except as the crashing balls made music among the pins. Then it was interrupted by Rowan calling out to the lawyer, who seemed to stand abstracted and forgetful of the game. " Townsend !" No motion on the part of the person addressed, or any sign *hat he heard the utterance. " Townsend ! I say, Townsend I" Still no motion, or any recognition whatever of the name ; and it was not until the Illinoisan, who had just been making three ten-strikes in succession with his left hand, and who was naturally anxious to call the attention of his opponent to the exploit, touched him on the shoulder and literally shouted the word into his ear, that he paid any attention whatever. "Me? Oh!" " Did you notice that ?" asked the keen-witted Captain, returning to the charge, as a repulsed soldier should always do. "His name is not Townsend, and he has not been long in the habit of being called by it ; for it was forgetfulness that made him wait for it to be repeated three times !" There was triumph in the tone of the Captain, now ; and there was every thing but triumph in that of Margaret Hay- ley as she leaned heavily on his arm and said : "Pray do not say any thing more about it ! That man is nothing to me. Let us go back to the house." " Wait one moment 1 I am going to do something to sat- isfy myself. Do you see that handkerchief? Sometimes initials tell a story that trunks and hotel-books do not." The lawyer had thrown off his coat upon the chair behind him — a blue flannel coat, half military, which both remem- bered to have seen him wear after changing clothes from the accident at the pool. From the breast-pocket a white hand- kerchief hung temptingly almost half way out, and it was towards that that the hand of the officer dived downward. THE COWARD. 307 The owner of the coat was some distance away, following up one of Lis flying balls, and was not likely to see the examina- tion made of his personal property, if it was done with quick hand and eye. "Hector Coles,, you would not do tliat!^^ But she spoke too late. With the stereot3'pcd lie on his lips that has been made the excuse for so many wrongs and scoundrelisms during all this unfortunate struggle, "All is fair in war-time !" the Captain whipped out the handkerchief, turned it quickly from corner to corner, glancing it to the light as he did so, and then as quickly returned it to the pocket, long before the owner had returned from watching the effect of his shot. Margaret Hayley had not intended to join in the reprehensible act, but she involuntarily did so, and she as well as the officer saw the initials "II. T." elabor- ately embroidered in red silk in one of the corners. It is not too much to say that a pang of joy w^ent through her heart at that refutation of the Captain's mean suspicions and that evidence to her own mind that the man in whom she had become so suddenly and unaccountably interested was playing no game of deceit and treachery. " H. T." were the initials, Horace Townsend was the name that he had given her, and there could be no doubt w^hatever of the truth of his state- ment. Captain Hector Coles did not seem by any means so well satisfied with the result of his researches. Something very like a scowl answered the look of indignation upon Margaret Hayley's face, as he said : " Humph I well, he has been keen enough, it seems, to mismark his handkerchief too !" "And you are ungenerous enough, Captain Hector Coles, first to do an improper action and then to find fault with your own discomfiture !" w^as the reply, as the lady once more took the proffered arm of the officer and left the alley, the com- batants still pursuing the concluding game of that most mem- orable match of left hand against scanty practice. Whither 308 THE CO W A R D . one of them went, an hour or two later, ma}^ possibly be dis- covered at no distant period of this narration. There were stormy times, that night, in the chamber of con- nubial bliss occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame ; and poor Caudle, belabored as he was in the imaginative mind of Douglas Jerrold, never suffered as much in one hour as on that occasion did the ex-contractor, ex- Alderman and ex-pur- veyor of mettled steeds for the United States cavalry service. Shoddy was in an ill-humor, and Shoddy had a right to bo in an ill-humor. Every thing had gone wrong, specially and collectively, from the moment of their entering those fatal mountains. Mishap the first : Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame had fainted and been called "Bridget," before company. Mishap the second : Master Brooks Brooks Cunninghame had over- eaten himself and come near to leaving the whole family in mourning as loud as his own wails. Mishap the third : Master Brooks Brooks had badgered the bears, in plain sight of all, caused a serious accident, and been visited, both loudly and silently, with objurgations not pleasant to remember. Mishap the fourth : Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame had been herself badg- ered, worse than the bears, by an irreverent scamp who threw discredit at once upon her foreign travels and her geography. Mishap the fifth : Master Brooks Brooks had tumbled into the Pool, been nearly drowned, and come out a limp rag re- quiring some washing and several hours wringing before recov- ering its original consistency. Mishap the sixth : Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame, in the agitation of that serious accident, had called the dear boy by a name, that of " Patsey," which would be likely to stick to him, in taunting mouths, during his whole stay at the Profile. Mishap the seventh : Mr. Brooks Cun- ninghame had fallen in, that day, with the before-mentioned certain stage-drivers, who consented to drink brandy, wine and punch at his expense, enticing him thereafter into low stories of the days when he drove a horse and cart about town, and leaving him eventually in a state of fuddle amusing TLIE COWAKD. 309 to their hard heads and harder hearts but bv no means con- ducive to his standing in fashionable watering-place society. Mishap the eighth : Miss Marianna Brooks Cunninghame had passed two evenings jn the parlor and one day among the guests in their rides and walks, bedizened in successive fineries of the most enticing order ; and not one person had desired the honor of her acquaintance out of doors, asked her to dance in the parlor, or paid her any more attention than might have been bestowed upon a very ungraceful lay-figure carried around for the showing off of modes and millinery. All this in thirty hours ; and all this was certainly enough to disturb more equable pulses than those which .beat under the coarse red skin of Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame. And when, that night while the moon was high in heaven and nearly all the guests had left parlor and piazza to silence after sucji an eventful day — while poor Marianna in her cham- ber wept over the cruel neglect which had made mockery of all her rosy anticipations, and Master Brooks Brooks moaned out at her side his petulant complaints born of ill-breeding, fright and weakness, — when Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame opened upon her not-yet-sobered husband the battery of her tongue, and accused him of being the author of all. the mis- haps before named, those with which he had nothing to do quite as much as those in which he had been really instru- mental, — then and there, for the moment, the Nemesis of the outraged republic was duly asserting the power delegated to her by the gods, and ' Shoddy, in the person of one of its humblest representatives, was undergoing a slight foretaste of that eternal torture to be hereafter enforced. Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame, on that occasion, declared her intention of not remaining another day among "such low people," and she further intimated to Mr. Brooks Cunning- hame that if he did not learn to behave himself in a manner more becoming to his high position (or at least the high po- sition of his wife and children !) she would " take him home 310 THE COWARD. at ouce and never bring him out agin into respectable society while her head was warrum." At the end of which exordium the berated husband not un- naturally remarked, in a brogue nearly as broad as it had ever been : "And fwhat the divil did ye come trapesin here for at all at all ? Ye'd be doin' well enough at home, if ye'd only sthay there, Bridget — I mane Julia. Ye'r no more fit to be kapin company wid dhe quality, nor meself ; and I'm as much out of place here as a pig 'ud be goin' to mass ! Sure Mary Ann '11 niver be gettin' a husband among these people wid dho turned-up noses, and poor little Pat '11 be dhrouned and kilt and murthered intirely ! You'd betther be gettin' out of this as soon as ye can, and I'd be savin' me hard-earned money !" " The money you have cheated for, ye mane, Pat Cunning- ham," said Mrs. Brooks, who when alone with the object of her devoted affection and in a temper the reverse of amiable, could unveil some of the household skeletons of language and history quite as readily as he. " Pretty things them was that ye sold for horses to the government ! and there's a good dale of the money ye made when ye was Alderman, that they'd send ye to the State Prison for if they knowed all about it !" "Thrue for ye, Bridget ! — and who but j^t oogly self put the worst o' thim things into me head, dinnin' at me o' nights when ye ought to been aslape ? — answer me that, will ye ? And now ye'r sthruttin' like a peacock wid dhe money I mado to plase ye, and divil the bit can ye kape a civil tongue be- tween yer labthern jaws. Take that and bo hanged" [-or some other word] "to ye, Bridget Cunningham !" '' Pat Cunningham, ye'r a coarse, miserable brute — a low Irishman, and money can't make any thing else out of ye I Away from this we go to-morrow morning, mind that, before ye'r drunk again with yer low stage-drivers and thim fellers." A snore was the only reply. Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame haa secured the last word, according to her usual habit ; but THE COWARD. 811 she had only done so at the expense of not having her re- joinder heard by the ears for which it was intended. The lady kept her word, in the one important particuhxr. Those who shared in the early breakfast of the next morning, before the starting of the stages, had the pleasure of seeing the whole family at table all bedizened for the road — Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame red-faced, stately and snappish ; Miss Marianna subdued and unhappy, with red rings around her eyes, as if she had been crying all night ; Mr. Brooks Cun- ninghame with his coarse face yet coarser than usual and his eyes suggestive of a late fuddle, piling away beef-steaks, egg3 and biscuits into the human mill, as if he had some doubts of ever reaching another place w^here they could be procured to the same advantage ; and Master Brooks Brooks, the freckles showing worse than ever on his pale and sickly-looking face, whining between every two mouthfuls, and vociferating : " Mommy, mommy, I've got a pain !" and, "Mommy, mommy, I tell you I want some more o' them are taters and gravy !" They were pleasant company at the meal, very ! — as they bad been at all previous times when beaming on the horizon of other travellers, and as people out of place ahvays prove to be to those who surround them I But the meal came to an end, the trunks that held the remaining finery of the two ladies were safely stowed, the stage-drivers bellowed : "All aboard I" and the three more precious members of the Brooks Cunninghame family were stow^ed within the coach without personally causing more than ten minutes of hindrance, while Mr. Brooks Cunninghame himself, with a bad cigar in mouth and a surreptitiously-obtained bottle of raw whiskey in the pocket of his duster, occupied a seat on the top and felt, for the time, almost as happy as he had once done when sur- mounting his loaded dirt-cart. So Shoddy, or that particular manifestation of it, at least, rolled away from the Profile House. Whither, is no matter of consequence, for the incidental connection of the Brooks Cunninghames with this veracious history is concluded with 812 THE COWARD. the exit of that morning. But let no one suppose that the travelling world was thereafter rid of them, or of others to whom they only supply a type and index, during the re- mainder of the summer. For did not some of us meet them at Niagara later in the season, resident at the Clifton as the most aristocratic (because on monarchical ground) of all the houses, Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame a little more querulous and redder in the face than when at the Notch ; Mr. Brooks Cunninghame a little trembly, as if whiskey and idleness "were beginning to tell upon his system ; Miss Marianna still un-cavaliered and hopelessly unexpectant in the wreck of her silks, laces, and jewelry ; and Master Brooks Brooks pulling the curtains and drumming on the keys of the piano with his unwashed fingers, pending his greater opportunity to frighten ii pair of horses into plunging over the bank, or to relieve the future of a dreary prospect by himself falling off Table Rock ? There was anothoi* departure from the Profile House the same morning. Whether the event of the night before had done any thing to bring about that consummation, or whether previous arrangements and the pressure of time dictated such a movement — Halstead Rowan and the two friends in his company were among the passengers by one of the coaches that went through to the Crawford, bearing such as contemplated an immediate ascent of Mount Washington from that direction. It may be the pleasant duty of writer and j-eader to overtake them at the Crawford, at a very early period. . Nothing more can now be said of the situation in v/hich the Yanderlyn imbroglio and the Townsend friendship were left, than that the departing man saw nothing of the lav/yer after they parted on the evening previous, and that his early stage rolled away long before the luxurious Yan- derlyns were likely to have opened their eyes at the summons of the first gong rolling through the corridors to awaken tbem for the regular breakfast. THE COWXJII), 313 It was nearly noon of that morning of the departures — a cloudless, glorious morning, the sun just warming the chill of the Notch to a pleasant May air, and not a flock of mist to dim the view of the peaks on the very extreme verge of the line of vision, when Horace Townseud strolled down the half mile of road northward from the Profile, to Echo Lake, intent upon entering on those mysteries which specially belong to that haunted little sheet of water — the mysteries of the boat, the horn, and the cannon. He was alone, as he had been from the first moment of his coming to the Notch, except as the newly-formed intimacy between Halstead Kowan and himself had temporarily drawn them together. He seemed to have formed no other new acquaintance, but that was to be, perhaps, formal and distant ; and there was no certainty that the incident would not add to rather than take away from any feeling of positive loneliness which had before oppressed him. As he turned down the by-road shooting sharply away to the right, with the Lake glimmering silver in the sunliu'ht through the trees, there was a great crash of sound, a deafening reverberation from the rocks of Eagle Ciiif, hanging immedi- ately over the Lake, a fainter following, and then another and another, dying away among the far-off hills in the infinite variety of the highland echo. There were already visitors at the Lake ; and the factotum who blended the triple characters of keeper, guide, and boatman, had been discharging the little old cannon on the wharf, as a crowning proof to some party w^th whom he was just finishing, of the capacity of his lake for dwarfing all the travelled ones' recollections of Kil- larney and the Echo Rocks of Superior. Such was indeed the fact, and as the lawyer emerged upon the Lake immediately at the wharf, he met the party who had "done" the Lake strolling away, while the boatman was re- arming himself with his long horn, and beginning to turn his attention to certain new-comers, a part of vrhoni had already taken their seats in the big paddle -wheeled boat of which the 814 THE COWAKD. steam was to be supplied by cranks and band-labor, for a trip around the pond with the dignified name, and a new development of the capacities of echo. He had indeed dropped the stipendiary sum in currency into the hand of the factotum, and was about stepping into the boat to join the party already miscellaneous, before he discovered that any acquaintance was numbered among them. When he did so, for one instant he hesitated as if about to defer his trip, then muttered below his breath the few words : "No ! — I must take my chances — now as well as ever !" stepped in from the little wharf and took one of the few empty seats remaining near the stern of the boat. He sat looking backward, and he was consequently brought face to face with the three occupants of the stern seat, who were necessarily looking forward. Perhaps his fate ivas upon that stern seat, for its three occupants were Mrs. Burton Hayley, her daughter, and Captain Hector Coles. Margaret Hayley paled a little, then flushed the least in the world and finally smiled a proud but pleasant smile and re- turned a nod and a " good-morning," in response to Town- sen d's comprehensive bow and salutation, w^hich were intended to take in all three. Captain Hector Coles sat bolt upright, as if he had been riding his horse on parade, and moved no inch from his perpendicular as he returned the greeting in so formal a voice that it constituted no recognition whatever ; and Mrs. Burton Hayley, to whom the lawyer had not been introduced, had some excuse for the supercilious but puzzled stare with which she honored him. The young girl saw the glance, and remembered the position. " Oh, ma, I forgot," she said, introducing. " Mr. Town- send, of Cincinnati, whose acquaintance I made yesterday when he saved the poor little boy from drowning, at the Pool." Her eyes were fixed very closely upon the face of Town- send as she said these words, and so were those of Captain Hector Coles. If either saw, or thought that they saw, a THE COWARD. 315 momentary red flash pass over the dark countenance, coming as quickly and fading as rapidly as one of the flashes of the Northern Lights, — did they see any corroboration of the suspicious of the evening before, or was that flush merely the natural expression of a sensitive man whose good deeds were mentioned in his presence ? Mrs. Burton Hayley nodded, as she could not avoid doing under such circumstances, but there was very little cordiality in the nod ; and there was something quite as lofty and un- congenial in the manner of the words with which she accom- panied it : "I remember hearing my daughter speak of Mr. Town- scnd's having been made the means, under Providence, of preventing an accident." The ostentatious Bible yet lay upon its carved stand, oh, Mrs. Burton Hayley, did it not ! No farther conversation followed at that moment, though there may have been one, and mayhap two, in that mixed boat-load of fifteen or twenty, who would have been glad to pursue it under more favorable auspices. Certain it is that the lawyer kept his gaze upon the proudly sweet face of Margaret Hayley, quite as steadily as propriety would by any means allow, and that her face answered back something more of interest, under the shade of her wide leghorn jockey, than either of her immediate companions might have been pleased to see. She was interested in her new acquaintance, beyond a question : was she something more ? Answer tho question — oh, heart of woman ! — could it be possible that tho by-gone love, once so truly a part of her very being, had al- ready so faded, in one short month, that a feeling warmer than friendship could centre around a mere stranger of two days' beholding ? Was that "ideal," once believed to have been found, then lost again, presenting itself in another and still more enticing shape, to make constancy a myth and womanly truth a byword ? Small data, as yet, from which to S16 THE COWAKD. judge ; but stranger things than this have chanced in the roll ing years, and the faith of humanity still survived them ! Out on the Lake by this time the burlesque upon a steam- boat had floated, and the sheet of water lay under as well as around the passengers — perhaps a quarter of a mile in width and a mile in length, shut in on the side of approach by the woods, and beyond on all sides by the eternal hills, Never was silver jewel dotting the green bosom of nature more beautiful — never one more sweetly nestled away near the very heart of its mountain nurse. The proverbial winds of the Notch for once were still, and only a gentle ripple stirred the glassy surface here and there as a breath touched it like the skimming wing of a wild bird. The meridian sun lay lovingly on the side and crest of the mountain rising eastward from the edge of the water, touching its bald, scarred brow with ruddy gold ; and if the first on the cliffs nodded at times, they nodded sleepily with the very expression of repose. Spirit of calm, delicious quiet ! — was there ever a spot more truly sacred to thee, than Echo Lake at such moments, when a few gentle, loving hearts, close bound to each other and shut in from the world, are beating with slow pulses as the life and centre of the great mystery of nature ? Other boat-loads than that of this July noon, have grown quiet beneath such a feeling, as the boatman ceased his paddling, the boat drifted lazily on, lips grew silent, eyes closed, and human thought floated away on a very sea of dreams. They had swept over, in rapt silence for the last few mo- ments, until they lay beneath the very brow of the east- ern mountain. Then that silence was broken by the boat- man rising from his seat and blowing a long, steady blast on his six-foot tin horn, in size and shape like those us^d on the Western canals, but sadly dinted by careless use and fre- quent falling. The company were reminded, then, that they were floating on Echo Lake and no stream of the land of faerie. The long, low note died on the ear, and an appre- ciable instant of silence followed. Then it came back from THE COWAKD. 317 the brow of the moutitain above, a liltle louder than before, and yet a little mellowed by distance. Another instant, and tlic same sound reverberated from the opposite hill, the back of Eagle Cliff. Were there still more echoes to be added to the t\>'o that had already made the place notable ? Yes, a third came back from the range that sloped away from the bead of the Lake, northward — a little fainter, and broken now ; and then the more distant bills caught the sound, as if each had a right, which it jealously claimed, to some portion of that greeting from the human breath ; and far as the eye could trace the blue peaks rising behind each other through the gaps beyond, the ear could catch a corresponding rever- beration, fainter — fainter — fainter, — till it died away in a drowsy murmur and silence followed. Then the horn passed from hand to hand and from mouth to mouth, some of the gallants perhaps forming kisses of the touch of red lips which had preceded theirs ; and some blew round, full strains that awakened admiration, and some made but a melancholy whistle which excited merry laughter. Among the many ex- periments tried upon that horn, there must have been some horrid discords startling the Dryads in the wooded shades up the mountain, where the gazers sometimes seemed to see the echo leaping from cliff to cliff and from bough to bough. But they soon came willingly back to the • practised notes of the boatman ; and some of the party shut their eyes and dreamed, as his quick, sharp peals rang merrily up among the hills, — ■ of noble lord and gentle lady, hunting in the days of old, and of the bugle blasts of outlaws sounding through gloomy Ar- dennes or merry Sherwood. Anon he would end his strain with a long, low falling note, and they heard some old cathe- dral hymn wailing through solemn arches and bending the spirit to reverence and^ prayer. But through all that suc- cession of sounds the hard, dry, practical, exigeant Present was rolled away and the romantic, easy Past stood in its stead ; so easily does the mind, like the body, cast off' ita 318 THE COWARD. burthen, whenever permitted, and lie down, if only for a mo- ment, upon the lap of indolence ! Scarcely a word had been spoken, in the boat, for some minutes, under the influence of that spell of the hour. But the normal condition of humanity, when awake, is tO keep the tongue in motion ; and not even the spell of Echo Lake could keep that busy member still beyond the customary period. Comparisons of other echoes, in our own and ^ther lands, were made, and as the boatman rowed on to complete the circuit of the Lake, the conversation became nearly general. "Echo Lake looks very smiling and quiet to-day," said one of the company — the same old habitue of the mountains who had commenced the conversation the day before with Hal- stead Rowan, at the Pool. " But I have seen it look very differently, sometimes when a gale came roaring and singing up through the Notch, and the saucy little thing got a black frown upon its face, reflected from the leaden sky and the wind-tossed trees up yonder. Echo is blown away, at such times, as any one would be who dared the perils of this sea of limited dimensions ; and you would be surprised to know how hard the wind can blow just here, and what little, tum- bling, dangerous waves of rage the dwarf can kick up, trying to make an ocean of itself." " The most singular view that /ever had of it," said another, "I caught half way up the Cannon Mountain one afternoon. It looked like a wash-bowl, and I had a fancy that I could toss a piece of soap into it from where I stood ! But I knew that it must be Echo Lake, for somebody was blowing a horn ; and I believe there has never been an hour of daylight, since crea- tion, when a horn has not been blowing somewhere in the neighborhood." " There is one more point of view in which to see it," said Horace Townsend, who had not before joined at any length in the conversation. " I mean by moonlight, for any one who is part night-hawk." THE COWARD. 819 "All, have vou seen it so ?" asked the last speaker, witli interest. "Yes — last night," answered the lawyer. "As often as I have been here," said the first old habitue, " I have never come down to see it by moonlight. What is it like ?" " Like something that I cannot very well describe," was the answer. "You had better all come down and see it for yourselves, before you leave the ^NTotch." " Still, you can give us some idea," pursued the old gen- tleman. Horace Townsend hesitated and was silent for a moment, when Margaret Hayley said, her eyes just then fixed full upon his : " I think you can, Mr. Townsend, if I am not mistaken in the voice that I heard speaking for the Old Man of the Mountain, by the same moonlight, not many evenings ago." The dusky cheek of the lawyer was full of red blood in an instant. He had been overheard, then, in his half-mad rhap- sody to Rowan and himself. And she had heard him, of all women ! — she had spoken with such frankness, not to say bold- ness, and that frankness appreciation at least, if not admira- tion 1 He might have uttered something more about "tak- ing his chances" then, and had full warrant for the self-gratu- lation I " I do not suppose that I can tell you either what I saw or felt," said Townsend, when that momentary flush had died away a little from his face. " I will try, however. I had been rolling ten-pins till past eleven, and it must have been midnight when I strolled down towards the Lake. I was in hopes that I should find no one here, for I wished to see it alone as well as by moonlight ; and I had my wish. I saw no one and heard no one, on my way to the Lake or while here ; and I do not suppose that any foot but my own pressed the damp green velvet that bordered the edge, or that any eye except my own and the All-seeiDg one that looks down over all the world at all midnights, saw the placid sheet lying 320 THE COWAliD. iu its solemn repose, with the shadows of the great cliff yonder reflected on its bosom, and here and there a little ripple as a puff of wind sighed through the branches, kissed the silver surface and passed over." The eyes of the speaker were full of humid light as he spoke, and at least one of the company marked the influence which seemed to be upon him — a mood of high imagination, some- times seen in the ardent lovers of nature when revelling in their chosen study, and though less dangerous not less de- cided than the madness which habitually fell upon Saul. There was something fascinating in it, to all who saw and heard, even to those who held an intuitive dislike to the seer: what must the fascination have been to Margaret Ilayley, who remembered one so unlike in personal appearance and yet so like in voice and apparently in habits of mind, loving nature so intently and describing it with the same fervor, while his love for her made a sacred undertone to all and completed the charm of look and word i The lawyer needed no further urging, but went on : **The little dock there, with the boats moored beside it, and the hut where our friend here keeps his horn and cannon, — all lay in a melancholy quiet which struck me like death — as if those w^ho frequented them had gone away at some nightfall years ago, like the workmen who left their trowels in the mortar of unfinished Pompeii on the morning of its destruction, — never to return again and yet ever to be waited for, while the earth kept its course in the heavens. I was alone, and I suppose that imagination ran riot "with me and made me partially a maniac. The hush was so awful that I dared not break it, even by a loud breath. I saw the Indians there, under yon sweeping trees to the left, whose branches bend down and almost kiss the water — saw an Indian canoe lying there, faces within it smeared with war-paint and tho pointed arrow ready to twang from the bow-string. I ex- pected to hear the war- whoop every instant — expected it, l^erhaps not in my human mind but in that other and more THE COWARD. 821 powerful miiul for which we are none of us quite responsible. Then I saw — yes, I was sure that I saw the dusky shadow of a robber flittin<>: along from pine to pine, far up on the side of the cliff there, silent and dangerous as death, and ready to drop down on the first living thing that passed beneath him. Then I saw fiery eyes through the branches, and thought that the panther and the catamount, that lurked in these tangled woods two hundred years ago, divided possession once more with the Indians and were prowling about for some late ban- quet. I do not think that it was fear that I felt, for I would not have gone away if I could, any more than I could have gone away if I would ; but it appeared to be the very silent haunt of nature in her hour of rest, wherewith nothing but the wild and the savage had any business; and it seemed im- possible to throw aside the idea that even the tread of a civil- ized foot must be a sacrilege that only life could atone. Then there was a sudden plunge from the bushes into the water, a few yards up the bank, and a ripple following some large dark object swimming away towards the other shore. This was more real, and the feeling of awe began to pass away, for I knew that the swimmer must be a water-rat or otter that had been paying a midnight visit like myself and was now going homeward by the cool and refreshing marine route. That was the first noise I had heard, but others followed, for an ow^l began to hoot over yonder in the bushes and a young eagle — I suppose it must have been a young eagle — indulged in a scream from the top of the Cliff, where I believe he has a habit of nesting. Then the supernatural and the imaginative rolled away after they had held me an hour or two, and I was simply alone at two o'clock or a little later, beside Echo Lake, only half a mile from the bed that had been all that time waiting for me. I took the warning of the night-owl and the eagle, who no doubt intended to order me off as an intruder, and strolled back to the house. That is all, and perhaps quite enough of such rambling nonsense as it is !" " Kamlj-ling nonsense ?" Whatever the other members of 20 6T2, T II K C O W A R I). the company may have thought, evidently Margaret ITayley did not so regard it as she leaned anxiously forward/ the presence of others apparent!}' forgotten, her eyes fascinated in a sort of strange wonder by something in the face of the .speaker, while her mind seemed not less singularly under the control of the utterance itself. Five minutes afterwards the parody on a steamboat touched the little wharf again and the company disembarked. Five minutes after that secondary period they separated from the close communion into which they had been transiently thrown during the preceding half-hour, many of them never to meet again in the same familiarity of intercourse, and perhaps some of them, though as yet inmates of the same abode, never to see each other'^ faces again in life ! Such are the meetings and the partings of summer travel and watering-place exist- ence, to which the nameless rhymer no less truly than touch^ iugly referred when he spoke of those friendships quickly made and as quickly broken : " In hostels free to all commauds Save peuury's and pity's ; — '* In common rooms, where all have right To tread with little heed or warning, And where the guests of overnight Are gone at early morning ; — '* By tables where we sit at meat — Sit, with our food almost un tasted Because we find some vacant seat From which a friend has hasted ; — " In parlors where at eve we sit, Among the music and the dancing, And miss some lip of genial wit, Some bright eye kindly glancing. " the haunted chambers left, That almost choke us as we ponder, And leave us quite as much bereft As dearer ties and fonder." THE COWARD. 323 CHAPTER XYI. Cloud and Storm at the Profile — Sights and Sensa- tions OF A Rainy-day Ride to the Crawfoud — Horace Townsend and Halstead Rowan once more together — Unexpected Arrivals — A Cavalcade of ]\Iiserables — An Ascent of Mount Washington, with Equestrianism and War-whoops Extraordinary. Calms at sea are not more proverbially treacherous than pleasant mornings in the mountains ; and long before that day closed which had opened so auspiciously, the heavy clouds came driving up through the Notch with the south-east wind. By nightfall a storm was inaugurated. Thencefor- ward, for two days, excursions to the Cannon, to Bald Moun- tain, to Mount Lafayette, or to any other of the points of scenery so plentiful in the Franconia Notch, and in which ex- cursions all the visitors, however slightly acquainted, are more or less closely thrown into speaking intercourse with each other, — were things to be thought of but not attempted. The stages came in with smoking horses and moisture drip- ping alike from the hat of the driver and the boot of the coach ; but few passengers arrived or departed. The bears walked sullenly their little round, or retired periodically to winter quarters in their narrow kennels. The valleys were filled with driving mist, varied by heavy down-pouring rain, and the mountains hid themselves sullenly from view, so that sometimes not even the brow of Eagle Cliff, hanging imme- diately over the house, could be distinguished through the dense clouds that swept down to the very roofs. Fires became prevalent, and those so fortunate as to possess rooms where the birchen wood could be set ablaze, remained closely sequestered there, dozing, or playing cards or backgammon, or once more turning over the leaves of books from which all the novelty had long before been extracted. Desultory groups 824 THE COWARD. met at meals, even the eaters comiug down sluggishly. Some of the men patronized the billiard-room or the bowling- alley, but they rarely found lady partners or spectators, as in sunneir days. Even the hops in the parlor at evening were thinly attended, the weather seeming to have affected alike the nerves and muscles provocative of dancing, and the strings of the harp, violin and piano. Those who happened to possess copies of " Bleak House," and who remembered the marvellous phenomena of rainy w^eather existing at a certain time in and about the domain of Sir Leicester Ded- lock, read the description over again and thought that nothing could be more beautifully applicable to the experience of storm- stayed sight-seers at a caravanserai among the mountains. During those two days of storm and sluggishness, Horace Townsend, merely an excursion acquaintance of the Hayleys and Captain Hector Coles, and not such an intimate as would be likely to be invited to backgammon or chat in one of their private rooms, — never once met Margaret Hayley more nearly than within bowing distance when passing in or out of the dining-room or the parlor. One or both may have desired to continue the acquaintance without quite so much of distant familiarity ; but if so, one or both knew the antag- onistic influences surrounding them and did not think proper to raise an arm for buffeting the waves of separation. There were not less than a dozen persons remaining at the Profile, who had the ascent of Mount Washington yet to make at an early day, and who intended to make it in the good old traditional way of horseback from the Crawford instead of acknowledging modern utility and bowing to the destruction of all romance b}' going up in carriages from the Glen. Some of these, beginning to be pressed for time, saw the steady rain and mist with impatience and found very little comfort in the assurances of the hotel-keepers, guides and stage-drivers, that the clouds were not likely to break away under a week, at least. Monday brought this feeling to a culmination, and that T HE CO W A K o . 825 morning, spite of all predictions, the impatient dozen ordered a stage and determined to drive over to the Crawford ; be- speaidng clear weather on the morrow, or on the next day at fiirthcst, for their especial accommodation. Horace Towmsend, whether wearied by circumstances which placed him " so nenr and yet so far" in his acquaintance with Margaret Ilayley, or really touched with the prevailing madness for forcing Mount Washington to smile when that great mountain wished to be sullen, — Horace Townsend joined the malcontents and formed one of the closely-packed stage-load that on Monday morning rolled off from the Profile on their way to the Crawford. The voyagers were pursued by no small number of jokes and jeers from the piazza, as they drove away, on the folly of plunging out into a storm to accomplish an impossibility. But if any one of the number felt for a moment sore in mind and faint-hearted, they were soon consoled. Most of them (mixed male and female, though the former predominating) were true Nature-lovers who had recognized that however Fame and Fortune sometimes play cruel tricks upon their most ardent votaries, the kind Mother seldom failed to unveil her bosom at the coming of one of her true children. They had faith in the future, and that faith was at once repaid in the glory of the present. For those who have only made the twenty-five miles of stage-ride between the two places, in fair weather, can have no idea of the peculiar charms of that day of capricious rain and floating mist. Closely shut in the lumbering coach, and well enveloped in shawls and dread-noughts and blankets, but with the windows open to allow looking back on the Franconia range they were leaving, — they enjoyed at intervals, during all the earlier portions of the ride, such splendid glimi)ses of cloud-land as never fall to the lot of mere fair-wealluT travellers. At times the shroud of mist w^hich had enveloped them would roll away, as they ascended the high land rising from Franconia towards Bethlehem ; and then they w^ould have the 326 T u E c u w A i; d . peaks of the Frauconia range flecked and dotted with swales and waves and crests of transparent white that seemed alter- nately to be thousands of colossal sheep lying in the mountain pastures, — and again great masses of the purest and softest eider-down which had floated there and rested, from millions of birds filling the whole air above. Mount Lafayette at one moment, as some of the voyagers of that lucky morning will well remember, seemed to be capped and crowned with a wreath of untrodden snow, miles in extent and hundreds of feet in depth — such as no mountain ever wore upon its brow as a coronet, from the first morning of creation. Exclamations of pleasure filled the coach, and jest and appreciative remark blended in pleasant proximity. "I shall always remember the air of this morning," said one, " as an atmosphere of bridal veils," and more than he treasured up the comparison as one worth remembering. " See here, Cora !'* said another, to the only child in the coach, who nestled half asleep on the shoulder of her mother, pointing her attention meanwhile to a little pyramidal hill separate from the moun- tain range and at that point relieved against it: " See here, Cora ! There is a little baby mountain !" " So there is !" answered Cora, with a world of drollery in her young eyes, " I wonder how long before it will grow to be as big as the rest of them !" Whereupon Cora was voted to have the best of the argument, and manhood once more worshipped childhood. Away past Bethlehem and along the Ammonoosuc, an ex- aggeration, in its rocks, upon all the other mountain streams, with its few inches of water finding way among a perfect bed of boulders, and making the mere word '' navigation" suggest so droll an image in that connection as to draw a loud laugh from the whole coach-load. Tlien past a couple of fishermen, heedless of the rain, rod in h.m'i and creel at side, standing on the boulders in the middle of the river and practising the mysteries of the Waltoniau art, report alleged with more " flies" assisting than those which they carried in their pocket- books ! Then on, with the mist again closed down heavily, THE COWARD. 827 past the White Mountain House, that once, before the days of glory of the Glt'n, sui)plied the only so-called "carnage- road" to the top of Washington. A mile or two more, and there was a space clear from trees on the left. As the coach swept up to it the mists seemed to shrink low for a moment. A heavy, dark line loomed on the sky, with almost the true sweep of a wide Gothic arch, a little sharpened at the top. " How graceful !" was th(^ exclama- tion of one. "How high I — look ! — why that is higher than any of the others that we have seen !" exclaimed a second. "Mount Washington," calmly said a habitue who caugiit a glimpse through the curtain from the back corner of the coach ; and every voice joined in the ciy. The habitue was right — cloud and mist had rolled away for an instant, just at the opp(jrtune moment, and they had caught that magnificent first near view of the monarch, throned amid his clouds, glorious in the grace of form and the awe of majesty — seeming to bridge the very space between earth and heaven 1 Some of those favored gazers will dream of that first glance, years hence, when they have been straining the mental vision upward, in waking hours, to that unattainable and dim which rises above the mists of common life. Some of them will throne the great mountain in their hearts, and stretch out pleading arms to it in remembrance, in the dark days of shame and sorrow, — as if the treading of their feet upon its rocky pinnacle would be indeed an escape from the world — as if they might become sharers, indeed, in the majesty of its great solitude. Some of the travellers felt the solemnity of the hour and the scene, that day ; and there was not even a sneer or a word of misappreciation for the adventurous genius v/ho quoted, heedleso of all that made it inappropriate : Mount Blanc ir^ the monarcli of mountains They crowned him long ago, On a throne of rocks, in a robe of clouds. With a diadem of snow I" 828 THE COWARD. There was a brief ride remainincr, then, till they rolled in over a level road, through thick overhanging woods, to the Crawford House in the White Mountain Notch. The mi.(*en up Mount Washing-ton yet V " Not this time /" answ^ered the other, significantly. " The fog has been nearly thick enough to swim in, ever since I liave been here, and I do not know, if I had been as good a swimmer as you, Townsend, whether I should not have tried going up by water, as our friend JSIrs. Brooks Cunninghnme went up the Alps ; but by land the thing has been impossible." " Many waiting to go up ? — or do they nearly all go around to the Glen, this season ?" was the next inquiry. "No, there are a good many sensible people left," was the reply, in the same tone of vivacious rattle. " Think of going up Mount Washington in a carriage ! It is worse than making a mill-race out of Niagara, or approaching Jerusalem, as they will do one of these days, I suppose, amid the rumble and whistle of a railroad-train." "Don't undervalue your own employment!" said Town- send. " Oh, I do not," was the reply. " Railroad trains, as well as mills, are very good things in their places ; but I suppose that a prejudice will always exist in favor of the fiery chariot instead of the balloon, as a means of making ascents into the celestial regions." Horace Townsend laughed. " But you have not yet told me how many are waiting, or when you are really going up." " Oh, there must be nearly or quite tw^enty of them, moping ^around the house, running out to look at the sky every ten minutes, and asking the clerk and the guides questions that they are about as fit to answer as a prairie-chicken to solv« a problem in geometry ! As to when we are going up — do you know ?" "/am going up to-morrow, whether any one else goes up or not," said the lawyer. "And by the way, I have bespoken a clear day for that especial occasion." " Have you ? Thank you ! Then I suppose we can all I 330 r HE coward. g-o up !" replied the Illinoisan, as if the information had been the most serious in the world. " By the way — how are they all, over yonder !" There was something very like a blush on the face of the questioner, and there was something varying very little from that phenomenon on the brown cheek of the other as he an- swered : "I have not seen much of either," (what did he mean by " either," a word peculiarly applying, in common parlance, to two?) " but I believe that they are well." " Still at the Profile ?" " Yes, and likely to remain there, for any thing that I know to the contrary." "Any news of any kind ? Any more accidents or startling events ?" " Xone — 3'es, there is one startling event. The Brooks Cunninghames came away the same day that you left. Have you got the old woman here ?" "Here? heaven forefend ! Xo !" was the response. Then he added : " Why, by Jupiter, Townsend, you mu.st be a wizard or in some kind of collusion with Meriam ! See ! — I'll be hanged if there is not the top of a mountain 1 It is clearing away ! Hurrah for Mount Washington !" He darted in at once from the piazza to the office, and Townsend. who had not yet even registered his name as an arrival, followed him. Most of the other passengers from the Profile were by that time registered and scattered away to their rooms for sartorial renovation. ^ A separate book was kept at the office, as usual at such places, over the head of each page of which was printed : "Horses for Mount Washington," and in which, every day, those who wished to secure horses and guides for the suc- ceeding, or the first favorable day, registered their names, with the number of animals required and how many of them were to be ridden by ladies. A good many queer auto- graphs might be observed in that book and some of its pre- THE COWARD. 331 deccp!5ors, for there was almost always some mischievous clerk behind the counter, amusing himself by telling immense stories to some of the other initiated, just as the un-initiated were coming up to register their names, — about the perils of the ride and how near he or some other person had come to falling over precipices of indefinite thousands of feet. This description of jocular practice very often shook the nerves of young travellers at the moment of booking, even when the frightened person was too far committed or too shame-faced to abandon his project ; and there is no doubt that the origi- nal collection of chirography thus secured would prove only less interesting, on exhibition, than the original draft of the Declaration of Independence, or the Emancipation Proc- lamation ! Several names had already been booked at hap-hazard on the day in question ; and others of the storm -stayed, aware of the prospect of a " clearing-up," were by that time flock- ing around the book to secure their places. To the collection already made were very soon added the signatures of Town- send and Rowan, who intended, as neither would have a lady in charge, to make a great part if not all the trip together, while the two friends of Rowan, who were also to be of the ascending party, would " pair off" in the same manner. This done, and supper-time approaching, Rowan, who had been lounging about in a sort of wet- weather box-coat undress which would have driven an ultra-fashionable to desperation, ran off to his room to make himself somewhat more presenta- ble ble ; while Horace Townsend, after patronizing the barl)er- shop for five minutes and providing himself with that inevita- ble cigar, stepped out once more upon the piazza to glance at the weather and satisfy himself how kind Mother ]S;iture really intended to be on the morrow. He had but just emerged from the door when a close light carriage with two pairs of foaming horses — horses and carriage well covered with mud, — whirled around the corner of the Crawford and drew up at the door. The driver sprung from his seat and 3(^2 1' HE COWARD. the carriage door was opened. Out of it stepped first Frank A'anderlyn, then ^Mrs. A^anderlyn and her daughter, who, as it afterwards appeared, had left the Profile after dinner and driven through post in that manner, under the impression that the next morning might after all be a fine one, and anx- ious (two of the three, at least) to join any party which would be likely to make the ascent. " Whew !" said the lawyer to himself, between two puffs of his cigar, as he recognized the new-comers without their seeming to be aware of his presence. " Here is more of the Rowan romance and there may be more ten-pins necessary. I wonder whether that haughty woman and her son have any idea of the presence here of their friend fro^i Chicago, and whether they have driven at that slapping pace through the mud, especially to be in his way ! I wonder, too, whether Rowan's room is on the front, so that he has seen their ar- rival. I have half a notion to go up and apprize him of it,; and then I have a whole notion to let him find it out for him- self, and finish my cigar before supper comes in to spoil it." Whatever might have been the amount of knowledge of the movements of Rowan possessed by the Vanderlyns, and -whether in making a new entry on the books the old names were or were not always looked over. — certain it is that half an hour afterwards the lawyer found two more names booked for the ascent — those of " Mr. Francis Yanderlyn'' and " Miss Clara Yanderlyn," the mother evidently not intending to ex- pose herself to a fatigue which had lost its novelty, but to await their going and return at the Crawford. It was very evident, to Townsend, eventually, that Rowan did not know any thing of the new arrival until he came down to supper. The Vanderlyns had taken their places at the table, very nearly opposite the lawyer, and returned with a nod of pleasant recognition the bow which he felt com- pelled to give them under the circumstances. Halstead Rowan, as he came in, took a seat on the same side of the table with tie new-comers, and it was only as he gave the THE COWARD. 838 customary glance down after he had seated himself, that he seemed to recognize the sudden addition to the social circle. AVhen he did recognize it, the, lawyer (that man seems to be eternally watching the other, does he not ?) caught one in- stant's blank surprise on his face, and he even put up his hand to rub his eyes, as if he fancied himself dreaming ; but the surprise seemed to fade in a moment, and he pursued his supper with that fine appetite which is usually vouchsafed to such physical men. He left the table before the Vanderlyns had finished, and apparently without their having observed him. Townsend rose immediately and followed him, with a smile upon his face of which he was himself unconscious. He saw the Illinoisan go into the office and do precisely what he [the lawyer] would have laid a heavy stake that he would do — step to the counter and look over the list of " Horses for Mount Washington." Then a queer expression, nearer to malicious pleasure than any thing the other had before seen upon his face, flitted over it as he recognized the names. It might have been merely satisfaction — it might have been de- fiance blended with it in equal proportions ; but at least it seemed to be capable of translation into words like these, which the very lips moved as if they would utter : ** So, Baltimore people, you are running yourselves into my way again, after I had gone off and left you alone, like a good fellow ! You had better be poorer and less proud, or I richer ; or you had better keep the distance which I put between us !" A few moments after he approached Townsend with a laugh of deprecation and invited him to another game of ten- pins, which seemed to be quite as necessary to him when in a good humor as when in a rage. The invitation was ac- cepted, and the important contest began once more. It would have been a very unequal one, for Rowan had fully recovered the use of his right hand, but that the alleys them- selves had something to say in the matter. Worse apologies for alleys than those of the Crawford no man ever saw ; and 33i THE COWARD. such a thing q<^ a " ten-strike" had never been recorded on the bhick-boards, as made on those lonj^ lines of uneven and floor-laid planks. Both the combatants had quite enough to do in getting down a " frame" with three balls ; and for some time not a word outride of the game escaped either. Suddenly, and when he had rolled two of the three balls at the defiant pins, Rowan stopped short with one of the lignum-vitae globes, of about the size of a human head, in his hand — twirling it the while as if it had been a paper balloon, — and said, in a short, curt tone : '* They have come !" "Yes," answered Townsend, not pretending for a moment to be doubtful about the meaning of the personal pronoun. " Yes, I saw them at supper." " Going up with us to-morrow, I believe !*' added the 111- inoisan. ''Ah, indeed, are they ?" was the Jesuitical inquiry of the lawyer. " Yes, and they wn'll have good company, won't they !" was the response. Then he bowled away at the ten-pins, more energetically than ever, and with something in his manner and the nervous jerk of his arm, that once more recalled Townsend's idea of his feeling, while in the act, like shooting some one down a mountain precipice like a pebble-stone, or sweeping away a fate like a cobweb with one of those polished globes of iron wood. Only a couple of games, and then they went in to bed with a mutual reminder that the motto in the morning would be "to horse and away !" and that above all things they must be w^atchful against that phase of indolence vulgarly known as "oversleeping." The house was nearly silent, all the prospective riders having retired for the night, and soon slumber fell upon that hive of human bees wandering in search of the honey of unlaboring pleasure, gathered under the roof of Gibb and Hartshorne at the Crawford. THE C O W A K D. 835 Fell, but not too deeply, for that wliicb. is to be brief has a ri!2:bt to be intense ; and the hours of repose were relentlessly numbered. Neither Townsend nor -Rowan need have been anxious about wakinj? in the morning ; for such a blast and roar of horrible sound as swept through the corridor at about seven, A. M., from the big Chinese gong in the hands of an enthusiastic negro who probably felt that he had no other op- portunity of making his requisite " noise in the world," would have been sufficient to awaken any thing short of the dead I For once, every one obeyed the summons while anathema- tizing the mode, and the breakfast-table was soon surrounded. Here, those who labored under some kind of indefinite im- pression that the summit of Mount Washington was some- where beyond the Desert of Arabia — that nothing eatable or drinkable could ever be discovered on its top — and that the more they ate the better able they would be to- endure the fatigue of the ascent, — made vigorous attacks on the steaks, eggs and chickens, and drank coffee, milk and cold water with- out limit. Those better advised (and the fact is here set down as a bit of practical experience w^orth heeding), — those who knew the painful elfect of attempting to. climb a mountain when gorged to repletion (the traveller, not the mountain — the mountain is always full of '' gorges") — those, we say, con- fined themselves to an e^g or two and a small slice of rare steak, and drank lightly. When the party one by one dropped out from ' ■ -ikfast, the scene in front of the house was at once picture.-i;!ii' and singular — worth remembering by those who shared in it or who have shared in one similar, — and worth the feeble at- tempt at verbal daguerreotype which may do something to preserve it against that day when the Crawford decays and Mount Washington is either levelled off or ascended by means of a locomotive or a dumb-waiter More than twenty names — somewhat more than half of ihem belonging to ladies — were on the book for the ascent ; tnd a corresponding number of horses were scattered over 836 THECOWARD. the broad open space in front of the door. All were saddled and bridled ; but among them moved half-a-dozen gnides in rough coats, thick boots and slouched hats, inspecting and tightening the girths, looking to the cruppers and bridles, and paying especial attention to the animals provided for the female portion of the cavalcade, for whose safety they ever hold themselves and are ever held by the hotel-proprietors, peculiarly responsible. By way of back-ground to this singular scene, under a clump of trees to the right walked two full-grown black bears (no mountain resort can be thoroughly complete without its bears !) — chained and surly, ever keeping their weary round and grunting out their disapprobation at being confined to such narrow quarters without an occasional naughty youngster for lunch. But what a spectacle was presented when the mount was ready and the riders had all emerged from the door of the Crawford ! Were these the belles and beaux of previous days, captivating and being captivated by perfection of raiment as well as charm of face and grace of figure ? If so, never had such a metamorphosis taken place since long before Ovid. Every man wore some description of slouched hat, brought in his baggage or hired in the hotel wardrobe, — bad, very bad, atrocious, or still worse, and each tied down over the ears with a thick string or a handkerchief. Coarse and old trowsers were turned up over heavy boots ; and the roughest and coarsest of box-coats that could be provided were surmounted in the majority of instances by striped Guernsey shirts still rougher. All the dilapidated gloves and coarse tippets that could be mustered, with a few shawls and blankets, completed the equipment of a set of men who certainly looked too badly even for brigands and seemed the enforced victims of some hideous masquerade. But if the men looked badly, what shall be said of that which should have been the fairer portion of the cavalcade ? Salvator Rosa never dreamed of such objects, and Hogarth THE COWARD. o37 Avonld have gone stark mad in tlie attempt to depict them. Kinglets were buried under mob-caps and old woollen-hoods, and smothered in bad straw hats and superannuated felt jockeys, tied down in the same ungraceful manner as those of the men. Hoops had suddenly ceased to be fashionable, even in advance of the sudden Quaker collapse in the cities ; and every shape, bulky or lank, showed in its own undis- guised proportions — here a form of beauty, there a draped lamp-post, and yonder a bedizened bolster. In short, the very worst riding-dresses possible to achieve seemed to have been carefully gathered from all the old-clothes shops in the universe ; and if the men were the ugliest brigands of the dark souled Italian painter, the women were the drollest witches that ever capered through the brain of the master- dramatist. And yet there were sparkling eyes showing occasionally from under those hideous bonnets, that perhaps looked the brighter for the contrast ; and it is not sure that one or two of the sweet auburn curls of Clara Yanderlyn, which had strayed away from their confinement and lay like red gold on the neck of her shabby black riding-dress, could ever have shown to more bewitching advantage. Every one laughed at the appearance of the other, as the mount was taking place, and as Hartshorne, of the Crawford, who seemed to have measured the capabilities of every horse and calculated the weight and skill of every rider, called off the names from the roll-book, and gave place to each in turn. Of the material of the mount, it is only necessary to specify three or four of the horses, which have to do with the subse- quent details of that eventful excursion. Miss Yanderlyn bad a neat little black pony, apparently very careful in step, and an "old-stager" at ascending the mountains. Her brother Frank rode a tall bay, of high spirit and better action than any other horse on the ground. Rowan had asked Hartshorne (some of the others heard him, with a sensation 21 338 THE COWARD. of genuine horrov) to give him the worst-tempered horse in the stable ; and as lie was known to he an old habitue of the mountains, he had been accommodated according to request. So far as could be discovered by his action, his horse, a bay of fifteen and a half or sixteen hands, with ' ' foot and bottom, would kick, bite, strike, run away, shy one side, and do every thinir else wicked and unsafe that should taboo a horse from being ridden at all, — except stumble, from which latter fault he was remarkably clear. Townsend was accom- modated with a gray mare of moderate size and a dash of Arab blood, that had been unused for nearly a month from having nearly broken the neck of one of the })roprietors, on his personal allegation that he was at least a fair rider, and that the breaking of his own neck would be the least damage that could be inflicted on any member of the i)arty. Thick morning mists still hid the tops of Mount Webster and Mount Willard, visible from the house, and hung amid the heavy woods of Mount Clinton, although the storm had really passed away with the night, — as at nine o'clock, all mounted, the guides took their places, one at the head of the cavalcade and the others scattered at intervals through it, and the whole line moved off up the mountain. It should be mentioned here, however, that Townsend (the observer again) saw during the mount the only recognition which took place between the two principal persons of his outside drama — Halstead Rowan and Clara Yanderlyn. Frank was mounting his horse, after having assisted his sister to her saddle, when Ptowan brushed by her on his^vicious bay, very near her and to the left. He saw their eyes meet, and saw Rowan bend so low that his head almost touched the neck of his horse. Clara Yanderh^i replied by a gesture quite as mute and quite as unlikely to be observed by any one not especially watchful. She nodded her head quickly but decidedly, and threw the roughly-gloved fingers of ker left luittd to her lips. That was all, and of course unobserved by Frank Yanderlyn, who mav or mav not have been aware THE COWARD. 839 that the man whom he had insulted was a member of the ascending- party ; but it was quite enough, beyond a doubt, to set the blood boiling in the veins of the lllinoisan with all the fury of the water surging up in flame and smoke in the Iceland Geysers. T\owan and Townsend had places assigned them near the middle of the line, but as the cavalcade began to move, the human demon of unrest was missing from his place, lie was to be seen at the end of the piazza at that moment, talk- ing to Hartshorne, and no doubt making a few additional in- quiries as to the character of the amiable animal he bestrode. The lawyer called out to him to '' Come on !" but he an- swered with a wave of the hand and a shout : "Go ahead! don't wait for me I 1 will be with you directly !" Through the thick woods of Mount Clinton they swept up, over a bridle-path so rough as to have made the most laborious if not the most dangerous walking — over great boulders of stone lying in the very path, and apparently im- possible to get over or around — over patches of corduroy road utterly defying description, except to the men who isolated Fort Donelson and planted the Swamp Angels in the marshes of Charleston — over and through gutters and gulches of slippery stone and more slippery mud — but ever ascending at a painful acclivity. The horses breathed heavily ; and their riders, in the thick and foggy air, did little better. They caught occasional glimpses through the trees, down the sudden slopes at the left, of the thick mist rolling below, but could see nothing else to remind them of the height they were attaining; and as the dense fog swept in their faces, and the trees dripped moisture on them when they swept beneath their branches, and the path grew more and more desolate and diCQcult, they grew silent, the whole cavalcade, apparently by common consent. There are aspects in which Nature looks and feels too solemn for the light word and the flippant jest; and the man who cannot 840 THK COWARD. be awed licyond his ordinary mood whon standing under the edge of the sheet of Niagara, or beside the sea when it is lashed into resistless fury, or in gale and mist on the bleak, bare, desolate mountains of the North, should never insult the grand and the terrible by going into their presence ! And yet all persons, who have true reverence in their hearts, are not always awed beyond themselves, even in the most impressive of situations : as witness, to some degree, the inci- dents following. They had surmounted the first acclivity, perhaps a mile from the Crawford, and were commencing a slight descent \vhich made every rider look to the horse's feet and ride with a slight tremor, — when the stillness was suddenly broken in a manner which almost curdled the blood of the timid and needed a second reassurance for even the boldest. "Pop-pop-pop-pa-hoo ! Iloo-hoo-oo-oo !" came from the path below, v.ith that hideous power and distinctness of lungs that have chilled so many hearts and whitened so many faces since the white man first intruded on the hunting-grounds of the American Indian. A shrill, dissonant, horribk 3'ell, com- bining the blind ferocity of the beast with the deadlier rage of man, such as made the poor mother clasp her babe closer to the breast when it rang around the block-houses of Massa- chusetts and New York in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries — such as less than three years ago proved that it w^as undying in the savage throat, by pealing over the mangled bodies and burned dwellings of the Minnesota massacres. " Good heavens ! — what is that ?" cried half a dozen of the ladies in a breath. "An Indian war-whoop, certainly !" said one of the gentle- men, his face white as wax at the sudden shock. " It is war time, and they tell me that the rebels yell terri- bly !" said one of the ladies. " Can it be — " but then the absurdity of the idea struck her and she paused. ^'Albert Pike was a New England man : perhaps he is here THE COWAKD. 341 witli his Arkansas savages !" said another, whether in jest or earnest no one could well discover. It was surprising how in that one instant the cavalcade had shortened its length — the foremost stopping and the rearmost closing up. Man is a gregarious animal, especially when a little surprised or frightened ! Perhaps Horace Townsend had been as badly startled as any of the others, at the first instant ; but he possessed some data which the others lacked for discovering the source of the warlike yell. " Do not be alarmed, ladies I" he said, after an instant. "I think there is only one Indian uttering that horrible sound, and you may depend upon it that he is white and no rebel. Yes — see ! — here he comes !" They had been, as already indicated, descending a quarter of a mile of most difficult and dangerous path, in which every rider experienced more or less of tremor, and over which the horses were picking their careful way as if they realized that human necks were in peril. At the instant when the atten- tion of the company was thus directed backwards, Halstead Rowan had reached the top of the rise, behind, and was just giving vent to a second and supplemental yell which rang through the woods as if a dozen throats had taken part in it, and which must have been heard half way down the Xotch. " Pop-pop-pop-pa-hoo I Hoo-hoo-oo-oo !" The rider was commencing the descent, too, but not pre- cisely like the rest, picking his v{nj, on a careful half-trot, half-walk ; on the contrary his horse had his ears laid back and was going over the broken stones at such a gallop as he might have held on an ordinary highway ! The reins seemed to be lying loose on his neck, and — could those horrified people believe their eyes ? — so surely as they were threading the tangled woods of Mount Clinton, with thankful hearts for every rood passed over without broken necks, so -surely Halstead Rowan, a novel description of Mazeppa unknown even to Frank Dre^^ior Adah Isaacs, sat his horse in what might 34:2 THE COWARD. be called "reverse order," his back towards them and his face to the animal's tail ! " Good heavens !" " The man is mad !" " Oh, do stop the horse!" " It is running away with him !" He will be killed !" — such were the exclamations that broke from the party as Rowan's equestrianism was recognized — most of them from the female portion of the cavalcade. What would it not have been worth to see sweet Clara Tanderlyn's face at the moment when she first realized who was the reckless rider, and to know whether she cared for his welfare at all and whether anxiety or confidence predominated in her thought ! But the rider did not pause, or seem very much in peril. His horse kept his feet quite as well as any of the others; and Townsend remembering the Comanches and the Arapahoes, was forced to believe that the wild equestrian must have the alleged Indian power of communicating his own will to his horse, and that he could ride almost anywhere and in any manner, in safety. Rowan drew the reins (which he had in his hands, after all) as he came up with the cavalcade, and said : "I hope I did not startle any of 3'ou ladies with my Indian w^hoop. Upon my honor I did not mean to do so, if I did ; for I hate practical jokes that cause pain, quite as much as any of the other fellows, the — gentlemen. But the woods tempted me, and I have not enjoyed such an opportunity for the use of the lungs, this many a day." " I believe some of us were a little frightened for a moment, but no harm done,," said Horace Townsend. " But let me ask you — is not your riding just a little bit careless ?" "Well, yes, just the very least bit in the world, perhaps, for some people !" answered the wild fellow ; and Townsend fancied that he caught him trying, at the moment, to catch a glimpse, unseen by Frank Yanderlyn, under the hood of Clara, who was not very far from him. If he did make the attempt, he failed, for the young girl dared not or would not expose her face. "But come, Townsend," Rowan added, THE CO W A i: \). 3-13 •'will jou not push on with me a little further ahead and let )hese slow coaches come up at tlieir leis^ure ?" "At your rate of progress? No," laurrhed Townsend. "I am not a very bad rider, I believe, but I have never prac- tised in a circus or on a prairie. Go ahead, if you are in a hurry; that is, provided you know which end is going fore- most !" " Found another place where you will not follow me, eh, old boy !" rattled the Illinoisan, with a reference which the other easily understood. " Well, I will see you by-and-bye, then. Go along, Bay Beelzebub !" and the next moment, darting by the centre line and taking precedence even of the leading guide, in a path that was literally nothing but a three-cornered trough, he was to be seen ascending the next rise, his horse trotting along riderless, and himself springing from crag to crag beside the path, his hand upon the animal's back and the reins lying loose on its neck. He had alighted, of course, without checking the speed of the horse in any degree. But a few minutes later, and when the cavalcade had reached the top of Mount Clinton and was coming out from the gloom of the heavy woods into the partial sunshine, — they saw the odd equestrian riding over a portion of road that was onh' moderately bad, standing erect on his horse's back, supported by the reins and his own powers of balanc- ing, — and heard his deep, cheery voice ringing out in a song that seemed as complete a medley as his own character. It may be permissible to put upon record one of the stanzas, which some of those nearest him caught and remembered : "The lieart bowed down by weiglit of wo — Wh^n comin' thro' the rye ? If I had a donkey wot wouldn't go — Good-hye, tny love, good-hye ! I see them on their winding way : Old clothes, old clothes to sell ! So let's be happy while we may — Lost Uahel !" 8-i4: THE COWARD. Still later, the riders were all thrown into momentary horror by coming upon him, as they rounded the head of a gorge near the top of Mount Prospect, — his horse on a walk, and himself hanging over one side, apparently by the heels. The impression prevailed that he must have been knocked senseless by a limb, in some of his pranks, and got his feet fatally 'entangled in the stirrups, — the result of which impres- sion was that a sudden scream, in a woman's voice, burst out from some portion of the line, but so instantaneously sup- pressed that no one could trace it. It turned out that in this last operation, so far from being killed, he was only practising the Indian mode of hanging beside his horse, supported by one hand at the neck and one foot over the saddle, after the manner of the wild tribes of the Plains when throwing the horse as a shield between themselves and the shot of a pursuer ! After a time, however, the reckless fellow seemed to have grown tired of his humor ; for, as the long line crossed over the peak of Prospect to Monroe, and the north wind and the sun had so driven away the clouds that the riders began to realize the glorious prospect opening upon them on every hand, — he took his place in the line, next to his deserted comrade Townsend, sat bis horse like a Christian, and joined in the bursts of admiration vented on all sides, with an enthusiasm which showed that the scenery had never palled upon him by familiarity. And what views indeed were those that burst upon them as they crossed from Franklin to Monroe, and that sea of which the stiffened waves were mountains stretched out for an hundred miles in every direction ! Some there were, in that line, who had stood on the prouder and more storied peaks of Europe, and yet remembered nothing to diminish the glory of that hour. How the deep gorges slept full of warm sunlight, and how the dark shadows flitted over them, and flickered, and thinned, and faded, as one bv one the light clouds were driven southward bv the wind ! AYith what a THE COWARD. 345 shudder, passing over the narrow ridge or back-bone connecting Monroe and Franklin, they looked down into " Oakes' Gulf" on the right and the "Gulf of Mexico" on the left, only separated by a yard of bushy rock from a descent of three thousand feet on one side, and by less than three yards of slippery stone from more than two thousand feet on the other ! The path is a sort of narrow trough, rough enough, but quite as safe, and to those who keep it there is not the least possible danger. Indeed the rider, half hidden in the trough, scarcely knows the fearful narrowness of the bridge over which he is passing; and thousands cross this pass and recross it, and bring away no idea of the sensation that may be gained by a little imprudent hanging over the verge on either side ! None of the riders in that cavalcade went back to their beds at the Crawford without a much more intimate knowledge of the capabilities of that situation ; but of this in due time. It is impossible for any one who has never made a similar ascent, or who has only ascended with a much smaller number, to conceive the appearance made by that score of equestrians at various points when crossing the open but uneven peaks in the last approach to Washington. Varied in stature, sex and costume, and all sufficiently outre to astonish if not to horrify, what views the leading riders of the line could catch at times, looking back at the motley line ! Some half buried in the trough of the path or midway in a gulch, so that only the head would be visible ; others perched on the very top of a huge boulder, ascending or descending ; some clinging close to mane or neck as the horse scrambled up an ascent of forty degrees ; others lying Avell back on the saddle when descend- ing a declivity of the same suddenness. What dreams of the Alps and the Apennines there are in such ascents — dreams of the toilers over St. Gothard and the muleteers of the Pyrenees — dreams of menrory pleasant to those who have such past experiences to look back upon, and substitutes no less pleasant 846 THE COWARD. to many who long for glances at other lands but must die with only that far-off glimpse of the fulness of travel which Moses caught from the hills of the Moabites over that inheritance of his race upon which he was never to enter, ' It yet wanted half an hour to noon, and Mount Washing- ton towered full before them as they came out on the top of Franklin, by the little Lake of the Clouds which lay so saucily smiling to the sun and coquetting with the mists. The peak, a huge mass of broken and naked stone, half a mile up on everi'side and so sheer in pitch that foot-hold seemed hopeless, would have looked totally discouraging but for the white line of path which, winding around it oo the north-west, showed that it must before have been achieved. Up — up — over broken and slipping stones of every size and description, from the dimensions of a brick-bat to those of a dining-table — stones gray and mossed, without one spoonful of earth to prove that the riders had not surmounted the whole habitable globe and lost themselves in some unnatural wil- derness of rock ! And feeling joined with sight to enhance the desolate fancy, for though so nearly high noon the wind blew at that dizzy height with the violence of a gale, and the Guernsey wrappers and the clumsy gloves had long before proved that the rough and Iromely m:iy be more useful than the beautiful. Two or three hundred yards from the Tip-Top House, the rough stone walls of which were glooming above — the party were dismounted, the horses picketed by the guides, and over the broken stones and yawning fissures the dismounted riders struggled up. strong arms aiding weaker limbs, and much care necessary to prevent heedless steps that might have caused injuries slow of recovery. Up — up, over the little but difficult remaining distance — till all stood by the High Altar on the top of ^Mount Washington. Above the clouds, swales of which they saw sweeping by, half way down the mountain — above the earth, its cares and its sorrows, it seemed to them for the moment that they stood ; THE COWARD. 347 and only those who have made such a pilgrimage can realize the glory of that hour. The mountains of Vermont North- westward, those of Canada North-eastward, those of Massa- chusetts to the South and the Franconia range full to the West ; lakes lying like splashes of molten silver at their feet and rivers fluttering like blue silken ribbons far away ; towns nestled in the gorges and hamlds glimmering up from the depths of the ravines ; long miles of valleys filled with sunlight, as if the very god of day had stooped down and left them full of the warmth of his loving kiss ; peak upon peak rising behind and beyond each other, and each tinted with some new and richer hue, from gold to purple and from sunny green to dark and sombre brown ; beyond all, and on the extreme verge of the sight-line to the East, one long low glint of light that told of the far Atlantic breaking in shimmering waves on the rocky coast of Maine ; the world so far beneath as to be a myth and an unreality, distance annihilated, and the clear, pure air drank in by the grateful lungs appearing to be a foretaste of that some day to be breathed on the summit of the Eternal Hills, — these were the sights and these the sensa- tions amid which the dark cheek of Horace Townsend seemed touched with a light that did not beam upon it in the valleys below, with his eyes grown humid and utterance choked by intense feeling ; while all the heart of glorious womanhood in Clara Yanderlyn fluttered up in the truest worship of that God who had formed the earth so beautiful ; and even Hal- stead Rowan once more forgot pride, poverty, insult, and the physical exuberance which made either endurable, to fold his Btrong arms in silence, lift the innate reverence of his thoughts to the Eternal and the Inevitable, and vow to submit with childlike faith to all of triumph or humiliation that might be ordained in the future. 348 THE COWARD. CHAPTER XVII. Horace Townsend with a Lady in Charge — An adven- ture OVER the " Gulf of Mexico'' — Clara Vanderlyn in deadly peril — A Moment of Horror — Halstead kowan and a display of the comanche riding — Townsend's eclipse — The return to the Crawford — Margaret Hayley again, and a Conversation overheard. It was perhaps two o'clock before the meeting-s and part- ings were over between the large party whom we have seen ascending from the Crawford, and the yet greater number who had come up from the Glen House by the belittling novelty of the mountain, the " carriage road," — before the dinner at the Tip-Top House was discussed, hearty and plen- tiful enough, if not remarkably varied, — before the guides of the cavalcade had don€ "chaffing" the carriage drivers from the Glen, whom they seemed to regard very much as "old salts" do " fresh-water sailors," — before every member of the party had viewed the magnificent scenery from every con- ceivable point, drank their fill of a beauty that might not be duplicated for years or excelled in a lifetime, and filled pockets and reticules equally full of all the maps and books that could be bought and all the geok)gical specimens that could be picked up, as memorials of the visit. By that hour the warning of the guides was heard, reminding all that there was no more time remaining than would suffice to carry them- selves and their tired horses back to the Crawford by night- fall. At once, then, the descent began — supposed, in ad- vance, to be so uneventful and merely a pleasant diminished repetition of the experiences of the ascent. As they climbed down the broken rocks of the peak to their patiently-waiting horses (they would probably have waited patiently until they dropped with hunger, if by that means the rider and his saddle could have been avoided ; for your T II E C O W A R D. 849 mountain horse does vol find unalloyed pleasure in his occu- pation !)— when near the " corral," as it maybe called, Frank Yanderlyn left his sister for a moment and stepped over to Horace Townsend, who was descending alone, Halstead Rowan (as usual) at some distance ahead and already preparing to mount and away. " Would you have any objections, sir," the young mun asked, "as I believe that you have no lady in charge, to ride in company with my sister on the w^ay down ?" "Certainly not!" replied Townsend, though a little sur- prised at the salutation and request from one of the haughty Tanderlyns to whom he had not even been introduced. " I shall be proud of the charge, if your sister and yourself foci like placing so much confidence in an entire stranger." " Oh, ice know a gentleman when we see him !" replied the. young man, not a little arrogantly, as it appeared to the lawyer, and with a sinister glance at the Illinoisan w^hich in- dicated that it would have been some time before he was en- trusted with the same responsibility. " I am flattered !" said Townsend, wnth the bow which the speech demanded and yet did not deserve. " Do you remain on the top yourself?" "No," answered the young man. "But the fact is that my horse kicks. He kicked my sister's pony twice in coming up ; and I am afraid of some trouble in going down, if she rides behind me. It will be better for me to drop into the rear of all, where the ill-tempered devil cannot do injury to any one." A few w^ords of quasi-introduction and explanation between Yanderlyn, Clara and the lawyer followed ; and Horace Towm- send, w^ho had come up the mountain without any lady and only in the casual companionship of a man who continually rode away and left him alone, found himself ready to go down it with the fairest member of the company in charge ! Had nothing else intervened since the ride up from Littleton to the Profile and that long, steady glance of admiration which 350 THE COWARD. had then been bestowed upon the sweet face and auburn hair, — what a dangerous proximity this might have proved I Bat the human heart, expansive as it may be, has not quite the capacity of a stage-coach or a passenger-car; and to prevent falling in desperate love with one fascinating woman thrown in one's way, there is perhaps no guard so ])otent as being in real or fancied desperate love with another ! Halstead Rowan and the lady whom Townsend had reason to believe the object of his hope and his despair, had not been flung together and apart from others, for one moment during the day — Mr. Frank Yanderlyn had taken especially good care in that respect ; though the lawyer had little cause to doubt that if both could have had their choice of companion- ship, they would have stood side by side and without others too near, by the High Altar which crowned the summit of the mountain, and spoken words difficult to unsay again during the lifetime of either. But if he had not been alone with Clara Yanderlyn, there is equally little doubt that he had looked at her much oftener than at the most admired point of scenery on the route. And as Frank Yanderlyn strolled away to his horse, and Townsend, with the lady ob- viously under his charge, was preparing to mount, he saw Ftowau, with one foot in the stirrnp and the other on the ground, looking over at him and his companion, with the most comical expression of wonder on his face that could well have been compressed into the same extent of physiognoni}". Tlie heart of the new knight-errant, which must have been a soft one or he would never have labored under that weak- ness, smote him at the thought of his apparent desertion ; and with a word of apology he stepped away from the lady and approached the dismounted amateur Comanche. '' You don't mean to say that you are going to " said the latter, and he nodded his head comicalh^ and yet a little pitifully towards Clara Yanderlyn. " Ride down with Miss Yanderlyn ? Yes !" answered the lawyer. THE CO W A 11 J) . 851 ♦'And who the deuce asked you to do it, I should like to know ?" "Her brother." " Phew-w-w !" A prolonged whistle, very characteristic and sii^nificant. Towusend, in a word, explained tiie affair. "All right !" said the Illinoisan. " But, look here, old fel- low ! You haven't arranged this affair yourself, eh ? Xo meetings on a single track, you know !" " Xot a bit of it !" laughed Townsend at the professional illustration. " Confidence for confidence ! Have you not seen more closely than thatV " Yes, I thought I had!" answered llowan. " Well, all right ! Go ahead ! But by Jupiter, if you do not take the best care of that girl, and she gets into any kind of a scrape by riding with a man who canH ride, there will be somebody challenged to something else than ten-pins !" Townsend laughed and turned away. The time had been, he thought, when incapacity to ride would scarcely have been set down as among his short-comings But every thing, even equestrianism, was to be reckoned by comparison ! A moment after, all the party were in the saddle ; and then commenced a descent still more laborious than the ascent, at least to the tired horses that groaned almost humanly as they slid down the sudden declivities, and to the more timid of the riders. Horace Townsend rode immediately before Miss Yanderlyn, a little forward of the centre of the Indian file (the only possible mode of riding in those narrow bridle- paths) — Rowan half-a-dozen further behind, then two or three others, and Frank Yanderlyn, with his dangerous bay, bringing up the rear. The lawyer found his fair companion all that her face had indicated, in the desultory conversation which sprung up be- tween them as they made their way downward from the sum- mit, descending the peak of the monarch and riding back over the broad top of Monroe towards Franklin. Clara Yander- ijr)2 THE C U W A K 1) . lyn conversed geniall}' and easily, and liad evidently (in spite of some restrictions already suggested,) enjoyed the da}^ with the full warmth of au ardent nature. She seemed an excellent horsewoman, easy and self-possessed in the sad- dle, and Townsend observed that she found leisure from the care of picking her way, to look back several times over her shoulder. For a long time he may have been undecided whether her regard was directed at her brother, at the ex- treme end of iiic line, or at some one in the middle distance. The one glance of anxiet}" would have been very natural : the other, compounded of interest only, may have been likewise natural enough — who can say ? Thc}^ were crossing Monroe to Franklin, over the narrow back-bone of land that has been mentioned in the ascent, and at the very point where Oakes' Gulf, now on the left, and the scarceh' less terrible Gulf of Mexico on the right, narrowed the whole causeway to not much more than a dozen of feet, — when Townsend heard a sudden and sharp cry behind him. At that point the descent of the path was very precipitous, and over stones so rugged that the horses kept their feet with great difficulty ; and in his anxiety to insure safe footing he had for the moment lost sight of his fair companion — a poor recommendation of his ability as an escort, perhaps, but not less true than reprehensible ! At the cry he turned instantly, though he could not so suddenly check the course of his horse down the path without danger of throwing him from his feet ; and as he looked around, through the olive brown of his cheek a deadly whiteness crept to the skin, and his blood stood still as it had probably never before done since the tide of life first surged through his veins. It has been the lot of many men to look upon a horror ac- complished or so nearly accomplished that any reversal of the decree of fate seemed to be beyond hope. Such is the gaze upon the strewn dead of the battle-field, before the life has quite gone out from a few who are already worse than dead, and w^hen the groans and the cries for " water !" to cool the lipa T H K CO W A H D. , ;-,jj3 parched in the last fever, have not yet entirely ceased. Such is the hopeless glance at the windrow of dead strewing the shore when a ship is going to pieces in the surf, in plain sight and yet beyond the aid of human hands, and when every moment is adding another to the dr,owncd and ghastly subjects for the rough-coated Coroner. Such is the stony regard at the crushed victims of a railroad catastrophe, or the charred and blackened remains of those who were but a little while ago living pas- sengers on the steamboat that is just burning at the water's edge. Such, even, is the shuddering glance at the bravo and unconscious firemen who stand beneath a heavy wall, when that wall is surging forward and coming down in a crushing mass upon their very heads, with no power except a miracle of Omnipotence to prevent their being flattened into mere pan-cakes of flesh, and blood, and bone. All these, and a thousand others, are horrors accomplished or beyond hope of being averted ; and they are enough to sicken the heart and brain of humanity brought into sudden familiarity with them. But perhaps they are not the worst — perhaps that yet unac- complished but probable horror is still more terrible, because uncertainty blends with it and there is yet enough of hope to leaven despair. The life not yet fully forfeited, but going — going ; the form not yet crushed out of the human semblance, but to be so in a moment unless that one chance intervenes ; the face — especially if the face be that of woman, a thousand times more beautiful in the relief of that hideous mask of death which the gazer sees glooming behind it, — this is per- haps the hardest thing of all to see and not go mad. None of these conditions may have been quite fulfilled in the glance cast backward by Horace Townsend at that mo- ment ; but let us see how far the situation varied from the most terrible of requirements. Going over that back-bone in the morning, the lawyer, who chanced to be for the moment alone, had swung himself from his horse, leaving the animal standing in the trough, peered through the bushes to the right, down into Oakes' Gulf, and 854 .THE COWARD. waited to the edge of the ])road stone that formed the pro- jection over the Gulf of Mexico. lie had found that stono smooth and rounded, a little slippery from the almost per- petual rains and mists beating upon it, not more than eight to ten feet wide from the path to the verge, and with a per- ceptible slope downwards in the latter direction. He had thought, then, that it needed a clear head and a sure foot (both of which he possessed) to stand in that position or even to tread the stone at any distance from the path. And so think- ing, he had swung himself back into the saddle and ridden on, — the incident, then, not worth relating — now, a thing of the most fearful consequence. For as he glanced back, at that sudden cry, he saw Clara Yanderlyn sitting her horse on the very top of that smooth plateau of stone overlooking the two thousand feet of the Gulf of Mexico, at what could not have been more than four or five feet from the awful verge, and certainly on the downward slope of what was an insecure footing even for the plastic foot of man — much more for the clumsy iron-shod hoof! What could have induced her trained pony to spring out from the path a few feet behind and rush into that perilous elevation, must ever remain (in the absence of an equine lexi- con) quite as much of a mystery as it seemed at that moment. Perhaps it was in going down some such declivity of path as that before him, that he had been kicked by the vicious bay of Frank Yanderlyn while making the ascent, and that he had concluded to wait on this convenient shelf until all the rest had gone by, before he consented to make the passage with his fair burthen. Perhaps the movement was merely one of those unaccountable freaks of sullen madness in which horses as well as men sometimes have the habit of indulging. At all events, such was the situation ; and the recollection of it, as thus recalled to those who were present, will be quite enough, as we are well aware, to set the heart beating most painfully. What, then, must have been the feeling of all who THE COWARD. 355 saw, and especially of that man who had promised to protect the fair being thus placed in peril ! What thoughts of the playful threat of Halstead Rowan must have rushed through his brain — that " if she got into any kind of a scrape by rid- ing with a man who couldnH ride," such and such fatal results would follow 1 Not a duel with the Illinoisan — oh, no ! — but a black, terrible, life-long duel with his own self-reproaches and remorse for heedlessness and want of judgment — this would be the doom more fearful than a thousand personal chastisements, if danger became destruction. One clumsy movement of the horse's feet, one slip on the stone, and she would as certainly go over that dizzy precipice and fall so crushed and mangled a mass into the gulf below that her fragments could scarcely be distinguished from those of the pony she rode — as certainly as she had grace and love and beauty crowning her life and adding to the possible horror of her death. He did not know, then, how many of the cavalcade saw the situation, or how the blood of most who saw stood still like his own, with dread and apprehension. The inconceivable rapidity of human thought has been so often made a matter of comment, that words could but be w^asted in illustrating it. It shames the lightning and makes sluggard light itself. All these thoughts in the mind of Horace Townsend scarcely consumed that time necessary to draw rein and turn himself round in the saddle in a quick attempt to alight, rush up the side of the rock and seize her horse by the bridle or swing her from her seat. He had no irresolution — no moment of hesitation — he only thought and suffered in that single instant preceding action. " For God's sake do not move I I will be*there in one in- stant !" he said in a low, hoarse, intense voice that reached her like a trumpet's clang. " Oh yes — quick ! quick !" he heard her reply, in a convul- sive, frightened voice. " Oh, quick ! — you don't know where I am !" Poor girl ! — he did know where she was, too well. 356 THE COWARD. She was braver than most women, or she would probaV)ly have jerked the bridle or frightened her horse by frantic cries, and sent him slipping with herself down the ravine ; for the situation was a most fearful one, and there are few women who could have braved it without a tremor. A man, let it be remembered, if cruel enough, might Lave alighted and left the horse to its fate ; but to a w^oman, encumbered by her long clothes, the attempt must have been almost certain des- truction for both. Perhaps not sixty seconds had elapsed after the first cry, "vvhen the lawyer succeeded in checking his horse without throwing him headlong, swung his foot out of the stirrup, and attempted to spring to the ground. But just then there was a sudden rush over the rock ; a wierd and unnatural sweeping by, something like that of the Demon Hunt in " Der Freischutz ;" a cry of terror and fright that seemed to come from the whole line in the rear and fill the air with ghastly sound ; a closing of the eyes on the part of the in- capable guardian, in the full belief that the noises he heard were those of the accomplishment of the great horror ; then sounds nearer him, and a jar that almost prostrated himself and the horse against which he yet leaned ; then a wild cry of exultation and delight which seemed — God help his senses ! — was he going mad ? — to be mingled with the clapping of bands like that which follows a moment of intense interest at the theatre ! Then silence, and the lawyer opened his eyes as suddenly as be had closed them. And what did he see ? On the rock, nothing ; in the path, ahead of him, Clara Tanderlyn still sitting her horse, though in a half fainting state, and Halstead Rowan, also on horseback, ahead of her, and w^th his hand holding her bridle ! Of course Horace Townsend, at that moment of doubt whether he stood upon his head or his heels — whether he had gone stark mad or retained a fair measure of sanity — whether the enrth vet revolved in its usual orbit or had € piano and ad- vanced towards him. He was a man, past those years when the blood should rush to the face with the rapidity of that of a school-girl ; but the dark cheek was certainly flame in an instant as she came nearer, and when she spoke his name his whole appearance evinced some feeling so much like terror that the object of it seemed to start back with a correspond- ing emotion. That w^as the first instance in which he had chanced to be alone for one moment with the lady, from the time of their first meeting at the Profile, and something might be forgiven a bachelor on that account ; but some cause be- yond this must have moved that man, accustomed alike to society, to the company of women and the making of public appearances. If he tried to speak, his breath did not shape itself into audible words ; and Margaret Hayley was very near him and had herself spoken, before he in any degree recovered from that strange confusion. THE CO \V A R D. S71 " Good-morninj:^, Air. Townsend," she said ; and — mingled surprise and rapture to the man who had licard himself so denounced in her presence the night before ! — she held out those long, slight, dainty white fingers to shake hands with him 1 An advance like that, and from her ! That thought seemed almost to take away his breath, and he really per- mitted those tempting fingers to be extended for quite a mo- ment before he took them. " Good-morning, Miss Hayley," at length he uttered, in a voice low and perceptibly husky, taking the offered hand at the same instant, but scarcely holding it so long as even the briefest acquaintance might have warranted. One instant's pause : the lady was not doing as ladies of her delicacy and gentle breeding are in the habit of doing under corresponding circumstances — she was looking the lawyer steadily and still not boldly in the face, penetrating inquiry in her eyes, as if she would read the soul through the countenance, and yet with an interest shown in her own which made the act a compliment instead of an insult, ''I am afraid that you are not a very cordial friend," at last she said. "I hoped that I had made one, the other day, after nearly drowning you ; but last night you merely bowed with- out speaking, and this morning when you see me you attempt to run away !" There was warm, genial, kindly pleasantry in her tone — pleasantry a little beyond what the proud face indicated that she would bestow upon any casual acquaintance ; and per- haps that recognition did something to unlock the tongue that had been silent. " You are very kind to remember me at all !" he said. *' Some of us poor fellows of the rougher sex have reason to be glad to form new acquaintances or remember old ones; but beautiful women like yourself. Miss Hayley, are much more likely to wish to diminish the list than to increase it." " What ! — a compliment already I" she said, in the same tone of gayety. "But I forgot — you told me that you were a S72 THE COWARD. lawyer, and I believe that you all have a sort of license to say words that mean nothing." "Oh, you paid the first compliment!" answered Townsend, catching her tone, as they turned in the unconscious prom- enade into which their steps had shaped themselves, and walked down the still lonely parlor. " I ? How ?" she asked. "By noticing me at all I" was the reply. " Very neatly turned, upon my word ! — and still another repetition of the same compliment smuggled into it ! Decidedly you must be a dangerous man in the presence of a jury." " Let me hope that you will not consider me so, and I shall be content with the other part of the reputation," Xeither said any thing more for a moment, though they were still walking together with any thing rather than the manner of comparative strangers. Then Horace Townsend paused in his walk, and said, his voice falling nearly as low as it had been at first : " Miss Hayley, this is the first opportunity that I have enjoyed of speaking with you, away from the ears of others. Will you pardon me if I do not deal altogether in compli- mentary badinage, but speak a few words of earnest ?" "What can y<5u mean, Mr. Townsend?" She looked at him for a moment, as if in doubt, then added : " Yes, cer- tainly I" "Then, to be candid — that is, as candid as I dare be," said the lawyer, "I have taken the great liberty of being very much interested in you, since the first day we met. I had no reason to expect you to be correspondingly impressed, but—" " What am 7 to expect at the end of this, Mr. Townsend ?" she interrupted him. " Are you sure that you are not about to say very imprudent words, out of time, out of place, and that may do much evil while they cannot accomplish any good ?" He saw her put her left hand to her heart, when she made THE COWARD. 373 the interruption, as if some sudden pang had pierced her or some organic pain was located there ; and all the past gayetj of her manner was gone. " I am perfect!}- sure, Miss Hayley I" he said, bowing ; and the assurance was received with a nod of confidence. " I have only said what any gentleman of respectability ought to be able to say to any lady without ofience — that I have been very much interested in you ; and I was about to say that while I had.no reason to expect nn^ impression to be returned, yet I felt that I had a right to fair-dealing and no unfavorable prejudgment." "Fair-dealing? prejudgment?" she uttered, in a not un- natural tone of surprise. "Does my conduct of this morn- ing — oh, what am I saying ? — Mr. Townsend, I do not un- derstand you !" "Of course you cannot, until I explain," said the lawyer. " I have just said that you honored me too much, but I cannot extend that remark to some of your most intimate friends • Captain Coles, for instance — who may be — I hope you will excuse what may sound like an impertinence but is certainly not intended to be such — more nearly connected with yourself and your future plans in life than I have any right to know." There was respectful inquiry in his tone, though he by no means put the remark as a question. Margaret Hayley recognized the tone but did not see the keen interrogation in his eyes at that moment, for her own — those proud, mag- nificent eyes — were drooped to the floor. " By which you mean,'-' answered the lady, "that you think it possible that Captain Coles is my betrothed husband." " I am sorry to say — j^es !" said the lawyer, his voice again dropped very low. " Well, the remark, which amounts to a direct question, is certainly a singular one to come from a man who has no right — even of old acquaintance — to make it," responded Margaret. " And yet I will answer it, a little more frankly than it was put ! Captain Hector Coles is not, and never 374 THE COWARD. will be, any nearer in relationship to myself than you see him to-day." " I thank you very much for the confidence, to which, as you say, I have no right," said Townsend. " It makes what I have yet to say a little easier. I beg you not to misunder- stand me when I tell you that I was last evening an acci- dental listener to the story of my disgraceful conduct coming down the mountains, as told by the Captain at second-hand, as well as to his allegations that I was a coward and an adventurer." '^ Margaret Hayley did not say " What, eaves-dropping ?"' as the heroine of sensation romance or melo-drama would certainly have been called upon to do. She did not even question how he had heard what he alleged. She merely said : " I am sorry, indeed, if you heard words that should never have been spoken." " I did hear them," pursued the lawyer, " and I really did not suppose, this morning, that after hearing the statements made by the Captain, you would even have cared to pursue the very slight speaking acquaintance you had done me the honor to form with me." " Had I believed them, I would not !" spoke the lady, frankly. " And you did not believe them ?" Tone ver\' intense and anxious. " Not one word of them !" Tone very sharp and decided. " God bless the heart of woman, that leaps to tbe truth when the boasted brain of man fails !" said Townsend, fer- vently. " Not every word that he said was a falsehood, but every injurious one was so, if I know myself and what I do. May I tell you what really occurred yesterday on the moun- tain, so that you may better understand the next version ?" " I shall be very happy to hear your account," she replied, ' for the incident must at all events have been a thrilling one." " It was thrilling indeed, as you suppose," said the lawyer. TEE COWARD. 875 ** People form romances sometimes out of much less, I fancy !" The two stood by the window, looking at the hurrying to and fro of drivers and passengers preparing for some late departures ; and so standing, Horace Townsend briefly and rapidly related the facts of the adventure. Mar- garet Hayley did not turn her eyes upon him as he spoke, and a part of the time she was even drumming listlessly and' noiselessly on the glass with those dainty white fingers ; but that she was listening to him and to him only was evident, for the speaker could catch enough of her side-glance to know that eye and cheek were kindling with excitement, and he could hear the quick breath laboring in throat and nostrils almost as if she herself stood in some situation of peril. She was interested — he felt and knew it, — not only in the danger of Clara Yanderlyn and the rash bravery in riding of Halstead Rowan, but in him — in the scape-goat of the occasion ; and he was stirred by the knowledge to a degree that made a very cool and clear head necessary for avoiding a plunge quite as fatal in its effects as would have been that from the brow of the precipice ^ver the gulf. " And that is the whole story — a dull one, after all, I am afraid !" he said, not altogether candidly, perhaps, in con- clusion. " Dull ? oh no, Mr. Townsend, every thing but dull I" was her reply. "■ I have seldom been so much interested in any relation. And the facts, so far as they relate to yourself, are very nearly what I should have supposed after hearing the story floating about the hotel." " You seem to have something of the legal fciculty — that of sifting out truth from falsehood, grain from chaff!" said the lawyer, looking at her a little searchingly. "I? No, not always, though I may be able to do sb sometimes," she said, somewhat sadly, and with a sigh choked in its birth. " I have made some terrible mistakes in the judgment of character and action, Mr. Townsend, youn^ as my life is ; but perhaps the effect of all that is to m'ake me a 376 THE COWARD. little more careful in the reception of loose statements, and so I may have lost nothing. And now — " " — I have occupied as much of your time as you can spare me this morning," the lawyer concluded the sentence for her, with a smile calculated to put her at her ease in the dismissal. " Well, you draw conclusions pretty rapidly !" she said, turning her eyes upon him curiously. " I was going to ex- cuse myself; and yet I should not be afraid to make a small woman's-wager that you err in at least half of your calcu- lation ?" " As how ?" asked the lawyer, somewhat surprised. "Why, Mr. Townsend," answered Margaret Hayley (and what woman who held less true pride and less confidence ia herself would ever have spoken so singularly, not to say boldly ?) *' it is at perhaps a rather early period in our ac- quaintance for me to return your candor with any thing that corresponds, and yet I feel disposed to waive the woman's right of reticence and do so. You think that I am already tired of your company and conversation, and that when you leave me I may go into pleasanter company. You are mis taken — I think you will not misunderstand me, any more than I did you a while ago, when I say that I quite recipro- cate the interest and friendship you have expressed, and that I shall not go into more congenial associations when I leave you ! There, will that do ?" Her eyes were smiling, but there was a tell-tale flush ou either cheek, as she said this and extended those taper fingers, bending her proud neck the while, it must be confessed, a Wile as a queen might do when conferring knighthood upon one of her most favored nobles. Horace Townsend, in strict propriety, should have taken that offered Land in the tips of his own fingers, liowed over it, and let it fall gently back to its place. Pie was not playing strict propriety, as, indeed, the lady had not been for the past few minutes ; and whether he took that chance before the surprised owner of the hand could draw it away, or whether there was very little surprise THE C O W A R 1). 377 or offence in the matter, certain it is that though he did bow over the hand, he bowed too low— so low that his still warmer lips touched the warm fingers with a close, clinging pressure, and that the breath from those lips sent a tingle through every pulse of that strange gir), who was either dangerously frank or an arrant coquette. That rape of the fingers perpetrated, Townsend turned away, too suddenly to notice whether his action had planted yet deeper roses on the lady's check. Margaret Hayley went back towards the piano, without another word, apparently to re-commence her suspended musical exercises, and the lawyer passed through the door leading into the hall. He did not do so, however, sufficiently soon to escape the notice of Captain Hector Coles, who, apparently on a voyage of dis- covery after the truant Margaret, strode into the parlor just as the other was leaving it, and as he nodded managed at the same time to stare into the lawyer's face in so supercilious and insulting a manner that he fairly entitled himself to what he did not receive — a mortal defiance or a blow on the spot I It was plain that he recognized Margaret Hayley at the piano, and that he saw she must have been alone with the object of his suspicion and hatred : was there not indeed some cause for the face of the gallant Captain assuming such an arrogant ferocity of aspect as might have played Gorgon's head to a whole rebel army ? But the awkward meeting did not seem seriously to disturb the young lady : she looked up from her keys, saw the foes in the doorway, saw the glance they interchanged, and then dashed those bewitching fingers into a German waltz of such startling and impudent brilliancy that it seemed to accord almost premeditatedly with certain points in her own character. Here, to Horace Townsend, the curtain of that morning shut down. He passed on and did not see the meeting be- tween Captain Hector Coles, and " the lady" (more or less) "of his love," which may or may not have been cordial and ao:reeable to an extreme ! 878 THE COWAKD. Another of those inevitable dashes, here. They are very nseful, as they prevent the necessity of a steady and unbroken narration which would not be at all like real lifo — that thing most unsteady and most constantly broken into fragments. The reader, who is perhaps by this time somewhat sated with White Mountain scenery (though, sooth to say, no gazer, however old a habitue, ever was so) — the reader is to be spared an}' further infliction, except as one remaining point of personal adventure may require the advantage of appro- priate setting ; and the mountains themselves are soon to fade away behind writer and reader, as they have faded away amid longing and lingering looks from the eyes of so many, losing their peaks one by one as they swept up Northward by rail from Gorham or rolled down Southward by coach through the long valley of the Pemigawasset to Plymouth. The thousand miscellaneous beauties of the AYhite Mountain !N'otch, grander than those at the Franconia but far less easy of intelligent description — the magnificent long rides down the glen and over the bridges that span the leaping and tumbling rock-bedded little Saco — the Willey House with its recollec- tions of a sad catastrophe and its one-hundred-and-fifty-eighth table being cut up and sold in little chips at a dime each, as ''the one used by the unfortunate Willey Family," — all these must wait the eye that is yet to see them for the first time, or linger unrecounted in the memories of those who have made them a loving study in the past. Personal adventure must hurry on, like the ever accelerating course of the goaded and maddened nation, and eliciting the same inquiry — whither'^ Two days following the events already recorded, and all the difi'erent characters involved in this portion of the life- drama, yet lingered at the Crawford. On one of the two days another ascent of Mount Washington had been made ; but with the exception of Mrs. Burton Hayley, her daughter and Captain Hector Coles, all those people peculiarly belonging to us had already made the ascent, and it was the intention of the Philadelphia matron (perhaps a little influenced by the story THE COWARD. 879 of the Yanderlyn peril) to go up herself and take up her small party from the Glen House by carriage, when her stay at the Crawford should be completed. In all that time we have no data whatever for declaring the state of affairs existing between Halstead Rowan and the lady vvhose auburn hair had lain for those few blissful moments on*- his breast. Probably no explicit love-declaration had passed between them ; and Mrs. Yanderlyn and her arrogant son were sufficiently familiar with all the modes by which those who wish to be together can be kept apart, to prevent any of those dangerous " opportunities" which might otherwise have wrought an immediate mesalliance upon the stately house of Tanderlyn. If the would-be lovers met, they only met beneath watchful eyes ; and Halstead Kowan, who had already (■•isplayed that amount of dash and recklessness in personal exposure indicating that an elopement down the mountain roads, with a flying horse beneath him and his arm around the lady's waist, would have been the most congenial thing in life to his nature, — even had Clara Yanderlyn been weak enough to yield to such a proposal, bore all the while within him too much of the true gentleman to lower himself by a runaway alliance, or to compromise the character of the woman he wished to make his wife by wedding her otherwise than in the face of all who dared raise a word of opposition. So there seemed — heigho, for this world of disappointments, hindrances, and incongruities ! — little prospect that anything more could result from the meetings that had alread}^ been so eventful, than an early and final parting, and two lives shadowed by one long regret that the fates had not ordained otherwise. But little more can be said of the fortunes, during those two days, of Horace Townsend and the lady of the proud eyes and the winning smile. Two or three times they had met and conversed, but only for a moment, and they had by no means ever returned again to the sudden cordiality and con- fidence of that first morning. Something in the manner of 380 THE C O W A R D . Margaret Hayley seemed to give token that she was fright- ened at the position she had assumed and the emotions of her own heart (might she not well have been — she who but a month or two before had been clasped to the breast of an ac- cepted lover and believed that she held towards him a life- long devotion ?); and something in the demeanor of Horace Townsend quite as conclusively showed that he was treading ground of the solidity of which he was doubtful, and impelled to utter words that could not be spoken without sacrificing the whole truth of his manhood ! Captain Hector Coles had believed his name an assumed one and looked after the initials on his handkerchief to satisfy himself of the fact ; and the reader has found reason to believe that there was really an assumption : did that departure from truth already begin to assert its penalty, when he was brought into contact with a woman who showed her own candor so magnificently ? Strange problems, that will be solved eventually without any aid from the imagination. Once during that two days there had been a collision be- tween the lawyer and the Y. A. D. C, not one word of which, probably, had reached the ears of the lady in w^hose behalf it had occurred, from the lips of the politic Captain, or from any of those who saw and heard it, — as it certainly had not been hinted to her by the other party in the rencontre. That collision had happened in this wise. On the afternoon of the same day on which the very pleas- ant interview with Margaret Hayley took place in the parlor of the Crawford, Horace Townsend strolled into the billiard- saloon. Since the night before, in one particular direction, he had been decidedly ill-tempered, not to say ferocious ; and however he might have been softened for the moment by the encounter of the morning, in one respect that encounter had left him much more likely to assault the man who had calum- niated him so foully, than he could have been before a certain assurance had been given him on that occasion. Then the oificer's stare into his face, when leaving the room, had not THE COW A ED. i)Sl tended to remove any of his bile ; he did not believe, it is probable, that he would stand any the worse with the pecu- liarly constituted Margaret Hayley, in the event of an insult to the man who had insulted him coming to her knowledge ; and in short he had been all day prepared, at any time when he could do so with most effect, to repay him, interest in- cluded, in his own coin of ill-treatment. How soon or how effectually his opportunity was coming — the opportunity of all others for a stab in a vital part, — he had no idea when he en- tered the billiard-room. Several gentlemen were there, some playing and others Bmoking and in conversation. In one corner of the room, conversing with two or three others. Captain Hector Coles was giving a graphic account of the Battle of White Oak Swamp, in the retreat from the Peninsula, during one period of which, according to his account. General was wounded and all the field officers of a whole division cut up, so that he, though only on the staff and without positive command, was obliged to direct all the movements and eventually to head three different charges by which the enemy, four or five times superior in numbers in that part of the field, were finally re- pulsed with great slaughter. The story, as told, was a good one, and Captain Hector Coles played the part of Achilles in it to perfection, especially as there did not happen to be pres- ent (and there is strong reason to believe that he had assured himself of the fact in advance) a single officer who had shared in the Peninsular campaign. He was emphatically, just then, the hero of the hour, in that most assured of all points of view, a military one. It does not follow that Horace Town- send had been an actor in the Peninsular campaign, but he certainly arrogated to himself some knowledge of very small details that had taken place at Glendale, for he was guilty of the great rudeness of breaking in upon a conversation in which he was not included, with a question that served as a sort of pendant to the story of the Captain : " Let me see — it was in one of those charges, Captain, or 382 T n K C W A R D . was it wliilc carrying some order, that you had tliat bad at- tack of giddiness in the head and were obliged to dismount and lie behind one of the brush-heaps in the swamp for an hour?" "Who the ." The Captain, who had not recognized the voice or seen the intruder, began to ask some question which he never finished, for he checked himself as suddenly as if he had been about committing a serious blunder. But he recovered himself very quickly, and pieced-out the remark so that it seemed very much as if he had pursued his original intention. " Who the are you, Horace Townsend as you call yourself, to put in your remarks when gentlemen are in con- versation ?" " Oh, I beg pardon, I did not know that you were ashamed of it. I happened to hear Colonel D relate the little cir- cumstance not long after the battle ; and I thought, from your leaving it out, that you might possibly have forgotten it." The gentlemen present stared from one to the other and said nothing. Such plain speaking w^as a novelty even among the excitements of mountain life. The Captain began by having si very white face, and ended with having a very red one. " Colonel D lied, if he said any thing of the kind !" he foamed. "I will tell him you say so, the next time I meet him," was the cool reply, " and you can try the little question of veracity between yourselves." "Xo, I -v^ll try it with youP^ the Captain almost shouted. " You are the liar — not Colonel D , and I will shoot you as I would a dog." " You will be obliged to do it by waylaying me, then," answered the lawyer. "Apart from any objection I may have to duels in the abstract, I certainly am not going out with a gentleman,''^ and he laid a terrible stress upon the word — "a gentleman who picks pockets." THE C O W A K 1) . 883 " Gentlemen ! gentlemen !'' expostulated one or two at that period. '•Recall that word, or I will shoot you on the spot !" cried the Captain, his face now fiery as blood itself, and his hand moving up to his breast as if he really followed the cowardly practice of carrying a revolver there, while meeting in peace- ful society. If he had a weapon and momentarily intended to draw it, he desisted, however. •■' I will not recall the word, but I will explain it," answered the lawyer. " I heard you confess last night, Captain Hector Coles, in the midst of al)Out half an hour's falsehoods about my poor self, that you had picked my poc-ket of a handker- chief, the night before in the ten-pin alley. After that and the little indisposition at White-Oak Swamp, I think you will all agree with me, gentlemen, that I am under no obligations to afford that person any satisfaction." " Coward !" hissed the Captain. At the word a shiver seemed to go over the lawyer's frame, but he only replied : " Yes, that was what you called me last night ! Excuse me, gentlemen, for interrupting a very pretty little story, but I am going away and the Captain will no doubt continue it." He did go away, walking down towards the house, a little flushed in face but otherwise as composed as possible. Cap- tain Hector Coles did not tell out his story, for some reason or other ; and the moment after he too went away. " What the deuce is it all about ?" asked one of the gentle- men when they had both departed. " Haven't the least idea," said another. " Though, by the way, the Captain has a very pretty woman with him — I won- der if there should not be a lady at the bottom of the trouble, as usual ?" " Seemed to be some truth in that story*about getting giddy in the head, by the way it hit !" said a third. ''Don't look much like cowards, either of them," said a fourth. "And, now that I think of it — -wasn't that the name 384 T H K C u W A K D . — Townsend — of the fellow who leaped into the Pool the other day over at the Profile ?" " Don't know — shouldn't wonder — well, let them fight it out as they please — none of our business, I suppose I" re- joined one of the others ; and the party dispersed in their several directions. Such was the scene in the billiard room ; and it was not strange that more than a day after, no report of it had come to the ears of Margaret Ilayley or her mother, through the medium of any of the bye-standers ; for the persons most nearly interested are not those who first hear such revelations of gossip. That neither the Captain nor Horace Townsend should personally have spoken of it to Margaret is quite as natural, for reasons easily appreciated. That young lady, with two lovers more or less declared, was accordingly very much in the dark as to the peculiarly volcanic character of her admirers and the chances that at some early day they might fall to and finish each other up on the Kilkenny-cat principle, leaving her with none ! The third day after the ascent of Washington by our party witnessed its disruption in some important particulars. The morning stage down the Notch took away the Yanderlyns, on their way to Lake Winnipiseogee and thence to Xewport. They had been in the mountains little more than a week, but seen most of the points of interest at the Franconia and White Ketches ; and other engagements, previously formed, were hurrying them forward, as humanity in the Xew World is always hurried, whether engaged in a pleasure tour or a life labor. They left a vacancy behind them, and foretold the gradual flight of all those summer birds who had made the mountains musical, and the coming of those long and desolate winter months when the rooms then so alive with life and gayety should all be bare and empty, the snow lying piled in valley and on mountain peak so deeply that no foot of man might venture to tread them, and the wild northern blast THE COWARD. 885 wailInG: tliroiiu-li tlie o-oj-nrps and around tlio doscrlod (Iwcll- iiii^s jis il" sounding a requiem for the Ille and love and Jiope iled away. They left a blank — all the three ; and yet how diftVrent was the vacauey eaused by each of the three departures ! Mrs. Yanderlyn, a lady in the highest fashionable aeeeptanee of the term, but so i)roud and stately that her better qualities were more than half hidden beneath the icy crust of conven- tionalism, — had dazzled much and charmed to a great degree, but won no regard that could not be supplied, after a time, by some other. Her son Frank, handsome and gifted but arrogimt beyond endurance, had won no friends wherever be moved, except such friends as money can mould from sub- servience ; and his going away left no regrets except in the breasts of the landlords whom he lavishingly patronized and the servants whom he subsidized after the true Southern fashion. But Clara Yanderlyn, who seemed to have fallen among the mountains with the softness, innocence and tender- ness of a snow-flake — Clara with her gentle smile, her sweet, low voice and wealth of auburn hair, — the friends sJte had formed from the rough ore of strangerhood and then from the half-minted gold of mere acquaintance, were to be numbered only by counting the inmates of the houses w^here she made her sojourn ; and therp was not one, unless the exception may have been found in some spiteful old maid who could not for- give her not being past forty, angular and ugly, or some man of repulsive manners and worse moral§ who had been intui- tively shunned by the pure, true-hearted young girl — not one but lifted up a kind thought half syllabled into bnjath, as they caught the last glimpse of the sunny head — " God bless her !" It is a rough, difficult world — a cold, hard world, in many regards. The brain is exalted at the expense of the hf^irt, and^cheming intellect counted as the superior of unsuspicious innocence and goodness. "Smart" — "keen" — "sharp" — these are the flattering adjectives to be applied even to the Bisters we love and the daughters we cherish, while in that 24 386 THE COWARD. one word " soft" lies a volume of depreciation. And of those educated with such a thought in view, are to be the mothers of our land if we have a land remaining to require the exist- ence of mothers. Is not a little leaven of unquestioning ten- derness necessary to season the cold, hard, crystallizing mass? Will womanhood still be that womanhood which has demanded and won our knightly devotion, when all that is reliant and yielding becomes crushed or schooled away and clear-eyed Artemis entirely usurps the realm once ruled by ox-eyed Juno ? Will there be any chivalry left, when she who once awoke the spirit of chivalry stands boldly out, half- unsexed, the equal of man in guile if not in bodily strength, and quite as capable of giving as of requiring protection ? And may we not thank God for the few Clara Yanderlyns of the age — the gentle, impulsive, unreasoning souls, who make the heart the altar upon which the first and b.est tribute of life is to be laid — who love too soon, perhaps, and too irre- vocably, but so escape that hard, cold mercantile calculation of the weight of a purse and the standing of a lover in fashionable society, upon which so many of their sisters worse wreck themselves than they could do by any imprudent love-match that did not bring absolute starvation within a twelvemonth ? This is something of a rhapsody, perhaps ; and let it be so. It flows out, unbidden, under the impulse of a gentle memory ; and sweet Clara Tanderlyn, Avhen she goes to her long n.'St, might have a worse epitaph carved upon the stone above her head, than the simple legend : " She lived to love." But if the going away of Clara Yanderlyn left a blank in the social circle at the Crawford, what must have been the effect produced by it upon Halstead llowan, the chivalrous and the impressible, with a heart as big as his splendid Western physique, who could have little prospect of ever meeting her again except under circumstances of worse disadvantage than had fought against him in the mountains, and who could en- tertain no more hope of ever wedding her without bringing THK COWARD. 887 her painfully down from her position in society, than he could of plucking one of the stars harmlessly from its place in heaven ! The lllinoisan was not upon the piazza when the coach drove away. If any farewell had been made, it had been made briefly and hurriedly, where no eye but their own could see it. Horace Townsend thought of all that has been here set down, and looked around for Rowan at the moment of their de- parture ; but ho w^as invisible. The lawyer had himself a pleasant word of farewell and shake of the hand as she stepped to her seat in the coach, from the young girl whose dangerous perch upon the pinnacle of the mountains he was not likely soon to forget ; and then the door closed and she disappeared from his sight perhaps forever in life, leaving him thinking of the pleasant afternoon, so few days before, when he gazed for the first time upon her sweet face as they came up from Plymouth and Littleton, — and of the romance connected with her which had since been crowded into so brief a space. He saw nothing of Rowan for an hour after. Then he met him walking alone up the road north of the house, with his head bent down a little and something dim and misty about the eyes that even gave a suspicion of the late unmanliness (that is what the world calls it !) of t^ears. He raised his head as he recognized the lawyer, and held out his hand in a silence very unlike his usual bold, frank greeting. Townsend, who may all the while have had quite enough matters of his own to demand his whole attention, could not help pitying the subdued manner and the downcast look that sat so strangely upon the usually cheerful face. There had been nothing like it before, within his knowledge — not even on the night when he had been so foully insulted by Frank Yanderlyn at the Profile. The lawyer knew, intuitively, what must be the subject of conversation to which the mind of Rowan would turn, if his lips did not; and he felt c[uite enough in his confidence to humor him. S88 TUB COWARD. "I did not see you this morning-," he said. " When they went away ? — no !" was the answer. No fear that his listener could misunderstand who " they" were, and he did not display the cheap wit of pretending to do so. "You look down-hearted ! Come — that will never do for the mountains — especially for the boldest rider and the most dashing fellow that has ever stepped foot among them !" and he laid his hand somewhat heavily on the shoulder of the other, as if there might be power in the blow to rouse and exhilarate. It did indeed produce the effect of making him throw up his head to its usual erect position, but it was be- yond any physical power to lighten the dark shadow that lay upon his face. "You are a good fellow as well as a gentleman, Townsend," he said. "I wish /was a gentleman — one of the miserable dawdling things that know nothing else than small talk and the use of their heels. Then, and with plenty of money, I should know what to do." " And what icoidd you do ?" asked the lawyer. " Marry the woman I loved, in less than a month, or never speak to a woman again as long as I lived !" was the ener- getic reply. " As it is, I am a poor devil — only a railroad conductor ! What business have J, with neither money in ray pocket nor aristocratic blood in my veins, to think of a woman who has white hands and knows nothing of household drudgery ?" "A woman, however," said Townsend, "who could and would learn household drudgery, and do it, for the sake of the man she loved — well, there is no use in mincing the matter — for you, — and think it the happiest thing she ever did in all . her life !" " God bless her sweet face ! do you think so ? do you really believe that personally she likes me well enough to marry me if my circumstances were nearer her own ?" He had grasped Townsend by the hand with one of his own and by the arm with the other, with all the impetuosity of a school-boy; THE COWARD. 889 but before the latter could answer be dropped the hand and the tone of inquiry, and said : " Pshaw ! What use in asking that question ? — I know she could be happier with me than with any other man in the world, and that makes the affair all the more painful." " Heigho 1" said the laywer, "you are not the only man in the world who does not see his way clearly in matrimonial affairs, and you must not be one of the first to mope." " I suppose not," replied the Illinoisan. *' But then you, with your wealth and education — you can know nothing of such a situation except by guess ; and so your sympathy is a little blind, after all." " Think so ?" asked Horace Townsend. " Humph I well, old boy, confidence for confidence, at least a little ! Look me in the face — do you see any thing like jest or trifling in it ?" "No, it is earnest, beyond a doubt." " Then listen for one moment. Halstead Rowan, I do not believe that there is any barrier between Clara Yanderlyn and yourself, that cannot be removed if you have the will to remove it. Now for myself. What would you think — " He stopped and seemed to consider for a moment, while the other watched him narrowly and with much interest. Then he went on : " You saw me meet — well, we will mention no names — the lady down at the house, the same night on which you chanced upon your own destiny." "Yes," answered the Illinoisan, "You thought, no doubt, that it was a first meeting. And so it was, on her part, for she had never before met Horace Townseud, to know him. But what would you think if I should tell you that I bad seen and loved her, many months before — that she was then engaged to be married to a very different person, though a man in the same profession — that I love her so madly as to make my life one long tortpre on her account — that I am throwing myself into her company, under circumstances that if she knew them would make her shrink away from me with loathing — and that such a barrier 890 THB COWARD. exists between us that I have not much more hope of winning her than of bending down one of yon mountain peaks to kiss me, while I can no more avoid the trial than the drunkard can keep away from his glass or the madman escape his paroxysm !" " Is all that true ?" asked Rowan, who had been looking at the speaking face with still increasing wonder. " Every word of it, and more !" was the reply. / " Then my situation is nothing, and 1 have been whining like a school-boy before I was half whipped !" exclaimed the Illinoisan. The effect intended by the other had been pro- duced : he had been made to see that there could be even worse barriers between man and woman, than differences of family and fortune. And once teach any man that there is something worse that might have happened to him, than that which has indeed happened — much is achieved towards bring- ing him to resignation if not to content. "I have told you all this," said the lawyer, " partially be- cause I felt that I had no right to be acquainted with so much in your situation while you knew nothing of mine, and partially because I was really anxious to showyou that others than your- self sometimes find rocks in the bed of that pleasant stream which the poets call 'true love.' And now that I have gone so far, involving reputation as well as happiness, I know that you will do me the only favor I ask in return, and forget that I have said a word on the subject." " I have forgotten it already, so far as repeating it to any mortal man is concerned," replied the Illinoisan. He paused an instant, as his friend had done before, and then he added : " Meeting you has been the pleasantest — no, one of the pleas- antest incidents of my days among the mountains, and I am glad that you have made me feel so much nearer to your con- fidence at the moment of parting." "Parting? What, are you going away already ?" asked Townsend. "At once," answered Halstead Rowan. " I should think, THK CO WARD. 891 tlioiip:h, that you would scarcely need to ask the question I My friends and myself are going to start back for Littleton immediately after dinner, and on to Montreal to-morrow. Do you think that I could sit at that table, as I feel just now, more than one meal longer, and think of- the vacant chairs? Ko — I am a baby, I suppose, and God knows whether I shall ever grow any older and wiser I" " God forbid that you ever should grow so old and so wise as to be able to master your heart altogether 1" said the lawyer. " I am sorry to part with you, for I too, have made a pleas- ant acquaintance. But you are right, no doubt. Try a little change of scene ; and you will be calmer next week, if not happier." They were now near the house, and walked on for a mo- ment in silence. Suddenly Rowan, catching up the last words at some distance, turned short around and said : " Townsend, I am going to change something besides scene ^—life! I am going back into the army again, not for a frolic this time, but as a profession. OiBicers are gentlemen, are they not, even in fashionable society ? — and would not a pair of shoulder-straps make somebody even out of a railroad con- ductor ?" His tone was half badinage, but oh, what a sad earnest lay at the bottom of it ! His companion understood him too well to reply, and the conversation was not renewed. They parted at the piazza a moment after. Two or three hours later, after a long grasp of the hand which went far to prove that strong friendship between men has not become altogether a myth since the days of David and Jonathan, of Damon and Pythias, they parted at the same piazza once more and for a period that no human calculation could measure. Horace Townsend and Halstead Rowan were almost as certain never to meet again after that parting moment, as if one of the two had been already done with life and ticketed away with the dead Guelphs and Bourbons ! S92 THE COWARD. CHAPTER XIX. A Strange Character at Breakfast — " The Rambler" AND HIS AnTEGEIJENTS WUAT HORACE TOWNSEND HEARD ABOUT Fate — Going up to Pic-nic on Mount Willard — The Plateau, the Rope and the Swing — Spreading the Banquet — The Dinner-call and a Cry which answered IT — A Fearful Situation. At breakfast, the next morning after the departure of the Illinoisau, a somewhat strange character was called to the attention of the guests at the Crawford ; and a few of them, sitting near him, entered into conversation with him when they discovered the peculiar habits of life and mind which had for years made him an object of interest to visitors among the mountains. He had been absent southward of the range, in Pinkham Xotch, at Glen Ellis Falls and other wild localities lying north of Conway, for the preceding«!two or three weeks, only arriving the night before ; and very few of the persons then present at the Crawford had seen him except in half-for- gotten meetings in previous years. He called himself and was called by others who knew him (very few of whom, prob- ably, knew him by any other name) " The Rambler," and his habits of life were said to justify the appellation most com- pletely, as his appearance certainly accorded with the precon- ceived opinions of an itinerant hermit. He was a man evidently past fifty, with a face much wrinkled by time and roughened by exjxtsure — with a high forehead bald nearly to the apex of the head, long grizzled hair, rapidly ai)proaching to white, tumbled about in careless profusion, beard straggling and ungraceful and graying as fast as the hair, and something melancholy and unsettled in the eye which indicated that his wandering habits might have had an origin, many years before, in some loss or misfortune that made quiet a torture. In figure he was rather below than THE COWARD. 893 above the middle height, with a certain wiriness in the limbs and a hard look in the bones and tendons of the hand, sug- gestive of unusual activity and an iron grip. But when they came to know more of him from the explana- tions of the servants and a little listening to his own conver- sation, those who on that occasion first met him had reason to confess that the Rambler needed all the iron nerve and hard endurance indicated by his physique. They believed him to be a man of nieajis, and he certainly spent money with free- dom if not with lavishness, the supply seeming to be as slight and yet as inexhaustible as that of the widow's cruse. He spent very little of it upon his own person, however : such a suit of coarse gray woollen as he wore that morning, with a slouched hat and strong brogan shoes, usually completing his outer equip- ment. Sometimes he carried a heavy cane, but milch oftener went armed with a stout staff of his own length, cut with ready hawks-bill jack-knife from a convenient oaken or hickory sapling and trimmed from its superabundance of knots by the same easily-managd^ substitute for a whole "kit" of carpeu- ters'-tools. This man, as it appeared, had never missed coming to the mountains for a single summer of the preceding fifteen years. Whence he came, no one knew ; and whither he went when his season was over (his season had very little to do with the fashionable one. in commencement or duration), was known quite as little. He might be looked for, they said, at the Pro- file, the Crawford, the Glen, the Alpine, the White Mountain or down in Pinkham Notch, at any time after they began to paint up and repair the houses for the reception of visitors, in early June ; and he might be expected to make his appear- ance at any or all of tliese places, any dny or no day, during the fall season and even up to the time when the last coach- load rolled away in Septemljer and the first snows began to sprinkle themselves on the brows of Washington and Lafayette. He never remained at any one of tlie houses more than a few hours at a time, carrying away from each a few sandwiches, a 394: THH COWAKD. little dried tongue, some cheese and crackers in a small haver- sack, and sleeping nine nights out of ten in the open air, with no pillow but a stone or a log of wood, and his slouched hat. Most of the time he was alone on the tops of the most diffi- cult peaks or at the bottom of gorges where no foot but his own would be likely to tread ; or he was to be seen dodging across a path, stafif in hand and haversack on side, as a party was making some one of the ascents, — rather shunning any company then seeking it, and yet evidently neithe;' misan- thropic nor embarrassed when thrown into society and forced into conversation. Wherever he wished to go he went on foot, even when thirty or forty miles of rough mountain roads and paths were to be mearsured ; and no man, they averred, had ever seen him set foot over the side of a vehicle or recog- nize the right of the animal man to be drawn about from place to place by his brother animal the horse. So far the Rambler, according to the accounts given of him, was merely a harmless monomaniac — harmless even to himself, as all monomaniacs are not. But beyond^hat point, the ser- vants and some of the old habitues averred, came positive madness. He had been mad, since the first day of his com- ing to the mountains and perhaps long before, on the idea of climbing. Many had seen him go up to those peaks and down into those ravines before mentioned, and found as little disposition as ability to follow him. He seemed to climb without purpose, except his purpose might be the mere reck- less exposure of himself to danger at which every one except himself would draw back with a shudder. And that he did this without any motive outside of himself for the action — that he had no thought of awakening admiration by such ex- hibitions, — was evident from the fact that he was just as likely to make some ascent or descent of the most reckless fool-hardiness, when he did not know of the presence of any other person within possible sight, as when he had groups of horrified spectators ; and that loneliness was not a condition precedent to such an attempt, was just as evident from the TUB COWARD. 81^5 fact that he never seemed to desist because one person or fifty came suddenly upon him and "caught him in the act." He seemed to live in a climbing world of his own, in which he was the only resident and all the others merely chance visi- tors who might or might not be in the way when he found it necessary to hang himself like a fly on the crags between heaven and earth. We are making no attempt whatever at analyzing the men- tality of this singular man, whom many will remember as having met him during some period of the last dozen years, at one or more of the Notches of the White Mountains. As well might the attempt be made to survey one of his own mountain tops or discover the superfices of one of the mighty masses of perpendicular rock that so often afforded him a footing at which the chamois would have given up in despair and Hervio Nano (that human "fly on the ceiling") writhed his boneless limbs in a shudder 1 We are only roughly da- guerreotyping the man as he appeared, preparatory to one terrible incident which made him an important character in this narration. Were any effort to be made at explaining his strange and apparently parposeless predilection, perhaps one word would come as near to furnishing the explanation as five hundred others — excitement. One man drinks liquors until he goes beyond himself; another invites to his brain the tempting demons of opium, hasheesh or nicotine ; another perils his prosperity and the very bread of his family at play ; still another plunges into pleasure so deeply that the draught is all the while maddening agony ; and yet another claps spur on heel and takes sword in hand and rides into the thick of the deadliest fight, without one motive of patriotism or one thought of duty: and all these are seeking that which will temporarily lift them above and beyond themselves (alas ! — that which will just as assuredly plunge them below them- selves, in reaction !) — excitement. Who knows that the poor Kambler, bankrupt in heart, hope and memory, had not tasted all the other maddening bowls and found them too weak to 896 " THK COWARD. wean him from Iiis hour of suffering, so tliat when the fre- quent parox3-sm came he had no alternative l)ut to place him- self in some position where the hand and the foot could be- come masters of every thought and feeling, that the rude minstrelsy of deadly danger might thus charm away the black moment from his soul ! All this is mere speculation — the man may have been noth- ing more nor less than a maniac; and j^et his conversation, which was coherent and marked by entire propriety, did not create any such impression. No one who has made any study of the scenery of our North- ern Mountains fails to know that many of them (and alniost all the White Mountains that have full descent on either side to either of the Notches) in addition to the bald scarred brows of cliff that on one side or another seem like faces lifting them- selves in stern defiance to the storm, — have chased down them, from brow to foot, channels or " schutes" from which the torrent or the lightning has originally shorn away trees, herbage and at last earth, every year wearing them deeper and making more startling the contrast of the almost direct line of bluish gray cliff, seeming the very mockery of a path that no man can walk, with the green of the living grass and foliage and the white skeletons of the dead birches, that border them on either side. Perhaps no feature of the moun- tain scenery is more certain to awake a shudder, than such " schutes," as looked up to from below or down upon from above ; as the thought of a passage-way is inevitable, fol- lowed by the remembrance of the headlong fall of any man who should attempt a progress so nearly perpendicular, and that followed by the imagination that the gazer has really at- tempted it and is falling. Mount Webster and Mount "\Vil- lard, at the White Mountain Notch, are more marked than almost any of the others, by such features ; and certain terri- ble adventures along those "schutes" make part of the re- pertoires of guides and the boasting stories of old habitues. With one of those descending Mount Willard, and the points THE COWAKD. 397 of sconorv immediately snrroundino; it, we shall have painful oecasiuu to make more intimate acquaintance in this imme- diate connection. These " schutes" and their topocrraphy were the subject of conversation at the breakfast-table that mornin<»:, not alone on account of the presence of the Rambler, which might have pro- voked it, but from the fact that a pic-nic on the top of Mount Willard, in the near vicinity of one of those tempting horrors, had been for some days in contemplation and the wagons were being prepared for going up and the cold food packing away in baskets and hampers at the very moment of that discus- sion. "You must know the mountains remarkably well," one of the gentlemen at the table was saying to the Rambler. " I ought to do so," was the reply. " There is scarcely a spot from Littleton to Winnipiscogee that my foot has not touched ; and I may almost say that there is not a spot whero I have not eaten or slept." He said this in a manner as far removed from any desire to make a display of himself as from any thing like modesty — merely as the fact, and there- fore a matter of course. "I heard you speaking of climbing the schutes a moment ago, but I did not quite catch what you said," spoke another. '' You certainly cannot hold on to the rocks alone, when they are so nearly perpendicular, can you ?" "Oh, no," answered the Rambler, "of course that would be impossible. I suppose I have a sure foot and a steady hand, and those schutes always have trees and shrubbery beside them, all the way down. It is no trouble to hold on to them — at least it is not so to w^." "Ugh !" said yet another — "rather you than me 1 Such exposures are terrible !" and he shuddered at the picture his imagination had been drawing. " They may be terrible, and I suppose that they are so, to some people," was the quiet reply. " Habit is every thing, no doubt. Some of you might walk into battle, if you have 898 THB COWARD. been there before, a good deal more coollj than I eould do, even though you had a good deal more to sacrifice in life than myself in the event of a bullet goiug astray." '■' Bullets never go astray, nor do men fall down the rocks accidentally !" put in a breakfaster who wore a white neck- cloth but no mock-sanctimonious visage. " I am afraid, brothers, that you all forget the Overruling Hand which guides all things and prevents what thoughtless people call ' accidents.'" " Ah !" said Horace Townsend. " Domine, do you carry fatalism, or predestination, if you like the word any better, — so far as to believe that every step of a man is supernaturally protected ?" " It is supernaturally ordered, beyond a doubt : it may be protected, or quite the opposite," was the minister's smiling reply. " And I might' go a step further and say that every man is supernaturally upheld, when doing a great duty, however dangerous, so that that result may follow, whether it come in life or death, in success or failure — which may be eventually best for him as well as best for the interests of heaven and earth, all men and all time." " A sublime thought, and one that may be worth calling to mind a good many times in life !" was all the reply that the lawyer made, and he took no further part in the conversation. He sat back in his chair, the moment after ; and Margaret Hayley (who had now become to some extent his " observer," as he had erewhile filled the same office to Halstead Rowan and Clara Yanderlyn) — Margaret Hayley, sitting at a con- siderable distance up the table on the opposite side, saw that his face seemed strangely moved, and that there was intense thought in the eye that looked straight forward and yet apparently gazed on vacancy. Meanwhile the Rambler had not yet ceased to be an object of interest ; and a little warning (such as he had undoubtedly heard a good many times during his strange life) was to follow the inquiries and the speculations. Tns COWARD. 899 " Then you probably do not think, Domine," said one of the interlocutors in response to the remark which seemed to have struck Horace Townsend so forcibly, "that our friend here is under any especial supernatural protection when climbing up and down places where he has no errand what- ever except his own amusement." " I might think so, if I had the power to decide that he was really attempting no good whatever to himself or others," w^as the reply. " But as I cannot so decide, though I certainly think such exposures of life very imprudent, I shall be very careful not to express any such opinion." " Well, sir, I certainly wish you no harm," said another, "but if all accounts are true, I think that you expose yourself very recklessly, and I expect, some day, to hear that the pitcher you have carried once too often to the well is broken at last." " Perhaps so," said the Rambler, w^ithout one indication on his features that he was either frightened or moved by the sur^'-gestions. " I am long past the middle of life— my limbs are not quite so nimble as they once were — and if I do make a miss-step some time and get killed, I hope that they will allow me to lie peaceably where I fall !" After which strange wish the conversation went no further. Breakfast was just breaking up ; and a few moments after- wards some w^ho were standing on the piazza saw the Rambler stepping away down the road, haversack of bread, cheese, and meats strapped under his left arm, and his weather-beaten slouched hat thrown forward to shield his eyes from the morning sun that came streaming low and broad up the Notch. It was perhaps an hour afterwards when two wagons drew up at the door, ready to bear some score of the visitors up Mount Willard for the expected pic-nic. A third wagon had started ahead, bearing provisions enough to have sup- plied a small army — all to be wasted or made into perquisites for the servants by a frolic dictated a little by ennui and not 400 THE COWARD. a little In' a love for any tliiiiir novel or merry. Two or tliree of liie young men staving at the house had been up Mount Willard a few days before, and on their return they had brought such flattering accounts of a magnificent broad, green plateau which they had discovered (how many times it had before been discovered is not stated) not far from the end of the carriage-road, on the southern brow of the mountain and overlooking the cascades and the edge of the DeviPs Den, — that the effect produced on the as yet untravelled people at the Crawford by the announce- ment was very much the same that we may suppose to have been manifested at the Court of Castile and Leon when Columbus came back with the Indians, the birds'-feathers and the big stories. The young men had signalized their own faith in the desirableness of the land as a place of permanent occupation, by possessing themselves of a small coil of inch rope, lying unused in one of the out-houses since the re-erec- tion of the Crawford (after the fire of the winter before), in 1859, carting it in a wagon up the mountain and to the tempting plateau, and there using one end of it and a seat- board to make such a stupendous swing between two high trees that stood on one side of the green space, as had probably never been seen before in any locality where the clouds every morning tangled themselves among the branches. One of them had declared that he had the " highest old swing," in that " scup," ever taken by mortal, and a good many believed him. The swing, with its hundred feet or more of super- abundant rope, had remained as a permanence ; a few of the ladies at the house had been coaxed into going up Mount Willard especially to indulge in that "scupping" which ordinarily belonged to low lands and lazier watering-places ; and for two or three days before preparations and arrange- ments for a pic-nic had b^en in progress, destined to culmi- nate on that splendid cloudless morning of early August. So much premised, nothing more need be said than that all the few persons connected with this relation and yet remain- THE COWARD. 401 ing at the Crawford, were members of the pic-nic party of twenty or tvveuty-flve, a pleasant mingling of both sexes but not of all the ages ; that Captain Hector Coles and Margaret Hayley went up especially in each other's company, as w-as both usual and proper ; that Mrs. Burton Hayley, getting ready to go on to the Glen and a little absorbed in one of the ministerial brethren whom she had found, did not ascend a mountain on any such vain and frivolous errand as a mere pic-nic ; that Horace Townsend rode up, in a different w^agon from that occupied by Margaret and her cavalier, and with no one in charge, or even in especial company — precisely as he had gone up Mount Washington ; that the party, in both wagons, was very merry and tuned to the highest possi- ble pitch of enjoyment ; that the usual jolts incidental to very bad mountain roads were periodically encountered, and the little screams and jerkings at protecting coats, ordinarily con- sequent thereupon, were evoked ; that a few magnificent views down the Notch and among the sea of peaks were enjoyed, with a few contretemps among the riders adding zest thereto ; that nearly every one would have been willing to make oath that they had been "all but upset down the mountain" several times, when they had not really been even once in that threatening predicament; and that after something more than an hour of riding they found themselves and their pic-nic preparations at the end of the carriage-road and very near the diminutive promised land which they had been invited and enticed to come up and occupy. It was indeed, as those who had never before visited the place found upon reaching it through, a little clump of trees and bushes beyond the termination of the road — a spot well worthy the attention of any visitor to the iS'ot(;h. Nothing else like it, probably, could have been found in tln^ whole chain of the White Mountains, following them from tiio head waters of the Androscoggin to the mouth of the Penii- gawasset. For the purposes of this veracious narration it becomes necessary to describe f^ome of the features of the spot 25 402 THE COWARD. more closely than they would demand under ordinary circum- stances ; and the reader may find it equally necessary to make close application of the details of description, in order fully to appreciate that which must inevitably follow, beyond the con- trol of either reader or writer. At some day, no doubt many a long year before, whether caused by the melting of the snows at the top of the mountain or by some one of those internal convulsions which the earth seems to share with the human atom who inhabits it, — there had been a heavy " slide" from near the peak on the south- south-western side, coming down perhaps a quarter of a mile before earth and stone met with any check. Then the check had been sudden and severe, from some obstruction below, and as a consequence the slide had gone no farther downward but spread itself into a broad plateau of fifty or sixty feet by one hundred, nearly level though with a slight inclination downward towards the edge. There had chanced to be but few rocks at the top of this mass of earth, and the southern exposure and shelter from the north winds had no doubt tended to warm and fertilize it, so that while much of the top of the mountain was bald, scarred and bare, and all the remainder covered with wild, rough forest — this little plateau had reall}' grown to be covered with grassy sward, of no particular luxuriance but quite a marvel at that bleak height. Behind it, upward, the mountain rose gradually towards the peak, seen through a younger growth of trees that had found their origin since the catastrophe which swept away all their predecessors. On both sides the thick tangled woods closed down heavily, leaving no view in either direction, ex- cept through their swaying branches ; while in the direction of the slide itself, no tree intervening between the plateau and its edge, one of the most beautiful perspectives of the whole mountain range spread itself out to the admiring gaze. Looking close as possible down the side of Mount AVillard, at that point, the trees and undergrowth of the gorge below, some fifteen hundred or two thousand feet away, could be THE COWARD. 403 discerned, through tliat slip^ht bine haze which marks distance and faintly suergests the great depth of the sky. Lifting the eye, it swept south-westward and took in a terribly rough range of \vooded hills and minor mountain peaks, with a l)road intervale lying between, through which glittered and flashed the little stream with its white cascades which gave name to the spot, hurrying down in foam and fury to join the Saco in the broad valley below. Further westw-ard and at still greater distance rose the mountains lying behind Bethlehem, with the top of Lafayette, of the Franconia range, rising yet higher and beyond all, touched wath the warm light of the noonday sun and supplying a perfect finish to w^hat was truly an en- chanting picture. But at the edge of the plateau itself lay that which must command the most special notice in this connection. Whether formed before the slide or consequent upon it, one of the most precipitous of all the " schutes" of the mountains had its start at the v«ry centre. It had worn away the earth of the plateau in the middle, until it reduced it nearly to the stone of the first formation ; while at the side of the narrow trough thus formed, thick trees and undergrowth clustered as far down as the eye could extend, with one sharp bend outward at the right, and striking out still beyond that, the massive roots of a fallen tree, of which the trunk lay buried in the earth and covered W'ith undergrowth, w^hile one long thorn or fang of the root hung half way across the chasm and suggested that there of all places, above the dizzy depth beneath, one of those eagles should sit screaming, that are supposed ever to have kept position on some such outpost, shouting hoarse rage and defiance through far aw^ay and desolate Glencoe, ever since the massacre of the Macdonalds. Still below this and almost touching the stony bottom of the trough of the schute, another and much smaller fang of root extended, the broad bulk of the side-roots forming a close wall between the two branches and the hedge of undergrowth, almost as impervious to the hand of man and as unfavorable for any purpose of clinging, 404 THK COWARD. as the sloping stone itself. It was a dizzy thing to look down — that schute, as some of the strouger-sexed, clearer-headed and surer-footed of the pic-nic party found by venturing near the edge, and as they did not feel it necessary to reassure themselves by any second examination. The baskets and hampers had been brought'over from the baggage-wagon, at the same time that the party themselves made their arrival. Why it is that people who go out upon pic-nics, in any part of the country or indeed in any part of the globe, with high expectations of much enjoyment which is to be found in other modes than the use of the masticative apparatus, — why it is, we say, that all such persons, even though they may have eaten heartily not two. hours before, become ravenously hungry the very moment they reach the ground designated and are good for nothing thereafter until they have rendered themselves helpless by over-eating,-^why all this is, we say once more, passes human understanding; but the fact remains not the less patent. Let any frequenter of pic-nics think backward and try whether he or she can re- member any instance to the contrary, — and whether the con- elusion has not been more than once arrived at, in his or her particular mind, that the true aim and object of the pic-nic, as an institution, is to enjoy the eating of a bad dinner away from the ordinary table instead of a good one properly spread upon it. The party on Mount Willard was mortal, and they bowed at once to this unaccountable W'eakness of mortality. Five minutes of inspecting the ground and viewing the scenery ; and then, while the more selfish members of the company or those who had eaten heartier breakfasts, flirted, strolled, or indulged in the doubtful pleasures of the swing (which hung between two tall trees at the left of the plateau, with a loose hundred feet of rope at the root of one), the less selfish or the more hungry applied themselves to spreading out on the dry sward the half dozen of cloths that had been brought up from the hotel, and to laying out upon it, in various stages and TUB COWARD. 405 phases of damac:e and disarrangement, eatables which had been appetizing enough when they left the Crawford, but of which, now, they would have been seriously puzzled to sepa- rate the fish from the farina or the maccaroni from the mustard. The helpful ladies and their male assistants had just suc- ceeded in producing that amount of confusion among the articles on the spread table-cloths which was supposed to repre- sent arranging the lunch, — and the call for volunteers to dis- arrange it more effectually with forks and fingers was about to be made, — when one of the gentlemen looked up suddenly as a shadow passed him. " Our friend the Rambler," he said as the other, with a slight nod, recognized his notice and passed on down the plateau towards the thicket at the north-western edge. " Why yes," said one of the ladies. " He walked and we rode, and yet he seems to have been up before us, for he is coming down from the farthest side of the mountain." " Shall I call him and ask him to take a share in our din- ner ?" asked one of the male stewards. ** No, it would be useless : the Rambler, they say, gener- ally chooses his own society, and he probably would not even thank us for the invitation," answered another. The strange man had by that time passed into the thicket bordering the edge of the schute at the right, and was seen no longer. Some of the pic-nickers noticed, as he passed, that he had no stick in his hands and that his almost invariable companion, the haversack, was missing from his side. But there seemed to be no occasion of commenting on so slight a matter, and nothing was said with reference to it. It must be confessed that among those who had not con- tributed in any way to the spreading of thq miscellaneous dinner upon the ground, were two persons in whom this narration maintains a peculiar interest — Horace Townsend, lawyer, and Margaret Hayley, gentlewoman. The lady had been among the early visitors to the swing ; and at the time of the disappearance of the "Rambler into the thicket at the 406 THB COWARD. edge of the schute, she was being swept backward and for- ward in the air by that dizzying contrivance, at a rate which sent her loosened wealth of dark hair and her light summer drapery floating about in equal negligence and profusion, while the dainty white hands held fast to the rope with a ten- acity which showed them to possess a commendable degree of nerve, and the trim dark gaiter enclosing her Arab foot, and the spotless stocking that rose above it, had both just that measure of display which preserved the extremest bound of delicacy and yet made the whole spectacle strangely be- witching. Perhaps the extraordinary light in her eye as she swung may have been a little influenced by one of the two pairs of hands that supplied the careful impelling force ; for those hands certainly belonged to the lawyer, who had been a mem- ber of the idle section from the beginning, while she had wil- fully attached herself to it in spite of the expostulations of the Captain. That gallant officer, by the way, had been retained among the dinner-purveyors by the wiles and the threats of a little dark-eyed minx from Providence, who cared no more for him than she did for her shoe-lace, but who would flirt with him and make him flirt with her, because she saw that he was arrogant, shoulder-strapped, and very much afraid of being seen for a moment absent from the side of Margaret Hay- ley. The Captain, who was not quite fool enough to believe that he had really made a military conquest of the young Yankee girl, probably objurgated her in his heart for her charm- ing impudence ; while Margaret, more gratified by the relief than she cared to make manifest, may have made private cal- culations of hugging that dear little tormentor the first mo- ment when she could catch her alone. Such was the aspect of affairs — the young girl in the swing, Townsend and another gentleman swinging her, half a dozen merry young men and girls gathered around the trees or lying lazily on the grass, and the other and more industrious half- score kneeling and bending and squatting around the table- cloths at U. C. of the plateau, — when the arrangements (or THK COWAKD. 407 mis-arrangements) were judged to be complete and one of the male members of the workinjr-detail, a little hungry and dis- posed to be more than a little witty, made up one hand into the shape of a trumpet and bawled through it : " Oh yes, — oh yes I — know all men and several women by these presents that the regal banquet is spread and that those who intend to eat are required to eat now or ever after hold their pieces — if they can find any to hold !" A merry farce — the very incarnation of thoughtless jollity,— the dinner and the announcement. It rung out over the pla- teau, heard by all and certain to be heeded by all ; to be suc- ceeded the very instant after by a sound that no member of that company will ever forget until his dying day. A scream of mortal agony and terror that seemed to rise from the depths of the schute, nondescript in some respects, as unlike what any one then present had ever heard, but unmistakably human because the last sounds of every repetition shaped themselves into words that could be distinguished : " Help !— help I— help !" For one moment that fearful cry ceased and during that mo- ment all was silence among the pic-nickers. For that instant, too, probably more than half the company believed that whatever the sound might be, it was the prank of some unscrupulous joker, hidden away in the undergrowth near the edge of the schute and intended to frighten the ladies out of any appetite for their dinner. The time of its coming, immediately follow- ing the dinner-call, was certainly favorable to that supposi- tion: But when it commenced again, the very instant after, louder and more shrill, so evidently coming up from the depth V below, the thought of practical jest vanished and every cheek grew deadly white with the certainty that some tragedy was being enacted near them, that human eye must be blasted by seeing and that human hand could probably find no power to avert. It would have seemed the most unlikely of all things, when that ambiguous banquet on the top of the mountain was 408 THE COWARD. spread, tliat it sboulrl never be oaten ; and jet the fates had so destined. Old Anca3us had quite as little faith in the pre- diction of the slave whom he overworked in his vine3'ard, that he should never taste of the product of the vines ; and when he held the cup in his hand and the red wine was bubbling to the brim, ready to show the audacious prophet the fallacy of his prediction, the muttered : " There's many a slip between the cup and the lip !" no doubt fell upon incredulous ears. But even then the cry rang out that called him to the Hunt of the Calydonian Boar, and the spirit of the warrior was higher than the pride of the wine-grower and the hard master. The heavy cup went clanging to the earth, the blood of the grape flowing out to enrich once more the ground from which it had been derived ; and the t3'rant hero rushed away. The slaves had a new master, thereafter ; and though Ancaeua may have supped with the gods on Olympus, on the night when the great fight w^as over, he never tasted of that wine of his vineyard which had once even been lifted to his lips ! So tasted not the diners on that mountain in a far distant land from that which held Olympus, even when the feast was spread and the call had been made for their gathering. It is impossible to say what point of time elapsed before any member of that horrified company remembered the Rambler, his habits, the conversation of that morning, and the fact that he had only a few moments before been seea going in the direction from which that piteous cry w^as coming up. It is impossible to measure it, for at such moments ages of sensation pass in the very twinkling of aa eye. Some of them did remember him, with a groan, and perhaps the thought was general. At all events the conster- nation was so-r— as general as if some one who had come away from the Crawford with them in life and high hope, had suddenly been stricken dead before their eyes. Margaret Hayley, with the frightened cry which even then shaped a feeling : " Oh, Mr. Townsend, what can that be !" dropped from the swing and was caught in arms outstretched to re- THE COWARD. 409 coive hor. By that time all seated around the table-oloths had sprung to their feet; and at once every member of the party, male and female, impelled by a curiosity that even overmastered fear, rushed down the plateau towards the edge, as if some horrible madness had seized all and they were about to spring off into the great chasm below. But before they had reached the edge all the ladies except two and several of the gentlemen recoiled ; and it was only by degrees and under the compelling attraction of that still ascending cry, that some of those remaining could force themselves to the verge. Those who reached it at that moment, and those who closed up the instant after, saw enough to make Blondin and his brother-fools a non-necessity for the balance of their natural lives ; and the cry from below was answered, be sure, by a cry that rang from every voice above when the sad spec- tacle met the eye. It was indeed the subject of their past fear who supplied their present horror ; and the situation, keeping in view previous descriptions of the locality, may be briefly conveyed. It will be remembered that at the bend or elbow of the gulch, some thirty feet below, two fangs of the root of a tree stretched out partially across the chasm, the upper long and at some distance from the rock of thebottom, the other shorter and lying very near it. It will also be remembered that beneath both the schute stretched its long blue jagged line to the foot of the mountain, not less than fifteen hundred or two thousand feet, with the air between the top and bottom looking actually blue from distance,— and that the schute itself was so nearly perpendicular that while any object falling down it would probably touch it all the way from top to bottom, it would go down almost with the velocity of the lightning and be rolled and pounded to a mere ball before it had accomplished half of the descent. On that lower fang of the root hung the Rambler — those who had seen him at the Crawford recognized him at once, at that short distance ; and it was indeed from that throat 410 THS COWARD. SO little accustomed to call for assistance from any mortal hand, that the terrible cries of agony and appeals for help were ascending. One hand grasped the root near the end, without being able to go nearly round it, and one leg was caught round the root farther towards the tree, with the bend at the knee forming a kind of hook so long as it could retain its tension. The other arm and leg hung down, with the body, below, and the long grizzled hair streamed away from the head that depended downward in the direction towards which it seemed to be so fatally tending. The face could be seen, as that was turned towards the cliff, but its expression could not be recognized at that distance and in the reversed position that it occupied. All that could be known, to any certainty, was that there hung a human being, evidently unable even to recover a safer hold upon the root, screaming for help that was hopeless, and as certain to make the last plunge within a space of time that could be measured by single minutes, or perhaps even by seconds, as the sun was certain to move on in its course and the earth to retain its laws of gravitation I Was there not cause, indeed, for that general cry of pitying horror from above, which answered the cry of agony and terror from below ? CHAPTER XX. Suspense in Danger, in two Senses — Horace Townsend WITH A New Thought — The use of a Swing-rope — An Invitation to Captain Hector Coles — A fearful piece OF Amateur Gymnastics — Going down into the Schute . — Success or Failure ? — The Event, and Margaret Hayley's Madness — Two Unfortunate Declarations. We have said that the whole body of the pic-nickers rushed up to the edge of the plateau, and that all, or nearly THE COWARD. 411 all, caught glimpses of the situation. Then came that cry, that shutting of the eyes and springing back, until only throe or four, of whom Horace Townsend was one and Captain Hector Coles was not another, remained on the verge. Mar- garet Hayley, among those who had gazed down and drawn back, remained a few feet from the edge, and the Captain was either so careful of her safety or so anxious to furnish himself with an excuse for remaining no nearer, that he caught her by the dress and retained his grip as if she had been some bundle of quartermaster's goods that he was fearful of having slip through his fingers I Frightened inquiries and equally frightened replies, mingled with moans and sobs and wring- ings of female hands, went round the circle thus scattered over the lower part of the plateau ; and for a moment those noises made the still-ascending cries for help almost inaudible. Horace Townsend stood at the very edge, and except per- haps sharing in the first cry, he had not uttered one word. He no doubt understood, intuitively, like the rest, that the poor man must have been attempting the mad descent, when the undergrowth by which he held fast gave way in his hands, or some stone caved out beneath him, sending him headlong downward for a plunge of two thousand feet, from which he had only been temporarily stopped by striking and gripping the root of the tree as he fell. Beyond this, and with reference to any possibility of saving the perilled man, he was probably quite as much in the dark as any of the others. He stood half bent, his dusky cheek pale and his face strangely contorted, his hands clasped low as if wring- ing themselves surreptitiously, and the eyes beneath his bent brow looking into the gulf as if he was trying to peer down- ward into the eternal mystery which that man was so soon to fathom. Suddenly his face lighted. '' Hush ! I must speak to that man !" he said, in a low but intense voice, and the behest was obeyed so quickly that almost total silence fell upon the top of the plateau. 412 THE COWARD. " Hallo, below there !" he cried, as the call of agonj ceased for an instaut. " Uelp ! help ! oh help !" came back from below. " Do you understand what I say ?" again he called. ** Yes ! — help ! help !" came feebly back. " Get that rope from the foot of the swing there, quick, some of you !" he cried, and his voice seemed for the time to clear from its hoarseness and ring like a trumpet. " Quick ' — cut it away at the bottom and bring it all here !" Half a dozen of the young men and one or two of the ladies, delighted to aid in any hope of saving the perilled man (for the most thoughtless of us are naturally, after all, kind and averse to death and suffering), sprung for the rope. Two of them reached the foot of the swing ahead of the others, the pocket-knife of one was out in an instant, and in another UDoment they came up dragging nearly or quite an hundred feet of strong inch rope. "We have a rope here that will hold you : can you catch it and hold on or tie it around your body ?" the lawyer called down again. " Xo !" — the pained and weakening voice came back, and then they all knew wiiat had reduced that athletic and iron- gripped man to such a state that he could make no effort to swing himself up again. He spoke brokenly and feebly, but Horace Townsend and some of the others caught the words : " I can't catch the rope — I put my right shoulder out of joint as I fell — I can't hold on much longer — I shall faint with this pain — oh, can't some of you help me ?" Then passed over the countenance of Horace Townsend one of those sweeping expressions which make humanity something more or less than human. It may have been the god stirring — it may have been the demon. No one saw it — not even Margaret Hayley ; for when he turned nothing more was to be seen than that the brow was very dark, and that the lips were set grimly. The powers looking downward from heaven ou the falling of leaves and the nesting of young T H S COWARD. 41$ birds may have remarked tlie whole expression and set it down at its true worth, and that will eventually be found quite sufficient. Before he turned he shouted, much louder and more authoritatively than he had spoken before, to the man han^^inj^ between life and death below : " Hold on, like a man I We will do something to help you !" Then he spoke to the two young men, one of whom yet held the end of the rope : " Tie a biy; loop in that rope, quick — ten or a dozen feet from the end." They proceeded to do so, with not unskilful hands, and in that instant the lawyer approached Captain Hector Coles, where he stood, only a few feet off, still holding the dress of Margaret Hayley. He did not 'appear to see her at all, but she saw him, and there was that upon his face which frightened her so that she literally gasped. " Captain Coles !" he said, " do you know what you said of me the other night and again the other day ? There is a rope, and there is yet a chance to save that man. Go down, if you are as brave as you boast, and save him. Do you hear me ? — go I" " I ? Humph !" That was all the reply that the Captain, half-stupefied, could make to what he believed to be the words of a madman. "Xo, I thought not I" sneered the voice through the hard lips. With the words coat and vest were thrown ofif, and the tall, slight, athletic form was developed with no concealment but the shirt and the closelyrgirt trowsers. The shoes followed, and as they did so Margaret Hayley well remem- bered where and when she had before seen that disrob- ing. She had grown white as the collar and cuffs of her gray chambray ; and she was so paralyzed with wonder, fear, anxiety, and conflicting thought, that she could not speak, and was on the point of falling. Yet all this time Horace Townsend seemed to pay her no more attention or 414 THK COWARD. observation than he might have done had she been a wooden post or a stone monument erected at the same point of the plateau ! ]S"ot sixty seconds had elapsed after the throwing oflf of his outer garments, when the lawyer, without another word to any one, seized the rope, looked over the edge to see that the Rambler was still hanging to his thorn, lowered down the line until the loop was nearly opposite to him, then carried up the other end and with the volunteered assistance of one of the young men firmly secured it with two or three turns and as many knots, around the trunk of a stout sapling. All saw the movement, now, and all began to understand it ; but oh, with what redoubled agitation was the truth realized ! He was going down that frail rope, and into what peril ! The rope fastened, he stepped forward to the verge, while a murmur ran round the frightened group, even coming from the lips of those who had never spoken to him : " Oh, don't !" Margaret Hayley was no longer stone : she cast one glance at the face of Captain Hector Coles, saw that the expression on it was every thing rather than fear or anxiety, then jerked away her dress from his hand and darted forward. <' ]S"o — do not go!" she said, grasping the lawyer by the arm on the very verge. " I must!" Then for the first time he appeared to see her. *' No 1 If I bid you stay for my sake, will you do it ?" " For your sake, Margaret Hayley, I would go all the quicker. Stand back, for God's sake ! — you may fall 1" She said no other word. Captain Hector Coles sprang forward and grasped her arm to draw her back. She jerked it away, almost angrily, and never stirred so far from the edge as to prevent her looking down the schute. Half a dozen of the others, all gentlemen, had taken the same risk of crowding to the edge, their very breath held ; but none of them would any more have thought, just then, of offering to aid her, than of tendering the same support to one of the rooted saplings on the cliff. It was a fearful moment, but not the weakest THE COWARD. 415 heart on that plateau beat within the bosom of the white- handed Philadelphia girl 1 Horace Townsend threw himself down on his face as he reached the edge, grasped the rope and crawled over back- wards in that way, descending it hand-over-hand. Those too far back from the edge to see, heard him call out to the man below as he disappeared from sight : " Uold fast like a man ! I am coming 1" Then they saw no more, and for the moment heard no more. Those who stood on the verge, and Margaret Hayley among them— saw the adventurous lawyer descend the rope with slow and steady care but evident labor, until he reached the loop opposite and nearly under 'the suspended man. Then they saw him weave his right arm into the loop until the strands of rope seemed to go around it three or four times, throw down his feet to the rock so as to raise his shoulders away from it, and commence gathering in the loose rope be- low with his left. Directly he seemed to have the end in his hand, and they saw him stretch the left arm as if to throw it around the body of the perilled man. At that moment they saw, with a horror that words can make no attempt at describing, that the hand of the Rambler which had held the end of the root gave way and the body swung to a perpen- dicular, head downward, only suspended by the hook formed of the leg. All, except one— that one— closed their eyes, confident that the leg too must give way and the poor climber plunge headlong, perhaps bearing down the would-be rescuer with him. But no ! — still the body remained in that position for a moment, and in that moment they saw that the rope passed around it and the hand of the lawyer made an attempt, the success of which could not be seen, to tie the rope into a knot about the waist. But even at that instant the tension of the stiffened leg gave way and they saw the body plunge downwards, head first ; ichere, was too sickening a horror to conjecture. Ko one saw any more—not even Margaret Hayley. With 416 THE COWARD. one wild cry she sprang back from the verge and tottered half fainting but still erect, into the arms of some of the other ladies who had been watching the whole scene through her. Perfect silence — the silence of untold terror and dread. Their own eyes had seen the Rambler plunge headh^ng towards the realization of that fearful last wish : what hope was there that the other, entangled with him, had not accom- panied him ? It must be said that for the moment no one dared look over the edge again, and that no one dared, during the same time, to test, by feeling the rope, whether any weight still remained at the end of it ! The cast-oflf coat, vest, bat and shoes of the lawyer assumed the look of dead-men's clothes unseasonably exhibited ; and each even looked upon the other with horror because a spectator of the same catas- trophe. What must have been the feelings of Margaret Hayley, if, as we have had reason to believe, her first love had faltered in favor of a new ideal ? What those of Captain Hector Coles when he believed that a disgusting and auda- cious rivalry had been removed at least two thousand feet"} All this found relief when it had lasted about ten ages — in other figures, about two minutes and thirty seconds 1 The rope was seen to tremble at the edge, and two or three of the men gathered strength to dart forward. A head came up above the level, and a faint voice said : " Give me a hand, here !" A hand was given, and in one instant more the lawyer was dragged up upon the plateau and staggered to his feet. He was bathed in sweat, trembled fearfully, and his clothes were torn in many places. Personally he had received no injury, except that some hard object (perhaps one of the snags of the root) had struck him near the left temple and ploughed its way in such a manner that the wound would probably leave a scar there during life, more than half way across the fore- head and up into the roots of the hair. Even this was shallow and the few drops of blood flowing from it were already dried, 80 that probably the receiver had never been aware of the THE COWARD. 417 blow or its effect. Most of those things were seen afterwards they were certainly not seen with this particularity at the time, for not one of the persons on the plateau, from Captain Hector Coles to the least interested of the company, saw any thing: else than the proud face of Margaret Ilayley radiant with humility, and her tall form cowering down as if to make itself humbler and less noticeable, as she dropped on her knees before the lawyer — yes, dropped on her knees ! — took one of the quivering hands in both her own dainty white ones, covered it with kisses that some others would have been glad to purchase for hand or lip by mortgaging a soul, and literally sobbed out : " God bless and reward you ! — you noblest and strangest man in the world 1" - It was a singular position for a proud and beautiful woman was it not ? — especially towards a man whose words had never given her any right to make so complete a surrender of her womanly reticence and dignity ? Captain Hector Coles thought so, for he could restrain himself no longer but stepped to her, laid his hand upon her arm and spoke in her ear : " For shame, Margaret Hayley !" Perhaps no one else heard the words : she heard them, for she was on her feet in an instant, and the one word which she returned, in the very ear of the Captain and certainly unheard by any other, made him start back and redden like one of the traditional furies. He said no more, but stood sullen as silent. Whether Horace Townsend had not heard the flattering lan- guage addressed to him, or whether he had not yet recovered himself sufficiently from his late exertion to attempt reply, he made none, but seemed confused and unnerved. He did not recover until some one near him said : " Poor fellow ! — you lost him after all !" " Lost him ? no !" said the lawyer, arousing himself. " I forgot! He is insensible but not fatally injured. Pray pull up the rope, gently, for I believe that I am too weak to render you any assistance." 20 418 THE COWARD. " What I" cried two or three voices in a breath, and more than as many hands seized the rope. It waB drawn tight — there was something yet remaining below. As the knowledge spread among the company and they began to pull on the rope, such an involuntary cheer burst from nearly all their throats^ male and female, as might have roused a man moder- ately insensible. But they produced no effect on the dead weight at the end of the line ; and it was only after more than five minutes of severe but careful pulling, with every breath waiting in hushed expectation lest some sharp angle of the rock might at last cut off or weaken the rope, that a dark mass came up to the edge and the insensible form of the Rambler was landed upon the plateau by the hands that grasped it. He might have been dead, for all that could be judged, though there was really no reason to believe that he should have expired from any cause except fright. But he presented a most pitiful spectacle — his clothes fearfully torn by abrasion against the rocks in drawing up, the right arm hanging loosely from the shoulder, the ej^es closed and teeth set as in a fatal spasm, and the iron-gray hair and straggling beard matted with blood yet flowing from a severe wound in the head that he had received either in falling against the rock from the root or in the perilous passage upward. There was no in- dication of breath, but he was alive, for the pulse had not stopped its slow movement, and there was at least a chance that he could be recovered. But even then, and while two or three were hurrying to the table for water to use in bringing back the flitting life and some of the cloths to use as a stretcher in bearing the body to one of the wagons, — even then the general attention was for the moment withdrawn. For just as the poor Rambler was fairly landed and the company gathering around him, while Margaret Hayley was yet standing close to Horace Townsend, with her eyes still reading that face which seemed to be a perpetual puzzle to her, — the brown cheek grew sud- THE COWAKD. 419 dcnly of a ghastly white, the whole frame trembled as if from the coming of a spasm, and the lawyer fell heavily forward, A'ithout a sign of sensation, just as he had done in the previous instance after rash exposure and severe exertion, at the Pool. Now, as then, reaction seemed to come with terrible force, unnerving the system and literally overmastering life. As was to be expected under such circumstances, the ex- citement among the pic-nickers redoubled when they had two insensible people instead of one, and one of the two the hero of so strange an adventure as that which has just been recorded, to look after and bring back to life. Exclamations : "He is dying !" "He is dead !" " He has fointed from over-exer- tion !" " How dreadful !" and half a dozen others ran round the circle. But Margaret Hayley did not hear or did not heed them. She was again upon her knees, for a very different purpose from that which had thus bowed her the, moment before — lifting the head of matted hair upon her lap, chafing the stiffened hands, and uttering words that seemed to have no regard to the delicacy of her position or the hearing of the by-standers. Such words of unmistakable anxiety and fondness the insensible man 'might have been willing to peril another life to hear ; and they were uttered, let it be remem- bered, when she, however the others may have been alarmed, had no idea that he was dying or in danger, and more as if she wished to pour out a great truth of her nature and be relieved of its weight, than with any other apparent thought in view. Oh, that ideal I Oh, love of woman, a moment checked in its first course, to break away again from all bounds and more than redouble its early madness I Oh, overweening l)ride of Margaret Hayley, that once had been her most marked characteristic, now cast away like a thing to be loathed and repr<>])ated ! Oh, prophet words, spoken by the sorrowing girl but a few hours after the bereavement of her life, now ?eem'Ing to be so strangely fulfilled ! Second love, and an aban- donment that even the first had scarcely known, before two 420 THE COWARD. months of summer had made the grass green on the grave of the first ! To what was all this tending ? Captain Hector Coles saw, and writhed. His face was dark enough with passion to indicate that had no troublesobie people and no restraining law stood in his path, he would have rolled that insensible form over the edge of the plateau, with no rope to impede its progress, and watched with heart- felt delight the bumping of the body from crag to crag until it was crushed out of all semblance of humanity at the bottom I But he said not one word, nor did he again attempt to inter- fere in the movements of Margaret. Only a moment or two, and then the eyes of the lawyer opened. He saw the face that was looking down into his own ; and though many a man would have pretended weak- ness and insensibility a little longer, to keep such a position, he made an instant movement to rise and struggled to his feet with but slight assistance. Then the young girl fell back into the group of other ladies, her duty and her paroxysm of feeling both apparently over, and scarcely aware how much or how little the subject of her interest knew of her words or her actions. Nor was it sure whether the lawyer saw, as he staggered up from the g;round, the expression which rested on the face of Captain Coles. Time had its task of solving both these important problems. But a few minutes after Horace Townsend's recovery had elapsed, when the body of the Rambler, showing yet, after every application, but faint signs of life, was carefully con- veyed on an impromptu stretcher to one of the wagons — the frnLi,-nients of the dinner, untasted except as some few of those who would have banqueted in a death-room had snatched little bits in the midst of the excitement, gathered up and huddled together in the baggage-wagon — the whole party more or less comfortably disposed in the conveyances, and all hurrying back to the Crawford with what speed they might. "We say "hurrying", advisedly. It might have been natural enough that they should hurry down, to afford more THE COWARD. 421 effectual relief to the wounded and tortured man ; but let not humanity " lay the flatterinf^ unction to its soul" that they lacked another and a more compelling motive ! Such a story as that which could be woven of the events of that day, hnd probably never been told as of a late actual occurrence, inside the walls of that hostelrie, within the memory of man ; and nearly every one, male and female, was a little more anxious to indulge in the relation as soon as possible, and to his or her own particular set of intimates, than even to succor life or alleviate suffering I Wonder not that newspapers are popular in the latter half of the nineteenth century : man himself is but a newspaper incarnated ; and a few friends are not ill- sacrificed, much less perilled without advantage, when the catastrophe affords us plenty of the cheap heroism of the looker-on and narrator ! The providences are equally strange that give opportunity for the great blunders and absorbing agonies of life, with those that afford space to its triumphant successes and its crowning pleasures. Rooms are empty or ears are deaf, some- times, that we maybe made deliriously happy ; but they may have an equally assured mission to make us wretched beyond hope. Three days before, a parlor unoccupied except by themselves had afforded Horace Townsend and Margaret Hayley an opportunity of saying words that seemed to make each a new being to the other, and that awakened hopes as wild and maddening as the dreams of opium could have origi- nated. One laggard servant-girl with her dusting-brush, or one dawdling visitor lingering in the way, might have pre- vented all this and kept them on the distant footing they had before occupied. One person more, strolling down the glen below the Crawford at eleven o'clock on the morning follow- ing the events on the top of Mount Willard, might have pre- vented — what? Nothing, perhaps ! Are not all these things ordered for us ? And must not the event, debarred in one channel, have found inevitable way in another ? The fatalists, 422 THE COWARD. who believe in a Deity of infinitesimal and innumerable prov- idences, say "Yes !" and argue that the ripping away of a boot-sole OF the scorching of the cook's short-cake come within the category. The people of unswayed free-will, who worship a Deity not over particular as to the every-day habits of his creatures, say "No!"' and see nothing providential in any event less important than the breaking out of a pestilence or the downfall of a nation. At which point it may be neces- sary to discover what connection all this has with the fortunes of two of tlie people most prominent in this narration. At about the hour named, that morning, Horace Townsend strolled alone down the glen, towards the Willey House. Great excitements are always followed by corresponding reac- tion ; and the visitors at the Crawford, after the departure of a few gone up the great mountain, had not made a single col- lective arrangement to occupy the day. Each was thrown upon personal resources ; and the resource of the lawyer was setting out upon a long and lonely morning walk, his legs being the chief actors therein, while his mind, to judge by the bent head and the slow step, was taking its own peculiar and much longer journey. Suddenly he lifted his head and came to a full stop. He was not alone, after all ! Half a mile below the house, beside the road and under the edge of a thick clump of woods, lay the trunk of a huge tree, some of the higher branches yet re- maining unshorn, though trimmed by the axe. On the point of one of these branches, very easily ascended by the stair- way of knots below^, some eight or ten feet from the ground, rested a neat foot, while the owner of the figure above it, dressed in a light robe which floated around her with almost the softness of a cloud, had thrown off her jockey-hat (the ob- ject first attracting the notice of the lawyer) on the ground below, and was stretching up at full length to pluck a cluster of the great creamy blossoms of the wild northern magnolia, starring the green leaves around it, which had beckoned her from the path. THE COWARD. 423 Does the reader remember where it was that the first glimpse was caught of Margaret Hayley — standing on the piazza of the house at West Philadelphia, with one arm of Elsie Brand around her waist, but both her own hands em- ployed in the attempt to force open a blush rose that had as yet but half blown from the bud ? Roses then — the wild magnolia now : would the dainty white hand that had been so tenderly cruel to the flower-spirit two months before, only gather the blossom to pluck away its shreds one by one and scatter them listlessly on the ground as she walked ? Or had those two months taught her something of the meaning of that word "suffering," unknown before, and ripened and soft- ened the proud nature that possibly needed such training ? The lawyer stood irresolute for a moment, doubtful whether the lady would be pleased by his having discovered her in that somewhat girlish situation. Then he remembered some duty or feeling which seemed of more consequence than a mere momentary embarrassment, and came close to the log upon which she was standing, before she was aware of his presence. " Shall I help you down. Miss Hayley ?" The words were simple, and they did not seem to demand that trembling of tone which really accompanied them. Neither did there appear to be any occasion for the flush of red blood which ran all over cheek and brow of Margaret Hayley in the moment of her first surprise. But the flush was gone before she had cast that inevitable look downward, which woman- hood can never forget when caught playing the Amazon however slightly, — stepped lightly down the stairway of knots to the trunk and held out her hand to accept the offer. " See what a beautiful cluster of my favorites !" she said. "Beautiful indeed 1" The lawyer was looking intently at the blossoms or at the hand which held them — no matter which. The lady seemed to have some impression of tiio latter, for she flushed again a little and drew back both hands and flowers. "And you are walking already again this morning ?" she 424 THE COWARD. said, after a moment of silence which her companion did not seem disposed to break. " Yes," absently. "Already quite recovered from yesterday ?" Margaret Hayley was treading upon dangerous ground : did she know it? They had walked on together down the road, as if b}' mu- tual consent. The lawyer was silent again for a time, looking away, and when he again turned his eyes towards her there was an earnestness in their glance and a sad seriousness in the whole face which denoted that he had thought much and resolved not a little in that moment. "Recovered from yesterday? From the slight fatigue — yes ! From some other effects of the day? — no !" "I am sorry to hear you say so." The words dropped slowly and very deliberately from her lips, and her head had a wavy nod as she spoke. " You are sure of the grounds of your sorrow ?" " I fear so — yes I" " Then I, too, have cause to fear !" Silence again for a moment, and they walked on, very slowly. Then Horace Townsend spoke again. " You are going away to the Glen House, to-morrow or the next day, are you not ?" " I believe Captain Coles and my mother have so arranged," was the reply. "And I am going southward to Winnipiseogee to-morrow." "You ?" The exclamation was abrupt and surprised, as if she had not before thought of a separation of routes. Horace Townsend heard the word and recognized the tone ; and what the spark is to the magazine was that sudden monosyllable to the half-controlled heart of the man. "Margaret Hayley, we separate then to-morrow," he saiil. " This may be and no doubt will be the last time that we shall speak together without listeners. I have something to say that must be spoken. AVill you hear me ?" THE C O ^V A K I> . 425 She caught him suddenly by the arm, with a motion like that of one warning or checking another on the brink of a precipice — like that she had used the day before under such very different circumstances, — and said : " Oh, do not !— do not I" "What?" " Do not say words that must separate us instead of bring- ing us nearer to each other !" "And would that grieve you ?" " On my soul — yes !" Another spark to the magazine. It exploded. Horace Townsend had caught Margaret Hayley's hand and his eye literally flashed fire into hers, while his brown cheek mantled with the blood that could no longer be restrained. " I must speak, Margaret Hayley, and you must listen. / love you! There is not a thought in my mind, not a hope in my soul, that is not yours. Does that separate us ?" She did not draw away her hand, and yet it returned no answering pressure to his. Her head was bent down so that he could not see her face, and her words were very few and very sad : " I am sorry — very sorry ! Yes !" " Stop !" He laid his hand upon her forehead, gently pushing back her head until he virtually compelled h'er eyes to come up to the level of his own. " Margaret Hayley, too little may be said as well as too much. I am going to say what perhaps no other man in the world dare say. I love you, but that is not all. I cite your woman's heart and your immortal soul this moment before the sight of that God whose eye is looking down upon us in this sunshine, and I say that you love me! You may never forgive me the word, but you must tell me the truth ! Do you deny it ?" " Xo !" The word was louder and clearer than any that she had spoken— louder and clearer than any that had been spoken during the interview. And yet it was not a lover's response. 426 THE COWARD. " You admit this, and yet you say that my opening my heart to you separates us instead of drawing us together. Three days ago you told me that — that man" — he did pot mention the name of Captain Hector Coles, nor did there seem to be any occasion — "was not and never could be your betrothed husband. What tie binds you ? What am I to fear? What am I to think ?" " Think that what I say is true, Horace Townsend — that I love you, and yet that I do not love j^ou — that your company is dearer to me, to-day, than that of any person on earth — that I respect you in every regard and hold you as one of the bravest and noblest of men — and yet that every word of love you utter makes it more evident that we must not meet again,* and so separates us forever !" *' What is this riddle ?" He asked the question in a tone of great anxiety, and he did not take away his eyes from the proud orbs that no longer sunk before them as he made the inquiry. How impossible to believe that the man who had but the moment before cited the heart and soul of Margaret Hayley before the very eye of God as a searcher of their entire truth and candor, could himself be guilty of deception at the same instant I And yet was he not ? Was the riddle really so obscure to him as he pretended? Was the very name tinder which he wooed and sought to win, his own ?« Strange questions — stranger far than that he asked ; and yet questions that must be asked and answ^ered ! "Listen, Horace Townsend !" she said after one instant of silence. " You call this a riddle, and you force me to read it to you. I wish you had not done so, but I have no choice. I would have kept you as a friend — a dear friend, but you would not accept the place." ** Never — not for one moment !" he broke in, as if through set lips. Her hand was on his arm, and they were again walking listlessly on. She proceeded without any reference to his interruption. " I have too many words to say — words that pain me be- THE CO WARD. 427 yond measure ; but you have forced me to them, and I must finish, even if you think me mad before I have done. 1 do not know but I am mad — every thing about me sometimes seems to be so unreal and mocking." Horace Townsend turned at that moment and looked her sidelong in the face, then withdrew his glance again as if satisfied, and she went on : " I told you that Captain Hector Coles would never be nearer to me than he is, and he will not. I hate that man, and he knows it. But I love another !^^ She paused, as if she expected some outburst at this declar- ation ; but no outbui'st came. All the effect it produced was a quick shudder through the arm that sustained her hand. ^ '* I love another — do you hear me ? I who say that I love you, say that I love another ! For more than a year, before the last two months, I was a betrothed bride, and never woman loved more truly than I the man who filled my whole ideal of manly beauty, grace and goodness. One day, two months ago, I found that man a coward. He dared not fight for his native land — not even for his native State when it was invaded. We parted — forever, as I thought ; forever, as he thinks, no doubt. I have heard that he has gone to another land : no matter, he has left me, with my own will. Then I came to the mountains, for change of scene and for distraction, I met you. I was attracted to you from the first — I have grown more attracted day by day, until I shud- der to think that I love you I Do you know lohyV " Because my affection for you has given birth to some feeble likeness of itself!" was the response. " No ! The confession may wound your vanity, but the truth must be told. Every throb of my heart towards you, Horace Townsend, has been caused by some dim resemblance of your face to the man I once loved, and something in your voice that came to me like a faint echo. It is not yoii whom I have been seeing and hearing, but the man who was hand- somer than you, your superior in so many respects, and yet 428 THE COWAKD. your inferior in that one which makes me worship you almost as a god — your sublime, dauntless courage when all others quail. Do you understand me now, and know why your words should never have been spoken ?" " I think that I understand you !" was the response, but a bitter smile, unseen by the lady, wreathed the moustachcd lip as he spoke. "And that other — he will come back, some day, and all except the old love will be forgotten, and you will marry him, of course." " Horace Townsend, you do not quite understand me, yet I" she said. " I am no child, to be trifled with, but a w^oman. I loved him, better than my own soul, but I cannot continue to love when I cease to respect. I shall never marry, while J live, unless I marry the man to whom my heart was first given. I thought that perhaps I might find a new ideal, some day, when we first parted ; but I know better now. You have taught me how^ nearly the vacant place can be supplied, and yet how empty all is when the one bond is wanting." "And I say, again, that some day he will come back, and you will marry him." "Never — if he comes as he was !" was the reply. "If Heaven would work a miracle and give him the one thing that he lacks — bravery and patriotism, — even if he struck but one blow, to prove that he was no coward to fly before the enemies of his country, — I would go barefoot round the world to find him, and be his servant, his slave, if he would not for- give the past and make me his wife !" "With the last words she had broken down almost entirely, and as she ceased she burst into a very passion of tears and sobs. Where was the overweening pride of Margaret Hay- ley ? Gone, all gone ; and yet she clung to that one touch- stone — her husband, when the country called and he was sub- jected to the trial, must prove that he dared be patriot and soldier, or her lips should never sper.k that sacred name ! " I have indeed spoken too far, and it is better that we THE COWARD. 429 should not meet again," lie said, in a voice quite as low and almost as broken as her own. " I understand you, now : for- give me if I have caused you pain in making the discovery ; and good-bye !" He wrung the young girl's hand almost painfully and was turning away. " You are going now ? Shall I not see you again ?" she asked. " No matter— I do not know— I cannot tell. I may see you at the house before I leave. If not, and we never meet again, God bless you, Margaret Hayley, the only woman I have ever loved !" He stooped suddenly and kissed her hand, then turned, drew his hat over his brow and walked rapidly up the road towards the Crawford. Margaret, oppressed by some strange feeling, could not speak. She could only look back and catch a last glimpse of him as he turned a bend in the road ; then sink her face in her hands and sob aloud as if she had buried a second love not less dear than the first. When she returned to the house, half an hour after, Horace Townsend was already gone—flying away towards Littleton with four horses. Captain Hector Coles was in a better humor, being already advised of the fact, than he had ex- hibited at any time during the previous Week. Mrs. Burton Haylev, when his going away was mentioned, made some appropriate remarks on the rashness of any person exposing himself as the young man had done the day before, unless he was fully prepared for death and judgment, and remarked that she was rather glad that so wild a person was not going over to the Glen with them. In both these opinions Captain Coles fully coincided. Margaret spoke of the departure as a verv matter-of-course alfair indeed, and did not even see the glance by which the gallant Captain intended to convey his full recollection of the scene on the top of Mount Willard. Next day that trio, with a dozen of others, went on to the Glen House for the carriage-ascent of Mount Washington. 430 THE COWARD. And with that announcemoyt and a single scene followin]^. concludes the somewhat lonj[^ connection held bj the White Mountains, their scenery and summer incidents, with the for- tunes of the various personages figuring prominently in this life-history. That scene was a vcr}- brief one and took place three days after the departure from the Crawford, when Margaret Ilay- ley, her mother and Captain Hector Coles, had made the ascent of Washington from the Glen House by carriage and Btood beside the High Altar that has before been mentioned. When Mrs. Burton Hayle}^ was signalizing her arrival at the top by repeating certain passages from the big book on the carved stand, which she seemed to have an idea fitted that elevated point in her summer wanderings, and which prob- ably might have done so if she had quoted them with any thing approaching to correctness. When Margaret Hayley, breathing the same air that Horace Townsend had breathed a few days before, and aware that she was doing so, joined to the rapt emotions of the place and the hour, something of the sad glory of human love and grief, stretching out her mental hands to God whose awful majesty stood before her and around her in the great peak lifting itself to heaven, and praying that out of 'darkness might some day come light, as once it had done on that other and more awful peak of Sinai. When Captain Hector Coles, above all such considerations and with a keen eye to his personal "main chances", fancied that another declaration beside the High Altar on Washing- ton would not only be a "good thing to do" but a proceeding much more likely to meet with a favorable response than if ventured on ground of less altitude. Then and there, accordingly. Captain Hector Coles, with Mrs. Burton Hayley very near and the granite rocks still nearer, possessed himself suddenly of Margaret Hayley's white hand, drew her close to him, and murmured : " Oh, how long I have waited for this hour, Margaret ! I THE COWARD. 431 love you. I have not before said the same thing in words, for along time, but I believe that you must have seen and known how tlie old afl'ection has still lived and strengthened. There have been bitter words between us, occasionally, but they have not affected the true feeling lying beneath, and — " " Stop, Hector Coles I" said Margaret, before he had con- cluded. ** You say that there have been bitter words between us occasionally. Now let me warn you that no bitter word I have ever said in your hearing, has been any thing more than a baby's w^hisper to what I ivill say if you ever dare to allude to this subject agaiu I" " But, Margaret — " "Xo, not another w^ord I Mother, come here !" Mrs. Burton Hayley obeyed. " Mother, is it with your wish or approbation that Captain Coles has just made me another offer of his heart ?" " Certainly it is," the Captain commenced to answer. " Stop ! it was not to you I put the question, but to my mother I" '' Well, my daughter — I certainly did — that is — I — " " There, you hear I" said Captain Hector Coles, triumph- antly, and confident that the knowledge of such a maternal indorsement must work in his favor. "You did, did you ?" and the right hand of Margaret w^ent suddenly inside the thick shawl that wrapped her from the winds of the peak — and unseen by the Captain a locket — that fatal locket — glittered before the mother's eyes. " Will you promise, and keep that promise, that Captain Hector Coles shall not say one more word to, me of love or marriage, while we remain together y If not, as God sees me you know the consequences !" Mrs. Burton Hayley's face was very white at that moment, but the next she said : " Oh yes, I promise !" and then with a groan, grasping the surprised Captain by the arm : " Captain, if you do not wish to see me drop dead, leave that wild, mad girl to herself I She is crazy, but /cannot help it !" 432 THE COWARD. Captain Hector Coles looked from one to the other, in added surprise, but found no explanation; tlien he muttered some- thing that was not a second love-declaration ; and the next moment Margaret Hayjey stood alone, isolated as the peak that bore her, and with a heart almost as cold in the dull leaden weight that seemed to lie within her bosom, as the storm-beaten rocks of which that peak was composed. Thereafter Captain Hector Coles never spoke to her of love again ! CHAPTER XXI. The Bearer op a Disgraced Name, ix Exglaxd — A Strange Quest and a Strange Unrest — Hurrying over TO Ireland — Too Late for the Packet — The little Despatch-steamer — Henry Fitzmaurtce, the Journalist — An Unexpected Passage — The Peril of the Emerald, and the end of all quests save one. Far back in the progress of this narration, when it had only reached half the distance to which it has now arrived, it was said of one of the principal persons therein involved : "Something indescribably dim and shadowy grows about the character and action of Carlton Brand at this time, * * =^ mo- tives become buried in obscurity, and the narrator grows to be little more than a mere insignificant, powerless chronicler of events without connection and action without explanation." The same remark will apply with quite as much force, at this stage, to the movements of the bearer of that dishonored name, in his movements on the other side of the Atlantic, which must now be briefly recorded in their due order. It will be remembered that the American entered his name at Liverpool, on the twentieth day of July, with the place THE COWARD. 433 of his residence attached. Thenceforward enoiigli is known, through hotel and other records, to be sure that he spent some two weeks in London, occupying lodgings at one of the respectable houses of the great metropolis, but spend- ing his time, in other regards, in a manner scarcely to have been expected from any previous knowledge of his life and antecedents. Was it the lawyer, became the lawyer, who visited Scotland Yard the very next day after his arrival in London, and spent so much time with some of the leading men in charge of that great police-establishment, that he might have seemed to be employed in studying the whole English system of criminal detection ? And was it the lawyer, as the lawyer and consequently on account of his remem- brance of past connection with the ferreting out of crime in his native land, wiio went immediately afterwards into a con- tinuous and apparently systematic round of visits to the worst haunts of vice in the Modern Babel, becoming, sometimes in disguise and sometimes in his own proper person, but always more or less closely accompanied by some member of the forcp, the habitue of streets in which burglars and thieves most congregated, and of lanes in which receivers of stolen prop- erty, forgers and all disreputable and dangerous characters were known to have their places of business or their dens of hiding ? Or was there, leaving the profession of the lawyer out of the question, something in the peculiar surroundings of this man— something in the relations of character and connection which he had allowed to grow around him, unfitting him for other amusements and researches in a city which he had never before visited, and one supplying such marvellous temptations to the sight-seer and the antiquarian ? Or was he paying the penalty of the past in an unrest which left him no peace except he found it in continual motion and in the companionship and the study of those far more outlawed by statute but not more in social position than himself ? Strange 2T • • 434 THE COWARD. questions, again, and questions which cannot be answered, at this time, by any thing more than the mere suggestion. Certain it is, whatever the motive, that Westminster Abbey, with its every stone sacred to the memory of the great dead, seemed to present no attractions to him, commen- surate with those of Seven Dials, sacred to every phase of poverty and villany; that the Houses of Parliament were ignored in favor of St. Giles and Bermondsey, noted for debates of a very different character from those heard before the occupant of the Woolsack and the Speaker of the Com- mons ; and that (this seeming so peculiarly strange in a lawyer of admitted character and power) even the Lord Chancellor, rendering one of those decisions calculated to affect not only the laws of property in England but the whole legal system wherever the English language was spoken, seemed to have far less attention paid to him or his dicta, than was given to some gownless libel on the practice of criminal law, who could point out the habits and haunts of Burly Bill, the noted burglar whom he had lately saved from transportation by proving that he was in three different places at once, and neither of them the spot where the crime was committed, — or Snivelling Sail, reputed to be in the near companionship of the most successful utterer of forged notes who had so far escaped the clutches of the detective bVds of prey. Xight and day, during all those two wrecks, he seemed to eat hastily and to sleep only as if sleep was a secondary necessity of nature, to be thrown overboard wiienever some all-absorbing thought should make continual wakefulness necessary. Then the fancy (might it not be called madness ?) seemed to change. He had either exhausted the crime of London or he had skimmed that compound until there was no novelty of rich villany remaining. Without having examined one work of art or one antiquarian curiosity (so far as could be known), and certainly without having made one effort to find a footing in that society for w^hich education and past associa- tions would so well have fitted him, — he flitted away from THE COWARD. 435 London and the name of Carlton Brand was to bo found in- scribed on the books of one of the leading hotels at Manches- ter. And what did he there ? Precisely what he had been doing in London, it appeared-^nothing less and nothing more. Alternately in conversation with one of the detective force or with some one of the wretches whom the detective force was especially commissioned to bring to justice— the Manchester looms (not yet all stopped by the dearth of cotton and the " fratricidal war" in America) presented no more charm to him than had been afforded by the high-toned and rational attractions of the metropolis. At times dressed with what seemed a studied disregard of the graces of person, and scarcely ever so arraying himself that he would have dreamed of presenting himself in such a guise in the midst of any respectable circle at home— two or three days ran him through the criminal life of Manchester. Then away to Bir- mingham, and there— but why weary with repetition when a succeeding fact can be so well indicated by one that has preceded it? The same unsettled and apparently aimless life_if not aimless, certainly with tendencies the most singu- lar and unaccountable. Thence to Bristol, and from Bristol to Liverpool. From Liverpool, with flying haste the whole length of the island and over the border to Edinburgh, pav-^^ ing no more attention, apparently, to the scenes of Scottish song and story by which he dashed, than might have been necessary to remember the cattle-rievers and free-booters who had long before furnished pattern for his late associates,— and seeing in the old closes and wynds frowned down upon by Calton Hill and the Castle, only retreats in which robbers could take refuge without serious risk of being unearthed. Then, strangely enough, away southward again to Dover, with a passage-ticket for Calais taken but countermanded before use, indicating that Paris had been in view but that some sudden circumstance had made a change in the all-the- while inexplicable calculation. What was all this — the question arises once more — the following out of some clue on 4S6 THE COWARD. which the whole welfare of a life was believed to depend, or Hierely the vague and purposeless pursuit of some melancholy fancy furnishing the very mockery of a clue through that labyrinth which borders the realm of declared madness ? The American had been something more than a month in England, and far away beyond his knowledge all the events before recorded as occurring to Margaret Ilayley and her group of society in the White Mountains had already taken place, — when one afternoon, late in August, the train that dashed into Holyhead from Birmingham and Chester, by Anglesey and over the Menai, bore this exemplification of unrest as a passenger. Those who saw him emerge from the carriage upon the platform noticed the haste with which he appeared to step and the eagerness of his inquiry whether the train, which had been slightly delayed by an accident, was yet in time for the boat for Dublin. She had been gone for more than an hour, and the black smoke from her funnel was already fading away into a dim wreath driven rapidly northward before the sharp south-easter coming up the Channel. Night was fast falling, with indications that it would be any thing rather than a quiet one on that wild and turbulent bit of water lying between the two islands ; and some of the old Welsh coast- men who yet lingered on the pier, when the}' saw the impa- tient man striding up and down and uttering imprecations on the delayed train, shrugged their shoulders with the remark, which he di(inot hear or did not choose to heed, that "ihey should be much obliged to any train that had kept them from taking a rocking in that cradle the night !" Brow knit, head bent, tread nervous and almost angry, and manifesting all the symptoms of anxiety and disappointment, the American traversed the wharf, his tall form guarded against the slight chill of the summer evening on the coast by a coarse gray cloak which he drew closely around him as he walked, thus adding to the restless stateliness of his ap- pearance. At one of his turns he was sufiBciently disengaged to see a man of middle height, dressed in a somewhat dashing THE COWARD. 437 civilian costume, standing at a little distance up the pier and conversing with two or three of the coastmen. One of the latter was pointing towards himself; and the moment after the stranger approached with a bow. He was a young man of twenty-five or thereabouts, side-whiskered and moustached, decidedly good-looking, with quite as much of the Irishman as the Englishman in his face, and seemed at all points a gen- tleman — more, that much rarer combination, especially on the soil of the mother island, a frank, clever fellow I " They tell me, sir," said the stranger, " that you were one of the passengers on that delayed train, and that you manifest some disappointment at missing the Dublin boat." " They are entirely correct, sir," answered the American, returning the bow. " I was very anxious, for particular rea- sons, to be in Dublin to-morrow ; and in fact the whole object of my visiting Ireland at all, just now, may very probably be defeated by the accident that brought in the traiu that half hour too late." He spoke in a tone very earnest and not a little agitated. The other remarked the fact, but he thought himself too good a judge of character to suspect, as some other persons under similar circumstances might have done, that the anxious man was a hunted member of the swell-mob or a criminal of some other order, who thought it politic to get off English soil as soon as possible. He determined, at the second glance, that he had to do with a gentleman, and proceeded with the words that he had evidently intended to say on first accosting the delayed passenger. "You have made no arrangements for getting over, I sup- pose ?" *' None, whatever !" answered the American. " How can I, until the boat of to-morrow, when — when it may be too late altogether for my purpose ? I was walking off my dis- appointment, a sort of thing that I have been more or less used to all my life !" and the other noticed that he seemed to sigh wearily — " walking it off before going to find a hotel and 438 THE COWARD. lying awake all night, thinking of where I ought to have been at each particular hour." "Well," said the stranger, "I had a motive not personal to myself, in accosting you, or I should not have taken the liberty. I am Mr. Henry Fitzmaurice, one of the London correspondents of the Dublin Evening Mail. I believe that I am not mistaken in supposing that I am speaking to an American ?" " Xot at all mistaken !" answered the American, pleased with a frankness so much more like that of his native land than he had been in the habit of meeting during his short sojourn abroad. " I am called Mr. Brand — Carlton Brand, and on ordinary occasions I am a lawyer of the city of Phila- delphia." " That little matter over, which I should not have been able to manage under half an hour had I been a pure John Bull instead of two-thirds Irishman," said the man who had intro- duced himself as Fitzmaurice, in a vivacious manner very well calculated to put the other at his ease — " now, not being either of us members of the Circumlocution Office, we will get at the gist of the matter at once. I am going over to Ireland to-night, or at least I am going to make a start in that direction, and I believe that I can manage to secure you a passage if you will accept one." ** Certainly, and with many thanks, but how ?" was the reply. "^ "Well, I am not so sure about the thanks," said Fitz- maurice, in the same pleasant tone which had before won his companion. " It is going to be a wild night on the Channel, if I am any judge of weather, and I have crossed it often enough to begin to have some idea. But I must cross, and so must you, if you can, as I understand you to say." "I must, certainly, if any thing in the shape of a vessel does so," said the American. " But you have not yet told me—" "Xo, of course not!" the newspaper man ran on. "Al- THE C O W A E D . 439 ways expect an Irislimau to begin his story in the middle and tell it out at each end, and you will not be far from the fact. Well, there are some despatches for the Lord Lieutenant that need to be across before noon to-morrow, as the Secretary for Ireland has an insane fancy, and a special train left London to make the connection with the steamer that has just gone. I came in it, and with the Queen's messenger, — with some matters that must reach the 3Iail in advance of the other Dublin papers. They have a little despatch-steamer lying just below, and the messenger telegraphed to fire her up, from one of the back stations, when he found the chances against him. In an hour she will have a full head of steam, and before it is quite dark we shall be clear of the coast, I have no doubt that I can procure you a passage, and if you will step round with me to the wharf where she lies, I will certainly try the experiment. Now you have it."' "And a very kind and generous thing I have at the same time 1" exclaimed the American, warmly. "As I said before, I do not know about the generosity !" replied the correspondent, as they took their way around the w^arehouses that headed the packet-wharf, towards the pier below, where the despatch-boat lay. " The fact is that the Emerald is not much bigger than a yawl, and though she is a splendid little sea-boat and never has found any gale in which she could not outlive the biggest of the merchant steamers, she is very much of a cockle-shell in the way of jumping about ; and people who have any propensity for sea-sickness, a thing a good deal worse than any ordinary kind of death, are very likely to have a little turn at it under such circumstances." " I have never been very much at sea, but I believe that I am beyond the vulgarity of sea-sickness !" was the answer ; and just then they reached the despatch-steamer. She was indeed a little thing, as compared with the steamers which the American had been in the habit of seeing sent away on sea-voyages — very low in hull, rakish in pipe 440 THE COWARD. and masts, looming black in the gathering dusk of evening, and her bulwarks seeming so low as to present the same ap- pearance of insecurity against falling overboard that a lands- man's eye immediately perceives in a first glance at a pilot- boat. The steam was already well up and hissing from her escape valves, while the black smoke rolled away from her pipe as if it had a mission to cloud the whole port with soot and cinders. A few words with the Queen's messenger and an introduc- tion to the Captain of .the little Emerald followed ; and the correspondent of the Mail had not overrated his influence with either, for in ten minutes the lawyer was booked for a passage over, under government auspices. In half an hour more the despatch -boat steamed away; and when the deep dusk of night fell to shut away the Welsh coast, while the half dozen officers and their two passengers were trifling over a very pleasant supper with wines of antediluvian vintage accompanying, the Emerald was well gfif the Head, tossing about like a cork in the sea that seemed to be every moment growing more and more violent, but making fine weather through it all, flying like a race-horse, and promising, if every thing held, to land the messenger and her other passengers at Kingstown, at very near as early an hour in the morning as those touched the shore who had left Holyhead two hours before by the packet. The American remained long on the deck, in conversation with the newspaper correspondent, delighted with the cordiality of his manner and the extensive scope of his information, as he had before been with the generosity which supplied himself with a passage over at the moment of disappointment. The Hiberno-Englishman seemed to be equally pleased with his new friend, whom he found all that he had at first believed — a gentleman, and neither pickpocket nor madman. Mr. Fitz- maurice, still a young man and a subordinate, had never been in America, but he had something more than the ordinary newspaper stock of information about countries lying beyond THE COWARD. 441 sea, and he had the true journalist's admiration for the youiij^ land that has done more for journalism within fifty years than all the other countries of the world through all the ages. He listened with pleasure to the descriptions which the lawyer was equall}'- able and willing to impart, of the modes in which the news-gathering operations of theleading American news- papers were carried on, and especially of the reckless ex- posures of correspondents on the battle-fields of the great war, which have all the while exhibited so much bravery and so stupendous a spirit of enterprise, combined with a lack of judgment equally injurious and deplorable. Mr. Fitzmaurice, on his part, resident in London during all the period of our struggle, necessarily present at most of the parliamentary debates in which the good and ill feeling of Englishmen towards the United States have been shown in such unfavorable proportions — acquainted with most of the leading public men of the kingdom, and with an Irishman's rattle making the conveying of his impressions a thing of equal ease and pleasure, — he had much to say that interested the Philadelphian ; and it would have been notable, could he have been fairly behind the curtain as to the character and movements of the other, to mark how the man who during two weeks residence in London had never stepped his foot within the Parliament Houses, could drink in and digest, from another's lips, the story of the debates which he might so easily have heard first-handed with his own ears ! But as the newspaper man could know nothing of this, enough to say that the conversation was a pleasant one, and that hours rolled away unheeded in its continuance, while the little Emerald skimmed over and plunged through the rough waves of the Irish Channel, and while those waves grew heavier, and the sky darker, and the wild south-easter in- creased every hour in the violence with which it whistled through the scant rigging and sent the caps of the waves whirling and dashing past the adventurous little minnow of 4:4i2 THE C O AV A R D . the steam-navy, to fall in showers of foamy spray far to lee- ward. It was past midnight when the young men, so strangely thrown together, so different in position and pursuit, but so pleasantly agreeing in all the amenities of social intercour.se, — began to feel the demands of sleep overmastering the excite- ment of the situation, left the deck and went below to the berths in the little cramped cabin which had been prepared for them. The Queen's messenger had already retired and was sleeping so soundly in his four-by-seven state-room, with his despatches under his pillow, that nothing less than the going to pieces of the steamer or an order to start on a new journey could possibly have woke him. To such men, ever flying from one port to another, by sea and by land, bearing the lives of individuals and often the welfare of whole peoples in their hands, with no more knowledge of what they bear than has the telegraph wire of the message that thrills along it — to such men, habituated to excitement, hurry and ex- posure, that excitement really becomes a sort of second nature ; and the art of sleeping on the ground, on a board, bolt upright in a chair or even in the saddle, is one of the accomplishments soonest learned and last forgotten. What are storms to them or to that other class to which refer- ence has before been made — the rough Ariels of the news- paper Prospero ? Nothing,' except they cause hindrance 1 What is even the deepest personal peril by sea or land ? Nothing, except because in putting a sudden period to the existence of the messenger it may interfere with the delivery of his all-important despatches ! So slept the Queen's messenger, and so, after a time, in their narrow berths, slept the American and bis new-made friend.' Once falling away into slumber, the very motion of the vessel made that slumber more intense and stupefying, old Mother Nature rocking her children somewhat roughj}^ in the " cradle of the deep." And of what dreamed they ? Who knows ? Perhaps the handsome and vivacious young THK COWARD. 4^3 Anglo-Irishman of the girl whose miniature he had accidentally displayed to the eyes of the other, filling the back case of his watch, — not yet his wife, but to be so some day when talent and energy should bring their recompense and fortune shower her favors a little more liberally upon him. Perhaps the Philadelphia lawyer of wrongs and shames in his native land, of the apparently mad quest which he seemed to be urging, and of possible coming days when all errors should be repaired, and the great stake of his life won beyond a peradventure. How long the lawyer had slept he knew not, when some change in the motion of the boat produced the same effect on his slumbers that is said to be wrought on the sleeping miller by the stoppage of the splashing water-wheel and the rumbling burr-stones. He had slept amidst the violent motion : he partiiilly woke when there was a momentary cessation of it. In an instant after the vessel seemed to be struck one tremendous blow that sent a shiver through every plate and rivet of her iron hull — through every board and stanchion of her cabin-work. There are men who can remain undisturbed by such a sensation on ship-board, but the American was by no means one of them ; and the fumes of sleep, partially dissipated before, rolled away almost as suddenly as morning mists before a brisk north-wester. He was broad awake to feel a hand" grasping him by the shoulder, and opened his eyes to see Fitzmaurice standing by the berth and holding the joiner- work with one hand to support him- self against the fearful lurches of the vessel, while he had Employed the other in arousing the apparently slumbering man. " Get up and come out at once !" he said, his voice hoarse and agitated. " What has happened ?" asked the American, springing upright in his berth and preparing to leap from it as men will do when such unpleasant announcements are made. He seemed to know, intuitively and without any instruction from 4:4:4: THE C O W A K D . the shock which had just startled him, that some marked peril must have sinit the journalist down to arouse him ia that melodramatic mauner. " Why, we are in danger, I suppose — serious danger !" was the replj. "Do you not feel the change in the motion of the boat ? We are in the trough of the sea, without steam, and as near as I can make out through the mist, driving on the Irish coast with more rapidity than we bargained for !" " Heavens !" was the very natural exclamation in reply, as the American managed with some difficulty to throw on the one or two articles of clothing of which he had divested himself. " I suppose that it is a bad job," the journalist continued, " and what just now makes me feel peculiarly bad about it is the fact that I was the means of inducing you to come on board, and that if any thing serious should happen — " " Hush ! not a word of that !" said the lawyer, appreciating fully that chivalrous generosity which after conferring a great favor could take blame to itself for any peril growing out of that favor. " Hush ! You have treated me, Mr. Fitzmaurice, with great kindness, and I hope you will believe me man enough not to misunderstand our relative positions in any thing that may occur." Fitzmaurice, who seeraed to be relieved by the words, but who certainly was laboring under an amount of depression not incident alone to any peril in which he stood personally in- volved, — grasped his hand with something more than the or- dinary pressure of brief acquaintance. The motion of the boat, alternately a roll and then a heavy plunge, had now become absolutely fearful, intermingled with occasional repeti- tions of that crashing blow which had started the American from his slumber ; but holding fast of each other and of various substantial objects that fell in their course, the two young men reached the companion way and the deck, the journalist detailing meanwhile, in hasty and broken words. THE COWARD. 445 what he Icnew of tlie extent of the (lifficultj in which they were involved. Up to fifteen or twenty minutes before, the little Emerald, a capital sea-boat but possessed of but a single engine (which description of single engine boats, by the way, should never be allowed to make voyages by open sea, except under the especial pilotage of one Malthus), had been making good weather, though the blow had increased to a gale and the waves of the Irish Channel increased to such size that they seemed to be opposed to the Union and determined to make an eternal severance of the two islands. Fitzmaurice had himself awoke about an hour before, and gone upon deck because unable to sleep longer ; and he had consequently become aware, a little before the American in his berth did so, of an accident to the vessel. One moment of cessation of the plunging roll with which she had been ploughing ahead of the waves breaking on her larboard quarter — a moment of almost perfect stillness, as if the little vessel lay moored in some quiet haven — then a sudden veering round and that ter- rible crash and shock of the waves under the counter, the wheel, and along the whole side, which told that she was lying helpless in t4ie trough of the sea, a marine Samson as thoroughly disabled as if she had been shorn of all her strength at once by the shears of one of the Fates. A word from one of the officers, the moment afterwards, had told him of some disarrangement of the engine, consequent on the severe strain of the heavy sea upon the boat ; and he had then been left to study out for himself the amount of peril that might be involved, and to observe the coolness with which officers and men devoted themselves to a task which might or might not be successful — which might terminate at any moment in one of those terrible seas breaching the little vessel and foundering her as if she had indeed been nothing but a yawl- boat I It was at this stage that he had come down and wakened his friend of a few hours, feeling some responsibility for his safety (as well as a presentiment with regard to him 446 THE COWARD. which he by no moans expressed in words), and leaving" the Queen's messenger to pursue his dreamless sleep until it should end in Kingstown harbor or at the bottom of " Davy Jones' locker." By the time all this had been expressed in one tenth the number of words here employed, they had reached the deck, and certainly the prospect there was any thing but one cal- culated to re-assure either. The Emerald was rolling wheel- houses under, in the trough of the sea, but 5o far mysteriously relieving herself through the scuppers as it seemed impossible that she should do. Two men were at the wheel, but they stood necessarily idle. Forward were half a dozen men, hold- ing on to keep from going overboard at the first lurch. Even above the roar of the storm could be heard the sharp clink of hammers coming up from the engine-room and each sounding yet one pulse-beat of Hope. The south-easter was howling with demoniac fury, wailing through the rigging as if singing requiems for them all in advance, and driving before it the thin mists that shut away any idea of the sky. By the light on deck and on the troubled expanse of water eastward it was evident that day was breaking ; and it was through a knowl- edge of that fact and of the rate of speed ^t which they had been steaming and driving partially before the wind all night, that Fitzmaurice had made his calculation expressed below, that they must be close on the Irish coast, a lee-shore, in such a blow, of no pleasant character. Such was the situation — a deplorable one, as any one can readily perceive who has ever seen its precise parallel ; yet not entirely a hopeless one, for they might not be so closo upon the coast as had been feared, and the engine might yet be thrown again into gear before the little vessel foundered and in time to claw oflf from the danger lying to lee-ward. Fitzmaurice had seen the position before : the American saw it at once through his own eyes and from the explanations given him by the journalist. The moment was not favorable for conversation, in that perilous motion, that roar of wind THE COWARD. 447 and wave and that suspense of mind ; and the two youn^ men held none except in a few words ahnost shouted to each other, but stood far aft on the larboard quarter, waiting calmly as two men with human instincts could be expected to wait- for — what Heaven only knew ! The face of the Anglo-Irish- man was almost thoughtlessly calm, in spite of the anxiety which he had so plainly expressed : that of the American was dark, his lips set and his brow contracted, but there was no sigh of shrinking and no indication of that basest passion, fear I Who could believe that the man standing there in the gray light of morning and awaiting without one apparent tremor of the muscles what might be an immediate and a painful death, bore a name that had been so lately dishonored by the most abject cowardice ? Suddenly there was a cry which has blanched many a cheek and made many a lip tremble since Noah made his first sea- voyage in the Ark : " Land on the starboard quarter !" fol- lowed by another and yet more startling call : " Breakers to leeward !" Fitzmaurice and the American both turned instantly in the direction indicated, as was inevitable ; and then they saw that the warning cry from the look-out was not the result of any illusion. The daylight was rapidly broadening, the mist had for the moment driven away leeward ; and apparently not more than a mile away rose a huge dark headland assuming the proportions of a mountain, while at its base and in the exact direction towards which the doomed vessel was drifting, the sea was breaking in wreaths of white foam over ledges of rock which seemed to be already so near that the}' must go grinding and crashing upon them before the lapse of five minutes. They felt that the water shoaled, too, for the plunging roll of the disabled steamer grew every moment more terrible, and just as the cry was given she was breached at the waist by a sea from which she did not immediately clear herself. It only needed an eye that had ever scanned peril by sea and shore, to know at that moment that the 448 THE COWARD. Emerald and all on board were as certainly doomed, in all Ijuiuan probabilit}^, as if the one bad been already broken up and scattered along the coast in fragments and the others made food for fishes along the rocks of Ireland's Eye I " The Hill of Howth and the rocks at the foot of it !" cried Fitzraaurice as he recognized the position. "Now God help us, for they are dead to leeward, and if we have any accounts to settle we had better settle them rapidly I" There was little agitation in his tone, now, and there was none in that of the American as he replied two words. They were the last he ever spoke, to mortal ear. May they have been true when he awoke from his long sleep, as they were before he fell into it I Those two words were : '' I see !'' The two men were standing, as has been said, very near the larboard quarter. The Emerald, too, as has also been already said, was very low in the bulwarks, as befitted her rake and her clipper appearance. Just as the lawyer uttered the two words, one of the officers of the steamer came aft, holding on amidst the terrible roll with something of the te- nacity of a cat, and took his place at the wheel. The mist had closed down again and the Hill of Howth and the break- ers were both for the moment shut away. There was a jar — a creeping, trembling jar that seemed to run through the little steamer, from stem to stern-post, and yet no blow from the fierce waves and no grinding of her keel upon the dreaded rocks. It was life — motion — the beat of machinery once more ! At that critical juncture the engine had moved again for the first time, and if not safety there was yet at least another struggle with destiny. The officer had dashed back to throw the steamer up into the wind, the very instant that he felt the steam once more rushing into the cylinder. Then followed what cannot be described, because no one living can say precisely what occurred. Gathering way al- most in an instant from the mad dash of her wheels into the THE COWARD. 449 water, the little Emerald plunged forward as if for her life. She had but a hundred or two yards of vantage ground left, and seemed to know it. As she gathered way and the quick whirl of the wheel swept her head gradually round to the sea, one mighty w^ave, as if afraid of being baulked of its prey and determined upon a final effort, struck her under the weather bow and port wheel and sent her careening so low to leeward that the starboard wheel-house and even the star- board quarter-rail were under water. She rolled back again in an instant, triumphant over the great enemy, and thence- forward dashed away from the white breakers on her lee as if she had been merely tantalizing them with a futile pros- pect of her destruction, — to make her way safely two hours afterwards into Kingstown Harbor and to land the Queen's messenger (who had just then awoke) and the correspondent of the Evening Mail, only an hour later than the passengers by the packet had disembarked. But she did not land the American. When the steamer rolled down with her starboard quarter-rail under water, Fitzmaurice, standing nearest to the larboard quarter, called out to his companion : " Look out and hold on !"then clutched the bulwark with his own hands and obeyed his own injunc- tion. But wlien the steamer righted he was alone ! Whether the lawyer had missed footing and failed to grasp any point of support at the critical moment, or whether he had lost head in the dizzying motion and gone over without even knowing his danger, — certain it is that he had been swept overboard under circumstances in which the whole British navy could have done no more to save. him than one child of ten years! Henry Fitzmaurice, missing him and dreading what had really occurred, thought that for one second he saw a human head, with the hair streaming up, away off in the yeasty water : but that was all. And he said, bitterly, real- izing all the painful facts of the event, and taking to himself a thought of regret that was likely to cling to him while his generous heart continued to beat : 28 450 THE COWARD. " My God I — it was just as I thought ! I have been the means of drowning that splendid fellow, after all 1" A few hours later, little Shelah, the barefooted daughter of one of the poor fishermen whose hut stood at the foot of Howth, around northward towards Ireland's Eye — little Shelah, who had gone down over the rocks to the beach when the worst of the storm was over, rushed back to the cabin with terror in her eyes and broken words upon her lips : " Oh, father I — there bees a man all dead and dhrownded down there by the rocks beyant ! And he bees so handsome and so much like a rale gintleman ! — how could he dhround ? Come down and see till him, father !" The fisherman went down, and he and his rough mates re- moved the body and did their humble and inefi'ectual all to resuscitate a body from which the breath of life had long departed. Then the fisherman and his wife and his mates and little Shelah all mourned over the manly beauty that had been sacrificed, and wondered who he could possibly be, and where his kindred would mourn for him. It was only when Father Michael, the good old priest of the parish was sum- moned, that they could form any nearer idea of the personality of the drowned man. Then they knew, for Father Michael could read, as they could not, and he told them, from one of the cards in the pocket-book, that " his name had been Carlton Brand, and that he had belonged to Philadelphia, away over in America, where they used to be so free and happy, but where they were fighting, now, all the time, about the naygurs that didn't seem to him worth the throuble !" They buried him, with such lamentations as they might have bestowed upon " one of their own," in consecrated ground in a little graveyard a mile away from the Hill, w^estward ; and Father Michael gave the dead man the benefit of a benevolent doubt as to his religion, with the remark that " there were good Christians over in America, and this was one of them, maybe !" uttering a prayer for the repose of his THE COWARD. 451 soul that, if it bore him no nearer to the Beautiful Gate, certainly left him no farther away from it, while it fuKillcd the behest of a simple and beautiful faith ! This done, aud a note despatched to his favorite journal, giving the name and place of burial of the unfortunate man. Father Michael felt, as he had reason to feel, that he had done his whole melancholy duty. "Whatever the quest of the American, it was ended : what- ever had been the secret of his unrest, it was not a secret to the eyes that thenceforth watched over a destiny no longer temporal but eteini' It has been suggested that Henry Fitzmaurice, the jour- nalist, so strangely thrown into the company of the Phila- delphian, so much pleased with his manner and impressed by his conversation, and so suddenly separated from him by an accident which seemed to have something of his own handi- work in its production, — was likely to bear with him, during life, a regret born of that circumstance. Such being the case, it was eminently natural that in giving a description of the accident to the despatch-steamer and the peril to her pas- sengers, -on the day following, in the Mail, he should have dwelt at some length on the sad fate of Mr. Carlton Brand, the American, alluded in terms of warm respect to the character which had briefly fallen under his observation, and felicitates the far-away friends Of the unfortunate man, on tho fact already made public in the Nation, that the body had been early recovered and received tender and honorable Christian burial. 4.">2 THE COWARD. CHAPTER XXIL Pleasanton's advance on Culpeper — Crossing the Rappa- hannock — The Fight and the Calamity op Rawson's Cross-Roads — Taking of Culpeper — Pleasanton's Vol- unteer Aide — Townsend versus Coles — The Meeting OF two who Loved each other — And the little Ride THEY TOOK TOGETHER. On Sunday the thirteenth day of September, 1863, and Monday the fourteenth, but principally on the former day, took place that running fight which displayed some of the very noblest qualities of the federal cavaliy shown during the War for the Union, and which is better entitled than other- wise to be designated as the Battle of Culpeper. One of the first conclusive indications was given in that fight, that while the rebel cavalry, which at the beginning of the war was certainly excellent, had been running down from the giving out of their trained horses, and the deterioration of the quality of their riders through forced conscription, — the Union cavalry, at first contemptible in force and inefficient in com- parison to their very numbers, had every day been improving as fast as augmenting, until they had become the superiors of what the best of their foes had been at the beginning of the contest. War can make any thing (except perhaps statesmen) out of a given quantity of American material ; but it can unmake as well, when it strains the material existing and creates a forced supply for the vacant places of the dead and the vanquished, out of the infirm and the in- capable ; and before the end of this conflict the lesson will have been so closely read as never to need a repetition. The rebels held Culpeper and the south l)ank of the Rap- pahannock, and had held the whole of that line for weeks, formidable in their occasional demonstrations, but still more formidable in what it was believed they might do by a sud- THE COWARD. 458 den crossing: of that dividing stream at some moment when the Union forces should be deficient in vigilance, preoccupied, or otherwise embarrassed. They were to be driven back if possible, from their threatening front, or if not driven back, at least struck such a blow as would make early offensive operations on their part improbable. These were the inten- tions, so far as they can be known and judged, which led to the crossing of the Rappahannock at that particular juncture. At three o'clock on the morning of that Sunday which was to join with so many other days of battle during the rebel- lion in proving that "there are no Sabbaths in war," — at an hour when the thick darkness preceding the dawn hung like a pall over the banks of the rugged stream and the hostile forces that fringed it on either side — the cavalry camps on the north side of the Rappahannock were all astir. All astir, and yet all strangely quiet, in comparison with the activity mani- fested.' No mellow bugle rang out its notes of reveille ; there was no rattle of drum or shrieking of fife ; the laggard sleeper was awakened by a touch on the shoulder, a shake, or a quick word in his ear. Horses were saddled in silence ; and at the commands: ** Prepare to mount!" "Mount!" given in the lowest possible tones that could command attention, the drowsy blue-jacketted, yellow-trimmed troopers, all be- spurred and be-sabred as if equal foes to the horses they were to ride and the enemies they were to encounter, — vaulted lightly or swung themselves heavily, according to the manner of each particular man, into their high peaked McClel- lan saddles that seemed to be all that was left them of their old leader. The squadrons were formed as quietly and with as few words as had accompanied the awakening and the mount- ing ; for if a surprise of the enemy's force was to take place, it was a matter of the highest consequence that no loud sound or careless exclamation should reach the ears of the wary pickets and wide-awake videttes of the rebels hugging close the banks on the south side of the narrow river. The preparations were at last and hastily completed, long 454: THE COWARD. before the gray dawn after the moonless night had begun to break over the Virginia hills lying dark and cool to the east- ^ward. Perhaps that very morning had been selected for the attack because on the night before the new moon had made its appearance and there was no tell-tale lingerer to throw an awkward gleam on an accoutrement and thus tell a story meant to be concealed. Troopers clustered together and formed squadrons, squadrons were merged into regiments which in turn swelled to brigades and brigades to divisions. It was only then that the extensive nature of the movement, which had Pleasanton at the head and Buford, Gregg and Kilpatrick all engaged in the execution, could have been conjectured even by an eye capable of peering through the darkness. It seemed scarcely an hour after the first awakening when the formation was complete and the order to ''March !" given ; and there was not even yet a gleam of red in the eastern sky when the whole command was in motion. This large cavalry force, under Pleasanton as we have said, was composed of three divisions, commanded respec- tively by Buford, Gregg and Kilpatrick, all Brigadiers. The Rappahannock was crossed at as many different points. Buford with the First going over at Starke's Ford ; Gregg, wnth the Second, at Sulphur Springs, four miles distant ; and Kilpatrick, with the Third, at Kelly's Ford, nine miles farther down and thirteen miles distant from the place of crossing of the First. Stuart, the famous " Jeb," with his confederate cavalry, was known to be in force on the ele- vated ground at and around Culpeper Court House, with his pickets and videttes extending to the very edge of the Rap- paliannock; and a wide sweep of the Union force was be- lieved to be necessary to circumvent him. Detachments of rebel troops were also known to hold all the prominent points between Culpeper and Brandy Station, where the brigades of Lomax and W. F. H. Lee were lying. Pleasanton was over the river, with all his force before broad daylight — so rapid and successful had been the move- THE COWARD. 455 ment. The roads were dry and in as good order as Vir- ginia roads are ever allowed to be by the powers that preside over highways ; and the force, still in the three divisions, swept southward as silently as iron-shod animals have the capacity for bearing iron-accoutred riders. Napoleon la Petit had never yet succeeded in introducing gutta-percha scab- bards for the swords of his troopers and gutta-percha shoes for their horses, even into the French cavalry ; and the Yankee troops of Pleasanton had all the disadvantages of the usual rattling of bridle-bits the clattering of sabres within steel scabbards, and the pounding of multitudinous hoofs upon the hard dry earth, the latter occasionally a little muffled by an inch of gray powdery dust, choking the riders as it made their advance less noisy. Spite of the clanking of hoof and steel, however, the ad- vance w^as made with such silence and celerity that the greater portion of the rebel pickets on'the southern bank of the Rappahannock were captured, while the remainder — here and there one scenting danger afar off and holding an advan- tage in knowledge of the roads — fled in dismay to report that the whole Army of the Potomac, sappers and miners, pioneers and pontoniers, horse, foot and dragoons, was closing in upon Culpeper. As the morning advanced and the light grew^ stronger, so that the danger and the persons of the attacking forces could at once be better distinguished, skirmishing commenced with that portion of the rebel force, stationed in more or less strength at various points and called to arms by their pickets being driven in upon them, — to meet and if possible check the advancing columns. Not long before they discovered that any effectual check to the forces which Pleasanton seemed to be pouring down every cross road and throwing out from behind every clump of woods on the roadsides, was impos- sible ; and they fell back, skirmishing. At Brandy Station (droll and unfortunate name, destined to supply more bad jokes at the expense of the dry throats i56 TUB COWARD. of the army thau almost any other ppot on Virginia soil), a junction of the three divisions of Union troops was effected; and there, while that disposition was being made, a sharp fight took place between the First, under Buford, and the rebel cavalry under Colonel Beale of the Ninth Virginia. But that struggle, though sharp, was only of brief continuance : out- foughten, and it must be confessed, outnumbered, the enemy- was driven back from the Station and pursued vigorously. While the gallant Buford was thus occupied with the First, Gregg, with the Second division was making a detour to the right and pouring down his troopers upon Culpeperfrom the north by the Ridgeville road, driving before him upon the main body at the Court House a rebel brigade that had held the advance, under General Lomax (an officer whose name, we may as well say, apropos of the bad jokes of war-time, had caused nearly as many of those verbal outrages upon English, as the unfortunate Brandy Station itself). Kilpatrick, meanwhile, with his Third division had not been idle. (AVhen was he ever known to be idle, except when others held him in check, or ineffective except when some other than himself misdirected his dashing energy ?) lie had swept around to the left, nearly at the same time that Gregg made the detour to the right, and striking the Stevensburgh road advanced rapidly from the east towards Culpeper and the right of the enemy's position, which rested on Rawson's Cross-Roads, two miles south-east of the Court-House. The rebels here made a stubborn resistance, and steel met steel and pistol-shot replied to sabre-stroke as it had not before done that day ; but the odds were a little against them ; they were outflanked by that incarnate " raider" of the Sussex mountains of Xew Jersey, who no doubt could trace back some drop of his blood to Johnny Armstrong the riever of the Scottish border, or the moss troopers of the Bog of Allen in Ireland ; and they fell back to the town and beyond it, taking up new positions which they were not destined to hold much longer than those they had abandoned. THB COWARD. 457 But this brief shock of battle between the division of Kil- Patrick and the rebels opposed to it, did not roll away from the little hamlet of Rawson's Cross-Roads without the en- acting of one of those sad tragedies, in the shedding of the blood of nipn-combatants, which seem so much more painful than the wholesale but expected slaughter of the field. Near the crossing of the roads there stood one brick house, of two stories, the only one of that material in the vicinity. This house, when Kilpatrick came up, was occupied by the rebel sharp-shooters, partially sheltered by the thick walls and bringing down the federal cavalry from their saddles at every discharge of their deadly rifles. Such obstructions in the way of an advance, especially when they destroy as well as embarrass, are not apt to be treated with much toleration by those who have the power to sweep them away ; and imme- diately when the imminence of the danger was discovered, one of the federal batteries was ordered up to dislodge the sharp-shooters. It dashed up with all the celerity that whipped and spurred and galloping horses could give it, halted within point-blank range, unlimbered, and sent shell, canister and case-shot into and through the obnoxious edifice in a manner and with a rapidity little calculated upon by the mason who quietly laid his courses of bricks for the front and side-walls, in the quiet years before Virginia secession. The sharp-shooters were soon silenced and dislodged at least all of them who were left after the last deadly discharge of mis- siles had been poured in by the battery ; and the house was at once occupied, when the firing ceased, by a detachment of Union cavalry dismounted for that service. When those men entered the half-ruined building they first became aware of this extraordinary and deplorable tragedy, in which a little blood went so far in aAvakening regret and horror. They heard cries of pain and shrieks of distress and fear, echoing through the building, in other accents than those which could belong to wounded soldiers— the tones of women ! And in the cellar they found the painful solution of the mystery 458 THE COWARD. more painful far, to them, than a hundred times the death and sufforiug under ordinar}^ circumstances. In that cellar, among smoke, and blood and dust, were huddled twenty or thirty non-combatants, men, women and children ; and in their midst lay an old man, quite dead and the upper part of his head half carried away by a portion of shell, while fallen partially across his legs was the body of his son of sixteen, his boyish features scarcely yet stilled in the repose of death from a ghastly hurt that had torn away the arm and a part of the shoulder. Two women lay near, one dying from a blow" on the temple which had driven in the bones of the skull like the crushing of an egg-shell, and the other uttering the most heart-rending of the cries and groans under the agony of a crushed leg and a foot literally blown to atoms. A sad sight ! • — a harrowing spectacle, even for war-time ! And how had it been occasioned ? It would seem that on the approach of the cavulry and the commencement of fighting in the neighborhood, this party of non-combatants had crowded into this house — no doubt long to be known in the local traditions of the place as that of James Inskip, — and taken refuge in the cellar, believing that in it, as the only brick house in the vicinity, they would be safest from the missiles of the opposing forces. And so they would have been, safe enough beyond a doubt, had not the rebel commander, unaware of the presence of non-combatants in the building, or heedless of the common law of humanity not to expose them to unnecessary danger in any military opera- tion, recklessly placed his sharp-shooters in shelter there and thus drawn the fire of the fatal battery. Two or three of the shells, crashing through the house, had fallen into the cellar and exploded in the very midst of the trembling skulkers in their place of fancied security, — with the sad results that have been recorded, and which none more deeply deplored than the men who had unwittingly slaughtered the aged and the help- less. Some of the Richmond papers told harrowing stories, a few days after, of the *' inhuman barbarity of the dastardly THE COWARD. 459 Yankees who wantonly butchered those inoffensive raen and helpless women and children in James Inskip's house at Ilaw- son's Cross-Roads" ; but they forgot, as newspapers on both sides of the sad stmgorle have too often done during its con- tinuance, to add one word of the explanatory and extenuating circumstances ! By the time that Kilpatrick, with the Third, had concluded the episode of Rawson's Cross-Roads and driven the oppos- ing forces back upon the town, Buford, with the First, after chasing the rebel cavalry under Beale to moderate satisfaction, had come up from the south, and the junction of the three divisions was accomplished. On the elevated site of Culpeper and in the uneven streets of that old town w^hich bears, like so many of its compeers, shabby recollections of English aristocracy that for some cause seem to suit it better than the thin pretence of demo- cratic government, — there Stuart, than whom the rebellion has developed no more restless or more active foe of the Union cause, appeared determined to make a last and effectual stand. With a celerity worthy of his past reputation he placed sharp-shooters in houses that commanded the Union advance, planted batteries at advantageous positions in the streets, and threw up barricades of all the unemployed carts and wagons and all the idle timber and loose fence-rails lying about the town, in a manner which would have endeared him to the Parisians of the time of Louis Philippe. Right and left and on every hand, defending these obstructions and supporting the batteries, dashed his mounted "Yirginia gentlemen," once the very Paladins of their knightly class, when Fauquier and the White Sulphur saw the pleasant sport of tilting at the ring in the presence of the bright-eyed Queens of Beauty of the Old Dominion, — now brought down to the level and compelled to contest the fatal advance, of a " horde of Yankee tailors on horseback" ! General Pleasanton, the actual as well as nominal head of the Union advance, held his position on an eminence a short 460 THS COWARD. distance east of the town, from which an excellent view of the whole situation could be commanded, and whence he directed all the movements with the rapidity of a soldier and the coolness of a man thoroughly in confidence with himself and well assured of the material of his command. He had won with the same troops before, even when placed at disad- vantage: that day he felt that the game was in his own hands and that he could play it rapidly and yet steadily. The thing which worst troubled him as from that little eminence he looked out from under his bent brows, over the scene which was to wit- ness so short, sharp and decisive a conflict, — was the knowl- edge how seriously the stubborn resistance offered by the rebels was likely to peril the non-combatants in the town, and how inevitably, from the same cause, the old town itself, just tumble-down enough to be historical and picturesque, must suffer from the flying shot and shell that know so little mercy. He had hoped, the first surprise succeeding, to take Culpeper against but slight resistance ; and it was no part of his plan (it never is part of the plan of any truly brave man !) to batter the town if that measure could be avoided ; but the balances and compensations of war are appreciable if not gratifying, musketry on one side is nearly sure to be answered in kind by the other, and artillery (when there happens to be any, and wo to the party without the " big guns" when the other has them at command !) — artillery has a very natural habit of re- plying to the thunderous defiance sent out by its hostile kins- men. Culpeper, too well defended, was not; the less certain to be taken, w^iile it was the more certain to bear marks of the con- flict that only the demolition of half its buildings could erase. God pity and help the residents of any town given up to the ruthless passions of a fierce soldiery — to plunder and rapine and murder, — after what is so inadequately described as "taking by storm^\f When for the moment hell is let loose upon the earth, as if to teach us that if w^e have yet something of the god lingering in our fallen manhood, we have yet something of the arch-fiend remaining to show how THE COWARD. 461 wo accompanied him iu his fall. When roofs blaze because a reckless hand has dashed a torch therein in the very wan- tonness of destruction. When the golden vessels of the church service and the sacred little memorials of happ}' hours in boudoir and bed-room are alike torn from their places, dashed into pieces and ground under armed heels, as if the inanimate objects bore a share of the wrong of resistance and could feel a part of the suffering meted out to it. When murder is for the time licensed and the blood of the defender of his door-stone and his hearth dabbles his gray hair on one or the other of those sacred places, and there is no thought of punishment for the red hand, except as God may silently mete it in the years to come. When — saddest and worst of all, — the matron is outraged before the eyes of her bound and blaspheming husband ; and young girls, the peach-bloom of maidenhood not yet brushed from the cheek, are torn shriek- ing from the arms that would shelter them, to be so polluted and dishonored by a ruffian touch that but yesterday would have seemed impossible to their dainty flesh as the rising up of a fiend from the lower pit to rend the white garments of one of the redeemed in heaven, — so polluted and dishonored that a prayer for the mercy of death bubbles up from the lips at the last word before resistance becomes insensibility. This wreck of a "storm" of human license is terrible — so terrible that the effects of the convulsions of nature, the tem- pest, the tornado and even the earthquake, sink into insig- nificance beside them. Heaven be praised that during the War for the Union, called by our English cousins so "fratri- cidal," we have as yet known no Badajos or even a sacking of Pekin I But only second to such scenes in horror and scarcely second in terror, hav^e been some of those supplied when the battb issue of the two armies was joined near some quiet country town before lying peaceful and inoffensive, or when military necessity has made its houses temporary forti- fications and its streets the points of desperate attacks and as desperato' defences. Then what crashing of shot and shell 462 THE COWARD. through houses ; what demolition of all that had before been sacred ; what huddling together of the frightened and tiio defenceless who never before dreamed that, though war was in the land, it would break so near to them; what mad gather- ing of valuables and impotent preparations for flight that would be more dangerous than remaining ; what whistling of bullets that seemed each billeted for a defenceless breast ; what thunderous discharges of cannon that made every non- combatant limb quiver and every delicate cheek grow blood- less; what shouts in the street and cries of terror and dismay within doors; what trembling peeps through half-closed shut- ters, with an imagined death even in every such momentary exposure; what cowerings in cellars and hidings beneath piles of old lumber in garrets ; what reports of defeat or vic- tory to the party that was feared or favored ; what claspings of children and ungovernable weepings of hysteria ; what prayers and what execrations ; what breakings-up and de- structions of all that had been, and what revelations of the desolation that is to be ! Such, since the breaking out of the rebellion, has been the situation of many a before-peaceful town, in many a State that once rested happily under the shadow of the Eagle's wing. And such was the situation of one fated old town that day, when Gregg from the north, Kilpatrick from the east and Buford from the south, came up almost simultaneously and their forces charged recklessly into the streets of Culpeper Court-House. The excitement and confusion in the town at once became all that we have so feebly endeavored to indi- cate — women shrieking in terror, soldiers groaning with their wounds, children crying from fright ; and blended with these and a hundred other inharmonious sounds, the shouts in the street, the bugle calle, the hissing of bullets, the rumble of artillery wheels, the broken thunder of the feet of trampling horses, the occasional crash of half-demolished houses, and the hoarse roar of the batteries as they belched out their missiles of deajth and destruction. Culpeper, for a short I THE COWARD. 463 period, was a veritable pandemonium in miniature ; and no (lotail can add to the force of that brief but comprehensive description. Near the raih'oad bridge spanning the little stream running nearly through the centre of the town, the rebels had dis- covered a strategic point of no little consequence, and they had posted there a battery of several pieces, well served and annoying the advance of the Third division very mate- rially. The battery seemed to be placed there, not only to obstruct the advance but to protect a train of cars just then being loaded by the rebels above, with munitions and other articles of consequence, preparatory to a start down the rail- road southward. Battery D., Second New York Artillery, ordered for that service, ran up its sections at a gallop, un- limbered and poured in shot an^l shell, grape and canister upon the train, in such disagreeable rapidity as sent the half loaded cars away towards the Rapidan with all the speed that could be suddenly mustered. Still the battery at the bridge remained, firing rapidly and cutting up the head of Kil Patrick's column in a manner calculated to make the General gnash his teeth in indignation. The space to the bridge was uphill, accordingly raked downward by the rebel fire ; the bridge itself was narrow and the footing for horses seriously damaged by the railroad tracks that crossed it with their switches and lines of slippery iron. Still it was known that that bridge must be cleared, at any cost, or the advance through Culpeper would be a most bloody one if accomplished at all. Just as Kilpatrick was about to order a charge of cavalry to clear that bridge and if possible capture the pieces, his intention seemed to be anticipated and a squadron of Stuart's cavalry rode down and took post, dismounted, behind the bat- tery, in position to support, while three or four companies of rebel riflemen followed, ready to do deadly execution with their pieces against any troops attempting to charge, and to fall upon that force with resistless fury at the moment of their weakness, if the guns should be ridden over I No pleasant 464 THE COWARD. prospect, as the Sussex raider thought, and for a moment he apparently wavered in intention, while the battery played heavily and every instant saw one or more of his best troopers biting the dust of the causeway below. But this momentary indecision, whether or not it would have continued much longer of his own volition, was not des- tined to do so when the will of another came into play. A horseman dashed rapidly over to the spot where Kilpatrick was momentarily halted, from Pleasanton a few hundreds of yards away, running a fearful gauntlet of the enemy's fire, as he did so, from a battery that had just wheeled into position and opened down a narrow cross-street to the left, — spoke a few quick words to the General and then awaited the move- ment that wad- to follow. And it was not long that he or the commander who sent him receded to wait. The command had been : " Clear that bridge and take the battery, at all hazards !'* and Kilpatrick only needed that support of his own judgment to order a charge which he would have been best pleased, if he could only have gone back to be a Colonel for a few moments, to lead in person. His eye rolled questioningly over the Third for a moment, and then the rapid words of command followed. Only a certain number of cavalry could be employed upon that dangerous service, without making the carnage greater by throwing the troopers literally in the way of each other ; and it was the Second New York, Harris Light Guard, a troop which had already won honor on every field touched by the hoofs of their horses, — called out for that quick, sharp, perilous duty that every squadron in the com- mand probably coveted. The gallant Second received the order with loud cheers that came nigh to imitating the well-known rebel fox-hunt- ing yell, for some of their best fellows had fallen ingloriously and the human tiger was not only unchained but set on horseback. They formed column by fours with a rapidity which told of the fierce hunger of conflict ; and when the bugles rang out the charge, the dusty and smoke-stained THE COWARD. 465 riders returned their now-uscloss carbines to their slings, drew sabres, and driving their spurs rowel deep into the flanks of horses that seemed ahnost as anxious as themselves, dashed forward towards the bridge. Their ringing shouts did not cease as they galloped on, and their sword-blades, if they grew thinner in number, still gleamed as brightly as ever in the sunlight, as they measured that narrow but fatal space, while round after round of grape and canister, carbine- bullets, musket-balls and rifle-shots, burst into their faces and mowed down their flanks as they swept on. Saddles were emptied, horses went down with cries of pain more fearful than any that man can utter, and brave men went headlong into the dust from which they would never rise again in life. But the progress of the charging squadron did not seem to be delayed a moment. The rebel gunners of the battery were reloading for yet one more discharge, when, just in the midst of that operation, over the bridge and upon them burst the head of that column w^hich seemed as if nothing in the way of human missiles had power to stay it. Before the gray and begrimed cannoniers could withdraw their rammers the troopers were in their midst. Then followed that fierce cut- ting and thrusting of artillery swords and cavalry sabres, that interchange of revolver-shots and crushing of human bones under the feet of trampling horses, incident to the taking of any battery that is sharply attacked and bravely defended. A little of this, but still under heavy fire from behind, — and the guns were captured, with all their men and horses left alive. And yet the work of the Second New York in that quarter was by no means finished. Thatsteady and murderous fire con- tinued from up the street, as the infantry and the dismounted cavalry of the support fell back ; and it was only by one more sweeping charge that the annoyance could be removed. Scarcely any one knew whence came the voice that ordered that second charge, but the blood of the troopers was up and they made it gallantly. In three minutes thereafter a brokeu 29 466 THE COWARD. and flying mass, far up the street, was all that remained of the supporting force ; but a fearfull}^ diminished number of the cavahymen rode back to assist in sending the captured battery to the rear. We shall have occasion, presently, to know something more of these two charges, undoubtedly the most spirited events of a day on which all the Union troops and many of the rebels reflected honor upon the causes they supported. Immediately after the clearing of the bridge a gallant dash was made by Gen. Custer, the " boy general with the golden- locks" (the man who has made a solemn vow, it is said, nevei to shorten those locks until he rides victoriously into Rich- mond) leading the charge in person, with portions of the First Vermont and First Michigan cavalry, against a section of a battery, stationed nearly a quarter of a mile beyond the bridge and within a hundred or two yards of the front of Stuart's main body. These pieces were worked by as obsti- nate a set of gray-backs as ever rammed home a rebel cartridge ; and the gunners, defiant of Custer's detour to the left to escape a direct raking fire, and apparently relying upon the main body lying so near them, continued to load and fire until the federal leader and his men were literally on the top of the pieces and fairly riding them under foot. Guns and caissons were taken, while the support relied upon seemed to be so paralyzed by the daring of the whole affair as scarcely to offer any resistance, — the horses hitched to the pieces, the guns limbered up, and the rebel gunners even forced to mount and drive their lost cannon to join the others in the rear ! A considerable rebel force of cavalry, artillery and infantry were by this time in^fuU retreat below the town, along the line of the Orange and Alexandria railroad ; and the Fifth New York cavalry were sent in pursuit. The gallant troopers of the Fifth charged at a gallop the moment they came within sweeping distance of the foe, but the high embank- ment of the road broke the charge, and the detour neces- TITS COWARD. 467 snry to make a more advautaji^ooiiR a])proacli deprived the gallant boys of their half-won laurels and allowed the fly- ing enemy to escape. While Kilpatrick was thus engaged, Buford and Gregg, with the First and Second, had, been by no means idle. Dashing into the town, each from his chosen direction, the troopers of each leaped barricades and drove the rebels before them wherever encountered upon open ground ; and a part of the force of either division, dismounted, skirmished from cor- ner to corner and dislodged the sharp-shooters one by one from all their holes and hiding-places. Sometimes stubbornly resisted, at others seeming to have no foe worthy of their steel, the three divisions won their Avay through the old town; and the cavalry of Stuart, up to that time so often declared invincible, were at last driven pell-mell out of Culpeper and back to the momentary refuge of Pony Mountain. Even there they were again dislodged, the First Michigan cavalry accomplishing a feat which might have surprised even Hal- stead Rowan of this chronicle — routing a whole brigade by charging up a hill so steep that some of the riders slipped backwards over the tails of their horses, their saddles bearing them company ! The town of Culpeper was finally occupied at one o'clock, P.M. ; and not many hours after the ridge behind it and Pony Mountain were in the hands of the dashing cavalrymen. Re- treating towards the Rapidan, they were pursued towards Raccoon Ford on the left and centre by Buford and Kilpatrick with the First and Third divisions, while Gregg, with the Second, pushed a heavy Rebel force before him to Rapidan Station. By nightfall the rebels had been driven to the north bank of the Rapidan, where both forces bivouacked that night in line of battle. Monday morning saw the recommencement of hostilities and the retreat of the rebels to the south side of the river, leaving the federal forces to hold the country between the Rappahannock and the Rapidan, with all the strategic points 468 THE COWARD. therein, Culpeper included. Stuart, it was said, had often boasted that "no Yankee force could drive him from Culpeper!" and if such a boast was really made and afterwards so signally disproved by the "horde of Yankee tailors on horseback," the fact only furnishes one more additional proof to Benedick's declaration that he would live and die a bachelor, so soon followed by his marriage with Beatrice, — that humanity is very uncertain and that human calculations are fallible to a degree painful to contemplate ! Such were the general features of the crossing of the Bap- pahannock and the Battle of Culpeper, one of the sharpest cavalry affairs of the war, and perhaps more important as illustrating the reliability to which the Union horse had attained from a beginning little less than contemptible, than from the mere military advantage gained by the movement. It now becomes necessary to descend to a few particulars con- nected with the event of the day, and briefly to trace the in- fluence on the fortunes of some of the leading characters in this narration, exercised by the advance of General Pleasanton and his dashing brigadiers. It has been seen that at a certain period of that day the division of Kilpatrick was held temporarily in check by the rebel battery posted at the railroad-bridge, and that for a mo- ment the General, aware of the necessity of removing the obstruction if the direct advance through Culpeper was to be continued, yet hesitated in ordering the charge which must be made in the face of such overwhelming difficulty, until a peremptory direction from Pleasanton left him no option in the matter. And it is to personal movements of that particular period that attention must at this moment be directed. Just when he made the discovery through his field glass of the havoc being wrought by the rebel battery and the mo- mentary hesitation, Pleasanton, who did not happen to be in the best of humors with reference to it, was placed in the same situation in which "Wellington for a few moments found him- aelf on the day of Waterloo, when he employed the button- THE COAVARD. 469 bagman with the blue umbrella under his arm, to carry some important orders. He was, in short, out of aide-de-camps. One by one they had been sent away to different points, and it so chanced, just then, that none had returned. Something very much like an oath muttered between the lips of the impatient veteran of forty, and one exclamation came out so that there was no difficulty in recognizing it : " Nobody here when everybody is worst wanted I I wish the d — 1 had the whole pack of thcrii I" "Perhaps /can do what you wish, General." The words came from a young man in civilian's dress — gray pants and broad-brimmed felt hat, but with a military suspicion in his coat of light blue flannel, — who stood very near the commander, his horse's bridle over arm and a large field glass in hand, and who had apparently been scanning with much interest a scene of blood in which it was neither his duty nor his disposition to take part. " You ?" and the veteran turned upon him, with something very like a laugh on his lips. '* You ? Humph I Do you know what I want ?" " Some one to carry an order, I suppose !" " Exactly I Over that causeway, to Kilpatrick at the bridge. Do you see how that flanking battery to the left is raking every thing, and the one in front is throwing beyond Kil's position ? The chances are about even that the man who starts never gets there ! Now do you wish to go ?" " No objection on that account I" was the reply of the young man, who seemed to be on terms of very easy intimacy with the General, as indeed he was, — a privileged visitor, who had accompanied him in the advance, but eminently " unat- tached" and thus far neither fighting nor expected to fight. " The d — 1 you haven't 1 Well, , that is certainly cool, for you! Never mind — if you like a little personal taste of what war really is, take this," and he scribbled a few words on a slip of paper on his raised knee — "take this and get it to Kilpatrick as soon as you can. If you do not come back again, I shall send word to your family." 470 THE COWARD. " Oh, yes, thank yon, General ; but I shall come back again !" He had swung himself into the saddle of his gray, while Pleasanton was writing, and the veteran held the paper for one instant in his hand and looked into his face with a strange interest. What he saw there seemed to satisfy him, and he handed the paper with a nod. The volunteer aide- de-camp received it with a bow, and the next moment was flying towards the front of the Third, riding splendidly, run- ning the gauntlet that has before been suggested, but un- touched, and delivering his orders in very quick time and at emphatically the right moment. The important movement which immediately followed has already been narrated, in its bearing on the result of the day; but there were other effects not less important when personal destinies are taken into the account. Gregg, who espied something on the right, that was likely to be hidden from Kilpatrick until it discovered itself by unpleasant consequences, had sent over an aide with a word of warning ; and nearl}^ at the same moment when the volunteer messenger from Pleasanton reached the brigadier, the officer from Gregg rode rapidly up from his direction. Both delivered their messages in a breath, and then both fell back at a gesture from the General. The aide from Gregg was turning his horse to ride back again to his post, when he caught a glance at the somewhat strangely attired man who had come in from Pleasanton. From his lower garments that glance naturally went up to his hat, and thence, by an equally natural move- ment, to his face. The dark brows of the officer bent darker in an instant, and perhaps there was that in his gaze which the other felt, (there are those who assert that such things are possible), for the next instant there was an answering glance and another pair of brows were knitted not less decidedly. Those two men were serving (more or less) in the same cause, but they looked as little as possible like two warm-hearted comrades in arms — much more as if they would have been delighted to take each other by the throat and mutually exert that gentle pressure calculated to expel a life or two ! THE COWARD. 471 Pleasanton was just calling out the Second to take the bat- tery and clear the bridge. While he was doing so, the evil genius of one of those men drove them into collision. The messenger from Gregg, who wore the shoulder-straps and other accoutrements of a Captain on staff service, but with a cavalry sabre at his belt, — after the pause of a moment and while the other was still fixedly regarding him, spurred his horse close up to the side of the gray ridden by the civilian, and accosted him in a tone and with a general manner that he seemed to take no pains to render amiable : " What are you doing here ?" " On staff service. Captain. How is your head ?" was the reply, with quite as much of sneer in the tone as the other had displayed of arrogance. " What do you call yourself just now ? — ' Horace Town- send* still ?" was the Captain's next inquiry. " To most others, yes : to you, Captain Hector Coles, just now, I am — " and he bent his mouth so close to the ear of the other that he could have no difficulty in hearing him, though he spoke the last words in a hoarse whisper that has even escaped us I " I thought so, all the while !" was the reply, an expression of malignant joy crossing the face. " The same infernal coward —I knew it !" The face of the man who had been Horace Townsend seemed convulsed by a spasm of mortal agony the instant after, but it gave place almost as quickly to an expression of set, deadly anger, the eyes blazing and the cheeks livid. He leaned close to the Captain and even grasped his arm as if to make sure that he should not get away before he had finished his whole sentence. " Captain Hector Coles," he said, still in the same low, hoarse voice, but so near that the other could easily hear — "you called me the same name five or six weeks ago at the Crawford House, and I am afraid that I i^roved that it be- longed to yoxiV 472 THE COWAKD. " I told you that I would kill you some day for that im- pertinence, and I will /" was the reply of the Captain, terrible anger in his face. "No — if you kill rae at all, and I do not think you will, — it will be because 3^ou believe me, with a:ood reason, something more of a favorite with a lady whose name it is not necessary to mention, than yourself 1'' This insulting boast of preference and allusion to Margaret Hayley were quite as well understood as they needed to be. There was another livid cheek, just then, and a fierce answer- ing fire in the eye which told how deeply the barb rankled. But before the Captain could speak, to utter words that must have been equally bitter and blasphemous, the civilian con- tinued : "You challenged me for what I said at the White Moun- tains, Captain Hector Coles — you man with a swimming in the head ! I refused your challenge then, but I accept it now. If you are not the coward you called me, you will fight me here and instantly !" " Here and now ?" These were all the words that the sur- prised and possibly horrified Captain could utter. " Exactly !'' was the reply, the voice still low and hoarse hut rapid and without one indication of tremor. " I told you that I was on staff service. So I am. I have just brought Gen- eral Kilpatrick orders from General Pleasanton to clear that bridge and take the battery yonder that is doing us so much damage. Ah ! by George — there goes another of our best fellows !" This as a round shot came tearing into the ranks just ahead, killing one of the troopers and his horse. Then he resumed, in the same low rapid tone : " You see those Xew York boys forming there, to do the work. Ride with them and with me, if you dake, Captain Hector Coles, and see who goes furthest ! That is my duel !" " J? — I am on staff duty — nofc a mere cavalryman !" There was hesitation in the voice and deadly pallor on the cheek : the civilian heard the one and saw the other. THE C O W A R U. 473 "Refuse to g^o with me and fight out our quarrel in that manner," the excited voice went on, "'and by the God who made us both, the whole army shall know who is the coward ! J\lore — " and again his mouth was very near to the ear of the other — ''she shall know it 1" There are spells by which the fiend can always be raised, without much doubt, however troublesome it may be to find any means by which to lay him afterwards. To Captain Hector Coles there was one conjuration irresistible, and that had been used in the present instance. Shame before the whole army was nothing — it may be doubted, in fact, whether he had not known something of that infliction before at least a portion of the army, and survived it without difficulty. But shame before Margaret Hayley, after the boasts he had used, the underrating of others in which he had indulged, and the worship of physical courage which he knew to be actual!}^ a foible in her nature ? — no, that was not to be thought of for one moment I Better wounds or death, out of the way of both which he had before so skilfully kept, than that ! This reflection did not occupy many seconds, and his heavy brow was as black as thunder as he turned short round in the saddle and almost hissed at his tempter : " Come on, then, fool as well as coward, and see how long before I will teach you a less9n !" Horace Townsend — as he must still be called — did not say another word in reply. The Light Guard were by that time formed for the charge, and he merely said, in the hearing of all : " Come — the Captain and I are going to take a ride with the boys I Who will lend me a sword ?" The strange demand for a moment drew general attention to him, and among other regards that of Kilpatrick. The idea of a civilian throwing himself into such a charge seemed to strike him at once, and before one of the orderlies could draw out his weapon and present il, the General had handed his, with the words : 474: T H B C O W A K D . " Here is mine ! — Mind that you bring it back again !" Kilpatrick unslung his sword and held up the scaVjbard with the blade, but the new volunteer merely drew out the blade with a bow and driving spurs into his gray dashed for- ward to the head of the column, Captain Hector Coles close beside him. Perhaps no two men ever went into battle side by side, with precisely the same relative feelings, since carving up men with the broadsword became a profession. Neither, it seems almost certain, had the least thought of devotion to the country, of hatred to the rebellion, or even of espt^it du corps, moving him to the contest. The one was intent upon revenging an insult received long before, by getting the other killed in proving him a coward, — and may have had another but still personal motive : that other was equally anxious to keep up his own reputation in the eyes of a woman, and to get removed out of his way a man whom he believed to be a rival, but who w^as really no more in his way than Shak- speare's nobody who ** died a' Wednesday." Both half blind with rage and hate, and both, therefore — let the truth be told — bad soldiers ! Both following a petty whim or facing death as a mere experiment, and neither with the most distant thought of the fate that rode close behind, to protect or to slay, and each alike inevitably ! Just then the bugle rang out, the commands " Column for- ward ! Trot, march I Gallop, march ! Charge !" rang out in quick succession, and away dashed the Second, with the results that have already been foreshadowed in the general account of the movement. But though armies and the various smaller bodies that form armies, are great aggregates of manhood, they are something more ; and who can measure, in reading an account of that bridge so gallantly carried, that attack so splendidly repulsed, or that point of battle held against every odds, with the conclusion — " Our loss was only two hundred for two thousand], in killed and wounded," — who can measure, we ask, the amount of personal suffering in- volved in that movement and its result ? — who can form THB COWAKD. 475 any guess at the variety of personal adventure, depression, elevation, hope, fear, delirious joy and maddening horror, going to make up that event spoken of so flippantly as one great total ? The rebel battery beyond the bridge had been throwing round shot and shell, as has already been observed, reaching far beyond Kilpatrick's front and doing heavy damage. It was inevitable that as the advance of the attacking column was seen, that fire should be redoubled. And before they had crossed half the intervening distance the rain of bullets frpm the supporting rebel riflemen began to blend with the fall of heavier projectiles, making a very storm of destructive missiles, more difficult for horsemen to breast than any op- posing charge of their own weight could have been, splitting heads, crashing out brains, boring bodies full of holes from which the blood and the life went out together, and hurling horses and riders to the ground with such frequency that wounded men had their little remaining breath trampled out by their own comrades and every fallen animal formed a tem- porary barricade over which another fell and became disabled. Through the air around them rang the scream of shell and the shrill whistle of bullets, blended with the inevitable cry that rose as some bullet found a fatal mark, and the roar of agony when a horse was hurled desperately wounded and yet living to the ground. The shout with which the troopers had at first broken into their charge, did not die away ; and it did not cease, in fact, until the command had done its work — until the battery was taken and the supports scattered by the supplementary onset ; but with w-hat sounds it was blent before the cavalrymen reached the rebel guns, only those who have listened to the same horrible confusion of noises can form the most distant idea. To all others the attempt at de- scription must be as vague as the thought of Armageddon or the Day of Falling Mountains I If those sights and sounds cannot be described, w^ho shall describe the sensations of those who then for the first time 476 THE COWARD. rode point-blank into the very face of death ? Xot wc, cer- tainly. The very man who has experienced them can tell no more, one hour after, of what existed at the time, than one moment's rift in a drifting cloud reveals of the starlit heaven above. AVhat Captain Hector Coles really felt when first mcetinj^ that iron and leaden storm so unlike the usual accompani- ments of his " staff service," may be guessed but can never be known. Ke rode on gallantly, at least for a time : that was quite enough. What the ci-devant Horace Townsend experienced may be easily enough indicated, and in one word — madness. He- was stark, raving mad ! The anger felt a few moments before; the novelty of the position ; the motion of a horse that bore him nobly : the sword, that was no holiday weapon but a thing of might and death, clasped by his unaccustomed but nervous hand ; the shouts of fierce Ijravery, the groans of anguish and the scream of missiles ; above all, the rousing for the first time of that human tiger which sleeps within most of us until the fit moment of awakening comes — no witches' cauldron on a blasted heath ever brewed such a mixture to craze a human brain, as that he was so suddenly drinking ; and it may be said that his rational self knew nothing of what followed. He was riding on — it might have been on horseback on the solid earth, in a fiery chariot through the air, or on the crest of a storm-wave at sea — he could have formed no idea which. When he came within striking distance of the foe, he was swinging that heavy sword of Kilpatrick's, at something, everything, he knew not what, that seemed to stand in his way. Nothing appeared to hurt him, nothing to stop him or the gallant gray he rode. There was a red mist over his eyes, and the thunder of twenty judgments rang in his ears : he knew no more. He was mad, stark mad — so drunk with the wine of human blood and the fiendish joy of battle, that the powers of teaven might have looked down in pity on him as upon a new and better THE COW A ED. 477 developed descendant of the original Cain, smiting all his brothers to a death that could not satisfy the hot thirst of his evil soul. Only once he seemed to be for a moment clearly conscious. It was when they rode full upon the battery, trampling down men and horses and sabring every thing that had life, but under a fire which seemed to rain from the opened windows of hell. He saw a man who had thus far kept at his side, recoil, rein his horse backward, leap over the fallen friends and foes who barred his flight, and dash down the track to- wards the bridge. He saw, and knew Captain Hector Coles ; and in his madness he had reason enough left to shout "Aha 1 Coward 1 Coward I" and then the red mist closed again over his eyes and he fought on. He did not see what followed before the flying man reached the bridge — the fragment of a shell that struck him in the back and literally tore him in pieces, horse and rider going down and lying stone dead together. He could not have told, under oath, who gave the command for that supplemental charge upon the supporting force. And yet his tongue uttered it, and he was in the front, still wav- ing his sword through the red mist and letting it fall with de- moniac force upon every thing that stood in his way, — when the last hope of the rebels was thus broken. He had known but little, most of the time : after that he knew literally nothing ex- cept that his fierce joy had turned to pain. As if through miles of forest he heard the notes of the bugles sounding the recall ; and he had a dim consciousness of hearing the soldiers speaking of him in words that would have given him great pleasure had he been alive to ^appreciate them ! Then he was back at the bridge. Kilpatrick was there, somebody cheered, and the General held out his hand to him. He tried to hand him back the sword that had done such good service, said ; " I have brought it — back — " and spoke no more. Then and only then, as he fell from his blown and beaten gray, they knew that his first charge bad a likelihood of being his last — that a Minie bullet, received so long before that some of the. 478 THE COWARD. blood la}' dried upon his coat, had passed throiiir]i hin^ f,.oni breast to back, — thank God not from back to breast! — so near the heart that even the surgeon could not say whether it had touched or missed it I CHAPTER XXIII. Once more at West Philadelphia — September and Change ■ — Last glimpses of Kitty Hood and Dick Compton — Robert Brand and his Invited Guest — The News of Death — Old Espeth Graeme as a Seeress — The Des- patch FROM Alexandria — The Quest of Brand and Margaret Hayley. Hurrying rapidly towards its close, this narration must be- come yet more desultory and at times even more fragmentary, than it has been in the past. The seven-league boots of story must be pulled on, however unwillingly, and many a spot that w^ould have been lingered lovingly over at the commencement of the journey, cleared now with a glance and a bound. The few pages that remain, in fact, may justify a change in the figure, appearing more like lightning glimpses from railroad-car win- dows than connected and leisurely views of the whole land- scape of story. September on West Philadelphia, where it seems but yes- terday, though really three months ago, that we saw the fair June morning and inhaled the perfume of the sweet June roses. Those roses, the companions in life and death of that with which Margaret Hayley was toying on the morning when she met the crushing blow of her life, — had long since sighed out their last breath of fragrance and faded away, to be fol- lowed now by the bright green leaves amid which they had clustered and peeped and hidden. The waving grain fields THE COWARD. 479 which had formed so pleasant a portion of the June landscape, were changed as much, though less sadly. Bright golden wheat that had formed part of it, lay heaped in the farmer's granaries ; and puffed loaves with crisp brown crust, made from that which had still further progressed in its round of usefulness to man, lay on the baker's counter. There wag ghort stubble where the grain had waved, and over it the second growth of clover was weaving its green mantle of con- cealment. In the peach orchards the fruit hung ripe to tempt the fingers ; the apples were growing more golden amid the masses of leaves where they coyly sheltered 'themselves from the sun ; and on the garden trellises there already began to be dots of purple among the amber green of the grape clusters. There was less of bright, glossy green in the foliage — nature's summer coat had been some time worn and began to give tokens of the rain and wind and sun it had encountered. The birds sang in the branches, but their song seemed more staid and less sprightly, as if they too had felt the passage of the months, grown older, and could be playful children no more. Occasionally the long clarionet chirp of a locust would break out and trill and die away upon the air, telling of fading sum- mer and the decline of life so sweetly and yet so sadly that decay became almost a glory. The mellow, golden early afternoon of the year, as June had been its late morning — not less beautiful, perhaps, but oh how immeasurably less sprightly and bewitching — how much more calm, sober and subduing I Nature moves onward, and humanity seldom stands still, if it does not outstrip the footsteps of the mother. Something of the changes that had fallen during the preceding three months upon that widely varied group of residents beyond the Schuylkill who have supplied characters to this narration, is already known : what remains may be briefly told at this stage and in the closing events soon to follow. Of those changes to Eleanor Hill, Nathan Bladesden and Dr. Pomeroy, directly; of those to the members of the Brand household, yet sooner ; of those to two minor characters who will make no 480 THE COWAKD. further appearance upon the stage during this life-drama, at once. Let that two be Dick Compton, farmer, and Kitty Hood, schoolmistress. The latter yet managed her brood of trouble- some children, who still sailed their vessels that had succeeded to the evanescent three-master ''Snorter, of Philadelphia," at "playtime, in the little pond before the rural school-house, and performed other juvenile operations by sea and shore ; but a great change had fallen upon the merry, self-willed little girl with the brown eyes and the wavy brown hair. The school had a mistress, but that mistress had a muder — a sort of " power behind the throne" not seldom managed by one sex or the other, towards all persons "in authority." Xo bick- erings at the school-house door, to be afterwards forgotten in explanations and kisses, now. Richard Compton found his way there, occasionally and perhaps oftener, but he always came in at once instead of the school-mistress going out to meet him with a bashful down-casting of the'eyes and a pretty flush of modesty upon the cheek ; and he made so little con- cealment about the visits that he often managed them so as to wait until school was dismissed and then walked all the way home with her ! If the young lovers yet had secrets, they found some other place than the neighborhood of the school-house door, for their utterance. And the big girls and the bigger boj^s, who used to enjoy such multitudes of sly gibes at the school-mistress and her " beau," had lost all their ma- terial of amusement. The very last attempt at jocularity in that direction had been some time before effectually "squelched" by the dictum of the biggest boy in school : ** You boys, jest stop peeking at 'em ! He ain't her beau no more — he's her husband ; and you jest let 'em do what they're a mind to !" That is the fact, precisely — no less assured because ap- proached with a little necessary circumlocution. Dick Comp- ton had come back from Gettysburgh with the Reserves, un- wounded and a hero. Carlton Brand was gone, and the only object of jealousy removed. And before Kitty had quite emerged from her "valley of humiliation" at the unfortunate THE COWARD. ^^^ slap and T,npatriotic upbraiding she found t too ate to emerge at all. Tl>o wedding-day had been set and the mar- riJeteken plac, almost before she had any idea that sueh i were in immediate eontemplation , Kitty Hood was "Mrs Riehard Compton," and that was the seeret of the Vis ts no longer stolen and the unabashed walk.ng home t - eether Xot that the visits of the young farmer to the flol exeited no commotion, now-a-days, but that the eon>- n otion was of a different character. All the b,g boys and Lne of the big girls hated him, as he strode up the .s e with his broad, hearty: '"Most ready to go ton-e Kitty- and his proprietory taking possession of her with h.s eyes hated him because he had to some extent come between her and them, and because there was a rumor that " after Xov m- ber he was not going to allow her to keep school any mo e^ Perhaps there were good reasons for th,s resolut.on, mto which we shall certainly make no more attempt to pry than was made by the big boys themselves ! God's ^'essmg on the young couple, with as much content in the farm-house as can well fall to the lot of a small indefinite number,_and with as few misunderstandings, coldnesses and jealousies as may be deemed necessary by the powers that preside over Irried life, to fit them for that life in which "they ne.Uier xnarrynor are given in marriage I" And so «-* M . and Mrs. Kiehard Compton, for whom we have done all tha the friend and the minister could do, leaving Providence and the doctor to take care of the remainder. That matter properly di^^ of, it becomes necessary to' visit the house of Robert Brand once more, on the morning of Friday the eighteenth day of September, after an absence from it of nearly the three months before designated. Change here too. Besides whatever might have been wrought in the mast'er of the house during that period, of which we shal be soon advised, there had been a marked difference wrough in the relations sustained by good, warm-hearted, sisterly, darling 30 482 THE COWARD. little Elsie. There had been no return to the house, of the old family physician, first expatriated, so to speak, by word of mouth, and then bull-dogged and threatened with the pro- trusion of loaded muskets from convenient windows and the application of the strong arms of old Elspeth Graeme who could handle the bull-dog. The doctor's-bill had long before been settled, and (let us put the whole truth upon record) spent ! Then Robert Brand had been again seized with terrible ill- ness and sufifering, rendering a physician necessary ; and what resource was left except the before-despised professional ser- vices of Dr. James Holton ? None whatever. So the old man thought and so Elsie Brand knew. Result, Dr. James Holton had suddenly found himself, in July, the medical ad- viser of the Brands, and the adviser, mental, moral and medi- cal, of Elsie. He had since so remained, seeming to do mar- vels at re-establishing the shattered constitution of the invalid and setting him once more on his natural feet, and with a pleasant prospect that all the difficulties were smoothed out of the way of his eventual union with Elsie, when a little more time and a little enlarged practice should make their marriage advisable. And Elsie had grown almost happy once more — quite happy in the regard of a good man whom she loved with all the warmth of the big heart in her plump little body, and yet restless, nervous and tearful when she thought of the brother cherished so dearly, of his broken love, bis alienated father, his absence in a strange land, and the probability that she could never again lay her golden head upon his breast and look up into his eyes as to the noblest and most godlike of them all. At a little before noon on that September morning, a single figure was moving slowly backward and forward, up and down the length of the garden walk in the rear of the house of Robert Brand, the t-#3llises of the grapery above and on either side, for nearly the whole distance, flecking the autumn sunshine that fell on the walk and on the moving figure, while from the vines themselves peeped the thick clusters of amber 'the coward. 483 fruit upon whicli the purple bloom was just beginning to throw a hint of October and luscious ripeness. Late flowers bloomed in the walks and borders on either side ; occasional!}^ a bird sent up its quiet and contented twitter from the top of the vine where it was tasting a premature grape ; a cicala's chirp rang feebly out, swelled up to a volume that lilled the whole garden, then died away again, an indefinable feeling of stillness seeming to lie in the very sound. The sunlight was golden, the sky perfectly cloudless, the air balmy and indo- lent ; beneath the trellis and beside the walk two long rustic settees combined with the wooing air and beckoned to closed eyes, day-dreams and repose ; and yet the very opposite of repose was expressed in the appearance and movement of that single figure. It was that of Robert Brand, three months older than wo saw him in the early summer, far less an invalid than he had been at that time, as evidenced by the absence of his swathed limb and supporting cane, yet more broken within that period than most men break in ten twelvemonths — more than he had himself broken before in the same period of his severest years of bodily suffering. Something of the iron expression of the mouth was gone, and in its place were furrowed lines of suffering that the torture of the body could scarcely have imprinted there without the corresponding agony of the mind ; he was more stooped in the shoulders than he had been when before observed ; and down the side- hair that showed from beneath his broad hat — hair that had been fast but evenly changing from gray to white, there now lay great streaks of finger thickness, white as the driven snow and in painful contrast with the other, — such streaks as are not often made in hair or beard except by the pressure of terrible want, a great sorrow, or a month of California fever. This was not all — he walked with head dejectedly bent, and hands beneath the skirts of his coat; and when he glanced up for a moment it could be seen that his lip trembled and the eye had a sad, troubled expression that might have 484 THE COWARD told of tears past, tears to corae, or a feeling far too absorbing for either. Alas ! — the old man was indeed sufferinjar. The shame of a life had been followed by its sorrow. He had erred terribly in meeting the one, and paid the after penalty : bow could he muster fortitude enough to meet the other ? To him old Elspeth Graeme, large-faced, massive-framed, and powerful looking as of old, with a countenance no more changed during the preceding three months than a granite boulder in the mountains might have been affected by a little wind and storm during the same lapse of time. Behind her Carlo, who since the disappearance of his young master seemed to have found no one else except the old Scottish woman who could pretend to exercise any control over him, and who consequently had attached himself to her almost exclusively. The master, who was making one of his turns up the walk, saw her as she emerged from the house, and met her as she approached, with inquiry in face and voice. "Well?" " Stephen has just come ben with the carriage, and the leddy is in the house, though the Laird kens what ye'r wantin' of her here, ava !" " Hold your tongue, woman ! When I need your opinion I will ask you for it !" This in a tone very much like that of the Robert Brand of old, in little squabbles of the same character. Then with the voice much softened : " Is Mar- garet Hayley in the house, do you say ?" " 'Deed she is, then, and she'll just be tired of waiting for ye, as the lassie's gone, gin ye dinna haste a bit !" " I will come — no, ask her to step into the garden ; I will see her here." " He's gettin' dafter than ever, I'm thinkin', to invite a born leddy out into the garden to see him, instead of ganging in till her as he should !" muttered the old serving-woman as she turned away to obey the injunction, and in that way satisfying, for the time, her part of the inevitable quarrel. The moment after the back door of the house opened again, THE COWARD. 485 and Margaret Ilayley came out alone. Stately as ever in step, though perhaps a little slower; the charm of youth and budding womanhood in face and figure, with the broad sun flashing on her dark hair and seeming to crown her with a dusky glory ; but something calmer, softer, sadder, ay, even older, visible in her whole appearance and manner, than could have been read there in that first morning of June, upon the piazza of her own house. She, too, had been living much within a brief period : it may be that the course of this narration has furnished the reader with better data for judg- ing hoiv much, than any that lay in the possession of Robert Brand She approached the end of the arbor from which he was emerging, and he met her before she had reached it. Her face, as they met, wore an unmistakable expression of wonder — his an equally unmistakable one of pain. Neither spoke for one moment, then the old lawyer held out his hand and said : " You wonder, Margaret, why I sent for you ?" "Did you send, really, Mr. Brand? I thought that per- haps Stephen had made a mistake and that Elsie wished to see me for some reason." " No, Elsie has been absent all the morning, and may not return for an hour or two yet," was the reply. " / sent for you. I had a reason. Old men do not trifle with young women, perhaps you are aware." There was that in his voice which displayed strong suffering and even an effort to speak. The young girl saw and heard, and the wonder in her eyes deepened into anxiety as she said : " You surprise me by something in your manner, Mr. Brand. You almost alarm me. Pray do not keep me in suspense. I think I am not so well able to bear anxiety and mystery as I used to be. Why did you send for me ?" " Poor girl !" the lips of Robert Brand muttered, so low that she did not catch the words. Much less did she hear the two words that fullowcd, in little more than a whispered 486 THE COWARD. groan : " Poor girl ! — poor father I" Then he took one of the white hands in his, the eyes of the young girl deepening in wonder and anxiety all the while, — led her a little down the path to one of the rustic seats under the trellis, dropped down upon it and drew her down beside hira, uttering a sigh, as he took his seat, like that of a person over-fatigued. *' You loved my son." He did not look at her as he spoke the words. "Mr. Brand — I beg of you — " and then ]\[argaret Hayley paused, her throat absolutely choked with that to which she could not give utterance. He did not seem to heed her, but went on. *' You loved my son. So did I. God knows how / loved him, and I believe that your love was as true as heaven." " Mr. Brand — for that heaven's sake, why do you say this, to kill us both ? I cannot listen — " she rose from the seat with a start and stood before him as if ready to fly ; but he 3'et retained her hand and drew her down again. "We both loved him, and 3'et we killed him ! You drove him from you. I cast him off and cursed him. We killed him. He is dead !" " Dead ?" The word was not a question — it w^as not an exclamation — it was not a cry of mortal agony — it was all three blended. Then she uttered no other word but sat as one stupefied, while he went on, his lip quivering with that most painful expression which has before been noticed, and his hand fumbling at his pocket for something that he seemed to wish to extract from it. " Yes, he is dead. I have known it for two hours — for two long hours I have known that I had no soji." Type cannot indicate the melancholy fall of the last two words, and the heart-broken feeling they conveyed. " My son loved you, Margaret Hayley, better than he loved his old father. You loved him. You should have been his wife. When I knew that he was dead, I tried to conceal it from all until I could send for you, for I felt that it was only here and from my lips THE COWARD. 487 that you should learn the truth. Some other might have told you with less thought for your feelings, perhaps, than I who who who was so proud of him. I have not been rough, have I ? I did not mean to be— I meant to be very gentle, to you, Margaret 1 See how broken I am !" So he was, poor old man ! — broken in heart and voice, for then he gave way and dropped his head upon one of his fail- ing hands, overpowered, helpless, little more than a child. Who shall describe the feelings of Margaret Hayleyas she heard the words which told her of that one bereavement beyond hope as she heard them in those piteous tones and from that agonized father— a father no more ? Absence, si- lence, shame, separation of heart from heart upon earth, hope against hope and fear without a name — all were closed and finished at once and forever, in that one great earthquake of fact opening and swallowing her world of thought — dead ! Tears had not yet come— the blind agony that precedes them if it does not render them impossible, was just then her ter- rible portion. '' How did he— when — where— you have not told me — " A child just learning to speak might have been making that feeble attempt at asking a connected question. But Robert Brand understood her, too well. His hand, again fumbling at his pocket, brought out that of which it had been in search, and his trembling fingers half opened a newspaper and put it into hers, ^o blast her sense with that greater certainty which seems to dwell in written or printed intelligence than in the mere utterance of the lips — to destroy the last lingering hope that might have remained and put the very dying scene before the eyes so little fitted to look upon it. A line of ink was drawn around part of one of the columns uppermost, and the reader had not even the painful respite of looking to find what she dreaded. And of course that paper was a copy of the Dublin Evening Mail, sent to Robert Brand by one of his distant relatives in England who had chanced to see what it contained— the graphic account of the drowning of 488 THE cow A K D . Carlton Brand from the deck of the despatch-steamer, of the finding of the body and the burial in the little graveyard back of the Hill of Howth, written by that attached friend of a night, Henry Fitzmaurice. Margaret Hayley read through that account, every word of which seemed to exhaust one more drop from the life-blood at her heart, — in stony silence and without a motion that could have been perceived. Then the paper slid from her hands to the ground, she turned her head towards Robert Brand with that slow and undecided motion so sad to see because it indicates a palsying of the quick natural energies ; and the instant after, that took place which told, better than any other action could have done, how much each had built upon that foundation of an expected near and dear relationship. Robert Brand met that hopeless gaze, reading her whole secret even as his own was being read. Then he opened his arms with a cry that was almost a scream :, " My daughter !" and the poor girl fell into them and flung her own around his neck with the answering cry : " Father !" Both were sobbing then ; both had found the relief of tears. And a sadder spec- tacle was never presented ; for while Margaret Hayley, in the father of the man she had so loved, was striving to embrace something of the dead form that never could be em- braced in reality, Robert Brand was still more truly clasping a shadow — trying to find his lost son who could never come to his arms again, in the thing which had been dearest to that son while in life I "My son is dead ! Come to me; live with me; be a sister to Elsie and a daughter to me, or I shall never be able to bear my-punishment!" sobbed the broken old man, bis arms still around the pliant form bowled upon his shoulder ; but there came no answ^er, as there needed none. Another voice blended with those that had before spoken, at that moment, and again old Elspeth Graeme stood under the trellis. But was it said a little while since that no change had come upon her since the fading of the roses of June ? — certainly there had been a change THE C O W A li 1) . 489 startling and fearful to contemplate, even in the fewmomcnrs elapsing since her former speech with her master. The rough, coarse face had assumed an expression in vvhi(;h bitter sorrow was contending with terrible anger; the bluish gray eyes literally blazed with such light as might have filled those of a tigress robbed of her young ; and it would have needed no violent stretch of fancy to believe that she had revived one of the old traditions of her Gaelic race and become a mad proph- etess of wrath and denunciation. Strangely enough, too, Carlo was again behind her, his eyes glaring upon the two figures that occupied the bench, and his heavy tail moving with that slow threatening motion which precedes the spring of the beast of prey ! Was old Elspeth Graeme indeed a wierd woman, and had the brute changed to be her familiar and avenging spirit ? The serving-woman held something white in her hand, but neither Robert Brand nor his visitor saw it. They but saw the tall form and the face convulsed with wild feeling ; and both seemed to shrink before a presence mightier than them- selves. The strange servitor spoke : " Robert Brand, tell me gin I heard aright! Did ye say that Carlton Brand was dead ?" " Who called you here, woman ? Yes, he is dead ! He was drowned on the Irish coast three weeks ago," answered the bereaved father, oddly blending the harsh authority of the master with the feeling which really compelled him to makv, response. "Then ye had better baith be dead wi' him— the father who banned his ain flesh and bluid and wished that he would dee before his very eyne, and the fause woman who had nae mair heart than to drive him frae her like a dog !" " Woman !" broke out the master, but the interruption did not check her for an instant. She went on, broadening yet more in her native dialect as she grew yet more earnest: " Nae, ye must e'en bide my wuU and tak' it, Robert Brand I It has been waiting here for mony a day, and I can baud it 490 THE COWARD. nae longer ! lie was my braw, bonnie lad, and puir auld Elsie loed him better than ye a' ! I harkit till ye, Robert Brand, when yer curse went blawin' through the biggin like an east win', and I keu'd ye was sawin a fuff to reap a swirl ! Ye must ban and dom yer ain bluid because it wad na fecht, drivin' the bairn awa frae kin and kintra, and noo ye hae wy curse to stay wi ye, sleepin' and waki-n' — ye an' the fause beauty there that helpit ye work his dool !" *' Elspeth Graeme, if you say another word to insult Miss Hayley and outrage me, I will forget that you are a woman and choke you where you stand !" cried Kobert Brand, no longer able to restrain himself, starting to his feet and draw- ing Margaret to the same position, with his arm around her waist. But the old woman did not flinch, or pause long in her denunciation. " Nae, ye'U do naething of the kind, Robert Brand ! — ye'U tak what must come till ye !" And indeed it looked as if the great dog behind her would have sprung at the throat of even the master if he had dared to lay hands on his strange servitor. " Ye'U tak the curse, baith o' ye, and ye'U groan under it until the day ye dee ! Gin Carlton Brand is dead, ye murdered him, and his eldritch ghaist shall come back and haunt ye, by night and by day, in the mist o' the mountain and the crowd o' the street, till yer blastit under it and think auld Hornie has grippet ye by the hearts ! Yell sing dool ])elyve, baith of ye! Auld Elsie tells ye so, and slight her if ye daur !" Before these last words were spoken, Margaret Hayley had slipped from the grasp of the old man and was on her knees upon the ground, her proud spirit fairly broken, her hands raised in piteous entreaty, and her lips uttering feebly : " Oh, we have both wronged him — I know it now. But spare me, good Elspeth, now when my heart is broken ; and spare liim!''^ But Kobert Brand, as was only natural — Robert Brand, feeble as he was, viewed the matter in a somewhat different THE COWARD. 491 light. Sorrow might have softened him, but it had by do means entirely cured his temper; and the serving-woman had certainly gone to such lengths in her freedom as might have provoked a saint to something very much like anger. He grasped Margaret from her kneeling position, apparently for- getting pain and weakness, — set her upon the seat and poured out a volley of sound, strong plain-English curses upon the old woman, that had no difficulty whatever in being understood. Dog or no dog, it seemed probable that he might even have given vent to his rage in a more forcible manner, when another interruption occurred which somewhat changed the posture of affairs. Elsie Brand came out from the house, hat upon head, and dressed as for a ride. She had been taking one, in fact, with Dr. James Holton, who had driven her over for a call upon one of her friends ; and she looked radiant enough to proclaim the truth that she had just left very pleasant company. Her plump little form as tempting and Hebe-ish as ever ; her bright yellow hair a little " touzled" (it could not be possible that those people had been laying their heads too near together in the carriage as they came across the wood road !) ; and her blue eyes one flash of pleasure that had forgotten all the pain and sorrow in the world, — she was a strange element, just then, to infuse into the blending of griefs within that garden. She came out with hasty step, calling to Elspeth. "Elspeth! Elspeth 1 What keeps you so long? The boy is waiting to know if father has any answer." Then seeing the others :* " What, Margaret here with father ? How do you do, Margaret ?" It was notable how the voice fell slowed and softened, in speaking the last five words, and how the light went out from her young eyes as she spoke. Though friends always, Margaret Hayley and Elsie Brand had never been the same as before to each other, since that painful June morning on the piazza. How could they be ? But Margaret was softened now, and she said, " Dear Elsie I'* 492 THE COWARD. took tlie little girl in her arms and kissed her, so that some- thin*^ of the past seemed to have riJturned. But meanwhile another incident of importance was occur- ring. It may have been noticed that Elspeth Graeme had Something white in her hand when she came out into the garden the second time. So she had, indeed — a folded note addressed to Robert Brand, and with a wilderness of pnnting scattered over the edges and half the face of the envelope ; but she had quite forgotten the fact in the sudden knowledge of the death of her young master and the necessity of becom- ing an avenging Pythoness for the occasion. Now, Elsie's words called the attention of the old lawyer to that something in her hand, and he took it from her with a motion very much like a jerk, and the words : "If you have a letter for me, why did you not give it to me instead of standing here raving like a bedlamite — you old fool ?" " It is na a letter ; it's what they ca' a telegraph, I'm thinkin' !" muttered the old woman, a good deal taken down from her " high horse" by this reminder of her delinquency, and with some sort of impression that this must be a sufiBcient apology for not being in a hurry. " Somebody else dead, belike ! — we're a' goin' to the deevil as fast as auld Clootie can drag us, I ken !" It was a telegraphic despatch which the old woman had delivered with such signal celerity, and which Robert Brand tore open with celerity of a very different character. He read, then read again, then his face paled, and a strange, startled look came into his eyes, and he put one hand to his forehead with the exclamation : " What is all this ? Am I going mad ?" " What is it, father ?" and little Elsie pressed up to his side and took the despatch from his unresisting fingers. And it was she who read it aloud to the other wonderers, herself the most startled w^onderer of all : THE CO WARP. 493 Alexandria, Sept. l*Ith, 1863. Robert Brand, West Philadelphia, Care Messrs. , No. — Market St. Philadelphia. Your son, Carlton Brand, dangerously wounded at Culpeper. Lying in hospital here. If well enough, wish you would come down and see him. He does not know of this. E. H. "Well, I'll be 1" It was a plump, round oath that Robert Brand uttered — very improper under any circumstances, and especially so in the presence of ladies, — but about as natural, when all things are considered, as the air he breathed. In order to realize the exact position and the blind astonishment that must have lain in that telegraphic despatch, it is necessary to remember that once before he had heard of the death of the young man, from one who had just seen his lifeless body (Kitty Hood), and that only two hours afterwards his house had been visited by the enraged Dr. Pomeroy to reclaim a girl that the man just before dead was alleged to have stolen I Now, only an hour or two before, he had a second time been in- formed of his son's death at sea, and burial in Ireland, undef Buch circumstances that mistake seemed to be impossible ; and yet here was a telegraphic despatch quite as likely to be authentic if not originating in some unfeeling hoax — inform- ing him that he had been nearly killed in battle, and was lying in one of the Virginia hospitals I At short intervals the young man seemed to die, in different places, and then immediately after to be alive again in other places, under aspects scarcely less painful and yet more embarrassing. There was certainly enough in all this to make the old man's brain whirl, and to overspread the faces of the others with such blank astonishment that they seemed to be little else than demented. There was one, however, not puzzled one whit. That was old Elspeth, who muttered, loudly enough for them all to hear, as she abandoned them to their fate, resigned her temporary position as seeress, and went back to the mundane duties of house-keeping : 49i THK COWARD. " It's not tlie bairn's ainsel at all that's lying down amang: tlie naygurs where they're fechtiug. It is his double that's come bock frae the auld land to haunt ye I Come awa, Carlo, lad, and let them mak much of it!" , There is no need to recapitulate all that followed between the three remaining people, surprised in such different de- grees — the words in which little Elsie was made to under- stand the first intelligence, followed by her reading of the whole account in the Irish paper — the hopes, fears, fancies and wild surmises which swept through the brains and hearts of each — the thoughts of Robert Brand over the initials ap- pended to the telegraphic despatch, which for some reason made him much more confident of its authenticity than he would otherwise have been, while they embarrassed him terribly in another direction which may or may not be guessed — the w^eaving together of three minds that had been more or less separated by conflicting feelings with refer- ence to that very person, into one grand total and aggregate of anxiet_y which dwarfed all other considerations and made the whole outside world a blank and a nothing in comparison. All this may be imagined : until the perfecting of that inven- tion by which the kaleidoscope is to be photographed in the moment of its revolution, it cannot be set in words. But the result may and must be given. " I shall go to Washington by the train, to-night," said Robert Brand, when the discussion had reached a certain point, with the mystery thicker than ever and the anxiety proportionately increasing. "You, father? Are you well enough to go ?" and little Elsie looked at him with gratified and yet fearful surprise. " No matter, I am going !" That was enough, and Elsie knew it. Within the last half hour much of his old self seemed to have returned ; and when he assumed that tone, life granted, he would go as inevitably as the locomotive. " I am glad to hear you say so, Mr. Brand — father !" said ^[argaret Hayley, very calmly. ** It will make it much better, no doubt, for / am going." THE COWARD. 495 "You I" This time there were two voices that uttered the word of surprise. '* Yes, I! If Carlton Brand is lying wounded in a Vir- ginia hospital, I know my duty ; and if I must miss that, to hitn, or Heaven, henceforward, I shall be among the lost I" Strange, wild, mad words ; but how much they conveyed ! "God bless you, my daughter /" " My dear, dear sister P' And somehow three people managed to be included in one embrace immediately after. This was all, worth recording that the grape trellis saw. °' That evening when the Thiladelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore train left Broad and Prime, it bore Robert Brand and Margaret Hayley, going southward on that singular quest which might end in so sad and final a disappointment. CHAPTER XXIY. In the Hospital at Alexandria-.The Wounded Man AND HIS Nurse— Sad Omens_A Reunion of Three- Brave Man or Coavard ?-Who was Horace Town- send ?_A Mystery Explained-How Eleanor Hill WENT BACK TO Dr. PoMEROY'S-OnE WORD MORE OP THE Comanche Rider— Conclusion. Glimpses now, only glimpses-with great breaks between which the imagination may fill at pleasure. Events, few in number, not less strange, perhaps, than those which have already occurred, but less enwrapped in mystery, and gradu- ally shaping themselves towards the inevitable end. The military hospital at Alexandria. Outside, diniry and •yet miposing, fit type of the State that held it, in the days before secession was anything more than a crime in thought A\ithin, a wilderness of low-ceilingod rooms, comfortable 496 THE COWARD. enouirli but all more or less diiifry like the exterior. Nine out of ten of them filJc^d with cot-bedsteads arranged in long rows with aisles between ; sacred at once to two of the most incon- gruous exhibitions of human propensity — the blood-thirsty cruelty which can kill and maim, — the angelic kindness which can make a dear child or brother out of the merest stranger and bind up the hurts of a rough, hard-handed, blaspheming ruffian, of blood unknown and lineage uncared for, with all that tender care which could be bestowed upon the gentlest and loveliest daughter of a pampered race when sick or dis- abled. One of the many places scattered over the loyal States and many portions of the disloyal, made terrible to recollection by the suffering that has been endured within them and the lives that have gone out as a sacrifice to the Moloch of de- structive war, — but made holy beyond all conception, at the same time, by the patriotic bravery with which many of their lives have been surrendered to the great Giver for a glorious cause ; by the patience with which agony has been endured and almost reckoned as pleasure for the nation's sake ; and by the footsteps of the nobler men and if possible still nobler women of America, who have given up ease and comfort and domestic happiness and health and even life itself, to minister to those stricken down in the long conflict. No need to draw the picture : nothing of war or its sad consequences remains a mystery in this age and to this people. Too many eyes have looked upon the wards of our hospitals, the forms stretched there in waiting for death or recovery, the figures moving around and among them in such ministration as the Good Samaritan may have bestowed upon the bruised and beaten Jew of the parable ; — too many ears have listened to the moans of suffering rising up continually like a long complaint to heaven, the sharp screams of agony under tem- porary pang or fearful operation, the words of content under any lot, blending like an undertone with all, and the words of prayer and Christian dependence crowning and hallowing all ; — too many of the men of this time have seen and heard THE COWARD. 497 these tbings, and too many more may yet have the duty of look- ing upon them and listening to them, to make either wise or necessary the closer limning of the picture that might other- wise be presented. W^ have to do with but a little corner of the great building that had been made so useful in the care of the sick and wounded, just as this narration holds involved the interests of a poor half-dozen among the many millions affected by the colossal struggle. A small room, on the second floor of the building, the walls once white and even now scrupulously clean but dingy from smoke and use. Two windows in it, opening to the west, the tops shaded by paper curtains with muslin, inside, while at the bottoms streamed in the soft September afternoon sun- light that lay like a glory over the Virginian woods, so fair to the eye but so foul and treacherous within, stretching away towards the bannered clouds before many hours to shroud the Betting of the great luminary. Not one of the common rooms in which, perforce from their number, sick and wounded sol- diers must be more or less closely huddled together, — but one devoted to the care of wounded oflBcers, with four beds of iron, neatly made and draped, and at this time only one of them occupied. We have more than once before had occasion to notice the occupant of that one bed near the head of the room, with a stream of sunshine pouring in at the window and flooding the whole foot. We have before had occasion to remark that tall, slight but sinewy form distending the thin covering as it settled to his shape. Something of his appearance we have not seen before — the head of hair of an indescribable mixture, half pale gold or light blonde and the other or outer half dark brown or black, scarcely seeming to belong to the same growth unless produced by some mad freak of nature. Nor Ijave we before remarked the splendidly-chiselled face so pale and wan, the life-fluids seeming to be exhausted beneath the skin, from loss of blood and severe suffering. Nor yet that jther anomaly — a moustache with the outer ends very dark, 498 THE COWARD. almost black, straDj^ely relieved b}' a crop of light brown beard starting thick and short, like stubble, on the chin. Like this picture in some regards, unlike it in others, the occupant of that bed has before presented, as at this moment, an anomaly equally interesting and puzzling. Wherever and whenever seen, at earlier periods, the last time he met the gaze he was dropping from his horse, a bullet through the body just above the heart, a red sword slipping from his hand and insensibility succeeding to delirium, near the railroad- bridge and the captured rebel battery at Culpeper. The wounded man lay with his eyes closed and seemed to be in sleep. Beside the bed on a low stool and partially rest- ing against it, was one who slept not — a woman. One elbow resting on the bed-clothes supporting her head, and the other hand holding a book in which she was reading. This was evidently the nurse, and yet scarcely an ordinary nurse charged with the care of all patients, or she could not have afforded the time for watching one convalescent v/hile he slept. She, too, may have been seen before ; for something there was in that tall and lithe form, that mass of rich silky brown hair, that face with its mournful eyes and painfully delicate features — something that, once seen, lingered like a sweet, sad dream in the gazer's memory. And yet here, too, if there was an identity, change had been very busy. The form had always been lithe — it was now thin to fragility; the hands had al- ways been taper and delicate — now they were fleshless almost to emaciation ; the face had always conveyed the thought of gentleness, helplessness and needful protection — now it seemed less helpless but more mournful, the cheeks a little sunken, and the red spot burning in the centre of either not a close enough semblance of ruddy health to deceive an eye quickened by affectionate anxiety. She was dying, perhaps slowly, it might be rapidly, but dying beyond a peradventure, with that friend or foe which has ushered more human beings into the presence of God than any other disease swayed as an agency by the great destroyer — consumption I THE COWARD. 499 i A few moments of silence, unbroken by any sound within the room except the thick breathing of the sleeper : then the girl who sat at his side choked a moment, seemed to make violent efforts to control the coming spasm, but at last yielded, clapped both hands to her left side just above her heart, and broke into one of those terrible fits of coughing which tear away the system as the earthquake rives the solid ground, and which 'are almost as hard to hear as to endure. Instantl}^ as the spasm relaxed, she hurriedly drew a white handkerchief from the pocket of her dark dress and wiped her lips. It was replaced so suddenly that the awakened sleeper did not see what stained it— blood, mingled fright- fully with the clear white foam. The eyes of the wounded man opened ; and there was something more of himself that came back in the light of their warm hazel, only a little dimmed by suifering, and in the play of all the muscles of the face when awake. Both hands lay outside the bed-clothing; and as she saw the open- ing of his eyes the girl stretched out her own and took one of them with such gentleness and devotion as was most beau- tiful to behold. She seemed to be touching flesh that she held to be better than her own— a suggestive rarity in this arrogant world ! Something that man had been to her, or something he had done for her, beyond a doubt, which made him the object of a feeling almost too near to idolatry. And yet what had he given her, to win so much ? Not wealth— not love : merely true friendship, respect when others despised, and a little aid towards rescue when others turned away or labored to produce final ruin ! How easily heaven may bo scaled— the heaven of love and devotion if no height beyond, —by that consideration which costs so little, by that kind- ness which should be a duty if it even brought no recom- pense 1 " There — I have woke you I I am so sorry !" she said, as she met his eyes and touched his hand. "What consequence, if you have?" was his reply, in a voice 500 THE COWARD. low and somewhat feeble, while his tliiu hand made some poor attempt at returning her kind pressure. " Ever gener- ^ ous, Eleanor — ever thinking of others and not of yourself! They make angels of such people as you — do you know it ?" "Angels ? oh, my God, have I lived to hear that word applied to meV^ Such was the answer, and the mournful eyes went reverently upward as she invoked the one holy Kame. "Angels? yes, why not?" said the invalid. "Every light- tongued lover calls his mistress by that name sometime or other, and — " " Hush, Carlton Brand, hush !" Some painful chord was touched, and he appeared to un- derstand, as well he might, by what word with two meanings he had lacerated a feeling. He went back to what he had evi- dently intended to say at first. "You do not think of yourself, I say You have been coughing again.'' "A little." "A little ? Loudly enough to wake me, and I am a sound sleeper. Eleanor Hill, you are nursing me, when yoU more need a nurse yourself. I am almost well, you know. You are growing thinner and your cough is worse every day." " Xo, Carlton, better — much better !" "Are you sure ? Stop, let me see your handkerchief!" He was looking her steadily in the face, and she obeyed him as if in spite of her own will and because she had always been in the habit of doing so. " I thought so," he said. " Eleanor, you are very ill. Do not deceive yourself or try to deceive me." "Carlton Brand," she answered, returning that look, full in the eyes, and speaking slowly — calmly — firmly. " I am dy- ing, and no one knows the fact better than myself. Thank God that the end is coming !" "Oh no, you are very ill, but not beyond hope — not dying," he attempted to urge as some modification of the startling confession she had made. THE COWARD. 601 " Yes — the whole truth may as well be told now, Carlton, since we have begun it. I am dying of consumption, and I hope and believe that I shall have but few more days left after you get well enough to leave this hospital." " Heavens 1" exclaimed the wounded man. " If this is true, do you know what you are making of me ? Little else than a murderer I I meant it for the best — the best for the country and yourself, when I took you away from the house of your — of Philip Pomeroy, and sent you into this new path of life ; but the sleepless hours and over-exertion, the ex- posures to foul air and draughts and anxiety to which you have been subjected — oh, Eleanor, is this what I have done ?" She slid from her chair and kneeled close beside the bed, bending over towards him with the most affectionate interest. " Oh no," she said, no agitation in her voice. " Do you think that three months has done this ? My family are all consumptive — my father died of the disease. What was done to me" — her voice faltered for just one moment, then she calmed it again by an obvious effort — " What was done to me, was done long before and by another hand." " Stop I" he interrupted her as she was evidently about to proceed. " I must say one word about him. Did you ever know all the reason why each of us feared and hated the other so much ?" Merely a sad shake of the head was the negative. " I will tell you, now. I was a coward, and he knew it. You knew so much before, but nothing else, I believe. He was present once when I fainted at the very sight of blood — something that I believe I always used to do ; and he knew of my refusing a challenge because I really dared not fight. He could expose and ruin me, and I feared him. I knew him to be a scoundrel in money affairs as well as in every other way : as a lawyer I could put my finger on a great crime that he had committed to win a large part of his fortune. He knew that I knew it, and that I would have exposed him if I dared. So he feared and hated mc, and 502 THE COWARD. each held the other in check without doing more. It is time that you should know that crime : it was his robbing you of every dollar left you by your father, and putting them all into his own pocket, through the pretended machinery of that Dunderhaven Coal and Mining Company, of which he was President, Director and all the officers !" " Carlton ! Carlton ! can this be true, even of him ?" asked the young girl, horrified at this crowning proof of a depravity beyond conception and yet not beyond fact. " It is true, every word of it, and if I had not been a wretch unfit to live, I would have exposed and punished him long ago. Lately I think I must have gone through what they call ' baptizing in fire,' and the very day I am able to crawl once more to Dr. Pomeroy's house, I shall force him to meet me in a duel or shoot him down like a dog !" "This from you, Carlton Brand!" The tone was very piteous. " Yes — why not ?" The tone was hard and decided, for a sick man. " May heaven forgive you the thought. Now listen to me. You have been the dearest friend I ever had in the world. You have been better and truer to me than any brother ; and you have done me the greatest of all favors by sending me here to nurse the sick and wounded, to win back something of my lost self-respect and close up a wasted life with a little usefulness before I die ! But after all this I shall almost hate you — I shall not be able, I am afraid, to pray for you in that land I am so soon going to visit, — if you do not make me one solemn promise and keep it as you would save your own soul." There was an agonized earnest in her words and in her manner, as she thus spoke, kneeling there and even clasping her hands in entreaty. Carlton Brand looked at her for one instant with a great pity ; then he said : " Eleanor Hill, if the promise is one that a man can make and a man can keep, I will make it and keep it !" THE O W A K 1) . 508 ** Then promise me neither in word nur act to harm Philip Pomeroy. Leave him to me." " To you, poor girl ?" ** To me ! I will bo punish him as no man was ever punished." " You punish him ? You, feeble and dying ? How ?" " By going back to his house — if they will obey my last wish when the hour comes, — dead.^^ *' That will be punishment enough, perhaps, even for him, if he is human !" slowly said the invalid as he took in the thought. "I promise." " God bless you I" and poor Eleanor Hill fell forward on the bed and burst into sobs that ended the moment after in a fit of still more violent coughing than that which had racked her half an hour previously. And this did not end like the other, but deepened and grew more hoarse until the white froth flew from the suffering lips, followed by a gush of blood that not only d3'ed the foam but spattered the bed-covering. " Heavens ! see how you are bleeding, my poor girl ! You must have help at once !" The face of the speaker, deadly pale and sorely agitated, told how bad a nurse was this choking, dying girl, in his enfeebled condition, with a terrible wound scarcely yet commenced healing. " Ko, I do not need help— I shall be better in a moment. But I agitate you, and I will go away until I have stopped coughing." Which would be, Carlton Brand thought, perhaps a few moments before she went into that holy presence from which the most betrayed and down-trodden may not be debarred ! Ever weakly-loving — ever thoughtless of her own welfare and childishly subservient to the good of others — lacking self- assertion, but never wantonly sinful, — had not that strange thinker, yet under the influence of the fever of his wound, some right to remember Mary's tears, and the blessing to the "poor in heart," promised in the Sermon on the Mount? But there was real danger to the invalid in this agitation, 504 THE COWARD. and the will of another stepped in to remove the daDg^er. Be- fore the poor girl had quite ceased coughing, one of the phy- sicians of the hospital, a gray-haired, benevolent-looking man, stood by the bedside and touched her upon the shoulder. " Coughing again, and so terribly ! What, blood ? Fie, fie I — this will never do 1" he said. " If the sick nurse the sick, both fare badly, you know. If the scripture doesn't say so, it ought to. You must go away to Mrs. Waldron, Nellie, and keep quiet and not stir out again to-day." "Yes, Doctor,"she answered, rising obediently. "Good- night, Carlton I" She stooped and pressed her lips to the thin hand so touchingly that the doctor, who could scarcely even guess the past relation between the two, almost felt the tears rising as he looked. "Good-night, and God bless you, Eleanor." The doctor's eyes followed her as with slow, weak steps she passed out of the room, her pale, mournful face with its hectic cheeks and sad eyes looking back to the bed for an in- stant as she disappeared. Then he turned away with a sigh — such a sigh of helpless sorrow as he had no doubt often heaved over the living illustrations of those two heart-break- ing words — "fading away." " I am sorry she was here," he said, when she had gone. " I am afraid that she has used up strength that you needed. There are visitors to see you." " To see me ?" " Yes — now keep as cool as possible, or I will send them away again. I hate mysteries and surprises ; but poor Eleanor does not, and she sent for them, I believe." " She sent for them ? She ? Then they are — " " Keep still, or I will tell you no more — they are two from whom you have been estranged, I think — your father and — " "My sister?" "No, the lady is not your sister, I think. She is tall, dark- haired, very beautiful and very queenly. Is that your sister ?" "No — no — that is not my sister — that is — heavens, can thia THK COWARD. 505 be possible, or am I dreaming ? Doctor, this agitation is hurting- mc worse than any presence could do. Send them in and trust me. I will be quiet — I will husband my life, for if I am not mad and you are not trifling, there may yet be some- thing in the world worth living for." The doctor laid his hand on the pulse of his patient, looked for a moment into his face, and then left the room. The next, two stepped within it — an old man with gray hair rapidly changing to silver, and a woman in the very bloom of youth and beauty. The eyes of the w^ounded man were closed. What was he doing ? — collecting strength, or looking for it where it ever abides ? No matter. Only one instant more, and then the two were on their knees by the bedside, where Eleanor Hill had just been kneeling — the father with the thin band in his and murmuring : ** Carlton ! my brave, my noble son I" and Margaret Hayley leaning far over the low couch and saying a thousand times more in one long, tender, cling- ing kiss, light as a snow-flake but loving and warm as the touch of the tropic sun, — that shunned cheek and brow and laid its blessing on the answering lips I Some of the words of that meeting are too sacred to be given : let them be imagined with the pressure of hands and the hungry glances of eyes that could not look enough in any space of time allotted them. But there were others, follow- ing close after, which may and must be given. Whole vol- umes had been spoken in a few words, and yet the book was scarcely opened, — when Margaret Hayley rose from her knees and bending over the bed ran those dainty white fingers through the strangely mottled hair on the brow of the invalid. Then she seemed to discover something incongruous in dif- ferent portions of the face ; and the moment after, stooping still closer down, she swept away the hair from the brow and scanned the texture of the skin at its edge. A long, narrow scar, its white gloss just relieved on the pallid flesh, crossed the forehead from the left temple to the centre of its apex. She seemed surprised and even frightened; then a look of 506 THE COWARD. mingled shame and pleasure broke over that glorious face, and she leaned close above him and said, compelling his eyes to look steadily into hers : " Carlton Brand, what does this mean ? I know that scar and the color that has once covered that hair and moustache ! You are Horace Townsend !" '' I was Horace Townsend once, for a little while, Mar- garet," was the reply. "But it won me nothing, and you see for what a stern reality I have given up masquerading." "And you plunged into the Pool to save that drowning boy. Ton went down into that dreadful schute and brought up the Rambler ! You spoke to the Old Man of the Mountain at midnight and carried me away with your words on Echo Lake. And you — heaven keep my senses when I think of it ! — you made love to me along the road down the Glen below the Crawford !" " I am afraid I was guilty of all those offences 1" answered the invalid, with something nearer to a smile of mischief glimmering from the corner of his eve than had shone there for many a day. " I did hear something in your voice the first night that I ^aw you there, and afterwards," Margaret Hayley went on, " which made me shudder from its echo of yours ; and more than once I saw that in your face which won me to you with- out my knowing why. Yet all the impression wore off by degrees, and — only think of it ! — I w^as nearly on the point, at one time, of believing that I had found a truer ideal than the one so lately lost, and of promising to become the wife of Horace Townsend ! Think where you would have been, you heartless deceiver, if I had fallen altogether into the trap and done so !" " I think I might have endured that successful rivalry bet- ter than any other !" was the very natural reply. "And this man," said Robert Brand, standing close beside the bed, looking down at his son with a face in which pride and joy had mastered its great trouble of a few days before. T 11 E COW AKl). 007 and apparently speaking quite as much to himself as to either of his auditors — " this man, capable of such deeds of godlike bravery in ordinary life, and then of winning the applause of a whole army in the very front of battle, — I cursed and despised as a coward 1 God forgive me ! — and you, my son, try to forget that ever I set myself up as your pitiless judge, to be punished as few fathers have ever been punished who yet had the sons of their love spared to them ! Margaret-^ how have we both misunderstood him !" " The fault was not all yours, by any means," said the in- valid. " How could either of you know me when I misun- derstood and belied myself P^ And in that remark — the last word uttered by Carlton Brand before he yielded to the exhaustion of his last hour of im- prudent excitement and fell away to a slumber almost as profound as death, just as the old doctor stepped back to forbid a longer interview, and while the shadows of evening began to fall within the little room, and Margaret Hayle}^ sat by his bedside and held his hand in hers with what was plainly a grasp never to be broken again during the lives of both, and Robert Brand, sitting but a little farther away, watched the son that had been lost and was found, with a deeper tenderness and a holier pride thaa he had ever felt when, bending over the pillow of his sleeping childhood, — in that remark, we say, lay the key to all which had so aifectod his life, and which eventually gave cause for this somewhat singular and desultory narration. He had misunderslood himself; and only pain, suffering and a mental agony more painful than any physical death, had been able to bring him- self and those who best knew him to a full knowledge of the truth. Only a part of that truth he knew even then, when he lay in the officers' ward of the Alexandria hospital : it is our privilege to know it all and to explain it, so far as ex- planation can be given, in a few words. Carlton Brand had been gifted, and cursed, from childhood, with an intense and imaginative temperament, never quito 508 THE CO \V A K D . regulated or even analyzefl. His sonse of honor had ))Con painfully delicate — his love of approbation so strong as to be little less than a disease. Some mishap of his weak, hysteri- cal and short-lived mother, no doubt, had given him one ter- rible weakness, entirely physical, but which he believed to be mental — he hahitually fainted at the sight of blood. (This fact will explain, parenthetically, why he fell senseless and apparently dead at that period in the encounter with Dick Compton when the blood gushed over the face of the latter from his blow ; and why after each of the excitements of the Pool and Mount Willard he suffered in like manner, at the instant when his eyes met the fatal sign on the faces of the rescued.) High cultivation of the imaginative faculty, the habit of living too much within himself, and a constitutional predisposition in that direction, had made him painfully nervous — a weakness which to him, and eventually to others, assumed the shape of cowardice. Recklessly brave, in fact, and never troubled by that nervousness for one moment when his sympathies were excited and his really magnificent physi- cal and gymnastic powers called into play, — that fainting shudder at the sight of blood had been all the while his haunting demon, disgracing him in his own eyes and marring a life that would otherwise have been very bright and pleas- ant. One belief had fixed itself in his mind, long before the period of this narration, and never after\Vards (until now) been driven thence — that if he should ever be brought into conflict among deadly iveapons, this horror of blood would make him run away like a poltroon, disgracing himself for- ever and breaking the hearts of all who loved him. This be- lief had made his commission in the Reserves a melancholy farce ; this had placed him in the power of Dr. Philip Pom- eroy and prevented that exposure and that punishment so richly deserved ; this had made his life, after the breaking out of the war, one long struggle to avoid what he believed must be disgraceful detection. Once more, so that the matter which informs this whole relation may be fairlv understood, T H K CO ^V A n 1) . 509 i — Carlton Brand, merely a high-strung, imaginative, nervous man, with tiie bravery of the okl Paladins latent in his heart and bursting out occasionally in actions more trying than the facing of any battery that ever belched forth fire and death, — had all the while mistaken that nervousness for cowardice ; — just as many a man who has neither heart, feeling nor imagina- tion, strides through the world and stalks over the battle- field, wrapped in his mantle of ignorance and stolidity, be- lieving himself and impressing the belief upon others, that this is indomitable bravery. AVhat Carlton Brand had believed himself to bo when un- tried — what Carlton Brand had proved himself to be when hatred to Captain Hector Coles and a despairing hope of yet winning the love of Margaret Hayley moved him to the trial — how thorough a contrast ! — how exact an antagonism 1 And how many of us, perhaps, going backward from the glass in which we have more or less closely beheld our natural faces, forget, if we have ever truly read, " what manner of men" we are ! And here another explanation must follow, as we may well believe that it followed between the three so strangely re- united, when rest and repose had worn off the first shock of meeting and made it safe for the petted invalid to meet an- other pressure from those rose-leaf lips that had forsaken all their pride to bend down and touch him with a penitent bless- ing — safe to speak and to hear of the many things which the parted alwa3^s treasure against re-union. That explanation concerns the mystery of the passenger by the Cunarder, the American in England, and the man who under the name of Carlton Brand perished from the deck of the Emerald off Kingstown harbor ? Had he a double life as well as a double nature ? Or had there been some unaccountable personation ? The latter, of course, and from causes and under circum- stances not one whit surprising when the key is once supplied. It will be remembered that Carlton Brand, very soon after his purchase of a ticket for Liverpool by the Cunard steamer 610 THE COWARD. and his indulgino: that nervousness wliich ho helievod to be cowardice with a little shuddering horror at the mass of coal roaring and blazing in the furnaces of the government trans- port, early in July, — had a visiter at his rooms at the Fifth Avenue Hotel — Henry Thornton, of Philadelphia, a brother lawyer and intimate friend. It will also be remembered that the two held a long and confidential conversation, very little of the purport of which was then given. The facts, a part of them thus far concealed, were that Carlton Brand, flying from his disgrace, really intended to go to Europe as he had in- formed Elsie ; that he made no secret of that disgrace, to Thornton ; that the latter informed him, incidentally, of what he had heard of the summer plans of Margaret Hnyley and her mother, whom he knew through his family ; that the passage-ticket, lying upon the table, came under the notice of Thornton, inducing the information that he was also on his way to England, in chase of a criminal who had absconded with a large sum of money belonging to one of the Phila- delphia banks, and whom he had means, if once he could overtake him, of forcing to disgorge ; that Thornton half- jestingly proposed, remembering their partial resemblance, that if his friend had grown ashamed of his name, he would take that and the ticket and pursue the criminal with less chance of being evaded, his own cognomen being kept in the dark ; that Brand, suddenly taken with the idea and struck with the facility which the use of his name by the other would furnish for creating the belief that he had himself gone abroad, and thus concealing his identity while remaining at home, adopted the suggestion and supplied his friend at once with name and ticket, for his travelling purposes ; that it was Henry Thornton and not Carlton Brand who ran that mad quest about England, a hidden criminal always in view, and fre- quenting the most doubtful places and the most disreputable society to accomplish the object of his search ; and that it was poor Thornton and not Carlton Brand who perished in the Irish Channel and met that lowly grave in the Howth church- THE COWARD. 511 yard. All tin's while tlie real owner of that name, shaving away his curling beard, tinging his fair skin with a very easily- obtained chemical preparation, dyeing black his hair and moustache and making himself up as nearly as possible like Thornton, under the assumed designation of Horace Town- send, suggested by the initials of his " double," was carrying out that long masquerade which w^e have been permitted to witness. The peculiarities which he developed in that masquerade, should by this time be reasonably well understood ; the motive? w^hich kept him near the woman who had once loved him but afterwards cast him off forever, may easily be guessed by many a man, correspondingly situated, who has thus fluttered moth-like around his destroying candle ; the half-maddening effect produced upon him by the magnificent scenery of the mountains, the displays of reckless courage made by Halstead Kowan and the marked admiration of Margaret Hajiey for those displays, was no matter for surprise when such sur- roundings for such a temperament w^ere considered ; the at- tempt to become his own rival and win the woman he so wildly worshipped from himself, was not crazier than might have been expected from the man who could have exhibited all the preceding anomalies ; and after Margaret had declared her unalterable love but her invincible determination never to marr}'- the man who dared not fight for his native land, — the feeling compounded of hope and despair, which sent him down to the Virginia battle-fields, first as. a mere spectator under the favor of his old friend Pleasanton and then as a mad Berserk running a course of w^arlike fury wiiich made even gray-bearded veterans shudder, — this need astonish no one who has seen how human character changes and devel- ops its true components in the crucible of love, shame and sorrow ! Be sure that Margaret Hayley, too, in that day of the clearing away of mists and mysteries, made one explanation — not to the ears of Robert Brand, but to those of Carlton 512 THE COWAKD. alone. An explanation that was really a confession, as it told him of the means through which the property held by her family (oh, how the magnificent face alternately flushed and paled when opening this sore wound of her prid^ !) had been acquired many years before. But be sure that all this was made a recommendation rather than a shame in the eyes of Carlton Brand, when he knew that from the day of his own dismissal her knowledge of that family stain had been used to keep Mrs. Burton Hayley quiet and subservient, to hold Captain Hector Coles at a safe distance, and to enforce what she had truly intended if he should never honorably beckon her again to his bridal bed — a life of loneliness for bis sake ! Something that occurred a month later — in October, when nature had put on those gorgeous but melancholy robes of gold and purple with which in America she wraps herself when Proserpine is going away from Ceres to the darkness and desolation of winter. One day during that month a close carriage drove down the lane leading from the Darby road past the house of Dr. Pomeroy. It was drawn by a magnificent pair of horses, but they were driven much more slowly than we have once seen them pursuing the same course. A single figure was seated in it, with face at the window, when it drew up at the doctor's gate ; and out of it stepped Nathan Bladesden, the Quaker merchant. The face was calm, as beseemed his sect, but very stern. A little changed, perhaps, since the early summer, with a shadow more of white dashed into the trim side-whiskers and one or two deeper lines upon the brow and at the corners of the mouth. A step, as he said a word to the driver and entered the gate, which comported with the stern gravity of the face and the slow rate at which he had been driven. Something in the whole appearance indicating that he had come upon a painful duty, but one that he would do if half the powers of both worlds should combine to prevent him. THE COWARD. 51?> lie saw no one as he approached the piazza and the closed front door; but as he was about to ring, a female servant came out, closed the door again behind her and stopped as if surprised at seeing him. "Is Doctor Philip Pomeroy at home ?" he asked. " Yes," was the answer, after one instant of hesitation, — *'yes, but—" " That was all I asked thee, woman I" answered the Quaker^ sternly. " I came to see him and I must do so. Show mo to him at once." The girl hesitated again, looked twice at him and once at the one open window of the parlor, then obeyed the behest, opened the front door, pointed to that leading into the parlor from the hall, and said : " He is there, Mr. Bladesden. If 3^ou must see him, you had better knock, for he may not like to be disturbed." She went out at once, leaving the front door half open, and glancing back, as she passed it, at the tall, powerful man with the gray hair and side-whiskers, just applying his knuckles to the panel. There was something strange and even startled iu her look, but she said no more, left him so and went on upon her errand. The Quaker knocked twice or three times before there was any answer from within. Nor was the door opened even then, but the voice of the doctor said : " Come in !" and he entered. Doctor Philip Pomeroy sat alone in the room, in a large chair, leaning far back, his arms folded tightly on his breast and his head so thrown forward that he looked up from beneath bent brows. He evidently saw his visitor and recognized him, and yet he did not rise or change his position. And quite a moment elapsed before he said, in a voice fright- fully hoarse : " What do you want here, Nathan Bladesden ?" " I have business with thee. Doctor Philip," was the reply. " And 1 do not choose to do business to-day, with any one, nor with you as long as I live 1" said the same hoarse voice. 32 514 THE COWARD. " And I choose that thee aJiall do business to-day and with wi'p/" was the second reply, still equable in tone but still terribly earnest. Doctor Philip Pomeroy unfolded his arms and rose slowly from his chair. The Quaker, as he did so and was thus thrown into a better light, saw that his face was hag- gard, that his sharp, scintillant eyes were wild, and that he looked years older than when he had beheld him last, four months before. Standing, and with one hand on the chair as if he needed support, he said : " Xathan Bladesden, I told you, the last time that you visited this house, never to come near it again, and I thought that you knew me too well to intrude again uninvited." "It is because I know thee very well indeed, that I have intruded, as thee calls it I" answered the Quaker, with what would have been a sneer on another face and from other lips. " I remember the last time I came here. Doctor Philip, quite as well as thee does, and I promised thee some things then that I am quite as likely to fulfil as thee is to carry out any of thy threats. Besides, thee may be sure that I have busi- ness, or I should not have come, for thy company is not so attractive as that men of good character seek it of their own will !" The Quaker had no doubt expected that by that time be would break out into rough violence, as before ; but he had misjudged. From some cause unknown he did not, though the wild eyes grew more than scintillant — they glared like those of a wild beast at once in pain and at bay. And he made no answer except a " Humph I" that seemed to be uttered between closed lips — half an expression of contempt and half a groan. Kathan Bladesden, intent upon his '* business," went on. "I will not trouble thee long. Dr. Philip, but thee had better pay attention to what I say, for I am very much in earnest and not to be trifled with, to-day, as thee will discover. If thee remembers, I came here the last time to rescue Eleanor Hill from thv villainous hands — " THE COWARD. 515 *' Eleanor Hill I" This was not an exclamation of surprise, but a veritable groaning-out of the name. ^' Yes, Eleanor Hill," pursued Bladesden, — "after thee had broken off my marriage with her by poisoning my mind against the poor girl thee had ruined in body and soul and I believe robbed in fortune. The morning of that day I had been, weak, and driven away by thee ; that afternoon I had been moved to do my duty and to take her away from the hands of a seducer and a scoundrel— to shelter the lamb from the wolf, though it was torn and bleeding— to make her my sister if I could not make her my wife." *'Is that all— all? If not, go on I" groaned out the hoarse voice through the set teeth. " No, there is somewhat more, Dr. Philip— and that of the most consequence," the Quaker continued. "When I came, the poor girl was gone — gone from thee as well as from me. Then I heard that she had gone among the soldiers of the army, doing the work of the Master and healing the sick. She was away from thee and doing the duty of merciful wo- man, and I was content to wait until she had finished. But to-day I learned that yesterday she came back again." " Oh, my God !_he-will kill me !" groaned the answering voice, deeper and more hoarse than ever. But the Quaker went mercilessly on. " No, I think that I shall not have need !" he said. "Thee is cowardly as well as base, and thee will obey and save thy life. I heard, I say, that she had come back to this house of pollution, and I have come to take her away. Give her up to mc, at once, that I may place her where thee can never harm her and never even see her more, and that is all I ask of tliee : refuse me or try to prevent my removing her, and I will takelhee by the throat, here, now, with these hands that thee sees are strong enough to do the duty of the hangman— and strangle thee to death 1" There was fearful intensity, very near approaching momen- tary madness, in the voice and whole manner of Nathan 516 THE COWARD. Bladesden, before lie liad concluded that starllin;? speech; hnt if he could have looked keenly enough he might have seen on the face of the doctor something more terrible than any word he had uttered or any gesture he could make. His eyes rolled wildly with a glare that was only one remove from manlacy; his whole countenance was so fearfully contorted that he might have seemed in the last agony ; and his frame shook to such a degree that the very chair he held jarred and shivered on the floor with the muscular action. "God of heaven, Nathan Bladesden !" he said, the hoarse- ness of his voice changed into a wild cry. "Are you mad, or am /? You know that Eleanor Hill came back here yester- day, and you have come to take her away from me to-day ?" " I have come for that purpose, and I will do it, Doctor Philip," replied the Quaker. " Thee has my warning, and thee had better heed it. Let me see her at once, and then if she does not herself ask to be left with thee and the disgrace of thy house, thee shall see her no more, if I can prevent it, until the judgment !" For one moment, then, without another word. Dr. Philip Pomeroy looked at the speaker steadily as his own terrible situation would permit. Then he seemed to have arrived at some solution of a great mystery, or to have sprung to a desperate resolution, for he sprang forward, grasped the Quaker so suddenly that the latter for the moment started in the expectation of personal violence, dragged him to the door separating the parlor from a smaller one at the rear, and dashed it open, with the words : " There is Eleanor Hill ! Ask her if she will go with you or remain with me /" The room was partially shaded by heavy curtains ; and Nathan Bladesden, stepping hastily therein, did not at first see what it contained. But when he did so, as he did the in- stant after, no wonder that even his stern, strong nature was not quite proof against the shock, and that he recoiled and uttered an exclamation of affright. For Eleanor Hill was there THE COWARD. 517 indeed, but scarcely within the reach of human wish or ques- tion — coffined for the grave, the glossy brown hair smoothed away from a forehead on which rested neither the farrow of pain nor the mark of shame, the sad eyes closed in that lonj^ peaceful night which knows no waking from sleep until the resurrection morning, the thin hands folded Madonna-like upon the breast, and one lingering flush of the hectic rose of consumption in the centre of either pale cheek, to restore all her childish beauty and carry the flower-symbol of human love into the very domain of death. " That is Eleanor Hill — why do you not ask her the ques- tion ?" Oh, what agony there was in that poor attempt at a taunt I " Xo, thee has made her what she is — thee may keep her, now !" The Quaker's words were a far bitterer taunt than that which had fallen from the lips of the doctor. Then he seemed to soften, went up to the coffin, looked steadily on the dead face for a moment, stooped and pressed his lips on the cold, calm brow, and said, with a strange echo of what Carlton Brand had uttered in the hospital but a few weeks before : "They have such people as thee in heaven, Eleanor! Fare- well !" He turned away and seemed about to leave the room and the house, but the hand of Dr. Philip Pomeroy was again upon his arm, grasping it and holding him while the frame shivered with uncontrollable emotion and the broken voice groaned out : ''Xathan Bladesden, you hate me, and perhaps you have cause. You are a cold, stern man, with no mercy, and my tortures must be pleasure to you. Enjoy them all ! And if any man ever doubts the existence of hell in your presence, tell him that you have seen it with your own eyes in the house of Philip Pomeroy, when the only woman he ever loved in the world lay dead before him, murdered by his own hand, and a devil stood by, taunting him with his guilt !" 518 THE COVVAKD. " I will taunt thee no more, Doctor Philip I" fell slowly from the Quaker's lips. " I hate thee no longer. I pity thee. Thy Maker is dealing with thee now, and thy punish- ment is enough !" He turned away, then, and left the suffering man still within the room beside the dead. Once as he passed into the hall he looked back and saw through the still open door a dark form fall forward with a groan, the head against the coffin and the arms clasping it as if it had been a living thing. There are two endings to the story of " Faust" — that mar- vellous..wierd history of human love and demoniac tempta- tion which alike in drama and opera enraptures the world, and once before alluded to in this narration. In the older and coarser version, when the ruin is full accomplished and the hour of penalty full ripe, Marguerite is seen ascending heavenward, while Mephistopheles laughs hoarsely and points downward to the lower pit, whence arise blue flames and horrible discords, and into which the doomed Faust is seen to be dragged at the last moment by the hands of the swarming and gibbering monsters. In the other and yet more terrible version, Maguerite is seen ascending, and the laugh of the demon is heard, but it is only a faint, fading, mocking laugh, as even he flies away and leaves the man ac- cursed kneeling in hopeless agony over the dead form from which the pure spirit has just gone upward — condemned, not to the pit and the flame, but to that worse hell of living alone and without hope, racked by love that has come in its full force when too late, and by a remorse that will worse clutch at his heart-strings than all the fiends of perdition could do at the poor body which coffers his soul of torment. Who does not know how much the more dreadful is that second doom ? Who does not — let him never tempt God and fate by making the rash experiment ! Xathan Bladesden^was right — even for such sins as those Doctor Philip Pomeroy had committed, the reckoning was fearful ! THE COWARD. 519 Poor Eleanor Hill had been right, too, when she said : - Leave him to me ! * * * I will so punish him as no man was ever punished I" Shall there not be one glimmer more of sunshine after the dark night and the storm ? Thank heaven, yes !-in a far-off glance at fortunes left long in abeyance but not forgotten. Lying on the sofa at Mrs. Burton Hayley's, one evenmg when the first fires of winter had not long been lighted,-still taking the privilege of the invalid though no longer one, and making a pillow of the lap of Margaret Hayley, her damty white fingers plaving with his clustering golden blonde hair as they had erewhile done among the summer rose-leaves,— a quick, warm, happy kiss stolen now and again when the di-aified lady of the mansion was too busy with the de- vo'utly-religious work that she was reading, to be horrified by such immoral practices,-lying thus, and the two talking of dear little Elsie's coming happiness and their own which was not to be much longer deferred ; of the restored pride and renovated health of Robert Brand— quite as dear to Margaret, since that day in the garden, as to the son and daughter of his own blood ; of the delirious joy and dreadfully broad Scotch of old Elspeth Graeme since the return of her " bonny bairn ;" of poor Eleanor Hill and Captain Hector Coles, dead so dif- ferently on the fatal Virginian soil ; of these and others, and of all the events which had been so strangely crowded within the compass of little more than half a year,-lying thus and talking thus, we say, Carlton Brand drew from his pocket a little fmgment clipped from a newspaper, and said : '' By the way, Margaret, here is something that I found in one of the Baltimore papers yesterday. It concerns some friends of ours, whom we may never meet again, but whom neither of us, I think, will ever quite forget. Read it." Margaret Haylev took the slip and read, what writer and reader'may be pardoned for looking over her fair rounded shoulder and perusing at the same moment— this satisfactory and significant item : 520 THE C O \V A K D. MARRIED. Rowan— VANDBRLY5.— On Wednesday the 9th inst., by Rev. Dr. Rushmore, Major Halstead Rowan, of the Sixth Illi- nois cavalry, to Clara, daughter of the late Clayton Vauderlyu, Esq., and Mrs. Isabella Vanderlyn, of Calvert St. " She was a sweet girl, and be was one of nature's gentle- men," said Margaret. " I saw enough to know how dearlj they were in love with each other before they left the moun- tains ; and I am glad to know that they have had their will, in spite of" — and here she lowered her voice, so that Mrs. Burton Ilayle}^ could not possibly hear her — " a proud, med- dling mother and a brother who should have been sent back to school until he learned manners 1" " Oh, Rowan told me that he was going into the army, be- fore he left the Crawford," answered the happy lounger. "You see he has done so and become a Major, and that makes him gentleman enough even for the Vanderlyns. George ! — what a dashing ofiScer he must make ! Some day, when I go back to the army — " " When / let you go back, mad fellow !" " Some day I want to ride a charge with him, side by side. He was the boldest rider and the most daring man I ever knew." " The bravest that lever knew, except one !^' said Margaret Hayley, stooping down her proud neck and for some unex- plainable reason stopping for an instant in the middle of her speech. "And he had even the advantage of that one in a very important respect." "And what was that, I should like to be informed, my Em- press 1" "'RQknewitP' THE END. T. B. PETERmjJROTIimjimLICATim THIS CATALOG UE CONTAINS AND describes the 31ast Popular and Best Selling Books in the Worli rhe Books will also be found to be the Best and Latest Publications bf the most Popular and Celebrated Writers in the World. They are also the most Readable and Entertaining Books published. •mltable for tlic Parlor, lilbx-ary, Slttliig-Rooni, Rallroaa Camp, Steamboat, Army, or Soldiers' Readiing. PUBLISHED AND FOR SALE BY T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS, 306 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia. 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PETERSON'S MAGAZini: THE BEST AND CHEAPEST IN THE WORLD ! . « • • * > Thli popular Monthly contains more for the money than any Magazine in the worM, m 18G4, it will have nearly 1000 pages, 25 to 30 steel plates, 12 colored patterns, and 900 wood engravings — and all this for only TWO DOLLARS A YEAR, or a dollar less than magazines of its clasH. Every ladv ought to take "Peterson." In the general advance of prices, it is the ONLY MAGAZINE THAT HAS NOT RAISED ITS PRICE* EITHER TO SINGLE SUBSCRIBERS OR TO CLUBS ; and is, therefore, emphatically, THE MAGAZINE FOR THE TIMES! The stories in " Peterson " are conceded to be the iest published anywhere. Mrs. Ann G. Stephens, Ella Rodman, Mrs. Denison, Frank Lee Benedict, the author of " Susy L's Diary," T. S. Arthur, E. L. Chandler Moulton, Gabrielle Lee, Virginia F. Townsend, Rosalie Grey, Clara Augusta, and the author of "The Second Life," besides all the most popular female writers of America are regular contributors. In addition to the URual number of shorter stories, there -will be given in 1864, Four Original Ciopy-riglxtecl Novelets, viz: iHE MAID OF HONOR— a Story of Queen Bess, By ANN S. STEPHENS. THE LOST ESTATE— a Story of To-Day, By the author of "The Second Life." MAUD'S SUMMER AT SARATOGA, By FRANK LEE BENEDICT. FANNY'S FLIRTATION, By ELLA RODMAN, In its Illustrations also, " Peterson" is unrivaled. The publisher challenges a compari^ BCD between its SUPERB MEZZOTINTS AND OTHER STEEL ENGRAVINGS and tijose in other Magazines, and one at least is given in every number. COLORED FA8H10M PLATES IN ADVANCE, It is the ONLY MAGAZINE whose Fashion Plates can be relied on. 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