Title: The Story of Kennett
Author: Taylor, Bayard
Language: English
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THE STORY OF KENNETT

By Bayard Taylor



PROLOGUE.

TO MY FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS OF KENNETT:


I wish to dedicate this Story to you, not only because some of you
inhabit the very houses, and till the very fields which I have given to
the actors in it, but also because many of you will recognize certain of
the latter, and are therefore able to judge whether they are drawn with
the simple truth at which I have aimed. You are, naturally, the critics
whom I have most cause to fear; but I do not inscribe these pages to you
with the design of purchasing your favor. I beg you all to accept the
fact as an acknowledgment of the many quiet and happy years I have spent
among you; of the genial and pleasant relations into which I was born,
and which have never diminished, even when I have returned to you from
the farthest ends of the earth; and of the use (often unconsciously to
you, I confess,) which I have drawn from your memories of former days,
your habits of thought and of life.

I am aware that truth and fiction are so carefully woven together
in this Story of Kennett, that you will sometimes be at a loss to
disentangle them. The lovely pastoral landscapes which I know by heart,
have been copied, field for field and tree for tree, and these you will
immediately recognize. Many of you will have no difficulty in detecting
the originals of Sandy Flash and Deb. Smith; a few will remember the
noble horse which performed the service I have ascribed to Roger; and
the descendants of a certain family will not have forgotten some of the
pranks of Joe and Jake Fairthorn. Many more than these particulars are
drawn from actual sources; but as I have employed them with a strict
regard to the purposes of the Story, transferring dates and characters
at my pleasure, you will often, I doubt not, attribute to invention that
which I owe to family tradition. Herein, I must request that you will
allow me to keep my own counsel; for the processes which led to the
completed work extend through many previous years, and cannot readily be
revealed. I will only say that every custom I have described is true
to the time, though some of them are now obsolete; that I have used no
peculiar word or phrase of the common dialect of the country which I
have not myself heard; and further, that I owe the chief incidents of
the last chapter, given to me on her death-bed, to the dear and noble
woman whose character (not the circumstances of her life) I have
endeavored to reproduce in that of Martha Deane.

The country life of our part of Pennsylvania retains more elements of
its English origin than that of New England or Virginia. Until within
a few years, the conservative influence of the Quakers was so powerful
that it continued to shape the habits even of communities whose
religious sentiment it failed to reach. Hence, whatever might be
selected as incorrect of American life, in its broader sense, in these
pages, is nevertheless locally true; and to this, at least, all of
you, my Friends and Neighbors, can testify. In these days, when Fiction
prefers to deal with abnormal characters and psychological problems more
or less exceptional or morbid, the attempt to represent the elements of
life in a simple, healthy, pastoral community, has been to me a source
of uninterrupted enjoyment. May you read it with half the interest I
have felt in writing it!

BAYARD TAYLOR.



CONTENTS.


CHAPTER I. THE CHASE

CHAPTER II. WHO SHALL HAVE THE BRUSH?

CHAPTER III. MARY POTTER AND HER SON

CHAPTER IV. FORTUNE AND MISFORTUNE

CHAPTER V. GUESTS AT FAIRTHORN’S

CHAPTER VI. THE NEW GILBERT

CHAPTER VII. OLD KENNETT MEETING

CHAPTER VIII. AT DR. DEANE’S

CHAPTER IX. THE RAISING

CHAPTER X. THE RIVALS

CHAPTER XI. GUESTS AT POTTER’S

CHAPTER XII. THE EVENTS OF AN EVENING

CHAPTER XIII. TWO OLD MEN

CHAPTER XIV. DOUBTS AND SURMISES

CHAPTER XV. ALFRED BARTON BETWEEN TWO FIRES

CHAPTER XVI. MARTHA DEANE

CHAPTER XVII. CONSULTATIONS

CHAPTER XVIII. SANDY FLASH REAPPEARS

CHAPTER XIX. THE HUSKING FROLIC

CHAPTER XX. GILBERT ON THE ROAD TO CHESTER

CHAPTER XXI. ROGER REPAYS HIS MASTER

CHAPTER XXII. MARTHA DEANE TAKES A RESOLUTION

CHAPTER XXIII. A CROSS-EXAMINATION

CHAPTER XXIV. DEB. SMITH TAKES A RESOLUTION

CHAPTER XXV. TWO ATTEMPTS

CHAPTER XXVI. THE LAST OF SANDY FLASH

CHAPTER XXVII. GILBERT INDEPENDENT

CHAPTER XXVIII. MISS LAVENDER MAKES A GUESS

CHAPTER XXIX. MYSTERIOUS MOVEMENTS

CHAPTER XXX. THE FUNERAL

CHAPTER XXXI. THE WILL

CHAPTER XXXII. THE LOVERS

CHAPTER XXXIII. HUSBAND AND WIFE

CHAPTER XXXIV. THE WEDDING



CHAPTER I.

THE CHASE.


At noon, on the first Saturday of March, 1796, there was an unusual stir
at the old Barton farm-house, just across the creek to the eastward, as
you leave Kennett Square by the Philadelphia stage-road. Any gathering
of the people at Barton’s was a most rare occurrence; yet, on that day
and at that hour, whoever stood upon the porch of the corner house, in
the village, could see horsemen approaching by all the four roads
which there met. Some five or six had already dismounted at the Unicorn
Tavern, and were refreshing themselves with stout glasses of “Old
Rye,” while their horses, tethered side by side to the pegs in the long
hitching-bar, pawed and stamped impatiently. An eye familiar with the
ways of the neighborhood might have surmised the nature of the occasion
which called so many together, from the appearance and equipment
of these horses. They were not heavy animals, with the marks of
plough-collars on their broad shoulders, or the hair worn off their
rumps by huge breech-straps; but light and clean-limbed, one or two of
them showing signs of good blood, and all more carefully groomed than
usual.

Evidently, there was no “vendue” at the Barton farmhouse; neither
a funeral, nor a wedding, since male guests seemed to have been
exclusively bidden. To be sure, Miss Betsy Lavender had been observed to
issue from Dr. Deane’s door, on the opposite side of the way, and turn
into the path beyond the blacksmith’s, which led down through the wood
and over the creek to Barton’s; but then, Miss Lavender was known to be
handy at all times, and capable of doing all things, from laying out
a corpse to spicing a wedding-cake. Often self-invited, but always
welcome, very few social or domestic events could occur in four
townships (East Marlborough, Kennett, Pennsbury, and New-Garden) without
her presence; while her knowledge of farms, families, and genealogies
extended up to Fallowfield on one side, and over to Birmingham on the
other.

It was, therefore, a matter of course, whatever the present occasion
might be, that Miss Lavender put on her broad gray beaver hat, and brown
stuff cloak, and took the way to Barton’s. The distance could easily
be walked in five minutes, and the day was remarkably pleasant for the
season. A fortnight of warm, clear weather had extracted the last
fang of frost, and there was already green grass in the damp hollows.
Bluebirds picked the last year’s berries from the cedar-trees; buds were
bursting on the swamp-willows; the alders were hung with tassels, and a
powdery crimson bloom began to dust the bare twigs of the maple-trees.
All these signs of an early spring Miss Lavender noted as she picked her
way down the wooded bank. Once, indeed, she stopped, wet her forefinger
with her tongue, and held it pointed in the air. There was very little
breeze, but this natural weathercock revealed from what direction it
came.

“Southwest!” she said, nodding her head--“Lucky!”

Having crossed the creek on a flat log, secured with stakes at either
end, a few more paces brought her to the warm, gentle knoll, upon which
stood the farm-house. Here, the wood ceased, and the creek, sweeping
around to the eastward, embraced a quarter of a mile of rich bottomland,
before entering the rocky dell below. It was a pleasant seat, and the
age of the house denoted that one of the earliest settlers had been
quick to perceive its advantages. A hundred years had already elapsed
since the masons had run up those walls of rusty hornblende rock, and it
was even said that the leaden window-sashes, with their diamond-shaped
panes of greenish glass, had been brought over from England, in the days
of William Penn. In fact, the ancient aspect of the place--the tall,
massive chimney at the gable, the heavy, projecting eaves, and the
holly-bush in a warm nook beside the front porch, had, nineteen years
before, so forcibly reminded one of Howe’s soldiers of his father’s
homestead in mid-England, that he was numbered among the missing after
the Brandywine battle, and presently turned up as a hired hand on the
Barton farm, where he still lived, year in and year out.

An open, grassy space, a hundred yards in breadth, intervened between
the house and the barn, which was built against the slope of the knoll,
so that the bridge to the threshing-floor was nearly level, and the
stables below were sheltered from the north winds, and open to the
winter sun. On the other side of the lane leading from the high-road
stood a wagon-house and corn-crib--the latter empty, yet evidently,
in spite of its emptiness, the principal source of attraction to the
visitors. A score of men and boys peeped between the upright laths, and
a dozen dogs howled and sprang around the smooth corner-posts upon
which the structure rested. At the door stood old Giles, the military
straggler already mentioned--now a grizzly, weather-beaten man of
fifty--with a jolly grin on his face, and a short leather whip in his
hand.

“Want to see him, Miss Betsy?” he asked, touching his mink-skin cap,
as Miss Lavender crawled through the nearest panel of the lofty picket
fence.

“See him?” she repeated. “Don’t care if I do, afore goin’ into th’
house.”

“Come up, then; out o’ the way, Cato! Fan, take that, you slut! Don’t be
afeard, Miss Betsy; if folks kept ‘em in the leash, as had ought to
be done, I’d have less trouble. They’re mortal eager, and no wonder.
There!--a’n’t he a sly-lookin’ divel? If I’d a hoss, Miss Betsy, I’d
foller with the best of ‘em, and maybe you wouldn’t have the brush?”

“Have the brush. Go along, Giles! He’s an old one, and knows how to take
care of it. Do keep off the dreadful dogs, and let me git down!” cried
Miss Lavender, gathering her narrow petticoats about her legs, and
surveying the struggling animals before her with some dismay.

Giles’s whip only reached the nearest, and the excited pack rushed
forward again after every repulse; but at this juncture a tall,
smartly-dressed man came across the lane, kicked the hounds out of the
way, and extended a helping hand to the lady.

“Ho, Mr. Alfred!” said she; “Much obliged. Miss Ann’s havin’ her hands
full, I reckon?”

Without waiting for an answer, she slipped into the yard and along the
front of the house, to the kitchen entrance, at the eastern end. There
we will leave her, and return to the group of gentlemen.

Any one could see at a glance that Mr. Alfred Barton was the most
important person present. His character of host gave him, of course,
the right to control the order of the coming chase; but his size and
swaggering air of strength, his new style of hat, the gloss of his blue
coat, the cut of his buckskin breeches, and above all, the splendor
of his tasselled top-boots, distinguished him from his more homely
apparelled guests. His features were large and heavy: the full, wide
lips betrayed a fondness for indulgence, and the small, uneasy eyes
a capacity for concealing this and any other quality which needed
concealment. They were hard and cold, generally more than half hidden
under thick lids, and avoided, rather than sought, the glance of the man
to whom he spoke. His hair, a mixture of red-brown and gray, descended,
without a break, into bushy whiskers of the same color, and was cut
shorter at the back of the head than was then customary. Something
coarse and vulgar in his nature exhaled, like a powerful odor, through
the assumed shell of a gentleman, which he tried to wear, and rendered
the assumption useless.

A few guests, who had come from a distance, had just finished their
dinner in the farm-house. Owing to causes which will hereafter be
explained, they exhibited less than the usual plethoric satisfaction
after the hospitality of the country, and were the first to welcome the
appearance of a square black bottle, which went the rounds, with the
observation: “Whet up for a start!”

Mr. Barton drew a heavy silver watch from his fob, and carefully holding
it so that the handful of glittering seals could be seen by everybody,
appeared to meditate.

“Five minutes to one,” he said at last. “No use in waiting much longer;
‘t isn’t good to keep the hounds fretting. Any signs of anybody else?”

The others, in response, turned towards the lane and highway. Some,
with keen eyes, fancied they could detect a horseman through the wood.
Presently Giles, from his perch at the door of the corn-crib, cried out:

“There’s somebody a-comin’ up the meadow. I don’t know the hoss; rides
like Gilbert Potter. Gilbert it is, blast me! new-mounted.”

“Another plough-horse!” suggested Mr. Joel Ferris, a young Pennsbury
buck, who, having recently come into a legacy of four thousand pounds,
wished it to be forgotten that he had never ridden any but plough-horses
until within the year.

The others laughed, some contemptuously, glancing at their own
well-equipped animals the while, some constrainedly, for they knew the
approaching guest, and felt a slight compunction in seeming to side with
Mr. Ferris. Barton began to smile stiffly, but presently bit his lip and
drew his brows together.

Pressing the handle of his riding-whip against his chin, he stared
vacantly up the lane, muttering “We must wait, I suppose.”

His lids were lifted in wonder the next moment; he seized Ferris by the
arm, and exclaimed:--

“Whom have we here?”

All eyes turned in the same direction, descried a dashing horseman in
the lane.

“Upon my soul I don’t know,” said Ferris. “Anybody expected from the
Fagg’s Manor way?”

“Not of my inviting,” Barton answered.

The other guests professed their entire ignorance of the stranger, who,
having by this time passed the bars, rode directly up to the group. He
was a short, broad-shouldered man of nearly forty, with a red, freckled
face, keen, snapping gray eyes, and a close, wide mouth. Thick,
jet-black whiskers, eyebrows and pig-tail made the glance of those
eyes, the gleam of his teeth, and the color of his skin where it was not
reddened by the wind, quite dazzling. This violent and singular contrast
gave his plain, common features an air of distinction. Although his
mulberry coat was somewhat faded, it had a jaunty cut, and if his
breeches were worn and stained, the short, muscular thighs and strong
knees they covered, told of a practised horseman.

He rode a large bay gelding, poorly groomed, and apparently not
remarkable for blood, but with no marks of harness on his rough coat.

“Good-day to you, gentlemen!” said the stranger, familiarly knocking the
handle of his whip against his cocked hat. “Squire Barton, how do you
do?”

“How do you do, sir?” responded Mr. Barton, instantly flattered by the
title, to which he had no legitimate right. “I believe,” he added, “you
have the advantage of me.”

A broad smile, or rather grin, spread over the stranger’s face. His
teeth flashed, and his eyes shot forth a bright, malicious ray. He
hesitated a moment, ran rapidly over the faces of the others without
perceptibly moving his head, and noting the general curiosity, said, at
last:--

“I hardly expected to find an acquaintance in this neighborhood, but
a chase makes quick fellowship. I happened to hear of it at the Anvil
Tavern,--am on my way to the Rising Sun; so, you see, if the hunt goes
down Tuffkenamon, as is likely, it’s so much of a lift on the way.”

“All right,--glad to have you join us. What did you say your name was?”
 inquired Mr. Barton.

“I didn’t say what; it’s Fortune,--a fortune left to me by my father,
ha! ha! Don’t care if I do”--

With the latter words, Fortune (as we must now call him) leaned down
from his saddle, took the black bottle from the unresisting hands of Mr.
Ferris, inverted it against his lips, and drank so long and luxuriously
as to bring water into the mouths of the spectators. Then, wiping his
mouth with the back of his freckled hand, he winked and nodded his head
approvingly to Mr. Barton.

Meanwhile the other horseman had arrived from the meadow, after
dismounting and letting down the bars, over which his horse stepped
slowly and cautiously,--a circumstance which led some of the younger
guests to exchange quiet, amused glances. Gilbert Potter, however,
received a hearty greeting from all, including the host, though the
latter, by an increased shyness in meeting his gaze, manifested some
secret constraint.

“I was afraid I should have been too late,” said Gilbert; “the old break
in the hedge is stopped at last, so I came over the hill above, without
thinking on the swampy bit, this side.”

“Breaking your horse in to rough riding, eh?” said Mr. Ferris, touching
a neighbor with his elbow.

Gilbert smiled good-humoredly, but said nothing, and a little laugh
went around the circle. Mr. Fortune seemed to understand the matter in a
flash. He looked at the brown, shaggy-maned animal, standing behind its
owner, with its head down, and said, in a low, sharp tone: “I see--where
did you get him?”

Gilbert returned the speaker’s gaze a moment before he answered. “From a
drover,” he then said.

“By the Lord!”-ejaculated Mr. Barton, who had again conspicuously
displayed his watch, “it’s over half-past one. Look out for the
hounds,--we must start, if we mean to do any riding this day!”

The owners of the hounds picked out their several animals and dragged
them aside, in which operation they were uproariously assisted by the
boys. The chase in Kennett, it must be confessed, was but a very
faint shadow of the old English pastime. It had been kept up, in the
neighborhood, from the force of habit in the Colonial times, and
under the depression which the strong Quaker element among the people
exercised upon all sports and recreations. The breed of hounds, not
being restricted to close communion, had considerably degenerated,
and few, even of the richer farmers, could afford to keep thoroughbred
hunters for this exclusive object. Consequently all the features of the
pastime had become rude and imperfect, and, although very respectable
gentlemen still gave it their countenance, there was a growing suspicion
that it was a questionable, if not demoralizing diversion. It would be
more agreeable if we could invest the present occasion with a little
more pomp and dignity; but we must describe the event precisely as it
occurred.

The first to greet Gilbert were his old friends, Joe and Jake Fairthorn.
These boys loudly lamented that their father had denied them the loan
of his old gray mare, Bonnie; they could ride double on a gallop, they
said; and wouldn’t Gilbert take them along, one before and one behind
him? But he laughed and shook his head.

“Well, we’ve got Watch, anyhow,” said Joe, who thereupon began
whispering very earnestly to Jake, as the latter seized the big family
bull-dog by the collar. Gilbert foreboded mischief, and kept his eye
upon the pair.

A scuffle was heard in the corn-crib, into which Giles had descended.
The boys shuddered and chuckled in a state of delicious fear, which
changed into a loud shout of triumph, as the soldier again made his
appearance at the door, with the fox in his arms, and a fearless hand
around its muzzle.

“By George! what a fine brush!” exclaimed Mr. Ferris.

A sneer, quickly disguised in a grin, ran over Fortune’s face. The
hounds howled and tugged; Giles stepped rapidly across the open space
where the knoll sloped down to the meadow. It was a moment of intense
expectation.

Just then, Joe and Jake Fairthorn let go their hold on the bull-dog’s
collar; but Gilbert Potter caught the animal at the second bound. The
boys darted behind the corn-crib, scared less by Gilbert’s brandished
whip than by the wrath and astonishment in Mr. Barton’s face.

“Cast him off, Giles!” the latter cried.

The fox, placed upon the ground, shot down the slope and through the
fence into the meadow. Pausing then, as if first to assure himself of
his liberty, he took a quick, keen survey of the ground before him, and
then started off towards the left.

“He’s making for the rocks!” cried Mr. Ferris; to which the stranger,
who was now watching the animal with sharp interest, abruptly answered,
“Hold your tongue!”

Within a hundred yards the fox turned to the right, and now, having
apparently made up his mind to the course, struck away in a steady but
not hurried trot. In a minute he had reached the outlying trees of the
timber along the creek.

“He’s a cool one, he is!” remarked Giles, admiringly.

By this time he was hidden by the barn from the sight of the hounds,
and they were let loose. While they darted about in eager quest of the
scent, the hunters mounted in haste. Presently an old dog gave tongue
like a trumpet, the pack closed, and the horsemen followed. The boys
kept pace with them over the meadow, Joe and Jake taking the lead, until
the creek abruptly stopped their race, when they sat down upon the bank
and cried bitterly, as the last of the hunters disappeared through the
thickets on the further side.

It was not long before a high picket-fence confronted the riders. Mr.
Ferris, with a look of dismay, dismounted. Fortune, Barton, and Gilbert
Potter each threw off a heavy “rider,” and leaped their horses over the
rails. The others followed through the gaps thus made, and all swept
across the field at full speed, guided by the ringing cry of the hounds.

When they reached the Wilmington road, the cry swerved again to the
left, and most of the hunters, with Barton at their head, took the
highway in order to reach the crossroad to New-Garden more conveniently.
Gilbert and Fortune alone sprang into the opposite field, and kept a
straight southwestern course for the other branch of Redley Creek. The
field was divided by a stout thorn-hedge from the one beyond it, and the
two horsemen, careering neck and neck, glanced at each other curiously
as they approached this barrier. Their respective animals were
transformed; the unkempt manes were curried by the wind, as they flew;
their sleepy eyes were full of fire, and the splendid muscles, aroused
to complete action, marked their hides with lines of beauty. There was
no wavering in either; side by side they hung in flight above the hedge,
and side by side struck the clean turf beyond.

Then Fortune turned his head, nodded approvingly to Gilbert, and
muttered to himself: “He’s a gallant fellow,--I’ll not rob him of the
brush.” But he laughed a short, shrill, wicked laugh the next moment.

Before they reached the creek, the cry of the hounds ceased. They halted
a moment on the bank, irresolute.

“He must have gone down towards the snuff-mill,” said Gilbert, and was
about to change his course.

“Stop,” said the stranger; “if he has, we’ve lost him any way. Hark!
hurrah!”

A deep bay rang from the westward, through the forest. Gilbert shouted:
“The lime-quarry!” and dashed across the stream. A lane was soon
reached, and as the valley opened, they saw the whole pack heading
around the yellow mounds of earth which marked the locality of the
quarry. At the same instant some one shouted in the rear, and they saw
Mr. Alfred Barton, thundering after, and apparently bent on diminishing
the distance between them.

A glance was sufficient to show that the fox had not taken refuge in the
quarry, but was making a straight course up the centre of the valley.
Here it was not so easy to follow. The fertile floor of Tuffkenamon,
stripped of woods, was crossed by lines of compact hedge, and, moreover,
the huntsmen were not free to tear and trample the springing wheat of
the thrifty Quaker farmers. Nevertheless, one familiar with the ground
could take advantage of a gap here and there, choose the connecting
pasture-fields, and favor his course with a bit of road, when the chase
swerved towards either side of the valley. Gilbert Potter soon took the
lead, closely followed by Fortune. Mr. Barton was perhaps better mounted
than either, but both horse and rider were heavier, and lost in the
moist fields, while they gained rapidly where the turf was firm.

After a mile and a half of rather toilsome riding, all three were nearly
abreast. The old tavern of the Hammer and Trowel was visible, at the
foot of the northern hill; the hounds, in front, bayed in a straight
line towards Avondale Woods,--but a long slip of undrained bog made its
appearance. Neither gentleman spoke, for each was silently tasking his
wits how to accomplish the passage most rapidly. The horses began to
sink into the oozy soil: only a very practised eye could tell where the
surface was firmest, and even this knowledge was but slight advantage.

Nimbly as a cat Gilbert sprang from the saddle, still holding the pummel
in his right hand, touched his horse’s flank with the whip, and bounded
from one tussock to another. The sagacious animal seemed to understand
and assist his manoeuvre. Hardly had he gained firm ground than he was
in his seat again, while Mr. Barton was still plunging in the middle of
the bog.

By the time he had reached the road, Gilbert shrewdly guessed where the
chase would terminate. The idlers on the tavern-porch cheered him as he
swept around the corner; the level highway rang to the galloping hoofs
of his steed, and in fifteen minutes he had passed the long and lofty
oak woods of Avondale. At the same moment, fox and hounds broke into
full view, sweeping up the meadow on his left. The animal made a last
desperate effort to gain a lair among the bushes and loose stones on
the northern hill; but the hunter was there before him, the hounds were
within reach, and one faltering moment decided his fate.

Gilbert sprang down among the frantic dogs, and saved the brush from the
rapid dismemberment which had already befallen its owner. Even then,
he could only assure its possession by sticking it into his hat and
remounting his horse. When he looked around, no one was in sight, but
the noise of hoofs was heard crashing through the wood.

Mr. Ferris, with some dozen others, either anxious to spare their horses
or too timid to take the hedges in the valley, had kept the cross-road
to New-Garden, whence a lane along the top of the southern hill led them
into the Avondale Woods. They soon emerged, shouting and yelling, upon
the meadow.

The chase was up; and Gilbert Potter, on his “plough horse,” was the
only huntsman in at the death.



CHAPTER II.

WHO SHALL HAVE THE BRUSH?


Mr. Barton and Fortune, who seemed to have become wonderfully intimate
during the half hour in which they had ridden together, arrived at the
same time. The hunters, of whom a dozen were now assembled (some five or
six inferior horses being still a mile in the rear), were all astounded,
and some of them highly vexed, at the result of the chase. Gilbert’s
friends crowded about him, asking questions as to the course he had
taken, and examining the horse, which had maliciously resumed its sleepy
look, and stood with drooping head. The others had not sufficient tact
to disguise their ill-humor, for they belonged to that class which, in
all countries, possesses the least refinement--the uncultivated rich.

“The hunt started well, but it’s a poor finish,” said one of these.

“Never mind!” Mr. Ferris remarked; “such things come by chance.”

These words struck the company to silence. A shock, felt rather than
perceived, fell upon them, and they looked at each other with an
expression of pain and embarrassment. Gilbert’s face faded to a sallow
paleness, and his eyes were fastened upon those of the speaker with a
fierce and dangerous intensity. Mr. Ferris colored, turned away, and
called to his hounds.

Fortune was too sharp an observer not to remark the disturbance. He
cried out, and his words produced an instant, general sense of relief:--

“It’s been a fine run, friends, and we can’t do better than ride back
to the Hammer and Trowel, and take a ‘smaller’--or a ‘bigger’ for that
matter--at my expense. You must let me pay my footing now, for I hope to
ride with you many a time to come. Faith! If I don’t happen to buy that
place down by the Rising Sun, I’ll try to find another, somewhere about
New London or Westgrove, so that we can be nearer neighbors.”

With that he grinned, rather than smiled; but although his manner would
have struck a cool observer as being mocking instead of cordial,
the invitation was accepted with great show of satisfaction, and the
horsemen fell into pairs, forming a picturesque cavalcade as they passed
under the tall, leafless oaks.

Gilbert Potter speedily recovered his self-possession, but his face was
stern and his manner abstracted. Even the marked and careful kindness
of his friends seemed secretly to annoy him, for it constantly suggested
the something by which it had been prompted. Mr. Alfred Barton, however,
whether under the influence of Fortune’s friendship, or from a late
suspicion of his duties as host of the day, not unkindly complimented
the young man, and insisted on filling his glass. Gilbert could do no
less than courteously accept the attention, but he shortly afterwards
stole away from the noisy company, mounted his horse, and rode slowly
towards Kennett Square.

As he thus rides, with his eyes abstractedly fixed before him, we will
take the opportunity to observe him more closely. Slightly under-sized,
compactly built, and with strongly-marked features, his twenty-four
years have the effect of thirty. His short jacket and knee-breeches
of gray velveteen cover a chest broad rather than deep, and reveal the
fine, narrow loins and muscular thighs of a frame matured and hardened
by labor. His hands, also, are hard and strong, but not ungraceful in
form. His neck, not too short, is firmly planted, and the carriage of
his head indicates patience and energy. Thick, dark hair enframes his
square forehead, and straight, somewhat heavy brows. His eyes of
soft dark-gray, are large, clear, and steady, and only change their
expression under strong excitement. His nose is straight and short, his
mouth a little too wide for beauty, and less firm now than it will be
ten years hence, when the yearning tenderness shall have vanished from
the corners of the lips; and the chin, in its broad curve, harmonizes
with the square lines of the brow. Evidently a man whose youth has not
been a holiday; who is reticent rather than demonstrative; who will
be strong in his loves and long in his hates; and, without being of a
despondent nature, can never become heartily sanguine.

The spring-day was raw and overcast, as it drew towards its close, and
the rider’s musings seemed to accord with the change in the sky. His
face expressed a singular mixture of impatience, determined will, and
unsatisfied desire. But where most other men would have sighed, or
given way to some involuntary exclamation, he merely set his teeth, and
tightened the grasp on his whip-handle.

He was not destined, however, to a solitary journey. Scarcely had he
made three quarters of a mile, when, on approaching the junction of a
wood-road which descended to the highway from a shallow little glen
on the north, the sound of hoofs and voices met his ears. Two female
figures appeared, slowly guiding their horses down the rough road. One,
from her closely-fitting riding-habit of drab cloth, might have been a
Quakeress, but for the feather (of the same sober color) in her beaver
hat, and the rosette of dark red ribbon at her throat. The other, in
bluish-gray, with a black beaver and no feather, rode a heavy old horse
with a blind halter on his head, and held the stout leathern reins with
a hand covered with a blue woollen mitten. She rode in advance, paying
little heed to her seat, but rather twisting herself out of shape in the
saddle in order to chatter to her companion in the rear.

“Do look where you are going, Sally!” cried the latter as the blinded
horse turned aside from the road to drink at a little brook that oozed
forth from under the dead leaves.

Thus appealed to, the other lady whirled around with a half-jump, and
caught sight of Gilbert Potter and of her horse’s head at the same
instant.

“Whoa there, Bonnie!” she cried. “Why, Gilbert, where did you come from?
Hold up your head, I say! Martha, here’s Gilbert, with a brush in his
hat! Don’t be afraid, you beast; did you never smell a fox? Here, ride
in between, Gilbert, and tell us all about it! No, not on that side,
Martha; you can manage a horse better than I can!”

In her efforts to arrange the order of march, she drove her horse’s
head into Gilbert’s back, and came near losing her balance. With amused
screams, and bursts of laughter, and light, rattling exclamations, she
finally succeeded in placing herself at his left hand, while her adroit
and self-possessed companion quietly rode up to his right Then, dropping
the reins on their horses’ necks, the two ladies resigned themselves to
conversation, as the three slowly jogged homewards abreast.

“Now, Gilbert!” exclaimed Miss Sally Fairthorn, after waiting a moment
for him to speak; “did you really earn the brush, or beg it from one of
them, on the way home?”

“Begging, you know, is my usual habit,” he answered, mockingly.

“I know you’re as proud as Lucifer, when you’ve a mind to be so. There!”

Gilbert was accustomed to the rattling tongue of his left-hand neighbor,
and generally returned her as good as she gave. To-day, however, he was
in no mood for repartee. He drew down his brows and made no answer to
her charge.

“Where was the fox earthed?” asked the other lady, after a rapid glance
at his face.

Martha Deane’s voice was of that quality which compels an answer, and
a courteous answer, from the surliest of mankind. It was not loud,
it could scarcely be called musical; but every tone seemed to exhale
freshness as of dew, and brightness as of morning. It was pure, slightly
resonant; and all the accumulated sorrows of life could not have veiled
its inherent gladness. It could never grow harsh, never be worn thin,
or sound husky from weariness; its first characteristic would always be
youth, and the joy of youth, though it came from the lips of age.

Doubtless Gilbert Potter did not analyze the charm which it exercised
upon him; it was enough that he felt and submitted to it. A few quiet
remarks sufficed to draw from him the story of the chase, in all
its particulars, and the lively interest in Martha Deane’s face, the
boisterous glee of Sally Fairthorn, with his own lurking sense of
triumph, soon swept every gloomy line from his visage. His mouth relaxed
from its set compression, and wore a winning sweetness; his eyes
shone softly-bright, and a nimble spirit of gayety gave grace to his
movements.

“Fairly won, I must say!” exclaimed Miss Sally Fairthorn, when the
narrative was finished. “And now, Gilbert, the brush?”

“The brush?”

“Who’s to have it, I mean. Did you never get one before, as you don’t
seem to understand?”

“Yes, I understand,” said he, in an indifferent tone; “it may be had for
the asking.”

“Then it’s mine!” cried Sally, urging her heavy horse against him and
making a clutch at his cap. But he leaned as suddenly away, and shot a
length ahead, out of her reach. Miss Deane’s horse, a light, spirited
animal, kept pace with his.

“Martha!” cried the disappointed damsel, “Martha! one of us must have
it; ask him, you!”

“No,” answered Martha, with her clear blue eyes fixed on Gilbert’s face,
“I will not ask.”

He returned her gaze, and his eyes seemed to say: “Will you take it,
knowing what the acceptance implies?”

She read the question correctly; but of this he was not sure. Neither,
if it were so, could he trust himself to interpret the answer. Sally had
already resumed her place on his left, and he saw that the mock strife
would be instantly renewed. With a movement so sudden as to appear
almost ungracious, he snatched the brush from his cap and extended it to
Martha Deane, without saying a word.

If she hesitated, it was at least no longer than would be required in
order to understand the action. Gilbert might either so interpret it, or
suspect that she had understood the condition in his mind, and meant to
signify the rejection thereof. The language of gestures is wonderfully
rapid, and all that could be said by either, in this way, was over, and
the brush in Martha Deane’s hand, before Sally Fairthorn became aware of
the transfer.

“Well-done, Martha!” she exclaimed: “Don’t let him have it again! Do you
know to whom he would have given it: an A. and a W., with the look of an
X,--so!”

Thereupon Sally pulled off her mittens and crossed her forefingers,
an action which her companions understood--in combination with the
mysterious initials--to be the rude, primitive symbol of a squint.

Gilbert looked annoyed, but before he could reply, Sally let go the rein
in order to put on her mittens, and the blinded mare quickly dropping
her head, the rein slipped instantly to the animal’s ears. The latter
perceived her advantage, and began snuffing along the edges of the
road in a deliberate search for spring grass. In vain Sally called and
kicked; the mare provokingly preserved her independence. Finally, a
piteous appeal to Gilbert, who had pretended not to notice the dilemma,
and was a hundred yards in advance, was Sally’s only resource. The two
halted and enjoyed her comical helplessness.

“That’s enough, Gilbert,” said Martha Deane, presently, “go now and pick
up the rein.”

He rode back, picked it up, and handed it to Sally without speaking.

“Gilbert,” she said, with a sudden demure change of tone, as they rode
on to where Miss Deane was waiting, “come and take supper with us, at
home. Martha has promised. You’ve hardly been to see us in a month.”

“You know how much I have to do, Sally,” he answered. “It isn’t only
that, to-day being a Saturday; but I’ve promised mother to be at home by
dark, and fetch a quarter of tea from the store.”

“When you’ve once promised, I know, oxen couldn’t pull you the other
way.”

“I don’t often see your mother, Gilbert,” said Martha Deane; “she is
well?”

“Thank you, Martha,--too well, and yet not well enough.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” he answered, “that she does more than she has strength to do.
If she had less she would be forced to undertake less; if she had more,
she would be equal to her undertaking.”

“I understand you now. But you should not allow her to go on in that
way; you should”--

What Miss Deane would have said must remain unwritten. Gilbert’s eyes
were upon her, and held her own; perhaps a little more color came into
her face, but she did not show the slightest embarrassment. A keen
observer might have supposed that either a broken or an imperfect
relation existed between the two, which the gentleman was trying to
restore or complete without the aid of words; and that, furthermore,
while the lady was the more skilful in the use of that silent language,
neither rightly understood the other.

By this time they were ascending the hill from Redley Creek to Kennett
Square. Martha Deane had thus far carried the brush carelessly in her
right hand; she now rolled it into a coil and thrust it into a large
velvet reticule which hung from the pommel of her saddle. A few dull
orange streaks in the overcast sky, behind them, denoted sunset, and a
raw, gloomy twilight crept up from the east.

“You’ll not go with us?” Sally asked again, as they reached the corner,
and the loungers on the porch of the Unicorn Tavern beyond, perceiving
Gilbert, sprang from their seats to ask for news of the chase.

“Sally, I cannot!” he answered. “Good-night!”

Joe and Jake Fairthorn rushed up with a whoop, and before Gilbert could
satisfy the curiosity of the tavern-idlers, the former sat behind Sally,
on the old mare, with his face to her tail, while Jake, prevented by
Miss Deane’s riding-whip from attempting the same performance, capered
behind the horses and kept up their spirits by flinging handfuls of
sand.

Gilbert found another group in “the store”--farmers or their sons who
had come in for a supply of groceries, or the weekly mail, and who sat
in a sweltering atmosphere around the roaring stove. They, too, had
heard of the chase, and he was obliged to give them as many details as
possible while his quarter of tea was being weighed, after which he left
them to supply the story from the narrative of Mr. Joel Ferris, who, a
new-comer announced, had just alighted at the Unicorn, a little drunk,
and in a very bad humor.

“Where’s Barton?” Gilbert heard some one ask of Ferris, as he mounted.

“In his skin!” was the answer, “unless he’s got into that fellow
Fortune’s. They’re as thick as two pickpockets!”

Gilbert rode down the hill, and allowed his horse to plod leisurely
across the muddy level, regardless of the deepening twilight.

He was powerfully moved by some suppressed emotion. The muscles of
his lips twitched convulsively, and there was a hot surge and swell
somewhere in his head, as of tears about to overrun their secret
reservoir. But they failed to surprise him, this time. As the first
drops fell from his dark eyelashes, he loosed the rein and gave the
word to his horse. Over the ridge, along the crest, between dusky
thorn-hedges, he swept at full gallop, and so, slowly sinking towards
the fair valley which began to twinkle with the lights of scattered
farms to the eastward, he soon reached the last steep descent, and saw
the gray gleam of his own barn below him.

By this time his face was sternly set. He clinched his hands, and
muttered to himself--

“It will almost kill me to ask, but I must know, and--and she must
tell.”

It was dark now. As he climbed again from the bottom of the hill towards
the house, a figure on the summit was drawn indistinctly against the
sky, unconscious that it was thus betrayed. But it vanished instantly,
and then he groaned--

“God help me! I cannot ask.”



CHAPTER III.

MARY POTTER AND HER SON.


While Gilbert was dismounting at the gate leading into his barn-yard, he
was suddenly accosted by a boyish voice:--

“Got back, have you?”

This was Sam, the “bound-boy,”--the son of a tenant on the old Carson
place, who, in consideration of three months’ schooling every winter,
and a “freedom suit” at the age of seventeen, if he desired then to
learn a trade, was duly made over by his father to Gilbert Potter. His
position was something between that of a poor relation and a servant. He
was one of the family, eating at the same table, sleeping, indeed, (for
economy of house-work,) in the same bed with his master, and privileged
to feel his full share of interest in domestic matters; but on the other
hand bound to obedience and rigid service.

“Feed’s in the trough,” said he, taking hold of the bridle. “I’ll fix
him. Better go into th’ house. Tea’s wanted.”

Feeling as sure that all the necessary evening’s work was done as if he
had performed it with his own hands, Gilbert silently followed the boy’s
familiar advice.

The house, built like most other old farm-houses in that part of the
county, of hornblende stone, stood near the bottom of a rounded knoll,
overhanging the deep, winding valley. It was two stories in height, the
gable looking towards the road, and showing, just under the broad double
chimney, a limestone slab, upon which were rudely carved the initials of
the builder and his wife, and the date “1727.” A low portico, overgrown
with woodbine and trumpet-flower, ran along the front. In the narrow
flower-bed, under it, the crocuses and daffodils were beginning to
thrust up their blunt, green points. A walk of flag-stones separated
them from the vegetable garden, which was bounded at the bottom by a
mill-race, carrying half the water of the creek to the saw and grist
mill on the other side of the road.

Although this road was the principal thoroughfare between Kennett
Square and Wilmington, the house was so screened from the observation
of travellers, both by the barn, and by some huge, spreading apple-trees
which occupied the space between the garden and road, that its inmates
seemed to live in absolute seclusion. Looking from the front door across
a narrow green meadow, a wooded hill completely shut out all glimpse of
the adjoining farms; while an angle of the valley, to the eastward, hid
from sight the warm, fertile fields higher up the stream.

The place seemed lonelier than ever in the gloomy March twilight; or
was it some other influence which caused Gilbert to pause on the flagged
walk, and stand there, motionless, looking down into the meadow until a
woman’s shadow crossing the panes, was thrown upon the square of lighted
earth at his feet? Then he turned and entered the kitchen.

The cloth was spread and the table set. A kettle, humming on a heap
of fresh coals, and a squat little teapot of blue china, were waiting
anxiously for the brown paper parcel which he placed upon the cloth. His
mother was waiting also, in a high straight-backed rocking-chair, with
her hands in her lap.

“You’re tired waiting, mother, I suppose?” he said, as he hung his hat
upon a nail over the heavy oak mantel-piece.

“No, not tired, Gilbert, but it’s hungry _you’ll_ be. It won’t take long
for the tea to draw. Everything else has been ready this half-hour.”

Gilbert threw himself upon the settle under the front window, and
mechanically followed her with his eyes, as she carefully measured the
precious herb, even stooping to pick up a leaf or two that had fallen
from the spoon to the floor.

The resemblance between mother and son was very striking. Mary Potter
had the same square forehead and level eyebrows, but her hair was darker
than Gilbert’s, and her eyes more deeply set. The fire of a lifelong
pain smouldered in them, and the throes of some never-ending struggle
had sharpened every line of cheek and brow, and taught her lips the
close, hard compression, which those of her son were also beginning to
learn. She was about forty-five years of age, but there was even now a
weariness in her motions, as if her prime of strength were already past.
She wore a short gown of brown flannel, with a plain linen stomacher,
and a coarse apron, which she removed when the supper had been placed
upon the table. A simple cap, with a narrow frill, covered her head.

The entire work of the household devolved upon her hands alone. Gilbert
would have cheerfully taken a servant to assist her, but this she
positively refused, seeming to court constant labor, especially during
his absence from the house. Only when he was there would she take
occasion to knit or sew. The kitchen was a marvel of neatness and
order. The bread-trough and dresser-shelves were scoured almost to the
whiteness of a napkin, and the rows of pewter-plates upon the latter
flashed like silver sconces. To Gilbert’s eyes, indeed, the effect was
sometimes painful. He would have been satisfied with less laborious
order, a less eager and unwearied thrift. To be sure, all this was in
furtherance of a mutual purpose; but he mentally determined that when
the purpose had been fulfilled, he would insist upon an easier and more
cheerful arrangement. The stern aspect of life from which his nature
craved escape met him oftenest at home.

Sam entered the kitchen barefooted, having left his shoes at the back
door. The tea was drawn, and the three sat down to their supper of
bacon, bread and butter, and apple-sauce. Gilbert and his mother ate and
drank in silence, but Sam’s curiosity was too lively to be restrained.

“I say, how did Roger go?” he asked.

Mary Potter looked up, as if expecting the question to be answered, and
Gilbert said:--

“He took the lead, and kept it.”

“O cracky!” exclaimed the delighted Sam.

“Then you think it’s a good bargain, Gilbert. Was it a long chase? Was
he well tried?”

“All right, mother. I could sell him for twenty dollars advance--even to
Joel Ferris,” he answered.

He then gave a sketch of the afternoon’s adventures, to which his mother
listened with a keen, steady interest. She compelled him to describe the
stranger, Fortune, as minutely as possible, as if desirous of finding
some form or event in her own memory to which he could be attached; but
without result.

After supper Sam squatted upon a stool in the corner of the fireplace,
and resumed his reading of “The Old English Baron,” by the light of the
burning back-log, pronouncing every word to himself in something
between a whisper and a whistle. Gilbert took an account-book, a
leaden inkstand, and a stumpy pen from a drawer under the window, and
calculated silently and somewhat laboriously. His mother produced a
clocked stocking of blue wool, and proceeded to turn the heel.

In half an hour’s time, however, Sam’s whispering ceased; his head
nodded violently, and the book fell upon the hearth.

“I guess I’ll go to bed,” he said; and having thus conscientiously
announced his intention, he trotted up the steep back-stairs on his
hands and feet. In two minutes more, a creaking overhead announced that
the act was accomplished.

Gilbert filliped the ink out of his pen into the fire, laid it in his
book, and turned away from the table.

“Roger has bottom,” he said at last, “and he’s as strong as a lion.
He and Fox will make a good team, and the roads will be solid in three
days, if it don’t rain.”

“Why, you don’t mean,”--she commenced.

“Yes, mother. You were not for buying him, I know, and you were right,
inasmuch as there is always _some_ risk. But it will make a difference
of two barrels a load, besides having a horse at home. If I plough both
for corn and oats next week,--and it will be all the better for corn,
as the field next to Carson’s is heavy,--I can begin hauling the week
after, and we’ll have the interest by the first of April, without
borrowing a penny.”

“That would be good,--very good, indeed,” said she, dropping her
knitting, and hesitating a moment before she continued; “only--only,
Gilbert, I didn’t expect you would be going so soon.”

“The sooner I begin, mother, the sooner I shall finish.”

“I know that, Gilbert,--I know that; but I’m always looking forward to
the time when you won’t be bound to go at all. Not that Sam and I can’t
manage awhile--but if the money was paid once”--

“There’s less than six hundred now, altogether. It’s a good deal to
scrape together in a year’s time, but if it can be done I will do
it. Perhaps, then, you will let some help come into the house. I’m as
anxious as you can be, mother. I’m not of a roving disposition, that you
know; yet it isn’t pleasant to me to see you slave as you do, and for
that very reason, it’s a comfort when I’m away, that you’ve one less to
work for.”

He spoke earnestly, turning his face full upon her.

“We’ve talked this over, often and often, but you never can make me see
it in your way,” he then added, in a gentler tone.

“Ay, Gilbert,” she replied, somewhat bitterly, “I’ve had my thoughts.
Maybe they were too fast; it seems so. I meant, and mean, to make a good
home for you, and I’m happiest when I can do the most towards it. I want
you to hold up your head and be beholden to no man. There are them in
the neighborhood that were bound out as boys, and are now as good as the
best.”

“But they are not,”--burst from his lips, as the thought on which he
so gloomily brooded sprang to the surface and took him by surprise. He
checked his words by a powerful effort, and the blood forsook his face.
Mary Potter placed her hand on her heart, and seemed to gasp for breath.

Gilbert could not bear to look upon her face. He turned away, placed his
elbow on the table, and leaned his head upon his hand. It never occurred
to him that the unfinished sentence might be otherwise completed. He
knew that his _thought_ was betrayed, and his heart was suddenly filled
with a tumult of shame, pity, and fear.

For a minute there was silence. Only the long pendulum, swinging openly
along the farther wall, ticked at each end of its vibration. Then Mary
Potter drew a deep, weary breath, and spoke. Her voice was hollow and
strange, and each word came as by a separate muscular effort.

“_What_ are they not? What word was on your tongue, Gilbert?”

He could not answer. He could only shake his head, and bring forth a
cowardly, evasive word,--“Nothing.”

“But there _is_ something! Oh, I knew it must come some time!” she
cried, rather to herself than to him. “Listen to me, Gilbert! Has any
one dared to say to your face that you are basely born?”

He felt, now, that no further evasion was possible; she had put into
words the terrible question which he could not steel his own heart to
ask. Perhaps it was better so,--better a sharp, intense pain than a dull
perpetual ache. So he answered honestly now, but still kept his head
turned away, as if there might be a kindness in avoiding her gaze.

“Not in so many words, mother,” he said; “but there are ways, and
ways of saying a thing; and the cruellest way is that which everybody
understands, and I dare not. But I have long known what it meant. It is
ten years, mother, since I have mentioned the word ‘_father_’ in your
hearing.”

Mary Potter leaned forward, hid her face in her hands, and rocked to and
fro, as if tortured with insupportable pain. She stifled her sobs, but
the tears gushed forth between her fingers.

“O my boy,--my boy!” she moaned. “Ten years?--and you believed it, all
that time!”

He was silent. She leaned forward and grasped his arm.

“Did you,--_do_ you believe it? Speak, Gilbert!”

When he did speak, his voice was singularly low and gentle. “Never mind,
mother!” was all he could say. His head was still turned away from her,
but she knew there were tears on his cheeks.

“Gilbert, it is a lie!” she exclaimed, with startling vehemence. “A
lie,--A LIE! You are my lawful son, born in wedlock! There is no stain
upon your name, of my giving, and I know there will be none of your
own.”

He turned towards her, his eyes shining and his lips parted in
breathless joy and astonishment.

“Is it--is it true?” he whispered.

“True as there is a God in Heaven.”

“Then, mother, give me my name! Now I ask you, for the first time, who
was my father?”

She wrung her hands and moaned. The sight of her son’s eager, expectant
face, touched with a light which she had never before seen upon it,
seemed to give her another and a different pang.

“That, too!” She murmured to herself.

“Gilbert,” she then said, “have I always been a faithful mother to you?
Have I been true and honest in word and deed? Have I done my best to
help you in all right ways,--to make you comfortable, to spare you
trouble? Have I ever,--I’ll not say acted, for nobody’s judgment is
perfect,--but tried to act otherwise than as I thought it might be for
your good?”

“You have done all that you could say, and more, mother.”

“Then, my boy, is it too much for me to ask that you should believe my
word,--that you should let it stand for the truth, without my giving
proofs and testimonies? For, Gilbert, that I _must_ ask of you, hard as
it may seem. If you will only be content with the knowledge--: but then,
you have felt the shame all this while; it was my fault, mine, and I
ought to ask your forgiveness”--

“Mother--mother!” he interrupted, “don’t talk that way! Yes--I believe
you, without testimony. You never said, or thought, an untruth; and
your explanation will be enough not only for me, but for the whole
neighborhood, if all witnesses are dead or gone away. If you knew of the
shameful report, why didn’t you deny it at once? Why let it spread and
be believed in?”

“Oh,” she moaned again, “if my tongue was not tied--if my tongue was not
tied! There was my fault, and what a punishment! Never--never was woman
punished as I have been. Gilbert, whatever you do, bind yourself by no
vow, except in the sight of men!”

“I do not understand you, mother,” said he.

“No, and I dare not make myself understood. Don’t ask me anything more!
It’s hard to shut my mouth, and bear everything in silence, but it cuts
my very heart in twain to speak and not tell!”

Her distress was so evident, that Gilbert, perplexed and bewildered as
her words left him, felt that he dared not press her further. He could
not doubt the truth of her first assertion; but, alas! it availed only
for his own private consciousness,--it took no stain from him, in the
eyes of the world. Yet, now that the painful theme had been opened,--not
less painful, it seemed, since the suspected dishonor did not exist,--he
craved and decided to ask, enlightenment on one point.

“Mother,” he said, after a pause, “I do not want to speak about this
thing again. I believe you, and my greatest comfort in believing is
for your sake, not for mine. I see, too, that you are bound in some way
which I do not understand, so that we cannot be cleared from the blame
that is put upon us. I don’t mind that so much, either--for my own sake,
and I will not ask for an explanation, since you say you dare not give
it. But tell me one thing,--will it always be so? Are you bound forever,
and will I never learn anything more? I can wait; but, mother, you know
that these things work in a man’s mind, and there will come a time when
the knowledge of the worst thing that could be will seem better than no
knowledge at all.”

Her face brightened a little. “Thank you, Gilbert!” she said. “Yes;
there will come a day when you shall know all,--when you and me shall
have justice. I do not know how soon; I cannot guess. In the Lord’s good
time. I have nigh out-suffered my fault, I think, and the reward cannot
be far off. A few weeks, perhaps,--yet, maybe, for oh, I am not allowed
even to hope for it!--maybe a few years. It will all come to the light,
after so long--so long--an eternity. If I had but known!”

“Come, we will say no more now. Surely I may wait a little while, when
you have waited so long. I believe you, mother. Yes, I believe you; I am
your lawful son.”

She rose, placed her hands on his shoulders, and kissed him. Nothing
more was said.

Gilbert raked the ashes over the smouldering embers on the hearth,
lighted his mother’s night-lamp, and after closing the chamber-door
softly behind her, stole up-stairs to his own bed.

It was long past midnight before he slept.



CHAPTER IV.

FORTUNE AND MISFORTUNE.


On the same evening, a scene of a very different character occurred,
in which certain personages of this history were actors. In order to
describe it, we must return to the company of sportsmen whom Gilbert
Potter left at the Hammer-and-Trowel Tavern, late in the afternoon.

No sooner had he departed than the sneers of the young bucks, who
felt themselves humiliated by his unexpected success, became loud and
frequent. Mr. Alfred Barton, who seemed to care little for the general
dissatisfaction, was finally reproached with having introduced such an
unfit personage at a gentleman’s hunt; whereupon he turned impatiently,
and retorted:

“There were no particular invitations sent out, as all of you know.
Anybody that had a horse, and knew how to manage him, was welcome.
Zounds! if you fellows are afraid to take hedges, am I to blame for
that? A hunter’s a hunter, though he’s born on the wrong side of the
marriage certificate.”

“That’s the talk, Squire!” cried Fortune, giving his friend a hearty
slap between the shoulders. “I’ve seen riding in my day,” he continued,
“both down in Loudon and on the Eastern Shore--men born with spurs on
their heels, and I tell you this Potter could hold his own, even with
the Lees and the Tollivers. We took the hedge together, while you were
making a round of I don’t know how many miles on the road; and I never
saw a thing neater done. If you thought there was anything unfair about
him, why didn’t you head him off?”

“Yes, damme,” echoed Mr. Barton, bringing down his fist upon the bar,
so that the glasses jumped, “why didn’t you head him off?” Mr. Barton’s
face was suspiciously flushed, and he was more excited than the occasion
justified.

There was no answer to the question, except that which none of the young
bucks dared to make.

“Well, I’ve had about enough of this,” said Mr. Joel Ferris, turning on
his heel; “who’s for home?”

“Me!” answered three or four, with more readiness than grammar. Some of
the steadier young farmers, who had come for an afternoon’s recreation,
caring little who was first in at the death, sat awhile and exchanged
opinions about crops and cattle; but Barton and Fortune kept together,
whispering much, and occasionally bursting into fits of uproarious
laughter. The former was so captivated by his new friend, that before
he knew it every guest was gone. The landlord had lighted two or three
tallow candles, and now approached with the question:

“Will you have supper, gentlemen?”

“That depends on what you’ve got,” said Fortune.

This was not language to which the host was accustomed. His guests were
also his fellow-citizens: if they patronized him, he accommodated them,
and the account was balanced. His meals were as good as anybody’s,
though he thought it that shouldn’t, and people so very particular might
stay away. But he was a mild, amiable man, and Fortune’s keen eye and
dazzling teeth had a powerful effect upon him. He answered civilly, in
spite of an inward protest:

“There’s ham and eggs, and frizzled beef.”

“Nothing could be better!” Fortune exclaimed, jumping up. “Come
‘Squire--if I stay over Sunday with you, you must at least take supper
at my expense.”

Mr. Barton tried to recollect whether he had invited his friend to spend
Sunday with him. It must be so, of course; only, he could not remember
when he had spoken, or what words he had used. It would be very
pleasant, he confessed, but for one thing; and how was he to get over
the difficulty?

However, here they were, at the table, Fortune heaping his plate like a
bountiful host, and talking so delightfully about horses and hounds, and
drinking-bouts, and all those wild experiences which have such a
charm for bachelors of forty-five or fifty, that it was impossible to
determine in his mind what he should do.

After the supper, they charged themselves with a few additional
potations, to keep off the chill of the night air, mounted their horses,
and took the New-Garden road. A good deal of confidential whispering had
preceded their departure.

“They’re off on a lark,” the landlord remarked to himself, as they rode
away, “and it’s a shame, in men of their age.”

After riding a mile, they reached the cross-road on the left, which the
hunters had followed, and Fortune, who was a little in advance, turned
into it.

“After what I told you, ‘Squire,” said he, “you won’t wonder that I know
the country so well. Let us push on; it’s not more than two miles. I
would be very clear of showing you one of my nests, if you were not such
a good fellow. But mum’s the word, you know.”

“Never fear,” Barton answered, somewhat thickly; “I’m an old bird,
Fortune.”

“That you are! Men like you and me are not made of the same stuff as
those young nincompoops; we can follow a trail without giving tongue at
every jump.”

Highly flattered, Barton rode nearer, and gave his friend an
affectionate punch in the side. Fortune answered with an arm around his
waist and a tight hug, and so they rode onward through the darkness.

They had advanced for somewhat more than a mile on the cross-road, and
found themselves in a hollow, with tall, and added in a low, significant
tone, “If you stir from this spot in less than one hour, you are a dead
man.”

Then he rode on, whistling “Money Musk” as he went. Once or twice he
stopped, as if to listen, and Barton’s heart ceased to beat; but by
degrees the sound of his horse’s hoofs died away. The silence that
succeeded was full of terrors. Barton’s horse became restive, and he
would have dismounted and held him, but for the weakness in every joint
which made him think that his body was falling asunder. Now and then
a leaf rustled, or the scent of some animal, unperceived by his own
nostrils, caused his horse to snort and stamp. The air was raw and sent
a fearful chill through his blood. Moreover, how was he to measure the
hour? His watch was gone; he might have guessed by the stars, but
the sky was overcast. Fortune and Sandy Flash--for there were two
individuals in his bewildered brain--would surely fulfil their threat if
he stirred before the appointed time. What under heaven should he do?

Wait; that was all; and he waited until it seemed that morning must be
near at hand. Then, turning his horse, he rode back very slowly towards
the New-Garden road, and after many panics, to the Hammer-and-Trowel.
There was still light in the bar-room; should the door open, he would
be seen. He put spurs to his horse and dashed past. Once in motion, it
seemed that he was pursued, and along Tuffkenamon went the race, until
his horse, panting and exhausted, paused to drink at Redley Creek. They
had gone to bed at the Unicorn; he drew a long breath, and felt that the
danger was over. In five minutes more he was at home.

Putting his horse in the stable, he stole quietly to the house, pulled
off his boots in the wood-shed, and entered by a back way through the
kitchen. Here he warmed his chill frame before the hot ashes, and then
very gently and cautiously felt his way to bed in the dark.

The next morning, being Sunday, the whole household, servants and all,
slept an hour later than usual, as was then the country custom. Giles,
the old soldier, was the first to appear. He made the fire in the
kitchen, put on the water to boil, and then attended to the feeding of
the cattle at the barn. When this was accomplished, he returned to the
house and entered a bedroom adjoining the kitchen, on the ground-floor.
Here slept “Old-man Barton,” as he was generally called,--Alfred’s
father, by name Abiah, and now eighty-five years of age. For many years
he had been a paralytic, and unable to walk, but the disease had not
affected his business capacity. He was the hardest, shrewdest, and
cunningest miser in the county. There was not a penny of the income
and expenditure of the farm, for any year, which he could not account
for,--not a date of a deed, bond, or note of hand, which he had ever
given or received, that was not indelibly burnt upon his memory. No one,
not even his sons, knew precisely how much he was worth. The old lawyer
in Chester, who had charge of much of his investments, was as shrewd as
himself, and when he made his annual visit, the first week in April,
the doors were not only closed, but everybody was banished from hearing
distance so long as he remained.

Giles assisted in washing and dressing the old man, then seated him in a
rude arm-chair, resting on clumsy wooden castors, and poured out for
him a small wine-glass full of raw brandy. Once or twice a year, usually
after the payment of delayed interest, Giles received a share of the
brandy; but he never learned to expect it. Then a long hickory staff
was placed in the old man’s hand, and his arm-chair was rolled into the
kitchen, to a certain station between the fire and the southern window,
where he would be out of the way of his daughter Ann, yet could measure
with his eye every bit of lard she put into the frying-pan, and every
spoonful of molasses that entered into the composition of her pies.

She had already set the table for breakfast. The bacon and sliced
potatoes were frying in separate pans, and Ann herself was lifting the
lid of the tin coffee-pot, to see whether the beverage had “come to a
boil,” when the old man entered, or, strictly speaking, _was_ entered.

As his chair rolled into the light, the hideousness, not the grace and
serenity of old age, was revealed. His white hair, thin and half-combed,
straggled over the dark-red, purple-veined skin of his head; his cheeks
were flabby bags of bristly, wrinkled leather; his mouth was a sunken,
irregular slit, losing itself in the hanging folds at the corners, and
even the life, gathered into his small, restless gray eyes, was half
quenched under the red and heavy edges of the lids. The third and fourth
fingers of his hands were crooked upon the skinny palms, beyond any
power to open them.

When Ann--a gaunt spinster of fifty-five--had placed the coffee on
the table, the old man looked around, and asked with a snarl: “Where’s
Alfred?”

“Not up yet, but you needn’t wait, father.”

“Wait?” was all he said, yet she understood the tone, and wheeled him
to the table. As soon as his plate was filled, he bent forward over it,
rested his elbows on the cloth, and commenced feeding himself with hands
that trembled so violently that he could with great difficulty bring
the food to his mouth. But he resented all offers of assistance,
which implied any weakness beyond that of the infirmity which it was
impossible for him to conceal. His meals were weary tasks, but he shook
and jerked through them, and would have gone away hungry rather than
acknowledge the infirmity of his great age.

Breakfast was nearly over before Alfred Barton made his appearance. No
truant school-boy ever dreaded the master’s eye as he dreaded to appear
before his father that Sunday morning. His sleep had been broken
and restless; the teeth of Sandy Flash had again grinned at him in
nightmare-dreams, and when he came to put on his clothes, the sense
of emptiness in his breast-pocket and watch-fob impressed him like a
violent physical pain. His loss was bad enough, but the inability to
conceal it caused him even greater distress.

Buttoning his coat over the double void, and trying to assume his usual
air, he went down to the kitchen and commenced his breakfast. Whenever
he looked up, he found his father’s eyes fixed upon him, and before a
word had been spoken, he felt that he had already betrayed something,
and that the truth would follow, sooner or later. A wicked wish crossed
his mind, but was instantly suppressed, for fear lest that, also, should
be discovered.

After Ann had cleared the table, and retired to her own room in order
to array herself in the black cloth gown which she had worn every Sunday
for the past fifteen years, the old man said, or rather wheezed out the
words,--

“Kennett, meetin’?”

“Not to-day,” said his son, “I’ve a sort of chill from yesterday.” And
he folded his arms and shivered very naturally.

“Did Ferris pay you?” the old man again asked.

“Y--yes.”

“Where’s the money?”

There was the question, and it must be faced. Alfred Barton worked the
farm “on shares,” and was held to a strict account by his father, not
only for half of all the grain and produce sold, but of all the horses
and cattle raised, as well as those which were bought on speculation.
On his share he managed--thanks to the niggardly system enforced in the
house--not only to gratify his vulgar taste for display, but even to lay
aside small sums from time to time. It was a convenient arrangement, but
might be annulled any time when the old man should choose, and Alfred
knew that a prompt division of the profits would be his surest guarantee
of permanence.

“I have not the money with me,” he answered, desperately, after a pause,
during which he felt his father’s gaze travelling over him, from head to
foot.

“Why not! You haven’t spent it?” The latter question was a croaking
shriek, which seemed to forebode, while it scarcely admitted, the
possibility of such an enormity.

“I spent only four shillings, father, but--but--but the money’s all
gone!”

The crooked fingers clutched the hickory staff, as if eager to wield
it; the sunken gray eyes shot forth angry fire, and the broken figure
uncurved and straightened itself with a wrathful curiosity.

“Sandy Flash robbed me on the way home,” said the son, and now that the
truth was out, he seemed to pluck up a little courage.

“What, what, what!” chattered the old man, incredulously; “no lies, boy,
no lies!”

The son unbuttoned his coat, and showed his empty watch-fob. Then he
gave an account of the robbery, not strictly correct in all its details,
but near enough for his father to know, without discovering inaccuracies
at a later day. The hickory-stick was shaken once or twice during the
recital, but it did not fall upon the culprit--though this correction
(so the gossip of the neighborhood ran) had more than once been
administered within the previous ten years. As Alfred Barton told his
story, it was hardly a case for anger on the father’s part, so he took
his revenge in another way.

“This comes o’ your races and your expensive company,” he growled, after
a few incoherent sniffs and snarls; “but I don’t lose my half of
the horse. No, no! I’m not paid till the money’s been handed over.
Twenty-five dollars, remember!--and soon, that I don’t lose the use of
it too long. As for _your_ money and the watch, I’ve nothing to do with
them. I’ve got along without a watch for eighty-five years, and I never
wore as smart a coat as that in my born days. Young men understood how
to save, in my time.”

Secretly, however, the old man was flattered by his son’s love of
display, and enjoyed his swaggering air, although nothing would have
induced him to confess the fact. His own father had come to Pennsylvania
as a servant of one of the first settlers, and the reverence which he
had felt, as a boy, for the members of the Quaker and farmer aristocracy
of the neighborhood, had now developed into a late vanity to see his
own family acknowledged as the equals of the descendants of the former.
Alfred had long since discovered that when he happened to return home
from the society of the Falconers, or the Caswells, or the Carsons, the
old man was in an unusual good-humor. At such times, the son felt sure
that he was put down for a large slice of the inheritance.

After turning the stick over and over in his skinny hands, and pressing
the top of it against his toothless gums, the old man again spoke.

“See here, you’re old enough now to lead a steady life. You might ha’
had a farm o’ your own, like Elisha, if you’d done as well. A very fair
bit o’ money he married,--very fair,--but I don’t say you couldn’t do as
well, or, maybe, better.”

“I’ve been thinking of that, myself,” the son replied.

“Have you? Why don’t you step up to her then? Ten thousand dollars
aren’t to be had every day, and you needn’t expect to get it without the
askin’! Where molasses is dropped, you’ll always find more than one fly.
Others than you have got their eyes on the girl.”

The son’s eyes opened tolerably wide when the old man began to speak,
but a spark of intelligence presently flashed into them, and an
expression of cunning ran over his face.

“Don’t be anxious, daddy!” said he, with assumed playfulness; “she’s not
a girl to take the first that offers. She has a mind of her own,--with
her the more haste the less speed. I know what I’m about; I have my top
eye open, and when there’s a good chance, you won’t find me sneaking
behind the wood-house.”

“Well, well!” muttered the old man, “we’ll see,--we’ll see! A good
family, too,--not that I care for that. My family’s as good as the next.
But if you let her slip, boy”--and here he brought down the end of his
stick with a significant whack, upon the floor. “This I’ll tell you,”
 he added, without finishing the broken sentence, “that whether you’re a
rich man or a beggar, depends on yourself. The more you have, the more
you’ll get; remember that! Bring me my brandy!”

Alfred Barton knew the exact value of his father’s words. Having already
neglected, or, at least, failed to succeed, in regard to two matches
which his father had proposed, he understood the risk to his inheritance
which was implied by a third failure. And yet, looking at the subject
soberly, there was not the slightest prospect of success. Martha Deane
was the girl in the old man’s mind, and an instinct, stronger than his
vanity, told him that she never would, or could, be his wife. But, in
spite of that, it must be his business to create a contrary impression,
and keep it alive as long as possible,--perhaps until--until--

We all know what was in his mind. Until the old man should die.



CHAPTER V.

GUESTS AT FAIRTHORN’S.


The Fairthorn farm was immediately north of Kennett Square. For the
first mile towards Unionville, the rich rolling fields which any
traveller may see, to this day, on either side of the road, belonged
to it. The house stood on the right, in the hollow into which the road
dips, on leaving the village. Originally a large cabin of hewn logs, it
now rejoiced in a stately stone addition, overgrown with ivy up to the
eaves, and a long porch in front, below which two mounds of box guarded
the flight of stone steps leading down to the garden. The hill in the
rear kept off the north wind, and this garden caught the earliest warmth
of spring. Nowhere else in the neighborhood did the crocuses bloom so
early, or the peas so soon appear above ground. The lack of order, the
air of old neglect about the place, in nowise detracted from its warm,
cosy character; it was a pleasant nook, and the relatives and friends of
the family (whose name was Legion) always liked to visit there.

Several days had elapsed since the chase, and the eventful evening which
followed it. It was baking-day, and the plump arms of Sally Fairthorn
were floury-white up to the elbows. She was leaning over the
dough-trough, plunging her fists furiously into the spongy mass, when
she heard a step on the porch. Although her gown was pinned up, leaving
half of her short, striped petticoat visible, and a blue and white
spotted handkerchief concealed her dark hair, Sally did not stop to
think of that. She rushed into the front room, just as a gaunt female
figure passed the window, at the sight of which she clapped her hands so
that the flour flew in a little white cloud, and two or three strips of
dough peeled off her arms and fell upon the floor.

The front-door opened, and our old friend, Miss Betsy Lavender, walked
into the room.

Any person, between Kildeer Hill and Hockessin, who did not know Miss
Betsy, must have been an utter stranger to the country, or an idiot. She
had a marvellous clairvoyant faculty for the approach of either Joy or
Grief, and always turned up just at the moment when she was most wanted.
Profession had she none; neither a permanent home, but for twenty years
she had wandered hither and thither, in highly independent fashion,
turning her hand to whatever seemed to require its cunning. A better
housekeeper never might have lived, if she could have stuck to one spot;
an admirable cook, nurse, seamstress, and spinner, she refused alike the
high wages of wealthy farmers and the hands of poor widowers. She had a
little money of her own, but never refused payment from those who were
able to give it, in order that she might now and then make a present of
her services to poorer friends. Her speech was blunt and rough, her ways
odd and eccentric; her name was rarely mentioned without a laugh, but
those who laughed at her esteemed her none the less. In those days of
weekly posts and one newspaper, she was Politics, Art, Science, and
Literature to many families.

In person, Miss Betsy Lavender was peculiar rather than attractive. She
was nearly, if not quite fifty years of age, rather tall, and a little
stoop-shouldered. Her face, at first sight, suggested that of a horse,
with its long, ridged nose, loose lips and short chin. Her eyes were
dull gray, set near together, and much sharper in their operation than a
stranger would suppose. Over a high, narrow forehead she wore thin bands
of tan-colored hair, somewhat grizzled, and forming a coil at the back
of her head, barely strong enough to hold the teeth of an enormous
tortoise-shell comb. Yet her grotesqueness had nothing repellant; it
was a genial caricature, at which no one could take offence. “The very
person I wanted to see!” cried Sally. “Father and mother are going up
to Uncle John’s this afternoon; Aunt Eliza has an old woman’s
quilting-party, and they’ll stay all night, and however am I to manage
Joe and Jake by myself? Martha’s half promised to come, but not till
after supper. It will all go right, since you are here; come into
mother’s room and take off your things!”

“Well,” said Miss Betsy, with a snort, “_that’s_ to be my business, eh?
I’ll have my hands full; a pearter couple o’ lads a’n’t to be found this
side o’ Nottin’gam. They might ha’ growed up wild on the Barrens, for
all the manners they’ve got.”

Sally knew that this criticism was true; also that Miss Betsy’s task was
no sinecure, and she therefore thought it best to change the subject.

“There!” said she, as Miss Betsy gave the thin rope of her back hair a
fierce twist, and jammed her high comb inward and outward that the teeth
might catch,--“there! now you’ll do! Come into the kitchen and tell me
the news, while I set my loaves to rise.”

“Loaves to rise,” echoed Miss Betsy, seating herself on a tall,
rush-bottomed chair near the window. She had an incorrigible habit of
repeating the last three words of the person with whom she spoke,--a
habit which was sometimes mimicked good-humoredly, even by her best
friends. Many persons, however, were flattered by it, as it seemed to
denote an earnest attention to what they were saying. Between the two,
there it was and there it would be, to the day of her death,--Miss
Lavender’s “keel-mark, [Footnote: Keel, a local term for red chalk.] as
the farmers said of their sheep.

“Well,” she resumed, after taking breath, “no news is good news, these
days. Down Whitely Creek way, towards Strickersville, there’s fever,
they say; Richard Rudd talks o’ buildin’ higher up the hill,--you know
it’s low and swampy about the old house,--but Sarah, she says it’ll be a
mortal long ways to the spring-house, and so betwixt and between them
I dunno how it’ll turn out. Dear me! I was up at Aunt Buffin’ton’s t’
other day; she’s lookin’ poorly; her mother, I remember, went off in a
decline, the same year the Tories burnt down their barn, and I’m afeard
she’s goin’ the same way. But, yes! I guess there’s one thing you’ll
like to hear. Old-man Barton is goin’ to put up a new wagon-house, and
Mark is to have the job.”

“Law!” exclaimed Sally, “what’s that to me?” But there was a decided
smile on her face as she put another loaf into the pan, and, although
her head was turned away, a pretty flush of color came up behind her
ear, and betrayed itself to Miss Lavender’s quick eye.

“Nothin’ much, I reckon,” the latter answered, in the most
matter-of-fact way, “only I thought you might like to know it, Mark
bein’ a neighbor, like, and a right-down smart young fellow.”

“Well, I _am_ glad of it,” said Sally, with sudden candor, “he’s
Martha’s cousin.”

“Martha’s cousin,--and I shouldn’t wonder if he’d be something more to
her, some day.”

“No, indeed! What are you thinking of, Betsy?” Sally turned around
and faced her visitor, regardless that her soft brunette face showed a
decided tinge of scarlet. At this instant clattering feet were heard,
and Joe and Jake rushed into the kitchen. They greeted their old friend
with boisterous demonstrations of joy.

“Now we’ll have dough-nuts,” cried Joe.

“No; ‘lasses-wax!” said Jake. “Sally, where’s mother? Dad’s out at the
wall, and Bonnie’s jumpin’ and prancin’ like anything!”

“Go along!” exclaimed Sally, with a slap which, lost its force in the
air, as Jake jumped away. Then they all left the kitchen together, and
escorted the mother to the garden-wall by the road, which served the
purpose of a horseblock. Farmer Fairthorn--a hale, ruddy, honest figure,
in broad-brimmed hat, brown coat and knee-breeches--already sat upon the
old mare, and the pillion behind his saddle awaited the coming burden.
Mother Fairthorn, a cheery little woman, with dark eyes and round
brunette face, like her daughter, wore the scoop bonnet and drab shawl
of a Quakeress, as did many in the neighborhood who did not belong to
the sect. Never were people better suited to each other than these two:
they took the world as they found it, and whether the crops were poor or
abundant, whether money came in or had to be borrowed, whether the roof
leaked, or a broken pale let the sheep into the garden, they were alike
easy of heart, contented and cheerful.

The mare, after various obstinate whirls, was finally brought near the
wall; the old woman took her seat on the pillion, and after a parting
admonition to Sally: “Rake the coals and cover ‘em up, before going to
bed, whatever you do!”--they went off, deliberately, up the hill.

“Miss Betsy,” said Joe, with a very grave air, as they returned to the
kitchen, “I want you to tell me one thing,--whether it’s true or not.
Sally says I’m a monkey.”

“I’m a monkey,” repeated the unconscious Miss Lavender, whereupon both
boys burst into shrieks of laughter, and made their escape.

“Much dough-nuts they’ll get from me,” muttered the ruffled spinster, as
she pinned up her sleeves and proceeded to help Sally. The work went on
rapidly, and by the middle of the afternoon, the kitchen wore its normal
aspect of homely neatness. Then came the hour or two of quiet and rest,
nowhere in the world so grateful as in a country farm-house, to its
mistress and her daughters, when all the rough work of the day is over,
and only the lighter task of preparing supper yet remains. Then, when
the sewing or knitting has been produced, the little painted-pine
work-stand placed near the window, and a pleasant neighbor drops in
to enliven the softer occupation with gossip, the country wife or girl
finds her life a very happy and cheerful possession. No dresses are worn
with so much pleasure as those then made; no books so enjoyed as those
then read, a chapter or two at a time.

Sally Fairthorn, we must confess, was not in the habit of reading much.
Her education had been limited. She had ciphered as far as Compound
Interest, read Murray’s “Sequel,” and Goldsmith’s “Rome,” and could
write a fair letter, without misspelling many words; but very few other
girls in the neighborhood possessed greater accomplishments than these,
and none of them felt, or even thought of, their deficiencies. There
were no “missions” in those days; it was fifty or sixty years before
the formation of the “Kennett Psychological Society,” and “Pamela,”
 “Rasselas,” and “Joseph Andrews,” were lent and borrowed, as at present
“Consuelo,” Buckle, Ruskin, and “Enoch Arden.”

One single work of art had Sally created, and it now hung, stately in
a frame of curled maple, in the chilly parlor. It was a sampler,
containing the alphabet, both large and small, the names and dates of
birth of both her parents, a harp and willow-tree, the twigs whereof
were represented by parallel rows of “herring-bone” stitch, a sharp
zigzag spray of rose-buds, and the following stanza, placed directly
underneath the harp and willow:--

  “By Babel’s streams we Sat and Wept
     When Zion we thought on;
   For Grief thereof, we Hang our Harp
     The Willow Tree upon.”

Across the bottom of the sampler was embroidered the inscription: “Done
by Sarah Ann Fairthorn, May, 1792, in the 16th year of her age.”

While Sally went up-stairs to her room, to put her hair into order, and
tie a finer apron over her cloth gown, Miss Betsy Lavender was made the
victim of a most painful experience.

Joe and Jake, who had been dodging around the house, half-coaxing and
half-teasing the ancient maiden whom they both plagued and liked, had
not been heard or seen for a while. Miss Betsy was knitting by the front
window, waiting for Sally, when the door was hastily thrown open, and
Joe appeared, panting, scared, and with an expression of horror upon his
face.

“Oh, Miss Betsy!” was his breathless exclamation, “Jake! the
cherry-tree!”

Dropping her work upon the floor, Miss Lavender hurried out of the
house, with beating heart and trembling limbs, following Joe, who ran
towards the field above the barn, where, near the fence, there stood a
large and lofty cherry-tree. As she reached the fence she beheld Jake,
lying motionless on his back, on the brown grass.

“The Lord have mercy!” she cried; her knees gave way, and she sank upon
the ground in an angular heap. When, with a desperate groan, she lifted
her head and looked through the lower rails, Jake was not to be seen.
With a swift, convulsive effort she rose to her feet, just in time to
catch a glimpse of the two young scamps whirling over the farther fence
into the wood below.

She walked unsteadily back to the house. “It’s given me such a turn,”
 she said to Sally, after describing the trick, “that I dunno when I’ll
get over it.”

Sally gave her some whiskey and sugar, which soon brought a vivid red to
the tip of her chin and the region of her cheek-bones, after which she
professed that she felt very comfortable. But the boys, frightened at
the effect of their thoughtless prank, did not make their appearance.
Joe, seeing Miss Betsy fall, thought she was dead, and the two hid
themselves in a bed of dead leaves, beside a fallen log, not daring to
venture home for supper. Sally said they should have none, and would
have cleared the table; but Miss Betsy, whose kind heart had long since
relented, went forth and brought them to light, promising that she would
not tell their father, provided they “would never do such a wicked thing
again.” Their behavior, for the rest of the evening, was irreproachable.

Just as candles were being lighted, there was another step on the porch,
and the door opened on Martha Deane.

“I’m _so_ glad!” cried Sally. “Never mind your pattens, Martha; Joe
shall carry them into the kitchen. Come, let me take off your cloak and
hat.”

Martha’s coming seemed to restore the fading daylight. Not boisterous
or impulsive, like Sally, her nature burned with a bright and steady
flame,--white and cold to some, golden and radiant to others. Her form
was slender, and every motion expressed a calm, serene grace, which
could only spring from some conscious strength of character. Her face
was remarkably symmetrical, its oval outline approaching the Greek
ideal; but the brow was rather high than low, and the light brown hair
covered the fair temples evenly, without a ripple. Her eyes were purely
blue, and a quick, soft spark was easily kindled in their depths; the
cheeks round and rosy, and the mouth clearly and delicately cut, with
an unusual, yet wholly feminine firmness in the lines of the upper lip.
This peculiarity, again, if slightly out of harmony with the pervading
gentleness of her face, was balanced by the softness and sweetness of
her dimpled chin, and gave to her face a rare union of strength and
tenderness. It very rarely happens that decision and power of will in a
young woman are not manifested by some characteristic rather masculine
than feminine; but Martha Deane knew the art of unwearied, soft
assertion and resistance, and her beautiful lips could pronounce, when
necessary, a final word.

Joe and Jake came forward with a half-shy delight, to welcome “Cousin
Martha,” as she was called in the Fairthorn household, her mother and
Sally’s father having been “own” cousins. There was a cheerful fire
on the hearth, and the three ladies gathered in front of it, with
the work-stand in the middle, while the boys took possession of the
corner-nooks. The latter claimed their share of the gossip; they
knew the family histories of the neighborhood much better than their
school-books, and exhibited a precocious interest in this form of
knowledge. The conversation, therefore, was somewhat guarded, and the
knitting and sewing all the more assiduously performed, until, with
great reluctance, and after repeated commands, Joe and Jake stole off to
bed.

The atmosphere of the room then became infinitely more free and
confidential. Sally dropped her hands in her lap, and settled herself
more comfortably in her chair, while Miss Lavender, with an unobserved
side-glance at her, said:--

“Mark is to put up Barton’s new wagon-house, I hear, Martha.”

“Yes,” Martha answered; “it is not much, but Mark, of course, is very
proud of his first job. There is a better one in store, though he does
not know of it.”

Sally pricked up her ears. “What is it?” asked Miss Betsy.

“It is not to be mentioned, you will understand. I saw Alfred Barton
to-day. He seems to take quite an interest in Mark, all at once, and he
told me that the Hallowells are going to build a new barn this summer.
He spoke to them of Mark, and thinks the work is almost sure.”

“Well, now!” Miss Betsy exclaimed, “if he gets that, after a year’s
journey-work, Mark is a made man. And I’ll speak to Richard Rudd the
next time I see him. He thinks he’s beholden to me, since Sarah had the
fever so bad. I don’t like folks to think that, but there’s times when
it appears to come handy.”

Sally arose, flushed and silent, and brought a plate of cakes and a
basket of apples from the pantry. The work was now wholly laid aside,
and the stand cleared to receive the refreshments.

“Now pare your peels in one piece, girls,” Miss Betsy advised, “and then
whirl ‘em to find the _initials_ o’ your sweethearts’ names.”

“You, too, Miss Betsy!” cried Sally, “we must find out the widower’s
name!”

“The widower’s name,” Miss Betsy gravely repeated, as she took a knife.

With much mirth the parings were cut, slowly whirled three times around
the head, and then let fly over the left shoulder. Miss Betsy’s was
first examined and pronounced to be an A.

“Who’s A?” she asked.

“Alfred!” said Sally. “Now, Martha, here’s yours--an S, no it’s a G!”

“The curl is the wrong way,” said Martha, gravely, “it’s a figure 3; so,
I have three of them, have I?”

“And mine,” Sally continued, “is a W!”

“Yes, if you look at it upside down. The inside of the peel is
uppermost: you must turn it, and then it will be an M.”

Sally snatched it up in affected vexation, and threw it into the fire.
“Oh, I know a new way!” she cried; “did you ever try it, Martha--with
the key and the Bible!”

“Old as the hills, but awful sure,” remarked Miss Lavender. “When it’s
done serious, it’s never been known to fail.”

Sally took the house-key, and brought from the old walnut cabinet a
plump octavo Bible, which she opened at the Song of Solomon, eighth
chapter and sixth verse. The end of the key being carefully placed
therein, the halves of the book were bound together with cords, so that
it could be carried by the key-handle. Then Sally and Martha, sitting
face to face, placed each the end of the fore finger of the right hand
under the half the ring of the key nearest to her.

“Now, Martha,” said Sally, “we’ll try your fortune first. Say ‘A,’ and
then repeat the verse: ‘set me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon
thine arm; for love is strong as death, jealousy is cruel as the grave:
the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.’”

Martha did as she was bidden, but the book hung motionless. She was
thereupon directed to say B, and repeat the verse; and so on, letter by
letter. The slender fingers trembled a little with the growing weight
of the book, and, although Sally protested that she was holding as still
“as she knew how,” the trembling increased, and before the verse which
followed G had been finished, the ring of the key slowly turned, and the
volume fell to the floor.

Martha picked it up with a quiet smile.

“It is easy to see who was in _your_ mind, Sally,” she said. “Now let me
tell your fortune: we will begin at L--it will save time.”

“Save time,” said Miss Lavender, rising. “Have it out betwixt and
between you, girls: I’m a-goin’ to bed.”

The two girls soon followed her example. Hastily undressing themselves
in the chilly room, they lay down side by side, to enjoy the blended
warmth and rest, and the tender, delicious interchanges of confidence
which precede sleep. Though so different in every fibre of their
natures, they loved each other with a very true and tender affection.

“Martha,” said Sally, after an interval of silence, “did you think I
_made_ the Bible turn at G?”

“I think you thought it would turn, and therefore it did. Gilbert Potter
was in your mind, of course.”

“And not in yours, Martha?”

“If any man was seriously in my mind, Sally, do you think I would take
the Bible and the door-key in order to find out his name?”

Sally was not adroit in speech: she felt that her question had not
been answered, but was unable to see precisely how the answer had been
evaded.

“I certainly was beginning to think that you liked Gilbert,” she said.

“So I do. Anybody may know that who cares for the information.” And
Martha laughed cheerfully.

“Would you say so to Gilbert himself?” Sally timidly suggested.

“Certainly; but why should he ask? I like a great many young men.”

“Oh, Martha!”

“Oh, Sally!--and so do you. But there’s this I will say: if I were to
love a man, neither he nor any other living soul should know it, until
he had told me with his own lips that his heart had chosen me.”

The strength of conviction in Martha’s grave, gentle voice, struck Sally
dumb. Her lips were sealed on the delicious secret she was longing, and
yet afraid, to disclose. _He_ had not spoken: she hoped he loved her,
she was sure she loved him. Did she speak now, she thought, she would
lower herself in Martha’s eyes. With a helpless impulse, she threw one
arm over the latter’s neck, and kissed her cheek. She did not know that
with the kiss she had left a tear.

“Sally,” said Martha, in a tender whisper, “I only spoke for myself.
Some hearts must be silent, while it is the nature of others to speak
out. You are not afraid of me: it will be womanly in you to tell me
everything. Your cheek is hot: you are blushing. Don’t blush, Sally
dear, for I know it already.”

Sally answered with an impassioned demonstration of gratitude and
affection. Then she spoke; but we will not reveal the secrets of her
virgin heart. It is enough that, soothed and comforted by Martha’s wise
counsel and sympathy, she sank into happy slumber at her side.



CHAPTER VI.

THE NEW GILBERT.


This time the weather, which so often thwarts the farmer’s calculations,
favored Gilbert Potter. In a week the two fields were ploughed, and what
little farm-work remained to be done before the first of April, could be
safely left to Sam. On the second Monday after the chase, therefore, he
harnessed his four sturdy horses to the wagon, and set off before the
first streak of dawn for Columbia, on the Susquehanna. Here he would
take from twelve to sixteen barrels of flour (according to the state
of the roads) and haul them, a two days’ journey, to Newport, on the
Christiana River. The freight of a dollar and a half a barrel, which
he received, yielded him what in those days was considered a handsome
profit for the service, and it was no unusual thing for farmers who were
in possession of a suitable team, to engage in the business whenever
they could spare the time from their own fields.

Since the evening when she had spoken to him, for the first time in her
life, of the dismal shadow which rested upon their names, Mary Potter
felt that there was an indefinable change in her relation to her son. He
seemed suddenly drawn nearer to her, and yet, in some other sense which
she could not clearly comprehend, thrust farther away. His manner,
always kind and tender, assumed a shade of gentle respect, grateful in
itself, yet disturbing, because new in her experience of him. His head
was slightly lifted, and his lips, though firm as ever, less rigidly
compressed. She could not tell how it was, but his voice had more
authority in her ears. She had never before quite disentangled the man
that he was from the child that he had been; but now the separation,
sharp, sudden, and final, was impressed upon her mind. Under all the
loneliness which came upon her, when the musical bells of his team
tinkled into silence beyond the hill, there lurked a strange sense of
relief, as if her nature would more readily adjust itself during his
absence.

Instead of accepting the day with its duties, as a sufficient burden,
she now deliberately reviewed the Past. It would give her pain, she
knew; but what pain could she ever feel again, comparable to that which
she had so recently suffered? Long she brooded over that bitter period
before and immediately succeeding her son’s birth, often declaring to
herself how fatally she had erred, and as often shaking her head in
hopeless renunciation of any present escape from the consequences of
that error. She saw her position clearly, yet it seemed that she had
so entangled herself in the meshes of a merciless Fate, that the only
reparation she could claim, either for herself or her son, would be
thrown away by forestalling--after such endless, endless submission and
suffering--the Event which should set her free.

Then she recalled and understood, as never before, Gilbert’s childhood
and boyhood. For his sake she had accepted menial service in families
where he was looked upon and treated as an incumbrance. The child, it
had been her comfort to think, was too young to know or feel this,--but
now, alas! the remembrance of his shyness and sadness told her a
different tale. So nine years had passed, and she was then forced to
part with her boy. She had bound him to Farmer Fairthorn, whose good
heart, and his wife’s, she well knew, and now she worked for him, alone,
putting by her savings every year, and stinting herself to the utmost
that she might be able to start him in life, if he should live to be his
own master. Little by little, the blot upon her seemed to fade out or
be forgotten, and she hoped--oh, how she had hoped!--that he might be
spared the knowledge of it.

She watched him grow up, a boy of firm will, strong temper, yet great
self-control; and the easy Fairthorn rule, which would have spoiled a
youth of livelier spirits, was, providentially, the atmosphere in which
his nature grew more serene and patient. He was steady, industrious, and
faithful, and the Fairthorns loved him almost as their own son. When he
reached the age of eighteen, he was allowed many important privileges:
he hauled flour to Newport, having a share of the profits, and in other
ways earned a sum which, with his mother’s aid, enabled him to buy a
team of his own, on coming of age.

Two years more of this weary, lonely labor, and the one absorbing aim of
Mary Potter’s life, which she had impressed upon him ever since he was
old enough to understand it, drew near fulfilment. The farm upon which
they now lived was sold, and Gilbert became the purchaser. There was
still a debt of a thousand dollars upon the property, and she felt that
until it was paid, they possessed no secure home. During the year which
had elapsed since the purchase, Gilbert, by unwearied labor, had laid up
about four hundred dollars, and another year, he had said, if he should
prosper in his plans, would see them free at last! Then,--let the world
say what it chose! They had fought their way from shame and poverty
to honest independence, and the respect which follows success would at
least be theirs.

This was always the consoling thought to which Mary Potter returned,
from the unallayed trouble of her mind. Day by day, Gilbert’s new figure
became more familiar, and she was conscious that her own manner towards
him must change with it The subject of his birth, however, and the new
difficulties with which it beset her, would not be thrust aside. For
years she had almost ceased to think of the possible release, of which
she had spoken; now it returned and filled her with a strange, restless
impatience.

Gilbert, also, had ample time to review his own position, during the
fortnight’s absence. After passing the hills and emerging upon the long,
fertile swells of Lancaster, his experienced leaders but rarely needed
the guidance of his hand or voice. Often, sunk in revery, the familiar
landmarks of the journey went by unheeded; often he lay awake in the
crowded bedroom of a tavern, striving to clear a path for his feet a
little way into the future. Only men of the profoundest culture make a
deliberate study of their own natures, but those less gifted often act
with an equal or even superior wisdom, because their qualities operate
spontaneously, unwatched by an introverted eye. Such men may be
dimly conscious of certain inconsistencies, or unsolved puzzles, in
themselves, but instead of sitting down to unravel them, they seek the
easiest way to pass by and leave them untouched. For them the material
aspects of life are of the highest importance, and a true instinct shows
them that beyond the merest superficial acquaintance with their own
natures lie deep and disturbing questions, with which they are not
fitted to grapple.

There comes a time, however, to every young man, even the most
uncultivated, when he touches one of the primal, eternal forces of life,
and is conscious of other needs and another destiny. This time had come
to Gilbert Potter, forcing him to look upon the circumstances of his
life from a loftier point of view. He had struggled, passionately but at
random, for light,--but, fortunately, every earnest struggle is towards
the light, and it now began to dawn upon him.

He first became aware of one enigma, the consideration of which was
not so easy to lay aside. His mother had not been deceived: there was
a change in the man since that evening. Often and often, in gloomy
breedings over his supposed disgrace, he had fiercely asserted to
himself that _he_ was free from stain, and the unrespect in which he
stood was an injustice to be bravely defied. The brand which he wore,
and which he fancied was seen by every eye he met, existed in his own
fancy; his brow was as pure, his right to esteem and honor equal, to
that of any other man. But it was impossible to act upon this reasoning;
still when the test came he would shrink and feel the pain, instead of
trampling it under his feet.

Now that the brand _was_ removed, the strength which he had so
desperately craved, was suddenly his. So far as the world was concerned,
nothing was altered; no one knew of the revelation which his mother had
made to him; he was still the child of her shame, but this knowledge was
no longer a torture. Now he had a right to respect, not asserted only
to his own heart, but which every man would acknowledge, were it made
known. He was no longer a solitary individual, protesting against
prejudice and custom. Though still feeling that the protest was just,
and that his new courage implied some weakness, he could not conceal
from himself the knowledge that this very weakness was the practical
fountain of his strength. He was a secret and unknown unit of the great
majority.

There was another, more intimate subject which the new knowledge touched
very nearly; and here, also, hope dawned upon a sense akin to despair.
With all the force of his nature, Gilbert Potter loved Martha Deane.
He had known her since he was a boy at Fairthorn’s; her face had always
been the brightest in his memory; but it was only since the purchase
of the farm that his matured manhood had fully recognized its answering
womanhood in her. He was slow to acknowledge the truth, even to his own
heart, and when it could no longer be denied, he locked it up and sealed
it with seven seals, determined never to betray it, to her or any one.
Then arose a wild hope, that respect might come with the independence
for which he was laboring, and perhaps he might dare to draw
nearer,--near enough to guess if there were any answer in her heart. It
was a frail support, but he clung to it as with his life, for there was
none other.

Now,--although his uncertainty was as great as ever,--his approach could
not humiliate her. His love brought no shadow of shame; it was proudly
white and clean. Ah! he had forgotten that she did not know,--that his
lips were sealed until his mother’s should be opened to the world. The
curse was not to be shaken off so easily.

By the time he had twice traversed the long, weary road between Columbia
and Newport, Gilbert reached a desperate solution of this difficulty.
The end of his meditations was: “I will see if there be love in woman as
in man!--love that takes no note of birth or station, but, once having
found its mate, is faithful from first to last.” In love, an honest and
faithful heart touches the loftiest ideal. Gilbert knew that, were the
case reversed, no possible test could shake his steadfast affection,
and how else could he measure the quality of hers? He said to himself:
“Perhaps it is cruel, but I cannot spare her the trial.” He was prouder
than he knew,--but we must remember all that he endured.

It was a dry, windy March month, that year, and he made four good
trips before the first of April. Returning home from Newport, by way of
Wilmington, with seventy-five dollars clear profit in his pocket, his
prospects seemed very cheerful. Could he accomplish two more months of
hauling during the year, and the crops should be fair, the money
from these sources, and the sale of his wagon and one span, would be
something more than enough to discharge the remaining debt. He knew,
moreover, how the farm could be more advantageously worked, having used
his eyes to good purpose in passing through the rich, abundant fields of
Lancaster. The land once his own,--which, like his mother, he could not
yet feel,--his future, in a material sense, was assured.

Before reaching the Buck Tavern, he overtook a woman plodding slowly
along the road. Her rusty beaver hat, tied down over her ears, and her
faded gown, were in singular contrast to the shining new scarlet shawl
upon her shoulders. As she stopped and turned, at the sound of his
tinkling bells, she showed a hard red face, not devoid of a certain
coarse beauty, and he recognized Deb. Smith, a lawless, irregular
creature, well known about Kennett.

“Good-day, Deborah!” said he; “if you are going my way, I can give you a
lift.”

“He calls me ‘Deborah,’” she muttered to herself; then aloud--“Ay, and
thank ye, Mr. Gilbert.”

Seizing the tail of the near horse with one hand, she sprang upon the
wagon-tongue, and the next moment sat upon the board at his side. Then,
rummaging in a deep pocket, she produced, one after the other, a short
black pipe, an eel-skin tobacco-pouch, flint, tinder, and a clumsy
knife. With a dexterity which could only have come from long habit,
she prepared and kindled the weed, and was presently puffing forth rank
streams, with an air of the deepest satisfaction.

“Which way?” asked Gilbert.

“Your’n, as far as you go,--always providin’ you takes me.”

“Of course, Deborah, you’re welcome. I have no load, you see.”

“Mighty clever in you, Mr. Gilbert; but you always was one o’ the clever
ones. Them as thinks themselves better born”--

“Come, Deborah, none of that!” he exclaimed.

“Ax your pardon,” she said, and smoked her pipe in silence. When she had
finished and knocked the ashes out against the front panel of the wagon,
she spoke again, in a hard, bitter voice,--

“‘Tisn’t much difference what _I_ am. I was raised on hard knocks, and
now I must git my livin’ by ‘em. But I axes no’un’s help, I’m _that_
proud, anyways. I go my own road, and a straighter one, too, damme, than
I git credit for, but I let other people go their’n. You might have wuss
company than me, though _I_ say it.”

These words hinted at an inward experience in some respects so
surprisingly like his own, that Gilbert was startled. He knew the
reputation of the woman, though he would have found it difficult to
tell whereupon it was based. Everybody said she was bad, and nobody
knew particularly why. She lived alone, in a log-cabin in the woods; did
washing and house-cleaning; worked in the harvest-fields; smoked, and
took her gill of whiskey with the best of them,--but other vices, though
inferred, were not proven. Involuntarily, he contrasted her position,
in this respect, with his own. The world, he had recently learned, was
wrong in his case; might it not also be doing her injustice? Her
pride, in its coarse way, was his also, and his life, perhaps, had only
unfolded into honorable success through a mother’s ever-watchful care
and never-wearied toil.

“Deborah,” he said, after a pause, “no man or woman who makes an honest
living by hard work, is bad company for me. I am trying to do the same
thing that you are,--to be independent of others. It’s not an easy thing
for anybody, starting from nothing, but I can guess that it must be much
harder for you than for me.”

“Yes, you’re a man!” she cried. “Would to God I’d been one, too! A man
can do everything that I do, and it’s all right and proper. Why did the
Lord give me strength? Look at that!” She bared her right arm--hard,
knitted muscle from wrist to shoulder--and clenched her fist. “What’s
that for?--not for a woman, I say; I could take two of ‘em by the necks
and pitch ‘em over yon fence. I’ve felled an Irishman like an ox when he
called me names. The anger’s in me, and the boldness and the roughness,
and the cursin’; I didn’t put ‘em there, and I can’t git ‘em out now,
if I tried ever so much. Why did they snatch the sewin’ from me when
I wanted to learn women’s work, and send me out to yoke th’ oxen? I do
believe I was a gal onc’t, a six-month or so, but it’s over long ago.
I’ve been a man ever since!”

She took a bottle out of her pocket, and offered it to Gilbert. When he
refused, she simply said: “You’re right!” set it to her mouth, and drank
long and deeply. There was a wild, painful gleam of truth in her words,
which touched his sympathy. How should he dare to judge this unfortunate
creature, not knowing what perverse freak of nature, and untoward
circumstances of life had combined to make her what she was? His manner
towards her was kind and serious, and by degrees this covert respect
awoke in her a desire to deserve it. She spoke calmly and soberly,
exhibiting a wonderful knowledge as they rode onwards, not only of
farming, but of animals, trees, and plants.

The team, knowing that home and rest were near, marched cheerily up and
down the hills along the border, and before sunset, emerging from the
woods, they overlooked the little valley, the mill, and the nestling
farmhouse. An Indian war-whoop rang across the meadow, and Gilbert
recognized Sam’s welcome therein.

“Now, Deborah,” said he, “you shall stop and have some supper, before
you go any farther.”

“I’m obliged, all the same,” said she, “but I must push on. I’ve to go
beyond the Square, and couldn’t wait. But tell your mother if she wants
a man’s arm in house-cleanin’ time to let me know. And, Mr. Gilbert, let
me say one thing: give me your hand.”

The horses had stopped to drink at the creek. He gave her his right
hand.

She held it in hers a moment, gazing intently on the palm. Then she bent
her head and blew upon it gently, three times.

“Never mind: it’s my fancy,” she said. “You’re born for trial and
good-luck, but the trials come first, all of a heap, and the good luck
afterwards. You’ve got a friend in Deb. Smith, if you ever need one.
Good-bye to ye!”

With these words she sprang from the wagon, and trudged off silently up
the hill. The horses turned of themselves into the lane leading to the
barn, and Gilbert assisted Sam in unharnessing and feeding them before
entering the house. By the time he was ready to greet his mother,
and enjoy, without further care, his first evening at home, he knew
everything that had occurred on the farm during his absence.



CHAPTER VII.

OLD KENNETT MEETING.


On the Sunday succeeding his return, Gilbert Potter proposed to his
mother that they should attend the Friends’ Meeting at Old Kennett.

The Quaker element, we have already stated, largely predominated in this
part of the county; and even the many families who were not
actually members of the sect were strongly colored with its peculiar
characteristics. Though not generally using “the plain speech” among
themselves, they invariably did so towards Quakers, varied but little
from the latter in dress and habits, and, with very few exceptions,
regularly attended their worship. In fact, no other religious attendance
was possible, without a Sabbath journey too long for the well-used
farm-horses. To this class belonged Gilbert and his mother, the
Fairthorns, and even the Bartons. Farmer Fairthorn had a birthright, it
is true, until his marriage, which having been a stolen match, and
not performed according to “Friends’ ceremony,” occasioned his
excommunication. He might have been restored to the rights of membership
by admitting his sorrow for the offence, but this he stoutly refused to
do. The predicament was not an unusual one in the neighborhood; but
a few, among whom was Dr. Deane, Martha’s father, submitted to the
required humiliation. As this did not take place, however, until after
her birth, Martha was still without the pale, and preferred to remain
so, for two reasons: first, that a scoop bonnet was monstrous on a young
woman’s head; and second, that she was passionately fond of music, and
saw no harm in a dance. This determination of hers was, as her father
expressed himself, a “great cross” to him; but she had a habit of
paralyzing his argument by turning against him the testimony of the
Friends in regard to forms and ceremonies, and their reliance on the
guidance of the Spirit.

Herein Martha was strictly logical, and though she, and others who
belonged to the same class, were sometimes characterized, by a zealous
Quaker, in moments of bitterness, as being “the world’s people,” they
were generally regarded, not only with tolerance, but in a spirit of
fraternity. The high seats in the gallery were not for them, but they
were free to any other part of the meeting-house during life, and to
a grave in the grassy and briery enclosure adjoining, when dead. The
necessity of belonging to some organized church was recognized but
faintly, if at all; provided their lives were honorable, they were
considered very fair Christians.

Mary Potter but rarely attended meeting, not from any lack of the need
of worship, but because she shrank with painful timidity from appearing
in the presence of the assembled neighborhood. She was, nevertheless,
grateful for Gilbert’s success, and her heart inclined to thanksgiving;
besides, he desired that they should go, and she was not able to offer
any valid objection. So, after breakfast, the two best horses of the
team were very carefully groomed, saddled, and--Sam having been sent off
on a visit to his father, with the house-key in his pocket--the mother
and son took the road up the creek.

Both were plainly, yet very respectably, dressed, in garments of the
same home-made cloth, of a deep, dark brown color, but Mary Potter wore
under her cloak the new crape shawl which Gilbert had brought to her
from Wilmington, and his shirt of fine linen displayed a modest ruffle
in front. The resemblance in their faces was even more strongly marked,
in the common expression of calm, grave repose, which sprang from the
nature of their journey. A stranger meeting them that morning, would
have seen that they were persons of unusual force of character, and
bound to each other by an unusual tie.

Up the lovely valley, or rather glen, watered by the eastern branch of
Redley Creek, they rode to the main highway. It was an early spring,
and the low-lying fields were already green with the young grass; the
weeping-willows in front of the farm-houses seemed to spout up and
fall like broad enormous geysers as the wind swayed them, and daffodils
bloomed in all the warmer gardens. The dark foliage of the cedars
skirting the road counteracted that indefinable gloom which the
landscapes of early spring, in their grayness and incompleteness, so
often inspire, and mocked the ripened summer in the close shadows which
they threw. It was a pleasant ride, especially after mother and son had
reached the main road, and other horsemen and horsewomen issued from the
gates of farms on either side, taking their way to the meeting-house.
Only two or three families could boast vehicles,--heavy, cumbrous
“chairs,” as they were called, with a convex canopy resting on four
stout pillars, and the bulging body swinging from side to side on huge
springs of wood and leather. No healthy man or woman, however, unless he
or she were very old, travelled otherwise than on horseback.

Now and then exchanging grave but kindly nods with their acquaintances,
they rode slowly along the level upland, past the Anvil Tavern,
through Logtown,--a cluster of primitive cabins at the junction of the
Wilmington Road,--and reached the meeting-house in good season. Gilbert
assisted his mother to alight at the stone platform built for that
purpose near the women’s end of the building, and then fastened the
horses in the long, open shed in the rear. Then, as was the custom,
he entered by the men’s door, and quietly took a seat in the silent
assembly.

The stiff, unpainted benches were filled with the congregation, young
and old, wearing their hats, and with a stolid, drowsy look upon their
faces. Over a high wooden partition the old women in the gallery,
but not the young women on the floor of the house, could be seen. Two
stoves, with interminable lengths of pipe, suspended by wires from
the ceiling, created a stifling temperature. Every slight sound
or motion,--the moving of a foot, the drawing forth of a
pocket-handkerchief, the lifting or lowering of a head,--seemed to
disturb the quiet as with a shock, and drew many of the younger eyes
upon it; while in front, like the guardian statues of an Egyptian
temple, sat the older members, with their hands upon their knees or
clasped across their laps. Their faces were grave and severe.

After nearly an hour of this suspended animation, an old Friend rose,
removed his broad-brimmed hat, and placing his hands upon the rail
before him, began slowly swaying to and fro, while he spoke. As he rose
into the chant peculiar to the sect, intoning alike his quotations from
the Psalms and his utterances of plain, practical advice, an expression
of quiet but almost luxurious satisfaction stole over the faces of his
aged brethren. With half-closed eyes and motionless bodies, they drank
in the sound like a rich draught, with a sense of exquisite refreshment.
A close connection of ideas, a logical derivation of argument from text,
would have aroused their suspicions that the speaker depended rather
upon his own active, conscious intellect, than upon the moving of the
Spirit; but this aimless wandering of a half-awake soul through the
cadences of a language which was neither song nor speech, was, to their
minds, the evidence of genuine inspiration.

When the old man sat down, a woman arose and chanted forth the
suggestions which had come to her in the silence, in a voice of
wonderful sweetness and strength. Here Music seemed to revenge herself
for the slight done to her by the sect. The ears of the hearers were so
charmed by the purity of tone, and the delicate, rhythmical cadences of
the sentences, that much of the wise lessons repeated from week to week
failed to reach their consciousness.

After another interval of silence, the two oldest men reached their
hands to each other,--a sign which the younger members had anxiously
awaited. The spell snapped in an instant; all arose and moved into the
open air, where all things at first appeared to wear the same aspect of
solemnity. The poplar-trees, the stone wall, the bushes in the corners
of the fence, looked grave and respectful for a few minutes. Neighbors
said, “How does thee do?” to each other, in subdued voices, and there
was a conscientious shaking of hands all around before they dared to
indulge in much conversation.

Gradually, however, all returned to the out-door world and its
interests. The fences became so many posts and rails once more,
the bushes so many elders and blackberries to be cut away, and the
half-green fields so much sod for corn-ground. Opinions in regard to the
weather and the progress of spring labor were freely interchanged, and
the few unimportant items of social news, which had collected in
seven days, were gravely distributed. This was at the men’s end of the
meeting-house; on their side, the women were similarly occupied, but
we can only conjecture the subjects of their conversation. The young
men--as is generally the case in religious sects of a rigid and clannish
character--were by no means handsome. Their faces all bore the stamp
of _repression_, in some form or other, and as they talked their eyes
wandered with an expression of melancholy longing and timidity towards
the sweet, maidenly faces, whose bloom, and pure, gentle beauty not even
their hideous bonnets could obscure.

One by one the elder men came up to the stone platform with the stable
old horses which their wives were to ride home; the huge chair, in which
sat a privileged couple, creaked and swayed from side to side, as it
rolled with ponderous dignity from the yard; and now, while the girls
were waiting their turn, the grave young men plucked up courage,
wandered nearer, greeted, exchanged words, and so were helped into an
atmosphere of youth.

Gilbert, approaching with them, was first recognized by his old friend,
Sally Fairthorn, whose voice of salutation was so loud and cheery, as
to cause two or three sedate old “women-friends” to turn their heads
in grave astonishment. Mother Fairthorn, with her bright, round face,
followed, and then--serene and strong in her gentle, symmetrical
loveliness--Martha Deane. Gilbert’s hand throbbed, as he held hers a
moment, gazing into the sweet blue of her eyes; yet, passionately as he
felt that he loved her in that moment, perfect as was the delight of her
presence, a better joy came to his heart when she turned away to speak
with his mother. Mark Deane--a young giant with curly yellow locks, and
a broad, laughing mouth--had just placed a hand upon his shoulder, and
he could not watch the bearing of the two women to each other; but all
his soul listened to their voices, and he heard in Martha Deane’s the
kindly courtesy and respect which he did not see.

Mother Fairthorn and Sally so cordially insisted that Mary Potter
and her son should ride home with them to dinner, that no denial was
possible. When the horses were brought up to the block the yard was
nearly empty, and the returning procession was already winding up the
hill towards Logtown.

“Come, Mary,” said Mother Fairthorn, “you and I will ride together, and
you shall tell me all about your ducks and turkeys. The young folks can
get along without us, I guess.”

Martha Deane had ridden to meeting in company with her cousin Mark and
Sally, but the order of the homeward ride was fated to be different. Joe
and Jake, bestriding a single horse, like two of the Haymon’s-children,
were growing inpatient, so they took the responsibility of dashing up to
Mark and Sally, who were waiting in the road, and announcing,--

“Cousin Martha says we’re to go on; she’ll ride with Gilbert.”

Both well knew the pranks of the boys, but perhaps they found the
message well-invented if not true; for they obeyed with secret alacrity,
although Sally made a becoming show of reluctance. Before they reached
the bottom of the hollow, Joe and Jake, seeing two school-mates in
advance, similarly mounted, dashed off in a canter, to overtake them,
and the two were left alone.

Gilbert and Martha naturally followed, since not more than two could
conveniently ride abreast. But their movements were so quiet and
deliberate, and the accident which threw them together was accepted so
simply and calmly that no one could guess what warmth of longing, of
reverential tenderness, beat in every muffled throb of one of the two
hearts.

Martha was an admirable horsewoman, and her slender, pliant figure never
showed to greater advantage than in the saddle. Her broad beaver hat was
tied down over the ears, throwing a cool gray shadow across her clear,
joyous eyes and fresh cheeks. A pleasanter face never touched a young
man’s fancy, and every time it turned towards Gilbert it brightened
away the distress of love. He caught, unconsciously, the serenity of her
mood, and foretasted the peace which her being would bring to him if it
were ever intrusted to his hands.

“Did you do well by your hauling, Gilbert,” she asked, “and are you now
home for the summer?”

“Until after corn-planting,” he answered. “Then I must take two or three
weeks, as the season turns out. I am not able to give up my team yet.”

“But you soon will be, I hope. It must be very lonely for your mother to
be on the farm without you.”

These words touched him gratefully, and led him to a candid openness
of speech which he would not otherwise have ventured,--not from any
inherent lack of candor, but from a reluctance to speak of himself.

“That’s it, Martha,” he said. “It is her work that I have the farm at
all, and I only go away the oftener now, that I may the sooner stay with
her altogether. The thought of her makes each trip lonelier than the
last.”

“I like to hear you say that, Gilbert. And it must be a comfort to you,
withal, to know that you are working as much for your mother’s sake as
your own. I think I should feel so, at least, in your place. I feel my
own mother’s loss more now than when she died, for I was then so young
that I can only just remember her face.”

“But you have a father!” he exclaimed, and the words were scarcely out
of his mouth before he became aware of their significance, uttered by
his lips. He had not meant so much,--only that she, like him, still
enjoyed one parent’s care. The blood came into his face; she saw and
understood the sign, and broke a silence which would soon have become
painful.

“Yes,” she said, “and I am very grateful that he is spared; but we seem
to belong most to our mothers.”

“That is the truth,” he said firmly, lifting his head with the impulse
of his recovered pride, and meeting her eyes without flinching. “I
belong altogether to mine. She has made me a man and set me upon my
feet. From this time forward, my place is to stand between her and the
world!”

Martha Deane’s blood throbbed an answer to this assertion of himself.
A sympathetic pride beamed in her eyes; she slightly bent her head, in
answer, without speaking, and Gilbert felt that he was understood and
valued. He had drawn a step nearer to the trial which he had resolved to
make, and would now venture no further.

There was a glimmering spark of courage in his heart. He was surprised,
in recalling the conversation afterwards, to find how much of his plans
he had communicated to her during the ride, encouraged by the kindly
interest she manifested, and the sensible comments she uttered. Joe and
Jake, losing their mates at a cross-road, and finding Sally and Mark
Deane not very lively company for them, rode back and disturbed these
confidences, but not until they had drawn the two into a relation of
acknowledged mutual interest.

Martha Deane had always, as she confessed to Sally, _liked_ Gilbert
Potter; she liked every young man of character and energy; but now she
began to suspect that there was a rarer worth in his nature than she had
guessed. From that day he was more frequently the guest of her thoughts
than ever before. Instinct, in him, had performed the same service which
men of greater experience of the world would have reached through keen
perception and careful tact,--in confiding to her his position, his
labors and hopes, material as was the theme and seemingly unsuited to
the occasion, he had in reality appreciated the serious, reflective
nature underlying her girlish grace and gayety. What other young man of
her acquaintance, she asked herself, would have done the same thing?

When they reached Kennett Square, Mother Fairthorn urged Martha to
accompany them, and Sally impetuously seconded the invitation. Dr.
Deane’s horse was at his door, however, and his daughter, with her eyes
on Gilbert, as if saying “for my father’s sake,” steadfastly declined.
Mark, however, took her place, but there never had been, or could be,
too many guests at the Fairthorn table.

When they reached the garden-wall, Sally sprang from her horse with such
haste that her skirt caught on the pommel and left her hanging, being
made of stuff too stout to tear. It was well that Gilbert was near, on
the same side, and disengaged her in an instant; but her troubles did
not end here. As she bustled in and out of the kitchen, preparing the
dinner-table in the long sitting-room, the hooks and door-handles seemed
to have an unaccountable habit of thrusting themselves in her way, and
she was ready to cry at each glance of Mark’s laughing eyes. She
had never heard the German proverb, “who loves, teases,” and was too
inexperienced, as yet, to have discovered the fact for herself.

Presently they all sat down to dinner, and after the first solemn
quiet,--no one venturing to eat or speak until the plates of all had
been heaped with a little of everything upon the table,--the meal became
very genial and pleasant. A huge brown pitcher of stinging cider added
its mild stimulus to the calm country blood, and under its mellowing
influence Mark announced the most important fact of his life,--he was to
have the building of Hallowell’s barn.

As Gilbert and his mother rode homewards, that afternoon, neither spoke
much, but both felt, in some indefinite way, better prepared for the
life that lay before them.



CHAPTER VIII.

AT DR. DEANE’S.


As she dismounted on the large flat stone outside the paling, Martha
Deane saw her father’s face at the window. It was sterner and graver
than usual.

The Deane mansion stood opposite the Unicorn Tavern. When built, ninety
years previous, it had been considered a triumph of architecture; the
material was squared logs from the forest, dovetailed, and overlapping
at the corners, which had the effect of rustic quoins, as contrasted
with the front, which was plastered and yellow-washed. A small portico,
covered with a tangled mass of eglantine and coral honeysuckle, with a
bench at each end, led to the door; and the ten feet of space between
it and the front paling were devoted to flowers and rose-bushes. At each
corner of the front rose an old, picturesque, straggling cedar-tree.

There were two front doors, side by side,--one for the family
sitting-room, the other (rarely opened, except when guests arrived) for
the parlor. Martha Deane entered the former, and we will enter with her.

The room was nearly square, and lighted by two windows. On those sides
the logs were roughly plastered; on the others there were partitions of
panelled oak, nearly black with age and smoke, as were the heavy beams
of the same wood which formed the ceiling. In the corner of the room
next the kitchen there was an open Franklin stove,--an innovation at
that time,--upon which two or three hickory sticks were smouldering into
snowy ashes. The floor was covered with a country-made rag carpet,
in which an occasional strip of red or blue listing brightened the
prevailing walnut color of the woof. The furniture was simple and
massive, its only unusual feature being a tall cabinet with shelves
filled with glass jars, and an infinity of small drawers. A few bulky
volumes on the lower shelf constituted the medical library of Dr. Deane.

This gentleman was still standing at the window, with his hands clasped
across his back. His Quaker suit was of the finest drab broadcloth,
and the plain cravat visible above his high, straight waistcoat, was
of spotless cambric. His knee-and shoe-buckles were of the simplest
pattern, but of good, solid silver, and there was not a wrinkle in the
stockings of softest lamb’s-wool, which covered his massive calves.
There was always a faint odor of lavender, bergamot, or sweet marjoram
about him, and it was a common remark in the neighborhood that the sight
and smell of the Doctor helped a weak patient almost as much as his
medicines.

In his face there was a curious general resemblance to his daughter,
though the detached features were very differently formed. Large,
unsymmetrical, and somewhat coarse,--even for a man,--they derived much
of their effect from his scrupulous attire and studied air of wisdom.
His long gray hair was combed back, that no portion of the moderate
frontal brain might be covered; the eyes were gray rather than blue, and
a habit of concealment had marked its lines in the corners, unlike the
open, perfect frankness of his daughter’s. The principal resemblance was
in the firm, clear outline of the upper lip, which alone, in his face,
had it been supported by the under one, would have made him almost
handsome; but the latter was large and slightly hanging. There were
marked inconsistencies in his face, but this was no disadvantage in a
community unaccustomed to studying the external marks of character.

“Just home, father? How did thee leave Dinah Passmore?” asked Martha, as
she untied the strings of her beaver.

“Better,” he answered, turning from the window; “but, Martha, who did I
see thee riding with?”

“Does thee mean Gilbert Potter?”

“I do,” he said, and paused. Martha, with her cloak over her arm and
bonnet in her hand, in act to leave the room, waited, saying,--

“Well, father?”

So frank and serene was her bearing, that the old man felt both relieved
and softened.

“I suppose it happened so,” he said. “I saw his mother with Friend
Fairthorn. I only meant thee shouldn’t be seen in company with young
Potter, when thee could help it; thee knows what I mean.”

“I don’t think, father,” she slowly answered, “there is anything
against Gilbert Potter’s life or character, except that which is no just
reproach to _him_.”

“‘The sins of the parents shall be visited upon the children, even to
the third and fourth generation.’ That is enough, Martha.”

She went up to her room, meditating, with an earnestness almost equal
to Gilbert’s, upon this form of the world’s injustice, which he was
powerless to overcome. Her father shared it, and the fact did not
surprise her; but her independent spirit had already ceased to be
guided, in all things, by his views. She felt that the young man
deserved the respect and admiration which he had inspired in her mind,
and until a better reason could be discovered, she would continue so to
regard him. The decision was reached rapidly, and then laid aside for
any future necessity; she went down-stairs again in her usual quiet,
cheerful mood.

During her absence another conversation had taken place.

Miss Betsy Lavender (who was a fast friend of Martha, and generally
spent her Sundays at the Doctor’s,) was sitting before the stove, drying
her feet. She was silent until Martha left the room, when she suddenly
exclaimed:

“Doctor! Judge not that ye be not judged.”

“Thee may think as thee pleases, Betsy,” said he, rather sharply: “it’s
thy nature, I believe, to take everybody’s part.”

“Put yourself in his place,” she continued,--“remember them that’s in
bonds as bound with ‘em,--I disremember exackly how it goes, but no
matter: I say your way a’n’t right, and I’d say it seven times, if need
be! There’s no steadier nor better-doin’ young fellow in these parts
than Gilbert Potter. Ferris, down in Pennsbury, or Alf Barton, here, for
that matter, a’n’t to be put within a mile of him. I could say something
in Mary Potter’s behalf, too, but I won’t: for there’s Scribes and
Pharisees about.”

Dr. Deane did not notice this thrust: it was not his habit to get angry.
“Put _thyself_ in _my_ place, Betsy,” he said. “He’s a worthy young man,
in some respects, I grant thee, but would thee like _thy_ daughter to
be seen riding home beside him from Meeting? It’s one thing speaking for
thyself, and another for thy daughter.”

“Thy daughter!” she repeated. “Old or young can’t make any difference,
as I see.”

There was something else on her tongue, but she forcibly withheld the
words. She would not exhaust her ammunition until there was both a
chance and a necessity to do some execution. The next moment Martha
reentered the room.

After dinner, they formed a quiet group in the front sitting-room. Dr.
Deane, having no more visits to make that day, took a pipe of choice
tobacco,--the present of a Virginia Friend, whose acquaintance he had
made at Yearly Meeting,--and seated himself in the arm-chair beside the
stove. Martha, at the west window, enjoyed a volume of Hannah More, and
Miss Betsy, at the front window, labored over the Psalms. The sun shone
with dim, muffled orb, but the air without was mild, and there were
already brown tufts, which would soon be blossoms, on the lilac twigs.

Suddenly Miss Betsy lifted up her head and exclaimed, “Well, I never!”
 As she did so, there was a knock at the door.

“Come in!” said Dr. Deane, and in came Mr. Alfred Barton, resplendent
in blue coat, buff waistcoat, cambric ruffles, and silver-gilt buckles.
But, alas! the bunch of seals--topaz, agate, and cornelian--no longer
buoyed the deep-anchored watch. The money due his father had been
promptly paid, through the agency of a three-months’ promissory note,
and thus the most momentous result of the robbery was overcome. This
security for the future, however, scarcely consoled him for the painful
privation of the present. Without the watch, Alfred Barton felt that
much of his dignity and importance was lacking.

Dr. Deane greeted his visitor with respect, Martha with the courtesy due
to a guest, and Miss Betsy with the offhand, independent manner, under
which she masked her private opinions of the persons whom she met.

“Mark isn’t at home, I see,” said Mr. Barton, after having taken his
seat in the centre of the room: “I thought I’d have a little talk with
him about the wagon-house. I suppose he told you that I got Hallowell’s
new barn for him?”

“Yes, and we’re all greatly obliged to thee, as well as Mark,” said the
Doctor. “The two jobs make a fine start for a young mechanic, and I hope
he’ll do as well as he’s been done by: there’s luck in a good beginning.
By the bye, has thee heard anything more of Sandy Flash’s doings?”

Mr. Barton fairly started at this question. His own misfortune had been
carefully kept secret, and he could not suspect that the Doctor knew it;
but he nervously dreaded the sound of the terrible name.

“What is it?” he asked, in a faint voice.

“He has turned up in Bradford, this time, and they say has robbed Jesse
Frame, the Collector, of between four and five hundred dollars. The
Sheriff and a posse of men from the Valley hunted him for several days,
but found no signs. Some think he has gone up into the Welch Mountain;
but for my part, I should not be surprised if he were in this
neighborhood.”

“Good heavens!” exclaimed Mr. Barton, starting from his chair.

“Now’s your chance,” said Miss Betsy. “Git the young men together who
won’t feel afraid o’ bein’ twenty ag’in one: you know the holes and
corners where he’ll be likely to hide, and what’s to hinder you from
ketchin’ him?”

“But he must have many secret friends,” said Martha, “if what I have
heard is true,--that he has often helped a poor man with the money which
he takes only from the rich. You know he still calls himself a Tory, and
many of those whose estates have been confiscated, would not scruple to
harbor him, or even take his money.”

“Take his money. That’s a fact,” remarked Miss Betsy, “and now I
dunno whether I want him ketched. There’s worse men goin’ round, as
respectable as you please, stealin’ all their born days, only cunnin’ly
jukin’ round the law instead o’ buttin’ square through it. Why, old Liz
Williams, o’ Birmingham, herself told me with her own mouth, how she was
ridin’ home from Phildelphy market last winter, with six dollars, the
price of her turkeys--and General Washin’ton’s cook took one of ‘em, but
that’s neither here nor there--in her pocket, and fearful as death when
she come to Concord woods, and lo and behold! there she was overtook by
a fresh-complected man, and she begged him to ride with her, for she had
six dollars in her pocket and Sandy was known to be about. So he rode
with her to her very lane-end, as kind and civil a person as she ever
see, and then and there he said, ‘Don’t be afeard, Madam, for I, which
have seen you home, is Sandy Flash himself, and here’s somethin’ more
to remember me by,’--no sooner said than done, he put a gold guinea into
her hand, and left her there as petrified as Lot’s wife. Now _I_ say,
and it may be violation of the law, for all I know, but never mind,
that Sandy Flash has got one corner of his heart in the right place, no
matter where the others is. There’s honor even among thieves, they say.”

“Seriously, Alfred,” said Dr. Deane, cutting Miss Betsy short before she
had half expressed her sentiments, “it is time that something was done.
If Flash is not caught soon, we shall be overrun with thieves, and there
will be no security anywhere on the high roads, or in our houses. I
wish that men of influence in the neighborhood, like thyself, would come
together and plan, at least, to keep Kennett clear of him. Then other
townships may do the same, and so the thing be stopped. If I were
younger, and my practice were not so laborious, I would move in the
matter, but thee is altogether a more suitable person.”

“Do you think so?” Barton replied, with an irrepressible reluctance,
around which he strove to throw an air of modesty. “That would be the
proper way, certainly, but I,--I don’t know,--that is, I can’t flatter
myself that I’m the best man to undertake it.”

“It requires some courage, you know,” Martha remarked, and her glance
made him feel very uncomfortable, “and you are too dashing a
fox-hunter not to have that. Perhaps the stranger who rode with you to
Avondale--what was his name?--might be of service. If I were in your
place, I should be glad of a chance to incur danger for the good of the
neighborhood.”

Mr. Alfred Barton was on nettles. If there were irony in her words his
intellect was too muddy to detect it: her assumption of his courage
could only be accepted as a compliment, but it was the last compliment
he desired to have paid to himself, just at that time.

“Yes,” he said, with a forced laugh, rushing desperately into the
opposite extreme, “but the danger and the courage are not worth talking
about. Any man ought to be able to face a robber, single-handed, and as
for twenty men, why, when it’s once known, Sandy Flash will only be too
glad to keep away.”

“Then, do thee do what I’ve recommended. It may be, as thee says, that
the being prepared is all that is necessary,” remarked Dr. Deane.

Thus caught, Mr. Barton could do no less than acquiesce, and very much
to his secret dissatisfaction, the Doctor proceeded to name the young
men of the neighborhood, promising to summon such as lived on the lines
of his professional journeys, that they might confer with the leader of
the undertaking. Martha seconded the plan with an evident interest,
yet it did not escape her that neither her father nor Mr. Barton had
mentioned the name of Gilbert Potter.

“Is that all?” she asked, when a list of some eighteen persons had been
suggested. Involuntarily, she looked at Miss Betsy Lavender.

“No, indeed!” cried the latter. “There’s Jabez Travilla, up on the
ridge, and Gilbert Potter, down at the mill.”

“H’m, yes; what does thee say, Alfred?” asked the Doctor.

“They’re both good riders, and I think they have courage enough, but we
can never tell what a man is until he’s been tried. They would increase
the number, and that, it seems to me, is a consideration.”

“Perhaps thee had better exercise thy own judgment there,” the Doctor
observed, and the subject, having been as fully discussed as was
possible without consultation with other persons, it was dropped,
greatly to Barton’s relief.

But in endeavoring to converse with Martha he only exchanged one
difficulty for another. His vanity, powerful as it was, gave way before
that instinct which is the curse and torment of vulgar natures,--which
leaps into life at every contact of refinement, showing them the gulf
between, which they know not how to cross. The impudence, the aggressive
rudeness which such natures often exhibit, is either a mask to conceal
their deficiency, or an angry protest against it. Where there is a
drop of gentleness in the blood, it appreciates and imitates the higher
nature.

This was the feeling which made Alfred Barton uncomfortable in the
presence of Martha Deane,--which told him, in advance, that natures so
widely sundered, never could come into near relations with each other,
and thus quite neutralized the attraction of her beauty and her ten
thousand dollars. His game, however, was to pay court to her, and in
so pointed a way that it should be remarked and talked about in the
neighborhood. Let it once come through others to the old man’s ears,
he would have proved his obedience and could not be reproached if the
result were fruitless.

“What are you reading, Miss Martha?” he asked, after a long and somewhat
awkward pause.

She handed him the book in reply.

“Ah! Hannah More,--a friend of yours? Is she one of the West-Whiteland
Moores?”

Martha could not suppress a light, amused laugh, as she answered: “Oh,
no, she is an English woman.”

“Then it’s a Tory book,” said he, handing it back; “I wouldn’t read it,
if I was you.”

“It is a story, and I should think you might.”

He heard other words than those she spoke. “As Tory as--what?” he asked
himself. “As I am,” of course; that is what she means. “Old-man Barton”
 had been one of the disloyal purveyors for the British army during its
occupancy of Philadelphia in the winter of 1777-8, and though the main
facts of the traffic wherefrom he had drawn immense profits, never could
be proved against him, the general belief hung over the family, and made
a very disagreeable cloud. Whenever Alfred Barton quarrelled with any
one, the taunt was sure to be flung into his teeth. That it came now,
as he imagined, was as great a shock as if Martha had slapped him in the
face with her own delicate hand, and his visage reddened from the blow.

Miss Betsy Lavender, bending laboriously over the Psalms, nevertheless
kept her dull gray eyes in movement. She saw the misconception, and
fearing that Martha did not, made haste to remark:--

“Well, Mr. Alfred, and do _you_ think it’s a harm to read a story? Why,
Miss Ann herself lent me ‘Alonzo and Melissa,’ and ‘Midnight Horrors,’
and I’ll be bound you’ve read ‘em yourself on the sly. ‘T a’n’t much
other readin’ men does, save and except the weekly paper, and law enough
to git a tight hold on their debtors. Come, now, let’s know what you
_do_ read?”

“Not much of anything, that’s a fact,” he answered, recovering himself,
with a shudder at the fearful mistake he had been on the point of
making, “but I’ve nothing against women reading stories. I was rather
thinking of myself when I spoke to you, Miss Martha.”

“So I supposed,” she quietly answered. It was provoking. Everything
she said made him think there was another meaning behind the words;
her composed manner, though he knew it to be habitual, more and more
disconcerted him. Never did an intentional wooer find his wooing so
painful and laborious. After this attempt he addressed himself to Doctor
Deane, for even the question of circumventing Sandy Flash now presented
itself to his mind as a relief.

There he sat, and the conversation progressed in jerks and spirts,
between pauses of embarrassing silence. The sun hung on the western
hill in a web of clouds; Martha and Miss Betsy rose and prepared the
tea-table, and the guest, invited perforce, perforce accepted. Soon
after the meal was over, however, he murmured something about cattle,
took his hat and left.

Two or three horses were hitched before the Unicorn, and he saw some
figures through the bar-room window. A bright thought struck him; he
crossed the road and entered.

“Hallo, Alf! Where from now? Why, you’re as fine as a fiddler!” cried
Mr. Joel Ferris, who was fast becoming familiar, on the strength of his
inheritance.

“Over the way,” answered the landlord, with a wink and a jerk of his
thumb.

Mr. Ferris whistled, and one of the others suggested: “He must stand a
treat, on that.”

“But, I say!” said the former, “how is it you’re coming away so soon in
the evening?”

“I went very early in the afternoon,” Barton answered, with a
mysterious, meaning smile, as much as to say: “It’s all right; I know
what I’m about.” Then he added aloud,--“Step up, fellows; what’ll you
have?”

Many were the jests and questions to which he was forced to submit, but
he knew the value of silence in creating an impression, and allowed them
to enjoy their own inferences.

It is much easier to start a report, than to counteract it, when once
started; but the first, only, was his business.

It was late in the evening when he returned home, and the household
were in bed. Nevertheless, he did not enter by the back way, in
his stockings, but called Giles down from the garret to unlock the
front-door, and made as much noise as he pleased on his way to bed.

The old man heard it, and chuckled under his coverlet.



CHAPTER IX.

THE RAISING.


Steadily and serenely the Spring advanced. Old people shook their heads
and said: “It will be April, this year, that comes in like a lamb
and goes out like a lion,”--but it was not so. Soft, warm showers and
frostless nights repaid the trustfulness of the early-expanding buds,
and May came clothed completely in pale green, with a wreath of lilac
and hawthorn bloom on her brow. For twenty years no such perfect spring
had been known; and for twenty years afterwards the farmers looked back
to it as a standard of excellence, whereby to measure the forwardness of
their crops.

By the twentieth of April the young white-oak leaves were the size of
a squirrel’s ear,--the old Indian sign of the proper time for
corn-planting, which was still accepted by the new race, and the first
of May saw many fields already specked with the green points of the
springing blades. A warm, silvery vapor hung over the land, mellowing
the brief vistas of the interlacing valleys, touching with a sweeter
pastoral beauty the irregular alternation of field and forest, and
lifting the wooded slopes, far and near, to a statelier and more
imposing height. The park-like region of Kennett, settled originally by
emigrants from Bucks and Warwickshire, reproduced to their eyes--as it
does to this day--the characteristics of their original home, and
they transplanted the local names to which they were accustomed, and
preserved, even long after the War of Independence, the habits of their
rural ancestry. The massive stone farm-houses, the walled gardens,
the bountiful orchards, and, more than all, the well-trimmed hedges of
hawthorn and blackthorn dividing their fields, or bordering their roads
with the living wall, over which the clematis and wild-ivy love to
clamber, made the region beautiful to their eyes. Although the large
original grants, mostly given by the hand of William Penn, had been
divided and subdivided by three or four prolific generations, there was
still enough and to spare,--and even the golden promise held out by “the
Backwoods,” as the new States of Ohio and Kentucky were then called,
tempted very few to leave their homes.

The people, therefore, loved the soil and clung to it with a fidelity
very rare in any part of our restless nation. And, truly, no one who had
lived through the mild splendor of that spring, seeing, day by day,
the visible deepening of the soft woodland tints, hearing the cheerful
sounds of labor, far and wide, in the vapory air, and feeling at once
the repose and the beauty of such a quiet, pastoral life, could have
turned his back upon it, to battle with the inhospitable wilderness of
the West. Gilbert Potter had had ideas of a new home, to be created by
himself, and a life to which none should deny honor and respect: but now
he gave them up forever. There was a battle to be fought--better here
than elsewhere--here, where every scene was dear and familiar, and every
object that met his eye gave a mute, gentle sense of consolation.

Restless, yet cheery labor was now the order of life on the farm. From
dawn till dusk, Gilbert and Sam were stirring in field, meadow, and
garden, keeping pace with the season and forecasting what was yet to
come. Sam, although only fifteen, had a manly pride in being equal to
the duty imposed upon him by his master’s absence, and when the time
came to harness the wagon-team once more, the mother and son walked over
the fields together and rejoiced in the order and promise of the farm.
The influences of the season had unconsciously touched them both:
everything conspired to favor the fulfilment of their common plan, and,
as one went forward to the repetition of his tedious journeys back and
forth between Columbia and Newport, and the other to her lonely labor
in the deserted farm-house, the arches of bells over the collars of the
leaders chimed at once to the ears of both, an anthem of thanksgiving
and a melody of hope.

So May and the beginning of June passed away, and no important event
came to any character of this history. When Gilbert had delivered the
last barrels at Newport, and slowly cheered homewards his weary team, he
was nearly two hundred dollars richer than when he started, and--if we
must confess a universal if somewhat humiliating truth--so much the more
a man in courage and determination.

The country was now covered with the first fresh magnificence of summer.
The snowy pyramids of dog-wood bloom had faded, but the tulip trees were
tall cones of rustling green, lighted with millions of orange-colored
stars, and all the underwood beneath the hemlock-forests by the courses
of streams, was rosy with laurels and azaleas. The vernal-grass in the
meadows was sweeter than any garden-rose, and its breath met that of the
wild-grape in the thickets and struggled for preeminence of sweetness.
A lush, tropical splendor of vegetation, such as England never knew,
heaped the woods and hung the road-side with sprays which grew and
bloomed and wantoned, as if growth were a conscious joy, rather than
blind obedience to a law.

When Gilbert reached home, released from his labors abroad until
October, he found his fields awaiting their owner’s hand. His wheat hung
already heavy-headed, though green, and the grass stood so thick and
strong that it suggested the ripping music of the scythe-blade which
should lay it low. Sam had taken good care of the cornfield, garden, and
the cattle, and Gilbert’s few words of quiet commendation were a rich
reward for all his anxiety. His ambition was, to be counted “a full
hand,”--this was the _toga virilis,_ which, once entitled to wear, would
make him feel that he was any man’s equal.

Without a day’s rest, the labor commenced again, and the passion of
Gilbert’s heart, though it had only strengthened during his absence,
must be thrust aside until the fortune of his harvest was secured.

In the midst of the haying, however, came a message which he could not
disregard,--a hasty summons from Mark Deane, who, seeing Gilbert in the
upper hill-field, called from the road, bidding him to the raising of
Hallowell’s new barn, which was to take place on the following Saturday.
“Be sure and come!” were Mark’s closing words--“there’s to be both
dinner and supper, and the girls are to be on hand!”

It was the custom to prepare the complete frame of a barn--sills,
plates, girders, posts, and stays--with all their mortices and pins,
ready for erection, and then to summon all the able-bodied men of the
neighborhood to assist in getting the timbers into place. This service,
of course, was given gratuitously, and the farmer who received it could
do no less than entertain, after the bountiful manner of the country,
his helping neighbors, who therefore, although the occasion implied a
certain amount of hard work, were accustomed to regard it as a sort of
holiday, or merry-making. Their opportunities for recreation, indeed,
were so scanty, that a barn-raising, or a husking-party by moonlight,
was a thing to be welcomed.

Hallowell’s farm was just half-way between Gilbert’s and Kennett Square,
and the site of the barn had been well-chosen on a ridge, across the
road, which ran between it and the farm-house. The Hallowells were
what was called “good providers,” and as they belonged to the class of
outside Quakers, which we have already described, the chances were that
both music and dance would reward the labor of the day.

Gilbert, of course, could not refuse the invitation of so near a
neighbor, and there was a hope in his heart which made it welcome.
When the day came he was early on hand, heartily greeted by Mark, who
exclaimed,--“Give me a dozen more such shoulders and arms as yours, and
I’ll make the timbers spin!”

It was a bright, breezy day, making the wheat roll and the leaves
twinkle. Ranges of cumuli moved, one after the other, like heaps of
silvery wool, across the keen, dark blue of the sky. “A wonderful
hay-day,” the old farmers remarked, with a half-stifled sense of regret;
but the younger men had already stripped themselves to their shirts and
knee-breeches, and set to work with a hearty good-will. Mark, as friend,
half-host and commander, bore his triple responsibility with a mixture
of dash and decision, which became his large frame and ruddy, laughing
face. It was--really, and not in an oratorical sense,--the proudest day
of his life.

There could be no finer sight than that of these lithe, vigorous
specimens of a free, uncorrupted manhood, taking like sport the rude
labor which was at once their destiny and their guard of safety against
the assaults of the senses. As they bent to their work, prying, rolling,
and lifting the huge sills to their places on the foundation-wall, they
showed in every movement the firm yet elastic action of muscles equal
to their task. Though Hallowell’s barn did not rise, like the walls of
Ilium, to music, a fine human harmony aided in its construction.

There was a plentiful supply of whiskey on hand, but Mark Deane assumed
the charge of it, resolved that no accident or other disturbance should
mar the success of this, his first raising. Everything went well, and
by the time they were summoned to dinner, the sills and some of the
uprights were in place, properly squared and tied.

It would require a Homeric catalogue to describe the dinner. To say that
the table “groaned,” is to give no idea of its condition. Mrs. Hallowell
and six neighbors’ wives moved from kitchen to dining-room, replenishing
the dishes as fast as their contents diminished, and plying the double
row of coatless guests with a most stern and exacting hospitality. The
former would have been seriously mortified had not each man endeavored
to eat twice his usual requirement.

After the slight rest which nature enforced--though far less than
nature demanded, after such a meal--the work went on again with greater
alacrity, since every timber showed. Rib by rib the great frame grew,
and those perched aloft, pinning the posts and stays, rejoiced in the
broad, bright landscape opened to their view. They watched the roads,
in the intervals of their toil, and announced the approach of delayed
guests, all alert for the sight of the first riding-habit.

Suddenly two ladies made their appearance, over the rise of the hill,
one cantering lightly and securely, the other bouncing in her seat, from
the rough trot of her horse.

“Look out! there they come!” cried a watcher.

“Who is it?” was asked from below.

“Where’s Barton? He ought to be on hand,--it’s Martha Deane,--and Sally
with her; they always ride together.”

Gilbert had one end of a handspike, helping lift a heavy piece of
timber, and his face was dark with the strain; it was well that he dared
not let go until the lively gossip which followed Barton’s absence,--the
latter having immediately gone forward to take charge of the
horses,--had subsided. Leaning on the handspike, he panted,--not
entirely from fatigue. A terrible possibility of loss flashed suddenly
across his mind, revealing to him, in a new light, the desperate force
and desire of his love.

There was no time for meditation; his help was again wanted, and he
expended therein the first hot tumult of his heart. By ones and twos the
girls now gathered rapidly, and erelong they came out in a body to have
a look at the raising. Their coming in no wise interrupted the labor;
it was rather an additional stimulus, and the young men were right.
Although they were not aware of the fact, they were never so handsome
in their uneasy Sunday costume and awkward social ways, as thus in
their free, joyous, and graceful element of labor. Greetings were
interchanged, laughter and cheerful nothings animated the company, and
when Martha Deane said,--

“We may be in the way, now--shall we go in?”

Mark responded,--

“No, Martha! No, girls! I’ll get twice as much work out o’ my
twenty-five ‘jours,’ if you’ll only stand where you are and look at
‘em.”

“Indeed!” Sally Fairthorn exclaimed. “But we have work to do as well as
you. If you men can’t get along without admiring spectators, we girls
can.”

The answer which Mark would have made to this pert speech was cut short
by a loud cry of pain or terror from the old half-dismantled barn on the
other side of the road. All eyes were at once turned in that direction,
and beheld Joe Fairthorn rushing at full speed down the bank, making
for the stables below. Mark, Gilbert Potter, and Sally, being nearest,
hastened to the spot.

“You’re in time!” cried Joe, clapping his hands in great glee. “I was
awfully afeard he’d let go before I could git down to see him fall. Look
quick--he can’t hold on much longer!”

Looking into the dusky depths, they saw Jake, hanging by his hands to
the edges of a hole in the floor above, yelling and kicking for dear
life.

“You wicked, wicked boy!” exclaimed Sally, turning to Joe, “what have
you been doing?”

“Oh,” he answered, jerking and twisting with fearful delight, “there was
such a nice hole in the floor! I covered it all over with straw, but
I had to wait ever so long before Jake stepped onto it, and then he
ketched hold goin’ down, and nigh spoilt the fun.”

Gilbert made for the barn-floor, to succor the helpless victim; but
just as his step was heard on the boards, Jake’s strength gave way.
His fingers slipped, and with a last howl down he dropped, eight or ten
feet, upon a bed of dry manure. Then his terror was instantly changed
to wrath; he bounced upon his feet, seized a piece of rotten board, and
made after Joe, who, anticipating the result, was already showing his
heels down the road.

Meanwhile the other young ladies had followed, and so, after discussing
the incident with a mixture of amusement and horror, they betook
themselves to the house, to assist in the preparations for supper.
Martha Deane’s eyes took in the situation, and immediately perceived
that it was capable of a picturesque improvement. In front of the house
stood a superb sycamore, beyond which a trellis of grape-vines divided
the yard from the kitchen-garden. Here, on the cool green turf, under
shade, in the bright summer air, she proposed that the tables should
be set, and found little difficulty in carrying her point. It was quite
convenient to the outer kitchen door, and her ready invention found
means of overcoming all other technical objections. Erelong the tables
were transported to the spot, the cloth laid, and the aspect of the
coming entertainment grew so pleasant to the eye, that there was a
special satisfaction in the labor.

An hour before sundown the frame was completed; the skeleton of the
great barn rose sharp against the sky, its fresh white-oak timber gilded
by the sunshine. Mark drove in the last pin, gave a joyous shout, which
was answered by an irregular cheer from below, and lightly clambered
down by one of the stays. Then the black jugs were produced, and passed
from mouth to mouth, and the ruddy, glowing young fellows drew their
shirt-sleeves across their faces, and breathed the free, full breath of
rest.

Gilbert Potter, sitting beside Mark,--the two were mutually drawn
towards each other, without knowing or considering why,--had gradually
worked himself into a resolution to be cool, and to watch the movements
of his presumed rival. More than once, during the afternoon, he had
detected Barton’s eyes, fixed upon him with a more than accidental
interest; looking up now, he met them again, but they were quickly
withdrawn, with a shy, uneasy expression, which he could not comprehend.
Was it possible that Barton conjectured the carefully hidden secret of
his heart? Or had the country gossip been free with his name, in some
way, during his absence? Whatever it was, the dearer interests at stake
prevented him from dismissing it from his mind. He was preternaturally
alert, suspicious, and sensitive.

He was therefore a little startled, when, as they were all rising in
obedience to Farmer Hallowell’s summons to supper, Barton suddenly took
hold of his arm.

“Gilbert,” said he, “we want your name in a list of young men we are
getting together, for the protection of our neighborhood. There are
suspicions, you know, that Sandy Flash has some friends hereabouts,
though nobody seems to know exactly who they are; and our only safety
is in clubbing together, to smoke him out and hunt him down, if he ever
comes near us. Now, you’re a good hunter”--

“Put me down, of course!” Gilbert interrupted, immensely relieved to
find how wide his suspicions had fallen from the mark. “That would be a
more stirring chase than our last; it is a shame and a disgrace that he
is still at large.”

“How many have we now?” asked Mark, who was walking on the other side of
Barton.

“Twenty-one, with Gilbert,” the latter replied.

“Well, as Sandy is said to count equal to twenty, we can meet him
evenly, and have one to spare,” laughed Mark.

“Has any one here ever seen the fellow?” asked Gilbert. “We ought to
know his marks.”

“He’s short, thick-set, with a red face, jet-black hair, add heavy
whiskers,” said Barton.

“Jet-black hair!” Mark exclaimed; “why, it’s red as brick-dust! And I
never heard that he wore whiskers.”

“Pshaw! what was I thinking of? Red, of course--I meant red, all the
time,” Barton hastily assented, inwardly cursing himself for a fool. It
was evident that the less he conversed about Sandy Flash, the better.

Loud exclamations of surprise and admiration interrupted them. In the
shade of the sycamore, on the bright green floor of the silken turf,
stood the long supper-table, snowily draped, and heaped with the richest
products of cellar, kitchen, and dairy. Twelve chickens, stewed in
cream, filled huge dishes at the head and foot, while hams and rounds
of cold roast-beef accentuated the space between. The interstices were
filled with pickles, pies, jars of marmalade, bowls of honey, and plates
of cheese. Four coffee-pots steamed in readiness on a separate table,
and the young ladies, doubly charming in their fresh white aprons, stood
waiting to serve the tired laborers. Clumps of crown-roses, in blossom,
peered over the garden-paling, the woodbine filled the air with its
nutmeg odors, and a broad sheet of sunshine struck the upper boughs
of the arching sycamore, and turned them into a gilded canopy for the
banquet. It might have been truly said of Martha Deane, that she touched
nothing which she did not adorn.

In the midst of her duties as directress of the festival, she caught a
glimpse of the three men, as they approached together, somewhat in
the rear of the others. The embarrassed flush had not quite faded from
Barton’s face, and Gilbert’s was touched by a lingering sign of his new
trouble. Mark, light-hearted and laughing, precluded the least idea of
mystery, but Gilbert’s eye met hers with what she felt to be a painfully
earnest, questioning expression. The next moment they were seated at the
table, and her services were required on behalf of all.

Unfortunately for the social enjoyments of Kennett, eating had come to
be regarded as a part of labor; silence and rapidity were its principal
features. Board and platter were cleared in a marvellously short time,
the plates changed, the dishes replenished, and then the wives and
maidens took the places of the young men, who lounged off to the
road-side, some to smoke their pipes, and all to gossip.

Before dusk, Giles made his appearance, with an old green bag under his
arm. Barton, of course, had the credit of this arrangement, and it made
him, for the time, very popular. After a pull at the bottle, Giles began
to screw his fiddle, drawing now and then unearthly shrieks from its
strings. The more eager of the young men thereupon stole to the house,
assisted in carrying in the tables and benches, and in other ways busied
themselves to bring about the moment when the aprons of the maidens
could be laid aside, and their lively feet given to the dance. The moon
already hung over the eastern wood, and a light breeze blew the dew-mist
from the hill.

Finally, they were all gathered on the open bit of lawn between the
house and the road. There was much hesitation at first, ardent coaxing
and bashful withdrawal, until Martha broke the ice by boldly choosing
Mark as her partner, apportioning Sally to Gilbert, and taking her place
for a Scotch reel. She danced well and lightly, though in a more subdued
manner than was then customary. In this respect, Gilbert resembled
her; his steps, gravely measured, though sufficiently elastic, differed
widely from Mark’s springs, pigeon-wings, and curvets. Giles played with
a will, swaying head and fiddle up and down and beating time with his
foot; and the reel went off so successfully that there was no hesitation
in getting up the next dance.

Mark was alert, and secured Sally this time. Perhaps Gilbert would have
made the like exchange, but Mr. Alfred Barton stepped before him, and
bore off Martha. There was no appearance of design about the matter, but
Gilbert felt a hot tingle in his blood, and drew back a little to watch
the pair. Martha moved through the dance as if but half conscious of her
partner’s presence, and he seemed more intent on making the proper
steps and flourishes than on improving the few brief chances for a
confidential word. When he spoke, it was with the unnecessary laugh,
which is meant to show ease of manner, and betrays the want of it.
Gilbert was puzzled; either the two were unconscious of the gossip which
linked their names so intimately, (which seemed scarcely possible,) or
they were studiedly concealing an actual tender relation. Among those
simple-hearted people, the shyness of love rivalled the secrecy of
crime, and the ways by which the lover sought to assure himself of his
fortune were made very difficult by the shrinking caution with which he
concealed the evidence of his passion. Gilbert knew how well the secret
of his own heart was guarded, and the reflection, that others might be
equally inscrutable, smote him with sudden pain.

The figures moved before him in the splendid moonlight, and with every
motion of Martha’s slender form the glow of his passion and the torment
of his uncertainty increased. Then the dance dissolved, and while he
still stood with folded arms, Sally Fairthorn’s voice whispered eagerly
in his ear,--

“Gilbert--Gilbert! now is your chance to engage Martha for the Virginia
reel!”

“Let me choose my own partners, Sally!” he said, so sternly, that she
opened wide her black eyes.

Martha, fanning herself with her handkerchief spread over a bent
willow-twig, suddenly passed before him, like an angel in the moonlight.
A soft, tender star sparkled in each shaded eye, a faint rose-tint
flushed her cheeks, and her lips, slightly parted to inhale the
clover-scented air, were touched with a sweet, consenting smile.

“Martha!”

The word passed Gilbert’s lips almost before he knew he had uttered it.
Almost a whisper, but she heard, and, pausing, turned towards him.

“Will you dance with me now?”

“Am I your choice, or Sally’s, Gilbert? I overheard your very
independent remark.”

“Mine!” he said, with only half truth. A deep color, shot into his face,
and he knew the moonlight revealed it, but he forced his eyes to meet
hers. Her face lost its playful expression, and she said, gently,--

“Then I accept.”

They took their places, and the interminable Virginia reel--under which
name the old-fashioned Sir Roger de Coverley was known--commenced. It
so happened that Gilbert and Mr. Alfred Barton had changed their recent
places. The latter stood outside the space allotted to the dance, and
appeared to watch Martha Deane and her new partner. The reviving warmth
in Gilbert’s bosom instantly died, and gave way to a crowd of torturing
conjectures. He went through his part in the dance so abstractedly,
that when they reached the bottom of the line, Martha, out of friendly
consideration for him, professed fatigue and asked his permission to
withdraw from the company. He gave her his arm, and they moved to one of
the benches.

“You, also, seem tired, Gilbert,” she said.

“Yes--no!” he answered, confusedly, feeling that he was beginning to
tremble. He stood before her as she sat, moved irresolutely,
as if to leave, and then, facing her with a powerful effort,
heexclaimed,--“Martha, do you know what people say about Alfred Barton
and yourself?”

“It would make no difference if I did,” she answered; “people will say
anything.”

“But is it--is it true?”

“Is what true?” she quietly asked.

“That he is to marry you!” The words were said, and he would have given
his life to recall them. He dropped his head, not daring to meet her
eyes.

Martha Deane rose to her feet, and stood before him. Then he lifted his
head; the moon shone full upon it, while her face was in shadow, but he
saw the fuller light of her eye, the firmer curve of her lip.

“Gilbert Potter,” she said, “what right have you to ask me such a
question?”

“I have no right--none,” he answered, in a voice whose suppressed, husky
tones were not needed to interpret the pain and bitterness of his face.
Then he quickly turned away and left her.

Martha Deane remained a minute, motionless, standing as he left her. Her
heart was beating fast, and she could not immediately trust herself to
rejoin the gay company. But now the dance was over, and the inseparable
Sally hastened forward.

“Martha!” cried the latter, hot and indignant, “what is the matter with
Gilbert? He is behaving shamefully; I saw him just now turn away from
you as if you were a--a shock of corn. And the way he snapped me up--it
is really outrageous!”

“It _seems_ so, truly,” said Martha. But she knew that Gilbert Potter
loved her, and with what a love.



CHAPTER X.

THE RIVALS.


Due to the abundant harvest of that year, and the universal need of
extra labor for a time, Gilbert Potter would have found his burden too
heavy, but for welcome help from an unexpected quarter. On the very
morning that he first thrust his sickle into the ripened wheat, Deb
Smith made her appearance, in a short-armed chemise and skirt of
tow-cloth.

“I knowed ye’d want a hand,” she said, “without sendin’ to ask. I’ll
reap ag’inst the best man in Chester County, and you won’t begrudge me
my bushel o’ wheat a day, when the harvest’s in.”

With this exordium, and a pull at the black jug under the elder-bushes
in the fence-corner, she took her sickle and bent to work. It was her
boast that she could beat both men and women on their own ground. She
had spun her twenty-four cuts of yarn, in a day, and husked her fifty
shocks of heavy corn. For Gilbert she did her best, amazing him each day
with a fresh performance, and was well worth the additional daily quart
of whiskey which she consumed.

In this pressing, sweltering labor, Gilbert dulled, though he could not
conquer, his unhappy mood. Mary Potter, with a true mother’s instinct,
surmised a trouble, but the indications were too indefinite for
conjecture. She could only hope that her son had not been called upon
to suffer a fresh reproach, from the unremoved stain hanging over his
birth.

Miss Betsy Lavender’s company at this time was her greatest relief, in
a double sense. No ten persons in Kennett possessed half the amount of
confidences which were intrusted to this single lady; there was that in
her face which said: “I only blab what I choose, and what’s locked up,
_is_ locked up.” This was true; she was the greatest distributor of
news, and the closest receptacle of secrets--anomalous as the two
characters may seem--that ever blessed a country community.

Miss Betsy, like Deb Smith, knew that she could be of service on the
Potter farm, and, although her stay was perforce short, on account of an
approaching house-warming near Doe-Run, her willing arms helped to tide
Mary Potter over the heaviest labor of harvest. There were thus hours of
afternoon rest, even in the midst of the busy season, and during one
of these the mother opened her heart in relation to her son’s silent,
gloomy moods.

“You’ll perhaps say it’s all my fancy, Betsy,” she said, “and indeed I
hope it is; but I know you see more than most people, and two heads are
better than one. How does Gilbert seem to you?”

Miss Betsy mused awhile, with an unusual gravity on her long face. “I
dunno,” she remarked, at length; “I’ve noticed that some men have their
vapors and tantrums, jist as some women have, and Gilbert’s of an age
to--well, Mary, has the thought of his marryin’ ever come into your
head?”

“No!” exclaimed Mary Potter, with almost a frightened air.

“I’ll be bound! Some women are lookin’ out for daughter-in-laws before
their sons have a beard, and others think theirs is only fit to wear
short jackets when they ought to be raisin’ up families. I dunno but
what it’ll be a cross to you, Mary,--you set so much store by Gilbert,
and it’s natural, like, that you should want to have him all to
y’rself,--but a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave unto
his wife,--or somethin’ like it. Yes, I say it, although nobody clove
unto me.”

Mary Potter said nothing. Her face grew very pale, and such an
expression of pain came into it that Miss Betsy, who saw everything
without seeming to look at anything, made haste to add a consoling word.

“Indeed, Mary,” she said, “now I come to consider upon it, you won’t
have so much of a cross. You a’n’t the mother you’ve showed yourself to
be, if you’re not anxious to see Gilbert happy, and as for leavin’
his mother, there’ll be no leavin’ needful, in his case, but on the
contrary, quite the reverse, namely, a comin’ to you. And it’s no bad
fortin’, though I can’t say it of my own experience; but never mind, all
the same, I’ve seen the likes--to have a brisk, cheerful daughter-in-law
keepin’ house, and you a-settin’ by the window, knittin’ and restin’
from mornin’ till night, and maybe little caps and clothes to make, and
lots o’ things to teach, that young wives don’t know o’ theirselves. And
then, after awhile you’ll be called ‘Granny,’ but you won’t mind it, for
grandchildren’s a mighty comfort, and no responsibility like your own.
Why, I’ve knowed women that never seen what rest or comfort was, till
they’d got to be grandmothers!”

Something in this homely speech touched Mary Potter’s heart, and gave
her the relief of tears. “Betsy,” she said at last, “I have had a heavy
burden to bear, and it has made me weak.”

“Made me weak,” Miss Betsy repeated. “And no wonder. Don’t think I can’t
guess that, Mary.”

Here two tears trickled down the ridge of her nose, and she furtively
wiped them off while adjusting her high comb. Mary Potter’s face was
turned towards her with a wistful, appealing expression, which she
understood.

“Mary,” she said, “I don’t measure people with a two-foot rule. I take a
ten-foot pole, and let it cover all that comes under it. Them that does
their dooty to Man, I guess you won’t have much trouble in squarin’
accounts with the Lord. You know how I feel towards you without my
tellin’ of it, and them that’s quick o’ the tongue are always full o’
the heart. Now, Mary, I know as plain as if you ‘d said it, that there’s
somethin’ on your mind, and you dunno whether to share it with me
or not. What I say is, don’t hurry yourself; I ‘d rather show
fellow-feelin’ than cur’osity; so, see your way clear first, and when
the tellin’ _me_ anything can help, tell it--not before.”

“It wouldn’t help now,” Mary Potter responded.

“Wouldn’t help now. Then wait awhile. Nothin’ ‘s so dangerous as
speakin’ before the time, whomsoever and wheresoever. Folks talk o’
bridlin’ the tongue; let ‘em git a blind halter, say I, and a curb-bit,
and a martingale! Not that I set an example, Goodness knows, for mine
runs like a mill-clapper, rickety-rick, rickety-rick; but never mind, it
may be fast, but it isn’t loose!”

In her own mysterious way, Miss Betsy succeeded in imparting a good
deal of comfort to Mary Potter. She promised “to keep Gilbert under her
eyes,”--which, indeed, she did, quite unconsciously to himself, during
the last two days of her stay. At table she engaged him in conversation,
bringing in references, in the most wonderfully innocent and random
manner, to most of the families in the neighborhood. So skilfully did
she operate that even Mary Potter failed to perceive her strategy. Deb
Smith, sitting bare-armed on the other side of the table, and eating
like six dragoons, was the ostensible target of her speech, and
Gilbert was thus stealthily approached in flank. When she tied her
bonnet-strings to leave, and the mother accompanied her to the gate, she
left this indefinite consolation behind her:

“Keep up your sperrits, Mary. I think I’m on the right scent about
Gilbert, but these young men are shy foxes. Let me alone, awhile yet,
and whatever you do, let _him_ alone. There’s no danger--not even a
snarl, I guess. Nothin’ to bother your head about. You weren’t his
mother. Good lack! if I’m right, you’ll see no more o’ his tantrums in
two months’ time--and so, good-bye to you!”

The oats followed close upon the wheat harvest, and there was no respite
from labor until the last load was hauled into the barn, filling its
ample bays to the very rafters. Then Gilbert, mounted on his favorite
Roger, rode up to Kennett Square one Saturday afternoon, in obedience to
a message from Mr. Alfred Barton, informing him that the other gentlemen
would there meet to consult measures for mutual protection against
highwaymen in general and Sandy Flash in particular. As every young
man in the neighborhood owned his horse and musket, nothing more was
necessary than to adopt a system of action.

The meeting was held in the bar-room of the Unicorn, and as every second
man had his own particular scheme to advocate, it was both long and
noisy. Many thought the action unnecessary, but were willing, for the
sake of the community, to give their services. The simplest plan--to
choose a competent leader, and submit to his management--never occurred
to these free and independent volunteers, until all other means of unity
had failed. Then Alfred Barton, as the originator of the measure,
was chosen, and presented the rude but sufficient plan which had been
suggested to him by Dr. Deane. The men were to meet every Saturday
evening at the Unicorn, and exchange intelligence; but they could be
called together at any time by a summons from Barton. The landlord
of the Unicorn was highly satisfied with this arrangement, but no one
noticed the interest with which the ostler, an Irishman named Dougherty,
listened to the discussion.

Barton’s horse was hitched beside Gilbert’s, and as the two were
mounting, the former said,--

“If you’re going home, Gilbert, why not come down our lane, and go
through by Carson’s. We can talk the matter over a little; if there’s
any running to do, I depend a good deal on your horse.”

Gilbert saw no reason for declining this invitation, and the two rode
side by side down the lane to the Barton farm-house. The sun was still
an hour high, but a fragrant odor of broiled herring drifted out of the
open kitchen-window. Barton thereupon urged him to stop and take supper,
with a cordiality which we can only explain by hinting at his secret
intention to become the purchaser of Gilbert’s horse.

“Old-man Barton” was sitting in his arm-chair by the window, feebly
brandishing his stick at the flies, and watching his daughter Ann, as
she transferred the herrings from the gridiron to a pewter platter.

“Father, this is Gilbert Potter,” said Mr. Alfred, introducing his
guest.

The bent head was lifted with an effort, and the keen eyes were fixed on
the young man, who came forward to take the crooked, half-extended hand.

“What Gilbert Potter?” he croaked.

Mr. Alfred bit his lips, and looked both embarrassed and annoyed. But he
could do no less than say,--

“Mary Potter’s son.”

Gilbert straightened himself proudly, as if to face a coming insult.
After a long, steady gaze, the old man gave one of his hieroglyphic
snorts, and then muttered to him self,--“Looks like her.”

During the meal, he was so occupied with the labor of feeding himself,
that he seemed to forget Gilbert’s presence. Bending his head sideways,
from time to time, he jerked out a croaking question, which his son,
whatever annoyance he might feel, was forced to answer according to the
old man’s humor.

“In at the Doctor’s, boy?”

“A few minutes, daddy, before we came together.”

“See her? Was she at home?”

“Yes,” came very shortly from Mr. Alfred’s lips; he clenched his fists
under the table-cloth.

“That’s right, boy; stick up to her!” and he chuckled and munched
together in a way which it made Gilbert sick to hear. The tail of the
lean herring on his plate remained untasted; he swallowed the thin tea
which Miss Ann poured out, and the heavy “half-Indian” bread with a
choking sensation. He had but one desire,--to get away from the room,
out of human sight and hearing.

Barton, ill at ease, and avoiding Gilbert’s eye, accompanied him to the
lane. He felt that the old man’s garrulity ought to be explained, but
knew not what to say. Gilbert spared him the trouble--

“When are we to wish you joy, Barton?” he asked, in a cold, hard voice.

Barton laughed in a forced way, clutched at his tawny whisker, and with
something like a flush on his heavy face, answered in what was meant to
be an indifferent tone:

“Oh, it’s a joke of the old man’s--don’t mean anything.”

“It seems to be a joke of the whole neighborhood, then; I have heard it
from others.”

“Have you?” Barton eagerly asked. “Do people talk about it much? What do
they say?”

This exhibition of vulgar vanity, as he considered it, was so repulsive
to Gilbert, in his desperate, excited condition, that for a moment he
did not trust himself to speak. Holding the bridle of his horse, he
walked mechanically down the slope, Barton following him.

Suddenly he stopped, faced the latter, and said, in a stern voice: “I
must know, first, whether you are betrothed to Martha Deane.”

His manner was so unexpectedly solemn and peremptory that Barton,
startled from his self-possession, stammered,--

“N-no: that is, not yet.”

Another pause. Barton, curious to know how far gossip had already gone,
repeated the question:

“Well, what do people say?”

“Some, that you and she will be married,” Gilbert answered, speaking
slowly and with difficulty, “and some that you won’t. Which are right?”

“Damme, if _I_ know!” Barton exclaimed, returning to his customary
swagger. It was quite enough that the matter was generally talked about,
and he had said nothing to settle it, in either way. But his manner,
more than his words, convinced Gilbert that there was no betrothal as
yet, and that the vanity of being regarded as the successful suitor of a
lovely girl had a more prominent place than love, in his rival’s heart.
By so much was his torture lightened, and the passion of the moment
subsided, after having so nearly betrayed itself.

“I say, Gilbert,” Barton presently remarked, walking on towards the bars
which led into the meadow-field; “it’s time you were looking around in
that way, hey?”

“It will be time enough when I am out of debt.”

“But you ought, now, to have a wife in your house.”

“I have a mother, Barton.”

“That’s true, Gilbert. Just as I have a father. The old man’s queer, as
you saw--kept me out of marrying; when I was young, and now drives me to
it. I might ha’ had children grown”--

He paused, laying his hand on the young man’s shoulder. Gilbert fancied
that he saw on Barton’s coarse, dull face the fleeting stamp of some
long-buried regret, and a little of the recent bitterness died out of
his heart.

“Good-bye!” he said, offering his hand with greater ease than he would
have thought possible, fifteen minutes sooner.

“Good-bye, Gilbert! Take care of Roger. Sandy Flash has a fine piece of
horse-flesh, but you beat him once--Damnation! You _could_ beat him, I
mean. If he comes within ten miles of us, I’ll have the summonses out in
no time.”

Gilbert cantered lightly down the meadow. The soft breath of the summer
evening fanned his face, and something of the peace expressed in the
rich repose of the landscape fell upon his heart. But peace, he felt,
could only come to him through love. The shame upon his name--the slow
result of labor--even the painful store of memories which the years had
crowded in his brain--might all be lightly borne, or forgotten, could
his arms once clasp the now uncertain treasure. A tender mist came over
his deep, dark eyes, a passionate longing breathed in his softened lips,
and he said to himself,--

“I would lie down and die at her feet, if that could make her happy; but
how to live, and live without her?” This was a darkness which his mind
refused to entertain. Love sees no justice on Earth or in Heaven, that
includes not its own fulfilled desire.

Before reaching home, he tried to review the situation calmly. Barton’s
true relation to Martha Deane he partially suspected, so far as regarded
the former’s vanity and his slavish subservience to his father’s will;
but he was equally avaricious, and it was well known in Kennett that
Martha possessed, or would possess, a handsome property in her own
right. Gilbert, therefore, saw every reason to believe that Barton was
an actual, if not a very passionate wooer.

That fact, however, was in itself of no great importance, unless Dr.
Deane favored the suit. The result depended on Martha herself; she was
called an “independent girl,” which she certainly was, by contrast with
other girls of the same age. It was this free, firm, independent, yet
wholly womanly spirit which Gilbert honored in her, and which (unless
her father’s influence were too powerful) would yet save her to him, if
she but loved him. Then he felt that his nervous, inflammable fear of
Barton was incompatible with true honor for her, with trust in her pure
and lofty nature. If she were so easily swayed, how could she stand
the test which he was still resolved--nay, forced by circumstances--to
apply?

With something like shame of his past excitement, yet with strength
which had grown out of it, his reflections were terminated by Roger
stopping at the barn-yard gate.



CHAPTER XI.

GUESTS AT POTTER’S.


A week or two later, there was trouble, but not of a very unusual kind,
in the Fairthorn household. It was Sunday, the dinner was on the table,
but Joe and Jake were not to be found. The garden, the corn-crib, the
barn, and the grove below the house, were searched, without detecting
the least sign of the truants. Finally Sally’s eyes descried a
remarkable object moving over the edge of the hill, from the direction
of the Philadelphia road. It was a huge round creature, something like a
cylindrical tortoise, slowly advancing upon four short, dark legs.

“What upon earth is that?” she cried.

All eyes were brought to bear upon this phenomenon, which gradually
advanced until it reached the fence. Then it suddenly separated into
three parts, the round back falling off, whereupon it was seized by two
figures and lifted upon the fence.

“It’s the best wash-tub, I do declare!” said Sally; “whatever have they
been doing with it?”

Having crossed the fence, the boys lifted the inverted tub over their
heads, and resumed their march. When they came near enough, it could be
seen that their breeches and stockings were not only dripping wet,
but streaked with black swamp-mud. This accounted for the unsteady,
hesitating course of the tub, which at times seemed inclined to approach
the house, and then tacked away towards the corner of the barn-yard
wall. A few vigorous calls, however, appeared to convince it that the
direct course was the best, for it set out with a grotesque bobbing
trot, which brought it speedily to the kitchen-door.

Then Joe and Jake crept out, dripping to the very crowns of their heads,
with their Sunday shirts and jackets in a horrible plight. The truth,
slowly gathered from their mutual accusations, was this: they had
resolved to have a boating excursion on Redley Creek, and had abstracted
the tub that morning when nobody was in the kitchen. Slipping down
through the wood, they had launched it in a piece of still water. Joe
got in first, and when Jake let go of the tub, it tilted over; then he
held it for Jake, who squatted in the centre, and floated successfully
down the stream until Joe pushed him with a pole, and made the tub lose
its balance. Jake fell into the mud, and the tub drifted away; they had
chased it nearly to the road before they recovered it.

“You bad boys, what shall I do with you?” cried Mother Fairthorn. “Put
on your every-day clothes, and go to the garret. Sally, you can ride
down to Potter’s with the pears; they won’t keep, and I expect Gilbert
has no time to come for any, this summer.”

“I’ll go,” said Sally, “but Gilbert don’t deserve it. The way he snapped
me up at Hallowell’s--and he hasn’t been here since!”

“Don’t be hard on him, Sally!” said the kindly old woman; nor was
Sally’s more than a surface grudge. She had quite a sisterly affection
for Gilbert, and was rather hurt than angered by what he had said in the
fret of a mood which she could not comprehend.

The old mare rejoiced in a new bridle, with a head-stall of scarlet
morocco, and Sally would have made a stately appearance, but for the
pears, which, stowed in the two ends of a grain-bag, and hung over the
saddle, would not quite be covered by her riding-skirt. She trudged on
slowly, down the lonely road, but had barely crossed the level below
Kennett Square, when there came a quick sound of hoofs behind her.

It was Mark and Martha Deane, who presently drew rein, one on either
side of her.

“Don’t ride fast, please,” Sally begged; “_I_ can’t, for fear of
smashing the pears. Where are you going?”

“To Falconer’s,” Martha replied; “Fanny promised to lend me some new
patterns; but I had great trouble in getting Mark to ride with me.”

“Not, if you will ride along, Sally,” Mark rejoined. “We’ll go with you
first, and then you’ll come with us. What do you say, Martha?”

“I’ll answer for Martha!” cried Sally; “I am going to Potter’s, and it’s
directly on your way.”

“Just the thing,” said Mark; “I have a little business with Gilbert.”

It was all settled before Martha’s vote had been taken, and she accepted
the decision without remark. She was glad, for Sally’s sake, that they
had fallen in with her, for she had shrewdly watched Mark, and found
that, little by little, a serious liking for her friend was sending its
roots down through the gay indifference of his surface mood. Perhaps
she was not altogether calm in spirit at the prospect of meeting Gilbert
Potter; but, if so, no sign of the agitation betrayed itself in her
face.

Gilbert, sitting on the porch, half-hidden behind a mass of blossoming
trumpet-flower, was aroused from his Sabbath reverie by the sound of
hoofs. Sally Fairthorn’s voice followed, reaching even the ears of Mary
Potter, who thereupon issued from the house to greet the unexpected
guest. Mark had already dismounted, and although Sally protested that
she would remain in the saddle, the strong arms held out to her proved
too much of a temptation; it was so charming to put her hands on his
shoulders, and to have his take her by the waist, and lift her to the
ground so lightly!

While Mark was performing this service, (and evidently with as much
deliberation as possible,) Gilbert could do no less than offer his aid
to Martha Deane, whose sudden apparition he had almost incredulously
realized. A bright, absorbing joy kindled his sad, strong features into
beauty, and Martha felt her cheeks grow warm, in spite of herself, as
their eyes met. The hands that touched her waist were firm, but no hands
had ever before conveyed to her heart such a sense of gentleness and
tenderness, and though her own gloved hand rested but a moment on his
shoulder, the action seemed to her almost like a caress.

“How kind of you--all--to come!” said Gilbert, feeling that his voice
expressed too much, and his words too little.

“The credit of coming is not mine, Gilbert,” she answered. “We overtook
Sally, and gave her our company for the sake of hers, afterwards. But
I shall like to take a look at your place; how pleasant you are making
it!”

“You are the first to say so; I shall always remember that!”

Mary Potter now advanced, with grave yet friendly welcome, and would
have opened her best room to the guests, but the bowery porch, with its
swinging scarlet bloom, haunted by humming-birds and hawk-moths, wooed
them “o take their seats in its shade. The noise of a plunging cascade,
which restored the idle mill-water to its parted stream, made a mellow,
continuous music in the air. The high road was visible at one point,
across the meadow, just where it entered the wood; otherwise, the
seclusion of the place was complete.

“You could not have found a lovelier home, M--Mary,” said Martha,
terrified to think how near the words “Mrs. Potter” had been to her
lips. But she had recovered herself so promptly that the hesitation was
not noticed.

“Many people think the house ought to be upon the road,” Mary Potter
replied, “but Gilbert and I like it as it is. Yes, I hope it will be a
good home, when we can call it our own.”

“Mother is a little impatient,” said Gilbert, “and perhaps I am also.
But if we have health, it won’t be very long to wait.”

“That’s a thing soon learned!” cried Mark. “I mean to be impatient. Why,
when I was doing journey-work, I was as careless as the day’s long, and
so from hand to mouth didn’t trouble me a bit; but now, I ha’n’t been
undertaking six months, and it seems that I feel worried if I don’t get
all the jobs going!”

Martha smiled, well pleased at this confession of the change, which
she knew better how to interpret than Mark himself. But Sally, in her
innocence, remarked:

“Oh Mark! that isn’t right.”

“I suppose it isn’t. But maybe you’ve got to wish for more than you get,
in order to get what you do. I guess I take things pretty easy, on the
whole, for it’s nobody’s nature to be entirely satisfied. Gilbert, will
you be satisfied when your farm’s paid for?”

“No!” answered Gilbert with an emphasis, the sound of which, as soon as
uttered, smote him to the heart. He had not thought of his mother. She
clasped her hands convulsively, and looked at him, but his face was
turned away.

“Why, Gilbert!” exclaimed Sally.

“I mean,” he said, striving to collect his thoughts, “that there is
something more than property”--but how should he go on? Could he speak
of the family relation, then and there? Of honor in the community, the
respect of his neighbors, without seeming to refer to the brand upon his
and his mother’s name? No; of none of these things. With sudden energy,
he turned upon himself, and continued:

“I shall not feel satisfied until I am cured of my own impatience--until
I can better control my temper, and get the weeds and rocks and stumps
out of myself as well as out of my farm.”

“Then you’ve got a job!” Mark laughed. “I think your fields are pretty
tolerable clean, what I’ve seen of ‘em. Nobody can say they’re not
well fenced in. Why, compared with you, I’m an open common, like the
Wastelands, down on Whitely Creek, and everybody’s cattle run over me!”

Mark’s thoughtlessness was as good as tact. They all laughed heartily at
his odd continuation of the simile, and Martha hastened to say:

“For my part, I don’t think you are quite such an open common, Mark, or
Gilbert so well fenced in. But even if you are, a great many things may
be hidden in a clearing, and some people are tall enough to look over
a high hedge. Betsy Lavender says some men tell all about themselves
without saying a word, while others talk till Doomsday and tell
nothing.”

“And tell nothing,” gravely repeated Mark, whereat no one could repress
a smile, and Sally laughed outright.

Mary Potter had not mingled much in the society of Kennett, and did not
know that this imitation of good Miss Betsy was a very common thing, and
had long ceased to mean any harm. It annoyed her, and she felt it her
duty to say a word for her friend.

“There is not a better or kinder-hearted woman in the county,” she said,
“than just Betsy Lavender. With all her odd ways of speech, she talks
the best of sense and wisdom, and I don’t know who I’d sooner take for a
guide in times of trouble.”

“You could not give Betsy a higher place than she deserves,” Martha
answered. “We all esteem her as a dear friend, and as the best helper
where help is needed. She has been almost a mother to me.”

Sally felt rebuked, and exclaimed tearfully, with her usual impetuous
candor,--“Now you know I meant no harm; it was all Mark’s doing!”

“If you’ve anything against me, Sally, I forgive you for it. It isn’t in
my nature to bear malice,” said Mark, with so serious an air, that poor
Sally was more bewildered than ever. Gilbert and Martha, however,
could not restrain their laughter at the fellow’s odd, reckless humor,
whereupon Sally, suddenly comprehending the joke, sprang from her seat.
Mark leaped from the porch, and darted around the house, followed by
Sally with mock-angry cries and brandishings of her riding-whip.

The scene was instantly changed to Gilbert’s eyes. It was wonderful!
There, on the porch of the home he so soon hoped to call his own, sat
his mother, Martha Deane, and himself. The two former had turned towards
each other, and were talking pleasantly; the hum of the hawk-moths, the
mellow plunge of the water, and the stir of the soft summer breeze in
the leaves, made a sweet accompaniment to their voices. His brain grew
dizzy with yearning to fix that chance companionship, and make it the
boundless fortune of his life. Under his habit of repression, his love
for her had swelled and gathered to such an intensity, that it seemed he
must either speak or die.

Presently the rollicking couple made their appearance. Sally’s foot had
caught in her riding-skirt as she ran, throwing her at full length on
the sward, and Mark, in picking her up, had possessed himself of the
whip. She was not hurt in the least, (her life having been a succession
of tears and tumbles,) but Mark’s arm found it necessary to encircle her
waist, and she did not withdraw from the support until they came within
sight of the porch.

It was now time for the guests to leave, but Mary Potter must first
produce her cakes and currant-wine,--the latter an old and highly
superior article, for there had been, alas! too few occasions which
called for its use.

“Gilbert,” said Mark, as they moved towards the gate, “why can’t you
catch and saddle Roger, and ride with us? You have nothing to do?”

“No; I would like--but where are you going?”

“To Falconer’s; that is, the girls; but we won’t stay for supper--I
don’t fancy quality company.”

“Nor I,” said Gilbert, with a gloomy face. “I have never visited
Falconer’s, and they might not thank you for introducing me.”

He looked at Martha, as he spoke. She understood him, and gave him her
entire sympathy and pity,--yet it was impossible for her to propose
giving up the visit, solely for his sake. It was not want of
independence, but a maidenly shrinking from the inference of the act,
which kept her silent.

Mark, however, cut through the embarrassment. “I’ll tell you what,
Gilbert!” he exclaimed, “you go and get Roger from the field, while
we ride on to Falconer’s. If the girls will promise not to be too long
about their patterns and their gossip, and what not, we can be back
to the lane-end by the time you get there; then we’ll ride up t’ other
branch o’ Redley Creek, to the cross-road, and out by Hallowell’s. I
want to have a squint at the houses and barns down that way; nothing
like business, you know!”

Mark thought he was very cunning in thus disposing of Martha during
the ride, unconscious of the service he was offering to Gilbert. The
latter’s eagerness shone from his eyes, but still he looked at Martha,
trembling for a sign that should decide his hesitation. Her lids fell
before his gaze, and a faint color came into her face, yet she did not
turn away. This time it was Sally Fairthorn who spoke.

“Five minutes will be enough for us, Mark,” she said. “I’m not much
acquainted with Fanny Falconer. So, Gilbert, hoist Martha into her
saddle, and go for Roger.”

He opened the gate for them, and then climbed over the fence into the
hill-field above his house. Having reached the crest, he stopped to
watch the three riding abreast, on a smart trot, down the glen. Sally
looked back, saw him, and waved her hand; then Mark and Martha turned,
giving no sign, yet to his eyes there seemed a certain expectancy in the
movement.

Roger came from the farthest corner of the field at his call, and
followed him down the hill to the bars, with the obedient attachment of
a dog. When he had carefully brushed and then saddled the horse, he went
to seek his mother, who was already making preparations for their early
supper.

“Mother,” he said, “I am going to ride a little way.”

She looked at him wistfully and questioningly, as if she would fain have
asked more; but only said,--

“Won’t you be home to supper, Gilbert?”

“I can’t tell, but don’t wait a minute, if I’m not here when it’s
ready.”

He turned quickly, as if fearful of a further question, and the next
moment was in the saddle.

The trouble in Mary Potter’s face increased. Sighing sorely, she
followed to the bridge of the barn, and presently descried him, beyond
the mill, cantering lightly down the road. Then, lifting her arms, as in
a blind appeal for help, she let them fall again, and walked slowly back
to the house.



CHAPTER XII.

THE EVENTS OF AN EVENING.


At the first winding of the creek, Gilbert drew rein, with a vague,
half-conscious sense of escape. The eye which had followed him thus far
was turned away at last.

For half a mile the road lay through a lovely solitude of shade and
tangled bowery thickets, beside the stream. The air was soft and
tempered, and filled the glen like the breath of some utterly peaceful
and happy creature; yet over Gilbert’s heart there brooded another
atmosphere than this. The sultriness that precedes an emotional crisis
weighed heavily upon him.

No man, to whom Nature has granted her highest gift,--that of
expression,--can understand the pain endured by one of strong feelings,
to whom not only this gift has been denied, but who must also wrestle
with an inherited reticence. It is well that in such cases a kindly law
exists, to aid the helpless heart. The least portion of the love which
lights the world has been told in words; it works, attracts, and binds
in silence. The eye never knows its own desire, the hand its warmth,
the voice its tenderness, nor the heart its unconscious speech through
these, and a thousand other vehicles. Every endeavor to hide the special
fact betrays the feeling from which it sprang.

Like all men of limited culture, Gilbert felt his helplessness keenly.
His mind, usually clear in its operations, if somewhat slow and
cautious, refused to assist him here; it lay dead or apathetic in an
air surcharged with passion. An anxious expectancy enclosed him with
stifling pressure; he felt that it must be loosened, but knew not how.
His craving for words--words swift, clear, and hot as lightning, through
which his heart might discharge itself--haunted him like a furious
hunger.

The road, rising out of the glen, passed around the brow of a grassy
hill, whence he could look across a lateral valley to the Falconer
farm-house. Pausing here, he plainly descried a stately “chair” leaning
on its thills, in the shade of the weeping-willow, three horses hitched
side by side to the lane-fence, and a faint glimmer of color between
the mounds of box which almost hid the porch. It was very evident to his
mind that the Falconers had other visitors, and that neither Mark nor
Sally, (whatever might be Martha Deane’s inclination,) would be likely
to prolong their stay; so he slowly rode on, past the lane-end, and
awaited them at the ford beyond.

It was not long--though the wood on the western hill already threw its
shadow into the glen--before the sound of voices and hoofs emerged from
the lane. Sally’s remark reached him first:

“They may be nice people enough, for aught I know, but their ways are
not my ways, and there’s no use in trying to mix them.”

“That’s a fact!” said Mark. “Hallo, here’s Gilbert, ahead of us!”

They rode into the stream together, and let their horses drink from the
clear, swift-flowing water. In Mark’s and Sally’s eyes, Gilbert was
as grave and impassive as usual, but Martha Deane was conscious of a
strange, warm, subtle power, which seemed to envelop her as she drew
near him. Her face glowed with a sweet, unaccustomed flush; his was
pale, and the shadow of his brows lay heavier upon his eyes. Fate
was already taking up the invisible, floating filaments of these two
existences, and weaving them together.

Of course it happened, and of course by the purest accident, that
Mark and Sally first reached the opposite bank, and took the narrow
wood-road, where the loose, briery sprays of the thickets brushed them
on either side. Sally’s hat, and probably her head, would have been
carried off by a projecting branch, had not Mark thrown his arm around
her neck and forcibly bent her forwards. Then she shrieked and struck at
him with her riding-whip, while Mark’s laugh woke all the echoes of the
woods.

“I say, Gilbert!” he cried, turning back in his saddle, “I’ll hold
_you_ responsible for Martha’s head; it’s as much as _I_ can do to keep
Sally’s on her shoulders.”

Gilbert looked at his companion, as she rode slowly by his side, through
the cool, mottled dusk of the woods. She had drawn the strings of her
beaver through a buttonhole of her riding-habit, and allowed it to hang
upon her back. The motion of the horse gave a gentle, undulating grace
to her erect, self-reliant figure, and her lips, slightly parted,
breathed maidenly trust and consent. She turned her face towards him and
smiled, at Mark’s words.

“The warning is unnecessary,” he said. “You will give me no chance to
take care of you, Martha.”

“Is it not better so?” she asked.

He hesitated; he would have said “No,” but finally evaded a direct
answer.

“I would be glad enough to do you a service--even so little as that,”
 were his words, and the tender tone in which they were spoken made
itself evident to his own ears.

“I don’t doubt it, Gilbert,” she answered, so kindly and cordially that
he was smitten to the heart. Had she faltered in her reply,--had she
blushed and kept silence,--his hope would have seized the evidence and
rushed to the trial; but this was the frankness of friendship, not the
timidity of love. She could not, then, suspect his passion, and ah, how
the risks of its utterance were multiplied!

Meanwhile, the wonderful glamour of her presence--that irresistible
influence which at once takes hold of body and spirit--had entered
into every cell of his blood. Thought and memory were blurred into
nothingness by this one overmastering sensation. Riding through the
lonely woods, out of shade into yellow, level sunshine, in the odors of
minty meadows and moist spices of the creekside, they twain seemed to
him to be alone in the world. If they loved not each other, why should
not the leaves shrivel and fall, the hills split asunder, and the sky
rain death upon them? Here she moved at his side--he could stretch out
his hand and touch her; his heart sprang towards her, his arms ached
for very yearning to clasp her,--his double nature demanded her with the
will and entreated for her with the affection! Under all, felt though
not suspected, glowed the vast primal instinct upon which the strength
of manhood and of womanhood is based.

Sally and Mark, a hundred yards in advance, now thrown into sight and
now hidden by the windings of the road, were so pleasantly occupied with
each other that they took no heed of the pair behind them. Gilbert was
silent; speech was mockery, unless it gave the words which he did not
dare to pronounce. His manner was sullen and churlish in Martha’s eyes,
he suspected; but so it must be, unless a miracle were sent to aid him.
She, riding as quietly, seemed to meditate, apparently unconscious
of his presence; how could he know that she had never before been so
vitally conscious of it?

The long rays of sunset withdrew to the tree-tops, and a deeper hush
fell upon the land. The road which had mounted along the slope of a
stubble-field, now dropped again into a wooded hollow, where a tree,
awkwardly felled, lay across it. Roger pricked up his ears and leaped
lightly over. Martha’s horse followed, taking the log easily, but
she reined him up the next moment, uttering a slight exclamation, and
stretched out her hand wistfully towards Gilbert.

To seize it and bring Roger to a stand was the work of an instant. “What
is the matter, Martha?” he cried.

“I think the girth is broken,” said she. “The saddle is loose, and I was
nigh losing my balance. Thank you, I can sit steadily now.”

Gilbert sprang to the ground and hastened to her assistance.

“Yes, it is broken,” he said, “but I can give you mine. You had better
dismount, though; see, I will hold the pommel firm with one hand, while
I lift you down with the other. Not too fast, I am strong; place your
hands on my shoulders--so!”

She bent forward and laid her hands upon his shoulders. Then, as she
slid gently down, his right arm crept around her waist, holding her so
firmly and securely that she had left the saddle and hung in its support
while her feet had not yet touched the earth. Her warm breath was on
Gilbert’s forehead; her bosom swept his breast, and the arm that until
then had supported, now swiftly, tenderly, irresistibly embraced her.
Trembling, thrilling from head to foot, utterly unable to control the
mad impulse of the moment, he drew her to his heart and laid his lips
to hers. All that he would have said--all, and more than all, that words
could have expressed--was now said, without words. His kiss clung as
if it were the last this side of death--clung until he felt that Martha
feebly strove to be released.

The next minute they stood side by side, and Gilbert, by a revulsion
equally swift and overpowering, burst into a passion of tears.

He turned and leaned his head against Roger’s neck. Presently a light
touch came upon his shoulder.

“Gilbert!”

He faced her then, and saw that her own cheeks were wet. “Martha!” he
cried, “unless you love me with a love like mine for you, you can never
forgive me!”

She came nearer; she laid her arms around him, and lifted her face to
his. Then she said, in a tender, tremulous whisper,--

“Gilbert--Gilbert! I forgive you.”

A pang of wonderful, incredulous joy shot through his heart. Exalted by
his emotion above the constraints of his past and present life, he arose
and stood free and strong in his full stature as a man. He held her
softly and tenderly embraced, and a purer bliss than the physical
delight of her warm, caressing presence shone upon his face as he
asked,--

“Forever, Martha?”

“Forever.”

“Knowing what I am?”

“Because I know what you are, Gilbert!”

He bowed his head upon her shoulder, and she felt softer tears--tears
which came this time without sound or pang--upon her neck. It was
infinitely touching to see this strong nature so moved, and the best
bliss that a true woman’s heart can feel--the knowledge of the boundless
bounty which her love brings with it--opened upon her consciousness.
A swift instinct revealed to her the painful struggles of Gilbert’s
life,--the stern, reticent strength they had developed,--the anxiety and
the torture of his long-suppressed passion, and the power and purity of
that devotion with which his heart had sought and claimed her. She
now saw him in his true character,--firm as steel, yet gentle as dew,
patient and passionate, and purposely cold only to guard the sanctity of
his emotions.

The twilight deepened in the wood, and Roger, stretching and shaking
himself, called the lovers to themselves. Gilbert lifted his head and
looked into Martha’s sweet, unshrinking eyes.

“May the Lord bless you, as you have blessed me!” he said, solemnly.
“Martha, did you guess this before?”

“Yes,” she answered, “I felt that it must be so.”

“And you did not draw back from me--you did not shun the thought of me!
You were”--

He paused; was there not blessing enough, or must he curiously question
its growth?

Martha, however, understood the thought in his mind. “No, Gilbert!”
 she said, “I cannot truly say that I loved you at the time when I first
discovered your feeling towards me. I had always esteemed and trusted
you, and you were much in my mind; but when I asked myself if I could
look upon you as my husband, my heart hesitated with the answer. I did
not deserve your affection then, because I could not repay it in
the same measure. But, although the knowledge seemed to disturb me,
sometimes, yet it was very grateful, and therefore I could not quite
make up my mind to discourage you. Indeed, I knew not what was right to
do, but I found myself more and more strongly drawn towards you; a power
came from you when we met, that touched and yet strengthened me, and
then I thought, ‘Perhaps I _do_ love him.’ To-day, when I first saw your
face, I knew that I did. I felt your heart calling to me like one that
cries for help, and mine answered. It has been slow to speak, Gilbert,
but I know it has spoken truly at last!”

He replaced the broken girth, lifted her into the saddle, mounted his
own horse, and they resumed their ride along the dusky valley. But how
otherwise their companionship now!

“Martha,” said Gilbert, leaning towards her and touching her softly as
he spoke, as if fearful that some power in his words might drive them
apart,--“Martha, have you considered what I am called? That the family
name I bear is in itself a disgrace? Have you imagined what it is to
love one so dishonored as I am?”

The delicate line of her upper lip grew clear and firm again,
temporarily losing its relaxed gentleness. “I have thought of it,” she
answered, “but not in that way. Gilbert, I honored you before I loved
you. I will not say that this thing makes no difference, for it does--a
difference in the name men give you, a difference in your work through
life (for you must deserve more esteem to gain as much as other
men)--and a difference in my duty towards you. They call me
‘independent,’ Gilbert, because, though a woman, I dare to think for
myself; I know not whether they mean praise by the word, or no; but I
think it would frighten away the thought of love from many men. It has
not frightened you; and you, however you were born, are the faithfullest
and best man I know. I love you with my whole heart, and I will be true
to you!”

With these words, Martha stretched out her hand. Gilbert took and held
it, bowing his head fondly over it, and inwardly thanking God that the
test which his pride had exacted was over at last. He could reward her
truth, spare her the willing sacrifice,--and he would.

“Martha,” he said, “if I sometimes doubted whether you could share my
disgrace, it was because I had bitter cause to feel how heavy it is
to bear. God knows I would have come to you with a clean and honorable
name, if I could have been patient to wait longer in uncertainty. But I
could not tell how long the time might be,--I could not urge my mother,
nor even ask her to explain”--

“No, no, Gilbert! Spare _her!”_ Martha interrupted.

“I _have,_ Martha,--God bless you for the words!--and I _will_; it would
be the worst wickedness not to be patient, now! But I have not yet told
you”--

A loud halloo rang through the dusk.

“It is Mark’s voice,” said Martha; “answer him!”

Gilbert shouted, and a double cry instantly replied. They had reached
the cross-road from New-Garden, and Mark and Sally, who had been waiting
impatiently for a quarter of an hour, rode to meet them. “Did you lose
the road?” “Whatever kept you so long?” were the simultaneous questions.

“My girth broke in jumping over the tree,” Martha answered, in her
clear, untroubled voice. “I should have been thrown off, but for
Gilbert’s help. He had to give me his own girth, and so we have ridden
slowly, since he has none.”

“Take my breast-strap,” said Mark.

“No,” said Gilbert, “I can ride Roger bareback, if need be, with the
saddle on my shoulder.”

Something in his voice struck Mark and Sally singularly. It was grave
and subdued, yet sweet in its tones as never before; he had not yet
descended from the solemn exaltation of his recent mood. But the dusk
sheltered his face, and its new brightness was visible only to Martha’s
eyes.

Mark and Sally again led the way, and the lovers followed in silence up
the hill, until they struck the Wilmington road, below Hallowell’s. Here
Gilbert felt that it was best to leave them.

“Well, you two are cheerful company!” exclaimed Sally, as they checked
their horses. “Martha, how many words has Gilbert spoken to you this
evening?”

“As many as I have spoken to him,” Martha answered; “but I will say
three more,--Good-night, Gilbert!”

“Good-night!” was all he dared say, in return, but the pressure of his
hand burned long upon her fingers.

He rode homewards in the starlight, transformed by love and gratitude,
proud, tender, strong to encounter any fate. His mother sat in the
lonely kitchen, with the New Testament in her lap; she had tried to
read, but her thoughts wandered from the consoling text. The table was
but half-cleared, and the little old teapot still squatted beside the
coals.

Gilbert strove hard to assume his ordinary manner, but he could not hide
the radiant happiness that shone from his eyes and sat upon his lips.

“You’ve not had supper?” Mary Potter asked.

“No, mother! but I’m sorry you kept things waiting; I can do well enough
without.”

“It’s not right to go without your regular meals, Gilbert. Sit up to the
table!”

She poured out the tea, and Gilbert ate and drank in silence. His mother
said nothing, but he knew that her eye was upon him, and that he was
the subject of her thoughts. Once or twice he detected a wistful,
questioning expression, which, in his softened mood, touched him almost
like a reproach.

When the table had been cleared and everything put away, she resumed her
seat, breathing an unconscious sigh as she dropped her hands into her
lap. Gilbert felt that he must now speak, and only hesitated while he
considered how he could best do so, without touching her secret and
mysterious trouble.

“Mother!” he said at last, “I have something to tell you.”

“Ay, Gilbert?”

“Maybe it’ll seem good news to you; but maybe not. I have asked Martha
Deane to be my wife!”

He paused, and looked at her. She clasped her hands, leaned forward, and
fixed her dark, mournful eyes intently upon his face.

“I have been drawn towards her for a long time,” Gilbert continued. “It
has been a great trouble to me, because she is so pretty, and withal
so proud in the way a girl should be,--I liked her pride, even while
it made me afraid,--and they say she is rich also. It might seem like
looking too high, mother, but I couldn’t help it.”

“There’s no woman too high for you, Gilbert!” Mary Potter exclaimed.
Then she went on, in a hurried, unsteady voice: “It isn’t that--I
mistrusted it would come so, some day, but I hoped--only for your good,
my boy, only for that--I hoped not so soon. You’re still young--not
twenty-five, and there’s debt on the farm;--couldn’t you ha’ waited a
little, Gilbert?”

“I have waited, mother,” he said, slightly turning away his head, that
he might not see the tender reproach in her face, which her question
seemed to imply. “I _did_ wait--and for that reason. I wanted first to
be independent, at least; and I doubt that I would have spoken so soon,
but there were others after Martha, and that put the thought of losing
her into my head. It seemed like a matter of life or death. Alfred
Barton tried to keep company with her--he didn’t deny it to my face; the
people talked of it. Folks always say more than they know, to be sure,
but then, the chances were so much against _me,_ mother! I was nigh
crazy, sometimes. I tried my best and bravest to be patient, but to-day
we were riding alone,--Mark and Sally gone ahead,--and--and then it came
from my mouth, I don’t know how; I didn’t expect it. But I shouldn’t
have doubted Martha; she let me speak; she answered me--I can’t tell you
her words, mother, though I’ll never forget one single one of ‘em to
my dying day. She gave me her hand and said she would be true to me
forever.”

Gilbert waited, as if his mother might here speak, but she remained
silent.

“Do you understand, mother?” he continued. “She pledged herself to
me--she will be my wife. And I asked her--you won’t be hurt, for I felt
it to be my duty--whether she knew how disgraced I was in the eyes of
the people,--whether my name would not be a shame for her to bear? She
couldn’t know what we know: she took me even with the shame,--and she
looked prouder than ever when she stood by me in the thought of it! She
would despise me, now, if I should offer to give her up on account of
it, but she may know as much as I do, mother? She deserves it.”

There was no answer. Gilbert looked up.

Mary Potter sat perfectly still in her high rocking-chair. Her arms hung
passively at her sides, and her head leaned back and was turned to one
side, as if she were utterly exhausted. But in the pale face, the closed
eyes, and the blue shade about the parted lips, he saw that she was
unconscious of his words. She had fainted.



CHAPTER XIII.

TWO OLD MEN.


Shortly after Martha Deane left home for her eventful ride to
Falconer’s, the Doctor also mounted his horse and rode out of the
village in the opposite direction. Two days before, he had been summoned
to bleed “Old-man Barton,” on account of a troublesome buzzing in the
head, and, although not bidden to make a second professional visit,
there was sufficient occasion for him to call upon his patient in the
capacity of a neighbor.

Dr. Deane never made a step outside the usual routine of his business
without a special and carefully considered reason. Various causes
combined to inspire his movement in the present instance. The
neighborhood was healthy; the village was so nearly deserted that
no curious observers lounged upon the tavern-porch, or sat upon the
horse-block at the corner-store; and Mr. Alfred Barton had been seen
riding towards Avondale. There would have been safety in a much more
unusual proceeding; this, therefore, might be undertaken in that secure,
easy frame of mind which the Doctor both cultivated and recommended to
the little world around him.

The Barton farm-house was not often molested by the presence of guests,
and he found it as quiet and lifeless as an uninhabited island of the
sea. Leaving his horse hitched in the shade of the corn-crib, he first
came upon Giles, stretched out under the holly-bush, and fast asleep,
with his head upon his jacket. The door and window of the family-room
were open, and Dr. Deane, walking softly upon the thick grass, saw that
Old-man Barton was in his accustomed seat. His daughter Ann was not
visible; she was at that moment occupied in taking out of the drawers of
her queer old bureau, in her narrow bedroom up-stairs, various bits of
lace and ribbon, done up in lavender, and perchance (for we must not be
too curious) a broken sixpence or a lock of dead hair.

The old man’s back was towards the window, but the Doctor could hear
that papers were rustling and crackling in his trembling hands, and
could see that an old casket of very solid oak, bound with iron, stood
on the table at his elbow. Thereupon he stealthily retraced his steps to
the gate, shut it with a sharp snap, cleared his throat, and mounted the
porch with slow, loud, deliberate steps. When he reached the open door,
he knocked upon the jamb without looking into the room. There was a
jerking, dragging sound for a moment, and then the old man’s snarl was
heard:

“Who’s there?”

Dr. Deane entered, smiling, and redolent of sweet-marjoram. “Well,
Friend Barton,” he said, “let’s have a look at thee now!”

Thereupon he took a chair, placed it in front of the old man, and sat
down upon it, with his legs spread wide apart, and his ivory-headed cane
(which he also used as a riding-whip) bolt upright between them. He was
very careful not to seem to see that a short quilt, which the old man
usually wore over his knees, now lay in a somewhat angular heap upon the
table.

“Better, I should say,--yes, decidedly better,” he remarked, nodding his
head gravely. “I had nothing to do this afternoon,--the neighborhood is
very healthy,--and thought I would ride down and see how thee’s getting
on. Only a friendly visit, thee knows.”

The old man had laid one shaking arm and crooked hand upon the edge of
the quilt, while with the other he grasped his hickory staff. His face
had a strange, ashy color, through which the dark, corded veins on his
temples showed with singular distinctness. But his eye was unusually
bright and keen, and its cunning, suspicious expression did not escape
the Doctor’s notice.

“A friendly visit--ay!” he growled--“not like Doctors’ visits generally,
eh? Better?--of course I’m better. It’s no harm to tap one of a
full-blooded breed. At our age, Doctor, a little blood goes a great
way.”

“No doubt, no doubt!” the Doctor assented. “Especially in thy case. I
often speak of thy wonderful constitution.”

“Neighborly, you say, Doctor--only neighborly?” asked the old man. The
Doctor smiled, nodded, and seemed to exhale a more powerful herbaceous
odor.

“Mayhap, then, you’ll take a bit of a dram?--a thimble-full won’t come
amiss. You know the shelf where it’s kep’--reach to, and help yourself,
and then help me to a drop.”

Dr. Deane rose and took down the square black bottle and the diminutive
wine-glass beside it. Half-filling the latter,--a thimble-full in
verity,--he drank it in two or three delicate little sips, puckering his
large under-lip to receive them.

“It’s right to have the best, Friend Barton,” he said, “there’s more
life in it!” as he filled the glass to the brim and held it to the slit
in the old man’s face.

The latter eagerly drew off the top fulness, and then seized the glass
in his shaky hand. “Can help myself,” he croaked--“don’t need waitin’
on; not so bad as that!”

His color presently grew, and his neck assumed a partial steadiness.
“What news, what news?” he asked. “You gather up a plenty in your
goin’s-around. It’s little I get, except the bones, after they’ve been
gnawed over by the whole neighborhood.”

“There is not much now, I believe,” Dr. Deane observed.

“Jacob and Leah Gilpin have another boy, but thee hardly knows them,
I think. William Byerly died last week in Birmingham; thee’s heard of
him,--he had a wonderful gift of preaching. They say Maryland cattle
will be cheap, this fall: does Alfred intend to fatten many? I saw him
riding towards New-Garden.”

“I guess he will,” the old man answered,--“must make somethin’ out o’
the farm. That pastur’-bottom ought to bring more than it does.”

“Alfred doesn’t look to want for much,” the Doctor continued. “It’s a
fine farm he has.”

“_Me_, I say!” old Barton exclaimed, bringing down the end of his stick
upon the floor. “The farm’s mine!”

“But it’s the same thing, isn’t it?” asked Dr. Deane, in his cheeriest
voice and with his pleasantest smile.

The old man looked at him for a moment, gave an incoherent grunt,
the meaning of which the Doctor found it impossible to decipher, and
presently, with a cunning leer, said.--

“Is all your property the same thing as your daughter’s?”

“Well--well,” replied the Doctor, softly rubbing his hands, “I should
hope so--yes, I should hope so.”

“Besides what she has in her own right?”

“Oh, thee knows that will be hers without my disposal. What I should do
for her would be apart from that. I am not likely, at my time of life,
to marry again--but we are led by the Spirit, thee knows; we cannot say,
I will do thus and so, and these and such things shall happen, and those
and such other shall not.”

“Ay, that’s my rule, too, Doctor,” said the old man, after a pause,
during which he had intently watched his visitor, from under his
wrinkled eyelids.

“I thought,” the Doctor resumed, “thee was pretty safe against another
marriage, at any rate, and thee had perhaps made up thy mind about
providing for thy children.

“It’s better for us old men to have our houses set in order, that we may
spare ourselves worry and anxiety of mind. Elisha is already established
in his own independence, and I suppose Ann will give thee no particular
trouble; but if Alfred, now, should take a notion to marry, he couldn’t,
thee sees, be expected to commit himself without having some idea of
what thee intends to do for him.”

Dr. Deane, having at last taken up his position and uncovered his front
of attack, waited for the next movement of his adversary. He was even
aware of a slight professional curiosity to know how far the old man’s
keen, shrewd, wary faculties had survived the wreck of his body.

The latter nodded his head, and pressed the top of his hickory stick
against his gums several times, before he answered. He enjoyed the
encounter, though not so sure of its issue as he would have been ten
years earlier.

“I’d do the fair thing, Doctor!” he finally exclaimed; “whatever it
might be, it’d be fair. Come, isn’t that enough?”

“In a general sense, it is. But we are talking now as neighbors. We are
both old men, Friend Barton, and I think we know how to keep our own
counsel. Let us suppose a case--just to illustrate the matter, thee
understands. Let us say that Friend Paxson--a widower, thee knows--had a
daughter Mary, who had--well, a nice little penny in her own right,--and
that thy son Alfred desired her in marriage. Friend Paxson, as a prudent
father, knowing his daughter’s portion, both what it is and what it will
be,--he would naturally wish, in Mary’s interest, to know that Alfred
would not be dependent on her means, but that the children they might
have would inherit equally from both. Now, it strikes me that Friend
Paxson would only be right in asking thee what thee would do for thy
son--nay, that, to be safe, he would want to see some evidence that
would hold in law. Things are so uncertain, and a wise man guardeth his
own household.”

The old man laughed until his watery eyes twinkled. “Friend Paxson is a
mighty close and cautious one to deal with,” he said. “Mayhap he’d like
to manage to have me bound, and himself go free?”

“Thee’s mistaken, indeed!” Dr. Deane protested. “He’s not that kind of a
man. He only means to do what’s right, and to ask the same security from
thee, which thee--I’m sure of it, Friend Barton!--would expect _him_ to
furnish.”

The old man began to find this illustration uncomfortable; it was
altogether one-sided. Dr. Deane could shelter himself behind Friend
Paxson and the imaginary daughter, but the applications came personally
home to him. His old patience had been weakened by his isolation from
the world, and his habits of arbitrary rule. He knew, moreover, the
probable amount of Martha’s fortune, and could make a shrewd guess at
the Doctor’s circumstances; but if the settlements were to be equal,
each must give his share its highest valuation in order to secure more
from the other. It was a difficult game, because these men viewed it
in the light of a business transaction, and each considered that any
advantage over the other would be equivalent to a pecuniary gain on his
own part.

“No use beatin’ about the bush, Doctor,” the old man suddenly said.
“You don’t care for Paxson’s daughter, that never was; why not put your
Martha in her place. She has a good penny, I hear--five thousand, some
say.”

“Ten, every cent of it!” exclaimed Dr. Deane, very nearly thrown off his
guard. “That is, she will have it, at twenty-five; and sooner, if she
marries with my consent. But why does thee wish particularly to speak of
her?”

“For the same reason you talk about Alfred. He hasn’t been about your
house lately, I s’pose, hey?”

The Doctor smiled, dropping his eyelids in a very sagacious way. “He
_does_ seem drawn a little our way, I must confess to thee,” he said,
“but we can’t always tell how much is meant. Perhaps thee knows his mind
better than I do?”

“Mayhap I do--know what it will be, if _I_ choose! But I don’t begrudge
sayin’ that he likes your girl, and I shouldn’t wonder if he’d showed
it.”

“Then thee sees, Friend Barton,” Dr. Deane continued, “that the case is
precisely like the one I supposed; and what I would consider right for
Friend Paxson, would even be right for myself. I’ve no doubt thee could
do more for Alfred than I can do for Martha, and without wrong to thy
other children,--Elisha, as I said, being independent, and Ann not
requiring a great deal,--and the two properties joined together would be
a credit to us, and to the neighborhood. Only, thee knows, there must
be some legal assurance beforehand. There is nothing certain,--even thy
mind is liable to change,--ah, the mind of man is an unstable thing!”

The Doctor delivered these words in his most impressive manner,
uplifting both eyes and hands.

The old man, however, seemed to pay but little attention to it. Turning
his head on one side, he said, in a quick, sharp voice: “Time enough
for that when we come to it How’s the girl inclined? Is the money hers,
anyhow, at twenty-five,--how old now? Sure to be a couple, hey?--settle
that first!”

Dr. Deane crossed his legs carefully, so as not to crease the cloth too
much, laid his cane upon them, and leaned back a little in his chair.
“Of course I’ve not spoken to Martha,” he presently said; “I can only
say that she hasn’t set her mind upon anybody else, and that is the
main thing. She has followed my will in all, except as to joining the
Friends, and there I felt that I couldn’t rightly command, where the
Spirit had not spoken. Yes, the money will be hers at twenty-five,--she
is twenty-one now,--but I hardly think it necessary to take that into
consideration. If thee can answer for Alfred, I think I can answer for
her.”

“The boy’s close about _his_ money,” broke in the old man, with a
sly, husky chuckle. “What he has, Doctor, you understand, goes toward
balancin’ what she has, afore you come onto me, at all. Yes, yes, I know
what I’m about. A good deal, off and on, has been got out o’ this farm,
and it hasn’t all gone into _my_ pockets. I’ve a trifle put out, but
you can’t expect me to strip myself naked, in my old days. But I’ll do
what’s fair--I’ll do what’s fair!”

“There’s only this,” the Doctor added, meditatively, “and I want thee to
understand, since we’ve, somehow or other, come to mention the matter,
that we’d better have another talk, after we’ve had more time to think
of it. Thee can make up thy mind, and let me know _about_ what thee’ll
do; and I the same. Thee _has_ a starting-point on my side, knowing
the amount of Martha’s fortune--_that_, of course, thee must come up to
first, and then we’ll see about the rest!”

Old-man Barton felt that he was here brought up to the rack. He
recognized Dr. Deane’s advantage, and could only evade it by accepting
his proposition for delay. True, he had already gone over the subject,
in his lonely, restless broodings beside the window, but this encounter
had freshened and resuscitated many points. He knew that the business
would be finally arranged, but nothing would have induced him to hasten
it. There was a great luxury in this preliminary skirmishing.

“Well, well!” said he, “we needn’t hurry. You’re right there, Doctor. I
s’pose you won’t do anything to keep the young ones apart?”

“I think I’ve shown my own wishes very plainly, Friend Barton. It is
necessary that Alfred should speak for himself, though, and after all
we’ve said, perhaps it might be well if thee should give him a hint.
Thee must remember that he has never yet mentioned the subject to me.”

Dr. Deane thereupon arose, smoothed his garments, and shook out,
not only sweet marjoram, but lavender, cloves, and calamus. His
broad-brimmed drab hat had never left his head during the interview.
There were steps on the creaking floor overhead, and the Doctor
perceived that the private conference must now close. It was nearly a
drawn game, so far; but the chance of advantage was on his side.

“Suppose I look at thy arm,--in a neighborly way, of course,” he said,
approaching the old man’s chair.

“Never mind--took the bean off this mornin’--old blood, you know, but
lively yet. Gad, Doctor! I’ve not felt so brisk for a year.” His eyes
twinkled so, under their puffy lids, the flabby folds in which his mouth
terminated worked so curiously,--like those of a bellows, where they run
together towards the nozzle,--and the two movable fingers on each hand
opened and shut with such a menacing, clutching motion, that for one
moment the Doctor felt a chill, uncanny creep run over his nerves.

“Brandy!” the old man commanded. “I’ve not talked so much at once’t for
months. You might take a little more, maybe. No? well, you hardly need
it. Good brandy’s powerful dear, these times.”

Dr. Deane had too much tact to accept the grudging invitation. After the
old man had drunk, he carefully replaced the bottle and glass on their
accustomed shelf, and disposed himself to leave. On the whole, he was
well satisfied with the afternoon’s work, not doubting but that he
had acted the part of a tender and most considerate parent towards his
daughter.

Before they met, she also had disposed of her future, but in a very
different way.

Miss Ann descended the stairs in time to greet the Doctor before his
departure. She would have gladly retained him to tea, as a little relief
to the loneliness and weariness of the day; but she never dared to
give an invitation except when it seconded her father’s, which, in the
present case, was wanting.



CHAPTER XIV.

DOUBTS AND SURMISES.


Gilbert’s voice, sharpened by his sudden and mortal fear, recalled Mary
Potter to consciousness. After she had drunk of the cup of water which
he brought, she looked slowly and wearily around the kitchen, as if some
instinct taught her to fix her thoughts on the signs and appliances of
her every-day life, rather than allow them to return to the pang which
had overpowered her. Little by little she recovered her calmness and a
portion of her strength, and at last, noticing her son’s anxious face,
she spoke.

“I have frightened you, Gilbert; but there is no occasion for it. I
wasn’t rightly prepared for what you had to say--and--and--but, please,
don’t let us talk any more about it to-night. Give me a little time to
think--if I _can_ think. I’m afraid it’s but a sad home I’m making for
you, and sure it’s a sad load I’ve put upon you, my poor boy! But oh,
try, Gilbert, try to be patient a little while longer,--it can’t be for
long,--for I begin to see now that I’ve worked out my fault, and that
the Lord in Heaven owes me justice!”

She clenched her hands wildly, and rose to her feet. Her steps tottered,
and he sprang to her support.

“Mother,” he said, “let me help you to your room. I’ll not speak of
this again; I wouldn’t have spoken to-night, if I had mistrusted that it
could give you trouble. Have no fear that I can ever be impatient again;
patience is easy to me now!”

He spoke kindly and cheerfully, registering a vow in his heart that
his lips should henceforth be closed upon the painful theme, until his
mother’s release (whatever it was and whenever it might come) should
open them.

But competent as he felt in that moment to bear the delay cheerfully,
and determined as he was to cast no additional weight on his mother’s
heart, it was not so easy to compose his thoughts, as he lay in the
dusky, starlit bedroom up-stairs. The events of the day, and
their recent consequences, had moved his strong nature to its very
foundations. A chaos of joy, wonder, doubt, and dread surged through
him. Over and over he recalled the sweet pressure of Martha Deane’s lip,
the warm curve of her bosom, the dainty, delicate firmness of her
hand. Was this--could this possession really be his? In his mother’s
mysterious secret there lay an element of terror. He could not guess why
the revelation of his fortunate love should agitate her so fearfully,
unless--and the suspicion gave him a shock--her history were in some way
involved with that of Martha Deane.

This thought haunted and perplexed him, continually returning to disturb
the memory of those holy moments in the twilight dell, and to ruffle the
bright current of joy which seemed to gather up and sweep away with
it all the forces of his life. Any fate but to lose her, he said to
himself; let the shadow fall anywhere, except between them! There would
be other troubles, he foresaw,--the opposition of her father; the rage
and hostility of Alfred Barton; possibly, when the story became
known (as it must be in the end), the ill-will or aversion of the
neighborhood. Against all these definite and positive evils, he felt
strong and tolerably courageous, but the Something which evidently
menaced him through his mother made him shrink with a sense of
cowardice.

Hand in hand with this dread he went into the world of sleep. He stood
upon the summit of the hill behind Falconer’s farm-house, and saw Martha
beckoning to him from the hill on the other side of the valley. They
stretched and clasped hands through the intervening space; the hills
sank away, and they found themselves suddenly below, on the banks of the
creek. He threw his arms around her, but she drew back, and then he saw
that it was Betsy Lavender, who said: “I am your father--did you never
guess it before?” Down the road came Dr. Deane and his mother, walking
arm in arm; their eyes were fixed on him, but they did not speak. Then
he heard Martha’s voice, saying: “Gilbert, why did you tell Alfred
Barton? Nobody must know that I am engaged to both of you.” Betsy
Lavender said: “He can only marry with my consent--Mary Potter has
nothing to do with it.” Martha then came towards him smiling, and said:
“I will not send back your saddle-girth--see, I am wearing it as a
belt!” He took hold of the buckle and drew her nearer; she began to
weep, and they were suddenly standing side by side, in a dark room,
before his dead mother, in her coffin.

This dream, absurd and incoherent as it was, made a strange impression
upon Gilbert’s mind. He was not superstitious, but in spite of himself
the idea became rooted in his thoughts that the truth of his own
parentage affected, in some way, some member of the Deane family. He
taxed his memory in vain for words or incidents which might help him to
solve this doubt. Something told him that his obligation to his mother
involved the understanding that he would not even attempt to discover
her secret; but he could not prevent his thoughts from wandering around
it, and making blind guesses as to the vulnerable point.

Among these guesses came one which caused him to shudder; he called it
impossible, incredible, and resolutely barred it from his mind. But with
all his resolution, it only seemed to wait at a little distance, as if
constantly seeking an opportunity to return. What if Dr. Deane were his
own father? In that case Martha would be his half-sister, and the
stain of illegitimacy would rest on her, not on him! There was ruin and
despair in the supposition; but, on the other hand, he asked himself
why should the fact of his love throw his mother into a swoon? Among the
healthy, strong-nerved people of Kennett such a thing as a swoon was of
the rarest occurrence, and it suggested some terrible cause to Gilbert’s
mind. It was sometimes hard for him to preserve his predetermined
patient, cheerful demeanor in his mother’s presence, but he tried
bravely, and succeeded.

Although the harvest was well over, there was still much work to do on
the farm, in order that the month of October might be appropriated to
hauling,--the last time, Gilbert hoped, that he should be obliged to
resort to this source of profit. Though the price of grain was sure to
decline, on account of the extraordinary harvest, the quantity would
make up for this deficiency. So far, his estimates had been verified. A
good portion of the money was already on hand, and his coveted freedom
from debt in the following spring became now tolerably secure. His
course, in this respect, was in strict accordance with the cautious,
plodding, conscientious habits of the community in which he lived. They
were satisfied to advance steadily and slowly, never establishing a new
mark until the old one had been reached.

Gilbert was impatient to see Martha again, not so much for the delight
of love, as from a sense of the duty which he owed to her. His mother
had not answered his question,--possibly not even heard it,--and he did
not dare to approach her with it again. But so much as he knew might be
revealed to the wife of his heart; of that he was sure. If she could but
share his confidence in his mother’s words, and be equally patient to
await the solution, it would give their relation a new sweetness, an
added sanctity and trust.

He made an errand to Fairthorn’s at the close of the week, hoping that
chance might befriend him, but almost determined, in any case, to force
an interview. The dread he had trampled down still hung around him,
and it seemed that Martha’s presence might dissipate it. Something,
at least, he might learn concerning Dr. Deane’s family, and here his
thoughts at once reverted to Miss Betsy Lavender. In her he had the true
friend, the close mouth, the brain crammed with family intelligence!

The Fairthorns were glad to see their “boy,” as the old woman still
called him. Joe and Jake threw their brown legs over the barn-yard fence
and clamored for a ride upon Roger. “Only along the level, t’other side
o’ the big hill, Gilbert!” said Joe, whereupon the two boys punched each
other in the sides and nearly smothered with wicked laughter. Gilbert
understood them; he shook his head, and said: “You rascals, I think I
see you doing that again!” But he turned away his face, to conceal a
smile at the recollection.

It was, truly, a wicked trick. The boys had been in the habit of
taking the farm-horses out of the field and riding them up and down the
Unionville road. It was their habit, as soon as they had climbed “the
big hill,” to use stick and voice with great energy, force the animals
into a gallop, and so dash along the level. Very soon, the horses knew
what was expected of them, and whenever they came abreast of the
great chestnut-tree on the top of the hill, they would start off as if
possessed. If any business called Farmer Fairthorn to the Street Road,
or up Marlborough way, Joe and Jake, dancing with delight, would dart
around the barn, gain the wooded hollow, climb the big hill behind the
lime-kiln, and hide themselves under the hedge, at the commencement
of the level road. Here they could watch their father, as his benign,
unsuspecting face came in sight, mounting the hill, either upon the
gray mare, Bonnie, or the brown gelding, Peter. As the horse neared the
chestnut-tree, they fairly shook with eager expectancy--then came the
start, the astonishment of the old man, his frantic “Whoa, there, whoa!”
 his hat soaring off on the wind, his short, stout body bouncing in the
saddle, as, half-unseated, he clung with one hand to the mane and the
other to the bridle!--while the wicked boys, after breathlessly watching
him out of sight, rolled over and over on the grass, shrieking and
yelling in a perfect luxury of fun.

Then they knew that a test would come, and prepared themselves to meet
it. When, at dinner, Farmer Fairthorn turned to his wife and said:
“Mammy,” (so he always addressed her) “I don’t know what’s the matter
with Bonnie; why, she came nigh runnin’ off with me!”--Joe, being the
oldest and boldest, would look up in well-affected surprise, and
ask, “Why, how, Daddy?” while Jake would bend down his head and
whimper,--“Somethin’ ‘s got into my eye.” Yet the boys were very
good-hearted fellows, at bottom, and we are sorry that we must chronicle
so many things to their discredit.

Sally Fairthorn met Gilbert in her usual impetuous way. She was glad to
see him, but she could not help saying: “Well, have you got your tongue
yet, Gilbert? Why, you’re growing to be as queer as Dick’s hat-band! I
don’t know any more where to find you, or how to place you; whatever is
the matter?”

“Nothing, Sally,” he answered, with something of his old playfulness,
“nothing except that the pears were very good. How’s Mark?”

“Mark!” she exclaimed with a very well assumed sneer. “As if I kept
an account of Mark’s comings and goings!” But she could not prevent an
extra color from rising into her face.

“I wish you did, Sally,” Gilbert gravely remarked. “Mark is a fine
fellow, and one of my best friends, and he’d be all the better, if a
smart, sensible girl like yourself would care a little for him.”

There was no answer to this, and Sally, with a hasty “I’ll tell mother
you’re here!” darted into the house.

Gilbert was careful not to ask many questions during his visit; but
Sally’s rattling tongue supplied him with all he would have been likely
to learn, in any case. She had found Martha at home the day before, and
had talked about him, Gilbert. Martha hadn’t noticed anything “queer”
 in his manner, whereupon she, Sally, had said that Martha was growing
“queer” too; then Martha remarked that--but here Sally found that she
had been talking altogether too fast, so she bit her tongue and blushed
a little. The most important piece of news, however, was that Miss
Lavender was then staying at Dr. Deane’s.

On his way to the village, Gilbert chose the readiest and simplest way
of accomplishing his purpose. He would call on Betsy Lavender, and ask
her to arrange her time so that she could visit his mother during his
approaching absence from home. Leaving his horse at the hitching-post in
front of the store, he walked boldly across the road and knocked at Dr.
Deane’s door.

The Doctor was absent. Martha and Miss Lavender were in the
sitting-room, and a keen, sweet throb in his blood responded to the
voice that bade him enter.

“Gilbert Potter, I’ll be snaked!” exclaimed Miss Lavender, jumping up
with a start that overturned her footstool.

“Well, Gilbert!” and “Well, Martha!” were the only words the lovers
exchanged, on meeting, but their hands were quick to clasp and loath
to loose. Martha Deane was too clear-headed to be often surprised by an
impulse of the heart, but when the latter experience came to her, she
never thought of doubting its justness. She had not been fully, vitally
aware of her love for Gilbert until the day when he declared it, and
now, in memory, the two circumstances seemed to make but one fact. The
warmth, the beauty, the spiritual expansion which accompany love had
since then dawned upon her nature in their true significance. Proudly
and cautiously as she would have guarded her secret from an intrusive
eye, just as frank, tender, and brave was she to reveal every emotion
of her heart to her lover. She was thoroughly penetrated with the
conviction of his truth, of the integral nobility of his manhood; and
these, she felt, were the qualities her heart had unconsciously craved.
Her mind was made up inflexibly; it rejoiced in his companionship,
it trusted in his fidelity, and if she considered conventional
difficulties, it was only to estimate how they could most speedily be
overthrown. Martha Deane was in advance of her age,--or, at least, of
the community in which she lived.

They could only exchange common-places, of course, in Miss Lavender’s
presence; and perhaps they were not aware of the gentle, affectionate
way in which they spoke of the weather and similar topics. Miss Lavender
was; her eyes opened widely, then nearly closed with an expression
of superhuman wisdom; she looked out of the window and nodded to the
lilac-bush, then exclaiming in desperate awkwardness: “Goodness me, I
must have a bit o’ sage!” made for the garden, with long strides.

Gilbert was too innocent to suspect the artifice--not so Martha. But
while she would have foiled the inference of any other woman, she
accepted Betsy’s without the least embarrassment, and took Gilbert’s
hand again in her own before the door had fairly closed.

“O Martha!” he cried, “if I could but see you oftener--but for a minute,
every day! But there--I won’t be impatient. I’ve thought of you ever
since, and I ask myself, the first thing when I wake, morning after
morning, is it really true?”

“And I say to myself, every morning, it _is_ true,” she answered. Her
lovely blue eyes smiled upon him with a blissful consent, so gentle and
so perfect, that he would fain have stood thus and spoken no word more.

“Martha,” he said, returning to the thought of his duty, “I have
something to say. You can hear it now. My mother declares that I am her
lawful son, born in wedlock--she gave me her solemn word--but more than
that she will not allow me to ask, saying she’s bound for a time, and
something, I don’t know what, must happen before she can set herself
right in the eyes of the world. I believe her, Martha, and I want that
you should believe her, for her sake and for mine. I can’t make things
clear to you, now, because they’re not clear to myself; only, what she
has declared is and must be true! I am not base-born, and it’ll be
made manifest, I’m sure; the Lord will open her mouth in his own good
time--and until then, we must wait! Will you wait with me?”

He spoke earnestly and hurriedly, and his communication was so
unexpected that she scarcely comprehended its full import. But for his
sake, she dared not hesitate to answer.

“Can you ask it, Gilbert? Whatever your mother declares to you, must be
true; yet I scarcely understand it.”

“Nor can I! I’ve wearied my brains, trying to guess why she can’t speak,
and what it is that’ll give her the liberty at last. I daren’t ask her
more--she fainted dead away, the last time.”

“Strange things sometimes happen in this world,” said Martha, with a
grave tenderness, laying her hand upon his arm, “and this seems to be
one of the strangest. I am glad you have told me, Gilbert,--it will make
so much difference to you!”

“So it don’t take you from me, Martha,” he groaned, in a return of his
terrible dread.

“Only Death can do that--and then but for a little while.”

Here Miss Betsy Lavender made her appearance, but without the sage.

“How far a body can see, Martha,” she exclaimed, “since the big
gum-tree’s been cut down. It lays open the sight o’ the road across the
creek, and I seen your father ridin’ down the hill, as plain as could
be!”

“Betsy,” said Gilbert, “I wanted to ask you about coming down our way.”

“Our way. Did you? I see your horse hitched over at the store. I’ve an
arrand,--sewin’-thread and pearl buttons,--and so I’ll git my bonnet and
you can tell me on the way.”

The lovers said farewell, and Betsy Lavender accompanied Gilbert,
proposing to walk a little way with him and get the articles on her
return.

“Gilbert Potter,” she said, when they were out of sight and ear-shot of
the village, “I want you to know that I’ve got eyes in my head. _I_‘m a
safe body, as you can see, though it mayn’t seem the proper thing in me
to say it, but all other folks isn’t, so look out!”

“Betsy!” he exclaimed, “you seem to know everything about everybody--at
least, you know what I am, perhaps better than I do myself; now suppose
I grant you’re right, what do you think of it?”

“Think of it? Go ‘long!--you know what you want me to say, that there
never was such a pair o’ lovyers under the firmament! Let my deeds prove
what I think, say I--for here’s a case where deeds is wanted!”

“You can help me, Betsy--you can help me now! Do you know--can you
guess--who was my father?”

“Good Lord!” was her surprised exclamation--“No, I don’t, and that’s the
fact.”

“Who was Martha Deane’s mother?”

“A Blake--Naomi, one o’ the Birmingham Blakes, and a nice woman she was,
too. I was at her weddin’, and I helped nuss her when Martha was born.”
 “Had Dr. Deane been married before?”

“Married before? Well--no!” Here Miss Betsy seemed to be suddenly put
upon her guard. “Not to that extent, I should say. However, it’s neither
here nor there. Good lack, boy!” she cried, noticing a deadly paleness
on Gilbert’s face--“a-h-h-h, I begin to understand now. Look here,
Gilbert! Git that nonsense out o’ y’r head, jist as soon as _you_ can.
There’s enough o’ trouble ahead, without borrowin’ any more out o’ y’r
wanderin’ wits. I don’t deny but what I was holdin’ back somethin’,
but it’s another thing as ever was. I’ll speak _you_ clear o’ your
misdoubtin’s, if that’s y’r present bother. You don’t feel quite as much
like a live corpse, now, I reckon, hey?”

“O, Betsy!” he said, “if you knew how I have been perplexed, you
wouldn’t wonder at my fancies!”

“I can fancy all that, my boy,” she gently answered, “and I’ll tell you
another thing, Gilbert--your mother has a heavy secret on her mind, and
I rather guess it concerns your father. No--don’t look so eager-like--I
don’t know it. All I do know is that you were born in Phildelphy.”

“In Philadelphia! I never heard that.”

“Well--it’s neither here nor there. I’ve had my hands too full to spy
out other people’s affairs, but many a thing has come to me in a nateral
way, or half-unbeknown. You can’t do better than leave all sich wild
guesses and misdoubtin’s to me, that’s better able to handle ‘em. Not
that I’m a-goin’ to preach and declare anything until I know the rights
of it, whatever and wherever. Well, as I was sayin’--for there’s Beulah
Green comin’ up the road, and you must git your usual face onto you,
though Goodness knows, mine’s so crooked, I’ve often said nothin’ short
o’ Death’ll ever make much change in it--but never mind, I’ll go down a
few days to your mother, when you’re off, though I don’t promise to do
much, except, maybe, cheer her up a bit; but we’ll see, and so remember
me to her, and good-bye!”

With these words and a sharp, bony wring of his hand. Bliss Betsy strode
rapidly back to the village. It did not escape Gilbert’s eye that,
strongly as she had pronounced against his secret fear, the detection of
it had agitated her. She had spoken hurriedly, and hastened away as if
desiring to avoid further questions. He could not banish the suspicion
that she knew something which might affect his fortune; but she had not
forbidden his love for Martha--she had promised to help him, and that
was a great consolation. His cheerfulness, thenceforth, was not assumed,
and he rejoiced to see a very faint, shadowy reflection of it, at times,
in his mother’s face.



CHAPTER XV.

ALFRED BARTON BETWEEN TWO FIRES.


For some days after Dr. Deane’s visit, Old-man Barton was a continual
source of astonishment to his son Alfred and his daughter Ann. The
signs of gradual decay which one of them, at least, had watched with the
keenest interest, had suddenly disappeared; he was brighter, sharper,
more talkative than at any time within the previous five years. The
almost worn-out machinery of his life seemed to have been mysteriously
repaired, whether by Dr. Deane’s tinkering, or by one of those freaks of
Nature which sometimes bring new teeth and hair to an aged head, neither
the son nor the daughter could guess. To the former this awakened
activity of the old man’s brain was not a little annoying. He had been
obliged to renew his note for the money borrowed to replace that which
had been transferred to Sandy Flash, and in the mean time was concocting
an ingenious device by which the loss should not entirely fall on
his own half-share of the farm-profits. He could not have endured his
father’s tyranny without the delight of the cautious and wary revenges
of this kind which he sometimes allowed himself to take. Another
circumstance, which gave him great uneasiness, was this: the old
man endeavored in various ways, both direct and indirect, to obtain
knowledge of the small investments which he had made from time to time.
The most of these had been, through the agency of the old lawyer at
Chester, consolidated into a first-class mortgage; but it was Alfred’s
interest to keep his father in ignorance of the other sums, not because
of their importance, but because of their insignificance. He knew that
the old man’s declaration was true,--“The more you have, the more you’ll
get!”

The following Sunday, as he was shaving himself at the back
kitchen-window,--Ann being up-stairs, at her threadbare toilet,--Old
Barton, who had been silent during breakfast, suddenly addressed him:

“Well, boy, how stands the matter now?”

The son knew very well what was meant, but he thought it best to ask,
with an air of indifference,--

“What matter, Daddy?”

“What matter, eh? The colt’s lame leg, or the farrow o’ the big sow?
Gad, boy! don’t you ever think about the gal, except when I put it into
your head?”

“Oh, that!” exclaimed Alfred, with a smirk of well-assumed
satisfaction--“that, indeed! Well, I think I may say, Daddy, that all’s
right in that quarter.”

“Spoken to her yet?”

“N-no, not right out, that is; but since other folks have found out what
I’m after, I guess it’s plain enough to her. And a good sign is, that
she plays a little shy.”

“Shouldn’t wonder,” growled the old man. “Seems to me _you_ play a
little shy, too. Have to take it in my own hands, if it ever comes to
anything.”

“Oh, it isn’t at all necessary; I can do my own courting,” Alfred
replied, as he wiped his razor and laid it away.

“Do it, then, boy, in short order! You’re too old to stand in need o’
much billin’ and cooin’--but the gal’s rayther young, and may expect
it--and I s’pose it’s the way. But I’d sooner you’d step up to the
Doctor, bein’ as I can only take him when he comes here to me loaded
and primed. He’s mighty cute and sharp, but if you’ve got any gumption,
we’ll be even with him.”

Alfred turned around quickly and looked at his father.

“Ay, boy, I’ve had one bout with him, last Sunday, and there’s more to
come.”

“What was it?”

“Set yourself down on that cheer, and keep your head straight a bit, so
that what goes into one ear, don’t fly out at the t’other.”

While Alfred, with a singular expression of curiosity and distrust,
obeyed this command, the old man deliberated, for the last time, on the
peculiar tactics to be adopted, so that his son should be made an ally,
as against Dr. Deane, and yet be prevented from becoming a second foe,
as against his own property. For it was very evident that while it was
the father’s interest to exaggerate the son’s presumed wealth, it was
the latter’s interest to underrate it. Thus a third element came into
play, making this a triangular game of avarice. If Alfred could have
understood his true position, he would have been more courageous; but
his father had him at a decided advantage.

“Hark ye, boy!” said he, “I’ve waited e’en about long enough, and it’s
time this thing was either a hit or a flash in the pan. The Doctor’s
ready for ‘t; for all his cunnin’ he couldn’t help lettin’ me see that;
but he tries to cover both pockets with one hand while he stretches
out the t’other. The gal’s money’s safe, ten thousand of it, and we’ve
agreed that it’ll be share and share; only, your’n bein’ more than
her’n, why, of course he must make up the difference.”

The son was far from being as shrewd as the father, or he would have
instantly chosen the proper tack; but he was like a vessel caught in
stays, and experienced considerable internal pitching and jostling. In
one sense it was a relief that the old man supposed him to be worth
much more than was actually the case, but long experience hinted that
a favorable assumption of this kind often led to a damaging result. So
with a wink and grin, the miserable hypocrisy of which was evident to
his own mind, he said:

“Of course he must make up the difference, and more too! I know what’s
fair and square.”

“Shut your mouth, boy, till I give you leave to open it. Do you
hear?--the gal’s ten thousand dollars must be put ag’inst the ten
thousand you’ve saved off the profits o’ the farm; then, the rest you’ve
made bein’ properly accounted for, he must come down with the same
amount. Then, you must find out to a hair what he’s worth of his
own--not that it concerns you, but _I_ must know. What you’ve got to do
is about as much as you’ve wits for. Now, open your mouth!”

“Ten thousand!” exclaimed Alfred, beginning to comprehend the matter
more clearly; “why, it’s hardly quite ten thousand altogether, let alone
anything over!”

“No lies, no lies! I’ve got it all in my head, if you haven’t. Twenty
years on shares--first year, one hundred and thirty-seven dollars--that
was the year the big flood swep’ off half the corn on the bottom; second
year, two hundred and fifteen, with interest on the first, say six on
a hundred, allowin’ the thirty-seven for your squanderin’s, two hundred
and twenty-one; third year, three hundred and five, with interest,
seventeen, makes three hundred and twenty-two, and twenty, your half of
the bay horse sold to Sam Falconer, forty-two; fourth year”--

“Never mind, Daddy!” Alfred interrupted; “I’ve got it all down in my
books; you needn’t go over it.”

The old man struck his hickory staff violently upon the floor. “I _will_
go over it!” he croaked, hoarsely. “I mean to show you, boy, to your
own eyes and your own ears, that you’re now worth thirteen thousand two
hundred and forty-nine dollars and fifteen cents! And ten thousand of it
balances the gal’s ten thousand, leavin’ three thousand two hundred and
forty-nine and fifteen cents, for the Doctor to make up to _you!_ And
you’ll show him your papers, for you’re no son of mine if you’ve put out
your money without securin’ it. I don’t mind your goin’ your own road
with what you’ve arned, though, for your proper good, you needn’t ha’
been so close; but now you’ve got to show what’s in your hand, if you
mean to git it double!”

Alfred Barton was overwhelmed by the terrors of this unexpected dilemma.
His superficial powers of dissimulation forsook him; he could only
suggest, in a weak voice:

“Suppose my papers don’t show that much?”

“You’ve made that, or nigh onto it, and your papers _must_ show it! If
money can’t stick to your fingers, do you s’pose I’m goin’ to put
more into ‘em? Fix it any way you like with the Doctor, so you square
accounts. Then, afterwards, let him come to me--ay, let him come!”

Here the old man chuckled until he brought on a fit of coughing, which
drove the dark purple blood into his head. His son hastened to restore
him with a glass of brandy.

“There, that’ll do,” he said, presently; “now you know what’s what. Go
up to the Doctor’s this afternoon, and have it out before you come home.
I can’t dance at your weddin’, but I wouldn’t mind help nuss another
grandchild or two--eh, boy?”

“Damme, and so you shall, Dad!” the son exclaimed, relapsing into his
customary swagger, as the readiest means of flattering the old man’s
more amiable mood. It was an easier matter to encounter Dr. Deane--to
procrastinate and prolong the settlement of terms, or shift the
responsibility of the final result from his own shoulders. Of course the
present command must be obeyed, and it was by no means an agreeable one;
but Alfred Barton had courage enough for any emergency not yet arrived.
So he began to talk and joke very comfortably about his possible
marriage, until Ann, descending to the kitchen in her solemn black gown,
interrupted the conference.

That afternoon, as Alfred took his way by the foot-path to the village,
he seated himself in the shade, on one end of the log which spanned the
creek, in order to examine his position, before venturing on a further
step. We will not probe the depths of his meditations; probably
they were not very deep, even when most serious; but we may readily
conjecture those considerations which were chiefly obvious to his mind.
The affair, which he had so long delayed, through a powerful and perhaps
a natural dread, was now brought to a crisis. He could not retreat
without extreme risk to his prospects of inheritance; since his father
and Dr. Deane had come to an actual conference, he was forced to assume
the part which was appropriate to him. Sentiment, he was aware, would
not be exacted, but a certain amount of masculine anticipation belonged
to his character of lover; should he assume this, also, or meet Dr.
Deane on a hard business ground?

It is a matter of doubt whether any vulgar man suspects the full extent
of his vulgarity; but there are few who are not conscious, now and then,
of a very uncomfortable difference between themselves and the refined
natures with whom they come in contact. Alfred Barton had never been so
troubled by this consciousness as when in the presence of Martha Deane.
He was afraid of her; he foresaw that she, as his wife, would place him
in a more painful subjection than that which his father now enforced. He
was weary of bondage, and longed to draw a free, unworried breath. With
all his swagger, his life had not always been easy or agreeable. A year
or two more might see him, in fact and in truth, his own master. He was
fifty years old; his habits of life were fixed; he would have shrunk
from the semi-servitude of marriage, though with a woman after his own
heart, and there was nothing in this (except the money) to attract him.

“I see no way!” he suddenly exclaimed, after a fit of long and
unsatisfactory musing.

“Nor I neither, unless you make room for me!” answered a shrill voice at
his side.

He started as if shot, becoming aware of Miss Betsy Lavender, who had
just emerged from the thicket.

“Skeered ye, have I?” said she. “Why, how you do color up, to be sure!
I never was that red, even in my blushin’ days; but never mind, what’s
said to nobody is nobody’s business.”

He laughed a forced laugh. “I was thinking, Miss Betsy,” he said, “how
to get the grain threshed and sent to the mills before prices come down.
Which way are you going?”

She had been observing him through half-closed eyes, with her head a
little thrown back. First slightly nodding to herself, as if assenting
to some mental remark, she asked,--

“Which way are _you_ goin’? For my part I rather think we’re changin’
places,--me to see Miss Ann, and you to see Miss Martha.”

“You’re wrong!” he exclaimed. “I was only going to make a little
neighborly call on the Doctor.”

“On the Doctor! Ah-ha! it’s come to that, has it? Well, I won’t be in
the way.”

“Confound the witch!” he muttered to himself, as she sprang upon the log
and hurried over.

Mr. Alfred Barton was not acquainted with the Greek drama, or he would
have had a very real sense of what is meant by Fate. As it was, he
submitted to circumstances, climbed the hill, and never halted until he
found himself in Dr. Deane’s sitting-room.

Of course, the Doctor was alone and unoccupied; it always happens so.
Moreover he knew, and Alfred Barton knew that he knew, the subject to be
discussed; but it was not the custom of the neighborhood to approach
an important interest except in a very gradual and roundabout manner.
Therefore the Doctor said, after the first greeting,--

“Thee’ll be getting thy crops to market soon, I imagine?”

“I’d like to,” Barton replied, “but there’s not force enough on our
place, and the threshers are wanted everywhere at once. What would you
do,--hurry off the grain now, or wait to see how it may stand in the
spring?”

Dr. Deane meditated a moment, and then answered with great deliberation:
“I never like to advise, where the chances are about even. It depends,
thee knows, on the prospect of next year’s crops. But, which ever way
thee decides, it will make less difference to thee than to them that
depend altogether upon their yearly earnings.”

Barton understood this stealthy approach to the important subject, and
met it in the same way. “I don’t know,” he said; “it’s slow saving on
half-profits. I have to look mighty close, to make anything decent.”

“Well,” said the Doctor, “what isn’t laid up _by_ thee, is laid up _for_
thee, I should judge.”

“I should hope so, Doctor; but I guess you know the old man as well as
I do. If anybody could tell what’s in his mind, it’s Lawyer Stacy, and
he’s as close as a steel-trap. I’ve hardly had a fair chance, and it
ought to be made up to me.”

“It will be, no doubt.” And then the Doctor, resting his chin upon his
cane, relapsed into a grave, silent, expectant mood, which his guest
well understood.

“Doctor,” he said at last, with an awkward attempt at a gay,
confidential manner, “you know what I come for today. Perhaps I’m rather
an old boy to be here on such an errand; I’ve been a bit afraid lest
you might think me so; and for that reason I haven’t spoken to Martha at
all, (though I think she’s smart enough to guess how my mind turns,)
and won’t speak, till I first have your leave. I’m not so young as to be
light-headed in such matters; and, most likely, I’m not everything that
Martha would like; but--but--there’s other things to be considered--not
that I mind ‘em much, only the old man, you know, is very particular
about ‘em, and so I’ve come up to see if we can’t agree without much
trouble.”

Dr. Deane took a small pinch of Rappee, and then touched his nose
lightly with his lavendered handkerchief. He drew up his hanging
under-lip until it nearly covered the upper, and lifted his nostrils
with an air at once of reticence and wisdom. “I don’t deny,” he said
slowly, “that I’ve suspected something of what is in thy mind, and I
will further say that thee’s done right in coming first to me. Martha
being an only d--child, I have her welfare much at heart, and if I had
known anything seriously to thy discredit, I would not have permitted
thy attentions. So far as that goes, thee may feel easy. I _did_ hope,
however, that thee would have some assurance of what thy father intends
to do for thee--and perhaps thee has,--Elisha being established in his
own independence, and Ann not requiring a great deal, thee would inherit
considerable, besides the farm. And it seems to me that I might justly,
in Martha’s interest, ask for some such assurance.”

If Alfred Barton’s secret thought had been expressed in words, it would
have been: “Curse the old fool--he knows what the old man is, as well
as I do!” But he twisted a respectful hypocrisy out of his whisker, and
said,--

“Ye-e-es, that seems only fair. How am _I_ to get at it, though? I
daren’t touch the subject with a ten-foot pole, and yet it stands both
to law and reason that I should come in for a handsome slice o’ the
property. You might take it for granted, Doctor?”

“So I might, if _thy_ father would take for granted what _I_ might be
able to do. I can see, however, that it’s hardly thy place to ask him;
that might be left to me.”

This was an idea which had not occurred to Alfred Barton. A thrill of
greedy curiosity shot through his heart; he saw that, with Dr. Deane’s
help, he might be able to ascertain the amount of the inheritance which
must so soon fall to him. This feeling, fed by the impatience of his
long subjection, took complete possession of him, and he resolved to
further his father’s desires, without regard to present results.

“Yes, that might be left to me,” the Doctor repeated, “after the other
matter is settled. Thee knows what I mean. Martha will have ten thousand
dollars in her own right, at twenty-five,--and sooner, if she marries
with my approbation. Now, thee or thy father must bring an equal sum;
that is understood between us--and I think thy father mentioned that
thee could do it without calling upon him. Is that the case?”

“Not quite--but, yes, very nearly. That is, the old man’s been so close
with me, that I’m a little close with him, Doctor, you see! He doesn’t
know exactly how much I have got, and as he threatens to leave me
according to what I’ve saved, why, I rather let him have his own way
about the matter.”

A keen, shrewd smile flitted over the Doctor’s face.

“But if it isn’t quite altogether ten thousand, Doctor,” Barton
continued, “I don’t say but what it could be easily made up to that
figure. You and I could arrange all that between our two selves, without
consulting the old man,--and, indeed, it’s not _his_ business, in any
way,--and so, you might go straight to the other matter at once.”

“H’m,” mused the Doctor, with his chin again upon his stick, “I should
perhaps be working in thy interest, as much as in mine. Then thee can
afford to come up fair and square to the mark. Of course, thee has all
the papers to show for thy own property?”

“I guess there’ll be no trouble about that,” Barton answered,
carelessly. “I lend on none but the best security. ‘T will take a little
time--must go to Chester--so we needn’t wait for that; ‘t will be all
right!”

“Oh, no doubt; but hasn’t thee overlooked one thing?”

“What?”

“That Martha should first know thy mind towards her.”

It was true, he had overlooked that important fact, and the suggestion
came to him very like an attack of cramp. He laughed, however, took out
a red silk handkerchief, and tried to wipe a little eagerness into his
face.

“No, Doctor!” he exclaimed, “not forgot, only keeping the best for the
last. I wasn’t sure but you might want to speak to her yourself, first;
but she knows, doesn’t she?”

“Not to my direct knowledge; and I wouldn’t like to venture to speak in
her name.”

“Then, I’ll--that is, you think I’d better have a talk with her. A
little tough, at my time of life, ha! ha!--but faint heart never won
fair lady; and I hadn’t thought of going that far to-day, though
of course, I’m anxious,--been in my thoughts so long,--and
perhaps--perhaps”--

“I’ll tell thee,” said the Doctor, seeming not to notice Barton’s
visible embarrassment, which he found very natural; “do thee come up
again next First-day afternoon prepared to speak thy mind. I will give
Martha a hint of thy purpose beforehand, but only a hint, mind thee; the
girl has a smart head of her own, and thee’ll come on faster with her if
thee pleads thy own cause with thy own mouth.”

“Yes, I’ll come then!” cried Barton, so relieved at his present escape
that his relief took the expression of joy. Dr. Deane was a fair judge
of character; he knew all of Alfred Barton’s prominent traits, and
imagined that he was now reading him like an open book; but it was like
reading one of those Latin sentences which, to the ear, are made up of
English words. The signs were all correct, only they belonged to another
language.

The heavy wooer shortly took his departure. While on the return path, he
caught sight of Miss Betsy Lavender’s beaver, bobbing along behind the
pickets of the hill-fence, and, rather than encounter its wearer in his
present mood, he stole into the shelter of one of the cross-hedges, and
made his way into the timbered bottom below.



CHAPTER XVI.

MARTHA DEANE.


Little did Dr. Deane suspect the nature of the conversation which had
that morning been held in his daughter’s room, between herself and Betsy
Lavender.

When the latter returned from her interview with Gilbert Potter, the
previous evening, she found the Doctor already arrived. Mark came home
at supper-time, and the evening was so prolonged by his rattling tongue
that no room was left for any confidential talk with Martha, although
Miss Betsy felt that something ought to be said, and it properly fell to
her lot to broach the delicate subject.

After breakfast on Sunday morning, therefore, she slipped up to Martha’s
room, on the transparent pretence of looking again at a new dress,
which had been bought some days before. She held the stuff to the
light, turned it this way and that, and regarded it with an importance
altogether out of proportion to its value.

“It seems as if I couldn’t git the color rightly set in my head,” she
remarked; “‘t a’n’t quiet laylock, nor yit vi’let, and there ought, by
rights, to be quilled ribbon round the neck, though the Doctor might
consider it too gay; but never mind, he’d dress you in drab or slate if
he could, and I dunno, after all”--

“Betsy!” exclaimed Martha, with an impetuousness quite unusual to her
calm nature, “throw down the dress! Why won’t you speak of what is in
your mind; don’t you see I’m waiting for it?”

“You’re right, child!” Miss Betsy cried, flinging the stuff to the
farthest corner of the room; “I’m an awkward old fool, with all my
exper’ence. Of course I seen it with half a wink; there! don’t be so
trembly now. I know how you feel, Martha; you wouldn’t think it, but I
do. I can tell the real signs from the passin’ fancies, and if ever I
see true-love in my born days, I see it in you, child, and in _him.”_

Martha’s face glowed in spite of herself. The recollection of Gilbert’s
embrace in the dusky glen came to her, already for the thousandth time,
but warmer, sweeter at each recurrence. She felt that her hand trembled
in that of the spinster, as they sat knee to knee, and that a tender dew
was creeping into her eyes; leaning forward, she laid her face a moment
on her friend’s shoulder, and whispered,--

“It is all very new and strange, Betsy; but I am happy.”

Miss Lavender did not answer immediately. With her hand on Martha’s
soft, smooth hair, she was occupied in twisting her arm so that the
sleeve might catch and conceal two troublesome tears which were at that
moment trickling down her nose. Besides, she was not at all sure of her
voice, until something like a dry crust of bread in her throat had been
forcibly swallowed down.

Martha, however, presently lifted her head with a firm, courageous
expression, though the rosy flush still suffused her cheeks. “I’m not as
independent as people think,” she said, “for I couldn’t help myself when
the time came, and I seem to belong to him, ever since.”

“Ever since. Of course you do!” remarked Miss Betsy, with her head
down and her hands busy at her high comb and thin twist of hair; “every
woman, savin’ and exceptin’ myself, and no fault o’ mine, must play Jill
to somebody’s Jack; it’s man’s way and the Lord’s way, but worked out
with a mighty variety, though I say it, but why not, my eyes bein’ as
good as anybody else’s! Come now, you’re lookin’ again after your own
brave fashion; and so, you’re sure o’ your heart, Martha?”

“Betsy, my heart speaks once and for all,” said Martha, with kindling
eyes.

“Once and for all. I knowed it--and so the Lord help us! For here I
smell wagon-loads o’ trouble; and if you weren’t a girl to know her own
mind and stick to it, come weal, come woe, and he with a bull-dog’s
jaw that’ll never let go, and I mean no runnin’ of him down, but on the
contrary, quite the reverse, I’d say to both, git over it somehow for
it won’t be, and no matter if no use, it’s my dooty,--well, it’s t’other
way, and I’ve got to give a lift where I can, and pull this way, and
shove that way, and hold back everybody, maybe, and fit things to
things, and unfit other things,--Good Lord, child, you’ve made an awful
job for _me!”_

Therewith Miss Betsy laughed, with a dry, crisp, cheerfulness which
quite covered up and concealed her forebodings. Nothing pleased her
better than to see realized in life her own views of what ought to be,
and the possibility of becoming one of the shaping and regulating powers
to that end stirred her nature to its highest and most joyous activity.

Martha Deane, equally brave, was more sanguine. The joy of her expanding
love foretold its fulfilment to her heart. “I know, Betsy,” she said,
“that father would not hear of it now; but we are both young and can
wait, at least until I come into my property--_ours,_ I ought to say,
for I think of it already as being as much Gilbert’s as mine. What other
trouble can there be?”

“Is there none on his side, Martha?”

“His birth? Yes, there is--or was, though not to me--never to me! I am
so glad, for his sake,--but, Betsy, perhaps you do not know”--

“If there’s anything I need to know, I’ll find it out, soon or late.
He’s worried, that I see, and no wonder, poor boy! But as you say,
there’s time enough, and my single and solitary advice to both o’ you,
is, don’t look at one another before folks, if you can’t keep your eyes
from blabbin’. Not a soul suspicions anything now, and if you two’ll
only fix it betwixt and between you to keep quiet, and patient, and
as forbearin’ in showin’ feelin’ as people that hate each other like
snakes, why, who knows but somethin’ may turn up, all unexpected, to
make the way as smooth for ye as a pitch-pine plank!”

“Patient!” Martha murmured to herself. A bright smile broke over her
face, as she thought how sweet it would be to match, as best a woman
might, Gilbert’s incomparable patience and energy of purpose. The tender
humility of her love, so beautifully interwoven with the texture of its
pride and courage, filled her heart with a balmy softness and peace. She
was already prepared to lay her firm, independent spirit at his feet,
or exercise it only as her new, eternal duty to him might require. Betsy
Lavender’s warning could not ripple the bright surface of her happiness;
she knew that no one (hardly even Gilbert, as yet) suspected that in
her heart the love of a strong and faithful and noble man outweighed all
other gifts or consequences of life--that, to keep it, she would give up
home, friends, father, the conventional respect of every one she knew!

“Well, child!” exclaimed Miss Lavender, after a long lapse of silence;
“the words is said that can’t be taken back, accordin’ to _my_ views
o’ things, though, Goodness knows, there’s enough and enough thinks
different, and you must abide by ‘em; and what I think of it all I’ll
tell you when the end comes, not before, so don’t ask me now; but one
thing more, there’s another sort of a gust brewin’, and goin’ to break
soon, if ever, and that is, Alf. Barton,--though you won’t believe
it,--he’s after you in his stupid way, and your father favors him. And
my advice is, hold him off as much as you please, but say nothin’ o’
Gilbert!”

This warning made no particular impression upon Martha. She playfully
tapped Miss Betsy’s high comb, and said: “Now, if you are going to be so
much worried about me, I shall be sorry that you found it out.”

“Well I won’t!--and now let me hook your gownd.”

Often, after that, however, did Martha detect Miss Betsy’s eyes fixed
upon her with a look of wistful, tender interest, and she knew, though
the spinster would not say it, that the latter was alive with sympathy,
and happy in the new confidence between them. With each day, her own
passion grew and deepened, until it seemed that the true knowledge of
love came after its confession. A sweet, warm yearning for Gilbert’s
presence took its permanent seat in her heart; not only his sterling
manly qualities, but his form, his face--the broad, square brow; the
large, sad, deep-set gray eyes; the firm, yet impassioned lips--haunted
her fancy. Slowly and almost unconsciously as her affection had been
developed, it now took the full stature and wore the radiant form of her
maiden dream of love.

If Dr. Deane noticed the physical bloom and grace which those days
brought to his daughter, he was utterly innocent of the true cause.
Perhaps he imagined that his own eyes were first fairly opened to her
beauty by the prospect of soon losing her. Certainly she had never
seemed more obedient and attractive. He had not forgotten his promise to
Alfred Barton; but no very convenient opportunity for speaking to her on
the subject occurred until the following Sunday morning. Mark was not at
home, and he rode with her to Old Kennett Meeting.

As they reached the top of the long hill beyond the creek, Martha reined
in her horse to enjoy the pleasant westward view over the fair September
landscape. The few houses of the village crowned the opposite hill; but
on this side the winding, wooded vale meandered away, to lose itself
among the swelling slopes of clover and stubble-field; and beyond, over
the blue level of Tuffkenamon, the oak-woods of Avondale slept on the
horizon. It was a landscape such as one may see, in a more cultured
form, on the road from Warwick to Stratford. Every one in Kennett
enjoyed the view, but none so much as Martha Deane, upon whom its
harmonious, pastoral aspect exercised an indescribable charm.

To the left, on the knoll below, rose the chimneys of the Barton
farm-house, over the round tops of the apple-trees, and in the nearest
field Mr. Alfred’s Maryland cattle were fattening on the second growth
of clover.

“A nice place, Martha!” said Dr. Deane, with a wave of his arm, and a
whiff of sweet herbs.

“Here, in this first field, is the true place for the house,” she
answered, thinking only of the landscape beauty of the farm.

“Does thee mean so?” the Doctor eagerly asked, deliberating with himself
how much of his plan it was safe to reveal. “Thee may be right, and
perhaps thee might bring Alfred to thy way of thinking.”

She laughed. “It’s hardly worth the trouble.”

“I’ve noticed, of late,” her father continued, “that Alfred seems to set
a good deal of store by thee. He visits us pretty often.”

“Why, father!” she exclaimed, as they, rode onward, “it’s rather _thee_
that attracts him, and cattle, and crops, and the plans for catching
Sandy Flash! He looks frightened whenever I speak to him.”

“A little nervous, perhaps. Young men are often so, in the company of
young women, I’ve observed.”

Martha laughed so cheerily that her father said to himself: “Well, it
doesn’t displease her, at any rate.” On the other hand, is was possible
that she might have failed to see Barton in the light of a wooer, and
therefore a further hint would be required.

“Now that we happen to speak of him, Martha,” he said, “I might as well
tell thee that, in my judgment, he seems to be drawn towards thee in the
way of marriage. He may be a little awkward in showing it, but that’s a
common case. When he was at our house, last First-day, he spoke of thee
frequently, and said that he would like to--well, to see thee soon. I
believe he intends coming up this afternoon.”

Martha became grave, as Betsy Lavender’s warning took so suddenly
a positive form. However, she had thought of this contingency as a
possible thing, and must prepare herself to meet it with firmness.

“What does thee say?” the Doctor asked, after waiting a few minutes for
an answer.

“Father, I hope thee’s mistaken. Alfred Barton is not overstocked with
wit, I know, but he can hardly be that foolish. He is almost as old as
thee.”

She spoke quietly, but with that tone of decision which Dr. Deane so
well knew. He set his teeth and drew up his under-lip to a grim pout.
If there was to be resistance, he thought, she would not find him so
yielding as on other points; but he would first try a middle course.

“Understand me, Martha,” he said; “I do not mean to declare what Alfred
Barton’s sentiments really are, but what, in my judgment, they _might_
be. And thee had better wait and learn, before setting thy mind either
for or against him: It’s hardly putting much value upon thyself, to call
him foolish.”

“It is a humiliation to me, if thee is right, father,” she said.

“I don’t see that. Many young women would be proud of it. I’ll only say
one thing, Martha; if he seeks thee, and _does_ speak his mind, do thee
treat him kindly and respectfully.”

“Have I ever treated thy friends otherwise?” she asked.

“My friends! thee’s right--he _is_ my friend.”

She made no reply, but her soul was already courageously arming itself
for battle. Her father’s face was stern and cold, and she saw, at once,
that he was on the side of the enemy. This struggle safely over, there
would come another and a severer one. It was well that she had given
herself time, setting the fulfilment of her love so far in advance.

Nothing more was said on this theme, either during the ride to Old
Kennett, or on the return. Martha’s plan was very simple: she would
quietly wait until Alfred Barton should declare his sentiments, and then
reject him once and forever. She would speak clearly, and finally; there
should be no possibility of misconception. It was not a pleasant task;
none but a vain and heartless woman would be eager to assume it; and
Martha Deane hoped that it might be spared her.

But she, no less than her irresolute lover, (if we can apply that word
to Alfred Barton,) was an instrument in the hands of an uncomfortable
Fate. Soon after dinner a hesitating knock was heard at the door, and
Barton entered with a more uneasy air than ever before. Erelong, Dr.
Deane affected to have an engagement with an invalid on the New-Garden
road; Betsy Lavender had gone to Fairthorn’s for the afternoon, and the
two were alone.

For a few moments, Martha was tempted to follow her father’s example,
and leave Alfred Barton to his own devices. Then she reflected that this
was a cowardly feeling; it would only postpone her task. He had taken
his seat, as usual, in the very centre of the room; so she came forward
and seated herself at the front window, with her back to the light,
thus, woman-like, giving herself all the advantages of position.

Having his large, heavy face before her, in full light, she was at
first a little surprised on finding that it expressed not even the fond
anxiety, much less the eagerness, of an aspiring wooer. The hair and
whiskers, it is true, were so smoothly combed back that they made long
lappets on either side of his face; unusual care had been taken with his
cambric cravat and shirt-ruffles, and he wore his best blue coat,
which was entirely too warm for the season. In strong contrast to this
external preparation, were his restless eyes which darted hither and
thither in avoidance of her gaze, the fidgety movements of his thick
fingers, creeping around buttons and in and out of button-holes, and
finally the silly, embarrassed half-smile which now and then came to his
mouth, and made the platitudes of his speech almost idiotic.

Martha Deane felt her courage rise as she contemplated this picture.
In spite of the disgust which his gross physical appearance, and the
contempt which his awkward helplessness inspired, she was conscious of a
lurking sense of amusement. Even a curiosity, which we cannot
reprehend, to know by what steps and in what manner he would come to the
declaration, began to steal into her mind, now that it was evident her
answer could not possibly wound any other feeling than vanity.

In this mood, she left the burden of the conversation to him. He might
flounder, or be completely stalled, as often as he pleased; it was no
part of her business to help him.

In about three minutes after she had taken her seat by the window, he
remarked, with a convulsive smile,--

“Apples are going to be good, this year.”

“Are they?” she said.

“Yes; do you like ‘em? Most girls do.”

“I believe I do,--except Russets,” Martha replied, with her hands
clasped in her lap, and her eyes full upon his face.

He twisted the smoothness out of one whisker, very much disconcerted
at her remark, because he could not tell--he never could, when speaking
with her--whether or not she was making fun of him. But he could
think of nothing to say, except his own preferences in the matter of
apples,--a theme which he pursued until Martha was very tired of it.

He next asked after Mark Deane, expressing at great length his favorable
opinion of the young, carpenter, and relating what pains he had taken
to procure for him the building of Hallowell’s barn. But to each
observation Martha made the briefest possible replies, so that in a
short time he was forced to start another topic.

Nearly an hour had passed, and Martha’s sense of the humorous had long
since vanished under the dreary monotony of the conversation, when
Alfred Barton seemed to have come to a desperate resolution to end his
embarrassment. Grasping his knees with both hands, and dropping his
head forward so that the arrows of her eyes might glance from his fat
forehead, he said,--

“I suppose you know why I come here to-day, Miss Martha?”

All her powers were awake and alert in a moment. She scrutinized his
face keenly, and, although his eyes were hidden, there were lines
enough visible, especially about the mouth, to show that the bitter
predominated over the sweet, in his emotions.

“To see my father, wasn’t it? I’m sorry he was obliged to leave home,”
 she answered.

“No, Miss Martha, I come to see you. I have some thing to say to you,
and I ‘in sure you know what I mean by this time, don’t you?”

“No. How should I?” she coolly replied. It was not true; but the
truest-hearted woman that ever lived could have given no other answer.

Alfred Barton felt the sensation of a groan pass through him, and it
very nearly came out of his mouth. Then he pushed on, in a last wild
effort to perform the remainder of his exacted task in one piece:

“I want you to be--to be--my--wife! That is, my father and yours are
agreed about it, and they think I ought to speak to you. I’m a good deal
older, and--and perhaps you mightn’t fancy me in all things, but they
say it’ll make little difference; and if you haven’t thought about it
much, why, there’s no hurry as to making up your mind. I’ve told you
now, and to be sure you ought to know, while the old folks are trying
to arrange property matters, and it’s my place, like, to speak to you
first.”

Here he paused; his face was very red, and the perspiration was
oozing in great drops from every pore. He drew forth the huge red silk
handkerchief, and mopped his cheeks, his nose, and his forehead; then
lifted his head and stole a quick glance at Martha. Something in his
face puzzled her, and yet a sudden presentiment of his true state of
feeling flashed across her mind. She still sat, looking steadily at him,
and for a few moments did not speak.

“Well?” he stammered.

“Alfred Barton,” she said, “I must ask you one question, do you love
me?”

He seemed to feel a sharp sting. The muscles of his mouth twitched; he
bit his lip, sank his head again, and murmured,--

“Y-yes.”

“He does not,” she said to herself. “I am spared this humiliation. It is
a mean, low nature, and fears mine--fears, and would soon hate. He shall
not see even so much of me as would be revealed by a frank, respectful
rejection. I must punish him a little for the deceit, and I now see how
to do it.”

While these thoughts passed rapidly through her brain, she waited until
he should again venture to meet her eye. When he lifted his head, she
exclaimed,--

“You have told an untruth! Don’t turn your head away; look me in the
face, and hear me tell you that you do not love me--that you have not
come to me of your own desire, and that you would rather ten thousand
times I should say No, if it were not for a little property of mine! But
suppose I, too, were of a similar nature; suppose I cared not for what
is called love, but only for money and lands such as you will inherit;
suppose I found the plans of my father and your father very shrewd and
reasonable, and were disposed to enter into them--what then?”

Alfred Barton was surprised out of the last remnant of his hypocrisy.
His face, so red up to this moment, suddenly became sallow; his chin
dropped, and an expression of amazement and fright came into the eyes
fixed on Martha’s.

The game she was playing assumed a deeper interest; here was something
which she could not yet fathom. She saw what influence had driven him to
her, against his inclination, but his motive for seeming to obey, while
dreading success, was a puzzle. Singularly enough, a slight feeling of
commiseration began to soften her previous contempt, and hastened her
final answer.

“I see that these suppositions would not please you,” she said, “and
thank you for the fact. Your face is more candid than your speech. I am
now ready to say, Alfred Barton,--because I am sure the knowledge will
be agreeable to you,--that no lands, no money, no command of my father,
no degree of want, or misery, or disgrace, could ever make me your
wife!”

She had risen from her chair while speaking, and he also started to
his feet. Her words, though such an astounding relief in one sense, had
nevertheless given him pain; there was a sting in them which cruelly
galled his self-conceit. It was enough to be rejected; she need not have
put an eternal gulf between their natures.

“Well,” said he, sliding the rim of his beaver backwards and forwards
between his fingers, “I suppose I’ll have to be going. You’re very
plain-spoken, as I might ha’ known. I doubt whether we two would make a
good team, and no offence to you, Miss Martha. Only, it’ll be a mortal
disappointment to the old man, and--look here, it a’n’t worth while to
say anything about it, is it?”

Alfred Barton was strongly tempted to betray the secret reason which
Martha had not yet discovered. After the strong words he had taken from
her, she owed him a kindness, he thought; if she would only allow the
impression that the matter was still undecided--that more time (which a
coy young maiden might reasonably demand) had been granted! On the other
hand, he feared that her clear, firm integrity of character would be
repelled by the nature of his motive. He was beginning to feel, greatly
to his own surprise, a profound respect for her.

“If my father questions me about your visit,” she said, “I shall tell
him simply that I have declined your offer. No one else is likely to ask
me.”

“I don’t deny,” he continued, still lingering near the door, “that I’ve
been urged by my father--yours, too, for that matter--to make the offer.
But I don’t want you to think hard of me. I’ve not had an easy time of
it, and if you knew everything, you’d see that a good deal isn’t rightly
to be laid to my account.”

He spoke sadly, and so genuine a stamp of unhappiness was impressed upon
his face, that Martha’s feeling of commiseration rose to the surface.

“You’ll speak to me, when we happen to meet?” he said.

“If I did not,” she answered, “every one would suspect that something
had occurred. That would be unpleasant for both of us. Do not think that
I shall bear malice against you; on the contrary, I wish you well.”

He stooped, kissed her hand, and then swiftly, silently, and with
averted head, left the room.



CHAPTER XVII.

CONSULTATIONS.


When Dr. Deane returned home, in season for supper, he found Martha and
Betsy Lavender employed about their little household matters. The former
showed no lack of cheerfulness or composure, nor, on the other hand, any
such nervous unrest as would be natural to a maiden whose hand had just
been asked in marriage. The Doctor could not at all guess, from her
demeanor, whether anything had happened during his absence. That Alfred
Barton had not remained was rather an unfavorable circumstance; but
then, possibly, he had not found courage to speak. All things being
considered, it seemed best that he should say nothing to Martha, until
he had had another interview with his prospective son-in-law.

At this time Gilbert Potter, in ignorance of the cunning plans which
were laid by the old men, was working early and late to accomplish all
necessary farm-labor by the first of October. That month he had resolved
to devote to the road between Columbia and Newport, and if but average
success attended his hauling, the earnings of six round trips, with the
result of his bountiful harvest, would at last place in his hands the
sum necessary to defray the remaining debt upon the farm. His next
year’s wheat-crop was already sowed, the seed-clover cut, and the
fortnight which still intervened was to be devoted to threshing. In this
emergency, as at reaping-time, when it was difficult to obtain extra
hands, he depended on Deb. Smith, and she did not fail him.

Her principal home, when she was not employed on farm-work, was a
log-hut, on the edge of a wood, belonging to the next farm north of
Fairthorn’s. This farm--the “Woodrow property,” as it was called--had
been stripped of its stock and otherwise pillaged by the British troops,
(Howe and Cornwallis having had their headquarters at Kennett Square),
the day previous to the Battle of Brandywine, and the proprietor had
never since recovered from his losses. The place presented a ruined
and desolated appearance, and Deb. Smith, for that reason perhaps, had
settled herself in the original log-cabin of the first settler, beside
a swampy bit of ground, near the road. The Woodrow farm-house was on a
ridge beyond the wood, and no other dwelling was in sight.

The mysterious manner of life of this woman had no doubt given rise
to the bad name which she bore in the neighborhood. She would often
disappear for a week or two at a time, and her return seemed to take
place invariably in the night. Sometimes a belated farmer would see
the single front window of her cabin lighted at midnight, and hear the
dulled sound of voices in the stillness. But no one cared to play the
spy upon her movements very closely; her great strength and fierce,
reckless temper made her dangerous, and her hostility would have been
worse than the itching of ungratified curiosity. So they let her alone,
taking their revenge in the character they ascribed to her, and the
epithets they attached to her name.

When Gilbert, after hitching his horse in a corner of the zigzag
picket-fence, climbed over and approached the cabin, Deb. Smith issued
from it to meet him, closing the heavy plank door carefully behind her.

“So, Mr. Gilbert!” she cried, stretching out her hard, red hand,
“I reckon you want me ag’in: I’ve been holdin off from many jobs o’
thrashin’, this week, because I suspicioned ye’d be comin’ for me.”

“Thank you, Deborah!” said he, “you’re a friend in need.”

“Am I? There you speak the truth. Wait till you see me thump the Devil’s
tattoo with my old flail on your thrashin’-floor! But you look as cheery
as an Easter-mornin’ sun; you’ve not much for to complain of, these
days, I guess?”

Gilbert smiled.

“Take care!” she cried, a kindly softness spreading over her rough face,
“good luck’s deceitful! If I had the strands o’ your fortin’ in _my_
hands, may be I wouldn’t twist ‘em even; but I ha’n’t, and my fingers is
too thick to manage anything smaller ‘n a rope-knot. You’re goin’?
Well, look out for me bright and early o’ Monday, and my sarvice to your
mother!”

As he rode over the second hill, on his way to the village, Gilbert’s
heart leaped, as he beheld Betsy Lavender just turning into Fairthorn’s
gate. Except his mother, she was the only person who knew of his love,
and he had great need of her kind and cautious assistance.

He had not allowed his heart simply to revel in the ecstasy of its
wonderful fortune, or to yearn with inexpressible warmth for Martha’s
dearest presence, though these emotions haunted him constantly; he had
also endeavored to survey the position in which he stood, and to choose
the course which would fulfil both his duty towards her and towards his
mother. His coming independence would have made the prospect hopefully
bright, but for the secret which lay across it like a threatening
shadow. Betsy Lavender’s assurances had only partially allayed his
dread; something hasty and uncertain in her manner still lingered
uneasily in his memory, and he felt sure that she knew more than she was
willing to tell. Moreover, he craved with all the strength of his heart
for another interview with Martha, and he knew of no way to obtain it
without Betsy’s help.

Her hand was on the gate-latch when his call reached her ears. Looking
up the road, she saw that he had stopped his horse between the high,
bushy banks, and was beckoning earnestly. Darting a hasty glance at
the ivy-draped windows nearest the road, and finding that she was not
observed, she hurried to meet him.

“Betsy,” he whispered, “I _must_ see Martha again before I leave, and
you must tell me how.”

“Tell me how. Folks say that lovyers’ wits are sharp,” said she, “but
I wouldn’t give much for either o’ your’n. I don’t like underhanded
goin’s-on, for my part, for things done in darkness’ll come to light,
or somethin’ like it; but never mind, if they’re crooked everyway they
won’t run in straight tracks, all’t once’t. This I see, and you see, and
she sees, that we must all keep as dark as sin.”

“But there must be some way,” Gilbert insisted. “Do you never walk out
together? And couldn’t we arrange a time--you, too, Betsy, I want you as
well!”

“I’m afeard I’d be like the fifth wheel to a wagon.”

“No, no! You must be there--you must hear a good part of what I have to
say.”

“A good part--that’ll do; thought you didn’t mean the whole. Don’t fret
so, lad; you’ll have Roger trampin’ me down, next thing. Martha and
me talk o’ walkin’ over to Polly Withers’s. She promised Martha a
pa’tridge-breasted aloe, and they say you’ve got to plant it in pewter
sand, and only water it once’t a month, and how it can grow I can’t see;
but never mind, all the same--s’pose we say Friday afternoon about three
o’clock, goin’ through the big woods between the Square and
Witherses, and you might have a gun, for the squirls is plenty, and so
accidental-like, if anybody should come along”--

“That’s it, Betsy!” Gilbert cried, his face flashing, “thank you, a
thousand times!”

“A thousand times,” she repeated. “Once’t is enough.”

Gilbert rode homewards, after a pleasant call at Fairthorn’s, in a very
joyous mood. Not daring to converse with his mother on the one subject
which filled his heart, he showed her the calculations which positively
assured his independence in a short time. She was never weary of going
over the figures, and although her sad, cautious nature always led her
to anticipate disappointments, there was now so much already in hand
that she was forced to share her son’s sanguine views. Gilbert could not
help noticing that this idea of independence, for which she had labored
so strenuously, seemed to be regarded, in her mind, as the first step
towards her mysterious and long-delayed justification; she was so
impatient for its accomplishment, her sad brow lightened so, her breath
came so much freer as she admitted that his calculations were correct!

Nevertheless, as he frequently referred to the matter on the following
days, she at last said,--

“Please, Gilbert, don’t always talk so certainly of what isn’t over
and settled! It makes me fearsome, so to take Providence for granted
beforehand. I don’t think the Lord likes it, for I’ve often noticed that
it brings disappointment; and I’d rather be humble and submissive in
heart, the better to deserve our good fortune when it comes.”

“You may be right, mother,” he answered; “but it’s pleasant to me to see
you looking a little more hopeful.”

“Ay, lad, I’d never look otherwise, for your sake, if I could.” And
nothing more was said.

Before sunrise on Monday morning, the rapid, alternate beats of three
flails, on Gilbert’s threshing-floor, made the autumnal music which the
farmer loves to hear. Two of these--Gilbert’s and Sam’s--kept time with
each other, one falling as the other rose; but the third, quick, loud,
and filling all the pauses with thundering taps, was wielded by the arm
of Deb. Smith. Day by day, the pile of wheat-sheaves lessened in the
great bay, and the cone of golden straw rose higher in the barn-yard. If
a certain black jug, behind the barn-door, needed frequent replenishing,
Gilbert knew that the strength of its contents passed into the red,
bare, muscular arms which shamed his own, and that Deb., while she was
under his roof, would allow herself no coarse excess, either of manner
or speech. The fierce, defiant look left her face, and when she sat,
of an evening, with her pipe in the chimney-corner, both mother and
son found her very entertaining company. In Sam she inspired at
once admiration and despair. She could take him by the slack of the
waist-band and lift him at arm’s-length, and he felt that he should
never be “a full hand,” if he were obliged to equal her performances
with the flail.

Thus, his arm keeping time to the rhythm of joy in his heart, and
tasting the satisfaction of labor as never before in his life, the days
passed to Gilbert Potter. Then came the important Friday, hazy with
“the smoke of burning summer,” and softly colored with the drifts of
golden-rods and crimson sumac leaves along the edges of the yet green
forests. Easily feigning an errand to the village, he walked rapidly up
the road in the warm afternoon, taking the cross-road to New-Garden just
before reaching Hallowell’s, and then struck to the right across the
fields.

After passing the crest of the hill, the land sloped gradually down to
the eastern end of Tuffkenamon valley, which terminates at the ridge
upon which Kennett Square stands. Below him, on the right, lay the field
and hedge, across which he and Fortune (he wondered what had become of
the man) had followed the chase; and before him, on the level, rose the
stately trees of the wood which was to be his trysting-place. It was
a sweet, peaceful scene, and but for the under-current of trouble upon
which all his sensations floated, he could have recognized the beauty
and the bliss of human life, which such golden days suggest.

It was scarcely yet two o’clock, and he watched the smooth field nearest
the village for full three-quarters of an hour, before his sharp eyes
could detect any moving form upon its surface. To impatience succeeded
doubt, to doubt, at its most cruel height, a shock of certainty. Betsy
Lavender and Martha Deane had entered the field at the bottom, and,
concealed behind the hedge of black-thorn, had walked half-way to the
wood before he discovered them, by means of a lucky break in the hedge.
With breathless haste he descended the slope, entered the wood at its
lower edge, and traversed the tangled thickets of dogwood and haw, until
he gained the foot-path, winding through the very heart of the shade.

It was not many minutes before the two advancing forms glimmered among
the leaves. As he sprang forward to meet them, Miss Betsy Lavender
suddenly exclaimed,--“Well, I never, Martha! here’s wintergreen!” and
was down on her knees, on the dead leaves, with her long nose nearly
touching the plants.

When the lovers saw each other’s eyes, one impulse drew them heart to
heart. Each felt the clasp of the other’s arms, and the sweetness of
that perfect kiss, which is mutually given, as mutually taken,--the ripe
fruit of love, which having once tasted, all its first timid tokens
seem ever afterwards immature and unsatisfactory. The hearts of both
had unconsciously grown in warmth, in grace and tenderness; and they
now felt, for the first time, the utter, reciprocal surrender of their
natures which truly gave them to each other.

As they slowly unwound the blissful embrace, and, holding each other’s
hands, drew their faces apart until either’s eyes could receive the
other’s beloved countenance, no words were spoken,--and none were
needed. Thenceforward, neither would ever say to the other,--“Do you
love me as well as ever?” or “Are you sure you can never change?”--for
theirs were natures to which such tender doubt and curiosity were
foreign. It was not the age of introversion or analytical love; they
were sound, simple, fervent natures, and believed forever in the great
truth which had come to them.

“Gilbert,” said Martha, presently, “it was right that we should meet
before you leave home. I have much to tell you--for now you must know
everything that concerns me; it is your right.”

Her words were very grateful. To hear her say “It is your right,” sent
a thrill of purely unselfish pride through his breast. He admitted an
equal right, on her part; the moments were precious, and he hastened to
answer her declaration by one as frank and confiding.

“And I,” he said, “could not take another step until I had seen you. Do
not fear, Martha, to test my patience or my faith in you, for anything
you may put upon me will be easy to bear. I have turned our love over
and over in my mind; tried to look at it--as we both must, sooner or
later--as something which, though it don’t in any wise belong to others,
yet with which others have the power to interfere. The world isn’t made
quite right, Martha, and we’re living in it.”

Martha’s lip took a firmer curve. “Our love is right, Gilbert,” she
exclaimed, “and the world must give way!”

“It must--I’ve sworn it! Now let us try to see what are the mountains in
our path, and how we can best get around or over them. First, this is my
position.”

Thereupon Gilbert clearly and rapidly explained to her his precise
situation. He set forth his favorable prospects of speedy independence,
the obstacle which his mother’s secret threw in their way, and his
inability to guess any means which might unravel the mystery, and hasten
his and her deliverance. The disgrace once removed, he thought, all
other impediments to their union would be of trifling importance.

“I see all that clearly,” said Martha, when he had finished; “now, this
is _my_ position.”

She told him frankly her father’s plans concerning her and gave him,
with conscientious minuteness, all the details of Alfred Barton’s
interview. At first his face grew dark, but at the close he was able to
view the subject in its true character, and to contemplate it with as
careless a merriment as her own.

“You see, Gilbert,” were Martha’s final words, “how we are situated. If
I marry, against my father’s consent, before I am twenty-five”--

“Don’t speak of your property, Martha!” he cried; “I never took that
into mind!”

“I know you didn’t. Gilbert, but _I_ do! It is mine, and must be mine,
to be yours; here you must let me have my own way--I will obey you in
everything else. Four years is not long for us to wait, having faith in
each other; and in that time, I doubt not, your mother’s secret will be
revealed. You cannot, must not, press her further; in the meantime we
will see each other as often as possible”--

“Four years!” Gilbert interrupted, in a tone almost of despair.

“Well--not quite,” said Martha, smiling archly; “since you must know my
exact age, Gilbert, I was twenty-one on the second of last February; so
that the time is really three years, four months, and eleven days.”

“I’d serve seven years, as Jacob served, if need be,” he said. “It’s not
alone the waiting; it’s the anxiety, the uncertainty, the terrible
fear of that which I don’t know. I’m sure that Betsy Lavender guesses
something about it; have you told her what my mother says?”

“It was _your_ secret, Gilbert.”

“I didn’t think,” he answered, softly. “But it’s well she should know.
She is the best friend we have. Betsy!”

“A mortal long time afore _I_‘m wanted!” exclaimed Miss Lavender, with
assumed grimness, as she obeyed the call. “I s’pose you thought there
was no watch needed, and both ends o’ the path open to all the world.
Well--what am _I_ to do?--move mountains like a grain o’ mustard seed
(or however it runs), dip out th’ ocean with a pint-pot, or ketch old
birds with chaff, eh?”

Gilbert, aware that she was familiar with the particular difficulties on
Martha’s side, now made her acquainted with his own. At the mention of
his mother’s declaration in regard to his birth, she lifted her hands
and nodded her head, listening, thenceforth to the end, with half-closed
eyes and her loose lips drawn up in a curious pucker.

“What do you think of it?” he asked, as she remained silent.

“Think of it? About as pretty a snarl as ever I see. I can’t say as I’m
so over and above taken aback by what your mother says. I’ve all along
had a hankerin’ suspicion of it in my bones. Some things seems to me
like the smell o’ water-melons, that I’ve knowed to come with fresh
snow; you know there _is_ no water-melons, but then, there’s the smell
of ‘em! But it won’t do to hurry a matter o’ this kind--long-sufferin’
and slow to anger, though that don’t quite suit, but never mind, all the
same--my opinion is, ye’ve both o’ ye got to wait!”

“Betsy, do you know nothing about it? Can you guess nothing?” Gilbert
persisted.

She stole a quick glance at Martha, which he detected, and a chill ran
through his blood. His face grew pale.

“Nothin’ that fits your case,” said Miss Lavender, presently. She saw
the renewal of Gilbert’s suspicion, and was casting about in her mind
how to allay it without indicating something else which she wished
to conceal. “This I’ll say,” she exclaimed at last, with desperate
frankness, “that I _do_ know somethin’ that may be o’ use, when things
comes to the wust, as I hope they won’t, but it’s neither here nor there
so far as _you two_ are concerned; so don’t ask me, for I won’t tell,
and if it’s to be done, _I’m_ the only one to do it! If I’ve got my
little secrets, I’m keepin’ ‘em in your interest, remember that!”

There was the glimmer of a tear in each of Miss Lavender’s eyes before
she knew it.

“Betsy, my dear friend!” cried Gilbert, “we know you and trust you.
Only say this, for my sake--that you think my mother’s secret is nothing
which will part Martha and me!”

“Martha and me. I _do_ think so--am I a dragon, or a--what’s that Job
talks about?--a behemoth? It’s no use; we must all wait and see what’ll
turn up. But, Martha, I’ve rather a bright thought, for a wonder; what
if we could bring Alf. Barton into the plot, and git him to help us for
the sake o’ _his_ bein’ helped?”

Martha looked surprised, but Gilbert flushed up to the roots of his
hair, and set his lips firmly together.

“I dunno as it’ll do,” continued Miss Betsy, with perfect indifference
to these signs, “but then it _might_. First and foremost, we must try to
find out what he wants, for it isn’t you, Martha; so you, Gilbert, might
as well be a little more of a cowcumber than you are at this present
moment. But if it’s nothin’ ag’inst the law, and not likely, for he’s
too cute, we might even use a vessel--well, not exackly o’ wrath, but
somethin’ like it. There’s more ‘n one concern at work in all this, it
strikes _me_, and it’s wuth while to know ‘em all.”

Gilbert was ashamed of his sensitiveness in regard to Barton, especially
after Martha’s frank and merry confession; so he declared himself
entirely willing to abide by her judgment.

“It would not be pleasant to have Alfred Barton associated with us, even
in the way of help,” she said. “I have a woman’s curiosity to know what
he means, I confess, but, unless Betsy could make the discovery without
me, I would not take any steps towards it.”

“Much would be fittin’ to me, child,” said Miss Lavender, “that wouldn’t
pass for you, at all. We’ve got six weeks till Gilbert comes back, and
no need o’ hurry, except our arrand to Polly Withers’s, which’ll come
to nothin’, unless you each take leave of other mighty quick, while I’m
lookin’ for some more wintergreen.”

With these words she turned short around and strode away.

“It had best be our own secret yet, Martha?” he asked.

“Yes, Gilbert, and all the more precious.”

They clasped hands and kissed, once, twice, thrice, and then the
underwood slowly deepened between them, and the shadows of the forest
separated them from each other.



CHAPTER XVIII.

SANDY FLASH REAPPEARS.


During the month of October, while Gilbert Potter was occupied with
his lonely and monotonous task, he had ample leisure to evolve a clear,
calm, happy purpose from the tumult of his excited feelings. This was,
first, to accomplish his own independence, which now seemed inevitably
necessary, for his mother’s sake, and its possible consequences to her;
then, strong in the knowledge of Martha Deane’s fidelity, to wait with
her.

With the exception of a few days of rainy weather, his hauling
prospered, and he returned home after five weeks’ absence, to count
up the gains of the year and find that very little was lacking of the
entire amount to be paid.

Mary Potter, as the prospect of release drew so near, became suddenly
anxious and restless. The knowledge that a very large sum of money (as
she considered it) was in the house, filled her with a thousand
new fears. There were again rumors of Sandy Flash lurking around
Marlborough, and she shuddered and trembled whenever his name was
mentioned. Her uneasiness became at last so great that Gilbert finally
proposed writing to the conveyancer in Chester who held the mortgage,
and asking whether the money might not as well be paid at once, since he
had it in hand, as wait until the following spring.

“It’s not the regular way,” said she, “but then, I suppose it’ll hold in
law. You can ask Mr. Trainer about that. O Gilbert, if it can be done,
it’ll take a great load off my mind!”

“Whatever puts the mortgage into my hands, mother,” said he, “is legal
enough for us. I needn’t even wait to sell the grain; Mark Deane
will lend me the seventy-five dollars still to be made up, if he has
them--or, if he can’t, somebody else will. I was going to the Square
this evening; so I’ll write the letter at once, and put it in the
office.”

The first thing Gilbert did, on reaching the village, was to post the
letter in season for the mail-rider, who went once a week to and fro
between Chester and Peach-bottom Ferry, on the Susquehanna. Then he
crossed the street to Dr. Deane’s, in order to inquire for Mark, but
with the chief hope of seeing Martha for one sweet moment, at least. In
this, however, he was disappointed; as he reached the gate, Mark issued
from the door.

“Why, Gilbert, old boy!” he shouted; “the sight o’ you’s good for sore
eyes! What have you been about since that Sunday evening we rode up
the west branch? I was jist steppin’ over to the tavern to see the
fellows--come along, and have a glass o’ Rye!”

He threw his heavy arm over Gilbert’s shoulder, and drew him along.

“In a minute, Mark; wait a bit--I’ve a little matter of business with
you. I need to borrow seventy-five dollars for a month or six weeks,
until my wheat is sold. Have you that much that you’re not using?”

“That and more comin’ to me soon,” said Mark, “and of course you can
have it. Want it right away?”

“Very likely in ten or twelve days.”

“Oh, well, never fear--I’ll have some accounts squared by that time!
Come along!” And therewith the good-natured fellow hurried his friend
into the bar-room of the Unicorn.

“Done pretty well, haulin’, this time?” asked Mark, as they touched
glasses.

“Very well,” answered Gilbert, “seeing it’s the last time. I’m at an end
with hauling now.”

“You don’t say so? Here’s to your good luck!” exclaimed Mark, emptying
his glass.

A man, who had been tilting his chair against the wall, in the farther
corner of the room, now arose and came forward. It was Alfred Barton.

During Gilbert’s absence, neither this gentleman’s plan nor that of his
father, had made much progress. It was tolerably easy, to be sure, to
give the old man the impression that the preliminary arrangements with
regard to money were going on harmoniously; but it was not so easy to
procure Dr. Deane’s acceptance of the part marked out for him. Alfred
had sought an interview with the latter soon after that which he had had
with Martha, and the result was not at all satisfactory. The wooer
had been obliged to declare that his suit was unsuccessful; but, he
believed, only temporarily so. Martha had been taken by surprise; the
question had come upon her so suddenly that she could scarcely be
said to know her own mind, and time must be allowed her. Although this
statement seemed probable to Dr. Deane, as it coincided with his own
experience in previously sounding his daughter’s mind, yet Alfred’s
evident anxiety that nothing should be said to Martha upon the subject,
and that the Doctor should assume to his father that the question of
balancing her legacy was as good as settled, (then proceed at once to
the discussion of the second and more important question,) excited the
Doctor’s suspicions. He could not well avoid giving the required promise
in relation to Martha, but he insisted on seeing the legal evidences of
Alfred Barton’s property, before going a step further.

The latter was therefore in a state of great perplexity. The game he
was playing seemed safe enough, so far, but nothing had come of it, and
beyond this point it could not be carried, without great increase of
risk. He was more than once tempted to drop it entirely, confessing
his complete and final rejection, and allowing his father to take what
course he pleased; but presently the itching of his avaricious curiosity
returned in full force, and suggested new expedients.

No suspicion of Gilbert Potter’s relation to Martha Deane had ever
entered his mind. He had always had a liking for the young man, and
would, no doubt, have done him any good service which did not require
the use of money. He now came forward very cordially and shook-hands
with the two.

Gilbert had self-possession enough to control his first impulse, and
to meet his rival with his former manner. Secure in his own fortune, he
even felt that he could afford to be magnanimous, and thus, by degrees,
the dislike wore off which Martha’s confession had excited.

“What is all this talk about Sandy Flash?” he asked.

“He’s been seen up above,” said Barton; “some say, about Marlborough,
and some, along the Strasburg road. He’ll hardly come this way; he’s too
cunning to go where the people are prepared to receive him.”

If either of the three had happened to look steadily at the back window
of the bar-room, they might have detected, in the dusk, the face of
Dougherty, the Irish ostler of the Unicorn Tavern. It disappeared
instantly, but there was a crack nearly half an inch wide between the
bottom of the back-door and the sill under it, and to that crack a
large, flat ear was laid.

“If he comes any nearer, you must send word around at once,” said
Gilbert,--“not wait until he’s already among us.”

“Let me alone for that!” Barton exclaimed; “Damn him, I only wish he had
pluck enough to come!”

Mark was indignant “What’s the sheriff and constables good for?” he
cried. “It’s a burnin’ shame that the whole country has been plundered
so long, and the fellow still runnin’ at large. Much he cares for the
five hundred dollars on his head.”

“It’s a thousand, now,” said Barton. “They’ve doubled it.”

“Come, that’d be a good haul for us. We’re not bound to keep inside of
our township; I’m for an up and down chase all over the country, as soon
as the fall work’s over!”

“And I, too,” said Gilbert

“You ‘re fellows after my own heart, both o’ you!” Barton asserted,
slapping them upon the back. “What’ll you take to drink?”

By this time several others had assembled, and the conversation became
general. While the flying rumors about Sandy Flash were being produced
and discussed, Barton drew Gilbert aside.

“Suppose we step out on the back-porch,” he said, “I want to have a word
with you.”

The door closed between them and the noisy bar-room. There was a
rustling noise under the porch, as of a fowl disturbed on its roost, and
then everything was still.

“Your speaking of your having done well by hauling put it into my head,
Gilbert,” Barton continued. “I wanted to borrow a little money for a
while, and there’s reasons why I shouldn’t call upon anybody who’d tell
of it. Now, as you’ve got it, lying idle”--

“It happens to be just the other way, Barton,” said Gilbert,
interrupting him. “I came here to-night to borrow.”

“How’s that?” Barton could not help asking, with a momentary sense of
chagrin. But the next moment he added, in a milder tone, “I don’t mean
to pry into your business.”

“I shall very likely have to use my money soon,” Gilbert explained, “and
must at least wait until I hear from Chester. That will be another week,
and then, if the money should not be wanted, I can accommodate you. But,
to tell you the truth, I don’t think there’s much chance of that.”

“Shall you have to go down to Chester?”

“I hope so.”

“When?”

“In ten or twelve days from now.”

“Then,” said Barton, “I ‘II fix it this way. ‘Tisn’t only the money
I want, but to have it paid in Chester, without the old man or Stacy
knowing anything of the matter. If I was to go myself, Stacy’d never
rest till he found out my business--Faith! I believe if I was hid in the
hayloft o’ the William Penn Tavern, he’d scent me out. Now, I can get
the money of another fellow I know, if you’ll take it down and hand it
over for me. Would you be that obliging?”

“Of course,” Gilbert answered. “If I go it will be no additional
trouble.”

“All right,” said Barton, “between ourselves, you understand.”

A week later, a letter, with the following address was brought to the
post-office by the mail-rider,--

_“To Mr. Gilbert Potter, Esq. Kennett Square P. O. These, with Care and
Speed.”_

Gilbert, having carefully cut around the wafer and unfolded the sheet of
strong yellowish paper, read this missive,--

“Sir: Yr respd favour of ye [Footnote: This form of the article,
though in general disuse at the time, was still frequently employed in
epistolary writing, in that part of Pennsylvania. [ed note: The r in Yr
and e in ye, etc. are superscripted.]] 11th came duly to hand, and ye
proposition wh it contains has been submitted to Mr. Jones, ye present
houlder of ye mortgage. He wishes me to inform you that he did not
anticipate ye payment before ye first day of April, 1797, wh was ye term
agreed upon at ye payment of ye first note; nevertheless, being
required to accept full and lawful payment, whensoever tendered, he
hath impowered me to receive ye moneys at yr convenience, providing ye
settlement be full and compleat, as aforesaid, and not merely ye payment
of a part or portion thereof.

“Yr obt servt,

“ISAAC TRAINER.”

Gilbert, with his limited experience of business matters, had entirely
overlooked the fact, that the permission of the creditor is not
necessary to the payment of a debt. He had a profound respect for all
legal forms, and his indebtedness carried with it a sense of stern and
perpetual responsibility, which, alas! has not always been inherited by
the descendants of that simple and primitive period.

Mary Potter received the news with a sigh of relief. The money was again
counted, the interest which would be due somewhat laboriously computed,
and finally nothing remained but the sum which Mark Deane had promised
to furnish. This Mark expected to receive on the following Wednesday,
and Gilbert and his mother agreed that the journey to Chester should be
made at the close of the same week.

They went over these calculations in the quiet of the Sabbath afternoon,
sitting alone in the neat, old-fashioned kitchen, with the dim light of
an Indian-summer sun striking through the leafless trumpet-vines,
and making a quaint network of light and shade on the whitewashed
window-frame. The pendulum ticked drowsily along the opposite wall, and
the hickory back-log on the hearth hummed a lamentable song through all
its simmering pores of sap. Peaceful as the happy landscape without,
dozing in dreams of the departed summer, cheery as the tidy household
signs within, seemed at last the lives of the two inmates. Mary Potter
had not asked how her son’s wooing had further sped, but she felt that
he was contented of heart; she, too, indulging finally in the near
consummation of her hopes,--which touched her like the pitying sympathy
of the Power that had dealt so singularly with her life,--was nearer the
feeling of happiness than she had been for long and weary years.

Gilbert was moved by the serenity of her face, and the trouble, which
he knew it concealed, seemed, to his mind, to be wearing away. Carefully
securing the doors, they walked over the fields together, pausing on
the hilltop to listen to the caw of the gathering crows, or to watch the
ruby disc of the beamless sun stooping to touch the western rim of the
valley. Many a time had they thus gone over the farm together, but never
before with such a sense of peace and security. The day was removed,
mysteriously, from the circle of its fellows, and set apart by a
peculiar influence which prevented either from ever forgetting it,
during all the years that came after.

They were not aware that at the very moment this influence was
profoundest in their hearts, new rumors of Sandy Flash’s movements
had reached Kennett Square, and were being excitedly discussed at the
Unicorn Tavern. He had been met on the Street Road, riding towards the
Red Lion, that very afternoon, by a man who knew his face; and, later
in the evening came a second report, that an individual of his build
had crossed the Philadelphia Road, this side of the Anvil, and gone
southward into the woods. Many were the surmises, and even detailed
accounts, of robberies that either had been or might be committed, but
no one could say precisely how much was true.

Mark Deane was not at home, and the blacksmith was commissioned to
summon Alfred Barton, who had ridden over to Pennsbury, on a friendly
visit to Mr. Joel Ferris. When he finally made his appearance, towards
ten o’clock, he was secretly horror-stricken at the great danger he had
escaped; but it gave him an admirable opportunity to swagger. He could
do no less than promise to summon the volunteers in the morning, and
provision was made accordingly, for despatching as many messengers as
the village could afford.

Since the British occupation, nearly twenty years before, Kennett Square
had not known as lively a day as that which followed. The men and boys
were in the street, grouped in front of the tavern, the women at the
windows, watching, some with alarmed, but many with amused faces. Sally
Fairthorn, although it was washing-day, stole up through Dr. Deane’s
garden and into Martha’s room, for at least half an hour, but Joe and
Jake left their overturned shocks of corn unhusked for the whole day.

Some of the young farmers to whom the message had been sent, returned
answer that they were very busy and could not leave their work; the
horses of others were lame; the guns of others broken. By ten o’clock,
however, there were nine volunteers, very irregularly armed and mounted,
in attendance; by eleven o’clock, thirteen, and Alfred Barton, whose
place as leader was anything but comfortable, began to swell with an air
of importance, and set about examining the guns of his command. Neither
he nor any one else noticed particularly that the Irish ostler appeared
to be a great connoisseur in muskets, and was especially interested in
the structure of the flints and pans.

“Let’s look over the roll, and see how many are true blue,” said Barton,
drawing a paper from his pocket. “There’s failing nine or ten, among ‘em
some I fully counted on--Withers, he _may_ come yet; Ferris, hardly time
to get word; but Carson, Potter, and Travilla ought to turn up curst
soon, or we’ll have the sport without ‘em!”

“Give me a horse, Mr. Barton, and I’ll ride down for Gilbert!” cried Joe
Fairthorn.

“No use,--Giles went this morning,” growled Barton.

“It’s time we were starting; which road would be best to take?” asked
one of the volunteers.

“All roads lead to Rome, but all don’t lead to Sandy Flash, ha! ha!”
 said another, laughing at his own smartness.

“Who knows where he was seen last?” Barton asked, but it was not easy to
get a coherent answer. One had heard one report, and another another;
he had been seen from the Street Road on the north all the way around
eastward by the Red Lion and the Anvil, and in the rocky glen below the
Barton farm, to the lime-quarries of Tuffkenamon on the west.

“Unless we scatter, it’ll be like looking for a needle in a haystack,”
 remarked one of the more courageous volunteers.

“If they’d all had spunk enough to come,” said Barton, “we might ha’
made four parties, and gone out on each road. As it is, we’re only
strong enough for two.”

“Seven to one?--that’s too much odds in Sandy’s favor!” cried a
light-headed youth, whereat the others all laughed, and some of them
blushed a little.

Barton bit his lip, and with a withering glance at the young man,
replied,--“Then we’ll make three parties, and you shall be the third.”

Another quarter of an hour having elapsed, without any accession to the
troop, Barton reluctantly advised the men to get their arms, which had
been carelessly placed along the tavern-porch, and to mount for the
chase.

Just then Joe and Jake Fairthorn, who had been dodging back and forth
through the village, watching the roads, made their appearance with the
announcement,--

“Hurray--there’s another--comin’ up from below, but it a’n’t Gilbert.
He’s stuck full o’ pistols, but he’s a-foot, and you must git him a
horse. I tell you, he looks like a real buster!”

“Who can it be?” asked Barton.

“We’ll see, in a minute,” said the nearest volunteers, taking up their
muskets.

“There he is,--there he is!” cried Joe.

All eyes, turned towards the crossing of the roads, beheld,
just rounding the corner-house, fifty paces distant, a short,
broad-shouldered, determined figure, making directly for the tavern. His
face was red and freckled, his thin lips half-parted with a grin which
showed the flash of white teeth between them, and his eyes sparkled with
the light of a cold, fierce courage. He had a double-barrelled musket
on his shoulder, and there were four pistols in the tight leathern belt
about his waist.

Barton turned deadly pale as he beheld this man. An astonished silence
fell upon the group, but, the next moment, some voice exclaimed, in an
undertone, which, nevertheless, every one heard,--

“By the living Lord! Sandy Flash himself!”

There was a general confused movement, of which Alfred Barton took
advantage to partly cover his heavy body by one of the porch-pillars.
Some of the volunteers started back, others pressed closer together. The
pert youth, alone, who was to form the third party, brought his musket
to his shoulder.

Quick as lightning Sandy Flash drew a pistol from his belt and levelled
it at the young man’s breast.

“Ground arms!” he cried, “or you are a dead man.”

He was obeyed, although slowly and with grinding teeth.

“Stand aside!” he then commanded. “_You_ have pluck, and I should hate
to shoot you. Make way, the rest o’ ye! I’ve saved ye the trouble o’
ridin’ far to find me. Whoever puts finger to trigger, falls. Back,
back, I say, and open the door for me!”

Still advancing as he spoke, and shifting his pistol so as to cover now
one, now another of the group, he reached the tavern-porch. Some one
opened the door of the barroom, which swung inwards. The highwayman
strode directly to the bar, and there stood, facing the open door, while
he cried to the trembling bar-keeper,--

“A glass o’ Rye, good and strong!”

It was set before him. Holding the musket in his arm, he took the glass,
drank, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and then, spinning a
silver dollar into the air, said, as it rang upon the floor,--

“_I_ stand treat to-day; let the rest o’ the gentlemen drink at my
expense!”

He then walked out, and slowly retreated backwards towards the
corner-house, covering his retreat with the levelled pistol, and the
flash of his dauntless eye.

He had nearly reached the corner, when Gilbert Potter dashed up behind
him, with Roger all in a foam. Joe Fairthorn, seized with deadly terror
when he heard the terrible name, had set off at full speed for home; but
descrying Gilbert approaching on a gallop, changed his course, met the
latter, and gasped out the astounding intelligence. All this was the
work of a minute, and when Gilbert reached the corner, a single glance
showed him the true state of affairs. The confused group in front of the
tavern, some faces sallow with cowardice, some red with indignation
and shame; the solitary, retreating figure, alive in every nerve with
splendid courage, told him the whole story, which Joe’s broken words had
only half hinted.

Flinging himself from his horse, he levelled his musket, and cried
out,--

“Surrender!”

Sandy Flash, with a sudden spring, placed his back against the house,
pointed his pistol at Gilbert, and said: “Drop your gun, or I fire!”

For answer, Gilbert drew the trigger; the crack of the explosion rang
sharp and clear, and a little shower of mortar covered Sandy Flash’s
cocked hat. The ball had struck the wall about four inches above his
head.

He leaped forward; Gilbert clubbed his musket and awaited him. They were
scarcely two yards apart; the highwayman’s pistol-barrel was opposite
Gilbert’s heart, and the two men were looking into each other’s eyes.
The group in front of the tavern stood as if paralyzed, every man
holding his breath.

“Halt!” said Sandy Flash. “Halt! I hate bloodshed, and besides that,
young Potter, you’re not the man that’ll take me prisoner. I could blow
your brains out by movin’ this finger, but _you_‘re safe from any bullet
o’ mine, whoever a’n’t!”

At the last words a bright, mocking, malicious grin stole over his face.
Gilbert, amazed to find himself known to the highwayman, and puzzled
with certain familiar marks in the latter’s countenance, was swiftly
enlightened by this grin. It was Fortune’s face before him, without the
black hair and whiskers,--and Fortune’s voice that spoke!

Sandy Flash saw the recognition. He grinned again. “You’ll know your
friend, another time,” he said, sprang five feet backward, whirled,
gained the cover of the house, and was mounting his horse among the
bushes at the bottom of the garden, before any of the others reached
Gilbert, who was still standing as if thunder-struck.

By this time Sandy Flash had leaped the hedge and was careering like
lightning towards the shelter of the woods. The interest now turned upon
Gilbert Potter, who was very taciturn and thoughtful, and had little
to relate. They noticed, however, that his eyes were turned often and
inquiringly upon Alfred Barton, and that the latter as steadily avoided
meeting them.

When Gilbert went to bring Roger, who had quietly waited at the crossing
of the roads, Deb. Smith suddenly made her appearance.

“I seen it all,” she said. “I was a bit up the road, but I seen it. You
shouldn’t ha’ shot, Mr. Gilbert, though it isn’t him that’s born to
be hit with a bullet; but _you_‘re safe enough from _his_ bullets,
anyhow--whatever happens, _you_‘re safe!”

“What do you mean, Deborah?” he exclaimed, as she almost repeated to him
Sandy Flash’s very words.

“I mean what I say,” she answered. “_You_ wouldn’t be afeard, but it’ll
be a comfort to your mother. I must have a drink o’ whiskey after that
sight.”

With these words she elbowed her way into the barroom. Most of the
Kennett Volunteers were there engaged in carrying out a similar
resolution. They would gladly have kept the whole occurrence secret, but
that was impossible. It was known all over the country, in three days,
and the story of it has not yet died out of the local annals.



CHAPTER XIX.

THE HUSKING FROLIC.


Jake Fairthorn rushed into Dr. Deane’s door with a howl of terror.

“Cousin Martha! Betsy!” he cried; “he’s goin’ to shoot Gilbert!”

“None o’ your tricks, boy!” Betsy Lavender exclaimed, in her most savage
tone, as she saw the paleness of Martha’s face. “I’m up to ‘em. Who’d
shoot Gilbert Potter? Not Alf Barton, I’ll be bound; he’d be afeard to
shoot even Sandy Flash!”

“It’s Sandy Flash,--he’s there! Gilbert shot his hat off!” cried Jake.

“The Lord have mercy!” And the next minute Miss Betsy found herself, she
scarcely knew how, in the road.

Both had heard the shot, but supposed that it was some volunteer
discharging an old load from his musket; they knew nothing of Sandy’s
visit to the Unicorn, and Jake’s announcement seemed simply incredible.

“O you wicked boy! What’ll become o’ you?” cried Miss Lavender, as she
beheld Gilbert Potter approaching, leading Roger by the bridle. But at
the same instant she saw, from the faces of the crowd, that something
unusual had happened. While the others instantly surrounded Gilbert, the
young volunteer who alone had made any show of fight, told the story
to the two ladies. Martha Deane’s momentary shock of terror disappeared
under the rush of mingled pride and scorn which the narrative called up
in her heart.

“What a pack of cowards!” she exclaimed, her cheeks flushing,--“to stand
still and see the life of the only man that dares to face a robber at
the mercy of the robber’s pistol!”

Gilbert approached. His face was grave and thoughtful, but his eye
brightened as it met hers. No two hands ever conveyed so many and such
swift messages as theirs, in the single moment when they touched
each other. The other women of the village crowded around, and he was
obliged, though with evident reluctance, to relate his share in the
event.

In the mean time the volunteers had issued from the tavern, and were
loudly discussing what course to pursue. The most of them were in favor
of instant pursuit. To their credit it must be said that very few of
them were actual cowards; they had been both surprised by the incredible
daring of the highwayman, and betrayed by the cowardly inefficiency
of their own leader. Barton, restored to his usual complexion by two
glasses of whiskey, was nearly ready to head a chase which he suspected
would come to nothing; but the pert young volunteer, who had been
whispering with some of the younger men, suddenly cried out,--

“I say, fellows, we’ve had about enough o’ Barton’s command; and I, for
one, am a-goin’ to enlist under Captain Potter.”

“Good!” “Agreed!” responded a number of others, and some eight or ten
stepped to one side. The few remaining around Alfred Barton began to
look doubtful, and all eyes were turned curiously upon him.

Gilbert, however, stepped forward and said: “It’s bad policy to divide
our forces just now, when we ought to be off on the hunt. Mr. Barton,
we all know, got up the company, and I am willing to serve under him,
if he’ll order us to mount at once! If not, rather than lose more time,
I’ll head as many as are ready to go.”

Barton saw how the tide was turning, and suddenly determined to cover up
his shame, if possible, with a mantle of magnanimity.

“The fellows are right, Gilbert!” he said. “You deserve to take the lead
to-day, so go ahead; I’ll follow you!”

“Mount, then, all of you!” Gilbert cried, without further hesitation. In
a second he was on Roger’s back. “You, Barton,” he ordered, “take three
with you and make for the New-Garden cross-road as fast as you can.
Pratt, you and three more towards the Hammer-and-Trowel; while I, with
the rest, follow the direct trail.”

No more time was wasted in talking. The men took their guns and mounted,
the two detached commands were told off, and in five minutes the village
was left to its own inhabitants.

Gilbert had a long and perplexing chase, but very little came of it. The
trail of Sandy Flash’s horse was followed without much difficulty until
it struck the west branch of Redley Creek. There it suddenly ceased, and
more than an hour elapsed before some one discovered it, near the road,
a quarter of a mile further up the stream. Thence it turned towards the
Hammer-and-Trowel, but no one at the farm-houses on the road had seen
any one pass except a Quaker, wearing the usual broad-brimmed hat and
drab coat, and mounted on a large, sleepy-looking horse.

About the middle of the afternoon, Gilbert detected, in one of the lanes
leading across to the Street Road, the marks of a galloping steed, and
those who had a little lingering knowledge of wood-craft noticed that
the gallop often ceased suddenly, changed to a walk, and was then as
suddenly resumed. Along the Street Road no one had been seen except
a Quaker, apparently the same person. Gilbert and his hunters now
suspected the disguise, but the difficulty of following the trail had
increased with every hour of lost time; and after scouring along the
Brandywine and then crossing into the Pocopsin valley, they finally gave
up the chase, late in the day. It was the general opinion that Sandy had
struck northward, and was probably safe in one of his lairs among the
Welch Mountains.

When they reached the Unicorn tavern at dusk, Gilbert found Joe
Fairthorn impatiently waiting for him. Sally had been “tearin’ around
like mad,” (so Joe described his sister’s excitement,) having twice
visited the village during the afternoon in the hope of seeing the hero
of the day--after Sandy Flash, of course, who had, and deserved, the
first place.

“And, Gilbert,” said Joe, “I wasn’t to forgit to tell you that we’re
a-goin’ to have a huskin’ frolic o’ Wednesday night,--day after
to-morrow, you know. Dad’s behindhand with huskin’, and the moon’s goin’
to be full, and Mark he said Let’s have a frolic, and I’m comin’ home to
meet Gilbert anyhow, and so I’ll be there. And Sally she said I’ll have
Martha and lots o’ girls, only we shan’t come out into the field till
you’re nigh about done. Then Mark he said That won’t take long, and if
you don’t help me with my shocks I won’t come, and Sally she hit him,
and so it’s all agreed. And you’ll come, Gilbert, won’t you?”

“Yes, yes, Joe,” Gilbert answered, a little impatiently; “tell Sally
I’ll come.” Then he turned Roger’s head towards home.

He was glad of the solitary ride which allowed him to collect his
thoughts. Fearless as was his nature, the danger he had escaped might
well have been cause for grave self-congratulation; but the thought of
it scarcely lingered beyond the moment of the encounter. The astonishing
discovery that the stranger, Fortune, and the redoubtable Sandy Flash
were one and the same person; the mysterious words which this person had
addressed to him; the repetition of the same words by Deb. Smith,--all
these facts, suggesting, as their common solution, some secret which
concerned himself, perplexed his mind, already more than sufficiently
occupied with mystery.

It suddenly flashed across his memory, as he rode homeward, that on the
evening when he returned from the fox-chase, his mother had manifested
an unusual interest in the strange huntsman, questioning him minutely
as to the latter’s appearance. Was she--or, rather, had she been, at one
time of her life--acquainted with Sandy Flash? And if so--

“No!” he cried aloud, “it is impossible! It could not--cannot be!”
 The new possibility which assailed him was even more terrible than his
previous belief in the dishonor of his birth. Better, a thousand times,
he thought, be basely born than the son of an outlaw! It seemed that
every attempt he made to probe his mother’s secret threatened to
overwhelm him with a knowledge far worse than the fret of his ignorance.
Why not be patient, therefore, leaving the solution to her and to time?

Nevertheless, a burning curiosity led him to relate to his mother, that
evening, the events of the day. He watched her closely as he described
his encounter with the highwayman, and repeated the latter’s words. It
was quite natural that Mary Potter should shudder and turn pale during
the recital--quite natural that a quick expression of relief should
shine from her face at the close; but Gilbert could not be sure that
her interest extended to any one except himself. She suggested no
explanation of Sandy Flash’s words, and he asked none.

“I shall know no peace, child,” she said, “until the money has been
paid, and the mortgage is in your hands.”

“You won’t have long to wait, now, mother,” he answered cheerily. “I
shall see Mark on Wednesday evening, and therefore can start for Chester
on Friday, come rain or shine. As for Sandy Flash, he’s no doubt up on
the Welch Mountain by this time. It isn’t his way to turn up twice in
succession, in the same place.”

“You don’t know him, Gilbert. He won’t soon forget that you shot at
him.”

“I seem to be safe enough, if he tells the truth.” Gilbert could not
help remarking.

Mary Potter shook her head, and said nothing.

Two more lovely Indian-summer days went by, and as the wine-red sun
slowly quenched his lower limb in the denser smoke along the horizon,
the great bronzed moon struggled out of it, on the opposite rim of
the sky. It was a weird light and a weird atmosphere, such as we might
imagine overspreading Babylonian ruins, on the lone plains of the
Euphrates; but no such fancies either charmed or tormented the lusty,
wide-awake, practical lads and lasses, whom the brightening moon beheld
on their way to the Fairthorn farm. “The best night for huskin’ that
ever was,” comprised the sum of their appreciation.

At the old farm-house there was great stir of preparation. Sally, with
her gown pinned up, dodged in and out of kitchen and sitting-room,
catching herself on every door-handle, while Mother Fairthorn, beaming
with quiet content, stood by the fire, and inspected the great kettles
which were to contain the materials for the midnight supper. Both were
relieved when Betsy Lavender made her appearance, saying,--

“Let down your gownd, Sally, and give _me_ that ladle. What’d be
a mighty heap o’ work for you, in that flustered condition, is
child’s-play to the likes o’ me, that’s as steady as a cart-horse,--not
that self-praise, as the sayin’ is, is any recommendation,--but my
kickin’ and prancin’ days is over, and high time, too.”

“No, Betsy, I’ll not allow it!” cried Sally. “You must enjoy yourself,
too.” But she had parted with the ladle, while speaking, and Miss
Lavender, repeating the words “Enjoy yourself, too!” quietly took her
place in the kitchen.

The young men, as they arrived, took their way to the corn-field,
piloted by Joe and Jake Fairthorn. These boys each carried a wallet over
his shoulders, the jug in the front end balancing that behind, and the
only casualty that occurred was when Jake, jumping down from a fence,
allowed his jugs to smite together, breaking one of them to shivers.

“There, that’ll come out o’ your pig-money,” said Joe.

“I don’t care,” Jake retorted, “if daddy only pays me the rest.”

The boys, it must be known, received every year the two smallest pigs of
the old sow’s litter, with the understanding that these were to be their
separate property, on condition of their properly feeding and fostering
the whole herd. This duty they performed with great zeal and enthusiasm,
and numberless and splendid were the castles which they built with the
coming money; yet, alas! when the pigs were sold, it always happened
that Farmer Fairthorn found some inconvenient debt pressing him, and
the boys’ pig-money was therefore taken as a loan,--only as a loan,--and
permanently invested.

There were between three and four hundred shocks to husk, and the young
men, armed with husking-pegs of hickory, fastened by a leathern strap
over the two middle fingers, went bravely to work. Mark Deane, who had
reached home that afternoon, wore the seventy-five dollars in a buckskin
belt around his waist, and anxiously awaited the arrival of Gilbert
Potter, of whose adventure he had already heard. Mark’s presumed
obligations to Alfred Barton prevented him from expressing his
overpowering contempt for that gentleman’s conduct, but he was not
obliged to hold his tongue about Gilbert’s pluck and decision, and he
did not.

The latter, detained at the house by Mother Fairthorn and Sally,--both
of whom looked upon him as one arisen from the dead,--did not reach the
field until the others had selected their rows, overturned the shocks,
and were seated in a rustling line, in the moonlight.

“Gilbert!” shouted Mark, “come here! I’ve kep’ the row next to mine, for
you! And I want to get a grip o’ your hand, my bold boy!”

He sprang up, flinging an armful of stalks behind him, and with
difficulty restrained an impulse to clasp Gilbert to his broad breast.
It was not the custom of the neighborhood; the noblest masculine
friendship would have been described by the people in no other terms
than “They are very thick,” and men who loved each other were accustomed
to be satisfied with the knowledge. The strong moonlight revealed to
Gilbert Potter the honest heart which looked out of Mark’s blue eyes, as
the latter held his hand like a vice, and said,--

“I’ve heard all about it.”

“More than there was occasion for, very likely,” Gilbert replied. “I’ll
tell you my story some day, Mark; but tonight we must work and not
talk.”

“All right, Gilbert. I say, though, I’ve got the money you wanted; we’ll
fix the matter after supper.”

The rustling of the corn-stalks recommenced, and the tented lines of
shocks slowly fell as the huskers worked their way over the brow of the
hill, whence the ground sloped down into a broad belt of shade, cast by
the woods in the bottom. Two or three dogs which had accompanied their
masters coursed about the field, or darted into the woods in search
of an opossum-trail. Joe and Jake Fairthorn would gladly have followed
them, but were afraid of venturing into the mysterious gloom; so they
amused themselves with putting on the coats which the men had thrown
aside, and gravely marched up and down the line, commending the rapid
and threatening the tardy workers.

Erelong, the silence was broken by many a shout of exultation or banter,
many a merry sound of jest or fun, as the back of the night’s task was
fairly broken. One husker mimicked the hoot of an owl in the thickets
below; another sang a melody popular at the time, the refrain of which
was,--

  “Be it late or early, be it late or soon,
   It’s I will enjoy the sweet rose in June!”

“Sing out, boys!” shouted Mark, “so the girls can hear you! It’s time
they were comin’ to look after us.”

“Sing, yourself!” some one replied. “You can out-bellow the whole raft.”

Without more ado, Mark opened his mouth and began chanting, in a
ponderous voice,--

  “On yonder mountain summit
     My castle you will find,
   Renown’d in ann-cient historee,--
     My name it’s Rinardine!”

Presently, from the upper edge of the wood, several feminine voices were
heard, singing another part of the same song:--

  “Beware of meeting Rinar,
    All on the mountains high!”

Such a shout of fun ran over the field, that the frighted owl ceased his
hooting in the thicket. The moon stood high, and turned the night-haze
into diffused silver. Though the hollows were chill with gathering
frost, the air was still mild and dry on the hills, and the young
ladies, in their warm gowns of home-made flannel, enjoyed both the
splendor of the night and the lively emulation of the scattered
laborers.

“Turn to, and give us a lift, girls,” said Mark.

“Beware of meeting Rinar!” Sally laughed.

“Because you know what you promised him, Sally,” he retorted. “Come, a
bargain’s a bargain; there’s the outside row standin’--not enough of us
to stretch all the way acrost the field--so let’s you and me take that
and bring it down square with th’ others. The rest may keep my row
a-goin’, if they can.”

Two or three of the other maidens had cut the supporting stalks of the
next shock, and overturned it with much laughing. “I can’t husk, Mark,”
 said Martha Deane, “but I’ll promise to superintend these, if you will
keep Sally to her word.”

There was a little running hither and thither, a show of fight, a mock
scramble, and it ended by Sally tumbling over a pumpkin, and then
being carried off by Mark to the end of the outside row of shocks,
some distance in the rear of the line of work. Here he laid the stalks
straight for her, doubled his coat and placed it on the ground for a
seat, and then took his place on the other side of the shock.

Sally husked a few ears in silence, but presently found it more
agreeable to watch her partner, as he bent to the labor, ripping the
covering from each ear with one or two rapid motions, snapping the cob,
and flinging the ear over his shoulder into the very centre of the heap,
without turning his head. When the shock was finished, there were five
stalks on her side, and fifty on Mark’s.

He laughed at the extent of her help, but, seeing how bright and
beautiful her face looked in the moonlight, how round and supple her
form, contrasted with his own rough proportions, he added, in a lower
tone,--

“Never mind the work, Sally--I only wanted to have you with me.”

Sally was silent, but happy, and Mark proceeded to overthrow the next
shock.

When they were again seated face to face, he no longer bent so steadily
over the stalks, but lifted his head now and then to watch the gloss of
the moon on her black hair, and the mellow gleam that seemed to slide
along her cheek and chin, playing with the shadows, as she moved.

“Sally!” he said at last, “you must ha’ seen, over and over ag’in, that
I like to be with you. Do you care for me, at all?”

She flushed and trembled a little as she answered,--“Yes, Mark, I do.”

He husked half a dozen ears rapidly, then looked up again and asked,--

“Do you care enough for me, Sally, to take me for good and all? I can’t
put it into fine speech, but I love you dearly and honestly; will you
marry me?”

Sally bent down her head, so choked with the long-delayed joy that she
found it impossible to speak. Mark finished the few remaining stalks and
put them behind him; he sat upon the ground at her feet.

“There’s my hand, Sally; will you take it, and me with it?”

Her hand slowly made its way into his broad, hard palm. Once the
surrender expressed, her confusion vanished; she lifted her head for his
kiss, then leaned it on his shoulder and whispered,--

“Oh, Mark, I’ve loved you for ever and ever so long a time!”

“Why, Sally, deary,” said he, “that’s my case, too; and I seemed to feel
it in my bones that we was to be a pair; only, you know, I had to get a
foothold first. I couldn’t come to you with empty hands--though, faith!
there’s not much to speak of in ‘em!”

“Never mind that, Mark,--I’m _so_ glad you want me!”

And indeed she was; why should she not, therefore, say so?

“There’s no need o’ broken sixpences, or true-lovers’ knots, I guess,”
 said Mark, giving her another kiss. “I’m a plain-spoken fellow, and
when I say I want you for my wife, Sally, I mean it. But we mustn’t be
settin’ here, with the row unhusked; that’ll never do. See if I don’t
make the ears spin! And I guess you can help me a little now, can’t
you?”

With a jolly laugh, Mark picked up the corn-cutter and swung it above
the next shock. In another instant it would have fallen, but a loud
shriek burst out from the bundled stalks, and Joe Fairthorn crept forth
on his hands and knees.

The lovers stood petrified. “Why, you young devil!” exclaimed Mark,
while the single word “JOE!” which came from Sally’s lips, contained the
concentrated essence of a thousand slaps.

“Don’t--don’t!” whimpered Joe. “I’ll not tell anybody, indeed I wont!”

“If you do,” threatened Mark, brandishing the corn-cutter, “it isn’t
your legs I shall cut off, but your head, even with the shoulders. What
were you doin’ in that shock?”

“I wanted to hear what you and Sally were savin’ to each other. Folks
said you two was a-courtin’,” Joe answered.

The comical aspect of the matter suddenly struck Mark, and he burst into
a roar of laughter.

“Mark, how can you?” said Sally, bridling a little.

“Well,--it’s all in the fam’ly, after all. Joe, tarnation scamp as
he is, is long-headed enough to keep his mouth shut, rather than have
people laugh at his relations--eh, Joe?”

“I said I’d never say a word,” Joe affirmed, “and I won’t. You see if
I even tell Jake. But I say, Mark, when you and Sally get married, will
you be my uncle?”

“It depends on your behavior,” Mark gravely answered, seating himself
to husk. Joe magnanimously left the lovers, and pitched over the third
shock ahead, upon which he began to husk with might and main, in order
to help them out with their task.

By the time the outside row was squared, the line had reached the bottom
of the slope, where the air was chill, although the shadows of the
forest had shifted from the field. Then there was a race among the
huskers for the fence, the girls promising that he whose row was first
husked out, should sit at the head of the table, and be called King of
the Corn-field. The stalks rustled, the cobs snapped, the ears fell like
a shower of golden cones, and amid much noise and merriment, not
only the victor’s row but all the others were finished, and Farmer
Fairthorn’s field stood husked from end to end.

Gilbert Potter had done his share of the work steadily, and as silently
as the curiosity of the girls, still excited by his recent adventure,
would allow. It was enough for him that he caught a chance word, now
and then, from Martha. The emulation of the race with which the husking
closed favored them, and he gladly lost a very fair chance of becoming
King of the Corn-field for the opportunity of asking her to assist him
in contriving a brief interview, on the way to the house.

Where two work together to the same end, there is no doubt about the
result, especially as, in this case, the company preferred returning
through the wood instead of crossing the open, high-fenced fields. When
they found themselves together, out of ear-shot of the others, Gilbert
lost no time in relating the particulars of his encounter with Sandy
Flash, the discovery he had made, and the mysterious assurance of Deb.
Smith.

Martha listened with the keenest interest. “It is very, very strange,”
 she said, “and the strangest of all is that he should be that man,
Fortune. As for his words, I do not find them so singular. He has
certainly the grandest courage, robber as he is, and he admires the same
quality in you; no doubt you made a favorable impression upon him on the
day of the fox-chase; and so, although you are hunting him down, he will
not injure you, if he can help it. I find all that very natural, in a
man of his nature.”

“But Deb. Smith?” Gilbert asked.

“That,” said Martha, “is rather a curious coincidence, but nothing more,
I think. She is said to be a superstitious creature, and if you have
ever befriended her,--and you may have done so, Gilbert, without your
good heart being aware of it,--she thinks that her spells, or charms,
or what not, will save you from harm. No, I was wrong; it is not so very
strange, except Fortune’s intimacy with Alfred Barton, which everybody
was talking about at the time.”

Gilbert drew a deep breath of relief. How the darkness of his new
fear vanished, in the light of Martha’s calm, sensible words! “How
wonderfully you have guessed the truth!”. he cried. “So it is; Deb.
Smith thinks she is beholden to me for kind treatment; she blew upon
my palm, in a mysterious way, and said she would stand by me in time of
need! But that about Fortune puzzles me. I can see that Barton is very
shy of me since he thinks I’ve made the discovery.”

“We must ask Betsy Lavender’s counsel, there,” said Martha. “It is
beyond my depth.”

The supper smoked upon the table when they reached the farm-house.
It had been well earned, and it was enjoyed, both in a physical and a
social sense, to the very extent of the guests’ capacities. The King sat
at the head of the table, and Gilbert Potter--forced into that position
by Mark--at the foot. Sally Fairthorn insisted on performing her duty
as handmaiden, although, as Betsy Lavender again and again declared,
her room was better than her help. Sally’s dark eyes fairly danced and
sparkled; her full, soft lips shone with a scarlet bloom; she laughed
with a wild, nervous joyousness, and yet rushed about haunted with a
fearful dread of suddenly bursting into tears. Her ways were so well
known, however, that a little extra impulsiveness excited no surprise.
Martha Deane was the only person who discovered what had taken place.
As the girls were putting on their hats and cloaks in the bedroom, Sally
drew her into the passage, kissed her a number of times with passionate
vehemence, and then darted off without saying a word.

Gilbert rode home through the splendid moonlight, in the small hours of
the morning, with a light heart, and Mark’s money-belt buckled around
his waist.



CHAPTER XX.

GILBERT ON THE ROAD TO CHESTER.


Being now fully prepared to undertake his journey to Chester, Gilbert
remembered his promise to Alfred Barton. As the subject had not again
been mentioned between them,--probably owing to the excitement produced
by Sandy Flash’s visit to Kennett Square, and its consequences,--he felt
bound to inform Barton of his speedy departure, and to renew his offer
of service.

He found the latter in the field, assisting Giles, who was hauling home
the sheaves of corn-fodder in a harvest-wagon. The first meeting of
the two men did not seem to be quite agreeable to either. Gilbert’s
suspicions had been aroused, although he could give them no definite
form, and Barton shrank from any reference to what had now become a very
sore topic.

“Giles,” said the latter, after a moment of evident embarrassment, “I
guess you may drive home with that load, and pitch it off; I’ll wait for
you here.”

When the rustling wain had reached a convenient distance, Gilbert
began,--

“I only wanted to say that I’m going to Chester tomorrow.”

“Oh, yes!” Barton exclaimed, “about that money? I suppose you want all
o’ yours?”

“It’s as I expected. But you said you could borrow elsewhere, and send
it by me.”

“The fact is,” said Barton, “that I’ve both borrowed and sent. I’m
obliged to you, all the same, Gilbert; the will’s as good as the deed,
you know; but I got the money from--well, from a friend, who was about
going down on his own business, and so that stone killed both my birds.
I ought to ha’ sent you word, by rights.”

“Is your _friend_,” Gilbert asked, “a safe and trusty man?”

“Safe enough, I guess--a little wild, at times, maybe; but he’s not such
a fool as to lose what he’d never have a chance of getting again.”

“Then,” said Gilbert, “it’s hardly likely that he’s the same friend you
took such a fancy to, at the Hammer-and-Trowel, last spring?”

Alfred Barton started as if he had been shot, and a deep color spread
over his face. His lower jaw slackened and his eyes moved uneasily from
side to side.

“Who--who do you mean?” he stammered.

The more evident his embarrassment became, the more Gilbert was
confirmed in his suspicion that there was some secret understanding
between the two men. The thing seemed incredible, but the same point,
he remembered had occurred to Martha Deane’s mind, when she so readily
explained the other circumstances.

“Barton,” he said, sternly, “you know very well whom I mean. What became
of your friend Fortune? Didn’t you see him at the tavern, last Monday
morning?”

“Y-yes--oh, yes! I know who he is _now_, the damned scoundrel! I’d give
a hundred dollars to see him dance upon nothing!”

He clenched his fists, and uttered a number of other oaths, which
need not be repeated. His rage seemed so real that Gilbert was again
staggered. Looking at the heavy, vulgar face before him,--the small,
restless eyes, the large sensuous mouth, the forehead whose very extent,
in contradiction to ordinary laws, expressed imbecility rather than
intellect, it was impossible to associate great cunning and shrewdness
with such a physiognomy. Every line, at that moment, expressed pain and
exasperation. But Gilbert felt bound to go a step further.

“Barton,” he said, “didn’t you know who Fortune was, on that day?”

“N-no--no! On that _day_--NO! Blast me if I did!”

“Not before you left him?”

“Well, I’ll admit that a suspicion of it came to me at the very last
moment--too late to be of any use. But come, damme! that’s all over, and
what’s the good o’ talking? _You_ tried your best to catch the fellow,
too, but he was too much for you! ‘T isn’t such an easy job, eh?”

This sort of swagger was Alfred Barton’s only refuge, when he was driven
into a corner. Though some color still lingered in his face, he spread
his shoulders with a bold, almost defiant air, and met Gilbert’s eye
with a steady gaze. The latter was not prepared to carry his examination
further, although he was still far from being satisfied.

“Come, come, Gilbert!” Barton presently resumed, “I mean no offence. You
showed yourself to be true blue, and you led the hunt as well as any
man could ha’ done; but the very thought o’ the fellow makes me mad, and
I’ll know no peace till he’s strung up. If I was your age, now! A man
seems to lose his spirit as he gets on in years, and I’m only sorry you
weren’t made captain at the start, instead o’ me. You _shall_ be, from
this time on; I won’t take it again!”

“One thing I’ll promise you,” said Gilbert, with a meaning look, “that I
won’t let him walk into the bar-room of the Unicorn, without hindrance.”

“I’ll bet you won’t!” Barton exclaimed. “All _I’m_ afraid of is, that he
won’t try it again.”

“We’ll see; this highway-robbery must have an end. I must now be going.
Good-bye!”

“Good-bye, Gilbert; take care o’ yourself!” said Barton, in a very good
humor, now that the uncomfortable interview was over. “And, I say,” he
added, “remember that I stand ready to do you a good turn, whenever I
can!”

“Thank you!” responded Gilbert, as he turned Roger’s head; but he said
to himself,--“when all other friends fail, I may come to _you_, not
sooner.”

The next morning showed signs that the Indian Summer had reached its
close. All night long the wind had moaned and lamented in the chimneys,
and the sense of dread in the outer atmosphere crept into the house and
weighed upon the slumbering inmates. There was a sound in the forest as
of sobbing Dryads, waiting for the swift death and the frosty tomb. The
blue haze of dreams which had overspread the land changed into an ashy,
livid mist, dragging low, and clinging to the features of the landscape
like a shroud to the limbs of a corpse.

The time, indeed, had come for a change. It was the 2nd of November; and
after a summer and autumn beautiful almost beyond parallel, a sudden
and severe winter was generally anticipated. In this way, even the most
ignorant field-hand recognized the eternal balance of Nature.

Mary Potter, although the day had arrived for which she had so long and
fervently prayed, could not shake off the depressing influence of the
weather. After breakfast, when Gilbert began to make preparations for
the journey, she found herself so agitated that it was with difficulty
she could give him the usual assistance. The money, which was mostly
in silver coin, had been sewed into tight rolls, and was now to be
carefully packed in the saddle-bags: the priming of the pistols was to
be renewed, and the old, shrivelled covers of the holsters so greased,
hammered out, and padded that they would keep the weapons dry in case of
rain. Although Gilbert would reach Chester that evening,--the distance
being not more than twenty-four miles,--the preparations, principally on
account of his errand, were conducted with a grave and solemn sense of
their importance.

When, finally, everything was in readiness,--the saddle-bags so packed
that the precious rolls could not rub or jingle; the dinner of sliced
bread and pork placed over them, in a folded napkin; the pistols,
intended more for show than use, thrust into the antiquated holsters;
and all these deposited and secured on Roger’s back,--Gilbert took his
mother’s hand, and said,--

“Good-bye, mother! Don’t worry, now, if I shouldn’t get back until
late to-morrow evening; I can’t tell exactly how long the business will
take.”

He had never looked more strong and cheerful. The tears came to Mary
Potter’s eyes, but she held them hack by a powerful effort. All she
could say--and her voice trembled in spite of herself--was,--

“Good-bye, my boy! Remember that I’ve worked, and thought, and prayed,
for you alone,--and that I’d do more--I’d do _all_, if I only could!”

His look said, “I do not forget!” He sat already in the saddle, and was
straightening the folds of his heavy cloak, so that it might protect his
knees. The wind had arisen, and the damp mist was driving down the glen,
mixed with scattered drops of a coming rain-storm. As he rode slowly
away, Mary Potter lifted her eyes to the dense gray of the sky,
darkening from moment to moment, listened to the murmur of the wind
over the wooded hills opposite, and clasped her hands with the appealing
gesture which had now become habitual to her.

“Two days more!” she sighed, as she entered the house,--“two days more
of fear and prayer! Lord forgive me that I am so weak of faith--that I
make myself trouble where I ought to be humble and thankful!”

Gilbert rode slowly, because he feared the contents of his saddle-bags
would be disturbed by much jolting. Proof against wind and weather,
he was not troubled by the atmospheric signs, but rather experienced a
healthy glow and exhilaration of the blood as the mist grew thicker and
beat upon his face like the blown spray of a waterfall. By the time he
had reached the Carson farm, the sky contracted to a low, dark arch of
solid wet, in which there was no positive outline of cloud, and a dull,
universal roar, shorn of all windy sharpness, hummed over the land.

From the hill behind the farm-house, whence he could overlook the
bottom-lands of Redley Creek, and easily descry, on a clear day, the
yellow front of Dr. Deane’s house in Kennett Square, he now beheld a dim
twilight chaos, wherein more and more of the distance was blotted out.
Yet still some spell held up the suspended rain, and the drops that fell
seemed to be only the leakage of the airy cisterns before they burst.
The fields on either hand were deserted. The cattle huddled behind the
stacks or crouched disconsolately in fence-corners. Here and there
a farmer made haste to cut and split a supply of wood for his
kitchen-fire, or mended the rude roof on which his pigs depended for
shelter; but all these signs showed how soon he intended to be snugly
housed, to bide out the storm.

It was a day of no uncertain promise. Gilbert confessed to himself,
before he reached the Philadelphia road, that he would rather have
chosen another day for the journey; yet the thought of returning was
farthest from his mind. Even when the rain, having created its little
pools and sluices in every hollow of the ground, took courage, and
multiplied its careering drops, and when the wet gusts tore open his
cloak and tugged at his dripping hat, he cheerily shook the moisture
from his cheeks and eyelashes, patted Roger’s streaming neck, and
whistled a bar or two of an old carol.

There were pleasant hopes enough to occupy his mind, without dwelling
on these slight external annoyances. He still tried to believe that his
mother’s release would be hastened by the independence which lay folded
in his saddle-bags, and the thud of the wet leather against Roger’s hide
was a sound to cheer away any momentary foreboding. Then, Martha--dear,
noble girl! She was his; it was but to wait, and waiting must be easy
when the end was certain. He felt, moreover, that in spite of his
unexplained disgrace, he had grown in the respect of his neighbors;
that his persevering integrity was beginning to bring its reward, and
he thanked God very gratefully that he had been saved from adding to his
name any stain of his own making.

In an hour or more the force of the wind somewhat abated, but the sky
seemed to dissolve into a massy flood. The rain rushed down, not in
drops, but in sheets, and in spite of his cloak, he was wet to the skin.
For half an hour he was obliged to halt in the wood between Old Kennett
and Chadd’s Ford, and here he made the discovery that with all his care
the holsters were nearly full of water. Brown streams careered down
the long, meadowy hollow on his left, wherein many Hessian soldiers lay
buried. There was money buried with them, the people believed, but no
one cared to dig among the dead at midnight, and many a wild tale of
frighted treasure-seekers recurred to his mind.

At the bottom of the long hill flowed the Brandywine, now rolling swift
and turbid, level with its banks. Roger bravely breasted the flood,
and after a little struggle, reached the opposite side. Then across
the battle-meadow, in the teeth of the storm, along the foot of the low
hill, around the brow of which the entrenchments of the American army
made a clayey streak, until the ill-fated field, sown with grape-shot
and bullets which the farmers turned up every spring with their furrows,
lay behind him. The story of the day was familiar to him, from the
narratives of scores of eye-witnesses, and he thought to himself, as
he rode onward, wet, lashed by the furious rain, yet still of good
cheer,--“Though the fight was lost, the cause was won.”

After leaving the lovely lateral valley which stretches eastward for
two miles, at right angles to the course of the Brandywine, he entered a
rougher and wilder region, more thickly wooded and deeply indented with
abrupt glens. Thus far he had not met with a living soul. Chester was
now not more than eight or ten miles distant, and, as nearly as he could
guess, it was about two o’clock in the afternoon. With the best luck, he
could barely reach his destination by nightfall, for the rain showed no
signs of abating, and there were still several streams to be crossed.

His blood leaped no more so nimbly along his veins; the continued
exposure had at last chilled and benumbed him. Letting the reins fall
upon Roger’s neck, he folded himself closely in his wet cloak, and bore
the weather with a grim, patient endurance. The road dropped into a
rough glen, crossed a stony brook, and then wound along the side of
a thickly wooded hill. On his right the bank had been cut away like
a wall; on the left a steep slope of tangled thicket descended to the
stream.

One moment, Gilbert knew that he was riding along this road, Roger
pressing close to the bank for shelter from the wind and rain; the next,
there was a swift and tremendous grip on his collar, Roger slid from
under him, and he was hurled backwards, with great force, upon the
ground. Yet even in the act of falling, he seemed to be conscious that a
figure sprang down upon the road from the bank above.

It was some seconds before the shock, which sent a crash through his
brain and a thousand fiery sparkles into his eyes, passed away. Then
a voice, keen, sharp, and determined, which it seemed that he knew,
exclaimed,--

“Damn the beast! I’ll have to shoot him.”

Lifting his head with some difficulty, for he felt weak and giddy, and
propping himself on his arm, he saw Sandy Flash in the road, three
or four paces off, fronting Roger, who had whirled around, and with
levelled ears and fiery eyes, seemed to be meditating an attack.

The robber wore a short overcoat, made entirely of musk-rat skins, which
completely protected the arms in his belt. He had a large hunting-knife
in his left hand, and appeared to be feeling with his right for the
stock of a pistol. It seemed to Gilbert that nothing but the singular
force of his eye held back the horse from rushing upon him.

“Keep as you are, young man!” he cried, without turning his head, “or a
bullet goes into your horse’s brain. I know the beast, and don’t want to
see him slaughtered. If _you_ don’t, order him to be quiet!”

Gilbert, although he knew every trait of the noble animal’s nature
better than those of many a human acquaintance, was both surprised and
touched at the instinct with which he had recognized an enemy, and the
fierce courage with which he stood on the defensive. In that moment of
bewilderment, he thought only of Roger, whose life hung by a thread,
which his silence would instantly snap. He might have seen--had there
been time for reflection--that nothing would have been gained, in any
case, by the animal’s death; for, stunned and unarmed as he was, he was
no match for the powerful, wary highwayman.

Obeying the feeling which entirely possessed him, he cried,--“Roger!
Roger, old boy!”

The horse neighed a shrill, glad neigh of recognition, and pricked up
his ears. Sandy Flash stood motionless; he had let go of his pistol, and
concealed the knife in a fold of his coat.

“Quiet, Roger, quiet!” Gilbert again commanded.

The animal understood the tone, if not the words. He seemed completely
reassured, and advanced a step or two nearer. With the utmost swiftness
and dexterity, combined with an astonishing gentleness,--making no
gesture which might excite Roger’s suspicion,--Sandy Flash thrust
his hand into the holsters, smiled mockingly, cut the straps of the
saddle-bags with a single movement of his keen-edged knife, tested
the weight of the bags, nodded, grinned, and then, stepping aside, he
allowed the horse to pass him. But he watched every motion of the head
and ears, as he did so.

Roger, however, seemed to think only of his master. Bending down his
head, he snorted warmly into Gilbert’s pale face, and then swelled his
sides with a deep breath of satisfaction. Tears of shame, grief, and
rage swam in Gilbert’s eyes. “Roger,” he said, “I’ve lost everything but
you!”

He staggered to his feet and leaned against the bank. The extent of his
loss--the hopelessness of its recovery--the impotence of his burning
desire to avenge the outrage--overwhelmed him. The highwayman still
stood, a few paces off, watching him with a grim curiosity.

With a desperate effort, Gilbert turned towards him. “Sandy Flash,” he
cried, “do you know what you are doing?”

“I rather guess so,”--and the highwayman grinned. “I’ve done it before,
but never quite so neatly as this time.”

“I’ve heard it said, to your credit,” Gilbert continued, “that, though
you rob the rich, you sometimes give to the poor. This time you’ve
robbed a poor man.”

“I’ve only borrowed a little from one able to spare a good deal more
than I’ve got,--and the grudge I owe him isn’t paid off yet.”

“It is not so!” Gilbert cried. “Every cent has been earned by my own
and my mother’s hard work. I was taking it to Chester, to pay off a debt
upon the farm; and the loss and the disappointment will well nigh break
my mother’s heart. According to your views of things, you owe me a
grudge, but you are outside of the law, and I did my duty as a lawful
man by trying to shoot you!”

“And I, _bein’_ outside o’ the law, as you say, have let you off mighty
easy, young man!” exclaimed Sandy Flash, his eyes shining angrily and
his teeth glittering. “I took you for a fellow o’ pluck, not for one
that’d lie, even to the robber they call me! What’s all this pitiful
story about Barton’s money?”

“Barton’s money!”

“Oh--ay! You didn’t agree to take some o’ his money to Chester?” The
mocking expression on the highwayman’s face was perfectly diabolical. He
slung the saddle-bags over his shoulders, and turned to leave.

Gilbert was so amazed that for a moment he knew not what to say. Sandy
Flash took three strides up the road, and then sprang down into the
thicket.

“It is not Barton’s money!” Gilbert cried, with a last desperate
appeal,--“it is mine, mine and my mother’s!”

A short, insulting laugh was the only answer.

“Sandy Flash!” he cried again, raising his voice almost to a shout, as
the crashing of the robber’s steps through the brushwood sounded farther
and farther down the glen, “Sandy Flash! You have plundered a widow’s
honest earnings to-day, and a curse goes with such plunder! Hark you! if
never before, you are cursed from this hour forth! I call upon God, in
my mother’s name, to mark you!”

There was no sound in reply, except the dull, dreary hum of the wind and
the steady lashing of the rain. The growing darkness of the sky told
of approaching night, and the wild glen, bleak enough before, was now a
scene of utter and hopeless desolation to Gilbert’s eyes. He was almost
unmanned, not only by the cruel loss, but also by the stinging sense
of outrage which it had left behind. A mixed feeling of wretched
despondency and shame filled his heart, as he leaned, chill, weary, and
still weak from the shock of his fall, upon Roger’s neck.

The faithful animal turned his head from time to time, as if to question
his master’s unusual demeanor. There was a look of almost human sympathy
in his large eyes; he was hungry and restless, yet would not move until
the word of command had been given.

“Poor fellow!” said Gilbert, patting his cheek, “we’ve both fared ill
to-day. But you mustn’t suffer any longer for my sake.”

He then mounted and rode onward through the storm.



CHAPTER XXI.

ROGER REPAYS HIS MASTER.


A mile or more beyond the spot where Gilbert Potter had been waylaid,
there was a lonely tavern, called the “Drovers’ Inn.” Here he
dismounted, more for his horse’s sake than his own, although he was
sore, weary, and sick of heart. After having carefully groomed Roger
with his own hands, and commended him to the special attentions of
the ostler, he entered the warm public room, wherein three or four
storm-bound drovers were gathered around the roaring fire of hickory
logs.

The men kindly made way for the pale, dripping, wretched-looking
stranger; and the landlord, with a shrewd glance and a suggestion
of “Something hot, I reckon?” began mixing a compound proper for the
occasion. Laying aside his wet cloak, which was sent to the kitchen
to be more speedily dried, Gilbert presently sat in a cloud of his
own steaming garments, and felt the warmth of the potent liquor in his
chilly blood.

All at once, it occurred to him that the highwayman had not touched his
person. There was not only some loose silver in his pockets, but Mark
Deane’s money-belt was still around his waist. So much, at least, was
rescued, and he began to pluck up a little courage. Should he continue
his journey to Chester, explain the misfortune to the holder of his
mortgage, and give notice to the County Sheriff of this new act of
robbery? Then the thought came into his mind that in that case he might
be detained a day or two, in order to make depositions, or comply with
some unknown legal form. In the mean time the news would spread over
the country, no doubt with many exaggerations, and might possibly
reach Kennett--even the ears of his mother. That reflection decided his
course. She must first hear the truth from his mouth; he would try to
give her cheer and encouragement, though he felt none himself; then,
calling his friends together, he would hunt Sandy Flash like a wild
beast until they had tracked him to his lair.

“Unlucky weather for ye, it seems?” remarked the curious landlord,
who, seated in a corner of the fireplace, had for full ten minutes been
watching Gilbert’s knitted brows, gloomy, brooding eyes, and compressed
lips.

“Weather?” he exclaimed, bitterly. “It’s not the weather. Landlord, will
you have a chance of sending to Chester to-morrow?”

“I’m going, if it clears up,” said one of the drovers.

“Then, my friend,” Gilbert continued, “will you take a letter from me to
the Sheriff?”

“If it’s nothing out of the way,” the man replied.

“It’s in the proper course of law--if there is any law to protect us.
Not a mile and a half from here, landlord, I have been waylaid and
robbed on the public road!”

There was a general exclamation of surprise, and Gilbert’s story, which
he had suddenly decided to relate, in order that the people of the
neighborhood might be put upon their guard, was listened to with an
interest only less than the terror which it inspired. The landlady
rushed into the bar-room, followed by the red-faced kitchen wench, and
both interrupted the recital with cries of “Dear, dear!” and “Lord save
us!” The landlord, meanwhile, had prepared another tumbler of hot and
hot, and brought it forward, saying,--

“You need it, the Lord knows, and it shall cost you nothing.”

“What I most need now,” Gilbert said, “is pen, ink, and paper, to
write out my account. Then I suppose you can get me up a cold check,
[Footnote: A local term, in use at the time, signifying a “lunch.”] for
I must start homewards soon.”

“Not ‘a cold check’ after all that drenching and mishandling!” the
landlord exclaimed. “We’ll have a hot supper in half an hour, and you
shall stay, and welcome. Wife, bring down one of Liddy’s pens, the
schoolmaster made for her, and put a little vinegar into th’ ink-bottle;
it’s most dried up!”

In a few minutes the necessary materials for a letter, all of the rudest
kind, were supplied, and the landlord and drovers hovered around as
Gilbert began to write, assisting him with the most extraordinary
suggestions.

“I’d threaten,” said a drover, “to write straight to General Washington,
unless they promise to catch the scoundrel in no time!”

“And don’t forget the knife and pistol!” cried the landlord.

“And say the Tory farmers’ houses ought to be searched!”

“And give his marks, to a hair!”

Amid all this confusion, Gilbert managed to write a brief, but
sufficiently circumstantial account of the robbery, calling upon the
County authorities to do their part in effecting the capture of
Sandy Flash. He offered his services and those of the Kennett troop,
announcing that he should immediately start upon the hunt, and expected
to be seconded by the law.

When the letter had been sealed and addressed, the drovers--some of whom
carried money with them, and had agreed to travel in company, for better
protection--eagerly took charge of it, promising to back the delivery
with very energetic demands for assistance.

Night had fallen, and the rain fell with it, in renewed torrents. The
dreary, universal hum of the storm rose again, making all accidental
sounds of life impertinent, in contrast with its deep, tremendous
monotone. The windows shivered, the walls sweat and streamed, and the
wild wet blew in under the doors, as if besieging that refuge of warm,
red fire-light.

“This beats the Lammas flood o’ ‘68,” said the landlord, as he led the
way to supper. “I was a young man at the time, and remember it well.
Half the dams on Brandywine went that night.”

After a bountiful meal, Gilbert completely dried his garments and
prepared to set out on his return, resisting the kindly persuasion of
the host and hostess that he should stay all night. A restless, feverish
energy filled his frame. He felt that he could not sleep, that to wait
idly would be simple misery, and that only in motion towards the set
aim of his fierce, excited desires, could he bear his disappointment and
shame. But the rain still came down with a volume which threatened
soon to exhaust the cisterns of the air, and in that hope he compelled
himself to wait a little.

Towards nine o’clock the great deluge seemed to slacken. The wind arose,
and there were signs of its shifting, erelong, to the northwest, which
would bring clear weather in a few hours. The night was dark, but not
pitchy; a dull phosphoric gleam overspread the under surface of the
sky. The woods were full of noises, and every gully at the roadside gave
token, by its stony rattle, of the rain-born streams.

With his face towards home and his back to the storm, Gilbert rode into
the night. The highway was but a streak of less palpable darkness; the
hills on either hand scarcely detached themselves from the low, black
ceiling of sky behind them. Sometimes the light of a farm-house window
sparkled faintly, like a glow-worm, but whether far or near, he could
not tell; he only knew how blest must be the owner, sitting with wife
and children around his secure hearthstone,--how wretched his own life,
cast adrift in the darkness,--wife, home, and future, things of doubt!

He had lost more than money; and his wretchedness will not seem unmanly
when we remember the steady strain and struggle of his previous life.
As there is nothing more stimulating to human patience, and courage,
and energy, than the certain prospect of relief at the end, so there is
nothing more depressing than to see that relief suddenly snatched away,
and the same round of toil thrust again under one’s feet! This is the
fate of Tantalus and Sisyphus in one.

Not alone the money; a year, or two years, of labor would no doubt
replace what he had lost. But he had seen, in imagination, his mother’s
feverish anxiety at an end; household help procured, to lighten her
over-heavy toil; the possibility of her release from some terrible
obligation brought nearer, as he hoped and trusted, and with it the
strongest barrier broken down which rose between him and Martha Deane.
All these things which he had, as it were, held in his hand, had been
stolen from him, and the loss was bitter because it struck down to
the roots of the sweetest and strongest fibres of his heart. The night
veiled his face, but if some hotter drops than those of the storm were
shaken from his cheek, they left no stain upon his manhood.

The sense of outrage, of personal indignity, which no man can appreciate
who has not himself been violently plundered, added its sting to
his miserable mood. He thirsted to avenge the wrong; Barton’s words
involuntarily came back to him,--“I’ll know no peace till the villain
has been strung up!” Barton! How came Sandy Flash to know that Barton
intended to send money by him? Had not Barton himself declared that
the matter should be kept secret? Was there some complicity between
the latter and Sandy Flash? Yet, on the other hand, it seemed that the
highwayman believed that he was robbing Gilbert of Barton’s money. Here
was an enigma which he could not solve.

All at once, a hideous solution presented itself. Was it possible that
Barton’s money was to be only _apparently_ stolen--in reality returned
to him privately, afterwards? Possibly the rest of the plunder divided
between the two confederates? Gilbert was not in a charitable mood;
the human race was much more depraved, in his view, than twelve hours
before; and the inference which he would have rejected as monstrous,
that very morning, now assumed a possible existence. One thing, at
least, was certain; he would exact an explanation, and if none should be
furnished, he would make public the evidence in his hands.

The black, dreary night seemed interminable. He could only guess, here
and there, at a landmark, and was forced to rely more upon Roger’s
instinct of the road than upon the guidance of his senses. Towards
midnight, as he judged, by the solitary crow of a cock, the rain almost
entirely ceased. The wind began to blow, sharp and keen, and the hard
vault of the sky to lift a little. He fancied that the hills on his
right had fallen away, and that the horizon was suddenly depressed
towards the north. Roger’s feet began to splash in constantly deepening
water, and presently a roar, distinct from that of the wind, filled the
air.

It was the Brandywine. The stream had overflowed its broad
meadow-bottoms, and was running high and fierce beyond its main channel.
The turbid waters made a dim, dusky gleam around him; soon the fences
disappeared, and the flood reached to his horse’s belly. But he knew
that the ford could be distinguished by the break in the fringe of
timber; moreover, that the creek-bank was a little higher than the
meadows behind it, and so far, at least, he might venture. The ford was
not more than twenty yards across, and he could trust Roger to swim that
distance.

The faithful animal pressed bravely on, but Gilbert soon noticed that he
seemed at fault. The swift water had forced him out of the road, and he
stopped, from time to time, as if anxious and uneasy. The timber could
now be discerned, only a short distance in advance, and in a few minutes
they would gain the bank.

What was that? A strange rustling, hissing sound, as of cattle trampling
through dry reeds,--a sound which quivered and shook, even in the breath
of the hurrying wind! Roger snorted, stood still, and trembled in every
limb; and a sensation of awe and terror struck a chill through Gilbert’s
heart. The sound drew swiftly nearer, and became a wild, seething roar,
filling the whole breadth of the valley.

“Great God!” cried Gilbert, “the dam!--the dam has given way!” He turned
Roger’s head, gave him the rein, struck, spurred, cheered, and shouted.
The brave beast struggled through the impeding flood, but the advance
wave of the coming inundation already touched his side. He staggered;
a line of churning foam bore down upon them, the terrible roar was all
around and over them, and horse and rider were whirled away.

What happened during the first few seconds, Gilbert could never
distinctly recall. Now they were whelmed in the water, now riding its
careering tide, torn through the tops of brushwood, jostled by
floating logs and timbers of the dam-breast, but always, as it seemed,
remorselessly held in the heart of the tumult and the ruin.

He saw, at last, that they had fallen behind the furious onset of the
flood, but Roger was still swimming with it, desperately throwing up his
head from time to time, and snorting the water from his nostrils. All
his efforts to gain a foothold failed; his strength was nearly spent,
and unless some help should come in a few minutes, it would come in
vain. And in the darkness, and the rapidity with which they were borne
along, how should help come?

All at once, Roger’s course stopped. He became an obstacle to the flood,
which pressed him against some other obstacle below, and rushed over
horse and rider. Thrusting out his hand, Gilbert felt the rough bark
of a tree. Leaning towards it and clasping the log in his arms, he drew
himself from the saddle, while Roger, freed from his burden, struggled
into the current and instantly disappeared.

As nearly as Gilbert could ascertain, several timbers, thrown over
each other, had lodged, probably upon a rocky islet in the stream, the
uppermost one projecting slantingly out of the flood. It required all
his strength to resist the current which sucked, and whirled, and tugged
at his body, and to climb high enough to escape its force, without
overbalancing his support. At last, though still half immerged, he found
himself comparatively safe for a time, yet as far as ever from a final
rescue.

He must await the dawn, and an eternity of endurance lay in those few
hours. Meantime, perhaps, the creek would fall, for the rain had ceased,
and there were outlines of moving cloud in the sky. It was the night
which made his situation so terrible, by concealing the chances of
escape. At first, he thought most of Roger. Was his brave horse drowned,
or had he safely gained the bank below? Then, as the desperate moments
went by, and the chill of exposure and the fatigue of exertion began to
creep over him, his mind reverted, with a bitter sweetness, a mixture
of bliss and agony, to the two beloved women to whom his life
belonged,--the life which, alas! he could not now call his own, to give.

He tried to fix his thoughts on Death, to commend his soul to Divine
Mercy; but every prayer shaped itself into an appeal that he might once
more see the dear faces and bear the dear voices. In the great shadow of
the fate which hung over him, the loss of his property became as dust in
the balance, and his recent despair smote him with shame. He no longer
fiercely protested against the injuries of fortune, but entreated pardon
and pity for the sake of his love.

The clouds rolled into distincter masses, and the northwest wind still
hunted them across the sky, until there came, first a tiny rift for a
star, then a gap for a whole constellation, and finally a broad burst of
moonlight. Gilbert now saw that the timber to which he clung was lodged
nearly in the centre of the channel, as the water swept with equal force
on either side of him. Beyond the banks there was a wooded hill on the
left; on the right an overflowed meadow. He was too weak and benumbed
to trust himself to the flood, but he imagined that it was beginning to
subside, and therein lay his only hope.

Yet a new danger now assailed him, from the increasing cold. There was
already a sting of frost, a breath of ice, in the wind. In another hour
the sky was nearly swept bare of clouds, and he could note the lapse of
the night by the sinking of the moon. But he was by this time hardly
in a condition to note anything more. He had thrown himself, face
downwards, on the top of the log, his arms mechanically clasping it,
while his mind sank into a state of torpid, passive suffering, growing
nearer to the dreamy indifference which precedes death. His cloak had
been torn away in the first rush of the inundation, and the wet coat
began to stiffen in the wind, from the ice gathering over it.

The moon was low in the west, and there was a pale glimmer of the coming
dawn in the sky, when Gilbert Potter suddenly raised his head. Above
the noise of the water and the whistle of the wind, he heard a familiar
sound,--the shrill, sharp neigh of a horse. Lifting himself, with great
exertion, to a sitting posture, he saw two men, on horseback, in the
flooded meadow, a little below him. They stopped, seemed to consult, and
presently drew nearer.

Gilbert tried to shout, but the muscles of his throat were stiff, and
his lungs refused to act. The horse neighed again. This time there was
no mistake; it was Roger that he heard! Voice came to him, and he cried
aloud,--a hoarse, strange, unnatural cry.

The horsemen heard it, and rapidly pushed up the bank, until they
reached a point directly opposite to him. The prospect of escape brought
a thrill of life to his frame; he looked around and saw that the flood
had indeed fallen.

“We have no rope,” he heard one of the men say. “How shall we reach
him?”

“There is no time to get one, now,” the other answered. “My horse is
stronger than yours. I’ll go into the creek just below, where it’s
broader and not so deep, and work my way up to him.”

“But one horse can’t carry both.”

“His will follow, be sure, when it sees me.”

As the last speaker moved away, Gilbert saw a led horse plunging
through the water, beside the other. It was a difficult and dangerous
undertaking. The horseman and the loose horse entered the main stream
below, where its divided channel met and broadened, but it was still
above the saddle-girths, and very swift. Sometimes the animals plunged,
losing their foothold; nevertheless, they gallantly breasted the
current, and inch by inch worked their way to a point about six feet
below Gilbert. It seemed impossible to approach nearer.

“Can you swim?” asked the man.

Gilbert shook his head. “Throw me the end of Roger’s bridle!” he then
cried.

The man unbuckled the bridle and threw it, keeping the end of the rein
in his hand. Gilbert tried to grasp it, but his hands were too numb. He
managed, however, to get one arm and his head through the opening, and
relaxed his hold on the log.

A plunge, and the man had him by the collar. He felt himself lifted by a
strong arm and laid across Roger’s saddle. With his failing strength and
stiff limbs, it was no slight task to get into place, and the return,
though less laborious to the horses, was equally dangerous, because
Gilbert was scarcely able to support himself without help.

“You’re safe now,” said the man, when they reached the bank, “but it’s a
downright mercy of God that you’re alive!”

The other horseman joined them, and they rode slowly across the flooded
meadow. They had both thrown their cloaks around Gilbert, and carefully
steadied him in the saddle, one on each side. He was too much exhausted
to ask how they had found him, or whither they were taking him,--too
numb for curiosity, almost for gratitude.

“Here’s your saviour!” said one of the men, patting Roger’s shoulder.
“It was all along of him that we found you. Want to know how?
Well--about three o’clock it was, maybe a little earlier, maybe a little
later, my wife woke me up. ‘Do you hear that?’ she says. I listened and
heard a horse in the lane before the door, neighing,--I can’t tell you
exactly how it was,--like as if he’d call up the house. ‘T was rather
queer, I thought, so I got up and looked out of window, and it seemed to
me he had a saddle on. He stamped, and pawed, and then he gave another
yell, and stamped again. Says I to my wife, ‘There’s something wrong
here,’ and I dressed and went out. When he saw me, he acted the
strangest you ever saw; thinks I, if ever an animal wanted to speak,
that animal does. When I tried to catch him, he shot off, run down the
lane a bit, and then came back as strangely acting as ever. I went into
the house and woke up my brother, here, and we saddled our horses and
started. Away went yours ahead, stopping every minute to look round and
see if we followed. When we came to the water, I kind o’ hesitated, but
‘t was no use; the horse would have us go on, and on, till we found you.
I never heard tell of the like of it, in my born days!”

Gilbert did not speak, but two large tears slowly gathered in his eyes,
and rolled down his cheeks. The men saw his emotion, and respected it.

In the light of the cold, keen dawn, they reached a snug farm-house, a
mile from the Brandywine. The men lifted Gilbert from the saddle, and
would have carried him immediately into the house, but he first leaned
upon Roger’s neck, took the faithful creature’s head in his arms, and
kissed it.

The good housewife was already up, and anxiously awaiting the return of
her husband and his brother. A cheery fire crackled on the hearth, and
the coffee-pot was simmering beside it. When Gilbert had been partially
revived by the warmth, the men conducted him into an adjoining bed-room,
undressed him, and rubbed his limbs with whiskey. Then, a large bowl of
coffee having been administered, he was placed in bed, covered with half
a dozen blankets, and the curtains were drawn over the windows. In a few
minutes he was plunged in a slumber almost as profound as that of the
death from which he had been so miraculously delivered.

It was two hours past noon when he awoke, and he no sooner fully
comprehended the situation and learned how the time had sped, than he
insisted on rising, although still sore, weak, and feverish. The good
farmer’s wife had kept a huge portion of dinner hot before the fire,
and he knew that without compelling a show of appetite, he would not be
considered sufficiently recovered to leave. He had but one desire,--to
return home. So recently plucked from the jaws of Death, his life still
seemed to be an uncertain possession.

Finally Roger was led forth, quiet and submissive as of old,--having
forgotten his good deed as soon as it had been accomplished,--and
Gilbert, wrapped in the farmer’s cloak, retraced his way to the main
road. As he looked across the meadow, which told of the inundation in
its sweep of bent, muddy grass, and saw, between the creekbank trees,
the lodged timber to which he had clung, the recollection of the night
impressed him like a frightful dream. It was a bright, sharp, wintry
day,--the most violent contrast to that which had preceded it. The hills
on either side, whose outlines he could barely guess in the darkness,
now stood out from the air with a hard, painful distinctness; the sky
was an arch of cold, steel-tinted crystal; and the north wind blew with
a shrill, endless whistle through the naked woods.

As he climbed the long hill west of Chadd’s Ford, Gilbert noticed how
the meadow on his right had been torn by the flood gathered from the
fields above. In one place a Hessian skull had been snapped from the
buried skeleton, and was rolled to light, among the mud and pebbles.
Not far off, something was moving among the bushes, and he involuntarily
drew rein.

The form stopped, appeared to crouch down for a moment, then suddenly
rose and strode forth upon the grass. It was a woman, wearing a man’s
flannel jacket, and carrying a long, pointed staff in her hand. As she
approached with rapid strides, he recognized Deb. Smith.

“Deborah!” he cried, “what are you doing here?”

She set her pole to the ground and vaulted over the high picket-fence,
like an athlete.

“Well,” she said, “if I’d ha’ been shy o’ you, Mr. Gilbert, you wouldn’t
ha’ seen me. I’m not one of them as goes prowlin’ around among dead
bodies’ bones at midnight; what I want, I looks for in the daytime.”

“Bones?” he asked. “You’re surely not digging up the Hessians?”

“Not exackly; but, you see, the rain’s turned out a few, and some on
‘em, folks says, was buried with lots o’ goold platted up in their
pig-tails. I know o’ one man that dug up two or three to git their
teeth, (to sell to the tooth-doctors, you know,) and when he took hold
o’ the pig-tail to lift the head by, the hair come off in his hand, and
out rattled ten good goolden guineas. Now, if any money’s washed out,
there’s no harm in a body’s pickin’ of it up, as I see.”

“What luck have you had?” asked Gilbert.

“Nothin’ to speak of; a few buttons, and a thing or two. But I say, Mr.
Gilbert, what luck ha’ _you_ had?” She had been keenly and curiously
inspecting his face.

“Deborah!” he exclaimed, “you’re a false prophet! You told me that,
whatever happened, I was safe from Sandy Flash.”

“Eh?”

There was a shrill tone of surprise and curiosity in this exclamation.

“You ought to know Sandy Flash better, before you prophesy in his name,”
 Gilbert repeated, in a stern voice.

“Oh, Mr. Gilbert, tell me what you mean?” She grasped his leg with one
hand, while she twisted the other in Roger’s mane, as if to hold both
horse and rider until the words were explained.

Thereupon he related to her in a brief, fierce way, all that had
befallen him. Her face grew red and her eyes flashed; she shook her fist
and swore under her breath, from time to time, while he spoke.

“You’ll be righted, Mr. Gilbert!” she then cried, “you’ll be righted,
never fear! Leave it to me! Haven’t I always kep’ my word to you? You’re
believin’ I lied the last time, and no wonder; but I’ll prove the truth
o’ my words yet--may the Devil git my soul, if I don’t!”

“Don’t think that I blame you, Deborah,” he said. “You were too sure of
my good luck, because you wished me to have it--that’s all.”

“Thank ye for that! But it isn’t enough for me. When I promise a thing,
I have power to keep my promise. Ax me no more questions; bide quiet
awhile, and if the money isn’t back in your pocket by New-Year, I give
ye leave to curse me, and kick me, and spit upon me!”

Gilbert smiled sadly and incredulously, and rode onward. He made haste
to reach home, for a dull pain began to throb in his head, and chill
shudders ran over his body. He longed to have the worst over which yet
awaited him, and gain a little rest for body, brain, and heart.



CHAPTER XXII.

MARTHA DEANE TAKES A RESOLUTION.


Mary Potter had scarcely slept during the night of her son’s absence. A
painful unrest, such as she never remembered to have felt before, took
complete possession of her. Whenever the monotony of the drenching rain
outside lulled her into slumber for a few minutes, she was sure to start
up in bed with a vague, singular impression that some one had called
her name. After midnight, when the storm fell, the shrill wailing of the
rising wind seemed to forebode disaster. Although she believed Gilbert
to be safely housed in Chester, the fact constantly slipped from her
memory, and she shuddered at every change in the wild weather as if he
were really exposed to it.

The next day, she counted the hours with a feverish impatience. It
seemed like tempting Providence, but she determined to surprise her
son with a supper of unusual luxury for their simple habits, after
so important and so toilsome a journey. Sam had killed a fowl; it was
picked and dressed, but she had not courage to put it into the pot,
until the fortune of the day had been assured.

Towards sunset she saw, through the back-kitchen-window, a horseman
approaching from the direction of Carson’s. It seemed to be Roger, but
could that rider, in the faded brown cloak, be Gilbert? His cloak was
blue; he always rode with his head erect, not hanging like this man’s,
whose features she could not see. Opposite the house, he lifted his
head--it _was_ Gilbert, but how old and haggard was his face!

She met him at the gate. His cheeks were suddenly flushed, his eyes
bright, and the smile with which he looked at her seemed to be joyous;
yet it gave her a sense of pain and terror.

“Oh, Gilbert!” she cried; “what has happened?”

He slid slowly and wearily off the horse, whose neck he fondled a moment
before answering her.

“Mother,” he said at last, “you have to thank Roger that I am here
tonight. I have come back to you from the gates of death; will you be
satisfied with that for a while?”

“I don’t understand you, my boy! You frighten me; haven’t you been at
Chester?”

“No,” he answered, “there was no use of going.”

A presentiment of the truth came to her, but before she could question
him further, he spoke again.

“Mother, let us go into the house. I’m cold and tired; I want to sit
in your old rocking-chair, where I can rest my head. Then I’ll tell you
everything; I wish I had an easier task!”

She noticed that his steps were weak and slow, felt that his hands were
like ice, and saw his blue lips and chattering teeth. She removed the
strange cloak, placed her chair in front of the fire, seated him in it,
and then knelt upon the floor to draw off his stiff, sodden top-boots.
He was passive as a child in her hands. Her care for him overcame all
other dread, and not until she had placed his feet upon a stool, in the
full warmth of the blaze, given him a glass of hot wine and lavender,
and placed a pillow under his head, did she sit down at his side to hear
the story.

“I thought of this, last night,” he said, with a faint smile; “not that
I ever expected to see it. The man was right; it’s a mercy of God that I
ever got out alive!”

“Then be grateful to God, my boy!” she replied, “and let me be grateful,
too. It will balance misfortune,--for that there it misfortune in store
for us. I see plainly.”

Gilbert then spoke. The narrative was long and painful, and he told it
wearily and brokenly, yet with entire truth, disguising nothing of the
evil that had come upon them. His mother sat beside him, pale, stony,
stifling the sobs that rose in her throat, until he reached the period
of his marvellous rescue, when she bent her head upon his arm and wept
aloud.

“That’s all, mother!” he said at the close; “it’s hard to bear, but I’m
more troubled on your account than on my own.”

“Oh, I feared we were over-sure!” she cried. “I claimed payment before
it was ready. The Lord chooses His own time, and punishes them that
can’t wait for His ways to be manifest! It’s terribly hard; and yet,
while His left hand smites, His right hand gives mercy! He might ha’
taken you, my boy, but He makes a miracle to save you for me!”

When she had outwept her passionate tumult of feeling, she grew composed
and serene. “Haven’t I yet learned to be patient, in all these years?”
 she said. “Haven’t I sworn to work out with open eyes the work I took
in blindness? And after waiting twenty-five years, am I to murmur at
another year or two? No, Gilbert! It’s to be done; I _will_ deserve my
justice! Keep your courage, my boy; be brave and patient, and the sight
of you will hold me from breaking down!”

She arose, felt his hands and feet, set his pillow aright, and then
stooped and kissed him. His chills had ceased; a feeling of heavy,
helpless languor crept over him.

“Let Sam see to Roger, mother!” he murmured. “Tell him not to spare the
oats.”

“I’d feed him with my own hands, Gilbert, if I could leave you. I’d put
fine wheat-bread into his manger, and wrap him in blankets off my own
bed! To think that Roger,--that I didn’t want you to buy,--Lord forgive
me, I was advising your own death!”

It was fortunate for Mary Potter that she saw a mysterious Providence,
which, to her mind, warned and yet promised while it chastised, in all
that had occurred. This feeling helped her to bear a disappointment,
which would otherwise have been very grievous. The idea of an atoning
ordeal, which she must endure in order to be crowned with the final
justice, and so behold her life redeemed, had become rooted in her
nature. To Gilbert much of this feeling was inexplicable, because he was
ignorant of the circumstances which had called it into existence. But
he saw that his mother was not yet hopeless, that she did not seem to
consider her deliverance as materially postponed, and a glimmer of hope
was added to the relief of having told his tale.

He was still feverish, dozing and muttering in uneasy dreams, as he lay
back in the old rocking-chair, and Mary Potter, with Sam’s help, got him
to bed, after administering a potion which she was accustomed to use in
all complaints, from mumps to typhus fever.

As for Roger, he stood knee-deep in clean litter, with half a bushel of
oats before him.

The next morning Gilbert did not arise, and as he complained of great
soreness in every part of his body, Sam was dispatched for Dr. Deane.

It was the first time this gentleman had ever been summoned to the
Potter farm-house. Mary Potter felt considerable trepidation at
his arrival, both on account of the awe which his imposing presence
inspired, and the knowledge of her son’s love for his daughter,--a fact
which, she rightly conjectured, he did not suspect. As he brought
his ivory-headed cane, his sleek drab broadcloth, and his herbaceous
fragrance into the kitchen, she was almost overpowered.

“How is thy son ailing?” he asked. “He always seemed to me to be a very
healthy young man.”

She described the symptoms with a conscientious minuteness.

“How was it brought on?” he asked again.

She had not intended to relate the whole story, but only so much of it
as was necessary for the Doctor’s purposes; but the commencement excited
his curiosity, and he knew so skilfully how to draw one word after
another, suggesting further explanations without directly asking them,
that Mary Potter was led on and on, until she had communicated all the
particulars of her son’s misfortune.

“This is a wonderful tale thee tells me,” said the Doctor--“wonderful!
Sandy Flash, no doubt, has reason to remember thy son, who, I’m told,
faced him very boldly on Second-day morning. It is really time the
country was aroused; we shall hardly be safe in our own houses. And all
night in the Brandywine flood--I don’t wonder thy son is unwell. Let me
go up to him.”

Dr. Deane’s prescriptions usually conformed to the practice of his
day,--bleeding and big doses,--and he would undoubtedly have applied
both of these in Gilbert’s case, but for the latter’s great anxiety to
be in the saddle and on the hunt of his enemy. He stoutly refused to be
bled, and the Doctor had learned, from long observation, that
patients of a certain class must be humored rather than coerced. So
he administered a double dose of Dover’s Powders, and prohibited the
drinking of cold water. His report was, on the whole, reassuring to Mary
Potter. Provided his directions were strictly followed, he said, her son
would be up in two or three days; but there _might_ be a turn for the
worse, as the shock to the system had been very great, and she ought to
have assistance.

“There’s no one I can call upon,” said she, “without it’s Betsy
Lavender, and I must ask you to tell her for me, if you think she can
come.”

“I’ll oblige thee, certainly,” the Doctor answered. “Betsy _is_ with us,
just now, and I don’t doubt but she can spare a day or two. She may be a
little headstrong in her ways, but thee’ll find her a safe nurse.”

It was really not necessary, as the event proved. Rest and warmth were
what Gilbert most needed. But Dr. Deane always exaggerated his patient’s
condition a little, in order that the credit of the latter’s recovery
might be greater. The present case was a very welcome one, not only
because it enabled him to recite a most astonishing narrative at
second-hand, but also because it suggested a condition far more
dangerous than that which the patient actually suffered. He was the
first person to bear the news to Kennett Square, where it threw the
village into a state of great excitement, which rapidly spread over the
neighborhood.

He related it at his own tea-table that evening, to Martha and Miss
Betsy Lavender. The former could with difficulty conceal her agitation;
she turned red and pale, until the Doctor finally remarked,--

“Why, child, thee needn’t be so frightened.”

“Never mind!” exclaimed Miss Betsy, promptly coming to the rescue, “it’s
enough to frighten anybody. It fairly makes me shiver in my shoes.
If Alf. Barton had ha’ done his dooty like a man, this wouldn’t ha’
happened!”

“I’ve no doubt Alfred did the best he could, under the circumstances,”
 the Doctor sternly remarked.

“Fiddle-de-dee!” was Miss Betsy’s contemptuous answer. “He’s no more
gizzard than a rabbit. But that’s neither here nor there; Mary Potter
wants me to go down and help, and go I will!”

“Yes, I think thee might as well go down to-morrow morning, though I’m
in hopes the young man may be better, if he minds my directions,” said
the Doctor.

“To-morrow mornin’? Why not next week? When help’s wanted, give it
_right away_; don’t let the grass grow under your feet, say I! Good luck
that I gev up Mendenhall’s home-comin’ over t’ the Lion, or I wouldn’t
ha’ been here; so another cup o’ tea, Martha, and I’m off!”

Martha left the table at the same time, and followed Miss Betsy
up-stairs. Her eyes were full of tears, but she did not tremble, and her
voice came firm and clear.

“I am going with you,” she said.

Miss Lavender whirled around and looked at her a minute, without saying
a word.

“I see you mean it, child. Don’t think me hard or cruel, for I know your
feelin’s as well as if they was mine; but all the same, I’ve got to look
ahead, and back’ards, and on this side and that, and so lookin’, and
so judgin’, accordin’ to my light, which a’n’t all tied up in a napkin,
what I’ve got to say is, and ag’in don’t think me hard, it won’t do!”

“Betsy,” Martha Deane persisted, “a misfortune like this brings my
duty with it. Besides, he may be in great danger; he may have got his
death,”--

“Don’t begin talkin’ that way,” Miss Lavender interrupted, “or you’ll
put me out o’ patience. I’ll say that for your father, he’s always
mortal concerned for a bad case, Gilbert Potter or not; and I can mostly
tell the heft of a sickness by the way he talks about it,--so that’s
settled; and as to dooties, it’s very well and right, I don’t deny it,
but never mind, all the same, I said before, the whole thing’s a snarl,
and I say it ag’in, and unless you’ve got the end o’ the ravellin’s in
your hand, the harder you pull, the wuss you’ll make it!”

There was good sense in these words, and Martha Deane felt it. Her
resolution began to waver, in spite of the tender instinct which told
her that Gilbert Potter now needed precisely the help and encouragement
which she alone could give.

“Oh, Betsy,” she murmured, her tears falling without restraint, “it’s
hard for me to seem so strange to him, at such a time!”

“Yes,” answered the spinster, setting her comb tight with a fierce
thrust, “it’s hard every one of us can’t have our own ways in this
world! But don’t take on now, Martha dear; we only have your father’s
word, and not to be called a friend’s, but _I’ll_ see how the land lays,
and tomorrow evenin’, or next day at th’ outside, you’ll know everything
fair and square. Neither you nor Gilbert is inclined to do things rash,
and what you _both_ agree on, after a proper understanding I guess’ll be
pretty nigh right. There! where’s my knittin’-basket?”

Miss Lavender trudged off, utterly fearless of the night walk of two
miles, down the lonely road. In less than an hour she knocked at the
door of the farm-house, and was received with open arms by Mary Potter.
Gilbert had slept the greater part of the day, but was now awake, and so
restless, from the desire to leave his bed, that his mother could with
difficulty restrain him.

“Set down and rest yourself, Mary!” Miss Betsy exclaimed. “I’ll go up
and put him to rights.”

She took a lamp and mounted to the bed-room. Gilbert, drenched in
perspiration, and tossing uneasily under a huge pile of blankets, sprang
up as her gaunt figure entered the door. She placed the lamp on a table,
pressed him down on the pillow by main force, and covered him up to the
chin.

“Martha?” he whispered, his face full of intense, piteous eagerness.

“Will you promise to lay still and sweat, as you’re told

“Yes, yes!”

“Now let me feel your pulse. That’ll do; now for your tongue! Tut,
tut! the boy’s not so bad. I give you my word you may get up and dress
yourself to-morrow mornin’, if you’ll only hold out to-night. And as for
thorough-stem tea, and what not, I guess you’ve had enough of ‘em; but
you can’t jump out of a sick-spell into downright peartness, at one
jump!”

“Martha, Martha!” Gilbert urged.

“You’re both of a piece, I declare! There was she, this very night, dead
set on comin’ down with me, and mortal hard it was to persuade her to be
reasonable!”

Miss Lavender had not a great deal to relate, but Gilbert compelled
her to make up by repetition what she lacked in quantity. And at every
repetition the soreness seemed to decrease in his body, and the weakness
in his muscles, and hope and courage to increase in his heart.

“Tell her,” he exclaimed, “it was enough that she wanted to come. That
alone has put new life into me!”

“I see it has,” said Miss Lavender, “and now, maybe, you’ve got life
enough to tell me all the ups and downs o’ this affair, for I can’t say
as I rightly understand it.”

The conference was long and important. Gilbert related every
circumstance of his adventure, including the mysterious allusion
to Alfred Barton, which he had concealed from his mother. He was
determined, as his first course, to call the volunteers together and
organize a thorough hunt for the highwayman. Until that had been tried,
he would postpone all further plans of action. Miss Lavender did not say
much, except to encourage him in this determination. She felt that there
was grave matter for reflection in what had happened. The threads of
mystery seemed to increase, and she imagined it possible that they might
all converge to one unknown point.

“Mary,” she said, when she descended to the kitchen, “I don’t see but
what the boy’s goin’ on finely. Go to bed, you, and sleep quietly; I’ll
take the settle, here, and I promise you I’ll go up every hour through
the night, to see whether he’s kicked his coverin’s off.”

Which promise she faithfully kept, and in the morning Gilbert came down
to breakfast, a little haggard, but apparently as sound as ever.
Even the Doctor, when he arrived, was slightly surprised at the rapid
improvement.

“A fine constitution for medicines to work on,” he remarked. “I wouldn’t
wish thee to be sick, but when thee is, it’s a pleasure to see how thy
system obeys the treatment.”

Martha Deane, during Miss Lavender’s absence, had again discussed, in
her heart, her duty to Gilbert. Her conscience was hardly satisfied with
the relinquishment of her first impulse. She felt that there was, there
must be, something for her to do in this emergency. She knew that he
had toiled, and dared, and suffered for her sake, while she had done
nothing. It was not pride,--at least not the haughty quality which
bears an obligation uneasily,--but rather the impulse, at once brave and
tender, to stand side by side with him in the struggle, and win an equal
right to the final blessing.

In the afternoon Miss Lavender returned, and her first business was to
give a faithful report of Gilbert’s condition and the true story of his
misfortune, which she repeated, almost word for word, as it came from
his lips. It did not differ materially from that which Martha had
already heard, and the direction which her thoughts had taken, in
the mean time, seemed to be confirmed. The gentle, steady strength of
purpose that looked from her clear blue eyes, and expressed itself in
the firm, sharp curve of her lip, was never more distinct than when she
said,--

“Now, Betsy, all is clear to me. You were right before, and I am right
now. I must see Gilbert when he calls the men together, and after that I
shall know how to act.”

Three days afterwards, there was another assemblage of the Kennett
Volunteers at the Unicorn Tavern. This time, however, Mark Deane was on
hand, and Alfred Barton did not make his appearance. That Gilbert
Potter should take the command was an understood matter. The preliminary
consultation was secretly held, and when Dougherty, the Irish ostler,
mixed himself, as by accident, among the troop, Gilbert sharply ordered
him away. Whatever the plan of the chase was, it was not communicated
to the crowd of country idlers; and there was, in consequence, some
grumbling at, and a great deal of respect for, the new arrangement.

Miss Betsy Lavender had managed to speak to Gilbert before the others
arrived; therefore, after they had left, to meet the next day, equipped
for a possible absence of a week, he crossed the road and entered Dr.
Deane’s house.

This time the two met, not so much as lovers, but rather as husband
and wife might meet after long absence and escape from imminent danger.
Martha Deane knew how cruel and bitter Gilbert’s fate must seem to his
own heart, and she resolved that all the cheer which lay in her buoyant,
courageous nature should be given to him. Never did a woman more sweetly
blend the tones of regret and faith, sympathy and encouragement.

“The time has come, Gilbert,” she said at last, “when our love for each
other must no longer be kept a secret--at least from the few who, under
other circumstances, would have a right to know it. We must still wait,
though no longer (remember that!) than we were already agreed to wait;
but we should betray ourselves, sooner or later, and then the secret,
discovered by others, would seem to hint at a sense of shame. We shall
gain respect and sympathy, and perhaps help, if we reveal it ourselves.
Even if you do not take the same view, Gilbert, think of this, that it
is my place to stand beside you in your hour of difficulty and trial;
that other losses, other dangers, may come, and you could not, you must
not, hold me apart when my heart tells me we should be together!”

She laid her arms caressingly over his shoulders, and looked in his
face. A wonderful softness and tenderness touched his pale, worn
countenance. “Martha,” he said, “remember that my disgrace will cover
you, yet awhile.”

“Gilbert!”

That one word, proud, passionate, reproachful, yet forgiving, sealed his
lips.

“So be it!” he cried. “God knows, I think but of you. If I selfishly
considered myself, do you think I would hold back my own honor?”

“A poor honor,” she said, “that I sit comfortably at home and love you,
while you are face to face with death!”

Martha Deane’s resolution was inflexibly taken. That same evening she
went into the sitting-room, where her father was smoking a pipe before
the open stove, and placed her chair opposite to his.

“Father,” she said, “thee has never asked any questions concerning
Alfred Barton’s visit.”

The Doctor started, and looked at her keenly, before replying. Her voice
had its simple, natural tone, her manner was calm and self-possessed;
yet something in her firm, erect posture and steady eye impressed him
with the idea that she had determined on a full and final discussion of
the question.

“No, child,” he answered, after a pause. “I saw Alfred, and he said thee
was rather taken by surprise. He thought, perhaps, thee didn’t rightly
know thy own mind, and it would be better to wait a little. That is the
chief reason why I haven’t spoken to thee.”

“If Alfred Barton said that, he told thee false,” said she. “I knew my
own mind, as well then as now. I said to him that nothing could ever
make me his wife.”

“Martha!” the Doctor exclaimed, “don’t be hasty! If Alfred is a little
older”--

“Father!” she interrupted, “never mention this thing again! Thee can
neither give me away, nor sell me; though I am a woman, I belong to
myself. Thee knows I’m not hasty in anything. It was a long time before
I rightly knew my own heart; but when I did know it and found that it
had chosen truly, I gave it freely, and it is gone from me forever!”

“Martha, Martha!” cried Dr. Deane, starting from his seat, “what does
all this mean?”

“It means something which it is thy right to know, and therefore I have
made up my mind to tell thee, even at the risk of incurring thy lasting
displeasure. It means that I have followed the guidance of my own heart
and bestowed it on a man a thousand times better and nobler than Alfred
Barton ever was, and, if the Lord spares us to each other, I shall one
day be his wife!”

The Doctor glared at his daughter in speechless amazement. But she
met his gaze steadily, although her face grew a shade paler, and
the expression of the pain she could not entirely suppress, with the
knowledge of the struggle before her, trembled a little about the
corners of her lips.

“Who is this man?” he asked.

“Gilbert Potter.”

Dr. Deane’s pipe dropped from his hand and smashed upon the iron hearth.

“Martha Deane!” he cried. “Does the d---- _what_ possesses thee? Wasn’t
it enough that thee should drive away the man I had picked out for thee,
with a single view to thy own interest and happiness; but must thee take
up, as a wicked spite to thy father, with almost the only man in the
neighborhood who brings thee nothing but poverty and disgrace? It shall
not be--it shall never be!”

“It _must_ be, father,” she said gently. “God hath joined our hearts and
our lives, and no man--not even thee--shall put them asunder. If there
were disgrace, in the eyes of the world,--which I now know there is
not,--Gilbert has wiped it out by his courage, his integrity, and his
sufferings. If he is poor, I am well to do.”

“Thee forgets,” the Doctor interrupted, in a stern voice, “the time
isn’t up!”

“I know that unless thee gives thy consent, we must wait three years;
but I hope, father, when thee comes to know Gilbert better, thee
will not be so hard. I am thy only child, and my happiness cannot be
indifferent to thee. I have tried to obey thee in all things”--

He interrupted her again. “Thee’s adding another cross to them I bear
for thee already! Am I not, in a manner, thy keeper, and responsible for
thee, before the world and in the sight of the Lord? But thee hardened
thy heart against the direction of the Spirit, and what wonder, then,
that it’s hardened against me?”

“No, father,” said Martha, rising and laying her hand softly upon
his arm, “I _obeyed_ the Spirit in that other matter, as I obey my
conscience in this. I took my duty into my own hands, and considered it
in a humble, and, I hope, a pious spirit. I saw that there were innocent
needs of nature, pleasant enjoyments of life, which did not conflict
with sincere devotion, and that I was not called upon to renounce them
because others happened to see the world in a different light. In this
sense, thee is not my keeper; I must render an account, not to thee, but
to Him who gave me my soul. Neither is thee the keeper of my heart and
its affections. In the one case and the other my right is equal,--nay,
it stands as far above thine as Heaven is above the earth!”

In the midst of his wrath, Dr. Deane could not help admiring his
daughter. Foiled and exasperated as he was by the sweet, serene, lofty
power of her words, they excited a wondering respect which he found it
difficult to hide.

“Ah, Martha!” he said, “thee has a wonderful power, if it were only
directed by the true Light! But now, it only makes the cross heavier.
Don’t think that I’ll ever consent to see thee carry out thy strange
and wicked fancies! Thee must learn to forget this man, Potter, and the
sooner thee begins the easier it will be!”

“Father,” she answered, with a sad smile, “I’m sorry thee knows so
little of my nature. The wickedness would be in forgetting. It is very
painful to me that we must differ. Where my duty was wholly owed to
thee, I have never delayed to give it; but here it is owed to Gilbert
Potter,--owed, and will be given.”

“Enough, Martha!” cried the Doctor, trembling with anger; “don’t mention
his name again!”

“I will not, except when the same duty requires it to be mentioned. But,
father, try to think less harshly of the name; it will one day be mine!”

She spoke gently and imploringly, with tears in her eyes. The conflict
had been, as she said, very painful; but her course was plain, and she
dared not flinch a step at the outset. The difficulties must be met face
to face, and resolutely assailed, if they were ever to be overcome.

Dr. Deane strode up and down the room in silence, with his hands behind
his back. Martha stood by the fire, waiting his further speech, but he
did not look at her, and at the end of half an hour, commanded shortly
and sharply, without turning his head,--

“Go to bed!”

“Good-night, father,” she said, in her usual clear sweet voice, and
quietly left the room.



CHAPTER XXIII.

A CROSS-EXAMINATION.


The story of Gilbert Potter’s robbery and marvellous escape from death
ran rapidly through the neighborhood, and coming, as it did, upon the
heels of his former adventure, created a great excitement. He became
almost a hero in the minds of the people. It was not their habit to
allow any man to _quite_ assume so lofty a character as that, but they
granted to Gilbert fully as much interest as, in their estimation, any
human being ought properly to receive. Dr. Deane was eagerly questioned,
wherever he went; and if his garments could have exhaled the odors of
his feelings, his questioners would have smelled aloes and asafoetida
instead of sweet-marjoram and bergamot. But--in justice to him be it
said--he told and retold the story very correctly; the tide of sympathy
ran so high and strong, that he did not venture to stem it on grounds
which could not be publicly explained.

The supposed disgrace of Gilbert’s birth seemed to be quite forgotten
for the time; and there was no young man of spirit in the four townships
who was not willing to serve under his command. More volunteers offered,
in fact, than could be profitably employed. Sandy Flash was not the game
to be unearthed by a loud, numerous, sweeping hunt; traps, pitfalls,
secret and unwearied following of his many trails, were what was needed.
So much time had elapsed that the beginning must be a conjectural
beating of the bushes, and to this end several small companies were
organized, and the country between the Octorara and the Delaware very
effectually scoured.

When the various parties reunited, after several days, neither of them
brought any positive intelligence, but all the greater store of guesses
and rumors. Three or four suspicious individuals had been followed and
made to give an account of themselves; certain hiding-places, especially
the rocky lairs along the Brandywine and the North Valley-Hill, were
carefully examined, and some traces of occupation, though none very
recent, were discovered. Such evidence as there was seemed to indicate
that part of the eastern branch of the Brandywine, between the forks of
the stream and the great Chester Valley, as being the probable retreat
of the highwayman, and a second expedition was at once organized.
The Sheriff, with a posse of men from the lower part of the county,
undertook to watch the avenues of escape towards the river.

This new attempt was not more successful, so far as its main object was
concerned, but it actually stumbled upon Sandy Flash’s trail, and only
failed by giving tongue too soon and following too impetuously. Gilbert
and his men had a tantalizing impression (which later intelligence
proved to have been correct) that the robber was somewhere near
them,--buried in the depths of the very wood they were approaching,
dodging behind the next barn as it came into view, or hidden under
dead leaves in some rain-washed gulley. Had they but known, one gloomy
afternoon in late December, that they were riding under the cedar-tree
in whose close, cloudy foliage he was coiled, just above their heads!
Had they but guessed who the deaf old woman was, with her face muffled
from the cold, and six cuts of blue yarn in her basket! But detection
had not then become a science, and they were far from suspecting the
extent of Sandy Flash’s devices and disguises.

Many of the volunteers finally grew tired of the fruitless chase, and
returned home; others could only spare a few days from their winter
labors; but Gilbert Potter, with three or four faithful and courageous
young fellows,--one of whom was Mark Deane,--returned again and again
to the search, and not until the end of December did he confess himself
baffled. By this time all traces of the highwayman were again lost; he
seemed to have disappeared from the country.

“I believe Pratt’s right,” said Mark, as the two issued from the
Marlborough woods, on their return to Kennett Square. “Chester County is
too hot to hold him.”

“Perhaps so,” Gilbert answered, with a gloomy face. He was more keenly
disappointed at the failure than he would then confess, even to Mark.
The outrage committed upon him was still unavenged, and thus his
loss, to his proud, sensitive nature, carried a certain shame with
it. Moreover, the loss itself must speedily be replaced. He had half
flattered himself with the hope of capturing not only Sandy Flash, but
his plunder; it was hard to forget that, for a day or two, he had been
independent,--hard to stoop again to be a borrower and a debtor!

“What are the county authorities good for?” Mark exclaimed. “Between
you and me, the Sheriff’s a reg’lar puddin’-head. I wish you was in his
place.”

“If Sandy is safe in Jersey, or down on the Eastern Shore, that would do
no good. It isn’t enough that he leaves us alone, from this time on; he
has a heavy back-score to settle.”

“Come to think on it, Gilbert,” Mark continued, “isn’t it rather queer
that you and him should be thrown together in such ways? There was
Barton’s fox-chase last spring; then your shootin’ at other, at the
Square; and then the robbery on the road. It seems to me as if he picked
you out to follow you, and yet I don’t know why.”

Gilbert started. Mark’s words reawakened the dark, incredible suspicion
which Martha Deane had removed. Again he declared to himself that he
would not entertain the thought, but he could not reject the evidence
that there was something more than accident in all these encounters. If
any one besides Sandy Flash were responsible for the last meeting, it
must be Alfred Barton. The latter, therefore, owed him an explanation,
and he would demand it.

When they reached the top of the “big hill” north of the Fairthorn
farm-house, whence they looked eastward down the sloping corn-field
which had been the scene of the husking-frolic, Mark turned to Gilbert
with an honest blush all over his face, and said,--

“I don’t see why you shouldn’t know it, Gilbert. I’m sure Sally wouldn’t
care; you’re almost like a brother to her.”

“What?” Gilbert asked, yet with a quick suspicion of the coming
intelligence.

“Oh, I guess you know, well enough, old fellow. I asked her that night,
and it’s all right between us. What do you say to it, now?”

“Mark, I’m glad of it; I wish you joy, with all my heart!” Gilbert
stretched out his hand, and as he turned and looked squarely into Mark’s
half-bashful yet wholly happy face, he remembered Martha’s words, at
their last interview.

“You are like a brother to me, Mark,” he said, “and you shall have _my_
secret. What would you say if I had done the same thing?”

“No?” Mark exclaimed; “who?”

“Guess!”

“Not--not Martha?”

Gilbert smiled.

“By the Lord! It’s the best day’s work _you_‘ve ever done! Gi’ me y’r
hand ag’in; we’ll stand by each other faster than ever, now!”

When they stopped at Fairthorn’s, the significant pressure of Gilbert’s
hand brought a blush into Sally’s cheek; but when Mark met Martha with
his tell-tale face, she answered with a proud and tender smile.

Gilbert’s first business, after his return, was to have a consultation
with Miss Betsy Lavender, who alone knew of the suspicions attaching to
Alfred Barton. The spinster had, in the mean time, made the matter the
subject of profound and somewhat painful cogitation. She had ransacked
her richly stored memory of persons and events, until her brain was
like a drawer of tumbled clothes; had spent hours in laborious mental
research, becoming so absorbed that she sometimes gave crooked answers
when spoken to, and was haunted with a terrible dread of having thought
aloud; and had questioned the oldest gossips right and left, coming as
near the hidden subject as she dared. When they met, she communicated
the result to Gilbert in this wise:

“‘T a’n’t agreeable for a body to allow they’re flummuxed, but if _I_
a’n’t, this time, I’m mighty near onto it. It’s like lookin’ for a set
o’ buttons that’ll match, in a box full o’ tail-ends o’ things. This’n
‘d do, and that’n ‘d do; but you can’t put this’n and that’n together;
and here’s got to be square work, everything fittin’ tight and hangin’
plumb, or it’ll be throwed back onto your hands, and all to be done
over ag’in. I dunno when I’ve done so much head-work and to no purpose,
follerin’ here and guessin’ there, and nosin’ into everything that’s
past and gone; and so my opinion is, whether you like it or not, but
never mind, all the same, I can’t do no more than give it, that we’d
better drop what’s past and gone, and look a little more into these
present times!”

“Well, Betsy,” said Gilbert, with a stern, determined face, “this is
what I shall do. I am satisfied that Barton is connected, in some way,
with Sandy Flash. What it is, or whether the knowledge will help us, I
can’t guess; but I shall force Barton to tell me!”

“To tell me. That might do, as far as it goes,” she remarked, after a
moment’s reflection. “It won’t be easy; you’ll have to threaten as well
as coax, but I guess you can git it out of him in the long run, and
maybe I can help you here, two bein’ better than one, if one is but a
sheep’s-head.”

“I don’t see, Betsy, that I need to call on you.”

“This way, Gilbert. It’s a strong p’int o’ law, I’ve heerd tell, not
that I know much o’ law, Goodness knows, nor ever want to, but never
mind, it’s a strong p’int when there’s two witnesses to a thing,--one
to clinch what the t’other drives in; and you must have a show o’ law to
work on Alf. Barton, or I’m much mistaken!”

Gilbert reflected a moment. “It can do no harm,” he then said; “can you
go with me, now?”

“Now’s the time! If we only git the light of a farden-candle out o’ him,
it’ll do me a mortal heap o’ good; for with all this rakin’ and scrapin’
for nothin’, I’m like a heart pantin’ after the water-brooks, though a
mouth would be more like it, to my thinkin’, when a body’s so awful dry
as that comes to!”

The two thereupon took the foot-path down through the frozen fields and
the dreary timber of the creek-side, to the Barton farm-house. As they
approached the barn, they saw Alfred Barton sitting on a pile of
straw and watching Giles, who was threshing wheat. He seemed a little
surprised at their appearance; but as Gilbert and he had not met since
their interview in the corn-field before the former’s departure for
Chester, he had no special cause for embarrassment.

“Come into the house,” he said, leading the way.

“No,” Gilbert answered, “I came here to speak with you privately. Will
you walk down the lane?”

“No objection, of course,” said Barton, looking from Gilbert to Miss
Lavender, with a mixture of curiosity and uneasiness. “Good news, I
hope; got hold of Sandy’s tracks, at last?”

“One of them.”

“Ah, you don’t say so! Where?”

“Here!”

Gilbert stopped and faced Barton. They were below the barn, and out of
Giles’s hearing.

“Barton,” he resumed, “you know what interest I have in the arrest of
that man, and you won’t deny my right to demand of you an account of
your dealings with him. When did you first make his acquaintance?”

“I’ve told you that, already; the matter has been fully talked over
between us,” Barton answered, in a petulant tone.

“It has not been fully talked over. I require to know, first of all,
precisely when, and under what circumstances, you and Sandy Flash came
together. There is more to come, so let us begin at the beginning.”

“Damme, Gilbert, _you_ were there, and saw as much as I did. How could I
know who the cursed black-whiskered fellow was?”

“But you found it out,” Gilbert persisted, “and the manner of your
finding it out must be explained.”

Barton assumed a bold, insolent manner. “I don’t see as that follows,”
 he said. “It has nothing in the world to do with his robbery of you; and
as for Sandy Flash, I wish to the Lord you’d get hold of him, yourself,
instead of trying to make me accountable for his comings and goings!”

“He’s tryin’ to fly off the handle,” Miss Lavender remarked. “I’d drop
that part o’ the business a bit, if I was you, and come to the t’other
proof.”

“What the devil have _you_ to do here?” asked Barton.

“Miss Betsy is here because I asked her,” Gilbert said. “Because all
that passes between us may have to be repeated in a court of justice,
and two witnesses are better than one!”

He took advantage of the shock which these words produced upon Barton,
and repeated to him the highwayman’s declarations, with the inference
they might bear if not satisfactorily explained. “I kept my promise,”
 he added, “and said nothing to any living soul of your request that
I should carry money for you to Chester. Sandy Flash’s information,
therefore, must have come, either directly or indirectly, from you.”

Barton had listened with open mouth and amazed eyes.

“Why, the man is a devil!” he cried. “I, neither, never said a word of
the matter to any living soul!”

“Did you really send any money?” Gilbert asked.

“That I did! I got it of Joel Ferris, and it happened he was bound for
Chester, the very next day, on his own business; and so, instead
of turning it over to me, he just paid it there, according to my
directions. You’ll understand, this is between ourselves?”

He darted a sharp, suspicious glance at Miss Betsy Lavender, who gravely
nodded her head.

“The difficulty is not yet explained,” said Gilbert, “and perhaps
you’ll _now_ not deny my right to know something more of your first
acquaintance with Sandy Flash?”

“Have it then!” Barton exclaimed, desperately--“and much good may it
do you! I thought his name was Fortune, as much as you did, till nine
o’clock that night, when he put a pistol to my breast in the woods! If
you think I’m colloguing with him, why did he rob me under threat of
murder,--money, watch, and everything?”

“Ah-ha!” said Miss Lavender, “and so that’s the way your watch has been
gittin’ mended all this while? Mainspring broke, as I’ve heerd say;
well, I don’t wonder! Gilbert, I guess this much is true. Alf. Barton’d
never live so long without that watch, and that half-peck o’ seals, if
he could help it!”

“This, too, may as well be kept to ourselves,” Barton suggested. “It
isn’t agreeable to a man to have it known that he’s been so taken in
as I was, and that’s just the reason why I kept it to myself; and, of
course, I shouldn’t like it to get around.”

Gilbert could do no less than accept this part of the story, and it
rendered his later surmises untenable. But the solution which he sought
was as far off as ever.

“Barton,” he said, after a long pause, “will you do your best to help me
in finding out how Sandy Flash got the knowledge?”

“Only show me a way! The best would be to catch him and get it from his
own mouth.”

He looked so earnest, so eager, and--as far as the traces of cunning
in his face would permit--so honest, that Gilbert yielded to a sudden
impulse, and said,--

“I believe you, Barton. I’ve done you wrong in my thoughts,--not
willingly, for I don’t want to think badly of you or any one else,--but
because circumstances seemed to drive me to it. It would have been
better if you had told me of your robbery at the start.”

“You’re right there, Gilbert! I believe I was an outspoken fellow
enough, when I was young, and all the better for it, but the old man’s
driven me into a curst way of keeping dark about everything, and so I go
on heaping up trouble for myself.”

“Trouble for myself, Alf. Barton,” said Miss Lavender, “that’s the
truest word you’ve said this many a day. Murder will out, you know,
and so will robbery, and so will--other things. More o’ your doin’s
is known, not that they’re agreeabler, but on the contrary, quite the
reverse, and as full need to be explained, though it don’t seem to
matter much, yet it may, who can tell? And now look here, Gilbert; my
crow is to be picked, and you’ve seen the color of it, but never
mind, all the same, since Martha’s told the Doctor, it can’t make much
difference to you. And this is all between ourselves, you understand?”

The last words were addressed to Barton, with a comical, unconscious
imitation of his own manner. He guessed something of what was coming,
though not the whole of it, and again became visibly uneasy; but he
stammered out,--“Yes; oh, yes! of course.”

Gilbert could form a tolerably correct idea of the shape and size of
Miss Lavender’s crow. He did not feel sure that this was the proper
time to have it picked, or even that it should be picked at all; but he
imagined that Miss Lavender had either consulted Martha Deane, or that
she had wise reasons of her own for speaking. He therefore remained
silent.

“First and foremost,” she resumed, “I’ll tell you, Alf. Barton, what we
know o’ your doin’s, and then it’s for you to judge whether we’ll know
any more. Well, you’ve been tryin’ to git Martha Deane for a wife,
without wantin’ her in your heart, but rather the contrary, though it
seems queer enough when a body comes to think of it, but never mind;
and your father’s druv you to it; and you were of a cold shiver for fear
she’d take you, and yet you want to let on it a’n’t settled betwixt and
between you--oh, you needn’t chaw your lips and look yaller about the
jaws, it’s the Lord’s truth; and now answer me this, _what do you mean?_
and maybe you’ll say what right have I got to ask, but never mind, all
the same, if I haven’t, Gilbert Potter has, for it’s him that Martha
Deane has promised to take for a husband!”

It was a day of surprises for Barton. In his astonishment at the last
announcement, he took refuge from the horror of Miss Lavender’s first
revelations. One thing was settled,--all the fruits of his painful and
laborious plotting were scattered to the winds. Denial was of no use,
but neither could an honest explanation, even if he should force himself
to give it, be of any possible service.

“Gilbert,” he asked, “is this true?--about _you_, I mean.”

“Martha Deane and I are engaged, and were already at the time when you
addressed her,” Gilbert answered.

“Good heavens! I hadn’t the slightest suspicion of it. Well--I don’t
begrudge you your luck, and of course I’ll draw back, and never say
another word, now or ever.”

“_You_ wouldn’t ha’ been comfortable with Martha Deane, anyhow,” Miss
Lavender grimly remarked. “‘T isn’t good to hitch a colt-horse and an
old spavined critter in one team. But that’s neither here nor there;
you ha’n’t told us why you made up to her for a purpose, and kep’ on
pretendin’ she didn’t know her own mind.”

“I’ve promised Gilbert that I won’t interfere, and that’s enough,” said
Barton, doggedly.

Miss Lavender was foiled for a moment, but she presently returned to the
attack. “I dunno as it’s enough, after what’s gone before,” she said.
“Couldn’t you go a step furder, and lend Gilbert a helpin’ hand,
whenever and whatever?”

“Betsy!” Gilbert exclaimed.

“Let me alone, lad! I don’t speak in Gilbert’s name, nor yet in
Martha’s; only out o’ my own mind. I don’t ask you to do anything, but I
want to know how it stands with your willin’ness.”

“I’ve offered, more than once, to do him a good turn, if I could; but
I guess my help wouldn’t be welcome,” Barton answered. The sting of the
suspicion rankled in his mind, and Gilbert’s evident aversion sorely
wounded his vanity.

“Wouldn’t be welcome. Then I’ll only say this; maybe I’ve got it in my
power, and ‘t isn’t sayin’ much, for the mouse gnawed the mashes o’ the
lion’s net, to help you to what you’re after, bein’ as it isn’t Martha,
and can’t be her money. S’pose I did it o’ my own accord, leavin’ you to
feel beholden to me, or not, after all’s said and done?”

But Alfred Barton was proof against even this assault. He was too
dejected to enter, at once, into a new plot, the issue of which would
probably be as fruitless as the others. He had already accepted a
sufficiency of shame, for one day. This last confession, if made, would
place his character in a still grosser and meaner light; while, if
withheld, the unexplained motive might be presented as a partial
justification of his course. He had been surprised into damaging
admissions; but here he would take a firm stand.

“You’re right so far, Betsy,” he said, “that I had a reason--a good
reason, it seemed to me, but I may be mistaken--for what I did. It
concerns no one under Heaven but my own self; and though I don’t doubt
your willingness to do me a good turn, it would make no difference--you
couldn’t help one bit. I’ve given the thing up, and so let it be!”

There was nothing more to be said, and the two cross-examiners took
their departure. As they descended to the creek, Miss Lavender remarked,
as if to herself,--

“No use--it can’t be screwed out of him! So there’s one cur’osity
the less; not that I’m glad of it, for not knowin’ worries more than
knowin’, whatsoever and whosoever. And I dunno as I think any the wuss
of him for shuttin’ his teeth so tight onto it.”

Alfred Barton waited until the two had disappeared behind the timber
in the bottom. Then he slowly followed, stealing across the fields and
around the stables, to the back-door of the Unicorn bar-room. It
was noticed that, although he drank a good deal that afternoon, his
ill-humor was not, as usual, diminished thereby.



CHAPTER XXIV.

DEB. SMITH TAKES A RESOLUTION.


It was a raw, overcast evening in the early part of January. Away to the
west there was a brownish glimmer in the dark-gray sky, denoting sunset,
and from that point there came barely sufficient light to disclose the
prominent features of a wild, dreary, uneven landscape.

The foreground was a rugged clearing in the forest, just where the crest
of a high hill began to slope rapidly down to the Brandywine. The dark
meadows, dotted with irregular lakes of ice, and long, dirty drifts
of unmelted snow, but not the stream itself, could be seen. Across the
narrow valley rose a cape, or foreland, of the hills beyond, timbered
nearly to the top, and falling, on either side, into deep lateral
glens,--those warm nooks which the first settlers loved to choose, both
from their snug aspect of shelter, and from the cold, sparkling springs
of water which every one of them held in its lap. Back of the summits of
all the hills stretched a rich, rolling upland, cleared and mapped into
spacious fields, but showing everywhere an edge of dark, wintry woods
against the darkening sky.

In the midst of this clearing stood a rough cabin, or rather half-cabin,
of logs; for the back of it was formed by a ledge of slaty rocks, some
ten or twelve feet in height, which here cropped out of the hill-side.
The raw clay with which the crevices between the logs had been stopped,
had fallen out in many places; the roof of long strips of peeled bark
was shrivelled by wind and sun, and held in its place by stones and
heavy branches of trees, and a square tower of plastered sticks in one
corner very imperfectly suggested a chimney. There was no inclosed patch
of vegetable-ground near, no stable, improvised of corn-shocks, for
the shelter of cow or pig, and the habitation seemed not only to be
untenanted, but to have been forsaken years before.

Yet a thin, cautious thread of smoke stole above the rocks, and just as
the starless dusk began to deepen into night, a step was heard, slowly
climbing upward through the rustling leaves and snapping sticks of the
forest. A woman’s figure, wearily scaling the hill under a load which
almost concealed the upper part of her body, for it consisted of a huge
wallet, a rattling collection of articles tied in a blanket, and two
or three bundles slung over her shoulders with a rope. When at last,
panting from the strain, she stood beside the cabin, she shook herself,
and the articles, with the exception of the wallet, tumbled to the
ground. The latter she set down carefully, thrust her arm into one of
the ends and drew forth a heavy jug, which she raised to her mouth. The
wind was rising, but its voice among the trees was dull and muffled; now
and then a flake of snow dropped out of the gloom, as if some cowardly,
insulting creature of the air were spitting at the world under cover of
the night.

“It’s likely to be a good night,” the woman muttered, “and he’ll be on
the way by this time. I must put things to rights.”

She entered the cabin by a narrow door in the southern end. Her first
care was to rekindle the smouldering fire from a store of boughs and dry
brushwood piled in one corner. When a little flame leaped up from the
ashes, it revealed an interior bare and dismal enough, yet very cheery
in contrast with the threatening weather outside. The walls were naked
logs and rock, the floor of irregular flat stones, and no furniture
remained except some part of a cupboard or dresser, near the chimney.
Two or three short saw-cuts of logs formed as many seats, and the only
sign of a bed was a mass of dry leaves, upon which a blanket had been
thrown, in a hollow under the overhanging base of the rock.

Untying the blanket, the woman drew forth three or four rude cooking
utensils, some dried beef and smoked sausages, and two huge round loaves
of bread, and arranged them upon the one or two remaining shelves of the
dresser. Then she seated herself in front of the fire, staring into the
crackling blaze, which she mechanically fed from time to time, muttering
brokenly to herself in the manner of one accustomed to be much alone.

“It was a mean thing, after what I’d said,--my word used to be wuth
somethin’, but times seems to ha’ changed. If they have, why shouldn’t I
change with ‘em, as well’s anybody else? Well, why need it matter? I’ve
got a bad name.... No, that’ll never do! Stick to what you’re about, or
you’ll be wuthlesser, even, than they says you are!”

She shook her hard fist, and took another pull at the jug.

“It’s well I laid in a good lot o’ _that_,” she said. “No better company
for a lonesome night, and it’ll stop his cussin’, I reckon, anyhow. Eh?
What’s that?”

From the wood came a short, quick yelp, as from some stray dog. She
rose, slipped out the door, and peered into the darkness, which was full
of gathering snow. After listening a moment, she gave a low whistle. It
was not answered, but a stealthy step presently approached, and a form,
dividing itself from the gloom, stood at her side.

“All right, Deb?”

“Right as I can make it. I’ve got meat and drink, and I come straight
from the Turk’s Head, and Jim says the Sheriff’s gone back to Chester,
and there’s been nobody out these three days. Come in and take bite and
sup, and then tell me everything.”

They entered the cabin. The door was carefully barred, and then
Sandy Flash, throwing off a heavy overcoat, such as the drovers were
accustomed to wear, sat down by the fire. His face was redder than its
wont, from cold and exposure, and all its keen, fierce lines were sharp
and hard. As he warmed his feet and hands at the blaze, and watched Deb.
Smith while she set the meat upon the coals, and cut the bread with a
heavy hunting-knife, the wary, defiant look of a hunted animal gradually
relaxed, and he said,--

“Faith, Deb., this is better than hidin’ in the frost. I believe I’d
ha’ froze last night, if I hadn’t got down beside an ox for a couple o’
hours. It’s a dog’s life they’ve led me, and I’ve had just about enough
of it.”

“Then why not give it up, Sandy, for good and all? I’ll go out with you
to the Backwoods, after--after things is settled.”

“And let ‘em brag they frightened me away!” he exclaimed, with an oath.
“Not by a long shot, Deb. I owe ‘em a score for this last chase--I’ll
make the rich men o’ Chester County shake in their shoes, and the
officers o’ the law, and the Volunteers, damme! before I’ve done with
‘em. When I go away for good, I’ll leave somethin’ behind me for them to
remember me by!”

“Well, never mind; eat a bit--the meat’s ready, and see here, Sandy! I
carried this all the way.”

He seized the jug and took a long draught. “You’re a good ‘un, Deb.,” he
said. “A man isn’t half a man when his belly’s cold and empty.”

He fell to, and ate long and ravenously. Warmed at last, both by fire
and fare, and still more by his frequent potations, he commenced the
story of his disguises and escapes, laughing at times with boisterous
self-admiration, swearing brutally and bitterly at others, over the
relentless energy with which he had been pursued. Deb. Smith listened
with eager interest, slapping him upon the back with a force of
approval which would have felled an ordinary man, but which Sandy Flash
cheerfully accepted as a caress.

“You see,” he said at the close, “after I sneaked between Potter’s troop
and the Sheriff’s, and got down into the lower corner o’ the county, I
managed to jump aboard a grain-sloop bound for Newport, but they were
froze in at the mouth o’ Christeen; so I went ashore, dodged around
Wilmington, (where I’m rather too well known,) and come up Whitely Creek
as a drover from Mar’land. But from Grove up to here, I’ve had to look
out mighty sharp, takin’ nigh onto two days for what I could go straight
through in half a day.”

“Well, I guess you’re safe here, Sandy,” she said; “they’ll never think
o’ lookin’ for you twice’t in the same place. Why didn’t you send word
for me before? You’ve kep’ me a mortal long time a-waitin’, and down on
the Woodrow farm would ha’ done as well as here.”

“It’s a little too near that Potter. He’d smell me out as quick as if I
was a skunk to windward of him. Besides, it’s time I was pitchin’ on a
few new holes; we must talk it over together, Deb.”

He lifted the jug again to his mouth. Deb. Smith, although she had kept
nearly even pace with him, was not so sensible to the potency of the
liquor, and was watching for the proper degree of mellowness, in order
to broach the subject over which she had been secretly brooding since
his arrival.

“First of all, Sandy,” she now said, “I want to talk to you about
Gilbert Potter. The man’s my friend, and I thought you cared enough
about me to let my friends alone.”

“So I do, Deb., when they let me alone. I had a right to shoot the
fellow, but I let him off easy, as much for your sake as because he was
carryin’ another man’s money.”

“That’s not true!” she cried. “It was his own money, every cent of
it,--hard-earned money, meant to pay off his debts; and I can say it
because I helped him earn it, mowin’ and reapin’ beside him in the
harvest-field, thrashin’ beside him in the barn, eatin’ at his table,
and sleepin’ under his roof. I gev him my word he was safe from you, but
you’ve made me out a liar, with no more thought o’ me than if I’d been a
stranger or an enemy!”

“Come, Deb., don’t get into your tantrums. Potter may be a decent
fellow, as men go, for anything I know, but you’re not beholden to him
because he treated you like a Christian as you are. You seem to forgit
that he tried to take my life,--that he’s hardly yet giv’ up huntin’
me like a wild beast! Damn him, if the money _was_ his, which I don’t
believe, it wouldn’t square accounts between us. You think more o’ his
money than o’ my life, you huzzy!”

“No I don’t, Sandy!” she protested, “no I don’t. You know me better’n
that. What am I here for, to-night? Have I never helped you, and hid
you, and tramped the country for you back and forth, by day and by
night,--and for what? Not for money, but because I’m your wife, whether
or not priest or ‘squire has said it. I thought you cared for me, I did,
indeed; I thought you might do one thing to please me!”

There was a quivering motion in the muscles of her hard face; her lips
were drawn convulsively, with an expression which denoted weeping,
although no tears came to her eyes.

“Don’t be a fool!” Sandy exclaimed. “S’pose you have served me, isn’t it
somethin’ to have a man to serve? What other husband is there for you in
the world, than me,--the only man that isn’t afeard o’ your fist? You’ve
done your duty by me, I’ll allow, and so have I done mine by you!”

“Then,” she begged, “do this one thing over and above your duty. Do it,
Sandy, as a bit o’ kindness to me, and put upon me what work you please,
till I’ve made it up to you! You dunno what it is, maybe, to have one
person in the world as shows a sort o’ respect for you--that gives you
his hand honestly, like a gentleman, and your full Chris’en name. It
does good when a body’s been banged about as I’ve been, and more used
to curses than kind words, and not a friend to look after me if I was
layin’ at Death’s door--and I don’t say you wouldn’t come, Sandy, but
you can’t. And there’s no denyin’ that he had the law on his side, and
isn’t more an enemy than any other man. Maybe he’d even be a friend in
need, as far as he dared, if you’d only do it”--

“Do what? What in the Devil’s name is the woman drivin’ at?” yelled
Sandy Flash.

“Give back the money; it’s his’n, not Barton’s,--I know it. Tell me
where it is, and I’ll manage the whole thing for you. It’s got to be
paid in a month or two, folks says, and they’ll come on him for it,
maybe take and sell his farm--sell th’ only house, Sandy, where I git
my rights, th’ only house where I git a bit o’ peace an’ comfort! You
wouldn’t be that hard on me?”

The highwayman took another deep drink and rose to his feet. His face
was stern and threatening. “I’ve had enough o’ this foolery,” he said.
“Once and for all, Deb., don’t you poke your nose into my affairs! Give
back the money? Tell you where it is? Pay him for huntin’ me down? I
could take you by the hair and knock your head ag’in the wall, for them
words!”

She arose also and confronted him. The convulsive twitching of her mouth
ceased, and her face became as hard and defiant as his. “Sandy Flash,
mark my words!” she exclaimed. “You’re a-goin’ the wrong way, when you
stop takin’ only from the Collectors and the proud rich men, and sparin’
the poor. Instead o’ doin’ good to balance the bad, it’ll soon be all
bad, and you no better ‘n a common thief! You needn’t show your teeth;
it’s true, and I say it square to y’r face!”

She saw the cruel intensity of his anger, but did not flinch. They had
had many previous quarrels, in which neither could claim any very great
advantage over the other; but the highwayman was now in an impatient and
exasperated mood, and she dared more than she suspected in defying him.

“You ----!” (the epithet he used cannot be written,) “will you stop your
jaw, or shall I stop it for you? I’m your master, and I give you your
orders, and the first order is, Not another word, now and never, about
Potter or his money!”

He had never before outraged her by such a word, never before so
brutally asserted his claim to her obedience. All the hot, indignant
force of her fierce, coarse nature rose in resistance. She was
thoroughly aroused and fearless. The moment had come, she felt, when the
independence which had been her compensation amid all the hardships and
wrongs of her life, was threatened,--when she must either preserve it by
a desperate effort, or be trampled under foot by this man, whom she both
loved and feared, and in that moment, hated.

“I’ll not hold my jaw!” she cried, with flashing eyes. “Not even at your
biddin’, Sandy Flash! I’ll not rest till I have the money out o’ you;
there’s no law ag’inst stealin’ from a thief!”

The answer was a swift, tremendous blow of the highwayman’s fist,
delivered between her eyes. She fell, and lay for a moment stunned, the
blood streaming from her face. Then with a rapid movement, she seized
the hunting-knife which lay beside the fire, and sprang to her feet.

The knife was raised in her right hand, and her impulse was to plunge it
into his heart. But she could not avoid his eyes; they caught and held
her own, as if by some diabolical fascination. He stood motionless,
apparently awaiting the blow. Nothing in his face or attitude expressed
fear; only all the power of the man seemed to be concentrated in his
gaze, and to hold her back. The impulse once arrested, he knew, it would
not return. The eyes of each were fixed on the other’s, and several
minutes of awful silence thus passed.

Finally, Deb. Smith slightly shuddered, as if with cold, her hand slowly
fell, and without a word she turned away to wash her bloody face.

Sandy Flash grinned, took another drink of whiskey, resumed his seat
before the fire, and then proceeded to fill his pipe. He lit and smoked
it to the end, without turning his head, or seeming to pay the least
attention to her movements. She, meanwhile, had stopped the flow of
blood from her face, bound a rag around her forehead, and lighted her
own pipe, without speaking. The highwayman first broke the silence.

“As I was a-sayin’,” he remarked, in his ordinary tone, “we’ve got to
look out for new holes, where the scent isn’t so strong as about these.
What do you think o’ th’ Octorara?”

“Where?” she asked. Her voice was hoarse and strange, but he took no
notice of it, gazing steadily into the fire as he puffed out a huge
cloud of smoke.

“Well, pretty well down,” he said. “There’s a big bit o’ woodland, nigh
onto two thousand acres, belongin’ to somebody in Baltimore that doesn’t
look at it once’t in ten years, and my thinkin’ is, it’d be as safe
as the Backwoods. I must go to--it’s no difference where--to-morrow
mornin’, but I’ll be back day after to-morrow night, and you needn’t
stir from here till I come. You’ve grub enough for that long, eh?”

“It’ll do,” she muttered.

“Then, that’s enough. I must be off an hour before day, and I’m devilish
fagged and sleepy, so here goes!”

With these words he rose, knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and
stretched himself on the bed of leaves. She continued to smoke her pipe.

“Deb.,” he said, five minutes afterwards, “I’m not sure o’ wakin’. You
look out for me,--do you hear?”

“I hear,” she answered, in the same low, hoarse voice, without turning
her head. In a short time Sandy Flash’s deep breathing announced that he
slept. Then she turned and looked at him with a grim, singular smile,
as the wavering fire-light drew clear pictures of his face which the
darkness as constantly wiped out again. By-and-by she noiselessly moved
her seat nearer to the wall, leaned her head against the rough logs, and
seemed to sleep. But, even if it were sleep, she was conscious of
his least movement, and started into alert wakefulness, if he turned,
muttered in dreams, or crooked a finger among the dead leaves. From time
to time she rose, stole out of the cabin and looked at the sky. Thus the
night passed away.

There was no sign of approaching dawn in the dull, overcast, snowy air;
but a blind, animal instinct of time belonged to her nature, and about
two hours before sunrise, she set about preparing a meal. When all was
ready, she bent over Sandy Flash, seized him by the shoulder, and shook
his eyes open.

“Time!” was all she said.

He sprang up, hastily devoured the bread and meat, and emptied the jug
of its last remaining contents.

“Hark ye, Deb.,” he exclaimed, when he had finished, “you may as well
trudge over to the Turk’s Head and fill this while I’m gone. We’ll need
all of it, and more, tomorrow night. Here’s a dollar, to pay for’t. Now
I must be on the tramp, but you may look for me to-morrow, an hour after
sun.”

He examined his pistols, stuck them in his belt, threw his drover’s
cloak over his shoulders, and strode out of the cabin. She waited until
the sound of his footsteps had died away in the cold, dreary gloom, and
then threw herself upon the pallet which he had vacated. This time she
slept soundly, until hours after the gray winter day had come up the
sky.

Her eyes were nearly closed by the swollen flesh, and she laid handfuls
of snow upon her face, to cool the inflamation. At first, her movements
were uncertain, expressing a fierce conflict, a painful irresolution of
feeling; she picked up the hunting-knife, looked at it with a ghastly
smile, and then threw it from her. Suddenly, however, her features
changed, and every trace of her former hesitation vanished. After
hurriedly eating the fragments left from Sandy’s breakfast, she issued
from the cabin and took a straight and rapid course eastward, up and
over the hill.

During the rest of that day and the greater part of the next, the cabin
was deserted.

It was almost sunset, and not more than an hour before Sandy Flash’s
promised return, when Deb. Smith again made her appearance. Her face was
pale, (except for the dark blotches around the eyes,) worn, and haggard;
she seemed to have grown ten years older in the interval.

Her first care was to rekindle the fire and place the replenished jug in
its accustomed place. Then she arranged and rearranged the rude blocks
which served for seats, the few dishes and the articles of food on
the shelf, and, when all had been done, paced back and forth along the
narrow floor, as if pushed by some invisible, tormenting power.

Finally a whistle was heard, and in a minute afterwards Sandy Flash
entered the door. The bright blaze of the hearth shone upon his bold,
daring, triumphant face.

“That’s right, Deb.,” he said. “I’m dry and hungry, and here’s a rabbit
you can skin and set to broil in no time. Let’s look at you, old gal!
The devil!--I didn’t mean to mark you like that. Well, bygones is
bygones, and better times is a-comin’.”

“Sandy!” she cried, with a sudden, appealing energy, “Sandy--once’t
more! Won’t you do for me what I want o’ you?”

His face darkened in an instant. “Deb!” was all the word he uttered, but
she understood the tone. He took off his pistol-belt and laid it on the
shelf. “Lay there, pets!” he said; “I won’t want you to-night. A long
tramp it was, and I’m glad it’s over. Deb., I guess I’ve nigh tore off
one o’ my knee-buckles, comin’ through the woods.”

Placing his foot upon one of the logs, he bent down to examine the
buckle. Quick as lightning, Deb., who was standing behind him, seized
each of his arms, just above the elbows, with her powerful hands, and
drew them towards each other upon his back. At the same time she uttered
a shrill, wild cry,--a scream so strange and unearthly in its character
that Sandy Flash’s blood chilled to hear it.

“Curse you, Deb., what are you doing? Are you clean mad?” he ejaculated,
struggling violently to free his arms.

“Which is strongest now?” she asked; “my arms, or your’n? I’ve got you,
I’ll hold you, and I’ll only let go when I please!”

He swore and struggled, but he was powerless in her iron grip. In
another minute the door of the cabin was suddenly burst open, and two
armed men sprang upon him. More rapidly than the fact can be related,
they snapped a pair of heavy steel handcuffs upon his wrists, pinioned
his arms at his sides, and bound his knees together. Then, and not till
then, Deb. Smith relaxed her hold.

Sandy Flash made one tremendous muscular effort, to test the strength
of his bonds, and then stood motionless. His white teeth flashed between
his parted lips, and there was a dull, hard glare in his eyes which
told that though struck dumb with astonishment and impotent rage, he was
still fearless, still unsubdued. Deb. Smith, behind him, leaned against
the wall, pale and panting.

“A good night’s work!” remarked Chaffey, the constable, as he possessed
himself of the musket, pistol-belt, and hunting-knife. “I guess this
pitcher won’t go to the well any more.”

“We’ll see,” Sandy exclaimed, with a sneer. “You’ve got me, not through
any pluck o’ your’n, but through black, underhanded treachery. You’d
better double chain and handcuff me, or I may be too much for you yet!”

“I guess you’ll do,” said the constable, examining the cords by the
light of a lantern which his assistant had in the mean time fetched from
without. “I’ll even untie your knees, for you’ve to walk over the hill
to the next farm-house, where we’ll find a wagon to carry you to Chester
jail. I promise you more comfortable quarters than these, by daylight.”

The constable then turned to Deb. Smith, who had neither moved nor
spoken.

“You needn’t come with us without you want to,” he said. “You can get
your share of the money at any time; but you must remember to be ready
to appear and testify, when Court meets.”

“Must I do that?” she gasped.

“Why, to be sure! It’s a reg’lar part of the trial, and can’t be left
out, though there’s enough to hang the fellow ten times over, without
you.”

The two unbound Sandy Flash’s knees and placed themselves on each side
of him, the constable holding a cocked pistol in his right hand.

“March is the word, is it?” said the highwayman. “Well, I’m ready.
Potter was right, after all; he said there’d be a curse on the money,
and there is; but I never guessed the curse’d come upon me through
_you_, Deb!”

“Oh, Sandy!” she cried, starting forward, “you druv me to it! The curse
was o’ your own makin’--and I gev you a last chance to-night, but you
throwed it from you!”

“Very well, Deb,” he answered, “if I’ve got my curse, don’t think you’ll
not have your’n! Go down to Chester and git your blood-money, and see
what’ll come of it, and what’ll come to you!”

He turned towards her as he spoke, and the expression of his face seemed
so frightful that she shuddered and covered her eyes. The next moment,
the old cabin door creaked open, fell back with a crash, and she was
alone.

She stared around at the dreary walls. The sound of their footsteps had
died away, and only the winter night-wind wailed through the crannies of
the hut. Accustomed as she was to solitary life and rudest shelter, and
to the companionship of her superstitious fancies, she had never before
felt such fearful loneliness, such overpowering dread. She heaped sticks
upon the fire, sat down before it, and drank from the jug. Its mouth
was still wet from his lips, and it seemed that she was already drinking
down the commencement of the curse.

Her face worked, and hard, painful groans burst from her lips. She threw
herself upon the floor and grovelled there, until the woman’s relief
which she had almost unlearned forced its forgotten way, through cramps
and agonies, to her eyes. In the violent passion of her weeping and
moaning, God saw and pitied, that night, the struggles of a dumb,
ignorant, yet not wholly darkened nature.

Two hours afterwards she arose, sad, stern, and determined, packed
together the things she had brought with her, quenched the fire (never
again to be relighted) upon the hearth, and took her way, through cold
and darkness, down the valley.



CHAPTER XXV.

TWO ATTEMPTS.


The news of Sandy Flash’s capture ran like wildfire through the county.
As the details became more correctly known, there was great rejoicing
but greater surprise, for Deb. Smith’s relation to the robber, though
possibly surmised by a few, was unsuspected by the community at large.
In spite of the service which she had rendered by betraying her paramour
into the hands of justice, a bitter feeling of hostility towards her
was developed among the people, and she was generally looked upon as an
accomplice to Sandy Flash’s crimes, who had turned upon him only when
she had ceased to profit by them.

The public attention was thus suddenly drawn away from Gilbert Potter,
and he was left to struggle, as he best might, against the difficulties
entailed by his loss. He had corresponded with Mr. Trainer, the
conveyancer in Chester, and had learned that the money still due must
not only be forthcoming on the first of April, but that it probably
could not be obtained there. The excitement for buying lands along the
Alleghany, Ohio, and Beaver rivers, in western Pennsylvania, had seized
upon the few capitalists of the place, and Gilbert’s creditor had
already been subjected to inconvenience and possible loss, as one result
of the robbery. Mr. Trainer therefore suggested that he should make a
new loan in his own neighborhood, where the spirit of speculation had
not yet reached.

The advice was prudent and not unfriendly, although of a kind more
easy to give than to carry into execution. Mark’s money-belt had been
restored, greatly against the will of the good-hearted fellow (who would
have cheerfully lent Gilbert the whole amount had he possessed it), and
there was enough grain yet to be threshed and sold, to yield something
more than a hundred dollars; but this was all which Gilbert could count
upon from his own resources. He might sell the wagon and one span of
horses, reducing by their value the sum which he would be obliged to
borrow; yet his hope of recovering the money in another year could
only be realized by retaining them, to continue, from time to time, his
occupation of hauling flour.

Although the sympathy felt for him was general and very hearty, it never
took the practical form of an offer of assistance, and he was far too
proud to accept that plan of relief which a farmer, whose barn had been
struck by lightning and consumed, had adopted, the previous year,--going
about the neighborhood with a subscription-list, and soliciting
contributions. His nearest friends were as poor as, or poorer than,
himself, and those able to aid him felt no call to tender their
services.

Martha Deane knew of this approaching trouble, not from Gilbert’s own
lips, for she had seen him but once and very briefly since his return
from the chase of Sandy Flash. It was her cousin Mark, who, having
entered into an alliance, offensive and defensive, with her lover,
betrayed (considering that the end sanctioned the means) the confidence
reposed in him.

The thought that her own coming fortune lay idle, while Gilbert might be
saved by the use of a twentieth part of it, gave Martha Deane no peace.
The whole belonged to him prospectively, yet would probably be of less
service when it should be legally her own to give, than the fragment
which now would lift him above anxiety and humiliation. The money had
been bequeathed to her by a maternal aunt, whose name she bore, and the
provisions by which the bequest was accompanied, so light and reasonable
be fore, now seemed harsh and unkind. The payment of the whole sum,
or any part of it, she saw, could not be anticipated. But she imagined
there must be a way to obtain a loan of the necessary amount, with the
bequest as security. With her ignorance of business matters, she felt
the need of counsel in this emergency; yet her father was her guardian,
and there seemed to be no one else to whom she could properly apply. Not
Gilbert, for she fancied he might reject the assistance she designed,
and therefore she meant to pay the debt before it became due, without
his knowledge; nor Mark, nor Farmer Fairthorn. Betsy Lavender, when
appealed to, shook her head, and remarked,--

“Lord bless you, child! a wuss snarl than ever. I’m gittin’ a bit
skeary, when you talk o’ law and money matters, and that’s the fact.
Not that I find fault with your wishin’ to do it, but the contrary, and
there might be ways, as you say, only I’m not lawyer enough to find ‘em,
and as to advisin’ where I don’t see my way clear, Defend me from it!”

Thus thrown back upon herself, Martha was forced to take the alternative
which she would gladly have avoided, and from which, indeed, she hoped
nothing,--an appeal to her father. Gilbert Potter’s name had not again
been mentioned between them. She, for her part, had striven to maintain
her usual gentle, cheerful demeanor, and it is probable that Dr. Deane
made a similar attempt; but he could not conceal a certain coldness
and stiffness, which made an uncomfortable atmosphere in their little
household.

“Well, Betsy,” Martha said (they were in her room, upstairs), “Father
has just come in from the stable, I see. Since there is no other way, I
will go down and ask his advice.”

“You don’t mean it, child!” cried the spinster.

Martha left the room, without answer.

“She’s got _that_ from him, anyhow,” Miss Betsy remarked, “and which o’
the two is stubbornest, I couldn’t undertake to say. If he’s dead-set on
the wrong side, why, she’s jist as dead-set on the right side, and that
makes a mortal difference. I don’t see why I should be all of a trimble,
that only sets here and waits, while she’s stickin’ her head into the
lion’s mouth; but so it is! Isn’t about time for _you_ to be doin’
somethin’, Betsy Lavender!”

Martha Deane entered the front sitting-room with a grave, deliberate
step. The Doctor sat at his desk, with a pair of heavy silver-rimmed
spectacles on his nose, looking over an antiquated “Materia Medica.” His
upper lip seemed to have become harder and thinner, at the expense
of the under one, which pouted in a way that expressed vexation and
ill-temper. He was, in fact, more annoyed than he would have confessed
to any human being. Alfred Barton’s visits had discontinued, and he
could easily guess the reason. Moreover, a suspicion of Gilbert
Potter’s relation to his daughter was slowly beginning to permeate the
neighborhood; and more than once, within the last few days, all his
peculiar diplomacy had been required to parry a direct question. He
foresaw that the subject would soon come to the notice of his elder
brethren among the Friends, who felt self-privileged to rebuke and
remonstrate, even in family matters of so delicate a nature.

It was useless, the Doctor knew, to attempt coercion with Martha. If
any measure could succeed in averting the threatened shame, it must
be kindly persuasion, coupled with a calm, dispassionate appeal to her
understanding. The quiet, gentle way in which she had met his anger, he
now saw, had left the advantage of the first encounter on her side.
His male nature and long habit of rule made an equal self-control very
difficult, on his part, and he resolved to postpone a recurrence to
the subject until he should feel able to meet his daughter with her own
weapons. Probably some reflection of the kind then occupied his mind, in
spite of the “Materia Medica” before him.

“Father,” said Martha, seating herself with a bit of sewing in her hand,
“I want to ask thee a few questions about business matters.”

The Doctor looked at her. “Well, thee’s taking a new turn,” he remarked.
“Is it anything very important?”

“Very important,” she answered; “it’s about my own fortune.”

“I thought thee understood, Martha, that that matter was all fixed and
settled, until thee’s twenty-five, unless--unless”--

Here the Doctor hesitated. He did not wish to introduce the sore subject
of his daughter’s marriage.

“I know what thee means, father. Unless I should sooner marry, with thy
consent. But I do not expect to marry now, and therefore do not ask thy
permission. What I want to know is, whether I could not obtain a loan of
a small sum of money, on the security of the legacy?”

“That depends on circumstances,” said the Doctor, slowly, and after a
long pause, during which he endeavored to guess his daughter’s design.
“It might be,--yes, it might be; but, Martha, surely thee doesn’t want
for money? Why should thee borrow?”

“Couldn’t thee suppose, father, that I need it for some good purpose?
I’ve always had plenty, it is true; but I don’t think thee can say I
ever squandered it foolishly or thoughtlessly. This is a case where I
wish to make an investment,--a permanent investment.”

“Ah, indeed? I always fancied thee cared less for money than a prudent
woman ought. How much might this investment be?”

“About six hundred dollars,” she answered.

“Six hundred!” exclaimed the Doctor; “that’s a large sum to venture, a
large sum! Since thee can only raise it with my help, thee’ll certainly
admit my right, as thy legal guardian, if not as thy father, to ask
where, how, and on what security the money will be invested?”

Martha hesitated only long enough to reflect that her father’s assertion
was probably true, and without his aid she could do nothing. “Father,”
 she then said, “_I_ am the security.”

“I don’t understand thee, child.”

“I mean that my whole legacy will be responsible to the lender for its
repayment in three years from this time. The security _I_ ask, I have in
advance; it is the happiness of my life!”

“Martha! thee doesn’t mean to say that thee would”--

Dr. Deane could get no further. Martha, with a sorrowful half-smile,
took up his word.

“Yes, father, I would. Lest thee should not have understood me right,
I repeat that I would, and will, lift the mortgage on Gilbert Potter’s
farm. He has been very unfortunate, and there is a call for help which
nobody heeds as he deserves. If I give it now, I simply give a part in
advance. The whole will be given afterwards.”

Dr. Deane’s face grew white, and his lip trembled, in spite of himself.
It was a minute or two before he ventured to say, in a tolerably steady
voice,--

“Thee still sets up thy right (as thee calls it) against mine, but mine
is older built and will stand. To help thee to this money would only be
to encourage thy wicked fancy for the man. Of course, I can’t do it; I
wonder thee should expect it of me. I wonder, indeed, thee should think
of taking as a husband one who borrows money of thee almost as soon as
he has spoken his mind!”

For an instant Martha Deane’s eyes flashed. “Father!” she cried, “it is
not so! Gilbert doesn’t even know my desire to help him. I must ask this
of thee, to speak no evil of him in my hearing. It would only give me
unnecessary pain, not shake my faith in his honesty and goodness. I
see thee will not assist me, and so I must endeavor to find whether the
thing cannot be done without thy assistance. In three years more the
legacy will be mine, I shall go to Chester, and consult a lawyer,
whether my own note for that time could not be accepted!”

“I can spare thee the trouble,” the Doctor said. “In case of thy death
before the three years are out, who is to pay the note? Half the money
falls to me, and half to thy uncle Richard. Thy aunt Martha was wise. It
truly seems as if she had foreseen just what has happened, and meant to
baulk thy present rashness. Thee may go to Chester, and welcome, if thee
doubts my word; but unless thee can give positive assurance that thee
will be alive in three years’ time, I don’t know of any one foolish
enough to advance thee money.”

The Doctor’s words were cruel enough; he might have spared his
triumphant, mocking smile. Martha’s heart sank within her, as she
recognized her utter helplessness. Not yet, however, would she give
up the sweet hope of bringing aid; for Gilbert’s sake she would make
another appeal.

“I won’t charge thee, father, with being intentionally unkind. It would
almost seem, from thy words, that thee is rather glad than otherwise,
because my life is uncertain. If I _should_ die, would thee not care
enough for my memory to pay a debt, the incurring of which brought me
peace and happiness during life? _Then_, surely, thee would forgive;
thy heart is not so hard as thee would have me believe; thee wishes me
happiness, I cannot doubt, but thinks it will come in _thy_ way, not
in mine. Is it not possible to grant me this--only this--and leave
everything else to time?”

Dr. Deane was touched and softened by his daughter’s words. Perhaps he
might even have yielded to her entreaty at once, had not a harsh and
selfish condition presented itself in a very tempting form to his mind.

“Martha,” he said, “I fancy that thee looks upon this matter of the loan
in the light of a duty, and will allow that thy motives may be weighty
to thy own mind. I ask thee to calm thyself, and consider things
clearly. If I grant thy request, I do so against my own judgment,
yea,--since it concerns thy interests,--against my own conscience.
This is not a thing to be lightly done, and if I should yield, I might
reasonably expect some little sacrifice of present inclination--yet
all for thy future good--on thy part. I would cheerfully borrow the six
hundred dollars for thee, or make it up from my own means, if need be,
to know that the prospect of thy disgrace was averted. Thee sees no
disgrace, I am aware, and pity that it is so; but if thy feeling for the
young man is entirely pure and unselfish, it should be enough to know
that thee had saved him from ruin, without considering thyself bound to
him for life.”

The Doctor sharply watched his daughter’s face while he spoke. She
looked up, at first, with an eager, wondering light of hope in her
eyes,--a light that soon died away, and gave place to a cloudy, troubled
expression. Then the blood rose to her cheeks, and her lips assumed the
clear, firm curve which always reflected the decisions of her mind.

“Father,” she said, “I see thee has learned how to tempt, as well as
threaten. For the sake of doing a present good, thee would have me bind
myself to do a life-long injustice. Thee would have me take an external
duty to balance a violation of the most sacred conscience of my heart.
How little thee knows me! It is not alone that I am necessary to Gilbert
Potter’s happiness, but also that he is necessary to mine. Perhaps it
is the will of Heaven that so great a bounty should not come to me too
easily, and I must bear, without murmuring, that my own father is set
against me. Thee may try me, if thee desires, for the coming three
years, but I can tell thee as well, now, what the end will be. Why not
rather tempt me by offering the money Gilbert needs, on the condition of
my giving up the rest of the legacy to thee? That would be a temptation,
I confess.”

“No!” he exclaimed, with rising exasperation, “if thee has hardened thy
heart against all my counsels for thy good, I will at least keep my
own conscience free. I will not help thee by so much as the moving of a
finger. All I can do is, to pray that thy stubborn mind may be bent, and
gradually led back to the Light!”

He put away the book, took his cane and broad-brimmed hat, and turned
to leave the room. Martha rose, with a sad but resolute face, and went
up-stairs to her chamber.

Miss Betsy Lavender, when she learned all that had been said, on both
sides, was thrown into a state of great agitation and perplexity of
mind. She stared at Martha Deane, without seeming to see her, and
muttered from time to time such fragmentary phrases as,--“If I was
right-down sure,” or, “It’d only be another weepon tried and throwed
away, at the wust.”

“What are you thinking of, Betsy?” Martha finally asked.

“Thinkin’ of? Well, I can’t rightly tell you. It’s a bit o’ knowledge
that come in my way, once’t upon a time, never meanin’ to make use of
it in all my born days, and I wouldn’t now, only for your two sakes; not
that it concerns you a mite; but never mind, there’s ten thousand ways
o’ workin’ on men’s minds, and I can’t do no more than try my way.”

Thereupon Miss Lavender arose, and would have descended to the encounter
at once, had not Martha wisely entreated her to wait a day or two, until
the irritation arising from her own interview had had time to subside in
her father’s mind.

“It’s puttin’ me on nettles, now that I mean fast and firm to do it; but
you’re quite right, Martha,” the spinster said.

Three or four days afterwards she judged the proper time had arrived,
and boldly entered the Doctor’s awful presence. “Doctor,” she began,
“I’ve come to have a little talk, and it’s no use beatin’ about the
bush, plainness o’ speech bein’ one o’ my ways; not that folks always
thinks it a virtue, but oftentimes the contrary, and so may you,
maybe; but when there’s a worry in a house, it’s better, whatsoever and
whosoever, to have it come to a head than go on achin’ and achin’, like
a blind bile!”

“H’m,” snorted the Doctor, “I see what thee’s driving at, and I may as
well tell thee at once, that if thee comes to me from Martha, I’ve heard
enough from her, and more than enough.”

“More ‘n enough,” repeated Miss Lavender. “But you’re wrong. I come
neither from Martha, nor yet from Gilbert Potter; but I’ve been thinkin’
that you and me, bein’ old,--in a measure, that is,--and not so direckly
concerned, might talk the thing over betwixt and between us, and maybe
come to a better understandin’ for both sides.”

Dr. Deane was not altogether disinclined to accept this proposition.
Although Miss Lavender sometimes annoyed him, as she rightly
conjectured, by her plainness of speech, he had great respect for her
shrewdness and her practical wisdom. If he could but even partially win
her to his views, she would be a most valuable ally.

“Then say thy say, Betsy,” he assented.

“Thy say, Betsy. Well, first and foremost, I guess we may look upon Alf.
Barton’s courtin’ o’ Martha as broke off for good, the fact bein’ that
he never wanted to have her, as he’s told me since with his own mouth.”

“What?” Dr. Deane exclaimed.

“With his own mouth.” Miss Lavender repeated. “And as to his reasons for
lettin’ on, I don’t know ‘em. Maybe you can guess ‘em, as you seem to
ha’ had everything cut and dried betwixt and between you; but that’s
neither here nor there--Alf. Barton bein’ out o’ the way, why, the
coast’s clear, and so Gilbert’s case is to be considered by itself; and
let’s come to the p’int, namely, what you’ve got ag’in him?”

“I wonder thee can ask, Betsy! He’s poor, he’s base-born, without
position or influence in the neighborhood,--in no way a husband for
Martha Deane! If her head’s turned because he has been robbed, and
marvellously saved, and talked about, I suppose I must wait till she
comes to her right senses.”

“I rather expect,” Miss Lavender gravely remarked, “that they were
bespoke before all that happened, and it’s not a case o’ suddent fancy,
but somethin’ bred in the bone and not to be cured by plasters. We won’t
talk o’ that now, but come back to Gilbert Potter, and I dunno as you’re
quite right in any way about his bein’s and doin’s. With that farm o’
his’n, he can’t be called poor, and I shouldn’t wonder, though I can’t
give no proofs, but never mind, wait awhile and you’ll see, that he’s
not base-born, after all; and as for respect in the neighborhood,
there’s not a man more respected nor looked up to,--so the last p’int’s
settled, and we’ll take the t’ other two; and I s’pose you mean his farm
isn’t enough?”

“Thee’s right,” Dr. Deane said. “As Martha’s guardian, I am bound to
watch over her interests, and every prudent man will agree with me that
her husband ought at least to be as well off as herself.”

“Well, all I’ve got to say, is, it’s lucky for you that Naomi Blake
didn’t think as you do, when she married you. What’s sass for the goose
ought to be sass for the gander (meanin’ you and Gilbert), and every
prudent man will agree with me.”

This was a home-thrust, which Dr. Deane was not able to parry. Miss
Lavender had full knowledge whereof she affirmed, and the Doctor knew
it.

“I admit that there might be other advantages,” he said, rather
pompously, covering his annoyance with a pinch of snuff,--“advantages
which partly balance the want of property. Perhaps Naomi Blake thought
so too. But here, I think, it would be hard for thee to find such. Or
does thee mean that the man’s disgraceful birth is a recommendation?”

“Recommendation? No!” Miss Lavender curtly replied.

“We need go no further, then. Admitting thee’s right in all other
respects, here is cause enough for me. I put it to thee, as a sensible
woman, whether I would not cover both myself and Martha with shame, by
allowing her marriage with Gilbert Potter?”

Miss Lavender sat silently in her chair and appeared to meditate.

“Thee doesn’t answer,” the Doctor remarked, after a pause.

“I dunno how it come about,” she said, lifting her head and fixing her
dull eyes on vacancy; “I was thinkin’ o’ the time I was up at Strasburg,
while your brother was livin’, more ‘n twenty year ago.”

With all his habitual self-control and gravity of deportment, Dr. Deane
could not repress a violent start of surprise. He darted a keen, fierce
glance at Miss Betsy’s face, but she was staring at the opposite wall,
apparently unconscious of the effect of her words.

“I don’t see what that has to do with Gilbert Potter,” he presently
said, collecting himself with an effort.

“Nor I, neither,” Miss Lavender absently replied, “only it happened that
I knowed Eliza Little,--her that used to live at the Gap, you know,--and
just afore she died, that fall the fever was so bad, and I nussin’ her,
and not another soul awake in the house, she told me a secret about your
brother’s boy, and I must say few men would ha’ acted as Henry done, and
there’s more ‘n one mighty beholden to him.”

Dr. Deane stretched out his hand as if he would close her mouth. His
face was like fire, and a wild expression of fear and pain shot from his
eyes.

“Betsy Lavender,” he said, in a hollow voice, “thee is a terrible woman.
Thee forces even the secrets of the dying from them, and brings up
knowledge that should be hidden forever. What can all this avail
thee? Why does thee threaten me with appearances, that cannot now be
explained, all the witnesses being dead?”

“Witnesses bein’ dead,” she repeated. “Are you sorry for that?”

He stared at her in silent consternation.

“Doctor,” she said, turning towards him for the first time, “there’s no
livin’ soul that knows, except you and me, and if I seem hard, I’m no
harder than the knowledge in your own heart. What’s the difference, in
the sight o’ the Lord, between the one that has a bad name and the one
that has a good name? Come, you set yourself up for a Chris’en, and so
I ask you whether you’re the one that ought to fling the first stone;
whether repentance--and there’s that, of course, for you a’n’t a nateral
bad man, Doctor, but rather the contrary--oughtn’t to be showed in
deeds, to be wuth much! You’re set ag’in Martha, and your pride’s
touched, which I can’t say as I wonder at, all folks havin’ pride, me
among the rest, not that I’ve much to be proud of, Goodness knows; but
never mind, don’t you talk about Gilbert Potter in that style, leastways
before me!”

During this speech, Dr. Deane had time to reflect. Although aghast at
the unexpected revelation, he had not wholly lost his cunning. It was
easy to perceive what Miss Lavender intended to do with the weapon in
her hands, and his aim was to render it powerless.

“Betsy,” he said, “there’s one thing thee won’t deny,--that, if there
was a fault, (which I don’t allow), it has been expiated. To make known
thy suspicions would bring sorrow and trouble upon two persons for whom
thee professes to feel some attachment; if thee could prove what thee
thinks, it would be a still greater misfortune for them than for me.
They are young, and my time is nearly spent. We all have serious
burdens which we must bear alone, and thee mustn’t forget that the same
consideration for the opinion of men which keeps thee silent, keeps me
from consenting to Martha’s marriage with Gilbert Potter. We are bound
alike.”

“We’re not!” she cried, rising from her seat. “But I see it’s no use to
talk any more, now. Perhaps since you know that there’s a window in
you, and me lookin’ in, you’ll try and keep th’ inside o’ your house in
better order. Whether I’ll act accordin’ to my knowledge or not, depends
on how things turns out, and so sufficient unto the day is the evil
thereof, or however it goes!”

With these words she left the room, though foiled, not entirely
hopeless.

“It’s like buttin’ over an old stone-wall,” she said to Martha. “The
first hit with a rammer seems to come back onto you, and jars y’r own
bones, and may be the next, and the next; and then little stones git out
o’ place, and then the wall shakes, and comes down,--and so we’ve been
a-doin’. I guess I made a crack to-day, but we’ll see.”



CHAPTER XXVI.

THE LAST OF SANDY FLASH.


The winter crept on, February was drawing to a close, and still Gilbert
Potter had not ascertained whence the money was to be drawn which would
relieve him from embarrassment. The few applications he had made were
failures; some of the persons really had no money to invest, and others
were too cautious to trust a man who, as everybody knew, had been
unfortunate. In five weeks more the sum must be made up, or the mortgage
would be foreclosed.

Both Mary Potter and her son, in this emergency, seemed to have adopted,
by accident or sympathy, the same policy towards each other,--to cheer
and encourage, in every possible way. Gilbert carefully concealed his
humiliation, on returning home from an unsuccessful appeal for a loan,
and his mother veiled her renewed sinking of the heart, as she heard of
his failure, under a cheerful hope of final success, which she did not
feel. Both had, in fact, one great consolation to fall back upon,--she
that he had been mercifully saved to her, he that he was beloved by a
noble woman.

All the grain that could be spared and sold placed but little more than
a hundred dollars in Gilbert’s hands, and he began seriously to consider
whether he should not be obliged to sell his wagon and team. He had been
offered a hundred and fifty dollars, (a very large sum, in those days,)
for Roger, but he would as soon have sold his own right arm. Not even to
save the farm would he have parted with the faithful animal. Mark Deane
persisted in increasing his seventy-five dollars to a hundred, and
forcing the loan upon his friend; so one third of the amount was secure,
and there was still hope for the rest.

It is not precisely true that there had been no offer of assistance.
There was _one_, which Gilbert half-suspected had been instigated by
Betsy Lavender. On a Saturday afternoon, as he visited Kennett Square
to have Roger’s fore-feet shod, he encountered Alfred Barton at the
blacksmith’s shop, on the same errand.

“The man I wanted to see!” cried the latter, as Gilbert dismounted.
“Ferris was in Chester last week, and he saw Chaffey, the constable, you
know, that helped catch Sandy; and Chaffey told him he was sure, from
something Sandy let fall, that Deb. Smith had betrayed him out of
revenge, because he robbed you. I want to know how it all hangs
together.”

Gilbert suddenly recalled Deb. Smith’s words, on the day after his
escape from the inundation, and a suspicion of the truth entered his
mind for the first time.

“It must have been so!” he exclaimed. “She has been a better friend to
me than many people of better name.”

Barton noticed the bitterness of the remark, and possibly drew his
own inference from it. He looked annoyed for a moment, but presently
beckoned Gilbert to one side, and said,--

“I don’t know whether you’ve given up your foolish suspicions about
me and Sandy; but the trial comes off next week, and you’ll have to be
there as a witness, of course, and can satisfy yourself, if you please,
that my explanation was nothing but the truth. I’ve not felt so jolly in
twenty years, as when I heard that the fellow was really in the jug!”

“I told you I believed your words,” Gilbert answered, “and that settles
the matter. Perhaps I shall find out how Sandy learned what you said to
me that evening, on the back-porch of the Unicorn, and if so, I am bound
to let you know it.”

“See here, Gilbert!” Barton resumed. “Folks say you must borrow the
money you lost, or the mortgage on your farm will be foreclosed. Is
that so? and how much money might it be, altogether, if you don’t mind
telling?”

“Not so much, if those who have it to lend, had a little faith in
me,--some four or five hundred dollars.”

“That ought to be got, without trouble,” said Barton. “If I had it by
me, I’d lend it to you in a minute; but you know I borrowed from Ferris
myself, and all o’ my own is so tied up that I couldn’t move it without
the old man getting on my track. I’ll tell you what I’ll do, though;
I’ll indorse your note for a year, if it can be kept a matter between
ourselves and the lender. On account of the old man, you understand.”

The offer was evidently made in good faith, and Gilbert hesitated,
reluctant to accept it, and yet unwilling to reject it in a manner that
might seem unfriendly.

“Barton,” he said at last, “I’ve never yet failed to meet a money
obligation. All my debts, except this last, have been paid on the day I
promised, and it seems a little hard that my own name, alone, shouldn’t
be good for as much as I need. Old Fairthorn would give me his
indorsement, but I won’t ask for it; and I mean no offence when I say
that I’d rather get along without yours, if I can. It’s kind in you to
make the offer, and to show that I’m not ungrateful, I’ll beg you to
look round among your rich friends and help me to find the loan.”

“You’re a mighty independent, fellow, Gilbert, but I can’t say as I
blame you for it. Yes, I’ll look round in a few days, and maybe I’ll
stumble on the right man by the time I see you again.”

When Gilbert returned home, he communicated this slight prospect of
relief to his mother. “Perhaps I am a little too proud,” he said; “but
you’ve always taught me, mother, to be beholden to no man, if I could
help it; and I should feel more uneasy under an obligation to Barton
than to most other men. You know I must go to Chester in a few days, and
must wait till I’m called to testify. There will then be time to look
around, and perhaps Mr. Trainer may help me yet.”

“You’re right, boy!” Mary Potter cried, with flashing eyes. “Keep
your pride; it’s not of the mean kind! Don’t ask for or take any man’s
indorsement!”

Two days before the time when Gilbert was summoned to Chester, Deb.
Smith made her appearance at the farm. She entered the barn early one
morning, with a bundle in her hand, and dispatched Sam, whom she found
in the stables, to summon his master. She looked old, weather-beaten,
and haggard, and her defiant show of strength was gone.

In betraying Sandy Flash into the hands of justice, she had acted from
a fierce impulse, without reflecting upon the inevitable consequences
of the step. Perhaps she did not suspect that she was also betraying
herself, and more than confirming all the worst rumors in regard to her
character. In the universal execration which followed the knowledge of
her lawless connection with Sandy Flash, and her presumed complicity in
his crimes, the merit of her service to the county was lost. The popular
mind, knowing nothing of her temptations, struggles, and sufferings, was
harsh, cold, and cruel, and she felt the weight of its verdict as
never before. A few persons of her own ignorant class, who admired her
strength and courage in their coarse way, advised her to hide until the
first fury of the storm should be blown over. Thus she exaggerated the
danger, and even felt uncertain of her reception by the very man for
whose sake she had done the deed and accepted the curse.

Gilbert, however, when he saw her worn, anxious face, the eyes, like
those of a dumb animal, lifted to his with an appeal which she knew not
how to speak, felt a pang of compassionate sympathy.

“Deborah!” he said, “you don’t look well; come into the house and warm
yourself!”

“No!” she cried, “I won’t darken your door till you’ve heerd what I’ve
got to say. Go ‘way, Sam; I want to speak to Mr. Gilbert, alone.”

Gilbert made a sign, and Sam sprang down the ladder, to the stables
under the threshing-floor.

“Mayhap you’ve heerd already,” she said. “A blotch on a body’s name
spreads fast and far. Mine was black enough before, God knows, but
they’ve blackened it more.”

“If all I hear is true,” Gilbert exclaimed, “you’ve blackened it for my
sake, Deborah. I’m afraid you thought I blamed you, in some way, for not
preventing my loss; but I’m sure you did what you could to save me from
it!”

“Ay, lad, that I did! But the devil seemed to ha’ got into him. Awful
words passed between us, and then--the devil got into _me_, and--you
know what follered. He wouldn’t believe the money was your’n, or I don’t
think he’d ha’ took it; he wasn’t a bad man at heart, Sandy wasn’t, only
stubborn at the wrong times, and brung it onto himself by that. But you
know what folks says about me?”

“I don’t care what they say, Deborah!” Gilbert cried. “I know that you
are a true and faithful friend to me, and I’ve not had so many such in
my life that I’m likely to forget what you’ve tried to do!”

Her hard, melancholy face became at once eager and tender. She stepped
forward, put her hand on Gilbert’s arm, and said, in a hoarse, earnest,
excited whisper,--

“Then maybe you’ll take it? I was almost afeard to ax you,--I thought
you might push me away, like the rest of ‘em; but you’ll take it, and
that’ll seem like a liftin’ of the curse! You won’t mind how it was got,
will you? I had to git it in that way, because no other was left to me!”

“What do you mean, Deborah?”

“The money, Mr. Gilbert! They allowed me half, though the constables was
for thirds, but the Judge said I’d arned the full half,--God knows, ten
thousand times wouldn’t pay me!--and I’ve got it here, tied up safe.
It’s your’n, you know, and maybe there a’n’t quite enough, but as fur as
it goes; and I’ll work out the amount o’ the rest, from time to time, if
you’ll let me come onto your place!”

Gilbert was powerfully and yet painfully moved. He forgot his
detestation of the relation in which Deb. Smith had stood to the
highwayman, in his gratitude for her devotion to himself. He felt an
invincible repugnance towards accepting her share of the reward, even
as a loan; it was “blood-money,” and to touch it in any way was to be
stained with its color; yet how should he put aside her kindness without
inflicting pain upon her rude nature, made sensitive at last by abuse,
persecution, and remorse?

His face spoke in advance of his lips, and she read its language with
wonderful quickness.

“Ah!” she cried, “I mistrusted how it’d be; you don’t want to say it
right out, but I’ll say it for you! You think the money’d bring you no
luck,--maybe a downright curse,--and how can I say it won’t? Ha’n’t it
cursed me? Sandy said it would, even as your’n follered him. What’s it
good for, then? It burns my hands, and them that’s clean, won’t touch
it. There, you damned devil’s-bait,--my arm’s sore, and my heart’s sore,
wi’ the weight o’ you!”

With these words she flung the cloth, with its bunch of hard silver
coins, upon the threshing-floor. It clashed like the sound of chains.
Gilbert saw that she was sorely hurt. Tears of disappointment, which she
vainly strove to hold back, rose to her eyes, as she grimly folded her
arms, and facing him, said,--

“Now, what am I to do?”

“Stay here for the present, Deborah,” he answered.

“Eh? A’n’t I summonsed? The job I undertook isn’t done yet; the wust
part’s to come! Maybe they’ll let me off from puttin’ the rope round his
neck, but I a’n’t sure o’ that!”

“Then come to me afterwards,” he said, gently, striving to allay her
fierce, self-accusing mood. “Remember that you always have a home and a
shelter with me, whenever you need them. And I’ll take your money,” he
added, picking it up from the floor,--“take it in trust for you, until
the time shall come when you will be willing to use it. Now go in to my
mother.”

The woman was softened and consoled by his words. But she still
hesitated.

“Maybe she won’t--she won’t”--

“She will!” Gilbert exclaimed. “But if you doubt, wait here until I come
back.”

Mary Potter earnestly approved of his decision, to take charge of the
money, without making use of it. A strong, semi-superstitious influence
had so entwined itself with her fate, that she even shrank from help,
unless it came in an obviously pure and honorable form. She measured the
fulness of her coming justification by the strict integrity of the means
whereby she sought to deserve it. Deb. Smith, in her new light, was
no welcome guest, and with all her coarse male strength, she was still
woman enough to guess the fact; but Mary Potter resolved to think
only that her son had been served and befriended. Keeping that service
steadily before her eyes, she was able to take the outcast’s hand, to
give her shelter and food, and, better still, to soothe her with that
sweet, unobtrusive consolation which only a woman can bestow,--which
steals by avenues of benevolent cunning into a nature that would repel a
direct expression of sympathy.

The next morning, however, Deb. Smith left the house, saying to
Gilbert,--“You won’t see me ag’in, without it may be in Court, till
after all’s over; and then I may have to ask you to hide me for awhile.
Don’t mind what I’ve said; I’ve no larnin’, and can’t always make out
the rights o’ things,--and sometimes it seems there’s two Sandys, a good
‘un and a bad ‘un, and meanin’ to punish one, I’ve ruined ‘em both!”

When Gilbert reached Chester, the trial was just about to commence. The
little old town on the Delaware was crowded with curious strangers, not
only from all parts of the county, but even from Philadelphia and the
opposite New-Jersey shore. Every one who had been summoned to testify
was beset by an inquisitive circle, and none more so than himself. The
Court-house was packed to suffocation; and the Sheriff, heavily armed,
could with difficulty force a way through the mass. When the clanking of
the prisoner’s irons was heard, all the pushing, struggling, murmuring
sounds ceased until the redoubtable highwayman stood in the dock.

He looked around the Court-room with his usual defiant air, and no one
observed any change of expression, as his eyes passed rapidly over Deb.
Smith’s face, or Gilbert Potter’s. His hard red complexion was
already beginning to fade in confinement, and his thick hair, formerly
close-cropped for the convenience of disguises, had grown out in not
ungraceful locks. He was decidedly a handsome man, and his bearing
seemed to show that he was conscious of the fact.

The trial commenced. To the astonishment of all, and, as it was
afterwards reported, against the advice of his counsel, the prisoner
plead guilty to some of the specifications of the indictment, while he
denied others. The Collectors whom he had plundered were then called to
the witness-stand, but the public seemed to manifest less interest
in the loss of its own money, than in the few cases where private
individuals had suffered, and waited impatiently for the latter.

Deb. Smith had so long borne the curious gaze of hundreds of eyes,
whenever she lifted her head, that when her turn came, she was able to
rise and walk forward without betraying any emotion. Only when she was
confronted with Sandy Flash, and he met her with a wonderfully strange,
serious smile, did she shudder for a moment and hastily turn away. She
gave her testimony in a hard, firm voice, making her statements as brief
as possible, and volunteering nothing beyond what was demanded.

On being dismissed from the stand, she appeared to hesitate. Her eyes
wandered over the faces of the lawyers, the judges, and the jurymen, as
if with a dumb appeal, but she did not speak. Then she turned towards
the prisoner, and some words passed between them, which, in the general
movement of curiosity, were only heard by the two or three persons who
stood nearest.

“Sandy!” she was reported to have said, “I couldn’t help myself; take
the curse off o’ me!”

“Deb., it’s too late,” he answered. “It’s begun to work, and it’ll work
itself out!”

Gilbert noticed the feeling of hostility with which Deb. Smith was
regarded by the spectators,--a feeling that threatened to manifest
itself in some violent way, when the restraints of the place should be
removed. He therefore took advantage of the great interest with which
his own testimony was heard, to present her character in the light which
her services to him shed upon it. This was a new phase of the story, and
produced a general movement of surprise. Sandy Flash, it was noticed,
sitting with his fettered hands upon the rail before him, leaned forward
and listened intently, while an unusual flush deepened upon his cheeks.

The statements, though not strictly in evidence, were permitted by
the Court, and they produced the effect which Gilbert intended. The
excitement reached its height when Deb. Smith, ignorant of rule,
suddenly rose and cried out,--

“It’s true as Gospel, every word of it! Sandy, do you hear?”

She was removed by the constable, but the people, as they made way,
uttered no word of threat or insult. On the contrary, many eyes rested
on her hard, violent, wretched face with an expression of very genuine
compassion.


The trial took its course, and terminated with the result which
everybody--even the prisoner himself--knew to be inevitable. He was
pronounced guilty, and duly sentenced to be hanged by the neck until he
was dead.

Gilbert employed the time which he could spare from his attendance
at the Court, in endeavoring to make a new loan, but with no positive
success. The most he accomplished was an agreement, on the part of his
creditor, that the foreclosure might be delayed two or three weeks,
provided there was a good prospect of the money being obtained. In
ordinary times he would have had no difficulty; but, as Mr. Trainer had
written, the speculation in western lands had seized upon capitalists,
and the amount of money for permanent investment was already greatly
diminished.

He was preparing to return home, when Chaffey, the constable, came to
him with a message from Sandy Flash. The latter begged for an interview,
and both Judge and Sheriff were anxious that Gilbert should comply with
his wishes, in the hope that a full and complete confession might be
obtained. It was evident that the highwayman had accomplices, but he
steadfastly refused to name them, even with the prospect of having his
sentence commuted to imprisonment for life.

Gilbert did not hesitate a moment. There were doubts of his own to be
solved,--questions to be asked, which Sandy Flash could alone answer. He
followed the constable to the gloomy, high-walled jail-building, and
was promptly admitted by the Sheriff into the low, dark, heavily barred
cell, wherein the prisoner sat upon a wooden stool, the links of his
leg-fetters passed through a ring in the floor.

Sandy Flash lifted his face to the light, and grinned, but not with
his old, mocking expression. He stretched out his hand which Gilbert
took,--hard and cold as the rattling chain at his wrist. Then, seating
himself with a clash upon the floor, he pushed the stool towards his
visitor, and said,--

“Set down, Potter. Limited accommodations, you see. Sheriff, you needn’t
wait; it’s private business.”

The Sheriff locked the iron door behind him, and they were alone.

“Potter,” the highwayman began, “you see I’m trapped and done for, and
all, it seems, on account o’ that little affair o’ your’n. You won’t
think it means much, now, when I say I was in the wrong there; but I
swear I was! I had no particular spite ag’in Barton, but he’s a swell,
and I like to take such fellows down; and I was dead sure you were
carryin’ his money, as you promised to.”

“Tell me one thing,” Gilbert interrupted; “how did you know I promised
to take money for him?”

“I knowed it, that’s enough; I can give you, word for word, what both o’
you said, if you doubt me.”

“Then, as I thought, it was Barton himself!” Gilbert cried.

Sandy Flash burst into a roaring laugh. “_Him!_ Ah-ha! you think we go
snacks, eh? Do I look like a fool? Barton’d give his eye-teeth to put
the halter round my neck with his own hands! No, no, young man; I have
ways and ways o’ learnin’ things that you nor him’ll never guess.”

His manner, even more than his words, convinced Gilbert Barton was
absolved, but the mystery remained. “You won’t deny that you have
friends?” he said.

“Maybe,” Sandy replied, in a short, rough tone. “That’s nothin’ to
you,” he continued; “but what I’ve got to say is, whether or no you’re
a friend to Deb., she thinks you are. Do you mean to look after her,
once’t in a while, or are you one o’ them that forgits a good turn?”

“I have told her,” said Gilbert, “that she shall always have a home and
a shelter in my house. If it’s any satisfaction to you, here’s my hand
on it!”

“I believe you, Potter. Deb.’s done ill by me; she shouldn’t ha’ bullied
me when I was sore and tetchy, and fagged out with _your_ curst huntin’
of me up and down! But I’ll do that much for her and for you. Here; bend
your head down; I’ve got to whisper.”

Gilbert leaned his ear to the highwayman’s mouth.

“You’ll only tell _her,_ you understand?”

Gilbert assented.

“Say to her these words,--don’t forgit a single one of ‘em!--Thirty
steps from the place she knowed about, behind the two big
chestnut-trees, goin’ towards the first cedar, and a forked sassyfrack
growin’ right over it. What she finds, is your’n.”

“Sandy!” Gilbert exclaimed, starting from his listening posture.

“Hush, I say! You know what I mean her to do,--give you your money back.
I took a curse with it, as you said. Maybe that’s off o’ me, now!”

“It is!” said Gilbert, in a low tone, “and forgiveness--mine and my
mother’s--in the place of it. Have you any”--he hesitated to say the
words--“any last messages, to her or anybody else, or anything you would
like to have done?”

“Thank ye, no!--unless Deb. can find my black hair and whiskers. Then
you may give ‘em to Barton, with my dutiful service.”

He laughed at the idea, until his chains rattled.

Gilbert’s mind was haunted with the other and darker doubt, and
he resolved, in this last interview, to secure himself against its
recurrence. In such an hour he could trust the prisoner’s words.

“Sandy,” he asked, “have you any children?”

“Not to my knowledge; and I’m glad of it.”

“You must know,” Gilbert continued, “what the people say about my birth.
My mother is bound from telling me who my father was, and I dare not
ask her any questions. Did you ever happen to know her, in your younger
days, or can you remember anything that will help me to discover his
name?”

The highwayman sat silent, meditating, and Gilbert felt that his heart
was beginning to beat painfully fast, as he waited for the answer.

“Yes,” said Sandy, at last, “I did know Mary Potter when I was a boy,
and she knowed me, under another name. I may say I liked her, too, in a
boy’s way, but she was older by three or four years, and never thought
o’ lookin’ at me. But I can’t remember anything more; if I was out o’
this, I’d soon find out for you!”

He looked up with an eager, questioning glance, which Gilbert totally
misunderstood.

“What was your other name?” he asked, in a barely audible voice.

“I dunno as I need tell it,” Sandy answered; “what’d be the good?
There’s some yet livin’, o’ the same name, and they wouldn’t thank me.”

“Sandy!” Gilbert cried desperately, “answer this one question,--don’t
go out of the world with a false word in your mouth!--You are not my
father?”

The highwayman looked at him a moment, in blank amazement. “No, so help
me God!” he then said.

Gilbert’s face brightened so suddenly and vividly that Sandy muttered to
himself,--“I never thought I was that bad.”

“I hear the Sheriff at the outside gate,” he whispered again. “Don’t
forgit--thirty steps from the place she knowed about--behind the two big
chestnut-trees, goin’ towards the first cedar--and a forked sassyfrack
growin’ right over it! Good-bye, and good-luck to the whole o’ your
life!”

The two clasped hands with a warmth and earnestness which surprised the
Sheriff. Then Gilbert went out from his old antagonist.

That night Sandy Flash made an attempt to escape from the jail, and
very nearly succeeded. It appeared, from some mysterious words which he
afterwards let fall, and which Gilbert alone could have understood, that
he had a superstitious belief that something he had done would bring him
a new turn of fortune. The only result of the attempt was to hasten
his execution. Within ten days from that time he was transformed from a
living terror into a romantic name.



CHAPTER XXVII.

GILBERT INDEPENDENT.


Gilbert Potter felt such an implicit trust in Sandy Flash’s promise of
restitution, that, before leaving Chester, he announced the forthcoming
payment of the mortgage to its holder. His homeward ride was like a
triumphal march, to which his heart beat the music. The chill March
winds turned into May-breezes as they touched him; the brown meadows
were quick with ambushed bloom. Within three or four months his life had
touched such extremes of experience, that the fate yet to come seemed to
evolve itself speedily and naturally from that which was over and
gone. Only one obstacle yet remained in his path,--his mother’s secret.
Towards that he was powerless; to meet all others he was brimming with
strength and courage.

Mary Potter recognized, even more keenly and with profounder faith than
her son, the guidance of some inscrutable Power. She did not dare to
express so uncertain a hope, but something in her heart whispered that
the day of her own deliverance was not far off, and she took strength
from it.

It was nearly a week before Deb. Smith made her appearance. Gilbert,
in the mean time, had visited her cabin on the Woodrow farm, to find it
deserted, and he was burning with impatience to secure, through her,
the restoration of his independence. He would not announce his changed
prospects, even to Martha Deane, until they were put beyond further
risk. The money once in his hands, he determined to carry it to Chester
without loss of time.

When Deb. arrived, she had a weary, hunted look, but she was unusually
grave and silent, and avoided further reference to the late tragical
episode in her life. Nevertheless, Gilbert led her aside and narrated
to her the particulars of his interview with Sandy Flash. Perhaps he
softened, with pardonable equivocation, the latter’s words in regard
to her; perhaps he conveyed a sense of forgiveness which had not been
expressed; for Deb. more than once drew the corners of her hard palms
across her eyes. When he gave the marks by which she was to recognize a
certain spot, she exclaimed,--

“It was hid the night I dreamt of him! I knowed he must ha’ been nigh,
by that token. O, Mr. Gilbert, he said true! I know the place; it’s not
so far away; this very night you’ll have y’r money back!”

After it was dark she set out, with a spade upon her shoulder,
forbidding him to follow, or even to look after her. Both mother and
son were too excited to sleep. They sat by the kitchen-fire, with one
absorbing thought in their minds, and speech presently became easier
than silence.

“Mother,” said Gilbert, “when--I mean _if_--she brings the money, all
that has happened will have been for good. It has proved to us that we
have true friends (and I count my Roger among them), and I think that
our independence will be worth all the more, since we came so nigh
losing it again.”

“Ay, my boy,” she replied; “I was over-hasty, and have been lessoned.
When I bend my mind to submit, I make more headway than when I try to
take the Lord’s work into my own hands. I’m fearsome still, but it seems
there’s a light coming from somewhere,--I don’t know where.”

“Do you feel that way, mother?” he exclaimed. “Do you think--let me
mention it this once!--that the day is near when you will be free to
speak? Will there be anything more you can tell me, when we stand free
upon our own property?”

Mary Potter looked upon his bright, wistful, anxious face, and
sighed. “I can’t tell--I can’t tell,” she said. “Ah, my boy, you would
understand it, if I dared say one thing, but that might lead you to
guess what mustn’t be told; and I will be faithful to the spirit as
well as the letter. It must come soon, but nothing you or I can do would
hasten it a minute.”

“One word more, mother,” he persisted, “will our independence be no help
to you?”

“A great help,” she answered, “or, maybe, a great comfort would be the
true word. Without it, I might be tempted to--but see, Gilbert, how can
I talk? Everything you say pulls at the one thing that cuts my mouth
like a knife, because it’s shut tight on it! And the more because I
owe it to you,--because I’m held back from my duty to my child,--maybe,
every day putting a fresh sorrow into his heart! Oh, it’s not easy,
Gilbert; it don’t grow lighter from use, only my faith is the stronger
and surer, and that helps me to bear it.”

“Mother, I meant never to have spoken of this again,” he said. “But
you’re mistaken; it is no sorrow; I never knew what it was to have a
light heart, until you told me your trouble, and the question came to
my mouth to-night because I shall soon feel strong in my own right as
a man, and able to do more than you might guess. If, as you say, no man
can help you, I will wait and be patient with you.”

“That’s all we can do now, my child. I wasn’t reproaching you for
speaking, for you’ve held your peace a long while, when I know you’ve
been fretting; but this isn’t one of the troubles that’s lightened by
speech, because all talking must go around the outside, and never touch
the thing itself.”

“I understand,” he said, and gazed for a long time into the fire,
without speaking.

Mary Potter watched his face, in the wavering light of the flame. She
marked the growing decision of the features, the forward, fearless
glance of the large, deep-set eye, the fuller firmness and sweetness of
the mouth, and the general expression, not only of self-reliance, but of
authority, which was spread over the entire countenance. Both her pride
in her son, and her respect for him, increased as she gazed. Heretofore,
she had rather considered her secret as her own property, her right to
which he should not question; but now it seemed as if she were forced
to withhold something that of right belonged to him. Yet no thought that
the mysterious obligation might be broken ever entered her mind.

Gilbert was thinking of Martha Deane. He had passed that first timidity
of love which shrinks from the knowledge of others, and longed to tell
his mother what noble fidelity and courage Martha had exhibited. Only
the recollection of the fearful swoon into which she had fallen bound
his tongue; he felt that the first return to the subject must come from
her. She lay back in her chair and seemed to sleep; he rose from time
to time, went out into the lane and listened,--and so the hours passed
away.

Towards midnight a heavy step was heard, and Deb. Smith, hot, panting,
her arms daubed with earth, and a wild light in her eyes, entered the
kitchen. With one hand she grasped the ends of her strong tow-linen
apron, with the other she still shouldered the spade. She knelt upon the
floor between the two, set the apron in the light of the fire, unrolled
the end of a leathern saddle-bag, and disclosed the recovered treasure.

“See if it’s all right!” she said.

Mary Potter and Gilbert bent over the rolls and counted them. It was the
entire sum, untouched.

“Have you got a sup o’ whiskey, Mr. Gilbert?” Deb. Smith asked. “Ugh!
I’m hot and out o’ breath, and yet I feel mortal cold. There was a
screech-owl hootin’ in the cedar; and I dunno how’t is, but there always
seems to be things around, where money’s buried. You can’t see ‘em, but
you hear ‘em. I thought I’d ha’ dropped when I turned up the sassyfrack
bush, and got hold on it; and all the way back I feared a big arm’d come
out o’ every fence-corner, and snatch it from me!” [Footnote: It does
not seem to have been generally known in the neighborhood that the money
was unearthed. A tradition of that and other treasure buried by Sandy
Flash, is still kept alive; and during the past ten years two midnight
attempts have been made to find it, within a hundred yards of the spot
indicated in the narrative.]

Mary Potter set the kettle on the fire, and Deb. Smith was soon
refreshed with a glass of hot grog. Then she lighted her pipe and
watched the two as they made preparations for the journey to Chester
on the morrow, now and then nodding her head with an expression which
chased away the haggard sorrow from her features.

This time the journey was performed without incident. The road was safe,
the skies were propitious, and Gilbert Potter returned from Chester an
independent man, with the redeemed mortgage in his pocket. His first
care was to assure his mother of the joyous fact; his next to seek
Martha Deane, and consult with her about their brightening future.

On the way to Kennett Square, he fell in with Mark, who was radiant with
the promise of Richard Rudd’s new house, secured to him by the shrewd
assistance of Miss Betsy Lavender.

“I tell you what it is, Gilbert,” said he; “don’t you think I might
as well speak to Daddy Fairthorn about Sally? I’m gettin’ into good
business now, and I guess th’ old folks might spare her pretty soon.”

“The sooner, Mark, the better for you; and you can buy the wedding-suit
at once, for I have your hundred dollars ready.”

“You don’t mean that you wont use it, Gilbert?”

Who so delighted as Mark, when he heard Gilbert’s unexpected story? “Oh,
glory!” he exclaimed; “the tide’s turnin’, old fellow! What’ll you bet
you’re not married before I am? It’s got all over the country that you
and Martha are engaged, and that the Doctor’s full o’ gall and wormwood
about it; I hear it wherever I go, and there’s more for you than there
is against you, I tell you that!”

The fact was as Mark had stated. No one was positively known to have
spread the rumor, but it was afloat and generally believed. The result
was to invest Gilbert with a fresh interest. His courage in confronting
Sandy Flash, his robbery, his wonderful preservation from death, and his
singular connection, through Deb. Smith, with Sandy Flash’s capture, had
thrown a romantic halo around his name, which was now softly brightened
by the report of his love. The stain of his birth and the uncertainty of
his parentage did not lessen this interest, but rather increased it; and
as any man who is much talked about in a country community will speedily
find two parties created, one enthusiastically admiring, the other
contemptuously depreciating him, so now it happened in this case.

The admirers, however, were in a large majority, and they possessed a
great advantage over the detractors, being supported by a multitude
of facts, while the latter were unable to point to any act of Gilbert
Potter’s life that was not upright and honorable. Even his love of
Martha Deane was shorn of its presumption by her reciprocal affection.
The rumor that she had openly defied her father’s will created great
sympathy, for herself and for Gilbert, among the young people of both
sexes,--a sympathy which frequently was made manifest to Dr. Deane,
and annoyed him not a little. His stubborn opposition to his daughter’s
attachment increased, in proportion as his power to prevent it
diminished.

We may therefore conceive his sensations when Gilbert Potter himself
boldly entered his presence. The latter, after Mark’s description, very
imperfect though it was, of Martha’s courageous assertion of the rights
of her heart, had swiftly made up his mind to stand beside her in the
struggle, with equal firmness and equal pride. He would openly seek an
interview with her, and if he should find her father at home, as was
probable at that hour, would frankly and respectfully acknowledge his
love, and defend it against any attack.

On entering the room, he quietly stepped forward with extended hand, and
saluted the Doctor, who was so taken by surprise that he mechanically
answered the greeting before he could reflect what manner to adopt
towards the unwelcome visitor.

“What might be thy business with me?” he asked, stiffly, recovering from
the first shock.

“I called to see Martha,” Gilbert answered. “I have some news which she
will be glad to hear.”

“Young man,” said the Doctor, with his sternest face and voice, “I may
as well come to the point with thee, at once. If thee had had decency
enough to apply to me before speaking thy mind to Martha, it would have
saved us all a great deal of trouble. I could have told thee then, as I
tell thee now, that I will never consent to her marriage with thee.
Thee must give up all thought of such a thing.”

“I will do so,” Gilbert replied, “when Martha tells me with her own
mouth that such is her will. I am not one of the men who manage their
hearts according to circumstances. I wish, indeed, I were more worthy of
Martha; but I am trying to deserve her, and I know no better way than to
be faithful as she is faithful. I mean no disrespect to you, Dr. Deane.
You are her father; you have every right to care for her happiness, and
I will admit that you honestly think I am not the man who could make her
happy. All I ask is, that you should wait a little and know me better.
Martha and I have both decided that we must wait, and there is time
enough for you to watch my conduct, examine my character, and perhaps
come to a more favorable judgment of me.”

Dr. Deane saw that it would be harder to deal with Gilbert Potter
than he had imagined. The young man stood before him so honestly and
fearlessly, meeting his angry gaze with such calm, frank eyes, and
braving his despotic will with such a modest, respectful opposal, that
he was forced to withdraw from his haughty position, and to set forth
the same reasons which he had presented to his daughter.

“I see,” he said, with a tone slightly less arrogant, “that thee
is sensible, in some respects, and therefore I put the case to thy
understanding. It’s too plain to be argued. Martha is a rich bait for a
poor man, and perhaps I oughtn’t to wonder--knowing the heart of man
as I do--that thee was tempted to turn her head to favor thee; but the
money is not yet hers, and I, as her father, can never allow that thy
poverty shall stand for three years between her and some honorable man
to whom her money would be no temptation! Why, if all I hear be true,
thee hasn’t even any certain roof to shelter a wife; thy property, such
as it is, may be taken out of thy hands!”

Gilbert could not calmly hear these insinuations. All his independent
pride of character was aroused; a dark flush came into his face, the
blood was pulsing hotly through his veins, and indignant speech was
rising to his lips, when the inner door unexpectedly opened, and Martha
entered the room.

She instantly guessed what was taking place, and summoned up all her
self-possession, to stand by Gilbert, without increasing her father’s
exasperation. To the former, her apparition was like oil on troubled
waters. His quick blood struck into warm channels of joy, as he met her
glowing eyes, and felt the throb of her soft, elastic palm against his
own. Dr. Deane set his teeth, drew up his under lip, and handled his
cane with restless fingers.

“Father,” said Martha, “if you are talking of me, it is better that
I should be present. I am sure there is nothing that either thee or
Gilbert would wish to conceal from me.”

“No, Martha!” Gilbert exclaimed; “I came to bring you good news. The
mortgage on my farm is lifted, and I am an independent man!”

“Without my help! Does thee hear that, father?”

Gilbert did not understand her remark; without heeding it, he
continued,--

“Sandy Flash, after his sentence, sent for me and told me where the
money he took from me was to be found. I carried it to Chester, and have
paid off all my remaining debt. Martha, your father has just charged me
with being tempted by your property. I say to you, in his presence,
put it beyond my reach,--give it away, forfeit the conditions of the
legacy,--let me show truly whether I ever thought of money in seeking
you!”

“Gilbert,” she said, gently, “father doesn’t yet know you as I do.
Others will no doubt say the same thing, and we must both make up our
minds to have it said; yet I cannot, for that, relinquish what is mine
of right. We are not called upon to sacrifice to the mistaken opinions
of men; your life and mine will show, and manifest to others in time,
whether it is a selfish tie that binds us together.”

“Martha!” Dr. Deane exclaimed, feeling that he should lose ground,
unless this turn of the conversation were interrupted; “thee compels me
to show thee how impossible the thing is, even if this man were of the
richest. Admitting that he is able to support a family, admitting that
thee waits three years, comes into thy property, and is still of a
mind to marry him against my will, can thee forget--or has he so little
consideration for thee as to forget--that he bears his mother’s name?”

“Father!”

“Let me speak, Martha,” said Gilbert, lifting his head, which had
drooped for a moment. His voice was earnest and sorrowful, yet firm.
“It is true that I bear my mother’s name. It is the name of a good, an
honest, an honorable, and a God-fearing woman. I wish I could be certain
that the name which legally belongs to me will be as honorable and as
welcome. But Martha knows, and you, her father, have a right to know,
that I shall have another. I have not been inconsiderate. I trampled
down my love for her, as long as I believed it would bring disgrace. I
will not say that now, knowing her as I do, I could ever give her up,
even if the disgrace was not removed,”--

“Thank you, Gilbert!” Martha interrupted.

“But there is none, Dr. Deane,” he continued, “and when the time comes,
my birth will be shown to be as honorable as your own, or Mark’s.”

Dr. Deane was strangely excited at these words. His face colored, and
he darted a piercing, suspicious glance at Gilbert. The latter, however,
stood quietly before him, too possessed by what he had said to notice
the Doctor’s peculiar expression; but it returned to his memory
afterwards.

“Why,” the Doctor at last stammered, “I never heard of this before!”

“No,” Gilbert answered, “and I must ask of you not to mention it
further, at present. I must beg you to be patient until my mother is
able to declare the truth.”

“What keeps her from it?”

“I don’t know,” Gilbert sadly replied.

“Come!” cried the Doctor, as sternly as ever, “this is rather a likely
story! If Potter isn’t thy name, what is?”

“I don’t know,” Gilbert repeated.

“No; nor no one else! How dare thee address my daughter,--talk of
marriage with her,--when thee don’t know thy real name? What name would
thee offer to her in exchange for her own? Young man, I don’t believe
thee!”

“I do,” said Martha, rising and moving to Gilbert’s side.

“Martha, go to thy room!” the Doctor cried. “And as for thee, Gilbert
Potter, or Gilbert Anything, I tell thee, once and for all, never speak
of this thing again,--at least, until thee can show a legal name and an
honorable birth! Thee has not prejudiced me in thy favor by thy
devices, and it stands to reason that I should forbid thee to see my
daughter,--to enter my doors!”

“Dr. Deane,” said Gilbert, with sad yet inflexible dignity, “it is
impossible, after what you have said, that I should seek to enter your
door, until my words are proved true, and I am justified in your eyes.
The day may come sooner than you think. But I will do nothing secretly;
I won’t promise anything to you that I can’t promise to myself; and so I
tell you, honestly and above-board, that while I shall not ask Martha
to share my life until I can offer her my true name, I must see her from
time to time. I’m not fairly called upon to give up that.”

“No, Gilbert,” said Martha, who had not yet moved from her place by his
side, “it is as necessary to my happiness as to yours. I will not ask
you to come here again; you cannot, and must not, even for my sake; but
when I need your counsel and your sympathy, and there is no other way
left, I will go to you.”

“Martha!” Dr. Deane exclaimed; but the word conveys no idea of his wrath
and amazement.

“Father,” she said, “this is thy house, and it is for thee to direct,
here. Within its walls, I will conduct myself according to thy wishes; I
will receive no guest whom thee forbids, and will even respect thy views
in regard to my intercourse with our friends; but unless thee wants
to deprive me of all liberty, and set aside every right of mine as an
accountable being, thee must allow me sometimes to do what both my heart
and my conscience command!”

“Is it a woman’s place,” he angrily asked, “to visit a man?”

“When the two have need of each other, and God has joined their hearts
in love and in truth, and the man is held back from reaching the woman,
then it is her place to go to him!”

Never before had Dr. Deane beheld upon his daughter’s sweet, gentle face
such an expression of lofty spiritual authority. While her determination
really outraged his conventional nature, he felt that it came from a
higher source than his prohibition. He knew that nothing which he could
urge at that moment would have the slightest weight in her mind, and
moreover, that the liberal, independent customs of the neighborhood,
as well as the respect of his sect for professed spiritual guidance,
withheld him from any harsh attempt at coercion. He was powerless, but
still inflexible.

As for Martha, what she had said was simply included in what she was
resolved to do; the greater embraced the less. It was a defiance of her
father’s authority, very painful from the necessity of its assertion,
but rendered inevitable by his course. She knew with what tenacity he
would seize and hold every inch of relinquished ground; she felt, as
keenly as Gilbert himself, the implied insult which he could not resent;
and her pride, her sense of justice, and the strong fidelity of her
woman’s heart, alike impelled her to stand firm.

“Good-bye, Martha!” Gilbert said, taking her hand “I must wait.”

“We wait together, Gilbert!”



CHAPTER XXVIII.

MISS LAVENDER MAKES A GUESS.


There were signs of spring all over the land, and Gilbert resumed his
farm-work with the fresh zest which the sense of complete ownership
gave. He found a purchaser for his wagon, sold one span of horses, and
thus had money in hand for all the coming expenses of the year. His days
of hauling, of anxiety, of painful economy, were over; he rejoiced
in his fully developed and recognized manhood, and was cheered by the
respect and kindly sympathy of his neighbors.

Meanwhile, the gossip, not only of Kennett, but of Marlborough,
Pennsbury, and New-Garden, was as busy as ever. No subject of country
talk equalled in interest the loves of Gilbert Potter and Martha Deane.
Mark, too open-hearted to be intrusted with any secret, was drawn upon
wherever he went, and he revealed more (although he was by no means
Martha’s confidant) than the public had any right to know. The idlers at
the Unicorn had seen Gilbert enter Dr. Deane’s house, watched his return
therefrom, made shrewd notes of the Doctor’s manner when he came forth
that evening, and guessed the result of the interview almost as well as
if they had been present.

The restoration of Gilbert’s plundered money, and his hardly acquired
independence as a landholder, greatly strengthened the hands of his
friends. There is no logic so convincing as that of good luck; in
proportion as a man is fortunate (so seems to run the law of the world),
he attracts fortune to him. A good deed would not have helped Gilbert so
much in popular estimation, as this sudden and unexpected release from
his threatened difficulties. The blot upon his name was already growing
fainter, and a careful moral arithmetician might have calculated the
point of prosperity at which it would cease to be seen.

Nowhere was the subject discussed with greater interest and excitement
than in the Fairthorn household. Sally, when she first heard the news,
loudly protested her unbelief; why, the two would scarcely speak to each
other, she said; she had seen Gilbert turn his back on Martha, as if he
couldn’t bear the sight of her; it ought to be, and she would be glad if
it was, but it wasn’t!

When, therefore, Mark confirmed the report, and was led on, by degrees,
to repeat Gilbert’s own words, Sally rushed out into the kitchen with a
vehemence which left half her apron hanging on the door-handle, torn off
from top to bottom in her whirling flight, and announced the fact to her
mother.

Joe, who was present, immediately cried out,--

“O, Sally! now I may tell about Mark, mayn’t I?”

Sally seized him by the collar, and pitched him out the kitchen-door.
Her face was the color of fire.

“My gracious, Sally!” exclaimed Mother Fairthorn, in amazement; “what’s
that for?”

But Sally had already disappeared, and was relating her trouble to
Mark, who roared with wicked laughter, whereupon she nearly cried with
vexation.

“Never mind,” said he; “the boy’s right. I told Gilbert this very
afternoon that it was about time to speak to the old man; and he allowed
it was. Come out with me and don’t be afeard--I’ll do the talkin’.”

Hand in hand they went into the kitchen, Sally blushing and hanging
back a little. Farmer Fairthorn had just come in from the barn, and
was warming his hands at the fire. Mother Fairthorn might have had her
suspicions, but it was her nature to wait cheerfully, and say nothing.

“See here, Daddy and Mammy!” said Mark, “have either o’ you any
objections to Sally and me bein’ a pair?”

Farmer Fairthorn smiled, rubbed his hands together, and turning to his
wife, asked,--“What has Mammy to say to it?”

She looked up at Mark with her kindly eyes, in which twinkled something
like a tear, and said,--“I was guessin’ it might turn out so between you
two, and if I’d had anything against you, Mark, I wouldn’t ha’ let it
run on. Be a steady boy, and you’ll make Sally a steady woman. She’s had
pretty much her own way.”

Thereupon Farmer Fairthorn, still rubbing his hands, ventured to
remark,--“The girl might ha’ done worse.” This was equivalent to a
hearty commendation of the match, and Mark so understood it. Sally
kissed her mother, cried a little, caught her gown on a corner of the
kitchen-table, and thus the betrothal was accepted as a family fact.
Joe and Jake somewhat disturbed the bliss of the evening, it is true, by
bursting into the room from time to time, staring significantly at the
lovers, and then rushing out again with loud whoops and laughter.

Sally could scarcely await the coming of the next day, to visit Martha
Deane. At first she felt a little piqued that she had not received the
news from Martha’s own lips, but this feeling speedily vanished in
the sympathy with her friend’s trials. She was therefore all the more
astonished at the quiet, composed bearing of the latter. The tears she
had expected to shed were not once drawn upon.

“O, Martha!” she cried, after the first impetuous outburst of
feeling,--“to think that it has all turned out just as I wanted! No, I
don’t quite mean that; you know I couldn’t wish you to have crosses; but
about Gilbert! And it’s too bad--Mark has told me dreadful things, but I
hope they’re not all true; you don’t look like it; and I’m so glad, you
can’t think!”

Martha smiled, readily untangling Sally’s thoughts, and said,--“I
mustn’t complain, Sally. Nothing has come to pass that I had not
prepared my mind to meet. We will only have to wait a little longer than
you and Mark.”

“No you won’t!” Sally exclaimed. “I’ll make Mark wait, too! And
everything must be set right--somebody must do something! Where’s Betsy
Lavender?”

“Here!” answered the veritable voice of the spinster, through the open
door of the small adjoining room.

“Gracious, how you frightened me!” cried Sally. “But, Betsy, you seem
to be able to help everybody; why can’t you do something for Martha and
Gilbert?”

“Martha and Gilbert. That’s what I ask myself, nigh onto a hundred times
a day, child. But there’s things that takes the finest kind o’ wit to
see through, and you can’t make a bead-purse out of a sow’s-ear, neither
jerk Time by the forelock, when there a’n’t a hair, as you can see, to
hang on to. I dunno as you’ll rightly take my meanin’; but never mind,
all the same, I’m flummuxed, and it’s the longest and hardest flummux o’
my life!”

Miss Betsy Lavender, it must here be explained, was more profoundly
worried than she was willing to admit. Towards Martha she concealed the
real trouble of her mind under the garb of her quaint, jocular speech,
which meant much or little, as one might take it. She had just returned
from one of her social pilgrimages, during which she had heard nothing
but the absorbing subject of gossip. She had been questioned and
cross-questioned, entreated by many, as Sally had done, to do something
(for all had great faith in her powers), and warned by a few not to
meddle with what did not concern her. Thus she had come back that
morning, annoyed, discomposed, and more dissatisfied with herself than
ever before, to hear Martha’s recital of what had taken place during her
absence.

In spite of Martha’s steady patience and cheerfulness, Miss Lavender
knew that the painful relation in which she stood to her father would
not be assuaged by the lapse of time. She understood Dr. Deane’s nature
quite as well as his daughter, and was convinced that, for the present,
neither threats nor persuasions would move his stubborn resistance.
According to the judgment of the world (the older part of it, at least),
he had still right on his side. Facts were wanted; or, rather, the _one_
fact upon which resistance was based must be removed.

With all this trouble, Miss Lavender had a presentiment that there was
work for her to do, if she could only discover what it was. Her faith
in her own powers of assistance was somewhat shaken, and she therefore
resolved to say nothing, promise nothing, until she had both hit upon a
plan and carried it into execution.

Two or three days after Sally’s visit, on a mild, sunny morning in the
beginning of April, she suddenly announced her intention of visiting the
Potter farm-house.

“I ha’n’t seen Mary since last fall, you know, Martha,” she said; “and
I’ve a mortal longin’ to wish Gilbert joy o’ his good luck, and maybe
say a word to keep him in good heart about you. Have you got no message
to send by me?”

“Only my love,” Martha answered; “and tell him how you left me. He knows
I will keep my word; when I need his counsel, I will go to him.”

“If more girls talked and thought that way, us women’d have fairer
shakes,” Miss Lavender remarked, as she put on her cloak and pattens.

When she reached the top of the hill overlooking the glen, she noticed
fresh furrows in the field on her left. Clambering through the fence,
she waited until the heads of a pair of horses made their appearance,
rising over the verge of the hill. As she conjectured, Gilbert Potter
was behind them, guiding the plough-handle. He was heartily glad to see
her, and halted his team at the corner of the “land.”

“I didn’t know as you’d speak to me,” said she, with assumed grimness.
“Maybe you wouldn’t, if I didn’t come direct from _her._ Ah, you needn’t
look wild; it’s only her love, and what’s the use, for you had it
already; but never mind, lovyers is never satisfied; and she’s chipper
and peart enough, seein’ what she has to bear for your sake, but she
don’t mind that, on the contrary, quite the reverse, and I’m sure you
don’t deserve it!”

“Did she tell you what passed between us, the last time?” Gilbert asked.

“The last time. Yes. And jokin’ aside, which often means the contrary in
my crooked ways o’ talkin’, a’n’t it about time somethin’ was done?”

“What can be done?”

“I dunno,” said Miss Lavender, gravely. “You know as well as I do what’s
in the way, or rather none of us knows _what_ it is, only _where_ it is;
and a thing unbeknown may be big or little; who can tell? And latterly
I’ve thought, Gilbert, that maybe your mother is in the fix of a man
I’ve heerd tell on, that fell into a pit, and ketched by the last bush,
and hung on, and hung on, till he could hold on no longer; so he gev
himself up to death, shet his eyes and let go, and lo and behold! the
bottom was a matter o’ six inches under his feet! Leastways, everything
p’ints to a sort o’ skeary fancy bein’ mixed up with it, not a thing
to laugh at, I can tell you, but as earnest as sin, for I’ve seen the
likes, and maybe easy to make straight if you could only look into it
yourself; but you think there’s no chance o’ that?”

“No,” said Gilbert. “I’ve tried once too often, already; I shall not try
again.”

“Try again,” Miss Lavender repeated. “Then why not?”--but here she
paused, and seemed to meditate. The fact was, she had been tempted to
ask Gilbert’s advice in regard to the plan she was revolving in her
brain. The tone of his voice, however, was discouraging; she saw that
he had taken a firm and gloomy resolution to be silent,--his uneasy air
hinted that he desired to avoid further talk on this point. So, with a
mental reprimand of the indiscretion into which her sympathy with him
had nearly betrayed her, she shut her teeth and slightly bit her tongue.

“Well, well,” she said; “I hope it’ll come out before you’re both old
and sour with waitin’, that’s all! I don’t want such true-love as
your’n to be like firkin-butter at th’ end; for as fresh, and firm, and
well-kep’ as you please, it ha’n’t got the taste o’ the clover and the
sweet-grass; but who knows? I may dance at your weddin’, after all,
sooner’n I mistrust; and so I’m goin’ down to spend the day with y’r
mother!”

She strode over the furrow and across the weedy sod, and Gilbert resumed
his ploughing. As she approached the house, Miss Lavender noticed that
the secured ownership of the property was beginning to express itself
in various slight improvements and adornments. The space in front of the
porch was enlarged, and new flower-borders set along the garden-paling;
the barn had received a fresh coat of whitewash, as well as the trunks
of the apple-trees, which shone like white pillars; and there was a
bench with bright straw bee-hives under the lilac-bush. Mary Potter was
at work in the garden, sowing her early seeds.

“Well, I do declare!” exclaimed Miss Lavender, after the first cordial
greetings were over. “Seems almost like a different place, things is so
snugged up and put to rights.”

“Yes,” said Mary Potter; “I had hardly the heart, before, to make it
everything that we wanted; and you can’t think what a satisfaction I
have in it now.”

“Yes, I can! Give me the redishes, while you stick in them beets. I’ve
got a good forefinger for plantin’ ‘em,--long and stiff; and I can’t
stand by and see you workin’ alone, without fidgets.”

Miss Lavender threw off her cloak and worked with a will. When the
gardening was finished, she continued her assistance in the house, and
fully earned her dinner before she sat down to it. Then she insisted on
Mary Potter bringing out her sewing, and giving her something more to
do; it was one of her working-days, she said; she had spent rather an
idle winter; and moreover, she was in such spirits at Gilbert’s good
fortune, that she couldn’t be satisfied without doing something for him,
and to sew up the seams of his new breeches was the very thing! Never
had she been so kind, so cheerful, and so helpful, and Mary Potter’s
nature warmed into happy content in her society.

No one should rashly accuse Miss Lavender if there was a little design
in this. The task she had set herself to attempt was both difficult and
delicate. She had divided it into two portions, requiring very different
tactics, and was shrewd enough to mask, in every possible way, the
one from which she had most hopes of obtaining a result. She made no
reference, at first, to Gilbert’s attachment to Martha Deane, but seemed
to be wholly absorbed in the subject of the farm; then, taking wide
sweeps through all varieties of random gossip, preserving a careless,
thoughtless, rattling manner, she stealthily laid her pitfalls for the
unsuspecting prey.

“I was over’t Warren’s t’ other day,” she said, biting off a thread,
“and Becky had jist come home from Phildelphy. There’s new-fashioned
bonnets comin’ up, she says. She stayed with Allen’s, but who they are
I don’t know. Laws! now I think on it, Mary, you stayed at Allen’s, too,
when you were there!”

“No,” said Mary Potter, “it was at--Treadwell’s.”

“Treadwell’s? I thought you told me Allen’s. All the same to me, Allen
or Treadwell; I don’t know either of ‘em. It’s a long while since I’ve
been in Phildelphy, and never likely to go ag’in. I don’t fancy trampin’
over them hard bricks, though, to be sure, a body sees the fashions; but
what with boxes tumbled in and out o’ the stores, and bar’ls rollin’,
and carts always goin’ by, you’re never sure o’ y’r neck; and I was
sewin’ for Clarissa Lee, Jackson that was, that married a dry goods man,
the noisiest place that ever was; you could hardly hear yourself talk;
but a body gets used to it, in Second Street, close’t to Market, and
were you anywheres near there?”

“I was in Fourth Street,” Mary Potter answered, with a little
hesitation. Miss Lavender secretly noticed her uneasiness, which, she
also remarked, arose not from suspicion, but from memory.

“What kind o’ buttons are you goin’ to have, Mary?” she asked. “Horn
splits, and brass cuts the stuff, and mother o’ pearl wears to eternity,
but they’re so awful dear. Fourth Street, you said? One street’s like
another to me, after you get past the corners. I’d always know Second,
though, by the tobacco-shop, with the wild Injun at the door, liftin’
his tommyhawk to skulp you--ugh!--but never mind, all the same, skulp
away for what I care, for I a’n’t likely ever to lay eyes on you ag’in!”

Having thus, with perhaps more volubility than was required, covered up
the traces of her design, Miss Lavender cast about how to commence the
second and more hopeless attack. It was but scant intelligence which she
had gained, but in that direction she dared not venture further. What
she now proposed to do required more courage and less cunning.

Her manner gradually changed; she allowed lapses of silence to occur,
and restricted her gossip to a much narrower sweep. She dwelt, finally,
upon the singular circumstances of Sandy Flash’s robbery of Gilbert, and
the restoration of the money.

“Talkin’ o’ Deb. Smith,” she then said, “Mary, do you mind when I was
here last harvest, and the talk we had about Gilbert? I’ve often thought
on it since, and how I guessed right for once’t, for I know the ways o’
men, if I am an old maid, and so it’s come out as I said, and a finer
couple than they’ll make can’t be found in the county!”

Mary Potter looked up, with a shadow of the old trouble on her face.
“You know all about it, Betsy, then?” she asked.

“Bless your soul, Mary, everybody knows about it! There’s been nothin’
else talked about in the neighborhood for the last three weeks; why,
ha’n’t Gilbert told you o’ what passed between him and Dr. Deane, and
how Martha stood by him as no woman ever stood by a man?”

An expression of painful curiosity, such as shrinks from the knowledge
it craves, came into Mary Potter’s eyes. “Gilbert has told me nothing,”
 she said, “since--since that time.”

“That time. I won’t ask you _what_ time; it’s neither here nor there;
but you ought to know the run o’ things, when it’s common talk.” And
therewith Miss Lavender began at the beginning, and never ceased until
she had brought the history, in all its particulars, down to that very
day. She did not fail to enlarge on the lively and universal Interest in
the fortunes of the lovers which was manifested by the whole community.
Mary Potter’s face grew paler and paler as she spoke, but the tears
which some parts of the recital called forth were quenched again, as it
seemed, by flashes of aroused pride.

“Now,” Miss Lavender concluded, “you see just how the matter stands.
I’m not hard on you, savin’ and exceptin’ that facts is hard, which
they sometimes are I don’t deny; but here we’re all alone with our two
selves, and you’ll grant I’m a friend, though I may have queer ways
o’ showin’ it; and why shouldn’t I say that all the trouble comes o’
Gilbert bearin’ your name?”

“Don’t I know it!” Mary Potter cried. “Isn’t my load heaped up heavier
as it comes towards the end? What can I do but wait till the day when I
can give Gilbert his father’s name?”

“His father’s name! Then you can do it, some day? I suspicioned as much.
And you’ve been bound up from doin’ it, all this while,--and that’s
what’s been layin’ so heavy on your mind, wasn’t it?”

“Betsy,” said Mary Potter, with sudden energy, “I’ll say as much as
I dare, so that I may keep my senses. I fear, sometimes, I’ll break
together for want of a friend like you, to steady me while I walk the
last steps of my hard road. Gilbert was born in wedlock; I’m not bound
to deny that; but I committed a sin,--not the sin people charge me
with,--and the one that persuaded me to it has to answer for more than
I have. I bound myself not to tell the name of Gilbert’s father,--not to
say where or when I was married, not to do or say anything to put
others On the track, until--but there’s the sin and the trouble and the
punishment all in one. If I told that, you might guess the rest. You
know what a name I’ve had to bear, but I’ve taken my cross and fought
my way, and put up with all things, that I might deserve the fullest
justification the Lord has in His hands. If I had known all beforehand,
Betsy,--but I expected the release in a month or two, and it hasn’t come
in twenty-five years!”

“Twenty-five years!” repeated Miss Lavender, heedless of the drops
running down her thin face. “If there was a sin, Mary, even as big as a
yearlin’ calf, you’ve worked off the cost of it, years ago! If you break
your word now, you’ll stand justified in the sight o’ the Lord, and of
all men, and even if you think a scrimption of it’s left, remember your
dooty to Gilbert, and take a less justification for his sake!”

“I’ve been tempted that way, Betsy, but the end I wanted has been set
in my mind so long I can’t get it out. I’ve seen the Lord’s hand so
manifest in these past days, that I’m fearsome to hurry His judgments.
And then, though I try not to, I’m waiting from day to day,--almost from
hour to hour,--and it seems that if I was to give up and break my
vow, He would break it for me the next minute afterwards, to punish my
impatience!”

“Why,” Miss Lavender exclaimed, “it must be your husband’s death you’re
waitin’ for!”

Mary Potter started up with a wild look of alarm. “No--no--not his
death!” she cried. “I should want him to--be living! Ask me no more
questions; forget what I’ve said, if it don’t incline you to encourage
me! That’s why I’ve told you so much!”

Miss Lavender instantly desisted from further appeal. She rose, put her
arm around Mary Potter’s waist, and said,--“I didn’t mean to frighten or
to worry you, deary. I may think your conscience has worked on itself,
like, till it’s ground a bit too sharp; but I see just how you’re
fixed, and won’t say another word, without it’s to give comfort. An open
confession’s good for the soul, they say, and half a loaf’s better than
no bread, and you haven’t violated your word a bit, and so let it do you
good!”

In fact, when Mary Potter grew calm, she was conscious of a relief the
more welcome because it was so rare in her experience. Miss Lavender,
moreover, hastened to place Gilbert’s position in a more cheerful light,
and the same story, repeated for a different purpose, now assumed quite
another aspect. She succeeded so well, that she left behind her only
gratitude for the visit.

Late in the afternoon she came forth from the farmhouse, and commenced
slowly ascending the hill. She stopped frequently and looked about her;
her narrow forehead was wrinkled, and the base of her long nose was set
between two deep furrows. Her lips were twisted in a pucker of great
perplexity, and her eyes were nearly closed in a desperate endeavor to
solve some haunting, puzzling question.

“It’s queer,” she muttered to herself, when she had nearly reached
the top of the hill,--“it’s mortal queer! Like a whip-poor-will on
a moonlight night: you hear it whistlin’ on the next fence-rail, it
doesn’t seem a yard off; you step up to ketch it, and there’s nothin’
there; then you step back ag’in, and ‘whip-poor-will! whip-poor-will!’
whistles louder ‘n ever,--and so on, the whole night, and some folks
says they can throw their voices outside o’ their bodies, but that’s
neither here nor there.

“Now why can’t I ketch hold o’ this thing? It isn’t a yard off me, I’ll
be snaked! And I dunno what ever she said that makes me think so, but
I feel it in my bones, and no use o’ callin’ up words; it’s one o’ them
things that comes without callin’, when they come at all, and I’m so
near guessin’ I’ll have no peace day or night.”

With many similar observations she resumed her walk, and presently
reached the border of the ploughed land. Gilbert’s back was towards her;
he was on the descending furrow. She looked at him, started, suddenly
lost her breath, and stood with open mouth and wide, fixed eyes.

“HA-HA-A! HA-HA-A-A!”

Loud and shrill her cry rang across the valley. It was like the yell of
a war-horse, scenting the battle afar off. All the force of her lungs
and muscles expended itself in the sound.

The next instant she dropped upon the moist, ploughed earth, and sat
there, regardless of gown and petticoat. “Good Lord!” she repeated to
herself, over and over again. Then, seeing Gilbert approaching, startled
by the cry, she slowly arose to her feet.

“A good guess,” she said to herself, “and what’s more, there’s ways
o’ provin’ it. He’s comin’, and he mustn’t know; you’re a fool, Betsy
Lavender, not to keep your wits better about you, and go rousin’ up the
whole neighborhood; good look that your face is crooked and don’t show
much o’ what’s goin’ on inside!”

“What’s the matter, Betsy?” asked Gilbert.

“Nothin’--one o’ my crazy notions,” she said. “I used to holler like a
kildeer when I was a girl and got out on the Brandywine hills alone,
and I s’pose I must ha’ thought about it, and the yell sort o’ come
of itself, for it just jerked me off o’ my feet; but you needn’t tell
anybody that I cut such capers in my old days, not that folks’d much
wonder, but the contrary, for they’re used to me.”

Gilbert laughed heartily, but he hardly seemed satisfied with the
explanation. “You’re all of a tremble,” he said.

“Am I? Well, it’s likely,--and my gownd all over mud; but there’s one
favor I want to ask o’ you, and no common one, neither, namely, the loan
of a horse for a week or so.”

“A horse?” Gilbert repeated.

“A horse. Not Roger, by no means; I couldn’t ask that, and he don’t
know me, anyhow; but the least rough-pacin’ o’ them two, for I’ve got
considerable ridin’ over the country to do, and I wouldn’t ask you, but
it’s a busy time o’ year, and all folks isn’t so friendly.”

“You shall have whatever you want, Betsy,” he said. “But you’ve heard
nothing?”--

“Nothin’ o’ one sort or t’other. Make yourself easy, lad.”

Gilbert, however, had been haunted by new surmises in regard to Dr.
Deane. Certain trifles had returned to his memory since the interview,
and rather than be longer annoyed with them, he now opened his heart to
Miss Lavender.

A curious expression came over her face. “You’ve got sharp eyes and ears
Gilbert,” she said. “Now supposin’ I wanted your horse o’ purpose to
clear up your doubts in a way to satisfy you, would you mind lettin’ me
have it?”

“Take even Roger!” he exclaimed.

“No, that bay’ll do. Keep thinkin’ _that’s_ what I’m after, and ask me
no more questions.”

She crossed the ploughed land, crept through the fence, and trudged up
the road. When a clump of bushes on the bank had hid Gilbert from
her sight, she stopped, took breath, and chuckled with luxurious
satisfaction.

“Betsy Lavender,” she said, with marked approval, “you’re a cuter old
thing than I took you to be!”



CHAPTER XXIX.

MYSTERIOUS MOVEMENTS.


The next morning Sam took Gilbert’s bay horse to Kennett Square, and
hitched him in front of Dr. Deane’s door. Miss Lavender, who was on the
look-out, summoned the boy into the house, to bring her own side-saddle
down from the garret, and then proceeded to pack a small valise, with
straps corresponding to certain buckles behind the saddle. Martha Deane
looked on with some surprise at this proceeding, but as Miss Lavender
continued silent, she asked no questions.

“There!” exclaimed the spinster, when everything was ready, “now I’m
good for a week’s travel, if need be! You want to know where I’m goin’,
child, I see, and you might as well out with the words, though not much
use, for I hardly know myself.”

“Betsy,” said Martha, “you seem so strange, so unlike yourself, ever
since you came home last evening. What is it?”

“I remembered somethin’, on the way up; my head’s been so bothered that
I forgot things, never mind what, for I must have some business o’ my
own or I wouldn’t seem to belong to myself; and so I’ve got to trapes
round considerable,--money matters and the likes,--and folks a’n’t
always ready for you to the minute; therefore count on more time than
what’s needful, say I.”

“And you can’t guess when you will be back?” Martha asked.

“Hardly under a week. I want to finish up everything and come home for a
good long spell.”

With these words she descended to the road, valise in hand, buckled it
to the saddle, and mounted the horse. Then she said good-bye to Martha,
and rode briskly away, down the Philadelphia road.

Several days passed and nothing was heard of her. Gilbert Potter
remained on his farm, busy with the labor of the opening spring; Mark
Deane was absent, taking measurements and making estimates for the new
house, and Sally Fairthorn spent all her spare time in spinning flax for
a store of sheets and table-cloths, to be marked “S. A. F.” in red silk,
when duly woven, hemmed, and bleached.

One afternoon, during Miss Lavender’s absence, Dr. Deane was again
called upon to attend Old-man Barton. It was not an agreeable duty,
for the Doctor suspected that something more than medical advice was
in question. He had not visited the farm-house since his discovery of
Martha’s attachment to Gilbert Potter,--had even avoided intercourse
with Alfred Barton, towards whom his manner became cold and constrained.
It was a sore subject in his thoughts, and both the Bartons seemed to
be, in some manner, accessory to his disappointment.

The old man complained of an attack of “buzzing in the head,” which
molested him at times, and for which bleeding was the Doctor’s usual
remedy. His face had a flushed, congested, purple hue, and there was an
unnatural glare in his eyes; but the blood flowed thickly and sluggishly
from his skinny arm, and a much longer time than usual elapsed before he
felt relieved.

“Gad, Doctor!” he said, when the vein had been closed, “the spring
weather brings me as much fulness as a young buck o’ twenty. I’d be
frisky yet, if’t wasn’t for them legs. Set down, there; you’ve news to
tell me!”

“I think, Friend Barton,” Dr. Deane answered, “thee’d better be quiet a
spell. Talking isn’t exactly good for thee.”

“Eh?” the old man growled; “maybe you’d like to think so, Doctor. If I
am house-bound, I pick up some things as they go around. And I know why
you let our little matter drop so suddent.”

He broke off with a short, malicious laugh, which excited the Doctor’s
ire. The latter seated himself, smoothed his garments and his face,
became odorous of bergamot and wintergreen, and secretly determined to
repay the old man for this thrust.

“I don’t know what thee may have heard, Friend Barton,” he remarked,
in his blandest voice. “There is always plenty of gossip in this
neighborhood, and some persons, no doubt, have been too free with my
name,--mine and my daughter’s, I may say. But I want thee to know that
that has nothing to do with the relinquishment of my visits to thee. If
thee’s curious to learn the reason, perhaps thy son Alfred may be able
to give it more circumstantially than I can.”

“What, what, what!” exclaimed the old man. “The boy told you not to
come, eh?”

“Not in so many words, mind thee; but he made it unnecessary,--quite
unnecessary. In the first place, he gave me no legal evidence of any
property, and until that was done, my hands were tied. Further, he
seemed very loath to address Martha at all, which was not so singular,
considering that he never took any steps, from the first, to gain her
favor; and then he deceived me into imagining that she wanted time,
after she had positively refused his addresses. He is mistaken, and thee
too, if you think that I am very anxious to have a man of no spirit and
little property for my son-in-law!”

The Doctor’s words expressed more than he intended. They not only stung,
but betrayed his own sting. Old-man Barton crooked his claws around his
hickory staff, and shook with senile anger; while his small, keen eyes
glared on his antagonist’s face. Yet he had force enough to wait until
the first heat of his feeling subsided.

“Doctor,” he then said, “mayhap my boy’s better than a man o’ no name
and no property. He’s worth, anyways, what I choose to make him worth.
Have you made up y’r mind to take the t’other, that you’ve begun to run
him down, eh?”

They were equally matched, this time. The color came into Dr. Deane’s
face, and then faded, leaving him slightly livid about the mouth. He
preserved his external calmness, by a strong effort, but there was a
barely perceptible tremor in his voice, as he replied,--

“It is not pleasant to a man of my years to be made a fool of, as I have
every reason to believe thy son has attempted. If I had yielded to his
persuasions, I should have spent much time--all to no purpose, I doubt
not--in endeavoring to ascertain what thee means to do for him in thy
will. It was, indeed, the only thing he seemed to think or care much
about. If he has so much money of his own, as thee says, it is certainly
not creditable that he should be so anxious for thy decease.”

The Doctor had been watching the old man as he spoke, and the increasing
effect of his words was so perceptible that he succeeded in closing
with an agreeable smile and a most luxurious pinch of snuff. He had not
intended to say so much, at the commencement of the conversation, but he
had been sorely provoked, and the temptation was irresistible.

The effect was greater than he had imagined. Old Barton’s face was
so convulsed, that, for a few minutes, the Doctor feared an attack of
complete paralysis. He became the physician again, undid his work as
much as possible, and called Miss Ann into the room, to prevent any
renewal of the discussion. He produced his stores of entertaining
gossip, and prolonged his stay until all threatening symptoms of the
excitement seemed to be allayed. The old man returned to his ordinary
mood, and listened, and made his gruff comments, but with temporary fits
of abstraction. After the Doctor’s departure, he scarcely spoke at all,
for the remainder of the evening.

A day or two afterwards, when Alfred Barton returned in the evening from
a sale in the neighborhood, he was aware of a peculiar change in his
father’s manner. His first impression was that the old man, contrary to
Dr. Deane’s orders, had resumed his rations of brandy, and exceeded the
usual allowance. There was a vivid color on his flabby cheeks; he was
alert, talkative, and frequently chuckled to himself, shifting the
hickory staff from hand to hand, or rubbing his gums backward and
forward on its rounded end.

He suddenly asked, as Alfred was smoking his pipe before the fire,--

“Know what I’ve been thinkin’ of, to-day, boy?”

“No, daddy; anything about the crops?”

“Ha! ha! a pretty good crop for somebody it’ll be! Nearly time for me
to make my will, eh? I’m so old and weak--no life left in me--can’t last
many days!”

He laughed with a hideous irony, as he pronounced these words. His son
stared at him, and the fire died out in the pipe between his teeth. Was
the old man getting childish? he asked himself. But no; he had never
looked more diabolically cunning and watchful.

“Why, daddy,” Alfred said at last, “I thought--I fancied, at least,
you’d done that, long ago.”

“Maybe I have, boy; but maybe I want to change it. I had a talk with the
Doctor when he came down to bleed me, and since there’s to be no match
between you and the girl”--

He paused, keeping his eyes on his son’s face, which lengthened and grew
vacant with a vague alarm.

“Why, then,” he presently resumed, “_you_‘re so much poorer by the
amount o’ her money. Would it be fair, do you think, if I was to put
that much to what I might ha’ meant for you before? Don’t you allow you
ought to have a little more, on account o’ your disapp’intment?

“If you think so, dad, it’s all right,” said the son, relighting his
pipe. “I don’t know, though what Elisha’d say to it; but then, he’s no
right to complain, for he married full as much as I’d ha’ got.”

“That he did, boy; and when all’s said and done, the money’s my own to
do with it what I please. There’s no law o’ the oldest takin’ all. Yes,
yes, I’ll have to make a new will!”

A serene joy diffused itself through Alfred Barton’s breast. He became
frank, affectionate, and confidential.

“To tell you the truth, dad,” he said, “I was mighty afraid you’d play
the deuce with me, because all’s over between me and Martha Deane. You
seemed so set on it.”

“So I was--so I was,” croaked the old man, “but I’ve got over it since
I saw the Doctor. After all I’ve heerd, she’s not the wife for you;
it’s better as it is. You’d rayther have the money without her, tell the
truth now, you dog, ha! ha!”

“Damme, dad, you’ve guessed it!” Alfred cried, joining in the laugh.
“She’s too high-flown for me. I never fancied a woman that’s ready to
take you down, every other word you say; and I’ll tell you now, that I
hadn’t much stomach for the match, at any time; but you wanted it, you
know, and I’ve done what I could, to please you.”

“You’re a good boy, Alfred,--a mighty good boy.”

There was nothing very amusing in this opinion, but the old man laughed
over it, by fits and starts, for a long time.

“Take a drop o’ brandy, boy!” he said. “You may as well have my share,
till I’m ready to begin ag’in.”

This was the very climax of favor. Alfred arose with a broad beam of
triumph on his face, filled the glass, and saying,--“Here’s long life to
you, dad!” turned it into his mouth.

“Long life?” the old man muttered. “It’s pretty long as it
is,--eighty-six and over; but it may be ninety-six, or a hundred and
six; who knows? Anyhow, boy, long or short, I’ll make a new will.”

Giles was now summoned, to wheel him into the adjoining room and put him
to bed. Alfred Barton took a second glass of brandy (after the door
was closed), lighted a fresh pipe, and seated himself again before the
embers to enjoy the surprise and exultation of his fortune. To think
that he had worried himself so long for that which finally came of
itself! Half his fear of the old man, he reflected, had been needless;
in many things he had acted like the veriest fool! Well, it was a
consolation to know that all his anxieties were over. The day that
should make him a rich and important man might be delayed (his father’s
strength and vitality were marvellous), but it was certain to come.

Another day or two passed by, and the old man’s quick, garrulous,
cheerful mood continued, although he made no further reference to the
subject of the will. Alfred Barton deliberated whether he should
suggest sending for Lawyer Stacy, but finally decided not to hazard
his prospects by a show of impatience. He was therefore not a little
surprised when his sister Ann suddenly made her appearance in the barn,
where he and Giles were mending some dilapidated plough-harness, and
announced that the lawyer was even then closeted with their father.
Moreover, for the first time in his knowledge, Ann herself had been
banished from the house. She clambered into the hay-mow, sat down in a
comfortable spot, and deliberately plied her knitting-needles.

Ann seemed to take the matter as coolly as if it were an every-day
occurrence, but Alfred could not easily recover from his astonishment.
There was more than accident here, he surmised. Mr. Stacy had made his
usual visit, not a fortnight before; his father’s determination had
evidently been the result of his conversation with Dr. Deane; and in the
mean time no messenger had been sent to Chester, neither was there time
for a letter to reach there. Unless Dr. Deane himself were
concerned in secretly bringing about the visit,--a most unlikely
circumstance,--Alfred Barton could not understand how it happened.

“How did th’ old man seem, when you left the house?” he asked.

“‘Pears to me I ha’n’t seen him so chipper these twenty years,” said
Ann.

“And how long are they to be left alone?”

“No tellin’,” she answered, rattling her needles. “Mr. Stacy’ll come,
when all’s done; and not a soul is to go any nearder the house till he
gives the word.”

Two hours, three hours, four hours passed away, before the summons came.
Alfred Barton found himself so curiously excited that he was fain to
leave the harness to Giles, and quiet himself with a pipe or two in
the meadow. He would have gone up to the Unicorn for a little stronger
refreshment, but did not dare to venture out of sight of the house.
Miss Ann was the perfect image of Patience in a hay-mow, smiling at his
anxiety. The motion of her needles never ceased, except when she counted
the stitches in narrowing.

Towards sunset, Mr. Stacy made his appearance at the barn-door, but his
face was a sealed book.

On the morning of that very day, another mysterious incident occurred.
Jake Fairthorn had been sent to Carson’s on the old gray mare, on some
farm-errand,--perhaps to borrow a pick-axe or a post-spade. He had
returned as far as the Philadelphia road, and was entering the thick
wood on the level before descending to Redley Creek, when he perceived
Betsy Lavender leading Gilbert Potter’s bay horse through a gap in the
fence, after which she commenced putting up the rails behind her.

“Why, Miss Betsy! what are you doin’?” cried Jake, spurring up to the
spot.

“Boys should speak when they’re spoken to, and not come where they’re
not wanted,” she answered, in a savage tone. “Maybe I’m goin’ to hunt
bears.”

“Oh, please, let me go along!” eagerly cried Jake, who believed in
bears.

“Go along! Yes, and be eat up.” Miss Lavender looked very much annoyed.
Presently, however, her face became amiable; she took a buckskin purse
out of her pocket, selected a small silver coin, and leaning over the
fence, held it out to Jake.

“Here!” she said, “here’s a ‘levenpenny-bit for you, if you’ll be a good
boy, and do exackly as I bid you. Can you keep from gabblin’, for two
days? Can you hold your tongue and not tell anybody till day after
to-morrow that you seen me here, goin’ into the woods?”

“Why, that’s easy as nothin’!” cried Jake, pocketing the coin. Miss
Lavender, leading the horse, disappeared among the trees.

But it was not quite so easy as Jake supposed. He had not been at home
ten minutes, before the precious piece of silver, transferred back
and forth between his pocket and his hand in the restless ecstasy of
possession, was perceived by Joe. Then, as Jake stoutly refused to tell
where it came from, Joe rushed into the kitchen, exclaiming,--

“Mammy, Jake’s stole a levy!”

This brought out Mother Fairthorn and Sally, and the unfortunate Jake,
pressed and threatened on all sides, began to cry lamentably.

“She’ll take it from me ag’in, if I tell,” he whimpered.

“She? Who?” cried both at once, their curiosity now fully excited; and
the end of it was that Jake told the whole story, and was made wretched.

“Well!” Sally exclaimed, “this beats all! Gilbert Potter’s bay horse,
too! Whatever could she be after? I’ll have no peace till I tell Martha,
and so I may as well go up at once, for there’s something in the wind,
and if she don’t know already, she ought to!”

Thereupon Sally put on her bonnet, leaving her pewters half scoured,
and ran rather than walked to the village. Martha Deane could give no
explanation of the circumstance, but endeavored, for Miss Lavender’s
sake, to conceal her extreme surprise.

“We shall know what it means,” she said, “when Betsy comes home, and if
it’s anything that concerns me, I promise, Sally, to tell you. It may,
however, relate to some business of her own, and so, I think, we had
better quietly wait and say nothing about it.”

Nevertheless, after Sally’s departure, Martha meditated long and
uneasily upon what she had heard. The fact that Miss Lavender had come
back from the Potter farmhouse in so unusual a frame of mind, borrowed
Gilbert’s horse, and set forth on some mysterious errand, had already
disquieted her. More than the predicted week of absence had passed, and
now Miss Lavender, instead of returning home, appeared to be hiding in
the woods, anxious that her presence in the neighborhood should not be
made known. Moreover she had been seen by the landlord of the Unicorn,
three days before, near Logtown, riding towards Kennett Square.

These mysterious movements filled Martha Deane with a sense of anxious
foreboding. She felt sure that they were connected, in some way,
with Gilbert’s interests, and Miss Lavender’s reticence now seemed to
indicate a coming misfortune which she was endeavoring to avert. If
these fears were correct, Gilbert needed her help also. He could not
come to her; was she not called upon to go to him?

Her resolution was soon taken, and she only waited until her father
had left on a visit to two or three patients along the Street Road. His
questions, she knew, would bring on another painful conflict of will,
and she would save her strength for Gilbert’s necessities. To avoid the
inferences of the tavern loungers, she chose the longer way, eastward
out of the village to the cross-road running past the Carson place.

All the sweet, faint tokens of Spring cheered her eyes and calmed the
unrest of her heart, as she rode. Among the dead leaves of the woods,
the snowy blossoms of the blood-root had already burst forth in starry
clusters; the anemones trembled between the sheltering knees of the
old oaks, and here and there a single buttercup dropped its gold on the
meadows. These things were so many presentiments of brighter days in
Nature, and they awoke a corresponding faith in her own heart.

As she approached the Potter farm she slackened her horse’s pace, and
deliberated whether she should ride directly to the house or seek for
Gilbert in the fields. She had not seen Mary Potter since that eventful
Sunday, the previous summer, and felt that Gilbert ought to be consulted
before a visit which might possibly give pain. Her doubts were suddenly
terminated by his appearance, with Sam and an ox-cart, in the road
before her.

Gilbert could with difficulty wait until the slow oxen had removed Sam
out of hearing.

“Martha! were you coming to me?” he asked.

“As I promised, Gilbert,” she said. “But do not look so anxious. If
there really is any trouble, I must learn it of you.”

She then related to him what she had noticed in Miss Lavender’s manner,
and learned of her movements. He stood before her, listening, with his
hand on the mane of her horse, and his eyes intently fixed on her
face. She saw the agitation her words produced, and her own vague fears
returned.

“Can you guess her business, Gilbert?” she asked.

“Martha,” he answered, “I only know that there is something in her
mind, and I believe it concerns me. I am afraid to guess anything more,
because I have only my own wild fancies to go upon, and it won’t do to
give ‘em play!”

“What are those fancies, Gilbert? May I not know?”

“Can you trust me a little, Martha?” he implored. “Whatever I know,
you shall know; but if I sometimes seek useless trouble for myself, why
should I seek it for you? I’ll tell you now one fear I’ve kept from you,
and you’ll see what I mean.”

He related to her his dread that Sandy Flash might prove to be his
father, and the solution of it in the highwayman’s cell. “Have I not
done right?” he asked.

“I am not sure, Gilbert,” she replied, with a brave smile; “you might
have tested my truth, once more, if you had spoken your fears.”

“I need no test, Martha; and you won’t press me for another, now. I’ll
only say, and you’ll be satisfied with it, that Betsy seemed to guess
what was in my mind, and promised, or rather expected, to come back with
good news.”

“Then,” said Martha, “I must wait until she makes her appearance.”

She had hardly spoken the words, before a figure became visible between
the shock-headed willows, where the road crosses the stream. A bay
horse--and then Betsy Lavender herself!

Martha turned her horse’s head, and Gilbert hastened forward with her,
both silent and keenly excited.

“Well!” exclaimed Miss Betsy, “what are you two a-doin’ here?”

There was news in her face, both saw; yet they also remarked that the
meeting did not seem to be entirely welcome to her.

“I came,” said Martha, “to see whether Gilbert could tell me why you
were hiding in the woods, instead of coming home.”

“It’s that--that good-for-nothin’ serpent, Jake Fairthorn!” cried Miss
Lavender. “I see it all now. Much Gilbert could tell you, howsever, or
you him, o’ _my_ business, and haven’t I a right to it, as well as other
folks; but never mind, fine as it’s spun it’ll come to the sun, as they
say o’ flax and sinful doin’s; not that such is mine, but you may think
so if you like, and you’ll know in a day or two, anyhow!”

Martha saw that Miss Lavender’s lean hands were trembling, and guessed
that her news must be of vital importance. “Betsy,” she said, “I see
you don’t mean to tell us; but one word you can’t refuse--is it good or
bad?”

“Good or bad?” Miss Lavender repeated, growing more and more nervous,
as she looked at the two anxious faces. “Well, it isn’t bad, so
peart yourselves up, and ask me no more questions, this day, nor yet
to-morrow, maybe; because if you do, I’ll just screech with all my
might; I’ll holler, Gilbert, wuss ‘n you heerd, and much good that’ll do
you, givin’ me a crazy name all over the country. I’m in dead earnest;
if you try to worm anything more out o’ me, I’ll screech; and so I
was goin’ to bring your horse home, Gilbert, and have a talk with your
mother, but you’ve made me mortal weak betwixt and between you; and I’ll
ride back with Martha, by your leave, and you may send Sam right away
for the horse. No; let Sam come now, and walk alongside, to save me from
Martha’s cur’osity.”

Miss Lavender would not rest until this arrangement was made. The two
ladies then rode away through the pale, hazy sunset, leaving Gilbert
Potter in a fever of impatience, dread, and hope.



CHAPTER XXX.

THE FUNERAL.


The next morning, at daybreak, Dr. Deane was summoned in haste to the
Barton farm-house. Miss Betsy Lavender, whose secrets, whatever they
were, had interfered with her sleep, heard Giles’s first knock, and
thrust her night-cap out the window before he could repeat it. The old
man, so Giles announced, had a bad spell,--a ‘plectic fit, Lawyer Stacy
called it, and they didn’t know as he’d live from one hour to another.

Miss Lavender aroused the Doctor, then dressed herself in haste, and
prepared to accompany him. Martha, awakened by the noise, came into the
spinster’s room in her night-dress.

“Must you go, Betsy?” she asked.

“Child, it’s a matter o’ life and death, more likely death; and Ann’s a
dooless critter at best, hardly ever off the place, and need o’ Chris’en
help, if there ever was such; so don’t ask me to stay, for I won’t, and
all the better for me, for I daresn’t open my lips to livin’ soul till
I’ve spoke with Mary Potter!”

Miss Lavender took the foot-path across the fields, accompanied
by Giles, who gave up his saddled horse to Dr. Deane. The dawn was
brightening in the sky as they reached the farm-house, where they found
Alfred Barton restlessly walking backwards and forwards in the
kitchen, while Ann and Mr. Stacy were endeavoring to apply such scanty
restoratives--consisting principally of lavender and hot bricks--as the
place afforded.

An examination of the eyes and the pulse, and a last abortive attempt at
phlebotomy, convinced Dr. Deane that his services were no longer needed.
Death, which so many years before had lamed half the body, now asserted
his claim to the whole. A wonderfully persistent principle of vitality
struggled against the clogged functions, for two or three hours, then
yielded, and the small fragment of soul in the old man was cast adrift,
with little chance of finding a comfortable lodging in any other world.

Ann wandered about the kitchen in a dazed state, dropping tears
everywhere, and now and then moaning,--“O Betsy, how’ll I ever get up
the funeral dinner?” while Alfred, after emptying the square bottle of
brandy, threw himself upon the settle and went to sleep. Mr. Stacy and
Miss Lavender, who seemed to know each other thoroughly at the first
sight, took charge of all the necessary arrangements; and as Alfred had
said,--“_I_ can’t look after anything; do as you two like, and don’t
spare expense!” they ordered the coffin, dispatched messengers to the
relatives and neighbors, and soothed Ann’s unquiet soul by selecting the
material for the dinner, and engaging the Unicorn’s cook.

When all was done, late in the day, Miss Lavender called Giles and
said,--“Saddle me a horse, and if no side-saddle, a man’s’ll do, for go
I must; it’s business o’ my own, Mr. Stacy, and won’t wait for me; not
that I want to do more this day than what I’ve done. Goodness knows; but
I’ll have a fit, myself, if I don’t!”

She reached the Potter farm-house at dark, and both mother and son were
struck with her flushed, excited, and yet weary air. Their supper was
over, but she refused to take anything more than a cup of tea; her
speech was forced, and more rambling and disconnected than ever.
When Mary Potter left the kitchen to bring some fresh cream from the
spring-house, Miss Lavender hastily approached Gilbert, laid her hand on
his shoulder, and said,--

“Lad, be good this once’t, and do what I tell you. Make a reason for
goin’ to bed as soon as you can; for I’ve been workin’ in your interest
all this while, only I’ve got that to tell your mother, first of all,
which you mustn’t hear; and you may hope as much as you please, for the
news isn’t bad, as’ll soon be made manifest!”

Gilbert was strangely impressed by her solemn, earnest manner, and
promised to obey. He guessed, and yet feared to believe, that the long
release of which his mother had spoken bad come at last; how else, he
asked himself, should Miss Lavender become possessed of knowledge which
seemed so important? As early as possible he went up to his bedroom,
leaving the two women alone. The sound of voices, now high and hurried,
now, apparently, low and broken, came to his ears. He resisted the
temptation to listen, smothered his head in the pillow to further muffle
the sounds, and after a long, restless struggle with his own mind, fell
asleep. Deep in the night he was awakened by the noise of a shutting
door, and then all was still.

It was very evident, in the morning, that he had not miscalculated the
importance of Miss Lavender’s communication. Was this woman, whose face
shone with such a mingled light of awe and triumph, his mother? Were
these features, where the deep lines of patience were softened into
curves of rejoicing, the dark, smouldering gleam of sorrow kindled into
a flashing light of pride, those he had known from childhood? As he
looked at her, in wonder renewed with every one of her movements and
glances, she took him by the hand and said,--

“Gilbert, wait a little!”

Miss Lavender insisted on having breakfast by sunrise, and as soon as
the meal was over demanded her horse. Then first she announced the
fact of Old-man Barton’s death, and that the funeral was to be on the
following day.

“Mary, you must be sure and come,” she said, as she took leave; “I know
Ann expects it of you. Ten o’clock, remember!”

Gilbert noticed that his mother laid aside her sewing, and when the
ordinary household labor had been performed, seated herself near the
window with a small old Bible, which he had never before seen in her
hands. There was a strange fixedness in her gaze, as if only her eyes,
not her thoughts, were directed upon its pages. The new expression of
her face remained; it seemed already to have acquired as permanent a
stamp as the old. Against his will he was infected by its power, and
moved about in barn and field all day with a sense of the unreality of
things, which was very painful to his strong, practical nature.

The day of the old man’s funeral came. Sam led up the horses, and waited
at the gate with them to receive his master’s parting instructions.
Gilbert remarked with surprise that his mother placed a folded paper
between the leaves of the Bible, tied the book carefully in a linen
handkerchief, and carried it with her. She was ready, but still
hesitated, looking around the kitchen with the manner of one who had
forgotten something. Then she returned to her own room, and after some
minutes, came forth, paler than before, but proud, composed, and firm.

“Gilbert,” she said, almost in a whisper, “I have tried you sorely,
and you have been wonderfully kind and patient. I have no right to ask
anything more; I _could_ tell you everything now, but this is not the
place nor the time I had thought of, for so many years past. Will you
let me finish the work in the way pointed out to me?”

“Mother,” he answered, “I cannot judge in this matter, knowing nothing.
I must be led by you; but, pray, do not let it be long?”

“It will not be long, my boy, or I wouldn’t ask it. I have one more duty
to perform, to myself, to you, and to the Lord, and it must be done
in the sight of men. Will you stand by me, not question my words, not
interfere with my actions, however strange they may seem, but simply
believe and obey?”

“I will, mother,” he said, “because you make me feel that I must.”

They mounted, and side by side rode up the glen. Mary Potter was silent;
now and then her lips moved, not, as once, in some desperate appeal of
the heart for pity and help, but as with a thanksgiving so profound that
it must needs be constantly renewed, to be credited.

After passing Carson’s, they took the shorter way across the fields, and
approached the Barton farm-house from below. A large concourse of people
was already assembled; and the rude black hearse, awaiting its burden
in the lane, spread the awe and the gloom of death over the scene. The
visitors were grouped around the doors, silent or speaking cautiously
in subdued tones; and all new-comers passed into the house to take their
last look at the face, of the dead.

The best room, in which the corpse lay, was scarcely used once in a
year, and many of the neighbors had never before had occasion to enter
it. The shabby, antiquated furniture looked cold and dreary from disuse,
and the smell of camphor in the air hardly kept down the musty, mouldy
odors which exhaled from the walls. The head and foot of the coffin
rested on two chairs placed in the centre of the room; and several
women, one of whom was Miss Betsy Lavender, conducted the visitors back
and forth, as they came. The members of the bereaved family were stiffly
ranged around the walls, the chief mourners consisting of the old man’s
eldest son, Elisha, with his wife and three married sons, Alfred, and
Ann.

Mary Potter took her son’s arm, and they passed through the throng at
the door, and entered the house. Gilbert silently returned the nods of
greeting; his mother neither met nor avoided the eyes of others. Her
step was firm, her head erect, her bearing full of pride and decision.
Miss Lavender, who met her with a questioning glance at the door,
walked beside her to the room of death, and then--what was remarkable in
her--became very pale.

They stood by the coffin. It was not a peaceful, solemn sight, that
yellow face, with its wrinkles and creases and dark blotches of
congealed blood, made more pronounced and ugly by the white shroud and
cravat, yet a tear rolled down Mary Potter’s cheek as she gazed upon
it. Other visitors came, and Gilbert gently drew her away, to leave the
room; but with a quick pressure upon his arm, as if to remind him of his
promise, she quietly took her seat near the mourners, and by a slight
motion indicated that he should seat himself at her side.

It was an unexpected and painful position; but her face, firm and calm,
shamed his own embarrassment. He saw, nevertheless, that the grief of
the mourners was not so profound as to suppress the surprise, if
not indignation, which the act called forth. The women had their
handkerchiefs to their eyes, and were weeping in a slow, silent,
mechanical way; the men had handkerchiefs in their hands, but their
faces were hard, apathetic, and constrained.

By-and-by the visitors ceased; the attending women exchanged glances
with each other and with the mourners, and one of the former stepped up
to Mary Potter and said gently,--

“It is only the family, now.”

This was according to custom, which required that just before the coffin
was closed, the members of the family of the deceased should be left
alone with him for a few minutes, and take their farewell of his face,
undisturbed by other eyes. Gilbert would have risen, but his mother,
with her hand on his arm, quietly replied,--

“We belong to the family.”

The woman withdrew, though with apparent doubt and hesitation, and they
were left alone with the mourners.

Gilbert could scarcely trust his senses. A swift suspicion of his
mother’s insanity crossed his mind; but when he looked around the room
and beheld Alfred Barton gazing upon her with a face more livid than
that of the dead man, this suspicion was followed by another, no less
overwhelming. For a few minutes everything seemed to whirl and
spin before his eyes; a light broke upon him, but so unexpected, so
incredible, that it came with the force of a blow.

The undertaker entered the room and screwed down the lid of the coffin;
the pall-bearers followed and carried it to the hearse. Then the
mourners rose and prepared to set forth, in the order of their relation
to the deceased. Elisha Barton led the way, with his wife; then Ann,
clad in her Sunday black, stepped forward to take Alfred’s arm.

“Ann,” said Mary Potter, in a low voice, which yet was heard by every
person in the room, “that is my place.”

She left Gilbert and moved to Alfred Barton’s side. Then, slightly
turning, she said,--“Gilbert, give your arm to your aunt.”

For a full minute no other word was said. Alfred Barton stood
motionless, with Mary Potter’s hand on his arm. A fiery flush succeeded
to his pallor; his jaw fell, and his eyes were fixed upon the floor. Ann
took Gilbert’s arm in a helpless, bewildered way.

“Alfred, what does all this mean?” Elisha finally asked.

He said nothing; Mary Potter answered for him,--“It is right that he
should walk with his wife rather than his sister.”

The horses and chairs were waiting in the lane, and helping neighbors
were at the door; but the solemn occasion was forgotten, in the shock
produced by this announcement. Gilbert started and almost reeled; Ann
clung to him with helpless terror; and only Elisha, whose face grew dark
and threatening, answered.

“Woman,” he said, “you are out of your senses! Leave us; you have no
business here!”

She met him with a proud, a serene and steady countenance. “Elisha,” she
answered, “we are here to bury your father and my father-in-law. Let
be until the grave has closed over him; then ask Alfred whether I could
dare to take my rightful place before to-day.”

The solemn decision of her face and voice struck him dumb. His wife
whispered a few words in his ear, and he turned away with her, to take
his place in the funeral procession.

It was Alfred Barton’s duty to follow, and if it was not grief which
impelled him to bury his face in his handkerchief as they issued from
the door, it was a torture keener than was ever mingled with grief,--the
torture of a mean nature, pilloried in its meanest aspect for the
public gaze. Mary, (we must not call her Potter, and cannot yet call her
Barton,) rather led him than was led by him, and lifted her face to the
eyes of men. The shame which she might have felt, as his wife, was lost
in the one overpowering sense of the justification for which she had so
long waited and suffered.

When the pair appeared in the yard, and Gilbert followed with Miss
Ann Barton on his arm, most of the funeral guests looked on in stupid
wonder, unable to conceive the reason of the two thus appearing among
the mourners. But when they had mounted and were moving off, a rumor
of the startling truth ran from lip to lip. The proper order of the
procession was forgotten; some untied their horses in haste and pushed
forward to convince themselves of the astonishing fact; others gathered
into groups and discussed it earnestly. Some had suspected a relation of
the kind, all along, so they said; others scouted at the story, and were
ready with explanations of their own. But not a soul had another thought
to spare for Old-man Barton that day.

Dr. Deane and Martha heard what had happened as they were mounting
their horses. When they took their places in the line, the singular
companionship, behind the hearse, was plainly visible. Neither spoke
a word, but Martha felt that her heart was beating fast, and that her
thoughts were unsteady.

Presently Miss Lavender rode up and took her place at her side. Tears
were streaming from her eyes, and she was using her handkerchief freely.
It was sometime before she could command her feelings enough to say, in
a husky whisper,--

“I never thought to ha’ had a hand in such wonderful doin’s, and how I
held up through it, I can’t tell. Glory to the Lord, the end has come;
but, no--not yet--not quite; only enough for one day, Martha; isn’t it?”

“Betsy,” said Martha, “please ride a little closer, and explain to me
how it came about. Give me one or two points for my mind to rest on, for
I don’t seem to believe even what I see.”

“What I see. No wonder, who could? Well, it’s enough that Mary was
married to Alf. Barton a matter o’ twenty-six year ago, and that he
swore her to keep it secret till th’ old man died, and he’s been her
husband all this while, and knowed it!”

“Father!” Martha exclaimed in a low, solemn voice, turning to Dr. Deane,
“think, now, what it was thee would have had me do!”

The Doctor was already aware of his terrible mistake. “Thee was led,
child,” he answered, “thee was led! It was a merciful Providence.”

“Then might thee not also admit that I have been led in that other
respect, which has been so great a trial to thee?”

He made no reply.

The road to Old Kennett never seemed so long; never was a corpse so
impatiently followed. A sense of decency restrained those who were not
relatives from pushing in advance of those who were; yet it was, very
tantalizing to look upon the backs of Alfred Barton and Mary, Gilbert
and Ann, when their faces must be such a sight to see!

These four, however, rode in silence. Each, it may be guessed, was
sufficiently occupied with his or her own sensations,--except, perhaps,
Ann Barton, who had been thrown so violently out of her quiet, passive
round of life by her father’s death, that she was incapable of any great
surprise. Her thoughts were more occupied with the funeral-dinner, yet
to come, than with the relationship of the young man at her side.

Gilbert slowly admitted the fact into his mind, but he was so unprepared
for it by anything in his mother’s life or his own intercourse with
Alfred Barton, that he was lost in a maze of baffled conjectures. While
this confusion lasted, he scarcely thought of his restoration to honor,
or the breaking down of that fatal barrier between him and Martha Deane.
His first sensation was one of humiliation and disappointment. How often
had he been disgusted with Alfred Barton’s meanness and swagger!
How much superior, in many of the qualities of manhood, was even the
highwayman, whose paternity he had so feared! As he looked at the broad,
heavy form before him, in which even the lines of the back expressed
cowardice and abject shame, he almost doubted whether his former
disgrace was not preferable to his present claim to respect.

Then his eyes turned to his mother’s figure, and a sweet, proud joy
swept away the previous emotion. Whatever the acknowledged relationship
might be to him, to her it was honor--yea, more than honor; for by so
much and so cruelly as she had fallen below the rights of her pure name
as a woman, the higher would she now be set, not only in respect, but
in the reverence earned by her saintly patience and self-denial. The
wonderful transformation of her face showed him what this day was to
her life, and he resolved that no disappointment of his own should come
between her and her triumph.

To Gilbert the way was not too long, nor the progress too slow. It gave
him time to grow familiar, not only with the fact, but with his duty. He
forcibly postponed his wandering conjectures, and compelled his mind to
dwell upon that which lay immediately before him.

It was nearly noon before the hearse reached Old Kennett meeting-house.
The people of the neighborhood, who had collected to await its arrival,
came forward and assisted the mourners to alight. Alfred Barton
mechanically took his place beside his wife, but again buried his face
in his handkerchief. As the wondering, impatient crowd gathered around,
Gilbert felt that all was known, and that all eyes were fixed upon
himself and his mother, and his face reflected her own firmness and
strength. From neither could the spectators guess what might be passing
in their hearts. They were both paler than usual, and their resemblance
to each other became very striking. Gilbert, in fact, seemed to have
nothing of his father except the peculiar turn of his shoulders and the
strong build of his chest.

They walked over the grassy, briery, unmarked mounds of old graves
to the spot where a pile of yellow earth denoted Old Barton’s
resting-place. When the coffin had been lowered, his children, in
accordance with custom, drew near, one after the other, to bend over and
look into the narrow pit. Gilbert led up his trembling aunt, who
might have fallen in, had he not carefully supported her. As he was
withdrawing, his eyes suddenly encountered those of Martha Deane, who
was standing opposite, in the circle of hushed spectators. In spite of
himself a light color shot into his face, and his lips trembled. The
eager gossips, who had not missed even the wink of an eyelid, saw this
fleeting touch of emotion, and whence it came. Thenceforth Martha shared
their inspection; but from the sweet gravity of her face, the untroubled
calm of her eyes, they learned nothing more.

When the grave had been filled, and the yellow mound ridged and patted
with the spade, the family returned to the grassy space in front of the
meeting-house, and now their more familiar acquaintances, and many who
were not, gathered around to greet them and offer words of condolence.
An overpowering feeling of curiosity was visible upon every face; those
who did not venture to use their tongues, used their eyes the more.

Alfred Barton was forced to remove the handkerchief from his face,
and its haggard wretchedness (which no one attributed to grief for his
father’s death), could no longer be hidden. He appeared to have
suddenly become an old man, with deeper wrinkles, slacker muscles, and
a helpless, tottering air of weakness. The corners of his mouth drooped,
hollowing his cheeks, and his eyes seemed unable to bear up the weight
of the lids; they darted rapidly from side to side, or sought the
ground, not daring to encounter, for more than an instant, those of
others.

There was no very delicate sense of propriety among the people, and very
soon an inquisitive old Quaker remarked,--

“Why, Mary, is this true that I hear? Are you two man and wife?”

“We are,” she said.

“Bless us! how did it happen?”

The bystanders became still as death, and all ears were stretched to
catch the answer. But she, with proud, impenetrable calmness, replied,--

“It will be made known.”

And with these words the people were forced, that day to be satisfied.



CHAPTER XXXI.

THE WILL.


During the homeward journey from the grave, Gilbert and his mother were
still the central figures of interest. That the members of the Barton
family were annoyed and humiliated, was evident to all eyes; but it was
a pitiful, undignified position, which drew no sympathy towards them,
while the proud, composed gravity of the former commanded respect. The
young men and women, especially, were unanimously of the opinion that
Gilbert had conducted himself like a man. They were disappointed, it was
true, that he and Martha Deane had not met, in the sight of all. It was
impossible to guess whether she had been already aware of the secret,
or how the knowledge of it would affect their romantic relation to each
other.

Could the hearts of the lovers have been laid bare, the people would
have seen that never had each felt such need of the other,--never had
they been possessed with such restless yearning. To the very last,
Gilbert’s eyes wandered from time to time towards the slender figure in
the cavalcade before him, hoping for the chance of a word or look; but
Martha’s finer instinct told her that she must yet hold herself aloof.
She appreciated the solemnity of the revelation, saw that much was
yet unexplained, and could have guessed, even without Miss Lavender’s
mysterious hints, that the day would bring forth other and more
important disclosures.

As the procession drew nearer Kennett Square, the curiosity of the
funeral guests, baulked and yet constantly stimulated, began to grow
disorderly. Sally Fairthorn was in such a flutter that she scarcely knew
what she said or did; Mark’s authority alone prevented her from dashing
up to Gilbert, regardless of appearances. The old men, especially those
in plain coats and broad-brimmed hats, took every opportunity to press
near the mourners; and but for Miss Betsy Lavender, who hovered around
the latter like a watchful dragon, both Gilbert and his mother would
have been seriously annoyed. Finally the gate at the lane-end closed
upon them, and the discomfited public rode on to the village, tormented
by keen envy of the few who had been bidden to the funeral-dinner.

When Mary alighted from her horse, the old lawyer approached her.

“My name is Stacy, Mrs. Barton,” he said, “and Miss Lavender will have
told you who I am. Will you let me have a word with you in private?”

She slightly started at the name he had given her; it was the first
symptom of agitation she had exhibited. He took her aside, and began
talking earnestly in a low tone. Elisha Barton looked on with an amazed,
troubled air, and presently turned to his brother.

“Alfred,” he said, “it is quite time all this was explained.”

But Miss Lavender interfered.

“It’s your right, Mr. Elisha, no denyin’ that, and the right of all
the fam’ly; so we’ve agreed to have it done afore all together, in the
lawful way, Mr. Stacy bein’ a lawyer; but dinner first, if you please,
for eatin’ ‘s good both for grief and cur’osity, and it’s hard tellin’
which is uppermost in this case. Gilbert, come here!”

He was standing alone, beside the paling. He obeyed her call.

“Gilbert, shake hands with your uncle and aunt Mr. Elisha, this is your
nephew, Gilbert Barton, Mr. Alfred’s son.”

They looked at each other for a moment. There was that in Gilbert’s face
which enforced respect. Contrasted with his father, who stood on one
side, darting stealthy glances at the group from the corners of his
eyes, his bearing was doubly brave and noble. He offered his hand in
silence, and both Elisha Barton and his wife felt themselves compelled
to take it. Then the three sons, who knew the name of Gilbert Potter,
and were more astonished than shocked at the new relationship, came up
and greeted their cousin in a grave but not unfriendly way.

“That’s right!” exclaimed Miss Lavender. “And now come in to dinner, all
o’ ye! I gev orders to have the meats dished as soon as the first horse
was seen over the rise o’ the hill, and it’ll all be smokin’ on the
table.”

Though the meal was such as no one had ever before seen in the Barton
farm-house, it was enjoyed by very few of the company. The sense of
something to come after it made them silent and uncomfortable. Mr.
Stacy, Miss Lavender, and the sons of Elisha Barton, with their wives,
carried on a scattering, forced conversation, and there was a general
feeling of relief when the pies, marmalade, and cheese had been
consumed, and the knives and forks laid crosswise over the plates.

When they arose from the table, Mr. Stacy led the way into the parlor. A
fire, in the mean time, had been made in the chill, open fireplace, but
it scarcely relieved the dreary, frosty aspect of the apartment. The
presence of the corpse seemed to linger there, attaching itself with
ghastly distinctness to the chair and hickory staff in a corner.

The few dinner-guests who were not relatives understood that this
meeting excluded them, and Elisha Barton was therefore surprised to
notice, after they had taken their seats, that Miss Lavender was one of
the company.

“I thought,” he said, with a significant look, “that it was to be the
family only.”

“Miss Lavender is one of the witnesses to the will,” Mr. Stacy answered,
“and her presence is necessary, moreover, as an important testimony in
regard to some of its provisions.”

Alfred Barton and Gilbert both started at these words, but from very
different feelings. The former, released from public scrutiny, already
experienced a comparative degree of comfort, and held up his head with
an air of courage; yet now the lawyer’s announcement threw him into an
agitation which it was not possible to conceal. Miss Lavender looked
around the circle, coolly nodded her head to Elisha Barton, and said
nothing.

Mr. Stacy arose, unlocked a small niche let into the wall of the house,
and produced the heavy oaken casket in which the old man kept the
documents relating to his property. This he placed upon a small table
beside his chair, opened it, and took out the topmost paper. He was
completely master of the situation, and the deliberation with which he
surveyed the circle of excited faces around him seemed to indicate that
he enjoyed the fact.

“The last will and testament of Abiah Barton, made the day before his
death,” he said, “revokes all former wills, which were destroyed by his
order, in the presence of myself and Miss Elizabeth Lavender.”

All eyes were turned upon the spinster, who again nodded, with a face of
preternatural solemnity.

“In order that you, his children and grandchildren,” Mr. Stacy
continued, “may rightly understand the deceased’s intention in making
this last will, when the time comes for me to read it, I must first
inform you that he was acquainted with the fact of his son Alfred’s
marriage with Mary Potter.”

Alfred Barton half sprang from his seat, and then fell back with the
same startled, livid face, which Gilbert already knew. The others held
their breath in suspense,--except Mary, who sat near the lawyer, firm,
cold, and unmoved.

“The marriage of Alfred Barton and Mary Potter must therefore be
established, to _your_ satisfaction,” Mr. Stacy resumed, turning towards
Elisha. “Alfred Barton, I ask you to declare whether this woman is your
lawfully wedded wife?”

A sound almost like a groan came from his throat, but it formed the
syllable,--“Yes.”

“Further, I ask you to declare whether Gilbert Barton, who has until
this day borne his mother’s name of Potter, is your lawfully begotten
son?”

“Yes.”

“To complete the evidence,” said the lawyer, “Mary Barton, give me the
paper in your hands.”

She untied the handkerchief, opened the Bible, and handed Mr. Stacy the
slip of paper which Gilbert had seen her place between the leaves that
morning. The lawyer gave it to Elisha Barton, with the request that he
would read it aloud.

It was the certificate of a magistrate at Burlington, in the Colony of
New Jersey, setting forth that he had united in wedlock Alfred Barton
and Mary Potter. The date was in the month of June, 1771.

“This paper,” said Elisha, when he had finished reading, “appears to be
genuine. The evidence must have been satisfactory to you, Mr. Stacy, and
to my father, since it appears to have been the cause of his making a
new will; but as this new will probably concerns me and my children, I
demand to know why; if the marriage was legal, it has been kept secret
so long? The fact of the marriage does not explain what has happened
to-day.”

Mr. Stacy turned towards Gilbert’s mother, and made a sign.

“Shall I explain it in my way, Alfred?” she asked, “or will you, in
yours?”

“There’s but one story,” he answered, “and I guess it falls to your
place to tell it.”

“It does!” she exclaimed. “You, Elisha and Ann, and you, Gilbert, my
child, take notice that every word of what I shall say is the plain
God’s truth. Twenty-seven years ago, when I was a young woman of twenty,
I came to this farm to help Ann with the house-work. You remember it,
Ann; it was just after your mother’s death. I was poor; I had neither
father nor mother, but I was as proud as the proudest, and the people
called me good-looking. You were vexed with me, Ann, because the young
men came now and then, of a Sunday afternoon; but I put up with your
hard words. You did not know that I understood what Alfred’s eyes meant
when he looked at me; I put up with you because I believed I could be
mistress of the house, in your place. You have had your revenge of me
since, if you felt the want of it--so let that rest!”

She paused. Ann, with her handkerchief to her eyes, sobbed out,--“Mary,
I always liked you better ‘n you thought.”

“I can believe it,” she continued, “for I have been forced to look into
my heart and learn how vain and mistaken I then was. But I liked Alfred,
in those days; he was a gay young man, and accounted good-looking,
and there were merry times just before the war, and he used to dress
bravely, and was talked about as likely to marry this girl or that. My
head was full of him, and I believed my heart was. I let him see from
the first that it must be honest love between us, or not at all; and the
more I held back, the more eager was he, till others began to notice,
and the matter was brought to his father’s ears.”

“I remember that!” cried Elisha, suddenly.

“Yet it was kept close,” she resumed. “Alfred told me that the old man
had threatened to cut him out of his will if he should marry me, and I
saw that I must leave the farm; but I gave out that I was tired of the
country, and wanted to find service in Philadelphia. I believed that
Alfred would follow me in a week or two, and he did. He brought news I
didn’t expect, and it turned my head upside down. His father had had a
paralytic stroke, and nobody believed he’d live more than a few weeks.
It was in the beginning of June, and the doctors said he couldn’t get
over the hot weather. Alfred said to me, Why wait?--you’ll be taking up
with some city fellow, and I want you to be my wife at once. On my side
I thought, Let him be made rich and free by his father’s death, and
wives will be thrown in his way; he’ll lose his liking for me, by little
and little, and somebody else will be mistress of the farm. So I agreed,
and we went to Burlington together, as being more out of the way and
easier to be kept secret; but just before we came to the Squire’s, he
seemed to grow fearsome all at once, lest it should be found out, and
he bought a Bible and swore me by my soul’s salvation never to say I was
married to him until after his father died. Here’s the Bible, Alfred!
Do you remember it? Here, here’s the place where I kissed it when I took
the oath!”

She rose from her seat, and held it towards him. No one could doubt the
solemn truth of her words. He nodded his head mechanically, unable
to speak. Still standing, she turned towards Elisha Barton, and
exclaimed,--

“_He_ took the same oath, but what did it mean to him! What does it mean
to a man? I was young and vain; I thought only of holding fast to my
good luck! I never thought of--of”--(here her faced flushed, and her
voice began to tremble)--“of _you_, Gilbert! I fed my pride by hoping
for a man’s death, and never dreamed I was bringing a curse on a life
that was yet to come! Perhaps he didn’t then, either; the Lord pardon me
if I judge him too hard. What I charge him with, is that he held me
to my oath, when--when the fall went by and the winter, and his father
lived, and his son was to be born! It was always the same,--Wait a
little, a month or so, maybe; the old man couldn’t live, and it was the
difference between riches and poverty for us. Then I begged for poverty
and my good name, and after that he kept away from me. Before Gilbert
was born, I hoped I might die in giving him life; then I felt that I
must live for his sake. I saw my sin, and what punishment the Lord
had measured out to me, and that I must earn His forgiveness; and He
mercifully hid from my sight the long path that leads to this day; for
if the release hadn’t seemed so near, I never could have borne to wait!”

All the past agony of her life seemed to discharge itself in these
words. They saw what the woman had suffered, what wonderful virtues of
patience and faith had been developed from the vice of her pride, and
there was no heart in the company so stubborn as to refuse her honor.
Gilbert’s eyes were fixed on her face with an absorbing expression
of reverence; he neither knew nor heeded that there were tears on his
cheeks. The women wept in genuine emotion, and even the old lawyer was
obliged to wipe his dimmed spectacles.

Elisha rose, and approaching Alfred, asked, in a voice which he strove
to make steady,--“Is all this true?”

Alfred sank his head; his reply was barely audible,--

“She has said no more than the truth.”

“Then,” said Elisha, taking her hand, “I accept you, Mary Barton, and
acknowledge your place in our family.”

Elisha’s wife followed, and embraced her with many tears, and lastly
Ann, who hung totteringly upon her shoulder as she cried,--

“Indeed, Mary, indeed I always liked you; I never wished you any harm!”

Thus encouraged, Alfred Barton made a powerful effort. There seemed but
one course for him to take; it was a hard one, but he took it.

“Mary,” he said, “you have full right and justice on your side. I’ve
acted meanly towards you--meaner, I’m afraid, than any man before ever
acted towards his wife. Not only to you, but to Gilbert; but I always
meant to do my duty in the end. I waited from month to month, and year
to year, as you did; and then things got set in their way, and it was
harder and harder to let out the truth. I comforted myself--that wasn’t
right, either, I know,--but I comforted myself with the thought that
you were doing well; I never lost sight of you, and I’ve been proud of
Gilbert, though I didn’t dare show it, and always wanted to lend him a
helping hand, if he’d let me.”

She drew herself up and faced him with flashing eyes.

“How did you mean to do your duty by me? How did you mean to lend
Gilbert a helping hand? Was it by trying to take a second wife during my
lifetime, and that wife the girl whom Gilbert loves?”

Her questions cut to the quick, and the shallow protestations he would
have set up were stripped off in a moment, leaving bare every cowardly
shift of his life. Nothing was left but the amplest confession.

“You won’t believe me, Mary,” he stammered, feebly weeping with pity of
his own miserable plight, “and I can’t ask to--but it’s the truth! Give
me your Bible! I’ll kiss the place you kissed, and swear before God that
I never meant to marry Martha Deane! I let the old man think so, because
he hinted it’d make a difference in his will, and he drove me--he and
Dr. Deane together--to speak to her. I was a coward and a fool that I
let myself be driven that far, but I couldn’t and wouldn’t have married
her!”

“The whole snarl’s comin’ undone,” interrupted Miss Lavender. “I see
the end on’t. Do you mind that day, Alf. Barton, when I come upon you
suddent, settin’ on the log and sayin’ ‘I can’t see the way,’--the
very day, I’ll be snaked, that you spoke to the Doctor about Martha
Deane!--and then _you_ so mortal glad that she wouldn’t have you! You
_have_ acted meaner ‘n dirt; I don’t excuse him, Mary; but never mind,
justice is justice, and he’s told the truth this once’t.”

“Sit down, friends!” said Mr. Stacy. “Before the will is read, I want
Miss Lavender to relate how it was that Abiah Barton and myself became
acquainted with the fact of the marriage.”

The reading of the will had been almost forgotten in the powerful
interest excited by Mary Barton’s narrative. The curiosity to know its
contents instantly revived, but was still subordinate to that which the
lawyer’s statement occasioned. The whole story was so singular, that it
seemed as yet but half explained.

“Well, to begin at the beginnin’,” said Miss Lavender, “it all come
o’ my wishin’ to help two true-lovyers, and maybe you’ll think I’m as
foolish as I’m old, but never mind, I’ll allow that; and I saw that
nothin’ could be done till Gilbert got his lawful name, and how to get
it was the trouble, bein’ as Mary was swore to keep secret. The long and
the short of it is, I tried to worm it out o’ her, but no use; she set
her teeth as tight as sin, and all I did learn was, that when she was
in Phildelphy--I knowed Gilbert was born there, but didn’t let on--she
lived at Treadwells, in Fourth Street Then turnin’ over everything in
my mind, I suspicioned that she must be waitin’ for somebody to die, and
that’s what held her bound; it seemed to me I must guess right away,
but I couldn’t and couldn’t, and so goin’ up the hill, nigh puzzled
to death, Gilbert ploughin’ away from me, bendin’ his head for’ard a
little--there! turn round, Gilbert! turn round, Alf. Barton I Look at
them two sets o’ shoulders!”

Miss Lavender’s words were scarcely comprehensible, but all saw the
resemblance between father and son, in the outline of the shoulders, and
managed to guess her meaning.

“Well,” she continued, “it struck me then and there, like a streak o’
lightnin’; I screeched and tumbled like a shot hawk, and so betwixt the
saddle and the ground, as the sayin’ is, it come to me--not mercy, but
knowledge, all the same, you know what I mean; and I saw them was Alf.
Barton’s shoulders, and I remembered the old man was struck with palsy
the year afore Gilbert was born, and I dunno how many other things come
to me all of a heap; and now you know, Gilbert, what made me holler. I
borrowed the loan o’ his bay horse and put off for Phildelphy the very
next day, and a mortal job it was; what with bar’ls and boxes pitched
hither and yon, and people laughin’ at y’r odd looks,--don’t talk o’
Phildelphy manners to me, for I’ve had enough of ‘em!--and old Treadwell
dead when I did find him, and the daughter married to Greenfield in the
brass and tin-ware business, it’s a mercy I ever found out anything.”

“Come to the point, Betsy,” said Elisha, impatiently.

“The point, Betsy. The p’int ‘s this: I made out from the Greenfield
woman that the man who used to come to see Mary Potter was the perfect
pictur’ o’ young Alf. Barton; then to where she went next, away down to
the t’other end o’ Third Street, boardin’, he payin’ the board till just
afore Gilbert was born--and that’s enough, thinks I, let me get out o’
this rackety place. So home I posted, but not all the way, for no use
to tell Mary Potter, and why not go right to Old-man Barton, and let him
know who his daughter-in-law and son is, and see what’ll come of it? Th’
old man, you must know, always could abide me better ‘n most women, and
I wasn’t a bit afeard of him, not lookin’ for legacies, and wouldn’t
have ‘em at any such price; but never mind. I hid my horse in the woods
and sneaked into the house across the fields, the back way, and good
luck that nobody was at home but Ann, here; and so I up and told the old
man the whole story.”

“The devil!” Alfred Barton could not help exclaiming, as he recalled his
father’s singular manner on the evening of the day in question.

“Devil!” Miss Lavender repeated. “More like an angel put it into my
head. But I see Mr. Elisha’s fidgetty, so I’ll make short work o’ the
rest. He curst and swore awful, callin’ Mr. Alfred a mean pup, and
I dunno what all, but he hadn’t so much to say ag’in Mary Potter; he
allowed she was a smart lass, and he’d heerd o’ Gilbert’s doin’s, and
the lad had grit in him. ‘Then,’ says I, ‘here’s a mighty wrong been
done, and it’s for you to set it right afore you die, and if you manage
as I tell you, you can be even with Mr. Alfred;’ and he perks up his
head and asks how, and says I ‘This way’--but what I said’ll be made
manifest by Mr. Stacy, without my jumpin’ ahead o’ the proper time. The
end of it was, he wound up by sayin’,--‘Gad, if Stacy was only here!’
‘I’ll bring him!’ says I, and it was fixed betwixt and between us two,
Ann knowin’ nothin’ o’ the matter; and off I trapesed back to Chester,
and brung Mr. Stacy, and if that good-for-nothin’ Jake Fairthorn hadn’t
ha’ seen me”--

“That will do, Miss Lavender,” said Mr. Stacy, interrupting her. “I have
only to add that Abiah Barton was so well convinced of the truth of the
marriage, that his new will only requires the proof which has to-day
been furnished, in order to express his intentions fully and completely.
It was his wish that I should visit Mary Barton on the very morning
afterwards; but his sudden death prevented it, and Miss Lavender
ascertained, the same evening, that Mary, in view of the neglect and
disgrace which she had suffered, demanded to take her justification into
her own hands. My opinion coincided with that of Miss Lavender, that she
alone had the right to decide in the matter, and that we must give no
explanation until she had asserted, in her own way, her release from a
most shameful and cruel bond.”

It was a proud moment of Miss Lavender’s life, when, in addition to her
services, the full extent of which would presently be known, a lawyer
of Mr. Stacy’s reputation so respectfully acknowledged the wisdom of her
judgment.

“If further information upon any point is required,” observed the
lawyer, “it may be asked for now; otherwise, I will proceed to the
reading of the will.”

“Was--was my father of sound mind,--that is, competent to dispose of his
property?” asked Elisha Barton, with a little hesitation.

“I hope the question will not be raised,” said Mr. Stacy, gravely;
“but if it is I must testify that he was in as full possession of his
faculties as at any time since his first attack, twenty-six years ago.”

He then read the will, amid the breathless silence of the company. The
old man first devised to his elder son, Elisha Barton, the sum of twenty
thousand dollars, investments secured by mortgages on real estate; an
equal amount to his daughter-in-law, Mary, provided she was able to
furnish legal proof of her marriage to his son, Alfred Barton; five
thousand dollars each to his four grand-children, the three sons of
Elisha, and Gilbert Barton; ten thousand dollars to his daughter Ann;
and to his son Alfred the occupancy and use of the farm during his life,
the property, at his death, to pass into the hands of Gilbert Barton.
There was also a small bequest to Giles, and the reversions of the
estate were to be divided equally among all the heirs. The witnesses to
the will were James Stacy and Elizabeth Lavender.

Gilbert and his mother now recognized, for the first time, what they
owed to the latter. A sense of propriety kept them silent; the fortune
which had thus unexpectedly fallen into their hands was the least and
poorest part of their justification. Miss Lavender, also, was held to
silence, but it went hard with her. The reading of the will gave her
such an exquisite sense of enjoyment that she felt quite choked in the
hush which followed it.

“As the marriage is now proven,” Mr. Stacy said, folding up the paper,
“there is nothing to prevent the will from being carried into effect.”

“No, I suppose not,” said Elisha; “it is as fair as could be expected.”

“Mother, what do you say?” asked Gilbert, suddenly.

“Your grandfather wanted to do me justice, my boy,” said she. “Twenty
thousand dollars will not pay me for twenty-five years of shame; no
money could; but it was the only payment he had to offer. I accept
this as I accepted my trials. The Lord sees fit to make my worldly
path smooth to my feet, and I have learned neither to reject mercy nor
wrath.”

She was not elated; she would not, on that solemn day, even express
gratification in the legacy, for her son’s sake. Though her exalted mood
was but dimly understood by the others, they felt its influence. If
any thought of disputing the will, on the ground of his father’s
incompetency, had ever entered Elisha Barton’s mind, he did not dare,
then or afterwards, to express it.

The day was drawing to a close, and Elisha Barton, with his sons, who
lived in the adjoining township of Pennsbury, made preparations
to leave. They promised soon to visit Gilbert and his mother. Miss
Lavender, taking Gilbert aside, announced that she was going to return
to Dr. Deane’s.

“I s’pose I may tell her,” she said, trying to hide her feelings under
a veil of clumsy irony, “that it’s all up betwixt and between you, now
you’re a rich man; and of course as she wouldn’t have the father, she
can’t think o’ takin’ the son.”

“Betsy,” he whispered, “tell her that I never yet needed her love so
much as now, and that I shall come to her tomorrow.”

“Well, you know the door stands open, even accordin’ to the Doctor’s
words.”

As Gilbert went forth to look after the horses, Alfred Barton followed
him. The two had not spoken directly to each other during the whole day.

“Gilbert,” said the father, putting his hand on the son’s shoulder, “you
know, now, why it always cut me, to have you think ill of me. I deserve
it, for I’ve been no father to you; and after what you’ve heard to-day,
I may never have a chance to be one. But if you _could_ give me a
chance--if you could”--

Here his voice seemed to fail. Gilbert quietly withdrew his shoulder
from the hand, hesitated a moment, and then said,--“Don’t ask me
anything now, if you please. I can only think of my mother to-day.”

Alfred Barton walked to the garden-fence, leaned his arms upon it, and
his head upon them. He was still leaning there, when mother and son rode
by in the twilight, on their way home.



CHAPTER XXXII.

THE LOVERS.


Both mother and son made the homeward ride in silence. A wide space, a
deep gulf of time, separated them from the morning. The events of
the day had been so startling, so pregnant with compressed fate, the
emotions they had undergone had been so profound, so mixed of the
keenest elements of wonder, pain, and pride, that a feeling of
exhaustion succeeded. The old basis of their lives seemed to have
shifted, and the new foundations were not yet firm under their feet.

Yet, as they sat together before the hearth-fire that evening, and the
stern, proud calm of Gilbert’s face slowly melted into a gentler and
tenderer expression, his mother was moved to speak.

“This has been my day,” she said; “it was appointed and set apart for me
from the first; it belonged to me, and I have used it, in my right, from
sun to sun. But I feel now, that it was not my own strength alone that
held me up. I am weak and weary, and it almost seems that I fail in
thanksgiving. Is it, Gilbert, because you do not rejoice as I had hoped
you would?”

“Mother,” he answered, “whatever may happen in my life, I can never feel
so proud of myself, as I felt to-day, to be your son. I do rejoice for
your sake, as I shall for my own, no doubt, when I get better used to
the truth. You could not expect me, at once, to be satisfied with a
father who has not only acted so cruelly towards you, but whom I have
suspected of being my own rival and enemy. I don’t think I shall ever
like the new name as well as the old, but it is enough for me that the
name brings honor and independence to you!”

“Perhaps I ought to ha’ told you this morning, Gilbert I thought only
of the justification, not of the trial; and it seemed easier to speak in
actions, to you and to all men at once, as I did, than to tell the story
quietly to you alone. I feared it might take away my strength, if I
didn’t follow, step by step, the course marked out for me.”

“You were right, mother!” he exclaimed. “What trial had I, compared with
yours? What tale had I to tell--what pain to feel, except that if I
had not been born, you would have been saved twenty-five years of
suffering!”

“No, Gilbert!--never say, never think that! I see already the suffering
and the sorrow dying away as if they’d never been, and you left to me
for the rest of life the Lord grants; to me a son has been more than a
husband!”

“Then,” he asked in an anxious, hesitating tone, “would you consider
that I was not quite so much a son--that any part of my duty to you was
lost--if I wished to bring you a daughter, also?”.

“I know what you mean, Gilbert Betsy Lavender has told me all. I am glad
you spoke of it, this day; it will put the right feeling of thanksgiving
into my heart and yours. Martha Deane never stood between us, my boy; it
was I that stood between you and her!”

“Mother!” he cried, a joyous light shining from his face, “you love her?
You are willing that she should be my wife?”

“Ay, Gilbert; willing, and thankful, and proud.”

“But the very name of her struck you down! You fell into a deadly faint
when I told you I had spoken my mind to her!”

“I see, my boy,” she said; “I see now why you never mentioned her name,
from that time. It was not Martha Deane, but the name of the one
you thought wanted to win her away from you,--your father’s name,
Gilbert,--that seemed to put a stop to my life. The last trial was the
hardest of all, but don’t you see it was only the bit of darkness that
comes before the daylight?”

While this new happiness brought the coveted sense of thanksgiving to
mother and son, and spread an unexpected warmth and peace over the
close of the fateful day, there was the liveliest excitement in Kennett
Square, over Miss Lavender’s intelligence. That lady had been waylaid by
a dozen impatient questioners before she could reach the shelter of Dr.
Deane’s roof; and could only purchase release by a hurried statement
of the main facts, in which Alfred Barton’s cruelty, and his wife’s
wonderful fidelity to her oath, and the justice done to her and Gilbert
by the old man’s will, were set forth with an energy that multiplied
itself as the gossip spread.

In the adjoining townships, it was reported and believed, the very next
day, that Alfred Barton had tried to murder his wife and poison his
father--that Mary had saved the latter, and inherited, as her reward,
the entire property.

Once safely housed, Miss Lavender enjoyed another triumph. She related
the whole story, in every particular, to Martha Deane, in the Doctor’s
presence, taking especial care not to omit Alfred’s words in relation to
his enforced wooing.

“And there’s one thing I mustn’t forgit, Martha,” she declared, at the
close of her narrative. “Gilbert sends word to you that he needs your
true-love more ‘n ever, and he’s comin’ up to see you to-morrow; and
says I to him, The door’s open, even accordin’ to the Doctor’s words;
and so it is, for he’s got his true name, and free to come. You’re a man
o’ your word, Doctor, and nothin’ ‘s been said or done, thank Goodness,
that can’t be easy mended!”

What impression this announcement made upon Dr. Deane could not be
guessed by either of the women. He rose, went to the window, looked
into the night for a long time without saying a word, and finally betook
himself to his bed.

The next morning, although there were no dangerous cases on his hands,
he rode away, remarking that he should not be home again until the
evening. Martha knew what this meant, and also what Miss Lavender meant
in hurrying down to Fairthorn’s, soon after the Doctor’s departure.
She became restless with tender expectation; her cheeks burned, and her
fingers trembled so that she was forced to lay aside her needle-work. It
seemed very long since she had even seen Gilbert; it was a long time
(in the calendar of lovers) since the two had spoken to each other. She
tried to compare the man he had been with the man he now was,--Gilbert
poor, disgraced and in trouble, with Gilbert rich and honorably born;
and it almost seemed as if the latter had impoverished her heart by
taking from it the need of that faithful, passionate sympathy which she
had bestowed upon the former.

The long hour of waiting came to an end. Roger was once more tethered
at the gate, and Gilbert was in the room. It was not danger, this time,
beyond the brink of which they met, but rather a sudden visitation of
security; yet both were deeply and powerfully agitated. Martha was the
first to recover her composure. Withdrawing herself from Gilbert’s arms,
she said,--

“It was not right that the tests should be all on my side. Now it is my
turn to try you, Gilbert!”

Even her arch, happy smile did not enlighten him. “How, Martha?” he
asked.

“Since you don’t know, you are already tested. But how grave you look!
Have I not yet learned all of this wonderful, wonderful history? Did
Betsy Lavender keep something back?”

“Martha!” he cried, “you shame me out of the words I had meant to say.
But they were doubts of my own position, not of you. Is my new name
better or worse in your ears, than my old one?”

“To me you are only Gilbert,” she answered, “as I am Martha to you.
What does it matter whether we write Potter or Barton? Either is good in
itself, and so would any other name be; but Barton means something,
as the world goes, and therefore we will take it. Gilbert, I have put
myself in your place, since I learned the whole truth. I guessed you
would come to me with a strange, uncertain feeling,--not a doubt, but
rather a wonder; and I endeavored to make your new circumstances clear
to my mind. Our duty to your mother is plain; she is a woman beside
whom all other women we know seem weak and insignificant. It is not that
which troubled you, I am sure, when you thought of me. Let me say,
then, that so far as our relation to your father is concerned, I will be
guided entirely by your wishes.”

“Martha,” he said, “that _is_ my trouble,--or, rather, my
disappointment,--that with my true name I must bring to you and fasten
upon you the whole mean and shameful story! One parent must always be
honored at the expense of the other, and my name still belongs to the
one that is disgraced.”

“I foresaw your feeling, Gilbert. You were on the point of making
another test for me; that is not fair. The truth has come too
suddenly,--the waters of your life have been stirred too deeply; you
must wait until they clear. Leave that to Alfred Barton and your mother.
To me, I confess, he seems very weak rather than very bad. I can now
understand the pains which his addresses to me must have cost him. If
I ever saw fear on a man’s face, it was on his when he thought I might
take him at his word. But, to a man like you, a mean nature is no better
than a bad one. Perhaps I feel your disappointment as deeply as you can;
yet it is our duty to keep this feeling to ourselves. For your mother’s
sake, Gilbert; you must not let the value of her justification be
lessened in her eyes. She deserves all the happiness you and I can give
her, and if she is willing to receive me, some day, as a daughter”--

Gilbert interrupted her words by clasping her in his arms. “Martha!” he
exclaimed, “your heart points out the true way because it is true to the
core! In these things a woman sees clearer than a man; when I am with
you only, I seem to have proper courage and independence--I am twice
myself! Won’t you let me claim you--take you--soon? My mother loves
you; she will welcome you as my wife, and will your father still stand
between us?”

Martha smiled. “My father is a man of strong will,” she said, “and it
is hard for him to admit that his judgment was wrong. We must give him a
little time,--not urge, not seem to triumph, spare his pride, and trust
to his returning sense of what is right. You might claim reparation,
Gilbert, for his cruel words; I could not forbid you; but after so much
strife let there be peace, if possible.”

“It is at least beyond his power,” Gilbert replied, “to accuse me of
sordid motives. As I said before, Martha, give up your legacy, if need
be, but come to me!”

“As _I_ said before, Gilbert, the legacy is honestly mine, and I will
come to you with it in my hands.”

Then they both began to smile, but it was a conflict of purpose which
drew them nearer together, in both senses,--an emulation of unselfish
love, which was compromised by clasping arms and silent lips.

There was a sudden noise in the back part of the house. A shrill voice
was heard, exclaiming,--“I will--I will! don’t hold me!”--the door burst
open, and Sally Fairthorn whirled into the room, with the skirt of her
gown torn loose, on one side, from the body. Behind her followed Miss
Lavender, in a state of mingled amusement and anger.

Sally kissed Martha, then Gilbert, then threw an arm around the neck of
each, crying and laughing hysterically: “O Martha! O Gilbert! you’ll
be married first,--I said it,--but Mark and I must be your bridesmaids;
don’t laugh, you know what I mean; and Betsy wouldn’t have me break in
upon you; but I waited half an hour, and then off, up here, she after
me, and we’re both out o’ breath! Did ever, ever such a thing happen!”

“You crazy thing!” cried Miss Lavender. “No, such a thing never
happened, and wouldn’t ha’ happened this time, if I’d ha’ been a little
quicker on my legs; but never mind, it serves me right; you two are to
blame, for why need I trouble my head furder about ye? There’s cases,
they say, where two’s company, and three’s overmuch; but you may fix
it for yourselves next time, and welcome; and there’s one bit o’ wisdom
I’ve got by it,--foller true-lovyers, and they’ll wear your feet off,
and then want you to go on the stumps!”

“We won’t relieve you yet, Betsy,” said Gilbert; “will we, Martha? The
good work you’ve done for us isn’t finished.”

“Isn’t finished. Well, you’ll gi’ me time to make my will, first. How
long d’ ye expect me to last, at this rate? Is my bones brass and my
flesh locus’-wood? Am I like a tortle, that goes around the fields a
hundred years?”

“No,” Gilbert answered, “but you shall be like an angel, dressed all in
white, with roses in your hair. Sally and Mark, you know, want to be the
first bridesmaids”--

Sally interrupted him with a slap, but it was not very violent, and he
did not even attempt to dodge it.

“Do you hear, Betsy?” said Martha. “It must be as Gilbert says.”

“A pretty fool you’d make o’ me,” Miss Lavender remarked, screwing up
her face to conceal her happy emotion.

Gilbert soon afterwards left for home, but returned towards evening,
determined, before all things, to ascertain his present standing with
Dr. Deane. He did not anticipate that the task had been made easy for
him; but this was really the case. Wherever Dr. Deane had been that day,
whoever he had seen, the current of talk all ran one way. When the first
surprise of the news had been exhausted, and the Doctor had corrected
various monstrous rumors from his own sources of positive knowledge, one
inference was sure to follow,--that now there could be no objection
to his daughter becoming Gilbert Barton’s wife. He was sounded, urged,
almost threatened, and finally returned home with the conviction
that any further opposition must result in an immense sacrifice of
popularity.

Still, he was not ready to act upon that conviction, at once. He met
Gilbert with a bland condescension, and when the latter, after the first
greeting, asked,--

“Have I now the right to enter your house?”

The Doctor answered,--

“Certainly. Thee has kept thy word, and I will willingly admit that I
did thee wrong in suspecting thee of unworthy devices. I may say, also,
that so far as I was able to judge, I approved of thy behavior on the
day of thy grandfather’s funeral. In all that has happened heretofore, I
have endeavored to act cautiously and prudently; and thee will grant, I
doubt not, that thy family history is so very far out of the common way,
as that no man could be called upon to believe it without the strongest
evidence. Of course, all that I brought forward against thee now falls
to the ground.”

“I trust, then,” Gilbert said, “that you have no further cause to forbid
my engagement with Martha. My mother has given her consent, and we both
hope for yours.”

Dr. Deane appeared to reflect, leaning back in his chair, with his cane
across his knees. “It is a very serious thing,” he said, at last,--“very
serious, indeed. Not a subject for hasty decision. Thee offered, if I
remember rightly, to give me time to know thee better; therefore thee
cannot complain if I were now disposed to accept thy offer.”

Gilbert fortunately remembered Martha’s words, and restrained his
impatience.

“I will readily give you time, Dr. Deane,” he replied, “provided you
will give me opportunities. You are free to question all who know me, of
course, and I suppose you have done so. I will not ask you to take the
trouble to come to me, in order that we may become better acquainted,
but only that you will allow me to come to you.”

“It would hardly be fair to deny thee that much,” said the Doctor.

“I will ask no more now. I never meant, from the first, to question your
interest in Martha’s happiness, or your right to advise her. It may
be too soon to expect your consent, but at least you’ll hold back your
refusal?”

“Thee’s a reasonable young man, Gilbert,” the Doctor remarked, after
a pause which was quite unnecessary. “I like that in thee. We are both
agreed, then, that while I shall be glad to see thee in my house, and
am willing to allow to Martha and thee the intercourse proper to a young
man and woman, it is not yet to be taken for granted that I sanction
your desired marriage. Remember me kindly to thy mother, and say, if
thee pleases, that I shall soon call to see her.”

Gilbert had scarcely reached home that evening, before Deb. Smith, who
had left the farm-house on the day following the recovery of the money,
suddenly made her appearance. She slipped into the kitchen without
knocking, and crouched down in a corner of the wide chimney-place,
before she spoke. Both mother and son were struck by the singular
mixture of shyness and fear in her manner.

“I heerd all about it, to-day,” she presently said, “and I wouldn’t ha’
come here, if I’d ha’ knowed where else to go to. They’re after me, this
time, Sandy’s friends, in dead earnest; they’ll have my blood, if they
can git it; but you said once’t you’d shelter me, Mr. Gilbert!”

“So I will, Deborah!” he exclaimed; “do you doubt my word?”

“No, I don’t; but I dunno how’t is--you’re rich now, and as well-born as
the best of ‘em, and Mary’s lawful-married and got her lawful name; and
you both seem to be set among the folks that can’t feel for a body like
me; not that your hearts is changed, only it comes different to me,
somehow.”

“Stay here, Deborah, until you feel sure you’re safe,” said Mary. “If
Gilbert or I should refuse to protect you, your blood would be upon our
heads. I won’t blame you for doubting us; I know how easy it is to lose
faith in others; but if you think I was a friend to you while my name
was disgraced, you must also remember that I knew the truth then as well
as the world knows it now.”

“Bless you for sayin’ that, Mary! There wasn’t much o’ my name at any
time; but what little I might ha’ had is clean gone--nothin’ o’ me left
but the strong arm! I’m not a coward, as you know, Mr. Gilbert; I’ll
meet any man, face to face, in a fair and open fight. Let ‘em come in
broad day, and on the high road!--not lay in wait in bushes and behind
fences, to shoot me down unawares.”

They strove to quiet her fears, and little by little she grew composed.
The desperate recklessness of her mood contrasted strangely with her
morbid fear of an ambushed enemy. Gilbert suspected that it might be a
temporary insanity, growing out of her remorse for having betrayed Sandy
Flash. When she had been fed, and had smoked a pipe or two, she seemed
quite to forget it, and was almost her own self when she went up to her
bed in the western room.

The moon, three quarters full, was hanging over the barn, and made a
peaceful, snowy light about the house. She went to the window, opened
it, and breathed the cool air of the April night. The “herring-frogs”
 were keeping up an incessant, birdlike chirp down the glen, and nearer
at hand the plunging water of the mill-race made a soothing noise. It
really seemed that the poor creature had found a quiet refuge at last.

Suddenly, something rustled and moved behind the mass of budding lilacs,
at the farther corner of the garden-paling. She leaned forward; the
next moment there was a flash, the crack of a musket rang sharp and loud
through the dell, followed by a whiz and thud at her very ear. A
thin drift of smoke rose above the bushes, and she saw a man’s figure
springing to the cover of the nearest apple-tree. In another minute,
Gilbert made his appearance, gun in hand.

“Shoot him, Gilbert!” cried Deb. Smith; “it’s Dougherty!”

Whoever it was, the man escaped; but by a singular coincidence, the
Irish ostler disappeared that night from the Unicorn tavern, and was
never again seen in the neighborhood.

The bullet had buried itself in the window-frame, after having passed
within an inch or two of Deb. Smith’s head. [Footnote: The hole made by
the bullet still remains in the window-frame of the old farm-house.]
To Gilbert’s surprise, all her fear was gone; she was again fierce and
defiant, and boldly came and went, from that night forth, saying that no
bullet was or would be cast, to take her life.

Therein she was right; but it was a dreary life and a miserable
death which awaited her. For twenty-five years she wandered about the
neighborhood, achieving wonders in spinning, reaping and threshing, by
the undiminished force of her arm, though her face grew haggard and her
hair gray; sometimes plunging into wild drinking-bouts with the rough
male companions of her younger days; sometimes telling a new generation,
with weeping and violent self-accusation, the story of her treachery;
but always with the fearful conviction of a yet unfulfilled curse
hanging over her life. Whether it was ever made manifest, no man could
tell; but when she was found lying dead on the floor of her lonely
cabin on the Woodrow farm, with staring, stony eyes, and the lines of
unspeakable horror on her white face, there were those who recalled her
own superstitious forebodings, and believed them.



CHAPTER XXXIII.

HUSBAND AND WIFE.


It may readily be guessed that such extraordinary developments as those
revealed in the preceding chapters produced more than a superficial
impression upon a quiet community like that of Kennett and the adjoining
townships. People secluded from the active movements of the world
are drawn to take the greater interest in their own little family
histories,--a feeling which by-and-by amounts to a partial sense of
ownership, justifying not only any degree of advice or comment, but
sometimes even actual interference.

The Quakers, who formed a majority of the population, and generally
controlled public sentiment in domestic matters, through the purity of
their own domestic life, at once pronounced in favor of Mary Barton. The
fact of her having taken an oath was a slight stumbling-block to some;
but her patience, her fortitude, her submission to what she felt to be
the Divine Will, and the solemn strength which had upborne her on the
last trying day, were qualities which none could better appreciate. The
fresh, warm sympathies of the younger people, already given to Gilbert
and Martha, now also embraced her; far and wide went the wonderful
story, carrying with it a wave of pity and respect for her, of contempt
and denunciation for her husband.

The old Friends and their wives came to visit her, in their stately
chairs; almost daily, for a week or two, the quiet of the farm was
invaded, either by them, or by the few friends who had not forsaken her
in her long disgrace, and were doubly welcome now. She received them
all with the same grave, simple dignity of manner, gratefully
accepting their expressions of sympathy, and quietly turning aside the
inconsiderate questions that would have probed too deeply and painfully.

To an aged Friend,--a preacher of the sect,--who plumply asked her what
course she intended to pursue towards her husband, she replied,--

“I will not trouble my season of thanksgiving. What is right for me to
do will be made manifest when the occasion comes.”

This reply was so entirely in the Quaker spirit that the old man was
silenced. Dr. Deane, who was present, looked upon her with admiration.

Whatever conjectures Alfred Barton might have made in advance, of the
consequences which would follow the disclosure of his secret marriage,
they could have borne no resemblance to the reality. It was not in his
nature to imagine the changes which the years had produced in his
wife. He looked forward to wealth, to importance in the community, and
probably supposed that she would only be too glad to share the proud
position with him. There would be a little embarrassment at first, of
course; but his money would soon make everything smooth.

Now, he was utterly defeated, crushed, overwhelmed. The public judgment,
so much the more terrible where there is no escape from it, rolled down
upon him. Avoided or coldly ignored by the staid, respectable farmers,
openly insulted by his swaggering comrades of the fox-hunt and the
bar-room, jeered at and tortured by the poor and idle hangers-on of the
community, who took a malicious pleasure in thus repaying him for his
former haughtiness and their own humility, he found himself a moral
outcast. His situation became intolerable. He no longer dared to show
himself in the village, or upon the highways, but slunk about the house
and farm, cursing himself, his father and the miserable luck of his
life.

When, finally, Giles begged to know how soon his legacy would be paid,
and hinted that he couldn’t stay any longer than to get possession of
the money, for, hard as it might be to leave an old home, he must stop
going to the mill, or getting the horses shod, or sitting in the Unicorn
bar-room of a Saturday night, and a man might as well be in jail
at once, and be done with it--when Alfred Barton heard all this, he
deliberated, for a few minutes, whether it would not be a good thing to
cut his own throat.

Either that, or beg for mercy; no other course was left.

That evening he stole up to the village, fearful, at every step, of
being seen and recognized, and knocked timidly at Dr. Deane’s door.
Martha and her father were sitting together, when he came into the room,
and they were equally startled at his appearance. His large frame seemed
to have fallen in, his head was bent, and his bushy whiskers had become
quite gray; deep wrinkles seamed his face; his eyes were hollow, and the
corners of his mouth drooped with an expression of intolerable misery.

“I wanted to say a word to Miss Martha, if she’ll let me,” he said,
looking from one to the other.

“I allowed thee to speak to my daughter once too often,” Dr. Deane
sternly replied. “What thee has to say now, must be said in my
presence.”

He hesitated a moment, then took a chair and sat down, turning towards
Martha. “It’s come to this,” he said, “that I must have a little mercy,
or lay hands on my own life. I haven’t a word to say for myself; I
deserve it all. I’ll do anything that’s wanted of me--whatever Mary
says, or people think is her right that she hasn’t yet got, if it’s mine
to give. You said you wished me well, Miss Martha, even at the time I
acted so shamefully; I remember that, and so I ask you to help me.”

She saw that he spoke truth, at last, and all her contempt and disgust
could not keep down the quick sensation of pity which his wretchedness
inspired. But she was unprepared for his appeal, and uncertain how to
answer it.

“What would you have me do?” she asked.

“Go to Mary on my behalf! Ask her to pardon me, if she can, or say what
I can do to earn her pardon--that the people may know it. They won’t be
so hard on me, if they know she’s done that. Everything depends on her,
and if it’s true, as they say, that she’s going to sue for a divorce and
take back her own name for herself and Gilbert, and cut loose from me
forever, why, it’ll just”--

He paused, and buried his face in his hands.

“I have not heard of that,” said Martha.

“Haven’t you?” he asked. “But it’s too likely to be true.”

“Why not go directly to Mary, yourself?”

“I will, Miss Martha, if you’ll go with me, and maybe say a kind word
now and then,--that is, if you think it isn’t too soon for mercy!”

“It is never too soon to _ask_ for mercy,” she said, coming to a sudden
decision. “I will go with you; let it be tomorrow.”

“Martha,” warned Dr. Deane, “isn’t thee a little hasty?”

“Father, I decide nothing. It is in Mary’s hands. He thinks my presence
will give him courage, and that I cannot refuse.”

The next morning, the people of Kennett Square were again startled out
of their proprieties by the sight of Alfred Barton, pale, agitated, and
avoiding the gaze of every one, waiting at Dr. Deane’s gate, and then
riding side by side with Martha down the Wilmington road. An hour
before, she had dispatched Joe Fairthorn with a note to Gilbert,
informing him of the impending visit. Once on the way, she feared lest
she had ventured too far; it might be, as her father had said, too
hasty; and the coming meeting with Gilbert and his mother disquieted her
not a little. It was a silent, anxious ride for both.

When they readied the gate, Gilbert was on hand to receive them. His
face always brightened at the sight of Martha, and his hands lifted her
as tenderly as ever from the saddle. “Have I done right?” she anxiously
whispered.

“It is for mother to say,” he whispered back.

Alfred Barton advanced, offering his hand. Gilbert looked upon his
father’s haggard, imploring face, a moment; a recollection of his own
disgrace shot into his heart, to soften, not to exasperate; and he
accepted the hand. Then he led the way into the house.

Mary Barton had simply said to her son,--“I felt that he would come,
sooner or later, and that I must give him a hearing--better now,
perhaps, since you and Martha will be with me.”

They found her awaiting them, pale and resolute.

Gilbert and Martha moved a little to one side, leaving the husband
and wife facing each other. Alfred Barton was too desperately moved to
shrink from Mary’s eyes; he strove to read something in her face, which
might spare him the pain of words; but it was a strange face he looked
upon. Not that of the black-eyed, bright-cheeked girl, with the proud
carriage of her head and the charming scorn of her red lip, who had
mocked, fascinated, and bewildered him. The eyes were there, but they
had sunk into the shade of the brows, and looked upon him with an
impenetrable expression; the cheeks were pale, the mouth firm and rigid,
and out of the beauty which seduced had grown a power to resist and
command.

“Will you shake hands with me, Mary?” he faltered.

She said nothing, but moved her right hand slightly towards him. It lay
in his own a moment, cold and passive.

“Mary!” he cried, falling on his knees at her feet, “I’m a ruined,
wretched man! No one speaks to me but to curse; I’ve no friend left in
the world; the very farmhand leaves me! I don’t know what’ll become of
me, unless you feel a little pity--not that I deserve any, but I ask it
of you, in the name of God!”

Martha clung to Gilbert’s arm, trembling, and more deeply moved than she
was willing to show. Mary Barton’s face was convulsed by some passing
struggle, and when she spoke, her voice was hoarse and broken.

“You know what it is, then,” she said, “to be disgraced in the eyes
of the world. If you have suffered so much in these two weeks, you may
guess what I have borne for twenty-five years!”

“I see it now, Mary!” he cried, “as I never saw it before. Try me! Tell
me what to do!”

“The Lord has done it, already; there is nothing left.”

He groaned; his head dropped hopelessly upon his breast.

Gilbert felt that Martha’s agitation ceased. She quietly released her
hold of his arm, lifted her head, and spoke,--

“Mother, forgive me if I speak when I should hold my peace; I would only
remind you that there is yet one thing left. It is true, as you say;
the Lord has justified you in His own way, and at His own time, and has
revenged the wrong done to you by branding the sin committed towards
Himself. Now He leaves the rest to your own heart. Think that He holds
back and waits for the words that shall declare whether you understand
the spirit in which He deals towards His children!”

“Martha, my dear child!” Mary Barton exclaimed,--“what can I do?”

“It is not for me to advise you, mother. You, who put my impatient pride
to shame, and make my love for Gilbert seem selfish by contrast with
your long self-sacrifice! What right have I, who have done nothing, to
speak to you, who have done so much that we never can reckon it? But,
remember that in the Lord’s government of the world pardon follows
repentance, and it is not for us to exact like for like, to the
uttermost farthing!”

Mary Barton sank into a chair, covered her face with her hands, and wept
aloud.

There were tears in Martha’s eyes; her voice trembled, and her words
came with a softness and tenderness that soothed while they pierced:

“Mother, I am a woman like yourself; and, as a woman, I feel the
terrible wrong that has been done to you. It may be as hard for you now
to forget, as then to bear; but it is certainly greater and nobler to
forgive than to await justice! Because I reverence you as a strong and
pure and great-hearted woman--because I want to see the last and best
and sweetest grace of our sex added to your name--and lastly, for
Gilbert’s sake, who can feel nothing but pain in seeing his father
execrated and shunned--I ask your forgiveness for your husband!”

“Mary!” Alfred Barton cried, lifting up his head in a last appeal,
“Mary, this much, at least! Don’t go to the courts for a divorce! Don’t
get back your own name for yourself and Gilbert! Keep mine, and make it
more respectable for me! And I won’t ask you to pardon me, for I see you
can’t!”

“It is all clear to me, at last!” said Mary Barton. “I thank you,
Martha, my child, for putting me in the right path. Alfred, don’t kneel
to me; if the Lord can pardon, who am I that I should be unforgiving?
I fear me I was nigh to forfeit His mercy. Gilbert, yours was half the
shame; yours is half the wrong; can you join me in pardoning your father
and my husband?”

Gilbert was powerfully moved by the conflict of equally balanced
emotions, and but for the indication which Martha had given, he might
not at once have been able to decide. But it seemed now that his course
was also clear. He said,--

“Mother, since you have asked the question, I know how it should be
answered. If you forgive your husband, I forgive my--my father.”

He stepped forward, seized Alfred Barton gently by the shoulder, and
raised him to his feet Mary Barton then took her husband’s hand in hers,
and said, in a solemn voice,--

“I forgive you, Alfred, and will try to forget I know not what you may
have heard said, but I never meant to go before the court for a divorce.
Your name is a part of my right, a part of Gilbert’s--our son’s--right;
it is true that you have debased the name, but we will keep it and make
it honorable! We will not do that to the name of Barton which you have
done to the name of Potter!”

It was very evident that though she had forgiven, she had not yet
forgotten. The settled endurance of years could not be unlearned in a
moment. Alfred Barton felt that her forgiveness implied no returning
tenderness, not even an increase of respect; but it was more than he had
dared to hope, and he felt humbly grateful. He saw that a consideration
for Gilbert’s position had been the chief element to which he owed
his wife’s relenting mood, and this knowledge was perhaps his greatest
encouragement.

“Mary,” he said, “you are kinder than I deserve. I wish I could make you
and Gilbert understand all that I have felt. Don’t think my place was
easy; it wasn’t. It was a hell of another kind. I have been punished
in my way, and will be now to the end o’ my life, while you two will be
looked up to, and respected beyond any in the neighborhood; and if I’m
not treated like a dog, it’ll only be for your sakes! Will you let
me say to the people that you have pardoned me? Will you say it
yourselves?”

Martha, and perhaps Gilbert also, felt that it was the reflected image
of Alfred Barton’s meanness, as it came back to him in the treatment he
had experienced, rather than his own internal consciousness of it, which
occasioned his misery. But his words were true thus far; his life was
branded by it, and the pardon of those he had wronged could not make
that life more than tolerable.

“Why not?” said Gilbert, replying to him. “There has been enough of
secrets. I am not ashamed of forgiveness--my shame is, that forgiveness
is necessary.”

Alfred Barton looked from mother to son with a singular, wistful
expression. He seemed uncertain whether to speak or how to select his
words. His vain, arrogant spirit was completely broken, but no finer
moral instinct came in its place to guide him; his impulses were still
coarse, and took, from habit, the selfish color of his nature. There are
some persons whom even humiliation clothes with a certain dignity;
but he was not one of them. There are others whose tact, in such
emergencies, assumes the features of principle, and sets up a feeble
claim to respect; but this quality is a result of culture, which he did
not possess. He simply saw what would relieve him from the insupportable
load of obloquy under which he groaned, and awkwardly hazarded the pity
he had excited, in asking for it.

“Mary,” he stammered, “I--I hardly know how to say the words, but you’ll
understand me; I want to make good to you all the wrong I did, and there
seems no way but this,--if you’ll let me care for you, slave for you,
anything you please; you shall have your own say in house and farm;
Ann’ll give up everything to you. She always liked you, she says, and
she’s lonely since th’ old man died and nobody comes near us--not just
at once, I mean, but after awhile, when you’ve had time to think of it,
and Gilbert’s married. You’re independent in your own right, I know,
and needn’t do it; but, see! it’d give me a chance, and maybe Gilbert
wouldn’t feel quite so hard towards me, and”--

He stopped, chilled by the increasing coldness of his wife’s face. She
did not immediately reply; to Martha’s eye she seemed to be battling
with some proud, vindictive instinct. But she spoke at last, and calmly:

“Alfred, you should not have gone so far. I have pardoned you, and that
means more than the words. It means that I must try to overcome the
bitterness of my recollections, that I must curb the tongues of others
when they are raised against you, must greet you when we meet, and in
all proper ways show the truth of my forgiveness to the world. Anger
and reproach may be taken from the heart, and yet love be as far off as
ever. If anything ever could lead me back to you it would not be love,
but duty to my son, and his desire; but I cannot see the duty now. I may
never see it. Do not propose this thing again. I will only say, if it
be any comfort to you, that if you try to show your repentance as I my
pardon, try to clean your name from the stain you have cast upon it, my
respect shall keep pace with that of your neighbors, and I shall in this
way, and in no other, be drawn nearer to you!”

“Gilbert,” said Alfred Barton, “I never knew your mother before to-day.
What she says gives me some hope, and yet it makes me afraid. I’ll try
to bring her nearer, I will, indeed; but I’ve been governed so long by
th’ old man that I don’t seem to have any right strength o’ my own. I
must have some help, and you’re the only one I can ask it of; will you
come and see me sometimes? I’ve been so proud of you, all to myself, my
boy! and if I thought you could once call me ‘father’ before I die”--

Gilbert was not proof against these words and the honest tears by which
they were accompanied. Many shy hesitating tokens of affection in his
former intercourse with Alfred Barton, suddenly recurred to his mind,
with their true interpretation. His load had been light, compared to his
mother’s; he had only learned the true wrong in the hour of reparation;
and moreover, in assuming his father’s name he became sensitive to the
prominence of its shame.

“Father,” he answered, “if you have forfeited a son’s obedience, you
have still a man’s claim to be helped. Mother is right; it is in your
power to come nearer to us. She must stand aside and wait; but I can
cross the line which separates you, and from this time on I shall never
cross it to remind you of what is past and pardoned, but to help you,
and all of us, to forget it!”

Martha laid her hand upon Gilbert’s shoulder, leaned up and kissed him
upon the cheek.

“Rest here!” she said. “Let a good word close the subject! Gilbert, take
your father out and show him your farm. Mother, it is near dinner-time;
I will help you set the table. After dinner, Mr. Barton, you and I will
ride home together.”

Her words were obeyed; each one felt that no more should be said at that
time. Gilbert showed the barn, the stables, the cattle in the meadow,
and the fields rejoicing in the soft May weather; Martha busied herself
in kitchen and cellar, filling up the pauses of her labor with cheerful
talk; and when the four met at the table, so much of the constraint in
their relation to each other had been conquered, that a stranger would
never have dreamed of the gulf which had separated them a few hours
before. Martha shrewdly judged that when Alfred Barton had eaten at his
wife’s table, they would both meet more easily in the future. She did
not expect that the breach could ever be quite filled; but she wished,
for Gilbert’s sake, to make it as narrow as possible.

After dinner, while the horses were being saddled, the lovers
walked down the garden-path, between the borders of blue iris and
mountain-pink.

“Gilbert,” said Martha, “are you satisfied with what has happened?”

“Yes,” he answered, “but it has shown to me that something more must be
done.”

“What?”

“Martha, are these the only two who should be brought nearer?”

She looked at him with a puzzled face. There was a laughing light in his
eyes, which brought a new lustre to here, and a delicate blush to her
fair cheeks.

“Is it not too soon for me to come?” she whispered.

“You have come,” he answered; “you were in your place; and it will be
empty--the house will be lonely, the farm without its mistress--until
you return to us!”



CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE WEDDING.


The neighborhood had decreed it There was but one just, proper, and
satisfactory conclusion to all these events. The decision of Kennett
was unanimous that its story should be speedily completed. New-Garden,
Marlborough, and Pennsbury, so far as heard from, gave their hearty
consent; and the people would have been seriously disappointed--the tide
of sympathy might even have been checked--had not Gilbert Barton and
Martha Deane prepared to fulfil the parts assigned to them.

Dr. Deane, of course, floated with the current. He was too shrewd to
stand forth as a conspicuous obstacle to the consummation of the popular
sense of justice. He gave, at once, his full consent to the nuptials,
and took the necessary steps, in advance, for the transfer of his
daughter’s fortune into her own hands. In short, as Miss Lavender
observed, there was an end of snarls. The lives of the lovers were taken
up, as by a skilful hand, and evenly reeled together.

Gilbert now might have satisfied his ambition (and the people, under the
peculiar circumstances of the case, would have sanctioned it) by buying
the finest farm in the neighborhood; but Martha had said,--

“No other farm can be so much _yours_, and none so welcome a home to me.
Let us be satisfied with it, at least for the first years.”

And therein she spoke wisely.

It was now the middle of May, and the land was clothed in tender green,
and filled with the sweet breath of sap and bud and blossom. The vivid
emerald of the willow-trees, the blush of orchards, and the cones of
snowy bloom along the wood-sides, shone through and illumined even the
days of rain. The Month of Marriage wooed them in every sunny morning,
in every twilight fading under the torch of the lovers’ star.

In spite of Miss Lavender’s outcries, and Martha’s grave doubts, a
fortnight’s delay was all that Gilbert would allow. He would have
dispensed with bridal costumes and merrymakings,--so little do men
understand of these matters; but he was hooted down, overruled, ignored,
and made to feel his proper insignificance. Martha almost disappeared
from his sight during the interval. She was sitting upstairs in a
confusion of lutestring, whalebone, silk, and cambric; and when she came
down to him for a moment, the kiss had scarcely left her lips before
she began to speak of the make of his new coat, and the fashion of the
articles he was still expected to furnish.

If he visited Fairthorn’s, it was even worse. The sight of him threw
Sally into such a flutter that she sewed the right side of one breadth
to the wrong side of another, attempted to clear-starch a woollen
stocking, or even, on one occasion, put a fowl into the pot, unpicked
and undressed. It was known all over the country that Sally and Mark
Deane were to be bridesmaid and groomsman, and they both determined to
make a brave appearance.

But there was another feature of the coming nuptials which the people
did not know. Gilbert and Martha had determined that Miss Betsy Lavender
should be second bridesmaid, and Martha had sent to Wilmington for a
purple silk, and a stomacher of the finest cambric, in which to array
her. A groomsman of her age was not so easy to find; but young Pratt,
who had stood so faithfully by Gilbert during the chase of Sandy Flash,
merrily avowed his willingness to play the part; and so it was settled
without Miss Lavender’s knowledge.

The appointed morning came, bringing a fair sky, mottled with gentle,
lingering clouds, and a light wind from the west. The wedding company
were to meet at Kennett Square, and then ride to Squire Sinclair’s,
where the ceremony would be performed by that magistrate; and before
ten o’clock, the hour appointed for starting, all the surrounding
neighborhood poured into the village. The hitching-bar in front of the
Unicorn, and every post of fence or garden-paling, was occupied by the
tethered horses. The wedding-guests, comprising some ten or fifteen
persons, assembled at Dr. Deane’s, and each couple, as they arrived,
produced an increasing excitement among the spectators.

The fact that Alfred Barton had been formally pardoned by his wife
and son, did not lessen the feeling with which he was regarded, but it
produced a certain amount of forbearance. The people were curious to
know whether he had been bidden to the wedding, and the conviction was
general that he had no business to be there. The truth is, it had been
left free to him whether to come or not, and he had very prudently
chosen to be absent.

Dr. Deane had set up a “chair,” which was to be used for the first time
on this occasion. It was a ponderous machine, with drab body and wheels,
and curtains of drab camlet looped up under its stately canopy. When it
appeared at the gate, the Doctor came forth, spotless in attire, bland,
smiling, a figure of sober gloss and agreeable odors. He led Mary Barton
by the hand; and her steel-colored silk and white crape shawl so well
harmonized with his appearance, that the two might have been taken for
man and wife. Her face was calm, serene, and full of quiet gratitude.
They took their places in the chair, the lines were handed to the
Doctor, and he drove away, nodding right and left to the crowd.

Now the horses were brought up in pairs, and the younger guests began
to mount. The people gathered closer and closer; and when Sam appeared,
leading the well-known and beloved Roger, there was a murmur which, in
a more demonstrative community, would have been a cheer. Somebody had
arranged a wreath of lilac and snowy viburnum, and fastened it around
Roger’s forehead; and he seemed to wear it consciously and proudly.
Many a hand was stretched forth to pat and stroke the noble animal,
and everybody smiled when he laid his head caressingly over the neck of
Martha’s gray.

Finally, only six horses remained unmounted; then there seemed to be a
little delay in-doors. It was explained when young Pratt appeared, bold
and bright, leading the reluctant Miss Lavender, rustling in purple
splendor, and blushing--actually blushing--as she encountered the eyes
of the crowd. The latter were delighted. There was no irony in the voice
that cried,--“Hurrah for Betsy Lavender!” and the cheer that followed
was the expression of a downright, hearty good will. She looked around
from her saddle, blushing, smiling, and on the point of bursting into
tears; and it was a godsend, as she afterwards remarked, that Mark Deane
and Sally Fairthorn appeared at that moment.

Mark, in sky-blue coat and breeches, suggested, with his rosy face
and yellow locks, a son of the morning; while Sally’s white muslin and
cherry-colored scarf heightened the rich beauty of her dark hair and
eyes, and her full, pouting lips. They were a buxom pair, and both
were too happy in each other and in the occasion, to conceal the least
expression of it.

There now only remained our hero and heroine, who immediately followed.
No cheer greeted them, for the wonderful chain of circumstances which
had finally brought them together, made the joy of the day solemn, and
the sympathy of the people reverential. Mark and Sally represented the
delight of betrothal; these two the earnest sanctity of wedlock.

Gilbert was plainly yet richly dressed in a bottle-green coat, with
white waistcoat and breeches; his ruffles, gloves, hat, and boots were
irreproachable. So manly looking a bridegroom had not been seen in
Kennett for many a day. Martha’s dress of heavy pearl-gray satin was
looped up over a petticoat of white dimity, and she wore a short cloak
of white crape. Her hat, of the latest style, was adorned with a bunch
of roses and a white, drooping feather. In the saddle, she was charming;
and as the bridal pair slowly rode forward, followed by their attendants
in the proper order, a murmur of admiration, in which there was no envy
and no ill-natured qualification, went after them.

A soft glitter of sunshine, crossed by the shadows of slow-moving
clouds, lay upon the landscape. Westward, the valley opened in quiet
beauty, the wooded hills on either side sheltering, like protecting
arms, the white farmhouses, the gardens, and rosy orchards scattered
along its floor. On their left, the tall grove rang with the music of
birds, and was gay, through all its light-green depths, with the pink
blossoms of the wild azalea. The hedges, on either side, were purple
with young sprays, and a bright, breathing mass of sweet-brier and wild
grape crowned the overhanging banks, between which the road ascended the
hill beyond.

At first the company were silent; but the enlivening motion of the
horses, the joy of the coming summer, the affectionate sympathy of
Nature, soon disposed them to a lighter mood. At Hallowell’s, the men
left their hoes in the corn-field, and the women their household duties,
to greet them by the roadside. Mark looked up at the new barn, and
exclaimed,--

“Not quite a year ago! Do you mind it, Gilbert?”

Martha pointed to the green turf in front of the house, and said with an
arch voice,--

“Gilbert, do you remember the question you put to me, that evening?”

And finally Sally burst out, in mock indignation,--

“Gilbert, there’s where you snapped me up, because I wanted you to dance
with Martha; what do you think of yourself now?”

“You all forget,” he answered, “that you are speaking of somebody else.”

“How? somebody else?” asked Sally.

“Yes; I mean Gilbert Potter.”

“Not a bad turn-off,” remarked Miss Lavender. “He’s too much for you.
But I’m glad, anyhow, you’ve got your tongues, for it was too much like
a buryin’ before, and me fixed up like King Solomon, what for, I’d like
to know? and the day made o’ purpose for a weddin’, and true-love all
right for once’t--I’d like just to holler and sing and make merry to
my heart’s content, with a nice young man alongside o’ me, too, a thing
that don’t often happen!”

They were heartily, but not boisterously, merry after this; but as they
reached the New-Garden road, there came a wild yell from the rear, and
the noise of galloping hoofs. Before the first shock of surprise had
subsided, the Fairthorn gray mare thundered up, with Joe and Jake upon
her back, the scarlet lining of their blue cloaks flying to the wind,
their breeches covered with white hair from the mare’s hide, and their
faces wild with delight. They yelled again as they drew rein at the head
of the procession.

“Why, what upon earth”--began Sally; but Joe saved her the necessity of
a question.

“Daddy said we shouldn’t go!” he cried. “But we _would_,--we got Bonnie
out o’ the field, and put off! Cousin Martha, you’ll let us go along
and see you get married; won’t you, now? Maybe we’ll never have another
chance!”

This incident produced great amusement. The boys received the permission
they coveted, but were ordered to the rear Mark reminding them that as
he was soon to be their uncle, they must learn, betimes, to give heed to
his authority.

“Be quiet, Mark!” exclaimed Sally, with a gentle slap.

“Well, I don’t begrudge it to ‘em,” said Miss Lavender. “It’s somethin’
for ‘em to remember when they’re men-grown; and they belong to the
fam’ly, which I don’t; but never mind, all the same, no more do you, Mr.
Pratt; and I wish I was younger, to do credit to you!”

Merrily trotted the horses along the bit of level upland; and then, as
the land began to fall towards the western branch of Redley Creek, they
saw the Squire’s house on a green knoll to the north, and Dr. Deane’s
new chair already resting in the shade of the gigantic sycamore at the
door. The lane-gates were open, the Squire’s parlor was arranged for
their reception; and after the ladies had put themselves to rights, in
the upper rooms, the company gathered together for the ceremony.

Sunshine, and hum of bees, and murmur of winds, and scent of flowers,
came in through the open windows, and the bridal pair seemed to stand
in the heart of the perfect spring-time. Yet tears were shed by all the
women except the bride; and Sally Fairthorn was so absorbed by the rush
of her emotions, that she came within an ace of saying “I will!” when
the Squire put the question to Martha. The ceremony was brief and plain,
but the previous history of the parties made it very impressive. When
they had been pronounced man and wife, and the certificate of marriage
had been duly signed and witnessed by all present, Mary Barton stepped
forward and kissed her son and daughter with a solemn tenderness. Then
the pent-up feelings of all the others broke loose, and the amount of
embracing which followed was something quite unusual for Kennett. Betsy
Lavender was not cheated out of her due share; on the contrary, it was
ever afterwards reported that she received more salutes than even the
bride. She was kissed by Gilbert, by Mark, by her young partner, by Dr.
Deane, and lastly by the jolly Squire himself,--to say nothing of the
feminine kisses, which, indeed, being very imperfect gifts, hardly
deserve to be recorded.

“Well!” she exclaimed, pushing her ruffled hair behind her ears, and
smoothing down her purple skirt, “to think o’ my bein’ kissed by so many
men, in my old days!--but why not?--it may be my last chance, as Joe
Fairthorn says, and laugh if you please, I’ve got the best of it; and
I don’t belie my natur’, for twistin’ your head away and screechin’ is
only make-believe, and the more some screeches the more they want to be
kissed; but fair and square, say I,--if you want it take it, and that’s
just what I’ve done!”

There was a fresh rush for Miss Lavender after this, and she stood her
ground with commendable patience, until Mark ventured to fold her in a
good-natured hug, when she pushed him away, saying,--

“For the Lord’s sake, don’t spile my new things! There--go ‘way, now!
I’ve had enough to last me ten year!”

Dr. Deane soon set out with Mary Barton, in the chair, and the rest of
the company mounted their horses, to ride back to Kennett Square by the
other road, past the quarries and across Tuffkenamon.

As they halted in the broad, shallow bed of the creek, letting their
horses drink from the sparkling water, while the wind rollicked among
the meadow bloom of golden saxifrage and scarlet painted-cup and blue
spiderwort before them, the only accident of the day occurred; but it
was not of a character to disturb their joyous mood.

The old Fairthorn mare stretched her neck to its utmost length before
she bent it to drink, obliging Joe to lean forwards over her shoulder,
to retain his hold of the short rein. Jake, holding on to Joe, leaned
with him, and they waited in this painful posture till the mare slowly
filled herself from the stream. Finally she seemed to be satisfied; she
paused, snorted, and then, with wide nostrils, drank an equal amount of
air. Her old sides swelled; the saddle-girth, broken in two places long
before, and mended with tow-strings, suddenly parted, and Joe, Jake,
saddle and all, tumbled down her neck into the water. They scrambled out
in a lamentable plight, soused and dripping, amid the endless laughter
of the company, and were glad to keep to the rear for the remainder of
the ride.

In Dr. Deane’s house, meanwhile, there were great preparations for
the wedding-dinner. A cook had been brought from Wilmington, at an
unheard-of expense, and the village was filled with rumors of the
marvellous dishes she was to produce. There were pippins encased in
orange-peel and baked; a roasted peacock, with tail spread; a stuffed
rock-fish; a whole ham enveloped in dough, like a loaf of bread, and set
in the oven; and a wilderness of the richest and rarest pies, tarts, and
custards.

Whether all these rumors were justified by the dinner, we will not
undertake to say; it is certain that the meal, which was spread in the
large sitting-room, was most bountiful. No one was then shocked by the
decanters of Port and Canary wine upon the sideboard, or refused to
partake of the glasses of foamy egg-nog offered to them from time to
time, through the afternoon. The bride-cake was considered a miracle of
art, and the fact that Martha divided it with a steady hand, making the
neatest and cleanest of cuts, was considered a good omen for her married
life. Bits of the cake were afterwards in great demand throughout the
neighborhood, not so much to eat, as to dream upon.

The afternoon passed away rapidly, with mirth and noise, in the
adjoining parlor. Sally Fairthorn found a peculiar pleasure in calling
her friend “Martha Barton!” whereupon Mark said,--

“Wait a bit, Martha, and you can pay her back. Daddy Fairthorn promised
this morning to give me a buildin’ lot off the field back o’ the corner,
and just as soon as Rudd’s house is up, I’m goin’ to work at mine.”

“Mark, do hush!” Sally exclaimed, reddening, “and before everybody!”

Miss Lavender sat in the midst, stately, purple, and so transformed that
she professed she no longer knew her own self. She was, nevertheless,
the life of the company; the sense of what she had done to bring on the
marriage was a continual source of inspiration. Therefore, when songs
were proposed and sung, and Mark finally called upon her, uproariously
seconded by all the rest, she was moved, for the last time in her life,
to comply.

“I dunno what you mean, expectin’ such a thing o’ me,” she said. “Tears
to me I’m fool enough already, settin’ here in purple and fine linen,
like the Queen o’ Rome,--not that I don’t like singin’, but the
contrary, quite the reverse; but with me it’d be a squawk and nothin’
else; and fine feathers may make fine birds for what I care, more like a
poll-parrot than a nightingale, and they say you must stick thorns
into ‘em to make ‘em sing; but I guess it’ll be t’ other way, and my
singin’ll stick thorns into you!”

They would take no denial; she could and must sing them a song. She held
out until Martha said, “for my wedding-day, Betsy!” and Gilbert added,
“and mine, too.” Then she declared, “Well, if I must, I s’pose I must
But as for weddin’-songs, such as I’ve heerd in my younger days, I dunno
one of ‘em, and my head’s pretty much cleared o’ such things, savin’
and exceptin’ one that might be a sort o’ warnin’ for Mark Deane, who
knows?--not that there’s sea-farin’ men about these parts; but never
mind, all the same; if you don’t like it, Mark, you’ve brung it onto
yourself!”

Thereupon, after shaking herself, gravely composing her face, and
clearing her throat, she began, in a high, shrill, piercing voice,
rocking her head to the peculiar lilt of the words, and interpolating
short explanatory remarks, to sing--

                 THE BALLAD OF THE HOUSE-CARPENTER.

           “‘Well-met, well-met, my own true-love!’

“_She_ says,--

              “‘Well-met, well-met, cried _he_;
             For’t is I have returned from the salt, salt sea,
               And it’s all for the love of thee!’

           “‘It’s I might ha’ married a king’s daughter fair,’

“_He_ goes on sayin’,--

              “‘And fain would she ha’ married me,
             But it’s I have refused those crowns of gold,
               And it’s all for the love of thee!’

“Then _she_,--

           “‘If you might ha’ married a king’s daughter fair,’
               I think you are for to blame;
             For it’s I have married a house-carpentèr,
               And I think he’s a fine young man!’

“So look out, Mark! and remember, all o’ you, that they’re talkin’ turn
about; and he begins--

           “‘If you’ll forsake your house-carpentèr
               And go along with me,
             I’ll take you to where the grass grows green
               On the banks of the sweet Wil-lee!’

           “‘If I forsake my house-carpentèr.
               And go along with thee,
             It’s what have you got for to maintain me upon,
               And to keep me from slave-ree?’

           “‘It’s I have sixteen ships at sea,
               All sailing for dry land,
             And four-and-twenty sailors all on board
               Shall be at your command!’

            “She then took up her lovely little babe,
               And she gave it kisses three;
            ‘Lie still, lie still, my lovely little babe,
               And keep thy father compa-nee!’

             “She dressed herself in rich array,
               And she walked in high degree,
             And the four-and-twenty sailors took ‘em on board.
               And they sailed for the open sea!

            “They had not been at sea two weeks,
               And I’m sure it was not three,
             Before this maid she began for to weep,
               And she wept most bitter-lee.

           “‘It’s do you weep for your gold?’ cries he;
              ‘Or do you weep for your store,
             Or do you weep for your house-carpenter
               You never shall see any more?’

           “‘I do not weep for my gold,’ cries she,
              ‘Nor I do not weep for my store,
             But it’s I do weep for my lovely little babe,
               I never shall see any more!’

            “They had not been at sea three weeks,
               And I’m sure it was not four,
             When the vessel it did spring a leak,
               And it sank to rise no more!”

“Now, Mark, here comes the Moral:

            “Oh, cruel be ye, sea-farin’ men,
               Oh, cruel be your lives,--
             A-robbing of the house-carpenters,
               And a-taking of their wives!”

The shouts and laughter which greeted the conclusion of Miss Lavender’s
song brought Dr. Deane into the room. He was a little alarmed lest
his standing in the Society might be damaged by so much and such
unrestrained merriment under his roof. Still he had scarcely the courage
to reprimand the bright, joyous faces before him; he only smiled, shook
his head, and turned to leave.

“I’m a-goin’, too,” said Miss Lavender, rising. “The sun’s not an hour
high, and the Doctor, or somebody, must take Mary Barton home; and it’s
about time the rest o’ you was makin’ ready; though they’ve gone on with
the supper, there’s enough to do when you get there!”

The chair rolled away again, and the bridal party remounted their horses
in the warm, level light of the sinking sun. They were all in their
saddles except Gilbert and Martha.

“Go on!” he cried, in answer to their calls; “we will follow.”

“It won’t be half a home-comin’, without you’re along,” said Mark; “but
I see you want it so. Come on, boys and girls!”

Gilbert returned to the house and met Martha, descending the stairs in
her plain riding-dress. She descended into his open arms, and rested
there, silent, peaceful, filled with happy rest.

“My wife at last, and forever!” he whispered.

They mounted and rode out of the village. The fields were already
beginning to grow gray under the rosy amber of the western sky. The
breeze had died away, but the odors it had winnowed from orchard and
meadow still hung in the air. Faint cheeps and chirps of nestling life
came from the hedges and grassy nooks of bank and thicket, but they
deepened, not disturbed, the delicious repose settling upon the land.
Husband and wife rode slowly, and their friendly horses pressed nearer
to each other, and there was none to see how their eyes grew deeper and
darker with perfect tenderness, their lips more sweetly soft and warm,
with the unspoken, because unspeakable, fortune of love. In the breath
of that happy twilight all the pangs of the Past melted away; disgrace,
danger, poverty, trial, were behind them; and before them, nestling yet
unseen in the green dell which divided the glimmering landscape, lay the
peace, the shelter, the life-long blessing of Home.





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