... . . . -
© 2. y * * #
CHATTER_TON


WILLIAM CHARVAT
American Fiction Collection
The Ohio State University Libraries











THE NIGHT RIDE TO THE RESCUE, BY PRIEST AND PROTESTANT.
(Frontispiece.)


<&
"##angestory
Quillmores
BY
A. L. CHATTERTON
NEW YORK
STITT PUBLISHING COMPANY
1905


“In putting together this fragment of historie I have
been greatly aided by my friend and counselor, Dr.
Frank Kraft, and I wish to here express my grati-
tude for courtesies vouchsafed and for assistance
rendered.”








LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
THE NIGHT RIDE TO THE RESCUE, BY PRIEST AND PROT-
ESTANT . • • - • - - . Frontispiece
POSITIONED AT AN ALTITUDE SUITED TO THE TELEPHONIC
ABRAHAM LINCOLNs • • - - • * . 14
“OH, FOR SOME WEAPON TO STRIKE YOU DEAD AT MY
FEET | " . - • - - - - • - . 171
“BACK wrTH YOU, YoU CowARDs, YoU MIDNIGHT
ASSASSINS | " . . • • • • * * . 245





CHARACTERS ESSENTIAL TO THE QUILLMORE
MYSTERY
DR. AUGUSTUs WINSTON, “Doc Gus”
CoLONEL QUILLMORE, President of the Bank
MRS. QUILLMORE
LANNY, afterwards Dr. Leander Quillmore
IRENAEUs S. THATCH, “Uncle I’, the Coffin Grocer”
FATHER LESSING, a Catholic Priest
and
M. L'OISEAU, Cashier of the Bank
CHARACTERS INCIDENTAL
MAT TREEGooD, the Village Philosopher
MOTHER TREEGOOD
GEORGE, ORY, AND ABE, Treegood Children
THE LAROUTELLES
MRS. THATCH AND DAUGHTER CHRISSY
CHARACTERS ESSENTIAL TO THE STORY OF
HERO HELD
(To be separately published)
DR. AUGUSTUS WINSTON
FATHER LESSING
M. L'OISEAU
PHILIP THATCH
LEANDER QUILLMORE
M. BRISSON
and
HERO HELD
CHARACTERS INCIDENTAL
THE LAROUTELLES
MLLE. HORTENSE L'IGGINS
MRS. QUILLMORE
MR. THATCH
ORY TREEGOOD
BALTIMORE, ETC.





A TELEGRAM
NEw York, April 26, 1884.
CENTRAL House, INDIATOLE, IND.
Lamo tragedy prominent personages involved suspend
political inquiry hang Lamo.
Subscribed to the message which was addressed
to me, was the name of the Managing Editor of
a New York daily newspaper. I was of the pa-
per’s staff, acting under instructions which, on the
date noted in the telegram, took me to Indiatole.
My commission, which need not be dwelt upon
here, was something of a political nature, and my
special work could evidently be deferred. The
latter part of the message, interpreted, meant that
I was to give undivided attention to “Lamo,”
whatever that might prove to be. The word
“hang ” from the private code of the office was
both a command and an implied compliment:—It
was authority from the management to use at dis-
cretion, and unrestrictedly, time or funds in the
pursuance of an object.
It was eight o’clock, and I was dressing when the
message was brought to my room. I had arrived
late the night before, my first visit, it so chanced,
to Indiatole.
“‘Lamo.” Know of someone hereabouts of
that name?”
xi


xii A TELEGRAM
The colored boy was instantly alert. “There
is a town south from here called Lamo, and there
was trouble there last night.” Something as to
the nature of the “trouble ” was also spoken.
“When does the next train leave for this place,
Lamo?”
“Depot stage should be leaving now.”
Iglanced from the window which commanded a
view of the street. The stage was leaving. I
secured from my pocket a bill and tore it through
the middle. “Here is half of a dollar. Get it to
the driver, and tell him I will follow with the
other half, if he will wait, and there will be a coin
for you.”
Breakfast? An unconsidered trifle, in a report-
er’s life.
As I stepped upon the already moving train, I
glanced back. The driver of the stage was match-
ing together the torn fragments of the bill.
At Miles Crossing, where I alighted, I saw Mr.
Blank. This gentleman represented a not-over-
well-thought-of journalistic contemporary,—one
whose methods in this instance fed disastrous
fuel to the flame of misadventure.
Nor was anyone then to unravel, in its entirety,
the mystery for which solution was sought, and as
there is much of earlier and contemporaneous in-
terest bearing upon this particular episode, it is
necessary for a clear understanding to revert to a
time two or more years earlier,


2 THE QUILLMORES
of the village—about two miles, and in the direc-
tion of Indiatole.
These houses were a never-ending source of con-
versation with strangers, whose curiosity was nat-
urally aroused; but it was not until after the
tragic event in the year 1884, which robbed the
town of its most influential resident, that the name
Lamo became a notable one in history.
The calamity referred to—for in the nature of
a calamity it was regarded by the community
—was followed by tragic sequences, with sur-
roundings of mystery, that stirred the blood of
every individual thereabouts, and was potential
of serious consequences to not a few.
Uncle I’—very short, and unduly familiar for
Irenaeus—full name, Irenaeus Smithnight Thatch,
of the old firm of Snackle & Thatch—Snackle re-
tired—was the proprietor of the general store
already mentioned. It was, too, the only place or
residence at these crossroads corners having tel-
ephone connection with the county-seat, Indiatole,
though the service was at this date of the very
early and primitive order—ring on and ring off,
turn switch, talk loud, and yet louder, then go out-
side to express yourself, for profanity was barred
in the company’s contract.
Uncle I’ was really the index character of the
village,—a short stout man, one of those who had
grown tall sideways. He was of uncertain age, as
are so many members of the opposite sex. It was
a question if anyone knew just how old he was.
He had reached that period in life when age


CONCERNS UNCLE I AND HIS STORE 3
seemed to have fixed its balancing foothold; when,
thereafter, there would be no visible sign portray-
ing the oncoming of the decrepitude usually
incidental to the lapse of time. Those who lived
in daily contact with him saw no change. And
those who came and went only occasionally de-
clared that he looked as always. This was, per-
haps, in great part due to his unvarying habits of
life and dress.
He had that fresh, rather ruddy face which goes
so frequently with light hair; it was known that he
was bald, though only a few people had ever seen
him uncovered. He wore, summer and winter,
an old Panama hat that had been originally
varnished, and never since washed or cleansed
except as an overtaking rain-storm or melting
snows had fitfully and inartistically done that
service. When—as in his side-line, undertaking,
or at church—it became necessary to uncover, he
was found wearing a silk cap. Though the most
gallant of little men, he never removed his hat to
the fair sex, merely touching the brim in military
salute. At the temples there was nothing indic-
ative of hair, but at the base of the brain, and
above a hearty, thick, No. 18-collar neck, there
grew a luxuriant crop of sandy, originally red,
hair; and this, emulating a fashion of womankind,
he always brushed upward, caught it somewhere
on top of the bald crown and held it there in some
mysterious way, divided in sections, carefully
patted down on each side, with that peculiar ob-
liviousness of bald-headed men to the ridiculous-


4 THE QUILLMORES
ness of such pretense. This was his one and per-
vading vanity, and he was as sensitive to this
arrangement of his hair as a woman—never pass-
ing a glass-fronted store, or mirror, without ogling
himself, and pushing his rind of hair upward to-
wards the encompassing hat.
He had always worn a Peter Cooper beard, his
upper lip and chin cleanly shaven each morning.
His mouth was large and mobile; his lips full of
life and laughter, though usually tightly closed
over the quill toothpick, through which he was
humming some bars of music caught in an earlier
time. He wore an upper plate of teeth, which
gave him much trouble, and his audience a corre-
sponding amount of amusement, because of a
tendency to fall into his mouth at inopportune
moments when Uncle was warmed up in speech.
The plate was ill-fitting in the start, and, as the
wearer grew older, and the “gooms ” fell away,
the teeth did not adapt themselves to the changed
conditions.
His eyes were of that peculiar hazel-gray blue,
so mild and gentle in repose, but so dangerous
when roused; but they were failing, much to his
sorrow and chagrin. He would not wear spec-
tacles except upon compulsion, and so they were
generally lying about in the wrong part of the
store or house when wanted; it was because of this
near-sightedness that he had been accused, in a
spirit of levity, of once having blacked his boots
with stove-polish.
His nose was large and suspiciously red. But


CONCERNS UNCLE I AND HIS STORE 5
Uncle I’ was so strict an apostle of temperance
that his teetotaling principles ruled even in the
kitchen and pantry, despoiling the succulent
mince pie and various sauces and puddings of
much of their piquancy and tastiness by the ab-
sence of wines or brandies.
In dress he was severely simple and unvarying,
and he wore the year round a composition-collar
without neckerchief. His vest was buttoned only
at the top and bottom, in evidence, as someone
had said, that he really indulged in clean linen,
since his long and scraggly, sandy beard covered
his neck and chest.
He was currently assumed to be well-to-do;
though there was naught in his store, in his
house, or in his manner of living, that gave cause
for much knowledge on that score; but his hand
was open—not ostentatiously—to the poor. His
store-books were in an inextricable tangle, and
many a grocery bill was lost because of laxness
in the collections. It was not, however, commer-
cial laxness alone which caused so much confusion
in the accounts. Many a poor widow, or poor
family, could tell other stories.
“I didn’t promise you any joke,” said Uncle I’
one morning in his store, resuming a conversa-
tion with one of several bystanders. “Fact is,
what one person considers a joke is stern reality
to another. Shortly, Mother Treegood,” speak-
ing to a little German woman who was waiting to
barter some butter and eggs for other produce,
“just as soon as I can get through with Jim I’ll


6 THE QUILLMORES
be with you. Now, suppose that Bud Conquest,
who has a baby a few months old, should ask Doc
Gus as to the best way to raise children, and the
doctor should say “Why, the best way to raise chil-
dren is by the hair, you might think that a joke;
but Bud would be all-fired mad, and even the
youngster’s feelings might be hurt. That’s worth
twelve-and-half cents a yard to-day, Mrs. W.
Washes well, too. Now there’s Tom over there by
the cheese box '’—Tom was a long, lean, lanky
youth of the village, not over-bright, whose main
visible occupation, when not “doin’ chores,” was
the solving of the 15-puzzle. “There’s Tom, who
never could see through a joke; why, when he was
a kid, what's-his-name was a-courtin’ his sister
'Fronie. I mean, he called one night to see
'Fronie, and leaving his overcoat in the hall
thought to find the gal in the settin’-room; but she,
with the family and others, too, were in the
kitchen. The young feller had a bright idea, and
not seeing Tom, who was playing behind the stove,
he said: ‘’Fronie, I brought your brother a boat,’
and he fussed and fumbled in his pants-pockets
as if to find it. Then he said: “I reckon as how I
left it in my coat in the hall. Say, 'Fronie, come
and see it,” and the gal, naturally curious, fol-
lowed him out of the room; but Tom was awake,
too, and just as he reached and opened the door,
there was a ca-swashing sound in the hallway and
her “steady was heard to say “It’s a smack,
"Fronie, it’s a smack; give it to Tommy.” And
Tom, to this day, is asking for that boat.”


CONCERNS UNCLE I? AND HIS STORE 7
There was generous laughter at Tom’s expense,
who, however, evidently quite unconcerned, con-
tinued to move the blocks of his puzzle.
The talk that morning among the country people
was mainly concerning subjects of purely local and
trivial interest, and did not attract general atten-
tion until some reference was made to the Quill-
more bank at Indiatole, and its marked prosper-
ity. Some word respecting the Institution’s con-
siderable profits of late was spoken.
“If that information be true, it must have come
from the colonel,” said Mat Treegood, the village
philosopher. “Certainly not from the new cash-
ier, that man L’Oiseau will never gab. Hardly
speaks when he is spoken to.”
“They do say that L’Oiseau never shakes
hands, leastwise not with his right hand like other
people,” ventured the first speaker.
“So I have heerd, and so I believe,” continued
Treegood. “I was up to town last week and at
the bank, and this L'Oiseau, slick as a pin, was
standing behind the desk. I stepped quickly up,
unobserved, and with a hearty “Good-morning,
cashier,’ put out my hand. He responded civilly
enough, pushing toward me a newspaper, saying,
‘Will you read the Times this morning while you
wait?”—I just wish I could meet him face to face
once. I’d like to ask him some questions.”
“Then, now is your opportunity,” said some-
one near the door, “for here he is driving up.”
“Gosh—coming here?” said Treegood, and
over all there was an instant hush. “Sure, this is


8 THE QUILLMORES
the first time he has ever shown himself here-
abouts.”
A gentleman, if costume and demeanor can
bear evidence, handsomely attired, contrasting
strangely therefore with those about him, ap-
peared a moment later in the doorway. He may
have known every face within, but he gave no sign
of recognition, except to Uncle I’, whom he ap-
proached and to whom he spoke in a low voice.
“I had occasion to drive this way and Colonel
Quillmore asked that I call for some papers which
he said you would have ready.” Uncle I’ re-
sponded cordially, spoke of the weather and of
the bank, the meantime securing from a compart-
ment in the safe a package, which he placed in the
caller's hands. Receiving the parcel without fur-
ther words than “Thank you. Good-day, Mr.
Thatch,” Mr. L’Oiseau turned to go.
Treegood, however, intercepted, “Haven’t be-
fore had the pleasure of seeing you here, Mr.
Cashier. Glad to offer you my hand.” This was
spoken in a good-natured and loud tone, but the
one addressed was seemingly quite oblivious to the
offered courtesy, for he held in his right hand the
package which had just been given him, and took
a cigar from his lips with the other. This seem-
ingly unconsidered action was not without a pur-
pose, and a time was to come when, after dire ex-
tremity, he would tell to one of the little assembly
present the reason for the observed peculiarity.
“Ah, Mr. Treegood, is it not? Extremely
pleased to meet you. Pardon my haste,” and bow-


CONCERNS UNCLE I’ AND HIS STORE 9
ing slightly, he brushed past his would-be inter-
rogator and was gone.
There was a sigh of relief when the sound of
the rapidly moving wheels of his carriage grew
dim in the distance. No one seemed quite willing
to refer to the incident just closed, except Tree-
good, who volubly expressed first his annoyance
and then his satisfaction that his claim as to
“hand-shaking ” had been sustained, and again
the process of dispensing nutmegs and narration
was resumed in the store.
This store building was of the traditional
Noah’s Ark order; a long, narrow structure of
frame, with front-porch, and a story above used
by the village for various public purposes, and
regularly occupied by the Masonic fraternity.
The structure was of great age, time-stained,
and sadly in need of a coat of “Fool-The-Sun ?’
paint, so lavishly advertised in and about the
place. The lower front, right and left of the cen-
tral door of entrance, and between the show win-
dows, was covered with advertising signs of to-
bacco, baking powders (without alum), soaps, fla-
voring extracts, patent-medicines, vinegar bitters,
fire-insurance, harness-oil, axle-grease, farming
implements, newspapers, and the like; while the
remaining reachable and uncovered space had
been, as always in such cases, from time immemo-
rial, mutilated by the knife of the lounger, or de-
faced with the vandal lead-pencil. Over the store
door, in large flaring letters, originally in several
colors and many flourishes, the work and pride of


10 THE QUILLMORES
a wagon-painter, was still to be seen the old firm
name, “Snackle & Thatch, Groceries, Dry Goods
and Hardware.”
The length of this store building was divided
near the rear end by a wooden partition, which
on the store side was papered with pictures cut
from publications dating back into war-times.
This wooden wall between the two sections was
complete, as was the division of commercial inter-
ests—the one for life, the other for death.
For Uncle I’, in addition to his general store,
had in an accidental way become possessed of a
stock of coffins which he had arranged in the rear
room, where formerly, and for a time so long ago
that no one now remembered to the contrary, there
had been found only boxes, and barrels, and
crates, and caddies, and paper, and gunny sacks;
the jackets, in short, in which the goods for the
store had been received from the wholesale houses.
So that the rear room was an absolute antithesis
to the front part. For on the one side were sun-
light, and bright, if irrelevant, pictures; grocery
and drug-store smells; bustle and chaffing, dicker-
ing and beating down a few pennies on the pound
or on the yard, laughter and motion, and in this
apartment on the other side somber darkness and
gloom.
The occupation of an undertaker was unques-
tionably the last Uncle I would have selected, and
even at this time he had not yet become a “Fu-
neral Director.” A son, Nehemiah by name, af-
ter leading a wandersome sort of life, spending his


THE VILLAGE PHILOSOPHER 13
short, that which he had heard or read last was
most likely to influence him in his talk—it seldom
extended to action.
He had married a buxom, hardy German girl
from the next county, one who was intensely prac-
tical,—the usual sterling attribute of that nation-
ality,—and with her invaluable discretion in mat-
ters of household economics and finance he had
prospered; though her villainous rendering of
English caused him much confusion.
He had had the good fortune of being early ap-
prenticed to honest labor and thus learned to deal
with the work-a-day world direct, and not through
the letter-perfect theories of book-writers and po-
litical economists, and then, learning to read late
in his youth, he had amassed a fund of informa-
tion, useless for the most part because usually ill-
directed and impracticable. Like an American
Boffin he had adopted one book—Prescott’s Con-
quest of Mexico,-in which he was well-read, and
failed but rarely of bringing it into scrap-talks at
the store and elsewhere.
Still he was, as usual with self-made men, in-
consistent, as was shown in the management of
one of his own children, for in place of giving
him the much-talked-of best fortune—a kick at
fourteen—instead of following out his own rules of
hard knocks as the best educator, and his preach-
ments concerning the “laborer ’’—he brought
much derision upon himself by sending his son
Abe to an agricultural college.
The only daughter which came to this queerly


14 THE QUILLMORES
mated couple, was handicapped with the odd name
of Oryntha; but she, like her little mother, was a
hard worker, and the two together kept the house
tidy, scrubbing the kitchen table and chairs until
the grain of the wood stood out most palpably.
Mat and the usual complement of traders and
hangers-on had assembled early one morning at
the village store, when Uncle I’, attending to the
wants of a recently bereaved young woman,
hunted up and mounted an empty cheese box,
which he placed before the telephone instrument,
for in those days this modern convenience was al-
ways positioned at an altitude suited to the tele-
phonic Abraham Lincolns.
‘‘ Hello!
“Hello, Central!
“I say, Kate, give me the Indiatole Casket Com-
pany.
“What’s that? Oh! I don’t know the number,
Kate.
“Number eight? No! I tell you I don’t know
the number, but I want the Indiatole Casket Com-
pany.
“Basket Company? Sakes alive! No, Casket,
Coffins. Don’t you know
“Coffee? No, no; Casket! C-a-s-k-e-t. Cer-
tainly. That’s what,-and right considerably
quick, too.
“Golly! Moses—folks,” said Uncle, address-
ing those in the store, “do stop that noise over
there! I cain’t hear what she's a-sayin’.” Then
again to the 'phone, “What? No, wa’n’t talkin’


POSITIONED AT AN ALTITUDE SUITED TO THE TELEPHONIC
ABRAHAM LINCOLNS.
(See p. 14.)





THE VILLAGE PHILOSOPHER 15
to you, Kate. Jest tryin’ to git the store quiet a
bit.
“Line busy? Say, Katey, that’s enough to
make a fellow provoked.” There was an inter-
val, and Uncle caught the eye of a bystander.
“That ham’s worth sixteen cents the pound if
you take it—and that’s the best I can do, Jim. If
you was to take that whole lot of hams it won’t
make no difference in the price. There ain’t no
profit on hams nowadays, anyway.
“Certainly. Listening.
“Now, what’s the matter of you folks?
“Sure. We got a reg’lar account with your
company.
“What is it? Keep still, over there, Tom.
Don’t know me? Why, Ira Thatch of Lamo.
That’s who. Oh, for the land’s sake don’t talk
ham, now, Jim, I’ve—Yes, yes, Lamo, L-A-M-oh,
do shet up! No, not you, Katey; talking to the
fellows here who are botherin’ me.”
There was another interval and Uncle again ad-
dressed himself to Jim. “If you don’t like that
brand, reckon you don’t know what’s good. That
ain’t no everyday Indiana ham. Them was Sun-
day pigs, acorn-fed, and lived high and healthy.
“Yes, yes, I hear you now. Let her come.
What? Too early for the company. All right,
have to make the best of it, I s”pose. I’ll remem-
ber and wait for 'em to get in from their fork-
breakfast as we say in Par-ree—I ain’t paying no
twenty cents for—All right. I’ll be here or
'counted for when you call.”


16 THE QUILLMORES
And Uncle I’ hung up the 'phone, turned the
switch, rang off, replaced his quill toothpick—his
inseparable companion—and stood a moment lis-
tening to the talk about him. Treegood was tell-
ing some story about trouble at the Quillmores’.
“Mat, that’s all blue rot and fool-talk,” petu-
lantly interjected Uncle I’, as he moved back to his
work—he had a sugar scoop in his hand, which
at intervals, as he proceeded, he waved for em-
phasis; “there wa’n’t nothin’ the matter of her—
anyhow, not at first—whatever there may be now.
You’re all a-guessin” at somethin’, and multiplyin’
it by two to make it look big. I seen her before
any of you, and I talked with her, and I know for
a dead certainty that she was a pretty girl and as
sweet a slip of womanhood as there ever was any-
where. You’re always a-findin’ wonderful mare's
nests. It’s like you people, who don’t know any
too much about anything, to guess at the rest and
make it a heap. Better stop your yawping about
things you don’t understand, and get back to rock
bottom,” and the grocer walked around to the
other side of a barrel, and prepared to remove
some of its contents. He didn’t want the Quill-
more affairs aired in his store.
“Oh, that’s just like you, Ira, to put in when
you wa’n’t invited. I wa’n’t a-talkin’ to you at
all,” answered Mat with a show of resentment.
“You make a bald statement like that, you wave
your hand, and that’s the end of the whole thing.
After you there ain’t nothing but the flood.
Everything good and sensible died with you, and


THE VILLAGE PHILOSOPHER 17
the world will have to get along some other way.
Sure! You ain’t fair, and you know you ain’t.”
Uncle I’ was absorbed in his work, and, besides,
in stooping over the barrel his set of teeth became
displaced; this precluded articulate spech on his
part.
Mat continued: “I have hearn tell as how when
the grand madam kem here,”—Uncle I looked up
sharply, and made a sign of dissent which Mat
understood,—“well, then, Mrs. Quillmore, if one’s
got to talk by book and candle—when she kem to
these parts, she’d begun to hector the colonel be-
fore she’d got her weddin’ bonnet off. Some-
thin’d went crosswise with her down the road
a piece—anyways, she didn’t like the settlement
and the people, and she showed her spunk and said
it, too.”
Uncle I’ now straightened up, postponing fur-
ther attention to his work, for he saw that the dis-
cussion could not be avoided, and he said with
much earnestness:
“You be as near right about that as you be on
anything else you hain’t had no chance to see or
hear the straight of. I was with the party that
went to meet the bridal pair. The colonel had
told me when to come, in a letter—hadn’t no tele-
graph over hereabouts in them early days,—and
the mail only kem about twice a week, or as often
as Johnny Jackson was sent after it. And when
I saw her,-Mrs. Quillmore,—there wa’n’t a pret-
tier bit of calico and bonnet ever stepped off that
train at Miles Crossing that day, or any other day


18 THE QUILLMORES
before or since. As I shook the colonel's hand,
her pretty, rosy face, with sparkling black eyes,
looked over at me archlike from near the colonel’s
side, and smilin’ she said:
“‘This must be Mr. Thatch, of who I have heerd
tell so much, and of who I am so awful jealous’—
and she looked over at the colonel, and then back
at me, her face goin’ red and white and red again,
and awful confused and bashful-like. But there
was the very jim-dickens in her pretty big eyes, as
she handed me her little hand after trying to yank
her kid glove off.
“‘Yes, mem,” says I, and I reck’n I was about
as fool-flustered as any green gawky of that day.
‘I’m just the same identical old Sergeant Thatch
who you 'tended and watered in that cellar o'
yourn way down in Georgy durin’ the war. But
don’t you ever dasst to Mister me, miss, please, or
there’ll sure be trouble.”
“The colonel laughed and said: ‘Wifey don’t
know just what to call me either. She says “Mis-
ter” is so awful formal-like, and then it hain’t
good form; she don’t like “colonel,” 'cause that
brings up some painful memories; and “Andy ’’
—well, that’s so awful common-like, she thinks.
So we’ll have to petition the Legislature next
winter to give me some other real pretty name.
Meantime it 'll have to be Andy, I expect.”
“The missus laughed and hid her face in the
colonel’s sleeve. And we all stood there and gig-
gled and snickered like a passel of cemetery girls
about nothin’—I was just as bad gone as the rest


THE VILLAGE PHILOSOPHER 19
on 'em. That’s been a good many years ago, Mat.
When we got the saratogas and valises and
things all aboard I took the lines and druv them
through to Lamo. Well, dear me, Suss, all along
that road she saw and pointed out beauties, in
trees, and brooks, and meadows, that we who al-
ways lived here, or been born here, had never
thought on. I had to pull up and let her and the
colonel get out to pick some wild flowers that she
seen and knowed all about. She said she had seen
their pictures and learned their names in the con-
vent, and she told the colonel what this one and
that one meant—in love. Then we all giggled
again. Talk about her bein’ cross or ugly Not
a bit of it. She was gay as a lark and hummed
little tunes. That shows how little you know about
it, Mat. You had ought ter inform yourself be-
fore you talk, or keep shet up.”
“And that’s another of your pet ways,” said
Mat, a little abashed by the smiles and ruder guf-
faws of the listeners, and the determined man-
ner of the storekeeper. “Everybody hereabouts
knows you’ll stick up for a woman—any kind of a
Woman—’’
“Say now, Mat, just hadn’t you better pull
outen that rut before you get hub-deep in the blue-
clay, and cain’t get out?” interrupted Uncle I’.
“If that’s all your fool-study about Mexico and
the Aztex Indians has did fer you—to speak dis-
respectsomely of women folks, I advise you to go
home and have Ory learn you a little politeness
and breeding. And then you better take some-


20 THE QUILLMORES
thin’ about three times a day in hot water to clear
out your bile—”
“Well, I ain’t sayin’ it ain’t right and square to
stick up for the women,” added Mat, considerably
crestfallen by the unhappy turn which his ar-
guments had taken, “my mother was a woman.
But what I say is this, that you’d stick up for any
woman, right or wrong; and that ain’t fair. For
when a woman puts herself down on a level with
man, she must take her medicine like a man, and
not whine about it and put up the cry-baby act.
I’ll do my all-firedest for a woman that's deserv-
* ing; but, I say again, when she does wrong and
pulls a good man down with her, then she ain’t
got no call for any more mercy than a man would
be entitled to. And I stick to that 2 3
‘‘’Tain’t no sort o’ use to go on with yer sermon,
Mat,” cut in Uncle I’ rather tartly, “there hain’t
nothin’ to your talk but talk. I’m goin’ to let the
colonel 'tend to his business and his wife, and you
better agree to the same.’’
“But ain’t she changed? I leave it to you, Ira,
hain’t she changed?” resentfully pleaded Mat, not
willing to abandon the argument without some con-
cessions from his tricky opponent—“ain’t she
changed?”
“Well, who hain’t changed?” answered Uncle
I’. “I kin remember yet how you looked the first
time you kem over from the Poor Woods.” Mat
winced visibly. It was a sore spot. He couldn’t
catch this wily storekeeper, though he knew that
Uncle I was merely playing with him, following


THE VILLAGE PHILOSOPHER 21
out Talleyrand’s immortal dictum concerning the
value of language. “Of course Mrs. Quillmore’s
changed. Why shouldn’t she? Do you expect
she’s got some of that 'lixir-stuff you told us about
the other day, that some old Spaniard tried to find
in Florida? Hain’t we all changed? But even
to-day, with all her changes, that you’re a-harpin’
on, she’s the same woman, stately and grand and
dignified, that she had ought to be, to be a banker’s
wife—the richest man in the county. Did you,
Mat Treegood, Philosopher and Expert Moralist
of Lamo, ever know of a single, solitary thing that
she done that was wrong? Spit it out! No, you
cain’t conjure up nothin”. You like to hash-up
little plow-tail tattle, or store gossip. There’s
been enough fool-talk of your kind in the county
about her, if it ever got to her ears, to make her
old and changed for sure and ever. You folks
don’t like her 'cause she won’t stand at the church
door and swap cheap lies about your latest breed-
sow, or the rise in wheat, or the potato-bugs, or
the latest fashions in bonnets. You feel that she’s
a lady and above you, 'cause she chooses to dress
in black, and plain, with no filderig watch-chain
twice around her neck and down the middle, and
no boughten frizzes. Now you’d like it if she’d
spend her time in 'tending yer strawberry festi-
vals, and your quilting bees, so you and your
women folks could stand around and pick her to
pieces, and jest 'cause she don’t open her mouth
and show her back teeth when she laughs, or 'cause
she won’t eat with her case-knife, or stick her nap-


22 THE QUILLMORES
kin in her collar, or curl her little finger when she
drinks tea, why, you’ve got no use for her.
You’re small potatoes to-day, Mat, and mighty
blamed few in a hill.”
Just now Uncle I’, being called by the 'phone,
went hurriedly to that part of the store, but not
without seeing that his final shot had badly shat-
tered Mat’s philosophy.
Uncle sprang quickly on the box before the tele-
phone, pushed back the switch, answered the ring,
then snatching the receiver from the hook,
shouted:
“Yes, Kate, I’m here, waiting.
“Oh! This is the Casket Company, and is it
Mr. Day? All right, then. Say, I want you to
send me by next—What?
“No, I’m right up to the 'phone—I cain’t do
it—I tell you I cain’t talk no louder without
breaking a blood-vein. They can hear me down
to the old mill, now.
“I want you to send by next express, Big Four
—a plain No. 10–Hello! What’s the matter
now?
“For the land’s sake, do I have to go all over
that again?
“Don’t cut in now, Kate, I’ve got all the trouble
I can bear—yes, yes—I want you to send me by
train leaving at nine-forty-two—Send me a
plain—what? Oh, you’ve got that, have you? Glad
to hear it. Say, do please shet up, over there.
Oh, of course, you heerd that, but you cain’t seem
to hear nothing else. I want a plain No. 10 six-


THE VILLAGE PHILOSOPHER 23
feet-two. What’s that? No, I don’t want two—
what would the poor fellow do with two?—I want
one—who for? For me, Ira Thatch. Now, don’t
get funny over there. You know what I mean.
“Now send. To-day will you; yes, yes,—this
morning.
“Eh? Thanks. No, I don’t—but this kind of
work would drive a man to—all right—good-by.”
Hanging up the receiver, ringing off, carefully
turning the switch, he walked over to a young
woman, in compliance with whose wishes he had
telephoned for a casket of special size, and said in
his placid and most confidential voice:
“It will be here in time. Now, if you’ll wait
till I weigh out some starch for this lad, I’ll ask
him to stop at my house for my daughter to tend
store, so’s I can show you about the trimmings
and things. S'pose you want the hearse?”
There seemed to be some doubt.
“Oh, yes, it could be placed in a spring-wagon
and hauled away without prejudice to the de-
parted. Some folks prefer one way and some an-
other. Mere matter of choice.”
A few hours had passed and Uncle I’ had opened
the second department of his store, the undertak-
ing annex, and let in light and air, for both were
needed.
Upon two wrapped and padded “horses "’ stood
a large black-broadcloth-covered casket, of the
severely plain order. Around this Uncle I’ was
moving in small steps, his mouth partly filled with


24 THE QUILLMORES
tacks, the crooked fingers of his left hand, injured
in the war, deftly holding the linen and silk, and
padding with “excelsior,” while with the ham-
mer-hand the dressing was made permanent.
Meanwhile the grocery part of the store was
emptying itself of its loungers and patrons into
the rear portion, where they stood around for a
bit of gossip, the novelty of the work having long
since worn off with the villagers, who had been
witnesses of this same grewsome process often
enough, in good sooth, to have lost all horror of
the occupation.
“Too bad, Uncle,” said some one of the com-
pany, “on such a hot day, that you have to be kept
indoors, and on the jump, too.”
“Oh, I cain’t complain of being too occupied,”
answered Uncle a little thickly through the tacks
clinging to his lips, “rather like it, in fact.
Blessed is the man who has found his work and
can do it; but I happen to recall two stories—”
“Two stories at once,” interrupted a listener,
“let’s have 'em both.”
“One at a time, gentlemen, one at a time, and,”
—Uncle hesitated just a moment, and evidently re-
minded of something while arranging a puff in
the lining, said,—“ and that’s another, and I’ll
give it first.”
Before proceeding, however, as the tacks in his
mouth gave his insecurely fitting plate some
trouble, he slyly reset it, at the same time shifting
the row of tacks.
“I remember a ticket-agent in the East, at a


THE VILLAGE PHILOSOPHER 25
railroad station in a busy town, who had a parrot
which didn’t swear, but who had learned to re-
peat the words, “One at a time, gentlemen, one at a
time,” often spoken by the ticket man—that piece
of ribbon over there, Abe, thanks,—when the
crowd of anxious purchasers were asking for
tickets faster’n he could hand 'em out. Well, one
day the parrot turned up missing, and it wa’n’t
until after a long search had been made that,
issuing from behind a high hedge, there was heerd
in familiar but distressed tones, a voice crying,
‘One at a time, gentlemen, one at a time,” and, on
investigation, sure enough, there was Mr. Parrot,
much the worse for a long, stiff fight with two
big birds, who were ‘holding him up in true Dick
Turpin style, and, as opportunity offered, pluck-
ing the feathers out of the poor body ‘one at a
time.’”
Uncle I’ had stopped a moment in his talk,
apparently to arrange some delicate effect with
several pieces of braid and a linen-covered button;
but when he began to hum his usual melodyless
tune, someone called his attention to the promised
stories.
“I am reminded this hot day of a Fourth of
July when in the war; the boys thought to have
some sport, and among other things arranged for a
boat race on the river where we were encamped.
There was in our regiment two skilled oarsmen,
one from Yale, I think, and the other from Har-
vard. Although a country boy I had some knack
with the sculls myself.”


26 THE QUILLMORES
“Ach, du lieber Himmel—mit skulls he has had
so much knack, and yet so young already,” ex-
claimed Mother Treegood, “before he was under-
taker too.”
“No, not that kind, mother. But as I was a-
saying, just to please my mess and to make it
funny—for the crack oarsmen thought it would
be sport, I went in also; and, not to make a short
story long, I won. After the race, our colonel,
who was an onlooker, said to me: “See here,
Thatch, I have seen some big races and I recog-
nized the Yale stroke and the Harvard stroke, and
both were correct and fine; but bless me if I ever
saw the like of your stroke before; what do you
call it?' I didn’t know myself, so I up and says to
the colonel, clicking my heels together and giving
him the proper salute, ‘Well, colonel, I reckon
that stroke has no regular name, but it was just
“a pull to git thar.”” So I think with most
people who succeed they need ‘to pull to git
thar.’”
After a moment, Uncle resumed his talk: “The
other story's about old Fewwalk, who farms it
down by Wolfert's Hollow, and who has an
Englishman named Woodfoot for next neighbor.
They’re good friends, as ev'body knows; but Few-
walk will play it on the Englisher every clip.
Well, it seems that old Fewwalk went to one o’
these variety shows—wardwell shows, I believe
they calls 'em now, when he was down to Cincin-
nati last fall—and he heerd tell of a farmer who
planted toads. He thought it awful funny and so


28 THE QUILLMORES
Quillmore, while in a general way admiring the
beauty of scenery and environment, had no un-
necessary poetical sentiment to trouble him. He
saw the practicability of a grist-mill in this new
country, and at once set to work, unconsciously,
to undo the work of the original settlers of the vil-
lage of Lamo over at the churchyard corners and
of the two hills. Bread was a necessity; so a
primitive mill was erected at the waterways, using
the rapidly flowing Salt Creek for motive power.
The canny Scot, a tight-fisted but scrupulously
honest old man, had his own practical plans for his
only child, the present colonel. Unhappily these
ran counter to those of the youth. The father
desired a continuance of the mill-business with its
assured income for all time—bread being likely to
continue a necessity of life forever; the young
man, however, had a student’s temperament, de-
lighting most in books. His commercial instincts
were at a low ebb—if he had any at any time. He
leaned especially to medicine, the clandestine pur-
suit of which interfered most frequently with his
duties in and about the mill property, to the subse-
quent and frequently harsh correction by the un-
poetic and unlearned parent, who viewed the read-
ing of a book—outside his Bible—as a sinful waste
of time and opportunity for making money.
At length, under the frequent solicitation of the
mother, permission was wrung from the miller to
send the youth to a higher school; but this, instead
of satisfying his ambitions, and resulting in his
glad and willing return to the mill-business, in-


THE QUILLMORES 29
duced him to matriculate at a medical college in
the East, where he would have continued to the
close of the term, but for the advent of the war
between the States.
At once a new bent was discovered in young
Quillmore. He was enthusiastic and patriotic, as
were the overwhelming majority of Indiana’s sons,
for the safeguarding of his country. And, again,
bitter disappointment and dissatisfaction entered
the soul of the old miller, for when his son enlisted
he saw his dream of commercial immortality fad-
ing away—to be lost forever!
Andrew Quillmore and Ira Thatch at length
found themselves in Alabama attached to the army
corps of General Lew Wallace, having meantime
taken part in all the dangers incident to several
years of military service—their last engagement
being an encounter with General Forrest, who was
raiding in the vicinity of Athens.
Quillmore, while several times promoted for
meritorious service, but not then, nor since, a
colonel, was so called without volition of his own.
He was wounded in a cavalry charge, a glancing
blow from a sabre on the side of the head having
felled him from his horse and left him stunned and
unconscious, on the field. The battle-line moved
on, leaving the wounded to care for themselves.
In the same engagement, Uncle I’, then Sergeant
Thatch, in charge of a park of artillery, was
wounded by the explosion of a shell, one fragment
injuring his left hand, and another striking him
over the left eye, lacerating the skin,


30 THE QUILLMORES
When Quillmore regained consciousness he was
lying underground—judging from the darkness
and dampness and smells—in a cavern or cellar—
head tightly bound, very tired, faint, and thirsty.
He found himself, after a time, lapsing into foolish
imageries and dreams, rousing from these with an
effort and a start, only to repeat the process over
and over again. His fever and the consuming
thirst took on increased powers of torment. As
time slipped by he marveled who and where he
was; what had happened to him; why his head was
so tightly bound, and what would be the outcome
of it all.
Thus he lay, a prisoner, as it eventually came to
him, for he recalled dimly and unsatisfactorily the
battle and remembered the flashing blade of the
guardsman; then his mind began playing him all
manner of fantastic pranks. He was not sure
even of existence. Time seemed interminable.
The alternate lapses into unconsciousness and re-
turn to wakefulness at last confused him so that
he failed to dissociate the one period from the
other; and presently he ceased entirely to regard
what passed through his mind. It all seemed to
be a hideous nightmare.
Water |
This was his paramount wish and thought.
Water |
Every story he had ever heard or read, with
water involved, seemed to flit through his mind.
The desert of Sahara with its treacherous mi-
rages; the roar of Niagara; the June rise in the


THE QUILLMORES 31
Ohio; the plash and patter of dear old Salt Creek,
as it poured under the mill-wheel, way up North in
Indiana; then, at last, he seemed to be lying at the
foot of the Field of Cerement near his home,
quaffing of the cool, sparkling spring, purling
from the foot of the hill!
Eventually he became faintly conscious that
someone was moving about in the darkened in-
closure. He lay watching stupidly, hazily, indif-
ferently. Then he saw, by the light of the per- .
forated tin lantern, that the bearer was a woman.
But this must be one of his foolish lapsings.
Water |
Quiet reigned everywhere for a few moments—
that awful quiet which to a man thus circum-
stanced, or to a patient passing into or out of a
deep chloroform narcosis, is the most trying and
terrifying.
Water | Water |
“Hush, soldier,” said the woman, “not so
loud; here is water. Be quiet. Speak low. You
are in the hands of friends. But your enemies are
all about you.”
In a few hurriedly spoken sentences the water-
bearer explained how the colonel had attracted the
attention of some person, name unmentioned; had
been picked up and carried from the battlefield to
this house, and secreted in the cellar.
“Bear patiently for a little while. Your com-
panion,” pointing to a shadowy form in an op-
posite corner, “is asleep, I think—”
“No, I hain’t,” spoke a voice which proved to


32 THE QUILLMORES
be that of Sergeant Thatch; “been a-listenin’
and keepin’ mum, 'cause it hurts so all-fired much
to move or talk, or even think—kind-er seems to
me.’’
“Is that you, Ira?”
“Yes, Andy, it's me; all that’s left o’ me, I
reckon. Are you hurt much?” -
But the young woman, for such she proved to be
in the light of the lantern, forbade any farther
talking because of the danger of being overheard.
Sergeant Thatch was also given a soul-satisfy-
ing draught of water; and with the promise of re-
turning soon, and leaving the pitcher of water
near at hand, the young girl disappeared in the
gloom, to the last strictly enjoining silence.
Quillmore had never tasted a cup of water like
that. And the young face which looked down
upon him as he drank, though only faintly out-
lined in the darkness, was yet one to be eternally
impressed upon his soul. He would never forget
her. And he never did. It was a peculiar meet-
ing. It was the beginning of love and of ultimate
and almost infinite sorrow, to be followed and con-
cluded by tragedy
After a time an escape was safely accomplished
through the aid of a young surgeon who, too, after
many wanderings, following the war-period, found
his way to Lamo-Doc Gus.
When Quillmore, after many vicissitudes, finally
reached home, it was to find that his father,
tempted by the war-prices, had reached out too far
in the hope of a continuance of the inflated condi-


THE QUILLMORES 33
tions—and, had failed! And with this failure he
had pined away and died. His last wish was that
his son might re-establish the mill which had been
the father’s pride, and clear the indebtedness to
the uttermost penny.
This the colonel did. Under his college train-
ing and knowledge of modern machinery; with a
practical application of the experience gained, as
had so many soldier boys in their travels in the
South, he made many changes, threw out the old
under-shot wheel system, introduced the newer
form of improved steam appliances, and, in good
time, had the mill re-established on a paying basis.
He had not forgotten the lassie who had rescued
him from death. Letters had passed between
them; and eventually he journeyed to the South-
land, made his proper court, and married the girl,
who had now grown into beautiful womanhood,
and brought her to his ancestral home.
It was not a happy marriage; far from it. On
the part of the colonel it was founded upon affec-
tion, possibly upon an exaggerated gratitude; but
it seemed to him to be love. To the girl it was
romantic, and being alone in the world, save one
sister, she was glad of an opportunity to be her
own mistress. She had all the fire and vivacity of
the typical Southerner, inherited from a long line
of French ancestry.
The novelty of the romance having abated, the
true situation forced itself upon her: the austere-
ness of the people, and their commercial, practical
ways, left an ineradicable impress, producing


THE QUILLMORES 35
was made to awaken a kindred feeling in his wife.
He deserted his studies and waited upon her foot-
steps. His was the knightly gallantry of the
mediaeval period reincarnated.
A son was born to the household, and great was
the joy of the father. But unhappily and un-
fortunately Mrs. Quillmore made a wretched re-
covery. It was very slow and many times border-
ing upon the critical. Eminent medical skill was
called in counsel, and the crisis eventually passed.
Her getting up and about was marked by a deeper
depression and a more dense-like gloom than
formerly. A critical operation had been advised
and urged, but refused by the lady.
Truly the condition of domestic affairs at the
Quillmore house was lamentable.
The only ray of light which came to her dark-
ened and still darkening soul was the appearance
of Father Lessing from the Southern country.
He conversed with her in her own tongue; and,
with the large-hearted charity and unselfish di-
plomacy of the priests of the Catholic Church, he
succeeded, after a time, in bringing about a partial
reconciliation between the pair. It proved be-
yond even his power, and the greater power of his
Church, to produce or reproduce any tie stronger
than a species of armed neutrality. There were
ebbs and flows in this neutral friendship; there
were short periods of amiability; and there were
longer periods of lowering clouds and estrange-
ment. Fancied slights—and needless to say the
lady was vividly imaginative, and a very insecure


36 THE QUILLMORES
foundation was sufficient to build disapproval
upon—frequently resulted in a period of morbid
silence, for which only tardy explanation would be
accorded. An admission that she was ever at
fault, even when the evidence became indisputable,
was never dreamt of. So the love that had once
sat at their board was gone, and like a lost spirit
impossible of recall.
It was, therefore, not to be wondered at that
Colonel Quillmore, from being a fond lover of
his beautiful Southern bride, now blighted in his
home-life, met at every point with disappointment
and upbraidings and purposed misconstruction
of the simplest of acts, gradually changed from
the genial, whole-souled soldier, to the moody,
abstracted student, who cared now for little save
his books.
Through his bank correspondence the Colonel
conceived the idea of securing one of the deserted
mansions on the hills, and after some talk with
Uncle I’, and a dignified assent from Mrs. Quill-
more, the arrangement was concluded. Repairs
were made, and for a brief space Mrs. Quillmore
was keenly alive to the work, becoming once more
interested in her surroundings; went hither and
thither selecting furniture and hangings and
ordering the remodeling. It pleased her to be re-
moved from the “plebeian, psalm-singing” neigh-
borhood, and away from the surveillance of the
village folk.
Thus it happened that, with all the good inten-
tions in the world on the part of the colonel, his


THE QUILLMORES 37
removal to the mansion on the hill was his worst
investment and most direful in consequence for
himself and his wife; for the latter, being now
cut off from all sources of human interest, and
given over entirely to the contemplation of her icy
isolation, grew steadily more morose, and the dis-
ease which seemed to prey upon her from the
time of her arrival in the county, was given more
luxuriant and abundant opportunity for feeding
upon itself.
The boy, Leander, grew to be a fine lad, hearty
and strong. He took from neither his father nor
his mother of the gloom of their temperaments.
On the contrary, he had a sunny, light-hearted,
impulsive disposition; singing, playing, and romp-
ing; full of mischief and frolic.
Singular perhaps, in the case of Mrs. Quill-
more, but not so to the close observer of human
nature, this mother had no affection for the bright
and noisy little fellow. She looked upon him
with ill-concealed dislike, as the actual cause of her
ill-health, and as a continued and visible evidence
of her grievous transgression, and of Providen-
tial ill-favor.
In time the child felt the frigid correction of
his little waywardnesses and childish capers, and
fretted under the neglect of his mother, who was
away from the hill ofttimes, leaving him alone, or
in charge of the servants. In her presence he be-
came reserved, crushed, apprehensive, and fearful.
His father carried him about from place to
place, took him to the bank, and to places of amuse-


88 THE QUILLMORES
ment, when he had opportunity to do so. Like
many another indulgent parent he could not fore-
see that he was doing that which was still farther
to estrange him from his wife; for now the mother,
combined with the absence of attention to herself
from her husband, noting the greater regard and
affection shown her child, had evolved a new and
tangible form of grievance: jealousy of her own
son!
The life of Colonel Quillmore was become an ex-
ceedingly unhappy and trying one. No matter
what he attempted at his home, or elsewhere, or in
undertakings the most transparently charitable—
it was sure to be wrong and subject to spiteful
corrections at inopportune moments, in the pres-
ence of the servants, and at other times—most
painful and ill-timed—in the presence of his son.
His every effort to prove a loving and endearing
husband was thwarted, as is so easily done by
those bent upon a willful, even malicious, miscon-
struction of the most ordinary acts of service, of
kindness, or of sympathy.
Late in the year 1881, Mr. L’Oiseau, until then
an entire stranger to the locality, had come from
the far South, and had been installed as the
cashier of the Quillmore bank. He had resided
for a time at Indiatole. Very shortly after his
arrival, however, he became a member of the
colonel’s household at Twin Hill, and this move
had been the occasion in the community of limit-
less talk and discussion.
The conditions as existing in the colonel’s


THE QUILLMORES 39
household were not such as to make opportune,
so the gossips thought, the introduction into his
own home of this handsome Southerner, but the
one who should have been the most interested
seemed least concerned.
Mr. L’Oiseau promptly demonstrated his ef-
ficiency and business ability, and the colonel was
afforded very much more leisure than heretofore.
Bank-work becoming routinish and without zest,
he now sought solace and forgetfulness in an al-
most hermit-like life. The joy of money-getting
had never been his to any exaggerated extent,
and he had sufficient means to be comfortable
through life. As the need for very close atten-
tion to the affairs of the bank became less and
less imperative, Colonel Quillmore quite naturally
fell back into his boyhood’s habits of study and
contemplation. He purchased and surrounded
himself with the latest as well as the oldest of
books,—metaphysical, philosophical, theosophi-
cal, the science of chemistry—yet all with a bent
in the direction of medicine.
Because of several accidents happening to him,
while engaged in his laboratory experiments, and
in order, also, not to disturb the house by his late
hours and wanderings about the premises—he
was a sufferer from insomnia—he had built for
himself a little frame structure of two rooms,
some distance from the mansion, and bordering
on the orchard.
This he filled with books, instruments, and scien-
tific apparatus. A couch in one room gave op-


40 THE QUILLMORES
portunity for resting or sleeping after his experi-
ments.
As he rarely appeared at breakfast with the
others of the family, his absences were not noted.
Because, also, of his late hours the burning of a
light in his little laboratory ceased in time to ex-
cite comment either at the mansion or with the
belated driver or pedestrian.
One of these latter, on reporting at Lamo that,
in passing the little building on a preceding night,
he had heard loud reports and seen flashes of
light, was assured of the commonness of such oc-
currences up there and as not worth noticing: and
that no thief would think of invading the place,
with so sleepless a man as the colonel liable, at
any moment, to walk in upon his maraudings and
pilferings.
It was known, just how, no one could ever
really tell, unless the story emanated from the vil-
lage oracle, Mother Achen—who, had she lived a
century or two earlier, would have been given that
involuntary test bath so much in vogue at that
period—that the colonel had more than once at-
tended dissections at Cincinnati, or at least had
taken private lessons with some Professor of the
Scalpel; and that later he had been working upon
a “body’’ secured for him by Uncle I’ from the
criminal authorities.
And, of course, as Uncle I’ was the village un-
dertaker, the coupling of his name with any form
of transaction having a human body for subject
seemed to be accepted as a matter of fact. So


THE QUILLMORES 41
that, in time, the laboratory took on forms of in-
terest just short of the criminal. -
It was rumored that vivisection was practiced
without the beneficent numbing of anaesthetics.
Thus the approaches to this “awful ?” spot, in
the eyes, at least, of the villagers, needed no
guarding. Everyone was content and more than
content to give it a wide berth. It was considered
at the best to be an uncanny place; and naught
but his reputation and wealth saved the colonel
from figuring in court as a defendant,-so the
story went,—though on what charge it would have
been difficult to formulate. Perhaps just “be-
cause.’’
They did serve, however, these nightly labors
did, to cause a visit from a Government official,
who, having heard the stories, and knowing the
colonel to be engaged in banking, called upon
him one night, or early morning, in the belief that
these stories might be the clever subterfuge of a
clever man to do some unusually clever thing
with coin'
. His knock upon the door was promptly an-
swered by the colonel, arrayed in working clothes.
The Secret Service Agent with a quick and search-
ing glance saw naught but a human arm lying
upon the table, surrounded by numerous tubes and
bottles and anatomical tools; while upon a lit-
tle coal-oil lamp-stove there was bubbling noisily a
reddish fluid.
The agent, after an examination, sat down for
a little chat, from which he arose convinced that


THE CASHIER OF THE BANK 43
CHAPTER IV
THE CASHIER OF THE QUILLMORE BANK
ETURNING homeward at about noontime
R: day, Dr. Winstone—Doc Gus, as he
was known to all the countryside—had
some errand which required his presence in Uncle
I’s store. The business of the moment transacted,
addressing himself to Uncle I’ and the others
about, the doctor referred to an incident which he
knew would be of interest to all.
“I don’t suppose you have heard, have you,
that the colonel had an accident an hour or so
ago while driving those new horses.”
None had heard, but all were most anxious to
know all particulars.
“The colonel is a bit absent-minded occasion-
ally, as we all know. I was on my way to Bell-
spree farm, when I saw the Quillmore team tear-
ing towards me up the long hill. It is a narrow
strip there and I knew it meant danger to me and
my cart. I got out quickly, turned my horse—it
was Dolly—into the wayside ditch, and then ran
out into the road. I had the luck to check them and
so save the lurching top-buggy from falling over
and being wrecked. No harm was done to the
horses or harness, and the team, after being pet-
ted and patted a bit, got quiet. So I called up
Dolly, who came along like a nice little girl’’—
each of the doctor’s horses had been trained to


44 THE QUILLMORES
stand anywhere without tying and to come on
call.—“I tied her behind the buggy, got in, and
drove the team in the direction whence they had
come. It was, of course, possible that the team
had simply been tied and broken away; but some-
how I felt that it was not so simple a case as that.
I hadn’t gone very far when I was called by some-
one from the little wooded spot near the foot of
the hill, and there I saw Colonel Quillmore lying on
the ground with Father Lessing sponging the
blood from a wound on the head. The colonel
was just returning to consciousness.
“Father Lessing said he had been in the wood
examining some rare specimens—we all know
the priest to be a lover of forestry and plant life,
—when he heard the clatter of horses’ hoofs. He
looked out from between the trees and saw the
colonel’s team go tearing down the road. He
had not been able to stop it, but going back had
found the colonel.
“Fortunately no bones were broken, though
how he escaped with his life or without serious
fracture is truly marvelous,—thrown as he was
upon the hard limestone macadam. Father Les-
sing took him home, and I have ascertained since
that the colonel, although a little sore and shaken
up, is not seriously injured.”
“That was a splendid arrangement, Gus,”
said Uncle I’, ‘‘to let Father Lessing take the
colonel home. He’s about the only person out-
side of the cashier who has any influence—that
is to say,” Uncle corrected himself sharply,


THE CASHIER OF THE BANK 45.
“he’s the best person to break the news to Mrs.
Quillmore.”
“I don’t like that cashier,” said Mat Treegood
as he sat in a circle of cronies who had moved to
the shadow of the store-porch, after the doctor
had driven away. “He may be all right, but
I’m begeezled if I ken see it.”
“What’s he ben and done to you, Mat?” asked
Uncle I’, as he came to the edge of the porch for
a breath of air. “Thought you was such an ar-
dent friend of all them as works.”
“Well, so I be, Ira. I stick up for the laborer
in every relation of life: but if this fellow’s a la-
borer, I’ve missed my guess, that’s what. Not but
what he stands behind his counter all right and
hands out the money that the people ask for who’ve
got accounts in that bank. I won’t go for to say
that he is dishonest in that way,” he added, for
even with his little knowledge he had learned that
it was libelous to accuse another of criminal acts
—and this might be such a libel.
“Well, now, Mat, you train a good deal in
the equal-rights class. You’ve got an all-fired
heap to say about the ‘Spear of the Laborer,’
you want every man to have a show for his white
alley—out with your charge! You’ve got some-
thing up your sleeve agin L’Oiseau. Somethin’s
a-biting you besides his unwillingness to shake
hands.” This statement elicited a confirmatory
head-assent from the others of the circle of to-
bacco-chewers, “What is it?” persisted Uncle,


46 THE QUILLMORES
“You push a fellow pretty hard when you get
after him, Ira,” pleaded Mat. “When I said
that, I didn’t intend to go into no particulars.
Just speaking on general principles.”
“Yes, that’s just what I s'posed,—talking to
hear yourself talk. It’s an old trick that, and
you had ought ter be ashamed of yourself, Mat.
That kind of surmising-talk might do for a sew-
ing-circle, or from that old gossip down around
the bend. If you cain’t speak well of a man you’d
better hold your yawp, I should think. That's
one of the easiest of ways to blacken a man or a
woman—that way of your’n—to hint at awful
things, and look like a hoot-owl and shake your
head, and feel sorry, and hope it ain’t true.”
“Well, it’s just this way, Ira: If the missus
had stuck to the colonel after they got started
here, and minded her knittin’ and returned the
calls of the folks hereabouts, there wouldn’t a-
been any all-fired necessity for importing that
frog-eating Frenchman who’s been running the
bank, and now’s running the house and the mis-
sus, too. Wa’n’t there no good Union men up
here in Indiana to take that cashier-place, that
they must shin down to New Orleans for this yel-
low, pie-crust-colored fellow, who won’t look at
you on the road, or in the store, and won’t hardly
talk with you even when you go to the bank—”
“Oh, that’s the trouble, is it, Mat? I thought
it was something real bad. You went to the bank
for a “kill-time call, and found a busy man who
had something else to do; so you get your mad


THE CASHIER OF THE BANK 47
up and begin to hammer the cashier—at long
range. You’re a brave kind of a fellow, you are,
to be sure! You’ve got some learning, but
don’t know how to apply it. Reminds me of old
Jay up to town. He lost his wife and what’s he
do but right up and married his cook. She was
a good woman and a good cook, but not much up
on book-learning; made bad breaks in talk that
bothered the young Jays,—some of the gals, you
know, were pretty well grown up. The new
“mom used to say ‘Poot out the gas,” but she
was a willing soul, and by steady practicin’ she
got so she could say ‘Put out the gas,” and as
it was explained to her as more elegant-like, even
tried to educate herself to say ‘Extinguish the
gas.” Well, one night there was quite a party
of young folk of the neighborhood in the setting
room and “mom’ calls down from the attic, “Ma-
linda, afore you comes up extinguish the cat.’”
The laughter of the store on-hangers nettled
Mat Treegood more than the sarcasm of the store-
keeper. He saw plainly enough, what the fun-
enjoying listeners didn’t see, that Uncle I’ was
purposely misleading the audience, in order to
stop any talk about the Quillmores.
“You’re the most exasperating of men, Ira,
when you try to be cute and throw dust in the
people’s eyes. Dog my sox, but somebody ought
to take you out after night and give you a
good trouncing for your ratankerous pusillanim-
ity—”
“Too much talk, Mat. Too many big words.


48 THE QUILLMORES
Cain’t follow you. Better come down to country
level, and let us see what you want a fellow to do.
You get mad so easy. Stop yer per-didoes, and
be sensible. A philosopher hadn’t ought to get
riled in a bit of fair argument. Say your say
and get done with you. I expect you better go
home and help that little wife of yourn with some
of the kitchen-garden. The string-beans ought to
have sticks; the sweet potatoes needs to be hilled
up; and the weeds is a-creepin’ all over your
Sweet corn.”
“No, you don’t get away that way, Ira.
That’s an old trick of yourn,” hurriedly spoke
Mat as he saw Uncle I’ moving toward the door;
and nettled by the evident ridicule which every-
thing the storekeeper said reflected upon himself.
“I say again, and you know it’s true, that the
madam ought to 'tend to her house and to her
husband, and leave that dough-faced Frenchman
alone.”
Uncle I’ turned and looked so sharply and sud-
denly over his old-fashioned and always-twisted
and awry spectacles at the disgruntled disputant,
that the talk stopped equally suddenly.
“You hain’t got no sort of call to mux up the
two, Mat Treegood. And I’m not goin’ to hear
to it. It hain’t none of your dodrotted business;
and if you don’t watch out, you’ll land in jail
somewhere for defamination of character. Now
hear to me. I was over to the house when the
talk turned on Mr. L’Oiseau. I was called there
on business, and that hain’t none of your business.


THE CASHIER OF THE BANK 49
I heerd every word that was said between the pair
on 'em. And they know’d exactly what they
wanted to do; and they done it. And that’s all
there is to your wonderful story.”
“But there was trouble about that fellow,
Ira,” plead Mat, for he saw that his unsupported
word would not carry with the store-loungers,
after the positive declaration of the storekeeper
to the contrary. He saw the tide setting against
him under the shrewd policy of Uncle I’. Mat
saw clearly that it was not fair; that he was pur-
posely leaving the truth, and as purposely blind-
ing these unlettered villagers, as the eloquent
rhetorical snuff serves to blind the average jury
of “peers.” “There was trouble there about
that, and you ain’t got the straight of it, or you
ain’t told the straight story. I know, because—
well, I got it from M'liss 5 *
“That was the hepsey-harum, wa’n’t it, who
got her walking-papers for stealing? That’s the
source of your information, is it? Well, well,
you have got down pretty low for your slander!”
interrupted Uncle I’ severely.
“That ain’t the best kind of evidence, I ad-
mit,” said the debater a trifle sheepishly, “but
truth is truth whenever and wherever you find it,
and should always be told. Anyways, the colonel
didn’t want the fellow to come into his family.
He argued with the madam—Mrs. Quillmore—
pleasantly at first, but, finally, he got hot and
angry, for she proved headstrong like women
folks usually is when they get sot and want some-


50 THE QUILLMORES
thing that they shouldn’t. He told her, at last,
that if it ever got out in these parts, it would ruin
the bank, and himself, and everything.”
“If what got out?” interrupted Ira with un-
controllable and sudden interest—“if what got
Out?”
“I don’t know that part of it. I wished some-
times I did; but I don’t. M'liss couldn’t remem-
ber that that was said out loud while she was in
the room, or 3 *
“Or while she was listening at the keyhole,”
added the storekeeper.
“Mebbe so. But she—the madam—took on
and got worse about it; shed tears, and that upset
the colonel. He allowed the cashier was an edu-
cated gentleman, and different from the clodhop-
pers of this county. She said she wanted some-
one near her who could do something a little bet-
ter than jobbing coffins, and chawin’ tobacco, and
makin’ secret signs and tokens of distress—”
“You’re rubbin’ that in to the raw, Mat Tree-
good. Most of it is your own make-up. Some
of it is true. I’ll admit that there has been some
trouble in that family. We all know that. But
what of it? Where is there a married couple
who’s lived together for ten or twenty years as
hasn’t had some storms as well as fair weather?
When the cashier kem there, matters went along
all right. Mrs. Quillmore brightened up. He
was good company. He talked to her in her baby
tongue, French. You all admit that he’s helped
to make the bank what it is. He’s clean in his


THE CASHIER OF THE BANK 51
business as he’s neat in his clothes. You don’t
know a single thing against him with all your
barking. I guess 'cause he is so neat and minds
his own business that you have no use for him.
Good clothes and good manners is a standing in-
vite for a fight in a good many communities. Let
a woman put on a little better dress than her next-
door neighbor and she’s got to walk all-fired
straight and be indoors at eight o’clock, except
prayer-meetin’ nights, to keep the slanderous
tongues out of her name and character. Put
good clothes, a broad-front white shirt, and a
shiny ‘plug hat on a man in Lamo; let him black
his shoes instead of greasing them with lard on
Sunday mornings, and he will be charged with
everything that a wooden-headed, heavy-hoofed
yokel community can guess up that’s bad. You
let L’Oiseau alone. Stop your contriving and
warning and slandering, is my advice to you, Mat
Treegood. The laws of the country are good and
strong. If he’s done any wrong he’ll get all that’s
comin’ to him.”
“You know consarnedly well, Ira, that he has
been the cause of trouble over on the hill. You
know,” and Mat raised his voice and spoke more
rapidly as he saw the storekeeper ready to resort
to his trick of dismissing the whole thing as triv-
ial with one of his omnipotent waves of the hand,
“that the madam ain’t been seen down in our
part of the town for months; you know that the
women folks is talking about her most scandalous-
like; you know that Colonel Quillmore ain’t been


52 THE QUILLMORES
a-feeling well; that he's had three or four pretty
nasty accidents in that little frame shack of his'n.
You know that it’s the duty of his wife to look
after him. But does she—”
“Now, Mat,” interrupted Uncle I’, turning
in the store door, “stop right where you are.
You mustn't always drag in a woman in your to-
bacco philosophy and anarchy-dirt. I won’t hear
to it !”
“You’re pretty badly rattled about somethin’,
Ira, from your talk. But I wa’n’t goin’ to run in
any woman 'cept in the way of illustration. What
I was goin’ to say, when you cut in so with your
sharp-edged hippercritical cant, was that instead
of that there cashier doing the fair square thing
by his employer, who is feeding him, and giving
him a good home, and some salary I reckon be-
side, he’s openly doing with the colonel’s wife
what he hadn’t ought ter, and you know it, Ira.”
“What do you mean, Mat?” sharply ques-
tioned Uncle I’.
“Well, I mean just like this: that he, this yel-
low-faced fellow, has been driving with Mrs. Quill-
more day after day, evenings, and may be nights,
to and from Indiatole. She’s been seen with him
going—it's supposed to Cincinnati or Indianapo-
lis—nobody of course but them two knows—but
she’s been away from the Hill at the same time
that the cashier was away. Do you say it’s the
right thing for that Southern fire-eater to be a-
hauling and a-drawing of her around the country
when she hain’t so awfully particularly fond of her


THE CASHIER OF THE BANK 53
husband? Now don’t go fer to shake yer head.
You know I’m talking straight. Why, the cold-
blooded way in which that fellow looks at you, or
through you, when you do meet him somewhere,
'minds me of that scene in Prescott where the
high-priest of the Aztecs rips open the boozum
of the victim to be sacrificed, and then tears out
and holds up in the light of the settin’ sun the
quiverin', bleeding heart of the victim. He’d do
anything that was coldblooded.”
“I was waiting to hear somethin’ about the
Aztacks, I knew it had to come,” said Uncle I’ sar-
castically, “but if this cashier’s so coldblooded
what under the created canopy of Christendom
do you suppose he wants with another man’s
wife? Your philosophy and your Aztacks don’t
hold water, Mat. Reckon you’d better come back
to common sense. L’Oiseau pays his debts,
wears good clothes, don’t swap any front-porch
lies with a lot of loungers; drives a blooded horse,
smokes a good cigar, and is a leetle mite more
choice about his company than you be. So you’ve
got it in for him. I reckon the colonel’s wife
is of age and knows what she’s about a good deal
better than you, Mat, with your thirty-cent wis-
dom about the Mexicans, with only five days for
a week’s work, and their ignorance about all
metals except copper, and their astonishment at
seeing horses for the first time.” These were some
of the set speeches which Mat was wont to bring
into most of his arguments, and, hence Uncle I’s
thrust caused a smile to travel around the circle.


54 THE QUILLMORES
“Come back to the Constitution of the United
States and its amendments and you’ll be safe and
not get in jail for slander.”
“That’s what I'm after—not the jail of course,
dang you!” as the circle loudly guffawed, “but
the Constitution. I say that that fellow ain’t no
American. He’s one of these here blue-blooded
Frenchmen—he's an aristocrat 3 *
“And that’s all that’s necessary to hang any
dog—give him a bad name,” sharply interpolated
Uncle I’. “Call a man an aristocrat and you’ve
signed, sealed, and delivered his death warrant.
He might as well make his will. He’s done for.
Every little two-cent cur will snarl at his heels.
It’s an awful thing to be an aristocrat—just aw-
ful! If a man wears a better suit of clothes than
me, he’s an aristocrat; if he likes to smoke a good
cigar; if he is a mite better off in money matters,
he’s an aristocrat; if he has nice picters in his
dining room, or has three-ply brussels on his set-
tin’-room floor, he’s an aristocrat; if he buys a lot
of books from time to time and knows what’s in
'em—and doesn’t buy them by the yard, he’s an
aristocrat; and if he likes his own company better
than sittin’ here by the hour and scandalizing his
neighbors and his betters,—why, he’s an aristo-
crat! Mat, say, you had ought ter be ashamed
of yourself! What good’s yer reading done you?
Instead of makin’ you broader and more liberal
you’re about as narrow-complected as they is
hereabouts. You quarrel with the newspapers
because they print a lot of nasty things, which you


THE CASHIER OF THE BANK 55
look for and see and enjoy. You fight the public
schools because they teach so many ornamental
and gingerbread doings and don’t teach the chil-
dren the ‘Essentials of an education, to wit,
Readin”, Writin’, and Arithmetic, yet you sent
your son to an agricultural college to learn to hoe
corn. You don’t like the Republican party be-
cause they stand for Protection, and you don’t
like England because they’ve got Free Trade.
Say, you had ought to hire out for a weather-vane
for the old meetin’ house over on the hill, and if
that’s what comes of reading Pesky’s Conquest
of Mexico, then you better read somethin’ nearer
home—somethin’ live and elevatin’.”
Treegood by no means considered this argu-
ment unanswerable, but the distant sound of a
bell, which was recognized as a call to dinner from
the Treegood farm, caused a cessation of hostili-
ties, and he was soon wending his way from the
scene of wordy encounter to his home and mid-
day meal.
Later in the day, Uncle’s tasks ended, he sat
down, and his mind reverted to the conversations
with Treegood.
How was it with himself? Was he really as
blind as his vociferous and indignant pretense
would indicate? Did he truly believe that
L’Oiseau was doing all or only those things which
a true gentleman could or should do?
No. Uncle I’ was greatly disturbed by the con-
duct of affairs on the hill. He knew, as well as
Mat Treegood, that things were tending in a


56 THE QUILLMORES
bad direction; whether it would end in a cyclone
of immorality, or merely a financial disaster, he
was not able to say. There had been frequent
talks on this and kindred matters between him
and Doc Gus. There could have been no excuse
for their meddling in these affairs, except that
the colonel was a brother of the Masonic order,
was a Grand Army comrade, and in every way
had endeared himself to the other two.
And still, what could these tried and trusty
friends do? Go to the colonel and advise him
of the scandalous talk now in circulation, concern-
ing his wife and the cashier? Who would dare
be this messenger of evil to Pharaoh? Who would
dare, would undertake that most delicate if not
most dangerous task—of attacking a man’s wife
to his face? Who has the courage to tell the truth
to a friend? “Let mine enemy tell me the
truth !”
Verily, verily it was a condition of great trouble
and danger which confronted the twain. Both
knew what Treegood knew, and more, as will de-
velop presently; and yet neither could see the end
to the devious path of wickedness.
Uncle I’ chewed his toothpick with extra vigor
as he walked over to the post-office part of the
store. He was in a troubled mood this day. His
daughter Chrissy too was ill; nothing to warrant
apprehension, perhaps, except the usual possi-
bility that any physical ailment may end unfa-
vorably.
Mr. L’Oiseau, it has not yet been told, was a


| THE CASHIER OF THE BANK 57
handsome man of the typical Southern complexion
—the olive-yellow, with intensely thick and black
hair, mustache, and goatee. His eyes were very
dark and deep-set. He was ultra-meat; never a
speck about his linen, and was clean-shaven each
morning. He was cool, yet quick in action. No
one ever knew him to use an oath; no one had ever
heard him soil his lips with a foul story. He
Smoked a good cigar, almost constantly—out of
banking hours—and he had his own fine Ken-
tucky-bred Hambletonian mare.
If he did not, in keeping with the universal cus-
tom of the countryside, speak to everyone whom
he met on the road, or stop to discuss bonds and
stocks or private matters, it was doubtless his
own notion of the proprieties and the conduct of
a gentleman, and did not cause him uneasiness.
His handling of the bank was, as everybody ad-
mitted, superb. Its investments had been profit-
able and its holdings were believed to be safe. He
was dignified in his contact with the other em-
ployees, who had not a word to say against him—
though they were cautious of speech and action
when in his presence or if near where he might
be.
His treatment of the colonel was of a piece
with his treatment of everyone else—dignified,
gentlemanly, stately, and at times seemed unduly
respectful, as if purposely exaggerated—to miti-
gate laxity in some other direction. There was
never any recognized friction between them.
The colonel appeared each morning at the bank,


58 THE QUILLMORES
or at some time during the day, to sign-up the
mail, or the checks and drafts, and other neces-
sary papers; he was consulted in everything ap-
pertaining to the business. In short, he was the
head of the bank—and, yet, somehow, everyone
knew or believed he knew that the bank was really
the cashier. That the colonel reposed entire
confidence in his assistant was unquestioned.
If anyone knew anything of the man’s past, it
was the colonel or certainly the wife—but neither
of these, as must be evident, took much time in
gossiping with their neighbors, or inferiors, as
the Madame might have expressed such defiling
touch, and L’Oiseau himself was utterly uncommu-
nicative.
It was known that he had been a school-friend
of the banker’s wife; that he had been a soldier—
of which army no one knew—presumably of the
South; that he had means of his own, how much,
again, no one knew; and he spoke French with the
fluency and accuracy of a native of sunny France.
Since he had none of the smaller vices, it was
naturally inferred and argued that he had the
other, the larger kind.
Was he living a double life? No one knew,
but much was surmised—and a surmise, well ex-
ploited and adhered to, will, in time, blossom into
a full-blown charge—but thus far nothing.
Nothing, did we say?
Nay, that will not down. No one knew what
he did with his spare hours, for he had them in
abundance. He was absent in Cincinnati almost


THE CASHIER OF THE BANK 59
every Sunday; and now his notorious attentions
to the banker’s wife were becoming more and more
conspicuous. Even the most charitable of human
beings, and especially those two given to believ-
ing the best of everybody—Uncle I’ and Doc Gus
—were troubled, and groveled in the mire of sus-
picion.
L’Oiseau did not come often to Lamo. He had
no business there, for one thing, and for another,
he had once told some inquiring person that his
tastes were not suburban or sylvan. But because
of this very air of aloofness; this feeling that he
was holding you up at arm’s length looking for a
good spot to thrust a rapier into your body, the
impression somehow got abroad,—this, of course,
with his later conduct, —that he was simply the
polished villain of the melodramatic stage, and
that in the third act he would rob the colonel of
both bank and wife.
It needed but a small spark of actuality to set
this smoking mass ablaze.
But that spark was not forthcoming.
Not yet.


60 THE QUILLMORES
CHAPTER V
DOCTOR GUS
and Surgeon ’’ was the original sign as
painted in blue and white by the same
wagon-painter, perhaps, who had done the other
art-works of the village. It had swung from a
post near the front gate, but not very long; for
even in a non-university town, the youth of that
place find a swinging sign too great a temptation
to be resisted. After having been the target for a
while of stray missiles, wet and dry, causing it to
fall into the yard, Dr. Winstone at last accepted
this treatment as a clear indication that the best
place for the sign was anywhere else but on the
sign-post; so he nailed it to the side of the house,
where, being exposed to the western winds and
rains, it soon lost its blue color and showed merely
the framework of lettering.
A doctor in a small place is very soon known,
—for his reputation, like bad news, travels post.
In the instance of Dr. Winstone the sign was es-
pecially unnecessary, for he had, soon after his
arrival, acquired a good “ride.” He was es-
teemed not only for his undoubted skill, but as
well for his paramount good nature and sym-
pathy; and like other men who have become es-
tablished and passed the danger point of falling
into poverty, and especially those who have in-
A": WINSTONE, M. D., Physician


DOCTOR GUS 63
red, his eyes watered, and his body shook. He
used to say, in answer to the question how he
could be so merry in so hard a professional life,
that if it were not for his mirthfulness, and his
ability to see the funny side of things without a
“blue-print,” that, in time, from constant listen-
ing to the complaints of his people, three hundred
and sixty-five days in each year, and year after
year, he would go melancholy mad. So, upon a
basis of sagacious conservatism, he had culti-
vated the habit of optimism, re-enforced with a
fund of good nature; and with these he hoped to
lengthen the lives of his patients and to fight off,
until God’s own good time, his own demise.
He took no liquors of any kind, to brace himself
against the long rides in rain and snow and bad
nights. Neither had he fallen into the practice
of taking opium, another insidious habit easily
acquired by those who handle this devil’s drug.
He knew the aroma of a good cigar. Still he was
rarely a user of tobacco, except when under great
nervous strain.
To repeat in detail all his virtues, his travel-
ing miles upon miles of bad roads at all hours of
the day and night, in the most intemperate of
weathers, and in the most rigorous of winters,
to patients, and sometimes to whole neighbor-
hoods, where the money remuneration was scant,
and many times failed entirely—would be a trite
story to all other country doctors, who have done
this same self-sacrificing thing from the begin-
ning of medical practice, and will doubtlessly so


64 THE QUILLMORES
continue to do to the end of time. And to say that
Doc Gus carried other things to his patients be-
side medicines and funny, cheer-up stories, would,
also, merely repeat what is currently done in
every farming community where there are, here
and there, God’s poor—and sometimes even to the
other kind—for the doctor, like the faithful dog,
does not stop to weigh moral questions with those
who call him. And many has been the time that
the little box under the seat of his cart (for the
roads were too heavy at times to draw a “piano-
box' buggy)—contained little things which he
and Uncle I’ had put together in a quiet way to
assist the proper action of the drugs openly pre-
scribed.
He was not originally of these parts. Born in
the far East, he had emulated Franklin in the
matter of determination and the two loaves of
bread, and entered Philadelphia. Here he
worked for a time at such odd employments as
came to his hands, ultimately matriculating in
“Old Jeff ’’ medical school, and having done his
proper stunt of studies and dissections among
hardships that are still known to medical stu-
dents,—the lack of books and instruments except
as he earned them, or earned the use of them,—
he was graduated, just in time to pass into the
Civil War.
Through this war connection he became ac-
quainted with Colonel Quillmore and Uncle I’, and
after the grand review in Pennsylvania Avenue
at the close of the Irrepressible Conflict, with the


DOCTOR GUS 65
bunting still in mourning because of the death of
the Great Commoner, having no special where to
go, he ultimately accepted Horace Greeley’s advice
and went West. Here he married a sweet slip of
a girl and with the usual patrimony of the new
doctor, "unbounded hope for the future, enthu-
siasm for his profession, and an all-pervading love
for his wife,—he entered upon the usual seven
years of the lean kine. Just as he was getting a
foothold—there are no “rides '' in a young city
physician’s practice—his little wife, who had been
an Indiana girl, began to show signs of break-
down from the excessive heat, from the baking,
shadeless streets and the living in a compact resi-
dence district with the air full of brewery smells.
So it happened that in looking over his mental
notes he recalled the invitation given him by Col-
onel Quillmore and Uncle I’ and was soon located
at Lamo, since which time he had been content with
a country practice; his wife having again taken
on health and delicate robustness, with happi-
ness and content among the trees and flowers and
roominess of the country.
He was specially fond, was the doctor, of good
horseflesh, and felt much pride in the quality
and condition of the animals he owned. This
was no newly developed trait with him, but he had
not always been able to humor his desires in this
respect, and indeed he was not unwilling to tell
of some of his earlier experiences in the big city
before he had settled in Lamo. Generally in his
earlier days he walked about in making his pro-


66 THE QUILLMORES
fessional calls, but he had had an arrangement
with a nearby liveryman, whereby he could hire a
mount on occasions, using for equipment his old
war-time saddle.
One day the doctor had been called to a distant
point to visit the wife of an overseer of a large
estate, and stepping over to the stable, he was
confronted with the information that all the
horses were out. Glancing down the row of stalls
which he supposed were empty, the doctor saw,
however, and called attention to, something which
disproved the stable-owner’s assertion. “Oh,”
said the liveryman, “I hardly think that animal
will do. He’s no saddle horse.” Anything in
this emergency, thought the doctor, and being
insistent, the Hobson’s Choice was prepared for
the trip. The horse did not look over-promising,
and was as near a caricature as could be pictured.
He turned out to be as unsatisfactory a mount as
the most vivid imagination could depict, and
much of the journey was made at a slow walk;
even this wearisome gait was one fraught with
discomfort. His destination reached, the steed
was given in charge of the overseer while the
doctor went within doors in pursuance of the mis-
sion which had brought him so far from home.
His services rendered, he was ready for the return
journey. The overseer was found guarding the
doctor’s mount, which he meanwhile, it could be
seen, critically eyed. No inquiry was made re-
specting his wife. His interest was centered
evidently and wholly in the rawboned animal


FATHER LESSING 67
before him. “Where did you get that hoss?”
was the question abruptly propounded. “At
Jake’s livery,” replied the doctor, and the circum-
stances of the choice explained.
“I thought so, it’s the same hoss,” he drawled.
“We used to have him out here.” Never a smile
cracked the lips of the speaker as he continued,
- “We sold him to Jake, seven years ago. We
had him here for plowing, but he was too slow.”
CHAPTER VI
FATHER LESSING
OC GUS was just getting into his cart at
the Quillmore riding-block—the little
cart which he used summer and winter
in all weathers—when he observed Mrs. Quill-
more and Mr. L’Oiseau seated in a light carriage,
and approaching him from the direction of the
side entrance.
“We waited for you, doctor,” said Mrs. Quill-
more, “before venturing out, in order to learn
your opinion of the patient. How did you find
him?”
“Mending nicely,–think it will be safe to give
him the open air in this carriage,” indicating the
vehicle then used by Mrs. Quillmore and her es-
cort, “for an hour or so, in the early morning,
before the sun grows too hot. You doubtlessly


68 THE QUILLMORES
know the danger to the colonel lies in the possible
injury to the brain from the concussion.”
Mrs. Quillmore listened with averted eyes
while Mr. L’Oiseau was a disinterested witness,
flecking the long whip he held at objects in the
fence corner.
“The wound on the scalp is healing and will
leave no scar. However, the sudden application
of heat, or great excitement, will always put him
in danger of becoming unconscious, and thus ren-
der his life a hazardous one. I would caution
you, therefore, Mrs. Quillmore, to have him
closely watched during this heated term, and do
not permit him to go unattended.”
During this rapid colloquy it was to be noticed
that Mr. L’Oiseau, who was holding the reins,
spoke no word,—gave no evidence of hearing or
seeing anything. In fact, this was the usual
thing. He usually returned the salutation of the
day, but rarely went beyond that. Dr. Gus re-
marked it, of course, for he was a keen and sharp
observer of human nature. What may have gone
on within that snow-white head of his, covered
with his soft felt hat, was not to be known.
“Let me impress one caution upon you, Mrs.
Quillmore,” said Doc Gus, turning in his cart as
he was on the point of driving away, ‘‘ and that is,
to be very, very careful of your husband. He
needs unremitting attention and care. Quiet and
peace and congeniality of surroundings are in the
highest degree essential to his complete restora-
tion. You cannot be too careful of him. Some-


FATHER LESSING 69
times conditions arise in the path of injuries
about the head which are far worse than death—
or, rather, where death would have been the pref-
erable state. Good-morning.”
Then he raised his hat, which was acknowl-
edged by L’Oiseau, clucked to Dolly, and jolted
rapidly down the Lombardy-lined lane toward
the main-traveled road, his bobbing and swaying
white umbrella being visible over and above the
eddying swirls of limestone dust disturbed by his
faithful mag.
If he had intended a sharp reproof to the
colonel’s wife for interesting herself more in an
acquaintance than in her injured husband, there
was nothing in his manner at parting to show it.
It was all done with the greatest of courtesy and
softness of voice, the kind, sympathetic smile not
changing even for an instant as he glanced at the
averted countenance of Mr. L’Oiseau.
The doctor had not proceeded far when, glanc-
ing in the direction of the Laroutelle place, he
saw a figure just disappearing in the shrubbery.
Then he looked sharply in the direction from
whence he had come, shook his head a few times,
and said something that Dolly mistook for a com-
mand, causing her to step out more briskly, not
because she was fearful of the whip which Doc
Gus had in his hand—for he never used that ex-
cept upon objects along the side of the road when
in a fit of abstraction. He was a merciful man
and merciful to his beast.
At a bend in the road, where stood the only


70 THE QUILLMORES
mulberry tree of the township, he became aware
that someone was awaiting him, and was recalled
from his reverie, by hearing Father Lessing ad-
dress him:
“And whither goest thou, my son?”
“Over to Exum’s? You know, of course, how
ill he is, for you are there more often than I.
Which way yourself, Father?”
“I have been there this morning, and I have
left him very feeble. May I ride with you a little
Stretch?’”
“Step in, Father. Never fear. This is
Dolly’s first day, and she will carry more than our
combined weight without fatigue.”
This had reference to the doctor’s custom of
giving his horses so many days of active service,
followed by an absolute vacation. And each
animal knew the period of labor and of rest as
well as the stable boy.
“You have been consulted, have you not, on
this question of the further education of the young
daughter at Bellspree?”
A question asked rather for an opening speech
than to elicit information, for Father Lessing
knew far more of the affairs of these two families
on the hills than did all the others of the vicinity.
He was a native of the Old World, one who had
been a soldier, who was familiar with many
tongues; who, as a student, participated in some
revolutionary movement, which, proving unsuc-
cessful, had made him a political refugee. A lover
of the great human brotherhood everywhere, he


FATHER LESSING 71
was to be met with at any hour, crossing on foot
through the wooded country, carrying help and
peace to the suffering and the harassed. He was
a universal peacemaker. Ever at call in the
presence of Sable Death and her twin sister
Despair, he was one who could acclaim a religion
of solace. If he found it necessary to inveigh
against what seemed to him a popular meas-
ure, but under ban of his superiors, he did so
as gently as he could, while pointing out the
possible wrong. He was still a large man, of
robust but simple habit, muscular and powerful,
with a singularly sweet face and most kindly gray
eyes, the latter beaming always with love from
under his heavy shaggy eyebrows. For the
natural loss of hair on the head he had, by special
permission, let his beard run wild, so that when
met, in his usual Franciscan habit, he resembled
very much the popular picture of the blundering
but well-meaning friar in Shakespeare’s immortal
Romeo and Juliet.
Doc Gus answered briefly the tentative query,
waiting for that which was to follow. The priest
made some other remark irrelevant to the subject
uppermost in his mind, then he said, turning
squarely towards the doctor, “You are a very
clever, good man—a very true, good man. I hear
of you everywhere and all of the time. You are
good to the poor and the afflicted, and I think,
sometimes, you should have been a priest of the
most holy Catholic Church. But why have you
stopped the horse?”


72 THE QUILLMORES
“If that is all you have to say to me this morn-
ing, this is your stopping-off place.”
“Drive on, then, my son,” said the priest
amused for the moment, then instantly serious
again. “I meant to you no offense. I speak not
to flatter. I speak but the truth. I hear of you
everywhere. In the big houses on the Hill, and in
the huts of the poor.”
The doctor drove on, waiting patiently for what
was to come. He was possessed of enough Jesuit-
ical craft to know that this old priest was warily
leading up to something else. He knew now that
Father Lessing had designedly waylaid him;
doubtless it was his figure he had observed a little
before disappearing in the shrubbery, and that
this complimentary speech was to introduce some-
thing perhaps most serious; so he made no
answer, there being none required, dividing his
attention between the off ear of Dolly and the
wheel on that same side of his cart.
“You to me are attending, doctor? Well, I go
on. Are you aware, my son, that there is a very
sick patient in that house?”—indicating the Quill-
more mansion.
“You mean Colonel Quillmore,” hazarded the
doctor, not removing his eyes or interest from the
Off-wheel.
“Is it that you think I refer to him?”
“Who else can it be? I have seen Mrs. Quill-
more within the hour. Leander was not sick
when I last saw him, and I think I would hear
from him if he were. Mr. L’Oiseau—”


FATHER LESSING 73
“No, my doctor,” interrupted the priest, “you
do not know, or perhaps you do not wish me to
know that you know. I have knowledge that you
are a shrewd and discreet man. You do not speak
the things you hear. That is why I have to you
said you should have taken Holy Orders, for you
are very discreet. It is well that you should be
so cautious. Your profession is close-mouthed,
commonly, but I know there is other reason. Still
that is not to the question here. In a future day,
my son, you will disclose all the many secrets
which now you keep. Your bosom friend, he that
is known as Uncle I’, shares with you many of
those mysteries. I seek not to pry into them, yet
I wish that I might know of one.”
The doctor became suddenly interested and
resigned the ear and cart-wheel.
“Since compliments are the order of the morn-
ing, I may say that you, too, Father, have knowl-
edge which you do not communicate.”
“True, my son the doctor; but with our Holy
Order we may not speak at any time. With you,
doctor, there are many times when you may, if you
would. The law of your profession holds you
only in certain matters. Outside of its charmed
circle, however, you are bound much stronger
Still.”
“And what should that mean?” asked the
doctor.
“You do not know; still most reasonably you
do know that a priest of my Order has usually
been in many lands, and has taken part in many


74 THE QUILLMORES
affairs which in this, your native country, would
not, could not be required. It is not to be assumed
that a priest has always been a priest. He may
and has presumably had younger years; and in
those years has learned the ways of the world. It
is an education he most needs, so that in his holy
profession later he may be a comforter and ad-
viser to those under his charge.”
“Still, Father, I do not see what all this has to
do with the sick man on the hill. You and I have
to see and hear a great many things that other peo-
ple do not understand, or if they could would not
believe. That is true, is it not?”
“Have I not said,” laughed the priest, ‘‘that
you are a shrewd man and close-mouthed? You
do not deceive me with your evasions. You have
not answered my questions. Nor will I in them
persist. It is most evident that they would
be inutile. For your own honor and that of
your other professions—other professions”—the
priest repeated this distinctly—“restrain you. It
is right, my son. I do not condemn you. But to
return to our subject. If you do know that the
patient is very sick—ill—at the Quillmore man-
sion, does not your duty command you to see that
proper attention be given, proper precautions
taken to prevent a painful accident at some—let
us hope, if it must come—some very distant
day?”
“In that we differ essentially, Father. The
medical profession goes only when it is called.
We may know of illnesses here and there. But


FATHER LESSING 75
iron-bound ethics and commercialism govern us in
the great majority of our professional dealings.
We cannot visit the sick until we are called. Your
profession is privileged, if indeed it be not ob-
ligated, to go when you know of misery and sor-
row and distress in your flock.”
“You are most incorrigible, my doctor. You
will not permit me to see what you know. But
here I must deprive myself of your further good
company and to thank you for myself and my peo-
ple for the many kindnesses which your noble
heart has always showered upon them. In part-
ing,” he said, turning, having descended, “do
not delay your ministrations at the big house.
You are needed there, my doctor, you are
needed there. Remember. Au revoir, Bénédi-
cite—”
Dolly trudged along, seemingly not noting that
the load had been lightened by the absence of the
priest’s weight. But if heaviness of heart and
mind could have been put into avoirdupois, Dolly
would have been made quickly conscious of a very
heavy load in the little light cart she was wont to
draw over these Indiana roads.
The doctor drove along unmindful of his im-
mediate surroundings, merely conscious of his
destination and watching aimlessly the moving
picture of beauty spread before him on all sides.
He was blowing the dust from his lips, and mut-
tering the while, slapping the lines gently over
Dolly's back, which she didn’t mind, for she knew
that the doctor was in a brown study and took this


76 THE QUILLMORES
absent-minded way of talking his thoughts to the
atmosphere and scenery.
Soon, however, the doctor shook himself and be-
gan humming a snatch of some tuneless song,
whereat Dolly pricked up her ears and increased
her pace, well knowing that her master was again
holding the lines, and that she must “watch out.”
“Strange things are happening, Dolly,” said
the doctor. He had formed the habit of many
country doctors of whiling away the awful tedium
of long drives, day and night, with familiar talks
to his horse. If Dolly could have told all that the
doctor had intrusted her with in some of these
long rides, it would have been of considerable
interest to many people.
“Strange things; some very strange things.
And where will the ending be? No man knoweth,
and perhaps it is better so, Dolly. It would be
awfully uncomfortable to know all your best
friends are saying about you,—to say nothing
about your enemies. And even good men have
many enemies. It reminds me, Dolly, of that old-
fashioned king, who, for some good service done a
fairy while she was masquerading as a serpent,
received permission to ask for some favor. As he
had everything else,—wife, money, and unlimited
power,—he asked for a chair which would tell him
everything that anyone sitting therein had said
concerning himself. But it made him so in-
fernally—whoa, Dolly, I wasn’t swearing at you,
my girl—whoa, gently,–made him so awfully un-
happy—if you like that better—oh, it was that


THE WARNING 77
horse-fly you were shying at, eh?—wait a moment
till I slap him with the line—there, now, you’re all
right—give that tail of yours a little rest—it made
the old king so unhappy that he committed suicide
—suicide!
“Merciful God!
“Is that what the priest has reference to?
Suicide! Is it then so bad as all that? Then,
Dolly, there must be something done and quickly.
Get on, Dolly; stop playing. We will have some
bad work to revise one of these fine days, or I miss
my guess.”
CHAPTER VII
TEIE WARNING
full moon. The number of horses and teams
hitched to convenient posts, fences, and rings,
on and about Uncle I’s store, indicated that there
was a session of the Freemasons in the lodge room
above. There was sufficient noise during some
parts of the evening to have caused a casual
visitor or stranger to be mistrustful; in short, to
believe that the commonly circulated stories con-
cerning the Masonic lodge might have foundation
in fact. On this evening and after the assemblage
had adjourned, there were met together in the
somberness of the annex below, with the dim light
I' was the night of the first Tuesday after the


78 THE QUILLMORES
of a paper-shaded kerosene lamp, Colonel Quill-
more, Doc Gus, and Uncle I’, the three having
been in attendance earlier upon the session above
stairs. -
This was an occurrence not unusual with this
trio—to have a little conference after the regular
Masonic meeting. On this night there seemed to
have been a design in the coming together, for the
conversation opened with a part of the ritual just
finished, enjoining absolute secrecy upon each of
the three. This was done to enable these friends
to discuss freely, and without fear of offense, the
problems that might be involved in the lives of
either; for one of the sublime tenets of this order,
and one most faithfully regarded and inculcated,
is the obligation to warn a brother of approaching
danger, and to fly to his relief. -
“Well, brothers,” said Uncle I’ in a subdued
voice, after having closed and locked the doors,
“what have we to communicate to each other to-
night? What have we to do that cannot be
brought before the general lodge or the church?
Anyone sick, Gus, who needs anything besides
medicines or groceries?”
Doc Gus knew of no one in such need. He had
another case, which he would refer to later.
“Andy,” said Uncle I’, addressing the banker,
“what have you to report?”
His report was trifling, he said. There had
been an attempt to foreclose a mortgage on the
widow Conquest’s place, by thus and such person,
–well known to the three,—which under the law


THE WARNING 79
of the land would have been a straight and legal
transaction, but with a little proper influence
brought to bear in the right direction, the fore-
closure was not pressed and the widow saved her
little property.
“No need to ask,” said Doc Gus, ‘‘the form
of that influence, nor by whom wielded. I saw the
widow this morning and she appealed to me, as
Knowing everything, the only heaven-born in the
country, to tell her who it was assisted her in her
need, that she might add her prayers for his well-
being. She was truly grateful, Andy.”
Uncle I’ had occasion to speak of the Larou-
telles, the residents at Bellspree. “The more I
think of it,” he went on, “the more it seems like a
page out of a story-book. The folks are un-
doubtedly of a little higher order than we plain
everyday Hoosiers. The old gentleman is a
soldier and born to command. There is no mis-
take about that. Old as he is, he hasn’t a crooked
bone in his body; and the fire flashes into his little
black eyes occasionally and looks dangerous.
How they ever came to select that Bellspree farm
will perhaps always remain unexplained. The
whole thing is as mysterious as the old French
houses. They make fit companion pieces. I used
to have an idea that somewhere, some day, there
would be found an answer to the riddle of those
two old buildings and something about the
builders, but it don’t seem so likely now. These
people still talk that horrible foreign lingo, and
they don’t seem to care to learn good American.”


80 THE QUILLMORES
“The case I had reference to a few moments
ago,” said Doc Gus, who had evinced little interest
in Uncle I’s desultory talk, “is peculiar and re-
quires no assistance from our little private
treasury. It has special concern with the health
of a brother of the order, who must change his
way of living, or else he will not long survive.”
The others gave immediate attention.
“This brother,” resumed Doc Gus, “is
neglecting his business, as well as his house and
his health. The former he has intrusted almost
wholly to another and therefore may be endanger-
ing his own life and the welfare of others. He is
tampering with his health so that he stands in
imminent danger—not of death, that were merci-
ful—but of insanity! No man can long delve in
abstruse science,—in metaphysics and the like, -
unless he have an exceptionally strong and well-
balanced mind, without bringing upon himself
results the most disastrous. This brother is
neglecting his family, not purposely or criminally,
but, simply—neglecting them. And there is
coming for him a storm of calamitous proportions
that may sweep him, his business, and all that he
holds dear, from the face of the earth.”
Colonel Quillmore made no sign. Uncle I’ was
silent. He knew. It was a solemn moment, and
it required the courage of a man built upon the
grand broad-gauge plan of this country doctor to
bring this life-destroying subject to the ears of
him most intimately concerned.
These men, these three business men, these


THE WARNING 81
three lifelong comrades, these three brethren of
the ancient order of Freemasons, sat silent. It
was tragic.
It was Doc Gus who asked, “Do we know this
brother?”
“Yes,” said the banker, in a low, sad voice,
broken and almost inarticulate, “we know.”
Another period of silence. -
Without as within there lay the stillness of the
early midnight of a small village.
There was a moment’s rustle at the rear door;
which caught the sharp ear of Doc Gus, who looked
quickly up and pointed in that direction.
Uncle I’ at once opened the door and looked
out. The moon was obscured by fleecy clouds,
and the vista was therefore in darkness. He
so reported.
“Yes, Gus,” slowly resumed the banker, “you
are right. I have seen this trouble coming on
for some time past. For a while I fought it.
Latterly I don’t seem to care. I lose myself in
abstractions. My head gives me much concern,
I sleep so little. My food is forced. My books
and experiments alone afford me interest. What
am I to do, brothers?”
Uncle I’ looked at Doc Gus to continue as the
spokesman. Colonel Quillmore had rested his
chin upon his hand.
“Is there no help for you, Andy?” asked the
doctor. “You have warm friends in and out of
the craft. You have here two who would pour
out their hearts’ blood for you.”


82 THE QUILLMORES
“Yes, yes,” he answered wearily, “I know it,
—I know it.”
“Speak out your needs, your troubles, and let
us see if something cannot be done to clear the
scene for you; to put you back into your old place
as an enthusiastic, ambitious, interested man.”
“Alas, my brothers,” he said with painful ef-
fort, “I see nothing ahead—I see no help. My
life is all clouded over. I have lost what little Zest
I ever possessed for mere money-making. I think
I was mistaken in taking up that occupation. It
has become intensely distasteful to me. Why, I
do not know, unless it is because I see so much of .
hardships from its unmerciful use, in and out of
the bank. I note with what cupidity the victor in
some perfectly legal transaction pushes his claim
to dispossess some unfortunate person of all he or
she may have. He counts not the cost in pain and
in misery. But this is maudlin sentimentality,
which should find no place in the conscience of a
banker or business man. I wish I could rid me of
all these things. My books, Gus, are all I have
now—and my experiments. My love seems con-
gealed in research. In these only can I lose my-
self for hours at a time.”
“And these,” said Doc Gus, as there occurred
a longer interval of silence after the slowly
enunciated sentences, “are the very worst forms
of recreation for you, Andy. You are brooding
over matters that have been mysteries from the
beginning of creation, and will continue so despite
all the studied speculation of all the learned


THE WARNING 83
philosophers till the end of time. There are
studies most dangerous to work with—and these
that you delight in are of this nature. You must
give them up—for a time at any rate—you cannot
continue with them and stay with us. Do you
know what I mean? I mean that your mind will
lose its balance and you will be lost to us and all
those you love!”
“I think not—not so bad as that, Gus. I be-
lieve I appreciate the gravity of your warning.
But we are told that change of occupation—a
complete change—is restful to the tired brain.
Surely there can be nothing so diametrically
opposite as money-making and philosophical
studies,” argued the banker, with a momentary
show of spirit and a little smile.
“And yet, Andy,” persisted the doctor, “I re-
peat that in your present frame of mind you are
not safe in continuing your studies. The recrea-
tion you need—is absolute change of scene as well
as occupation. Books are not your friends now.
They are your worst foes. Throw them away.
Destroy them. Burn them. Lock up your
laboratory,” rapidly continued the doctor in a
rather loud voice.
“Brothers, I have given so many days and
weeks to an experiment—I will speak of it to you
that you may not suppose I am simply idling away
the hours studying merely for the rage of study
and for nothing else—I have about completed an
embalming fluid which will preserve the body
from decay for many years. It has the properties


84 THE QUILLMORES
of restoring, for a time at any rate, the natural
color and cause a lifelike appearance.”
Uncle I’ at this moment evinced greater in-
terest.
“It is a most wonderful preparation, as you,”
turning to one of his listeners, “can well under-
stand. That last body you procured for me has
given me a wonderful lift in my experiments and
I feel most grateful to you, Ira. So you see,
brothers,” looking appealingly to both, “my work
has not been so fruitless as you may have sup-
posed.”
He had really taken on life and animation in
this brief recital. It was, truly, the life-spring
now of his existence.
Doc Gus was narrowly watching and studying
the banker-brother. “And do you not see, my
poor brother,” he said, “that even this practical
result to your many hours of labor will not save
you. What real good to humanity can you ac-
complish with your discovery? No, Andy, even
this must be taken from you. I speak with all the
earnestness of my soul, and from the completest
knowledge of my profession and your condition—
yes, even this must be taken from you. Andy,
you are drifting into a maëlstrom from which no
man has ever yet escaped. Do you hear me? Do
you understand me? Ira will bear me witness
that we two have watched over you with yearning
and bleeding hearts. We know your concern for
yourself, your house, and your business. We
know why you have withdrawn from everything


THE WARNING 85
to hide your sorrow, and disappointment, and to
find a temporary balm for your wounded con-
sciousness. These researches under other stimuli
might be praiseworthy; but under the physical
and mental condition in which you have under-
taken them they mean not only—insanity—but
worse—do you follow me—or shall I make it
brutally plainer?”
“I know you mean me well, both of you. And
I know what you mean, Gus. It would not be the
first time I had thought of that way out. What is
there for me to live for? My studies and investi-
gations have been all in all to me. I wanted to be
a doctor, but my father thwarted that, and then
fate took up the—well, here I am. A poor rich
man.’’
“But your home, Andy,” spoke Uncle I’ for
the first time since the conversation had taken this
turn—this designed turn.
“My home,” echoed the banker listlessly, sor-
rowfully,– ‘alas, my home !”
A long pause and a deep sigh.
“Brothers, I have no home, except the little
outbuilding standing near the orchard. Up at
Colonel Quillmore’s residence, a hundred yards
away, I eat occasionally and there sometimes I go
to bed. But I have no home.”
His words came slower and grew almost inaudi-
ble as he proceeded without interruption.
“My boy is all I have left, my big, manly boy.
My wife—brothers, to you it is no secret—I made
a frightful mistake. She was not disposed to our


86 THE QUILLMORES
Northern country, our Northern ways. Our at-
tachment, as you remember, was romantic, and the
romance touched her young Southern blood. I was
always a trifle quixotic. I should have belonged
to the knight-errant period. A woman was al-
ways to me from the earliest a type of goddess. I
have never wholly overcome that feeling. The
glamour of the meeting, the help she gave us when
our lives were in peril, weighed with me. I
brought her here. You know all the rest, my
brothers. Nay, all you do not know, can never
know. We have drifted apart. When our boy
came I fondly hoped there might be a reunion.
Alas! it proved futile. She has been a changed
woman—she has been almost unnatural to that
child. The boy has never had a mother’s care.”
“And about the father's care?” asked Doc
Gus.
“The reproof is just, Gus. I have not been a
good father to him. I tried for a long time to be
both father and mother. I fell away, however.
Why? Well, for one thing I saw my caressing of
him gave occasion for more unhappiness to my
wife. She had grown jealous of her only son!
As God is my witness, I would gladly do my duty
to both wife and child!”
“We know, Andy,” said Doc Gus.
“Yes, we know, and so do many others of your
brothers and friends,” added Uncle I’.
“You have brought me here not merely to
caution me, you have something for me, have you
not?” asked the banker.


THE WARNING 87
“Andy,” said Doc Gus, slowly and solemnly,
after a few moments of silence, “I believe it to be
imperative that you go away from Lamo, from
Indiana, nay from this country for a time. Get
completely away from your business 5 *
“And the business?” interrupted the banker.
“Is it not in flourishing condition?” asked the
doctor.
, “I think it is—no, I must be honest—I know it
is. L’Oiseau is a fine business manager, a com-
petent financier, who relieves me of all the drudg-
ery which must come to a man in my position—a
man who is tired of the mad chase for useless
money.”
“Still,” said Doc Gus, “there are imperative
reasons why you must get away from here. Ira
and I will, if need be, take care of your financial
interests—and we will not suffer anyone to do you
harm elsewhere. Your absolute safety lies in
going away, refusing to read a book, or taking any
part in any intellectual pursuit. This we advise,
Ira and I.”
“That way is peace and health,” added Uncle
I’, in confirmation of the advice given. “You
have studied and brooded too much. Take your
wife and boy and go away somewhere— Where
shall he go, Gus?”
“To Europe or Australia. Take a slow
steamer. Get away from civilization and news-
papers and telegraphs and telephones for as long
a period as possible. Stop thinking about the
past. What’s anything or everything in compari-


THE WARNING 89
been moments when life itself seemed not worth
the living.”
“Surely not that, Andy,” said Uncle I’ solicit-
ously, tears standing in his eyes, “surely not
that.”
“Yes, my brothers, it was that—it had come
to that. And nothing saved me but, the recollec-
tion of my manly boy—the dishonor and disgrace
which would fall upon him | That was all. That
fall out of my buggy, I reckon, didn’t do me any
particular good. I haven’t been quite as I was
before, but I feel better already, Gus. You are
a most wonderful man. You give cheer and help
wherever you go. I will profit by this council,
brothers.”
The three arose by common impulse. Uncle
I tried each door, rearranged the curtains of the
windows, then returned.
These three then took each other by the hand.
“And one thing more, Andy,” said the doctor,
his left hand resting over the banker's shoulder,
“one thing more: there are to be no more
thoughts of self-destruction!”
“I will control my hands, brothers.”
“And you will come here to us, in the solemnity
of these surroundings, where we three have met
so many times before, and discuss your troubles
and affairs? This pledge we renew as always
heretofore upon our sacred honor and upon the
mystic points of our profession as Masons.” -
“Yes, brothers, I agree to all as before,” as-
sented the banker.


90 THE QUILLMORES
The hands left the grip, passed the wrists,
mounted to the elbows, then to the shoulders.
The union was complete. The compact was
sealed.
Uncle I’ picked up the lamp, removed the green-
paper shade, and lighted the way out, preceded
by the others, and all moved along the board walk
through the darkened street, the moon playing at
hide and seek.
Uncle I’ was the first to leave the group, going
at once to his home.
At the corner the doctor offered to say good-
night, but the banker held him in the shadow of
the large elm trees for a few moments longer.
Then Colonel Quillmore went over to the hitch-
ing chain nearby, untied his little road wagon, and
having lit his lantern drove homeward.
As long as he could do so Doc Gus watched the
disappearing wagon. Then he turned down his
own board walk.
Suddenly he paused.
Had he heard a cry?
He listened intently.
Was it not from the direction of the just-disap-
peared vehicle?
The moon uncovered for a moment, then again
entered into a new eclipse.
The soft road filled with dust was silent save for
the night noises of the country. He listened for
the hoof-beats of the colonel’s horse.
Everything was silent.
Still he waited and waited.


TROUBLE “ALONG THE LINE * 91
It must have been a mishearing. /
Surely.
The nervous strain of the last hour had doubt-
lessly told upon even the hardy physical nature
of this big country doctor.
He moved on slowly to his residence.
The cry, if it had been one, was not repeated.
But—
CHAPTER VIII
TROUBLE “ALONG THE LINE *
R. WINSTONE had been in bed only a few
D minutes, so it seemed to him, when he was
roused to completest consciousness by the
opening of the front gate—a gate, which, by the
way, made little noise at any time, and yet there
seemed to be a species of telepathy or psychic
mechanism between its opening and the doctor’s
pillow, that invariably waked him from the deep-
est slumber the moment a hand touched it. The
doctor waited for the accustomed signal,—as all
his friends and patrons understood it—a swing-
ing to and fro of the lantern before his bedroom
window.
The signal was given.
“Say, Gus,” said the voice of Uncle I’, “I
hated like all get out, to come over and pull you
up. I know you’ve had a hard day of it, and didn’t
get to bed till late, and—”


92 THE QUILLMORES
“Who’s sick over at your place, Ira?” inter-
rupted the doctor.
“Oh, it hain’t any of us this time, not any more
than always,” corrected Uncle I’ with a little catch
in his speech, for he remembered Chrissy, or per-
haps it was because he had walked rapidly.
“Go on, Ira, I’m listening.”
“Well, Gus, it’s like this: there’s trouble some-
where along the line. I don’t know just where. I
suppose you’ll think I’m foolish to pay any heed to
such things—but I remumbur something you said
once about it, and—well, mother got me to come
and get you—”
Uncle Ira was clearly confused.
“Hurry, Ira. Whoever’s sick. Isn’t getting
any better fast by your delay. And your unseen
maidenly blushes. I know you wouldn’t call me
out. Unless there was need for it. So out with
the murder !” The doctor was drawing on his
wolverine boots and spoke in short staccato sen-
tences.
Uncle Ira was, meantime, talking through the
mosquito-netted window behind which the doctor
was busily dressing himself.
“Well, Gus,” said Uncle I’ with an effort,
“mother’s had the same dream three times hand-
running to-night of white flowers tied with a black
ribbon—”
“Go on, Ira, for the love of mercy! What are
you halting for ! I’m listening and—dressing.”
“And she declares up and down that it's a sign
of trouble nearby—”


TROUBLE ‘‘ALONG THE LINE’’ 95
sides, tucked the blanket over their knees, each
swinging a lantern from his particular side of the
cart, bowling along rapidly but cautiously, peer-
ing into the road ahead and beside them—the
darkness being made all the more dense for the fit-
ful motion of the light.
Near the foot of a hill, the hill at the top of
which rested the City of the Cerement, Dolly
pricked up her ears and made a slight movement
which was promptly carried back along the reins
to the driver.
“Here, friends,” cried a voice out of the dark-
ness ahead and a little to one side of the road,
“here, friends, whoever you are, for God’s sake!
There’s been an accident.” On the instant the two
prepared to alight.
“It’s the good doctor himself! Surely, the
blessed saints have sent you,” said the grateful
voice, which both now recognized as belonging to
Father Lessing.
A leap from the opposite sides of the cart left
Dolly standing as she had been trained to do, the
two friends hurrying towards the voice.
“I was coming from Caleb Exum’s,” explained
the priest, “who, as my son the good doctor
knows, is most critically ill, and came by this way
to take the Creek road home—”
“And you found this woman lying by the road-
side?” sharply interrupted the doctor, not wait-
ing, however, for answer, for he had gone to work
with professional skill and quickness, loosening
the clothing about the throat and chest of the re-


96 THE QUILLMORES
clining woman, who was unconscious, then placing
his ear to the heart listened intently, no one speak-
ing, the silence being palpable at that dead hour of
the night.
And the question remained unanswered. Prob-
ably not heard. Or, if heard, not understood. Or
perhaps it was not meant to be answered. Which-
ever had been the reason, the priest nevertheless
remained silent.
Uncle I’ flashed his lantern towards the pros-
trate figure, in an effort to assist the doctor.
“Don’t do that, Ira,” said the doctor hastily,
as he intercepted him with his body; “we don’t
want any special light on this subject—just yet, -
or here—or now. See if you can find some water
nearby.”
“There is water running over there,” interpo-
lated the priest, pointing into the darkness, in the
direction of the well-known spring at the foot of
the hill.
“True, I had forgotten—didn’t notice just
where we were.”
“I will go to bring some to you,” said Father
Lessing, moving away.
“No, let Ira get it. I need you here.”
As soon as Uncle I’, with his lantern, had disap-
peared, Doc Gus said sharply, or with extra pro-
fessional severity:
“Now that lantern, Father. Thank you. Take
hold of this limb and straighten it out a bit. So.
That bottle with the glass-stopper,” indicating one
in the opened buggy-case standing at his side.


TROUBLE “ALONG THE LINE’’’ 97
The bottle was brought.
“Remove the stopper and crush one of the cap-
sules in this handkerchief and give to me—
quickly, quickly—Father.”
All was done as directed and very rapidly and
silently except the sound of the crunching of the
capsule.
The priest said naught.
The doctor was busily employed with the un-
conscious figure, applying the pungent remedy to
the nostrils of the woman resting on his arm,
carefully noting the quivering of the lids, the di-
lating of the nostrils, the convulsive but deeper
breathing, and the creeping of color into the
deathly pallor which had overspread the face.
The doctor looked about before he next spoke and
put some object which he found into his capacious
'pocket. “When Ira comes with the water,—and I
see his lantern—take some of it and wash the
blood-stain from your hand and forehead.”
The priest thus addressed, started back involun-
tarily, drew his capacious brown sleeve over his
hand, and turned his face from the light, but said
not a word.
“The woman is reviving, Ira,” said the doctor,
in a wholly changed voice. “The water on this
side, so I can use it. There, that’s better. Come
here, Dolly,” clucking to his horse. “There
isn’t room for but two in the cart. You wait here
a few minutes, Ira, or walk on towards the village.
I’ll overtake you before you have gone very far.”
“Where am I?” asked a feeble voice.


98 THE QUILLMORES
“In the hands of your friends,” answered the
doctor. “Have no fear. Be quiet as possible.
Your illness was sudden and might return. You
know me—Dr. Winstone. Yes, of course you
do. Good. Rise now, if you can. Slowly—steady
there—so—lean on me as much as you like. That’s
good. Getting stronger finely. Uncle Ira will help
you.”
“Are you going, Father Lessing?” asked the
doctor, as he noted the back of the priest’s robe.
“Father Lessing?” queried the patient feebly.
“Oh, then it wasn’t a dream, after all?”
“I am here, my daughter,” replied the priest,
stepping briskly to her side, his face in the shadow
of the lantern. “You have had an accident. For-
tunately, the doctor came along, and you are now
again restored. Be tranquil and careful. He will
convey you home in his vehicle.”
Other words passed between them, but in a low
voice and a foreign tongue. It is doubtful if the
doctor paid any heed to them, or cared to under-
stand if he heard. He was busy on his own side of
the cart, and all being in readiness, he called to
Uncle I’, who answered, “All right, Gus, I’ll wait
for you here.”
Father Lessing stepped into the darkness, while
the cart with the doctor and his patient rapidly dis-
appeared in the direction of the lady's home—Col-
onel Quillmore’s house.
Uncle Ira, becoming restless, at length moved
slowly along the road, vigorously chewing his


TROUBLE ‘‘ALONG THE LINE’’ 99
quill toothpick, his old Panama hat well drawn
down over his brows, the while humming a little
snatch of some long-forgotten air. Finally he
heard the cart returning through the darkness—
for the doctor had taken neither lantern. Dolly
knew every inch of the way as well as her master,
and his carrying of a lantern at night, as every-
One did on foot or in wagon, was more to avoid
collisions than to see the road.
“Here we are, Ira. In with your old bones.
Don’t break any of them. Did you get chilly in
this midnight air, waiting?”
No, he hadn’t. There wa’n’t hardly time.
Things moved along so like they had been greased.
Almost like a play or a story-book.
They jogged and jolted and swung along—it
was quite an art to ride these carts without losing
one’s false teeth—neither of them inclined to
speech, until, as they were forging within view of
Mat Treegood’s barn, the doctor said in a sor-
rowful voice and low, very low:
‘‘Ira, this is bad business—awfully bad busi-
ness. I can’t see the end of it, or anything like
the end. Freemasonry can’t help; and the Cath-
olic Church with all its power and diplomacy seems
equally powerless. The law of the land can’t be
invoked, for obvious reasons. I can see no way
out of the frightful jangle. The man who is doing
it all seems unreachable.”
After a pause, “I am wondering how they
avoided meeting the colonel, as he was driving
home. Possibly they saw his lantern and kept out


100 THE QUILLMORES
of the way. Ira, it’s the worst problem I have
ever had to tackle in my life. The house on the
hill is falling, Ira, falling to its eternal ruin. And
our brother will be ground into fine powder under
its ruins.”
CHAPTER IX
A CONSULTATION
N the following morning a messenger ar-
rived in the village from the hills, asking
for the doctor. It was Baltimore Peter-
son, the colored servant from the Laroutelle farm,
and he found the person he sought, at breakfast.
“Ah don’t know, Massa Doctah, nuffing about
de pusson, 'cept, suh, that Ah was to tole you, Suh,
that someone am most pow’ful bad over to the big
house—to the Killmow-ses, suh,-and dat Ah wus
to fetch you right away. 'Pears to be some great
haste, Massa Doctah. 'Pears to be somebody
montus bad like, Suh.”
No, he didn’t know who was ill. “One o’ de
white help done come over, suh, kase they know’d
I was comin’ to the post office, and axed my folks
to send to call you-uns. Dat’s all Ah know fo”
suah, Massa Doctah.” -
“All right, Baltimore, I’ll finish my breakfast
while the boy gets my horse “hooked up.’ I’ll be
right after you and catch you if you don’t ride
like old Peter, son.”


A CONSULTATION 101
The negro went away, laughing loudly as only
one of these old-fashioned black men of the South
can laugh, and while completing his morning re-
past, the doctor told his wife something of the
previous night's experiences.
Mrs. Winstone—she was the only one called by
the family name—had early in her married life
made it a rule to be patient and incurious and not
to interfere with the doctor’s professional work,
and so, had not the doctor volunteered the in-
formation she would not have asked him about
his trip the night previous, though naturally she
had heard the conversation at the window.
She loved her husband with the idolizing affec-
tion of their early years; those early years when
the struggle for bread was a very large and ever-
present one. They had worked together in that
absolute harmony and community of unselfishness
which seems, of late, to have been very much
departed from, in apartment-house marriages.
These two were grown-up lovers who had never
recovered from the moonlight-night and front-
gate form of affection. Their only grief was the
absence of children, and so they the more lavished
their devotion upon each other, a devotion like
good wine, intensifying, as it aged, the love of the
beginning-time.
The doctor was soon bowling along the pike,
driving rapidly in the direction of the hills, greet-
ing everyone with some happy phrase, whistling
to the dogs, laughing with the children, who
stopped and called to him “Hi! Uncle Doc' "


102 THE QUILLMORES
They were a jolly pair to observe—the doctor and
his horse, as they went swinging along.
At the hitching ring the doctor was met by
Colonel Quillmore.
‘‘I don’t know what’s the cause of the trouble,
this morning, Gus,” he said, “but my wife acts
most strangely.”
“Can you describe a bit more clearly as we
walk to the house?” asked the doctor.
“I don’t believe I can help you a particle.
Very early this morning she sent Albert for Father
Lessing, who is her confessor, as you know, with
a message to come to her.”
“And did the Father come?”
“Yes, he chanced to be near by. He is here
now. It was he who advised sending for you. I
asked if there was aught I could do for her. I
hadn’t seen her since yesterday before dinner;
and he said there was not until after you had been
here.”
“You reached home safely last night, did you,
colonel?”
“Oh, yes, Gus, and felt better for the little
talk we had. Queer place that, isn’t it? Still
how very appropriate for some of our secret coun-
cils. I have given some thought to your advice
to stop studying. I believe you and Ira are right.
I wrote this morning to New York to reserve
steamship passage for myself and wife—”
“Then you did ask Mrs. Quillmore—”
“No, as I told you, Gus, I haven’t seen her
since yesterday. I didn’t get home till late, and I


104 THE QUILLMORES
“Oh, my good doctor, my head, my head! It
has not been right for a long time past. I do not
sleep. If you ask me how it has been wrong I
shall not be able to correctly answer, for of a cer-
tainty I do not know. It has not acted properly.
I seem to float away. My body becomes without
weight. I rise upon the air, the same as a frag-
ment of paper. I shake myself together, so, to
get my head right once more. It has been very
bad these two days. I remember not what took
place except as in a bad dream. I do recall, doc-
tor, that it was you who conveyed me here, from
where I cannot conjecture nor figure to myself.
At times my head is, as you call it, compressed in
a vise. At other times again as if something, oh,
so heavy, so very heavy, was lying upon it and
crushing it down, down, down! Then my brain
seems on fire. It crackles as the salt splutters
when it is cast into the fire. Then there are bright
flashes of light. Oh, my good doctor, help me!
I cannot tell you more. It sometimes seems to me
I shall of a verity go mad!”
Placing her hands to her temples and pressing
them convulsively, she rose, turned, and walked
with a stately step into an adjoining alcove bed-
room. Then in an instant throwing back her head
she gave utterance to a loud, unnatural laugh,
hard, guttural, and unmusical in the extreme.
The next moment Dr. Gus had her arms
pinioned to her sides, as she struggled desperately
to reach a little silver-hilted poniard which peeped
from under a handkerchief upon the chiffonier.


A CONSULTATION 105
She had immense and unwonted strength, and
but for his greater natural power and agility Dr.
Winstone would have been worsted in the combat.
At the sound of the laugh Father Lessing pushed
his way into the room and lent assistance.
At this time her eyes were maniacal, her face
distorted, and her lips parted, displaying her
pretty regular teeth, set tightly and flecked with
foam and blood-stains. A cold perspiration ap-
peared in beads upon the forehead. Under the
intense strain she bent and swayed and then gave
way. She had fainted.
They gently laid her upon the couch. Hot
water was ordered and when brought by a fright-
ened maid, the doctor quickly prepared a draught
from his medicine case, and placed it to the pa-
tient’s lips as she came out of the swoon.
Having drank of this, she lay quietly and soon
fell into a peaceful sleep.
“When she wakes from the potion given,” said
the doctor,—the two men were now outside the
room and alone,—“I think she will be recovered
from the effects of last night. For, as I view the
matter, this has been but a continuation of some
experiences which—”
“We shall of a verity hope for the best,” in-
terrupted the priest,—there was evidently no de-
sire on his part to hear further allusion to what
had taken place the preceding evening, but the
doctor continued:
“So this was the patient you wanted me to see
up on the hill?”


106 THE QUILLMORES
The priest was silent. He had the provoking
habit of deeply secretive men of holding his coun-
sel when nothing was to be gained by speech.
“And I thought it was the colonel himself—
whom Ira and I had in council last night—”
Still no word from the priest.
The doctor looked up suddenly and scrutinized
the silent figure standing beside him.
“And it was you, then, who disturbed our meet-
ing last evening, was it? You were prowling
about there, were you?”
No answer. And the partly averted face gave
no sign. The priest would neither deny nor affirm
the accusation.
“Do you know, Father Lessing, that you are
mixing-in a good deal with the affairs of this
family?”
A few moments’ pause.
“But she did not go out alone last night.
That’s true, I suppose. You will answer that—
or don’t you dare to?”
“How should I know that, my son the doctor?”
lamely quibbled the priest.
The doctor looked up sternly at him.
“How should you know? Because you do
know! Because you have been watching this
family for months. Because you are shielding
someone who deserves no shielding ! Because
you have been present at every accident that
has taken place in which any member of this
family was concerned ! Because you knew that
those two—those two—Father—those two were


108 THE QUILLMORES
your appearance at all hours, like a specter, may
be, I suppose must be, due to your sense of duty—
or your ecclesiastical training. Pardon my irri-
table speech, for I believe firmly that you put
yourself in the way last night to save a woman
from an indiscretion. I, too, have much at stake
in this family—and that also you seem to know,
and I am anxious that no harm shall ensue.”
“Yes, my son, I know that,” sadly added the
priest, and was silent, but he reached forth his
hand to receive an object which the doctor drew
from his pocket as he was saying:
“Give this glove to the dastardly villain who
accompanied the woman to that lonely spot last
night, and tell him that someone else besides
Father Lessing knows of his conduct. And tell
him, from me, that if this is not stopped, and at
once—at once, mark me, Father—he will stand in
imminent danger of his worthless life. You
understand me,—do you not?”
“I understand you, my son; but you are wrong,
eternally and dangerously wrong in your sur-
mises. Still, I will carry your message.”
“No, I’m not wrong, Father. It is you who are
trying to mislead me. However, carry your
secret if you will—it will come to the light of day
soon—too soon, I am afraid; and now will you re-
turn to Mrs. Quillmore while I report to the colo-
ne]???
“And may one ask what it is that you purpose
to report?” interrupted the priest.
For an infinitesimal fraction of a second a sharp


A CONSULTATION 109
answer was upon the doctor’s lips, but he swal-
lowed it—“fly and all ”—as he sometimes said
when referring to doing something to him dis-
agreeable. The expression on his face was not
lost upon the priest.
“I think I know what you mean, Father,” he
said, in his usual tone of voice. “I have no in-
tention of referring to last night. I intend to ask
for counsel with other physicians; this lady’s
malady has taken on puzzling symptoms with
which I doubt my ability to cope, unless an opera-
tion is at once performed; at least, I do not feel
equal to bearing the responsibility undivided.”
“Thank you for your good answer, my son.
My question perhaps was impertinent—that I
understand. Still, we have been together in other
instances, many of them, and we have acquired the
wisdom of discretion, have we not?”
The doctor made no answer, but turned to de-
scend the stairway.
Colonel Quillmore listened with anxious ears to
the tale of illness as disclosed, and readily con-
sented to the calling of the proposed counsel.
Mrs. Quillmore had sunk into a deep and rest-
ful sleep, from which the doctor believed she would
not rouse before the luncheon hour; about which
time it was reasonable to expect the aid which was
sent for.
Here, in this country district, the trend in the
direction of operating for the cure of diseases—
an impalpable disorder, a fancied existence of
morbid processes hidden from the eye and touch


110 THE QUILLMORES
—had not yet reached the height it attains in the
cities.
But Doc Gus, “country-doctor ’’ though he was,
being an omnivorous reader, kept in touch with all
that concerned his profession; and although of
extreme, conservative tendencies, a believer in the
power and willingness of nature to heal its own
wrongs if but suitably aided, he was not blinded to
the proper use of the knife.
In the case of Mrs. Quillmore, he had long years
before recognized the existence of a disease amen-
able only to a surgical procedure which he had
before now and oft repeatedly counseled, but con-
sent had been as persistently refused.
When a few hours later the arranged-for con-
sultation was held, Mrs. Quillmore gave patient
consideration to all the arguments advanced by
the specialist, who confirmed the opinions of Dr.
Winstone, but she was obdurate and would not be
influenced or alter her former expressed determi-
nation. There seemed but one thing to do, there-
fore, to resort to palliatives, pending that time,
sure to come—if not anticipated by death—when
operative measures should prove imperative.
Although but a few hours had elapsed and
Madame still showed some signs of indisposition,
her appearance was greatly and favorably altered,
and barring noticeable weakness, she was her
stately, natural self again.
Having failed in one effort, Doc Gus now com-
municated to Madame some particulars of her
husband’s plans for a trip abroad, and he was


A CONSULTATION 111
both surprised and disappointed to find that the
project, in so far as she herself was concerned,
failed to secure approval.
The doctor well recognized the advantages of
the proposed outing to the colonel, but now the
sending away of the one, and the leaving of the
other at home,—under the peculiar circumstances,
—was indeed to propose a problem too complex
for ready solution.
Later, as Doc Gus and Father Lessing were
about to separate at the foot of the stairs, while
the consulting physician’s carriage was being
brought from the stables, the former again re-
ferred to the object of the consultation, and said
in an undertone:
“Would Mr. L’Oiseau have any influence with
Mrs. Quillmore?”
The old priest looked up sharply, the color
mounting to his cheeks, his lips twitched as if
about to say something in indignation, but—he
dropped his eyes, merely replying:
‘‘I fear me that Madame will never consent to
any surgical procedure.”


112 THE QUILLMORES
CHAPTER X
CEIRISSY
upon Lamo, and the pikes were covered
with a crisp mantle of snow and ice. The
usual conveyances, now, of this section were the
famous “bobs,” a pair of home-made sleds united
and covered with a wagon-box, itself filled with
straw or hay. An occasional sleigh with orna-
mental runners ending in graceful swan’s necks,
protruding above the sleigh-body, was to be seen
on Sunday. Horseback riding was rather more
frequent.
Salt Creek furnished skating for the young.
Snowballing was the favorite amusement of those
who delighted in making matters uncomfortable
for riders and drivers, and for objectionable or
irritable pedestrians. The creaking and groan-
ing of the wheeled vehicles, as they passed in and
out of the village, gave token of the exceeding cold.
There had been some fitful sunshine, blinding the
pedestrian, adding, however, but little warmth, if
any, to the atmosphere.
In the main it had been disagreeable, lowering
weather, with high winds that whistled mournfully
through the Lombardies, or bent them, like ex-
aggerated reeds, so that they leaned to the south.
The wind sighed untunefully through the “Christ-
mas ” trees; and made discordant music in the
| \OUR months later the winter season was


CHRISSY 113
leafless beeches, so many of which stood in the
woods of this township.
Doc Gus was busy and often kept his cart in
motion the greater part of the twenty-four hours.
He carried an extra blanket—for his horse—when
it was necessary to “put him out ’’ at some poor
farmhouse, or stable him in a cold barn. With
this blanket over his knees, a pair of red woolen
mittens, and a large wool-lined rain coat with
cape, he was as always the same jolly, good-
natured Doc Gus.
It was in the holiday season. In almost every
home at Lamo preparations were being made for
the celebration of the annual festivities associated
with the birth of the gentle Saviour, whom every
Christian child learns to love first—before it
learns of His sorrows and cruel death—with a love
that is sweet and divinely good, because pure and
unselfish.
These old-fashioned Presbyterians, viewing life
as a “vale,” a place of probation and suffering,
who had been born and bred and reared in this
life-sapping, ambition-destroying belief of their
old-fashioned doctrine, were slowly and, perhaps,
not unwillingly accepting the happier, more lov-
ing conception of the Christian faith. Music and
pictures, neither all sacred of the one, nor all
Biblical of the other, were gradually finding places
in their homes.
Amusements which were formerly regarded as
the devil’s devices for diverting the mind from a
proper contemplation of the grave problems of life,


116 THE QUILLMORES
of wealth, which deceive none—with a bitter
reckoning later on. These everyday people were
content to begin in a modest way, as their fathers
and mothers had done before them; to be frugal
and honest, doing that which lay nearest at hand,
doing it together and doing it well. Thus they
grew in oneness, and the coming of children served
to make this house a home in the best and sweetest
sense of the word.
Uncle I’s daughter Christina had never wholly
recovered from the grief occasioned by the death
of her elder brother Neemy. They had been
lovers of each other from the earliest moment of
intelligence. His waywardness, his disappear-
ance and later return, broken in health, left an in-
effaceable sadness upon the spirit of the sister.
She was capable and business-like,—precocious,
in short, as children marked for early dissolution
are so prone to be. Her aid in the conduct of the
department back of the general store, seemed to
the manner born. If there had ever been any
horror associated with the traffic, it was not ap-
parent. The gentler sex are so invariably equal
to the details of these very necessary last sad
rites; and with Chrissy the actual dabbling in
these melancholy-trade features was an easy
adaptation. Her delicate taste in ornamentation,
and the selection of trimmings and the like—for
there are rigid fashions even in the trappings of
woe, and others appertaining to this lugubrious
occupation—were much appreciated.
One day she had been overtaken by a raw, cold


CHRISSY 117
wind, followed by a sleety rain, which intensified
her “bronchitis ’’—that common but untruthful
name given by some physicians for consumption,
when desirous of sparing the patient’s feelings.
This illness had continued for some time, till
weakness of body made it imperative that she re-
main on the couch all day long.
Uncle I’ not being a reader, beyond the current
news, could not, therefore, discuss the latest his-
torical novel, picture, lecture, or fashion in dress
or speech; his words must needs partake of that
in which he dealt and labored.
Chrissy always listened with interest, but sel-
dom spoke. Speaking had become burdensome.
It brought with it a cough which racked her most
cruelly. She had now become so light of weight
and so fragile of body that her father carried her
from chair to couch, from couch to bed.
The doctor came often in the evening to chat
with the family, aunty sitting at the foot of the
“curly ” bedstead, sewing or knitting, but rarely
taking part in the conversation. -
The evil day came at length. The doctor was
passing through the kitchen when aunty looked
up at him. .
“Is there no hope, doctor?”
“Aunty, sister, God bless you—your daughter
is low—very low. I can’t tell you a falsehood
even to cheer you for a few hours longer. But
you are brave. You know what is before us all.
It comes to each in time. You must bear it with
God’s help, sister.”


118 THE QUILLMORES
As the doctor passed through the yard he nearly
ran into Mother Treegood, nubia on her head, head
down, with some large object concealed under her
kitchen-apron.
“Glad to meet you, Sister Treegood,” said the
doctor, a salutation which caused the little woman
to stop and wait for the remainder of the speech,
for no one in the village called her aught but
“Mother Treegood ” though she was in appear-
ance the junior of many of these friends. “Go to
aunty and give her all the help and comfort you
can. Chrissy is—going!”
“Ach, is dat so! Yes, sure, I will,” promptly
responded the little mother. “It’ink before al-
ready as the gal will not get over it. The whole
familié the consumption fever has got, no—yes?”
“Hard to say, mother. This is a time for love
and sympathy. Be cheerful, will you? No long
faces, remember.”
Aunty was in the kitchen where the doctor had
left her—the most cheerful room in winter of the
Indiana country house, which in this instance,
as in all others, was clean and sweet. She sat
with apron over head, hands crossed in lap, and
silent.
Mother Treegood stepped in with noiseless foot,
uncovered what she had been carrying—a pan of
freshly fried fastnachts küchlein–doughnuts—
and quietly placed them upon the gleaming, pol-
ished, white kitchen-table.
With the infinite and loving tact of her sex,—
and at times it seems as if there was an excess


CHRISSY 119
of such tact among the lowly and hard workers of
the land—city and country—she tiptoed to the in-
tervening door, closed it gently and noiselessly,
first, however, listening a moment to assure her-
self that naught was required beyond—then came
back to the sorrowing one, who was now convul-
sively sobbing behind that wall of textile fabric,
with a grief too sacred to permit of the profane
touch of light.
Mother Treegood knelt at the feet of this pros-
trated and broken-hearted woman, touched her
knees and said nothing for a few moments, merely
patting and “loving ” the folded hands.
“I know me already how hard it is, aunty,”
she began presently, in a voice so low and sweet,
so gentle, and so filled with tenderness and com-
passion, that it seemed not to belong to this noisy,
busy, bustling, bubbling little woman with the
sparkling eyes and rosy cheeks, “aber it comes
soon if not later to everybody oncet. Some bodies
has it got late to have, and some bodies has it not
got so far off too. We don’t can never told when
it must come. I cry mine eyes out myself more
as oncet—ja, ja ”—she stopped to brush away
a bit of moisture trickling down her plump cheeks,
and swallowed, a little exaggeratedly, something
that had found its way up into her throat, “und
yet I have lived on und on, und lived it t'rough.
Der alte Gott lebt noch !” as she dropped into her
own language, too overcome by her recollections
to clearly distinguish between the one and the
other vernacular. “Yes, yes, I know of that for


120 THE QUILLMORES
sure und for truth. He help us all in our Sorgens
—Sorrows.”
Aunty had spoken no word. Her face was still
covered. But her sobs convulsed her body.
“Thank you, mother, for your sympathy,” she
said after a little pause. “But see what my
children" have been,” she added thickly and un-
evenly, through the curtain of sorrow; “see what
a botch they have all been. Not of all of them
have I had one straight child—one well-formed
child. I don’t understand, mother, why I have
been so visited of the Lord. I feel like rebelling,”
—her voice began rising excitedly—“I know it’s
awful to talk that way—but, in God’s name—what
can I say or do? I have tried to do every
duty—”
“Yes, yes, you have it done every time and
always,” hastily interrupted Mother Treegood,
hoping to stem the tide which seemed to be rising
to overflowing, “no one have it done better as
you.”
“My first-born to whom I gave my innermost
soul—poor Neemy—see what it all came to ! Ran
away, then—” She could not complete the
sentence, overcome by her sobs.
“Aber doch, aunty, he come himself to you
back again. He to sleep went in your arms, al-
ready—yes? You did again him have to see
until he—. Aber my skildren—I also have in
my breast got the sorrow of the good Mother of
* In addition to Neemy and Chrissy, the Thatch's had one other
child Philip, born blind.


CHRISSY 121
God, too. You have never it been told. No? I
know that. It was at feerst as I was living yet
by Brookfill. My feerst skildren was twillings—
—boys—born on the same time, too. Aber Mat-
too [Matthew] not so much liked the twins after
that when Ory come. I don’t already understand
why or when he did not them like so good no
more or how. Mebbe—perhaps—because—no. I
know it not—not even to-day—anyhow, aunty, the
two little skildren run off,—run away somewheres,
I know not where, so soon as they was out of the
A-B-C school. I don’t know fer a long while
where to. I cry mine eyes out, und It’ink und
t’ink I must them after go. It has me give so
much sorrow—I up am every night many times
after middle-night und watch und wait und watch,
und It’ink I hear dem coming home. My heart’s
blood! Oh, mine Lieblingen! My feerst boys!
Und so it go on und on und on. He gives nothings
therefor—Mattoo don’t— He say let the bad
boys run und alone. Dey will come back already
when dey git hungrig. He will nothings do to
find 'em. Und whilst after a while Abe come to
take the place, only he can it never fill—no, never
—und I was yet already in Kindbett—ach, I feel it
again here in my breast—a letter come from Cin-
cinnetty—from the other brudder, that his brud-
der has fallen himself in de Ohio Rebber von a
steamboat off und was ver-drownded !”
Mother Treegood could not proceed. With her
broken speech, badly mixed as it was ordinarily,
she was now completely overcome by her emo-


122 THE QUILLMORES
tions, which shook her whole body, while the tears
rained upon two pairs of hands, roughened and
broadened perhaps, ungainly-looking hands as
they were. Aunty loosened hers and placed them
gently, caressingly upon the bowed head of the
sorrowing sister, patting and speaking softly to
the German woman, who was pouring out her life
grief to the other, who was herself standing with
unwilling feet at the threshold of a new sorrow,
preparing to pass under the rod, out into the
shadow.
“I know, deary,” she said softly and sweetly,
“you must have had your heart torn and tram-
pled on through your love for your children,” con-
tinuing to pat the hands gently.
“I could not to him go, aunty, when they him
find—I was more sick—und old Doctor Berry von
Brookfill say I will die sure. I give me nothings
for that. It was to me all one. How long as I
was sick I don’t can remember no more. Mattoo
he say nothings. My pretty boy was to our house
brought, aber no one could him know—he was in
the Wasser—de water—so long—oh, das kalte,
kalte Wasser ! so many, many days. I took more
of the fever—und go out of my head—und so I
never my Liebling seen again.
“One day,” she resumed, “there come by the
express company a little bundle. When it was
open-éd—it was an oyster-can—a box of tin-iron,
mit a hole cut in the on-top side. The letter was
from de other boy—und it say—that his brudder,
who was ver-drownded, did begin his business life


124 THE QUILLMORES
unpoetic, unsentimental women, knowing nothing
of the larger tragedies of life, or of the passions
which make, rule, and unmake empires and re-
publics,—those awful passions which have filled
the world with the din and clangor of discordant
cries and arms, and incarnadined the beautiful
green of God’s footstool; these two lowly women
who knew not that their personal sorrow, there
in that restricted, unknightly, every-day, country
village—where people were just ordinary people,
living a quiet life void of great ambitions—peace-
ful, calm, and helpful—these two open-hearted
women, mothers in Israel, knew not that theirs
was but a repetition—infinitely repeated—of
every mother who has wailed over the death of
her first-born, since the first mother kissed the
bruised brow of the first death-stricken, down to
the other Mother whose Son was immolated for
mankind—these two Hoosier matrons, the one af-
flicted mysteriously and beyond all human reason,
the other broken of spirit and speech,—comforted
each other! And thus did they instill the perfume
of sweet sympathy in each other’s hearts.
A coughing from the inner room roused them.
Aunty caught her apron in hand and listened.
Mother Treegood, recalled to herself, rose
quickly.
“Ach, du mein lieber Himmel,” she exclaimed
as she dashed away the traces of the recent lavish
libation, poured out upon the altar of memory,
“und I make it a promise to the Herr Doktor
that I will not a long face pull here. Und also


CHRISSY 125
I have forgotten dat I got yet a big mess of dishes
to wash mit Ory. I come again soon, aunty.”
And she kissed her.
And kissing among the children of Germania is
not the flippant, frivolous, fleshless fashion that
it is become of many of the American sisterhood.
..To them—these hard-handed, every-day, hard-
working, sunburnt children of toil and scrupulous
honesty—it means something deeper and holier
than the mere society salute.
It was the kiss of an infinite Peace! A kiss be-
stowed to soften the blow which could not be
averted, to turn the arrow-point of sorrow's
shaft.
The foreshadowed event was all too near at
hand, and within the week one more queenly
flower had gone to bloom forever in the realm of
the ineffable light; one more beautiful spirit
loaned to earth called home.


126 THE QUILLMORES
CHAPTER XI
LEANDER
EANDER QUILLMORE was a splendid lad,
| growing tall and muscular; now verging
on seventeen; with a healthy dislike for
indoors, and a contrary liking for outdoor sports
and occupations. Until within a few years past he
was one of that almost numberless host of boys
of the country who run barefoot part of the year,
go in swimming on every opportunity, work about
the farm doing chores, or if called upon to do so
even working out, not viewing such employment
as degrading service, but as a vindication of their
inborn freedom. For in the country places it is
still most honorable for the young man to work
hard, and for the girls to learn kitchen and house-
work, to make “comforts '' and stockings and
shirts for the family, or even for a special loved
one. In winter time he had his minié rifle, had
Lanny, and spent many a day in the woods. He
was expert in woodcraft, having been with Father
Lessing in many of that priest’s wanderings
among his favorite trees. He knew his books as
well as most boys of his age, and hoped soon to be
allowed to begin, in earnest, the study of medicine
at some suitable college.
Reverting to his earliest years, instinctively,
it seemed, almost from the first the boy had kept
away from his mother. Most of his childhood had


LEANDER 127
been spent in the nursery, where he was taught his
letters both in English and French by the nurse.
When he was launched from this estate for the
next, the schoolboy period, he first recognized the
antagonism existing between his parents. The
father had determined that, this being America,
his child should attend the village school. The
mother insisted upon the boy being sent to a
parochial school under the care of the Brothers,
deeming the welfare of his soul alone of vital im-
portance.
Although the colonel carried the day in time, it
was a long struggle and a disastrous victory.
After this point was settled there could never be
any familiarity between the colonel and his wife.
The final breach was made. Mrs. Quillmore,
equally strong with the colonel on the importance
of the decided question, had said, “The lad must
choose between his father and his mother !” And
as Leander, with his ruddy, bubbling blood, his
vigorous young life, with his love of American in-
stitutions, of freedom from all sects and creeds of
the past, chose to go to the village public school;
henceforth her heart was closed against him.
True, it had never been in a motherly manner open
before; yet he could go to her for counsel, for help
in his accidents, craving that affection which other
boys and girls have in such plenitude.
At the present time the youth was passing
through that state which comes between the cour-
age of the schoolboy and the awful diffidence of
the youth when mingling with his elders, or with


128 THE QUILLMORES
the fair ones of the other sex; that period of pain-
ful consciousness of his hands and feet.
Though his father had gone away, he would not
mope. His was too happy a nature for that. He
and the doctor had always been great friends, now
they were becoming comrades, and then he was
paying sly court to Oryntha Treegood, and this
was a diversion, although not one of unalloyed
bliss, for there was Jabez Ranweed to be reckoned
with. First one of the lads saw her home from
the church, and then the other one. However, as
Oryntha was some years older than Lanny, it
could hardly be expected that his infatuation
would prove to be one really based upon deep and
lasting sentiment, while Jabez, who was more
nearly her age, would more likely be her selection.
Every boy of the village had his girl as he had his
axe. To be without either was to be of low repute.
For Ory, Lanny had the exaggerated knightly gal-
lantry so common in all such cases. That they
had the usual “tiffs '' and disagreements goes
without saying, remembering the peculiar oppo-
siteness and lack of appositeness of their char-
acters; there must needs be many sparks to fly
when this steel and flint came together in violent
concussion; still Lanny ever brought to her his
confidences, and it was the good judgment of this
odd little Indiana maiden which served upon many
occasions to quiet the boyish passion, and smother
the flame of resentment which burned in the youth-
ful breast. Her counsel to him was soothing and
placatory; it was an incentive to better deeds; to


LEANDER 129
forget the unfortunate condition of matters pres-
ent; and to conform himself for that better estate
sure to come to him later on. The value of good
counsel from a noble-hearted and older girl, to a
youthful admirer, at a time so critical as this was
to be for Lanny, is truly beyond compare.
About the Treegood home itself, there was al-
ways an air of cheerfulness, solidity, and neat-
ness; it was a home which lacked those bits of
tawdry frippery so common in many country
households—the paper flowers, the cheap chromos,
the over-portly photograph album, and the dust-
laden family Bible.
Amid these favorable surroundings, Ory had ac-
quired the industrial policy of her mother, and in
some degree the educational and pessimistic dog-
mas of her father, though her mind was filled with
much flippant nonsense at times. And although
Mother Treegood kept a watchful eye on her
daughter, there was some surreptitious reading of
“penny-dreadful” literature. Heredity gave the
young woman the characteristics of the one and
then the other parent, as a child’s face will resem-
ble the one or the other progenitor at different
times, and environment made her totally different
from either.
“By the way, Ory,” said Lanny, as the two
were standing near the Treegood front-gate, “I’m
having an awful time up at the house, and I don’t
believe I can stand it much longer.”
“What’s happened, Lanny?” asked Ory.
“I’m worse off than a stray dog up there, it


LEANDER 181
As they were about to enter the office-part,
Leander began in an awkward way to say very
much the same things he had told Ory, with a con-
scious embarrassment that it was not so easy to
tell the same story to this broad-shouldered white-
haired man as it was to his sweetheart. The doc-
tor might not view the situation similarly. But
he sped rapidly along with his tale. Meanwhile
the doctor had taken off his hat and was tugging
at his coat, preparatory to dousing his face in a
basin of water standing just outside the kitchen
window.
“Wait a moment, Lanny,” he said as he made
the usual exaggerated noise of farm-people when
they wash their faces in two handfuls of water,
“I’ll get freshened up a bit and then we’ll go into
the front room,” then another splurge and an-
other, “Yes, deary, I’ll be ready for dinner in a
little bit. Won’t keep you waiting long, but want
to talk with Lanny first.
“Now, then, Lanny,” as they passed into the
office, “out with the murder. Who have you been
fighting with, and which of you got whipped? Was
it Ranweed again? Don’t you know he's years
older than you, and that he ought to lick you good
and hard for not having more respect for your
elders?” laughed the doctor, for he knew the
latent and ofttime open hostility between these
two for Oryntha's favor.
“Oh, it isn’t that, doctor,” said the boy a bit
shamefaced, “I don’t care though how old he is,
he’s got to let Ory alone, but that wasn’t what I


132 THE QUILLMORES
wanted to talk about. I didn’t think of coming
here until Ory told me. I hate to talk about it to
you, doctor, because it’s my mother that I’m com-
plaining about. But, really, it is getting to be so
hard for me up there on the Hill. I can’t do a
thing that is right. Everything I touch or do is
wrong. Since he came to live in our house, I seem
to be always running smack against Mr. L’Oiseau.
I don’t like him, no matter how much I try. Now
the other night he and mother 5 %
“Wait a moment, Lanny,” interrupted the doc-
tor, “till I close this door. There’s quite a
draught, and I’ve been driving in the hot sun and
feel a bit sweaty—mebbe I had ought ter say per-
spiry.” He closed the door carefully and noise-
lessly, also taking an oblique squint at the two
windows.
“Now, my lad, go on. You were saying some-
thing about Ranweed and his age.”
“Why, it’s just this way, doctor. I got up the
other morning to see what was causing Rollo so
much trouble. He was barking awfully and had
been for quite a while; I was afraid something had
got among my pet poultry. I took my rifle and
stole downstairs and came out into the kitchen.
Before I could open the door to step out, mother
came in all dressed, and behind her was Mr.
L’Oiseau.
“‘Why, Leander,’ said mother, ‘what are you
doing here at this time of night, and with your
rifle?”
“I answered that I had heard Rollo barking


LEANDER 133
and thought there might be some animal among
the chickens.
“‘You may go back now to bed, Leander. I’ll
see to the rest of it.”
“With that I turned to go upstairs. But I
first asked ‘Where have you been, mother?”
“‘Children must ask no questions, you know.
Get to your bed, for it is yet very early for you to
be up.”
“Before breakfast I went down to the barn to
look after Flossie, my little pet mare, when Mr.
L’Oiseau came in and said:
“‘So you were spying on your mother last
night, were you?”
“I answered, indignantly enough, that I had not
been doing any such thing; but I was so angry that
I made no further explanation.
“He looked at me sharply for a minute or more
and then said through his clenched teeth:
“‘See to it, young man, that you don’t become
a talebearer. It’s a cowardly thing to do. There
are reasons why you should be especially careful
what you say about your mother.’
“With that he walked away, got into his buggy,
and drove to town.”
“Have you told this to anyone else, Lanny?”
asked the doctor.
“No, doctor, I have not. That’s why I came
here to tell you. I said to Ory—”
“You told Ory?” interrupted the doctor.
“No, sir, I did not tell that part of it. I told
her about my lonesomeness, and that I thought


134 THE QUILLMORES
mother must be ill. Then she said it would be bet-
ter to tell you, so you might call there.”
“All right, Lanny. Now I want you to promise
me, upon your word of honor, that you won’t re-
peat this to anyone—this that you saw in the early
morning. Remember, my lad, that it is your
mother you are speaking about. And anything
that hurts her, hurts you. You must be a man,—
and fight for her—because you then fight for your-
self. You are old enough to understand what I
have said to you. Never mind about the cashier.
We don’t need to know anything about him. Your
father and mother trust him, and that must be
sufficient for us. Do you understand?”
Yes, he understood. And he gave his promise
that he would stand by his mother through thick
and thin. And, further,-this came a trifle hard—
he would keep out of Mr. L’Oiseau's way and not
provoke him or lay hands on him in any way. On
his honor he promised all these several things.
“There is something else, doctor, that I haven’t
told you,” added the lad after a moment.
“Let’s have it all,” said the doctor, with the
slightest evidence of surprise on his countenance,
“let’s have it all and be done with it for good.”
“It’s like this,” said the boy, which was his
usual embarrassed way of beginning a conversa-
tion. “Mother called me into the big room this
morning and said that she had concluded to send
me to a higher school; that I had been fooling—
she didn’t use that word, of course,—around long
enough in these country schools, and that she


LEANDER 135
would now send me to a higher school where I
could be well educated.”
“And that pleased you, I know,” said the doc-
tor, for that had been one of the many things
spoken of between them.
“It did in one way, doctor. But listen. Mother
said that in the Fall I was to be sent to a Catholic
Academy where I would be taught thoroughly and
Well.’”
“Did your mother say where?”
“She did not, doctor. Merely a Catholic
Academy at some distance from here. I think I
know where it is. There have been other talks on
this same subject of my education when father
was home. And the school then spoken of was a
Kind of reformatory, where boys were sent who
didn’t do well in ordinary schools; where they
would be watched and guarded like convicts;
where they couldn’t get a word home or from home
that didn’t go through the Brother Superior; and
all that sort of thing.”
“And what answer did you make to your
mother?”
“That I didn’t want to go anywhere to a Catho-
lic school. I wanted to study medicine. I was told
to hold my tongue; that I was yet under my
mother’s government; and that in the absence of
my father she would attend to my welfare.
Mother then dismissed me. Now, what do you ad-
vise about that, doctor?”
“That’s easy, my lad. Keep perfectly quiet
and don’t make any talk about it. It’s several


136 THE QUILLMORES
months before Fall, and, as Mother Treegood
would say, ‘es ist noch nicht alle Tag Abend ’—‘it
is not yet every day, evening already,” besides
there is ample time in which to communicate with
your father, or he may return in the interval. Go
along with your studies and work as always. Keep
a respectful and civil tongue in your head. Don’t
do anything that you will have to be ashamed of
hereafter, and you’ll come out all right and on top.
Don’t forget that you’re going to be my successor
here some day.”
This had been the talk for some months. Lean-
der wanted to take up the study of medicine with
the doctor. The doctor had encouraged him, for
in that way, in his usual shrewd diplomatic fash-
ion, he had succeeded in interesting Leander in his
other studies—which had become, from the in-
different teaching and the lifeless arrangement of
the text, very irksome to the ambitious, life-loving
boy.
After the lad had gone, the physician sat quiet
for a little while musing, forgetful that his wife
had twice called him to his dinner.
The plot was thickening. So the lad was to be
put out of the way!
He was evidently too alert to suit the conven-
ience of certain people. And could nothing be
done, in the absence of the banker, to save his
house and his name—and perhaps his bank in the
general smash-up?


138 THE QUILLMORES
My mother won’t let me talk to her, and she won’t
speak to me, except to correct me—find fault with,
and threaten punishment. Ory, I feel awfully
sorry for her. I don’t know what's wrong, but
she isn’t natural some way. I have been waiting
and studying to get away from here, and away
from that fellow, for I found that I was hating
him more and more every day. So I have been
studying very hard, for me, and getting ready for
some Academy. Now you remember how mother
told me that she had picked out a Catholic school.
Well, she went at it again to-day, and I rebelled
outright, and said I wouldn’t go to any such
place.”
“That wasn’t a very nice thing to say to your
mother,” said Ory gently.
“I know it, and I’m ashamed of it, as I said.
Then mother got angry and began to cry, and with
that in came L’Oiseau, who led her away. I
walked out of the room, not knowing what to do,
and went on towards the Bellspree place. I had
got well into their grounds, near that cluster of
hazel-brush, when who should come upon me, all
heated up with rapid walking, but the very cuss
whom I was trying to avoid.
“He began at once in a sharp voice to ask what
I had said to mother to excite her so, and put her
in such a feeble state of mind and body. I told
him quietly enough, though I reckon I didn’t use
any dictionary to find soft words; but I told him
the truth. He answered that I’d been acting of
late like a devil's imp, or something of that sort,


THE YELLOW DOG 139
and that I had got to mend my ways, whatever that
meant.
“I had never had so much talk before with him,
not since I could remember, and of late, as you
know, I had kept out of his way because Doc Gus
had told me to be respectful, and I wasn’t going
to do anything to hurt father—for I know that
father trusts him with his business, and mother
seems to know no one else now. So it must be me
that is doing it all, but the devil in me got the
upper hand and before I knew what I was doing
or going to say I blurted out:
“‘And what have you got to do with all that,
I’d like to know. Why don’t you mind your own
-business?’ It was out before I knew it was going
to be said. I wasn’t afraid of him, and I wanted
to show him, just for one minute, that he couldn’t
walk on me any longer.
“I saw him tremble. Then he called me an
infernal, ungrateful cur, a spy and a telltale.
“I don’t know how it all happened. I suppose
no one stops to measure his words or the possible
effect of a blow when he is in the middle of a fight.
I presume I was wrong. I know now that I ought
not to have riled him up. With all his yellow
beauty, he is a man, just the same, and he wouldn’t
take any such impertinence from a boy. And I
wouldn’t take any from him. My blood boiled
and I spoke out just as I felt:
“‘If you’d let my mother alone it would be bet-
ter for her and all of us; then there wouldn’t be so
much talk, You are the “infernal cur” that has


140 THE QUILLMORES
broken us all up, it was you who’—but I got no
further, for then he grabbed me and his fist struck
me—here on the forehead, Ory.”
Leander put Ory’s hand against the bruised and
lumpy spot.
“We had clinched and I had him down—I had
no intention of letting him go—I was murderously
mad—yes, mad is the right word—and I could
have killed him and a half-dozen more in my
frenzy.
“Then I heard a servant screaming for help,
which attracted the Laroutelles, and Grandpa
Laroutelle came running as fast as he could. When
I was pulled off the prostrate form of the yellow
dog—I hate him more than ever—my clothing was
covered with blood and so was L’Oiseau's face.
“‘You young devil,” he hissed through his teeth
while someone held me tightly, “I’ll put you where
the dogs won’t bite you for a few years for this!”
With that he moved away in the direction of our
house. Mother had come out evidently to see me,
but something said to her as they met changed her
mind, and she went back.
“Mr. Laroutelle urged me to come over to his
place and arrange my clothing and bathe my hands
and face. As I was going into the front yard, I
met Father Lessing a little out of breath. I ex-
pected to get a good lecture for my fighting. But
the good old man took me by the arm, led me back
of the house to the stable-pump, and in a few
minutes had washed and put something soothing
On the wound. He didn’t ask any questions. I


THE YELLOW DOG 141
somehow have the idea that he knew all about it.
He bade me go see my mother and do the best I
could to explain my conduct; but to try above all
things not to excite her.
‘‘I endeavored to see her several times. I sent
word by Celine, who returned each time with the
answer that mother was lying down. I waited
about the place until dark. L’Oiseau had driven
off in the direction of Indiatole, and I expected to
see him come back with the sheriff. I realized
that I had done wrong, and for a while thought I
would take my punishment. But after several
hours studying over it, the more I thought of it
the less I liked it, and I made up my mind to run
away. I wrote a few lines to mother, telling her
truthfully how it all happened, and I also wrote
this letter to the doctor—”
“Oh! but you’re going to see the doctor before
you go away, surely,” said Oryntha.
“How could I, Ory, after all that has taken
place up on the Hill? I gave the doctor my word
of honor to keep out of that man’s way. I have
broken my word, and in my hot-headedness done
all those things which I shouldn’t have done. How
could I face the doctor, after all that? So here’s
the letter. Give it to him in the morning, Ory, and
if you get a chance tell him the whole story.”
“And where are you going?”
“I don’t know yet, for sure; but I’ll find my
father; only promise me not to tell anyone of my
intention. I can’t live here, that’s certain. If I
should stay—if I wasn’t arrested and sent to


** SHOULD ANYTHING HAPPEN ?? 143
be laid at his door. Now the feeling against him,
having at last found tangible occasion, was intense.
The story of the encounter and Lanny’s disap-
pearance had turned everyone in Lamo against
the occupants of the House on the Hill. Whis-
pers were heard of something to be done, and
in a way contrary to the established order of
society. The fuse was laid, not consciously, nor
with any set design; still it was there, and an acci-
dental spark might set it off and destroy those in
its track.
CHAPTER XIII
‘‘ SHOULD ANYTHING HAPPEN TO ME’’
and the running away of the boy, the local
powers that be, in each community, the
“old women of the masculine order, and the
genuine article of the opposite sex, had labored for
a season upon this altercation; and it seemed at
one time that something would come of it—for
L’Oiseau—and to the latter’s serious detriment.
Still, barring the communication made by Lanny
to Ory, and but scantily disclosed by that discreet
young woman, little was known of what actually
occurred preceding the fisticuffs. As is the cus-
tom in such matters, where intense personal feel-
ing was concerned, the village was more anxious
to see the cashier humbled than to have Lanny’s
A: the encounter of Lanny with L’Oiseau,


144 THE QUILLMORES
case defended, but the matter for lack of individ-
ual and active prosecution eventually faded out of
view.
Shortly after Lanny’s disappearance, prompted
by his friendly interest in father and son, Doc Gus
wrote a guarded account of the encounter, to the
colonel. The answer, though considerably delayed,
cleared up the mystery of Lanny’s whereabouts;
for the banker replied that his son had reached
Europe and was at that time with him. The boy
had made his way to Chicago, had promptly writ-
ten his father saying to him that he had left home
for good reasons and that he sought, most of all,
permission to join the colonel in Europe. That
in the interim, before a response was received,
Lanny—meeting with the usual want of success of
the fairly-well-educated, but poorly trained youth
of America—had accepted menial and manual em-
ployment which gave him food and shelter, and
made it possible to await the arrival of an answer.
When that came he was directed to come to the
colonel. The journey was made without incident.
Then after a little time spent in travel, father and
son had taken up the study of medical chemistry
and allied science under excellent tutelage.
Thus it had come about that Colonel Quillmore
was, at last, able to fulfill his own long-cherished
ambition of pursuing his studies while nominally
aiding his son.
Because of the paucity of detail in his letters
which arrived more and more infrequently, Uncle
I” hazarded the belief that the banker was again in


146 THE QUILLMORES
hearts that the two friends met one night, in the
seclusion of the annex, and discussed the necessity
for recalling the colonel, and after a long consulta-
tion Doc Gus agreed, before it might be too late, to
frame and send a letter reporting all the facts
which had come to their attention.
Very promptly came a response. The colonel
expressed his gratitude and announced his inten-
tion of returning immediately; in fact he followed
closely upon the arrival of the letter itself.
On this reappearance in Lamo, Colonel Quill-
more was warmly welcomed by his two old friends
and by some others, for he had always been a
favorite with the people of the county, and now,
with the recognition of the several troubles hang-
ing over him and his house—some few may have
suspected the danger to the bank as well—this
long-time regard blossomed into a full love, and
everyone was anxious to show that affection in
the most vociferous, if not always in the most com-
fortable way.
His nearest friends were anxious to learn of the
result of his home-coming. Prompt action of some
kind was expected, but they were doomed to disap-
pointment. Then, as nothing took place, or rather,
as everything continued as usual, the heartiness
of welcome in some instances became sensibly
transformed into murmurs and mutterings touch-
ing his supineness in not pressing matters to a
sharp and decisive issue. Why did he not recall
his son, whose aid might be invaluable in an
emergency such as this? Why did not the colonel


‘‘ SHOULD ANYTHING HAPPEN ?? 147
dismiss the cashier? Was this bank affair to run
out its own questionable course as had the other
and more personally family matters? In short,
why didn’t this man attend to his business as well
as anyone thereabouts could attend to it for
him?
Mrs. Quillmore was absent a great deal more
even than formerly, and where she went or with
whom, her husband either did not know or, if he
knew, did not seem to care. Since this last return,
they were rarely in each other’s presence.
On one occasion when calling, by the colonel’s
request, at Twin Hill, Doctor Gus had met the
banker’s wife and noted the anxious aspect of her
face—that she appeared ill—but the conversation
was restricted to the most ordinary, and on the
lady’s part, purposely frigid civilities. He left
her with the feeling that he would never again be
called to see her professionally, and he never
Was—but once.
It had now become but too evident to the doctor
as to Uncle I’ that some higher power than could
be found in Lamo must be invoked to bring to a
head the troublesome questions which concerned
the colonel and his affairs.
The doctor saw clearly, as only a far-seeing man
could, and especially one so closely associated with
humanity as a physician, that matters on the Hill
must end disastrously sooner or later, and that the
interference of himself or any other resident of
this section would merely add intricacy to the
problem, and in no way tend to its solution.


148 THE QUILLMORES
“I have investigated,” said the colonel to his
two comrades as they met one night in conference,
a few weeks after his return, “the report that Mr.
L’Oiseau has been speculating in Cincinnati and
Chicago, and it seems it is true. As well as I could
and without exciting suspicion, I have had the
bank accounts most rigorously examined, but so
far have been able to discover no irregularity. Of
course, I understand that books have been so
cleverly manipulated before now that even profes-
sional experts and State bank-examiners were de-
ceived.”
“Do you suppose that any of the personnel of
the bank is deceiving you, colonel?”
“No, I have no reason for so believing. They
are employees whom I trust; besides all that,
L’Oiseau is not a man to solicit or receive confi-
dences from those under him.”
“The information which I sent to you then has
borne no fruit,” said Doc Gus. “I am sorry to
have unnecessarily recalled you.”
“You need not be,” said the colonel. “It is
best that I be here, for within a fortnight I met
Father Lessing, as I was driving out of our lane,
and was astounded to have him ask me concerning
the condition of the bank. I stopped my horse
long enough to express my surprise at such a ques-
tion from him—an unworldly man. He explained
that the query was in behalf of others who had
asked his advice. Having answered my implied
question, he reverted to his own and again asked
as to the well-being of the bank. Then I answered


‘‘ SHOULD ANYTHING HAPPEN ?? 149
him, as I would answer anyone, that the bank is
sound and strong.”
“The old priest has a queer way with him at
times,” said Uncle I’, ‘‘ and I suppose he really
was giving you some kind of caution.”
“I have thought over that a good deal since and
have come to the same conclusion, for I believe
that the old priest means well. It has occurred to
me, suppose I do unearth a serious defalcation—
what am I to do? To give it publicity would de-
stroy the integrity of the bank—for it would be
charged that, by reason of my absence from home
during so long a period, its affairs had gone
wrong; that I had proven recreant to my trust. I
can see the justice of the accusation. On the other
hand, if there proves to be a covered-up deficit, it
can be hidden only for a time, depending of course
upon the amount to be made good, and finally, the
blow will descend with additional force upon my
head.” He spoke slowly now, as if revolving
something in his mind. “I have always carried
a large life insurance and the total is a consider-
able sum. It is nearly all in paid-up policies.
Upon these several policies there could be realized
a large sum of money—enough, I am sure, should
anything happen to me,’’—and he repeated slowly
again, “should anything happen to me,—enough
to make good any deficiency that may be over-
looked by the examiners.” *
“There is one thing I am more afraid of than
the bank,” said Doc Gus at this point, “and that
is that you are falling back into your old, bad habit


150 THE QUILLMORES
again, Andy. I passed by your place a few nights
ago at quite a late hour and saw a light burning
in the laboratory. You know it was our under-
standing that you were to abandon that form of
study and devote yourself more to out-of-door
exercises.”
“Guilty as charged, brothers. But it is hard to
keep away from very nearly the only thing in all
the world that you love, or that is left you to love.
I feel houseless and homeless, and, at times, almost
distracted. The work I do in the laboratory re-
lieves the awful tension of my mind and makes me
forget, for the nonce, both the past and the im-
mediate future, of which latter I am at times very
much in fear and awe. If it is going to shorten
my life—well, brothers, what have I to live for?
The only hours of peace, or fair content, which I
enjoy in the twenty-four are the half-dozen before
midnight—”
“And later,” interrupted the doctor.
“Yes, later, sometimes, Gus. I have had an-
other experiment in mind—it was first suggested
to me while in Munich.” The colonel was becom-
ing more and more animated as he continued. He
had thrown off his pall of discouragement and
gloom. He was alive and very much alive.
“It carries with it,-this experiment does,” he
presently added, ‘‘ enough of excitement to keep
me on the alert. Strange how the mind will be-
come absorbed and forgetful of everything. You
know it is said that that man is blessed who has
found his work! I think I have found mine.


‘‘ SHOULD ANYTHING HAPPEN ?? 151
Surely after the long rest I have had, there can be
no special danger in the few hours of congenial
study and experimentation.”
“How is your head these days, Andy?” asked
the doctor.
“Fairly clear of pain. Sometimes a trifle
stupid. I had a little relapse several days ago. I
meant to tell you of it as soon as I could. I seemed
to have been sleep-walking, and when I woke,
Father Lessing was standing over me wiping my
face with a wet cloth.
“‘What does this mean, Father?” I said, as
soon as I realized my surroundings, attempting to
sit up.
“‘You seem to have been ill, my son,’ he an-
swered, “ and must have wandered about. An at-
tack of fever, perhaps. By the merest chance I
found you here.”
“It was early in the morning—the sun having
barely risen—and I wondered what it all meant.
Had I been driving and been thrown out of my
buggy? Examining my hands, I found them
flecked with blood spots, and the same here and
there upon my clothing. “I must have had a fall,”
I said to the priest.
‘‘‘Not unlikely,” answered he, scrutinizing me
closely. “You acted quite strangely when I found
you here.”
“It was clear enough to me that the good
Father suspected me of drinking; that I had per-
haps been out somewhere during the night.
“‘I haven’t touched liquor, Father, since my


152 THE QUILLMORES
return from Europe,” I said in answer to his un-
asked question, “and I am much mystified by my
appearance here, but I feel all right now.’
“I then thanked him for his assistance and
asked where I was—for the neighborhood seemed
Strange to me.
“Father Lessing answered that I was about
three miles from my house. He showed me how
to reach home, and as he was on a mission to some
point, and as I felt perfectly strong, we parted.
I plodded homeward, trying to recall what had hap-
pened. It was utterly unavailing. I found my
watch, wallet, and other valuables all right. As I
said, I must have walked in my sleep, for I re-
member nothing beyond a moment when I was
engrossed in my laboratory work. I have read in
medical books of men being struck about the head
or falling from a height, who then lost all memory
of the past, and needed to learn over again the
most familiar of subjects; but if I had been hurt
in that way would I not have lost all memory, and
when consciousness returned, would not knowl-
edge have returned with it?”
“It wasn’t sleep-walking, Andy. It was some-
thing a good deal worse,” said the doctor with
deep emotion. “You really must dismantle that
laboratory, burn it to the ground, and give up your
studies! They are not good for you. There are
worse things to face in this world than death.
Again I repeat what I said long ago. You must
stop ! You have had repeated warnings. Heed
them ’’


‘‘ SHOULD ANYTHING HAPPEN ?? 153
In this admonition Uncle I’ joined with intense
sincerity.
“It seems to me also a bit unwise, Andy,”
said Uncle I’, ‘‘ for you to carry so much money
and other valuables about with you. There is no
telling whom you might meet in one of your wan-
dering spells.”
The colonel promised to be guided by them in all
things. It was especially impressed upon him that
he must control himself—the comrades made it
cruelly, brutally plain what they meant; and this
he also agreed to do as requested, if not for their
sake, then certainly for the sake of his son.
Not a word had been hazarded concerning Mrs.
Quillmore.
Who that has not adventured upon such an er-
rand can understand the insuperable difficulties
which would confront a messenger upon so deli-
cate a mission? -
Every person in the village was sure now of the
guilt of the cashier and the banker’s wife, as sure
as if sworn to in a court of law. And yet there
was nothing, absolutely nothing, upon which to
fasten a single point of evidence that would stand
before any body of men in legal form assembled.
Who would dare to insinuate to the colonel that
his wife was carrying on a liaison on so flimsy a
testimony as the common rumor of the neighbor-
hood?
Surely his two companions would be the last to
drive a despairing man to utter destruction.
Did the colonel really not know of the conduct of


156 THE QUILLMORES
—the horse stepping off towards the road, as anx-
ious to be on the way home as her master,-when
there rang out on the clear, quiet air, with star-
tling distinctness, two sharp reports of firearms;
and the direction from which the sound came was
all too certain
To hear was to act; and the astonished Dolly
probably for the first time in her life felt the im-
print of the lash, not once or twice, but repeatedly,
an incentive to haste but little needed.
On 1 on with the speed of the wind, she dashed,
fairly flying down the roadway.
On 1 on 1 crossing the pike itself with a jolt and
swerve that threatened to dislodge the excited
driver, and with almost increasing speed ran up
the short but steeper incline to the Quillmore
house.
Instantly the doctor could see ahead,—he dis-
cerned a light and saw that a fire was claiming
with desperate fury its prey.
Quickly as he must have sped towards the scene
of the blaze and—what else?—the time seemed, to
the overwrought physician, interminable–length-
ening out, as it has a fashion of doing in night-
marish dreams.
It was neither the house nor the barns.
It was the little laboratory that was burning,
and with an intensity out of all proportion to the
brevity of the interval since the discovery of the
fire, which had seemingly at once enveloped it at
every point. It was not a structure built with any
view to permanency, or great strength; and being


APRIL 26, 1884 157
of frame, and filled with possibly inflammable
materials, was naturally a quick prey to the flames.
As Doc Gus got within seeing distance, and was
able to make out objects more distinctly, to his
infinite horror, the first thing that caught his
vision was L’Oiseau at the door of the little build-
ing. With clothes awry and bedraggled, face be-
grimed, hair tousled, he held in his right hand,
distinctly visible, a large revolver!
“Give that to me!” shouted the doctor as,
quickly alighting and running, he leaped towards
the cashier, who was now swiftly endeavoring to
reach the House. Overtaking him, he seized his
arm, wrenched the weapon from his grasp, and
then, in his mind a deadly fear, cried: “Now away
you, call the servants! Ring the dinner bell for
help.”
The fire was an unusually hot one, without
doubt fed by chemicals and other combustibles, as
the frequent explosions seemed to indicate. The
Smoke was overpowering and stifling.
The doctor essayed a number of times to enter
the burning building, but was driven back by the
dense, poisonous smoke and heat. He ran to the
rear of the building and broke the glass in one of
the little windows. Instantly the smoke poured
through, followed by tongues of flame. Under his
sledgehammer blows, with his naked hands, cut-
ting himself severely, he broke in the two sashes.
The interior was doomed—in a blaze—floor and
wall and ceiling!
Where was the colonel?


APRIL 26, 1884 159
village people were heard coming up the hill led
by Uncle I’.
Before this Doc Gus had spread Dolly’s blanket
over the remains.
“Ira,” said the doctor, in a low and choking
voice, ‘‘the colonel is here,” indicating the body.
“And, now,” very slowly and measuring each
word, “I verily believe there has been foul play.
Is Abe Treegood with you?”
“Yes, I remumbur him coming a-horseback as
we was a-drivin’. Yes, there he is.”
“Then find L’Oiseau, and have him put under
arrest !”
“Arrest! Is it possible, Gus!”
“Yes, Ira, but don’t speak of it here and now.
It might be dangerous to the life of the man.
Under such excitement and with all that has pre-
ceded it wouldn’t do. But—don’t let him escape.
There he is now ! Act, Ira, act quickly; this, our
brother that was, is dead, and, I fear, by some foul
means.”
Abe Treegood, the village marshal, together
with Uncle I’, quickly approached the cashier,
now well and carefully attired and seemingly as
calm and imperturbable as ever.
“Consider yourself under arrest, Mr. L’Oi-
seau,” said the marshal in a low voice, for Uncle
I had cautioned against unnecessary display of
authority, “be as quiet as you can, sir, and come
this way.”
“Arrest! And why?” he cried in real or well-
feigned amaze.
“Not so loud, Mr. L’Oiseau,” said Uncle I’,


160 THE QUILLMORES
“even if there is a mistake, don’t make any scene
—as you value your life!”
“But on whose charge am I arrested?” he per-
sisted, however in a calmer and lower voice.
“Dr. Gus has ordered your arrest. Now, you
are a man of the world, sir, and know the dangers
from an excited populace. You will have no trou-
ble—if everything is all right.”
“I protest, this is unwarranted assumption.
Let me confront him.”
But the marshal prevailed upon his prisoner
to withdraw, and finding Uncle I’s team, it was,
by the latter’s direction, pressed into service and
the two drove away.
The prisoner was taken to the village lock-up,
which was really nothing but a slender make-
shift, a place of detention for any tramp or other
undesirable visitor to the vicinity; and here, just
as the first streaks of gray were lining the eastern
horizon, the cashier was left.
The doctor was busied a moment with his horse
when someone said that Madam Quillmore was
very ill at the House; that she had conducted her-
self with great peculiarity; that the servants were
under great excitement, not knowing what to do,
and that his services were needed.
He called to two men kneeling with bowed heads
by the poor remnant of something so carefully
covered, lying on the ground, and directed that
they refuse admission to anyone to the blackened
and still smoldering little building. Then fol-
lowing the servant to Madame's room, he found


APRIL 26, 1884 161
Mrs. Quillmore reclining on a couch, attended by
Mlle. Hortense from the house opposite, and one
or two of the maids.
Mrs. Quillmore, though suffering most severely
from the frightful nervous strain of what had
taken place within the hour, lay quiet until the
doctor’s voice was heard to inquire of the attend-
ants concerning their mistress. Then the eyes
of the prostrate woman unclosed, and though
struggling with an overpowering emotion, re-
pressing whatever feeling was dominating her at
this time, she sat up and instantly, without other
form of introductory speech, asked:
“And is it true, doctor, that you have ordered
M. L'Oiseau under arrest?”
The doctor admitted with reluctance and evi-
dent sorrow that such was the fact. Now that he
had come to that part of the tragedy which he had
all along believed he should in time reach,-the
breaking up of the relations between the cashier
and this woman,—he found suddenly that the de-
sire for justice had left him, and pity and sorrow
had inexplicably taken its place. In the presence
of this greater sorrow of the once majestic woman
his heart melted within him.
“And why is it that you have done this?”
The doctor seemed unable to frame a reply
suited to the exigencies of the occasion,—one that
would be truthful and still save this woman from
—mayhap insanity absolute! He realized his
paucity of invention. This great, resourceful
man,—who had stood face to face with death in


APRIL 26, 1884 163
all the conditions surrounding were not known as
yet; would be known later doubtlessly at the legal
investigation. Mr. L’Oiseau had been seen at the
door of the burning building and under circum-
stances which tended to throw suspicion upon him
—suspicion perhaps unwarranted. But in pro-
tection of him and as well in the interests of jus-
tice, as she should see, it was prudent, nay, pri-
marily essential, that he be given in custody.
What more could the poor, tired-out, distracted,
sorrowing doctor say? Was not this sufficient to
convince Madame? Did she not recall her pecu-
liar life with her husband and this arrested
cashier,-her notorious paramour, and did not this
suggest the real reason for the arrest? Why per-
sist in making a scene then and there, before the
servants? Couldn’t she, with a woman’s intui-
tion, divine that the mere coming forth from the
burning building was not alone of such vast im-
portance as to warrant an arrest, unless of a man
who was not beloved of his neighbors, and who
had borne an unenviable reputation, hereto-
fore.
Mrs. Quillmore, however, failed to note the
evident desire of the doctor to spare her feelings
in the presence of others. Or else the emotion
which she was repressing, and which was little by
little gaining the upper hand, refused to be con-
trolled by calm professional words. She was
truly grand in her intense interest.
Mlle. Hortense, speaking French, begged Ma-
dame to take to herself heed, and be tranquil.


164 THE QUILLMORES
“Do you then charge him with the conflagra-
tion?”
And the issue was made. There was to be no
further evasion. The person he faced was pano-
plied as for battle. The doctor must lay off his
sympathy and professional suavity and meet this
accusing woman—this woman, who for years he
had believed guilty of the most unseemly con-
duct with an employé of her husband’s. This
woman was now prepared for him and arrayed
against him at every point. It was a battle to the
death. There was to be no complimentary salute
preceding the sharp “click, click” as the rapiers
met. Honor and name, if not life itself, stood
upon the turn of the blade. What was left for
the doctor to do? In that fraction of a second of
time—but still that immensity of eternity in which
the drowning man views the unrolled scroll of a
long life in all its minuteness of detail—the doctor
changed his battle front to that of an advocate in
defense of his dead brother and friend. His
voice had taken on a sharp, metallic snap which
would have been recognized as ominous by any
antagonist of his own sex.
“Excuse, me, Madame,” he said clearly and
distinctly; “I need not charge him with anything.
We will leave that for the constituted tribunal of
the land. I have already and considerately in-
formed you that under the peculiar circumstances
it was deemed proper,—nay, absolutely necessary,
—that Mr. L’Oiseau should be instantly removed
from the scene of the conflagration. We work-a-


APRIL 26, 1884 165
day people, though generally long-suffering and
law-abiding, when in the presence of what seems
under an intensity of excitement to be a crime,
sometimes forget the metes and bounds of the law.
Human nature under passion,” and he looked
sharply upon Mrs. Quillmore as he said these
words, “is not always to be held responsible.
Communities as well as individuals may go mad.”
Then his voice changed and his whole manner un-
bent as he said, in his usual professional tone,
“Now will you permit me to offer you some
remedy, to relieve the strain under which you most
naturally labor?”
“No, doctor, that I will not! Remain you
here!” The doctor had turned as if to depart.
“Listen, you! I am not as yet finished with you,
sir. It was I myself who discovered the fire!”
The doctor winced!
“Ah, you at once perceive how different it will
appear when I shall all the facts declare.”
Could it be possible! Had the criminality of
this unhappy, decency-defying pair gone to the
extreme of murder, in which both had partici-
pated? Or was this an effort of the woman to
shield the one whom she knew to be now in the
toils of the law?
“I was not enabled to sleep for so many nights,
as you do not know—for I have not permitted that
you attend upon me—why?—because I have no
longer trusted you. I had my very good reasons
for that, too. I arose early this morning to pre-
pare for myself a draught to induce sleep. Thus


APRIL 26, 1884 167
cult to withstand. This might be a clever ruse
of a clever woman to divert the authorities from
the real criminal. And still it would not be im-
possible, nor even improbable, that a midnight at-
tack had been made upon the helpless, dreaming
colonel, cut off from all humankind, living his
own self-contained life in the metaphysical studies
to which he was believed to devote his nights and
many hours of his days. And who was with the
colonel late the evening before? He himself had
seen that at least two persons were in the
laboratory.
“You heard these shots,” he asked with a sud-
den show of interest, “ after you discovered the
fire, you say?”
“Of a certainty that I did,” answered Madame.
“It was most surely after.”
“And you believe the shots were fired from
here, and by Mr. L’Oiseau?”
“That also is the absolute truth. By the light
of the fire I did see M. L’Oiseau running to the
laboratory,–after.”
The morning light was beginning to show in the
east, and objects were stepping out of the im-
mensity of night.
“Did you, in truth, see the man,—and running
away,—after Mr. L’Oiseau fired his revolver?”
“Surely, but not so distinctly as now I could
wish to make my suspicions sure. And yet I know
who it was.”
“That is most important, Madame,” said the
doctor instantly, glad that some way out of the


168 THE QUILLMORES
awful tangle had presented itself. He was not a
thief-taker. He did not wish any lot or part in
this tragedy—or in any tragedy in which there
were intimately associated those who had been his
acquaintances for years. This disappearing per-
son had some reason for disappearing, and if Mr.
L’Oiseau also recognized him, or could identify
him, the problem might be nearer to solution than
at any moment since the beginning of the fire.
“And who did you believe the fleeing person
to be?”
“My husband!”
“Colonel Quillmore!” gasped the doctor.
“It was he. I could not see his face. He was
disappearing into the depths of the orchard, and it
was utterly dark. But it was his height of figure
—his peculiar motion of the arms as he ran—so—
and, then, he was lost to sight.”
Clearly Madame was under a strain too great
to give lucid and coherent testimony to what she
had witnessed. He should have given no credence
to the talk of this necessarily excited woman—this
possible participator in a crime. The doctor
knew, better perhaps than anyone else, unless it
was Uncle I’, where the colonel was now resting.
That his troubles were o’er. That the long chain
of machinations of the wife and her paramour had
at last been broken—one was now in the hands of
the law; the other on the verge of a distressing
malady. Small wonder, truly, that the result of
this long series of events should be what it was.
To the doctor the only real wonder was that the





“oH, FOR soME WEAPON TO STRIKE YOU DEAD AT MY FEET | "
*-- . - - - - - - - -


APRIL 26, 1884 171
lease him, M. le Docteur; I implore you, release
him!”
“Pray rise, Mrs. Quillmore,” said the doctor
gently and sadly, placing his hand upon her arm
as if to assist
It was thrown off with violence!
Mrs. Quillmore stood erect now, eyes ablaze,
nostrils dilated, bosom rising convulsively, her
lips white and knitted, forming a sharp, bloodless,
straight line, Mlle. Hortense weeping and en-
deavoring gently with imploring speech, “Mais,
madame; mais, madame!” to soothe the maddened
woman. In vain! This queen of Sorrowful
Tragedy threw off all restraining hands!
“You will not! I knew that I would plead
with you for naught! Still, I have debased my-
self before you. Out of my sight, you groveling
hell-hound! Out! You have spied upon me for
months! You, that all my former friends against
me arrayed! You, that have turned my son
against his mother ! You, that have sheltered
him, who spirited him away! You,—you,—with
that devilish,—that hypocritical air, that satanic
leer—worming yourself into the depths of peo-
ple’s woes,—only at the last to betray them!
Judas! Reptile! Away, I command |
“Oh, for some weapon to strike you dead at my
feet!—”
She gazed hurriedly about as if in search of
something.
A commotion was heard without. The door
suddenly burst open.


APRIL 26, 1884 173
virtues to destroy me and mine! The curse
of—”
“Madame,—daughter—in the name of the Most
Holy Catholic Church,—I command—hear me
—” interrupted the troubled priest, hand raised
in air with two fingers uplifted, the others folded
down on the palm,—“hear the voice of the
Church—”
Alas, she heard naught, though all sound were
concentrated for her ears!
Malignancy—deathly hatred—were in domi-
nance. The passion of the Southern blood—of
far-back France—back to the valorous if incursive
Franks—was alight and afire ! It was obscuring
the few remnant threads of sanity.
One thought alone remained in the rapidly
clouding mind—hatred of the man who had pre-
cipitated these disasters upon her head—and upon
the head of her only valued friend.
Her lips moved as her face twitched convul-
sively. A light foam was purling at the corners of
the partly open lips, disclosing the sharply-set
over-white teeth. She strove to speak, as the doc-
tor signaled to Mlle. Hortense.
“ Ungrateful – unmerciful — hound — hell-
hound — hell-hound — hell-hound — reptile —
viper,” were the only articulate sounds. Again
with a reviving effort she looked at, then spat at
him.
Then she collapsed, a limp and apparently life-
less burden in the arms of the priest—the life-
stream trickling from the nostrils,


176 THE QUILLMORES
place, and away from the distressing immediate
surroundings. I would suggest the Retreat at
Indianapolis.”
After further conference it was anranged that
she should go away and that the priest and
Celine should accompany Madame. They were
to drive to Indiatole, and before their arrival there
Doctor Gus would be able to prepare the requisite
papers. These he would have ready at the bank
to hand to the Father as they passed. It seemed
necessary, said the doctor, in view of the taking
away of both of the bank’s most important offi-
cials, that he should personally be present at the
bank that day, being one of the oldest directors as
well as the nearest personal friend of the former
president.
As the doctor now passed through the grounds,
towards the ruins, it rang in his head persistently
that the colonel had been seen in the orchard after
the fire was under way; that L’Oiseau perhaps
fired upon him while in flight, believing him to be
some marauder. Had there been a sufficient in-
terval between the firing of the shots and his
arrival for the cashier to have carried the body
from the orchard? In a moment his saner sense
returned. The story told by the stricken wife was
part of the whole train of imagination which had
ended in her mental aberration. The shots that
were fired Still he had himself seen L’Oiseau
with a weapon in his hand, but issuing seemingly
from the burning building. The tale of the fleeing
man seen in the orchard may have been a delib-


APRIL 26, 1884 177
erate concoction of the two to avert suspicion from
themselves and their long chapter of wrong-
doings.
He shook himself as does a dog emerging from
the water. The scene last enacted at the House,
had not failed to affect him most cruelly, in-
nocent as he was of all that was charged; still,
even an erroneous charge, persisted in with spirit
and clothed in fair circumstantiality, or as in this
case with a life force verging upon insanity, if not
on the grave itself, will touch most painfully the
sympathetic heart of any man.
The early dawn was now upon the scene, the
dark curtain of night sullenly giving way.
He found Uncle I’, at whose directions someone
had gone to the small outhouses behind the house
and had returned with an improvised bier. The
charred and disfigured remains were now tenderly
raised from the grass and deposited upon it. The
colonel’s plate of teeth fell away. Uncle I saw
the ghastly trophy, stooped and picked it up, hand-
ing it to the doctor.
The sorrowing, faithful brothers and friends
followed the little cortège with aching hearts—the
full measure of the reality at last dawning upon
them.
The fearful ordeal, the hurry in which one event
trod upon the heels of the other, had in great part
numbed the doctor and paralyzed his calmer,
reasoning powers. Now, with the strain in some
degree lightened, and with the advent of daylight,
his old self once more took the scepter. Tears


178 THE QUILLMORES
coursed down his cheeks. His hands trembled.
He grasped Uncle I’ by the arm and the two
walked on together, till the doctor was recalled to
himself and to a keen consciousness, by hearing a
voice crying and sobbing:
“Oh, my poor father!” -
“Why, Lanny,” spoke up the doctor, over-
whelmed with surprise, yet truly thankful for a
moment’s respite from his own miserable reflec-
tions, forgetful in his sorrow that the tragedy
just enacted touched the mourner far more nearly
than himself; “is that indeed you, Lanny?”
“Yes, doctor. I got here just too late to see
again in life my dear, noble father; and to think
that a few moments earlier I might have saved
him.”
The doctor stopped, struck with great surprise,
for there he saw, in the son, the colonel rejuve-
nated, so alike were the two in form and feature.
“And how happened you to arrive here at so un-
usual an hour?”
“I was coming along the pike with Mr.”—he
paused an instant—“with this gentleman here ’’
—indicating a tall, bushy-whiskered man of mid-
dle age—“we were coming along the pike, and
while we stopped a moment above the woods, I was
pointing out where father’s house stood, and
especially the workshop, when my companion sud-
denly cried out, “Why, there’s a light there now!”
I looked and knew that father must be home and at
his studies. I was upon the point of going at
once through the field to present myself, surprise


APRIL 26, 1884 179
him, and claim his welcome. I had not written
that I was coming, although I have for some time
been trying to get away from my work and visit
home.
“Fearing to disturb the household, knowing
that the dogs would bark, we thought it best after
all to follow the road to the driveway entrance.
As we were skirting the woods, the house then
hidden from view, we heard ring out two pistol-
shots. I hesitated not a moment, but leaped the
fence, ran through the edge of the wood around
the back of the house. Before I got in sight of
the laboratory I saw the light in the sky, and
rounding the house, realized the seriousness of
the trouble. I stood still for only a second. Then
I ran through the orchard to the place where I
knew we used to keep the garden hose.”
“There,” upon the instant thought the doctor
with a great sigh of relief,—“there, that accounts
for the fleeing form which the madame averred
she saw in the orchard. It was most natural, too,
that the son should have the father’s tricks and
mannerisms of body and walk. In the dim light,
and under the excitement of the moment, Mrs.
Quillmore, not knowing her son to be near, inter-
preted the running figure to be that of her hus-
band.”
“I ran at once to the pump-house to get the
water,” resumed Lanny. “The servants, being
roused, lent their aid. My companion, this gentle-
man here, as you might have noticed, assisted in
every way.”


180 THE QUILLMORES
The doctor did recall that long before Uncle I’
and the others arrived from the village, someone
was giving yeoman aid.
“We will continue our talk later, Lanny. There
are many things to do now. Will you come with
me—you and your friend ’’—as he scrutinized
the bewhiskered stranger.
‘‘No, doctor, you don’t know me. Never saw
me before this night, or morning. But you will
know me well before the end of this day, I reckon.
I will walk, thank you, the distance between here
and the village.”
Lanny promised that he would see Doc Gus
within an hour or two. He did not care, under the
circumstances, to invade the house. He had been
speaking to the servants, and had learned that his
mother was very ill. He was sorry, and—yet—
his mother had become to him more a name than
a reality. His sorrow for his father was genuine
and absorbing.
“All right, my dear boy,” said the doctor; “I
need not say to you how glad I am to see you, sor-
rowful as is the meeting. Come to me soon. You
know it will be necessary for the county author-
ities to hold an investigation, and you must be
present. It was you and your companion, then,
that I left by the side of your dear father? Be
brave now, my son, and bear your griefs with all
courage.”
So saying, he once more mounted his little cart.
For a few moments after leaving the hill the
doctor found himself wondering who it was that


“THAT’S WHO HE IS, THAT’S HIM 181
had come, so opportunely, with Lanny. The voice
was familiar; and the general bearing of the man,
that of a person he had somewhere noted. Then
his mind reverted painfully to the tragical scenes
of the night.
One life totally extinguished.
Another one almost gone.
A third hanging in the balance.
“The first blow has fallen!” said Doctor Gus
audibly, as he ambled along in his cart, swinging
from side to side, from front to back, bounding
up and sitting down again, unconscious of the
severity of the jolt, for Dolly, not given to emo-
tions in mere matters of humanity, was in a hurry
to get to breakfast.
Were there still other arrows in the quiver of
the avenging angel?
CHAPTER XV
“THAT’s wHo HE IS, THAT’s HIM '’
OTHER TREEGOOD was always an
M early riser, preferring, unaccountably,
to burn lamps and firewood to lying abed
even in the coldest of winter mornings. She said
she couldn’t sleep much after four o’clock, and
“how more she tried how more she couldn’t.”
When he passed through the village with the
cashier, Abe was seen by his mother.


186 THE QUILLMORES
I’s spring-wagon. What he was taken up for,
Shorgie?”
“That big white-bearded doctor—I believe he
lives hereabouts, don’t he?—thinks he had some-
thing to do with the fire.”
“Ach, du mein lieber Gott!” fervently ejacu-
lated she, clasping her hands. “Yes, mebbe, that
is so. I was t”inking that before already. There
so much talk has been made over him and the mis-
sus. Was you by the fire yourself?”
George explained briefly.
“Du liebe Zeit! Und the colonel is burned up
together! How that could happen to take place?
Such a goot man—such a goot man like he was !
Und so the cashier is gone to the jail? Every-
things comes to the sun sometimes, sure! Aber
where is the colonel’s wife?”
George didn’t know. Hadn’t seen her. Did
hear the white-bearded doctor say that she was
up at the big house, very sick and out of her head.
“Yes, yes,” absently remarked his mother, as
she began to busy herself about the spotlessly
clean little kitchen, where the interview thus far
had taken place, aimlessly dusting chairs and table
with her apron, “I say so long while before al-
ready. I have said it so many, many times to
Mattoo (your father),” she explained to her son,
the stranger-man, as it suddenly occurred to her
that this long-time absent one might not remem-
ber his father’s Christian name. “I tell that to
him many times before when he speak that he not
like the way t”ings was going ahead up there and


“THAT’S WHO HE IS, THAT’S HIM 187
all around. Und so the troubles come quick and
fast one mit anudder and piled up together. What
don’t a person got to go t'rough in the world!
Mein Gott, mein Gott, aber that is a hard sorrow!
Say, Ory, we must quick some breakfast make.
You are hungrig already, yes? Und so that was
what Abe mean mit that extraw breakfast!”
George refused to be company, sitting alter-
nately upon the kitchen step and on the chair; he
helped to mend the fire, drew water from the old
well curb, looked through the vine-covered kitchen
porch, inhaling the fragrance of the early morning
air on the one side, and the aroma of the boiling
coffee on the other, up and around, here and there,
talking and laughing, teasing Ory about her
blushes and excitement, managing to keep out of
the way of these newly-found relatives of his, and
telling them, in brief, of his adventures.
He had gone south and eventually west. Had
engaged in various occupations, making some
money, but as often losing it, and at last became
fixed in Kansas. There he started a general mer-
chandise business on a small scale; this had
grown, now, into a good business. Married?
Certainly; wife and children; whose pictures he
would show as soon as his “grip ’’ was brought
over from Miles Crossing. For a long time past
he had promised himself a visit to his Indiana
home. How did it finally come about?
“Well, I have been always very easy with my
little ones,—remembering my own youth,” and
here Mother Treegood put her apron to her eyes,


“THAT’S WHO HE IS, THAT’S HIM 189
about a place to stop, when I ran against a tall
young man. It seemed that we had both come on
the same Big Four train. I was expecting to go to
Brookfill, but learned at the nearest station that
the Treegood family were living at Lamo. Well,
this young man, hearing me asking questions,
spoke up pleasant-like, saying that he was going
in the same direction, and as it was a nice night,
and the distance not very far, he proposed to walk
it; and would I accompany him? So we came
along together, for he seemed to know every inch
of the way.”
“That was a nice young fellow,” said Mother
Treegood, a little absently, being controlled for
the instant by her reminiscences. “And so you
have come back to your old mother,” said she, re-
leasing herself from the grasp of this benevolent
giant and moving confusedly about the kitchen in
doubt what to do, and what to let alone. “Ich
danke Dir, Du lieber Gott—for all these good-
nesses to mein skildren,” she said most reverently
and fervently. Then recalled to herself by the
clatter of dishes and the noisy operations about
the stove, “Aber, Ory, how much noise you make.
Don’t break things. Ja, we must to breakfast
sit down together.”
But not yet were they to eat in peace.
“Say, hallo in there, wake up, will you, some-
body!” shouted a stentorian voice from the road.
“Got that breakfast ready?”
“That’s Abe, Shorgie, I bet me. Wait till I
call him in oncet.”


190 THE QUILLMORES
“But see here, you little new mother of mine,”
said George as he caught up the bundle of mother-
hood arrayed in unprosaic Dutch calico, and held
her tightly, “don’t you tell Abe anything. Make
him come in first. Understand, mother?”
“Sure—I won’t tell him nothings. Come here
to the door, Abe, und get it,” she called to the
younger son.
Evidently the marshal was in his wagon and had
not thought of getting out. It took him some time
to “tie-up ’’ his horse and come around to the
kitchen; he paused in the doorway, “ looking out
of both eyes,” as the Germans say, at this power-
fully built, much-bearded man, who seemed to be
so much at home here, and was taking such amaz-
ing liberties.
Mother Treegood stood still a moment, watch-
ing the two men. Then she clapped her hands
and laughed one of her cheery, ringing, old-fash-
ioned laughs, until the tears coursed down her
plump, red cheeks.
“You don’t can know this leetle boy, do you,
Abe? Look at him again. Don’t speak to him
yet,” this to George, “stand yourself up by his
side oncet. So.”
It was in a manner embarrassing to Abe to be
put to this test. Still he reached out his hand,
which was taken with true Kansas energy and
good will.
“No, you don’t know me, Abe, no way you can
fix it. There just hain’t any use for you to try.
You never saw me before. But I'm—”


192 THE QUILLMORES
Mr. Quillmore,”—he paused. Seeing a look of
doubt or confusion filling the face of Mother Tree-
good, he added, “I mean the colonel’s son.”
“Is that possible?” exclaimed Mother Tree-
good. “Well, well, how everything happens to-
gether!”
Places were found at the modest kitchen table.
It seemed as capacious as the omnivorous omni-
bus. Talk was plenty and interesting and time
sped along. Much was said about Madame and
the cashier.
“Well,” said Abe at length, “I think it is about
time to take that breakfast to Mr. L’Oiseau—”
“To whom?” asked the newly found brother
with startling suddenness.
The name was repeated.
“It is the cashier of the colonel’s bank in India-
tole. His name is L’Oiseau,” said Abe and his
mother almost in the same breath. “Do you know
him?”
“Maybe; yes, that is the man for certain,” said
George; “I thought I had seen that face before,
when I saw him at the fire this morning. He came
from the South, did he not?”
Answers were given with excited promptness.
A different air seemed to have descended upon
this reunited party, so happy a few moments
ago. Something surely seemed to have gone
Wrong.
“What do you know about him?” cried
Abe.
“Why, he is a murderer; he killed a man in New


THE PRISONER 195
discuss the rights and wrongs of it all. I don’t
feel safe to pass judgment upon the matter
alone.”
On his arrival at Indiatole, Doc Gus went at
once to the bank and was gratified to find that mat-
ters were pursuing an even course. There was no
unwonted excitement. The confidence of the de-
positors was apparently unshaken, and after he
had met and conversed with a number of the other
directors, the doctor saw no occasion for prolong-
ing his stay.
He did not neglect his other duty, -the arrange-
ments for the immediate removal of Mrs. Quill-
more from her home with its surroundings now
likely to aggravate her condition. He sought out
the physician whose confirmation of his orders and
suggestions he desired. The required papers were
duly and quickly indorsed by both. Feeling that
all he had come for had been accomplished, the
doctor telephoned to Uncle I’s store, asking that a
horse and cart be sent to the crossing to meet him,
and then promptly left to catch the train.
Arguing the matter in his own mind, he had
wisely determined that it were far better that Mrs.
Quillmore should not again see him, at least for an
interval, but had Father Lessing and his charge
met him at the bank, as had been practically pre-
arranged, a different series of results might have
been unwound from the skein of events.
The coroner’s preliminary inquest that morn-
ing was, in the main, the usual perfunctory per-
formance of that almost obsolete legal régime. It


196 THE QUILLMORES
was composed of the usual interested or, perhaps
a better expression would be, curious villagers,
who having viewed the remains, and visited the
site of the laboratory, now listened quietly to Abe
Treegood, who had brought the prisoner before
them. L’Oiseau seemed, however, absolutely in-
different. He was asked his wishes touching legal
representation, which he declined, asserting that
he had done naught to cause his detention for even
a moment and added with bad tact, —answering
the caution of the coroner that his freedom, per-
haps his very life depended upon proper and full
representation,—that if the people were content
to have a holiday at his expense, he did not see
how his speaking in person or by legal representa-
tive, or his keeping silent, would change that de-
sire one way or the other. He was complete mas-
ter of himself, impassive and collected.
Being again cautioned, and asked to tell what he
knew of the tragedy, he told with seeming indiffer-
ence of hearing the call for help. He did not note
the use of the word “fire ’’; he thought, he said,
that the call was for help against burglars. He
drew on as quickly as possible his garments, and
snatched up his revolver, which lay upon a little
table near at hand. In the darkness of the hall he
had collided with someone, giving the fact but an
instant’s thought, for now he had seen the flare of
light without. His apartments were on the lower
floor and he had but to cross the corridor and then
run out through the side door. He discharged his
pistol, he said, to attract attention and to call aid,


THE PRISONER 197
at the same moment running towards the burning
structure. Doctor Winstone had met him return-
ing from the laboratory, -after he had unavail-
ingly tried to penetrate the flames and smoke,—
then he had been disarmed. And that was all he
said, but he was visibly embarrassed when asked
as to his last interview with the colonel, and de-
clined to speak further on the subject.
As a result of the sitting the prisoner was re-
manded to jail, to wait the testimony of the wit-
messes who had been summoned to appear before
the Grand Jury then in session.
It had been a question of no mean proportions
with the village marshal, what to do with the
prisoner, pending further legal proceedings.
The jail, so-called, was a room in the rear of a
building the front part of which had been used for
some time for warehousing farming machinery
and implements, while the back room, which was
regarded safe enough from molestation so long
as no one cared to break in or out, was built on
timbers, and presented the spectacle of resting on
stilts; overlooking Salt Creek, which, at this time
of the year, was flowing peacefully below. The
several windows, to give some semblance of
security, were iron-barred; but this was done by
former owners long before the building was given
over to jail purposes.
The prisoner made no effort to escape. He said
he was content to await the action of the author-
ities. His meals were furnished by the marshal’s
mother, who went, not out of curiosity, but to see


198 THE QUILLMORES
that the “poor man ” was properly served and
had his plenty of necessary comforts. She was
not guilty of hysterical sympathy for the cashier;
she carried no flowers, no choice tid-bits, or books
to this man. She was honestly sorry for him, as
she would be for any unfortunate one, whatever
his malfeasance, but no maudlin, lachrymose sen-
timent dominated this little woman. She came of
a race which is pre-eminently law-abiding.
Abe Treegood, with the full measure of his
official duties resting heavily upon his shoulders,
called upon Uncle I’ for counsel. He was advised
to communicate with the sheriff by 'phone, and re-
port the flimsy nature of the lock-up and the
general insecurity of the place for a prisoner
charged with the crime of murder. But the sheriff
was absent elsewhere in the county, and the office-
force would not assume the responsibility of ad-
vising the Lamo marshal.
“How is Mrs. Quillmore?” asked the cashier of
Mother Treegood the second morning, as that
worthy little body was returing the dishes to a
capacious hamper,-though his question was asked
with evident reluctance.
“She is not so good in her head,” answered the
marshal’s mother; “I hear that she is out of her
mind gone, already—grazy.”
“What have they done with the lady?”
“The doctors have her taken to Indianapolis to
a grazy asylum Saturday, already,” said Mother
Treegood.
“And the—colonel’s body?” was the next


THE PRISONER 199
query, though some measure of time intervened
between the last answer and this question.
“Going to be put in the cemetery vault at
Indiatole this afternoon,” intercepted and an-
swered Abe.
“Thank you,” said the cashier, as he opened a
newspaper which had been brought him. -
A moment later Father Lessing was heard with-
out, asking admission, a request of course
promptly granted. Some communications which
the Father made were received with seeming in-
attention and unconcern, for L’Oiseau was greatly
agitated, pacing up and down the floor. “See,”
he cried, “this paper which has just been left
with me.”
It was a newspaper from Chicago, which had
seized upon the incidents of fire and arrest at
Lamo, to inform its readers, under a lavish array
of alliterative headlines and full-bodied type, of
the very worst phases of the occurrence. It was
interspersed and “embellished ” with a diagram
and rude cuts done in chalk-etching.
It delved into the past with the avidity of scan-
dal-mongery. It spared no one. It used names
freely—and spelled them correctly. It did not
hide behind the flimsy “alleged.” It dealt in
direct and caustic terms. It viewed the “status
praesens’’ in an unfair and exaggerated light.
The “motive ’’ for the immediate tragedy, as the
paper asserted, was undoubtedly the strained rela-
tions between the deceased and his cashier. Then
followed asserted interviews with several India-


200 THE QUILLMORES
tole citizens, giving the age of the bank, the long
absences of the colonel abroad and his peculiar
habits of life. The reputed speculation of the
cashier with the bank’s money was gloatingly
dwelt upon; the secret overhauling of the books
and holdings of the bank; and finally an overheard
altercation between the two principals on the night
of the murder.
The trend of the newspaper article from incep-
tion to close—several columns in length—though
semi-truthful, was exaggerated, and inflammatory
in the highest degree.
Father Lessing read it through, his color
heightened as he progressed, then he threw down
the paper in petulance, and his voice betrayed an
agitation unusual to him.
“‘The Power of the Press,’’’ he exclaimed, as
he began to pace up and down, “is ofttimes the
power of innuendo and detraction. This article
contains many lies. It is not only that, but it is
unfair even in its lies. A person once fallen under
the displeasure of a community may be irrevocably
condemned by this “Power of the Press,’ this
“Palladium of Liberty,’ this ‘Bulwark of Free-
dom,” but it has made its point—to find a sensa-
tional article for this issue. It has sold an extra
number of papers based upon villainous calumny.
It is acting upon the dictum of that Western editor
who defined news to be a prevision of ‘where hell
will break loose next, and to have a representative
there to report it.” Faugh! the “Power of the
Press '—what is it to-day but a systematized


202 THE QUILLMORES
sheets masking under the generic title of news-
paper in all English-speaking countries is un-
happily true. But the great, living body of the
newspaper press is a profession of letters,
governed by distinct and rigorous rules of honor
and integrity, which does not lie in continuous
wait for salacious divorce disclosures, or scur-
rilous slanders and scandals. The power of the
press in its purity of purpose is not to be denied.
The American people are what they are in part
because of the humanizing and upbuilding tenden-
cies of the daily press. It is a sad commentary
upon human nature that these “yellow ’’ publica-
tions, which thrive upon the offal of the race;
these venders of foulness and criminal sugges-
tions in their advertisements as also in their read-
ing matter, are well supported and prove most
profitable to their owners. The same may be said,
however, of other avenues for gathering wealth,
which should not be mentioned, save in a low
breath, which are disreputable and debasing but
yet legal; hence are tolerated.


THE ONE MAN WEIO COUNTS 203
CHAPTER XVII
THE ONE MAN IT IS WHO COUNTS IN GREAT
CRISES
NCLE I had been duly commissioned by
the proper authorities to prepare the re-
mains and bring them to Indiatole.
So, upon the second day after the tragedy, the
same old-fashioned hearse with its four golden
trumpeting-angels left the House on the Hill, ac-
companied by several wagons containing Grand
Army men and Freemasons.
There had been a little ceremony attending the
raising of the body. First that of the Christian
Church; then there was a reading of the Masonic
burial service, the laying of a sprig of cedar and
a white apron upon the casket, and the singing of
a few verses, somewhat untunefully, from Pleyel’s
Hymn.
It was nearly noon before the mournful assem-
blage, with the lumbering, lurching hearse, passed
out of the lane to the main road. Lanny, accom-
panied by M. Laroutelle, had driven on ahead of
the others, that they might arrive in advance and
thus insure readiness at the receiving vault, where
the remains were to be temporarily deposited.
The cavalcade leaving Twin Hill dragged itself
along slowly for a while, both from custom, and
from necessity—for in some parts the road was
not in good condition. However, when the proces-


204 THE QUILLMORES
sion was once fairly upon the main-traveled high-
way, it moved along at a livelier pace, and con-
versation in the several wagons took on a more
cheerful tone. The chief occasion for the proces-
sion was little by little dropped and the probable
culpability of the cashier went with it, and in their
stead the appearance of the road, the “craps,”
the prospects of the oncoming election, some-
body’s new house, another’s barn-raising, the
price of the various agrarian commodities, cattle
on the hoof, and other more directly interesting
subjects, served to lighten and enliven the tedium
of the warm and uncomfortable midday ride, in
the swirling dust and grime.
Men are not gifted with continuous speech.
They are seldom garrulous, in a sociable sense.
Speech with them, does not—certainly not upon
the surface—bear that impress of serene satisfac-
tion so evident in the gentler sex. It is ofttimes
labored, and never more so than when two or three
are gathered together in the performance of some
perfunctory function. The subjects of conversa-
tion change rapidly, and are carried along in spas-
modic fashion,-in spurts and jerks. A good
story-teller may keep the others interested for a
while; and a well-informed man may give infor-
mation; but, in a short time, more or less, accord-
ing to the nature of the occasion, interest lapses,
conversation becomes heavy, and cigars and news-
papers in order.
Long before the red-brick tower of the county
courthouse at Indiatole was visible from the brow


206 THE QUILLMORES
of the interest was produced by the funeral pro-
cession. The tragedy at Lamo was, of course,
talked of from one end of the county to the other,
and throughout the State—the newspapers had
given the occurrence a wide circulation,-and it
was presumably known that the body would be
brought to Indiatole upon this day.
But this present haste was that form of excite-
ment produced by some panic—this awful haste
to get to town!
At last an intelligent reply was given by a pass-
ing horseman.
There was a run on the Quillmore bank!
And what was the immediate cause? A read-
ing of the vile, inflammatory article, already re-
ferred to, which, having sown the seed of sus-
picion, was now bearing its fruit!
There was the instant temptation to start up
the teams and outdistance those riders and drivers
who were increasing in number and passing the
funeral cortège.
To think was to act. The wagons detached
themselves at once and one by one proceeded with
all speed.
Even the hearse-horses were promptly made to
move more rapidly, soon, however, to be distanced
and left behind by the lighter vehicles.
For, with possibly no exception, every member
of this mournful guard was a depositor in the
Quillmore bank.
The touch of fear—that awful fear of losing
the savings of a lifetime, or even a far less amount


THE ONE MAN WHO COUNTS 207
—paralyzed all other feelings and considerations
for the time.
The dead!
Memory and decency for the dead!
What was that to a consideration for the living?
The dead are—dead!
Nothing can further change the aspect of mat-
ters mundane for the senseless clay !
What cares he, whom they have been honoring
with this long, dreary, dusty drive, with stateli-
ness and pomp and decent slowness of gait, for the
imminent financial crisis, now affrighting his pall-
bearers, his guards of honor and friends, as well
as the hurrying, scurrying riders and drivers?
Every honor had already been paid them—these
charred and indistinguishable remains—short of
depositing the remnant-humanity in some safe re-
ceptacle, where no one would think to break in or
molest them.
What cared these mutilated remains for the
present condition of the farmer and his progeny,
in the event of the bank—Colonel Quillmore’s
bank—founded and fathered and watched over
for so many, many years—proving recreant to its
trust? What cared this bit of eternally silent
mortality within the sealed casket; what cared
they—these broken particles—if the bank should
fail of making good to these hard-working, long-
saving men, that earthly increment, which is said
to gather rust and dust and may be broken in
upon and stolen?
These stalwart farmers, these mystic Masonic


208 THE QUILLMORES
brothers, these Grand Army comrades who had
met about the same camp-fire and drank full many
a time and oft from the same canteen and had,
with veritable Scriptural sweat of brow, gathered
together and placed all in the safe-keeping of their
respected friend. This inanimate, dull indiffer-
ent clay, could not now control their financial in-
terest!
No! The living first!
Our wives and our children | Our money!
The veneering of sorrow, the trappings of woe,
are most easily set aside by some trick of the liv-
ing necessity.
The impressiveness of a memorial service can
be instantly destroyed by one speaker, or one
hired singer, or one malapropos incident!
This old world has sorrows enough of its own.
It laughs willingly and most readily. It desires
no bitterness.
It matters not how great or how good the late
departed may have been; there is too often but a
mere tawdry, tinsel observance of the last rites
and ceremonies of society, and of decency.
There may be planning and scheming even then
for his place, power, and prestige.
Uncle I’, held back as he was, in the race—
handicapped by the heavy, lumbering vehicle—
made fair time nevertheless. There was no
longer any unseemly tarrying by the wayside to
ask or answer questions!
To reach Indiatole, and with the greatest celer-
ity, was the business of the moment!


THE ONE MAN WHO COUNTS 209
There was a long line of clamorous depositors
extending from the bank-door into the street and
across into the courthouse yard. It was con-
stantly augmenting in size, as it was in wildness
of demeanor.
Cries of all kinds were to be heard, dictated by
apprehension of loss—which strummed the entire
gamut of emotions, from fear in the mild and hesi-
tating ones—women and young people—to violent
and blasphemous execrations of the men breath-
ing fierce maledictions upon the head of the
cashier. -
For it was not alone the report of the death of
the colonel, and the involved tragic features,
which produced the panic. As has been known
with almost every other similar instance, the run
upon this supposedly sound and honestly con-
ducted bank was produced chiefly by the startling
statements based mainly upon inference and given
a “scare-head ” place in the daily print. Much
that was intangible, even improbable, was in-
stantly assumed from what was so printed and
what was maliciously hinted at. Then came the
natural inference that there had been a defalca-
tion, that the cashier had taken the nearest way out
of the dilemma, and as soon as the colonel had dis-
covered the wrongdoing, had murdered his prin-
cipal, destroying by fire the evidences of his vin-
dictive frenzy.
His quarrel with the banker’s son—two years
ago—was rehabilitated and hawked about, with
other hinted-at details of his life. All these varied


210 THE QUILLMORES
allegations under the devilish ingenuity of the
newspaper took on the form of criminal facts,
clothed themselves in concrete form and substance,
and gave wings to the fear—the paralyzing fear
—that something must be wrong with the bank,
and, hence, there came pouring in wild and an-
guish-stricken depositors, from all the roads and
pikes, clamorous for their money and their se-
curities. Women, too, pushed their way into the
compact throng, mingling their shrill lamenta-
tions and abundant tears with the hoarser cries
and profanity of the sterner, but now equally hys-
terical sex, in the crowd.
The news, as in all such cases, and especially
with the aid of the telephone, had traveled all over
the county, and into adjoining counties; so that
each added moment found more and more frantic
men and women driving recklessly or riding furi-
ously into the courthouse square.
And each new addition to the panic-stricken,
fear-paralyzed mass of moving human beings was
pallid of countenance, dry of lip, parched of
throat, and apprehensive lest the fear gnawing
at their hearts prove true—that the savings of so
many, long laborious years had been indeed swept
away by this villainous cashier!
Many a man and woman lived years of soul-
rending agony in the suspense and horror of
that hour or more, spent in that “bread ” line,
or in the crowd fronting the bank, listening to the
cries of those ahead and beyond them, trying to
gather some grain of comfort, some ray of hope,
*


THE ONE MAN WHO COUNTS 211
that all this wild, outrageous excitement might
not be based on facts.
They spoke to each other of how well the bank
had been conducted; how old it was; how it was
always believed to be as safe as a government
bond. Still here was this vast concourse of peo-
ple, the best and the most intelligent, cheek by
jowl, shoulder to shoulder, enemy and friend, the
meanest and most dissolute, the notoriously vi-
cious, all barriers leveled—all acquainted with
each other—all packed dangerously, suffocatingly
in this throng, actuated by the same impulse of
all-pervading, uncontrollable fear—the greatest
fear of mortal men—short of loss of life itself—
the loss of money!
The Quillmore bank must, indeed, be unsafe and
in great danger when the best men of the county
fight with each other for place in this long line of
waiting depositors; when offers of sums of money
are made to those farther advanced in the line for
exchange of place and refused !
Verily, verily, the horrors long foreshadowed
have arrived, and having got the right of way, are
proceeding with most pernicious activity, speed,
and viciousness of interest!
Doc Gus had rapidly driven ahead of the hearse,
as soon as the reason for the wild hegira was im-
parted to him. His purpose, however, let it be
said for the praise and glorification of mankind,
was to restore order and confidence, and not to
add one more to the undulating, swaying, swelter-


THE ONE MAN WHO COUNTS 213
hour is at hand. You’re in a panic here—that’s
all that hurts you. You have been frightened by
idle rumors and that vicious story in the news-
paper, which is a lie all the way through. The
colonel is dead, but his bank lives. Take my word
for it. You men out there, making so much noise,
listen to me! Do you hear me? Say, Sam
Holdersmith, get those men to keep still. Make
them keep quiet while we reason this thing out.
This is no time for swearing or getting mad. You
can’t save a bank that way. Uncle I’ will be here in
a few minutes; that means another good practical
head and steady hand and a warm-hearted friend
of the bank.”
“Yes, that's good talking for you. But where’s
our money to come from?” asked a voice at the
edge of the street-crowd, in a high and piercing
tone.
“That's it,” echoed half of the mass of people,
“where’s our money?”
“In the bank, of course, or where it can be got
at within a little time,” answered the doctor.
“Keep quiet long enough, -just for a little while,
anyway, -and I promise you that every man,
woman, and child will get his own.”
“We don’t want no talk from you, doc. You
don’t know no more about it than us people.
You’re all right in your business. But this is
something different. We are here for our money,
and we’re going to have it too!”
“That’s poor talk from you, Tom Jarblock,
and you know it is. That’s mob talk. You ought to


214 THE QUILLMORES
be man enough to help stop this run, for if you
would think a moment you would understand that
nothing but trouble and disaster can come of it.
You are crazy with fright, or you wouldn’t talk
that way. It is everybody’s business now to SAVE
this bank! I call upon the cool-headed men of
this town—many of whom I see before me—to
rally to my assistance. Some of you have heard
the bullets whistle. Some of you know what it
was to have been a boarder in Wirz’ slaughter pen
at Andersonville. And you all remember that in
the thickest of danger it was always the handful
of cool-headed men who carried the day. Select
some one of your number for captain or chairman,
and go at this thing with some sort of sense and
reason.’’
There was a moment of quiet—that supreme
moment of indecision, to be followed by action of
one form or another ! The one clear head had
stopped the stampede! The audience, now only
too eager to be moved from painful, craven fear
and doubt to something more promiseful, clung
desperately to the little hope flung out to it by this
man, whom everybody there knew and respected
for his purity of life.
The fate of the Quillmore bank at that moment
hung in the balance!
Doc Gus seized the opportunity to slip within
the bank—way having been made for him, this one
resolute man, who had been able with a few words
to sway the multitude.
A new and beneficent form of “boss!”


THE ONE MAN WHO COUNTS 215
Within he found as great, nay, indeed far
greater excitement and confusion, than without.
The assistant cashier was there—but for intelli-
gent usefulness in this seven-times-heated cru-
cible,—in this dire emergency,—he might as well
have been in farthermost India or nethermost
Africa. He had had no experience in banking
matters other than as he had gained it from
L’Oiseau. And as to handling men—when those
men were only a scant remove from brutish an-
imals—he knew absolutely nothing. Hence his
knowledge of a run on a bank was a matter of
hearsay—something which sometimes occurred on
a Black Friday, in Wall Street—which to him was
an equally unknown region. This institution, like
so many, many others, was, in truth, but one man
or at most two men. Those two removed, the
others—the long list of officers, and boards of di-
rectors, and many committees and stockholders—
were ornamental fixtures to fill out the letterhead
and the semi-annual prospectus and statement.
He welcomed the entrance of the doctor, with
pallid countenance, nervous utterance, and hyster-
ical eagerness.
“Pull yourself together, man,” commanded the
doctor sharply. “This is no time for tears and
fears and prayers. Action, man, action | Do
something as quickly as God Almighty will let
you. Brace up ! There is murder and arson in
that mass of humanity out there. Telephone for
police aid!”
This had already been done. The sheriff's


216 THE QUILLMORES
posse was lined up near the door—to control the
coming in and going out of the depositors.
“Stop all payments! The closing hour is at
hand anyway, thank God. Besides, the law gives
you an undoubted right to demand sixty days’
option on savings deposits. You must do it,” was
the command, as the terror-stricken assistant be-
gan to expostulate upon the dangers. “It’s the
only salvation. Get your money and your books
into the vault, and quick, man! Have you lost
your reason! Do it!” stormed the fiercely-
speaking doctor, “ or I’ll throw you out into that
seething caldron beyond. We mustn't risk an
assault on the bank. It will be absolute ruin for
everybody if we do. Your life wouldn’t be worth
a minute’s purchase. I am one of the Executive
Committee—and I order this done! In with the
books—you clerks there! In with the money-
trays | Never mind how they lie in the vault!
Get them in The pass-books, too—everything!
In with everything!”
Done! The other attachés of the bank began to
show some sign of life and method under the lash-
ing of this one, cool, resourceful giant of a man!
The vault-doors were swung to with a bang that
could be heard even by those who could not see
through the plate-glass windows of the bank.
The danger of a raid at any rate was past! Fire
might wreck the building, but the properties of the
corporation were safe!
The crowd caught up the news instantly and
wafted it to the outermost edge |


THE ONE MAN WHO COUNTS 217
It produced varying emotions. Some began to
accuse the doctor of personal motives—to get his
own—and threats and execrations began to reach
the ears of those nearest the bank doors.
There was a movement—pushing and crushing
the feebly resisting mass toward the bank’s win-
dows.
The sheriff’s posse drew their revolvers!
It was a bad move. It roused the dormant devil
in the breast of the human beasts. -
The sight of the firearms inflamed the already
maddened men.
The news as speedily traveled back to the others
and created consternation.
“They’re going to fire on us! Look out!”
At this moment there were heard calls and
shouts from the rear of the crowd. There was
the loud clatter of hoofs, and the thunderous im-
pact of rapidly moving wheels upon the stone
pavement. Many wedged into the closely packed
throng, short of stature, unable to look about,
were not able to comprehend the cause of this,
as they supposed, newly threatening danger. A
woman fainted, men fought for an avenue of
escape. What caused these wild cries of alarm?
Oddly enough they heralded the arrival of the
golden-angeled hearse, driven up to and into the
crowd with the vehemence and recklessness of a
modern-day ambulance!
A queer arrival at any time, and more especially
in a run on a once popular bank; and yet more
queer, thought the onlookers, as in this instance,


220 THE QUILLMORES
away from you, I reckon. But where is Frenchy,
who’s been a-running of things for so many
years?”
“We’ve got him too,” answered Uncle I’,
“ and put him where the dogs won’t bite him for a
spell. But don’t you get it into your fool head
that he’s been and done anything to hurt your
money that’s in the bank. The colonel was too
sharp for him. Remumbur that, will you?”
Meanwhile within the bank the doctor had again
taken up the struggle. “Now, Mr. Broadly, how
stands the bank—upon your honor,"your life!”
asked the doctor, as much for the benefit of those
of the depositors crowded into the room, as for
himself.
“Gilt-edged, doctor,” said the reassured as-
sistant, ‘‘ and that’s God’s truth, if I have to die
the next minute. The bank-examiner has just
completed his official examination and found
everything satisfactory. Everything’s in good
shape. Absolutely. There is no trouble with the
assets.’’
“All right, then. Now, you men who have
heard what Mr. Broadly has said,” addressing the
depositors, “mingle with the folks outside and as-
sure them of the safety of everything in the bank.
We’ll stop this run in a little bit. Above all things,
men, you of the clerical force and you, depositors,
keep your heads on your shoulders, and your
tongues in your mouths. Don’t talk foolishness.
I will go out now and speak to the people.”
“Quiet, back there! Shut up!” shouted those


THE FORGOTTEN BELL 227
could be proved an accident; were revamped and
discussed with a freedom of opinion indulged in
by deeply interested friends.
It was really not to be wondered at that the de-
positors had taken alarm. There was much to
upset a good, well-balanced man in such times, and
under such peculiar circumstances; and the out-
rageous newspaper article, with its striking and
sensational headlines, had, in the opinion of many
of the speakers, been the all-sufficient spark to
start the flame. It was still more remarkable, Doc
Gus said, how quickly this desperately frightened
mass had quieted down under the advice of Gov-
ernor Cumback. The doctor modestly relegated to
obscurity the importance of his owneffective efforts.
Thus the two vehicles passed along at times
abreast, at others in single file, driving rapidly or
slowly as the hills and condition of the road, its
inequalities and roughness, and the darkness of
the night, permitted.
Conversation was beginning to flag, fitful inter-
vals of silence were falling on the returning jour-
neyers, and there was the near possibility of some
of them dropping asleep.
In one of the lapses of silence, these lapses
growing more frequent and longer continued, the
doctor suddenly laid his hand on the reins of his
driver—bringing the team to a sudden pause.
“Isn’t that a bell ringing?” he asked, as he
stood up, listening intently.
The hearse, too, stopped.
“Why, surely, that’s the old Presbyterian bell,


228 THE QUILLMORES
isn’t it, Ira?” asked the doctor, after listening
quietly for another moment or two.
Uncle I had cocked his good ear in the direction
of the noise. Then he, too, jumped up, excitedly:
“It is, Gus. That’s the old bell in the Presby-
terian ‘ cupelow.” What’s it ringing for at all—
and at this time o’ night? Can it be another fire?
And it's a-ringin’ in jerks—sort-er as if someone
was pulling at the rope in jumps.”
“I’m troubled about the ringing, though, Ira;
there’s some good reason for it and at this time of
the night. Something else has gone wrong.
Won’t we ever get to the end of these calamities?
Better drive on a little faster, boys. What say
you?” he asked. A suggestion promptly acted
upon.
Someone in the wagon found time to say that
there seemed to be no lack of incident and excite-
ment this day. Perhaps this call from the Presby-
terian steeple would furnish something more
worth remembering.
A prophecy, indeed!
The hearse with Uncle I’, though driving at a
pretty rapid jolt, was falling back in the race.
Some presentiment of danger filled the anxious
soul of the storekeeper. It chafed him unutter-
ably to be left behind—for the wagon was already
out of hearing, as it had been out of vision for
some minutes past.
“Hold there, whoever you are!” cried a loud
voice out of the darkness, from the side of the
road, and a little to the rear.


THE FORGOTTEN BELL 229
Was there to be the additional incident of foot-
pads to the other troubles of the day?
The voice was followed by a panting figure.
“Why, it’s Father Lessing!” exclaimed Uncle
I’, peering down at him in the dark, as he pulled
the horses to their haunches.
“Yes, my son,” panted the priest, as he came
alongside, “and you are the very man of all others
—at this moment I most want—”
“Well, Father, you must talk quick—and your
message must be double-extra important,” said
Uncle, waiting for the priest to catch his breath,
“if you expect me to stop here and talk with you
while that there bell's a-ringin’.”
“Yes, my son, this time—it is very important—
and we will lose no time in conversation—and it
refers to—that ringing of the bell—there is great
danger! A messenger rode—over from Clarks-
ville—with the tidings—with the news—that—
that a mob—had broken into—the jail at Lamo-
and taken out M. L’Oiseau—to hang him!”
“My God! My God! what next?” exclaimed
Uncle, as the priest waited a moment to catch
another breath—he had been running for a con-
siderable distance. He now mounted the box
beside Uncle I’, and the horses were started again.
“Messengers have been sent in other directions
for help—someone has telephoned from your
place, my son—to Indiatole, calling upon you to
hasten your return—and from there it has been
repeated over the county—I guessed that you
must be on your way home—and hoped to meet


232 THE QUILLMORES
fairs of the moment and become a component part
thereof.
Bret Harte somewhere described how the click-
ing of the train-wheels over the uneven railway
couplings, would, in time, form into words or sen-
tences, repeating themselves over and over again
with tiresome, aggravating persistency, until
the poor sleepy passenger is almost distracted,
because unable to banish the rhythmical nonsense
from his mind.
With the undoubted mob-frenzy ahead, as first
heralded by the meeting-house bell, and now ver-
ified by Father Lessing; with the knowledge of the
extreme danger threatening L’Oiseau, and the
consequent disgrace to this law-abiding commu-
nity; with the extreme discomfort of the ride; the
horrible excitement of the moment with its min-
gled hopes and fears;—a medley of nonsensical
words began to take form in Uncle I’s brain.
These, after a few moments, fitted themselves to
the tripping lines of Sheridan's Ride. The words
of Buchanan Read’s famous poem began presently
to attune themselves with the jingle of the harness
and the regular, galloping stroke of the horse-
hoofs, and the jolt and jumble and lurch of the
saddleless ride. The irate storekeeper was com-
pelled to repeat that poem from beginning to end
—though he could not recall—in telling of it after-
wards—when he had read it a second time. But
there it was now. He could see the picture of
“Little Phil,” on his black charger, decreasing
the distance between himself and the point of


THE FORGOTTEN BELL 233
action. He could hear the shouts of the men as
they recognized their idolized captain and stopped
their retreat. But the ending of each verse—
with Sheridan twenty miles away,—and fifteen
miles away—and ten miles away,+and, finally and
thankfully, only five miles away, fitted in musically
with the clank of the harness-chains of this pair
of ultra-prosaic heavy draught-horses. Try hard
as he would,—like the wedding guest in the Ancient
Mariner,-he was compelled to listen to this un-
welcome singsong of the verses to the very last
word, of the last verse, on the last page. Then he
was released.
Thus sped along this queerly attired pair,
astride of horses, not noted or needed for excess-
ive speed, being simply large, work-a-day animals,
now galloping along in a lumbering, lurching way.
Uncle I’s upper-plate must needs obtrude itself
and he was in constant danger of dropping it out
of his mouth. Behind him rode, at as rapid a pace,
the good Father Lessing, his robe of Brotherhood
gathered about him, riding with the skill and ease
and almost the abandon of the far-west cowboy,
the Indian with his grass-rope halter-bridle, or the
apt imitator of both, the present-day mounted
trooper in his practice drill!
There was no light by which anyone meeting
and attempting to intercept this motley pair of
riders could have distinguished them. The moon
was now in total eclipse from heavy scurrying
banks of clouds.
Only the imminent peril in which a human being


234 THE QUILLMORES
stood at the hands of a lawless gang was con-
sciously before their mind’s eye. The fear that
they might be too late to despoil the mob of its
victim was ever present and urged them on their
way.
The singsong of Sheridan’s Ride caused Uncle
I” several times to jolt out parts of hasty speeches,
which were kindly caught up by the rushing wind,
and thus,—let us hope,—lost to the ear of the Re-
cording Angel!
The good Father soon became silent; for speak-
ing, except in painful lunges, and in detached un-
meaning paragraphs, was impracticable.
The sound of the bell, though necessarily becom-
ing clearer to the two riders with nearer proxim-
ity, began to falter a little and presently ceased
altogether.
There must have been interference with the bell-
ringer, or else—Heaven grant it be true!—help
had arrived to foil the murderous band.
No, it rang out again! There was still need for
assistance.
Perhaps the doctor had reached the scene. If
he had—and was in time—there was hope for the
prisoner. Doc Gus was a dangerous as well as a
powerful man; and only the crushing out of his
life under the severest of struggles would make
this desecration of the State’s fair fame a possi-
bility.
The last corner in the long, steep, uphill road
was turned. The heavy horses were badly spent
with their unusual toil and speed.


THE FORGOTTEN BELL 235
The bell continued its clamor!
The trouble was evidently down by the covered
bridge which spanned Salt Creek, near the foot of
that hill upon which abides the City of the Peace-
ful; in whose midst stood the old brick meeting-
house, and from whose steeple-loft the half-for-
gotten bell was ringing the alarm of danger to
human life!
A few lanterns were seen here and there, giving
only sufficient light to increase the outer circle of
darkness.
A great commotion was apparent at the
entrance to the covered bridge.
Cries of “Hang him, anyway! What are you
waiting for? Hain’t he done damage enough to
us and the county! We’ll save ourselves taxes and
lawyers’ fees. Hang him to a stringer! Where’s
that rope?”
Someone was expostulating with them, pleading
doubtlessly—explaining matters, perhaps.
“This hain’t no time for talk. Out of the way
there, doc! We don’t want none of you. This
hain’t your put in. Light out with you! You’ll
get in trouble if you stay. Throw that rope here.
Can’t some of you stop that — bell? It’s rous-
ing the country! Let someone go up there and
stop its ringing.” -
The prisoner, then, was still alive.
Father Lessing and Uncle I’ reached the bridge
simultaneously. No orderly was needed to hold
the bridle, or the foot in the dismount. No, these
two men had mounted their steeds with alacrity,


236 THE QUILLMORES
and they showed increased celerity in the getting
off.
Neither of these impetuous, brave riders had a
weapon The moment must suggest the proper
COurSe.
CHAPTER XIX
AT THE MULBERRY TREE
gone far. A heavy hand was laid on him
and with force sufficient to detain him.
“What’s this you’re doin’?” he shouted.
“Who are you, to take the law in your hands?
What are you, anyway—where are you from?—I
don’t believe there’s a man from Lamo among you
—you blackguards! Take your hands off—or I'll
brain you—you nigger-faced cur!” and he flung
off the detaining hand of the masked guard with
such violence that the man fell to the ground a
dozen feet away.
“So you were ashamed to let your ugly mug
be touched even by the darkness of night? Well,
I don’t blame you for painting yourself, but un-
less I miss my guess you’ll wear a ball and chain
before you git through with this dirty business,
and—”
“Gently, gently, my son,” expostulated the
diplomatic old priest. “We must try other ways
than hard words. These men are but men labor-
U: I” was intercepted before he had


AT THE MULBERRY TREE 237
ing under a terrible provocation and nervous
strain. They verily believe that the cashier has
been guilty of all the things charged against him,
and they wouldn’t hurt an innocent man. Be
gentle with them.”
“That’s the talk, Father, that’s the talk. This
here fellow has ruined us and our families. He’s
gambled with our money and spent it on his mis-
tress. He’s murdered the colonel. Then he tried
to burn him up to hide his devilment. He’s got
too much money. You were a man like us before
you put on that brown frock—remember that.
You know that money will buy him clear.”
“Yes, yes, my son, I comprehend the human
nature. But patience, patience. Do nothing for
which you will be eternally sorry. Do not imbrue
your hands in human blood. The bank is not
broken—as you call it. That is a mistake. Its
affairs are all right and proper.”
“That’s true as gospel!” shouted Uncle I’, not
to be longer repressed. “Me and Doc Gus has
just come back from there. There was a run on
the bank, because of that dumfool article in the
Chicago paper, but it’s stopped.” He would have
said more, but his upper-plate fell, causing him to
mumble and speak thickly for a passing moment,
something like “damn them teeth ” being dis-
tinguishable as he pushed the offender into place.
“The bank’s all right. Will Cumback's got
charge of the investigation—and you all know the
Governor.”
There was a moment’s pause. “But he’s gam-


238 THE QUILLMORES
bled with our money—and he’s made ducks and
drakes of it,” said someone else back in the dark-
ness, not quite content to let his prey slip through
his fingers.
“You haven’t a shadow of proof for them
statements—you know you lie—”
“Gently, gently,” again admonished the priest,
but in a lower voice, as he laid his hand quickly
upon Uncle I’. “There is a large force of men
here. They seem organized and ready. We must
temporize and get them quieted until aid may
come from others who have heard the bell. If
they will listen to us, we may win. Be careful, my
son—and brother. Remember a human life lies
in the balance—and rests upon our conduct.
Diplomacy will best effect our end.”
Then turning to the cluster of quiet men in the
shadow of the bridge, he said:
“Men, remember this is not the best way to
deal out justice. You are citizens of a grand and
noble State. Don’t degrade yourself and your
families with this deed of blood. Be men! Re-
member your wives and children.”
“And that’s just it, Father; we do remember
them. We want to make an example of this fel-
low. Why didn’t he remember them when he was
gallivanting all over creation with another man’s
wife, without shame, without hindrance, and on
our hard-earned money?”
Impulsive Uncle I was about to answer hotly
and to the point, but was restrained by the priest
and—perhaps by the falling of his teeth !


* *
!
(See v. 245.)
-
-
-
“BACK WITH YOU, YOU COWARDS, YOU MIDNIGHT ASSASSINS


AT THE MULBERRY TREE 245
a priest! Back with you, you cowards, you mid-
night assassins! Back, I say! Cross this ground
at the peril of your worthless lives! Is this your
idea of American manhood? No, you won’t fire
that pistol at me,” as with a quick motion of the
rapier he twisted the revolver out of the mis-
creant’s hand and threw it twenty feet away into
the dark of the wood. - “You men are trespassers
—and, by my faith in America, if I recognize any
one of you I will turn informer and clap him in
the nearest jail. Ah, would you?” and another
of the masked guard dropped a club from a
pierced and bleeding hand. “That’s two of you
who will be found in a day or two by some doctor
—then look out!”
Hoof-beats were now heard along the road from
the direction of the pike. A body of horsemen
were riding at a furious gallop !
“The sheriff’s posse!” cried someone from the
darkness.
“You are trapped, my masters,” now laughed .
the old priest. “Ha! ha! my brave, my noble
men There will be no lynching to-night! Oh!
tarry a little longer, pray! Do remain long
enough to remove those stifling neckcloths from
your brave countenances. Why this sudden and
indecent haste, mes braves? You are forgetting
your rope.”
There was need of haste, truly. The scene had
suddenly changed. A new curtain had been rung
up. Other characters were forging to the front.
The law in embodied force was in the saddle.


246 THE QUILLMORES
Those remaining of the mob scattered into the
darkness, over fences, and into the woods, in front
of which, like a lone sentinel, stood the mulberry
tree, a dangling rope giving evidence of the
nefarious work so lately undertaken, but the tree
itself was saved from desecration.
When the company of horsemen reached the
scene—directed there by the Frenchman—and it
was, indeed, the sheriff's posse,—not one of the
late desperadoes was in view.
No one was there save and except the priest,
with habit over left arm, and rapier poised in his
free hand.
The scene was shrouded in the canopy of night,
but the battle was won, and now again the moon’s
fitful light shone forth.
And Father Lessing?
At the foot of the mulberry tree, on his knees,
his face hidden in his hands, the rapier on the
ground at his side | The man of force—the man
with the steel wrist and the sinewy arm—the man
with the eye of flashing fire—was gone! There
remained only the meek and lowly follower of his
Saviour—in prayer.
All honor to a church which has trained its men,
in all climes, and in all crafts, to take effective and
active part in the struggle of life!
All honor to all men, of whatever vocation,
creed, or nation, who have the courage of faith in
the law of their country, and fear not to defend
that faith—aye, even at the point of a sword!
All honor to any district in our beloved land


AT THE MULBERRY TREE 247
that is presided over by so faithful a man as this
old, peace-loving priest, with the flowing gray
beard and the ungainly, cumbering, brown Fran-
ciscan robel
For his benefactions were not restricted to the
few of his own creed. He was an universal lover
of mankind.
Domiciled in a community intensely Protestant
and of the old line of Presbyterianism, yet he was
loved of all. He did not swing his censer in the
faces of all the people he met, nor at inappropri-
ate times nor in inauspicious places. There was
nothing narrow or churlish or selfish in his dis-
position. He went to the sick and the dying with
absolute impartiality—to those who lived in the
leased and rented farms, as readily and as cheer-
fully, as to those who dwelt on the Hills and in
affluence. He was a lover of America, and taught
its tenets of freedom to every foreign-born mem-
ber of his little congregation, in a tiny chapel,
with its paper flowers, on a cheap altar, before a
printed picture of the sweet-faced mother of Jesus
—that Sorrowing Mother, whom all Christendom,
wherever collected, under what creed or sect so-
ever, fails not to respect, admire, and honor—
though they may not worship with Father Lessing
and his church.
The final foiling of the mob’s intentions had
been quickly planned. There proved to be a good
understanding among the would-be rescuers,
although only here and there in touch. Was it a


AT THE MULBERRY TREE 249
Such few of the mob as had started down the
hill to overtake the escaping prisoner promptly
gave up the chase and dispersed—seeing that the
game was up. They may have noted too the dis-
tant sound of approaching horsemen.
When well out of the reach of any further bul-
lets, the speed of the team was lessened.
“Hadn’t you better release him, Gus? Guess
he won’t run away.”
“Getting ready for that now, Ira. Pretty stiff
knot those fellows tied here. Beats the Stafford-
shire knot.”
“Trying to untie a knot! Well, you are a
honey. Cut it, man!”
The prisoner was free. He sat up with ap-
parent effort.
“You are safe now,” said the doctor.
“Excitement too great for him, I reckon,” said
Uncle I’, leaning back and looking at the form of
L’Oiseau.
“Not quite so fast, Ira,” interrupted the doc-
tor, as the storekeeper was helping to prop up the
swaying form. “Heart is weak. Pull up a
minute, Ira, till I find the bottle I need. Good
fashion I have of carrying a vest-pocket case,
whether I go to church, to a run on a bank, or to
a lynching bee.”
When he found the particular vial wanted, he
turned the contents against L’Oiseau's lips.
“You’ll get your heart back in a few minutes.
Kind of rough exercise for so late at night. Can
you sit up now?”


250 THE QUILLMORES
He made the effort, though leaning heavily
upon the doctor’s arm.
Just then there came to them the distant sound
of horses galloping, and the cashier, first to note
the fact, roused himself to action, seeking to es-
cape from the control of his rescuers. Restrained
by the strong arms of the doctor he hurriedly
spoke.
“Brothers,”—his voice was faint and husky,—
“I thank you for trying to save my life.”
Something else, also, he said in a low voice that
caught the quick ear of the physician—trained to
hear sounds that would escape an ordinary ear.
“What’s that?” he asked in greatest surprise
—putting his ear down to the cashier’s lips, who
at once repeated what he had last said.
“And wherever did you hear the like of that?”
still in amazement, queried the doctor.
Then other words were spoken by the prisoner.
“Is that possible?” and the worthy man for
the very first time in his life, so far as anyone
knew, was genuinely surprised. “We never sus-
pected it! Thought you was a renegade Catholic.
Why didn’t you make a sign of some kind during
all these years you’ve been amongst us?”
He had been in trouble, and he chose to carry
his own secrets and sorrows. Would, if desired,
explain it all later.
“Ira,” called the doctor, “turn your head this
way a minute—that’s the sheriff's posse we hear
coming and we’re ready to be captured—listen.
This man is a brother Mason | He has correctly


A CONFIDENTIAL INTERVIEW 255
It is to be presumed that no man is without
guile and that many undiscovered errors are
hidden behind a smiling and placid exterior, but
if a wrong exists of which we know, and for which
the guilty one seems in no way to suffer, still may
it not be that, in God’s infinite wisdom, retributive
justice is meted out to all?
Just before L’Oiseau's release Doc Gus re-
ceived a letter written from the correspondent’s
place of confinement, expressing his appreciation
of the doctor’s courageous acts, also of the
writer’s equal obligation to Uncle I’, who had so
opportunely lent kindly aid. He asked that the
letter be accepted as addressed to both and
further said, “In the hour or more—it seemed a
lifetime, a never-ending period—that I was in the
hands of the mob, I experienced such a shock, and
lived in such absolute agony, that when I recog-
nized your fearless intervention in my behalf, I
resolved if by any chance I escaped, I would
change something of my ways; tell you both per-
sonally about my past, solicit your kind and con-
tinued interest, or perhaps I should say, seek to
enlist a new interest.
“There is one reference I do not wish to post-
pone. It concerns Mrs. Quillmore, and may in-
fluence your consideration of her case. There is
no insanity in her ancestry, but she has sustained
a surgical injury, as you know, and this has tended
to unhinge her mind at certain times. If you will
recall your meetings with us, you may remember
that they invariably occurred in the change of the


256 THE QUILLMORES
moon. I was familiar with this painful secret,
and hence watched her, followed her, and many
times brought her home.
“I know that you have expressed the belief
that relief from this condition should and could
be afforded, but that an operation was—most un-
fortunately, I feel—always declined by the one
most concerned.”
As was natural and proper, Lanny was
promptly and fully informed as to L’Oiseau's
communication. The matter was reviewed in a
meeting at the annex room. Other matters too
claimed their attention, and all three discussed the
tragedy on the Hill. As a result of this confer-
ence, no serious effort was made towards collect-
ing the life insurance upon which the colonel had
set such store and to which he had referred in this
very place, when conversing with his two friends.
A question had been raised by the companies, as
the policies contained the suicide forfeiture
clause.
“It is useless to press the subject,” said Doc
Gus. “It is one of those undeterminable matters
for which there will never be any solution.” But
the doctor was basing his conclusion upon the
knowledge at hand; would later developments
alter his conviction?
A fortnight elapsed and the coffin-room had a
visitor new to its grewsome surroundings, but
curiosity had not prompted the coming of this
caller. A sought-for confidential interview had
been arranged, and Doc Gus and Uncle I’ were


262 THE QUILLMORES
sailing the following day on one of the most
speedy steamers leaving New York.
Gloomy and depression-laden was the French
metropolis, on the day of his arrival there. The
heat was stifling, the downpour of rain incessant;
determinate evidence, it seemed to Lanny, that
all nature had conspired to make his trying mis-
sion the more hampered and difficult.
On reaching Paris, he went at once to the home
of his father’s old war-time acquaintance, the one
with whom he himself had spent so many of his
student years. Greetings were quickly over, then,
accompanied by his friend, he went without delay
to the hospital where his mother was to be found.
“My son,” said his companion as they drove
through the boulevards, “ of your honored
mother’s condition you have already been in-
formed, in the letter sent you. An important,
and as the physicians report, a critical operation
was performed. You will be told of the nature of
the proceeding, and you will comprehend it, be-
cause you are yourself a skilled physician. The
result thus far, as you have been told, has been a
restorement of the mind, but at the sacrifice of
physical strength.”
The hospital reached, an interview was sought
with the physicians in charge of Mrs. Quillmore’s
case, and from them full and detailed particulars
were obtained. This matter rapidly gone over,
Lanny was told that Madame had been daily ex-
pecting and anxiously looking forward to her


PARIS, 1887 265
There were four couches in the room, and ap-
proaching now the only one occupied, Lanny
looked for one instant of time upon an emaciated
form and saw—his long-lost mother.
Her eyes unclosed, she raised her hands to
him! *
The stone rolled from the sepulcher of his
heart; he had no need to simulate affection, to
restrain harshness; dread no longer prevailed;
there was no latent coldness.
He had found his mother; the love was there!
The great strong man found no pity lingering
within him. It was his mother—at last; all else
had vanished, as a summer cloud before the noon-
day sun. His long, long yearning to touch his
mother’s hand, to rest his tired brow upon her
heart, had come to an end. The mother and son,
in each other’s arms, knew, as the redeemed know
each other, in that future life promised of the
Scriptures—among all peoples—of all creeds,
sects and schisms, and in all climes. It was the
blessed unity of two harassed and hungered souls;
a scene too sacred to depict with pen.
Unobtrusively at a distance, observing the scene
for a moment, were the two men who had noted the
young doctor’s arrival. One of the men was
doddered, bent, and decrepit, and to him the
younger addressed himself:
“Do you know if that is Mr. Quillmore who
entered?”
“It is,” was the reply in a faint, tremulous
voice. “Are you acquainted with him?” and


266 THE QUILLMORES
there was a searching look directed at the other's
face.
“Yes, slightly. Saw him in America when his
father died some years ago,” was the answer and
with that he walked on, seeking a retired nook
where he could await the moment when the young
doctor would be disengaged.
The older man paced up and down the corridor,
anon glancing into the room which Lanny had
entered, the latter’s form, as he was seated by the
bed, intercepting a view of the person with whom
he was conversing.
Finally, mother and son after a long, loving ex-
change of words came to speak of matters other
than those of immediate concern. It was ex-
plained that the maid Celine had married, and
was gone to live in the South of France. Then
there were old acquaintances at Lamo to be re-
ferred to, their past and present conditions com-
mented on.
“There is much more to talk about,” said
Lanny, rising to indicate his intention to end the
visit, “but I believe it is best that I should not
tire you with too long an interview to-day.”
“Perhaps you are right. My beloved boy, my
Lanny,” continued the feeble voice of his mother,
“Le bon Dieu has been very good to us. He has
heard my prayer to see my boy again. I thank
Him. And now I want to tell you that I have pre-
pared, since I have been in this country—I have
put upon paper those few things which may be of
interest. I know full well I am to be with you


PARIS, 1887 267
only a short time. Life is ebbing. I stand in the
presence of God upon earth for perhaps the last
time.” There was a heightening of color and a
strange added power to the voice. “These things
I have written may be of interest to you and—
your father—when you see him again.”
Lanny, with the professional instinct instantly
on the alert, begged his mother not to excite her-
self; to be collected and self-possessed; that her
life now depended upon quiet and freedom from
exciting emotions.
He resumed his seat and took his mother’s
hands in his. In his own mind he was alarmed
by the return of the malady, which the physicians
had assured him had not again appeared since the
critical operation had been performed. This
sudden recurrence of the old mania, this reverting
to the continued existence of his father, was un-
happy evidence that sanity had not been per-
manently established. And too, with the extreme
weakness, conjoined to the old-time malady, the
hours of her life were passing all too rapidly to
an end.
“Lanny, believe me, your father is not dead.
Nay, do not strive to silence me. Let me speak.”
“Alas! poor mother, you must not recur to that
fateful time.”
It seemed to him that the full tide of the old
insanity was again to grasp for completest posses-
sion. Could not a kind heaven, which had brought
the long-separated together, vouchsafe a contin-
uance of reason till the rapidly approaching end;


268 THE QUILLMORES
must this beautiful spirit pass out in gloom, in
darkness, in perpetual night!
There was a moment’s quiet in the room, dis-
turbed only by the driving of the rain upon the
window-panes. The young doctor was kissing his
mother's brow and endeavoring to stifle the tor-
rent of speech; hoping with excess of love and
affection to recall the waning mind. With a
strength which seemed supernatural she pushed
him from her, and in a voice high and shrill she
cried:
“I told you all that I saw him in the orchard.
I know I saw him there. I know he was living.”
Then rising strongly upon one elbow and pointing
beyond her son, in a penetrating tragic whisper,
she added:
“There he is,—there he is now !”
Lanny had been too deeply sorrowing, too far
gone in the poignancy of his grief, to pay more
than a passing attention to his mother’s explana-
tion, till at this moment he seemed to feel the pres-
ence of someone, or for some reason he was moved
to turn about, and to look in the direction in-
dicated. -
“Father,” he cried, “‘my father,”—gasping,
breathless, dumfounded, doubting his senses. It
seemed a dream—a species of unconscious cere-
bration.
In the doorway stood an aged man, gray-
bearded and bent, but bright of eye.
Mrs. Quillmore fell back, pallid and motionless.
Lanny turned his attention at once to her, but


PARIS, 1887 269
heard a voice which seemed familiar say, “You
need assistance there; I will summon help.”
Mrs. Quillmore did not revive. All efforts to
that end were unavailing, and erelong in undis-
puted possession was the slumber that knows no
awakening.
As soon as the young doctor could be released
from the insistent attention at his mother’s bed-
side which the untoward occasion had demanded,
he went hurriedly and agitatedly to the hospital
office, and in answer to his anxious and solicitous
inquiries, he was told that a Dr. Fernwald had
been the one to call for aid. Then followed pro-
longed and most persistent investigation, but he
could learn of no one who knew much concerning
this man, naught except that he was said to have
come from Australia, and that for a short time
he had availed himself of the privileges generally
accorded to medical men and had, as it is techni-
cally termed, “walked the hospital’s public
Wards.”
“And was it really your father?” in unison
gasped Doc Gus and Uncle I’, when Lanny had
completed his story. The three were assembled,
late one evening, in the coffin-room, whither they
had gone, when Doc Gus and Uncle I’, descending
the stair, had found Lanny awaiting the conclu-
sion of the Masonic observances in the lodge room
above.
“You ask a question, I answer Yes. You ask
for proof, for reasonable evidence, I have none to


PARIS, 1887 271
abnormal—sometimes homicidal—the running
amuck, as the medical men know; many men hav-
ing from time to time disappeared and been lost
to their former life and environment—and some
never returning, nor being found.
“Suppose the colonel’s idiosyncrasy took the
form of a failure of the bank in which his whole
life was centered. Besides, as we know, we three,
there were other considerations in the home life—
tending to augment the one governing thought
—the saving of the bank. Then if his mind be-
came perverted, if it had in reality gone astray,
on this one paramount subject, it was quite pos-
sible, as we know, for him to plan the sequence of
events just as they developed at the time of the
fire. We well know that as an accessory to his
experiments he had possession at times of ‘ma-
terial,” as we call it. The body we took to be his
may have been in life someone else. The incin-
eration was so complete, purposely so, mayhap,
that anyone could have been readily deceived.”
The interview was a protracted one and the
small hours were lengthening out when the three,
even then with reluctance, felt able to call the
meeting at an end. One determination only was
reached, to repeat Lanny’s tale, for the present at
least, to no one.
As Uncle I’ was locking the door, he said to
Lanny, “Your mother spoke of seeing someone
disappear in the orchard. We have always be-
lieved it was you, running for the fire apparatus.
Would there have been time for your father to


272 THE QUILLMORES
have run away, to disappear before you arrived
and took part in the events?”
“Ample time, I should say. I was in the road-
way by the woods and, after hearing the pistol
shot, I had to traverse a considerable distance be-
fore rounding the house and so reach a point
where I could see the fire. Yes, father could easily
have run toward the outbuildings and have dis-
appeared before I could have reached the spot.”
‘‘I am convinced that it was the colonel, your
misguided father, whom you saw in Paris,” said
the doctor.
There was a period of silence, as they walked
along the road. “But then,” Uncle I’ was speak-
ing again and adjusting his troublesome upper set,
“there was the colonel’s Masonic ring and things,
which we found.”
THE END