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SCROPE;
OE,
THE LOST LIBRARY.
A NOVEL OF
NEW YORK AND HARTFORD.
BY FREDERIC B. PERKINS.
HJSC FABULA NARRATUR.
BOSTON:
ROBERTS BROTHERS.
1874.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, Oy
ROBERTS BROTHERS,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.
GENERAL
Boston :
Land, Avery, & Co., Stereotvpers and Printers.
CONTENTS.
PART I.
PAGE
The Book Auction; Scropes and Van Braams; The Detective .... 7
PART II.
The Shadowing "Wings and the Nigger Baby ; Mr. Tarbox Button, the Subscrip-
tion-Book Publisher; He trains a Canvasser; The Scrope Will and Signa-
ture 30
PART III.
Gowan's Second-hand Book Catacomb; Mr. Van Braam and Jacob Behmen; The
Unique Scrope Genealogy ; A Broadway Paradise 56
PART IV.
N
A Billiard Saloon; Mr. William Button wins of Mr. Oppenheimer; A Faro Bank;
The Solidarity de VAvenir 84
PART V.
A See-ance at Mrs. Babbles's; The Great Philosopher, Mr. S. P. Quinby Anke-
tell and the Development of the Germ; Mr. Anketell's New Language . . 106
PART VI.
The Death of a Waiter-Girl ; Dr. Toomston's Sermon, with Pictures of the
Doctor's Hands ' 122
PART VII.
A Theological Dinner at Mr. Button's; The Scrope Association and the Estate
in England 136
PART VIII.
A Party at Mr. Button's, with Indian Philology, a Ghost Story, and a Love
Song 151
101469
4 Contents.
PART IX.
PAGE
Adrian's Meditations ; lie declines Mr. Button's Business Offer, and receives a
Pair of Mittens 173
PART X.
An Old Hartford House and an Old Hartford Lady; Mr. Jacox the Book Can-
vasser and his Customer; Adrian searches a Paper-Mill, and finds Some-
thing 1S8
PAET XI.
The Scrope Chest ; Adrian as a Sick Nurse . 204
PART XII.
Adrian as a Defender of the Oppressed ; A Broadway Fire ; Inside the Building . 218
PART XIII.
The Police Station Cells ; The Morning Jail-Delivery 233
PART XIV.
The Culmination of Mr. Button's Career; Adrian gets rid of one of his Mittens;
The Finding of the Lost Library 247
SCROPE; OR, THE LOST LIBRARY.
CHAPTER I.
"Half-a-dollar, halfadollarfadol-
lafadollafadollafadollathat's bid now,
give more'f ye want it ! Half-a-dollar
five-eighths three-quarters — Three-
quarters I'm bid : — will you say a
dollar for this standard work octarvo
best edition harf morocker extry?
Three-quarters I'm bid, three-quarters
will ye give any more ? Three-
quarters, threequarttheequartthee-
quawttheequawttheequawt one dol-
lar shall I have ? "
Thus vociferated, at a quarter past
five o'clock in the afternoon of Tues-
day, January 9th, A. D. 186 — , with
the professional accelerando and with
a final smart rising inflection, that
experienced and successful auctioneer
Mr. Howlarid Ball, a broad-shouldered
powerful looking man of middle
height, with a large head, full eyes, a
bluff look, spectacles and plenty of
stiff short iron gray hair.
A tall personage, old, gaunt and
dry, but apparently strong, with dus-
ty black clothes and a " stove-pipe"
hat, pulled down over his eyes, in the
front row of seats, a little to one side
of Mr. Ball's desk, answered in a
grave dry deliberate voice,
" Seven-eighths. But it's damaged."
"No tain't either" sharply an-
swered the auctioneer, "what do ye
mean, Chase-?"
" Catalogue says so. It says the
titlepage is greasy."
Every man at once examined the
catalogue he held in his hand, and a
laugh arose as one and another detect-
ed the mistake that old Chase was jest-
ing about. The printer's proof-reader
— as sometimes happens even to proof-
readers — had been half learned, and
out of the halfnessof his learning had
substituted "lubricated" which he
knew, for " rubricated," which he did
not, and the catalogue bore that the
book had a lubricated titlepage. Ev-
erybody laughed except Chase, whose
saturnine features did not change.
" Gentlemen," said Mr. Ball, " pay
no attention to Chase's jokes, but go
on with the sale. Seven-eighths I am
bid. Seven-eighths, sevnatesnatesnate-
snatesnate say a dollar, somebody ! "
implored he in his strong harsh voice.
Then he paused a moment and
looking around upon his hearers with
an earnest expression, he slowly lifted
his right hand as if about to make
oath before any duly qualified justice
of the peace or notary public :
" Going. Will nobody give me one
dollar for that valuable and interest-
ing work, octarvo best edition harf mo-
rocker extry, cheap at five dollars ? " —
A pause — "Gone! Chase at seven-
eighths."
As he said " Gone," down came his
hand with a slap. The hand is in
these days often used for the tradi-
tional hammer, as a decent dress-coat
is instead of the judge's ermine. The
following words were his announce-
ment to his book-keeper of the cus-
tomer's name and the price ; and then
Mr. Ball, turning again to the audi-
ence, observed with a grin and a queer
chuckle — "And a good time mister
Chase'll have a gittin his money
back!"
A young man in a back seat whis-
pered to his neighbor,
"He said Chase. Isn't that Gow-
Scrope
The Lost Library.
"What's the next line? " sung out
Ball at this moment to an assistant at
the side opposite to the book-keeper,
always behind the long desk or counter
which separates the high-priest from
the votaries in such temples as this —
" What's the next line ? Oh yes, num-
ber ninety-three, gentlemen. ' Bequeel
de Divers Voyges.' Something about
the pearl fisheries I guess. How much
moffered P th' Eequeel, gentlemen?
Full of valuable old copperplate illus-
trations ; rare, catalogue says, — I
spose that means tisn't well done (chuc-
kle) — rare and interesting old
book" —
" Yes. He always buys by that
name," briefly answered the young
man's neighbor, looking up a moment
from entering "7-8 Chase" in the
margin of his catalogue against No.
92.
"Do they all do so?" queried the
young man.
" A good many. You see " —
" Shut up there, Sibley ! " broke in
the strong business voice of the auc-
tioneer. " Order in the ranks ! I
can't hear myself think, you keep up
such a racket ! "
The words were sufficiently rough,
but the speaker's bluff features wore a
jolly smile, and he ended with a short
chuckle. He was right, too, in sub-
stance, and the person he called Sibley
did " shut up," though a kind of sniff
and a meaning smile and look at his
young companion intimated the dis-
sent of superior breeding as to the
manner of the request.
The sale was one which might be
classed as " strictly miscellaneous." It
is true that a hasty glance at the title-
page of the catalogue informed the
reader in " full faced display type "
that there was a " valuable private li-
brary ; " but a closer inspection would
show that like those speakers who go
at once from whisper to shout, this
deluding inscription leaped from small
" lower-case " to a heavy "condensed
Gothic," somewhat thus :
"CATALOGUE
of books, including
A VALUABLE PRIVATE LIBRARY,
etc, etc."
No doubt it was "valuable" in a
sense. So is dirt. But assuredly no
human being having his wits about
him, would give shelf-room to such a
mess as this was, taking it all to-
gether, unless for purposes of com-
merce. It was one of those sales that
are made up once in a while from
odds and ends of consignments, with
some luckless invoice of better books
mingled in, to flavor a little, if it may
be, the unpleasant mass. But the
plan is sure to fail ; poor Tray is judg-
ed by his company ; the good books
go for the price of poor ones, the poor
ones for the price of " paper stock ; "
the account-sales ends with a small
additional charge over and above
receipts against the consignor to meet
expenses, cataloguing and auctioneer's
commissions ; and the consignor, using
indefensible terms of general re-
proach, goes through the absurd ope-
ration of paying money for the loss
of his property. The auctioneer's
shelves are cleared, at any rate, and
ready for replenishment with those
gorgeous or rare books which he loves
to sell, feeling his commission rising
warm in his very pockets, as the
emulous calls or nods or delicate wafts
of catalogues or tip-ups of fore-fingers
flock up to him from every part of the
room, and his voice grows round and
full as he glances hither and thither,
hopping up the numeration table ten
dollars at a time. —
How still the room grows, when
such a passage-at-purses soars aloft
JScrope; or, The Lost Library.
9
like the spirits of tlie dead soldiers in
Kaulbacli's "Battle of the Huns,"
into that rare and exhausting two-or-
three-hundred-dollar atmosphere !
But there was none of that, on this
occasion. The number of "lines"
or lots, in the catalogue, was only two
hundred and eighty-nine, in all. In
the New York hook-auctions, some-
what more than a hundred lots an
hour are commonly despatched ; the
cheaper the lots the faster they must
be run off; and in the present instance
a single sitting of two hours or so
was deemed an ample allowance. The
actual bulk, or weight, or number,
whichever category you may prefer,
of volumes, however, was very con-
siderable, as the common practice had
been pursued of "bunching up" five,
ten or twenty of the miserable things,
into parcels with a string, and cata-
loguing them somewhat thus :
245. T upper's Proverbial Philoso-
phy etc. 5 vols.
246. Patent Reports etc. 10 vols.
Some valuable.
247. School-books. 20 vols.
Well: the sale went on, Chase buy-
ing an extraordinary number of lots,
and a small, short, bushy-bearded and
wonderfully dirty Israelite who sat
next him, and whom the bluff auc-
tioneer irreverently saluted when he
first bid with " Hallo ! you there, fa-
ther Abraham ? " buying a very few
bundles at two cents or three cents per
volume. The securing of one of these
small prizes by the dirty man seemed
to irritate worthy Mr. Ball ; for having
offered to the company the succeeding
lot, and there being a moment's pause
in which no one bid, the auctioneer
with much gravity exclaimed,
"Put it down to Chase at five
cents !"
" I won't have it ! " said the old
man.
"Ye shall have it — what's the
next ? " was all the auctioneer replied,
with a facetious chuckle and an as-
sumption of great violence, and down
it went to Chase, while Mr. Ball, with-
out heeding his remonstrances, went
straight on with the next lot. This was
a worn looking octavo volume, with
what is technically called a " skiver "
or " split sheep " back and old-fash-
ioned marbled board sides.
" Number 109," cried the auc-
tioneer ; "Reverend Strong's ordina-
tion sermon and so forth. Valuable
old pamphlets, and what'll you give
for It ? " — with a quaint sudden
stress on this seldom emphasized pro-
noun, as if Mr. Ball had meant that
the poor neglected thing should find
one at least to think it of some
weight.
"Ten cents," said old Chase, in
his grave dry voice — "what's the
book?"
" Twenty-five," said somebody.
" Thirty," called out the young
man who had asked about Chase.
His voice was eager, and no doubt
more than one of the sharp veterans
present said to themselves, at that
intonation, " Ah, I can put him up if
I like ! " But the sale was dull ; as
it happened no one did " put him
up."
"Thirty cents I'm bid," proceeded
Mr. Ball; "Thirty, thirty, thirty.
Say thirty-five. Thirty-five shall I
have ? And gone [slap] for thirty
cents "vvhizzit ? "
" Cash," was the reply to this in-
quiry for a name ; and the buyer,
stepping up to the desk, paid his
money and took his book.
"Mark it delivered," resumed the
auctioneer ; " The next is number 110,
Life of Brown. How much will you
give for It ? How much for Brown ?
The celebrated Brown ! Come, bo
10
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
quick, gentlemen ! I can't stay here
all night ! One dollar one dollar one
dollawundollawundolla why is that too
much ? "What will you give then ? "
" Two cents" timidly ventured the
soiled dove of a Hebrew, who looked
as if he had "lain among the pots"
ever since the idea of doing so was
first started.
"No you don't!" exclaimed the
scandalized auctioneer, " I'll give three
cents myself. Here, Chase, now I
expect you to offer five cents apiece
for every boo*k on this catalogue."
" 1*11 do it," returned the old man
promptly ; and the humble hopes of
the poor Jew were effectually extin-
guished. He rose and quietly stole
out of the room, his head bent forward,
with an air of exhaustion, suffering
and patient endurance. No wonder ;
it must have been a burden to carry
the real estate and perfumery to-
gether that were upon his person.
As he went oat, in came Sibley in
haste, from the hall outside, and re-
sumed his seat, which nobody in par-
ticular had observed him leaving, call-
ing out as he did so,
" What number are you selling? "
"One hundred and ten, Sibley, —
five cents is bid, seven and a half
will you give ? "
" One hundred and ten ! " exclaimed
Sibley, greatly discomposed — "I
wanted one hundred and nine ; got an
unlimited order ; I was only called out
for a moment — who's got it ? "
" Cash is his name," returned the
accommodating auctioneer, chuckling ;
and a long thin fellow who bought
books in the name of Park, and
whose quiet, shrewd and rather sati-
y rical cast of features denoted much
character, added briskly,
— " and cash is his nature. Be on
hand next time, Sibley. ' Too late I
staid, forgive the crime.' "
But Sibley paid no heed to their
chaffing, and the sale went noisily on,
while Mr. " Cash " civilly informed
his disappointed neighbor that he had
bought the book, and at the same
time handed it to him for inspection.
Sibley took it, and barely glancing at
the title page of the first pamphlet in
it, returned it with thanks ;
"Thank you (then to the auction-
eer) — five-eighths ! (then to Cash)
My customer wanted that first ser-
mon, no doubt (then to Ball) Yes ! —
quarter (then to Cash) I've got a
fresh uncut copy that I'll give hirn.
for the same money (then to Ball)
No — let him have it (then to
Cash) — much obliged to you all the
same."
The young man who had described
himself as "Cash" now proceeded
to give the volume a vicious wrench
open across his knee; took out his
knife and cut the twine strings at the
back ; then, turning the covers back
together, as cruel victors pinion their
captives' elbows close in behind them,
he passed the knifeblade behind a
smaller pamphlet bound out of sight,
as it were among the full sized octa-
vos that constituted the bulk of the
volume, so as to slit it out complete,
perhaps bringing with it a film of
the sheepskin of the back, held to the
pamphlet by the clinging dry old
paste. Then he again passed the
volume to his neighbor, observing
" There ; that's all I wanted ; I'm
going, and I shall leave the rest of
the volume any way; so I'll make
you a present of it."
" Well," said Sibley, rather startled
— " stay — however, if you say
so" —
And he laid the book in his lap,
for the young man had risen with
sudden quickness and was already out
of the room.
Scrope
The Lost Library.
11
CHAPTER II.
There is a small oblong upland
meadow, of an acre or thereabouts
in extent. It is enclosed by a high
but ruinous board fence, showing
signs of prehistoric paint, and its
line reels, as it were, every now
and then, sometimes outward and
sometimes inward, as if quite too
drunk to be steady, but still obstinate
in clinging to the general line of
duty ; a strange cincture for the ne-
glected grass land within, which
seems more likely to be shut in by
the traditionary post-and-rail or the
still more primitive " stake-and-rider "
of the farm. This area is uneven, as
if it had never since the removal of
the first forest growth been once well
levelled and cultivated ; humpy almost
as if irregularly set with old graves ;
all overgrown with meadow grass,
long and fine and thin, like ill kept
hair of one now growing old; and
looped and tangled here and there in
the hollows, in dry wisps and knots,
alon g with a scanty growth of brambles.
At distant points there are a few
trees. Two or three are ancient apple
trees, dry-barked, thin of leafage,
unhappy and starved in aspect.
There is one solitary Lombardy pop-
lar; an erect shaft, obstinately point-
ing upwards, though wizened and
almost bare, like an energetic old
fashioned maiden aunt, good, upright,
rigid and homely. The largest group
is a clump, or rather a dispersed
squad, of weeping willows ; unexpect-
ed occupants of such high and dry
and thirsty earth. Yet there they
stand, with the dried, scrawny, half-
bald look that pertains to the very
earth beneath them, and to every
thing that grows out of it ; their
long sad boughs trailing to the
ground, so nearly destitute even of
the scanty lanceolate foliage which
is- proper to them, as to repeat at a
little distance the idea of the grass
— that of long thin neglected hair.
In the middle of the space around
which these dreary trees stand like a
picket line, is that which they were
doubtless meant to adorn ; an old
comfortless-looking white wooden
house. It is not ruinous, but is
ill repaired and will be ruinous very
soon ; in a year or two more the
dingy white will verge into a dingy
brown ; warping clapboards will have
worked loose at one end, and the slop-
ing line of only two or three of them
will throw a disreputable shade over
the whole front ; some furious night-
blast will fling those loose bricks that
balance on the rim of the large old-
fashioned central chimney-shaft, down
with an ominous hollow bang, upon
the loosened shingles of the roof, and
thence to the ground : the shock will
dislodge the shingles and admit the
rain into the roomy old garret in
streams, instead of the slow strings
of drops that now make their quiet
way here and there in upon the floor.
When that point is reached, the de-
struction goes on more swiftly. Even
if small boys do not break many a
ready road through every old-fash-
ioned little window-pane, the leakage
through the roof itself will not require
many years to loosen the faithful old
plaster of the ceilings of the second
story rooms, to lay it in ruin upon
their floors, and to make its steady
way onward to the lower floor, by a
process not unlike that to which the
French were forced, in penetrating
the heroic city of Zaragoza.
Even to say where this desolate old
house and lot is not, would never sug-
gest where it is. Any one familiar
with New England will say, That
is like an old family homestead in
12
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
some ancient Connecticut or Massa-
chusetts town, where all the young
people have regularly moved away
every year for the last century, and
the old people have died, and the old
houses are dying too.
True ; it is like it. But the old
house and lot is not there. It is in
the heart of New York City — that is,
the ground is there, and the old house
too, unless it has heen pulled down,
which to be sure is likely enough. The
place however is on Hudson street, a
considerable distance above Canal, and
nearly or quite opposite an old church.
But the old church may be gone too,
by this time. At any rate, so it was
at the time of the auction ; and the
graded level of the four streets around
— for this lost-looking spot occupied
a whole block — contrasted stiffly with
the humps and hollows within. More
than one such piece of waste real es-
tate can be found in every great city.
Sometimes it is land unimproved,
sometimes it is covered with ruinous
shabby little hovels standing among
great business houses or rich man-
sions, sometimes it is a costly tene-
ment standing shut and empty 3'ear
after year. The reason is commonly,
either minority of heirs, a lingering
law-suit, or a capitalist's whim.
The parlor of this house was a com-
fortably furnished well-sized room of
no very particular appearance, with an
open grate and a bright coal fire, a
piano, tables, curtains, and " tackle,ap-
parel and furniture complete," as they
say in a ship's bill of sale. Something
there was however about the room,
rather to be felt than seen, and which
not every one could perceive at all.
This something, when recognized,
proved to be a feeling that somebody
lived in the room ; that it was used ;
was occupied ; was a home. It would
be difficult to say what gave this im-
pression. Perhaps it was that the
chairs did not all stand on the meri-
dian ; that the willow work-basket at
one side of the fireplace was a little
too far out in the room, as if put there
on purpose ; and that it overflowed
with the gracious little engineries and
materials of feminine domestic manu-
facture ; that a book lay carelessly
over the edge of the shelf, and several
others and some magazines and pa-
pers, in no order, on the table ; that a
curtain hung a little one side, as if
some one had looked out of the window
and had let the curtain fall, instead
of executing a precise re-adjustment
of it. The room and its contents
seemed as if in process of use ; not as
if under effort not to use them, nor as
if set apart for show, or for consecra-
tion. Some would say, no doubt, that
this feeling was from the impressions
or emanations or atmosphere — the
persisting color or flavor or tone, or
all together — that had been dispersed
about this room and printed upon its
whole bounds and contents, by those
who dwelt in it.
However this may be, something
of this kind there was. The room
was rather dusky than light however,
for the colors of wall-paper, carpet,
curtains, table-cover and furniture
alike were chiefly of rather sombre
and rusty reds and browns. A little
conservatory opened from one window,
which was cut down to the floor on
purpose. This was filled to overflow-
ing with strongly grown plants, most
of them of the ornamental-leaved soi-ts
that have become such favorites with-
in the last ten or fifteen years ; and
among these glowed the magnificent
blooms of some of the brightest and
largest flowered pelargoniums and
tuberous-rooted fuchsias. There was
a small fountain and basin with gold
fish, almost buried under their leafage ;
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
13
and above over it, hung from the roof
by scarlet cords,, a large brightly col-
ored shell, from which grew a grace-
ful feathery plume of green sprays.
Of ornaments or works of art, there
were but very few in this room. The
principal one was a large and broadly
executed steel engraving, whose white
"high lights" shone from its place
above the grate in violent contrast to
the sombre quiet of the rest of the
room. Its subject was simply horri-
ble — one of those powerful literal rep-
resentations of mere agony that peo-
ple seem to enjoy, with a vulgar bru-
tal appetite like that which draws a
crowd to see a public death. It was
called "The Dying Camel." The
field of the picture was filled with two
broad masses, sky and desert. Below,
stretched the flat thirsty stony sand,
lifeless, endless, bounded by its one
heavy horizon line, and glimmering
and trembling in the naked cruel still-
ness of the insufferable sunbeams that
filled the hot white sky above. Close
down in the middle of the foreground
was the huge dark ungainly mass of
the camel, prostrate, exhausted. His
dead master lay flat on his face crowd-
ed under the shade of the beast's flank,
his arms spread out at full length. An
empty water flask, just beyond the
dead fingers' ends, protruded a mock-
ing round vacant mouth at the spec-
tator. The miserable camel had just
strength enough left to lift its long
dry neck and grotesque muzzle into
the air, and the artist had imparted
to the savage hairy face a horrible
expression of despair, for the sunken
eyes watched the circlings of a wide-
winged vulture from moment to mo-
ment poising himself close above for
the first gripe of claw and stab of
beak ; and from the extreme distance
there came flying low over the sand,
with eager necks outstretched before
them a long line of other vultures,
already scenting their prey.
At the centre table of this room, on
the evening of the day of the book-
auction, sat an old man. He was
slender and almost frail ; tall, dressed
in black ; with long silvery curls, and
a bloodlessly white face, delicately
featured, and whose thoughtful spir-
itual intelligence was saddened by
some element of sorrow which might
be weakness or disappointment or
dissatisfaction or pain, — any or all
of them together. His forehead was
high, smooth, retreating and narrow ;
his attitude upright ; and the ease
and precision of his movements, and
the clearness and brightness of his
eyes, although they were sunken deep
under the long overgrown eyebrows,
showed that he had a good deal of
life still left in him. On the table
under a drop-light, confused with the
books and magazines, were writing
materials and a disorderly pile of
papers, among which he had been
working — or else, as they say in the
country — " puttering."
In a wadded arm-chair by the fire
sat a girl, easily enough recognized as
his daughter ; and the next observa-
tion likely to be made was, that old
as her father was, he would probably
outlive her. She was of middle
height, very delicately formed, but
with that roundness of modelling
which makes people look so much
lighter than they really are. Her
skin was singularly clear and thin
and almost as bloodlessly white as her
father's ; the blue veins here and there
showing indicated that the whiteness
was not that of opaque tissue, but of de-
ficient circulation and general condi-
tion. Her heavy black hair was coiled
carelessly at the back of her head, and
combed away from her forehead, and
from the small white ears, so as to
14
Scropc ; or, The Lost Library.
show the wavy line that limited the
growth of the hair along the temples,
and to display fulty the remarkable
width and fullness of the forehead.
This, indeed, was so marked that the
family likeness which was unmistaka-
ble upon the two faces of herself and
her father, existed there in spite of the
contradiction of the foreheads. Her
eyes were very large, of a limpid gray,
with long black lashes, and with deli-
cate clearly pencilled eyebrows whose
line was almost level for a little ways
outward from the nose, and then fell on
either hand in a more distinct curve.
The nose was fine but high,, with well
opened nostrils and thin, almost trans-
lucent tissues, like those of a blood
horse ; the mouth neither small nor
large, the lips rather full than thin,
and as well as the chin, beautifully
modelled, with that statuesque empha-
sis and distinctness of cut whose ab-
sence is one of the defects of the ge-
neric American face — if such gener-
ic face there be. But these lips were
much too pale for beauty of color;
and they were extremely sensitive ;
so much so as to suggest some exces-
sively wild and timid creature of the
woods rather than a human being.
And yet this vivid sensitiveness of the
lips was contradicted by the serious
thoughtful fearlessness of the eyes.
The character of ill health so clearly
intimated by the dead whiteness
of the complexion and the paleness of
the lips was greatly strengthened by
the dark shades under the eyes, and
by an undefinable but unmistakable
languor of attitude, movement and
of voice. Like her father, she was
dressed in black ; a heavy rich black
silk, cut high in the neck, but with a
small square space in front after the
pretty fashion called a la Pompadour,
A narrow border of lace at the neck,
and lace cuffs to match, were the only
approach to ornament in the whole
costume. There was no ribbon, no
bow, no ear-drops, no necklace, no
bracelet, no buckle, no brooch, not
even a ring. The young girl's sin-
gularly elegant figure, the extreme
quietness and even impassiveness of
her perfectly composed and refined
manner, were in some way intensified
and set off by this rigid elderly plain-
ness and richness of costume, which,
as the French would say, swore furi-
ously at her youth. Thus the whole
effect was a contradiction, so harsh,
so violent, as to suggest at first the
hateful idea of an obtruded modesty.
This however quickly gave way, on a
little observation, to the correct con-
clusion, that it was an incongruity
only. But there was another effect,
which the whole personality of the
girl produced ; it was, if one might
say so, that there radiated from her,
or slowly gathered about her wherever
she was, not the light and life that
should glow from the young, but an
atmosphere — or influence — that was
dark, and dreary, if not cold ; perhaps
not dead, but lifeless, — is there
not a shade of difference ? Lastly :
perhaps the strongest — certainly the
most obvious mark of family resem-
blance was a habit of eye common to
her and her father. With noticeable
frequency their upper eyelids came
down so as to veil half the iris, and
delayed there. All that this indicat-
ed was, reflection, or some other men-
tal effort. Clowns, for the purpose,
scratch their heads; philosophers —
and people with headaches — rest
their foreheads in their hands.
A third personage sat on a sofa at
the hither side of the fire — i.e. to
your right hand as you came from the
door towards the fire — opposite the
young girl, so that the three were at
the angles of a triangle ; and as if the
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
15
two had been chatting across the
hearth while her father was busy
among his papers. This third was
a young man ; rather tall, well made,
with a noticeable quickness and liveli-
ness of manner and movement. He
was somewhat fair, with merry brown
eyes, good white teeth, full lips, a nose
decidedly well shaped except that it
was too broad and round at the end,
and too thick in the wings of the
nostrils, as if the maker being in some
haste, had carelessly left some surplus
material there. Otherwise, the face
was perhaps at first sight rather dull
than bright; not nearly so sprightly
as the expression of the eye and the
bearing of the whole figure.
A peculiar look, which might almost
be called grotesque, was given to the
face, undeniably well-featured as it
was, by the management of the hair
and beard. The abundant crisp curls
of the hair were cut at about two and
a half inches in length and trained on
a radiating, or what the pomologists
call the fan, system. Tins gave the
hair seen in profile the look of a hrest,
covering the top of the bead and jut-
ting in an enterprising manner for-
ward and upward from the upper line
of the forehead. The front view was
much more glorious ; for it showed a
thick frizzled halo standing out within
an almost circular outline about the
upper part of tbe long oval of the face,
like the solid aureoles on ancient pic-
tures of saints ; or as if be dressed bis
hair by giving himself an awful fright
every morning. The eyebrows were
rather lifted, giving a funny sort of
wide-awake look, which the young
gentleman was accustomed to veil in
6ome manner, if it might be, with a
double eye-glass. Truly, nature hav-
ing exhausted herself in this magni-
ficent hairy crown of glory, bad come
short in the matter of beard j for the
chin of our friend was sparingly gar-
nished with hair, that grew in a little
thin brush or pencil, spreading out-
ward at the ends, like the pictures of
the growth of the bamboo. A like
starved growth, as if a few hairs had
been cruelly deserted upon some barren
shore, struggled stiffly for existence
upon his upper lip ; and some dim
prophetic glimpses of the whiskers
of the future could be' seen by the eye
of faith, between ears and chin.
The ill-made gray suit, and the
clumsy thick shoes indicated that he
was an Englishman ; and if this was
not' enough, there was a perceptible
awkwardness of attitude and of man-
ner also, such as is often seen among
Englishmen even of the best social
training and experience, but which
in an American would be proof posi-
tive of want of such experience. Last
and most of all, the cockney shib-
boleth of his speech ever and anon be-
wrayed him, in spite of the sedulous
watchfulness with which he tried to
talk good English — a language which
exists — orally — only west of tbe At-
lantic. In England there are corrupt
dialects of it only; — 1. cockney, and
2. provincial.
CHAPTER III.
" So " — said tbe old man, smiling
indulgently as he spoke, to the
younger one, — " so, cousin Scrope,
you think one needs a good deal here
below, and for a good while ? "
" I do so. — I do indeed," replied
the young fellow : — "Now, I should
say, an ouse here in the city, — ■
yacht, of course, — place at Newport
— ah, sweet place Newport, such soft
hair, you know! — countwy seat on
the Udson — say near Tawwytown —
w T as up there yesterday — lovely coun-
twy, I ashuah you. Went up there
with Button — singular name that,
16
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
Mr. Van Bwaam — Button, button,
who's got the button ? "
" Oh, I don't know," returned the
old gentleman, (not meaning any am-
biguity), — " Monsieur Bouton would
seem quite fine, wouldn't it ? By the
way, I wonder why there has been
no Mr. Scissors ? But how do you
like Button's first name ? "
"Weally, I don't know it. T
Button Esq., it said — Do you know,
now, you ave a monstwous many
hesquires in Hamewica ? "
" Oh, he might call himself Baron
Button of Buttonhole, and sign all
instruments, and sue and be sued by
that name, if he chose. And he
might have any coat of arms he
might fancy, — a coat' all over gilt
"buttons, if he liked — on his seal,
and on his carriage too, without being
annoyed by the proud minions of the
College of Heralds. He may tattoo
himself and all his house — and
grounds — all over, with any insignia
he chooses, for that matter. This is
a free country, cousin Scrope ! "
There was something satirical in
the old man's manner, as if he were
half laughing at both Americans and
English. .He went on however :
" Tarbox Button, his name is ;
' most musical, most melancholy ! ' "
"Most musical, most jolly, I should
say," answered the young man.. " But
I can't imagine were e got that name,
do you know ? Hit's certainly not in
my copy of the Squope and Gwosvenor
Woll. Bwummagem name I should
fancy, Button, at any rate."
"Father," said the young girl,
with a shade of grave motherliness
and mild reproof in her manner —
her mother was dead, and she was
both mother and daughter to the old
man — " Father, you mustn't be bad,
now, and make fun of Mr. Button.
He has been too kind to us for that.
What would you have to do, and
where should we find so good a home
to live in, and where should we visit
at all, if it were not for him ? "
The voice was very sweet, and was
low and clear like her father's ; but
in place of the slight but perceptible
sharpness of intonation which re-
curred every now and then in his
speech, when his sub-acid humor
tinged it, hers had a striking liquid
fulness like the lowest notes of a full-
throated singing-bird. But it was
neither sad nor glad ; it had a certain
indifferent or dreamy quality, almost
as if the speech were that of a som-
nambulist ; or perhaps it was an in-
tonation of weariness.
"No harm, Civille," said Mr. Van
Braam ; " I was observing upon his
name, not upon him."
"Yewy well off is Mr. Button, I
should say ? " queried Scrope.
" Yes," answered the old man.
" Here's this vacant piece of ground
that this old house stands on, — why,
it must be worth a quarter of a mil-
lion dollars, and he finds it conve-
nient to hold it unimproved and pay
our New York taxes on it, until he
has time to speculate with it in some
way. Meanwhile Civille and I occupy
one of the most valuable estates in the
city," added the old man, laughing.
" Do you know, now," pursued
Scrope, "I never should ave taken
Button for one of the family if Fd
met im by accident say in Gween-
land ? E asn't the stjde, at all."
" Why," said the old gentleman,
"I've often thought of it myself.
But he had a pretty hard time when
he was a boy, like a good many other
rich people, and he has made his own
way, without any leisure to finish
and polish himself. Besides there's
a poor strain of blood in that branch
of the family ; those Gookins that his
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
17
mother, old Mrs. Button came from
were distillers and hard*. cases from
generation to generation, by the town
records ; — rough, violent people, — a
kind of natural-born pirates. And
his wife's family, although they were
decent enough, were narrow and
small-minded, somehow. The fact is,
that unless you take Button's execu-
tive ability as showing Scrope blood,
there's only the record to prove that
he has it. I don't know any of the
rest of them that have so few of the
family traits. And perhaps, as we
are three Scropes here together, we
may take Civille's and my Van Braam
blood into our confidence and mention
in strict secrecy that cousin Button's
immense bragging about his Scrope
blood is as near an absolute proof
that lie hasn't a drop of it, as any
one thing could be. All the rest of
us like to have it very well, but no
other of us would advertise it so ex-
tensively."
" Now I should ave fancied," said
Mr. Scrope, after having listened
to all this with evident and close in-
terest, " that Mr. Button's political
hambition was more unnatuwal in
one of our connection than is boast-
ing."
"Very justly observed," answered
Mr. Van Braam. " A good many of
us have refused offices, and I know
none of us except my cousin Button
who wants them. But so it is : Mr.
Button is proud of his descent, and he
is terribly fond of being talked about,
of having influence and of holding
offices. I fancy he likes all that best
of all, moreover, because it is such a
capital advertisement of his books.
And he is so energetic and shrewd in
managing, that, you may say, he
ought to have influence and office,
particularly as he is reckoned perfect-
ly honest. 'The tools to him that
can use them.' And he is very gen-
erous with his money where these
two interests of his are concerned,
and very sharp and close with it
everywhere else. There, cousin
Scrope — that is a pretty complete
account of Mr. Button. It has only
to be filled out with his minor traits ;
and those you can see for yourself."
" A vewy good man to ave on your
side I should say," observed Mr.
Scrope, smiling. " Indeed, he's given
me some vewy good advice halweady
about horganizingthe Squope Associ-
ation. He knows exactly ow to man-
age people — exactly. E put me up
to hall the dodges about the news-
papers, and about cowwespondence,
and influence and intwoductions.
Do ye know, now, hi fancy I shouldn't
ave been able to awange this matter
at all without im."
Mr. Van Braam smiled and nodded,
as much as to say, The most likely
thing in the world. Scrope resumed ;
" This other cousin now, Chester —
your cowespondent about the gene-
alogy, — e's hanother sort of person,
I imagine ? "
" Why, yes," answered Mr. Van
Braam. " He hasn't any money —
that is, nothing except the little old
place at Hartford where he and his
great-aunt live together, and the in-
come he earns. But an assistant-
librarian doesn't have a very large
salary, and I don't suppose his other
revenues enable him to do much more
than live comfortably. I guess Adrian
is a pretty clear case of Scrope, though.
He doesn't care much for money, he
is fond of principles, he isn't afraid,
he goes his own road, he has managed,
by the help of a capital set of instincts
of his own, to make himself a well-
educated and accomplished young
gentleman, he loves all manner of
right thought and sound study, he is
18
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
fond of fun, lie is sweet-tempered, he
likes pets .and children, and old peo-
ple, and they like him ; and he likes
to do things for others."
" Beg pardon," said Scrope of
Scrope, " but if hit's a fair question,
ow did e get hout of eaven ? "
All three of the company laughed,
and it was the young lady who an-
swered this time : " The sons of God
saw the daughters of men, that they
were fair," she quoted. "It must
have been my cousin Ann Button, for
whom Adrian came down to us."
" Oh," said Scrope ; " then if e
mawies her e won't need to twouble
himself about money."
" Very true " replied Miss Civille ;
" and yet it would be a great mistake
to suppose that Adrian wanted her
money. I knew all about their en-
gagement. Ann was never very much
of a favorite with anybody in those
days — I don't know that she is very
much liked now. But then, she used
to be really neglected and lonesome
and miserable. Adrian just devoted
himself to her because nobody else
would ; out of pure kindness ; and so
they fell in love."
Mr. Scrope bowed an acquiescence,
but with a queer look, which Civille
understood perfectly, and answered ;
" Oh, you needn't think it — that
was two or three years ago, when we
were all younger and didn't think
so much of money. Besides, Mr.
Button was not nearly so rich then.
It was afterwards that he made so
much."
" Oh," replied Scrope ; — " That
does seem like it. But I don't sup-
pose the money will make him like
her any the less."
" I don't know about that," said
Civille reverting to her dreamy man-
ner, and looking out from great half
covered gray eyes as if she was watch-
ing something beyond the walls of
the room — "I don't know about that.
If I know cousin Adrian, it's the like-
liest reason in the world to repel him."
"I shouldn't wonder," observed the
old man ; — "it would be Scrope all
over."
" If you'll allow me," said Scrope,
" I'd like to suggest that that would
be more suitable to the hold spelling
than the new. S, c, ah, o, o, p, they
used to spell it — Squoop, not Squope.
Now old Colonel Adwian the wegicide
was so vewy particular that I say his
name gave wise to the vewy term
Squooples. He was full of 'em. And
if my Yankee cousin is so squoopulous,
I don't know hut I shall advise him
to take the old-fashioned name again,
and leave off the Chester entirely."
" I dare say he would like to do so,"
observed Mr. Van Braam. " I want
you to see him to-night, however, if
possible, so that you and he may
know one another a little before the
Association meeting. It may be of
service to both. And my old-fash-
ioned ways," added the old gentle-
man with a good-natured smile,
" make me desirous that all those of
our kin should know each other. — It's
high time he was here, too."
" I can't honestly say I shall miss
im," said Scrope, with a gallant look
towards the young lady, " if e does
not come. No man could be quite
appy to see another hadmiwer in Miss
Van Bwaam's pwesence ; and I know
no man can see er without being er
hadmiwer."
At this not very elegant compliment
one might have seen Mr. Van Braam's
eyebrows give a curious lift, and he
just glanced at the young man, but
without moving what Mr. Scrope
would call his ed. As for the young
lady herself, she answered in her in-
different voice :
Scrope ; or. The Lost Library.
19
"Oh, thank you very much, Mr.
Scrope, I'm sure. But your Yankee
cousin will not be in your way. He
is engaged already, as we were saying.
Indeed, we here are not at all in soci-
ety; you will be free of rivals, both
with my father and myself."
" There, cousin Scrope," said the
old man, " That's as much as to say
that you may marry us both if you
can get us ! "
The young Englishman looked
rather uneasy; even fewer English-
men are good at taking jokes, good or
bad, than at making them ; and he
answered quite at random, but as it
happened quite well enough for such
talk —
" Vewy appy, I'm sure ! "
The perfect coolness and speed with
which the two Americans carried for-
ward his hint to such remote conse-
quences had terrified him; for he
could not be sure whether they spoke
in irony or not, their manner was so
entirely grave and impassive.
Mr. Van Braam laughed quietly,
the daughter just smiled, while the
old gentleman remarked,
"Not badly answered, cousin
Scrope; but don't be alarmed ; we nei-
ther of us propose matrimony at pres-
ent."
The young man was silent for an
awkward moment ; when there was a
ring at the door, a card was handed to
Mr. Van Braam, who said " Show the
gentleman in," and the absent kins-
man entered. It was our young
friend Mr. " Cash," of the auction
room. As he came in, Mr. Van Braam
rose and stepped forward to receive
him, with hearty cordiality. Miss
Civille and Mr. Scrope arose, as the
old gentleman, leading the new comer
toward the fire, presented him :
" I want you to be at home here at
once, cousin Adrian." he said. " Ci-
ville, you knew your cousin better two
or three years ago than now, but I
hope you'll make up for lost time.
Cousin Scrope, I know you and Mr.
Chester will be friends, for you are
kinsmen, and you have interests in
common besides at present, in this
estate and association business."
Mr. Adrian Scrope Chester had
enough of general resemblance to Mr.
Van Braam and his daughter, and in-
deed to his five or six times removed
English cousin, to pass very well for
a co-descendant. That is ; he was
tall, erect, well- formed, quick and easy
in movement, and of an intelligent
and comely countenance. His brown
hair, instead of the cometary horrors
of Mr. Scrope's, was brushed in a con-
ventional manner, and curled in large
soft curls instead of persisting in the
frizzle of the Englishman, and his
beard and mustache were thick and
fine. His eyes were of a clear dark
blue, his lips at once full and sensi-
tive, all his features delicate and yet
not small ; and whereas Mr. Scrope's
bearing and presence gave an impres-
sion of good-nature, quickness, levity,
fun, Chester's spoke of thorough kind-
ness, instead of mere good nature ;
of penetration, of insight, instead of
quickness; of sense and directness and
strength rather than levity ; of gen-
eral intellectual activity, rather than
of mirth only. Comparatively speak-
ing, the American seemed to possess
large good qualities, of which the
Englishman had only somewhat small
imitations. And yet the English are
very often what people sometimes call
"singed cats — better than they
look."
The young people tried to do justice
to Mr. Van Braam's favorable intro-
duction : but Miss Civille's manner
was chilling enough, although she did
not mean it to be, and indeed in spite
20
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
of her intentions ; so that Chester,
barely touching her hand, which was
cold and limp, said to himself, How-
did she come to dislike me ? Mr.
Scrope did rather better. He may
possibly, in spite of the mild caustic
that had just been applied to his dem-
onstrations of jealousy, have felt some
slight objection to the second young
man in that company, or it may have
been his ordinary awkwardness only
that was upon him. However, he
made his bow, shook hands, expressed
his pleasure, and crowned the opera-
tion by taking from his pocket a card
which he ceremoniously presented to
Mr. Chester. Mr. Chester received it
with thanks, delivered his own in
exchange, as seemed to be expected,
and then took time to peruse the
legend upon that of Mr. Scrope. The
phrase is correct — he took time. The
card, a long one, like those sometimes
sent on wedding occasions, contained
the following composition :
*
BRABAZOX AYMAR DE VERE SCROPE
OF SCROPE.
And at the point where an asterisk
is put, there was moreover a most
noble-looking coronet, printed in the
three primary colors, very impressive
to behold.
" I am sorry my daughter was
absent at your recent visits to New
York,'' said Mr. Van Braam, when
the four had seated themselves.
'• You and I agree on so many points
that I shall be glad to see you and
her contending over them. She is
always refuting her father."
But the kind smile and pleasant
tone and half-mischievous expression
with which the words were said gave
them a second meaning directly op-
posite to their grammatical one.
"I am afraid of controversies with
ladies," said the new comer. " They
receive things by intuition, instead
of groping to them by feeling along
chains of reasoning. Beasoning will
not induce a woman to agree with
you; reasoning with women is 'like
hunting wild ducks with a brass band.
It scares them. I should never hope
to convince a woman except by mak-
ing her like me and then unintention-
ally on purpose letting her see what
I thought."
••What treason!" exclaimed Miss
Civille, this time with a sufficiently
perceptible tone of interest.
" There you go ! " exclaimed her
father, amused. — " Thirlestane for-
ever ! "
"Thirlestane?" queried Mr. Scrope.
" How Thirlestane ? "
- Why/' resumed the old gentle-
man : "don't you remember their
motto ? It's in the Lay of the Last
Minstrel. ' Beady, aye, ready ! ' "
Civille will always answer the trum-
pet call wdien it sounds for battle over
Women's Bights ! "
"Xow father," she remonstrated;
" are you going to quote every min-
ute ? How can I entertain the gen-
tleman, particularly if you wish me to
fight with Mr. Chester, if you open
your broadside upon me too, like that
miserable Frenchman against John
Baul Jones in the Bonhomme Rich-
ard ? "
"Well, well, my child — I'm dumb
— vox fauribus hcesitf "
•'• But permit me to explaii;." -
Chester, with some anxiety: "I had
no treason in my soul. I do not
mean that men have no intuitions,
nor that women have no reason ; but
only that as between the two. women
have most of one, and men of the oth-
er. It is just as it is with another
couple of faculties — or sets of faculties ;
I mean executive power and what peo-
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
21
pie call goodness. I believe men have
most of the former, and I believe wo-
men are better than men ; I believe
God put them into the world on pur-
pose to be better than men ; I do not
believe that either of them is destitute
of either faculty."
" I don't believe one single word of
it," said Miss Civille, with a resolute
tone. "If women are inferior to men
in any particular or superior to them
either, it's because they have been ed-
ucated into going without their rights,
and it's a great shame ! "
" Well," rejoined Mr. Chester, pa-
cifically ; " Miss Van Braam will par-
don me, I am sure, if I venture to act
as if I were talking with a man in one
particular ? "
"I don't know about that," said
the young lady, almost alertly — she
had plenty of spirit, it would appear,
under that cold and languid manner,
and the debate appeared not to be at
all unwelcome ; " what is it ? "
" Why, only that really and truly,
I do detest arguing and I tell you
plainly, and say I'd rather not. I
get so angry — or if I don't, I want to,
— when I undertake to argue. But
there's another reason for my begging
off just now" — he looked at the two
gentlemen — " I'll let you tread me
into the very dust next time, but there
are some things that we ought to talk
about."
As they all agreed that the apology
was real, Miss Civille was graciously
pleased to accept it.
"First," said Mr. Van Braam,
"when did you come to town ? I got
your note only this afternoon."
" Yesterday, sir," said Chester. " I
should have called last evening, only
that I was too tired, and to tell you
the honest truth I went to bed and
slept all night long."
" The wisest thing you could do.
Next, let us arrange about the Asso-
ciation meeting."
This meeting, however, as quickly
appeared, was set for that day week ;
Scrope, moreover, in reply to their in-
quiries, showed them that under the ex-
perienced guidance of Mr. Button, all
things had been put in such readiness
that it only remained for the persons
concerned to render themselves at the
time and place appointed. Both Mr,
Van Braam and Mr. Chester congrat-
ulated Mr. Scrope upon the thorough
manner in which all these prelimina-
ries had been adjusted, when there
was once more a ringing at the
door-bell, and once more a card was
brought to the master of the house,
who took it and read it, saddling his
eyeglasses with an experienced little
jiggle on the bridge of his nose, and
looked puzzled. Then he read it
again, very carefully, half shutting
his eyes, cocking his head backwards,
and focusing the object with a kind
of trombone motion. Then his head
dropped, and he looked around him
like one who has received an unex-
pected affusion of cold water.
" Why," he said, rather to himself
than to any one else — " what " —
and he stopped, and said to the ser-
vant, with something of displeasure
in his manner,
"Ask him to walk in."
Returning in a moment, the servant
reported that the gentleman had only
a word to say to Mr. Van Braam, and
would trouble him but for a very lit-
tle.
Still with the same wondering and
half displeased look, the old gentle-
man arose and went out into the hall,
leaving the door open. Listening,
the three others heard some indistinct
murmur of voices only. Then in a
few minutes Mr. Van Braam said,
speaking from the hall,
22
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
"Never mind me for a little while,
young people ! " and lie shut the door.
Evidently the business was to take
rather more time than he had sup-
posed.
CHAPTER IV.
Chester, when the door had closed,
proceeded to make some further inquir-
ies about the Scrope Association and
its operations. All these were readi-
ly answered, becoming quite a debate
on ways and means, and greatly en-
lightening the querist. The Associa-
tion, it appeared, consisted, or was to
consist, of the descendants of Adrian
Scrope, son and heir of Colonel Adrian
Scrope the Regicide, executed at Ty-
burn on the 9th or as others say the
17th October, 1660. To these de-
scendants, it appeared, there now of
right belonged a certain large sum of
money representing property which
had devolved to Adrian Scrope the
younger after his flight to New Eng-
land, and which still remained so sit-
uated that the heirs could certainly
recover it upon making proof of their
descent. Scrope of Scrope, being
himself a descendant not of the regi-
cide Colonel, but of a younger brother,
could not inherit while there were di-
rect heirs ; but being fond of genea-
logical investigations he had come to
a knowledge of the facts in this case.
He avowed very frankly that he de-
sired to make a profit by means of the
affair, but he said that he was also
partly actuated by the equally lauda-
ble motives of family pride and family
liking. It was from these causes
that he had come to America with the
design of searching out the Scrope
heirs, forming them into an Associa-
tion, becoming their agent, obtaining
from them the necessary funds, proving
their claim, and receiving as compen-
sation a proper percentage, to be al-
lowed him when the heirs should be
actually in receipt of their respective
inheritances. This arrangement, of
course, effectually prevented any mal-
versation by the agent. In the pros-
ecution of this undertaking, Scrope
had first fortified himself with letters
and documents, and had then come to
the United States, where he had for
some time been investigating, adver-
tising and corresponding ; and with
much labor had advanced so far as to
appoint the meeting referred to, in
New York, one week from date, of a
number of the American heirs.
Miss Civille Van Braam took little
part in this discussion between the
two young men, listening only, and
even this was with the air of pre-occu-
pation or fatigue or almost melan-
choly which was habitual to her. So,
when all at once business matters
having been sufficiently debated,
Scrope of Scrope suddenly turned to
her and asked for some music, she
started almost as if from sleep.
"Oh! Excuse me! — What was
it ? — I beg your pardon ! "
The request was repeated, and with
an apology for her inattention, the
young lady very readily went to the
piano, and selecting some music, play-
ed, and then sang, with good judg-
ement and good execution, both instru-
mental and vocal, but without much
emotion. The music she chose, appar-
ently, was a graceful melody with lu-
cidly arranged accompaniment, rather
than crowded harmonies or techni-
cal difficulties ; it was sufficiently good
music, and at the same time simple
enough for mixed society : safe music
to play anywhere. There was a cer-
tain ease and truth of expression in
her fingering and vocalizing however,
which seemed to intimate the capaci-
ty of doing much morej and the pe-
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
23
culiar vibrating fulness of her voice
gave the impression of large passion-
ate vehemence existing, though it
might be asleep and unconscious of
itself.
Having ended, she smilingly asked
Mr. Scrope to take his turn, and he
very readily complied. He sang one
or two English ballads in a clear, not
very expressive barytone or rather
counter-tenor, and he sang without
any embarrassment, sitting quietly on
the sofa, simply explaining before he
began that he knew no instrument.
This style of singing is not very com-
mon in America, but it might well
be ; it requires, and gives, a sort of
self-reliance of ear and a peculiar
completeness of style, exacted by the
absence of accompaniment. The per-
formance, indeed, was much better
than any one would have argued
from the exterior and general bearing
of Scrope of Scrope ; and he was ap-
plauded accordingly.
Next came Chester, externally
much more easy in manner than
Scrope, but in reality very much
more shy. He would gladly have de-
clined, but with some little effort he
came up to the mark like a man, with
the allowable apology that he could
neither sing without an instrument
like Mr. Scrope nor play like Miss
Van Braam, and should therefore give
them two inferior kinds of music to-
gether. So he went to the piano, and
sang a little ballad of William Ailing-
ham's, whose words and music are suf-
ficiently a specimen of that evening's
performance to be worth reprodu-
cing.
THE CHILD'S THREE WISHES.
££
— g-~ #■
ting! I wish I were a primrose ! A
bright yellow primrose,
*
d:
3—
±=±=z:
:^=±
m^s
=*=E±Z3t
ad lib.
szs
-0 O «v
blooming in the spring! The fleeting clouds above me, The little birds to love me, The
5=3=3
— <SI-
P%j =M=#S
-0-
-tA-
24
Hcrope; or, The Lost Library.
^SSHee^
fern and moss to creep a-cross, And the elm-tree for our kino.'
n=-t-
§fe:
--t=±
^$E^
01
Oh, no ! I wish I were an elm-tree ! —
A great royal elm-tree, with green leaves gay:
The wind would set them dancing ;
The sun and moonbeams glance in ;
And birds would house among the boughs,
And sweetly sing.
Nay, stay ; I wish I were a robin ! —
A robin or a little wren, everywhere to go, —
Through forest, field, or garden.,
And ask no leave nor pardon,
Till winter comes with icy thumbs
To ruffle up our wing.
Well, tell, whither would you fly to ?
Where would you rest, — in forest or in dell ?
Before a day is over,
Home would come the rover
For mother's kiss, — for sweeter this
Than any other thing.
Chester was no player, and the air
was nothing; but he sang the pretty
little ballad, accompanying it by a
few chords, with so much truth of
intonation, with so much expression,
and his voice, not noticeable except
for clearness and sweetness, conveyed
so much of intelligent sympathetic
feeling, that his rendering was more
effective than a great deal of the
" best " singing, and he was reward-
ed with genuine praises. Miss Van
Braam's were not very enthusiastic,
and yet they conveyed an impression
of restrained feeling which meant
much ; and Scrope's, somewhat over-
eager and voluble as they were, still
had sincerity enough in them to
nmke them agreeable. They pressed
him for another song, but he excused
himself, saying, as indeed his flushed
face, quick movements, and the evi-
dent tension of his nerves plainly
enough showed, that he was easily ex-
cited by music, and adding that being
unpractised, his fingers and his voice
in such case quickly became uncertain.
Nobody would have suspected the
tall erect broad-shouldered fellow of
being excitable. But he was, and the
more so in proportion to the remote-
ness and spirituality of the exciting
cause ; that is, more (for instance) by
music than he would have been by
gambling or by a quarrel.
The conversation, which was now
resumed, became lively, Scrope and
Chester exchanging puns, jokes and
nonsense, and Chester and Miss Van
Braam finding that they had preserved
in common many reminiscences of
their previous acquaintance ; so that
the young lady after a time, bethink-
ing her of her cool greeting, was a lit-
tle pained in conscience thereat, and
very prettily apologized :
" My health is poor this last year
or two, since we came to live here,
and my head aches a good deal of the
time, cousin Adrian," she said ; " I
very often hardly know whether I am
alive. I am having a severe attack
to-night, and if I was rude to you at
first, you will not misunderstand it,
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
25
will you? I could hardly see or
stand."
Chester hastened to make the prop-
er answer ; and Scrope hastened fur-
ther to offer a remedy.
" Praps you'd allow me to cure
your edache," he obligingly suggest-
ed. " I've only to lay my two ands
on top of your ed for a few min-
utes."
Miss Van Braam hesitated a mo-
ment. But she reflected, how absurd
is that conventional idea that the
touch of one human being differs from
that of another ! And again, she said
to herself, why should it be any worse
than waltzing — or as bad, for that
matter ? Still, she did not so much
welcome the experiment as force her-
self to acquiesce by reason ; and her
manner was a little cold — as often
the case with shy and sensitive peo-
ple — as she replied that she would
be greatly obliged to Mr. Scrope if
he liked to take so much trouble.
That gentleman however, assuring
her that it was no trouble but a privi-
lege ("I should think it was," said
Chester to himself contrasting the
features and bearing of the English-
man with the pale and spiritual face
of the young girl), jumped up, and,
stepping briskly to the back of her
chair, laid his two hands up3n the top
of her head.
There was silence for a moment
or two. Then Civille, who had been
leaning in a tired way against the
back of her great stuffed chair, sud-
denly raised herself, at the same time
shaking her head violently, so as to
free it from the touch of Mr Scrope's
hands, which indeed were almost
tossed away in the vivacity of the
rejecting movement.
" Oh ! I can't ! you'll kill me ! "she
exclaimed. Scrope of Scrope looked
excessively displeased, but managed to
say he was "vewy sowy, I'm sure!"
and returned to his seat.
Civille suddenly threw her two
hands up to her temples, uttering a
low cry of intense pain, and resumed
her leaning attitude, her head thrown
far back.
" Oh ! " she repeated, as if quite
unable to repress the voice of physical
anguish.
To persons of sympathetic temper-
ament, and whose kindness is a genu-
ine instinct, perhaps no emotion is so
piercingly painful as to recognize the
suffering of another. Both Scrope and
Chester had much of this feeling, but
Scrope's was a sense of his own per-
sonal discomfort and a good-natured
readiness to help. Chester, however,
at once strong and sensitive, possessed
a share very unusual for a man of
those spiritual endowments which are
so little understood, and which are
commonly termed intuitions. At the
sight of the young girl's pain, he felt
it, with a pang like a knife-thrust ; he
turned pale ; his eyes filled with tears ;
and in his inexpressible longing to free
her from it, without any distinct pur-
pose or in fact consciousness, his left
hand, which was nearest her, was held
out towards her. With a quickness
like the spring of an electric spark, she
seized it and held it tight across her
forehead. Her slender fingers closed
upon it like iron, yet with a quiver
that revealed a frightful nervous ten-
sion.
"Both hands will be better, cousin
Civille, " said Chester, after a moment's
silence, and rising, he moved to the
position that Scrope had occupied,
shifting his left hand along upon her
forehead, and placing his right hand
next it, so that the fingers' ends met
above her eyes, the two hands forming
as it were a band around the whole
26
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
eyes closed, making no answer, except
a sigh.
CHAPTER V.
Old Mr. Van Braam found stand-
ing in his hall a monstrous fat vulgar
oily looking red-haired man with a
vast face, of which a terrible over-
proportion had gravitated into an
elaborate apparatus of double chins.
The old gentleman, a squeamish and
delicate person, was about as much
pleased as if he had been visited by
a bone-boiling establishment; but
he put on as good a face as possible,
and said, as civilly as he could,
" Did you wish to see me, sir ? '*'
" Yes sir," promptly answered this
whale of a man, speaking in a thick
wheezy gobbling voice, as if his lar-
ynx operated from under a pile of
half melted scrap tallow, and puffing
as he spoke. " Sorry to trouble you,
sir, but it is necessary." And
turning forwards the lapel of his
coat he showed beneath it the
broad silver badge of the Detective
Service. At this corroboration of
the professional name on the visitor's
card, the old gentleman was more
annoyed and mystified than before.
The detective's broad impassive coun-
tenance did not change, and his head
remained motionless; hut his small
dull grayish eyes just turned from
Mr. Van Braam's puzzled face to the
end of the hall and back.
" Haven't you some little side room
where we could be quite alone for a
few moments ? " he asked.
Mr. Van Braam, without saying a
word, showed the way into a small
waiting-room, lit the gas, and handed
his visitor a seat. He waddled over
to a sofa, however, saying as he did so,
in his fat wheezing way,
'•Thank ye; but I take sofys gin-
rally when I can git um. Chairs ain't
much 'count for a man o' my build,
anyway."
The discomfort of the old gentle-
man arose to an extreme, as he sat
waiting for this vast greasy man to
reveal whatever horror there might be.
But his conjectures were most wild.
His own accounts and papers — he was,
through the influence of Mr. Tarbox
Button, Secretary of the Splosh Fire
Insurance Company — he knew were
correct. But had some defalcation
been discovered in the office ? Had
either of his' two servant-girls been
caught in any evil-doing? Had his
solitary old dwelling been marked
down by burglars, and was he to be
prepared for their coming ? He strove
in vain to imagine what the mystery
might be. In a thousand years, how-
ever, strive as he might, the poor old
gentleman would never have dreamed
of what would be implied in the very
first words of the vast fat man. who
after divers signs of reluctance, broke
out, with a clumsy abruptness where
he had meant to begin from afar off —
" Is your daughter's health good? "
Mr. Van Braam started, and looked
at the detective with a blank as-
tounded face, whiter, if possible, than
usual; his mouth open, without a
word. The officer instantly saw that
the old man, far more sensitive than
he had imagined, had received one of
those shocks which for the moment
annihilate all consciousness. Dis-
comfited, he could only wait. In a
few minutes, his host had somewhat
recovered. The detective, rough po-
lice officer as he was, was no brute,
and he instantly decided upon what
he saw was the only possible method
with such nervous subjects ; for, he
reflected, if the old gentleman is this
way, what must the young lady be ?
It was very important, he also remem-
bered that he had been told at head-
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library..
27
quarters in Mulberry Street, on ac-
count of the very great respectability
of the parties interested, that no more
annoyance should be caused to any
one, than was absolutely unavoidable,
and that every thing should be man-
aged in the most quiet possible manner.
"I'll take the line of not believing a
word of it," said the officer to himself,
"and of acting on their side entirely."
Accordingly, when he saw that the
old man was in a situation to hear
what was said to him, he began
again :
"Ther ain't no casion to be troubled,
Mr. Van Braam. No charges is made,
and ther ain't no reason why ther
should be. Fact is, I spose I might
jest as well a sent the doctor as come
myself."
" I'm not very strong," interrupted
the old man, faintly, but gaining a
desperate angry courage as he went
on, "and she's my only child. I can't
stand this long. For God Almigh-
ty's sake do be quick. Out with it.
Why the devil don't you tell me what's
the matter without toasting me in
hell like that for an hour ? "
" You're right, sir," said the man,
without showing any ill humor — and
indeed why should he ? — "I will.
Certain parties has intimated that
Miss Van Braam, bein delicate, and
a little out of her head like, had acci-
dentally carried away a small passel
o' lace from Jenks and Trainor's yes-
terday. Now it's very likely she
ain't got it. Ef she has, of course
she only took it by oversight. And
there's no disposition to make trouble.
What's wanted is to prevent it.
They's some parties that would be very
troublesome in sech cases. Jenks and
Trainor 've ben plegged to death
a'most with this kinder thing now for
near onto a year, and they're out of
all patience. But all that's necessary
is to jest oversee the young lady
quietly, and sorter let on in her hear-
in about some o'these kleptermaniacs
bein took up, and it's goin ruther hard
with 'em."
The long word which the detective
evoked from the domains of modern
sentimental criminality — or criminal
sentimentality, — and which he flour-
ished with an evident pride, like a
strong man whirling a heavy Indian
club, to show how easily he can do it,
was the first out of all this singu-
larly horrible discourse, that at all
enlightened the shocked and con-
founded auditor. But when it came,
it was enough. His anger disap-
peared as quickly as it had arisen,
and an inexpressible sinking pain
came in its stead. If any one can
comprehend the terror, the agony, of
a man who loves, who has but one to
love, and who is old ; of a father who
sees his daughter, his only beloved,
and the desire of his eyes, not merely
suffering, not merely in sorrow, but
in danger of becoming the very scan-
dal and sport of the dirtiest of pub-
lics — that of a great city — who sees
her certainly ill, possibly monoma-
niac, and at the parting of the two
ways that lead to the mad-house or to
the police station — if any one can
imagine the sharp deep misery of
such a prospect, the hint of it is even
too much ; and for any one who can-
not, a library of detail could not paint
it.
But the external signs of the pain
that evil news inflicts, are seldom so
marked as is often supposed. And
persons whose characters are strong
by nature, or solidified by hard expe-
riences of life, are more likely to seem
impassible even, than to show what
they feel. Age, again, often contrib-
utes a real insensibilit}', which is per-
haps the unconscious acquirement of
28
Scrape
The Lost Library.
the soul from whose relations with
material and embodied existence
threads are already beginning to un-
fasten. Mr. Van Braam, as a person
of even spiritually delicate organiza-
tion both physically and mentally,
was as easily startled, old man as he
had become, as any wild bird. So he
would soon have fainted under sharp
physical pain. But neither of these
weaknesses belonged to his mind, any
more than delicate lungs would be-
long to his mind. Accordingly, al-
though the experienced detective had
correctly judged by the physical
symptoms,that his suggestion inflicted
a fearful shock at first, yet he was
surprised at the promptness with
which the distress was mastered, and
the degree of steadiness with which
the trouble was faced, by this white
and slender old man.
"Weil, Mr. Officer," he said, "you
have done right to come to me. It is
the first hint I have heard, of course.
My daughter's health is not very
strong, it is true" —
Here it suddenly struck him that
the best thing he could do was to let
her condition seem bad rather than
good. Evidently if the persons con-
cerned in this demonstration were —
as they were said to be — inclined to
avoid exposure if the annoyance
should cease, the best way to co-oper-
ate with them was to promise the su-
pervision suggested, and to acquiesce
in the necessity of it. Evidently, also,
to talk big and be indignant and
threaten, would be to insure a scan-
dal. All this Mr. Van Braam saw,
not by wording it over at such length,
but at one flash, in the instant's pause
as he said " true " — and he went on :
— "and I have been a good deal
troubled at some of her symptoms
and some of her actions. But it is
equally important that a careful watch
should be kept, whether or not she is
as badly off as the gentlemen at your
office seem to think. I will do my
best ; and if you employ some one, so
much the better; only she mustn't
know it."
Some consultation now followed as
to the sort of arrangement to be
made : it was decided that a quiet
and unobtrusive observation should
be maintained by the police ; and
that some reason or other should be
found for discontinuing or at least
diminishing, even the very modest
actual indulgences of the young lady
in what is called "shopping." And
the officer further guaranteed that, if
as he hoped (he said it with obvious
sincerity), there was only a mistake,
not another word should be heard
about it by Mr. Van Braam or by
anybody. And so the fat detective,
— a singularly unsuitable person,
Mr. Van Braam couldn't help think-
ing, physically at least, for such a
profession — waddled away.
After seeing him to the door, Mr.
Van Braam returned to the parlor.
His distress was so great, the effort to
control it was becoming such a strain,
and the irritability that in such tem-
peraments as his always accompanies
displeasure, was rising so fast and so
strongly within him, that courteous
gentleman as he naturally and habitu-
ally was, he was strongly tempted to
hustle the two young men instantly
out of the house on any or no pretence
except that they must begone.
He only came quietly in, however,
resumed his seat ; and began mechan-
ically to turn over his papers. He
said not a word. He did not notice,
in the whirl of his perplexed
thoughts, the sense of monstrous
evil, the violent struggle to control
himself, that his daughter seemed to
be asleep and that the two young
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
29
men were sitting as silent as she —
for Chester, after a little while, had
quietly resumed his seat without any
motion or resistance from Miss Van
Braam. But they both saw that
something was wrong, the moment he
entered; and as he still turned and
turned his papers mechanically, Ches-
ter, seeing what was proper, looked at
his watch, exclaimed at the lateness
of the hour, and arose to go. Scrope
of Scrope, with creditable promptness,
followed his example. The old man,
arousing himself, gave them a very
genuine invitation to call again and
as often as they pleased, on the foot-
ing, indeed, he said, of well-acquaint-
ed cousins.
"Why, Civille," he exclaimed all
at once ; " are you going to let our
friends go without saying a word ? —
I do believe she's sound asleep !" he
continued, as she did not reply. He
lifted the shade from the drop-light
on the table and stepped over to her.
She was perfectly still, her white
teeth just showing between her lips,
her head resting easily on the back of
•the chair, and breathing quietly and
regularly.
" Why, Civille, my child ! » he said,
laying his hand on her shoulder;
" You do make your cousins very
much at home, I think ! " And he
shook her a little.
Chester spoke.
" Mr. Van Braam," he said, with
embarrassment, " I'm afraid it's my
fault. I never did such a thing
before, but I think I put her asleep.
I did not know it either, if it is
so."
The old man looked at him in
amazement. Chester then told him
just what he had done, and that they
had been sitting in silence not know-
ing whether she ware awake and in
pain or asleep and therefore relieved,
but supposing that quiet was kindest
in either case.
Still with a confused look, Mr. Van
Braam observed, " Asleep ? put her
asleep ? "
" Magnetized," said Chester; "let
me make some reversed passes. I've
seen them do that; if I did put her
asleep, I can awaken her, at any
rate."
And holding his hands palms down-
ward and flat, with the fingers to-
wards her chin, he lifted them rap-
idly past her face, throwing them
apart above her forehead as if lifting
and flinging back a veil. Half-a-doz-
en times he repeated the gesture, and
paused. "Civille!" called the old
man. They saw the pencilled eye-
brows lift a little, as if in repeated
efforts to open the eyes ; a distressed
look tame over the face : and one fin-
ger of the hand that rested uppermost
in her lap, moved in an odd restless
way.
Again Chester made the "reversed
passes," saying at the last one, in a
peremptory voice, " There ; wake
up ! "
So she did ; opening her great gray
eyes wide, with an innocent puzzled
look like a child's.
"Why, what is it?" she asked,
startled at the three anxious faces
gazing so intently at her. " Oh, —
Cousin Adrian, you put me asleep,
didn't you ? "
" It appears so," said the young
man, gravely. " But I did not mean
to. ' I wanted to relieve your head-
ache."
"You did. It's all gone. But
my head is so sore ! It feels as if it
had been pounded all over! But
that's nothing. Oh, thank you ! "
" Ah," said he, with a troubled
voice, — " but please don't have any
such pain again ! "
30
What the Oak Thinks.
She smiled quietly. "I shall
though, often enough ! But I will try-
not to trouble you with it."
"If I can cure it, cousin Civille,
please always trouble me with it ! "
As they shook hands at going,
Chester drew Mr. Van Braam one
side, saying, just loud enough for the
others to hear,
"About this meeting," — and then
dropping his voice, he quietly slid a
card into the old man's hand, adding,
below his breath,
"I thought you might perhaps not
choose anybody else to see this ; I
picked it up from the floor."
It was the detective's card ; not
engraved, but having on it in a suffi-
ciently legible hand-writing, the
words, " Amos Olds, Detective."
PART IL
CHAPTER VI.
" No one can know," said Mrs. Tar-
box Button with deep feeling, and a
suitable separate emphasis on each
word — " no one can know what Per-
fect Happiness is, until they have
attended a Female Prayer-Meeting.
Of course I shall be there, and Anje-
sinthy too, Doctor Toomston. I have
been there, and still would go, For
'tis a little heaven below."
" And you too then, let me hope,
my dear young Female Timothy, my
example of the believers. You will
accompany your good mother, thy
mother Eunice ?"
Thus asked further the Reverend
Doctor Toomston of Miss Ann Ja-
cintha Button — the "Anjesinthy"
of the first speaker above, who always
gave her daughter both names. He
asked the question, — no, he did not
so much ask, or speak, as utter. He
uttered this overture — the Doctor
was a Presbyterian — with his inva-
riable majestic manner, and with the
same forth-putting, roomy articula-
tion as if he had been speaking from
what he always called " the sacred
desk." He always spoke from the
sacred desk, even if he were talking
to a baby. He had the sacred desk,
in fact, as the slang phrase is, "about
his clothes;" indeed, nearer still.
He walked abroad in the sacred desk ;
he slept in it ; if he had been stripped
to the skin and forced to dance a
death-dance by the Modoc Indians,
he would have danced it in the sacred
desk.
" Oh yes indeed, Doctor," replied
the young lady. " I feel it a great
privilege."
They have in theatres what they
call the Leading Lady. She is the
chief actress, who does the heavy her-
oine business, such as queens' parts.
So they have in churches. Mrs.
Tarbox Button was the leading lady
in the Reverend Doctor Toomston's
church.
Churches are in some things a
good deal like some other institutions
composed of human beings. There
are things to be done, people to do
them, and people to take charge of
doing them. And as in politics, it is
very commonly the case that there is
an official organization to stand up
and look well, and by the side of it
or mingled with it, informal powers
that do a. great part of what is to be
done.
In a church, there is the regular
course of obligatory religious observ-
ances proper, and there is also a semi-
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
31
official and semi-temporal series close-
ly parallel with this ; and there is
besides these, — in large cities par-
ticularly, — what may be called the
optional or volunteer course. The
stated preaching of the Gospel is the
regular course. Along with it, it is
true, goes the "Worship of God, which
Protestants have been so good as to
admit to a place in their religious
rites only inferior to that occupied by
the Sermon. And the Sunday School
belongs in this series. The semi-offi-
cial and semi-temporal series includes
the business meetings of the church;
the week-day prayer-meeting; the
teachers' meeting; the rehearsal by
the choir ; and the like. And the op-
tional or volunteer course includes any
charity schools, sewing societies, or-
ganized helps for the poor or afflicted,
picnics and parties for the Sunday
School children, donation parties ; —
in short the charity and amusement
department, being pretty much all
that gives enjoyment or relieves suf-
fering.
The minister and his officials, —
deacons, ruling elder, treasurer of the
society, or what not, along with the
chief musician and Sunday-school su-
perintendent, — govern for the most
part the two former of these three cur-
rents of action and influence. The
ladies of the church commonly conduct
the third, under a more or less definite
chieftainship by the Leading Lady,
and with whatever recourse they may
wish or can obtain to the purses and
counsels of their husbands and fathers.
Be it understood always, moreover,
that according to strength and wisdom,
the ladies use more or less of in-
fluence in the two other departments
of church activity also.
Mr. Tarbox Button was the richest
man in Doctor Toomston's church,
and the most energetic, practical and
efficient also. In fact, he had been
the chief agent in bringing this sound
conservative divine to the city, and
in the whole strenuous and laborious
campaign which established the
church. He was the Doctor's right
hand man, his tower of strength and
unfailing resource in every strait.
And Mrs. Button, a shrewd, hard-
working New England woman, forti-
fied always by the counsels of her
experienced spouse, was at once the
Doctor's chief stay and support and
her husband's powerful and successful
auxiliary in all church matters, as
she was in all social matters also.
The distinction exists, the fact is, in
American religious circles, only after
the wholly imaginary manner of those
estates which lawyers call "one un-
divided half."
Among all the good works which
were so remarkable a feature of this
well known metropolitan church (as
the newspapers called it), it was of
course that one and another should be
engineered by one and another chief
executive. It will be found that in
Sewing Societies, Flower Missions
and Companies for Executing Class-
ical Music to the Afflicted, as much
as in insurance companies, associ-
ations for recovering estates in Eng-
land, civil governments or war ad-
ministrations, the successful ones pro-
ceed on the principle of having one
executive to do things, and a board or
chorus or ministry to consult, indorse,
help along and keep watch. Thus it
was in Doctor Toomston's church.
The Doctor was a thoroughly good and
kind hearted man, a regular old-fash-
ioned verbal inspirationist and textual
preacher, a strict orthodox Calvinist, a
well read theologian, and a steady ser-
monizer, good for ninety honest new
sermons every year (deduct two
months' summer vacation, and you
32
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
have left forty-four " Sabbaths " — as
he called them, — to which add Fast
and Thanksgiving, at one discourse
each) ; but he did not know this prac-
tical rule so as to state it, nor per-
haps did Mr. or Mrs. Button ; but
things took that shape simply be-
cause these able managers had 1 that
unconscious faculty of complying with
the universe which constitutes " tact
and sense in getting along."
Mrs. Button, accordingly, was often
consulted by the executive ladies of
all the beneficent enterprises of the
church, and she was wise enough to
let them use her advice while she
kept out of sight ; it was the power
that she liked, not the show. She
had also her own pet or predilection
among these, which she along with
her Anjesinthy managed pretty much
as they pleased, but always with the
same dexterous deferential treatment
of the other members of their board.
This pet or predilection was called by
the pretty fanciful name of The
Shadowing Wings. It was a little in-
stitution established in a poor quarter
of the city, which abounded in tene-
ment houses, surplus sewerage, piles
of tilth, evil smells, rum-shops, and
small dirty children, and not very far
from the high-lying and airy cross
street on Murray Hill where Mr.
Button inhabited a stately undistin-
guishable slice of a long row of brown
stone front houses exactly alike.
The Shadowing Wings included two
— wings, so to speak; being indeed
the usual number, and as few as the
plural will justify. One was for sup-
plying to needy mothers having new
born children, what the French call a
layette. The other was what the
French call — really, it seems as if
those benighted Romanists had invent-
ed some handy names, destitute as
they may be of a pure Gospel — what
the French call a creche / a neat little
room or two where mothers too needy
to lose their days' works might leave
their little babies under competent
care during the day-time. The two
ladies were on their way to The Shad-
owing Wings, when they met Doctor
Toomston, and answered his inquiry
about the female prayer-meeting for
the week, as aforementioned. This
done, the pastor and the ladies parted,
the doctor to go about some clerical
errand, the ladies to their ordinary
Wednesday's inspection at The Shad-
owing Wings.
Deftly they went, tiptoeing along
as every well-dressed Christian must
among the dirt and wet of this world,
their neatly gloved hands holding
their embroidered white skirts care-
fully up from contact with the various
unclean things by the way. Over the
ill-cleaned gutters of the Third Ave-
nue they tripped, and then through a
terrible Thermopylae where the wide
double sliding doors of a great livery-
stable gaped upon a cobble-stoned
break in the sidewalk, and a sloping
gulf yawned below, leading to the
basement where horses stamped and
whinnied. A " bret " and a buggy were
paraded before the door, while a red
shirted hostler with a pipe in his
mouth swashed and squirted Croton
water, in utter defiance of the city
ordinances, from a hose, over the vehi-
cles and all about them. Close to
the street edge of this perilous way
were crowded a great red-wheeled
furniture van and a truck ; and
the reek of horses and harnesses and
all things horsy, with the mighty in-
cense of the groom's tobacco float-
ing upon it like wreaths upon a river,
seethed in the place, a very Phlege-
thon of smell.
Past this and other equally noble
street monuments of American civic
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
33
civilization, the unterrified ladies pro-
ceeded on their errand of mercy, until
they reached the humble doors of The
Shadowing Wings, which for the time
being were outspread in the second
floor of a great brick tenement block.
It was a most suitable place ; for it
was one of those localities where in
summer time it seems as if the very
substance of the immense edifice
crawled with children, as cheese does
with mites. They are heaps upon
heaps, in doorways and entries ; they
squeal and chatter out of every win-
dow; they overflow upon the side-
walk, into the black sloppy filth of
the cobble-stoned street itself; the
very air is one screeching din of sharp
childish voices.
Even now a good many of them
were playing about in the chilly win-
try sunshine. None of them how-
ever paid any attention to the two
ladies, except to move — a little — to
let them pass. The attention business,
and the penny-begging business, had
long ago been tried upon them to the
uttermost. As soon take Gibraltar
by casting cut flowers at it. Both
ladies were principled against giving
money in the street, and against en-
couraging street childhood at all ; for
they were of that healthy and severe
New England training, which justly
reckons the receipt of charity always
a misfortune and commonly a shame,
and begging a crime ; and they knew
that children should be either at home
or at school. Still, if they had been
very fond of little children some
would have run along with them,
dirty or not dirty. But they kept
them off without the least difficulty,
and went upstairs to the rooms.
As they opened the door an infant's
screech, coming out, met them, and a
voice said, " Give me the dear little
thing, doctor. I can quiet it."
" I declare," observed Miss Button
to her mother, stopping short with
her hand on the door-knob, "I dc
believe Civille Van Braam lives in
these rooms ! Adrian sha'n't
her
here, anyhow ! " She spoke in a low
voice, and with obvious discomfort or
displeasure, over and above the inti-
mation of jealousy — if jealousy it
were — as much as to say, I'm sure I
don't want to see her !
" Oh, never mind," answered Mrs.
Button, adding, with evident refer-
ence to some previous consultation or
discussion as to something that might
be supposed to change their previous -
relations, "we are to meet her jest
the same, you know." Then, as if
enforcing a moral lesson from a. fact
in point, she said, with serious em-
phasis, " And by the way — remem-
ber that, too, Anjesinthy! Tain't
right to set in judgment on your
neighbor."
"Yes, ma," said the young lady,
and they went in.
"Good morning, cousin," said Ci-
ville smiling, " and good morning
cousin Ann." " And good morning,
ladies," said a comfortable looking
gentleman in black, with a hand-
some smiling face a good deal like
that of Sir Edwin Landseer in the
portrait of him along with two dogs,
who was watching with much satis-
faction the dexterous manner in
which Miss Civille handled a very
young child that lay kicking and
crowing in her lap while she tickled
it and laughed to it and cooed over it,
and kissed it. This gentleman was
Doctor Codleigh Veroil, Medical Ad-
viser of the Shadowing Wings, family
physician at Mr. Tarbox Button's and
a regular and punctual and seriously
interested attendant upon the stated
preaching of the gospel at Dr. Toom-
ston's church, although, to the great
34
Scrope
o,\
The Lost Library.
grief of the good pastor, the physician
was not what he was wont to call
" a professor."
Mrs. Button and her daughter re-
sponded with affability to these greet-
ings, and the elder lady, as was her
custom, went straight to the business
in hand. The premises were four
rooms, forming a single suite from
front to rear of the building.
There is a certain creature of which
naturalists tell us, having gregarious
habits, and often found to construct
for itself a kind of comb, somewhat
resembling that of the honey-bee.
But the cells of this comb, instead of
storerooms, are dwelling*, which the
ingenious and social occupants in-
habit, forming an aggregate not un-
like that of the social grosbeak in its
great collective nest. The separate-
ness of the cells and the disconnected
individual growth of the creatures
distinguishes them from the coral in-
sect. The form and arrangement of
these cells is commonly either a pile of
square tubes somewhat on the caddis-
worm principle, laid upon and next
ea m other like sticks in a wood pile,
and penetrable from end to end, or
else of half-tubes piled in the same
way, but shut apart in the middle.
The creatures are men and women.
The tubes are the four-room tene-
ments that run through a tenement-
house from front to rear, the front and
back rooms open by windows to the
air, the two middle ones dark and
airless, except so far as the doorways
admit light and ventilation from the
end rooms. The half tubes are the
two-room or three-room tenements of
which twice as many will fill the
same space. And these tubes are the
homes of tens of thousands in New
York City alone. One of these tubes,
with its four compartments, was oc-
cupied by The Shadowing Wings.
Its back room looked towards the
south, though this south was only a
great pit or Yosemite Valley with brick
sides, full of clothes-lines laden with
damp linen. But a little sunshine
managed to dodge in now and then,
past the napping wet sheets and
shirts, like a spy escaping through
the besiegers' lines into a fortress ;
while the front windows that looked
into the street never received any
direct light at all.
In this back room were eight or
ten cribs, numbered in order, and
neatly arranged in two rows. In
each of them, all but one, whose tiny
tenant was just then in Civille's lap,
lay an infant, having at its neck, for
fear of mistakes, a printed ticket or
" address tag," bearing the number
of the crib. Each parent at leaving
the child, was accustomed to receive
a similar ticket, as much as to say,
" On demand we promise to pay One
Baby, Value Received. Shadowing
Wings ; " and on the presentation
of this duplicate — for after all it
was perhaps more like a pawn-brok-
er's duplicate than a note of hand —
the mother could obtain her baby
again, free from any danger of mis-
takes in consequence of deficiency in
maternal instinct or " unnatural se-
lection." These ticketed mites of
humanity were sleeping, or wailing,
or lying broad awake with the cloudy
looking eyes and deceptive aspect of
profound reflection which belong to
early infancy. A couple of respecta-
ble looking women were in charge,
being the official nurses or guardians
of the establishment. The front
room was occupied by these nurses,
and the two inner rooms were store-
rooms. First of all, Mrs. Button and
her daughter marched gravely through
from rear to front of the whole tene-
ment, sharply scrutinizing floor, walls,
Set
ope
The Lost Library.
ceilings, shelves, piles of minute gar-
ments, every thing. Then they came
back, and with the same strict house-
keeper's watchfulness, they inspected
every cradle, lifting the small bed-
clothes, peeping into the tiny face of
each occupant, and into all sorts of
places besides, and viewing, uncorking
and smelling with special and peculiar
solicitude divers flat glass bottles
whereof each was surmounted with a
thing capable of easy entrance into
the mouth of infancy, and some con-
tained a white fluid. Then Mrs.
Button catechised the nurses shrewd-
ly and thoroughly. Every thing was
right, every thing clean and sweet
and in good order. So in truth it
behooved to be, under the rule of that
forceful and stringent woman.
Now it so happened that the popu-
larity of The Shadowing Wings had
been greatly increasing, and of late
the demands upon it were so many
that it was obvious that it must en-
barge its borders. Upon this very
Wednesday, in fact, a meeting of the
Board was notified to consider the
matter. So, by the time that Mrs.
Button's inspection was finished, di-
vers ladies of the Board arrived, and
a business meeting was organized in
the front room, Civille, whose sole
office whether of trust or emolument
was a place in this board, going in too,
still with her little live plaything in
her lap. Doctor Veroil, also by re-
quest, attended on this occasion as
advising member or amicus curice.
" The meeting will please to come to
order," said Mrs. President Button —
and it came. Then the good lad}',
glancing around with a serious and
composed expression, bent her head a
little forward, and covered her eyes
with her hand. The others gravely
followed the example of their fugle-
woman, and so remained for the space
of about one and a half minutes, —
all except Civille and the doctor.
The former was occupied with her
pet. As for the doctor, he gave a
queer sort of start at this sudden man-
ual exercise, and controlled a desire
to laugh. This however shone in his
wicked eyes, for when he gave a look
at Civille, who was next him, she al-
most laughed too ; but managed to get
off with a blush, a smile, a reproach-
ful glance, and great demonstrations
of tenderness over the baby.
When this silent preliminary was
over, Civille again looked at the
naughty doctor and shook her head
in a warning manner.
"I didn't say any thing," answered
the cavilling and irreverent man, in
a low tone — " it's a good thing. Do
well to have the whole proceedings
that way, at most meetings."
"Well, ladies," said the president,
in her prompt way, "the business
before the Board is, to see whether
we shall hire more rooms here, or
move. If we move, we shall hinder
begin over again. I suppose we had
better stay if we can get room here,
for considering the way things are in
this street, we have a very desirable
class of infants, and their mothers are
very respectable. Isn't that so, Doc-
tor Veroil ? "
" Eminently so, madam," replied
the doctor : " Sanitary condition most
satisfactory, and popularity and con-
sequent usefulness, as you say, require
larger accommodations. This little
creature, now " — he pointed to the
baby that Civille was holding —
" shows how wide a range we already
have among the poor. There are
some rather interesting questions of
a physiological and ethnological na-
ture that I would like to look at a little
by comparing a few infants of differ-
ent races. I hope we may have a
36
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
Mongolian child to match our small
African here before long."
I Mrs. Button gazed upon the doctor's
handsome and intelligent face, with a
reproving look, as much as to say,
No rude jests in the sacred precincts
of a pious Charity !
"African?" she queried, with de-
cided dryness in her tone. " What
do you mean, Doctor ? "
" Just what I say, my dear mad-
am," replied Doctor Veroil, pleasantly.
" Didn't you know that it's next to
impossible to tell a new-born negro
child from a new-born white child ?
Can be done, however. This one's
old enough to show very plainly, —
aren't you, Sambolet ? " apostrophized
the good-natured physician, tickling
the infant with his forefinger. The
little creature grasped the doctor's
digit with its tiny hands, and after the
fashion of sucklings, strove to carry it
to its mouth, which it opened for the
purpose.
The Lady President, with a most
disinfectant and nose-holding expres-
sion of countenance, as if descending
into a plague-pit, or resisting the
natural effects of a quart of " ipecac "
taken internally, approached the im-
mortal soul incarnated in a human
being which had occasioned the doc-
tor's little essay on Comparative Eth-
nology, and scrutinized it in a manner
for describing which the term intense
is a mere paralysis. Babies are quite
as susceptible to the atmosphere of
their interlocutors as grown people,
although they have to yell and kick
instead of using execrations, trespass
on the person, assault with intent
to kill and murder in the first degree.
But if the deed could l^ave been sub-
stituted for the will, few and evil in-
deed would have been the remaining
days of Mrs. Tarbox Button in the
land ! That excellent and charitable
dame had barely time to recognize in
the little thing, — either in the scanty
hairs, or in the not very aquiline nose,
or in the rather pulpy little red lips,
or in the soft satiny ruddiness of the
delicate skin, — some faint reminiscen-
ces from the mysterious continent of
Augustine, Tertullian and Cleopatra.
Perhaps she smelt the very Original
Sin that Augustine used to be troubled
with ; who knows ? But she groaned
out, with exactly the tone of voice for
the Lady of Shalott when she remark-
ed that the curse had come upon her —
" A Nigger Baby ! "
As was observed, she had barely
time thus to inspect and thus to
observe, when the N. B. aforesaid,
experiencing something disagreeable,
quickly shut its eyes tight, opened its
mouth a great deal more than enough
to make up, and gave one yell that
almost knocked the lady president
flat on her back. She struggled to
her seat and looked feebly around her.
Doctor Veroil laughed softly, but so
heartily that his face turned a bright
red in his efforts not to make a noise;
and poor Civille, insulted and fright-
ened almost as much as the baby, with
one appealing glance at the doctor,
burst into tears, and lifting the yell —
beg pardon, the baby — in her arms,
fled into the back room, where a sym-
pathetic chorus of wails arose, upon
which the doors were shut, and quiet
gradually fell again upon the infant
band, under the skilful ministrations of
the nurses.
As soon as Mrs. Button had in some
measure recovered from the blow, she
exclaimed,
" We must get rid of that child ! "
" Oh, nonsense ! " exclaimed Doctor
Yeroil impulsively, but recovering
himself he added, " Well, ladies, I must
leave you, unless you have some fur-
ther commands."
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
37
The Doctor was unwilling to be
present at the human sacrifice which
he saw Mrs. Button meant to offer,
and as the discussion was turning
quite away from the field of his duties,
he seized the opportunity to escape,
with polite farewells. A debate fol-
lowed, in which some of the ladies,
not sufficiently devoted to principle,
intimated that it would do no harm
to permit Number Ten — such was
the mark on the child's crib-ticket —
to remain. But they were speedily
enlightened by their presiding officer,
who argued with many words and
very great power, the following heads
of discourse, — for, though it is a
great pity, there is not room to report
her remarks verbatim :
First: The Shadowing Wings is
for the purpose of doing good.
Second : A wise compliance with
the weaknesses of others is com-
manded by Saint Paul, who says that
we must not cause our brother to
offend; and it is indispensable for
practical usefulness.
Third: The poorer classes, among
whom we labor, have the weakness
of disliking negroes, and if we insist
on keeping the two together, we shall
cause our brother to offend.
Fourth : Therefore, a wise and
scripturally reasoned regard for Chris-
tian Expediency ordains that we ex-
pel the negro infant, Number Ten,
from The Shadowing Wings, in order
to do good.
When the vote was taken, it was
carried for expulsion by one majority.
If Civille had been present there
would have been a tie ; but she had
gone away without returning to the
meeting. And accordingly, Mrs. But-
ton, at the close of the session, as she
was departing, commanded the nurses
to notify the mother of Number Ten
that evening, that she could no longer
be allowed to leave her infant at The
Shadowing Wings.
CHAPTER VII.
Ok the same morning, and at about
the same hour when the great Christian
Expediency Baby-Expulsion was be-
ing enacted by the high priestess of
The Shadowing Wings, there existed
(it will not do to say " there might
have been seen," for the narrow entry
was too dark for that) a small tin sign.
This was on the outside of a door up
two nights of stairs and deep in the
bowels of one of those crowded buzzing
buildings crammed with offices of all
kinds, divided and subdivided like a
new system for the classification of
knowledge, of which there are so
many in that densely occupied busi-
ness section of New York to the south-
east of the City Hall Park. The
particular building in question was on
Nassau Street, not far from Pulton.
Inside of the door on which was this
invisible sign, there was a front office,
a desolate room, where a couple of
clerks were busily writing. At its fur-
ther side were folding doors, close shut.
Behind these was the private office ;
a small room, or rather den, uncar-
peted and dreary, though not very
dirty. It contained a heavy table
with a few books on it, two or three
desks, a large safe, several heavy
wooden chairs, and a small Morning
Glory stove. It was lighted by one
dusty window, opening into a kind of
well with brick sides. If you should
look up this well or pit, you would see
at the top a little piece of sky ; in its
sides, wei - e other similar dusty windows
of similar dens. Its floor or bottom
was a low-pitched glass roof, lighting
some back store or stores on the ground
floor. A few feet above this glass
38
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
roof was extended on stout uprights a
web or screen of wire net, with coarse
meshes, to protect the glass from
any deceased cats, old hoots, broken
bottles, or other meteoric bodies
likely to descend from the higher re-
gions.
The lion of this den sat writing at
the table — a heavily built man just
passing beyond middle age — Mr. Tar-
box Button. The legend upon the
invisible tin sign was :
"BUTTOST : SUBSCRIPTION PUBLISHER."
For it was in this strenuous and
ferocious, if not piratical business,
that this great man had laid the foun-
dations of his fortune. He still pur-
sued it, waiting either to sell out to
some proper successor, or to close it,
at entering upon the career of states-
manship for which every Ameiican
citizen is by law made fit, and which,
Mr. Button felt, would be a noble
close for the active years of his labo-
rious and successful life. He was ex-
pecting Mr. Adrian Scrope Chester,
on business, and by appointment, the
interview having been before agreed
upon, whenever next Chester should
be in New York.
Mr. Button, a " self-made man," to
use the irreverent slang of biogra-
phers, was, as may have been gath-
ered from Mr. Van Braam's remarks
about him, strong, shrewd, energetic,
prompt, peremptory and coarse. As
a wit once remarked of another of his
kind, and like most of them, " he was
a self-made man, and worshipped his
creator."
His energy, his promptness, his ve-
hement will and his unrelaxing en-
forcement of it, his skill in judging
candidates for employment, his shrewd
insight into the merits of a specula-
tion, his sagacity in estimating values,
had by his long and active use of them,
greatly increased within their range
in power and precision, but their
range had not increased. His way
of life, moreover, had developed his
promptness and decision into rough
and sometimes even brutal man-
ners, and his success had filled him ful-
ler and fuller of a great pride in what
he had done, and in his own individual
self as the man that had done it.
And being narrow and vulgar in his
original mental structure, and having
grown very much more so by reason
of his having done so well in life with
such attainments as he had, he had
acquired a habit of pretty thorough
contempt for the less money-making
qualities, and indeed for any qualities
except his own* and a habit of express-
ing it pretty freely too, — exceptions
excepted. These exceptions were the
cases where he wanted any thing of
anybody. This happened quite often,
indeed ; and in these cases Mr. Button
always used one and often both, of
his two regular lines of persuasion,
to wit, money and flattery. It was
Mr. Button's full belief, as it had been
his experience, that these, properly
used, were infallible. How could he
think otherwise? He knew what
would be infallible with himself. It
should be added, that like a born
economizer as he was, he never used
either of these motives where a plain
statement of what he wanted and a
direct asking for it, would serve the
purpose, as in a great many cases it
would. Most people like to do what
they are asked, other things being
equal. So that nothing of what was
just above said is to the disadvantage
of any of those numerous virtuous
persons who have (for instance) given
recommendations of Mr. Button's va-
rious publications, merely because he
asked them.
Lastly : there were now and then
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
39
occasions when Mr. Button found his
account in stern reproof or even in
furious bullying, of which last in par-
ticular he was a good master. But
when good-natured, he was often jolly-
enough, and even jocular in a queer
random sort of way.
As for Adrian's errand, the proposed
interview was in a certain, sense an
effort of the two men to come to a
satisfactory understanding. Button,
like some other people, was not with-
out his little inconsistencies. Exces-
sively vain of his own success in life,
he was almost equally vain of his an-
cient Scrope descent ; which was his
only reason for assisting Scrope of
Scrope, except of course such expec-
tations as he might have from the
great Scrope estate, and which had
far more to do with his patronage of
Mr. Van Braam than even the proud
pleasure of being a patron. It was
because Adrian was also a Scrope, that
he had acquiesced in his daughter's
engagement to the young man ; for
certainly Adrian had very few of such
qualities or acquirements as Mr. But-
ton would desire in a son-in-law. He
had no money, or next to none ; no
disposition to make any, so far as
could be seen, and therefore, it was
fair enough to conclude, no ability to
do so. Of moral qualities, intelligence
and education he had a sufficient
share however ; and Mr. Button had
conceived the idea of endeavoring to
make these qualities the basis of
some employment for Adrian in
some department of his own busi-
ness.
There had been before this more or
less skirmishing, so to speak, though
of a reasonably good-humored kind,
between the two men, on the general
subject of Adrian's prospects. They
had — very naturally — not exchan-
ged their full opinions of each other,
nor of matters and things in general •
but they knew very well how they
differed, and they were willing enough
to come to some understanding if pos-
sible. Mr. Button did not avow, it is
true, that once for all this was Adri-
an's opportunity to accept or refuse a
lucrative establishment for life, in his
business as well as in his family. Nor
did Adrian avow his repugnance for
many of the surroundings of his be-
trothed and of her relatives, nor the
sacrifice of inclination and enjoyment
which a business career would inflict
upon him. They both knew very
well however what to-day's meeting
was. It was like the Peace of
Amiens ; a diplomatically friendly
negotiation between powers naturally
hostile, for preventing or postponing
an open rupture.
Adrian, who as it happened had
never visited the office before, after
some stumbling and fumbling in the
outer darkness, at last deciphered
the legend on the tin sign by the aid
of a lucifer match, and entering, was
shown into the presence. Mr. Button
received him in his pleasantest man-
ner, that is, with a nod, a grin, and a
shake of the hand, without getting out
of his chair.
" Wal, how air ye ? Seddown.
Glad to see ye."
Adrian, as he replied, took the
chair which the publisher indicated,
and the latter continued :
"Seen the wimmen folks to-day?
Heard on ye yesterday afternoon."
" Yes ; I could only run up for a
few moments yesterday, but I made
quite a call this morning. They sent
me off, at last, Mr. Button; — they
had to go to The Shadowing Wings,
and Mrs. Button said I had no busi-
ness with the babies."
"Oh, wal; every man must git up
his own, I spose she meant. Won't
40
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
stay with us, I spose, this time nei-
ther ? »
" I can't, really, without turning
your house upside down," said Adrian
with a smile. " I've so many people
to see, and so many places to go to
and so many things to do, that it
would be nothing but a plague to you ;
I shouldn't be on hand at meals nor
bed time, nor any time."
" All right ; all the better for me ;
I have to be as regular as clockwork
of late years ; a little thing puts me
out, now. Though I shouldn't budge
an inch for you, nor nobody else —
can't, in fact. But ma's rather funny
about her housekeeping and it's jest
as well not to annoy her. You're jest
in season here, any way. One o' my
clerks is out, and there's a lot o' little
things that he usually helps me with,
that I ought to see to before I say a
word to ye. Now spose you jest
take hold with me here a while and
close out some on um ? "
" With all my heart," said Adrian.
It is possible that the clerk had been
sent out.
" Wal ; the fust thing is, these let-
ters" — he indicated two piles of a
dozen or two each — " they're kinder
confidential, some on um, and I don't
like to put on a new clerk, so it comes
jest right to git you instid. I always
answer every thing right away.
'Tain't no way to do business, to have
a lot o' fag ends hangin round.
Sfishunt unto the day is the evil
thereof, without havin an extry lot
on't cold, left over from yesterday."
With this sound practical exposition
of a wise text, the publisher pushed
over to Adrian some letter paper and
writing materials, took up one of the
piles of letters, and began :
" There ; these are miscellaneous.
I'll read um out, and then tell ye the
substance of what to say, or dictate,
if's necessary. Leave the signature.
I'll put that in myself. Some on um
don't require no answer, but I've kep
um all, so's you can see how they run,
like the three blind mice."
He took up the first letter, and read
it aloud. It was dated in the city,
and was as follows :
Dear Sin : — Knowing your Christian
character, goodness of heart and interest
in the unfortunate, I write to explain to
you my sad situation, being fully confident
that you will help me. I am a Tegular
attendant at Dr. Toomston's church,
— " that's sad, certain," commented
Mr. Button —
but believe there is a greater Spiritual
Church in which we are all members. I
have been favored with some spiritual
gifts among the recent revelations from
the spirit world, which I have tried to
cultivate, but I have not been favored in
the things of this life, as you have, and I
am in great poverty and sorrow, not
knowing wherewith to procure the means
of living, nor clothes to wear, nor a shel-
ter for my head. As I am a stranger to
you, I respectfully invite you to investi-
gate my case personally. My present
abode is at No. , corner Sixth Avenue
and Street, Room 24, top floor. Do
not neglect me, I implore you ; for what
is to you but one drop out of the bucket
will be to me a rescue from the utmost
suffering. I am daily in fear of being
even thrust out into the street, by an un-
merciful landlord. So hoping to receive
at once of your charity, I remain in truth
and love
Yours sincerely
Amelia Griggs.
" There," said Mr. Button, with a
serious face.
"Shall you go?" asked Adrian,
who, not being rich, had .not found
out what a begging letter is, and
really felt quite sorry for poor Amelia
Griggs.
" Go ! " said Mr. Button, with en-
ergy, — "not much. No black mail
Scrope.
or.
The Lost Library.
41
for me, thank you. If that woman
could get me up there once, I should
have my choice between maintaining
her afterwards, or some kind of a
scandal. She's a spiritualist too, or
she says so ; that's rather queer, all
by itself."
" But suppose Mrs. Button or Ann
should look her up ? " —
" Oh pshaw ! you're green, Adrian.
It's a regular begging letter. I git
sometimes a dozen in a day. I kep
a lot of um at fust, but I found I
should have to have a house on pur-
pose, and I fling um all in the waste-
basket now. So much for that."
And he suited the action to the
word. But Adrian, not quite able to
accept this harsh decree, and at any
rate desirous to keep the letter as a
curiosity, asked for it.
" Why, certain ; " and he gave it to
him — "but my boy, don't you git
mixed up with no sech critters, — now
mind that ! Once for all, in this city,
when you look into cases of charity
and particularly when you talk with
wiininen, unless you know exactly
where you air, either stop before you
begin, or have your witnesses with
you. Why, I won't talk with no wirn-
men in this very office, except it
should be my own family or so, with-
out openin' them doors wide so's to hev
my clerks see what's a goin on."
Adrian opened his eyes as wide as
Mr. Button his doors, at discovering
a state of things that many a respect-
able citizen fully understands to his
great cost and discomfort.
" Wal," resumed the other, " the
next thing on the programme will be
something else, as the nigger minstrels
say."
So he took up the next letter. It
was a request for money for a politi-
cal purpose. " Note in the upper
right hand corner," observed Mr. But-
ton, "yes, politely, with check. The
number for filing goes in tother cor-
ner. I'll git it back agin, in some
shape, one o' these days."
The next was a notice of an insur-
ance premium due ; and there fol-
lowed an invitation to a church fair,
a notice to serve on a jury, a letter
from a conveyancer about the title to
certain real estate, and so on. To
most of these a word or two sufficient-
ly indicated the reply; a few re-
quired answers dictated in full, which
were accordingly executed on the
spot.
The extreme difference in the na-
tures of the two men was well illus-
trated by the contrast in their appear-
ance as they sat at their work at the
same table. One was tall, the other
only middle-sized ; one was singularly
light, swift and easy in all his mo-
tions, the other not exactly clumsy,
but at least deliberate and unelastic.
Both were light rather than dark in
personal colors, but the young man's
fine glossy dark brown hair, clear
well opened eyes, and delicate skin
announced great fineness of texture
throughout, while Mr. Button's thick
close-cut hair, strong and coarse, was
of a dull indistinct sandy hue, -so to
speak of no color whatever ; and its
stubbly growth was somewhat as if
he had saved up old scrubbing-brushes
to make him a wig of. He was close
shaven, while Adrian's beard and
mustache, naturally growing shapely
and full, were untouched by steel — it
is to be observed that now-a-days no
man is described until beard and
mustache have been accounted for.
Thus, Button's square coarse jaws,
his rather full and not very shapely
lips, and blunt fleshy nose took a
complete relief upon his head, which
was not very large ; and as his neck
was thick and short, the back and
42
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
base of his brain relatively full, and
the top of his head shallow, the result
was a contracted and little look not at
all beautiful, and which the quite re-
spectable development of the lower
or perceptive part of his forehead was
not of itself able to compensate. Even
the long upper lip, so usually held a
mark of practical sense, rather in-
creased than diminished the ungain-
liness of the face. His shoulders and
chest were massive, as indeed was the
whole frame ; so that he gave the im-
pression of a slow rock-like strength,
which was doubly striking as con-
trasted with the grace and ease of the
younger man. A last odd finish was
given to Mr. Button's face by a fan-
tasy of nature, which had framed his
thick sandy eyebrows in two round
uplifted arches, giving a rather funny
fixed look of astonishment to his face,
which was the more ludicrous as it
was the exact opposite of his solid,
rugged, resolute and firmly poised
mental character. The one man lived,
so to speak, in coarse heavy bone and
muscle ; the other, in swift blood and
lightning-quick nerve force. It was
the contrast in full between the fleshly
man, and the spiritual man. When
the first pile of letters was despatched,
Mr. Button directed Adrian to write
out the answers as noted, and draw-
ing the dictated letters to him, read
them over, and remarked with evi-
dent pleasure, after signing them,
" Fustrate, fustrate. That's what
I call par excellence. You write the
fastest of any feller I ever see, to write
so plain."
Adrian smiled as he replied that
he was very glad to suit ; he left Mr.
Button to suppose that the smile was
caused wholly by this pleasure, al-
though it was in fact partly due to
the new use made by Mr. Button of
two words from the French tongue ;
the worthy gentleman no doubt con-
founding them with their English
fac-similes, which indeed furnished a
very suitable meaning.
" I've taken pains enough with my
hand-writing," he added, "to be en-
titled to some credit for that. I be-
lieve I could run a writing school on
a new and original plan of my own,
and a good one."
"Could, hay? Plan of your own,
hay ? What's that, I'd like to know ? "
asked Mr. Button, with an accent
that seemed to intimate something
like : Fine plan such a chap as you are
is likely to hit on !
"Why," said the young man, " I'd
teach just the opposite of the ordinary
commercial hand-writing teachers.
They try to teach a handsome hand
first, then a rapid one, and a legible
one last, if it happens so. Now I'd
have these three things to do, in-
stead; First, write plain. Second,
write fast. Third, write pretty."
" Wal, I declare," said the senior,
"Adrian, I didn't know you'd got so
much practical sense. You're right,
sure as you're alive. You can, really ;
you can make money on that plan,
certain. Wal, we sha'n't git through
here by organizin no writin' schools
this mornin."
And he turned again to the remain-
ing letters. These were as speedily
and satisfactorily despatched, and Mr.
Button, as he shoved them aside, ob-
served,
" There ; so far so good. Them's
all ready to number and file. The
answers must be press-copied. John ! "
he shouted.
One of the clerks entered, and was
set to take the copies. Mr. Button
looked at his watch.
" I declare it's later than I thought.
I've gut to run across to Broadway
for a while — now these business let-
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
13
ters are more particular ; got to dic-
tate most of them " — and he paused.
"Why," said Adrian, " dictating
don't take long. I'll take down the
answers in short hand. Then you can
go, and I'll have them all extended
when you come hack."
" I want to know ! Can ye ? "
exclaimed Mr. Button, once more
agreeably surprised. " Wal, we'll
try it." And in a very little while
the answers were all taken down
ready for writing out, and Mr. But-
ton took his hat and coat.
" I had a short-hand feller once for
a while," he remarked, " but he
wasn't good for nothin' else, and he
didn't know his own trade so but
what I had to dictate half his work
to him over agin. I didn't keep
him but two days ; told him I wasn't
goin' to have him learn his own
business at my expense, and shipt
him. Hain't thought much o' short
hand sence that. Praps you'll do
better."
And off he went, leaving Adrian
busy at his writing, which occupied
him nearly up to the return of the
publisher. The answers were now read
over, fully approved, the press copies
taken as before, the originals num-
bered and filed, and the day's corres-
pondence was attended to.
" That last letter there," observed
Mr. Button, " that there wasn't no an-
swer to, from that air old Doctor Gid-
dins that said he couldn't do no sech
thing, — PH. have the old feller's
name sure, if he is a Doctor of Di-
vinity. That's jest what I'm a goin
to buy of him. But there's two pints
to tend to before that. One's about
a book, and tother's about a man.
The book's here — or at least the plan
on't is, and the man's a comin ; or if
he ain't it's his resk, for I wrote him
ef he wasn't here at half past twelve
<>xact, I wouldn't have nothin to say tc
him. He wants to git some territory
for my Histry o' the Bible. Tain't
likely it's in him, anyhow. Good
agents are about as plenty as hen's
teeth. But we'll soon find out."
" Territory ? " said Adrian —
"what's that?"
"Why, I own the hull United
States," said Mr. Button, adding
with a grin, — "for the sale of my
publications, I mean. Now ef a feller
comes'n wants to git an agency — say
the Histry, now — the fust thing
is to see 'f he can sell a book."
"Why," said Adrian, "how can
you tell that ? "
" I reckon you'll see how I can tell,
before you git out o' this office, ef
that feller comes as he agreed. I'll
open his eyes, unless he's smart, I
tell ye — and yourn too, smart's ye
be ! — Wal ; spose I find he can sell.
Next thing is, is there any territory.
This book'll tell ; " — Mr. Button se-
lected a thin folio volume from the
pile on the table and opened it —
" This is my record of the hull United
States, as fur'z I've lotted deestricks
out on't to sell the Histry o' the
Bible. You see, the agents are my
army, and I'm like the centurion in
the Bible ; I say unto urn to come, and
go, and do it, and they do ; and if
they don't, they ketch it ! I make
every man stand in his lot, and work
it thorough ly too, I tell ye ! But
about this book : " —
Here Mr. Button took from a
drawer a written paper, and read aloud
a very long title, beginning with the
words " Useful Information," end-
ing with the imprint, viz. /'Published
by Subscription Only. T. Button.
New York;" and having between
the two, after that fashion of sub-
scription books which is so disgusting
to practical printers of good taste,
44
8c rope ; or, The Lost Library.
what really amounted to a whole
table of contents, showing in substance
that the work therein described was
or was to be a sort of encyclopedic
collection of receipts for cooking,
recipes for simple medicines, rules for
farming affairs, directions for plan-
ning and calculating various mechani-
cal processes, arithmetical tables,
forms for simple written instruments,
— in short a most extensive miscella-
ny of information, necessarily of the
greatest convenience provided always
it should be trustworthy.
" There," added Mr. Button, as he
ended, " my fust name for that was,
"Button's Every Thing."
"More striking," commented Adrian.
"Praps so," said the publisher;
"but these sensation titles won't do
for my way of doin' business, no
more'n sensation books. I can't do
nothin' without a book that's really
right up and down valable. When
I've gut that, then I can bear on jest
as hard as I like, and the more's said
about the book the better. That's the
way I've made my money, — by
givin' right good goods — better'n I
agreed, every time, and puttin' on a
tre-menjus pressure."
Adrian, who had never closely
looked into such matters, was quite
man enough to perceive and to ad-
mire the real breadth of view, the
just sense, and the vast energy, that
these statements implied, and he said
as much, to the evident gratification
of Mr. Button.
" But how do you make people buy
the book?" he inquired, — just as
one of the clerks" looked in to say
that Mr. Jacox, and another gentle-
man, were present.
" Show um both right in," an-
swered Button, adding, — to Adrian,
— '-'That's jest exactly what I'm a
goin to show ye."
CHAPTER Vin.
Two men came in. One was a tall
or rather a long man ; oldish, lean,
seedy, solemn, with a hollow chest,
a long lean face, and an unwholesome
dusky unclean complexion. He wore
a rusty black suit, and a stock in-
stead of a cravat.
" Mr. Jacox ? " asked Button.
" No," said the other man, quickly.
"My name's Jacox." He was a
brisk little fellow, it might be either
thirty-five or forty years old, dry,
jerky, with twinkling light-blue eyes,
straight whitish hair, whitish eye-
brows, a voluble quick utterance, and
every appearance of absolute confi-
dence in Mr. Jacox.
Mr. Button looked for a moment
at the two men, decided "which was
worth attending to, and proceeded to
eliminate the surd, as the algebraists
say.
" Seddown, gentlemen," he said, to
begin with ; " Glad to see ye."
They saddown, not knowing — nor
did Mr. Button either — that this
form of the verb " to sit " viz.. with
a d, is really a close approach to the
primeval Aryan root.
"Did you want to see me?" he
asked of the desolate long rusty man.
"Yes," replied he in a dejected
tone.
"Wal?" barked Button, inquir-
ingly and disapprovingly in a sin-
gle loud harsh syllable, — " Here I
be."
" Uh-uh-uh-m," bega*n the long
man, with a long cough, apparently
only a cough of habitual preface ; and
he added, with a spiritless manner,
" I was stopping in the city for a few
days, and not having any occupation
just at present — I am a member of
the ministerial profession, sir — but
not being engaged just now, I thought
I would confer with you on the sub-
Scrope .
or,
The Lost Library.
45
ject of undertaking to engage in the
sale of some of jour publications."
Button moved impatiently in his
chair.
" No use, Mr. Mr. no use.
You can't sell my books."
The long man, as if unaccustomed
to such direct and uncompromising
speech, started perceptibly, and looked
aghast for a moment, as if some one
had " spatted " him in the face with
a cold wet hand.
" Uh-uh-uh-uh-m,"he began again ;
"I trust, sir, that the fact of my
being a minister of the gospel " —
"Not the least in the world," in-
terrupted Button — " Nothin' of the
kind. You hain't gut the root o' the
matter in ye — that's the long and
the short on't. You can't sell books.
You can't sell nothin'. I hain't no
use for ye. A hundred sech fellers
as you couldn't sell a baby a tract.
It's, jizm I want. Piety ain't no count
in the subscription book business. Nor
ministers neither; only men. I'd
like to 'commodate ye, my friend, but
taint no kind o' use. Good morn in'.
I'm very busy. John!" he shouted
again to his clerk, who instantly ap-
peared — " Show this gentleman out."
And without paying the least at-
tention to the confounded long man,
who coughed again in full, and would
have begun another circumlocution,
Mr. Button made a sudden half-face,
and addressed Jacox.
" Now, Mr. Jacox, your turn. So
you want to git some territory to sell
my Histry o' the Bible ? "
" Yes," said Jacox. But both he
and Adrian wore looks that testified
to an uncomfortable sensation in view
of the dismissal of the poor broken-
down clergyman, who had as it were
gradually been extracted from the
room in a state of astonished but
feeble indignation.
"Hrnh!" snuffed the publisher,
vigorously. " That chap would have
sot there 'n talked all clay long 'f I'd
a let him. No more go in him than
there is in a broken-backed snek.
Sell books ! No wonder he hain't got
no engagement. What's he good for,
I'd like to know? He may be wuth
somethin a preachin, for what I
know, where they only want a kind
nuss to git um asleep, but I don't
believe he can save no souls. Forty
sech preachers couldn't convert a rat.
let alone a sinner in britches ! All
the used up ministers in the world,
1 blieve, think they can make their
everlastin fortins a sellin books.
They're the wust and meanest fail-
ures on um all. I've lost money
enough and time enough with um. I
tell ye, before this. I shuck um off
mighty quick now."
This was not, perhaps, very chari-
table, except in that range of charity
that begins at home ; but the two
hearers felt that it was hard sense,
and business-like. Button went on :
" Married, Mr. Jacox ? "
" Yes."
" Where's yer famly ? "
" North Denmark, Connecticut."
" References ? "
Jacox had at once begun to be un-
easy under this inquisition, probably
thinking it only another mode of
prefacing a rejection, and being a
person of no great patience, and hav-
ing a good deal of free and independ-
ent American citizenship about him,
he snatched out a pocket-book and hast-
ily drew forth some bank bills, which
he exhibited, saying at the same time,
with extreme swiftness of utterance,
"Well, by thunder, I'd about as
soon expect to give references to run
a gin mill as to run the subscription
book business. I can pay my way,
and do my work, and do exactly as I
46
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
agree. References ! I snum ! Well,
by ginger, you can write to Noyes
and Skittery of Hartford, if you
want to. They don't want me to
leave 'em. But I won't give no man
no references ! "
" Don't kick before you're spurred,
Mr. Jacox," placidly observed Mr.
Button. "I like your spunk. I
think it's possible you and I may agree,
and if we do, and you do as I say,
3 r ou'll make a comfortable independ-
ence in a few years. But you say
you've bin one of Noyes and Skit-
tery's agents ? "
" Yes I do, and right smart men
they are. Why, they made not less'n
three thousand dollars last year just
on outfits they sold to agents."
"Wal," said Mr. Button, weight-
ily, " I don't make no money a sellin
one book and a canvassin book
apiece to my agents for an outfit. I
don't make money off my agents. I
can do better. I make money for
urn. I made last year twenty thou-
sand dollars, not off a nasty little
mess of outfits, but off one work I
published. And my agents made
forty-five thousand."
Jacox opened his eyes.
" I don't say nothin against Noyes
and Skittery," resumed the chieftain ;
" I know urn to be good men and
smart men. But their system ain't
my system, and my agents can't use
no system but mine. I hain't no ex-
pectation that iSToyes and Skittery'll
like mine, no more'n I like theirn.
But look a here, Mr. Jacox ; — the
bigger share you git of the sixty
thousand dollars" — Mr. Button
pronounced with an emphasis like
one that carves colossal words on a
pyramid of granite — "of the sixty
thousand dollars my agents shall
make, this year, on my new Histry
o' the Bible, — the more you git on't,
the better I shall be pleased, — sup-
posin you take a holt."
Adrian himself, not at all inclined
nor accustomed to look at things from
the pecuniary side, began to feel the
influence of this powerful passion for
wealth that smouldered so hotly in
the strong and large though low na-
ture of Mr. Button. In spite of him-
self it stimulated him from under-
neath, as where a mass of coal on
fire, burning under ground, heats and
drives up an unnatural growth of
vegetation on the surface above it,
too rank for the cool clear air on the
mountain. As for Jacox, a quick-
thoughted and vivid creature, and
eager for wealth after the genuine
sharp-witted Yankee fashion, even if
possible more than Button in propor-
tion as he was poorer, he was not
merely smouldering. He was white
hot already, though with correct busi-
ness habit he was trying desperately
to seem totally indifferent. Pie could
hardly sit still. Adrian fancied that
as the little man sat there in his
chair, he could hear him fizz and see
him thrill in the new-fangled scien-
tific manner, — and he said to him-
self, " Heat a Mode of Motion."
Mr. Button, indeed, was under a
full head of steam. He had seen at
once that Jacox would make a capital
agent, and he was fully resolved to
capture him on the spot. Besides,
he wanted to show Adrian how to
handle Men. He resumed ; as one
might say, to change the figure, he
re-opened his broadside of hot shot.
"Now, Mr. Jacox, I'll be plain
with ye, for that's the best way. I
like your looks ; and I b'lieve you
and I can do fustrate by each other.
But you can't sell no books for me
not on your plan. I'll jest tell ye a
little about mine, and if you don't
like, why, there's no harm done. Ef
Scrope ; or, The Lost Lihrary.
47
ye do, it's a thing agreed. Now, —
sellin.' books is like workin' land. It
can be done shallow, or deep. Your
way — I don't mean no disrespect to
nobody, Mr. Jacox, but it's ray way
of explainin' things — your way's
what I call the Skitteryskimmery
System. Your firm rakes in a rij-
ment — I should say a brigade, I
reckon, of fellers, anybody they can
git — the more the better, because the
tirm wants to save itself if it can jest
by sellin outfits alone. And any man
mat can lay down the price of an out-
fit's enlisted. Then they give out
territory jest as fast as they can, the
faster the better, and they send out
their agents jest like them locusts
that come up over the land of Egypt,
and they skitter and skim over the
hull country in about three months
or six months, 'n sell what they can,
and deliver the books, and the hull
thing's over. And the next six
months or the next year it's jest so
over again with another book, and so
on ; and no book don't sell for more'n
a year at the outside, and the coun-
try gits jammed and choked with
trash that ain't fit to be read. Ain't
that so, Mr. Jacox ? "
Jacox laughed. "Something of
that kind, Mr. Button."
" Wal — my system is the Subsoil
System. I don't employ no agent un-
til I've seen him and talked to him
and found out what he can do, and
shown him how, if he don't know al-
ready, for I do know, Mr. Jacox ! and
the proof on't is the money I've made.
And when he's taken territory I
make him stay there and sell and re-
port to me and sell and report to me
until he's worked every house in his
deestrict — every house ! And my
books'll sell for ten years, for twenty
years, and they're better and better
all the time, for I keep improvin on
'em, so's't every subscriber gits all I
promise him and a good deal o' the
time more too. — Now, Mr. Jacox, do
you know how to sell a customer a
book ? "
" Why," said the little man, great-
ly impressed by the intense manner
and weighty matter of Mr. Button's
address, — "Why, I've been in the
habit of thinking so ; and I've sold a
good many books ; but I'll say this,
Mr. Button — that I'm ready to take
your directions."
" Now ye talk like a man o' sense,"
said Button. " Here," — and taking
up a copy of the History of the Bible,
he held it out to Mr. Jacox, adding,
— " Now sell me that book."
Jacox looked puzzled.
" I mean it. I mean exactly that.
Sell me that book ! I don't want it.
D — n a book agent anyhow ! Cussed
piratical villins ! "
Jacox, without a word, took the
volume, and rose from his chair. But-
ton seized a pen, turned to the table,
and began to write assiduously.
"Mr. Button, I believe?" said
Jacox, in a prompt and sharp but
good natured voice.
Button just glanced up and then
down again, sajang, gruffly, "Yes.
What want ? "
Jacox laid the book on the table,
open to the title-page.
"There, Mr. Button. You're a man
of family. That book will do more to
keep your children honest and safe in
their morals and their practice, than
alHhe Sunday schools in York State.
You've got to own it."
" Get out with your book ! " ex-
claimed Button, slapping down the
cover of the book and giving it a slide
so angry and vicious that it flew quite
over the edge of the table.
Jacox caught it neatly in the air,
laid it right back where it was before,
48
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
open just the same, and went straight
on in exactly the same tone, barely
making a semicolon at the interrup-
tion.
" — As I was saying; now for in-
stance ; 3 r our daughter hears some-
body say the Bible's a humbug ; she's
a young innocent girl and don't know
good and evil. Or your son, and he
thinks it's smart to be an independent
thinker. But when they come home
and ask you or their mother about it,
you just look up the points in this book
and you set 'em all right, and save a
fine young fellow that you've set your
heart on, from going head first into
infidelity, and all the wickedness that
generally goes along with it."
— " You see," broke off Jacox, all
of a sudden, " this is no fair shakes. I
haven't studied up the book. I don't
know any thing about it at all. I can't
sell a book that I don't understand.
Neither could you ; nor anybody. I
can't preach at random."
" You've done very well, Mr. Jacox,"
said Button with a smile — " That's
jest what I was a waitin' to hear ye
say. I was a lookin' to see how long you
could run your mill without any grist
in't. You're the man I want,I guess.
You ain't afraid, and you don't git
upsot, and you don't lose your temper.
And if you'd a had the fax about that
book welHn your mind, how long would
you have hung on to me ? "
A fell look of bull-dog tenacity set-
tled in the queer light-blue eyes of
the little man as he answered with his
teeth set together,
"Till I had your name down for
one or more copies, unless I died first."
"Wal," said Mr. Button; "that's
extremely satisfactory ; now I must
go; — can you come in here to-morrow
morning at nine exactly ? "
Jacox said he could.
" Then I'll make an arrangement
with ye that'll suit ye, I guess. I
want to give ye some particklers about
sellin too, that'll be of service to ye.
And see here ; — I wish you'd master
this here " — he took a printed thing
like a sort of hand-bill or broad sheet
off the table and gave it to him —
" and see how full an account on't
you can give me in the mornin'.
Adrian, you take one too — " he
handed him one accordingly — " I
want ye to see how these things are
done. Good day, Mr. Jacox."
And with more cordiality than he
had yet shown, the great man arose
and gave his new agent a hearty
farewell shake of the hand.
When Jacox was gone, Button sat
back in his chair with an air of weari-
ness that rather surprised Adrian, and,
wiping his forehead, he asked the lat-
ter,
" What d'ye think o' that ? "
" I didn't know there was so much
generalship in the business," an-
swered the young man.
" There is though — and it uses up
the general, too. Tell ye what 'tis, it
spends a man's life to put force into
things like that. I've got that Jacox,
— but I'm tired. I've grown kinder
shaky, nervous a woman would call it.
I can't stan it as well as I could fifteen
years ago. I feel a queer kind o dizzi-
ness every once in a while, and sorter
pains in the back o my neck. I only
wish my son Bill would take to the
business — Really, I'd a bought my
own book o Jacox if 'twould a sot Bill
in the right path," continued Mr. But-
ton, with a queer painful smile — "I
couldn't help a thinkin on't when he
made them pints about a man's chil-
dren. But it's too late now, I reckon.
He must graduate at the law school,
I spose, and travel, and be somethin
or other — I'm sure I do'no what."
Mr. William Button was the only
JScrope ; or, The Lost Library.
49
and not particularly hopeful son of
the capitalist. Among the suffi-
ciently numerous deficiencies of our
beloved country is, the want of an
Education for the Children of the
Rich. Physiological results of igno-
rance and of consequent mistakes in
the use of life — or perhaps instead
of mistakes the term should be wrong
conditions of society, — in our great
business centres, make them often
a sort of whirlpools into which good
strains of blood are incessantly div-
ing and disappearing. A strong
eager resolute worker comes into the
city, intent on wealth. He plunges
into a career of furious unrelaxing va-
cationless struggling for money, mar-
ries, and he and his wife go straight
on in the same road. Even while a
young man, even though upright and
pure of life, the freshness and cleanly
vigor of his youth are soiled, dried,
stagnated, enfeebled, by the hot fury
of his money-making, the dead air
of the city streets, a life without ex-
ercise, vacation, or any health-giving
constituent; and the children born
to him are by a necessary result the
physiological embodiments of mistake,
unbalance, imperfection. They are
born ill-constructed ; their very mar-
row and pith has weak streaks in it ;
they are ships whose timbers had dry
rot in them when they were framed.
Now, of all the distinctions of man,
the highest is, his infinite power of
amendment, of reparation, of recov-
ery, of improvement. Even for the
strengthless sprouts of these unlucky
city stocks, neither physiologist nor
educator — scientific as we pretend to
be — knows how great a measure of
redemption might be secured by a prop-
er education of mind and body. For
our poor, our schools and our life af-
ford it. In other countries, much is
accomplished by the aid of wise and
just sentiments as to the responsibili-
ty of inheritors of wealth. But with
us, physiological ignorance prevents
any remedy for the congenital weak-
nesses of money-makers' children, and
social and moral ignorance prevents
any remedy for the peculiar tempta-
tions around the helpless little fools as
they grow up. So the impartial self-
limitations of nature are left to do
their cold unerring work, and in the
second or third generation the abused
race is extinct, by a vital reductio ad
absurd inn. But Mr. Button, though
profoundly displeased at many things
concerning his two children, and par-
ticularly his son, — who was, in short,
rather foolish and more than rather
fast — could not imagine any reason
for it. So like a practical man as he
was, he said but little about it and did
the best he could.
People who are largely and instinc-
tively kindly and desirous to help,
often attract the confidences of others,
without any purposes or advances
of their own. Women are most often
called to such lovely offices ; but there
are a few men who without having
less of the masculine forces, have as it
were superadded something of the
feminine emotional and sympathetic
endowment. Such was Adrian, and
he had often met with experiences
accordingly. He was the established
confidant, ex officio, of all his friends.
A stranger sitting by his side in
the rail car would confess to him his
disappointments in life, his sor-
rows and even — sometimes — his ill
deeds ; for until a late stage of the
case-hardening of evil-doing, sin in
most people is more or less consciously
a sickness, a pain, and almost every-
body longs for sympathy in sickness
or pain. Even lost children and lost
old women at the street corners
always floated up to Adrian by this
50
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
unconscious attraction, to ask him the
way ; a stray dog, or a poor mewing
outcast kitten infallibly trotted at his
heels. And here was this big bull of
a capitalist confessing griefs that he
would hardly admit to himself, to the
young man that he habitually looked
on as a " kind o' Nimshi " — as is the
funny Yankee term for a shiftless per-
son ; apparently from some fancied
fitness of sound, rather than from any
actual inefficiency recorded as belong-
ing to the ancient Hebrew gentleman
and progenitor of Jehu.
Adrian, whose opinion of Mr. But-
ton junior was certainly not higher
than the father's, found no adequate
consolation to offer, but he argued as
well as he could that there was plenty
of time yet ; and that many men had
waited and doubted along time before
choosing their occupation ; and that
perhaps it was good fortune that the
young man could afford to wait. But
the shrewd publisher shook his head.
" I do' know — we'll hope for the
best. — But there's no use a talkin
about it, anyhow. Now, -as to my
Useful Information. There's a lot o
work to be done on't yet, and a Gen-
eral Introduction to be writ, and I'd
thought o makin on ye an offer to
take holt on't. I've got an old feller
to daddy it, as I call it — I can have
any I want out of a dozen, — with a
D.D. to his name, that'll let me put
his name on the title-page. Nothin
like havin handles to the author's
name ; if he has as many as one o
these big steamboat engines, a stickin
out everywhere, all the better. D.D.
stands for Daddy, I reckon. Well,
as I was a sayin, there's room in this
office for a smart man, and there's
money too. One thing leads to an-
other, ye know. Who knows what
might come on't ? "
In truth, the promptness and neat-
ness with which Adrian had turned
off his work as secretary, had greatly
surprised and impressed Mr. Button,
and had decided him almost on the
instant to make somewhat such a
proposition to the young man as he
had thought of a hundred times. But
he had always been held back by a no-
tion that Adrian " couldn't do noth-
in," as he would have phrased it, and
still more by his not understanding
him. Natures like Button's, whose
morality is decently good, but whose
highest aspirations are filled full by
authority and by wealth, are perhaps
the best that can be really happy in
this world ; for happiness is the suc-
cessful exertion of the best of our fac-
ulties. But the range of life that lies
above, in thought ; — all that can be
lived by seeing and feeling and pro-
ducing beauty or truth or love — all
the higher grades of activity are un-
known to these merely materialist
and executive minds. They are
strongly built basements ; they have
no sunny upper rooms nor oratories
with skylights. Accordingly Mr.
Button was conscious that forceful as
he knew himself, his weapons would
not bite upon Adrian, and he was di-
vided between displeasure which he
was inclined to think just contempt,
and another feeling which he would
perhaps have called dislike ; but it
had a tinge of apprehension in it.
There is always some fear toward a
superior organization. It is as belong-
ing to a higher — a more spiritual —
range of being, that we are afraid of
a ghost. To Button, Adrian was a
kind of ghost — unpractical, intangi-
ble, useless, scareful.
Adrian in reply expressed a very
honest surprise ; for he, understand-
ing Button pretty well, was conscious
of his sentiments, and had smiled to
himself more than once at the idea
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
51
of their yoking together in business —
for he had naturally thought of it,
having thoughts active, discursive
and many. But, he said, not having
expected it, he could not at once de-
cide ; and furthermore, he was to be so
much occupied with divers affairs that
in any event he would have to post-
pone a reply for some weeks. To this
Mr. Button agreed, with the cautious
remark "there ain't nothin bindin
in sejestions." And thereupon the
two left the office, Mr. Button to as-
sault and carry the defences of the
Reverend Doctor Giddings, and
Adrian to undertake a hunt in Gow-
ans' antiquarian or rather second-
hand book store, only a few blocks
away in Nassau Street.
CHAPTER IX.
The visit of Adrian Scrope Chester
to New York was for several pur-
poses. The first of these, of course,
was to enjoy some of those hours, —
such as are always so blissful and so
brief — in the permitted happiness of
Miss Button's society. Another was,
to be present at the approaching meet-
ing of the Scrope Association. An-
other was, to obtain the relief of a va-
cation, or at least of a change of activi-
ties, from the steady tediousness of his
drudging duty as Assistant Librarian.
By passing this interval in New York,
he was certain of the stimulus always
offered by the swift and motley vari-
ety of experiences which the great
city is forever offering to the sojourner
from without it — the said sojourner
being for the most part, as the citi-
zens know very well, the only person
decently informed about what is going
on in the city. And besides all
these errands, there was still another;
a purpose which was in fact a secret
of his own ; in which he had already
been eagerly interested for several
years. How eagerly, none can very
well understand, except those who
have themselves been possessed by
that keen and absorbing sort of passion
which belongs to pursuits intrinsi-
cally not important, as if the trifling
nature of the occupation itself were
to be made up for by the correspond-
ingly greater zeal it inspires. In the
particular taste in question, Adrian
was however only exhibiting one of
the traits which belonged to the Scrope '
race, and exhibiting it in the pro-
nounced manner natural to the mani-
festations of that strong blood.
The Scrope descendants generally,
not exclusively Mr. Van Braam, Mr.
Button, Adrian, and Scrope of Scrope,
but a very respectable army of kins-
folk scattered by this time as is
so commonly the case with New
England families, into all manner of
positions in life, and all over the
United States, retained more or less
of the vivid sentiment of kinship and
the pride of good descent, as well as
the sturdy moral quality, the mental
activity and the liking for good liter-
ature, which belonged to their best
known Puritan ancestors. Indeed,
even a special trait of the literary
tendency of the race — the taste for
collecting and recording — remained
often distinct and recognizable, as he-
reditary in this race of Yankee yeomen
and men of business, as the like in the
old French family of De Thou or the
noble English house of Spencer.
Thus it came to pass that there
were in existence a score at least, and
very likely thrice as many, manu-
script copies of the document which
was connected with Adrian's visit to
the famous establishment of Mr.
William Gowans in Nassau Street, if
not a cause of it ; and of which he
had in fact at the time of that visit
52
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
one such copy safely bestowed in his
pocket-book. This document was all
that was left of the will of Adrian
Scroope the Refugee ; and this will, —
a holograph, as the collectors call it,
viz., a document written throughout
bv ir^ maker or author, instead of
being written by some one else in
order to be signed by him, — and two
signatures, were in fact all the exist-
ing record evidence of his personal
presence in America, so far as had
hitherto become known to antiquaries.
There were reports, suspicions, and
traditions in abundance, and of very
great circumstantial weight ; but, as
The original will was drawn upon
a page of foolscap paper, and the por-
tion remaining was such a strip as
would be torn out of a bound book by
some one snatching at a leaf in haste.
It was the outer half, torn roughly
down the middle of the leaf from top
to bottom ; and — if this theory about
a book was true, for there was no evi-
dence on the subject — it had been
on the left hand page as you open the
book, for it was the left hand half of
the lines which had been preserved.
As antiquaries know very well, paper
was used economically in the early
days of New England, as if a costly
Mr. Van Braam very well knew, and thing, and this will was, accordingly,
though verbose in style, written in a
small, crowded, though clear and
clerkly hand, wonderfully firm and
steady for so old a writer ; so that the
whole instrument, signatures, attesta-
tions and all, was easily contained upon
had explained to young Scrope, this
was the extent of the certainties.
Exactly this dearth of information it
was. which obviously enough was go-
ing to be the great difficulty in the
way of establishing any American
claim by inheritance upon the very the single page.
large sum which was represented as
ready to be delivered to whomsoever
should prove his right as heir to the
regicide colonel, Adrian Scroope.
The will in question had been
proved in Hartford, in 1728, and
was executed the year before, as ap-
peared from that half of the attesta-
tion to that effect, which remained.
This date indicated that the maker of
The original half was in the hands
of a well known antiquarian and col-
lector, Philetus Stanley of East Hart-
ford, — and should naturally be there
still, as he is himself, like Adrian
Scrope Chester, a descendant from the
Deidamia named in the will. What
was left upon this mutilated page
throws various lights upon hereditary
Scrope traits, and is not without inter-
the will had attained to a full measure est as a specimen of the wordy style of
of that long life which was an almost its period, as well as of the thorough
invariable possession of such Scroope manner in which it was then usual
descendants as were strongly marked to imbue business documents with a
with either the physical or mental formal piety. It is not meant that
traits of the race. For, Adrian Scroope this piety was insincere, but that it
the Refugee, having fled to New Eng- was superfluous. Many an old deed
land after his father's execution in of those days begins, not
lGfi'X was then a man grown, accord-
ing to the current tradition, and ac-
cording to reason. If he were twenty
years old in 1660, he would of course
be eighty-seven in 1727, the year of
the execution of the will.
To all
persons to whom these presents shall
concern," but "To all Christian
people to whom " &c. — as if faith
need not be kept with the heathen.
In like manner was it, that the most
dishonest of merchants as much as
Scrope; or, The Lost Library. 53
the most honest, would in old times notes of hand and hills for groceries,
put "Laus Deo" at the head of a The hody of the existing portion
new set of hooks. The same notion of the so-called Scrope Will was as
is to-day alive in those who are striv- follows, omitting the witnesses' names
ing for a law to enforce the acknowl- and the attestation of proof. The tes-
edgment of God in all constitutions, tator's signature was lost, all except
laws, conveyances of real estate, the first two letters.
20th of ye second m° called April, 1727. I Ad
at present sojourning in Hartford on the C
heing at this tyme sick and weake in body, yett
and mercy of the Lord retaining my full unde
icular my purposes often heretofore expressed, doe d
my last will and testament as Followeth :
My miserable and sinfull bodie to be bur
with y e leaste cost and pomp y l decently may
testimony against y e heathen custome of vaine show
beseech to be regarded. And my soul I coniitt un
in full faith and trust in his kindness to me a worm
fied that my state be whatsoever he chooseth.
And whereas I am of right entitled to all
personall which was'or should have been that of Ad
ther within y e realme of England, and Whereas I
nail lyfe of others and myselfe than for the thinges of
temporall in New England is therefore but small :
And whereas my daughter Adriana hath disob
things, and especially in marrying Philipp Van Booraem,
my deare daughter Deidamia hath been loving & ob
and in particular hath been the staffe of my old age, N
of my aforesaid purposes already often expressed,
queath all my temporall estate both real and person
soever, lands, tenements and hereditaments, whether
wrongfully or otherwise withheld from me, whether sit
bookes in y e chest with name and armes of Scroope
and all goods, chattels and choses in action of every
and that without prejudice or unkindness to my deare son
of said Hartford, presently contracted in
To my said deare daughter Deidamia and her he
fullest and amplest estate therein that may be.
Ad
Many careful and repeated studies tractive problem to the local antiqua-
had been made upon this mutilated ries of Connecticut — a persistent,
record ; for it was a chief centre of hard-headed, and sharp-witted tribe
interest to a somewhat numerous of close reasoners, shrewd investigators
family connection, and it presented a and determined searchers, though
less fascinating though yet very at- not numerous.
54
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
"Oh few and small their numbers were,
A handful of sharp men."
The conclusions drawn from the
Will are not very difficult to discern,
however. Some of them of course,
were reckoned certain, and others
uncertain. Thus : it was considered
clear that the testator was a person
of deep piety, after the type of his
period ; strong and enduring in re-
sentment, yet disinterested and be-
neficent ; that he was of original and
decided waj^s of thinking, as was
shown by his unconventional notions
about funerals ; that he believed him-
self entitled to property of some
kind in England 5 that whatever he
could give was given exclusively to
his daughter Deidamia, — undoubt-
edly that Deidamia Throop who is well
known to have married John Chester
of Windsor ; that he had a son,
whom he had probabl}'- provided for
as is often the case, by what are
called " advancements " or gifts dur-
ing his life, and who therefore took
nothing by this will ; that although
no express words of disinheriting
were used, nothing whatever was
given to the disobedient daughter
Adriana, married to the Dutchman
Philipp Van Booraem or Van Braam.
The tenacious character of the Scropes
was evidenced in such minor matters
as the language and handwriting,
which were rather that of the Com-
monwealth, when the writer was a
boy at school, than of the period of
Swift and Addison, at which the in-
strument was executed. It was clear
enough also that a chest carved with the
Scrope name and arms, and containing
books, had been given to Deidamia.
But — however weighty the pre-
sumptions in the case might be, and
although the testator's given name
began with the two letters " Ad " —
and although both the body of the
will and these two letters, especially
the very characteristic and strikingly
designed capital A were admitted to
be in the same handwriting with the
two existing signatures of Adrian
Scroope, and although no other rea-
sonable hypothesis would account for
a daughter of the uncommon name
of Adriana, and although it was
specified that the chest with the
" bookes " bore the name and arms of
Scroope — in spite of all these cu-
mulative circumstances, they were cir-
cumstantial evidence only, and the
more cautious authorities hesitated
to affirm positively that the will was
absolutely that of Adrian Scroope, son
and heir of Colonel Adrian Scroope
the Regicide Judge. It may, they
reasoned, be that of the Reverend
Adeodatus Throop, minister of a small
society in New London County, after-
wards known as New Concord, and
by law incorporated as the town of
Bozrah in May 1786 ; — and whose
son or grandson Benjamin Throop,
succeeding him in his spiritual charge,
having graduated at Yale College
in 1734, was ordained Jan. 3, 1739,
and became his successor in his
spiritual office, living to a great age
and dying, still after the good old
fashion the settled minister at New
Concord or Bozrah, in 17S5.
It is very true, however, that an-
other family tradition identified the
two, Adrian Scroope and Adeodatus
Throop. This tradition was a con-
stant and unvarying one, and had be-
come an unquestioned article of faith
among the Scrope descendants. It
was, that Adrian Scroope had been
hunted for by the officers of the crown
at the same time with his father, viz.
in 1660, and had indeed only escaped
from them by great presence of mind
and a shrewd deceit. The party of
officers had, it would appear, even
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
55
made their way into the house where
young Seroope was. They did not
know his person however ; and with
a ready coolness remarkable in a
young fellow, he perceived this, and
adroitly mingled with them, pretend-
ing to aid them in their search. Fi-
nally, looking out at a window, and
affecting to see the man they wanted
he cried out " There goes Seroope ! "
flung himself out as if in pursuit, and
so got off. He remained, apparently,
in hiding, and crossed secretly to New
England ; though the time as well
as the manner of his doing so are
purely matters of conjecture. He
may have crossed in the same ship
with the regicides Goffe and Wh alley,
who landed at Boston in July 1G60.
There is not however the remotest
trace of his presence in New England,
either, until the year 1666, when he
must have been living at Hartford
under his own name, for the signa-
ture at the end of this chapter, and
which is a fac-simile furnished by the
kindness of that accomplished histori-
cal scholar C. J. Hoadly Esq., State li-
brarian of Connecticut, is upon a docu-
ment dated March 11, of that year, and
he is there described as " of Hartford."
The other of his two known signa-
tures is of about the same time. He
had therefore then passed safely
through the time of the first pursuit
of Goffe and Wh alley, in the fall and
winter of 1660-61, and had thought
it safe to appear in his own name.
Whatever was the immediate occasion
of his adopting that of Throop instead
(taking it for granted that he did so,
according to this distinct and positive
family tradition), the reason must
necessarily have been fear of legal
proceedings by the crown. Reason
enough; for those were the clays when
no counsel was allowed to a prisoner
on a criminal charge ; and when if
the king and his ministers so required,
a crown prosecution for high treason
was all but certain death. And the
same consideration continued almost
or quite as powerful not only under
that hog and murderer Chief Justice
Jeffries in the reign of James II., but
even for almost a century later. It
was barely over a century ago that a
storm blew down the last skull from
Temple Bar, in 1772, — four years be-
fore our own Declaration of Indepen-
dence. It is no wonder, then, if the
imperilled refugee remained quietly in
the safe concealment of an assumed
name, (a concealment rendered pecu-
liarly safe by the fact that near by,
in the town of Lebanon, there was ac-
tually established a well known fami-
ly of the name of Throop), and in an
obscure Connecticut village, to the
end of his days. One of more ambi-
tious, vain or greedy temper might
have risked attempting to regain the
wealth and high position that justly
belonged to him in England. But
the Scropes were proud, not vain ;
nor did they greatly feel the want of
either riches or honor ; and there is
reason enough to believe that the ob-
scure and silent life which he lived
was filled with good works and con-
tented studies and meditations, such
as would afford at least as much real
enjoyment as such a character could
find in any higher position.
'<ut Scmfif
56
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
CHAPTER X.
" Gowaxs'." was only a few steps
from ]\Ir. Button's office. Adrian bad
only to go a block or two north-
ward, and to enter the door of a
roomy establishment on tbe western
side of Nassau Street between Ann
and Beekman — being in fact at pres-
ent tbe southernmost of tbe three
partitions of the ground-floor occu-
pied by the American News Company
— and he had arrived. The street
front was filled by two immense win-
dows with the door between. Both
PART III.
that he was an embodiment or efflo-
rescence of all the mind in Mr. Gow-
ans' establishment and of all its dirt
too — the offspring, so to speak, of a
marriage between tbe old gentle-
man's literature and his litter. But
carefully as Adrian turned over the
trays-full of small volumes and scru-
tinized one by one tbe titles of the
books in the windows, not one did he
find that was worth money to him, or
even shelf-room ; and remembering
tbe auction sale of tbe day before, be
said to himself that it was no wonder
the Hebrew bidder restricted himself
windows were extremely dusty, and to two cents. But truly, what fear-
upon the space close behind the glass, ful stuff it was ! Old weather-beaten
where in a dry goods shop would have copies of school arithmetics and spell-
been displayed some artistic array —
or dishevelment — of glossy fabrics,
were arranged — or rather flung — a
few dozen books or sets. Close in
front of each window, outside, was a
large board or rough tray on trestles,
filled each with a heap of weather
worn books, and bearing the enticing
legend, on a square of " straw board,"
"Ten cents each." Within the open-
ing of the doorway, and bestriding
tbe threshold at an informal angle,
was a smaller similar tray, holding
books a grade more valuable — or
rather less worthless, — whose price
was Fifteen Cents. Adrian, with the
genuine book-collector's instinct, stop-
ing-books, thickly arabesqued with
the ingenuous devices of artistic child-
hood ; odd volumes of G. P. B. James'
novels ; poor thin books of verses
published thirty years ago at the
author's expense, and falling into an
instantaneous oblivion — infants too
weak to bear even the effort of birth ;
one or two Annual Reports of the
Smithsonian Institution; a mish-
mash of books perfectly unknown,
perfectly valueless except by avoirdu-
pois weight, very dead cats of books
except that they keep better, and yet,
many of them intrinsically every whit
as desirable as some " excessively
rare" volumes famous in catalogues.
ped and examined all three of these Indeed they would be excessively
trays, and the contents of the window-
seats too, closely watched the while
by the guardian angel of the spot, a
genius loculi or Nassau Street cherub
of about twelve years old, whose face
was sharp enough and his garments
rare themselves if anybody would only
want them.
The books in the windows were
pretty much a repetition of the same
story, a few grades higher in the scale.
There was a set of Bees' Cyclopaedia;
ragged and dirty enough to suggest one of the seventh edition of the Ency-
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
57
clopoedia Britannica ; an awful clean
new set of the Horse Hornileticse, or
sermons, of the Reverend Charles
Simeon, in twenty-one volumes octavo,
as enticing as a row of twenty-one
clean new skulls, and above them on
a placard, the following recommenda-
tion, copied out of Bonn's General
Catalogue, page 1778 :
" A monument of pastoral labor and
piety, with much judgment on doctrinal
subjects, and useful practical application."
BlCKERSTETH.
A monument, indeed ! and over a
whole cemetery of dead sermons at
once, reflected Adrian; and — for he
was a thoughtful observer of words —
he reflected further, What a circum-
spect commendation ! It implies that
the "labor and piety" are dead and
buried; itdoesn't say the "judgment"
is good. How could he have said
less? It's a real model for recom-
mendations ! Next to this impressive
" monument " was a pirated Brussels
copy of the third edition of Brunet's
Manuel clu Libraire, and a good look-
ing Paris copy of the fourth edition ;
but no signs of the fifth. And so on,
and so on ; but Mr. Gowans' collec-
tion of books was that day the largest
collection of published works on the
continent of America, reaching about
two hundred and fifty thousand vol-
umes. Adrian cannot go through
them all at this rate, unless he has a
number of years to spare ; he must go
in.
He went in. The sudden change
at entering from even a Nassau Street
daylight into this vast cavern made
its gloom doubly obscure. He pene-
trated along a narrow alley at one
side of a broad table, that stood in all
the front of the great store, heaped
full and high with books, finding
hardly room to walk between its table-
land and superincumbent book-Cor-
dilleras and the crowded shelves on
the wall, while his feet, as he stepped,
grazed or caught against piles and
piles of books or pamphlets, stacked
along on both sides in the angles at the
floor. Working thus some twenty or
thirty feet back, the gloom always
growing darker as he went, he found
a small open space back of the mighty
table or platform just mentioned, and
in the middle of the breadth of the
great room. In this space was a great
rusty old cylinder stove, with a cool
sort of fire burning away down in the
inside, so that you could feel it if you
reached a good way in. Against the
north side of the room, abreast of this
stove, was a small desk, with a dirty lit-
ter of pamphlets, and scraps of paper,
a dried-up looking inkstand, and one
or two old quill pens. Enthroned upon
a broken backed wooden chair before
this desk sat Mr. Gowans himself, the
Pluto of this Orcus, with his back to
the desk however, his long legs dis-
tributed before him, his old stove-pipe
hat on his head and pulled down over
his eyes just as it was at the auction,
and his hands clasped together behind
the back of his neck, fingers inter-
woven and thumbs down, so that his
elbows projected at either side like
frame-bones for wings. In this rest-
ful and philosophic attitude, he was
conversing with a customer, and did
not so much as turn his head at Adri-
an's approach.
" Have you a copy of Caulfield's
History of the High Court of Jus-
tice ? " asked Adrian.
"No," said the old man, promptly,
and gruffly, shaking his head at the
same time, like Jove, by way of ratifi-
cation.
" A copy of the Reverend Mr. Lee's
Connecticut Election Sermon ? "
"No. Haven't got it."
Here the person who had been talk-
58
JScrope ; or, The Lost Library.
ing with Mr. Gowans interrupted,
asking with good natured and courte-
ous jocularity,
" Didn't you know that Mr. Gowans
has no books at all ? "
" Why, no," said Adrian, amused ;
" I knew no better than to suppose it
was precisely his business to have
them."
" Well, I've dealt with Mr. Gowans
for twenty years, and I've never heard
him acknowledge to a chance cus-
tomer that he had a book."
" I don't quite understand," said
Adrian.
" Why, it's perfectly easy. It's
cheaper for him to say No and be done
with it, than to hunt for a week
through two hundred and fifty thou-
sand volumes and not find the book
after all."
Here the speaker interrupted him-
self suddenly, to give a scrutinizing
look at the young man, and exclaimed,
" Well, I declare, if you're not the
very person I was praying for. Was
it not you who was so good as to give
me a volume of pamphlets at Ball's
yesterday ? "
Adrian, looking closely in his turn,
and recognizing the person called
Sibley, — a dark complesioned middle-
sized man he was, with a pleasant in-
telligent face and voice, a lively man-
ner and very bright eyes, answered,
Yes.
" Couldn't see you at all, at first,
in this old sepulchre," continued he.
"Well, you're exactly the man I
wanted to see. And — by your leave,
Mr. Gowans," he interjected, —
" Oh, yes ! " carelessly returned the
monarch of the cavern, at the same
time turning round and beginning to
make entries on a loose sheet of paper
on his little old desk, by a dim gas-
light. The speaker continued, —
" Well then, I know enough more
about Mr. Gowans' stock than he does
himself, and if you'll tell me what you
want I'll show it with pleasure,
have to hunt here very often."
" Why," returned Adrian, a cer-
tain ridiculous habit of quoting com-
ing upon him, " then to use the words
of the poet, you have ' pu'd the
Gowans fine,' no doubt, — all of them
I'm afraid I stand but little chance.
What can the man do that cometh
after the King ? "
The other looked a little unhappy
at the quotation — it might be at the
abominablehess of the pun, it might
be only the discomfort of one who
don't know exactly what to make of
what is said to him ; but he passed it
over, and not without some satisfaction
at the compliment that followed, he
answered,
" Well, I don't say but that I
know what I'm about. Twenty years
of close work ought to give me some
knowledge of the book business. But
I don't want every thing, — indeed I
don't want any thing in the book line,
except for trade. Perhaps I can
make some money by you."
" Well, — as to Caulfield, then, and
that election sermon ? "
"You will hardly find Caulfield
short of London ; it's the merest
chance if there's a copy for sale on
this side ; it's not a common book. As
for Mr. Gowans' collection of Election
Sermons, I'll show you those, and you
can look them through yourself. Come
this way."
He turned and plunged into another
narrow alley, between two lofty and
interminable looking ranges of crowd-
ed and over-crowded shelves, still with
other piles on piles of books stacked
all along upon the floor, that led back
still further into the dark depths of
the great room, and Adrian followed.
An assistant or two was at work cata-
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
59
loguin g, niched in some obscure nook ;
a step-ladder, hardly more silent,
leaned near one of them ; and one or
two customers were quietly bunting
along the shelves,, a small boy haunt-
ing each of them, by way of watch-
dog. Like the worthy Roman gentle-
men so handsomely complimented by
Mark Anton}' - , these book-hunters are
all honorable men, and of course for
that very reason can have no objection
to be watched !
On a shelf in a corner almost at the
furthest extremity of the room, and
very dimly lit by a window opening
on that narrow and ill-flavored street-
let, of old running past the rear of
the Park Theatre and thence named
Theatre Alley, — a window half shut
in by piles of books, and almost
crusted within and without with im-
memorial dirt, — Sibley pointed out
the desired collection ; a row perhaps
four, feet long, of mingled volumes and
pamphlets, some upright, some leaning
over, some piled sideways, all dirty.
Adrian and his guide both inspected
the array, item by item, without find-
ing the Reverend Mr. Lee's Election
Sermon.
" It isn't here," said Adrian. " One
more proof that if you know exactly
what you want, you can't find it.
Jonathan Lee's election sermon, 1766,
I have ; it is Andrew Lee's, 1795,
that I want."
" Andrew Lee " — repeated Sibley.
" I sold a copy of his sermon at the
funeral of Reverend Benjamin
Throop, 1785, the other day."
" Did you ? " asked Adrian with
interest, — " to whom ? I know very
well there's such a sermon, and I
want it."
" I guess you can get it," said Sib-
ley, significantly.
" What will it cost ? "
" Why, — the fact is," said Sibley,
not without hesitation, — " it's a
pretty good customer of mine who
bought it, and he don't care about
money. He's a collector. You are
too, aren't you?"
" Oh no," said Adrian frankly ; " I
have worked a little at genealogy.
But I've neither the money nor the
knowledge nor the time for collecting.
I'd like to have, though, Mr. Sibley."
" Oh," said the other, laughing,
"Sibley's only my buying name at
the auctions, like Chase for Gowans.
I am Andrew Purvis, very much at
your service. — Didn't mean to rhyme,
either."
"It's a capital name for politeness,
Mr. Purvis," replied Adrian laughing
with him at the unintended jingle —
" I know the name very well as con-
nected with the book business, and
I'm very much obliged to you ; and
what would tempt your customer, if
money won't ? "
" Why," said Mr. Purvis, " my man
won't part with any thing he has, if
he can help it ; he'd rather buy more.
It appears he happens to want the
very pamphlet that you took out of
the volume you bought yesterday. 1
thought it as well to just take you
one side rather than talk about it
before Gowans. Now, — what will
you take for it ? If you are working
at genealogy, though, you will want
it?"
"What will he give?" asked
Adrian in reply. — Scrope is not a
trading name, to be sure ; but when
you are in trade you must do as the
tradesmen do.
" Well," rejoined the book-dealer,
" I suppose Five Dollars is a very high
price for a pamphlet ? "
Adrian smiled : " I won't deny^'
he said, " that I know what a great
prize I happened upon. I was ready
to go up to thirty dollars for it yes-
CO
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
terday — every cent I had in the
world just then. It is the unique
Scrope Genealogy, that everybody
has thought was lost, and that I had
no more idea of finding then and
there, than of finding the lost dec-
ades of Livy."
Mr. Purvis looked rather caught,
but made the best of the situation.
'•You are right," said he; "I beg
your pardon. I ought not to have
offered you five dollars. But I can't
help mv trading habits, I suppose. I
had an unlimited order for that volume ;
though I don't think I should have
dared go over fifty dollars. I ought
not to have been out of the room."
" I'm glad you were, for my part,"
said Adrian. " But I'll tell you what
'tis, Mr. Purvis, I don't wish to part
with the pamphlet just now, and
besides, I am very busy over it to-day
and to-morrow in particular. If I
should be willing, I'll give you the
refusal of it, and in a few days I'll
send you an address ; there is a pos-
sibility of my changing it, or I would
give it now. And if I won't sell my
pamphlet, I suppose your man won't
sell his Throop sermon ? "
" I*m afraid not ; hut if you like
I'll try to find you another copy.
That's not unique, at any rate."
Adrian thanked the obliging dealer,
whose manner had in it something so
agreeable and sincerely friendly that
it greatly attracted the young man.
It is possible that the liking was
mutual ; for either from some such
reason or perhaps only with a view
to establish a new customer, or pos-
sibly merely because business was
not very pressing, Mr. Purvis was in
no haste to go, and rather encouraged
the questions which Adrian was ready
enough to put, about the vast collec-
tion of Mr. Gowans, about the old
gentleman himself, and about books,
collecting and collectors. He ex-
plained to Adrian among other things
the curious phenomenon of the haunt-
ing boys already referred to, telling
him plainly that it was an indispen-
sable compliance with the weakness
of human nature.
" Kleptomania," said Purvis, " I
suppose they'd call it in court if a
minister was caught at it, as I caught
a minister the other day in my own
shop."
" But did you let him off ? "
" Oh yes. I couldn't spend the
time and trouble to have him pun-
ished. I told him however that if
he ever came into the place again I'd
put him in jail."
As they talked, they were looking
along the shelves in a desultory way,
and just at the account of the min-
ister's delinquency, Adrian espied a
copy of the curious gossipy " Histo-
riettes" of Tallemant de Beaux.
" Did you ever see the anecdote of
the old painter Du Moustier and
Monsignor Pamphilio ?" he asked.
" Xo." said Purvis.
" Well, let me read it to you,"
said Adi
it's a case exactly in
point ; " and taking down the volume
he read aloud in extempore English
the queer old story, which is in sub-
stance as follows (see p. 1G6 of vol.
4 of the edition of Brussels, 1834, by
Monmerque and others) : Du Mous-
tier, in his day a famous portrait
painter of Paris, and who was born
about 1550, was a dear lover of
books, rude in speech and quick jf
hand. As a celebrated painter, he
had many visitors ; and under his
bookshelves, by way of a delicate pre-
cautionary hint, he had painted the
words "The Devil take book -bor-
rowers." But in particular ; one day
the Cardinal Barberini, the Pope's
legate to France, visited Du Moustier
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
61
and inspected his collections. Mon-
signor Pamphilio, afterwards Inno-
cent X., was at the head of the cardi-
nal's suite, and finding on Du Mous-
tier's table a fine copy of the superb
London edition of the History of
the Council of Trent, he said to
himself, " Truly, a fine thing for
such a fellow to have such a rare book
as that ! " And he quietly took the
book and slid it under his gown. But
the little man (says Tallemant), who
had been on the lookout, flew into a
rage, and telling the legate that ."he
was greatly obliged for the honor of
the visit, but that it was shameful for
him to have thieves in his compa-
ny ; " he forthwith seized Pamphilio,
snatched the book away from him, and
calling him by a very unpleasant
name indeed, he fairly flung him by
the shoulders out of his door.
" That's excellent," said the amused
dealer ; " and perfectly in character —
I know a dozen worthy gentlemen
that couldn't be trusted alone in the
dark with a rare book. Let me see
a moment, please, — oh, — why, can
you translate off hand as neatly as
that ? "
"I've read the story before," said
Adrian; "and French is pretty easy
to tell stories from."
" Very good, very good indeed,"
repeated the friendly Mr. Purvis ; " I
declare I believe I'll make you an
offer to translate that book for publi-
cation. But as I was saying, there's
my customer that wanted this Scrope
Genealogy. And by the way, how
the mischief did you come to know
that it was in that volume?"
"Pure chance," said Adrian —
" pure chance. One of those coinci-
dences that are happening every day
in fact, and that it would not do to
put into a novel because everybody
would say it was altogether too im-
probable. I went in there a little
before the sale and found the books
laid out for examination, and I just
looked through a lot of them and
found this. I remember thinking I
must be rather a suspicious looking
chap, for there was a big Irish por-
ter or watchman or something on
guard, and I couldn't have stolen a
pin, he followed me up so. I guess
they know about collectors in that
office too ! "
" Indeed they do," said Purvis ;
" and in spite of them there's hardly
a sale of any importance where they
don't lose some valuable books off the
show-tables, in spite of that sharp old
Irish watch-dog of theirs ! "
" Well, how did your customer know
about the pamphlet?" said Adrian.
"Why," replied Mr. Purvis, laugh-
ing, " he was in the city himself the
day before, and he was nosing about
in there too, and he found the pam-
phlet just as you did, and moreover, he
tried as hard as he could to steal it.
He told me all about it in a letter that
I got only this morning. You don't
know who 'tis, so it won't do any harm
for me to tell that much. He was in
a terrible excitement about it. He
wiggled round there for more than
half an hour, and the fact is he actu-
ally would have carried the volume
off if Pat hadn't fairly seized him
very much as your old Frenchman did
his thief and actually twisted the book
out of his hands. As it happened
none of the partners were in the place,
or he would have seen them and got
it, I'm sure. There was a regular
string of coincidences in your favor ;
for he would have come back again
after it the same afternoon, but he
found a despatch at his hotel that
forced him to hurry home out of town
on some business. He telegraphed to-
me instantly from Hartford, and wrote
62
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
by the first mail, and he feels dread-
fully over losing it, you may be sure."
" How do you suppose that pam-
phlet came to be in that lot of books ? "
asked Adrian, by a very natural tran-
sition of interest.
" A good many of those books be-
longed to old Doctor Gideon Bulkley
of Middlefield; and, you know, — or
you don't know — his collection had
been in the family for four generations,
and neither the old man nor his father
would ever let one human being see
what was in it. They never wrote or
made any mark on a book, either of
them ; so that it's difficult to trace
with accuracy ; but I have no doubt
whatever in my own mind that the
pamphlet was an early copy direct
from the author to the Bulkley of
the day, and so escaped the fire that
burned the edition, and remained un-
known all this time until Bulkley 's
death, when it was sent for sale."
"That's a good idea, not to mark
one's books," commented Adrian ; " I
knew an excellent old gentleman, a
lawyer, who never wrote his name
in his law-books, and whenever he
found a law-book in any of his friends'
offices with no name in it, he always
carried it off as his own. He had a
valuable law-library at his death."
" Now," said Purvis — " by the
way, I beg your pardon, but by what
name ma)' I call you ? "
" Chester."
— " Mr. Chester, you have never
been in Gowans' place before ? "
" No."
" Well ; as you are an appreciative
person, you must see the catacombs.
I'll take you round once, and then
you can come in and hunt whenever
you like. Gowans never will look
for a book, and nobody can get any
thing of him except by finding it
one's self and bringing it to him.
Unless, that is, one of his clerks hap-
pens to know about it, or unless some
particularly good-natured moment or
some special reason prevails with the
old man. But come down stairs."
And pausing at the head of a wide
stairway, hidden under another great
platform heaped high with books, he
took up a small lamp, that stood ready,
lit it with a match, and descended,
marshalling Adrian downwards into
a darkness as of the oubliettes of
Vincennes.
The store,* Adrian thought, was the
dreariest place he had ever seen ; but
it was a bright and homelike abode in
comparison with the basement which
they now entered. This was a cellar
as large, and nearly as high, as the
store above it. It had absolutely no
window light, and the feeble oil lamp
which Mr. Purvis carried served only
to show how thick the darkness was.
But the dealer, with an assured step,
briskly descended the dirty old stair-
case, cumbered on either side with
heaps of books piled on each stair.
As they reached the bottom, a great
stack of books, heaped indiscriminate-
ly like the fallen bricks of the Birs
Nimroud upon another broad platform,
and rising almost to the ceiling, con-
fronted them. But Purvis turned
short to the right, crossed to the side
of the room, and engaging himself
intrepidly in an alley if possible still
narrower than that which skirted the
up-stairs store, passed on, close along
by the southern wall, Adrian follow-
ing. Ever and anon the guide held
up his lamp at one side or the other,
showing only the same interminable
shelf after shelf, shelf after shelf,
each double-ranked, piled, crammed,
wedged, with books, numberless, use-
less, worthless. As up-stairs, not only
were the shelves at either hand intol-
erably full clear up to the ceiling,
Scrape; or, The Lost Library.
63
but a talus, as the geologists call it,
or steep slope as if of fragments fallen
from the precipice at either hand,
lined each side of the path. Adrian,
an imaginative fellow, remembered
the awful stories of men lost in the
catacombs of Paris and found dead
and rat-eaten weeks after in some cor-
ner among the bones ; and the sti-
fling accounts of travellers of their
scratching and crawling and wriggling
along endless passages through the
masses of mummies in the vast sub-
terranean pits of Egypt, eyes and
mouth and nose and lungs insuffera-
bly choked with the floating dust of
corpses three thousand years old ; and
he asked, making a joke of it,
" Would they ever find us if the
light should go out?"
" Dear me, no," was the consoling
reply, " not unless it was by mere
accident. Nobody would come to look
for us. I could live here ten years,
I believe, for all anybody's looking
after me. There's a dozen dried book-
hunters lying dead in the corners
down here for what I know."
There was a grave-like chill in the
air, and a faint flavor of dry cold dust,
very dreary. " This is the Catacomb,
the Potter's Field, the bone-yard, of
literature," observed Mr. Purvis.
" There is nothing beyond except
Stockwell's old paper shop and then
the paper-mill."
" The auction may stand for a
slaughter-house," observed Adrian ;
" then comes the graveyard, and after
that, the resurrection into clean new
white paper. But wait a moment,
please — here's something I want."
The flitting gleam of the lamp had
shone for an instant on the gilt backs
of four goodly quartos, where Adri-
an's quick eye had read the name of
Behmen. He took down the first
volume and opened it, and then ex-
amined the others. It was a good
clean copy of the Reverend William
Law's translation (London, 1774—
1781) of the writings of " the Teuton-
ick Theosopher," as he calls the mys-
tical old German, complete, with all
the strange overlaid engravings and
cabalistical diagrams.
" There," said Adrian, " I'm going
to have that. I want to give it to
somebody I know, who will enjoy it
like a honeymoon."
" One volume a week will just
cover his month," observed Purvis.
" Well, lug it up-stairs. I don't
think Gowans '11 want much for it."
So Adrian took the set on his arm,
and having now nearly completed
the circuit of the front or Nassau-
street half of the cave, they got back
to the stairway by the cross alley into
which it opened.
" The back half is only the front
half over again," said Purvis, as he
blew out the lamp in going up the
stairs. They returned to the old
desk where Mr. Gowans was still
scratching away at his scraps of
paper, and Adrian, laying down his
four volumes, asked what he should
pay for them.
" Five dollars," said the old man,
carelessly, glancing at the title of
Vol. 1. — " I've had 'em ten years, and
glad to get 'em out of the way."
Adrian paid him ; and at Mr. Gow-
ans' summons, a clerk proceeded to
tie up the books.
"Well," said Purvis, "I didn't
interfere with your bargain, Mr. Ches-
ter, but I'll double your money with
pleasure, if you want to speculate."
" I would," said Adrian, " certain-
ly, if I hadn't more than five dollars'
worth of enjoyment to expect from my
old friend's pleasure over the books."
At this moment there came stum-
bling along, from the street door, very
G4
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
much as Adrian had done, an elderly
man, who could be discerned by the
three, but who could not see them or
indeed much of any thing. He was
plainly and coarsely dressed, like a
farmer or old fashioned country trades-
man, a good deal bent, though strongly
made: carried his hands in a peculiar
spread-out attitude, palms down ; and
as he came into the feeble circle of
light where they stood, they could
see that his face was browned, rugged
and homely, but kindly and sensi-
ble.
" Why," said Adrian, " it's my old
friend Adam Welles of Manchester.
Mr. Welles, how do you do ? " And
he held out his hand to the old man,
who peered at him for a moment be-
fore he could see who it was, but at
last recognized him with evident
pleasure.
" Mr. Chester, I'm delighted to find
you," he said, speaking a little slowly,
and with something of that deliberate
primness or rather solicitude in articu-
lation and in choice of words, fre-
quently seen in those whose culture
has not been equal to their aspira-
tions. " I expected to see you at
the Scrope Association meeting, next
week ; but this is an additional delight.
What a paradise of books ! " continued
the old man, looking about him with
the air of a humble saint just ad-
mitted into the New Jerusalem. " Oh,
I could be happy here for a hundred
years ! "
Adrian laughed. " I knew that
you were a lover of old books, Mr.
Welles," he said, "but according to
what I have noticed, fifty years would
do for this collection if you throw
out the odd volumes."
"Odd volumes?" exclaimed Mr.
Welles — " then I can fill up some
of my broken sets ! If I can only get
the third volume of Winterbotham's
Historical View of the United States,
with the maps ! " —
Mr. Purvis was looking on, well
pleased. Adrian now introduced Mr.
Welles to him, and the good-natured
dealer at once pointed out to the eager
old countryman a set of shelves con-
taining some hundreds of all manner
of odd volumes, which the old man
set himself to inspect one by one, like
a miser weighing pieces of gold. And
Adrian, having ascertained the old
man's city address, and given him his
own, at an uptown boarding house,
along with injunctions to make him,
Adrian, of any service that should be re-
quired, left him, goingwith Mr. Purvis.
"That old man is foreman of a
large paper-mill at Manchester," said
Adrian, as they reached the street
door. " He is a distant cousin of
mine, and I believe he is ten times as
much of a bibliomaniac."
"Biblioidiot, I should be afraid,"
said Purvis, " to be so anxious over •
that foolish old Winterbotham. Why,
'tisn't worth over sevens-eighths or a
dollar a volume at auction. But I like
to see the old man so eager, and I'll
help him if I can."
" It isn't because it's Winterbo-
tham," said Adrian : it's because it's
a broken set. That old fellow has I
guess a thousand volumes in an old
attic at Manchester, and I don't be-
lieve there's a complete set in the
whole. He's been thirty years pick-
ing odd volumes and things out of all
the paper stock that came into the
mill, and he doesn't have many coin-
cidences. You never saw such a lot
in your life. There were a few valu-
able things, but I reckon Stanley's
got most of them — he's paid him
what the old man thought a good
deal of money, first and last."
"What Stanley," asked Purvis,
seeming a little startled.
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
65
" East Hartford — the book man,"
said Adrian.
" Oh, — you know him, do you ! "
" Why, yes ; I'm from Hartford
myself, and he's a cousin of mine, as
well as old Mr. Welles."
"Whew!" whistled Mr. Purvis,
as if somewhat astonished.
" Why ? " asked Adrian.
" Oh — nothing. Only it rather
surprised me to find you knew each
other."
Adrian mused a moment, and then
looked up with a smile.
" It was Stanley that " —
" Hush, — not a word," interrupted
Purvis, laughing ; " I can see that
you are a man to be trusted, or else I
should be annoyed. I should lose a
good deal, one way and another, if he
knew I had let it out. He's as secret
as death, you know."
Adrian nodded.
"Well; now that we have gone so
far, let's make a clean thing of it. Do
you know any thing of the lost Scrope
Library ? "
'•'I've been watching and searching
for it this ten years," said Adrian
frankly. " Mr. Stanley has been after
it for twenty years. He wants it to
complete his collection of early Ameri-
can books, and I want it for my col-
lection of family books and relics. I
guess he knows I want it as well as
I know he does ; but we have never
spoken of it."
" Shouldn't wonder if you were
hunting for it here ? "
"Yes, I was. I have never tried
New York before, but I remember
that old Scrope Chest and the books
in it wherever I see two books to-
gether. It wasn't much of a library
— probably twenty books."
" If there were twenty and each
equal to a clean copy of Eliot's Indian"
Bible, I should call it a good deal of
a library," said Purvis. " But I really
believe if any of those books had got
in here I should have found them, or
else he would. He never comes here
without having a hunt."
"He has money and time," said
Adrian, with a shade of regret in his
voice. " I don't grudge them to him,
but I don't break the tenth command-
ment, do I, by wishing I had the
duplicate of something that is my
neighbor's ? "
" Why, no ; I don't see how you
can make that out covetousness."
" Well, — he must find them if he
can. But I shall keep looking just
the same. I've had the best luck
about the Scrope Genealogy, anyhow;
but perhaps it will be his turn for the
next.* — Well, I must go and present
my gift. Good day, Mr. Purvis."
"Good day, Mr. Chester. Come
and see me at my store," said the
good-natured book dealer, and he
handed Adrian a business card as
they parted.
CHAPTER XL
As Adrian that evening approached
Mr. Van Braam's, carrying his heavy
parcel stoutly on his shoulder — for
he was not "in the best society,"
and need not therefore depend on
others when it was more convenient
to wait on himself — it suddenly
popped into his mind that perhaps
he had done wrong in avowing to
Mr. Purvis the fact that he was
engaged in the Quest — as the ro-
mances of the Holy Grail would have
called it — of the Lost Library. This
doubt was for a moment even painful ;
for Adrian, like the rest of his kin,
was strongly secretive. He was some-
times frank also — for the two traits
are not at all inconsistent. His secre-
tiveness was not a mere dog-in-the-
66
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
manger instinct, such as some collec-
tors have, leading him not only to
acquire for himself, but to prevent
others from acquiring or even knowing.
Perhaps a case of this exaggerated
type among Adrian's own relatives
might be cited. But in Adrian, it was
simply either an instinctive reluctance
to speak of his own thoughts, or a
precaution against failure in his own
designs.
However ; after a few moments of
doubt whether the revealing of his
secret would interfere with the pur-
pose that he had so long entertained,
he concluded that probably no harm
was done. Mr. Stanley and Mr. Pur-
vis had ransacked their fill in the
vast repository of Mr. Gowans, long
ago, and with a thousand times his
opportunities and advantages. So
they had, of course, in scores of other
places in the great city; and, for what
he knew, they had secured half those
old books already. Stanley, he knew,
would never say so if he had — it
would be a great deal more like the
ways of collectors for him to flatly
deny it. All is fair in war and col-
lecting. Purvis' inquiries about the
lost books proved nothing ; he might
have had one of them in his pocket
all the time, and he could not honestly
reveal his customer's secret. Thus
reflecting, and comforting himself
with the sage conclusion that even if
any mischief had been done, it was too
late to prevent it, he reached the old
white house in the city meadow, and
was shown once more into the dusky
jed-browr. parlor where Mr. Van
Braam sat as usual at the table,
" puttering " in a disorderly heap of
papers and memoranda.
At Adrian's entrance, the old gen-
tleman arose with his usual courtly
kindness and welcomed him. Adrian
answered with equal heartiness, and
if it was with less elegance of man-
ner, perhaps there was natural grace-
fulness enough to indicate that he
would become a courtly old gentleman
if he lived as long. But the first
thing he added to his salutations
came as it were of involuntary im-
pulse, and had it not been between
good friends and kinsmen, it might
have been uncivil. But placing his
parcel on the table, Adrian peered
about him into the dim corners of the
room, — for the shaded drop-light
made an exclusive little circle close
round it, — and sniffed, lifting his
nose, and peering or pointing about,
to tell the truth, somewhat as a dog
does who suspects the presence of
edibles.
" Do you know," he said, " it's very
close in here ? "
"Pooh!" said Mr. Van Braam.
" Nonsense, my boy. Come, what is
there in your parcel ? "
" Well, but really," persisted Adri-
an, " it would make me sick to live in
such a place a week. And then all
those plants, in the night-time too,
in the same room. Won't you let me
open the window a little ? "
"Oh pshaw!" said the old man.
"I'm more than seventy years old,
and I've always avoided ventilation.
Fresh air and all that stuff kills peo-
ple. They've invented fresh air, Adri-
an, within about thirty years, to kill
people with. I avoid it, and I'm over
seventy. So did all my ancestors, as
far as I know. My grandmother
Adriana did, and she died at ninety.
My father did, and he died at ninety-
five. I do, and I mean to die at a
hundred. Civille shall, and I don't
mean her to die until she's a hun-
dred and five."
But although the old man finished
his half joking half earnest assertion
of the old fashioned disregards of
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
67
which with genuine Scrope tenacity,
he preserved so many, yet as he
named his daughter a shadow came
over his face, and he paused, with an
obvious strong effort of self-control.
"I don't care," said Adrian, not
observing his emotion. " You'd be
a hundred now if you had always
been careful to be in fresh air, and
then you would live to be a hundred
and thirty. But really and truly, Mr.
Van Braam, I perceived the same sort
of lifelessness in the air here last
evening, and there's something more,
too ; I don't think the drains are
right. I wish I hadn't that sort of
keen scent, but I have," —
"Stuff, stuff, stuff!" said the old
gentleman, a little impatiently. " I
won't change my old fashioned ways for
anybody. Now there's that picture" —
for Adrian, who had stepped over to
the mantle-piece, had looked for a
moment at the horrid engraving of
The Dying Camel — "I don't know
but that's enough to make anybody
sick."
" Well, I think so. How can you
live with such an awful thing before
your eyes? I would about as soon
have a beast butchered in the parlor
ever}'- evening for my amusement."
"Why," said the old gentleman,
"the fact is, Mr. Button made us a
present of it with so much ceremony,
and thought it was so fine, that I
really haven't the heart to — Why,
— Adrian, my dear boy, — have you
cut you ? — How did you do that ? "
For a sharp crackling crash min-
gled with a tearing sound had inter-
rupted the old man's explanation, as
Adrian, stepping along across the
hearthrug, half-fell suddenly against
the mantle-piece and his elbow went
smash through glass, dying camel and
all, rending that suffering quadruped
into several pieces, whose irregular
lines of section converged in the very
middle of his abdomen.
" I thought I'd put your old camel
out of his pain," said Adrian, looking
with pretended gravity straight at his
host. "' Tisn't right to have him so
long a-dying. I'd rather have it done
quietly than to go and tell Bergh
and make a scandal. But I'll brir.g
another picture tomorrow. Let me
choose, this time, won't you ? "
" You scamp," said Mr. Van Braam,
" you did it on purpose, then ? Well,
I'm sorry our cousin's gift is spoiled.
Just tear out some of the blackest of
that camel, won't you, and put it in
the fire so that it can't be mended."
— Adrian did so. — " The frame will
do perfectly well," continued the old
gentleman. — " Yes, you may have
another picture put in, and if anybody
ever finds it out, we'll charge the
whole to you."
" All right," answered Adrian ; " and
now you must see if you will take
what I've brought for you." And
drawing up a chair, he took his parcel
on his lap, cut the strings, and select-
ing Volume First, he handed it to his
host.
Mr. Van Braam received it in
silence, and after the manner of a
book-lover, he first poised it to feel
its specific gravity; then inspected
the binding ; then read the title on
the back ; then opened it and read the
title-page ; and barely glancing at
the copper-plate which represents the
intelligent, thoughtful, and yet some-
what conceited face of the famous
mysticist, he laid down the book and
looked at Adrian with a countenance
in which pleasure was mingled with
apprehension.
Mr. Van Braam, descended from
an intensely puritan stock, was by a
legitimate though not invariable law
of spiritual inheritance, a mysticist.
68
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
To be a mysticist, one need not
possess any great share of either mind
or morals. What must be present is,
a good deal of the instinct for wor-
shipping, and a good deal of the appe-
tite for the wonderful. Given these
two, and perhaps any great share of
intellect would be as much in the way
of a successful compound as the water
in Father Tom's punch : " ' Put in the
sperits first,' says his Biv'rence, ' and
then put in the sugar ; and remem-
ber, every dhrop ov wather you put in
afther that spoils the punch. ' "
Add conscience, spirituality, imagi-
nation and intellect to your worship-
ping and wondering instincts, and
you have Thomas a Kempis ; with
variations in the mental endowment
and a different culture, you have
Keble. Mr. Van Braam had not
poetical gifts nor creative imagination
nor instinct for expression. Deduct
from him the instinct for the marvel-
lous, and intensify his reasoning facul-
ties, and his executive abilities ; and
with his conscientiousness and in-
difference to prosperities of all kinds,
he would have made a model mission-
ary, martyr, or Calvinistic clergyman.
As it was, he had not much energy —
although, like a woman, he had great
power of endurance ; so that he re-
mained, lifted by his conscientious-
ness and culture above the dangers
which beset vulgar and non-moral
mystics, but none the less a constitu-
tional and genuine worshipper and
wonderer — for that is what Mystic
means, — except just west of Stoning-
ton.
The apprehension which alloyed
Mr. Van Braam's pleasure was simply
a natural dislike of ridicule. This
Adrian saw, and with instinctive good
sense he said at once,
"My dear sir, I don't believe in
Behmen or in any of the mystics ; but
as long as so many pure and sweet
hearted people have been mystics, I
certainly can't object to their belief.
I thought you would like the book."
" I do," said the old gentleman,
relieved; " I don't know what would
have pleased me more ; I was half
afraid you would laugh at me, but a
difference of opinion does no harm."
And he looked through volume after
volume, lifting the curious redupli-
cated layers on the fantastic illustra-
tions, reading here and there a para-
graph, fully as pleased as Adrian could
have imagined, and the young man
enjoyed the pleasantest experience
possible in this world, or in any other,
for that matter — the pleasure of giv-
ing pleasure.
And yet what stuff it is ! Adrian
had transcribed a few sentences, before
bringing the book, out of mere curi-
osity ; and here are two or three of
them ; almost all the book is of the
like sort :
" But when the Dawning or Morning
Redness shall shine from the East to the
West, or from the Rising to the Setting,
then assuredly Time will be no more ; but
the SUN of the Heart of God rises or
springs forth, and, RA. RA. R. P. will be
pressed in the Wine-press without the City,
and therewith to R.P." Aurora, p. 266.
"Now to speak in a creaturely way,
Sulphur, Mercurius, and Sal, are under-
stood to be thus. SUL is tbe Soul or the
Spirit that is risen up, or in a Similitude
[it is] God : PHUR is the Prima Materia,
or first Matter out of which the Spirit is
generated, but especially the Harshness :
Mercurius has a fourfold Form in it, viz.
Harshness, Bitterness, Fire, and Water.
Sal is the Child that is generated from
these four, and is harsh, eager, and a
Cause of the Comprehensibility " The
Three Principles of the Divine Essence, p.
10.
" Each Letter in this Name (Jehova)
intimates to us a peculiar virtue and work-
ing, that is, a Form in the working Power.
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
69
For I is the Effluence of the Eternal indi-
visible Unity, or the sweet grace and ful-
ness of the ground of the Divine Power
of becoming something. E is a threefold
I, where the Trinity shuts itself up in the
Unity, for the I goes into E, and joineth
I E, which is an outbreathing of the Unity
in itself. H is the Word, or breathing of
the Trinity of God. O is the Circumfer-
ence, or the Son of God, through which
the I E, and the H, or breathing, speaks
forth from the compressed delight of the
Power and Virtue. Vis the joyful Efflu-
ence from the breathing, that is, the pro-
ceeding Spirit of God. A is that which is
proceeded from the power and virtue, viz.,
the wisdom ; a Subject of the Trinity ;
wherein the Trinity works, and wherein
the Trinity is also manifest. This Name
is nothing else but a speaking forth, or
expression of the Threefold working of
the Holy Trinity in the Unity of God."
The Clavis, p. 7.
Adrian had also transcribed the
threatening puns which the irate
Theosopher had wreaked upon Gre-
gorius Richter, the persecuting Super-
intendent of Gorlitz ; and divers other
equally profitable passages. But of
this disrespectful proceeding he was
careful not to say one word to his good
old relative, who shortly selected a pas-
sage, and spoke.
" Well, Adrian, no doubt there are
plenty of passages that can be laughed
at. But I don't know that it is any
worse in Behinen than in the Bible,
to be without the modern scientific
discoveries. I know it's the fashion
to scoff at him. But Coleridge did
not ; he confessed that lie owed great
obligations to the ' illuminated coo-
ler of Gorlitz.' And now let me read
you the four first answers of the
Master, in the conference ' Of the
Supersensual Life,' to the Scholar who
is inquiring how he 'may see God,
and hear him speak.' "
And the old gentleman read from
p. 75 of " The Way to Christ," as fol-
lows :
" When thou canst throw thyself but
for a Moment into that where no Creature
dwelleth, then thou hearest what God
speaketh. ... It is in thee, and if thou
canst for a while cease from all thy think-
ing and willing, thou shalt hear unspeak-
able Words of God. ... When thou
standest still from the thinking and will-
ing of Self, then the Eternal Hearing,
Seeing, and Speaking, will be revealed in
thee ; and so God heareth and seeth
through thee : Thine own Hearing, Will-
ing, and Seeing, hindereth thee, that thou
dost not see nor hear God. . . . When
thou art quiet or silent, then thou art that
which God was before Nature and Crea-
ture, and whereof he made thy Nature
and Creature: Then thou hearest and
seest with that wherewith God saw and
heard in thee, before thy own Willing,
Seeing, and Hearing began."
Mr. Van Braam read well. That
is, he spoke well, and he read so that
if the hearer's eyes were shut, it would
not appear but that he was speaking.
And he read these profound and sim-
ple thoughts with a depth of sympa-
thy that might have prevailed with
a scoffer, much more with a kindly
nature like Adrian's ; and the young
man, who had not lighted on this
passage, was greatly impressed.
"That is very spiritual," he ob-
served, when the reader paused ; —
" and it is broad enough to permit a
Protestant, a Romanist, a Jew, a Mo-
hammedan, a Buddhist, and a Brah-
minist all to worship together. I did
not know that Behmen could think or
say any thing so deep."
" My boy," said Mr. Van Braam,
" if you watch for what is good you
find it. No fair judgment is possible
except a charitable one. Justice is
mercy. — However, I'm talking to the
average opinion about old Behinen
rather than to yours."
70
jScrope ; or, The Lost Library.
" I guess it would be a good rule
for all critics — and for all opinions
too," said Adrian ; " But I've got still
.another thing to show you, — some-
thing better than Behmen."
" Better than Behmen ? " repeated
Mr. Van Braam, with a smile — " what
can that be ? "
Chester drew from his breast pocket
a long letter envelope; took out of
it a flat brownish looking thing of
paper, ragged-edged, and with an ap-
pearance generally of having been res-
cued from the very sepulchres of waste
paper. This he carefully opened and
laid it on- the table before Mr. Van
Braam. Excited by the solemn air
of the young man, Mr. Van Braam
picked up his eye-glasses, which had
fallen from their precarious perch on
his nose, looked at the title-page, which
lay open before him, and jumped out
of his chair.
" Why, Adrian Chester," he cried,
" it's the lost Scrope Genealogy ! "
Adrian smiled and nodded.
" Absolutely unique ! " continued
the old man, in a rapture of mingled
genealogical and bibliographical bliss
— " absolutely unique — been sought
for eagerly this fifty years — first gen-
ealogy printed in this country —
half a century before that silly Steb-
bins affair ! — Why, — they talk about
weight in gold — it would be throw-
ing this away to give it for five
times its weight in gold ! — Adrian,
you're quite right ; I wouldn't give it
for a ship-load of Behmens ! But
where — how on earth did you come
by this, my boy ? "
Adrian repeated the circumstances,
and ended by saying, "I would rea-
dily have given a hundred dollars for
it if I had been able ; but nobody bid
against me, and I got it for thirty " —
" Dirt-cheap ! " broke in Mr. Van
Braam —
" Cents," added Adrian.
Mr. Van Braam gave a kind of groan,
and sat down suddenly as if something
had hit him in the stomach. No col-
lector of mortal mould could have
endured to hear of such a thing
befalling another without some emo-
tion. There is something disagreea-
ble to the best of us — says, or might
have said, some villain or other — in
the good fortune of our friends. It is
to be feared that this is in some small
measure true of book-collectors at
least. And besides, the cheapness of
the rate at which the other man got
it ! No rare book .can be perfectly
enjoyed by one who has paid for it
all it is worth. The delight of own-
ership increases not only inversely as
the cost, but inversely as the square
of the cost. For example : Full value
one, cost one, delight one. But full
value one, cost one-half, delight four !
So that here was the case of a beati-
tude raised to the nth power (for surely
the real value of this unique pamphlet
divided by thirty cents would equal
n at least), and of the acquisition of
the inestimable treasure by another
person superadded — a terrible temp-
tation even to a disciple of Behmen !
But he bore the ordeal bravely, though
it cost him a struggle.
"Well, well," he said at last, "if
anybody on earth was to have such an
extraordinary piece of luck, next to
myself I would choose you. It isn't
human to go further, is it '?"
"I couldn't go further, certainly,"
said Chester gayly ; " and I recipro-
cate the sentiment exactly. But are
you remembering, my dear sir, all
this time, that this pamphlet tells us
what became of Adrian Scroope ? I
looked into it and found the facts,
though they are put in a singular
way."
" Of course I remember," said the
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
71
old man eagerly " and that this fills
in the great blank in the American
genealogy." And absorbed by this
mighty consideration, he plunged into
an intense and exhaustive scrutiny
with full written memoranda of the
bibliography, and the genealogical and
other contents of this not merely rare,
nor even Very Rare, but absolutely
UNIQUE work. His memoranda
were to form the basis of a paper which
might or might not be offered for pub-
lication ; indeed, which might or
might not be made ready to offer ; for
the good gentleman was a terrible
maker of memoranda and beginner
of papers, and had in his archives
some bushels of the same ; — such mere
heaps of scraps and strips cannot be
stated unless by measure or by weight
— you may say if you like fifty pounds
avoirdupois weight instead of so many
bushels dry measure; — after the
fashion of the French biographer who
reports that an author named Dinge,
(" very unknown," he says) died
leaving behind him autograph manu-
scripts of the weight of 880 pounds
avoirdupois (400 kilograms).
Being (theoretically) a strict and
systematical bibliographer, even to
intolerance, Mr. Van Braam began
with a tremendous quantity of care.
He first copied the title-page, with the
professional dashes or what-you-may-
call-ems (isn't that the name?) to
show the lines of the display ; Mr.
Stevens G M B his method of pho-
tographing all the pages of books in
small — or is it part of them only ? —
and then making a string of the pho-
tographs and calling it a catalogue of
the books had not then been invented.
Somewhat on the following wise was
his transcript ; it may be verified by
any one who will find this very copy
of the pamphlet itself in the Histori-
cal Society's Library at Hartford and
compare it with even this printed re-
production ;
Scroope, Adrian.
The [ Family of SCROOPE | Re-
trac'd from these Present | or at the
least the Later I Unhappy Times | to
its Originall. | Litera Scripta manet. |
I have been yong, and amolde ; yet I
saw never I the righteous forsaken, nor
his seed begging bread. Psalms
xxxvii. 25. | By Mr. Adrian Scroope, I
(sometime of Hartford in Conecti-
cott.) [No imprint.']
— And so on, and so forth. Then
came a description of the pamphlet,
executed with entomological minute-
ness, to wit ; Size of type-page, so
many inches so many tenths, in width ;
so many in height ; catchwords ; fo-
lios ; character of letter ; style of
setting, spacing, justifying; display
of titlepage ; width of margin ; kind
of paper ; watermark ; method of ar-
ranging the families and individuals
in their genealogical order; — But to
fully set forth this piece of solicitous
and affectionate labor would require
to repeat it word for word ; and there
is no room. The curious matters how-
ever upon the verso or back of the
title-page may be here transcribed as
they stand, except two written signa-
tures at the lower left hand of the
printed part, written to all appear-
ance by the same person and at the
same time. One was a close repeti-
tion of the very characteristic signa-
ture of " Adrian Scroope," and the
other, written just below it, and in
absolutely the same handwriting, was
"Adeodatus Throop." As for the
printed words, they were as follows :
See, here I raise a Monvmente in hast
Charg'd to protect old Names, old Fames,
from Waste.
That is laid off, its Hist'rie here is told.
Here I take up new Name, old Life to hold.
72
Scrope ; or. The Lost Library.
Read in this Verse the Truth, the Cause, the
Hope.
Old Faith new Fame shall found ; farewell to
Scroope.
Old Fame, farewell ! Old Faith, live in new
Fame !
Pray God, though Life be short, I scape from
shame:
Earth first, and Heaven at last, shall give me
a new name.
Non hasc, sed me.
V i King's church ) - b
-U 1 Church's king J
1670
[The two signatures]
Adrian sat meanwhile quietly en-
joying the old gentleman's pleasure.
All at once an idea occurred to Mr.
Van Braam, and he looked up sud-
denly —
" Adrian, why didn't you show this
to our cousin Scrope last evening ? "
Chester smiled, but considered a
moment before replying, and even then
a sort of friendly sport came before
the real answer.
"Why, my dear sir; does anybody
of the Scrope blood tell secrets or
speak of his successes?"
" Very true, my boy ; nobody ex-
cept Mr. Button ; — and now, why was
it?"
"I'll tell you, but it must be in
confidence. — Do you entirely believe
in our English cousin and his estate
in England ? "
Mr. Van Braam was startled. He
and Adrian, as is natural among kins-
men, were exactly unlike in some
things, as they were exactly alike in
others. Thus, as to matters of con-
science and matters of taste, they felt
as alike as twins. On the point of
credulity however, they were as oppo-
site as the magnetic poles. To the
old man, belief was the satisfaction
of a hunger; and subject to the not
very strict or narrow limitations tbat
experience had succeeded in enforcing
upon him, the more marvellous an
account, the more flavorsome its taste,
and the more eager his reception of
it. To such natures a narrative is
credible in proportion as it is incred-
ible. This paradox only states the
mode of operation of the instinct of
" marvellousness " as the phrenolo-
gists with correct analysis but miser-
able terminology, have called it. It
is the faculty to which the argument;
from miracles is addressed ; that which
has ruled in so many religions, and
whose acme is in Tertullian's famous
" Certum est, quia impossiblle est"
So, just as he had enjoyed his Ploti-
nus and his Behmen, and if the truth
be told perhaps wished he might
accept along with Mr. Taylor all the
gods of Olympus — mainly however
for the sake of the deeper mysteries
of the elder gods — the Titans and
the Cabiri — in like manner Mr. Van
Braam had fastened upon the belief
in the complete traditional account of
the two Adrian Scroopes, and upon
the whole of the statement about the
great Scrope estate in England. And
Adrian's question was disagreeable,
for it forced the old gentleman to con-
sult a guide that he did not love,
though he had been obliged to in-
quire at his mouth more than once —
to wit, his judgment. It was with
visible unwillingness that he an-
swered ;
" Entirely ? Why, — no more
than is reasonable. Don't you be-
lieve in them ? "
" The fact is," answered Adrian, " I
can't say I either do or do not. I am
simply waiting to see. I shall believe
whatever I find is true."
" Well, I have examined all the
young man's papers. He certainly is
the person he represents himself to
be."
This was not the point, and Adrian
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
hinted as much ; but with natural
tact, he slid away from the distasteful
consideration, since there was no need
of annoying bis host.
" Oh, well, you and I are perfectly
safe, as long as we have only paid our
five dollars to join the Scrope Asso-
ciation. But that is not answering
your question about showing the pam-
phlet. As to Scrope, he does not
quite suit me, I confess, and it was
the impression he made on me that
kept me from telling him. And you
won't tell him either, will you, please ?
I intend to offer such evidence as it
furnishes, at the meeting. Scrope is
evidently kind hearted — or rather
good natured, but to tell you the truth
I shouldn't like to be in his power,
and I want to see what sort of a case
he will make out alone. Did you
notice how flat and low the top part
of his head is in spite of that hair-
bush that he grows on top of it ?
There's plenty of intellect, but I don't
think he knows there's any difference
between right and wrong. I should
not be afraid to deal with him in
plain sight ; but he's not a person
that I would trust."
" Fiddlesticks, Adrian ! There you
go with your bumps again ! If that's
all you have against him I don't
greatly relish your prejudice."
The young man quietly evaded
once more a point on which they dis-
agreed and tried a weaker place for
attack with considerable skill.
" It isn't a matter of bumps, my
dear sir ; I know very well you don't
believe in them. But you believe as
much as I do in the perception of
spiritual atmospheres. He makes
such an impression on me that I feel
rather inclined to watch him. How-
ever, I like him, in spite of my notion,
for he's very jolly ; and I promise you
I will own up like a man if he comes
out all right. And I'll tell you what
— if Civille puts faith in him, I will.
Her intuitions are far better than
mine."
At this mention of his daughter,
the old man's countenance Ml as it
had done before ; but this time Adrian
perceived it and asked if she were ill.
And now Mr. Van Braam suddenly
unburdened his poor old heart, and
confided to his strong and healthy
young relative the interview with the
detective, which he had been carry-
ing silently about with him, as one
who has taken poison but has not
yet found the right person to tell
of it. It was an impulse, and even
while he spoke he more than once
expressed almost as much horror of
speaking, as of the horrible thing it-
self. But the impulse was a correct
one ; for Adrian's strong cheerfulness,
and his perfect faith in Civille, aside
from the natural sympathetic kindness
of the young man, were cordials to
the extreme pain of the distressed
father, which seemed to have been the
bitterer, now that it was expressed
in words, from the very fact of having
been endured in silence, even for a
few hours.
" Civille ? " exclaimed Adrian in
utter astonishment — " Why, he
might as well try to make me think
it is darkness that comes from the
sun ! What a fool ! But how ?ho;ild
those fellows recognize human hi-
ings ? They live amongst corruption,
and they lose the power of distin-
guishing what is clean. But we
must be quiet about it, of course.
Just have patience for a few days,
and I'll find out something for you.
We shall discover exactly what the
rascality is, you may be sure. —
Why, I should as soon believe that
there was no God ! "
" One thing that frightens me,"
74
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
said the old gentleman, "is, the chance
of some — some kind of ailment" —
he spoke with difficulty, and stopped
short. Adrian himself remembered
the young girl's habitual and acute
headaches; her excessive paleness;
her weary look: and for a few mo-
ments he was at a stand. Mr. Van
Braam went on :
" She has certainly lost color and
flesh since we came here, now eight-
een months ago. But then, again,
there's something else that the officer
knows about, I dare say, but you
don't — her going about alone so
much, and to such places."
Adrian looked astonished again.
" She has very few friends, poor
thing," said the old man. " We have
lived so much alone ever since her
mother died — and always, for that
matter. She has had no escort. How
could she ? I have not been able to
go with her. And she has been inter-
ested iu so much of the recent psy-
chology and sociology — And the poor
child's life is so empty ! — And I never
could refuse her any thing — nor could
I anybody, if I had it to give," — the
old gentleman smiled pitifully enough
— " I'm an old fool, if that's being
one."
" But pray where did she go ? "
asked Adrian, a good deal startled
and puzzled. He was relieved how-
ever when he was told that besides
some charitable offices regularly per-
formed in connection with Dr. Toom-
ston's church, she had resorted to no
place worse than — the old gentleman
rather hesitated but at last came out
with it — divers spiritualist " circles,"
and the meetings in public and pri-
vate of a certain so-called Solidariie
de VAvenir, or of the members of the
same.
"What's that?" asked Adrian, a
little vexed, for he had a strong pre-
judice in favor of using English words
whenever they would do. — " What's
that? — a French Red Republican
club ? "
'' Oh no," replied Mr. Van Braam,
somewhat embarrassed; "they are
advanced reformers, irrespective of
nationality or creed or politics."
Adrian, if he had done exactly as
he wanted to, would now have pro-
nounced a vigorous invective against
sundry doctrines and practices. But
as was observed, he had a good deal
of natural tact, and he felt that if he
could serve his relatives in this mat-
ter, it must be not as an opposer, but
as a sympathizer. Besides, he re-
flected in a moment, that these peo-
ple might be very deserving people,
after all. And .a plan of campaign
occurred to him, simple enough, and
effective if it should appear that any
thing at all could be clone. It was sim-
ply to take the position of an interest-
ed inquirer into what Mr. Van Braam
thought proper to call "'psychology
and sociology," to stay in the city as
long as he could, and to watch over
Civille as closely as possible without
offence, in the character of an escort
and fellow votary in these profound
researches of hers, and to see in the
meanwhile what could have occasioned
the abominable imputation that had
been cast upon her.
To Mr. Van Braam, however, he
put the matter as one of cousinly
kindness ; and the sweet and disin-
terested nature of the good old gen-
tleman receiving such a motive in
another as a most reasonable and com-
petent one, the scheme was agreed
on.
"But Ann," suggested Mr. Van
Braam — "might she not be an-
noyed ? " —
" Oh no," said Adrian with perfect
confidence. "I shall tell her all
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
75
about it of course. And she is too
fond of Civille not to be right glad I
can be of service. And she is too
good for any misunderstanding on
such a point. I shall be careful not
to let Civille know, but I shall tell
Ann the first time I see her — to-
morrow, I presume."
'* I don't know but you're right,"
said the poor old gentleman, " but I
declare it seems to me as if my girl
was being shown up all over" — he
almost cried, and had to stop.
"Well, Ann shall not know," said
Adrian at once. " She may suppose
I am only interested in the reform
movement. I am interested in re-
forms, and so is she. She is bound
to be, as a church member. And we
shall both be glad to have her go
with us. And I can answer for it
that she shall have faith in both of
us."
It was so decided ; and Adrian pro-
ceeded to make a number of desultory
inquiries about the Solidarite and its
associated interests, partly for infor-
mation, partly with a view to instil
into Mr. Van Braam's mind, by way
of .precaution, the same belief which
Civille was to entertain, viz., that
Adrian was a genuine catechumen.
The old gentleman, wbo was really a
good deal cheered and comforted by
Adrian's energetic and whole hearted
sympathy and help, gave what ac-
count he could of these reforms, but
he knew only what his daughter had
told him, and furnished nothing but
indistinct hints. While he was in
t\ e midst of them, there was a ring
s' the door, and in came Scrope of
Scrope, accompanied by a stranger,
whom he introduced as " my fwiend
Mr. Bird, a gentleman connected with
the pwess," further explaining that lie
had taken the liberty of bringing him
as he himself could not resist the
temptation to call, an d having to go
elsewhere with Mr. Bird, had ventured
thus much; which excuse was gra-
ciously received by Mr. Van Braam.
Mr. Bird was a rather slender
young man with a dark complexion,
fine gray eyes, wavy black hair, live-
ly expressive features and a sufficient-
ly good manner ; and being politely
received, the company entered upon
that brief and amicable discussion of
the weather which was the formal
introduction to all conversation until
General Myer took out all its inter-
est by eliminating the speculative
element and reducing it to a mere
prophecy. What comfort or advan-
tage is there in saying " Good morn-
ing, Brown. Cautionary signals are
ordered at Pumpanopeague, Squank
and Bung Head," and in answering
" Yes ; but the area of low barome-
ter has passed from Idaho to Arkan-
sas, and variable weather is indicated
in the Gulf States."
No wonder one of the sages of the
"metropolitan press" remarked the
other day that the art of conversation
is lost. General Myer has destroyed
the very beginning of it.
Mr. Scrope, after a few minutes,
gallantly inquired after the health of
his cousin, Miss Van Braam, upon
which her father rang and sent for
her, and in a few moments she en-
tered.
The new comer was duly presented,
and Civille placed herself in her usual
nest, as she was accustomed to call it,
the wadded arm-chair, which almost
always stood in the same place at
your left hand as you face the fire,
and with the little two-story wicker
work-basket close to it. As she sat
down there was one of those silences
which happens every now and then
in any company, and Civille, who
had gazed indifferently into the fire,
76
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
after a moment looked up with a
start : —
"What are you all looking at me
for? " she said. — And they were.
The extreme natural sensitiveness
of her temperament, was in truth at
present carried somewhat beyond the
limit of heahhy activity, and her
mind was beginning to receive im-
pressions through any of the nervous
extremities, without regard to the reg-
ular channels of the five senses. That
is, she was beginning to be a "clair-
voyant." But supposing her to be
at all susceptible to the gaze of others,
her consciousness of it was not so
strange either, for all four of the men
had really been looking at her with
positive, and two of them with intense
emotion.
The precise phenomenon which
had been the centre of crystallization
for all their looks, was a rare and
lovely one, though very simple. It
was only, while Civille entered the
room, came forward, received the visi-
tors, turned aside and sat down, —
the spiritually perfect grace and ease
of her movements.
Beauty of feature is almost common,
in America; refinement and intelli-
gence of feature absolutely so. But
gracefulness is very rare. Among
men, — why, the idea is superfluous ;
no matter about it either way. But
among women, whose business is
beauty ; — a man who knows say a
hundred ladies well enough to recollect
distinctly the traits and manner of
each, can perhaps select one, possibly
two, but very likely none, — who pos-
sess that supreme and divine grace of
beautiful motion. Even to be able
to recognize and admire it, if not due
to unusual natural keenness of per-
ception, is in itself an elegant culture.
What most people call beauty is of
the forms and colors of the face only.
The person of a woman is most often
taken for granted, or ignored. But
there may be real beauty, — wdiich
by the way is of the whole person,
from the crown of the head to the
tips of the toes — without graceful-
ness. What does give gracefulness —
beauty of motion — is unknown. It
is something of the body, and some-
thing of the soul. But whatever it
is, Civille had it. As for her father,
he never thought of that perfection
alone; for him, she was all that is
lovely. He would have silently con-
temned any suggestion that she had
not that attraction, or any other; but
his sense of all her sweetnesses was
drowned in his own extreme emotion
of love, and as she glided in, he
thought neither that she was lovely
nor pale nor good, but only, '■ My
darling, my darling ! " As for the
three young men, the case was other-
wise, as was natural and right. For
each of them, the invisible, uncon-
scious, universal, unfailing enchant-
ment was upon him. They did not
either of them say, or think, or know,
that he was to marry Civille, or that
he could, or that he wished to, or that
he would under any circumstances.
Yet, humanly speaking, it was a pos-
sibility ; and distant and absolutely
unremembered as it was, or as was
even the idea of so much as venturing
to kiss her hand, this it was which
lent a faintest rose-color to their re-
gards.
The uncompromising directness of
her question startled them all in their
turn.
" I always look at you, my dear,"
said the old man, simply.
"I was hoping you had had no
more trouble with your head," said
Adrian, — and so he was; but his
thoughts had been almost impassioned
even in the moment of his looks, for
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
i i
he had feU an even painful sense of
her helplessness, unconscious and pure
as he knew her to be, innocent as a
baby, and with a charge of vulgar
street theft lying in wait for her, and
there followed instantly an intense
shock as it were of resolve that he
would keep not only the danger, but
the very knowledge of it, away from
her. He had moreover perceived —
and for the first time, this wonderful
loveliness in her steps and gestures,
— and he felt it.
" I was admiwing to see how gwace-
fully you moved," said Scrope, bluntly.
Like most Englishmen, — not that
it is wholly wrong either — he saw
women and horses with eyes a good
deal the same ; but he was the only
one of the three who told the whole
story, after all.
As for Mr. Bird, what did he tell ?
He began with just such an assertion
as has prefaced many a special lie —
" To tell you the truth," he said,
" I was wondering particularly how
that fine engraving on the mantle-
piece came to be so damaged."
This dexterous or at least apposite
diversion turned the conversation ;
the story of the picture was told, there
was an animated inquiry about the
substitute to be chosen. Civille was
glad the camel was at last dead ; it
mack' her faint to look at it, she said;
she hated agony pictures as much as
Adrian.
" Then Saint Sebastian won't do,"
remarked Scrope, " nor Isaiah being
sawn asunder; nor the Crucifixion of
St. Peter ? "
" Oh, don't ! " exclaimed the young
lady, with a shudder. " I always feel
as if the arrows had been fired into
my own shoulder ! I believe I am
growing more and more nervous.
But it's no wonder to-day, for I got
such a fright this morning ! "
" What was it, my dear ? " quickly
asked the old gentleman.
" Oh, it can't have been any thing,
of course. But I thought there was
some one following me. While I was
in at Jenks and Trainor's, there was
a man buying something near me, and
I saw him twice afterwards — once I
am sure it was he, just as I came out
of another store ; and I thought I saw
him on the platform after I got into
the street car. I have always de-
spised women that I have heard speak
of being annoyed in that way, but I
sha'n't any more. It was excessively
unpleasant."
All the gentleman, as men are
pretty likely to do in such a case,
made rather elaborate representations
intended to dissipate Civille's disa-
greeable impression. Perhaps they
were too elaborate ; for although she
thanked them, she did not seem re-
lieved. It is true that Scrope, accord-
ing to his fashion, performed what he
meant for a compliment ; a not very
elegantly worded intimation that the
unknown showed good taste in his
selection.
"Thank you sir," answered Miss
Van Braarn — as has been hinted she
had abundance of spirit sometimes —
" I can't see the compliment of his
taking me for a person willing to be
followed by a perfect stranger."
And the Englishman was snubbed ;
for even he felt that he should only
make the matter worse by explaining
what he had meant. A compliment
to a lady, like a vote in congress,
should never need explanation. But
Adrian seized his opportunity :
" Cousin Civille, your father has
been telling me something about your
interest in some reformers and their
discussions. I find I am to be in
New York rather longer than I
thought. A visitor, you know, is
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
always more eager to see the sights
than a New Yorker; and I want you
to let me escort you about a little ; will
you ? "
She looked at him a moment, with
her half-hidden look of distant dream-
ing ; it gave him an impression that
she was looking into his motives. It
was only her way however. " I heg
pardon," she said, recollecting herself,
— "I was considering — Yes, I
should like it very much."
And three appointments were made
on the spot, covering Civille's opera-
tions as a reformer and sociologist
for the current week. One was to
attend a spiritual " seance" the next
(viz. Thursday) evening; one to at-
tend the weekly meeting of the Soli-
darity de VAvenir on Friday; and
one, to visit the chief philosopher, or
President, or whatever his title may
he, of the said Solidarite, at his house,
when it should be convenient, for
a deep conference upon "The Re-
adjustment of Things in General,"
which readjustment, as it would seem,
Mr. President had kindly proposed
to conduct, and which he had already
got so far advanced that a centre of
operations to be called The Germ,
as being the Nucleus of 'the New
Universe, was actually to be organized
within a few months and perhaps
weeks.
Messrs. Scrope and Bird, who like-
wise proceeded to profess a profound
kiterest in these matters, being a little
behind-hand with their zeal, received
only permission to attend the meet-
ing of the Solidarite ; where, Miss
Civille informed them, was the centre
of activity of the great network of
new agencies which was swiftly leav-
ening the age, and where they would
find all the requisite opportunities for
aiding in the great work to any extent
whatever.
Mr. Scrope now rose to take leave,
explaining that Mr. Bird, who knew
all about New York, had agreed to
pilot him to an entertaining exhibi-
tion appointed that evening, of what
Mr. Scrope thought proper to call
"The Manly Game of Billiards."
Adrian, himself an amateur in a small
way, at once asked permission tc ac-
company them, which was readily
given, and the three young men went
off together, Adrian leaving his treas-
ured pamphlet for the time in the
charge of Mr. Van Braam.
CHAPTER XII.
As the young men left the old
house together, Adrian quoted from a
certain ancient anthology :
" We're three brethren out of Spain,
Come to court your daughter Jane."
"Jane's no fool, either," comment-
ed Scrope ; " she might ave answered
for herself as the old lady did :
' My daughter Jane is yet too young,
To be snared by your false nattering tongue.'
Hay, Bird? — We couldn't secure
invitations."
" I'm going to the meeting Friday
evening though," observed Mr. Bird,
in his quiet evasive way ; " I'd like to
see what those people are about."
" Now for my part," said Scrope,
"I'd far rather sit in one of their
dark circles. Hit's very funny, I
assure you. Great chance for the
finer feelinks."
Adrian had perceived in the very
first words of the young man, — more
perhaps in tone and air than in their
positive meaning, something very
disagreeable. It was as if being now
with men, and young men, onl}-, Mr.
Scrope felt that some restraints of
some kind were removed. There was
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
79
something not of freedom only but
of recklessness, in his talk, in his
voice, and Adrian fancied, in his step.
Adrian, who was free enough, but
who was clean, had already felt, as he.
had intimated to Mr. Van Braam,
something opposed to himself in this
young person, and had defined it as
an ignorance of the difference between
right and wrong.
'•' Smoke ? " said Scrope, drawing
forth a well filled cigar-case and of-
fering it to his companions. Adrian
declined, and Bird accepted. There
was a halt while the two smokers
" fired up; " and Scrope said, pleasant-
ly enough,
" Hope it's not disagreeable to you,
Mr. Chester ? "
" Oh, I don't object," said Adrian ;
" and by the way, as everybody
smokes in the street here, and so I can
ask as a mere matter of curiosity,
without being rude, please to tell me
if it is the etiquette in London too ? "
" Wy, not exactly the ticket any-
were, I should say," answered Scrope ;
" but wot's the odds, as long as you're
appy ? "
" Very little odds," said Adrian ;
" but I'm luckier than you two gentle-
men, for I haven't got tired of God's
fresh air yet. When I do I shall be
ready for smells. If I had to live in
Mr. Van Braam's parlor I think I
should learn to smoke though."
" Yes," assented Bird — " As the
mountaineer remarked the first time
he tasted a codfish-ball, ' Something
dead in there ! ' That can't be a
healthy house to live in."
"The fact is," said Adrian, "I
perceive a good deal of that same
deadness in the air all over this city."
" By the way, Chester," said
Scrope — familiarly, as Adrian
thought — ' ; a neat thing that of
yours last evening about women being
good. Vewy telling compliment in-
deed."
" All the better for being true/ :
said Adrian, not entirely pleased.
" Oh, — beg pardon," said Scrope,
" if I wan against an opinion — I
never mean to do that."
" Why, you can't help it some-
times," said Adrian.
"If you have any of your own,"
remarked Mr. Bird.
" Oh, I haven't,'' said Scrope,
with every appearance of sincerity.
"There's no choice of opinions. I'd
like to do some things, and I want
people to help me ; but I entertain all
their views just as they come. A 7 ewy
convenient indeed."
" Wouldn't do for a missionary,"
observed Bird —
" But " said Scrope, with an unex-
pected readiness of Scriptural quota-
tion, " St. Paul says we may be all
things to all men if we are only try-
ing to save them."
" Ah," retorted Bird, " but he
doesn't say you may say all things."
" And besides," joined in Adrian,
" a fair interpretation makes it neces-
sary to understand ' all good things.' "
•' Sure enough," assented Scrope,
who at once showed " the courage of
his won-opinions," — "sure enough, —
you're quite wight."
Thus chatting amicably they walked
a few blocks up town until they
reached a point on the cross-town
Bleecker Street line of horse-cars,
where they got aboard, and disem-
barked at the corner of Broadway and
Bleecker Street.
Piloted by Mr. Bird, the three
friends turned northward, taking the
eastern side of Broadway ; but they
had hardly gone half a block when
Scrope, stopping suddenly at the
opening of a wide flight of steps lead-
ing down into a basement, said,
80
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
" Will it do to go down here ? I've
never seen one of these places."
"Oh yes," acquiesced Bird —
" there's time to just look in and have
a single glass of heer."
It is no wonder that the young man
was attracted, not by the beauty, but
hy the glare, of even this cellar stair-
way ; for a broad sheet of light
seemed actually to flame up, as if from
some intense subterranean conflagra-
tion. This light came from a profuse
supply of gas-jets, of which one pow-
erful combination, placed over the
doorway, — that is, just below the
level of the sidewalk, blazoned forth
the letters of the words " The Para-
dise." Gaudy transparencies to the
same effect were also adjusted at the
sides of the stairway, also even with
the sidewalk. As you looked down,
a great screen, placed just within the
open door, all bathed in the same
blazing blinding glare of gas-light,
shut off the mysteries within from
casual peeps, and at the same time
displayed what might be supposed the
picture of one of the Peris of the
place — but she was far from being
the disconsolate one of the poet. It
was a painting in distemper, in glar-
ing color, all reel and white, of some
kind of princess or other reclining in
state, with a crown of roses, a laconic
costume, extremely developed con-
tours, and sporting in unconscious
glee with a tremendous birdling,
which might be either a vast parrot
or a green owl ; for the creature had
been very broadly generalized by the
artist, who may have been represent-
ing a Bird of Paradise of a new sort ;
or he was perhaps offering a pre-his-
toric type; possibly his own private
notion of an archseopteryx. And more-
over, there thrilled up the rather dirty
stairway, mingling as it were with
this Hood of light, an indistinct mur-
mur of voices, and a flood of music,
to wit, the enrapturing strains of
" Champagne Charley " — which no-
ble composition had then just come
across the Atlantic Ocean.
" Then you'll be a Bird of Paradise
for the time being," said Mr. Scrope
to the " member of the Press," as they
went down the stairs, Adrian following
with curiosity, yet with distinct repug-
nance. For as he stepped down, his
senses were offended by a strong gush
of warm and almost hot air rushing
out from the interior, infamously de-
filed with odors not of paradise, but
of pandemonium ; rank tobacco, bad
liquor, undrained cellarage, coarse edi-
bles, foul breaths, dirty persons — a
hideous swash that made him feel as
if he were drowning in putrefaction.
But he was unwilling to interfere
with the wishes of his companions,
and he had a certain curiosity to see
the place, particularly as they were
not to stay long. He could not have
staid long, indeed, with his cleanly and
fresh-air habits. But they did not stay
even as long as they had intended.
This Paradise was one of the thou-
sands of doorways to hell which the
respectable citizens of New York
maintain along the chief thorough-
fare of their city, to rot young
men and women; — a "concert sa-
loon." The three young men, sub-
merging themselves in the fetid at-
mosphere of the place, passed behind
the great daub of the bare-legged Peri.
The interior was no doubt familiar to
the newspaper man ; to Scropc it was
very likely only a variety of what he
had seen in London or Paris ; but to
Adrian it was quite new. It was a
rather low but roomy and very long
apartment, strongly lighted through-
out, the walls and ceiling whitewashed,
the floor sanded and thickly set with
plain round wooden tables. Half
Scropc; or, The Lost Library.
81
way down one side was a platform on
which the orchestra were established
— a jangling old piano, two fiddles, a
key-bugle, a clarinet and a bass-viol
were the instruments. At nearly all
the tables were customers, all wearing
their hats, most of them smoking, all
with liquors of some kind, some with
plates of Schweizer-kase and mus-
tard, or with slices of Bologna sau-
sage also. The waiters who supplied
these customers were almost equally
numerous. They were young girls,
dressed in a coarse high colored kind
of uniform, vulgar and dirty, on the
pattern of the Peri ; some flitting
hither and thither with small waiters
containing glasses and plates, some
sitting in familiar conversation with
the drinkers, and a group gathered
before the bar, which was at one side
just within the door, giving orders,
returning empty glasses and receiving
full ones, and all the time chattering,
laughing, singing or scolding ; while
the bar-keeper, with two assistants,
was exerting a preternatural activity
in serving out the commodities of the
place.
Bird led the way straight through
this noisy crowd of girls. Adrian's
ear was inexpressibly shocked by the
raspin g harshness of their tones, wheth-
er they spoke or sang or laughed. It
was in sound, what you may some-
times see in color where an old pic-
ture has been abused by the cleaner,
and all the delicacy and goodness
of the coloring removed, leaving
glaring harsh masses of ground tint.
He had never before heard that awful
voice — for ineffably awful it is — the
undertone of ruin. A grotesque si-
militude arose in his mind; he thought
of the dry clashing and clattering of
potsherds. As they passed on, Bird
accidentally jostled one of the girls,
whose mug of beer was spilled. She
had been chanting along with the
music ; but turning short with a furi-
ous face, she uttered an elaborate curse.
That also, perhaps the most complete-
ly fiendish sound on earth, the curs-
ing and swearing of women, Adrian
had never heard before ; and he
wished he was out. Bird begged her
pardon, paid for the beer, and with
perfect good humor handed her a
further sum, saying,
"Never mind, sis; there's half-a-
dollar for yourself besides." Her face
cleared as quickly as it had flushed,
and she laughed loudly, saying, "All
right, my dear. You're a gentleman
and a scholar."
Making their way to one of the
tables, they sat down. One of the
girls came and took their orders for
three glasses of beer.
" What for me, gentlemen ? " she
said.
" Oh, any thing you like," replied
Bird.
"Sherry wine, then," was the an-
swer, and she went off to get the
liquors.
" Pray do they drink all the even-
ing?" asked Adrian, astonished.
" Oh, they make everybody order
something for them, if they can," ex-
plained Bird, " for the good of the
house. She said wine because it costs
more. Then she brings it to drink
with us — but it's colored water, and
the price of wine goes into the till."
She returned with the glasses.
Scrope, who had been singing " Cham-
pagne Charley " along with the Mart-
ing key-bugle, stinted in his song,
and touched glasses with the girl, and
they drank. Adrian barely touched
the stuff to his lips. It had the
sharp poisonous bitter flavor of cheap
beer.
" Worst liquors in New York city,
in this hole," said Bird.
82
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
At this moment a tall young fellow.
in a seedy black frock-coat and black
felt hat, came unsteadily along, hold-
ing by chairs and tables, and balanced
himself right opposite Adrian, next
whom the girl had sat down while
Mr. Bird made change. Adrian had
been noting the coarse texture and
very dirty condition of the cheap red
and white stuff of her dress, the paint
on her cheeks, and .he noticed more-
over that her face as well as her
arms and neck were very thin ; and
she coughed.
'•' I'm afraid you're not very well,'"'
he said, naturally enough, iu his sym-
pathetic way. The girl felt the kind-
ness in his voice, and shook her head
in silence, but as if recollecting her-
self, she laughed in the loud rattling
manner of the place and said in her
dry, harsh voice,
'•' Well as a fish, my dear. Say,
give us a dollar, will you ? "
The drunken young man spoke sud-
denly, with the indistinct utterance
of intoxication, and the thick husky
tone of habitual intoxication :
" Look here } r ou ! — Goin home
with that gal ? "
Adrian looked up at the abomina-
ble dark red face, the swimming
bleared half-shut eyes, dim yet vi-
cious, the flabby, almost hanging,
thick lips. It was as if the very genius
of the den was accosting him. The
first impression was that of nauseat-
ing disgust; the next was anger; for
Adrian had not learned the topers'
conventionality that a drunken man
is to be humored ; and he answered,
" None of your business ! "
Without a word, the young man
L-'ft^d a chair by which he was hold-
ing and raising it over his head with
both bauds, aimed a blow full at
Adrian ; but he was so drunk that
he could not handle himself, and the
chair fell short, coming down with a
crash on the table, breaking a glass
or two ; and the brute, pitching for-
ward, saved himself with his bands
as well as he could ; but they both
slopped into the spilled beer, one was
cut on a piece of broken glass and
bled freely, and his head meeting the
chair, his felt hat was shoved awry.
Recovering himself somewhat, be un-
steadily raised himself again, looked
muddily about, muttered some oath,
drew his wet and bleeding hand
across bis face, leaving a track of beer
and blood, and would have made his
way round the table towards Adrian.
But Adrian and his companions
all sprang up; the girl herself quick-
ly stepped round to the drunken fel-
low, and without showing an} r signs
of fear, disgust, or indeed any other
emotion, put her arms round him and
said quietly,
" It's all right, Jim. Sit down ; I'll
get you a drink."
" No danger, gentlemen," added
one of the men from the bar. who had
hurried up as soon as he saw that
there was a scuffle.
" I shouldn't think there was," said
Bird coolly ; " that scoundrel's too
drunk. You've no business to let him
come in here at all in that state. I've
a great mind to have your place pulled.
I've only got to see Captain Wallace
to have it done, as you know very
well."
" We don't mean to have any
trouble," answered the man, abashed
and disconcerted at Bird's steady tone.
"Hope you won't do it. Make it
all right with you, with pleasure, sir,"
he insinuated.
•• Well, never mind this time," was
the reply. " We were only stopping
a moment, anyhow. Come, gentle-
men." And they went out, amidst a
brief silence that came down upon all
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
S3
the noisy talk, while everybody looked
to see what the disturbance was, and
the toneless jangling bang and toot of
the poor little orchestra, sounding
alone in the place for the moment,
served as a kind of Rogue's March,
Adrian could not but think, as it
were to drum them out of this devil's
camp. But all the noises, — gruff talk,
loud orders, tipsy singing, harsh laugh-
ter, curses and all, began again before
they had reached the door. And as
Adrian stepped out on the sidewalk,
he felt filthy, defiled through and
through, unfit for decent society — as
one might feel who has been soaked
and all but drowned in a cess-pool,
barely escaping alive.
"Well, 'that's enough," he ex-
claimed, as he drew a long breath —
" why, that even makes a New York
street seem clean ! But Mr. Bird,
what did he mean by saying that
he would make it right with you ? "
'•Rather hand me fifty dollars than
run the risk of having his place bro-
ken up."
" But how did he know you could
do it ? "
" Oh, anybody could do it, almost
— he has to submit to some such ex-
tortion every little while. But lie
makes so much out of the business
that he can afford to bribe pretty
heavily."
And they passed on up Broadway.
84
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
PART IV.
CHAPTER XIII.
" Axd yet there are a great deal
worse places than that in New York,"
said Bird, reflectively, as they passed
up Broadway, beyond Bond Street and
Great Jones Street.
" What ones ? " said Scrope at
once, and with perceptible eagerness.
And Adrian, sickened as he was, and
though he said nothing, also wanted
to know. Ever since the Tree of
Knowledge of Good was also the Tree
of Knowledge of Evil, man's instinct
to understand has asked after both.
As God joined the two knowledges
together, it is no wonder that man has
not } T et succeeded in putting them
asunder. And still, there was a great
difference between the animal eager-
ness of Scrope and the intellectual
instinct for knowing that stirred in
Adrian, and which he distrusted while
he felt it.
" Well, gentlemen,"' replied Bird,
" police reporting is one of the rough-
est pursuits in the world, I suppose.
It is in that line < that I have seen
things — Perhaps I'll tell you about
them some day. But I really can't,
now — it's too bad. Besides, some
of the best citizens are interested in
some of the worst of them."
" How do you mean ? " asked
Adrian.
"Why, — now there's that Para-
dise, for instance," replied the police
reporter, — for such his words implied
that he was — "do you know wdio
owns that building?"
"No,— who?"
"It's one of the very worst holes
on Broadway. There's been two mur-
ders there that I know of already.
They break all the ten command-
ments as much as once every ten
minutes, almost all night. And it
belongs to one of these eminent capi-
talist fellows that are so respectable
and subscribe to all sorts of things.
Button, his name is."
" I don't believe it," said Adrian,
shocked, and impulsively — "I beg
your pardon, what I mean is that you
must be mistaken. I know Mr. But-
ton."
" Then I beg your pardon, if he is
a friend of yours. But there's no
mistake about the fact. You may go
with me to the register of disreputa-
ble tenements which the Police keep
at the Mulberry Street Headquarters,
with the names of the owners, and
I'll show it to you written out in full,
and then you may go and search the
records of land at the City Hall and
find the deed to Mr. Button all re-
corded at length."
"But why don't they print that
whole list of names ? "
" Reason enough : it would show
that the respectability of New York
gives houseroom to the crime of New
York and so maintains it for money."
"But it isn't possible," persisted
Adrian. " He don't know it, of
course. Or he has let the place to
some one who is misusing it or under-
letting it against his will."
" All right," said Bird — " that's
just the way they talk. As if a man
like him would own a building on
Broadway and not know wdiat is done
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
85
with it ! And as for the misuse against
his will, — do you suppose he don't
know that the Paradise is a law-
hreaking concern every night of the
year, and that he can have it shut
now, late as it is, before midnight, if
he chooses ? "
Adrian was silent ; for the truth
had hit him very hard. Bird re-
sumed :
" Of course there's underletting ;
there's an agent, and a tenant, and
one or two undertenants. Such
places pay two or three times as much
rent as any respectable business could
pay ; but I don't insinuate that that
has any thing to do with it. Dear
me, no ! "
Adrian said no more, but like a
straight-forward and clean-hearted
young fellow as he was, he silently
resolved that at his first meeting with
Mr. Button he would reveal to him
the outrage which he was suffering in
this matter. " I'll have the pleasure
of shutting up one hell-hole," he said
to himself, as they walked along.
In a few moments they reached
the scene of the proposed exhibition :
a billiard saloon known as " Jack's,"
nearly opposite the New York Hotel.
They entered through a sort of fancy
grocery store, and turning short and
passing through a side door at the
back, came into the billiard room it-
self, a large square apartment, imme-
diately under " Hope Chapel," and of
course belonging to the same owner.
A magnificent bar stretched all the
way across one side ; nine full-sized
tables — none of your trifling three-
quarters affairs — were orderly dis-
posed in three ranks upon the ample
floor, each strongly illuminated with
its own shaded gas-lights, the wires
with the wooden beads for marking
the game strung upon them, hanging
across above in their long catenary
curves, and the armory-like racks of
cues standing stiffly back against the
wall. The bar-keeper, a far more
magnificent creature than his guild-
brother of the Paradise (particularly
as to his curled and shiny hair ; —
there must be some mysterious real
connection corresponding to the coin-
cident first syllables of bar-ber and
bar-tender — ) was, however, no less
assiduous, and was swiftly ministering
juleps and other rivers of delight —
" sweet fields arrayed in living green
(i.e. the juleps) and rivers of de-
light," to divers persons who stood
before his shrine. Two of these,
nearest the new-comers, were in a
muzzy state, talkative and disputa-
tious, but imbecilely good humored,
and were at the moment discussing a
weighty point in orthoepy, perhaps
none the less interesting to Adrian,
who was close to them, from the fact
that of the two methods of spelling
the word in dispute which they sev-
erally asserted, neither agreed with
his own.
" ]S"o 'tain't," said one — " it's J, e,
r, m, y, e, r."
" Why no tisn't," said the other, ar-
ticulating with the most painstaking
distinctness, — " it's G, u, r, m, i, a,
r."
" Less arsh thish genlmn," was the
reply, and they began to submit the
question of the grand old Hebrew
mourner-poet-prophet's name to Adri-
an, who briefly assured them with
a bow that he didn't know how to spell
at all, and pushed forward to get
away from their drunkenness, to the
front rank of the spectators. These
were already intently beholding the
Billiard Tournament, which was in
progress upon a carom table, the deep
green of whose cloth testified that it
had been newly caparisoned, doubt-
less for this very occasion.
86
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
The game was what is technically
called the French game, played with
one red ball and two white ones, and
is about as much superior to the
" full " or "American four-ball game "
as chess is to draughts. The two he-
roes who were contending for " a purse
of $500, and the championship," were
a couple of serious looking youths,
very business-like and thoughtful of
aspect, both trim-built, alert, and well-
made, and with a professional deftness
of execution very pleasant to see.
There was nothing so very remarka-
ble about their play, which was only
for the State Championship, and not
for the vaster supremacy of the con-
tinent : the whole boundless continent
was not theirs on the present occasion,
but a pent-up New York contracted
their powers. As in this game the
nerves are at least as important as
they were to Mrs. Wititterly, applause
or disapproval is as stringently forbid-
den as it would be at a funeral, and
the silence that prevailed was almost
oppressive. Perhaps a hundred con-
noisseurs and amateurs were present.
From one or two distant tables where
dullards incapable of a worthy admi-
ration were pursuing their own selfish
amusement, the click of the balls, or
some quiet remark, echoed faintly now
and then; or some silly babble from
a toper at the bar sounded over the
heads of the crowd; but they them-
selves were impassible as Amphic-
tyons. Once or twice, when some
brilliant shot round the table restored
a desperate run, or when the figures
from some delicately prolonged pro-
cess of "nursing" accumulated high,
an irrepressible murmur of excitement
just breathed around; but only to be
hushed under the warning glance or
the quiet gesture of the umpire.
Adrian watched with much enjoy-
ment the graceful and accurate move-
ments and manipulations of the two
players, and the almost intelligent
obedience of the clean ivory balls, that
travelled about on their geometrical er-
rands over the green level of the table,
touching a cushion at one point, giving
a delicate tap to one ball in afar corner,
coming straight back home to tap the
other ball, then trundling off a little
way and waiting to receive the next
message. At last the game was up ;
the winner, with one or two hardy
and perilous "shots round the table "
and one brilliant and desperate " draw,"
completed a run of thirty, and the
breathless marker, standing mace in
hand, called out " Game ! " Then the
ring broke up, the prize was adjudged ;
the assembly broke out into a loud
buzz of conversation and debate ; there
was prompt application at the bar for
many drinks ; and groups of two,
three or four at once occupied all the
tables.
" Come," said Scrope promptly,
"let's have a game ;" and stepping
swiftly across to a table still vacant,
with the quick dexterity of familiar
custom, he laid his hand on the table,
just in time to prevent two others
from reaching it.
" Here's a table," he exclaimed.
The two strangers, discomfited, turned
away with some surly muttering, but
the etiquette of the billiard saloon is
as the law of the Medes and Persians,
which altereth not : — " First come
first served," it saith, — and they did
not resist. The three friends, noth-
ing loath, took off their coats ; each
man selected his cue from the rack ;
a bullet-headed, short-haired person
of Irish-American appearance, brought
them the billiard balls, and they set
to work at a three-handed game.
Neither of the three was particular-
ly skilful, but as their unskilfulness
was about equal they matched very
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
87
well ; and playing for amusement
only, they had a very jolly time of it.
Scrope's play was reckless, Bird's cau-
tious and safe, Adrian's well calcu-
lated and in a certain sense scientific
because he always played with a defi-
nite purpose ; hut from lack of prac-
tice his execution was far below his
ideal. After a while Scrope, who had
been noticing Adrian " lay out " good
shots and then miss them, observed
upon it :
" Vewy ably missed ! " he exclaimed,
as Adrian's cue ball, a little too deli-
cately touched, stopped about two
inches short of the deep red on which
it should have caromed for three, and
left a run of thirty or forty on the two
reds for Bird : — " Vewy ably missed.
I never saw anybody make so many
ansome misses in my life. An ole
boarding-school of them."
"Yes," said Adrian merrily, "it's
because I am too scientific and sacri-
fice every thing to principle. I don't
envy you your scratches, either. 'Tis
better to have aimed and missed than
never to have aimed at all ! And
here's our worldly friend Mr. Bird,
who has been picking up our crumbs,
and is ahead of both your luck and
my science, just by practical sense
and industry."
It was quite true ; it is as true in
billiards as in trade or in politics, that
steady attention to business, hard
work and careful good sense are the
best means of accumulation. In
many other ways also, however, are
the moralities of this beautiful game,
— moralities hitherto never developed
— illustrative of the affairs of life. A
niuu's shots, for instance, show his
character. One player is forever put-
ting on a twist, or making draw shots,
and counts in the most unexpected
manner, forcing the tormented balls
in every direction by cunning under-
handed strokes. Another, by sheei
straight forward force, drives his ball
far round the table, with long-sighted
powerful combinations. Another pre-
fers " follow shots ; " softly and deli-
cately he coaxes the hard ivory balls,
who quietly do what he wants, but
don't know that they are coaxed.
Another still, the cunningest of all, a
silent monopolizer, gets a corner on
the balls. He gets the two reds
"jawed," and stepping back and forth
round the corner pocket, counts and
counts to the paralysis and infuriation
of the helpless excluded adversary,
who longs to whack him over the
head with the butt of his cue. And
the vicissitudes of the game, moreover,
prove and exhibit the characters of
the players like those of life.
However: — the three young men
played away, and after a time Adrian
missed one or two easy shots. Now,
men who would bear a colossal misfor-
tune with equanimity may get quite
excited over a game. And in bil-
liards, there is a very curious but un-
deniable relation between the players
state of mind and his success. Virgil
has stated the point as if he had been
inspired with a motto on purpose for
this game :
" Possunt quia posse videntur."
"They can, just because they be-
lieve it." And vice versa too. The
first miss was, you may say, pure acci-
dent, but it damaged Adrian's morale;
the second shot he did not have faith
that he would make, and so he did
not make it. " I guess I sha'n't count
any more," he said, in a sort of half
serious discouragement.
" Take three fingers of Old Burbon
straight, Ad!" uttered a voice in an
oracular tone ; " that'll set you up
again, just like a fly."
All three of the players looked to
88
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
see who was the oracle. It was the
taller of two young men who had ap-
proached without being noticed by
the players, and who had been look-
ing on in silence for a few moments.
The shorter was a very dark com-
plexioned young fellow, natty of cos-
tume, adorned with jewels of price,
and very flashy in bearing. The
other, who had spoken, was big and fat,
even noticeably so ; and — delicately
be it intimated — his substance was
distributed after such a manner that
the circumference of his waistband
bore to that of his trousers' leg, too
great a ratio for the best sculpturesque
effect. ' He also was well dressed — in
the pretentious sense, — being majestic
in fine black broadcloth, a glossy new
hat, gloves, a showy lavender-colored
waistcoat, a white under-waistcoat, a
speckled shirt, a bright red cravat, a
diamond pin, and a slender cane
whose ivory head was carved in the
similitude of a plump human leg bent
at tbe knee. His face was round and
full and almost puffy : his dark hair
was coarse and straight ; his rather
thin mustache was elegantly waxed
into two sticky-looking little horizon-
tal tips, in that fashion that always
suggests that they are agglutinated
with the remainder-grease of the last
meal. His lips were not very thick,
but had a sort of over-full look ; and
they were slightly varnished, and
their red color thus brought out, by
the dewy moisture of a perceptible
exudation of tobacco-spit. His eyes
were dark, rather small, but quick
enough, and the black ej'ebrows were
rather thin, like the mustache.
Before Adrian had time to speak,
this splendid youth resumed, with a
jovial haw-haw which exhibited a
row of tobacco-stained teeth that
otherwise would have been white
and regular enough —
" Why, by — Ad, you d — d rascal,
what the" — but really, the oaths must
be omitted, although it cuts " a mon-
strous cantle out " of the speaker's
observations, and deprives us of some-
thing like half the utterances of his
great mind, leaving them insipid, like
a dish of eggs with tbe yolks all
picked out. But, as the showman
says in the burlesque, " the Public
Heye must and shall be regarded ; "
in one sentence parenthesized blanks
may indicate the habitual proportion
of this speaker's appeals to his Maker,
and afterwards — as Lord Timothy
Dexter said about the stops in his style
of composition, people must "pepper
and solt it to suit themselves."
"Why ( )" said the big fat
young man, " Ad, you ( ) rascal,
what the ( ) are you doing here,
( ) you ? Is Saul also among the
prophets ? "
'' How do you do, Cousin William."
said Adrian, good humoredly, and it
must be confessed not without some
little feeling that he was out of place.
But where can you play billiards in
New York — on a decent public
table — without having rum, tobacco,
gambling, profanity and vulgarity in
the room ? — " How do you do ? —
More like a prophet among the Sauls,
I guess, isn't it ? "
"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the
other, with so voluble an effusion of
glee, and with eyes so swimming and
such a swaying of his heavy figure,
that Adrian instantly perceived tbat
he was at least half tipsy ; but even
while he laughed, he administered a
mighty slap between Adrian's shoul-
ders, and then taking his cue out of
his hand, gave three resounding bangs
upon the floor. A boy hurried up, in
obedience to the well-known billiard-
room summons; and the summoner
continued,
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
89
" What's yours, gentlemen ? " —
looking to Bird and Scrope — " Intro-
duce me, Adrian," lie interrupted ;
" can't drink with an entire stranger
— against my principles."
"Mr. Scrope," said Adrian, thus
appealed to, and making a considera-
ble effort to seem proud and happy ;
" My cousin Mr. William Button.
Yours too : I suppose you missed
finding him at home. Mr. Bird, a
member of the press ; " and so on.
Then Mr. Button in his turn intro-
duced his short and swarthy compan-
ion to them all as Mr. Oppenheimer ;
and therewith he vouched for him
amidst a perfect storm of oaths, as
"the sharpest sport in this city —
can't beat me though — hay, Op ? "
And the whole bowed and shook
hands all round and round. They
all attempted to decline drinking, but
young Button began to be vociferous ;
enlarging with much vigor on the
happy occasion of his meeting a new
cousin, as one most proper for hospi-
tality ; the players at the adjoining
tables began to look with obvious
displeasure at the big noisy fellow
who was disturbing their game, and
Bird, touching Adrian's elbow, nod-
ded, as much as to say, "We had
better do it," and they all consented,
and jointly remitted to the entertainer
the choice of liquors.
"Five Old Burbon straight," said
Mr; ' Button, — but Oppenheimer,
amending, ordered for himself a " soda
cocktail " instead, saying " You know,
Bill, my head ain't so strong as yours.
I can't carry any more."
The liquors came and were drank,
and Adrian, though like most persons
of clean descent and pure health he
unfeignedly abhorred the abominable
rank sharp scalding-hot flavor of the
whiskej 7 , which he swigged down
pure in obedience to the exhortation
of his cousin, found to his surprise
that the sort of stir it produced
through every fibre of his frame,
although he felt in his brain the be-
ginning of something like a loosening
of his usual clear perfect command of
all his wits, somewhat as if a thin hot
mist or cloud was just beginning to
gather among them, yet did really
appear to have re-enforced his bil-
liard faculties, whatever those are, in
some way ; for he proceeded to make
some unusually good runs, and in
fact came out first, Mr. Bird's econo-
my carrying him through a good sec-
ond, while Scrope had the game to pay
for.
Very likely, according to that wise
ordinance of our Maker under which
the more we lose the more we want
to keep on and get it back, Scrope
would have insisted on another game ;
but he was really good-natured ; and,
as soon as Bird had completed his
hundred, Mr. Button, not being quite
clear in his intellectuals, and not
having the most correct instincts in
the world to make up for his lack of
good training, called out,
" There you go, Mister Scrope. All
gone up in a kite ! Now see me wipe
out Brother Oppenheimer. Come,
Op ! "
And he pulled off his coat and
proceeded to pick out a cue. The
"sport," sharper as he was, looked
rather confused at the invitation,
but the others, laughing, acquiesced,
and sat down to look on. The game
which now followed puzzled Adrian
for a time. Button, though at least
half drunk, played a very fair name
indeed. As for Oppenheimer, Adrian
observed at once how perfectly cool
and clear-headed he was ; then he
noticed the extreme neatness of his
style of play. He used exactly the
force required, and no more ; the cue
90
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
ball, like a trusty middle-aged ser-
vant with errands, trundled delib-
erately off, called at a cushion or
left the duplicate message of a carom,
and moved just a few steps further
to a place convenient for setting out
on the next errand. It was an in-
structive exhibition to Adrian of
that judicious play which always
considers the next shot. But at the
same time he was struck by the easy
shots which Oppenheimer missed ;
once a plain short carom ; once a
fair shot round the table ; and Adrian
was sure that as the "sport" made
these misses, he as it were relaxed
muscles and attention together, —
striking, one might say, with his eyes
shut. Whenever he had done so,
he muttered some short exclamation
of disgust, or gave a vexed sort of
whirl round on his heels; while Mr.
Button exulted over him with effu-
sive, self-exalting and half-tipsy glee.
Adrian cautiously intimated to Mr.
Bird something of these observa-
tions.
" Oh yes," said that gentleman, in
his quiet intelligent way ; " that Op-
penheimer is just playing him off.
I know him. He sleeps on a billiard
table every night, — unless sometimes
it's a faro table for a change. He can
give points to either of th6se cham-
pions we saw over there. He's a first
class billiard sharp. You may play
with him if you want to, and j'ou'll
win any small bets, if he thinks he
can coax you into a large one. But
don't bet a cent more than you are
willing to lose."
" I never risked a cent on chances
yet in my life," said Adrian, quietly,
" and I don't want to. He'll never
make any thing out of me."
" You're a lucky man," said Bird
with a smile.
As the game proceeded, Adrian no-
ticed over and over the same set of
phenomena he had thus observed, and
every time he saw the contrast of fine
play and intentional failure, he won-
dered more that Button did not see it.
But conceit and tippling together are
a very thick cloud, and the big foolish
youth was fully convinced that it was
his own skill that kept him just be-
hind or just in the lead of his cool
and steady opponent. Towards the
close, Button grew more and more
noisy, laughing and bawling out slang
observations with every shot whether
he counted or not. At last there re-
mained as it happened only one sin-
gle point for Mr. Button to make,
while Oppenheimer had let himself
fall behind twenty-five points; and
the uproar of the triumphant But-
ton was becoming tremendous. The
balls were left, moreover, in one of
those technically troublesome positions
which look so desperate to an ordina-
ry player, the cue ball being " frozen "
to one of the others, while the rest
were behind that one and close to-
gether, so that all four lay in a short
straight row. Of course, Oppenhei-
mer could not count if he moved the
ball which the cue ball touched; and
for a moment he seemed to study the
position with some little care. As for
Button, he exulted. Bending over
the balls, and shading them with his
hand so as to keep off the reflections
of the gas-light, he peered intently
at the focus of interest, where the
" spot ball " — which was Oppenhei-
mer' s — lay just touching the deep
red. "Frozen, by " he ex-
claimed at last. " Tight as Green-
land. Doctor Kane himself couldn't
get out of it. Now count, Oppy !
Gentlemen, see Oppy count now ! "
" You've got me, William, that's a
fact," remarked Mr. Oppenheimer,
with a discouraged air. "No use
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
91
playing against you and luck togeth-
er. However, I'll play away from the
other balls, at any rate." So saying,
he stepped around to the further side
from his cue ball, and quickly and
almost carelessly placed his left hand
as a " bridge," in the high way neces-
sary for playing over other balls ;
touching the table with three fingers
only, instead of with the lower rim of
the palm also, and Adrian, watching
closely, noticed not only the delicate
moulding of his projecting thumb,
and the almond shape of his clean
pink nails, but the coquettish perk of
his little finger sticking out as a fan-
ciful lady's does when she lifts a tea-
cup to her lips, and the sparkle of a
small bright diamond in a plain gold
ring on the same little finger. In a
moment, almost as it seemed without
looking at the balls, the " sport" ad-
ministered a delicate little dig to the
cue-ball ; a short stroke, directed from
above downward almost upon the very
top of the ball, and that did not seem
to follow the ball an inch. Button,
watching his closest to see that the
" frozen " ball did not move, was baf-
fled, but said, " No harm, I guess."
But there was harm. The spot
ball had received one of those myste-
rious " twists " somewhat such as are
given in what are called "mace " shots,
which seem to inform the white ivory
with the knowledge of a complete
campaign. Slowly, as if reluctantly,
but almost whizzing on its own perpen-
dicular axis, the spot ball crept a few
inches to the cushion — then leaped
suddenly away as if it was there that
its errand was given it, but at an un-
expectedly wide angle across a corner,
then taking a second cushion, re-
bounded accurately upon the two balls
that had been so snugly sheltered be-
hind the deep red one ; and Oppen-
heimer had counted two.
" I declare ! " exclaimed Adrian,
softly, but in great admiration, — and
watching the " sport," who stood near
him, he saw, to his surprise, a
swift subtle smile that just glim-
mered as it were for an instant upon
his dark face, and was instantly
repressed. Oppenheimer had counted
on purpose. As for Button, his
oaths would have terrified a cus-
tom-house.
" What for did you want to scratch
exactly then, I want to know ? " he
asked.
"I didn't want to scratch, Bill,"
said Oppenheimer, with a neat double
meaning — "you can't always make
the balls do what you expect, you
know ! " — And he played on.
"Two, five, eight, ten," enumerated
Adrian to himself, as the sport count-
ed and counted towards his twenty-
five, playing always with the same
swift apparently careless precision —
and so on up ; — " twenty — twenty-
two — twenty-four — twenty-No ! A
miss, upon my word ! "
" Sold again — and I've got the
money," bawled Button quite beside
himself, for a miss counts one for the
opposite party, and Oppenheimer had
thus beaten himself ; and Button
gave three such bangs on the floor
with the butt of his cue as if he had
meant to plant it in the hard Carolina
pine, as the old Saxon bishop Wul-
stan of Worcester planted his crosier
in the marble of Saint Edward the
Confessor's tomb, rather than yield it
to the Norman primate Lanfranc.
"Five more Burbon ! " he vocifer-
ated, as the boy ran up for the order.
Everybody refused however. But
Button, whose views on the subject of
"treating" were to the full those of
the foolish, vulgar, rich, rowdy, young
American — and that drunk — almost
foamed at the mouth at such a recep-
92
Scrope; or. The Lost Library.
tion of his hospitality, and swore by a
great many more things than there
are in the universe that if they
wouldn't drink with him in honor of
this victory, he'd drink all five glasses
himself. He was the more obstinate,
as he grew more excited ; and they
were fain to yield once more at least
in form, even Oppenheimer not insist-
ing on his harmless alkaline beverage.
The five drinks came, each flanked
with its attendant tumbler of ice and
water for mixing; every man took
his glass ; Adrian prepared to endure
another half hour of uncomfortable
stir within him and of unclean flavor
in his mouth.
Mr. Button lifted his glass with an
air of triumph ; " Gentlemen," he said,
" I give you on this occasion " —
The glass dropped on the floor and
smashed into bits among the slop of
whiskey. The young man's tongue
failed him at the same moment with
his fingers; so did ah 1 his muscles at
once, and instantaneously he toppled
over against the billiard table and then
upon the floor. Adrian and Oppen-
heimer, who were nearest, instantly
seized him by the shoulders to lift
him up. Adrian saw that his face was
very red ; his eyes were shut, a little
thick foam discolored with the juice
of the tobacco that was visibly lodged
in one cheek to make room for swig-
ging and speaking, was working out
from between his lips. The lips and
the whole face were thrilling and
working as if with shocks of nervous
pain ; the same thrills vibrated
through the arm and back under both
of Adrian's hands, and seemed to pass
out through the helpless fingers, which
clutched and wavered.
"Put him in a chair here by the
window," said Oppenheimer, and they
did so. Then he quickly opened the
window, and the cold air of the win-
try night fell in upon them like a
block of ice, so solid and -pure and
cold was it, as it broke into the heat-
ed and gas-lit and perceptibly smoke
and drink-flavored atmosphere of the
room.
Adrian had never been so close to
such a sight ; " What a horror it is ! "
he was saying to himself, thinking
of drunkenness, when Oppenheimer,
taking up one of the glasses of ice-
water, poured some into his right hand
and slopped it upon Button's fore-
head. It trickled all over his face
and down upon his shirt-front. Xo-
body paid much attention ; a drunken
man in a billiard saloon is not a black
swan, nor a black sheep either, for
that matter.
" He'll come out of it in a few min-
utes," said the gambler.
Bird was looking on in his quiet
attentive way : " It 's a fit, isn't it ! "
he said coolly, not questioning, but
asserting with slight surprise ; then,
to the gambler, — " Has he had many
of them ? "
" Xo — not more than half-a-dozen,"
said the other, — " Tisn't much more
than a dizziness."
" Just hold those bits of ice on his
forehead," suggested Bird. The gam-
bler did so; and sure enough, in a
moment or two Button's face and
whole frame became quiet; beseemed
to go into a sleep, breathing softly
and regularly ; the dark flush began
to pass from his face ; and in perhaps
five minutes he opened his eyes in a
sleepy sort of way and looked round
as if puzzled to know how he came
there.
" What is it ? " he asked — " Guess
I had another little spasm, didn't I ? ''
" Yes ; but you're all right now,"
said Oppenheimer, and he closed the
window. Button sat still a few
moments, with a dazed sort of look,
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
somewhat like one awaked before he
lias slept enough. The rest chatted
about indifferent matters for a few
minutes ; and then the big youth,
with an effort, laid his hands on the
arms of his chair and hoisted him-
self up, saying,
" Come ; let's trot out."
" Best thing you can do is to get a
good long sleep, Bill," said Oppen-
heimer, very sensibly. But that, as
it would appear, was no part of Mr.
Button's plan. He u scorned delights,
and lived laborious days " and nights
too ; with a double-Milton power
of labor, for the time being; though
what would have been an intolera-
ble slavery to the pure and lofty
old poet and scholar, Mr. William
Button believed to be the strenuous
pursuit of manly pleasures befit-
ting a free and independent Ameri-
can citizen. Nor can anybody, even
though as heavy, not to say strong,
as Mr. Button, over-draw on his vi-
tal revenues, without finding sooner
or later that when the current divi-
dends are exhausted, his checks have
been honored out of his capital.
He usually finds it out sooner rather
than later, and always too soon. It
was not yet too late for the foolish
Mr. William Button, if he had only
known it ; but it was pretty nearly
too late.
" Sleep — ! " was the irritated reply ;
though the future state (or place) to
which the speaker relegated the idea
of repose was precisely that where
it is commonly least believed to exist.
Oppenheimer looked a little surprised.
" Just as you like," he said how-
ever, with a kind of indifferent ac-
quiescence, such as one uses with
a feeble or sick person who is quer-
ulous about trifles ; "just as you
like, about sleeping there or going
there ; it's all one to me ! "
"Well, — let's go up stairs, Opp ;
Ad's a stranger ; want to show him
the elephant."
The gambler gave a swift suspi-
cious look, not at Button, but at the
three others. Scrope answered, this
time.
" I guess e means the tiger, wather
than the h elephant, don't e ? Weckon
we've all visited the animal ? — and he
looked inquiringly at Bird and Adri-
an. The police reporter only smiled
and nodded ; Adrian said he believed
he knew what the beast was, but had
never seen him. Button at once
insisted on going, and was quite ner-
vous and fussy about it.
" Well, come on," said Oppenhei-
mer, adding, "Never saw you so.
fretful before, William — what's the-
matter with you lately?" If Mr.
Oppenheimer had been familiar with
epilepsy, he would have recognized
this fretfulness as a common symp-
tom ; but neither he nor young But-
ton himself knew this ; indeed, the
attack he had just had was his first
clearly pronounced one. The disease
was just taking a good hold ; or rather
was just showing the good hold it had
already taken ; — for the degeneracy
of brain and nerve tissue which seems
to be the proximate vehicle of epilep-
sy works a good while in secret, like
an engineer approaching by mines
and getting a good many of them
placed and loaded before any ex-
plode.
CHAPTER XIV.
The party, now consisting of five,
came out from the house that Jack
kept, and stepping round to the same
recess in which was the outer en-
trance to Hope Chapel, Oppenheimer
entered one of the side doors, led the
way up two flights of stairs, and ush-
94
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
ered the rest into a niiddle-sized room,
fronting on Broadway. Here they
found a dozen persons, gathered round
a table about the size of a common
dining table for six, and which was
covered with green cloth. On a plat-
form a few inches high occupying
most of its surface, was displayed an
array of playing cards, faces upper-
most. On or among these there lay
here and there little piles of ivory
disks an inch or more in diameter,
some white, some red. Back of the
table sat a tall and sedate looking
personage, who solemnly drew out
other cards from a neat little German
silver case at his right hand. At
every third card, as he turned it and
showed it, there was some little stir
among the company : one shifted one
of the little piles of ivory disks from
one card or interval to another ; an-
other placed more disks on his pile ;
another drew some of them to him-
self; or the presiding genius took
some of them ; and a watchful person
with a little frame something like
what they call or used to call in pri-
mary schools an arithmeticon, moved
backward and forward small pips
strung on wires.
Adrian, who had read divers ac-
counts of the splendid fittings of
gambling establishments, of their
noble hospitalities, such as game sup-
pers, champagne and the like, felt
rather cheated ; however, he quietly
asked Bird if this was a faro table.
Bird said it was.
The five stood watching for a few
moments. Then young Button, tak-
ing a seat at the table, began to ma-
nipulate disks, which he seemed to
purchase of the president. Mr. Bird
with much gravity drew forth in his
turn a bank note and deposited it
upon the little platform among the
cards. The president — if that was
his title — in a moment or two with
perhaps even more gravity put forth
his hand and took the same into his
own possession. Indeed, the card
part is almost superfluous in this
transparent and equitable diversion,
which could be made still simpler and
of course more beautiful if reduced
to the plain and brief transaction of
handing successive five dollar bills
across a table by one person, to be
received by another, who should place
them in his trousers' pocket. This
would save time, and also the whole
expense of " lay-out,'" dealing-box, and
checks ; and ivory in particular, as T
the best authorities both on natural
history and on commerce inform us,
grows scarcer and more costly every
day.
" Is that all there is to it ? " whis-
pered Adrian to Bird.
" Pretty much," was the reply, —
" once in a while the money comes
back the other way."
" I don't see much fun in it," re-
joined Adrian.
" Ever play, sir ? " joined in Oppen-
heiiner suddenly, apparently having
overheard.
" Xo," said Adrian ; " never did
such a thing in my life."
" Didn't ? " said Oppenheimer with
obvious eagerness. " Well, try your
luck. Come on."
"Why," said Adrian, civilly, "I
don't care the least about it ; — be-
sides, I can't afford it. I'm as poor
as a rat."
" Never mind that," said the gam-
bler. '■' Here " — and he pulled some
notes out of his pocket — "Give me
great pleasure to furnish you twenty
dollars to begin with — Well go in
cahoot : — fifty if you want."
But Adrian's healthy nature was
clean physically and morally " by six-
teen descents " — and more too ; for he
Scrojye; or, The Lost Library.
95
was of almost uniningled blood, of
the ancient English Puritan type.
lie was as ready for fun as anybody ;
and he was eager to see, and for in-
crease of knowledge was willing to
undergo even the stink of tobacco and
the almost equally foul fumes of li-
quor and dirtiness. But it was only
the wish to know that impelled him ;
the instinct of an active mind, inquir-
ing after all truth, and analyzing
sewerage, if necessary, to get at the
portion of truth which may be pecu-
liar to sewerage ; not the instinct of
the hog, which will eat it and wallow
in it. He did feel an impulse, not to
accept the unaccountable offer of Mr.
Oppenheimer, but to take some of his
own money and play it away if only
to ascertain for himself what the sen-
sation was — if there was any sensa-
tion. But he was strongly dissuaded
by the repulsive something which
quietly but steadily impressed him, as
a subtle evil quality in an infected air
comes to weigh upon one's senses.
He could not see that either Scrope,
who had been betting a little, Button,
who was playing away in an eager
manner, or Bird, who after losing his
five dollars had looked on with his
usual quiet air, felt any thing of this
repulsion. The furniture and fittings
of the room were meagre and soiled.
Perhaps the foot-worn old Brussels
carpet, the faded grease-spotted wall-
paper with its awkward bunchy pink
roses, the frowsy old maroon colored
window-curtains, may have helped this
feeling. But most of it was from the
vulgar and evil bearing and atmos-
phere of the familiars of the place.
There was no princely personage ; no
haughty young aristocrat; not even a
solid banker, infuriated with a species
of excitement even more hot and hell-
ish than stock-gambling. Not even
the likeness of Mr. Bret Harte's self-
sacrificing scoundrel of an Oakburst
could Adrian discern. All the faces
were not only hard and greedy and
unfeeling. and also violent and lower-
ing in expression, but of a small,
mean, vulgar type ; so that Adrian
remembered what he had read some-
where of some criminal class or popu-
lation, that they would cut anybody's
throat to get an old pair of trousers.
And he steadily declined the press-
ing and not particularly elegant offi-
ciousness of Mr. Oppenheimer. This
gentleman's insinuating smile, after
a few minutes, suddenly deserted
him, and- he darted a very ugly look
at Adrian, muttering something about
" beats," and then looking across at
the president of the bank, he made
some sign or other.
There was an immediate stir among
the company, who arose as with one
consent, president and all, leaving
Button alone at the table. Several
very elaborate oaths were sworn,
which somehow seemed to Adrian not
improper, but, like weeds on a dung-
hill, simply the natural product of
the place. Three or four of the men
stepped to the door and stood there
as if to prevent exit ; the others, turn-
ing, and with murmurs more or less
indistinct, bent scowling countenances
upon the visitors. The chief or deal-
er, nearly opposite to whom, a little
to the left, Adrian had been standing,
was stepping around that end of the
table, apparently with some vengeful
intent. Adrian, startled and uncom-
fortable, watching all this movement,
heard the dealer say something about
" playing any d — d games on a party
of gentlemen about their private busi-
ness." As he uttered these words in
a most growling and inauspicious
manner, he was moving close past
Bird, who stood at Adrian's left.
Adrian heard his companion say in a
96
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
low tone something of which he only-
caught the words — " On the square
— quit it, Jimmy " — and he made
some very quick gesture or other, as if
to button his coat or reach after some
weapon or other article in or under
the breast of the same. Whatever it
was that was done or said, its opera-
tion upon the indignation of the deal-
er was as instantaneous as the touch
of oil to water in which a bit of cam-
phor is travelling. In an instant,
the fellow was perfectly motionless.
Then he turned, and saying "Beg
pardon — all right, gentlemen," re-
sumed his place, and the whole trouble,
whatever it was, fell instantly to the
previous dead calm.
Mr. Bird, now looking at his watch,
said aloud, " Well, boys, I must go ; —
will you come ? "
Adrian assented ; so did Scrope ;
as for Button, he swore he wouldn't
until he'd got that last twenty-five
dollars back. Bird looked at the
dealer — at least Adrian thought so —
At any rate that worthy promptly
laid clown the cards he had taken *up,
and said in a ver} r peremptory tone,
" Bank's closed, gentlemen."
Button still grumbled ; but the
dealer coolly seized the pile of white
checks before the young gentleman,
gave him some bank-notes, which he
counted out as if constituting an un-
derstood equivalent, and without pay-
ing the least attention to his irritated
reclamations, arose and turned off the
gas from the large burners which illu-
minated the faro table, leaving it in
the comparatively dim light of the rest
of the room. Again there was a gen-
eral movement ; but this time only of
dispersion ; and Bird, Scrope, Adrian
and Button went down stairs, Mr.
Oppenheimer remaining. Adrian had
politely testified to the last gentle-
man, his obligations for guidance as
well as for proffered financial aid, hut
the gambler was quite curt and un-
genial in his reply.
From the outer door they all went
together up Broadway to Union
Square. Button, after divers mur-
murs and complaints, admitted that
he was tired out. Indeed, they were
all pretty tired, and Adrian not the
least so ; for he had been on his feet
since early in the morning ; and
travelling in the iron-bound streets of
New York is peculiarly exhausting to
those unaccustomed to the unyielding
footing of the stone.
As they went, Adrian, questioning
with interest about the scene they
had left, found that it was one of
those minor haunts of gamblers which
the police call a " skin game ; " i.e.,
where the object is to (metaphorically)
skin the visitors ; that the company
they had found there were "ropers-
in " or " cappers," to wit mere de-
coys.
"The fact is," said Bird, "if it
hadn't been that Jimmy Dexter the
dealer knew I was in with the police
authorities, they might have made it
a little awkward for you. They get
mad very easily, if they see any rea-
son for it. Your refusing to play
vexed friend Oppenheimer."
" I don't see why," said Adrian ;
" and what on earth made him offer
heard of such a
me money f 1
thing."
" Don't you know ? " said Bird,
" Many gamblers believe a man is
sure to win the first time he plays.
He was going in cahoot, you know —
to have half the winnings ; and he
looks on it that you have kept him out
of so much money."
At Fourteenth Street they parted,
all four going different ways ; Button
on a Fourth Avenue car, Scrope on a
Broadway car, Bird on a down town
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
97
car — having, he said, to go to one of
the newspaper offices, late as it was ;
while Adrian though weary, preferred
to walk at least part of the way to his
quarters, for the sake of refreshing
himself with a little out-door air after
his triple seething in the hot close
filth of concert-saloon, billiard-roorn
and gambling-hole.
As he went, he meditated, the
series of his thoughts running some-
what as follows :
" Lucky it isn't William that I'm
engaged to ! — Rather undesirable
brother-in-law ! — However, no dan-
ger that Ann will let him infest her
household much ! — Hope Mr. Button
doesn't own Hope Chapel building
too ! — Wonder if I could get a copy
of that police list of New York good
men that own bad houses? —
Shouldn't like to have a quarrel with
Mr. Button over that concert saloon
tenement ! — What a defiling even-
ing ! Makes one feel unclean through
and through ! Touch pitch — I don't
envy this Mr. Bird his other experi-
ences that he wouldn't tell — Sha'n't
ask him either ; I've dived deep
enough for my purposes ! — No use
to try to do any thing for William,
I'm afraid — Fit, too ; — I've heard
that epilepsy never lets go if it once
gets hold — Fitzwilliam, I suppose
Scrope will be calling him — Sorry
for his father" —
And so on, his mind rambling
round and round amongst the par-
ticular web of circumstances closest
to him at the time, until he reached
his boarding-house, on one of the
cross streets near the since disused
Twenty-Seventh Street Railroad Sta-
tion. Here, after a good deal of
trouble, he was admitted, and with
profuse apologies he retired to the
small "hall bedroom" which was his
lair for the time being, and at once
went to bed.
He fell asleep instantly ; but some
broken and disjected members of his
waking thoughts still haunted him
in his dreams. Their fantastic and
unwelcome nature may have been
partly caused by a still remaining
evil effect of the nasty liquors of
which he had twice partaken that
evening. Perhaps some additional
unpleasantness may have accrued from
the endemic co-tenants of his bed ;
for nothing in the experiences of his
own home, cleanliest of the cleanly
homes of old Hartford, had prepared
him for these blood-sucking vexations..
To inquire whether or no any pro-
phetic force or quality was concerned
or contained in these dreams, would
be to raise questions even deeper
than those of entomology or hygiene.
Whatever the causes, however, it is
certain that at some time in that
night he dreamed a grotesque and
disagreeable dream, one of those pe-
culiarly distinct and truthful-seeming
ones that occasionally come to us,
and which leave in the mind the
memory as of a real past experience.
It appeared to him that he was with
difficulty making his way westward
along the sidewalk on the north side
of Pearl Street, Hartford, between
Main and Trumbull Streets. The
walk was one unbroken sheet of
" glare ice," and the weather was
bitter cold. As he slid and tottered
unsteadily along, he suddenly, — but
with a horror singularly in the reverse
of what must have been his waking
feelings at an appeal from that voice,
— heard himself called by name, but
in a jeering and most ill-natured
manner, by his own lady-love —
Miss Ann Jacintha Button. " Here,
here, you fool!" she scolded, in a
sharp high tone — "why don't you
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
wait for rue ! Wait, I tell you ! "
But scared most unreasonably by the
call, be seemed to redouble what be-
came a frantic effort to escape instead
of a mere unstable but decorous pro-
gress along the street ; and looking
behind in his fright, he saw Miss But-
ton skating, — as it were, — with ter-
rific velocity upon his traces, her arms
outstretched as if to seize him, with
something of the fell and fatal per-
tinacity of Death after the Youth in
the New England Primer —
" Youth forward slips —
Death soonest nips."
Witli horribly inefficient increase
of effort, he scrambled onward, think-
ing " I'll get round the corner of Trum-
bull Street in a minute, and then I'll
run ! " — though why he should not
have adopted this unutterably base
and cowardly expedient at once, he
could not have told, — unless be-
cause he must have tumbled down.
Still he strove forward, while the calls
and jeers and reproaches of the pursu-
ing maiden grew as voluble and furi-
ous as the magical voices that in the
Arabian tale beset persons ascending
the hill on their road to the Talking
Bird, the Singing Tree and the Yellow
Water. Persons met him and passed
him, looking with open contempt
upon his flight ; and ever and anon
Miss Button threw in a sarcastic re-
quest to them to "see that fool try-
ing to run away ! " The icy side-
walk of the single block from the Pearl
Street Church to the Town Clerk's
Office seemed to stretch into a per-
spective as hopeless as the whole
Great Arctic Floe; and just as his
fright, his vexation at not getting
forward, and his mortification at
making such an exhibition in public,
began to be further complicated by
fantastic doubts as to the topographi-
cal possibilities of what he was ac-
tually about, he woke, with an incred-
ible sense of relief, and before he fell
asleep again, he puzzled himself for
a long time, trying to decide whether
there was any rational element in the
vision. Possibly the fact of his mak-
ing the inquiry may have been evi-
dence for the affirmative ; but if so,
it was without any consciousness or
assent on his part.
CHAPTER XV.
The proposed " see-ance " (that is
what most of them call it, with accent
on the first syllable, doubtless suppos-
ing it to mean a session of seers) of
the next day being postponed for
some reason or other, Adrian passed
his Thursday and Friday in sight-
seeing and other varied occupations,
taking care to find pretexts for calling
two or three times at Mr. Van Braam's
and once or twice at Mr. Button's, as
was right and proper. He also met
more than once Mr. Scrope and Mr.
Scrope's new friend Bird the police
reporter, wjth whom the free and
easy young Englishman seemed to
have struck up a friendship almost
as prompt and absorbing as that of
the soulful maiden in " The Rovers,
or, The Double Arrangement," who,
after two minutes' converse with
another soulful maiden that she has
never met before, exclaims, "A sud-
den thought strikes me — let us
swear an eternal friendship!"
Mr. Bird was, however, in fact a
"very nice fellow." He was quiet,
silent rather than talkative, but had a
way of knowing eveiy thing — with-
in a certain range, that is, — giving
a clear and sufficient account of it
if applied to, in a perfectly unpre-
tending manner; and there was an
air of steadiness and coolness that
somehow made him comfortable to be
with. Besides, he was willing to go
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
99
anywhere, provided, his professional
duties, which were somewhat irregu-
lar, allowed, and as his knowledge of
the evil side of city life appeared — so
far at least — to be peculiarly complete,
he was just the guide, philosopher
and friend that the scatter-brained
Scrope wanted. Indeed, Scrope urged
Adrian to go with him and Bird
on more than one voyage of in-
quiry during these same two days ;
but the young man had had quite
enough for the present of the subsoil-
ing investigations that seemed so
delightful to the Englishman ; and
the more mysterious and enthusiastic
Scrope became in his descriptions and
anticipations, the less did Adrian rel-
ish either the pursuit or the pursuer.
Bird seemed totally indifferent as to
these expeditions themselves, and to
be actuated only by a pleasant good-
natured willingness to obtain for the
eager young foreigner any knowledge
or experience whatever that he might
desire, without raising any question
about good or evil.
On the evening of Friday, however,
Adrian and Civille made their ap-
pearance in due season at the little
hall which was the usual gathering-
place of the Solidarite de VAvenir ;
a rather close and fusty upper room
in a public building in the neighbor-
hood of Stuyvesant Place. It is a
discouraging fact that reforming as-
semblies are usually almost as ill ven-
tilated as primary meetings. If the
founders of the New Patent Future
don't provide clean fresh atmos-
pheric air to begin with, they need
not expect they can bring about
a clean fresh social atmosphere. A
dirty philosopher may perhaps by pos-
sible exception teach a clean philoso-
phy. So may a frail and crooked-
looking person possess a good deal of
etrength ; but it is not probable.
Adrian and Civille accommodated
themselves with seats pretty near the
desk, somewhat at one side, and
which, by virtue of a curve in the
line of the seats, gave a view both of
the little stage and of all the auditors.
They had hardly settled themselves
in their places, before Messrs. Scrope
and Bird — who, it will be remem-
bered, had received from Miss Civille,
permission to be present, — and Mr.
"William Button along with them,
who had not received any such per-
mission, — walked gravely in, and
espying the young people, came and
ensconced themselves, after salutation
due, behind them ; Bird behind Ci-
ville, Scrope behind Adrian, next to
the right and Button at Scrope's
right, so as to be furthest from Civille ;
a diagram apparently laid down by
pure chance, but which very neatly rep-
resented the spiritual relations of the
five ; Civille and Adrian (for instance)
perhaps not very far from the same
line, but Civille at the left or heart
side ; Bird very decidedly behind her ;
Scrope at least as much further from
her as the hypothenuse of a right an-
gled triangle is longer than a side ;
and Button at a trapezoidal distance.
The room rapidly filled up with men
and women, a good many of the lat-
ter coming without masculine escort ;
it was not long before every seat was
full, and a number of later comers
were forced to stand in a row next the
walls. A grave and tall old man
with long thick iron-gray hair
combed smoothly back over his head
and behind his ears, arose from one
of the side seats and took the chair.
There was a sort of expectant inter-
val of a few minutes, and a buzz of
whispering talk like a thin acoustic
cloud floating at the level of the peo-
ple's heads. To this our quintette of
friends quietly contributed.
100
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
" How d'ye like the looks of the
Solidarity de Lavenoo ? " asked Mr.
William Button, among the others,
in Adrian's right ear. A spirituous
incense on his breath floated round at
the same time to his hearer's nose.
" All very nice, so far," replied
Adrian, smiling at the young gentle-
man's joke.
" Queer ( rowd," pursued Button —
''like boarding-house butter — more
hair than fat."
This, though inelegant in point of
rhetoric, was a very just observation
in substance, as Adrian perceived to
his great amusement as he glanced
around the room. In truth, he thought
to himself that Button alone was
probably possessed of more fat than
all tbe rest of the assembly. They
were terribly skinny, indeed, almost
all of them, with hollow eyes, lank
cheeks, and frames as spare as if
the assembly was a congress of
clothes-horses. Adrian fancied they
had all been desiccated in some hot
dry air, and he had a feeling as if it
was still playing about among them.
Sensitive to impressions and atmos-
pheres, be seemed almost to feel that
his own lips and his eyes were begin-
ning to parch a little ; that he was
beginning to dry up in the heat that
seemed to quiver in the crowded room.
In truth he had entered into a new
world ; the thin ghostly windy over-
heated oven-dried world of Talking
Reform Enthusiasts, that he had so
often heard of, but had never really
touched and felt ; that strange un-
real buzz, of mere good intention
with so little morality or religion
mingling in it, so little positive con-
structive intellect, above all so infi-
nitely less of real power — of common
sense. A fantastic realm is theirs,
situated, like the Nephelococcygia,
the cloud-bird-land, of Aristophanes,
between the heavens and the earth.
Here they flit, with no footing on
the one, and no reach into the other,
yet with a feeling that like the Birds
of the witty Greek dramatist they
are managing both. But they have
no hold. Like the ghosts that
flocked about Ulysses at the entrance
to Hades, their own unsubstantiality
repels them when they try to grasp.
A curious further detail or two of anal-
ogy might be traced between those
melancholy Odyssean shades and our
Talking Enthusiasts of to-day. They
are querulous ; there is something re-
mote and thin in all their utterances ;
they gibber ; and some of them at
least — such as the extreme Red
Republicans for instance, make their
nearest approach to a substantial and
efficient life by drinking warm blood.
The present occasion, too, although
Adrian had not been told of it, was a
grand field day or General Muster,
/ such as should take place for every
army from time to time, to serve as
roll-call, to enable the force to en-
courage itself by the sight of its
whole proud self all together and by
the consciousness of its power in
unison ; and to maintain habits of
associated activity and concerted
effort. The hosts of progress —
or rather Progress, — were here in
presence. Hosts is the word; for
each of those skinny middle-aged
women, each of those lank long-
haired, dried-eyed men, is a host in
h{™]self — if you will accept the
host's own word for it.
Another trait in this assembly was
very striking to Adrian. This was
the exceptional forms of the heads.
In a State legislature, in the repre-
sentative deliberative assembly of a
powerful religious sect, the large
average size of the heads may be
noticeable, or their average height
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
101
— and sometimes their average bald-
ness ; but they are almost all heads
that do not greatly vary from a usual
form. But the Solidarite looked in
this particular like the head-maker's
lumber-room for bad jobs. Some of
the people had over-large brains on thin
weak necks ; some of the heads were
small and over-intense ; some were odd-
ly high and narrow; some bulged up-
ward and forward; some were cut
short off in a perpendicular line
close behind the ears ; some shot out
in a shelving slope over the eyes;
some poked up and back into a peak
at the crown.
Adrian, studying this grotesque
assortment of exteriors, and musing
upon the spirit of the assembty, strove
to apprehend some element in it
which might seem a reasonable point
of sympathy for attracting such a
finely and sensitively organized per-
son as Civille. The best conclusion
he could reach was, however, that
there must be in her an appreciation
of their good intentions, and a loving
charit}'-, together large and strong
enough to silence any repugnance
that she might feel from the side of
taste, or any jeers from the mirthful
side of her nature. A priori, most
certainly, one would judge that a
fastidious and delicately cultured lady
could only have laughed, or looked the
other way. . As it was, she seemed
to him almost like a solitary Sister
of Charity in a hospital full of harm-
less lunatics.
— The gray haire'd old chairman
rapped thrice upon the desk :
— " The Solidarite will please
come to order ! "
— " Don Rodrigo Scipio de Nada,
of Cuba, will address the friends, on
the Progress of the Physical Sciences."
Don Rodrigo, a short slight little
man, very gentlemanly in dress and
bearing, with black eyes and hair,
a dark complexion, a pleasant face, a
smiling and courtly manner, on this
stepped forward from one of the front
seats and opened the business of the
evening. Nobody could possibly
have surmised what the graceful little
gentleman was going to say. He
began with a well worded apology for
his English, — which did not need it,
— and then went on somewhat thus :
" One of the Physical Sciences re-
cently investigated with the most ac-
tive interest is Optics. — If we admit
a beam of the sun's light through a
small hole into a dark room, and cause
it to fall upon a smooth white surface
after passing through a triangular
piece of glass called a prism, there will
be seen upon the white surface not a
spot of white light, but a bar composed
of successive portions of different col-
ors. This is called the Solar Spectrum."
And so on ; being the merest rudi-
ments of the subject, as given in any
school philosophy. Poor little Don
Rodrigo ! His notions about the
average attainments of a probable au-
dience in that community were based
on the condition of common schools
in Cuba. He was importing coals into
Newcastle as fast as he could ; you
may say of the bituminous variety
too, by the spontaneously combustible
tendency which was quickly devel-
oped. Por a few moments the hearers
were mannerly and quiet enough ;
then they began to whisper and gig-
gle ; to grow restless and stir about
in their seats. An odd looking bald
man, very dusty of aspect, in a brown
coat, hopped up at the further side of
the room and opened his mouth, with
the obvious purpose of interrupting,
but was expeditiously pulled down
again by a more forbearing compan-
ion, which enterprise caused a ripple
of laughter, and Don Rodrigo paused
102
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
a moment in innocent wonder. In a
few moments more the bald man made
another vain attempt to hop up. Al-
most at the same time, another queer
looking person with a sharp wrinkled
face and dyed hair and beard, —
though really queerness in that assem-
bly consisted in not being queer —
with the same jerkiness of action as
the bald man's, also hopped up, and
being either less fortunate in a com-
panion or more powerful in resolution
or in physique, he completed his
nefarious, or at least discourteous,
design. " Mr. Chairman," he snapped
out in a high sharp key, speaking
very fast and fidgety, and growing
madder as he went on, " Mr. Chairman,
I think the gentleman had better stop
right here. I didn't come here to-
night to be told a lot of stuff that I
learned when I was a little boy at
school. He's wasting the time of this
meeting, when it ought to be occupied
in promoting the greatest interest of
the human race."
A strange cracked feminine voice
a little behind Adrian squealed out,
" I think the brother's quite right."
Don Rodrigo, altogether dismayed,
surrendered at once, and crept humbly
back from the stage to his place, where
he sat immovable and distraught, all
the rest of the evening, gazing at the
toes of his neat little boots, as uncon-
scious of the collision of majestic intel-
lects that was going on around him
as one of the corpses in Kaulbach's
great picture, of the furious war-
rior- wraiths contending in the air
above.
The cracked squealing voice re-
sumed ;
" Mr. Chairman ! " —
The chairman gave an uneasy look
around him, like one who seeks shel-
ter from an impending shower. Ci-
ville whispered to Adrian, who was
with extreme difficulty preserving a
grave countenance,
"It's Mrs. Gloriana Babbles the
Inspirational Speaking Medium.
She's a little troublesome sometimes,
for the spirits that control her have
many things to say."
Adrian turned and gazed at Mrs.
Babbles with a good deal of interest,
for it was his first close view of one
of the prophetesses of the period, and
she was only three seats away. She
was, it is needless to say, skinny ;
but in a superlative degree : so that
the idea occurred to Adrian's naughty
mind, whether in such a case the cu-
ticle might not admit of gores being
cut out at the sides or elsewhere, as
they treat over-full garments, the
slits thus formed to be neatly sewed
together, thus restoring a smooth fit.
Otherwise, the good lady, like Mrs.
Gamp, had "the remains of a fine
woman " about her. She had once
possessed a quite comely face, and a
good figure. But little beside the
bones was left to show it; her blue
eyes were faded and sunken in deep
sockets ; the lips, thin and pale, were
a little crowded by the artificial teeth ;
the whole face had a dried look ; the
long stringy curls that dangled at
either side of her head looked wispy
and fatigued ; and her voice, besides
being cracked and high and thin, was
curiously nasal withal ; a falsetto-
soprano squeal through the nose.
" Mister Chairman," she began, " I
am impressed this evening with the
greatness of fhe work before us.
Brethren and sisters," — Adrian, look-
ing back to the chairman, saw that
the old gentleman's face had assumed
a grotesque expression of rueful en-
durance, and he drew a very long
breath to the same effect — But at
the moment up jumped again the
guardian angel with dyed hair,
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
10;
— "A shadow like an angel, with bright
hair
* Dabbled in dye," —
snapped out that he rose to a point
of order, and therewithal he moved
that all speeches be limited to five
minutes. This was seconded, Adrian
thought, by almost everybody in the
room, and was carried by an enormous
majority, the cracked voice of Mrs.
Babbles being prominent among the
few negatives.
"Dear friends," resumed the me-
dium, waving about in a sort of
rhythmic motion, " I sorrow that such
narrow limitations should be laid
upon the spirit-utterance. Yet the
loss is yours. I am impressed to reveal
to you the sure approach of the
glorious day of spiritual enlargement.
I see, in the immediate future, bright
traces of the wondrous sunrise of
spirit freedom, of spirit love, of spirit
happiness " —
And so on. At the end of five
minutes sharp, rap rap rap ! went
the old chairman's gavel with most
emphatic good will ; and Mrs. Bab-
bles succumbed at once.
Then succeeded a number of speak-
ers, some on one subject and some
on another, some of whom were . in
the most shameless and partial man-
ner allowed to transgress the whole-
some five-minute rule. Mrs. Babbles
murmured audibly at this more than
once, but in vain. A spirit of oppres-
sion was present, and she could not
resist it. Adrian listened, in wonder
at the immense range of views which
were presented — from the extremest
intolerant Calvinist piety to the most
utter denial of any thing superhu-
man or of a distinction between right
and wrong; from absolute materialism
to absolute spiritism ; from a servile
obedience to organized legality, to
the jumpingest individual freedom.
Equally was he struck with the fan-
tastic nature of the suggestions thrown
out, at their astounding disconnected-
ness, and at the wonderful tolerance
of the speakers, which was very genu-
ine, and very funny ; for it consist-
ed, not so much in giving hospi-
tality to other people's views, as in
being patient while other people
snubbed your own. They snapped
and snarled, as if ready to bite one
another's heads off ; the mordant dusty
dyed man getting full as many nips
as he gave, and though everybody
spoke as irritably as if they all had
neuralgia, yet nobody resented it.
They were no more civil, and no more
resentful, than so many members of
the Peace Society ; which indeed a
good many of them were.
But the jumble was terrific. There
was a neat little brown-eyed woman
who solemnly told in an absorbed
manner and with a sweet voice how
her prayers had already slain the Pope
of Rome, and how the Scarlet Lady
was in consequence on or before the
seventh day of the seventh month of
the seventh year from that, to be fi-
nally dislodged from her sevenfold
seat. There was Mr. Jobraker the
Linguist with his new Universal Lan-
guage, in which he delivered a short
address, after explaining that as this
language was based on the principles
of the universe, all those who were in
the right relations to the universe
would understand every syllable. The
alternative was obvious, and Adrian
had to conclude that his relations
were not right — if Mr. Jobraker was ;
for he could hear in the new language
only a hash of uncouth noises. Then
arose a woman who developed a theo-
ry that only women have souls ; men
having none, but only enough of a
sort of animal intelligence to fit them
for waiting on the ladies. This was
104
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
received with a good deal of applause,
in which the oppressed Mrs. Bahhles
was particularly vehement. There
was a man whose view was that only
the Old Testament should be regarded
as the authoritative scriptures, for the
reason that neither Christ nor any
New Testament writer had command-
ed or recommended any such book or
writing except the Old Testament;
there was a person, with the puzzled
and weary look of one that labors
among thoughts too heaVy for him,
and whose eyes gleamed with incipi-
ent madness, who delivered an inco-
herent discourse, stuffed with Latin
and Greek references, upon the com-
ing renewal of all things, which, he
said, was in English, the Period of
Cosmopolitics ; but should more prop-
erly be called by the name (well adapt-
ed to convey a hint of the confounding
of all relations together) — The Epi-
kataparastasis. Upon this poor fel-
low the iive-miuute rule was ruth-
lessly enforced. There was a gentle-
man who was just returned from a
great city in the interior of Africa,
accompanied by a native chieftain
therefrom ; — the names, as nearly as
Adrian could get at them were, the
city of Ofoofoo, the chief Woojublee-
vit ; who looked like any other decent
person of color respectably dressed;
and the traveller announced that a
subscription was open at the desk to
educate Mr. W nobody subscrib-
ing. Then there was Professor Yel-
litt Strong, who wanted to advocate
his great project of an Elocutionary
College for Brakemen, to prevent the
misery which arises from so many
people's not understanding where they
are to get off the cars ; and Pro-
fessor Strong gave some very impres-
sive illustrations of the inarticulate
howls now in vogue on railroad trains,
and then contrasted these with the
clear and resounding shouts that ought
to be, and with which the professor
almost hoisted the assembly bodily
off their seats.
Perhaps the most interesting of all
however was a lady — skinny, of
course, — elderly, as it happened, —
who presented herself as a delegate
from a band of sisters claiming to be
far in advance of any other reformers.
At this audacious statement the
Solidarite fairly gasped. No won-
der. In advance of us ! Wh} T , they
thought, we have gone to the very
extreme — and then jumped off, —
how is it possible to float any further
out into Chaos ! But the delegate
proceeded to read the resolutions of
her constituent body. Were they in
earnest, or not ? Adrian, dizzy with
the whirling phantoms of the place,
beset and buffeted like an intellec-
tual Saint Anthony by a whole pande-
monium of monstrous visions, was
ready for almost any thing.
" Resolutions," read this fearless
champion of her sex, and who by the
way had visibly possessed herself by
some means or other of no mean por-
tion of the badge of nobility which
she vindicated for her down-trodden
sex —
"Resolutions of the society for
HIRSUTE EMANCIPATION.
" Whereas there is every reason to
believe that the effeminate beardless-
ness which distinguishes most women
is an ingeniously contrived badge of
slavery imposed upon them by the
Tyrant Man ; and
" Whereas there is equal reason to
believe that one bold, united and per-
severing effort will free us from this
or any other physiological mark of the
degradation of our sex, therefore
" Resolved : that we hereby organ-
ize for the glorious and noble pur-
pose of Securing Beards to Women, as
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
105
the first step in the great progress of
the age towards the Equality of the
Sexes.
"Resolved : that we will take the
remaining steps as soon as we have
achieved the first.
" Resolved : That all who are not
wholly recreant to the cause of their
sister men, degraded below the least
comprehension of the Spirit of the
Age, and lost to every sense of jus-
tice, are called upon to rally round
our banner."
Having read this declaration, the
lady informed the Solidarlte that
Mr. Darwin's doctrine of the beauty
of hairlessness was no other than a
cunning attempt to ward off in ad-
vance this very movement by the
women. She developed also a long and
unanswerable historic argument con-
structed on the principle of those that
show how all the good things in the
Christian religion were pretty univer-
sally known long before Christianity
was invented ; which argument be-
gan with that striking passage from
the Old Edda, which describes how,
in order to bind Fenrir the Wolf, the
child of Loki and Angurbodi,
" Al-father sent Skirnir the mes-
senger of Frey into the country of the
Dark Elves or Svartalfaheim (swart-
elf-home) to engage certain dwarfs
to make the fetter called Gleipnir. It
was fashioned out of six things ; to
wit, the noise made by the foot-fall
Of a cat, THE BEARDS OF WOMEN, the
roots of stones, the sinews of tears,
the breath of fish and the spittle of
birds." Coming hence down the long
tract of ages, the speaker ended with
a triumphant presentation of the case
of Signora Julia Pastrana, the Cele-
brated Bearded Lady, who, she said, is
a living proof of the truth of the new
principles, — and The President of the
Society. The Treasurer, she contin-
ued, is Mrs. Jackman of Wilmington,
Illinois — and here the speaker read
from a Western newspaper,
" Wilmington, 111., has a bearded lady, who
is 27 years old, born in the State of Maine,
has shaved for 18 years, and weighs 150
pounds. She is short in stature, and is mar-
ried to a Mr. Jackman. She wears a beauti-
ful mustache and chin whiskers black as a
coal. Mrs. Jackman is a very intelligent
woman, and is not at all ashamed of her
whiskers."
There was also a Physiological and
Medical Director — Doctor Beard: —
"Patron Saint, the Old Hairy,"
thought Adrian ; but he did not dare
say it.
In such addresses the evening sped
excitingly away. Adrian, always a
student of character, was singularly in-
terested in this astonishing collection
of exceptional types, and felt the same
interest, with a distinct sense of pain
superadded, in considering the ques-
tion, What business has my pure and
delicate cousin Civille in this rout?
She is like the Lady amongst the beasts
in " Comus " — how can I get her
out? Perplexed and pondering, —
but reserving his conclusion with an
instinctive use' of what is called "the
judicial mind," until he should have
got in all the evidence, he resolved
to wait before making up his mind,
until he should have attended the
other proposed sittings, namely at the
medium's, and at " The Germ." So he
escorted his cousin home, — their talk
consisting of his inquiries . about the
personages of the Solidarlte and their
objects, — and left her.
106
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
CHAPTER XVI.
PART V.
ual endowments in the letter Mr.
Button had given him.
The see-ance to which Adrian was " Yes. She's miserably poor, hut
to escort Civille was appointed for she is an excellent test medium. We
early Saturday evening, and the visit shall see her to-night.'"'
to The Germ was to follow it ; so Adri- " But now, cousin Civille, what did
an waited on his cousin accordingly, you tell Mr. Bird? About me, first
in good season. As they left the of all, of course ? "
door, Civille asked Adrian who Mr. An innocent young woman has just
Bird was. the same sweet helpless beautiful
" A reporter, I believe," said Adri- gravity that is so inexpressibly touch-
an, — " why ? " ing in a little child ; not an affecta-
" He called this morning," was the tion, but only a perfect seriousness
young lady's answer ; " — rather an and earnestness of direct purpose,
odd thing, I thought." The transparent purity of intention
"Odd? How?" makes up a million-fold for the funny
"Well — I never saw him except ignorance and — not foolishness, but
the other evening when Mr. Scrope — inexperience, that is exhibited.
brought him, and once more at the Adrian was not remarkably aged,
Solidarite." neither was he wise enough to do
"But if he has been properly intro- any harm; but he had lived more
duced, he may call again and try to " amongst folks " as they say in the
establish an acquaintance, may he country, and the solemn satisfaction
not ? " . with which his cousin now went on to
"Yes 1 guess the thing that tell the unwise things she had done
puzzled me was, his taking such an caused in him a curious mixture of
interest in all of us. I didn't think of emotions and reflections, which how-
it until he had gone, but he had got ever with a reserve partly natural and
me to talk about almost everybody I partly acquired he did not utter in
know ; father, Mr. Button, Ann, her words.
mother — even their hired girls ; Mr. "Oh," observed Civille, her sweet
Scrope, yourself, the Solidarite, Mrs. heartfelt low-pitched full-toned voice
Babbles, Mi
giving a wonderful additional inten-
Griggs ! " — repeated Adrian, a sity of attractiveness even to the
little startled — . " What Griggs ? "
" Amelia Griggs the medium.
Why?"
"Oh," said Adrian, with an eva-
baby-like simplicity of her confession,
" Oh, you know I go by intuitions.
Mr. Bird is good. I wanted him to
know all about my friends. I gave
sion which was upon a perfectly true you a very nice character indeed,
pretext, — " it's a rather odd name, cousin Adrian. I told him how un-
You know there's an old saying, ' as selfish you are, and how you don't
merry as grigs.' A medium, is she ? " care about money, and how } t ou are
He remembered the allusion to spirit- not calculated to succeed in this world,
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
107
unless you should find some mission-
ary work that would call out all your
energies."
"All that, Civille?" said Adrian,
laughing, — "it's more good than I
know of myself, at any rate." And
he thought in his own mind, " A nice
recommendation for a business man !
But Bird will see what it amounts to,
of course ! "
" Many thanks for the favorable
diagnosis," he resumed aloud, —
" now tell me all you said of the
rest."
So she did ; she had, so to speak,
opened her mental photograph-album
to her visitor, and confided to him her
whole private collection of portraits.
What she had told was not very
much ; the innocent observation and
judgments of a very intuitively acting
mind, exalted, moreover, in degree
and intensity of action by the very
nature of the state of physical ailment
or feebleness or susceptibility which
was for the time at least fastened
upon her; but without much real
knowledge of good, and with none of
evil. Adrian, somewhat astonished as
he was at their unreserve, was startled
by the truthfulness of some of the
points, while he was sure that some
others were quite mistakes. However,
he made very little comment, but
when she ended asked what she had
said about herself?
"Myself? — nothing."
" And yet," said Adrian, " was it not
you that he wanted to know about?"
" Perhaps it was — he called on
me."
" Well, — don't encourage him and
then pretend to be astonished at his
taking encouragement."
" That would be flirting," decreed
Civille with much majesty. " I am
sure you would not say so to me in
earnest."
Adrian hastened to disclaim. But
still, he took the liberty of intimating
to his cousin that she was quite at-
tractive enough to make Mr. Bird, or
anybody else, in love with her. This
idea the young lady put aside with a
great deal of decision, and when Adri-
an would have persisted, she told him
plainly that she didn't want to hoar
any more such nonsense. So he held
his peace ; but he was none the less
and very naturally, of opinion that
Bird's interest in her was the sole, as
it was a sufficient, reason of his visit.
Adrian was right, too. And he added
in his own thoughts another comment,
no less just : that she was a person
of much too ethereal make to be a
suitable companion for the police re-
porter, good fellow and man of sense
though he was.
Civille, after an interval of silence,
spoke first, as if she had in the mean-
while been pursuing a train of thought
by herself — like the River Arethusa
coming up again after going under-
ground :
"I shall never marry."
The solemn tone of absolute con-
viction would have been funny enough
if Civille had been a hag of a hun-
dred. Being a singularly attractive
young woman, it was very much more
so, and Adrian, who was quick enough
to see the ludicrous side of things,
had to pull very hard to pull a long
face. He wished, moreover, to quote
signior Benedick ; " When I said I
would die a bachelor I did not know
I should live to be married." But he
held in with all his might, and suc-
ceeded in coming down to a tone of
grave and cousinly counsel.
"My dear cousin," said he ; "every
young woman who is worth marrying
at all, has exactly that conviction
some time or other, just as, they say,
any one who can become an orator has
108
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
the awfullest frights lest he cannot.
It may be true of yourself; but you
are so good and so nice and I like you
so much that I promise you when
you do fall in love I won't bring up
your promise against you."
" Don't talk so, cousin Adrian !
' Fall in love ! ' If you could under-
stand how disagreeable the phrase is.
I can see how a woman might sacri-
fice herself to make another person
happy. But to risk a whole life —
and other lives too — on the chance
of an emotion ! I don't think I am in
much danger of it ! "
" I don't think so either," said
Adrian. " But an intuition may be
both emotional and correct. And a
self-sacrifice such as you speak of
might be as much of a blunder as
gambling on emotions. The truth is,
there is no blinder emotion than self-
sacrifice. It is as sightless as anger."
An immense deal of comfort is
taken by young persons of about as
few years and as little experience as this
couple, in comparing their profound
maxims and reflections. The conversa-
tion of the present occasion was thus
felt. It continued until they reached
the place of the see-ance, with no
result in particular for Civille, who
only spoke whatever came into her in-
nocent fearless mind, and whose igno-
rance of things and people in general
was only exceeded by her ignorance
of herself. Adrian, on his part, was
a little older and wiser — but he was
talking with a purpose. For the first
time in his life he was talking and
watching in order to form a deliberate
judgment on the nature and condi-
tion of a human soul.
But he could not feel that he dis-
covered much, and as he put questions
or suggested distinctions or listened
to replies, he kept thinking over and
over again of that vast spring of living
water in the wild Florida woods, where
the visitor looking over the edge of
the boat is frightened, because the
water is so absolutely transparent that
he sees no water. " Is her soul so
shallow ? Is her soul so deep ? Is it
only utterly transparent ? " he kept
asking and asking, — and his inter
est in her as a fellow-being in peril,
as a relative who might be endanger-
ing the reputation and happiness of
a large circle of friends, began to
take the special additional interest
— to him excessively attractive, — of
a living and new problem in practical
psychology. Was she really such a
solitary-hearted thing? It might be.
The suspicions pointed at Civille had
not made the least lodgement in the
honest young fellow's clear mind ; and
this being so, he now began to feel that
they were to be interpreted as the re-
action of low souls against another too
high for them ; that perhaps she was
really too good to live happily amongst
human beings. He instinctively rev-
erenced women ; he had not seen so
very much of Civille, it is true ; but
all that he had seen was most lovely ;
and he was almost ready even now to
conclude that in good faith she ought
always to live single, because nobody
would ever be fit to possess her.
While they talked, and he consid-
ered, they had — on foot or by street-
car — reached that dreary block of
houses on the south side of Bleecker
Street between Thompson and Sul-
livan some distance west of Broadway,
called Depau Row. This block, in
times gone by, was a centre of magnifi-
cence, having a paved archway pier-
cing the building between each two
tenements by way of porte cochere ;
separate wings in the rear for offices
and servants' rooms; immense big
parlors and chambers with heavy old
fashioned plaster cornices and great
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
109
floriated dabs of the same in the raid-
die of the ceilings arour>d the gas
chandeliers, as if piercing the ceil-
ing had made a very bad plaster of
Paris sore with granulations ; faded
fresco work in abundance ; and the
like remainders of departed glory.
The great merchants of past ages — for
the grandeur of these houses belongs
to a remote New York City antiquity
of at least twenty-five and perhaps
thirty years ago ! — whose households
once enlivened these abodes, are dead,
or are inhabiting far more gorgeous
abodes on Murray Hill or Fifth Ave-
nue ; for the city builds itself north-
ward, and its rich people evacuate
place after place, leaving each locality
deserted, as the inhabitant of the nau-
tilus does the successive chambers of
his shell. Thus the great Depau
Row houses are rented to boarding-
house-keepers or to tenants of single
rooms. The lofty comfortless caverns
are depressing and horrid ; it is like
living in a deserted city of giants ; one
is tempted to suppose that rich men a
quarter of a century ago were all twelve
feet high. The dismayed tenant tries
in vain to secrete himself in a corner
of the room like Ulysses in the cave
of Polyphemus ; he feels as if some
mighty ghost would stride forth upon
him in the night and eat him ; and
he soon flees away to seek a smaller
and snugger abode, terrified into the
non-payment of even the insignificant
rent which is all that such ill-adapted
premises will bring.
Such mystical and ghostly associa-
tions however, it is obvious, make such
quarters fittest of all for the necro-
mantic marvel-shop of the Medium.
It stands to reason that to this spectral
person, a real ghost would be a real
godsend — that is, supposing the Me-
dium not to be frightened.
There are different kinds of mediums
as there are of spirit communications.
But they are almost all alike in one
thing — they sell their revelations for
fifty cents apiece. There is the Heal-
ing Medium, whose office is to discern
diseases and to cure them ; the differ-
ent kinds of Test Mediums whose mes-
sage from the spirit land may always
be stated thus : " I show you a puzzle.
If you can't say how it was done,
then it follows that it was by a spirit.
Price fifty cents." There is the Psy-
chometrist, who reveals character from
inspecting a toe-nail or a lock of hair.
There is the Spirit Artist, who paints
or draws or photographs spirit-por-
traits. There is the Inspirational
Medium or Trance Speaker ; the
Consulting Business Medium, and so
on.
The meetingof this evening at Mrs.
Babbles' room, was however not of
any of these sorts, although mediums
of more than one of these established
varieties were present. It was of still
another kind, comparing with the
others somewhat as a theological sem-
inary or medical school compares with
the settled clergyman's or the estab-
lished physician's operations. It was
a sort of school of the prophets, or Col-
lege de Propaganda Pide ; and the
technical spiritist name for it is, " a
developing circle." Like all activi-
ties, the spiritist phenomena depend
for fulness and readiness of manifesta-
tion a good deal upon practice and
habit. Moreover, Spiritism, as thus
far practised, has a good deal of the
vampire in it. This is because it has
worked on and through the nervous
system, which of all the human sys-
tems draws most directly from life-
sources. Whatever acts by excitement
of the nerves, sucks close from the
very spring-heads of life. This is the
reason why so many spiritists dry up
so and grow skinny. Let the nerve-
110
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
excitement cease, and they will be-
come as fat as Christians.
New mediums must be found, of
course, from time to time, to preserve
the apostolical succession and to spread
the true doctrine. An approved mode
for this purpose is, to set up a " devel-
oping circle," presided ovor by persons
of experience, and in a series of ses-
sions to try all comers, and as good
subjects shall appear, to train them in
the manifestations and work them
gradually into the regular professional
order.
Civille, even in perfect health, was
naturally as sensitive as a healthy hu-
man beingcould possibly be, from mere
purity of temperament, and fineness
of fibre and organization. Unhealthy
conditions of life — want of exercise,
of sunlight, of fresh air, for instance
— had recently caused her to drift be-
yond the line of healthy susceptibility,
both in mind and in body, and the quick
wits of her spiritist friends had with
considerable delight recognized in her
the qualities for a medium of rare and
perhaps unequalled powers. Experi-
enced as the}' were in managing their
affairs, they had said nothing directly
to her of any ulterior purpose, but
had with much shrewdness confined
themselves to discussions and expla-
nations of the subject generally and
of such phenomena as she had herself
undergone or witnessed ; the proper
method being, so to arrange that the
novice shall seem to acquire by her
own seeking and her own finding,
the mysterious powers or knowledges
which are to fascinate her into a pro-
fessor. Acquirements thus made
are most treasured ; convictions thus
reached are as nearly impregnable as
human convictions can be.
Adrian and Civille, passing under
one of the archways, stopped at a
door midway in one side of it ; that
looked very dark and mysterious in
the deep shadow of the place. Open-
ing this door, they entered a roomy
and deserted-looking hall, ascended a
broad staircase along one of the walls,
and after one or two turns in corridors,
knocked at the door of a rear room
and were admitted. The room was
one of the great empty gloomy cham-
bers proper to the place and the occa-
sion. Its floor was matted instead of
carpeted, though it was winter. The
furniture, which would have been suffi-
ciently abundant and comfortable for
a small room, seemed like a few for-
lorn sticks of things neglected in a
vast lumber-garret. Only one light
was burning ; not a gas-light either,
but one of those very ingenious pa-
tent solar somethings that burn petro-
leum or an extract of it, that always
smell bad. and smell the worse as you
turn them down. This one was burn-
ing very dim indeed, and consequently
" smelt like fury," as Adrian couldn't
help saying to himself. He was des-
perately tempted to ask Civille if it was
a spirit that he smelt. Indeed, in this
investigation of his, one of his worst
terrors was, the constant recurrence
of things that were ridiculous, and
that kept distressing him with stifled
laughs and jokes. But he watched
his thoughts as closely as Christian
in passing through the Valley of the
Shadow of Death ; for one jeering
question or observation would have
hopelessly destroyed his whole enter-
prise. Of course the funnier it was,
the harder it was to be grave, and the
graver he was, the funnier things
became ; and the poor fellow passed
through some awful struggles accord-
ingly.
Several men and women were sit-
ting in silence round a table at the
further side of the dim room. The
woman who had admitted them, recog-
Scropc ; or, The Lost Library.
Ill
nized Civille, greeted her in a quiet
half-whisper, and looked at Adrian.
"My cousin, Mr. Chester," explained
Civille, also in a low tone; "he is
much interested in our inquiries.
Adrian, this is Mrs. Babbles."
Adrian fell readily into the solemn
manner and almost soundless utter-
ance which he recognized as the con-
ventional fashion of the place. How
could he without impoliteness do other-
wise ? So he briefly expressed his
assent, and his expectations of en-
lightenment.
" Come and be seated," said Mrs.
Babbles. She led them towards the
table, and made room for Civille be-
tween two men and for Adrian a little
way off between two women. Was
this a precaution against any possible
conspiracy
It is the invariable rule
to divide companies in this way at
these meetings, at any rate.
The company, eight or ten in num-
ber, were sitting round the table, each
with the right hand lying on the
table, the left being superimposed on
the right hand of the next neighbor.
The session occupied about an
hour. Most of this time was occu-
pied in gravely and earnestly sitting
perfectly still very hard in the dark.
Once or twice the people sang some
verses, of an indeterminate hortatory
kind, about loving and so on, to such
old tunes as Balerma and Golden
Hill. From time to time, Mrs. Bab-
bles, who seemed to be the ruler of
the feast, would ask in a low tone,
" Is any spirit present ? " " Does
any spirit wish to communicate with
us ? "
Adrian could not sing, as he did
not know the words used ; but he
could hear Civille's clear sweet full
voice amidst the nasal head tones
that all the rest of them used. Ever
and anon, in the dimness, one or an-
other of the patient sitters drew a
long breath, or changed posture. The
noises of the street came only muffled
and dulled, to the remote room, in
such a way as almost to show off and
heighten the silence. Adrian, not
expecting any thing in particular,
and not very credulous, was however
imaginative and impressible. The
darkness and silence, the mysterious
expectancy of the rest, seemed to
intensify his senses. More than once,
at Mrs Babbles' questions, he fan-
cied he heard some faint knocks or
snaps in the table before him, or in
the floor beneath ; but he held his
peace ; no one else seemed to hear
them ; he judged that it was his own
excited fancy.
All at once Adrian was aware that
there was a commotion within the
breast of his left-hand neighbor, a
woman. She gave three or four deep
and vigorous sighs, almost groans.
Then she withdrew her hand for a
moment from under Adrian's, and
smote her breast therewith repeated-
ly. Then she turned to Adrian and
spoke with awful solemnity, but in
the low voice which was the rule :
" I have a communication for you."
" It will give me great pleasure to
receive it," murmured the favored
youth, with equal gravity.
" I am impressed," continued the
fair speaker, " that you are in near
relations with the lady who came
with you."
" That's very extraordinarjr," an-
swered Adrian, throwing into his
voice a tone of as much astonishment
as he could assume — "very extraor-
dinary, indeed. We are cousins —
not very near though, and we like
each other very much."
This was a sufficiently presumptu-
ous claim, no doubt, in its assertion
as to Civille's sentiments ; but the
112
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
artful young man had on the moment
conceived the wicked idea of furnish-
ing the medium a hint for more rev-
elations, just to see how it would
York.
" Yes," resumed the medium, with
a self-satisfied manner, " all commu-
nications from the spirit-land through
me have always been perfectly relia-
ble. I have great power of discern-
ing truth. You would try in vain to
conceal it from me. I am impressed
that you are to be very happy with
your chosen companion."
" That is a very pleasant message,'
observed Adrian, gravely, but amused
at the success of his little trick. He
did not notify the seeress that his
chosen companion was Miss Ann
Button.
As no further messages or manifes-
tations could be coaxed from the spirit-
land, the chief priestess after a time
suggested that as the conditions were
in that respect apparently unfavora-
ble, the exercises of the occasion
should be varied.
" Many lovely things " observed
Mrs. Babbles, with seriousness, " have
already come to us through inspiration
in the trance state. It has been strong-
ly impressed upon me, to-day, that
such revelations are now about us, and
are awaiting a suitable medium. Per-
haps our dear friend Miss Van Braam,
will consent to permit any communi-
cations which may be offered through
her ? Professor Pawson Clawson said
Miss Van Braam was a seer already.
I am sure she will not refuse to help
forward the great cause ? "
Civille, slowly, and, Adrian thought
reluctantly, arose from her place at the
table, and took an arm-chair which
Mrs. Babbles placed for her, and a
little more light was now turned on.
One of the two men between whom
Civille had been sitting, a big fellow
with a red face and straight hair, got
up, somewhat as if it were a matter of
course," placed a chair before Civille,
and seating himself in it, would have
taken her hands. She however looked
to Mrs. Babbles and then toward Adri-
an, saying,
" I prefer my cousin, Mrs. Bab-
bles."
The big man rose up readily enough.
Adrian had experienced a pretty sharp
shock of anger at the idea of this rath-
er greasy-looking person touching Ci-
ville, and he was extremely pleased to
find that she felt the same prejudice.
It did not occur to him that he him-
self took a liberty in touching her.
Pew people reason in that way. The
definition of right and wrong which
the Bushman chief gave to his cate-
chising spiritual father the missionary
— net result of many anxious lessons
— is more or less the rule for most of
us — " It is wrong for another man to
take away my wives ; it is right for me
to take away his."
Adrian sat down, and under the
instructions of the experienced Mrs.
Babbles, first made a few magnetic
passes from Civille's forehead, down
her arms ; and then took her hands in
his, crossing arms however, so that
right held right and left left. The
grasp which he was shown is peculiar ;
thumb is laid against thumb, and the
fingers of each hand clasped over the
other, lying across its back, so that
the palms are firmly pressed together,
as magnetic surfaces.
" "What am I to do ? " asked Adri-
an ; " do I make no motions ? "
' ( No ; sit still, and be perfectly
calm," said Mrs. Babbles ; " let your
thoughts be concentrated upon the
subject, and your will be firm and stea-
dy that she shall pass under your con-
trol, and sleep. Look steadily at the
point between her eyebrows. And let
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
113
your thoughts be kind and well wish-
ing ; and be open to all good influen-
ces from any spirits that may be near
you; in a peaceful harmony with the
universe around."
Adrian did so. It was easy enough
to wish well to the spiritual and love-
ly girl who reclined before him. As
if any human being could wish her
otherwise than well! he said to him-
self.
So he collected his consciousness,
and substituted for the ordinary swift
successions of his thoughts, one single
quiet, but steady and concentrated
volition. " Sleep, Civille ! " he con-
tinuously willed.
The others sat around in silence, or
with a few scarcely audible words, now
and then. Adrian, although he pro-
jected — so to speak — much of his
conscious life in the effort of will which
he directed toward his lovely cousin,
yet had abundance of consciousness
left to consider the situation in which
for the first time in his life, he found
himself: close to a singularly attractive
young woman, in actual contact with
her person, and aware that she was
deliberately surrendering herself to
him, to receive his commands, to do
his will, to obey him. For a few mo-
ments, the large soft pathetic deep
gray eyes looked straight into the
strong clear blue ones. Then, while
Adrian looked, very slowly, very steadi-
ly, under his gaze the translucent
white lids floated downward over iris
and eye, and were sealed shut. Civille
smiled faintly, and with a little sigh
and a nestling movement laid her
head upon the back of the chair ; she
whispered, " I'm so sleepy ! " and was
silent : and then her breathing became
regular, like a pulse, and with the
smile still on her lips, she was asleep.
Is this magnetizing ? Adrian asked
himself — it is more like being mag-
netized! — for a feeling utterly new
to him — such as he had never
dreamed could exist in any one, or for
any thing, — a warm living breath,
as it seemed, but it was a deep throb
of emotion too, swept over him or
around him, as if from some infi-
nite depth ; or it was as if he felt
that in those moments his own life
budded and bloomed as a flower be-
fore his eyes, into its perfect opening.
" What excess of sweetness," the feel-
ing was — for it could not reach words,
nor be contained in them — li What
excess of sweetness, to be permitted
so near to one so lovely ! " Nor was
that all ; for even while he felt this
ineffable influx, as it seemed to him,
from some unheard-of spiritual Eden>.
from a yet farther distance,, from* a
depth infinitely within that other
depth, a still profounder throb, a still
more moving emotion, a still lovelier
consciousness opened and bloomed and
arose upon or around or within him
— " We are one ! " was this thought.
And for the time being, it was assur-
edly so. The magnetic union is even
mystically perfect. It required a na-
ture as intuitional as Adrian's, how-
ever, to feel it so instantly and so fully.
But it was not his office to experi-
ence emotions or delight himself in
dreams of his own ; and with a reso-
lute effort he directed his mind as
wholly as he could to the beautiful
passive girl before him, and away
from his own consciousnesses. Per-
haps ten minutes passed in this si-
lence, the soft pulses of the joined
hands throbbing against each other
until Adrian fancied that streams of
vital force intermingled and ex-
changed through the magic ring of
their arms almost as perceptibly as
running water.
"Ask her if she is asleep," said
Mrs. Babbles, softly.
114
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
" Are you asleep, Civille ? "
There was an effort to speak; but
the delicate lips framed no distinct
word. In a few moments more how-
ever, repeating the question, enforced
with a special volition and command
to reply, an articulate " Yes " was
given, and the sensitive was fully en
■rapport with the magnetizer; sur-
prisingly fully, considering the short
time and extent of their magnetic
relation. A number of questions were
suggested by the company, put by
Adrian, and answered with more or
less coherence by Civille. They were
sufficiently commonplace ; — Were
there any spirits about ? What sphere
had she got into? What is old
Mr. Brown doing now, at No. 666
Eleventh Avenue? Can you go to
Europe ? to the North Pole ? What
are the prospects of the Cause ? Adri-
an couldn't help thinking that his
charming victim — for the feeling that
she was helpless, a victim, kept com-
ing up in his mind, — showed ex-
cellent good sense in her replies; for
they were little, except " I can't see ;
it is all cloudy; there is somebod}',
that I don't recognize; it is cold;"
and so on ; for, he said to himself, I
should have said just about the same !
But the company were still more
edified ; for, Mrs. Babbles said, it was
beyond all expectation that in so
short a time any one should become
so strongly clairvoyant ; and the sub-
ject, she observed, would obviously
very soon become an independent clair-
voyant investigator.
" Independent how ?" asked Adrian.
" Can go into the trance state by
herself, whenever she wishes,"' was
the reply. " You are so good a mag-
netizer, and your magnetism is so con-
genial, that you will carry her forward
very rapidly."
Now while these vague or merely
curious questions were being put, some
others all at once occurred to Adrian,
which he proceeded to put for him-
self, and to which he received answers
unexpectedly definite. It was rea-
sonable to suppose, Adrian however
reflected, that these questions, being
put with a vivid actual interest of the
asker's own, may have carried a great
deal more power with them for that
reason, and thus may have evoked a
corresponding exertion of mind in the
clairvoyant. Still, the replies, though
remarkably pat and terse in wording,
were articulated in a slow difficult way,
as if the speaker were impeded or
weighed down or held back.
" A business offer has been made to
me," asked Adrian. " Shall I accept
it?"
" No."
'' I am interested about another bus-
iness matter, involving much money
abroad. Will it succeed ? "
"No money will come."
Then the thought occurred to Adri-
an — if he could veil his questions so
as to be safe before these strangers,
to ask his prophetess about matters of
far other importance than even the
great Mr. Button's publication busi-
ness, or the vast Scrope Estate in
England.
" There is still another matter in
which I am interested, along with a
person who is concerned with both
those other affairs. That person I
dreamed about, Wednesday night."
" Can't catch you ! "
At this reply, which was not so much
an answer to any thing at the mo-
ment in Adrian's conscious thoughts,
as it was a solution to the excessively
disagreeable problem of his dream
about being chased by Miss Button,
Adrian was much startled. But he
asked again, with a distinct sense of
running a risk :
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
115
" Some one has been stealing.
Who is it ? "
" The other one."
Adrian could make nothing out of
this ; the very clerk who had de-
nounced her, it might mean — or the
very detective who was shadowing
her. But in spite of him these four
answers delivered in the slow calm
way, and with the delaying articula-
tion of the magnetic sleep, impressed
him exceedingly. He could not help
a conviction that they might, whether
or not they actually did, convey
knowledge from some source or by
some channel other than the ordinary
ones. But he judged it not best to
venture any further; and so he let go
of his cousin's hands, and after leav-
ing her alone for a few moments, sum-
moned her out of her sleep by the
usual mode of reversed passes. After
congratulations from the company,
Adrian and Civille took leave, as they
had still to visit the Philosopher of
the Germ, and devote another hour
to investigating the New Universe.
Does a truly philosophic mind require
more than an hour to investigate a
universe ?
They reached the abode of the great
and philosophic being whom they were
to meet, without difficulty, Civille,
to Adrian's pleasure, and somewhat to
his surprise, saying in reply to an
inquiry, that she was not only not
fatigued, but refreshed rather, by her
excursion into dreamland. And she
inquired in turn if he were not tired
in consequence of sending her thither.
No, not at all.
CHAPTER XVII.
Great and exceptional souls natu-
rally gather into great and exceptional
communities. Where vast numbers
of human beings are crowded, heaped,
rammed together as the enormous
forces of human passions and pursuits
drive and compress them in great
cities, there are stirring the immense
powers that great administrative
minds love to wield, there are living
the inquiring and waiting souls that
great teachers yearn to instruct, there
are heaped and heaping treasures such
as the ambitious merchant longs to
amass, which the ambitious thief or
gambler or stock-speculator longs to
get away from somebody else. Napo-
leon, Cuvier, Laffitte, Cartouche, each
could not but come to Paris. Roths-
child, Carlyle, Miller, Zadkiel, could
not but reside in London. And Astor
and Stewart, or Jacob Little and James
Fisk, Horace Greeley or Bill Tweed,
Doctor Brandreth or Mr. Vanderbilt,
Mr. Barnum or Mr. Tarbox Button,
or that great and profound genius S.
P. Quinby Anketell, A.M., the Elu-
cidator of the New Universe, could not
but live in New York. The vaster
the ambition, the loftier or more strange
the doctrine, in like proportion is it
more indispensable that it come to
the great city. If your teachings can
be received by only one soul in a
thousand, then in a whole state of a
million of population you could have
but a thousand followers, and you can
neither find them nor assemble them.
But in a city of a million, they can all
meet you any evening. Mr. Anketell
was therefore most of all impelled to
come to New York ; for his views
were — if there is any truth in arith-
metic — one hundred times as vast as
any just referred to. For the Anke-
tellicalists were at the time of Adrian's
visit not over about ten in number.
New York is reckoned — suburbs and
all — at a million souls. Hence, it is
obvious, Mr. Anketell could find but
one mind in a hundred thousand, in-
stead of one in a thousand, that was
116
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
able to receive his doctrine ; he was
accordingly exactly a hundred-fold
the more pressed and driven into New
York. Could reasoning he more con-
clusive ?
Mr. Anketell's residence was a re-
spectable-looking house on a cross
street, not very far from Madison
Square, and between Madison and
Fourth Avenues. It was what is called
an " English basement " house, having
a door only one step above the sidewalk
instead of at the top of a long flight
of steps, and having within this door
a small sitting-room at the front,
while the hall led past it back to the
stairs, and past them to a larger room
filling the rear half of the ground
floor. This was occupied at present
as a dining-room and sitting-room
both; for the exigencies of the cause
to which Mr. Anketell was devoting
his life had at the moment somewhat
crowded the establishment. To tell
the truth, besides the philosopher's
own family, he was at present pre-
siding over the whole band of his
declared followers, assembled within
his household.
"S. P. Quinby Anketell," read
Adrian as they reached the door —
" S. P. Q. A. — Senatus Populus Que
Americanus. Not a bad set of initials
for the leader of such a movement as
this." — And between the ringing of
the bell and the opening of the door
he told Civille of a sign he remem-
bered to have seen at a silversmith's
in Fulton Street. Its four initials,
the mighty ancient quaternion of S.
P. Q. R. had attracted him ; but on
approaching, instead of the sonorous
" Senatus Populus Que Romanus,"
he found the practical business an-
nouncement " Silver Plate Quickly
Repaired." " It was like the dust of
Alexander stopping a beer-barrel," he
said. But after his fashion, he irrev-
erently figured to himself another
meaning for Mr. Anketell's initials,
but which he did not think proper to
repeat to his companion, nor, — he
hoped — must she necessarily be re-
ferred to in the same. This was,
"Silly People Quickly Attracted."
While he moralized, they were
shown into the waiting-room, and
asked to sit for a few minutes.
Adrian improved the occasion to ask
Civille about the position of Mr.
Anketell's doctrines as related to those
of Spiritism.
" Anketellicalism," answered the
young lady, with the exceeding funny
gravity of a young lady's metaphysi-
cal utterances, "neither asserts nor
denies. It includes and reconciles all
other beliefs. Its roots are so much
deeper than any, that from it they
ean all be traced, and by it can all
be explained and combined."
"Then it goes yet deeper," com-
mented Adrian, " than the famous
preacher's statement that ' every great
truth is composed of two incompatible
extremes ' ? "
"I never heard that thought," said
Civille. "But it is Mr. Anketell's.
All truth is his."
"Well," said Adrian, "yes. All
truth is every man's. In that wealth,
monopoly is not to be feared ; we
may all amass our utmost. So that
even Napoleon's saying of ' The tools
to him that can use them,' loses its
bad meaning if truths are the tools-
Then one can believe in the spirit
doctrines and in Mr. Anketell's too ? "
"Wlvv, of course," said the young
lady; "but they are truths — facts
— not doctrines. But let him tell
you himself," she added, for steps
approached, and a tall man entered
from the rear room.
" My dearest child," he said, in a
solemn clear voice, " welcome. The
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
117
spirit of the place lacked you." And
taking her hand, he pressed it; and
held it, as Adrian observed, longer
than was absolutely necessary.
Civille introduced Adrian, as her
cousin, and a sincere inquirer after
new truth.
" Most rejoiced to receive you," said
Mr. Anketell, in the same solemn clear
voice. " But, my child," — he turned
to Civille, "there is no new truth.
All truth is eternal; without begin-
ning or end."
" But," suggested Adrian, " until
our existence becomes unconditional,
we must use conditioned words, must
we not ? Is it not practically correct,
therefore, to have a word ' new ' ?
It means, as to truths, not truths
just manufactured, but truths just
found ; — New to me, if I never found
them before ? "
While Adrian spoke, he and Mr.
Anketell looked straight into each
other's eyes. The great Reformer
was a tall and rather slender person,
decently enough clad in black, fair,
with light blue watchful ej'es, a blood-
less face, a sharp high projecting
forehead, thin features, intelligent
enough, marked with thought, and
with a look of preternatural gravity.
Adrian, summing him up in his swift
intuitional way, felt, rather than
thought, that he disliked him. But
this may have been because the Re-
former was so very paternal with
Civille. However, the watchful face
smiled as Adrian ended, and the great
thinker condescended to approve.
a Ah ! " he said, "this is a singu-
larly acute mind. A just distinction.
But the New Language — which Mr.
Jobraker is advocating in my behalf,
will obviate such questions. My new
categories of thought and speech will
forever prevent any confusion be-
tween the absolute and the relative.
One word per thought, — one thought
per word."
" Ah," said Adrian, " Then the new
language is yours ? "
" Yes," assented Mr. Anketell, with
visible unobtrusiveness — " merely
one of the departments of the New
Universe. But, my young friends,
The Germ was upon development
when you rang. Come in and take
part in our little conference. I was
just setting forth the sum of the
New Universe, as it reached me this
morning at half past ten precisely.
I have improved two epithets and a
definition since last week."
And while Adrian considered briefly
within himself, how deep and broad a
Universe that could be which two
epithets and a definition could im-
prove, Mr. Anketell showed them into
the dining room, where, around the
extension table — now only set with a
common red damask cover on which
lay a few papers and writing materials
— sat the whole strength of the
company, so to speak : a whole New
Universe in one dingy back room.
Such is the concentrative might of
Mind!
The little band who were here incu-
bating, — if one may say so — upon
the Egg of the Future, seemed to
Adrian, glancing round the room as
he took his seat, like a rarefied ex-
tract of the Solidarite de V Avenir.
Indeed, most if not all of them were
members of that extremely respectable
body. The chief difference between the
two assemblages was in their spirit ;
for while the units of the Solid a rite
were even ludicrously centrifugal in
their tendency, there was evident
here an equally predominant spirit
of perfectly unconditional acquiescent
discipleship. The two conditions may
just as well co-exist in the same mind
as the uproar of the boys in recess,
118
JScrop
e: or,
The Lost Library.
along with their stillness in school-
hours.
Mr. Anketell took a chair at one
end of the tahle.
"Perhaps," he said, with his grave
manner and clear articulation " Mr.
Morue will read my summary once
more from the beginning. "We have
a new friend on this occasion ; and it
is well that Miss Van Braam should
receive the new statement as com-
pleted. Great things depend upon it,
and upon her."
Mr. Morue, a good looking young
fellow with a sweet expression and
fine soft dark eyes, bowed and com-
plied. The statements which he read
contained very much that was — but
is it not impertinent to assume to
praise such things ? Let a few sen-
tences suffice ; and write for circular
containing summary of the New Uni-
verse, to S. P. Quinby Anketell, New
York City, enclosing Fifty cents.
MR. MORUE's READING.
All that exists is either Action or
Result.
This is true throughout the Uni-
verse.
Therefore it is true in symbol as
well as in fact.
Voice is a symbol of fact.
In Voice the sound is Action ; it
terminates in Result.
Therefore all Language falls into
these two :
1. Sound. 2. Stop.
The first, because the easiest of all
possible Sounds is the open Ah ! —
when the mouth opens, and we vocal-
ize. The first of all possible stops is
> m ! — when the mouth shuts and we
are silent.
We have therefore the One Eternal
Word:
AHM !
(This the speaker vocalized with
much power, giving a good broad
long Ah ! and bringing his lips to-
gether with almost a slap at the
end.)
As a single instance corroborative,
take the Sacred Syllable of the plu-
rality of worshipping humanity, the
Buddhists'— Om!
All the rest of Real Language must
of necessity be developed from this
one word, by modifications. These
are of course only such as the vocal
organs can supply.
Here the reader gave a carefully
arranged series of modifications, such
as :
1. Of the Vowel : ee'm ! au'm !
oo'm !
2. Of the Consonant: ah'p ! ah'f!
ah'g!
3. Of the Effort : ahbabah'm ! ah-
gagah'g !
And he briefly showed the infinite
number of combinations — that is,
of words, deducible from this single
syllable ; which must include not only
all the existing words of the present
languages — collectively termed the
Scatterary or Inartistic — but that
inexhaustible remainder of vocables
on which the New Universal Lan-
guage can draw at sight and without
end for expression of the whole New
Universe of Ideas.
The Name of the New Language is
that which could not but arise in the
rightly constituted mind. It em-
bodies beginning, sound, end, thus :
And for instance corroborative of
the justness of the choice, observe
that this name embodies the first call
of the human being to its mother, and
the accepted expression of the man's
reverence for the woman.
With like reasonings and illustra-
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
119
tions did the exposition proceed. As
the first part, that relating to lan-
guage, drew to a close, Mr. Anketell
spoke a few words aside to Civille,
and both, arising, disappeared into the
small ante-room. Mr. Morue went
on, explaining that the only emenda-
tions had now been read, and that the
Teacher was not required for the rest,
which he should however repeat
"chiefly" he said, "for inculcation."
This was however if any thing still
more interesting to our neophyte
Adrian tban what had preceded it ;
for it contained the explanation of the
development, not merely of sound or
language, but successively of Matter,
Life, Thought, Society, and Perfec-
tion. This whole system, thus set
forth, constituted the New Universe.
No considerations but those of Space
and Time prevent their being here
given in full. At present (the state-
ment went on), men are scarcely ad-
vanced beyond that base and sordid
condition of scattered life in disjunct
item, which the pre-Anketellical but
only half-enlightened Fourier so well
designated by calling them " misera-
ble civilizees." Even in the dawn of
our New Universe, even in the first
unfolding of The Germ, must we
make allowances for the weakness, for
the unwisdom, for the slavishness of
mind, so long locked down upon the
ages : even the New Universe itself
must not clash too violently with the
recognized forms of thought and feel-
ing. The old religions, as well as the
old political and social conditions,
will swiftly fade as our dawn opens
into the coming day. Yet the wise
Teacher ordains not to diverge too
far, and he chooses for the present
name of the New System, one which
shall express his Greatest Discovery,
the Identity of All Forces by the mar-
riage of the Material with the Divine.
I have thus revealed to you the
Elements, — the reader ended, — of
the New Universe : Let its Spirit re-
ceive the New Baptism : what Anke-
tell teaches — what the Anketellical-
ists believe and propagate, let them,
until the New Language shall afford
its full and real and mysteriously
significant name, mention and pro-
claim abroad as
ELECTRO-CHRISTIANITY !
At this magnificent climax there
was quite a sound of delighted ap-
plause, and some offered thanks to
Mr. Morue, while others eagerly en-
tered into discussions on the many
questions that every one can see aris-
ing from these immensely fruitful
propositions. In the midst of this
happy excitement, Adrian, who was
sitting with his back towards the door
where they had come in, heard a
quick step, a rustle of garments ; a
hand was laid on his shoulder, and
Civille, in a gasping whisper, said in
his ear,
" Adrian, take me away quick ! "
Astonished beyond measure, the
young man sprang up and turned to
look at his cousin. Such a frozen
white horrified face ! It was fright,
grief, indignation, all awful pain in
one. Without another word, she
stepped to the door leading not to the
ante-room, but to the hall, and so
towards the outer door. Adrian,
with an indistinct feeling as if mur-
der had been done, but without a
word, hurried after her. So swift
were their motions that they were
both out of the room before the
stream of chattering congratulatory
talk could fairly subside. As Adrian
got into the hall, Civille had already
reached the front door, and was hur-
riedly endeavoring to open it. At
this moment, the great Mr. Anketell
120
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
appeared from the hall-door of the
little ante-room, looking, as nearly as
Adrian could see in the rather weak
gas-light, somewhat flustered for a
philosophic teacher. He went straight
to Civille, without observing Adrian,
and promptly putting one arm round
her waist, said,
"You mistake entirely. Come
back a moment."
" No ! " she said vigorously, " I
don't mistake ! Let go ! " And she
gave him a push. Adrian gave him
something more effectual — a tremen-
dous straight right-hand hit under the
left ear, that lifted him with a bang
against the door, and then dropped
him in a limp heap on the carpet.
With one jerk the angry fellow slung
the Great Teacher backward into the
hall, just as one or two startled disci-
ples opened the door of the dining
room.
" Pick up that dirty dog ! " he said :
and opening the front door, he hurried
his cousin out. She had kept on her
bonnet, and he had as it happened
kept his liat with him, so that they
made no unconventional display in
the street.
The night was bright and cold, and
patches of a slight snow that had
fallen in the morning, were still pure
and white in corners along the side-
walk. Adrian felt Civille grow heavy
on his arm.
" Don't faint," he said, and snatch-
ing up a handful of clean snow, laid
it promptly on her forehead. The
shock, along with her own keen reso-
lute will, helped her.
" I won't," said she, with her teeth
set tight — and she didn't. But it
was a pretty near thing. An empty
hack drove by, and Adrian, hailing it,
took Civille directly home. She sat
silent the whole way, leaning back as
if exhausted; and Adrian, though he
thought industriously, said not a
word.
When they reached the old shabby
white house it was quite late, and no
light was visible except a dim one
through the front door fanlight. The
door however, as it appeared on trying
it, was to their surprise not fast.
They entered the hall together ; — for
Adrian thought best to see that noth-
ing was wrong. A female form arose
from a chair at one side of the hall
and came forward, bearing a bundle.
"Who's that? "said Civille, star-
tled.
"It's me, 'm," said a sharp voice.
" Why, Katy, what are you up
for?"
" Yis'm, I think as much," was the
reply, with obvious wrath. — " Misther
Van Bram he says he was tired out,
and I was to set up for yez, and he's
gone to bed sure, and I've done it,
haven't I ? "
"You have, I should think," said
Civille, gravely.
"An good night to yez, 'm. I
didn't hire out for a watchman at all,
so I didn't ! "
And the enraged Irishwoman made
for the front door, with the energy —
and reason — of one million Fenians.
"Why," said Civille, "you only
came this noon. My father's old; he
didn't know."
"And sure he'll know next time
thin ! "
" Hold on," interposed Adrian
sternly; "let's see what you're carry-
ing off there ! "
"An it's a woman's duds, sorr.
There ; will ye plaze examine ! "
With fingers that shook in an extraor-
dinary access of fury, she untied her
bundle and spread it out on the hall
table.
" Oh, tie it up and go," said Civille.
" Don't stop her, Adrian. You can
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
121
have one clay's wages, Katy, if you
choose."
" No, thank ye 'in. And thank ye
sorr," returned the furious serving wo-
man. " An it's moighty little there's
to stale in this house any way."
" You've looked, have you ? " hroke
in Adrian, coolly.
" And the curse o Crom'll on sich
naygurs ! " went on the fury, not find-
ing a perfectly handy parry to this
hit ; and out she bounced and off she
went, along stream of scolding dying
away as she passed down the street.
" Sit down a few moments," said
Adrian : " rest you a little ; then we'll
look round the house and see that
every thing is safe ; it will do no harm,
and you'll sleep better."
So they went into the parlor, lit the
gas, and Civille took her own chair by
the fire-place. After a few moments
Adrian said,
" Cousin Civille, please to tell me
if you think proper, what happened
at Anketell's."
She started ; " Oh no ! " Then she
considered a moment, and then — re-
considered. " Yet why not ? It was
very considerate of you, Cousin Adri-
an, not to ask me before. Thank you.
And perhaps you ought to know. But
what did you do to him, Adrian? "
"Broke his jaw, I hope; I know
I lamed my knuckles," replied the
young man, examining his right hand,
which was in fact scarified a little
as will happen when one strikes very
straight and hard on a sharp bone.
"I can't write for a week, to judge
from the sensation."
Civille was about to run for arnica,
but Adrian wouldn't let her, and she
then proceeded to describe her inter-
view with the philosophic Mr. Anke-
tell. He had asked her into the
ante-room, she said, on pretence of
wishing to consult her about a fur-
ther and still more mysterious doc-
trine upon which, he said, his soul
had been deeply pondering for a long
time. The statement had begun with
some rhapsodies about the ancient
idea of an outer and an inner doc-
trine ; about Civille's wonderful quali-
ties ; about the Platonic theoiy of
souls made in two halves, which be-
longed to each other by the very fact
itself if they happened to meet, and
so on. Then he went into a theory
of right and wrong as applied to him-
self, which ended with a series of
propositions in substance somewhat
like these: "A truly organized life
would be immortal in this body. The
society of our other half soul is the
one first greatest requisite for this im-
mortality. No law can be paramount
to such a truth as that. And more-
over, the New Universe is developing
so swiftly that my laws will very soon
be received all over the earth. This
earth is the brain of the Universe ; I
am the brain of this earth. In less
than one year, you will sit at my feet
and worship me as a God. In three
years I shall be ruling all this earth
from the eternal centre of earthly
power in Rome. And," concluded
Civille, with a great effort, — "he
insisted upon it that I was his Queen ;
that the right way for me to learn
his doctrine was to be his ; and —
ugh! — before I could get away he
kissed me ! "
In spite of his anger, Adrian could
not help laughing at her disgust ; for
at the recollection, she gave her^heek
and her mouth a terrible scrubbing
with her handkerchief.
" Augh ! " she repeated, — " and
he's as cold and damp as a toad ! "
" So you just ran away ? " queried
Adrian.
" Yes : I told him to ask Mrs. An-
ketell about it, however."
122
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
" Mrs. Anketell ! Is the old scoun-
drel married ! "
" Why yes ; long ago. He said
something about his wife being per-
fectty willing ; but I ran out."
" Good riddance," commented Adri-
an. He was on the point of adding
the dangerous suggestion that he
hoped she might escape as well from
the rest of her psychological investi-
gations ; but he stopped just in time.
He recommended instead that noth-
ing should be said to her father about
the adventure, as it would only dis-
tress him, to which she agreed, — not
knowing however, poor girl, how
much distress she had already occa-
sioned him : and now they made a
hasty inspection of doors and win-
dows, which were found all safe ; and
Civille, as they came round again to
the front door, shyly invited Adrian
to occupy their "spare bedroom" and
breakfast with them in the morning.
He however excused himself, in part
because he suspected what was indeed
true, that Civille would have to get
breakfast herself, and ought not to
have the additional bother of a visi-
tor; and partly because he had prom-
ised to spend the next day — Sunday
to wit — with Mr. Button's family,
and somehow he preferred ro go
thither from his lodgings. As Civille
came in with him, in readiness to lock
the door, he turned and said,
" Good night."
"Good night," she responded, with
sleep already drooping cloudily over
her lovely gray eyes, and a smile at
her own fatigue. Some impulse — a
wholly inscrutable one, — was it the
example of the philosophic Mr. An-
ketell ? — suddenly sprang up in the
young man's mind. So quickly that
she could not resist, he had one arm
round her waist, the other round her
neck, and had pressed a long hearty
kiss upon her flower-soft lips. They
trembled under his.
" Go quick," she said. He could
not understand whether there was
sorrow or displeasure in her voice ;
there was something. But without a
word he opened the door and departed ;
and all the way to his boarding house
he was saying to himself
" I wonder what I did that for ? "
PART VI.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Adrian, with the unconscious good
fortune of youth, slept as he usually
did, one deep, refreshing sleep, all
night long, and awoke, as one should
awake ; not with sticky ej-es, a sense
of having been slowly boiled, a slug-
gish, unwilling recognition of return-
ing, conscious thought, and under an
after-night or spiritual darkness of
ill-nature, but altogether clean ; as
one rises promptly from a piece of
work handsomely done and finished ;
bright ; jolly.
Not that he sprang instantly out
of bed, as the exemplars do — con-
found them ! Is there anything so
hateful or so impudent as a good
example ? The Duke of Wellington
used to say, " When it 's time to turn
over it 's time to turn out." N. B.
He 's dead. Adrian had more sense ;
he knew enough to lie still a little
while and be comfortable. The mo-
ments between healthy waking and
judicious arising are the honey-
moon of the day ; in them we wel-
come the sunlight and its life ; rejoice
with it before settling clown to those
sober, conventional utilities of the
day's work which begin with clothes
and breakfast. The soul is calm and
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
123
happy ; and the thoughts are either
quiescent, while a mere sense of suf-
ficient well-being, of sweetness and
light, fills the consciousness, or they
brood, with that spontaneous, lucid,
unconscious evolution which belongs
to the highest activities of the mind,
over airy subject that is present.
Genius is simply the action of the
mind, as in lying awake in bed before
getting up to breakfast. Not that
there are not other climaxes of gen-
ius. Perhaps it would be more ac-
curate to turn the statement end for
end. The action of the mind in bed
while we lie awake in the morning
before getting up to breakfast, is of
the nature of genius. That is, some-
times.
What Adrian considered was, how-
ever, a very practical question :
What is to be clone about Civille?
And his statement of the case to
himself and his reasonings upon it
ran somewhat thus : —
Civille herself, just now, is a spirit
not quite sufficiently embodied. It
is a case of extreme fineness of or-
ganization physically, and extreme
spirituality mentally. The risk,
therefore, is of over-activity and
over-excitement, and of views and
actions unpractical, visionary, but
not selfish nor materialized ; just the
contrary, indeed ; much too unselfish,
much too clisregardful of established
opinions, of friends, of her own com-
fort.
Second, the influences around Ci-
ville. There is that sunless, ill-aired,
ill-drained old house. Her wiry old
father may not feel it, but it is
steadity lowering the tone of her
vitality ; thinning down the outer
wall, as it were, of her frame, so frail
already that it is translucent ^trans-
lucent to my will, thought the } r oung
man, with a distinct thrill as he
thought it) ; so that all of a sudden
the soul will quite slip out and escape
us, if we are not careful. There are
the doctrines and atmosphere of the
Solidarite. But what are they ? Only
a clatter. Nothing there can attract
Civille except what she believes to
exist there, whether it does or not —
an earnest wish for the good of hu-
manity. Then the spirits. For her,
this sort of thing is unsuitable. It
is a tippling of the soul ; as pecu-
liarly dangerous for her high- wrought
and already over-spiritual personal-
ity as the tippling of liquor for the
already over-vivid life of Edgar A.
Poe. Also, the Anketellical Uni-
verse. That's eliminated from the
problem, thanks to the creator of it
himself. Civille never will want to
see Mm again. And this ma}' help
wean her from the Solidarite, too.
Last of all, the detective, Amos
Olds — the charge of theft — the
men that Civille has repeatedly seen,
or thought she has seen, following
her, — doubtless on the part of Olds.
This is the worst matter of all,
because it is so dangerous to handle.
With whom shall I advise about it?
Jenks and Trainor? Olds himself?
The central police authorities ? Mr.
Button? None of them seemed a
welcome or even a safe counsellor ;
and the quiet and ready intelligence
of Mr. Bird, the reporter, suggested
itself to Adrian. So did the long
and stiff figure of Doctor Toomston,
— ungenial, conventional, conserva-
tive, but said to be kind-hearted and
sensible.
Below or behind all Adrian's
thoughts and purposes was a doubt,
— obscure, not perhaps fully recog-
nized — too painful to be fully rec-
ognized — by the young man him-
self, and which he certainly would
not have hinted to another ; such a
124
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
doubt as comes into minds that reach
after all the possibilities of a case ;
the doubt of a judge, not of an advo-
cate • such a doubt as has tormented
many a friend to some " good man
struggling with the storms of fate,"
under specific slander or general evil
repute ; a doubt based, perhaps, upon
a humble sense of the doubter's own
weakness, or upon a profound appre-
hension of the weaknesses of human-
ity at large. It was simply this :
Suppose Civille has done it ?
Who has not felt such a question
lurking, as it were, in the dark corner
of his soul, when some near and dear
friend has been accused? It is not
suspicion ; it is not wickedness. It
is knowledge waiting for more knowl-
edge. It is colorless of feeling mean-
while, and neither chilled by evil
passion, nor warmed by that which
is kindly. Not that the truth of the
charge would have diminished one
whit Adrian's regard for Civille ;
his was not a nature to forsake the
unhappy. Indeed, the fact would
have proved her, to him, not bad, but
simply ill ; more unfortunate, more
unhappy, than she was already. For
in spite of her ordinary calm and
sweet and kindly composure of man-
ner, and earnest seriousness of occu-
pation, the whole impression which
she had made upon Adrian was of
profound sadness. If she were really
under the dominion of the odious ma-
nia of which she was suspected, could
she be in a greater misfortune ? And
did she not all the more need friends
and help, poor lonely thing, the more
unfortunate she was? The fact is,
that to such a nature as Adrian's,
and at his time of life, an actual de-
monstration of her systematic thiev-
ing at Jenks and Trainor's would
have riveted his sympathy, his help-
ful affection, it may almost be said,
more than any good fortune or good
qualities in the world. Youth, for
lofty natures, is knighthood. Adrian
was riding abroad in his first knight-
errantry. His shield was yet white ;
he was unconsciously longing to do
some noble deed that might entitle
him to an honorable escutcheon. And
of all the incitements of chivalry, the
sweetest and loftiest is that of a lovely
maiden in distress ; and again and
again there floated across Adrians
mind, alwa} T s full of associated ideas,
always making pictures, the wondrous
imaginations of Una in the forest, and
of the gentle lady in Comus. It was
this last, however, with whom he most
naturally identified Civille ; for all
the vulgar surroundings and impo-
sitions that beset her — suspicious
policemen, crack-brained reformers,
low-bred visionaries, sensual, knavish
delusionists — were singularly well
represented by the bestial rout, —
" a rout of monsters, headed like sun-
dry sorts of wild beasts, but other-
wise like men and women," — that
persecuted the Lady. As for Comus
himself, the part was right aptly filled
by the great S. P. Quinby Anketell,
whose arguments, indeed, fitted not
ill with the sophistries which John
Milton has put into the mouth of the
son of Circe.
So Adrian thought and thought,
and could resolve on nothing satis-
factory. He reached one partial
conclusion which was sound enough,
namely : that for directly influencing
Civille herself, the appeal must be
made to her own strongest motive
qualities, being indeed the same that
were now carrying her wrong, if
she were in fact going wrong, — the
same longing for better things, the
same keen desire for higher knowl-
edge and clearer light, the same
sweet, unselfish wish for the happi-
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
125
ness of others, which were impelling
her in her researches into what she
believed reforms, and in her work
about the charities connected with
Dr. Toomston's church. If she was
to be induced of herself to discon-
tinue any line of conduct, and to
adopt a different one, it must be by
showing her that she would, by so
doing, save suffering and afford hap-
piness to others.
" If I could fill her mind full of some
other and more real occupation," the
young man thought, " that is the
best thing I could do — that would
bring her right. Just as they shake a
rattle before babies that cry. I guess
there 's a good deal of bab} r in un-
conscious natures." But he could
think of no such occupation, and he
knew how difficult it is in this age to
find good employment for a single
young woman.
Whether anything could be done
by the usual means of bringing to
bear upon her the influence of friends,
that is, a pressure of opinion, seemed
very doubtful. But Adrian, with
natural good sense, resolved to con-
sult whomsoever should seem safest.
He felt himself able to influence Mr.
Van Braam, who, kindly and pure and
visionary, had no " initiative," and
could at most recognize and follow
good counsel, but certainly would
never suggest any. He finally re-
solved, as he was to pass the day
with the Buttons, to try some hints
upon the capitalist himself, whose
coarse and rough nature did not neces-
sarily prevent him from being an ex-
cellent adviser. Adrian was, however,
displeased with himself for the reluc-
tance he could not help feeling to
speak to Mr. Button on the subject.
He retained his resolution, however ;
it was a mannish resolution, formed
from the conclusions of the reasoning
faculties, against the wish of the intu-
itions
With this unsatisfying but definite
purpose in his mind, Adrian arose,
and after breakfast set out for Mr.
Button's residence, as his day there
must needs begin in good season,
since it was mostly to be spent else-
where. This paradox only requires
that we take " house " in the antique
sense of family. Thus : as for Mr.
Button and his house, they served
the Lord, to the very best of their
abilities, and with a special ex-
clusiveness on Sunda3*s, — or Sab-
baths, as they called them, — both
the} 7 and the stranger within their
gates ; and much more, then, the near
relative and intended member who
might sojourn with them. Divine
service in the morning, Sunday-school
in the afternoon, divine service in
the evening — such was the invariable
programme, and at all three Mr. But-
ton and his family were strictly hold-
en to appear, " armed and equipped
as the law directs," to use an an-
cient formula for notifying militia
gatherings, and, therefore, one not
unsuitable for the church militant.
Musing sometimes, sometimes
looking about him, Adrian strolled
along street and avenue, savoring
with full breath the clear, bright,
vitalized winter air ; when, as he
drew near the Buttonian regions, in
a street of that peculiarly dreaiy and
gloomy grandeur which belongs to
the " brown stone front," — a street
that looked indeed about as much
like a deep cut through a quarry of
old red sandstone as like a double
row of human habitations, — as he
wandered gazing along beneath the
towering precipices of one side of
this freestone Petra, he espied on an
unobtrusive little tin sign over a
basement window the words, " Dr
126
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
Codleigh Veroil." With an intu-
itional flash of vision, Adrian saw
at once that the doctor was his right
adviser about Civille, whose usual
medical attendant he knew him to be,
and that of Mr. Button's family also.
He had seen the doctor once or twice,
and remembered perfectly his hand-
some, intelligent, kindly face. " A
physician is my man, of course," he
said to himself, as he unhesitatingly
turned in under the "high stoop"
and rang the office bell ; " the
Protestant father confessor, now that
soul and bod}* are so much con-
founded together." And with his
thoughts running upon the parallel
or contrast between ancient religions
and modern ones, he was shown into
the office, where Doctor Veroil in a
few moments joined him. Without
waiting to be embarrassed, Adrian
spoke : —
" I must beg your pardon, first of
all, doctor, for troubling you so early,
and on Sunday ; and perhaps it is
not a strictly professional errand,
either."
The doctor bowed and smiled in
his pleasant way, — whose manners
are as comfortable and agreeable as
those of a polite and successful phy-
sician ? And Dr. Veroil's handsome,
pleasant face, his singularly sympa-
thetic manner, were unmatched even
among doctors. Certainly they had
made his fortune, for he was already
rich. Not that his abilities were not
great : the}* were : he was a trained
and scientific practitioner of the very
best order ; a man of much breadth
and strength of thought, and of high
accomplishments, besides all his nat-
ural gifts. But his manners had
secured his abilities a chance ; for
everybody that looked at him liked
him, and nobod}* who employed him
could like any other doctor so well.
His practice might be acceptable or
not ; successful or not ; at the death
of a patient, the family of the de-
ceased, as sometimes happens, might
dismiss the doctor, as if he had killed
their friend. They never think of
dismissing their God, and trying an-
other ! But even in such a case, the
man was surely regretted, though the
physician might be changed ; and he
was usually recalled after one exper-
iment elsewhere.
Adrian, encouraged by Dr. Veroil's
good nature, proceeded to introduce
himself.
" Ver}* glad to see you, indeed,"
responded the genial doctor, shaking
hands; "I remember perfectly — ■
met you at Mr Button's. Entirely
at j'our service. What can I do for
you ? "
Adrian hereupon explained that he
had ventured to call, for the reason
that the doctor was family physician
as aforesaid. He fancied that the
doctor became very attentive after
Mr. Button was mentioned. Valu-
able patrons, no doubt, he thought,
lie went on, however, to state as
succinctly as he could the substance
of his morning's reflections, about the
character of Civille, the influences at
present operating upon her, and in
particular the motives — as he sus-
pected — of some of those around
her, namely : to make her a lovely
mystic high-priestess of abomina-
tions, or at least of delusions.
" Now it seems to me, doctor," he
observed at last, " all this amounts,
not necessarily to an organization
originally bad or ill-proportioned,
but to one too good, if anything, and
liable to manifestations not of or-
ganic defect, but of perversions tem-
porary, I suppose at first ; from exter-
nal causes, and admitting of complete
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
127
" Very justly reasoned," assented
the doctor, — " very well put ; not
a bad diagnosis."
" Well, the real question, the real
trouble, is one that all these physi-
cal sensibilities and mental excite-
ments lead up to." — The young man
paused, moved his seat nearer to
the doctor's, and glanced apprehen-
sively round the room
" Not a soul on this whole floor
except ourselves," said Dr. Veroil,
kindly. Adrian went on, his voice
dropping of itself almost to a whis-
per,—
" The real question is, Can any
positive mental disorder have su-
pervened already ? For, doctor, the
police are actually watching her, on
a suspicion — a charge, almost, of
kleptomania — of theft from Jenks
& Trainor's. And the question is :
Is it possible ? And if so, is there
any remedy ? "
It is not easy to startle an experi-
enced physician. But Doctor Veroil
positively turned white for a moment.
" Good God ! " he said, below his
breath; "then" — he stopped short.
Something in his manner gave Ad-
rian a horrible pain, and his heart
stood still. " He knows about it,"
he thought ; " he believes it ! "
" Let me understand," said Doctor
Veroil, as if doubtful whether he had
not been on a wrong track ; " whom
did you say the police were watch-
ing?"
"Why, my cousin — Civille Van
Braam."
" Ah — O — yes, — to be sure,
but, I thought — beg pardon — you
were engaged to Miss Button?"
" I am, doctor," said Adrian, sur-
prised ; " why?"
" Well," said the other, with some
hesitation, " I believe I was for the
moment confounding the two } r oung
ladies in my mind. They are cous-
ins, and both patients of mine." He
reflected a moment, and continued,
more to himself than to Adrian, " I
wish I could have her married, and
with a baby of her own to take care
of, within just twenty minutes from
now ; then she'd be all right. That's
what balances a woman. She 's very
fond of children, too." Then he con-
tinued, to Adrian, " You 'd think so,
if }'ou 'd seen her cuddle that nigger
baby, as Mrs. Button called it, the
other da}', at the Shadowing Wings.
Pretty little thing ! They kicked it
out, too, I 'm told ! God Almighty ! "
exclaimed the physician, angered at
the recollection. Upon Adrian's in-
quiry, Dr. Veroil told him about the
Christian Expediency Infant Expul-
sion business ; and if sympathy was
of any use to him, he should have
been much benefited ; for Adrian,
3'ounger and less hardened, if not
natural ly more emotional, quite over-
flowed with pity and rage : —
" Why, doctor," he said, "that's
the same kind of doctrine that says
hell is paved with infants' skulls ! I
tell you what : folks that believe such
things, or do 'em either, will have
a chance to find out for themselves
whether it's paved so or not, it's my
opinion ! "
" Tut, tut, 3*oung man ! let them
do their own damning, — they 're
read} T enough. Besides, minds that
are ignorant and essentially vulgar
are alwa}\s brutalizing the theories of
their betters. Calvinism is n't neces-
sarily so bad as that. The practice
of it is n't, at least. Dr. Toomston
is about the stiffest Calvinist left in
New York, they say. But he's a
good old fellow ; he would n't do
one unkind thing to a baby to keep
his own soul out of hell, even if he
believed God had predestined every
128
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
baby in the world to eternal damna-
tion."
Breaking off for a moment, he re-
sumed : —
" But all that's none of my busi-
ness, though theology was alwaj's
interesting to me. It's a kind of
intellectual translation of religion ;
there 's something wonderful as well
as melancholy in seeing great minds
exhaust themselves in trying to ex-
press in the narrowest sort of human
limitations, in stiff, verbal phrases,
not merely emotions, which are all
exactly the things that words cannot
ever touch, — but exactly the high-
est, the grandest, the remotest, the
vastest of all the emotions, — those
that lift towards God ! As a jackass
undertaking to bra}' out the soliloquy
in Hamlet, so, only infinitely more
so, is a doctor of divinity undertaking
to define and enunciate religion in
sentences. But all that's none of
my business — professionally. I 'm
a doctor of medicine. I 'm glad you
called, Mr. Chester ; all the parties
concerned are good friends of mine,
besides being my patients. I will see
Miss Van Braam, and advise you and
assist you to the best of my ability.'*
" Thank you very much, doctor ;
you relieve me greatly . But there 's
one further idea of mine that I must
ask you about. It is — "
Here the office bell was violently
rung, and in a moment the servant
brought in and handed the doctor a
soiled scrap of paper. Glancing at
it, lie ordered his carriage instantly,
adding, —
" Put in the bay — he 's the quick-
est. Now jump ! " and the man shot
out of the door, electrified by the
doctor's energy.
" Excuse me, Mr. Chester — busi-
ness, you know." As he spoke, he
took from the table a small case of
instruments and another of medi-
cines, slid each into a pocket in a
heavy overcoat, and then slid the
garment upon himself. Hardly had
he clone so when the impatient tramp
of a horse and the pounding of
heavy wheels smote sharply on the
ear, as the equipage rattled round to
the front door and halted.
" Come along," continued the doc-
tor, smiling and peremptoiy ; " you
shall tell me the rest in the carriage ;
it won't put you ten minutes out of
your way, and no matter if it does."
Adrian followed without a word.
The two men entered the carriage ;
the doctor, reading a moment from
his scrap of paper, gave his driver a
number in one of the dirtier parts
of the Eighth Ward, to wit, in Greene
Street, below Houston ; and the
strong, high-fed bay horse sprang off
at a speed}- trot.
" 1 declare," said Adrian, who
knew the difference between a clothes-
horse and a trotting horse, — " I de-
clare, how square he trots, and how
he does get over the ground ! "
" Yes indeed," said Doctor Veroil.
" Very tough beast, too ; take me two
years to use him up, I expect. A
man whose time is worth ten dollars
an hour can't spare horse-flesh."
" But shall 3011 kill him in two
3 r ears ? " said Adrian, startled.
" O, no ; but pounding over these
stone pavements will stiffen him up
by that time so that he can't do my
work."
" Ten dollars an hour," repeated
Adrian; "but I didn't know the
people in Greene Street could pay
such prices."
" This one can't — nor any price,
I expect, poor thing ! She has been
a patient of mine before ; about used
up, I guess. Physicians have to do
a good deal of gratuitous work, you
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
129
know. We make the rich folks pay
for the poor, in part. I send a young
friend of mine to a good many such
cases, — capital practice they are, —
but I know this poor girl depends on
seeing me. I believe she thinks
I could raise her from the dead."
Adrian was surprised at the matter-of-
fact and unmistakably genuine kind-
.heartedness of the busy, professional
man — he did not know how full
of it the medical profession is. But
without waiting for compliment or
explanation, Doctor Veroil went on :
" Well, now, about your idea?"
" I had a notion, as I am obliged to
go back home in a day or two, to put
my trust in one other man, who can
help us, I think, in dealing with the
police. To expose my cousin in
either court or newspapers would cer-
tainly kill her father, besides inflict-
ing inexpressible distress on herself,
and others too."
" Is n't Mr. Button the best man
to do that ? "
" I had meant to consult him,"
said Adrian ; " but " — he paused.
Dr. Veroil smiled.
" I understand," he said. " Rather
a heavy touch, his is. Well; I'll
try him, perhaps. I think I know
how to argue the case to him. But
who is your man ? "
" I 'm afraid it looks absurd ; "but
he seems to me remarkably shrewd,
and I am pretty sure he knows how
to do it. A good-hearted fellow, too.
He is a police reporter. Bird, his
name is."
" A police reporter," repeated the
doctor, with some surprise. "Exactly
the wrong sort. Stay — Bird, you
said ? "
" Yes."
" Well, that alters the case. I
know him. Patient of mine. Quite
a character. Yes, you may do it.
And I '11 tell you how. Send him to
me ; he and I will keep everything
safe, at least until we reach the truth
in the matter, and find out exactly
where we are. And for the present,
don't say a word to any one else."
CHAPTER XIX.
The doctor's coupe, jumping vehe-
mently along the rough pavement,
" Without stop or stay, down the rocky way,"
halted with a jerk, and the doctor
sprang out. Turning back, he said,
as the thought struck him, —
" Come along. You can pass for
my student. It's worth while to see'
one of these Greene Street tenement
houses for once."
Adrian followed instantly, observ-
ing, as he stepped across the side-
walk, that another carriage stood
close by, among a number of drays,
furniture vans, and tradesmen's
wagons ; and he also had time to
glance at the front of the house they
were entering : it was a lofty brick
building, painted of a dark, dull,
blueish color, of about thirty feet
front, having its door in the middle,
with one window at each side, and
the floors were low " between joints,"
showing an unusual number of rather
small windows all over the front.
Following the doctor, Adrian passed
into a very narrow hall or alley that
led straight through the house from
front to rear ; midway, in the dark-
ness, the staircase to the next floor
could be dimly seen. Doctor Veroil
hurried past this, however, out
through the back door, across a
narrow, gloomy, paved space, into
the " rear building," as they call a
favorite device of New York real-
estate owners, for the slow murder
of poor people ; half-way through just
130
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
such another dark narrow hall, smell-
ing very close and nasty ; up just
such another stairway, but still more
dimly seen ; into the second-floor
dark alley, and up another stairway ;
into the third floor, and up another ;
into the fourth floor, and up another.
On the fifth floor Dr. Veroil, turning
towards the area or pit between the
buildings, stepped to a small grimy
window, and once more closely scru-
tinized his bit of paper. As he did
so, Adrian, who had with some diffi-
culty followed close at his heels,
heard a voice that he recognized, — a
woman's voice, sharp, strong, practi-
cal, and decided.
" Never experienced a hope ? "
Adrian's quick car distinguished a
very feeble rustle, as of one silently
moving one's head on a pillow in
reply. The practical decided voice
went straight on : —
" My erring sister, it is rny plain
duty as a Christian woman to warn
you that your time is short, and that
you should in this awful hour repent
of your sins, give yourself to God,
and prepare at once to meet your
Saviour and your Judge. The doors
of hell are gaping for you ; it is evi-
dent that you cannot live more than
an hour or two — "
" Where 's Bill}- ? I want to see — "
The weak, frightened, longing
cry — a faint, faint cry — ended in
an awful choking gurgle ; Dr. Veroil
rushed into the room — it was that
which he was looking for, though he
had naturally enough hesitated a
moment before interrupting ; and
Adrian followed.
It is without any special volition
that keen perceptions take in the least
as well as the chiefest details of a pic-
ture. Accordingly, the whole of this
painful scene smote upon Adrian's
consciousness, and impressed upon
his memory things both small and
great, as instantly as a die with one
stroke smites every detail of its im«
press upon the metal beneath it.
Heterogeneous accessories and awful
central figure flashed altogether upon
him, and the whole picture, keyed,
like so many paintings, upon its one
strong red spot, was indelibly printed
in his mind. The small, hot, close
room, with its dusk}* light ; the sickly,
medicinal odor ; the dirty little
flat-topped, black cooking-stove, its
front in a dull, red glow from ne-
glected draft ; the poor array of fem-
inine gear hanging on pegs at one
side of the room ; the scant}*, worn-
out, old ingrain carpet ; the rickety,
painted furniture ; the two or three
cheap, gaudy pictures, and a photo-
graph or two, on the wall ; the stiff,
erect form of Mrs. Button, the fright-
ened face of her daughter Ann at the
other side of the bed ; the frowsy fig-
ure of a young woman in attendance
on the patient, and who was uselessly
holding her head ; and in the midst
of all these the ghastly figure, with
its wasted, chalky face, propped up
against a pillow or two ; the bright-
red blood actually still flowing from
the mouth ; and in which Adrian at
once recognized the poor girl who
had waited on him at the concert sa-
loon : all this seen so suddenly, made
up of such unexpected constituents,
and forming a group so grim, was
felt by Adrian almost like something
burnt in upon him with a red-hot iron.
As the two men entered, the wo-
men, startled, uttered a cry, and Mrs.
Button and Ann looked at Adrian,
quite confounded. Adrian stopped
short, horrified. The physician
stepped promptly forward, felt the
pulse of the patient, dropped it.
" Dead ! — and you 've killed
her, you " — he continued, quite be-
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
131
side himself, turning short upon Mrs.
Button, who was too much astounded
to feel insulted. The doctor, turn-
ing once more to the bed, tried the
pulse, the heart, the mouth. But
life was gone, and he laid the poor,
wasted phantom back tenderly upon
the pillow.
" It may be the poor thing would n't
have lived long," he said ; " but you
finished her off suddenly with your
infamous hell. Why couldn't you
let her die quietly ? "
With a great struggle, the resolute
woman manned herself — if one may
say so — against the wrath of the doc-
tor, and, fighting against her own
agitation also, she made answer : —
" I only told her the truth. I did
my duty in striving to save an im-
perilled immortal soul at the eleventh
hour."
" Eleventh nonsense ! " cried the
doctor, in a fury. " Told her the
truth ! " repeated he, with angry
scorn. " If 3'ou only knew it, it
would have been a Christian deed to
tell her a hundred thousand lies if
they would have kept her alive. How
came you here, anyhow, madam ? "
" She sent for me," said Mrs. But-
ton, quite cowed by the furious, dis-
regardful anger of the doctor, all
the more appalling from its contrast
with his usual genial and pleasant
manner.
" I don't believe a word of it,"
said Doctor Veroil, bluntby. The
frowzy girl who had been crying
quietly at the foot of the bed, here
arose, and snuffling and drawing the
back of her dirty hand across her
ej'es, drew the doctor one side and
said something to him under her
breath. As she was doing so, Ad-
nan espied a photograph on the little
mantel-piece, which to his surprise
he thought he recognized, and step-
ping across to it, he saw that it was
indeed a picture of his cousin Mr.
William Button. He quietly slipped
it into his pocket, with a feeling that
the ladies had better not see it there,
just as the doctor, in answer to the
girl, nodded his head, saying : —
" Yes, that must have been the
way, — I know all about it " Then
he turned to Mrs. Button again, and
fairly ordered her and her daughter
off the premises.
" It's no place for you," he said,
brusquely; "all the harm's done
that can be, and I shall see to the
rest myself."
The two frightened ladies retreated
without resistance, and indeed why
should they stay any longer? Nor
did they recognize Adrian, except by
one or two more half-conscious looks
that only testified to further astonish-
ment. And the swiftness of the
small though distressing panorama
gave no time for forms.
" Xow," said the doctor, kindly,
to the volunteer nurse, " you call in
somebody to sit with you a little
while. You 're a good girl for stay-
ing with that poor child. I '11 send
the undertaker right away, and have
everything attended to."
She obeyed, and upon her return
in a few moments with a companion,
Dr. Veroil and Adrian departed.
Stopping at the first undertaker's
they could find, the kind-hearted doc-
tor arranged for all the business and
ceremonial formalities of the occa-
sion, telling the necropomp to send
him the bill.
On their way home Adrian told
the doctor about the picture he bad
secured.
" Yes," was the answer ; " you
heard the poor child ask for Billy ?
Her very last words. It was a
strange enough coincidence, that after
132
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
the son had ruined her, the mother
should kill her ! Yet it came very
naturally, too ; a mere mistake
about delivering the message. Wo-
men must have — at least, a good
many of them must — somebody to
love. If they have nobody, they
make one. That poor child, now,
loved that miserable young beast —
beg your pardon, Mr. Chester, but
it 's true — with all her heart.
Never saw a lovelier little thing in all
my life — a little sewing-girl she was
— than she was four years ago, when
she first came crying to me to help
her in her shame. I would n't do
what she wanted, but I tried to help
her. She went desperate, however,
as the sensitive ones are likely to. I
could n't do anything for her. There
was some pretty rough villany of
some kind, for her health broke down
at the same time, just as she jumped
overboard into the street. My God !
I wish such a man could inflict noth-
ing except what he had to endure
himself ! " And the benevolent phy-
sician groaned in mingled anger and
pity. Adrian quietl}- took the picture
out of his pocket, and tearing it into
small bits, sprinkled it out into the
street.
AVheu the}* had returned to Dr.
Veroil's office, Adrian took his leave,
and once more set out for Mr. But-
ton's, now, indeed, only one or two
blocks away. But whether for fear
of being questioned by the ladies
about his presence .with Dr. Veroil,
or for some other reason, he certainly
sought excuses in his own mind for
not going directly thither. As ex-
cuses are not as scarce as diamonds,
any more than they are as* valuable,
it was not long before he remembered
that Mrs. and Miss Button would
have none too much time to get ready
for church ; and he accordingly turned
his steps with deliberation towards
the Reverend Mr. Toomston's church,
purposing to attend divine service
there, and then to go home with
his friends to dinner.
The church in question was one of
those shrewd real-estate investments
whose success may be supposed to
have furnished to the operators that
contentment without which, the
apostle seems to imply, godliness is
not much of a gain (I Tim. vi, 6).
Its site had been judiciously made so
large as to include one or two even
lots by wa}* of churclryard, over and
above both the church itself and the
adjoining parsonage. Thus the rise
in real estate in that very aristocratic
part of the city was certain, whenever
the time of removal should come
(really it would be a great saving if
they would build New York churches
on wheels), to secure to the society,
which of course paid no taxes on its
real estate, another excellent building
lot, and probably plentj- of money
besides to put up a new church and
also to establish a church fund. The
edifice, as becomes a Calvinistic
organization of the stricter sort,
was a very elaborate and magnificent
structure of white marble. Church
interiors are nowadays mostly on
one of three plans : the jail plan, very
gloomy and cold ; the town-hall plan,
like a barn with benches ; or the par-
lor plan, a comfortable room with
seats for listening to a friend's dis-
course. Doctor Toomston's church
was a parlor, a little jailed. That is,
it was splendidly upholstered, painted,
and decorated, as a ritualist — beg
pardon, a strictly Calvinist — church
is directed in the New Testament to
be ; but the rich, dark, stained glass
windows, very heaviby mullioned and
deeply set in the thick walls, and the
dark colors which prevailed in all the
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
133
interior finishing, greatly obscured
what would have been the effect if the
large and well-proportioned room had
been finished, say, in white and gra}*,
or white and lavender, with a very
few high lights, and a very few dark
lines, and with plain glass windows.
Adrian, entering, was accosted by
a white waistcoat and accoutrements,
with a trig yet serious young man
inside of it, who, by one of those
irresistible improprieties that some-
times torment the most devout, re-
minded the visitor of the undertaker
at a fashionable funeral, but who, on
request, politely escorted him through
the gloom of the great building to
Mr. Button's pew (the fifth from the
front, middle aisle, right hand as you
go up). It was just in time, as it
happened ; and Mr. Button himself,
sitting next the pew door, looked
round as the usher touched his shoul-
der ; arose, bowed silently and grave-
ly, motioned Adrian to enter, and
then resumed his own place. Mrs.
Button was already at her post, the
inner end of the pew ; Mr. William
Button was next, and Miss Ann Ja-
cintha Button next, so that the hap-
py Adrian was between his intended
spouse and his intended father-in-law.
Short of heaven, few positions can be
imagined more delightful.
The service was the usual one : two
psalms or hymns, short prayer and
long prayer, and a sermon. "A ser-
mon," says some scoffer, " is that part
of divine service which does not
consist of the worship of God." How
can it, indeed? Worship goes up,
sermons come down. The worship
of God must be addressed to God ;
sermons are addressed to men.
" My text, on the present occa-
sion," said good Doctor Toomston,
erecting his long and bony figure in
the sacred desk, after the second
the First Psalm, — " will be found in
the Second Epistle of Paul to the
Corinthians, sixth chapter, part of
the fourteenth verse : ' Be }"e not
unequally yoked together with un-
believers.' "
It is a great pity that there is not
room for a full verbatim report of
this sound and seasonable discourse.
But as there is not, a very few hints
must suffice. The main point argued
by the doctor was, the incompatibil-
ity of the objects in life — and in
death — of the Christian and of the
sinner ; and from this he concluded
that the psalmist and the apostle to
the Gentiles both taught, agreeably,
moreover, to common-sense, that
there should be a distinct wall of
separation between them. This wall,
of course, was church membership.
The practical application was an ur-
gent appeal to those already in the
church, to let their walk and conver-
sation show their heavenly calling ;
so that " men should take knowl-
edge of them," quoted the preacher,
" that they had been with Jesus."
The discourse, as a whole, seemed
to Adrian, from the very beginning,
conventional, monotonous, and unim-
pressive. But he reflected that he
had heard just such sermons twice a
day on nearly every Sunday since he
could remember ; and with a natural
instinct for complete judgments, he
set himself to fiud the good of it
also. This was easy to find ; the
sermon was translucent with sincere
and unconditional piety, faith, and
love. Merit enough, said Adrian to
himself. How can it be so lifeless
to me? Am I a vessel of Avrath,
fitted to destruction, — created on
purpose to be damned for the glory
of God? "Ah, I have found it,"
he said in a moment ; " these good
134
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
qualities are the doctor's own, and
they ' shine up ' his theolog}-. Let
me read that sermon in print," — and
in spite of him, the irreverent com-
parison of Doctor Veroil popped into
his mind, about putting religion into
theological expressions.
There were, moreover, divers mat-
ters connected with the sermon which
had for Adrian much interest. As
he listened to one dry conventional
phrase after another, he kept admir-
ing the parallelism between the per-
fectly sufficient sense, clearness, and
even noticeable strength and cogency
of the statements, all, nevertheless,
utterly without grace, eloquence, or
proportion, and the personal appear-
ance and bearing of the speaker :
strong, homely, manly enough, but
perfect in a long and wooden ungrace-
fulness, which, if it had been con-
scious, would have been awkwardness
even to agon}'. Then, he observed
how exclusively the sermon was ad-
dressed to Christians ; insomuch that
he caught himself repeating a varia-
tion on a text — "This is a faithful
saying, and worthy of all acceptation,
that Christ Jesus came into the world
to save Christians — ■ of whom ive are
chief;" and again, "For I am not
come to call sinners, but the righteous,
to repentance." This sentiment oc-
casioned him, however, an astonish-
ment all at once, when, at the very
end of his discourse, the good old
doctor, as if he had suddenly re-
membered that there was a sinner or
two left, seemed to throw over a buoy
into the dark waves of their guilt for
them to catch if they could, while he
sailed triumphantly away to glory
with his shipful of Christians. He
diverged, to speak without figures,
into a brief appeal to sinners, by way
of appendix or vermiform process ;
begiuning with the words, " And
now, a few words to you, my impeni-
tent hearers, if any such be present,"
— and proceeding in sentences of
admonition and warning, that, like a
good deal of the previous discourse,
seemed to have been used over and
oyer before, as they build second-
hand bricks into a new wall. Still
more observable was an indescribable
tone or sentiment or something, which
seemed to Adrian as if the doctor was
saying to himself, "It won't do a bit
of good — you'll be damned airvhow,
but it's proper and usual to sa} r some-
thing of this kind, so, here ! " Adri-
an's own reflection was, that Christ
used to begin with these same poor
fellows, the sinners.
Less excusable were the observa-
tions which Adrian made upon the
gestures of the preacher. It was not
that the divine seemed out of place.
Quite otherwise ; he .always seemed
out of place anywhere else. What it
was could not easily have been stated
in words ; but there was certainly
something, in spite of all his homeli-
ness and woodenness of motion, that
impressed the hearer with the feeling
that the sacred desk was the only
proper place for him ; one might even
fancy that he lived there, like an ar-
tificial man in his show-box. But his
gestures were so original, so queer, so
unexpected. In vain would 3-011 search
for them in any book, or watch for
them in any concourse or resort of
orators. Indeed, certain of these ma-
noeuvres were almost contortions, as
if the worthy doctor were wrestling
desperately with some great thought,
in his intense desire to body it forth
through motion ; insomuch that Adri-
an secretly indulged in a few hasty-
sketches of two or three of them on
a fly-leaf of the hymn-book. Two
shall be given here. Perhaps they
may be the beginning of a wholly
Scrape i or, The Lost Library.
135
new school of pulpit gesture and ex-
pression — who knows ? Toomston
is as good a name as Delsarte, any
day. The first of these (see Fig. 1)
illustrated a striking comparison used
\)j the doctor in the course of his ap-
peal for the Christian life. He was
enlarging upon the trifling and tran-
sitory nature of this life, and the
uncertainty and blindness in which
we poor human beings flit as it were
to and fro in dark and purposeless
waj'S ; and wound up a period with
the words, " We glide vainly hither
and thither, like little fishes within
the Stream of Time." At these words,
holding forth his large and bony hands
in the very fish-like attitude of Fig. 1,
he brandished them back and forth
from the shoulder, past each other,
with an indescribable furious angu-
larity, which the cut cannot show at
all, but even more wonderfully op-
posed to the flexible, swift ease of a
same time pictured forth with the
following noble manual diagram (see
Fig. 2), but dancing the two fingers
thus daintily conjoined up and down
at arms' end, before the audience, in a
manner that greatly strengthened the
impression, and which, as before, the
cut, most unfortunately, cannot give.
Fig. 1. Little Fishes.
fish's movements, than were the rug-
ged outlines of the hands themselves,
to the subtle, sinuous grace of a fish's
form. Again, in setting forth, by way
of contrast to this vain and unprofit-
able activity, the steady progress of
the consistent Christian, from one
grade of spiritual attainment to an-
other, he enforced the assei'tion of the
final splendor of the believer's glory,
at the end of the laborious ascent, in
the words " until at last he attains
unto the stature of perfect upright-
ness," which uprightness he at the
Fig. 2. Perfect Uprightness.
A third almost equally stirring
ppeal, was that in the afterthought
to impenitent friends, where he cried
out to the young men that were rush-
ing to destruction, displaying at the
same time a full front elevation
of both hands as if to push the
foolish fellows back again, " Pause,
young men, pause ! " A laugh that
rises in church is always awfully
hard to stifle ; Adrian had to pretend
to cough, and covered his mouth
with one hand, and managed not to be
openly indecent ; he heard Mr. William
Button snigger at the same moment.
Instead of filing slowly out along
with ordinary people when the service
was over and the benediction pro-
nounced, Mr. Button and his family
sat still until all that part of the
church was almost empty. Then
Dr. Toomston came gravely down
from the sacred desk, and greeted
several persons who had lingered
near out of friendship or on some
Sunday errand. Then Mr. Button
arose, he and all his house, and stood
in a group in the aisle, and the doc-
tor came and talked with them.
136
Scrope; or y The Lost Library,
PART VII.
CHAPTER XX.
Evert first-class New York capi-
talist keeps a tame minister. Mr.
Button, who meant to rank as high
as lie could in his vocation, had
with judicious foresight, provided this
amongst his other apparatus. Dr.
Toomston, it is true, did not see the
matter in this light. How should
he ? All that he, or anj'body else
unfamiliar with financiering, could
have seen, was, the shrewd, ener-
getic, successful conduct of Mr. But-
ton in organizing and maintaining
..he church. Further than this, the
doctor was onlv the beloved pastor ;
petted, waited on, endowed with
manj' gifts, regularly carried home
to dinner every Sunday to hear his
sermon and himself and his church
and all their doings talked over and
praised. None the less was the good
old doctor an instrument of the long-
headed business man. For Mr. But-
ton, besides his love of money, nour-
ished another ambition. He wanted
fame and office, and within some ten
or fifteen 3-ears he meant to have
them, too ; and he knew full well that
next to being an eminent Sunday-
school superintendent, nothing what-
ever is a better basis for great enter-
prises, either in money or in politics,
than being the premier member of a
church.
The house of Button never rode on
the Sabbath. Not to be superstitious
affectation of a cold-meat dinner was
not practised ; indeed, the meal was
commonly a little bit of a feast. Mr.
Button had a good deal of that sort
of hospitality which often goes with
a vigorous digestion, a full pocket,
and an ambition of popularity. He
almost always fed his tame minister
at his Sunda} r dinner, as they feed
the wild beasts on public days ; and
he kept out a standing invitation to
Mr. Van Braam and Civille and to
Dr. Veroil. The former two came
quite often, the doctor veiy seldom.
To-day they were all present ; the
physician, perhaps, proposing to do
something or to see something which
might serve him in whatever he pro-
posed in behalf of Civille.
With small delay — for this house-
hold was well ordered — 'the dinner
was served. It was a bounteous and
toothsome meal, and well garnished
and supplemented by conversation ;
for the Americans are neither like
those old beasts of classic heroes,
who, like so man}' Esquimaux, with
blubber pared off even with their
lips, could not speak until " the sa-
cred rage of hunger was appeased,"
nor like a boa-constrictor, who, after
eating, cannot sa^y a word until he
has digested the goat he has gorged.
There was plenty of talk, aud it
meant something. And it was a
noticeable company, and pretty cu-
riously assorted, too, both mentally
and physically. Mr. Button himself
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
137
sat at the head of the table and
his spouse at the foot. Mrs. Button
and her daughter were alike enough
for their relationship, and different
enough for the difference in their
blood. The mother was a tall per-
son, somewhat bony and wooden-
looking, swarthy of skin, with harsh,
large features, great, cold, strong
black eyes, under strong black brows,
and abundant and rather coarse hair,
erst coal-black, now fast turning gray.
Despising dyes, she disposed of this,
in part, in three rolls, or horizontal
curls, of a cast-iron appearance, —
for they were iron-gray of color and
iron-hard of look, — at either side
of her face. The rest was decently
covered by a plain cap. Her fore-
head was rather low and narrow, but
full in the lower centre, as much
as to say : I am quick-witted, un-
imaginative, practical, and not kind-
hearted ; if I do any charity, for in-
stance, it is on business principles.
But the chief emphasis of the face
was laid upcm the nose, which was
big, too thick at the tip, and pinched
and lifted inward at ,the wings of the
nostrils, as if by a final jerk with
thumb and finger by the sculptor of
the face ; so that two strong marks
or creases were left diverging down-
wards past the ends of the mouth.
As the good lady was of the Goo-
kin family, she had, along with their
other qualities, their well-known per-
sistency of character : a kind of per-
severance of the saints, in that sense
which means incapacity for receiving
new impressions. This appeared, for
instance, equally in two very dissim-
ilar things : her theology and her
manners. Both remained without
perceptible modification from what
they had been in the rustic home of
her father, old Gookin the distiller,
in the ancient town of Windsor in
Connecticut. The manners were those
of the Gookins, — no more need be
said. The theology may be described
by a chemical metaphor, as Gookin-
ate of Calvinism. It had the uncom-
promising rigidity of the stern old
minister of her youth, who, if possi-
ble more unchangeable still, repre-
sented almost as a mirror an extreme
Edwardeanism. This, stiffened by
his own iron will, had stiffened still
more in the mind of Miss Gookin,
which, with still less breadth than
the old pastor's, had also even less
capacity, if possible, for growth or
change.
Ann and Civille sat together. They
had come down-stairs together from
the parlor to the basement dining-
room, walking next before Adrian
and Dr. Veroil, their arms round
each other's waists, according to the
loving ways of 3'oung girls some-
times, whether they love each other
or not. Adrian had been watching
them, without meaning to, — as is
the natural action of intense perceiv-
ers ; and as his mind jjfas of that
class that instinctively sees things
by couples or groups, and discerns
resemblances and differences, he had
noticed the difference in their figures
and movements. Civille's "shoulders
were sloping ; Ann's were no broad-
er, perhaps narrower, but square.
Among a hundred square-shouldered
women there will be found more who
are coarse-grained and vulgar than
among a hundred with sloping shoul-
ders. Civille's form was round, Ann's
fiat. Civille's step was undulating,
easy ; the volitional, gliding motion
of a goddess. Ann's was a hitch ;
she walked like a saw-horse. But
all the same, — Adrian noticed this
also, — they moved their inside feet
together. This is a great mystery.
"Why is it that two women almost
138
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
always keep step in that way? Two
men walking together put out the
two left feet together, and then the
two right ; but two women put out
the two inside feet, then the two out-
side. Wiry is it?
" Why is it? " asked Adrian, soft-
ly, of the doctor.
" For the same reason that makes
them alwa} T s step on or oif a street
car with the wrong foot," replied the
physician, " and take hold with the
wrong hand at the same time. They
are never taught to handle them-
selves. It 's one of women's wrongs."
They sat down at table. The faces
of the two young women, as they sat
together opposite Adrian, formed
even a more striking contrast than
their figures and motions. Girdle's
face — so pale and clear-hued ; so
quiet, refined, and sweet ; lighted by
the large, soft, thoughtful gray eyes
— suggested to Adrian, by some
hidden train of associations, a dis-
tant night-view he had once seen of
a lofty white marble building illu-
minated. The light, whatever it
was, was a little ros}^, and throbbed
and glimmered ; and at the dis-
tance, as he well remembered, the
effect was, not as of stone lighted
from without, but as of a mysterious
living thing, all instinct and puls-
ing with a fulness of silent, gleam-
ing light from within itself, — a liv-
ing; white light, rose-tinted.
It was his betrothed who sat next
Civiile, and nearly opposite him. No
matter : he could not, for all that,
help it, that as he looked at them the
thought came into his mind — "Light
and Darkness." Miss Button's face
was low-browed, the forehead being
modelled after her mother's ; not low-
browed like the lovely Clytie, because
abundant hair grew low upon the
head, but because the brain-pan was
shallow and flat above. It was nar-
nower, too, than her mother's ; so
that, with about the same quickness
and sharpness of mere perceptive in-
tellect, the daughter had even less
indication of the combining and re-
flecting mental faculties. Of the still
higher range which phrenology so
beautifully describes as towering
above even the philosophic part of
the intellect, — of ideality, and its
related spiritual powers at either
hand, with benevolence for the key-
stone in the midst above, — of this
Ann's front head was almost as des-
titute as if the layers of brain had
been shaved off. Adrian was a be-
liever, not only in the mental analysis
which belongs to phrenolog,y, and
which has quietly become accepted
even by its opponents, solely because
it is so true, but also to a considerable
extent in the corresponding doctrine
of regions of the brain ; and, indeed,
he habitually used this doctrine to
aid him in judgments of character.
The contrast between the two girls
flashed upon him all at once after
j-ears in which he might have seen it,
as is often the case with even the
most striking of contrasts, and to
the quickest of perceivers. Proba-
bly, it is true, they had never been
displayed to him so closely together.
Certainly, he had never been placed
near the couple with such a close and
living sense of having a relation with
each of them. The contrast between
the soft glowing light and life, the
spiritual sweetness of the one expres-
sion, and the close and almost sullen
look of the other, shone upon the
young man's mind, sensitive beyond
the common average to impressions,
already stirred and stimulated by
the morning's experiences beyond
its own usual vividness of perception ;
this consciousness shone or rather
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
139
flashed upon him with a stroke so
sharp that he absolutely started and
shut his eyes, as if smitten by a too
sudden sunlight. He looked again,
discerning the forms and colors and
the characters they denoted, too, in
this intensity of perceiving, with such
a power of seeing that he almost felt
as if he ought not to look. Civille,
indeed, in a moment, felt him ; and
lifted her eyes and looked at him
with a surprised glance, and then
with a smile, as much as to say :
" What — you are looking at me, are
you ! Well, look : man, and God,
may see all my thoughts." But Ann
did not feel nor know what Adrian
was about.
So he beheld with a sense of dis-
pleasure, which made him feel very
wicked at experiencing it, the traits
of his chosen. Her narrow forehead
seemed to grow narrower ; her com-
plexion and her black hair looked so
;oarse beside the exceptional silky
and satiny texture of Civille's hair
and cheek ; her black eyes, sharp and
bead} 7 and rather sunken, almost
went out of sight beside those of
Civille, large, limpid, and so clear
that they seemed full of a light of
their own ; her nose, always short
and small, — it had missed both the
largeness of her mother's, and the
goodly solidity of her father's, —
became a positive snub before him ;
her lips, rather thin, and with a posi-
tive set in them, seemed to grip ; her
black brows frowned. Both the young
women were too thin in flesh. Adrian
was not reasoning, while thus expe-
riencing spontaneous intuition, and
therefore he did not conclude with
his judgment, although it impressed
him, that while Civille only needed
good health to become singularly per-
fect in form, Ann, on the other side,
had already lost even the measure of
youthful roundness which she had
possessed, had even now begun what
must, with her, be a long and un-
broken declension through degrees
of skinniness.
Not with repulsion, but with a feel-
ing of guilt for being capable of
seeing her defects, did Adrian thus
behold. And as he saw upon Miss
Button's finger the plain gold ring he
had given her a year or two before,
he felt for the first time that he was
held. Losing recollection for a mo-
ment, he said aloud, in an unconscious
way, —
" Ah ! Number Eleven ! "
Ann started, blushed, and looked
across at her lover with distinct dis-
pleasure. He, recovering himself,
begged a thousand pardons ; but she
did not look satisfied. He had of-
fended one of her deepest instincts
— that of concealing. On the inside
of her ring, w T hen he gave it to her,
Adrian had caused to be engraved a
fanciful, perhaps even fantastic, de-
vice, being no other than the four
words of the last clause but one in
the twentieth verse of the twenty-first
chapter of the Revelation : " The
eleventh, A. Jacinth." This he had
never told except to her ; she loved
secrets ; he had frequently called her
his number eleven, besides pretty
things about her being his own special
jewelled w r ay to heaven, and the like.
And in this inopportune moment
he had so nearly told the whole to
this company ! It was a deeper
offence than he knew ; and hers was
not a mind to forget offences.
In this company were curious op-
positions and agreements. Dr. Toom-
ston represented an old-fashioned,
trained, somewhat scholarly Calvin-
ist theology. Mrs. Button and Ann
the same, but with prejudice and ig-
norance, and natural hardness and
140
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
obstinacy, in place of a sincerely
convinced reason. In Civille was a
spiritual religion, but without sect,
undervaluing and neglecting form,
and tending to unmeasured avowal
and unreasoning and unconditional
self-sacrifice. Her father's religion
was as hers, but colored by his mys-
ticist tendency, and usually hidden
under natural habits of silent medi-
tation and shy concealment of the
deepest thoughts, and under the fur-
ther cover that the experience of an
undervalued soul had taught him to
use a cover of half-sarcastic, half-
paradoxical quasi denials and que-
ries. Adrian's religion had neither
Civille's unmeasured demonstrative-
ness, nor her father's inverted, sad
secretiveness. It was, perhaps, as
thorough-going and as deep ; but the
strength and activity of his vivid
health and youth made it his proper
office at present to pursue after and
accomplish things to be done, more
than to experience sentiments or ex-
press views. All these six may be
reckoned Christians, after some fash-
ion. As for the rest, hardly. Mr.
Button was a man of business. Dr.
Veroil was a doctor. Mr. William
Button, . Not that the condi-
tions in life of these three were
necessarily inconsistent with the
Christian profession or practice ;
only, as a matter of fact, they had
them not.
The}- talked, beginning thus : —
Mr. Button. {Rapping thrice, sol-
emnly, with his knife-handle upon the
table.) " Doctor, will 3-ou ask a bles-
sing ? "
Dr. Toomston. (Closing his eyes,
and stretching forth his right hand to
a great distance among the dishes, as
if feeling for something to be thankful
for, and holding it with the thumb
erect and fingers extended.) "Our.
Father who art in Heaven, bless unto
us, we beseech thee, and consecrate
unto tlry glory all that we have and
do, and in an especial manner this
thy holy day, and bless and sanctify
unto us at this time the provisions
which thy bounty spreadeth here be-
fore us, and may the same and all
thy other loving-kindnesses unto us
be improved to thy honor and glor}'.
Amen."
Mr. Button. (Carving and dis
tributing the turkey ivith skill and
judgment.) " Mother, give Dr. Toom-
ston plenty of gravy. Dr. Veroil, 3-ou
like the second jint. You 're a sur-
geon, so I '11 let you git that side-
bone off 3'ourself, — rather 3-011 M be
a-cuttin' off the turkey's legs than
mine, any day. Adrian, what part '11
3-ou have ? "
Adrian. (Preoccupied.) "I've no
choice."
Mr. Button. " Wal, then here 's
the neck. Oilers choose somethin'
yourself, young man, or somebod3 T '11
make a miss choice for ye. Ha, ha !
But I '11 allow 3'e a good slice of the
breast to make out with."
It is impracticable, however, to
report the conversation in full at
this time, interesting as it was. It
began, after the distributive intro-
duction, with observations on the dis-
course of the morning, and diverged
variously from the main theme of
Christian separatism, sometimes to
topics having a distinctly secular
character. At such times, however,
if no one else returned to the order
of the day, Mrs. Button did, charging
straight " across lots," if necessary ;
and once with the plain remark, in
reply to certain words of Adrian's,
in which she apprehended a mirthful
quality,—
" There, there ! . This is frivolous.
We can occupy ourselves, I trust,
Scrojye; or, The Lost Library.
141
with move serious thoughts on this
sacred day."
"But, my dear madam," respond-
ed Adrian, " mirthfulness is not ne-
cessarily frivolous. And we are
ordered to rejoice before the Lord,
and to be noisy about it, too ; to make
a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing
praise."
" I fear, nry .young friend, that 3-ou
are in danger of being, not merely
frivolous, but irreverent," said Doc-
tor Toomston, from very high up in
the sacred desk.
Mr. Van Braam replied, — rather
to the surprise of the compan}', —
and interrupting Adrian, who was
about to speak : —
"Stop, Adrian — I'm older than
Doctor Toomston, and he may couple
me with you if he wants to. God
made kittens and monkeys on pur-
pose to be funny. They are God's
laughter. God made mirthful young
people too. Laughter is in God as
much as weeping, and I believe a
great deal more. I have heard that
Professor Agassiz has notes for' a
book, to be called ' God as a joker.'"
Here an awful groan from Mrs.
Button, and ungodly mirth — as it
seemed to the horrified lady — from
the doctor of medicine. But the doc-
tor of divinity was not at all dis-
mayed, replying with awful grav-
ity :-
" I have no intention of conde-
scending to argue in support of the se-
rious observance of the Sabbath day,
or of a decent respect for either the
ordinances or the ministers of God."
This was prett} r terrible, and
something like a thunder-cloud set-
tled over the dinner-table for a few
moments, in the midst of which
Doctor Veroil, with the eye next
Mr. Button, but farthest from Mrs.
Button, winked upon Adrian. But
he " caught it" in his turn, and once
more from an unexpected quarter.
It was Mr. William Button this time
who spoke, saying : —
" 'A naughty person, a wicked
man, walketh with a froward mouth.
He winketh with his eyes, he speaketh
with his feet, he teacheth with his
fingers.' "
" What do 3 t ou mean by that, Wil-
liam?" said his mother, severely. " I
wish 3*011 would practise the precepts
of the Scriptures, instead of repeat-
ing them. ' This people draweth nigh
to me with their mouth,' — 3-011 have
been trained enough in them, I'm
sure."
Then Dr. Veroil said, —
" That walking with your mouth
is rather like an octopus, isn't it?
And if it 's so naughty to teach with
your fingers, where have good Mr.
Gallaudet and Dr. Peet gone to, now
that they are dead ? "
" Come, come," ordered Mr. But-
ton, with good-natured peremptori-
nes% ; "none o' this scuffiin'. I ain't
a-goin' to have Dr. Toomston talked
back to in my house any more 'n
if he stood in his own pulpit. There 's
plent}^ o' things ye can all agree on,
and now agree on some on em ! "
So they did, and explanations
were made and accepted all round.
But the host himself came near get-
ting into trouble a little afterwards,
when they were talking again of the
theory of the church's relation to sin-
ners ; for he thus adventured himself
in the china-shop of polemic theol-
ogj r in an attempt to sum up : —
" Seems to me, as 3-011 're a-puttin'
it, the hull thing comes down to
this, don't it ? — the church is either
a trap, or a safe. Either it's a trap
to ketch sinners in and convert 'em
afterwards, jest as they ketch a rat
and then drownd him in a pail o'
142
Scrojje; or, The Lost Library.
water at their leisure ; or else it 's a
fire-proof safe, to sbet up the mem-
bers after 3*011 've got 'em converted,
jest like so many convertible securi-
ties, so to speak, all indorsed and
payable to bearer, so's to have 'em
all snug where thieves and sinners
can't get no chance at 'em at all to
spile 'em nor steal 'em ? "
Dr. Toomston shook his head, in
grave doubts as to such figures of
speech. Mrs. Button, with more de-
cision, warned her spouse that while
he might not injui'e his own beliefs
by such worldly comparisons, they
would assuredly not be used to edifi-
cation by younger and less firmly
settled minds. He should rather,
she added, exhort the young men to
be sober-minded, and thus be an ex-
ample to the believers. This whole-
some counsel was received b}* Dr.
Toomston with a smile and an ap-
proving nod, and by Mr. Button with
silence and with acquiescence due ;
for he felt that he had probably a
little erred.
A number of other important
topics came up in the course of the
conversation, on all of which there
were visible two parties or sets of
beliefs among the company. These
parties may perhaps be called the
Faith party and the Reason party.
The latter urged that their reasoning
method led directly to all the useful
conclusion which the Faith party
ass'erted ; that they did not weaken
faith, but directly and powerfully
reinforced it ; that, for instance, the
exercise of prayer, the use of the
Bible, the belief in an overruling
providence, the acknowledgment and
the love of a Redeemer, were no less
faithful and consoling and elevating,
if the believer in them found him-
self able to receive them with the
intellect as well as with the heart.
They even suggested that the prog-
ress of humanity was and must be,
and could not but be other than in-
tellectual, at least as much as emo-
tional and instinctive ; and that
therefore it agreed with history that
reason should be added to faith just
as fast as mankind became wiser and
better. But the Faith party would
not hear. Figurative!}*, they cast
the reasoners out of the sjmagogue,
declaring that their reasoning was
unsanctified, unregenerate, and sin-
ful ; an unholy intrusion of the nat-
ural man into the office and place set
apart for the children of the kingdom ;
that those who presumed to support
the ark of God must risk the fate
of Uzzah. So iron and obstinate
and uncompromising was the stiff-
ness of these denunciations, particu-
larly by the two ladies of that part,
most of all b}* Mrs. Button, that
the}' seemed excessive in their strict-
ness, even to the mind of Mr. Button
himself, not very keen nor discrim-
inating in such spiritual matters,
however much it might be so where
the mammon of unrighteousness was
to be propitiated. He accordingly
intervened more than once against
the followers of his pastor rather
than against the pastor himself, ob-
serving, finally, to the excommuni-
cated : —
" Now, you hold }*our tongues !
Don't you see that argument slides
off them women like rain off a duck's
back ? I do' no as I foller ye alto-
gether ; but I can see there 's some
reason on your side as well as theirn ;
but don't you see that the more you
beat 'em the less they '11 know it and
the madder they'll git? Mother '11
be a-cuttin' your throats with a case-
knife if you don't look out ; and now,
I won't hear one single word more of
theology ; not one word ; jest shet
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
143
right up, the hull on ye ! Dr. Toom-
ston, what 's the subject of your talk
to the Sunday-school children this
afternoon ? "
This judicious diversion cut a
pretty hard knot. The proposed
lecture, it seemed, was to be on the
Canaanite campaigns of Chedorla-
omer ; and the good doctor devel-
oped some very valuable views — for
Sunday-school children — about the
extremely horrid wickedness of those
pagans of the vale of Siddim and
thereabouts, about B. C. 2,000, and
the justice of their consequent sub-
jugation by another pagan, perhaps
as horridly wicked.
The remainder of the Sunday was
passed by Adrian in improving con-
versation with his friends, or in at-
tendance along with them upon the
stated preaching of the gospel, and
(during the afternoon) within the
precincts of the Sunday school. Here
the good doctor's views on Chedor-
laomer were duly set forth by way of
a dessert or confectionery, after the
solid or scholastic part of the exer-
cises was over. Thus it came to
pass, that when Adrian went home to
his bed he was pretty well tired.
CHAPTER XXI.
The Sabbath — the rest — may be
on Sunday as well as on Saturday.
For schoolboys, the real rest is Satur-
day afternoon. The minister's Sab-
bath is on Monday ; Monday is his
rest. If he is a wise minister, by the
way, he will be sure to devote it with
a peculiar exclusiveness to secular
things. He will find a singular re-
newing and strengthening to come
from this resolute wrenching of him-
self away, for one day in each week,
from his professional labors. "Whether
Dr. Toomston would have stated this
rule exactly in this way, maj be
doubted. He acted on it, however,
and accordingly he readily accepted
Mr. Button's invitation to attend
with him on the next day, Monday,
the meeting of the proposed Scrope
Association, which was held in a
sufficient hired apartment, in the lat-
ter part of the forenoon. Present :
Mr. Button and his famiby, and Dr.
Toomston ; Mr. and Miss Van Braam ;
Adrian ; Scrope of Scrope, and his
friend Mr. Bird, the police reporter ;
Mr. Adam Welles ; Mr. Stanley, the
East Hartford antiquarian and col-
lector, and his friend Mr. Purvis,
the book-dealer ; and some score or
more of other persons, mostly of a
rustic exterior, who were, or supposed
themselves, Scrope descendants, and
who had been drummed up by the
indefatigable advertising and corres-
pondence of Mr. Scrope.
When the company was seated,
there was a kind of pause for a mo-
ment ; and then Mr. Scrope arose,
and just as if he had been a ward
politician all his life, moved that
Tarbox Button, Esq. , of New York,
take the chair ; put the motion, and
had the capitalist presiding within
five seconds. Being then in turn
called upon by the chairman, Mr.
Scrope, without nearly as much of
the haw-haw style as might have
been apprehended, opened to the
meeting the matters for which it had
been called together, in a business-
like speech, some portions of which
have been already stated, in sub-
stance, as follows : —
Colonel Adrian Scroope the Regi-
cide was executed in the year 16G0.
He left a son and two younger broth-
ers. The son came to America,
where he changed his name to Throop,
and became the ancestor of a con-
siderable number of descendants, all
144
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
through female lines, however, so
that his name was extinct, although
his blood survived. Now, whatever
estate Colonel Scroope possessed,
was confiscated. But the large fam-
ily estate in Buckinghamshire was
still at his death in the possession
of his father, a very old man, who
at his death left a considerable por-
tion of it vested in trust for the use
of his grandson in America. This,
the speaker was advised, was still
within the reach of the heirs-general
of Adrian Scroope of Hartford, if
they chose to pursue the proper legal
measures. The rest of this Bucking-
hamshire estate was left by the will
of its aged owner in equal shares to
his two 3'ounger sons. Of these two,
the elder left heirs, and the estate
had remained in the same family
until some thirty-five 3-ears ago, or
a little more, when its last possessor
of the Scroope blood died intes-
tate.
The speaker himself, Scrope of
Scrope, was, he said, descended from
the younger of these two brothers,
the youngest of the three, who was
as staunch a loyalist as the colonel
was a republican. And, he observed
here, he would proceed to recite to
them a well-established tradition
which they might not all of them
have heard, and which would still
further interest them in the steadfast
and lofty character of Colonel Adrian
the Regicide. It may, perhaps, he
continued, be considered less credit-
able to my own ancestor, Colonel
Adrian's loyalist nephew ; but after
all it only implies loyalty at the
worst, and surely loyalty is not
. altogether vile at this day in the
eyes of the citizens of the North.
(Applause.) The story, continued
the speaker, is told in Cauliield's
"■ Ilicch Court of Justice," in the bio-
graphical account of Colonel Adrian
the Regicide, and is as follows : —
" Colonel Scroop's nephew, visit-
ing him in his dungeon the night be-
fore he suffered, said to him, ' Uncle,
I am sorry to see you in this condi-
tion, and would$desire you to repent
of the fact for which 3*011 are brought
hither, and stand to the king's mercy.'
and more words to the same effect.
Whereupon, Colonel Scroop put forth
his hand and thrust him away, using
these words : ' Avoid, Satan ! ' "
This, as you know, said Scrope of
Scrope, meant the same with our
Saviour's words to the tempter :
" Get thee behind me " ; and they
prove a fearless composure and im-
pregnable uprightness most worthy
of the ancestor of so man}* good
Puritans and respectable American
citizens. (Applause.)
Having thus very neatly compli-
mented the audience into good humor
on the principle which theologians
call imputation, the speaker went on
to develop more fully the practical
part of the subject. The property,
which might otherwise have descend-
ed to himself, as the representative
of the younger of the three Scrope
brethren, had been expended two cen-
turies ago in the cause of the king.
That of Colonel Adrian could not fall
to him (the speaker) except by fail-
ure of the lineage of Adrian ; and
neither could the propert}* of the in-
testate representative of the second
brother. His object, he would frankly
avow, was in part to obtain some
money ; if he should turn out to be
the lawful heir of the two separate
unclaimed Scrope estates, to get pos-
session of them ; if not, as he really
believed was the case, then to earn
something by acting as agent to se-
cure the property for those who were
its heirs, whom, he believed, he now
saw (in part) before him. (Applause.)
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
145
What he, therefore, wished to do,
was, to form an association, by the
signing of the names of the audience,
and others entitled, to a proper in-
strument. Such signature should be
attended with a small cash subscrip-
tion to.be paid to him as the author-
ized agent of the association ; and
which would thus place him in a
position to prosecute the necessary
researches, and set on foot the requi-
site legal proceedings in England ;
and each person thus signing was to
receive a corresponding share of the
proceeds of the estate whenever se-
cured.
Mr. Scrope then read from one of
a handful of pamphlets the form of
an association such as he desired to
suggest, and exhibited a blank man-
uscript copy of the same, ready for
signing ; and he added, that the story
of that very pamphlet, issued by the
"Jennings Association," in the year
1863, and still more strikingly, the
story of the " Wilson Association "
(which he also displayed from the
parcel of similar pamphlets in his
hands), proved — yes, it might safe-
ly be said, j^'oved — that investiga-
tions of a similar nature in behalf of
American heirs of English estates,
had been more than once pushed to
an extent, and with prospects, that
had occasioned such proceedings in
England as showed a great deal of
terror and some very strange proceed-
ings, to say the least, among the hold-
ers of vast estates there.
If it should be the pleasure of the
assembby to form such an associa-
tion, and to authorize and enable
him to manage their enterprise, he
concluded it would gratify at once
his desire to earn a livelihood, his
natural love of seeing the right pre-
vail, and his powerful instinct of
family pride ; and, he might be per-
mitted to add, as he looked upon the
intelligent faces of these his worthy
kinsmen and kinswomen of three
thousand miles and five or six de-
grees of distance, — but, he trusted,
of no such distance in natural affec-
tion, — as he looked upon these in-
telligent faces, he could not help
adding, that that ancient English
family pride was strengthened every
moment by his contact with these
relatives in the New World !
This rather skilfully arranged dis-
course, with its ad captandum pero-
ration, was very well received, the
applause at the close being quite
enthusiastic.
Mr. Scrope sat down ; and after a
moment Mr. Button, after the usual
manner, asked what was the further
pleasure of the meeting ; adding that
he presumed their 3'oung friend and
kinsman would be pleased to answer
any questions. Here Mr. Scrope
bowed, in sign of assent. For his
own part, the chairman confessed
that he had been greatly interested
and favorably impressed bj- the state-
ments they had just heard.
Mr. Adam Welles arose, and in
his slow, deliberate, awkward, or
rather homely, and j-et intelligent
manner, said : —
"I move }-ou, sir, that we now
proceed to the formation of the
Scrope Association, in manner and
form as just suggested by the gentle-
man from foreign parts." This motion
was seconded, and Mr. Button was
on the point of putting it to vote,
when a spare, pale, gentlemanly per-
son, with a precise look, a roomy
forehead, a clean-shaved face, a sharp,
thin nose, and a narrow chin, rose
up, and in a dry, sharpish voice and
prim manner, observed that if it were
in order he would like to make one
or two inquuies of his young friend,
146
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
Mr. Scrope, before the question
should be, as he pronounced it,
" putt,"
" Mr. Stanley, of East Hartford,"
said the chairman. It was indeed
that eminent antiquarian and col-
lector. Old Mr. Van Braam, who sat
next Adrian, gave a kind of uneasy,
dissatisfied hitch in his seat, as much
as to say, " Now, he means to make
trouble ! " Sure enough, he did.
" I would like to inquire," said
Mr. Stanley, " whether Mr. Scrope
is in a position to assure us positively
that the English laws respecting real
estate and inheritance will entitle the
persons present to take possession
of the estate left by Colonel Adrian
Scrope's father, if the descent of
these persons from the colonel him-
self can be made out ? "
To this query Mr. Scrope made
answer, that he could not reply with
an absolute affirmative ; because
legal proceedings are alwa}-s doubt-
ful, peculiarly so in cases of real
estate, and most of all in cases of
remote descents ; but that he wished
to be understood to assert, most posi-
tively, that the prospect was such as
to render the attempt most hopeful.
" Where the realitj* is least, there
we must use the most of hope in-
stead, I suppose," rejoined Mr.
Stanley, with a dry, cold smile,
which had no mirth in it, but only
a kind of bite ; " in that sense, I fully
believe my young friend to be cor-
rect. And I presume he would re-
peat these assurances with still more
confidence in the case of the second
estate, — that of the intestate repre-
sentative of the elder of Colonel
Adrian's two brothers?"
" Yes," said Mr. Scrope," he would ;
and in this part of the undertaking,
he was happy to inform the gentle-
man that a very positive opinion had
been given ~by eminent London coun-
sel, learned in the law, in favor of
the title of the American heirs."
" Provided the}^ can be found,"
continued the implacable Mr. Stan-
\ey, with another mirthless jack-frost
grin. " There have been several
associations, to my own knowledge,
like that which the young gentleman
wishes us to form. I have myself
the pamphlet reports of the Jennings
Association, the Wilson Association,
the Booth Association, the Gibson
Association, and the Brown Asso-
ciation. I expect any day to get
those of the Jones Association and
the Smith Association, unless the
whole of them conclude, as I
should advise them to do, that
they had better unite in one name
and call the whole the Brown Asso-
ciation. For look you, Mr. Chair-
man, eveiy one of these printed re-
ports ends with a confession of entire
failure. Perhaps Green would be
the best name to begin with, but
Brown would be the best to come
out with. The}' are all done Brown
so far — very brown, indeed. But
I must trouble my 3'oung friend with
one more inquiry : Where does he
find, I will not say legal proof, but
the least evidence, first, that a son
of Colonel Adrian Scroope the Reg-
icide fled to New England in
1GG0? Second, that it was this son
who signed himself 'Adrian Scroope '
at Hartford in 1GGG? Third, that
any single one of the persons in this
room is descended from the person
so signing? "
There is something peculiarly
cold-blooded and horrible in apply-
ing the unfeeling test of legal rules,
or historical rules, of evidence to the
glowing emotional happiness of spec-
ulative future wealth. The revul-
sion leaves, as it were, a clammy
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
147
paste, as when you throw cold water
on hot buckwheat cakes. The de-
liberate, chilly, rasping manner of
Mr. Stanley's remarks was about
as irritating as any manner could
be ; and moreover, it had an air of
positiveness and superior knowledge
about it which was very imposing.
So, while it was calculated to annoy
Mr. Scrope to the utmost, it was at
the same time just the manner to tell
on a company of Yankee folks, who
were being asked to pay down ready
cash to a person they had never seen
before, and knew nothing about, for
the privilege of sending him to hunt
up rights, two hundred years old, to
property they had never seen at all,
and three thousand miles off. The
remarks did tell accordingly. The
stout intelligence even of the chair-
man was visibly disturbed. Mr.
Scrope, while his usual affable smile
continued, could be seen to grow
somewhat pale. A dead silence
fell upon the assembl}'.
Mr. Scrope, whatever his feelings,
rose at once to reply ; for in such a
case any hesitation is surely fatal.
It must be confessed that although he
struggled gallantly, he was at this
moment effectually beaten. He al-
leged the constant tradition of the
Scrope "descent ; the circumstantial
evidence of the well-known will ; and
the identity of character between the
Puritan Scropes and the family of
the Throops of Bozrah, from whom,
he said, the descent of several of
those in the room was proved by
absolute record evidence. He en-
larged with an air of triumph upon
this last consideration. But it was
obvious enough that he was dwelling
on his strongest point and slurring
over his ^weakest. Was a Yankee
audience likely to overlook that ? If
he could prove that Adrian Scroope
and Adeodatus Throop were one and
the same person, or if he could even
show that there was a chance to
prove it, he might succeed in orga-
nizing the association and becoming
its agent. But if the question had
been taken immediately after his re-
ply to Mr. Stanley, it would have
been lost.
The audience were muttering dis-
contentedly to each other. Mr. Stan-
ley rose again, and in the same cold,
rasping manner and voice, and with
the same mirthless smile, said : —
" Mr. Chairman, I move that this
meeting do now adjourn sine die."
This was sudden death which he
so obligingly offered. Adrian sprang
up, and without an instant in which
anybody could say, " Second the
motion," exclaimed, —
" One moment, Mr. Chairman ! "
"Mr. Adrian Chester," said Mr.
Button.
" Before anybody seconds Mr.
Stanley's motion," continued Adrian,
"just a word, and then I will not
oppose its being put." Mr. Stanley,
looking perhaps no sourer than usual,
but with a stiffish bow, sat down.
Adrian continued, while Mr. Button
looked towards him with interest, and
Mr. Scrope with doubt. He began
by saying that he should not speak
of English estates or English law,
but that he should confine himself to
the third question which had been
put to Mr. Scrope, to wit : the ques-
tion of the descent of those present,
through Adrian Scroope of Hart-
ford, from Adrian Scroope the Regi-
cide.
At this, Mr. Stanley- pricked up
his ears, for he knew that Adrian
possessed the lost Scrope Genealogy,
and he rightly judged that the same
was to be cited. Except Purvis and
Mr. Van Braam, not another soul in
148
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
the room knew it ; not even Scrope
of Scrope, who, however, at hearing
this line of argument proposed,
showed even a keener" interest than
the East Hartford antiquarian.
First, proceeded Adrian, he would
barely refer to the well-known Scroope
will, which, as Mr Scrope had ob-
served, afforded some presumptive
evidence. But that was known to
them all ; and he believed that this
pamphlet — here he drew it forth
and held it up — did in fact furnish,
not the legal proof that had been
asked for, but the circumstantial
evidence that had been asked for :
evidence of so convincing a nature
as to completely justify the forma-
tion of the proposed association and
the contribution of all the money
required, or several times as much,
for the sake of full}- investigating
the subject.
B}* this time everybody in the
room was, as they sa}' in the coun-
try, "all in a twitter"; and a fun-
ny assortment of intensely atten-
tive faces was concentred upon
Adrian, about half of them with
their mouths wide open. As for
Mr. Scrope, his flushed cheeks, as
he leaned forward towards Adrian,
sufficiently showed his excitement.
" This pamphlet," continued Adri-
an, " which I discovered, by great
good fortune, only a week ago, is the
celebrated, though long-lost, unique
Scrope Genealog}^ — " Here a kind
of catching of the breath ran through
the audience, and Mr. Scrope gave
a perceptible start, and gazed upon
the orator with unspeakable doubt
and astonishment. ''Its pages con- '
sist of a genealogical account, very
much after the usual fashion, and
ending with the writer, whose name,
Adrian Scroope, is so printed on the
title-page. But the evidence to which
I wish to call your attention is on
the back of the title-page. It con-
tains five different items, from which
I argue that Adrian Scroope was the
son of Colonel Adrian Scroope the
Regicide, and that, moreover, he and
Adeodatus Throop were one and the
same person.
" First. Both names are signed on
this page, in preciseby the same hand-
writing, and that is, by the way, the
handwriting of the Scrope will.
" Second. The words non hoec, sed
me, printed below the verses here,
which verses I will read in a mo-
ment, were the motto of the Buck-
inghamshire Scroopes, to which fam-
ily Colonel Adrian belonged. They
are a noble motto, though it is im-
possible to English them in so few
words : ' Not the goods of this life,
but my own soul's good,' will give
their meaning.
"Third. There is a rough but dis-
tinct pen-and-ink sketch, properly
blazoned, of the arms of Colonel
Adrian Scroope, — azure a bend or,
— at the side of this motto.
"Fourth. There is a sort of puzzle
of half Latin and half Euglish, brack-
eted together under this motto."
Adrian read it —
E) King's Church ) .,
j Church's Kmg j lbam
" Now, this device has, to begin
with, a plain meaning suited to the
case of the Puritan refugee who
printed them there, viz. : ' I went
out from the church-and-state con-
dition ; ' that is, evidently, ' I fled
from England.' But, moreover,
these letters have a secret meaning.
Omitting either one of the dupli-
cates within the brackets, the device
is a perfect anagram of the word
' Buckinghamshire,' the county of
Adrian Scroope's family."
By this time the excitement had
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
149
fully possessed ever}?- person in the
room ; and indeed, whatever the in-
terest of such obsolete conundrums
to the general public, it would have
been quite impossible to find any
theme more entrancing to old Adam
Welles, to Purvis the dealer in rare
books, to Philetus Stanley the pro-
fessional antiquary, to Mr. Van
Braam the genealogist and lover of
secret things generally, or to Scrope
of Scrope, who saw his enterprise
thus rising out of actual death into
a vitality and hopefulness far beyond
any which he could himself have in-
spired into it ; not to speak of the
perhaps less special but vivid enough
curiosity of all the rest of the marvel-
mongers. They had all gathered
close around the speaker, who con-
tinued : —
" Fifth. The verses printed here
have a similar double meaning," —
Adrian read them ; there is no harm
in repeating them here, for the clear-
er illustration of the young man's
line of argument : —
See, here I raise a Monvmente in hast
Charg'd to protect old Names, old Fames,
from Waste.
That is laid off, its Hist'rie here is told.
Here I take up new Name, old Life to hold.
Read in this Verse the Truth, the Cause, the
Hope.
Old Faith new Fame shall found ; farewell
to Scroope.
Old Fame, farewell! Old Faith, live in new
Fame !
Pray God, though Life be short, I scape from
shame:
Earth first, and Heaven at last, shall give me
a new name.
" Now," he proceeded, " not only
these lines can be construed as an
intimation that the writer is exchang-
ing his name of Scroope for another
• in order to escape danger, but they
cannot easily be construed to mean
anything else. This is their first or
obvious meaning. The second, or
hidden meaning, is a conceit of the
same sort with the anagram ; and
such conceits, I need not remind
you, were common in those days.
It shows, I think, that the writer
meant it to contain a statement of
what the name was that he was lay-
ing off, and what that was which he
was assuming instead. It consists
in the fact that the verses are an
acrostic. The first letters of the
lines are S. 0. T. II. R. 0. 0. P. E. :
a combination, as you see, that in-
cludes the names of Scroope and
Throop.
" Now," concluded Adrian, " when
you consider the character of the
Puritan Scroopes, their danger under
Charles IE, the amount of other evi-
dence that an Adrian Scroope fled to
New England, the elaborate nature of
all this concealment, the consistency
and preciseness of its meaning when
thus interpreted, and its perfect sense-
lessness for any other purpose, I do
not see how you can help believing
that Adrian Scroope of Hartford was
the son of Colonel Adrian Scroope the
Regicide, and was the same as the
Rev. Adeodatus Throop of Bozrah.
And I, for my part, can prove to the
satisfaction of any court, that I am
descended from the daughter named
in the so-called Scrope will, which, if
I am right, is the same, whether it
be a Scrope will or a Throop will.
And now, Mr. Chairman, I submit to
your personal examination, and to
that of the present company, the doc-
ument on which my reasoning is
founded : a document which, for my
part, I confess, I would rather own
than to own any other one manuscript
or printed thing on/ this continent.
And if an}' one likes to second my
friend Mr. Stanley's resolution for
adjournment, I will interrupt no fur-
ther."
And Adrian handed up the pre-
150
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
cious pamphlet to Mr. Button,
amidst a quantity of applause which,
from so small a company, was sim-
ply amazing. They stamped and
clapped and laughed aloud ; and old
Adam Welles, when he could make
himself heard, absolutely proposed
three cheers for Adrian Scrope Ches-
ter, the resurrectionist of the Scrope
Association of America ! — and he
got them, too — three rousing ones.
Mr. Stanley, on his part, made haste
to ask leave to withdraw his motion,
and got that. Mr. Button, after a
brief inspection of the pamphlet,
passed it over to the dazed Mr.
Sci-ope, saying at the same time,
" Hand out your articles ; now is
your time." Scrope did so ; and as
fast as the signatures could be set
clown, eveiy descendant in the room
was enrolled and the proper amount
of mone}' — it was $5.00 apiece —
paid down. Last but one, Mr. Stan-
ley signed, and with a very good
grace, considering how ungracious a
person he was ; for he shook hands
with Mr. Scrope, and complimented
him on the prospects of his enter-
prise, and as he put down his name,
he entered against it the pleasing
words, "Ten Shares," lajdng down
therewith a clean fifty-dollar bill.
Last of all came Mr. Button, who
quietly wrote "One Hundred Shares" ;
and taking the corresponding amount
from a substantial roll of bills, he
handed it to Mr. Scrope, and add-
ed, —
" There. And, cousin Scrope, I will
furnish as much more as is necessary.
I '11 see this thing clean through to the
end, and now shake hands on it."
This Mr. Scrope was very willing to
do.
At the further suggestion of the
chairman, officers were now formally
chosen for the Scrope Association, to
wit : Tarbox Button, Esq., of New
York, President ; Adrian Scrope Ches-
ter, Esq., of Hartford, Secretary; and
A. B. D. V. Scrope of Scrope, Esq.,
Agent. The agent was authorized
to enlist further members, and to
push the objects of the association,
by and with the advice and consent
of the president and secretary ; and
the meeting then adjourned in a most
agreeable state of mind.
After much informal exchange of
congratulations, the members dis-
persed ; not, however, until Mr. But-
ton had requested most of those
present to attend a little celebration
which he proposed to organize on the
evening of the next day at his own
home, to commemorate this agree-
able occasion.
Scrojoe; or, The Lost Library.
151
PART
CHAPTER XXII.
Next morning, Adrian went to call
on Mr. Scrope at the latter gentle-
man's place of business. Adrian was
going to Hartford, and Mr. Scrope to
England ; and it was desirable that
the}' should arrange their joint plan
of operations in the matter of the
Scrope estate.
The place of business in question
was in Amity Street, a little off
Broadway to the west, in a row of
two-story red brick houses, which
were respectable dwelling-houses a
generation ago, but now degraded —
or elevated — to business occupancy.
The tenement where the agency of
the Scrope Association was estab-
lished was recognized by Adrian be-
fore he saw the number on the door,
from a gay water-color drawing in
the window, in bright blue, with gold-
leaf and silver-leaf liberally laid on,
representing a lion of the heraldic
variety, surrounded by the other
splendid adornments of a coat-of-
arms, with crest, supporters, and
motto complete, and having under-
neath the nvystic formula : —
" By the Name of Ferguson."
" Ferguson," repeated Adrian ;
" the Ferguson Arms ! Mr. Mark
Twain, I believe, met a member of that
family — or installed one — in Italy."
Reading further, upon a wonderfully
resplendent sign hanging beside the
Ferguson Arms, all white and gold,
the announcement " College of Her-
alds, by Doctor Adelbert O'Rourke,"
he walked straight in, and entered
the room designated by these gor-
VIII.
geous and aristocratic belongings. It
was a dingy little place, of old a front
parlor, with a few books on the man-
tel-piece, and two small office desks.
On one of these la}- a fat, red-covered
royal octavo, which Adrian recog-
nized as Burke's Encj-clopaedia of
Heraldry ; and at it sat a fat, red
man, with moist, full eyes, no less
obviously the King-at-Arms, so to
speak, of the College. At the other
desk sat Mr. Scrope, busily at work
with papers and letters. He wel-
comed Adrian with a very genuine
interest.
" Aw, ow do you do ! The vewy
man I wanted to see. Ave a chair."
" I want to congratulate you on
making so good a speech 3'esterday,"
said Adrian, sitting down. " Most
of you Englishmen hitch dreadfully
in speaking."
" Aw, j'es ; j'ou 're vewy kind, I'm
sure. But Bird 's entitled to alf the
credit, hat least. E coached me
twemendously. Vewy clevah fellah,
Bird, d'ye know, now?"
Adrian agreed that it was so, but
could not help intimating that so
much of the missionary spirit was
not common among police reporters.
"No? Well, — fact is, e and I
ave become vewy fwiendly, — quite
pals, in fact."
"Hallo, Brab ! how are you?"
sung out a clear voice, the singer
at the same time coming suddenly
in at the door.
"Aw, ow de do?" said Scrope,
evidently acknowledging this com-
pendious appellation. " Take a seat.
Mr. Chester, Mr. Bird."
152
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
It was indeed the reporter who had
thus profaned the majestic name of
Brabazon. Adrian and he shook
hands, and Adrian could not help
laughing.
" Wat is it?" asked Scrope.
"Why," said Adrian, "Ibeg3'our
pardon ; but if you let yourself be
called Brab, you '11 surely be supposed
Barabbas, — not Brabazon."
" ' Now Bawabbas was a wobber,
you know," commented Scrope ; " that
would n't do at all. Must twouble you
to say it in full, I 'm afwaid, Bird ? "
" Very good," said Bird ; " or I '11
sa}- Scrope ; but there 's something
grand about Brab ; I like it. How-
ever, we 're in the paper. You saw
it, I suppose ? "
" No," said Scrope, eagerly ; "show
me."
So Bird drew forth a morning pa-
per, and opening it, pointed out to
the young Englishman a paragraph
in the gossip department, giving a
brief account of the meeting of the
Scrope Association.
" Capital ! capital ! " exclaimed
Scrope, reading it aloud ; "could n't
be better ! Hinfinitely obliged, Bird.
Don't know ow I 'm hevah going to
weturn hall y our goodness, I 'm sure !
Now, Mr. Chester, his n't that good ? "
" Very good indeed," assented
Adrian, politeby. " Excellent ad-
vertisement, I should saj\ But do
3'ou know, the first thing I think of
when I see gossipy things in the pa-
pers, is Mr. Thackeray's maxim?"
" Wat's that?" said Scrope.
Adrian quoted : " Infamation is
infamation, and it does n't matter
where the infamy comes from." And
Scrope looked rather puzzled. Why
should n't he ? He did not under-
stand such squeamishness.
Bird laughed, and said, " O, he
wanted it in, so I put it in for him."
" Can you keep things out as eas-
ily ? " asked Adrian.
" Not so easily. But it can be
done. Pretty important for police
purposes, every now and then, to keep
things out of print."
" Well," returned Adrian, " I shall
ask leave to apply to you if I ever
want either of them done, as you are
so influential with the papers."
Bird very civilly said he was at Mr.
Chester's service, and then congratu-
lated Adrian on the prompt and able
manner in which he had intervened
at the critical moment to decide the
opinions of the assembly the day
before.
" Yes," assented Scrope. " By
Jove, do you know, now, the ole thing
was dead as Julius Caesar ! It was
just like a scene in a play ! But now,
my clear fellah, watever made you
keep so vewy dark about that pam-
phlet?"
" Yes," said Bird, " I 've been think-
ing of that."
"Why," said Adrian, "I didn't
keep so very dark. There were four
people in the room yesterday who
knew I had it. Besides, I had had it
only a very few daj's. And how much
stronger it made the effect. It *s a
great deal more astonishing to make
a dead man appear, than a live one."
This was good reasoning, and the
two 3'oung men assented, though they
still felt that it did not fully explain
Adrian's keeping the knowledge of
his secret from the one man of all
most interested in it, viz. Mr Scrope
himself. It would not have been quite
elegant to explain, for the chief rea-
son was this : Adrian's opinion — or
rather feeling — about Mr. Scrope
was, that though he might be a good
fellow enough, it was better to be in
a position to manage him than to be
managed by him. This feeling, in-
Scrope; or> The Lost Library.
153
deed, was so distinct, that Adrian
even found himself concluding that
in Scrope' s hands, the financial part
of their undertaking was pretty likely
not to amount to much, even should
it turn out that there was any mone} r
to be recovered. In truth, how-
ever, Adrian was little concerned
about the money. His only real ex-
pectation was that all this stir and
excitement might lead to the discov-
ery of new information respecting
the curious family history of the refu-
gee, and of the Scrope family in gen-
eral, and — a far more interesting
point to him — that it might in some
way or other put him on the trace of
the Scrope collection of books, the
Lost Library ; and he was about as
unwilling to state in full these mo-
tives, as he was his estimate of the
personal character of Mr. Scrope.
He had no doubt, moreover, in his
own mind that these same motives —
viz. the hope of discovering some gen-
ealogy and the Lost Library — had de-
cided Mr. Philetus Stanley to join so
heartily in the movement as he did,
when he found he could not prevent
it. It was the most natural thing in
the world for a shrewd, sly, cool man
to try joining the Association, with a
view to manage it and get the benefit
of it, as soon as he was sure he could
not shut it off from the investigation
which he would have preferred to
monopolize.
Adrian, perceiving how intimate a
friendship had been contracted be-
tween Bird and Scrope, judiciously
accepted the situation, congratulating
himself doubly upon not having made
Scrope a confidant, as, he saw, Bird
would have been his confidant too ;
and he believed, with shrewd old Gil-
bert Stuart the painter, that a secret
known to III persons is too often
known, not to three, but to a hundred
and eleven. As, however, the doings
of the Scrope Association coold
neither reveal his own interest in any
secrets, or be much of a secret them-
selves, he proceeded at once, without
any reserve on account of Mr. Bird,
to discuss, as secretary, with Scrope
as agent, the line of operations to be
adopted. Half an hour's talk served
to arrange this, and several shrewd
practical suggestions from Mr. Bird
were of a good deal of use, insomuch
that Adrian suggested that he should
be appointed a " brevet Scrope," by
way of acknowledgment. The plan
was simple ; it was first to enlist as
many more members as possible in
the association, during the short re-
maining period of Mr. Scrope's stay
in America, and to prepare full
and legall}- authenticated transcripts
of all documents and evidence that
could be mustered of all Scrope de-
scents on this side the water, with a
view to opening the legal campaign in
England This campaign, which was
to be the practical and decisive test of
the enterprise, was only to be set on
foot after the fullest possible prepa-
ration, and upon express authoritj*, to
be sent from the officers of the asso-
ciation in America, who were ex-
pected to furnish most of the means,
and had a right to this control:
All this having been adjusted, Mr.
Scrope now insisted that the three
should step out and celebrate the
happy beginning of his authentic
official labors by a drink ; " espe-
cially," he added, as it was time for
his "bitters." Bird assented, and Ad-
rian, reluctant to seem churlish, went
with them. There are few blocks on
that part of Broadway without half
a dozen bars, and a shrine for the pro-
posed libation was not far to seek.
It was, indeed, evidently a regular
haunt of Mr. Scrope's ; for at his
154
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
entrance the splendid creature behind
the bar nodded familiarly, and said, —
" Your friend was just in — he 's
coming right back." And he added,
"The same?"
" Yes," said Scrope ; " two of ' em,
as usual."
" What for you, gents ? " continued
the affable high-priest.
" O, I '11 drink with them," said
Bird.
" What is it?" asked Adrian.
" Absinthe," said Scrope. " Try
it."
" Why, I 'd like to know how it
tastes," said Adrian, " but I hate liq-
uor I '11 do it if you '11 let me off in
case I don't like it. Besides, I can't
cany any liquor ; it muddles my head
very disagreeably."
" All right," said Bird ; " he won't
like it. Give him a soda cocktail,
too ; then he can go through the mo-
tions, at any rate."
Adrian readily permitted the dis-
creet Mr. Bird to adjust the ceremo-
nial, asking only what a soda cock-
tail might be, and well pleased to
learn how ver}* slightly it differed
from a glass of soda-water ; and the
barkeeper proceeded to the somewhat
elaborate and scientific-looking pro-
cesaof mixing three glasses of the
most infamous and fatal poison ever
dispensed as a drink, — that liquid
idiocy, the scoundrelly French in-
vention of absinthe. The oily-look-
ing, pale-green wormwood-juice was
yet dropping and spreading cloudily
in the last goblet, when the expected
" friend," Mr. William Button, ar-
rived, and boisterously greeting the
company, signified his content with
the order which had been given on'
his behalf, adding, with oaths, to
Scrope, —
"You taught me to drink it, by ( ),
and by ( ), it's fair to suppose I'll
stick to it as long as you do, by
()•"
We may charitably believe that
in commending such a deadly cup to
the lips of the unfortunate young
man whose very brain and spine were
already dissolving in the same fright-
ful disease which this fiend's potion
so powerfully promotes, the scatter-
brained Englishman was iguorant at
once of the double power of strong
drink in the stimulating climate of
America ; of the peculiar hateful in-
fluence of absinthe in causing or ac-
celerating ailments that involve the
brain and spinal marrow, and of the
fact that such a disease was already
rapidly establishing itself in Mr.
William Button's frame
However, the three others sipped
off the stuff, and smacked their lips
approvingly. As for Adrian, he
tasted it, it is true ; and at the contor-
tion of his visage, and the abhorrent
haste with which he spat forth the
nauseous bitter filth and thrust away
the glass, they laughed until they
cried. Mr. Button rallied him a lit-
tle on his inexperience ; but Adrian
said, —
" I '11 tell you what,CousinWilliam,
there 's only one thing that I should
wonder at more than at seeing decent
fellows act as if the}- enjoyed that
hell-broth."
" What 's that, by ( ) ? " inquired
Mr. Button, with interest.
" Why, I should wonder more to
see airybod}-, except a natural fool,
who should be afraid to sa}' he abom-
inated it, or who should be joked
into even smelling at it a second time.
Phew ! Give me that other thing,
please, Mr. Barkeeper."
It was done, and the quartette
drank a solemn toast to the health and
prosperit}' of the Scrope Association,
and of Mr. Agent Scrope in particu-
Scrope; or, The Lost hibrary.
155
lar. And Mr. Button, who had evi-
dently been drinking before, pro-
ceeded to bawl out that ancient cho-
rus, —
" For he 's a jolly good fellow,"
with a rather uncertain modulation,
and to tack on to the end of it the
next song that happened to come into
his head, having a curious refrain
of—
"Skittyittyittyittykadink, a dink, a dink a
dido,"
quite too curious and elaborate, in
fact, for his fuddled tongue ; for he
both broke down in the attempt to
execute the swift quadruplicate rep-
etition of its first half, and smashed
all to pieces the glass he held in his
hand, in trj'ing to beat time with it
on the counter. He then proceeded
to order " four more, by ( )," in his
usual roaring, peremptory way, on
which Mr. Bird, winking at Adrian,
said, —
" All right — go on, bo3*s, we '11 be
right back — Mr. Chester and I want
to just look in a moment over the
way."
And rising, he nodded at Adrian,
who took the hint and followed him
out.
" I wanted to say a word to }*ou,
Mr. Chester," he said, " and I reckon
you are willing to get away from those
fellows anyhow."
" Yes, I am," said Adrian, very
sincerely.
" Well, just walk up a block or
two, and we'll cross over to Wash-
ington Square."
They did so, and as they were well
wrapped up, found it no hardship to
sit a while on one of the seats in the
snowy open square.
" There," said Bird, " we '11 settle
about running away next time we see
them. What I wanted was to say
to 3 T ou that I had a note from Doctor
Veroil about some matters that you
are interested in ; and that I will
certainly do all I can to arrange the
affair comfortably all round."
Mr. Bird's quiet, steady manner in
any business of importance, his com-
posed bearing, that indescribable tex-
ture of expressions which belonged
to his calm, intelligent face, — " good
sense," we say it indicates ; nobody
has described what it is in a face that
makes us ascribe " good sense " to
it, but we know it if we see it ; — all
this operated on Adrian just as Ad-
rian's own ready kindliness and swift
penetrating, sympathetic intelligence
did on others ; and he fell into an
unreserved discussion of Civille's af-
fairs far more easily than he could
have imagined to be possible. After a
good deal of consultation the}* agreed
that she was undoubtedly quite be-
3-ond any suspicion, except so far as
any very delicate and sensitive wo-
man whatever may be capable of fall-
ing into insanity ; that the real ques-
tion was, not whether Civille had
stolen, but who had stolen ; and that
the proper line of operations was, to
keep perfectly silent, and try to trap
the real thief.
" There 's so much shop-lifting,
however," Bird said at last, " and so
manj r of these respectable thieves —
they 've got up a long name on pur-
pose for 'em," he commented, —
" anybody must be pretty well off to
be able to afford such a long name
as kleptomaniac — that it 's a pretty
difficult job to catch the right one.
And there 's one very disagreeable
circumstance you don't know of — it
don't prove aii3 - thing to me, not yet
at least, but it would make trouble
if it were known — "
He hesitated a moment, but con-
tinued, looking very steadiby into
156
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
Adrian's e3 T es, "I 'ni sure you '11 un-
derstand me, Mr. Chester, I mean just
that ; it don't prove anything. I have
seen Olds since I heard from Dr. Ver-
oil, and that's how I came to know
it. And it won't be mentioned, you
need n't be afraid of that, but some
of Jenks and Trainor's stolen goods,
some laces, were certainly found in
Miss Van Braam's possession."
Adrian was a very steady and
strong young fellow, but at this plain
assertion, a deep sinking pain at the
heart turned him so white that Bird
looked almost alarmed, and repeated
his assurances.
" I know so much about such mat-
ters," he reiterated, " that the fact is
to me only a fact. M3- theoiy is, that
the real thief put the goods where
they were found."
But Adrian's Puritan descent and
training, and his Scrope traits, shy
of every publicity, inexpressibly hor-
rified at the publicity of crime, made
this en 3umstance peculiarly horrible
to him, particularly as his vivid imagi-
nation reinforced it with all its pos-
sible associations and consequences ;
and it was not until after many repe-
titions ind enforcements of the argu-
ments vrhich the reporter used, that
he could, even in part, recover from
the shock. He however thanked
Bird, very justly, for letting him
understand exactly how the matter
stood.
" Now," he continued, " I want to
see this Olds. I want to judge for
myself what manner of man he is.
By what Mr. Van Braam said, he
must look something like a prize
hog. I never should pick out such a
creature for a detective, I 'm sure ;
and it makes me uncomfortable to
think of his rooting and snouting
about within a hundred miles of
Civille."
And, in truth, anybody out of all
the thousands who in those daj r s saw
this eminent detective laboring along
the street while he was in the full
career of his usefulness, might very
naturally have made the same obser-
vation as to his zoolog}'.
" Necessarjr evils, detectives are,"
said the reporter. " Some very bad
fellows among them, and some very
decent ones. As for Olds, don't
you see that his very waddling and
wheezing, and general tallowy, stupid
look, may be an excellent disguise ?
If he can make a thief think him just
that, it helps catch the thief. Well,
he has a sort of whim of never being
at his rooms except in the evening ;
and I can't go with you to-night, for
1 've got to arrange down at the of-
fice, so that I can be at Mr. Button's
celebration. I '11 just give you a card.
Olds knows me, and he'll be civil."
So he wrote " from Bird " on the
back of a business card, and gave it
to Adrian, noting at the same time
the address, which was in a " public
building," on Broadway, near the
New York Hotel, and the young men
parted.
CHAPTER XXIII.
It is not quite true philosophically,
though it may be practically, that
" All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
All are hut ministers of Love,
And feed his sacred flame."
Not quite. For instance, try an-
ger ; try hunger ; try fright ; try love
of property; tiy love of power ! Not
quite all, dear Coleridge ! But a good
many of them. Love, full, complete,
perfect human love, is to feel, and
express, and receive the counterpart
of, all the attractions which make one
human being desire another ; admi-
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
157
ration, respect, friendship, enjoy-
ment, sympatlry (i. e. co-enjoyment),
affection, passion. All these are un-
selfish. As for the selfish conscious-
nesses which the wonderful English
minnesinger, by a noble material fal-
lacy included in his assertion, they
are comprehended, if at all, only neg-
ative^, as crime and misery are in-
cluded in Christian society, to be
reversed and eliminated. But with-
out any one of those unselfish ele-
ments, Love, though it may be Love,
is imperfect. Still more, or rather
most of all, is an}- one of them alone
an imperfect love. The old saw that
" Pity is akin to Love," is just as true,
and no more, as that beauty is con-
cerned with love. The beautiful ob-
ject must be lovable too ; the pitied
object must be lovable too, before
there can be a love in consequence
of the beauty or of the pity. When
Xerxes bejewelled the beautiful tree,
he showed how love for a tree is not
love. Whatever love comes of pity
may be felt for a dog. Of sympathy
in the sense of co-suffering, of pain
b} r reason of the pain of another, the
like is true. Whatever love comes
of such sympathy, may be felt by
man for beast, or by man for man.
It is the sympathy of co-enjo3*ment
which is a necessary part of love.
Surrender is the measure of love.
This is true equally towards God and
man ; the truth is so deep as to be
of the substructure of both loves, and
it is conclusive accordingfy of the
criterion of unselfishness for human
love. And let no one say that such
an analysis is cold or passionless.
It is, or at least is susceptible of be-
ing, vivid with a sustained, deliberate
passion which is to any other what
the sun's steady, white heat is to the
thin flash of tinder.
No such analysis as this was pass-
ing through Adrian's mind, however,
as he approached Mr. Button's man-
sion that evening. He was in a some-
what confused or questioning, and
waiting frame of mind, from a num-
ber of causes.
He had visited Mr. Olds, the de-
tective, early in the evening. That
immense personage had wheezed and
gobbled forth an awkwardly worded,
but sufficiently clear statement, agree-
ing in substance with what Adrian
already knew. This, indeed, was not
what Adrian went for ; he wanted,
to use a scriptural phrase, to dis-
cern his spirit. In this he was puz-
zled, as was natural enough. We get
our impressions about a man's soul
exclusively through physical media
If these media are unfamiliar, we can-
not recognize the impressions ; and
this exceptional, vast, fat grossness
acted as a perfectl}' impenetrable cur-
tain before the soul of Mr. Olds. The
best Adrian could conclude was, that
the big man seemed to show a rough
and vulgar good humor as well as
good sense ; but this was not enough,
and Adrian remained accordingly in
doubt what might be his influence
upon the fortunes of Civille.
Burdened, therefore, with the con-
stant pain of this heavy doubt about
herself, and with the perhaps keener
pain of a sympathy for her poor
old father, Adrian was to do his best
to make the evening a pleasant one
to both. But he was to do this in the
verj- focus of other interests, all con-
verging upon him like a succession of
burning glasses on one and the same
object. He was hourly becoming more
and more conscious that he was en-
gaged to Ann Button. This engage-
ment had subsisted, almost unfelt,
hardly more than an acquaintance,
for a year or two ; permitted rather
than encouraged, as the couple were
158 Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
so young. Adrian's offer to her, as Now, however, to the stinging of
Civille told Mr. Scrope on the even- his suffering for the unconscious
ing when he first met Adrian at her Civille, and for her sensitive and too
father's, had been really an effect not conscious father, was added the un-
of love, but of sympathy and pit}- for easy questioning of a half-awakened
unhappiness. Ann was, not to the ex- consciousness of his own, which took
tent of being persecuted, but to that the shape of a feeling of remorse and
of being unpopular, a solitary and un- shame for becoming recreant to his
loved girl ; diy-natured, close, jeal- highest obligations ; and the steadily
ous, bitter, resolute, fearless, hard, increasing repugnance which he was
exacting. The mere kind-hearted- hourly feeling for Mr. and for Mrs.
ness of the young man, — none but Button, for their son, and all their
the impulsively benevolent can com- works and ways, was growing and
prehend the statement, — the mere growing, also in the form, as he saw
unresisted power of kindly impulse, it, of wrong feelings which he ought
had sent him to her side, had de- to subdue. And all of them, in a
voted him to her service, had caused fashion which he could not under-
liim to offer her his whole life, as one stand at all, seemed only to be the
takes up the cause of the deserted stronger for his struggling against
and helpless. It was greatly less them ; a sorrowful puzzle it was.
strange that she should accept him ; Then over and above all this were
he was a goodly young man, and it the business offers of Mr. Button,
was a real triumph, one which she guardedly made, it is true, but yet in
very deeply enjoyed, that with her such a way that, as Adrian knew per-
homely features and uulovely wa^-s, fectly well, he had only to consent, to
she should cany him off from so many receive an establishment for life and
bright and attractive girls, although ample wealth. The very greatness
she had never seemed exactly to be — pecuniarily speaking — of the op-
conscious of the way in which they portunity oppressed him. It is only
regarded — or disregarded — her. It a low nature that will grasp with
was of course, too, that she should unconditional eagerness at money
be the very last to see what his real chances or money certainties. Ad-
motive had been. "Whatever she did rian liked the use of money, no doubt ;
not attribute to her own attractions, but it was with a genuine and pro-
she attributed to her father's wealth ; found repugnance that he thought of
and it did not trouble her that this giving up, as he must, if he bowed
should avail in her. behalf. Indeed, his neck to the Buttonian yoke, the
to a nature like hers, it seemed a per- whole of what he loved, — accomplish-
fectly satisfactory motive. And it ments, knowledge, all beautiful and
is — within its proper limit. How noble growths of mind and soul,
should she know his real motive? She Were such hesitations foolish? The
had not the faculties to recognize such road along which Mr. Button pointed
a motive ; he did not know what it was was one where angels would fear to
himself. Neither of them knew love ; tread, and surely a pure and brave
whatever sentiment they had for each young soul was excusable for hesi-
other, in him compassion, in her sel- fating.
fishness and pride, they ignorantly However, Adrian, among his other
thought was such. good gifts, had one right rare one.
Scrope; or, The Lost Library. 159
He could put troubles and perplexi- contrived to gather at short notice,
ties aside by a resolute exertion of But in New York, as of old, you can
will, and occupy himself fully with always fill the places at the banquet
rest or recreation, still more with con- in some way, if not with somebodies,
tributing to the enjoyment of others, then with common folks. Nobodies
So, as he was shown up the tall all are better than nobody at all.
stairway to the gentlemen's dressing- In gatherings so unforeseen and
room, and laid off his overcoat and hasty as this, the progress of affairs
adjusted his costume, he also laid off is always more or less like that pro-
his cares, and adjusted his mind, cess of hatching eggs which embryol-
Mr. Scrope and Mr. Bird, who had ogists call segmentation. The com-
just arrived, were also, as the reporter pany keeps gathering into small
remarked, " putting the last touches groups of such as know each other,
on their war-paint," and all three These hang together in a comfortless,
went down to the parlors together. helpless way, very like the ship-
Mr. Button's home was what they wrecked sailors of the " Polaris " on
call in New York, with an apparent their little floe, until there intervenes
contradiction ofterms, a kk high stoop" a supper, or music, or a reading, or
house ; having a lofty flight of steps something of that generalized kind,
to the front door, so that there was which at once resolves the whole into
a pretty high basement, in which was separate atoms again. The enter-
the dining-room. The first floor was tainer, if skilful, is constantly circu-
entirely filled with the long range lating about, breaking up or recombin-
of three great parlors : lofty and ing these groups, as they stir maple
richly furnished rooms, but hopelessly sugar in the kettle to keep it in the
stiff and cold in effect, as if Mrs. grained state. Now Mrs. Button and
Button herself had stood still in the Ann were only moderately skilled in
midst thereof and let the rooms etna- this art, and so their guests were a
nate from her. Even such attempts little too segregate. Adrian, how-
as there were at art decoration only ever, and Civille, having good capa-
made the frost more arctic, and the cities for the work, circulated and
very north and south poles, one chatted, and served as a kind of
might say, were a couple of fearful aides-de-camp, and kept things going
full-length portraits, one of Mr. But- with immense vigor and persever-
ton, and one of his spouse, that stif- ance, and a good deal of success,
fencd at each other from opposite First, however, of course, the three
places on the walls. There was a j'oung men did obeisance unto Mrs.
pretty numerous and friendly assem- Button, who was all shiny in a new
bly, however; for the requisite num- put pie silk, almost as stiff and re-
ber had easily been made out by in- splendent as japanned tin ; and then
viting plenty of young and old from to Miss Button, standing near, whose
"the church"; so that, in fact, it costume made a surprising exhibi-
might be considered a sort of love- tion of her anatomy. The tendency
feast jointly celebrated by Dr. Toom- towards low-neckedness of dress on
ston's church and the Scrope A ssocia- the part of ladies other than fat, is
tion. In the midst of them, here and undeniable, but easily explained. It
there, were a few celebrities, literary is the flesh, and not the bones, that
and other, such as the hostess had we are shy of showing ; as it is the
160
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
flesh, and not the bones, whose
temptations we are commanded to
shun. Therefore, of coarse, the
leaner a lady is, the lower her dress
may be cut in the neck without im-
propriety.
The official greetings over, the
three friends were quickly launched
upon the tide of social enjo3*ment by
Mrs. Button herself, who presented
all three, as a beginning, to a group
of substantial persons, which in-
cluded Mr. Button, Mr. Stanley, old
Mr. Adam Welles, who looked rather
apprehensive and out of place, a few
others of the Scrope connection, and
also the famous Mr. Kalokagathos,
from Greece, now investigating the
social and political situation of the
United States ; the celebrated Ger-
man philologist, Herr von Kladdera-
datsch, and the eminent female re-
former, Mrs. Hett}- Maginn, so often
and impertinently nicknamed " Hit-
'em-again " by those jackanapes, the
newspaper men, by reason of her
energetic and combative ways. But,
as she often said herself, the leader
in a great, cause must have the qual-
ities of a fighter as well as a com-
mander. And, indeed, her coarse,
red face was appropriate, and her
brawny and athletic figure, and
strong, rasping voice, might have
made her part good in any melee.
Any crowd magnetizes, i The life
and light of the large rooms, whose
cold and stiff appointments were
greatly relieved by the thi'ong that
stood or moved within them, instantly
acted upon Adrian, who was already
resolutely bent upon enjoyment ; for
himself if possible, for others at an}'
rate. His e3"es shone already, the
color already rose in his cheeks, and
before a word had been said, he felt
a sort of light and elevation in his
intellect : all his wits and all his
senses — and his nonsenses, too —
sprang up, wide awake, and danced
with impatience for some activity.
" Good-evening, Adrian," said Mr.
Button, with hospitable fervor, and
with a heartiness which was, in fact,
increased by his greatly increased
respect for Adrian since his prompt
action and forcible speech at the as-
sociation. " Glad to see ye. Now
fust thing, be sure and look in 't the
office to-morrow morning at ten
exact, will ye ? "
"I will," said Adrian, "if I'm
alive."
Then the}' all greeted him as he
was presented, and Mrs. Maginn,
looking approvingly upon him, ob-
served, —
" You don't look now very much as
if you would be dead to-morrow, Mr.
Chester ! "
" I don't feel so either, madam ;
but I think very likely some of the
people on whom the tower of Siloam
fell were as lively as I am at the
moment."
" Mercy ! " said the lady, " I hope
3:011 don't mean that this house is the
tower of Siloam, and going to fall on
us ? "
" 0, no, madam," with a smile and
a polite bow. " I feel much more as
if it were the pool of Bethesda, and
I saw the angel just come down to
stir up the waters."
" O, thank 3-011 ! Very pretty
indeed," said the stout old angel,
highh' delighted, as eveiybod}- really
is at a compliment, no matter if they
know it is mere talk.
" I have been at Jerusalem last
summer," observed Mr Kaloka-
gathos, in pretty good English.
■ " Wal," inquired Mr. Button, " is
it a fact that they have better arti-
chokes there than an3 T where else ? "
The Greek gentleman stared and
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
161
said, " I beg your pardon ! " Adrian,
however, interposed, saying rather
impertinently, it must be confessed,
" They've dug them all up excavat-
ing for the Palestine Exploration
Society."
" Ah, ja," here remarked the Ger-
man philologist; "very interesting
mason's marks and remains there, on
the wall of the Haram."
" Numbers to direct the builders,
are they not? " asked Adrian.
" I could not array them in a nu-
merical order," said Ilerr von Klad-
deradatsch, in his queer English.
" But 1 think to have a similitude
with Runic numerals on the Dighton
Stone traced, and some more on
an Indian relic to New Hampshire
out."
"Ah ? " said Adrian. " Then you
are studying Indian philology ? Their
numerals are very curious, some of
them. I remember when I was a boy,
learning a Popatomcock numeration
table, to a scale of five instead of
ten."
"What was that?" asked the
German, eagerly. " Will you it put
down for me, please ? Can you re-
member him?"
" yes." And Adrian solemnly
recited the following mysterious list,
sometimes taught to 3'oung persons
in New England.
" Een, teen, tuthery, futhery, pip ;
sayther, layther, co, Jeffrey, dix ;
eendix, teendix, tutherdix, futherdix,
bump ; eenbump, teenbump, tuther-
bump, futherbump, giggets."
" Ah, so? " cried the German, in
great excitement, " this is all most
wonderful ! And will you note him
for me down? "
" O, certainly." And Adrian
wrote the words on a card, while the
others looked on with sufficiently
puzzled faces, and the linguist
plunged into an oration on the paral-
lelisms of een and ein and one, pip
and fif or five, dix and decern, and
many others which he found amongst
these numerals and the. German,
Latin, Welch, and forty or fifty sets
more.
Then he began to inquire for the
authorities about the Popatomcocks.
The tribe is extinct, Adrian said ;
it used to be established near where
New Haven is now. Authorities very
scanty ; and he referred him to that
profound work, De Forest's History
of the Indians of Connecticut, but
added that he had learned their war-
whoop when he learned their numer-
als. This the philosopher was eager
to hear, and Adrian, without stopping
to think, gave a tremendous Indian
yell, slapping his mouth with his
hand secundum artem, insomuch that
his audience almost jumped off the
floor with astonishment, and a small
chorus of little squeals from all the
women, and then a surprised silence,
followed.
Mr. Button looked rather con-
founded, and was just saying, " Wal,
young man," when Doctor Veroil's
pleasant voice was heard ; he laid
hold on Adrian's shoulder, saying, —
" Here, what nonsense are you up
to now ? — how are you, Mr. Button ?
Good evening, Mrs. Maginn ; come,
Chester, the girls want you and
Scrope and Bird."
And the jolly physician hauled them
away, leaving the astonished seniors
to compose their minds.
Civille, Ann, and a little knot of
young people, were gathered near
the folding-doors.
"What was that awful noise?"
asked one of them.
" This young Sioux here," said the
doctor, pointing to Adrian, "was
shouting his war-cry, that 's all. He '11
162
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
scalp you if } t ou irritate him, so look
out."
" He could raise my hair easily
enough," said the saucy girl, — a
merry thing with bright black eyes,
— " without troubling my scalp "
Miss Button looked very prim at
so open an avowal, but the others
laughed, though they blushed.
" Switch, hey ? " said the doctor.
" Well, you deserve another kind
of switch for wearing that kind.
What horrible nonsense it is ! "
" What nonsense ? " inquired Mrs.
Maginn, who liked to be where some-
thing was going on, and now sailed
up.
" Wearing false hair," said the
doctor, " and feminine humbugs
generally."
" You men are to blame," said
Mrs. Maginn ; 41 we are fools enough
to adorn ourselves to please you."
•• Nonsense," cried the doctor ;
" you dress to please each other,
or rather to plague each other.
Just see how you women quiz each
other's rigs in the street : so you do
here. There is n't one of you now,
that could n't shut her eyes and make
a full inventory of every visible arti-
cle on every other woman in this
set ! "
They laughed, but they did not
deny it. Mrs. Maginn candidly
avowed that it was a shame to them.
" Yes," said Veroil, sharply, " and
a stumbling-block to you women suf-
fragists iu particular. If you can't
improve such a small matter as wo-
men's dresses, you certainly can't im-
prove their social and political situ-
ation. Idiots and Indians don't vote,
nor babies. What's the reason? It's
because the}- are all alike in being un-
developed in mind — all substantially
savages. You women — your dress
is savage. It's out of the question
for a man to vote as long as he is so
savage as to stick feathers in his top-
knot and paint his face and flutter
himself out with streamers and
things, as only a savage, or a fool,
or a child, or a woman, does. The
quality and quantity of mind that
permits the ornament prohibits the
vote. I tell you, until you can make
the women quit rigging out those
spanker booms behind them," — here
the doctor pointed with a grin at a
finely developed panier or two, where-
at the wearers thereof instinctively
smoothed down the same as if to
quench them, and then looked both
annoyed and vexed, — " and those
wild jungles of things on their heads
in the street, and hair off corpses,
and all such savage fooleries, — until
you can make them quit all that,
there's no danger that you '11 get the
suffrage ! "
"There's too much truth in what
you say, doctor," said Mrs. Maginn.
" But, doctor," said Adrian ; " you
said the young ladies wanted' me.
What for ? "
" O, only on general principles.
They always want gentlemen."
k - Why. you villain ! " cried Mrs.
Hetty Maginn, with a great affecta
tion of fury. " We don't want him
nor you any more than a toad wants
a tail Now you're here, you may
as well entertain us, though. You
must either sing a song or tell a
story — that's the old rule."
" Very good," said the doctor.
" I '11 begin. I can't sins a note, —
was put out of the class by the sing-
ing-master because I put all the rest
out if I stayed in. So I'll give a
song."
And sure enough, he struck up
with the most extraordinary tuneless
croak that can be imagined, but with
so little noise at first, that everybody
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
163
listened carefully, — those graceful
words of Longfellow's : —
" I know a maiden fair to see,
TAKE CARE!"
he shouted suddenly, without the
least notice ; and there was such
jumping and such squalls ! —
" There," said he coolly, to Adrian,
who, the fact is, had really been as
much startled as anybody, — " that 's
to pay 3 r ou for your yell just now !
It 's your turn : so now for your song
or your story."
" Well," said Adrian, — " but per-
haps Herr von Kladderadatsch " —
the philologist was just passing by —
" can tell us some German ghost
story ? "
" O, ja ! " said he, good-naturedly ;
" let me to think. So — yes. Not a
ghost story, exactly, but of interest,
— ' The Story of the German Pas-
tor.' "
And lie began in a stead}', even,
slow, delaying way, as if he were
translating it all deliberately inside
as ho went along, as no doubt he
was : —
"As I was walking upon the sea-
shore one morning (this is what the
German Pastor said), I saw a man
standing by the shore of the sea, and
holding a pistol to his head. 'My
friend,' I said, 'why do you hold a
pistol to your head? ' — ' Because I
will shoot myself,' said he. 'But,'
said I, ' why will you do this wicked
thing? Do not commit so awful a
crime ! ' — ' Because,' he replied, ' I
am plunged in the deepest misfor-
tunes. I have lost my estates, I am
exposed to the utmost legal persecu-
tions ; my hopes are ruined, my future
is only rniseiy. I am at the present
moment pursued for a debt by one
who will cast me into prison, and
therefore I will shoot myself.' — ' But,'
I said again, ' my friend, this is a
terrible violation of all the laws, and
will remedy no evil. What is the
amount for which you are pursued at
present? ' — ' Fifty crowns,' said he.
' Well, my friend, now come with me
to the parsonage and I will lend you
fifty crowns ; and by no means pur-
sue or repeat this criminal design of
shooting yourself.' He accordingly
accompanied me, and we set out to
go to 1113' home. As we approached,
I saw that the door was shut, and
going up to it, T knocked. No per-
son came. I then knocked a second
time at the door of my house. Still
no person came to the door. I ac-
cordingly knocked a third time, and
my little daughter Fanny came to
the door. Having opened it, she
started back at seeing me accompa-
nied by a person whom she did not
know, and exclaimed, ' My father,
who is this strange man whom you
have brought home with you ? ' Said
I, ' My daughter, as T was walking
upon the sea-shore this morning, I
saw this man standing by the shore
of the sea, and holding a pistol to his
head. " My friend," I said, " why do
you hold a pistol — " '
"There, there," interrupted Mrs.
Maginn, " you will kill us all. How
many times would that long story be
repeated ? "
" As often as a new circumstance
arises in the narration, Madame,"
blandly explained the Professor.
" And how long would they arise ?"
" As long as it might please the
ladies," replied the Professor, his
eyes twinkling through his spectacles.
"" That's two abominable deceits,"
said Mrs. Maginn. " Come, we '11 try
who has the nimblest tongue, — no,
let 's try ' Burying the City ' first. I
only learned that last week, and I
made one to-day that I want to try
you with."
164
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
All acquiesced politely, and she
recited the not quite unknown speci-
men, —
" In the next room a man was
almost at the last gasp, and all night
long his constant hie ! hie ! agonized
me "
" Chicago," said somebody, after
a few moments. Several others were
offered ; and at last Adrian recited
what he called, —
"Lines from 'the Russian Prophecy.'
"When Slavon sinewy, or Kalmuck fierce,
Through all embattled Europe west shall
pierce."
It took them quite a while to dis-
inter " New York " out of that ; and
then Mrs. Hetty, who had in spite of
her zeal for big reforms, a decided
liking for such childish rattletraps as
these, insisted on her nimble-tongue
exercise, as she called it. This was
only the very juvenile amusement of
trying to repeat, without error, di-
vers difficult combinations of sounds ;
such legends as those of Peter Piper,
of Crazy Craycroft, and Theophilus
Thistle-sifter ; that polar poem which
tells how
" Midst thickest mists aud stiffest frosts,
With strongest wrists and stoutest boasts
He thrusts his fists against the posts,
And still insists he sees the ghosts."
Mr. Adam Welles, who drifted up
to them, with Mr. Philetus Stanlej-,
suggested the short rural narrative,
— "A skunk jumped off from a stump
into a skunk-hole." Mr. Stanley gave,
to be repeated four times very rap-
idly, " She sells sea-shells." One of
the young ladies suggested one which
will be found still more difficult, also
for fourfold repetition, — "Shoes
and socks shock Susan." And Mr.
Bird, who had been listening very
quietly, finally suggested the hardest
though the shortest of all, to be re-
peated in like manner, very fast four
times — " Black bug's blood."
After they had all tried and all
failed on these last two, and indeed
it is surprisingly difficult to say them
in this manner, Adrian was called on
for his song or story.
" Yes," said Mr. Stanle}* ; " if 3-ou
had heard him give the argument on
the Scrope genealog}- yesterda}', 3-ou
would know that he has a great tal-
ent for narrative."
" We '11 ave both," said Mr. Scrope ;
" e sings like a nightingale."
" Well," said Adrian, somewhat
embarrassed by the compliments,
"but one at a time, if 3-ou please. I
have n't Sergeant Odoherty's talent
of articulating and accompanying
nryself on the trombone. I '11 tell
3*011 a ghost story, and it 's a real one.
It happened to me, last summer — "
At this moment, Mr. Bird, who
had been standing quietly close bj*,
exclaimed, as if to himself, " I de-
clare, I 've left my handkerchief up-
stairs, now ! " and ran out to get it.
Adrian, casually looking out into the
front hall, through the open door of
the back parlor, near which he was,
could see part of the stairs ; and on
this, he saw Bird, who was springing
swiftly up, pause and draw to one
side, to let a woman pass down, — one
of the servants, — and, as Adrian re-
marked by her dress, the same who
had a few moments before brushed
past him on some errand or other,
and had herself proceeded up-stairs.
But he fancied that the pause on the
stairs was a little particular, — long
enough, in fact, for some words to be
interchanged, — and though he heard
nothing, something in the carriage
and movement of their heads made
him imagine that Bird spoke, and the
hired girl assented. With a mo-
ment's displeasure at such an unsuit-
able flirtation, — for Bird, as Adrian
had already often reflected, was too
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
165
much of a man and of a gentleman to
be indulging in some of the low pur-
suits that he seemed to enjo3 r , — Ad-
rian turned again to his audience.
The young ladies showed evident
signs of fearful interest ; and Adrian,
assuming a grave and impressive
manner, related as follows : —
"THE DEAD INDIAN.
" Just without the southern limits
of my own city of Hartford, runs
from north to south a ridge of trap
rock commonly called Hartford Rocky
Hill ; and which, as I recollect, is
figured and described in an early
number of Silliman's Journal of Sci-
ence, as affording a remarkable in-
stance of the junction of trap with
sandstone. Its southern portion was
formerly the scene of public execu-
tions, and was called by the ill-
omened name of Gallows Hill Its
precipitous western face has long
been quarried for stone ; while from
its crest the ground slopes eastward
in a broad and evenly inclined plane
of fertile farming land. The north-
ern portion of this slanting tract is
intersected by various lanes, now,
however, disappearing as the growing-
city stretches southward, throwing
forward its feelers of surve}^, and
empty new streets, unsightly scars
upon the bosom of the earth.
" There stands, or stood, a j-ear
ago, in Zachary's Lane, as one of
these narrow semi-rural ways is
called, a huge sycamore tree, one or
two of whose lower liinhs ran out
horizontally to a long distance.
Crouched under the protection of this
old giant, just at the top of the slop-
ing green bank by the roadside, was
a miserable stone hovel, floored even
with the ground, and with a cellar to
which admission was gained in front
by a passage cut into the bank. As
far back as any local memory ex-
tends, this hut had been occupied,
when occupied at all, by one or an-
other disreputable negro family ; but
there was an obscure tradition that
the spot had been the site of the wig-
wam of the sachem who ruled the
neighborhood almost two hundred
and fifty years before, at the first
coming of the white man ; and whose
7iame is variously spelled in the an-
cient records of the colony, but most
frequently Sunckquasson or Sequas-
sen. In this dilapidated edifice
some of my friends and I used last
summer to pass an afternoon ; some-
times in trifling amusements, some-
times in conversation, often very
serious and earnest. We had added
nothing to the accommodations of the
old hovel except a few logs and
blocks, which served us as seats, and
the fantastic decoration of a human
skull, which one of us, an admirer of
Edgar A. Poe, had nailed up on
the low, horizontal branch which
stretched along above the hut, in a
sort of imitation of that which plays
so important a part in the story of
' The Gold Bug.'
" On one particular afternoon, a
warm and pleasant summer day, we
had gone out to the hut, and as the
preference of the hour was for con-
versation, we took nothing for diver-
sion or refreshment except a wine
quart of claret, iced.
" We sat a long time, first on the
green bank outside, and then within
the single little room of the old hut,
pleasantly discoursing upon a great
variety of subjects. All the latter
half of the summer afternoon glided
rapidly away ; the fleeting July twi-
light crept swiftly upon us, and deep-
ened rapidly into the shadowing dark-
ness of early, moonless nightfall.
" There was a small projection from
166
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
the back of the cottage, within which
a door opened upon a stairway to the
cellar. I sat upon that side of our
little circle farthest from this door,
and of course facing it. While we
still talked, and the shadows grew
deeper and deeper, I happened to be
looking directly at the cellar door.
As I was doing so, it deliberately
opened, and an Indian coming forth
from it, stepped forward to one side
of the little room, and halting, gazed
steadfastly down upon us, as we sat
on our blocks on the floor. He was
of magnificent proportions ; almost
colossal in stature, broad-shouldered,
deep-chested, straight as a pine-tree,
and of singularly stately carriage.
As he looked down upon us, gravely
and in silence, though we all looked
at him, we seemed to have no power
to stir ; and I clearly recollect how a
warning against doing so seemed to
take a tangible shape of oddly chai'-
acterized distinctness before my mind.
It was as if I saw a printed line
worded and lettered thus : ' There
will be a prejudice against unneces-
sary movement ' ; and I found the
unintelligibleness of this monition ac-
companied by terrors that were vague
but profound, at what might be the
consequences of disobeying it. But
there was something much more
frightful. As the lineaments of the
Indian's swarthy face became dis-
tinct before me, I saw plainly that
though all the rest of the face wore
the appearance of perfect health,
the eyes were dead, and the flesh
about them was dead ; and though
they seemed to look at us, there was
something indescribably horrible in
their livid shrunken look, and the
fixed unmoving stare from under their
purplish half-shut lids.
" After standing a few moments
in utter silence, the Indian turned,
silently retraced his footsteps, and,
bowing his haught}- head, disappeared
down the stairwa}-. We sat a few
moments in the same motionless ter-
rified silence. Then one of my com-
panions, moving as if in a dream and
apparent^ unconscious of the pres-
ence of any one else, slowly arose,
stepped silently to the door of the
cellar, and deliberately went down
out of sight. In a few moments more
another in like manner arose, and
with the same strange appearance of
unconsciousness likewise disappeared
in the cellar. After another short
pause, the third did the same. I sat
a moment alone, and found myself
slowfv rising to follow their example,
when the door was flung violently
back, and Sam H., who had gone
down last, sprang back into the room,
shaking and stumbling with terror,
his face white and his eyes almost idi-
otic in his fright. The sight of this
natural human action broke the spell
which had been holding me. ' For
God's sake, Sam,' I cried, recovering
my speech for the first time, ' let 's
get out of this ! ' And. we rushed
headlong out of the door. As we
passed the outer entrance to the cel-
lar, I summoned courage to approach
it and look within ; but all was dark,
and its more distant portion was shut
out of sight by a partition.
" Not daring to explore further, we
ran homewards. As we went, my
companion informed me that he had
descended the cellar stairs and there
saw our two friends seated at what
seemed to be a table, on which was
something that glimmered, while be-
hind it stood the Indian, his head
crushed up among the timbers of the
floor, and as it were preaching to
them, with fluent words and many
gestures."
Adrian stopped. He had told the
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
167
fantastic story with so much local
detail, with such gravity and inten-
sity, that all the women looked prop-
erly frightened.
'• But is that all?" demanded Mrs.
Maginn ; " how horrid ! 3*011 look as
scared as any of us."
Adrian shook his head, and with
entire sincerity said, —
" It was horrible — horrible — and
it is because it was so frightfully true
that you can't help feeling it. When
I woke up — "
There was a general cry of relief ;
and the saucy girl who had defied the
scalping knife, at once testified that
she had known it was a dream all the
time.
'- But wait," persisted Adrian ;
— " when I woke up, so perfectly im-
pressed was 1 with the reality of it,
that I Jcneio that Indian was stand-
ing at the bedside behind me in the
dark, looking down at me with those
dead livid eyes, and it was minutes
before I could summon up courage to
pull off the two poultices I had to
keep on my eyes at that time, so that
I could look."
" Ah," said Dr. Veroil, " very
good ; very well told too ; those poul-
tices were the dead eyes, and all the
rest of the dream crystallized round
them."
" Yes," said Adria.
But Civille, who had been gazing
with her whole soul at the narrator,
said softly, as if to herself, " I think
the old chief is there ! "
Before Dr. Veroil had time for the
joking reply which he seemed about
to make to this observation, one of
Mrs. Button's progresses broke up
the little set, and the ladies and gen-
tlemen were sent circulating on
rounds of one and another duty.
Other similar gatherings, other chats
and conversations followed ; some
serious, around good old Doctor
Toomston and some of the elders ;
some comical, wherever there might
be Dr. Veroil with his satirical sen-
sible good nature, or Mrs. Hetty
Maginn with her vehement blunt
joviality, or even Mr. William Button,
who had a decided taste for whatever
of the funny sort he could understand.
At the proper time came supper, and
in the laughing and chatting proces-
sion down to the dining-room, there
went just together, as it happened,
these couples : first, Mr. Bird and
Civille ; next, Mr. Scrope and Miss
Button ; and behind them, Adrian
and Mrs. Maginn.
"Do look at those shoulder-blades"
said Mrs. Hett}-, softly, to Adrian,
pointing to the articles in question,
very visible over Miss Button's dress,
— the good lady knew nothing of
any existing kinship or proposed
affinity between her theme and her
escort, — it must have been with ref-
erence to the funny mcuaproposities
arising from such ignorances that the
poet's wise observation came, about
ignorance being bliss, — " do look at
those shoulder-blades ! You could
drop a bullet through there to the floor
and she 'd never know it ! I believe
they put dried mutton-bones in a
parchment bag nowadays, and call
it a girl ! "
Adrian, who could not consistently
laugh, did the best thing he could,
with another compliment, —
" Perhaps if she lives to be as use-
ful a reformer and as delightful a
companion as you, Mrs. Maginn, she
will become as plump."
" Why, what nice compliments
you make," said the good lady ; " it
would be ravishing if one could be-
lieve one single word of it ! "
At the foot of the stairs stood one
of the servants, waiting to go up.
168
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
Adrian, looking carelessly clown at
her, saw that it was the same with
whom he thought Mr. Bird was ex-
changing confidences in the hall, and
at the same moment he also perceived
with surprise that it was the same
blustering, scolding Irishwoman who
had gone off in such a fury from Mr.
Van Braam's on the night when he had
escorted Civille home. At the same
moment he saw Civille recognize her
too, and heard her sa}% smilingly, —
" Wiry, Katy, is it you? I did not
know you were here."
" Yis 'm," said the girl, with that
very same venomous, bitter, quick ut-
terance, — and she added, " if ye 've
missed anything I could account to
yez for it."
" I have not missed anything,
thank } T ou, Katy," said Civille, in her
sweet, quiet voice, and passed on,
completing some half-laughing re-
mark that she had been making to
Bird. Ann Button, Adrian thought,
started. She certainly looked sharply
at the girl. " What do you mean by
that?" she demanded.
" And this young gintleman can
tell ye that he set out to. search me
bundle," said Katy, pointing to Ad-
rian, and all in a quiver at the rec-
ollection of the outrage. Adrian
briefly explained to Ann how oddly
the girl had acted on the evening in
question ; and they went forward into
the supper-room, where abundant and
luxurious refreshments were await-
ing their doom, — and received it.
In due time, the}- all came back
to the parlor ; and now there was
a renewed demand for music ; and
various instrumental and vocal pieces
were given, some ill and some well.
Thus, one was a spirited nautical
song, by a gentleman who articu-
lated a little too distinctly as he gave
one and another successive note to
the same syllable, producing the fol-
lowing pleasing effect : —
"Aha, my bo-haw-haw-hoys,
These are the jaw-haw-hoys
Of the no-ho-ho-bul and the bray-hay-have,
Who love a life-fife-fife
Of toil aud strife-fife-fife,
And a ho-ho home on the bow-wow-wound-
ing wave."
After a time, Adrian was called
upon, and complied very readily, like
a man of sense who is willing to do
his best. For a moment or two, he
could not collect his wits ; and while
the music was going on, and exciting
him, as music alwa3*s did, he had
3'et suffered his thoughts to fall back
from their busy purposeful employ-
ment about the people around him,
and although he promptly arose and
went to the piano, his mind as he sat
down was full of trouble ; all the
pains and doubts that he had thrust
one side at entering the parlors,
thronged back, more urgent than ever
for having been shut out; and in
spite of the trifling nature of the cir-
cumstances, and the perfect compe-
tence of the explanation which he
had already given to himself, that
momentary pause on the stairway,
and the strange impertinence of the
Irish woman at the stair-foot, plagued
him ; for by one of those associations
which make themselves for us, the
parcel of laces from Jenks & Train-
or's, and the something which the
girl implied that Civille might have
missed, locked themselves together
in his mind.
When, therefore, he took his place
at the piano, he touched a few chords
almost without knowing what he was
about. The rich, strong sound of the
noble grand piano in some measure
awoke him ; but yet no words, no air,
would take form in his recollection.
" Do I know any songs? " he said,
half unconsciously.
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
169
" Yes," said Scrope, who was near
by. " Give us ' The Child's Three
Wishes' again."
" Give us ' Sparkling and Bright,' "
said Doctor Toomston.
" That would be an anacreonisrn,"
punned Doctor Veroil.
" O, I did n't mean the rum ver-
sion," said Doctor Toomston, rather
indignantly.
But Adrian still tried in vain to
remember, until he began to feel
ridiculous, and with a sudden effort,
he threw off all his preoccupation.
At the moment there came into bis
mind a song that he remembered ;
and without waiting to choose, he
struck at once into a prelude of
strong, full, reverberating chords.
" I '11 give you," he said, " the —
BEDOUIN LOVE-SONG.
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170 Scrope; or. The Lost Library.
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Scrope; or, Tlie Lost library. 1T1
ill
The company had excited him.
The music, mediocre as some of it
was, had excited him still more. The
air to which he now sang, monotonous,
if not heavy, has yet a recurring,
persistent chant character that in
some sense throbs along with the
passionateness of the words ; and the
pitch was just right for his mellow
and sympathetic barytone voice. Ci-
ville was leaning upon the instru-
ment, and without intending it, Ad-
rian looked at her as he sang —
"I love but thee! I love but thee — "
And as he did so, the intense passion
of the verses seized him, and he was
gone ; he sang the rest of the wild,
lawless song to her, to her only. She
perceptibly trembled when he first
looked ; then cast down her eyes and
stood silent, without looking up at
him again. If he had known what
he was about, he would assuredl}' not
have sung it. He felt before he had
sung the first stanza through, as if
every one in the room must see ex-
actly what he was — in spite of him-
self — doing; making an avowal of
uncontrollable, passionate love to one
woman, in the home and under the
veiy e3 T es of another woman, to whom
he had promised marriage.
But he sang it through, although
with no very distinct consciousness
of his manner of execution. He arose
without a word, — there was a silence
as dead as that of his Indian ghost,
— and without looking up he moved
off in a kind of dream, and sat down
in the first chair he came to. In a
few moments the applause and com-
pliments began. Several of the la-
dies asked him where he got the
music. He answered that he did not
remember exactly, — he believed he
had it at home somewhere. But
Civille, who was passing behind him,
moved perhaps by an impulse as un-
conscious as his own, bent down for
a moment and said softly, so that
nobody else could hear, —
" I know — you made it ! "
It is possible that a few of the
more enthusiastic votaries of pleas-
ure — unblamable as the pleasure
must have been, since neither cards
nor wine nor even dancing were al-
lowed — might have stayed a little
too late ; but there came an incident
to disperse even the chatty familiars
of the house who were last to go.
These, mostly young friends of Miss
Button's, including also Doctor Ver-
oil and one or two others of the more
youthful ciders, had fallen into a
reminiscent vein ; also Miss Button,
Civille, and one or two more who had,
as it appeared in time past, attended
the same school with them. One and
another of their schoolmates, it quick-
ly appeared, were married ; one and
another had disappeared. Disappear-
ing is very common in our American
city life, where societ} 7 is an encamp-
ment rather than an establishment,
17:
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
and where riches gather like one of
those volcanic islands that grow up
from under the sea in one night, and
disappear in another, yet hot with
the fury of their accumulation.
"Where is that lovely fair-com-
plexioned Mary Gray?" asked Civille
at last ; " don't you remember how
she used to make the awfullest reci-
tations, and she was so sweet and
loving that even old Miss Piquette,
the French teacher, could not find
fault with her ? She said she alwa3 r s
hated books ; but O, what perfectly
splendid embroidery she used to do !
1 wonder what became of her ? "
" I believe her father failed and
died, and her mother, I think, was
dead before. I don't know where she
went to, I 'm sure," said Miss Button.
" Do you, mother? "
" No," said Mrs. Button, " I don't."
" Who 's that ? " asked Bill Button,
coming up to Adrian's side.
It was Doctor Veroil who an-
swered, with a significant tone and
manner, looking keenly first at Ann,
and then at her brother : —
" She died Sunday morning, Miss
Button. Mary Gray, Mr. William
Button."
Ann turned pale, for the meaning
tone in which the physician spoke in-
formed her plainly enough what he
meant, and so it did her mother. But
neither of them asked sa\y questions.
William, however, started violently,
and cauo'ht hold of Adrian's arm.
" Hold me up, will you? " he said,
" I 'in faint." And before Adrian and
the doctor, both of whom instantly
caught hold of him, could carry him
off, he sank quietly down on the car-
pet, his limbs shaking, his face injec-
ted with blood, his eyes turned and
set in his head : a frightful spectacle
enough.
" Get awaj T , all you visitors ! " said
Veroil, peremptorily. "This is not
dangerous ; he will come out of it ;
but do you all go home."
Nobody tarried to dispute so very
proper an order, except Adrian, who
waited to see if he could be of
use.
" It 's epilepsy," said Veroil, after
a moment ; " a slight attack ; he will
come out of it in a few minutes. Give
me some ice-water. Has he been so
before ? "
Neither of his parents nor his sis-
ter had ever seen anything of the
kind. Adrian told the doctor, aside
and in few words, of the attack in the
billiard saloon.
" Hm, — must be attended to,"
was the only reply, and the doctor
applied himself to the usual simple
palliatives, dismissing Adrian about
as brusqueby as he had the rest*
So the young man went away, the
circumstances abridging all leave-
takings. As for Civille, her father,
who had not been present at the
party, had called to escort her
home.
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
173
PART
CHAPTER XXIV.
There are people who receive a
knowledge of men's states of mind
and of the complexion of their own
circumstances Irv a method like the
ehemico-mechanical one called endos-
mosis, — a quiet, unconscious trans-
piration of impressions through phys-
ical mediums into the mind. They
Jin d they know what somebody wishes,
or how things are going, but very
likely they could not tell how they
came to know. Such people will
sometimes sit for a whole evening
in company apparently without any
consciousness of what is done or
said around them.
Perhaps they even do not answer
questions, nor hear what is said di-
rectly to them. Afterwards they can
tell who was present, what was clone,
what was said ; though at the time
they could not tell, and did really
not know.
Adrian, who possessed a pretty
good share of this faculty of '* un-
conscious cerebration," as Prof Car-
penter calls it, had also a pretty
good share of the more ordinary
faculty of conscious cerebration He
reflected a good deal, before the time
of his interview with Mr. Button on
Wednesda}- morning, upon the whole
situation of his affairs, and he de-
cided that he would accept Mr. But-
ton's offer ; proceeding somewhat as
follows : —
He felt — and with a pleasurable
glow of honest satisfaction — that he
was at present considered somebody.
He remembered the curiously delight-
ful sense of controlling men, which
had moved him while proving his
IX.
case and convincing the assembly, in
his little argument before the Scrope
Association ; the intense watchful-
ness of the faces to which he spoke ;
the little thrills of surprise, convic-
tion, delight, which had moved across
the audience like the small waves
upon a field of grain before a light
breeze, as he developed point after
point in his closing summary ; the
genuine enthusiasm that had re-
sponded at the close, — in words and
voices, and in the far more affecting
and conclusive form of lawful money.
He now remembered the conscious-
ness which, he felt, although at the
time he had not clearly apprehend-
ed it, had surrounded him during
the evening of the party at Mr. But-
ton's, with an atmosphere stimulating
like nitrous oxide, — the conscious-
ness that he was an object of atten-
tion and approving interest. u Yes,"
he said to himself, — " that was it !
It 's agreeable, no doubt, but — now,
for instance, if it had n't been for that
champagny kind of excitement I
shouldn't have executed an Indian
yell in mixed society, even to in-
struct a German Professor ! I wish I
had n't !" And perhaps the annoy-
ance at a breach of etiquette com-
mitted from an over-ready willing-
ness to do as he was asked, and a
real readiness to give information,
neutralized any pleasure that came
from having been the hero of the
occasion.
More direct and practical than
this generalizing self-gratulation, was
Adrian's consciousness of having
greatly risen in the estimation of the
great capitalist, Mr. Button himself.
UftlVEf
£Al u
174
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
It was perfectly without intention
that he had done so, too. Button, not
appreciating any worth except the
worth of doing, had been successive-
ly surprised, pleased, and convinced,
as Adrian could not but know, by one
and another proof in practical and
practicable suggestions, beginning
with a simple theory of penmanship,
and culminating in the occurrences of
the Association meeting. No won-
der. In a young man like Adrian t
there is a fund of undeveloped power
which neither others nor the possessor
knows of, nor can know, until a time
comes to use it. Then it rises and
acts as it were of itself. In cases
where this power is great enough in
quantity and high enough in quality,
its spiritual elevation, its apparently
(not really) superhuman promptness,
adequateness, inexhaustible force and
efficiency, entitle it to the name in
such cases conferred. It is Genius.
So far as Adrian's action had partaken
of this quality, — not very far, though
unquestionabl}' to some extent. — the
action had produced its legitimate
results ; success in the object sought,
and the admiring acquiescence of
others in the means used.
This defining, however, was no part
of Adrian's reflections at the moment ;
he was simply "orienting himself,"
— getting his bearings and deciding
his course. He may be considered
as a point acted on by several differ-
ent impulses ; in fact, as the resisting
point in a problem in the resolution
of forces. The forces acting were
four, to wit : —
1. Business ; being the proposition
which he knew perfectly well Mr.
Button was going that morning to
make him
2. Study ; the lines of acquisition
of knowledge and aesthetic culture
towards which his own mental nature
impelled him, but which he must def-
initely resign if he accepted Mr.
Button's offers.
3 . Betrothal : the fulfilment of his
engagement with Ann Button, which
would weld him with irrevocable one-
ness, even more than a mere business
contract, into the circle of life where
revolved the Button family and Dr.
Toomston's church ; — for this last,
oddly enough, the young man found
himself considering as a kind of ap-
pendix to the Button interest ; and
having no great reverence for institu-
tions and forms merely as such, Ad-
rian caught himself asking, like the
funny man in the play, whether the
tail wagged the dos;, or the dog the
tail?
4. There was another influence,
however, the newest of all, and, if
not the strongest of all, yet the deci-
sive one at this time in bringing Ad-
rian's mind to determine upon the
consent with which he resolved to
meet Mr. Button's offers. And yet
it was the least distinct of all ; per-
haps even it would be most correct
to call it an apprehension that there
was such an influence For, what-
ever it really was, Adrian did not
name it even in his silent communion
with himself; he had not expressly
named it, even in that unresisted and
sudden revelation of last evening.
He felt that it was not best nor safe
to name it nor to admit its presence.
He onby asked whether it was possi-
ble that it was present. He said, Is
it here? and added straightway with-
out waiting even to say No, or Yes,
— If it is it must be put out; so
that if he recognized it even as pos-
sibl} - present, it was only to flee from
before it. There was nothing to make
him believe that the power in ques-
tion was really a living force tending
to draw him any whither — at least,
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
175
nothing distinct. One kiss, one song,
one look, one whisper. Yet when-
ever he remembered either of these,
— and since last evening, — as he
now recognized with a strange feeling
of spiritual happiness which wavered
moment by moment into something
like fear and pain over wrong-doing,
with a swift shimmer like the colors
on a changeable silk, — since last
evening he knew all of a sudden that
for da}-s he had lived in one unbroken
dream upon one or all of them, — yet
whenever he remembered articulately
either one, his heart beat ; he felt his
cheeks flush ; and at once, resolute
to keep faith, he would say, No !
and would set himself anew to the
steady contemplation of what he had
promised, and of the 3-oke to which
he proposed to bow himself, as a
means of effectual self-constraint, to
observe that promise. And as in
dreams one is forever beginning some-
thing that will not end, or avoiding
some phantom that incessantlv rises
again, so in this dream, Adrian, shut-
ting and shutting the door to a para-
dise, and in resolved self-denying
honor steadfastly turning away, for-
ever found himself with the same
door opening before his face, the
lovely air of an unknown heaven
breathing forth upon him through the
portal, his heart and his senses ac-
knowledging the divine abode, and
his foot unconsciously lifted to the
threshold.
For, sweet as the invitation was,
yet the strongest impulses of the
young man — and noble ones they
were, no doubt — called him to re-
fuse ; a generosity even unreasona-
ble ; an untried instinct of self-deni-
al ; an impulse even beyond the line
of justice, to surrender not rnerety
his rights, but his wishes, for the sake
of seeing others happy in possessing
their wishes ; a conscientiousness not
yet trained to the wise recollection
that one's self may no more be
wronged than one's fellow — all these
ruled him. Happier than the strong
god of the old fable, he was ruled by
several virtues against one happiness,
and that an unknown one. No won-
der that that majority carried him
So he hasted down to Mr. But-
ton's office as fast as he could. He
did not know why he went so fast ;
it was to get the business over and
done with, and lock that door. On
arriving, he found Doctor Toomston
seated in consultation Avith the pub-
lisher, in the private office. Mr.
Button, as Adrian entered, looked at
his watch.
" Ten minutes ahead of time, ha}'?
Wal, that 's better 'n ten minutes be-
hind," he observed, not ill-naturedly,
adding, in his half-sarcastic way,
" ' Go not before ye be sent,' is a
good rule in business as well as in
Scripture ; ain't it, Doctor ? "
" I can't refer you to that text,"
said the doctor, with a smile, — " it 's
not in my Cruden, Mr. Button."
" Wal, it 's good sense all the
same. But I 'm glad to see ye, Ad-
rian ; and now seddown and look
over this memorandum for a. minute,
while I finish with the doctor." And
giving Adrian a stout filed document,
he pointed to a seat, and resumed
his consultation with the clergyman.
Adrian, unfolding the paper, found
it headed, " Button Theological
Seminary"; and the surprise with
which he read this noble title was not
diminished when he beheld, as he
read, a plan, worked out in consid-
erable detail, for a complete institu-
tion. It was provided with a " form
of sound words," or profession of
faith, of the strictest old-fashioned
orthodoxy and compactest verbal
Scrope;
or,
The Lost Library.
architecture, to be signed by all the
professors forever ; a set of professor-
ships, and a well-digested course of
study, were set forth ; even the blank
" Form of a Bequest " was added at
the end, after the pleasing model of
the catalogue of Rutgers College in
New Jersey, with five different alter-.
natives, adapted to the more general
or more special ways in which any
moribund might probably prefer to
have the institution profit by his de-
cease, and as if to be distributed to
all wealthy persons intending death.
He had read it carefully through, and
sat considering, when the capitalist
said, suddenly, —
"• Wal, Adrian, — have ye agreed
upon a verdict?''
••Why," said the young man, "I
see what there is there."
•• Seems to me you speak as if you
was thinkin of something that is n't
there ? "
•• I was noticing the assortment of
Theologies." said Adrian, " and I did
think of a couple of chairs that I
should have added to the list, even
if I had dropped two to make room
for them."
•• Indeed, young man? " said Doc-
tor Toomston, mounting rapidly into
the sacred desk ; for the good old di-
vine had. even from his one or two
brief interviews with Adrian, become
imbued with a deep distrust of his
character and influence. If he could
have prevented it. Mr. Button would
not have called this unregenerate
youth into their counsels ; and he was
wroth in advance with whatever ob-
servation Adrian should make ; —
'• Indeed, young man? It will be a
fine thing to know your mind respect-
ing an institution which, we hope,
will be a school of the prophets long
after we three are resting beneath
the clods of the valley."
" There, Adrian," put in Mr. But-
ton, •'you see the doctor wants to
know whether Saul also is among the
prophets ! "
Adrian, however abundant in sweet
and kindly impulses, was by no means
deficient in the sterner ones. Indeed,
if his tendency to benevolent actions
was unregulated and excessive, his
tendency to resist every semblance
of injustice or imposition was cer-
tainly not less so ; nor had he the
self-control of experience, that waits
to consider its own impulse before
even revealing what it is, and then
waits again to consider how and when
best to reveal it. He had also already
instinctively felt the hostility of the
clergyman's sentiments, and he heard
it now rasp anew in the sharp tones
of his voice. He answered there-
fore, with perceptible emphasis :
" Doctor Toomston, I believe /shall
not 'rest beneath the clods of the
valley' ; I hope for a happier future.
I think the habit of assuming that we
are in the grave, is a heathen habit
of thought and a heathen expression,
and not Christian at all. Now, these
professorships are : Historical Theol-
ogv, Exegetical Theology (and Bib-
lical Literature), Ecclesiastical The-
ology, Systematic Theology. Polemic
Theology, Didactic Theology, and
Pastoral Theology. All I have to
say is, that even if I had to omit two
of those, I would have two other
professorships : of Practical Theol-
ogy, and of the Christian Religion."
•• Well, sir," said the divine, as he
rose and took his hat, ; ' whenever
you will endow those chairs, we will
try to reap the advantage of your
great wisdom and ripe Christian ex-
perience."
'• Don't go, Doctor," said Mr. But-
ton. — "I'm sorry you and Adrian
don't hitch horses no better ; but I
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
177
want ye to hear what I 'm a-goin to
say to him, for it may have a bearin
on the filter of the church, and may
bring him under savin influences,
too. You hain't no right to miss that
opportunity."
But Doctor Toomston was not at
present in a disposition to seek the
enlistment in his flock of so black a
sheep. He would rather have bought
the certainty of his exclusion with a
great sum. Nor is it strange that
the good old gentleman, having lived
so long in conditions that made him
a kind of pope, — or, should the
diminutive of affection be used, a
kind of poppet? — was intolerant of
what seemed to him such presump-
tion. And having at the same time
a good deal of sense under all his
habit of domineering in things spiri-
tual, he was, though he did not
know it, afraid. Here was a young
fellow who said, " You 're only a man.
Come down out of your sacred desk,
and let's see if you are right or
wrong." And he was in the right to
be afraid. It would have been an
injustice to expect him to appear
well on an arena from which his
whole life had estranged him. And
it would have risked a terrible low-
ering of himself in the eyes of his
powerful parishioner. So, with real
wisdom, and a sufficient show of
dignity, he solemnly withdrew, plead-
ing important duties, and hoping that
all Mr. Button's counsels and plans
might be guided and overruled if
necessary, for the best.
"Overruled, ha}'?" commented
the publisher, when his pastor had
departed ; "I reckon I know jest
what I want, all the same. Now the
old man thinks he 's sejested the hull
o' that are seminary to me, and it
does him a heap o' good to think so.
All right ! I could n't git the right
influence to bear if he did n't. Them
parsons do hang together most re-
markable. — Wal, I'll talk to ye
another time about the Seminar}'.
But fust of all, my boy, I really wish
you could see your way clear to jine
the church. I come to this city
more 'n twenty-five years ago. 1
had n't more 'n looked round, before
I made up my mind that that very
thing was the best one thing I could
do, and I did it. And it 's been a
great deal o' money in- my pocket
every year since that time."
The perfect good faith of this rec-
ommendation of what may be called
an American simony, which contem-
plated not exactly buying the Holy
Ghost, or even church preferment,
with money, the same crime turned
end for end, viz. buying money with
position in the church, — the evident
and entire sincerity of this advice
startled while it amused Adrian. But
he was at the moment in a comply-
ing attitude of mind towards Mr.
Button, and not in a critical one ;
and he only answered that he would
certainly do as he was requested
whenever he should find himself a
fit person.
This particular ceremonial was
however not what the publisher had
chiefly at heart ; for he accepted this
answer without comment, and pro-
ceeded at once to the main business
of the occasion.
" Now, about our affairs. You see,
there 's more in you than I thought.
If I'd seen as much of ye 't other day
as I have now, I 'd a made ye a distink
proposition then, instead o' talkin
kinder round the question. I liked
the way you did up that meetin Mon-
day. You put the case fustrate. I
ain't no hand at chin-music, but I
know a good style on 't.
" Wal ; the Ions; and the short on 't
ITS
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
is, Adrian, I want a partner. My
business here 's enough for any ordi-
nary man, and within a year or two
my outside concerns have got so that
I 've been a-workin double tides this
two or three years, and I can barely
keep up. Then I 've got some views
for the futer — but they'll keep for
the present. But I can't go on this
way alone. My son won't be no
great staff to my old age, I expect.
Fur 's I c'n see he "11 be lucky to keep
his wits No use thinkin about that.
And I mast, too ; for if anything
should happen to me. 't wdn't do for
William to have control of my prop-
erty. It 's a trustee of my estate
that I 've got to provide for. as much
as a partner in business."
Thus opening at once the main
features of his purpose, Mr Button
proceeded at some length to set forth
Bis wishes, which were judiciously
intermingled from time to time with
compliments to Adrian's abilities,
ami compliments to his own perspi-
cacity in discerning the same. He
finally stated to Adrian a distinct
proposition, to become his partner, to
have the management of his corres-
pondence and general office business
at first ; and to work into the control
of the training department, as it
might be called, being that of the
choice and management of agents
and canvassers, as soon as practica-
ble ; to give whatever aid he could
in all other undertakings of Mr. But-
ton, so far as desired ; and to act,
should the occasion arise and the
menus be provided, as trustee, or as
guardian, or both, under such proper
instrument as Mr. Button should
execute for the purpose. A liberal
revenue, by a percentage on the
whole business income of the con-
cern, was provided. In conclusion
he referred to his unexpected satis-
faction at finding such valuable busi-
ness qualifications in one whose pro-
posed very close connection with his
family made their possession pecu-
liarly important, and he suggested
how greatly the same connection
would promote and strengthen the
arrangement he wished ; and he
ended with a specification of the first
enterprise to be carried through un-
der the new reign — the issue of his
proposed ' History of the Bible." " If
I can git that shoved under folkses
noses as handsomely as you put
them pints Monday, that book '11
make a few-roar, certain — and a
good many roar too, it's my opinion.
And there hain't no sech chance
been offered to a young man in New
York city this fifty years, I reckon.
— Wal, Adrian?"
What Mr. Button said was doubt-
less quite true. Adrian had only to
say one syllable, and he was rich.
Nor was he one of those imperfectly
organized persons who are indiffer-
ent to riches. Money is like other
temptations : not to resist it is wick-
ed : lint not to appreciate it is foolish.
And Adrian had come with the defi-
nite resolve to say this Yes, as being
the short straight road to the honora-
ble performance of all his promises,
and to a creditable and perhaps suf-
ficiently useful position in life.
But at this last moment he found
in himself a profound reluctance ; just
as many an intending suicide has
stopped when the cold steel touched
his flesh, or when the cup with the
dose poured out was sloped towards
his open mouth, or when already
bent over the dark cold water. He
absolutely could not utter the word
which he had as it were lying ready
made upon the very tip of his tongue.
But this reluctance was from no
victory of selfish wishes over unself-
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
179
ish resolutions What Mr. Button
had been rehearsing had brought be-
fore him with renewed vividness con-
siderations that it was quite right for
him to pause upon. It was a pro-
found love of the good and the beau-
tiful and the true, a profound horror
of the evil and the ugly, that bore
his soul backward from the verge to
which his reason and his will had
brought him. Even the unusual kind-
ness and softness of Mr Button's
manner, while it affected Adrian
deeply, yet — and to his astonish-
ment — repelled him strongly. No
wonder, however ; it is always so
with affectionate demonstrations from
the unfit.
So he hesitated at the very last
moment ; he was seeing with the
swift vividness of a strong imagina-
tion all the distress of future years :
the interminable company of bitter-
minded women ; an imbecile and bru-
tal-mannered ward furious at being
deprived of the control of his own
property ; a hard slavery to business,
and loss after loss of all the knowl-
edges that he loved ; a shrinkage and
hardening of life instead of its expan-
sion ; — no wonder that the dollar
question did not greatly weigh with
him. A valid check to bearer for the
whole of Mr. Button's means, waiting
only for his fingers to close upon it,
— but indeed it was something very
like the equivalent of such a paper
that he was delaying over, — such a
check all ready before him, or even
the sum itself in actual money, — in
the mood of the moment, — would
have affected him as much as the
phantoms of values with which the
frugal reverence of the Chinese cheats
the ghosts of their dead.
But the tenderness of men like
Mr. Button is not to be trifled with.
It is too unnatural a condition not to
be almost a mortification in itself;
and especially if it is not responded
to, it is likely to react into an excess
of violence. This Adrian felt ; but
indeed all these phases of feeling had
been passing through his mind while
Mr. Button spoke. So he paused
but a very few moments before re-
plying. As the capitalist ceased
speaking, Adrian, who had been look-
ing at him, naturally looked down as
one who considers. Mr. Button, sur-
prised at even this pause, repeated
his last words, with some impatience
of tone, —
"Wal, Adrian?"
" I mean to accept," said Adrian
at last, frankly, and yet with an ef-
fort, and a shade of constraint in his
voice, — " but I want to know about
one or two matters of detail."
"Mean to accept?" replied Mr.
Button, with some asperity, but not
yielding entirely to his dissatisfac-
tion, — " why don't ye, then? We
can fix up the details afterwards,
can't we?"
" Well then,. — just one thing that
troubles me," said Adrian, almost
ashamed of himself, aud yet uncon-
sciousby, — and perhaps in conse-
quence of that very embarrassment,
bringing up the most dangerous
subject he could have suggested, —
not that it was not the right thing to
do, — "just one thing. You don't
know what some of your tenants are
using your real estate for. Now,
could I have a chance to show you
the facts, and have some of those
infamous places cleaned out ? "
Mr. Button was angry, instantly ;
triply angry ; with a sense of kind-
ness abused, a sense of being imper-
tinently meddled with, and last and
hottest, and least conscious of all,
with an apprehension lest he should
be forced to know something that he
180
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
did not mean to know, and so made
to lose rent.
tk I have n't a piece of real estate
that is n't in the hands of perfectly
respectable men," he said — "not
one. If there 's any irregularity it 's
against my express orders, and they
don't like it no better 'n I do ; and
they'll stop it as soon as they can.
Sech things will naterally happen in
a city like this, without anybody 's
bein to blame. But my real estate 's
all satisfactory to me, and I can't
break up my leases, either, jest to
please your squeamishness, Adrian."
All this was excuse, and bad ex-
cuse too, and Mr. Button knew it,
and the knowledge made him grow
angrier as he spoke.
" Wal, I snum ! " he exclaimed, in
continuation, with the New Eng-
lander's attempt to get the relief of
an oath without the guilt of it — "I
snum ! I might a known, after all,
how 't would be ! I'cla darn sight
better a waited and let ye come
askin me. Offered sarvice allers
stinks, my old father used to say.
I 'm sorry I offered it to ye. I 'm
sorry, almost, I offered any sarvice
to old Van Braam too. Confound
sech a high-flyin crowd ! I guess if
I should send him in a bill for rent
them premises he occupies, he 'd
find out, and so he would about that
secretaryship o his 'n, if I did n't
keep him in it. I don't think no
great o him ; I 'd jest as lief any-
body 'd know that ; so I would that
1 '11 stick by those of my blood — if
they '11 let me. Wal, I 've a great
mind, jest this minute, to cut off all
round, and let every man skin his
own skunks. General Jackson said
he heard of a man once that made
an independent fortin a mindin his
own business. That 's the way I
made mine too. And if }-ou ever
do make one, Adrian, it'll be the
same way, I can tell ye that ! "
" But I did not mean to displease
you, my clear sir," said Adrian, who
did not know the secret of what a
sarcastic wit once called " the virtu-
ous indignation of a guilty con-
science," — "I meant to do }*ou a
real service, and I thought you would
be glad of it."
" O yes, — wal, I hain't no doubt
on 't, Adrian — not a bit. You 're
like the Baptist minister that had
been a-la}dn down the law to God
Almighty in his prayer, and then
apologized by sa} T in, ' Oh Lord, we
don't presume to dictate, but only
to advise ! ' You 're altogether too
fast, — altogether. You must n't be
in sech a hurry, or you '11 find 3 r ou 've
washed more close 'n ye c'n hang out,
right off ! "
Adrian was too much displeased
with the vulgar anger of Mr. Button,
to take any note of the interesting
illustration which these observations
afforded, of the natural tendency of
strong rude intellects to the use of
such concentrated wisdom as these
proverbial and anecdotic enforce-
ments. Yet they were signs of na-
tive powers which might have made
the vulgar angry brute a great ora-
tor. Intense passion, pictorial rep-
resentation of it — what more is
needed to swa} r a popular assembh' ?
Indeed, it was an obscure conscious-
ness of these very powers that made
Mr. Button wish to be a member of
Congress, or a public man of some
kind ; and one of his motives for se-
curing Adrian's confidential services
was, a half-defined purpose of mak-
ing some sort of a finishing precep-
tor of him — a piece of literary
sand-paper, so to speak. But his
wrath was inexpressibry repellent to
Adrian, and far more so was his
Scrojpe; or, The Lost Library.
181
reference to the assistance he had
conferred upon Mr. Van Braam. " I
don't think I can possibly expose
myself to an} r such suggestions as
that," was Adrian's feeling, and un-
der this apprehension of personal
indignity, his predetermined Yes in-
stantly turned into an approximate
No. He rose at once, saying, —
" Well then ; I can't expect you to
continue 3*0 ur offer, since I have been
so unfortunate as to offend 3*011 so
much. You are quite right in calling
it a liberal one ; I never heard any-
thing more handsome ; and although
I look upon it as withdrawn, I am
really and very thankful to you for
having made it." And he held out
his hand to the publisher :
" Wait a minute," .said Mr. Button ;
and he put his two hands to the back
of his thick, strong neck ; — " wait a
minute. There's that pain again.
It 's queer. Sometimes I think I 'm
altogether done up. Seddown, sed-
down You 're too fast."
Adrian resumed his seat, but kept
his hat in his hand. Mr. Button sat
silent, evidently recovering his self-
command. After a few minutes he
said, —
"There 's no use in concludin now,
— I had n't no call to fly off the han-
dle, whether or no. I won't take an
answer from 3-e to-day. It's too
important a matter to hurry. But
you 've got my proposition, an3* way.
Now go and mull it over at 3*our lei-
sure. Take time for it ; and make
up your mind deliberately."
Certainty this was fair reasoning ;
and Adrian, feeling that he could not
refuse, assented, and so went away.
CHAPTER XXV.
As Adrian purposed to set out for
Hartford the same afternoon, he went
from Mr. Button's office to his board-
ing-place, with intent to prepare for
departure. He went leisurely, and
stopped, as was his custom on occa-
sion, to see divers sights, and more
particularly to examine the stock in
trade of one or two print-shops, in
order to find, if he could, a suitable
substitute for the unhapp3* print which
he had destro3~ed from over Mr. Van
Braam's mantel-piece.
In choosing this picture he expe-
rienced a good deal of difficulty. His
modest finances would no J; admit of
a good oil-painting, or water-color
drawing ; what people call a " chro-
mo," he despised almost to a Rusk-
inic extreme ; the various sun-pic-
tures he truly estimated as studies
rather than pictures, so that he was left
to do the best he could with engrav-
ings. So he examined lithographs and
steel engravings, etchings and mez-
zotints ; landscapes, sacred subjects,
comic pictures, domestic and senti-
mental groups,war-pictures, portraits,
historical scenes, in endless variety,
faying to choose something with
thought enough to bear acquaintance,
with happiness enough of some kind,
whether human, animal, or the repre-
sentative happiness of J03XWS land-
scape, to be a comfort, and with
artistic merit enough to bear fair
criticism. A good copy of Henriquel-
Dupont's immense plate of Dela-
roche's Hemicycle tempted him, but
were too big and too costly. A
Marie Antoinette before the Revolu-
tionaiy Tribunal after the same pow-
erful master, the noble Ecce Homo
after Guercino, a dark, cold, strong
picture of Odin speeding over the
northern snows on some errand of
death, with his raven at his side,
Kaulbach's weird battle of the phan-
toms, fighting again in the air over
the heads of the furious fleshby war-
182
Scroj)e; or, The Lost Library.
riors on the earth, he examined and
rejected. A sad or gloomy thought,
whether great or small, complex or
simple, weak or strong, is no good
possession, if to be used alone. Next
he found a large photograph of the
pyramids and the Sphinx, whose excep-
tional portrait value redeemed it out
of the class of mere studies ; and he
was specially attracted by the funny
expression of undismayed joviality
upon the gigantic battered phiz of
the Sphinx, who seemed to " come
up smiling " from her terrific punish-
ment b}' the ages, although their
pounding had beaten a vast hollow
where her venerable nose had orig-
inally been. Yet upon reflection
this picture, while a capital one to
* be included in a portfolio, seemed
too peculiar to be placed alone in a
sitting-room. In such a place, gen-
iality and breadth of association, not
grimness and separated quaintness,
are wanted. Then came Hamon's
delightful little fancy, " Ma Soeur n'y
est pas " ; then Holman Hunt's bur-
glar-like " Light of the World." At
last, just as he was on the point of
giving over the pursuit for that time,
he found what he wanted, — a steel
engraving it was, broad in execution,
yet so soft in parts that at first sight
you took it for a lithograph. It had
no name, nor any designation of
either painter or engraver ; but its
level, strong meadow plane, its long,
long vista straight and far into the
distance, its perfect atmospheric per-
spective, the enjoying, powerful,
thoughtful skill of the whole manage-
ment, proved it to be after Rousseau.
It was a partly wooded foreground,
from which yoxx looked out be3 - ond
and through one open glade after an-
other, until you seemed to glide miles
upon miles away to the distant hori-
zon, carried evenly and resolutely by
the strong will of the artist, over the
vast and fertile plain. In the shade
of this foreground sat a young couple,
the lady with some work, the gentle-
man reading to her. That was all —
but it was enough. Paying what was
asked, without bargaining, Adrian
took it under his arm and passed on,
well pleased.
At entering the door of his tempo-
rary abode, the servant handed him
a letter, which, she said, had been
left there for him some time before.
The superscription was in the hand-
writing of Miss Ann Button, and
something was enclosed. With a curi-
ous mixture of presentiments, Adrian
hastened up to his hall-bedroom, and
opened the letter. The enclosure was
the ring which he had last seen on
Miss Button's finger, — the engage-
ment ring which he had given her, —
and the letter was a peremptorj' dis-
missal, dated about an hour back.
Thus it ran : —
Dear Adrian: — Tt is with much pain
that I send you back your ring. I have for
some time been convinced that it would be a
greater mistake to keep on with my engage-
ment to you, than to discontinue it. Recent
occurrences have made me more certain of
this than ever ; and the prayers and counsels
of one whom I revere almost as a parent,
have this very day, and not for the first time,
warned me, not to be unequally yoked with
an unbeliever. I have been greatly wounded
by recent expressions of yours upon religious
subjects, and so has my mother. It is with
her advice as well as that of my beloved
pastor that I now act. We had better not
see each other for the present. Let us, how-
ever, still be friends. I wish you every hap-
piness in this life and a better prepa-
ration for that which is to come. Some
things which I have observed have made me
think that you have already discovered a
more congenial companion than I could have
been. I need not forgive her, for she has
not done anything wrong, in this matter at
least. Yet I cannot conscientiously ask the
blessing of Heaven on any human relations
unhallowed by the consolations of religion.
May you be bro\ightto know your sinful con-
dition before it shall be forever too late.
Your Friend,
Ann J. Button.
Scrojye; or, The Lost Library.
183
A irian read this stiff and cold letter
— a very corpse of a letter — twice
through, with feelings that seemed to
him thoroughly improper in a rejected
lover. He wanted to laugh, and to
hurra, in fact. " I ought to be mor-
tified, seems to me," he said to him-
self, " and here I am, feeling like a
prisoner unexpectedly let out of
jail ! " And catching a glimpse of
his own delighted countenance in the
glass, he did laugh aloud, in spite
of propriety.
Then he set himself to consider
what might be the facts of the case.
Had he been to blame by neglecting
Ann, or in being too attentive to
others ? Certainly not, unless — and
here his conscience did give him a
sort of dig — certainly not, unless in
the case of Civille. With her name
a profound wave of happiness and
hope swept through the young man's
soul. And he no longer resisted it ;
he floated away into the dream-world
of love. He had never known of it
before ; the thrill and glow of his
own emotion — when he came to a
consciousness of his thoughts — al-
most scared him. Then, with an ef-
fort, he resumed his process of rem-
iniscence. He had been as attentive
to Ann as she would permit. But
her cold close nature had mostly
forbidden even the discreet intimacy
which is thought proper in such cases.
How cold and secretive she was, ap-
peared plainly enough in her utter
silence about these recent griefs of
hers, until the last moment, in the
severe air of reproving sanctity with
which she conferred damnation on
her lover, and in the prompt and
almost brisk decision with which she
cast him out of her — hands. But
again ; had he done wrong in the
matter of Civille ? He thought and
thought ; he could not see that he
had. At the most, he had without
consciousness or intention suddenly
found himself dangerously delighting
in her ; and as soon as he saw this,
he had in good faith tried a short
road out of the peril, without even
waiting to see whether his wish co-
incided with his duty. And on this
short road, he had received already
two stout and unexpected rebuffs,
from the very persons in whose in-
terests he had been acting, and acting
in perfect disregard of any prefer-
ences of his own. Mr. Button had
shown him very plainly that he meant
to permit no ethical views to be con-
founded with his financiering. And
now Ann, for whom solefy — except
so far as the keeping of his own faith
with her might be a separate motive —
for whom solely except for this, he
was escaping away from heaven as fast
as he could, stood up and thrust him
irresistibly back. "It is good that
I did not stop to think about it all,"
reflected Adrian, "or I believe I
should have spoken first ! " And
he yielded to the stroke thus aimed
at him, without wish or thought of
warding or returning it ; back he
hastened into paradise as fast as he
could.
First he sat down and wrote,
briefly, but kindly, for he felt so
happy that he wished well to every-
body in the world, to Mr. Button,
enclosing Ann's note, and saying
that this step of hers totally changed
all the relations of the parties to each
other ; and that accordingly it was
necessary to postpone all their pro-
posed business plans for the present.
And he explained that he believed
Ann had really done what was best
for all concerned, and expressed what
he really felt : sincere regard for her,
and respect for the perspicacity
which had discerned the state of her
184
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
own feelings, and for the decision
which had so promptly acted upon
them.
Then he completed his small task
of packing up. Then he took his pic-
ture under his arm and hastened to
Mr. Van Braam's. He found Civille
in the parlor, but not alone. She
had lying on her lap a little baby,
rather dark-complexioned, and with
black eyes, that kicked and crowed
while she played with it and laughed
with it. The mother stood by, — a
rather good-looking mulatto woman,
with that glossy, wavy hair which
indicates some mixture of Indian
blood, and with that combination of
intense passionate and lowering looks
in her features, which is so often
seen in the negro-Indian half-breed.
" I can't bear to have you carry the
dear little thing away," Civille was
just saying, as Adrian was shown
in. " I 'in ever so much obliged to
3'ou, Mrs. Barnes," she continued, as
she exchanged greetings with her
visitor, " for letting me have her so
long. You '11 bring her again, won't
you?"
Mrs. Barnes promised ; but the
baby, having the babyish faculty of
knowing who loved it, felt the strong
sweet yearning that surrounded her,
and at being held out to its own
mother, set up a terrible howl. Mrs.
Barnes' bright black eyes flashed with
unreasoning anger.
4k Not if you make my child love
you better than me ! " But she
added in a moment, " Beg pardon,
miss, but it hurt me to see her cry
at having to come back to me. I 've
got a terrible temper. And God
knows it's but a bad home the little
thing will get with me, and a right
poor prospect. Thank you kindly ;
and I '11 be sure and bring her. Per-
haps it would be the best thing could
happen to her, after all, to forget her
own mother entirely."
" Good-bye, dear," said Civille,
kissing the poor little thing, " we '11
both love you, baby. And Mrs.
Barnes, I '11 do anything I can for
you too ; for bab3-'s sake and for
your own."
"You're very good, I'm sure,
miss," said Mrs. Barnes, as she with-
drew.
" That 's the poor little baby they
turned out of the Shadowing Wings
last week," said Civille to Adrian,
her beautiful eyes full of tears as she
spoke ; — " Dear little funny thing !
I '11 tell 30U a secret, cousin Adrian,''
she continued, — "I mean to adopt
that little girl, if her mother will give
her to me."
" Do you? " said Adrian, who was
not in any mood of mind to disap-
prove or oppose any wish of Civille' s
— at least directly — " that is very
lovely in you."
" I did not tell Mrs. Barnes so ;
but I wanted to."
Now, loveby as Adrian found the
disposition which was impelling Ci-
ville, this particular bab}-, if any ex-
isting bab}', was not the precise one
to which he would on the whole have
first directed her maternal instincts.
But he had too much tact — and his
sentiments towards Civille at present
reinforced that tact — to say just
that. So he executed a flank move-
ment.
" You must consider one imme-
diate question, and one future one,
before you full}" decide," he said,
" for a real adoption, \o\\ know, is
for life."
" Yes, — I know it."
" Well ; I think you were telling
me one day about your pets that
died?"
" Yes," said Civille, as a sad look
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
185
came over her face, — " my poor
little canary, my little dog — all of
them — "
" ' All my little ones, — all ! ' "
quoted Adrian. " But, my dear
cousin, will 3~ou please also to con-
sider what your father or yourself
also told me about your own health
having somewhat failed since you
came to this house to live ? And I
know, myself, that you are not as
strong as you ought to be. Aivybody
can see it that knows how to look at
faces. Please to confess that you
are more nervous, and more easily
tired, than you ought to be."
" Yes, — I am," said Civille ; " but
what do you mean, Adrian ? "
" And see how magnificently 3-our
plants grow," continued he, pointing
to the luxuriant leafage and rich
blooms in the little flower room. Ci-
ville looked, but was more puzzled
than ever.
" You live here, and don't pei*ceive
what I do, who come from the coun-
try. The moment I was well within
New York cit}^, I felt the air to be
dead, and dirty. It feels so and
smells so to me all the time. I don't
believe I could bear to be locked into
such an infected place for life. Now
that same difficulty is worse here in
this old house, for it does not ven-
tilate well ; you know your father
keeps it as much shut up as he can,
and the drainage certainly is not
right. I know it is n't, for I never
come in here without being reminded
of it. And remember that plants
will flourish in air that is abominable
for animals. It is this close old house
that killed your poor little pets, Ci-
ville ; it is keeping your own health
down ; and if 3^011 do adopt this nice
little baby, don't you do it while 3-ou
live here."
The force of the facts, and the
earnestness of the manner in which
the3 r were put, made Civille look very
thoughtful ; she considered a moment,
and then agreed that she would at
least wait a little.
" Ask Doctor Veroil," said Adrian ;
" he 's a man of capital good sense
as well as a kind heart ; he likes you,
and he '11 give 3*011 the right advice.
In fact, I '11 abide hy what he sa3*s
— I'm not afraid to promise that in
advance. I wish 3'ou would too ! "
Adrian felt quite safe in this offer ;
for the truth is that he promised him-
self to see the doctor and get him well
primed before Civille should have a
chance at him. But he resumed : —
" That is the immediate consider-
ation that I meant. The distant one
is not so pressing, but it is worth
considering. You ought to re-
member the chances that this little
girl will grow up bad, in spite of you.
She is not of a hopeful strain. Have
you looked at Mrs. Barnes' e3'es?
There are some veiy wicked looks in
that woman's face. I have n't the
honor of Mr. Barnes' acquaintance "
" Oh, don't," said Civille, tearfully.
" Adrian, why do you fight nry poor
little bab3 T so ? "
"•Dear Civille," said Adrian, " an-
swer me one question. Had you
thought of either of those things
3 T ourself ? "
"Why — no."
" Then was n't it best that you
should be brought to consider both
sides of the question ? " ,
" — Yes — I suppose so," said the
3-oung lacby, who veiy natural^- hated
to admit it.
" And if I was really fighting the
little thing," said Adrian, " how evi-
dent it is that my policy would be to
get it here as soon as possible, since
I believe this house unhealtlry for
it?"
186
Scrope; or, Tlie Lost Library.
So Civille was silenced, if not con-
vinced. But she agreed to ask Dr.
Veroil about it ; and then she asked
what was in the parcel. The picture
was produced, and was liked ; and
was found to fit sufficientby well in
the frame which had so long dis-
played the agonies of the Dying
Camel. Then Civille returned to the
sofa where the}- had been sitting, and
Adrian too came and sat by her
where he had sat before. He said,
" Cousin Civille, I would like to
hold your two hands once more just
for a moment, before I go back to
Hartford this afternoon."
" Yes," she said, promptly and
simply, and held them out to him.
He took them, crossing his own, as
he had done at the room of Mrs.
Babbles in Depau Row, and looked
once more into the deep limpid gray
eyes.
"Ah," she said, " you must n't !
You must n't put me asleep again,
cousin Adrian ! "
" I won't," he replied. And the
emotion that arose within him gave
her a troubled feeling ; and an ex-
pression of perplexity, with a shade
of apprehension, came oyer her face.
" What is it ? " she asked, with a sh}*
smile and a faint blush
" Dear Civille," he said, " some-
thing has happened to me to-da}- that
I should have said I ought to feel
sorry for, and I am as glad as I can
be. And it has explained something
else, that I was afraid about before ;
but now I am glad of it. And still
something else has happened which
most people would think me very
foolish for doing ; but I believe you
will think I am right."
" What a string of riddles ! " said
Civille, looking more perplexed than
before, but yet somewhat comforted
by the earnest gladness of Adrian'!
tone and manner. "What a string
of riddles ! And is any reward of-
fered for the best answers to your
three conundrums?" she said, almost
gayly.
" A reward? No, I am not offer-
ing one ; I am seeking one ; before I
have earned it, too. Civille, what is
the reason that instead of wanting
to keep things secret from you, as I
usually do with other people, I always
enjoy the idea of telling 3-011 ? "
"Why, you have never told me
much," she said.
'^Haven't I?" he replied, impul-
sively. She blushed again and looked
down, and he felt her draw a little
away from him. But he held fast,
and hastened. "Wait just a moment,"
he said, "I am going away. — Civille,
Mr Button has offered me a partner-
ship, and I have refused."
She looked up with surprise, yet
not with displeasure.
" I had decided to accept, this
morning, though."
" What changed 3-our mind so sud-
denly ? " asked the young lady.
"Chiefly," he said, "Ann's note,
which I received afterward, dismiss-
ing me."
Civille started, and looked up at
him with a mixture in her expression
of sorrow with something that Adrian
could not quite make out. But his
carefulness and deliberation did not
last him any longer. " Yes," he
said, " she wrote to me that she would
not be unequally 3'oked with an un-
believer. That was Doctor Toom-
ston's text Sunday. Perhaps he
meant me. She says he advised her,
at an}' rate. So did her mother, she
says. But, Civille, she was right.
She did not love me, nor I her. It
is you that I love. Civille, love
me ? "
s "I love you, Adrian," she said,
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
187
softly, but with a feeling too deep
for passion, and blushing a little, she
looked for a moment, as she spoke,
directly into his eyes ; and she re-
ceived, and returned, the kiss that he
•gave her.
" Yes, Adrian, I love you. But I
ought not to have said it. I ought
not to have kissed you. Let go,
please ! Don't, dear ! "
For he was, naturally enough,
seeking to draw her still nearer. But
the beseeching tone of the last words
was too urgent to be resisted, and he
could not but withdraw a little, as
her two slender hands, with soft im-
pulse, even pushed him a little away.
" I can't," she said. " Dear Adrian,
I know what 3-011 said, last evening,
and I have been wickedly happy ever
since. I should have kept on so, too.
But I did not know this would hap-
pen. Poor Ann ! She will not let
anybody love her ! "
Adrian did not know what to make
of this mingling of confession of love,
of reprobation and refusal of it, and
of discursive benevolence.
" Nor you either, it would seem,"
he replied, almost discontentedly.
" I don't understand it at all, Civille.
I felt so sure ! Well, I had no right
to. But you don't mean it, Civille ? "
" Yes I do, dear. And 3'ou will
say I am right when I tell you the
reasons. Now, you must n't look dis-
pleased. Dear Adrian, if I had n't
thought about you more than I had
any business to, could I have had an
answer all reasoned out, ready for
you now ? "
It was true ; the fact that she had
indulged in dreaming of him even as
a refused lover, was in some way an
alleviation of the painful sense of
lonesomeness that began to arise in
him, as he felt that Civille's real mean-
ing was a refusal. But still, it was
a man's reply that he made, —
" I wish you had not given me one
single kiss, then ! "
" I don't," was the woman's an-
swer. " It would be sweet to mo
alwa} T s, even if I should never see
you again."
" You are right, Civille. But now
— tell me ? "
As he asked, the front door was
heard to open. "It's father," she
said, — "to lunch. Don't let him
know. I '11 write to 3'ou. You have
a right to be told ; perhaps I can
write more easily."
" I am not sure but that I would
prefer a broad, plain, gilt frame, af-
ter all," said poor Adrian, in a tone
rather louder than usual, jumping up
so as to be standing on the hearth-
rug as Mr. Van Braam came in.
" Gold always lights up a picture."
188
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
PART X.
CHAPTER XXVI.
"Gold lights up the picture," Adri-
an repeated to himself as he walked
slowly away from the old house, in a
most discomforted and unsatisfactory
frame of mind. He could hardly
have told how he got out, and he
wondered what Mr. Van Braam must
have thought of his confused appear-
ance, his hurry to escape, and his in-
coherent attempts at conversation.
But habitual good manners cover a
multitude of sins. Only a very keen
penetration could have discerned the
disorder which to Adrian himself,
struggling to repress it, seemed al-
most an uproar. The very effort how-
ever was of itself quiet; and the
perfect unsuspicion of the old gentle-
man was an abundant supplementary
protection. The phrase upon which
Adrian had fallen in effecting the
sudden diversion which had been ne-
cessary, meanwhile ran in his mind,
or rather floated atop of it, as mere
phrases will sometimes do most perti-
naciously when the real thoughts are
profoundly absorbed. " Gold lights
up the picture," he kept saying, until
when he had repeated it a few times,
a larger meaning flashed upon him
all at once, and he laughed a short
uncomfortable laugh, at the thought
of the gold he had refused that morn-
ing, and of the picture which that
gold was to have lighted up.
The fact was, the young man had
not his wits clearly about him. He
was stunned, or dazed, in a manner.
He had been so certain — he had so
known — that Civille would respond
to his request instantly, gladly, utter-
ly, — that her refusal perfectly con-
founded him. Even now, he could
not realize that she had refused him.
As he walked on, and the disorder of
his feelings and thoughts cleared up a
little, he could not feel the bitterness
and shame ' of one who has been re-
fused. He only felt a sense of im-
mense perplexity, colored with trouble.
The question as it lay before him,
though not consciously so recognized
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
189
by him, was not, Why am I rejected?
but, Why am I delayed ?
Nor was this refusal of his to ac-
quiesce in the disappointment a piece
of conceit. It was the persistence of
a profound conviction of the suitable-
ness of two souls for each other.
Thus he continued in the same mind,
not from a mere effort of will impelled
by motive, but from an impulse like
that of gravitation ; constant, unva-
rying, acting not as a motive super-
added, but as a quality innate, and
thus carrying him by a grasp upon
the deepest substructure of his whole
being, »so that his will, or will not,
had nothing to do with it, but was
carried along irrespective of any de-
termination. So we sweep along on
the round world and whirl round and
round as we go; and let us be as
obstinate for motionlessness as we
choose, let our indignation be as white-
hot as it likes at the idea of motion,
let us do our best to contradict the
universe by hurrying in a contrary
direction, it is all in vain ; round and
round we go, indignation and all, a
thousand miles an hour, — less per-
haps thirty miles an hour that we
can do by rail due westward towards
nullifying the earth's rotation, — and
forward we sweep nineteen miles a
second, without being able to pull
back an ounce or an inch — not to
mention the general ' motion of the
whole solar system towards a point
in tbe constellation Hercules at the
swiftest rate of all, forty-nine miles
in a second ! Truly, when astronom-
ically considered, a man is a miserable
helpless mite !
However, Adrian neither analyzed
his own mental structure, nor sought
out analogies in solar and stellar as-
tronomy. He simply hurried. It is
an instinct of strong healthy posi-
tive natures, to act. In no matter
whatever has man more the advan-
tage over woman, than in being so
much better situated for escaping
trouble by activity. Ruin, shame,
pain, loss, disappointment, bereave-
ment, any thing can be lived through
by a man, who has the resolution
(and vitality) left to plunge over head
into some occupation. It is a wise
suicide of suffering. He drowns him-
self as to his misery, by leaping into
the deepest abyss of occupation he
can find. Not that this is a sure
cure for all. But it is a great relief
for almost all.
Nor was Adrian's state an awful
immeasurable grief. As just shown,
it was not a destruction, but a storm.
It was however an indescribably
painful condition, for it was his first
real disappointment, — and the first
real disappointment, though it be
recovered from, has a murdering fatal
force like the first blow of the execu-
tioner's iron bar upon the malefactor
bound to the wheel. The sufferer
may even laugh at the second.
Accordingly, confused and unhappy
as he was, he simply hurried. He
walked swiftly to his lodgings, com-
pleted his few arrangements, found
that he had yet time to walk to Peck
Slip, — for he took the steamboat to
New Haven rather than the all-rail
route, — and taking valise in hand,
he set out at once, getting over the
ground at a tremendous rate. He
thought of stopping at Dr. Veroil's,
but concluded to write instead ; and
without meeting any experience of im-
portance, he proceeded swiftly through
Broadway, the City Hall Park, and
Beekman Street, turning northward
a little way after he had reached the
docks ; for he did not know the city
well enough to take the shorter way
down the Bowery and the New Bow-
ery to Peck Slip itself, or the cut
190
Scrope ; or. The Lost Library.
across the Park, and down Spruce and
Ferry Streets through " the Swamp."
However, he was just in season, and
stepping aboard, intrusted his valise
to the Afrite who brooded darkling
over the hidden treasures of the bag-
gage-room, and who, unlike his breth-
ren of the Arabian Nights, himself
furnished the magic token which on
being rubbed (i.e., shoved back to
him) should rescue its proper treasure
from his necromantic power.
This done, and his ticket purchased,
he resorted at once to the engineer's
room, — his constant habit on steam-
boats, — to look at the engine. This
pleasure is not for a grown person
what it is for a child — mere gratifi-
cation of unintelligent curiosity — it is
a real and high grade of enjoyment,
whose strange and remote nature it is
not easy to express. It is like the
pleasure of watching a great fire, a
volcanic eruption, from close at hand ;
of going out into the heart of a furi-
ous storm ; of creeping up close to the
main waterfall at Niagara and look-
ing up the vast sheet. Is it imagi-
native, or spiritual, or rather mingled
of both? Is there a 'magnetic ele-
ment in it? It is a state of excite-
ment, — emotion, rather, — which will
be found to arise from being close to
any vast force in action. It was not
foolish curiosity merely, but in part
at least the unconscious perception of
this influence, which made the chil-
dren of Israel press near to Sinai. So
Adrian leaned against the door-post
and waited; and shortly bang ! went
a brass gong over the head of the
bearded engineer, who quietly hooked
on the eccentrics, set his lever, and
whirling one valve one way and
another another, started the mon-
strous machine. With long, dreary,
quivering groans, as if the hot steam
agonized its very vitals, the vast
structure slowly, very slowly, stirred
and moved ; then as the valves were
opened wider and wider, the steam
itself took the work off the hands of
the engineer, who replaced the long
bright lever upright in its socket ; and
as the boat glided cautiously out of
the slip and headed northward at
half-speed, Adrian watched with quiet
delight the steady play of the rock-
shaft with its well-oiled " toes," and
followed in imagination the alter-
nating rush of the groaning steam
through the valve-cylinders and ports
into the great main cylinder first
above and then below the piston. A
rough-looking man who stood by him,
also watching the work of the engine,
was evidently a guild-brother ; for
after a few moments he stepped into
the engine-room with an air of famil-
iarity, shook hands with the engineer,
and sat down by him. Then, looking
up with disapproval towards the snap-
ping rattling SickeJs cut-off which was
perched aloft upon the valve-cylinder,
he said,
" Hmh ! Don't like so much old
iron hitched up round. That snippety-
snap Sickels cut-off makes an engine-
room look like the inside of a Jurgen-
sen watch ! "
The engineer made some remark in
defence of his immense hot pet, which
Adrian did not hear distinctly ; and
having for the time gazed his fill, he
strolled up into the saloon, and hav-
ing for the moment exhausted his
external stimuli, he began to pace
moodily along the length of the boat.
and to reflect upon his sorrow — t<
eat his heart, as the barbaric phrase
is. But before he had half completed
half one length, lie was called by
name, and looking up with a start,
he saw Mr. Adam Welles and Mr.
Philetus Stanley, who greeted him
with much cordiality. Adrian, not-
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
191
withstanding a moment of melodra-
matic longing after solitude, made the
best of it, put on a pleasant face, and
returning their salutation, took the
seat which they gave him and fell
into talk with them.
" I was just observing to Mr.
Welles," said Stanley, in his precise
dry way, and with his usual cold smile,
" that in order to accommodate him, I
would take his share in the Scrope
Estate speculation off his hands at
cost, at any time."
" I saw you did not believe in the
business," answered Adrian, replying
to the thoughts and not to the words
of the other, "at the meeting. I
think if it hadn't been for me, Mr.
Stanley, you would have smashed the
machine, as the politicians say."
" Not believe in the business ! "
exclaimed honest old Adam Welles, —
" Why, Mr. Chester, what can you
mean? Mr. Stanley believed in it
fifty dollars' worth, I'm sure, for I saw
him pay it with my own eyes."
"Never mind, Mr. Welles," said
Stanley — " I'll abide by my offer,
remember."
"Well," said the old man, with a
smile at his own shrewdness, "I
accept provided I find I'm going to
lose, but not if I'm going to win.
I'll shake hands with you on that ! "
So he and Stanley went through
the form of shaking hands, and
Adrian moreover was invoked as a
witness, whereupon, with much solem-
nity, and to the amusement of Mr.
Welles, he took out his memorandum-
book, and noted down the agreement,
with a date.
" But now," said Mr. Welles, " Mr.
Chester, I beg you to allow me to
congratulate you upon the able man-
ner in which you convinced the as-
sembly Monday. I don't remember
any thing better since that short and
sensible address of the Town Clerk
of Ephesus."
Adrian thanked the old gentleman,
very cordially. There is always
something peculiarly affecting in the
hearty loving pride with which an
old person regards the success of a
young relative or friend. The emo-
tion must be by the nature of the
case so perfectly disinterested and
genuine, that it has its full legitimate
weight.
Mr. Welles talked on for quite a
while, laughing as he recounted his
recollections of the turns in the de-
bate, and dwelling on his own satis-
faction at being a relative of so
many persons of present or future
eminence, — for, he said, if he lived
a few years more he expected to see
Adrian with a national reputation.
Then he came back once more to
Adrian's unaccountable idea, as it
appeared to him, of Mr. Stanley's
being sceptical of any gains to accrue
to the members of the Scrope Asso-
ciation, from their English inherit-
ance.
" Do you know," said Mr. Stanley,
suddenly, "the value of all these
estates in England, and the value of
all the real estate in England. Mr.
Welles ? "
" No," said the old man, puzzled.
" Well, I had the curiosity to get
together the figures," rejoined Mr.
Stanley. " I found that all together,
Chase Estate, Townley Estate, Jen-
nings Estate, Brown, Smith, Burnham,
and so on, — all together, those that I
know of, amount to so much, that if
you sell every foot of ground in Eng-
land to-day, and get the appraised
value for it, — and that would be the
best forced sale ever made yet, —
even then you will be between six
and seven million pounds sterling
short of the amount claimed by
192
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
American heirs alone, not to mention
such as may turn up in Australia ! "
Poor old Mr. Welles gazed at the
speaker with a most rueful expression.
Stanley went on :
"Then, what do we know about
this Scrope ? He brought decent
enough letters, no doubt. He has a
right to his name : he is our kins-
man. But is he competent to man-
age so weighty an undertaking?
We can't control him, nor help him,
at three thousand miles off. And
if he lays hold on several million
dollars, who knows whether he will
render a just account ? You must
remember, he comes from the royalist
branch, not the Puritan ! — I don't
mean that the cavaliers were dis-
honest. But they were thriftless,
improvident, and unsuccessful, cer-
tainly."
" But why didn't you argue this
way at the meeting, Mr. Stanley ? "
asked poor old Mr. Welles.
" Could I do more than I did, Mr.
Welles ? "
" — No, I don't see that you could ;
but in that event, why did you sub-
scribe ? "
" Yes," added Adrian : " I should
like to know that, too."
" Well," said Stanley, with an
icier smile than ever, — " I'll tell
you. I didn't mind letting our good
friend Mr. Button carry on the en-
terprise, if he wanted to — as you
see he did. I thought if I put down
a little, it would encourage him —
and it did. Now, gentlemen, honor
bright ! Don't you repeat it : I
have told you in strict confidence. —
And now, Mr. Welles, why did you
subscribe ? "
" Why," said the old man, with an
uneasy half-laugh, — " to make some
money. And to set up the family
connection. And I thought very
likely that in the course of the inves-
tigations those lost books might turn
up somewhere."
"Yes," said Adrian : "I remember
Scrope said one day while we were
talking that he felt very sure those
books had either never come from
England at all, in spite of the Scrope
will, or had been shipped back there.
He said he had an old chest himself
that he was sure was the Scrope
Chest" —
" Pshaw ! " interrupted Stanley, —
" we know that the Scrope Chest
was in Thomas Hooker's old house at
the foot of Prospect Street in Hart-
ford as late as the year 1790 — might
be there this very moment, if the
house hadn't been a tenement-house
this thirty years. And " —
He interrupted himself; for he
had already gone much farther than
was usual with him in the way of
communicating information. Then
he added, — " And you, Mr. Ches-
ter, — what made you subscribe?"
"Pretty nearly Mr. Welles's mo-
/tives; — though I took it for granted
that you and he together had found
out all about the Scrope Chest and
its contents long ago. Indeed, it
wouldn't surprise me, Mr. Stanley,
to learn that you had picked up full
half of the Lost Library, book by
book, and had them on your shelves
at this moment, every one with
"Adrian Scroope" written on the
fly-leaf. Have you ? "
Stanley shook his head, and looked
rather annoyed. " I believe you
have the only known autograph of
Adrian Scroope of Hartford " he re-
plied, " except that in the archives at
the State House."
"For my part," said Mr. Welles,
" I don't believe that even the glory
of adding to such a collection as Mr.
Stanley's would tempt me to part with
Scrope
or,
The Lost Library.
193
such a book if I ever found it. Ah,
how many, many thousands of volumes
and hundreds of tons of trash I have
handled and scrutinized and sifted in
hope of coming on some of those
books ! "
" You must have found a great many
curious things," said Adrian, who had
seen Mr. Welles'sown collection, a won-
drous mass of items, bearing somewhat
such a relation to a library, as a pile of
" scrap tin " in a ditch does to coined
gold.
" Ah, indeed I have," said the old
man, — "you have seen my books
yourself; but the best of them" —
A glance from Mr. Stanley stopped
him. That astute gentleman had no
wish that the old foreman should speci-
fy the rarities which he had furnished
to the well known Stanley Collection
during the last twenty years, at prices
which the old man himself thought
handsome, but which would have made
Andrew Purvis perfectly crazy.
" Well," Mr. Welles began again —
" I only wish I could fill some of my
broken sets. Now I've got some curi-
ous French odd volumes. I can't read
them, but I can pick out the meaning
of some of the words. There's torn one
of Mister Poiteevin Peetavy on the
jewks florawks dee Towlowz." —
As he innocently recited this fine
specimen of Connecticut French, look-
ing down in the careful solicitude of
his recollection, Mr. Stanley, catching
Adrian's eye, winked, but with a per-
fectly grave and steady countenance.
Adrian almost laughed, but the con-
sciousness of the cruel unkindness that
a laugh would be to the good old fellow
overpowered even the extreme funni-
ness of the recital, and with one spas-
modic repression, he remained as im-
passive, in appearance, as the sar-
donic Stanley. The old man went
on with quite a list of his treasures.
Some of the titles he recited were
almost as valuable, philologically, as
that about the floral games, and as he
mentioned them, the wicked Mr. Stan-
ley more than once darted at Adrian
another composed, but discomposing
look of cold keen fun. Truly, there
is something very ludicrous in the
grotesque results produced on either
English or foreign words, by thought-
ful accurate reading people who have
never heard them pronounced, and who
honestly do the best they can on gen-
eral principles. But Adrian, keen as
was his sense of the funny, was still
more sensitive as to kindness or un-
kindness. It dawned upon him that
Stanley must have in some sort helped:
on the old man in this line of vocaliz-
ing — as was indeed the fact — for
his own amusement ; and it affected
him painfully, as being a piece of cold
sarcastic selfishness. And he had hard-
ly any further impulse to laugh, even
when Mr. Stanley was so good as to
lead up himself to a particularly good
point, when Mr. Welles was speaking
of a suggestion of his about certain old
papers : —
" That's one of your bright thoughts,
Mr. Welles," said he; "one of your
March notions, isn't it ? You see,
Chester, Mr. Welles is a Shakspearian
student too."
Adrian was puzzled, but said, what
is very true, — that he had no doubt
a sensible Yankee might know of his
own knowledge a good many things
about old English, that neither cock-
ney nor provincial in England could
very well understand.
" Yes," said the old man ; " you see,
Mr. Chester, it occurred to me that
there's a plain meaning to a passage
in Julius Caesar, ' Beware the idees
of March,' it says. Now, why didn't
that old prophet fellow mean simply
that folkses minds are more active in
194
Scropc ; or, The Lost Library.
the Spring, just as all the rest of the
world is, and that Caesar had better
look out, in consequence ? I don't
see why a common sense notion of
that sort ain't as good as any other ? "
"Yes," corroborated Mr. Stanley.
"Now I think that very suggestion
is one of the idees of March. Don't
you, Chester ? "
" Well," said Adrian, who had to
say something, " I'll tell you what 'tis,
Mr. Welles : I can't offer to take finan-
cial obligations off your hands, as Mr.
Stanley has done ; but if you ever
publish an edition of Shakspeare, I'll
subscribe for a copy."
They talked a good while longer —
indeed, most of the way to New
Haven, in a rambling discursive
way, on topics of antiquarian and
modern literature, family genealogy,
and so forth. Stanley and Welles
had nothing better to do, and Adrian
was sensible enough to prefer any oc-
cupation to meditating on discomforts
of his own for which there was no pres-
ent help. But the effort of repression,
and the effort of taking an interest in
the conversation, grew very burden-
some ; and at New Haven, instead of
taking the cars with his companions,
he made an excuse and stopped over
night at a hotel.
CHAPTER XXVII.
On the north side of State Street,
ar.d of the State House Square, which
square is a three-cornered area in the
middle of the ancient city of Hart-
ford, there stood, on the forenoon after
Adrian Chester's conversation with
Mr. Stanley and Mr. Welles, a house.
It was of wood, roomy, old, white, low
"between joints," with a hipped roof,
and a large front door painted dark
green with old hard paint that had
shrunk into little square sections. This
door was built in ha. res, an upper and
a lower, bolting together when re-
quired on the inside. It had more-
over a great bright brass knocker in
the middle of the upper half, and the
door itself was in the middle of the
front of the house — half way between
eaves and underpinning, as well as
between end and end. And by way
of access, a long" steep flight of
narrow freestone steps was laid up
against the side of the house, like a
vast nose that had been quite smashed
down to one side upon a face. One
iron rail at the outside prevented this
tremendous ascent from being almost
as terrible as the mysterious steps up
which the neophyte scrambled in the
dark in Moore's imaginative little story
of " The Epicurean," every step, as he
lifted his foot from it, falling down
slop ! into unseen water far below.
The substance of the front steps of
this goodly old mansion dated back
to the Old Red Sandstone period, —
any number of years you like, as a few
millions are of small account in such
matters. Its woodwork dated back
some three or four centuries only ; as
within that period probably sprouted
the acorns whence grew the straight
white oaks that furnished its square
and massive timbers. The odd ar-
rangement of its front was of not
more than fifty years' age or so ; it
was at that time, or not far from it,
that a high bank of earth, previously
bordering the street, was cut away
from under the houses. These were
shored up and built under, instead of
being let down, and thus for once it
happened that some houses had their
chimneys and upper floors built and
finished before the lower floors and
foundations. The lower floor of thi3
particular house was put to the lower
uses of trade, and thus served very
nicely to maintain by the vulgar but
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
195
increasing revenue of business, the
old fashioned aristocracy that staid
up-stairs and grew poor. And lastly ;
to a period somewhat more distant
than the era of the rebuilding, yet a
good ways this side of the era of the
acorns, there dated back the lady of
this house.
A n Aunt is not to be found on every
bush. The ignorant may perhaps
suppose that the quality of Auntness
inheres in every sister of a parent.
In form, possibly ; but in substance,
not necessarily by any means. An
Aunt is a being who can only exist for
children. Grown persons cannot (un-
less they are childlike) have real
Aunts. For those who can, the Aunt
is a delightful personage who has all
the merits of a mother, but in a more
exalted degree, and none of those
defects of harshness, discipline, inflic-
tion, peremptoriness, and the like,
that so often and sadly mar the
natural sweetness of the filio-parental
relation. The Aunt, you see, can
permit, but cannot forbid. She is a
beatified mother. And any person
claiming to be an Aunt, and falling
short of these attainments, is an im-
postor.
It was Adrian's not only Aunt, but
his Great- Aunt — his grandfather's
sister, — who was upon the morning
in question trotting nimbly to and fro
in this old house. She was a thin,
straight, active little old lady, with
eyes that notwithstanding her age
were black, quick, bright and snap-
ping. Adrian's father and mother,
both well and strong, were seized with
a fever when he was a little baby,
and instead of living to be old as
their kin usually did — for they were
botli of long-lived families — they
took divers quantities of calomel, and
lost divers quantities of blood —
" which is the life," God Almighty
says — under the heroic treatment of
an old fashioned doctor of the day,
and so they died. The Aunt afore-
said, — Mr. Chester's aunt, who had
a tiny income of her own ; about a
hundred and fifty dollars a year,
secured on this very house and land,
was living in her nephew's house, in
her professional capacity of Aunt,
when he was taken ill. She watched
over him along with his young wife :
after he died, and the widow was
taken ill, she took care of her too.
She promised the poor young mother
to take care of the baby, and she did
it. She cared nothing about men,
she always said; at any rate she
never married, and seemed always
perfectly satisfied with her stated
work as a Tract Visitor, her weekly
Sunday school class, her housekeep-
ing, her small circle of friends and
her reading. With occasional misad-
ventures and losses, she had fought
one unbroken campaign against specu-
lators, selectmen, city goverment, and
mankind in general from that day
forward, to maintain her garrison in
that old ancestral- house. Sometimes
people wanted to buy it to pull down
and rebuild; sometimes there was a
plan to cut a new street through ;
sometimes wise friends exhorted her
to lease it and go and board some-
where. No. It was Adrian's home
and hers, and she would stay in it as
long as she lived. Taxes and ex-
penses grew heavier and heavier; her
little income remained a hundred and
fifty dollars; but the valiant old lady
managed and fought it through, get-
ting an important contribudon of
course from the rent of the two stores
on the ground floor. She had brought
up her grandnephew on the best old
fashioned Connecticut principles; had
secured him a good education, got
him fitted for college, and would have
196
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
sent him thither, but he preferred try-
ing a clerkship, which he afterwards
left for the post of assistant librarian
at the Young Men's Institute, for
the sufficient reason that he found he
liked giving out books better than
kee{ ing them.
Miss Chester had, no doubt, some
peculiarities: it is hardly possible for
a person of energetic character, who
lives a life at once active and solitary,
to avoid becoming peculiar ; but thus
Pee, pee pee pee, pee pee pee, pee pee
She had got through all the dishes
and done almost all the dusting, and
was now setting in order the non-
literary items of Adrian's own room
— for she had attained to that rare
and almost incredible state of grace
and wisdom which enabled her to let
the young man's books and papers
entirely alone — when the bell rang,
and the small servant-girl who com-
prised in her brief person the whole
menial train of the establishment,
having answered the bell, announced
a gentleman in the parlor to see Miss
Chester. So, laying aside her dust-
cloth, the old lady trotted down stairs,
doubting in her own mind who this
might be; but as most of the " gentle-
men " who called to see her for the
last twenty years had done so to de-
mand money or to try to get away
her home from her, she reasoned that
here was probably another attack, and
entered the old-fashioned parlor all
ready for the combat. But she did
not expect the fearful experience that
awaited her.
A small man stood in the farther
corner of the room, his back towards
her, intently studying the antique
closet or " bo-fat," as Miss Chester
called it, which was built across one
far, they only rendered her more
piquant and agreeable ; for she had
too much strong sense and good
judgment to become actually "queer."
She was, as usual while employed
about her household duties, singing
— or rather vocalizing, after her inva-
riable habit, with a rather tremulous
and thin but still sweet voice, to the
tune of " Long, long ago," and using
instead of the monosyllable " ah,"
the monosyllable " pee/' — thus :
pee, Pee pee pee pee, pee pee pee pee,
corner of the room, and through whose
glass door might be dimly seen a tea-
set, and certain other articles, all of
real old china, the pride of their own-
er's heart. As she entered, the gen-
tleman turned round and made her a
polite bow:
" Miss Chester, I believe ? "
" Yes, sir."
" I couldn't help admiring this cu-
rious old cupboard, madam. Such a
fine old house, too," he went on, look-
ing at the heavy beam that crossed
the room under the middle of the low
ceiling. " Just like my grandfather's
old home where I was brought up."
" Indeed ? " said the old lady, un-
expectedly pleased. . . .
[Intermission of one hour.']
Adrian Chester had come from New
Haven by an early morning train, and
had occupied himself on the road by
examining a document which he had
been carrying in his pocket for a few
days, being no other than the code of
instructions to canvassers, of which
Mr. Button had a few days before
given him a copy, at giving one to
Mr. Jacox. It was a very curious
document, filling both sides of a large
sheet of paper in a close type, and
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
197
containing nearly six thousand words,
equal to twelve or fifteen duodecimo
pages. It consisted of a caption in a
bold clear letter, and just forty differ-
ent propositions. The caption con-
sisted of pithy maxims like the fol-
lowing :
g^~ Commit this to memory word for
word. Hold the Book you are selling
in your own Hands. Don't let the cus-
tomer take it unless necessary. Don't
merely say you have got it and talk
about it, but show it. Don't ask the
customer to buy it, except as the very last
resort; but show it and describe it until
he says, " I will take one." Don't tell
what it costs until he wants the book.
When he is ready, hand him the Order
Book and pencil, and he will see the
price extended opposite the names al-
ready in. Remember, you must make
the customer want the book, before you
try to sell it. He would not buy coined
gold if he did not want it. Begin talk-
ing as follows:
Here followed the items of this
Catechism, laid off with shrewd sense
in short paragraphs, numbered in order,
being an elaborate exposition of the
merits of the book. For instance :
I. I have here, Mr. , the best book
ever printed except the Holy Bible, and
one that every one is pleased with. This
may seem extravagant; but seeing, you
know, is believing, and here is the book.
[Bead the title on the back, carefully and
distinctly] " A New and Complete His-
tory of the Bible, by the Eeverend
Hocum Hotcbkin, D.D." Or, as the gilt
stamp on the side of the cover says [read
the side lettering carefully], "The Holy
Bible, its History, Work, and Influ-
ence." [Now open to the title-page and
read it ; then open to the Introduction, and
remark, looking your customer squarely in
the face,]
II. The Bible itself authorizes us to be-
lieve that many persons even of intelli-
gence cannot fully understand what they
read in it, unless some man should guide
them. See Acts viii. 30, 31. This is what
the Reverend Hocum Hotcbkin, D.D., says
in beginning his Introduction to this great
work. The very Table of Contents [turn
to it] will convince you how necessary this
History is, in order to understand the Word
of God. [Bead fifteen or twenty of the first
items in the Table of Contents.]
And so on ; a shrewd, practical
discourse, adapted with comical skill
to the character of a serious, Bible-
reading and meeting-going public.
And Adrian, in order to experiment
upon his own abilities in the practical
details of the business to which he had
come so near devoting his life, set to
work with a hearty good will to master
this composition; and having what
actors call " a quick study," by the
time he reached Hartford he felt so
well prepared that he thought he could
even sell his own dear great-aunt a
copy of the History of the Bible, if he
had it, notwithstanding the furious
and implacable hatred which as he
well knew she bore to the whole race
of canvassers, — a hatred far beyond
her sufficiently energetic hostility to
mere tax-gatherers and house-hunters,
who, vile and noxious as they are, can
be considered human beings.
Walking up Asylum Street from
the station, valise in hand, Adrian
calmly and unsuspectingly ascended
the steep old freestone steps, entered
the house, laid off his overcoat and
hat, and hearing a voice in the parlor,
he went in. What a spectacle ! Can
any thing be more frightful than to
find one of our most beloved ones,
without warning or expectation, smit-
ten by a cruel calamity ? Especially
if we come suddenly upon the height
and paroxysm of the agony.
As he softly entered the room, his
poor old aunt, almost exhausted, was
pushing from her with a feeble hand
an open book and pencil, which were
held out to her by a little man who
sat opposite her by the table.
" Oh dear, dear," she said, or rather
sighed, in a faint and weary voice, —
198
JSc?~ope : or, The Lost Library.
" I don't want a History of the Bible
any more than a hoptoad wants a fine-
tooth comb. I can say more than
half of it by heart already."
" You are aware," said the little
man in a glib peremptory tone,
"that it is one thing to read a book,
and quite another so to read it as to
understand its contents and thoughts
and make them our own " —
Here Adrian, who recognized in
these words No. xxxv. of Mr. Button's
code, interrupted, while his aunt gave
a jump and a cry at the sound of his
voice. He took the very words out
of the little man's mouth, and pro-
ceeded with a majestic and stately
delivery ; —
" Yes ; and this is pre-eminently
true with reference to the Book of
Books. The Bible may be read daily
and even thoroughly, so far as the
letter, the verses, the chapters, and
the books, are concerned, and yet com-
paratively little may be acquired or
apprehended of the great truths which
it teaches, or of the grand and various
topics which are unfolded in its sacred
pages. Number three exes, vee, i.
Not a few individuals have read the
Bible through and through repeatedly,
and yet have wondered that they
could retain so little of its teachings,
and had such an indistinct impression
or knowledge of its varied topics of
discourse, Mr. Jacox ! "
Miss Chester looked perfectly
stuuned. As for Jacox, for it was he,
he looked a hundred times more as-
tounded — if such a thing be possible
— than she at seeing this interloper
thus proceed to steal and fire off his
own thunder, and with the obvious
effect of re-assuring the almost sur-
rendered victim. For the old lad}'
had fought a good fight, but she was
too much of a lady to be absolutely
rude to her assailant, and unfortu-
nately for herself, she was too much
of a woman not to talk with him. Un-
der such circumstances, the business
could have but one termination. A
book agent spares neither age nor sex.
He would assuredly have had her
name in his little book in two minutes
more, if Adrian had not appeared.
" Oh Adrian," said the dear old
lady, " I'm so glad you came ! But
for goodness sake what's the meaning
of all that lingo?"
" Mr. Jacox would have said it to
you if I hadn't — hay, Mr. Jacox?"
The canvasser looked pretty angry.
" Come," said Adrian, " how do you
know but I can be of some use to you
after all ? Mr. Button gave me a
copy of those directions, when he gave
you yours. Don't you remember ?
I committed every word of them to
memory this very morning. And how
do you know but I wanted to sell a
copy of the History of the Bible to
my aunt here ? Won't you let me
supply my own family ? "
Jacox made a great effort, and with
the aid of his recollection of Adrian's
presence in Mr. Button's office, man-
aged to look at the situation somewhat
like the joke which it was. Adrian,
who was well pleased at the success
of his little extempore scene, put him
into perfectly good humor by volun-
teering himself to take the copy of
the History of the Bible which was
to have been the property of Miss
Chester, and wrote his name in place
of hers in Mr. Jacox's little book.
" You mustn't think too hard of
me," said the little agent, as he pre-
pared to go; "I thought I'd lost my
hour's hard work. Much obliged to
you, sir. I like a joke as well as any-
body, if it don't cost me too much.
But I must say the Button connection
is pretty near too much for me.
There's two cousins of his came pretty
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
199
near spoiling a good suit of clothes
for rue this morning."
"Cousins of Mr. Button's?" said
Adrian.
" Little hip-roofed brick house out
on the Newington road," said the
agent.
" Why, it's Deeiny and Dosy Tid-
ball ! " said Miss Chester. " What on
earth made you try to sell them a
book ? "
" Well, you can't never say where
you mayn't find a customer," said Mr.
Jacox. " And they sell books, if they
don't buy 'em."
" How do you mean ? " said Adrian.
"Why, I came by there this morn-
ing, and saw 'em just taking their pay
of a rag peddler for two or three barrels
of old papers and books and things.
I went to work to get hold of the
cash myself, and spent pretty nigh an
hour at it, but when they found out
'twas a book of Mr. Button's I had, one
of 'em said they were cousins of his
and he would give 'em one, and the
other, she said he was too proud to re-
cognize 'em and too stingy to give 'em
any thing, and then the first one said
if I didn't leave she'd heave the swill
at me ; and that would have spoiled my
clothes ; and then I was just leaving,
when Stanley of East Hartford drove
up — I knew about him when I was to
work for Noyes & Skittery round here.
I like to know what's going on when
I can just as well, so I went kinder
slow, and I had some satisfaction out
of those old Miss Tidballs, anyhow ! "
" How was that ? " asked Adrian.
" Well, Stanley he was in a great
hurry, he said, for he'd got to drive
out to ISTewington Centre and look
at some papers and things of the
Keverend Mr. Brace, I believe, that
used to be settled there : but he just
stopped to ask if they hadn't some old
papers in the house. Said he'd just
heard old Mrs. Goodin say 'twas
very likely, and he'd give 'em a good
price for 'em. Then one of the old
ladies — the tall thin one, she said
they'd had a lot of trash that belonged
to old Clerk Tidball ever so many
years ago, but they'd sold it to a rag
man that very morning for two dollars
and a half. Then Stanley he looked
as if he'd have a fit — he was the
maddest man ! But he held in, and
he took out some money, and jest said,
sorter quiet like, says he, ' Well, Miss
Tidball, do you see those ten ten
dollar bills? I'd have been glad to
give you those for that trash, as you
call it. One hundred dollars, ma'am.
That's all, ma'am!' And he hopped
into his sleigh and went off to Newing-
ton; and if them two old ladies didn't
give it to each other ! ' There, Deemy
Tidball,' says the fat stumpy one — ' I
always thought you was a fool, and
now I know it.' — ' Well,' says the tall
one, ' you Dosy Tidball, don't you tell
me ! You've been at me to sell those
old things this two years, and now I've
done as you said you call me a fool ?
Well, I was, for doin' as you said,
and always would be as often as I did.'
They really screeched and hollered
at each other so that I was kinder
ashamed, and I came along into the
city."
" Poor girls ! " said Miss Chester.
" I don't wonder they felt bad ! And
I remember them such bright pretty
young things ! I must go out and
see them."
" But I should like to know," said
Adrian eagerly, "what became of
that rag peddler ! "
" He came to the city," said Jacox,
" and he was loaded cram full ; so he's
gone and sold out somewhere."
"What do you want of him?"
said Miss Chester.
" Why, aunty, don't you know old
200
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
Clerk Tidball was supposed to have a
lot of very valuable old documents in
bis bands ? We've always expected
we might find some Scrope facts if we
could get at them. It's only a little
while ago that these two old ladies
got the Tidball tilings, — they'd been
out in Pennsylvania somewhere, no-
body could fiud out where. And the
Tidballs were so touchy and spiteful
and suspicious, nobody could do any
thing with them. I wonder they
didn't throw the swill on Mr. Jacox
without notice instead of threatening
it."
" I'll tell you what," said Jacox,
who seemed inclined to do Adrian a
good turn in exchange for his sub-
scription, " I know what I'd do if I
were you. I'd go straight over to the
old Barnard Paper Mill in Manches-
ter. All the rag peddlers know that
their best chance for old books and
such kind of stock is to take 'em
right there. . Old foreman Welles'll
pay double prices, very often, for
such things, and then they save the
profit of the dealers here in the city
too. And I'd go right away. Stan-
ley'll be out there this afternoon as
sure as death. I know him."
" So he will," said Adrian. " I must
try the dealers, though, and then I'll
go over. There's only two of them,
and they'll tell me. I'm much obliged
to you, Mr. Jacox. When the book's
ready, we'll take it with pleasure."
And hastily resuming his outer
garments, he left the house with Mr.
Jacox, his aunt in vain recommend-
ing him to wait till after dinner.
He flew to the cellars occupied by the
two paper-stock dealers, but found
that no goods had been sold to them
that morning. And moreover, one
of them, whose establishment was
near the Great Bridge, informed him
that he had seen David Hertelchick
the rag peddler, drive over the bridge
eastward with a heavy load.
This was enough, and Adrian darted
round to a livery stable, which he
occasionally patronized. It was a
warm bright day, the snow was melt-
ing, and everybody was making the
most of the sleighing ; there was not
a runner left in the establishment.
" Confound it ! " said Adrian, " I
must get to Manchester!"
"Take Smarty," suggested one of
the men ; " you can ride, Mr. Chester,
and we had her sharpened this very
morning."
The liveryman, after some little hes-
itation — no livery stable keeper likes
to hire out his favorite horse — cpn-
sented. " Saddle Smarty, John," he
said, " and be lively about it. But
Mr. Chester, remember, the mare's
frisky, and she hasn't been out of the
stable except to get shod, this three
days. And she's awful tender-
mouthed, too. You'll be very careful,
won't you ? "
Adrian promised, and the bay mare,
a beautiful animal, was quickly
brought out saddled and bridled,
dancing and sidling along as if it was
difficult to keep her feet down to the
ground, whisking her long tail, and
arching her neck, while her thin
delicate translucent ears quivered and
turned to and fro, and she snorted and
snuffed in the fresh air.
After some little trouble, for the
mare was as full of frolic as a kitten,
Adrian got into the saddle, and after
she had paraded about a little on her
hind legs, she came down to business.
At an easy canter, Adrian went off
down State Street, intending to turn
northward at Front Street and to
cross by the bridge ; but as he ap-
proached the foot of the street, the
broad level surface of the river
tempted him, and he took the mare
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
201
straight over in the wagon track on
the ice. The pure cool air, so differ-
ent from the lifeless dead stuff that
they defraud themselves with for an
atmosphere in New York City, stim-
ulated him, and so it did the spirited
animal under him ; as he crossed the
broad motiouless river, the easy canter
stretched into a long stride, and be-
fore he had reached East Hartford
Street, the fleet mare was racing along
at that glorious greyhound-like undu-
lating full speed that takes away the
idea of effort, and is the most beauti-
ful motion on earth, except perhaps
that of the greyhound himself, or
that of a swift boat before a strong
breeze. Up hill and down, and across
the levels of that sandy region, sped
the strong swift creature, as if she en-
joyed the expedition as much as her
rider ; sometimes, it is true, slackening
her pace to an impatient walk, along
some piece of road where the snow
was soft ; but it was not much over
an hour from the time of starting,
when Adrian rode up to the door of
the counting-room of the Barnard
Paper Mill some twelve miles away.
Old Adam Welles, who was at that
moment in the counting-room, came
to the door.
" Ah ha, Mr. Chester, glad to see
you ! Young man Chester, welcome
to old Manchester." And he laughed
heartily at his own wit, and then
looking at the mare's smoking flanks,
he exhorted Adrian to dismount and
let her be taken care of. Adrian
readily complied, and without waste
of time, told the old gentleman just
what had brought him out there.
"Old town-clerk Tidball ! " said
Adam "Yv elles, with great interest, —
" you don't say so ! Well, I dare say
the stock's in the sorting room this
minute. I know there were three or
four loads brought this very morning,
and we were rather short of stock, so
they've gone right in to be sorted.
Come on, Mr. Chester." And send-
ing the mare to a stable to be rubbed
down and taken good care of, the old
man led the way to the sorting room.
This was a large loft, where a num-
ber of women were handling away at
great piles of all manner of waste
paper and rags, and swiftly laying
out the different classes of " stock,"
for the devouring maw of the mill.
They stopped at the door for a mo-
ment to look at the busy scene, and
Adrian observed,
" What a quantitj' of curious things
must turn up here in the course of a
year ! "
" Yes inde'ed. One of our women
found an envelope full of banknotes a
little while ago."
" Didn't the company want them ? "
" She was shrewd enough to slip
the envelope into her bosom the mo-
ment she saw what it was without
saying one word, and she went
straight on with her work until the
end of the afternoon. But she didn't
come back any more, and she and her
husband had left town before we
found out. I heard they'd bought a
farm out West somewhere."
"Oh, a husband! No chance for
you, then, Mr. Welles."
" No, thank goodness ! " said the
old gentleman, who professed to hate
and despise women in a far more
cynical manner, at least in assump-
tion, than Miss Chester's towards
men, — " no indeed ! Pretty muss
a woman would make in my old den !
I'd sooner set it on fire. Mr. Ches-
ter, women are Apollyons ! "
He delivered this frightful senti-
ment with a concentrated earnestness
which was quite funny.
" Why, Mr. Welles," said Adrian,
" what an awful heretic you are !
202
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
Now my aunt talks about men a good
deal the same way, but she does think
marrying is good for half of us.
' Every man is a fool that don't
marry,' she says, ' and every woman
is a fool that does.' "
" Well," said the old man, " I
agree to the last half. And there'll
always be enough silly people to con-
tinue the species, so I can have my
own way and my own wisdom with-
out doing any harm. — Well, let's see
if they've found any thing."
So he advanced into the room, fol-
lowed by Adrian, and asked the fore-
woman of the sorters if any thing
was laid out for him.
" Oh yes, Mr. Welles. There's near
a bushel of stuff," — and she pointed
to a pile on a sort of counter at one
side of the room, which the old gen-
tleman and Adrian eagerly hastened
to examine.
It was a heap of utter rubbish ; —
such as privately printed poems; a
stack of account books ; some files of
old receipts ; an edition of an occa-
sional sermon, — " There's the whole
edition," said Mr. Welles, — " seven
bundles of two hundred and fifty
each ; and that poor old fellow
thought he was going to make a
little fortune out of it ! "
They inspected every item, and had
shifted the whole pile, without finding
the least scrap of any value. Adrian
picked up one of the last three pa-
pers that were left, saw that it was a
blank certificate with the name of
Joash Tidball signed to it.
" Here's one Tidball paper," he
said. " There ought to be more."
" Another armful," said one of the
women, at this moment bringing up
a further instalment, which she
threw down upon the counter. This
lot looked a good deal like the other.
Adrian and Mr. Welles each lifted
out of it, to begin with, an old ac-
count-book. Mr. Welles's was bound
in old fuzzy calf, Adrian's in crackly
yellow old parchment. Having
opened them and inspected them for
a few moments in silence, they looked
up at each other at the same mo-
ment, both flushed and smiling.
"Here's Mr. Button's father's own
account book," said Adrian, " with a
genealogical record in the back end."
" Here's the lost second volume of
the Hartford Town Records," said
old Adam Welles. " It's been missing
over a hundred years ! "
" I declare ! " exclaimed Adrian.
" See if the other half of the Scroope
will isn't there ! "
Eagerly and slowly the two men
turned over leaf after leaf, from one
end of the book to the other. They
did not find the torn leaf; all they
could discover that might have re-
lated to it was, a very narrow strip
between two leaves, as if the leaf had
been carefully torn out as far back as
possible. All the rest consisted of
entries of the miscellaneous sort that
used to go into the early town records ;
an invaluable mass of materials for the
early history of the town, but show-
ing no signs of any Scrope informa-
tion.
Then they inspected the other
book, in the same careful way. The
account-book part was an ordinary
series of business entries, carefully
and clearly made out, but sadly mis-
spelled. The genealogy which the
old gentleman had noted on the
blank leaves at the end, was of more
importance. Having read it through
ver} r deliberately, the two men once
more looked at each other, but this
time with a surprise by no means
agreeable.
" Can that be so ? " said Adrian.
" That makes Mr. Button a descend-
Scrope ; or, TJie Lost Library.
203
ant of the Lebanon Throops and not
of the Bozrah Throops! No relative
of ours at all ! "
But so it was. Old Adam Welles,
a shrewd and clear-headed judge in
such matters, was convinced that this
was proved by old Phineas Button's
entries.
" And here you see how they came
to think they might use the Scrope
arms, too," said he, pointing to a sep-
arate entry on a fly leaf. Adrian read
it:
" Arms of one of the Scroope
families, used by some of the Throops.
Found in a book of heraldry. Azure
a bend or."
"Well," commented Mr. Welles
with a smile, " he thought he had as
good a right to one Scroope coat as
another, and so he might as they say
' pick his choose.' And so he had ! "
This discovery instantly filled
Adrian's mind with many thoughts.
First came the reflection that here
was a mode of accounting for the
different character of the Button
family from that of the rest of the
connection. This occurred to Mr.
Welles too, at the same time ; for he
said,
"Well: he didn't seem just like
the rest of us, that's a fact ! "
" By George ! " said Adrian, " he'll
want that five hundred dollars back
from Scrope now, if he finds this
out ! I wish he may get it ! " And
the young man stopped short, as he
remembered that this discovery
would also, very likely, as soon as
Mr. Button should know it, impel
him, rough and selfish as he was, to
deprive old Mr. Van Braam and
Civille at once of home and living.
" What shall we do with these
books ? " he said, perplexed and un-
easy.
"I think if Mr. Stanley were
here," said Mr. Welles, with a laugh,
" and we did not let him have them,
he would kill us."
After some discussion, it was decid-
ed that Adrian should take the
record volume to Hartford and de-
posit it in the town-clerk's office ; for
though neither of the two men said
so, they both knew perfectly well
that if intrusted to Stanley, it would
disappear as effectually as it had with
the deceased Tidball. As for the
account book, Adrian left that for
Mr. Welles, who, as he knew, would
give it to Stanley. He could not
bring himself to undertake to for-'
ward it, or its disagreeable informa-
tion, to Mr. Button. He was con-
scious that the publisher ought to be
told. He knew that Stanley was a
grave, and not a trumpet, of informa-
tion. But yet, he felt that he must
for the present at least hold ' his
tongue. "The truth is not to be
told at all times," says the proverb.
This does not mean that you may
tell a lie, but that it may be right to
hold your tongue.
So he tied up his record-book, and
with a friendly farewell to Mr.
Welles, he rode back to Hartford,
depressed and thoughtful.
204
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
PART XI.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
"With women, love is a business ;
with men, business is a love. This
does not mean that women are mer-
cenary in love or that men deal in
the spirit of love in their ordinary
business. It means that love is to
women, yet more than to men, an
occupation, absorbing, that fills and
uses much of life ; that to men, busi-
ness fills and uses much of their life
in much the same way. As human
life is at present ordered, this appor-
tionment of activities is unavoidable
and appropriate.
Thus it happened that Adrian,
rejected both by the lady to whom be
had been betrothed and whom lie
loved in what may be called a conven-
tional sense, and by the lady whom be
loved really, to whom he had offered
himself as it were unconsciously, from
the impulse of a genuine, intuitive
and profound love, was yet not disa-
bled in any sense by his grief. It is
true that his own fortunate instinctive
good sense and native self-command
enabled him to do what many a man
has died for not doing ; to drive out
his sorrow by filling the place of it
with incessant activity. It hardly
occurred to him to mope, and if it did,
he set himself resolutely to get out of
moping ; and as to suicide, there was
in his healthy active mental constitu-
tion no idiotic — or lunatic — vacancy
to receive the idea.
None the less however did his long-
ing return upon him when an hour of
leisure came. He rode back home
from the old paper-mill without ad-
venture ; returned the lively mare to
the charge of the livery-stable man,
who complimented him upon the good
judgment with which she had been
used ; went home to the old house,
and told his aunt, during tea-time, all
about his trip and his discoveries, and
above all, he showed her the Scrope
Genealogy, at which she was properly
amazed and delighted.
After tea he still sat talking a while
with the old lady, whose questions
were many about his experiences in
New York. To some of these inqui-
ries Adrian replied with freedom and
fulness ; but the answers which bore
upon his own personal relations to
people in New York he found himself
measuring and considering, so as to
avoid telling any thing about Civille
or Ann. Their interests, however,
were so combined with those of other
people, and therefore kept him watch-
ing and shaping his replies to such an
extent that the shrewd old lady sud-
denly exclaimed,
'"'What's the matter with you,
Adrian ? You hitch and boggle as if
you were afraid I should find out that
you've been committing murder ! "
" Why," said he, not liking to con-
fess the facts, "I don't know of any
murder ; but I'm pretty tired. I think
very likely I can tell a straighter
story to-morrow."
This excuse was readily accepted ;
and Adrian went rather earlier than
usual to his own room, with full inten-
tion of going straight to bed. Having
however shut his door, and sitting
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
205
down before the fire for a few mo-
ments of quiet solitary thought, his
mind re-verted with magnetic prompt-
ness to Civille, and he unresistingly
permitted himself to float away into
a long deep love-revery.
Perhaps such a state is a real com-
munication. Not every one is capable
of it. As man is made in the image
of God, so the love of man should be
in the image of the love of God.
Perhaps not many in this life can
enter into the fulness of either. Per-
haps not many can love with absolute
wholeness of being — "with all thy
heart (body) and with all thy mind
(soul) and with all thy strength (giv-
ing one's self totally and all togeth-
er).'"'" Nothing else is full love. But
it absorbs the whole being. When we
become seraphim, we can do nothing
else, perhaps : but while we are human,
we must do many things else, and as
human, must cast ourselves whole into
them one after another, but must
from time to time come wholly (so far
as consciousness is concerned) out of
each.
For the time, however, Adrian
neither knew nor felt any thing but a
longing passionate love for Civille.
He had repeatedly been vividly con-
scious of her personal charms. He
had had less consciousness of the far
higher and rarer charm that dwelt
around herand radiated from her — the
charm of her sweet controlling spirit-
uality. Yet it was exactly this that
had most attracted him. Neither at
airv other time, nor now, however, did
he analyze or reason about her. He
surrendered himself to an emotion, an
impulse, powerful, profound, lovely, be-
yond any thing he had ever known.
His heart beat, his cheeks flushed, he
felt tears almost coming into his eyes ;
he sighed, he said half aloud, " Oh,
Civille ! " and held out his arms as if
his prayer could have reached her
and drawn her close upon his heart. —
But the spoken word and the move-
ment awaked him : and man-like, he
blushed to be capable of such sweet
and deep emotion. Yet the longing
wish to commune with the inaccessible
one still thrilled throughout him ; and
turning to his desk, he wrote:
Dear CrvrLLE : This is not to beg nor to
annoy. — As long as I don't hunt you and
try to make you do or say what you don't
wish, you will let me tell you my thoughts,
won't you? You are kind. I am sure you
will.
— Now, dear, I don't get you out of my
mind at all. And (please not to he dis-
pleased) I don't feel as if you had refused
me. What I mean is — I think — that I
know it was not out of dislike. And I
know we need not he shy of each other on
account of it. You would ask me to serve
you if there was a chance, just as soon as
before — wouldn't you ? Yoii ought to,
sooner. — I don't feel as if I were setting
down words to you. Nor did I ever feel as
if I were talking to you, exactly. — 1 want
to say what some people would think very
irreverent and wicked, but I can't show
you what I mean any other way. — The
feeling I always had with you was a sense
of oneness with a higher existence. And yet
this has never been a consciousness while
it was happening — it was always a remem-
brance after I had left you. How can I
express the depth, the force, of such recol-
lections ? Will details do it ? They add
life likeness to a picture. Let me try :
About four minutes ago, that is, ten
minutes before eleven, which means, you
know, fifteen minutes and seven seconds
before eleven, where you are, and just be-
fore I began this letter, I was sitting still
before the lire in rny own room. I have had
a long and fatiguing day, but I know now
that a consciousness of you had been un-
derlying all my riding and hurrying, like a
level vein of gold under rough hills. When I
came and sat down here alone all the upper
strata vanished and the gold-bearing one
appeared. So it was as if you were by me,
I think ; and I held out my arms and called
you, and my voice, instead of calling you
to me, recalled me to myself, and I awoke,
and wished you were here.
So you have not made me dislike you. —
I had some entertaining talk with Mr.
Stanley and Mr. Welles on the boat coming
home. This morning I thought I had a
chance to rind some of the books at the pa-
206
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
per mill where Mr. "Welles works — went
and hunted — did not rind them, but did
find something else — two somethings.
One was a volume of Hartford town rec-
ords that has been lost for a hundred years.
• • Another was an old account book of Phine-
as Button, our Mr. Button's father. There
is a record of births and deaths in it which
shows something that I wdl tell you, in
confidence — Mr. Button is no relative of ours
— he is of the Lebanon family, not the
Bozrah family. Now, you will see on con-
sidering that if he should find this out it
might cause you and your father some in-
convenience; and if that should happen,
and my aunt or I could be of use — or
if we could for any other matter, and you
will give us the refusal of serving you, then
I Mill forgive you every thing! If you
should ever prefer anybody else to us in
such a case, I don't think I will ever for-
give you! N.B. my dear cousin, you must
figure to yourself that you saw my face
while I was saying these last things; or
else you will take the threats for true as
well as the good will. Tones can't be
written any more than printed.
But I shall not tell Mr. Button, and very
likely there's no harm after all. You may
tell your father if you think best ; for you
are a discreet person ; I have great faith in
you. My writing to you in this way proves
the faith, doesn't it? Perhaps you will
answer that your treating me in that way
proved the discretion?
Dear Cirille; you wouldn't guess it, but
(in a proper, cousinly, harmless, inoffensive
way, ) I love you. Adrian.
" Aunty," said Adrian, next morn-
ing at breakfast, looking up suddenly
from his paper, " they are going to
pull down the old parsonage at the
foot of Prospect Street."
"Are they?" said the old lady.
"Well — it used to be a mighty fine
house — I can remember when old
Madam TVoodbridge used to live
there. She was old Parson Wood-
bridge's grand-daughter, and nobody
but ministers or their folks had ever
occupied it. It was built for the Rev-
erend Thomas Hooker, you know."
" The beginning of it was," said
Adrian, who was a more accurate
local antiquarian than his aunt; "but
only the first floor of half the ground
plan. You know it was determined
long ago that the great chimney had
been partly rebuilt. It was at one
side of the house first, and had to be
enlarged when they built round it, so
as to make room for fireplaces and
ovens on the other side."
"Well," said Miss Chester, "the
odor of sanctity was drowned out by
the smell of rum and tobacco a good
while ago, and I'd just as lief the old
house should come down."
" But I thought," suggested Adrian
slyly, "that the smells of rum and
tobacco were of the most sanctified
sort amongst the old fashioned Con-
necticut clergy? "
" Oh, very well, — there's been
plenty of Germans there too ; say
lager and sour krout, if you like."
" Yes," said the young man, " it
has been a tenement house this long
time. But I must go and stand
guard while they pull it down. Stan-
ley got his Higley copper in the un-
derpinning of the old Webster place,
and they found a perfect pine-tree
shilling on one of the sills."
"How do ^ou know it is to be
pulled down to-day ? " said the old
lady.
" I'll tell you," said Adrian ; and
he read out a local item from the
Daily Courant :
" Another Old Landmark Gone. The
devastating hand of improvement will to-
day erase from our midst one of the very
few remaining monuments of the days of
the Pilgrims. The former parsonage of the
First Church in Hartford, long hallowed as
the abode of Thomas Hooker and his suc-
cessors in the ministry, after having been
desecrated for half a century as a boarding-
house and tenement-house, is to be pulled
down, this very day, to make room fur the
new brick block to be erected by the enter-
prising firm of Bobson and Bull. The de-
signs were drawn by that accomplished
architect English Bond Esq. ; and the con-
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
!07
tract for the whole building has been taken
by the energetic firm of Wood and Stone.
We trust that the spectacle of prosperity
which the new edifice will offer, may pro-
pitiate the venerable ghosts of the de-
parted. The building is to be embellished,
we understand, with a handsome white
marble memorial slab in the centre of the
front, upon which will be carved the ap-
propriate and honored name of ' Hooker
Block.' Tempora mutantur."
"Well," mused Miss Chester, "I
never thought I should outlive that
old house. I s'pose this one of ours
will go next. The common council's
tried to get rid of it often enough.
They seem to be as set against an old
house as they are against an old tree.
They've cut down all the old elms
and poplars on Main Street. Here
goes the oldest house in town. Ours'll
come next, I guess. They'll have
an ordinance shortly, I expect, to kill
all the old folks. Now I wonder
what can be the reason that an alder-
man naterally hates a tree?"
" Because," answered Adrian, " an
alderman is afraid of a tree. He's a
wooden headed rascal himself, and
wants to get the raw material out of the
way, for fear the carpenter should hew
a better one out of a tree-trunk."
"Well: they might perhaps have
cause to be afraid of a poplar candi-
date," said the old lady slyly ; " but
elm-wood is for coffins ; they'd better
keep that growing."
" I wish an alderman had been
hung in State House Square for every
elm cut down ! " said Adrian, hotly.
" Then it would be some small conso-
lation to bury each of the beasts in
the very tree he had murdered."
"Look into the garret, Adrian;
don't forget that," said Miss Chester.
" Well, I will," was the reply ; —
" but what can there be there now?"
" Never mind," said the old lady ;
" the way to find things is to look in
the unlikeliest places first. I don't
expect the Scrope books are there,
but look, at any rate. You know old
Miss Woodbridge used to say she be-
lieved the Scrope Chest was there
when she was a girl."
" I've heard you say so," answered
Adrian ; " but I guess it was only her
fancy. The chest and books seem to
have disappeared together from the
time of the will, — in 1727, though
Stanley says the chest was there
seventy years later." Miss Woodbridge
couldn't remember so far back as that.
" She remembered her grand-
father, though — unless she imagined
him from that stiff wooden looking
old portrait in her keeping-room,
She used to tell me of things he said,
and things he did; but all that may
have been told her too. But there's
that other old story of one of the
three regicide judges being kept hid
in that very house — they seem to
have been into every town in New
England! — still if it was so it would
be very natural for Adrian Scroope
and his goods to be there too."
"Well," repeated Adrian, "I'll
watch every splinter and scrap of the
old place ; but I must run, — they
may have it half down already for
what I know."
And springing up, he seized hat
and coat and hastened out.
CHAPTER XXIX.
Adrian crossed over at the east
end of the State House Square, and
walked swiftly southward down Pros-
pect Street. The distance was not
great ; it was but a few minutes
before he was descending that rather
positive incline at whose foot Pros-
pect Street turns into Arch Street.
The ancient mansion in question stood
just at the confluence of these streets,
upon the farther or south side of Arch
208
Scrope
or,
The Lost Library.
Street, on the narrow space between
that street and the steep high rocky-
bank of Little River, that tributary
to the might3 r Connecticut which
meanders so charmingly through the
very middle of the wealthy old city.
There is a horrid tradition that this
stream is properly — improperly would
be the right term — called Hog Riv-
er ; but the vile story is only alluded
to here that it may be abhorred — as
they nail up a crow on the barn door.
As he came out upon the upper
part of the slope towards the river,
Adrian was startled to see the de-
stroyers already at their fiendish
work. Several men, with axes and
crowbars, were pounding and ripping
away at the roof with that species of
inhuman delight that attends all
destructions ; while clouds of dry dust
arose in the clear cold air, and shin-
gles, timber and bricks rattled and
crashed down into the street below.
And just crossing the street to enter
the old house, was Mr. Philetus Stan-
ley of East Hartford. Assuredly !
Not cart-ropes could have kept that
keen and tireless hunter from such a
quarry. Cau any New England man-
sion of the better class, and two hun-
dred years or more of age, be pulled
down without the bringing to light
of some treasure ? It may be manu-
scripts or pamphlets or books or coins
or furniture or utensils or what not
— but something ancient and curi-
ous there is sure to be. And Hart-
ford is within sixteen years as old as
any town in New England, and was
from the first one of those substan-
tial and intelligent communities who
have things worth keeping, and there-
fore worth losing and worth finding
again two centuries afterwards. And
many a prize had Mr. Stanley gath-
ered from the ruins of such old houses,
to be borne into that mysterious
treasure-chamber in his own old house
— a room whose fame was known to
every antiquarian in New England,
but whose interior had never been
beheld by one mortal of them all
except its owner.
However, here he was, all the keen-
er for what he had already amassed,
as is the wont of misers. Adrian gave
one groan at seeing his rival, but truly
it is to be feared the young man was
not quite envious and miserly enough
for an ideal collector. So he appended
a laugh to the groan, and only sped
onward faster than before, dislocating
and misapplying a very respectable
quotation as he' did so, as if to justify
himself: "On, Stanley, on!" said
Mr. Adrian; "Chester is charging
after you ! " Moreover, he charged
to such purpose that he was close at
Stanley's heels before that gentleman
had ascended the steep huddled flight
of stairs that turned three square
corners within the little entry before
reaching the second floor.
" Good morning, Mr. Stanley ! " he
cried out cheerfully — "I follow in
the footsteps of my illustrious prede-
cessor ! "
"Good morning," said Stanley, very
grimly, for he was enraged ; but there
was no help for it, and they went on
together. The house had been emp-
tied, stripped to nakedness. Even
the last old shoes and bonnet-frames
and skirt-skeletons were lying out in
the street waiting for the more solid
rubbish. The bald nakedness of the
rooms was inexpressibly dreary. The
two men had not looked into the
lower ones, and only hurried through
the upper ones to get into the garret,
which they both knew perfectly well
was the first place to search. But
even in two seconds Adrian's quick
eye took in a squalid gloomy vision of
battered plaster, soiled cheap wall
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
209
paper, grease-spots at head-rest height
around the wall, and smoke-marks
upon the ceiling. In another moment
they were in the garret, in a dust of
old lime and dirt so thick that they
could hardly see, with a rain of shin-
gles, and bits of wood, seasoned with
brick-bats, falling around them, and
the prodigious banging of the work-
men resounding on the hollow roof
and thundering in their very ears.
The garret had been partitioned
off into small rooms. As they made
their way alone through these, the
chief workman met them, all pow-
dered white with lime-dust. In reply
to an inquiry, he bawled out through
the racket that there wasn't a relic in
the whole house, from ridge-pole to cel-
lar bottom, but he made them welcome
to hunt as much as they liked ; only
recommending them to wear buckets
on their heads against brickbats.
"Now, what is there in here, for in-
stance ? " shouted Adrian, rapping on
an old partition of perpendicular oak
planks that extended from one corner
of the great square shaft of the chim-
ney, across to the eaves.
" Oh, nothing ; only another room,"
said the chief Apollyon. Adrian
walked back round the chimney to
see. The others followed.
"There's a room," said Adrian,
"no doubt ; but that's a double parti-
tion, and there's more than two feet
between them," he added, pointing
out the facts to the carpenter.
"Yes," admitted the workman;
" it's a closet ; there's the door, close
to the chimney ; that single board
hung on leather."
Adrian opened it and put in his
head.
" Pitch dark, and smells very rank
of old shoes," he observed. " Hold on
a moment." He struck a light with
a match, and then added, " This
closet don't go clear out to the eaves.
There's a cross partition. May I get
an axe ? " he asked eagerly. Good-
natured — and inquisitive — Mr. Car-
penter ran off himself after one.
" Halves, now," said Adrian, " if
we find any thing, — honor bright?"
Mr. Stanley, a little reluctantly,
agreed. The axe was quickly brought,
and a crowbar too; and the vigorous
and skilful enginery of the athletic
workman quickly started a plank or
two from the neighborhood of the
cross partition which Adrian had
noticed. The carpenter thrust in his
head. "Nothing in there, I reckon,"
he said.
" Let me see," said Adrian. — " Yes-
there is — come, let's have the rest of
these planks down. There's an old
box."
Bang, rip, crash, down came half a
dozen more of the ancient oak boards ;
and the small triangular recess close
under the eaves was laid open. An
old fashioned chest, of dark colored
wood, panelled and carved, stood
within. Adrian and Stanley looked
at each other. The workman, creep-
ing in under the sloping roof, seized
hold of the chest and heaved at it.
" Pretty solid, that ! " he exclaimed,
finding it much more heavy than he
had expected. Adrian crawled in also,
and the two men hoisted the box out
into plain sight.
" The Scrope Chest ! " said Stanley,
and he pointed to the escutcheon
carved in the oaken front, with the
well known bearings, Azure a bend
or, properly indicated by dots and
lines, and the word " Scroope," in old
English letters, beneath it.
Just as one gazes at the outside of
a letter, wondering whether it brings
good news or bad, or who the writer
may be, so the two zealots stood gazing
for a moment at the outside of this
210
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
old chest. Each was saying, That is
the Lost Library ! Each was prefer-
ring the room of the other to his com-
pan} r , with a silent fervency that if
translated into act might, it is to be
feared, have extinguished a valuable
life. Here, in the middle and very
heart of the region, even in the very
house, no doubt, where Adrian
Scroope had sojourned, this treasure
had lain in silence and darkness all
these years, as if mocking their eager
search ! And now, both the gentle-
men aui scholars were cursing each
other mo ; *t heartily in their silence, and
longing for some means of appropriat-
ing the whole of the discovery. Still,
there is no commandment against
coveting what doesn't yet belong to
your neighbor; and the two men
coveted with all their hearts.
" Confound you," at last exclaimed
Adrian, though witli a laugh at his
own fury. " Confound you, Mr. Stan-
ley, I wish you were in heaven, where
you belong ! "
"Oh, well, go there yourself!" said
the other, in the same tone.
All these eager immoralities, how-
ever, had drifted across their minds in
a moment or two ; and Mr. Carpenter,
a direct and practical person, having
looked from one to the other of them a
couple of times with some wonder, said,
" Wal, you look as if you thought
there was a corpse into it. Here
goes ! " With a queer impulse of
hesitating reluctance, — a sweet reluc-
tant amorous delay, — eacli of them
cried " Hold on ! " but even as they
spoke, the workman gave a pull, an
old lock cracked and yielded, the two
spectators turned white with intense
expectancy and doubt, and up came
the lid. The box was crammed full
to the very brim with unbound printed
sheets. Stanley, Adrian and the car-
penter each seized a handful.
" Pshaw ! " exclaimed Stanley, —
" a lot of copies of Stiles' History of
the Judges."
" Let's see if that's all," said Adri-
an, and they quickly emptied the
old chest; but it was all. They re-
packed the whole ; handed the work-
man a proper fee ; and one of the
contractors who had bought the build-
ing having by this time come to
supervise his men, Mr. Stanley, act-
ing for himself and Adrian, easily
purchased the chest and contents, at
a cheap rate.
"See here," said Adrian, when the
bargain was concluded, " I want the
chest, Mr. Stanley."
" So do I," curtly answered the
other.
" Well ; you want that edition of
Stiles too, don't you ? Scarce book, —
brings from $2.00 to $5.00 at auc-
tion — here's some two hundred un-
cut perfect copies: — splendid chance
for exchanges, if you car$y 'em home
and keep the facts to yourself."
Stanley grinned. "Well," pursued
Adrian, " now, see here : — You just
buy of Mr. Wood the refusal of every
thing else on the premises that's in
your line : take the sheets, give me
the chest, and I'll retire ; who knows
but you'll find all the treasures of the
Egyptians ? "
Stanley, after brief consideration,
agreed to this proposal, and even
added the liberal gift of one of the
copies of the book. Adrian hurried
away for packing paper and twine ;
tied up the books, handed them over
to Stanley's charge, and getting a
dray, drove home in triumph with the
Scrope Chest. Nor did he regret his
bargain, notwithstanding the well
known result. As all New England
antiquaries are aware, the demoli-
tion of the old home yielded to the
eager hands of the happy Stanley,
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
Ill
not only divers coins and other small
matters of interest, but a very con-
siderable mass of the sermons and
private papers of the Reverend
Thomas Hooker himself, the same
being found in the walls of the house,
stuffed in between the outer weather-
boards and the inner lining. How
or when or why they should have
been thus secreted, nobody has ever
explained: there is no tradition of
Mr. Hooker's having hidden or de-
stroyed these or any other papers, as
some men have done in their last
days ; nor is any thing known of any
risks or dangers of any kind which
could have occasioned the conceal-
ment. There at any rate they were,
yellow and stained, a few of them
wasted away by dampness and nib-
bled by vermin, but enough of them
left legible to form a valuable addi-
tion to Mr. Stanley's hid treasures.
It will not do to say to the historical
treasures of New England, until the
death of Mr. Stanley shall release them.
As for the copies of President
Stiles' well-known and well reputed
but not particularly valuable work, it
is too late now to seek to trace their
transfer from the printing office of
Elisha Babcock in 1794 to the Scrope
Chest in that old garret. There cer-
tainly was some mismanagement or
other in the publishing of the book,
perhaps in consequence of the death
of the author, not many months after
it appeared. The high reputation of
the writer and the local interest of the
subject would naturally have caused
the printer to strike off a good
number of copies, whereas the work
has always been rather uncommon,
and is now quite scarce.
But whatever the facts might be
about these ancient matters, the
Woodbridge reminiscence was sub-
stantiated. The Chest, doubtless with
its cargo of printed sheets, must have
been stored in the old house about
1794 ; and the partition which had
protected it so effectually being put
in not long afterwards, books, chest
and all had quietly faded out of re-
membrance, as deaths, removals,
changes of ownership and occupancy,
and the other vicissitudes of so many
years had arisen one after another, as
additional veils between present and
past.
The discovery of the chest and
books was not kept so quiet as was
intended. Such things never are.
Good Messrs. Carpenter and Contract-
or, although they readily agreed not
to mention the little circumstance,
must have communicated it, of course
under the same condition, until every-
body in Hartford knew all about it,
on condition of not mentioning it to
anybody. Then the newspapers —
which are what Goethe called Nature,
" the Open Secret " — had a para-
graph- or two, and then quite a
number more, on the chest, on the
Scrope Will, and in particular on the
Scrope Library.
The general conclusion about the
latter was the same to which Adrian
himself, and his aunt, had come at
once ; that as their depository was
here, they themselves must be in the
neighborhood. The notion that they
were probably to be sought for in the
old town of Bozrah, or in Windsor,
where lived Adrian's ancestor John
Chester, was definitely surrendered,
and the only question suggested as
remaining for discussion was, Where
in Hartford can the old books be ?
CHAPTER XXX.
Civille answered Adrian by re-
turn mail, kindly enough, but in a
note so brief as to be little more than
212
So
ope
The Lost Library.
a mere acknowledgment of receipt.
Indeed, she apologized for this brev-
ity, but with such generalized speci-
fications about health, employments
&c, that Adrian, reading the neat
little document over and over, and
pondering upon it. could not help con-
cluding, Either she don't care at all,
or she cares so much that she is
afraid. He now, moreover, resumed
his post as assistant librarian at the
Young Men's Institute, and betook
himself to his regular avocation of cov-
ering, stamping, marking and shelv-
ing books, of running to get novels
for little boys, of first informing
young ladies what books they wanted
aud then handing them out, of com-
paring his own critical estimates of
great writers with those of middle-
aged single ladies, and of doing all
other those acts and things which
are proper to the office of assistant
librarian. He had overstaid his va-
cation by a number of days, but a
proper acknowledgment to the can-
tankerous members of the Board of
Directors served to adjust that ; the
accommodating members remembered
all the extra hours and days and labor
that the young man had so often
bestowed upon the institution, without
talking about it. And he flung him-
self into his work harder than ever,
in part purposely, to make up for lost
time, in part without any conscious
purpose, but as the result of a necessity
to escape from useless wishes and mere
lamenting reveries. In whatever time
he had to spare from work and sleep,
he did however devote himself to a
thorough re-examination of the ques-
tion of the Scroope books ; inquiring
of all the living authorities (except
Mr. Philetus Stanley of East Hart-
ford) that he could reach, and search-
ing records in every direction. It
was however all in vain ; he could
not find the least hint of the books
subsequent to their disposition in the
Will, nor any of the chest itself, whose
presence in his own room was proof
enough of its own existence now ; but
he used sometimes to think of the
old witchcraft notions, and to wish he
could extort a revelation from the
hard and blackened oak timber, like
Canidia, who used to make the moon
dance and bow, or as Khawla in the
Domdaniel extorted speech from the
dead Teraph.
But one day about a month after-
ward, at noon, a telegram reached
him at the library to the following
effect :
" Come at once. Van Braams are in
trouble. C. Yeroel."
" I must go to New York by next
train," said Adrian promptly to his
principal. " Some near relations are
in trouble there."
" Very well," said that gentleman,
quite courteously, " I can't say a word
against that ; but will you please
notify the Board ? "
" Certainly," said Adrian, — " in-
stantly ; but I can't wait." So he
wrote a brief note to the President ;
as he began he remembered the can-
tankerous minority ; and with a decis-
ion that was to him easy because it
was natural, but which is more ad-
mired than practised by prudent
people, he shaped the note into a
short statement of his departure and
its reasons, with a resignation of his
post, should the Board under the
circumstances think it best to accept
the same.
To show a board of young men, —
or old men either, — that their sub
ordinate feels independent of them,
is a tolerably sure and short road to
a dismissal. The opposition seized
on the chance; Adrian's lukewarm
friends permitted themselves to be
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
213
displeased or indifferent ; his strong
friends felt themselves at a disadvan-
tage ; and after some debate over the
imputed brusqueness of the present
action and the alleged carelessness
of the interests of the library in his
recent vacation, the resignation was
accepted by a decisive vote.
Having sent his message at once
to tbe President of the Board, and
having answered Dr. Veroil that he
would reach New York that night, he
went straight home, notified his aunt,
aud made ready. The stout-hearted
old lady instantly offered to go with
him, but this he declined, promising
however to send for her if necessary.
The journey was without adven-
tures. Reaching that city, Adrian
went at once to Dr. Veroil's. That
hospitable and genial gentleman was
at dinner, and he made Adrian sit
down and eat, although the young
man felt no great appetite. But the
doctor, in his own jolly forceful way,
simply constrained him.
" You must," he said, " for proba-
bly you'll have to be up all night ;
and a hearty meal is indispensable in
preparing to sit up all night. So
come in ! "
And he haled him forth of the of-
fice into the comfortable dining room,
and presented him to Mrs. Veroil, a
comfortable smiling dame, and to his
two plump children ; and while he
prescribed and administered abun-
dant and succulent viands he told him
whatever was to be told.
This was, in short, that Mr. Button
had all of a sudden and without visi-
ble cause, warned Mr. Van Braam to
quit the house where he was living,
in consequence of alleged intended
improvements ; and at the same time
the insurance secretaryship from
which the old gentleman had drawn
his support, had also been taken
away from him, undoubtedly by Mr.
Button's means. These misfortunes,
amounting to instantaneous ruin for
a man so old, so poor and so nearly
friendless, had come upon him when
if not ill, he was somewhat indis-
posed, and had aggravated his com-
plaint into something so much like a
typhoid fever that it might be a ques-
tion whether his ailment was not
really such a fever, produced by the
unhealthy air of his house. If he
had a place to go to, the doctor con-
cluded, it would be the best thing
that could happen to him to be driv-
en neck and crop out of that old
shanty.
As Dr. Veroil thus recounted, it
flashed across Adrian's mind that
Mr. Stanley must after all have sent
Mr. Button the information in the
old account-book. Stanley's rather
mischievous disposition, and his bit-
ter contemptuous dislike of Mr. But-
ton had, if this was the case, prevailed
over his love of keeping a secret ;
there was no reason to suppose that
he had thought that any evil would
enure to any third parties.
As Dr. Veroil made no allusion to
that other matter which had been ex-
pressly left in charge of himself and
Mr. Bird the police reporter, Adrian
also refrained in like manner. He
did indeed, as the doctor's narrative
closed, give one inquiring look, which
however the physician answered by
an almost imperceptible shake of the
head and contraction of the eyebrows.
Adrian therefore inquired only about
Mr. Button's prosperity in general.
His business, the doctor answered,
went on as usual ; his political pros-
pects were understood to be begin-
ning to brighten, as he was to have a
nomination for member of Congress
at an election about to take place to
fill a vacancy in his district.
214
Scrope
The Lost Lihrary.
When dinner was over, the doctor
summoned Adrian into his office and
gave him final directions about Mr.
Van Braam, their substance being
that as the old man was in a very
weak state, it was for the immediate
present critically important that his
tonics should be frequently and punc-
tually administered. He (the doctor)
was to look in, if possible, before bed-
time, and at any rate in good season
in the morning, and hoped to find
every thing going on well. He wanted
Civille to rest well for a few nights,
he added, or else she would be down
sick too. And then he said that as
to the other matter, Mr. Bird had
told him that the thefts at several of
the largest retail dry-goods houses
had begun again a week or two ago,
and that measures were concerted to
detect the criminals, though so far
nobody had been caught except a few
of the ordinary shop-lifters. And he
added, that of course considerations
connected with these affairs had had
their influence upon Mr. Van Braam ;
affairs about which, of course, noth-
ing whatever was to be said unless in
case of absolute necessity.
Well fortified, therefore, as to his
physical man, but not so comfortable
in his mind, Adrian left the abode
of the genial doctor. For, no matter
how ready one may be to assist those
who need, it is depressing to feel all
at once that it is upon us that the
helpless person is to be laden.
It was that same bitter-tempered
Katy, who opened Mr. Van Braam's
door.
" What, you here again ? " ex-
claimed Adrian, not at all pleased.
" Yis, what I'm here agin, sur ! "
said the woman, in the same sharp
ill-natured manner; but she seemed
to relent a little as she added,
" But it's glad of ye Miss Civille
will be, faith ! Walk in sur, till I tell
her."
He entered the parlor, where there
was a fire and a light; and in a mo-
ment Civille came in. He rose to
meet her, and had hardly time to see
how thin, and white and weary her
face looked. Involuntarily the tears
came into his eyes, and involuntarily
he held out his arms. The poor girl, as
if upheld so long only by the iron
necessity of her lonely situation, gave
way at once. She burst into tears
and almost fell. He caught her and
supported her to the sofa, and soothed
and comforted her, stroking her soft
hair as one comforts a baby, and let-
ting her cry, as one comforts a woman.
" I knew you would come," she said
at last.
" 1 would have come before," said
he; "you ought to have sent."
" Until yesterday I hoped we could
fight it through alone," said she ; " but
father is worse, and I got so fright-
ened ! "
Poor child ! She had never had
wealth, but her father's solicitous care
had hitherto kept her in comfort.
Her wealthy friends had always treat-
ed her with that kind of civility
which we confer upon agreeable infe-
riors who don't ask us for any thing;
and this, her sweet nature took it for
granted^ was affection. She felt a
real affection for them; and the most
genuine affection is the first to believe
in the genuineness of a response. Now,
all at once a great distress came, as if
an earthquake were shaking the very
ground away from under her feet, and
it was as if everybody ran away on
purpose to leave her to fall into the
pit.
"I did not think Ann would have
treated me so," said she, crying quiet-
ly. " I loved her ; and I love her
now. It was not just because they
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
215
were all cousins. I don't see how
they could do so. But Ann actually-
refused to recognize me in the street,
and so did her mother. Oh, if I had
become suddenly infamous, and good
people had cast me out, I know how
it would have felt ! "
" Well, dear," said Adrian, " Doctor
Veroil will stand by us. He's a man !
And as long as my aunt and I own
that little old house in Hartford, we
shall all have a roof over our heads at
at any rate. And Civille, — I don't
think it would even make my hand
tremble in smoothing your hair — how
silky and fine it is — if you should be-
come suddenly infamous, as you call it.
You can't be any thing to me except
what I know you to be, Civille. I
defy you to change."
" I don't want to, Adrian," she said,
simply ; " and I feel better to have you
pet me a little," she added, content-
edly, and almost nestling to his side;
" I am not to be afraid of you, you
know, and you are to help me now
that I need it."
" Yes," he said — he could not well
have said less — or more. — " And
now, dear, you must show me about
the nocturnal affairs, and then you
must go to bed and sleep all night."
"I begin to feel sleepy already,
Adrian ; you can put me asleep, you
know. — But that is not very compli-
mentary."
" I think it is, very," said he, —
and indeed the perfect trust that was
implied by the fact, and that thrilled
through the soft heartfelt voice, all
the more touchingly because it was
veiled and languid with weariness and
sorrow, filled him with a happiness
such as he had never known before —
the happiness of satisfying one be-
loved.
They went up stairs to the sick
room. Mr. Van Braam lay quietly in
bed, asleep ; his bloodless complexion
and thin high features, sharpened by
illness, giving him a deathly appear-
ance that was only removed on watch-
ing the faint slow respiration. The ru-
bric for the night was brief; Give the
draughts punctually every half hour.
Katy, who sat silently by the fire, was
dismissed ; Civille went away, receiv-
ing quietly a kiss on the forehead from
Adrian, "for good-night ; " and Adri-
an stood on the hearth-rug a few mo-
ments, observing the economical ap-
pointments of the room ; then turned
to the shelf, where he found a few
books, from which he selected a vol-
ume of Sainte-Beuve's Causeries ; and
he sat himself down to read, to think,
and to make notes.
The half hour soon came round, and
he waked the patient and gave him
his dose. Although the old gentle-
man recognized Adrian, he was too
weak, apparently, to ask or even to
consider, how he came to be there ; he
opened his eyes, smiled faintly, swal-
lowed the draught, made a feeble
grimace of discomfort, lay down again
and relapsed into his immovable con-
dition. Adrian wrote down passages
quoted or written by the accomplished
French critic, somewhat in the follow-
ing style,
Joubert. " Looked like a soul that had
met a body somewhere by mere accident,
and had taken up with it and was doing the
best he could with it."
Imperfection. Le Sage says, "The beat
people are those that have the fewest vices."
Chester compares the military observation,
that the question between two opposing gen-
erals is, not which shall make no mistakes,
but only which shall make the fewest."
And so on : translating, paraphras-
ing or commenting, as the case may
be : then laying down his book and
looking at the fire; then listening (so
to speak) to the utter stillness in the
house. He had never tried his hand
216
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
at nursing before, and he smiled as he
said to himself, after about an hour,
" I guess I was made for a nurse."
The smile was first at the idea, aud
then at the insufficiency of the experi-
ence from which he was deducing it.
At the second dosing of the patient,
he murmured something about its be-
ing " nasty," and a wish that they'd
" let him alone." Who has not enter-
tained sim ilar 7:tws about medicines
of the more plentiful and frequent
sort?
Ah ? What is this light ?
Adrian sprang up, terrified at once
into springing up and into a faintness
that almost let him fall down again.
Gleams, a glow almost, of white light
were in the room. Amazed, he looked
hither and thither, and choked down,
as it were, a shout of " Fire ! " But
he sniffed after a smell of smoke.
There was none. He went to the
window and looked out. The gray
pale light of sunrise was rising over
the city.
He looked at his watch — he looked
more than once — he compared it
with Civille' s, that was hung up over
the shelf; and as his senses clarified
themselves and settled into daylight
order after about two minutes of ter-
ror and confusion, his reflection upon
his eminent capabilities for the nurs-
ing business came into his mind with
a queer mixture of shame and fright,
along with the recognition of its ironic
if not direct justness.
But the patient?
With feelings not entirely unlike
those which may be supposed to have
occupied the late William Tell on
finding that abilities of his own have
brought upon him the risk of killing
his son, Adrian looked across the
room at Mr. Van Braam. He could
not see him distinctly from where he
stood; and it required a strong effort
before he could bring himself to walk
across to the bed. The old man had
turned over and lay flat on his face.
" The last struggle " thought Adrian
— "and I to confess to Civille ! " —
But the necessity of the case was su-
preme, and with a thrill of horror he
laid his hand on the — No, not the
corpse !
At the touch, the old man moved
in the bed. Still less is it possible to
express the relief, than the horror, of
this so gifted guardian of the sick.
Turning his haggard and bony old
countenance out sideways, Mr. Van
Braam asked,
- What.
again
Adrian cried and laughed.
" I'm better," said the old gentle-
man. " I must have slept."
He was really so much refreshed
that Adrian ventured to confess his
unfaithfulness. Mr. Van Braam
would have laughed outright, had he
been strong enough. As it was, he
could only smile ; but his next words
showed that his wits were not en-
feebled, though his body might be.
He still spoke very low and but few
words at a time.
"Don't tell a soul. — Veroil would
kill you. — Good nurse, Adrian! —
Just what I wanted. — Pour the stuff
behind the fire. — Don't scare Civille
— Poor child ! "
So Adrian carefully poured a proper
quantity of the tonic mixture amongst
the ashes, freshened up the decaying
fire; put out the expiring lamp; re-
placed the volume of M. Sainte-Beuve
upon the mantle-piece ; made a hasty
toilet ; and assisted his patient to do
the same.
With his face washed and his hair
nicely brushed, Mr. Van Braam looked
Capt Dorr and Mr. Muir. 217
quite comfortable, and asked how fined at the waist by a pretty belt.
Adrian came to be there; and Adrian She looked at her father:
had just answered that Dr. Veroil " Why ! " — and she bent over the
had summoned him, when there was dear old man with a graceful ges-
a soft knock at the door, and Adrian ture, and caressing his white head
admitted Civille. As things were, he with both hands, she kissed his fore-
felt at liberty to admire her morning head again and again, and then looked
dress, a loose gown of soft shimmer- at Adrian with such a solemn loving
ing dark gray stuff, with a narrow brightness in the deep lucid gray eyes !
white lace about the neck, and con- Then she sat down and cried a little.
218
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
PART XII.
CHAPTER XXXI.
"Come," said Civille, brightening
up in a minute or two — " what am I
crying for ? — Adrian, you must go
and have a good sleep, you dear good
cousin, and then you shall have some
breakfast. — What are you laughing
at ? You too, father ? "
"Why,"— said Adrian, "at the
idea of my ever having to sleep. I
am the he-Melusina ; I never sleep."
Civille looked puzzled. " Tell her,
Adrian," said the old man, feebly.
With some hesitation, Adrian did so,
to her immense surprise and content-
ment. But they agreed with one
consent not to inform their respected
physician.
So the two young folks had break-
fast together, Katy remaining with
the sick man the while. Civille did
the honors of the table, and while
Adrian ate and drank, he enjoyed
still more than the delicately served
viands, her neat-handed, graceful
ways, her innocent happy chat, her
gracious sunshiny presence. And
they had abundance of topics to dis-
cuss.
For instance :
Adrian - . Very jolly coffee, Civille.
I say coffee. If it were dandelion or
rye or chicory I should be brutal
enough to say so, I am afraid. A
cheat in coffee is next door but one to
murdering a baby.
Civille. Oh, don't ! Poor little
thing ! Well, it ought to be good ;
I made it myself.
A. Tell me how your father
came to be ill.
C. He has been a little ailing for
some time. I have sometimes
thought he was excited about this
Scrope estate business ; for he has
never seemed quite .well since the
very evening when you and Mr.
Scrope met here and talked about it.
A. (Remembering that that was
the evening when the detective Olds
had called on Mr. Van Braam, but
not telling Civille so.) Hasn't he ?
Well ; I'd rather attribute his illness
to an expectation than to my own
call, certainly. And these questions
of genealogy and inheritance have an
immense interest for some people.
C. But father attended to his
business, although I know he didn't
feel well, until two or three days
after you wrote me about that old
account book. Then he came home
one evening, all broken down, and
went to bed; and he hasn't got up
since. (Here Civille began to cry
quietly, — the tears slowly dropping
one after another ; but her voice only
trembled a little, as she went on :) I.
thought my dear father was going to
die.
A. Oh, Civille, don't cry, please.
It hurts me.
C. (Wiping her eyes.) Well, I
won't. But it does me good some-
times to cry a little. You see, that
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
219
very day when he came home, he had
received notice that he must lose his
secretaryship and move out of this
house. I don't know why he should
have felt it so intensely, I'm sure.
He and I have been poor enough,
and long enough, not to be frightened
at that. But he kept talking that
evening, and afterwards too, about its
being so bard for me. I couldn't un-
derstand it. [" Poor thing ! I do,"
said Adrian to himself.] I think it
was the Scrope estate business and
these other things coming so, all to-
gether, that made him ill. I told him
then what you had written, of course.
He said it was no wonder Mr. Button
kicked him out, — he had no doubt
Mr. Button felt as if he had been de-
liberately cheated on system. So we
must go, as soon as he can move.
A. Well ; I'll help you.
C. I know you will. — It was
very sweet of you to come. — I felt as
if every thing would be right, the
minute I saw you; and when I had
left you with father I went right to
sleep as quietly as any baby.
A. Even Mr. Button won't trou-
ble you until your father can be
moved. Then we will find a place
to stay, and look round a little. The
world is wide, particularly New
York.
C. Adrian : — I heard you call
that
You look sur-
prised ? Well, if it was not you that
I heard, it was a curious coincidence
that I should have fancied it exactly
at the time. You know you wrote
me the almanac difference of time for
Hartford and New York. Was that
so as to find out whether I heard
you?
A. No. I only wrote just what
came into my head. But I know
this : when I spoke your name that
night I felt as if I spoke to you.
C. I was sitting here by the fire,
and father was asleep in his chair. I
had been singing a little, and I guess
I had been thinking I would like to
have j'ou here instead of Mr. Bird
and Mr. Scrope —
A. Why, — beg pardon — hasn't
Scrope gone back to England ?
C. Yes ; he sailed a day or two
afterwards. Well ; they had both
come and gone, first Mr. Scrope and
then Mr. Bird, and so I was left
alone. I had dropped my work and
was sitting thinking, and all at once
it was as if a distant voice called me.
— Civille ! — It was like your voice,
I thought, but sorrowful, as if you
sighed. It startled me ; but there
was nobody. And I couldn't hear
wherefrom it came. It was as if it
was from deep in my own brain. I
went and asked Katy ; she had not
spoken. So I concluded I had dozed
and dreamed it, until your letter
came. I remembered the time, be-
cause father woke up as I went out,
and asked, and I told him.
A. I hope it was my voice you
heard, and I mean to believe it was.
There are plenty of questions where
preference of belief is good ground of
belief. Well; has Mr. Bied offered
himself yet, Civille ?
Civille blushed, and opened her
mouth to answer. Katy however at
that moment came in to say that Mr.
Van Braam would have a slice of toast
and some tea. So Civille told her to
clear away the things and have her
own breakfast, and herself prepared
her father's breakfast, giving Adrian
the newspaper, which he said he would
read, and then, if she or her father
had any errands to be done, he was
at their service.
He had just perused an account of
the nomination, the evening before,
of Tarbox Button Esq., for the vacant
220
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
place of representative in Congress
from the District of New York,
when a chopping and banging in the
yard interrupted him. Looking out,
he saw four workmen, two of whom
were beginning to cut down two trees,
and the two others, with axe and
crow-bar, were tearing down the old
paling at the side of the house, be-
tween the yard and the vacant grass-
ground outside. Running out, Adrian
found that they were sent by a person
with whom Mr. Button had contracted
to tear down the house this day.
" But there's a sick man in there
that wasn't expected to live, and who
can't be moved," exclaimed Adrian,
in a rage. " Did Mr. Button tell you,
if you found an old man very sick in
the house, to murder him ? "
" Don't know nothin' bout it, boss,"
said the chief of the band, roughly
but good-naturedly enough. " No
xpress orders to murder anybody,
furzino, but mighty strick to git this
old place cleaned off right away."
After some further parleying, Adri-
an succeeded in negotiating a delay,
on condition however that he should
pay for the four days' works, which,
the men said, they would otherwise
lose, until he could see Mr. Button
and secure a delay. It is true that
they would doubtless not have abso-
lutely torn the roof down over the
helpless family, like a British land-
owner evicting a tenant, but the trees,
fences and outbuildings would have
supplied materials for some hours of
destruction noisy enough to greatly
injure Mr. Van Braam in his weak
state.
So the men shouldered arms and
marched, and Adrian, in a good deal
of indignation returned to the parlor,
where he found Civille waiting. He
explained the occurrence, with terse
remarks upon its ethical aspect.
But Civille, with, her own sweet-
ness of heart, sought for excuses.
Mr. Button did not know of her
father's illness; or his directions to
wait had been forgotten or neglected.
"Oh yes," said Adrian, "any thing
except to admit < that anybody does
wrong. You enrage me, Civille. Don't
for goodness' sake be too bright or
good for human nature's daily food.
If you will be so very heavenly, you'll
be crucified, sure." And he laughed
at his own wrath, and continued :
" But now I must hurry down and
see about it. — But Civille, you didn't
answer my question. Did Bird offer
himself?"
She blushed a little, but answered,
with her own natural — yet odd —
directness,
" Yes ; Mr. Scrope did too. I know
you won't tell, Adrian."
" Well," said he, " I don't wonder.
Yes, — I do. I don't at their want-
ing you, but I do at their fancying
themselves good enough for you."
Then he blushed, as he perceived
the elegant compliment he was pay-
ing to himself. — "I mean, dear, no-
body is good enough for you. As to
Scrope, I guess he is conceited enough
to think he's good enough for any-
body. But Bird's a fellow of great
sense, though he's not very cultivated.
I don't understand it. Well, I must
go — any errands ? "
" No ; I must run out myself a
little while ; I want Doctor Veroil to
come early, and I must go and tell
him."
So Adrian went off, appointing to
return as soon as he should effect
the proposed arrangement with Mr.
Button ; and all the way down to
the office, he meditated with the
queerest mixture of feelings, on Ci-
ville's three offers, which, he remem-
bered he had prophesied out of
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
221
Mother Goose on the evening when
he had accompanied his rivals from
the house. '"We're three brethren
out of Spain,' he recited. — Well,
she has made us all walk Spanish, at
any rate ; and we can all go back to
our Spanish castles. A proper fate
for men with no better estates ! " But
her lovely figure and exceeding grace
in the simple morning dress, a cer-
tain dainty delicacy in the little
ministrations of the breakfast table,
an especial tenderness of manner
which had perhaps arisen upon her
from her sorrow over her father,
insomuch that even if she was gay,
it seemed as if tears were thrilling
through under all her heartfelt tones,
and most of all, the unconscious
trustfulness with which she reposed
in his help, all these influences filled
the strong young fellow with an
emotion that returned and returned
upon him without end, as the ceaseless
sea-waves follow and follow up the
beach. He did not understand it,
nor try to ; but he found a measure-
less pleasure in the full silent con-
sciousness that if any efforts of his
could save Civille from all trouble,
or any trouble, the effort should be
made ; and the strength of his sense
of devoteclness translated itself into
a feeling that it would succeed.
" Wal ! "
There was a whole chapter, — a
whole volume, — of unwelcoming
contemptuous angry surprise in the
frown, the twist of the mouth, the
falling inflection, the sharp harsh
bark, of Mr. Button, when looking
up, he saw Adrian enter his back
office. Nor did he offer him a seat,
nor hold out his hand. Adrian was
angry enough before. The discourte-
sy enraged him so much that perhaps
it even steadied him ; to his own
surprise, he felt quite calm and
rather inclined to smile. He made
a polite bow, said " How d'ye do,
Mr. Button ? " and took a chair him-
self, saying,
"Sha'n't detain you more than a
moment."
" That's so. Got to go anyway."
" Mr. Van Braam is very ill in-
deed, Mr. Button — they were afraid
he wouldn't live — it's impossible to
move him. Now I want you to call
off your dogs, and let the old house
alone for a few days ; if you please."
" Hmh ! Live ? He'll live fast
enough's long's he's got somebody to
live on. Live on you, 'f ye had
any thing. Had to let go o' me, I
guess, is what made him sick. You
goin to take him up ? "
" I've resigned my place at Hart-
ford — at least if the Board chooses
— and you know I can't support
many people on my investments."
" Keckon not. Wal — the house.
I don't know nothin 'bout it — Oh,
yes I do, — contracted with what's-
his-name to pull it down. Yes —
'twas to-day, sure enough. Forgot
all about it — I'll see what can be
done. You may come and see me
this evening about it. But I don't
owe no favors to any on ye, young
man."
" Any of me ? " asked Adrian with
a smile, — " there's only one of me."
Mr. Button gave a snort of irrita-
tion. "Hmh! You knew what I
meant. Fact is, I wouldn't git back
agin into your family connection if I
could. I've got other fish to fry.
Your swindling, cunning Scrope's
welcome to my five hundred dollars, —
's long's I can't git none on't back,
— guess all you git of the Scrope
estate amongst ye you c'n put in
your ear. I won't trust another one
o' that crowd, though, any furfher
222
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
than I c'n swing an elephant by the
tail — I c'n tell ye that ! "
There was something antipathetic
in the natures of the two men that
made them intensely irritating to
each other. Adrian had never been
in the company of Mr. Button with-
out feeling this more or less distinctly,
and Mr. Button himself had shown it
before by the rasping anger of his
reply to Adrian's suggestion about
the use to which some of the pub-
lisher's real estate was put. Adrian's
natural and acquired good manners
however prevented him from very
openly showing this ; while Button,
who restrained himself only from
motives of interest, was much more
liable to lose his self-command. At
present, enraged as he was by the
knowledge which it was sufficiently
evident he had obtained, through the
friendly offices of Mr. Stanley, from
the old account-book, this new vexa-
tion was added to his older ones,
and he " freed his mind " with an
alacrity and fulness of wrath and
objurgation that boiled out of him so
thick and hot as to make Adrian
think of a mud volcano. In a mo-
ment he broke out again with another
mud-flow of vulgar angry bragging :
" I'll let some on ye know what's
what, and what aint ! I've got over
that are trouble about my health, —
I haint felt as smart and wide awake
as I do this very day, I reckon for
ten year! Praps you didn't see in
the papers this morning, that I was
nominated for Congress last night, in
my district? Goin', too ! I got that
all fixed before I took the nomination,
I can tell ye ! I don't put my hand
to the plough and then look back !
Some time before you git into Con-
gress, I guess ! Or that old Van
Braam, either ! I reckon the old
fellow '11 find out what tis to have a
man a boostin on him ! I've kept
the breath o' life in his old carkis,
this good while."
" Let not thy left hand know what
thy right hand doeth," quoted Adri-
an quietly.
" Hmh ! " again, snorted the wrath-
ful capitalist, with a toss of his head
like an angry beast that is hit sharply
over the snout — " Hmh ! Yes : and
I've got my own business in good
shape too, no thanks to you, young
man ! And so you've resigned your
place ? Fourth of July at your house
every day, now, hay? Wal, — have
your own way. But I must go. I'm
a goin to ketch that are thief that
Jenks & Trainor and the detectives
cant git hold of; nor Bird nei-
ther."
" Why, pray what put that into
your head ? " asked Adrian, sur-
prised.
" Wal, I got talkin' with Jenks
and Bird about it tother day, and
they sorter confessed they was beat,
and I bantered 'em to let me try, and
they took me up. I'm to have two
chances ; first experiment this morn-
ing."
Here he looked at his watch, and
jumping up, bade Adrian good day
with somewhat less gruffness, now
that he had relieved his mind, saying
" I don't wish you no harm, Adrian,
but you haint showed much judg-
ment, 'cordin to me, in a business
point of view — good morning, — I'm
behind my time now." And he hur-
ried out, entered a hack which was
waiting for him, and drove off.
Adrian followed, more leisurely,
inquiring in his own mind how it
could be that he seemed to have
mounted through his very wrath
itself to a region above it, as travel-
lers ascend above the region of clouds.
Still, he felt that Button was not a
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
223
person to be angry with, except as
one might he angry with a polar bear
or a man-eating shark. As he went
musing along, some one seized his
hand and sung out, in a jolly tone,
" Why, how are you ? Last man
I expected to see, but just the one I
am glad to see."
It was the good natured book
dealer, Mr. Andrew Purvis, whose
shop was near by. Adrian, after his
first surprise, returned his greeting
with cordiality, and asked whether
he could do any thing for Mr. Purvis.
jSTo, the dealer said, but added a
special request to Adrian to look in
at his place that day or the next, as,
he added, there was a little matter of
business about which he wanted to
see Adrian ; unless he could come
now?
But an idea which popped into
Adrian's mind just as Purvis met
him, caused him to appoint the next
day instead of the present moment,
and shaking hands, they parted.
This idea was, to hurry after Mr.
Button at once and to hire the old
house of him for a week, purely as a
matter of business. In his peculiarly
ugly state of mind, Adrian reflected,
he might even insist upon going for-
ward with his demolition ; and al-
though the sick man might survive
an immediate removal, what an out-
rage and inconvenience together !
Whereas, also, it is the nature of a
thorough business man never to refuse
to consider a business proposition,
never to refuse to conclude it if profit-
able, never to let his evil passions or
his good ones either, interfere or mix
with his business. A thorough busi-
ness man will not sell to a church or
a charity for one cent less than to a
gambler or any other speculator : he
may afterwards make the church or
the charity a gift of some of the
money. And Mr. Button prided
himself upon being a thorough busi-
ness man.
But where to find him? At
Jenks and Trainor's, probably. The
affair should be closed as soon as pos-
sible. However, concluded the young
man, I'll go back first and see how
Mr. Van Braam gets along, how
Civille is, and what the doctor says.
How pleased he will be at the effects
of his old drugs !
CHAPTER XXXII.
So he speeded back to the old
house — if the crawling of a horse-
car can be called speed — as fast as
he could.. Doctor Veroil's coupe was
before the door, and Adrian entered,
and went up to Mr. Van Braam's
room.
" A capital recovery ! " said the
physician, after salutations, — " we'll
have him as lively as a kitten in five
days. But what a constitution ! "
" But what a doctor ! " said Adrian,
with an air of grave admiration.
"Oh, thanks!" said Dr. Veroil,
with a proper modesty. " No doubt
I know what I'm about ; but it's a
fine thing to have nature help us, all
the same. Mr. Van Braam is not so
very strong, muscularly, but it is rare
to see the recuperative power so elas-
tic and so prompt in a man of his
age. It's a pity to have to give him
medicine !"
" It is," commented Adrian again,
as gravely as ever.
"Where's Civille?" said the old
man.
"She went out after breakfast,"
said Kate, who was in the room.
Adrian was surprised that Dr. Veroil
did not mention her call at his office,
and after waiting a moment, he said,'
" She told me she was going to call
221
Scrojie ; or, The Lost Library.
at your office, doctor, and then come
right back."
Doctor Veroil looked at Adrian,
surprised in his turn. Then he
glanced at the old gentleman, who
looked anxious, then he cast a signifi-
cant glance at Adrian, and said,
" Oh, yes : she just looked in, and
she was so tired out and pale that I
gave her a peremptory order to ride
up to the Central Park and sit or
walk a little in the fresh air there, as
it's so pleasant to-day, and try to get
a winter rose or two into her cheeks
for dinner time."
"Very good advice, doctor," said
the old man.
Veroil now gave some directions,
and after repeating his encouraging
predictions to the old man, went out,
hut as he went, he made a sign to
Adrian to follow him, and went down
into the parlor. Turning short round
as soon as he was within the door, he
showed to Adrian a startled face.
" But I haven't seen Civille ! " he
said.
A comparison of the hours showed
that she should have been at the doc-
tor's office at least three quarters of
an hour before he left it for his usual
morning round.
" Can she have gone to Mr. But-
ton's for anything ? " said Adrian.
"Hardly," said the doctor; "those
women cut her the other day in the
street. She's that kind that she will
be hunting excuses for them, but I
don't think she'll go right into their
— pen," he concluded, in one of his
sudden rages.
" But what can it mean, then ? "
said Adrian, who began to be troubled,
in proportion as he saw the annoy-
ance of the doctor.
"Well," said Veroil, " there's no use
in hiding anything between you and
me. I told the first straight story
that came into my head to make the
old man comfortable. His misery
about her has done more to make him
sick than anything else. He is do-
ing splendidly, now, but he hasn't the
strength of a child ; and if anything
should go wrong with her, and he
should know it, he wouldn't last two
days. I never saw one life so bound
up in another — never. And he must
be lied comfortable as long as is
necessary — or as long as possible."
" Amen," said Adrian ; " but what
is your guess ? "
" We must try the police, anyhow,"
said the doctor. " I must make my
calls ; you must find her at once. I'll
give you a general letter of introduc-
tion, to keep in your hands. I know
so many people, and so many know
me, that a note from me is almost a
government commission, taking the
direct and indirect influence together.
Go first to Olds ; if he knows any-
thing, so far so good. If not, go to
Mulberry Street, and have a general
inquiry made for accident or arrest of
a person answering her description.
As soon as you have either good suc-
cess or bad success, hurry and tell
me."
The doctor went to a side table
where there were writing materials,
wrote the note of introduction and
gave it to Adrian, and they went
softly out together. As they did so,
Adrian, in a low voice, suggested to
Dr. Veroil what Mr. Button had told
him of his proposed thief-catching ex-
pedition. " It's a coincidence, doctor,"
he said, with a strong sense of pain
at his heart.
" Yes, but only a very distant one ;
we won't discount any troubles, my
boy ; I don't propose to recognize any
speculative horrors. — How was my
friend Button this morning?"
"In uncommonly high feather.
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
Z2&
Said he hadn't felt so well this ten
years, as he did this Very day."
Veroil stopped short : " He did ! "
exclaimed he — "And a day or two
ago, he was so used up! Well — it
may be all right. But"— ^
He did not complete his sentence,
and going out, he dashed off on his
rounds. It did not take very long
for Adrian to get across to the corner
of Broadway and Washington Place,
where the detective's rooms were. The
day was apparently a day of oppor-
tune meetings ; for as he passed the
door of that great quiet substantial
brick mansion where Commodore
Vanderbilt has lived so many years,
he beheld the trim and active figure
of Mr. Bird the reporter, just coming
round from Broadway into Washing-
ton Place.
" Let me only meet Civille next,"
said the young man to himself.
Bird looked quite surprised to meet
Adrian, but was as pleased, after
his quiet manner, as any other of his
friends had been. Adrian did not
hesitate to tell him the business in
hand ; and Mr. Bird listened, with
very evident interest. When Adrian
was through he said,
" You needn't go up to Olds' room
now ; I've just been up there myself,
and he isn't in. Try head-quarters,
first, and then come back ; he may
be in any minute."
" Well," said Adrian, « I will." As
they parted, " Stay," called out
Bird ; " I've thought of another
move. I'll give you a card to Jenks ;
I've had to see him plenty of times
about shoplifters, and other matters,
and he knows me perfectly well. If
any trouble has been made by Olds,
Jenks will know about it; he is the
fiercest of them all about these thefts,
and I think you may save time by
going to him now. If he has noth-
ing to tell you, then try the Mulberry
Street folks, and then call at Olds'
again, and then try back home ; you
see, she may be back there now, for
what we know."
This was good advice, and Adrian
followed it, turning back and taking
a Broadway car at the corner of
Washington Place and Greene Street.
This car took him past the entrance
of Jenks & Trainor's vast estab-
lishment on Broadway, some little
distance above Union Park. Every-
body knows the monstrous elaborate
front, painted white to look as if its
pillars and panels and entablatures,,
instead of dense tough iron, were-
carved of brittle white stone> How-
much longer will New York archi-
tects keep on telling lies with their
materials ? As if the substance of
iron could look right within the forms
of stone! What is* the natural rela-
tion of form to matter is the one
discovery for which a genuine nine-
teenth-century architecture is wait-
ing.
Both ways at once, through the
lofty arched doors of this vast mart
of woven things, there glided two
rivers of well-dressed women. As
Adrian stepped from the car to plunge
into that one of these interminable
processions which entered the sacred
place, he was startled to see, in the
other, Miss Ann Button coming out.
She did not see him ; and she turned
and walked up Broadway towards
home. Upon her features Adrian
could distinguish no expression in
particular. He did not address her,
but passed on into the building, glid-
ing along in the midst of the throng
of matrons and maidens, not with a
sense of impiety exactly, such as
Clodius may have felt while intruding
among the feminine votaries of the
Bona Dea, but with a feeling of hav-
226
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
ing no business there, which remind-
ed him of the wickeder enterprise of
the eminent Roman rowdy.
At one side of the vast store, a
little way within the entrance, there
was a dense crowd of clerks and cus-
tomers, such as gathers in the street
for the jmrpose of keeping the fresh
air away from any one who is faint.
"What is the matter?" he asked of
a clerk who was one of those on the
outskirts of this throng. "Don't
know exactly," said the young man ;
" somebody fainted, they said." —
" I have an errand to Mr. Jenks,"
said Adrian ; " how shall I find him ? "
" Step this way," said the other,
obligingly; "I'll get the floor-walker
to show you."
This personage was a thin tall man,
with iron-gray hair, severely dressed,
who looked about him with keen per-
emptory eyes and walked up and clown
the floor, and who somehow looked to
Adrian like a broken-down business
man — perhaps because he was ; such
posts are well-known harbors of refuge
for wrecks from financial storms.
Adrian repeated his request.
" Show the gentleman up to Mr.
Spink," said the floor-walker to the
clerk. Mr. Spink had a small den up
one flight of stairs ; he was a dry little
man with thin red hair and a look of
conscious authority.
" I want to see Mr. Jenks," said
Adrian.
"About what?" said Mr. Spink,
sharply.
" A confidential matter " said Adri-
an.
" I'm his confidential clerk," said
Mr. Spink; "you may mention it to
me."
Adrian hesitated. " Can't see him
any other way," said Spink, more
peremptorily than ever, — "it's that
or nothing."
Adrian was greatly inclined to give
the peremptory man a beating ; he
knew nothing of the frantic pressure
of all sorts of applicants against which
a wealthy New Yorker has to devise
a whole system of fortifications. But
his errand was a guaranty against
unseasonable wrath, and he laid be-
fore this Cerberus with one red head
the note of Dr. Veroil and the card
of Mr. Bird.
" Ah," said Mr. Spink, who now
gave a quick inquiring look at Adrian
— "yes. That business — Well, you
had better see Mr. Jenks, sir. This
way, please." And he guided Adrian
along narrow alleys among intermi-
nable piles of dry goods of all kinds,
to a remote corner of the building,
where he rapped at an unobtrusive
door. This opened from within, and
they entered.
" Mr. Chester," said Spink, with
skilful terseness, "with introductions."
And he disappeared.
Mr. Jenks, a slender middle-aged
man, nearly bald, and with a worn
and over-worked look, sat at a desk
writing. He looked up an instant,
pointed to a chair close at the side
of his desk, bowed very slightly and
hurriedly, said " Take seat, please.
One moment," and went on with his
writing. Having finished, sealed and
addressed a letter, he sat up straight,
made a half-face in his pivot-cha:r,
and thus brought face to face with
Adrian, said,
" What can I do for you, sir ? "
Adrian, always quick to receive
impressions, felt the intensity of New
York business which was weighing
upon the merchant, and made his
communications as brief as possible.
"Note from Dr. Veroil," he said;
" card from Mr. Bird."
" Mr. Spink saw them," said Jenks,
with a nod, as much as to say, " Spink
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
227
gets my business ready for me; if
the introductions had not been right
you would not be here."
"Is Mr. Tarbox Button here?"
said Adrian.
" I believe so," said Jenks ; and tak-
ing up the mouth-piece of a gutta-per-
cha speaking-tube that rested on his
desk, he blew into it, then held it to his
ear, listening to indistinct murmurs as
from a shell of ocean, then mumbled
something into it, then held it to his
ear again, and then said,
"He was here. He has gone home
ill."
" Where is Miss Van Braam ? "
asked Adrian.
" Why," said Jenks, hesitatingly, —
" excuse me ; in whose behalf do you
inquire ? "
"Her father has been at the point
of death ; he is very ill, and a little
more trouble will kill him," said
Adrian, not able to keep his voice
quite steady; "she has not been seen
since she went out on an errand after
breakfast, this morning, meaning to
return in half an hour; the poor old
man is inquiring after her. They
have no friends here, except Dr. Ve-
roil and myself — I am her cousin.
We know the suspicions about her;
and Mr. Bird told me you might be
able to give me some information.
Whatever happens, she mustn't be
left entirely alone."
"Mr. Mr. "
" Chester," said Adrian.
" Mr. Chester," said the merchant,
" nothing could be more painful than
to feel forced to take such action.
But we must protect ourselves. Per-
haps you don't know that we often
lose five hundred dollars' worth of
goods in a day by actual theft over
our counters ? "
No, Adrian did not.
" We have at this moment two
regular customers — married ladies,
wives of wealthy men, — who steal,
as well as buy, every time they come
into the store. We have them
watched, and we send their husbands
the bills. They pay, and nothing is
said about it. We have other cases
all the time ; some professional female
shop-lifters, some respectable women,
— so-called, — who steal ; and some,
what the doctors call kleptomaniacs
beside. We can't go into that. We
must protect ourselves from theft as
far as we can, whatever the cause of
the theft."
Mr. Jenks paused, like one who
looks to see the effect of his argu-
ment. As Adrian said nothing, he
resumed.
" I tell you this, Mr. Chester, con-
fidentially; it is proper, under the
circumstances, that you should know
something of our situation in the
matter. I do not wish you to sup-
pose that we have been harsh or hasty
in what we have done. With regard
to the present case — you know, I
suppose, that these kleptomaniacs
have very often all the cunning of a
smart thief and all that of a lunatic
together? — This makes it, often, next
to impossible to detect them — next
to impossible. In the present case,
we have watched for months before
taking any action. And I may tell
you this : your friend was in the
habit of coming with another young
lady. We have — very cautiously, I
assure you, and without compromising
any one, — obtained such information
from that young lady as to make the
case next to absolutely certain — we
can prove that some of our goods were
found in your friend's possession.
Now, — we know how distressing
such cases are, — even now, pro-
vided we could be satisfied, — guar-
anteed, I mean, — that the depreda-
228
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
tions should cease, we would discon-
tinue all proceedings. As it is, Mr.
Chester, your friend is detained with
a view to further investigations. But
in such a manner as not to expose her
publicly, nor to annoy her more than
is necessary. We never go any fur-
ther in such cases than we are abso-
lutely forced to do."
Although in truth all this was little
more than Adrian had for a good
while been trying to be ready to hear,
he was not ready. The statement
was only too clear and well reasoned.
It accordingly did not affect him with
anger. The merchant was evidently
convinced that he had caught one
more of the ordinary run of respec-
table female thieves; but this sus-
picion, or rather belief, did not con-
vince Adrian. It is true that it did
perhaps make him a little more con-
scious of the possibility — only the
possibility — that Civille had experi-
enced some sort of alienation of mind.
But this, even if he admitted its
existence, he felt, — he knew, — was a
disease, as much as scarlet fever ; and
temporary in the same sense.
Thus he reasoned in his own mind.
While he did so, the merchant turned
to his desk, and was instantly ab-
sorbed in his letters again. Once or
twice a whistle sounded from one of
the pipes close to his hand, and he
listened and returned prompt and
brief decisions. Adrian, in the mean
time, like one who has been stunned
and recovers, gathered up his scat-
tered wits.
" Well," he began, —
The merchant at once dropped his
pen and listened. He was not a hard
man ; he was in this matter only
conducting one of the unavoidable
accessories of such a business as his.
And he had been giving Adrian, very
likely, five hundred dollars' worth of
time, because the case was a hard
case, and he wished to be consider-
ate.
"Well, Mr. Jenks, I can't find any
fault with your action. But you will
put me in the way of seeing my cou-
sin, surely ? "
"Yes, — of course." He wrote a
few words, signed, and gave Adrian
the paper. "Hand that to Mr. Olds
the detective, and he will go with you
to Police Captain MacMurdo at Jef-
ferson Market Station, and one of
them will take you to her. We have
to be very particular about such mat-
ters. Very sorry, Mr. Mr.
Good morning." And before Adrian
had reached the door, Mr. Jenks was
absorbed in his work again.
Adrian, hastening down stairs, got
into a Broadway stage at the door,
and sat quietly while the big clumsy
machine bumped and hitched and
rumbled in its senseless unfeeling
way, down the crowded street. In
his state of highly exalted excitement,
— for by this time he had gradually
become excessively impatient, — he
found himself imagining that the
driver of the omnibus, the limping
beasts that drew it, even the bulky
and ponderous vehicle itself, were
delaying from an innate malignity,
from joy in prolonging his state of
suffering and suspense. He wanted
to get out and run. He wanted to
punish the omnibus for not hurrying.
He wanted to defy and vanquish each
successive person who halted the stage
and got in. He sat eagerly looking
forward as if to project his will, like an
auxiliary motive power, into the ven-
erable-looking and raw-boned steeds.
And the more eager he was, the more
deliberate and lumbering was the
progress of the stage. It did however
gradually work along down to Four-
teenth Street; into Broadway; past
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
229
Stewart's. At Eighth Street, how-
ever, it turned suddenly short out
of Broadway to the right. Some one,
on this, pulled the strap, and when
the stage stopped, got out. Adrian
followed, and on reaching the side-
walk, found that the police were turn-
ing all the vehicles bound down, off
by Eighth Street and Mercer or
Greene, while those bound up were
coming out of East Eighth Street
again into Broadway; and Broadway
from Eighth Street downward, was
crowded with people. On inquiring
of one or two persons, he was told
that the New York Hotel was on fire.
A little way down the street, the
chimneys of several steam fire-en-
gines were visible, pouring out their
characteristic dense swift puffs of
heavy black pine-wood smoke, and
the gigantic iron chatter of their hur-
ried pumping seemed to smash the
very air into pieces. Adrian worked
his way through and amongst the
throngs, finding the crowd more and
more compact at every 'step. Had
his errand not been urgent, he would
have paused by each of the whizzing
throbbing chattering steam giants as
he came to it, to watch the swift ser-
vices of the engineers, to stand close
to the monstrous jumping shivering
fiery heart and feel its ineffable in-
tense thrill and furious headlong
whirling strength. But he did not;
although it did seem to him that
their eager zeal excited him even more
than he was excited already.
As it was in the daytime, no red
glow of firelight nor quick licking
sheets of flame shone before him ;
there was only a thickening murky
cloud of black smoke, and he could
not tell whether that came from a
building or from the steamers. He
gradually worked along down to the
sidewalk on the east side of Broadway
opposite the New York Hotel ; but
with all his gazing he could see no
signs of fire in any part of its vast
gloomy brick front. The quiet
Broadway entrance was open, and he
could see people moving about the
lighted hall within, who did not seem
very much hurried, though two of the
engines were jabbering and shivering
close before the door. It was not un-
til, nearly opposite the south-eastern
corner of the hotel, he came suddenly
upon a rope barrier which a strong
cordon of policemen within it were
strenuously maintaining against the
incessant pressure of the crowd, that
he saw where the fire actually was.
It was not in the hotel at all — it was
in the tall building on the opposite
corner of Washington Place and
Broadway — the building in which
were the rooms of Olds the detective.
The rope barrier defined a nearly
empty area in Broadway and Wash-
ington Place, within which the pave-
ment, all wet and muddy, was crossed
in many directions by the hose of
the fire department. Here and there
sharp fine spurts of water flew out
through small faults in the hose, and
gathered into puddles. Policemen in
their dark blue coats and firemen with
their broad-brimmed glazed fire-hats,
consulted, stood guard, or moved about.
Several hose had been passed in at
the Broadway door, and led up the
stairs out of sight. Others were
carried up on ladders planted on the
Washington Place sidewalk, and fire-
men at one or another window directed
streams into the inside of the build-
ing. From the windows of the upper
floors, smoke rolled and poured out
in vast volumes, and canopied all
the neighborhood ; and the fizzing of
the waste spurts from the hose, the
hiss and rush of the streams directed
into the house, the orders and shouts
230
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
of the officials, the voices of the crowd,
and the gigantic humming, chatter-
ing and coughing of a dozen steamers
crammed the air with heterogeneous
noises. Beneath the vast volumes of
dense smoke, the crowd surged and
squeezed and swore, while the officers,
with impassive morose official faces,
ordered and pushed them hack, totally-
neglecting the hantering or abusive
remonstrances that spattered out at
them from those next the rope.
Adrian, by quiet persistent insin-
uating pressure, worked his way into
the very front rank, and had hardly
given a single glance at the vivid
gloomy picture, when he found him-
self at the same moment pushed for-
ward against the swaying rope bar-
rier by the crowd behind him, and
shoved backward by a tall strong
policeman, who quietly laid his "lo-
cust" horizontally across Adrian's
chest, and pushed powerfully against
him, with both hands, bawling out in
a rough strong voice,
" Stand back ! You must stand
back, gentlemen ! Make more room
here ! "
"It's a free country, isn't it, mis-
ter?" said an indignant citizen.
" How cocky them cops is ! " re-
marked a ragged boy of ten. Adrian,
however, shoved back against those
behind him in compliance with the
order, and looking directly into the
policeman's eyes, said with a smile,
" Rather tight times, Mr. Officer ! "
"Hinh!" grunted the man, "easy
enough if them would stay to hum
that ain't wanted here !"
" But I have a message to Detective
Olds," persisted Adrian. "He rooms
in that building, you know. Have
you seen him ? "
The truth is, that in spite of the
reprobation which has become con-
ventional against certain classes of
subordinates — such as police-officers,
express-men, hotel-clerks, railroad-
men, — the truth is, that if one has any
real business with one of them, and
states it promptly and civilly, it is
very uncommon to receive any other
than a prompt and civil answer.
The officer, notwithstanding his rough
manner, and although all the time he
shoved away with all his might against
Adrian with his club, became atten-
tive as soon as he saw that Adrian's
errand was a real one, and replied,
" He may be somewhere about. Bet-
ter come under the rope and speak
to Captain Dorr. I can't stir from
here, you see." And he gave a kind
of jerk with his head, towards a
group of three or four officers and
firemen who stood within the cleared
space, at the Washington Place cor-
ner of the sidewalk before the build-
ing. Adrian, with a good deal of
difficulty, managed to stoop so as to
get under the rope, and while the
officer renewed his shouting and shov-
ing, and the crowd their jeers and
remonstrances, he went across to the
sidewalk, and selecting the police cap-
tain by the gold badge on his breast,
he said,
" Captain, I have a pressing mes-
sage for Detective Olds. Have you
seen him?"
"Just sent to inquire after him,"
said the officer; —
"Don't know any thing about
him," reported a patrolman, coming
up at this instant; "hain't seen him
to-day."
"That's from the janitress," said
Captain Dorr.
A fireman rushed up : " One of the
boys says a man went up by the side
door not fifteen minutes ago," he said,
excitedly ; but the room's all afire,
and there's a stream agoin into it
now " — and the man pointed up to
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
231
the fourth floor, the highest but one,
where smoke was gushing out at the
windows furthest back, next the St.
Julien House, and a hoseman, perched
on a ladder, was sending a full stream
thrashing and spurting to and fro into
the inside of the building.
" A nan ! " said the captain — "I
guess if it was that big porpus he'd
'a known it ! "
— Adrian darted across the sidewalk
into the front door of the building,
and disappeared up the stairs, too
quickly for interference. The police-
men and firemen shouted after him,
but in vain. The captain swore a
deep oath at him for a fool, and the
chief engineer, also with oaths, or-
dered a fireman to follow him and
bring him back.
The impulse which sent the young
man into the burning house was not
a very reasonable one ; it was too
instantaneous, too purely an impulse,
to be reasoned. It was, indeed, one
of those efforts which one's reason
would never permit, which if made at
all are made precisely as unconscious
impulses — which if they succeed are
called inspirations, and if not, are at
present nameless in English. Such
inspirations have made men defy
death under locomotive-wheels, have
made women spring into the sea, to
try to save the life of an infant.
There flashed across Adrian's mind
two pictures ; the sick old man all
alone, calling feebly for his daughter
— the delicate and spiritual girl, if
possible even more helplessly beset,
locked in the noisome cell of a police
station. He had counted on the de-
tective to put an end to both these
miseries in an hour. Without him,
how iong might they not last, how
fatal might they not be ? He did
not wait to enter up the per contra —
the uncertainty whether anybody at
all had really gone in at the side
door, the moral certainty that no
clumsy creature like Olds would try
to clamber up three flights of stairs
into that death-trap, the probabilities
about his having been in some way
caught and detained in his room, and
perhaps already suffocated there.
Adrian did not even wait to consider
that his own remarkable swiftness and
agile strength made it less dangerous
than for most men to venture into
the building. He thought not at
all : he only saw the sick man and
the young girl, and with the athlete's
habit he drew in one full inhalation,
and sprang away.
The very utmost force or swiftness
of horse or man can only be exerted
while one full breath is held. With
this one breath, Adrian leaped up the
stairs, two steps at a time. He remem-
bered well enough the disposition of
the interior — single halls one above
the other along the south or inner side
of the house, with rooms at each end
and others along the north or Wash-
ington Place side. He sprang up
two flights ; ran to the back end of
the hall, turned and ascended another
flight, and was on the floor of the
room he sought. The fire, which had
begun in the fifth or uppermost story,
had taken entire possession of that,
and was working through the floors
downward. Thick hot smoke eddied
and rolled along the hall ; the fire
crackled and roared through all the
house above him, and the streams
from the engines splashed and
whizzed with steady energy against
wall and rafter, ran along the floor
and down the stairs. Pausing a
moment Adrian stooped close to the
floor for two or three breaths of com-
paratively pure air ; then sprang to
the door of the detective's room, which
was that across the back end of the
232
Scropt
The Lost Library.
building, shouted his name, and with-
out waiting for a reply, drove in the
door with his shoulder, and entered.
The savage fury of the interior was
indescribable. It was filled nearly
down to the floor with swirls of dense
hot smoke that scorched Adrian's
eyes and drove them tight shut in an
agony of smarting pain, and was
incapable of being breathed ; already
the fire was snapping and crackling
through the ceiling, from which por-
tions of the plaster had fallen ; and
through the breaches, a roaring hell
of red flames could be seen by momen-
tary flashes, filling the space above.
And two white strong jets of water
dashed steadily in through the win-
dows and with a powerful splashing
strength that would have knocked a
man down like an axe, flew waveringly
against and through wall or ceil-
ing.
Stooping close to the floor, so as to
avoid the furious stroke of the water-
spouts, Adrian crawled straight to the
further corner, where he remembered
that there was a bed, and unable to
open his eyes in the acrid burning
smoke, he felt upon it with his hands.
There was something — it seemed
like the relics of a wasted man, but
all wet with blood — unless it was
with the pouring torrents of water.
"Whatever it was, Adrian dragged it
down upon the floor, and with a des-
perate effort opened his stinging
blinded eyes upon it for an instant.
It came to pieces under his grasp.
Something like a head there was ;
clothes ; a thin unsubstantial carica-
ture of humanity in them ; it was as
if he was mocked by a goblin like the
German Nixy, which is the shell of
the front half of a human being, but
all open and vacant behind ; or as if
he were surprised by some new fan-
tastic form of dissolution. He recog-
nized nevertheless, or thought he did,
the broad oleaginous features of Olds,
as to his inexpressible horror the
dripping soft object which was like
the ghost of a head came apart under
his hands, from the rest of the thing.
It was impossible to endure the
situation longer; his lungs were
bursting, his ej'esight gone ; he felt
that in ten seconds more he would be
lost ; and turning, he pointed as well
as he could for the entrance, stooped
again, and went crawling as fast as
he could over the hot sloppy floor.
At one and the same moment his
head struck hard against something
solid, and as he fell, he fell upon
something soft.
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
233
SCROPE; OR, THE LOST LIBRARY.
BY FREDERIC B. PERKINS.
PART XIII.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
One touch showed Adrian that
what he had fallen against was the
wall, and that what he had fallen
upon was a human being. With a
final effort of recollection and of
strength, he made out that he had in
returning across the room, aimed too
far to the left; and seizing the pros-
trate person, he made once more for
the door, and this time reached it.
Whether he could have got down
stairs safely by himself with his load
is 'doubtful, perfectly blind as he was
for the time being. Somehow, he
struggled onward ; just as he reached
the head of the stairs he tripped
in a ragged piece of floor-cloth, and
pitched forward. Down he would
have plunged upon the iron-plated
steps of the steep stairway, had not
a strong arm caught him. It was
the fireman who had been sent up
after him, and who had been search-
ing in some of the other rooms.
" Just in time, young feller ! " ex-
claimed Mr. Fireman ; and they
made the best of their way to the
street, holding the insensible figure
between them, Adrian guiding him-
self by the movements of his assist-
ant. As they came out upon the
sidewalk, defiled and disfigured from
head to foot by cinders, smoke, heat
and dirty water, a monstrous roaring
Hooray ! went up from the crowd ;
for all had instantly divined that the
limp and helpless figure between the
two men was that of one saved from
the fire. " Well done ! " exclaimed
Captain Dorr, as he relieved Adrian
from his share of the burden, and set
the rescued person down on the side-
walk, leaning against a post. — " Who
is it ? " continued the police officer,
as he examined the features of the
insensible individual — " Jack Bird,
as sure as I'm alive ! "
" The police reporter ? " asked
Adrian eagerly — he could not keep
his eyes open long enough to see any
thing.
" Yes, — Tom," continued Captain
Dorr to the fireman, "we must get
him to the hospital ;' here's a bad hole
in his head."
" Take me too, will you, Captain,"
said Adrian, " I believe my eyes are
burned out of my face ; I can't see
at all : I can't stand it much longer."
" Come on, then," was the officer's
answer; " we'll go round to the sta-
tion first." A little escort of police-
men Was quickly organized ; one led
Adrian, two carried Bird, and by
way of Washington Place, they were
in a few moments at the station-house
of the Eighth Precinct, in Mercer St.,
only a few blocks away. Here a
physician was quickly in attendance,
who reported after a brief examina-
tion that Bird appeared to have
suffered a concussion of the brain
but that there did not seem to be any
fracture of the skull; that whichever
was the case, it was uncertain when
he would regain his senses if at all ;
and that he should as soon as possible
be taken to a hospital where he could
be more thoroughly examined and
properly treated. As for Adrian, the
doctor said his eyes would be all
234
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
right in a day or two ; lie might
wash them in warm water from time
to time, and occasionally use the
common lotion of rose-water and
sugar-of-lead, which lotion he sent
for on the spot, by a policeman.
Meanwhile a hack was brought
round, and the luckless reporter, still
senseless, was carried away, in charge
of another policeman and the physi-
cian.
By permission of the police ser-
geant in charge of the station, Adrian
sat quietly in a corner, for a while,
cautiously sopping his eyes in the cool-
ing rose-water, thinking over the
situation of affairs, listening to the
noises of the street, to the occasional
items of police business that came in,
and to the rough desultory talk of
the two or three policemen in the
room. At last, as the darkness began
to come down, he found himself able
to see a little, and at once set out for
Jefferson Market. Crossing the
Washington Parade Ground, and
following Waverley Place out to the
Sixth Avenue, he reached in a few
minutes this important centre of
municipal interests — for the three-
cornered block commonly referred to
as Jefferson Market includes, besides
divers minor portions, not only a
market, but an engine-house, a fire-
bell, a police court-room and a police-
station, with their respective appen-
dages all complete. Adrian easily
found his way to the station, and
went up to the desk. A large red-
faced and red-haired officer was upon
the throne of the place, behind the
desk, and upon a small platform run-
ning across the head of the room,
which platform was also shut off by a
stout wooden rail.
" Captain MacMurdo?" said Adrian.
" Gone out," was the gruff response.
" Can I apply to you instead, sir ? "
" Can if you like."
As Adrian was taking out of his
pocket a few papers and selecting
Bird's card to Mr. Jenks, Dr. Veroil's
letter and Mr. Jenks's own note to
Bird, by way of credentials, the offi-
cer — he was a lieutenant — ex-
changed winks and grins with one
or two of his companions who were
lounging hard by.
" I want to get admission to the
cells," said Adrian —
" Guess you can run your face for
that," interrupted the lieutenant ; and
he and his fellows chorused with a
big Haw ! haw !
Adrian, for an instant furious, was
lucky enough to bethink himself, as
their grinning faces centred upon
him, that his features and his costume
might really justify their jeers ; and
not being afflicted with vanity, his
wrath became amusement, as he per-
ceived why they had been so ungra-
cious, and he answered in a jolly
manner,
" Do I really look so hard ? "
Policemen are rough fellows, but
they are very often good fellows. Adri-
an's good nature and good manners
set them right in an instant.
" Hard ? " said the lieutenant, this
time amiably enough, — " hard ain't
no name for it. Any man on the
force would take ye in on sight."
" Well, that's just what I want this
time," said Adrian, — " you have a
person — alady — locked up here, that
I want to see. I had a note to De-
tective Olds, but I found his place all
on fire, and I hardly got out of it
alive myself."
" Yes," assented the officer ;
"they've got half our reserve squad
over there now." Adrian now laid
his documents before the lieutenant,
who examined them with care, and
reflected a moment :
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
235
" I see Mr. Jenks speaks of letting
her go," he observed ; " 'fraid we
shouldn't be justified in that unless
Olds himself should say so. But you
can see her, sir. Bill, show the gen-
tleman in to number eight."
The New York city police-stations
have, — or should have, — besides the
office and the quarters for the force, two
obligati departments; one for confin-
ing persons arrested, and one for tem-
porarily sheltering the homeless. The
latter is a bare and desolate room,
containing a stove for winter, and
some strong wooden benches. Com-
fort is diligently and successfully es-
chewed, for it would speedily attract
a mass of insufferable patronage.
The prison part is one or more corri-
dors with stone cells at the side, closed
by strong doors. The patrolman ad-
dressed as Bill, upon receiving the
order, took a lantern and lit the wick
of its dim oil lamp ; then turning to
Adrian with a " This way," he pre-
ceded him to the back corner of the
room, at the right hand of the captain's
desk ; opened a door, and led the way
through a short entry, then through
another door down five or six stone
steps into a narrow passage, floored,
sided and ceiled with stone. Despite
the stove at the far end, the gaslight
midway, and the abundant whitewash
smeared thickly everywhere, the place
was damp, cellar-like and horrible
with the odor or flavor that always
haunts places of forcible detention.
It might almost be believed that souls
rot in prison as well as bodies, and
infect the place.
'■Number eight," said the police-
man, opening the door. "You can
take the lantern." Adrian entered,
holding up the light before him ; the
officer went away ; there were two per-
sons within, both women. One was
Civille. " Oh, Adrian ! " she cried out,
as she sprang up, and held out both
hands. As she did so, the outer door
clashed behind the retiring policeman,
and a sneering drunken female voice
from the next cell mimicked Civille,
calling out again, " Oh, Adrian ! "
and adding, " Dear Adrian has come ;"
— and then she broke out with the
cracked husky tones of an exhausted
debauchee, into a song of the war —
"When Johnny comes marching home
again, hooray! hooray! "
The silence which Adrian had no-
ticed on entrance was indeed only the
pause of the inmates of the place
while they ascertained what was the
new arrival ; and a hoarse and hideous
chorus helped the drunken woman
through her stave.
Adrian's surprise and horror were
great enough ; but Civille's were
greater; even insomuch that Adrian
could not understand for a moment
the look of intense doubt and agony
which she cast at himself, nor why
she covered her face in her hands and
fell back on the narrow bunk where
she had been sitting by the side of
her companion. But he remembered
in a moment, and said, with a tone
of resolute cheerfulness, which he as-
sumed of purpose and almost with a
laugh, as he remembered the police
sergeant's criticisms upon his personal
appearance :
"Don't be frightened, Civille, — I
got caught over on Broadway in a
room full of smoke and water; I'm
only dirty and scorched. Your father
is doing nicely ; we shall have every
thing right in a little while ; I've
seen the people."
He was quite right, as he was quite
natural, in never even thinking that
it was shame that made Civille hide
her face. Modesty belongs to such
as she ; but shame never. She looked
236
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
up at him again, with inexpressible
relief.
" I don't know what I thought,"
she said. "But it's such a horrible
dream, that I wasn't quite sure but
you were part of the dream."
" I see," said Adrian : " it's as the
police sergeant said ; he said any
officer would take me up, for my
looks."
At tbis moment the singers stopped.
As Adrian was about to speak again,
the other woman held up a warning
hand, and said, in a whisper,
" Hush ! — They are listening to
make fun again. Sit down here, Mr.
Chester, and speak low."
" It's Mrs. Barnes, Adrian," whis-
pered Civille, in explanation ; and in-
deed it surprised him to be so called
by name. He remembered at once
the fierce-looking rather handsome
mulatto woman whose baby he had
found Civille holding one day, — the
baby that had been expelled from The
Shadowing Wings, in consequence of
the ethnological Christianity of Mrs.
Tar box Button.
" How do you do, Mrs. Barnes ? "
said Adrian, politely, and adopting
the subdued tone of the company, —
regis ad exemplar, — " and how is the
little one ? "
Very well, the mother said ; and
upon further inquiry it appeared that
by good fortune the child was safe
with a neighbor of its mother's ; and
also that the meeting of Civille and
Mrs. Barnes in the cell was merely a
coincidence such as is constantly hap-
pening in real life, and of which peo-
ple so often say " Such things happen
in fact, but it would not do to put
them in a story." Mrs. Barnes had
been concerned in a furious drunken
row, and was in consequence locked
up to answer.
There now followed a brisk ex-
change of questions and replies. It
appeared that Civille had been arrest-
ed a few minutes after leaving the
house that morning, on a charge of
shoplifting at Jenks & Trainor's, and
had been hurried off to the police sta-
tion, without being allowed to go
back to the house or communicate
with her friends. The officers had
however explained that the detective
who had employed them, would see
her in a very little while, and that
every facility would be given her for
consulting with whomsoever she might
wish, as soon as she should be once
locked up. These promises, however,
had not been kept, and to her inqui-
ries why, the officers had replied that
the reason was, the failure of the de-
tective, Olds, to appear as he had
promised. She had written to Mr.
Button and to Dr. Veroil, not daring
to send direct to her father: but until
Adrian's coming, Civille said, she felt
sure the letters could not have been
delivered.
Nor had they been, Adrian replied,
at least his visit was no evidence of
it ; and in turn he briefly told the
history of his day, and ended by ex-
plaining that he should now return at
once to Dr. Veroil and to Mr. Button,
and that at the very worst, Civille
should be released in the morning.
And, he said, she was to keep up her
spirits.
" Oh," she said, with a quiet smile,
" it was pretty disagreeable at first,
and I have been worried about father.
But Mrs. Barnes and I have been
very friendly and comfortable togeth-
er.
haven't we, Mrs. Barnes?"
" You're jest as good as you can be,
ma'am," said the mulatto woman, im-
petuously ; "if everybody was like
you 'twould be a better world than
'tis."
" Oh," said Civille, with a smile,
Scr
ope;
The Lost Library.
237
" there's plenty of good people.
There's my cousin Miss Button, who
gave you this nice shawl, and you
yourself, w,ho made me take it because
I was cold."
" Gave me a fiddlestick ! " exclaim-
ed the woman ; " she's given no end
»f nice things, to poor folks that I
know and their children, and there
don't nobody like her. But them
that knows you, they'd do any thing
in the world for you, Miss Civille, and
that's the truth."
" Would you, Mrs. Barnes ? — will
you ? " said Civille, earnestly.
The woman's countenance fell. " I
know what you mean," she said, unea-
sily — "I can't make myself over
again ; I would if I could. I'll go up
for ten days sure in the morning, and
then I shall be decent for six weeks
or so, and then I shall have a row
again of some kind, I spose. It's as
if I had fever'n agur regular every
few weeks, and you sh'd ask me not
to."
"Well," said Civille, "will you
come and see me when you come
back? You can do that ? — And be
sure and bring the baby ! "
Mrs. Barnes promised. "Perhaps
we can contrive up something, be-
tween us," continued Civille with a
smile, "we two prisoners ought to be
smart enough. They say they are
always planning something together.
I sha'n't be sorry I was put here, Mrs.
Barnes, if it turns out to be of any
use."
Thtf conversar.oi. Mas delightful to
Adrian. His own nature responded
readily and earnestly to every call for
help, and it was a wonderful pleasure
to see the earnest kindness of Civille,
whom he loved, — a kindness so sym-
pathetic with his own instincts ; and -
there was repeated in him as he lis-
tened, that vague deep strange sweet
feeling, which, he had experienced
before — She is myself !
And further, he received another
hardly less exquisite pleasure from
what the Evidences-of-Christianity
people call unconscious coincidence.
He found himself reasoning in the
midst of his emotions, that it was an
absolute impossibility to imagine, still
more to believe, that there could be
either evil or delusion in a soul so
very sweet and kindly. No matter,
he continued to himself, if I saw
them find stolen goods on her person
and in her pockets, — I should know
that she was perfectly ignorant and
innocent of their being there.
And still again, his reason repeat-
ed its conclusion, but from a totally
different beginning : It is another
impossibility for one who has done
wrong, to be so unconscious of the
prison and of the danger! She is the
same pure and lovely and serene lady
in this den of abominations, as in her
own little parlor at home. Ah ! the
enthusiastic young man thought, she
is best worth loving of all, even if
she will not love me back !
So, when half an hour was gone and
the officer returned, all that could be
said had been said, and Adrian, con-
scious that he was to go, only remem-
bered at the very last moment that
he was leaving the lady of his choice
locked up in a petty prison, charged
with a vulgar little crime, amongst
the very draff of the worst city of one
half the earth. And yet, to his own
surprise, he even felt more inclined
to smile than to cry. The situation
was not a disgrace, it was an absurdity.
With good courage, which he had
received from Civille as much as he
had given it to her, he shook hands
with Mrs. Barnes, kissed his cousin,
promised once more to return in the
morning, and departed. As he fol-
238
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
lowed the policeman back to the outer
room, he recited to himself with that
full sense of meaning which fitting
facts inspire into a quotation, Love-
lace's well known lines, in his stanzas
" To Althea : "
Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage ;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage.
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone, that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.
" The real prison, after all," he
said, in comment on the plucky cava-
lier's graceful rhyme, " is in the pris-
oner."
"Dunno 'bout that," observed his
guide, for Adrian had unconsciously
spoken aloud — " guess ye wa'n't
never sbet up, was ye?"
"No," said Adrian ; "but I'd rather
take the chance of breaking jail than
the chance of forgetting if I had
murdered somebody."
"Wal, you're right," said the po-
liceman. Really great truths about
life are very easy to understand.
There are very few people who will
deny to begin with that there is a
difference between right and wrong.
Honest Mr. Policeman was, ethically,
in excellent health.
CHAPTEE XXXIV.
Adrian at once arranged with the
officer in charge to prevent Civille's
name from reaching next morning's
newspapers. This he did by quietly
erasing the real name which had been
entered in the record of the place,
and substituting that of Betsy Jones,
obviously quite as good to fill records
or constitute items, and which saved
the disagreeable fame of having been
arrested and imprisoned on a charge
of theft, a fame not very welcome,
even when undeserved, to any lady.
Adrian now expressed his thanks
to the officers, and added a confession
that he had not expected to be so
obligingly treated.
" Oh, bless your soul," said the
lieutenant with a grin, "you're a gen-
tleman. Its folks that conies in to
blaggard us that we jest cut up to.
Most anybody's glad to accommo-
date, but it don't stand to reason that
abuse makes a feller obligin. You
can't ketch flies with vinegar."
" That's very true," assented Adri-
an, who, finding so much favor in the
eyes of the officer, went on to ask for
suggestions as to proceedings next
morning. The reply was, that in
order to set the lady at liberty, he
ought to bring either the complainant,
(viz., Olds,) or counsel for him, in order
to withdraw the complaint. If the
detective should not turn up, bail
should be obtained. Whoever should
come, ought to be on hand at the
opening of court next morning, punc-
tually at seven o'clock. With these
instructions, Adrian took his leave.
He stopped at the first eating-house
he came to, took a draught of water,
and bought a couple of sandwiches ;
for he had actually not once thought
of eating or drinking all the day, so
intense had been his sense of the ur-
gency of his errands, and so quickly
had they followed one after another.
Then, entering a hack which he found
on Broadway, he gave the driver Dr.
Veroil's address, promised half-a-
doliar extra for speed, and ate his
sandwiches as he rode. The splendid
vitalit}' of his youth quickly regained
from the meagre refection and the
rest, — if the jolting of a hack can be
called rest, — of his ride, the strength
and activity which he had felt him-
self losing. Not that twelve hours
is so long a time to go without food.
It is, though, for one thoroughly used
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
239
to the ordinary daily three good
meals.
Dr. Veroil was out ; an unusual
thing at this hour — nearly ten o'clock.
Adrian decided, late as it was, as the
circumstances would be an ample
excuse, to see Mr. Button and get a
definite answer about the old house,
as the publisher directed in the morn-
ing, and then to come back to the
doctor's. It was but a few minutes'
further drive to Mr. Button's. Dis-
missing his driver, Adrian rang, and
was admitted. He was shown into
the back parlor, where to his surprise
he found Dr. Veroil, agreeably occu-
pied in partaking of cold roast lamb
and brown stout. The physician
welcomed him with eager interest,
demanded his news, and at the same
time exhorted him to partake of the
viands. Like the policeman and Ci-
ville, he moreover took notice of the
disorder of the young man's costume
and the somewhat deteriorated appear-
ance of his visage.
"You'll understand it all in two
minutes, doctor," said Adrian, as he
addressed himself with good courage
to the eatables. His sandwiches had
been little more than a drop in the
bucket. He began with the main
items, as one puts a list of contents at
the head of a chapter :
" Civille is locked up at the Jeffer-
son Market station on a charge of
shoplifting at Jenks & Trainor's," he
said : " Bird is hurt in the head
and is at the New York Hos-
pital ; Olds, — I think, — is dead.
I want, first of all, bail to get
Civille out at seven o'clock to-mor-
row morning — but doctor, Mr. Van
Braam ? " —
" All safe," said the doctor ; " for-
tunately opium does not injure him as
it does some people, and he is com-
fortable for the present; it will injure
him less than to know about Civille,
anyhow. Well ? " —
So Adrian began from the moment
of his leaving the doctor in the morn-
ing and gave a succinct account of hi?
whole day, and ended by saying,
" I went straight to you, Doctor, to
be bail, in case nothing is heard of
Olds ; and not finding you, I came
here. Angry or not angry, Mr. But-
ton would hardly refuse to bail Civille
out, under the circumstances ? "
" I'll do it," said the doctor, — " I'll
do it, of course, with as much pleasure
as such a service admits. As for
Button," he continued, with sudden
seriousness, " he won't bail anybody
out at present — never, very likely."
" What?" exclaimed Adrian, great-
ly startled by the doctor's manner, —
" what do you mean ? "
"I've been here most of the time
since noon. — He had a stroke of
paralysis this morning at Jenks &
Trainor's store — a very dangerous
one."
" Ah ! " said Adrian, " it must have
been he that was in a faint, they said
it was, in the middle of a crowd of
clerks and customers, at the moment
I went into the store. I never
thought of that — how could I ? And
Ann came out at the very moment
when I was going in, too, — how could
she not h;
She looked ex-
actly as usual though. She could
not have been so quiet if she had
known." —
" How's that ? " said the doctor, —
" Miss Button coming out of the store
just as you went in, and the faint,
or whatever it was, going on at the
same time inside ? "
" Yes."
" Whew ! " whistled the physician
to himself, softly.
" What is it ? " asked Adrian.
" Oh — only — the fact of a man's
240
Scropt
The Lost Library.
being struck down in that way with-
in reach of his own daughter's hand
— under her very eyes, apparently,
— and her knowing nothing of it.
Were they not together? If they
were, how was it possible for her not
to know it ? "
Adrian was startled, partly by this
way of putting the case, but much
more by the increasing seriousness and
even gloom, which grew upon the phy-
sician's manner with every word he
uttered.
" I don't think they went together,"
Adrian observed. " He drove straight
up, — at least I suppose so, — from
his office. Ann often goes shopping
in the mornings; of course Jenks &
Trainor's is one place to go to ; she
used to take Civille with her —
Civille's taste is worth using, you
know — By George ! " exclaimed the
young man, stopping short, coloring
high, and looking straight into the
doctor's eyes.
" Hush !" said Dr. Veroil, lifting a
warning finger, and speaking very
low, — " You've thought of it, I see.
But not a word ! Even you and
I won't say it to each other, at
present! We'll try to get Civille
out all safe and clear, and if we
can do that, we'll prevent all the
further scandal we can, all round.
There's sorrow enough in the world,
— there's a full share in this house.
As for this miserable boy, he'll be
dead in a year if they don't lock him
up in some inebriate asylum. And
besides this matter that we are think-
ing about, here's the father. — Why,
it's the annihilation of a family ! It's
astonishing how the strongest men go
all to pieces in an instant ! Their fibre
is so dense that they seem perfectly
well outside until they are all mined
away within, like a hardwood tree;
and then down they go, with one
single crash, and you see how thin
the shell of life was. I've been ex-
pecting something like this. His com-
plaints about the back of his head
— about being dizzy — that means a
pretty severe drain of the nervous en-
ergy, at its very fountain. What
you said this morning about his feel-
ing so remarkably well startled me
at the moment — I was too busy to
pay much attention however — you
know it is often the case that for a
short time before a stroke of palsy or
apoplexy, the patient feels so much
brighter and stronger than usual,
that he often speaks of it himself."
"No, I did not. That is as if the
disease retired to put one off his
guard and so be sure to get a good
hit at him."
" Somewhat so."
"Well, doctor, what is the real
state of Mr. Button's case ?"
" Impossible to tell definitely at
present. Requires some days to take
stock of such attacks. The stroke
was a very severe one, for a hemi-
plegia — worst I ever saw, I think —
right side completely paralyzed, and
the left side much affected sympathet-
ically. He has rallied somewhat ; his
life is probably safe for the immedi-
ate present ; they are almost always
very irritable after such attacks, and
he is extremely so. But he has a
tremendous constitution, and a tre-
mendous will, and that makes a vast
difference. He don't mean to die,
this bout, — I can see that. He is
excessively anxious to do something,
I can't say exactly what, and he can't
speak or move yet. I've told him to
be patient until to-morrow, and he is
trying to be ; but it's a strange state !
His command of his body is gone,
and he has no feeling, or hardly any,
anywhere ; and yet his nerves are
thrilling and thrilling like telegraph
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
241
wires in the wind, and I suppose he
never felt so perfectly and uncontrol-
lably cross in his life, while he is
utterly without power of expression
or motion."
" Well," said Adrian, " if it rested
with me, Mr. Button should be up
again quick enough. He's rough,
but there's much to admire in power
like his. I wish I could cure him !
I can't ask him about the old house,
either ; he was to let me know about
that this evening."
" House ? What's that ? "
Upon Adrian's explaining, the
doctor promptly promised to see to
that matter also, by deputing his
man, a trusty and efficient person, to
go over and negotiate a further delay
in the work of destruction.
" You're very good, doctor," said
Adrian, " to take all this trouble."
" Nonsense," said the physician,
rather shortly ; " you'd do as much for
me ; so would Civille ; and if I don't
see her through this pinch, who will ?
But, young man, you may be looking
out, if you choose, for somebody to
take charge of her in future. I can't
have everybody on my hands."
" What do you mean, doctor ? "
said Adrian, blushing — " She's my
cousin and I like her."
" Situation vacant for a young man,
that's all," said the doctor, with a
very intelligent look. " Apply at
once."
" Well, doctor," rejoined Adrian,
*' if you meet the employer, have the
goodness to put in a word for me, and
perhaps I'll apply."
" Very good. Now go off and go
to bed ; you've done a very fair day's
work, and we must be on hand bright
and early to-morrow morning. I must
stay here a while longer. Stop for
me and we'll go to the police court
together."
The two men parted, with a hearty
hand-shake, and good wishes, for they
suited each other well.
CHAPTER XXXV.
The usual morning jail-delivery of
a New York police court is a humili-
ating spectacle ; one cannot feel very
proud of belonging to a race off
which is incessantly rising so very
foul a scum. Adrian and Dr. Veroil,
for fear of accidents, were punctu-
ally present at the Jefferson Market
court-room when its doors were
thrown open at seven o'clock next
morning. Although his honor the
judge did not appear for more
than an hour, it would have been
perfectly unsafe for them to do other-
wise. The judge does not usually
appear at one of these courts until
nearly nine o'clock, sometimes still
later ; but in cases where influence is
used, it might easily happen that one
party in interest, coming to court at a
usual hour, should find that the hon-
orable court had been hurried by
somebody ; and that court had been
opened promptly at seven a.m., the
evil human harvest of the night
swiftly marshalled before the bar, and
the particular object of solicitude has-
tened off to prison before the intended
help could be given, or hastened off
to liberty before proof could be made
of crime to be punished.
So the doctor and Adrian had a
good long hour and a quarter to wait,
and they occupied the beginning of
it by a careful and conscientious
scrutiny of the morning papers.
" Hallo ! here we are ! " said
Adrian suddenly, in the midst of
their reading ; and he added, as his
companion looked up, the words of
the caption of a local item :
" Dangerous Fire ! New York
242
Scrope
The Lost Library.
Hotel jn Peril ! Awful Death
op a well-known detective !
Strange Phenomenon connected
with the Remains ! "
The report, which was written
in that vociferous and perturbed
dialect which may be called news-
paper English, or perhaps, to use a
diabolic adjective, — a. very Caliban
of an adjective, — of its own spawn-
ing to describe it, Reportorial
English, — went on to give an account
of the fire, which it called " the de-
vouring element ; " of the efforts,
which it called " the heroic, devoted
and self-sacrificing struggles " of the
firemen, and so on, — all which is nat-
ural enough for people whose work
is often paid for by the yard instead
of the merit. Filtered, this turbid
mess afforded the statement that the
building which had been burnt had
been burnt, which was true ; that the
New York Hotel had been in great
danger, which was false ; that the
fire had been subdued, which was
true again ; that a man had been
rescued from the building, which was
true ; and lastly, that the well-known
detective Mr. Amos Olds, had been
burned alive in his rooms there,
nothing being left of him except a
very small shrivelled heap of animal
matter partly transformed into a sub-
stance resembling gutta-percha, and
which had been found among the
half-consumed debris of the room,
after the fire had been stayed at that
very place. All this last, Adrian
read for what it might fetch ; he
could not know whether it was true
or false, however vivid was his recol-
lection of the horror he had felt at
handling the ghastly relics on the
bed. And there was a short para-
graph about the professional abilities
of the deceased, his remarkable per-
sonal appearance, and his eccentric
fancy of being seen abroad only in
the evening.
In another local item the name of
Betsy Jones, charged with shoplift-
ing, duly appeared, in sufficiently
bad company. On these and divers
other topics suggested by the " mighty
engine," the two men talked; and
they succeeded in passing away the
time without much difficulty until a
small bustle near a door at one end
of that side of the room on which
the judge's desk was railed off, gave
token that the great man would
shortly issue forth with his ermine
on. On the appearance of this phe-
nomenon, Dr. Veroil and Adrian,
who had been sitting on one of the
front benches of those that filled the
main body of the room, arose, and
stepped up to the persons at the side-
door. The doctor, sending in a card,
requested a moment's interview with
the judge, for self and companion.
This was granted, and they were ad-
mitted to the judge's private room, a
rather bare little den, with a stove, a
table, a few chairs, a book-case, and
a worn and dirty red ingrain carpet.
The dignitary was' talking with a
police captain, and meanwhile brush-
ing up forward past his ears two locks
of hair, one each side of his shiny
bald head. He was a rather angry
looking man, trig of costume, erect
of carriage, alert and quick of move-
ment, so that he made Adrian think
of a boxing-master. He had an in-
telligent face, whose decided forms
were enhanced by a thin high nose,
heavy mustache, and heavy black
eyebrows, whose level line strongly
accented his keen dark eyes.
"Wish to see me, Doctor?" he
asked at once, quickly but politely.
" How can I serve you, sir ? "
Dr. Veroil briefly explained that
one Betsy Jones, held for shoplifting,
Scropc; or, The Lost Library.
243
was known to him as a perfectly re-
spectable young lady, arrested under
a complete misunderstanding ; that
he wanted his honor to permit her
not to be arraigned, but to be pri-
vately examined, and dismissed on bail,
which he, Doctor Veroil, would give
or secure to any required amount ; he
added that Olds, the complainant in
the case, was stated to be dead, and
he laid before the judge the papers
which Adrian had shown to the po-
lice lieutenant the evening before.
" Olds dead ! " exclaimed his honor,
— " oh, well, this memorandum of
Bird's and Mr. Jenks' note will do
well enough, I guess : where's Bird
himself? Can't he come into court ?"
" No ; he would have been dead
too," said Veroil, " if it hadn't been
for my young friend here ; as it is he
is hurt, and is in the hospital."
"Ah," said his honor, looking at
Adrian: "you're the man that got
him out, are you ? Good thing to do.
Dorr told MacMurdo here about it
this morning. Well, I think, doctor,
we can arrange it for you. Will you
take seats here, gentlemen, until I am
through with these poor creatures, or
will you have a look at the operations
of the machine? "
They preferred the latter, and re-
sumed their seats before the bar.
The judge took his seat, the clerk of
the court established himself at a
lower desk at one side of him, court
was duly opened, and Captain Mac-
Murdo, after receiving the judge's
directions about Betsy Jones in No.
8, left the court by another door, with
three or four officers. In about five
minutes they returned, marshalling
the contents of the cells of the sta-
tion house, a frowsy and horrible
crew ; an officer at their head opened
the gate of a stout square pen at the
side of the room, and the prisoners
huddled into it, seating themselves in
a promiscuous crowd upon the bench-
es inside. One of the policemen now
took charge of the gate of this pen ;
and as one name after another was
called, he or she was let out by
the gatekeeper, the officer who had
made the arrest led the prisoner by
the arm up opposite the judge ; a few
questions were asked, the officer made
a statement, the judge said a few
words, the clerk made an entry in his
book, the case was judged, and the
prisoner was led off. Adrian studied
intently, meanwhile, the herd of ob-
jects in the pen. He had never be-
fore examined such a sight. There
were some twenty-five or thirty of
them ; not far from an average day's
arrests in one city police-court juris-
diction. There were some old men,
some old women ; a number of street-
walkers ; some " drunks and disor-
derlies" and some " assaults." Adri-
an, studying the group — he was near
enough to see the details of faces
and clothes, — was struck, first by
the general lowness of the heads,
shallowness and scantiness of the
foreheads, roundness and fulness of
the back heads, and the high cheek-
bones. Then he saw the sensual and
sullen expression of the mouths, and
the less frequent, but still too fre-
quent scowl of eyebrow and furtive-
ness of glance. Only one or two of
the whole had good heads, and these
had either silly faces or angry if not
malignant ones. All these evil favors
were greatly enhanced by the toilets
of the company, which were in such
a state as if they had all been furi-
ously shaken up in a bag along with
a cartload of mud. Torn and dirty
garments, daubed sometimes with the
thick whitewash of the cells, gaudy
finery all soiled and broken, smashed
hats, bare heads with indescribably
244
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
tormented hair, dirty faces, red eyes,
with a few black ones, and bloody
noses, dry and cracked lips, a general
condition of sleeplessness, haggard-
ness, and abject noisome musty mis-
ery, made out the picture. Almost
all the voices were either husky or
rasping and coarse. One or two, ap-
parently decent persons overtaken for
once by liquor, were overwhelmed
with pitiable shame ; but most of
them were either obsequious to servili-
ty, brazen and impudent, or sullen and
obstinate. In the judge, Adrian no-
ticed a swift and business-like effi-
ciency which he admired, and he was
especially surprised at the accurate
promptitude with which from his per-
sonal recollections he detected the
attempts of several culprits to impose
upon him a false name or to lie about
their criminal antecedents.
" What's your name ? " said he to
one of these quirkish evaders, after
the officer had made his charge.
" Mary Orton." Adrian thought
he recognized the voice that had
jeered him last night from the next
cell.
"Ever here before?"
" No, your honor."
" "What's your business ? "
" Sewing-girl."
"Mr. Clerk, enter her name Sabina
Allen; been sentenced already three
times by me. Business, landlady of
a panel-house. Thirty days — ten of
them for lying. Next time tell the
truth, Sabina."
" Yes, your honor," said the woman
with a courtesy and a grin, as the
officer carried her off.
Mrs. Barnes, the best looking of
the whole collection, was also .perhaps
the most dangerous looking, to one
who could read faces. As she came
forward to the bar walking with
natural grace, but with a stubborn
lowering look upon her rather hand-
some features, she espied Adrian and
the doctor. She gave a start, and
flushed deeply. The officer who was
leading her looked round with sur-
prise. When placed before the judge,
she compressed her lips, and would
not answer a question nor say a word.
« Very hard case," said the officer.
" I'm afraid so," said his honor.
Adrian, without exactly meaning
to, arose and stepped up before Mrs.
Barnes, to the judge's desk.
" May I say a word to your honor
about this case?" he said, in a low
voice. There were tears in his eyes,
and the judge, looking at him with
some surprise, said, Yes, certainly.
Adrian simply said that the woman
had a young child, of which she was
very fond ; that she was known to
the young lady mentioned before the
opening of court and was to some
extent under her influence ; that she
had by accident been locked up in
the same cell with her; that to his
knowledge the young lady was en-
gaged about some charities connected
with Dr. Toomston's church, and was
desirous of trying to reform Mrs.
Barnes; that he thought he could
promise that she would try to keep
out of difficulty herself; and that he
wished respectfully to suggest to the
court whether under the circumstances
judgment might be suspended ?
The judge nodded assent ; Adrian
returned to his seat ;
" The gentleman has spoken for
you, Mrs. Barnes," said the judge,
seriously, but not unkindly ; " he
promises for you that if I suspend
judgment you will do your best not
to come here again ; and the lady you
have been with will try to help you.
Will you try to keep straight ? "
Not a word. After a pause, the
judge added,
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
245
"It would be the best thing you
could do. You may not care what
happens to yourself; but what right
have you to ruin your baby's chance
of doing well ? "
With a shiver, the poor woman, in
a smothered voice, said,
" I'll try," and turning to Adrian
she nodded to him, the tears running
down her face ; and the officer led her
sobbing away.
"That's right, Adrian," whispered
Veroil ; " she may not stick to it —
those impulsive fiery subjects don't
often — but she'll try hard this time."
It took not very long to clear the
docket, and when this was done, the
judge, beckoning to Veroil and
Adrian, went into his private room
again, and sent for Civille, who was
brought in by a side door. She
looked pale, fatigued, worn ; but as
she entered, the judge, after one keen
glance, arose and bowed, as a gentle-
man bows to a lady. She bowed in
return, and smiled brightly to Adrian
and the doctor, with both of whom
she shook hands.
" Please to be seated, Miss " —
"Miss Van Braam," said the doc-
tor; "this is Judge Flynn, Civille,
who is kind enough to see us here
instead of in court."
Civille expressed her thanks, and
took the chair which was offered her.
The judge now asked her a few ques-
tions, and then put a few to -the offi-
cer who had arrested her. The
answers were only as Adrian already
knew.
"I think there need be no hesita-
tion," said his honor. " I will accept
your bail, Doctor, for Miss Van
Braam's appearance before me when
required ; but I apprehend it will
be a matter of form merely. I
think we shall hear no more of this
charge."
The proper papers were made out
and signed, and the judge, with con-
siderable grace, expressed his regrets
for the annoyance that Civille had
undergone, and his happiness at hav-
ing been able to prevent further in-
convenience, as well as to promote
her views about "her friend Mrs.
Barnes," as he said with a smile.
Civille looked puzzled, but on Adrian's
explaining, she thanked the judge
with so much enthusiasm that he
laughed.
"You don't seem to care so much
about your own case, as about hers,"
he said.
" Poor thing ! " said Civille, in her
solemn introverted way — " poor
thing! she needs care a great deal
more than I do. The prison don't
hurt me, — it will destroy her. We
must try to take care of her."
The kind hearted judge — for he
was kind hearted and considerate in
spite of his angry black eyebrows,
and did as much good, or rather as
little harm, as he could, in his official
position, — now took his leave of
them and went back to his court-
room. In a few moments Civille and
her escort were whirling rapidly
homeward in Veroil's coupe, which
was made to hold three inside pas-
sengers on this occasion by main
strength and some management.
" Dr. Johnson said," observed
Adrian, when they were well wedged
in, " that a ship was simply a jail,
with a chance of drowning. A coupe
is simply a police-station cell, with a
chance of upsetting."
" Less the whitewash and the
smell and plus freedom and motion
and sunshine, you grumbling fellow,"
said the doctor.
" How is father? " said Civille.
" Nicely," said the doctor, (who
hadn't seen him since the day before)
246
Scro-pe ; or, The Lost Library.
— " nicely. — He don't know you've
had any trouble, and you are not to
tell him at present. I gave him a
light dose of opium last night to
quiet him, and left orders with Katy
to say this morning in case of in-
quiry that you had just gone out and
would he hack in a little while."
And so they were. They found
Mr. Vin Braarn awake, though a lit-
tle dreamy, and the situation was
easily re-established. When the doc-
tor had examined his patient and re-
ceived Katy's report, lie insisted on
some breakfast for himself and Adrian,
on the wonderful pretence that bail
were always treated by their princi-
pals. While they were eating and
talking over their affairs, two letters
were brought in, both for Adrian, and
both from Hartford. He opened and
read them, and looked grave, for a
moment; and then with a quiet
smile he said to Civille,
" We are all to be turned out of
house and home at once, it seems —
let's all be unhappy together, will
you? They have finally made an
ordinance to cut their new street
through the old house, my aunt says.
And here's my friend Stone who com-
plains and informs, as the lawyers
say, that my resignation of my as-
sistant librarianship is accepted."
" Resignation ! " exclaimed Civille,
making great eyes, " what made you
resign ? "
" Wouldn't have let me come any
other way, Civille ; at any rate
they would have dismissed me if
I had, and I preferred to dismiss
them."
" Perfectly right," remarked the
doctor.
" Well," said Civille, looking in
her unconscious way right into
Adrian's eyes — in fact right into his
heart, and thinking aloud rather than
talking, — " it's right, — I would
have done so for him."
" That would be an immense com-
pliment," said Adrian to the doctor,
" only that she would do it for you
either, or for anybody. — But I must
remember to go and see Purvis to-day
— he spoke about some business ;
who knows but he has a large salary
waiting for me ? "
" I must go and see Mr. Button,"
remarked the doctor, — " and you
may come too, if you wish, Adrian ;
if he can see you this morning we'll
arrange about the house."
" Very good — but I must go
down to the New York Hospital first
and see if poor Bird is alive or dead."
Katy, who was passing behind
Adrian at the moment, in some ser-
vice of dish or pitcher, stopped short.
" Is he hurt ? " she exclaimed, in an
excited way. They all looked at her
in astonishment.
" Let me go and see him!" said
Katy. " I must be with him ! "
" I dare say he may be better this
morning" said Adrian, kindly, in
spite of his surprise ; " you shall go
down with me if you like."
" Wait a moment, please," said
Katy, eagerly— "I'll get my hat."
And she darted out of the room.
" She's talking English ! " said the
doctor. " She's no Irish girl ! Some
deviltry ! "
It was true, and Civille and the
doctor lodked puzzled enough. » Adri-
an remembered his having seen her
and Bird in communication on the
night of the party at Mr. Button's,
and also her insolent speech to Ci-
ville at the door of the supper-room,
and a theory popped into his mind.
"I guess " he said, "I can " —
In darted Katy again, like a small
whirlwind, with her hat on, a pair of
thread gloves on her hands.
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
247
" You've no shawl," said Civille.
" No matter," said the girl, " I
couldn't find it ; I couldn't wait."
" Here," said Civille, "take this ; "
and she gave her Mrs. Barnes' shawl,
which lay on the sofa. " Bring it
back, please ; it isn't mine."
" I'll go right down, doctor," said
Adrian, " and I'll come back to your
office and report progress ; and if you
are not there I'll try Mr. But-
ton's."
"Do so," said Veroil ; "and if
Bird needs me I'll go down right
after dinner." And leaving Civille
to take care of her father, the party
broke up, Adrian taking a note from
Dr. Veroil to the house surgeon at
the hospital, by way of introduc-
tion.
PART XIV.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
The New York Hospital is now so
called because it is not in New York
City. It is hardly connected with the
accidents and miseries which it was
meant to help. That help is nomi-
nally given by means of a few beds
put up in an old building in one cor-
ner of the City Hall Park. When
Adrian however went thither to see
Mr. Bird, the tall roomy gray stone
buildings of the old Hospital were still
standing in the middle of their quiet
square, and the two high iron fences,
one at the street, usually ornamented
with a beggar or two, a seller of bal-
lads, or a peanut stand, and an inner
one, garnished with the porter's lodge,
between the outer and inner court-
yards, still protected the institution
from the intrusions of mere curiosity
or idleness. But the estate thus de-
voted to the uses of the sick poor was
too valuable. There is not humanity
enougli in an American city to devote
property when it hecomes very valua-
ble indeed, to God, kindness or beau-
ty. The church is made into a
liveiy-stable. The hospital square is
covered with stores. Even in the
comparatively Christian city of Bos-
ton, the advanced skirmishers of the
money Huns have cut off the out-
posts of the ancient Common, and
over the corpses of half a dozen cen-
tennial elms, the victorious and guz-
zling aldermen and their allies the
real estate speculators are planning
the campaign which shall cover the
whole of the Common with stores.
The fate of the Central Park in New
York is only a question of time. It
will be cut up and sold for building
lots whenever the land becomes so
valuable for business purposes that
the New Yorker cannot bear it any
longer.
Adrian and his companion were
admitted without difficulty, and were
shown into the convalescent ward,
where to the great relief of both of
them, they found Mr. Bird, not even
in bed, but comfortably established in
an easy chair, and reading a news-
paper. He had a white bandage
round his head, it is true ; but the
white fillet is of old a symbol of roy-
alty ; and observance, if not authority,
is an attribute of invalids which may
liken them to the ancient kings.
Adrian, with several suspicions con-
tending in his mind, watched Bird's
face very closely, as they entered.
He had barely time however to see
him look up astonished and displeased ;
for Katy quickly ran up to him and
kissed him.
248
Scrope
The Lost Library.
"All right, Kate, as long as you're
here," he said, his expression chan-
ging to one of amused resignation; —
" I'm all correct except a cut on my
head — hut let me see that shawl
though," he added, his face lighting
up with a sudden interest.
She took it off and handed it to
him ; it was an imitation camel's hair
shawl, with some white along the
margin, of good quality and size, a
good deal soiled, but not particularly
remarkable. Bird inspected it delib-
erately, one side and edge after an-
other, as one looks for the initials on
a handkerchief, but with a peculiarly
persistent and almost microscopic scru-
tiny. As he came to the last corner,
his countenance lighted up. "Kate,
where did you get that ? "
" Miss Van Braam let me take it,"
said the girl, readily, still speaking
without the least shade of brogue.
" She did ! " exclaimed Bird, — " Is
it possible ! " And he looked uncer-
tain, as one does who reflects upon
news that is good and bad at once.
" Mrs. Barnes gave it to Civille in
the station-house," observed Adrian.
" And Miss Button gave it to Mrs.
Barnes."
"Ah!" said Bird, with obvious re-
lief — " Mrs. Barnes whose baby was
turned out of that charitable thing,
isn't it?"
"Yes."
" Allow me to make you acquainted
with my sister. Miss Catherine Bird,"
said he, as one who takes a sudden
resolution, and with a sufficiently good
manner ; " Kate, my friend Mr. Adri-
an Chester."
Adrian, after a moment's look at
Bird's face, which wore an expression
of "It's so, — the cat's out of the
bag ! " and another at the young lady,
who blushed a little, but not much,
made his manners, not without a shade
of embarrassment or rather sense of
queerness, and bowed to his new ac-
quaintance.
" I have had the pleasure of seeing
Miss Bird already," he said, " but have
not had the honor of an introduction."
" Come," said Bird, " get chairs
and sit here ; there's nobody in the
ward " — he glanced round the room
— " who will pay any attention.
There's been more trouble than I
meant, and your friends sha'n't have
any more at any rate, Mr. Chester.
As for Mr. Button, he may do the
best he can " —
" He has enough trouble already,"
said Adrian, gravely.
"What do you mean?" asked
Bird. Adrian hereupon told him the
story of his yesterday's experience
after their meeting in Washington
Place, including his seeing Ann But-
ton coming out of the store, his pass-
ing the place where at the same
moment Mr. Button had been struck
down with palsy, and not omitting
his experience in the burning build-
ing. When he came to this place,
Bird and his sister interrupted him
to thank him ; the latter with tears,
both of them, after their manner, with-
out many words. But there was more
in Bird's steady look at Adrian's eyes,
the firm grasp of his hand, and his
brief " I won't forget it, Chester," than
in a whole sensation sermon on Thank-
fulness. When Adrian had ended,
which he did by continuing his ac-
count through his visit to the police
court and to the present moment, he
began to state his theory of the marge
of shoplifting.
"Now as to this criminal charge,"
he said, " I was at first a little afraid
that my cousin Civille might have
furnished some ground for it, particu-
larly after you assured me that stolen
goods had been found in her posses-
sion. But" — he glanced at Katy
Bird — "I don't care who found them
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
219
there, I've learned what sort of a
woman she is slnpe these two visits
of mine to New York. People think
she's queer — I thought so. It's be-
cause she's too good for practical pur-
3, that's all. If a ton of stolen
were found in her room — if
she hadn't a garment on her that
wasn't stolen — she did not steal
them, whoever did." Here Bird
smiled and nodded, as much as to say,
" That's right." Adrian resumed :
" But now I say the facts are these "
v — and he stopped. He would not
say it of the woman to whom he had
been betrothed, and whom he had be-
lieved a kinswoman, though she was
relative and betrothed no longer.
"Well?" said Bird.
" No," said Adrian ; " I won't state
my opinion. But I think if Civille
chooses she can make Jenks &
Trainor pay pretty heavy damages for
her arrest and imprisonment ; and if
Olds hadn't been burnt up in his room,
I would make him clear up the whole
thing, if I had to murder him."
" Poor Olds !" said Bird, " he's dead
then." And he looked at his sister
in a dubious kind of way. She looked
as if she wanted to laugh ; a grim
display from a young lady about a
death by fire.
" Remains turned into gutta-percha,
I observe by the paper," continued
the police reporter, in the same queer
mixed manner — " sad business ! But
after all, Chester, Miss Van Braam
won't want to sue Jenks & Trainor,
for they have been the means of fur-
nishing evidence that amounts almost
to proof, that she did not do the steal-
ing, and that somebody else did."
Adrian looked puzzled.
" It's the same view that's in your
mind," said Bird, with decision :
" only, as I was saying, it's proved,
or nearly so. It's easy to see that
you can't like to speak out about it.
Now I'll make a clean breast of it
First of all, I'm Olds."
" What do you mean by that ? "
said Adrian, with entire incredulity.
" The lamented deceased, you re-
member, had the eccentricity of only
being seen in the evening. It's easy
to vary one's voice. The stuffed suit
and soft gutta-percha mask that you
found on the bed were safe enough
to wear then ; in the day-time they
wouldn't ' wash.' And a man can
disguise himself to be bigger than he
is ; not so easily to be smaller."
" Bird," interrupted Adrian, " why
did you have Civille locked up over
night? That was not the right
thing to do."
" I couldn't help it after I was
knocked in the head, could I ? " said
Bird, coolly. " And she wouldn't
have been put into a cell at all if
the officers had done as I told them.
It was no part of my plan, Chester.
But let me tell you ; it's a straight
story. I was Amos Olds in the even-
ing, and Mr. Bird the police reporter
all day. Jenks & Trainor employed
me to work up this case some time
ago, and it was a long time before
I could find any clew at all. At
last I settled on our two lady friends,
but I couldn't tell which. Then I
got Katy to go and live in their
houses at different times."
" And you had the face to make
love to her yourself, you scamp ! "
said Adrian, half amused and half
disposed to be angry.
" All in the way of business,"
answered Mr. Bird, with calmness.
" Besides, it's a free country. A cat
may look at a king. I couldn't tell
what means would prevail. And I
confess that it would have been foolish
for me to try it in earnest. And least
of all, you needn't complain, I reckon ! "
concluded the detective, significantly.
" But do you mean to say that
!50
Scrope
The Lost Library.
you really suspected Civille ? " said
Adrian, rather hotly, but blushing.
" Weren't you half afraid or more
that it might be she yourself?"
Adrian was silent. " Besides," re-
sumed Bird, " in such a case one
must proceed by the facts. If you
allow yourself to believe to begin
with, that anybody — anybody, I
don't care who, — my own sister;
the worst thief in the city, — either
is guilty or is not, you are pretty
sure to blunder. There's only one
line to follow : keep your eyes wide
open ; find out every thing you can ;
reason as you go along ; but be ready
to throw away all your conclusions
at the very last moment if the facts
balance the other way."
"I should kill myself, I think,"
said Adrian, " rather than to follow
a business where I had to be ready
to think ill of everybody."
"Oh, you must be equally ready
to think well of anybody" answered
the detective, with an emphasis that
doubled his meaning ; " and I guess
you'd find that the most surprising
part. But I think what I enjoy is,
getting at the facts."
" Then you do really enjoy the
business ? "
" You couldn't coax me to follow
any other," was the reply ; " I love
it so that I perfectly understand why
a thief won't stop stealing. Katy is
about as fond of it as I am. — Well ;
the person I have been shadowing is
as cunning as the Old Scratch, and
in spite of us we couldn't make our
arrangements fetch. Now the charac-
ters of these two young ladies are very
different, and I reasoned that while
Mr. Van Braam was so ill, if I had his
daughter locked up, she was a person
who would tell a perfectly straight
story one way or another, in order to
get back to the old gentleman, and so
I tried it. I don't know of any thing,
at present, that would make the
other open that tight mouth of hers.
But Miss Van Braam was to have
been detained with the matron at
head-quarters, not locked up in a cell
at the station, and I should have talked
with her and made every thing right
that afternoon if I had not been
hurt."
" How came you in that room, any
how?" asked Adrian.
" Oh, I had a little money and
some papers that I couldn't very well
lose," answered Bird, with a smile
and a gesture to his breast pocket, —
"I came along after the fire had got
well agoing, and slid up by the side
door. I was getting out all right
when something hit me a tremendous
bang on the head, and I didn't know
any thing more until I woke up in
the bed here. Slight concussion of
the brain, they said ; a very dan-
gerous blow."
" Well, what struck you ? "
" I can't think of any thing except
this : I was passing before that tall
wardrobe of mine, and I remember
that just before I was hit, a second
stream of water came flying bang
through the window. It must have
hit my big plaster Shakspeare on
top of the wardrobe and upset it on
me. It wasn't convenient to investi-
gate, but that's m}' theory. — So now,
last of all, here come you and Katy,
who got excited and dropped her
Irish, and I had to explain. And as
you were so good as to get me out
of that furnace, I can't very well do
less than to help you out of your
annoyance, so far as necessary. You
and the doctor have done it already
though, for what I see. There's no
danger except whatever risk there is of
the newspapers getting hold of it. I
see no names in the police reports this
morning ; and I guess we can manage
it now, without exposing anybody."
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
251
"But the proof you spoke of?"
said Adrian.
"Oh, yes. — This shawl has the
private mark that Jenks & Trainor
have had stitched into an immense
quantity of their fine goods, this six
months. When a purchase is made,
the cash boy goes to the cashier
with the money and a ticket, and
the goods are taken at the same time
to be checked off and tied up. They
took out the private mark when they
did up the goods, so that if an article
from their store has the mark on it,
it's almost certain that it was stolen.
They can tell what invoice the shawl
was from, and nearly when it was
taken, too. I have studied all their
fine goods this good while ; I recog-
nized that cashmere the moment I
saw it. When Katy said that Miss
Van Braam gave it to her, I couldn't
help my thoughts, though I wondered
at it's being so dirty ; but when you
explained that it came to Miss Van
Braam from that Barnes woman and
to her from Miss Button — why, I
guess it's a pretty clear case."
" But consider the situation, won't
you ? " remonstrated Adrian. " Mr.
Button may be dying this moment ;
he's effectually broken down, the doc-
tor says, even if he lives. As for his
son, you know what's the matter with
him. — Are you really going to try to
make the family any more trouble ? "
" Oh no, — make yourself easy.
Mr. Button must pay Jenks &
Trainor's bill, and the young lady
must keep her fingers to herself in
future, that's all. Nobody wants to
make any scandal."
" What about the lace ? " asked
Adrian.
" I've no doubt in my own mind,"
said the detective, " that the thief
put that in among Miss Van Braam's
parcels — You said she had a good
many that day, Katy ? "
eight at least ; the lace was rolled up
small amongst them, but not pa-
pered."
Adrian now remembered the sug-
gestion that Katy had made to
Civille at Mr. Button's, viz., that
if Civille had missed any thing, she,
Katy, could account for it.
" So you found this among Civille's
parcels," he said, " and you were
hinting it to her in Mr. Button's
supper-room that evening ? — But I
remember her answering very quietly
that she hadn't missed any thing;
what did you conclude from that ? "
"We thought," said the young
lady, " that either she knew nothing
about the lace, or that she knew how
to appear exactly as if she did not."
" It was a sharp dodge," said
Bird ; " and it would leave me doubt-
ful now if it wasn't for this shawl."
" Well," remarked Adrian reflec-
tively ; " I suppose that when you
spoke to Katy on the stairs at Mr.
Button's on the evening of the party,
it was to arrange about the supper-
room question ? "
They laughed. " Yes," said Bird.
"I didn't think anybody would see
that, Chester. You have a quick
eye and a quick wit. You'd do well
in our business."
" No," said Adrian, " I'd as soon
live in the sewers. — Beg pardon, I
didn't mean any thing against those
that like it."
" A difference of opinion makes
horse-races," answered Bird, " as
they say in Kentucky. No harm."
There was a little further conver-
sation, during which it was arranged
that Bird should see the police
authorities and other parties in in-
terest, so as to give an official and
final character to the provisional
arrangements which had been already
effected about the charge of theft.
252
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
Bird said he should stay one day
more at the hospital, as the physician
recommended a day's quiet ; but that
he was promised that he should he
all right next morning. It was
further agreed that Katy should at
once make some further researches
which she said had occurred to her
as worth trying. " What are they ? "
asked Adrian. Katy shook her
head. "I don't know that it will
amount to any thing," she said ; " if
it does, " —
Bird smiled. " I'm a phrenologist,"
he observed, " thoroughly for the in-
side of the head, and a good deal for
the outside."
" I am too," said Adrian ; " but
what is the point ? "
" Oh, only this: secretiveness is even
more important for a detective than
for a criminal, because he has the
criminal's secretiveness to overcome.
!Now no secretive person likes to tell
what he is going to do ; it's all he
can bear to tell what he has done.
That's all; so Katy's shaking her
head is a kind of official announce-
ment. Besides, I sometimes almost
think that it kills the life of a plan
to name it."
" That's very true," commented
Adrian, as he got up ; "a purpose is
like an egg ; if you break the shell,
it spoils very quickly ; if there isn't
a chicken then, there never will
be."
'■' Correct," said Bird : " good morn-
ing — by-bye, Katy ; see you to-
morrow at nine o'clock, at the other
place." And off they went.
Adrian accompanied Katy nearly
home, and then leaving her to go and
report to Civille, — but borrowing
the shawl, — went to Dr. Veroil's, and
not finding him, to Mr. Button's.
Here ne asked for the doctor, and
was shown into the parlor, where in
a few moments Veroil came down to
him.
" How is he ?" asked Adrian.
" Has rather more Command of the
left side, according to the usual rule
of re-actions in such cases," said the
physician. " The first shock of the
attack disarranges the whole system ;
then there is a partial recovery — if
any — as far as the vital forces of the
patient can repair the evil ; the ex-
tent of this recovery measures th'3
real violence of the attack ; and then
the system waits for the next assault,
like a besieged fort for the opening
of the second parallel, after it has
been unable to prevent the estab-
lishment of the first."
" Is there never any recovery ? "
" I have never known a complete
recovery. Quiet and trifling occupa-
tions, comfort, the diet almost of a
baby, have often prolonged life ; but
a stroke ends the furious activities
of the Man. — But have you seen
Bird ? "
Adrian, in reply gave a brief sum-
mary of the interview. The doctor
listened with much interest, nodding
at the revelation of the complicity of
Katy, as much as to say, "I said so
this morning" — but staring with
amused surprise at the account of the
gutta-percha remains of the supposed
Olds.
"Why," he said, "this Bird's a
perfect Phoenix; he rises out of the
ashes of his predecessor younger and
handsomer ! "
" Here's the shawl," said Adrian.
The doctor's face grew serious, as he
examined the soiled cashmere with
that interest which attaches to things,
as well as to persons, that have been
significant instruments. A servant
entered the room, and said to Adrian,
"If you please, Mr. Button says he
must see you."
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
;0;
"Very well," said the young man.
'' I don't know whether it is very
well," said the doctor, discontentedly,
'• but I suppose it must he so. He is
so excessively irritable that it will he
worse to say no than yes, probably.
He can speak this morning, but very
indistinctly. And Adrian, don't be
startled at his looks. And what-
ever he wants to know, we'll let him
know it. It can't make much differ-
ence. — he may as well have his own
way, as far as we can make it so. He
won't find he'll have much of it, at
the hands of those two ladies, I
guess ! "
And the two men went up stairs
to the sick-room.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
A certain horror is a just conclu-
sion by logic of facts, at all suffering
or misfortune whatever. No death is
strictly appropriate, according to per-
fect humanity, except the quiet and
welcome death of old age. Accord-
ingly, what we feel at knowing or
witnessing such a death, has nothing
of horror, but only a natural ap-
prehension at the transition into a
new state of existence. Every other
death is violent, because it is prema-
ture ; it is the failure of an organism
to complete its full cycle ; the ex-
tinction of an immature life ; the
hurrying of a soul into a new phase
before it has duly ripened in the ex-
periences of the previous one. This
disappointment corresponds to, and
renders natural, the startled feeling,
the horror, which is more or less ex-
perienced, at violent deaths, at deaths
of young persons, of the strong and
active.
The like truth is involved in the
horror which is felt at witnessing the
sufferings or sickness of others ; suf-
fering and sickness are violations of
the natural state of man, who was
meant to be well and happy. As
grown persons can reason and resist
and endure, we are less agonized at
their suffering. But the sickness of
infants impresses us with a peculiar
pain, almost as if the soft helpless
little things were wantonly tortured.
In the next degree to this sympa-
thetic pain over infants who suffer,
comes that which is felt from the suf-
ferings of strong or healthy people
whose life is yet unexpended in them,
and who are therefore in some obscure
way felt to have some title of some
kind to the enjoyment of their natu-
ral activities.
Without any articulate statement
or distinct consciousness of all this,
it was" such an instinctive pain which
quietly settled upon Adrian as he
followed Dr. ■ Veroil to the bedside.
Although he carefully set his counte-
nance to look cheerful, in accordance
with the spirit of the physician's cau-
tion, he could scarcely help a shiver as
he saw the distorted features of the
man whom he had left the day before so
powerful, so active, so resolute, so full
of purpose and of multiplied plans, of
conscious abounding ability to exe-
cute them all. — One side of the bluff,
broad face was sunk and blighted by
the frightful half-death of the disease ;
the eye was" shut, the mouth drawn
down. The other eye was open, and
moved restlessly ; tremors of nervous
irritation flitted now and then across
the visage ; the left hand, lying out-
side the bed-clothes, moved uneasily.
As Adrian came up to the bedside,
the sick man, looking up to him, ut-
tered thick and indistinct sounds,
which only an ear as quick as Adrian's,
or as experienced as the physician's,
could understand to be a greeting ?
what he tried to say was,
254
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
" Glad to see you, Adrian. Didn't
expect this. Last of me, I guess."
And the enfeebled left hand dragged
towards him over the bed-clothes.
Adrian pressed it gently, and held it
a few moments ; and then he ex-
changed salutations with Mrs. Button
and with Ann, who sat in gloomy
grandeur at the further side of the
bed.
" Send away the women," said the
sick man, in the same painful strug-
gling imperfect way.
Mrs. Button remonstrated, with a
good deal of sharpness. " I don't
choose to be absent from my hus-
band's bedside at such a time," she
said. " It's my right and my duty
to be here. Besides, I expect Dr.
Toomston every moment, to pray with
us."
" And anint me with ile ? " said
the sick man, indistinctly. " Let 'em
stay then. Worse for them. Doctor,
got a little while ? "
Dr. Veroil nodded.
"Writing things," said Mr. But-
ton.
" Oh, he is certainly quite incom-
petent to make a will," said Mrs.
Button, who was not very profound
on the subject of medical jurispru-
dence. It was evident that the pa-
tient was irritated at this resistance
to his wish, for his face flushed, and
he repeated with more distinctness,
as if his passion almost subdued his
disease,
" Writing things."
"Be quiet," said the doctor — "be
quiet, or you'll put yourself where you
can't do any tiling. You shall have
it just as you like, but don't you get
excited, — And ladies, you will resist
Mr. Button's wishes at your peril,"
he continued, with that prompt stern-
ness of his which seemed so out of
harmony with his ordinary genial
and jovial ways — " Let us have the
writing things instantly. If not," —
With a most bitter bad grace, Mrs.
Button brought a writing desk. Doc-
tor Veroil made ready to write.
" Write after me, doctor," said Mr.
Button ; and he dictated, two or three
words at a time, as follows :
Dear Civille : I got you into the trou-
ble at Jenks & Trainor's. It was I who did
it all. My father saw ine at it. It brought
on his attack. I ask your pardon.
" Oil, he's quite out of his head,"
said Mrs. Button, impatiently ; "that's
all nonsense. His father ! he died
forty years ago ! he's perfectly de-
mented ! "
"All down? "said the sick man.
Either the continuous exercise of his
faculties and his organs was making
it easier to use them, or else the
leaden hand of the disease was relax-
ing its hold, or else the steady power-
ful will of the man, intensifying and
multiplying its force with the con-
sciousness of an important occasion,
was fighting its way up against the
awful burden of paralysis : at any
rate, he spoke with greater clearness.
" All down," responded the writer.
" Ann, copy that and sign it," said
Mr. Button.
Ann Button gave a start; rose
from her chair ; sat down again ; cast
down her eyes, set her lips together,
and was silent.
" Ann, copy that and sign it," re-
peated her father.
"Anjesinthy Button," said her
mother, " I forbid your doing any such
thing."
The girl neither spoke nor moved.
" All right," said Mr. Button :
" take another sheet." The doctor
did so. " Write again." And he
dictated again :
To all whom it may concern : I hereby
constitute and appoint Adrian Scrope
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
255
Chester of Hartford, State of Connecticut,
my general agent and attorney, with full
powers —
There was a start of surprise by all
the company. "He can't execute
any thing," said Mrs. Button, in a
moment, with decision, — "he can't
sign any tiling, anyhow."
Adrian was about to speak, but Mr.
Button cast towards him a look of in-
describable anxiety and beseeching.
"Don't fail me, Adrian," he said.
"Wait a little, at any rate," re-
marked the doctor. Adrian felt the
force both of the patient's imploring
look, and of Mrs. Button's grimly
practical comment ; and he nodded
assent. Mr. Button resumed :
— full powers to take charge of all my
property and business of every kind, and
to consult with me and report to me exclu-
sively but no further than his own discre-
tion may suggest; and to and with no one
else unless he wishes, and to make for me
all purchases and sales; and to execute and
sign for me all deeds, agreements and instru-
ments necessary for managing my said prop-
erty and for acting with a> full authority
as I could have in and about my said busi-
ness. Said Chester to sign as such attorney
as follows: T. Button, by Chester atty.
And my first purpose in this appointment
is that said Chester shall as soon as possible
dispose of my publishing business to the
best advantage and invest the proceeds in a
safe and permanent manner, and to pay over
quarterly one half the net income of my said
business or property to the order of my wife,
and to invest the other half at his discretion
as my said attorney, in the manner afore-
said. And I hereby declare in case of my
death that I make and proclaim this as my
last will and testament; and in particular I
declare that my daughter Ann has this day
in my presence refused to write and sign
as I required, and that I therefore will and
direct that my wife shall receive from my
estate after my death only what the law
would give her as dower if I died intestate,
and that I leave nothing to my children,
expecting their mother to support them;
and I give and bequeath in consequence
of my said daughter's said refusal, one half
of all the rest of my property real and
personal over and above such legal dower
to the Eleventh Presbyterian Church, now
known as Dr. Toomston's church, as a fund
for the maintenance of said church and
its charities, to be held and administered
like the other property of said church;
and the other half of said property over
and above said dower I give and bequeath
in consequence' of my said daughter's said
refusal, to Civille Van Braam, daughter of
Adrian Scrope Van Braam of New York
City, in token of my beli#f in her goodness.
But if my said daughter had obeyed me,
then my will would have been to leave my
whole estate in three equal parts ; one
third part to my said wife for herself; one
third part to my said wife in trust to be used
at her discretion for the support of my son
William; and one third part to my said
daughter Ann for herself. And said Chester
is to receive nothing for services as execu-
tor in case of my death ; and for services as
my said agent and attorney he is to receive
one ronth of the net income of my property
and business, to be paid quarterly upon a
quarterly balance-sheet. And I will and
request that in case of his acting as such
executor, no bonds be required of him as
such executor.
The sick man paused, and ap-
peared to reflect. Having done so,
he said,
"Read."
Dr. Veroil read the whole instru-
ment, deliberately and distinctly.
The listening of the two women
was a phenomenon of intensity. At
the clauses which were to give the
young attorney such absolute and un-
controlled authority — uncontrolled
even by the owner himself — of the
great possessions of the capitalist, an
expression of contemptuous anger
crossed Mrs. Button's face ; and this
was repeated more plainly at the
provisions respecting the alternative
testamentary dispositions of the es-
tate. And at these last, Miss Ann
Button, looking up from the floor for
the first time since her silent dis-
obedience to her father's command,
showed full as angry an interest as
her mother. An unlovely pair of
faces !
"Anjesinthy, step this waj'," said
Mrs. Button, and the two women went
256
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
to the window and consulted in whis-
pers.
" Ring bell," said Mr. Button. A
servant came.
"Bring another," said the sick
man. " Witnesses," he added. Two
of the servants were soon at hand.
" Pat seal," said Mr. Button. Dr.
Veroil affixed opposite the place for
signing, the usual representative of
the ancient seal.
"Lift me up," said Mr. Button.
Tluj' did so. "Put the desk here,"
he said. The writing desk, with the
paper on it was laid upon his knees
as he sat up among the pillows.
" Pen," he said. Veroil looked
surprised. " Left hand," said But-
ton, with inexpressible resolution in
his voice and his face. Without a
word, Dr. Veroil dipped the pen in
the ink, placed it in the trembling
left hand of the sick man, laid the
hand upon the paper, and was going
to guide it.
" No. Alone. My act and deed,"
said Mr. Button; and with an effort
concentrated and intense far beyond
the steady resolution which had ena-
bled him to dictate the instrument it-
self, he traced upon the paper, slowly,
awkwardly, but without stopping
once, a tangle of heavy, shaken, spat-
tery lines, in which could neverthe-
less be recognized the signature of
" Tarbox Button."
" I declare this to be my free act
and deed," he said, " and I execute
and deliver it as my last will and tes-
tament ; " and he fell back, silent and
exhausted. The servants signed as
witnesses, as Dr. Veroil directed them,
and the doctor himself signed after
them. Mrs. Button and Ann were
meanwhile absorbed in their discus-
sion ; Doctor Veroil, having folded
the paper, gave it to Adrian.
" The power is executed, ladies,"
said the doctor. " Permit me to urge
you to comply with Mr. Button's wish
in regard to this note."
He spoke with emphasis, and even
the two angry foolish women were
startled into attention.
" He can't write a word," said Mrs.
Button. " What do you mean, doc-
tor ? "
" Perhaps he could not at this mo-
ment," said Dr. Veroil, with a com-
passionate glance at the distorted
face on the pillow. "But he has will
enough for ten men. He signed with
the left hand. It's the greatest tri-
umph of mind over matter that I
ever saw. If he could only inject it
into the nerves of the right side
again ! But I fear the bridge is bro-
ken down that way. See here,
madam. Look, Miss Button."
And taking the document from
Adrian, he stepped round and showed
the signature, the witnesses' names,
the seal, to the astonished women ; and
with intelligent adaptation, he read
aloud the part calculated to impress
them most, the caption over the wit-
nesses' names, with its legal verbosity :
" Signed, sealed and delivered as his
free act and deed and as his last will
and testament, in the presence of the
following witnesses, who have signed
their names as such witnesses in the
presence of the said Tarbox But-
ton."
Mrs. Button and her daughter ex-
amined in silence the inky tangle of
shaking sprawling lines. But the
tremendous will of the sick man,
shattered as was its bodily tabernacle
and instrument, had too plainly delin-
eated the letters of his name, even
amidst the darkness and weakness of
his overmastering disease, to permit
the shadow of a real doubt or contra-
diction, however mutinous the disposi-
tion might be. But neither of the
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
257
women was deficient in obstinacy nor
in cunning.
" I'll consider upon it, doctor," said
Mrs. Button ; " I'll give you an an-
swer to-morrow. You'll leave the
paper for me to examine at leisure,
won't }'ou ? "
" A copy, certainly, madam," was
the polite — and prudent — reply, and
a copy was made in a few minutes, and
with a grave how was handed to Mrs.
Button. This done, the doctor made
a careful and detailed examination of
his patient; gave explicit directions
not to have him disturbed; arranged
to send proper nurses ; and was tak-
ing leave, when the sick man, open-
ing the one eye that he could move,
muttered something.
" What is it? " said the physician,
bending over him.
" I've got 'em, — they'll come to
it," said Mr. Button, feebly.
" Yes, they will," said the doctor.
" I want the Van Braams to stay
in the old house," continued Button.
"Well, I guess we can arrange it,"
said the doctor ; and with a kind
farewell to the patient and a polite
one to the ladies, he turned to leave
the room. "I'll come in one moment,
doctor," said Adrian. He stepped
round the bed to where Mrs. Button
and Ann were still talking in whis-
pers.. They both looked at him with
a sullen anger, hateful enough to see.
" Ann," said he, handing her the par-
cel which he had kept with him, —
" there's the shawl which you gave
Mrs. Barnes " —
" I don't want it," said the girl,
sourly.
" But Mrs. Barnes gave it to Ci-
ville, and Civille to Katy, that lived
here with you for a while; and Katy
is a detective, and the shawl has
Jenks & Trainor's private mark on
it" —
She seized it promptly enough now.
And Adrian, bowing, followed the
physician, for he expected that this
glimpse of her position would have
more influence upon the young
woman than a fuller explanation of
it ; and he was not unwilling that she
shonld be able to destroy this mate-
rial proof against herself. He did
not much consider, nor care, whether
he had a strictly legal right to give
her the shawl, and he meant the gift
to be a hint of his own good will.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
"Fear is moral rum," remarked
Veroil, as the two men walked away
from Mr. Button's. " I bullied those
women. I've done it before. But
you whip an ugly boy who is poison-
ing your school, if you cannot wait
for more healthy moral regimen.
Once well stimulated into obedience,
the diet of health will probably serve.
If he falls into another moral col-
lapse, intoxicate him again, if neces-
sary. Fear is prompt. Love is grad-
ual. For barbarians, for brutes two-
legged or four-legged, fear may be
absolutely indispensable. Wisdom
requires, not the absolute disuse of it,
but the substitution of higher mo-
tives as soon as possible. These fel-
lows who want the rowdy boys of the
public schools of a great city like
New York to know that there will be
no whipping, are offering a little
sweet oil to an ugly beast. Very
likely a white hot poker to sear his
nose will hardly keep him off you."
Adrian, assenting to the doctrine,
further expressed his surprise at the
readiness and efficiency of the phy-
sician in taking charge not only of
the person but of the family and busi-
ness of the patient all together.
" Oh," said Veroil, " it was rather
!58
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
irregular, no doubt. But a doctor
might as well be ready to be clergy-
man and lawyer, in a case like this,
where he is a kind of personal friend
also, and where the questions are so
mixed. It wouldn't do, in this case,
for instance, to send for a lawyer ;
that Mrs. Button, I mean, —
would have made trouble ; the patient
was very irritable and weak ; and the
sudden way I guess was the only way
to do it. I believe those women
would have committed any crime ne-
cessary — on the spur of the moment
at any rate — to prevent executing
that paper in your pocket.''
" I don't like to think that," said
Adrian : " is that all their religion
can do for them ? "
" Their religion is perfectly genu-
ine and sincere," said the physician.
" But religion does not necessarily
imply intelligence, however useful the
two are to each other. And these
women, having feeble intellects and
enormous selfish instincts, are liable
to be carried to any extreme by an
evil impulse that pushes them in the
right time and place. Under advice,
possibly on reflection alone, their case
might be different. I used prompt-
ness and sternness, and forestalled
them. Or rather I helped do so. But-
ton is the man who has effectually
beaten them. Wonderful! wonder-
ful ! "
The doctor's admiration was per-
fectly just. A physician is of small
account unless he is a psj^chologist ;
and Veroil was an ardent lover of his
profession, and by that and by in-
stinct also, a student of souls. Adri-
an was almost equally fond of mental
philosophy. Knowing the helpless-
ness of the bodiless metaphysics —
that mere ghost that turns somersets
on a trapeze in the clouds — he had
studied the physical emplacement of
the soul as well as he could. So the
two men, though from different sides,
were almost equally enthusiastic over
the marvellous power of mind which
Mr. Button had shown.
" See," said the admiring doctor:
"could there be a more volcanic ex-
plosion of that idiotic doctrine that
the soul is only a phase of matter !
Here the man's matter is smashed.
For what I know he has a second
stroke at this very moment ! " — Ve-
roil spoke with so much earnestness,
and stopped short on the sidewalk
and faced round on Adrian so sudden-
ly, that the young man actually
thought Mr. Button had the stroke
— " at this very moment, and the sec-
ond or third will make a dead certain-
ty of him — and just see what he
laid out in his mind. The key to it
all is a sense of justice. Nobody
could have imagined — at least I
didn't, that the rough fellow had so
much nobility in him. He has
planned out, first to do complete jus-
tice to Civille at the expense of his
own child ; second, to do complete
justice to you ; he must think very
highly of your business abilities and
morals too, young man, to give you
such a power as that — and thirdly,
to do complete justice to his own
family ; for if they do what is right,
they are to have the whole estate.
And consider the shrewdness of the
means. Those two women are as ugly
and selfislyind obstinate and cunning,
— well, as beasts. So he fights them
with their own natures. The girl
has stolen and borne false witness; if
she confesses it she will be rich and
independent ; if she refuses she will
be poor, and wholly dependent upon
her mother, and the woman she tried
to ruin will have her money. And if
Mrs. Button does not succeed in in-
ducing Ann to do right, she loses more
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
259
than half her fortune. And hoth of
them, by obeying orders, and doing
justice, will secure their own wealth,
and will reduce your authority to the
minimum. I confess that I doubt
wl) ether you and I together could
rave contrived so efficient a machine,
^11 alive and well as we are, as that
poor fellow with his half-dead brain !
And he knew that talking wouldn't
do any good ; so he wasted no time
in that ; he justed the thing. Why,
it was a manoeuvre as masterly as
Austerlitz or Salamanca! And then
what a clean piece of work ! Not
very technical in form, but that in-
strument will stand, I tell you ! I
know enough of such things to see
that. It's a very neatly worded pa-
per ! "
" I only observed one thing to add,"
said Adrian; "there is no clear pro-
vision for terminating my authority.
But I shall not do any thing without
consulting Mr. Button, and his law-
yer too ; and if the business is settled
and the women do as he says, I can
transfer the property to them and sur-
render the trust. But doctor, one
question : — How came Mr. Button
to know about Civille ? "
"Oh, Ann had hinted something to
him on her side of the question ; and
when he caught her at the store, he
saw the rest of it plain enough. He
knew she was arrested, because I
told him this morning."
By this time they had reached Ve-
roil's office, where a company of pa-
tients — impatients, perhaps, they
should be called by this time — were
waiting in the anteroom. In a few
moments' further consultation it was
decided that Adrian should take no
steps under his power of attorney
until after a definite reply from Mrs.
Button and Ann. It was obvious
enough that he must proceed, when he
did so, upon full consultation with Mr.
Button's own confidential legal ad-
viser; and these points having been
agreed on, the doctor went in to his
prescriptions, and Adrian hastened to
Mr. Van Braam's.
He found the old gentleman quite
cheerful, and evidently on the way to
a complete recovery. A full and ex-
plicit conversation with Civille had
relieved the poor old gentleman of
the terrors and pains which had done
so much to throw him into what the
doctor called a typhoid fever ; al-
though he cried a little over her ac-
count of her experience at the hands
of the law, lightly as she touched it.
Probably his sojourn in the upper
room had done him good, by the mere
substitution of a somewhat purer air
for the close and vitiated air of his
parlor. Probably the opportune de-
linquency of Adrian in respect of his
duties as nurse had contributed some-
what to the convalescence. At the
moment when Adrian came in, the
work of nature was being assisted
by some cream toast, cold roast
lamb and black tea, which Civille
was ministering, as Miss Katy Bird
had left them bright and early that
morning ; and of which Adrian, on
invitation, partook with a fine appe-
tite, for it was late dinner-time.
While they ate, Adrian supplied his
contribution to their knowledge of
the situation, " exchanging wisdom
for refreshment," remarked Mr. Van
Braam, "like the angel Raphael at
Adam and Eve's lunch in Paradise."
" Giving orations for rations," said
Adrian.
" He o'd the balance," said Civille.
The two men reproached her for fol-
lowing their example.
When Adrian, in his recital, came
to the description of the relics which
he had found on the bed in Olds'
260
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
room, Mr. Van Braam, though struck
with the intensity of the situation,
remarked with coolness, " I'm glad he's
dead ; " and when in the progress of
the story it turned out that he was
not, he was rather discontented.
Adrian doubted somewhat in his
mind what to say about the scene at
Mr. Button's ; hut on the whole he
thought best to tell it all ; for he
knew very well that he was talking
to a safe audience. The picture
which Adrian described was a strik-
ing one, for he possessed a very fair
talent for describing. The summary
analysis which he subjoined of the
evident object of Mr. Button, was
even more effective, and it prevailed
even over the ohstinate and constitu-
tional dislike of Mr. Van Braam, to
some extent.
" I don't like him," he said, " and
I never shall ; I can't ; and I won't
stay in his house a day after I have a
hole to hide in. But he has done a
just and manly action. I like that."
Civille agreed to the admiration,
and she added her love. " He always
liked me," she said — "I know it :
I'm so sorry for him ! I wish so I
could make him well again ! " But she
was as anxious as her father to get
away from the house. And they
united in an absolute and almost
angry refusal to receive any portion
whatever of Mr. Button's estate on
any terms. This, Adrian said, was
right, but he reminded them that the
gift could only take effect after Mr.
Button's death ; that it was only a
contingent one, conditioned upon
Ann's obstinacy in disobedience ; and
that being by will, it was revocable at
any time during the testator's life, if
he retained his mind. Thus, he con-
vinced them, silence for the present
might do good and could not do
harm.
THs point thus decided, Civille
and her father were the more anx-
ious to escape from their present dom-
icile; and the general question of
ways and means was almost of neces-
sity brought (so to speak) before the
house.
" Well, my boy," said the old gen-
tleman, " I have almost always con-
trived to have a hundred or two in
the bank, but that won't go far in
New York ; and besides, I haven't
got it, at present. — We can sell the
furniture."
" I can raise money enough to last
us a while," said Adrian — " the old
house at Hartford is done for, you
know, — there'll be something paid for
that. Then I suppose I must have a
pretty handsome income from this
trusteeship, unless I should destroy
the property " —
" All that's none of my business,"
said Mr. Van Braam with one sort of
gruffness.
" Won't you let it be my pleasure
then ? " said Adrian — " you know
you would do so for my aunt and me.
Let us have our turn first, that's all."
Civille, who sat near Adrian, qui-
etly put out her little hand and
clasped it upon his. He started, and
looked at her with shining eyes.
" That's different," replied the old
man. " Oh, — it's a horrible thing
to have to be helped ! " And he
groaned and twisted himself in the
bed. It is true ; it is frightful, for
a man, to be helped instead of help-
ing himself.
" At any rate," concluded Adrian,
after considerable discussion, — " at
any rate, my dear sir, you can't go
quite yet ; and if you allow me, I'll
look you up a place." As he spoke,
an idea arose in his mind which he
almost uttered on the spot. It made
him give Civille's hand a sudden little
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
261
squeeze, which puzzled her, for she
thought it meant " You understand ! "
and she did not understand. But it
meant only itself. It was agreed
accordingly that ' the young man
should try his luck at house-hunting.
" Besides," said Mr. Van Braam,
all at once, hitching the conjunction
however to a link some little ways
back in the chain of conversation, —
" it would take some time to raise
money on real estate, even if we
could give security for it. And we
want some at once. Bent must he
paid in advance in this city. It costs
terribly to move, Adrian ; — I know I
could be carried — at any rate, to-day,
if I had a place to go to. And I
don't believe that we three have
twenty-five dollars in cash, available
at this moment."
It was true. The habitual indif-
ference of Mr. Van Braam to money
considerations, the exhaustion by his
illness of the trifling savings he
might have put aside, the loss of his
secretaryship, left him almost penni-
less. On Adrian's part the loss of
his position, the narrowness of his
own means, the amount, considerable
for him, which he had been expend-
ing right and left during his few
but sufficiently busy days in New
York, had almost emptied his pockets.
As for Civille, the dear child had
nothing. "I have some rich rela-
tions," said the old gentleman, after
a rather disagreeable pause — " and
Adrian, I'll tell you what ; if you'll
undertake to get them to do some-
thing for Civille and me now, I'll let
you repay them if we can't, when the
time comes. That would do, per-
haps."
" Oh, father, you mean over at
Belleville ? " said the young lady.
" Yes. Old Philipp Van Booraem
has kept his Dutch name and his
Dutch nature too, better than I. I'm
Scrope. He's Van Booraem. I
haven't communicated with him nor
his wife this fifty years," continued
the old gentleman. " I know they're
alive, that's all ; and they are rich."
"Oh, I'll try it," said Adrian,
cheerfully. " I'm not afraid tc have
a man say no to me," he added. " I
must try to see Bird at once, too ;
he's likely to know of some house or
some real estate agency ; and by the
way I agreed to call at Purvis's
to-day. I'll go over to Belleville
to-morrow morning, and I'll see you
as soon as I get back."
CHAPTER XXXIX.
The ten days next following the
day of Civille's release and of Mr.
Button's coup d'etat, were to a cer-
tain extent days of suspense to Mr.
Van Braam and to Civille. Adrian
returned the next day from his expe-
dition to Belleville, and reported with
the grave brevity of one who makes
the best of a defeat that old Mr. Van
Booraem had refused, not obligingly,
to advance any money whatever.
This report Mr. Van Braam received
with much equanimity, saying that it
was like the old gentleman. Adrian
went on to observe that he was in
hopes he had heard of a nice place for
them already, but that he must wait
a while, and as the dictionary men
advertise, " get the best."
"Well," said Mr. Van Braam,
" when you find a place you and
Civille may go and consult over it ;
if it suits you it will suit me."
Adrian reported further that he
had made an arrangement of a strict-
ly business nature with Mr. Purvis,
which would enable him to provide
for the expenses of removing and
re-establishing the household gods
262
Scrope ; or, The Lost Librar t
without any inconvenience. " You
shall owe it and pay it, interest and
all," he said, "just as extortionately
as you like ; you won't refuse me
that, I am sure ? "
This was all correct and reason-
able ; but still, thought Civille —
However, she did not quite think it,
either; it was one of those faint,
faint impressions^ that are only re-
membered afterwards, like those paths
across the Scottish moors which can
only be seen from the distance, so
imperceptibly do their color and sur-
face differ from the rest of the ex-
panse. So she said nothing, but with
a curious serious smile, offered Adrian
an envelope. " I got it this noon,"
she said ; " read it." He did so. It
was the note from Ann Button. " I
kept it to show you," said she ; " now
I will burn it."
" Wait," said Adrian — " I don't
know. Burning would not be so
good a plan as to return it to her to
be destroyed. She would be certain
then. But even then, she might
fancy that you had kept a copy.
And besides — On the whole, Civille,
it will be safest for yourself to keep it
for the present." Mr. Van Braam
was of the same opinion ; and the
note was kept.
Apropos of Ann Button's note, two
other pieces of information were forth-
coming. Civille told Adrian that she
had learned that morning from Dr.
Veroil that Jenks & Trainor had sent
in a bill to Mr. Button "for sundries
supplied at sundry dates," which Mr.
Button had ordered paid. And Adrian
told Civille that he had met Katy
Bird in the street — somewhat, he
added, as if she had been waiting for
him, — and had learned from her that
her plan of campaign had been alto-
gether successful. Her idea had been
suggested to her by the shawl of Mrs.
Barnes. She had ascertained from
some of the church officers the names
of all the children of Ann's Sunday
School class, and of a considerable
number of the parents of infants ac-
commodated at the Shadowing Wings.
Amongst these honest folks the detec-
tive lady had found a great harvest
of gifts, all proceeding from Miss Ann
Button ; being divers sorts of goods
from Jenks & Trainor's, and some
books, probably selected on similar
principles at bookstores. This system
of gifts Miss Bird had concluded, ex-
plained the circumstance which had
so thoroughly puzzled herself and her
brother; to wit that while a stolen
article had absolutely been found in
Civille's possession, not the least
trace of any such thing could be dis-
covered at Mr. Button's, " though "
Miss Bird had remarked with graphic
energy " I raked every inch of that
house from garret to cellar with a
fine-tooth comb." The same cunning
which had served to escape so long
the eager watchfulness of merchants
and police, had suggested the effec-
tive method of promptly dispersing
all acquisitions among the obscure and
unsuspected multitude of church ben-
eficiaries, whose shiftless habits and
rough usage would rapidly destroy
them. Thus the stream of these un-
sanctified benefactions had been sink-
ing silently into the desert of poverty,
as some desert rivers spread and dis-
appear into the sandy wastes, without
leaving any mark of life, unless it be
the coarse, rank and worthless sedges
and reeds generated by the salt and
barren ground. Had it not been for
the accidental discovery of the shawl
which Mrs. Barnes had given Civille,
the balance of evidence would in a
certain sense have inclined against
Civille herself. And as Bird had
remarked at the hospital, it was
Scrope ; or, The Lost Lihrary.
263
Jenks & Trainor's own act in causing
Civille's arrest, that had brought the
shawl into the case, and had at once
liberated the innocent and convicted
the guilty. For it was the sight of
the shawl, the knowledge of its trans-
fers, and the consciousness of so many-
other existing proofs of the same
kind, which had vanquished even so
obstinate a will, so limited an intelli-
gence, as those of Ann Button.
Accomplished facts may tell on such
minds ; they certainly do not feel
statements nor arguments nor be-
seech ings. The fact of the shawl
not mentioned but shown — the fact
of the disinheriting, not threatened
but executed — had prevailed to ex-
tort the written confession from a
mind obstinate as glass, bending only
under an intensity of heat that would
destroy most metals into vapor. The
very distortion or defect of this un-
happy child of two strong parents
was a union of their faults ; their
obstinacy, their secretiveness, and
above all their love of gain, had in
their daughter intensified beyond a
healthy power and tone, and had be-
come that species of silent fury, which
is called monomania.
Mr. Button continued in about the
same state. Adrian consulted fully
with his lawyer, a dusty-looking and
dried up person, who shook his head
a good deal over the power of attor-
ney, complaining particularly of the
unlimited trust it conferred, and of
its duplicate nature as power and as
will. But after having himself seen
Mr. Button, and also the doctor; and
after being a good deal consoled by
Adrian's request that he should super-
vise all transactions under the power,
and should charge accordingly, that
it would be safe for Adrian to execute
his trust so far at least as related to
the publishing business ; that is, to
exercise a general supervision over it,
and to dispose of it in case of a good
opportunity. The nomination to Con-
gress was of necessity made over
again, "the candidate, our well known,
popular and energetic fellow-citizen,
T. Button Esq., having been obliged "
— as the papers delicately observed,
" in consequence of a somewhat seri-
ous illness, to withdraw his acceptance.
All parties and persons," the paper
added, "join in hoping for a gen-
tleman so useful and public-spirit-
ed, a speedy and complete recovery."
And thus the political career of the
publisher died before it was born.
Upon the morning of the tenth
day, came Adrian to say that at
last he thought he had found exactly
the place ; and would Civille be
pleased to go and inspect it?
Yes, she would. She was quickly
ready, and the young man escorted
her to one of those neighborhoods
which are as if somebody had planted
a few clean streets for a specimen in
the middle of the careless dirt of New
York. It was on the "west side,"
so called, pretty well up town. As
they went, Adrian began to entertain
Civille with a few conundrums and
other nonsenses, and was merry
before her, insomuch that the young
lady inquired what he had had for
breakfast, and recited to him with a
grave smile,
" Woe to that land whose princes
are drunk in the morning/'
" Wrong, oh princess," said he
with glee. " There's no such saying.
There's a verse in Ecclesiastes, 'Woe
to thee, land, when thy king is a
child, and thy princes eat in the
morning.' This would seem to show
that in Palestine under the Mosaic
dispensation breakfast was an immo-
rality. But as the poet observes, a
better lot has been planned for me.
264
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
Coffee is a glory and a beauty that
not even the Preacher ever dreamed
of; and so is a good United States
breakfast, oh princess. But Civille,
why are you so sober ? "
" I don't know exactly," said she ;
" I don't like to go away from that
solitary old house, and yet I know I
shall be glad when I have got away.
— I guess it must be the mere fact
of the change. Besides, you know I
am a serious person."
"Yes, I do," said Adrian, "you
are. But yet I always have an idea
that you are conscious of the funny
side of things, under your grave face.
I am very often perfectly conscious of
the serious side of things when I am
perhaps making fun about them out-
side."
" Then, Mr. Button's illness, and
his family — I'm so sorry for them ! "
" Why, so am I," said Adrian ;
"that is, I would do any thing I
could — conveniently — to help them
— not so much as you, Civille, for I'm
not so good ; but still, a little. But
all the same, I can't see why I
should be unhappy over them myself.
If I should do a little bit of misery
over every misfortune, I should go hang
in a week. It's not because I'm in-
sensible, Civille ; it's because I'm so
uncommonly delicate and sympa-
thetic, and I have to guard myself
against it."
She looked at him in her grave
sweet way, with her peculiar intro-
verted expression, and said, as if she
were reflecting, rather than speaking,
"You think you are joking, but it
is more like the truth, Adrian."
" Well," said he, " I don't want to
cry this forenoon, any way. I sha'n't
do that unless you dislike the house,
Civille."
" I guess I shall like it, Adrian,"
she said; "I almost always like what
you do."
" Then, dear, please to promise to
like all that you find out to-day I have
done, and all I do to-day too — will
you ? "
The tone, light as he tried to make
it, was shaded with earnestness ; if
he had quite succeeded, she might
perhaps have promised; but with a
feeling not of doubt, not amounting
to shyness — an undefined hesitation,
she looked up at him — saw some-
thing a little eager and anxious in his
eyes, and looked down again, silent.
They walked on, chatting as before,
but with a little less frivolity on the
young man's part. As they ap-
proached the place, Adrian explained
that it was the second floor of one of
those houses built in separate tene-
ments, of late years becoming so com-
mon in New York ; and that he was
afraid she would find the rooms very
scanty and cramped after their whole
house.
"Oh, I don't mind," said she —
" you know we don't give many very
large dancing-parties!"
The house was of brick, and looked
new and clean. It was on a corner,
and the entrance was on the side
street, on the north side.
" The windows look south, east and
west," said Adrian. "The flats lie
cross-ways, through and through the
block, and the party-wall naturally
shuts in the north side of all the
rooms." He opened the outer door
with a pass-key, and showed her up-
stairs. The tenement was soon in-
spected ; it was perfectly clean and
new, none of the floors in that house
having in fact been occupied at all,
Adrian said, except the fourth or up-
permost. There was a parlor, with a
little bedroom off it ; three other
rooms ; and a cosy little kitchen. All
these, by ingenious management,
were lighted from the outside air;
the closets and store-rooms being ar-
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
205
ranged to occupy the darkest part.
" All the modern improvements " were
provided ; gas, water, a snug bath-
room even.
Civille, as they went from one room
to another, expressed a reasonable de-
gree of satisfaction. " You don't like
it quite well enough to suit me," said
Adrian. " Bare walls and floors
always look dreary ; it is like trying
to tell by a skeleton whether it be-
longed to a handsome person. I
knew that would be so, and I hap-
pened to find out that the people in
the floor above have just got it fitted
up and are to move in to-morrow, and
so I got the agent to get me leave to
go in there this morning. We'll go
up and see how the rooms look fur-
nished."
They went up accordingly, and be-
ginning at the kitchen, examined the
whole, in the reverse order from the
floor below. The clean stove, the
new tables, a good ingrain carpet,
pantry and dish closets well fur-
nished, gave the kitchen a look of
comfort. There were beds in the
bed-rooms ; floors were carpeted and
windows were curtained; the dra-
peries and furniture were not new,
but were in that comely, comfortable,
tamed condition, that tells of skilful
and careful use.
" It is almost as if I had been vis-
iting here before," said Civille; "it
wouldn't surprise me to have the
lady of the house open the parlor
door and ask me how I did."
They came to the little parlor that
overlooked the avenue.
" Oh, what a delightful room ! "
said Civille. It was carpeted with a
Brussels carpet, mostly in cool gray,
with some green, and a few lit-
tle sprigs of clear red and spots of
warm brown. The walls were in a
paper of similar tone ; plain dark
shades, with neat lace curtains be-
hind them, were at tie windows.
There was a fire in the stove, and
the room was summery and pleasant.
A book-case rather too large for the
room crossed one end of it, and there
was a piano and a little sofa. The
tables and some of the chairs were
noticeable; they were very old solid
mahogany or cherry, almost black,
and the backs of the chairs were
pierced and carved in elaborate grace-
ful designs. Some modern ones of a
more luxurious if less majestic char-
acter, were however interspersed.
" Sit down and rest you a little,
Civille," said Adrian ; and he led her
to the sofa. — " Well ? "
She looked all around the room :
" How pleasant it is ! " she said.
"Will the rooms down stairs do,
then, when they are furnished, do you
think ? " said he, with some anxiety.
" Why, it's lovely, Adrian, — they
will be lovely," said Civille, and she
blushed with pleasure, and the tears
stood in her eyes. " It's just perfect.
Every thing's so snug and nice ! I
half grudge to have the people come."
" They won't until afternoon," said
the young man, well pleased. " Now
you can tell how differently it will
look down stairs when you get all
your things in there. — Then you are
sure it will do ? "
"Indeed I am, Adrian. Why?"
"Why, the fact is, — I've hired it.
You see, the agent wouldn't give me
much of a refusal, and I consulted my
judgment and decided to run the
risk. But it's a great relief — though
I felt pretty sure. — I'm going to try
the piano, — if they've only been 'sen-
sible enough to leave it unlocked."
They had; and he sat down and
struck a few notes. It was not a pow-
erful instrument, but full and sweet-
toned. He played a waltz or two.
" Sing," said Civille ; and Adrian
sang her "Bessie."
266
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
BESSIE.
-fi-o—
=£
wears a gown of red ; A home - spun gown,
•j _^ !-tH- -J 1 fc- 1 a 1- -i- -* 1- -3 r~3- ~m . ~i~
aS=£
^
3=::
«W-
«t=!
a - pron blue. She has no hat up - on her head, And her
- — ■■«* -^-
™=^ffl=5ffir±t
Bldzpzt^Dctz^t: — ^ :rp= — s~ rp SE * «? — : -1—
[F£
wee brown feet are without a shoe. Bes - sie's hair is like
JfiE *
&fe
-_hiz=it
S£
— « *
^H^sf
sun - set's gold, And her eyes are born of the deep blue sea.
^^^^J^^^^r^
i&ESEEi
^-*-
JScrope; or, The Lost Library.
267
mm
BESSIE— Concluded.
=*3
In their depths is a sto
V— V-
ry told-
^
>-J
S
love Bes - sie, and
§;sa
fct
i=?Et-*-,-
Rallent.
she loves me,
s=g
[H-
love Bessie, and she loves me,
: 3EEEEEEE
i
31
9iffi
eSe£eEEE=W-
]]
Bessie's hands are hard with toil,
And her cheeks are dark with the wind
and rain ;
But her lips are rich with the rosy spoil
That if once I taste I must taste again.
Bessie has never a silken gown,
Nor a crimson hat, nor a necklace fine;
But she wears of cowslips a golden crown
That I'd rather than any queen's were
mine.
" Ah, it's good," said Civille.
" But is it true, Bessie ? " asked
Adrian.
" Love is always true," said she.
— "I wonder what old box that is,
Adrian ? And where's the clock that
I've heard ticking ever since we came
in ? "
She had been studying the room
and its appointments with a sort of
pre-occupation ever since she came
in ; walking round to chair and table
and stopping to inspect and as if to
dream, or rather as if each of the
wooden antiquities in its turn whis-
Bessie's step is light like the fawn's,
And her voice like the chiming of silver
hells.
I hear it oft in the summer morns,
But. I dare not whisper what it tells,
Lingering and dying around my heart,
Ever and ever, its echoes he.
Who shall divide us, or what shall part ?
I love Bessie, and she loves me. 1
pered to her a profound secret. Once
or twice she jumped up from the sofa
to go and look at the old-fashioned
mirror over the mantle-piece, — a
noble plate of heavy old French glass,
— or at a picture or two on the wall.
" Oh, some old family chest or
other," said Adrian, smiling ; "what
makes you so uneasy ? You hop like
a hen on a hot griddle."
i These pretty and musical words appeared
almost twenty years ago in Putnam's Monthly.
If the author's name was forthcoming it would
he acknowledged ; and if there is any wrong in
repeating three stanzas of them here, pardon is
asked, and on notice right will be done.
268
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
"I don't know," she said; "it's
like those sudden sensations the books
tell of, that flit across your mind with
a feeling that it has all happened
once already. — It hasn't. — I didn't
know the house was here."
" Oh," said Adrian, " it's prophetic ;
it's because you're going to be here
again — in the house I mean ; " Com-
ing events cast their shadows before."
" It's so queer to leave that old
thing in this pretty room ! " said she,
— and yet it's a nice old chest ! " —
" The draymen might have left it
by mistake," said Adrian ; " they
couldn't help making some blunder
or other."
But Civille arose and stepped
toward the chest ; stopped short and
turned toward the side of the room :
" There ! " she cried, — "I knew it
was one of those old hall clocks ! Why,
you old beauty ! " And she clapped
her hands, applauding. Well she
might. Behind the door, so that she
had not seen it, was one of those
ancient columnar clocks whose stately
heavy deliberate beat seems to tell
only patriarchal time. The hurried
"fussy tick of the petty clock of to-
day is a suitable memento of our over-
driven state. " Everysecondeverysec-
ondeverysecond ! " chatters the tor-
menting thing. But the calm old
hall clock quietly says, " An, hour ;
AN, HOUR ; AN, HOUR."
This clock-case was a wonder. It
was of a polished fine-grained red
wood, apparently one of the. rare dense
African sorts ; and was inlaid
throughout with many curling abun-
dant wreaths of leaves and flowers in
a wood of very white color and close
satiny surface. These wreaths trailed
and waved in sweet easy curves all
over the panels, and around the fan-
ciful inlaid arabesques that centred
each panel. Elaborately ornamented
slender columns finished the edges of
the case; delicate little carved rails
and pinnacles, fine and graceful as
old lace, set off the ledge below the
face, and the edges and summit of the
gabled top. The bright silvered face
told hours, minutes and seconds, and
a mysterious opening further dis-
played the days of the week and of
the month.
Civille looked over to Adrian with
a puzzled air; "It's so long since I
was in Hartford," she said, — " but I
thought your aunt had a clock like
this."
« She did," said Adrian, — " but it
was not quite so old as this one is."
Civille turned about, stepped back
to the old chest, which stood just in
front of the book-case, and knelt
down to look at it. She sprang up
instantly and cried out,
" Adrian Chester, what does it
mean ? This is the Scrope Chest !
See there ! " And sure enough she
pointed to the elaborately floriated old
English letters of the word " Scroope "
and the familiar old arms, carved on
the front. She tried the lid, but it
was locked.
She rose and came back towards
him, flushed, perplexed, the great
gray eyes shining, the white teeth
just glancing through the parted red
lips.
" Sit down again, Civille," said
Adrian; "I'll 'fess.' Yes, it is the
Scrope Chest. The things are ours ;
that is what puzzled you so ; that is
our clock ; it wasn't as old when you
saw it as it is now. — I could hardly
keep my face straight to see you go
dreaming round and asking questions
of every old chair. I was waiting to
have you remember."
" Why, I never saw them but once,
and then I was a little bit of a girl.
But — tell me?"
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
269
" The rooms are ours," said Adrian.
" So you see I ran a double risk in
hiring those below for you. Come —
sit down." So he seated her again
at his side on the sofa.
" I knew there was something fa-
miliar the instant I came into this
room," said she. — " You secret
man ! "
" Family failing," said Adrian.
" Do you tell all that is in your heart,
Civille ? "
She smiled. "Come; tell me,"
said she ; " What a vision it is ! "
And she gazed all about the room
again with affectionate delight.
"Well," began Adrian; "The
chief idea of all came into my head
while I was arranging with you and
your father to find you a house. I
mean the idea of having my aunt
come here. Apparently I shall have
to stay in New York for a while, and
the old house in Hartford has got to
go ; so I wrote that very day to tell
aunty all about it, and I exhorted her
to have every thing packed and sent
here that we wanted to keep, and to
have every thing else sold, and to
come. Isn't she a splendid old lady?
She did it, and she's here — stopped
with an old friend of hers in Brook-
lyn until we could get in some sup-
plies, and she and I will sleep here
to-night.
" When I had posted that letter,
next I went to see Purvis ; he
had asked me the day before to come,
you know. He ^aid there was a li-
brarian wanted, for a new library,
here in New York, just begun; one
of the reference kind, where steady
attendance is required, and gentle-
manly manners ; and he was so good
as to say he thought I should do. So
I thanked him, and explained my sit-
uation, and said, Can't it be had for
my old friend and relative Mr. Van
Braam? So he said perhaps yes, but
he didn't know him, and could we
give any references ? I thought a
while, and mentioned Mr. Stanley.
Purvis said that would do, if Stanley
would write one ; for, you know, Stan-
ley is very famous in a whole world
of about two dozen antiquarians and
book collectors, and the man who is
founding this library is one of that
kind. Stanley was to be in New
York in a few days, Purvis said, and
he would see what could be done. I
don't doubt we shall arrange it, nor
does he. Then I went over to Belle-
ville. Oh, Civille, they've got such a
pearl of an old Dutch palace there !
a great square stone mansion down
by the river, all hidden in old trees,
and so stately ! And they are deli-
cious old people. The old gentleman
is a great big heavy old fellow, more
than six feet high, with a broad fat
face and two light greenish eyes that
positively project beyond his face ;
the only real boiled-onion eyes I ever
saw. And his wife, a perfectly won-
derful person, ancient and prim be-
yond all description, and with a pro-
digious lace cap. They were very
courteous and magnificent, and or-
dered in cake and wine in a delight-
ful old fashioned way, and. I bowed
and drank a solemn health to Mrs.
Van Booraem, which they approved.
I opened the business as delicately
as I could, and they heard me grave-
ly through. Then the old gentleman
proceeded to answer on hereditary
principles, as it might have been dur-
ing some unfriendly negotiations be-
tween the authorities of New Ams-
terdam and the Colony on the Great
Biver. His kinsman, he said, had
married into some Connecticut family
— please to remember, Civille, this
ill-assorted marriage was that of your
great-great-great-grandfather ! — had
270
jScrope ; or, The Lost Library.
married into a Connecticut family;
and as he had made his bed, so he
must lie in it. And he declined pos-
itively to advance any money either
hy way of loan or gift, either with
security or without.
"So I had to fall hack on my
friend Purvis and myself. I have
made all the arrangements, Civille,
that I could ; Mrs. Barnes is going to
do our work for us ; she will do 3 r ours
too if you like ; she says she would
rather work for you, Civille, for noth-
ing and find herself, — and you too,
she said — than to get double wages
anywhere else. May she ? "
Civille looked at Adrian ; with
tears in her eyes, hut with a quiet
look of gladness, very serious, very
deep, very sweet.
" But, Civille, so would I. — May
I?"
— " Love," said Adrian, interrupt-
ing himself, " why did you never write
me all those reasons you promised for
refusing me ? Tell me what they
were."
" I don't know," said she, reflec-
tively, always with her penetrating
steady serious gaze, as if it was the
soul only she spoke to, and with that
introverted manner, as if her utter-
ances were half unconscious, — "I
don't know. I guess I didn't want
to. But I meant to."
" Well ; what were they ? "
She hlushed, very deeply ; " Per-
haps I had not quite escaped from
some influences of — of the Solidari-
te people. And I didn't know — I
mean I could not leave father. And
I was afraid — Adrian, perhaps it
was silly, hut I have not been very
strong the last year or two, while we
have been in that old house — I was
afraid I should always be sick. — I
don't like sick women. — And I
didn't know how much — } r ou must
guess it, Adrian," she whispered.
" Yes, dear. — You are myself. —
Now, Civille ; do you remember about
the things you told me at Mrs. Bab-
bles's room that night? — I think
you just reflected back to me the
thoughts in my mind. Do you re-
member? There were four things;
and what you said was my own mean-
ing. Only, I did not know it so dis-
tinctly then as I did afterwards when
the time came for the things to hap-
pen. I asked you — though it was
in a roundabout way, — these four
questions : Whether I should accept
the offer that Mr. Button had made
me ; whether the Scrope Estate would
he recovered ; whether I should marry
Ann ; and whether it was you or she
who had been stealing. So you an-
swerd to the four: No; no; no; she.
It was as if those four judgments
were four buds in my mind, and you
could see them before they were open ;
I had to wait for the blossoms."
She mused a little ; " Very likely,"
she said, simply. " I don't under-
stand it. But if I am yourself,
that's the reason. I don't think I
feel quite so wise, since I've been
away from all those philosophers. I
don't care, though. You may see all
my thoughts, dear, if you want to ;
but if I have to be asleep before I
can see yours, you'll tell me after-
wards ? "
He promised.
" But," she resumed, " what made
you think of that evening just now ? "
" I think it was my meditating
over those questions and answers that
gave me the habitual feeling that we
are the same person," said he.
•'You said that just like me," an-
swered Civille. " But how fortunate
that I did not write you all my wise
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
271
reasons. If I had," she said, laying
her two hands in his, and looking at
hi in with a lovely perfect trust, " if I
had, think of all the revenges you
would have wreaked on us — by let-
ting us alone."
" Oh, certainly ! " said he ; " but
only think how such a sentence would
look if you wrote it ! I think I like
it though, when you give me an inter-
linear translation with your eyes and
your hands, Civille."
— " Don't, please — that's enough,"
said she.
— "I was punctuating the transla-
tion," said Adrian.
— There was a peremptory rap at
the door. The young people gave a
great jump, but before Adrian could
open it, Miss Chester entered.
" Where are your ears ? " said the
old lady, sharply. — " Civille, my dear,
kiss me. How you have grown !
How nice and rosy you are ! What's
the matter? I knocked twice, and
then pounded, before I came in. Am
I late enough ? Was I discreet ? "
" Yes, aunty," said Adrian ; " All
the arrangements are approved."
"Very good," said Miss Chester,
whose remarks might imply some
previous understanding with Adrian,
unless indeed they implied a won-
drous present insight. "She would
have been a silly thing not to approve
-them all. You are good enough for
anybody."
" It's well she isn't a Hartford
girl," said Adrian ; " you know they
always say there ' He isn't half good
enough for her.' "
" Every man is a fool that doesn't
marry," answered Miss Chester, sen-
tentiously ; " and every woman's a
fool that does."
" So you are willing to have a fool
in the family ? " asked Civille.
" We shall hardly make it out this
time, my dear," said the old lady,
kissing her.
" Well," said Civille, " I must go
back to father.
CHAPTER XL.
"My wedding gift to you, father,"
said Adrian, and he held out to Mr.
Van Braam an old fashioned key, with
intricate wards, a steel barrel, and hav-
ing, in place of the modern ring, a
handle curiously and elegantly worked
in brass.
"But isn't it a barbarian custom,
my boy, to buy one's wife ? "
" Oh, this is only a civilized memo-
rial of it, just as shaking hands is
what remains of the ancient surety
of disarming. It is not an equivalent ;
it's a compliment."
The key was that of the Scrope
Chest. The chest itself had that day
been brought down from the floor
above, and was placed on two chairs
before Mr. Van Braam's easy chair, in
his new quarters. He had some days
before been moved over from the old
home, having recovered sufficiently,
and the two little households had .in
the most natural manner in the world
been fused into one joint and sev-
eral family. They ate together at
most meals, and sat together most
evenings ; but each of the four could
be alone at will. Enforced society is
next in discomfort to enforced solitude
— next either way, according to the
tastes of sufferers.
This evening they were together;
Adrian and Civille were to be mar-
ried next day. The few and simple
arrangements and formalities had been
provided for. Civille, Miss Chester
and Adrian sat by. The old gentle-
man took the key.
" What is it, Adrian ? "
272
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
"Open it, father, open it," said
Civille : " we all know except you.
Adrian didn't mean to tell me, and
he did not at first ; but — he says —
he couldn't help it. It's something
you'll like."
Mr. Van Braam looked at the three
happy faces, and with a funny affecta-
tion of excitement, he unlocked the
Scrope Chest and threw hack the
oaken lid.
" Books, hey ? " he said. Then he
looked suddenly at Adrian ; his pale
face flashed quickly : —
"Is it — is it" —
"Yes, father," said Adrian : "it is
the Lost Library. Not over thirty
volumes; but look at them."
The affectation of excitement gave
way to a real one. The old man's
hands trembled so that he could not
hold any thing. Adrian lifted out
the largest volume, a good-sized folio,
bound in rough looking blackened
leather, and opening it to the title-
page, laid it in Mr. Van Braam's lap,
so as to lean against the chest.
" Sixteen hundred and twenty-
three," said the old gentleman.
"Printed by Isaac Jaggard and
Ed Blount! What business had
Adrian Scroope with Shakspeare ?
The First Folio ! Why, Adrian ! — is
that what you call only a compli-
ment?"
"But look at them all," said
Adrian ; " See," — and he took up
another black-looking old thing, a
small thick quarto, and opened that.
" Mamusse Wunneetupanatamwe up-
Biblum God," he read, — " Eliot's
Indian Bible, first edition ! "
" I won't look, I won't hear, I
won't have a thing, you sha'n't have
Civille, if you don't tell me this in-
stant, how you got them, Adrian ! "
said Mr. Van Braam, desperately.
So Adrian, recapitulating the ac-
count he had given Civille of old
Philipp Van Booraem's refusal, went
on with a chapter which he had
omitted on the morning when Civille
had recognized the chest :
" Mr. Van Booraem refused in the
point-blankest manner. When he was
through, the old lady said the family
had had a similar experience before.
' You remember, Philipp,' she said to
her husband, ' that that very Philipp
who married the Hartford person, bor-
rowed some money of your great-
grandfather? There was some secu-
rity — an old box of goods, I believe.
That is up in the store-room now.
Suppose we return this to our kins-
man ? If it was good for money then,
it is good for money now.' ' My dear,'
said the old gentleman solemnly,
' a just thought. We will do so.'
Then they sent up-stairs, and finally
went themselves; and had a long
hunt and at last dug out an old red
cedar chest all locked and marked
' Philipp Van Booraem, 1698,' which
they formally made over to me. 1
accepted it with equal formality, and
got it over here as fast as I could
without opening it, for I had a pre-
sentiment ; and I did not choose to let
them see what the contents were, if
I should be right. And I found the
books, and put them in here ; and you
are as welcome to them as the roses
are welcome in June."
"And now will you look at your
Shakspeare ? " asked Adrian, as he
took out a pocket rule ; " The cele-
brated Scrope Shakspeare of the fu-
ture. There isn't such a copy in the
country ! There isn't a leaf missing
nor imperfect, nor a repaired leaf in
it ; it's a tenth of an inch taller than
the Roxburghe copy, and it's full a six-
teenth of an inch broader than the
broad Lenox copy. There's just one
single stain, — a mark of four fingers,
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
273
in the middle of l Troilus and Cres-
sida.' And for my part I'd rather have
those old thick bevelled English oak
boards and that curly broken black
leather grinning open at the corner,
than risk having the book pared in
binding by Roger Payne himself, — if
the old cheese-eating artist were
alive ! Just see how bright Droes-
hout's engraving is ! You couldn't
improve that copy, humanly speaking,
unless you could get Shakspeare's
autograph on it ! "
"As he died seven years before
Heminge & Condell published the
edition, that would be too much to ex-
pect," answered Mr. Van Braam ; " I
think we may be contented with the
best copy — for if you are right, this
is the best copy known."
" I collated every folio of it," said
Adrian, with the certainty of a bibli-
ographer, " by Bohn's Lowndes, and
by Mr. Barton's privately printed ac-
count of his copy. This has not Mr.
Barton's two cancels, it is true ; nor
any cancels ; but what are cancels to
that extra white paper ? Toads to a
phoenix ! "
"What had Adrian Scroope to do
with Shakspeare, I want to know?"
repeated Mr. Van Braam, after laugh-
ing at Adrian's Dibdinity ; "I should
have thought him much more likely
to groan with Prynne in the Histrio-
mastix over the horrid superiority in
stjde of manufacture and extent of
sale, of play-books over bibles. Above
40,000 play-books sold in two years,
Prynne says, and he cannot but
with grief relate it."
" I imagine that Puritan or not,
Adrian Scroope knew good literature
when he saw it," said Adrian, — "or
he wouldn't have been a Scroope.
Scholarly Puritans liked Shakspeare
well enough. Read Milton's sonnet
on him, full of admiration and rever-
ence. Prynne was a bigot and a
pedant; not a scholar. Our friend
had to keep his play-book pretty
quiet though, in Old Hartford. That
accounts for its being in such prime
order. And the fact that all the
books have lain in pawn for a cen-
tury and a half accounts for all of
them being in such extraordinary
condition."
The whole collection was taken out
and laid on the table. There were
about thirty items ; but thirty books
may represent a comfortable little for-
tune, if each volume will bring $17,-
000 like the Perkins Bible, or even
$11,000 like the vellum Boccacio, or
even $3,580 like the Daniel Shak-
speare, or even $1,100 like the Rice
Indian Bible. Besides these two
books, there was a copy of the Bay
Psalm book ; several of the rarest of
the Mather publications ; a perfectly
clean copy of the Indian Primer of
1684 ; —
But those who wish the details
may apply to Mr. Van Braam for a
copy of his little privately printed
list ; a marvel of bibliographical ful-
ness and care, and in which the zeal-
ous old gentleman has introduced a
number of terms of enthusiasm
which — incredible as it may seem,
Mr. Dibdin did not know of.
As for Mr. Van Braam's happiness,
it was such that his three companions
just sat and laughed, for pure sympa-
thy of enjoyment — and cried a little
too. He laughed himself, and then
he stopped short and looked as if he
was afraid they were laughing at him
instead of with him.
" No, it's because we are as glad as
you are, father," said Civille, who
saw what he was thinking.
A ring at the door. Mrs. Barnes
brought up the cards of Dr. Veroil
and Mr. Stanley.
274
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
"Show them up," said Mr. Van
Braarn — " Adrian " (in a low tone)
— " my boy, have you a list of the
books?"
"Yes," said Adrian, laughing;
"and we'll watch Stanley with all
our eyes, too."
" I declare I've half a mind to lock
'em up and not say a word," said Mr.
Van Braarn, with a sort of half genu-
ine anxiety.
The gentlemen came in.
" A last professional call," said the
doctor, pleasantly ; " not to appear in
the bill, but to be the thirteenth of a
good honest dozen."
" I staid a few days longer in the
city than I expected," said Mr. Stan-
ley, " and hearing from Mr. Purvis
of the great good fortune of Mr.
Chester, I could not resist the double
temptation to call on my kinsfolk and
to see the treasure."
The treasure was shown. Proba-
bly no man in America could so fully
appreciate it or could be so intensely
unhappy at not having it, as Mr.
Stanley. He opened and scrutinized
book after book, in silence, pale, and
with a face like a gravestone. Por a
collector feels quite as much anguish
over what another man gets, as if he
himself had lost it. Meanwhile Mr.
Van Braarn, watching him sharply,
also thanked him for his kindness in
helping him to obtain the place of
librarian.
"No kindness at all," said Stanley,
with his cold dry smile. " Pure
matter of business. Mr. Chester
gave me the Scrope Genealogy, and
I gave him my influence."
" You did ! " exclaimed Mr. Van
Braarn, in distress, to Adrian.
" I did," said the young man, with
a smile, " and would again if it were
to do now."
" I wouldn't have parted with that
pamphlet to get librarianships for all
the twelve apostles, and Moses, and
the prophets besides," said Stanley,
exalting the value of what he had, to
comfort himself before the sight of
what he had not.
" Oh, I've got another," said Adri-
an, in the quietest manner in the
world.
Everybody started and stared.
Stanley looked as if he was going to
faint. " What do you mean ? " he
said.
"Just that," said Adrian. "You
have your copy, haven't you ? "
Stanley felt in his pocket, and
found the precious pamphlet. Adrian
drew forth from his pocket another,
which he compared with it. It was
true ; print, signatures, sketch of
Scrope arms, and alL Doctor Veroil
gave a great laugh.
" Found it with .the books, I sup-
pose," he said.
" Yes," said Adrian.
" But it's not according to agree-
ment " said Stanley, his face white,
and his voice trembling, with his
concentrated anger.
"Yes 'tis," said Adrian a little
gleefully : " You said ' Give me your
Scrope Genealogy, and I'll get him
the librarianship.' And I said Done :
and done it was. I didn't covenant
that there wasn't another. Ask Pur-
vis ; it was in his shop, and he stood
by. I gave you my Scrope Genealogy.
This one is not mine 5 it is Mr. Van
Braam's. Adrian Scroope must have
kept two copies, marked alike, by
way of making sure of the evidence
of his identity ; and instead of one,
it was thus two that were preserved
when the edition was destroyed."
" Good enough for you, Stanley,"
said Dr. Veroil, with satisfaction.
The unhappy East Hartford anti-
quary cast a look of the profoundest
Scrope; or, The Lost Library.
275
scorn upon his copy of the Scrope
Genealogy, and slapped it down
vengefully upon the table, as if to
knock its brains out. " I'd burn the
rascally thing,'' he exclaimed, " if
'twasn't for making yours worth
more, Adrian Chester ! But you've
got five hundred of them, probably —
the whole edition ! "
Nobody thought it worth while to
answer this taunt of the infuriated
Stanley ; and Adrian said, taking a
few old yellow documents from his
pocket,
" There was a small file of papers
too ; and a couple of those are partic-
ularly interesting. This " — he un-
folded a ragged-edged strip of coarse
paper — "is the other half of the
Scroope Will. I don't know how the
Will should have come to be written
on this leaf of an old book, unless
paper happened to be scarce at the
moment ; nor have I the least idea
how one half should have strayed out
of the old box and the rest staid in.
There are accidents enough, however
— At any rate here it is, with the
rest of Adrian Scroope's name at
top and in the signature. I meant to
offer it to my friend Mr. Stanley, but
I'm afraid to do so at present."
" Pass it over," said the antiquary,
gruffly, and yet making a great effort
even so, — " least you can do, I
think. You can't have a second ori-
ginal of that, at any rate ! "
Adrian handed it to him, and
Stanley at once subjected it to a
searching scrutiny. Adrian contin-
ued : " And here finally, is the ex-
planation of the career of the books,
and of the Throop question too." —
Everybody looked up, even Stanley
himself:
" Of course it was plain enough
that the books had come to Belleville
from the Van Booraem side; but as
the will shows that they were express-
ly given to Deidamia, it remained to
discover how Adriana's husband,
Philipp Van Booraem should have
made use of them as a pledge to bor-
row money on. So here is a letter
that tells this story; it's a nice letter,
and a credit to the family."
Adrian read it ; it was a formal,
old fashioned, elaborate composition,
such as the cultivated ladies of the
time used to write, but through the
flourishes and periods there penetrated
a very lovely sisterly affection. In it,
Deidamia Chester explained that she
had received all their deceased father's
property of every kind according to
the tenor of the will ; that she was
moreover fully possessed of his per-
sonal wishes, which the document did
not clearly explain. According to
these, she continued, she had con-
veyed to " our dear Brother Adrian
or Adeodatus Throop, presently a Min-
ister in Norwich " (Bozrah was not
set off from Norwich as New Concord
until 1737, explained Adriau) "his
full share and rightful inheritance,"
viz., the real estate' left by the
deceased, and sundry books of divin-
ity. The personal property, " and
amongst it the rest of the books, and
even a Bible or two," the writer had
kept; and then she added that she
loved her sister as much as her
brother; that she knew their father
would at this moment (viz. of her
writing) choose that she should follow
her own heart rather than the recol-
lections of his displeasure while alive;
and that therefore she should insist
that Adriana should accept a full and
just half of the personal estate re-
ferred to ; " and," pursued the kind-
hearted woman, " inasmuch as my
deare Husband is a man of aetivitie
and publique trusts, and whereas your
Philipp is a Student, doubtlesse hee
^76
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
may preferr to his share (which is
yours) in part all the Bookes which I
have kept, and indeed, deare Sister,
I did perhaps keepe them to that
end." And so, with many expres-
sions of affection, the quaint old doc-
ument ended.
" There is an indorsement," con-
cluded Adrian, "which notes that
hooks and money and furniture were
received accordingly. Now this letter
tells the whole story, you see.
The Reverend Mr. Throop remained
Throop in Bozrah. Very likely his
old father went and lived there qui-
etly with him, and died and was
huried there. I shall search the old
burying-ground when I go there for
an ancient gravestone with A. T., or
A. S., or both, on it. It was the son,
however, not the father, who was the
Reverend Adeodatus Throop of Boz-
rah. Deidamia kept the Scrope
Chest, which staid at Hartford. As
for the student Philipp Van Booraem,
he wanted money, and pledged the
books to his grouty Dutch cousins,
and the ill-conditioned creatures kept
them safe for us ; I'm under obliga-
tions to them."
" Well," said Civille, " it was quite
right in Deidamia to do that."
" Certainly," said her father, " any
of us would have done it, I hope."
"It would have been a struggle for
some of you," observed Dr. Veroil
with a funny look at Stanley ; " as for
the rest, the question might have
served to test the blood, for what I
know, I don't imagine Mr. Button
would have thought it necessary."
" How is Mr. Button ? " asked Mr.
Van Braam.
" About the same," said the physi-
cian ; " he may live twenty years in
this state ; or he may go off to-mor-
row. His active life is ended, how-
ever, at any rate."
"And his Theological Seminary,
and the Scrope Association, are ended
too, I guess," said the old gentleman,
with sympathy that had a faint color
of amusement.
" All buttoned up together," said
Stanley, with a grim cold satisfac-
tion not tinged at all with sympathy.
" How is it, Chester ? "
" One is as dead as a herring, and
the other as Julius Caesar, Mr. Stan-
ley," said Adrian — " as you seem to
faucy figures of speech in the matter.
In fact, I got a most enthusiastic let-
ter two days ago addressed to Mr.
Button, from Mr. Aymar Brabazon
de Vere Scrope of Scrope " —
" Mr. Bird called him < Brab,' " in-
terrupted Civille, smiling.
" Oh, let him have his name," said
Stanley, "he hasn't much else, I
guess" —
"Agent of the Scrope Association,
to say that legal proceedings had been
set on foot with every hope and al-
most a certainty of success; that this
was the more evident from the active
opposition already set up by certain
wealthy parties now in possession of
some of the Scrope lands in Bucking-
hamshire; that the prize was mag-
nificent ; that law expenses were
heavy " —
" There it comes ! " said Stanley
with a grin.
" Yes," said Adrian — " it does — ;
in fact, unexpectedly heavy, he ad-
mits ; but he appeals to Mr. Button's
family pride and enterprise and de-
cision of character and so on, and
wants a remittance of a thousand
dollars, say £200 gold, at once."
" I wish he may get it ! " said Stan-
ley, — " what did you reply ? "
" I wrote him a formal business
letter as attorney for Mr. Button, to
explain that he was not of the family
after all, and to request repayment of
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
277
the sum of $500, cash advanced, or a
note of hand satisfactorily indorsed,
for the same with interest."
"Why," said Stanley, "Button
didn't expect repayment, and you
can't enforce it, even if Scrope were
here."
" I know that," said Adrian ; " but
we sha'n't hear from him any more."
"Chester," said Dr. Veroil, "you
were telling me one day about that
devilish cellar saloon place in one of
Mr. Button's houses where you and
Bird and Scrope went one night " —
" I know, doctor," said Adrian
— "I warned the fellow out the
very day I saw the lawj^er, I found
the attorney didn't much like to
have the estate lose the rent, but
I told him at once that if any
such questions were made I should
drop the whole business, and he
held his tongue. They offered to
add fifty per cent to the rent ; but I
don't agree with Vespasian ; I think
such money does smell bad. So out
they go, Paradise, devils, fig-leaves
and all."
The visitors soon took leave, Stanley
somewhat mollified by his manuscript.
It was growing late.
" It's time, to go to bed," said Miss
Chester.
" Sing us one song first, Adrian,"
said Civille.
He sang Tennyson's " Bugle Song."
BUGLE SONG.
3=^
' • — ^ =±^-j z JI^tzrj3
The splendor falls on cas - tie walls,And snowy summits old in sto - ry, The
Scrope ; or, The Lost Library.
BUGLE SONG. — Continued.
l'=£fefe : izE£=i^=f3^ii=l
bu - gle,blow, Set the wild ech - oes fly
_ _„-_„_ °Z 9 + 8VA.
si
:c:t:
ing! Blow,
ggJJBF Efe^piai
^
E^jpp^E
rallent.
:s^=i
fe§£
-9--
III
bu - gle, an - swer,ech - oes,dy - ing, dy -ing, dy
-0-ft-tz 8va.
^^^^^^i
^s»=iE=i=!:yj
" Is it true, Civille ? " said Adrian,
turning to her as be finished the last
of the three sweet stanzas.
She only blushed and looked at
him.
Ill
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