LIBRARY THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA PRESENTED BY Kiss Hosario Curletti IJCSB LIBRA A WITfl ILLUSTRATE H.M.BL3NKE. MAftY RAYMOND SflimAN ANDREWS AUTHOR OF THE. PERrtCT TRIBUTE. WfTM ILLUSTRATIONS BY H. M. 5UNKE.R. TME. INDIANAPOLIS COMPANY COPYRIGHT 1908 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY OCTOBER PRESS OF BRAUNWORTH & CO- BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS BROOKLYN, N. Y. HERE were thick flurries at inter- vals as if the world were filled with a sudden storm of white feathers, but no weight of snow fell ; the air had a sweet coldness as one inhaled it, yet was as mild as December twenty-fourth might be and not be pusillanimous, a i well-behaved winter's day; there was I . \i not the ghost of a reason why the 1 105 local from Barchester should be two hours late. The handful of passengers at Blen- heim Junction wandered aimlessly, afraid to go away lest the belated train should make up time; now and again they drifted together and exchanged pessimistic surmises as to any one's chances of getting anywhere for Christ- mas. The shifting human atoms might be classified as four bunches: the small- boy bunch, three women circling about a stolid and annoyed boy; the tobacco bunch, four unshaven men; the parson black of clothes, pallid, yet strong of face and his friend, a prosperous busi- ness man by the look of him; and, the fourth division, a solitary individual. This last was young, and so strongly built that muscle was the first impres- sion on looking at him. His listless movements were powerful, his face was cast in a virile mold, but it was strength and beauty gone wrong. The face was lined with unhappiness ; the eyes were dull; a swinging walk lapsed to a lurch; his coat collar was up and his hat brim down, his clothes were shabby. The hypothetical observer would have seen that the man avoided with some effort the clergyman and his friend. 3 V *f.' > > / As they came toward him down the long platform, walking briskly for warmth, talking earnestly together, he watched them from under his shadow- ing hat-brim, turned his back as they neared him, and disappeared behind the station. His hands in the pockets of his overcoat, he stared out at the fields with resentful eyes. He came to a stop in front of a bench, and, dropping into it, drew out a letter. The thin envelope fell open as if read often before. "Dear Carl," the writing ran, "I saw Peterson two days ago and he told me you were playing in bad luck. There's 4 an opening out here in my business for a person who knows several languages, and you came to my mind. Would you care to take it? You would have to put up a thousand or two, and that, beyond traveling expenses, would be all the money necessary. I think you would like it. The business is going to be a big one, and we are making money now. There is plenty of work, but plenty of play also of the kind you're good at tennis and polo and that sort. And there's the certainty of a fresh start in life with every chance of a solid career. "I'm sure you know what a pleasure 5 it would be to me, because it's always been a pleasure to be with you since the first days of Groton. Think it over and send me a line by New Year's so I may know during January. I repeat that I want you and that I hope you may care to come." The letter was dated from Hong Kong. "Care to come!" The man flapped the paper with a gesture of despair, and at the second a door creaked mourn- fully behind him, opened half-way, and the clergyman's clear-cut speech sounded through it. 6 "You don't mind the draft?" the voice asked. "It's close in here." The man outside, the letter clasped against his knee, did not stir ; he listened intently. The two within sat down without seeing him, back to back with him, the wall between. Every word they spoke came out to him distinctly. "Why don't you put that bag on the floor? You hold on to it as if it were treasure," the pleasant, easy tones of the parson continued. The big man's answer came after a second's pause. "It is treasure," he said briefly. "Do you mean Sidney, you're not 7 driving home alone to-night with the men's wages?" "No, not alone. Tomlinson meets me." "Tomlinson! He's nothing. That is he's a good coachman, of course, but the mildest ruffian could do up Tom- linson with one hand. A great protec- tion!" "I don't want protection," the slow voice half-laughed. "I can protect my- self and Tomlinson." The man outside could all but see the clergyman's head shake disapproving- iy. "I don't like it. It's six miles and 8 you'll have to go through the River Mills the other road's impassable. There's a bad lot of roughs there just now. Pat O'Hara who used to be my man-of-all-work told me about it last week. He's working now on the Falls' bridge, and lives two miles this side. He says they're genuine desperadoes. It will be known that you're coming it's always known. What possessed you to go back at night?" "Delayed," the laconic tones an- swered. "A meeting of the board of di- rectors." "Well, delay a bit longer, and you may save time," the clergyman threw 9 JHK BEXTEJfifiSTREASURE back. "Don't go home to-night, Sid- ney it's really unsafe." "Must get home for Christmas morn- ing couldn't disappoint the baby," said the steady voice. "I know," the clergyman agreed. "I'm in the same box. Yet," he harked back, "it's taking too much risk. You have no right to run such a risk. How much are you carrying?" "Three thousand dollars." The man outside drew a sharp breath as if the distinct words had hit him. Three thousand dollars! The clergyman inside repeated them. "Three thousand dollars! It's too much 10 to carry after dark through a nest of banditti." "Banditti!" The other's tone pro- tested. But Doctor Harding persisted. "At least leave the money in town." "Where?" Maxwell asked. "The banks are closed. The men's wages must be paid the twenty-sixth. I'll car- ry it safe enough the Maxwells have carried their employees' wages to Max- well Field for five generations." The clergyman's reply was serious. "With two Maxwells killed to discour- age the practice," he said. There was silence for a moment. Then, "I see ill I what can be done," the older man spoke. "Give me the monev. I'll take ^ v it to the rectory to-night, and to-mor- row you'll all be over to service and you can fetch it back. How is that?" "You've a lonely drive, too." "Only two miles," said Harding. "And there's no danger for me. No- body suspects a parson of money." Maxwell considered, hesitated. "I think I'll accept your offer, Doctor," he said at last. "Quarles, the manager, objects to my landing with a bag which I carry carefully myself, as I must when it's loaded this way." The man outside, strained forward, could imag- 12 ine the manufacturer's hand laid on the stout bag on his knee. "My dress-suit case I throw at somebody to be put into the trap, and I think no more of it, but this I keep by me, and I'm so well known about the country that they are familiar with my ways." The confident voice, the voice of a personage, went on, but the shabby fig- ure outside relaxed, shivering a bit, against the wall of the station. He was thinking fast, but his listening now was less careful; he knew the rest; his data were collected. There was a whistle down the track, and a wave of humanity drew together; 13 the train pulled in, and the man hover- ing in the background waited to see Mr. Maxwell of Maxwell Field, in a fur-lined ulster with its collar and cuffs of sable, and the thin clergyman in his overcoat a little gray at the seams, enter a car together, before he sprang- unno- ticed into the car behind them. 1 *i HE two big children and their small mother sat on the rug before the fire, the fire being an especial luxury for Christmas Eve. The nursery was a pleasant room; the spendthrift firelight washed brightness over gay colors of coarse stuffs, over cheap prints of fine pictures, over the whitewashed walls and the peace of the two white beds folded back for the night. There was a homelike atmosphere } full of the 15 alert leisure of a house where much is done. The children leaned close against the woman between them; the girl's hair was spread on her mother's shoul- ders, and the boy's arm was around her and his head pressed her arm. "Say The Night Before Christmas again mother," he begged. "You prom- ised you'd say it next." "No, she didn't, Benny," objected the girl. "She only promised she'd say it again; she hasn't said While Shep- herds Watched at all yet, or told us the story of the beasts on Christmas Eve. Have you, mother?" "My knee, Benny you weigh a ton, 16 dear," remonstrated the mother, push- ing a heavy foot. "We'll do this, Alice. Benny knows While Shepherds Watched as well as I, and if he'll say it, then I'll do The Night Before Christmas, and the story, and just any- thing you want." "I like your saying of it, mother, better than I do Benny's. He always makes the angels talk like people," Alice demurred. But the boy, undisturbed by criti- cism, began at once. His large brown eyes fixed on the fire, he recited, slowly and conscientiously, the two-hundred- year-old Christmas carol: T*7 L 7 "While Shepherds watched their flocks by night All seated on the ground, The angel of the Lord came down And glory shone around," ** * the reedy voice repeated, and a listener might have understood what Alice meant. It was much as if John Jones had met William Smith and mentioned to him a matter of news about a mutual friend, an angel. But to the woman who listened with the boy's head against her shoulder, the incongruous inflec- tions were sweet; the audacity of it seemed to bring so near, that it thrilled 18 her, a night when, for another Child's sake, the skies had rung with a song that has echoed always. Benny's fresh tones disclosed, with careful conversa- tional emphasis, more and more facts about angels, to him a shade less real, a shade more holy than his mother. "To you in David's town this day Is born of David's line A Saviour, who is Christ the Lord, And this shall be the sign " was elucidated in a realistic manner, and the child proceeded to explain. "Thus spoke the seraph and forth- 19 with appeared a shining throng of an- gels praising God who thus ad- dressed their joyful song." An atheist would have got an impres- sion, hearing him tell it, that the boy had seen with his eyes and heard with his ears what he related. There was a silence as the sturdy tones ended and Benny's eyes gazed on into the heart of the fire, as if they saw in a vision the still eastern night, the shepherds on the hills, the white flight of angels. "You repeated it very nicely," Mrs. Harding said softly, and put her mouth against his head again. "Now you shall have yours." 20 The big eleven-year-old girl caught her mother's hand a hand worn with housework and sewing and held it against her cheek. " 'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house," the wom- an began, and went on, as many wom- en have begun and gone on with the charming old poem, to children on Christmas Eve. The fire crackled in the pauses, and the sparks flew up the chimney as the logs fell apart with gen- tle heaviness, an accompaniment to the swinging sentences. "Now just one more, children dear, and you really must go to bed. It's very 21 late look! It's almost nine," and the girl and the boy cried out together. "Oh, the Beasts! The Beasts!" They pressed against her, a head on either shoulder, and held her hands in theirs, while she told them a tale of a boy in a German forest whose father and mother were so poor that there was not enough to eat in the house. She told them how he lay in his cot on Christ- mas Eve and heard them plan ; how he listened as they divided what food was left into three portions for to-morrow's breakfast, the largest for the boy; how he sobbed to himself in the dark as he heard them arrange to kill his two 22 friends, the old horse Friedel and the old cow Minna, rather than let them starve to death ; how, lying awake late in the night, he could not bear to think that the dear horse and cow stood hun- gry in the barn, on their last night of life; how he stole into the kitchen and found the coarse bread and the milk that were saved for his own breakfast, and carried them out to the stable ; how, as he came to the door, he heard strange hoarse voices speaking low, and lis- tened and found that it was Friedel and Minna talking together; how then he remembered that once a year, at mid- night on Christmas Eve, dumb beasts 23 may find speech, in memory of the night when the Christ-child lay among beasts, in the manger; how little Hans listened to the thin old horse and the hungry old cow and heard them griev- ing for the poverty of their master and mistress and heard them speak of the secret which, if the beasts might have speech to tell it, would make every- thing right; how Hans went in boldly then and gave the animals his break- fast, and asked them to tell him the se- cret; how they told him, in unused, rusty voices, that beneath the empty stall of the stable was a treasure of gold, buried a thousand years before by the 24 Romans, which would make his mother and father richer than they could dream; and how just then the bells of the distant village rang for Christmas morning, and the poor beasts were dumb again, and Hans went back to his bed and waited for daylight to tell his father and mother, who dug for the treasure and found it and were happy with the horse and cow, and rich ever after. The story ended and the children were quiet, as if listening, thrilled, to those stammering hoarse tones of the good brutes in the chilly stable. "Now, chickens, you must go to your roosts," the mother broke their dream, and her words ended in a sigh. "Fa- ther! it's too bad to have him left out of Christmas Eve, isn't it?" "Yes, it is," agreed Benny sturdily. "Nobody can say Peaceful Was the Night 'cept father. It's too bad for fa- ther he had to go to the thing-ma-jig's funeral;" and, being Christmas Eve, Benny went unreproved for the de- scription of his great-uncle. "Father'll be home before morning, won't he?" asked the girl, and went on. "Oh, I remember. You said some time in the night, but we can't tell when, 'cause the trains get late. Well, I hope 26 he'll be here in the morning when we wake up. It wouldn't be Christmas without father; would it, mother?" "I can't bear to have him out so late," the little woman said, and her tones were troubled. She went on as if think- ing aloud a way she had with her big babies. "Father isn't well he ought to go South I wish he could go," and Benny answered in strong baby tones, "Oh, he can't go, mother. We haven't got money enough^ you said we hadn't." "No, dear, we haven't," she sighed; and the girl shook her mane of hair back thoughtfully. 27 "I wish I could find a lot of money like Hans, for father," she said. The fascination of the firelight as the children lay in their beds, their mother gone, held the drowsy eyes open. The girl, the more aggressive, the more imaginative of the two, went back, with a thought working its way in her mind, to the story which had a hold on both, the story of how dumb brutes may talk once a year on Christmas Eve. "Do you believe it's true, Benny?" she consulted her brother. "Mother didn't say it wasn't, you know." "Then it's true, and I believe it's true," said Benny stoutly. "I'm glad 28 JHE BEKEfifiSTREASURE they can. I know Nigger would enjoy a talking. He looks like he wanted to talk when he squeals, and he squeals words sometimes. I heard him say 'corn bread' one day." Alice lifted her brown head from the pillow and leaned on one elbow and stared into the fire. "Nigger's out in the barn," she reflected. "Father took Mr. Jarvis' horse because Nigger's foot was lame. Benny " she began excit- edly, and stopped. Benny gave an enormous yawn and turned his heavy yellow head. "Whu-ut?" he inquired. "Don't go to sleep, Benny listen!" 29 THE BEHEftCfrKEASURE the girl begged. "I've got an idea- something lovely, really. Why can't we go to the stable to-night it's Christ- mas Eve and listen to Nigger talking, like Hans listened to Friedel and Minna? And maybe he'll know about some treasure and we could get lots of money, and give it to father to go South with. Mother would be glad." The boy's sleepy eyes opened and gazed at her. "Wouldn't it be naughty?" As happened once before in a gar- den, "the woman tempted him." Benny was swept out on the tide of his sister's adventurous spirit, and while the fire 30 steamed and purred an undertone they made their plans. Very nearly were the plans shipwrecked by nature, however, for, as they waited till the night should be older, the clock ticked, the fire sang a lullaby, and the children fell asleep. But at half-past eleven a log dropped noisily, the light of it blazed up and the adventurer-in-chief, the deed to be done in her veins, awakened. It needed all her energy to persuade the boy, numb with sleep, that sleep was not the one possibility in a midnight world. But there was a persistent spirit in her, and in ten minutes two muffled little figures crept through the shadowy house and out over the white lawn, misty with still-falling snow, and up the slope to the door of the stable. HERE were half-visible foot- steps in the white carpet on the ground, but the big flakes had 'blurred them, the children did not notice. An hour before a man had hur- ried along the road from town, a power- ful man, walking fast. As he walked he spoke to himself in a low tone. "The note about Pat O'Hara's broken leg ought to take him three miles out of his way it ought to delay 33 him an hour. Lucky I remembered where the horse and trap would be kept." He passed a stream, tinkling silverly in the stillness under its roof of ice and snow. He halted and stared down. "I took my first trout in that hole," he murmured, and swung on. But the ghost of a boy had caught his arm and clung to him and went with him down the road. He could not shake the ghost-boy loose. "Doctor Harding took you home to lunch that day," the boy whispered, "and the trout was cooked, and they made an event of it." 34 "Well, what of that?" the man an- swered the memory aloud. "I'm not go- ing to hurt Doctor Harding, am I?" "He won't give up what he has set himself to guard." The big fellow spoke again grimly, "He'll have to." The muscles of his bent arm tightened. The clinging ghost-boy clutched closer. "You couldn't hurt him! You couldn't do it in this place, where the good years of your life were passed. You know every foot of this ground every foot of it has a happy association. You've played hide-and-seek in that barn of the Hardings, and gone to sleep 35 in the hay-loft. Can you go there and take money from him?" The man's hand flew out. "It's not his money I wouldn't rob him. It's money that ought to be mine it be- >^?~- : ' *, longs to Sidney Maxwell, my cousin, and it's Maxwell money family -' t? f"'~ money. They make millions a year I'm one of them and I've nothing worse than nothing. I ought to be as rich as he it's a drop in the bucket to what I ought to have." "Whose fault is it that you haven't it?" the insistent whisper came. "You threw away your chance." "I know it I was a fool I couldn't 36 be controlled. But I was young, five years ago. If my father had lived, my uncle wouldn't have turned me out. It was Sidney who was down on me re- liable, satisfactory Sidney, who never had a temptation never made a mis- take never threw away his birthright for a mess of pottage. He's gone from success to success without an effort." The man groaned. "I hate him!" he muttered. "I'm his flesh and blood, and he never throws a thought to me. We had our Christmas trees together, and played with our rocking-horses on the rug before the fire. He was kind as a big brother to me then. But now, the 37 ends of the earth are no farther apart than he and I Carl Maxwell, my chances all gone, a failure, a pauper." He shuddered. "This night a thief. Ah!" The syllable snapped sharply and he threw out his powerful arms. "No, my chances are not all gone there's one left." He struck his breast with his hand where the letter lay in- side. "My one chance of beginning new is this night. I'll get that money which ought to be mine, and to-morrow I'll be off for China, and take up Bill Bacon's offer, and be an honest man, by Heaven, a successful one this time! I've got it in me, and I've learned my 38 lesson. My God! I've learned my les- son. I'll work hard and earn my life and I'll send back this three thousand to Sidney Maxwell with my first savings. I will. Jove it's a straight road it's a chance in a million for a man at the last gasp. I'd be a cowardly fool not to take it and after all I'm just borrow- ing not stealing. I'll send it back sure as fate." The sophistry which has soothed many consciences was good enough for this desperate one. Something which felt like self-respect, the unused sensa- tion of a hope, sent him springing over the two miles from the railway town to 39 Fairfield, and through dim, well-re- membered lanes to Fairfield parsonage. He found his way readily down the shadowy drive to the stable, and the door, left unlocked for the master, opened at a touch. The horse stamped in his stall in the dark, and Maxwell went to him and spoke quietly, and he was still. There was an empty stall next, where would be put the other horse arriving with Doctor Harding, and here the man stowed himself. When the clergy- man led the animal to the opening, then, while his hands were busy, would be the time. He might have to strug- 40 gle, to knock him down perhaps he set his teeth and drew in a breath. It was not pleasant to knock down such a friend, but it had to be done, and he would be careful not to injure him. A trained boxer knows how. He sat drawn together, in the thick straw, waiting. Nigger, in the stall close by, stamped uneasily and put his black nose through the opening above and sniffed and blew. He could see the horse's eyes gleaming in the darkness, and feel his warm breath. So settled was his mind on the deed to come that he dropped into a sleep, comfortably wrapped in the straw. Yet his nerves JHI-: were alert, and he sat up quickly, on guard at a light sound from the outside. ' What was it? Even allowing for the snow-covered road it was not the sound \ 1 of wheels and, while he wondered, the side door of the building, which faced him as he sat hidden, opened. A late moon had risen, making the landscape outside as clear as day, and against the white ground he saw, astonished, the figures of two children sharply sil- houetted. HE big girl held the boy by the hand as they peered in. The man, unprepared for this compli- cation, watched them, troubled, uncer- tain, and immediately the boy spoke in a full, sweet voice. "He's not talkin', Alice," the boy said. "Let's go back I'd rather go to bed." But the girl stepped forward, warily poised, yet determined, and drew her brother. "Maybe he doesn't know it's 43 us," she said. "I don't want to go back till I see." She dropped the boy's hand and was at the door of the box-stall. "Nigger," she whispered, "Nigger," and the horse whinnied and turned his head toward her. The boy had followed, stumbling across the floor. "Maybe he doesn't know it's Christmas," he suggested. "Let's sing a carol so he'll remember." The man in the stall listened. In a low tone, because it was a mysterious business they were on, the two sang: "Silent night, hallowing dawn, Far and wide breaks the morn, 44 Breaks the day when the Saviour of men Bringing pardon and healing again, Holy, harmless and undefiled Com- eth a little child." "Pardon and healing!" They sang it and they were silent, waiting. Nigger sniffed softly, then whinnied. Benny's slow speech began coax- ingly: "I had a little pony His name was Dapple Gray; I lent him to a lady " 45 He halted, listening. "I thought maybe he'd like that because it's about a horse. I thought it would interest him," Benny explained, and proceeded as if by force of inertia: "Goosey, goosey gander, Whither do you wander Up-stairs " Alice interrupted. "That hasn't got a single thing to do with Christmas, Benny." "But it's on the next page," Benny argued stolidly. Alice was firm. "It isn't the right 46 kind of poetry it ought to be sort of churchy and religious, because Nig- ger's a clergyman's horse and it's Christmas Eve." "Maybe he's afraid," she said, in a disappointed tone, yet still hopeful. "Benny, say the verse about 'Fear not' to him that might make him not be afraid." The unseen audience listened as Benny, persuadingly, as man to man, recited a hymn to Nigger. " Tear not'" urged Benny 47 " 'Fear not,' said He, for mighty dread Had seized their troubled mind, 'Glad tidings of great joy I bring To you and all mankind.' " J "Glad tidings of great joy!" The young man in the straw sat quiet and listened. Whatever encouragement for beasts might be in a Christmas hymn, Benny meant to extend it to Nigger. Unhur- ried, with the sleepy note of a bird going to roost, his piping voice plodded on, telling a tale which he did not doubt. With the full angel song he ended: tf35 r r JHE "All glory be to God on high, And on the earth be peace. Good-will henceforth from Heaven to men Begin and never cease." "Peace! Good-will!" There was a stir in the empty stall, but the children did not hear it. From a mile away down the road came faintly a sound of hoof-beats, and Nigger blew out an agitated breath and whinnied again gently. It was very quiet. Alice and Benny, standing patient, thrilled suddenly as a strange, hoarse voice is- sued from the darkness. 49 F""- "Merry Christmas, children!" the voice said. The girl clutched the boy's shoulder. "He's talkin' Nigger's talkin'," Ben- ny announced, interested but imper- turbed. In his perspective a beast's speaking was no larger marvel than the wonders of every day sunrise and sunset, and stars and tides, and it may be the un- warped vision of youth saw things in not unjust proportion. But the girl was shivering with joy. She answered the unearthly tone with sweet, excited ea- gerness. "Merry Christmas, Nigger," she said, and added tremulously, "I'm so glad you really can talk it must seem nice after being dumb." "Yes, it's nice," Nigger responded civilly, but he seemed preoccupied. He went on with promptness. "You must go back to the house, children, at once. You'll catch cold." It was queer to have their own horse giving them orders, yet the tone was of authority. "But, Nigger," Alice pleaded, "we want to talk to you we want to ask you some questions." It seemed almost as if Nigger had stopped to listen to something. They JHIi BEJ-TElC^TKFJ\SURE did not notice the pad-pad of hoofs still a long way off. "What questions?" the hoarse voice demanded. "Be quick!" Alice began, but choked with excite- ment, and Benny plunged to her relief, collected and deliberate. "We'd like some hidden treasure," he explained. "Treasure is money. To send father South where it's warm, 'cause he's sick. We want you to tell us where to get some treasure for father." Nigger appeared to be struck back to dumbness by this simple request, for no word came from the stall, only another of the soft deep inhalations he had re- r? 5 2 lapsed into beasthood. Yet once more the weird tones spoke. "I can't tell you where to find any treasure," they said, "because there isn't any buried around here. But if you're good children and go straight into the house, then your father is going to have enough money to go South this winter or next. Now run quickly." HE stable was quiet; small feet scurried over the snow toward the house; the door was left standing open, and strong moonlight poured through it and illumined the place. When Doctor Harding drove in, the figure of a man stood black in the patch of brightness. "Who is that?" he asked cheerily. The man answered. "It's a friend Carl Maxwell." 54 "Carl Maxwell!" the clergyman's voice had a tone of unbelief. "What do you mean how can it be Carl Max- well?" The man swung forward. "Look at me," he said, and pulled away his hat. Harding looked searchingly, and with a quick movement set on the floor the bag he held, and caught the other's hand. "My boy, I'm glad to see you," he said. "Help me unharness. We must get a fire and something to eat as soon as possible." As if it were a custom to find men waiting in the stable at one A. M., Doc- tor Harding talked of the horse and the harness and the roads as they un- buckled the frozen leather, and the man's fingers slipped into the once fa- miliar business, and his ears listened to the once familiar voice. Ten minutes of swift work and the harness hung on its hooks, and the horse stood cared for and blanketed, in its stall. Maxwell swung across the stable and lifted the small black bag. "I'll take that, Carl," the clergyman spoke quietly. "No let me carry it for you," the younger man threw back, holding to it firmly. 56 There was a second's hesitation; Harding's fingers loosened; he turned to the door; Carl Maxwell held the bag in his hands. Down the slope Harding led the way, and through the orchard vividly black and white with moonlight and shadow. Suddenly he faced about the footsteps behind him had stopped he stared through the zigzag of bare branches and deep shadows where was the man? "Carl!" he called, and out of a splash of blackness ten feet back stirred the figure. "All right, Doctor," Maxwell's voice 57 JHIi BETTO^TRIiASURE, Sas^l ^ ~^~-^^^ answered. "I stopped to see if the seat I built in the Queen apple-tree was still there." A low light shone in the study as the two mounted the steps of the side pi- azza, and the clergyman slipped his key into the lock. He threw open the door and stood aside to let his guest enter. The man halted, and made an uncertain move- ment backward. Then he stepped in- side. In a moment the light was turned up, the fire was blazing, the room hung with cheerfulness. Maxwell stared about it, at the books, at the papers, at the worn furniture. The clergyman 58 watched him a moment, and then turned to a tray. "I don't know about you, Carl, but I'm hungry." He held out a plate of sandwiches. The young fellow set the bag down hurriedly and stretched out his hand. He was shivering, and he looked starved. Then the hand dropped. His teeth chattered, and he stared blankly into the clergyman's face. "I came here to rob you," he said. Harding gazed at him; his glance wandered to the black bag; he turned his back and bent over the coffee, bub- bling above an alcohol lamp. Maxwell 59 regarded him miserably. Harding lifted his head with a smile. "We'll talk that over later, Carl," he said. "Sit by the fire you're cold. And drink this coffee." The man sat down. The hot coffee was almost at his mouth, when he ' ." looked up into the other's face. "How do you know I won't take the money?" he asked. "I could." The parson laughed. He put a friendly hand on the deep shoulder and patted it, as if the man were a child. "Well, yes, you could," he said. "Drink your coffee, Carl." Ten minutes later the man stood be- 60 fore the fire and told his story. He fin- ished the recital with a look of bitter- ness in his eyes. "I believe I'm a fool," he said. "The money means the chance of my life for a start and I've no other chance. I meant to take it, till the children came, and then I lost my nerve. Alice has grown a lot. I taught her her first word do you remember? I didn't do the beast act entirely to get rid of them. I did it so they wouldn't be disappointed. I'm a fool. I'd planned the thing and I ought to have put it through. I could have gone to China, and in a year I'd have sent back the money I'd have 61 J ^\ had a clear conscience and a grip on life such as I've never had before. But it's beyond me now." The man looked down suddenly at his dingy overcoat. He smiled a queer smile at the clergyman. "I happened to think of how they used to have us sing Silent Night be- fore we had our Christmas tree, and of the velvet clothes I wore one year," he explained. "And now," he lifted the skirt of his coat, "to be talking about Christmas trees and carols. I'm just one of the submerged. I'll go now, Doctor. I might as well go. I had my chance and threw it away for sentiment. 62 I'll go now." He held out his hand. "It won't hurt you to shake hands." The clergyman did not stir. "Carl, I've got something to tell you about your cousin Sidney," he said. The man scowled. "I don't want to hear it," he shot through his teeth. "When I saw him walking with you to-day in his furred overcoat and his prosperity I wanted to kill him. He's forgotten I'm alive. It's nothing to him that I'm strangling in the depths." "That's where you're mistaken," re- plied Doctor Harding in a quiet but positive tone. AXWELL lifted his chin and threw at the clergyman a glance like a blow. Harding went on at ease. "It's very much to him. When you saw him talking to me to-day, what do you suppose he was talking about? You. When the man in the stable just now answered in your name, I felt as if Heaven had reached down and picked you up from somewhere and put you in my hands as an answer to what Sidney Maxwell said. He told me that Christ- mas never came but the thought of you was with him ; that when his own boys played with their toys around their tree he remembered always how you and he had played together; that he had tried in vain to find you; that it was a con- stant grief that he and his father had judged you harshly; that he would give his fortune to know where you are and make things right." As the man listened, defiance melted out of him; he did not answer or look up. The clergyman went on. "You see what child's play it seemed to me when you spoke of stealing three ' .;----. v**- M$ >::'- : - ' - * ' thousand dollars, with the Maxwell millions waiting. Not that it would have been possible in any case," he added quickly. "You thought you could do it, but you never could never." "Perhaps I couldn't," the man said brokenly. "I meant to I don't know what stopped me." "The Lord," Harding answered tersely. "It isn't the first time He has made children His messengers." Maxwell lifted his eyes dreamily, like a man who had been unconscious and who was coming slowly back to a world too good to be true. "I I used 66 to believe those things," he said. "I'd like to, now. I've been a long way down. But I've never liked it. I've been unhappy. It doesn't seem possible that I'm to have a chance. I was com- ing here to drown myself in Meadow Brook I thought I was at the end of the rope. That was my plan this after- noon. And then I heard you and Sid- ney and I was glad to get a chance to live. I'm too strong to die easily. I think I think it's in me yet to work hard and make a place for myself. I think so. I never enjoyed being scum- only you know I always went headlong whichever way I started, and it was the same with the bad life I've been living. I can't believe I've been faced about in a minute." The clergyman had pushed the man into a deep chair; the firelight washed a friendly vagueness over the shabby clothes and over his face, molding now into new lines under a crisis. His eyes lifted to his friend's with a dazed gaze which had lost bitterness. Doctor Harding, standing over him, laid a calm hand on his shoulder. "My lad," he spoke gently, "it ap- pears to me that going into wrong-do- ing is like going into a tunnel that leads downhill to darkness. At every step the 68 JHK BET-IElCESTKEASURE walking gets harder, and the air gets worse, and it's dirtier and more unin- teresting. And all the time all you have to do is to face about, and you see the sunlight. "Of course it's not simple getting back I know that. Sure as fate you'll bark your shins, and stagger into holes, and fall down, and maybe get discour- aged. But Heavens, man! What's that, when you see daylight, and see you're getting to it! What's more, you'll see the faces of friends you didn't know you had, waiting for )^ou they were there all the time and you wouldn't look at them you were facing the wrong way. "Of course a poor soul may wander so far into the depths that he's beyond seeing the light that's the awful dan- ger." The clergyman sighed. "But even then a hand stronger than your own will pull you out, if you'll trust to it. However" his tired face bright- ened "however, you're not in that case, Carl. You've swung about, and sunshine and friends are waiting for you a clean life a man's work a place in the world. It's wonderful how much less bad a bad situation usually is than we think. This afternoon you were going to kill yourself; you were saved from that by the hope of a crime; 70 ' ' then two babies spoke a message and you listened to it and faced about. That's the secret, to face about, to face right." Like drops of a strong cordial the words struck hot shafts into Maxwell. "A clean life a man's work a place in the world." He felt with a shock the strength and the will to get these things. The worn man whose inspired eyes burned him, who stood for a force beyond either of them, had poured strength and will into him. He threw out his arms, drew a quick breath, and rose to his feet reso- lutely. "Lord helping me, I'll do it," he said. "That's the way to go at the business," Harding said, his face glowing with enthusiasm. " You'll do it, that way." And with that the clock in the hall struck four, and from up-stairs there was suddenly an eruption and a descent of barbarians. Alice and Benny, mysteri- ously warned in a dream of their father's arrival, came down upon him, like a wolf on the fold, and all but tore him limb from limb with stress of affection, and then, all at once, aware of the stranger, they were shy and lapsed into silence. But Doctor Harding took his girl's hand and put it into Carl Maxwell's. 72 "I've brought home an old friend, Alice," he said. "Wish him a Merry Christmas, my dear." And Alice smiled and said the words, while Benny, strangling his father, rein- forced the greeting with full, slow tones. "Merry Christmas, old frien' an' a Happy New Year," said the deliberate Benny. Harding, hung with children, loosened a hand to pat the man's shoulder. His eyes were bright with the vision of the pure in heart, who see God in mankind. "Benny's hit it," he said. "That's what we all wish you, and what's com- ing, Carl a happy New Year!" s: