is DR. J. G. HOLLAND'S WRITINGS. Complete Work*. 16 Volumes. Small 121110. Sold separately. BITTER-SWEET, $I'*S KATHRINA *-*5 THE MISTRESS OF TUB MANSE, 1.25 PURITAN'S GUEST AND OTHER POEMS, .... 1.25 TITCOMB'S LETTERS TO YOUNG PEOPLE, . . . 1.25 GOLD-FOIL, i-5 LESSONS IN LIFE, 1-25 PLAIN TALKS ON FAMILIAR SUBJECTS 1.25 CONCERNING THE JONBS FAMILY, .... 1.25 EVERY-DAY TOPICS. FlRST SERIES, .... 1.25 " SECOND SERIES, . . . 1.25 SEVENOAKS i- 2 S THE BAY PATH 1.25 . ARTHUR BONNICASTLK, ." 1.35 Miss GILBERT'S CAREER, 1.25 NICHOLAS MINTURN, 1.25 Complete Sets, 16 volt., in a box : half calf, $44.00; half morocco, gilt top, $46.00 ; and cloth, $20.00. Jlliixtrtitril Edition, 14 vols., lamo, cloth. New style. Sold only in sets, 20.00. COMPLETE POETICAL WRITINGS. With illustrations by Rr inhart, Griswold, and Mary Hallock Foote, and a portrait by Wyatt Eaton. 8vo, $3.50. Holiday Edition of the same, In extra cloth, full gilt sides and edges, . . . $5.00 ARTHUR BONNICASTLE AN AMERICAN NOVEL UY J. G. HOLLAND NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1891. COPYRIGHT BY SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG & CO. 1873 COPYRIGHT BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS TROWS NEW YORK A 78 CONTENTS CHAPTER I. PAGH Thank a blind horse for good luck, ... . . . I CHAPTER II. ! visit an ogress and a giant in their enchanted castle, . . 31 CHAPTER III. I go to The Bird's Nest to live, and the giant persists in his plans for a sea-voyage 44 CHAPTER IV. In which the course of true love is not permitted to run at all, 64 CHAPTER V. The discipline of The Bird's Nest as illustrated by two start ling public trials, 74 CHAPTER VI. I become a member of Mrs. Sanderson's family and have a wonderful voyage with Jenks upon the Atlas, . . .98 CHAPTER VII. I leave The Bird's Nest and make a great discovery, . . 114 vi Contents. CHAPTER VIII. PA<;B I am introduced to new characters and enter the shadow of the great Bedlow revival 321 CHAPTER IX. 1 pass through a terrible tempest into the sunlight, . .15} CHAPTER X. I join a church that leaves out Mr. Bradford and Millie, . i6g CHAPTER XI. The old portrait is discovered and old Jenks has a real voy age at sea, i26 CHAPTER XII. Mrs. Sanderson takes a companion and I go to college, . 203 CHAPTER XIII. The beginning of college life I meet Peter Mullens, Gor don Livingston, and temptation, 217 CHAPTER XIV. My first visit to New York, and my first glass of wine, . . 232 CHAPTER XV. I go out to make New Year's calls and return in disgrace, . 243 CHAPTER XVI. Peter Mullens acquires a very large stock of old clothes, . 259 CHAPTER XVII. 1 change my religious views to conform with my moral prac tice, and am graduated without honors, . . , . 267 CHAPTER XVIII. Henry becomes a guest at The Mansion by force of circum stances, 284 Contents. vii CHAPTER XIX. FAGS Jenks goes far, far away upon the billow, and never comes back 2oc) CHAPTER XX. Mr. Bradford tells me a story which changes the determina tions of my life, 307 CHAPTER XXI. 1 meet an old friend who becomes my rival, .... 324 CHAPTER XXII. Mrs. Sanderson meets her grandson and I return to my father's home 343 CHAPTER XXIII. I take Arthur Bonnicastle upon my own hands and succeed with him, 365 CHAPTER XXIV. In which I learn something about Livingston, Millie Brad ford and myself, 377 CHAPTER XXV. I win a wife and home of my own, and The Mansion loses and gains a mistress, 386 CHAPTER XXVI. Which briefly records the professional life of Rev, Peter Mul lens, 404 CHAPTER XXVII In which I say good-night to my friends and the past, and good-morrow to my work and the future, . . . 413 ARTHUR BONNICASTLE. CHAPTER I. THANK A BLIND HORSE FOR GOOD LUCK. LIFE looks beautiful from both extremities. Prospect and retrospect shine alike in a light so divine as to sug gest that the first catches some radiance from the gates, not yet closed, by which the soul has entered, and that the last is illuminated from the opening realm into which it is soon to pass. Now that they are all gone, I wrap myself in dreams of them, and live over the old days with them. Even the feeblest memory, that cannot hold for a moment the events of to-day, keeps a firm grasp upon the things of youth, and rejoices in its treasures. It is a curious process this of feeling one's way back to childhood, and clothing one's self again with the little frame the buoyant, healthy, restless bundle of muscles and nerves and the old relations of careless infancy. The grow ing port of later years and the ampler vestments are laid aside ; and one stands in his slender young manhood. Then backward still the fancy goes, making the frame smaller, and casting aside each year the changing gar ments that marked the eras of early growth, until, at 2 Arthur Bonnicastle. last, one holds himself upon his own knee a ruddy- faced, wondering, questioning, uneasy youngster, in his first trousers and roundabout, and dandles and kisses the dear little fellow that he was ! They were all here then father, mother, brothers and sisters ; and the family life was at its fullest. Now they are all gone, and I am alone. All the present relations of my life are those which have originated since. I have wife and children, and troops of friends, yet still I am alone. No one of all the number can go back with me into these reminiscences of my earliest life, or give me sympathy in them. My father was a plain, ingenious, industrious crafts man, and a modest and thoroughly earnest Christian. I have always supposed that the neighbors held him in contempt or pity for his lack of shrewdness in business, although they knew that he was in all respects their su perior in education and culture. He was an omnivorous reader, and was so intelligent in matters of history and poetry that the village doctor, a man of literary tastes, found in him almost his only sympathetic companion. The misfortunes of our family brought them only too frequently together ; and my first real thinking was ex cited by their conversations, to which I was always an eager listener. My father was an affectionate man. His life seemed bound up in that of my mother, yet he never gave a di rect expression to his affection. I knew he could not Jive without her, yet I never saw him kiss her, or give her one caress. Indeed, I do not remember that he ever kissed me, or my sisters. We all grew up hungry, missing something, and he, poor man, was hungriest of all ; but his Puritan training held him through life in slavery to notions of propriety which forbade all im pulses to expression. He would have been ashamed to kiss his wife in the presence of his children ! Arthur Bonnicastle. 3 I suppose it is this peculiarity of my father which makes me remember so vividly and so gratefully a little incident of my boyhood. It was an early summer even ing ; and the yellow moon was at its full. I stood out in the middle of the lawn before the house alone, looking up to the golden-orbed wonder, which so high were the hills piled around our little valley seemed very near to me. I felt rather than saw my father approaching me. There was no one looking, and he half knelt and put his arm around me. There was something in the clasp of that strong, warm arm that I have never forgotten. It thrilled me through with the consciousness that I was most tenderly beloved. Then he told me what the moon was, and by the simplest illustrations tried to bring to my mind a comprehension of its magnitude and its re lations to the earth. I only remember that I could not grasp the thought at all, and that it all ended in his tak ing me in his arms and carrying me to my bed. The seclusion in which we lived among the far New Hampshire hills was like that in which a family of squir rels lives in the forest ; and as, at ten years of age, I had never been ten miles from home, the stories that came to my ears of the great world that lay beyond my vision were like stories of fairy-land. Fifty years ago the echoes of the Revolution and the War of 1812 ha'd not died away, and soldiers who had served in both wars were plenty. My imagination had been many times ex cited by the stories that had been told at my father's fireside; and those awful people, "the British," were to me the embodiment of cruelty and terror. One evening, I remember, my father came in, and remarked that he had just heard the report of a cannon. The phrase was new, and sounded very large and significant to me, and I attributed it at once to the approach of " the British.'' My father laughed, but I watched the converging roads for the appearance of the red-coats for many days. 4 Arthur Bonnicastle. The incident is of no value except to show how closely between those green hills my life had been bound, and how entirely my world was one of imagination. I was obliged to build the world that held alike my facts and my fancies. When I was about ten years old, I became conscious that something was passing between my father and my mother of an unusual character. They held long con ferences from which their children were excluded. Then a rich man of the neighborhood rode into the yard, and tied his horse, and walked about the farm. From a long tour he returned and entered the stable, where he was joined by my father. Both came into the house together, and went all over it, even down to the cellar, where they held a long conversation. Then they were closeted for an hour in the room which held my father's writing-desk. At last, my mother was called into the room. The chil dren, myself among them, were huddled together in a corner of the large kitchen, filled with wonder at the strange proceedings ; and when all came out, the stranger smiling and my father and mother looking very serious, my curiosity was at a painful height ; and no sooner had the intruder vanished from the room pocketing a long paper as he went than I demanded an explanation. My sisters were older than I, and to them the explana tion was addressed. My father simply said at first : " I have sold the place." Tears sprang into all our eyes, as if a .great calamity had befallen us. Were we to be wanderers ? Were we to have no home ? Where were we to go ? Then my father, who was as simple as a child, under took the justification of himself to his children. He did not know why he had consented to live in such a place for a year. He told the story of the fallacious promises and hopes that had induced him to buy the farm at first; Arthur Bonnicastle. 5 of his long social deprivations ; of his hard and often unsuccessful efforts to make the year's income meet the year's constantly increasing expenses ; and then he dwelt particularly on the fact that his duty to his chil dren compelled him to seek a home where they could secure a better education, and have a chance, at least, to make their way in the world. I saw then, just as clearly as I see to-day, that the motives of removal all lay in the last consideration. He saw possibilities in his chil dren which demanded other circumstances and surround ings. He knew that in his secluded home among the mountains they could not have a fair chance at life, and he would not be responsible for holding them to associa tions that had been simply starvation and torment to him. The first shock over, I turned to the future with the most charming anticipations. My life was to be led out beyond the hills into an unknown world ! I learned the road by which we were to go ; and beyond the woods in which it terminated to my vision my imagination pushed through splendid towns, across sweeping rivers, over vast plains and meadows, on and on to the wide sea. There were castles, there were ships, there were chariots and horses, there was a noble mansion swept and garnished, waiting to receive us all, and, more than all, there was a life of great deeds which should make my father proud of his boy, and in which I remember that " the British" were to be very severely handled. The actual removal hardly justified the picture. There were two overloaded three-horse teams, and a high, old- fashioned wagon, drawn by a single horse, in which were bestowed the family, the family satchels, and the ma chinery of an eight-day clock a pet of my father, who had had it all in pieces for repairs every year since I was born. I did not burden the wagon with my presence, but found a seat, when I was not running by the way side, with the driver of one of the teams. He had 6 Arthur Bonnicastle. attracted me to his company by various sly nods and winks, and by a funny way of talking to his horses. He was an old teamster, and knew not only every inch of the road that led to the distant market-town to which we were going, but every landlord, groom, and bar keeper on the way. A man of such vast geographical knowledge, and such extensive and interesting acquaint ance with men, became to me a most important per sonage. When he had amused himself long enough with stories told to excite my imagination, he turned to me sharply and said : " Boy, do you ever tell lies ? " " Yes, sir," I answered, without hesitation. " You do ? Then why didn't you lie when I asked you the question ? " " Because I never lie except to please people," I re plied. " Oh ! you are one of the story-tellers, are you ? " he said, in a tone of severity. "Yes, sir." "Well, then, you ought to be flogged. If I had a story-telling boy I would flog it out of him. Truth, boy always stand by the truth ! It was only this time last year that I was carrying a load of goods down the moun tain for a family the same as yours, and there was a lit tle boy who went with me the same as you are going now. I was sure I smelt tobacco. Said I, ' I smell to bacco.' He grew red in the face, and I charged him with having some in his pocket. He declared he had none and I said,' We shall see what will come to liars.' I pitied him, for I knew something terrible would hap pen. A strap broke, and the horses started on a run, and off went the boy. I stopped them as soon as I could, ran back and picked him up insensible, with as hand some a plug of tobacco in his pocket as you ever saw ; and the rascal had stolen it from his grandmother J Arthur Bonnicastle. f Always speak the truth, my boy, always speak the truth!" " And did you steal the tobacco from him ? " I asked. " No, lad, I took it and used it, because I knew it would hurt him, and I couldn't bear the thought of expos ing him to his grandmother." " Do you think lying is worse than stealing? " I asked. " That is something we can't settle. Tobacco is very preserving and cleansing to the teeth, and I am obliged to use it. Do you see that little building we are coming to ? That is Snow's store : and now, if you are a boy that has any heart any real heart and if you have saved up a few pennies, you will go in there and get a stick of candy for yourself and a plug of tobacco for me. That would be the square thing for a boy to do who stands by the truth, and wants to do a good turn to a man that helps him along ; " and he looked me in the eye so steadily and persuasively, that resistance was impossible, and my poor little purse went back into my pocket painfully empty of that which had seemed like wealth. We rode along quietly after this until my companion asked me if I knew how tall I was. Of course I did not know anything about it, and wished to learn the reason of the question. He had a little boy of his own at home a very smart little fellow who could exactly reach the check-rein of his leading horse. He had been wonder ing if I could do the same. He should think we were about the same height, and as it would be a tiptoe stretch, the performance would be a matter of spring and skill. At that moment it happened that we came to a watering-trough, which gave me the opportunity to satisfy his curiosity ; and he sat smiling appreciatively upon my frantic and at last successful efforts to release the leader's head, and lift it again to its check. We came to a steep acclivity, and, under the stimulat ing influence of the teamster's flattery, I carried a stone 8 Arthur Bonnicastle. as large as my head from the bottom to the top, to sta} the wheels when the horses paused for breath. I recall the lazy rascal's practice upon my boyish credulity and vanity more for my interest in my own childishness than for any interest I still have in him ; though I cannot think that the jolly old joker was long ago dust, without a sigh. He was a great man to me then, and he stirred me with appeals to my ambition as few have stirred me since. And "standing by the truth," as he so feelingly adjured me to stand, I may confess that his appeals were not the basest to which my life has responded. The forenoon was long, hot and wearisome, but at its close we emerged upon a beautiful valley, and saw be fore us a characteristic New England village, with its white houses, large and little, and its two homely wooden spires. I was walking as I came in sight of the village, and I stopped, touched with the poetry of the peaceful scene. Just then the noon-bell pealed forth from one of the little churches the first church-bell I had ever heard. I did not know what it was, and was obliged to inquire. I have stood under the belfry of Bruges since, and heard, amid the dull jargon of the decaying city, the chimes from its silver-sounding bells with far less of emotion than I experienced that day, as I drank my first draught of the wonderful music. O sweet first time of everything good in life ! Thank heaven that, with an eternity of duration be fore us, there is also infinity of resources, with ever-vary ing supply and ministry, and ever-recurring first times ! My father and the rest of the family had preceded us, and we found them waiting at the village tavern for our arrival. Dinner was ready, and I was quite ready for it, though I was not so much absorbed that I cannot recall to-day the fat old woman with flying cap-strings who waited at the table. Indeed, were I an artist, I could Arthur Bonnicastlc. 9 reproduce the pictures on the walls of the low, long din ing-room where we ate, so strongly did they impress themselves upon my memory. We made but a short stay, and then in our slow way pressed on. My friend of the team had evidently found something more exhila rating at the tavern than tobacco, and was confidential and affectionate, not only toward me but toward all he met upon the road, of whom he told me long and mar vellous histories. But he grew dull and even ill-tem pered at last, and I had a quiet cry behind a projecting bedstead, for very weariness and homesickness. I was too weary when at dusk we arrived at the end of our day's progress to note, or care, for anything. My supper was quickly eaten, and I was at once in the ob livion of sleep. The next day's journey was unlike the first, in that it was crowded with life. The villages grew larger, so as quite to excite my astonishment. I saw, indeed, the horses and the chariots. There were signs of wealth that I had never seen before beautifully kept lawns, fine, stately mansions, and gayly-dressed ladies, who humiliated me by regarding me with a sort of stately curiosity ; and I realized as I had never done be fore that there were grades of life far above that to which I had been accustomed, and that my father was comparatively a poor, plain man. Toward the close of the second afternoon we came in sight of Bradford, which, somewhere within its limits, contained our future home. There -were a dozen stately spires, there were tall chimneys waving their plumes oi pearly smoke, there were long rows of windows red in the rays of the declining sun, there was a river winding away into the distance between its borders of elm and willow, and there were white -winged craft that glided hither and thither in the far silence. "What do you think of that, boy?" inquired my friend the teamster. io Arthur Bonnicastle. "Isn't it pretty!" I responded. " Isn't it a grand place to live in ? " " That depends upon whether one lives or starves," he said. " If I were going to starve, I would rather do it where there isn't anything to eat." " But we are not going to starve," I said. " Father never will let us starve." " Not if he can help it, boy ; but your father is a lamb a great, innocent lamb." " What do you mean by calling my father a lamb ? He is as good a man as there is in Bradford, any way," I responded, somewhat indignantly. The man gave a new roll to the enormous quid in his mouth, a solace that had been purchased by my scanty pennies, and said, with a contemptuous smile, "Oh! he's too good. Some time when you think of it, suppose you look and see if he has ever cut his eye-teeth." " You are making fun of my father, and I don't like it. How should you like to have a man make fun of you to your little boy ? " At this he gave a great laugh, and I knew at once that he had no little boy, and that he had been playing off a fiction upon me throughout the whole journey. It was my first encounter with a false and selfish world To find in my hero of the three horses and the large ac quaintance only a vulgar rascal who could practice upon the credulity of a little boy was one of the keenest dis appointments I had ever experienced. " If I could hurt you, I would strike you," I said in a rage. " Well, boy," he replied almost affectionately, and quite admiringly, " you will make/0wr way, if you have that sort of thing in you. I wouldn't have believed it Upon my word, I wouldn't have believed it. I take it all back. Your father is a first-rate man for heaven, if he isn't for Bradford ; and he's sure to go there when he Arthur Bonnicastle. \\ moves next, and I should like to be the one to move him, but I'm afraid they wouldn't let me in to unload the goods." There was an awful humor in this strange speech which I fully comprehended, but my reverence for even the name of heaven was so profound that I did not dare to laugh. I simply said : " I don't like to hear you talk so, and I wish you wouldn't." " Well, then, I won't, my lad. They say the lame and the lazy are always provided for, and I don't know why the lambs are not just as deserving. You'll all get through, I suppose ; and a hundred years hence there will be no difference." "Who provides for the lame and the lazy?" I in quired. " Well, now you have me tight," said the fellow with a sigh. " Somebody up there, I s'pose ; " and he pointed his whip upward with a little toss. " Don't you know? " I inquired, with ingenuous and undisguised wonder. " Not a bit of it. I never saw him. I've been lazy all my life, and I was lame once for a year, falling from this very wagon, and a mighty rough time I had of it, too ; and so far as I am concerned it has been a business of looking out for number one.' Nobody ever let down a silver spoon full of honey to me ; and what is more, I don't expect it. If you have that sort of thing in your head, the best way is to keep it. You'll be happier, I reckon, in the long run if you do ; but I didn't get it in early, and it is too late now." " Then your father was a goat, wasn't he ? " I said, with a quick impulse. " Yes," he replied with a loud laugh. " Yes indeed : he was a goat with the biggest and wickedest pair of horns you ever saw. Boy, remember what I tell you. Goodness in this world is a thing of fathers and mothers 12 Arthur Bonnicastle. I haven't any children, and I shouldn't have any right ta them if I had. People who bring children into the world that they are not fit to take care of, and who teach them nothing but drinking and fighting and swearing, ought to be shot. If I had had your start, I should be all right to-day." So I had another lesson two lessons, indeed one in the practical infidelity of the world, and one in social and family influence. They haunted me for many days, and brought to me a deeper and a more intelligent re spect for my father and his goodness and wisdom than I had ever entertained. "I wish I were well down that hill," said my teamster at last, after we had jolted along for half a mile without a word. As he said this he looked uneasily around upon his load, which, with the long transportation, had become loose. He stopped his horses, and gave another turn to the pole with which he had strained the rope that, passing lengthwise and crosswise the load, held it together. Then he started on again. I watched him closely, for I saw real apprehension on his face. His horses were tired, and one of them was blind. The lat ter fact gave me no apprehension, as the driver had taken much pains to impress upon me the fact that the best horses were always blind. He only regretted that he could not secure them for his whole team, principally on account of the fact that not having any idea how far they had travelled, they never knew when to be tired. The reason seemed sound, and I had accepted it in good faith. When we reached the brow of the hill that descended into the town, I saw that he had some reason for his ap prehension, and I should have alighted and taken to my feet if I had not been as tired as the horses. But I had faith in the driver, and faith in the poor brutes he drove, and so remained on my seat. Midway the hill, the blind ArtJmr Bonnicastle. ij horse stepped upon a rolling stone ; and all I remember of the scene which immediately followed was a confused and violent struggle. The horse fell prone upon the road, and while' he was trying in vain to rise, I was con scious that my companion had leaped off. Then some thing struck me from behind, and I felt myself propelled wildly and resistlessly through the air, down among the struggling horses, after which I knew no more. When consciousness came back to me it was night, and I was in a strange house. A person who wakes out of healthy sleep recognizes at once his surroundings, and by a process in which volition has no part reunites the thread of his life with that which was dropped when sleep fell upon him. The unconsciousness which follows concussion is of a different sort, and obliterates for a time the memory of a whole life. I woke upon a little cot on the floor. Though it was summer, a small fire had been kindled on the hearth, my father was chafing my hands, my brothers and sis ters were looking on at a distance with apprehension and distress upon their faces, and the room was piled with furniture in great confusion. The whole journey was gone from my memory ; and feeling that I could not lift my head or speak, I could only gasp and shut my eyes and wonder. I knew my father's face, and knew the family faces around me, but I had no idea where we were, or what had happened. Something warm and stinging came to my lips, and I swallowed it with a gulp and a strangle. Then I became conscious of a voice that was strange to me. It was deep and musical and strong, yet there was a restraint and a conscious modu lation in its tone, as if it were trying to do that to which it was not well used. Its possessor was evidently talk ing to my mother, who, I knew, was weeping. "Ah! madam! Ah! madam! This will never do never do !" I heard him say. "You are tired Bless 14 Artliur Bonnicastle, me ! You have come eighty miles. It would have killed Mrs. Bradford. All you want is rest. I am not a chicken, and such a ride in such a wagon as yours would have finished me up, I'm sure." "Ah, my poor boy, Mr. Bradford!" my mother moaned. " The boy will be all right by to-morrow morning," he replied. " He is opening his eyes now. You can't kill such a little piece of stuff as that. He hasn't a broken bone in his body. Let him have the brandy there, and keep his feet warm. Those little chaps are never good for anything until they have had the daylight knocked out of them half a dozen times. I wonder what has become of that rascal Dennis ! " At this he rose and walked to the window, and peered out into the darkness. I saw that he was a tall, plainly dressed man, with a heavy cane in his hand. One thing was certain : he was a type of man I had never seen be fore. Perfectly self-possessed, entirely at home, super intending all the affairs of the house, commanding, advising, reassuring, inspiring, he was evidently there to do good. In my speechless helplessness, my own heart went out to him in perfect trust. I had the fullest faith in what he said about myself and my recovery, though at the moment I had no idea what I was to re cover from, or rather, what had been the cause of my prostration. " There the vagabond comes at last ! " said the stran ger. He threw open the door, and Dennis, a smiling, good-natured looking Irishman, walked in with a ham per of most appetizing drinks and viands. An empty table was ready to receive them, and hot coffee, milk, bread, and various cold meats were placed one after an other upon it. " Set some chairs, Dennis, and be quick .bout it,' said Mr. Bradford. Arthur Bonnicastle. 15 The chairs were set, and then Mr. Bradford stooped and offered my mother his arm, in as grand a manner as if he were proffering a courtesy to the Queen of Eng land. She rose and took it, and he led her to the table. My father was very much touched, and I saw him look at the stranger with quivering lips. This was a gentle man a kind of man he had read about in books, but not the kind of man he had ever been brought much in con tact with. This tender and stately attention to my mother was an honor which was very grateful to him. It was a touch of ideal life, too above the vulgar, grace less habits of those among whom his life had been cast. Puritan though he was, and plain and undemonstrative in his ways, he saw the beauty of this new manner with a thrill that brought a crimson tint to his hollow cheeks. Both he and my mother tried to express their thanks, but Mr. Bradford declared that he was the lucky man in the whole matter. It was so fortunate that he had hap pened to be near when the accident occurred ; and though the service he had rendered was a very small one, it had been a genuine pleasure to him to render it. Then, seeing that no one touched the food, he turned with a quick instinct to Dennis, and said : " By the way, Dennis, let me see you at the door a moment." Dennis followed him out, and then my father bowed his head, and thanked the Good Giver for the provision made for his family, for the safety of his boy, and for the prosperous journey, and ended by asking a blessing upon the meal. When, after a considerable interval, Mr. Bradford and his servant reappeared, it was only on the part of the former to say that Dennis would remain to assist in putting the beds into such shape that the family could have a comfortable night's rest, and to promise to look in late in the morning. He shook hands in a hearty way with my father and mother, said "Goodnight" to the 1 5 Arthur Bonnicastle. children, and then came and looked at me. He smiled a kind, good-humored smile, and shaking his long finger at me, said : " Keep quiet, my little man ; you'll be all right in the morning." Then he went away, and after the closing of the door I heard his brisk, strong tread away into the darkness. I have often wondered whether such men as Mr. Brad ford realize how strong an impression they make upon the minds of children. He undoubtedly realized that he had to deal with a family of children, beginning with my father and mother as truly children as any of us ; but it is impossible that he could know what an uplift he gave to the life to which he had ministered. The senti ment which he inspired in me was as truly that of wor ship as any of which I was capable. The grand man, with his stalwart frame, his apparent control of unlim ited means, his self-possession, his commanding man ner, his kindness and courtesy, lifted him in my imagi nation almost to the dignity of a God. I wondered if I could ever become such a man as he ! I learned in after years that even he had his weaknesses, but I never ceased to entertain for him the most profound respect. Indeed, I had good and special reason for this, beyond what at present appears. After he departed I watched Dennis. If Mr. Brad ford was my first gentleman, Dennis was my first Irish man. Oh, sweet first time ! let me exclaim again. I have never seen an Irishman since who so excited my admiration and interest. " Me leddy," said Dennis, imitating as well as he could the grand manner of his master, " if ye'll tek an Irish b'y's advice, ye'll contint yoursilf with a shake down for the night, and set up the frames in the mar- nin'. I'm thinkin' the Squire will lit me give ye a lift thin, an' it's slape ye're wantin' now." He saw the broad grin coming upon the faces of the Arthur Bonnicastle. 17 children as he proceeded, and joined in their unre strained giggle when he finished. " Ah ! there's nothing like a fine Irish lad for makin' little gurr'ls happy. It's better nor whiskey any day." My poor father and mother were much distressed, fearing that the proprieties had been trampled on by the laughing children, and apologized to Dennis for their rudeness. " Och ! niver mind 'em. An Irish b'y is a funny bird d.v/ way, and they're not used to his chirrup yet." In the meantime he had lighted half a dozen candles for as many rooms, and was making quick work with the bedding. At length, with the help of my mother, he had arranged beds enough to accommodate the family for the night, and with many professions of good-will, and with much detail of experience concerning moving in his own country, he was about to bid us all " Good night," when he paused at the door and said : " Thank a blind horse for good luck ! " " What do you mean, Dennis ? " inquired my father. " Is it what I mane ? ye ask^me. Wasn't it a blind horse that fell on the hill, and threw the lad aff jist where the Squire was standin', and didn't he get him in his arms the furr'st one, and wasn't that the beginnin" of it all ? Thank a blind horse for good luck, I till ye. The Squire can no more drap you now than he can drap his blissid ould hearr't, though it's likely I'll have to do the most of it mesilf." My mother assured Dennis that she was sorry to give him the slightest trouble. " Never mind me, me leddy. Let an Irish b'y alone for bein' tinder of himsilf. Do I look as if I had too much worr'k and my bafe comin' to me in thin slices ? " And he spread out his brawny hands for inspection. The children giggled, and he went out with a " Good- irght." Then he reopened the door, and putting only his 1 8 Arthur Bonnicastle. head in, said, " Remember what I till ye. A blind horse for good luck ; " and, nodding his head a dozen times, he shut the door again and disappeared for the night. When I woke the next morning, it all came back to me the long ride, the fearful experience upon the hill, and the observations of the previous evening. We were indebted to the thoughtful courtesy of Mr. Bradford for our breakfast, and, after Dennis had been busy during half the morning in assisting to put the house in order, I saw my gentleman again. The only inconvenience from which I suffered was a sense of being bruised all over ; and when he came in I greeted him with such a smile of hearty delight that he took my cheeks in his hands and kissed me. How many thousand times I had longed for such an expression of affection from my father, and longed in vain ! It healed me and made me happy. Then I had an opportunity to study him more closely. He was fresh from his toilet, and wore the cleanest linen. His neck was enveloped and his chin propped by the old-fashioned "stock" of those days, his waistcoat was white, and his dark gray coat and trousers had evidently passed under Dennis's brush in the early morning. A heavy gold chain with a massive seal depended from his watch-pocket, and he carried in his hand what seemed to be his constant companion, his heavy cane. At this distance of time I find it difficult to describe his face, because it impressed me as a whole, and not by its separate features. His eyes were dark, pleasant, and piercing so much I remember ; but the rest of his face I cannot describe. I trusted it wholly ; but, as I recall the man, I hear more than I see. Im pressive as was his presence, his wonderful voice was his finest interpreter to me. I lingered upon his tones and cadences as I have often listened to the voice of a distant waterfall, lifted and lowered by the wind. I cai; hear it to-day as plainly as I heard it Arthur Bonnicastle, 19 During the visit of that morning he learned the situa tion of the family, and comprehended with genuine pain the helplessness of my father. That he was interested in my father I could see very plainly. His talk was not in the manner of working-men, and the conversation was discursive enough to display his intelligence. The gentleman was evidently puzzled. Here was a plain man who had seen no society, who had lived for years among the woods and hills ; yet the man of culture could start no subject without meeting an intelligent response. Mr. Bradford ascertained that my father had but little money, that he had come to Bradford with absolutely no provision but a house to move into, that he had no defi nite plan of business, and that his desire for a better future for his children was the motive that had induced him to migrate from his mountain home. After he had made a full confession of his circum stances, with the confiding simplicity of a boy, Mr. Bradford looked at him with a sort of mute wonder, and then rose and walked the room. " I confess I don't understand it, Mr. Bonnicastle," said he, stopping before him, and bringing down his cane. "You want your children to be educated better than you are, but you are a thousand times better than your circumstances. Men are happiest when they are in harmony with their circumstances. I venture to say that the men you left behind you were contented enough. What is the use of throwing children out of all pleasant relations with their condition ? I don't blame you for wanting to have your children educated, but I am sure that educating working people is a mistake. Work is their life ; and they worked a great deal better and were a great deal happier when they knew less. Now isn't it so, Mr. Bonnicastle ? isn't it so? " Quite unwittingly Mr. Bradford had touched my fa ther's sensitive point, and as there was something in 2O Arthur Bonnicastle. the gentleman's manner that inspired the conversational faculties of all with whom he came in contact, my fa ther's tongue was loosed, and it did not stop until the gentleman had no more to say. "Well, if we differ, we'll agree to differ," said he, at last ; "but now you want work, and I will speak to some of my friends about you. Bonnicastle Peter Bonni- castle, I think ? " My father nodded, and said, " A name I inherit from I do not know how many great-grandfathers." " Your ancestor was not Peter Bonnicastle of Rox* bury ? " " That is what they tell me." " Peter Bonnicastle of Roxbury ! " " Ay, Peter Bonnicastle of Roxbury." " By Jove, man ! Do you know you've got the bluest blood in your veins of any man in Bradford ? " I shall never forget the pleased and proud expression that came into the faces of my father and mother as these words were uttered. What blue blood was, and in what its excellence consisted, I did not know ; but it was something to be proud of that was evident. " Peter Bonnicastle of Roxbury ! Ah yes ! Ah yes ! I understand it. It's all plain enough now. You are a gentleman without knowing it a gentleman trying in a blind way to get back to a gentleman's conditions. Well, perhaps you will ; I shall not wonder if you do." It was my first observation of the reverence for blood that I have since found to be nearly universal. The show of contempt for it which many vulgar people make is always an affectation, unless they are very vulgar in deed. My father, who, more than any man I ever knew, respected universal humanity, and ignored class distinctions, was as much delighted and elevated with the recognition of his claims to good family blood as it he had fallen heir to the old family wealth. Arthur Bonnicastle. 21 " And what is this lad's name ? " inquired Mr. Brad ford, pointing over his shoulder toward me. " My name is Arthur Bonnicastle," I replied, taking the words out of my father's mouth. " And Arthur Bonnicastle has a pair of ears and a tongue," responded Mr. Bradford, turning to me with an amused expression upon his face. I took the response as a reproof, and blushed painfully. " Tut, tut, there is no harm done, my lad," said he, rising and coming to a chair near me, and regarding me very kindly. " You know you had neither last night," he added, feeling my hand and forehead to learn if there were any feverish reaction. I was half sitting, half lying on a lounge near the win dow, and he changed his seat from the chair to the lounge so that he sat over me, looking down into my face. " Now," said he, regarding me very tenderly, and speaking gently, in a tone that was wholly his own, " we will have a little talk all by ourselves. What have you been thinking about ? Your mouth has been screwed up into ever so many interrogation points ever since your father and I began to talk." I laughed at the odd fancy, and told him I should like to ask him a few questions. " Of course you would. Boys are always full of ques tions. Ask as many as you please." " I should like to ask you if you own this town," I began. " Why?" " Because," I answered, " you have the same name the town has." " No, my lad, I own very little of it ; but my great grandfather owned all the land it stands on, and the town was named for him, or rather he named it for him self." " Was his blood blue ? " I inquired. 22 Arthur Bonnicastle. He smiled and whistled in a comical way, and said ha was afraid that it wasn't quite so blue as it might have been. " Is yours ? " " Well, that's a tough question," he responded. " I fancy the family blood has been growing blue for several generations, and perhaps there's a little indigo in me." " Do you eat anything in particular ? " I inquired. " No, nothing in particular : it isn't made in that way." " How is it made ? " I inquired. " That's a tough question, too," he replied. " Oh ! if you can't answer it," I said, " don't trouble yourself ; but do you think Jesus Christ had blue blood ? " " Why yes yes indeed. Wasn't he the son of David when he got back to him and wasn't David a King? " " Oh ! that's what you mean by blue blood and that's another thing," I said. " What do you mean by another thing, my boy ? " inquired Mr. Bradford. " I was thinking," I said, " that my father was a car penter, and so was his ; and so his blood was blue and mine too. And there are lots of other things that might have been true." " Tell me all about them," said my interlocutor. " What have you been thinking about ? " " Oh ! " I said, " I've been thinking that if my father had lived when his father lived, and if they had lived in the same country, perhaps they would have worked in the same shop and on the same houses ; and then per haps Jesus Christ and I should have played together with the blocks and shavings. And then, when he grew up and became so wonderful, I should have grown up and perhaps been one of the apostles, and written part of the Bible, and preached and healed the sick, and been a martyr, and gone to heaven, and and I don't know how many other things." Arthur Bonnicastle. 23 " Well, I rather think you would, by Jove," he said, rising to his feet, impulsively. " One thing more, please," I said, stretching my hands up to him. He sat down again, and put his face close to mine. " I want to tell you that I love you." His eyes filled with tears ; and he whispered : " Thank you, my dear boy : love me always. Thank you." Then he kissed me again and turned to my father. " I think you are entirely right in coming to Bradford," I heard him say. " I don't think I should like to see this little chap going back to the woods again, even if I could have my own way about it. For some minutes he walked the room backward and forward, sometimes pausing and looking out of the win dow. My. father saw that he was absorbed, and said nothing. At length he stopped suddenly before my father and said : " This is the strangest affair I ever knew. Here you come out of the woods with this large family, without the slightest idea what you are going to do with no provision for the future whatever. How did you suppose you were going to get along ? " How well I remember the quiet, confident smile with which my father received his strong, blunt words, and the trembling tone in which he replied to them ! " Mr. Bradford," said he, " none of us takes care of himself. I am not a wise man in worldly things, and I am obliged to trust somebody ; and I know of no one so wise as He who knows all things, or so kind as He who loves all men. I do the best I can, and I leave the rest to Him. He has never failed me in the great straits of my life, and He never will. I have already thanked Him for sending you to me yesterday ; and I believe that by His direction you are to be, as you have already been, a great blessing to me. I shall seek for work, and with such strength as I have I shall do it, and do it well. I shall have troubles and trials, but I know that none wilj 24 Arthur Bonnicastle. come that I cannot transform, and that I am not ex pected to transform into a blessing. If I am not rich in money when the end comes, I shall be rich in some thing better than money." Mr. Bradford took my father's hand, and shaking it warmly, responded : " You are already rich in that which is better than money. A faith like yours is wealth inestimable. You are a thousand times richer than I am to-day. I beg your pardon, Mr. Bonnicastle, but this is really quite new to me. I have heard cant and snuffle, and I know the difference. Jf the Lord doesn't take care of such a man as you are, he doesn't stand by his friends, that's all." My father's reverence was offended by this familiar way of speaking a name which was ineffably sacred to him, and he made no reply. I could see, too, that he felt that the humility with which he had spoken was not fully appreciated by Mr. Bradford. Suddenly breaking the thread of the conversation, Mr. Bradford said : " By the way, who is your landlord? I ought to know who owns this little house, but I don't." " The landlord is not a landlord at all, I believe. The owner is a landlady, though I have never seen her a Mrs. Sanderson Ruth Sanderson." " Oh ! I know her well, and ought to have known that this is her property," said Mr. Bradford. " I have noth ing against the lady, though she is a little odd in her ways ; but I am sorry you have a woman to deal with, for, so far as I have observed, a business woman is a screw by rule, and a woman without a business faculty and with business to do is a screw without rule." In the midst of the laugh that followed Mr. Bradford's axiomatic statement he turned to the window, and ex claimed : " Well, I declare ! here she comes." I looked quickly and saw a curious turn-out approach- nig the house. It was an old-fashioned chaise, set low Arthur Bonnicastle. 25 between two high wheels, drawn by a heavy-limbed and heavy-gaited black horse, and driven by a white-haired, thin-faced old man. Beside the driver sat a little old woman ; and the first impression given me by the pair was that the vehicle v/as much too large for them, for it seemed to toss them up and catch them, and to knock them together by its constant motion. The black horse, who had a steady, independent trot, that regarded neither stones nor ruts, made directly for our door, stopped when he found the place he wanted, and then gave a preliminary twitch at the reins and reached down his head for a nibble at the grass. The man sat still, look ing straight before him, and left the little old woman to alight without assistance ; and she did alight in a way which showed that she_ had little need of it. She was dressed entirely in black, with the exception of the white wido'w's cap drawn tightly around a little face set far back in a deep bonnet. She had a quick, wiry, nervous way in walking, and coming up the path that led through a little garden lying between the house and the street, she cast furtive glances left and right, as if gathering the condition of her property. Then followed a sharp rap at the door. The absorbed and embarrassed condition of my father and mother was evident in the fact that neither started to open the door ; but Dennis, coming quickly in from an adjoining room where he was busy, opened it, and Mr. Bradford went forward to meet her in the narrow hall. He shook her hand in his own cordial and stately way, and said jocularly : " Well, Madame, you see we have taken possession of your snug little house." Her lips, which were compressed and thin as if she were suffering pain, parted in a faint smile, and her dark, searching eyes looked up to him in a kind of ques tioning wonder. There was nothing in her face that at tracted me. I remember only that I felt moved to pity 26 Arthur Bonnicastie. her, she seemed so small, and lonely, and careworn Her hands were the tiniest I had ever seen, and were merely little bundles of bones in the shape of hands. " Let me present your tenants to you, Mrs. Sander son, and commend them to your good opinion," said Mr. Bradford. She stood quietly and bowed to my father and mother, who had risen to greet her. I was young, but quick in my instincts, and 1 saw at once that she regarded a ten ant as an inferior, with whom it would not do to be on terms of social familiarity. " Do you find the house comfortable ? " she inquired, speaking in a quick way and addressing my father. " Apparently so," he answered ; and then he added : " we are hardly settled yet, but I think we shall get along very well in it." ' With your leave I will go over it, and see for my self," she said quietly. "Oh, certainly!" responded my father. "My wife will go with you." " If she will ; but I want you, too." They went ofif together, and I heard them for some minutes talking around in the different parts of the house. " Any more questions? " inquired Mr. Bradford with a. smile, looking over to where I sat on the lounge. " Yes, sir," I replied. " I have been wondering whether that lady has a crack in the top of her head." " Well, I shouldn't wonder if she had a very, very small one," he replied; "and now what started that fancy ? " " Because," I continued, " if she is what you call a screw, I was wondering how they turned her." " Well, my boy, it is so very small indeed," said Mr. Bradford, putting on a quizzical look, " that I'm afraid they can't turn her at all." When the lady came back she seemed to be ready ta ArtJiur Bonnicastle. 27 go away at once ; but Mr. Bradford detained her with the story of the previous night's experiences, including the accident that had happened to me. She listened sharply, and then came over to where I was sitting, and asked me if I were badly hurt. I assured her I was not. Then she took one of my plump hands in her own little grasp, and looked at me in a strange, intense way with out saying a word. Mr. Bradford interrupted her, with an eye to business, by saying : " Mr. Bonnicastle, your new tenant here, is a carpenter ; and I venture to say that he is a good one. We must do what we can to introduce him to business." She turned with a quick motion on her heel, and bent her eyes on my father. " Bonnicastle ? " said she, with almost a fierce interrogation. " Oh ! I supposed you knew his name, Mrs. Sander son," said Mr. Bradford ; and then he added, " but I presume your agent did not tell you." She made no sign to show that she had heard a word that Mr. Bradford had said. " Peter Bonnicastle," said my father, breaking the si lence with the only words he could find. " Peter Bonnicastle ! " she repeated almost mechani cally, and continued standing as if dazed. She stood with her back toward me, and I could only guess at her expression, or the strangely curious interest of the scene, by its reflection in Mr. Bradford's face. He sat uneasily in his chair, and pressed the head of his cane against his chin, as if he were using a mechanical appliance to keep his mouth shut. He knew the woman before him, and was determined to be wise. Subse quently I learned the reason of it all of his silence at the time, of his reticence for months and even years afterward, and of what sometimes seemed to me and to my father like coolness and neglect. The silence was oppressive, and my father, remem- 28 Arthur Bonnicastle. bering the importance which Mr. Bradford had attached to the fact, and moved by a newly awakened pride, said : " I am one of many Peters, they tell me, the first of whom settled in Roxbury. " Roxbury ? " and she took one or two steps toward him. " You are sure ? " " Perfectly sure," responded my father. She made no explanation, but started for the door, dropping a little bow as she turned away. Mr. Bradford was on his feet in a moment, and, opening the door for her, accompanied her into the street. I watched them from the window. They paused just far enough from the driver of the chaise to be beyond his hearing, and conversed for several minutes. I could not doubt that Mr. Bradford was giving her his impression of us. Then he helped her into the chaise, and the little gray-haired driver, gathering up his reins, and giving a great pull at the head of the black horse, which seemed fastened to a particularly strong tuft of grass, turned up the street and drove off, tossing and jolting in the way he came. There was a strong, serious, excited expression on "Mr. Bradford's face as he came in. " My friend," said he, taking my father's hand, "this is a curious affair. I cannot explain it to you, and the probabilities are that I shall have less to do with and for you than I supposed I might have. Be sure, however, that I shall always be interested in your prosperity, and never hesitate to come to me if you are in serious trouble. And now let me ask you never to mention my name to Mrs. Sanderson, with praise ; never tell her if I render you a service. I know the lady, and I think it quite likely that you will hear from her in a few days. In the meantime you will be busy in making your family comfortable in your new home." Then he spoke a cheerful word to my mother, and bade us all a good-morning, only looking kindly at ArtJiur Bonnicastle. 29 me instead of bestowing upon me the coveted and ex pected kiss. When he was gone, my father and mother looked at each other with a significant glance, and I waited to hear what they would say. If I have said little about my mother, it is because she had very little to say for her self. She was a weary, worn woman, who had parted with her vitality in the bearing and rearing of her chil dren and in hard and constant care and work. Life had gone wrong with her. She had a profound respect for practical gifts, and her husband did not possess them. She had long since ceased to hope for anything good in life, and her face had taken on a sad, dejected expres sion, which it never lost under any circumstances. To my father's abounding hopefulness she always opposed her obstinate hopelessness. This was partly a matter of temperament, as well as a result of disappointment. I learned early that she had very little faith in me, or rather in any natural gifts of mine that in the future might retrieve the fortunes of the family. I had too many of the characteristics of my father. I see the two now as they sat thinking and talking ovpr the events and acquaintances of the evening and the morning as plainly as I saw them then my father with his blue eyes all alight, and his cheeks touched with the flush of excitement, and my mother with her distrust ful face, depreciating and questioning everything. She liked Mr. Bradford. Mr. Bradford was a gentleman ; but what had gentlemen to do with them ? It was all very well to talk about family, but what was family good for without money ? Mr. Bradford had his own affairs to attend to, and we should see precious little more of him ! As for Mrs. Sanderson, she did not like her at all. Poor people would get very little consideration from an old woman whose hand was too good to be given to a stranger who happened to be her tenant. 3O Arthur Bonnicastle. I have wondered often how my father maintained hia courage and faith with such a drag upon them as my mother's morbid sadness imposed, but in truth they were proof against every depressing influence. Out of every suggestion of possible good fortune he built castles that filled his imagination with almost a childish delight. He believed that something good was soon to come out or it all, and he was really bright and warm in the smile of that Providence which had manifested itself to him in these new acquaintances. I pinned my faith to my fa ther's sleeve, and believed as fully and as far as he did. There was a rare sympathy between us. The great sweet boy that he was and the little boy that I was, were one in a charming communion. Oh God ! that he should be gone and I here ! He has been in heaven long enough to have won his freedom, and I am sure we shall kiss when we meet again ! Before the week closed, the gray-haired old servant of Mrs. Sanderson knocked at the door, and brought a little n'Dte. It was from his mistress, and read thus, for 1 copy from the faded document itself: 'THE MANSION, BRADFORD. "MR. PETER BONNICASTLE: " I should like to see you here next Monday morning, in regard to some repairs about The Mansion. Come early, and if your little boy Arthur is well enough you may bring him. " RUTH SANDERSON." The note was read aloud, and it conveyed to my mind instantaneously a fact which I did not mention, but which filled me with strange excitement and pleasure. I remembered that my name was not once mentioned while Mrs. Sanderson was in the house. She had learned it therefore from Mr. Bradford, while talking at the door. Mr. Bradford liked me, I knew, and he had spokev Arthur Bonnicastle. 31 well of me to her. What would come of it all ? So, with the same visionary hopefulness that characterized my father, I plunged into a sea of dreams on which I floated over depths paved with treasure, and under skies bright with promise until Monday morning dawned. When the early breakfast was finished, and my fathe with unusual fervor of feeling had commended his fam ily and himself to the keeping and the blessing 01 heaven, we started forth, he and I, hand-in-hand, with as cheerful anticipations as if we were going to a feast- CHAPTER II. I VISIT AN OGRESS AND A GIANT IN THEIR ENCHANTED CASTLE. " THE MANSION" of Mrs. Sanderson was a long half- mile away from us, situated upon the hill that over looked the little city. It appeared grand in the dis tance, and commanded the most charming view of town, meadow and river imaginable. We passed Mr. Brad ford's house on the way a plain, rich, unpretending dwelling and received from him a hearty good-morn ing, with kind inquiries for my mother, as he stood in his open doorway, enjoying the fresh morning air. At the window sat a smiling little woman, and, by her side, looking out at me, stood the prettiest little girl I had ever seen. Her raven-black hair was freshly curled, and shone like her raven -black eyes ; and both helped to make the simple frock in which she was dressed seem marvellously white. I have pitied my poor little self many times in thinking how far removed from me in condition the petted child seemed that morning, and how unworthy I felt, in my homely clothes, to touch her 32 Arthur Bonnicastle. dainty hand, or even to speak to her. I was fascinated by the vision, but glad to get out of her sight. On arriving at The Mansion, my father and I walked to the great front-door. There were sleeping lions nt the side and there was a rampant lion on the knocker which my father was about to attack when the door swung noiselessly upon its hinges, and we were met upon the threshold by the mistress herself. She looked smaller than ever, shorn of her street costume and her bonnet ; and her lips were so thin and her face seemed so full of pain that I wondered whether it were her head -or her teeth that ached. "The repairs that I wish to talk about are at the rear of the house," she said, blocking the way, and with a nod directing my father to that locality. There was no show of courtesy in her words or manner. My father turned away, responding to her bidding, and still main taining his hold upon my hand. " Arthur," said she, " come in here." I looked up questioningly into my father's face, and saw that it was clouded. He relinquished my hand, and said : "Go with the lady." She took me into a little library, and, pointing me to a chair, said : " Sit there until I come back. Don't stir, or touch anything." I felt, when she left me, as if there were enough of force in her command to paralyze me for a thousand years. I hardly dared to breathe. Still my young eyes were active, and were quickly engaged in taking a.<_ in ventory of the apartment, and of such rooms as I could look into through the open doors. I was conscious at once that I was looking upon nothing that was new. Everything was faded and dark and old, except those things that care could keep bright. The large brass andirons in the fireplace, and the silver candlesticks on the mantel-tree were as brilliant as when they were ixv Arthur Bonnicastle. 33 So perfect was the order of the apartment so evidently had every article of furniture and every little ornament been adjusted to its place and its relations that, after the first ten minutes of my observation, I could have de tected any change as quickly as Mrs. Sanderson herself. Through a considerable passage, with an open doot at either end, I saw on the wall of the long dining room a painted portrait of a lad, older than I and very hand some. I longed to go nearer to it, but the prohibition withheld me. In truth, I forgot all else about me in my curiosity concerning it forgot even where I was yet I failed at last to carry away any impression of it that my memory could recall at will. It may have been half an hour it may have been an hour that Mrs. Sanderson was out of the room, engaged with my father. It seemed a long time that I had been left when she returned. " Have you moved, or touched anything ? " she in quired. " No, ma'am." "Are you tired ? " " Yes, ma'am." " What would you like to do ? " " 1 should like to go nearer to the picture of the beau tiful little boy in that room," I answered, pointing to it. She crossed the room at once and closed the door. Then she came back to me and said with a voice that trembled : " You must not see that picture, and you must never ask me anything about it." " Then," I said, " I should like to go out where my father is at work." " Your father is busy. He is at work for me, and I do not wish to have him disturbed," she responded. " Then I should like a book," I said. She went to a little case of shelves on the opposite side of the room, and took down one book after another, and 34 Arthur Bonnicastle. looked, not at the contents, but at the fly-leaf of each, where the name of the owner is usually inscribed. At last she found one that apparently suited her, and came and sat down by me, holding it in her lap. She looked at me curiously, and then said : " What do you expect to make of yourself, boy ? What do you expect to be ? " " A man," I answered. " Do you ? That is a great deal to expect." " Is it harder to be a man than it is to be a woman ? " I inquired. " Yes." "Why?" " Because it is," she replied almost snappishly. " A woman isn't so large," I responded, as if that statement might contain a helpful suggestion. She srniled faintly, and then her face grew stern and sad ; and she seemed to look at something far off. At length she turned to me and said : " You are sure you will never be a drunkard ? " " Never," I replied. " Nor a gambler ? " " T don't know what a gambler is." " Do you think you could ever become a disobedient, ungrateful wretch, child- ? " she continued. I do not know where my responding words or my im pulse to utter them came from : probably from some ro mantic passage that I had read, coupled with the con versations I had recently heard in my home ; but I rose upon my feet, and with real feeling, though with abun dant mock-heroism in the seeming, I said : " Madame, I am a Bonnicastle ! " She did not smile, as I do, recalling the incident, but she patted me on the head with the first show of affec tionate regard. She let her hand rest there while her eyes looked far off again ; and I knew she was thinking of things with which I could have no part. Arthur Bonnicastle. 35 '' Do you think you could love me, Arthur ? " she said, looking me in the eyes. " I don't know," I replied, " but I think I could love anybody who loved me." " That's true, that's true," she said sadly ; and then she added : " Would you like to live here with me ? " " I don't think I would," I answered frankly. " Why?" " Because it is so still, and everything is so nice, and \iy father and mother would not be here, and I should nave nobody to play with," I replied. " But you would have a large room, and plenty to eat and good clothes to wear," she said, looking down upon my humble garments. " Should I have this house when you get through with it ? " I inquired. " Then you would like it without me in it, would you ? " she said, with a smile which she could not repress. " I should think it would be a very good house for a man to live in," I replied, evading her question. " But you would be alone." " Oh no ! " I said. " I should have a wife and chil dren." " Humph!" she exclaimed, giving her head a little toss and mine a little rap as she removed her hand, " you will be a man, I guess, fast enough ! " She sat a moment in silence, looking at me, and then she handed me the book she held, and went out of the room again to see my father at his work. It was a book full of rude pictures and uninteresting text, and its at tractions had long been exhausted when she returned, flushed and nervous. I learned afterward that she had had a long argument with my father about the proper way of executing the job she had given him. My father had presumed upon his knowledge of his craft to suggest that her way of doing the work was not 36 Arthur Bonnicastle. the right way ; and she had insisted that the work must be done in her way or not done at all. Those who worked for her were to obey her will. She assumed all knowledge of everything relating to herself and her pos sessions, and permitted neither argument nor opposi- ,-tion ; and when my father convinced her reason that, she had erred, she was only fixed thereby in her error. I knew that something had gone wrong and I longed to see my father, but I did not dare to say anything about it. How the morning wore away I do not remember. She led me in a dreary ramble through the rooms of the large old house, and we had a good deal of idle talk that led to nothing. She chilled and repressed me. 1 felt that I was not myself that her will overshadowed me. She called nothing out of me that interested her. 1 re member thinking how different she was from Mr. Brad ford, whose presence made me feel that I was in a large place, and stirred me to think and talk. At noon the dinner-bell rang, and she bade me go with her to the dining-room. I told her my father had brought dinner for me, and I would like to eat with him. I longed to get out of her presence, but she insisted that I must eat with her, and there was no escape. As we entered the dining-room, I looked at once for my pic ture, but it was gone. In its place was a square area of unfaded wall, where it had hung for many years. I knew it had been removed because I wished to see it and was curious in regard to it. The spot where it hung had a fascination for me, and many times my eyes went up to it, as if that which had so strangely vanished might as strangely reappear. " Keep your eyes at home," said my snappish little hostess, who had placed me, not at her side, but vis-a vis; so afterward, when they were not glued to my plate, or were not watching the movements of 'he ok' Arthur Bonnicastle. 37 man-servant whom I had previously seen driving his Distress's chaise, they were iixed on her. I could not but feel that " Jenks," as she called him, disliked me. I was an intruder, and had no right to be at Madame's table. When he handed me anything at the lady's bidding, he bent down toward me, and ut tered something between growling and muttering. I had no doubt then that he would have torn me limb from limb if he could. I found afterward that growling and muttering were the habit of his life. In the stable he growled and muttered at the horse. In the garden, he growled and muttered at the weeds. Blacking his mistress's shoes, he growled and muttered, and turned them over and over, as if he were determining whether to begin to eat them at the toe or the heel. If he sharp ened the lady's carving-knife, he growled as if he were sharpening his own teeth. I suppose she had become used to it, and did not notice it ; but he impressed me :U first as a savage monster. I was conscious during the dinner, to which, notwith standing all the disturbing and depressing influences, I did full justice, that I was closely observed by my host ess : for she freely undertook to criticise my habits, and to lay down rules for my conduct at the table. After every remark, Jenks growled and muttered a hoarse re sponse. Toward the close of the meal there was a long silence, and I became very much absorbed in my thoughts and fancies. My hostess observed that something new had entered my mind for her apprehensions were very quick and said abruptly : " Boy, what are you think ing about ? " I blushed and replied that I would rather not tell. " Tell me at once," she commanded. I obeyed with great reluctance, but her expectant eye was upon me, and there was no escape. 38 Arthur Bonnicastle. ' I was thinking," I said, " that I was confined in an enchanted castle where a little ogress lived with a gray- headed giant. One day she invited me to dinner, and she spoke very cross to me, and the gray-headed giant growled always when he came near me, as if he wanted to eat me ; but I couldn't stir from my seat to get away from him. Then I heard a voice outside of the castle walls that sounded like my father's, only it was a great way off, and it said : 1 Come, little boy, to me, On the back of a bumble-bee.' Then I tried to get out of my chair, but I couldn't. So I clapped my hands three times, and said : ' Castle, cas tle, Bonnicastle ! ' and the little ogress flew out of the window on a broomstick, and I jumped up and seized the carving-knife and slew the gray-headed giant, and pitched him down cellar with the fork. Then the doors flew open, and I went out to see my father, and he took me home in a gold chaise with a black horse as big as an elephant. I could not tell whether amazement or amusement pre vailed in the expression of the face of my little hostess, as I proceeded with the revelation of my fancies. I think her first impression was that I was insane, or that my recent fall had in some way injured my brain, or possibly that fever was coming on, for she said, with real concern in her voice : " Child, are you sure you are quite well ? " " Very well, I thank you, ma'am," I replied, after the formula in which I had been patiently instructed. Jenks growled and muttered, but as I looked into his face I was sure I caught the slightest twinkle in his little gray eyes. At any rate, I lost all fear of him from that moment. " Jenks," said the lady, " take this boy to his father, ArtJiur Bowiicastlc, 39 and tell him I think he had better send him home. If it is necessary, you can go with him." As I rose from the table, I remembered the directions my mother had given me in the morning, and my tongue being relieved from its spell of silence, I went around to Mrs. Sanderson, and thanked her for her invitation, and formally gave her my hand, to take leave of her. I am sure the lady was surprised not only by the courtesy, but by the manner in which it was rendered ; for she detained my hand, and said, in a voice quite low and almost tender in its tone : " You do not think me a real ogress, do you ? " " Oh no ! " I replied, " I think you are a good wo man, only you are not very much like my mother. You don't seem used to little boys : you never had any, per haps ? " Jenks overheard me, pausing in his work of clearing the table, and growled. "Jenks, go out," said Mrs. Sanderson, and he retired to the kitchen, muttering as he went. As I uttered my question, I looked involuntarily at the vacant spot upon the wall, and although she said nothing as I turned back to her, I saw that her face war, full of pain. " I beg your pardon," I said, in simplicity and ear nestness. My quick sense of what was passing in her mind evidently touched her, for she put her arm around, me, and drew me close to her side. I had uncon sciously uncovered an old fountain of bitterness, and as she held me, she said, " Would you like to kiss an old lady ? " I laughed, and said, " Yes, if she would like to kiss a boy." She strained me to her breast. I knew that my fresh, boyish lips were sweet to hers, and I knew afterward that they were the first she had pressed for a quarter of 4 pany me to the door, or speak a word to my father. So, at last, we were gone, and fairly on the way. I revealed to my father the treasures I had received, and only at a later day was I able to interpret the look of pain that accompanied his congratulations. I was indebted to a stranger, who was trying to win my heart, for possessions which his poverty forbade him to bestow upon me. Of the delights of that drive over the open country I can give no idea. We climbed long hills ; we rode by the side of cool, dashing streams ; we paused under the shadow of way-side trees ; we caught sight of a thousand forms of frolic life on the fences, in the forests, and in the depths of crystal pools ; we saw men at work in the fields, and I wondered if they did not envy us ; we met strange people on the road, who looked at us with curi ous interest ; a black fox dashed across our way, and, giving us a scared look, scampered into the cover, and 56 ArtJiur Bonnlcastle. was gone ; bobolinks sprang up in the long grass on wings tangled with music, and sailed away and caught on fences to steady themselves ; squirrels took long races before us on the road-side rails ; and far up through the trees and above the hills white-winged clouds with breasts of downy brown floated against a sky of deepest blue. Never again this side of heaven do I expect to experience such perfect pleasure as I enjoyed that day a delight in all forms and phases of nature, sharpened by the expectations of new companionships and of a strange new life that would open before I should sleep again. The half-way stage of our journey was reached before noon, and I was quite as anxious to see the gift which Jenks had placed in my hands at parting as to taste the luncheon which my mother had provided. Accordingly, when my repast was taken from the basket and spread before me, I first opened the paper box. I cannot say that I was not disappointed ; but the souvenir was one of which only I could understand the significance, and that fact gave it a rare charm. It consisted of a piece of a wooden shingle labelled in pencil " Atlantick Oshun," in the middle of which was a little ship, standing at an angle of forty-five degrees to the plane of the shingle, with a mast and a sail of wood, and a figure at the bow, also of wood, intended doubtless to represent Jenks himself, looking off upon the boundless waste. The utmost point of explanation to which my father could urge me was the statement that some time something would happen at The Mansion which would explain all. So I carefully put the " Atlantick Oshun " into its box, in which I preserved it for many months, answering all inquiries concerning it with the tantalizing statement that it was " a secret." Toward the close of the afternoon, we came in sight of Hillsborough, with its two churches, and its cluster of embowered white houses. It was perched, like many Arthur Bonnicastle. 57 New England villages, upon the top of the highest hill in the region, and we entered at last upon the long acclivity that led to it. Half-way up the hill, we saw before us a light, open wagon drawn by two gray horses, and bear ing a gentleman and lady who were quietly chatting and laughing together. As we drew near to them, they sud denly stopped, and the gentleman, handing the reins to his companion, rose upon his feet, drew a rifle to his eye and discharged it at some object in the fields. In an in stant, a little dog bounced out of the wagon, and, strik ing rather heavily upon the ground, rolled over and over three or four times, and then, gaining his feet, went for the game. Our own horse had stopped, and, as wild as the little dog, I leaped from the chaise, and started to follow. When I came up with the dog he was making the most extravagant plunges at a wounded woodchuck, who squatted, chattering and showing his teeth. I seized the nearest weapon in the shape of a cudgel that 1 could find, dispatched the poor creature, and bore him in tri umph to the gentleman, the little dog barking and snap ping at the game all the way. " Well done, my lad ! I have seen boys who were afraid of woodchucks. Toss hijn into the ravine : he is good for nothing," said the man of the rifle. Then he looked around, and, bowing to my father, told him that as he was fond of shooting he had under taken to rid the farms around him of the animals that gave their owners so much trouble. "It is hard upon the woodchucks," h.2 added, " but kind to the farmers." This was apparently said to defend himself from the suspicion of being engaged in cruel and wanton sport. At the sound of his voice, the tired and reeking horse which my father drove whinnied, then started on, and, coming to the back of the other carriage, placed his nose close to the gentleman's shoulder. The lady looked around and smiled, while the man placed his hand ca- 58 Arthur Bonnicastle. ressingly upon the animal's head. "Animals are all verj fond of me," said he. " I don't understand it : I sup pose they do." There was something exceedingly winning and hearty in the gentleman's voice, and I did not wonder that all the animals liked him. " Can you tell me," inquired my father, " where The Bird's Nest is?" " Oh, yes, I'm going there. Indeed, I'm the old Bird himself." " Tut! who takes care of the nest?" said the lady with a smile. " And this is the Mother Bird Mrs. Bird," said the gentleman. Mrs. Bird bowed to us both, and, beckoning to me, pointed to her side. It was an invitation to leave my father, and take a seat with her. The little dog, who had been helped into his master's wagon, saw me com ing, and mounted into his lap, determined that he would shut that place from the intruder. I accepted the invita tion, and, with the lady's arm around me, we started on. "Now I am going to guess," said Mr. Bird. "I guess your name is Arthur Bonnicastle, that the man behind us is your father, that you are coming to The Bird's Nest to live, that you are intending to be a good boy, and that you are going to be very happy." " You've guessed right the first time," I responded, laughing. " And I can always guess when a boy has done right and when he has done wrong, "said Mr. Bird. " There's a little spot in his eye ah, yes ! you have it ! that tells the whole story," and he looked down pleasantly into my face. At this moment one of his horses discovered a young calf by the roadside, and, throwing back his ears, gave it chase. I had never seen so funny a performance. Arthur Bonnicastle. 59 The horse, in genuine frolic, dragged his less playful mate and the wagon through the gutter and over rocks for many rods, entirely unrestrained by his driver, until the scared object of the chase slipped between two bars at the roadside, and ran wildly off into the field. At this the horse shook his head in a comical way and went quietly back into the road. " That horse is laughing all over," said Mr. Bird. " He thinks it was an excellent joke. I presume he will think of it, and laugh again when he gets at his oats." " Do you really think that horses laugh, Mr. Bird ?" I inquired. " Laugh ? Bless you, yes," he replied. " All animals laugh when they are pleased. Gyp " and he turned his eyes upon the little dog in his lap " are you happy ? " Gyp looked up into his master's face, and wagged his tail. " Don't you see ' Yes' in his eye, and a smile in the wag of his tail ? " said Mr. Bird. " If I had asked you the same question you would have answered with your tongue, and smiled with your mouth. That's all the difference. These creatures understand us a great deal better than we understand them. Why, I never drive these horses when I am finely dressed for fear they will be ashamed of their old harness." Then turning to the little dog again, he said : " Gyp, get down." Gyp immediately jumped down, and curled up at his feet. " Gyp, come up here," said he, and Gyp mounted quickly to his old seat. " Don't you see that this dog understands the English language," said Mr. Bird ; " and don't you see that we are not so bright as a dog, if we cannot learn his ? Why, I know the note of every bird, and every insect, and every animal on all these hills, and I know their ways and habits. What is more, they know I understand them, and you will hear how they call me and sing to me at The Bird's Nest." 60 Arthur Bonnicastle. So I had received my first lesson from my new teacher, and little did he appreciate the impression it had made upon me. It gave me a sympathy with animal life and an interest in its habits which have lasted until this hour. It gave me, too, an insight into him. He had a strong sympathy in the life of a boy, for his own sake. Every new boy was a new study that he entered upon, not from any sense of duty, or from any scheme of policy, but with a hearty interest excited by the boy himself. He was as much interested in the animal play of a boy as he had been in the play of the horse. He watched a group of boys with the same hearty amuse ment that held him while witnessing the frolic of kittens and lambs. Indeed, he often played with them ; and in this sympathy, freely manifested, he held the springs of his wonderful power over them. We soon arrived at The Bird's Nest, and all the horses were passed into other hands. My little trunk was loosed, and carried to a room I had not seen, and in a straggling way we entered the house. Before we alighted, I took a hurried outside view of my future home. On the whole, "The Bird's Nest" would have been a good name for it if a man by any other name had presided over it. It had its individual and characteristic beauty, because it had been shaped to a special purpose ; but it seemed to have been brought together at different times, and from wide dis tances. There was a central old house, and a hexagonal addition, and a tower, and a long piazza that tied every thing together. It certainly looked grand among the humble houses of the village ; though I presume that a professional architect would not have taken the highest pleasure in it. As Mr. Bird stepped out of his wagon ic^on the piazza, and took off his hat, I had an opportu nity to see him and to fix my impressions of his appear ance. He was a tall, handsome, strongly built man, a Arthur Bonnie astle. 6l little past middle life, with a certain fulness of habit that comes of good health and a happy temperament. His eye was blue, his forehead high, and his whole face bright and beaming with good-nature. His companion was a woman above the medium size, with eyes the same color of his own, into whose plainly parted hair the frost had crept, and upon whose honest face and goodly fig ure hung that ineffable grace which we try to charac terize by the word " motherly." I heard the shouts of boys at play upon the green, for it was after school hours, and met half a dozen little fel lows on the piazza, who looked at me with pleasant in terest as " the new boy ; " and then we entered a parlor with curious angles, and furniture that betrayed thorough occupation and usage. There were thrifty plants and beautiful flowers in the bay-window, for plants and flowers came as readily within the circle of Mr. Bird's sympathies as birds and boys. There was evidently an uncovered stairway near one of the doors, for we heard two or three boys running down the steps with a little more noise than was quite agreeable. Immediately Gyp ran to the door where the noise was manifested, and barked with all his might. " Gyp is one of my assistants in the school," said Mr. Bird, in explanation, " especially in the matter of pre serving order. A boy never runs down stairs noisily without receiving a scolding from him. He is getting a little old now and sensitive, and I am afraid has not quite consideration enough for the youngsters." I laughed at the idea of having a dog for a teacher, but with my new notions of Gyp's capacity I was quite ready to believe what Mr. Bird told me about him. My father found himself very much at home with Mr. and Mrs. Bird, and was evidently delighted with them, and with my prospects under their roof and care. We had supper in the great dining-room with forty hungry 62 Arthur Bonnicastle. but orderly boys, a pleasant evening with music after- ward, and an early bed. I was permitted to sleep with my father that night, and he was permitted to take me upon his arm, and pillow my slumbers there, while he prayed for me and secretly poured out his love upon me. Before we went to sleep my father said a few words to me, but those words were new and made a deep impres sion. " My little boy," he said, " you have my life in your hands. If you grow up into a true, good man, I shall be happy, although I may continue poor. I have always worked hard, and I am willing to work even harder than ever, if it is all right with you ; but if you disappoint me and turn out badly, you will kill me. I am living now, and expect always to live, in and for my children. I have no ambitious projects for myself, Providence has opened a way for you which I did not anticipate. Do all you can to please the woman who has undertaken to do so much for you, but do not forget your father and mother, and remember always that it is not possible for anybody to love you and care for you as we do. If you have any troubles, come to me with them, and if you are tempted to do wrong pray for help to do right. You will have many struggles and trials everybody has them but you can do what you will, and become what you wish to become." The resolutions that night formed a thousand times shaken and a thousand times renewed became the de termining and fruitful forces of my life. The next morning, when the old black horse and chaise were brought to the door, and my father, full of tender pain, took leave of me, and disappeared at last at the foot of the hill, and I felt that I was wholly sepa rated from my home, I cried as if I had been sure that I had left that home forever. The passion wasted itself in Mrs. Bird's motherly arms, and then, with words of Arthur Bonuicastle. 63 cheer and diversions that occupied my mind, she cut me adrift, to rind my own soundings in the new social life ot the school. Of the first few days of school-life there is not much to be said. They pass pleasantly enough. The aim of rny teachers at first was not to push me into study, but to make me happy, to teach me the ways of my new life, and to give me an opportunity to imbibe the spirit of the school. My apprehensions were out in every direction. 1 learned by watching others my own deficiencies ; and my appetite for study grew by a natural process. I could not be content, at last, until I had become one with the rest in work and in acquirements. There lies before me now a package of my letters, made sacred by my father's interest in and perusal and preservation of them ; and, although I have no intention to burden these pages with their crudenesses and puerili ties, I cannot resist the temptation to reproduce the first which I wrote at The Bird's Nest, and sent home. I shall spare to the reader its wretched orthography, and reproduce it entire, in the hope that he will at least enjoy its unconscious humor. THE BIRD'S NEST. DEAR PRECIOUS FATHER : I have lost my ball. I don't know where in the world it can be. It seemed to get away from me in a curious style. Mr. Bird is very kind, and I like him very much. I am sorry to say I have lost my Barlow knife too. Mr. Bird says a Barlow knife is a very good thing. I don't quite think I have lost the twenty-five cent piece. I have not seen it since yesterday morning, and I think I shall find it. Henry Hulm, who is my chum, and a very smart boy, I can tell you, thinks the money will be found. Mr. Bird says there must be a hole in the top of my pocket. I don't know what to do. I am afraid Aunt Sanderson will be cross about it. Mr. (Jird thinks I ought to give my knife to the boy that will find the money, and the money to the boy that will find the knife, but I don't see as I should make much in that way, do you? I love Mrs. Bird verv much. Miss Butler is the dearest young lady I 64 Arthur Bonnicastle. ever kn2\v Mrs. Bird kisses us all when we go to bed, and it seems real good. I have put the testament in the bottom of my trunk, under all the things. I shall keep that if possible. If Mrs. Sanderson finds out that I have lost the things, I wish you would explain it and tell her the testament is safe. Miss Butler has dark eyebrows and wears a belt. Mr. Bird has killed another woodchuck. I wonder if you left the key of my trunk. It seems to be gone. We have real good times, playing ball and taking walks. I have walked out with Miss Butler. I wish mother could see her hair, and I am your son with ever so much love to you and mother and all, ARTHUR BONNICASTLE. CHAPTER IV. IN WHICH THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE IS NOT PER MITTED TO RUN AT ALL. THE first night which I spent in The Bird's Nest, after my father left me, was passed alone, though my room opened into another that was occupied by two boys. On the following day Mr. Bird- asked me if I had met with any boy whom I would like for a room-mate ; and I told him at once that Henry Hulm was the boy I wanted. He smiled at my selection, and asked for the reason of it ; and he smiled more warmly still when I told him I thought he was handsome, and seemed lonely and sad. The lad was at least two years older than I, but among all the boys he had been my first and supreme attrac tion. He was my opposite in every particular. Quiet, studious, keeping much by himself, and bearing in his dark face and eyes a look of patient self-repression, he enlisted at once my curiosity, my sympathy and my admiration. Henry was called into our consultation, and Mr. Bird informed him of my choice. The boy smiled gratefully. Arthur Bonnicastle. 65 for he had been shunned by the ruder fellows for the same qualities which had attracted me. As the room I occupied was better than his, his trunk was moved into mine ; and while we remained in the school we con tinued our relations and kept the same apartment. If I had any distinct motive of curiosity in selecting him he never gratified it. He kept his history covered, and very rarely alluded, in any way, to his home or his family. The one possession which he seemed to prize more highly than any other was an ivory miniature portrait of his mother, which, many a time during our life together, 1 saw him take from his trunk and press to his lips. I soon learned to respect his reticence on topics which were quite at home on my own lips. I suspect I did talking enough for two boys. Indeed, I threw my whole life open to him, with such embellishments as my imagi nation suggested. He seemed interested in my talk, and was apparently pleased with me. I brought a new element into his life, and we became constant compan ions when out of school, as well as when we were in oui room. We were always wakened' in the morning by a "whoop" and "halloo" that ran from room to room over the whole establishment. A little bell started it somewhere ; and the first boy who heard it gave his call, which was taken up by the rest and borne on from bed to bed until the whole brood was in full cry. Thus the school called itself. It was the voices of merry and wide awake boys that roused the drowsy ones ; and very rarely did a dull and sulky face show itself in the breakfast- room. This morning call was the key to all the affairs of the day and to the policy of the school. Self-direction and self-government these were the most important of all the lessons learned at The Bird's Nest. Our school was a little community brought together for common objects 66 Arthur Bonnicastle. the pursuit of useful learning, the acquisition of cour teous manners, and the practice of those duties which relate to good citizenship. The only laws of the school were those which were planted in the conscience, reason, and sense of propriety of the pupils. The ingenuity with which these were developed and appealed to has been, from that day to this, the subject of my unbounded ad miration. The boys were made to feel that the school was their own, and that they were responsible for its good order. Mr. Bird was only the biggest and best boy, and the accepted president of the establishment. The responsibility of the boys was not a thing of theory only. It was deeply realized in the conscience and con duct of the school. However careless and refractory a new boy might be, he soon learned that he had a whole school to deal with, and that he was not a match for the public opinion. He might evade the master's or a teach er's will, but he could not evade the eyes or the senti ments of the little fellows around him. On the first Friday evening of my term, I entered as a charmed and thoroughly happy element into one of the social institutions of the school. On every Friday even ing, after the hard labor of the week was over, it was the custom of the school to hold what was called a " recep tion." Teachers and pupils made the best toilet they could, and spent the evening in the parlors, dancing, and listening to music, and socially receiving the towns people and such strangers as might happen to be in the village. The piano that furnished the music wis the first I had ever heard, and at least half of my first reception- evening was spent by its side, in watching the skilful and handsome fingers that flew over its mystericus keys. I had always been taught that dancing was only indulged in by wicked people ; but there were dear Mr. and Mrs. Bird looking on ; there was precious Miss Butler without her belt, leading little fellows like myself through the Artliur Bonnicastle. 67 mazes of the figures ; there were twenty innocent and happy boys on the floor, their eyes sparkling with ex citement ; there were fine ladies who had come to see their boys, and village maidens simply clad and as fresh as roses ; and I could not make out that there was any thing wicked about it. It was the theory of Mr. Bird that the more the boys could be brought into daily familiar association with good and gracious women the better it would be for them. Accordingly he had no men among his teachers, and as his school was the social centre of the village, and all around him were interested in his objects, there were always ladies and young women at the receptions who devoted themselves to the happiness of the boys. Little lads of less than ten summers found no difficulty in securing partners who were old enough to be their mothers and grandmothers ; and as I look back upon the patient and hearty efforts of these women, week after week and year after year, to make the boys happy and manly and courteous, it enhances my respect for woman hood, and for the wisdom which laid all its plans to se cure these attentions and this influence for us. I never saw a sheepish-looking boy or a sheepish-acting boy who had lived a year at The Bird's Nest. Through the influence of the young women engaged as teachers and of those who came as sympathetic visitors, the boys never failed to become courteous, self-respectful, and fearless in society. Miss Butler, the principal teacher, who readily under stood my admiration of her, undertook early in the evening, to get me upon the floor ; but it was all too new to me, and I begged to be permitted for one even ing to look on and do nothing. She did not urge me ; so I played the part of an observer. One of the first incidents of the evening that attracted my attention was the entrance in great haste of a good-natured, rol 68 Arthur Bonnie astle. licking boy, whose name I had learned from the fellowi to be Jack Linton. Jack had been fishing and had come home late. His toilet had been hurried, and he came blundering into the room with his laughing face flushed, his necktie awry, and his heavy boots on. Mr. Bird, who saw everything, beckoned Jack to his side. " Jack," said he, " you are a very rugged boy." " Am I ? " and Jack laughed. " Yes, it is astonishing what an amount of exercise you require," said Mr. Bird. " Is it ? " And Jack laughed again. " Yes, I see you have your rough boots on for another walk. Suppose you walk around Robin Hood's Barn, and report yourself in a light, clean pair of shoes, as soon as you return." Jack laughed again, but he made rather sorry work of it ; and then he went out.. " Robin Hood's Barn " was the name given to a lonely building a mile distant, to which Mr. Bird was in the habit of sending boys whose surplus vitality happened to lead them into boisterous- ness or mischief. Gyp, who had been an attentive lis tener to the conversation, and apparently understood every word of it, followed Jack to the door, and, having dismissed him into the pleasant moonlight, gave one or two light yelps and went back into the drawing-room. Jack was a brisk walker and a lively runner, and be fore an hour had elapsed was in the drawing-room again, looking as good-natured as if nothing unusual had oc curred. I looked at his feet and saw that they were ir reproachably incased in light, shining shoes, and that his necktie had been readjusted. He came directly to Mr. Bird and said : " I have had a very pleasant walk, Mr. Bird." "Ah! I'm delighted," responded the master, smil ing ; and then added : " Did you meet anybody ? " Arthur Bonnicastle. 69 " Yes, sir ; I met a cow." " What did you say to her ? " "I said, 'How do you do, ma'am? How's youi calf?'" ; ' What did she say ? " asked Mr. Bird, very much amused. " She said the calf was very well, and would be tough enough for the boys in about two weeks," replied Jack, with a loud laugh. Mr. Bird enjoyed the sally quite as much as the boys who had gathered round him, and added : " We all know who will want the largest piece, Jack. Now go to your dancing." In a minute afterward, Jack was on the floor with a matronly-looking lady to whom he related the events of the evening without the slightest sense of annoyance or disgrace. But that was the last time he ever attended a reception in his rough boots. The evening was filled with life and gayety and free dom. To my unaccustomed eyes it was a scene of en chantment. I wished my father could see it. I would have given anything and everything I had to give could he have looked in upon it. I was sure there was nothing wrong in such amusement. 1 could not imagine how a boy could be made worse by such happiness, and I never discovered that he was. Indeed, I can trace a thousand good and refining influences to those evenings. They were the shining goals of every week's race with my youthful competitors ; and while they were ac counted simply as pleasures by us, they were regarded by the master and the teachers as among the choicest means of education. The manners of the school were shaped by them ; and I know that hundreds of boys at tribute to them their release from the bondage of bash- fulness, under which many a man suffers while in the presence of women during all his life. 70 ArtJiur Bonnicastle. I repeat that I have never discovered that a boy was made worse by his experiences and exercises during those precious evenings ; and I have often thought how sad a thing it is for a child to learn that he has been deceived or misinformed by his parents with relation to a practice so charged with innocent enjoyment. I enter here no plea for dancing beyond a faithful record of its effect upon the occupants of The Bird's Nest. I sup pose the amusement may be liable to abuse : most good things are ; and I do not know why this should be an ex ception. This, however, I am sure it is legitimate to say : that the sin of abuse, be it great or little, is venial com pared with that which presents to the conscience as a sin in itself that which is not a sin in itself, and thus charges an innocent amusement with the flavor of guilt, and drives the young, in their exuberant life and love of harmonious play, beyond the pale of Christian sympathy. As I recall the events of the occasion I find it impos sible to analyze the feeling that one figure among the dancers begot in me. Whenever Miss Butler was on the floor I saw only her. Her dark eyes, her heavy shining hair, the inexpressible ease of her motions, her sunny smile that combination of graces and manners which makes what we call womanliness fascinated me, and inspired me with just as much love as it is possible for a boy to entertain. I am sure no girl of my own age could have felt toward her as I did. I should have been angry with any boy who felt toward her thus, and equally angry with any boy who did not admire her as much, or who should doubt, or undertake to cheapen, her charms. How can I question that it was the dawn within me of the grand passion an apprehension of personal and spiritual fitness for companionship? Pure as childhood, inspired by personal loveliness, clothing its object witli all angelic perfections, this boy-love for a woman has always been to me the subject of pathetic admiration, Arthur Bonnicastle. 71 and has proved that the sweetest realm of love is un tainted by any breath of sense. There was a blind sort of wish within me for posses sion, even at this early age, and I amused the lady by giving utterance to my feelings. Wearied with the dancing, she took my hand and led me to a retired seat, where we had a delightful chat. " I think you were born too soon," I said to her, stili clinging to her hand, and looking my admiration. "Oh! if I had been born later," she replied, "I should not be here. I should be a little girl some where." " I don't think I should love you if you were a little girl," I responded. " Then perhaps you were not born soon enough," she suggested. " But if I had been born sooner I shouldn't be here now," I said. " That's true," said the lady, " and that would be very bad, wouldn't it ? " " Yes, ever so bad," I said. " I wouldn't miss being here with you for a hundred dollars." The mode in which I had undertaken to measure the pleasure of her society amused Miss Butler very much ; and as I felt that the sum had not impressed her suf ficiently, I added fifty to it. At this she laughed hear tily, and said I was a strange boy, a statement which I received as pleasant flattery. " Did you ever hear of the princess who was put to sleep for a hundred years and kept young and beautiful through it all ? " I inquired. " Yes." " Well, I wish Mr. Bird were an enchanter, and would put you to sleep until I get to be a man," I said. " But then I couldn't see you for ten years," she re plied. 72 Arthur Bonnicastle. " Oh dear! " I exclaimed, " it seems to be all wrong/ " Well, my boy, there are a great many things in the world that seem to be all wrong. It is wrong for you to talk such nonsense to me, and it is wrong for me to let you do it, and we will not do wrong in this way any more. But I like you, and we will be good friends always." Thus saying, my love dismissed me, and went back among the boys ; but little did she know how sharp a pang she left in my heart. The forbidden subject was never mentioned again, and like other boys under simi lar circumstances, I survived. There was one boy besides myself who enacted the part of an observer during that evening. He was a new boy, who had entered the school only a few days before myself. He was from the city, and looked with hearty contempt upon the whole entertainment. He had made no friends during the fortnight which had passed since he became an occupant of The Bird's Nest. His haughty and supercilious ways, his habit of finding fault with the school and everything connected with it, his overbearing treatment of the younger boys, and his idle habits had brought upon him the dislike of all the fellows. His name was Frank Andrews, though for some reason we never called him by his first name. He gave us all to understand that he was a gentleman's son, that he was rich, and, particularly, that he was in the habit of doing what pleased him and nothing else. He was dressed better than any of the other boys, and carried a watch, the chain of which he took no pains to conceal. During all the evening he stood here and there about the rooms, his arms folded, looking on with his critical eyes and cynical smile. Nobody took notice of him, and he seemed to be rather proud of his isolation. I do not know why he should have spoken to me, for he was my senior, but toward the close of the evening ha came up to me and said in his patronizing way ArtJiur Bonnicastle. 73 " Well, little chap, how do you like it ? " " Oh ! I think it's beautiful," I replied. " Do you ! That's because you're green," said An drews. "/jit! "I responded, imitating his tone. " Thea they're all green Mr. Bird and all." " There's where you're right, little chap," said he. ' : ' They are all green Mr. Bird and all." " Miss Butler isn't green," I asserted stoutly. " Oh ! isn't she ? " exclaimed Andrews, with a degree of sarcasm in his tone that quite exasperated me. " Oh, no ! Miss Butler isn't green, of course," he continued, as he saw my face reddening. " She's a duck so she is ! so she is ! and if you are a good little boy you shall waddle around with her some time, so you shall ! " I was so angry that I am sure I should have struck him if we had been out of doors, regardless of his supe rior size and age. I turned sharply on my heel, and, retiring to a corner of the room, glared at him savagely, to his very great amusement. It was at this moment that the bell rang for bed ; and receiving, one after another, the kisses of Mr. and Mrs. Bird, and bidding the guests a good-night, some of whom were departing while others remained, we wenl to our rooms. 4 74 Arthur Bonnicastle. CHAPTER V. THE DISCIPLINE OF THE BIRD'S NEST AS ILLUSTRATES BY TWO STARTLING PUBLIC TRIALS. SCARCELY less interesting than the exercises of recep tion evening were those of the " family meeting," as it was called, which was always held" on Sunday. This family meeting was one of the most remarkable of all the institutions of The Bird's Nest. It was probably more influential upon us than even the attendance at church, and our Bible lessons there, which occurred on the same day, for its aim and its result were the appli cation of the Christian rule to our actual, every-day conduct. I attended the family meeting which was held on my first Sunday at the school with intense interest. I sus pect, indeed, that few more interesting and impressive meetings had ever been held in the establishment. After we were all gathered in the hall, including Mrs. Bird and the teachers, as well as the master, Mr. Bird looked kindly out upon us and said : " Well, boys, has anything happened during the week that we ought to discuss to-day ? Is the school going along all right ? Have you any secrets buttoned up in your jackets that you ought to show to me and to the school ? Is there anything wrong going on which will do harm to the boys ? " As Mr. Bird spoke, changing the form of his question so as to reach the consciences of his boys from different directions, and get time to read their faces, there was a dead silence. When he paused, every boy felt that his face had been shrewdly read and was still under inspec tion. " Yes, there is something wrong : I sec it," said Mr Arthur Bonnicastle 75 Bird, " I see it in several faces ; but Tom Kendrick can tell us just what it is. And he will teli us just what it is, for Tom Kendrick never lies." All eves were instantly turned on Tom, a blushing, frank-faced boy of twelve. Close beside him sat An drews, the new boy, who had so roused my anger on Friday night. His face wore tbo same supercilious, contemptuous expression that it wore that night. The whole proceeding seemed to impress him as unworthy even the toleration of a eentleman's son, yet I felt sure that he would be in some way implicated in Tom Ken- drick's revelations. Indeed, there was, or I thought there was, a look of conscious guilt on his face and the betrayal of excitement in his eye, when Tom rose to re spond to Mr. Bird's bidding. Tom hesitated, evidently very unwilling to begin. He looked blushingly at Mrs. Bird and the teachers, then looked down, and tried to start, but his tongue was dry. " Well, Tom, we are all ready to hear you," said Mr. Bird. After a little stammering, Tom pronounced the name of Andrews, and told in simple, straightforward lan guage, how he had been in the habit of relating stories and using words which were grossly immodest ; how he had done this repeatedly in his hearing and against his protests, and furthermore, how he had indulged in this language in the presence of smaller boys. Tom also testified that other boys besides himself had warned Andrews that if he did not mend his habit he would be reported at the family meeting. There was the utmost silence in the room. The dropping of a pin could have been heard in any part of it, for, while the whole school disliked Andrews, his arrogance had impressed them, and they felt that he would be a hard boy to deal with. I watched alter nately the accuser and the accused, and I trembled in 76 Arthur Bonnicastlc, every nerve to see the passion depicted on the features of the latter. His face became pale at first deathly pale then livid and pinched and then it burned with a hot flame of shame and anger. He sat as if he were expecting the roof to fall, and were bracing himself to resist the shock. When Tom took his seat Andrews leaned toward him and muttered something in his ear. " What does he say to you, Tom ? " inquired Mr. Bird. " He says he'll flog me for telling," answered Tom. " We will attend to that," said Mr. Bird. " But first let us hear from others about this matter. Has any other boy heard this foul language ? Henry Hulm, can you tell us anything ? " Henry was another boy who always told the truth ; and Henry's testimony was quite as positive as Tom's, though it was given with even more reluctance. Other boys testified in confirmation of the report of Tom and Henry, until, in the opinion of the school, Andrews was shamefully guilty of the matter charged upon him. I was quite ignorant of the real character of the offence, and wondered whether his calling Miss Butler a duck was in the line of his sin, and whether my testimony to the fact was called for. No absurdity, such as this would have been, broke in upon the earnest solemnity of the occasion, however, and the house was silent until Mr. Bird said : " What have you to say for yourself, Andrews ? " The boy was no whit humbler. Revenge was in hia heart and defiance in his eye. He looked Mr. Bird boldly in the face ; his lips trembled, but he made no reply. "Nothing?" Mr. Bird's voice was severe this time, and rang like a trumpet. Andrews bit his lips, and blurted out: "I think it is mean for one boy to tell on another." Arthur Bonnicastle. 77 "I don't," responded Mr. Bird; "but I'll tell you that is mean : it ia mean for one boy to pollute another ^to fill his mind with words and thoughts that make /iini mean ; and I should be sorry to believe that I have any other boy in school who is half as mean as you are. If there is anything to be said about mean boys, you are not the boy to say it." At first, I confess that I was quite inclined to sympa thize with the lad in his view of the dishonor of " telling on" a boy, notwithstanding my old grudge; but my judgment went with the majority at last. Mr. Bird said that, as there were several new boys in the school it would be best, perhaps, to talk over this matter of reporting one another's bad conduct to him and to the school. " When boys first come here," said Mr. Bird, " they invariably have those false notions of honor which lead them to cover up all the wrong-doings of their mates ; but they lose them just as soon as they find themselves responsible for the good order of our little community. Now we are all citizens of this little town of Hillsbor- ough, in which we live. We have our own town authori ties and our magistrate, and we are all interested in the good order of the village. Suppose a man should come here to live who is in the habit of robbing hen-roosts, or setting barns on fire, or getting drunk and beating his wife and children : is it a matter of honor among those citizens who behave themselves properly to shield him in his crimes, and refrain from speaking of him to the au thorities ? Why, the thing is absurd. As good citizens as honorable citizens we must report this man, for he is a public enemy. He is not only dangerous to us, but he is a disgrace to us. So long as he is permitted to live among us, unreproved and uncorrected, every man in the community familiar with his misdeeds is, to a certain extent, responsible for them. Very "veil : we 78 Arthur Bonnicastle. have in this house a little republic, and if you can learn to govern yourselves here, and to take care of the ene mies of the order and welfare of the school, you will be come good citizens, prepared to perform the duties of good citizenship. I really know of nothing more demor alizing to a boy, or more ruinous to a school, than that false sense of honor which leads to the covering up of one another's faults of conduct. Mr. Bird paused, and, fixing his eye upon Andrews, who had not once taken his eye from him, resumed : " Now here is a lad who has come to us from a good family ; and they have sent him here to get him away from bad influences and bad companions. He comes into a community of boys who are trying to lead good lives, and instead of adopting the spirit of the school, and trying to become one with us, he still holds the spirit of the bad companions of his previous life, and goes persistently to work to make all around him as im pure and base as himself. Nearly all these boys have mothers and sisters, who would be pained almost to dis traction to learn that here, upon these pure hills, they are drinking in social poison with every breath. How am I to guard you from this evil if I do not know of it ? How can I protect you from harm if you shield the boy who harms you ? There is no mischief of which a boy is capable that will not breed among you like a pesti lence if you cover it ; and instead of sending you back to your homes at last with healthy bodies and healthy minds and pure spirits, I shall be obliged, with shame and tears, to return you soiled and spotted and diseased. Is it honorable to protect crime ? Is it honorable to shield one who dishonors and damages you ? Is it hon orable to disappoint your parents and to cheat me ? Is it honorable to permit these dear little fellows to be spoiled, when the wicked lad who is spoiling them is al* lowed to go free of arrest and conviction ? Artliur Bonnicastle. 79 Of course I cannot pretend to reproduce the exact words in which Mr. Bird clothed his little argumentative address. I was too young at the time to do more than apprehend the meaning of it : and the words that I give are mainly remembered from repetitions of the same ar gument in the years that followed. The argument and the lesson, however, in their substance and practical bearings, I remember perfectly. Continuing to speak, and releasing Andrews from his regard for a moment, Mr. Bird said : " I want a vote on this question. I desire that you all vote with perfect freedom. If you are not thoroughly convinced that I am right in this matter, I wish you to vote against me. Now all those boys who believe it to be an honorabh* thing to report the persistently bad conduct of a school mate will rise and stand." Every boy except Andrews rose, and with head erect stood squarely upon his feet. The culprit looked from side to side with a sneer upon his lip, that hardened into the old curl of defiance as he turned his eyes upon Mr. Bird's face again. " Very well," said Mr. Bird, " now sit down, and re member that you are making rules for the government of yourselves. This question is settled for this term, and there is to be no complaint hereafter about what you boys call ' telling on one another.' I do not wish you to come to me as tattlers. Indeed, I do not wish you to come to me at all. If any boy does a wrong which I ought to know, you are simply to tell him to report to me what he has done, and if he and I cannot settle the matter together I will call upon you to help us. There will be frictions and vexations among forty boys ; I know that, and about these I wish to hear nothing. Set tle these matters among yourselves. Be patient and* good-natured with each other ; but all those things that interfere with the order, purity, and honor of the school 8o Arthur Bonnicastle. all those things that refuse to be corrected must be reported. I think we understand one another. The school is never to suffer in order to save the exposure and punishment of a wrong-doer. "As for this boy, who has offended the school so grossly and shown so defiant a spirit, I propose, with the private assistance of the boys who have testified against him, to make out a literal report of his foul language and forward it to his mother, while at the same time I put him into the stage-coach and send him home." It was a terrible judgment, and I can never forget the passion depicted upon Andrews' face as he compre hended it. He seemed like one paralyzed. " Every boy," said Mr. Bird, "who is in favor of this punishment will hold up his right hand." Two or three hands started to go up among the smaller boys, but as their owners saw that they had no support, they were drawn down again. Four or five of the boys were in tears, and dear Mr. Bird's eyes were full. He gathered at a glance the meaning of the scene, and was much moved. "Well, Tom Kendrick, you were the first to testify against him ; what have you to say against this punishment ? " Tom rose with his lips trembling, and every nerve full of excitement. " Please, sir," said Tom, " I should like to have you give Andrews another chance. I think it's an awful thing to send a boy home without giving him more than one chance." Tom sat down and blew his nose very loud, as a meas ure of relief. I watched Andrews with eager eyes during the closing passages of his trial. When Tom rose on behalf of the whole school to plead for him that he might have one more chance the defiant look faded from his face, and he gave a convulsive gulp as if his heart had risen to his throat and he were struggling to keep it down. When Arthur Bonnicastle. Si Tom sat down, Andrews rose upon his feet and staggered and hesitated for a moment ; then, overcome by shame, grief and gratitude, he ran rather than walked to where Mrs. Bird was sitting near her husband, and with a wild burst of hysterical sobbing threw himself upon his knees, and buried his face in the dear motherly lap that had comforted so many boyish troubles before. The appeal from man to woman from justice to mercy moved by the sympathy of the boys, was the most profoundly touching incident I had ever witnessed, and I wept al most as heartily as did Andrews himself. In truth, I do not think there was a dry eye in the room. " Tom," said Mr. Bird, " I think you are right. You have helped me, and helped us all. The lad ought to have another chance, and he shall have one if he desires it. The rest of this matter you can safely leave to Mrs. Bird and myself. Now remember that this is never to be alluded to. If the lad remains and does right, or tries to do right, he is to be received and cherished by you all. No one of us is so perfect that he does not need the charity of his fellows. If Andrews has bad habits, you must help him to overcome them. Be brothers to him in all your future intercourse, as you have been here to-day ; and as we have had business enough for one family meeting, you may pass out and leave him with us." " Gorry ! " exclaimed Jack Linton, wiping his eyes and wringing his handkerchief as he left the door, "wasn't that a freshet? Wettest time I ever saw in .Hillsborough." But the boys were not in a jesting mood, and Jack's drolleries were not received with the usual favor. Every thoughtful and sympathetic lad retired with a tableau on his memory never to be forgotten a benignant man looking tearfully and most affectionately upon him, and a sweet-faced, large-hearted woman pillowing in her lap the head of a kneeling boy, whose destiny for all the 4* 82 Arthur Bonnicastle. untold and ungucssed ages was to be decided there and then. It was more than an hour before we saw anything of Mr. and Mrs. Bird. When they issued from their retire ment they were accompanied by a boy who was as great a stranger to himself as he was to the school. Conquered and humbled, looking neither to the right nor the left, he sought his room, and none of us saw his face until the school was called together on Monday morning. His food was borne to his room by Mrs. Bird, who in her own way counselled and comforted him, and prepared him to encounter his new relations with the institution. The good, manly hearts of the boys never manifested their quality more strikingly than when they uridertook on Monday to help Andrews into his new life. The ob stacles were all taken out of his path obstacles which his own spirit and life had planted and without a taunt, or a slight, or a manifestation of revenge in any form, he was received into the brotherhood. On Monday evening we were somewhat surprised to see him appear, dressed in his best, his hands nicely gloved, making his way across the village green. No one questioned him, and all understood the case as he turned in at the gate which led to the home of the vil lage minister. When any lad had behaved in an unseemly manner at church, it was Mr. Bird's habit to compel him to dress himself for a call, and visit the pastor with an apology for his conduct. "It is not a punishment, my boy," Mr. Bird used to say, " but it is what one gentleman owes to another. Any boy who so far forgets his man ners as to behave improperly in the presence of a clergy man whose ministration he is attending owes him an apology, if he proposes to be considered a gentleman ; and he must make it, or he cannot associate with me or my school." Arthur Bonnicastie. 83 In this case he had made conformity to his rule a test of the genuineness of the boy's penitence, and a trial of his newly professed loyalty. The trial was a severe one, but the result gratified all the boys as much as it did dear Mr. and Mrs. Bird. I was very much excited by the exposure of Andrews, and put a good many serious questions to myself in re gard to my own conduct. The closing portion of the Sunday evening on which the event occurred was spent by several boys and myself in our rooms. We were so near each other that we could easily converse through the open doors, and I was full of questions. " What do you think Mr. Bird will do with Andrews ? " I inquired of Jack Linton. " Oh, nothing : he's squelched," said Jack. " I should think he would punish him," I said, " for I know Mr. Bird was angry." " Yes," responded Jack, " the old fellow fires up some times like everything ; but you can't flail a boy when he's got his head in a woman's lap, can you, you little coot?" " That's the way my mother always flailed me, any way," I said, at which Jack and all the boys gave a great laugh. " Flailing," said Jack, taking up a moralizing strain, when the laugh was over, " don't pay. The last school I went to before I came here was full of no end of flail ing. There gets to be a sort of sameness about it after a while. Confound that old ruler ! I used to get it about every day three or four whacks on a fellow's hand ; first it stung and then it was numb ; and it always made me mad, or else I didn't care. There isn't quite so much sameness about a raw-hide, for sometimes you catch it on your legs and sometimes on your shoulders, "nit there gets to be a sort of sameness about that too. But here in this school ! My ! You never know what's coming. Say, boys, do you remember that clay when ! 84 Arthur Bonnicastle. was making such a row out in the yard, how Mr. Bird made me take a fish-horn, and blow it at each corner of the church on the green ? " The boys laughed, and Henry Hulm said : " Yes, Jack, but you liked that better than that other punish ment when he sent you out into the grove to yell for three-quarters of an hour." " I'll bet I did," responded Jack. " I got so hoarse that time I couldn't speak the truth for a week, but that's enough better than meditating. If there's any thing I hate it's meditating on my misdemeanors and things, kneeling before a tree by the side of the road, like a great heathen luny. I suppose half the people thought I was praying like an old Pharisee. Gorry ! If the minister had found me there I believe he'd have kneeled right by the side of a fellow ; and wouldn't that have been a pretty show ! Did any of you ever hug a tree for an hour ? " None of them ever did. " It's awful tiresome," con tinued Jack, upon whose punishments Mr. Bird seemed to have exercised all his ingenuities. " It's awful tire some and it isn't a bit interesting. If it was only a birch-tree a fellow might amuse himself gnawing the bark, but mine was a hemlock with an ant-heap at the bottom. Oh! I tell you, my stockings wanted 'tending to when I got through : more ants in 'em than you could count in a week. Got a little exercise out of it, though fighting one foot with the other. After all it's better than it is when there's so much sameness. It's tough enough when you are at it, but it doesn't make you mad, and it's funny to think of afterward. I tell you, old Bird " "Order! Order! Order!" came from all the boys within hearing. " Well, what's broke now ? " inquired Jack. " There isn't any Old Bird, in the establishment/ said one of them. Arthur Bonnicastle. 85 " Mr. Bird, then. Confound you, you've put me out, I forget what I was going to say." Here I took the opportunity to inquire whether anj sins of the boys were punishable by " flailing." " Yes," replied Jack, " big lying and tobacco. Unless a fellow breaks right in two in the middle, as Andrews did to-day, he'd better make his will before he does any thing with either of 'em. Old Bird Mr. Bird, I mean don't stand the weakest sort of a cigar ; and look here, Arthur Bonnicastle " (suddenly turning to me), "you're a little blower, and you'd better hold up. If you don't, you'll find out whether there's any flailing done here." The conversation went on, but I had lost my interest in it. The possibility of being punished filled me with a vague alarm. It was the first time I had ever been characterized as " a little blower," but my sober and conscientious chum had plainly told me of my fault, and I knew that many statements which I had made during my short stay in the school would not bear ex amination. I resolved within myself that I would re form, but the next day I forgot my resolution, and the next, and the next, until, as I afterward learned, my words were good for nothing among the boys as vouchers for the truth. I received my correction in due time, as rny narrative will show. My readers will have seen already that The Bird's Nest was not very much like other schools, though I rind it difficult to choose from the great variety of inci dents with which my memory is crowded those which will best illustrate its peculiarities. The largest liberty was given to us, and we were simply responsible for the manner in which we used it. We had the fi'eedom of Jong distances of road and wide spaces of field and forest. Indeed, there was no limit fixed to our wander ings, except the limit of time. There were no feuds be tween the town-boys and the school. It was not uncom- 86 Arthur Bonnicastle. mon to see them at our receptions, and everybody in Hillsborough was glad when The Bird's Nest was full. During the first week of my active study I got very tired, and after the violent exercise of the play-ground I often found myself so much oppressed by the desire for sleep that it was simply impossible for me to hold up my head. It was on one such occasion that my sleepy eyes caught the wide-awake glance of Mr. Bird, and the beckoning motion of his finger. I went to his side, and he lifted me to his knee. Pillowing my head upon his broad breast, I went to sleep ; and thus holding me with his strong arm he went on with the duties of the school. Afterward, when similarly oppressed, or when languid with indisposition, I sought the same resting-place many times, and was never refused. A scene like this was not an uncommon one. It stirred neither surprise nor mirth among the boys. It fitted into the life of the family so naturally that it never occasioned remark. It must have been three weeks or a month after I entered the school that, on a rainy holiday, as I was walking through one of the halls alone, I was met by two boys who ordered me peremptorily to " halt." Both had staves in their hands, taller than themselves, and one of them addressed me with the words : " Arthur Bonnicastle, you are arrested in the name of The High Society of Inquiry, and ordered to appear before that august tribunal, to answer for your sins and misdemean ors. Right about face ! " The movement had so much the air of mystery and romance that I was about equally pleased and scared. Marching between the two officials, I was led directly to my own room, which I was surprised to find quite full of boys, all of whom were grave and silent. I looked from one to another, puzzled beyond expression, the ugh I am sure I preserved an unruffled manner, and a confident and even smiling face. Indeed, I supposed it to be some Arthur Bonnicastle. 87 sort of a lark, entered upon for passing away the time while confined to the house. " We have secured the offender," said one of my cap tors, " and now have the satisfaction of presenting him before this honorable Society." " The prisoner will stand in the middle of the room, and look at me," said the presiding officer, in a tone of dignified severity. 1 was accordingly marched into the middle of the room and left alone, where I stood with folded arms, as became the grand occasion. " Arthur Bonnicastle," said the officer before men tioned, " you are brought before The High Society of Inquiry on a charge of telling so many lies that no de pendence whatever can be placed upon your words. What have you to reply to this charge. Are you guilty or not guilty ? " "I am not guilty. Who says I am?" I exclaimed indignantly. " Henry Hulm, advance ! " said the officer. Henry rose, and, walking by me, took a position near the officer, at the head of the room. " Henry Hulm, you will look upon the prisoner and tell the Society whether you know him." " I know him well. He is my chum," replied Henry. " What is his general character ? " " He is bright and very amiable." " Do you consider him a boy of truth and veracity ? " " I do not." " Has he deceived you ? " inquired the officer. " If he has, please to state the occasion and circumstances." " No, your honor. He has never deceived me. I always know when he lies and when he speaks the truth." " Have you ever told him of his crimes, and warned him to desist from them ? " 88 Arthur Bonnicastle. " I have," replied Henry, " many times." " Has he shown any disposition to mend ? " " None at all, your honor." " What is the character of his falsehood ?" " He tells," replied Henry, " stunning stories about himself. Great things are always happening to him, and he is always performing the most wonderful deeds." I now began with great shame and confusion to realize that I was to be exposed to ridicule. The tears came into my eyes and dropped from my cheeks, but I would not yield to the impulse either to cry or to attempt to fly. " Will you give us some specimens of his stories ? " said the officer. " I will," responded Henry, " but I can do it best by asking him questions." " Very well," said the officer, with a polite bow. " Pursue the course you think best." " Arthur," said Henry, addressing me directly, " did you ever tell me that, when you and your father were on the way to this school, your horse went so fast that he ran down a black fox in the middle of the road, and cut off his tail with the wheel of the chaise, and that you sent that tail home to one of your sisters to wear in her winter hat ? " " Yes, I did," I responded, with my face flaming and painful with shame. " And did your said horse really run down said fox in the middle of said road, and cut off said tail ; and did you send home said tail to said sister tc be worn in said hat ? " inquired the judge, with a low, grum voice. " The prisoner will answer so that all can hear." " No," I replied, and, looking for some justification of my story, I added : " but I did see a black fox a real black fox, as plain as day ! " "Oh! Oh! Oh!" ran around the room irl chorus Artlinr Bonnicastle, 89 " He did see a black fox, a real black fox, as plain as day ! " " The witness will pursue his inquiries," said the offi cer. " Arthur," Henry continued, " did you or did you not tell me that when on the way to this school you overtook Mr. and Mrs. Bird in their wagon, that you were invited into the wagon by Mrs. Bird, and that one of Mr. Bird's horses chased a calf on the road, caught it by the ear and tossed it over the fence and broke its leg ? " " I s'pose I did," I said, growing desperate. " And did said horse really chase said calf, and catch him by said ear, and toss him over said fence, and break said leg ? " inquired the officer. " He didn't catch him by the ear," I replied doggedly, " but he really did chase a calf." "Oh! Oh! Oh!" chimed in the chorus. "He didn't catch him by the ear, but he really did chase a calf!" " Witness," said the officer, " you will pursue your inquiries." "Arthur, did you or did you not tell me," Henry went on, " that you have an old friend who is soon to go to sea, and that he has promised to bring you a male and female monkey, a male and female bird of paradise, a barrel of pineapples, and a Shetland pony? " " It doesn't seem as if I told you exactly that," I re plied. " Did you or did you not tell him so ? " said the offi cer, severely. " Perhaps I did," I responded. " And did said friend, who is soon to go to said sea, really promise to bring you said monkeys, said birds of paradise, said pineapples, and said pony ?" "No," I replied, " but I really have an old friend who is going to sea, and he'll bring me anything I ask him to." po Arthur Bonnicastlc. " Oh ! Oh ! Oh ! " swept round the room again. " He really has an old friend who is going to sea, and he'll bring him anything he asks him to." " Hulm, proceed with your inquiries," said the officer. " Did you or did you not," said Henry, turning to me again, " tell me that one day, when dining at your Aunt's, you saw a magic portrait of a boy upon the wall, that came and went, and came and went, like a shadow or a ghost ? " As Henry asked this question he stood between two windows, while the lower portion of his person was hid den by a table behind which he had retired. His face was lighted by a half smile, and I saw him literally in a frame, as I had first seen the picture to which he al luded. In a moment I became oblivious to everything around me except Henry's face. The portrait was there again before my eyes. Every lineament and even the peculiar pose of the head were recalled to me. I was so much excited that it really seemed as if I were look ing again upon the picture I had seen in Mrs. Sander son's dining-room. Henry was disconcerted, and even distressed by my intent look. He was evidently afraid that the matter had been carried too far, and that I was growing wild with the strange excitement. Endeavor ing to recall me to myself, he said in a tone of friendli ness : " Did you or did you not tell me the story about the portrait, Arthur ? " " Yes," I responded, " and it looked just like you. Oh ! it did, it did, it did ! There turn your head a lit tle more that way so ! It was a perfect picture of you, Henry. You never could imagine such a likeness." " You are a little blower, you are," volunteered Jack Linton, from a corner. " Order ! Order ! Order ! " swept around the room "Did said portrait," broke in the voice of the officer, ArtJiur Bonnicastle. 91 " come and go on said wall, like said shadow or said ghost ? " " It went but it didn't come," I replied, with my eyes still fixed on Henry. " Oh ! Oh! Oh ! " resumed the chorus. " It went but it didn't come ! " " Please stand still, Henry ! don't stir ! " I said. " I want to go nearer to it. She wouldn't let me." I crept slowly toward him, my arms still folded. He grew pale, and all the room became still. The presid ing officer and the members of The High Society of In quiry were getting scared. " It went but it didn't come," I said. " This one comes but it doesn't go. I should like to kiss it." I put out my hands toward Henry, and he sank down behind the table as if a ghost were about to touch him. The illusion was broken, and I started as if awakened suddenly from a dream. Looking around upon the boys, and realizing what had been done and what was in progress, I went into a fit of hearty crying, that dis tressed them quite as much as my previous mood had done. Nods and winks passed from one to another, and Hulm was told that no further testimony was needed. They were evidently in a hurry to conclude the case, and felt themselves cut short in their forms of proceeding. At this moment a strange silence seized the assembly. All eyes were directed toward the door, upon which my back was turned. I wheeled around to find the cause of the interruption. There, in the doorway towering above us all, and looking questioningly down upon the little assembly, stood Mr. Bird. " What does this mean ? " inquired the master. I flew to his side and took his hand. The officer who had presided, being the largest boy, explained that they had been trying to break Arthur Bonnicastle of lying, 92 ArtJuir Bonnicastle. and that they were about to order him to report to the master for confession and correction. Then Mr. Bird took a chair and patiently heard the whole story. Without a reproach, further than saying that he thought me much too young for experiments of the kind they had instituted in the case, he explained to them and to me the nature of my misdemeanors. " The boy has a great deal of imagination," he said, "and a strong love of approbation. Somebody has flattered his power of invention, probably, and, to se cure admiration, he has exercised it until he has ac quired the habit of exaggeration. I doubt whether the lad has done much that was consciously wrong. It is more a fault of constitution and character than a sin of the will ; and now that he sees that he does not win ad miration by telling that which is not true, he will be come truthful. I am glad if he has learned, even by the severe means which have been used, that if he wishes to be loved and admired he must always tell the exact truth, neither more nor less. If you had come to me, I could have told you all about the lad, and insti tuted a better mode of dealing with him. He has been through some sudden changes of late that have had the natural tendency to exaggerate his fault. But I venture to say that he is cured. Aren't you, Arthur? " And he stooped and lifted me to his face and looked into my eyes. " I don't think I shall do it any more," I said. Bidding the boys disperse, he carried me down-stairs into his own room, and charged me with kindly counsel. I went out from the interview humbled and without a revengeful thought in my heart toward the boys who had brought me to my trial. I saw that they were my friends, and I was determined to prove myself worthy of their friendship. Arthur Bonnicastlc, 93 Jack Linton was waiting for me on the piazza, and wished to explain to me that he hadn't anything against me. " I went in with the rest of 'em because they wanted me to," said Jack, " and because I wanted to see what it would be like ; but really, now, I don't ob ject so much to blowing myself. There's a sort of sameness, you know, about always telling the truth that there isn't about blowing, but it's the same thing with hash and bread and butter, and it seems to be neces sary." I told him that I wasn't going to blow any more, and that I had arranged it all with Mr. Bird. He shook hands with me and then stooped down and whispered : " You don't catch me trying any High old Society of In quiries on a chap of your size again." As soon as I settled into the routine of my school life the weeks flew away so fast that they soon got beyond my counting. The term was long, but I was happy in my study, happy in my companionships, and happy in the love of Mr. and Mrs. Bird, and in their control and direction. I wrote letters home every week, and re ceived prompt replies from my father. The monthly missives to "My dear Aunt," were regularly written, though I won no replies to them. I learned, however, that Mr. Bird had received communications from her concerning myself. On one occasion she sent her love to me through him, and he delivered the message with an amused look in his eyes that puzzled me. The summer months passed away, and that great, mysterious change came on which reported the consum mation of growth and maturity in the processes and products of the year. The plants that had toiled all summer, evolving flower and fruit, were soothed to sleep. The birds stopped singing lest they should waken them. The locusts by day and the crickets by night crooned their lullaby. A dreamy haze hung 94 Arthur Bonnicastlc. around the distant hills, and here and there a woodbine lighted its torch in the darkening dingle, and the maples in mellow fire signalled each other from hill to hill. The year had begun to die. There were chills at night and fevers by day, and stretches of weird silence that impressed me more profoundly than I can possibly re veal. It was as if the angels of the summer had fled at the first frost, and the angels of the autumn had come down, bringing with them a new set of spiritual influ ences that saddened while they sweetened every soul whose sensibilities were delicate enough to apprehend and receive them. During those days I felt my first twinges of genuine homesickness. I was conscious that I had grown in body and mind during my brief absence ; and I wanted to show myself to the dear ones with whom I had passed my childhood. I imagined the interest with which they would listen to the stories of my life at school ; and I had learned enough of the world already to know that there was no love so sweet and strong as that which my home held for me. 'I had been made glad by my fa ther's accounts of his modest prosperity. Work had been plenty and the pay was sure and sufficient. The family had been reclothed, and new and needed articles of furniture had been purchased. I wrote to Mrs. Sanderson and asked the privilege of going home to spend my vacation, and through my fa ther's letters I learned that she would send for me. A week or more before the close of the term I received a note addressed to me in a handwriting gone to wreck through disuse, from old Jenks. If I were to character ize the orthography in which it was clothed, I should say it was eminently strong. I do not suppose it \vas intended to be blank verse, but it was arranged in dis connected lines, and read thus : Arthur Bonnicastle. 95 " Bring home your Attlus. " I stere boldly for the Troppicks. " Desk and cumpusses in the stable. " When this you see burn this when this you see. " The sea rolls away and thare is no old wooman thare. "Where the spisy breazes blow. " I shall come for you with the Shaze. " From an old Tarr " THEOPHILUS JENKS." This unique document was not committed to th* flames, according to the directions of the writer. It was much too precious for such a destiny, and was care fully laid away between the leaves of my Testament, to be revealed in this later time. The last evening of the term was devoted to a recep tion. Many parents of the boys who had come to take their darlings home were present ; and sitting in the re motest corner of the dancing-room, shrunken into the smallest space it was possible for him to occupy, was old Jenks, gazing enchanted upon such a scene as had never feasted his little gray eyes before. I had learned to dance, in a boy's rollicking fashion, and during the whole evening tried to show off my accomplishments to my old friend. One after another I led ladies middle-aged and young to the floor, and discharged the courtesies of the time with all the confidence of a man of society. Occasionally I went -to his side and asked him how he liked it. " It's great it's tremenduous," said Jenks. " How do you dare to do- it eh ? say ! " said he, drawing me down to him by the lappel of my coat : " I've been thinking ho\v I'd like to have the old woman on the floor, and see her tumble down once. I ain't no dancer, you know, but I'd dance a regular break-down over her before I picked her up and set her on her pins again. Wouldn't it be fun to see her get up mad, and limp off into c cor- 96 Arthur Bonnicastle. I laughed at Jenks's fancy, and asked him what he thought of the last lady I danced with. " She's a beauty," said Jenks. " I should like to sail with her just sit and hold her hand and sail sail away, and keep sailing and sailing and sailing." " I'm glad you like her," I said, " for that is my lady love. That's Miss Butler." "You don't say!" exclaimed Jenks. "Well, you don't mind what I say, do you ? " " Oh no," I said, " you're too old for her." " Well, yes, perhaps I am, but isn't she just isn't she rather that is, isn't she a bit too old for you ? " " I shall be old enough for her by and by," I replied. " Well, don't take to heart anything I say," re sponded Jenks. " I was only talking about sailing, any way. My mind is on the sea a good deal, you know. Now you go on with your dancing, and don't mind me." The next morning there were all sorts of vehicles at the door. There were calls and farewells and kisses, and promises to write, and hurrahs, and all the inci dents and excitements of breaking up. With a dozen kisses warm upon my cheeks, from teachers and friends, I mounted the chaise, and Jenks turned the old horse toward home. I suppose the world would not be greatly interested in the conversation between the old servant and the boy who that day drove from Hillsborough to Bradford. Jenks had been much moved by the scenes of the pre vious evening, and his mind, separated somewhat from the sea, out toward whose billowy freedom it had been accustomed to wander, turned upon women. " I think a woman is a tremenduous being," said Jenks. " When she's right, she's the rightest thing that floats. When she's wrong, she's the biggest nuisance that ploughs the sea, even if she's little and don't draw two feet of water. Perhaps it isn't just the thing to say to a Arthur Bonnicastle. 97 ooy like you, but you'll never speak of it, if I should tell you a little something ? " " Oh, never ! " I assured him. " Well, I 'spose I might have been a'married man ; " and Jenks avoided my eyes by pretending to discover a horse-shoe in the road. " You don't say so ! " I exclaimed in undisguised as tonishment, for it had never occurred to me that such a man as Jenks could marry. " Yes, I waited on a girl once." " Was she beautiful ? " I inquired. " Well, I should say fair to middling," responded Jenks, pursing his lips as if determined to render a candid judgment. " Fair to middling, barring a few freckles." " But you didn't leave her for the freckles ? " I said. " No, I didn't leave her for the freckles. She was a good girl, and I waited on her. It don't seem possible now, that I ever ra'aly waited on a girl, but I did." " And why didn't you marry her ? " I inquired warmly. " It wasn't her fault," said Jenks. " She was a good girl." " Then why didn't you marry her ? " I insisted. " Well, there was another fellow got to hanging round, and you know how such things go. I was busy, and didn't 'tend up very well, I s'pose and she got tired waiting for me or something and the other fellow mar ried her, but I've never blamed her. She's been sorry enough, I guess." Jenks gave a sigh of mingled regret and pity, and the subject was dropped. The lights were shining cheerfully in the windows as we drove into Bradford. When we came in sight of my father's house, Jenks exacted a pledge from me that all the confidences of the day which he had so freely re posed in me should never be divulged. Arriving at the 5 9^ Artlinr Bonuicastlc. ^ate, I gave a wild whoop, which brought all the family lo the door, and in a moment I was smothered with ivelcome. Ah ! what an* evening was that ! What sad, sweet tears drop upon my paper as I recall it, and remember that every eye that sparkled with greeting then ha? ceased to shine, that every hand that grasped mine is turned to dust, and that all those loving spirits wait somewhere to welcome me home from the school where I have been kept through such a long, eventful term. CHAPTER VI. I BECOME A MEMBER OF MRS. SANDERSON'S FAMILY AND HAVE A WONDERFUL VOYAGE WITH JENKS UP ON THE ATLAS. AT an early hour on the following morning, dressed in my best, I went to pay my respects to Mrs. Sanderson at The Mansion. As I walked along over the ground stiffened with the autumn frost, wondering how " my dear Aunt "would receive me, it seemed as if I had lived half a lifetime since my father led me over the same road, on my first visit to the same lady. I felt older and larger and more independent. As I passed Mr. Bradford's house, I looked at the windows, hoping to see the little girl again, and feeling that in my holi day clothes I could meet her eyes unabashed. But she did not appear, nor did I get a sight of Mr. Bradford. The autumn was now in its glory, and, as I reached the summit of the hill, I could not resist the temptation \o pause and look off upon the meadows and the distant country. I stood under a maple, full of the tender light of lemon-colored leaves, while my feet were buried Arthur Bonnicastlc. 99 among their fallen fellows with which the ground Avas carpeted. The sounds of the town reached my ears mellowed into music by the distance, the smoke from a hundred chimneys rose straight into the sky, the river was a mirror for everything upon it, around it and above it, and all the earth was a garden of gigantic flowers. For that one moment my life was full. With perfect health in my veins, and all my sensibilities excited by the beauty before me, my joy was greater in living than any words can express. Nothing but running, or shout ing, or singing, or in some way violently spending the life thus swelled to its flood, could give it fitting utter ance ; but, as I was near The Mansion, all these were denied me, and I went on, feeling that passing out of the morning sunlight into a house would be like going into a prison. Before reaching the door I looked at the stable, and saw the old horse with his head out of one window, and Jenks's face occupying another. Jenks and the horse looked at one another and nodded, as much as to say : "That is the little fellow we brought over from Hillsborough yesterday." That Mrs. Sanderson saw me under the tree, and watched every step of my progress to the house, was evident, for when I mounted the steps, and paused be tween the sleeping lions, the door swung upon its hinges, and there stood the little old woman in the neatest of morning toilets. She had expected me, and had pre pared to receive me. " And how is Master Bonnicastle this pleasant morn ing ?" she said as I entered. I was prepared to be led into any manifestation of re spect or affection which her greeting might suggest, and this cheery and flattering address moved me to grasp both her hands, and tell her that I was very well and very happy. It did not move me to kiss her or to ex pect a kiss from her. I had never been called " Mas- JOO Arthur Bonnicastlc. ter" Bonnicastle before, and the new title seemed as if it were intended so to elevate me as to place me at a distance. Retaining one of my hands, she conducted me to a large drawing-room, into which she had admitted the full glow of the morning light, and, seating me, drew a chair near to me for herself, where she could look me squarely in the face. Then she led me into a talk about Mr. and Mrs. Bird, and my life at school. She played the part of a listener well, and flattered me by her little comments, and her almost deferential attention. I do her the justice to believe that she was not altogether playing a part thoroughly preconsidered, for I think she was really interested and amused. My presence, and my report of what was going on in one little part of the great world which was so far removed from the pursuits of her lonely life, were refreshing influences. Seeing that she was really interested, my tongue ran on without restraint, until I had told all I had to tell. Many times, when I found myself tempted to exaggerate, I checked my vagrant speech with corrections and qual ifications, determined that my old fault should have no further sway. " Well, my boy," she said at last, in a tone of great kindness, " I find you much improved. Now let us go up-stairs and see what we can discover there." I followed her up the dark old stairway into a cham ber whose windows commanded a view of the morning sun and the town. " How lovely this is ! " I exclaimed. " You like it, then ?" she responded with a gratified look. " Yes," I said. " I think it is the prettiest room I ever saw." " Well, Master Bonnicastle, this is your room. This new paper on the walls and all this new furniture I Arthur Bonmcastle. 101 bought for you. Whenever you want a change from your house, which you know is rather small and not ex actly the thing for a young gentleman like you, you will find this room ready for you. There are the drawers for your linen, and there is the closet for your other clothes, and here is your mirror, and this is a pin-cushion which I have made for you with my own hands." She said this, walking from one object named to an other, until she had shown me all the appointments of the chamber. I was speechless and tearful with delight. And this was all mine ! And I was a young gentleman, with the prettiest room in the grandest house of Bradford at my command ! It was like a dream to me, bred as I had been in the strait simplicity of poverty. Young as I was, I had longed for just this for something around me in my real life that should correspond with my dreams of life. Already the homely furniture of my father's house, and the life with which it was associated, seemed mean almost wretched ; and I was distressed by my sym pathy for those whom I should leave behind in rising to my new estate. By some strange intuition I knew that it would not do to speak to my benefactress of my love for my father. I was full of the thought that my love had been purchased, and fairly paid for. I belonged to Mrs. Sanderson. She who had expended so much money for me, without any reward, had a right to me, and all of my society and time that she desired. If she had asked me to come to her house and make it my only home, I should have promised to do GO without reserve, but she did not do this. She was too wise. She did not intend to exact anything from me ; but I have no doubt that she took the keenest delight in witnessing the operation and consummation of her plans for gaining an ascendency over my affections, my will, and my life Her revelations produced in me a strange disposition IO2 ArtJiur Bonnicastle. to silence which neither she nor I knew how to break. I was troubled with the fear that I had not expressed sufficient gratitude for her kindness, yet 1 did not know how to say more. At length she said : "I saw you under the maple : what were you thinking about there ? " " I was wondering if the world was not made in the fall," I replied. "Ah?" " Yes," I continued, " it seemed to me as if God must have stood under that same maple-tree, when the leaves were changing, and saw that it was all very good." With something of her old asperity she said she wished my boyish fancies would change as well as the leaves. " I cannot help having them," I replied, " but if you don't like them I shall never speak of them again." " Now I tell you what I think," said she assuming her pleasant tone again. " I think you would like to be left alone for a little while." " Oh! I should like to be alone here in my own room ever so much ! " I responded. " You can stay here until dinner if you wish," she said, ard then she ijent down ioid kissed my forehead, and retired I listened as she descended the stairs, and when I felt that she was far enough away, I rose, and carefully locked my door. Then I went to the mirror to see whether I knew myself, and to find what there was in me that could be addressed as " Master," or spoken of as ''a young gentleman." Then I ransacked the closet, and climbed to a high shelf in it, with the vague hope that the por trait which had once excited my curiosity was hidden there. Finding nothing I had not previously seen, I went to the window, and sat down to think. I looked off upon the town, and felt myself lifted im measurably above it and all its plodding cares and in- Artlntr Bonnicastle. 103 dustries. This was mine. It had been wen without an effort. It had come to me without a thought or a care. I believed there was not a boy in the whole town who possessed its equal, and I wondered what there was in me that should call forth such munificence from my ben efactress. If my good fortune as a boy were so great, what brilliant future awaited my manhood ? Then I thought of my father, working humbly and patiently, day after day, for bread for his family, and of the tender love which I knew his heart held for me ; and I won dered why God should lay so heavy a burden upon him and so marvellously favor me. Would it not be mean to take this good fortune and sell my love of him and of home for it ? Oh ! if I could only bring them all here, to share my sweeter lot, I should be content, but I could not even speak of this to the woman who had bestowed it on me. It all ended in a sweet and hearty fit of crying, in which I sobbed until the light faded out of my eyes, and I went to sleep. I had probably slept two hours when a loud knock awakened me, and, staggering to my feet, and recognizing at last the new objects around me, I went to the door, and found Jenks, in his white apron, who told me that dinner was waiting for me. I gave a hurried glance at the mirror and was startled to find my eyes still red ; but I could not wait. As he made way for me to pass down before him, he whispered : " Come to the stable as soon as you can after dinner. The atlas and compasses are ready." I remembered then that he had borrowed the formei of me on the way home, and secreted it under the seat of the chaise. Mrs. Sanderson was already seated when I entered the dining-room. " Your eyes are red," she said quickly. " I have been asleep, I think," I responded. Jenks mumbled something, and commenced growling IO4 Arthur Bonnicastle. His mistress regarded me closely, but thought best nof to push inquiries further. Conversation did not promise to be lively, especially iu the presence of a third party, between whom and my stlf there existed a guilty secret which threatened to sap the peace of the establishment. At length I said : " Oh! I did not think to tell you anything about my chum." " What is his name ? " she inquired. " His name is Henry Hulm," I replied ; and then 1 went on at length to describe his good qualities and to tell what excellent friends we had been. " He is not a bit like me," I said, " he is so steady and quiet." " Do you know anything about his people ? " inquired the lady. " No, he never says anything about them, and I am afraid he is poor," I replied. " How does he dress ? " " Noc so well as I do, but he is the neatest and care- fullest boy in the school." " Perhaps you would like to invite him here to spend your vacation with you, when you come home again," she suggested. " May I ? Can I ? " I eagerly inquired. " Certainly. If he is a good, respectable boy, and you would like him for a companion here, I should be delighted to have you bring him." " Oh ! I thank you : I am so glad ! I'm sure he'll come, and he can sleep in my room with me." " That will please you very much, will it not? " and the lady smiled with a lively look of gratification. I look back now with mingled pity of my simple self and admiration of the old lady who thus artfully wove her foils about me. She knew she must not alarm my father, or imprison me, or fail to make me happy in the gilded trap she had set for me. All her work upon me Artinir Bonnicastle. 105 was that of a thorough artist. What she wanted was to sever me and my sympathy from my father and his home, and to make herself and her house the centre of my life. She saw that my time would pass slowly if I had no companion ; and Henry's coming would be likely to do more than anything to hold me. My pride would certainly move me to bring him to my room, and she would manage the rest. After dinner, I asked liberty to go to the stable. I was fond of horses and all domestic animals. I made my request in the presence of Jenks, and that whimsical old hypocrite had the hardihood to growl and grumble and mutter as if he regarded the presence of a boy in the stable as a most offensive intrusion upon his special domain. I could not comprehend such duplicity, and looked at him inquiringly. " Don't mind Jenks," said Madame ; " he's a fool." Jenks went growling out of the room, but, as he passed me, I caught the old cunning look in his little eyes, and followed him. When the door was closed he cut a pigeon- wing, and ended by throwing one foot entirely over my head. Then he whispered : " You go out and stay there until I come. Don't disturb anything." So I went out, thinking him quite the nimblest and queerest old fellow I had ever seen. I passed half an hour patting the horse's head, calling the chickens around me, and wondering what the plans of Jenks would be. At length he appeared. Walking tiptoe into the stable, he said : ' The old woman is down for a nap, and we've got two good hours for a voyage. Now, messmate, let's up sails and be off! " At this he seized a long rope which depended from one of the great beams above, and pulled away with a "Yo! heave oh!" sotto voce (letting it slide through his hands at every call), as if an immense spread of canvas was to be the result. 5* 106 Arthur Bonnicastlc. " Belay there ! " he said at last, in token that his ship was under way, and the voyage begun. " It's a bit cold, my hearty, and now for a turn on the quarter-deck," he said, as he grasped my hand, and walked with me back and forth across the floor. I was seized with an uncontrollable fit of laughter, but walked with him, nothing loth. " Now we plough the billow," said Jenks, " this is what I call gay." After giving our blood a jog, and getting into a glow, he began to laugh. " What are you laughing at ? " I inquired. " She made me promise that I wouldn't tease or trouble you, she did!" and then he laughed again. " Oh yes ; Jenks is a fool, he is ! Jenks is a tremen- duous fool ! " Then he suddenly sobered, and suggested that it was time to examine our chart. Dropping my hand, he went to a bin of oats, built like a desk, and opening from the top with a falling lid. To this lid he had attached two legs by hinges of leather, which sup ported it at a convenient angle. Then he brought forth two three-legged milking-stools and placed them before it, and plunging his hand deep down into the oats drew out my atlas, neatly wrapped in an old newspaper. This he opened before me, and we took our seats. " Now where are we ? " said Jenks. I opened to the map of the world, and said : " Here Is New York, and there is Boston. We can't be very far from either of 'em, but I think we are between 'em." " Very well, let it be between 'em," said Jenks. " Now what ? " " Where will you go ? " I inquired. " I don't care where I go ; let us have a big sail, now that we are in for it," he replied. " Well, then, let's go to Great Britain," I said. " Isn't there something that they call the English Channel ? " inquired Jenks with a doubtful look. S>TATE NORMAL SCHOOL, ArtJiur " Yes, there is," and cruising about among the fine type, I found it. " Well, I don't like this idea of being out of sight of /and. It's dangerous, and if you can't sleep, there is no place to go to. Let's steer straight for the English Chan nel straight as a ramrod." " But it will take a month," I said ; " I have heard people say so a great many times." " My! A month? Out of sight of land? No old woman and no curry-comb for a month ? Hey de did dle ! Very well, let it be a month. Hullo ! it's all over ! Here we are : now where are we on the map ? " " We seem to be pretty near to Paris," 1 said, " but we don't quite touch it. There must be some little places along here that are not put down. There's Lon don, too : that doesn't seem to be a great way off, but there's a strip of land between it and the water." " Why, yes, there's Paris," said Jenks, looking out of the stable window, and down upon the town. " Don't you see ? It's a fine city. I think I see just where Napoleon Bonaparte lives. But it's a wicked place ; let's get away from it. Bear off now ; " and so our im aginary bark, to use Jenks' large phrase, " swept up the Channel." Here I suggested that we had better take a map of Great Britain, and we should probably find more places to stop at. I found it easily, with the " English Channel" in large letters. " Here we are ! " I said : " see the towns ! " "My! Ain't they thick !" responded Jenks. ' What is that name running lengthwise there right through the water ? " " That's the ' Strait of Dover,' " I replied. " Well, then, look out ! We're running right into it ! It's a confounded narrow place, any way- Bear away there ; take the middle course. I've heard of then: loS Artlnir Bonnicastle. Straits of Dover before. They are dangerous ; but we're through, we're through. Now where are we ? " " We are right at the mouth of the Thames," I re plied, " and here is a river that leads straight up to London." " Cruise off! cruise off!" said Jenks. " We're in an enemy's country. Sure enough, there's London ; " and he looked out of the window with a fixed gaze, as if the dome of St. Paul's were as plainly in sight as his own nose. After satisfying himself with a survey of the great city, he remarked, interrogatively, " Haven't we had about enough of this ? I want to go where the spicy breezes blow. Now that we have got our sea-legs on, let us make for the equator. Bring the ship round ; here sve go ; now what ? " " We have got to cross the Tropic of Cancer, for all that I can see," said I. " Can't we possibly dodge it ? " inquired Jenks with concern. " I don't see how we can," I replied. " It seems to go clean around." " What is it, any way ? " said he. "It don't seem to be anything but a sort of dotted line," I answered. " Oh well, never mind ; we'll get along with that," he said encouragingly. " Steer between two dots, and hold your breath. My uncle David had one of them things." Here Jenks covered his mouth and nose with entire gravity, and held them until the imaginary danger was past. At last, with a red face, he inquired, " Are we over ? " " All over," I replied; " and now where do you want to go ? " " Isn't there something that they call the Channel of Mozambique ? " said Jenks. Arthur Bonnicastlc. 109 " Why ? " I asked. " Well, I've always thought it must be a splendid sheet of water ! Yes: Channel of Mozambique splendid sheet of water ! Mozambique ! Grand name, isn't it ? " " Why, here it is," said I, " away round here. We've got to run down the coast of Africa, and around the Cape of Good Hope, and up into the Indian Ocean. Shall we touch anywhere ? " " No, I reckon it isn't best. The niggers will think we are after 'em, and we may get into trouble. But look here, boy ! We've forgot the compasses. How we ever managed to get across the Atlantic without 'em is more than I know. That's one of the carelessest things I ever did. I don't suppose we could do it again in try ing a thousand times." Thereupon he drew from a corner of the oat-bin an old pair of carpenter's compasses, between which and the mariner's compass neither he nor I knew the differ ence, and said : " Now let us sail by compasses, in the regular way." " How do you do it ? " I inquired. " There can't be but one way, as I see," he replied. " You put one leg down on the map, where you are, then put the other down where you want to go, and just sail for that leg." " Well," said I, " here we are, close to the Canary Islands. Put one leg down there, and the other down here at St. Helena." After considerable questioning and fumbling and ad justing of the compasses, they were held in their place by the ingenious navigator, while we drove for the lonely island. After a considerable period of silence, Jenks broke out with : " Doesn't she cut the water beautiful ? It takes the Jane Whittlesey ! " " Oh ! " I exclaimed, " I didn't know you had a name for her." cio Arthur BonnicaslJc, " Yes," said Jenks with a sigh still holding fast to the compasses, as if our lives depended upon his faith fulness " Jane Whittlesey has been the name of every vessel I ever owned. You know what I told you about that young woman ? " " Yes," I said ; " and was that her name ? " Jenks nodded, and sighed again, still keeping his eye upon the outermost leg of the instrument, and holding it firmly in its place. " Here we are," he exclaimed at last. " Now let's double over and start again." So the northern leg came round with a half circle, and went down at the Cape of Good Hope. The Tropic of Capricorn proved less dangerous than the northern cor responding line, and so, at last, sweeping around the Cape, we brought that leg of the compasses which we had left behind toward the equator again, and, working up on the map, arrived at our destination. " Well, here we are in the Channel of Mozambique," I said. " What's that blue place there on the right hand side of it ? " he inquired. " That's the Island of Madagascar." " You don't tell me ! " he exclaimed. " Well ! I never expected to be so near that place. The Island of Madagascar ! The Island of Mad-a-gas-car ! Let's take a look at it." Thereupon he rose and took a long look out of the window. " Elephants mountains tigers monkeys golden sands cannibals," he exclaimed slowly, as he apprehended seriatim the objects he named. Then he elevated his nose, and began to sniff the air, as if some far-off odor had reached him on viewless wings. " Spicy breezes, upon my word !" he exclaimed. " Don't you notice 'em, boy ? Smell uncommonly like hay ; what do you think ? " Arthur BonnicastJe. ill We had after this a long and interesting cruise, run ning into various celebrated ports, and gradually work ing toward home. I was too busy with the navigation to join Jenks in his views of the countries and islands which we passed on the voyage, but he enjoyed every league of the long and eventful sail. At last the Jane Whittle- sey ran straight into Mrs. Sanderson's home inclosures, and Jenks cast anchor by dropping a huge stone through a trap-door in the floor. " It really seems good to be at home again, and to feel everything standing still, doesn't it ? " said he. " I wonder if I can walk straight," he went on, and then proceeded to ascertain by actual experiment. I have laughed a hundred times since at the recollection of the old fellow's efforts to adapt himself to the imaginary billows of the stable-floor. " I hope I shall get over this before supper- time," said Jenks, " for the old woman will know we have been to sea." I enjoyed the play quite as well as my companion did, but even then I did not comprehend that it was simply play, with him. I supposed it was a trick of his to learn something of geography before cutting loose from ser vice and striking out into the great world by way of the ocean. So I said to him : " What do you do this for?" " What do I do it for ? What does anybody go to sea for?" he inquired, with astonishment. " Well, but you don't go to the real sea, you know," I suggested. " Don't I ! That's what the atlas says, anyway, and the atlas ought to know," said Jenks. " At any rate it's as good a sea as I want at this time of year, just before winter comes on. If you only think so, it's a great deal better sailing on an atlas than it is sailing on the water. You have only to go a few inches, and you needn't get wet, and you can't drown. You can see everything there 1 1 2 Arthur Bonnicastle. is in the world by looking out of the window, and think ing you do ; and what's the use spending so much time as people do travelling to the ends of the earth ? The only thing that troubles me is that Bradford's Irishman down here has really come across the ocean, and I don't s'pose he cared any more about it than if he'd been a pig. If I could only have had a real sail on the ocean, and got through with it, I don't know but I should be ready to die." " But you will have, some time, you know," I said en couragingly. " Do you think so ? " " When you run away you will," I said. " I don't know," he responded dubiously. " I think perhaps I'd better run away on an atlas a few times first, just to learn the ropes." Here we were interrupted by the tinkle of a bell, and it was marvellous to see how quickly the atlas disap peared in the oats, and the lid was closed over it. Jenks went to the house and I followed him. Mrs. Sanderson did not inquire how I had spent my time. It was enough for her that I had in no way dis turbed her after-dinner nap, and that I came when she wanted me. I told her I had enjoyed the day very much, and that I hoped my father would let me come up soon and occupy my room. Then I went up-stairs and looked the room all over again, and tried to realize the extent and value of my new possession. When I went home, toward night, she loaded me with nice little gifts for my mother and the children, and I lost no time in my haste to tell the family of the good fortune that had befallen me. My mother was greatly delighted with my representations, but my father was sad. I think he was moved to sever my connection with the artful woman at once, and take the risks of the step, but a doubt of his own ability to do for me what it was her intention and Arthur Bonnicastlc. 1 1 3 power to do withheld him. He consented at last to lose me because he loved me, and on the following day I went out from my home with an uneasy conviction that I had been bought and paid for, and was little better than an expensive piece of property, What she would do with me I could not tell. I had my doubts and my dreams, which I learned to keep to myself; but in the swift years that followed there was never an unkind word spoken to me in my new home, or any unkind treatment experienced which made me regret the step I had taken. I learned to regard Mrs. Sanderson as the wisest woman living ; and I found, as the time rolled by, that I had adopted her judgments upon nearly every person and every subject that called forth her opinion. She assumed superiority to all her neighbors. She sat on a social throne, in her own imagination. There were few who openly acknowledged her sway, but she was imper turbable. Wherever she appeared, men bowed to her with profoundest courtesy, and women were assiduous in their politeness. They may have flouted her when she was out of sight, but they were flattered by her at tentions, and were always careful in her presence to yield her the pre-eminence she assumed. No man or woman ever came voluntarily into collision with her will. Keen, quiet, alert, self-possessed, she lived her own in dependent life, asking no favors, granting few, and hold ing herself apart from, and above, all around her. The power of this self-assertion, insignificant as she was in physique, was simply gigantic. To this height she undertook to draw me, severing cne by one the sympathies which bound me to my family and my companions, and making me a part of herself. 1 remember distinctly the processes of the change, and their result. I grew more silent, more self-contained, more careful of my associations. The change in me had its effect in my own home. I came to be regarded 114 Art h 1 1 r Bo n n i castle. there as a sort of superior being ; and when I went there for a day the best things were given me to eat, and cer tain proprieties were observed by the family, as if a rare stranger had come among them. In the early part of my residence at The Mansion, some of the irreverent little democrats of the street called me " Mother San derson's Baby," but even this humiliating and madden ing taunt died away when it was whispered about that she was educating her heir, and that 1 should be some day the richest young man in the town. CHAPTER VII. i LEAVE THE BIRD'S NEST AND MAKE A GREAT DIS COVERY. LIFE is remembered rather by epochs than by contin uous details. I spent five years at The Bird's Nest, vis iting home twice every year, and becoming more and more accustomed to the thought that I had practically ceased to be a member of my own family. My home and all my belongings were at the Mansion ; and although I kept a deep, warm spot in my heart for my father, which never grew cold, there seemed to be a dif ference in kind and quality between me and my brothers and sisters which forbade the old intimacy. The life at home had grown more generous with my father's ad vancing prosperity, and my sisters, catching the spirir of the prosperous community around them, had done much to beautify and elevate its appointments. The natural tendency of the treatment I received, both at my father's house and at The Mansion, was for a long time to concentrate my thoughts upon myself, so that when, on my fifteenth birthday, I entered my fa- Arthur Bonnicastle. 115 ther's door, and felt peculiarly charmed by my welcome and glad in the happiness which my presence gave, I made a discovery. I found my sister Claire a remarka bly pretty young woman. She was two years my senior, and had been so long my profoundest worshipper that I had never dreamed what she might become. She was the sweetest of blondes, with that unerring instinct of dress which enabled her to choose always the right color, and so to drape her slender and graceful figure as to be always attractive. My own advance toward manhood helped me, I suppose, to appreciate her as I had not hitherto done ; and before I parted with her, to return to the closing term of Mr. Bird's tuition, I had become proud of her, and ambitious for her future. I found, too, that she had more than kept pace with me in study. It was a great surprise. By what ingenuities she had man aged to win her accomplishments, and become the ed ucated lady that she was, I knew not. It was the way of New England girls then as it is now. I had long talks and walks with her, and quite excited the jealousy of Mrs. Sanderson by the amount of time I devoted to her. In these years Mrs. Sanderson herself had hardly grown appreciably older. Her hair had become a little whiter, but she retained, apparently, all her old vigor, and was the same strong-willed, precise, prompt, opinionated wo man she was when I first knew her. Jenks and I had many sails upon the atlas succeeding that which I have described, but something had always interfered to pre vent him from taking the final step which would sever his connection with the service of his old mistress for ever. Every time during these five years that I went home to spend my vacation, I invited Henry to accompany me, but his mother invariably refused to permit him to do so. Mrs. Sanderson, in her disappointment, offered to defray all the expenses of the journey, which, in the n6 Arthur Bonnicastle. meantime, had ceased to be made with the old horse and chaise ; but there came always from his mother the same refusal. The old lady was piqued at last, and be came soured toward him. Indeed, if she could have found a valid excuse for the step, she would have broken off our intimacy. She had intended an honor to an un known lad in humble circumstances ; and to have that honor persistently spurned, without apparent reason, exasperated her. " The lad is a churl, depend upon it, when you get at the bottom of him," was the stereotyped reply to all my attempts to palliate his offence, and vin dicate the lovableness of his character. These years of study and development had wrought great changes in me. Though thoroughly healthy thanks to the considerate management of my teacher I grew up tall and slender, and promised to reach the reputed altitude of the old Bonnicastles. I was a man in stature by the side of my sister Claire, and assumed the dress and carriage of a man. Though Henry was two years older than I, we studied together in every thing, and were to leave school together. Our compan ionship had been fruitful of good to both of us. I stirred him and he steadied me. There was one aim which we held in common the aim at personal integrity and thorough soundness of character. This aim had been planted in us both by Christian parents, and it was fostered in every practica ble way by Mr. and Mrs. Bird. There was one habit, learned at home, which we never omitted for a night while we were at school the habit of kneeling at our bedside before retiring to slumber, and offering silently a prayer. Dear Mrs. Bird that sweet angel of all the little boys was always with us in our first nights to gether, when we engaged in our devotions, and sealed our young lips for sleep with a kiss. Bidding us to pray for what we wanted, and to thank our Father for all that Arthur Bonnicastle. 117 we received, with the simple and hearty language we would use if we were addressing our own parents, and adjuring us never, under any circumstances, to omit out offering, she left us at last to ourselves. " Remember," she used to say, " remember that no one can do this for you. The boy who confesses his sins every .night has always the fewest sins to confess. The habit of daily confession and prayer is the surest corrective of all that is wrong in your motives and conduct." In looking back upon this aspect of our life together, I am compelled to believe that both Henry and myself were in the line of Christian experience. Those prayers and those daily efforts at good, conscientious living, were the solid beginnings of a Christian character. I do not permit myself to question that had I gone on in that simple way I should have grown into a Christian man. The germination and development of the seed planted far back in childhood would, I am sure, have been crowned with a divine fruitage. Both of us had been taught that we belonged to the Master that we had been given to him in baptism. Neither of us had been devoted to Him by parents who, having placed His seal upon our foreheads, thenceforth strove to convince us that we were the children of the devil. Expecting to be Christians, trying to live according to the Christian rule of life, never doubting that in good time we should be numbered among Christian disciples, we were already- Christian disciples. Why should it be necessary that the aggregate sorrow and remorse for years of selfishness and transgression be crowded into a few hours or days ? Why should it be necessary to be lifted out of a great hor ror of blackness and darkness and tempest, into a super nal light by one grand sweep of passion ? Are safe foun dations laid in storms and upheavals? Are conviction and character nourished by violent access and reaction of feeling ? We give harsh remedies for desperate dis- Ii8 Arthur Bonnicastle. eases, and there are such things as desperate diseases. I am sure that Henry and I were not desperately diseased. The whole drift of our aims was toward the realization of a Christian life. The grand influences shaping us from childhood were Christian. Every struggle with that which was base and unworthy within us was inspired by Chris tian motives. Imperfect in knowledge, infirm in will, volatile in purpose as boys always are and always will be, still we were Christian boys, who had only to grow in order to rise into the purer light and better life of the Christian estate. I am thus particular in speaking of this, for I was des tined to pass through an experience which endangered all that I had won. I shall write of this experience with great care, but with a firm conviction that my unvar nished story has a useful lesson in it, and an earnest wish that it may advance the cause which holds within itself the secret of a world's redemption. I am sure that our religious teachers do not competently estimate the power of religious education on a great multitude of minds, or adequately measure the almost infinite mis chief that may be inflicted upon sensitive natures by methods of address and influence only adapted to those who are sluggish in temperament or besotted by vice. My long stay at The Bird's Nest was a period of unin terrupted growth of mind as well as of body. Mr. Bird was a man who recognized the fact that time is one of the elements that enter into a healthy development of the mind that mental digestion and assimilation are quite as essential to true growth as the reception of abundant food. Hence his aim was never to crowd a pupil beyond his powers of easy digestion, and never to press to engorgement the receptive faculties. To give the mind ideas to live upon while it acquired the disci pline for work, was his steady practice and policy. All the current social and political questions were made as Arthur Bonnicastle. 119 familiar to the boys under his charge as they were to the reading world outside. The issues involved in every political contest were explained to us, and I think we learned more that was of practical use to us in after-life from his tongue than from the text-books which we studied. Some of the peculiarities of Mr. Bird's administration I have already endeavored to represent, and one of these I must recall at the risk of repetition and tediousness. In the five years which I spent under his roof and care, I do not think one lad left the school with the feeling that he had been unjustly treated in any instance. No bitter revenges were cherished in any heart. If, in' his haste or perplexity, the master ever did a boy a wrong, he made instant and abundant reparation, in an ac knowledgment to the whole school. He was as tender of the humblest boy's reputation as he was of any man's, or even of his own. When I think of the brutal despot ism that reigns in so many schools of this and other countries, and of the indecent way in which thousands of sensitive young natures are tortured by men who, in the sacred office of the teacher, display manners that have ceased to be respectable in a stable, I bless my kind stars nay, I thank God for those five years, and the sweet influence that has poured from them in a steady stream through all my life. The third summer of my school life was "Reunion Summer," and one week of vacation was devoted to the old boys. It was with inexpressible interest that I witnessed the interviews between them and their teacher. Young men from college with downy whiskers and fashionable clothes ; young men in business, with the air of business in their manners; young clergymen, doctors, and lawyers came back by scores. They brought a great breeze from the world with them, but all became boys again when they entered the presence I2O Arthur Bonnicastle. of their old master. They kissed him as they were wont to do in the times which had become old times to them. They hung upon his neck ; they walked up and down the parlors with their arms around him ; they sat in his lap, and told him of their changes, troubles and suc cesses ; and all were happy to be at the old nest again. Ah, \\\\-d\ fetes were crowded into that happy week ! what games of ball, what receptions, what excursions, what meetings and speeches, what songs, what delight ful interminglings of all the social elements of the vil lage ! What did it matter that we small boys felt very small by the side of those young men whose old rooms we were occupying ? We enjoyed their presence, and found in it the promise that at some future time we should come back with whiskers upon our cheeks, and the last triumph of the tailor in our coats ! Henry and I were to leave school in the autumn ; and as the time drew near for our departure dear Mr. and Mrs. Bird grew more tender toward us, for we had been there longer than any of the other boys. I think there was not a lad at The Bird's Nest during our last term whom we found there on our entrance five years before. Jolly Jack Linton had become a clerk in a city shop, and was already thrifty and popular. Tom Kendrick was in college, and was to become a Christian minister. An drews, too, was in college, and was bringing great com fort to his family by a true life that had been begun with so bad a promise. Mr. Bird seemed to take a special pleasure in our society, and, while loosening his claim upon us as pupils, to hold us as associates and friends the more closely. He loved his boys as a father loves his children. In one of our closing interviews, he and Mrs. Bird talked freely of the life they had lived, and its beautiful compensations. They never wearied with their work, but found in the atmosphere of love that envel oped them an inspiration for all their labor and care, Arthur Bonnicastle. 121 and a balm for all their trials and troubles. " If I were to live my life over again," said Mrs. Bird to me one evening, " I should choose just this, and be perfectly content." There are those teachers who have thought and said that "every boy is a born devil," and have taught for years because they were obliged to teach, with a thorough and outspoken detestation of their work. It is sad to think that multitudes of boys have been trained and misunderstood and abused by these men, and to know that thousands of them are still in office, untrusted and unloved by the tender spirits which they have in charge. My connection with Mrs. Sanderson was a subject to which Mr. Bird very rarely alluded. I was sure there was something about it which he did not like, and in the last private conversation which I held with him it all came out. " I want to tell you, Arthur," he said, "that I have but one fear for you. You have already been greatly injured by Mrs. Sanderson, and by the peculiar relations which she holds to your life. In some respects you are not as lovable as when you first came here. You have become exclusive in your society, obtrusive in your dress, and fastidious in your notions of many things. You are under the spell of a despotic will, and the moulding power of sentiments entirely foreign to your nature. She has not spoiled you, but she has injured you. You have lost your liberty, and a cunning hand is endeavoring to shape you to a destiny which it has pro vided for you. Now no wealth can compensate you for such a change. If she makes you her heir, as I think she intends to do, she calculates upon your becoming a useless and selfish gentleman after a pattern of her own. Against this transformation you must struggle. To lose your sympathy for your own family and for the great multitude of the poor ; to limit your labor to the nursing 6 122 Arthur Bonnicastle. of an old and large estate ; to surrender all your plans for an active life of usefulness among men, is to yield yourself to a fate worse than any poverty can inflict. It is to be bought, to be paid for. and to be made a slave of. I can never be reconciled to any such consumma tion of your life." This was plain talk, but it was such as he had a right to indulge in ; and I knew and felt it to be true. I had arrived at the conviction in my own way before, and I had wished in my heart of hearts that I had had my own fortune to make, like the other boys with whom I had associated. I knew that Henry's winter was to be de voted to teaching, in order to provide himself with a portion of the funds which would be necessary for the further pursuit of his education. He had been kept back by poverty from entering school at first, so that he was no further advanced in study than myself, though the years had given him wider culture and firmer char acter than I possessed. Still, I felt entirely unable and unwilling to relinquish advantages which brought me im munity from anxiety and care, and the position which those advantages and my prospects gave me. My best ambitions were already sapped. I had become weak and to a sad extent self-indulgent. I had acquired no vices, but my beautiful room at The Mansion had been made still more beautiful with expensive appointments, my wardrobe was much enlarged, and, in short, I was in love with riches and all that riches procured for me. Mr. Bird's counsel produced a deep impression upon me, and made me more watchful of the changes in my character and the processes by which they were wrought. In truth, I strove against them, in a weak way, as a slave might strive with chains of gold, which charm him and excite his cupidity while they bind him. Here, perhaps, I ought to mention the fact that there vas one subject which Henry would never permit me t}> Arthur Bonnicastlc. 129 own : I had been purchased. I could not freely follow even the impulses of my own natural affection. Tiring of the package at last, and of the thoughts and emotions it excited, I turned to others. One after an other 1 took them up and partly examined them, but they were mostly dead documents old policies of insu rance long since expired, old contracts for the erection of buildings that had themselves grown old, mortgages that had been cancelled, old abstracts of title, etc., etc. At last I found, at the bottom of the pile, a package yellow with age ; and I gasped with astonishment as I read on the back of the first paper : " 'James Mansfield to Peter Bonnicastle." I drew it quickly from the tape, and saw exposed upon the next paper : " Julius Wheeler to Peter Bonnicastle." Thus the name went on down through the whole package. All the papers were old, and all of them were deeds some of them conveying thousands of acres of colonial lands. Thus I learned two things that filled me with such delight and pride as I should find it altogether impossible to describe ; first, that the fortune which I had been examining, and which I had a tolerable prospect of inheriting, had its founda tions laid a century before by one of my own ancestors ; and second, that Mrs. Sanderson and I had common blood in our veins. This discovery quite restored my self-respect, because I should arrive at my inheritance by at least a show of right. The property would remain in the family where it belonged, and, so far as I knew, no member of the family would have a better right to it than myself. I presumed that my father was a descend ant of this same Peter Bonnicastle, who was doubtless a notable man in his time ; and only the accidents of for tune had diverted this large wealth from my own branch of the family. This discovery brought up to my memory the conver sations that had taken place in my home on my first ar- 6* 130 Arthur Bonnicastle. rival in the town, between Mr. Bradford and my father. Here was where the " blue blood " came from, and Mr. Bradford had known about this all the time. It was his hint to Mrs. Sanderson that had procured for me my good fortune. My first impulse was to thank him for his service, and to tell him that I probably knew as much as he did of my relations to Mrs. Sanderson ; but the seal of secrecy was upon my lips. I recalled to mind Mrs. Sanderson's astonishment and strange behavior when she first heard my father's name, and thus all the riddles of that first interview were solved. Pride of wealth and power had now firmly united it self in my mind with pride of ancestry ; and though there were humiliating considerations connected with my re lations to Mrs. Sanderson, my self-respect had been wonderfully strengthened, and I found that my heart was going out to the little old lady with a new senti ment a sentiment of kinship, if not of love. I iden tified myself with her more perfectly than I had hith erto done. She had placed confidence in me, she had praised my work, and she was a Bonnicastle. I have often looked back upon the revelations and the history of that day, and wondered whether it was possible that she had foreseen all the processes of mind through which I passed, and intelligently and deliber ately contrived to procure them. She must have done BO. There was not an instrument wanting for the pro duction of the result she desired, and there was nothing wanting in the result. The afternoon passed, and I neither went home nor felt a desire to do so. In the evening she invited me to read, and thus I spent a pleasant hour preparatory to an early bed. " You have been a real comfort to me to-day, Ar thur," she said, as I kissed her forehead and bade her ood-nk T ht. Arthur Bonnicastlc. 131 What more could a lad who loved praise usk than this ? I went to sleep entirely happy, and with a new determination to devote myself more heartily to the will and the interests of my benefactress. It ceased to be a great matter that my companion for five years was in my 'father's home, and I saw little of him. I was em ployed with writing and with business errands all the time. During Henry's visit in Bradford I was in and out of my father's house, as convenience favored, and always while on an errand that waited. I think Henry appreciated the condition of affairs, and as he and Claire were on charming terms, and my absence gave him more time with her, I presume that he did not miss me. All were glad to see me useful, and happy in my usefulness. When Henry went away I walked down to bid him farewell. " Now don't cry, my boy," said Henry, " for I am coming back ; and don't be excited when I tell you that I have engaged to spend the winter in Brad ford. I was wondering where I could find a school to teach, and the school has come to me, examining com mittee and all." I was delighted. I looked at Claire with the unguard ed impulse of a boy, and it brought the blood into her cheeks painfully. Henry parted with her very quietly indeed, with studied quietness but was warm in his thanks to my father and mother for their hospitality, and hearty with the boys, with whom he had become a great favorite. I saw that Henry was happy, and particularly happy in the thought of returning. As the stage-coach rattled away, he kissed his hand to us all, and shouted " An revoir!" as if his anticipations of pleasure were em braced in those words rather than in the fact that he was homeward bound. 132 Artlnir Bonnicastle. CHAPTER VIII. I AM INTRODUCED TO NEW CHARACTERS AND ENTER THE SHADOW OF THE GREAT BEDLCW REVIVAL. WHILE Henry was a guest at my old home, Mr. Brad ford resumed his visits there. That he had had much to do with securing my father's prosperity in his calling, I afterward learned with gratitude, but he had done it without his humble friend's knowledge, and while stu diously keeping aloof from him. I never could imagine any reason for his policy in this matter except the desire to keep out of Mrs. Sanderson's way. He seemed, too, to have a special interest in Henry ; and it soon came to my ears that he had secured for him his place as teacher of one of the public schools. Twice during the young man's visit at Bradford, he had called and invited him to an evening walk, on the pretext of showing him some of the more interesting features of the rapidly growing little city. Henry's plan for study was coincident with my own. We had both calculated to perfect our preparation for college during the winter and following spring, under private tuition ; and this work, which would be easy for me, was to be accomplished by him during the hours left from his school duties. I made my own indepen dent arrangements for recitation and direction, as 1 knew such a course would best please Mrs. Sanderson, and left him to do the same on his return. With an ac tive temperament and the new stimulus which had come to me with a better knowledge of my relations and pros pects, I found my mind and my time fully absorbed. When I was not engaged in study, I was actively assist ing Mrs. Sanderson in her affairs. One morning in the early winter, after Henry had re- Arthur Bonnicastle. 133 turned, and had been for a week or two engaged in his school, I met Mr. Bradford on the street, and received from him a cordial invitation to take tea and spend the evening at his home. Without telling me what company I should meet, he simply said that there were to be two or three young people beside me, and that he wanted Mrs. Bradford to know me. Up to this time, I had made comparatively few acquaintances in the town, and had entered, in a social way, very few homes. The in vitation gave me a great deal of pleasure, for Mr. Brad ford stood high in the social scale, so that Mrs. Sander son could make no plausible objection to my going. I was careful not to speak of the matter to Henry, whom I accidentally met during the day, and particularly care ful not to mention it in my father's family, for fear that Claire might feel herself slighted. I was therefore thor oughly surprised when I entered Mrs. Bradford's cheer ful drawing-room to find there, engaged in the merriest conversation with the family, both Henry and my sister Claire. Mr. Bradford rose and met me at the door in his own hospitable, hearty way, and, grasping my right hand, put his free arm around me, and led me to Mrs. Bradford and presented me. She was a sweet, pale- faced little woman, with large blue eyes, with which she peered into mine with a charming look of curious in quiry. If she had said : "I have long wanted to know you, and am fully prepared to be pleased with you and to love you," she would only have put into words the meaning which her look conveyed. I had never met with a greeting that more thoroughly delighted me, or placed me more at my ease, or stimulated me more to show what there was of good in me. " This is my sister, Miss Lester," said she ; turning to a prim personage sitting by the fire. As the lady did not rise, I bowed to her at a distance, and she recognized me with a little nod, as if she would 134 Arthur Bonnicastle. have said : " You are well enough for a boy, but I don't see the propriety of putting myself out for such young people." The contrast between her greeting and that of Mr. and Mrs. Bradford led me to give her more than a pass ing look. I concluded at once that she was a maiden of an age more advanced than she should be willing to confess, and a person with ways and tempers of her own. She sat alone, trotting her knees, looking into the fire, and knitting with such emphasis as to give an electric snap to every pass of her glittering needles. She was larger than Mrs. Bradford, and her dark hair and swarthy skin, gathered into a hundred wrinkles around her black eyes, produced a strange contrast between the sisters. Mrs. Bradford, I soon learned, was one of those women in whom the motherly instinct is so strong that no liv ing thing can come into their presence without exciting their wish to care for it. The first thing she did, there fore, after I had exchanged greetings, was to set a chair for me at the fire, because she knew I must be cold and my feet must be wet. When I assured her that I was neither cold nor wet, and she had accepted the statement with evident incredulity and disappointment, she in sisted that I should change my chair for an easier one. I did this to accommodate her, and then she took a fancy that I fed a headache and needed a bottle of salts. This I found in my hand before I knew it. As these attentions were rendered, they were regarded by Mr. Bradford with good-natured toleration, but there issued from the corner where "Aunt Flick" sat for from some lip I had already caught her home-name little impatient sniffs, and raps upon the hearth with her trotting heel. " Jane Bradford," Aunt Flick broke out at last, "I should think you'd be ashamed. You've done nothing but worry that boy since he came into the room. One Arthur Bonnicastle. 135 would think he was a baby, and that it was your business to 'tend him. Just as if he didn't know whether he was cold, or his feet were wet, or his head ached ! Just as if he didn't know enough to go to the fire if he wanted to ! Millie, get the cat for your mother, and bring in the dog. Something must be nursed, of course." " Why, Flick, dear ! " was all Mrs. Bradford said, but Mr. Bradford looked amused, and there came from a cor ner of the room that my eyes had not explored the merri est young laugh imaginable. I had no doubt as to its authorship. Seeing that the evening was to be an in formal one, I had already begun to wonder where the little girl might be, with whose face I had made a brief acquaintance five years before, and of whom I had caught occasional glimpses in the interval. Mr. Bradford looked in the direction of the laugh, and exclaiming : " You saucy puss ! " started from his chair, and found her seated behind an ottoman, where she had been quietly reading. "Oh, father! don't, please!" she exclaimed, as he drew her from her retreat. She resisted at first, but when she saw that she was fully discovered, she con sented to be led forward and presented to us. " When a child is still," said Aunt Flick, " I can't see the use of stirring her up, unless it is to send her to bed." " Why, Flick, dear!" said Mrs. Bradford again ; but Mr. Bradford took no notice of the remark, and led the little girl to us. She shook hands with us, and then her mother caught and pulled her into her lap. "Jane Bradford, why will you burden yourself with that heavy child ? I should think you would be ill." Millie's black eyes flashed, but she said nothing, and I had an opportunity to study her wonderful beauty. As I looked at her, I could think of nothing but a gypsy. I could not imagine how it was possible that she should be the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Bradford. It was as if 136 Arthur Bonnicastle. some unknown, oriental ancestor had reached across the generations and touched her, revealing to her parents the long-lost secrets of their own blood. Her hair hung in raven ringlets, and her dark, healthy skin was as smooth and soft as the petal of a pansy. She had put on a scarlet jacket for comfort, in her distant corner, and the color heightened all her charms. Her face was bright with intelligence, and her full, mobile lips and dimpled chin were charged with the prophecy of a won derfully beautiful womanhood. I looked at her quite enchanted, and I am sure that she was conscious of my scrutiny, for she disengaged herself gently from her mother's hold, and saying that she wished to finish the chapter she had been reading, went back to her seclu sion. The consciousness of her presence in the room some how destroyed my interest in the other members of the family, and as I felt no restraint in the warm and free social atmosphere around me, I soon followed her to her corner, and sat down upon the ottoman behind which, upon a hassock, she had ensconced herself. " What have you come here for?" she inquired won- deringly, looking up into my eyes. " To see you," I replied. " Aren't you a young gentleman ? " " No, I am only a big boy. " Why, that's jolly," said she. " Then you can be my company." " Certainly," I responded. " Well, then, what shall we do? I'm sure I don't know how to play with a boy. I never did." " We can talk," I said. " What a funny woman your Aunt Flick is ! Doesn't she bother you ? " ' She paused, looked down, then looked up into my face, and said decidedly : " I don't like that question." " I meant nothing ill by it," I responded. Arthur Bonnicastlc. 137 "Yes you did; you meant something ill to Aunt Flick." " But I thought she bothered you," I said. "Did I say so?" "No." " Well, when I say so, I shall say so to her. Papa and I understand it." So this was my little girl, with a feeling of family loy alty in her heart, and a family pride that did not choose to discuss with strangers the foibles of kindred and the jars of home life. I was rebuked, though the conscious ness of the fact came too slowly to excite pain. It was her Aunt Flick ; and a stranger had no right to question or criticise. That was what I gathered from her words ; and there was so much that charmed me in this fine revelation of character, that I quite lost sight of the fact that I had been snubbed. " She has a curious name, anyway," I said. At this her face lighted up, and she exclaimed : " Oh! I'll tell you all about that. When I was a little girl, ever so much smaller than I am now, we had a minister in the house. You know mamma takes care of every body, and when the minister came to town he came here, because nobody else would have him. He stayed here ever so long, and used to say grace at the table and have prayers. Aunt Flick was sick at the time, and he used to pray every morning for our poor afflicted sister, and papa was full of fun with her, just to keep up her courage, I suppose, and called her ' 'Flicted,' and then he got to calling her ' Flick ' for a nickname, and now" we all call her Flick." " But does she like it? " " Oh, she's used to it, and don't mind." Millie had closed her book, and sat with it on her lap, her large black eyes looking up into mine in a dreamv way. 138 Arthur Bonnicastle. " There's one thing I should like to know," said Millie, " and that is, where all the books came from. Were they always here, like the ground, or did somebody make them ? " " Somebody made them," I said. " I don't believe it," she responded. " But if nobody made them, how did they come here ? " " They are real things : somebody found them." " No, I've seen men who wrote books, and women too," I said. "How did they look?" " Very much like other people." " And did they act like other people ? " " Yes." " Well, that shows that they found them. They are humbugs." I laughed, and assured her that she was mistaken. "Well," said she, "if anybody can make books I can ; and if I don't get married and keep house I shall." Very much amused, I asked her which walk of life she would prefer. " I think I should prefer to be married." " You are sensible," I said. " Not to any boy or young man, though," responded the child, with peculiar and suggestive emphasis. "And why not ?" " They are so silly ; " and she gave her curls a dis dainful toss. " I shall marry a big man like papa, with gray whiskers somebody that I can adore, you know." " Well, then, I think you had better not be married," I replied. " Perhaps, after all, you had better write books." " If I should ever write a book," said Millie, looking out of the window, as if she were reviewing the long chain of characters and incidents of which it was to be composed, " I should begin at the foundation of the ArtJiur Bonnicastle. 139 world, and come up through Asia, or Arabia, or Cappa- docia . . . and stop under palm-trees . . . and have a lot of camels with bells. ... I should have a young man with a fez and an old man with a long beard, and a chibouk, and a milk-white steed. I should have a maiden too beautiful for anything, and an Arab chieftain with a military company on horse back, kicking up a great dust in the desert, and coming after her. . . . And then I should have some sort of an escape, and I should hide the maiden in a tower somewhere on the banks of the Danube. . . . And then I'm sure I don't know what I should do with her." " You would marry her to the young man with the fez, wouldn't you ? " I suggested. " Perhaps if I didn't conclude to kill him." " You couldn't be so cruel as that," I said. " Why, that's the fun of it : you can stab a man right through the heart in a book, and spill every drop of his blood without hurting him a particle." " Well," I said, " I don't see but "you have made a book already." " Would that really be a book ? " she asked, looking eagerly into my face. " I should think so," I replied. " Then it's just as I thought it was. I didn't make a bit of it. I saw it. I found it. They're everywhere, and people see them, just like flowers, and pick them up and press them." It was not until years after this that with my slower masculine intellect and feebler instincts I appreciated the beauty of this revelation and the marvellous insight which it betrayed. These crude tropical fancies she could not entertain with any sense of ownership or au thorship. They came of themselves, in gorgeous forms and impressive combinations, and passed before her vision. She talked of what she saw not of what she 140 Arthur Bonnicastle, made. I was charmed by her vivacity, acuteness, frankness and spirit, and really felt that the older per sons at the other end of the drawing-room were talking commonplaces compared with Millie's utterances. We conversed a long time upon many things ; and what im pressed me most, perhaps, was that she was living the life of a woman and thinking the thoughts of a woman incompletely, of course, and unrecognized by her own family ! When we were called to tea, she rose up quickly and whispered in my ear: ." I like to talk with you." As she came around the end of the ottoman I offered her my arm, in the manner with which my school habits had familiarized me. She took it without the slightest hesi tation, and put on the air of a grand lady. " W T hy this is like a book, isn't it ? " said she. Then she pressed my arm, and said : " Notice Aunt Flick, please." Aunt Flick had seen us from the start, and stood with elevated nostrils. The sight was one which evidently excited her beyond the power of expression. She could do nothing but sniff as we approached her. I saw a merry twinkle in Mr. Bradford's eyes, and noticed that as he had Claire on his arm, and Henry was leading out Mrs. Bradford, Aunt Flick was left alone. Without a moment's thought, I walked with Millie straight to her, and offered her my other arm. Aunt Flick was thunderstruck, and at first could only say : " Well ! well ! well ! " with long pauses be tween. Then she found strength to say : " For all the world like a pair of young monkeys ! No, I thank you ; when I want a cane I won't choose a corn-stalk. I've walked alone in the world so far, and I think I can do it the rest of the way." So Aunt Flick followed us out, less vexed than amused, I am sure. Arthur Bonnicastlc. 141 There are two things which, during all my life, have been more suggestive to me of home comforts and home delights than any others, viz. : A blazing fire upon the hearth, and the odor of fresh toast. I found both in Mrs. Bradford's supper-room, for a red-cheeked lass with an old-fashioned toasting-jack in her hand was browning the whitest bread before our eyes, and preparing to bear it hot to our plates. The subtle odor had reached me first in the far corner of the drawing-room, and had grown more stimulating to appetite and the sense of social and home comfort as I approached its source. The fire upon the hearth is the centre and symbol of the family life. When the fire in a house goes out, it is because the life has gone out. Somewhere in every house it burns, and burns, in constant service ; and every chimney that sends its incense heavenward speaks of an altar inscribed to Love and Home. And .vhen it ceases to burn, it is because the altar is forsaken. Bread is the symbol of that beautiful ministry of God to humar. sustenance, which, properly apprehended, transforms the homeliest meal into a sacrament. What wonder, then, that when the bread of life and the fire on the hearth meet, they should interpret and reveal each other in an odor sweeter than violets an odor so subtle and suggestive that the heart breathes it rather than the sense ! This is all stuff and sentiment, I suppose ; but I doubt whether the scent of toast has reached my nostrils since that evening without recalling that scene of charming domestic life and comfort. It s'eemed.as if all the world were in that room and, indeed, it was aU there all that, for the hour, we could appropriate. As we took our seats at the table, I found myself by the side of Millie and opposite to Aunt Flick. Then began on the part of the latter personage, a pantomimic lecture to her niece. First she straightened herself in 142 Arthur Bonnicastle. her chair, throwing out her chest and holding in hel chin a performance which Millie imitated. Then she executed the motion of putting some stray hair behind her ear. Millie did the same. Then she tucked an im aginary napkin into her neck. Millie obeyed the direc tion thus conveyed. Then she examined her knife, and finding that it did not suit her, sent it away and received one that did. In the meantime, Mrs. Bradford had begun to dis pense the hospitalities of the table. She was very cheer ful ; indeed, she was so happy herself that she over flowed with assiduities than ran far into superfluities. She was afraid the toast was not hot, or that the tea was not sweet enough, or that she had forgotten the sugar altogether, or that everybody was not properly waited upon and supplied. 1 could see that all this rasped Aunt Flick to desperation. The sniffs, which were light at first, grew more impatient, and after Mrs. Bradford had urged half a dozen things upon me that I did not want, and was obliged to decline, the fiery spinster burst out with : " Wouldn't you like to read the Declaration of Inde pendence ? Wouldn't you like to repeat the Ten Com 1 mandments ? Wouldn't you like a yard of calico ? Do have a spoon to eat your toast with ? Just a trifle more salt in your tea, please ? " All this was delivered without the slightest hesitation, and with a rapidity that was fairly bewildering. Poor Millie was overcome by the comical aspect of the matter, and broke out into an irrepressible laugh, which was so hearty that it became contagious, and all of us laughed together except Aunt Flick, who devoted herself to hei supper with imperturbable gravity. "Why, Flick, dear!" was all that Mrs. Bradford could say to this outburst of scornful criticism upon her well-meant courtesies. Arthur Bonnicasllc. 143 Just as we were recovering from our merriment, there was a loud knock at the street door. The girl with the toasting-jack dropped her implement to answer the un welcome summons. We all involuntarily listened, and learned from his voice that the intruder was a rnan. We heard him enter the drawing-room, and then the girl came in and said that Mr. Grimshaw had called upon the family. In the general confusion that followed the announcement, Millie leaned over to me and said : " It's the very man who used to pray for Aunt Flick." Mr. Bradford, of course, brought him to the tea-table at once, where room was made for him by the side of Aunt Flick, and a plate laid. The first thing he did was to swallow a cup of hot tea almost at a gulp, and to send back the empty vessel to be refilled. Then he spread with butter a whole piece of toast, which disap peared in a wonderfully brief space of time. Until his hunger was appeased he did not seem disposed to talk, replying to such questions as were propounded to him concerning himself and his family in monosyllables. Rev. Mr. Grimshaw was the minister of a struggling Congregational church in Bradford. He had been hard at work for half a dozen years with indifferent success, waiting for some manifestation of the Master which would show him that his service and sacrifice had been ac cepted. I had heard him preach at different times dur ing my vacation visits, though Mrs. Sanderson did not attend upon his ministry ; and he had always impressed me as a man who was running some sort of a machine. He had a great deal to say about " the plan of salva tion " and the doctrines covered by his creed. I cannot aver that he ever interested me. Indeed, I may say that he always confused me. Religion, as it had been pre sented to my mind, had been a simple thing so simple that a child might understand it. My Father in Heaven loved me ; Jesus Christ had died for me. Loving both, 144 Arthur Bonnicastle. irusting both, and serving both by worship, and by af fectionate and helpful good-will toward all around ma was religion, as I had learned it; and I never came from hearing one of Mr. Grimshaw's sermons without rinding it difficult to get back upon my simple ground of faith. Religion, as he preached it, was such a tremendous and such a mysterious thing in its beginnings ; it involved such a complicated structure of belief; it divided God into such opposing forces of justice and mercy ; it de pended upon such awful processes of feeling j it was so much the product of a profoundly ingenious scheme, that his sermons always puzzled me. As he sat before me that evening, pale-faced and thin, with his intense, earnest eyes and solemn bearing and self-crucified expression, I could not doubt his purity or his sincerity. There was something in him that awoke my respect and my sympathy. Our first talk touched only commonplaces, but as the meal drew toward its close he ingeniously led the con versation into religious channels. " There is a very tender and solemn state of feeling in the church," said Mr. Grimshaw, "and a great deal of self-examination and prayer. The careless are be ginning to be thoughtful, and the backsliders are return ing to their first love. I most devoutly trust that we are going to have a season of refreshment. It is a time when all those who have named the name of the Lord should make themselves ready for His coming." Aunt Flick started from her chair exactly as if she were about to put on her hat and cloak ; and I think that was really her impulse ; but she sat down again and listened intently. I could not fail to see that this turn in the conversa tion was not relished by Mr. Bradford ; but Mrs. Brad ford and Aunt Flick were interested, and I noticed ao excited look upon the faces of both Henry and Claire. Arthur Bonnicastle. 145 Mrs. Bradford, in her simplicity, made a most natural response to the minister's communication in the words : " You must be exceedingly delighted, Mr. Grimshaw." She said this very sweetly, and with her cheerful smile making her whole countenance light. " Jane Bradford ! " exclaimed Aunt Flick, " I believe you would smile if anybody were to tell you the judg ment-day had come." Mrs. Bradford did not say this time : " Why, Flick, dear!" but she said with great tenderness : " When I remember who is to judge me, and to whom I have com mitted myself, I think I should." " Well, I don't know how anybody can make light of such awful things," responded Aunt Flick. " Of course, I am rejoiced," said Mr. Grimshaw, at last getting his chance to speak, " but my joy is tem pered by the great responsibility that rests upon me, and by a sense of the lost condition of the multitudes around me." " In reality," Mr. Bradford broke in, "you don't feel quite so much like singing as the angels did when the Saviour came to redeem the world. But then, they probably had no such sense of responsibility as you have. Perhaps they didn't appreciate the situation. It has always seemed to me, however, as if that which would set an angel singing a being who ought to see a little further forward and backward than we can, and a little deeper down and higher up ought to set men and women singing. I confess that I don't understand the long faces and the superstitious solemnities of what is called a season of refreshment. If the Lord is with his own, they ought to be glad and give him such a greeting as will induce him to remain. I really do not wonder that he flies from many congregations that I have seen, or that he seems to resist their entreaties that he will stay. Half the prayers that I hear sound like abject 7 146 Arthur Bonnicastlc. beseechings for the presence of One who is very far off, and very unwilling to come." This free expression on the part of Mr. Bradford would have surprised me had I not just learned that the minis ter had at one time been a member of his family, with whom he had been on familiar terms ; yet I knew that he did not profess to be a religious man, and that his view of the matter, whether sound or otherwise, was from the outside. There was a subtle touch of satire in his words, too, that did not altogether please me ; but I did not see what reply could be made to it. " Aunt Flick was evidently somewhat afraid of Mr. Bradford, and simply said : " I hope you will remember that your child is present." " Yes, I do remember it," said he, " and what I say about it is as much for her ears as for anybody's. And I remember too, that, during all my boyhood, I was made afraid of religion. I wish to save her, if I can, from such a curse. I have read that when the Saviour was upon the earth, he took little children in his arms and blessed them, and went so far as to say that of such was the kingdom of heaven. If he were to come to the earth again, he would be as apt to take my child upon his knee as any man's and bless her, and repeat over her the same words ; and if he manifests his presence among us in any way, I do not wish to have her kept away from him by the impression that there is some thing awful in the fact that he is here. My God ! if I could believe that the Lord of Heaven and Earth were really in Bradford, with a dispensation of faith and mercy and love in his hands for me and mine, do you think I would groan and look gloomy over it ? Why, I couldn't eat ; I couldn't sleep ; I couldn't refrain from shouting and singing." Mr. Grimshaw was evidently touched and impressed by Mr. Bradford's exhibition of strong feeling, and said Arthur Bonnicastle. 147 ih a calm, judicial way that it was impossible that one outside of the church should comprehend and appreciate the feelings that exercised him and the church generally. The welfare of the unconverted depended so much upon a revival of religion within the church it brought such tremendous responsibilities and such great duties that Christian men and women were weighed down with so lemnity. The issues of eternal life and death were tre mendous issues. Even if the angels sang, Jesus suffered in the garden, and bore the cross on Calvary ; and Chris tians who are worthy must suffer and bear the cross also. " Mr. Grimshaw," said Mr. Bradford, still earnest and excited, " I have heard from your own lips that the fact that Christ was to suffer and bear the cross was at least a part of the inspiration of the song which the angels sang. He suffered and bore the cross that men might not suffer. That is one of the essential parts of your creed. He suffered that he might give peace to the world, and bring life and immortality to light. You have taught me that he did not come to torment the world, but to save it. The religion which Christendom holds in theory is a religion of unbounded peace and joy ; that which it holds in fact is one of torture and gloom ; and I do not hesitate to say that if the Christian world were a peaceful and joyous world, taking all the good things of this life in gratitude and gladness, while holding itself pure from its corruptions, and not only not fearing death, but looking forward with unwavering faith and hope to another and a happier life beyond, the revivals which it struggles for would be perpetual, and the millennium which it prays for would come." Then Mr. Bradford, who sat near enough to touch me, laid his hand upon my shoulder, and said : " Boy, look at your father, if you wish to know what my ideal of a Christian is a man of cheerfulness, trust and hope, under discouragements that would kill me. Such exam- 148 Arthur Bonnicastle. pies save me from utter infidelity and despair ad, thank God, I have one such in my own home." His eyes filled with tears as he turned them up ,n his wife, who sat watching him with intense sympatny and affection, while he frankly poured out his heart and thought. " I suppose," said the minister, " that we should get no nearer together in the discussion of this question than we did when we were more in one another's company, and perhaps it would be well not to pursue it. You undoubt edly see the truth in a single aspect, Mr. Bradford ; and you will pardon me for saying that you cannot see it in the aspects which it presents to me. I came in partly to let you and your family know of our plans, and to beg you to attend our services faithfully. I hope these young people, too, will not fail to put themselves in the way of religious influence. Now is their time. To-morrow or next year it may be too late. Many a poor soul is obliged to take up the lament after every revival : ' The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and my soul is not saved.' Before the spirit takes its flight, all these precious youth ought to be gathered into the kingdom." I could not doubt the sincerity of this closing utter ance, for it was earnest and tearful. In truth, I was deeply moved by it ; for while Mr. Bradford carried my judgment and opened before me a beautiful life, I had always entertained great reverence for ministers, and found Mr. Grimshaw's views and feelings most in con sonance with those I had been used to hear proclaimed from the pulpit. The fact that a revival was in progress in some of the churches of the town, had already come to my ears. I had seen throngs pouring into or coming out of church-doors and lecture-rooms during other days than Sunday ; and a vague uneasiness had possessed me for several weeks. A cloud had arisen upon my life. I Arthur Bonnicastle. 149 may even confess that my heart had rebelled in secret against an influence which promised to interfere with the social pleasures and the progress in study which I nad anticipated for the winter. The cloud came nearer to me now, and in Mr. Grimshaw's presence quite over shadowed me. Was I moved by sympathy ? Was I moved by the spirit of the Almighty ? Was supersti- iious fear at the bottom of it all ? Whatever it was, my soul had crossed the line of that circle of passion and experience in whose centre a great multitude were grop ing and crying in the darkness, and striving to get a vision of the Father's face. I realized the fact then and there. I felt that a crisis in my life was approaching. On Aunt Flick's face there came a look of rigid de termination. She was entirely ready to work, and in quired of Mr. Grimshaw what his plans were. " I have felt," said he, " that the labor and responsi bility are too great for me to bear alone, and, after a consultation with our principal men, have concluded to send for Mr. Bedlovv, the evangelist, to assist me." " Mr. Grimshaw," said Mr. Bradford, " I suppose it is none of my business, but I am sorry you have done this. I have no faith in the man or his methods. Mrs. Bradford and her sister will attend his preaching if they choose : I am not afraid that they will be harmed ; but I decidedly refuse to have this child of mine subjected to his processes. Why parents will consent to yield their children to the spiritual manipulation of strangers I cannot conceive." Mr. Grimshaw smiled sadly, and said : " You assume a grave responsibility, Mr. Bradford." "/assume a grave responsibility?" exclaimed Mr. Bradford : " I had the impression that I relieved you of one. No, leave the child alone. She is safe with her mother ; and no such man as Mr. Bedlow shall have the handling of her sensibilities." 150 Artkur Bonnicastle. We had sat a long time at the tea-table, and as we rose and adjourned to the drawing-room Mr. Grimshaw took sudden leave on the plea that he had devoted the evening to many other calls yet to be made. He was very solemn in his leave-taking, and for some time after he left we sat in silence. Then Mr. Bradford rose and paced the drawing-room back, and forth, his counte nance full of perplexity and pain. I could see plainly that a storm of utterance was gathering, but whether it would burst in thunder and torrent, or open with strong and healing rain, was doubtful. At length he paused, and said : " I suppose that as a man old enough to be the father of all these young peo ple I ought to say frankly what I feel in regard to this subject. I do not believe it is right for me to shut my mouth tight upon my convictions. My own measure of faith is small. I wish to God it were larger, and I am encouraged to believe that it is slowly strengthening. I am perfectly aware that I lack peace in the exact pro portion that I lack faith ; and so does every man, no matter how much he may boast. Faith is the natural and only healthy attitude of the soul. I would go through anything to win it, but such men as Grimshaw and Eedlow cannot help me. They simply distress and disgust me. Their whole conception of Christianity is cramped and mean, and their methods of operation are unwise and unworthy. I know how Mr. Grimshaw feels : he knows that revivals are in progress in the other churches, and sees that his own congregation is attracted to their meetings. He finds it impossible to keep the tide from retiring from his church, and feels the neces sity of doing something extraordinary to make it one of the centres and receivers of the new influence. He has been at work faithfully, in his way, for years, and de sires to see the harvest which he has been trying to rear gathered in. So he sends for Bedlow. Now I know Arthur Bonnicastle. 151 all about these Bedlow revivals. They come when he comes, and they go when he goes. His mustard-seed sprouts at once, and grows into a great tree, which withers and dies as soon as he ceases to breathe upon it. I never knew an instance in which a church that had been raised out of the mire by his influence did not sink back into a deeper indifference after he had left it, and that by a process which is just as natural as it is inevita ble. An artificial excitement is an artificial exhaustion. He breaks up and ruins processes of religious education that otherwise would have gone on to perfection. He has one process for the imbruted, the ignorant, the vi cious, the stolid, the sensitive, the delicate, the weak and the strong, the old and the young. I know it is said that the spirit of God is with him, and I hope it is ; but one poor man like him does not monopolize the spirit of God, I trust ; nor does that spirit refuse to stay where he is not. No, it is Bedlow it's all Bedlow ; and the fact that a revival got up under his influence ceases when he retires, proves that it is all Bedlow, and accounts for the miserable show of permanently good results." There was great respect for Mr. Bradford in his own household, and there was great respect for him in the hearts of the three young people who listened to him as comparative strangers ; and when he stopped, and sank into an arm-chair, looking into the fire, and shading his face with his two hands, no one broke the silence. Aunt Flick had taken to her corner and her knitting, and Mrs. Bradford sat with her hands on her lap, as if waiting for something further. At length Mr. Bradford looked up with a smile, and regarding the silent group before him, said : " Upon my word, we are not having a very merry evening." " I assure you," responded Henry, " that I have en joyed every moment of it. I could hear you talk all night." 152 Arthur Bonnicastle " So could I," added Claire. I could not say a word. The eyes of the minister still haunted me : the spell of a new influence was upon me. vVhat Mr. Bradford had said about Mr. Bedlow only in creased my desire to hear him, and to come within the reach of his power. "Well, children," said Mr. Bradford, " for you will let me call you such, I know, I have only one thing more to say to you, and that is to stand by your Christian fa thers and mothers, and take their faith just as it is. Not one of you is old enough to decide upon the articles of a creed, but almost any faith is good enough to hold up a Christian character. Don't bother yourselves volun tarily with questions. A living vine grows just as well on a rough trellis of simple branches as on the smoothest piece of ornamental work that can be made. If you ever wish to change the trellis when you get old enough to do it, be careful not to ruin the vine, that is all. I am trying to keep my vine alive around a trellis that is gone to wreck. I believe in God and his Son, and I believe lhat there is one thing which God delights in more than in all else, and that is Christian character. I hold to the first and strive for the last, though I am looked upon as little better than an infidel by all but one." A thrill, sympathetically felt by us all, and visible in a blush and eyes suffused, ran through the dear little woman seated at his side, and she looked up into his ' face with a trustful smile of response. After this it was difficult to engage in light conversa tion. We were questioned in regard to our past experi ences and future plans. We looked over volumes of pictures and a cabinet of curiosities, and Millie amused us by reading, and at an early hour we rose to go home. Millie went to her corner as soon as we broke up, giving me a look as she passed me. I took the hilit and fol lowed her. Arthur Bonnicastle. 153 " Shall you go to hear Mr. Bedlow ? " she inquired. " I think I shall," I answered. " I knew you would. I should like to go with you., but you know I can't. Will you tell me what he is like ( and all about it? " " Yes." I pressed her hand and bade her " Good-night." Mr. Bradford parted with us at the door with pleasant and courteous words, and told Henry that he must re gard the house as his home, and assured him that he would always find a welcome there. I had noticed dur ing the evening a peculiarly affectionate familiarity in his tone and bearing toward the young man. I could not but notice that he treated him with more considera tion than he treated me. I went away feeling that there were confidences between them, and suffered the suspi cion to make me uneasy. I walked home with Henry and Claire, and we talked over the affairs of the evening together. Both declared their adhesion to Mr. Bradford's views, and I, in my as sumed pride of independent opinion, dissented. I pro posed to see for myself. I would listen to Mr. Bedlow's preaching. I was not afraid of being harmed, and, in deed, I should not dare to stay away from him. As I walked to The Mansion, I found my nerves ex cited in a strange degree. The way was full of shadows. I started at every noise. It was as if the spiritual world were dropped down around me, and I were touched by invisible wings, and moved by mysterious influences. The stars shivered in their high places, the night-wind swept by me as if it were a weird power of evil, and I seemed to be smitten through heart and brain by a nameless fear. As 1 kneeled in my accustomed way at my bed I lost my confidence. I could not recall my usual words or" frame new ones. I lingered on my knees like one crushed and benumbed. What it all meant I 154 Arthur Bonnicastle. could not tell. I only knew that feelings and influences which long had been gathering in me were assuming the predominance, and that I was entering upon a new phase of experience. At last I went to bed, and passed a night crowded with strange dreams and dreary pas sages of unrefreshing slumber. CHAPTER IX. I PASS THROUGH A TERRIBLE TEMPEST INTO THE SUNLIGHT. I HAD never arrived at any definite comprehension of Mrs. Sanderson's ideas of religion. Whether she was religious in any worthy sense I do not know, even to day. The respect which she entertained for the clergy was a sentiment which she shared with New Englanders generally. She was rather generous than otherwise in her contributions to their support, yet the most I could make of her views and opinions was that religion and its institutions were favorable to the public order and se curity, and were, therefore, to be patronized and perma nently sustained. I never should have thought of going to her for spiritual counsel, yet I had learned in some way that she thought religion was a good thing for a young man, because it would save him from dissipation and from a great many dangers to which young men are exposed. The whole subject seemed to be regarded by her in an economical or prudential aspect. I met her on the morning following my visit at the Bradfords, in the breakfast-room. She was cheery and expectant, for she always found me talkative, and was prepared to hear the full story of the previous evening. That I was obliged to tell her that Henry was there with Arthur Bonnicastle. 155 my sister, embarrassed me much, for, beyond the fact that she disliked Henry intensely, there was the further fact most offensive to her that Mr. Bradford was so cially patronizing the poor, and bringing me, her protege, into association with them. Here was where my chain galled me, and made me realize my slavery. I saw the thrill of anger that shot through her face, and recognized the effort she made to control her words. She did not speak at first, and not until she felt perfectly sure of self-control did she say : " Mr. Bradford is very unwise. He inflicts a great wrong upon young people without position or expecta tions, when he undertakes to raise them to his own so cial level. How he could do such a thing as he did last night is more than I can imagine, unless he wishes either to humiliate you or offend me." For that one moment how I longed to pour out my love for Henry and Claire, and to speak my sense of jus tice in the vindication of Mr. Bradford ! It was terrible to sit still and hold my tongue while the ties of blood and friendship were contemned, and the motives of my hospitable host were misconstrued so cruelly. Yet I could not open my lips. I dreaded a collision with her as if she had been a serpent, or a furnace of fire, or a hedge of thorns. Ay, I was mean enough to explain that I had no expectation of meeting either Henry or my sister there ; and she was adroit enough to reply that she was at least sure of that without my saying so. Then I talked fully of Mr. Grimshaw's call, and gave such details of the conversation that occurred as I could without making Mr. Bradford too prominent. " So Mr. Bradford doesn't like Mr. Bedlow," she re marked ; " but Mr. Bradford is a trifle whimsical in his likes and dislikes. I'm sure I've always heard Mr. Bed- low well spoken of. He has the credit of having done a great deal of good, and if he is coming here, Arthur, I 156 Arthur Bonnicastlc. think you cannot do better than to go and hear him fol yourself." Like a flash of light there passed through my mind the thought that Providence had not only thus opened the way for me, but with an imperative finger had di rected me to walk in it. God had made the wrath of woir.un to praise him, and the remainder he had re strained. Imagining myself to be thus directed, I should not have darei to avoid Mr. Bedlow's preaching. The whole interview with Mr. Grimshaw, the fact that, con trary to my wont, I had not found myself in sympathy with my old friend, Mr. Bradford, and the strange and unlooked-for result of my conversation with Mrs. San derson, shaped themselves into a divine mandate to whose authority my spirit bowed in ready obedience. Mr. Bedlow made his appearance in Mr. Grimshaw's pulpit on the following Sunday ; and a great throng of excited and expectant people, attracted by the notoriety of the preacher, and moved by the influences of the time, were in attendance. The hush of solemnity that pervaded the assembly when these two men entered the desk impressed me deeply. My spirit was thrilled with strange apprehension. My emotional nature was in chaos ; and such crystallizations of opinion, thought, and feeling as had taken place in me during a life-long course of religious nurture and education were broken up. Outside of the church, and entirely lacking that dra matic experience of conversion and regeneration which all around me regarded as the only true beginning of a religious life, my whole soul lay open, quick and quiver ing, to the influences of the hour, and the words which soon fell upon it. The pastor conducted the opening services, and I had never seen him in such a mood. Inspired by the pres ence of an immense congregation and by the spirit of the time, he rose entirely out of the mechanisms of his Arthur Bonnicastle. 157 theology and his stereotyped forms of expression, and poured out the burden of his soul in a prayer that melted every heart before him. Deprecating the judgments of the Most High on the coldness and worldliness of the church ; beseeching the Spirit of all Grace to come and work its own great miracles upon those who loved the Master, moving them to penitence, self-sacrifice, humil ity and prayer, entreating that Spirit to plant the arrows of conviction in all unconverted souls, and to bring a great multitude of these into the Kingdom a multitude so great that they should be like doves flocking to their windows he prayed like a man inspired. His voice trembled and choked with emotion, and the tears coursed down his cheeks unheeded. It seemed as if he could not pause, or be denied. Of Mr. Bedlow's sermon that followed I can give no fitting idea. After a severe denunciation of the cold ness of the church that grieved and repelled the Spirit of God, he turned to those without the fold to thfe un converted and impenitent. He told us that God was angry with us every day, that every imagination of the thoughts of our hearts was only evil continually, that we were exposed every moment to death and the perdition of ungodly men, and that it was our duty to turn, then and there, from the error of our ways, and to seek and secure the pardon which a pitying Christ extended to us a pardon which could be had for the taking. Then he painted with wonderful power the joy and peace that follow the consciousness of sin forgiven, and the glories of that heaven which the Saviour had gone to prepare for those who love him. I went home blind, staggering, almost benumbed with the words ringing in my ears that it had been my duty before rising from my seat to give myself to the Saviour, and to go out of the door rejoicing in the pos session of a hope which should be as an anchor in alj 158 Arthur Bonnicastle. the storms of my life ; yet I did not know what the pro cess was. I was sure I did not know. I had not the slightest comprehension of what was required of me, yet the fact did not save me from the impression that I had committed a great sin. I went to my room and tried to pray, and spent half an hour of such helpless and piti ful distress as I cannot describe. Then there arose in me a longing for companionship. I could not unbosom myself to Mrs. Sanderson. Henry's calm spirit and sympathetic counsels were beyond my reach. Mr. Brad ford was not in the church, and I could only think of my father, and determine that I would see him. I ate but little dinner, made no conversation wifh Mrs. Sander son, and, toward night, left the house and sought my father's home. I found the house as solemn as death. All the family save Claire had heard Mr. Bedlow, and my mother was profoundly dejected. A cloud rested upon my brothers and sisters. My father apprehended at once the nature of my errand, and, by what seemed to be a mutual im pulse and understanding, we passed into an unoccupied room and closed the door. The moment I found myself alone with him I threw my arms around his neck, and bursting into an uncontrollable fit of weeping exclaimed : " Oh, father ! father ! what shall I do ?" For years I had not come to him with a trouble. Foi years I had not reposed in him a single heart-confidence, and for the first time in his life he put both his arms affec^ tionately around me and embraced me. Minutes passed while we stood thus. I could not see his face, for my own was bowed upon his shoulder, but I could feel his heart-beats, and the convulsions of emotion which shook him in every fibre. At last he gently put me off, led me. to a seat, and sat down beside me. He took my hand, but he could not speak. " Oh, father ! what shall I do ? " I exclaimed again. Arthur Bonnicastlc. 159 " Go to God, my boy, and repeat the same words to him with the same earnestness." " But he is angry with me," I said, " and you are not. You pity me and love me. I am your child. You can not help being sorry for me." " You are his child too, my boy, by relations a thou sand times tenderer and more significant than those which make you mine. He loves you and pities you more than I can." " But I don't know how to give myself to him," I said. " I have had the impression and the hope," my fa ther responded, " that you had already given yourself to him." " Oh, not in this way at all," I said. My father had his own convictions, but he was almost morbidly conscientious in all his dealings with the souls around him. Fearful of meddling with that which the Gracious Spirit had in charge and under influence, and modest in the assertion of views which might possibly weaken the hold of conviction upon me ; feeling, too, that he did not know me well enough to direct me, and fearful that he might arrest a process which, perfected, might redeem me, he simply said : " I am not wise ; let us pray together, that we may be led aright." Then he kneeled and prayed for me. Ah ! how the blessed words of that prayer have lingered in my mem ory ! Though not immediately fruitful in my experience, they came to me long years after, loaded with the balm of healing. " Oh, Father in Heaven!" he said, "this is our boy thy child and mine. Thou lovest and pit- iest him more than I can. Help him to go to thee as he has come to me, and to say in perfect submission, ' Oh, Father, what shall I do ! ' " I went home at last somewhat calmed, because I had had sympathy, and, for a few moments, had leaned upon another nature and rested. I ate little, and, as soon I Go Artlnir Bonnicastle. as the hour arrived, departed to attend the evening ser vice, previously having asked old Jenks to attend the meeting and walk home with me, for I was afraid to re turn alone. A strange and gloomy change had come over the sky ; and the weather, which had been extremely cold for a week, had grown warm. The snow under my feet was soft and yielding, and already little rivulets were cours ing along the ruts worn by the sleighs. The nerves which had been braced by the tonic of the cold, clear air were relaxed, and with the uncertain footing of the streets I went staggering to the church. In the endeavor now to analyze my feelings I find it impossible to believe that I was convinced that my life had been one of bold and intentional sin. A consider able part of my pain, I know, arose from the fact that I could not realize my own sinfulness as it had been represented to me. I despaired because I could not despair. I was distressed because I could not be suf ficiently distressed. There was one sin, however, of which I had a terrified consciousness, viz., that of reject ing the offer of mercy which had been made to me in the morning, and of so rejecting it as to be in danger of for ever grieving away the Spirit of God which I believed was at work upon my heart. This was something defi nite and dreadful, though I felt perfectly ignorant of the exact thing required of me and impotent to perform it. If I could have known the precise nature of the surren der demanded of me, and could have comprehended the effort I was called upon to make, I believe I should have been ready for both ; but in truth I had been sa mystified by the preacher, so puzzled by his representa tion of the miracle of conversion, which he made to ap pear to be dependent on God's sovereign grace entirely, and yet so entirely dependent on me that the whole guilt of remaining unconverted would rest with me ; I was so Arthur Bonnicastle, 161 expectant of some mighty, overwhelming influence that would bear me to a point where I could see through the darkness and the discord an influence which did not ;ome that I was paralyzed and helpless. I was early in the church, and saw the solemn groups as they entered and gradually filled the pews. The preachers, too, were early in the desk. Mr. Bedlow sat where he could see me and read my face. I knew that his searching, magnetic eyes were upon me, and in the exalted condition of my sensibilities I felt them. In the great hush that followed the entrance of the crowd and preceded the beginning of the exercises I saw him slowly rise and walk down the pulpit stairs. I had never known anything of his methods, and was entirely unprepared for what followed. Reaching the aisle, he walked di rectly to where I sat, and raising his finger, pointed it at me and said : " Young man, are you a Christian ? " " I suppose not," I answered. " Do you ever expect to become one ? " " I do," I replied. At this he left me, and went to one and another in the congregation, putting his question and making some re mark. Sensitive men and women hung their heads, and tried to evade his inquiries by refusing to look at him. At length he went back to his desk, and said that the church could do no better than to hold for a few minutes a season of prayer, preparatory to the services of the evening ; and then he added : " Will some brother pray for a young man who expects to become a Christian, and pray that that expectation may be taken away from him." Thereupon a young man, full of zeal, kneeled before the congregation and poured out his heart for me, and prayed as he had been asked to pray that my expecta tion to become a Christian might be taken away from me. He was, however, considerate and kind enough so far to modify the petition as to beg that I might lose my 162 Arthur Bonnicastle. expectation in the immediate realization of a Christian experience that my hope to become a Christian might be swallowed up in my hope of a Christian's reward. This kindness of the young man, however, to whose zeal and good-will I give hearty honor, could not efface the sore sense of wrong I had suffered at the hand of Mr. Bedlow. Why he should have singled me out in the throng for such an awful infliction I did not know, and why he should have asked anybody to pray that all ex pectation of becoming a Christian should be taken away from me I could not imagine. I felt that I was misun derstood and outraged, at first, and as my anger died away, or was quenched by other emotions, I found that I was still more deeply puzzled than before. Was I not carefully and prayerfully seeking ? And was not this expectation the one thing which made my life endurable ? Would I not give all the world to find my feet upon the sure foundation ? Had I not in my heart of hearts de termined to find what there was to be found if I could, or die ? No : Mr. Bedlow, meaning well no doubt, and desir ing to lead me nearer to spiritual rest, had thrust me into deeper and wilder darkness ; and in that darkness, haunted by forms of torment and terror, I sat through one of the most impressive sermons and exhortations I had ever heard. I went out of the church at last as ut terly hopeless and wretched as I could be. There was a God of wrath above me, because there was the guilt of unfulfilled duty gnawing at my conscience. It seemed as if the great tragedy of the universe were being per formed in my soul. Sun, moon, stars, the kingdoms and glory of the world what were all these, either in them selves or to me, compared with the interests of a soul on which rested the burden of a decision for its own heaven or hell ? As I emerged into the open air, I met Jenks at the Arthur Bonnicastle. 163 door, waiting for me, and as t lifted my hot face I felt the cold rain falling upon it. Pitchy darkness, unre lieved save by the dim lights around the town and the blotched and rapidly melting snow, had settled upon the world. I clutched the old servant's arm, and struck off in silence toward home. We had hardly walked the distance of a block before there came a flash of blinding lightning, and we were in the midst of that impressive anomaly, a January thunder-storm. It was strange how harmoniously this storm supplemented the influences of the services at the church, from which I had just retired. To me it was the crowning terror of the night. I had no question that it was directed by the same unseen power which had been struggling with me all day, and that it was expressive of His infinite anger. As we hurried along, unprotected in the pouring rain, flash after flash illuminated the darkness, and peal after peal of thun der hurtled over the city, rolled along the heavens, and echoed among the distant hills. I walked in constant fear of being struck dead, and of passing to the judgment unreconciled and unredeemed. I felt that my soul was dealing directly with the great God, and tinder the play of his awful enginery of destruction I realized my help lessness. I could only pray to him, with gasps of agony, and in whispers : " Oh, do not crush me ! Spare me, and I will do anything ! Save my life, and it shall be thine ! " When I arrived at .the house I did not dare to go in, for then I should be left alone. Without a word I led Jenks to the stable, and, dripping with the rain, we passed in. " Oh, Jenks," I said, " I must pray, and you must stay with me. I cannot be left alone." I knelt upon the stable-floor, and the old man, touched with sympathy, and awed by the passion which possessed me, knelt at my side. Oh, what pledges and promises I 164 Arthur Bonnicastle. gave in that prayer, if God would spare my life ! Hov wildly I asked for pardon, and how earnestly did I be seech the Spirit of all Grace to stay with me, and never to be grieved away, until his work was perfected in me! The poor old man, with his childish mind, could not understand my abandonment to grief and terror ; but while I knelt I felt his trembling arm steal around me, and knew that he was sobbing. His heart was deeply moved by pity, but the case was beyond his comprehen sion. He could say nothing, but the sympathy was very grateful to me. And all this time there was another arm around me, whose touch I was too benumbed to feel ; there was an other heart beside me, tender with sympathy, whose beatings I was too much agitated to apprehend ; there was a voice calling to the tempest within me, " Peace ! be still ! " but I could not hear it. Oh, infinite Father ! Oh, loving and pitying Christ ! Why could I not have seen thee, as them didst look down upon and pity thy terror-stricken child ? Why could I not have seen thy arms extended toward me, and thy eyes beaming with ineffable love, calling me to thy forgiving embrace ? How could I have done thee the dishonor to suppose that the simple old servant kneeling at my side was ten derer and more pitiful than thou ? We both grew chilly at last, and passed quietly into the house. Mrs. Sanderson had retired, but had left a bright fire upon the hearth, at which both of us warmed and dried ourselves. The storm, meantime, had died away, though the lightning still flapped its red wings against the windows, and the dull reverberations of the thunder came to me from the distance. With the relief from what seemed to be the danger of imminent death, 1 had the strength to mount to my room alone, and, after another prayer which failed to lift my burden, I consigned myself to my bed. The one thought that Arthur Bonnicastle. 165 possessed me as I lay down was that I might never wake if I should go to sleep. My nervous exhaustion was such that when sinking into sleep I started many times from my pillow, tossing the clothes from me, and gasping as if I had been sinking into an abyss. Sleep came at last, however, and I awoke on the morrow, con scious that I had rested, and rejoicing at least in the fact that my day of probation was not yet past. My heart kindled for a moment as I looked from my win dow into the face of the glorious sun, and the deep blue heaven, but sank within me when I remembered my promises, and felt that the struggle of the previous day was to be renewed. This struggle I do not propose to dwell upon further in extended detail. If the record of it thus far is as pain ful to read as it is to write, the reader will have tired of it already. It lasted for weeks, and I never rationally saw my way out of that blindness. There were literally hun dreds in the city who professed to have found a great and superlatively joyous peace, but I did not find it, nor did it come to me in any way by which I dreamed it might come. The vital point with me was to find some influence so powerful that I could not resist it. I felt myself toss ing upon a dangerous sea, just outside the harbor, be tween which and me there stretched an impassable bar. So, wretched and worn with anxious waiting, I looked for the coming in of some mighty wave which would lift my sinking bark over the forbidding obstacle, into the calm waters that mirrored upon their banks the domes and dwellings of the city of the Great King. Sometimes I tired of Mr. Bedlow, and went to other churches, longing always to hear some sermon or find some influence that would do for me that which I could not do for myself. I visited my father many times, bul he could not help me, beyond what he had already done. 1 66 Arthur Bonnicastle. One of the causes of my perplexity was the fact that Henry attended the prayer-meetings, and publicly par ticipated in the exercises. I heard, too, that, in a quiet way, he was very influential in his school, and that many of his pupils had begun a religious life. Why was he different from myself ? Why was it necessary that I should go through this experience of fear and torment, while he escaped it altogether ? All our previous expe rience had been nearly identical. For years we had been subjected to the same influences, had struggled for the same self-mastery, had kneeled at the same bed in daily devotion ; yet here he was, busy in Christian service, steadily rejoicing in Christian hope, into which he had grown through processes as natural as those by which the rose-tree rises to the grace-of inflorescence. I see it iill now, but then it not only perplexed me, but filled me with weak complaining at my harder lot. During these eventful weeks I often met Millie Brad ford on her way to and from school. I have no doubt that, from her window, she had made herself familiar with my habits of going and coming, and had timed her own so as to fall in with me. In communities not familiar with the character and history of a New England revival, it would be impossi ble to conceive of the universality of the influence which they exert during the time of their highest activity. Multitudes of men neglect their business. Meetings are held during every evening of the week, and sometimes during all the days of the week. Children, gathered in their own little chambers, hold prayer-meetings. Re ligion is the all-absorbing topic, with old and young. Millie was like the rest of us ; and, forbidden to hear Mr. Bedlow preach, she had determined to win her ex perience at home. It touches me now even to tears to remember how she used to meet me in the street, and ask me how I was getting along, how I liked Mr, Bed- Arthur Bonnicastle. 16? low, and whether he had helped me. She told me that she and her mother were holding little prayer-meetings together, but that Aunt Flick was away pretty much all the time. She was seeking to become a Christian, and at last she told me that she thought she had become one. I was rational enough to see that it was not necessary for an innocent child like her to share my graver experi ences. Indeed, I listened eagerly to her expressions of simple faith and trust, and to her recital of the pur poses of life to which she had committed herself. One revelation which she made in confidence, but which I am sure was uttered because she wanted me to think well of her father, interested me much. She said her father prayed very much alone, though he did not at tend the meetings. The thought of my old friend toil ing in secret over the problem which absorbed us all was very impressive. Thus weeks passed away, and the tide which rose to its flood began to ebb. I could see that the meetings grew less frequent, and that the old habits of business and pleasure were reasserting themselves. Conversions were rarer, and the blazing fervor of action and devotion cooled. As I realized this, and, in realizing it, found that I was just as far from the point at which I had aimed as I was at the beginning, a strange, desperate despair seized me. I could hope for no influences in the future more powerful than those to which I had been subjected. The stimulus to resolution and endeavor was nearly expended. Yet I had many times vowed to the Most High that before that season had passed away I would find Him, and, with him, peace, if He and it were to be found. What was 1 to do ? At last there came a day of in-gathering. The harvest was to be garnered. A great number of men, women, and youth were to be received into the church. I went early, and took a seat in the gallery, where I could see 1 68 Arthur Bonnicastle. the throng as they presented themselves in the aisles to make their profession of faith and unite in their cove nant. When called upon they took their places, coming forward from all parts of the audience in front of the Communion table. Among them were both Henry and Claire. At sight of them I grew sick. Passage after pas sage of Scripture that seemed applicable to my condition, crowded into my mind. They came from the North and the South and the East and the West, and sat down in the Kingdom of God, and I, a child of the Kingdom, baptized into the name of the Ineffable, was cast out. The harvest was past, the summer was ended, and my soul was not saved ! I witnessed the ceremonies with feelings mingled of despair, bitterness, and desperation. On the faces of these converts, thus coming into the fold, there was impressed the seal of a great and solemn joy. Within my bosom there burned the feeling that I had honestly tried to do my duty, and that my endeavors had been spurned. In a moment, to which I had been led by processes whose end I could not see, my will gave way, and I said, " I will try no longer. This is the end." Every resolution and purpose within me was shivered by the fall. To what depth of perdition I might be hurled under what judgment I might be crushed I could not tell, and hardly cared to imagine. Quite to my amazement, I found myself at perfect peace. What did it mean ? Not only was the burden gone, but there thrilled through my soul a quick, strong joy. My spirit was like a broad sea, alive all over with sunlit ripples, with one broad track of glory that stretched across into the unfathomable heaven ! I felt the smile of God upon me. I felt the love of God within me. Was I insane ? Had Satan appeared to me as an angel of light and deceived me ? Was this conversion ? I was so much in doubt in regard to the real nature of this experience, that when I left the house Arthur Bonnicastle. 169 I spoke to no one of it. Emerging into the open air, I found myself in a new world. I walked the streets as iightly as if wings had been upon my shoulders, lifting me from point to point through all the passage home ward. Ah, how blue the heavens were, and how broad and beautiful the world ! What a blessed thing it was to live ! How sweet were the faces not only of friends, but even of those whom I did not know ! How gladly would I have embraced every one of them ! It was as if I had been unclothed of my mortality, and clothed upon with the immortal. I was sure that heaven could hold no joy superior to that. When passing Mr. Bradford's, I saw Millie at the window. She beckoned to me, and I went to her door. " How is it now ? " she said. " I don't know, Millie," I replied, " but I think it is all right. I never felt before as I do now." " Oh, I was getting so tired ! " said she. " I've been praying for you for days, and days, and days ! and hop ing and hoping you'd get through." I could only thank her, and press her little hand ; and then I hurried to my home, mounted to my room, shut and locked the door, and sat down to think. CHAPTER X. 1 JOIN A CHURCH THAT LEAVES OUT MR. BRADFORD AND MILLIE. How shall I write the history of the few weeks that fol lowed my new experience ? I had risen, as on wings, from the depths of despair to the heights of hope. I had emerged from a valley of shadows, haunted by ten thousand forms of terror and shapes of anguish, and sat 170 Arthur Bonnicastle. down upon the sunny hills of peace. The world, which had become either mocking or meaningless to me, was illuminated with loving expression in every feature. Far above the deep blue of the winter skies my imagina tion caught the sheen of winged forms and the far echoes of happy angel-voices. I lifted my face to the sun, and, shutting my eyes, felt the smile of God upon me. Every wind that blew brought its ministry of blessing. Every cloud that swept the sky bore its message of good-will from heaven. I loved life, I loved the world, I loved every living thing I saw, and, more than all, I loved the Great Father who had bestowed upon me such gracious gifts of hope and healing. Mrs. Sanderson, though she had said little, and had received no confidence from me, had been troubled for many weeks. She had seen in my haggard eyes and weary look the evidences of a great trial and struggle ; but without the power to enter into it, or to help me out of it, she had never done more than to ask me if, for my health's sake, it would not be better for me to at tend fewer meetings and take more sleep. The weeks that followed were only more satisfactory to her from the conviction that I was happier, for I gave myself with hearty zeal to the work which I felt had been imposed upon me. My father was happy in my new happiness, never doubting that it had come to me through the Grace of Heaven. I was assured on every hand that I had passed through that change of regeneration which was the true basis in me, and in many at least, of the new life. Meeting Mr. Bradford, I spoke freely to him of my change, and he told me with a sigh that he was glad I was at peace. He evidently did not say all that he felt, but he said nothing to discourage me. It soon became known to Mr. Grimshaw and the members of his church that I had become a convert, Arthur Bonnicastie. 171 and I found abundant opportunities at once to exercise such gifts as I possessed to induce others to drink at the fountain from which I had drawn such draughts of peace and pleasure. I prayed in public ; I exhorted ; I went from one to another of my own age with personal persuasions. Nay, I was alluded to and held up, in public and private, as one of the most notable of the trophies which had been won in the great struggle with the powers of darkness through which the church had passed. I look back now upon the public life that I lived in those youthful days with wonder. Audiences that I then faced and addressed without embarrassment would now send fever into my lips and tongue, or strike me dumb. I rejoiced then in a prominence from which I should now shrink with a sensitiveness of pain quite insupport able. I was the youthful marvel of the town ; and peo ple flocked again to the church where I was to be seen and heard as if a new Bedlow had come down to them from the skies. This publicity did not please Mrs. Sanderson, but she saw farther, alas ! than I did, and knew that such exalta tion could not be perpetual. Could I have had a wise counsellor then, it would have saved me years of wan dering and years of sorrow. The tendency of this public work was to make me vain, and induce a love of the sound of my own voice. Without experience, flattered by attention, stimulated by the assurance that I was doing a great deal of good, and urged on by my own delight in action, I fairly took the bit in my teeth, and ran such a race as left me at last utterly exhausted. I went from meeting to meeting all over the city. There was hardly a church in which my voice was not heard. Everywhere I was thanked and congratulated. I did not realize then as I do now that I was moved by a thirst for praise, and that motives most human mingled 1/2 Arthur Bonnicastle. strangely and strongly with the divine in urging me for ward. O Heaven ! to think that I, a poor child in life and experience, should have labored in Thy name to win a crown to my personal vanity ! I shudder now at the cruelty practised upon the young nearly everywhere, in bringing them to the front, and exposing them to such temptations as those which then had the power to poison all my motives, to brush away from my spirit the bloom of youthful modesty, and to expose me to a process which was certain to ultimate in spiritual torpor and doubt. I always tremble and sicken when I behold a child or youth delighting in the exer cises of a public exhibition ; and when I see, inside or outside of church walls, children bred to boldness through the public show of themselves and their accom plishments, and realize what part of their nature is stimulated to predominance by the process, and what graces are extinguished by it, I do not wonder at the lack of reverence in American character, and that ex haustion of sensibility which makes our churches so faint and fitful in feeling. Having given up all my earlier ideas of religion, and learned to regard them as wholly inadequate and un worthy, I could be in my new work little more than a parrot. I had passed through but a single phase of what I had learned to regard as a genuine religious ex perience, and my counsels were but the repetitions of what I had heard. If some wise man or woman could have told me of myself of the proprieties that belong to the position of a neophyte of the dangers of public labor, and of being publicly petted and exhibited, how well for me it would have been ! But I had no such counsellor. On the contrary, I was seized upon at once as a fresh instrumentality for carrying on a work already waning. I am ashamed to think of the immodesty of some of my nersonal approaches to my elders whom I Arthur Bonnicastle. 173 regarded as needing my ministry, and humiliated by the memory of the considerate forbearance with which I was treated for religion's and my motive's sake. It was in labors and experiences like these that a few weeks passed away. Another in-gathering of the great spiritual harvest approached. I, among others, was to make a public profession of my faith, and become a member of the church. Mr. Grimshaw put upon me the task of persuading the young of my own age to join me in this solemn self-dedication, and I had great suc cess in my mission. Among the considerable number whom I had selected as proper subjects of my counsels and persuasions, was my interesting friend Millie Bradford : but I knew she was quite too young to decide so momentous a question, and that her father would not permit her to decide it for herself. To tell the truth, I did not like to meet Mr. Bradford with my proposition, for I anticipated objec tions, and did not feel qualified to argue with him. I consulted with Mr. Grimshaw in regard to the case, and it was finally decided that we should visit Mr. Bradford together. Accordingly we called upon him, and spent an even ing in conversation, which, although it won no new members to my group, left a deep impression upon my mind and memory. ' The conversation was begun by Mr. Grimshaw, who said: "We have called, Mr. Bradford, with the pur pose of conferring with you in regard to your daughter Millie. I know but little of her, but I learn through Arthur that she is a sharer in the blessings of our great revival. Have you any objection to her union with our church, provided she shall choose to become a mem ber?" " Have you no invitation for any one else in tha family? " inquired Mr. Bradford, with a smile. 1/4 Arthur Bonnicastle. '' I was not aware that there were other converts in th.e family," responded the minister. " I speak it with great humility, Mr. Grimshaw," said Mr. Bradford, " but I count myself a disciple. I am a learner at the feet of your Master and mine ; and I have been a learner for years. I do not regard myself as having attained, or fully apprehended, but I follow on, and 1 should like society on the way, as well as any one." " But your views do not accord with those professed by our church," said Mr. Grimshaw. " I do not know what business the church may legiti mately have with my private opinions. I learn from the New Testament that he who repents and believes on the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved. A man who does this belongs at least to the invisible church, and I do not recognize the right of a body of men calling themselves a church to shut out from their communion any man or woman who belongs to the church invisible, or any one whom the Master counts among his disciples." " But we must have some standard of faith and be lief," said Mr. Grimshaw. " I suppose you must," responded Mr. Bradford, "but why should you construct it of non-essential ma terials ? Why should you build a high fence around your church, and insist that every man shall climb every rail, when the first is all that the Master asks him to climb? I recognize repentance and trust as the basis of a Christian character and life, and I regard character as the one grand result at which the Author of Chris tianity aimed. He desired to make good men out of bad men ; and repentance and trust form the basis of the process. When you go beyond this, with your dog mas and your creeds, you infringe upon the liberty of those whom repentance and trust have made free. Per sonally, I feel that I am suffering a great wrong, inflictH Arthur Bonnicastle. 175 in ignorance and with good motives no doubt ; but still a wrong, in that I am shut out from Christian sympathy and fellowship. I will not profess to believe any more than I ao believe. It is simply impossible for me, a rational, honest, mature man, to accept that which you prescribe for me. I am perfectly willing that you should believe what seems to you to be true, touching all these points of doctrine. I only insist that you shall be a Christian in heart and life an honest disciple. If you cannot give me the same liberty, under the same condi tions, we can never get any nearer together." " You seem to forget," responded the minister, " that our creed is the product of whole ages of Christian wis dom that it has been framed by men of wide and pro found experience, who have learned by that experience what is essential to the stability and purity of the church." " And you seem to forget," said Mr. Bradford, " that the making and defence of creeds have rent the seamless garment of the Lord into ten thousand fragments that they have been the instruments for the destruction of the unity of the church in fact and feeling that they have not only been the subjects of controversies that have disgraced the church before the world, and embit tered the relations of large bodies of Christians, but have instigated the crudest persecutions and the most outrageous murders and martyrdoms. You are not so bigoted as to deny that there are Christians among all the sects ; and you are liberal enough to give to the dif ferent sects the liberty of faith which they claim. The world is growing better in this thing, and is not so intol erant as it was. Now, why will you not give me the same liberty, as a man, that you give to churches founded on creeds at variance with yours ? You invite the teachers of other sects into your pulpit. You invite their people to your communion-table, while you shuJ 176 Arthur Bonnie a stle, me away by conditions that are just as impossible to me as they would be to them." I could see that Mr. Grimshaw was not only over whelmed in argument but deeply moved in feeling. He grasped Mr. Bradford's hand, and said : "My dear sir, it would give me one of the greatest pleasures of my life to receive you into our communion, for I believe in your sincerity and in your character, but I could not if I would." " I know it," responded Mr. Bradford : " your sym pathies go beyond your creed, and your most earnest convictions stop short of it. Your hands are tied, and your tongue must be dumb. You and your church will go on in the old way. The young who do not think, and the mature who will not try to think, or do not dare to try, will accept what you prescribe for them. Women, more trustful and religious than men, will constitute the majority of your members. In the meantime, the thinking men the strong, influential, practical men of society the men of culture, enterprise, and executive power will remain outside of the church shut out by a creed which their reason refuses to accept." " I am afraid the creed is not altogether to blame for their exclusion," said the minister. " ' Not many wise* you remember the quotation." "When Christianity was an apostasy from a church to which all the wise and mighty were attached," replied Mr. Bradford, " your quotation was doubtless true as a statement of fact, but we belong to another nation and age. I hold myself a type and representative of a large class, who cannot enter the church without self-stultifi cation and a sacrifice of that liberty of thought and opin ion which is their birthright. We cannot afford to do without you, and you cannot afford to do without us. It is your business to make a home for us, for we are alJ passing on to that stage and realm of being where opin- Arthur Bonnicastlc. 177 ions will be of small account, and where character will decide everything." " We have wandered very far from your daughter, Mi. Bradford, about whom we came to talk," said Mr. Grimshaw. An expression of pain passed over Mr. Bradford's face. Then he rose, and walking to a door which closed another room, opened it, and called his daughter. Millie entered the room with a question in her eyes, and shaking hands with us, went to her father's side, where she stood with his arm around her during the remainder of the interview. " Millie," said her father, "Mr. Grimshaw and Ar thur have come here to invite you to join the church. Would you like to do so ? " " If you and mamma think I ought to," she replied. At this moment, Mrs. Bradford, conjecturing, I sup pose, the object of our visit, entered the room, and giv ing us a most friendly greeting, took a seat near her daughter. Mr. Bradford repeated our proposal to her, and Millie's reply to it. " I should regard it as one of the sweetest satisfac tions of my life to have my child with me in church com munion," she said, looking down to hide the tears that she felt filling her eyes. " And I sympathize with you entirely in your feeling," added Mr. Bradford. " Then," said Mr. Grimshaw, nothing will stand in the way, provided, upon examination, your daughter gives evidence of an intelligent entrance upon a Chris tian experience." " Which means, I suppose," said Mr. Bradford, " that if she will accept your whole creed and scheme on trust, as well as give evidence of having determined upon a Christian life, you will endow her with the privileges of membership." 8* 178 Arthur Boiinicastle. " We have but one condition for all, as you know," responded the minister. " I suppose so ; and it is my duty to tell you that it is a very cruel thing ; for her intelligence reaches no fur ther than the one essential thing which makes her a Christian child, viz., personal loyalty to the Master. Beyond this she knows absolutely nothing, and for her it is enough. To insist that she shall receive a whole body of divinity about which she is utterly ignorant, and which, at present, has no relation to her Christian char acter and life, is to do that which you have no right to do. When Jesus took little children in his arms and blessed them, and declared that of such was the king dom of heaven, he did not impose any conditions upon them. It was sufficient for him that they were in his arms, and had trust and confidence enough to nestle and be contented and happy there. You take the responsi bility of going beyond him, and of making conditions which cannot be complied with without a surrender of all future liberty of thought and opinion. You have members in your church to-day who committed them selves to opinions when young, or under excitement, that they now hold most loosely, or with questionings that are a constant torture to them. I know it, for they have told me so ; and I cannot consent that my child shall be denied the free and unrestrained formation of opinions when her maturer mind becomes able to form them. The reason that has no range but the bounds of a creed, constructed by human hands, will become dwarfed as certainly as the wings of a bird are weakened by the wires of a cage." Mr. Grimshaw listened attentively to the speaker, and then said : " I fear that your ideas would form a very poor basis for a church. We should be deprived of any principle or power of cohesion, without unity of belief. Such liberty as you desire, or seem to think desirable, Arthur Bonnicastlc. 179 would soon degenerate into license. The experience of the church has proved it, and the united wisdom of the church has declared it." "My ideas of the true basis of the church are very simple," said Mr. Bradford. " I would make it an or ganization of Christian disciples of Christian learners ; you would make it a conservatory of those who have ar rived at the last conclusions in dogmatic theology. I would make it a society of those who have accepted the Master, and pledged their hearts and lives to him, with everything to learn and the liberty to learn it by such means as they can command ; you would frame it with limits to all progress. You would make it a school where all are professors ; I would make it a school where all are learners. In short, you would make a sectarian church, and I would make a Christian church ; and I cannot but believe that there is such a church awaiting us in the future a church which will receive both me and my daughter, to give me the rest and fellowship I long for, and her the nurture, restraint, and support which she will need among the world's great tempta tions." I do not know what the minister thought of all this, for he said but little. He had been accustomed to these discussions with Mr. Bradford, and either deemed them unfruitful of good or found it difficult to maintain his position. He felt sure of me, and did not regard it of consequence to talk on my account. As Mr. Bradford closed, he sighed and said : " Well, Millie, I suppose you will do as your father wishes, and stay away from us." Millie looked at her father and then at her mother, with a quick, earnest glance of inquiry. Mrs. Bradford said : " Mr. Bradford and I never differ on anything relating to our child. So far as our creed is concerned I am entirely content with it ; but I have no r8o ArtJiur Bonnicastle. wish to commit my child to it, though I freely instruct her in it." '"Very well," said the minister, "perhaps it will be better to leave her with you for the present." Then he advanced to Mr. Bradford for a private con ference upon some other subject, apparently, and Millie started quickly and walked to the window, where I joine-d her. "Aren't you sorry ? " I inquired. "No." " I thought you would be," I said. " No, it is all right. Father knows. Don't you think he's splendid ? " " I suppose he thinks he's right," I responded. " Why, I know he's right," she said warmly. " He's always right ; and isn't it sweet of him to let me hear him talk about everything? " Here was the personal loyalty again. Beyond this the girl could not go. She could trust her father and her Master. She could obey both and love both, and it was all of religion that she was capable of. I supposed that the minister must know better than any of us, but I had no doubt of Millie's fitness for the church, and wondered why it was that a baptized child should be shut out of the fold by a creed she was utterly incapable of comprehend ing. I confess, too, that I sympathized with Mr. Brad ford's view of the church as it related to himself; yet I had given my trust to the minister, and it was only my personal loyalty to him that reconciled me to his oppos ing opinions. Then there flashed upon me the con sciousness that I was to profess before God and men a belief in dogmas that 1 had not even examined, and was entirely without the power of explaining or defending to myself or others. The fact made me tremble, and I dis missed it as soon as possible. I fear that I should weary my reader by dwelling upon Arthur Bonnicastle. 181 the spiritual experiences that attended the assumption of my vows. Since the memorable day on which I stood among twenty others, and publicly pledged my life to the Redeemer, and gave my unqualified assent to the doctrines of the creed, I have never been able to witness a similar scene without tears. With all the trust natural to youth I received that which was presented to me, and with all the confidence of youth in its own power to ful fil its promises, I entered into the most solemn cove nant which man can make. There was no suspicion in me of a possible reaction. There was no anticipation of temptations before which I should tremble or fall. There was no cloud that portended darkness or storm. I regarded myself as entering a fold from which I should go out no more, save under the conduct and ward of a Shepherd who would lead me only through green pas tures and beside still waters. All my friends, including Mrs. Sanderson, were pres ent. Mr. Bradford and his family sat near me, and I saw that he had been deeply moved. He read the fu ture better than I, and saw before my intense and vola tile spirit that which I could not see. He knew the his tory of one human heart, and he interpreted the future of mine by his own. At the close of the services Mrs. Sanderson drove home alone with Jenks ; and the Brad- fords with Henry and my own family walked home to gether. As I left my father at his door, with Henry and Claire, I found myself with Millie. We fell behind her father and mother, and after she had looked around to make sure that she was not observed, she unfolded her handkerchief and showed me a crumb of the sacra- 'mental bread. " Where did you get it ? " I inquired. " I prayed that it might drop when it was handed to my mother, and it did," she replied. " What are you going to do with it ? " I inquired. 1 82 ArtJiur Bonnicastle. " I am going to my room when I get home, and have a communion all by myself." " But do you think it will be right ?" I inquired. " I don't think He will care. He knows that I love Him, and that it is the only chance I have. It is His bread, and came from His table, and Mr. Grimshaw has nothing to do with it." I was dumb with astonishment, and could offer no re monstrance. Indeed, I sympathized with her so much that I could not have deprived her of her anticipated enjoyment. Then I asked her what she would do for wine. " I shall kiss my mother's lips," she replied, and then added : " I wonder if she will know that anything is gone, as the Saviour did when the woman touched him ? " I think if I could have retired with Millie to her se clusion, and shared her crumb away from the eyes of a curious world, and the distractions of the public gaze, I should have come out stronger and purer for the feast. I left her at her door, and went slowly home, imagining the little girl at prayer, and tasting the crumb which had fallen from the Master's table. The thought of the reverent kiss which the mother was to receive that night, all unconscious of the draught of spiritual comfort which her child would quaff there, quite overcame me. And it was this child, with her quick insight and im plicit faith, that had been shut out of the fold because she had no opinions ! It was her father, too, carefully seeking and prayerfully learning, who had been refused admittance, because he would not surrender his reason and his liberty of thought ! Already I began to doubt the infallibility of my Pope. Already there had crept into my mind the suspicion that there was something wrong in a policy which made more of sound opinions than of sound character. Already I felt that there wa? Arthur Bonnicastle. 183 something about these two persons that was higher in Christian experience than anything I could claim. Al ready I had become dimly conscious of a spiritual pride in myself, that I did not see in them, and convinced that they were better fitted to adorn a Christian profes sion than myself. So the struggle was over, and 1 was called upon by the rapidly advancing spring to resume the studies which had long been interrupted. As I addressed myself with strong determination to my work, I was conscious of a greatly impaired power of application. The effect of the winter's excitement and absorption had been to dis sipate my mental power, and destroy my habits of men tal labor. It took me many weeks to get back upon my old track, and I was led through many discouragements. When I had fairly accomplished my purpose and felt that I was making genuine progress, I discovered that it was impossible to keep up the public life I had been leading, and the zeal which had spurred me on in my Christian work. For weeks I faithfully continued my attendance on the meetings of the church, which, by becoming less frequent, had adapted themselves some what to my new circumstances, but to my great sorrow I found my zest in their exercises gradually dying away. I prayed often and long that I might not become a back slider, and that the joy and comfort of the early days might abide with me. It was all in vain. The excite ment of sympathetic crowds and the predominance of a single topic in the public mind had passed away, and, unsupported by those stimuli, I was left to stand alone an uncertain, tottering, self-suspicious youth with the great work of life all before me. Gradually the old motives which had actuated me came back and presented themselves ; and to my sad surprise they found that in me which responded to them. The wealth which had held before me its glit- 1 84 Arthur Bonnicastle. tering promise still possessed its charming power, and suggested its worldly delights. The brilliant college ca reer which I had determined to achieve for honor's and glory's sake came up to me among my suspended pur poses, and shone with all its old attractions. The pride of dress and social position was not dead it had only slept, and waited but a touch and a nod to spring into life again. The temptations which the world held for my sensuous nature found my appetites and passions still unsubdued. Then there came upon me first the conviction and the consciousness that my life was to be one of warfare, if it was to be a Christian life at all that I was really back upon my old ground, and that whatever of genuine prog ress I should make would be through prayerful, rigid, persistent culture. That there was something unspeak ably discouraging in this, I need not affirm. It had the power to make the experiences through which I had so recently passed seem altogether hollow and unreal. I had only dreamed of regeneration, after all. The new birth had only been the birth of a purpose, which needed nursing and strengthening and educating like an infant. Still I would not, could not, admit that I had not made the genuine beginning of a religious life. If I had done this, I should have grown callous or desperate at once. And now I beg the privilege of saying to those who may be interested in this narrative, that I have not ad dressed myself to the task of writing down revivals. I am detailing the experiences of a human soul. That revivals are useful in communities where great excite ments are necessary to attract the attention of the care less and the vicious, I can well believe. That multi tudes begin a religious life through their influence there is no doubt. That they are dangerous passages for the Arthur Bonnicasile. 185 church to pass through would seem also to be well es tablished, as by the laws of the human mind all great excitements and all extraordinary labors are followed by corresponding depressions and exhaustions. I se riously doubt whether Christian growth is greatly for warded by these exceptional agencies. All true growth in the realm of nature is the result of a steady unfolding from a germ : and the realm of grace is ruled by the same Being who perfects the flower and builds the tree. I can afford to be misconstrued, misunderstood, and misrepresented, if I can do anything to direct the atten tion of the church to the fact that there are better meth ods of progress than those which are attended with such cost and such danger, and that in the Christian nurture of children and the wide opening of the Christian fold to them abides the hope of the church and the world. I shall be ten thousand times repaid for any suspicion of my motives, if I can bring a single pastor, or a single church, to the realization of the fact that true Christian beginnings are not necessarily conformed to any special dramatic experience ; that a pastor can lead his flock better than a stranger whose voice they do not know, and that their creeds are longer and more elaborate than they have any right to make. If the labor ex pended upon revivals were spread evenly over greater space, and applied with never-flagging persistency to the shaping and the nurture of the plastic and docile minds of the young, I am sure that the Christian king dom would increase in numbers and advance in power by a progress at once natural, healthy, and irresistible. The fiery shower that pours its flood upon the earth in an hour, leaves the ground fresh for the day, but it also leaves it scarred and seamed, the swollen torrents carry ing half its wealth into the sea, while the steady rain of days sinks into the earth to nourish the roots of all things, and make the springs perennial. 1 86 Arthur Bonnicastle. CHAPTER XI. THE OLD PORTRAIT IS DISCOVERED AND OLD JENKS HAS A REAL VOYAGE AT SEA. THE spring passed quickly away, and the fervors of the June sun were upon us. Mrs. Sanderson, whose health had been a marvel of uniformity, became ill, and showed signs of that failure of the vital power which comes at last to all. She was advised by her physician that she needed a change of air, and encouraged to believe that if she should get relief at once she might retain her hold upon life for some years longer. Arrangements were accord ingly perfected to send her with a trusty maid to a water ing-place a few leagues distant. I have no doubt that she had come to look upon death as not far away from her, and that she had contemplated the possibility of its visitation while absent from home. I could see that her eye was troubled and anxious. Her lawyer was with her for two days before her departure. On the morning before she left she called me into her little library, and delivering her keys into my keeping, said : " I have nothing to tell you, Arthur, except that all my affairs are arranged, so that if I should never return you will find everything in order. You know my ways and wishes. Follow out your plans regarding yourself, and my lawyer will tell you of mine. Maintain the posi tion and uphold the honor of this house. It will be yours. I cannot take it with me ; I have no one else to leave it to and yet " She was more softened than I had ever seen her, and her sad and helpless look quite overwhelmed me. I had so long expected her munificence that this affected me Arthur Bonnicastle. 187 much less than the change, physical and mental, which had passed over her. " My dear, precious Aunt," I said, " you are not go ing to die. I cannot let you die. I am too young to spare you. You will go away, and get well, and live a long time." Then I kissed her, and thanked her for her persistent kindness and her splendid gifts, in words that seemed so poor and inadequate that I was quite distressed. She was deeply moved. Her physical weakness was such that the iron rule of her will over her emotions was broken. I believe she would have been glad to have me take her in my arms, like a child, and comfort her. After sitting awhile in silence, I said : " Please tell me what you were thinking of when you said : ' And yet ' ? " She gave me no direct reply, but said : " Do you re member the portrait of a boy which you saw when you first came to the house ? " " Perfectly," I replied. " This key," said she, taking the bunch of keys from my hand which I still held, " will open a door in the dining-room, which you have never seen opened. You know where it is. After I am gone away, I wish you to open that closet, and take out the portrait, and hang it just where it was before. I wish to have it hang there as long as the house stands. You have learned not to ask any questions. If ever I come back, I shall find it there. If I do not, you will keep it there for my sake." I promised to obey her will in every particular, and then the carriage drove up to bear her away. Our part ing was very quiet, but full of feeling ; and I saw her turn and look back affectionately at the old house, as she passed slowly down the hill. I was thus left alone with the old servant Jenks the master of The Mansion. It will be readily imagined that, still retaining my curiosity with regard to the pic- 1 88 Arthur Bonnicastle. ture, I lost no time in finding it. Sending Jenks away on some unimportant errand, I entered the dining-room, and locked myself in. Under a most fascinating excite ment I inserted the key in the lock of the closet. The bolt was moved with difficulty, like one long unused. Throwing open the door, I looked in. First I saw an old trunk, the covering of rawhide, fastened by brass nails which had turned green with rust. I lifted the lid, and found it full of papers. I had already caught a glimpse of the picture, yet by a curious perversity of will I insisted on seeing it last. Next I came upon an old punch-bowl, a reminder of the days when there were men and revelry in the house. It was made of silver, and had the Bonnicastle arms upon its side. How old it was, I could not tell, but it was evidently an heirloom. A rusty musket stood in one corner, of the variety then' know as " Queen's Arms." In another corner hung a military coat, trimmed with gold lace. The wreck of an ancient and costly clock stood upon a shelf, the pendu lum of which was a swing, with a little child in it. I re member feeling a whimsical pity for the child that had waited for motion so long in the darkness, and so reached up and set him swinging, as he had done so many mil lion times in the years that were dead and gone. I lin gered long upon every article, and wondered how many centuries it would take of such seclusion to dissolve them all into dust. I had no excuse for withholding my eyes from the pic ture any longer. I lifted it carefully from the nail where it hung, and set it down by the dining-room wall. Then I closed and locked the door. Not until I had carefully cleaned the painting, and dusted the frame, and hung it in its old place, did I venture to look at it with any thought of careful study ; and even this observation I determined to take first from the point where I sat when I originally discovered it. I arranged the light to strike Arthur Bonnicastle. 189 it at the right angle, and then opening the passage into the library, went and sat down precisely where I had sat nearly six years before, under the spell of Mrs. Sander son's command. I had already, while handling it, found the date of the picture, and the name of the painter on the back of the canvas, and knew that the lad whom it represented had become a man considerably past middle life, or, what seemed more probable, remembering Mrs. Sanderson's strange actions in regard to it, a heap of dust and ashes. With my first long look at the picture came back the old days ; and I was again a little boy, with all my original interest in the beautiful young face. I expected to see a likeness of Henry, but Henry had grown up and changed, and I found it quite impossible to take him back in my imagination to the point where his face answered, in any considerable degree, to the lineaments of this. Still there was a likeness, indefinable, far back in the depths of expression, and hovering around the contour of the face and head, that at first puzzled me, and at last convinced me that, if I could get at the secrets of my friend's life, I should find that he was a Bonnicastle. I had often while at school, in unexpected glimpses of Henry's features, been startled by the re semblance of his face to some of the members of my own family. The moment I studied his features, how ever, the likeness was gone. It was thus with the pic ture. Analysis spoiled it as the likeness of my friend, yet it had a subtle power to suggest him, and to con vince me that he was a sharer of the family blood. I cannot say, much as I loved Henry, that I was pleased with my discovery. Nor was I pleased with the reflections which it stirred in me ; for I saw through them something of the mercenary meanness of my own character. I was glad that Mrs. Sanderson had never seen him. I was glad that he had declined her invita- 190 Arthur Bonnicastle. tion, and that she had come to regard him with such dislike that she would not even hear his name men tioned. I knew that if he were an accepted visitor of the house I should be jealous of him, for I was conscious of his superiority to me in many points, and felt that Mrs. Sanderson would find much in him that would please her. His quiet bearing, his steadiness, his per sonal beauty, his steadfast integrity, would all be appre ciated by her ; and I was sure she could not fail to de tect in him the family likeness. Angry with myself for indulging such unworthy thoughts, I sprang to my feet, and went nearer to the picture went where I could see it best. As I ap proached it, the likeness to Henry gradually faded, and what was Bonnicastle in the distance became something of another name and blood. Another nature mingled strangely with that to which I was consciously kindred. Beneath the soft veil which gentle blood had thrown over the features, there couched something base and bru tal. Somewhere in the family history of the person it represented the spaniel had given herself to the wolf. Sheathed within the foot of velvet was hidden a talon of steel. Under those beautiful features lay the capacity of cruelty and crime. It was a wonderful revelation, and it increased rather than lessened the fascination which the picture exerted upon me. Not until an hour had passed away, and I knew that Jenks had returned from his errand, did I silently unlock the doors of the dining-i room and go to my chamber for study. When the dinner-hour arrived, I was served alone. Jenks had set the table without discovering the returned picture, but in one of the pauses of his service he start ed and turned pale. (( What is the matter, Jenks?" I said. f - Nothing," he replied. " I thought it was burned It ought to be." Artliur Bonnicastle. 191 It was the first intimation that I had ever received that he knew anything about the subject of the picture ; but I asked him no more questions first, because I thought it would virtually be a breach of the confidence which its owner had reposed in me, and, second, be cause I was so sure of Jenks' reticence that I knew I had nothing to gain by asking. He had kept his place be cause he could hold his tongue. Still, the fact that he could tell me all I wanted to know had the power to heighten my curiosity, and to fill me with a discomfort of which I was ashamed. A few days of lonely life passed away, in which, for a defence against my loneliness, I devoted myself with unusual diligence to study. The first letter I received from Mrs. Sanderson contained the good news that her strong and elastic constitution had responded favorably to the change of air and place. Indeed, she was doing so well that she had concluded to stay by the sea during the summer, if she should continue to find herself im proving in strength. I was very much relieved, for in truth I had no wish to assume the cares of the wealth she would leave me. I was grateful, too, to find that I had a genuine affection for her, and that my solicitude was not altogether selfish. One warm evening, just before sunset, I took a chair from the hall and placed it upon the landing of the steps that led from the garden to the door, between the sleep ing lions, and sat down to enjoy the fresh air of the com ing twilight. I had a book in my hand, but I was weary and listless, and sat looking off upon the town. Pres ently I heard the sound of voices and laughter from the hill below me; and soon there came in sight a. little group whose approach made my heart leap with delight. Henry, Claire and Millie were coming to make a call upon their lonely friend. I greeted them heartily at a distance, and Henry, with 1 92 Art hur Bonnicastle. his hat in his hand, walking between the two girls, saun tered up to the house, looking it over, as it seemed to me, very carefully. Suddenly, Millie sprang to the side of the road, and plucked a flower which she insisted upon placing in the button-hole of his coat. He bent to her while she fastened it. It was the work of an instant, yet there was in it that which showed me that the girl was fond of him, and that, young as she was, she pleased him. I was in a mood to be jealous. The thoughts I had indulged in while looking at the picture, and the belief that Henry had Claire's heart in full possession, to say nothing of certain plans of my own with regard to Millie, reaching far into the future plans very vague and shadowy, but covering sweet possibilities awoke a feeling in my heart toward Henry which I am sure made my courtesies seem strangely constrained. I invited the group into the house, and Claire and Millie accepted the invitation at once. Henry hesitated, and finally said that he did not care to go in. The even ing was so pleasant that he would sit upon the steps until we returned. Remembering his repeated refusals to go home with me from school, and thinking, for a reason which I could not have shaped into words, that I did not wish to have him see the picture in the dining- room, I did not urge him. So the two girls and myself went in, and walked over the house. Millie had been there before with her mother, but it was the first time that Claire's maidenly figure had ever entered the door. The dining-room had already been darkened for the night, and we only looked in and took a hurried glimpse of its shadowy furniture, and left it. Both the girls were curious to see my room, and to that we ascended. The outlook was so pleasant and the chairs were so inviting that, after looking at the pictures and the various taste ful appointments with which the room had been fur nished, we all sat down, and in our merry conversation ArtJiur Bonnicastle. 193 quite forgot Henry, and the fact that he was waiting for us to rejoin him. Near the close of our pleasant session I was conscious that feet were moving in the room below. Then I heard the sound of opening or closing shutters. My first thought was that Jenks had come in on some errand. Interrupted in this thought by the conversation in prog ress, the matter was put out of my mind for a moment. Then it returned, and as I reflected that Jenks had no business in that part of the house at that hour, I became uneasy. " We have quite forgotten Henry," I said; and we all rose to our feet and walked down stairs. Millie was at the foot in a twinkling, and exclaimed : " Why, he isn't here ! He is gone ! " I said not a word, but went straight to the dining- room. Every shutter was open, and there stood Henry before the picture. He appeared to be entirely uncon scious of my entrance ; so, stepping up behind him, I put my hand upon his shoulder, and said : " Well, how do you like it ? " He started as if I had struck him, trembled, and turned pale. " The fact is, I got tired with waiting, my boy," he said, "and so came in to explore, you know, ha! ha! ha ! Quite an old curiosity-shop, isn't it ? Oh! ' How do I like it ? ' Yes, quite a picture quite a picture, ha ! ha ! ha ! " There certainly was no likeness in the picture to the Henry who stood before it then. Haggard, vacant, con vulsed with feeling which it was impossible for him to conceal, he stood before it as if fastened to the spot by a relentless spell. I took him by the arm and led him into the open air, with his hollow-sounding voice and his forced, mechanical laugh still ringing in my ears. Thfi girls were alarmed, and asked him if he were ill. 194 Arthur Bonnicastle. " Not in the least," he replied, with another attempt at a laugh which made me shiver. The quick instinct of his companions recognized the fact that something unpleasant had happened, and so, overcoming the chill which his voice and manner had thrown upon them, they thanked me for showing them the old house, and de clared that it was time for them to go home. Bidding me a hearty good-night, they started and went out of the gate. Henry lingered, holding my hand for a mo ment, and then, finding it impossible to shape the apol ogy he had evidently intended to make, abruptly left me, and joined the girls. They quickly passed out of sight, Claire tossing me a kiss as she disappeared, and I was left alone. I was, of course, more mystified than ever. I did not think it strange or ill-mannered for Henry to enter the dining-room unattended, for I had invited him in, I had kept him long waiting, and there was no one to be dis turbed by his entrance, as he knew ; but I was more convinced than ever that there was some strange con nection between that picture and his destiny and mine. I was convinced, too, that by some means he had recog nized the fact as well as I. I tossed upon my bed until midnight in nervous wakefulness, thinking it over, per mitting my imagination to construct a thousand im probable possibilities, and chafing under the pledge that forbade me to ask a question of friend or servant. It was a week before I saw him again, and then I found him quite self-possessed, though there was a shadow of restraint upon him. No allusion was made to the inci dent in the dining-room, and it gradually fell back into a memory, among the things that were, to be recalled years afterward in the grand crisis of my personal his tory. Not a day passed away in which Jenks did not inquire for the health of " the mistress." He seemed to be lost Arthur Bonnicastle. 195 without her, and to feel even more anxious for her health '.han I did. " How is she now ? " and " When does she say she is coming back ? " were always the inquiries, -ifter he had brought me a letter. One day I said to him : " I thought you did not like my Aunt. You were always wanting to get away from her." " I don't say that I do like her," said Jenks, with a quizzical expression of countenance, as if he were puz zled to know exactly what his feelings were, " but the fact is she's a good woman to get away from, and that's half the fun of living. When she's here I'm always thinking of leaving her, and that takes up the time and sets me contriving, you know." " You can't sail quite as much as you used to," I said, laughing. " No," said he, " I'm getting rather old for the sea, and I don't know but thinking of the salt water so much has given me the rheumatism. I'm as stiff as an old horse. Anyway, I can't get away until she comes back, if I want to ever so much. I've nothing to get away from." " Yes, Jenks," I said, " you and your mistress are both getting old. In a few years you'll both get away, and you will not return. Do you ever think of what will come after ? " "That's so," he responded, "and the thing that bothers me is that I can't get away from the place I go to, whether it's good or bad. How a man is going to kill time without some sort of contriving to get into a better place, I don't know. Do you think there's really such a place as heaven ? " " Of course I do." "No offence, sir," said Jenks, " but it seems to me sometimes as if it was only a sort of make-believe place, that people dream about just to pass away the time. 196 Arthur Bonnicastle. They go to meeting, and pray and sing, and take the sacrament, and talk about heaven and hell, and then they come home and laugh and carry on and work just the same as ever. It makes a nice way to pass Sunday, and it seems to me just about the same thing as sailing on an Atlas. One day they make believe very hard, and the next it's all over with. Everybody must have his fun, and everybody has his own way of getting it. Now, here's this Miss Lester down at Mr. Bradford's. She's got no end of .1 constitution, and takes it out in work. She goes to all the prayer-meetings, and knits piles of stockings for poor people ; but, dear me ! she has to do something, or else she couldn't live. So she tramps out in all sorts of weather, and takes solid com fort in getting wet and muddy, and amuses herself think ing she's doing good. It's just so with the stockings. She must knit 'em, anyway, and so she plays charity with 'em. I reckon we're all a good deal alike." " No, Jenks," I said, " there's really and truly such a place as heaven." " I s'pose there is," he responded, " but I don't see what I can do there. I can't sing." " And there's another place." " I s'pose there is that's what they say, and I don't see what I am going to do there, for I don't like the sort of people that live there. I never had anything to do with 'em here, and I won't have anything to do with 'em anywhere. I've always kept my own counsel and picked my own company, which has been mighty small, and I always expect to." These last remarks of Jenks were a puzzle to me. I really did not know what to say, at first, but there came back to me the memory of one of our early conversa tions, and I said : " What if she were to go to one place and you to the other ? " " Well," he replied, his thin lips twitching and quiv Arthur Bonnicastle. 197 ering, " I shouldn't be any worse off than I am now. She went to one place and I went to another a good while ago ; but do you really think people know one an other there ? " " I have no doubt of it," I replied. " Well, I shouldn't care where I was, if I could be with her, and everything was agreeable," said Jenks. " So you still remember her." " How do you s'pose I could live if I didn't ? " At this he excitedly unbuttoned the wristband of his left arm, and pulled up his sleeve, and there, pricked patiently into the skin, after the manner of sailors, were the two names in rude letters : " THEOPHILUS JENKS AND JANE WHITTLESEY." " I did it myself," said Jenks. " Every prick of the needle hurt me, but the more it hurt the happier I was, just to see the two names together where no man could rub 'em out ; and I think I could stand 'most anything else for the sake of being with her." I was much impressed by this revelation of the inner life of the simple old man, and the frankness with which he had given me his confidence. Laboring from day to day, year after year, in a position from which he had no hope of rising, he had his separate life of the affec tions and the imagination, and in this he held all his sat isfactions, and won all his modest mental and spiritual growth. At the close of our conversation I took out my watch, and, seeing that it was time for the mail, I sent him off to obtain it. When he returned, he brought me among other letters one from Mrs. Sanderson. He had placed it upon the top of the package, and, when he had handed it to me, he waited, as had become his custom, to learn the news from his mistress. When I had opened the letter and read a few lines, I exclaimed : " Oh, Jenks ! here's some great news foi you." And then I read from the letter : 198 Arthur Bonnicastle. " My physician says that I must have a daily drive upon tha beach, but I really do not feel as if I should take a moment of comfort without my old horse and carriage and my old driver. If you can manage to get along for two or three weeks with the cook, who is entirely able to take all the service of the house upon her hands, you may send Jenks to me with the horse and car riage. The road is very heavy, however, and it is best for him to put everything on the Belle of Bradford, and come with it him self. The Belle touches every day at our wharf, and the horse will be ready for service as soon as he lands." I read this without looking at Jenks' face, but when I finished I glanced at him, expecting to see him radiant with delight. I was therefore surprised to find him pale and trembling in every fibre of his frame. " That's just like an old woman," said Jenks. " How