GIFT OF 
 Hearst Fountain 
 
THE WINTER BELL 
 
BOOKS BY 
 HENRY M. RIDEOUT 
 
 The Winter Bell 
 
 Fern Seed 
 
 The Foot-Path Way 
 
 Tin Cowrie Dass 
 
 The Far Cry 
 
 Key of the Fields 
 
 and Boldero 
 The Siamese Cat 
 White Tiger 
 
 William Jones 
 
-6 
 
 11 
 
 n - 
 rt 
 
THE 
 
 WINTER BELL 
 
 By 
 HENRY MILNER RIDEOUT 
 
 ^)° ^** 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 DUFFIELD AND COMPANY 
 
 1922 
 
Copyright, 1922, by 
 DUFFIELD AND COMPANY 
 
 *r* 
 
 *s- 
 
 Printed in V. S. A. 
 
To 
 JAMES ARTHUR BALLENTINE 
 
 WITH ALL THAT IS IMPLIED IN 
 LONG FRIENDSHIP 
 
 4 7 S 3 6 5 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 With rapid sureness of touch he printed 
 across the board, gripped flat between his 
 knees, "Sackamore." . . . Frontispiece 
 
 "Good evening, Mr. Delaforce," she said 
 gravely. "How do you do?" . Page 36 
 
 With a swoop, a lightning shift of hands, a 
 bend, clutch and heave in one motion, 
 Salem had the man aloft. . . Page 110 
 
 "No feelin's to hurt, hey?" rumbled the 
 deep voice of Captain Constantine. "Good. 
 Fust-rate. The clear thing." . . Page 142 
 
THE WINTER BELL 
 
THE WINTER BELL 
 
 I 
 
 In all the last thin drift of snowstorm that 
 swept the lake and made it a wilderness without 
 borders, there appeared only one dark object. 
 This was a man on snowshoes, who came with 
 the wind at his back. Smoking flights of dry 
 snow continually outstripped him; his breath 
 whirled a'head and vanished in them; so that his 
 advance over the white waste had a labored air, 
 as if he were lagging amid universal hurry. 
 
 Anyone who had tried to keep pace with him 
 would have found this retardation a mere fancy, 
 perhaps a painful fancy after half an hour or so; 
 for Salem Delaforce was moving rapidly, with 
 a light swing more trot than walk. A white 
 rabbit, hanging dead at his waist in front, jog- 
 gled as if trying limply to run, head downward. 
 Big-boned, spare, Salem had even in winter wrap- 
 
 s 
 
4 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 pings a look of slenderness which, like his pres- 
 ent gait, deceived the eye. Kersey trousers 
 tucked into yellow oil-tanned "larrigans," and an 
 old brownish blanket coat mottled with ermine- 
 like dabs of pale red and gray, hung loose upon 
 him to disguise the power of his frame. Snow 
 plastered his back, but was chafed away by a 
 shotgun that swung there, its muzzle ringed with 
 two frozen doughnuts. Melting snow on the 
 lashes fringed his dark brown eyes ; through mois- 
 ture as of tears they looked out, steady, thought- 
 ful, young, and very bright. His cheeks glowed. 
 
 Once he halted and turned impulsively to face 
 the wind. The white rabbit hanging at his waist 
 had its fur immediately blown into ruffled partings. 
 
 "Lord, forgot again I" said the hunter angrily. 
 "Thought he was followhV me. Never no more." 
 
 He peered for a moment into the snow. It 
 pricked his face like needles. Yet the range 
 of his vision over the lake had widened, for these 
 flying wraiths began to lose their whiteness. The 
 wind whistled in his gun barrel. There was also 
 a hissing, gritty sound that streamed by, a sound 
 as of sifting, very faint, but notable, a change 
 throughout the solitude. 
 
 "Goin' to sleet." Salem went forward again. 
 "I keep thinkin' he's after me. Never no more." 
 
THE WINTER BELL 5 
 
 The youngster's dark eyes contracted, his lips 
 worked strangely. He rubbed one snow-crusted 
 mitten roughly across them, and then, like a man 
 who had driven away some pain of body or grief 
 of mind, went swinging on with the wind, his 
 face hard set, almost grim. 
 
 "We'll git a thaw pooty quick." 
 
 His bear-paw snowshoes left their oval prints 
 in a track which, so far as it could be seen, drew 
 a rigidly straight line on the snow. Without 
 need of thought, by homing instinct, from one 
 hidden point far behind toward another far 
 aihead, through blind swirling space he had come 
 direct; and now this change in the air — a slight 
 clearing while drifts no longer spun upward from 
 the lake, and the snowfall turned as from fine 
 dry salt to pellets of sago — affected his march not 
 at all. He kept the same course, the same untir- 
 ing, rapid jog. 
 
 Half an hour later he swerved from this bee 
 line. A bald round patch of ice lay before him, 
 clean swept in a freak by the wind, like a pond 
 made ready for skaters. He began to skirt the 
 left-hand margin, but when halfway round, 
 stopped. 
 
 On the opposite rim of the ice appeared an- 
 other dark object. At first glance it resembled 
 
6 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 the butt of a small log; at second glance, an up- 
 rooted stump with a brown clod of earth. 
 
 Salem turned and went quickly toward it, his 
 snowshoes clattering and slipping as on green 
 glass. 
 
 It was, or had been, a man. The head, 
 shoulders, and one arm lay on the ice, all the rest 
 hidden, as if he had pulled up a coverlet before 
 going to sleep. The face, turned away, had its 
 right cheek frozen in, and a wisp of snow across 
 the left eye like a bandage. 
 
 Salem crouched on one knee, looked intently, 
 then came upright again. He took, it might have 
 been thought, great pains not to touch this body. 
 The wind, as before, prolonged a droning whistle 
 in his gun barrel, and when he spoke, wrenched 
 the words out of his lips. 
 
 "It's Asy Beard." 
 
 The dead man's face had nothing of that dig- 
 nity which sometimes is granted. Even by what 
 few features were revealed it had a mean, wolfish 
 look. The lips, parted as if to sneer, clung hard 
 along broken teeth, tobacco-stained, that looked 
 all canine. Two kinds of snow, fine and coarse, 
 had pelted into the rusty brown stiff hair, and 
 gave it the likeness, cruelly exact, of a bit of old 
 doormat. 
 
THE WINTER BELL 7 
 
 The living man's face remained inscrutable. 
 The color of health and storm-blown exercise, 
 darkly flaming in his cheeks, could not alter. His 
 eyes did not, perhaps : they contained much mus- 
 ing, some natural pity, but no dread and no 
 surprise. 
 
 "Well, Asy," he said, "guess we're even now. 
 Him that dies pays all off." 
 
 He stooped again, and after a longer interval 
 than before, again rose. 
 
 "You're fast to the ice. Ain't got nothin' with 
 me. Some pesky thief carried off my axe." 
 
 It was no weather to stand still in, but for a 
 time the young man waited there, keeping his 
 fellow creature company. When at last he went 
 forward the sleet as it drove was dissolving into 
 a chill rain. Not far ahead the end of the lake 
 grew visible, a cove where land and water were 
 marked off only by smooth-curving snowbanks, 
 with here and there a clump of willow switches 
 or the long white slant of a buried pine trunk 
 fallen years ago. Above these, darkening the 
 cove, stood firs all padded white on the windward 
 side, all green and shadow-black on the leeward. 
 Above their jagged points, in turn, low hills ad- 
 vanced through the departing sleet, some dark 
 evergreen, others — bare rock too steep for snow 
 
8 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 to cling on — a grayness lined vertically with 
 thread's of white birch. 
 
 Midway in the cove Salem climbed ashore, 
 pausing at a hole chopped in the ice, and a stake 
 on which hung a black tin can upside down. He 
 broke the new ice in the hole, filled the can, then 
 went straight toward the deepest bend of the fir 
 wall. Here, muffled with snow, hidden like an 
 animal by its marking, a cabin crouched among 
 the boughs. He passed round this and entered-* 
 a small clearing behind. 
 
 At the back of the clearing a fire burned low 
 under an iron pot. It had been a large fire, for 
 up the nearest white wall reached an evergreen 
 band where snow had melted from fir tips, and 
 round its embers in a wide ring last year's wood- 
 land carpet lay bared — yellow grass, leather- 
 brown brakes, the dark red gloss of old checker- 
 berry leaves, and one bright green spray of 
 princess pine. Smoke still mounted into the driz- 
 zle, and the rim of the pot lid steamed. 
 
 Bringing dry wood from a lean-to behind his 
 cabin, Salem gathered his fallen fire and made it 
 high again. 
 
 "Like to ketch the thief," he told himself, 
 "that moseyed off with my axe." 
 
 While the fresh blaze was growing he laid his 
 
THE WINTER BELL 9 
 
 mittens on the pot, removed from his gun barrel 
 the frozen doughnuts, placed them to thaw be- 
 side the mittens, and set some willow-bark tea 
 brewing in the tin can. He worked with method, 
 like one who used time thriftily but had no need 
 for haste. From the lean-to, where he hung 
 under cover his gun and the white rabbit, he 
 brought an oblong bit of pine board, a hammer, 
 some old crooked hand-wrought nails, a two- 
 foot wooden stake, a hoe, a shovel, a corner of 
 broken glass, and a flat, rusty iron fragment of 
 sled runner. This last he poked into the fire. 
 Then, taking off snowshoes, he sat on one be- 
 neath a bough, arranged the other as a table or 
 workbench, and so, warmed by the fire, sheltered 
 from the mist, continued quietly busy. 
 
 "Go down to Corp'ration House, ought to, 
 and tell 'em about Asy Beard." With the broken 
 glass he smoothed one surface of the pine board. 
 " 'Tain't right to leave him layin' out there. But 
 no good my tellin' 'em after dark. Better start 
 to-morrow daylight in the mornin', git there early 
 forenoon, then keep on down to Middle Landin' 
 store. Make one journey of two arrants." 
 
 Having smoothed the board, Salem turned to 
 his noonday meal. It was lean fare, nothing 
 but willow-bark tea and the pair of moist, luke- 
 
to THE WINTER BELL 
 
 warm doughnuts. He ate and drank like a stoic 
 whose thoughts went elsewhere. 
 
 "Le's see what we want to the store — besides 
 a axe. Tea's give out, tobacco's give out. 
 Matches, and maybe a little sugar." 
 
 He soon fell to work again. With the board 
 gripped flat between his knees he drew from the 
 heart of the fire his broken sled runner. Its point 
 glowed orange red, starred with tiny bright 
 sparks that vanished. Round its cooler end he 
 wrapped a wet mitten. It made an awkward 
 tool, all weight and no balance; but in Salem's 
 thin brown hands it quivered no more than a 
 pencil. With rapid sureness of touch, unhindered 
 by the smoke curling thickly upward, he wrote or 
 printed across the board. His lettering was neat, 
 his alignment true. 
 
 "sackamore" 
 
 Delaforce laid his branding iron down, blew 
 off the charred powder, and shook his head. 
 
 "Can't even spell," he grumbled. "Prob'ly 
 ain't right. I don't know nothing." 
 
 He nailed the board to the stake, put it aside 
 with his tools, brought out from one pocket an 
 old cheap wooden pipe, from another some dried 
 willow bark mixed with sweet fern, and compos- 
 
THE WINTER BELL n 
 
 ing himself cross-legged, took a meditative smoke. 
 He had not rested since daybreak. Even now he 
 was only waiting for the fire to burn low 
 again; and by the time his second pipeful went 
 out he waited no longer, but impatiently rising, 
 lifted the iron pot away, grasped his hoe, and 
 began to tear down the fire. 
 
 "Git it over with." 
 
 He dug fiercely, scattering brands and coals 
 that hissed as they turned black and bedded them- 
 selves in snow. Under the ashes appeared a 
 shallow trench, its floor and walls of half-thawed 
 mud. Salem cut them deeper and wider, until 
 his hoe sliced through glassy honeycomb, the crys- 
 tals of the frost. He then poured in scalding 
 water from the pot, waited, and after the steam 
 had cleared from a new depth of mud, began 
 hoeing again. This process he repeated many 
 times. When the pot was empty and the hoe 
 could fetch out no more chips of frozen earth, 
 he drove the stake in upright at the far end of 
 the hole, so that board and legend stood facing 
 him, level with the ground. 
 
 "Have to do. Deep as I can manage." 
 
 He waded among the trees, and with a knife 
 slashed off an armful of small fir branches. Car- 
 rying them, the young man would have had a 
 
12 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 Christmaslike air but for the steady Indian sad- 
 ness of his eyes. 
 
 "Better for him than bare ground." 
 
 He lined the pit carefully with the Christmas 
 greens, placing and replacing them till every tip 
 lay in order. 
 
 "There." 
 
 His next action was to clear away tools, all 
 but the shovel. Having done this he went round 
 to the door of the cabin. 
 
 "Can't hardly bear to go in." 
 
 Salem wiped his snowshoes cleaner than usual, 
 grasping at any means of delay. It was with 
 reluctance, visible effort, that he opened the door 
 and entered. His dwelling, one room sheathed 
 with black paper, and very dark by contrast even 
 with the subdued, rainy light of the woods, con- 
 tained a stove, a bunk, table and chairs, a cup- 
 board, tiers of stove wood against the wall, and 
 along the rafters a few spare clothes, household 
 goods, and small pelts of fur. Salem hung his 
 snowshoes by the foot holes on a nail in the black 
 paper. He stood for a moment irresolute. 
 
 Across the room in his bunk lay something cov- 
 ered with a blanket, like a child hiding and keep- 
 ing still. As though it were a child Delaforce 
 lifted and carried this bundle outdoors. 
 
THE WINTER BELL 13 
 
 What he unwrapped and lowered into the 
 evergreen grave was the body of a white bull 
 terrier. He was very slow in laying the firs over 
 it, but swift in putting back the clotted earth. 
 
 "You was a good friend. None better." 
 
 He rose to look at the board and his dog's 
 name. 
 
 "I won't never forget you." His face was 
 hard while he spoke, but not his eyes. "Part o' 
 the best days o' my life buried with you." 
 
 The rain had ceased when darkness came that 
 night, and with darkness a still and bitter frost 
 creeping to the heart of the woods. No air 
 stirred. Even the dry leaves of a young beech 
 near the cabin, that since last autumn had waggled 
 and whispered foolishly in lesser silences, were 
 dumb. Salem, eating a late supper by the light 
 of a candle end, now heard the fire snap cheer- 
 fully in the stove behind him, now listened to 
 trees groaning far off, to noises harsh and brittle 
 as the breaking of a file. 
 
 There were left in his plate some bones of the 
 rabbit he had brought home. Without thinking 
 Salem took one of these and held it round behind 
 his chair. 
 
 "Here you are," he said. 
 
 The stillness recalled him. He looked down, 
 
i4 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 saw the empty floor, dashed the bone furiously 
 from his hand, and turning, blew out the candle. 
 
 Frost veiled the bottom of each windowpane, 
 but left at the top a curved space clear. Cold stars 
 glittered above the whiteness where his enemy 
 lay. They could not throw unwelcome light into 
 this room from which his friend had gone, or 
 know that he saw them as crosses. 
 
II 
 
 Well filled with hardwood, the stove always 
 kept its fire going for two hours. A light sleeper, 
 Salem had formed the habit of rousing before 
 the room grew cold, so that his night was broken 
 at regular intervals. From deep slumber he came 
 quietly awake, each time to find a bed of coals 
 glowing like orange-red flowers, to cover them 
 with kindling, split birch, and round maple, to 
 glance at the starlight for signs of weather, and 
 to be next moment in his bunk asleep for two 
 hours more. 
 
 Dawn found him on foot, beginning his day. 
 The frost no longer murmured or groaned with- 
 out. A gentle clashing and crackle seemed to 
 fill the obscurity. On every windowpane the 
 little hill-and-valley landscape of frost work 
 had thickened with furry whiteness during the 
 night, but left near its top a loophole of melting 
 glaze through which the outdoor world shone as 
 a mist of intense pale blue. This color and the 
 
 15 
 
1 6 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 strange airy clashing pervaded all things like a 
 wonder that longed to be understood. 
 
 Salem was aware of it. He knew the sound, 
 he felt the quality of the light. 
 
 "Lon'some mornin's without you, Sack," was 
 all he said. "Maybe Duster Whiteneck's kep' 
 one of them pups of yours, to town. I'll haf to 
 see Duster. If he'd sell, take along my black- 
 cat skin." 
 
 For breakfast he had what was left of the 
 rabbit stew, warmed over with hardtack sopped 
 in gravy, and more willow tea ; no meal to linger 
 over. The sun had not risen when he stepped 
 outdoors, though all the mysterious pale blue 
 vapor was gone, and the clear eastern sky bright- 
 ening. From the cabin eaves a row of new icicles 
 hung, broad and short, in the Saxon tooth pattern. 
 
 "Crust'll hold. Don't need ye." Talking thus 
 to his snowshoes he slung them with his gun on 
 his back. "May, though, comin' home." 
 
 Over his breast like a magnificent boa he car- 
 ried some furs — two of mink, one of musquash, 
 and one, somewhat like sable, which he called 
 his black-cat, the rare and beautiful fur of a fisher. 
 Any expert would have admired the skinning and 
 cleaning. Salem betrayed no pride, but counted 
 them and smoothed the hair. Each had been 
 
THE WINTER BELL 17 
 
 shot through the head by a man who de- 
 spised traps. He shouldered two long faggot- 
 like bundles of split hoop poles, cast a look at 
 the cabin to see all tight, and set out briskly. 
 
 The footing held, as he had predicted. Every- 
 where below the trees undulated a surface glim- 
 mering with dull polish like that on the icing of 
 cake. Now and then it cracked under his moc- 
 casin boots, leaving a wide shallow depression, 
 where powdery snow burst upward among 
 triangular plates of crust; but this happened sel- 
 dom, for he went with a practised gliding step 
 as clean and true as the motion of a skater. Be- 
 tween the firs an abandoned logging road, un- 
 broken, flowed like a white brook. It brought 
 him suddenly out upon Lambkill Heath while the 
 sun was clearing the evergreen tops. 
 
 "Gorry, but she's handsome!" thought Salem. 
 
 The heath, its buried tufts wavy with bluish hol- 
 lows and white mounds, dazzled him as the early 
 sunshine poured across. But this was nothing to 
 the glory that ringed it about, far and near. A 
 crystal forest shone with twinkling white fire. 
 Young birches, maples and poplars, ice coated, 
 their boughs drooped like weeping willow, caught 
 the full blaze of morning sun in a network brighter 
 than jewels. Whenever a breath of wind stirred, 
 
i8 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 the twigs, like so many thousand glass pendants, 
 clattered faintly and swung on from tree to tree 
 a passing lustre that sparkled along the entire wall 
 of the woods. 
 
 Walking high over the heath-top waves, Dela- 
 force did not stop to admire. He felt an exalta- 
 tion on his journey; but this was gone next 
 moment when he saw his long-drawn shadow 
 traveling alone, with no dog's shadow trotting 
 after on the snow; he had known more than one 
 silver thaw; and though in the middle of the 
 heath he paused, it was only to listen. 
 
 Through the crackling brightness of the en- 
 chanted forest he heard a sound. It came from 
 behind him, perhaps more than a mile away, but 
 clear in the winter air — the ringing of a bell, 
 a little bell with a mellow tone, jangled slowly in 
 broken rhythm, as if by an uncertain but persever- 
 ing hand. 
 
 "A sled comin' down lake," thought Salem. 
 "Pity the shanks of any poor hoss, crustin* it 
 to-day." 
 
 With a few last single notes the bell stopped 
 ringing. Salem waited, but heard it no longer, 
 and started on. Ringing or silent, it did not 
 mean much to him at the time. 
 
 His track, the disused logging road, began 
 
THE WINTER BELL 19 
 
 once more across the heath and curved through 
 the brilliant crystal wood where every twig hung 
 down to end in a sunlit drop of icicle. From 
 this he plunged into evergreen darkness, which 
 continued for an hour or more. Once the smooth 
 white ribbon of crust was broken; something 
 heavy had wallowed across it to go smashing on 
 through the firs; and Salem, who knew this dam- 
 age for the work of a bear, dropped his mer- 
 chandise, unslung his gun, crawled among boughs 
 and loosened snow, jumped up, and ran like an 
 Indian along the edge of the bear's track. Not so 
 fresh as it looked, after two miles of hot pursuit 
 it vanished among naked crags and horsebacks, 
 gray, wind-swept rock. Without look or gesture of 
 disappointment Salem returned quietly to take up 
 his furs and hoop poles again. 
 
 The sun was high when he came down Rum- 
 Time Hill toward the flowage. Here his old for- 
 gotten road joined a stream that wandered away 
 from the lake. Ice had now melted off the trees, 
 their fairyland shining departed; so that under 
 little promontory shadows a lilac mist of alders, 
 a tawny mist of willows, followed the crooks of 
 the flowage, which revealed itself here as black 
 ice, there as thin curved patches of crust. 
 
 "Gained on me." 
 
20 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 Salem halted, and listened. 
 
 The little mellow bell was jangling once more, 
 slowly, not far upstream. Once more it made 
 fitful music in the solitude, as if rung by an un- 
 certain but persevering hand. He had no knowl- 
 edge of how that hand could persevere, or how, 
 to some book-learned persons, it might have 
 seemed the hand of a blind goddess who comes 
 at her own pace everywhere. 
 
 By early afternoon he sighted Corporation 
 House, a gray sag-roofed cabin, relic of other 
 days, that lingered, not yet ready to fall, where 
 dry cat-tails whispered and shivered in a frozen 
 marsh. From its chimney smoke went mounting 
 past frayed hackmatack points on a sky of more 
 than midsummer blue. Salem climbed the bank, 
 tossed his long hoop-pole faggots down, knocked 
 at the door, and put his head inside. It wias a 
 familiar room that he saw, gloomy, though lighted 
 by one square window in the opposite gable. It 
 smelled of hay mattresses and of green wood try- 
 ing to burn. 
 
 "And so the old man," droned a lazy voice 
 from somewhere on the floor — u so the old feller 
 he muckles to his pipe, and he squats, and s'e, 
 'Chop 'em down, Dan; I feel like rottinV " 
 
 Some interminable story paused, while two 
 
THE WINTER BELL 21 
 
 listeners gazed at the open door and the new- 
 comer. They sat smoking, each on the end of a 
 bunk, with a rusty stove between them. 
 
 "Hallo, Sale," said one. He was a long, dark, 
 thin, melancholy young man. 
 
 "Why, Sale Delfers, 'tis." The second, who 
 looked like the first in a disguise of age, with white 
 hair and narrow white whisker, peered and made 
 sure before speaking. "How'd ye git here, 
 Sale?" 
 
 "Afoot." Salem knew the pair well. It was 
 Pum Redman, of Wing Dam, and his father. 
 "How are ye? And Trapper Kingcome still 
 a-layin' behind the stove tellin' lies?" 
 
 The floor trembled as a great weight shifted 
 on the boards, and next moment a face like a red 
 and freckled moon rose, grinning, through the 
 blur of heat waves that danced above the stove. 
 
 "Hallo, boy!" This interrupted story-teller 
 was a huge, broad man, all solid flesh and lazy 
 good humor. His pale red hair seemed to flicker 
 in the heat, his pale blue eyes to wink between 
 raddled slumber and acute watching. "Come in, 
 shut the door, we hain't brass monkeys. Afoot, 
 hey? And alon'? Where's dog?" 
 
 Salem entered. 
 
 "Someb'dy poisoned him on me," he replied. 
 
22 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 "Who?" All three men spoke at once. Young 
 Pum, of Wing Dam, shook his head mournfully; 
 old Pum removed his pipe to stare; Trapper 
 Kingcome swore loud and deep. "Who did?" 
 
 "I do' know." Salem tugged off his mittens 
 and spread his hands over the stove. "What I 
 come down to tell ye was, Asy Beard's dead. 
 And git help. Found him fast to the lake, half 
 froze in. Out on the ice not fur from my cove. 
 Didn't have nothin' to chop him free." 
 
 Silence greeted this news; a silence which, as 
 Delaforce went on warming his hands, was grad- 
 ually broken by the jangle of the solitary bell out- 
 doors. 
 
 "That's goin' to look bad, maybe, Sale," said 
 Kingcome quietly. 
 
 Salem glanced up in surprise. He found them 
 all watching him as if with doubt. 
 
 "What's goin' to?" 
 
 "You and Asy fought over that dog," declared 
 Trapper. 
 
 "So we did, last fall. I licked him fair," said 
 Salem. "And Asy twenty pound heavier than 
 me. A good twenty." 
 
 Trapper's moon face, dotted and flaming, wore 
 an unwonted gravity. 
 
 "Fo'ks'll think " He paused and shook 
 
THE WINTER BELL 23 
 
 his big head. u Asy Beard swore to kill that 
 
 dog, and you 'lowed if he did Fo'ks heard 
 
 ye, Sale. You said 'twould be the last dog ever 
 he'd lay his dirty hand on." 
 
 Young Pum gave a disconsolate nod. 
 
 "Yeah," said he. "That's right, too.' 1 
 
 Salem, with his hands outspread but forgotten, 
 stared from one to another of these men. He 
 felt great amazement and a little anger. They 
 were all three good friends of his. 
 
 "Why, what in tunket ails ye?" he cried. "I 
 never touched him!" 
 
 What his hearers thought of this declaration 
 he could not fathom. They continued to eye 
 him strangely. The mellow clanging of the sled 
 bell quickened and came with a final hurry, a 
 slap-slap of trace chains on thills, and the sharp- 
 edged noise of runners ripping the crust. A pause 
 followed, a moment of stillness; and then a voice 
 hailed Corporation House. 
 
 "Hey! Who's in?" 
 
 All four men went to the door without haste. 
 
 The keen blue sky, the afternoon sunlight on 
 the snow, made them blink like drowsy animals 
 coming out of a cavern. Below them, close at 
 hand, two ragged lines of bush tops marked where 
 the road curved between flowage and cat-tail 
 
24 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 marsh ; and here a steaming bay horse, his winter 
 coat frosted white down his neck, along his collar 
 and round the root of his tail, stood harnessed to 
 a sled. A pair of strangers, bulky in fur coats, 
 one of black bear and one of brown-dyed sheep- 
 skin, clung each to a stake and peered upward. 
 What little of their faces could be seen glowed 
 fiery. Between them on the sled lay something 
 flat under a blanket. 
 
 The driver, in the bearskin, wrapped his reins 
 round a sled stake and beckoned. 
 
 "We got a dead man here." He spoke not 
 without gusto. "Found him on the lake this 
 mornin'. Come see if it's anybody ye know." 
 
 The Redmans, father and son, obeyed. Trap- 
 per Kingcome, as he began to follow, gave Salem 
 a brief stare, remarkable in such lazy pale orbs 
 for its hardness. 
 
 U I don't want to look on him again," said 
 Salem, and remained leaning in the doorway. 
 
 He saw the driver stoop unwieldily to roll 
 back the horse blanket, while his friends gathered 
 in line, forming with the strangers a wall of 
 backs that hid the sled. He heard the driver's 
 tone of relish and importance. 
 
 "We been up there gittin' out knees for the 
 Grecian Bend. . . . Yeah. You know her: three- 
 
THE WINTER BELL 25 
 
 master, is to be, on Honey Cocksall's ways. . 
 Yeah. Coming out this forenoon we run acrost 
 this poor feller." The exhibitor lowered his 
 voice. It rumbled on. u Hit him 'bove the right 
 ear with the blunt of a axe. . . . What I say. 
 . . . Yeah. There's the axe. Found her under 
 the snow alongside him. . . . What was left o' 
 snowshoe tracks, them bobtail kind, plain enough 
 in the crust f'm where he laid to a camp ashore. 
 Who lived there?" 
 
 Salem heard no answer; but he saw Kingcome's 
 great bulk move. Quietly, as if having seen 
 enough, Trapper drew back and turned saunter- 
 ing up to the house. 
 
 He passed in without a look, but whispered 
 fiercely from the corner of his mouth, "Come 
 here, Sale! Come here!" 
 
 No sooner had the young man joined him than 
 with the same ferocity, quick and silent as a 
 pouncing cat, he closed the door, gripped Salem's 
 arm, and swung him across the room to the bunk 
 below the gable window. His free hand was 
 holding out a little heap of silver coins and dirty 
 green paper. 
 
 "You take this. All I got on me." His broad, 
 freckled face burned with excitement. "Out that 
 winder, and make tracks acrost the border! 
 
26 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 Quick! The man's a depatty shariff down to 
 Middle Landin\ I know him. He's got your 
 axe. You're the only one round here wears that 
 pattrun o' snowshoe. Come, shin outl" 
 
 Salem did nothing but look bewilderment. He 
 had never seen Trapper like this, transformed, 
 except in time of danger to somebody else. It 
 was the trait by which the gross lounger and 
 gossip had first won him. 
 
 "No." He pushed Kingcome's hand away. 
 
 "Take it. Pay me back when ye git some- 
 wheres safe." 
 
 Not Trapper's words but his eyes, began to 
 have meaning. 
 
 "What?" cried Salem in horror. "Do you think 
 I done it?" 
 
 The other let go his arm, tried to stifle his 
 mouth. 
 
 "Never mind what I think! You git! Clear 
 out or they'll hang ye, boy." 
 
 Footsteps and voices were coming up the 
 bank. 
 
 "I never touched him," said Salem. His brown 
 eyes rebuked this friend. "Told ye so once 
 a'ready." 
 
 A deliberate, padded knocking sounded 
 throughout the room; somebody at the threshold 
 
THE WINTER BELL 27 
 
 kicked snow from his moccasins. The door began 
 to open. 
 
 "Oh, why didn' ye?" Trapper groaned, and 
 sat down on the bunk like one exhausted. "Never 
 knowed such a young fooll" 
 
Ill 
 
 One day in the following spring Salem had 
 reason to think his friend Trapper Kingcome 
 right. It was a very fine day. With eyes closed 
 or eyesight lost a man would have known how 
 fine, and of what season; for besides an unmis- 
 takable new mildness in the air, that smell of 
 drying mud which is more delicate than perfume 
 told how earth lay warming, released from 
 winter, uncovered to the sun. Whiffs came now 
 and then from a distant bonfire, aromatic smoke 
 of burning evergreen; these having drifted by, 
 there settled a warm drowsiness through which 
 pine lumber diffused its clean, hearty scent; and 
 in fits of energy, broken by silence and rest, a 
 horsewhip beat on a carpet, volleying broad 
 smacks that echoed. 
 
 Salem had not gone blind. The feeling of 
 spring ran in his veins, at once languid and 
 restless, a current overcharged with winter 
 vitality which prompted him to be doing yet 
 checked him by a sleepy surfeit. He knew the 
 season for spring, acknowledged the glory of 
 
 28 
 
THE WINTER BELL 29 
 
 the day. He sat on a bench in the town jail of 
 Crossport. 
 
 The walls that imprisoned him had once been 
 whitewashed, but now were a crazy patchwork of 
 bare lath, of old lime scratched with obscene words 
 and pictures, and of great brown spider-legged 
 stains left by tobacco juice. One barred window, 
 without glass, admitted near the ceiling enough 
 reflection of sunlight to reveal the broken plaster, 
 from which hung little pinches of reddish cow's 
 hair, and darker knobs where some bygone cap- 
 tive, furious or jocose, had flung his quids to 
 dry. It was a doleful room. It was perhaps the 
 worst place on earth, for a woodsman who had 
 always gone free, to sit in and be reminded of the 
 spring. 
 
 "Don't you go nigh it no more." One self 
 spoke to the other self; and weary of their end- 
 less wrangle night and day Salem crouched, elbows 
 on knees, to glare downward. "You keep away 
 from that winder." 
 
 He knew little about towns or difference of 
 neighborhood, nothing about what he called 
 lock-up houses. This ramshackle den, long 
 scandalous to many decent persons, and soon to 
 be pulled down, he thought was devised, main- 
 tained so throughout ages for a peculiar torment 
 
3 o THE WINTER BELL 
 
 and disgrace. Outside his window lived the scum 
 of the river, wharf-rat men and women ; to Salem, 
 in the modesty of ignorance, they were his fel- 
 lows, his equals, mankind gathered against him 
 terribly in judgment. 
 
 He glared down between his feet, seeing a 
 black depth and hating this mankind. 
 
 What had happened before, and what he sat 
 dreading most, now happened again. The dim 
 light above him fluttered. He looked up quickly 
 and watched, as before, vague lines of shadow 
 on the ceiling join and divide like scissors. 
 
 Then a voice outside called — the voice of 
 someone with a happy thought — "Hey! Le's 
 go see the murd'rer!" 
 
 "Where is he?" answered another. "Where 
 they keepin' him?" 
 
 "Right over here." 
 
 He knew what sound would come next. It 
 came, a scrambling and kicking of boots on clap- 
 boards. For the twentieth time that day the 
 window grew dark, and Salem hardened himself 
 to meet the stare of another enemy. Hands 
 gripped the bars; a head, black against the patch 
 of glowing sky, hung motionless for what seemed 
 a long time, for what was in fact so long that 
 the blackness took on features — a heavy nose, 
 
THE WINTER BELL 31 
 
 thick lips, and all the foolish countenance of a 
 young green-eyed lout, grinning with broad teeth. 
 
 "Hallo!" This thing, like the others, gave a 
 chuckle made somewhat breathless by the effort 
 of holding on. "Hey, how's your neck? It'll 
 know 'fore long how many hund'ed ye weigh 
 behind, a-settin' on air." 
 
 The mocker dropped from sight, and left the 
 window clear. Some kind of playful combat fol- 
 lowed outside, with bumps and whiskings and 
 feminine squeaks. 
 
 "I'll hold ye up jest like a baby." 
 
 "O-o-oh, quit that!" 
 
 "Sure. I'll histe ye. Hain't it a good pow'ful 
 hand? Set yer pretty little instep right int' the 
 palm of it. Come on, don't be scairt o' me." 
 
 "Oh, git out, ye great big tomfool! Some- 
 b'dy'll see us." 
 
 Again the window became darkened. A young 
 woman was looking in. She had bright eyes, a 
 hard unvirtuous face, and a silly, gurgling laugh 
 like a lie in her throat. While she gazed as into 
 the den of a wild beast, pretending fear, her eyes 
 beheld nothing and cared less, for they soon 
 turned to cast their distracted light outward and 
 down, in leers of false merriment, sham affection. 
 
 "Oh," she cried pertly, "ain't he horruble?" 
 
 J 
 
32 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 The word expressed what Salem was thinking 
 of her. 
 
 "You quit that ! Le' go ! Behave ! I'll sock 
 you one!'* 
 
 Her flushed face was gone, the room brighter 
 for its absence. 
 
 "Look 's if he'd like to murder us too," said 
 her voice. 
 
 "Set-fire 'f he don't!" the other agreed. "Haw, 
 haw!" 
 
 The pair moved away, dallying. Salem heard 
 their empty jokes, watched their shadows wheel 
 across the plaster overhead to sink among corner 
 cobwebs, and when alone once more fell back 
 into his brooding rage. The last few days had 
 taught him what mankind was like; yes, and 
 womankind. They came to look at him for 
 sport. He sat here with his griefs, "like a 
 passel o* baboons in a cage," he told himself, 
 while other baboons came and grinned at him all 
 day. This latest couple had seemed the worst; 
 he could bear no more of them ; and now as time 
 went slowly by the silence failed to bring comfort, 
 because at any moment they might break it again. 
 His mind was all one raw place that winced in 
 expectation. Or if he made a struggle to forget, 
 then began once more that wrangling of one self 
 
THE WINTER BELL 33 
 
 with the other. Salem had never known before 
 that there were two of him. Misfortune, like a 
 wedge in a block, had split the man's fibre, which, 
 being hard and clean, therefore parted groaning. 
 He tried to rejoin the divided halves; but when 
 by pure will he succeeded and held himself to- 
 gether, it was only to think; and thought which 
 did not bear on action, which led toward nothing 
 simple and direct to be done at once, chafed 
 against every torn habit of his life with intol- 
 erable pain. 
 
 "Nothin' don't seem to fit no more," said 
 Salem. 
 
 The light on the ceiling faded, in time, then 
 took a new direction, and brightened. He knew 
 these changes. Early afternoon had dragged 
 past, late afternoon slowly swung toward eve- 
 ning. He was beginning to hope there would be 
 no more visitors that day. 
 
 u Ev'body in town must 'a' seen me by now." 
 
 But the raw place had still to be prodded. 
 More quietly than was usual, without kicking of 
 clapboards or preparatory joking, someone else 
 had come. Two big freckled fists laid hold of 
 the bars, and like a freckled moon with rays of 
 pale red hair a face heaved up its chin over the 
 sill. 
 
34 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 "Listen here, boy." 
 
 It was the faithless friend, Trapper Kingcome. 
 
 "They tolt me you wouldn' hear o' no lawyer," 
 he whispered. "That right, Sale? Got ye a 
 lawyer yit?" 
 
 Salem answered only with a long look. 
 
 "You git ye one," said Trapper, in wheedling 
 tones. "Don't go playin' the off ox like that. 
 Nob'dy'll believe ye, alon\ You git ye a good 
 lawyer, 'fore to-morrer." 
 
 Salem sprang up, caught his bench by the end, 
 and swung it like a weapon. 
 
 "You put!" he growled. 
 
 He took only one step forward; there were 
 bars between them; the stout Charley Kingcome 
 was no coward; but something deadly in the fire 
 of Salem's eyes made him drop from the window 
 as for dear life. Salem turned, replaced the 
 bench, and sat down without another word. 
 
 For a while he heard Trapper's voice, beyond 
 the wall. He took no heed of what the man 
 might be saying. What had been said was enough, 
 and remained there like a persistent echo in the 
 darkness. 
 
 "Nob'dy'll believe ye." 
 
 It was enough. All men were liars. 
 
 Silence followed; probably a long silence, 
 
THE WINTER BELL 35 
 
 for his wrists — and they were not those of 
 a weakling — began to ache like the head which 
 they supported. A horsefly, the earliest of the 
 year, buzzed round the room, tapped the wall 
 with light rasping touches, and made its aimless- 
 ness a part of the world's vacancy. Toward sun- 
 set, this too fell quiet. 
 
 Afterward, from outside, there suddenly rose 
 a brief grating and thumping, as of some hollow 
 object that was dragged along the ground. 
 
 "Hallo!" someone hailed from above the 
 window. "What ye doin' down there ?" 
 
 It was the drawl of old Denny, who kept the 
 lock-up house and dwelt overhead. Jailer, pound- 
 master, and mild bugbear of truants from school, 
 he was known to look on his duties with a blear- 
 eyed philosophical neglect, through haze from a 
 black Woodstock pipe. Salem could hear the rat- 
 tletrap balcony creak under his deliberate, stock- 
 ing-footed tread. 
 
 "What ye doin' with that box bigger' n your- 
 self?" 
 
 From below, after a pause, came an answer. 
 
 "I only wanted to see Mr. Delaforce," said a 
 young and rather timid voice. 
 
 "Well, you better hyper horn'," replied the old 
 smoker aloft. A loud sucking noise interrupted 
 
36 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 his counsel, and a burnt match dropped aslant past 
 the window. "Be'n too many of ye, guess. He 
 don't want to see no more. Be'n pestered plenty 
 enough t'-day. You jest kite along and let him 
 stay put." 
 
 The dialogue seemed to end. But inside his 
 dirty room a thing was happening to Salem which 
 he could not understand. All day long he had 
 suffered because this careless jailer would not 
 drive his tormentors away; he had renounced the 
 world with every person in it; but now he found 
 himself under the abhorred window, straining up- 
 ward, and calling out. 
 
 "Let her come !" he cried. "You never stopped 
 the others, Denny. Let her come! Treat me 
 fair. She's the first one who hain't called me — " 
 
 He choked, and stood breathing hard, his arms 
 raised, his fists trembling against the daylight. 
 Presently the old man grumbled overhead, and 
 stumped away. Again the box drew near, grat- 
 ing hollow on pebbles. A child, or someone light 
 and small as a child, mounted it; pale brown fin- 
 gers rested on the sill; and then a head younger 
 than his own looked down at him, calmly. 
 
 This late comer was a girl. The evening sun 
 which poured across the front of the jail glowed 
 on her right cheek and darkened the left with 
 
• ••.»»»• • » 
 
 "Good evening, Mr. Delaforce," she said gravely. "How 
 do you do ?" 
 
THE WINTER BELL 37 
 
 shadow. Tucked between her lips for conve- 
 nience in hauling or climbing, and forgotten, a 
 dandelion shone like a disk of clear flame. Her 
 eyes, dark blue, regarded him steadily, but with 
 an inward sparkle, a widening thrill of enforced 
 courage or of conquered fear. 
 
 "Good evening, Mr. Delaforce," she said 
 gravely. "How do you do?" 
 
 Salem could see her only from the throat up, 
 yet he felt certain the child was very small, and 
 too old for her years. Her face — thin, pale 
 under a first coat of tan — had a mingled look at 
 variance with itself, both alert and sad, the look 
 of a youngster who has run wild. Or perhaps the 
 wildness lay in her hair, bright on the side toward 
 the sun, bronze throughout the shadowy half, and 
 all tangled. 
 
 "You're the first one," declared Salem, "to 
 call me Mister anything." 
 
 She removed the dandelion, threw it away, and 
 grimacing, rubbed its bitter milk from her lips. 
 The action showed a thin little hand, rough with 
 work, badly chapped. 
 
 "Why am I?" she asked. 
 
 "The rest of 'em," replied Salem, frowning, 
 "call me nothin' but murd'rer. Been hearin' it 
 all day. 'Le's go see the murd'rer.' " 
 
38 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 The child seemed lost in meditation. 
 
 "Are you?" 
 
 Salem drew back somewhat, to give her a bet- 
 ter light upon his worn, hairy face. 
 
 "What do you think?" he inquired. 
 
 While waiting he doubted if the child might 
 not be a cripple. Her dark blue eyes, under their 
 heavy and fine-curved lids, contained that deep 
 beauty of thoughtfulness granted often to the 
 eyes of the deformed. They looked through him, 
 slow, impartial. 
 
 "No," she said. 
 
 Salem nodded at her quickly. 
 
 "No!" He repeated the word with delight, 
 as if it were a thing to be proud of. "No, you 
 bet you !" 
 
 They remained studying each other for a while, 
 without speaking. 
 
 "Thank ye, little girl, for comin' to see a f el- 
 law. You done me a heap o' good." 
 
 The sadness in her eyes had not altered. 
 
 "I don't know much." His visitor paused, evi- 
 dently casting about in her mind. "I wish I did. 
 But it does say, 'Thy rod and thy staff they com- 
 fort me.' " 
 
 Salem shook his head. 
 
 "You can't tell me nothin' about the rod," he 
 
THE WINTER BELL 39 
 
 answered gruffly. "It's three-cornered whale- 
 bon' pickled in brine, and laid on hit or miss. I 
 hope you won't never come to feel it, young one." 
 
 After she had gone he regretted the speech; no 
 use, he thought, in talking so to a child. But 
 she had gone quickly, dropping with a "good-by," 
 and running off. Salem hauled himself to the 
 window, from one edge of which he caught, past 
 the other, no more than half a glimpse of her. 
 Not a cripple; she ran fast — a slight figure in 
 black, taller than he had expected her to be — and 
 slipped through the open door of a house across 
 the way. He could see only half the house. It 
 was a small, unpainted, slatternly building, banked 
 round the sill, not with fir branches but with a 
 trough of hemlock slabs and shingle shavings. The 
 door closed. 
 
 "Poor little critter," thought Salem. "Her 
 folks can't be no good. Tell f'm the looks of it. 
 They'll leave their bankin' on all summer." 
 
 While he hung there he found to his great 
 surprise that a change had taken him unaware. 
 Something in his head, like a spring wound tight 
 to the breaking point, had loosened and freed with 
 a rush. The evening air tasted wonderfully sweet 
 and fresh. Sunset flooded that dismal alley by the 
 river, poured through and flowed over the ugliest 
 
4 o THE WINTER BELL 
 
 things in splendor. On the wharves lumber shone 
 like pile on pile of gold, straight edged, clean 
 as its own warm scent, and mirrored in the dark 
 shore water that between wharves covered the 
 mud flats with a still pool, brown as tea. Out in 
 mid-stream lay the soft color of the sky. 
 
 He let go and sank back into the dusk. 
 
 "Maybe I'll swamp a ro'd out through this 
 mess yit," thought Salem. "Tomorrer's goin' to 
 be bad. But don't ye flinch no more." 
 
 He sat down, and thinking, felt sorry for two 
 mistakes. He had driven Trapper away, when 
 Trapper no doubt meant kindly; and he had for- 
 gotten just now to ask the child her name. 
 
IV 
 
 He did indeed confront the next day without 
 flinching. It was to be his second ordeal in the 
 court room. On Monday he had watched the 
 jury being impaneled and sworn, and heard Judge 
 Knowlton, a white-haired gentleman with quiet, 
 leisurely manners, adjourn the court over Tues- 
 day, saying that he had to attend a funeral, and 
 instructing jury and witnesses to be present at ten 
 o'clock on Wednesday morning. 
 
 The hour appointed thus found Salem in the 
 dock, composed, not hopeful, but willing to be- 
 lieve that truth might prevail. Or so he felt for 
 a moment, until bad air, the buzz which followed 
 his appearance, and the host of watching eyes 
 made his head swim. The court room was dark 
 and small. The oldest public room in town, it 
 had been a church, built during the days when 
 faith came first in clearing a village out of the 
 woods, afterward outgrown and desecrated. Along 
 the gray side walls high narrow windows rose 
 each to a point in a two-foot-deep recess. Men 
 and boys, their feet dangling above the crowd, 
 stuffed these little alcoves tightly so that no draft 
 
 41 
 
42 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 came in, though the lower panes had been swung 
 open. Under the dangling boots all space was 
 packed level with heads, close fitted, like black 
 and white seeds in a sunflower. A thick, warm 
 smell rose from old rubber matting in the aisles, 
 a stale counter-irritant from old woodwork 
 steeped in tobacco smoke. This might be the 
 odor of the law, Salem thought vaguely, for as 
 a boy he once had smelled it hanging about a law- 
 yer's office. There were too many eyes for com- 
 fort. He tried to meet them, but they were too 
 many, too fixed, and too hostile. 
 
 Ignoring them therefore, Salem looked toward 
 the judge, who impended aloft, waiting and rub- 
 bing his chin thoughtfully with slender fingers. 
 He seemed a venerable scholar fct his desk, bowed 
 down with the weight of this awful moment. As 
 a matter of fact Judge Knowlton sat there tired, 
 thinking of an old friend he had helped to bury 
 yesterday. 
 
 The buzzing died away. The roomful settled 
 into expectancy. His glance roving about the 
 field of eyes again, Salem encountered one pair 
 that wished him no harm. Midway in the throng, 
 wedged uncomfortably, a vast, round old man 
 wearing a mop of red-golden hair and beard, both 
 somewhat grizzled, regarded Salem with a be- 
 
THE WINTER BELL 43 
 
 nignant glare. He was eating what might have 
 been an apple, but his big paw hid most of it. 
 Salem had never seen the man before. He had 
 a great chuckle nose, a wind-blown, weather-beaten 
 air, and eyes pale and clear as a goat's. Next 
 moment he gave Salem a shock by winking at 
 him. 
 
 Through the crowded windows came, like elfin 
 trumpets heralding the spring, a faint blast of 
 cockcrow, repeated from barnyard to barnyard 
 round the outskirts of the town. 
 
 Judge Knowlton folded his hands, looked up, 
 and said as though resuming a late conversation, 
 "In the case of The People against Delaforce, are 
 you ready to proceed, gentlemen?" 
 
 Immediately a tall man in black serge rose 
 from a table below the judge, tossed a lock of 
 dark hair back from his forehead, and replied, 
 <r Ready for The People, Your Honor." 
 
 Salem viewed this champion closely after he 
 sat down. He looked earnest and sombre; hun- 
 gry hollows lurked underneath his cheek bones 
 and jaw, and his Adam's apple showed like the 
 breast bone of a plucked fowl. 
 
 "Observe," said the judge, "that the defendant 
 has formerly stated that he does not desire coun- 
 sel. Are you ready to proceed?" 
 
44 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 Salem, who felt lonely and detached, found 
 with alarm that everyone was waiting for him to 
 answer the question. He cleared his throat. It 
 was as dry as touchwood. 
 
 "Ready or not," he replied, "I told ye, sir, I 
 didn't want no lawyers mullm' round." 
 
 "Very well, gentlemen," said Judge Knowlton, 
 "proceed." 
 
 The effort of speaking at such length, for the 
 first time in his life, before a crowd, left Salem 
 bewildered. He saw the tall man in black rise 
 again, and heard him begin with sonorous delib- 
 eration. 
 
 "Your Honor, and gentlemen of the jury " 
 
 What immediately followed was lost on Salem, 
 who remained hot and cold by turns, dizzy with 
 the labor of his few desperate words. In time, 
 however, he grew conscious that the many-eyed 
 monster was watching and listening elsewhere. 
 Thought and sight returned to him. Opposite, 
 not far away, sat two ranks of men whose faces 
 differed from the others, being set, stiffened, like 
 masks of unnatural wisdom or good behavior. 
 He suddenly knew them for the jury. On 
 Monday he had watched them gather one by 
 one, and answer some question about prejudice, 
 murder, circumstantial evidence. The tall man was 
 
THE WINTER BELL 4 5 
 
 addressing them, though peering over their heads, 
 as if his words to be collected were midges in the 
 air, and his eyesight doubtful. 
 
 " that on the tenth day of Feb'uary the 
 
 dead body of Asa Beard was found on the ice on 
 Jacob-Staff Lake ; that the body bore the mark of 
 a heavy blow, dealt with some blunt inst'ment, 
 above the right ear, crushing the skull; that near 
 by was found an axe belonging to the defendant; 
 and that the tracks of snowshoes in the crust lead- 
 ing from the spot where Asa Beard's body laid, 
 were followed to a camp which was the defend- 
 ant's domicile. We will also call before you, gen- 
 tlemen, witnesses to prove that Asa Beard and 
 the defendant quarreled, some time previous to 
 the crime, and come to blows, over a dog belong- 
 ing to the defendant; that the defendant openly 
 threatened to kill Asa Beard on condition of a 
 certain event happening, namely, if any harm 
 came to his dog; and that this condition was ful- 
 filled just previous to the murder. These are the 
 bare facts. They are the facts which we sh'll 
 prove." 
 
 Uttering his last word with force, the tall man 
 turned aside, held up one finger and beckoned. 
 His movement made Salem aware of another 
 group in the crowd. This was no mob, after all, 
 
46 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 but an ordered thing put in motion against him. 
 Four men, their faces brick-red among the haze 
 of paler town complexions, waited in a row. 
 Salem at first thought them blushing with em- 
 barrassment; then he recognized them — old out- 
 door acquaintances, disguised in their Sunday 
 clothes. One of them answered the tall man's 
 finger and stepped up behind a brown railing, well 
 polished by hand, 
 
 " and nothing but the truth," concluded 
 
 somebody, "so help you God?" 
 
 Yes, it was all ordered. It grew solemn. This 
 room hadn't quit being a church. 
 
 "What is your name?" 
 
 "Helon Fox." 
 
 "What is your occupation?" 
 
 "Lumberman." 
 
 This man's face, before, had looked out from 
 a dyed sheepskin collar, over a sled stake, among 
 snow-covered alders at Corporation House. 
 
 "Where were you on the morning of the tenth 
 day of Feb'uary last?" 
 
 "Crossin' Jake-Staff Lake, sir." 
 
 "Were you alone?" 
 
 "No, sir." The red-faced man gave a gulp, 
 seized the railing, and pondered. "No, sir; I 
 wa'n't alon'. No." 
 
THE WINTER BELL 47 
 
 "Who was with you?" 
 
 "Depatty Shariff Crosby was with me. And 
 a bay hoss and sled belongin' to Bales MeCath- 
 erine." 
 
 The dark champion of the people brought forth 
 his next question very slowly. 
 
 "Did you discover anything laying on the ice 
 on that date?" 
 
 "We did, sir," replied the witness. 
 
 "What was it?" 
 
 Mr. Helon Fox, lumberman, had no doubt 
 what it was; with the aid of questioning he de- 
 scribed it fully. 
 
 "Did you find anything else ?" 
 
 "Yes, sir. In clearin' away to chop him out 
 we found a axe 'longside of him under the snow." 
 
 The district attorney bent toward the table and 
 handed over a light, single-bitted axe. 
 
 "Is this it?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "How do you know it is?" 
 
 Mr. Fox became wary, turned the axe over 
 in his hands more than once, then became cheer- 
 ful again. 
 
 "Because the's his nishuals branded on the 
 helve." 
 
 "You mean that those are the defendant's ini- 
 tials?" 
 
48 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 "Yes, they be. He lent her to me one time. 
 S. D. Them is his proper nishuals that I seen 
 afore. S. for Sale and D. for Delaforce." 
 
 There followed more questions and answers, 
 but the drift of them Salem disregarded, for as 
 he heard Fox tell of bear's paw snowshoe prints, 
 and of Sagamore's grave under the firs, room and 
 talkers and listeners faded away. He sat in a 
 dream, downcast, homesick, his mind far from all 
 this evil, sadly roaming the woods. Once he 
 looked up, recalled by 'the sound of his own 
 name. 
 
 "Mr. Delaforce, " the judge was asking, "do 
 you wish to cross-examine the witness?" 
 
 "What's that mean, sir?" replied Salem. 
 
 He spoke without fear, being so remote. His 
 heart was not there. 
 
 "Have you any questions to ask him?" 
 
 "No, thank ye." 
 
 Homesickness wrapped him round as if to hide 
 him from view. Another of the sunburnt four 
 mounted the stand; Crosby, the deputy sheriff, 
 who had worn a black bearskin coat that winter 
 afternoon. The talk went on, the same vain repe- 
 tition. 
 
 "Was Asa Beard dead when you found him?" 
 
 "He certain'y was," declared Crosby. "A corp 
 
THE WINTER BELL 49 
 
 some hours, and froze hard too. I've seen good 
 many." 
 
 The next of the four, Pum's father, old Red- 
 man of Wing Dam, gave trouble by his vague- 
 ness. But he told a fair story, how on "Lamb- 
 kill Hake last October, November mebbe, Sale 
 there did fight with Asy Beard, no mistake . . . 
 Yes, sir; that's a fact too. Sale did ondeniably, 
 right out, promise Asy Beard to kill him some day, 
 nex' time he ever attackted the dog." 
 
 When the fourth and last witness appeared, 
 Salem felt a change like some breath of air. Pum 
 Redman came lounging into confinement and took 
 his oath like a shy, fierce young animal, half 
 gawky, half graceful, that had wound from among 
 trees into a circus tent, smelled things it hated, 
 and would quickly wind out again. The light 
 of his eyes drifted round to seek or give offense. 
 Now Pum was a gentle soul; and Salem, knowing 
 him, knew that here stood a hot, angry friend in 
 the hour of need. 
 
 "What is your name?" 
 
 "Y'ought," said Pum, "to remember me pooty 
 well by now." 
 
 "What is your name?" 
 
 "You go to grass!" 
 
 Hearing this defiance, Judge Knowlton sat up. 
 
So THE WINTER BELL 
 
 "Young man," he said not unkindly, "I call 
 your attention to the fact that if you don't answer 
 these questions you render yourself liable to pun- 
 ishment. You are called on to testify, and must 
 testify, and if you don't the court will order you 
 sent to jail for contempt until you do. By refusing 
 to answer now you do no good to yourself or any- 
 one else, but only hinder the course of justice." 
 
 Pum's face turned surly toward his examiner. 
 
 "What is your name?" 
 
 "Pomeroy Redman." He ground it out in a 
 rage. 
 
 "Were you present at Lambkill Heath last 
 October or November, when two men had a fight 
 there?" 
 
 "Yes, I was. I was on Lambkill Hake." 
 
 "What took place there at that time?" 
 
 Pum was holding an inward fight of his own 
 against passion. 
 
 "We all know what you're after!" he cried. 
 "Yes, I seen Sale Delaforce lick Asy Beard good 
 and clean and plenty. He knocked him ten foot 
 through cramb'ry bog with one poke. And tolt 
 him if he ever did that to his dog again he'd kill 
 him. W'ich he deserved, the big ov'grown pis- 
 mire — if he is dead!" 
 
 There came a pause after this outburst. The 
 
THE WINTER BELL 51 
 
 man in black serge waited calmly, then took from 
 his pocket a black leathern strap with a brass 
 buckle and half a dozen brass bosses. 
 
 "Did you ever see this article before?" he 
 said. 
 
 "Yes," growled Pum, "I hev." 
 
 "Where did you last see it?" 
 
 "They took it out of Sale's pocket when they 
 'rested him." 
 
 "Did you ever see it before that?" 
 
 "Yes, I did." 
 
 "When, and where?" 
 
 "Lots o' times. Round the dog's neck. Where 
 s'pose?" 
 
 "On the neck of the defendant's dog?" 
 
 "Round it, yes." 
 
 The district attorney laid Sagamore's collar on 
 the table beside the axe. He did so with a quiet 
 air of content. 
 
 But meanwhile, behind him, signs of disturbance 
 had risen. Looking where others looked, Salem 
 saw a large, round back rolling away through the 
 press, heaving people to one side and the other, 
 moving in half circles like an up-ended barrel. It 
 was the tight-clothed back and mop head of the 
 old man who had winked at him, and who was 
 
52 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 now evidently shoving his way outdoors in dis- 
 gust. 
 
 u Pumps have sucked," proclaimed his resound- 
 ing voice. "Jury? A bo'tlo'd of dodunks and 
 chowderheads, wouldn't know a man if they 
 saw him born. Look at 'em. They'll find guilty." 
 
 Judge Knowlton spoke from his bench. 
 
 "Mr. Bailiff, go get that man and bring him 
 back here." 
 
 Many persons in the room guessed what was 
 passing through the judge's mind. He knew this 
 offender. Everyone knew and liked old Captain 
 Constantine, a rich eccentric who, retired from 
 the sea into a fortune, thought little of shore 
 ways and would utter his mind aloud anywhere, 
 contradicting even his favorite parson in church. 
 Yesterday Knowlton had borne the head of a 
 coffin with him, had seen tears in the captain's 
 eyes; but now it was the judge, not the friend, 
 that spoke to a culprit at the rail, whose arm 
 was held by the sheriff. 
 
 u The court judges you guilty of contempt, and 
 fines you two hundred and fifty dollars, and orders 
 that you pay the fine forthwith or remain in the 
 custody of the sheriff till the fine is paid." 
 
 Captain Constantine chose quickly. He gave 
 the sheriff a brown derby hat to hold, as if hang- 
 
THE WINTER BELL 53 
 
 ing it on a convenient peg. With one of his 
 circular, muscle-bound movements, plunging hand 
 and wrist down inside his tight coat, he strug- 
 gled awhile, then hauled out a long, fat leathern 
 pocketbook, dark and shiny as a saddle. A bright 
 brown tarred spun yarn lashed this wallet se- 
 curely together. Like magic the captain untied 
 some private complication of knots, withdrew a 
 strap from several keepers, napped the cover 
 open, wet his thumb, and peeled off one after 
 another of fresh green bank notes, which he care- 
 fully shoved endlong upon the desk. 
 
 "Well worth it," he declared in a genial grum- 
 ble. 
 
 "I warn you," said the judge, "to be careful." 
 
 The old irrepressible, tying his wallet and 
 ramming it home again, looked quite unabashed 
 and happy. 
 
 "Sir, for your court," he boomed, "I have 
 nothin' but the greatest respect. More than 
 ever. And for good discipline gen'ally. I make 
 my apologies to all consarned." 
 
 He was allowed to depart, and did so, again 
 swaying through the crowd like a barrel on its 
 chime. Salem watched him go with a queer re- 
 gret, as if this stranger were carrying away the 
 
54 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 last of any good, anything to be hoped for or re- 
 membered. 
 
 "That is the case for The People, Your 
 Honor." 
 
 Salem turned to find the judge looking at him, 
 and saying as before, "Do you wish to ask the 
 witness any questions?" 
 
 He had forgotten Pum, who stood chafing be- 
 hind the brown rail. 
 
 "No, thank ye." 
 
 With that lanky wildcat grace of his, Pum 
 slipped free of the law's cage and down among 
 his outdoor fellows again. 
 
 "Have you any testimony to offer?" 
 
 "No, sir." 
 
 Judge Knowlton tried to do his best by this 
 prisoner, whose haggard, scrubby cheeks and 
 bronze profile reminded him of a young Job in 
 the ashes, a Job who had renounced his Maker. 
 The boy needed every chance. 
 
 "Mr. Dela force, have you no statement to 
 make?" 
 
 Salem wavered. He could not let his life go 
 thus without an effort, but he did not know what 
 effort or how to begin. This old gentleman's 
 tone, some decency underlying the bare words, 
 gave him courage. 
 
THE WINTER BELL 55 
 
 "Yes," he replied. "I have. Think I have." 
 
 u Do you wish to make it under oath?" 
 
 "All right, sir." 
 
 He stumbled into the place where Pum had 
 been, heard the clerk's voice and the name of 
 God, waited, saw everyone waiting for him to 
 speak, and grew bewildered, a man in a mist. 
 
 u On'y want to say this." He heard himself 
 talking like someone else. "Up where I come 
 from, no one ever doubted my word afore. That's 
 true. Someb'dy stole my axe on me. I never 
 touched him again, not after we had the fist fight. 
 Never. If they'd read them tracks both ways, 
 proper, they'd 'a' seen I come fresh up lake and 
 found him layin' there, just the way they did." 
 Salem felt the obscurity of his words, a tangle 
 he could not clear away; his own mind saw plain 
 enough the storm on the lake, and Asa's hair, a 
 chunk of doormat filled with driven snow. "I 
 can't seem able to put it right. They wouldn't 
 'a' found no tracks o' Beard. He was half cov- 
 ered a'ready." 
 
 Salem gave it up. 
 
 "Is that all?" said Judge Knowlton. 
 
 "Yes, sir, that's all. I jest mean to say, it 
 don't hang together." 
 
 "Is there to be any cross-examination?" 
 
S6 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 It appeared that the district attorney had one 
 question to ask. He rose, took the axe from the 
 table, stalked near, and lifted the handle under 
 Salem's eyes for inspection. 
 
 "Is this axe yours ?" 
 
 "I tolt you afore," argued Salem, "somebody 
 went " 
 
 "Answer my question, yes or no," cut in his 
 adversary. "Is this axe yours?" 
 
 "Yes, it's mine." 
 
 "That's all, Your Honor," proclaimed the 
 sombre tall man, and fell back, nodding to clinch 
 matters. 
 
 The judge scraped his face down on both sides 
 with the flat of his hand. 
 
 "Mr. Delaforce," he said, "is there any other 
 witness you would like to call upon?" 
 
 "No, sir," replied Salem. 
 
 He found his way back somehow to the refuge 
 of his chair. The judge's voice continued from 
 above. 
 
 "Have you prepared any instructions that you 
 desire to have given to the jury?" 
 
 "I have." The man in black serge handed up 
 some papers. 
 
 Salem heard the same question put to him. 
 
 "No," he said. "I wouldn't know how." 
 
THE WINTER BELL 57 
 
 Judge Knowlton regarded a stucco ring in the 
 ceiling, a flyspecked ring round a hook coated 
 with lampblack from some light of the church, 
 long vanished. 
 
 "Do you desire to argue the case?" 
 
 "Most assuredly, Your Honor," came a stal- 
 wart reply. 
 
 "Proceed," the judge told the ring, "with your 
 argument." 
 
 Upon the scene then — for Salem — entered 
 chaos and old night. He saw the black champion 
 rise with great deliberation and dignity, toss 
 back the drooping lock from his forehead, blow 
 his nose in a loud blast, fold away his handker- 
 chief thoughtfully, explore the hollow of each 
 wrist, and produce from each a cylinder of glassy 
 linen buttoned with a moss agate, like armor for 
 the back of his hands. Thus prepared, the man 
 seemed a foot taller than before, gaunt as a moose. 
 His voice became a bellow. 
 
 " no clearer case of downright, premedi- 
 tated, cold-blooded murder in the first degree has 
 ever be'n presented to a jury in a court of justice !" 
 Like a roaring gale, the words left Salem over- 
 thrown; he could not follow their sense, but 
 hearkened in a panic of unwilling admiration. "I 
 will now pr'ceed to tell you how each and every 
 
58 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 movement of the defendant has b'en clearly traced 
 from the time he got up in the morning, on the 
 day before the murder, down to the time when 
 he was safely landed behind bars, where he be- 
 longs. " 
 
 The storm gained headway, but now and again 
 dropped in a lull, cold, unnatural, deadly. 
 
 "Gentlemen, I have no need to remind you of 
 this man's motive for his turrible act." 
 
 The speaker lifted his hand, to display poor 
 Sagamore's old collar, and wave it in a gesture 
 of contempt. 
 
 "A dog! Nor do I need to remind you that 
 many of the bitt'rest lawsoots in all history, and 
 the foulest acts of bloodshed, have b'en com- 
 mitted on account of nothing more than a dog. 
 Is it possible in any way, shape, or manner, for 
 you, gentlemen " 
 
 Salem's eyes took rest on the collar when it was 
 laid down again. He did not even try now to 
 listen, though more and more strange words beat 
 upon him, burst round him. 
 
 "The attention of the whole civilized world, 
 I may say, is leveled on this county, from which 
 no capital felon has ever yet escaped the hang- 
 man's noose. The men of this county are red- 
 blooded — no mollycoddles among them — they 
 
THE WINTER BELL 59 
 
 will not be content with any compromise. Either 
 you must find the defendant guilty of murder in 
 the first degree, as he clearly is, or else you must 
 acquit him and bear that responsibility for the 
 county's disgrace which will inevitably follow 
 when the passions of an outraged populace " 
 
 There was more, but at last it ended. A stir 
 of people shifting in their seats, a fit of coughing, 
 passed roundabout the room. Judge Knowlton 
 waited for silence, then spoke ; and Salem learned 
 with astonishment that the old gray scholar aloft 
 sat quite unmoved, still as a rock. 
 
 "Have you any reply to this argument?" 
 
 Salem rose. Here in this cave of language and 
 phantoms was one godlike man who did not 
 despise him. 
 
 "I ain't no talker, sir," he replied. "The gen- 
 tleman who spoke again' me is grand, but he's 
 made a mistake somewheres. Been told wrong. 
 He can shed words like — like — the way a car- 
 penter sheds nails round a new building, but " 
 
 He meant this fairly, a serious compliment. 
 It was taken for humor. Salem heard suppressed 
 titters and saw faces grinning. The blood rushed 
 to his head. Laugh, would they, at a man doing 
 his best, who knew it wasn't much? He sat down 
 in fury and despair, crying — - 
 
60 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 "Take it or leave it, I never touched him !" 
 
 "Is that all?" said the judge. 
 
 Salem nodded. He would never open his 
 mouth to them again. 
 
 "It would appear, then," resumed Judge 
 Knowlton after a pause, "that the taking of testi- 
 mony is completed. The court will therefore in- 
 struct the jury." 
 
 He handled the documents which the man in 
 black serge had given him, wiped a pair of spec- 
 tacles, put them on, and for a long time sat read- 
 ing and writing as though alone. 
 
 Salem looked at the dog's collar until the 
 brasses blinked and made his eyes ache. Then he 
 looked round the room, too tired to care if it 
 were full or empty. At the rear wall, by the door, 
 a tall stove and crooked pipe blotched the regular 
 pattern of the crowd. He thought he saw, lurk- 
 ing behind them, someone he might have known. 
 It did not matter. The judge was talking now. 
 Words came to him in snatches. 
 
 "Burden of proof is on the state throughout 
 ... to prove the guilt of the defendant beyond 
 a reasonable doubt . . . and if from all the 
 evidence you have heard at this trial you have 
 the slightest doubt as to the guilt of the defendant 
 it is your duty to acquit him. In other words, it 
 
THE WINTER BELL 61 
 
 is your duty to acquit him unless the evidence 
 has convinced you of his guilt beyond a reason- 
 able doubt. The court will further instruct you 
 as to the difference between murder in the first 
 degree and murder in the second degree. . . . 
 And the court will further instruct you that by 
 the law of this state, in the event that you shall 
 render a verdict of murder in the first degree it 
 will be the duty of the court to impose upon the 
 defendant a sentence of death." 
 
 Salem looked up for an instant, then down 
 again. His mind was not afraid of death, which 
 would be better than this present thing; yet at 
 the word some part beyond his mind or under- 
 neath it went numb, like an elbow hit on the 
 crazy bone. 
 
 "And if your verdict shall be guilty of murder 
 in the second degree it will be the duty of the 
 court to sentence the defendant to imprisonment 
 for life." 
 
 Salem remained in that tingling stupor, while 
 the voice flowed calmly on. 
 
 "You are the judges of the credibility of the 
 witnesses, and it will be for you to determine the 
 truth of the evidence presented . . . wholly 
 circumstantial, and if it does not as a whole con- 
 vince your minds beyond all doubt that the de- 
 
62 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 fendant is guilty you will acquit him. ..." 
 Judge Knowlton handed papers down to the 
 clerk, while talking, and at last inquired: "Do you 
 wish to retire, gentlemen, to deliberate upon your 
 verdict?" 
 
 The two ranks of men opposite were bobbing 
 their heads together, whispering. Salem could 
 read in their faces a troubled importance. Among 
 them there spoke up a mild little man with no 
 hair on his head. 
 
 "I guess, judge, we'd like to go t' the jury 
 room." 
 
 "Very well, gentlemen." 
 
 They shuffled out, sad and hampered, like men 
 behaving at a funeral. An officer, the same 
 bailiff or sheriff who had taken Captain Constan- 
 tine's arm, closed after them a brown-painted door 
 in the wall, and stood guard beside it under oath. 
 Judge Knowlton, swinging his chair halfway 
 round, plunged into a thought, a doze, or some- 
 thing deep and unhappy. Time went by; some 
 boys, weary of delay, crawled backward off their 
 window ledges and dropped from view into sun- 
 shine; and with the faint increase of light and 
 air thus given, came drifting another spring chal- 
 lenge of cockcrow. 
 
 Salem outstared the brass bosses on his dog 
 
THE WINTER BELL 63 
 
 collar. Let them blink as they would they were 
 the last friendly sign of his old world, taken from 
 him, shortly to disappear. Everything true and 
 solid was melting in this region of words. 
 
 A knock sounded on the door, which the bailiff 
 opened. 
 
 "We have reached a verdict," called a voice 
 from behind. 
 
 Salem watched the dozen mournful men troop 
 in. The clerk called their names one by one. They 
 answered, "Here." "Here." 
 
 The judge swung back his chair to face them. 
 
 "Gentlemen, have you determined upon your 
 verdict?" 
 
 "We have," piped up the little bald man. 
 
 "What is your verdict?" 
 
 That shining head became stage-frightened as 
 the light was focussed there. 
 
 "We find the defendant " The foreman 
 
 lost his voice. 
 
 During the pause for recovery, and each pause 
 later, Salem had an impression, false probably, 
 that all in the room waited thirsting for his 
 blood. 
 
 "We find the defendant guilty — of murder — in 
 the second degree." 
 
 Afterward he watched the clerk busily record- 
 
64 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 ing this, heard it read aloud, and the jury answer- 
 ing that it was their verdict. He heard Judge 
 Knowlton saying: 
 
 "Gentlemen, the jury is discharged. The court 
 hereby appoints next Saturday morning, April 
 twenty- fourth, at ten o'clock, as the time for pro- 
 nouncing judgment on the defendant." 
 
 Twice that day the court room was to be dis- 
 turbed. Of a sudden, quietly, Salem vaulted the 
 rail before him, caught up Sagamore's collar from 
 the table, and threw it over the heads of the 
 crowd. 
 
 "Hey, Trapper! Ketch!" 
 
 It flew straight, though uncoiling, his final mes- 
 sage to his own. He had seen Kingcome hiding 
 behind the stove. 
 
 "Trapper," he cried, "give her to the little girl 
 that lives opposite the lock — acrost from where I 
 seen ye last!" 
 
 Charles Kingcome, who had evaded subpoena, 
 did not shirk now. The collar met his broad 
 palm in air and was engulfed. 
 
 Salem, vaulting back over the rail, stood at 
 ease. No one else had found time to move. 
 
Of Salem's life in prison the divisions had 
 nothing to do with time. There were few 
 landmarks in his calendar, and these few he saw 
 only when long past them, as changes come and 
 gone without meaning. Quiet inward changes ; of 
 outward, he kept no score. 
 
 The first week he remembered, because it 
 flashed by in a mist, yet dragged half a lifetime, 
 and because it left him wonderstruck, numb with 
 surprise. He had expected vague horrors, of 
 which he could form no picture beforehand — a 
 plunge into the shades, the waters under the earth ; 
 but there came nothing of the kind, for after the 
 claws of that public anguish had done tearing him 
 he was dropped into a profound, still monotony 
 which might almost have been peace. He found 
 himself put to work in the broom factory of the 
 prison. 
 
 It was a room not well lighted, but rather dim 
 than gloomy, and filled with the pleasant smell of 
 broom corn, the rustle of which perpetually made 
 a faint, slow stir in the stillness. Revolving shafts 
 purred, a belt lace whipped over a pulley and 
 
 65 
 
66 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 snapped in rhythmical repetition, but these sounds 
 ran hidden below the surface of a general whisper- 
 ing and hush. At times the light, padded thump 
 of a machine also failed to break this quiet sur- 
 face. Again and again in the days which followed, 
 Salem could almost have thought himself in a 
 barn, smelling hay and hearing the stamp of a 
 horse. This was an early fancy, however, which 
 he soon outlived. 
 
 He worked here for three years. 
 
 In the beginning he clung fast by hope. They 
 had done wrong to put him here ; they would soon 
 find their mistake; therefore they would soon 
 come, tell him so, man to man, and let him go. 
 Who u they" were, he could not have told; but 
 sometimes in thought he beheld them as a com- 
 posite figure, vaguely benevolent, regarding him 
 from somewhat above, like the judge. Mean- 
 while he had only to conduct himself as a man. 
 
 His work was light. At first he carried from 
 storeroom to factory bundle after bundle of broom 
 corn, sweet-smelling, tidy burdens, the end of each 
 stalk tinged with a greenish dye that kept it 
 fresh. A double armful weighed as nothing; 
 forty-odd steps covered the distance to go and 
 return; and having placed one load upon the 
 long high table — glossy from the touch of listless 
 
THE WINTER BELL 67 
 
 hands year in, year out — Salem had only to get 
 another as deliberately as he chose. The dreary 
 men sorting at the table did not encourage haste. 
 
 "Like bringin' fodder for the calf," he thought. 
 
 After some weeks he modified this view : 
 
 "Like bringin' bad fodder for a sick calf." 
 
 He had discovered three facts: the work 
 grew heavier than lead, the smell of the corn 
 stupefying like a drug; this apparent peace in here 
 was a stale, rancid thing; and they, those people 
 outdoors who were to right the wrong, had for- 
 gotten and would leave him here carrying straws 
 for ever. 
 
 During the night which brought this counsel he 
 thought he descended into hell. He was mis- 
 taken. It did not happen then, but afterward. 
 
 Next day a change of work brought relief, or 
 what seemed relief at the time, if only as a fresh 
 grip eases a broken blister. Salem took corn 
 from the sorters and carried it to be bound. His 
 journeys, no longer back and forth, took him over 
 a more varied course, now near by, now farther 
 away, up and down lanes of new faces not seen 
 closely before. 
 
 Words were spoken to him, thrown at him by 
 different voices : "Inside hurl here. Outside hurl. 
 Covers. More inside." 
 
68 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 Just how long these journeys continued, how 
 many months, he never knew. He spent much 
 time wondering at the faces, blaming himself be- 
 cause hardly one of them demanded him to know 
 and like it better. They looked untrustworthy 
 or dull or commonplace, or sometimes cruel, but 
 besides a uniform pallor there was a trait pos- 
 sessed by too many, a lack in the eyes, that 
 daunted him. Something was gone or had never 
 been behind those windows of the spirit. 
 "They belong here, and I don't." 
 Salem rejected this thought as proud and un- 
 kind; but it often returned in other forms. These 
 men were different, he knew. In the open air 
 he never would have chosen them for companions ; 
 and here, though starving for talk, he saw none 
 whose look crossed his own with the spark of 
 honest fellowship, like catching at like. News 
 and gossip ran underground as forest fire runs 
 deep in leaf mold, but none of it meant anything 
 to Salem. He did not speak the language. A 
 man told him so one day with scorn : "You don't 
 know a con from a p.k." There were, it is true, 
 lectures and entertainments; but Salem wished 
 neither to be lectured nor to be entertained. He 
 desired only one thing. 
 
 A long time afterward he was put to work a 
 
THE WINTER BELL 69 
 
 stitching machine in a dusky corner close by an end 
 of the sorters' table. Above his right hand two 
 long hanks of twine, one orange, one purple, hung 
 down and made the only spot of bright color in 
 the world. Here, thousands of times, he per- 
 formed the same motion. Clamping an unfinished 
 broom, round and witchlike, head uppermost, be- 
 tween the steel jaws of his vise, he reached for 
 an end of purple twine, threw a neat half hitch 
 round the corn, threaded first one, then the other 
 of two great broad needles, pulled a lever, and 
 watched the needles dart back and forth from 
 their wire-screened concealment, alternately stab- 
 bing a row of stitches across the broom, till he 
 checked them at the proper instant. He repeated 
 this with orange twine; with purple again; with 
 orange again; then removing the broom he laid 
 it on a pile which rose beside his left hand and 
 which presently a fellow prisoner came to take 
 away. Salem could have done this work with his 
 eyes closed. 
 
 Beyond his machine, and below, on a stool be- 
 tween the end of the long table and the wall, 
 crouched always a little old man with bald head 
 and purblind, squinting eyes. Nested in a litter 
 of straw, where the shadow hung darkest, he 
 worked by sense of touch, like a spider, with 
 
7 o THE WINTER BELL 
 
 cramped but skillful fingers all day stripping stems 
 out of corn, for the finer grades of broom. This 
 man had been there many years; his crime, a little 
 neighborly spite work, arson. In the dead of a 
 winter's night and of a cold forty degrees below 
 zero, he had set fire to a house where women 
 and children lay asleep. Now in the dusk his 
 bald head shone glassy, pale yellowish white, as 
 though it had taken the color of a broom handle. 
 His sunken cheeks and loose evil mouth never 
 ceased to writhe, pucker, chew on nothing, yet 
 maintain a smile. Salem could not make out 
 whether the smile, which lurked also in the down- 
 cast eyes, were crafty or vacant. As the old 
 man worked he whispered, not louder than the 
 rustle of the corn. Salem grew capable of hear- 
 ing the words, at first obscurely, then with more 
 and more distinctness, and found them always 
 those of a filthy story or song. They had in them 
 no touch of reality, no humor, nothing but such 
 abomination as a parrot or a depraved child might 
 learn by rote. Much of this, however, the crea- 
 ture plainly invented as he went along. 
 
 Old Deacon Kelly 
 With a cast-iron belly, 
 The inside lined with fat — 
 
THE WINTER BELL 71 
 
 So the old man sang in his whisper, a begin- 
 ning of endless, unspeakable fantasies. 
 
 Outdoors among his own kind Salem had often 
 heard a spade called in fun something more hilari- 
 ous than a spade; he knew plenty of rough talk; 
 but he had never imagined that underneath plain 
 smut there were depths and layers of sludge, or 
 that age, and what was left of white hairs, could 
 stir it round and round for pleasure. 
 
 The whisper, just piercing the rustle, made his 
 day's work loathsome. At night those words ran 
 through his head until he sometimes doubted if 
 he had really heard them, if they were not rather 
 of his own choice and making, or inspired by an 
 unknown beast within him. 
 
 Night was bad enough, even when lacking this 
 residue of the day. Salem's corridor window 
 looked across an open space, perhaps a bit of 
 courtyard, and over some roof, perhaps another 
 wing of the prison, toward a patch of sky. It 
 looked eastward, so that in clear weather he 
 could lie there, and by adjusting his head on the 
 pillow watch a star climb slowly toward the upper 
 edge of the highest pane, become a short furred 
 line of brightness, and die out; then moving his 
 head, could bring it down again, and again watch 
 it draw upward until he had fallen asleep, or that 
 
72 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 star gone and another taken its function. Once 
 a black thing, bat or night bird, startled him by 
 swooping across and for a moment blotting this 
 dreary pastime. It never came again, but it gave 
 him afterward a nightmare in which he seemed 
 to be outdoors, free, admiring the handiwork of 
 the heavens, when suddenly from beyond the stars 
 came a black pin point that rushed and grew and 
 covered them all — a runaway world falling to 
 crash and bring the end of this one. He woke 
 in a doomsday helplessness. 
 
 But this was not Salem's usual dream or his 
 worst. Another had invaded sleep, recurring as 
 often as twice in a month. He always found him- 
 self walking among woods, in a fairylike season 
 blended of all happiest times of year and hours 
 of day, incongruous but lovely. Mist covered 
 the lake, and far away loons were laughing; next 
 moment in spring sunshine the water lay clear, 
 pale blue, softly glowing, beyond a cove where 
 the last melting slush made faint, splintery noises 
 as it pressed together, dissolved and sank, while 
 willows were budding in the warmest hollows 
 alongshore. Or else he passed beneath October 
 trees where broad yellow leaves twirled slowly 
 down, and twigs of young moosewood, knee-high, 
 had their long-eared tips in velvet, like so many 
 
THE WINTER BELL 73 
 
 little buff-colored rabbits' heads. He moved 
 with great ease and liberty, his footsteps buoyed 
 in air, traversing a midsummer carpet of dwarf 
 cornel without 'bruising one among all their red 
 berries. He felt a luminous, unearthly joy. 
 Then, miles away behind the trees, a bell began 
 to tinkle. "Here it comes,' , he thought. The 
 sound drew nearer. With it came foreboding, 
 then recognition, then despair; and presently by 
 one of those dream changes neither slow nor 
 rapid, Salem was walking in winter through dry 
 snow, an old man. He went on and on, feebly, 
 without hope, driven by the wind or by the bell; 
 the snow grew drier and thinner; he stumbled 
 over rocks, half covered, that rolled underfoot; 
 and these, at first black, he found to be turning 
 yellow-white and rounded like bald pates. They 
 were the bones of dead men. The world was a 
 plain covered with them, and before him nothing 
 but malignance, the desiccation of death. 
 
 This dream — when he fell asleep, the dread 
 of having it; when he woke, its truth staring at 
 him afresh in the darkness — this became his worst 
 punishment. 
 
 One morning after it, as he stood at work, 
 having just clamped another broom in his vise 
 and taken the first half-hitch of purple twine, 
 
74 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 Salem glanced up quickly as though summoned. 
 
 The whisperer in the straw sat idle, watching 
 him. This had never happened before. Salem 
 could not remember that he had even caught his 
 neighbor's eye. 
 
 The loose lips were chewing, but paused to 
 form a word: 
 
 "Wait." 
 
 Salem obeyed. 
 
 The old house burner gave him a cunning smile, 
 nodded like one who read a face, peered under 
 the sorters' table up and down the room with 
 stealth, and meanwhile fingered something out 
 from the side of his right boot. 
 
 "Here," he mouthed, and tossed the thing clev- 
 erly. 
 
 Salem caught and saw it for one of his own 
 needles, broken, useless, though still pointed and 
 some three inches long. 
 
 He stared from this to the giver, who once more 
 smiled and nodded. 
 
 "Try that." 
 
 Salem could not understand. 
 
 The other leaned back in his nest, grinned, and 
 suddenly with a fierceness that pulled the cords 
 awry under his chin, drew his forefinger across his 
 throat. 
 
THE WINTER BELL 75 
 
 Salem recoiled In those purblind eyes that 
 had opened wide, full of fire, he saw the devil who 
 came to answer his thought. They drooped and 
 were hidden. The old man fell to work, stripping 
 stalks from the corn, as always, only now he for- 
 got to whisper and dozed as if content with him- 
 self. 
 
 Salem began a motion to fling the bodkin at 
 him or away. Instead he paused, wavered, then 
 stooping, ran it carefully down between boot and 
 ankle. 
 
VI 
 
 When Captain Constantine had elbowed his 
 way from the court room on that morning so 
 long ago, he stood at the head of the stairs alone 
 and frowned. The street lay empty, in a drowse 
 of spring sunshine and early noon. The captain 
 jammed his brown derby hat over his temples as 
 if the stillness had been a gale, and with sea legs 
 apart, bent at the knees, remained motionless. 
 His big eyes, that when alert could seem pale 
 yellow and clear as a goat's, were darkened; re- 
 tired under their bristling brows and among puck- 
 ers of thought, they studied the ground below. 
 Captain Constantine was lost in a muse. 
 
 The same fist which had left a dent in his hat 
 now sought and found his watch guard. It was 
 a braided cord of golden-brown hair, with gold 
 mounting. At this he tugged very gently. Some 
 instinct or habit made his fingers light of touch, 
 as if they had encountered those of a child. He 
 pulled out a broad silver watch, held it before 
 him, and returned it to his pocket without a 
 glance. All the while he brooded on the tracks 
 
 76 
 
THE WINTER BELL 77 
 
 of last year's wheels, once iron-hard, now re- 
 solved into mud again, where the shadow of the 
 courthouse lay along one edge of the road. 
 
 From the door behind, suddenly, there burst a 
 man who hurled himself full force into the cap- 
 tain's back. 
 
 "Where goin' ?" Old Constantine received the 
 shock without a tremor and caught the man's 
 wrist as he went spinning by. "Hold on." 
 
 It had been a notable collision, for this new- 
 comer, though fallen one step downward, stood 
 as tall as the captain, and even rounder. 
 
 "Le' me go!" he panted. 
 
 Though he pulled with all the advantage of 
 gravity, of a good foot brace against the top 
 stair, and of twoscore years or more, his wrist 
 remained in hard keeping. 
 
 "When I was your age," observed the captain 
 calmly, "I might 'a' been nigh as pow'ful as what 
 you be, young man, but I wa'n't half so clumsy. 
 They tried to give us manners too. We was 
 taught, those days, to go quiet and shut a door 
 after us, and not for to tromple down old men, 
 women, and child'n. Not no more'n was neces- 
 sary need." 
 
 This praise of former times, delivered with- 
 out passion, took effect. 
 
78 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 "Beg your pardon, mister," exclaimed the cap- 
 tive eagerly. "I was runnin' away. Never seen 
 ye. Le' me go. I'm sorry." 
 
 He ceased hauling. Captain Constantine re- 
 garded him with mild interest. His face, vast 
 and brick-red and freckled like a boy's, pleaded 
 for escape. 
 
 "Between us, you and me," said the captain, "I 
 guess we'd weigh into five hund'ed. Solid meat, 
 the pair of us. And met solid." He looked down 
 at his fellow giant's hand and saw in it an old dog 
 collar studded with brass. "What's that?" he in- 
 quired sharply. "Rob the lawyers, did ye?" 
 
 "He chucked her to me. Salem. For another 
 friend o' his." 
 
 The captain's eyes grew light, clear, and specu- 
 lative. 
 
 "Oh! This boy in there?" He pointed back- 
 ward, thumb over shoulder. "You a friend of 
 his, too?" 
 
 Trapper Kingcome, nodding, began to pull at 
 arm's length, but in vain. 
 
 "You bet I am. Le' go. I ducked out f'm 
 under a suppeeny. He wants me to git away with 
 this. Quick, 'fore they come." 
 
 Constantine did not let go, but turned and be- 
 gan leading his man across the platform at the 
 
THE WINTER BELL 79 
 
 stairhead, thence round the corner of the building. 
 
 "You come with me," said he quietly. "I 
 know the ropes of this town better'n what you 
 do." 
 
 Among wagons and hitched horses and mud 
 they picked their way through an inclosure that 
 ended beneath a high fence overtopped with bud- 
 ding blackthorn. In a sunless corner lay snow, a 
 fan-shaped remnant, coarse-grained, blackened, its 
 edge thinning to gritty ice. Here the fence lacked 
 a board. And here the captain released his hold 
 of Trapper. 
 
 "If you can git through there," he said, "I 
 can. 
 
 The gap in the fence was narrow for such a 
 pair, and the snow gave bad foothold. Strad- 
 dling painfully, with a rattle of buttons on wood, 
 they bulged through sidewise, the younger man 
 first, the elder next. They stood in a pleasant 
 blackthorn lane and grinned at each other like 
 runaway boys. 
 
 "What was it I called those twelve discon- 
 s'lates yonder?" The captain removed his hat, 
 punched out the old dent and a new one, stroked 
 his mop of grizzled red-gold hair, and became 
 lost again in reverie. "Paid high enough for it 
 too. Can't remember. Jest what was that Ian- 
 
8o THE WINTER BELL 
 
 guage o' mine ? It's kind of a gift. Come and go." 
 
 Kingcome suddenly beamed more broadly than 
 ever. 
 
 "You called 'em a bo'tlo'd of dodunks and 
 chowderheads." 
 
 "So I did!" cried the captain. "So they be!" 
 
 With a circular, muscle-bound movement he 
 lifted his hat, grasping the brim with both hands 
 firmly, and jerked it down close to his ears. 
 
 "I did so," he chuckled. "And by gravy, Fd 
 pay out more to prove it on 'em." He suddenly 
 forgot his mirth and gave Trapper a piercing 
 glance. "Look ahere. Do you think that boy 
 done it?" 
 
 Kingcome lowered his eyes, played with the 
 dog collar, and waited before answering. 
 
 "I didn' know," he began, "but " 
 
 The captain snorted, or blew a blast of defiance 
 from his great chuckle nose. 
 
 "Why," said he, "you're bad as them! Told 
 me you was a friend o' his!" 
 
 "Let a man finish, will ye?" broke in Trapper 
 hotly. "I didn' know then, but I stuck by him 
 good's I could. It don't make no odds to me 
 what a friend's done," he added with infinite 
 scorn. One sweep of a freckled fist banished all 
 mere deeds from the earth. "You think I'd turn 
 
THE WINTER BELL 81 
 
 my back on Sale Delaforcc for bein' in trouble? 
 What's more, he never did do it." 
 
 With that Trapper turned and made off down 
 the lane. His indignation kept him company; but 
 he had not taken many steps when he found Cap- 
 tain Constantine walking beside him, quite spry 
 for an old man, and benevolent in aspect. 
 
 "How do ye know he never ?" 
 
 Trapper halted. His light blue eyes hardened 
 with suspicion. 
 
 "I do." He became sulky. "Needn' fret you. 
 Ain't say in' how." 
 
 The captain waved that trifle aside vaguely, and 
 smiled. 
 
 "Plenty o' time. They won't overtake us here," 
 said he. "I'll set ye on your way, son, if you tell 
 me where you're headin' for. So's you'll have 
 no worries whats'ever." 
 
 Any old shipmate of John Constantine's could 
 have told that when he gave up, changed the sub- 
 ject, and talked mildly of things in general, he was 
 a man who deserved watching all day, if not many 
 days to follow. At sea a Yankee in his crew had 
 declared that the captain, when he couldn't hold 
 a cat by the head, would hold her by the tail and 
 get her skinned if it took from here to Chiny. 
 But ashore people knew less of the captain, and 
 
82 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 Trapper did not know him at all. So while these 
 two burly gossips wandered down the lane, filling 
 it from side to side, and amicably talking, there 
 was a drift which only one of them perceived. 
 
 "Yes, sir-ree. Between us, we'd weigh into 
 five hundred. Fo'ks would take you and me to 
 be fat. And right there's where we fool 'em. 
 Why, now, you as ye go must be a good two 
 hund'ed sixty." 
 
 " Sixty-three," said Trapper with approval. 
 "You ain't a bad judge o' flesh." 
 
 The captain nodded wisely. 
 
 "I tell by the wrist," he replied. "Ketched 
 aholt of yourn, ye see. Broad enough for gam- 
 bolers to shake dice on, and pooty nigh as thick. 
 I do like to see a fellow critter solid. You can 
 let on to look as fat as you like, but it's all dark 
 meat, bon' and gristle." 
 
 Charles Kingcome fell into the net of this old 
 flatterer, who used no more than truth, yet spread 
 his mesh with honeyed art. By the time they left 
 their blackthorn row and stood among wharves 
 by the river, where hot noonday sun glared on the 
 yellow piles of lumber, both men were talking 
 away like old cronies. 
 
 "If it wa'n't no more'n to show the judge," 
 muttered Captain Constantine darkly. "A man 
 
THE WINTER BELL 83 
 
 o' good stout conscience, you are. I honor ye for 
 that, boy. We'll trig his wheels for him. And 
 you got bowels o' compassion, plenty. If 'twas 
 only to learn Judge Knowlton there's more human 
 nature knockin' round this world than's bound up 
 yit in his law calf and red labels. Yes, sir-ree; 
 you got enough to fill a tub, Charley. Good 
 money paid out a'ready, and more where that 
 come from. When you and me put our hands to 
 it, Charley, we don't leave go till somethin' fetches 
 away. Down opposite this lock-up house o' 
 theirs, did you say?" 
 
 Ten minutes later a dreary little house banked 
 with hemlock slabs and shingle shavings echoed 
 throughout to a knock that was heard aboard ships 
 across the river. A young girl dressed in black 
 sateen opened the door and looked up timidly at 
 a pair of huge strangers towering on the step. 
 Her face, pale under a first coat of tan, and her 
 large, dark blue eyes had in them the wildness and 
 age-worn look of a changeling. 
 
 "Mornin' to ye, my dear," began the captain 
 heartily. "Here's a friend o' yours, Mr. King- 
 come, brought a little present for ye. Because you 
 got more sense than most of 'em." 
 
 A terrier pup, all joints and paws, but milk- 
 white, pink-nosed and sleek, bounded past her 
 
84 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 from within, to flop and jump toward the strang- 
 ers' knees. 
 
 Captain Constantine fell silent. When he spoke 
 again it was to himself in a growl. 
 
 "Hosaphat, they feed the dog better' n what 
 they do her ! Here, Charley, speak up. Take the 
 wheel, do your arrand. I'm stumped for words 
 this time. Pretty, too, spite of all. Damn their 
 lazy hides, whoever — — Don't ye mind me. 
 Listen to him, my dear. A young one kept this 
 way makes me let go all holts." 
 
 Trapper had his own method. He appeared 
 not to see any frightened little face below him, 
 but stooped, and holding Sagamore's collar in one 
 hand, with his other patted the lanky and joyful 
 young wriggler of a dog. 
 
 4 'Likes me, don't he, kind of? What's his 
 name?" said Trapper. "Sagamore? What? 
 Why, this collar belonged to his daddy. Well, 
 well ! 'Twould fit him too soon round the neck ; 
 he'd have to grow like Finney's turnip. I knowed 
 your dog's daddy fust-rate. Name Sagamore, too. 
 What's yours?" 
 
VII 
 
 Early one morning when his dream left him 
 awake before sunrise to begin another day, Salem 
 stood by the wall opposite his bed. He faced into 
 the corner. No man would do this willingly, by 
 nature. Salem, driven into it, had left natural 
 things behind him long ago. 
 
 He held with both hands the flat needle and 
 felt its edges. They were sharp. The bodkin 
 would perform. 
 
 "What's-name." He whispered, though no one 
 could overhear. "What's-name. Eternity. That's 
 it. For ever and ever. No more beginnin\ Quit 
 all." 
 
 Time stood still, while his life ran like a thread 
 paying swiftly from a ball which unrolled to noth- 
 ing. What else passed through his mind is not 
 known. If he wrestled with a black angel in that 
 abyss of the corner, he was not once beaten to his 
 knees. 
 
 u Git out ! Plumb nonsense !" he argued, clutch- 
 ing at reason. "Eternity, hey? We're in the 
 middle of her now, every man jack of us we be, 
 
 85 
 
86 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 and she's open at both ends. How ye goin' to 
 quit a thing like that?" 
 
 By the twilight, day was creeping near when he 
 spoke. 
 
 "Can't be done. It won't hang together." 
 
 With an effort he snapped the needle in two, 
 then turning, dropped the pieces and walked the 
 length of his bed, back and forth, barefoot, noise- 
 less, a ghost, but yet alive. His forehead was 
 wet. 
 
 "Losin' my stren'th," said Salem. "That's a 
 mistake; bad. Better keep what's left ye right 
 along." 
 
 When he stepped up to his machine that day 
 and took hold of work again, his neighbor the 
 house burner gave him a squint and a pursed-up 
 smile, half mockery, half question. Salem in re- 
 turn looked gravely from a distance, without emo- 
 tion. The bald head bent to its task, the crabbed 
 fingers moved as before, feeling among the corn 
 and stripping delicately. There were no more 
 looks or dealings. 
 
 At his next moment alone, somewhere in the 
 twenty-four hours, a thing happened which left 
 Salem astounded. In his cell had been lying — 
 how long he did not remember — a small book. 
 Salem had stared into it once or twice, but being 
 
THE WINTER BELL 87 
 
 no reader had dropped and forgotten it. The 
 thing seemed to be only people talking about their 
 own affairs, which did not concern him. But now, 
 at this very time, having picked it up without a 
 thought, he happened on the words: 
 
 Chr. Well, and what conclusion came the old man and you 
 to at last? 
 
 Faith. Why, at first, I found myself somewhat inclinable to 
 go with the man, for I thought he spake very fair; but looking 
 in his forehead, as I talked with him, I saw there written, "Put 
 off the old man with his deeds." 
 
 Thus far Salem read standing. Next moment 
 he plumped down on the edge of his bed, to read 
 carefully, once more, twice more. 
 
 "Gosh! It's what I done myself!" 
 
 He sat for a moment as though stunned. Here, 
 alone, he had met a brother who spoke to him. 
 Someone had gone through all this before. 
 
 Salem thumbed the leaf, and began to devour 
 the next page. 
 
 . . . So I turned to go away from him; but just as I turned 
 myself to go thence, I felt him take hold of my flesh, and give 
 me such a deadly twitch back, that I thought he had pulled part 
 of me after himself. This made me cry, "Oh, wretched man!" 
 (Rom. vii. 24). So I went on my way up the hill. 
 
 Who was this talking? 
 
 "Me?" Salem wondered. "No, I can't talk so 
 good." 
 
 And who was this other living soul who came 
 
88 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 through a door, shut and locked, to ask news of 
 him like a brother? Salem fluttered the pages 
 backward till he saw a picture of a man lying on 
 a bed much like his own; a man with a jug and 
 a book upon a stool before him, a stone wall be- 
 hind ; a big-boned man in knee breeches, with large 
 mouth, firm-set nose, his head on a rough pillow, 
 and his quick bright eyes looking straight out. 
 Below the picture began printed lines. It was 
 this big-boned man who spoke: 
 
 As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted 
 on a certain place where was a Den, and I laid me down in 
 that place to sleep: and, as I slept, I dreamed a dream. 
 
 Salem drew a long breath, raised his head and 
 looked strangely about the walls. 
 
 "Why, so do I." 
 
 After the word "Den" someone with pencil 
 had drawn a star, a curved line from it into the 
 margin, another star there, and written: "Bed- 
 ford jail." 
 
 The reader sat awe-struck. This was, then, 
 indeed his brother; his own flesh and blood had 
 come to tell him — what? 
 
 "Lord," cried Salem, "and me a poor fist at 
 readin' I" 
 
 Time, give him time, he thought, and he would 
 wade through this mystery. Then remembering, 
 
THE WINTER BELL 89 
 
 he laughed his first laugh in years, a short but 
 good one, which delivered him from evil. 
 
 "Got the rest o' my life for it, if nobody don't 
 come take this book away." 
 
 From now on, at every moment which could 
 be called free, Salem read. Often it was hard 
 going, his way full of stumbling-blocks, thorny 
 words, the pain of his own dullness; but again, 
 and more often, he escaped these and went for- 
 ward with delight. All day at his machine he 
 thought of what he had read, and wished the hours 
 away till he could plunge once more into this new 
 world and continue his pilgrimage. After any 
 hard fall he went back always and looked at the 
 picture of his brother, who somehow never failed 
 to rise, take him by the hand and lead him farther 
 until the path went smooth. Salem no longer 
 cared where his body might be. The rest of him 
 was out. This book had made a traveler of him. 
 
 One day the person who had left the book ap- 
 peared. He was known to Salem as "a little, 
 sober-lookin' feller,' ' quiet, of middle age, with 
 hair turning gray, and not much authority. He 
 had always found Salem polite though indifferent; 
 so now he probably felt surprise when met with 
 a glare. 
 
 "You hain't come to take it off?" 
 
90 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 "No," said the visitor. "Not to take any- 
 thing. But what did you mean?" 
 
 Salem pointed at his book. 
 
 "Smilytood of a Dream," he answered. "They 
 was a little girl told me once about a rod and 
 a staff. I didn't believe her then. Do now. They 
 is both. You hain't goin' to carry a man's staff 
 away? I'm a awful slow reader." 
 
 The visitor, going through his duty, tried to 
 have no favorites and no aversions. He had 
 seen this young man moving among the others, 
 dazed like a country horse led through crowds; 
 he had watched this young man's face change from 
 good red brown to the pale hardness of Roman 
 cameo; but until now, when Salem grew talkative, 
 he could not have said whether he wished or 
 dreaded to make better acquaintance. 
 
 "You like John Bunyan?" he asked. 
 
 "That his name?" cried Salem. "You bet ye! 
 So many names amongst 'em, I never made out 
 which was him." 
 
 There followed a talk, and afterward other 
 talks of such length and nature as rules permitted. 
 This visitor, however much he may have believed 
 the soul of a man to be his affair, had too much 
 sense to meddle. He brought other books, of 
 many kinds, and let his beginner choose. Per- 
 
THE WINTER BELL 91 
 
 haps he was content one day when Salem, looking 
 up suddenly, in the midst of an argument whether 
 "trout or pick'rel et better," exclaimed with great 
 conviction: u They is such a thing as castin' out 
 devils ! Don't let nobody tell you different." The 
 visitor made no comment. He left behind him 
 Lorna Doone, Sam Lovel's Camps, The Cruise 
 of the Casco, and a more laborious little tome 
 bought with his own pocket money, a pronounc- 
 ing dictionary. 
 
 "I dunno how to say words right," Salem had 
 confessed. "I see 'em here and sound 'em in- 
 side my head, but they git all balled up like a 
 hoss in damp snow." He now added, "Thank 
 ye, sir. I'm a-goin' to learn how to punnounce." 
 
 The visitor went away pleased but saddened. 
 Salem bending over the dictionary, his lips mov- 
 ing, all his muscles urging the work, resembled 
 too nearly some figure of a man reading music 
 who would never play or sing, never hear voice 
 or instrument. 
 
 Yet Salem learned, and always put his learn- 
 ing as far as he could into practice without delay. 
 Once he read of a man who walked round the 
 edge of a table on his thumbs. Next moment 
 Salem put down that book to study his hands. 
 The place contained no table fit for experiment; 
 
92 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 but by some freak in an old and badly planned 
 building, there ran along one wall a narrow ledge 
 or jog, about three feet from the floor. Salem 
 rose, to set his thumbs on this. 
 
 He lifted himself, strained hard, and then 
 toppled. 
 
 "Can't be done." 
 
 He tried and failed again and again, till his 
 thumbs were livid, wealed, the nails blue, and 
 aching as if burnt. At last he faced about, pant- 
 ing, and spoke to his unseen rival. 
 
 "You let on you skunked me?" He wore a 
 grim smile. "Show ye 'fore long. From now 
 on I'm goin' to git back my stren'th." Then he 
 paused, and corrected the speech. "Git — get. 
 Get. Stren'th — strength. To get back my 
 strength. And more too." 
 
 Thus began a peculiar but rigid course of train- 
 ing, which never afterward flagged and which 
 had for its aim nothing less than the perfection 
 of every sinew in a man's body. It would take 
 time, but time abounded. Salem, having drawn 
 up his own rules of discipline, became both slave 
 and driver. Like all of his kind, he knew many 
 traditional feats of strength, old "bon' twisters," 
 muscle grinders, tricks "to keep ye on the stretch, 
 soople as a cat," which could be performed in- 
 
THE WINTER BELL 93 
 
 doors as well as out; he invented many others, 
 odd but searching trials of the human frame ; and 
 week by week, month by month, long after he 
 could go on his thumbs the full length of that 
 ledge and return, the driver kept the slave at 
 work. 
 
 One evening, when it had grown almost too 
 dark to read, Salem found matter of offense in 
 a book. He had never done so before. 
 
 "Why, this man's a liar!" he exclaimed. 
 "Damn whinin', dirty liar!" 
 
 He clapped the volume shut, and with a flash, 
 a blind wrench of anger, tore it halfway in two 
 as a conjurer tears a pack of cards. 
 
 "Sho! No sense your doin' that," he thought. 
 
 He put down the mutilated book, and sat re- 
 garding it for a moment, ashamed, but overcome 
 by the ease with which he had done this damage. 
 Then he rose, to stand thinking. 
 
 "You could prob'ly — probably take any man in 
 this place and break him acrost — across your knee 
 like a dry stick." 
 
 There was truth in the figure. But while he 
 mused, any pride or vanity was lost, whirled away 
 changing in a sudden fierce desire. 
 
 "Break one of 'em. Chance will come. Break 
 the right one at the right time, and run for it." 
 
94 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 Salem had often felt the desire, but not as 
 now. It coursed through him like flame. And at 
 that hour someone without chose to jingle the 
 keys, unlock and open his door. 
 
 A well-known shape Was entering — a burly 
 man, square-shouldered, in uniform. 
 
 Salem took one step toward him. 
 
 "Not now," said the man quickly. "For 
 God's sake, don't !" 
 
 They paused. It was dusk, but the man's hard 
 face betrayed emotion — something like fear, yet 
 not fear for himself. 
 
 Salem retreated, sat down, and took his head 
 in his hands. 
 
 "I couldn't touch ye," he declared bitterly. 
 "Can't even do that much." 
 
 The other stood watching him, then spoke. 
 
 "That's better. Now stiddy, boy. I was 
 afraid you'd spoil your luck then. Right when 
 it's come to you. Good noos. You get up and 
 come with me." 
 
VIII 
 
 Two days later a grubby little man in a grubby 
 little shop, the sign of which informed a back 
 street that here second-hand goods of all kinds 
 were bought, sold and exchanged, met one of the 
 surprises of his career. He was dealing with a 
 lone customer, a pale, dark-eyed young man who 
 looked like a foreigner and who spoke with care, 
 haltingly, as if he had learned English from books. 
 This foreigner proposed to sell everything he 
 stood in from top to toe — a new hat which 
 was never designed for his head or face, a new 
 but ungainly suit of clothes, and boots to match. 
 The dealer foresaw profit with plain sailing. 
 
 "Is that your best offer? It don't seem no — 
 it does not seem very lib'ral — liberal." 
 
 The dealer smiled a sweet Oriental smile. 
 
 "You haf misunterstood me," He murmured. 
 "Dey are new, yes, but de suit is poor mateer-yal. 
 I could not gif so moch. It vould not doo. I did 
 not pwonounsse good. Vat I tol' you vas " 
 
 95 
 
96 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 With an air of long-suffering repetition he 
 abated his offer by more than ten per cent. 
 
 Then came the surprise. This foreigner 
 dropped his bashful dignity and became a native. 
 
 "You lie like Sam Hyde," he drawled quietly. 
 "Ye pindlin' little Portagee, you, think ye can 
 take back words by making fritters of 'em? You 
 talk plain enough when ye like. Now jes' turn 
 to and rense the batter out your mouth, take a 
 long breath, and say hemlock' to onhitch the 
 jaws; then open up, holla, and stick to whatever 
 comes out. That is, supposin' we're to trade." 
 
 This advice, given very mildly, performed won- 
 ders. The pair drove an even bargain, with good 
 humor. Soon afterward the young man, trans- 
 formed in a dark blue flannel shirt, brown mole- 
 skin trousers, and moccasins, said good day and 
 was answered with respect. The moleskin pock- 
 ets contained a little money, to boot. He had 
 entered the shop as an awkward stiff-jointed 
 lounger in misfit finery; he slipped outdoors like 
 a lean young hunting dog bound for the woods. 
 
 His moccasins were machine-made ; in a former 
 life he might have scorned them; but now, after 
 that clumping footgear he was just rid of, they 
 bore him along like magic shoes with wings. In 
 
THE WINTER BELL 97 
 
 an hour, at any rate, he left the town five miles 
 behind him. 
 
 Salem went bareheaded. He got no hat in his 
 trading. Though it was midsummer there could 
 not be too much sunlight on his face. 
 
 The second evening of liberty found him en- 
 camped by a brook. All round lay quiet farming 
 country; he had not yet seen real woods, only 
 groves or fir lots among low hills ; but here by the 
 stream hazels and alders made a tiny green wilder- 
 ness which, as he sat cross-legged near the embers 
 of the supper fire, encompassed him with a forest- 
 like stillness and depth. The sun had set. Above 
 the fresh green leaves glowed a patch or two of 
 sky, against which the last dayflies, a fine-sifted 
 whirl up and down, were madly ending their 
 dance. In lanes hidden far off the cows had 
 stopped lowing. 
 
 "If I don't wake up, nowl" said Salem, half 
 in earnest. "Too good to keep." 
 
 He desired to forget these few days just past, 
 along with many others; but here he sat, looking 
 now into the embers, now at the current browner 
 than ailder bark, recalling the warden's office, 
 the warden's face and words. A pardon from the 
 governor; that was what the man had said. Salem 
 would never know what the warden had thought : 
 
98 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 how strangely this youngster heard him out, look- 
 ing him straight in the eyes, uttering not one 
 syllable, keeping a face unmoved except for a flash 
 of indignation. 
 
 "Their pardon?" Salem had thought then, 
 and was thinking still. "Theirs? They ought to 
 ask mine." 
 
 Well, he was done with that world. 
 
 "Let's not remember it," said Salem. 
 
 He sat listening to the brook, which lay here 
 in a pool, but wihich somewhere above ran down 
 gurgling among roots or stepping-stones. He 
 drank in its music and its mingled evening per- 
 fume. 
 
 "You can fairly smell the minnies and shiners 
 down under." 
 
 A moment afterward, none the less, he was 
 remembering again. He unbuttoned a pocket in 
 his shirt and brought out a wad of paper, doubled 
 flat. This, unfolding, became a thick envelope. 
 There was light enough to read by. 
 
 "For Mr. Salem Delaforce. His Property. 
 To be Handed him when he gets Out." 
 
 The handwriting Salem had already pored over, 
 many times. A bold fist, using plenty of ink and 
 a broad pen, it was unknown to him. Salem turned 
 the envelope over, to shake its contents out. 
 
THE WINTER BELL 99 
 
 A leaf of plain paper, bound with faded red 
 tape, was wrapped round all but the ends of a 
 flat parcel. The ends were clean bank notes. 
 
 "For a Starter," the same unknown fist had 
 scrawled across the wrapping. "$250. Plenty 
 More where This Come From." 
 
 Salem could not guess where; he had given up 
 guessing; and now, as before, he studied the 
 handwriting in vain. 
 
 "Well, I know where it's going to." He but- 
 toned the thing away almost angrily. "What they 
 take me for? Whoever they be. Plenty of hay- 
 ing to do all along this ro'd — road. Slats of it." 
 
 His fire, a handful of coals on the grass, had 
 died while he sat thinking. Salem rose to stretch 
 his legs. Below him on darkened water the eve- 
 ning foam began to drift, ghostly bubbles that 
 before morning would slide together in cakes of 
 froth. He stared down at them, wondering. 
 Silent things like these had gone on, all the while 
 he was away, and he had forgotten them. 
 
 "Bedtime," he told himself. 
 
 But another forgotten thing caught and held 
 him motionless — the silvery beat of crickets in 
 warm hayfields thrilling the twilight. 
 
 "Them, too. Clean gone out of mind." 
 
 Salem remained there long, hearing them and 
 
ioo THE WINTER BELL 
 
 watching stars come over the black tree tops. 
 When at last he lay on his well-made bed of 
 leaves, yet another sound startled him, ripped the 
 veil still farther off his memory. It was nothing 
 more than a nighthawk that dropped overhead, a 
 whirr and twang like the tongue of a Jew's harp 
 setting teeth on edge; but that swoop left him 
 plunged in thought which went down to the bot- 
 tom of remembrance. 
 
 "If I don't come awake and find If it 
 
 don't ring — the bell." 
 
 He shivered and sat up. His head brushed 
 the ceiling of boughs. Reaching by starlight he 
 caught a hazel leaf, and pinched it as one might 
 pinch the ear of a child. It was there. He knew 
 the soft roughness. 
 
 "All right." 
 
 Salem lay down again, heaved a great breath, 
 and let the singing of the crickets drowse and 
 dwindle. 
 
 He woke before dawn, swam naked among the 
 cakes of night froth on the pool, breakfasted, 
 cleaned camp, buried his fire in sand, and departed 
 leaving no other trace of human stay. A won- 
 derful chorus of birds in the roadside elms accom- 
 panied his march, and before sunrise, when the 
 birds fell silent and began their visits in dropping 
 
THE WINTER BELL 101 
 
 flight from tree to tree, Salem had covered a good 
 two miles. He did not hurry, neither did he rest 
 until the way grew hot. Thus day after day his 
 journey continued; in camp at sunset by still 
 waters, out again at bird song in the morning. 
 Whenever the look of a farmhouse pleased him 
 he turned up the lane, asked for work, and was 
 put to making hay. The farmers who hired him, 
 and his fellow workers, thought the new man 
 something of a riddle, but liked him one and all. 
 
 "That young furriner," said one, "don't waste 
 no time baingein' back and forth; he kerries his 
 swath, and goes it like J. I. C." 
 
 u Yis," agreed another, "looks poor as a snake, 
 but seen him turn to, pitching That boy, I'll 
 bate ye, c'd outlift Mose Craig, dead weight." 
 
 "Never opens his trap," declared a third man, 
 "but I vow he ketches a joke quicker and laughs 
 heartier'n two folks." 
 
 As for Salem, though unaware of this praise, 
 he rejoiced in their kindly company. His heart 
 was enlarged. Sometimes he worked with a lump 
 in his throat, the sense of restoration moving him 
 almost to tears when he heard some cheerful coun- 
 try saying pass among his mates or only the rust- 
 ling ring of scythe blades that swung in unison. 
 But though more than once a farmer offered him 
 
io2 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 good wages to stay the year round, he shook his 
 head. 
 
 "After this job, sir, I must be moving on. Got 
 to — got to go meet somebody up yonder." 
 
 So, earning his way, regaining hard health, 
 Salem tramped northeastward by pleasant summer 
 roads. His face turned from brick-red to a clear 
 brown, his eyes had not so often the look of one 
 who hearkens for something behind him. 
 
 On a hot forenoon he climbed a ridge that 
 seemed homelike, and as he went down its other 
 slope, emerged from young firs to overlook a 
 valley that also was like home, though at first 
 glance bewildering, wrong end to. Salem knew 
 the valley well, but never had approached it from 
 this side. Green meadows, their boundary lines 
 of old rail or tumbled stone broken and smudged 
 by wild hedge growth, ran broadly down to where 
 at the shallow bottom of the landscape a river 
 sparkled, and a town, little houses gray and white, 
 straggled under a clump of elms. Flags, colored 
 specks, hung in the town. Past it the river, bright 
 blue, wound among fields, yet everywhere was 
 checked, held in patchwork by log booms, crowded 
 with square turrets, wooden piers aged to the 
 color of granite and overgrown with choke-cherry 
 bushes planted by birds long ago. Falls hidden in 
 
THE WINTER BELL 103 
 
 the distance tumbled and hissed with a sound like 
 that of frying. 
 
 Salem's inner man gave a shout to the gods, 
 for this river came winding, he knew, from his 
 own place. His outer man did nothing but look 
 in silence, then remark: "Don't seem to figger 
 why they ain't working. Not Sunday. I can't 
 hear the saw. No prettier sound if 'twas going, 
 the saw." 
 
 It was holiday in town. Salem entered the 
 street and was carried along, wondering, in a 
 crowd. Bunting covered the shops, with tor- 
 mented paper festoons of tricolor. Arches, gay 
 though temporary, shone and trembled overhead 
 in triumph. A band of music was playing. 
 Women and girls in white dresses moved as 
 though such creatures had always been round, 
 every day. Salem stood marveling at them, until 
 pushed on. 
 
 He backed into an eddy and found time to 
 ask a man who leaned in a door, "What they 
 celebratin'?" 
 
 The man removed a cigar from his mouth and 
 looked vaguely over the crowd. 
 
 "It's a sentinel," he explained. 
 
 Salem drove on with the current, abashed. He 
 felt his ignorance, for the reply meant nothing. 
 
io 4 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 Farther along he took courage to ask a mild old 
 farmer who came pressed against him and clung 
 for support in passing. 
 
 "A centinerary, they call it. Town gov'ment's 
 a hund'ed year old t'-day, or there'bouts. Liter- 
 ary programme and games goin' for'ard. A cen- 
 tannual, bub." 
 
 Someone else had not fully grasped the mean- 
 ing of this revel, for a huge drunken man fell 
 through sidewise, knocking people about, and 
 whooping: "Hurrah fer the Fourth o' July!" 
 And he gave the firmament a hair-raising piece of 
 advice, what to do with Queen Victoria. 
 
 In a moment Salem had him by the neck, quietly 
 shaking his head off. 
 
 "Behave yourself." 
 
 There were screams. Then the man went by, 
 sobered or frightened, without another word. 
 Salem took his own course again, to get through 
 this fair at once, cross the bridge and follow the 
 river bank; but holding a purpose, he could not 
 stem the crowd which held none, and so had 
 made little way when three men overtook him. 
 
 "You a Britisher?" their spokesman asked. 
 
 They were all strangers. 
 
 "No, I ain't," said Salem. "But the queen's a 
 
THE WINTER BELL 105 
 
 good old lady. That fellow forgot himself. 
 Women round." 
 
 The stranger nodded. 
 
 "You handled him elegant." They began 
 talking all three together. "Look a-here. We 
 need a wrastler for the next game. Joe Courte- 
 manche says, the big, lazy, good-for-nothin' — 
 A purse o' fifteen dollars. You come along. We 
 need a man to wrastle uptown here." 
 
 "I never did for money in my life," Salem 
 objected. 
 
 "Then you come do it for your country," they 
 replied. "For Hail Columby, happy land. Cour- 
 temanche says the town's a hund'ed year old 
 t'-day, and he'll throw anybody in it over the 
 moon. Says we're all run to pigweed. . . . No, 
 
 we hain't scairt of him, but He's waitin' 
 
 there now, a-grinnin' and chimin' the purse. We 
 non' of us kin handle him, that's all. Don't want 
 to see foreigners walk off a-laughin' at us, do 
 ye?" 
 
 While Salem regarded them doubtfully their 
 leader broke forth again: "W'y, you ain't afraid, 
 be ye?" 
 
 The crowd was watching them and listening. 
 
 "No," said Salem again, "I ain't." 
 
 "This way, then." 
 
io6 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 The three closed round him, forced their pas- 
 sage to an open door, hurried through a shop 
 and a warehouse, then along to a deserted alley. 
 Salem as he went expected to find some quiet knot 
 of connoisseurs, gathered to watch a neighborly 
 bout in the corner of a green field. He had 
 wrestled thus, once or twice before. It surprised 
 him when his companions or guards turned quickly 
 into another back door, through another shop, 
 and forth, battling with another part of the same 
 crowd, to an open space, the very centre of all. 
 
 "Now ye kin shut yer head!" cried his leader. 
 "Here's our man." 
 
 Shingle shavings carpeted the road; a ring of 
 people inclosed him, men, women, boys, a horse's 
 head among them, a red jacket or so with the 
 gleaming brass tuba of the band, now silent; and 
 like water in rapids a great babble of talk poured 
 round him, dashing his thoughts to confusion. 
 Here he stood, public, alone. He had stood thus 
 only once before, at his trial. Salem gave a start 
 to turn, checked it, but felt his knees quaking. 
 Across the clean shavings a man looked up, eyed 
 him, and laughed. 
 
 "Dat leetly tall boy? Ah'll can see he was 
 'fred now, me. Das too bad, keep me waitin' 
 here too long tarn for joke, yes, sah !" 
 
THE WINTER BELL 107 
 
 The speaker, a dark man, short but enormously 
 broad, laughed again, tossed his black curls, and 
 continued to suck a lemon. Already that day the 
 great Courtemanche had been fighting, for blood 
 smeared the lemon and his thick black mustache. 
 He had also been chasing a greased pig, for his 
 canvas jacket shone as if buttered. He wore 
 this garment very tight over his huge chest, and 
 a padding of sponges in armpit and on shoulder 
 exaggerated his mass, deformed it like gnarls. 
 His wide brown face, glossy with sweat, beamed 
 all good humor, yet the good humor, Salem 
 thought, of a man who had things his own way. 
 
 Voices, close behind, underran the general 
 hubbub. 
 
 "Who's this other furriner?" 
 
 "Dunno. They jes' come and hove him in by 
 the crop." 
 
 "He looks scairt to death." 
 
 "Ought to. He's in for it. Hell to pay and 
 no pitch in his kittle." 
 
 "Yes, sir-ree, he'd ought to. Joe Courte- 
 manche'll take and snap him in two like an 
 aidgin'." 
 
 Someone had spoken true. Salem acknowl- 
 edged that much: he was frightened. This 
 
 J 
 
tot THE WINTER BELL 
 
 crowd would be like the other. No foretelling 
 the kind of trouble they'd bring on a fellow. 
 
 " What's your name?" A neat little man in 
 Sunday clothes came bobbing up with a note- 
 book. "I'm the judge o' this contest. What's 
 your name?" 
 
 Salem told him, and while he wrote, whispered 
 anxiously in his ear: "Look. I ain't got to say 
 anything, have I? To them?" 
 
 "What? What?" snapped the judge. He 
 seemed to dance with heat or excitement. The 
 book and pencil trembled in his hands. "What's 
 that?" 
 
 "Have I got to do any talkin'? All I'm scairt 
 of." 
 
 The little man stared. 
 
 "No," said he. "Why, no, not unless you want 
 to. Nary word." He screwed his mouth round 
 like a buttonhole, and from one corner of it 
 added: "All you need do is break his pesky 
 neck. If you're able. Big tub! Roarin' like 
 the Gulf, what he kin do round here. The big 
 bellerin' gype." 
 
 With that the judge skipped away, held up 
 one arm, shrilled forth some very different 
 language, impartial and lofty, then drew aside. 
 Courtemanche flung the lemon skin playfully after 
 
THE WINTER BELL 109 
 
 him, laughed, ran his fingers through the black 
 curls, then moved forward crouching. He held 
 both hands out, low, grinned against the sun, 
 and talked a stream of gibberish as he came. 
 Salem stood waiting. 
 
 At last the bulk, swaying like a bear, was close 
 enough. It left the ground and dove with a joy- 
 ful yell. Shavings flew. 
 
 Most of the onlookers failed to understand 
 the next thing they clearly saw. After the first 
 rush and whirl both men remained upright where 
 they had met. The tall youngster was holding 
 Courtemanche by the shoulders, at arm's length, 
 looking down into his face quietly, as though 
 about to give him advice. Their attitude seemed 
 almost peaceful. It did not change, till Courte- 
 manche lowered his head and began twisting his 
 whole breadth, to no purpose that anyone could 
 follow. 
 
 Jeers of disappointment went round the ring. 
 "Wrastle! Why don't ye wrastle, you two?" 
 But those who knew better, said nothing; and 
 one by one other men began to guess, when they 
 spied rags of sponge and canvas underfoot. 
 Things had come loose, but not Salem's grip. 
 The wrestlers did nothing because he chose 
 neither to move nor to let his adversary move, 
 
no THE WINTER BELL 
 
 except for the clumsy writhing. Moments passed. 
 From these two central figures a queer stillness 
 radiated, so that rank after rank of the crowd 
 became silent; whoever could see was watching; 
 whoever could not, straining on tiptoe to learn 
 what had gone wrong inside there. 
 
 They heard Courtemanche only, puffing, curs- 
 ing, as he joined his fists and drove them upward 
 again and again, to wedge Salem's arms apart. 
 The wedge failed. 
 
 A man laughed ; then another beside him ; then 
 a third across the ring from them ; and some aged 
 critic who spoke in a toothless whistle but had 
 good eyesight, demanded: "What is this, you, 
 a laying on of hands? Ye big-headed hornpout, 
 that boy kin hold ye there all day." 
 
 Laughter became general. This public, having 
 heard and seen the vainglory of Courtemanche 
 a moment ago, took pleasure in finding him 
 ridiculous. 
 
 "Throw him over the moon, hey? Waitin' 
 till she's come full, Joe?" 
 
 A small boy, made bold by example, shouted 
 what he would not have dared, until now, to 
 breathe: "Hey, Jozeff! Quiddlety? Goin' 
 home 'fore suppertime? Pea soup and onions!" 
 
 The helpless champion's face grew dark red. 
 

 en .i_> 
 
 m 
 
THE WINTER BELL in 
 
 He loved a mighty laugh, but not at himself. 
 Again he strained; the deadlock refused to break; 
 and then casting away in fury what was left of 
 a good reputation, Courtemanche bent his head 
 sidewise and bit like a dog, setting his teeth in 
 Salem's forearm. 
 
 Next moment, with a swoop, a lightning shift 
 of hands, a bend, clutch, and heave in one motion, 
 Salem had the man aloft. For what seemed a 
 long time, everyone expected to see the great body, 
 poised in air, go whirling to the ground and 
 smash. A woman who spied the look on Salem's 
 face gave a squeak of terror. Then she with the 
 others became aware that he had paused, wav- 
 ered under the burden, changed his mind, and be- 
 gun to smile. His hands flew to another grip. 
 He lowered Courtemanche carefully, head first. 
 
 The wrestler's black curls bored among the 
 shavings ; for Salem held his feet and walked him 
 three times round like a windlass before easing 
 him down from the vertical to the horizontal. 
 It should do Courtemanche credit that when he 
 sat up, with chips in his hair, in his eyes, and in 
 the fresh blood on his mustache, he tried weakly 
 to join the merriment. 
 
 u Bah gosh, ah guess he was the dev' !" said 
 Courtemanche. "No sah, ah'll don't want no 
 
ii2 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 more, me. One tarn he'll be plenty, bah gosh!" 
 
 Salem, grinning and embarrassed, had mean- 
 while worked his way into the crowd. It opened 
 to let him pass, but after him streamed a little 
 mob of noisy adherents, thumping his back and 
 clamoring. 
 
 "Quit that, will ye, boys?" he implored. "Jest 
 let me go through here quiet." No man wanted 
 such a tail to his kite. This upper end of the 
 street rose toward the river bank, where above 
 jostling heads loomed the gray timbers of the 
 bridge. If he could once get free, across there, 
 the town might go on well without him for an- 
 other hundred years. 
 
 "Here. You wait." The three strangers who 
 had caused all this annoyance, the little skipping 
 referee with his note-book, and a sweaty man in 
 scarlet who carried a brass trombone, fought 
 for the honor of leading him. "Come take your 
 purse." 
 
 Pushing, dragging, they got Salem into a canvas 
 booth that smelled of cigars and trampled grass. 
 
 "Here's the boy!" they called. "Here's the 
 winner for ye! Stood him on his head. Fork 
 out!" 
 
 "A neck-and-crotch holt it was." 
 
 "Twa'nt neither!" 
 
THE WINTER BELL 113 
 
 "Twasso!" 
 
 "I tell ye I seen it!" 
 
 "Hand over the purse!" 
 
 In turmoil and close heat Salem found two 
 more strangers bothering him. They wore holi- 
 day black, stood behind a counter of pine boards 
 and bunting, added compliments to the confusion, 
 and solemnly gave him three pieces of dirty green 
 paper. 
 
 As they did so a bystander spoke out. 
 
 "W'y, by Godfrey, I thought I knowed him 
 all along! That's Delaforce the murd'rer." 
 
 It was a big, saturnine, discontented man who 
 uttered this, in a complaining voice. The booth 
 had grown still when Salem turned. 
 
 "A haley old pass things has come to nowa- 
 days. GivuV prizes round to murd'rers." 
 
 Before the whine had ended Salem flung the 
 money on the grass and walked out. He stopped 
 short at the entrance. Wondering faces watched 
 him. No one supposed that as he halted, alone 
 before their eyes, he was wrestling with an enemy 
 greater than Courtemanche. He threw and won 
 the fall, unseen. 
 
 Turning, Salem went quickly back, stooped, 
 and picked up his money from the bruised grass. 
 
 "Thought he'd need it after all," said that 
 
ii4 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 whincr who knew his name. "Guess ye do, to 
 rights." 
 
 Salem unbuttoned the pocket of his blue flannel 
 shirt, took out a stained wad of envelope, opened 
 this, folded his unclean winnings away, read the 
 inscription — "For a Starter" — and tucked it all 
 into his bosom again. 
 
 "Yes," he said, "I got a use for it." 
 
 With that he stepped across the booth and 
 eyed the discontented one at close range, without 
 passion. 
 
 "Yes, I need it," said Salem. Taking hold by 
 the nose, he wagged the man's head harmlessly 
 from side to side. "But there's worse needs than 
 money. You ain't a man. What people like you 
 say don't count." 
 
 Not caring to watch a sallow face turn pale 
 or red, he set the nose free, nodded good day to 
 his paymasters, ducked beneath a clothesline row 
 of flags, and was gone. 
 
 All the fun of the fair buzzed after him. It 
 sank, the river cooling and quenching it with 
 gurgles under the bridge. 
 
IX 
 
 To SAY that he disregarded the tongues of men 
 had been easy; but when time drew near for 
 Salem to follow his own words and live by them, 
 he found it hard. 
 
 He was resting, a figure of peace, by sunset 
 water that burned with clear yellow flame through 
 a meadow. From where he sat the bright green 
 banks ran level for a while, then seemed to float 
 suspended between glow of air and glow of water, 
 then made a black bar across the west. When- 
 ever Salem dropped in his fishing line, ripples 
 broke the inverted sky below him, widened their 
 circle, and sent gray smoky rings running down the 
 trunk of a young poplar on the opposite shore. 
 Nothing else moved in all the landscape ; even the 
 poplar leaves hung without a sign of their turn- 
 coat waggling; and Salem, whose cast of the 
 sinker had created this brief stir, remained quite 
 motionless while it died out and the striped undu- 
 lation became gray bark again. 
 
 He fished for his supper. Hornpout, eel, or 
 
 115 
 
n6 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 chub, no matter which took the bait, would be 
 welcome. A small iron pan lay on the grass 
 beside him, with firewood ready. But Salem had 
 forgotten supper, forgotten his appetite. 
 
 "I can't do it." The calm which flooded these 
 meadows, this unearthly radiance, was illusion. 
 A black conflict went on. "I can't do it. Worse'n 
 the toothache to spoil all. I can't go it." 
 
 He had struggled through that fair, left the 
 town behind, a good day and a half of marching, 
 yet now he sat and heard the voice in the booth. 
 It whined at his ear. 
 
 "And that fellow was the only one to know 
 your name there," Salem told himself. "Where 
 you aim to go, you fool, down where they took 
 to work and tried you, every man jack'll be saying 
 it. Pointing you out." 
 
 Behind him, he knew well enough without turn- 
 ing to look again, an old guidepost leaned at 
 a fork of the road. Its arms had dropped askew, 
 directing travelers toward Mother Earth, right 
 and left. Both arms were gray and riddled with 
 bird shot; but flakes of paint, traces of lettering, 
 ghostly words from another generation, still pro- 
 claimed if only as a whisper: 
 
 "p Miles to Wing Dam. 
 48 Miles to Crossport." 
 
THE WINTER BELL 117 
 
 The worn-out post loomed like a gallows tree 
 at the back of all his thoughts. 
 
 "No, sir. You can't outface 'em. Nine miles. 
 Right up to the edge of the woods. Your own 
 country. The other way, down — no. Them? 
 You had to lay hands on three men inside an 
 hour, to town. I'd rather go live with the skunks 
 and lucivees." 
 
 A tug at his line and a whirling pull brought 
 some moments of relief. He fetched up an eel, 
 and was busy. But having got unsnarled, having 
 cooked, eaten, cleared away supper, and lighted 
 his pipe, Salem felt once more the presence of 
 the ghostly alternative behind him. 
 
 "You won't down, you old sir, will ye?" 
 
 He rose, walked to the foot of the guidepost, 
 and stared at it through the twilight. The lop- 
 sided relic offered him his choice, right or left, 
 north or south, without comfort. 
 
 "All is, a man can't stop, hey? Past they 
 go," said Salem aloud. "Father must have seen 
 you, many's the time. Since your young days I 
 guess a lot of us has traveled where you're point- 
 ing, down below ground. Most likely grand- 
 father saw the paint fresh on you." 
 
 Dusk fell, the light withdrew from air and 
 water, the decrepit wooden stump glimmered 
 
n8 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 above him and began to melt from view, like 
 his tobacco smoke that drifted past it; Salem 
 waited as if consulting an oracle; and presently 
 the hour, the symbol, or the names he had in- 
 voked, gave him a sense of watchful company. 
 Those who had trooped past the lonely cross- 
 road in other years, now were gathering to see 
 what he would do. Salem had his answer. 
 
 "Nine mile short and easy?" He reflected. 
 "No, sir. Father wouldn't go that way; nor 
 grandfather. The long and hard, if it's got to 
 be so." 
 
 He gave his mind no leisure to change, but 
 made at once toward the stream, groped together 
 his handful of belongings on the meadow bank, 
 and was off, tramping southward. By starlight 
 the road, a short band of mist, unrolled from 
 darkness that was now cool open air, now trees 
 warm and sweet with the last breath of daytime. 
 
 Two hours after midnight Salem halted. 
 
 "Twenty-odd miles out o' forty-eight," he 
 reckoned. "Harder to go back than 'tis for'ard, 
 now." 
 
 He camped on a dry ledge among hackmatacks, 
 and fell asleep watching through their dark vapor 
 the bright vapor of the Milky Way. 
 
 The rest of the journey he took at his own 
 
THE WINTER BELL 119 
 
 gait, from noon till nightfall, from dawn till after 
 sunrise. A morning whistle blew as he came 
 downhill toward the town. Early light covered 
 a green sea of elm tops, green motionless waves, 
 and like tidal rocks in every hollow, gray roofs 
 here, a white gable there with green shutters, a 
 broad, low red chimney sending up the smoke of 
 breakfast; above all two white church spires, and 
 on the taller of these a gilt cockerel crowing in 
 pantomime between the gilt letters N. and W. to 
 warn shadows that already streamed away. The 
 river, clear gold bordered with melting brown, 
 upheld a few dull shining lines, pink and orange 
 masts of old schooners, against dark fir woods 
 on a hill not yet climbed by the sun. Salem 
 eyed all this doubtfully. The place of his trial 
 he had pictured, beforehand, while marching on 
 it, as hostile; now it seemed both lovely and in- 
 different. 
 
 "A fool's arrant you come on," he said. 
 "Errand." 
 
 He slipped into town by a back way among 
 outbuildings. Only half a dozen persons were 
 in sight, and these went about their morning af- 
 fairs with no more than a glance at him. But 
 as he passed a long gray shed that hummed with 
 the music of the plane he saw across a yard 
 
120 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 full of chips a large man in faded blue, who 
 leaned bulging through a doorway and had be- 
 gun to stare open-mouthed. 
 
 "HE!" The man shouted, waved both arms 
 wildly, and came running. "You!" 
 
 Salem knew at once the heavy body that moved 
 on such light feet. It was Trapper Kingcome. 
 
 "Signs an' wonders! You ole swamp angel, 
 you!" 
 
 Round-faced as ever, spattered with freckles 
 to the roots of his pale coppery hair, Trapper 
 blocked the width of the road and caught Salem's 
 hand. 
 
 "You ole Nick-o'-the- Woods, you! How are 
 ye?" 
 
 Salem laughed. He had been afraid of this 
 meeting. No need: they shook hands as if 
 never to leave off, and the shining of Kingcome's 
 light blue eyes outdid any words. 
 
 "Good gorry, Trapper! You " Salem's 
 
 own eyes blurred. He choked, could not speak, 
 and dared not try to, overcome by the hold of 
 this freckled hand and the grin of this workman 
 in dirty clothes. Every best part of life seemed 
 to rise together from forgotten depths and stifle 
 
 him with joy. "You — why, last time And 
 
 I hove a bench at you !" 
 
THE WINTER BELL 121 
 
 "Come in," said Trapper, "out the sun." It 
 hardly shone over the mill, underfoot the chips 
 were still damp, morning coolness lingered every- 
 where; but Kingcome spoke and led Salem along 
 as if guarding some delicate thing that might wilt. 
 "Mus' go feed my old boiler." 
 
 They entered a shed or dark wooden vault half 
 underground, sweet smelling, filled in one corner 
 almost to the roof by a great yellow mound of 
 chips, crisp and curly. These came blowing down- 
 ward from a boxed hole near the ceiling, and 
 amid them in long gusts the clean high barytone 
 song of a plane running through clear stuff with- 
 out a chatter. 
 
 "Don't mean to say you're working?" Salem 
 regained the power of speech. "Who routs you 
 out of bed in time?" 
 
 "Me?" cried Trapper. "I'm Gabriel-Blow- 
 Your-Horn. I'm the cherub that wakes up the 
 seventy times seven sleepers. Didn' you hear the 
 w'istle blart jes' now? When I git me a good 
 purchase on the ole cord, and histe both boots 
 off the ground and hang there to finish my beauty 
 sleep, boys-oh, the fo'ks go shin up trees f'm here 
 to Piskehagan. Think she's a Injun devil." 
 
 As they faced each other, Salem on a keg, Trap- 
 per elbow-deep in shavings, they might have been 
 
122 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 mistaken for dull young men exchanging time- 
 worn banter. No one could have guessed, at 
 any rate, how Salem was thrilled. 
 
 "Ain't this a hell of a note?" demanded the 
 grinning Kingcome. "How'd you git here?" 
 
 "On foot" 
 
 "You're lookin' fine." 
 
 "You haven't changed a mite, Trapper." 
 
 They shouted, for the vibrating music drowned 
 their words, as if they sat within the body of a 
 giant fiddle. Kingcome did not go near a boiler 
 anywhere, but presently rose, took a broken hay- 
 rake, and began to haul shavings down the slope 
 of the yellow mound. It was plain that he per- 
 formed needless work, plain that he, like Salem, 
 felt the embarrassment of emotion. 
 
 "Oh, guess I hain't failed non'." 
 
 "How are all the boys?" 
 
 On this question Trapper laid hold with grate- 
 ful energy. He plunged into his answer, forgot 
 to rake, sat down again, and in half an hour, 
 talking at speed, had only disentangled the pref- 
 ace and laid historical groundwork to his news 
 of the country side. He was a master gossip, 
 Salem not a bad listener. 
 
 "Half a jiffy, don't feed her out too quick." 
 Salem at last halted the chronicle with a sigh. 
 
THE WINTER BELL 123 
 
 He looked slowly about the room, hearkening 
 to the shrill plane, watching the chips blow from 
 the chute mouth, relishing their fragrance, ad- 
 miring the soft golden twilight reflected from a 
 patch of sun at the door. "I'll bust. Good mind 
 to get down and roll like a horse. You know, 
 there where I was, Trapper — I've been a long 
 time starving." 
 
 At his words the broad freckled face became 
 grave. Its roundness could not lengthen, but 
 it wore an infant's look of distress and appeal. 
 
 "I know," said Trapper. "May as well come 
 to the p'int." He stopped, then broke out pas- 
 sionately. "Sale, you must think I got a heart 
 no bigger'n a beaver's tongue ! But how could 
 I write to ye? All that while I kep' a-tryin', 
 time and time again, but set there dumb and 
 tore up. You may not believe it, when a man's 
 jaw kin wag so like Sancho, but come to letters 
 I wan't no more fit to write 'em than what hell's 
 fit for a powder house. And that's a fact. 
 S'posin' I could, what use was letters anyway? 
 Like goin' up attic to show a hoss an ear o' corn 
 out the window! Ontil we did have somethin' 
 to tell, and then too late; you was gone." 
 
 Kingcome stopped short, mumbling in^con- 
 fusion. 
 
i2 4 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 "I never once thought of that," declared 
 Salem. "Never. Nor nothing else like it." He 
 had broken the ice now. "You know," he con- 
 tinued, "they let me out on what they call a 
 pardon." 
 
 His friend looked up, still flushed, but no 
 longer vehement. 
 
 "They told me," said Salem, "in their office, 
 
 'twas an Obadiah Voe that Was it our old 
 
 Frizzly?" 
 
 "Yeah." The other cut in quickly. "Old 
 Frizzly Voe, he done the deed. With your axe. 
 He went and give Asy Beard a tunk that started 
 the whol' thing goin'." 
 
 Trapper had heaved on foot and was raking 
 once more. 
 
 "How'd they find out?" Salem demanded. 
 "Last man on earth. Obadiah Voe? The poor 
 old string of misery, what drove him to it? They 
 said he owned up when dying. Trapper, look 
 here. What's become of all those young ones 
 Frizzly was father and mother to ? Good gorry, 
 he had 'em like the sands of the sea." 
 
 It appeared that Trapper would look any- 
 where but here. He went on combing the mound. 
 His pale blue eyes had grown small and hidden, 
 like the eyes of an elephant. 
 
THE WINTER BELL 125 
 
 "I can't jes' tell ye, Sale. I did hear somep'n 
 too. Obadiah's children are bein' well looked 
 after, they say. I don't jes' recall the partic'lars." 
 
 Unless the world had changed, this huge talker 
 remembered all he chose not to forget. Salem 
 sat wondering. At last he gave up the subject, 
 and chose another. 
 
 "Did you ever go see that little girl?" 
 
 "Which one?" said Trapper. 
 
 "The one I chucked you the dog's collar — — " 
 
 "Oh, her! Yes, I give her the collar same 
 day." 
 
 Again Salem waited. 
 
 "What," he ventured, "what you s'pose be- 
 came of her?" 
 
 Kingcome fished after something in his dirty 
 blue pockets. 
 
 "Why, she's round," he drawled. "She's livin' 
 there yit, I guess." 
 
 The talk came to a standstill while Salem con- 
 quered another doubt. 
 
 "I don't know, Trapper," he began shyly. 
 "Maybe a kind o' fool's caper. But I took the 
 notion I'd like to see that child again and — and 
 have a talk with her." 
 
 "Child? Oh. Yeah, I see." 
 
 The sleepy, elephantine eyes did not glance up, 
 
126 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 but considered what one freckled hand was now 
 holding, a nub of blackjack tobacco gnawed all 
 round, fluted at the edges like a pattypan. 
 
 "I'll tell ye who you'd ought to have a talk 
 with." Kingcome tore off a chew and ruminated. 
 "You'd ought to go see Cap'n Constantine, 
 
 that's who. He could tell ye " Trapper 
 
 suddenly roused. His eyes opened, wide and 
 earnest. "Look, Sale, you go talk to the old 
 cap'n. He's sick, layin' bedfast, and would love 
 to see ye. You'd take to him like a duck's bill 
 to the mud. Will ye go? Will ye promise?" 
 
 The man seemed ready to implore. Salem 
 could not understand his fervor, but nodded. 
 
 "All right. I don't mind." 
 
 "Don't ye fergit to." Trapper threw away 
 his rake, puffed out a sigh of relief, dropped on 
 the mound elbow-deep once more, and became 
 his old cheerful self. "But to think you never 
 heard o' that hoss! Why, sir, as a colt Bales 
 McCatherine willed him to Tom Grele. And 
 now, by ginger! — Bales died in a hoss blanket, 
 as he always 'lowed to, and wouldn' have his 
 boots took off. Tom set up nursin' him nights, 
 and nothin' would do, his last night on earth, but 
 bring the colt right int' the harness room where 
 his eyes could rest on him. ( Mambrino blood,' 
 
THE WINTER BELL 127 
 
 s'e, 'keep him good. If they'd let me lead him 
 int' the next world with me, Tom, I'd pay the 
 dooty.' So sayin' old Bales reaches up for the 
 halter, but can't make it, and his hand drops, so- 
 fashion." 
 
 The interrupted chronicle swept on, full tide. 
 Salem heard of great deeds done by a horse, now 
 famous, that when he himself went to prison had 
 not been foaled. The pair of cronies made up for 
 lost years. 
 
It was late at night, the town had gone to bed, 
 before they ceased talking. 
 
 "Quit long enough to sleep; haf to, I cal'late," 
 Trapper admitted. 
 
 They stood in the road before his lodging. 
 Salem took another last look at the darkened 
 houses and the broad starlight over their chimneys. 
 
 "Funny," said he, "to think of being scared of 
 this. They don't seem just real, though, yet. 
 Like coming home, but coming home another 
 person. No. Well, words can't hit it off. Good 
 night again." 
 
 "Good night." 
 
 Yet Salem lingered with an afterthought. 
 
 "Trapper, ain't it a caution how a man's made 
 to guess right sometimes?" 
 
 "You mean like what?" demanded Kingcome. 
 
 "Well," Salem returned slowly, "take it like 
 guessing which arm of a guidepost is which." 
 
 He left his friend mystified, and went off to 
 make his bed out of doors. The night remained 
 
 128 
 
THE WINTER BELL 129 
 
 warm. Salem had had enough of four walls 
 when they were not needed. 
 
 Next morning by bright sunshine he sought 
 and found a little street once hateful to him. It 
 led between river wharves and a huddle of abject 
 sheds, the disorderly hinder parts of buildings 
 long sunken to neglect. He remembered every 
 stone, every warped gray shingle that hung scaling 
 off, or nail half drawn by frost, or crazy window- 
 sash patched with old shooks of boxes; for 
 though he had passed them not often, he had 
 seen them all with the eye of acute misery. Now, 
 as he went down, it was like a way of lost foot- 
 steps. Nothing would have drawn him there 
 again but the purpose which at the fair had made 
 him stoop after dirty money, and at the cross- 
 road taken him south. To turn his head this 
 morning and look toward the jail, cost him a pain- 
 ful effort. 
 
 There was no jail. Salem stood for a moment 
 lost. 
 
 "The lock-up's gone." 
 
 Chickweed, plantain, and burdocks overgrew a 
 square depression in the ground, where heaps of 
 broken plaster crumbled into ruin that seemed 
 already ancient. What had been a place of 
 darkness lay open to the sun. 
 
130 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 "Red cow's hair in the lime," thought Salem. 
 u Must have been about here, my room." 
 
 On the spot where he had first known agony, 
 a tall sour-dock upheld its pointed clump of 
 seeds, brown as iron rust. Salem regarded this 
 weed for a time. Though not given to day dreams 
 he brooded, overcome by the truth of his mid- 
 night saying to Trapper. Everything had 
 changed, flown, melted away, his own sufferings 
 along with the rest, like the pangs of a man dead 
 and forgotten. Here he was, another person: 
 back from nowhere, a ghost looking at weeds. 
 
 He woke with a shiver, glanced quickly behind 
 him, and stood hearkening. His face twitched. 
 
 "No," said he. "No." 
 
 Nothing sounded anywhere but a rumble and 
 slap of lumber loading on some deck. 
 
 "Maybe her house is gone too." 
 
 Salem turned, ready for more vanishings; but 
 there across the road below him waited the small 
 house that he had come to see. Dreary, un- 
 painted, askew on ground sloping toward the 
 river, it was the same, its foundation still hidden 
 by a trough of hemlock slabs filled with sawdust. 
 
 "Told you," he chuckled, "they never burn their 
 banking." 
 
 He went across to it and knocked at the door. 
 
THE WINTER BELL 131 
 
 If the little girl answered his knock he would 
 say and do just what he had planned. His 
 thoughts had long been homing to this doorstep. 
 He was Mr. Delaforce, and she the one who had 
 not only called him by name but believed him 
 when he had sat like the Man in the Iron Cage 
 and believed nothing. Now, while thanking her, 
 he would try to make her understand, if a child 
 might, what had lain hidden in his breast ever 
 since. 
 
 "No good at telling things, " thought Salem. 
 "But out with it. A few words." 
 
 Then he would say good-by, leave her a pres- 
 ent, and come away. The pocket of his shirt 
 was unbuttoned, the envelope at hand, with his 
 "purse" won from Courtemanche and his larger 
 windfall. 
 
 "Not much to do, either," he complained. 
 "But it's all IVe got." 
 
 Below the end of the house, where the road 
 curved steeply down to a wharf, men were load- 
 ing a vessel. While he waited Salem took an 
 idler's pleasure in the sight of work. It was a 
 green schooner, the Galilee, that floated on a 
 sunshiny blur of her own hue and resounded with 
 hollow thumping as the lumber came aboard. 
 
 "Short maisure, every stick of it," quoth Salem. 
 
1 32 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 "For some Latin country port, then. And they 
 call her Galilee!" 
 
 No one had come to the door. He knocked 
 again. Soon afterward he grew conscious that 
 among the workers below one had stopped and 
 was watching in return. A tall, strongly built 
 young man, on a golden pine platform which 
 raised him halfway up the foremast of the vessel, 
 he stood clear against the blue, and forgot a 
 heavy plank slanting over his shoulder. He 
 stared. 
 
 For a moment Salem thought he knew this 
 figure of arrested motion. Then he was not so 
 sure. The man's red face, puckered with the 
 strain of looking toward the sun, recalled a face 
 that had peered at him thus with difficulty before ; 
 but when or where Salem could not tell. River 
 bank and brown dock water made an interval too 
 wide for the tracing of lineaments. 
 
 "Ought to know him, though." 
 
 One fact appeared certain. This long stare 
 was not friendly. 
 
 "Hey, there !" 
 
 The watcher on the lumber pile took a fresh 
 grip of his plank, and shouted. 
 
 "Nobody in !" 
 
 His voice had a known but not a familiar ring. 
 
THE WINTER BELL 133 
 
 It was hard, bold, and like the man's face, un- 
 friendly. 
 
 Salem called back to him : 
 
 "Anyone live here now?" 
 
 The other suddenly fell to work again, sliding 
 his long yellow plank over the edge of the pile, 
 over the string-piece, and so down till its butt 
 rested on the deck of the Galilee. He then spat 
 between wharf and bulwark, turned away, bent, 
 and lifted another plank. 
 
 "I dunno," he grumbled with a sour oath. "An* 
 if I did, ye dumb " 
 
 Salem could not hear the rest. He waited, 
 but the stranger said no more, and took no further 
 heed of his doings, except to scowl across now 
 and then while working. For a third and last 
 time Salem knocked at the door. He gave ear 
 more closely. Inside the house a clock was tick- 
 ing. He heard the scratch of a dog's toenails 
 on the floor, and soon afterward the snuffle of a 
 dog, questioning him through a crack at the 
 threshold. No one else came. 
 
XI 
 
 He would try again, concluded Salem, and 
 perhaps find her in the evening, after supper. 
 Meanwhile time lay heavy on his hands ; the pros- 
 pect of wandering about town all day dismayed 
 him; and when suddenly there popped into mind 
 the promise he had made to Trapper yesterday, it 
 was almost a welcome thought. He had no de- 
 sire to call on a stranger. This one might prove 
 to be an inquisitive old busybody, full of questions, 
 a torment. Still, his word had passed. The man, 
 whatever else, was a friend of Kingcome's, and 
 old and sick. 
 
 "Let drive, and over with," said Salem. u No 
 worse than twiddling thumbs all day." 
 
 Not long afterward, therefore, he opened a 
 gate in a tall hedge of lilacs overgrown with 
 cinnamon roses, and reluctantly faced the house 
 which had been pointed out to him as Captain John 
 Constantine's. A large white house with green 
 shutters, it stood well back in retirement behind 
 old twisted apple trees and huge maples. Toward 
 it there led a long straight path of pink gravel, 
 neatly raked and bordered with outlandish pates 
 
 134 
 
THE WINTER BELL 135 
 
 of brain coral set among ribbon grass. In beds, 
 a rank on either hand, peonies, hydrangeas, none- 
 so-pretty, bleeding hearts, and flowers of which 
 Salem did not know the names, grew thriving 
 as if well tended. Both house and garden seemed 
 aged, serene, clad with dignity in a garment of 
 tranquil sunlight and green leaves. 
 
 Coming from poverty's door by the river, 
 Salem felt somewhat daunted. 
 
 "Must be an old nabob," he reflected, "to keep 
 all this up." 
 
 The front steps were painted French gray, 
 spatter-worked in black and white, all freshly 
 done, even to the curled horns of the boot scraper. 
 Two noble white pilasters flanked the door. At 
 the base of each lay a giant three-pointed shell of 
 the holy-water clam, scrubbed white as alabaster, 
 and filled to the brim with clear water. 
 
 Above one of these fonts a card held the in- 
 scription : 
 
 "KEEP FULL FOR BIRDS. 
 
 Per Order, J. C." 
 
 The knocker was of brass, fashioned like an 
 urn and a wreath. It bore no name. Salem, not 
 without misgiving, lifted the wreath and rapped. 
 
 A nabob who let birds drink almost in his 
 
i 3 6 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 house, the young man reflected, must be a quiet 
 little person of mouselike ways. It confirmed 
 his theory when the door swung half open, and 
 clinging to the edge as though blown there by 
 some draft, a tiny dry wisp of mankind, in loose 
 dark clothes, with a beardless, nutcracker visage, 
 blinked sadly upward from a height of less than 
 five feet. 
 
 "Captain Constantine," began Salem. 
 
 "No, I hain't," snapped the nutcracker. "My 
 name's Orin C. Cook, if ye want to know." 
 
 This information came out so brisk as to leave 
 Salem taken much aback. 
 
 "I mean," he exclaimed, "does Captain Con- 
 stantine live here?" 
 
 "Maybe he doos," replied Mr. Cook; "then 
 again maybe he don't." On this doorkeeper's 
 head a thin crust of dark hair seemed glued to 
 the scalp. He fingered it cautiously, made sure 
 all was there, and added, "You that young for- 
 eigner with the dollies?" 
 
 "What?" said Salem. 
 
 The other exploded. 
 
 "Dollies!" he cried in a passion. "Doll rags! 
 Able-bodied, and peddlin' doll rags for to stuff 
 underneath dinner plates on table, by jibbers! 
 What next?" 
 
THE WINTER BELL 137 
 
 "No," rejoined Salem. "My name's Dela- 
 force. They told me to " 
 
 From a spitfire the little man suddenly turned 
 to the meekest of lambs. He opened the door 
 wide, swinging himself back with it, and beckoned. 
 
 "Come right in, Mr. Delaforce," he said with 
 alacrity. "My mistake. Set your hat down here. 
 Oh, you don't wear none? My mistake again. 
 Come right on upstairs. You be'n waited for, I 
 tell ye !" 
 
 Mr. Cook began skipping up a fine old stair- 
 case with mahogany rail and spiral banisters. 
 Mounting after him, Salem felt very dirty in 
 this grand house, where gilt frames hung shin- 
 ing on every wall and polished brass carpet rods 
 gleamed at every step. 
 
 "By jibbers," whispered his guide, "lucky you 
 wasn't! Dollies? What cap'n said about dollies 
 — cracky! — looked's if the roof'd go flappin' like 
 both lids to a Noah's Ark, yes, sir ! He did so !" 
 
 In a cool, dusky upper hall that smelled of 
 cedar from some chest or linen closet, the little 
 man took breath, cast behind him a grin of encour- 
 agement, and straightway crossing to a door, 
 tapped lightly. 
 
 "Mr. Delaforce here, sir." 
 
 "Show him in," rolled a voice of thunder, its 
 
i 3 8 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 volume growing as the door opened. "And, Sea- 
 cook, you run down to the galley and put the 
 kittle on." 
 
 Next moment, propelled by a gentle but dis- 
 concerting shove, Salem entered the room of the 
 thunderer. Mr. Cook shut him in at once. It 
 was a large, high room with white woodwork, 
 marvelously clean, full of sunshine and a play 
 of leaves round the open windows. A few pieces 
 of San Domingo mahogany, brown, glimmering, 
 solemn in deportment, and two long deck chairs 
 of varnished rattan with fawn-colored pillows of 
 Madagascar cloth, left abundant space every- 
 where, yet took the eye with contrast like summer 
 and winter. 
 
 "Good mornin', young man. Si' down," rum- 
 bled the voice. "Good mornin'. I consider this 
 oncommon kind, sir. Afraid you'd give me the 
 go-by." 
 
 Salem faced about. In the corner beside him 
 lay, or sat abed, the man who had spoken. Prop- 
 ped on a mound of snowy linen, his round body 
 cased in a flannel jacket no less white, his dusty 
 red-gold hair and beard shining, one who was 
 not a stranger looked up cheerfully, nodded, and 
 went on eating an apple. Salem had never for- 
 gotten the broad weather-beaten face, the great 
 
THE WINTER BELL 139 
 
 chuckle nose, and brown eyes clear as a goat's. 
 This was the old unknown who had winked at him 
 in court and paid a fine there for brawling. 
 
 "Si' down, boy, si' down." 
 
 Salem, in astonishment, obeyed. 
 
 "Have an apple." 
 
 A litter of books covered the bed, a toppling 
 pile of books at the man's elbow threatened a 
 reading lamp and a tall silver dish heaped with 
 apples. Among the bedclothes came a roll and 
 a fling, and an apple shot into Salem's lap. 
 
 For a time no more was said, the caller not 
 knowing how to begin, his host continuing to re- 
 gard him wisely between large bites. The bed- 
 posts ended in carvings, ancient brown goblin 
 heads of the four Evangelists, who appeared to 
 watch Salem and outstare him. 
 
 "Don't seem to have done you no great harm," 
 observed Captain Constantine at last. "Look 
 fine as a glass fiddle." 
 
 So saying, and without change of posture, he 
 threw his apple core across the room. It sailed 
 in a long curve exactly through the middle of 
 an open window and dropped into the green- 
 gold shade of maple leaves. For a man in bed, 
 the throw was a feat. Salem admired it. The 
 old man chuckled. 
 
140 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 "Try that yourself. Go on," he urged. "Go 
 on, try it." 
 
 Salem finished his apple, an early Snow, as 
 he guessed; too early, as the pale seeds told him, 
 to be eaten by an invalid. 
 
 "Go on, chuck. Never mind the walls, boy. 
 Heave her sittin'." 
 
 Salem threw carefully. The core struck be- 
 low the window frame and bounced back along 
 the floor. 
 
 "Thought so!" cried the captain in triumph. 
 "Too anxious to git there on the fust ground hop, 
 like all you young generation. What they call 
 your trajectory, too flat. Now look ahere." In 
 three bites he demolished another apple, and pois- 
 ing what was left, took aim. "Slow and easy. 
 P'int high fer the middle of the upper sash. A 
 droppin' fire. P'rabola. So-fashion." He re- 
 peated his trick and laughed. "There's the whol' 
 art of firin' apple cores outdoor from bed. Plenty 
 o' time to learn, being here 'in unrecumbent sad- 
 ness* like the cows. 
 
 "I've had enough of Matthew, Mark, Luke and 
 John's company." He nodded at the bedposts, 
 and chose yet another apple. "The doctor'd have 
 a cat fit if he knew, s'pose. But these arc all 
 good win' falls and worm-ripened. When they 
 hain't I take and meller 'em on Matthew's top- 
 
THE WINTER BELL 141 
 
 knot. A good apple never hurt good man yit. 
 So far's that goes, you couldn't kill me with an 
 axe." 
 
 At this word the captain stopped short, choked, 
 reddened, and in anger or consternation smote 
 his fist down, making books jump on the counter- 
 pane. 
 
 "James Rice, there I go both feet!" he cried. 
 "The last mortal thing that ought to come into 
 my all-fired old jackass of a mouthtrap! You'll 
 have to excuse me, son," he stammered in painful 
 distress. "I always go hurtin' folks' feelin's this 
 way." 
 
 Salem, when he began to understand, laughed. 
 
 "All right, sir. Don't you fret," said he. "I 
 never did it, ye know. All that's over with, and 
 no feelings to injure." 
 
 Captain Constantine gradually took heart. 
 
 "Guess you're right," he murmured. "Guess 
 you're right." Subsiding, he lay thoughtful, and 
 when at last he spoke again it was to the four 
 Evangelists. "A good, well-bred boy. Said so, 
 fust time ever I laid eye on him." 
 
 Their odd contest, the captain's large, careless 
 method of discourse, and his abrupt fall from 
 boasting to humility, had won Salem's good will. 
 He felt at home in the room. This praise con- 
 founded him again, but not for long; it was the 
 
i 4 2 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 first word of any such kind in years; and as no 
 more followed, its effect was warming. He 
 watched the massive figure of meditation, the big 
 worn face, promontory nose, and hooded eyes, 
 all as rudely carved as the bedpost heads, yet 
 like them strong, alive with droll benignity. The 
 mop of hair billowed outward above the ears, 
 rejoicing to escape as it were from a ring of 
 permanent pressure. Another man could have 
 worn this only for what it was, the mark left 
 by a tight hat; but the captain's head might have 
 been bearing a crown, and not unworthily. So 
 at any rate Salem fancied. He liked that head. 
 
 u No feelin's to hurt, hey?" rumbled the deep 
 voice. "Good. Fust-rate. The clear thing. A 
 haley old time you must 'a' had though, son." 
 
 Captain Constantine opened his eyes to fix them 
 on Salem with a look friendly but doubtful. 
 
 "Don't you mind me," he said. "An old 
 codger with his brain a little mite cracked, that 
 knows it when she takes to cuttin' up didos. Ye 
 see, it's like this way. At your age I'd gone deep 
 water many's the voyage. Forty-two years at sea. 
 Twenty-eight of 'em in command. Married late. 
 Two child'n. 
 
 Fust a daughter, then a son; 
 Then the world is well begun. 
 
THE WINTER BELL 143 
 
 So they say, and by Godfrey, so it does appear 
 to hold true at the time, no mistake. My little 
 
 girl and my wife, looked H'm. Yes. They 
 
 did so. I can see 'em well, with the sun on their 
 hair and dresses, like, in the garden. Not this 
 devilish big shebang here. The small one, our 
 garden patch we rented. The baby, he'd 'a' been 
 about your size by now. 
 
 "Well, come to my last voyage. I was the 
 kind of man — there's a lot like me — could make 
 money for the owners but not himself. I worked 
 like a good one too. We'd always figgered to 
 buy us a little resting-place and be together, which 
 if it's asking a favor don't seem greedy, but some- 
 how we never got enough ahead. Then one day, 
 when I was in Chiny, master of the Moonglade, 
 conic news my wife was left house and land and 
 slats of money. Some old aunty she'd never more'n 
 seen up and willed it to her out of a clear sky. 
 Good forch'n's thunderbolt. My wife writes it 
 all, and s'she 'Better come home, John.' A happy 
 letter, 'twas, about us and the child'n. I had the 
 Moonglade packed with cargo tighter'n a Bolony 
 skin, and we cleared and put for home. She was 
 a long-laigged ship, more wind the better; it 
 blowed your hair off most o' the way, and we 
 walked her along like sixty, boy. My last voyage, 
 
144 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 I kept thinkin'. All went as smooth as the cat's 
 tongue round a saucer. 'Twas great days, my 
 last at sea." 
 
 In this narrative the captain showed his only 
 sign of age; he paused from time to time so long 
 and with an air so final that Salem thought he had 
 ended. Now he fell silent and gazed at the 
 window, as if alone. 
 
 "I come ashore here," he broke out suddenly, 
 "to enjoy our blessings with 'em, the gift o' the 
 gods. And lo you, they was gone, all three gone. 
 A month afore, my wife and girl died the same 
 week of the same trouble. And while they was 
 down, the household on its beam ends, what does 
 my little son do but — « — Ye see, the hired sick- 
 nurse heard him talk about going to meet his 
 daddy. She thought it was jest talk, but the poor 
 infant went and dumb in a bo't, to row out to 
 Chiny, with them hands of his which their clasp 
 couldn't more'n meet round your thumb. She 
 upsot. They found the bo't and oars." 
 
 The speaker looked toward Salem again, and 
 nodded. 
 
 "There. Ye see. Don't know why you sh'd 
 get this outpourin'. The's men would have let 
 go all holts, dropped flat down, and when 'twas 
 past, come up whol' and sound. But these doin's 
 
THE WINTER BELL 145 
 
 — call 'em the Lord's or call 'em the Old Boy's 
 — -I fought 'em; fought 'em hard, like a hard 
 man, and my brain cracked right there. I know 
 it as well as you, and humor it along. So don't 
 take no offense at what an old sculpin like me 
 says or doos. A man that hath great riches, set- 
 tin' soul alon' in a houseful of jooby-joos. They 
 come yisterday and tried to sell me some dollies, 
 I hear." 
 
 Captain Constantine laughed, and reached out 
 a muscle-bound arm for another apple. 
 
 "Now let's hear something," said he, "about 
 your own troubles." 
 
 It was a fair exchange; but Salem sat ponder- 
 ing and discovered that he had none. This tale 
 out of the past drove away his own troubles, put 
 them to flight and to shame. 
 
 "How'd they treat ye down there to prison?" 
 
 Five minutes ago Salem would have thought 
 the question impertinent. He tried hard to an- 
 swer it now, but gave a lame account, chiefly of 
 the man who had come to let him out, and of that 
 man's great unexpected kindness. 
 
 "A tough old customer as ever was, yes, sir, 
 and scared, for fear I'd lay hands on him and get 
 kept in longer. By his face you'd never 'a' 
 thought " 
 
i 4 6 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 To Salem's relief, came a rap at the door, and 
 Mr. Cook, bending backward, overladen to the 
 eyebrows, drifted in with a huge tray of dishes. 
 
 "Here, here, Orin Seacook, what's all this?" 
 bellowed the captain. u Think a young gentleman 
 would want his victuals in my bedroom? You 
 take him downstair. Mr. Delaforce, you'll have 
 to excuse me, but the stewart'll feed you right, 
 or " 
 
 "These are yourn, cap'n," said his little re- 
 tainer meekly. "Them of his is below." 
 
 "What? Hey? Humph!" The captain's wrath 
 went off rumbling. "Why couldn't ye say so?" 
 He knocked a layer of books to the floor. "All 
 right. After you've et, young man, come on up 
 and have our talk out." 
 
 Thus it happened that Salem took his noonday 
 meal in a large and rather sombre dining-room. 
 He sat alone, but from a tall sideboard under the 
 lee of much silver and britannia ware Mr. Cook 
 stood watching him. The food was more than 
 good. He did it justice whenever the little man 
 slipped away. 
 
 "Cook!" sounded a roar from above. "Cook, 
 bring on the dessart!" 
 
 "Cap'n," shouted the watcher in a high voice, 
 
THE WINTER BELL 147 
 
 with a prompt serious air, "there hain't no des- 
 sart!" 
 
 "Then, Cook, bring back the beans!" 
 
 Not a line moved in Mr. Cook's withered face, 
 but plainly he was enacting some old stand-by 
 jest; for when he drifted sadly out he bore a 
 delicacy that seemed to float upstairs before him. 
 
 Salem again did the meal justice. Over the 
 fireplace a black marble clock, like a costly tomb 
 of time, stifled the minutes trying to hammer their 
 way free. Woodbine leaves flickered at the edges 
 of a window, where against the sunlight a full- 
 rigged ship, berthed on a writing desk, lifted her 
 spars and cordage, pennant and dogvane higher 
 than a man's head. Her gilded scroll contained 
 the name Cathance. Another ship filled an 
 area of oil painting on the wall, the Raven's 
 Head, flying signals to a diminutive peak of 
 Hong-Kong behind her. While Salem viewed 
 these objects he encountered the gaze of Mr. 
 Cook, who had silently taken post again. 
 
 It was an altered gaze. It seemed friendly. 
 In fact the little man stood eying him now with 
 favor, and spoke. 
 
 "Cap'n's better," he said. "You done him a 
 heap o' good. Al'ays does, anyone he takes a 
 shine to, and backs." 
 
148 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 This news had a welcome sound. 
 
 "I took one to him," declared Salem heartily. 
 "You bet you! He's a " 
 
 Epithet failed him, but the other caught his 
 meaning, and suddenly broke in, whispering 
 fiercely, reddening with the joy of one who shares 
 a pent-up secret. 
 
 "You no need to tell me! Not a word!" hissed 
 the little man. "Many's the year I sailed with 
 John Constantine. By jibbers, I know him to 
 sea, and I know him ashore!" Mr. Cook drew 
 near the table, clung to it, and made it tremble as 
 in vehement undertone he sang the captain's 
 praise. "Only fault is, he don't take no care of 
 himself no more, body nor goods. Haf to guard 
 him like a hen with one chick, I do. Money? 
 Boys-oh-boys ! He'd throw her to the birds. 
 Why, Mr. Delaforce, ye know, I'll tell ye 
 somep'n. I go round this house on dustin' days 
 and pick money f'm under the clock, behind the 
 books, off the carpet, everywheres, yes, sir; out 
 the salt box one time. Lucky I'm honest. So fur. 
 He's a holy caution. Every other way, he wants 
 house kep' so neat a man has to go to Halifax to 
 spit. But money? Any old gype in trouble, good 
 or bad, he'd take hold and heave the whol' ship 
 overboard for 'em! Why, Land of Izrul " 
 
THE WINTER BELL 149 
 
 A voice overhead checked the enthusiast, with 
 his mouth open and hand uplifted. 
 
 "Below there! More!" 
 
 Mr. Cook so far forgot himself as to wink, 
 and hurried out, grinning. 
 
 He had been gone some time when Salem, who 
 sat thinking, raised his head with a jerk and 
 stared as if down the long dusky room he saw an 
 alarming presence. He moved his chair quietly 
 back, rose, and listened. Then, going without a 
 sound, he crossed to the door of the hall, dodged 
 out, and waited with one hand on the newel post. 
 Like a thief escaping, he tried the front door, 
 swung it ajar and slid through. 
 
 On the doorstep he paused long enough to 
 study the written card above the holy-water clam 
 shell: 
 
 "KEEP FULL FOR BIRDS. 
 
 Per Order, J. C. M 
 
 From his shirt pocket Salem took the wad of 
 envelope, unfolding it to read through smudge 
 and stain the words written there. Again he 
 looked down at the card. 
 
 A moment later Mr. Cook, returning silently 
 downstairs, found him seated as before, alone at 
 the head of the table. 
 
XII 
 
 He climbed upstairs, afterward, with un- 
 willingness and doubt. At the bedroom door he 
 stood still, wondering what to do, what to say. 
 But when at last he went in, he found these ques- 
 tions taken from him and set aside, his judgment 
 called elsewhere. 
 
 "What d'ye think of them for whiskers?" The 
 captain, sitting up among his bodyguard of the 
 four Evangelists, frowned at his pwn face on 
 the back of a large spoon. "Redder'n sin and 
 twice as ugly. Like a brindle cat's hair glued on. 
 If I had me some wire-coil ribs, and a len'th of 
 spotted calica, you could stick me on top a Christ- 
 mas stockin' for Jack-in-the-Box. Couldn't ye? 
 What? Couldn't ye? Go look in that chist o' 
 drawers, young man, fetch me the shears and 
 I'll spread the glittoerin' for f ex wide, hey?" 
 
 Luckily for the captain's beard Salem rum- 
 maged the drawers in vain, and was soon recalled. 
 
 ''Never mind. Come si' down. Tell me. You 
 said they larned you to read, in there. How's 
 that?" 
 
 150 
 
THE WINTER BELL 151 
 
 Salem tried to explain. 
 
 "I mean, sir, it came over me," he replied, 
 "that books were like a man talking to you, say." 
 
 Captain Constantine put away his convex mir- 
 ror, and grunted. 
 
 "Some is. Some hain't," he declared. "Some's 
 more like a infant teethin', and others like a 
 spoilt monkey that needs him a dose o' physic. 
 Good ones, yes; good ones is men. And what 
 was that, about larnin' you to speak right?" 
 
 "Well, I studied to," Salem admitted, "but the 
 minute Trapper and me — and I — got to going 
 it, we slid right back into the old way." 
 
 His examiner gave a nod and a chuckle, as if 
 well pleased. 
 
 "Nature," said he. "Nature. But come, I 
 told you my worst trouble. What was yourn?" 
 
 The young man's face turned grave, and his 
 answer was long in coming. 
 
 "Bad dreams." He did not know that he 
 used the words of Hamlet, but he did know that 
 for nothing in the world would he ever say more 
 to any man. "Have 'em yet. Bad dreams." 
 
 "Poh! Them?" said the captain cheerfully. 
 "Most every night I turn to and dream all my 
 teeth has fell out. They say it's a sign you'll go 
 on outlivin' everybody belongs to ye. How's 
 
152 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 that for bad?" He sat thinking a while, then 
 added: "Well, guess you're glad to be free, all 
 one same. Trapper told ye, s'pose, how he got 
 ye out?" 
 
 "Him?" cried Salem, and started. "Trapper? 
 Why, Trapper couldn't recall nothing about it! 
 Sent me to you." 
 
 Captain Constantine enjoyed a silent laugh 
 which made the bed quiver. His eyes became 
 hooded again, but between their heavy wrinkled 
 lids two points of light seemed to perform a 
 wicked, squinting dance. 
 
 "Couldn't recall nothing, hey? Well, well! 
 That young hogset o' falsehood run dry, has he?" 
 The bed continued to tremble. "Why, Trapper'd 
 ought to be shot in the neck with a pickaxe. He 
 can remember all he hears, and he hears more'n 
 a preacher at a tea-canteloo." 
 
 Mirth gradually made the speaker slide under 
 his counterpane, where he lay still, with his beard 
 rumpled over his fists, and head on shoulder like 
 one who might drop asleep weighing some pleas- 
 antry. When he roused a moment later it was 
 to hoist his body upward and sit against the pil- 
 lows erect. The look which he bent on Salem 
 contained nothing of oddity. 
 
 "My boy, you got a big freckled lummox of 
 
THE WINTER BELL 153 
 
 a friend there who's worth revealin' to ye." He 
 spoke with quiet satisfaction. "That young red- 
 headed rogue el'phant, he'd never let on. So I 
 will. When you was took up first, for a spell 
 Trapper he did think you done the deed. That 
 never changed him to-wards you, not a mite. 'I 
 don't care,' s'e, 'what a man's done!' Kind of 
 extreme, till you know how to take the sayin'. 
 Well, meantime, you in the lock-up house breathin' 
 fire, atop of all comes to Trapper the sartain 
 knowledge that old man Voe, Frizzly Obadiah, 
 had off with your axe and dealt the stroke. On 
 account of a daughter of his — Hannah, the pretty 
 dark one, all red and brown and full of the Old 
 Scratch. Or she was then. Poor Frizzly had so 
 many child'n, thicker'n a run of alewives, no- 
 body'd thought he could single out any one of 
 'em to care for that much. A widow man, too, 
 so busy earnin' bread and shoe luther all round; 
 but 'pears he did. Your axe he borrowed for to 
 chop some pickerel holes, while carrying which 
 on the ice he met Asy Beard and asked him like 
 a man what he meant to do. Beard wa'n't a 
 man, but a skunk, and answered according so 
 to it they went in the snowstorm." 
 
 Salem nodded. 
 
 "Two days before I found it, then," said he. 
 
154 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 "Wind hauled round afterward, and swept out 
 Asy's head for me." 
 
 "Jes* so," agreed the captain. "And here was 
 Trapper in a clove hitch with all this knowledge. 
 One friend's life in danger, yourn; another, old 
 Frizzly, would leave a herd of orphans; between 
 ye, poor Trapper he was tore in two. What's 
 more, he'd been fond of Obadiah's girl. I tell 
 you, that boy suffered! Choose he must, alon', 
 without help. Who's to judge him?" 
 
 Salem listened, with head hung down. Shame 
 overpowered all other feeling as he replied: 
 
 "Not me." 
 
 u Nor me," the captain chimed in promptly. 
 "Cut short, what Trapper done was to leave all 
 and follow him. Wherever Frizzly went Trap- 
 per'd go. Whatever he worked at, Trapper'd 
 git a job alongside if he could, or else hang 
 round. Each man knowed the other knowed, but 
 kep' his head shut, and they stayed friends. No 
 teliin' where they might ha' fetched up. But come 
 last spring, when the snow hankered on late as if 
 to stay on the ground all summer, four of 'em was 
 comin' out the woods, a sled and two hosses, Friz- 
 zly settin' aft on the lo'd. They crossed a cradle 
 knoll, the ro'd made a bend on glary ice, down 
 she slewed, whang, like a beetle on a waidge, and 
 
THE WINTER BELL 155 
 
 there was poor old Obadiah Voe for ye, mashed 
 again' a rock maple, pinned between hardwood 
 and hardwood. 
 
 "Dark was comin' on. They got him clear, and 
 did what they could, but saw they was goin' to 
 lose their man. He'd turned blue as a whetston', 
 Trapper says. The pair give each other one 
 look. 
 
 " Til tell ye now,' the old fellow whispers. 
 'Take her down quick.' 
 
 "So they did. Couldn't hardly see to write 
 under the trees, nor hear what was left of his poor 
 stove-in voice; but they did, and all signed with 
 their hands numb. 
 
 "Then lawyers took holt of the plain fact, so 
 you was lucky to git out by summer. Out at all." 
 
 A long silence fell in the room. From down- 
 stairs through open windows came the voice of 
 Mr. Cook, chanting interminable words to the air 
 of Villikins and His Dinah. Salem was the first 
 to speak. 
 
 "Who's taking care of all those children, sir?" 
 
 Yesterday he had put the same question. He 
 now got almost the same answer. 
 
 "Obadiah's? Oh, they're bein' well looked af- 
 ter." The captain glanced away, fidgeted, and 
 pawing roundabout, recovered the spoon. He 
 
156 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 took refuge in its mirror, with a set frown. "I 
 can't jes' think, somehow. But they made Oba- 
 diah's mind easy, Trapper and 'mongst 'em did, 
 before he went. His child'n are doin' all right." 
 
 Salem waited. No more being vouchsafed, he 
 tried again. 
 
 "Don't see how Trapper could afford," said 
 he, "to give up all his own affairs for mine so 
 long. Trapper's got a mother to support." 
 
 This drew no reply whatever, but needed none, 
 for the captain flung down his toy and sat glower- 
 ing, a bearded image of distress, guile, and con- 
 fusion. 
 
 "Better ask him. Git me an apple. I've talked 
 my thro't as dry as a last year wossip's nest. 
 What!" cried Constantine angrily, "can't ye 
 choose better'n a powder-posted apple? Here, 
 this one. Take it and meller it for me. Not 
 there!" he roared. "Not on Mark, his jib was 
 cut too p'inted. Meller it on Matthew." 
 
 Salem did as he was told, and bashed the apple 
 against Matthew's glossy archaic hair. The cap- 
 tain's wrath subsided; he ate and grumbled apol- 
 ogy. They sat talking at random till Salem got 
 on foot to go. 
 
 "Where next after here?" inquired his host. 
 
 "To see a little girl," Salem answered. "A 
 
THE WINTER BELL 157 
 
 child that lives down where the lock-up used 
 to be." 
 
 "Child? Ho. So she was. So she was." 
 
 Salem took alarm. 
 
 "Was? Ain't she alive now?" 
 
 The captain's eyes began to twinkle, then sud- 
 denly grew rounder and more goatlike than ever. 
 
 "'Course she is; 'course she is. Alive?" he 
 echoed. "Mary Prior? They don't build 'em 
 any livelier, hull, riggin' or ground tackle. Do. 
 A good idee. Go see the child." 
 
 As the door was closing he shouted, "And come 
 see me again too. Maybe tomorrer I'll git me 
 my britches on, and go pestering the neighbor- 
 hood some more. But come again, boy." 
 
 Salem promised and went out. On his way 
 downstairs alone he paused, and stood with face 
 lifted toward the shadows of the upper hall, 
 where the glimmering hand rail vanished in a cool 
 high dusk that smelled of cedar. Contempt for 
 himself, who had brooded on his own part in 
 the sum of what men suffer, likewise faded into a 
 region obscure and tranquil. It was neither hap- 
 piness nor grief, but something composed of both, 
 fleeting yet perpetual, that poured through his 
 mind with a cleansing wonder. Salem felt it, 
 could almost hear it like music, passing upward 
 
158 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 in the twilight. He stood a long time, then went 
 down, content. To a whim of this old man above 
 — no, he thought; to a pair of friends, who would 
 never tell him so, but bandied him back and forth, 
 he owed this moment of more than bodily free- 
 dom. 
 
 "I can't owe nothing smaller." 
 
 Again at the newel post he halted to give ear. 
 Muffled behind some closed door, and mingling 
 with a rattle of pans, the voice of the captain's 
 "stewart" plaintively took up another verse: 
 
 A bold grenadier with the great Marshall Saxe 
 Had his head chopped clean of by a Lochaber axe, 
 But the sergeant replaced it so neat ere it fell, 
 That a handkerchief tied round his neck made all 
 
 well. 
 Teary eye, teary eye, teary idle eye yea. 
 
 Before this miracle was over, Salem slipped into 
 the dining room. His moccasins made no sound 
 on the floor. He moved quickly, dividing as he 
 went a packet of clean bank notes into little 
 sheaves. One he had poked under time's black 
 mausoleum, the marble clock, another beneath a 
 silver trivet on the sideboard, when footsteps 
 made him give back. They were the steps of 
 
THE WINTER BELL 159 
 
 Mr. Orin C. Cook; but he only crossed his kitchen 
 and began, above a plash of running water, to 
 sing the great mythical hero who dared leap 
 from a church spire into a bag of shavings. 
 
 Halfway down, his boy shouted, "There's glass 
 
 in the sack!" 
 So he turned right around in the air and jumped 
 
 hack. 
 Teary eye, teary idle 
 
 Salem, grinning, darted to the model of the 
 ship Cathance. He lifted her forward hatch, ran 
 his third sheaf into her hold, and covered all but 
 a green dog's-ear which he bent down over the 
 coaming. 
 
 "That," he thought, in the sunny garden path, 
 "leaves nothing but what's the right size." 
 
XIII 
 
 Through Salem's head that evening ran the old 
 story of the man who set out to make a broadaxe, 
 and ended by making a sizz. Of him the fable 
 might have been told; for as he walked by sunset 
 light down toward the alley of the jail and the 
 wharves he was laughing at his own purposes, their 
 fallen grandeur. He had imagined a vain thing: 
 to return here like some storybook fellow, to 
 make a speech, and to startle a child with his 
 lordly mysterious gift; and now he was humbled, 
 nothing remained but his "purse," three soiled 
 green rags won by playing the clown in public. 
 
 Salem entered a shop on the way and exchanged 
 them for cleaner money. 
 
 "Enough to buy her a dress," he thought. 
 "Maybe something over for a doll." 
 
 He passed on, still thinking of the bungler with 
 the broadaxe. Yes, that fable was of one Salem 
 Delaforce, a born fool. In his ignorance he had 
 tried to make something beyond his power, de- 
 signing a great return for a little kindness, when 
 lo, it was the other way about, the kindness great, 
 his return pitiful. The child — he could see her 
 
 1(0 
 
THE WINTER BELL 161 
 
 in his mind's eye, looking down through the jail 
 window, removing a dandelion from her lips, to 
 speak a word that raised him out of blackness 
 toward her sunlight for a moment and kept him 
 from sinking back a wild beast — the child had 
 been a symbol. He had gone on believing in 
 her, in it whatever it was, the justice of the king- 
 dom of children, when there was nothing else and 
 even that seemed idle. Now his sight was un- 
 bound, like the young man at Dothan, he saw 
 what a host had been for him in secret. 
 
 "And she can buy her a doll." He laughed. 
 "We'll make a good sizz." 
 
 Sunset poured down the road, turning dust to 
 gold, blinding him with hot splendor full in the 
 face. Black against it rose a pattern of intricate 
 silhouette, gables, chimneys, drooping elms, little 
 plateaus of piled lumber, aspiring topmasts. He 
 had all the scene to himself, work for the day 
 being over, the alley and wharves deserted. It 
 was an evening hour so still that from miles away, 
 in high pastures overlooking the river, a muted 
 clank of cowbells faintly descended. Their slow- 
 stepping music accompanied his thought, half 
 heard at most. Salem knew only that something 
 made him uneasy, perhaps a sound, perhaps the 
 nature of his errand. 
 
1 62 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 The green schooner Galilee had sunk deep at 
 the wharf and waited in her oozy bed for the re- 
 turning tide. A Maltese cat, curled asleep on her 
 deck load, was the only living creature in sight. 
 Mud flats filled the air with an evil smell. 
 
 Salem raised his hand and made a motion to 
 knock, while watching the Galilee's cat below. 
 His knuckles encountered empty air. He woke 
 out of musing, turned, and looked. 
 
 Her doorstep and the whole house front lay 
 just in shadow, at the edge of all the light and 
 heat streaming by. Her door stood a little way 
 ajar, inward, so that his hand by chance had found 
 the opening. Blinds were drawn tightly down in 
 both windows, but he caught a glimpse within 
 of what might be subdued sunlight. Salem 
 was about to knock with better aim, when some- 
 thing stayed his hand. 
 
 Beyond the door a play of shadow and a scuf- 
 fling movement ceased or paused, then someone 
 drew breath quickly as if in pain. At the same 
 time he saw why the door was not shut, and could 
 not be, to stay. Above its knob projected a bolt, 
 shot home and left so, while on the floor lay an 
 iron socket burst from the jamb, with rusty screws 
 and crumbs of rotten wood. 
 
THE WINTER BELL 163 
 
 "No! No!" cried a voice. "Leave this room, 
 I tell you ! Leave this house !" 
 
 It was a woman's voice, angry but not shrill, 
 rather deepening than rising with indignation. 
 
 "You can't git away, my dear," replied another 
 voice, a man's, rough, hoarse, cajoling, with a 
 twang that Salem could almost remember. "Now 
 don't take on so. I like ye, that's all. W'oa! 
 See, you couldn't git away, didn't I tell ye?" 
 
 The woman spoke again, her scorn wavering 
 closer and closer to tears. 
 
 "I know I can't. You're stronger than I am. 
 Oh, it's cowardly " 
 
 Then came a whistle, repeated twice — a girl's 
 whistle, thought Salem — after which a dog shut 
 in somewhere began barking with ineffectual fury. 
 
 "He don't scare me non'. Look here " 
 
 "Go, before I call for help and put you to 
 shame! Oh!" 
 
 Salem quickly and quietly slipped into the 
 house. It was like passing at one step from full 
 day to night, for the curtained room held only 
 the glow of a lamp in one corner. White cloth, a 
 mound of needlework on the table, enhanced this 
 glow and cast it upward, so that what he saw 
 chiefly was a girl's head and shoulders lighted 
 from beneath. She had broken free, put the table 
 
1 64 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 between her and some object of loathing. Over 
 the lamp her eyes met Salem's at once, in a flash, 
 a look that outran words to welcome him like one 
 expected. 
 
 Unconscious of this meeting, a big rawboned 
 young fellow made another step toward her. The 
 room resounded with imprisoned barking, above 
 which he raised his voice and laughed loud. 
 
 "Git out! Call? What fur? Little noise 
 more or less don't worry this neighborhood." 
 
 Salem advanced behind him, to speak. His 
 words were lost in the din. With that the girl 
 nodded, turned her head away, and called, "Be 
 still!" 
 
 The barking stopped. Both men remained fac- 
 ing her as if she had commanded them also to 
 silence, while her eyes again rested their welcom- 
 ing light on Salem. Wonder, incredulity, joy 
 struggled in his heart with dismay. This young 
 loveliness, tall as himself or nearly, was the 
 child. He knew it only by her eyes, the same 
 dark blue regarding him steadily but with an in- 
 ward sparkle, and by the mingling of bronze light 
 and dusk in her hair. Time had robbed him, a 
 few years had cheated. He had lost even his 
 symbol. But if she herself were real he did not 
 care. 
 
THE WINTER BELL 165 
 
 "This man troubling you?" 
 
 "Yes. Always." Her voice was calmer now, 
 and it thrilled in Salem's ear like music. "He 
 knows I live here alone. I sat working by the 
 lamp so that the house would look as if nobody 
 And he came and " 
 
 She pointed toward the door with the broken 
 fastening. It had swung open when Salem came 
 through. He nodded, and turned to the other 
 man, who stood grinning at him. 
 
 "Come outside with me," said Salem. 
 
 This ugly red face displayed anger, surprise, 
 but neither fear nor shame. While awaiting re- 
 ply Salem knew the fellow; it was the same who 
 had been loading planks aboard the Galilee that 
 forenoon, and stopped to watch him like an 
 enemy on her doorstep. 
 
 "Who in hell are you?" said the man. "And 
 who ast you to come a-meddlnV ?" 
 
 The harsh voice, and now at closer quarters, 
 the flat nose and coarse thick mouth seen more 
 clearly, brought further knowledge racing back 
 through Salem's recollection. He and the speaker 
 were old acquaintances. Grown somewhat heav- 
 ier, this was the green-eyed lout who had mocked 
 him, staring in at the jail window, and bringing 
 that horror of a woman who laughed. 
 
1 66 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 Salem only repeated his invitation. 
 
 "Come outside." 
 
 He spoke so mildly that the other no doubt 
 thought him afraid. Salem's air of youthful slen- 
 derness, moreover, had deceived many a keener 
 eye by day in the open. Now by lamplight, at 
 all events, a great admirer of the ladies and not 
 a bad judge of rough-and-ready fighting made a 
 mistake which he was long to remember. 
 
 "You trot home, boy. We're busy." He 
 gave a contemptuous laugh; then, finding his ad- 
 vice not taken, began an effort to stare Salem 
 down, and made a discovery. "Why!" he jeered. 
 "I know this thing! Delaforce the murd'rer. 
 Then it's true what they tolt me." He swung 
 round toward the girl. "Some rich fo'ks took 
 and hired a sick man to lie him out o' prison." 
 
 She looked only at Salem, over the lamp, but 
 her quick changing smile parted something be- 
 tween the men, disdain for one, kindness for the 
 other. 
 
 "I know Mr. Delaforce better than that," she 
 said. "We were friends when I was a little girl. 
 You'll do well to go with him." 
 
 The green-eyed one could not flush deeper, but 
 the unclean emotion with which his face was al- 
 ready burning altered for the worse. 
 
THE WINTER BELL 167 
 
 "Hoi Friends, be ye? The jailbird! I seen 
 him lurkin' round this forenoon, sneakin' after ye 
 like a " 
 
 The simile which he employed might not bear 
 repetition. To Salem — transfixed by a starry 
 glance, his heart beating loud, his head swimming 
 with the word she had granted — it came like some- 
 thing monstrous, not to be borne once. He 
 drowned it with a roar, and choked. The room 
 swayed like a ship, the walls melted, grew black, 
 came closing in a circle that glimmered and went 
 out as he caught the man blindly. 
 
 It would have dropped outdoors like empty 
 clothing or a scarecrow, but it squirmed in the air, 
 flew awry, and pitched down with a crash that 
 made the house tremble. 
 
 "You talk like that," cried Salem, drawing his 
 fists up to his head, "and I'll kill ye!" 
 
 The man lay still, crumpled against the door 
 jamb. Salem turned from him. The girl had 
 caught her lamp as it reeled, and steadied it with- 
 out knowing. They looked at each other. 
 
 And then, in the stillness, not far away a bell 
 began to ring. It jangled slowly, as if rung by 
 an aimless hand, but all the while came nearer. 
 
 Salem let his arms drop, stared at the body on 
 the floor, and with head hanging, cast a furtive 
 
1 68 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 glance behind him, past one shoulder, then the 
 other. He listened. It was no trick of the brain. 
 In this phantasmal blending of lamplight and re- 
 flected sunshine he stood awake, and as plainly 
 as his own breathing heard the bell ring. 
 
 What the girl saw next was a transformation 
 that drove out of mind even what she had seen. 
 Her deliverer — this calm, tall, dark young column 
 of strength — began to totter before her. His 
 eyes, questioning, burned out in despair and grew 
 hollow; his face withered as if with age; and his 
 limbs moved like those of an old man while he 
 retreated, groped behind him, struck the arm of 
 a chair by accident, and fell into it. 
 
 "Is there snow on the ground?" 
 
 She shook her head. Though her eyes had no 
 power or wish to forsake his blank entreaty, she 
 was aware that the body by the door moved, 
 groaned, lifted its head, and crawling over the 
 threshold, got up dizzily and fled or staggered 
 away with one arm dangling. Afterward she 
 knew, rather than saw, that down the hill passed 
 a lumber wagon — a team of six horses going 
 home to stable, bay horses, the leaders with a 
 brass bell winking between them, and dirty 
 blood-red ear tassels nodding from their bridles. 
 
 "Don't let it come in I" 
 
THE WINTER BELL 169 
 
 She ran toward the door, and having closed it, 
 stopped there in terror. This broken figure of a 
 man sat watching her with eyes that looked out 
 from another world. 
 
 As for Salem, he dared see nothing but her 
 face. In the room, which had grown dim after 
 the door swung to, something white moved toward 
 him, and the dead Sagamore, his own dog whom 
 he had buried long ago in winter, came and 
 touched his knee with a pink muzzle that sniffed 
 as though alive. He would not look away from 
 her. 
 
 "Don't you go!" 
 
 She saw in his eyes the dread that all things 
 were about to vanish. 
 
 "No," she said. "I am with you." 
 
 It took bravery, but she crossed the room and 
 laid her hand on his arm. Then, her terror giv- 
 ing place to pity, she knelt by the chair. 
 
 "Don't go. If it passes — the winter bell. 
 Stay long as you can." 
 
 His head fell on her shoulder. She let it rest 
 there, as if she had been his mother. In a storm 
 of weeping, like a great wind which tosses and 
 strains to uproot a tree, he heard himself telling 
 her all that no one was ever to hear. 
 
XIV 
 
 A fortnight later day was breaking in the 
 woods heavily, slowly, coming with effort through 
 a chill smother of damp. It made itself felt more 
 as darkness withdrawn than as light increased; 
 morning seemed to have lost the way; and except 
 for the sleepy chirping of a bird or two and a 
 drip hardly begun among unseen branches, noth- 
 ing promised that the world should ever wake 
 again. A smell of last year's moldering leaves 
 weighed down the wet obscurity. Not by sight but 
 by the slope underfoot and a guess that a white- 
 birch phantom was leaning where it ought to lean, 
 Salem knew his ground. He was descending the 
 northern side of Rum-Time Hill. 
 
 Halfway down, a sudden return of night over- 
 spread and told him that here stood the old hem- 
 lock. Salem halted and dropped on the grass his 
 burden, a canvas bag holding load enough for a 
 horse. 
 
 He parted the bushes on his right, walked 
 straight in through black undergrowth for half a 
 
 170 
 
THE WINTER BELL 171 
 
 dozen paces, then stopped and took from his 
 pocket a candle end, which he lighted. 
 
 "Still here." 
 
 At his feet shone a dark pool no wider or 
 deeper than a bucket, reflecting the pointed flame 
 and his finger tips, until a baby frog hopped in 
 and went kicking down. 
 
 "All choked with leaves, " thought Salem. 
 "Used to be big as a barrel." 
 
 He placed the candle in a socket of moss 
 and himself on a rock. Beside him on a withered 
 sapling butt hung a ragged film of iron rust. This, 
 when Salem put it there last, had been a tin cup. 
 
 "Nobody come since, prob'ly." 
 
 The pool, a spring known to Indians dead and 
 gone, had given the hill its name when river 
 drivers halted there to mix grog of Santa Cruz 
 rum or Medford. Salem found it a pleasant 
 thought, for the moment, that he could go in the 
 dark to places which, now the old-time people 
 were no more, other men could not find by day- 
 light. 
 
 "Nobody here since." 
 
 He made a birch-bark dipper and drank. The 
 water was cold, clear, living as ever. He sighed, 
 in part with satisfaction, in part with regret. 
 
 The spring grew quiet. The frog reappeared 
 
172 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 later and clung to its margin, like a tiny scrap of 
 puckered leather watching him with eyes. The 
 candle burned steady and wore a faint halo in the 
 mist. By its light Salem's face was that of a man 
 who feared nothing behind him any more. 
 
 "Maybe I'll see her once or twice a year, when 
 I go down." 
 
 For two weeks he had worked hard, earning 
 money toward the supplies, the horseload in the 
 bag. He had lacked time, ran his excuse — lacked 
 courage, he knew in his heart — to return to her 
 door until the day before yesterday, when no one 
 answered his knock. He had not seen her after 
 that night. 
 
 "Bawled like a baby," he thought. 
 
 But no, he was not ashamed. Doubt, ignorance 
 or doubt, had kept him away. What could a man 
 tell her, what could he have stammered to one 
 who twice in his life had preserved his soul, rea- 
 son, what you call it, from destruction? 
 
 "Round Christmas time, say, I'll try again." 
 
 He smiled, knowing well that he could not go 
 without her so long. 
 
 "A lon'ly way of coming home, this is." 
 
 He had missed his other friends. A call at 
 the captain's had brought forth only Mr. Cook, 
 short-spoken, fidgety, and secretive : Captain Con- 
 
THE WINTER BELL 173 
 
 stantine was "got up and traipsed off a-fishin' some- 
 wheres, when he ought to known better. ,, King- 
 come, too, was gone from mill and boarding- 
 house without word left. Salem's good-byes had 
 failed on every hand. He sat here very much 
 alone in the night mist, by a forgotten well 
 among rocks and trees. 
 
 "No good," he said aloud. 
 
 There was no pleasure, after all, in the things 
 he knew best, in a gift like this of homing straight 
 to places the most beloved. A choked spring: he 
 would come with a spade one day and clear it: 
 but a choked spring and a wafer of iron rust 
 eaten through with holes, warned him what to ex- 
 pect. His cabin by the lake would be a dreary 
 sight. He smelled the mustiness from here, felt 
 in advance the peculiar melancholy that hovers 
 in a dwelling retaken by weeds and forest growth. 
 
 He rose. His fellow thinker, the infant frog, 
 at once deserted him and went down quite cheer- 
 ful, swimming with hind legs only. Salem blew 
 the candle out and waded through leaves to his 
 bag. It seemed heavier than before, the mist 
 darker. At the foot of the hill he went stum- 
 bling, now in moss-grown corduroy road, now in 
 stale water or cold, drenching grass that lined 
 the hollows of thank-you-marms. 
 
174 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 He made good speed, however, for Lambkill 
 Heath, seen from another hilltop, stretched gray 
 without form under a border of black woods, these 
 in turn under starlight filling a sky the darkness 
 of which had as yet no more than a greenish tinge. 
 The lower stars quivered and shook, all but the 
 morning star, hung aloft like a tiny though in- 
 tenser moon. 
 
 "Getting nigh home." 
 
 Salem crossed the heath in a brightening vapor. 
 When fir woods again solemnly inclosed him he 
 could see the grass of the winter sled road which 
 he followed. 
 
 "Here 'tis." 
 
 He had reached the lake near his own cove be- 
 fore sunrise. Dropping the bag, he sat down. 
 Blackened granite rocks, their bases faintly striped 
 with paler bleaching, huddled among reeds at a 
 margin of brown water. Beyond lay nothing but 
 mist, as far as the hills now edged with radiance 
 where the great star dissolved. It was a cold 
 scene to look upon, the air biting. 
 
 "A poor time to visit your house in ruin. For 
 old time's sake, better start the day with a swim. 
 Rouse your blood, too." 
 
 Salem stripped, and climbed down to a flat 
 rock from which he had often plunged. That 
 
THE WINTER BELL 175 
 
 icy-looking smoke made a man blench, but he 
 gathered himself, set his teeth, and dove. 
 
 He came up laughing, for the water was warm 
 as new milk. 
 
 "I'd forgotten." 
 
 The smell of it, too, overcame him with remem- 
 brance, a frail sweetness blended of many hints 
 — like green leaves crushed, or live trout, or wil- 
 low bark just peeled — yet unlike them and with- 
 out name, an exhalation from all forest roots and 
 inland waters. He swam lazily, then floated on 
 his back, watching the smoke curl upward, melt, 
 and drift with patches of blue sky. A loon far 
 away began to laugh. 
 
 From near by came a rippling sound as of some 
 animal that swam quietly; a deer, perhaps, cross- 
 ing the lake before sunrise. Treading water, 
 Salem looked about; but he could see nothing, and 
 lay back to float. The smell of water lilies, fresh 
 and clean as rain, drew by on the surface. 
 
 Afterward, rolling over with a splash, Salem 
 buried his face, then raised it, to swim out. For 
 a moment, while his eyes were dripping, he 
 thought he saw in the mist a shadow likeness of 
 Mary Prior's face pass in profile toward shore. 
 It faded slowly as a cloud picture. Although 
 Salem's eyes did not often play false, the illusion 
 
17* THE WINTER BELL 
 
 failed to startle him, for she had been in his head 
 all the while. He buried his face again, went rac- 
 ing toward the farther shore, across deep water, 
 turned at the edge of lily pads, and came racing 
 back. 
 
 The sun warmed the grass and dried him, 
 when at last he sat on shore by his bag. Dress- 
 ing, he thought there came voices behind him, but 
 listened and heard no more. A crow cawed some- 
 where among bright fluttering tops of poplar. 
 
 "Cook breakfast here and make tea?" Salem 
 debated the question. "Or go up now and see 
 the worst?" 
 
 It was better, he concluded, to have this for- 
 lorn part over with, and do his home coming 
 while still in a glow. Salem jumped up and 
 mounted the bank. 
 
 His house looked out at him from the deepest 
 bend of the fir wall. It was not a ruin or over- 
 grown, but stood there low and brown as ever, 
 the door open, the chimney smoking. A yellow 
 tent rose behind it. 
 
 "Someone's moved in. Some rascal's taken her 
 over." 
 
 Salem drew near slowly. This might prove 
 worse than what he had imagined. A hungry 
 scent of bacon and coffee came out to greet him. 
 
THE WINTER BELL 177 
 
 And then, white, glossy, half awake, out came 
 Sagamore — the Second, but like the First alive 
 again — to yawn and stretch on his doorstep. The 
 dog's collar shone in the sun. 
 
 "We thought you'd like to find your house 
 ready," said a voice that he knew. "So we came 
 and pitched our tent." 
 
 Mary Prior had followed her dog to the thres- 
 hold. She stood there smiling down at the wan- 
 derer. Indoors beyond her Salem caught a 
 glimpse of Trapper's mother, Mrs. Kingcome, 
 the little mother of a giant, who turned long 
 enough from her cooking to throw him a bright- 
 eyed welcome and a wave of her fork. 
 
 "The men," said Mary, "are camping above, in 
 the next cove. There they come now." 
 
 A birch canoe gilded with sunlight stole in 
 through the reeds, two weighty figures ballasting 
 her. Trapper flourished his paddle. Captain 
 John Constantine held in air a pickerel that 
 seemed longer than his arm, and bellowed so that 
 the woods rang: 
 
 "How's that for breakfast?" 
 
 Salem called back an inarticulate hail, and 
 turned. 
 
 "You don't object?" said the girl. 
 
 His face shone. 
 
178 THE WINTER BELL 
 
 "Object? I — I want to break something!" he 
 
 cried. "You folks " He could not finish. 
 
 "Why, then, we were! We were swimming in 
 the lake together before sunrise !" 
 
 She was not so pale as he remembered her. 
 
 "Are you sorry," she asked, "not to have it 
 all to yourself alone?" 
 
 THE END 
 
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