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 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
KING'S END 
 
 By ALICE BROWN 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 ttitoetfibe pre?js Cambribge 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY ALICE BROWN 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Kings Etui was originally published in Lippincotfs 
 Magazine under the title April Showers. 
 
 OJL ^ 
 
To E. E. R. 
 
 WITH THE LOVE OF TWENTY YEARS 
 
KING'S END 
 
 IT was four o'clock of an afternoon in May ; 
 yet the air moved softly, as if it were June, 
 and the sky stretched clearly blue, with great 
 drifting clouds, like a later summer. A strag- 
 gling village under a hillside lay asleep. This 
 was King's End, so called in Revolutionary 
 spirit, a hundred years ago, when it was 
 ashamed of being St. George ; and it lay open 
 to air and light, as if nobody had been at home 
 since the founding thereof. The road, marked 
 by scattered houses on either side, curled allur- 
 ingly for an interval until the land began to 
 rise ; then it ran, a fine, yellow track, straight 
 up the mountain. Here, with the ascending 
 slope, it became deeply wooded like the moun- 
 tain itself, darkened with fir, and softened by 
 patches of new spring green. Thimble Moun- 
 tain was not very high, counting from the sea 
 level, but it had an altitude recorded in the 
 
2 KING'S END 
 
 imagination of the dwellers below. They 
 spoke of it with great pride, because it was the 
 only considerable height in an undulating coun- 
 try. It wore the moral grandeur of inaccessi- 
 ble peaks, and in reality some of the features 
 inseparable from high and lonely fastnesses : 
 purple shadows when the sun was sinking, 
 frowning stretches quite barren in all seasons, 
 and one or two rocks, grotesque in imitative 
 outline. To - day it held a tranquil guardian- 
 ship ; the village slept, and the mountain 
 watched it. The world below there was always 
 very still; yet this, by some coincidence of 
 travel, was an hour of deepest quiet. Some 
 of the women had gone up the mountain to an 
 outdoor meeting, held by Elder Kent, the trav- 
 eling preacher, who came this way at least once 
 a year, and most of the men were scattered 
 fieldward, following the plough. 
 
 Old Mrs. Horner lay in her bed, last autumn 
 set up in the clock-room, and gazed with fiery 
 eyes at a fly buzzing on the pane. He was a 
 herald of the coming tribe, and her gaze, fore- 
 seeing the summer battle which would be of no 
 avail, cursed him as he buzzed. But there was 
 no one to kill him or wave him forth. Her 
 husband was afield. Big Joan, the help, had 
 gone into the marsh for cowslips, and she her- 
 
KING'S END 3 
 
 self was still unused to her bedridden state. 
 The tall clock ticked as maddeningly as the fly 
 buzzed. Everything in the room had its chosen 
 way of exasperating her, always except the in- 
 mate of the clumsy wooden cradle close beside 
 the bed. This was a fair-cheeked baby, sound 
 asleep. 
 
 Sally Horner smoothed the counterpane with 
 trembling fingers, and then retied her cap 
 strings. The Bible lay beside her on the bed ; 
 she gave it a little resentful shove, and drew it 
 nearer frowningly. She looked up with chal- 
 lenging inquiry into the Constitution mirror, 
 tipped so as to reflect her bed, and the picture 
 she saw there still further put her out : a thin 
 face, with sanguine skin dried to a durable snuff- 
 color, a sharp nose, sandy hair put smoothly 
 back under her cap, and hot, red-brown eyes. 
 This was one of her nervous days, and there 
 was no one near to note it. Not a sound, save 
 the buzz of that fly, in the village, the town- 
 ship, the whole world ! 
 
 " I could swear ! " remarked Sally Horner 
 aloud. 
 
 As if summoned by that daring potentiality, 
 a footstep came swiftly along the path to the 
 front door. It was a man's tread, unhalting, 
 rash. Sally's face lighted with keen inquiry. 
 
4 KING'S END 
 
 She pushed back one side of her nightcap and 
 turned her head to listen. Fear was unknown 
 in that still place, but curiosity held every 
 hearthstone. The heavy latch clattered ; then 
 the door swung open. A man stepped inside 
 the little entry and faced her, framed by the 
 casing. Sally Horner uttered a scream. 
 
 " My soul ! " she cried. " You devil ! " She 
 raised herself on her elbow, as if she would 
 get out of bed, and thus confronted him. They 
 looked at each other in an enmity silent yet 
 final, a declaration of war. 
 
 The man was a typical tramp, in absolute 
 conformity to what King's End pronounced an 
 awful brotherhood. Not very tall, it could be 
 seen that he was of great strength, and his 
 arms were abnormally long. His face was sal- 
 low, surmounted by crisp black hair, covered 
 now by a crow's-nest of a hat. His close, full 
 beard curled tightly, and his eyes held the fire 
 either of fanaticism or an eccentricity not yet 
 classified. The middle part of his face be- 
 trayed some lack of natal nobility ; the bridge 
 of the nose sank too deeply under the domelike 
 forehead, and the cheek bones were too low. 
 Still, the whole visage held an unusual signifi- 
 cance. He carried a little bundle slung over 
 his shoulder, in tramp fashion, and his shirt 
 
KING'S END 5 
 
 collar was open and thrown loosely away from 
 the hairy breast. That Mrs. Horner noticed, 
 with feminine distaste. 
 
 He dropped the bundle to the floor. " Well," 
 said he gruffly, " I 've come." The old woman 
 was trembling. He noted how her feet shook 
 the counterpane, and his face softened. " Now, 
 don't be scairt," he added. "I never hurt any- 
 body yet." 
 
 " Scairt ! " snorted Sally Horner passionately. 
 "You needn't trouble yourself. Nobody's 
 afraid o' you here. You never hurt anybody, 
 did ye ? Who killed my girl ? Who toled her 
 away, an' let her 'most starve to death, an' then 
 crawl home to die? Who was it done that? 
 Who drove me to this bed with grief and sor- 
 rer ? Some other man, I s'pose ! " 
 
 Obstinacy settled upon his face. 
 
 " I met Eph Cummin's along the road," he 
 said. "He told me what happened. That's 
 why I 've come. I 've come to see the baby." 
 
 In spite of himself, his voice fell upon the 
 last word. Some of the tenderness of father- 
 hood dwelt timidly there, unconscious of itself. 
 Mrs. Horner was pulling the counterpane aside 
 with one trembling hand, and dropping it, to 
 fall in folds upon the cradle. 
 
 "You want to see the baby?" she echoed, 
 
6 KING'S END 
 
 looking him in the eye to hold his gaze, as the 
 mother partridge flutters to mislead her foe. 
 "Well, you won't see her. What right have 
 you got to lay eyes on her ? If you 'd married 
 my girl, you'd ha' been the child's father; but 
 now you ain't anybody. You 're less 'n nobody. 
 Get out o' my house, an' don't you never darken 
 these doors ag'in." 
 
 Luke Evans had many enemies within the 
 citadel ; one of them was his temper. It rose 
 now, like the taste of blood in the throat. 
 
 " I ain't got any rights, ain't I ? " he repeated 
 savagely. " We '11 see 'f I ain't. I 'm the young 
 one's father. What have you got to say to 
 that?" 
 
 A little responsive sound came from the cra- 
 dle, an inarticulate gurgling. The man started, 
 and so did his enemy, she in terror lest her 
 treasure be discovered, he with a strange dis- 
 taste for that dubious being, his own, yet not 
 his own. But the woman's fear inspired her to 
 insane attack. 
 
 " Get out o' this room ! " she cried, oter and 
 over again. " You poor, miserable creatur' ! 
 there ain't a respectable house in the neighbor- 
 hood that would take you in. I 'd be ashamed 
 to have you found here." 
 
 Anger rose and throttled him anew. He 
 
KING'S END 7 
 
 strode around the foot of the bed, and bent over 
 the cradle where the child lay in placid wak- 
 ing ; he seized it from its nest, and held it, not 
 untenderly, to his bosom. 
 
 " If your house is too good for me, it 's too 
 good for my folks," he declared doggedly. 
 " You can say good-by to her. She 's comin' 
 up the mountain to live with me." He stooped 
 to pick up his bundle, and, grasping it, the 
 child, and the stick in some uncouth fashion, 
 walked out of the door and up the road toward 
 his waiting home. 
 
 For a moment the old woman lay in silence, 
 stunned by the magnitude of her defeat. She 
 could not believe that anything so terrible had 
 happened; yet her imagination was all ready 
 with direful possibilities. It meant nothing 
 short of murder to leave that innocent baby in 
 the hands of a man whom she felt to be with- 
 out conscience or heart. She lay breathless 
 upon her pillow, hardly knowing, for a time, 
 whether she herself had not died. Then, as 
 her blood resumed its flow, there came, with 
 quickened action, a sense of the necessity of 
 rescue, and she began shrieking aloud, calling 
 impartially upon heaven and earth. 
 
 " Obed ! " she screamed to her husband, yet 
 knowing it was hardly time for him to be home. 
 
8 KING'S END 
 
 " Obed ! Obed ! he 's killin' the baby ! Help ! 
 help ! Murder ! My God ! my God ! " 
 
 Meantime Luke, his black eyes smouldering 
 with rage, walked furiously along the road, 
 facing this way and that in search of enemies. 
 The hand of every man was against him, but 
 he did not care. There had been nights, known 
 only to God and the stars, when he had lain 
 face downward, in the same dewy fields, and, 
 clutching the earth which had never been for 
 him, cried a man's hot tears and railed against 
 heaven. But to-day, roused by the palpable 
 injustice of the world, he heard only the call to 
 battle, and armed himself to keep his foothold 
 because it was denied him. But there were no 
 visible foes to fight. A bluebird, thinking very 
 hopefully of nests, made careless paraphrases, 
 though not to him ; and stalwart robins called 
 so loudly that his ears, used lately to city 
 streets, ached with a delight which was still 
 half homesickness. He passed the roadside 
 smithy where he had built up a brisk little 
 business before he ran away with Milly Horner. 
 It was closed, like his house, and ferns grew to 
 the very door. He thought, with some dull 
 distaste, that now, burdened by a child, he must 
 blow up the fire and get to work again. 
 
 All this time he had not looked at the little 
 
KING'S END 9 
 
 warm bundle in his arms. The sense of his 
 own importance, born from his own wrong, 
 filled the visible universe, and the baby was no 
 more than an instrument through which he 
 meant to assert his enmity to the scheme of 
 things. And so he climbed the slope, the more 
 slowly now because he was a third of the way 
 up the mountain, and came, not without a tinge 
 of pleasure, upon his own little dull house in a 
 roadside nook. Here his mother had lived out 
 her anguished life with the husband who kicked 
 both her and Luke impartially ; and here she 
 had died, a month after her tyrant, before she 
 could reconstruct her poor life and learn what 
 it is to tread the earth unterrified. To Luke, 
 the place had become a tragic stage ; not one 
 compensating joy had ever lighted it. He had 
 grown up there in endurance of misery for his 
 mother's sake ; but daily her woe and his own 
 had wrought upon and then corroded him. He 
 caught a sharp breath at sight of the memory- 
 haunted spot, and, drawing a key from his 
 pocket, unlocked the door and went in. He 
 dropped his stick and bundle on the floor, laid 
 the baby on an old calico-covered lounge in the 
 corner, and then went about opening windows. 
 It was a poor place, every article in it thread- 
 bare from use; but at the familiar sight and 
 
io KING'S END 
 
 feel of things he settled into a semblance of 
 content. When it could be put off no longer, 
 he turned about, like one summoned to an ex- 
 acting task, went over to the lounge, and looked 
 at the baby. It was a plump baby, very blond 
 and sleek. Luke gazed at her in growing 
 wonder over such curves and dimples, until he 
 caught himself murmuring, 
 
 " I 'm glad the little cuss ain't black, like 
 me!" 
 
 But his side of the question was not the only 
 one; for, as he stared at the baby, the baby 
 stared at him. He became vaguely aware that 
 it takes two to make a partnership, and that his 
 daughter had got to be reckoned with. When 
 he stole her, she seemed as impersonal as a 
 pillow; but here she was with a soul looking 
 out of crystalline eyes. And all this time she 
 had not cried. 
 
 Luke turned away, embarrassed, and began 
 taking some bread and cheese out of his bundle. 
 He made himself busy about the house, where 
 he was a deft workman ; but in the back of his 
 consciousness lurked all the time a sense of this 
 alien presence. He had stolen his own child ; 
 but what was he going to do with her ? 
 
 An hour later, a few stragglers came down 
 the mountain road from the meeting ; but none 
 
KING'S END II 
 
 of them noticed the open windows in the little 
 house. For one thing, the heavy lilacs screened 
 it in front ; and then it had stood so long unoc- 
 cupied that no one thought of glancing thither. 
 The heads of the women were together, talking 
 over old Elder Kent, telling how Miss Julia, his 
 sister, had failed since the last revival, and how 
 queer it was he should only pray and then dis- 
 miss the meeting. Nancy Eliot came last, all 
 by herself, walking with her head high and her 
 gaze exalted. She had taken a renewed resolu- 
 tion that afternoon, and she looked upon herself 
 as one of the Lord's anointed. He had called, 
 and she had answered Him. 
 
 She was a young woman, brilliant with the 
 promise of a beauty not yet altogether hers. 
 Somewhat thin, according to the type of lithe 
 New England maids, her figure was stiaight, 
 well-poised, and made to move in rhythm. Her 
 cheek's pale olive wore a flush that afternoon, 
 partly from rapid walking, and again because 
 Elder Kent had tpld her something and roused 
 her sympathetic anger. Her eyes were as dark 
 as eyes can be, and her straight hair, braided in 
 an imposing coronal, was black and shining. 
 At first you might have said her features were 
 too severe for an alluring beauty ; but let her 
 face you, and you would see that her upper lip 
 
12 KING'S END 
 
 was short and the cleft above it slightly irregu- 
 lar. Sometimes it betrayed her into a gleam of 
 white teeth when she had not meant to smile, 
 and always it declared her a woman to be 
 sought and followed. 
 
 The scent of the lilacs stole out to her be- 
 guilingly, and partly to avoid her neighbors but 
 more for love of the spring, she stepped up to 
 the lowest bush and broke a branch. Just as 
 she put it to her face the shriek of an exasper- 
 ated baby rent the air. Nancy started. She 
 knew very little about such small deer, but the 
 maternal instinct slept in her, ready to stir. If 
 she had heard a child's cry in the village she 
 would have walked on unconcerned ; but here, 
 from Luke Evans's old house, it cut the still- 
 ness like a plea from the infinite, and she could 
 but listen. 
 
 For a whole hour the baby had been stupidly 
 good ; but now, as time wore on, and no warm 
 milk found its miraculous way into an ever- 
 greedy stomach, it lifted up the wail of the in- 
 jured, and would not be comforted. Luke had 
 spent that nervous interval in pottering about 
 the house, and, whenever it was possible, turn- 
 ing his back upon his daughter ; now even he 
 became aware that something must be done. 
 So when Nancy, flushed and sweet above her 
 
KING'S END 13 
 
 lilacs, stepped in at the open door, he was on 
 his knees by the lounge, groaning "My gra- 
 cious, don't ! O my Lord ! don't ! " And the 
 baby was bursting with a crimson rage -still 
 deepening into purple. Nancy might not un- 
 derstand the rules of the game, but she had an 
 absolute certainty at that time that she was 
 called of the Lord to meet any given emer- 
 gency ; so she marched forward, dropped her 
 lilacs, and took up the baby, blushing as she did 
 so, for she realized that any poor married 
 woman, not of heaven's elect, would know bet- 
 ter than she how a child ought to be handled. 
 Luke rose to his feet. They had been school- 
 mates, but at that instant she seemed to him a 
 delivering angel. . 
 
 "Oh, Nancy," he inquired abjectly, "ain't it 
 awful ? " 
 
 Nancy was already walking up and down, 
 with the child on her shoulder. She cast him 
 a glance in turning. It was sternly reproachful 
 and meant to cover any possible case. 
 
 " I should think it was awful," she com- 
 mented. " Whose baby is it ? " 
 
 " Mine ! " 
 
 "Yours?" A flush broke redly upon her 
 cheek, and for an instant he thought she was 
 going to relinquish the child. 
 
14 KING'S END 
 
 " You have n't any right to her at all," she 
 announced. "I'm going to take her straight 
 down to her grandmother." 
 
 The old hatred flashed out upon his face and 
 wiped away the softness born to welcome her. 
 He placed himself swiftly before the door. 
 
 " No, you ain't," he said doggedly. " That 's 
 my property, an' you don't leave the room with 
 it." 
 
 " But you were n't " Nancy hesitated, and 
 her cheeks flamed ruddily. 
 
 "We wa'n't married," supplemented Luke. 
 " No, we wa'n't ; but I 'm that young one's 
 father, an' she belongs to me." 
 
 Nancy could not gainsay it ; but as she paused 
 by the door, the baby lifted an inexorable voice. 
 So she hastily fell under tyranny, and resumed 
 her walk. 
 
 "Well, I don't know anything about it," she 
 said. "All is, I can't hear anything cry so." 
 
 Then there befell Luke one of the changes 
 which had caused Milly Horner to see his 
 warmer nature and to love him. 
 
 " Oh, Nancy! " he said, " I '11 tell you, because 
 you never treated me as if I was the dust under 
 your feet. I 'd have told Mis' Horner, only she 
 made me mad. Don't you see, Milly didn't 
 want to be married any more than I did ? We 
 
KING'S END 15 
 
 were just as honest and just as good as husband 
 and wife, but we did n't think marryin' was 
 right." 
 
 Nancy looked icily away from him. " I don't 
 want to hear about such things," she said. 
 " You were wicked to teach them to her, and 
 you 're wicked to stand up for them." 
 
 But Luke, from an aching heart, was con- 
 scious only of the strange, new relief of open- 
 ing his lips and speaking the bitterness pent up 
 behind them. 
 
 " No, you can't understand it, an' you never 
 would, unless you'd lived the same life as I 
 have. My mother had two husbands, an' they 
 both abused her, my father an' t'other devil. 
 You 've heard him called Old Larrups. An' I 
 swore, when I was a boy, I never 'd marry a 
 woman an' let her feel she wa'n't free. She 
 should leave me whenever she got ready." 
 
 Nancy was still pacing the floor, paying an 
 ostentatious attention to the child, but he could 
 see that she was listening. 
 
 " I told Milly so," he went on, in the passion- 
 ate warmth of self-pity, " an' she liked me, an' 
 she said keepin' true to each other was better 
 than if we 'd promised it. She knew I did n't 
 believe in ministers an' the Bible an' " 
 
 " If you are going to say you don't believe in 
 
16 KING'S END 
 
 God," said Nancy, with accusing lips, "I shall 
 go. It 's blasphemy, and it 's wicked for me to 
 listen." 
 
 " An' I made her happy, Nancy, truly I did ! 
 but I lost my place, an' then I had to leave her, 
 an' find another, an' she went kind o* crazy with 
 the baby comin' an' all, an' run away home. 
 An' then you see I 'd got work, but I could n't 
 make enough to send for her to come on ; an' 
 when I was 'most wore out waitin' to hear from 
 her, I give up my job an' went back, an* there 
 were the letters I 'd sent her, an' the money 
 in 'em, an' she gone ! An' a note from old 
 Mis' Horner, cussin' me, an' sayin' Milly was 
 dead. So I did n't come here till I got sick o' 
 livin', an' then I did, an' there was the baby." 
 His voice broke, and he put his hands to his 
 eyes. 
 
 " Oh, don't ! " cried the girl swiftly. " Here ! 
 take this." She pressed her handkerchief into 
 his fingers, and began singing to the child. 
 Luke looked at the little square of linen and 
 then put it down on the table. He dashed at 
 his eyes furtively with the back of his hand, and 
 laid his passion by. 
 
 " Here, Nancy," he said gently, "you let me 
 take it. I see how you do it. I '11 walk a spell." 
 
 The baby had subsided into an exasperated 
 
KING'S END 17 
 
 silence, and Nancy placed her in his out- 
 stretched arms. 
 
 " Got a bowl? " she asked, " or a pitcher? I '11 
 take this yellow nappy. And don't you say any 
 more wicked things. I won't listen to 'em. I 
 suppose you get 'em out of there ! " She turned 
 scornfully to a shelf of books by the mantel, and 
 Luke followed her gaze most humbly. Then 
 she sped out of the door and was back again 
 before long, bearing the nappy daintily, for it 
 was full of milk. 
 
 Her face was flushed now with the happy 
 excitement of a clever thought well executed. 
 She looked very womanly. in her pretty haste. 
 
 " You sit down and hold her," she directed 
 him. " Maybe I can feed her out of a spoon." 
 
 Luke, quite overcome by the rapid changes 
 in the situation, obeyed with meekness. He 
 took the old rocker, and held the child flat upon 
 his knees, loosely but resolutely pinioning her 
 hands in one of his, with some idea of her po- 
 tency to outwit him. Nancy knelt before them 
 and administered milk from a spoon. When 
 the child swallowed conformably, she could not 
 help looking up at Luke with a smile which he 
 was ready to answer ; and when it choked, they 
 felt the tragedy. Sometimes the milk ran in 
 little runnels into the creasy neck ; but it did 
 
i8 KING'S END 
 
 come about finally that the deed was accom- 
 plished and the baby at rest. Nancy rose, sigh- 
 ing with relief. She set the nappy on the table 
 and wiped the front of her dress. 
 
 " Now I must go," she said decisively. " I 
 guess she ought to have some more, pretty 
 soon. You can warm what 's left." 
 
 Luke looked at her in helpless dismay. They 
 had seemed so truly companions in fighting a. 
 common misfortune that he had forgotten what 
 it would be to meet the situation alone. An 
 old hunger stirred in him, older even than his 
 love for Milly, and never really recognized be- 
 cause Nancy Eliot was the chosen of another 
 man. Against his will, he spoke with an invol- 
 untary jealousy : 
 
 " I heard hammerin' at the new house when 
 I come along. I s'pose it 's 'most ready for you 
 to move into." 
 
 She was angry at once, and for some reason 
 her anger pleased him. 
 
 " I 'm not going into any new houses," she 
 answered. 
 
 A warmth of relief enfolded him, and, moved 
 by it unawares, he smiled. When had he 
 smiled before to-day ? 
 
 " Ain't you goin' to marry him ? " he ven- 
 tured, watching her. 
 
KING'S END 19 
 
 "I'm not going to marry anybody," said 
 Nancy, not sharply, as she wished to speak, but 
 with the dignity of one set aside for loftier pur- 
 poses. " Now, are you going to feed her when 
 I'm gone?" 
 
 "Do they have to eat often?" he asked 
 weakly. 
 
 " Yes ; I don't know how often, but they do. 
 And they have to have one cow's milk. This 
 was old Specky's. Our cows are up here in the 
 mountain pasture. You'd better milk her 
 again, before they 're driven down. She 's the 
 only one with nubs on her horns. I '11 tell mo- 
 ther I told you to." 
 
 " If I do that, I '11 pay for it ; I 've got money. 
 But, Nancy, how often has she got to eat ? " 
 
 Put to the test, Nancy hedged a little. 
 
 " I '11 ask mother to come up after supper," 
 she promised haltingly. " If she can't come, 
 I '11 find out and come myself." 
 
 She turned, in swift decision, and walked out 
 of the house. Only the lilacs were left, and 
 Luke had stepped on them in his perfunctory 
 marching. Absently he lifted them and inhaled 
 their fragrance, while the baby looked at him 
 vacuously. 
 
 Meantime Nancy, feeling the vitality of the 
 world and certain that she was very much 
 
20 KING'S END 
 
 needed in it, stepped hastily on down the hill ; 
 but she had not gone far when Fate knocked 
 again at the door. A young man was lounging 
 against the stone wall, and from the haste with 
 which he came forward at sight of her, evi- 
 dently waiting for that very purpose. He was 
 extremely handsome in an old-fashioned way, 
 with the distinguished nose and well-cut lips of 
 some young patriot of an elder time, though a 
 humorous quirk at the corners of his mouth re- 
 leased him from the burden of too great a des- 
 tiny. His heavy light hair was brushed straight 
 back from his forehead. Nancy was conscious 
 of a thrill at sight of him, and frowned at her 
 own pulses. It was only, she reflected then, 
 because he looked so much like the pictures in 
 the history, not in the least because she liked 
 him. 
 
 "'Afternoon, Nancy," he called, with a bluff 
 lack of ceremony. " You 're late. All the folks 
 went by half an hour ago. I begun to think 
 you must be among the goats." 
 
 " I was detained," said Nancy briefly, 
 hardly looking at him now. 
 
 She was going on when he called, " Wait a 
 minute," with a half-veiled authority, to be re- 
 sented and then obeyed. " I want you to come 
 up to the new house. I Ve got to ask you some- 
 
KING'S END 21 
 
 thing. The workmen can't go ahead till they 're 
 told." 
 
 " The idea ! " cried Nancy. " I don't know 
 anything about houses." 
 
 " Oh yes, you do," he returned, with confi- 
 dence. " You know this. A man could n't 
 settle it." 
 
 " Then ask your mother." 
 
 " Mother 's in a tantrum. I have n't spoken 
 a word to her for a week. She won't put up her 
 ear trumpet. Come along, Nancy, or I shall 
 have to tell the carpenters why they Ve got to 
 knock off." 
 
 " Very well," said Nancy, trying to act as if 
 she acceded of her own free will. " If I can be 
 of any assistance to you ! " 
 
 Martin Jeffries smiled. He knew her habit 
 of using long words when she was offended or 
 when she was afraid of him, and either mood 
 was better than a calm estate. He turned with 
 her into a grass-grown driveway at the right, 
 and they went on in silence. At the end of its 
 winding length was the cellar of the old Whit- 
 tredge estate, and this spring Martin had bought 
 the place and begun to put up a new house. 
 Even at this stage it looked very dignified and 
 comfortable, built with simplicity on a colonial 
 model. They went up the rough steps together, 
 
22 KING'S END 
 
 and he offered his hand to help her over the 
 sill. But it was an unnecessary courtesy, and 
 she refused it, gathered her skirts away from the 
 shavings, and stepped into a broad hall, illu- 
 mined now, in the mellowness of new wood, by 
 the sunset light traveling through from the 
 front door to the back. The clean smell of 
 lumber pervaded it, and a girl who had gone 
 there with her lover, knowing the house was for 
 them, ,would have looked her delight. Even 
 upon Nancy a new tranquillity seemed suddenly 
 to fall. She felt more at rest, as, even though 
 unconsciously, she always did when Martin was 
 near. 
 
 " It 's about the kitchen I wanted to ask 
 you," he said indifferently. " But come in here 
 a minute first. The parlor fireplace is done. 
 Like it ? " 
 
 It was capacious, deep, and delightful in sim- 
 plicity. Two iron firedogs stood ready, and 
 Nancy noted the carefully laid sticks, birch with 
 curling bark, over a foundation of cones. 
 
 " Why, you Ve fixed a fire ! " she said in sur- 
 prise. 
 
 " Yes," returned Martin carelessly. He was 
 striking a match. " Light it while I sweep 
 these shavings away. Let 's see if it draws." 
 
 He stepped behind her, but without sweeping 
 
KING'S END 23 
 
 at all. Instead, he looked down upon her while 
 she knelt, with a swift, feminine motion, and set 
 the match to the wood. Flames darted glori- 
 ously and curled about the birch, and Nancy, 
 forgetful of the place, knelt still and dreamed 
 about the future. But it was of herself alone 
 she dreamed, and of what she was pleased to 
 think God wished her to do. A long sigh star- 
 tled her. She rose in haste, to find Martin 
 watching her with passionate eyes. Involunta- 
 rily she retreated, and her own glance hardened. 
 It turned her icy when he looked at her like 
 that. 
 
 " There, dear," he murmured, " you did it for 
 me. Don't you see why ? They wanted to heat 
 up, to dry off, but I could n't have it done till 
 you 'd lighted your own fire first. In your own 
 house, Nancy ! " He stretched out his arms to 
 her as if sure she would come to them. That 
 strange authority invariably made her flee. Her 
 " no " meant nothing. He turned it into " yes." 
 
 " Then it was only a trick," she said angrily. 
 " You pretend to like me, and you torment me 
 all you can." 
 
 He was still gazing at her, that dreamy invi- 
 tation in his eyes. His hands fell. 
 
 " Oh no, dearest ! " he said. " Only you 
 loiow you 're going to live here with me in this 
 
24 KING'S END 
 
 very house. Why, even the house knows ! 
 Two winters ago when I cut the lumber, cold 
 days up on the mountain, I used to tell the trees. 
 Then while the boards were seasoning, I sat on 
 them and smoked and talked about it. And 
 now you 've lit your own fire ! " 
 
 Nancy trembled. That strange tenderness 
 of his always frightened her. It seemed like 
 none of the men there in the village who went 
 to church with their wives and shamefacedly 
 called them " she." His persecution was hate- 
 ful to her, and she had never, since her earliest 
 girlhood, been without it. But now some sense 
 that the situation was a crucial one roused her 
 to end it. 
 
 " Look here, Martin Jeffries," she said, " if 
 that 's what you think of me, you might as well 
 stop thinking. I shan't ever marry anybody." 
 
 Two bright little imps were smiling in his 
 eyes. " Oh no, I hope not," he said soothingly, 
 " nobody but me. I ain't anybody." 
 
 Nancy hardened in her resolve. "I'll tell 
 you something," she went on, " only you must 
 n't tell. I have n't even broken it to mother 
 yet. When Elder Kent goes away from here, 
 I 'm going with him and Miss Julia to 
 preach." 
 
 His eyes opened wide. She had never really 
 
KING'S END 25 
 
 surprised him before. " Holy poker ! " he re- 
 marked. " What for ? " 
 
 " I am called," answered Nancy, with a cer- 
 tain exaltation. " I am called of God." 
 
 Martin stood very silent for a few moments, 
 looking at the floor. His hands were in his 
 pockets and he whistled a stave. 
 
 " I 've often wished you did n't have so much 
 to do with God," he said musingly. " It ain't 
 healthy." 
 
 "I wish you wouldn't say ain't," flashed 
 Nancy, from the sting of an old irritation. 
 
 He smiled at her with a transforming radi- 
 ance. " I won't, if you '11 stay at home and be 
 a good girl." 
 
 She was finding her way to the door. 
 
 " I 've had it in mind for over two years," 
 she said, " ever since I cherished a hope. But 
 I couldn't do it till father's old debt was paid 
 off. Now it 's all done but twenty dollars, and 
 I Ve got that laid by. So I 'm going." 
 
 " Well, I 'm glad you mentioned it," returned 
 Martin cheerfully, kicking stray boards out of 
 the way to follow her, " because now I can hurry 
 up the house. Of course, you knew I 'd go too." 
 
 " You need n't say anything you don't mean," 
 remarked Nancy, with dignity. 
 
 " Oh, I mean it all right ! You 're leading 
 
26 KING'S END 
 
 me an awful dance, Nancy ; but when we 're old 
 folks and sit here side of the fire, it '11 be some- 
 thing to mull over. Oh, hold on a minute ! I 
 want you to look into the kitchen ; I do truly. 
 Should you rather have the flour barrel in the 
 pantry, or a little cubby built for it in one cor- 
 ner ? " 
 
 "You can ask your mother, or whoever 's 
 going to make your bread." 
 
 She went swiftly away down the path, and 
 Martin looked after her until she neared the 
 turn ; then he went in again, because she was 
 too precious to be watched out of sight. His 
 face, transfigured by emotion which there was 
 now no reason for concealing, took on a spiritual 
 beauty rare enough to have amazed the girl 
 who flouted him. He was quite willing that she 
 should see his soul ; yet how could it walk 
 forth in the eyes of scorn ? He waited musing 
 by the fire until the coals had smouldered, and 
 then went home to smile in a different way at 
 his mother, and coax her into some sort of hu- 
 man fellowship. 
 
 Nancy walked away, angrily conscious of what 
 she called her lower nature. She was aware of 
 having started from the mountain in a very ele- 
 vated frame of mind. Luke Evans had jarred 
 it but little, for her sense of beneficence had 
 
KING'S END 27 
 
 carried her triumphantly out of his door ; but 
 Martin, as he always did, had contrived to set 
 her on that very human and commonplace 
 plane which she was always trying to avoid. 
 By the time she reached the good old farm- 
 house where she and her mother lived, with 
 Aunt Lindy to keep them company, she was 
 practically cross ; the more so because, when 
 she entered the kitchen, no supper was appar- 
 ent, though the fire was burning briskly, and 
 three women stood there in the attitude of gos- 
 sip unfinished. First there was her mother, 
 tall, gaunt, with smoothly banded black hair and 
 long gold earrings, then Aunt Lindy, a marvel 
 of contented flesh, and Joan Macpherson, old 
 Mrs. Horner's help, the bearer of tidings. Joan's 
 forbears came from Prince Edward's Island, but 
 she prided herself upon being Yankee born, and 
 eradicated, so far as she might, all the tricks of 
 speech to which ancestry entitled her. She was 
 a giantess, with red hair, a woman of great 
 endurance and a canny mind. 
 
 " So she screamed herself into fits, an' that 
 hoarse ! " she was saying. " An' Mr. Horner 
 an' me happened to get there the same time. 
 ' Be you sick ? ' says he. ' No,' says she. ' The 
 baby's stole an' murdered.' Then I minded 
 how I dropped my dishcloth this mornin', an' I 
 
28 KING'S END 
 
 groaned. She tried to throw the Bible at me 
 for fear I 'd get in a word " 
 
 " The Bible ! " ejaculated Aunt Lindy 
 meekly, casting her eyes heavenward. " I 
 want to know ! " 
 
 " An' she would have it Mr. Horner must 
 gether together the neighbors an' go up the 
 mountain an' get the baby back, alive or dead. 
 But he took a drink out o' the dipper an' said 
 he did n't know how the law lay, an' he never 
 heard of a man claimin' that kind of a child be- 
 fore. But if he wanted it, he guessed he had a 
 right to it ; an' then she screamed seems if I 
 could hear her now ! an' says to me, ' You go 
 over to Judge Hill's an' ask him what the law 
 is.' " 
 
 " I guess so ! The law ! " repeated Aunt 
 Lindy admiringly. 
 
 " I started," said Joan. She stood in statu- 
 esque repose, her great arms folded. " I met a 
 cat on the way, an' I never turned back. A 
 cat 's bad luck. An' when I got to Judge Hill's 
 he 'd had another stroke an' two doctors over 
 him. So I come home. Then Mis' Horner she 
 made me carry the word to the selec'men, an' 
 they 're goin' up along after supper to see if 
 they can get the baby away. An' that 's where 
 it lays now." 
 
KING'S END 29 
 
 " Forever ! " breathed Aunt Lindy. 
 
 "Well, I never heard such doin's myself," 
 said Mrs. Eliot, " trying " the oven. " Nancy, 
 you set the table." 
 
 Nancy had taken off her hat, and stood, very 
 cool and superior, by the three agitated women. 
 It seemed to her that she only grasped the sit- 
 uation. 
 
 "Mrs. Horner needn't be afraid anything 
 will happen to the baby," she said. " I Ve just 
 seen it." 
 
 " Seen it ! " echoed the three together, Aunt 
 Lindy in a soft staccato, easily overborne. 
 
 "Yes; I heard it cry when I came along 
 down. So I went in. And I milked old Specky 
 and fed it. I told him he might milk Specky 
 every day, mother," she continued, drawing out 
 the table and beginning to spread the cloth. 
 "I thought it had got to have one cow's milk." 
 
 She seemed to make the transaction a matter 
 of course. It was dizzying. There was the 
 baby in a state of siege, to be attacked by the 
 selectmen after supper, and here was Nancy 
 talking about one cow's milk. Even Big Joan 
 was impressed. She turned silently away. 
 
 "Well, I'll tell Mis' Horner," said she, and 
 went homeward. Susan Eliot looked at her 
 daughter hopelessly, as she often did when 
 
30 KING'S END 
 
 Nancy took unfamiliar paths with no apparent 
 inkling of their character. 
 
 " I guess the baby 's got to stay there," con- 
 tinued Nancy, as she went on setting the table. 
 " I promised you 'd come up after supper and 
 tell him how often she ought to be fed." 
 
 "Well, I guess I shan't," returned Mrs. 
 Eliot, drawing her biscuit tin out of the oven 
 for a nearer scrutiny. "You was too hasty, 
 Nancy. I ain't goin' to stir up any kind of a 
 neighborhood brew." 
 
 Long before reaching her present stature, 
 Nancy, by virtue of godly living, had become 
 the head of the house, and this unexpected re- 
 volt was amazing to her. For a moment she 
 went on working, with a little irritated flush 
 upon her cheeks. Then she said rather meekly, 
 "I asked Elder Kent and Miss Julia to stay 
 with us. Was that wrong, too ? " 
 
 " Why, no, of course not ! I put in extry 
 biscuits a-purpose. When will they be down 
 along ? 'Fore supper ? " 
 
 " Oh yes ! He only waited to talk with two 
 young men from Pillcott way. They came to 
 make a disturbance. He 's had an awful time, 
 mother. He told me about it. They had him 
 up last week for breaking the peace. So this 
 time he only prayed and sung." 
 
KING'S END 31 
 
 When Mrs. Eliot went into the shed for some 
 light wood, Nancy followed her. 
 
 " Mother, wait a minute," she began. " Here, 
 don't pick up the limbs yet ; I want to speak to 
 you." Mrs. Eliot confronted her, a capable 
 figure, moulded by work and its perplexities. 
 " Mother, I 've got something to tell you." 
 
 She was so moved, in some subtile way, that 
 Mrs. Eliot scented the secret, and gave her a 
 reassuring nod. 
 
 " Is it about Martin Jeffries ? " she asked, 
 from that shyness with which the women of the 
 village were accustomed to treat love and its 
 outcome. " I 'm real pleased." 
 
 Nancy's softer mood settled into a crystal. 
 "'I don't know why it should be about Martin 
 Jeffries," she said coldly. " It 's got nothing to 
 do with him. It 's only that I 've promised 
 Elder Kent to go off with them, preaching. I 
 feel called." 
 
 Mrs. Eliot was mechanically holding up her 
 apron with its few gathered chips. She dropped 
 it, and the kindling rattled to her feet. " How 
 long do you mean to be gone ? " she asked. 
 
 Nancy trembled a little. " Always," she said. 
 " Mother, I am called." 
 
 "Well, then, that 's all there is about it," re- 
 turned Mrs. Eliot, and again she began picking 
 
32 KING'S END 
 
 up her wood. An observer, unused to the ways 
 of New England life, would have said she did 
 not care. Nancy saw that she was moved to 
 the soul. But not for that reason could she 
 yield. She was leaving mother and home for 
 a greater sake, and warmer even than any filial 
 pang was her sense of being set apart and con- 
 secrated. Yet she did at the moment feel a 
 passionate sorrow for her mother : that egotis- 
 tical pity of youth unable to conceive how age 
 is going to exist without the solace of its bright- 
 ness. 
 
 " Oh, mother ! don't you carry the wood ! 
 You let me ! " she cried, sweeping the load from 
 Susan's apron into hers, though usually she ig- 
 nored that " Irish basket " of immemorial usage. 
 It was an untidy makeshift, thought Nancy. 
 
 "I'm afraid the oven will all cool off," said 
 Mrs. Eliot, and they went in together, sorrowful 
 but composed, the one hungry for pity and yet 
 not putting out her hand, the other aching with 
 sympathy and unschooled in showing it. So 
 the preparations for supper went on, and when 
 the biscuits were overbrowned in waiting, a man 
 and woman came down the mountain road and 
 stopped at the door. King's End was familiar 
 with the pair, and seeing them pass, only paused 
 long enough at the window to remark, " There 
 
KING'S END 33 
 
 goes the Elder and Julia ; " but to unaccustomed 
 eyes they were strollers escaped from some ec- 
 centric stage. Both were old, and both were 
 vigorous, like all who live chiefly in sun and 
 wind. The man was slender and strong, of no 
 great height, and his white beard fell waving 
 and silky almost to his waist. White hair 
 swept back from his great forehead, and his 
 nose had the line of a delicate length. Dark 
 eyes lay almost hidden in their sockets, shaded 
 by black brows so thick and straight that their 
 profile haunted you. His clothes were a de- 
 cent, shiny black, mended with such exquisite 
 workmanship as to make a separate art of darn- 
 ing. His sister, shorter than he, was yet cast 
 in a sterner mould. Her nose held an aquiline 
 strength, her black eyes an unresting fire. 
 Even her hair, white like his own, was coarser, 
 and curled with a rough and willful energy. 
 She too wore black, preserved with the same 
 thrift. The thin silk of her visit e was darned 
 in many places, and she twisted herself from 
 time to time in walking, to cast an anxious 
 glance at a new rent in her skirt, where the 
 blackberry thorns still clung. She carried a 
 neat little parcel, and he an old-fashioned carpet- 
 bag. This was their traveling gear for the un- 
 broken wandering of their chosen life. 
 
34 KING'S END 
 
 " Dear me suz ! " remarked Susan, when they 
 came in sight. "Set on the biscuits, Nancy. 
 I 'd 'most give 'em up." 
 
 At the threshold the Elder raised his hands 
 in benediction, and immediately a hush fell upon 
 the women within. Like others who were ac- 
 customed to his eccentric ways, the two older 
 ones thought lightly of him as " half -crazed," 
 yet they could never free themselves from the 
 awe of his presence. 
 
 "Peace be upon this house!" he said, and 
 waited while his sister shook hands with her 
 hostess and Aunt Lindy. 
 
 " I hope we have n't put you out," she said, 
 with a smiling grace. She was used to making 
 that apology. It tripped from her lips now 
 without consideration. The Elder kept no note 
 of times and seasons, and she was ever trotting 
 on behind him to keep his credit by a melt- 
 ing word. Susan was far too conscientious to 
 protest, but, mentally conceding the delay, she 
 added, " It ain't any put-out at all," and hurried 
 them off to their bedrooms. It was always 
 more or less exciting to entertain the Elder 
 and his sister, for Miss Julia brought pages of 
 harmless gossip from a dozen villages, and re- 
 tailed it brightly. She it was who earned their 
 daily bread by such social garnishing, as well as 
 
KING'S END 35 
 
 by the work of her hands, and she shrewdly 
 knew her value. Fidelity to the Elder's calling 
 was not always sufficient to buy him a week's 
 board ; but few housewives could resist the ap- 
 peal of Miss Julia's graces and her practiced 
 thrift. 
 
 The Elder, withdrawn in meditation, sat in 
 silence through the meal, and Julia, tasting her 
 tea delicately, seemed the great lady of the oc- 
 casion, supping by gracious accord with those 
 to whom she had much to give. Mrs. Eliot 
 asked low-toned questions about the folks at 
 Cumnor, and Aunt Lindy, albeit fond of " sweet 
 trade," forgot to pass the cake in her desire to 
 hear whether plaits or gathers were worn in 
 Ryde. But Nancy ate her supper with a care- 
 ful dignity, copying the silence of the man 
 whom she had elected to follow. Every mo- 
 ment with him was to her mind instinct with 
 spiritual charm. After supper he withdrew to 
 the garden, and paced up and down, still in 
 meditation, while Mrs. Eliot told Miss Julia the 
 story of the stolen baby. Nancy spoke no 
 word, but when the tale was ended, she called 
 from her dish-washing at the sink : 
 
 " Mother, I think you might tell me what to 
 say to him about feeding. I 'm going up, after 
 I 've finished these." 
 
36 KING'S END 
 
 " I declare, Nancy," answered her mother, 
 brushing up the hearth, "you do seem to be 
 bewitched. There ! I 've scorched this turkey 
 wing, an' I knew I should. You can go ask 
 Mis' Horner, if you Ve got to have your finger 
 in it. I ain't goin' to interfere." 
 
 " I said I 'd run up and tell him," returned 
 Nancy, with that sedateness which even her 
 adorers found exasperating ; "so I must." 
 
 " Oh, there they come ! there they come ! " 
 cried Aunt Lindy huskily, from the window. 
 "There's the selectmen an' 'most the whole 
 township with 'em." 
 
 Perhaps twenty men and boys were strag- 
 gling up the road, led in a self-conscious ma- 
 jesty by two selectmen, the third being away 
 trading cattle. 
 
 " There 's William Kane an' Owen Henry," 
 enumerated Mrs. Eliot from her outlook, "an' 
 one, two, three, four well, I guess most o' the 
 neighborhood's there. I wonder the women 
 didn't jine in." 
 
 " I wisht they had," murmured Aunt Lindy. 
 " I could n't ha' clim' up there myself, but I 'd 
 like to hear Big Joan set it out to-morrer." 
 
 " So you see, Nancy, you need n't mix your- 
 self up in it," remarked Susan as the rout went 
 resolutely by, the boys a-grin and the men quite 
 
KING'S END 37 
 
 shamefaced over a doubtful quest. " You see 
 they 're going to bring the baby safe home to 
 its grandmother." 
 
 "They won't get it," said Nancy. "But I 
 shan't go up till they 've gone away." 
 
 " Don't you mind ; she shan't go alone," 
 whispered Miss Julia, nodding at Susan. " I '11 
 go up with her myself after this to-do is over. 
 There! the Elder's seen 'em and joined in. 
 I 'd full as lieve 's he 'd gone to bed in peace 
 to-night." Fine lines of an old anxiety wrinkled 
 her forehead, and she craned forward to watch 
 them out of sight. 
 
 "He'll pray with them before they come 
 home," said Nancy raptly. " That's what he 's 
 going to do." 
 
II 
 
 KING'S END knew well how forlorn a hope it 
 led in charging under the banner of these two 
 selectmen ; for, as Eph Cummings said at start- 
 ing, " The only man among 'em was the one 
 that wa'n't there." Without him, the office had 
 but the potency of a " wet rag." William Kane, 
 a spare farmer with a lean, stubbly cheek and 
 sweeping chin-beard, was the apostle of expedi- 
 ency. Owen Henry had always been regarded 
 with distaste by the fastidious, because of his 
 color, dark as that of a half-breed, or, as Big 
 Joan supplemented with a traveled scorn, " one 
 of them low Canucks." He was short and very 
 square. His beard, even when closely shaven, 
 seemed to have dyed his cheeks, and the coarse 
 black hair rose like bristles above his forehead. 
 A nice man enough, said the village, but he had 
 n 't got much " seem " to him. Obed Horner 
 brought up the rear, a little fellow with a round 
 and innocent face and a fringe of whisker. 
 One might have called him the most indifferent 
 of all ; yet his mouth worked nervously, and his 
 
KING'S END 39 
 
 light eyes were still moist with tears. After 
 greeting the Elder, they tramped on up the 
 country road, all the more aware, in their silence, 
 of the sounds of spring. Frogs were still peep- 
 ing down in the pond below the turn, and two 
 or three had begun the long, high recitative of 
 newborn love. The whippoorwill cried melo- 
 diously from a neighboring copse, and then 
 whirred nearer and cried again. 
 
 " Consarn them birds ! " said Eph Cummings. 
 He was a citizen so soft-hearted as not willingly 
 to " hurt a fly." " I wish all the whippoorwills 
 in the State o' New Hampshire had one neck 
 an' I could wring it." 
 
 "Bad sign!" agreed William Kane in his 
 soothing cadence. " Yes, I 've al'ays heerd so. 
 Bad sign ! " 
 
 " I should n 't care what it *s a sign of, if I 
 could make 'em shet up," said Eph. Then be- 
 coming aware that a younger generation was 
 listening, he added hastily, " There ! there ! 
 boys, don't you never touch 'em. I guess they 
 don't do no hurt." 
 
 The little black house was in sight now, and 
 the scent of lilacs lay upon the air. 
 
 "He ain't got no light," whispered a boy. 
 But the windows were open, though the door 
 had long been locked. The selectmen halted, 
 
40 KING'S END 
 
 and their guard shuffled to a pause. The Elder* 
 still in the rear, lifted his hands, and his lips 
 formed in the darkness the inaudible benedic- 
 tion, " Peace be upon this house ! " 
 
 " Coin' in ? " asked Owen of his colleague, in 
 a stertorous whisper. William Kane scraped 
 his lean cheek and caressed his beard. 
 
 " Might as well knock on the door," he re- 
 marked. " That can't do no hurt." 
 
 " What is it ? " cracked a voice from the win- 
 dow. The men in advance fell back upon the 
 feet behind them. But courage was not extinct 
 here in King's End. The dignity of the law 
 revived, and the deputation swayed forward. 
 William Kane nudged his companion, but Owen 
 only breathed loudly in reply. So William 
 essayed the onslaught. 
 
 "That you, Luke?" he called cheerfully. 
 " That you ? Well, I declare ! Got home, ain't 
 ye?" 
 
 The dark was coming quickly, but they could 
 discern the outline of a head at the window. A 
 boy said afterwards that its eyes were live coals, 
 "jes' like a cat's." ' But that evidence was 
 never heeded, save by one credulous mother. 
 
 " What 's the meanin' o' this ? " called Luke 
 sharply. " What you all up here for ? " 
 
 Obed Horner had lingered in the background. 
 
KING'S END 41 
 
 He was a shy man, and the disgrace of his 
 daughter's return seemed to him cruelly aug- 
 mented by this further scandal But now des- 
 peration provoked him to speech, and he 
 pressed forward. 
 
 " I '11 tell ye what 's the matter, Luke Evans," 
 he asserted passionately. " You 've stole a baby 
 out o' my house, an' we've come up here to 
 carry it home ag'in. An' here 's the selec'men 
 an' all." 
 
 Even the childishness of this last appeal could 
 not entirely efface its dignity. Obed loved the 
 baby, perhaps more tenderly than if it had come 
 into the world well heralded. He was a par- 
 tisan. 
 
 " The baby 's mine," returned Luke. " I 'm 
 her father. Anybody got anything to say 
 ag'inst a man's claimin' his own child ? " 
 
 Obed pressed close to the selectmen. 
 " Can't you answer suthin' ? " he whispered 
 desperately. 
 
 Silence fell, and then the whippoorwill, flying 
 nearer, began his flouting in their very ears. 
 
 " Consarn that bird ! " muttered Eph again. 
 " Can't some o' you boys creep round the back 
 o' the shed an' kind o' shoo him away ? " 
 
 But not even a boy would forego the fearful 
 joy of the coming dialogue. So still was it that 
 
42 KING'S END 
 
 each man could hear his neighbor breathing. 
 Two or three could count the thumping of their 
 hearts. 
 
 " Well, now, Luke," said William Kane, in a 
 lively manner, " there ain't a mite o' use takin' ' 
 it hard, all among neighbors so, but it 's un- 
 derstood it's been understood for quite a 
 while that you an' Milly wa'n't man an' 
 wife." 
 
 " You can understand it all over ag'in," re- 
 turned Luke, unmoved. "We wa'n't married. 
 An' this baby's ourn." 
 
 The Elder came suddenly forward and 
 stepped close up to the window, from which 
 the others were keeping at a prudent length. 
 His face was on a level with the visage within. 
 
 " But now," he said, " you are ready to marry 
 her, poor girl ! " 
 
 Obed Horner pressed forward a step, a sob 
 in his throat. " She's dead, Elder," said he, 
 like a child. " My girl 's dead. It 's too late to 
 make it up to her ; she 's dead an' gone." 
 
 Luke also felt the pathos of the moment ; it 
 stirred him to a deeper rage. He was conscious 
 of the dumb protest of one who has taken a 
 stand against the world only because the world 
 has forced him into it. Here he stood, at bay 
 against his judges. 
 
KING'S END 43 
 
 " Yes, she 's dead," he agreed bitterly. " An' 
 if she was alive, she 'd been glad enough to stan* 
 here with me an' face the whole pack on ye. 
 Now look here ! if a child 's born out o' wedlock, 
 don't ye go round tryin' to find a father for it 
 an' make him support it ? Well, you ain't had 
 to hunt much for me. I 'm here. An' I say 
 this is my child, an' I 'm goin* to take care of it 
 an' bring it up ; an' if anybody gits in my way, 
 let him stand from under ! That 's all." 
 
 The Elder put out his hand. 
 
 "Good for you, brother," he said warmly. 
 "You speak like a man." 
 
 Luke, prepared only for warfare, stared at 
 him, and Obed Horner gave a little dissuading 
 cry:- 
 
 "Look here, Elder, you'll upset the whole 
 b'ilin' ! You let the selec 'men speak." 
 
 But the selectmen were not ready, whereas 
 Luke had his argument prepared. 
 
 " I 've loaded my old musket," he continued 
 grimly. " She sets right here in this corner ; 
 an' if anybody tries to break into my house an' 
 interfere with my family, I '11 open on 'em. 
 That 's all I 've got to say. What 's mine's 
 mine. You let me alone, an' I '11 let you alone." 
 
 The Elder faced rapidly about. " Friends," 
 said he, " the man may not be right according 
 
44 KING'S END 
 
 to law, but he thinks he is right. He means to 
 do his duty by his own. He hopes to make up 
 to the child what he owed the mother." 
 
 " It 's no such a thing ! " called Luke, exas- 
 perated by a predicament from which he was 
 too obstinate to withdraw. " I 've got nothin' 
 to make up. I done my best by Milly Horner, 
 an' I come back to King's End as peaceable as 
 a lamb. Eph told me about the baby, an' I 
 meant to look at it, an' then foot it up here, an* 
 crawl into a hole an' suck my claws. An' if old 
 Mis' Horner 'd ha' treated me decent, I 'd ha' 
 done it. But you can't call a man a dog an' he 
 not snap at ye. So I 've took my stan', an' I 'm 
 goin' to hold to it ; an' anybody 't interferes 
 with me '11 git a charge o' shot." His face faded 
 away from the dusky square, and they heard 
 him stepping about within. No one moved, but 
 Owen Henry and William Kane whispered to- 
 gether. The face appeared again at the window. 
 
 " It 's gittin' late for callers," remarked Luke 
 dryly. " I guess it 's time for you folks to dis- 
 perse. If you don't, I may have to disperse ye." 
 And King's End, still headed by its selectmen, 
 turned about and followed the example of the 
 King of France. 
 
 But the Elder stayed. He fell on his knees 
 there by the cinnamon rosebush near the door. 
 
KING'S END 45 
 
 Luke stood at the window and looked down 
 upon the white head uplifted toward the night. 
 His lips curled with the scorn of one who 
 watches an innocent mummery. As the Elder 
 rose, Luke stepped softly away from the win- 
 dow, having had enough of talk ; but the old 
 man, not regarding him, walked broodingly into 
 the dark. He did not, like the others, return 
 to the village ; he climbed the mountain slope 
 to a pasture which was wont to be his place of 
 meditation. Stars and great sky spaces were 
 his counselors. He remembered Him who 
 went into a mountain apart. 
 
 Meantime the little train, on its way downhill, 
 talked not at all, though the boys, forgetting 
 even to scuffle or to exchange more than a fur- 
 tive cuff, cast inquiring glances at their elders. 
 Obed at his gate turned for an instant, and 
 lamented, like an injured child : 
 
 "An' Owen Henry never spoke one word! 
 Neighbors, I 'm obleeged to ye." 
 
 Then he sought his wife, and sat by her bed- 
 side all night, silent but mindful of her ungov- 
 erned grief. Joan Macpherson she would not 
 have. Her red-brown eyes distended in hyster- 
 ical anguish. She talked incessantly, and Obed 
 afterwards at his work used sometimes to shud- 
 der over the memory of her ravings. 
 
46 KING'S END 
 
 "Well, Lord have mercy on us," he would 
 say, straightening himself to lean on his hoe 
 and look at the ground, trying anew to be con- 
 vinced that his God was one who remembereth 
 that we are dust. 
 
 Nancy and her mother, with Miss Julia, were 
 at the gate when the troop went by. 
 
 " Got the baby ? " called Mrs. Eliot. 
 
 Eph Cummings shook his head gloomily. 
 " Won't give it up ! " 
 
 " I told you so," said Nancy. " Mother, I 've 
 got to go up there. I said I would. Don't you 
 want to go too ? " 
 
 Her voice had no imploring notes, but Susan 
 understood it. That suggestion carried the 
 weight of an appeal. Her heart yielded, but 
 she clung perforce to rural usage. She could 
 not interfere. " I ain't goin' to meddle nor 
 make," she returned unhappily. " It 's no con- 
 cern o' mine, nor yourn either. Let 's all come 
 in an' git to bed in good season." 
 
 But Nancy stepped out into the road, and 
 gathered her skirts about her. She felt the 
 holy elevation of a martyr. 
 
 "Don't you worry," whispered Miss Julia in 
 Susan's ear. " I '11 go with her. I 've got an 
 errand of my own." And she too melted away 
 into the night. 
 
KING'S END 47 
 
 Susan Eliot stood for a moment, watching the 
 dusky shapes lessen up the hill, and then, with 
 a long sigh, went back to the front steps, where 
 she sat and meditated. She was well used to 
 the irritation of this inward protest against na- 
 tures unlike her own. Her husband had taken 
 these byways of action wherein she could never 
 follow him, and now Nancy was developing the 
 same exasperating individuality. 
 
 The two went silently up the hill. There 
 was no moon, and now the dusk was night in- 
 deed, and fell upon them heavily. Nancy, never 
 afraid until this summer, was conscious of its 
 power. She walked softly, yet ashamed of her 
 own caution, and when a branch put out an 
 arresting finger, she started aside, with a little 
 cry. But Julia, used to lone vigils beside her 
 brother when the spirit was upon him, and to 
 miles of tramping between daylight and dawn, 
 went on like a sinewy soldier. Nothing was 
 more familiar to her now than the uncouth shad- 
 ows of night, its phantasmal sky ; and, like 
 those born to the darkness, she seemed to feel 
 her way through it by a sense more acute than 
 seeing. 
 
 "It was real good of you to come," said Nancy, 
 in a whisper. 
 
 But Julia, unawed by the silence, made answer 
 
48 KING'S END 
 
 clearly : " I wanted to. It gave me an ex- 
 cuse." 
 
 " Oh ! " breathed Nancy, stopping short, 
 "what's that?" 
 
 High up from the mountain pasture a sound 
 came ebbing down. It was the voice of prayer, 
 chanted with great and musical strength. 
 
 " It 's brother," said Miss Julia, " praying in 
 the dark." 
 
 Nancy laughed a little, nervously. " I might 
 have known," she said, drawing a quick breath; 
 " I 've heard him so many times. But somehow 
 it was so sudden ! It 's so awful ! " 
 
 The voice went pealing on. It fell into Bib- 
 lical utterance, and, like John the Baptist's, cried 
 "Repent!" until the echoing wood returned 
 the word uncannily. 
 
 Nancy, tired with the day and excited by its 
 drama, held herself firmly, lest she sob. She 
 was ashamed to be so dominated. " Here we 
 are," she said at length. " I guess he 's gone 
 to bed." 
 
 The little dark house was still. Luke had lis- 
 tened for her, as he lay in his bedroom, but his 
 aching body, tired with three days' tramping, 
 was too much for him. While he listened, he 
 fell asleep. 
 
 The two women stood still in the lilac shadow. 
 
KING'S END 49 
 
 Julia put out her hands, and gathering great 
 bunches of the blossoms to her face, laid her 
 aching eyes upon them. She had cried that 
 afternoon some of the terrible tears of old age, 
 alone, like a hurt animal in the sedge. Only 
 some impersonal touch like this could heal her. 
 
 " I guess we shall have to go back again," 
 whispered Nancy, at length. " If the baby 's 
 asleep, she 's all right. We don't want to wake 
 her." 
 
 They stepped softly away, pausing at inter- 
 vals to listen. Halfway down the road Julia 
 spoke, putting a hand on the girl's arm. 
 " Should you just as soon run home alone ? I 'm 
 going to clip it over the pasture here to the 
 Cumnor Road. I shall be in by the time 
 brother is. You just leave the door for us." 
 
 " I '11 go with you," said Nancy. Her cour- 
 age had returned ; and proud always of her own 
 strength, she liked to justify it, even to herself. 
 " Here 's the gap in the wall." 
 
 But Julia still detained her. " You can go," 
 said she. " I 'd like you to go. I don't know 
 what I shall find. But you must n't ever tell. 
 It 's my business, and you mustn't ever." 
 
 " No, I won't tell," said Nancy. She stepped 
 through the gap, and Julia followed lightly. 
 
 They were in a rolling pasture with pines in 
 
50 KING'S END 
 
 irregular patches, black now under the weight 
 of night. Nancy remembered how a line of firs 
 on a ridge beyond had often made an iron fret- 
 work against the sunset sky ; now they were an 
 impassable wall builded of darkness. The whip- 
 poorwill began in the distance, uncannily chang- 
 ing his resting place, as if he fled from some 
 tormenting memory. No ears country born can 
 hear that sound without a thrill, and for an in- 
 stant Nancy's inexplicable fear returned upon 
 her. But she put it by, and said clearly, 
 
 " I told mother to-night." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "About going with you." 
 
 " Don't you do it, Nancy, don't you do it ! " 
 The woman spoke passionately, yet as if her 
 mind dwelt also on another thing. "Do you 
 want to be a gypsy and wander up and down 
 the face of the earth ? " 
 
 "I want to serve God." If the words had 
 been meant for Martin, they might have rung 
 false, from self-consciousness and the fear of 
 his laughter ; but the night had washed them 
 clean. 
 
 "Then be a good girl, and marry a man 
 that wants you, and take care of him. Serve 
 God ! you don't have to tear yourself all to 
 pieces to do it ! " 
 
KING'S END 51 
 
 They were rapidly feeling their way along 
 the trail, sometimes stumbling aside in the 
 darkness, and then finding it anew. Nancy was 
 ahead ; but at this false doctrine, she stopped an 
 instant, and turned upon her companion before 
 going on again. All her life she had known the 
 woman who was following her with these unerr- 
 ing steps, but never as she seemed to-night. 
 It was as if Julia had laid aside a mask, and 
 appeared for a moment in the reckless guise of 
 worldly wisdom. She had never been accounted 
 religious in the fanatical fashion of the Elder, 
 but her devotion to him had worn the aspect of 
 consecration. She did not exhort, nor did she 
 even join his impromptu services. Sometimes 
 she sat with her hands dropped idly in her lap 
 while he preached and prayed ; but that she fol- 
 lowed him seemed ample proof of her own de- 
 light in holiness. Nancy opened her lips once 
 or twice in astonished combat of a heterodoxy 
 too bewildering even to be denied. So in silence 
 they hurried on and over another remembered 
 "easy place" in the wall, out into the Cumnor 
 Road. Nancy paused. 
 
 "Which way ? " she asked. 
 
 Julia turned to the left. This was a wider 
 road than that of little King's End, the great 
 highway leading down to Ryde. Bordered by 
 
52 KING'S END 
 
 well-to-do maples, it was airy and light by day, 
 always with a pleasant breeze blowing. The 
 houses were larger here, and the yards fronting 
 upon the road wore almost an air of town mu- 
 nificence. Julia, leading the way, turned in at 
 an open gate set in a fence of chains, held at 
 intervals by the mouths of little iron horses. 
 Nancy remembered how those horses had de- 
 lighted her childish days, when the Cumnor 
 Road seemed to her the one way into the world. 
 
 "It's Judge Hill's !" she said involuntarily, 
 as they went up the gravel drive. Miss Julia 
 did not answer her, and Nancy ventured an 
 arresting touch upon her dress. " Miss Julia," 
 she reminded her, " he 's sick. Did n't you 
 know it ? He 's had two strokes." 
 
 " I heard of it," said Julia steadily, like one 
 who has faced the reality of grief until its men- 
 tion hurts no more. "You stand here by this 
 bush and keep still. I '11 be back. If I have 
 to stay, I '11 come and tell you." 
 
 Nancy fell into the shadow of a great syringa 
 and watched her while she went noiselessly on, 
 avoiding the path now, and choosing the softer 
 turf. One window of the great white house, 
 imposing in its pillared front, was brightly 
 lighted, and an agitated gleam was moving from 
 room to room. Nancy knew there were watch- 
 
KING'S END 53 
 
 ers within. She saw Julia stop, slip her shoes 
 from her feet, and then creep softly along the 
 piazza, turning the corner at the side. There 
 she lost her. 
 
 Julia, in her stocking-feet, skirted the south 
 side of the house where the apple orchard 
 stretched its bowery length and paused before 
 one of the long windows. It was open into a 
 capacious bedroom ; and there, with a watcher 
 at either side, his sister and the village nurse, 
 lay Judge Hill in the helplessness of his stricken 
 state. His head rested high upon pillows, and 
 the distinguished outline of his face, from the 
 great forehead down to the noble chin, seemed 
 to bear already the dignity of death. His sis- 
 ter, of an old-fashioned type, with her delicate 
 outline, curls, and side-combs, had been used to 
 keep the consistency of her years with sober 
 silks and sheer sprigged muslins ; now she wore 
 a cambric dress and long white apron. It was 
 her concession to present duty; to one who 
 knew her ways of life, it made the Judge's case 
 a desperate one; 
 
 Julia's gaze dwelt upon the sick man with a 
 hunger so intense that when his eyelids trem- 
 bled, and the watchers bent over him, she caught 
 her breath and drew backward, as if she had 
 called upon him too insistently. But he did not 
 
54 KING'S END 
 
 waken ; and after one of the women had mois- 
 tened his lips they settled themselves to their 
 silent vigil, and she, bending forward again, fed 
 with an unregarded anguish on the scene. Once 
 she noted, with a quick glance, the old-fashioned 
 appointments of the room : the landscape paper, 
 the high-boy, the shining andirons in the fire- 
 place, and the bed itself, with its canopy frame 
 above. It was as if she stole a look at some 
 sacred spot, to store the sight for memory. But 
 her eyes returned to dwell upon his face. Once 
 he lifted his right hand, and opened his eyes. 
 He regarded the hand curiously, and then put 
 it over and touched the helpless left one. His 
 lips framed a syllable. 
 
 " Air ? " repeated the nurse. She rose, glan- 
 cing at the window. Julia fell back, and then, 
 at the sound of the moving sash, slipped along 
 the piazza and down the steps. She put on her 
 shoes and, still cautiously, made her way to the 
 syringa bush. There she stretched out a trem- 
 bling hand. 
 
 " You here ?" she whispered. "Come. He's 
 alive." 
 
 They hurried out of the yard, Julia, now that 
 her mission was over, walking so fast that 
 Nancy could hardly keep step with her, and so 
 fell into a longer stride. Back again at the 
 
KING'S END 55 
 
 wall, the old woman stopped and struck her 
 hands together. " My God ! my God ! " she said 
 quietly, raising her face to heaven, "what 
 makes You let such things be ? " 
 
 They went swiftly back through the woods, 
 so unerringly avoiding stumps and stones that 
 Nancy again felt as if they were both seeing in 
 the dark Once they took a short cut through 
 a patch of woodland, where the trees brushed 
 their faces and phosphorescent fires gleamed 
 from the dead stumps below. The girl was 
 strung to a pitch forbidding fear. She expected 
 anything of this amazing night. Out of that 
 black nest of shadow they reached the crisp 
 upland, and then Julia paused, breathing hard 
 
 " You said you would n't tell ? " she asked. 
 
 " I shan't tell." 
 
 " I '11 give you the reason " 
 
 " I don't want any reason." 
 
 " Yes ; it '11 show you how folks live, and 
 how you 're making your life to-day and don't 
 know it. When I was young I was going to 
 marry him " 
 
 "Judge Hill?" 
 
 "Yes. He was only Stuart Hill then. I 
 left him because my brother went crazy after 
 religion, and I 'd got to take care of him. And 
 I 've been crazy myself ever since. If I had n't 
 
56 KING'S END 
 
 left him, I might be in that room to-night, wet- 
 ting his lips for him when he wakes up." A 
 broken cry escaped her, and she gave way to 
 dry and rending sobs. Nancy put out her 
 hands, but Julia pushed them back and drew up 
 her little figure with an old resolve. " There ! " 
 said she, " let 's get home. It 's all over and 
 done with." 
 
 Once out in the road again, she asked, in her 
 old tone of gracious courtesy, "You worried 
 about that baby ? You want to go up and see 
 if it 's asleep ? " 
 
 " If you 'd stay here, I might run up and 
 listen." 
 
 Julia sank on a stone, relieved at solitude, 
 and Nancy hurried up the hill. As she ap- 
 proached the little house, some sound too slight 
 to be regarded, and almost like a prescience in 
 the air, made her guess at the nearness of 
 human things. She walked carefully, and her 
 breath came quick. She wished herself below, 
 but pride upheld her. Then she stepped be- 
 yond the lilac bush and came upon two figures. 
 Involuntarily she put her hand on her heart, 
 but the gigantic bulk of one reassured her. 
 "Joan!" she breathed. 
 
 "Glory be to God Nancy! I thought it 
 was a pixie ! " said Joan, crossing herself. "Is 
 the town at your back ? " 
 
KING'S END 57 
 
 " I came up to see if the baby was all right," 
 said Nancy, with dignity, forced so to account 
 for herself. " I thought maybe he 'd forget to 
 feed her again. You can see to it now." 
 
 She walked away without a glance at the 
 other woman, but Alia Mixon had not mistaken 
 her ; and when, a few minutes later, she and 
 Joan went down the hill, alike disappointed in 
 their quest, her look was keen upon the road 
 before her to see whether Nancy was alone. 
 
 " I should n't thought Nancy would have 
 gone up there, should you ? " she asked Big 
 Joan, who answered dryly : 
 
 " Maybe folks would n't have thought it of 
 you an' me ; but you can't tell by the looks of 
 a toad " 
 
 " Oh, I know all that ! " said Alia impatiently, 
 " but you went because it 's old Mis' Horner's 
 grandchild, and I went because I happened 
 along." 
 
 " The devil's will is some folks' happenin'," 
 muttered Big Joan. 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " I said it 's all one. Here 's your gate. I '11 
 say good-night." 
 
 " Did you see anybody with Nancy ? " per- 
 sisted Alia, her hand on the latch. 
 
 "I didn't. No more did I see Nancy. I 
 
5 8 KING'S END 
 
 could n't see my hand before my face. Good- 
 night to ye." 
 
 She went on with her lumbering stride, and 
 Alia paused a moment to pat the stray rings of 
 hair about her face, for she saw Martin Jeffries 
 reading by the table. This was his house, and 
 here she was living while she settled the business 
 of her father's estate. Many said that if old 
 Mrs. Jeffries would keep her, it would be a long 
 day before she went back to the mills at Sev- 
 ern ; and if Martin once took note of her, she 
 would not go back at all. She rubbed her 
 cheeks with a passionate hand, and drew a score 
 of breaths to redden them ; then she stepped 
 into the low-ceiled room. 
 
 " 'Evening, Martin," she called. 
 
 He looked up and nodded at her, not un- 
 civilly, though he did not smile. Yet Alia 
 made a pretty vision. She was short and 
 rounded, with a dainty waist. Her face had a 
 gypsy swarthiness, and her black hair grew in a 
 peak on her forehead. She had an inadvertent 
 sort of dimple in one cheek, and alluring, if not 
 altogether natural, ways of tossing her head. 
 Only her dark eyes were not to a maid's advan- 
 tage; they were too shallow, and sometimes 
 unpleasant lights were gleaming in them. She 
 stood still a moment, and then came to the table 
 
KING'S END 59 
 
 and leaned over Martin's shoulder, close with- 
 out touching him. " What you reading ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 "History." 
 
 Alia was ostensibly scanning the page, yet 
 her eyes were fixed upon the softness of his 
 hair. " It looks real interesting," she said, her 
 voice grown tremulous. " I never 've read any 
 history." 
 
 " Take this, if you like," said Martin, clos- 
 ing the book and pushing back his chair. " I'm 
 going to bed." 
 
 A tiny frown disfigured her forehead, and 
 more color came, hard and bright. She stepped 
 back a pace, and began taking off her hat. 
 " Your mother gone upstairs ? " she asked, with 
 an aim at carelessness. 
 
 " Yes, half an hour ago. I '11 leave the light. 
 You can put it out." 
 
 He had taken his little kitchen lamp and 
 reached the stairs, when some reaction from his 
 coolness stung her to revenge. 
 
 " I saw Nancy Eliot to-night," she said hotly, 
 with a woman's rashness bartering present sat- 
 isfaction for an after pain. He was opening the 
 door. "I went up with Big Joan to find out 
 about that baby Luke Evans stole, and Nancy 
 was just coming away from the house. Heard 
 
60 KING'S END 
 
 anything about whether Luke's asked her up 
 there for good ? " 
 
 An almost imperceptible twinge moved the 
 corners of his mouth, but he answered quietly, 
 "No, I ain't heard," and went upstairs with- 
 out another look. 
 
 She stood listening to his steps, first upon 
 the stairs and then in his little room. When 
 they ceased, she burst into a passion of crying, 
 so abandoned that it almost seemed as if she 
 invited it in scorn of her useless beauty ; and 
 while the tears were wet upon her cheeks, she 
 took the lamp and went to the mirror with it, 
 holding it high above her head. As she looked, 
 her mouth settled into curves of grieving, and 
 her eyes took on the pathos of self-pity. Pre- 
 sently a little hopeful gleam spread, like sun- 
 light, from brow to lips. She could not conceive 
 how one so pretty should ever despair. He 
 was not married yet ; if Nancy could be delayed 
 a little on her victorious track, he would have 
 to wait, as he had been waiting all these years. 
 She smiled into her own eyes, and promised 
 them to dare her utmost. Then, putting aside 
 larger questions, she settled her neck ribbon 
 and reflected that Nancy was very pale of late ; 
 besides, Nancy had no gold watch and chain. 
 
Ill 
 
 NEXT morning Mrs. Eliot ironed, while Aunt 
 Lindy and Julia, with low-toned garnishings of 
 talk, assorted rags for braiding. Nancy changed 
 her dress for one of her school cambrics, and 
 made ready for a desired mission. Ever since 
 opening her sleepy eyes, she had been moved, 
 not by a sense of her own importance, but the 
 importance of life as it touched her; and so, 
 absorbed in piecing together her bits of bright 
 ambition, she failed to notice how worn her 
 mother looked under the burden of last night's 
 confidence. To Nancy, her own decision made a 
 completed fact, serenely regnant. She had be- 
 gun inheriting the earth before her feet were 
 even worn in its borders. Now, as she stood in 
 her little bare room before the hazy mirror with 
 the eagle atop, she crowned her head with braids 
 of shining hair, and mused exaltedly. She had 
 worked very hard, all the years of her girlhood, 
 and success lay before her without a flaw. It 
 seemed to her that she should always succeed, 
 and that whosoever failed had not striven val- 
 
62 KING'S END 
 
 iantly. Her toilet made, she unlocked the little 
 blue chest containing her few treasures, and 
 took from it a roll of money. She counted the 
 bills with a serious absorption, although they 
 had often been counted before, and then pinned 
 them into her pocket. Running lightly down 
 the stairs, she paused a moment at the ironing- 
 table to whisper, " Where s'pose I 'm going ? " 
 
 Susan shook her head. Inwardly she was 
 afraid Nancy meant to climb the mountain again, 
 in defiance of village rules. 
 
 " Over to Alia Mixon's to make the last pay- 
 ment. I '11 bring home the note, and let you 
 tear it up." 
 
 Her joy was contagious, especially to one 
 a-quiver with maternal love. The tears came 
 into Susan's eyes. " You 're a good girl," she 
 said neutrally, and Nancy, laughing, rustled out 
 of the door and along the road. 
 
 Susan set down her iron, and went to the 
 window for one more look. At the moment, 
 she took comfort in ignoring Nancy's incredible 
 project of a wandering life. It was a night- 
 mare fled with the coming of dawn ; and now 
 the sun had mounted and bluebirds were about. 
 
 Yet Nancy was not used to flights of uncon- 
 sidered fancy ; whatever she had set her mind 
 upon was always ultimately hers. Forced to 
 
KING'S END 63 
 
 remember that, Susan sighed again and took up 
 her cooling iron. 
 
 As Nancy walked along, her thoughts hung 
 joyously upon a duty done, a stage of life com- 
 pleted. She went back to the day, eight years 
 before, when her mother had explained their 
 poverty under the debt her husband left unpaid. 
 
 Tom Eliot was more willful than his daughter 
 even, willful and unstable, too. He built castles, 
 and when they tumbled, set about designing 
 more. One of his pet dreams had been a stock- 
 farm ; therefore he borrowed six hundred dollars 
 of old Mixon to " launch out." Nothing came 
 of it ; indeed, King's End always said the money 
 went into another kind of stocks, and failed to 
 emerge. Eliot died, and his wife, sinking into 
 the apathy of the humble who are acquainted 
 with grief, told Nancy they must sell a piece of 
 land and pay their debt. Their land ? The land 
 she had played over, and where she meant some 
 time to see her own corn waving and her celery 
 in rows for market ? For then Nancy meant to 
 be a gardener. She took the matter into thrifty 
 hands, and after her first term of teaching, went 
 to old Mixon with a new note in her own name, 
 and made him a payment on it. He was pleased 
 with her pluck ; he thought of his one girl, 
 softer of sinew than Nancy, but just as likely to 
 
64 KING'S END 
 
 fight the world alone some day, and told her to 
 " Go ahead ! " She might assume the debt if 
 she chose ; her father's name was free. 
 
 In the dark stretch of road by the old water- 
 ing-trough she met Martin Jeffries, heralding 
 his approach by a florid and exultant whistle. 
 
 " I always tune up when I see you coming," 
 he remarked, showing his white teeth. " What 
 a fool I am ! " 
 
 " Why are you a fool for that ? " 
 
 " Oh, then you know I 'm 'round and have 
 time to put on your stand-off look. Shake 
 hands." 
 
 Nancy was holding her skirts, guarding them 
 primly from the damp. 
 
 " I saw you only yesterday," she said, not 
 offering to accept that winsome invitation. 
 
 " Well, and you '11 see me to-morrow and 
 Thursday, if I have my way about it. Confound 
 it, Nancy, some day you '11 drive me too far ! 
 You '11 find yourself kissed before you know it." 
 
 He stood before her, hands in his pockets, 
 and hat pushed back. She knew, without 
 glancing at him, exactly how he looked, flushed, 
 half angry. She turned from the narrow path 
 he barred to a pool of water in the hollowed 
 road, and thought fastidiously of her boots. 
 But underneath her maiden daintiness some 
 
KING'S END 65 
 
 trembling fascination kept her there because 
 she liked to stay. 
 
 "Sometimes I wonder I'm so patient with 
 you," he went on roughly, with little tolerance 
 in his tone. " When I wake up in the night and 
 think about you, I wonder if I ain't a sheep to 
 let you treat me so ; and then it 's daylight, and 
 I meet you all cool and calm and starched up 
 and good God ! " He took off his hat, and 
 passed an impatient hand over his forehead. 
 
 As for Nancy, she felt herself stiffening. " I 
 wish you would n 't say ain't ! " she remarked 
 perversely. 
 
 He broke into a great, mellow guffaw of 
 laughter. That happy god stroked the lines of 
 emotion from his face and creased it into sweet- 
 ness. He laughed like Pan in some wood hol- 
 low, come upon sporting nymphs or grotesque 
 animal. 
 
 " Oh, Lord, Nancy! " he cried, when the gusts 
 were stilling. " Ain't it a funny world ? Here 's 
 you and me and it 's spring and you wish 
 I would n't say ain't ! " 
 
 " I don't see what there is to laugh about," 
 said Nancy. " I 'm going along now." 
 
 He did not move. "Where you going, 
 dear ? " he asked persuasively. The endearment 
 forbade her answering, but she did want so to tell. 
 
66 KING'S END 
 
 " Down to your house, to see Alia Mixon and 
 make my last payment on the note." Her eyes 
 lighted, and met his in frank challenge of an 
 answering gleam. She was not disappointed. 
 
 " You 're a good girl, Nancy," he said softly, 
 and the repeated commendation, in her mother's 
 own words, softened her also. 
 
 " I 'm glad it 's done," she continued. " Now 
 I shall feel as if I could go off with the Elder." 
 
 " The deuce you will ! " remarked her lover. 
 " You mean, now it 's done you feel as if you 
 could come and live in your new house, and 
 send herbs to market. Say, Nancy, 'tis your 
 house, and you can have anybody live in it you 
 like. But I guess you 'd better take me ! " 
 His face was all overspread with a sunny good- 
 humor, his voice coaxed like that of a child, his 
 hand was seeking hers. Nancy, according to 
 her custom, selected the statement easiest of 
 answer. 
 
 " Send herbs to market ! Is that all you 
 think of still ? " 
 
 "That's my profession," said Martin, with 
 willful dignity. " It 's going to be yours, too. 
 We're partners." 
 
 Her dormant pride in him took fire. 
 
 "Oh, I don't wonder your mother's out of 
 patience with you!" she cried hotly. "Your 
 
KING'S END 67 
 
 father the best doctor in the county, and you 
 studying with him and going 'round among the 
 sick, and then settling down to tramp the woods 
 after herbs, and sell them for little or nothing ! 
 To just throw yourself away like that it 's 
 awful ! " 
 
 " But I shan't tramp the woods when we 
 are housekeeping," said Martin encouragingly, 
 though he watched her, with that quizzical imp 
 lurking at the corner of his mouth. " I 'm go- 
 ing to have acres of sage and marjoram behind 
 the house, and beds of lavender. It '11 be 
 sweeter than 
 
 ' The Lord into his garden comes.* 
 
 Sakes, Nancy ! when I think of them beds, I 
 could roll in 'em like a cat." 
 
 His malformed pronoun was too much for 
 her, and she considered how deep the puddle 
 might be at the edge. Martin had a wondrous 
 cleverness in diagnosing her patience and guess- 
 ing when to retire. He stepped aside and took 
 off his hat punctiliously, not forgetting his key- 
 note : 
 
 " Good-by, Nancy. Shake hands." 
 She walked past him and, never once looking 
 back, rounded the turn in the road. Martin 
 took up his cheerful whistle, and went on to the 
 
68 KING'S END 
 
 new house where the carpenters were hammer- 
 ing, in hollow cadence. Eph Cummings met 
 him in the drive. 
 
 " Be'n waitin' for ye over an hour 'n' a half," 
 he said, with some reproach. 
 
 "Anything particular ? " inquired Martin. 
 
 "No ; thought sure I 'd find ye." 
 
 " Come along back then." 
 
 "No, our folks want to be harnessed up. 
 Say, Martin, what 's to pay in this town 't we 
 can't let folks hoe their own row ? There 's 
 Luke Evans, now ; anybody 'd think there 
 wa'n't a trait in his character. Why can't a 
 good honest girl go up there an' give him a lift 
 'thout bein' hauled over the coals ? Not that 
 I 'd want her to if she 's a girl o' mine. But 
 what 's the harm ? Still, I 'd speak to her, folks 
 up in arms so. I certain would speak to her." 
 
 He nodded, pleased with his own diplomacy. 
 Then he passed on. Martin, more slowly, fol- 
 lowed the driveway to the house ; but he whis- 
 tled no more that day. 
 
 Nancy came to " the Jeffries'," and walked up 
 the path between sunny earth beds where but 
 few blossoms were yet awake, though a hundred 
 sweets lay there in warm expectancy. This 
 garden was the one neutral ground where Mar- 
 tin and his mother met harmoniously. They 
 
KING'S END 69 
 
 shared a kindred instinct, a kindred wisdom 
 devoted to the fostering of seeds and roots. 
 They could make things grow. Green leaves 
 rioted for them, and the neighbors, never quite 
 used to it after many years, looked on sometimes 
 with a jealous eye. Certain springs, when daf- 
 fodils were blighting, Mrs. Jeffries' grass was all 
 cockaded with them. When other folks were 
 planting lilies and heart's-ease, she was thinning 
 hers and throwing them into the road. Yet she 
 and Martin, with the arrogance of genius, re- 
 garded their holding lightly. It was easy 
 enough to make things grow, said they. Set 
 them out and there you were. 
 
 Nancy to-day had but a glance in passing for 
 these old friends who had given her merry 
 whiffs. She knew them all, even in their guise 
 of budding green. There was the hollyhock 
 walk and there the dahlia corner. There was 
 larkspur, from which Martin, when they were 
 boy and girl, had fetched an azure plumelet for 
 her hat. Here was dielytra (skeleton ladies 
 lived inside the blossoms), poppies promising the 
 seed vessels that are tea-sets, ribbon grass, in- 
 dispensable for trimming mullein hats, and peo- 
 nies whose silken petals would be useful, by and 
 by, for snapping on your fist. All this wealth 
 was in futurity but the practiced eye was ready, 
 
70 KING'S END 
 
 the mind discerned it. Columbine, foxglove, 
 mourning-bride, the very names carried their 
 own enchantment. 
 
 Yet though Nancy looked their way, it was 
 but absently Her thoughts were busy over that 
 inner world of her own desires. She paused a 
 moment at the door, to calm her breath, and 
 then went in. 
 
 Mrs. Jeffries swept the hearth, and Alia sat 
 by the window, crocheting an intricate edge. 
 This tolerated guest was never allowed to help 
 about the house. Day by day she offered ser- 
 vices, and then lingered about, in discomfited 
 ease, while her hostess toiled silently, like an 
 ant under heavy burdens. Martin's mother was 
 a very little woman indeed, somewhat girlish in 
 her glance and the way she carried her head. Yet 
 though many might have found her appealing, 
 it was not by her consent. A steel rod of a 
 woman, she fashioned her own opinions and bore 
 them trenchantly aloft. One person she had 
 loved with an exceeding passion, her husband, 
 the doctor. Whether she prized Martin very 
 much, it would have been difficult to say. She 
 treated him with untired disparagement, from 
 an alleged background of blame because he 
 would not follow his father's calling. The 
 neighbors had a theory that she despised him, 
 
KING'S END 71 
 
 but Martin kept his own counsel. When Nancy 
 went in, Mrs. Jeffries only gave her a nod, and 
 went on sweeping. She was very deaf, and 
 never attempted to hear without her trumpet, 
 a fickle aid, to be laid aside when it so pleased 
 her. Nancy walked up to Alia, and greeted her 
 with a warmth due all to her errand and not to 
 old acquaintanceship. 
 
 " Good-morning, Alia. I Ve come to make 
 my payment. You know I said I would. I 
 told you Sunday." 
 
 Alia glanced up, and then took a few more 
 careful stitches, counting unnecessarily for a 
 pause. But she spoke sweetly in her turn. 
 
 " Good-morning. The note ? Yes, it 's right 
 where I can put my hand on it. You sure you 
 want to do it to-day ? " 
 
 " Oh yes ; of course I do ! I 'm so pleased 
 I can't wait." 
 
 Alia dropped her work in a careful little coil 
 and went upstairs. She walked slowly, thinking. 
 It was a great day for her too. When she came 
 back, Nancy had unpinned the money from her 
 pocket, and sat holding it, aware of its precious- 
 ness. 
 
 " How much you going to pay ? " asked Alia 
 carelessly, though with a heightened color. 
 
 "Twenty dollars. I guess there are some 
 odd cents." 
 
72 KING'S END 
 
 "Then I '11 indorse it. That 's the way father 
 used to do with his notes." 
 
 " All the payments are there," said Nancy. 
 " He wrote 'em every one down. This is the 
 last, you know." 
 
 Alia turned the paper over and gazed elab- 
 orately at the back. "There ain't anything 
 written here," she said. She looked up at 
 Nancy and then again at the paper. 
 
 " Oh yes," pursued Nancy, smiling. " Let 
 me see." She bent over it with knitted brows. 
 It was her own handwriting, the note she had 
 made out in her careful script and taken to old 
 Mixon, asking him to receive it in place of the 
 one against her father. She pulled it away 
 from Alla's unsteady ringers, and turned it over. 
 The back was blank. A pang of bewilderment 
 pierced her to the heart. 
 
 " Why ! " she cried wildly. Her knees were 
 weak. She looked imploringly at the other 
 girl. " Why, you know I 'd 'most paid it up! 
 You knew all along ! " 
 
 "I didn't know a word," answered Alia 
 steadily. " Father never talked business with 
 me." 
 
 " But you knew it ! " In the face of all her 
 wasted effort, it seemed to Nancy as if every- 
 body must have known. " I used to go up and 
 make payments." 
 
KING'S END 73 
 
 " I never was there." 
 
 It was true. Nancy remembered that. She 
 turned the note over and over in her hands. It 
 was hers ; yet it lied to her. She felt a wild 
 dismay. 
 
 " You let me have it," she whispered. " Let 
 me take it home where I can sit down and 
 think it over." 
 
 But Alia drew it away from her, stepping 
 back a pace. " No, I should n't dream of such 
 a thing," she answered, with the firmness of one 
 entirely in the right. " Father always kept 
 his business in his own hands. He 'd want I 
 should." She seated herself again at the win- 
 dow, and took up her work. 
 
 Nancy put her hands upon the back of a 
 chair and stood there droopingly. Mrs. Jef- 
 fries stepped about the hearth, getting ready 
 for ironing, now and then glancing at the two 
 as they moved or spoke. With the abnormal 
 acuteness of those in whom sensibility comes 
 to the aid of some defective sense, she felt the 
 stir in the air ; but it was a part of her chosen 
 attitude to despise curiosity among other hu- 
 man failings. Once, in passing a nail by the 
 door, she knocked down an old cap of Martin's, 
 and then dusted it with what seemed a lin- 
 gering tenderness. Alia saw her, and an old 
 
74 KING'S END 
 
 jealousy pierced her anew. She looked up at 
 Nancy and spoke coldly : 
 
 " Well, you want to make your payment ? If 
 it ain't the last, it '11 be the first." 
 
 Nancy had put the bills in her pocket and 
 stood there, holding her hand upon them. She 
 bent over and pinned the pocket together again. 
 Tears blinded her and her lips were quivering. 
 
 " No, I guess I '11 wait," she said brokenly, 
 and, without a look at either of the women, went 
 slowly out of the room. 
 
 Mrs. Jeffries spread her ironing-sheet, and 
 remarked emphatically to Alia, " She 's a good 
 girl." 
 
 " You don't seem to think so when you talk 
 to him," returned Alia savagely. " I 've heard 
 you tell him to stop running after her and 
 making himself a laughing-stock." She glanced 
 about for the trumpet to convey that statement, 
 subtly tempered ; but Mrs. Jeffries shook her 
 head. 
 
 " She 's a good girl," she said again. " There 
 ain't many like her." Then she returned to 
 the solitude of her infirmity. 
 
 Nancy walked weakly along the country 
 road. All its beauties had grown dark to her. 
 There is a curious and dreadful irony in the 
 fact that money, in its departure, assumes the 
 
KING'S END 75 
 
 guise of an almost limitless power. So long 
 has it stood for greater things that, when it flees 
 us, we feel, for the instant, as if the greater 
 things went also. To commit suicide because 
 you are a beggar seems to the vagabond on 
 moorland and blue water a witless thing to do ; 
 yet the insanity of loss burns bloom alike with 
 stubble. Nancy knew now the mind of finan- 
 ciers engulfed in ruin. Her brain was numbed ; 
 she looked blankly at the path before her. 
 Presently, when she could think, she would 
 lament, like others, that her loss was not that 
 of money alone : it represented higher things, 
 the gods to which her days were dedicated. 
 Only that morning her life had dovetailed to- 
 gether so prettily. She was to leave the farm 
 free of debt, and go herself to preach the gospel. 
 In lifting that incubus of the unpaid loan, she 
 had cherished an ingenuous certainty that the 
 duties incident to birth and blood were done. 
 Henceforth her course lay in holier altitudes. 
 Yet those were fancies of an hour ago. As she 
 walked on, her eyes dry now, but still unseeing, 
 a shrill summons came from the Horner win- 
 dow. Old Sally's bed stood that morning where 
 her bitter glance could rake the road. 
 
 " Nancy ! " she repeated. " You come in 
 here.' 1 
 
76 KING'S END 
 
 Nancy obeyed mechanically, straightening 
 herself and setting her face lest drooping ban- 
 ners betray her. Mrs. Horner's room wore its 
 own exquisite order ; the bed was unwrinkled, a 
 mould not made for agitation. Her cap and 
 white gown were smooth and spotless ; her eyes 
 burned like jewels from under frilled borders. 
 The thump of Big Joan's iron came from the 
 kitchen. 
 
 " What is it, Mrs. Horner ? " asked Nancy, 
 hesitating in the doorway. " Did you want 
 me ? " 
 
 "You come in," commanded Sally Horner. 
 " Take that chair. No, no, that one : I want 
 to git the light on ye. What 'd you go up to 
 Luke Evans's for, yisterday arternoon ? " 
 
 Big Joan appeared from the kitchen ; her 
 great bulk filled the doorway. 
 
 " I did n't go up," said Nancy vacantly. All 
 yesterday seemed very far away. " I was going 
 by. The baby cried, and I went in." 
 
 " Cried ! " echoed the old woman sharply. 
 " Where was it ? What was he doin' to it ? 
 What made it cry ? " 
 
 " What made the woman eat the apple ? " 
 inquired Big Joan aside. " Natur' an' God 
 A'mighty. Babies cryin' ! 'T wa'n't a miracle 
 when she cried down here." 
 
KING'S END 77 
 
 "What was he doin' to it?" persisted the 
 old woman. " You tell me all you see." 
 
 " I did n't see anything particular. He had n't 
 fed it, and I helped him. He seemed to be 
 much obliged. I '11 be going now, Mrs. Horner. 
 I don't know anything more about the baby. I 
 don't really." 
 
 The old woman reached out and laid a clutch- 
 ing hand upon her dress. " Look here, you ! " 
 she said, in a fiercely beguiling whisper ; " you 
 go up there, an* when he 's out o' the room 
 ketch up that baby an' run. You bring it here 
 to me, an' I '11 keep the doors locked. You do 
 it, an' I '11 give ye 'most anything I Ve got." 
 
 " I can't do it, Mrs. Horner," said Nancy, 
 trying to pass. " It is n't my business : mother 
 says so." 
 
 Mrs. Horner fell back among her pillows, 
 crying and beating the counterpane with her 
 hands. " It ain't anybody's business," she 
 moaned. " He 's gone out plantin', an' Joan 
 here tells me to my face she won't interfere, 
 an* I Ve sent over 'n' over to the selec'men, an' 
 they don't come. Oh, if I was a man, an' had 
 two good legs an' a back ! " She lay there 
 glowering, and Big Joan systematically smoothed 
 the sheet. 
 
 Nancy made her escape, and hurried home, 
 
78 KING'S END 
 
 afraid of more challenges from alien affairs. At 
 the door, her mother was waiting for her, smiling 
 in justified anticipation. But Nancy could only 
 look wanly in reply, and push past her up the 
 stairs. " I Ve got a headache, mother," she 
 said, with the old-time evasion of womankind. 
 
 Nancy was hardly out of the Horner yard 
 when another visitor entered it : the Elder, 
 in his voluntary shepherding about the neigh- 
 borhood. When he stepped in at the door, 
 Joan had gone back to her ironing, and Mrs. 
 Horner, with no onlooker to be moved, had put 
 her passion aside and lay panting, with the 
 marks of tears upon her cheeks. The Elder 
 stopped on the threshold, and her eyes met his 
 in a fiery volley. 
 
 " Woman," he said, not with authority but an 
 appealing kindliness, " arise and walk ! " 
 
 Mrs. Horner gave an inarticulate snort, full 
 of rage and wretchedness. " Don't you call me 
 woman ! " she retorted. " I Ve told ye that 
 afore." 
 
 But the Elder was not discomfited. He 
 looked at her patiently. 
 
 " They are not my words," he said. "They 
 were uttered by a greater than I." 
 
 " Well, then, once is enough," returned Mrs. 
 Horner, with one half -terrified glance at the 
 
KING'S END 79 
 
 Bible upon the stand. She meant to make up 
 to it in some moment of unoccupied solitude ; 
 meantime she dared her utmost. "Nobody 
 need to come in here an' act out Script ur' 
 times, while my back 's achin' an' my legs are 
 numb. If you want to do anything besides 
 cackle, you better go up an' see that God-for- 
 saken Luke Evans an' tell him to bring back 
 our baby. Come, now, you go ! you go ! " She 
 was almost cooing at him. 
 
 The Elder, although no practical man as con- 
 cerned his mortal body, awoke to energy over 
 spiritual issues. " I will go there," he said. " I 
 will carry the message." And before she could 
 add more unto it, he was gone. 
 
 So it happened that Luke, frowning over his 
 work of hammering together a baby's wagon in 
 the shed, while the baby occupied a clothes- 
 basket at his side, looked from the shadow fall- 
 ing before him and saw the Elder in the door- 
 way. Elder Kent was smiling at him, a smile 
 of chosen comradeship. It was an illumining 
 without admixture of mirth, the overflow from 
 a heart in a perpetual attitude of benediction. 
 
 " Mrs.-Horner wants the child," he said, with 
 no preamble. 
 
 "Well, she won't get her/' remarked Luke, 
 trueing a wheel. 
 
80 KING'S END 
 
 The Elder sat down on the chopping-block, 
 and bent forward to put one slender finger on 
 the baby's cheek. It was always amazing to 
 him, in his isolated life, to see anything so 
 small and sweet. 
 
 " Are you a Christian ? " he asked inciden- 
 tally. 
 
 " No, I ain't. Nor a Mormon. Nor an idol- 
 ater. Nor I don't believe there 's any God." 
 
 " Don't you ? " asked the other, with a sym- 
 pathy quite unstudied. " That 's too bad." 
 
 Luke looked up at him under brows suspi- 
 ciously bent. He smelled a rhetorical trap, but 
 the Elder was looking him in the face serenely. 
 That sweet tranquillity but spurred the doubter 
 on. 
 
 " You say you believe in God," he said scorn- 
 fully, between hammerings. " You don't or 
 else you ain't used your brains. If there was 
 a God, an' He was good, would He let things 
 happen the things that do ? " 
 
 "No," said the Elder simply, "if the things 
 were evil. But there is no evil. No blot on 
 creation, not one." He looked adoringly out 
 where the spring trees were shimmering and 
 apple blooms burst warmly into pink. The 
 moment seemed to him divine : an amazing an- 
 swer to months of travail wherein he had inter- 
 
KING'S END 81 
 
 rogated the stars, the growing grass, even the 
 wonders of frost and snow. He had fought his 
 way alone to a desert spring ; and here, by fine 
 according miracle, was one who also thirsted, 
 and for whom the draught was meant. 
 
 Luke laughed scornfully. 
 
 " What should you say if you never 'd had a 
 chance to learn anything ? " he asked, with the 
 accusing passion of Ishmael. "If the boys 
 hooted at you little devils ! when you went 
 to school because you belonged to Old Larrups 
 up on the mountain ? What should you say 
 when you see him kick your mother, an' you too 
 little to kill him ? God ! " The word was a 
 curse. 
 
 "Yet/' said the Elder, with authority, "all 
 those things were not evil ; they were good." 
 
 " Oh, were they ? You can tell that to the 
 marines. You an' me have talked enough." 
 
 " I know they were good," said the old man, 
 with a lingering passion of his own, " because I 
 have had a long life, and I can see now that evil 
 is one of the ways of God. If the bad man is 
 bad, it is because he is ignorant of the road. 
 He is taking a long, long path, when it might 
 be shortened. But all the roads lead home." 
 
 Something, perhaps only the presence of a 
 blameless age, subdued the scoffer. He had 
 
82 KING'S END 
 
 slight respect for words ; but he was not deaf to 
 honesty. 
 
 "That may be," he remarked grimly, "but if 
 I meet Old Larrups, it won't hender my makin' 
 short work of him, in hell or anywheres else." 
 
 " That may be your appointed task," said the 
 Elder, with cheerfulness. "He and you may 
 have to take the long road together. I don't 
 understand evil. It is a mystery to me; but 
 God has told me I need not understand." 
 
 " Where 'd you get your news ? " asked Luke, 
 struggling against some natural deference for 
 years and their fruitage. 
 
 There were no professional barriers about the 
 Elder. He recognized his kinship with souls, 
 whether or not they walked his way, and an- 
 swered questions quite simply and directly. 
 
 " I am old, you know," he repeated. " I 've 
 been all my life thinking and praying, chiefly 
 over sin. I Ve been all my life doubting God 
 because He allowed sin to be and pain. And 
 suddenly it was borne in on me that He is 
 good, and the world is good, and wrong is only 
 goodness we don't understand ; I can't tell you, 
 man, I can't tell you ! But I know." Tears 
 sprang into his eyes, tears of hopeless longing 
 for an expression ever beyond him. What words 
 had he for the great nature paeans he heard in 
 the darkness ? 
 
KING'S END 83 
 
 Luke glanced at him curiously, and stayed his 
 hand from work. 
 
 " Well, I guess you believe it all right," he said 
 roughly. "If I did, I should have precious 
 little to worry about." 
 
 The Elder's face lighted magically from 
 within. 
 
 "Ah, that's it," he said. "You've got it. 
 You are a part of His creation, a part of Him. 
 You are not outside. You can't be afraid any 
 more than that bird would be, if a limb broke 
 under him." He had never heard the poet's 
 great quatrain ; the bird itself had taught him. 
 
 Luke turned back to his hammering. 
 
 " Want to send any word about the baby ? " 
 asked Elder Kent, rising. 
 
 " No, I don't." 
 
 " If you 've begun to set by her " 
 
 " Oh, drop it ! " said the outcast scornfully. 
 " I took her to pay off old scores, an' I 'm keep- 
 in' her to show I 'm a hog. That 's all there is 
 about it." The Elder broke a horse-radish leaf 
 and set it upright in the basket, cutting off a 
 sunbeam from the baby's chin. " I '11 drag the 
 basket over here," said Luke ; but the silent 
 service touched him. 
 
 Elder Kent went abstractedly away, and Luke 
 pulled the basket out of the sun, and then stood 
 
84 KING'S END 
 
 over it, musing. His black brows were bent. 
 He had scant understanding of himself and his 
 feeling for the little creature when he was alone 
 with it. So far the child had been a wonder of 
 goodness, and there was no difficulty in keeping 
 its running-gear in order. Big Joan, unknown 
 to her mistress, had come up that morning with 
 a bundle of its clothes, and given him counsel. 
 Joan adored the baby, but her sympathies were 
 with him. Something in the crude valor of 
 fighting for one's blood appealed to her ; but she 
 was loyal to the household, and never spoke her 
 partisanship. Now, faced by the awful prospect 
 of bathing the child and putting fresh clothes on 
 her, Luke had his first moment of real horror 
 over what he had done. He stood appalled be- 
 fore a vista of years two, three when that 
 helpless body would need a nurture he abhorred. 
 He wished he had taken his revenge another 
 way. The thought of Nancy returned upon him 
 sweetly, and made him warm from head to foot : 
 the gracious vision of her, when, half shrinking 
 from her share in the great maternity of the 
 world, she held the child against her breast and 
 challenged his designs. He longed for her with 
 an exceeding longing which seemed to him the 
 outgrowth of his needs, and so no treason against 
 the dead woman, to whom he held himself 
 
KING'S END 85 
 
 bound with an abiding loyalty. It was a part 
 of his obstinacy to prove a faithful husband be- 
 cause his flouters called him no husband at all. 
 The vision of Milly also arose and waited dispas- 
 sionately to be compared with the living girl, 
 the dead one who had believed implicitly what- 
 ever he told her, and yet who failed him when 
 the test of courage came. Nancy seemed to 
 him all soul, yet with an altogether beguiling 
 presence. He whispered her name, and, calling 
 " Come ! " looked down the silent road in search 
 of her. 
 
 But Nancy was lying straight on her bed, 
 overthrown by the morning's duel. All through 
 the last years she had strained forward on a fly- 
 ing track; now she had fallen. Her mother 
 came to her with tea, and she could not drink 
 it; for days she lay there silent, swallowing 
 something when faintness forced her. Then, 
 because the walls of the room had grown so 
 hateful, she dressed and crawled downstairs. 
 The Elder had gone prospecting for souls, and 
 Miss Julia sat in the kitchen, pale as Nancy her- 
 self, yet clad in the invisible armor of endurance. 
 Susan clucked about with a loving solicitude 
 and made blanc-mange for dinner. 
 
 "Judge Hill is failin'," she said cheerfully at 
 the table, sharing her tidings from the world 
 without. 
 
86 KING'S END 
 
 A flicker of interest passed over the girl's 
 face. She looked up at Julia. But the old woman 
 lifted her cup with a steady hand and drank her 
 tea, strong as it could be poured. Nancy knew 
 that was in preparation for the night. When 
 dinner was over, she followed Julia out of doors, 
 where she had gone to take in the clothes. 
 Alive now to the misery of the world, Nancy 
 felt a passionate pity for her. 
 
 " I '11 go over there with you to-night, if you 
 want I should," she said in an undertone. 
 
 Julia took a clothes-pin from her mouth to 
 answer coldly, 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 "The Cumnor Road." 
 
 " You need n't. I 've been alone : every 
 night." 
 
 " But I want to. Oh, please let me ! " 
 
 Julia looked at her kindly, with a little con- 
 ventional smile. Nancy understood, in a dim 
 fashion, that she was holding herself in check. 
 If she seemed hard, it was because the world 
 voices sounded very hollow and far off, while 
 her own woe cried so near. 
 
 "I only meant you needn't," she answered. 
 " I 'd like to have you. But it would n't be wise 
 for you, now you 're under the weather." 
 
 " I 'd like to," urged Nancy again. " It '11 do 
 
KING'S END 87 
 
 me good to think about something else." No 
 sooner had she sorrow of her own than she 
 tried to find out other woes that might be 
 slaked. A blow had fallen on her. It seemed 
 a judgment ; and she looked about within her- 
 self for the sin it was meant to castigate. Oh, 
 poor pathos of humanity ! we feel a wound 
 and then search for the god who watched our 
 blundering way and bludgeoned us for ills we 
 innocently did. So Nancy, not knowing in what 
 fashion her own web could be unraveled, looked 
 piteously up to heaven and began doing sacrifice. 
 And because her mother told her how Luke 
 walked to the smithy with his gun over his 
 shoulder and the baby in its little cart, and how 
 old Mrs. Horner cried out upon the village to 
 the effect that the child might never have had 
 a bath, she slipped out unperceived, that after- 
 noon, and climbed the mountain. Here again 
 she ritight find an altar. 
 
 The Evans kitchen was in prime order. Luke 
 himself, surprisingly well-shaven, stood in the 
 doorway, his eyes upon the road. Only the 
 baby had not shared in the general amelioration. 
 She was whimpering as if now she knew the 
 recipe by heart. 
 
 " Oh," cried Luke fervently, " I knew you 'd 
 come ! " 
 
88 KING'S END 
 
 Nancy looked upon him in some surprise. 
 Small tokens of gallantry had no significance for 
 her, unused to the vagaries of the preening male. 
 Martin Jeffries was not wont to woo her softly, 
 and so long had she been considered his pro- 
 perty that other young men had only desired 
 her from afar. " How 's the baby ? " she asked. 
 " Do you give her a bath ? " 
 
 " Oh yes, she 's real clean," returned Luke, 
 smiling in what she thought a vacuous fashion. 
 It only made him look shiftless, and she con- 
 cluded the bath could not be thorough. 
 
 " Did you give her one to-day ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Then I will. Can you heat up the 
 water ? " 
 
 He tucked some kindlings in the stove. His 
 motions had a glorified alacrity. 
 
 " Nancy," he ventured, when there was a 
 crackling under the cover, " you know the books 
 you spoke of, the ones you did n't like ? " 
 He pointed to the shelf where rested his former 
 pride and glory, the unread volumes of revolt. 
 Nancy's eyes followed. " I Ve covered 'em up," 
 he continued shyly. " I nailed a piece o' calico 
 across the shelf. You look. You can't see 
 'em." 
 
 " I should n't want to see them," said Nancy 
 
KING'S END 89 
 
 virtuously. " You 'd better have burned them 
 up." 
 
 His face fell. The books stood for years of 
 pride in a splendid unbelief. They were his 
 unused weapons ; they helped him face the 
 social order unabashed. 
 
 " I guess I could n't do that," he said humbly. 
 He looked at her, his seeking heart in his eyes. 
 Already the memory of Milly was one of the 
 " old, far-off, forgotten things " of another life. 
 Nancy met his glance, and felt annoyed. This 
 was the look which, from Martin, held her even 
 while she longed to flee. 
 
 " I don't see how you 're ever going to take 
 care of this baby," she said, with the assurance 
 of a district visitor. " You '11 have her sick be- 
 fore you know it ; mother says so. You ought 
 not to leave her alone." 
 
 "I don't." 
 
 " Well, how much good does it do her to be 
 hauled 'round in a cart and lie in the shade 
 while you shoe horses ? It 's a shame. You 
 ought to have a woman here to see to her." 
 She spoke innocently, without a mawkish 
 thought. 
 
 Luke clenched his hands. " Oh, if I could ! " 
 he cried passionately. " I see now what I Ve 
 missed. If I could have her and marry her 
 
90 KING'S END 
 
 and know everybody knew she belonged to 
 me Oh, Nancy ! " He turned sharply away. 
 She felt there were tears in his eyes, and 
 thought he was lamenting his lost love, neither 
 maid nor wife. So, softened by trouble, her 
 heart warmed to him. 
 
 "There! there!" she said gently. "The 
 water 's boiling. Should you just as soon go 
 out while I wash her ? I don't know how to do 
 it very well." 
 
 Luke went into the shed without a word and 
 sat on the chopping-block, kicking his heels and 
 listening to the voice of life. For life was calling 
 him. The maiden was here. "Throw off the 
 clogs of hate and circumstance," whispered the 
 unseen beguiler. " The spring has come. Love 
 and be loved." But all he thought was that the 
 moments were going fast. 
 
 It took Nancy a long time to wash the baby. 
 She began it tentatively, almost with distaste ; 
 but when a pink foot kicked against her breast, 
 she suddenly imprisoned it in one hand and 
 kissed it softly. She hardly knew what it made 
 her think of, nor why her cheek was red. 
 
 "Where do you keep her clothes ? " she called 
 at last, and Luke, ecstatically silent, came in 
 and opened the drawer. Then Nancy slipped 
 on little garments, and the baby murmured at 
 
KING'S END 91 
 
 her. She did not heed him now, watching her 
 from the doorway. The sight seemed to him 
 wonderful : the happier child and the beneficent 
 vision, half angel and half mother. 
 
 " She ought to be fed, I guess," she suggested, 
 smiling up at him. He had gained an apparent 
 nearness never accorded Martin, because as yet 
 he made no demands on her, and because he was 
 in trouble. , 
 
 " I can do that," he answered, also smiling. 
 "I Ve learnt how. You see." 
 
 He warmed the milk, and the baby made an- 
 ticipatory remarks. Then he fed her from an 
 old coffee-pot with rags tied over the nozzle. 
 
 " Do you wash it out ? " asked Nancy anx- 
 iously. " Everything 's got to be clean." 
 
 When he laid the child back in the cradle, it 
 was more content than he. But now, for him, 
 there was some meaning in the summer world. 
 He looked down at his hands, estimating their 
 strength, and the veins in his forehead swelled 
 with pride : for, he reflected, he could support 
 a woman. 
 
 " Do you want to live in the country always ? " 
 he asked. 
 
 Nancy had risen and was pulling down the 
 sleeves over her strong white arms. " I don't 
 know," she said absently. Her mind was with 
 her own lost argosies. " I should n't care." 
 
92 KING'S END 
 
 Then it burst forth. " I ain't much to look 
 at," cried the man, placing himself before her, 
 " but I 'd be good to you. I 'd take care of you. 
 Oh, Nancy, there 's nobody like you ! " 
 
 The meaning of it struck upon her like 
 Apollo's hand on Daphne's chilling branches. 
 " Is that what you mean ? " she cried fiercely. 
 " Oh, how can you ? " 
 
 He shrank before her, not, she felt, because 
 he recognized the justice of the lash, but from 
 pain alone. Then her old partisanship of him 
 as a downtrodden creature subdued her to some 
 tolerance. 
 
 "When I came up here just to help you out," 
 she said brokenly, " and Milly " It was im- 
 possible to go on. She meant to say, in the 
 country phrasing, "and Milly not cold in her 
 grave ; " but at the thought of the dead girl and 
 herself in one relation to him, her virgin pride 
 took fire. " You must n't ever speak so to me," 
 she concluded firmly, and turned to go. 
 
 " Nancy, you '11 come up again ? " 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " Then I don't know what '11 become of me." 
 He spoke with a desperate denial not meant to 
 be dramatic. She saw the old dogged look en- 
 throned on his face, and confessed to herself 
 that she did not know either. " After all," he 
 
KING'S END 93 
 
 concluded obstinately, " is there any harm in a 
 man's tellin' a girl he thinks more of her than 
 all the world ? " 
 
 " It is an insult from you," she cried hotly, 
 " when you say you don't believe in any God 
 and " She could not go on, but he under- 
 stood her. It cut him to the soul to think this 
 chaste creature could suspect him of asking her 
 to bear the gibes of an undiscerning people. 
 
 " I 'd beg you to marry me ; " he trembled ; 
 "yes, Nancy, on my bended knees." Why had 
 he not begged the other woman ? He did not 
 know. The world swam before him : this great 
 planet, ruled by a hampering law, and his own 
 little orb of dark revolt. Only he knew she was 
 beautiful to him with the beauty of the spirit, 
 and he clung to her compassion. 
 
 Nancy went quietly past him, with a signi- 
 ficant dignity. She paused on the threshold, 
 and looked back. "I shan't come again un- 
 less I think I ought to, for the baby," she said. 
 " I '11 tell Big Joan to come. But, anyway, we 
 must n't speak of this." She looked very stately 
 and tall, stepping down the road, and Luke 
 groaned aloud, remembering that other day 
 when he had not offended her. Then, because 
 ideal passion had not obscured the natural man, 
 he cursed the god of circumstance for making 
 
94 KING'S END 
 
 him what he was and so denying him his nat- 
 ural rights. 
 
 That afternoon Susan Eliot, worried out of 
 her taciturnity, had stopped Martin Jeffries at 
 her gate. 
 
 " Here ! " she called to him. " Can you find 
 out what 's the matter with Nancy ? " 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 " You seen her lately ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " She looks awfully. She has ever since 
 that mornm' she went to your house to pay up. 
 I 'm plagued to death." Martin took off his 
 hat, and ran a hand through his thick hair. 
 " Ain't your mother said anything ? " persisted 
 Susan. 
 
 " No. Mother would n't know, Her head 's 
 in the sand." 
 
 Susan shaded her eyes and peered up the 
 road. " Ain't that Nancy now ? " she asked. 
 "You go an' meet her. You find out. I '11 run." 
 She whisked into the house, and Martin went 
 on. He was the son of her spirit ; he knew 
 that, and the thought, though he smiled over it, 
 gave him some slight comfort when Nancy was 
 cold. He met her in the way, and was shocked 
 at her pallor and the droop of her frame. 
 
 " Don't go home, Nancy," said he. " Come 
 for a little walk." 
 
KING'S END 95 
 
 She looked up at him. He could see that 
 there were dark circles under her eyes, and that 
 all the hope had died out of them : all the self- 
 confidence, too. Her old resistance of him had 
 melted away. But that was the more alarming ; 
 it seemed as if she had hardly life enough left 
 to resist. " I can't," she said, still looking at 
 him wanly. " I 'm tired." 
 
 He turned about with her, and they walked 
 silently in at the gate and up the path. At the 
 door she stopped and said, " Good-by." 
 
 " No," said Martin, " let me come in a min- 
 ute." 
 
 She led the way, with the same, air of finding 
 denial troublesome, and he followed her into the 
 sitting-room where the afternoon sun lay in a 
 pleasant dream. Nancy sank into the great 
 rocking-chair, and, holding her hat in her lap, 
 pushed her fingers wearily over her forehead. 
 Martin drew a chair in front of her. 
 
 "What is it, Nancy?" he asked. "What's 
 the matter ? " 
 
 She tried to smile away the question, but, in 
 spite of her, two tears gathered and coursed 
 slowly down her cheeks. Then two more came, 
 and all the hurrying flood. Martin waited, hold- 
 ing his hands hard upon his knees. 
 
 I can't do this," she said, at last. "They '11 
 be in." 
 
96 KING'S END 
 
 He got up, and took her by the hand. " You 
 come with me," he said quietly. " Come out to 
 the swing, and get it over." 
 
 She rose, beset by the burden of her tears, 
 and let him lead her out by the side door to the 
 fragrant orchard. There, in a corner by the 
 wall, was the old swing, kept from childhood's 
 days. Martin himself had renewed the rope 
 from time to time. Why, he never told ; per- 
 haps it was because he had seen grown-up Nancy 
 there, drying her wet hair in sun and wind, and 
 pushing the stones with a careless foot. But 
 this time he took her to the flat rock where the 
 wall gave a back, and there she sat down and 
 wiped her eyes. 
 
 " Don't you tell mother," she besought him. 
 
 "No." 
 
 " You see, I went to make the last payment, 
 and I found I had n't made any at all." She 
 looked at him in hopeless acceptance of the in- 
 credible. Martin stared at her. 
 
 "Try to tell me," he said patiently. "You 
 know you paid the rest. What makes you 
 think you did n't ? " 
 
 "They were n't written down." 
 
 " Did n't he write 'em down ? " 
 
 " Oh yes ! I saw him." 
 
 " And they were n't there ? " 
 
KING'S END 97 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Then the note was forged." 
 
 " Oh no ! it was mine. It was my writing, 
 and my paper. You know you laughed at me 
 for using my best paper, with the dove up in 
 the corner. Aunt Lindy gave it to me that 
 Christmas." 
 
 Martin was watching her keenly. He kept 
 his eyes on hers, as if to steady her. 
 
 " When did I laugh at you ? " 
 
 "That day in the schoolhouse." 
 
 "What day?" 
 
 "Why," said Nancy, with a touch of temper, 
 "I'd just begun to teach, and you came in 
 after school to get me to go to ride. It was 
 your birthday, and I gave you my 'Pilgrim's 
 Progress.' I was copying the note, and looked 
 in the arithmetic to see if I had got the word- 
 ing right ; and that was why you laughed. You 
 said, ' Let old Mixon make it out himself ; ' and 
 I told you I wanted to be sure 't was right. 
 And I used my new paper with the dove." 
 
 " Ah ! " breathed Martin. The day was com- 
 ing back to him. He remembered other things 
 about it, things Nancy had never known. For 
 that spring marked the end of their boy and 
 girl companionship. He had ended it himself 
 by telling her he was a man now, and full of 
 
98 KING'S END 
 
 love; so he had frightened the bird from his 
 hand. The " Pilgrim's Progress " had been the 
 last thing she ever gave him, perhaps because 
 she was afraid, in her fierce remoteness, of draw- 
 ing him her way. 
 
 " Nancy," he said, "you give the whole thing 
 up to me. I '11 sift it." 
 
 " You can't. It '11 make talk. And mother 
 must n't know. It would kill her." 
 
 " No, it won't make talk either. I '11 see to 
 that. Poor little girl! poor Nancy! You go 
 in and lay down. Stop thinking about it." 
 
 In the midst of her distress, she was drearily 
 conscious of wishing he would say " lie " instead 
 of "lay," though it seemed a smaller matter 
 now. But Martin wished to be gone ; she saw 
 that. He was in such haste that she thought 
 a little bitterly of his persistency in time of joy 
 and his imperviousness to grief. 
 
 " Mind what I tell you," he called, striding 
 across the orchard and over the gap. "Stop 
 thinking, and go eat a good supper." 
 
 Then he went home as. if, Mrs. Eliot thought, 
 he was "sent for," and sat down opposite Alia 
 in the sitting-room, talking to her about nothing 
 at all until she flushed and happiness entered 
 into her heart. His mother, getting supper, 
 watched him suspiciously, but said no word. 
 
IV 
 
 THAT night Nancy sat within the pasture 
 Boundary near the Cumnor Road, while Julia 
 Kent went on her lonely quest. They had 
 crossed the woods in silence, though two or 
 three times Nancy thought she heard a footstep 
 behind them and the snapping of a twig. But 
 so far, she was unmoved ; distraught by greater 
 issues, she could have challenged night to show 
 a spectre blacker than life had conjured for her. 
 Julia had bade her go no farther. 
 
 '"If he's dying," she said, "I shall want to 
 be alone. I '11. come back and tell you. Don't 
 wait more 'n half an hour. No, I '11 come any- 
 way." So she glided into the night, and Nancy 
 was left to brood over her hope's betrayal and 
 the questions that beset her now incessantly. 
 
 Must she begin the weary road over again, 
 or, when Elder Kent should go, take up her 
 cross and follow ? The Elder was settled now 
 contentedly, spending his time on the mountain, 
 or with Luke. He had periods of thus select- 
 ing some soul, and wooing it to seek out God ; 
 
loo KING'S END 
 
 but he might, at any instant, resume his vagrant 
 march. Should she go ? What did God wish ? 
 Suddenly fear, unknown to her until this sum- 
 mer, returned upon her ; she felt an alien pre- 
 sence in the dark. Yet only Julia appeared out 
 of the shadow, and Nancy, relieved though 
 trembling, put out a hand and then, ashamed, 
 withdrew it. Julia came swiftly up to her. 
 
 " He 's very low," she said sharply. " I Ve 
 got to stay. I '11 cross the pasture with you, 
 first. I don't want to be back yet ; the house 
 is n't settled enough. They keep running out, 
 one or another. I '11 wait till the watchers 
 come." She was drawing Nancy away home- 
 ward, but the girl resisted and whispered in her 
 ear : 
 
 " I think there 's somebody 'round in that 
 clump. Don't you ? " 
 
 Lurkers of the night were nothing to the 
 fierce old woman, dominated by the smothered 
 passion of her youth. She strode over to the 
 grove of pine and underbrush, searched it, and 
 came back unmoved. 
 
 " There 's nobody there," she said. " You 're 
 nervous. You ought to be abed. Come." But 
 the man lay wrapped in another shadow, not 
 near enough to hear their speech, though near 
 enough for watching. 
 
KING'S END' 1 loi 
 
 Julia walked rapidly, and Nancy, from the 
 poverty of her strength, had some ado to keep 
 up with her. The old woman talked sharply, as 
 if she challenged the night, and Nancy, wishing 
 she would lower her voice, was ashamed to ask 
 it. At last, when they were half across the 
 pasture, and the man in the shadow far behind, 
 Julia sank upon a rock and held her hands to 
 her throat. 
 
 " I must rest," she said, " or God Almighty 
 knows how I shall get through this night. 
 Nancy, you mark me you mark my words : 
 the things that are natural are right. Folks 
 must make way for 'em. Nobody made way 
 for me, and so I went crazy. And I need n't 
 have been. I could have been saved." The 
 dry passion of her voice was terrible to hear. 
 Nancy could not believe that this was the little 
 creature who sat and sewed with farmers* wives, 
 talking briskly of trifles. " See how it ended," 
 she continued. " I thought I was doing what 
 was sent me; and see how it ended !" She 
 seemed to be scourging herself back to the 
 past, as if there only could she feel at home. 
 "He was sixteen brother John when it all 
 begun. He 'd always been different, and mother 
 liked him best. And when he was sixteen, reli- 
 gion got hold of him, and he went into the 
 
102 KING'S END 
 
 woods stark naked, all but the old buffalo robe, 
 and told mother he was going to live there till 
 the coming of the Lord. She cried and cried. 
 She used to carry pies down to the swamp 
 where he built him a hut, and he would n't 
 touch 'em. I was a little girl then. I thought 
 he was John Baptist, and I told mother 't was 
 all right, for he 'd eat locusts and wild honey. 
 I could laugh now ; for I thought the locusts 
 were blooms, and I wondered what he'd do 
 when they were gone. I used to chew 'em 
 myself, and it seemed wonderful they were so 
 sweet ; and when they did n't stay me, I thought 
 it was because I was n't called. So it went on, 
 and Stuart Hill came to me and brought me 
 bunches of Provence roses O my God ! my 
 God ! how afraid I am of June till the roses are 
 gone by ! and one day he kissed me and I 
 kissed him back. Then mother was taken sick, 
 and she made me promise, when she was dying, 
 that wherever brother went I 'd go too, and I 'd 
 tend him as she would. And she died ; and I 
 told Stuart Hill, and said good-by to him, and 
 tramped the roads, while brother called upon 
 sinners, and I cursed God in my heart ! " She 
 rocked back and forth, a writhing figure of the 
 night. 
 
 " Why don't you go to the door and ask them 
 
KING'S END 103 
 
 to let you in ? " cried Nancy, her heart beating 
 the same terrible measure. "Why don't you 
 tell 'em you 've got to be with him ? " 
 
 The woman laughed a little bitter laugh. 
 
 " That 's a part of it," she said. " I would if 
 he wanted me ; but he don't. Do you suppose 
 he thinks of me as I am, with cracks in my 
 cheeks and claws for hands ? No ; if he sees 
 me now, as he lays there, it 's with my hat on 
 the back of my head and the curls a-streaming. 
 My God ! my God ! " 
 
 Nancy clenched her own hands tight, for 
 fear of imitating that motion of unbridled grief. 
 
 " And you heed it ! " cried Julia fiercely ; 
 " you heed it. That 's why I tell you. If a 
 man loves you and wants you, you take him, 
 and don't go raving off about altars and sacri- 
 fices. They make me sick. Do you think God 
 set us here to strain ourselves after another 
 world, and forget the one that 's under our 
 feet ? Folderol ! " She rose, and Nancy rose 
 with her. All this time the shadowy man was 
 halting in a deeper shade ; now he slipped on 
 behind. 
 
 " Did your brother know ? " ventured Nancy. 
 
 The old woman laughed, a hopeless note over 
 the dullness of humankind. 
 
 " He ? no," she said, with a tender scorn of 
 
104 KING'S END 
 
 him. " He don't know anything but God and 
 Judgment. Yes, he does sometimes. I Ve 
 seen him look right into folks and tell 'em 
 what 's in their hearts. But not mine. I was 
 too near to him. He never saw mine." 
 
 At the boundary wall she turned, leaving 
 Nancy to go on alone. The girl was deeply 
 stirred. She found it incredible, not that this 
 ancient thing should have suffered the pangs of 
 love, but that anguish, and not a mere dull 
 memory, could still be kept alive. The sequel 
 of the story repelled her, the fiery moral. Was 
 the earth indeed to be regarded, as well as some 
 chilly heaven ? Must not the righteous spurn 
 it with their feet ? Yet it was not of her old 
 lover she thought when her mind strayed thus 
 to ties and hearthstones : it was the outcast up 
 on the mountain who had not told her his de- 
 sire, but his great want of her. Need she seek 
 her sacrifice on the highway? It might lie 
 rather in turning a scoffer to God and mother- 
 ing his nameless child. So she went thought- 
 fully on, and when she was within her own gate 
 the shadow of the man fleeted away unseen. 
 
 For many days Nancy dragged herself about 
 like one who, in suffering misfortune, has sus- 
 tained also some physical shock hostile to all 
 the functions of life. It was like a blow on 
 
KING'S END 105 
 
 the head : will and motion were paralyzed. So 
 for a time she accepted her trouble slavishly, 
 not knowing how to rise and face it. But 
 one morning her eyes cleared, her heart beat 
 stronger, and she began to question. Some 
 one had juggled with her. Who ? Not Alia : 
 a shallow thing, too early bent on courtship and 
 vain wishes, she was yet honest. Not old 
 Mixon : rough as he might have seemed to alien 
 eyes, he was a bit of New England, a lord of 
 the soil, scorning to hold his word more lightly 
 than his bond. While impossibilities balanced 
 thus, her energy grew, and she took her hat and 
 sped along the road to find Alia and say she 
 did not yet know what. But at least she had 
 risen from her mental swoon. She could think. 
 She could speak. 
 
 Alia was at the kitchen table, making spatter- 
 work. It was a stolen moment while Mrs. Jef- 
 fries swept the floors above, mercifully removed 
 from the temptation to make satirical remarks 
 about young ones playing with ink. Martin sat 
 by the window, behind the county paper. He 
 looked as if he had settled there for the morn- 
 ing ; but Alia could not know that he had seen 
 Nancy coming and hurried in to filch their talk. 
 She was laboriously arranging a pattern of 
 leaves. 
 
106 KING'S END 
 
 " I think this '11 be real pretty for Christmas," 
 she said ; but before he could reply, Nancy was 
 in the room. Her resolve, so strenuous, so 
 ignorant of its own direction, had keyed her to 
 an unwonted pitch. 
 
 "Look here, Alia," she began, "something 
 has got to be done about that note." 
 
 Alia arranged a fern with a steady hand. 
 " Well, I 'm sure I don't know what to say," 
 she answered sympathetically. "Nor I don't 
 know as there 's anything I can do. It 's your 
 writing. You told me it was yourself." 
 
 "It is my writing," owned Nancy fiercely, 
 " but there 's monkery about it. You let me 
 see it again." 
 
 Alia carefully wiped her hands and took out 
 her father's pocket-book. From the papers 
 within she separated the mysterious note and 
 held it forth; but when Nancy would have 
 taken it, she kept it in a guarding hand. The 
 two girls stood there, holding the bit of paper, 
 the one subjugated again by her old distrac- 
 tion and bewilderment, the other flushed yet 
 calm. Martin put down his paper and looked 
 at them. 
 
 " What is it about a note ? " he asked. 
 
 They started. Nancy hardly saw him, but 
 Alia had not forgotten him for a moment. It 
 
KING'S END 107 
 
 was she who answered, looking him in the face 
 with distressful eyes : " Nancy thinks there 's 
 something queer about the note. I can't make 
 anything of her." 
 
 " It is n't my note," said Nancy loudly. She 
 flushed redly. His interrogating voice had 
 stirred her ; she felt as if they were speaking 
 before a judge. " Mr. Mixon wrote on my note 
 the other one and the indorsements are 
 not here." 
 
 " Well, here 's the note, and that 's all I know 
 about it," said Alia despairingly. " Father 'd 
 have made a record. Would n't he ? " she asked 
 of Martin humbly. " Would n't he ? " 
 
 "Sure. Let's see the note." Alia passed 
 it to him without demur. She dared not tell 
 him either because he was a man, or because 
 he was the man she loved that it should not 
 go out of her hands. He held it up to the 
 light, with some vague memory that detective 
 stories had much to say about water-marks. 
 " You think it is n't the old note ? " he said to 
 Nancy. " Is it like it ? " 
 
 " I know it is n't the old one," she answered, 
 scornful of his irrelevance. " I know it." 
 
 He glanced up at Alia. " Let 's see the old 
 one and compare," he ventured carelessly. 
 
 She made an almost imperceptible move- 
 
To8 KING'S END 
 
 ment, and then steadied herself, looking at him 
 with quickening eyes. Did he doubt her ? Was 
 he laying a trap ? 
 
 " Why, this is all the note there is," she said 
 patiently. 
 
 " Oh yes, of course ! what a fool I am ! " 
 Again he held it to the light. There was a 
 little brown stain on it, something like the im- 
 press of a leaf. " Well, I can't make anything 
 of it." He gave it back, and resumed his paper. 
 
 Alia sighed quickly, a sigh of satisfaction. 
 He could not care for Nancy, her heart said to 
 her. But Nancy only thought he did not care 
 for her cause ; he had told her to leave it with 
 him, and yet, see how he relinquished it ! She 
 would not look at the offending note again, nor 
 talk of it while he was by. 
 
 " I '11 bid you good-day," she said proudly, 
 and walked out of the house, though not home- 
 ward. Her face was hot with anger, and to 
 escape her mother's eyes, she took the descend- 
 ing road and hastened on, her mind a turmoil. 
 If she had a thought, it was that her little 
 schoolhouse lay that way. There, on the step, 
 she might sit down and brood. 
 
 Later in the forenoon, Mrs. Jeffries fried 
 doughnuts ; and while she spurred up the fire, 
 Martin stood by the table, gravely making 
 
KING'S END 109 
 
 rounds into rings, with the aid of a pepper-box 
 top. That act represented an old-time feud. 
 She believed in the unembellished cake ; Martin 
 swore to the orthodoxy of rings. He worked 
 for dear life, and when she turned again, a new 
 order reigned upon the board. 
 
 " My land alive ! " she muttered to some un- 
 seen confidant, " I 've as good a mind as ever 
 I had to eat, to mould 'em up together an' begin 
 all over." 
 
 Martin armed himself with the poker, and 
 mounted guard. Mrs. Jeffries advanced, look- 
 ing catacornered lest he catch the betraying 
 twinkle in her eye. Martin was wise in his 
 generation. He had not summered and wintered 
 his mother these twenty odd years for no- 
 thing. 
 
 "I like 'em so," he shouted. "I like 'em- 
 like 'em so ! so ! " He danced up and down 
 before her ; he knew she could not hear, but he 
 knew also that her deafness gave her the most 
 pleasing of ironical satisfactions. It was her 
 weapon, unique, invincible. She pushed him 
 aside, and gathering a handful of the doughy 
 rings, laid them in to fry. Martin, with an osten- 
 tatious courtesy, put down the poker and picked 
 up her trumpet from the sewing-table between 
 the windows. He applied one end to her ear 
 
no KING'S END 
 
 and remarked into the other, " Mother, you 're 
 awful obstinate ! " 
 
 " Don't yell so," said Mrs. Jeffries, delighted 
 over the onslaught. 
 
 " If you were n't so obstinate, you 'd be a real 
 nice woman." 
 
 " Mercy ! I should think I was deaf," she 
 muttered, turning the doughnuts. " Obstinate ! 
 you better talk. There 's worse than bein' ob- 
 stinate. What do you do ? You hang 'round 
 after a girl that hates the sight of you till you 're 
 a laughin'-stock " 
 
 " I ain't. Everybody admires me." 
 
 "An' then, without why or wherefore, you 
 dance off with a little miserable fly-by-night " 
 
 " She 's upstairs," Martin breathed ominously 
 to the trumpet, and presently became aware that 
 the ear-piece was nowhere. She had stepped 
 away and left it pointed a favorite trick. He 
 pursued her ; she shook her head free of it and 
 went on : 
 
 "Takin' that poor miserable pint-o'-cider to 
 ride ! What do you s'pose folks thinks ? What 
 do you s'pose Nancy Eliot thought ? " 
 
 " I should n't think you 'd care what she 
 thought," volleyed Martin, aiming to some brief 
 purpose ; but she gave no token of hearing. 
 
 "That's like a man. My soul, if it ain't! 
 
KING'S END in 
 
 Not like your father. He 's the only one that 
 ever stepped that was fit to have gover'ment." 
 
 " Did n't he ever like any girl but you ? " 
 essayed Martin, following her to the cupboard 
 and back again. " Honest, now ! When you 
 sat in the seats, and he sung tenor ? " 
 
 Mrs. Jeffries rolled and cut, interposing a 
 shoulder to aural advances. 
 
 " I s'pose it was the greatest mistake I ever 
 made to have her here " 
 
 " She 's upstairs," indicated Martin, in futile 
 pantomime. 
 
 " But I knew there wa'n't nobody else that 'd 
 take the trouble, an' I thought she 'd settle up 
 the business an' go back to her fact'ry work 
 But law ! not she ! A horse and shay an' you 
 all slicked up, an' bein' beaued over to Ryde, as 
 budge as you please ! " 
 
 " We went to see about a mortgage," groaned 
 Martin. He was certain to get the worst of it. 
 He always did, in this game of no thoroughfare. 
 But he noted wickedly that his mother, in the 
 abstraction of attack, was at least cutting the 
 doughnuts into rings. 
 
 " If I don't give her a hint, Thanksgivin' time 
 will see her under this roof. She '11 be here 
 when the snow flies. But I warn ye, if you 're 
 goin' to take her to live in that new house " 
 
ii2 KING'S END 
 
 He dropped the trumpet and fled, defeated. 
 Alla's step was on the stairs ; retreat was the 
 only road to silence. He met her in the entry, 
 and smiled upon her. She looked at him ; then 
 her eyes dropped Alia had changed. While 
 he was indifferent, she had courted him by sub- 
 tile ways, not knowing, in the fierceness of dis- 
 appointed hope, how far love led her. Now, of 
 a sudden, he had become kind. He did not woo 
 her, yet he sought her out ; and some natural 
 instinct withdrew her from him and covered her 
 with a blushing pride. Hope was robust in her ; 
 at the first hint of his presence meant for her 
 alone, she told herself that Nancy's cause was 
 lost ; her own might yet be won. The illusive 
 veil of a woman's right to be wooed in ancient 
 fashion flung over her such charm that Martin 
 looked upon her amazed. He had never dreamed 
 she was so pretty, so almost sweet. 
 
 " Going out ? " he asked, seeing her hat and 
 the little basket she carried. 
 
 " Yes down to Cold Spring. There 's cress 
 there. Your mother said she liked it." Once 
 she would have bid for his company, but now 
 she dared not. 
 
 Martin walked along by her side. " She won't 
 touch it if you get it," said he. " She likes to 
 go down herself and pull it up." 
 
KING'S END 113 
 
 " Never mind. I guess I '11 give it a try," she 
 answered shyly, and he let down the bars for 
 her into the field. She stepped through, not 
 looking behind her, but hunger was keen at her 
 heart. Would he put up the bars and turn away, 
 or would he come ? Presently he was at her 
 side ; and Nancy, walking home again, saw him, 
 Nancy, who had watched them driving off to 
 Ryde the day before. A strange new pain be- 
 set her. Never had she seen Martin walking 
 away from her with any girl ; though, as she told 
 herself, it hurt her now only because the girl was 
 one of Alla's kind. But even that seemed a 
 part of the muddiness of human affairs ; and so 
 she wandered back again into her blind alley 
 of debate. 
 
 " Got your business 'most done ? " asked 
 Martin. 
 
 " Not quite," returned Alia. " It takes a good 
 while." She saw no end to the vistaed delight 
 of days under the same roof with him. Mrs. 
 Jeffries had spoken the truth. It would be till 
 "snow flies." 
 
 " You'd just as soon I 'd ask about it ? " 
 
 " Yes," she vowed, with fervency, " I guess 
 I would." 
 
 " So Nancy did n't get all paid ? " 
 
 Alia glanced up at him sharply ; but he was 
 
114 KING'S END 
 
 occupied with a sweet-apple twig, cut as they 
 went along. It was a crotched stick, and he held 
 it straight before him in outstretched hands. 
 
 "Nancy's queer," she said evasively. "I 
 can't make anything out of her." 
 
 " Oh, well ! she 's worked pretty hard to pay 
 up that debt. Sort of takes it out of her to get 
 a set-back." The apple bough was obstinate. 
 It would not turn. " Did you know you could 
 find a spring with this, same as you can with 
 witch-hazel ? " he asked. 
 
 " Folks say so," said Alia, suave with admi- 
 ration of anything he knew. " Seems terrible 
 queer to me." 
 
 " It '11 turn in your hands, and point straight 
 down to the ground. Sometimes, if you hold 
 it tight, it'll twist the bark to get there. 
 'T won't do it to-day. Bewitched, I guess." He 
 tossed it into the grass. " What was that about 
 Nancy Eliot ? Oh, well ! I would n't mention it 
 if I were you. It sets folks to talking, and they 
 take sides, and then where are you ? " 
 
 Alia was in no danger of telling. Already 
 she had tired of Nancy's troubles ; fortune was 
 turning her way, and she thought of nothing 
 else. Once, yearning for love denied, she had 
 told herself that if Nancy had to go to work and 
 climb her hill of difficulty all over again, the 
 
KING'S END 115 
 
 new house might stand untenanted, recording 
 barren years. Now the wind had changed, and 
 she wished the girl no harm, save what might 
 work more miracles. They went on to the 
 spring, and she filled her basket with cress, and 
 made a hollow of her hands for him to drink. 
 But he refused, though laughingly. He was 
 afraid of polliwogs, he said ; had been ever since 
 that time Eph Cummings thought he swallowed 
 one and was sick a year. Alia drank prettily, 
 and tried not to picture the touch of his lips upon 
 her hand. He looked at her bending over the 
 spring. How pretty she was ! Why had he 
 never noticed it before ? She seemed soft and 
 kindly too. Perhaps she was less of a flirt than 
 he used to think ; for Martin, in knowing her 
 lightness, had never guessed that she was for 
 him more than for another. 
 
 Cold Spring lay in the lower pasture. " You 
 don't mean to go home right off, do you ? " he 
 asked. " Let 's climb to Old Maids' Lot." 
 
 She turned with him, the ready color suffus- 
 ing her cheeks. The way led through a defined 
 aisle with a cathedral arch above ; it was an old 
 cart-path, used so rarely now that the grass had 
 a chance for all its rich concealment. This 
 was the bourgeoning time of the year. Life 
 was at its full. Two little green-gray birds 
 
Ii6 KING'S END 
 
 swept back and forth, each with a shred in its 
 beak, and neither daring the homeward way lest 
 these human things should follow. 
 
 "Wait," said Martin softly ; " they 're build- 
 ing. It's on that low branch. See!" He 
 was thinking of the nest perhaps of his new 
 house, too but Alia thought only of him. 
 Her heart beat chokingly and hurt her ; a mist 
 obscured her eyes. 
 
 " Cunning little things ! " she said ; but she 
 had not seen them. 
 
 " They think they 're terrible smart. Look ! 
 that one 's darting in. See him lay the straw 
 with his bill. Little gumps ! " But he said it 
 tenderly. The house-maker instinct was strong 
 in him. He told himself, with an oath big 
 enough to astound both girls who thought they 
 knew him, that Thanksgiving time should see 
 him at his own hearth, his mate by his side. 
 Thinking that, he put out a hand to Alia in 
 unconscious appeal, the prayer of man to wo- 
 man ; she saw it too late, though not too late 
 for sickening memory. 
 
 They climbed the gentle slope into the open, 
 the clarified green of June filtering over them, 
 a witchery hard to be withstood. The color 
 magic sprang vividly, making a medium thicker 
 than the air, and once Martin put up his hand 
 
KING'S END 117 
 
 to brush it away. The June world got into his 
 blood. He thought of his delight, withholding 
 herself from him, and wondered at her dullness ; 
 for he never doubted that in her soul Nancy 
 loved him. But all he said was, " Pretty ?" And 
 Alia gave a little responsive sound. 
 
 They touched the upper slope, and Martin 
 breathed again. Now the spell was not too 
 strong for him. He took off his hat, and passed 
 a hand over his forehead. " It 's hot," he said. 
 " Good to strike a breeze." 
 
 There were the cellars of three ruined houses, 
 side by side. The Cummings sisters had lived 
 here, each in her own domain, civil but unfriend- 
 ing to one another and the world. Alia seated' 
 herself on a sunken doorstone, and Martin, at a 
 distance, buried his face in the cool aloofness 
 of the grass. 
 
 "See the cinnamon roses!" she called, 
 something thrilled her voice, though it seemed 
 to be for the forsaken garden, " and bouncing- 
 bet. Do you suppose their beds run way out 
 here?" 
 
 "Yes," answered Martin dreamily, "and 
 they slipped out and tended 'em and never 
 spoke." 
 
 " How 'd you know ? It was before our day." 
 
 " Anybody 'd know. They came up here to 
 
n8 KING'S END 
 
 live because they all three fell in love with the 
 same man, and he made up to each of 'em on 
 the sly. So they hated him and other folks 
 but they hated one another more." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Oh, anybody 'd know ! You can't blame the 
 one you love, even if she plays you false. You 
 have to blame somebody else." 
 
 " The one you love ! " It sounded very sweet 
 to her. The old life when she went back and 
 forth to her work in the city, spent her money 
 on cheap finery, and held a foolish commerce of 
 looks and smiles, seemed to her vague and un- 
 lovely. A little more, and it would be quite for- 
 gotten. Once she had left her father in lone- 
 liness to have what she called life in the town, 
 but then Martin was not so straight and tall. 
 The woody aisles in King's End looked to her 
 now like Paradise. Yet old traditions were loud 
 in her where nature had not muted them, and 
 she sought for talk to hold him. "There's 
 ladies'-delights," she said, " sprinkled all 
 through the grass. Some folks call it heart's- 
 
 ease." 
 
 Martin came upright, his brow knitted. What 
 did the soft speech recall ? It seemed to set a 
 link into a half -welded chain. He dared not 
 notice the flower, lest it suggest something to 
 
KING'S END 119 
 
 her also. But he thought he knew. Rising, he 
 shook himself free of warmer fancies, like a dog 
 shedding water. " Come," said he, " let 's go 
 home." 
 
 Alia rose, too, grieved at the dispelling of her 
 dream. He strode along, thinking, a frown 
 upon his brow. She, trotting after, like a wife 
 used to that unregarded following, studied upon 
 the change in him, and wondered what she 
 could have done. At the door, she looked up 
 at him, her brown eyes overflowing. 
 
 " You ain't mad ? " she asked imploringly. 
 She was very pretty, and Martin bent to reas- 
 sure her. He was still thinking, yet the natural 
 man in him bade her be comforted. 
 
 " Mad ! No ! " said he absently. But though 
 he lifted his head without kissing her, two peo- 
 ple could have sworn he meant to do it. One 
 was Alia, and the other Mrs. Jeffries, looking 
 on scornfully from the next room. So his 
 mother mislaid her trumpet, and could not hear 
 a word from Alia, all that day and the next. 
 
 But Martin, ignorant of these feminine coils, 
 ran upstairs to his own room and his little book- 
 case, where " Pilgrim's Progress " stood in the 
 old spot. He took it down, glancing first at 
 the top to compare its layer of dust with neigh- 
 boring edges ; for this corner his mother had 
 
120 KING'S END 
 
 forborne to touch, ever since he had laid a defil- 
 ing pipe upon the shelf. But now all the books 
 were clean, and he swore softly. Either his 
 mother had repented, or Alia had taken pity on 
 his untidy state. He opened the book, and 
 whirled the leaves. Where was the heart' s-ease 
 left there on the day when Nancy gave him the 
 book in the little bare schoolroom ? It was 
 gone. Yet it had lain there undisturbed for 
 many years. What a fool he had been not to 
 remember ! He remembered perfectly now ; 
 and he ran whistling down the stairs and caught 
 his mother tumultuously about the waist. 
 
 "There! that'll do," she remarked dryly. 
 " Enough 's as good as a feast. An' next time 
 you want to carry on, you can take somebody 
 else's front entry. This house wa'n't ever 
 made for doin's such as that. I don't know 
 what your father 'd say." 
 
 Her little body trembled ; her eyes held 
 needles for him. Martin looked at her in won- 
 der. It dawned upon his unenlightened mind 
 that now she was not " play mad " as of old, 
 but in an honest fury. What for ? He threw 
 back his head and laughed. 
 
 "Jealous! My King !" cried he. "Jealous 
 for Nancy! Hurrah for Jackson!" He im- 
 printed a large and cordial kiss on her fiery 
 
KING'S END 121 
 
 cheek, and then another. " Mother, you 're an 
 old darling ! " he announced in a bellow. " A 
 dar-ling ! Hear ? Was it because I went to 
 walk? God sakes " Then it occurred to 
 him that he could not explain without enlighten- 
 ing the room overhead. And, still laughing, he 
 let her go. He went off to find Nancy, and his 
 mother, striving to accomplish that moral effect 
 before he left the room, rushed to the roller- 
 towel and rubbed her cheek. 
 
 But Nancy could not see him. She was ly- 
 ing down, her mother said, with a bad headache. 
 It came on sudden. 
 
 Through this June weather Luke was work- 
 ing in his smithy, and patronage grew fast. 
 Even the neighboring towns, hearing how he 
 carried the stolen baby to a friendly shade and 
 watched her between blows, remembered that 
 he was an excellent smith, capable of turning 
 his hand to anything. At intervals, he warmed 
 milk for her over the coals, and glad were they 
 who saw the administering thereof. One day 
 Obed Horner came up with his old white horse, 
 arid while Luke pared hoofs, with one eye on 
 the child, the grandfather stepped deprecatingly 
 to her little nest, and looked down upon her. 
 She soliloquized remotely, and tears came into 
 his old eyes. He had never relinquished the 
 
122 KING'S END 
 
 idea that the baby knew him ; now he thought 
 bitterly she was "all Larrups." He stretched 
 down his arms toward her, but Luke dropped 
 his iron and set his gun within a nearer reach. 
 Then he blew up the fire again. 
 
 " Lord sakes, Luke Evans," trembled the old 
 man, " you would n't shoot an' run the resk o' 
 hittin' that innocent child ? " 
 
 " Shoot ? " retorted Luke grimly. " Who said 
 anything about shootin' ? " 
 
 "I tell ye," said Obed in sudden heat, "you 
 could be took up for havin' firearms 'round 
 promisc'us so. You 'ain't no more right to go 
 armed " 
 
 "My old fowlin'-piece is there for foxes," 
 announced Luke, hammering. " If one comes 
 along " He said no more. But Obed went 
 home and told his wife that all her plans of 
 rescue were naught concerning a man who 
 would as soon shoot the child as eat sooner. 
 
 On this day Luke had no patrons ; so he left 
 his work at three, shouldered his gun, and went 
 homeward, the child on his arm. He did not 
 always use the little wagon now ; he had learned 
 the habit of holding her, and her soft weight 
 was pleasant to him. Luke knew, and owned 
 to himself with a grim smile, the moment of 
 his beginning to love her; it was when she 
 
KING'S END 123 
 
 took to abusing him, digging her hands into 
 his hair, kicking him with rampant legs, and 
 then laughing wantonly in his face. He hugged 
 her close going up the hill, and put his cheek 
 down softly, so that the whiskers should not 
 hurt ; a great trembling went over him when he 
 thought her hair might yet be dark. She did 
 not look like poor Milly. Perhaps her coloring 
 would be his and Nancy's. 
 
 That afternoon a new resolution grew within 
 him, and in the early twilight he shaved and 
 made his hair as sleek as deference demanded. 
 Then, with the baby in its little cart, he went 
 down the hill to call on Nancy. Why should 
 he ignore the ways of other men ? Why not 
 choose his girl, and go honestly to seek her ? 
 Aunt Lindy . answered his knock, but, rinding 
 him, she fled away and banged the door behind 
 her. 
 
 "My soul, Susan, on'y you see what's out 
 there in the path ! " she panted, appearing in 
 the kitchen, where her sister was wiping the 
 last dish. 
 
 "What's the matter now?" asked Susan 
 hardily. " Mercy ! I should think the British 
 had landed ! " But she went to the door, and 
 reached it with Nancy, who, pale and leaden- 
 footed, came downstairs for a little walk in the 
 dusk. 
 
124 KING'S END 
 
 " Well, if ever I see ! " cried Susan, her eyes 
 on the baby. " If this don't beat all ! On your 
 way down along to gran' ma's ? " 
 
 Luke frowned. His amiable besetment dried 
 like a husk. Yet his eyes sought Nancy, un- 
 abashed. " I thought I 'd come in a minute," 
 he said to her imploringly. 
 
 " Sit down here on the porch, won't you ? " 
 
 She seated herself as she spoke, leaving room 
 for him at the other side. Susan turned about 
 and went in, and Nancy could hear her remark 
 to Aunt Lindy that some folks had brass enough 
 to line a kettle. Later, a gentle and rhythmical 
 creak sounded near the entry door, and she 
 knew Aunt Lindy had drawn her chair to a 
 point of vantage. 
 
 " I thought I 'd come down an' set a spell," 
 said Luke thickly. 
 
 " How 's baby ? " asked Nancy, regarding only 
 the little contented thing, who seemed so gra- 
 cious among untoward ways. 
 
 "Fust-rate. When should you give her 
 suthin' solid ? bread or suthin' ? " 
 
 Nancy frowned. " I don't know anything 
 about it," she said, with decision; "you can 
 ask Big Joan." She made a little involuntary 
 movement, for Martin had turned in at the gate, 
 ,nd she had vowed not to see him. But now 
 
KING'S END 125 
 
 he was near, and pride counseled her to stay. 
 He came buoyantly up to them, hat in hand, 
 the last flush of daylight lying upon his hair. 
 His brows went up a trifle, but he spoke 
 jocundly. It seemed to him that he had good 
 news. 
 
 " 'Evening, Nancy. H'are ye, Luke? Is 
 that the young one ? Hullo ! " 
 
 The baby was not the only one who failed to 
 answer. Luke gave a little grunt, and then 
 looked at Nancy. For the first time since the 
 baby's actual regnancy he wished it away. It 
 gave Martin an advantage. He felt queerly 
 burdened. 
 
 " Did you want to see mother ? " asked Nancy 
 stiffly. 
 
 " Oh no," returned Martin, with cheerfulness, 
 " I came to see you." 
 
 "She's in the house." 
 
 "All right. It 's nice out here." 
 
 But Susan did not remain in the house. She 
 appeared suddenly in the entry, and, as Nancy 
 knew, from a softer swish of skirts, Aunt Lindy 
 was not far behind. Susan had borne much, 
 but it was gall beyond her drinking to see Nancy 
 sitting out there in the face of the world in such 
 droll company. 
 
 " Luke Evans," quoth she, " I should think 
 
126 KING'S END 
 
 you was bewitched to keep that baby out in the 
 night air. If you 've got anything to say, say it 
 an' done with it ; but don't for heaven's sake 
 let her lay there breathin' in all this damp." 
 
 Luke rose like a shot. " I guess I '11 be goin'," 
 he said to Nancy. 
 
 There was defiance in his air, though not for 
 her. He had been driven away, turned from 
 another door only because he had tried to be 
 like other folks. Her heart rose in champion- 
 ship. She spoke sweetly, so sweetly that Mar- 
 tin looked at her in wonder : 
 
 " I guess it is damp for her ; but I '11 come 
 up to-morrow, and we '11 talk it all over then." 
 
 Her mother gasped ; so did Luke, at his good 
 fortune. What was it they would talk over ? 
 their coming days ? Not so small a thing as 
 the baby's diet. He gave her a rapturous look 
 and went away, drawing his little cart. 
 
 "Well, if ever!" remarked Susan, and also 
 disappeared. Her mind was momentarily at 
 rest. Come good or ill to Nancy, she felt that 
 Martin alone could deal with her. Nancy, con- 
 scious of having stumbled into a deeper slough, 
 was no more serene for knowing it. 
 
 "It's getting cool," she said, with a height- 
 ened color. " I guess I '11 go in." 
 
 " Not yet," returned Martin sharply. " Nancy, 
 you don't want to get yourself talked about." 
 
KING'S END 127 
 
 Nancy lifted her head, gander-like, as Martin 
 had once told her. She thought of it now. 
 " Talked about ! " she repeated. " How ? " 
 
 Martin astonished himself. When had he 
 lost his temper before ? But when had he seen 
 such cause ? " In the worst way," he said hotly. 
 " I know you go up there and look after that 
 baby. That 's not so bad : only foolish. But 
 it's got 'round he's going with you." 
 
 Anger rose in her. She trembled. " Why 
 not ? " she asked satirically. " Why not ? Why 
 should n't a man go with a girl ? Seems to me 
 I Ve seen you with one quite a lot lately." She 
 could have bitten her recreant tongue for the 
 admission. It gave him a key to her anger ; he 
 would use it. Martin threw back his head and 
 laughed. 
 
 " So I did," said he. " What 's sauce for the 
 goose See here, Nancy, I want you to tell 
 me something." These love matters could wait 
 for brighter times. He moved nearer and spoke 
 in an undertone, defying Aunt Lindy. " You 
 remember that day you gave me ' Pilgrim's Pro- 
 gress'?" 
 
 "Well, what of it?" 
 
 " Did n't you give me a flower, and did n't I 
 put it somewheres and promise it should stay ? " 
 
 Poor Nancy ! She was learning that the 
 
128 KING'S END 
 
 masculine heart may be pierced to the centre 
 with the significance of mementos, and yet 
 take no account of them until the day of reck- 
 oning. 
 
 "That 's neither here nor there," she said in 
 one of her mother's phrasings. Nancy always 
 reproached herself for not remaining so elegant 
 as she could wish under strong emotion. In 
 sorrow or excitement she went back to homely 
 speech, like a child fleeing to an apron. 
 
 '-' What was the flower ? " persisted Martin. 
 " What did I do with it ?" 
 
 He wanted her testimony with no suggestive 
 hint. Nancy spoke from a sense of outrage. 
 He was going with another girl. She did not 
 care for that ; but he should never come here 
 and resurrect the beginnings of dead tender- 
 ness. 
 
 " If you said you 'd put it somewhere, I sup- 
 pose you did. If you said it should stay there, 
 I suppose it has. Why don't you look ? " 
 
 Martin's hand was on the; arm of her chair. 
 He shook it a little, and she sat the straighten 
 " You need n't build up pick' fences 'round 
 you," he said roughly. " It ain't necessary to- 
 night. I ain't making love. I 'm talking busi- 
 ness. What was that flower ? " 
 
 "Depends on the season," said Nancy, with a 
 
KING'S END 129 
 
 fictitious lightness. " Let 's see, when was it ? 
 What time of the year ? " 
 
 "Why, you know," said Martin, deceived and 
 injured, " my birthday ! " 
 
 "And when was that?" 
 
 He got up and strode down the path, his hands 
 in his pockets. Then he turned about and came 
 back. He looked at her, and their eyes were 
 on a level. "Nancy," said he deliberately, 
 " you 're enough to try the patience of a saint. 
 I wonder yes, I do wonder that I can be so 
 possessed about you." 
 
 So he was still possessed ! A little flicker 
 stirred in her heart, but she put it out, with the 
 conclusion that if he did not care for the other 
 girl, it was all the worse. He had demeaned 
 himself by flirting. 
 
 "Be good," he said coaxingly, "and tell me. 
 Was it a wild flower ? " 
 
 " I 've got to go in," she told him, rising. 
 " It 's getting damp ; mother said so." She had 
 never seemed so inaccessible, her intelligence 
 now as well as her heart. 
 
 "Nancy," cried Martin, "you '11 drive me to 
 drink! Oh, stop, stop! I don't mean that. 
 It 's only a form of speech. Sometimes it don't 
 seem as if you knew once. But see here. I 
 want to know if I put the flower into the ' Pil- 
 
130 KING'S END 
 
 grim's Progress.' I think she 's been into my 
 room " 
 
 "She?" 
 
 "Alia." 
 
 " Oh ! " breathed Nancy, loftily indifferent. 
 
 But Martin knew too little of the ways of 
 women folk to stop. " She 's looked over my 
 books," he said, absorbed in theory. " She bor- 
 rowed some. Mother told me so, to make 
 trouble. And suppose I did press the flower 
 in the book, suppose I did pick up the first 
 piece of paper handy, to press it in " 
 
 Nancy could not see the road he stumbled on. 
 She only knew that he and she and Alia were 
 mixed in some sentimental complication, and 
 she would none of it. " That will do, Martin 
 Jeffries," she announced firmly, with what he 
 called her air of District Number Four. " I 'm 
 going in. If you and Alia Mixon have got into 
 some kind of a squabble, it 's nothing to me. 
 You can settle it between you." 
 
 She walked into the house, and Martin, left 
 alone in the sweet summer night, did for a 
 moment wonder what he should do with this 
 impossible creature when he got her caged 
 But that he knew he could risk. 
 
THE season was getting on. Bobolinks sang 
 for dear life, and the musical scythe cut the air 
 and then the grass, through acres of redtop and 
 clover. The women, mixing sweetened water 
 to carry afield, talked of many things ; and the 
 men, in their nooning, talked too. Martin was 
 going with Alia Mixon, so they said ; he had 
 taken her to ride twice in a fortnight. Chance 
 for some other feller up to Eliot's now. Nancy 'd 
 get a crooked stick, though, if she took up with 
 Luke Larrups. But it looked so. The Elder 
 must be showing his years, for he had no meet- 
 ings off on the mountain. He only went up there 
 to pray, alone. He dropped in to the houses 
 'round and beseeched folks to have a good time. 
 Not a word about hell fire ! And last Sunday, 
 when Eph was getting in his hay before the 
 shower, and the Elder hollered, " Six days shalt 
 thou labor," and Eph hollered back, " That 's 
 right. We ain't had but five this week ; Wednes- 
 day was rainy ! " the Elder only kind o' twin- 
 kled and went by. Well! well! he'd hiT his 
 own for a good many years now. 
 
132 KING'S END 
 
 But the Elder was far from sinking into the 
 acquiescence of age. He was taking his forty 
 days of prayer and reflection before going out 
 into a larger world to carry tidings he did not 
 as yet know how to cry aloud. The inspira- 
 tions of other men, save as he found them in 
 the Bible, were sealed to him. These new 
 thoughts coursing through his brain had 
 they ever bloomed on earth before ? He thought 
 not. He saw the vision, not of a world gone 
 wrong, but of a world eternally right from the 
 beginning. His Christ had once been the 
 medicine for a distorted birth. Now He was 
 the white image of divinity come to show the 
 way. Yet how should he tell the message, and 
 no one suffer harm ? 
 
 He was sitting on the porch reflecting, his 
 clasped hands on a knotted stick and his chin 
 upon his hands. Miss Julia sat silent within 
 the room behind, shelling peas. Nancy came 
 droopingly up the walk. She had been for one 
 of her visits to Alia Mixon, and with the same 
 dreary result. Yet Alia was kinder than be- 
 fore, as one who has good fortune on her side ; 
 and when Nancy besought her to say whether 
 there might not be another note, she only de- 
 nied having seen any other, but added encour- 
 agingly : 
 
KING'S END 133 
 
 " Maybe we '11 come across it some day." 
 
 Nancy came up to the old man with a dull 
 step, and sat down at his feet. She fanned her- 
 self with her hat, and thought, from some faint 
 wonder, how summer days had changed. Her 
 eyes mirrored a shining world, all beauty ; but 
 her heart sat coldly in the midst. Looking at 
 the Elder in the same unloving scrutiny, she 
 wondered why he should have lost his spiritual 
 power. He was no prophet now, only a gen- 
 tle, dear old man ; she longed for the prophet 
 back again. 
 
 " Elder Kent ! " she called. He did not an- 
 swer. " Elder Kent ! " Then he awoke from 
 his dream of glorified worlds. " You know I 
 said I 'd go with you ? " 
 
 He nodded, looking at her kindly. 
 
 " Should you think if mother needed me 
 it would make any difference ?" She was stum- 
 bling among platitudes because the truth could 
 not be told. What would it mean to him ? 
 
 " You shall leave father and mother/' he par- 
 aphrased raptly. But he was not thinking of 
 her. 
 
 " I said I 'd go," repeated Nancy, with heart- 
 break in her voice ; and he smiled upon her. 
 
 " Yes ; you made a vow, a vow unto the Lord. 
 You shall keep it, child. I will help you." 
 
134 KING'S END 
 
 He thought she wanted to be held in the 
 way ; and, meeting the sudden radiance of his 
 smile, she also thought it, for the moment. 
 Again she felt the constraining of his spiritual 
 power, but without an answering exaltation. 
 Now she saw only the dreariness of well-do- 
 ing. 
 
 "When are you going?" she asked him hope- 
 lessly. 
 
 " In about a week. We might start on a 
 Friday and be in Pillcott again in time for Sun- 
 day meeting. Then the factory folks are out. 
 Be of good cheer," he heartened her. " You 
 are not bargaining with God : yet it shall be 
 blessed to you. Look at my sister. She has 
 followed the cross through sun and snow, and 
 her age is full of peace." Nancy, in spite of 
 herself, glanced back at the old woman busy at 
 her work. Julia had heard him, and she was 
 laughing noiselessly, a laugh that hurts the be- 
 holder, for it has no mirth. "I will help you," 
 he repeated. " You shall not turn back." 
 
 Then Nancy knew she was to go, and the 
 fiat was just. She had vowed herself unto the 
 Lord. If the sacrifice waxed heavy, so much 
 the sweeter to make it for Him who gave up all 
 for her. Yet in her olden dreams of crosses, she 
 had never seen her mother suffering a sharper 
 
KING'S END 135 
 
 pang than that of loneliness. Now she must 
 tell her about the unfulfilled desire of both their 
 hearts, and leave her to a barren life devoid of 
 hope. 
 
 "Brother!" called Miss Julia from the sit- 
 ting-room. Her voice rang sharply, and the 
 Elder turned. "Brother, come in here," she 
 commanded, and he went in haste. Her man- 
 ner toward him was uniformly marked by the 
 deference which befits a handmaid to the 
 Lord's anointed ; now he felt the change. 
 
 "Why, Julia," he asked, bending over her 
 chair, "you sick?" 
 
 "No," she said steadily, "I'm well and in 
 my right mind. I wish as much could be said 
 of all. Brother, I don't want you should set a 
 day to go." 
 
 "Why not ? " asked the Elder wonderingly. 
 He could not remember a time when she had 
 questioned him. Her subserviency had not 
 spoiled him ; his nature was too sweet. But he 
 was accustomed to think of her as the minister- 
 ing and subordinate spirit, as a woman should 
 be. 
 
 "I can't leave King's End." Julia did not 
 look at him. Her voice sounded hard, her 
 fingers moved like magic. "I don't know when 
 I can leave." 
 
136 KING'S END 
 
 " We 've been here some time." 
 
 " I pay as we go. I 've worked like a silk- 
 worm. They beg and pray me not to work so 
 hard. We 're going to begin quilting to-day. I 
 can settle for our board. Brother, I 've got to 
 stay." If he would yield without further be- 
 seeching, so much the better. But glancing up 
 at him, she caught the abstraction of his gaze 
 bent upon far-off issues. They were her ene- 
 mies. She had a bitter sense that when religion 
 comes into the field, human rights retire to the 
 wall. He must be told. She held the pan 
 tightly with both hands, and leaned back in her 
 chair. Her gaze compelled an answering one. 
 "Brother John," said she, "Judge Hill Stu- 
 art Hill is on his deathbed." 
 
 " I know it," replied the Elder unmoved. " I 
 went over to see him, but they would n't let me 
 in." 
 
 " He 's on his deathbed," repeated Julia, as 
 if she knocked at his dull brain. " And I shan't 
 leave town until he 's gone." He looked at her 
 in a kindly questioning. A hopeless anger stirred 
 her. In her eyes, this old woe loomed colossal ; 
 yet it was invisible to him, for whom her blood 
 was paid. "Fifty odd year ago," she said 
 roughly, "I wanted to marry him. I should if 
 if I could." 
 
KING'S END 137 
 
 It is not easy to show the heart to our own 
 kin. Because her mind dwelt always on this 
 grief, she was keen to every phase of it. The 
 picturesque aspect of it flashed before her at 
 every point ; and now she saw herself making 
 that confidence blushingly, as she might have 
 done it those fifty odd years ago. The sharp 
 reality of the contrast gave her a bitter amuse- 
 ment. The Elder, recalled to the life of this 
 world, looked at her startled. Marrying was 
 not for him. Never, in his first madness, had 
 he guessed it was for her; and after that, she 
 had been living her spiritually cloistered life. 
 He laid his hand on one of hers, both gnarled 
 and yellow. 
 
 " Poor Julia," he said tenderly. " I wish it 
 had been different. I wish he could have cared." 
 
 She looked him in the face, and her seasoned 
 spirit stood unflinching. So starved had she 
 been, so silent in her chosen grave, that even 
 this poor irony was soothing to her. Why should 
 he know ? Her phantom was one of an irrevo- 
 cable past. Slowly her face relaxed. She smiled 
 upon him with a kindliness greater than his 
 own; she must always love the more because 
 she knew the face of sacrifice. " We can't have 
 everything," she said quietly. " It was some- 
 thing you never wanted, John." 
 
138 KING'S END 
 
 " No," said the Elder, settling into a chair, 
 while she went on with her work, " I never did. 
 I was called from the first. But now, when 
 I 'm almost ready to lay down my bones, I see 
 how good the earth is how sweet it is to them 
 that live as nature does." 
 
 Her hands trembled over their task. At that 
 moment, the ways of life seemed to her inscru- 
 table. Why had he come so long a path to learn 
 what any nesting bird could have told him years 
 ago ? " I 'm glad you said it," he went on. 
 " You need n't speak again ; but we '11 stay. Yes, 
 we '11 stay. I see what a hard row you Ve had 
 to hoe, tramping here and yonder when you 
 wanted a home and little things about you. 
 That would have been better. That would have 
 been nearer right. Well, I wish he'd cared." 
 He got up and walked hastily away. She un~ 
 derstood his shyness. He could hear the con- 
 fessions of men and women who cried upon God, 
 either in grief or sin, but because she was of his 
 own blood, her soul must keep its veil before 
 him. They had approached too near. Now they 
 would stand outwardly aloof for a time, though 
 that nearness could never be forgotten. So she 
 sat and marveled over all the past, and plucked 
 a little of the sweetness sure to blossom some 
 time over graves. 
 
KING'S END 139 
 
 Nancy, hearing their voices, had gone out to 
 the garden beds ; but now that Elder Kent was 
 sauntering down the road, she came in and, sit- 
 ting down, regarded Julia absently. " What a 
 lazy thing I am ! " she said. " I let you and 
 mother do it all. Give me the peas. I '11 pick 
 them over." 
 
 But Julia shook her head and tidily sifted out 
 the refuse. She worked very hard and fast 
 nowadays. It was easier. 
 
 " I suppose we must n't care about comfort, 
 even for other folks," said Nancy irrelevantly, 
 " or money. You gave up all you had, did n't 
 you ? " 
 
 Julia smiled at her in a mild, satirical fashion. 
 
 " We had quite a piece of land," she answered, 
 "and the old homestead, and some money. 
 When mother died, John sold his half and gave 
 it to the poor ; so I gave mine. I threw it in 
 because I did n't care what 'come of me, and if 
 I could have given my blood, I 'd have done it. 
 There are times when you can't go far enough." 
 
 " But God took care of you ? " asked Nancy 
 timidly. She was thinking of her mother. 
 
 Julia smiled again, and stretched out her lean 
 hands. 
 
 "That's what took care of us," she said. 
 " I Ve sewed off the ends of all my fingers. He 
 
140 KING'S END 
 
 thinks I do it because I like to help 'round. 
 I Ve knit, and braided rags. Folks save up work 
 three months ahead because old Julia 's coming. 
 You know how it is here in this house. Your 
 mother 's waited all summer to get that quilting 
 done. We '11 set it up this afternoon." She rose 
 practically and took her way to the kitchen to 
 seek another job. 
 
 But Nancy detained her with beseeching 
 hand. " The Bible says, * Take no thought,' " 
 she ventured. 
 
 Julia paused, looking down into the pan, that 
 same sad smile playing about her lips. 
 
 " I don't know anything about Bible sayings," 
 she replied. " I 've heard 'em so much they go 
 into one ear and out of t'other. They 're like 
 the wind that blows. But here are we, brother 
 and I. We turned over what we had to the poor- 
 farm. They built two new barns with it, and 
 lightning struck 'em, one after another, and 
 they burnt to the ground. And we 're old folks, 
 and perhaps we shall die under a fence, and 
 perhaps the county '11 have to support us. 
 That's all I know." She went on into the 
 kitchen, but presently she came back, animated, 
 fierce, as Nancy had seen her in the woods. 
 " But I can tell you this," said she. " You can 
 talk about calling and election all you like, but 
 
KING'S END 141 
 
 you get to be an old woman, and this is what 
 you 've learned. We 're made to live here, here 
 in this world. Time enough for another when 
 you get there. That 's all. Your mother want 
 the fire blazed?" 
 
 Still, Nancy knew she was to go. If God 
 demanded the sacrifice of her mother as well 
 as herself, should she refuse it ? 
 
 That afternoon, as they were sitting about 
 the quilting-frame, after Julia and Aunt Lindy 
 had snapped the pattern, a wonderful thing hap- 
 pened. Mrs. Jeffries, who lived at peace with 
 her neighbors but scorned to call on them, sud- 
 denly appeared in the way. She wore her best 
 bonnet of ten years agone ; for why should one 
 debarred from church by her affliction, and from 
 society by temperament, pluck the latest bloom 
 on fashion's tree ? It was a decent crape, her 
 mourning for the doctor. But the day being 
 hot, she eschewed her alpaca, and chose instead 
 a sprigged lilac of an earlier date. No one in 
 King's End would have thought of challenging 
 the consistency of that mourning. The bonnet 
 was its emblem, a part adequately standing for 
 the whole. The four women rose at sight of 
 her, and spools danced merrily on the quilt. 
 Aunt Lindy fell into a state of petrifaction, re- 
 covering herself to mutter, " Well, forever ! " 
 
I 4 2 KING'S END 
 
 and put her thimble on and off her fat and 
 freckled finger. 
 
 But Mrs. Jeffries remained unmoved. 
 
 "Don't let me discommode anybody," she re- 
 marked graciously. " I '11 set right down here 
 an' look on. Tumbler pattern, ain't it ? Ever 
 do a risin' sun ? " It was Nancy she addressed, 
 with a courteous persistency to which the girl 
 was all unused. Did she not remember those 
 years when Mrs. Jeffries had scorned her shy 
 neighborliness, and all because Martin came 
 a-courting ? But she shouted her answer, look- 
 ing, as she did so, expectantly for the trumpet. 
 
 " My ear trumpet, dear? " asked Mrs. Jeffries, 
 in honeyed sympathy. " I forgot it. All I can 
 do, I forgit suthin'. Sometimes it 's my hand- 
 kercher, an' sometimes it 's my spec's. I dunno 
 when it 's been my trumpet." 
 
 Aunt Lindy rolled her eyes. " My heavenly 
 Father ! " she ejaculated. She knew all about 
 this fashion of getting the talk to one's self. 
 
 "Awful to be tied to it, ain't it ?" shrieked 
 Susan, in shrill staccato. 
 
 " He 's up to the new house," returned Mrs. 
 Jeffries sweetly. "The carpenters are packin' 
 up to-day. 'T won't be long before it 's ready to 
 go into." She nodded at Nancy, and Nancy, 
 blushing, felt herself committed to the altar. 
 
KING'S END 143 
 
 She was beginning to smile over the irony of life. 
 Martin was giving her up just as his mother had 
 "come 'round." 
 
 " I s'pose you '11 be packin' up to go in! " cried 
 Susan, with a harmless indiscretion whiffling by 
 unheeded. 
 
 " So I tell him," said Mrs. Jeffries. " There 's 
 real pretty papers now. I said only this mornin', 
 ' I dunno 's ever I see papers prettier 'n they be 
 this year. But I don't trust you to pick 'em out. 
 Better get somebody to help you,' says I." 
 Again she smiled at Nancy. 
 
 Meantime Julia went on quilting deftly and 
 thinking her own thoughts. The sound of her 
 clicking thimble punctuated the talk. Aunt 
 Lindy opened her mouth at intervals in a futile 
 protest, and then closed it. " She 's cranky as 
 ever, for all she 's so honeyed," she muttered to 
 Julia. " What 's she got into her head now ? " 
 
 " Oh, don't, Aunt Lindy ! " exclaimed Nancy 
 hastily, but the rash one only muttered, " She 
 can't hear ! " and Mrs. Jeffries smiled impar- 
 tially. 
 
 "Well, I must be goin'," she said at last. 
 " Nancy, I meant to bring you a tumbler o' my 
 new jell. I '11 send it over. Martin '11 be 
 comin'." 
 
 Susan looked beseechingly at her daughter, 
 
144 KING'S END 
 
 to forestall denial, and Mrs. Jeffries saw. " He 's 
 been ruther busy lately," she explained, " helpin* 
 that Alia Mixon git her deeds an' things set- 
 tled. But that won't last long. Law, it 's 'most 
 over now ! " She took Nancy's hand in her 
 mitted fingers, and Nancy knew at last that 
 this was kindliness and not contrary winds. 
 And she was grateful. Some one wanted her, 
 at least. "Well," concluded Mrs. Jeffries, 
 "good-day. Come over an' see us." They 
 nodded like cheerful mandarins, and she, add- 
 ing the country formula, " So do ! so do ! " 
 stepped briskly away down the path. 
 
 The four looked at her with varying interest, 
 and Aunt Lindy from a ruthless skepticism. 
 
 "Well," asked she, "how long's it goin' to 
 last ? You pass me that thread." 
 
 " Change of heart, I guess," commented Su- 
 san, glancing sharply at her daughter. 
 
 " I don't take much stock in it myself," con- 
 tinued Aunt Lindy. 
 
 A sudden apparition darkened the window : 
 Mrs. Jeffries' crape-bound head. Susan gave 
 a little cry, " My suz ! " and Aunt Lindy, prick- 
 ing her finger, echoed the monosyllable, " Suz ! " 
 
 The guest still smiled with undiminished 
 sweetness. "Nancy," she called. "You come 
 out here a minute. I want to speak to you." 
 
KING'S END 145 
 
 Nancy obeyed, and Mrs. Jeffries led her cau- 
 tiously down to the gate, where they might talk 
 unheard. She took the girl's hand and patted 
 it. " You look real pale," said she. 
 
 " It is n't that ! " cried Nancy, from a maiden 
 shame. " I 've had things happen to me." 
 
 But the visitor, still smiling, could not hear. 
 "I want you to come down to tea some day 
 soon," she said eagerly, " when that Alia goes. 
 'T won't be long. I'll let ye know." She 
 looked in the girl's face with a strange, new 
 tenderness. " There ! there ! " said she. " It '11 
 all come out right." She went away down the 
 road nodding and smiling, and Nancy, half 
 vexed, half moved, went back to the house. 
 Her mother met her, all excitement. 
 
 " Well," she began, " I guess it 's easy to see 
 which way the wind blows there. She dressed 
 up an' come over here a-purpose to show she 's 
 on your side." 
 
 " Oh, mother ! " cried Nancy, " I should think 
 you 'd be ashamed to talk so. There are n't 
 any sides ! " 
 
 " Yes, there is, too," said Susan stubbornly. 
 " There 's yours and Alia Mixon's. He 's begun 
 to go with her, an' not to blame either, you 
 treated him so. An' his mother 's come over 
 here to call, an' show where she Stan's. An* 
 I 'm glad an' thankful, for one." 
 
146 KING'S END 
 
 " It 's no use talking so, mother," said Nancy, 
 from her depths of resolution. " I 've nothing 
 to do with such things. I told you before, I 'm 
 going to preach the gospel." 
 
 "Preach the fiddlestick!" cried Susan. 
 "One night I lay awake thinkin' about that, 
 an' the next you cut up to wash that baby, 
 an* I 'm worried to death. I wish you was like 
 other girls." 
 
 That was a loving lie ; but Nancy took it full 
 in the heart, and bled. It seemed to her that 
 only her mother's blame was needed to com- 
 plete this bitter year. She would not answer, 
 but she salved her wound by the certainty that 
 some day everybody would be sorry. She went 
 in and quilted in a thrifty martyrdom, and 
 Susan, looking at her across the frame, thought 
 achingly how entirely admirable she was. When 
 they set the supper-table she did remark dryly, 
 " You 're a good girl," and Nancy was satisfied. 
 
VI 
 
 So far the baby had played the part of an 
 unresisting puppet ; now she took matters into 
 her own hands and fell ill. With the first wail 
 of suffering not to be accounted for by wind or 
 a healthy temper, Luke's heart stopped its 
 beating, only to bound again with that terrible 
 premonitory throb born of fear for what we 
 love. In that instant he realized that she was 
 flesh of his flesh ; through loneliness, indeed, he 
 had won to a double fatherhood. He loved her, 
 warm, perverse, exacting little bit of mortal- 
 ity. His natural self-confidence had not les- 
 sened in the main, through nursery warfare, 
 though there had been days when, confronted 
 by problems that only mothers tolerate, he 
 hated her even while he loved. "God only 
 knows what I 'm goin' to do," he got in the 
 habit of muttering when he dressed her ; God 
 might be a myth, but the phrase had not lost 
 potency. Yet, one after another, those gales 
 had been weathered, and he took heart. She 
 was a trouble, that he owned to himself, but a 
 
148 KING'S END 
 
 trouble he could manage. It was not so hard 
 to take care of a baby, after all. 
 
 But that triumph was of yesterday. Now, 
 when she cried without ceasing, and her cheek 
 grew angry red, he was beside himself. Should 
 he go down into the village and ask for old 
 wives' wisdom ? Own himself beaten, and have 
 the story carried to Horner's ? Or should he 
 fly for a doctor, only to be given that odious 
 recipe of " woman's care " ? Neither, quite yet. 
 But the smithy was closed, and no one saw him 
 trundling the little cart " down along "to the 
 store. Big Joan came up and stood colossal in 
 the road. Luke saw her, and held his purpose 
 with an iron hand, lest he weaken and beg her 
 to come in. At that moment the baby was 
 asleep; so he stood by the window and an- 
 swered his besieger, glance for glance. 
 
 " Yes," she said coolly, " I 've come up to spy 
 out the land. Mis' Horner says you 've killed 
 an' eat her. Where is she ? " 
 
 "She's on my bed." 
 
 " How 's she look ? " 
 
 " Same 's any young one, I s'pose." 
 
 Joan shook her head at him, and, with an 
 incidental movement of her huge arm, tossed 
 aside a fallen branch. "When she come up 
 here," she answered, " she wa'n't same as any. 
 
KING'S END 149 
 
 She was the fattest baby ever I see: like a 
 Mullingar heifer, beef to the heels." 
 
 "You '11 wake her up," he warned her has- 
 tily, lest that betraying wail begin again. 
 "How 'sold Mis' Homer?" 
 
 " Sick. Wore out cryin'. Yeller 's a duck's 
 foot." 
 
 Luke smiled, because smiling made a part of 
 his warfare, but he was conscious of not really 
 wishing ill to anybody. If the child could live, 
 and look at him again with impish eyes, he 
 knew, in his sick soul, how little he cared about 
 the downfall of his enemies. 
 
 "Don't you want the rest of her clo'es?" 
 asked Joan. 
 
 " No ; I 'm goin' to pay, byme-by, for what 
 I Ve had. I tore that dress she had on when 
 she come, but I can make it good." 
 
 "That old sprig? Law! 'twa'n't wuth the 
 powder to blow it up. What you so slicked up 
 for, 'round the yard ? " 
 
 Luke frowned. He had cleared his moun- 
 tain lawn, and piled a brush-heap beside the 
 house. He was only waiting for a north wind 
 before burning it. Nancy should find the little 
 domain snug and trim when she chose to come. 
 He turned away without answering, and Big 
 Joan, calmly cognizant of human warfare and 
 
I 5 o KING'S END 
 
 the beauty of peace, swung down the hillside, 
 holding her skirts above mammoth ankles. 
 Many years ago Joan had been in love, and she 
 had recovered from that fever, strong to enjoy 
 the breath of life and let her neighbors draw it 
 as they chose. She would not "meddle nor 
 make : " not because, like the village, she 
 dreaded hostile spirits, but because she was 
 now only a looker-on. She still loved the baby, 
 yet not too much. Joan was sworn not to de- 
 pend on any answering kindliness. She knew 
 it would be well for Luke to sink the feud and 
 let the child come sanely home, yet it was 
 not hers to urge the crisis. 
 
 After she was gone, he had a moment of that 
 quietude begot, in trouble, from the ring of 
 friendly words. The house seemed less lonely. 
 When the baby awoke, she must be better. But 
 she was not better ; and he spent the rest of the 
 day in a fevered tendance upon her, walking up 
 and down the little room, singing. And because 
 he knew no soothing tunes, he sang, 
 
 " Jesus, lover of my soul," 
 
 and never thought of irony. Tunes were of no 
 use, save to put babies to sleep. 
 
 At nightfall she did drowse a little, and, worn 
 with anxiety, sick from lack of food, he looked 
 
KING'S END 151 
 
 upon her with an agonizing gaze. In the dusk 
 of the room she seemed unreal and pitiful, a 
 poor little changeling whimpering away from 
 life. He rushed out of the house and ran, hat- 
 less and distraught, down the hill and into the 
 Eliot yard. Nancy was on the porch alone. 
 The very sight of her seemed a deliverance, her 
 solitude a happy omen. She was brooding there 
 in the dark, her head bent low. Nancy looked 
 very sweet and real, but she felt old from the 
 perplexity of a universe gone wrong. She 
 started when Luke appeared before her, running 
 noiselessly in his old shoes, and shadowy as a 
 night bird. His face foreboded tragedy. 
 
 " Oh, Nancy ! " he gasped, "come out a min- 
 ute. I don't want anybody to hear." She hes- 
 itated, and he besought her. " Suthin' 's hap- 
 pened. Oh, Nancy, come ! " 
 
 " Is it the baby ? " she whispered, following 
 him down the path. He opened the gate for 
 her, and they stepped out into the road. He 
 turned homeward, and Nancy, with her old 
 sense of following the spirit, kept pace with him. 
 He was drawing dreadful breaths, every one a 
 sob, and her heart ached to comfort him. " Is 
 it the baby ? " she asked again. 
 
 He stopped a moment and looked up into the 
 dark sky. " She 's sick," he groaned at last. 
 
152 KING'S END 
 
 " You 've got to have somebody that knows 
 more than I," said Nancy, pausing; but he 
 started on, fearing to let her hesitate. She fol- 
 lowed him, irresolute. 
 
 " You come," he urged, looking back at her. 
 " You tell me what you think, an' we '11 see 
 what 's best. I '11 do it. Yes, I '11 do it, Nancy, 
 if you '11 only tell." 
 
 She thought his mind was with the child ; so 
 she might be frankly sorry for him. But the 
 relief of her presence was acute, and he grew 
 almost happy with the exaltation of trouble 
 under the shining of great joy. Her quietude 
 seemed like that of mother and wife in one. 
 
 " Nancy ! " he cried, " Nancy ! " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Stop a minute right here. I 've got to stop. 
 I 've been on the go two days an' three nights. 
 I guess I ain't eat much either. Wait one 
 minute." He stood trembling beside her, and 
 Nancy waited in a sweet, maternal patience. 
 He turned to her sharply, but his voice fell low : 
 " Nancy, I can't ever let you go. I 've got to 
 have you. Oh, Nancy ! Will you ? " 
 
 His need of her called loudly, and all her old 
 ascetic spirit sprang up and ranged itself with 
 him. If she wished to do God service, was not 
 this her place ? When he should believe and 
 
KING'S END 153 
 
 bow the knee, perhaps they might go together 
 and win souls. Puritan tradition was strong in 
 her ; she deified the harder task only because 
 it was too hard. 
 
 "I can't promise," she answered slowly. 
 " I Ve got to talk with the Elder. But maybe 
 I will." 
 
 She spoke innocently, foreseeing nothing ; 
 but that instant his arms were about her, and 
 she felt his breath upon her cheek. There was 
 a rustling in the field near by, but that she did 
 not hear, to be impressed as she had been lately 
 with the certainty that some one followed her 
 when she went out after dark. She heard 
 nothing and knew nothing save that Luke was 
 holding her in a hideous mastery. Without 
 conscious will of her own, she set her hands 
 against his breast and pushed him from her. 
 He fell to one side, impelled not only by her 
 touch but the moral impact of her recoil. 
 " Oh ! " cried Nancy fiercely, " I hate you ! " 
 
 A man jumped over the fence above and came 
 walking along the road. It was Martin Jeffries. 
 He passed them with a nod and went on. Had 
 he seen ? How much had he seen ? Nancy 
 felt, in the double revulsion, as if her world 
 reeled under her. It was sufficiently against 
 the course of nature to think of Martin with 
 
154 KING'S END 
 
 another girl ; it was a deeper stain that he 
 should find her also light o' love. Thrown from 
 that high altitude whence she was accustomed 
 to reprove him, indignation surged in her, but 
 only against the man at her side. 
 
 " Oh ! " she cried to Luke, " oh, how I do hate 
 you!" 
 
 He stood still, his arms hanging. Nancy 
 would have fled homeward, save that she feared 
 encountering the other man ; for sure though 
 she was that love lay dead between them, she 
 trembled back from his reproach. So she 
 waited and said again, as an excuse for stay- 
 ing, "I hate you!" 
 
 Luke moved toward her gropingly. "You 
 said maybe you would," he muttered. 
 
 His hoarse voice sickened her. 
 
 " But you need n't have come near me ! " she 
 cried. " It 's one thing to go up and take care 
 of folks ; it 's another Oh, my soul ! my soul ! " 
 She put her hands to her face and brushed 
 angrily at the splashing tears. " We won't have 
 any more mistakes about this. Don't you ever 
 come near me again. If the baby 's sick, you 
 go down and tell Big Joan. I won't step foot 
 in your house." 
 
 She turned and fled ; and Luke, weakly stum- 
 bling toward the home he feared to reach, 
 
KING'S END 155 
 
 heard only three words beating at his ears : "I 
 hate you ! I hate you ! " He dragged himself 
 up to the little house, lying dark and very still. 
 Was the baby dead? He did not care. But 
 when he had struck a light, dropping one match 
 after another from a nerveless hand, he found 
 that the baby was awake, that she was no 
 better and he did care. She had cried her- 
 self into a piteous acquiescence, and while she 
 lay blinking under the light, unlovely in her 
 misery, he felt within him the welding of human 
 ties. This little thing had never turned against 
 him. She was his. 
 
 "O God!" he groaned. "O God!" and 
 falling prone beside her, he prayed. Whatever 
 he said, it was from an unfathered heart to the 
 Tyrant above who had cunningly waited for the 
 moment of keenest need to pounce upon him. 
 He seemed to himself a beleaguered soul, 
 who, now that starvation lurked within the cit- 
 adel, must capitulate to an enemy omnipotently 
 armed. 
 
 " I '11 do anything," he kept saying, " if You '11 
 only let her be." He tried drearily to remem- 
 ber phrases he had once called cant, in case 
 they should be fleeter-winged to reach the ear 
 accustomed to them, as in time of sickness we 
 seek a formula of cure. But all he could do 
 
156 KING'S END 
 
 was to moan, " I '11 do anything, anything ! " 
 What tribute had he to offer to the Tyrant ? His 
 heathen fetish, his wicked books ! He gathered 
 them in his arms, ran with them to the yard, 
 and tossed them on his pile of brush. Never 
 mind where the wind lay. Though the house 
 went with them, they should burn. He and 
 the baby could flee out into the night, still safe, 
 if the heavenly foe could only be appeased. He 
 touched a match to his sacrificial pile, and the 
 dry brush burned. He stood by it, shaking in 
 a fanatical frenzy, and when the wind caught 
 up a shower of sparks and rained them on the 
 house, he only smiled. Let the One above 
 either burn or slay as pleased Him. God would 
 save what He chose. It was futile to combat 
 heaven. 
 
 Sally Horner, a quivering thing chained to a 
 bed of nettles, lay in her room at the foot of 
 the hill. Big Joan was out neighboring, and 
 Obed sat on the kitchen doorstone, smoking a 
 placid pipe. To the woman with an inert body 
 and seething heart, it seemed as if the powers 
 of all the world were leagued against her. Night 
 after night she had lain there in the dusk, lis- 
 tening to the hideous summer sounds, and plan- 
 ning what she would do if, like the exasperating 
 creatures about her, she had her legs. It would 
 
KING'S END 157 
 
 be easy then to scale colossal heights. She 
 made no limit to her achievements. All she 
 needed was to walk the earth again. Hurrying 
 plans, all futile, pieced themselves together in 
 her head. Obed had promised that after haying 
 he would drive over to Ryde and ask a lawyer 
 about "the rights on't;" but she knew the 
 cause of his delay. It was neither haying nor 
 any other ancient reason made to put off women 
 folks. It was because the lawyer, holding with 
 her, would spur him on to action ; and Luke, 
 offended, then might burn his barn ! So, re- 
 solved to take counsel of none, since all be- 
 trayed her, she lay praying her fiery prayers 
 and scoffing at herself for wasted words. Luke's 
 bonfire blossomed rosily, a gorgeous flower of 
 night. The horror of it held her silent. His 
 house was burning, and he might be away from 
 home. Where was the baby ? She had learned 
 her lesson well ; nobody would help her. Not 
 a word did she speak to Obed, sitting out there 
 with his pipe, mourning the family crosses. She 
 threw back the sheet and, with an old-time 
 motion of her youth, when she used to spring 
 out of bed for a day's spinning, set her feet 
 upon the floor. Where were her clothes ? 
 Some of them in the bedroom, and groping 
 there, she unearthed from a wilderness of calico 
 
158 KING'S END 
 
 the articles known as a short-gown and petti- 
 coat, and threw them on. There were no shoes, 
 but she found a pair of old rubbers, and slipped 
 them on her feet. Then, as she was, not cover- 
 ing her night-capped head, she ran noiselessly 
 into the road and up the hill. She had the 
 strength of those under divine constraining. 
 Sand sifted into her rubbers in her shuffling 
 run, and once, with a muttered exclamation that 
 was not of the sanctuary, she stopped to shake 
 them free. Through all her journey she thought 
 of nothing; not her past weakness, nor the 
 beauty of the night and her own good fortune 
 in hastening, untrammeled, through it. She 
 only knew she was in haste. 
 
 And so she came upon Luke, standing by his 
 bonfire, and still tending it with a mechanical 
 zeal. The books were burned ; but he was 
 throwing on limb after limb from his woodpile 
 near at hand. Even their ashes must be con- 
 sumed. His face glowed crimson from the 
 heat; with wild eyes and hair disordered, he 
 seemed beside himself, a demon raking the 
 embers hither and thither with a green sapling, 
 and ever feeding the flame. To Sally Horner's 
 one glance, cast upon him in passing, he loomed 
 malignant, though no more terrible than her 
 mind had ever pictured him. She flitted past 
 
KING'S END 159 
 
 into the house, and he, recovering from the 
 sight of her night-capped head, followed. When 
 he entered, she was on the floor by the lounge, 
 where the child lay fretting. Her soft old cheek 
 was against the baby's foot. She seemed to be 
 devouring it with love. Luke smiled bitterly, 
 and told himself that this was the answer he 
 might have expected. God had sent his enemy. 
 Yet when he saw how her hands dwelt upon 
 the baby without disturbing it, when he guessed 
 how the mother-hunger had ached in her since 
 she was a young wife and her own child fed at 
 her breast, he fell back a step and forbore to 
 sneer. He loved the child; but here was a 
 love he could not weigh, because it struck root 
 in primal being. This was the little bit of 
 earth that held her to the earth. 
 
 His step was noiseless, but she felt him near. 
 When she could withdraw her hungry eyes from 
 the untidy little creature, she glanced up at him, 
 quite incidentally, as if already sure of victory. 
 " Is ary one through ? " she asked. 
 
 " One what ? " inquired the uninitiated male. 
 
 She inserted her finger gently between the 
 child's lips, and the baby mumbled at it. 
 
 "Poor little creatur' ! " purred Mrs. Horner. 
 " Granny's girl ! Poor little creatur' ! All 
 swelled up, ain't they, darlin' ? Ache like all 
 
160 KING'S END 
 
 possessed ! What 'd you give her to cut 'em 
 on ? " she asked briskly, addressing Luke. 
 
 "Cut what?" 
 
 " Did n't you give her anything ? Not a ring, 
 nor even an old door knob ? My soul ! I 
 should n't think men folks knew enough to go in 
 when it rains. I wonder they open their mouths 
 for feedin* time." 
 
 The bucket in the well went down with a 
 prolonged rumble, but neither of them noticed. 
 
 " Here 's the ladder ! " called a man without, 
 and Big Joan responded : 
 
 " Up with ye ! You 're the lightest. I '11 pass 
 the pails." 
 
 But the two within were absorbed in their 
 nursery talk ; they had forgotten to be enemies. 
 
 " She 's been awful sick," volunteered Luke, 
 noting with a sacrificial pang how the child 
 turned to the tenderer touch. 
 
 " She 's awful sick now. Ain't you done 
 nothin' for her ? " 
 
 " I went over to the herb-woman." He spoke 
 weakly, knowing the fact was vulnerable. " She 
 told me to steep some catnip." 
 
 " Catnip ! My soul ! Did you tell her she 
 was teethin' ? " 
 
 " I did n't know it," confessed Luke, from a 
 humility never induced in him by the powers 
 above. 
 
KING'S END 161 
 
 " Luke Evans, you better come out an' bring 
 the baby ! " called Big Joan at the door. " Your 
 house's afire. The shingles are ketched. We're 
 doin' all we can to save it." 
 
 Mrs. Horner gathered the baby into her arms, 
 and ran out across the road. There she sat 
 down upon a mossy bank, and held the child 
 delightedly. Luke followed, with no sort of in- 
 terest, to see Elder Kent standing on the roof, 
 while Joan passed him pails of water in a mar- 
 velous succession. 
 
 " Come along down! " called the householder. 
 " Let the damn thing go ! " 
 
 "House an' barn?" inquired Joan, letting 
 down the bucket with a clang. She loved the 
 occasion. It fitted her great strength. 
 
 "The whole business. Let her burn." 
 
 Elder Kent opened his lips and began singing, 
 because he could work faster, as the rhythm-led 
 sailor pulls at the ropes : 
 
 " How lost was my condition ! " 
 
 and Big Joan sang too, with a love of sound if 
 not significance. Her cross was at her throat, 
 and good St. Joseph in her pocket ; but she 
 could "join in," with any heretic. The world 
 was very big to Joan. She caught a tin milk- 
 pail from the stake, and forced it into Luke's 
 unwilling hand. 
 
1 62 KING'S END 
 
 "Here," said she dryly, "you take this. 
 T'other 's heftier." She gave him a little ad- 
 monitory push toward the well ; and because 
 she would not yield, he had to. Only to rid him- 
 self of human things, he fought the fire as 
 madly as he had builded it, his face already dis- 
 torted with a pain not yet quite recognized. 
 When only the smell of smoke lingered in the 
 hot air, Joan turned down her sleeves and wiped 
 her face with her apron, dripping wet. She 
 crossed the road to old Mrs. Horner, sitting 
 there lulling the child in a happy dream. 
 
 " How 'd you get out o' bed ? " she asked. 
 
 Sally Horner started. Bed? nothing could 
 be further from her thoughts. She was in Para- 
 dise. Asked how she came there, she felt a 
 tremor, like any other way-worn soul. " I guess 
 I '11 be gettin' down along home," she said 
 faintly. "Joan, I dunno's I can git there." 
 
 It was the moment of a lifetime. Joan saw 
 it, and chose her course. " Lemme carry the 
 baby into the house," said she indifferently. 
 "Then I '11 help ye down the hill." 
 
 Old Mrs. Horner straightened. " Leave the 
 baby ? " cried she. " I 'd ruther die in my 
 tracks ! " Her eyes followed Luke, bearing the 
 ladder to the barn. She rose and stumbled, but 
 gathered herself again. " She 's terrible heavy," 
 
KING'S END 163 
 
 she murmured, " but I can lug her. Quick ! 
 'fore he turns the corner ! " She started down 
 the hill, Joan following and watching her with 
 keen intelligence. 
 
 Joan felt quite safe in the plenitude of her 
 strength and quickness. She had no mind that 
 either the child or the old woman should fall. 
 She was pleased, too, with her own forbearance 
 in merely following on when, coming homeward 
 earlier, she had seen Mrs. Horner scudding out 
 into the night. It showed her anew that mortal 
 kind was meant to work out its own salvation. 
 
 Safely away from the house, in the shade of 
 the old white pine, Sally Horner paused and 
 then sank, not weakly, but with a husbanded 
 strength, upon the rock below. 
 
 " Joan," said she, " you go back an' have a 
 word with him. He 's treated me decent enough 
 to-night, an' I s'pose he does set by the little 
 creatur'. You go an' ask him tell him I 've 
 took her. Ask him " She choked upon the 
 words. A moral decency constrained her. 
 What if he refused ? Should her claim be 
 yielded ? She did not know. The touch of that 
 small, hot hand was stronger upon her than 
 fear of law or gospel. Joan was three steps 
 away when she called again : " Joan, tell him 
 tell him he can come an' see her. He '1! 
 
164 KING'S END 
 
 be welcome." It was a concession, but little 
 enough to buy her treasure back. More than 
 that, she had learned through bitter want what 
 loss might mean to an unfriended soul. 
 
 Joan went into the cottage where the two 
 men sat, on either side the fireplace, by the 
 light of a single candle. Luke's head hung 
 low, and he gazed at the uneven bricks. He 
 remembered dimly how he had swept the hearth 
 that morning lest Nancy should come. The 
 dust was there already. So soon was work un- 
 done. The Elder seemed like a silent watcher 
 beside the sick or dead. Luke glanced up, his 
 eyes all lustreless. 
 
 "What is it now?" he asked. 
 
 Joan hesitated, filled with a sudden mercy. 
 She could not see, from her own detached place 
 in life, how human things should surfer so, in 
 traps of their own contriving. She pitied them, 
 as we pity a stumbling child. They seemed to 
 her like the midges circling now about the light. 
 Still, her eye on one silly moth, she swept him 
 away, and saved him, for the moment, from the 
 flames. 
 
 " She wants you should come down an* see 
 the baby, whenever you feel to." 
 
 He gave a little gesture of dismissal, with a 
 trembling hand. " My pipe 's out," he told her. 
 " I Ve got no more to say." 
 
KING'S END 165 
 
 Joan knew too much to probe him further. 
 She turned away, beckoning the Elder after 
 her. "Ask him to make you some tea," she 
 whispered at the door. " Make him drink 
 some. He's crazed." She hurried into the 
 night, and Elder Kent, as simply as a child, 
 went back and asked for food. He was beat 
 out, he said, with a recurrence to homely speech, 
 always a custom when common sorrows cried 
 for help. Might he have some tea ? 
 
 Luke went heavily about making it, and when 
 the table was spread, fell to and ate. He fed 
 like a man whose mind is elsewhere, but in 
 whom the mechanism of life, once started, goes 
 clicking on, in spite of him. Then he drowsed 
 a little, and the Elder bade him lie down a spell. 
 But at the mention of quiescence, Luke was 
 all alive again ; and it was only when he had 
 dulled himself anew with napping, that the 
 Elder rose and led him unresisting to his bed. 
 There he slept till day. 
 
 Out of that slumber he awoke with the sense 
 of premonition attending a struggle not yet 
 ended. The nerves came blindly back to feel- 
 ing, like slaves who remembered the scourge of 
 yesterday. On such mornings, the senses crawl 
 forth miserably; they are passive before the 
 gods. " What do you ask of me to-day ? " they 
 
i66 KING'S END 
 
 beseech quiveringly. " Yet do not tell me. Let 
 it be laid on ounce by ounce. Let me not re- 
 cognize nor anticipate." So Luke came alive. 
 At first he lay there, refusing conscious pain. 
 Then his eyes grew hot with tears. He was 
 alone : doubly so, bereft of the warm little 
 presence he had grown to love, bereft of the 
 girl whose memory lingered yet about the 
 place. He turned on his pillow, and sobbed 
 despairingly. 
 
 " How lost was my condition ! " 
 
 rose in a mellow triumph from the room be- 
 yond. The Elder was stepping about, getting 
 breakfast, and because he was unused to ser- 
 vice, droll deeds were doing there. Luke heard 
 him, and rubbed his eyes. For the moment, 
 he knew what it is to be a child ; only the Elder 
 was his father, not the tyrant God. Stumbling 
 and shamefaced, he went into the kitchen, and 
 found the old man watching the fire in a serene 
 content. "I have found the eggs," said Elder 
 Kent, mildly triumphant, "and some coffee. 
 But I should hardly ventur' to cook anything." 
 Luke plunged his face into cold water, and 
 felt the life of the body surging up to meet the 
 taint of death within the soul. He cooked the 
 breakfast, with a careful thrift, and they ate 
 
KING'S END 167 
 
 together. Then the Elder repeated the Lord's 
 Prayer alone, to the Amen ; but Luke could 
 only stare vacantly out through the open door 
 at the fringing woods and feel his pain, as the 
 brute feels it, unhealed by memory or hope. 
 
 " Now I '11 be off," said the Elder. " I 'm 
 going to cut across lots over to Pillcott, and see 
 when they plan to have camp-meeting. But I 
 shall come back." He went swiftly, like those 
 who feel themselves to be divinely sent. On 
 the pasture upland, hearing the sound of foot- 
 steps, he turned about. Luke, afraid of soli- 
 tude, was following on behind. He could not be 
 alone. 
 
 Keenly as the Elder seemed to feel all sorrow, 
 perhaps he never quite understood the human 
 heart, save when it longed for righteousness. 
 To him, the rending of mortal ties meant only 
 an alarum sounded to strengthen heavenly ones. 
 Just what doglike devotion had sprung up in 
 Luke's heart, he did not know. But he did guess 
 that here was one who, whether consciously or 
 not, thirsted after the living God ; and he held 
 out a hand in welcome. But Luke hardly 
 looked at him. He came striding on in silence, 
 humiliated by his need, yet not defying it ; and 
 all day they walked together. When, at Pill- 
 cott, the Elder talked to one or another, Luke 
 
168 KING'S END 
 
 stood by, not listening. He bought bread and 
 cheese, and they went back into the woods and 
 sat all the afternoon long by a little dark spring 
 on the edge of the pines. The Elder's mind 
 was on his mission, what he had learned, and 
 what he should show to others ; but Luke sat 
 in a deadly dullness. To be near this human 
 thing, so warm and yet aloof and un exacting, 
 was like a soft air upon the face. It fanned a 
 little, though it could not heal. 
 
 On their homeward track, they came to a 
 parting of the ways, and Luke took the one 
 leading by a roundabout course straight into 
 the village. Elder Kent followed him without 
 question, and in the late afternoon they walked 
 up the road toward Sally Homer's. The Elder 
 tramped steadily, his head bent and a little to 
 one side, as if thought were too heavy for him ; 
 Luke was the one to follow now. They seemed 
 to have no connection in their journeying. So 
 lax was the Elder's hold on human affairs that 
 he forgot what significance the Horner place 
 must have for his companion, and Luke, keep- 
 ing an eye on his plodding form, wondered 
 if he would go in to inquire whether the baby 
 were alive or dead. The windows stood wide 
 open to the summer breeze, and seeing that, 
 the stricture on his throat gave way a little. 
 
KING'S END 169 
 
 If the child were dead, they would have closed 
 the blinds and turned the house into one of 
 mourning. 
 
 A rabble of men and boys appeared in the 
 mown field across the way, striking out toward 
 the road. They talked excitedly, and mopped 
 their streaming faces. Luke stopped opposite 
 the Horner gate, awaiting them ; to his irritated 
 anticipation, it seemed now as if any village stir 
 meant further harrying. He remembered the 
 gang sent up to rescue the child and, morbidly 
 keen to any touch of omen, wondered if this, too, 
 could have something to do with him. The 
 Elder, missing the sound of his footfall, paused 
 also, and those King's End sons and fathers, 
 coming on with heavy tread, strode over the 
 wall. Their boots were caked with mud, and 
 Eph Cummings carried a great coil of rope, 
 looped loosely. They nodded, with little grunts 
 of recognition, but though the usual " How-are- 
 ye's ? " were lacking, it was not from harsh in- 
 tention. They remembered that, Luke had 
 been concerned in an emotional scene, the night 
 before, and, knowing their own hatred of town 
 talk, were shamefaced for him. But Obed 
 dropped silently out of the crowd, and slipped 
 in at his own gate. He hurried into the house 
 and shut the door, without a glance behind. 
 
i;o KING'S END 
 
 Luke understood. Obed was going in to hide 
 the child, or at least to put his women folk on 
 guard. So the fools about him, having given 
 him a bad name, were bent on his deserving it ! 
 The men dispersed, all but Eph Cummings, who, 
 when social cogs turned rusty, could never, for 
 his life, withhold the oil of pottering talk. 
 
 " Be'n down to the old shaker-bed to haul out 
 Kane's wild heifer ! " he explained amicably. 
 " In up to the belly. Hardly stren'th to loo. 
 Thin as a rail, though, jumpin' fences, or we 
 never could ha' stirred her without tackle an* 
 falls. Too beat out to be driv' home. Kane 
 hoppled her there. Expect the Elder '11 be 
 down exhortin' of her arter dark." 
 
 The Elder smiled a little and went on. But 
 Eph nudged Luke and gave him the wink of 
 comradeship. " Say," he volunteered, in genial 
 acceptance of confirming testimony, "d'ye 
 know Sally Horner 's up an' round ? " 
 
 Luke nodded. He was hungry for news. 
 
 "There's Joan!" cried Eph joyously. He 
 saw no reason why curiosity should go unslaked. 
 " Now you up an' ask her. She 's got suthin* 
 to say." 
 
 But Luke stood still, sick at that moment 
 from the clarity of afternoon sunlight ; it left 
 no dark to hide in. He looked down into the 
 
KING'S END 171 
 
 dusty road, and absently shuffled his feet, as a 
 boy does when the world confronts him. Joan 
 paused at the gate. The sun, lying on her red 
 hair, her shrewd face, and arms bare to the 
 elbow, turned her into a messenger of good ; 
 but Luke, even if he had looked at her, had no 
 heart for wise interpreting. 
 
 " Come along in an' see her," she called, and 
 Eph gave him a seconding push. Luke shook 
 his head. Hysterical passion was rising in him ; 
 he knew how much more likely it was that he 
 should be bidden to look upon the child dead 
 than living. " They called the new doctor, the 
 one over to Ryde," said Joan satirically. " A 
 little white stuff in two tumblers, an' a clean 
 spoon for each ! It 's like the water o* Glaskie, 
 it neither smells nor tastes. But the fever's 
 gone down ; I '11 say that for him." 
 
 Luke gained a momentary courage. His dry 
 lips moved. 
 
 " Then she ain't " he faltered. 
 
 "Ain't what?" 
 
 " I thought she must be dead." 
 
 " You thought ! " Joan raged, in scornful 
 kindliness. " You 'd think anything to be on 
 t'other side o' the fence. She looks more or 
 less like a baby now. If I 'd had my way, I 'd 
 set her up for a scarecrow, the style you fixed her. 
 
172 KING'S END 
 
 Come in an' look at her, an 1 drink down a cup 
 o' tea. Mis' Horner 's so tickled she 'd break 
 bread with the devil." 
 
 But Luke set forth at a quickened step up 
 the hill. He passed the Elder with averted 
 face, set on betraying none of that fierce joy 
 within him. "Only let her be!" he kept 
 whispering to the unknown God ; and so he 
 hurried on to his shelter, as remote from all that 
 homely life below as an eagle's nest in the top 
 of the 'great pine and as lonesome. 
 
VII 
 
 AFTER tragedy is well over, the real agony 
 begins. When the desolate house looks about 
 on its own nakedness, then is the true inventory 
 of loss. Luke sat that night in his little kitchen 
 and, staring at the moonlight on the floor, shud- 
 dered at life as it was and as it would be to-mor- 
 row. He saw only one thing, like a face filling 
 up the darkness. His lips had no name for it, 
 but the defeated soul called it destiny. This 
 house had seen his beginning: two muddy 
 streams of hateful ancestry tending together 
 and mingling in one blacker still. His mother, 
 a crystal current, had been swept on unnoted, 
 and his father, shamelessly acquiescent, reflected 
 all the vices of squalid forbears. Luke lifted 
 his hands, in their fancied fetters, and would have 
 clenched them in the face of the Power that first 
 created and then tortured him. But he dared 
 not. The Power might slay the child. At times 
 he remembered Nancy, though not to mourn for 
 her as a man in health mourns his defeated 
 hopes. The cruelty of her repulse had ranged 
 
174 KING'S END 
 
 her with his enemies. Her refusal was not 
 what any man has a right to expect from the 
 woman he loves in vain, and he felt still the 
 lashing of her inherited scorn. He knew, as 
 he sat there, that the moment of her recoil 
 from him was the one when he had given up. 
 He had made a fair trial of life, and it was not 
 for him. Here he was, sober, hard-working, 
 and yet a Larrups. Because he had been 
 neither rich nor religious, and most of all because 
 his stream was muddied at the fount, he must 
 serve and get no wages out of life. His tortu- 
 ous way led back to the mysterious wrong of 
 having himself been born ; for he knew these 
 country folk were not impressed by money, nor 
 greatly through church membership. Still they 
 did prize honest stock. So the old sore festered 
 in him, and again he told himself that life was 
 done. 
 
 The room darkened like an omen, as the moon 
 went under a cloud, and he sickened at its lone- 
 liness. So used was he to the child's light 
 movements, that he began to listen for breath- 
 ing in the dark. Walls were hateful to him. 
 He took his gun from the corner, and crept out 
 into the night. Yet he was not alone. All the 
 phantoms of the place pursued him. While he 
 stood outside, the heavens brightened. It was 
 
KING'S END 175 
 
 one of those nights when clouds fleet over a 
 clear sky, and alternately obscure the moon or 
 are dyed, by her witchery, rainbow-ringed. He 
 paused on his way downhill and looked back 
 at the little house : for something told him he 
 should never see it again. His farewell to it 
 was included in the greater farewell to life itself. 
 Then, heavy under his load of failure, he walked 
 on, his gun over his shoulder and his brain per- 
 plexed. He meant to seek the " open door," so 
 hospitable to souls distraught, but he was clumsy 
 about the way. These country people despised 
 the man who takes his own life ; almost as well, 
 thought they, to be a murderer as a suicide. He 
 was resolved to die by his own hand, yet he 
 wanted to die cleverly, as if by accident. For 
 there was the child. If she lived, no one should 
 point and whisper, " Her mother " the voice 
 would fall there. " Her father killed himself." 
 So he held his old fowling-piece closer and went 
 on, confused. 
 
 The Eliot house lay dark. One glance told 
 him that, and he walked by without turning his 
 head again. He thought there was a murmur 
 of women's voices from the steps, and he strode 
 the faster. If he should meet Nancy now, he 
 could not look at her. If she held out her hand, 
 he would not speak. She was a part of the 
 
176 KING'S END 
 
 world where he ate and slept, but where he had 
 no right of holding. At the Homers' he walked 
 softly, and scanned the windows with an anxious 
 care. The two front rooms were dark, and a 
 little glimmer of light diffused itself delicately 
 from the back of the house, where a kitchen 
 lamp was burning. Luke caught himself shak- 
 ing all over as he stood there, till a certain note 
 arose and pierced him with delight : the baby's 
 crying. It sounded far less piteous ; it was 
 even masterful. 
 
 " Little devil ! " he muttered admiringly. 
 
 The kitchen lamp came into the sitting-room, 
 and with it old Mrs. Horner's head silhouetted 
 against the light. She bent over the cradle, 
 and he could see her swaying it back and forth. 
 " Joan, you come in here an' help lift her up," 
 he heard her call. 
 
 Joan, hanging her milkpails on the stakes, 
 chose, instead, to walk around the side of the 
 house, and down the path to the road. " Stop 
 where ye be ! " she ordered, as Luke was moving 
 on. " News from the front." He waited, and 
 Joan came up to him, pulling down her sleeves. 
 " Glory be to God! the boot 's on t'other 
 foot," said she. " I Ve hung round the moun- 
 tain long enough, listenin' for that little pint o' 
 cider, an' now you can take your turn. Livin' 's 
 
KING'S END 177 
 
 nothin' but a teeter-board : first you go up and 
 then it 's me. Comin' in ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " I s'pose not. If anybody told ye not to, 
 you 'd break in an' take root. Oh, she holds 
 her own ! She 's got too much father an' grand- 
 mother in her to peter out. But it 's the great- 
 est go-round for a teethin' this county ever see. 
 It '11 be in the almanac another year. What 
 you got that gun for ? " 
 
 This, he knew, was his chance for some plaus- 
 ible story which should account for him after- 
 wards. But he did not know what story. " I 
 thought I 'd take it along," he said lamely. " I 
 thought maybe I 'd go on the tramp." 
 
 " Tramp ! you tramp home an' go to bed, an* 
 open the shop to-morrer. Law ! I should think 
 life was a mile long, the way you squander it, 
 runnin' 'round with your head cut off. Tramp ! 
 which way you goin' ? " 
 
 Chiefly because the words were in his mem- 
 ory, he answered, "Over t' the shaker-bed. 
 Likely 's not that heifer's loose, by now." 
 
 The heifer was not Joan's business, nor, since 
 he rejected her counsel, was he. So she gave a 
 glance at the moon, quite as if she were on equal 
 terms with it, remarked, " Nice, ain't it ? Light 
 as cork ! " and returned to the house. 
 
i;8 KING'S END 
 
 Luke, only because chance had marked out 
 his way, wandered through the field to the low- 
 land pasture, significant from the bog with its 
 treacherous acre where more than one beast had 
 been snared. King's End said the shaker-bed 
 had no bottom. For the accepted chronicle of 
 the place, you might ask any boy old enough to 
 talk and swap stories. An inherited set of le- 
 gends followed it to the centre of the earth, where 
 victims lay, all neatly packed in one big pyramid. 
 Now it was drawing Luke, not only by its eeri- 
 ness, but from the wealth of that dark legendry. 
 If he should never be seen again, Joan would 
 tell how he went down to the shaker-bed to 
 look after the heifer. And he need not be found ; 
 for, faithful to his traditions, he knew the bog 
 had no bottom, as indubitably as he knew it 
 twenty years before. To be dragged under, by 
 that invisible force, was still a horror beyond his 
 tolerating ; but, with his arms free, he could use 
 his old shooting-piece, even though the slimy 
 trap had him by the feet and then the earth, 
 in enemy to the last, would clutch him to his 
 burial. The theory worked quite simply : so 
 simply that it read like a story about some one 
 else whose griefs were long since over. 
 
 He climbed the fence, and broke through the 
 skirting alders and the lighter growth of the 
 
KING'S END 179 
 
 lowland. Then suddenly he seemed to fall into 
 a dream. For a voice called him by his name. 
 
 " Luke i " it sounded, and again, " Luke ! 
 Luke ! " 
 
 He stood still, and the brush about him trem- 
 bled to rest where he had stirred it. The moon 
 sailed into a space of blue, and her revealing was 
 more terrible than the dark. " Luke ! " rang the 
 voice. " Luke ! " The tremor of fear crawled 
 over him, spine and scalp, and moved the hair 
 upon his head. He heard, in his own mind, like 
 an attendant echo, the words from an old story: 
 " Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me ? " They 
 made him aware that, not for the child but for 
 himself, he feared the unknown God. 
 
 A long, sharp bellow cut the air, and he al- 
 most cried out with it, though next moment 
 he swore at himself and broke into shamefaced 
 laughter. It was the heifer, calling in pain or 
 fright ; and upon her cry came the voice again, 
 " Luke ! Luke Evans ! " Now he breathed 
 again, and for a childish reason ; for some inner 
 sense told him that though God might summon 
 him as Luke, surnames were unknown in the 
 court of heaven. 
 
 " Oh, you everlastin' old fool ! " he yelled in 
 answer, and started on a run. His death -hunger 
 lay behind, cast by as the swimmer throws cff 
 
i8o KING'S END 
 
 weight. The Elder was in trouble. The slope 
 grew thick with rankest grass, and plunging 
 down, Luke halted at the bog. The preacher 
 was singing now, 
 
 " All hail the power of Jesus' name," 
 
 but the words came huskily, and Luke knew 
 why. He saw, in fancy, the mud up to the old 
 man's chin. 
 
 " Hush up ! " he cried. " Stop that, an' tell 
 me where you be ! " 
 
 But the Elder adjured him to "Bring forth 
 the royal diadem," and then, after a triumphant 
 slur on " Lord of all," replied cheerfully, " In 
 the shaker-bed." 
 
 " Which side ? This damn moon won't be out 
 for a fortnight." 
 
 The shuddering bellow rent the air again, and 
 Luke, running at random, put his hand on the 
 heifer's flank. He felt her over, while she pulled 
 away from him, unable to free herself. He 
 made out that she had broken from her tether 
 on the higher ground above, and, with her head 
 tied down as they had left her, had either fallen 
 or plunged here, and caught herself again in a 
 trap of her own making ; for she had trailed the 
 rope into a group of alders, and now her head 
 was close to the ground, where she snorted 
 
KING'S END 181 
 
 in misery. He tugged at the rope and sawed 
 at it with his old jackknife; again he pulled 
 desperately, and when it parted, she stood 
 silent an instant over incredible liberty, and 
 then, bounding up the slope, went breaking and 
 crackling through the woods. And he had the 
 rope, though threaded yet through the alders. 
 
 " Where 'd you get in ? " he called, listening 
 as he worked. " Horner side ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " How deep ? " 
 
 " I don't rightly know." 
 
 Luke had a length of rope, and coiled it over 
 his arm. " Why under heavens can't you speak 
 up ? " he cried. " What do you want to mumble 
 so for?" 
 
 "I can't help it. My mouth's 'most in the 
 mud." 
 
 "Lord God! you ain't in up to there? I 
 can't save ye." 
 
 " My body 's free," said the Elder encourag- 
 ingly. " It 's my legs and arms. I went out on 
 the boards." 
 
 " What boards ? " 
 
 " Them they had to get out to the heifer with. 
 I made a misstep. I came down on all fours." 
 
 Meantime Luke was trying to locate him 
 from his vantage of firmer ground, and the moon 
 
1 82 KING'S END 
 
 stayed hidden. But the boards taught him 
 something, and he began walking back and 
 forth, skirting the bog, until his foot struck a 
 fence rail. That was the beginning of the track 
 laid that afternoon. He tried it, feeling his 
 way ; where it ended he found another, wider 
 still. " Speak again, can't ye ? " he called. 
 
 "Here." 
 
 " You follered the boards ? " 
 
 "Yes, and fell off'n the end, either where 
 they stop or where they went under." * 
 
 Luke set his steps more delicately. The 
 boards had sunken, but so far, he could feel 
 them below the mud. 
 
 "Where be ye?" 
 '"Here." 
 
 The voice was at his feet, so near that he 
 reached over, groping in the darkness ; but he 
 touched only the hateful grass of the bog. Then 
 the moon ran out into an ample field of blue, 
 and he saw the Elder, his body and the back of 
 his white head. The revulsion was too much. 
 "You ain't in the shaker-bed at all, blast ye ! " 
 cried he. 
 
 " I can't say about that," remarked the Elder 
 into the grass. "This seems to answer the 
 same purpose." 
 
 Luke stepped into the mud and felt its 
 
KING'S END 183 
 
 treachery. It did answer the same purpose. 
 But meantime he set both hands under the old 
 man's armpits and lifted. The mud sucked 
 greedily in leaving, and the captive stood up- 
 right. But Luke himself was sinking. His 
 teeth were set ; the blood surged into his head 
 and seemed to settle there. One after the 
 other he dragged out his imprisoned feet, and 
 floundered back on the boards to rest. The 
 Elder, caked in mud, stood still, as if he chose 
 that footing. 
 
 " I believe I am going down very fast," he 
 announced neutrally. " But it is a great privi- 
 lege to go feet foremost." 
 
 Luke went back a couple of yards, and ripped 
 up the boards that were not entirely hidden. 
 He laid them down before the old man, in a 
 rude flooring, and tossed him the rope. 
 
 " Put it under your arms," he ordered. " Cast 
 me the ends. I can't git no sort o' purchase 
 on ye, but I '11 pull straight ahead. You let 
 your hands come down on them boards, an' 
 crawl like the devil. Push down an' lift your- 
 self out'n the mud. I '11 pull." 
 
 For a time they strove uselessly. There was 
 a moment when Luke saw that the present 
 unclassified trap was too much for him. He 
 groaned, and at that instant the Elder, his 
 
184 KING'S END 
 
 elbows on the boards, first seemed to move. 
 Luke ventured a step, trying the rails, and be- 
 cause they still gave a foothold he put his hands 
 under the old man's arms, and lifted. Desper- 
 ate, panting, both of them, he pulled the Elder 
 to his feet, and turned him toward dry land. 
 
 "Git along ahead," he gasped. "These 
 boards won't bear two. Gorry ! I should think 
 they took down all the fencin'-stuff from here 
 to Ryde. Lucky for you ! Git along." 
 
 Once the Elder fell, but Luke, without wait- 
 ing for him to recover himself, set him on his 
 feet again, and, putting a muddy arm about 
 him, urged him on. They struck the damp, 
 coarse grass and climbed the little slope. The 
 Elder was weighted with mud. Even his back 
 carried its own particular plaster, where Luke 
 had touched him. He tried to shake himself, 
 and stooped for a futile scraping with a grimy 
 hand; but Luke only picked up his gun and 
 pushed him onward. They climbed the fence 
 and crossed the field without a word. Opposite 
 the Horner house, Luke stopped again to listen 
 for that sound to which his ears were ever now 
 attuned. Darkness and silence : the baby was 
 asleep. At the Eliots', Elder Kent stretched 
 out his hand and began solemnly, " Under 
 God " But Luke allowed him no delay. 
 
KING'S END 185 
 
 "Come along up to my place," he com- 
 manded. " I '11 hoe you off while you hoe me. 
 You don't want to go stirrin' women folks up 
 this time o' night." 
 
 The Elder, with a thought of Julia, new to 
 him since he had begun to think of her at all, 
 agreed quite gratefully, and they plodded along 
 the road, all a-light now under the moon. Once 
 on the mountain slope, in the shadow of a pine 
 Luke was never after able to pass without think- 
 ing of this moment, he began to laugh. He 
 laughed with all the accumulated hysteria of his 
 former grief. Tears coursed down his muddy 
 face and washed pale channels there. He hooted 
 grotesquely, and the echoes made reply. The 
 Elder paid little heed to that interlude, for 
 he was thinking his own thoughts, and trea- 
 suring very sacredly some truths he thought 
 God had shown him in the bog. 
 
 " Oh, you old Nebuchadnezzar! " cried Luke, 
 between yells of reminiscence. " Down on all 
 fours, eatin' grass ! What ye there for, any- 
 way?" 
 
 " They said the heifer was there, hoppled. I 
 thought maybe she 'd come to some harm, and 
 then I heard her loo. Seemed to me I saw her 
 in the bog. There was a black thing out that 
 way." 
 
186 KING'S END 
 
 " That 's the old stump the boys hove in 
 there, three years ago, to show where the bog 
 begun. So you follered out the boards, an' 
 tumbled off, an' the heifer looin' on dry land 
 behind ye ! Lucky you floundered 'round face 
 to afore ye sunk. That 's the only way I could 
 ha' fetched it." 
 
 He set down his gun at the door, and went in 
 to strike a light. The Elder, from prudential 
 reasons, remained outside, looking at the bright 
 heaven, his lips still moving. Luke was build- 
 ing a fire. He set on the wash-boiler, well 
 filled, and when the water was warm, poured 
 it into a tub outside the door, and bade the 
 Elder take his boots off and step in. With the 
 instinct of a primitive yet thorough house- 
 keeper, he thought it simpler to clean man and 
 clothes together. The old man stood quite 
 patiently a-soak, and Luke attacked him with a 
 broom. No horse was ever gentler under cur- 
 rying. 
 
 " It 's a good thing we don't always have our 
 way," remarked the Elder. " Brother Winthrop, 
 over to Ryde, gave me a new black suit, and 
 very well fitting, too. I told Julia it should go 
 into the missionary box, but nothing would do 
 but I must leave it at Susan Eliot's till we came 
 back some day. She said I should need it in 
 time, and lo ye ! I do." 
 
KING'S END 187 
 
 They heated more water, and the Elder dis- 
 carded the mud-stained garments and left them 
 to dry, while he took a bath and put on Luke's 
 overalls and jumper. Then Evans tubbed in 
 his turn, and in the middle of the night, steam- 
 ing hot and clean, they sat down outside the 
 door, while one smoked a pipe and the other 
 owned that tobacco had a goodly flavor. Luke 
 went into the house for an extra T D, but the 
 Elder shook his head, though he fingered the 
 smooth bowl abstractedly. It had a pleasant 
 feel. Coffee was boiling on the stove, and the 
 fragrance floated out to them. Luke took his 
 pipe from his lips and turned to the old man. 
 
 " When you was stuck there, you called me," 
 said he. " What made you call my name ? " 
 
 The Elder considered. " I don't know," he 
 said, at last. " I thought of Julia. I knew she 'd 
 be put about. Then I thought of you. So I 
 called you." 
 
 "Godfrey!" said Luke. For some reason 
 the answer pleased him mightily. He smoked 
 hard till the pipe rattled in its throat. Then 
 he threw it down. " Le' s have some coffee." 
 
 They drank together, and lay down within, 
 Evans taking his own bed and his guest the 
 kitchen lounge. Luke was at peace, and nat- 
 urally, he thought, because he was so tired. 
 
188 KING'S END 
 
 His body had fought a good fight and then 
 laughed itself free of inky fears ; so it ran into 
 a rhythm of well-being. He heard the old man 
 murmuring to himself, and smiled scoffingly, yet 
 with tenderness. John Kent " needed a guard- 
 een," he thought ; and muttering " Old Neb- 
 uchadnezzar ! " he was drowsing off to sleep. 
 
 " Luke," said the Elder. 
 
 " Well, what is it now ? " 
 
 " When I thought I had but a few minutes 
 more on earth, God showed me what to do." 
 
 " He better ha' showed ye beforehand. Ye 
 need n't ha' got in." 
 
 "He told me not to fear, to preach the word 
 as I saw it, and let the seed fall where it would. 
 The words should be put into my mouth " 
 
 " Put into your mouth ! It don't take God 
 A'mighty to tell you what to holler. ' Luke ! ' 
 you yelled, like a poll-parrot. * Luke ! Luke ! ' 
 says you, ' Luke Evans ! ' ' 
 
 " And you came," concluded the Elder. " If 
 you were n't sent, why did you come ? " 
 
 " Oh, moonshine ! I 'm goin' to sleep." But 
 his eyes were set wide open. He lay and 
 thought, and when he heard the Elder's peace- 
 ful breathing he smiled a little, and softly called 
 him by unflattering names. 
 
VIII 
 
 DAY was dawning on a world all over flame 
 and dew. The mountain-side bloomed purple 
 under vestiges of mist. The fields were rich 
 in heat and light. They had already begun to 
 ripen. Dewdrops lay on the Cumnor pasture, 
 so close that, like gems for a mosaic, they were 
 ready to slide together into a crystal sheen. 
 They were threaded on the pasture grass and 
 bobbing from its blossoms. They clotted on 
 the spiders' webs hung everywhere to dry. 
 Julia was hurrying home along the trail. Every 
 footstep wiped out scores of little water-worlds, 
 each with its spark of sun ; but she did not 
 heed. 
 
 Her eyes were unseeing, save for the cob- 
 webs. These she noted because they prophe- 
 sied heat, and she knew there would not be air 
 enough in all the summer world for one sick 
 man to breathe. A white-throated sparrow 
 began from the mountain-side the fine thrill 
 of his overture, never to be continued beyond 
 those first arresting notes. She did not listen. 
 
190 KING'S END 
 
 The pines were austere in green, moved mur- 
 murously by a delicate breath, and the sky, 
 more blue than white, hung sweetly dappled. 
 But Julia held her skirts high and stepped on, 
 wondering if breakfast would be ready. Her 
 vigil had lasted now too long ; she was hollow- 
 eyed yet hawkish, with the look of those at odds 
 with sleep. This last night had been a deadly 
 one of impotent watching, and against her 
 custom she had lurked and suffered until dawn. 
 Then he revived a little, and she heard the 
 doctor predicting one more day. 
 
 The Eliot household was up and about, and 
 Susan, seeing her come in, remarked only on 
 the "soppin' " of her feet. It was so common 
 a thing for the Elder to slip away into the 
 dusk, not to be seen until another day, that 
 Susan could tolerate that eccentricity in one of 
 the same blood. Julia, too, might have chosen 
 to seek the spirit on the mountain, and fare 
 homeward through the dew. But Nancy, see- 
 ing the ever deepening marks of grief upon her 
 face, followed her upstairs and stood silent while 
 the old woman made herself neat again. Julia 
 shook her head. 
 
 " He ain't gone," she said, in a harsh mono- 
 tone. " He 's holding out terribly. I 've got 
 to go back." 
 
KING'S END 191 
 
 "I should go back," cried Nancy, taught 
 some things now by an unsatisfied heart. " I 
 should go in." 
 
 Julia nodded. She could speak no more, and 
 afterwards sat silent over her food, forcing it 
 down with a sickening distaste. " I 'm going 
 over to the Hills'," she said to Susan, when they 
 rose. " Maybe I can do something." 
 
 "So do," returned Susan, "if you feel to. 
 I 'd ha' gone myself, on'y I thought they 'd 
 have so much help. He 's holdin' out beyond 
 everything." 
 
 It was Nancy who shrank and shivered, for 
 fear some unconsidered speech might rough a 
 wound. Her mother might guess how Julia 
 and Stuart Hill had loved each other in old 
 days, and with the simplicity of the unimagina- 
 tive mind bring forth some innocent tale con- 
 nected with the dead. But Julia guessed at 
 no such poor disaster. The unripe blossom of 
 her life had faded so long before, that not a 
 husk was left. She was denied even the inher- 
 itance of a common memory shared by those 
 who had known her in her youth. To this little 
 people she was only an old woman offering a 
 gnarled hand to lift an ounce or so in a poor, 
 weighted world. And lately, life itself all 
 life had changed. The great things loomed 
 
192 KING'S END 
 
 greater. The little things had sunk away of 
 their own poverty. Even this masquerading in 
 the dusk seemed trivial, for day by day her 
 instinct of hiding had grown dull. She won- 
 dered why she had not sought his side before, 
 and then reminded herself how it would have 
 perplexed him, and dizzied his poor brain with 
 futile strivings. 
 
 So, with hair put back as smoothly as her 
 locks would ever lie, her decent dress and well- 
 starched apron, she went over to the great 
 house and rang the bell. To the neighbor who 
 met her, old Julia seemed no figure of grief, 
 only a kindly soul with time to spare. 
 
 " I thought I 'd come over and help 'round," 
 she said, with a simple directness. " I 've been 
 over to Susan Eliot's for quite a spell, but 
 everything 's done up there now, and we 're 
 ahead of the work. There must be room for 
 one more here, having sickness so." 
 
 The door opened to her; she was needed. 
 Judge Hill had been "an unconscionable time 
 in dying," and his household had not husbanded 
 its strength. The village nurse was beginning 
 the day with a sick headache, and old Miss 
 Hill, said the neighbor, had "taken assafidity. 
 Miss Hill was beat out. She did n't know how 
 she should get through the forenoon. Perhaps 
 
KING'S END 193 
 
 if Miss Julia 'd sit with the Judge while Miss 
 Hill got a wink o' sleep ! " 
 
 So the woman led her into the sick-room, 
 where his sister was alone with him. Miss Hill 
 gave her a kindly hand-touch, and then beck- 
 oned her to the door where they could talk. 
 "You're real thoughtful," said she. "If I 
 could only get a mite of a nap ! Doctor says 
 he may last the day out." 
 
 " I '11 be glad to stay," said Julia quietly. 
 She dared not look them in the face. The 
 robust joy of her own soul might speak aloud. 
 " I have n't got a thing in the world to do. I '11 
 call you, if there 's any need." 
 
 And, incredibly beautiful, marvelous beyond 
 all fancy, she was left with her own old love 
 and the fruition of the years. There was no- 
 thing to do for him save to be his guard of 
 honor to the gate, where he would meet that 
 potentate known only as a name. Now it 
 seemed futile even to wet his lips. No life was 
 left for cherishing: only the likeness of life. 
 Once his eyelids quivered and lifted slightly, 
 too weak to close. Then she thought how dark 
 it must be to him, with the death-dusk gather- 
 ing also. They had curtained the windows to 
 a decent gloom. Silently she undid their work 
 and let in all the light of day. Something 
 
I 9 4 KING'S END 
 
 else came with it : a gush of the singing of 
 birds. Through that presaging dark, the same 
 notes had been sounding with a shadowy pain. 
 Now they were full and sweet, like bells un- 
 muffled. She took her place again, and closed 
 her fingers softly about his, knowing how the 
 dying hand loves to cling, long as it can, to 
 some palm of earth. Once the neighbor came 
 in, and looked in wonder at the flooding light. 
 
 " He wants it so," murmured Julia. 
 
 "I don't believe he's conscious," began the 
 woman ; but Julia slipped her hand from that 
 poor chilling one, and drew the intruder with 
 her from the room. 
 
 " Don't you say a word for him to notice," 
 she commanded, with dignity. " We think they 
 can't hear. How do we know what they hear ? 
 Don't you wake anybody up, either. I could 
 sit there till night." 
 
 But the old man did not linger. His face 
 grew thin, as if mortality went the way of visi- 
 ble dissolution. It took on an ineffable auster- 
 ity. His breaths were baby breaths, a whisper 
 in the throat. Now Julia laid her cheek beside 
 his on the pillow, listening and loving. They 
 breathed there together, she in an ecstasy living 
 the life of two, and he perhaps his spirit 
 waked unseen beside her. The old clock in the 
 
KING'S END 195 
 
 corner rang its eleven strokes, and her heart 
 quickened. It seemed a challenge of time, call- 
 ing him forth again to earthly hours and days. 
 " Come now," it cried, " or else forever 
 after" 
 
 The last stroke trembled like a thread of 
 sound. The room was very still. Julia knew 
 without assurance that the last act so great 
 and yet so simple was accomplished. The 
 knowledge brought a terror and delight : it 
 seemed as if she too, for a moment, had touched 
 that great unchartered freedom of the soul. 
 She lifted her head and looked. He had been 
 motionless before, but now the silence cried 
 aloud of its own potency. It that ineffable 
 and august being outweighing earth and seas 
 had withdrawn, and she was alone. She kissed 
 him on the forehead and closed the half-shut 
 lids, and there, in a moment, they found her. 
 
 "He 's just gone," she said sweetly, smiling 
 at them, " just gone." Then in the strange 
 confusion attending such departures, she slipped 
 away to the kitchen, and made herself so useful 
 there that she could ill be spared. 
 
 So she stayed for the two nights before the 
 funeral, and did all sorts of services, things that 
 made her smile : though not in the least bitterly 
 now, for she was a contented woman, and the 
 
196 KING'S END 
 
 time of her own pilgrimage seemed very short 
 She made cake, to be eaten at the great funeral 
 supper. She washed pyramids of dishes, for 
 relatives came from the towns about, and there 
 was solemn feasting. And in the silence of the 
 night she slipped into the dark room while the 
 watchers drank their tea, and touched the dead 
 man's hair, and murmured to him. 
 
 Judge Hill was a person of consequence, and 
 on the third day men and women in their sober 
 clothes came driving in from all the county 
 round. Julia, standing at the kitchen window, 
 regarded the carriages in a fine worldly satisfac- 
 tion, and held her head high over his futile 
 triumph. She had no mourning garments, but 
 she brushed her little worn dress, and made 
 herself " as neat as wax." Dust never clung 
 to her, said the country folk, seeing her on her 
 tramps ; she had not forgotten the observances 
 of gentlehood because she lacked the soft secu- 
 rity of place. But to-day she tied over her bon- 
 net the figured veil wrought by her mother 
 years and years ago, and always packed with 
 her own traveling gear. That was all she could 
 do to make herself unlike the Julia of the work- 
 ing world. 
 
 At two o'clock the mourners assembled in 
 the great parlor about the man they came to 
 
KING'S END 197 
 
 honor. Neighbors and friends were in the sit- 
 ting-room, and a line of carriages marked out 
 the road imposingly. Almost on the stroke 
 came Elder Kent, himself no less dignified than 
 some who bore the guinea's stamp. Julia, from 
 her window, saw him, and understood. Her 
 heart beat a welcome of such spontaneous love 
 as it had never known in her unwilling servitude. 
 She went forward through the hall to meet him, 
 and he smiled upon her, and took her hand. 
 Then the other minister, the settled one, began : 
 " Man that is born of a woman is of few days and 
 full of trouble," and the two old people stood 
 there in the sunlight, clasping hands like chil- 
 dren, not of the world about them, yet simple 
 and unabashed. When the neighbors and friends 
 went tiptoeing through, to look once more upon 
 the dead, the two still stood there, cheerful both 
 as the sunshine over them. The halting proces- 
 sion moved along the path, a sluggish stream ; 
 then, the brother still holding his sister's hand, 
 they walked behind the others to the grave. 
 This had been made in the little family lot where 
 all the Hills lay buried ; and Julia looked about 
 her with a wonderful sense of having, after de- 
 vious ways, come home. " I am the resurrec- 
 tion and the life," read the preacher, and she 
 felt as if that moment might always last. The 
 
198 KING'S END 
 
 benediction came, and silence. Now there 
 would be the sound of clods upon a coffin. 
 
 " Let 's go," she whispered, and the Elder 
 drew her out of the yard and into the pasture 
 trail. Halfway she said wonderingly, " I 
 don't seem to have any strength ! " but when 
 he asked if she would rest, she shook her head 
 and smiled at him. 
 
 The house was empty when they got there, 
 for Susan and Aunt Lindy had gone to the 
 funeral, and Nancy was lying out in the field 
 alone. Julia climbed to her little room, and the 
 Elder followed her. He tried to take off her 
 bonnet, and got the strings into a hard knot. 
 Julia laughed a little at that, and untied them. 
 Then she lay down, and he brought a quilt from 
 the closet. It was a hot summer day, but anx- 
 ious intelligence taught him no other form of 
 ministry. Julia let him spread it to her chin, 
 and waited till he had gone softly down the 
 stairs before she threw it off. Then she lay 
 thinking, in great weariness, but with her happy 
 vision fixed upon the splendor of the soul. She 
 knew she had passed through her great trial 
 unscathed. Not even the strength of her body 
 was really sapped by these nights of vigil and 
 days of bitter retrospect. Once she had given 
 up, foolishly, wastefully perhaps ; but God had 
 
KING'S END 199 
 
 not let her suffer that last and keenest pang of 
 withdrawing her beloved in her absence. Her 
 life had blossomed, after all. 
 
 The Elder, down on the porch, thinking, 
 thinking, with his ears pricked to hear a sound 
 from her, was tasting, too, the sweetness in a 
 bitter rind. He longed to go back and whisper 
 his new comfort in her ear, telling her that grief 
 had no meaning save as a heavenly medicine. 
 Yet some dissuading wisdom held him still. At 
 his heart he envied her because she suffered uni- 
 versal pain. Th ese were the simple human pangs 
 and glories of the soul, at this one halting-place 
 upon an infinite way and they were good. 
 They brought her nearer other men by kinship 
 only than he could ever be through prayer and 
 prophecy. Now, almost at the end of life, he 
 saw the face of nature as it shows the face of 
 God, and set dull working days beside eternal 
 Sabbaths, to the infinite enrichment of them 
 both. He began dimly to suspect what loss may 
 lie in foregoing mortal blessedness, even for a 
 loftier joy. Yet since we must tread the way 
 marked out for us, his nature returned upon its 
 old, old track, and he murmured to himself, as 
 he had so long, " My soul hungers and thirsts 
 after the living God." God ! was He the un- 
 attainable ? How should He be attained ? 
 
IX 
 
 THE Pillcott camp-meeting had gone tumul- 
 tuously on until the fifth day and the last. All 
 the world turned out from Cumnor, Ryde, and 
 King's End, and there had been great harvest- 
 ing of souls. Elder Kent, instead of mounting 
 the rude platform as he used to do, stayed 
 humbly among the impenitent, and Luke stayed 
 with him. It seemed to the preacher as if he 
 had a child under his charge, and, with some 
 intuition of Luke's dependence on him, he dared 
 not ignore it, lest the outcast slip away dis- 
 couraged, and defer his soul's salvation. For 
 though the old man preached no longer as these, 
 his chosen people of other years, were bound to 
 preach, he looked upon them with a wistful faith. 
 They had no medicine for him, but they had, he 
 knew, for many, and Luke might be among 
 them. The smoking flax must not be quenched. 
 He would utter his word in season, but meantime 
 others should say theirs. He had a pathetic 
 care of Julia, too. She was busy everywhere. 
 People went to her for all sorts of things, from 
 
KING'S END 201 
 
 coffee-making to the loan of a pin. In her brief 
 idleness she sat within the shade, far from the 
 sound of prayer, a look of sweet absorption on 
 her face. At such times, the Elder would seek 
 her out, and ask wistfully, 
 
 " You feeling pretty well ? " 
 
 She always smiled at him and answered, 
 " Real well. I 'm real contented, too." 
 
 These were hot days, and the woods exhaled 
 a resinous sweetness suffocating in the nostrils. 
 Certain of the more distant towns had put 
 up tents, and carried on a primitive camping. 
 Scattered through the clearing at the south 
 were smaller tents, erected by families, and day 
 by day, those who lived near enough, came with 
 their luncheon baskets and " hitched hosses " at 
 a distance. The ground itself lay like a natural 
 amphitheatre. There the rude seats had been 
 built and, fronting them, the platform for ex- 
 horters. On this last day, the air was charged 
 with a disturbance even more palpable than that 
 of nature. Nerves had been woefully strained in 
 the annual onslaught upon sin. Renewed souls 
 were exhausted from the force of their own 
 battling, and even the saved of a previous con- 
 version grew fractious under the necessity of 
 " being religious," the while they packed in pre- 
 paration for going home. 
 
202 KING'S END 
 
 Luke, lingering near the Cumnor tent, waiting 
 for the Elder to leave a band of black-coated 
 colleagues, frowned at the voices of women 
 floating out upon the air. He caught his own 
 name and a fragment of his own story, elemen- 
 tary as the record of the world must ever be 
 when it spells the alphabet of hearts. 
 
 " Big Joan won't tell how ' t was nor Sally her- 
 self. As for Obed, you can't git it out o' him. 
 But all is, he gi'n the baby up because she was 
 teethin', an' he thought her grandmother could 
 do for her. An' here he is. On the anxious 
 seat last night. Didn't you see him? They 
 kep' at him till nigh twelve o'clock, an' he never 
 yipped." 
 
 "Well, how is the baby?" 
 
 " Oh, the baby 's all right ! Teeth come ter- 
 rible early, an' she 's been real sick ; but Mis' 
 Horner 's as pleased as a cat with two tails. 
 Now think o' Sally Horner herself, 'round the 
 house ag'in as large as life an* twice as nippin' ! 
 Big Joan '11 have to carry less sail." 
 
 " Well, I guess she won't. Nothin' less 'n an 
 earthquake '11 shake up Joan." 
 
 "I dunno. Sally's a whole team, on'y git 
 her started. Think of all that time she 's laid 
 there ! I guess she '11 be madder 'n a hornet 
 when she comes to add it up. All the doctors' 
 
KING'S END 203 
 
 trade she 's took, too ! My soul, if I 'd thought 
 this cheese would n't ha' been eat, I never 'd ha' 
 brought it." 
 
 Then the Elder appeared, and Luke turned 
 with him into a balmy path leading to a spring 
 they both knew well. Luke took off his hat 
 and pushed the hair back from his forehead. 
 His face was ivory pale, and his eyes kept a 
 suspicious outlook upon life. " I don't care a 
 damn what becomes of me," he said. 
 
 " God cares," returned the Elder, with sim- 
 plicity. 
 
 "God! Who is He?" 
 
 "I don't know." 
 
 " What 's all this about Jesus Christ ? Do 
 you believe it ? " 
 
 " Oh yes ! I believe." 
 
 " You believe you '11 go to hell if you don't 
 say you believe ? " 
 
 " I believe I shall be in hell always, till I turn 
 my face towards God." 
 
 " How ? " 
 
 " Keep saying to Him, ' Make me do what 
 You want me to do.' " 
 
 They sat down by the spring, and Luke took 
 the cocoanut dipper and drank deep draughts. 
 He looked up at the burning sky. Great piles 
 of thunderheads filled the west, and their pre- 
 
204 KING'S END 
 
 monition beset the air. He hated the world 
 and the way it was made. " I 'm in hell now," 
 said he. 
 
 A shadow of pain crossed the Elder's face. 
 He longed for the exquisite agony of human 
 loss, that he might also guess where the root 
 of healing grew. Was it in the one Christ 
 alone ? Was it not in every soul who chooses to 
 tread the sacred way of pain ? 
 
 " I guess you are in hell," he said. " But you 
 won't be there a minute longer than God wants 
 you should. I would n't pray to come out. I 
 should pray God to tell me what He wants me 
 to do while I 'm there." 
 
 Luke rolled over, his face in the grass, lying 
 not abased but suppliant before the One who 
 had not yet made his vision clear. Sometimes, 
 an old habit of his misery, he clutched the grass 
 in his hand, and the odor of pennyroyal tinged 
 the air. Once the Elder would have lifted 
 his own voice in ardent supplication ; now the 
 travail of souls had grown too sacred, and he 
 dared not stir the waters by a word. He had 
 begun to learn the alphabet of the great pa- 
 tience underlying our small course of the uni- 
 versal plan. Nature, his nurse, had been teach- 
 ing it to him from the beginning, and only 
 now had he unstopped his ears to her. She, 
 
KING'S END 205 
 
 the great spendthrift, the magnificent, riots in 
 wastefulness. She would as eagerly destroy as 
 make, but only because she is really making. 
 A seed is planted. It dies. Another falls, and 
 that dies also. A third, a fourth, and still the 
 flower may be years in coming. That, thought 
 the Elder, was because his master, God, had 
 time. He, the servant, would work in that same 
 way ; he would rest him in the recognition of 
 eternity. 
 
 The day beat on, like a heavy pulse. It was 
 all heat, heat, and a threatening moisture that 
 beset the brain. Luke lay supine under its 
 mantle, and the Elder watched beside him. 
 The shadows lengthened, and their vigil lasted. 
 Then Luke spoke raspingly : 
 
 " Are you ever afraid ? " 
 
 " Yes," said the old man, lifting his face to 
 heaven, " I am afraid of God." 
 
 " Ain't you ashamed of it ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Not after all this rubbish about love ? " 
 
 " It 's all one. It 's the same fire that cooks 
 your breakfast and burns you when you break 
 a law. It's all one." 
 
 A girl on the camp-ground began singing 
 " Happy Day," and a chorus of young voices 
 joined her. They turned the hymn into a 
 
206 KING'S END 
 
 dryad's paean. They seemed to be quiring, 
 not the great abnegation, but some new-found 
 spring of love and youth. Luke pointed, with a 
 shaking hand. 
 
 " Happy Day ! " he repeated, like a curse. 
 "I s'pose you 're happy, too ? " 
 
 " No," said the Elder simply, " I should n't 
 call it that." 
 
 " O ho ! but you 'd tell me I 'd be, if I made 
 myself into a tomfool like the rest on ye." 
 
 The Elder felt the puzzle of life as it con- 
 cerns the soul and body, two warring creatures 
 forced to run in double gear. 
 
 "Folks are happy different ways," he said. 
 " Sometimes it 's one way when we think it 's 
 another. When we 're young when we 've 
 got the folks we set by why, then 'most any- 
 thing makes us see some kind of heaven. But 
 I guess we don't very often get there to stay. 
 I should n't think much about that, if I was 
 you. I don't. It only makes us hungry that 
 kind of hungry that never does any good." 
 
 " You talk about the love of God. Is that 
 love ? To make you hungry, and give you 
 nothin' nothin' " He clutched the grass 
 again, and bruised his fingers on the earth. 
 He seemed to be grasping at primal life : en- 
 treating his way savagely back into the earth, to 
 escape the pain of growing. 
 
KING'S END 207 
 
 "You see," went on the Elder gently, "He 
 had to give us some kinds of hunger that don't 
 amount to anything in the end. You 've got to 
 eat, or you could n't live. But what difference 
 will it make to you when you 're a free spirit 
 whether you 've had beefsteak this day ? The 
 world has got to be carried on. Men have 
 got to crave for women and women for men, as 
 if they were the end and aim of all and suffer 
 hell pains to give 'em up. But it 's all one, all 
 one the love of God." 
 
 " I don't want God," gasped the man in one 
 great confession. "I want" Then he shut 
 his lips and set them to the earth. 
 
 The Elder laid one close hand on his. Now 
 he spoke passionately, because this at least he 
 knew. "Give up," he commanded. "What- 
 ever it is, give up. Give up everything but 
 God. Follow after Him. The love of God! 
 Ask Him for it, day and night, night and day. 
 Live a thousand lives and die a thousand deaths 
 hunting for it. Love of father and mother, 
 wife and child, what are they but the love of 
 God ? Give yourself up to Him. Say every 
 time you breathe, ' Lord, tell me what to do.' ' 
 
 Luke said no word. He moved his cheek to 
 a cooler spot in the kind grass, and buried it 
 deeper there. The twilight came, and then the 
 
208 KING'S END 
 
 dusk. He slept a little, and the Elder waited. 
 They rose together, and went back to the 
 grounds, where Julia met them with food. She 
 glanced at them and smiled. For the Elder 
 looked as if something very good had hap- 
 pened, and Luke was somehow altered, as if 
 his fetters had fallen away. No new spirit can 
 be hidden, veil it as we will by diffidence or 
 reserve. A little more humility, a vowed obe- 
 dience, and we are changed. 
 
 That late afternoon Martin, whose mind was 
 not on prayer-meetings, met Alia in the entry 
 as she went upstairs. Her eyes had been wet 
 all day without his noticing. Now, therefore, 
 they were reddened anew by artifice. 
 
 " Hullo ! " said he, and would have passed 
 her, but she stretched a detaining hand. 
 
 "It won't be 'hullo' much longer," said she. 
 " Your mother 's told me something. She 's 
 going to clean house, and she wants my room 
 to-morrow." Her eyes implored him, also 
 her grieving tone. Had he influence in his own 
 house ? they asked. Would he give her leave 
 to stay ? 
 
 " Cleaning ! " said Martin, betraying his sur- 
 prise. " In the middle of summer ? " 
 
 "She says so." 
 
KING'S END 209 
 
 Mrs. Jeffries came out from the sitting-room, 
 her trumpet ready. She fixed it to her ear 
 and lifted the mouthpiece insinuatingly toward 
 Martin. " Did you holler ? " she asked blandly. 
 " Was you wantin' to speak to me ? " 
 
 Martin looked her in the eye with a gaze 
 compact of admiration. He shook his head. 
 " Ride over to camp-meeting with me to-night," 
 said he in a hasty aside to Alia. " It 's my last 
 chance." The words escaped him. They were 
 meant for his own mind, not for hers ; but they 
 covered her with a radiance of hope fulfilled. 
 Even the jealous old woman saw that, and 
 stepped between. 
 
 " What did you say, Martin ? " she asked, still 
 with a deceptive allurement. 
 
 " Half past five," said Martin under his breath. 
 "That '11 be early enough." 
 
 Alia ran upstairs, light of foot under the 
 burden of her happiness, and Martin put his 
 lips to the trumpet. " Mother," said he approv- 
 ingly, "you 're the devil and all." 
 
 Mrs. Jeffries nodded in well-satisfied com- 
 mendation of so just a sentiment. "I ain't a 
 fool by any manner o' means," she announced 
 modestly. " She 's goin'. She tell ye ? " 
 
 " Yes. Said you 'd got to have her room." 
 
 " It 's better 'n her company," chuckled the 
 
210 KING'S END 
 
 old lady, looking at him knowingly, with her 
 head on one side. " Then you turn over a new 
 leaf. You lay aside your profligate ways, an' 
 go over an' ask Nancy Eliot to marry ye. As 
 good a girl as ever stepped, an' here you be 
 carryin' on like a crazed creatur'. I 'd like to 
 know what your father 'd say ! " She withdrew 
 the trumpet, and went composedly about her 
 work, leaving him to muse. 
 
 He went out of doors, smiling to himself and 
 lifting his brows over the complications of the 
 afternoon. For his mother was watching, and 
 he knew it. The indomitable old lady would keep 
 her eye on him until Alia should be gone. She 
 was even capable of climbing into the wagon, 
 accoutred as she was, and driving with them to 
 camp-meeting, a righteous marplot. So Martin 
 kept out of the way. At five, he had a " cold 
 bite " in the pantry, and then disappeared into 
 his own room, where he shaved. By and by, he 
 slipped out to the barn, groomed Black Fancy, 
 and harnessed her ready for the carriage. His 
 mother was picking up chips when he strode 
 past her, with a nod and smile meaning there 
 was merry war between them. Mrs. Jeffries 
 ignored the nod ; she shook her head, and con- 
 tinued to shake it long after she had seen him 
 lounge out into the road and set off in the 
 
KING'S END 211 
 
 direction of the new house. But Martin only 
 walked until the fringed roadside hid him from 
 view ; then he leaped the wall and came home 
 over the field. His mother was not visible ; he 
 judged, and rightly, that she had gone to put 
 on her more sacred cap and apron for the after- 
 noon. So he tapped at Alla's door. 
 
 "Ready?" he asked. "Go out and wait in 
 the barn. Fancy 's pretty high this afternoon. 
 I 'd rather you 'd get in there." 
 
 She called her assent eagerly, understanding 
 what he failed to explain. It was not Fancy 
 who was high. 
 
 When Martin, in the splendor of his best 
 clothes, went into the barn, Alia was there, 
 trembling and pretty. It took only an instant 
 to back Fancy into the shafts, put the girl into 
 the buggy, and, opening the great doors, leap 
 in beside her. They were driving swiftly out 
 of the yard, grazing a short curve, when the 
 expected happened. Mrs. Jeffries, bonnet in 
 hand, appeared on the steps and called shrilly 
 after them : " Martin, Martin, you stop ! You 
 take me, too ! " 
 
 Martin drove on, without turning his head. 
 Alia gave a little nervous laugh, but when she 
 looked at him his face was set immovably, and 
 she wondered if he could have heard. For the 
 
212 KING'S END 
 
 first mile he said nothing, and she was too 
 happy to talk. He had taken her side, said 
 feminine instinct. She had been forbidden the 
 house, but it made no difference. The new one 
 was almost ready. A word to-day and it would 
 be settled. She was already his, and he had 
 only to speak to make her so indeed. 
 
 " We '11 get supper up in the Cumnor tent," 
 he said, at last. " They '11 have buns and truck." 
 
 " I don't care," said Alia, wishing she dared 
 nestle closer to him, but always repelled by that 
 strange aloofness. " I don't care 'f I never 
 eat." She laughed again in a wild exhilaration. 
 She was like a shepherd lass who had heard all 
 her life of the mountain god ; and lo ! a summer 
 day and the god was here beside her. Why 
 should he seek her, unless he wanted her ? De- 
 sire and the full cup were on their way to 
 meet. 
 
 Martin, too, was under the spell of a nervous 
 tension. He thought with lightning speed, and 
 tried vainly to formulate what he had to do. It 
 must come as it would. All he could be sure 
 of was that he must see her absolutely alo*e 
 before she went away ; so far, he was succeed- 
 ing. 
 
 When they drove into the grounds, the tur- 
 moil of supper was going on, and Alia, under 
 
KING'S END 213 
 
 the focus of eyes, carried herself like a village 
 queen. She knew what they were thinking. 
 She could almost echo those unheard voices. 
 Martin Jeffries had got through with that wild- 
 goose chase after Nancy Eliot, she heard them 
 say ; he had taken up with Alia Mixon. Good 
 for him ! She felt already like a bride, and 
 stood demurely by as he fastened the horse. 
 Then she walked beside him to the tent and 
 talked soberly with matrons over their picnic 
 supper. When the services began early that 
 night, because there must be time for a final 
 winnowing of chaff and wheat she and Mar- 
 tin sat down in the outer row of seats. 
 
 " We can slip away if we want to," he whis- 
 pered her, and she nodded, with burning cheeks. 
 She thought he would propose going soon, per- 
 haps by the Old Gristmill Road. The moon 
 would be up, and in that silvered seclusion they 
 could talk and talk. . She almost felt his lips on 
 hers, and sighed. 
 
 The meeting began, and the great exhorter 
 called upon Christians to rise and then upon 
 the sinners. At each summons, Alia gave a 
 frightened look at Martin ; but seeing him un- 
 stirred, she sank back, half-heartedly relieved. 
 The exhorter was a giant, of an imposing pre- 
 sence. His black hair swept back from his 
 
214 KING'S END 
 
 forehead, his eyes burned in the lantern light, 
 and his voice rang superbly through the echo- 
 ing wood. 
 
 " Come to the mercy seat ! " he chanted. 
 " Come ! Come ! Every one ! Every one ! 
 Young men and maidens, come, or it will be 
 too late! too late!" 
 
 Tremulous forms rose in the darkness and 
 stole down to the anxious seat. Sobs were in 
 the air, and at every movement the exhorter 
 cried, " Glory to God ! Glory to God ! " 
 
 Elder Kent, standing by the platform with 
 Luke, like a darker shadow, had folded his arms 
 and lifted a peaceful face to heaven. But when 
 these cries arose, he too murmured adoringly, 
 " Glory to God ! " 
 
 The night was suffocatingly still. Women 
 waved their palm-leaf fans, and even in that 
 outer air, two or three were led, faint and breath- 
 less, to the spring. There was a rumbling of 
 thunder from the west, and slow, rosy flashes 
 of lightning lit the whole heaven, disclosing 
 fear, repentance, and a vague uneasiness on 
 scores of upturned faces. Even with Martin, 
 Alia was afraid. She could hardly breathe. 
 Little sobs arose in her throat, and she choked 
 them, fearing his derision. The lightning came 
 more regularly now, disclosing the black- 
 
KING'S END 215 
 
 ness of the cloud-pall overhead. Underneath 
 the exhorter's frenzy, there was a murmur of 
 secular talk. Men consulted together, and won- 
 dered whether it would be well to wait till the 
 storm broke, or to be on the homeward way. 
 Some of them drew their women folk aside, and 
 there was a noise of rustling skirts and, from 
 the tents, a sound of packing. The common- 
 place tumult surged about Alia like a premoni- 
 tory warning. With these words of death and 
 judgment in her ear, it seemed like the end of 
 the world ; her only stay was Martin, and he 
 made no move to still her tremors. 
 
 "I guess we'd better get out of this," he 
 said at last, when the flashes gave place to a 
 zigzag streak and a nearer peal. "What do 
 you think?" 
 
 " Oh, let 's go home ! " she cried, beside her- 
 self. " I 'm afraid the thunder and all these 
 folks." 
 
 She took his arm and hurried with him to 
 the tree where Fancy had been tethered. The 
 horse whinnied gladly and laid her nose to 
 Martin's shoulder. Her eyes showed her feel- 
 ings ; her ears were flat. She was young, and 
 she, too, hated thunder. They drove cautiously 
 over the rough wood road, and then out on the 
 highway at a quickened pace. Fancy knew it 
 
216 KING'S END 
 
 all. The storm was coming, and she was to let 
 it chase and never overtake her. Martin, driv- 
 ing carefully, his eyes on the road and every 
 sense alert, had his mind on the quest for which 
 he had come. The shower might balk him. 
 
 "Alia," said he, "see here! You 've got to 
 tell me something." 
 
 Her fears settled themselves like magic. This 
 was the moment of her life. She looked bliss- 
 fully into the storm, and smiled. 
 
 "Yes," she said, her voice all sweetness. 
 
 A sharper gleam struck them in the face. 
 Fancy rose on her hind legs, and bolted. Martin 
 set his hands to the reins, and pulled her into 
 her swift, considered trot. He spoke between 
 clenched teeth, managing, as he was, both horse 
 and woman. "When you took my ' Pilgrim's 
 Progress,' what did you do with that pressed 
 flower in it ? " 
 
 Thrown from her base of expectation, Alia 
 gasped and clenched her hands. Was he in- 
 sane, or had she heard him wrongly ? It seemed 
 a part of the storm. Anything was possible on 
 a night like this. " I never " she began, but 
 he stopped her. 
 
 " You went into my room and took down my 
 * Pilgrim's Progress.' You've got the paper 
 the flower was in. Where is the flower? " 
 
KING'S END 217 
 
 The storm was on them with announcing 
 splashes, and then the driving volley of the rain. 
 The thunder broke in cracks; the lightning 
 blinded them. Martin gave up argument, for 
 the horse forgot she had a master, and the next 
 moment might see them in the ditch. With a 
 sharp turn that wrung a little cry from Alia, he 
 dipped into a yard and drove up to a barn, 
 where he called and then waited for some one 
 to come. 
 
 Old Uncle Simeon Beane pottered out of the 
 house with a lantern, and began struggling with 
 the door. " I 've expected some on ye for the 
 last half an hour," he panted. " I says to her, 
 some o' them camp-meetin' folks '11 be sure to 
 drive in. Gosh ! ain't that a high hoss ! " 
 
 Fancy stood on her hind legs again, and 
 pawed at the barn. 
 
 " I 'd give you a hand, only I don't like to 
 leave her," said Martin ; but the old man had 
 at last conquered the latch, and the wind was 
 helping them. The door swung open. 
 
 They drove in, and the horse stood dripping 
 and quivering, her nostrils big with fright. Alia 
 had longed for shelter, but these hay-lined walls 
 presaged a darker doom. If she must be struck, 
 it might better be in the open. But if Martin 
 would only be kind to her she choked a little, 
 
2i8 KING'S END 
 
 and felt her fear. Old Simeon, clinging for 
 dear life to the barn door, had shut and hooked 
 it. He was a thin shaving of a man, with a tuft 
 of beard and a memory of eyes. They seemed 
 to have withdrawn into their sockets, to keep 
 the keener watch. He lifted his lantern, and 
 gazed admiringly at Fancy. 
 
 "That's a pretty fair hoss," he remarked; 
 but upon the heels of his speech came flash and 
 roar, and he fell into the limpness of the sum- 
 moned. "God sakes!" he cried, "le's not 
 have no worldly talk. We 're in the power of 
 the Almighty." He withdrew into the tie-up, 
 where darkness invited him, leaving the lantern 
 behind, and began a sepulchral counting. Mar- 
 tin stepped down, and stood by Fancy's head. 
 
 " What 's that old pirate counting for ? " he 
 asked Alia, and she returned, shuddering : 
 
 "To tell whether the thunder gets farther 
 off. Gran'ther used to." 
 
 Martin stroked the horse's neck, and seemed 
 to be thinking. Alia could not look at him. 
 Suddenly she was afraid of him, more, even, 
 than of the storm. He was so terribly remote. 
 The barn had been packed with new hay, some 
 of it brought in that afternoon; it was from 
 the lowland and thick with spearmint. The 
 air reeked with the fragrance. She hated it 
 
KING'S END 219 
 
 because it seemed a part of this hideous time. 
 Martin left the horse, and came nearer. His 
 gaze compelled her eyes. "Alia," he said, 
 " where 's that flower, that ladies'-delight ? " 
 
 Her lips whitened, but she did not answer. 
 Invention failed her. 
 
 " Seven eight nine," came weirdly from 
 the darkness, and with the peal, began again at 
 one. 
 
 " You might as well tell me," said Martin. 
 " You see I know the whole story. You took 
 down my * Pilgrim's Progress.' You found a 
 folded paper in it, and the paper had a flower 
 pressing. I know, because that paper was the 
 note you told Nancy Eliot she 'd got to pay." 
 
 Alia looked at him, fascinated ; this was not 
 the way discovery should come. He was not 
 blaming her about the note ; he only talked of 
 flowers. 
 
 "Did you throw the flower away?" asked 
 Martin. 
 
 "I guess I lost it," she answered, almost 
 inaudibly. 
 
 He smiled, and catching the flash of that con- 
 cession, she breathed again. 
 
 " That 's all right," he said. " So the flower 
 was there. And the paper 't was in was the 
 
220 KING'S END 
 
 She was constrained to answer, " Yes." 
 
 He came a little nearer, and laid his hand 
 upon the wheel. " Alia," said he, " have you 
 made way with that other note ? " 
 
 In spite of herself, she shook her head. His 
 masterful spirit and the terrors of the world 
 without were both constraining her. 
 
 " Then," said Martin, still gently, " I '11 tell 
 you what you 've got to do. You 've got to 
 show me both notes together, and let me tell 
 you how to keep out of Pillcott Jail. It won't 
 help you to destroy either one now. You 've 
 got to let me manage it." 
 
 Her teeth were chattering, and she cowered 
 into her shawl. Was he a malignant spirit, or 
 was he kind ? Old Simeon appeared from the 
 shadow moderately cheerful, for the thunder was 
 rumbling away, and the last flashes had scarcely 
 penetrated his retreat. 
 
 " About that hoss, now," he began, but Mar- 
 tin had opened the door and was backing out, 
 calling, as he took his place : " Much obliged ! 
 Do the same for you, come Judgment Day ! " 
 
 Fancy's hoofs went beating down the muddy 
 road, and the old man chuckled to himself, as he 
 latched the door and went in to bed. 
 
 Martin drove swiftly and without a word. 
 When they entered the yard, the moon was 
 
KING'S END 221 
 
 shining, and the clouds, withdrawing, left the 
 world all light. Mrs. Jeffries' lamp was burn- 
 ing, and Martin knew she was watching for him 
 to drive into the barn. He stopped at the gate, 
 and going back to the carriage, held out his 
 hands. Alia stepped down trembling, and stood 
 beside him on the soaking grass. She was sick 
 with the dread of him and her own accomplished 
 deed. 
 
 "Go into the house," said Martin steadily, 
 "and get both notes. Bring 'em out into the 
 barn. Come to the cow-house door. I '11 be 
 there. I '11 fix it for you, Alia. It 's that or 
 jail." 
 
 Still she did not know whether he was kind 
 or only threatening her to her own betrayal. 
 No matter: languor fell upon her, and she 
 went weakly up the path. At the steps, 
 she heard him coming. Silently he pushed 
 open the door and groped his way behind her 
 up the stairs. In his own room, he lighted a 
 candle and carried it in, to find her trying, with 
 shaking hands, to take off her wet shawl. He 
 helped her gently, and she looked up at him 
 with an imploring patience. 
 
 " Come, Alia," said he, "get the notes." 
 
 " There 's only one," she faltered weakly. 
 
 " Oh yes ! there 's two, at present. If there 
 
222 KING'S END 
 
 isn't, you've destroyed the old one, and that 
 means jail. Find the notes." 
 
 She opened the bureau drawer, and took out 
 her father's wallet. It was stuffed with papers. 
 Defiantly she selected one and gave it to him. 
 "That 's all there is," she said sullenly, combat- 
 ing her fear. 
 
 A step sounded in the sitting-room below ; 
 then an intermittent whirring told that Mrs. 
 Jeffries had begun to wind the clock. 
 
 " There 's mother," said Martin. " Out with 
 the candle. We 've got to finish this, now 
 we 've begun." 
 
 He blew out the light, and they stood silent 
 while Mrs. Jeffries came halfway up the stairs, 
 sniffing at the smoke. Then they heard her 
 retreat to the kitchen, on some forgotten quest. 
 Martin threw up the window, tossed out the 
 telltale candle, and whispered, - 
 
 " Come, you 've got to talk with me." 
 
 He grasped her wrist, and drew her down the 
 stairs, out over the wet grass to the barn. She 
 would have resisted him, save for her ignorance 
 of his desires toward her. Was he working 
 for Nancy ? She would have held to her point, 
 defying him and the law. Was he working for 
 her ? She could deny him nothing. He led her 
 through the door into the cow house, and left her 
 
KING'S END 223 
 
 there in darkness while he lighted the lantern. 
 She could hear the cows chewing their cuds in 
 the yard without, and the drip, drip of water 
 from the eaves. She hated the country now, 
 as she had been used to hate it in the old days, 
 before she went away and fell in love with city 
 streets. Martin came toward her with the lan- 
 tern, illuminating a step before him and carving 
 the shadows into caverns blacker still. His face 
 wore a fictitious sternness because, little as she 
 might know it, he was not yet out of the woods 
 of doubt. He brought forward a keg, and turned 
 it over. 
 
 "Sit down," he said. "Alia, where 's that 
 note?" He had the new one in his pocket. 
 She had seen him put it there. 
 
 " You 've got it," she said doggedly. 
 
 " I Ve got the copy. Where is the old note, 
 with your father's writing on the back ? " 
 
 She put her head on one side and bridled a 
 little, with a pathetic recurrence to her idea of 
 feminine charm. " I wish you would n't plague 
 me so," she pouted. " When I 'm sleepy, 
 too!" 
 
 " I shall have to be a witness," said Martin 
 inexorably. " When I 'm asked, I shall have to 
 own you went into my room, took down my 
 book, and stole this note out of it. The note 
 
224 KING'S END 
 
 was one Nancy wrote in the schoolhouse one 
 day, to carry up to your father. She thought 
 it did n't look well enough, and so she copied 
 it, and I took this and slipped it into my book, 
 to press a flower. I can't tell what you did 
 with the other, but I shall have to prove you 
 stole this. Come, Alia, own up, and it 's be- 
 tween you and me so long as we both shall 
 live." 
 
 He spoke solemnly, and the words hurt her 
 with their echo of unending troth. 
 
 " What do you want to know for ? " she asked 
 sharply, from the acuteness of her pain. 
 
 Then Martin hedged, and was wholesomely 
 ashamed. " I don't want to think you 're a 
 thief." 
 
 Her eyes were upon him, trying to read his 
 mind. He could see her poise and counterpoise, 
 but he never knew how despairingly. Her 
 terrible human stake lay quite outside his line 
 of vision. He knew she sought him, coquetted 
 with him ; but knowing also how shallow she 
 was, he never called that pastime love. Her 
 face whitened. She had decided. On the one 
 hand was certain loss, and on the other a little 
 less despair. She would yield, and then he 
 must reward her. Rising, she put her hand 
 into the inner pocket of her petticoat, brought 
 
KING'S END 225 
 
 forth a slip of paper, and held it toward him, 
 looking up at him with anguished eyes. 
 "There!" she breathed. 
 
 Martin took it, and turned it from one side to 
 the other. " That 's the ticket ! " said he gladly. 
 " Twenty, thirty, thirty there '11 be a matter 
 of interest, a few cents." He took out his 
 pocket pen one he had bought Nancy and 
 offered her in vain and figured rapidly on the 
 spurious note. "That's how I make it," he 
 said, " to date. That suit you ? " 
 
 She nodded, waiting for him to thrust aside 
 the hateful business and turn to what concerned 
 themselves. Martin drew out his disreputable 
 wallet, fat with bills, perhaps prepared for this 
 encounter. Selecting two, he laid them in her 
 lap. " Look it over," said he briskly. "That 
 all right? Now put your name here. Easy 
 with the pen. Sometimes it splutters." 
 
 Alia wrote unseeingly. Her careless letters 
 straggled down the page. Then she passed him 
 pen and paper with a trembling hand, and waited. 
 Martin, smiling, blew upon the signature. 
 
 " That 's over," he said cheerfully. " You 're 
 all right, Alia. I would n't do that kind of thing 
 again, though. If you monkey with business, 
 you '11 get left. Now run in and put on dry 
 clothes. I '11 hold the lantern." 
 
226 KING'S END 
 
 She looked at him fiercely. " Is that all ? " 
 she cried. 
 
 " I guess so. We don't want to rake up any- 
 thing more about it, do we ? " 
 
 " Is it all ? " she repeated. She tried to sum- 
 mon a just indignation and was conscious only 
 of being cold. " Martin Jeffries, is that why 
 you Ve been going with me ? " 
 
 Martin had made the mistake of ignoring 
 emotion in her because she ignored it in some 
 one else. Yet human things are not to be dealt 
 with thus, and the unjust soul may awaken, and 
 cry in its turn for justice. But still he thought 
 only of Nancy, and after Nancy, himself. Alia 
 seemed a subordinate character, made to be put 
 aside, now that her part was played. 
 
 "Going with you?" he repeated honestly. 
 " Bless your soul ! Don't get such a bee as that 
 into your bonnet. Oh, Alia, come, be a good 
 girl ! Run in now, and get on some dry 
 clothes." 
 
 She rose and slipped away into the dark. At 
 the door he thought he heard a sob, and called 
 her name ; but though he ran after her, careless 
 of his mother's eyes, she was gone and in her 
 own room. It seemed to him a bad business 
 well over, and he led Black Fancy into the yard 
 and whistled as he unharnessed. His mother 
 
KIND'S END 227 
 
 set the lamp in the window to throw a track of 
 light, and when he went in she met him at the 
 door. Her face challenged him. 
 
 " Martin," said she, quite humbly, offering her 
 trumpet, " you ain't up to anything you could n't 
 let your father know, now be you ? " 
 
 He was about to put her jeeringly off, accord- 
 ing to their mutual habit of play ; but suddenly 
 he became aware that this was not tyranny call- 
 ing from her eyes. It was a quivering apprehen- 
 sion. He spoke gently into the tube : " Now, 
 mother, you just treat me once as if I was a 
 white man ! I 'm as good as you are." 
 
 The little old lady sighed. " You ain't got 
 anyways tangled up with that creatur' ? " she 
 insisted. 
 
 " I just took her to ride. I had to, did n't .1, 
 to plague you, after you 'd been cross to her ? 
 Now, mother, you be a decent old lady, and I '11 
 have Nancy writing her name with a J before 
 Thanksgiving." 
 
 Her face softened a little, and she smiled, with 
 some return of her general defiance of destiny. 
 "Then le' s get to bed," said she, "an' be up 
 time enough to pack off that creatur' up there. 
 She said she 'd go by the fust train." 
 
 Martin detained her, to plead. " Mother, now 
 you act nice to her in the morning. I Ve been 
 
228 KING'S END 
 
 as hateful as a hog. She 's all out of conceit 
 with me." 
 
 In that event, said Mrs. Jeffries' answering 
 glint of smile, amiability might be managed. 
 "I'll have cream-o'-tartar biscuits for break- 
 fast," she promised. 
 
 Martin saw her up the stairs to her room, and 
 threw off his wet coat for a dry one. He stayed 
 only to change the contents of the inner pocket, 
 and then strode out of the house, shutting the 
 door behind him. He knew Nancy was not 
 at camp-meeting, for Aunt Lindy and Mrs. 
 Eliot were there with the Kanes. It might not 
 be too late to find her. There was no light, 
 but he tried the door, and then stepped into 
 the dusky entry, whence he knew his way. 
 "Nancy! " he called softly, with some presenti- 
 ment. 
 
 " Oh, Martin ! Martin ! " answered a sobbing 
 voice on the heels of his speech. " You there ? 
 Oh, Martin, is that you ? " 
 
 He felt along through the darkness with 
 hands outstretched, and hearing the catch of 
 her breath, touched the soft shawl about her 
 shoulders. She stood still, her pulsating blood 
 betraying her, and when he drew her into his 
 arms she clung there, and, like a child, curled 
 her head into his coat. He could feel her 
 
KING'S END 229 
 
 breath, and his own, hot and fast, met and min- 
 gled with it. 
 
 " Oh, Nancy, don't speak ! " he whispered, 
 "give me your mouth." But while they stood 
 there, he guessed how she was yielding, until 
 only his arms upheld her. She seemed pathet- 
 ically weak for the girl who had so flouted him. 
 Was it she, or another made in her image, yet 
 all sweetness ? He did not care. She seemed 
 to him not so much the one he had loved and 
 striven for, as all womankind made to draw the 
 primal man in him eternally. But because she 
 was so weak, he put out his hand and found the 
 corner of the sofa where she had been lying, 
 and so guided her to it. They sat down to- 
 gether, his arms again about her. Then she 
 spoke, but with a recklessness new to her pure 
 voice. 
 
 " Martin, I can kiss you to-night, for it 's the 
 last time the first and the last. I Ve com- 
 mitted the unpardonable sin." 
 
 He laughed and stroked her cheek. " Good 
 for you, Nancy ! Now you can tell 'em what 
 it is." 
 
 She only shuddered. " I 'm lost," she said 
 quite softly, but with her teeth chattering. 
 " So it don't make any difference what I do. I 
 know you 're going with another girl, but I don't 
 
230 KING'S END 
 
 even care for that, so long 's you 're here this 
 minute." 
 
 " Stuff and nonsense ! there 's no other girl. 
 Because I took Alia Mixon to ride, to get a 
 chance to see her alone and talk about your 
 note ? You little fool ! you know every drop of 
 blood in me is yours, just as yours belongs to 
 me. If we could have our blood turned into 
 each other's veins, we should n't know the dif- 
 ference, should we ? You tell." 
 
 " No ! no ! " 
 
 But Martin really loved her, for tenderness 
 constrained him to be gentle. He touched her 
 cheek again, and made his voice all kindness : 
 "Tell about it." 
 
 " I 've committed the unpardonable sin," she 
 repeated monotonously. " I Ve upset my life 
 every way. Somehow or other, I got cheated 
 out of all the money I worked for, the money 
 mother ought to have. I was n't fit to do busi- 
 ness. Then I went up there to Luke's, and got 
 myself talked about. Aunt Lindy let that out 
 to-day." 
 
 "What's the value of their talk? a last 
 year's bird's nest." 
 
 " Did you hear it ? " 
 
 " Some of it, yes." 
 
 " Did you think I was bad ? " 
 
KING'S END 231 
 
 He fancied her eyes darkening in pain. 
 
 " I thought exactly what everybody else did ! 
 I thought you were a little fool. I did n't like 
 your cutting round over the pastures at night, 
 so I used to follow on, to see you come out 
 right" 
 
 " I heard the steps. I thought it was spirits. 
 Was it you ? " 
 
 " Me. Spirit of a just man made perfect." 
 
 " Did you follow me the night I walked up 
 the road with him ? " 
 
 " Till he tried to kiss you. Then I thought 
 if you liked it, he might." Some reserve of 
 a pain she had not suspected moved the lightness 
 of his voice, and, jealous for him, she retorted 
 sharply, 
 
 " He did n't kiss me." 
 
 " No. I saw you bowl him over. I said, * She ' s 
 my Nancy yet. I can trust her.' So I went 
 along home." 
 
 Something prompted her to probe him further. 
 " Suppose I had liked him ? " 
 
 "Then," said Martin, " I should have known 
 I 'd got to wait for you till you got over your 
 craze and came back." 
 
 " How long ? " 
 
 " Maybe a year. Maybe till the sun cools 
 off." 
 
232 KING'S END 
 
 But Nancy shivered back to her grief. " I 
 have committed the unpardonable sin," she 
 repeated. 
 
 " That 's all right. Just like you, too ! You 
 would n't be contented with arson or murder ; 
 no makeshifts for a girl like you ! " 
 
 " I promised God to give up everything and 
 preach the gospel. Then I saw you go by to 
 camp-meeting with her. I 'd seen you with her 
 before, but to-night I could n't bear it. I sent 
 word to the Elder that I would n't go away with 
 them, and I sat here all the evening and talked 
 to God. I told Him I had just one thing besides 
 mother, and He 'd taken it away. I did n't 
 mind the money's going, but you you ! " 
 She clung to him agonized, with a sharp and 
 sudden understanding of what it is to be bereft. 
 
 " Oh, my soul and body ! " groaned Martin. 
 " When it comes to living on this earth, not one 
 of you women is knee-high to a grasshopper. 
 What do you suppose God cares about your 
 squeaking little back talk ? You just come over 
 to the new house, along in the fall, and wash 
 dishes and cook johnny-cake, like any other 
 married woman, and be kissed for your pains, 
 and see if God interferes with you. More or 
 less He will. We Ve got to tough it with the 
 rest. Even squirrels have hard winters. But 
 
KING'S END 233 
 
 what do you suppose He put us here for, but to 
 mate, and clear up the ground a little, and sow 
 a few grass-seeds, and plant a tree ? We ain't 
 arc not here to be forever packing to go 
 somewheres else. If God is the kind of a county 
 sheriff you seem to think, He must get terrible 
 tired of seeing folks 'round with their white 
 robes on, and their harps standing ready, tied 
 up in green baize." 
 
 " I tell you I 'm lost. I have a sense of sin." 
 " Sense of sin ! sense of fiddlestick ! You 're 
 tired out. You 've kept school and revamped 
 the universe till you're off your head. King's 
 End 's too bracing, anyway. Father used to say 
 so. That 's why we 're all more or less luny. 
 I made up my mind when I used to see you 
 whipping by to school, with your eyes starting 
 out of your head, that, when we were married, 
 we 'd go to the sea every summer, and camp out. 
 Yes, ma'am ! Oh, Nancy, girl, don't waste this 
 first minute talking about sin. Think how the 
 sage and marjoram will smell when you come 
 out between the rows to call me to dinner, and 
 your skirts brush against 'em. And in the win- 
 ter, when you have a sore throat, I '11 tie it up 
 in pork and petticoats ! " 
 
 And lo ! since he was a man and the man she 
 loved, all her cares fell away from her. His 
 
234 KING'S END 
 
 rude vigor seemed the only real thing on earth ; 
 and because the earth belonged to him, it was 
 hers also, and dear to her. 
 
 " Could I, do you think," she asked, with a 
 timidity he found adorable, " could I let my- 
 self live along like that ? But if I did, Martin, 
 if I did it ever, I should have to pay off that 
 money first, so 's mother 'd be provided for." 
 
 " * Come, rise up, William Reilly,' ' quoted 
 Martin. " Let 's have a light. " 
 
 He never forgot that first glimpse of her 
 illumined by the little lamp. Her lips a-quiver 
 over the white teeth, her eyes all sweet and 
 shining, she looked as if she had risen from a 
 bath of happiness. The other prim Nancy had 
 gone. This seemed her younger sister, the child 
 of youth and love, spelling out the first letters 
 of the sweetness of earth. The picture came 
 back to him that night when he lay in his little 
 dark room, and he knew then that he had it for- 
 ever. But at the moment when his eyes re- 
 corded it, he was not conscious of her looks at 
 all : only that he had something which would 
 please her very much. He took out the missing 
 note, and presented it, with his dancing-school 
 bow. 
 
 "There, Miss Nancy!" said he. "Compli- 
 ments of the season." 
 
KING'S END 235 
 
 She took it, first indifferently, and then in 
 an unbelieving joy. Her fingers shook. " Oh, 
 Martin ! " she cried, " Oh, Martin ! you tell me 
 where you got it ! " 
 
 Martin was, as he owned to himself after- 
 wards, stumped. All the address of man is 
 powerless, he saw, before an inquiring woman. 
 He may do deeds for her ; but it is a marvel if 
 he can unriddle how he did them. But his was 
 a blithe and dauntless wit. He took her hands, 
 and the note fluttered down between them, 
 Nancy eyeing it hard, afraid of further witchery. 
 
 " Nancy, dear," said he, " Alia happened to 
 find the first draft you wrote there in the 
 schoolhouse that day. I slipped it into my 
 book, to press the flower in. Don't you know I 
 asked you about the flower ? Well, you see I 'd 
 lost it ; and Alia, she 'd borrowed my book, and 
 the paper sort o' fell out and she found it. 
 And then she came across the other, the right 
 one, and she was afraid to tell. I knew there 
 was something on her mind, so I took her to 
 ride to get chances to see her, and mother not 
 know, though somehow I never could get 
 anywhere till to-night. She 's all broke up about 
 it, Nancy. You won't speak of it ? Not to her, 
 not to anybody, ever ? " He drew a long breath. 
 
 " I guess I won't, if you tell me not to ! " 
 
 \\ 
 
236 KING'S END 
 
 She looked at him from that new plane of sub- 
 mission, and her humility went to his head. 
 
 He put his hands on her shoulders, though 
 the Kanes' old wagon, with its three loose 
 spokes, had rattled up to the gate, and he knew 
 Aunt Lindy was probably beginning her diffi- 
 cult descent. Martin regarded his girl with 
 eyes so compelling that she felt her first doubt 
 whether she had ever known him in the least. 
 " Nancy ! Nancy ! what do you suppose is go- 
 ing to happen ? " 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " You 're going to turn to me the same way 
 you Ve done everything else. You 're going to 
 breathe my breath, think my thoughts, make 
 a little god out of me. I know you. Lord ! 
 have n't I got my hands full ! " 
 
 She looked at him, wistfully and still uncom- 
 prehending. " Don't I care about you the way 
 you want ? " she asked timidly. " Do I set by 
 you too much ? " 
 
 He could not answer her, and she felt him 
 trembling through his strength. He knew it 
 would be years before she really learned what 
 love is like. Mrs. Eliot's hand was on the latch, 
 and Nancy, with sudden panic, drew him round 
 the other way. 
 
 "Go out the back door," she whispered. 
 
KING'S END 237 
 
 " Don't let mother see you. I '11 run up to bed 
 and think. I shan't sleep. Oh, Martin, I never 
 was happy in my life ! " 
 
 It was a wonderful thing to bid her good-by 
 while the cup was still but tasted. He ran 
 back as she was closing the door between them, 
 and she put out her hands, an involuntary wel- 
 come. 
 
 "Remember," he said, "you 're as much my 
 girl to-morrow as you are to-night. When I 
 come, you 're going to meet me, and kiss me 
 good-morning before them both." 
 
 And Nancy knew in her heart she should. 
 
AT five o'clock in the morning, all Sally 
 Horner 's doors and windows lay open to the 
 sun. She had now small conceit of her bed ; 
 perhaps she even feared it a little lest, lying a 
 moment too long, that old paralysis of the will 
 should fall upon her. 
 
 The cradle stood there in its old place, and 
 the baby slept the sleep of one to whom teeth- 
 ing is less than a memory. Sally Horner, on 
 her way to the bedroom to hang up her alpaca, 
 threw the child, in passing, a glance of that fierce 
 tenderness which betrayed her as she was. A 
 step sounded on the walk and at the door. It 
 neared, with a growing caution, and Luke Evans, 
 his stick and little bundle over his shoulder, 
 came softly in. Sally Horner, from the bed- 
 room, peered round the casing and watched 
 him. He seemed to her now three quarters 
 man, and not all beast, as her angry spirit had 
 once declared him ; and, being on her feet, she 
 felt capable of war, tooth and nail, should he lay 
 hand upon the child. He cast a glance about 
 
KING'S END 239 
 
 him, and then made for the one significant spot 
 in the room, the cradle. There he stood so 
 still that the clock's ticking seemed too loud, 
 and a bee outside the window boomed in gusts 
 of husbandry. A woman would have hung over 
 the cradle yearningly, but Luke stood fixed, his 
 eyes feeding upon the child and greatly desir- 
 ing what they might not see again. Sally 
 Horner watched him with the glance of one 
 who still holds judgment in abeyance. She had 
 her way. She could afford to live and let live, 
 and, being on her feet, nothing seemed to her 
 so common or unclean as when she read the 
 denunciatory psalms and talked to God about 
 her enemies. A swift impulse, index of her 
 new generosity, urged her to ask him to break- 
 fast; but at that instant, he bent over, and 
 touched the child's hair with his finger. Then, 
 without one look behind, he was gone out of 
 the room as softly as he had entered. 
 
 But Luke did not know in the least where 
 he was going, save that he had promised to 
 meet the Elder on the Cumnor Road and walk 
 with him into the world. Joy, the phantom, 
 was forever gone, but he felt the lightness of 
 those who have cast their burdens overboard. 
 Now he was alone. When the vision of Nancy 
 rose up before him, he battled it with strenuous 
 
240 KING'S END 
 
 hands. The child ? that dream, too, was over. 
 Yet, like a child himself, he kept on saying the 
 rough formula he had made out of the Elder's 
 preaching. 
 
 " You made me," he said in his heart to God. 
 " You 've got to see me through. I '11 do what 
 I can, but it 's your business." 
 
 He thought he had thrown off human ties, 
 never guessing how he had shifted them and 
 welded another link by the way. The old man 
 who had saved him was his neighbor, his friend, 
 the only sign he had of God's great fatherhood. 
 Yet he only felt that the Elder " needed a 
 guardeen," and that some one with time on his 
 hands ought to be by to keep him out of quag- 
 mires. So he turned into the crossroad and 
 walked slowly through to the corner where they 
 were to meet. He was far too early, but that 
 had been his own choice, that he might creep into 
 the Homer house before the world was stirring. 
 At the corner, he climbed the fence, put his 
 bundle under his head, and lay down to wait 
 and muse; and there great comfort came to 
 him. 
 
 Late in the forenoon, the Elder and Julia 
 were walking the Cumnor Road, bound for their 
 next abiding-place. " I 'm afraid Luke '11 think 
 we 're pretty late," said he, a double question 
 
KING'S END 241 
 
 in his look and tone. He was always seeking 
 her now with that pathetic gaze which seemed 
 to ask her whether it was still so blind. 
 
 " You just as soon Luke should go ? " he con- 
 tinued wistfully. " It won't be any put-out ? " 
 
 " Not a mite," she answered, with more than 
 her old-time cheerfulness. "He'll be some 
 help, and I 'd as soon mend for three as two. 
 Besides " But she did not finish. 
 
 Her thought had been, "If I should slip 
 away some time into that place you are so wise 
 * and so ignorant about, why then he might 
 be company for you." But she only smiled her 
 new smile of secret knowledge, and walked her 
 way contentedly. 
 
 Here the Cumnor Road is lined with elms, 
 locked overhead in perfect arches. Under their 
 canopy a horse and chaise came plodding on, 
 the fair, quaint picture of an older day. Dolly, 
 the horse, trod decorously, and Miss Hill sat 
 upright behind her. Julia and the Elder, in 
 their weedy footpath, walked straight on, with- 
 out a glance, until Miss Hill drew up, an opera- 
 tion of some moment, and relaxed her pose to 
 beckon. " Miss Kent," she called, with a cere- 
 mony King's End had never used, "I should 
 be pleased to give you a lift. I 'd ask your 
 brother, but I should like to see you alone. 
 
242 KING'S END 
 
 We '11 go slow. He can overtake us. Dolly is 
 not so smart as some." 
 
 Julia shook her head. " I 'm much obliged," 
 she said, in a voice enriched by certain sweet 
 and tremulous notes of late. " I 'm much 
 obliged, but I like to walk. We Ve set out for 
 good now." 
 
 " I should deem it a favor though not to 
 put you out. But we can speak right here, and 
 I should be obliged if what we say need go no 
 further." 
 
 The Elder walked on a few paces, and sat 
 down on a ledge, where he waited, musing. 
 
 "I caught sight of you going by," continued 
 Miss Hill, " and I thought first I 'd have them 
 call you in. But Dolly was all harnessed, and 
 I concluded that was best. I brought this with 
 me." She drew a folded paper from her reticule, 
 and looked upon it seriously. " We have been 
 going over my brother's papers, and I found 
 this. Nobody knows about it but me. He 
 did n't leave a will, but he made some notes for 
 one. This is the paper where he mentioned 
 you." 
 
 Julia put down her little parcel, because it 
 seemed too heavy. She nodded again, having 
 no breath for speech. 
 
 "He meant," continued the old gentlewoman 
 
KING'S END 243 
 
 with dignity, "to leave you a sum of money and 
 the right of a home on the place. I desire to 
 say that, although the will was never made, I 
 shall carry out my brother's wishes as I think 
 he meant." 
 
 Julia reached forth her shaking hand. " Should 
 you just as soon give me that paper?" she 
 panted, her old face alive. "Is it his own writ- 
 ing ? Should you just as soon ? " 
 
 Miss Hill sat looking at her from behind a 
 veil of fine, mild dignity. She was not alto- 
 gether pleased by fevers of impatience in so old 
 a woman. From her corner among the delicate 
 usages of life, Julia seemed to her uncannily 
 ancient, one in whom worldly desires should 
 have died long years ago. 
 
 " You understand it does n't give you any 
 hold," she said. " It is n't law. If I carry it 
 out, it will be by my own free will." 
 
 "Oh, I know that," said Julia radiantly. " I 
 don't want the money you 're real good, Miss 
 Hill ! nor a home. That 's all past and gone. 
 But the paper you just give me that, and I '11 
 be contented." 
 
 The other woman passed it to her wonder- 
 ingly. " I never knew he was much interested 
 in religion, but I presume your life and your 
 brother's made a great impression on him," she 
 
244 KING'S END 
 
 went on. " And being as your brother has n't 
 practical ways " There she stopped, aware 
 of being unheard. Julia was regarding the care- 
 less memorandum with an absorbed and tender 
 look, like one suddenly possessed of treasure 
 and not yet able to compute its magnitude. 
 Then she looked up, smiling, and the smile 
 turned her from a dry old woman into a spirit 
 which has incommunicable secrets of heaven 
 and earth. 
 
 " I '11 keep this," she said. Yes, Miss Hill, 
 I 've got to keep it. You never '11 be called 
 on to pay anything ; but you 've given me now 
 all you could, and more. Good-by, Miss Hill. 
 You 're real kind." She walked away, looking 
 back and waving her hand fantastically. 
 
 Miss Hill sat there in the chaise and watched 
 her, wondering. She was not an imaginative 
 woman, and Julia Kent seemed to her even 
 more unlike other folk than she had thought 
 her : yet not more so, perhaps, than any one 
 who lives a gypsy life, devoid of distaff know- 
 ledge. So, meditating decorously upon differ- 
 ences, Heaven-ordained, she turned old Dolly 
 about, and drove back to oversee the cleaning 
 of the Judge's room. 
 
 The Elder rose, as Julia neared him ; she was 
 
KING'S END 245 
 
 walking fast, perhaps afraid of being recalled 
 for further speech. Her face shone upon him 
 so that he could only repeat, "Why, Julia!" 
 and again, " Why, Julia ! " 
 
 She had slipped her love letter into her 
 pocket. "That's a real good woman," she 
 said, " real good ! But I can't ride, can I ? I 
 don't want anything, do I, but living just as 
 we Ve always lived ? " She laughed excitedly, 
 and yet happily, too. 
 
 The beat of hoofs echoed upon the road : 
 Black Fancy at her best. She had wakened 
 Luke, drowsing behind the wall, and flashed 
 into the distance before he knew who sum- 
 moned. Martin was driving, and by him sat 
 his Nancy, all life and eagerness. When she 
 saw the brother and sister, she bent forward, 
 smiling at them. There was a history in her 
 look : deprecation of their blame at being for- 
 saken, sorrow over their starving life, and, 
 above all, a buoyant justification of her choice. 
 " Here he is! " said her triumphant air. " Here 
 are we both together. That is all." 
 
 In the instant of their whirling by, Julia laid 
 a hand upon her brother's arm. " Oh, John ! " 
 she cried, laughing in little gusts, though the 
 tears lay on her withered cheek, " look at them ! 
 
246 KING'S END 
 
 look ! look ! They 're young and strong and 
 it 's summer time ! " 
 
 But after all, she knew Nancy was no richer 
 than she : only it was a different season of the 
 year. 
 
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