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 3 1822 01368 0822 
 
 '2X9
 
 THE 
 
 FREEBURGERS, 
 
 A NOVEL 
 
 BY 
 
 DENTON J.sSJSIDER. 
 
 V 
 
 ST. LOUIS: 
 
 SIGMA PUBLISHING CO., 
 210 PINE ST.
 
 COPYRIGHT BY D. J. 
 
 1889. 
 
 PRESS or 
 NIXON-JONES PRISTDJO Co., 
 
 St. Louis. Mo.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 CONSCIENCE OR THE CONSTITUTION ? 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 UNDER THE TALL APPLE TREE. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 AROUND HENRY FIRESTONE. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 IN THE HOUSE OF THE FIRESTOXES. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 FROM THE LIFE OF THE OLD SINGER. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 LEAVES OF HOPE WINSLOWS HISTORY. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 ON ANCESTRAL LINES. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 THE AFRICAN IN FREEBURG. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 THE CELEBRATION. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 THE END WHICH IS THE BEGINNING. 
 
 (ill)
 
 WORKS BY DENTON J. SNIDER 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 SIGMA PUBLISHING COMPANY, 
 
 10 VAX BUREN STREET, CHICAGO, ILL. 
 210 PINE STREET, ST. Louis, Mo. 
 
 I. Commentary on the Literary Bibles, in 9 vols. 
 
 1. Shakespeare's Dramas, 3 vols. 
 
 Tragedies (new edition), . . . $2.00 
 
 Comedies (new edition"), . . . 2.00 
 
 Histories (new edition), . . . 2.00 
 
 2. Goethe's Faust. 
 
 First Part (new edition), . . . 2.00 
 
 Second Part (new edition), . . . 2.00 
 
 3. Homer's Iliad (new edition), . . . 2.00 
 
 " Odyssey, 2.00 
 
 4. Dante's Inferno, 2.00 
 
 " Purgatory and Paradise, . . 2.00 
 II. Poems in 4 vols. 
 
 1. Homer in Chios, . . . . 1.00 
 
 2. Delphic Days 1.00 
 
 3. Agamemnon's Daughter, .... 1.00 
 
 4. Prorsus Retrorsus, 1.00 
 
 5. Johnny Appleseed's Rhymes, . . . 1.25 
 III. Miscellaneous. 
 
 1. Walk in Hellas 1.25 
 
 2. The Freeburgers a novel, . . . 1.25 
 
 3. World's Fair Studies, . . . ... 1-25 
 
 4. Commentary ou Froebel's Play-songs, . 1.25 
 In Story-land, by Elizabeth Harrison, . . 1.25 
 
 Each volume sold separately. 
 
 Sent by mail on receipt of the price.
 
 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 CHAPTER FIRST. 
 
 CONSCIENCE OR THE CONSTITUTION? 
 I. 
 
 Two men were passing along a road somewhat dusty 
 which wound through a well-cultivated country to 
 ward a pretty village situated upon a small stream of 
 water. One of the men rode on horseback, and was 
 genteelly dressed in the old fashion ; a pair of venerable 
 saddle-bags well distended lay in an easy balance be 
 hind him, and had a look of great comfort. The 
 other man went afoot ; he had a rather lean knapsack, 
 which he, like a true soldier, carried himself, slung 
 across his back ; he wore home-spun garments and 
 heavy shoes, on which was gathered the dust of the 
 day's journey ; it was observed that thick-set hob 
 nails left little pits on the face of mother earth where- 
 ever he put down his foot. The horseman had a set 
 tled appearance the look of a man who is fixed to 
 one spot for life, with a tether of a few miles, having
 
 2 % THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 the same objects, the same customs, and the same 
 faces always around him, to which he is not only 
 attached, but with which he becomes ingrown. The 
 pedestrian, on the contrary, seemed a wanderer, with 
 out any very permanent habitation ; from every feature 
 and from every action came a voice which proclaimed 
 him a man independent of his surroundings. He set 
 his foot upon the ground with a will, though he ap 
 peared quite indifferent to just that piece of ground, 
 inasmuch as he at once prepared to take another step 
 and quietly leave it behind. 
 
 The two men had come together in a casual manner 
 upon the road, and had started a conversation which 
 had evidently set both to thinking. They now moved 
 along in silence with eyes bent down a little in advance 
 of their feet, as if trying to forecast what came 
 next. After a good while the mounted gentleman 
 welded the broken talk with a sigh, which slowly spent 
 itself in the following words : 
 
 "It is bad statesmanship to raise such a ques 
 tion in the minds of the people." 
 
 The pedestrian never turned his glance aside, but 
 looked straight ahead and answered : 
 
 "So it is, perhaps. But have j 7 ou never observed 
 that just at the time when bad statesmanship does its 
 worst, a new order of things begins to break forth, 
 and becomes visible to the eye that can see through to 
 the soul of circumstances?" 
 
 The two men, who were entire strangers to each 
 other, dropped back into their former silence. The 
 little dialogue had not made them better acquainted ; 
 in fact, it had driven them wider apart. They passed
 
 CONSCIENCE OR THE CONSTITUTION? 3 
 
 through an extensive plain, sun-lit and shadow-flecked ; 
 on both sides of the road the waves of grain rippled 
 far and wide in the breeze. Then they came to a 
 hill, which they had to ascend, somewhat steep and 
 stony. This common difficulty of the way seemed 
 to bring their spirits together, and charm them to 
 a mutual utterance. The horseman was again the 
 first to break the silence of the journey in a bode 
 ful exclamation : 
 
 "It is a great mistake in those who govern us." 
 
 The pedestrian also loosed the bonds which seemed 
 to hold his tongue captive, and made a reply, speaking 
 more slowly but more firmly than before : 
 
 "Yes, so it is, perhaps. But in this world there 
 is some function in mistake ; I call it the ministry 
 of error. When I see man perversely blind or 
 stupidly asleep, I know the power beyond man is 
 vigorously awake and at work; the weakness of the 
 human is the seal, moulded and inscribed, of the 
 superhuman ; the mistakes of our rulers will show, to 
 the person who can read the inscription, what the 
 universal ruler has ordained and written on those 
 monuments of granite called events." 
 
 This new utterance did not bring the two wayfarers 
 nearer together ; traveling alongside of each other, they 
 stood in spirit transcendently asunder. The horse 
 man made no reply, but looked more intently than was 
 usual with him, at the road on which they were going 
 and which had led into a dark shady wood that quite 
 shut out the light of the sun. The change was not 
 disagreeable, though the horse stumbled a good deal 
 against the outcropping roots of the trees that ran
 
 4 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 across the highway, often in great hunches. The 
 pedestrian, however, was more sure-footed, and went 
 the same way without difficulty. He now and then 
 took occasion to warn his companion of some approach 
 ing danger which could not easily be seen in that syl 
 van twilight made of sunbeams finely sifted through 
 dense foliage. For the most part, however, he let the 
 horseman find his own way in silence through the um 
 brageous covert, till, at last, both emerged into the 
 open country, where the sun struck them with new 
 splendor, but also with new discomfort. Still both 
 remained together, and showed a profound respect for 
 each other's taciturnity. 
 
 The man on horseback had not yet relieved his mind 
 sufficiently by speech ; he had on his heart a matter 
 which he felt compelled to hint more distinctly than he 
 had hitherto done, though he still chose to speak of it 
 indirectly. Shaking off a little dust from the lapel 
 of his coat he began once more : 
 
 " There ought to be better men in office and more 
 care taken in selecting them." 
 
 The pedestrian, with a slight contortion of the lip, 
 gave a quick, keen shot of the eye at the man, as if 
 wondering what office he wanted, then turned away 
 from him and looked straight forward, saying: 
 
 "What you state has its truth; it is often well, 
 though perhaps not always, to turn one man out of 
 power for the sake of putting in a better. But it 
 makes little difference in the end ; take what road we 
 may, we shall come out at last in the same place. In 
 deed we shall travel the same highway, whoever may 
 be in advance stirring up the first dust."
 
 CONSCIENCE OR THE CONSTITUTION? 5 
 
 The horseman showed, by an impatient twitch, that 
 he had been slightly hit in a secret part by the answer 
 of the stranger, who, however, was wholly unconscious 
 of any purpose. He caught up the relaxed bridle of 
 his horse, and viewed his companion with increasing 
 interest. At the end of a rather long stare he asked : 
 
 "Are you going to Freeburg?" 
 
 " That place, I believe, chances to be the next point 
 in my journey." 
 
 " Are you traveling thither on business? " 
 
 "Not exactly. The truth is, I have just happened 
 along, without design." 
 
 " But have you no destination in your travels? " 
 
 " Yes, I have a destination. But I can go in any 
 direction and be sure of reaching it." 
 
 The horseman for a few moments puzzled over this 
 answer of the strange man, but broke off his medita 
 tions with another personal question : 
 
 " Will you stay long with us? " 
 
 " That depends upon what I find when I get there." 
 
 " You will not find a great deal, it is a small place." 
 
 "That makes little difference. A small place may 
 contain much, nay all. I can only say at present that 
 I am in no hurry ; I have been given the same amount 
 of time that every other son of Adam has, which, when 
 I count it up, is just all time. So, what is the good 
 of haste? Still, I cannot let the hours go by empty- 
 handed." 
 
 After this conversation, it may be stated that those 
 two souls, represented by the horseman and the pedes 
 trian respectively, had not been brought more closely 
 together than they were before. There was a chasm
 
 b THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 between them which neither could pass, though they 
 stood on opposite edges of it and talked across to 
 each other in tones audible, if not intelligible. They 
 lived and moved in two different worlds, while going 
 side by side along that dusty highway of earth 
 toward a little village. Somewhere in the universe, 
 doubtless, there is a spiritual flux which, with due 
 application of heat or some other power, would melt 
 their hard limits and make them flow together in one 
 common and perchance harmonious stream. But they 
 have not found it to-day, and now the attention of 
 both is drawn away from their thoughts to a fair 
 outer appearance, which flashes radiantly upon their 
 sense of vision, and at last unites them in a common 
 joy. 
 
 II. 
 
 The village of Freeburg has suddenly slipped into 
 the horizon, with houses dimly hiding behind trees, 
 while right and left are the distant hillsides, pieced 
 out like a great quilt, with irregular patches of forest, 
 meadow and grain-field that roll down in many a fold 
 to the little valley through which is gurgling a small, 
 pellucid stream. Over this stream the two wayfarers 
 have to pass; each has stopped a moment on the 
 brink to look at the merry flow of the changeful ele 
 ment on its way to the great, all-receiving ocean. 
 The horseman loosens the bridle, and lets his delighted 
 animal take its cooling drink, and then sport and 
 splash and stamp around in the shallow current, till it 
 be time to rein up stiffly and enter the village with be 
 coming dignity. Meanwhile the pedestrian has risen
 
 CONSCIENCE OR THE CONSTITUTION? 7 
 
 from the mossy brink, where he took a seat on a rock 
 and paddled with his hand in the refreshing waters ; 
 as there is no bridge he springs from stone to stone 
 easily, till he reaches the opposite side, losing no 
 thought from his head, and no dust from his shoes in 
 the passage. 
 
 The two men soon entered the village, one a short 
 distance behind the other, and with the inevitable 
 necessity of a straight line, were brought at once to 
 the Public Square. They found a crowd of people 
 there assembled around a platform slightly raised, 
 upon which stood a young man addressing the multi 
 tude in a strain of hot eloquence fanned to flames by 
 many rapid but irregular gestures. He was about to 
 conclude his speech, but the two men had arrived in 
 time to catch the following words of his peroration : 
 "As for me, I shall obey conscience; it is my final 
 authority. There is a higher statute than the written 
 one, and to its behest I am bound. It is the law of 
 humanity which forbids me to return my fellow-man, 
 seeking the freedom which I enjoy, to bondage. I 
 shall not do it myself, I shall not aid others in doing 
 it, whatever be man's law to the contrary." 
 
 At these words the greater part of the audience 
 cheered loudly and clapped their hands ; the young 
 man, beaming with smiles of conscious success, de 
 scended from the platform and was showered with 
 congratulations. Soon a single voice in the crowd 
 was heard calling out: " Let us now hear from Judge 
 James Allworthy." Whereupon a few scattering 
 voices shouted: "Allworthy! Allworthy to the plat 
 form." As there seemed to be no opposition, a neat,
 
 8 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 trim-clad gentleman came forward and mounted the 
 speaker's stand ; he was treated with universal respect 
 and universal silence. 
 
 Our pedestrian, still dusty, but flashing keen, sword- 
 like glances into the assembly, observed that it was 
 his companion, who had been riding on horseback at 
 his side during the early part of the day. 
 
 The Judge, for by this title we shall now know him, 
 surveyed the audience with a dignified look and then 
 began : 
 
 " I shall not say much, as I feel I have but a very 
 slender right to speak at this meeting. But I wish to 
 declare that I, too, am a man of conscience, and I 
 think its behests ought in general to be followed. 
 Still, I am also a man of law, and the law must be 
 obeyed. I confess, however, I do not like to see the 
 question put in this way ; indeed, I do not like to see 
 the people stirred up to ask such a question, and 
 thereby driven to make a choice between their con 
 science and their country. Accursed be the public 
 man who seeks to rouse and foster such a conflict. 
 I say, let him be thrice accursed." 
 
 Thus spake the good and mild Judge Allworthy, 
 ending in a warm imprecation which astonished friend 
 and foe. The applause was not great ; the crowd was 
 evidently attuned to another key-note. It was clear 
 that he had aimed a heavy blow at the young man who 
 had just preceded him, and whom he seemed to look 
 upon as a sower of dissension. But he did not escape 
 without requital for his two-sided sentences. He 
 was called a trimmer, a compromiser ; he was accused 
 of trying to ride two horses at once. Even his friends
 
 CONSCIENCE OR THE CONSTITUTION? 9 
 
 were somewhat confused by his speech, short as it 
 was, and had to stand on the defensive, in supporting 
 him. Hitherto his party had been in the majority and 
 had repeatedly elected him Judge. But a time of 
 change was felt to be approaching ; even the weather 
 cocks began to show the new breeze. 
 
 The village of Freeburg, lying on a little hill like a 
 water-nymph along the rivulet Sassaquatchie, was 
 waking up to a lively political campaign. The com 
 munity was capable of being wrought into a high state 
 of excitement, and of recovering from it very rapidly 
 after an election. The people were almost evenly di 
 vided upon the questions of the hour. In such a 
 case, the contest becomes a matter of great Interest in 
 itself, irrespective of any principle at stake, since men 
 are still barbarous enough to take pleasure in looking 
 at a close, hard-fought struggle. But now there was 
 also a principle involved ; every man took his place in 
 line of battle on one side or the other ; the citizen of 
 that little town felt himself to be a true soldier of the 
 ages, whose ballot was far more effective than the bullet. 
 
 Our pedestrian had attracted some attention, he was 
 the sole stranger at present in the village, where every 
 body knew everybody and everybody's business. 
 There was a change in his look as he stood on the outer 
 rim of the crowd and watched its doings. If he pre 
 viously, in his talk with the Judge, had a serious air, 
 now he seemed humorous and at times grotesque in 
 the sport of his features. A satirical smile twitched 
 through his lips, as he touched his neighbor's elbow 
 and asked : 
 
 " What is the stake these two men are playing for? "
 
 10 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 The neighbor stared awhile and then said: " I do 
 not understand you." 
 
 "I see you are not a gamester." 
 
 "No, I am an honest farmer." 
 
 " Well, then, I shall use your speech. Tell me, are 
 not these speakers trying to feather their own nest 
 from the public goose ?" 
 
 Still the man looked blank with uncertainty, but 
 threw out at random the following piece of inform 
 ation, which he vaguely thought might fit in some 
 where : 
 
 "There is an office soon to be voted for in this 
 place it is the judgeship." 
 
 " And these are the candidates?" 
 
 "Yes, sir. They are the very men.' 
 
 " I thought so." 
 
 " Why did you think that?" 
 
 "They kept hiding their little bodies behind great 
 principles with so much care." 
 
 " But they are honest," affirmed the man. 
 
 "I never doubted it; they cannot help what they 
 are doing. Something has a hold of them which they 
 are not aware of. Did you notice that young man 
 who spoke? He uttered a word so big that his little 
 shape shrunk behind it, and became but a voice for 
 ever speaking through time. Yet look at him ! He 
 is a petty popinjay dancing to the tune of the wind." 
 
 In the shifting of the crowd, the one rather befogged 
 neighbor had vanished before the end of this short 
 speech, but another brighter countenance had taken 
 his place. Our pedestrian soon learned that the pres 
 ent incumbent of the office of judgeship was none
 
 CONSCIENCE OR THE CONSTITUTION? 11 
 
 other than the dignified gentleman whom he had met 
 on horseback nicely balanced in his stirrups, with 
 well filled saddle bags in happy equilibrium, and whom 
 he has just heard called with great respect, Judge 
 Allworthy. 
 
 He began to knit a conversation with his new neigh 
 bor, whom he observed to be a man of significance. 
 
 "The people are taking great interest in this elec 
 tion," observed the pedestrian. 
 
 " Yes, and it is well that they do." 
 
 " But has not the Judge to administer the law as it 
 stands, and not change it or make it over? " 
 
 "True, still the Freeburgers deem it very impor 
 tant to know in advance how the Judge will construe 
 or carry out a certain enactment, in which they some 
 how conceive their very souls to be bound up and im 
 prisoned." 
 
 Our pedestrian had quite resumed his reflective 
 mood, and he added to the words of his neighbor the 
 following remarks : 
 
 " After all is done the Law finds no expression so 
 final that one judge may not think it means one 
 thing in extreme cases, and another judge another 
 thing. In its very inflexibility the Law gets to be 
 flexible, and, in spite of the legislative power, the 
 judicial comes at last to be the lawgiver. But we 
 must not overlook the real kernel that lies wrapped in 
 this outer husk of appearance ; there is something 
 mightier than Law, which is seizing hold of Law with 
 a giant's grasp, is masking in Law with many a grimace 
 and contortion, and is using it as an instrument to 
 bring forth its own far deeper, at present invisible,
 
 12 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 purpose. Who will tear me off the mask and show the 
 grand coming reality? " 
 
 The pedestrian looked up, the second neighbor also 
 had disappeared. But he had called forth himself 
 some where from the depths of his being, he stood in 
 his own majestic presence, which he now seemed to 
 address : 
 
 "Behold the wrestle of the Titans: man with the 
 ceaseless, weary toil of ages builds for himself the 
 temple of the Law, that he may have at last a home for 
 his Goddess Liberty ; then turning about in heroic dis 
 content, and laboring with yet greater toil, even sweat 
 ing drops of blood, he tears down the temple of the 
 Law in order that the same Goddess, Liberty, may go 
 free. What a prodigious expense of power ! What 
 an oceanic turmoil of spirit! What a grinding and 
 rasping of human souls, growing harder and harder, 
 till they become as flint, and are ready to strike out of 
 one another with weapons of steel the spark with which 
 is kindled the grand conflagration ! " 
 
 It was getting dark, the meeting had broken up, 
 everybody had started for home. The pedestrian, left 
 quite alone, had the Public Square all to himself, but 
 he, too, felt solitary, and turned his footsteps toward 
 the small inn of the place, where a few companionable 
 spirits could always be found. 
 
 The result of the day, however, should be stated. 
 Two candidates were now in tbe field, soliciting the 
 suffrages of the people ; it may be fairly said of them 
 that they were, on the whole, the best men of their re 
 spective parties. Judge Allworthy, who had held his 
 position so long, bore an unsullied name for upright-
 
 CONSCIENCE OR THE CONSTITUTION? 13 
 
 ness and knowledge of jurisprudence. He was origin 
 ally from Virginia , where he was highly connected ; 
 "he still held by its old training and traditions. He 
 nad, however, emigrated at an early day, and had set 
 tled in the community where he now lived ; he knew 
 its people and their needs, and had grown up with the 
 country. Still the country was growing away from 
 him, and he felt it; he would often seem to clutch 
 after that which was passing out of his hands. There 
 was a scission in him too, in spite of himself ; with 
 desperate obstinacy he clung to the old order in his 
 conscious word and deed, but unconsciously he could 
 not help often falling in with the new tendencies around 
 him. He was fond of his profession^ fond of the Law ; 
 he delighted in weighing, balancing, setting one point 
 against another so impartially that it seemed to annoy 
 him to break the equipoise and come to a decision. 
 He was universally esteemed and had been repeatedly 
 elected without opposition, but now an opponent ap 
 peared in the person of Harvey Conington, the young 
 man who made the fervid peroration at the meeting in 
 the Public Square. 
 
 This young man was born, reared, and educated in 
 Freeburg ; he was a child of the new West, yet with 
 the lines of his training and origin running back to 
 New England. Liberal, popular, enthusiastic, he 
 flung himself with zeal into one side of a question, and 
 had already distinguished himself as an advocate. By 
 nature and by education he had the moral rather than 
 the legal temperament, and it was this state of mind 
 which made him harmonious with the present tend 
 ency of things. He had boldness, was not wanting in
 
 14 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 self-esteem, which sometimes showed itself outwardly in 
 a lofty strut. Of his own accord he had proclaimed 
 himself a candidate in opposition to Judge Allworthy, 
 and his speech at the recent gathering was a sort of 
 ratification of himself by himself. Still he did not 
 lack friends, and he had a principle ; in fact, he was 
 on top of the great incoming tide, though he was 
 hardly aware of it at the time, at least not aware of 
 its tremendous possibilities. 
 
 The an ti- slavery agitation had arisen, and was 
 gradually taking possession of the political conviction 
 of the North. It was, however, no mere theoretical 
 dispute about right and wrong; the man was sum 
 moned to act. A national law had been recently 
 passed, which made it incumbent upon every citizen 
 of a free country to aid in returning a fugitive slave 
 to his master. The legislation of certain Northern 
 States had sought, with varying success, to assist or to 
 obstruct the national law. From the Legislature the 
 question passed necessarily to the Judiciary. The 
 issue was plain, in spite of all legal: cobwebs spun 
 around it ; each candidate had to be tested by it ; as 
 Judge, his influence was important and his decision 
 might be still more important. The people rigidly 
 applied the test to every man soliciting their suffrages ; 
 they asked not what is the law, but what does this man 
 think is the law. 
 
 The great event loves to hide itself and play with 
 appearances before it throws off its mask and stands 
 visible, in full panoply marching before the front rank 
 of battle. In those days many were the tortuosities 
 and subterfuges and legal quibbles going to prove that
 
 CONSCIENCE OR THE CONSTITUTION? 15 
 
 by law the law was no law. Some said that the State 
 law was not constitutional ; others declared that the 
 national law was not constitutional, while the people 
 were rapidly beginning to believe that the constitu 
 tion itself was not constitutional. Through dark sub 
 terranean channels of argumentation the stream of 
 discussion kept flowing, with new twists and turns, new 
 solutions and new difficulties daily. But after all dis 
 tinctions, subtle and obvious, important and unim 
 portant, had been laid down, wiped out and laid down 
 again, possibly to be wiped out again, there rose out 
 of this turbulent sea of words one colossal question, 
 unshaken by the tempest and high as heaven, with 
 dazzling nakedness and of terrible practical import : 
 Am I to obey Conscience or, the Constitution? 
 
 III. 
 
 Our friend, the one stranger in town, whom we 
 shall still have to call the Pedestrian, since not a soul 
 has been able to find out his name, has concluded to 
 abide for a while in Freeburg, as the place furnishes 
 much food for reflection, and even for entertainment. 
 He is not slow in perceiving the deep spirit at work 
 in its events ; he also perceives, with home-thrust 
 glances, the ever-changing, selfish demon playing 
 through them all. At one time he finds delight in the 
 wild masquerade of personal motives, as they take on 
 the garb of holy crusaders ; then his pleasure is to 
 cut disguise into a thousand shreds with the Damascus 
 blade of his wit. He will flng himself into the maddest 
 humor of the moment till he seems a part of it ; then
 
 16 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 he turns upon it, and slashes it to pieces m sarcastic 
 glee. 
 
 Even in his personal conduct he seems to go 
 through all the grotesque pranks of the Time-Spirit, 
 who has in him become veritably incorporate and 
 turned a human being. He puts on the long face of 
 the saint ; behold the sudden change : that face trans 
 forms itself into the comic mask of the buffoon. He 
 will laugh at the moral enthusiasm of the Freeburgers 
 with a cynical curl of the lip: " Yes, there is a negro 
 in the wood-pile here in Freeburg, too." Then he 
 changes to a grave, prophetic demeanor, and replies 
 apparently to himself: "But the whole country is a 
 wood-pile, and there is a negro in it, and he will stay 
 in it to the end." 
 
 Strange pedestrian! It pleases him to pass in a 
 sentence from the clown to the seer ; he soars to se 
 raphic heights, then sinks to satanic depths in a single 
 flight. A sneer he has, too, world-destroying ; but if 
 nobody answers it he will in the end answer it himself. 
 At one moment he seems to see only the lowest per 
 sonal motives of men, which sport delusively around 
 every great cause ; then he expands his pinions, and 
 rises aloft out of his grovelling into the very empyrean 
 of vision, whence he throws down to mortals scattered 
 glimpses of the order universal seen from above. 
 
 Very difficult it is for the scribe to transfer at 
 second hand such flights into writ. The pedestrian 
 lias an inveterate habit of talking to himself as if he 
 were addressing the chief potentate of the Universe, 
 and in these communications he always puts on the 
 air of Olympian authority. After witnessing these
 
 CONSCIENCE OR THE CONSTITUTION? 17 
 
 events at Freeburg, he cried out one day in a sudden 
 exclamatory burst, apparently without any provoca 
 tion : 
 
 "I behold here in this labor of the time one colossal 
 struggle at bottom there is but one I call it the 
 superhuman struggle of the human for freedom. The 
 mighty striving is in the man and yet it transcends the 
 man. This freedom is the final goal of every turn of 
 your hand, of every thought in your head, of every 
 heart-beat in your breast a goal always being 
 attained, never quite attainable. On this line man's 
 activity must forever be beyond, and beyond, and 
 still further beyond, in order to be at all ; to be free, 
 he must always be in the process of getting free. 
 There is no rest ; let him stop one moment and Fate 
 clutches him. That mighty represser is now on wing 
 just above us, hovering around like a Harpy, watching 
 the opportunity to pounce down upon the loiterer in 
 the halls of ease. How vast, how subtle, how fluctu 
 ating the battle! The greater freedom's domain, the 
 more lines upon which it can be attacked. Once in 
 the infancy of time it nestled secure in its cradle and 
 almost unknown, on the mountain tops of Hellas ; but 
 now it has come down from its fastnesses, Las crossed 
 an ocean, and, settling over the valley of a continent, 
 challenges the whole world. O man, thou Fate-com- 
 peller, be up and a-doing, the sun is now rising, fling 
 wide the doors, throw open the windows, and, if need 
 be, tear down the walls ; the atmosphere is dark and 
 stifling, this house of our fathers is too narrow for 
 us!" 
 
 At this point the pedestrian stopped his discourse, 
 2
 
 18 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 and gave a sudden whirl of the rotary chair, upon 
 which he sat, turning it in another direction. The firm, 
 rapt lines of his face began to break into a thousand 
 fragments, an impish chuckle was heard as he started 
 again, pointing to an instance before him : 
 
 "All-comprehensive I find this pursuit of freedom. 
 That man yonder who swallows his glass of fiery 
 usquebaugh, getting drunk and wallowing in the gut 
 ter, is, I take it, in pursuit of freedom. Behold him 
 now ; care cannot reach him, respectability can no longer 
 keep him in her strait coat, even his own physical 
 strength cannot confine him, for just look at him ! 
 Reeling when he goes, tottering when he stands, he 
 yet is ready to fight the whole world. I have noted, 
 too, our greatest poet makes Caliban a seeker after 
 freedom as well as Ariel. I declare, on the strength 
 of some acquaintance with him, that the supreme 
 aspiration of the Devil himself is to be free." 
 
 IV. 
 
 The little village, as the pedestrian then looked into 
 it, showed the rent heart of a great drama. With 
 alarming rapidity it reduced the two primordial factors 
 of human conduct, which ought to dwell together in 
 the breast harmoniously, to a terrific antagonism. The 
 inner voice of the soul commanding one thing and the 
 outer voice of the State commanding another thing, 
 were heard by every man in Freeburg, who had to 
 settle with himself which voice he should follow. It 
 was a puzzle which troubled the clearest head, at 
 times it gave a wrench to the stoutest frame. The
 
 CONSCIENCE OR THE CONSTITUTION? 19 
 
 very brain seemed cleft and the two halves fighting. It 
 was not a question of abstract speculation, else the 
 practical Freeburgers had flung it to the winds ; it 
 was a thinking which looked straight into the eye of 
 duty, and stood ready at any moment to be summoned 
 into action. Will you help chase down the panting 
 fugitive? Every fiber in the man revolts. Will you 
 refuse to obey the supreme law of your country ? That 
 is to the last degree distasteful to the free citizen. We 
 may palter and excuse and shift and squirm ; there is 
 no getting out of the dilemma ; we shall have to make 
 the choice and obey Conscience or the Constitution, 
 inasmuch as we cannot obey Conscience and the Con 
 stitution. So the Freeburgers kept thinking and 
 writhing and turning in their feverish bed, first on 
 one side and then on the other ; but there was no re 
 lief, the two sides still remained, and they remained in 
 burning opposition. 
 
 The struggle was felt with more or less intensity in 
 every soul of the community, and there was no putting 
 it down. But it could not stay merely an internal 
 struggle of the mind, it had already become an ex 
 ternal living fact in the two political parties, and each 
 party had taken one side of the question. Each party, 
 too, had now set up its candidate for an office which 
 had an important part in governing the social organism. 
 Thus the strife of the soul had flung itself out into the 
 world, and had become the strife of society, while the 
 armies of the two contending ideas were arraying 
 themselves for battle under the chosen captains, the 
 young Advocate and the old Judge. 
 
 The whole village was split in twain by the struggle
 
 20 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 between these two leaders ; the citizens not only took 
 sides, but rose on the top-most wave of enthusiasm, 
 which then plungted down into dark and bitter hate. 
 Each party swore fealty to its chieftain, adopted as its 
 own every word he had ever said, every deed he had 
 ever done, and was ready to maintain that its man was 
 the best in all respects the best thinker, the best 
 speaker, and, in case of need, the best fighter. Nor 
 did it stop with this high appreciation of its own 
 leader ; it passed over into contempt for the opposite 
 leader, often into the foulest personal detraction. 
 
 The respective excellences of the two leaders had 
 to be brought out before the eyes of all the people ; 
 consequently a public discussion between them was 
 arranged. That former meeting on the Public Square 
 was a small accidental matter ; but now the proceed 
 ings were to be conducted on a grand scale. The sun 
 rose, as usual, on the appointed day, and the farmers 
 from remote districts came in wagons and on horse 
 back to the village ; not one of them who had not a 
 spark of the conflict in him, ready to be blown into a 
 blaze by the breath of eloquence. Each was an inde 
 pendent unit, a freeman ; he was more, he was a sov 
 ereign, and he rode into the Public Square with the 
 proud consciousness of his sovereignty. But this 
 pride was no empty one ; the price had to be paid for 
 it, since sovereignty brings with itself responsibility, 
 and responsibility is always dogged by anxiety. The 
 American citizen on that day in the village of Free- 
 burg had cause for not trifling with his own majesty. 
 Underneath each hat was a head, and in each head was 
 a seething of ideas, a very war, with battle-flags of
 
 CONSCIENCE OR THE CONSTITUTION? 21 
 
 the brain waving violently, and inscribed with princi 
 ples which summoned the man into action. 
 
 The people, as they assembled in the place of meet 
 ing, divided, of themselves, into two large groups, 
 which sometimes touched each other at the edges, and 
 sometimes separated altogether. Along this line of 
 division, swaying to and fro, were a few scattered per 
 sons who seemed to belong to neither group. But 
 small as was the number, they could give the majority 
 to one group or the other, according as they leaned 
 this way or that. Still the separation was marked 
 and showed itself in the most emphatic manner. At 
 one end of the platform the strong, tawny hand of an 
 agriculturist planted a flag and unfurled it to the mul 
 titude. "This is our motto," he shouted, and every 
 body read on it in big letters : "The Constitution and 
 the Union." It was greeted with loud cheers, partic 
 ularly from one side of the audience. Then a tall, 
 spare man, somewhat pale, with an intellectual cast of 
 features, sprang up at the other end of the platform, 
 and threw to the breeze a second flag, crying out at 
 the top of his voice excitedly: " Here is what we are 
 ready to fight for;" and the audience read on it in 
 golden characters the legend: " Conscience and Hu 
 manity." The applause was very hearty, but if the 
 line of it were sharply drawn, it would have included 
 about one-half of the meeting. 
 
 As usual on such occasions, some obstacle arose 
 which prevented the discussion from starting on time, 
 and the delay was filled up with cheers, with party 
 catch-words bandied back and forward between the 
 two sides. There was at first much good-natured
 
 22 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 banter, but it had a tendency to grow more and more 
 acrid till it reached the point of cutting sarcasm, which 
 split the audience open more widely than ever before. 
 It was manifest that a cool, judicial consideration of 
 the question was not to be had that day. 
 
 At last the young Advocate arose and began the de 
 bate, starting with a pretty compliment to his opponent. 
 Then the issues of the hour were handled with great 
 spirit ; they were tracked through all their sinuosities 
 and set off with all the barbarisms of political nomen 
 clature. These we need not put down in writing, for 
 in the young man's speech there was one point at 
 bottom, one cry in the end: that was the appeal to 
 the statute inscribed upon the heart of man, the ap 
 peal to the law of humanity higher than any enact 
 ment of States. Indeed, the speaker proclaimed in a 
 burst of eloquence, which called forth the thunders of 
 his hearers, that this inner law in the man was the de 
 cree of God himself, far above any institutional regu 
 lation. To this belief he had been gradually driven 
 by the logic of his position and the mighty propulsion 
 of the times ; while the excitement of his audience, 
 lashed into a tempest of enthusiasm, whirled him for 
 ward to the extreme statement of his principle. 
 
 The Judge, his opponent, who was sitting just behind 
 him on the same platform, was wrought up as never 
 before. He rose and put the question passionately : 
 " Would you defy the Constitution and the Laws?" 
 The young Advocate stopped a moment, turned aside 
 and took several swallows of water from a glass which 
 had been placed on the speaker's stand. Then he, 
 after a little lull, went on to declare thit he was a
 
 CONSCIENCE OR THE CONSTITUTION? 23 
 
 lawyer himself, and no enemy to the Constitution and 
 the Laws. Without illustrating further this statement 
 he passed to a very warm eulogy of the Higher Law, 
 which every human being in all ages finds written by 
 the Creator's hand on the tablets of his heart. In a 
 mutter, which the speaker did not choose to hear, Judge 
 Allworthy said with a touch of sarcasm : " I have never 
 read any such writing there." But a man sitting near 
 him retorted with a glance of fire from his eye : "For 
 a good reason : you have not yet learned the alpha 
 bet." 
 
 The young candidate ended his speech, and the 
 welkin reverberated with the shouts of applause. How 
 noble, how elevating his words! Even his body 
 seemed to grow sympathetic with his lofty declamation, 
 and to rise up higher in stature before the eyes of 
 the people. He had spoken upon his side so strongly, 
 so beautifully, so conscientiously, that all, even his 
 opponents, felt edified. But his own party were the 
 chief gainers, the majority of them he led on that day 
 out of the wilderness of doubt and unorganized effort 
 into the clear, open daylight of a conviction and a pur 
 pose. To be sure, they were ready to be led, and were 
 loudly calling for a leader. It was noticed, too, that 
 the wavering line, made up of the unsettled ones, who 
 hovered between the two parties in the audience, 
 swayed emphatically toward the side of the young 
 candidate. 
 
 It was now the Judge's turn to speak. He began 
 with manifest embarrassment, as he felt himself strug 
 gling in a strong undertow which had a power he could 
 not stem. His dignified form, the authority of years
 
 24 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 in his face, his calm judicial utterance, his careful 
 balancing of points on both sides of the question, were 
 lost in the strong emotions of the people, who had been 
 stirred up from the depths by the fervid appeals of 
 the young Advocate. Still the good man went on, 
 weighing, counseling, excusing ; he cried peace, he 
 suggested compromise. He unfolded in grave, well- 
 balanced periods the majesty of the Law, the great 
 ness of the Constitution, the wisdom of our ancestors 
 who made the document. He grew warm in painting 
 the dangers of the present agitation, its strong tend 
 ency toward illegality, and even unconstitutionality ; he 
 denounced the disturbance caused by it between neigh 
 bors, between States, between the two great sections 
 of the Union. The recent enactments, which had 
 roused so much feeling, he would not defend, but he 
 tried to excuse ; there were points in favor of them, as 
 well as against them. In all these exciting matters 
 he besought his hearers to endure the present with 
 equanimity, and not rashly fly to the unknown ills of a 
 conflict, of which no one could predict the result. 
 The key-note, which with simple variations ran through 
 his speech, was, Abide by what is established, hold fast 
 to the institutions transmitted from the fathers, listen 
 not to these passionate appeals to an abstract right 
 which never existed and never can exist ; obey 
 not the fantastic, delusive promptings of your own 
 self-will in opposition to the laws of your country. 
 At last the speaker, lowering his voice into its most 
 solemn tone, concluded with great impressiveness : 
 " And let no man ascribe to the decree of God 
 that which is merely his owe narrow judgment; let
 
 CONSCIENCE OR THE CONSTITUTION? 25 
 
 not the weak, erring human being deify any part of 
 himself, not even his conscience." 
 
 It was felt by all to be a good speech, full of peace 
 and kindness as well as legality ; it was also pathetic 
 in parts, and, when the venerable Judge closed, many 
 an aged eye was watered with tears at the remem 
 brance of the good old time when no such conflict was 
 abroad in the land. So restful, so soothing, so pacify 
 ing to the troubled heart was the entire tone and effect 
 of the address that it seemed to be sent down from 
 above as a peace-offering to the strifeful elements. 
 Unconsciously the audience swelled with the feeling of 
 good-will and fraternity till it surged together, and the 
 line of division was quite obliterated. It was an over 
 flowing moment ; but just then the young Advocate 
 sprang to his feet and blazed up with that furious 
 question aflame with infernal discord: " Would you 
 return a fugitive slave to his master?" The Judge 
 not only hesitated but stammered ; he too reached for 
 the glass of water and raised it to his lips, but he 
 choked in swallowing the first draught ; then oil ac 
 count of a spasmodic cough he spilt the contents over 
 his clothes. With a second draught he washed down 
 his perturbation somewhat, and succeeded in uttering 
 this response amid several attempts to clear his throat : 
 "That would be according to circumstances." 
 "What circumstances!" flashed the young Advocate, 
 " have you a conscience?" 
 
 At this question, asked in a forward if not impudent 
 manner, the Judge, famous for urbanity, lost his tem 
 per; the judicial equilibrium, which was his pride, 
 broke down and rushed madly to passion, which found
 
 26 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 vent in the threat that he would, at the first opportun 
 ity, publicly cow-hide the impertinent Yankee puppy. 
 The young Advocate had coin of the same stamp in 
 store, and paid him back by calling him a weazen old 
 dough-face and blood-hound of the Southern nigger- 
 driver. 
 
 This short duel of vilification threw the spark which 
 kindled a whole magazine of combustibles. With a 
 word the battle in the brain began to change to a bat 
 tle in the Public Square, and the conflict of ideas 
 threatened at once to become a conflict of muscle. 
 The dividing line of the audience was more marked 
 than ever, and the two groups first surged wildly apart, 
 then surged back fiercely toward each other in ap 
 parent hostility. The little intermediate band of un 
 certainties ran away from a place where they stood 
 between two fires. There were menaces, brandishings 
 of clenched fists, vociferations of the multitude, in 
 which everything might have been said, but nothing 
 could be heard. In a few cases it came to a little 
 thumping and punching and stray strokes of canes, 
 whereof the innocent, as usual, carried off the lion's 
 share. 
 
 But how about the two speakers, the grand prota 
 gonists of the conflict, both of whom were together on 
 the platform? Each moved toward the other in hos 
 tile attitude, but intervening friends held them asun 
 der ; both shouted themselves red in the face with 
 epithets which their own good fortune drowned in the 
 din. In his wrath the Judge had lost his legality, the 
 young Advocate his universal benevolence, and both 
 their dignity. The Judge whirled and seized the
 
 CONSCIENCE OR THE CONSTITUTION? 27 
 
 staff of the flag that was flying near him, inscribed with 
 the words: "The Constitution and the Union," and 
 prepared to use it as a weapon against his assailant. 
 The young Advocate turned about and laid hold of the 
 staff of the other flag which floated above him bearing 
 the blazon, " Conscience and Humanity," and made 
 ready to return stroke for stroke. They were now 
 real standard-bearers ; they began to push and punch 
 each other with the poles, and the very flags grappled, 
 intertwined, and fought, we may say, in the breeze; 
 they rolled and reared and writhed together like two 
 huge streaked serpents of red, white and blue contend 
 ing for the mastery over the surface of the sea. At 
 last the men were separated, and the flags drooped 
 upon their staffs ; it was noticed that the one flag, 
 which was inscribed with " The Constitution and the 
 Union " was rent from top to bottom, and the other 
 flag bearing the imprint of " Conscience and Human 
 ity " was pierced over and over with many holes which 
 let through a good deal of sunlight. 
 
 V. 
 
 At this moment the dark form of a man was seen 
 slipping through the crowd along the line just where 
 the two edges of conflict clashed together. He dodged 
 the blows of both sides ; he would stoop and crawl 
 for a short distance under a row of brandished arms, 
 then rise at an open space and run with all his might, 
 letting an occasional thwack, till he reached the plat 
 form, which he mounted at a leap. Few took notice of 
 the entire feat, though all saw him slipping past,
 
 28 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 while they perchance were preparing to fight over and 
 around him. Like a black slippery eel he wound 
 through all their hands and arms so slick and pliant 
 that the -spectator would be apt to regard him as the 
 object which had escaped the wrath of the multitude, 
 while their blows, aimed at him, fell on one another. 
 
 It wasCudjo Bell, the only African in Freeburg, and 
 a reputed runaway slave. The strange fact must be 
 noted that he was in the employ of Judge Allworthy, 
 who had the Southern preference for black servants, 
 and obtained them when he could, though in the pres 
 ent case he more than suspected Cudjo's true legal con 
 dition. But the Judge was a man, with all his legality ; 
 did he not choke at the question whether he would 
 return a fugitive, as if his nature instinctively revolted 
 at the idea, and finally did he not dodge the point in 
 his answer? All of which indicated a secret inner pro 
 test against his own doctrine. As soon as Cudjo 
 reached the platform, he interposed himself between 
 the combatants, stood before the Judge and spoke in 
 a low tone: " Come, the carriage is ready and all 
 the people are waiting for you." 
 
 The thought of his family, and also of his guests, of 
 whom he kept his spacious mansion full, with the old 
 Virginia hospitality, was enough to bring the Judge 
 to his senses. Probably, too, he was already satisfied 
 with his share of the fracas. He moved off in com 
 pany with the black man, who followed at his side, 
 a little to the rear, with an outlook for any act of 
 violence against his employer. It was an odd sight 
 to see the lofty Virginian and the humble African 
 march along together, the latter being the protection
 
 CONSCIENCE OR THE CONSTITUTION? 29 
 
 of the former by the very color of the skin, as the party 
 of the young Advocate had no-design of troubling the 
 black man. As they passed out the edge of the crowd 
 a hot zealot shouted : " Why do you not crush your 
 oppressor?" But Cudjo, rolling his looks upon the 
 man till even the white of his eye seemed to flash fire 
 in warning, said nothing, and went ahead. 
 
 There is no doubt that Cudjo lived in the town by 
 a kind of sufferance and contrary to law. He had no 
 right to be a freeman, still there was a right by which 
 he was free. He had entangled the whole community 
 in his cause ; he had helped, if not to engender, at least 
 to reveal the conflict in which all were involved. By 
 law he was an outlaw, because he had sought and 
 gained his liberty, and the whole population of Free- 
 burg, he, to a certain extent, made o'utlaws with him 
 self, because they tolerated, yea, supported his liberty 
 in opposition to law. Is it a wonder that the town felt 
 its civil life rent to the very heart? His presence 
 haunted the place ; he was an air-picture of darkness 
 continuously flitting before the community and show 
 ing the deep scission in its soul. 
 
 The man who was really more entangled in the 
 meshes of this double, contradictory life than any other 
 was Judge All worthy , the great upholder of legality. He 
 employed the supposed fugitive, did it knowingly ; what 
 the law forbade he presisted in doing he harbored, 
 fed and supported a runaway slave. The secret un 
 dertow of time had caught him up and was bearing 
 him forward too, though he protested, resisted, denied. 
 His candidacy very naturally made the breach in him 
 wider ; the louder his spoken defense, the stronger the
 
 30 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 secret answer within. Thus he was driven into deeper 
 inconsistency and conflict than any other man in the 
 community. 
 
 The Judge broke out into open commendation of 
 the negro when the two were beyond the hearing of 
 the multitude: 
 
 " Cudjo, you were the most sensible person in the 
 crowd." 
 
 The darkey grinned and bowed obsequiously with 
 hat off, and the white man went on to make a compari 
 son in which he and his pale-faced race were not the 
 superiors : 
 
 " You had the coolest head of us all." 
 
 Again the negro chuckled and ducked his head, but 
 did not take off his hat. The judge continued : 
 
 " I say it openly here that you showed yourself a 
 man to-day." 
 
 The black fellow stiffened his giggling lips into a 
 strong curve of resolution, he straightened himself up 
 till he stood erect, overtopping his employer a little, 
 and spoke with a deep strong roll in his words : 
 
 " 1 hope yet to be a man a freeman inFreeburg." 
 
 At these words the Judge silently looked into the 
 face of Cudjo, as if he were trying to read something 
 written there which he had never seen before. His 
 eyes began to open to what had been lying under his 
 glance day after day for a long time ; and there came 
 over him a flash of unsteady light, a dim feeling of 
 inconsequence in denying manhood to a man accord 
 ing to law, yet recognizing and encouraging it con 
 trary to law. But he had reached his carriage-door 
 and entered, the flash passed into darkness, as he
 
 CONSCIENCE OR THE CONSTITUTION? 31 
 
 was whirled homewards amid the gay pleasant talk of 
 friends. Still his spirit was in a ferment in spite of 
 his self-suppression ; he had left the people whose 
 leader he was, behind him in a ferment ; the one was, 
 indeed, an image of the other, and he could not help 
 questioning himself about the meaning of the vivid 
 scene he had just beheld. 
 
 The fact is, such an occurrence had never happened 
 before in the town ; the citizens, indeed, thought a 
 strife of that kind impossible in their community, till 
 it actually took place. The appeal was about to be 
 made to that peaceful weapon, the ballot, which all 
 had been taught to believe was the universal remedy 
 for every political and social trouble ; but even in 
 Freeburg, the stronghold of the ballot, it had for 
 once been found inadequate not the bringer of 
 peace but of conflict. The ballot rests primarily 
 upon equality equality of the same number of per 
 sons in muscle and courage, and, to a certain degree, 
 equality in intellect. Its pre-supposition is, that the 
 lesser party will get whipped, if the dispute be re 
 ferred to the arbitrament of arms. To find out which 
 is the lesser party, the poll is taken, and the minority 
 quietly considers itself beaten without a fight. The 
 great happiness of the ballot is, that it dispenses with 
 the necessity of a physical tussle to settle affairs in a 
 case of disagreement. But all must accept it, the de 
 feated as well as the successful party ; the recognition 
 of equality is the peace-giving principle which under 
 lies the ballot as well as a republican government. 
 
 Now, the strange fact came to light that this prin 
 ciple of equality was no longer fully acknowledged in
 
 32 THE FREEBORGERS. 
 
 Freeburg, even in its muscular application. Certain 
 vigorous constitutionalists there were, friends of the 
 Judge, each one of whom thought he could handle two 
 at least of the opposite party, while some of the latter 
 claimed that they were thrice armed, inasmuch as 
 their cause was just, and., consequently, that they 
 could lay out three enemies apiece. Manifestly the 
 recognition of equality, especially of physical equality, 
 was no longer a trait of these citizens, and the result 
 was, peace began to spread her wings for a flight from 
 their habitations. 
 
 The contest in Freeburg took place some years be 
 fore the great national struggle in which the ballot 
 could no longer effect a decision, and in which an 
 average man on one side often thought himself a match 
 for two average men on the other side. This muscular 
 superiorit}' proved a delusion in both cases, and the 
 people returned to the ballot after letting pretty much 
 all the fighting blood out of one another. But even 
 this delusion of superiority had its function ; it was 
 the instrument of the higher purpose ; behind it and 
 through it an idea was at work arming itself with 
 courage and confidence and nerving its supporters up 
 to the conflict. Men will prepare to fight when they 
 think they can win. A thousand villages were plainly 
 seen drifting into the same struggle, the whole country 
 was drifting into it, and was taking sides along an 
 imaginary line of battle. 
 
 But in the present case the Freeburgers concluded 
 not to fight. When the two speakers had ceased to 
 sputter their fire-flakes of wrath and had withdrawn, the 
 trouble was quieted by cool-headed citizens. To be
 
 CONSCIENCE OR THE CONSTITUTION ? 33 
 
 sure, each party afterward blamed the other for start 
 ing the uproar, and supported the charge by unques 
 tionable documents ; each party, too, claimed the vic 
 tory in this preliminary skirmish on the Public Square. 
 These matters were never settled, but that little fitful 
 flash of revolution remained long in the minds of peo 
 ple who have a tendency to watch for signs of the fu 
 ture ; it was manifestly a small denial of the ballot as 
 the final umpire of political strife ; a little battle had 
 taken place in Freeburg, betokening to many souls 
 what was going to happen in the great world. 
 
 There was one man who stood gazing at the scene 
 from the outside of the crowd: it was our pedestrian, 
 perched on a slight rise of the ground which gave him 
 a complete survey of all that transpired. He persisted 
 in remaining in town, and had become, for the present 
 at least, a Freeburger. When the tumult had ceased 
 and the people had gone away, he too started off 
 slowly, departing with the last man, whom he began 
 to address in a rather inquisitive manner: 
 
 " Good day, sir. I would like to know why you stay 
 here after the rest are gone ? ' ' 
 
 " I like to be always last," said the man, "it brings 
 good luck." 
 
 " Can you tell me why? " 
 
 " It often brings better knowledge," replied the 
 man. 
 
 "And upon that your good luck finally depends," 
 added the pedestrian. 
 
 " I see you know how to find out the way the wind 
 blows," said the man. 
 
 The pedestrian felt no longer any need of talking on 
 3
 
 34 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 general topics, so he burst at once into the subject 
 next to his heart and asked: 
 
 " What did you think of the speaking? " 
 
 " It was good." 
 
 ' ' Which of the two speakers made the better 
 speech ? ' ' 
 
 "Both of them." 
 
 " On which side are you? " 
 
 " I am on the winning side." 
 
 " But how can you tell which is the winning side? " 
 
 " Everything is settled by ballot for me." 
 
 "You are a good citizen, I imagine," said the pedes 
 trian, as his companion nodded acquiescence and 
 darted off into another road. The pedestrian, alone 
 once more, added in a low tone, for his own ears: 
 "But you are, I judge, a miserable sort of man." 
 
 He was roused, he could not stop himself in the full 
 rush of his spirits, the words came of themselves and 
 rolled helplessly from his tongue, though nobody was 
 present: 
 
 " There are some things which cannot be settled by 
 the ballot. It is the most cunning piece of political 
 mechanism that was ever constructed, but it will not 
 run of itself forever. I can now discern an invisible 
 hand putting a winch on the machine and beginning 
 to turn, since the wheels threaten to stop with the 
 ordinary appliance of power. What a dust, and 
 clatter, and buzzing through the land in consequence 
 of the new dynamic reservoir which has been tapped ! " 
 
 ' ' Strange and yet more strange ! " he continued to 
 exclaim ; ' ' clearly, it cannot be settled by the ballot. 
 It has already been appealed to the physical might
 
 CONSCIENCE OK THE CONSTITUTION? 35 
 
 which stands behind the ballot and gives to the same 
 its primal energy. Who, what is making this appeal? 
 Neither one party nor the other, neither this man nor 
 that, yet it is made with the voice of thunder, 
 rumbling down from the mountains of the East, and 
 reverberating over the vast Western prairies, till it 
 rolls into the Pacific Ocean. Strange, indeed, that 
 the ballot cannot settle the trouble. And our subtle 
 device, the rule of the majority, no longer is going to 
 rule! Why, ye Powers! Another matter has to be 
 settled and a much deeper something which neither 
 majority nor minority are willing to see or do, but 
 which they must be disciplined into seeing and doing. 
 Behold the el-ectric flashes all around the horizon ; 
 hark! it is the mutter of the gathering tempest." 
 
 In spite of these unpropitious signs, the ballot 
 was not set aside in Freeburg, and the majority for 
 the present continued to rule. The election was held 
 not long after these scenes of turbulence in perfect 
 quiet ; everybody had his vote, and astonishing was 
 the result. The Judge, so highly respected and so 
 worthy, was defeated by his fellow-citizens for the first 
 time in his life ; his party became the minority, and he, 
 smarting under the feeling of popular ingratitude, 
 withdrew his thoughts from all public activity into the 
 privacy of his own bosom. There, indeed, old as he 
 was, he might find a new world rising out of dark 
 ness. But the young Advocate, who had placed an 
 other law above law, was now called to administer the 
 written law; what will he do with it? This is the 
 problem which he has to solve, and it is quite likely 
 that in his voyage he, too, may discover the outlines,
 
 36 THE ^REEBURGERS. 
 
 more or less distinct, of a new world. On the other 
 hand, the Judge, who held law to be supreme above 
 conscience, is handed over to his conscience, being now 
 liberated from the legal trammels of his calling ; in his 
 new freedom he will have time to study her behests 
 more than ever before. To both successful and un 
 successful candidates the change promises a fresh 
 harvest of experience, possibly a breaking over limits, 
 and a widening of the mental horizon. 
 
 VI. 
 
 The great social event of Freeburg during this sea 
 son must also be chronicled, as it links into these 
 occurrences. It was the reception tendered to Harvey 
 Conington in honor of his election. All the finest 
 dresses in the town appeared, some of them silken 
 heirlooms of ancestral finery ; but there was not a bon 
 net which was not new, and the angelic wearers, clad 
 in their celestial dry goods, filed with a witchery of 
 smiles before the young and handsome Judge, who, 
 in addition to youth and beauty, had a good prospect 
 of worldly prosperity and honor. The ribbons and 
 frills and feathers fluttered in his face caressingly, a 
 little ocean of millinery surged and frothed around 
 him as if ready to swallow him up in its perfumed 
 waves. All the young ladies present moved toward 
 the center to cast a glance into the human mirror 
 there placed, which would reflect back to them their 
 happiest looks, their tenderest words, their sweetest 
 smiles. They were not disappointed. 
 
 Still, at the height of all this homage, Harvey Con-
 
 CONSCIENCE OR THE CONSTITUTION? 37 
 
 
 
 ington was observed to turn away from the bright eyes 
 immediately surrounding him, and to cast repeated 
 and steady glances into a distant part of the room. 
 At last he left his central position and passed to the 
 unobtrusive corner where Miss Hope Winslow was 
 sitting, one of the older young ladies of the company, 
 very neatly but plainly cjad, and universally known as 
 the Yankee school-mistress. He had been her pupil, 
 as well as many of those present, and he had not for 
 gotten her lesson. As he stood in her presence, she 
 offered to rise, but he begged her to remain seated, 
 while he saluted her with great warmth, tempered, 
 however, with careful respect. She was prompt to 
 speak : 
 
 " Shall I now address you by the title of Judge 
 Conington? " 
 
 " No, call me Harvey still, as of old ; I continue to 
 be your pupil." 
 
 " Well, Harvey, you have won a great triumph. " 
 
 "Yes, the beginning has been made," said he. 
 
 " It is but the beginning," she replied, " and you 
 are the one chosen to lead off ; much more is to fol 
 low." 
 
 " But," said he, " this is not my victory so much as 
 it is yours." 
 
 " We are both, I hope, the instruments of a good 
 cause. ' ' 
 
 " But hush! Here comes your opponent and mine." 
 
 It was Judge Allworthy whom they saw approach 
 ing. He, with a good-breading which showed the 
 living soul of honor, had made on the day following 
 the angry debate, an apology for his hasty words, and
 
 38 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 
 
 had sought reconciliation with Harvey Conington. 
 And on the present occasion, with a courtesy which 
 rises up and touches the very heart of charity, he had 
 come to congratulate the young Advocate and to wish 
 him success in his new vocation, and finally to offer 
 him the free use of all the experience which he him 
 self had gathered during a long official career. To 
 the honor of both it can be said the meeting was 
 mutually cordial. 
 
 But in the midst of their talk a sudden wave from 
 that sea of flounces, furbelows, and farthingales swept 
 into the little corner and carried off Harvey Conington 
 on its very top, to return no more. 
 
 The Judge for a moment looked at him floating 
 helplessly away on the crest of those beautiful 
 billows, then turned around ; before him stood Miss 
 Hope Winslow, eye looking straight into eye. They 
 nodded and spoke to each other, as they were well 
 acquainted ; but the Judge felt her glance as never be 
 fore ; it seemed to plant itself in his path with armed 
 resistance, and to cut its way through him internally. 
 
 The chatter of indistinguishable voices, the rustle of 
 garments, the uproar of music and dance encompassed 
 them ; the gay iridescent foam of Time dashed every 
 where around them ; still there they stood, face to face, 
 the Virginia lawyer and the Yankee school-mistress ; 
 the secret genius of each had met in opposition, and, 
 in the flash of a moment, had grappled for mastery. 
 Both their bodies remained motionless, as if watching 
 intently the battle of their own spirits. Thus they 
 stood for some moments helpless, nay, speechless 
 spectators of a conflict taking place between those two
 
 CONSCIENCE OR THE CONSTITUTION? 39 
 
 naked gymnasts, their souls, which without the least 
 warning had leaped forth and seized each other with a 
 grip like death. Both were lost in amazement at 
 themselves ; they hardly saw each other, and were af 
 fected quite in the same manner. Both were courte 
 ous people, but courtesy had sunk, without the in 
 tention of either, into that inner sea, where existence 
 is stript naked and washed clean of all outer forms 
 and appearances. 
 
 Such a struggle, however, lasts but a short time. 
 The Judge, after the lapse of a few seconds, took a 
 step backward, while Miss Winslow remained im 
 movable, perchance she leaned forward a little. Then 
 another unconscious step to the rear before her steady 
 forcing look ; then both seemed to wake up out of 
 their momentary trance. The Judge bowed in a kind 
 of stiff necessity quite unusual with him, and passed 
 out of the room with a step by no means firm ; he was 
 not well. Miss Winslow, very pale in the face and 
 evidently much exhausted by the trial, slowly relaxed 
 in every part of her frame from the strain, and, when 
 the Judge disappeared, she slipped down easily into 
 her chair, casting a final satisfied look over the field of 
 conflict.
 
 CHAPTER SECOND. 
 
 . UNDER THE TALL APPLE TREE. 
 I. 
 
 The reception given to Harvey Conington was held 
 at the house of Herman Firestone, Esq., a prominent 
 citizen of Freeburg, who had been very friendly to the 
 cause of the new Judge. The house was one of the 
 largest in the town, and there was a daughter in the 
 family, Miss Wanda Firestone, who was both suitable 
 and ambitious to be the hostess on such an occasion. 
 It also gave her a momentary victory over a rival, a 
 young lady who had dared to contest with her the 
 belleship of the village. Miss Wanda seldom agreed 
 with her father in anything ; she obeyed implicitly her 
 own caprice, which had the characteristic of never 
 going a second time in any former path. But recently 
 she had united with her father in giving warm support 
 to Mr. Conington, and rumor had it that her interest 
 in the young lawyer was not exclusively political. 
 
 The next morning the appearance of the Firestone 
 mansion was highly unsatisfactory to Aunt Polly, the 
 housekeeper, and, indeed, the acting mother of the 
 family. It looked as if a tornado had swept through 
 wery room in the building, and had taken a wild de- 
 (40)
 
 UNDER THE TALL APPLE TREE. 41 
 
 light in turning all things topsy-turvy. Chairs and 
 tables upset, dirty dishes scattered about, the favorite 
 China cup broken, the elegant carpet soiled, are a 
 short list of the casualties. Aunt Polly, picking up 
 her new knitting, which lay on the floor with the 
 needles out, stood and surveyed the scene, leaning on 
 her broom in a momentary fit of despair ; soon, how 
 ever, she rallied, and with heroic courage began 
 her attack on disorder. Under these circumstances 
 many people might expect her to give utterance to 
 her feelings in one of her close-cut satirical remarks ; 
 but, in such moments she possessed the grand and 
 unusual faculty of keeping silent. 
 
 She showed no signs of ill-temper to a couple of 
 lads who entered the yard and asked after Henry, a 
 youthful son of the house. She replied to their in 
 quiry: - 
 
 " He is over yonder, under the Tall Apple Tree." 
 
 The younger of the two boys, who went by the name 
 of Dick Turnover, at once gave his opinion : 
 
 "We cannot get anything out of him in that place, 
 he is sure to sail off into the clouds. We might as 
 well go back home." 
 
 But the second youth refused to follow this sugges 
 tion. To his surname, Peter, had been added a title, 
 the Pounder, bestowed in honor of the solid blows 
 which he was accustomed to give his studies at school. 
 Peter now said : 
 
 " Let us go over and see what he will do." 
 
 The younger boy yielded, which was something 
 very unusual with him ; both then moved together in 
 a meandering line, through the garden and over the
 
 42 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 fence, to the point indicated, which they knew well. 
 Their visit resulted from a desire of finding light on a 
 knotty point in a forthcoming lesson ; Henry seemed 
 to them the great bearer of illumination in such mat 
 ters. But a deeper, though unconscious motive was 
 to build a gorgeous air-castle under the apple tree, 
 and to behold its golden dome rising up through the 
 branches into the very clouds. 
 
 Yet Dick, after seeing such a castle built, always 
 took the pleasure of a savage in tearing it down. This 
 boy was one of the characters of the town. He had a 
 light, ready, mother-wit, which exercised itself in 
 turning the serious objects of life into fun, and which 
 stung all enthusiasm, especially in those of his own 
 age, with sarcasm. He was the most powerful and 
 the most feared youth in the village ; he was the one 
 who gave the nicknames. These usually clung to the 
 person to whom they were applied, as he had a dia 
 bolic genius for making a close fit. Apparently he 
 was almost destitute of a moral sense or a feeling of 
 responsibility; the world with everything in it was 
 created specially to develop his talent for sarcasm. 
 He had reached that astonishing, period of precocity, 
 at which boys seem to know more than ever afterwards. 
 They attain their limit of growth in boyhood, and as 
 men they still remain mere juvenile satirists, drench 
 ing their friends and chiefly themselves in their own 
 gall. The dangerous gift of youthful sarcasm stunts 
 the soul forever, cramping it into the narrow bounds 
 of its own egotistic sparkle, and leaving it supremely 
 dissatisfied with everything else. It is surprising to 
 see how very knowing a youth may be, and how very
 
 UNDER THE TALL APPLE TREE. 43 
 
 little he may know. Still for certain minds Dick 
 Turnover was a good stimulant ; he could also be a 
 useful represser. 
 
 One of these minds was the aforesaid Peter, who 
 needed a curb for his tendency to revery and senti 
 ment. He had not a strong individuality, yet a decided 
 gift for acquiring knowledge. He took color from his 
 surroundings, from the last thing he had heard, from 
 the last book he had read. At school he would 
 stud} 7 , since that was the atmosphere ; for this reason 
 he was called Peter the Pounder by the nicknamer 
 Dick. But he, in the presence of Dick, would give a 
 response to the character of the latter by an alter 
 ation of his own ; he was the chameleon that changed 
 to the color of the neighboring leaf. Dick had the 
 power, by some sympathy, of calling up the sleeping 
 demon of sarcasm in Peter. Such were the two lads 
 who were seen winding through the bushes on their way 
 to the Tall Apple Tree. 
 
 A few moments after the boys had left, the door 
 bell rang, and Miss Hope Winslow, whom we have 
 learned to know as the school-mistress of the village, 
 appeared at the same house and asked the same ques 
 tion: " Where is Harry? " Late last evening she had 
 passed out the door where she then stood, in some 
 agitation, for she had just had that speechless battle 
 with Judge Allworthy, but she went home and slept 
 soundly ; she had not been broken by the strain of 
 the struggle, but sustained and invigorated, especially 
 after a night's repose. If need be, she was ready for 
 another battle in which her tongue also might do 
 effective service.
 
 44 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 She looked brisk and keen in the morning air ; her 
 wristbands and linen collar were painfully neat and 
 glossy, showing all the scrupulosity of a clean con 
 science ; her carefully preserved and somewhat stiffly ad 
 justed hat had flunga redribbontothe breeze for the first 
 time in its history. She had also put on her new sum 
 mer dress, impeccably white. Her face had a tendency 
 to smile continually a set smile, into which all her feat 
 ures at times beame crystallized, but they could now 
 and then be meltedin the glowing fire of her dark eyes. 
 This morning, in particular, her iron laugh had been 
 made fluid, and ran lengthwise and crosswise all over 
 her countenance, as she asked Aunt Polly the question : 
 "Where is Harry?" 
 
 Aunt Polly answered again: " He is down yonder 
 under the Tall Apple Tree." 
 
 At once the set smile of Miss Winslow began to 
 return, her mobile features were suddenty transpierced 
 by fixed cold lines, like crystals of ice shooting through 
 freezing water ; in the background of her countenance 
 lowered a cloud of disappointment, which never could 
 send a shower of tears, but might spend itself in a 
 silent snow storm. A streak of that cloud swept 
 through the cheek, and with gathered shreds rolled 
 around into the rigid lips, which began to move and 
 quiver, and at last broke into utterance: " He prom 
 ised to be here at this hour. ' ' 
 
 But Aunt Polly turned to the event of the previous 
 evening. 
 
 " How did you enjoy it?" 
 
 "Oh, very well. I do not care much for so 
 ciety."
 
 UNDER THE TALL APPLE TREE. 45 
 
 "You had a conversation with Judge Allworthy, I 
 believe." 
 
 " Yes, a short one, but long enough." 
 
 At this answer Aunt Polly was silent, thinking pos 
 sibly that their present talk too had been long enough. 
 Miss Winslow rose, and looked out of the window 
 toward the garden ; she beheld in the distance a large 
 tapering bunch of foliage pointing skyward, at the sight 
 of which she, though biting her lips in suppression, 
 was moved to say: "That apple tree must be for 
 Harry the tree of knowledge." 
 
 Aunt Polly archly replied r ' ' He certainly seems in 
 Paradise when he is lying under it arid gazing up 
 through its branches. Only he has no Eve to reach 
 him the fruit. You had better go down there and 
 give him some apples from your tree of knowledge, 
 by way of competition." 
 
 The school-mistress at first wondered, then reddened 
 a little. It may be here stated that Henry was her 
 favorite pupil, and had just completed the highest 
 course in her school. She had, in a professional way 
 it must be supposed, become warmly interested in his 
 education, and her call to-day was ostensibly to give 
 him a little additional instruction. But her woman's 
 disguise had been pricked somewhat by a woman, who 
 always takes delight in holding up the mirror before 
 her sister. Still the feminine wit of Miss Winslow 
 soon rallied, and she threw a new cover over her 
 thoughts in these words: " It is well that he has no 
 Eve in his Eden, then there can be no serpent back of 
 the woman." 
 
 Aunt Polly, though a firm believer in Scripture, was
 
 46 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 inclined to resent this insult put upon her sex, the in 
 sult of bringing the first woman and the Evil One into 
 such close intimacy. She had another interpretation 
 which she was about to set forth, when Miss Winslow 
 deftly turned the talk from biblical to culinary mat 
 ters, of which Aunt Polly was the authoritative ex 
 pounder in Freeburg. From the primeval Garden 
 they easily passed to horticultural products in gen 
 eral, and discussed preserved fruits ; then they veered 
 over to pickles, with which sour articles the conversa 
 tion was brought to a happy conclusion. Miss Wins- 
 low, in her most inflexible smile, excused herself for 
 lack of time and withdrew. 
 
 It was noticed that she did not go down to the 
 paradisiacal apple tree, though she seemed to cast a 
 glance that way and to think for a moment. But she 
 went into the street and afterwards turned up the side 
 walk which led to the school-house, where she was the 
 queen, and where nobody dared make a joke at her 
 expense. Moreover the school-house had a very good 
 view of the apple tree. 
 
 II. 
 
 Meanwhile the two lads had reached just this last 
 point ; it was the point in which the somewhat wavy 
 line of their path ended. We may truthfully call it 
 one of the three centers of the village 4 everybody 
 knew it, and familiarly, even affectionately, named it 
 the Tall Apple Tree. The Public Square, with which 
 we have become acquainted in our former chapter, 
 was another center, very different ; it was the place of
 
 UNDER THE TALI, APPLE TREE. 47 
 
 loud meetings, celebrations, speeches ; the place where 
 the open, noisy, conscious life of the community flowed 
 together in a common current and found expression. 
 Around it were clustered the stores and places of 
 business, before which the teams of the farmers were 
 hitched, who had come to town to trade. It culminated 
 in the court-house, the home of justice, which stood in 
 the middle of it, and overshadowed the platform for 
 public speaking not far away. The Public Square be 
 longed to all, yet to none individually ; still, every citi 
 zen, once having taken position upon it, felt himself in 
 his own house, while living the life of the whole body 
 politic. But no man could abuse it could break the 
 shrubbery, injure the trees, or deface the buildings. 
 It was no place for capricious conduct of any kind ; no 
 personal ownership ruled over it arbitrarily, yet all 
 men beheld it as their own. Institutions seemed to 
 gather here ; the people thought here ; it was the dwell 
 ing place of the social spirit that unseen structure 
 which every community must rear in one form or 
 other. 
 
 In striking contrast to the Public Square with its 
 court-house stood the Tall Apple Tree with its some 
 what lonely environment. Round it another spell 
 prevailed ; the dark, silent, unconscious life of the 
 village seemed to hover there with a presence felt but 
 not heard. No road led to the spot, though at times 
 it was a resort for young and old, and wrought with 
 some secret fascination upon all. The tree had a 
 peculiar growth, somewhat different from other trees 
 of the same kind ; its contour was not bushy, but erect 
 and lofty ; not like a ball, but like a pyramidal cone
 
 48 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 struggling mightily upwards till its leafy strength ran 
 out to a point in its effort to touch the skies. Still, 
 its branches seemed to reach forth a protecting hand, 
 and to offer choice fruit to the wayfarer. If it had a 
 look of self-centering pride, it also inspired the 
 thought of a self-outpouring benevolence. The chil 
 dren of the village grew up under it, the oldest and 
 most important houses appeared to cluster round it, as 
 if they might be, in some dim way, its offspring. Yet 
 the houses faced the public thoroughfare ; their back 
 yards and rear windows, with garden and stable, were 
 turned in privacy toward the Tall Apple Tree, which 
 stood in the middle of a field on a little knoll, at whose 
 foot rippled a brook. The inhabitants looked upon it 
 with a certain degree of reverence ; it was the primitive 
 giver of food and shelter unto the sons of men, the 
 early revealer of a providential care. If, in remote 
 ages, there was, as some affirm, a tree-worship, the 
 hidden stream of veneration had flowed down from its 
 fountain-head under the surface of Time, and had risen 
 again to sunlight in this village. The tree was, indeed, 
 the patriarch of the community, older than the oldest 
 house ; nobody knew the period when it was not stand 
 ing upon its present site, or when it did not bear fruit. 
 But to the Tall Apple Tree there was a rival, 
 whose presence, though not so important, can not be 
 passed over in silence. Not far away stood a savage 
 branch of the same family, a crab tree, some of whose 
 limbs reached down and pattered in the brook. Its 
 outline was round, but flattened at the top, as if it had 
 already grown too high, and had turned its head down 
 toward the earth. Its twigs and branches were so
 
 UNDER THE TALL APPLE TREE. 49 
 
 closely interwoven, and so stiff and stubby, that they 
 would prick and scratch any human hand that sought 
 to reach into its leafy house. It appeared to forbid, 
 and, in fact, resented any communion with man. To be 
 sure it kept off wind, sun and rain, if one would creep 
 under the branches that thrust themselves down 
 toward the ground, and if one would stoop low enough 
 to keep out of a conflict with its spiteful claws. This 
 was, however, no easy matter ; there seemed to be an 
 untamed tiger, ready to scratch and bite, couched in 
 the tree ; the result was, no men sat in its shade for re 
 pose, no children gathered under its roof of leaves for 
 play ; only now and then a wild boy would dare enter 
 its thorny den, but would soon come out with clothing 
 torn and flesh bleeding. Though the two relatives, the 
 civilized and uncivilized, grew from the same soil, and 
 stood almost side by side, their difference in character 
 seemed to be as great as the difference between the 
 animal and man. Whence did it come? Their kin 
 ship, however, was not to be set aside, indeed it could 
 be seen at a glance. It must be confessed, too, that 
 the wild tree, when in bloom, gave forth the sweeter 
 fragrance, and for a few days in spring filled the air 
 of the whole neighborhood with its delicious aroma. 
 But the flower lasted not long, and the fruit was al 
 most worthless. Its small, round, savage apple, in 
 tensely acrid, smote the civilized taste with an Indian's 
 tomahawk, and could only be used after being tamed 
 by some process known to civilization. 
 
 The origin of both trees ran back into darkness, as 
 origins generally do. It was manifest, however, 
 that the one had centuries of culture behind it, the 
 
 4
 
 50 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 other none at all ; the one had followed and developed 
 along with man as companion and helper, the other 
 had stayed down with the animals and fought them for 
 life. It was also manifest that some human means must 
 have been employed to bring the one to its present lo 
 cation ; the other was a native of the woods and needed 
 no transplanting hand. 
 
 The Tall Apple Tree was the sole antiquity of the 
 village, where Time had as yet dropped none of his 
 spiritual mementos ; it rose out of the past a single 
 flash shooting rearward into thick night. It became 
 thus the mystery of the place, upon which the villagers 
 stretched their souls quite back to the orignal apple- 
 tree in the first Garden. What providing spirit had 
 wandered hither before them and planted it just for 
 their behoof? But its origin did not trouble many 
 people ; they enjoyed its shade, they plucked its fruits 
 and went their way, like most cf the children of Adam. 
 They never saw the hand reaching to them out of the 
 dark with these gifts, never beheld the body to which 
 this hand belonged, never looked upon the face which 
 crowned this body. 
 
 To these objects in the landscape, we must add 
 another which towered up not far away and per 
 sisted in being seen for miles around. This was the 
 School-house, a plain but commodious building, in 
 which Miss Hope Winslow was the controlling spirit. 
 It may with justice be called the third center of the 
 village ; or, more properly, the third corner in the tri 
 angle made by the Tall Apple Tree and the Public 
 Square. The three objects seemed to stand in a cer 
 tain close connection with one another, faintly sug-
 
 UNDER THE TALL APPLE TREE. 51 
 
 gested by their mathematical relation ; they belonged 
 together and formed not only one spatial figure, but one 
 spiritual fact of the town. If either had been taken 
 away, the rest would have been different, and Freeburg 
 would have had another kind of life. 
 
 The School-house was a plant of civilization, and it 
 was well authenticated who set out the plant. Here 
 the Unknown entered not, but was driven away with 
 the pedagogical birch, if necessary. The School-house' 
 was the realm of the Known ; the very sight of it sug 
 gested its character. It was built on a little hillock, 
 was three stories high, and overlooked the entire vil 
 lage, standing squarely on its base and turned co the 
 four points of the compass. A striking fact about it 
 was that it was full of windows, which made it light 
 within, and gave it the appearance of light without. 
 As it rose up over its hillock, it seemed to be all eyes, 
 especially when the sun shone brilliantly upon it, and 
 transformed each window-pane into a blaze of illum 
 ination. On every side it was open ; not a brick of it 
 remained hidden by any intervening object ; only a 
 small veranda modestly suggested that there was an 
 entrance to the building for any diligent seeker. 
 
 These three centers will occur often in the course of 
 our narrative, since around them most of the people 
 as well as most of the events of Freeburg naturally 
 group themselves. 
 
 III. 
 
 The two lads had slipped up to Henry without being 
 noticed ; he was sitting under the tree in a steady 
 gaze upward, fully occupied with his own thoughts.
 
 52 THE FREEBUROERS. 
 
 The elder of the two, Peter, touched him on the shoul 
 der and called him back from dreamland with the 
 question: "What about the lesson you promised to 
 explain to me? " 
 
 Henry felt the heavy drop to earth, and was waked 
 up unpleasantly. He answered: *' O yes, I remem 
 ber. But there is no hurry. I cannot bring myself 
 to it now, something else has hold of me." 
 
 The elder of the youths again asked him, " What 
 do j'ou see where you are looking? " 
 
 4 'Oh, nothing." 
 
 " That is just what I see." 
 
 "But," said Henry, "I am looking for something 
 and cannot find it?" 
 
 " What is it? " 
 
 " When I have found it, I hope to be able to tell 
 you; that will be my best lesson." 
 
 The younger of the two lads now started with his 
 question to Henry: " What makes you so fond of this 
 old apple tree? " 
 
 " Because it bears good fruit." 
 
 "But there are others just like it, whole orchards 
 of them here in town, that were grafted from this very 
 tree." 
 
 " Still they are not like it." 
 
 " I cannot see the difference." 
 
 " Let me then tell it to you. This tree has a secret 
 which none of its descendants have ; nobody knows 
 when it was put here, or by whom it was planted." 
 
 " But the apples taste just the same for all that." 
 
 Henry looked at the keen youth, he was a little 
 puzzled by the smart retort. Soon he replied: " The
 
 UNDER THE TALL APPLE TREE. 53 
 
 tree bears for my enjoyment other fruit besides 
 apples." 
 
 The boy laughed with a skeptical scorn not un 
 common at his age, and said: "Let us have some of 
 that fruit by all means, I would like to bite into it." 
 
 Henry was somewhat untuned by the scoffing ur 
 chin, and became silent. Perhaps the sneer of youth 
 is the most inharmonious of all sneers, since we nat 
 urally expect that period of life to make a little music 
 of its own. The elder of the two lads, who was also 
 the more gentle, took up the conversation again, and 
 urged Henry in a friendly way : ' ' Tell us what you 
 find in this spot ; you are here so often. I confess 
 that I too am attached to the old tree, but I do not 
 know the reason." 
 
 "This tree," said Henry, "is connected in my 
 mind always with my grandfather, who died a good 
 while ago, and who used to take me on his knee and 
 tell me stories of early times. He was already old 
 when he came to this part of the country, the present 
 spot was his favorite haunt, and through all my rec 
 ollections of the good, white-haired man these green 
 branches are shooting. He was one of the early set 
 tlers of the West, and he said that this tree stood here 
 when the first wagon stopped on the site of Freeburg, 
 and that his wagon was the first. All around us 
 where houses and gardens now are, then a forest 
 stood, whose only inhabitant was the Indian." 
 
 At the mention of the Indian, the two lads began 
 to show greater interest, and with wide-opened e3'es 
 awaited the rest of the story. Henry continued : 
 
 ' ' He stopped along side of yonder brook for water
 
 54 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 he often pointed out to me the exact spot and struck 
 it with his cane when he, as well as those with him, 
 flung themselves, after taking a drink, 'upon the ground, 
 worn out with hunger and exhaustion. The other 
 wagon, with its small store of meal and bacon, had 
 "become separated from them and lost the way. For 
 two days they had little or nothing to eat, and the 
 pangs of starvation, coupled with anxiety and terror 
 in the savage woods, made life no longer worth sav- 
 ing." 
 
 The younger lad, Dick, jumped up at this point and 
 danced in glee, saying: "I would like to have been 
 an Indian then, to settle the old grudge between the 
 white man and the red man." 
 
 The lad threw down his book upon the ground with 
 an Indian's contempt of letters. He could learn easily, 
 but would not try ; he knew enough already. He was 
 one of Miss Winslow's unregenerate pupils ; particu 
 larly his moral nature she had failed to unfold, pos 
 sibly because there was no germ. She had actually 
 made him worse by her moralizing, as it had prodig 
 iously developed his talent for sarcasm. After es 
 caping from her lecture, the young barbarian would 
 tomahawk her with his tongue, and dance a defiant 
 war-dance among his mates. But the elder lad now 
 interrupted with a milder question of the same kind : 
 "How did it happen that the Indians did not find 
 them and scalp them all before help came." 
 
 Henry went on: "They did indeed fear it. But 
 my grandfather, looking around and thinking what he 
 should do, noticed a bare spot in the dense forest 
 where the sun seemed to shine in without hinderance
 
 UNDER THE TALL, APPLE TREE. 55 
 
 from leaves and limbs. He crawled up this little hill, 
 and on the top of it found a clear space, in the center 
 of which was an old decayed brush heap. Through the 
 brush heap a hardy sapling was growing ; it was this 
 very apple tree, filled with quite a crop of fruit, prob 
 ably its first yield of any importance." 
 
 "Then he helped himself," said Dick Turnover, 
 with an audible smack of the lips. 
 
 "Yes, he did," replied Henry; "but there was 
 enough to satisfy the hunger of all, and give strength to 
 find some wild berries and roots. They also could keep 
 watch for the other wagon, which finally came along. 
 Thus our family was probably saved by this tree, and 
 the town of Freeburg started from it. My grand 
 father resolved to stay and live just on this spot 
 where his deliverance took place ; the tree always 
 seemed to him a bright angel in the gloomy woods, 
 reaching forth help. It somehow appears to me so 
 still ; just look up at its extended arms and smiling 
 face." 
 
 The youths gazed at the limbs with some shyness 
 lest they might behold an angel there in fact. None, 
 however, appeared to their eyes ; but a certain look of 
 benevolence did seem to come from the branches, 
 and began to attune even the younger lad to a new 
 mood. 
 
 Henry felt their harmony with himself and went on : 
 ' ' My grandfather had in him the strongest desire to 
 know how the tree came to be in this place. He would 
 speculate upon the question for hours at a time, as I 
 have heard Aunt Polly tell ; but he never found out 
 whether accident or design was the moving principle.
 
 56 THE FREEBURGERS 
 
 Still he had a strong conviction that some benevolent 
 hand planted it in hope, and imparted to it the charac 
 ter which it seems to have at present. He left yonder 
 crab-tree standing, from some dim feeling that it 
 should be spared in all its savagery, and possibly 
 grafted and improved." 
 
 The younger lad broke in : "By no means ; let it be 
 as it is, I like it, I would rather lie under it than here," 
 and he started for the more congenial spot. The 
 elder and milder youth remained, and asked Henry to 
 go on with his story. 
 
 " I confess I have inherited my grandfather's desire 
 of finding out the origin of this tree. It has become 
 a wonder in my eyes, and passes out of reality into the 
 land of the imagination. I trace it back to a certain 
 limit, where knowledge ceases and the unknown be 
 gins. How that limit vexes me ! I chafe against it, 
 push it, shake it as a confined wild animal does the 
 bars of his cage ; it seems to put a bound to all I can 
 know or can be. I would break over it and get out ;' 
 as long as it lasts, I am not free." 
 
 The youth arose and walked around in excitement ; 
 his vehement outburst astonished his companion, who 
 sought to soothe him with a few words of hope. But 
 he was swept on in the current of hi^ feelings and ex 
 claimed : 
 
 " I would study books, consult the stars, travel to 
 the ends of the earth to burst my prison of ignorance, 
 which is here inside of this little head. Look up: 
 what brought the first seed of this fine growth of 
 limbs and leaves and fruit ; who planted it ? Nobody 
 can tell ; it is so with all things. See the cpen sky,
 
 UNDER THE TALL APPLE TREE. 57 
 
 survey the wide world, boundless on all sides ; but I am 
 locked up in my narrow cell. 
 
 " Show me my guilt, O thou Supreme Sovereign 
 above sun and stars, tell me what I have done that I 
 should be thus imprisoned in my own little brain 
 pan." 
 
 We believe that the youth, Henry Firestone, was in 
 no wise peculiar in this feeling of being closely con 
 fined within the Universe. The child has something 
 of the sort, has this propulsion out of its surround 
 ings into the Beyond. The boy shows it usually -more 
 than the grown man, who learns to limit himself. 
 But youth sails over all boundaries into the Infinite, 
 and has to come back empty into the old jail ; from 
 which fact springs the world-pain so afflicting to many 
 young folks. They belong outside of their prison, 
 yet are inside ; what can they do but thump the walls 
 and lugubriously rattle their chains? 
 
 The same tendency shows itself in the use of lan 
 guage. The youth not only grapples with the prob 
 lems of the philosopher, but he uses phrases and 
 sentences that bristle with the stiff and serried 
 nomenclature of philosophy, often startling to older 
 ears. How he delights' in great words that overtop 
 him just a little ! He reaches out for a speech beyond 
 his years, beyond his distinct conception of its mean 
 ing ; he feels penned up in the bounds of his knowl 
 edge of the dictionary, and makes a bold dash for 
 freedom. 
 
 Henry Firestone, in his high-wrought feeling, spoke 
 words and thought thoughts which seemed to belong 
 to a middle-aged man. His companion, the friendly
 
 58 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 Peter, stood and looked at him in utter surprise, but 
 soon rallied to offer some more consolation. But at 
 once the consoler received the passionate response: 
 "I never expect any release, I am fastened in my own 
 ignorance forever. I cannot even go away to complete 
 my education, and push the horizon of my being a 
 little beyond this petty village of Freeburg. Would 
 that I were far from here, if only to taste the delight 
 of being delivered from one spot on the face of this 
 broad earth." 
 
 It was -a deep chord that thrilled in complaint, for 
 Henry longed to break out of the dull round of village 
 life, and go to college ; but he was opposed by his 
 father. Still, in the present case, too, his companion 
 knew how to administer solace, saying: "But you 
 know that Aunt Polly has promised to send you away 
 to school." 
 
 The passionate youth replied: "I never expect it, 
 I never expect it." 
 
 Still in his better moments he did expect it, and 
 he showed a weakening in his second denial. His 
 companion felt the change, and said with a jesting 
 smile, which was intended to throw sunlight through 
 Henry's cloud of despondency: " Yes, that will come. 
 And you will find out who planted your grandfather's 
 apple tree." 
 
 Henry answered: " I do not expect it, I do not ex 
 pect it." 
 
 But this repetition also grew weaker. He went on 
 with less vehemence: "That secret was probably 
 buried before him in the grave ; perhaps it is wandering 
 this moment up and down the earth like a ghost."
 
 UNDER THE TALL APPLE TREE. 59 
 
 His companion replied quickly : ' ' That ghost may 
 return and speak to you." 
 
 Henry looked at him puzzled, nay, startled ; the 
 thought cut through him till he shivered. Not that 
 he was afraid of ghosts, but Peter's remark was one of 
 those casual utterances which, without any knowledge 
 or intention on the part of the speaker, break open the 
 hearer's inmost spirit, and give it a spectral glimpse 
 of what is about to transpire. The shadow dashed 
 tremulously across Henry's soul, then fled with the 
 certainty of appearing again, possibly in new form. 
 
 The youth soon rallied and said: "Well, you 
 have given me a lesson to-day, though you came to 
 have one from me. Produce your book, and we shall 
 begin to do what you intended." 
 
 Both sat down under the roof of foliage with a sense 
 of relief , and began to turn to the printed page for 
 their light. But the lesson was dull ; calm study found 
 no response in their spirits still palpitating to the 
 echoes of their conversation. Their thoughts were 
 elsewhere ; both looked around and upward, their 
 aroused vision could not be fixed upon the cold, leaden 
 letters. At last both let fall the book. 
 
 IV. 
 
 For some moments a figure had been observed slip 
 ping carefully along one of the by-paths that led 
 through a private yard into the open field. It would 
 stop every few paces, and gaze around, as if seeking 
 some object which might be identified as a familiar but 
 long-absent friend. It was soon seen to be a man in
 
 60 THE FREEBDRGERS. 
 
 an unusual costume, an old man with a long white 
 beard which gently yielded to the playful breezes, and 
 with a stout staff which supported a bundle. His 
 step was still light and firm ; he descended into the 
 little valley through which the brook ran, and started 
 to follow its course. When he came to the crab-tree 
 which stood on its border, he paused and glanced at 
 it with a strange look of joy ; the aged furrows on his 
 face broke into smiles, and he seemed to nod to that 
 stiff ball of brushwood, as if in token of recognition. 
 After the first flash of delight, he turned away from 
 it ; and when he saw the lad under it, his smile drop 
 ped out of his look altogether. 
 
 Henry watched the occurrence with a peculiar feel 
 ing ; he was certain that the old man was seeking just 
 that spot of earth where he then stood, and would 
 come to it straightway. There is some sympathy which 
 tells such things in advance, if it does not force them 
 to happen. Sure enough, the old man cast up his eyes, 
 beheld the Tall Apple Tree, and started to climb the 
 little knoll; his first joy not only returned, but seemed 
 to increase, as he drew nearer. He gave a friendly 
 salute to the two youths ; Henry, lost in the strange 
 ness of his revery, did not speak first, but his compan 
 ion said : 
 
 " You are a stranger in these parts, I judge." 
 
 "Yes, there is much here that is new," and he cast 
 a glance over the field to the surrounding gardens and 
 houses of the village. Then he continued : 
 
 " Still, wherever I go, I find myself walking in 
 the same paths, thinking the same thoughts, do 
 ing the same things over again which I once did,
 
 UNDER THE TALL APPLE TREE. 61 
 
 and I may add, loving the same objects with the same 
 love." 
 
 The youths, however, showed their greatest amaze 
 ment at the appearance of the man, the like of whom 
 they had never seen before. Long, but not dishevelled 
 locks fell down to his shoulders, and, with his beard, 
 formed a wreath of purest white, out of which peeped 
 an aged, benevolent countenance. His eyes were 
 sunken, but glanced keen fire out of their caves, indi 
 cating the live spirit within ; but in their glow was a 
 kind look for every terrestrial object. The lines in 
 his features were very delicate ; in particular, he had a 
 fine nose, somewhat' overarching at the point. A slight 
 stoop of the shoulders seemed to spring more from a 
 habit of reverence than from a.uy natural curvature. 
 His garments were plain, but tidy ; his shoes showed 
 travel, and had bright, big-headed hob-nails in the 
 soles, which glistened in two rows as he sat down un 
 der the tree and extended his legs. His hat alone in 
 dicated a little caprice of taste, having a slouch in it 
 not given originally by the hatter. When the old man 
 had adjusted himself on the ground against the trunk 
 of the tree, with a look of thankfulness he turned his 
 eyes upward to the green branches, as if to see into 
 them and beyond them ; every line of his face breathed 
 harmony with himself, with the world, and with what 
 is above the world. 
 
 Young Henry Firestone began at once to feel the se 
 cret influence of the old man. A gentle attunement of 
 his perturbed spirit was taking place, as ne looked 
 upon that melodious countenance, seamed with strug 
 gle, yet full of repose. A harmony stole over him ;
 
 62 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 the jangled chords of his soul started to adjust them 
 selves to the new key-note, and even to play once more 
 in tune, touched by some tender, invisible hand. 
 
 But the most noteworthy article of the stranger's 
 equipment remains to be mentio.ned : it was a musical 
 instrument, an old fiddle, somewhat larger than the 
 usual size, which he played on in several ways. He 
 would thrum it, or pick it, like a guitar; he would 
 place it between his knees like a violoncello, and draw 
 the bow upon its strings; finally, he would put it 
 against his shoulder and play it like the ordinary violin. 
 He carried it in a bag slung across his back, where was 
 a general receptacle for his superfluous gear. 
 
 Without any invitation he took it from its cover, as 
 if he felt a call to utter some musical emotion ; he 
 keyed it up and tuned it with skill and speed ; then he 
 drew his first bow with a smile which had the effect of 
 making his inner harmony visible. The truth is, his 
 face made more music than his instrument. His notes 
 wandered up .and down the scale as if in search of some 
 melody which had not yet arrived. 
 
 Henry caught its spirit and spake : ' ' Old man, 
 sing." 
 
 "Gladly," says he. "I am never satisfied with 
 the mere vibration of strings ; they are to suggest and 
 to support song. The whole body must be made an 
 instrument and thrill to the key-note given by the 
 soul. The true singer, before he can sing worthily, 
 must himself be made over into a song." 
 
 With these words his voice began to vibrate, and 
 quite involuntarily fell into the melodious waves which 
 rose out of the strings ; he leaned his head over and
 
 UNDER THE TALL APPLE TREE. 63 
 
 brought his ear close to the resonant shell of wood, 
 listening apparently to some faint, far-off internal 
 tones, scarcely audible, perhaps, to an outsider. 
 Again and again he drew his bow, caressed his fiddle, 
 and hummed in concert wordless snatches of melody. 
 More and more the undulations of pure sound began to 
 coalesce, and gradually become articulated syllables ; 
 thus a song seemed to grow naturally out of music, 
 and to round itself out into shape from the fathomless 
 sea of the human heart, from whose unknown depths 
 rises all true song. 
 
 His voice was of the finest texture ; it seemed to 
 correspond to the delicate lines in his face; yet it 
 was old and at times tremulous. It had strange un 
 dertones of darkness, of sorrow, even of fate ; but it 
 always rose again in a firm note of mastery. Once it 
 sank into a loud demoniac shrill of defiance, then 
 climbed back, step by step, on a musical ladder, up 
 to the very heaven of reconciliation. His delivery was 
 perfect, yet without art ; it was his own life and his 
 own soul singing through him with a grace and direct 
 ness which nature alone gives. His genius was born 
 anew every moment, and floated into being on words 
 winged with music. 
 
 The youths looked in wonder at the old man ; they 
 felt his power and his mystery ; they wished to ask 
 some questions, but wer.e hushed by his strain. In 
 deed, what answer to any problem could satisfy like 
 the present concord? True music goes to the very 
 source of doubt, melts it in the beginning, and makes 
 it flow down into the harmony of the world. Inter 
 rogation means dissonance of some kind somewhere, in
 
 64 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 the questioner or questioned ; hut the genuine song 
 answers the question even before it is asked. 
 
 Yet in some souls music seems to breed discord, and 
 to call up the sleeping doubt. It would appear at 
 times to have the quality of reacting against itself. 
 If the tune fall into the ears of the demon, it would 
 untune him by its very virtue. The sweet voice of 
 agreement must make him disagree, else he would be 
 transformed and no longer be a demon. The old 
 .singer continued his strains, as if he were regardless 
 of their double power. 
 
 They were heard by Dick Turnover in his thorny 
 nest under the crab-tree, and the lad at once was 
 drawn back to his companions. He slipped along in 
 quiet, almost unseen, as they were sunk in the strange 
 appearance before them. Dick sat down behind them 
 with a visible scoff on his face, though for the present 
 he said nothing. A momentary flash of awe paralyzed 
 his sarcastic tongue, if it did not penetrate his irrev 
 erent soul. 
 
 The old man always gazed into the branches of the 
 tree, while he sang ; what he saw there nobody could 
 tell. We have already noticed that Henry had this 
 habit too ; but the youth was not able to give any 
 special reason for so doing. He and the singer seemed 
 to be running into the same secret channel of instinct ; 
 there was already some common impulse in both. So 
 intent and persistent was the old man's look, that both 
 boys shot a glance in the same direction, but beheld 
 only limbs and leaves. The singer, as he continued, 
 opened his eyes wider, and gazed with wonder ; ap 
 parently he was trying to see through the leafy roof
 
 UNDER THE TALL APPLE TREE. 65 
 
 into the light beyond. Then he poured forth a warmer, 
 stronger strain ; the boys peered again into the 
 branches as if to find the source of so many sweet 
 notes. But that was hidden. 
 
 There was joy in the song, though wreathed around 
 on all sides with a melodious border of mystery ; still, 
 this mystery was by no means dark, but radiant with 
 trust. Strangely, when his meaning was quite plain, 
 it was hard to catch his words rolled over and over in 
 musical cadences ; still harder was it to gather a com 
 plete sentence. After some time, however, speech 
 seemed to overmaster music, and the following verse 
 began to crystallize itself from the fluid harmony : 
 
 I do not see the hungry fowl, 
 
 Although I scatter food ; 
 The birds I know will pick it up, 
 
 If only it be good. 
 
 The last line especially he drew out into a refrain 
 of many variations, high, low, swift, slow, till they 
 seemed to embrace all of life's possibilities. Finally 
 the words vanished into sounds again, and apparently 
 dissolved into the musical elements whence they had 
 sprung. 
 
 The sound of the music floated into the garden-house 
 of Mr. Firestone, which stood not far away, where 
 Trolla, the little maiden, was busy with her flowers, 
 to which she had the habit of talking in a manner al 
 together her own. She would coax, admonish, caress, 
 even punish the little buds ; she had arranged them 
 all in what she called a school. She conversed with 
 the flower-spirit, and declared that every blossom, yes, 
 
 5
 
 66 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 every leaf, had a language which she could understand. 
 She would talk in the garden during the sunny days, to 
 herself apparently, but she affirmed it was a conver 
 sation with her floral friends, who were gathered at 
 a continuous festival from spring to summer, and 
 were telling to her their little secrets. 
 
 But when she heard the music and song at a short 
 distance, she ceased her prattle and listened, then she 
 left her flowers behind, crept through the bushes and 
 weeds, and crawled over the fence, hiding herself that 
 she might securely hear. It was a new music, a new 
 world for her ; the flower language seemed to pass in 
 to musical tones, and, finally, into the words of a song. 
 She went closer, and couched in the tall weeds ; she 
 saw the little company near at hand, and thought of 
 bursting out of her hiding-place suddenly into their 
 presence, but she noticed among them the lad Dick, 
 for whom she had a strong dislike, and even terror. 
 He had made fun of her often ; particularly he had 
 ridiculed her flower-talk with burlesque imitation, till 
 she abhorred the young scoffer. She knew what her 
 blossoms said, and he did not ; but he sneered at it 
 just the same as if he knew better than she did. He 
 had caused her the keenest pain by mocking what she 
 felt was the deepest part of her nature. When she 
 peered from her cover, and saw Dick's ugly, red, sar 
 castic face, she crouched down into the bushes, and 
 listened with a heart beating so loud that she could 
 hear its thumps between her breaths. 
 
 The old man ceased singing, and hung his instru 
 ment on a branch of the apple tree, where it swayed to 
 and fro in the breeze. The youths watched his motions,
 
 UNDER THE TALL APPLE TREE. 67 
 
 and tried to divine what he meant ; their curiosity 
 had become intense ; Henry in particular had be 
 gun again to thrill with interrogations. He had an 
 other problem of origin cm his hands ; in fact, many 
 strange questions were beating loud in his brain, de 
 manding an answer : 
 
 " Tell me first," he cried, " what has brought you 
 here, just to this spot, to this tree? " 
 
 The old man replied : 
 
 " I go every where and find my own ; the earth has 
 become my home, and my children form a line on 
 its face, and I come to visit them." 
 
 With this answer, he again looked up at the tree, 
 took his fiddle and started a little prelude. It was al 
 most noon, the sun began to shine through the leaves 
 in a few spots. The light now drew the eye of the 
 old man, drew also his song, which floated through his 
 music like shreds of sunbeams over the surface of 
 the ground on a cloudy day. His strain, in its images 
 and thoughts, hovered around the great luminary of 
 heaven as the center ; he turned to it often and ap 
 peared to adore ; he seemed an ancient sun-worshiper 
 who had slipped down through time somehow exempt 
 from death. These radiant fragments were a mood ; 
 the words seem cold and heavy without the music and 
 the man. One verse may be given which hints the 
 singer's relation to the celestial body. About thus 
 the lines ran : 
 
 I move along the sun's high course, 
 
 He lights me out the skies, 
 And draws ray path upon the earth, 
 
 I set with him aiid rise.
 
 68 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 This little quatrain he ended without any repetitions 
 or veriations ; the thought of it seemed to fill him with 
 an adoration in which speech ends. His strange 
 musical service had closed, he rose to depart, but his 
 company cried out that he should remain and grant 
 them one more song. 
 
 Without any hesitation he took his instrument and 
 played several musical phrases, which gradually 
 dropped into an accompaniment to his words. He 
 again employed the Sun for his image, but it now had 
 to send its light through the storm and produce the 
 rainbow, the many-colored arch of hope, which seems 
 to hold up the very heavens, and to offer a visible 
 pathway over to the Beyond. Certain far-off gleams 
 of this radiant vision he sought to throw into his song, 
 of which a fragmentary echo may here be given . 
 
 From the hill-tops a rainbow is bending, 
 
 It reaches far over the sea, 
 And a song I hear with the ending: 
 
 O Shepherd, come over to me. 
 
 Before the first lino had ended, Trolla peered from 
 her cover in the bushes, and listened with an intensity 
 of feeling which rose into foreboding. All the youths 
 had their backs toward her, and so never saw her ; but 
 the old singer caught a view of her face, and kept his 
 eye upon it during the song. With the last line of the 
 verse, she suddenly vanished a3 if in response to its 
 call. 
 
 There is no doubt that these lines were but imper 
 fectly understood by the lads who were listening. But 
 the charm was possibly the greater by virtue of the
 
 UNDER THE TALL APPLE TREE. 69 
 
 unknown thread which ran darkling through the old 
 man's song. The lyric is a pulse of the heart more 
 than a thought of the head ; the youths were carried 
 out of their known life and given a breath of air from 
 beyond. Yet the singer had a tendency not only to 
 the lyric, but also to the apothegm, which is a matter 
 of thought more than of feeling. He now dropped 
 his instrument and recited a few lines which still kept 
 up his relation to the luminaries of the sky : 
 
 The earth borrows light from the sun 
 
 To make its day bright ; 
 The earth borrows light from the moon 
 
 To illumine its night; 
 Earth's child, a light-borrower be, 
 If ever thou wishest to see. 
 
 V. 
 
 When he had ended, he carefully put up his instru 
 ment, with several little signs of endearment. He had 
 just risen to his feet, when the village clock struck the 
 hour of noon. Again he looked upward into the tree 
 with the mingled gaze of satisfaction and expectancy ; 
 again the boys could not help looking after him in the 
 same direction. A little rustle, heard among the 
 leaves, caused them to startle for a moment ; an apple 
 fell to the ground. It was ripe, the first fruit of the 
 season; it had apparently been concealed by the foli 
 age on an upper branch, where no boy could see it, else 
 it had never attained its present maturity. The old 
 man picked it up as it rolled to his feet ; he broke it 
 open, gave a morsel to each, and took a bite himself.
 
 70 THH FREEBURGERS. 
 
 But he did one thing which at first created surprise, 
 and then merriment. He carefully picked-out all the 
 seeds from the apple, not allowing one to be lost, and 
 put them into a little sack which he drew from a safe 
 place underneath the lining of his coat. He showed 
 great joy on getting them ; he hunted several moments 
 for a seed which accidentally fell into the grass ; evi 
 dently they were to him more precious than jewels. 
 
 All the youths laughed at this curious action, 
 though they had felt the power of his song. Even the 
 little satirical urchin who had come back to the com 
 pany from his crab-tree had felt the attraction. Yet 
 he brought with him his mockery, his sarcasm ; he at 
 once declared that the old fellow was crazy, and began 
 to badger him : 
 
 " I say, old man, yon cannot live on apple-seeds." 
 
 The latter calmly replied : 
 
 " I cannot live without them." 
 
 The youngster turned from him contemptuously: 
 
 '' Well, I must have something more solid. Boys, 
 it is past noon, let us go home to dinner." 
 
 This happy suggestion touched a responsive chord 
 in two of the three youths present, and they bounded 
 off in a dance to the new music, forgetful of the old 
 singer and his melody. The young scoffer dominated 
 over the spirit of his elder but weaker companion, who, 
 in the presence of another influence, had been attuned 
 to nobler feelings. So it has ever been ; the sneer is 
 the demon who first terrifies the weaker soul, then car 
 ries it off to his own infernal region. 
 
 Another fact concerning this lad Dick Turnover, we 
 may take the present occasion to impart. He had
 
 UNDER THE TALL APPLE TREE. 71 
 
 made up his mind to be a journalist. Even in the 
 little world of Freeburg he had cast shrewd glances 
 into his surroundings, and had, by his own insight, 
 discovered the true field for his possibilities to be the 
 newspaper. He was not a student, though he had a 
 fair education ; he was going to live by his wits and 
 take the world for his oyster. There were two print 
 ing offices in the town, he had looked into both, and 
 found out the one to which by nature he belonged. 
 Every boy, and some men, had made his acquaintance 
 to their sorrow ; his nicknames stuck and his sarcasm 
 stung in private. Why should not his great qualities 
 be made eternal in printer's ink? Already two or 
 three small paragraphs of his coinage had found their 
 way into one of the newspapers, and he had uncon 
 sciously developed the most amazing gift of the re 
 porter for the daily press. 
 
 As soon as Dick was gone, Trolla bobbed up from 
 her hiding-place, and made herself visible to the two 
 persons who still remained under the apple tree. She 
 hung about somewhat shyly in the distance, though 
 she was no longer afraid, as her little enemy, the fiend 
 ish destroyer of her happiness, had gone away. 
 Henry, who was her foster-brother, called her to come 
 near, but she continued to hover around, out of reach, 
 waiting apparently for the old man to sing another 
 song, which she at last asked for. 
 
 Trolla at this time was the perfect type of a physical 
 being. There was a rebound in every step, which told 
 of ease and grace ; every motion was not only complete 
 in itself, but had an elastic echo which turned for a 
 moment her entire body into a beautiful ripple of flow-
 
 72 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 ing folds. She had an inborn pleasure in going ; to 
 her all movement was so easy, so free, so healthful ; 
 after it was finished, it still went on in a kind of rever 
 beration, till it sank away in its own delight. Through 
 any kind of garment this play of form could be seen ; 
 the muscular upspring followed every step, and her 
 limbs had not only grace, but a little low laugh of 
 triumph. It may be said that her organism sought to 
 speak the word perfection. 
 
 Yet just for this reason her shape seemed to be call 
 ing for something more than itself ; her motion had in 
 it a passing beyond motion ; and her whole body was 
 trying to burst its bounds into some new freedom out 
 side of the body. Every sympathetic beholder could 
 feel, that out of her physical completeness breathed an 
 ethereal element, and in her very perfection was a pre 
 monition. 
 
 The old man gazed upon the little maiden, a sudden 
 thrill darted through him from head to foot, he reached 
 out for her as she flitted around, but she shot behind 
 the tree, and sprang into the bushes. In the mean 
 time Henry had drawn his attention by a question. 
 
 In the breast of the youth the old man's song had 
 set in movement vibrations, which had not ceased with 
 the music. He felt the longing to reach to the sources 
 of what he had seen and heard ; his mind stretched to 
 take in beginning and end ; like the one huge coil of 
 the earth-serpent, the mouth of the first tried to swal 
 low the tail of the last. Certain events had dropped 
 into his life that morning ; whence are they, whither 
 go they, who sent them, and for what do they come 
 hither? Even the fall of the apple just at the right
 
 UNDER THE TALL APPLE TREE. 73 
 
 second in Time put his thoughts in a whirl which swept 
 them far out among the suns and stars. Those two 
 extremes of man's destiny, the Whence and the 
 Whither, tried to shake hands across the Universe. 
 There he stood alone with the old man, who had stirred 
 up the depths ; in the same mood still he turned and 
 asked : 
 
 " From what part of the world do you come? " 
 " From over the great river and lofty moun 
 tain." 
 
 The answer was puzzling, it might mean anything 
 and everything, anywhere and everywhere, if one 
 would go far enough P^ast, West, North, South. 
 Still it must have a special meaning. The youth again 
 stretched his soul forth into boundless space, but soon 
 came back with another interrogation : 
 " To what place are you going? " 
 " I am going back, but I shall return." 
 It must not be forgotten that it was a young, inex 
 perienced fellow who was asking these questions, and 
 an old man full of experience who was answering them. 
 The former did not understand the plain yet myste 
 rious words ; still, he felt in his youthful heart that there 
 was some secret in them, which time could unlock ; he 
 knew that they were full of meaning, if he could only 
 put it there. Who was to blame if he was not able to 
 comprehend these words, himself or the speaker? Be 
 it praised as the rarest jewel in the crown of this 
 youth's virtues that he laid the fault upon his own 
 ignorance, and refused to censure what he did not un 
 derstand. For such a person there is an unlimited
 
 74 THE FREEBURGER8. 
 
 possibility of attaining unto light. But at present he 
 seemed shut up in his own little world, penned within 
 its crushing limits ; still, he sought to break out of them 
 and enter the greater realm. It was a vague longing, 
 but it drove him to one question more : 
 
 " Will you take me along? " 
 
 "I can take you only when you are able to go of 
 yourself. ' ' 
 
 Silence weighed down the tongue of the youth, but 
 the craving was intensified by the riddlesome utter 
 ances of the old man. Still they seemed to give an 
 swer, however dark, to something which he had already 
 felt ; his whole unconscious being had found an ex 
 pression, though no explanation. He stood and pon 
 dered, thoughts darted through his brain like sky 
 rockets, but they all went out in night at last. When 
 the final glimmer had vanished, he stood like a person 
 dazed, and exclaimed : 
 
 " Your words I understand, but not vour mean 
 ing." 
 
 "You will find out by living." 
 
 From this reply unsteady flashes rose again, which 
 for the moment illuminated his brain ; many a gleam 
 of insight, like torches flung from mountain peaks in 
 the night, blazed sinking slowly out of vision into the 
 dark abysses below. But a picture appeared this 
 time ; he thought he saw a faint outline of Destiny 
 with a huge face peering from a cloud, and beckoning 
 him to follow. But the image began to vanish before 
 words harmoniously uttered, which floated upward 
 bearing away the cloud and its phantom. They came
 
 UNDER THE TALL APPLE TREE. 75 
 
 from the voice of the old man, who delivered them 
 in a kind of oracular chant: 
 
 Thou must, in man's illusion, 
 
 Behold the Lord's conclusion; 
 
 Inside the wild world's arabesque border 
 
 Gaze on the picture divine of his order; 
 
 And in the play of Whither and Whence 
 
 Enjoy the humor of Providence. 
 
 The lines were not sung in the previous mode ; there 
 was no music of the instrument accompanying them ; 
 no song, but rather a rhythmical declamation was now 
 the form of utterance. Still the effect was harmoni 
 ous, reconciling, and the youth felt impelled to get 
 rid of a long standing boundary of ignorance, by de 
 manding an answer to the earliest question of his 
 conscious existence a question he had heard so 
 often in his boyhood. He began: 
 
 " Old man, you seem to stand in some intimate re 
 lation to this tree ; you were seeking it, you came to 
 it, you sang to it, and under it ; all could see that it 
 inspired your song, in some hidden way. You have 
 tasted of its fruit, you have gathered its seeds, and 
 now you seem satisfied. But that is not all; you 
 came at an important moment, a turning-point in my 
 life. My grandfather wished to know who planted 
 this beneficent tree ; but he died in ignorance. His de 
 sire has been transmitted by blood and by example to 
 me ; but I still live in darkness. If I cannot discover 
 this little thing, it seems as if all things draw their 
 lines against me, and shut me out from knowledge. 
 I feel that this thirst was born in me to be stilled :
 
 76 THE FREEBUF.GERS. 
 
 give me one small drop, if you can, of the cup which 
 alone satisfies." 
 
 The old man began: " There were no houses here 
 then, not a white man but myself; I had wandered far 
 into the great forest, I found a naked spot on this 
 knoll, I committed a seed to the ground and covered it 
 with brush for protection I planted this apple tree." 
 
 There could be no doubt of it, the question was an 
 swered. The flash of knowledge had come this time to 
 stay. But the very answer, as usual, begat new prob 
 lems. "Why should such a man roam about in this 
 way, with song and instrument ; what impulse drives 
 him forward what rent is there in his heart ? Henry 
 was again plunged into his thought-dream ; he turned 
 around to consult the oracle anew. 
 
 But the old man seemed changed ; he was gazing in 
 tently at the school-house ; tears filled the aged furrows 
 which spread out from his eyes, the bag which con 
 tained his instrument had fallen carelessly at his side. 
 
 Henry asked in surprise: 
 
 " What do you see? " 
 
 " Nothing of which I can tell," was the answer. 
 
 But he had seen something, and something that 
 startled him. A female figure dressed in white had 
 appeared in the distance for a moment, and had darted 
 into the school-house. It was but a flash, Henry had 
 not seen it. 
 
 After a few minutes he suppressed his emotions, and 
 began to speak: " Young friend, do not be astonished 
 at this outburst of feeling, of which an ocean lies in 
 me. I could often sink away in my own tears, and 
 be drowned in them, did I but yield to my impulse.
 
 UNDER THE TALL APPLE TREE. 77 
 
 It requires frequently but a look, a passing gesture, a 
 trick of voice falling upon a tender mood, to set all 
 the waters llowing. Forgive me, I shall try to con 
 trol myself better, if I should ever meet you again. 
 But now permit me to depart." 
 
 The old man moved off, going on the line by which 
 he had come. Soon he had vanished out of sight and 
 hearing. He, too, the oracle, had found his mystery 
 on that spot where he once planted the mysterious 
 apple tree.
 
 CHAPTER THIRD, 
 
 ABOUND HENRY FIEE STONE. 
 I. 
 
 The words of the old singer had produced a pure 
 cairn, as well as a quiet exaltation, in the spirit of 
 young Henr3 r Firestone. To be sure, they had called 
 up new questions, but these too showed illumination 
 from that final answer, like dark, distant shapes 
 beaten upon by the sunlight which has pierced the 
 nearer intervening cloud. A new hope crept through 
 his being, stealthily yet mightily ; the first interroga 
 tion of his life had received a sure response, and in it 
 he had obtained an earnest that much else would be 
 answered. The limit of ignorance against which 
 hitherto he seemed to be beating out his brains in 
 vain, he now felt would be removed. Another lofty 
 emotion, which he had not experienced before, helped 
 lift him upward faith. He had been granted a 
 glimpse into the providential order of things ; that' 
 apple tree had been planted in a certain spot at a cer 
 tain time by a strange hand ; the result was, that he 
 existed, and his family, and, possibly, the town of 
 Freeburg, through a little far-off deed of beneficence. 
 Did not all this point a way through the dark, and 
 (78)
 
 AROUND HENRY FIRESTONE. 79 
 
 illustrate what is, in a bidden manner, perchance, 
 transpiring at present in the world? Two celestial 
 virtues, faith and hope, had indeed begun to dawn 
 upon his soul. 
 
 But the counter tendency must not be forgotten in 
 the present satisfied condition of this young aspirer. 
 Henry even now dimly feels that the answer to one 
 question often wakes another and more difficult ques 
 tion, hitherto dormant. So it must be, else there 
 were no progress ; the spirit cannot long rest in its 
 own boundaries, it must beat against them with its 
 wings, or die. The answer, though it be true, is still 
 bordered with the Unknown, nay, with more of it than 
 before. Behold the spliere of the Known, as it is 
 pushed further and further beyond ; it becomes vast 
 indeed, but there is a still vaster outlying sphere of 
 the Unknown, which encompasses it on every side with 
 darkness, and is waiting for spiritual illumination. 
 We are all like the little boy, who, being told that 
 God made him, asks, Who then made God? 
 
 While thus Henry lay in sweet serenity of mind, a 
 noise began to enter his quiet nook and drive off his 
 peace. It arose from the Public Square, the place of 
 din and conflict, which, though not visible, was not 
 very far away. Henry was soon on his feet ; he at 
 once started to leave his shady spot, which was in 
 closed on all sides by private houses ; it was, indeed, 
 the placid abode of the soul, the secluded home of 
 the spirit. He felt strongly the transition as he came 
 out into the open street ; it was as if he had entered 
 another world. Still he had to go ; the call was strong 
 in him ; he felt that he must remain no longer to-day in
 
 80 THE FREEBURGEKS. 
 
 the still-life of contemplation. He soon reached the 
 Public Square ; the strife of loud voices came from a 
 large crowd of people who were standing around two 
 men engaged in a warm discussion. 
 
 "I say it is a burning shame to defeat the old 
 Judge who has served us so long and so faithfully," 
 said a man with great animation, as he brought his 
 clenched fist heavily down toward his own thigh, but 
 stopped the descending sledge-hammer before it 
 reached its apparent destination. 
 
 His antagonist replied: "A very worthy and re 
 spectable fossil, I grant ; but what we wanted was a 
 man of our own time, and now we have him." 
 
 " What is going on -here," asked the youth. 
 
 "Fighting over the old battle," said a voice in 
 reply. 
 
 " No, it is a skirmishing before the new battle, 
 which is yet to be fought," said another voice. 
 
 " Two different opinions evermore," said Henry to 
 himself ; " what discord ! " 
 
 Though the election was over, the village was still 
 disturbed and divided ; the scission had gone to the 
 very heart of the community, and would not heal. It 
 was felt, after the smoke of the battle had cleared 
 away, that the personality of the two candidates was 
 but a small matter ; their victory or defeat was merely 
 the gossamer that was swayed by the brewing storm. 
 The people could not get over the argument ; they re 
 curred to it again and again. The breach was not 
 only permanent, but seemed to be quietly growing 
 deeper. Nothing of the kind had been known in the 
 previous history of Freeburg ; after an election every-
 
 AROUND HEXRY FIRESTONE. 81 
 
 body used to quiet down, glad that the contest was 
 settled. But at present it was not settled at all ; it 
 was rather unsettled. Principles, not persons, were 
 felt to be hanging in the balance, and the conflict of 
 principles would not sink out of sight. The call was 
 heard like the blast of a trumpet ; every Freeburger 
 was soon aware that the line of battle was drawn in his 
 own soul, and that he was enlisted for the war. 
 
 Our young friend Henry was disagreeably affected 
 by the discordant wrangle which he saw before him. 
 It struck so harshly on the harmonious mood which 
 had been awakened in him by the old singer, that he 
 shivered in a chill of dissonance. He began to inquire 
 again, and inquiry is not musical. 
 
 "What is to be the outcome of this struggle? I 
 supposed it had ceased with the election, but it breaks 
 out anew everywhere. Underneath it all is there any 
 harmony? What kind of a song would the old singer 
 make to this tune? He hardly belongs to the same 
 world as these fighting, writhing, struggling mortals ; 
 still, he must be somewhere around. I would like to 
 see his aged, venerable form chanting in the midst of 
 these angry, contending elements, to see if he could 
 tame them to any kind of order and concord. Here is 
 the spot for him to sing or act Providence, not in 
 idyllic repose under the peaceful shade of the Tall 
 Apple Tree." 
 
 In such manner the youth reacted against his former 
 mood, and no longer thrilled in concert with the melo 
 dious notes he had erewhile heard. He withdrew from 
 the crowd out of tune ; then he noticed for the first 
 time that he was feeling the pangs of hunger, which
 
 82 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 of itself is enough to produce discord. The thought, 
 however, of one of Aunt Polly's good dinners distant 
 a few minutes' walk, gave him instantaneous relief. 
 
 II. 
 
 He set out homeward, arrived soon, and found that 
 he was a little late for his meal, though the family 
 were still at the table, engaged in animated disputa 
 tion. As he entered the gate, he heard the heavy base 
 voice of his brother Charles smiting the nail of argu 
 ment on its head ; the deep tones, however, were often 
 overflowed and drowned out by the high shrill soprano 
 notes of his sister Wanda. It was manifest that the 
 two voices were not singing in tune. 
 
 When Henry entered, Aunt Polly saluted him, and 
 said in her motherly way : 
 
 " You are late, child, but I have saved a good slice 
 for you." 
 
 At once she started for the kitchen and soon re 
 turned with all that hunger could pray for. 
 
 Henry asked : " What is this loud talk about? " 
 
 Aunt Polly, smiling, replied: "Oh, it is the old 
 subject." 
 
 To this the father answered with an austere look 
 from the other end of the table : "Yet it is the subject 
 which remains ever new." 
 
 Aunt Polly sighed: " Well, I am getting tired of it, 
 for it is as old as I am." 
 
 " What! tired of humanity, of your own kind! tired 
 of conscience! " ejaculated the father.
 
 AROUND HENRY FIRESTONE. 83 
 
 "What! tired of your country and its laws!" bel 
 lowed the son Charles in his hoarsest note. 
 
 At this signal Wanda's high voice joined the others, 
 and the chorus began anew. To the domestic concert 
 Henry contributed with great diligence, the music of 
 knives and forks, set off by frequent variations on the 
 clatter of dishes. As he ate, he thought to himself: 
 " The confusion has followed me home through the 
 Public Square, and entered the household. What a 
 fiend of discord is in pursuit of us! The old singer 
 ought to be present now and lay on us his spell. I 
 wonder if he could behold the ordering hand in all 
 this tumult." 
 
 Not only was the community in general divided, but 
 the breach of the time had gone into families and had 
 arrayed various members of the same hearth against 
 one another. This opposition seemed at times to grow 
 the more intense because of the closeness of the ties 
 which bound the persons together. The individual 
 family became the little image of the great national 
 family ; there was foreshadowed in the one what was 
 preparing to transpire in the other. The Firestones 
 were a leading family in the town of Freeburg ; they 
 showed what was taking place everywhere the bands 
 of love rudely tested and often sprung asunder by po 
 litical differences. Still, these differences, in the pres 
 ent case, did not lead to alienation. But affection 
 was frequently tried to the last pinch of endurance. 
 
 The father, Herman Firestone, true to the German 
 blood of the Reformation, which ran in his veins, was 
 rampant for conscience ; he could become intoxicated 
 with it and lose all sense of institutions in his debauch.
 
 84 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 Narrow, but intense, he bad in him the stuff of which 
 martyrs are made. But now comes the strange fact 
 of the family ; equally rampant, but for law and es 
 tablished right, was his eldest son Charles a man 
 grown, but a wild boy in enthusiasm, which sometimes 
 had a tendency to break over law, though he would 
 have died like an old Roman, for the principle of le 
 gality. His character showed itself in an inborn love 
 of the military spirit, which he kept alive in the com 
 munity, and which drilled his quick impulses into 
 obedience. 
 
 This military spirit seemed to have no call in the 
 peaceful village of Freeburg, but it existed in Charles 
 Firestone by its own native right, as well as by some 
 dim sense that there would be need for it. " The 
 world is not yet ready for universal peace," he would 
 say; " look at these political disputes; do you sup 
 pose they are always going to end in wind?" So he 
 frequently spoke, hardly weighing the full import 
 of his words ; it was his solution of persistent wrang 
 ling fight. The people laughed at his little mili 
 tary company, which drilled Saturdays on the Public 
 Square; "you will all join it one day." he said. He 
 claimed an old copy of Tactics from the little Fire 
 stone library ; it was the only book he had inherited, 
 he affirmed. He pored over it, he practiced its di 
 rections in his boyhood, with a broomstick for a gun. 
 All the kindred spirits of the town he initiated into 
 the drill, and formed into a small squad of spirited 
 young warriors. First they had wooden guns, made 
 by the village carpenter ; latterly they had obtained 
 from the State actual muskets, which shot powder and
 
 AROUND HENRY FIRESTONE. 85 
 
 ball with fire in their bellies, as the exultant soldiers 
 now observed. 
 
 There were two daughters. One of them was the 
 quiet, sweet-faced Fidelia; she said but little, yet 
 always clung to the side of her father, without much 
 exercise of judgment, but with great devotion. Of 
 the other daughter, Wanda, we have already heard. 
 She could talk, in fact she could not hold her tongue 
 in a discussion ; she was. an independent young 
 lady, and usually showed her independence by taking 
 sides against her father. During the last election, 
 however, she was a warm supporter of young Mr. 
 Conington, and for once agreed with her parent. She 
 was the one who always threw the apple of discord 
 into the company at the table. She teased, she taunted, 
 she defied, till she saw her opponent step forth ready 
 for the onset. The ardent disputants joined in a tour 
 ney, and the discussion grew hot while the dinner 
 grew cold. 
 
 Aunt Polly, sister of the father, and mistress of the 
 household since the death of the mother, moderately 
 agreed with her brother, but strongly disagreed with 
 the discussion. She had often to stem, by supreme 
 authority, the violent debates which tore the peace of 
 the family to tatters. Yet Aunt Polly had her inter 
 ests, private and public, which she did not fail to look 
 after. She, too, could getwarm i'n the defense of her 
 peculiar opinions. 
 
 We must not fail to give a passing notice to little 
 Trolla, who sat at the side of Aunt Polly, sipping only 
 the honey of the food ; she would run off when the 
 disputation began, and with her the spirit of peace
 
 86 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 seemed to have flecL She usually slipped away to the 
 garden to converse with her flower-friends, who, she 
 said, never discussed politics. Still she confessed 
 that she had to scold them once in a while for some 
 fragrant naughtiness. 
 
 Next to Trolla always sat the younger son, Henry 
 Firestone, with whom we have already formed some ac 
 quaintance. He had finished bis repast and had 
 drawn his chair back, when Miss Fidelia asked him: 
 
 "Well, what do you think, Henry?" 
 
 "I believe that I am more certain in my uncer 
 tainty than ever before. I used to think that both 
 sides were wrong, then that both sides were right, but 
 to-day I hold that both sides are both right and 
 wrong." 
 
 At this statement all laughed in a common explo 
 sion ; the poor boy was bantered, ridiculed, satirized ; 
 each party united in disowning him, with strong as 
 sumption of its own infallibility. 
 
 The youth's declaration was itself uncertain, like 
 himself, half in jest, half in earnest. In these partisan 
 disputes he seemed to hang in a balance and oscil 
 late from side to side ; he felt the might of both princi 
 ples with quite equal intensity, and when the two 
 clashed together in his heart, he was full of discord. 
 By nature he would have followed his brother, and 
 have been a moderate supporter of Judge Allworthy, 
 but by education he kept leaning more and more to 
 the side of conscience, through the sweet persuasive 
 lips of his teacher, the school-mistress, Miss Hope 
 Winslow. She had gained a strong influence over 
 him, and had, to a great extent, moulded his devel-
 
 AROUND HENRY FIRESTONE. 87 
 
 opment. Still, it was impossible for him to be alto 
 gether a partisan ; an argument that presented itself 
 honestly to his mind, he could not turn out of doors ; 
 he always took it- in, wherever it belonged, and gave it 
 a hospitable entertainment. He was so weak as to be 
 unable to defend himself against any attack of truth. 
 Thus the two sides were lodged together in his brain, 
 and they often began to grind there, like two mill 
 stones, producing by the friction many sparkles, but 
 little or no flour. 
 
 The family rose and left the table ; for the hundredth 
 time it had shown the breach which lay in itself, in 
 the community, and in the country. The soul of the 
 period was split open, and there was no healing power, 
 apparently, which could again make it whole. With 
 out saying a word, Henry went out of the house into 
 the street ; he was not angry, but completely untuned ; 
 every thought and every feeling were in a wrangle and 
 a jangle. He tried to think of the old fiddler and the 
 harmony of the world, which he hnd felt so strongly in 
 the morning, but there reigned only confusion and 
 conflict in himself and everywhere else. In such a 
 mood he strayed listlessly back to the Public Square, 
 in which, as already indicated, the strife of the time 
 found utterance. 
 
 III. 
 
 He stood there, engaged in a small war with him 
 self, when his attention was drawn to a bystander, 
 whom he thought he knew, but who was evidently a 
 stranger in the village. He observed the man eyeing
 
 88 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 him with a sly attention ; each had excited the curi 
 osity of the other, and each had become aware of the 
 fact. 
 
 The man approached and spoke first: "For some 
 reason, I seem to know you." 
 
 Henry answered : "Yes, I have also been thinking 
 that I have met you before somewhere." 
 
 " A secret recognition of our spirits," said the man, 
 with a quizzical smile. He had a great arch of eye 
 brow and forehead, under which a little pair of rapid 
 gleaming rat-eyes, which evidentty had the power of 
 seeing in the darkest night, darted in and out of their 
 sockets, in a sprightly play of appearance and con 
 cealment. After a moment of hiding, they shot out 
 upon Henry along with the following remark : 
 
 " I see you have had a little battle here." 
 
 The youth had too much of the conflict in him not 
 to perceive the allusion. He answered : 
 
 "Yes, we have ; but how do you know? " 
 
 " See these fragments of paper ballots lying around 
 the Public Square. Pick them up ; are they not 
 heavy ? Are they not of lead and ready to be melted 
 into bullets?" 
 
 The man grinned with manifest pleasure at the 
 mystification which he had caused in the look of the 
 youth. The subtle eyes played in and out, and at last 
 steadied themselves in a continuous glance, which ac 
 companied these words : "I have seen it all, nobody 
 can tell me anything about it. Do you know that my 
 vision is better in the dark than in daylight? " 
 
 Henry answered in some uncertainty : 
 
 " It was a peaceful victory."
 
 AROUND HENRY FIRESTONE. 89 
 
 c 
 
 " So -it was. Still I have noticed some wounded 
 men limping about town during the past few days." 
 
 Henry now looked at the man more carefully. Be 
 tween the little restless eyes forever playing hide-and- 
 go-seek, he observed a prodigious nose that could 
 flatten to a plane on a level with the face, or rise to a 
 point hooking over the mouth, apparently at the will 
 of the owner. It showed small red and white points 
 of light flashing through the cuticle everywhere, when 
 in excitement, as if the whole organ were hung out to 
 be the torch-bearer of the mind. Henry gazed at the 
 spectacle in astonishment and asked : " What do you 
 mean? " 
 
 The stranger suddenly straightened his face out of 
 its comic twist into sober lines and answered: "No 
 body physically hurt and bleeding, I suppose ; still 
 there are wounds. Many are not as sound men as 
 they were before ; they have taken sides too intensely ; 
 they have made themselves such strong halves that 
 they can never again be whole. You all seem worn 
 out, too ; a great strain has been upon you, and you 
 still walk bent forward or backward. But it is child's 
 play to what is coming. Get ready ; you have given 
 your votes, next you will have to give your bodies." 
 
 Dire prophesies are often heard from mouths not 
 overwise ; wars and rumors of wars are too common 
 to cause much terror ; but this prophet, in spite of, 
 perhaps by virtue of, his grotesque humor, spoke with 
 a peculiar authority, which filled the youth with awe. 
 The latter now observed for the first time that the 
 strange man had a foreign accent, which appeared 
 strongly in certain words, then vanished in others
 
 90 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 altogether. He played with speech, hiding his thought 
 therein, or revealing it, according to his impulse. A 
 series of transformations he seemed to be undergoing 
 always ; he was in a continuous process of unfolding 
 through Time. Henry now noticed his figure partic 
 ularly, as he rose up tall, broad-shouldered, of power 
 ful build, with a sweep of arm like a giant. Leaning 
 over to the youth, he spoke in a shrill, husky whisper: 
 "Are you ready for the big war, my boy? You are 
 of the right age, you will have to go." 
 
 There is no doubt that Henry Firestone's mood was 
 changing, his petty discord began to turn into a colos 
 sal foreboding, under the enchantment of the stranger ; 
 the strife of the Public Square melted away into the 
 distant roll of the world's tumult. But he called him 
 self back from his mind-roaming, and "with some force 
 he whipped his timorous spirit into asking a question 
 of that bewildering presence : 
 
 " On which side are you? " 
 
 The man's huge nose lapsed at once from its hooked 
 point and spread over his countenance, vanishing into 
 an enormous grin, which broke suddenly into a loud 
 laugh. Henry was now not only mystified but startled, 
 and made ready to withdraw. But the rude laughter 
 and the fantastic grimaces of the buffoon in a moment 
 settled down into the earnest, rapt glance of the 
 prophet, who now gave answer : 
 
 " Why this breach in the soul? Why Conscience 
 against Law, or Law against Conscience? Why hus 
 band against wife, or wife against husband? Con 
 science is the inborn Law, and Law is the outer Con 
 science. They are the two which make one, yet now
 
 AROUND HENRY FIRESTONE. 91 
 
 tney are not only two, but are divorced ; not only di 
 vorced, but are going to fight, and when they fight, 
 nations are their weapons. The note sings in the air, 
 the roll-call -is heard on the hills, this election 
 is but a handful of chaff thrown upon the wind, 
 which is blowing straight upon the hell-flames of 
 war. What Freeburg has done, the State will 
 do, the Nation will do, only to the music of can 
 non. O man, thou earth-worm, choosing to be a pain 
 ful, wriggling, bleeding fragment, with which Destiny 
 baits her hook to fish in the stream of time for gud 
 geons ! Thy Conscience may put down thy Law, and 
 stamp and spit upon it ; then comes the new battle, 
 and the new stroke from the tail of the same old red 
 dragon switching in the opposite direction thy Law 
 will have to put down thy Conscience." 
 
 Thus the stranger seemed to turn over the leaves 
 in the Book of the Fates, and peer in far ahead of 
 the time of day ; he also gave to the youth at his side 
 a fleeting glance into the sibylline pages. The idea 
 was very vague, but it brought a boon a stimulating 
 composure ; Henry again felt something of the har 
 mony of the old singer welling up into new aspiration. 
 But how different men are in being one ! He per 
 ceived that there was a point in common between the 
 two strange persons he had seen that day, and yet 
 there was great diversity. They seemed two rays of 
 light darting from opposite ends of the universe, and 
 meeting in a common center of intense brilliancy, 
 which did not always aid, and sometimes paralyzed 
 altogether, the vision.
 
 92 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 rv. 
 
 The youth rested his eyes upon the ground, to pon 
 der more easily the above statement of the conflict be 
 tween the legal and moral spheres a conflict which 
 he too had strongly felt in his young life. But as he 
 turned around, he saw Judge Allworthy, the de 
 throned king of the Law, standing before him in the 
 act of addressing the stranger. 
 
 The Judge bore his defeat cheerfully, but it was plain 
 that something beside his personal discomfiture weighed 
 upon his mind. He was a patriot, he felt the coming 
 struggle of the nation in his heart. He seemed in 
 worse health than usual, short spasms of a hacking 
 cough often obtruded themselves between his words ; 
 he rested somewhat heavily upon his cane for support. 
 As he approached, he had caught the last words of 
 the stranger, which appeared to promise some distant 
 triumph for legality. His features lightened , he raised 
 up his eyes in interest, and he seemed momentarily 
 relieved, as if by a touch of unexpected sympathy. 
 With a friendly smile he addressed the speaker : 
 
 " I believe I have seen you before." 
 
 "You are right. I am the heavy-shod pedestrian 
 whom you overtook, when you were on horseback." 
 
 The Judge laughed, and said: " Since then I have 
 been unhorsed, and I too now have to go on foot." 
 
 The pedestrian, whom we shall often call the stranger, 
 replied: "You are welcome to my mode of con 
 veyance ; there is room for everybody. We may now 
 take a journey together."
 
 AROUND HENRY FIRESTONE. 93 
 
 The banter continued a little while, then the Judge 
 remarked: " You seem to remain a long time in our 
 unimportant village." 
 
 "Yes," said the stranger, " I have found the place 
 interesting." 
 
 " Indeed!" replied the Judge with a slight tinge of 
 bitterness possibly left from his defeat, "I find it a 
 dull, small, insignificant spot which I sometimes think 
 of leaving. Why should a man coop himself up for 
 life in his own little corn-bin?" 
 
 "I cannot deny your statements, and perhaps I would 
 think as you do, were I in your situation. Still, all is 
 taking place just here too, more distinctly, I imagine, 
 than in great cities. If one desires to read the hand 
 writing of the time, the letters should not be very large 
 or very complicated." 
 
 " Quite likely," said the Judge, " but have you not 
 changed your* opinion, since you have lived among us 
 and seen how matters are going?" 
 
 The stranger could not give the secret consolation 
 which the Judge's question implied. He answered: 
 " No, I have had no cause ; on the contrary, I have been 
 confirmed in what I stated when I first saw you. 
 The trouble of the time lies in a much deeper source 
 than in the actions of a few politicians. They are the 
 shuttle-cock, not the wind." 
 
 " Humph," grunted the Judge, while the stranger 
 went right on : 
 
 " But tell me, have you not modified your opinion, 
 in view of the recent events, which seem to have had 
 you specially in training?" 
 
 The Judge hesitated in his answer, and began to
 
 94 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 hack a little ; the truth is. he was startled at being so 
 suddenly whirled about and made to look at his own 
 unconscious condition. He had felt misgivings, he was 
 not at one with himself, down deep there was a secret 
 protest. He had a dim sense of the meaning of his 
 defeat, but he would not acknowledge it ; he would 
 not openly take the lesson, though the time had written 
 it upon his heart too. He firmly held his jaws together, 
 as if in defiance of his own unconscious scruple, and 
 spake: "I say still, it has been a great mistake in 
 our rulers to call up this question, when it might have 
 been avoided." 
 
 But no sooner had the words been spoken, than 
 there appeared behind him Cudjo Bell, whom we have 
 already known as a runaway slave in the employ of 
 Judge Allworthj', and who was the sole African in Free- 
 burg. He was a stalwart, courageous, kind-hearted 
 black fellow, much liked in the village for his antics, 
 and melodies, and queer stories, which kept alive danc 
 ing, music, and the myth in a soil not very favorable. 
 Yet he had strong, deep currents in him, which few 
 suspected. There he stood, a living embodiment of the 
 struggle in the soul of the Judge, who, in harboring 
 that negro, had denied and defied his own principle of 
 legality. 
 
 The African listened intently to -the talk, which he 
 knew involved, his race, as was the fact about nearly 
 all the talk at this time heard in Freeburg. He stood 
 at the back of the Judge, leaned over with a set look, 
 and put his hand to his ear. It. is needless to say that 
 he grinned. 
 
 The stranger, almost in imitation of Cudjo, took a
 
 AROUND HENRY FIRESTONE. 95 
 
 position and fixed his head in a burlesque attitude 
 before the Judge ; the monstrous nose again flattened 
 down into a broad smile, and the little eyes flung a 
 stream of sparkles out of their recesses as he gave 
 answer : 
 
 " Perhaps it is you who have made the mistake ; at 
 least events are inclined to speak that way. But, as 
 to this question of which you complain, the rulers 
 have not called it up, it has long existed, it always 
 comes of itself without any call. Do you know it is in 
 our presence, just here at this moment, if we could 
 see both fore and aft." A droll squint added a facial 
 commentary to these words. 
 
 The Judge, of course, did not understand the allus- 
 sion ; he could not, in his situation, but Cudjo did, and 
 looked up from behind his employer, staring at the 
 stranger and displaying a great semi-lunar sweep of 
 big white teeth from ear to ear. He took off his hat, 
 and gave a slight nod of his cui'ly head in recognition. 
 But he made no noise. 
 
 With a sudden gesture the Judge broke out: "It 
 is madness in the slave-holders through their laws to 
 start such a scruple in the national soul." 
 
 Nothing could be plainer than that the speaker had 
 such a scruple in his own soul, which, hitherto dumb, 
 was beginning to have faint traces of a voice. Cudjo 
 started a little, and set his head anew ; such a con 
 fession he had never heard from his employer before. 
 
 The stranger, whose face had become quite grave, 
 quickly picked up the thread of the talk, and said 
 with slow emphasis : "Yes, it is madness. But have 
 vou never observed that Providence has a hand in such
 
 96 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 madness, and is working out some design which is dis 
 guised in the fool's mask of Time? Not the Brutus 
 alone feigns insanity in this world ; the Spirit of the 
 Ages loves to disport himself in the crazy motley of 
 events, and seems to say and do in irony just the op 
 posite of what he intends." 
 
 "What is that design? " asked the Judge. 
 
 The stranger threw back his head with the air of a 
 conjurer, who is for once going to deal plainly and 
 show his trick, but in revealing his skill he mystifies 
 his audience the more completely. He answered : 
 
 " T shall tell you in all distinctness; it means the 
 freedom of the slave." 
 
 Cudjo could not have more suddenly jumped if he had 
 been struck; his woolly pate dodged as if he had been 
 shot at. He evidently had been touched somewhere 
 unexpectedly. But he soon came back to his stooping, 
 reverential posture, prepared to hear the rest of his 
 race's evangel from the lips of the strange prophet. 
 
 The Judge was too much occupied with himself to 
 hear the slight noise produced by these antics of the 
 negro behind his back ; nor did the last utterance of 
 the stranger turn aside the strong current of his feel 
 ings. His excitement brought on a fit of coughing, 
 whose violence made his thin, pale face turn crimson, 
 and caused his eyes to -fill with water, which he cleared 
 away with his handkerchief. He raised his arm con 
 vulsively and brought it down with force: 
 
 " Cursed, I say, be the wretched man-stealers, who 
 first took the African from his native shores and 
 brought him to our country, to be an everlasting 
 source of discord."
 
 AROUND HENRY FIRESTOXK. 97 
 
 Cudjo showed a streak of disapproval in bis black 
 face at this declaration of his employer ; his look 
 seemed to cr}- out that he was here where the Powers 
 had put him, and where he ought to be, and where he 
 intended to stay. But his glance lightened as he 
 turned to the stranger, who was beginning to speak : 
 " It was mean, unjust, inhuman ; still, in this basest act 
 of history, I would fain believe that we shall yet see 
 not only the hand, but the entire form of Providence 
 reaching through and taking shape incorporate in the 
 Ages. Can we not even now behold a people put into 
 the bitterest training of Time a black people, who, 
 in the sweep of centuries, are to return to their ancient 
 home, the Dark Continent, bearing thither the torch of 
 civilization? " 
 
 The Judge replied with some asperity : ' ' Then your 
 Providence is now setting America on fire that Africa 
 may at some future time have light. I say it is the 
 Devil kindling his infernal pit in our midst." 
 
 These words struck the key-note to a new tune in 
 the stranger, who could not resist his demonic bent, 
 but retorted in lurid irony: 
 
 " Yes, it is the Devil ; he is going to make a bonfire 
 of both continents, and compel the whole human race 
 to dance to his hellish orgies in the flames. Can we 
 not smell the brimstone already?" To which question 
 that mighty olfactory organ of his curled up and 
 snuffled in picturesque response. After this sulphur 
 ous outburst our prophet dropped his diabolic humor, 
 and continued in his milder vein : 
 
 " I asserted no fact, I simply made a conjecture 
 which sought to account for the presence of the Afri- 
 
 7
 
 98 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 can among us. There is a reason, in the grand system 
 of the world's events, why he was taken from his home 
 and brought hither to dwell in this land, in the ad 
 vance guard of the march of human improvement." 
 
 The Judge interrupted: " I can give a plainer and 
 better reason ; he was stolen by the greed of men 
 and enslaved for their gratification." 
 
 " Does man's greed then rule the universe? " 
 
 " It gave us the negro." 
 
 "Yes," replied the stranger, in tone and mien of 
 great gravity, " I grant that such is the human motive, 
 but the chief question is, What is the divine motive? 
 Every human deed, especially the far-reaching historic 
 deed, is spun by two strands ; the one is the intention of 
 the doer, often selfish, base, weak ; the other is the pro 
 vidential purpose, often invisible for centuries, but 
 always good. Even the wise man may not see its good 
 ness, but he always must believe in it and act upon it. 
 Be assured the Lord's sweep in the cycle of Time is 
 far greater than the Devil's must in the end include 
 it; what is narrow, weak and wicked in man, is always 
 overtaken and strangely transfigured into the supreme 
 order." 
 
 Cudjo stood and gazed at the stranger with a look 
 of far-off wonder. But he could hardly have had the 
 man definitely in his eye ; his vision floated away 
 vaguely, as if he too sought to peer down the long 
 vista of futurity, which suddenly seemed to open to 
 him and his race in boundless expanse. He turned 
 his black face up toward the sky, the eastern sky, and 
 gazed at it steadfastly, as if he would penetrate it, and 
 see into the Beyond.
 
 AROUND HENRY FIRESTONE. 99 
 
 The silent listener of that company was young Henry 
 Firestone, to whom both disputants, by many a look, 
 unconsciously appealed in their discussion. The 
 stranger's talk became more and more fascinating, till 
 :it last the youth was ready to regard him as altogether 
 infallible, though the spell was felt to have always in 
 it something forbidden ; it was a witchcraft that came 
 not under the law, though it might not defy the law. 
 The charm had never been experienced before by 
 Henry ; he yielded to it in a kind of rapture. He felt 
 gradually the harmonious mood return ; in his soul the 
 thought of the strange Pedestrian had begun to unite 
 in sweet accord with the song of the old Fiddler, and 
 both men marvelously blended into one voice. 
 
 The Judge, too, had received some schooling by the 
 conversation, though under obstinate protest ; in spite 
 of his facing the other way, he had been suddenly 
 borne forward ; he was compelled to take a small 
 sweep around the world, while looking persistently in 
 the opposite direction. He quickly returned, however, 
 to himself, whom he found asking this question : 
 
 " Do you believe, then, that whatever is, is right? " 
 
 " Right is right and wrong is wrong," said the 
 stranger, who now in his own nature seemed to assume 
 the mien and function of the High Priest. "But," 
 he continued, " I do see, and all ought to see, that the 
 greatest blessings which history has recorded, have 
 had to pass through a training of injustice, wicked 
 ness, madness ; truth has had to assume the garb of 
 error, even to be truth ; right has often been compelled 
 to disguise itself in the mask of wrong, in order not to 
 be driven out of the world ; again and again has wis-
 
 100 THE FREEBTJRGERS. 
 
 tlom put on the motley of the fool, that it be wise. 
 And,thou, blessed angel, heaven-descended Goodness, 
 seemest also to need a little discipline in order to pur 
 ify thyself of thy dross ; and thy soul incorporate, 
 the Son of Man, had to be tested by fire in order to 
 show to the world that virtue is not made of inflam 
 mable stuff. O, friend, peep under the dark veil of 
 circumstance and read there the letters of light. 
 Happy, thrice happy, the eye that can behold in man's 
 night the distant glimmer of God's dawn! " 
 
 V. 
 
 These wild flashes of far-reaching fore-ordination 
 had not yet died away, when the notes of a violin rose 
 softly from the distance, and rolled in low, harmon 
 ious wavelets of sound through the loud talk of the 
 stranger, giving to the same a kind of musical accom 
 paniment. The strain seemed to wind into his spoken 
 words, or rather into the thoughts he had uttered, and 
 to make them move to a tune, after his voice had 
 ceased for several minutes. All looked around to dis 
 cover whence the music came, but nobody was seen. 
 Cudjo could not help giving his feet a shuffle in 
 response to the time. Henry at once had in mind the 
 old singer with the instrument, in fact he had been 
 thinking of the latter during much of the conversation. 
 The youth hardly knew at first whether it was an actual 
 sound or his own imagination. But as the rest of the 
 company had evidently heard it, he inferred that it 
 must be a reality. He stepped aside and looked more
 
 AROUND HENRY FIRESTONE. 101 
 
 carefully, but the notes had stopped and their origin 
 remained undiscovered. 
 
 The Judge stood a moment listening to those melo 
 dious sounds, then whirled about, as in self-reproof for 
 having done so foolish a thing. He began shaking his 
 head at the stranger and hacking ; he did not try to 
 say anything, but with a look of polite impatience, he 
 turned away as if he intended to leave such a strangely 
 haunted locality. It was plainly not to his taste ; he 
 was in a protest with it, nay, with himself ; he proposed, 
 somehow, to run off from both. But as he glanced 
 around in the other direction and made a move to 
 leave, Cudjo stood before him ; the Judge could not 
 hide his surprise that the African should spring into 
 his vision just at that moment. Cudjo was still gaz 
 ing dreamfully into the distant sky, and hearing, ap 
 parently, the unseen music ; the look of his employer 
 had not been able to call him back to this side of the 
 world. The Judge actually stumbled upon him, and 
 felt the thump of a bodily collision with him, exclaim 
 ing somewhat testily : 
 
 u What, Cudjo, are you here, too? " 
 
 Cudjo at once fell out of his dream, and struck the 
 solid earth. He straightened up with a self-satisfied 
 grin, which heralded no small consciousness of his own 
 significance, and replied : 
 
 ' ' Yes, I am around pretty much everywhere these 
 days." 
 
 The Judge, without paying any attention to his an 
 swer, interjected rapidly and somewhat passionately 
 these words in response to the stranger : 
 
 "It is bad, all bad."
 
 102 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 Yet there was something forced in his utterance. It 
 was not himself altogether who was speaking ; in his 
 very impatience could be faintly heard the inner 
 protest ; he was in the process of being convinced by 
 the weakness of his own argument. An undercurrent 
 of his soul was going in the opposite direction, and he 
 was fighting with all his might against it. He had, in 
 this one question, the habit of drawing the blind of 
 passion over his eyes, and then saying he could not 
 see. Again he began to repeat, with still greater em 
 phasis, that defiant sentence: "It is bad, all bad." 
 But his cough caught him in the first word, and would 
 hardly let him speak it ; he struggled, and writhed for 
 utterance, he could only throw out the little mono 
 syllables between violent paroxysms which almost 
 pushed his eyes from their sockets. 
 
 But the stranger was not to be shut off so easily ; 
 he could not be coughed down. He was evidently 
 accustomed not only to being opposed, but to being 
 not listened to at all. He always had himself at hand 
 to talk with, and he deemed him a good companion. 
 But there were two diligent listeners present, whom he 
 could carry off with himself skywards, and so he con 
 tinued, speaking still in his priestly office : 
 
 44 Bad statesmanship in peace, bad generalship in 
 war are the mighty instrumentalities of the world's 
 good. Error is error, but there seems little advance 
 among men without it ; for what is an advance unless 
 it bean overcoming of error? It is true that the in 
 dividual suffers in the process, but just this suffering is 
 ngain his reward, his chief blessing; it is his discipline 
 unto perfect manhood."
 
 AROUND HENRY FIKESTONE. 103 
 
 The Judge braced his entire body, already tense in 
 violent suppression of his cough, and then ejected 
 spasmodically five more monosyllables : ' ' You make 
 the bad good." 
 
 The stranger calmly went on: "I may go further 
 and sa} T , a great statesman or general may arise 
 at the wrong moment, and bring success when there 
 ought to be defeat. A weak man may be a more 
 pliant instrument in the hands of the Supreme Orderer 
 than a strong man. But the crisis is only deferred ; 
 if not this century, then the next will bring itup again ; 
 the exact moment makes little difference. Time has 
 plenty of time." 
 
 With these words music again arose, but nearer 
 than before. The sound of a voice came with the vi 
 bration of strings, and entered into the last sentence of 
 the stranger, interweaving a soft, concordant melody. 
 That voice seemed to declare, in reposeful but exalted 
 strain, that Time has indeed plenty of time, and is in 
 no hurry, but will keep well in hand the steeds of the 
 Sungod. But the exact words could not be caught ; 
 they floated off in melodious fragments, leaving be 
 hind only the attunement, which was most harmonious. 
 All turned around to see the source of so much music, 
 which had transformed, for the time being at least, 
 the Public Square from the Arena of Strife to the 
 Place of Concord. On the opposite side of the plat 
 form, which was still standing, they saw a peculiar 
 figure of a man under a small tree ; Henry recognized 
 him at once as the old fiddler, who soon ceased sing 
 ing his song, and then, after some turns, ceased play 
 ing his instrument.
 
 104 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 The Judge had gradually stopped his argument 
 when he heard the music softly winding through his 
 speech, and somehow changing its key-note. He 
 paid more attention to it than before ; he seemed to re 
 act slightly from his violent opposition, and to be cast 
 into a thoughtful mood. There was more calmness in 
 his manner, and his spasm ceased, as he looked into 
 the faces of the two other listeners ; the undertow in 
 his own nature .had momentarily seized him and had 
 carried him backwards. 
 
 Still the struggle in him had not ended ; soon the 
 upper current again caught him and whirled him into 
 his former channel, while he shouted: "Now you 
 are making the good bad, as you before made the bad 
 good. Sir, you confound all moral distinctions. I 
 cannot reconcile such doctrines with my conscience." 
 
 The stranger's nose again lapsed into a flat, satis 
 fied smile, as he spoke: " Friend, they are not con 
 founded, you are confounded. But I am glad to hear 
 that appeal of yours to conscience ; some days ago I 
 could not have had the pleasure. Go now, I can see 
 that you are weary ; when we meet again, we shall 
 agree better. So -much I observe in you at present ; 
 you are traveling, not on horseback but afoot. ' ' 
 
 At this point Cudjo delivered his message to his 
 employer in words that sounded quite free from the 
 African accent, full of respect, but devoid of servility. 
 Far-darting gleams of thought and possibilities vague 
 enough flashed through his dark brain, giving him new 
 glimpses of himself and of his people. The Judge 
 proceeded homewards at a slow, pensive gait; but 
 there was some rapid lightning racing through his
 
 AROUND HENRY FIRESTONE. 105 
 
 bead. He was indeed exhausted, and by no menns 
 sound in health ; he leaned more heavily upon his 
 cane, than when he came, but he persisted the more 
 strongly in walking alone, without the presence of any 
 body. With a wave of the hand he bade Cudjo not to 
 follow, and soon vanished from the sight of the three 
 persons, who continued to stand in silence and look 
 after him. 
 
 Meanwhile the old singer had taken his place on 
 ihe steps of the platform; he cast his eyes around as 
 if he might have some vast invisible audience before 
 him, to which he was about to address a song. Poor 
 man ! like man}" another singer, his audience was in his 
 imagination. But that made no difference, he was 
 geing to sing anyhow ; the song was in him, and it 
 must come out. He placed his fiddle on his breast, 
 ran his fingers over the strings caressingly, and drew 
 his bow. The small company of three, his actual, not 
 his imaginary hearers, gazed at him in amazement, 
 though he seemed not aware of their presence. His 
 face was turned toward the back of the retreating 
 Judge, who was now out of the reach of his words, 
 though not of his voice. After some preluding on his 
 instrument he sang one verse in clear tones, under his 
 wonted image of the sun : 
 
 I saw an old man sink with the sun, 
 I knew his day forever was done ; 
 Another old man in the sunrise died, 
 He stays everlastingly glorified. 
 
 These lines stirred young Henry Firestone into an 
 uncertain groping for their meaning. An obscure
 
 106 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 versicle he thought it perchance a little shred of a 
 musical cloud caught out of the distant skies some 
 where, through which the singer was in the habit of 
 roving. Apparently it tried to bring into contrast the 
 two old men of Time, one of whom dies in the sunset, 
 the other in the sunrise. But what does that mean? 
 The youth asked his own understanding: " Is there 
 any covert allusion in it? The singer is himself an 
 old man, but not yet dead or dying; I noticed, too, 
 that he turned his eyes toward another old man, the 
 vanishing form of the Judge, who is not yet dead or 
 dying." 
 
 VI. 
 
 But just at this point Henry's reflections were in 
 terrupted by the mad antics of his two companions. 
 As Cudjo saw his employer disappear behind the vil 
 lage trees, he felt a smart punch in his ribs from be 
 hind, accompanied by a demoniac chuckle. He turned 
 around quickly, he beheld a changed man in his pres 
 ence ; the face of the seer, which he had seen just be 
 fore, was passing rapidly into the face of a clown, 
 with all sorts of wild fire-works shooting through the 
 features. That strangest of strangers had given the 
 thrust ; again the small, keen eyes were playing in and 
 out and around in restless sparkle ; little star-lights, 
 red, white, even blueish, twinkled out of that lofty 
 suspended chandelier, his nose; his countenance at 
 last became one huge grimace, while from a cavity in 
 the center of it a loud laugh suddenly exploded into 
 the circumambient air.
 
 AROUND HENRY FIRESTONE. 107 
 
 The fact is, Cudjo was at first a little startled at the 
 appearance ; he returned at once from his African 
 wool-gathering, and recovered a square position upon 
 the solid earth ; he saw the situation, and dealt 
 the man a heavy thump in the region of the mid 
 riff in requital, with good interest, yet with good 
 nature. 
 
 The stranger seemed on the spot to have renounced 
 his sacerdotal mien and function, and to have aposta 
 tized to the harlequin, if not to the devil. He at 
 once turned toward Cudjo, who, after the old Judge 
 was gone, appeared to be the source of the magic 
 power which wrought this new transformation. 
 
 The two men stood face to face, and the stranger 
 asked: u Cudjo, you scamp, what business had you to 
 run away from your master? When are you going 
 back to the South and stop this trouble? Do you 
 know you are the cause of it all? " 
 
 Cudjo tittered at the man's appearance and words; 
 his vanity was a good deal flattered by his important 
 place in the world. His condition was known to all, 
 and nobody molested him, though he stood in the vil 
 lage as the embodiment of the violation of the supreme 
 law of the land. But he also stood for something 
 else. He replied : 
 
 "I'll go when my master comes and takes me." 
 
 He spoke this in a jesting way, as if he thought no 
 such thing possible in that community. One could 
 see that he defied the law, and the power of the whole 
 country did seem paralyzed in his person. The 
 stranger pursed lip and brow into what might serve as 
 a model for a statue of irony ; the negro imitated him
 
 108 THE PREEBURGERS. 
 
 to the best of his ability, and both began a dia 
 logue : 
 
 " I say, Cudjo, you must go back." 
 
 " I never retreat in the face of the enemy." 
 
 " But, I say, you must go back." 
 
 " Go back where?" 
 
 " You know very well, you black crook." 
 
 "You old groundhog," retorted Cudjo, " come out 
 of your hole into the sunlight, where I can see 
 you." 
 
 " Go back," said the stranger, waving his hand and 
 twisting his face. " Go back to the South whence 
 you came to the cotton plantation, to the rice 
 field." 
 
 " I quit associating some time ago with those peo 
 ple," said Cudjo. 
 
 " Well, then go back to Africa." 
 
 u I love my own country too well." 
 
 " That is your country." 
 
 " No, sir; it is the land of the niggers." 
 
 " What, you ebony rascal, are you not one of those 
 persons you have just named? " 
 
 " Have you not found out that yet? There is a big 
 difference between me and a nigger, and you will find 
 it out some day." 
 
 " Then you will not go back to the South nor to 
 Africa?" 
 
 " Too many niggers in both places for me." 
 
 The fact has leaked out and must be here acknowl 
 edged: Cudjo, though he had a high opinion of him 
 self, had a low opinion of his race. He made a very 
 nice distinction between a negro and negroes ; his
 
 AROUND HENRY FIRESTONE. 109 
 
 mind had run a sharp line of division between colored 
 folks in general, and one colored man in particular. 
 
 The stranger, however, was making a comedy for 
 his own delight out of these ideas of the darkey ; the 
 contortions of his face were not a sufficient vent for 
 his humor, he had to use his legs and feet ; in pure 
 ecstasy he kicked over a bench, exploiting his genius 
 with a sort of Indian whoop. Cudjo also gave way to 
 an inborn tendency ; he laughed and danced in tune, 
 giving the same unhappy prostrate bench several 
 thrusts with his foot. Some wild spirit of nature had 
 taken possession of both African and Caucasian; it 
 was clear that they had something in common pos 
 sibly the original kinship of savagery. 
 
 The pair, in their varied activity, had become sep 
 arated from Henry ; he had not participated in their 
 frolic, but had looked at their capers with a bewild 
 ered smile at first, then had withdrawn a few steps to 
 the side of the old fiddler, who was sitting alone 
 under the little tree. The youth was struck with his 
 complete isolation ; he seemed to be always with no 
 body but himself. Yet the old man knew of comrade 
 ship, and felt the need of imparting what was in him. 
 He at once recognized Henry, and nodded in a friendly 
 manner ; yet this friendliness seemed to do a little 
 violence to his mood. There was something lonely 
 and pathetic in his look, as if solitude might be the 
 limit upon which his reason was breaking; but he 
 nerved himself with an effort, he showed that he had 
 the will to master his own fate, when little drops of 
 melody began to trickle from his voice. The short 
 words of a short song were sung to himself and for
 
 110 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 himself apparently, in a low tone, but with great de 
 cision : 
 
 The more you give, 
 The less you live 
 
 Alone ; 
 
 The more you share, 
 The more you are 
 
 Your own. 
 
 The old man seemed much relieved when he had 
 sung the little song; he rose to bis feet and looked at 
 the unaccountable pair who were still in their paroxj'sm 
 of diablery. He even laughed at them, though Henry 
 could make nothing out of these two strange charac 
 ters in their present spell. At last they ceased for a 
 breathing time, and a fresh dialogue began : 
 
 " Cudjo," said the stranger, " tell me whom you 
 voted for at last election?" 
 
 " I voted for the winning man." 
 
 "What! against your employer?" 
 
 " I did not put apiece of paper into the ballot box, 
 but I was on hand." 
 
 " Well, I think you were." 
 
 "And I helped a little." 
 
 " Certainly you did ; and I saw you slipping through 
 the crowd." 
 
 " You did, eh? I always moved in the midst of 
 those men who voted my way; I gave them the 
 tickets." 
 
 ' ' I noticed you all the while, you rascal ; I saw how 
 you worked against the old Judge who gives you your 
 bread and butter." 
 
 "He is a good man. I would do anything for him
 
 AROUND HENRY FIRESTONE. Ill 
 
 but one thing. In these times persons must stand 
 back, and principles must come to the front." 
 " Where did you learn that, you' monkey?" 
 " White folks have been saying it a good deal around 
 this part of the country." 
 
 " And you have learned it, and actually applied it?" 
 " Yes, I am going to know what they know." 
 " You are! Well, the demon is in your black hide, 
 and no telling in what shape he will come out. In 
 deed! Know what they know! I notice, too, that you 
 are very careful in your speech, you do not talk as 
 darkeys talk, you have dropped the negro dialect." 
 
 "Yes, I have pretty much quit that. But it was 
 hard work to make the change." 
 
 "Really you speak less like a negro than Judge 
 Allworthy himself, the well-bred old Virginia gentle 
 man." 
 
 Cudjo was tickled to the soles of his feet by this 
 compliment; he sprang into the air and slapped his 
 thigh in a thunderous African guffaw: 
 
 " Yes, I can beat him in talk as well as in politics." 
 So thought the runaway slave concerning his present 
 employer, and let out his own secret good opinion of 
 himself. There seemed to be danger of another 
 frenzy of glee, but the stwanger was changing his 
 mood, and did not respond to the start given by 
 Cudjo. He put upright the inverted, much-abused 
 bench, and sat down upon it; his face began to lose 
 its wonderful display of light and shade, and to settle 
 slowly into gentle ripples, which seemed to come out 
 ward as soft echoes of his internal reflections. 
 
 Meanwhile through the loud laughter of the African
 
 112 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 the notes of the singer penetrated, and subdued it to 
 something like moderation. Very strange it was how 
 those modest tones entered and took possession of the 
 rude, boisterous speech of Cudjo. They were what 
 one would remember, they seemed the eternal rock 
 around which fretted and splashed the froth of the 
 ocean. The verse which cut through all darkness to 
 the negro's mind, and which he long afterwards treas 
 ured, ran somewhat in this fashion: 
 
 " Take him in " is the rule, the one rule, 
 When the Lord has charge of the school ; 
 But tuition you also must pay, 
 Else you would throw all his schooling away. 
 
 The stranger also listened to the words and seemed 
 impressed somewhat by them ; probably they hastened 
 his transition out of his grotesque mood, which had 
 already begun to wane through its own excess. Only 
 a part of him was buffoon ; the whole of the man 
 was something else. He grew in earnest and asked a 
 serious question : 
 
 "Cudjo, I desire that you would honestly tell me 
 why you made that change in your way of speaking? " 
 
 "I wish to talk like white people." 
 
 "A little while ago you wished to know what white 
 people know ; now you wish to talk as they talk. Are 
 you not aware that this takes away one of the distinc 
 tive marks of your race? " 
 
 " I wish to take them all away," said Cudjo. 
 
 " But if all these things happen, are you not afraid 
 that you will lose the glossy dark color of your skin? " 
 
 This was undoubtedly spoken in jest, but Cudjo's
 
 AROUND HENRY FIRESTONE. 113 
 
 whole demeanor changed on the spot. He dropped his 
 chuckle, hivS face darted into lines of deep seriousness, 
 he stiffened into an erect posture, he spoke -not only 
 with gravity but with awe, showing that some chord 
 hitherto carefully hidden had been sharply struck by 
 the fortuitous word. There was a sudden flash in his 
 eye as if he had made his resolve ; he leaned over and 
 whispered in the ear of the stranger, yet his utterance 
 was loud enough for the bystanders to hear : 
 
 " I believe that is just what is going to happen." 
 
 "Are you in earnest? Your skin is to be changed? " 
 
 " That is what I mean." 
 
 "Impossible dream." 
 
 The darkey now threw his head up with a courageous 
 air and spoke in the purest Anglo-Saxon accent : 
 
 " I expect to become a white man." 
 
 He turned around with a proud bearing, and walked 
 away in the majestic silence of his own thought, leav 
 ing the company to reflect upon his words, which had 
 revealed an aspiration hitherto unknown in the breast 
 of the black man. Yet Cudjo was apparently a full- 
 blooded African ; his complexion showed little of that 
 bleaching process, to which so many of his race have 
 been subjected in their Southern discipline. But his 
 longing to be white seemed great in proportion to his 
 distance from it. 
 
 Cudjo's prophetic aspiration, however, was, by its 
 own force, working a great change in his neighbor, 
 the strange pedestrian. The latter was again putting 
 on the priestly look, in response to the new voice he 
 had heard, not merely from Cudjo, but from Time 
 itself.
 
 114 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 vn. 
 
 Another curious fact we have to chronicle at this 
 point : the old singer hitherto so deep-toned, so over 
 borne with destiny, seems to grow humorous, nay gro 
 tesque, in a mild fashion. He had heard what Cudjo 
 said, he gave a little low laugh at the wonderful ideas of 
 the darkey. His face for the first time broke from its 
 calm austerity into certain playful lines ; he twitched 
 his features into a suppressed smile, and adjusted to his 
 shoulder his violin. In this passing mood he dropped a 
 verse : 
 
 Be not more dainty than your race, 
 
 For you cannot dismiss it; 
 Your mother Earth has a dirty face, 
 And you will have to kiss it. 
 
 The company found the words amusing, and Henry 
 laughed with the others ; he did not fail to see the comic 
 side of the world, though he was somewhat wanting in 
 the sense of humor, which had been overwhelmed in 
 his lofty sense of dignity. The old man still retained 
 his furtive, playful smiles, which ploughed through his 
 wrinkled face in all directions, and sowed a bright 
 crop of joy. The discovery was made, even by himself, 
 that he could laugh. He could not help indulging in 
 one or two innocent grimaces, which were indeed infan 
 tile, compared to those of the stranger. In this state of 
 mind his mood culminated, as usual, in a short rhyme : 
 
 If you would find the Devil in, 
 You must look beneath his skin, 
 For the new Devil grows as fast 
 As the old Devil's hide is cast.
 
 AROUND HENRY FIRESTONE. 115 
 
 Surely the singer is growing a little sulphurous in 
 his turn, and is associating, in poetry at least, with de 
 mons. In his words, and even in his actions, there is 
 a faint, weird echo of something we have already seen 
 in the stranger. But the latter is now in a different 
 vein, yet with touches of his old self. He had heard 
 the two preceding verses, but they could not derail 
 him from his own thought. He was in the process of 
 being transformed into another side of his nature ; 
 the prophetic element in him began to be again upper 
 most, yet with lurid flashes from his diabolic star. 
 He looked at Cudjo walking away with a lofty stride 
 of conscious manhood, and vanishing slowly into a 
 stable in the distance. Then he broke out into the 
 following soliloquy, which somehow attached itself as 
 a pendant to the old singer's last verse: 
 
 " Thou to become a white man ! Just because thou 
 art so low, and we so high above thee ; just because 
 thou art so near the beast, does the world turn upon 
 thy elevation, must do so, if there be in it any good 
 seed for the future. Not for those already aloft is civ 
 ilization laboring and groaning in gigantic throes ; it 
 must make the low into the high, transform the bestial 
 anthropoid into the rational man. But no sentiment, 
 no false humanity ! the negro is a negro, and because 
 he is a negro, comes the duty. No windy declamation 
 on universal liberty, no saying that he is free and 
 self-controlling, then there were no task." 
 
 Thus spake the stranger, turning over in his mind that 
 marvelous prophecy of theAfrican, which hadroused the 
 prophetic fury in him too. Stretching forth his long arm, 
 and raising himself up to his full stature, hecontinued : 
 
 "Miserable Ethiopian! poor, worthless devil! the
 
 116 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 lowest of the human type, the nearest a brute a 
 progressive monkey, perchance, who has but recently 
 left off wearing his tail, and is just beginning to walk 
 squarely on his hind legs ! we despise thee, thou art 
 of an inferior race, unworthy of freedom, incapable of 
 its institutions, a dead weight on civilization and 
 yet it is just the function of the World's History 
 to get thee out of thy condition, and to make thy pro 
 gress one with ours. Son of scorn and servitude, say 
 what we may, thou art the center around which all 
 this mighty tumult of spirit is raging; the Powers 
 have put thee right into the heart of the Time, without 
 thy consent or ours ; the destiny of the nation, the 
 destiny of humanity at this moment is circling around 
 thy black skiu, and will bleach it in rivers of heart's 
 blood. Indeed thou art to become a white man." 
 
 After hearing this rhapsodical prediction, the 
 singer again turned his venerable countenance into a 
 racing ground for smiles, which pursued one another 
 rapidly, and often broke into a low laugh. Were they 
 tokens of delight, or visible signs of doubt? It was 
 hard to tell. He seemed to be thinking, as if he were 
 trying to catch the key-note: several times he raised 
 his bow, then let it fall again without touching the 
 strings, being, not yet quite ready ; finally, he stood 
 up and chanted without acompaniment the following 
 verse : 
 
 The black man must wash as well as the white, 
 
 'Gainst filth the Ethioptoo has a right; 
 
 Though colored like pitch he need not be mean, 
 
 He is all of himself only when he is clean; 
 
 See now the magic effect of pure water! 
 
 The black man is blacker, the white man is whiter.
 
 AROUND HENRY FIRESTONE. 117 
 
 If not to the listener, at least to the old fiddler, 
 we may suppose, the last line ran the burlesque into 
 the rhyme, and banged the entire idea with a discord 
 ant jingle-jangle, like an untimely blow on the kettle 
 drum at the end of a piece of orchestral music. But 
 the effect of the whole was that the two men began to 
 discover each other ; each had gotten a peep into the 
 other's world, and had seen a familiar spirit vanish 
 swiftly into clouds. 
 
 The stranger first drew near to the singer ; in form, 
 in features, even in dress, no two persons could ap 
 pear more unlike. Yet both had the air of wanderers, 
 of beings who, like the birds of the air, have to fly from 
 place to place in their unseen quest. It was plain that 
 there was at first between them a decided repulsion. 
 They seemingly did not wish to know each other ; the 
 outward behavior of the two men was mutually dis 
 cordant ; each soul was walled up against tlie other, and 
 shot arrows of disdain from the walls. But somehow 
 they stayed in range of the eye, and cast glances into 
 each other's faces, which played through a whole cycle 
 of character. Suddenly the old man gave a start of 
 surprise, as if he beheld some familiar feature in the 
 countenance before him ; then he drew back as if he 
 had lost it again. The stranger observing this action 
 gave a close, keen glance into that face of wrinkled 
 sunbeams ; he seemed to ask himself a silent question, 
 then he stepped backward a pace in doubt. They 
 appeared to have recognized each other in some fleet 
 ing trick of expression, which again vanished, and 
 left each in his own separate fortress. They wheeled 
 aside to go off, but they did not start, something
 
 118 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 held them together. Not a word they spoke ; they 
 were too far, and yet too near, to speak. After turning 
 away for awhile, they slowly bent around and glanced 
 at each other anew ; there was the common gleam of 
 the eye, both faces were lit by the glow of recognition, 
 the inner walls were thrown down, and the two men 
 rushed together. Still both were silent ; each had pen 
 etrated for a moment the other's world, and was awed 
 by the presence. Still not a word ; the stranger again 
 threw a sharp, intense look into the old man's coun 
 tenance, as if to shear through the remaining darkness ; 
 then he settled back and exclaimed : 
 
 "Oh Johnny Apple-seed." 
 
 The old man raised his finger to his lips, and whis 
 pered : 
 
 "Hush! Speak it not." 
 
 He took up his instrument and started to leave the 
 spot ; his face for the first time showed signs of vex 
 ation, his harmonious mood was now at an end ; it was 
 clear that no more poetry would flow from him that 
 day. The stranger, with a puzzled look, gazed at him 
 for a moment, then went off in a different direction. 
 Henry Firestone was left alone, he stood the silent 
 master of the field.
 
 CHAPTER FOURTH. 
 
 J2V THE HOUSE OF THE FIRE STONES. 
 I. 
 
 "No, I cannot see why Herman does not let his son 
 go ; it is the only way the boy can make anything of 
 himself. For years he has had the thought in his head, 
 I know ; he told me of it at a period when he dared not 
 speak of it to his father. It is time for him to start ; 
 he must be off, I say he must be off." 
 
 So spoke Aunt Polly, with a good deal of decision, 
 which went out not only into her words, but added 
 vigor to her work. She was just then setting in order 
 an ancient book-case, whose contents were chiefly made 
 up of school-books, well worn and much marked, be 
 longing to the present generation of children. Yet 
 there were several very old volumes, pushed off into a 
 corner, and forming a small group by themselves ; they 
 were written in foreign tongues with strange letters 
 which nobody in the household could read. Ances 
 tral names seemed to be stamped on some of them, and 
 one bore, on its title-page, a picture like an armorial 
 design. Between these oldest and newest sets there 
 were no books of the intermediate period, except a 
 large morocco- bound Bible, which had already been 
 
 (119)
 
 120 THE FREEBURGER8. 
 
 nearly a century in the family, according to an early 
 entry. Apparently a distant generation had reached 
 over the stream of time to the present generation, and 
 had united with it in a common trait, that of reading 
 and possessing books. 
 
 Aunt Polly continued her soliloquy in the same vein, 
 growing somewhat more vigorous both in her speech 
 and in her muscles. Her thoughts were an echo of a 
 conversation she had had that morning with her brother, 
 Mr. Herman Firestone, whom we have already known 
 as a prominent citizen of Freeburg ; to this information 
 we may now add, that he was a respectable retailer of 
 dry goods to town and country. His career, on the 
 whole, had been an unambitious one, though not with 
 out varied turns of fortune. Many years before he 
 had emigrated to the West with his father, when the 
 country was a wilderness, and bad established a small, 
 but prosperous business. On the decease of his wife, 
 his sister, affectionately called in the domestic circle 
 Aunt Polly, had taken charge of his household and four 
 children, with the warm devotion of a mother, and 
 with the cool discretion of a step-mother, of both of 
 whom she filled the place. 
 
 She stopped her dusting for a moment, and looked 
 steadfastly at the old books, saying : "I think the boy 
 ought to be allowed his bent, which is to get an educa 
 tion. I know it is in his blood, for it is in mine. If I 
 were not so gray, I would go with him myself. I 
 would give anything, if I could read these old books ; 
 I would try to learn still, if there was any chance. 
 Not a soul in the village, as far as I know, can unravel 
 their mystery, and make them speak ; at least, nobody
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF THE FIRESTONES. 121 
 
 in my hearing has ever y et succeeded in getting them 
 to open their lips. Still they belong in the family ; 
 some Firestone once could understand what they said. 
 I can feel that Henry has this desire in him as strong 
 as it is in me, though his father laughs at it as foolish. 
 Yes, the boy must go." 
 
 Thus she talked with herself, as she took out one of 
 those ancient volumes bound in hog-skin, and dusted 
 it all around the edges, not only with care, but with 
 affection. She laid it down upon the table, and ten 
 derly opened its lids ; -the leaves, dark and stained 
 with age, crackled strangely under her touch ; she 
 stared wistfully at its unknown characters, which 
 seemed disturbed in their quiet sleep of centuries, and 
 looked at her mysteriously out of night without any 
 illumination. A musty odor rose from the page, she 
 shut the book and put it back into its place. She laid 
 upon herself the special duty of keeping all the vol 
 umes neat on the outside ; she had, in fact, rescued 
 them from destruction twice in the course of her life. 
 She had an instinct that they still had some mission to 
 perform for the family ; but she never thought of ask 
 ing herself what it was. When she had put them in 
 order, her eye was drawn to a title, which she could 
 not read, but which she gazed upon in longing wonder, 
 exclaiming : 
 
 " Yes, Henry must go, it would be an eternal wrong 
 to the boy to defraud him of his aspiration. If his 
 father will not help him, I shall give him some of my 
 money." 
 
 Aunt Polly had a small inheritance of her own, 
 which she used in furthering ambitious schemes for
 
 122 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 her brother's children. She stood between them and 
 the father, and she believed more in their destiny than 
 he did, often backing her faith with her cash. It is 
 true that they had to show that the money would be a 
 good investment, as she was naturally close in finan 
 cial matters, and a supreme economist. No toys, no 
 fine dresses, no jewelry were ever paid for from her 
 wallet; she could even draw the line upon bread and 
 butter, if necessary. But when it came to some 
 mental acquisition for the young Firestones, her 
 purse-strings relaxed, and dollars were ready to roll 
 out to the number of hundreds. 
 
 Yet, in this matter, she did not act from any con 
 scious purpose ; there was in her nature a hidden 
 chord, which, though covered up in herself and in her 
 immediate ancestors, on account of the desperate 
 struggle for life on the frontier, would respond sym 
 pathetically to the least aspiration for improvement. 
 The sight of the old volumes also had the power of 
 touching gently that secret chord and of making it 
 throb with some vague, long-lost hope. She shut the 
 door of the book-case and turned away with the 
 thought ringing through her soul: "Yes, Henry 
 must go, he must have the opportunity which I have 
 not had ; there is something gone from the Firestone 
 family which he is born to recover." 
 
 II. 
 
 Just then Trolla come bounding into the room, 
 with her dark hair stuck full of flowers, which seemed 
 so many pretty eyes looking out of a background of
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF THE FIRESTONES. 123 
 
 night. She was the youngest member of the house 
 hold, and scattered joy everywhere from her sunny 
 face: The perfect openness of her look was marvel 
 ous ; the lines running through her countenance were 
 transparent as day, till they began to pass outwards to 
 her black locks, when they seemed to dive into mystery. 
 She could not be induced to wear the ordinary costume 
 of girls of her age ; she always changed it a little, ad 
 justing the flounces and other decorations as neatly as 
 possible to her body. She showed no great love of 
 color except in flowers, with which she sought to en 
 compass herself; for her dress she preferred white. 
 At work or at play, she seemed always in a low thrill 
 of song ; even when she spoke about the commonest 
 matters, her words fell into a kind of musical rhythm. 
 Just now her strain was louder and more accentuated 
 than usual ; Aunt Polly, who had been interrupted in 
 her soliloquy, asked in some surprise: 
 " What are you singing?" 
 "I do not know what it is," said Trolla. 
 " Where did you learn it?" 
 " I heard it coming from the distance." 
 "Do you not know, child, who sang it?" asked 
 Aunt Polly, touched with a little prick of curiosity, 
 possibly of superstition. 
 
 "It was an old man under the Tall Apple Tree." 
 "But you sing that song somehow as if it were 
 your own." 
 
 "It lets my heart out," said Trolla, and bounded 
 off to avoid further questioning, as she never liked to 
 give an account of herself. The gift of musical adap 
 tation was one of her pronounced characteristics ; she
 
 124 THE FKEEBURGERS. 
 
 had caught the strange melody of the old singer, and 
 was reproducing it in the notes of girlhood. It ap 
 peared to be the musical counterpart of herself ; she 
 threw her soul into the tune and modulation of the 
 song, though she had caught only chanted shreds of 
 words and notes. It seemed as if she could com 
 plete quite fully what she had but imperfectly heard 
 on account of the distance ; at least she was able to 
 construct her own musical entirety from those melodi 
 ous fragments. 
 
 She soon returned, still singing in the former vein, 
 with a nosegay and with her tresses again full of leaves 
 and blossoms, for her love of flowers was as deep as her 
 love of song. She was going to trick out Aunt Polly 
 with her spoils, but the latter resisted, being now oc 
 cupied with the work of the household. Trolla could 
 not be put off, but thrust herself in the way: 
 
 ' ' Here is a posy I have brought you from the gar 
 den." 
 
 Aunt Polly smelt the gift, then said to her: 
 " Go now and play the little flower girl." 
 " Oh, I am getting tired of that game, I must begin 
 to do something else." 
 
 It has already been stated that Trolla, during child 
 hood, had the habit of wandering from blossom to 
 blossom, and of talking to them in a flower language 
 of her own. But recently that wave of music from the 
 old singer's voice had overtaken her in her daily round, 
 and had floated her off into another world ; her floral 
 life had bloomed into a new stage of development. 
 Still, to-day she plucked the customary nosegay and 
 brought it to the house. It was her sudden notion,
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF THE FIRESTONES. 125 
 
 after she had let Aunt Polly take several whiffs of its 
 fragrance, to place it before the looking-glass ; then she 
 would turn aside and glance at its reflection, which 
 really gave her more pleasure than the flowers. But 
 she was careful to step far enough away that she might 
 not see herself in the mirror ; for her own image she had 
 an aversion, w~hile she could gaze at the image of the 
 flowers all day with never-failing delight. 
 
 Trolla was not a child of the Firestones, she was a 
 foundling that had been taken as an infant and reared 
 by them ; her parents and her history were unknown to 
 herself and to her benefactors. She had been discov 
 ered alone in an emigrant's wagon near the village, 
 along with some household articles. She had dropped 
 out of total night into sudden day ; these two extremes 
 of her life seemed to have passed into her character, 
 making it a strange combination of mystery and trans 
 parency. Of all the family, she felt the deepest con 
 geniality with Henry, who, in turn, was strongly 
 drawn to her by the riddle of her origin, as well as by 
 her disposition. 
 
 Trolla, when she first sprang into the house, had 
 caught the purport of Aunt Polly's soliloquy ; still she 
 did not at that time say anything about it. Though 
 her countenance was so clear and open, there ran round 
 her upper lip a firm line of secretiveness, which kept 
 her tongue in submission. She hummed her new song 
 to its end, she finished the arranging of her flowers, she 
 looked at their image in the mirror, with long, steady 
 glances, as if she was searching for something in that 
 reflection. Then she turned away and spoke in a grave
 
 126 THE FREEBUIIGKKS. 
 
 tone, which might have been called oracular, if she had 
 been older: 
 
 "Aunt Polly, Henry will go." 
 
 The old lady, who had more than once felt a shud 
 der at what she thought to be the demon in the child, 
 looked around at her for a moment, then asked in 
 amazement: 
 
 " What do you know about it? Who has spoken to 
 you of that matter ? ' ' 
 
 Trolla whirled around and began to hum again, first 
 looking at her flowers, then glancing at their image in 
 the mirror. While thus engaged, she interwove these 
 words among her musical murmurs: 
 
 " I know nothing about what I know." 
 
 As she spoke these words, she began to dance and 
 spring through the 'room in a fit of great exultation. 
 Some thought or vision had apparently broken into 
 her soul for the first time, and her body was giving the 
 response. She repeated the words, and repeated her 
 movements, after some strange dictation from within ; 
 her rapture grew more intense, as she gave herself 
 up to the full sweep of the moment. That perfect 
 phj-sical form took the strain and responded to it in 
 many subtle echoes and varied undulations. Her 
 movements always flowed directly from nature ; now 
 they were a seen music, adjusting themselves to some 
 inner rhythm of her spirit. 
 
 Her whole body, in fact, seemed to be passing into 
 something else ; it was fulfilling its presentiment, and 
 was unfolding into its new freedom. There is a su 
 preme moment of bloom in the human being as well as
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF THE FIRESTONES. 127 
 
 in the flower; Trolla was driving forwards to that 
 happy moment of inflorescence ; her golden life was 
 coming to a culmination. 
 
 To this transformed body was added the musical 
 counterpart. No one had ever heard her sing in the 
 way she now sang ; what she had previously hummed 
 in vague snatches, began to take shape in continuous 
 strains ; as she looked into the mirror and beheld the 
 floral images there, they seemed of a sudden to burst 
 into a song, and went over of themselves into poetry. 
 She writhed in ecstasy, as the melodious words came 
 forth from her tongue ; she had found utterance, she 
 was passing the turning-point ; her flower-life, hitherto 
 buried in its silent innocence, and satisfied with its 
 own bloom and fragrance, was now strangely trans 
 muted into speech and rhythm. 
 
 The song seemed of itself to be going through its 
 stages of growth along with her, as she kept repeating it 
 and putting it together anew. At first it came in frag 
 ments ; stanzas, lines, even words floated through her 
 speech incoherently in a strange medley ; but they all 
 had some common inner principle, which finally fused 
 and united them. In this exalted mood she sang the 
 following verses, which meant much to her, though it is 
 possible that many grown people will see in them 
 merely a childish delight in rhyming jingle and lilting 
 lines. 
 
 Where did she learn these verses? This became 
 a question in the family. They seemed a sudden 
 revelation of her character ; she had never been heard 
 to put whole lines and stanzas together in this way 
 before.
 
 128 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 I only know the music played, 
 
 And still I hear it play ; 
 I only know a song was made, 
 
 And still I bear the lay. 
 
 I dreamed a dream the flowers came, 
 
 And built a lofty hall; 
 The Lily spake a little speech 
 
 That charmed the ears of all. 
 
 The reddest Rose was president, 
 
 And ruled the pretty throng; 
 The singer Daisy gaily spent 
 
 Her color in a song. 
 
 The Morning-glories did salute 
 
 The rising sun till noon ; 
 The Honey-suckle on her flute 
 
 Did play her sweetest tune. 
 
 I only know the rafters rang, 
 
 And still I hear them ring; 
 I only know the people sprang, 
 
 And still I see them spring. 
 
 Aunt Polly, who was present during this recital, 
 was not only amazed but actually terrified. She cried 
 out: " Trolla, stop; you are becoming too excited, 
 I am afraid of your going into a convulsion." But 
 the child could not stop ; she continued to leap about 
 the mirror in a sort of frenzy, and sing ; the echoes of 
 her new inspiration still were rolling through her 
 whole being, and were transforming it into musical 
 utterance. Her soul was in a a state of resonance, and 
 was not able to quiet its own vibrations. Three verses 
 more had to follow, as the" prolonged after-tones of 
 this strange spell.
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF THE FIRESTONES. 129 
 
 The Violet her silent love 
 
 In tender glances told ; 
 The true Forget-me-not then strove 
 
 My fickle look to hold. 
 
 The Sun-flower beat on his big drum, 
 
 That sounded through the hall; 
 What did they say, what did they play? 
 
 Nought that I can recall. 
 
 I only know the music rang, 
 
 And still I hear it ring ; 
 I only know the flowers sang, 
 
 And still I hear them sing. 
 
 Several times afterward she repeated her little song 
 in the presence of the entire household ; nobody could 
 tell where she obtained it. Search was made among 
 some books which contained poetical extracts, but no 
 such piece could be found. When asked about the 
 matter, she either remained silent, or said she did not 
 know herself. Suggestions might be traced here or 
 there ; Trolla had heard Henry read many little poems, 
 of which he was very fond ; of these poems some fleet 
 ing, radiant fragments remained in her memory, and 
 were woven into the song. But the whole seemed 
 strangely beyond her years, and even outside of the 
 supposed lines of her character, as the Firestones had 
 always understood it, or rather taken it for granted. 
 
 There is no doubt, however, that the old singer had 
 roused in her a dormant existence ; he had also given 
 her a certain rhythm and melody ; through him she 
 had, in a -marvelous way, felt her thoughts moving to a 
 tune which was wedded to words. But the germ must 
 
 9
 
 130 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 have already been in her spirit. Her life had now 
 come to that point at which a great transition is made ; 
 nature could remain no longer in the bud, but broke 
 into the bloom ; her floral existence, with all its fra 
 grance, passed from its stage of speechless uncon 
 sciousness into a voice which sang. The gift is as 
 miraculous as anything upon this earth ; the child, of a 
 sudden, touches the deepest chord of the heart, the 
 profoundest thought of the head, drawing its words 
 from the very bottom of the well of human experience, 
 and from the very first gush of the fountain of human 
 speech. 
 
 Trolla, however, still continued to chant the verses 
 in her vehement manner ; every nerve thrilled to her 
 notes and her face glowed in response, though her 
 body began to show itself wearied under the lash of 
 her excited spirit. Aunt Polly again cried out: 
 "Enough, Trolla, calm yourself." But the child 
 could not so quickly stop the driving-wheels 
 of her own soul ; once again she sang, but it 
 was now with visible exhaustion. At the end she 
 dropped down into a chair, and her musical paroxysm 
 ceased. 
 
 She had taken breath after her exertion, when she 
 rose and went to a table ; there she picked up a small 
 likeness of Henry, which she claimed specially as hers ; 
 she pressed it to her heart with visible heavings of the 
 breast. She seemed more fatigued than ever; she 
 turned pale, as she laid the picture down and started 
 away. She took her former seat, and, after a little 
 silence, she said : 
 
 "Aunt Polly, Henry will go."
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF THE FIRESTONE8. 131 
 
 The old lady directed an. intense look toward the 
 child, and then replied : 
 
 " You said so once before; but tell me, how do you 
 know? " 
 
 The child evaded an answer, but added: " I shall 
 go too. ' ' 
 
 " What do you mean? " 
 
 Again the child gave a former reply, " I know noth 
 ing about what I know." 
 
 Aunt Polly changed both tone and look, as she 
 glanced at Trolla and spoke: " I have heard you say 
 these same words before, and when you say them, 
 then you know. And I have already observed, O 
 strange child, whatever you permit Henry to do, that 
 he does, though you have to suffer for it." 
 
 Trolla looked no more at the flowers in the mirror, 
 she sang no more ; her head dropped in a sudden 
 twinge of feeling ; the black locks fell down, like the 
 dark veil of destiny, over her luminous face ; she ran 
 out of the house to hide her tears. Along her path 
 on the ground were scattered the blossoms which she 
 had stuck in her hair cm entering the house ; they 
 seemed to have budded, bloomed, and withered that 
 hour. 
 
 III. 
 
 The elder Firestone stepped in at the door, as 
 Trolla ran out, and with him came Henry, who had 
 gone to meet his father, in order to win the paternal 
 consent to his departure for college. He had felt that 
 day more strongly than ever before, that he must make 
 an attempt to reach out for his vocation, or always
 
 132 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 remain less than himself. The call was loud, the 
 moment had come, and the youth had to make the 
 choice which is his destiny. Henry had a feeling that 
 he would not dare stay in the village another year in 
 defiance of his own deepest self. But he was afraid 
 to broach the matter to his father, though he had 
 sought just the present opportunity, by walking home 
 with the latter from his place of business. 
 
 Aunt Polly with her sharp glance, saw the situation, 
 and resolved to bring the affair to a crisis just then 
 and there. She had a strong sympathy with the youth 
 in his aspiration, and could interpret him better than 
 any one else. She looked up at her brother and 
 asked : 
 
 "Well, Herman, do you intend to let your boy go?" 
 "He has said nothing to me," the father replied in 
 a rather surly, but resigned way. 
 
 Aunt Polly keenly noted that the answer indicated 
 the 3 ielding man, though he was making a wry face at", 
 the necessity which compelled him to yield. She 
 clinched him and held him fast in his present attitude 
 by an important proposal : 
 
 "I shall give Henry one hundred dollars for a 
 start, but you must furnish the rest of the money." 
 
 The object of all these efforts was, that Henry 
 should have the means for going to college, in order to 
 complete his education. He had cherished the plan 
 secretly for years, then he told Aunt Polly and gained 
 at once her sympathy and support. He had been di 
 recting his studies to this end for many months ; he 
 sought help wherever he could find it, but chiefly from 
 Miss Winslow, the school-mistress, who had, in fact,
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF THE FIRESTONES. 133 
 
 prepared him, with a little help from a certain minis 
 ter in the town. 
 
 When the father first heard of the project from 
 Aunt Polly, he treated it with disdain, nay, with wrath. 
 Yet the elder Firestone was not a lover of ignorance, 
 nor was he ignorant himself. But his circumstances 
 had cramped his amoition and narrowed his outlook. 
 He had risen to be a fair business man, and held a 
 high place in Freeburg ; he naturally expected that the 
 son could not easily improve upon the father either in 
 position or in knowledge. He could not be called 
 avaricious a mere lover and maker f^money, though 
 he was a close spender of what he had gained. Through 
 early poverty, ill health, and the severe training of a 
 pioneer's life, money had come to mean to him a great 
 deal more than it ought to mean to any man. Yet he 
 was a person of extreme conscientiousness, violently 
 responsive to every wrong done to his fellow-man. 
 If there was one case in which it gave him no pain to 
 part with a dollar, it was where the recipient happened 
 to be a fugitive slave. A philosophical vein was in 
 him, too ; he speculated much on religion, which he 
 entirely reconstructed after a pattern of his own. On 
 the practical side of life, he made ends meet not so 
 much by increasing his gains, as by limiting his wants. 
 
 Quite different was his brother-in-law, as well as 
 partner in business, who was familiarly called Uncle 
 Jake in the family. Uncle Jake loved the useful to 
 madness, and the practical to impracticability. In 
 his eyes nothing had value, if on the spot it could not 
 be turned into something else ; the grand principle of 
 all things with him was their convertibility. Such a man
 
 134 THE FREEBURQERS. 
 
 can love money as the highest good, since its worth 
 lies in its being exchangeable for some other thing 
 besides itself. The result followed in due time and 
 order: Uncle Jake became himself an exchangeable 
 man as to character, and Mr. Firestone, in spite of the 
 relationship, had to exchange him for another partner. 
 
 " Would you like to go into business with me, 
 Harry?" asked the father, making one more turn to 
 release himself from the grip, which he felt closing 
 upon him. 
 
 But Aunt Polly was watchful and saw the attempt ; 
 she hastened to keep and complete the victory alreadj 7 
 won. She replied for the youth, as he looked be 
 wildered : 
 
 " I do not believe he ought to go into business at 
 present. He has a more important scheme on hand." 
 
 There is no doubt that Aunt Polly, in spite of this 
 answer, had a high opinion of money. But she differed 
 much in character from her brother ; she had an ele 
 ment of aspiration which seemed quite wanting to him ; 
 especially she showed a strong sympathy with all striv 
 ing in young people. Apparently she had some faifh 
 in certain things which seemed useless ; there were the 
 old books which she had kept so long without their 
 subserving any purpose ; also she had obstinately re 
 tained the flower-beds, among which Trolla played and 
 plucked nosegays, instead of giving them up to the 
 cultivation of vegetables for the table. Yet this dif 
 ference never destroyed the harmony between brother 
 and sister, but rather promoted it ; each to a certain 
 extent, was the complement of the other. A strong con 
 necting tie was little Trolla, the child of neither, yet
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF THE FIRE8TONE8. 135 
 
 the ward of both ; she united them in the common 
 bond of benevolence, since she had been rescued and 
 reared by both. Moreover her disposition had in it 
 the note of concord and peace ; her little deeds stood 
 always between the sharp edges of conflict and turned 
 them aside. 
 
 But Henry still remained dazed at the proposition 
 of his father. Aunt Polly again came to the front, 
 and addressed her brother : 
 
 "That is too great a step to be taken on the spot ; 
 leave the decision to Harry after he has thought it 
 over." 
 
 The youth's uncertainty had a good ground. He 
 suddenly found himself at the important point of life, 
 at which he must choose his career. The road on 
 which he had hitherto traveled, forked, and he had 
 to take one of two directions. He hesitated more 
 from surprise than from not knowing what he wanted. 
 He had now a chance to be all that his father before 
 him was no insignificant place in the community. 
 He could inherit position , name, and some wealth ; he 
 could become the influential guardian of transmitted 
 acquisitions, and probably add to them. 
 
 But there was something in him which drove him 
 beyond, he longer for that indefinite world of thought 
 and action which contains all possibilities. He had 
 made his choice, or his genius had made it for him, 
 long before he was conscious that it had been made. 
 Still, the question was open, and he was trying to- bal 
 ance impartially the two sides, one of which, however, 
 far outweighed the other. 
 
 While in the midst of this process, he saw Uncle
 
 136 THE FREEBURGEES. 
 
 Jake enter the yard and come to the door. Uncle 
 Jake knew something of Henry's aims, and at once 
 caught an inkling of the matter under deliberation. 
 He broke in : 
 
 " Harry, why don't you learn a trade, now that you 
 have enough learning? " 
 
 *' Who said I had enough learning? " 
 
 "I say so." 
 
 Aunt Polly took up the talk. " Nobody ever can 
 get enough of that." 
 
 Uncle Jake replied: " Harry has more than he 
 needs already. My boy Jack I have bound to a shoe 
 maker, and he must begin his trade at once. Every 
 young fellow wants to get a living without work in 
 these days." 
 
 Uncle Jake had always shown a slight tinge of dis 
 satisfaction with his nephews and nieces, the young 
 Firestones. Their aspiration he somehow felt, and 
 paid them the compliment of his jealousy. He be- 
 mocked them behind their backs, and maliciously ad 
 vised them to their faces. His boy Jack and his girl 
 Nancy were dullpersons, uninteresting and uninterested 
 in all striving for light. In his envious mood he held 
 them up as patterns, and tried to drag the Firestones 
 down to their level. But it took Aunt Polly to trounce 
 him into good behavior., not in a rough way, but with 
 keen humor. She pricked not only the bubble of his 
 argument, but held up his mean motive before his own 
 eyes: 
 
 " Why do you want our children to be like yours? 
 If yours suit you, pray be satisfied with their success. 
 I believe in letting everybody make of himself what
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF THE FIRESTONES. 137 
 
 he can ; I would even help him to a chance of showing 
 what is in him. If Jack is capable of making a good 
 shoemaker, let him attain that height by all means ; 
 but if Harry has the stuff in him to become President 
 of the United States, he must have the opportunity. 
 This is a free country, and big enough for every bird 
 to make a nest in. But the little wren must not de 
 mand that the eagle shall have no larger space than it 
 has. Room for everything in our land, but not for 
 envy." 
 
 This was enough. With a sullen mutter, Uncle Jake 
 went away with all his good advice, saying that the 
 country was going to ruin. " Herman's children too 
 are trying to get a living without work, and old Poll 
 eggs them on." 
 
 Father, son and aunt were left together again ; all 
 sat for a time in silence. It was a case in which words 
 could not help. Each of the three was in travail with 
 an unborn thought, and the great midwife, Time, had 
 not yet arrived, though urgently sent for. 
 
 Young Henry Firestone had already given indica 
 tions that, in his composition, .there was a peculiar trait 
 which would not let him settle down into the business 
 routine of a country village, honorable though it may 
 be, and not very exacting in its demand on talent. 
 He had already outgrown his father's old coat, and, 
 though it was generously offered to him, he was not 
 going to wear it, though immediate economy might 
 require some such apparel. He reached forwards to 
 an unrestrained activity ; but he also looked back 
 wards, and drew a strange draught of inspiration from 
 the past. He felt in himself some dim connection
 
 138 THE FREEBURGER8. 
 
 with an antecedent condition, and at last he broke the 
 unpleasant silence with a courageous assertion : 
 
 " Father, I can have no peace till I know the secrets 
 contained in that old book-case." 
 
 The father showed a gleam of contempt, and then 
 spoke: " But how do you know they are worth know 
 ing?" 
 
 " One fact alone is enough," Henry replied, " they 
 are unknown." 
 
 The father turned from contempt to a touch of 
 anger: " I would burn them, if that would burn out 
 of you such nonsense." 
 
 This roused Aunt Polly, who exclaimed: "What! 
 burn books ! and those which do not belong to you ! 
 burn the volumes which I have kept so many years, 
 waiting for their true owner to come and claim them ! 
 I think, however, he will arrive at last ; they belong to 
 the person of this family who is able to read and 
 understand them, and to none other. Let him come 
 and claim them, when he can fulfill this condition." 
 
 The elder Firestone felt the heat of this reply, and, 
 in consequence, he toned down his feelings somewhat, 
 though he had a dislike for, and even a little terror of, 
 those old books. He continued : 
 
 " It is a collection of one of my ancestors, as I have 
 heard, and, I suppose, I ought to show it some respect. 
 But what have the dead to do with us living people? 
 What has our country to do with Europe or Asia? 
 Those books have been a plague to me ever since I 
 have had them ; I fear they are my inherited curse. 
 How I wish the box containing them had sunk to the 
 bottom, when I saw it floating down the Muskingum !
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF THE F1RESTONES. 139 
 
 My span of horses was drowned, many valuable 
 articles perished, but this old trumpery was saved 
 from the flood. It has followed the family through 
 all its migrations, like a demon ; it cannot be avoided, 
 it cannot be destroyed." 
 
 In spite of these impatient utterances, it was noticed 
 that Mr. Firestone had not denied the request of 
 Henry. Hitherto, he had simply scorned the proposal, 
 whenever even Aunt Polly had hinted it. At present 
 he went off to his business, and soon forgot the matter. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Mr. Firestone, in his talk, made an allusion to an 
 experience, which had left a very vivid, and some 
 what disagreeable impression upon his mind. It was 
 the fording of the Muskingum, which remained long 
 in the memory of the family as a night of terror. 
 The event took place when the Firestones moved West 
 many years before. T.he high waters of the river 
 came down suddenly, and floated off the wagons with 
 people and goods. After many thrilling adventures, 
 the people were rescued ; but most of the horses and 
 cattle, and nearly all the movables were lost. Some 
 of the articles in the wagons were fished out of the 
 stream with difficulty, and, to the last, certain pieces 
 of furniture and a number of the old books bore marks 
 of the angry waters. The river-god smote the emi 
 grants in wrath, and opposed their crossing into what 
 seemed to them the promised land. Still they made 
 the passage. 
 
 The present Firestones had come from Virginia,
 
 140 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 though their earlier ancestors were from Pennsylvania. 
 What had not overtaken them in their wanderings ! 
 Flood and fire and storm, even war had pursued them ; 
 their household effects had been repeatedly sold or 
 lost or destroyed; still, these old volumes remained, 
 faithful in their adherence to the fortunes of the 
 family. They seemed an inner strand of it, woven 
 deeply into its destinies. They were regarded with 
 some degree of superstition; they had the magic 
 power of saving themselves in the midst of calamity ; 
 the luck of the family was supposed to be mysteriously 
 connected with the ancient volumes. Even the elder 
 Firestone, in his most petulant mood, would have shud 
 dered to destroy them. 
 
 Henry was now alone ; he rose and went to the 
 book-case, which had gradually come to have a new 
 meaning in his eyes. He took down one of the old 
 volumes, and turned through its pages ; it was printed 
 in strange letters, which nobody in the town, as far as 
 he knew, could read. An inexpressible longing came 
 over him ; he wished to find out what these letters de 
 clared unto men ; it seemed as if he could not wait, the 
 desire rose and throbbed in him till his breast became 
 too small for his swelling heart. He had felt the sen 
 sation before, but it had never been so strong as 
 at present. Ignorance was a prison to him, and more 
 than a prison ; it had become a heavy weight that was 
 crushing him, bodily and mentally, into the earth. 
 
 After the first wave of emotion had somewhat sub 
 sided, he glanced at the unknown characters, not 
 through tears, but through new joys, which held him in 
 a spell of weird fascination. He had seen these char-
 
 IN THE HOUSE QF THE FIRESTONES. 141 
 
 acters often since childhood ; but now it was as if he 
 had seen them long before childhood ; they somehow 
 began to antedate his conscious existence, to connect 
 him with something gone for centuries. The letters 
 became instinct with life, they looked as though they 
 wished to speak to him, but could not ; a vast obstacle 
 lay between the word and the thought. Not that they 
 were speechless, but he could not hear the message. 
 He dimly recollected that he had heard one thing 
 about them : a clergyman once, on a passing visit to 
 the Firestones, had said that the characters were 
 Greek. How Harry longed to see such a man the 
 interpreter between himself and the mysterious 
 script! He almost thought that he could give his soul 
 for a knowledge of what that hidden voice was saying. 
 After many glances, fruitless but full of despairing 
 desire, he turned to the front of the book, where he, 
 for the first time, noticed on the fly-leaf a handwriting 
 which was almost obliterated. The first two or three 
 letters appeared very faint, and then vanished alto 
 gether under a muddy stain. It was one of the marks 
 which the high, turbid waters of the Muskingum had 
 left on the leaf in the journey hitherward ; it showed 
 one of the blows Fate had aimed in vain at the book, 
 which, apparently, was not yet to perish. That writ 
 ing must come out to light, it was buried to be resur 
 rected. Henry bethought himself, he ran and ob 
 tained some crumbs of bread ; soon he had rubbed 
 away the stain. At once the whole name began to 
 come out into clear day from its dark tomb, when 
 this inscription was read : Ad, Feuerstein, Univ. Wit' 
 tenbergiae, A. D. 1676.
 
 142 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 It was a family name, though the spelling was 
 somewhat changed. Henry's own name in full was 
 Henry Adolphus Firestone. He felt he must be con 
 nected with the man whose inscription he had brought 
 to light ; but who or what this man was, he did not 
 know. It was a new barrier which had reared itself 
 on his path ; what the writing meant as a whole, he 
 could not conjecture. Still, he experienced a new 
 feeling; his personal connection with the past was 
 brought home to him, and stirred more deeply than 
 ever his aspiration. That single date beckoned to 
 him from a distant century to come across the tract of 
 Time, and make the acquaintance of his ancestry. 
 
 Other books he noticed. There was an old copy of 
 " Military Tactics," which belonged to a Firestone 
 who was captain in the militia during the war of 1812, 
 and whose company, according to tradition in the 
 family, ran away at the battle of Bladensburg at the 
 first fire, leaving Commodore Barney with his marines 
 to fight the British on land. An ominous book ; but 
 it had been seized upon and put to use by Charles 
 Firestone, who claimed it alone of all the books as his 
 personal possession. 
 
 A little volume fell down over the " Tactics " when 
 the latter was removed, and opened to a picture, drawn 
 in crayon, of a farm-house in a broad field, with trees 
 and shanties around the spacious dwelling. Henry 
 noticed the picture ; he knew also that the volume was 
 his mother's prayer-book. He closed it with emotion, 
 after glancing at the picture, and put it back into its 
 place. 
 
 He took down another volume, which was written in
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF THE FIRESTONES. 143 
 
 German, and showed signs of fire; its edges atone 
 place were charred black and deep, as if a live coal 
 had dropped upon them. There is no doubt that he 
 looked at this book with strong sympathy ; there was 
 something quite familiar in its old, strange letters as 
 well as its strong-lined, grotesque wood-cuts. He ob 
 served that it was an odd volume; its companions 
 were nowhere to be found. He wondered what had 
 become of them, and asked himself if they would ever 
 be discovered, so that the total set would have its scat 
 tered parts re-united. He had a strong impulse to 
 search the whole house for the missing volume or vol 
 umes, but, after a moment's reflection, he concluded 
 that such a search would be in vain. 
 
 As he turned to the front of the volume, he discov 
 ered a manuscript of about twenty closely written 
 leaves, which he had not seen before. It was old and 
 stained, and firmly fastened into the binding of the 
 book, so that it could not drop out. The handwriting 
 was a total mystery, nor he could not tell in what lan 
 guage the manuscript was composed. It seemed, be 
 ing in writing, a more direct communication than the 
 print. But it was yet more hidden, as he could not 
 even make out the letters. He turned over its yellow, 
 fragile leaves ; the sunlight fell upon it, and illuminated 
 it ; still, it had a clammy smell, like that of the grave. 
 It seemed to show, however, some change under the 
 rays dropping upon it, and gave faint signs of the joy 
 of resurrection. 
 
 It was indeed a curious document ; not only had he 
 not seen it before, but he had never heard of it. Henry 
 looked at it with fresh desire to penetrate its meaning ;
 
 144 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 the sun had gone under a cloud, the humid odor of age 
 and decay rose to his nostrils from the sheets of paper, 
 and an impenetrable night hung over the page. He 
 raised the book to his face, his whole inner nature 
 surged and swelled in a struggle with the crushing 
 limit which Time had put upon him. He choked and 
 sobbed ; a tear fell upon an ancient black Gothic let 
 ter and made it swell, as if in sympathy with him ; but 
 It could not be stirred to speech, even by tears. 
 Henry closed the lids and put the book back into the 
 case ; those lids seemed to shut up his soul in a dark 
 prison. He felt in strong constraint, and narrowed 
 for breath ; he left the house and walked forth into the 
 free air for relief. 
 
 V. 
 
 The door-bell rang at the -house of Mr. Firestone, 
 and a well-known lady entered, who spoke with a set, 
 formal smile in her features, beneath which peeped 
 out an eye showing a strong will in conflict with pride. 
 It was soon observed that her polite words wreathed 
 round and hid a sharp lancet, which would often 
 strike out of flowers and cut to the quick. She ad 
 dressed Aunt Polly : 
 
 " lhave come again to see Henry, if he is not en 
 gaged with his apple-tree in the Garden of Eden." 
 
 It was Miss Hope Winslow, the school-mistress of 
 Freeburg, who was speaking. She showed a certain 
 unassuming consciousness of superiority, yet mingled 
 with a low undertone of disappointment. She could 
 not help putting into her words a sly sting of sarcasm,
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF THE FIRESTONES. 145 
 
 even when she talked with her best friends ; just as 
 little could she help giving a soft vibration through the 
 nose to every syllable she uttered. She pronounced 
 her English with a round full modulation, in note 
 worthy contrast to the flattened pronunciation of the 
 West, where human utterance has no hills in it, but is 
 leveled down even with the prairie, and echoes dis 
 tinctly triumphant democracy. The faithful observer 
 must not omit to notice her neat, close-fitting dress, in 
 all the monotony of perfect tidiness dropping down 
 her spare form in modest folds, with the gloss still 
 on them imparted by the flat-iron. Whoever looked 
 into her face was impressed, for it was delicately 
 sharp, and her nose, defiantly rising out of her feat 
 ures, was quite pointed, and could be turned into a 
 vigorous weapon of attack. In fact, her whole coun 
 tenance was a battle-axe with the protruding spear, 
 ever ready for the onset. 
 
 But it would be mistake if anybody thought that 
 Miss Winslow ever quarreled, or was discourteous. 
 She never lost her balance ; if she resorted to satire, 
 she was politely satirical ; if she destroyed a foe, she 
 covered destruction with smiles and flowers. Her 
 method of working was secret ; her character seemed 
 to go veiled like a nun along its earthly highway, not 
 for the sake of dissimulation, but for the sake of ful 
 filling its call. Underneath the proud, and sometimes 
 steeled outer features, one could behold lines of 
 tenderness, and even of love, converging toward some 
 hidden center. It was easy to see that she could 
 sheathe that countenance of hers, with its keen weap 
 ons, in the sympathetic glow of charity. Her very
 
 146 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 look was a skirmish which might bring on a war, but it 
 was a war whose end was peace in the victory of right. 
 With the best daughters of Eve she had disguise, 
 which might at times turn to the superficial gloss of 
 artifice ; but in this disguise, as in her spirit's house, 
 she lived her life and did her work, of whose far-reach 
 ing importance the town of Freeburgto this day shows 
 the signs. 
 
 The youth, Henry Firestone, for whom she had in 
 quired, entered the room with a salutation which in 
 dicated delight, yet he showed a little anxiety too. 
 He had experienced all her kindness, and he had often 
 felt the sly touch of her lancet. If he had some terror 
 of her, he had also affection. He began: 
 
 " I am sorry I missed you the other day. But you 
 will be glad to know that I learned something. I wish 
 you could have listened to an old singer whom I heard 
 under the Tall Apple Tree. He came upon us suddenly, 
 then he played his instrument and sang, and I could 
 not free myself of his strain. It sings in me still." 
 
 Miss Winslow replied with her set smile turning 
 slightly acidulous : " Indeed ! that is a marvel. Then 
 you have learned something, and still you do not know 
 the meaning of it." 
 
 Henry responded: " Yes, I think that was just my 
 lesson." 
 
 Her features relaxed somewhat as she said : 
 
 " Well, that is a lesson which I have yet to learn, I 
 suppose. But where is the old man? " 
 
 "He vanished as unexpectedly as he appeared. 
 After he had sung several snatches of song, I asked 
 some questions which he answered."
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF THE FIRESTONES. 147 
 
 "Indeed!" cried the school-mistress, "If he an 
 swered all your questions, let him be called the 
 oracle." 
 
 " He did not answer all, for he left me in the midst 
 of my inquiries. Since then I have seen him but once. 
 Nobody in town seems to know anything about him, 
 though he showed familiarity with the spot of earth 
 where we sat. He appeared to feel with it somehow, 
 and he made me feel with it too." 
 
 " You are a strange boy, you probably do not your 
 self understand what you are saying." After this 
 critical remark, she took a little turn at interrogation : 
 " But tell me, Harry, what tangible thing did you get 
 from your ancient singer, what fact? " 
 
 " No fact at all, I imagine." 
 
 "What then was it all good for?" 
 
 " I can hardly say, I have not the words to tell it. 
 He drove me out of myself, lifted me beyond," said 
 the youth in a study. 
 
 " Surely a curious kind of instruction." 
 
 " But often the best instruction. Have you no 
 secret thoughts which words do not tell, are there no 
 hidden chords in you which bind you to the unknown 
 world?" 
 
 Miss Winslow looked yes, though she did not say it. 
 He was striking the undertone of her nature, he felt 
 it in her conduct, and went on : " Have you no hidden 
 experiences which never dare come into the sunlight 
 of common speech, but are touched by the soft breath 
 of song?" 
 
 She replied as if in the hands of her confessor : 
 " Such thoughts I have skulking all through the night-
 
 148 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 side of my brain. But I seek to keep them out of the 
 daylight of life ; I think it is not well to play with 
 them or indulge in them." Again she had resumed 
 her will and her magisterial bearing in this last sen 
 tence. 
 
 " Still," said the }'outh, " they are what we are; 
 they are the unknown in ourselves, which we must 
 know." 
 
 " But tell, who is the magician who has called out 
 this side of your being, quite opposite to all I seek to 
 do?" 
 
 " An old man and a wanderer, full of benevolence, 
 but with some set sorrow in his heart. Somehow I 
 had to connect his benevolence and his sorrow ; the 
 former seemed to grow out of the latter ; he was good 
 because he had been unfortunate." 
 
 At these words Miss Winslow gave a sudden start, 
 which was followed by a visible struggle with her 
 emotions. She soon suppressed her inner self, and 
 calmly said : 
 
 "Charity and even duty, in the case of most 
 people, are the children of suffering. But may such 
 never be your experience! " 
 
 She spoke the words as if they had been taken di 
 rectly from the secret archives of her heart. Henry 
 went on: 
 
 "The old inan plants, as it appeared from sev 
 eral hints which he gave, the seeds of fruit trees ; he 
 goes in advance of the great tide of emigrants to do 
 his work of benevolence. He planted yonder apple- 
 tree many years ago." 
 
 At this account, Miss Winslow rose and paced the
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF THE FIKESTONES. 149 
 
 room in a strong outburst of feeling, while she ex 
 claimed: "O, destiny, how like are thy decrees!" 
 
 But she recovered herself at once, and quietly 
 asked : 
 
 " Did you find out the name of the old man? ' 
 
 " No; he seemed to shun such a question even be 
 fore I had asked it." 
 
 "Then you know nothing more about him?' 
 
 " Nothing." At this answer, both for a time were 
 silent. 
 
 Miss Winslow gradually changed her attitude ; she 
 drew nearer and spoke in a mild, confidential tone : 
 "But tell me, Harry, what have you learned from 
 me?" 
 
 There is no doubt that Miss Winslow' s face had 
 lost of a sudden its sharpness, the steel edge of the 
 spear and battle-axe had begun to melt in the secret 
 fire underneath, at least to glow with a visible redness. 
 But why should she care for the opinion of a boy? 
 It is certain that, with all her pride, she sought his ap 
 probation. But Henr}* knew not what to answer, he 
 felt that his praise of the old singer had called up an 
 unexpected rival. He thought a moment, and then 
 with a meditative look out of the window he said 
 
 " I think you drive me back into myself." 
 
 VI. 
 
 Miss Winslow had turned her head aside, and her 
 eye fell upon the book-case. She rose and went to 
 it, drawn by the strong attraction of books, which 
 were her comforters as well as her instruments. She
 
 150 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 had secretly felt a little rebound at Henry's rather 
 uncertain answer ; at least her face began to resume 
 something of its fixed expression. She passed by the 
 new volumes, as objects well known or unimportant, 
 and took down an old book, which bore the written 
 title: Desider. Erasm. Roterod. Fam. Colloq. Form. 
 
 The school-mistress was the only person in the town 
 of Freeburg, who could make anything out of this 
 title, or could give any account of the author. She 
 opened the book, read its Latin text, and made some 
 comments ; she spoke of its place in the education of 
 Europe two and three centuiies ago; it had been one 
 of the chief trainers in the humanities, though now 
 quite supplanted and forgotten. " Such is the fate," 
 she added, looking at her pupil, " of all educators ; we 
 are but sign-boards pointing out the road to the next 
 town." 
 
 But Henry was too full to respond to this pensive 
 touch ; he swelled with aspiration, when he heard her 
 translate and explain these sentences of the old book, 
 which had now become gifted with a new voice. He 
 felt, however, his admiration for Miss Winslow in 
 crease to the point of warm emotion. With this came 
 a longing, almost beyond control, to be able to do 
 the same thing. His desire to know dashed so violently 
 against the bounds of his ignorance, that he writhed 
 in secret torment, and even two or three sighs broke 
 over the firm wall of his self-suppression. 
 
 Miss Winslow turned back to the inscription on the 
 fly-leaf, and then remarked : ' ; The former owner of 
 this book must have been at the University of Wit 
 tenberg in Germany, during the year 1676."
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF THE FIRESTONES. 151 
 
 *' What is the name there written ?" 
 
 "It is your name, spelt in German fashion." 
 
 " My name ! I never put it there. That book has 
 come down through my grandfather ; nobody in the 
 house can understand what is in it." 
 
 "Doubtless an heirloom," Miss Hope replied. 
 
 "This is a new fact," she continued, " and a very 
 interesting one too. I infer there has been a scholar 
 in the family during some former period. I have 
 noticed that you have an ancestral tendency in the same 
 direction." 
 
 " I do not know about that," said Henry. " But I 
 do know that since you came to this town, the 
 strongest wish of my heart has been to understand 
 those old volumes. You must have given me the im 
 pulse. At present, they seem to pen me in and 
 smother me between their covers in darkness. I have 
 pored over them, and, as I could not read their story, 
 I made a story of my own to fill up the blank. I fol 
 lowed the thumb marks, I noticed that some pages had 
 been more used, and hence more read, than others ; I 
 sought to picture the man who wrote these characters 
 on the margin in such a fantastic way." 
 
 "Well, did you see him?" asked Miss Winslow. 
 
 " Yes, I dreamed him into a real existence one 
 night," replied Henry, "and ever since I have been 
 acquainted with him." 
 
 " What did he look like?'. 
 
 " I saw him in a low, dark room reading these books 
 day and night ; a gloomy arch bent over his head, and 
 a dim lamp at times shed a little light on the page. 
 In the shadows ghostly shapes played and snickered
 
 152 THE FREEBDRGERS. 
 
 at the lone student, who had a long beard, a skull-cap 
 with a tassel, and a thread- bare mantle tied with a 
 string." 
 
 "What did he do?" 
 
 "He read and read, occasionally looking up and 
 muttering to himself. But I noticed that the more he 
 read, the more discontented he seemed, his face kept 
 growing darker." 
 
 " But he did not stop, and thus put an end to his 
 unhappiness ? " 
 
 " Not at all. If he ceased, it was only for a mo 
 ment ; then he would start with new energy. He re 
 turned to his books like a drunkard to his cups, well 
 knowing, apparently, the consequences. At last, in 
 the midst of an unearthly scowl on his countenance, I 
 saw a demon slip out of the darkness, and come up be 
 hind his back, and peep over his shoulder." 
 
 u Go on, what next? " 
 
 " They talked together, and made some agreement, 
 whereat both went off in the dark." 
 
 "And still you wish to find out what is in these 
 books?" inquired Miss Winslow= 
 
 " Yes, though fiends rise up while I read them, and 
 chatter at me." 
 
 " How dare you say that? " 
 
 " Indeed," continued Henry, " I would like to see 
 the chieftain of them all, old Satan himself.' 
 
 "Henry Firestone, you are wicked." 
 
 ' ' What ! is it wicked to know anybody or any- 
 thing? " 
 
 " You will be damned.' 
 
 "Then I am in the dilemma, which is recounted in
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF THE FIRESTONES. 153 
 
 the old story: If I do I shall be damned, and I shall 
 be damned if I don't. At present I am stewing in 
 the hell of ignorance, and I am going to break out of 
 it, though I fall into another burning pit." 
 
 Such language had never before been heard from 
 the lips of Henry Firestone. He was usually quiet in 
 speech and manner, but now he talked as if that 
 ancestral demon, which he had seen, had taken poses- 
 sion of him too. But, what is more astonishing, his 
 words appeared to rise above his years and oppor 
 tunities ; it would seem as if he could not have fully 
 known the import of what he was saying. At least a 
 new thread of his existence, hitherto invisible, sud 
 denly rose into activity. Miss Winslow was frightened 
 at him ; he had always been a very docile pupil of 
 hers, but now his spirit overmastered her secret genius, 
 and took a broad sweep on its own free wings toward 
 its own goal. 
 
 Miss Winslow did not, however, forget her skill ; 
 she recognized the soul liberating itself from swaddling 
 clothes ; she could guide, if she could not control. She 
 deftly turned the overflowing youth into another chan 
 nel, in which the spirit might move onward to conquest. 
 She said : 
 
 "Henry, if you wish to read those old works, you 
 must go to college. The halls of learning are the 
 dwelling-places of the past." 
 
 " You have hinted the same before," Henry re 
 plied, " I am trying to prepare the way ; it is my am 
 bition to learn, but there are obstacles ; these, however, 
 whet my desire. There is a struggle ahead of me, but 
 I think I shall win."
 
 154 THE FRKEBDRGERS. 
 
 Henry had fallen into his docile mood, often full 
 of wavering to and fro between his purposes. At this 
 point Miss Winslow resumed the rule of her will, and 
 exclaimed, with an energy which imparted strength to 
 the youth, and some terror ; 
 
 " No doubt you will win you must." 
 
 It was now Miss Winslow 's turn to master the situa 
 tion ; her battle face was lit with vivid artillery flashes 
 that leaped from her eyes, while she seemed on the point 
 of drawing her keen broadsword, namely, her tongue, 
 and of making havoc among the unseen foe. Opposition 
 to her will always roused her sleeping lion, but then she 
 quieted him, knowing she was a woman, and proceeded 
 to gain her end by stealth and tact. Soon her look 
 and her speech toned down, and she passed from the 
 fighting Amazon to the mild humanitarian. 
 
 She now continued: "You ought to go, not for 
 your own sake merely, but for the general good of the 
 town. Other 3 r oung men will follow you, they are not 
 going to be left behind. You can make yourself the 
 means of transforming this entire region ; I can see that 
 many are ready for a higher training, and they should 
 not lose the opportunity. It is man's noblest vocation 
 to make for others a pathway to what is excellent, and 
 to get the best by first giving it. One such person is 
 enough to start the train. Freeburg will yet be a cen 
 ter of light, if it take advantage of the time ; the town 
 is at a turning-point in its career, and is calling, in a 
 voiceless way, for a leader. Step forward, Henry ; it is 
 your duty, plainly your duty." 
 
 In this little speech Miss Winslow showed that pecu 
 liar play of motives which always seeks to see the uni-
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF THE FIRESTONES. 155 
 
 versal good in the individual advantage. She dwelt on 
 the public benefit, but secreted the private gain ; her 
 tongue spoke of many, but her heart knew of one. 
 She was very skillful in covering over a personal end 
 with the Varnish of duty. But it would be a great 
 mistake to call her false, and a still greater mistake to 
 think that she had not self-sacrifice. Her whole life 
 was a consecration, though she choose to garb her con 
 duct at times to the outer eye in a contradiction. Be 
 sides, there can be no doubt that the fact stated by her 
 was true ; Henry's going to college placed a new aim 
 before the young people of Freeburg, and, to a degree, 
 influenced their character and life. 
 
 But this general welfare of the community could 
 not be Henry's motive of conduct, and he knew it. 
 Whether the town gained by it or not, he prepared to 
 do the act, and he, was not going to cheat himself by 
 a delusive play of duty. He noticed the above men 
 tioned trait in Miss Winslow, and it affected him dis 
 agreeably ; it seemed a kind of insincerity in a sincere 
 soul, a blot of hypocrisy in her otherwise unsullied 
 devotion to the highest interests of mankind. Their 
 characters diverged strongly at this point. He loved 
 honesty so ruggedly that he preferred to seem selfish 
 at times, though this candor was really unselfish. But 
 she loved the general good so devotedly that she 
 always wore its robe, and sometimes without permis 
 sion. In general, he had the German ethical tendency 
 in his nature ; she had the New England ethical tend 
 ency, by nature and education. 
 
 It is no wonder, then, that he replied: "Oh, I 
 shall go for my own sake, I have my own improvement
 
 156 THE FKEEBURGERS. 
 
 in view, which is quite enough for me to attend to at 
 present. If my going be the means of doing others 
 good, I shall be glad, but I deserve no credit, and shall 
 take none." 
 
 The youth sought to deal honestly with himself, and 
 not to defraud his own soul by the juggle of lying 
 motives. Tell the truth to thyself is the first command 
 ment to the young man who is laying the corner-stone 
 of the edifice of life. If you. never lie to yourself, you 
 never will to the neighbor ; the man is first false inside, 
 then goes outside and shows the proof. 
 
 In her heart Miss Winslow felt this superiority of 
 the youth, and regarded him with new admiration. She 
 turned toward him more familiarly than ever before ; 
 her stiff, conventional smile broke into a thousand 
 rippling fragments that floated buoyantly down stream ; 
 one could see in her the frigid brook burst its chains 
 of ice, and bear them melting out of view, when spring 
 has come. 
 
 VII. 
 
 It was at this moment that Aunt Polly came along, 
 followed by little Trolla. The latter held in her hand 
 a beautiful double rose, which she had just plucked 
 after watching it gradually unfold to its highest per 
 fection ; its shape as well as its blood-red tint in the 
 sun suggested a warm, palpitating heart. She had 
 intended it for Henry, but she hid it at once in her 
 dress, when she caught a glimpse of him talking in a 
 low, confidential tone to Miss Winslow. The child had 
 taken the strongest dislike to the school- mistress, and 
 showed it on all occasions. Nobody could get her to
 
 IN THK HOUSE OF THE FIRESTONES. 157 
 
 tell why ; the antipathy seemed born in her, and gave 
 her at times positive pain. It was an instinct, a hos 
 tility of souls ; it appeared a transmitted feud of two 
 spirits who had begun their struggle in another world. 
 Miss Hope had often tried to conciliate and to caress 
 her, even to bribe her fidelity to hate with sweetmeats ; 
 every advance was repelled not only with shyness, but 
 with aversion. At present Trolla hid the uninendly 
 contortions of her face in Aunt Polly's skirts, but the 
 latter pushed her to the front, saying: 
 
 " Give the Sower to Miss Hope." 
 
 The child turned back, wriggled, resisted to the 
 utmost. On its face one could see not only dislike, 
 but a kind of moral horror. It cried out : 
 
 " I cannot, Aunt Polly." 
 
 It had been noticed in the family, that to Trolla 
 every action was an emblem ; instinctively her little 
 gifts were the utterances of her little heart, plainer 
 than those of speech. To present Miss Hope with the 
 double-rose would be a falsehood, indeed a sort of 
 treachery toward her own character. She refused to 
 be guilty. When Aunt Polly pushed her off a second 
 time, she ran to Henry and laid the flower on his arm, 
 exclaiming, 
 
 " There! that is for you, and it comes from me." 
 
 At once she hastened out of the room, and betook 
 herself to the garden. 
 
 Miss Winslow was embarrassed and remarked : 
 
 '' I wonder what I have done to that child. I have 
 tried in vain to induce her to come to my school. I 
 have noticed she cannot endure the sight of the school- 
 house."
 
 158 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 " Still, she learns with willingness at home from 
 Henry," Aunt Polly .replied. 
 
 Trolla was deeply attached to Henry, who found in 
 her much comfort and much wonder. He would teach 
 her with delight, in order to see her break out of the 
 common path of learning an exercise, and make a road 
 of her own. She had a way of spelling her words 
 backwards, and of dropping them into a sentence at 
 any point, till they had all found their place. But 
 her chief characteristic was, that she always arranged 
 ner lesson to a kind of melody; she could learn 
 nothing, except by putting the material of her study 
 into a song, or some rhythmical movement. What 
 was incapable of being sung, dropped out of her 
 memory, or, rather, never entered. The airs which 
 she heard, she would make ove'r again ; she could not 
 keep quite the same notes of a tune, but would vary 
 it in spite of herself. Henry was charmed with this 
 tendency to break over bounds into a free, unconscious 
 activity of her own, and actually imitated her at times, 
 though unwittingly. This was, perhaps, the link 
 which connected their souls. Her dress was not 
 specially tidy, but it had a certain play in' its folds, 
 and responded freely to her motions, which showed a 
 graceful rhythm. Wherever she came and went, she 
 flitted like a spirit, and left her atmosphere behind ; 
 even now, after she had gone out, she was a pres 
 ence felt in the room. 
 
 "A strange child," said Aunt Polly, "the morel 
 know about her, the more there is to know." 
 
 " That is the case with all my knowledge," Henry 
 added.
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF THE FIRESTONES. 159 
 
 The school-mistress looked at him with a slight 
 scowl, and gave a sarcastic tinge to her remark : 
 
 " You have then only increased your ignorance by 
 my instruction." 
 
 "Yes, and my knowledge too ; both go together." 
 
 Henry did not wait for the retort. He went up to 
 her, and, with a glance which was not wanting in ardor, 
 put the double-rose into her hand, saying : 
 
 " What Trolia refuses to you, I shall gladly give." 
 If Miss Hope had at that moment a keen word at the 
 end of her tongue, she withdrew it at the sight of the 
 crimson token, and her face, already somewhat con 
 gealed, began to thaw rapidly. But just then Trolia 
 unexpectedly returned with another flower of a 
 different kind ; she peeped through the door, and, 
 when she saw Miss Hope wearing the gift she had pre 
 sented to Henry, she flung the flower away, burst into 
 a sob and ran off. She could not conceal her jealousy, 
 and, indeed, she had been wronged by Henry, whom, 
 however, she did not blame ; she thought he was 
 too much under the influence of Miss Hope. 
 
 Henry noticed at a glance how deeply she was hurt 
 and surmised the cause ; he ran out after her and found 
 her in tears. 
 
 " Why, Trolia, what is the matter?" 
 
 The youth now heard for the first time the child's 
 view of the school -mistress. The tears had loosened 
 her tongue, as well as sharpened both intellect and 
 speech, till she hardly seemed a child in her observa 
 tions. 
 
 " I think Miss Hope is too strict in everything ; you 
 have to learn from her just in one way. She looks too
 
 160 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 much at herself, in her mind, if not in her looking- 
 glass. I hate to see a person who sees only her own 
 face. Why doesn't she get married? She ought to 
 have a husband of her own age. Yet she is so precise, 
 she cannot live with anybody." 
 
 In this way she let out the secret of her own heart 
 byglancing into another's heart. Trolla did not spare 
 criticism of Miss Winslow's garments; that touch of 
 nature, of female nature specially, could not be kept 
 down: "Her dress is smoothed to death, it has no 
 life. Oh, yes ; it is neat and clean ; so is a shroud. 
 She is thin and lank, and walks as stiff as the old 
 crane in the water." 
 
 Henry heard Aunt Polly's call and left Trolla, whose 
 tears had turned to bitter meditations which relieved 
 her heart. He came into the room, he observed that 
 the two women were in a strange attitude toward each 
 other. Aunt Polly was smiling, with furtive waggery 
 peeping out of her eyes ; Miss "Winslow was laboring 
 under some inner compulsion to present an easy look. 
 The presence of Henry seemed to give relief to Miss 
 Winslow, who said to him : 
 
 "We were talking of college, were we not, Henry, 
 when you went out?" 
 
 Aunt Polly broke in without waiting for Henry's 
 answer : 
 
 " That is a very good subject for conversation, if it 
 leads up to something better." 
 
 She had too old an eye not to look through a subter 
 fuge, and too young a disposition not to be fond of 
 teasing. She perceived that she had interrupted the 
 stream, but she was going to play for her own amuse-
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF THE FIKESTONES. K)l 
 
 ment a little comedy with Miss Winslow, whom she 
 knew to be in disguise, though pretending innocence. 
 
 She asked the latter with an arch glance of the eye : 
 " Did you never fling a big stone into a rushing brook 
 and dam up the flow? " 
 
 " Possibly I do not remember ; I have seen many 
 rapid mountain brooks in my native State with large 
 stones in them," said Miss Winslow. 
 
 "I can well imagine you have," continued Aunt 
 Polly, with her provoking smile. 
 
 "Take the fact for granted, tell me what follows." 
 Miss Winslow was no witch at a riddle ; she had a clear 
 understanding, but a very small sweep into the realm 
 beyond it ; she had wit, but little humor. Aunt Polly 
 had confused her with the faintest toudn of mystery, 
 but it hardly needed any mystery to confuse her now. 
 Aunt Polly answered : 
 
 " Did you never take the stone out again to see the 
 stream recover its flow? " 
 
 " I cannot tell," said Miss Winslow, still puzzled at 
 the double meaning she saw in Aunt Polly's speech, and 
 not knowing whether she should take the literal or the 
 metaphorical sense. 
 
 This state of comic embarrassment was Aunt Polly's 
 enjoyment; she loved to catch the shrewd school-mis 
 tress, who was herself often double, in such an am 
 biguity, and serve up to her a little dish of her own 
 character. 
 
 The old lady, having had her inward laugh, though 
 it was indicated outwardly by a mere twinkle of the 
 eye, which set her great round spectacle glasses to 
 gleaming like two stars, built out her little play with a 
 
 11
 
 162 THE FREEBURGERS 
 
 cap-stone: " I always remove such an obstruction for 
 the sake of the beautiful stream." 
 
 With these words she slipped off the scene through 
 the back door, and left Henry and Miss Winslow once 
 more together. 
 
 VIH. 
 
 As soon as Aunt Polly had quit the room, it was 
 hardly noticed that the bushes rustled outside some 
 where along the fence, which stood not far from the 
 window. One would naturally suppose it to be the 
 wind, but the wind was not then blowing. It made a 
 low, uncanny sound, which caused a troubling of the 
 spirits of both ; they did not speak of it, they were but 
 dimly conscious of the influence, still they were dis 
 turbed. Often we feel that something is present which 
 has thrust itself into the circle, and stopped the free 
 communication of spirit, but we know not what it is. 
 Some such unseen power now stood between those two 
 souls in that room ; it was felt by both, and each sought 
 to throw it aside without success. 
 
 After some time, however, the conversation began to 
 flow, but not so freely as before. Aunt Polly had not 
 been able to remove the stone from the brook by leaving 
 the room. The current of feeling, once dashed aside, 
 may never be able to get back into its old channel, in 
 spite of well-meant attempts to restore it to its course. 
 Both persons may be willing, may make strong efforts 
 in common, may even dig a new channel for the stream 
 of conversation to run in ; but it has gone dry, has 
 sunk away somewhere into the dark underground of 
 human nature. Will cannot command it, destiny may.
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF THE FIRESTONES. 163 
 
 In the present case, both were secretly embarrassed at 
 the obstacle ; and no object offered itself upon which 
 they might throw their burden and have it carried 
 away. 
 
 But the very obstacle is sometimes the dam which 
 gathers the struggling forces of the stream into an ir 
 resistible body forces which might otherwise flow 
 away peacefully into nothingness through non-resist 
 ance. Miss Winslow made several laborious efforts to 
 bring back the former happy flow of feeling into its 
 unhindered course, but every word was a new stone 
 flung into the current. At last, around every fixed line 
 of her face flashes began to play, as she drew a little 
 nearer, and spoke in a lower tone to the youth : 
 
 " Henry, what did the old singer you heard sing 
 about?" 
 
 Henry felt the new glow and dropped his eyes, say 
 ing: 
 
 " That is very hard to tell." 
 
 Miss Winslow leaned over still nearer and asked : 
 
 "Was it love?" 
 
 " Not a bit of it," said Henry, tossing up his head, 
 in a dash of modesty, which his burning eyes at once 
 betrayed as a feint. 
 
 "That is a very common subject of song," she 
 added, by way of information. Henry kept silent, but 
 there was on his cheek a new redness, which spoke as 
 loud as words, at least loud enough for Miss Winslow 
 to hear it. She went on, as if answering the language 
 of that blush of his : 
 
 " If you should ever go to college, do you think you 
 would remember me?"
 
 164 THE FREEBURGEES. 
 
 "How could I forget one who has given me so 
 much? " 
 
 Henry during this speech cast glances upon the 
 floor, pretending to a kind of shame, which is but shy 
 confession. 
 
 "Will you not take from me this keepsake?" 
 Miss Winslow drew from her pocket a small case 
 with a clasp, which contained a picture. Henry 
 opened it, saw the face, and said with new blushes, 
 " Thank, you ; just what I wanted." In this answer 
 nobody can charge him with having told a downright 
 lie. 
 
 At these words of his, the rigid iron features of Miss 
 Winslow had vanished ; they were melted in the fur 
 nace of emotion, and, in their fluid condition, changed 
 and seethed and took many new tumultuous forms. 
 Amid her fluctuations, she had drawn still closer to the 
 youth, who, in turn, had drawn still closer to the 
 school-mistress ; but hark ! again that suspicious rustle 
 of the bushes out of doors ! then a sudden rattle of 
 the window shutter ! She stepped backwards a couple 
 of paces ; both were startled ; they glanced at each 
 other for a moment with a kind of terror ; both looked 
 guilty at having done no wrong. It was not the wind, 
 and probably it was not an earthquake. What could 
 it be? The uncanny feeling returned; the invisible 
 presence was again in the room, and stood between 
 them, separating and darkening their spirits. Henry, 
 with some trepidation, went to the window and threw 
 open the shutter, which had been already closed. It 
 was evening ; he peered around in the dusky shadows, 
 and exclaimed, "Nothing! "
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF THE FIRESTONES. 165 
 
 He did not choose to investigate very far into the 
 mystery at which he felt a shudder ; he had vindicated 
 his courage to himself and to the lady, as he thought ; 
 he would take no further risks. He closed the win 
 dow and returned to his former place, but he found 
 the unseen ghost still present with an increased power, 
 and he did not know how to fight a ghost. He had 
 the feeling of universal discomfort without any visible 
 cause. 
 
 Miss Winslow on her side, too, was assailed ; the 
 strange interruption brought her back to her ordin 
 ary demeanor ; that glowing fusion of iron smiles in 
 her face began to cool off, and to shoot into the 
 stiff lines of propriety ; she drew her chair away, and 
 said : 
 
 " Henry, do not think me bold ; do not think me in 
 an unusual vein this evening; I love your aspiration. 
 Perhaps I might be misunderstood ; my conduct might 
 be misconstrued by you ; I am seeking unselfishly 
 your advantage. I have no desire or purpose of my 
 own to accomplish." 
 
 Here she stopped, being a little impeded by some in 
 truding thought. She had now a severe attack of pru 
 dence, and fell back into her disguise ; it was high 
 time to hide herself a little, and her hiding-place was 
 usually her conscience. After a short silence she spoke 
 again : "I have only your good in mind." 
 
 Henry replied : "I never thought otherwise." 
 
 Still the young rascal did think otherwise ; uncon 
 sciously he had been driven into acceptingher disguise 
 as truth, and thus into putting on a disguise himself. 
 Both stood peeping at each other from under their
 
 166 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 masks, when the voice of Miss Winslow was again 
 heard : 
 
 " You must not confound this interest in your wel 
 fare with arty thing else." 
 
 " Oh no, certainly not, " said the youth. 
 
 But he certainly did, and she knew it. Both began 
 to feel their common pretense, and the situation was 
 growing ridiculous. The counter-current was setting 
 in, she whirled about, gave herself breath, which she 
 did not need, with a few rapid strokes of her fan, and 
 exclaimed: " O you are tantalizing! " 
 
 Disguise could not control her altogether, propriety 
 could not every minute be on guard and keep her in 
 its limits at the point of the bayonet. She drew her 
 chair back to its former position, leaned over and 
 spoke in a whisper : "Am I to have nothing in re 
 turn?" 
 
 The intruding ghost had apparently fled, and Miss 
 Winslow' s features were rapidly losing the rigid lines 
 of propriety. One might see, too, currents and coun 
 ter-currents surging through the breast. 
 
 Henry took up from the parlor table a small likeness 
 of himself in ivory, of which Aunt Polly had borne the 
 expense, but which Trolla claimed as hers, probably 
 without sufficient right. 
 
 "Here is my picture," he said, "accept it as a 
 little reminder of me." 
 
 The youth this time took the initiative ; he had been 
 taught somewhat by his school-mistress, and had 
 learned the lesson so well that he began to put it into 
 practice on the spot. He now had the courage to look 
 into her face, as she stood before him, unresisting ; he
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF THE FIRESTONES. 167 
 
 raised his arms and she fell, not knowing whither or 
 wherefore. There was in both a momentary swoon of 
 the senses, the world went round and round, and when 
 its gyration had ceased, they stood eye to eye, and 
 then in a flash it was lip to lip. 
 
 There was a second of rapture, and it had not yet 
 passed, when a loud crash was heard ; slivers of wood 
 and pieces of glass flew in every direction about the 
 room ; a large stone broke through the shutter and 
 window, and struck the middle of the floor not far from 
 the spot where the two were standing. A sharp frag 
 ment of glass hit Miss Winslow in the face, and cut 
 her slightly, just enough to start a little stream of 
 blood, which trickled down her cheek and dropped on 
 the hand that held the picture. This she put at once 
 upon the table whence it had been taken, and shrunk 
 back several paces, with a look of mingled terror and 
 anxiety. 
 
 The dark demon, who had placed himself between 
 the two at intervals during the entire evening, had 
 now apparently fulfilled his warning. The insuffer 
 able but unseen presence was felt more strongly than 
 ever before. Again was heard outside that fatal 
 rustle of the bushes, more distinct than it had been 
 previously ; then a strange, low growl, like the gut 
 tural admonition of a wild beast, came through the 
 broken window-pane, and immediately a hurried but 
 stealthy tramp of footsteps died away in the darkness. 
 
 The other members of the family heard the noise and 
 rushed in from various quarters of the house. They 
 found Henry and Miss Winslow standing far asunder, 
 and stupified with amazement and horror. Neither of
 
 168 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 them could give any explanation of what had happened. 
 It may also be stated that they were not able to tell 
 what was transpiring in the room just before the mys 
 terious occurrence. Mr. Charles Firestone, the soldier 
 of the family, who chanced to be in the sitting-room 
 not far off, dashed out into the night after the sup 
 posed mischief-maker ; he beat the bushes, and glared 
 into the fence-corners, but he could not find or see 
 any trace of a human being. 
 
 Miss Winslow was soon collected, she resumed her 
 habitual fixed smile and her steady demeanor. She 
 declared her entire ignorance of the cause of the mis 
 chance, but cast a strangely suspicious look at little 
 Trolla, who was hovering about in the background 
 of the company, evidently in secret glee. But Trolla 
 had been with the family in the sitting-room all even 
 ing ; moreover, were she capable of the deed, she had 
 not the strength to hurl the stone. There is no doubt, 
 however, that she showed her satisfaction at the inci 
 dent in many a little titter and grimace. But no ques 
 tioning could get from her any light upon the cause 
 of the occurrence. 
 
 The blood was still running down the cheek of the 
 school-mistress ; Henry stepped up and gallantly wiped 
 it away with his handkerchief, saying: "I hope you 
 are not hurt." 
 
 "Nothing serious," she replied with a formal nod 
 of the head. 
 
 She turned to go out of the door for the purpose of 
 returning home ; Henry followed her with sympathy. 
 When they were sufficiently distant from the rest of 
 the people, who were occupied with their own wonder
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF THK FIRESTONE8. 169 
 
 and conjectures concerning the author of such an act 
 of malice, she turned and whispered: "Say noth 
 ing." 
 
 He offered to conduct her to her home, but she ab 
 solutely refused, and went at once out into the street 
 alone, determined to go to her quarters unescorted, as 
 was her custom. She left the picture of the youth 
 behind, lying on the table, with its white ivory crim 
 soned by one drop of her blood. 
 
 As she passed down the side-walk, a dark figure 
 darted out of an alley, shuffled along hastily before 
 her for a short distance, then crossed to the opposite 
 side of the street. She heard indistinct mutterings, 
 which vividly recalled the low growl that came through 
 the broken window-pane so ominously ; was it man or 
 beast? The shape passed before a bright light which 
 shone from a dwelling ; she saw in the flash rapid and 
 vehement gesticulations, which startled her anew by 
 their strangeness. In that momentary flare of illumina 
 tion, they were impressed so deeply upon her mind, 
 that, when she reached home, and was in bed, she 
 could still hear the suppressed growl, and see the 
 frenzied movements of the dark figure. In this ex 
 cited mood she went to sleep, after a long spell of 
 wakefulness, and slid into dreams, which repeated in a 
 thousand grotesque forms the marvelous experiences 
 of the evening.
 
 CHAPTER FIFTH. 
 
 FROM THE LIFE OF THE OLD SINGES. 
 I. 
 
 Whisper, whisper together 
 
 From the ends of the opposite winds; 
 Whisper, whisper whenever 
 
 The Earth has parted two minds ; 
 In the ear of the Southeast speak, 
 
 Bid him hasten and tell; 
 I shall sing in the Northwest bleak, 
 
 And reply: It is well. 
 
 The voice which sang this verse took a special de 
 light in dwelling upon the last words ; it rolled them 
 over and over in a great variety of musical candenees, 
 and repeated in many happy turns, "It is well." 
 But even this was not enough ; the man, when he had 
 ceased to sing, spoke aloud to himself, " It is well.'' 
 
 This man was the old Fiddler, who was again sitting 
 under the Tall Apple Tree, while little puffs of the 
 breeze twirled his thin gray locks, as if some invisible 
 hand was play ing with them. The sound of his instru 
 ment, across whose strings he gently drew his bow, 
 was in pure accord with the light, musical rustle of the 
 air; the two ran into one melody, which formed a soft 
 (170)
 
 FROM THE LIFE OF THE OLD SINGER. 171 
 
 undertone of feathery murmurs to the old man's voice. 
 He seemed to have caught that elusive musician, the 
 wind, and made him play accompaniment to the song. 
 The sigh of the breeze passed insensibly into words ; 
 no ear could tell exactly where the one ceased and the 
 other began. 
 
 Still the old man showed signs of struggle. He tried 
 to stand up, he rose with effort, but at last he straight 
 ened out to his full stature, and looked into the 
 branches of the tree, saying, "It is well." He not 
 only uttered in his words, but showed in his face the 
 harmonious adjustment of a soul to the supreme order 
 of the world, in defiance of all adversity. One seemed 
 to hear-, long after he had ceased to speak, a continu 
 ous echo in the heart: " It is well." 
 
 The afternoon was advanced, the declining sun 
 threw a calm illumination through every furrow of the 
 old singer's face; a smile of contentment ran fitfully 
 over his features, yet it would sometimes break into a 
 look of longing. He evidently was hoping to see some 
 object on this spot, and possibly sought to charm it 
 into his presence by his strain. He indeed seemed to 
 whisper with the breeze in secret conference and to 
 send a message upon it to some unknown listener. 
 
 He had been in the village a few days, and had at 
 tracted attention every where by his unusual occupation. 
 The general opinion appeared to be that he was harm 
 less, but unbalanced ; he was allowed to rove at will, and 
 sing his lullaby to his own heart. He went into the 
 shops and looked at the trades ; he visited the shoemaker 
 on the bench, the blacksmith at the forge, the farmer at 
 the plough ; he would always give a helping hand, where
 
 172 THE FBEEBURQERS. 
 
 he saw it needed ; he would put on the winch and 
 turn the grindstone, to sharpen the axe of the passing 
 wood-chopper or the scythe of the lone mower. If a 
 wrong was done in his presence, it was written on his 
 face in lines that burned whoever read them ; he came 
 and went like a recording angel ; he smote with his look 
 both the active doer, and the indifferent spectator of 
 a cruel deed. 
 
 That marvelous eye of his would, at times, turn in 
 ward and close ; then it would burst open, rush out 
 ward and seize the world. There were moments in 
 which he appeared strong, full of red blood ; then he 
 would relapse into paleness that hinted of the spirit dis 
 embodied. Nobody could tell whence he came or 
 whither he was going. His visit to Freeburg was but 
 a segment of a great cycle of existence, which was 
 drawn both on earth and in heaven. 
 
 After standing a while, his inner perturbation 
 calmed somewhat, and he took his seat again, ex 
 claiming: " It must not be mere stoicism, it must not 
 be simply a passive endurance, which blunts the 
 thousand keen needle-points of feeling ; it must be an 
 eager acceptance, it must be a rapt participation. O, 
 this mighty discipline! But it can not cease till it 
 has carried us upward to the throne, and endowed us 
 with the very vision and deed of Providence." 
 
 Again he began to sing the song, and appeared to 
 be transformed into a spirit of the wind more com 
 pletely than before. His heart-strings were struck by 
 that low breeze coming from the unknown distance ; 
 half-suppressed sighs were the response, his voice 
 faltered, he dropped his instrument. The true singer
 
 FROM THE LIFE OF THE OLD SINGER. 173 
 
 is always most deeply affected by his own song ; it is 
 his life which suddenly becomes musical, his experi 
 ence which is transmitted into winged words, soaring 
 heavenward in a golden atmosphere of harmony. The 
 iron fetters of fate, which hold him a prisoner, are 
 melted in the furnace of song, and are forged anew 
 into the armor of freedom. 
 
 The old man looked up into the tree, where the 
 leaves rustled ; those whispering tones seemed to be 
 borne from a far-off land ; they were the words of two 
 separated souls, yet strangely meeting and speaking 
 in song. He had heard the voice of the wind, and 
 was wafted in its breath to the heart of his secret. 
 There came a tender message from beyond, which 
 he, in his high moments, could hear out of his own 
 strains. 
 
 While he was singing, the figure of a woman 
 dressed in white came out upon the veranda of the 
 school-house, which stood at a little distance, and over 
 looked the spot where the old man had taken position. 
 She gazed and listened, as if she might have heard 
 those notes before ; she seemed intent, if one might 
 judge by her pensive attitude, not so much upon the 
 enjoyment of the music as upon the memories it sug 
 gested. The voice of the singer had, indeed, a far-off 
 dreamy tone which caused her to wonder both at its 
 familiarity and its remoteness. 
 
 He noticed that white shape with surprise, as it 
 seemed to drift into his song just at the right moment, 
 when his mood was at the highest and when the strange 
 appearance gave a kind of body to his longing. The 
 features of the shadowy woman could not be distinctly
 
 174 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 seen by him at so great a distance ; still he stood and 
 gazed ; of a sudden, she made an involuntary gesture, 
 which thrilled him through and through. He had seen 
 that gesture before, it had some intimate hold upon him, 
 it drove his memory into a thousand directions to find 
 out to whom it belonged. But memory returned 
 without the face or the name of the owner, and left 
 him in the lap of his own mystery. Meantime he had 
 ceased singing; the white lady soon turned, and went 
 back into the building. 
 
 The old man was perplexed at her disappearance ; 
 be sought to charm her out of her hiding-place again, 
 and began to sing another verse. After a few moments 
 her while form was seen through the window, at which 
 she stood and listened. ''There, there!" he cried, 
 " that movement of the arm I know !" He continued 
 the song ; he felt that she was in the stream of the 
 melody somehow, and would be borne forward by it, 
 till she did all that he wished of her. There is often 
 a feeling of prophecy in music. She soon left the 
 window, came outside and stood against a pillar, 
 which supported the veranda. He had seen that fig 
 ure and that attitude before ; but where and when ? 
 She seemed to answer his whisper on the breeze, not 
 merely from the spot where she stood, but from some 
 remote time and place, which he vainly grappled for 
 in the great ocean of oblivion. 
 
 He stopped his song for a while, or rather he ran it 
 over into an exclamation. "How all our existence," 
 he cried, " is linked together, though the chain often 
 sinks out of sight! I tug at this end of the chain, I 
 see it move in a glimmer yonder, far at the other end,
 
 FROM THE LIFE OF THE OLD SINGER. 175 
 
 but the intervening portion lies somewhere under the 
 dark waters of Lethe, and I cannot raise it to the 
 surface. The incidents of life, I know, cannot be 
 isolated altogether ; they are children showing the ex 
 act features of some ancestral incident, which has a 
 continuous power of reproduction through ages; 
 after a given time the Great Mother will bear another 
 son, who will also have progeny and perpetuate him 
 self. Speak to me not of death ; this little pebble 
 thrown into the stream of Time, sends wavelets 
 through Eternity." 
 
 It cannot be doubted that the white figure in its 
 turn felt a strange power in the old man's voice. We 
 sometimes meet persons, whom we think to have seen 
 before, but find out that we never have ; we may also 
 hear words and music which sound familiar, but which 
 we have never heard previously ; in a foreign land, 
 which we have never before visited, we may pass 
 through a bit of woods that seems well-known ; even 
 actions in rare moments we perform, the lines of 
 which seem to be laid down for us in advance by some 
 Power, and in these lines we have to move consciously 
 or unconsciously. 
 
 Some such thing happened to the lady on the ver 
 anda ; she had heard that voice before, it was familiar ; 
 but the familiarity was only a correspondence to some 
 thing within her, which had been awakened by the 
 song, and which already existed latent in her soul. 
 Memory was not able to connect this experience with 
 any knowledge of former years. Out of the remote 
 twilight of infancy those sounds appeared to be floating 
 at times, then they would sink away into utter darkness.
 
 176 THE FRKEBURGERS. 
 
 The old man, however, did not stop his song, but 
 poured it forth still, with increasing power and purity, 
 till it wholly ran in those unconscious undercurrents 
 of life, to which all true poetry reaches down and 
 quaffs the intoxicating elixir of its own being. It 
 dropped at times into a weird whisper from beyond, or, 
 again, into a storm-wind of the present ; it plainly drew 
 from the secret sources of nature, in which old, worn 
 out words were baptized, and came forth gleaming ' 
 with a new youth. The white form was visibly moved, 
 and advanced to the edge of the veranda, with a slight 
 bend of the head to one side, as if listening for some 
 thing almost inaudible. The contour seemed chalked 
 upon the air in an intense vividness, the attitude was 
 just what he once saw at a critical moment of his 
 life from one whom he had never seen since. 
 
 Now he began to remember. The shadow of the 
 afternoon was deepening ; that white shape stood there 
 like a light-encircled ghost, the material part had in 
 deed quite faded out and vanished ; memory flew in, 
 bearing an image, and the outlines of that attitude 
 were filled by a spirit, whom he saw rise out of another 
 world. The more he sang, the more was his vision 
 enkindled, till many scenes of his life rose and floated 
 around the white figure leaning over on the veranda. 
 
 But the scene begins to change, something else is 
 insinuating itself, preluded by a few shreds of darken 
 ing cloudlets. The old man noticed them and exclaim 
 ed: "What is the matter with my vision? It is 
 suddenly growing dim, I can no longer see so well ; a 
 cloud has floated before, or, rather, into that clear 
 shape, and yet there was not a cloud in the sky a
 
 FROM THE LIFE OF THE OLD SINGER. 177 
 
 moment ago. The obscuration must be in me ; the 
 fair image has become turbid and tarnished. What 
 dark angel is placing himself between me and yon 
 dear object dark as night, terrible as the destroyer ! 
 In me, yet outside of me too! " 
 
 II. 
 
 He had scarcely uttered the words, when he rose in 
 great agitation ; suddenly he was startled by a noise 
 which he heard just behind him. He turned around, 
 a gleam of sunlight shot into his eyes, which made 
 him wince. The cause of the noise he beheld ; it was 
 a little girl with a bright face enshrouded in a dark 
 wreath of hair ; she stood near him, yet she had a look 
 of timidity. She had slipped out of the bushes of the 
 garden which was not for away ; he recognized her and 
 spoke, calling her to his seat, which he had resumed. 
 She was shy and stood peering above the leaves of the 
 bushes around her, like a little wood-nymph, in silent 
 hesitation. He noticed her eyes swimming in a trans 
 lucent flood, whose drops soon fell into the grass and 
 left a clear, coy smile. 
 
 It was little Trolla, who had once before listened 
 to the old singer, and had been deeply moved by his 
 song. At present she had stolen away from the house, 
 when she heard it, and went toward the Tall Apple 
 Tree, being enticed a step further by each new verse. 
 
 " Will you not sing that song again?'' she asked. 
 
 " Why, do you like it, my little miss? " 
 
 "Oh yes, I like it, and I live it while you sing." 
 
 " Tell me how that can be." 
 12
 
 178 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 "It somehow makes me hear myself.'' 
 
 '* But do you not hear yourself when you speak 
 now?" 
 
 " No, I do not hear myself except when you sing." 
 
 " What is that which you hear when you talk? " 
 
 " I do not know it is something else. But will 
 you not sing for me once more? " 
 
 " It makes you weep ; I saw you shedding tears." 
 
 " So much the more it is mine." 
 
 At this strange answer the old man turned around 
 and looked again toward the veranda of the school- 
 house. The white form was nowhere to be seen. He 
 adjusted his instrument and began to sing ; but his 
 song was not the same, though he chanted the same 
 words to the same tune. He never could sing the 
 second time like the first. The surroundings were 
 altered, the moment had changed and he felt it, sen 
 sitive as he was to every breath in his environment. 
 
 Equally excellent was his singing perhaps, but wholly 
 different was its meaning. Can human speech change 
 its signification so suddenly? There is no doubt 
 that another master had taken possession, was beating 
 another time, and was giving another key-note. Lan 
 guage is but the pliant material of an invisible genius, 
 who seizes it and kneads it at will into a thousand 
 shapes, into which, though it be only passing sound, 
 he breathes the breath of life. 
 
 A feeling of sorrow began to vibrate through the old 
 singer in spite of himself ; it swept through the strings 
 as well as attuned his voice. The song before had the 
 note of mastery ; though destiny had struck her hardest 
 blow, the man had not been felled to earth ; or, if he
 
 FROM THE LIFE OF THE OLD SINGER. 179 
 
 had fallen, he rose again and marched on victoriously 
 to his freedom. But now the music changed charac 
 ter; it had doubt, anxiety for the future, deepening 
 into pain ; it was the note of Fate. 
 
 So overwhelmed was the singer, that when he came 
 to the refrain " It is well," he could hardly sing it; 
 indeed he did not sing it, but thrust it out of himself 
 by sheer violence. It had become a false chord, 
 though harmonious once ; these words which he had 
 before dwelt upon with a peculiar expression of tri 
 umph in many winding turns and melodious repeti 
 tions, he had to shorten and pen up in the narrowest 
 limits of his utterance. He felt the change so pain 
 fully that he came to a sudden stop ; he seemed, even 
 in voice, to run up against the impassible wall of destiny. 
 
 His song had come to this abrupt end, when Trolla 
 drew still nearer and asked : 
 
 " Let me sing? " 
 
 "Do you know the tune? " 
 
 "I can follow it." 
 
 " But do you know the lines? " 
 
 " I can make them." 
 
 ' ' You can ? How is that, my little maid ? ' 
 
 "They always come of themselves after I have 
 heard you " 
 
 " Then you have tried already." 
 
 "Yes, often." 
 
 " Will you tell me when you began? " 
 
 " After I had listened to you the other day." 
 
 " Let me hear you." 
 
 His surprise was great, when Trolla, after placing 
 her hands in an attitude of resignation upon her breast,
 
 180 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 began to sing to the same tune and measure which he 
 had just employed. She made some little variation of 
 her own, but she had caught the strain. "When she had 
 hummed the music, she broke at once, into the follow 
 ing verse, which was a dark, fateful echo of the old 
 singer' s lines: 
 
 Whisper, oh whisper in sorrow, 
 
 And tell me of Death; 
 I shall ride on his swift wings to-morrow, 
 
 And give him my breath. 
 
 The old man's former amazement was now chilled 
 to horror; he shuddered at the last line, which showed 
 him a child with such a thought in its soul. Yet he 
 must have known that the idea of death is by no 
 means unfamiliar to childhood even ; that this idea 
 takes a strong hold upon the earliest imagination and 
 instinct. It may become morbid, but it has also its 
 place in the healthy mental organization. The limit 
 of life is the overwhelming fact of life, supreme above 
 all others, and cannot be rooted out of the mind of 
 any living person. Infancy stands as near to the end 
 as age, and much nearer to the beginning, which is 
 only another sort of end. 
 
 The old man, however, had found the presence 
 which disturbed him, which had subtly penetrated his 
 mood and transformed his song. He was so sensitive 
 to this influence because it lay already in him, and the 
 external occasion was only needed to call it forth into 
 activity. The mighty undertow of his inner ocean 
 had seized him, he was aware that he had to make a 
 strong effort to stem that secret current.
 
 FROM THE LIFE OF THE OLD SINGER. 181 
 
 He grasped for his instrument and looked at the 
 young girl standing near him in the full bloom and 
 freshness of life. He gave a glance toward the de 
 clining sun ; it was that celestial object from which he 
 always drew inspiration and imagery. The shade of 
 the Tall Apple Tree had lengthened till it reached 
 across the little valley of the brook, and almost 
 touched the veranda where the white lady once stood ; 
 the top of its shadow seemed to support the school- 
 house, nicely balanced on a point. He straightened 
 himself up in vigor. He flung the last sigh away as if 
 to get rid of it ; he again looked upon the fair young 
 being before him, as she stood emblazoned in the rays 
 of the sinking luminary. 
 
 "What sun is setting?" he thought to himself. 
 "Is it youth? Is it age?" 
 
 He pressed his violin more closely to his breast, as 
 if he might impart to it directly from the heart the 
 very pulse of human life. The notes wonderfully 
 blended with the sunshine, giving to it a golden voice, 
 which at last arose and throbbed into articulate speech 
 in the following verse: 
 
 Bright child, thy rising sun 
 
 May seem my setting one ; 
 But if we look beyond to whence they came, 
 The rising and the setting sun are both the same. 
 
 Meanwhile Trolla had quietly slipped forward, and 
 put a wreath of flowers and leaves upon his head ; but 
 the frail band broke, and covered him with fragrance 
 and color. Then she, almost without his notice, deftly 
 pinned a forget-me-not in the lapel of his coat saying:
 
 182 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 " There, that is yours, you must not lose it." As she 
 came nearer, he looked more closely into her eyes ; he 
 was surprised, indeed fascinated ; he thought he recog 
 nized lines in her face which were familiar, and which 
 brought him inexpressible longing. Or, were they 
 merely images carried over from his previous vision of 
 the white lady? The eye, when closed after intently 
 looking on some bright object, will see the same still, 
 nay, it will see, when open, that same object beneath 
 other objects which are present to the sense of sight. 
 There was a strange transference of feeling and 
 thought between the two experiences of the day; he 
 reached for the little maiden, but she eluded bis grasp, 
 though she kept hovering near at hand. He asked 
 her: 
 
 " My little miss, what is your name? " 
 
 "They call me Trolla." 
 
 " But what is your parents' name? " 
 
 " I do not know, I never heard it in my life." 
 
 "Explain to me how that can be," said the old 
 man in bewilderment. 
 
 " I was found in an emigrant wagon when I was a 
 baby, and since then I have lived in this town." 
 
 "Do you not know whence you came?" 
 
 " Nobody knows." 
 
 " Have you no brother or sister? " 
 
 " lam alone.' 
 
 These last words, spoken in an innocent and by no 
 means sorrowful tone, touched the old man in his 
 heart of hearts ; he looked up into the branches of the 
 Tall Apple Tree to hide his emotion, and possibly, to 
 suggest the help for these trials. The old and the
 
 FROM THE LIFE OF THE OLD SINGER. 183 
 
 young have the same discipline of life at bottom ; the 
 rising and the setting sun, apparently separated by 
 the entire diameter of the physical universe, are really 
 one body and in one place. Human existence appears 
 as a river that leaps out of the earth at a certain 
 hour, sparkling along in the sunlight for a time, then 
 sinking away into subterranean darkness again, ap 
 parently lost. Must we not think that the stream, 
 in all its nieanderings, is going towards its fountain- 
 head, is seeking the great return to its primordial 
 source? 
 
 Trolla and the old Fiddler, placed at the opposite 
 ends of human life, seemed there to show its essential 
 unity ; they were bodily images of the beginning and 
 end, which, however, are one at last. 
 
 m. 
 
 The wagon in which Trolla had been found, stood 
 beside a smoldering camp-fire not far from Freeburg ; 
 the people and even the horses which belonged to it, 
 had disappeared. The cry of a child was heard, an 
 investigation was made by a passing neighbor, and the 
 little, helpless stranger was brought to light. The 
 affair caused a great stir in the village, a search was 
 made everywhere for the missing owners ; it was sup 
 posed there had been foul play; but if there was a 
 murder, there had never been discovered any trace of 
 the murderers or the murdered. 
 
 The articles in the wagon were examined, but no 
 clew could be found ; the little writing was in a strange 
 tongue ; the garments had a foreign look, yet with cer-
 
 184 THE t'REEBURGERS. 
 
 tain familiar characteristics, which made tlie confusion 
 greater. But it was generally concluded, that the old 
 world had furnished the little stranger. For this con 
 clusion, however, no satisfactory ground had ever 
 been given. The matter always remained suspended 
 between heaven and earth, just where it was found. 
 
 Mr. Firestone, with the consent of everybody, took 
 the child in charge ; the effects found with it were 
 stowed away, till the owner might appear ; the wagon 
 was sold at a fair price, and the money religiously 
 saved for the little foundling. It was, in particular, 
 Aunt Polly, whose tender heart went out toward the 
 kinless orphan ; she urged her brother to take it home 
 and provide for it. A strong bond had grown up be 
 tween the two ; it was Aunt Polly, who stood as its 
 only known mother ; yet the tie was not a maternal one, 
 but that of intimate union in spirit. Still on points 
 they differed ; but differences were the lock and key, 
 which fastened their lives harmoniously together. 
 
 Some old boxes, that had been preserved, had not 
 yet been opened ; it was supposed they contained only 
 common household goods. The time had now come in 
 Trolla's life when she wished to take a peep into these 
 boxes, to see if she could not solve the mystery of her 
 origin. She had dropped out of an unknown world 
 into a known existence; she was peculiar in her 
 thoughts, in her looks, in her dress ; the riddle of her 
 life seemed to be entwined in her actions, and to 
 enter into her character. 
 
 She thus stood in contrast to the children about her ; 
 they all could account for themselves, they had at 
 least one generation of ancestors. At first, nobody
 
 FROM THE LIFE OF THE OLD SINGER. 185 
 
 could understand her speech, and her utterances could 
 never quite reach the American accent; there was in it 
 still a hint of what was out of reach. She was mysti 
 fying to herself and to others, without design truly 
 a child of the unknown. Yet a vague, childish memory 
 would at times bring back the face of a mother, as she 
 hungovei her infant. Perhaps this is the earliest pict 
 ure which the human brain receives, and remains to 
 the last. Certainly no father ever hovered before 
 Trolla. 
 
 One box was opened, and Trolla found a certain 
 .costume, which excited her wonder but gave no knowl 
 edge. Nobody in the village was able to tell to what 
 nation the peculiar garments belonged. She hung 
 them up, and carefully preserved them, as if they 
 might at some time have a tongue, and tell their story. 
 In certain moods, she would go and look at them in 
 the garret, where she could be alone and undisturbed. 
 How she longed to make them speak ! She knew they 
 had a history ; as she could not read it, she made it ; she 
 habitually drove her young thoughts beyond the limit 
 of fact, she passed into the realm of the unbounded, 
 her life became largely intermingled with her imagina 
 tion. She stood nearer to the unknown world than 
 any other child in Freeburg and her known world, in a 
 sort of spiritual sympathy, began to turn into a dream 
 land. 
 
 One Sunday, not long before the period at which we 
 have arrived, Aunt Polly said to Trolla, in a way 
 which implied a gentle command: 
 
 " Trolla, it is time to get ready for church." 
 
 The child begged: " O let me off to-day."
 
 186 THE FRKEBURGEI1S. 
 
 "What is the matter? " 
 
 "I do not like to go," she spoke, showing strong 
 unwillingness. 
 
 "Tell me, what has come over you? " 
 
 " It hurts me to remain in those high walls of the 
 church. It pains me often to hear the talk." 
 
 " What will you do if you stay at home? " 
 
 " I would like to hunt through the old boxes." 
 
 " What can you find there? " 
 
 " I do not know, but I wish to know." 
 
 " You are like Henry, whose desire is to find what is 
 hidden in the old books of the library." 
 
 "I think I ain, too." Trolla spoke this in a flash 
 of joy, as it connected her with Henry. 
 
 " Well, I have too much of the same spirit in me to 
 refuse you. You may remain at home." 
 
 Aunt Polly went and said her prayers alone that 
 day, but in them she did not forget her little ward left 
 at home. 
 
 Trolla was always restless at church ; she longed for 
 the fields and flowers; the four walls on Sunday 
 seemed to cramp her, to make the infinite spirit very 
 limited ; the unbounded realm of nature gave her the 
 sense not only of freedom but of adoration. The idea 
 of pain was intensely disagreeable to her, and pain 
 itself she had no command over. Her response to it 
 was strong, immediate. The suffering of the crucifix 
 ion simply made her unhappy; her innocent soul, 
 unconscious of sin, was plunged into the pain thereof 
 from without, and she knew not why. 
 
 Aunt Polly was a rather strict church member, and 
 she regarded it as a duty to attend one service at least
 
 FROM THE LIFK OF THE OLD SINGER. 187 
 
 every Sunday. But Trolla, after being penned up a 
 couple of hours and listening to a long sermon, began 
 to shun the sight of a church. That Sunday, however, 
 on which she stayed at home and looked through her 
 ancestral mementos, remained an unhappy day for all 
 her life. 
 
 She found, among the effects in the boxes, a cruci 
 fix with a Greek inscription, and took it with her to 
 her room. She asked what it meant, and was told the 
 story, which, of course, she had often heard before. 
 But it now dawned upon her with a strange intensity 
 of meaning, that her people had worshiped that ob 
 ject, that they had a religion of pain. 
 
 Trolla at once began to change, she lost her buoy 
 ancy, she grew pale, often she seemed lost in herself. 
 She was passing through an internal struggle, she 
 sought to throw herself back into that worship which 
 her ancestors accepted ; she tried to trace in herself the 
 evil heart which was averse to sorrow. She forced 
 herself into the thought of suffering, she lashed her 
 mind into introspection, she almost did her soul vio 
 lence in the matter of going to church. 
 
 These states of feelings were not, however, contin 
 uous, and they seemed to be coupled with, and partly, 
 at least, to be determined by, the great transition which 
 was bearing her out of girlhood. It was evidently in 
 one of these moods that she had come upon the old 
 singer, and, in response to his lines, had sung the 
 above verse. Death had begun to be familiar to her 
 thoughts ; and Death is the all-disposer, if he can 
 reach the Son of God. 
 
 Her body began to echo her spirit. She had been
 
 188 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 the finest, healthiest child in Freeburg : but with the 
 thought of the great dissolution, dissolution itself 
 seemed to set in. As is usual in such cases, nature, no 
 longer upheld by the mind, yielded to the attack of 
 the elements, which are, indeed, always attacking. 
 Trolla caught a heavy cold and could not rail} 7 ; at last 
 the time came when she glided pale and unearthly 
 through the house, like a spirit. 
 
 But at present she still had vigor, and was with the 
 old singer under the Tall Apple Tree, whom she now 
 asked for another song. He seemed to her not only 
 to sing of, but almost to be of that unseen realm of 
 which she wished to hear. He raised his bow and played 
 a short prelude, then he began a simple ballad : 
 
 From the hill-tops a rainbow is bending, 
 
 It reaches far over the sea, 
 And a song I hear withihe ending, 
 
 O shepherd, come over to me. 
 
 There were other verses, this was a kind of refrain 
 which ran through the whole song. 
 
 Trolla sat and listened, then said : " I wish to learn 
 that verse by heart, with its music." 
 
 " What does it say to you? " 
 
 " Much which I cannot tell." 
 
 "It speaks also to me, perhaps quite a different 
 thing." 
 
 " I never ask what a song means to me." 
 
 " And nobody can tell you. Perhaps you cannot 
 tell yourself." 
 
 " Sing it again. I thinkthesong is its own meaning." 
 
 The old man sang the verse again with a new in-
 
 FROM THE LIFE OF THE OLD SINGER. 189 
 
 spiration ; it was as if he had himself heard the voice 
 calling to him to come over the sea. The song 
 brought back to him ancient memories, strong emo 
 tions ; the rainbow still bent over him, he was old, he 
 thought it would not be long ere he followed that 
 voice. Behold, it was only a step across. But the 
 child at his side! why should she take part in the 
 journey? The aged must pass on, but the young 
 ought to stay their years out. Still they, too, at times 
 must go along. The two -had come nearer together ; 
 the maiden, at first so shy, drew close to the old man 
 at last, touched him, leaned against him, sat down be 
 side him. Then she asked for the verse once more ; 
 when he had suug it, she leaned over and kissed him. 
 He caught her in his arms, and both felt an unknown 
 sympathy and joy in their sudden look into each 
 other's souls. Age and youth were one ; the rising 
 and the setting sun already seemed quite the same. 
 
 It was btiW/he trance of a moment, the quick flash 
 of their spirits into a single flame, as when fire and 
 powder kiss. The little maid looked up and cried: 
 "0, let me go." 
 
 But the old man still sought to detain her, and 
 said, soothingly: "Be not afraid." But she released 
 herself with some terror, and ran off toward the bushes, 
 in which she nestled like a frightened rabbit. 
 
 IV. 
 
 What was the cause of this sudden alarm of Trolla? 
 Had she felt a premonition of what is forbidden, and 
 run off from her own shudder ? One thing is certain :
 
 190 THE FREEBURGKRS. 
 
 when she looked up, she saw a tall, strange man ap 
 proaching, who seemed, to her imagination, a very 
 fiend that had all at once risen out of the earth to 
 catch her, and cany her away in the moment of her 
 joy. He came with deliberate step along the valley 
 of the brook, and began to ascend the knoll on which 
 the Tall Apple Tree stood. As he drew near, his face 
 showed a scoffing laugh ; the large, uncouth, long- 
 nosed visage might be taken for a mask of the devil. 
 The maiden slipped still further off into the bushes of 
 the garden, which offered abundance of covert places 
 near at hand ; she was thoroughly frightened. "Why 
 should that horrid figure appecir at such a happy 
 moment? The man walked up to the" old singer, and 
 saluted him with a sort of diabolical leer. He 
 asked : 
 
 " Where is that girl I saw in your arms a minute 
 ago?" 
 
 The old man felt the discordant spirit and deter 
 mined to wrestle with it. He responded to the 
 doggish smile with a grave, firm, yet reverent 
 look : 
 
 " She is gone, sir, upon her own suggestion." 
 
 " What made her run off ? " 
 
 "She was frightened at you at that smile you 
 now have on your face." 
 
 " A fine young doe," retorted the man, with a know 
 ing grin. 
 
 The old singer said nothing, but face grappled with 
 face, and still more intensely, eye with eye ; the one 
 flashed iiTdignation, the other had the vivid, salacious 
 sparkle of the old serpent. The man was not put
 
 FROM THE LIFE OF THE OLD SINGER. 191 
 
 down so easily; he punched the ancient singer in the 
 ribs, and spoke with a lickerish titter: 
 
 " You lucky old stag!" 
 
 The latter was outraged, he would leave the spot, 
 and. rose to go away. 
 
 " Stay ! " said the man. 
 
 "Yes," he thought to himself, " I must stay and 
 conquer, and not run off, even from the devil." He 
 turned and demanded indignantly : 
 
 " Why besmirch innocence? " 
 
 " Why did she slip away and hide? " asked the man. 
 
 "Not from guilt; you are the cause. She was 
 frightened at your devil's face." 
 
 "Yes, a face may be a very inconvenient thing to 
 carry around with you." 
 
 "Yours certainly betrays you." 
 
 The firmness and warmth of the old singer made the 
 man stop and consider ; the look of the latter began 
 to change, and his words also were different in man 
 ner and meaning. He now said in a kindly way : 
 
 ' ' I am sorry to frighten her. She appeared such a 
 graceful little thing in the distance, I wished to see her 
 near at hand. She seemed some elf flitting around the 
 tree and over the green." 
 
 " The elf has gone," said the old man in response, 
 " at your presence it has dived into some buttercup 
 or other flower." 
 
 The mien of the new-comer had still further changed. 
 He said : " I know it. My presence usually drives off 
 the fairies and the spirits ; even children often run 
 away from me and call me goblin." He added: 
 
 " But your presence, I judge, attracts them."
 
 192 THE FREKBURGERS. 
 
 There is no doubt that the attitude of these two men 
 toward each other had become less strained than it 
 was in the beginning of their conversation. The new 
 comer was undergoing a transformation, inner and 
 outer ; not only his face, but his character showed a 
 decided change ; his spirit had become strangely sub 
 missive to the spell of the old singer. 
 
 Trolla, who was still near enough in the bushes to 
 hear the talk, had been by no means comforted by it 
 in her little terrors. Still, she bad a desire to listen, 
 and so she kept her hiding place. Both seemed to her 
 very peculiar men, not made after the ordinary village 
 pattern ; she was fascinated by their mystery, which 
 was but a weird echo of her spirit. She loved to dwell 
 in her own clouds, and from them peep out upon the 
 world,, which, to her young soul, was not a thought, 
 but a foreboding. 
 
 The new-comer with the ugly presence was our 
 whilom friend, the Pedestrian, who has now revealed a 
 fresh trait. "We have seen him masking as a clown ; 
 we have wondered at him prophesying as a seer. To 
 these two characters in the man, we are compelled to 
 give a glimpse of a third : he can also be a satyr with 
 out assuming any mask. For has he not shown dis 
 tinctly his goat's foot? A most marvelous Promethean 
 compound of human clay and divine fii'e, he is only 
 comparable to a Greek God. He can look down upon 
 the world from Olympian summits with the vision of 
 Zeus, and like Zeus, he can descend from his celestial 
 heights to take the form of a bull at the sight of 
 the tresses of Europe. 
 
 He was still staying in Freeburg, finding it impossible
 
 FROM THE LIFE OF THE OLD SINGER. 193 
 
 to leave that little world. He was taking a stroll ; he 
 had some instinct which guided to the hidden places 
 of the town's life. Somehow he went to the school- 
 house, and then was drawn by the song toward the 
 Tall Apple Tree, and still more by the scene he saw 
 there. He had started in the mood of the scoffer, but 
 he had been transformed by the benign presence of the 
 old man into his better nature. He took out his pipe, 
 filled it with tobacco and sat down under the tree at 
 his ease. He was in a retrospective frame of mind, 
 and began : 
 
 " I have been trying to think where I saw you last. 
 Your face has frequently risen on my path, and even 
 your name (or possibly your nickname), I have heard 
 spoken. I believe it was at the foot of the Rocky 
 Mountains where I met you last, in a field. Nature 
 had left it as a small open space amid the forest and 
 rocks. I noticed that the ground had been stirred a 
 little, and you had piled some brush over the spot." 
 
 " That is a habit of mine, wherever I stay." With 
 these words the old man stopped, and seemed to be 
 waiting. 
 
 ' ' I was with a train that was going across the plains 
 to the Pacific coast," said the pedestrian. "I could 
 hardly wait to see that vast boundary of the conti 
 nent. I was driven by a desire, which I can scarcely 
 now explain, but which seems to have been in our race 
 from the earliest time the desire of moving west 
 ward, and of finding some new limit to the world in 
 that direction." The old man replied : 
 
 "Yes, I know that desire, know the people who 
 have it. But it is not mine. I can find no satisfaction 
 
 13
 
 194 THE FKEEBURGERS. 
 
 in it. I would rather put something needful into the 
 hands of the man while going, in order to help him on 
 his way, or possibly, to alleviate his sufferings in some 
 blow of fate. To the runner of the race I prefer to 
 hand a cup of water to running the race or winning it 
 myself. ' ' 
 
 "But you have certainly wandered much ; our paths 
 had often crossed before that last time. I have met 
 you on the banks of the Mississippi ; on both sides of 
 it, if I mistake not." 
 
 " It is quite possible. I certainly have been much 
 up and down the great stream, which, indeed, I love. 
 I think I have seen you at various times in those parts. 
 You seem a wanderer like myself. ' ' 
 
 The pedestrian replied with a contemplative puff of 
 his pipe: '"I have strayed about a good deal in this 
 world. Not only both sides of the great River, but 
 both sides of the Ocean, nay, both sides of the two 
 Oceans, have been my territory. I never see a stream 
 of water but I wish to cross it ; never a range of moun 
 tains but I wish to climb it ; above all, the Ocean has 
 for me the supreme charm by rousing in me the intense 
 wish to go beyond it, and prove that it is no restraint 
 to my knowledge." 
 
 Said the old man : " The Ocean is to me what it was 
 to the ancient bard, old Homer a barren waste ; I 
 cannot plant in it." 
 
 " I noticed you were planting far out there on the 
 frontier. You must have put the seed into the soil on 
 that little spot of ground at the foot of the Rockies. 
 It seemed a strange business." 
 
 " Wherever I go, I have to plant," said the old man,
 
 FROM THE LIFE OF THE OLD SINGEIl. 195 
 
 as he looked up into the branches of the tree, " and I 
 always am going. I have the unconquerable desire to 
 commit the seed to the ground, and to make the earth 
 fruitful." 
 
 "Do 3 r ou think your planting does any good? " in 
 quired the pedestrian. 
 
 "This tree under which we are now lying is one of 
 my seedlings. I planted it in this spot many years ago, 
 \vhen the country around us was a wilderness ; there 
 was as little cultivation here at that time, as you saw 
 on the plot of ground near the Rocky Mountains. 
 You noticed me there put an apple-seed into the earth 
 for the people of the future ; yet they are already 
 there. I prefer to work for those who are to be, rather 
 than for those who now are ; strange as it may seem, 
 the reward is better, purer, and far more certain. Still 
 the present has its delight for me, too ; I now enjoy, 
 as I turn back upon my path and upon my life, the 
 shade of this tree and its fruit. What -is better, all 
 the villagers enjoy it, particularly the children enjoy it, 
 and will continue to do so long after I am gone, with 
 out thinking of the one who planted the seed. This is 
 ray chief pleasure to extend the hand of help, and 
 not to be seen doing it." 
 
 "That is a strange feeling of yours," replied the 
 pedestrian; "you are different from other mortals, 
 who are eager to have their good deeds known and to 
 harvest the fame thereof in season. But you are 
 right ; you resemble Providence, who also loves to hide 
 himself in strange shapes that he be not recognized 
 doing his -works of benevolence." 
 
 The pedestrian followed the eyes of the old man and
 
 196 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 looked up into the tree. He saw its crop of goodly 
 fruit, saw its gently extending arms ; felt, indeed, its 
 beneficent spirit, which had seemingly been imparted 
 to it by the planter. 
 
 At this point the old man made the remark : 
 
 " I would fain think and hope that it .gives some 
 thing more than physical comfort to those who may 
 come into presence, eating its fruit or lying under its 
 shade. It should speak something to all, in a whis 
 per from its branches." 
 
 The pedestrian caught up the word: " It stands 
 here, an unknown act of kindness; it teaches us to 
 commit the good seed to the soil, and the good deed 
 to the world." 
 
 Again gazing upwards he said: " This tree preaches 
 the works of charity." 
 
 After some silent reflection, he went on: " You 
 have done much in your simple I may say humble 
 calling. You have refreshed and possibly saved many 
 a famished wayfarer like myself." 
 
 He sprang to his feet with feeling, and cried out: 
 
 "It is thou, good old man, who hast done to mo 
 personally so many unknown acts of kindness, which 
 I have never before appreciated. All along my journey 
 to the West, even to the East, I have noticed these 
 trees at odd places ; that they were planted by some 
 hand with care, I knew by the choice of location, also 
 by the kind of fruit. I have wondered often who it 
 could have been. I never expected to see the hand 
 which reached out of the darkness and fed me ; now I 
 know it was thine." 
 
 At these words he grasped fervently the aged and
 
 FROM THE LIFE OF THE OLD SINGER. 197 
 
 wrinkled, but still firm hand of the old man. They sat 
 for a time in silence ; there was something which sub 
 dued both in their thoughts. It was at such a time 
 that the singer had need of a little rhyme to express 
 some feeling which seemed beyond expression. He 
 released his hand, after a hearty pressure in response ; 
 he reached and drew out his fiddle ; he preluded some 
 moments on the strings and then gave in a slow, reci 
 tative tone, a verse : 
 
 I would tell you, friend, the cost 
 
 Of life's highest art: 
 You shall always have the most 
 
 Of what you most impart. 
 
 The demonic genius of the pedestrian had been for 
 once cowed by a milder, yet stronger spirit. He 
 sat speechless, evidently turning back upon his own 
 career, and applying the test of the simple verse to its 
 wayward course. At last, silence was again broken by 
 the old man. 
 
 " I tell you," he said as he put aside his instrument, 
 " I must plant or die. It is with me the first necessity 
 of life. Food could not sustain me, unless I put these 
 little germs into the soil that they sprout up into fruit- 
 bearing trees. I have done so for many years ; I 
 have a line of these trees across the continent ; it is the 
 zone which I have drawn around it, and which, I hope, 
 helps keep it together in a strong hoop of benevolence. 
 I am now traveling back, so to speak, in the shade of 
 my own orchard, under the shelter of my own deeds." 
 
 " Strange freak of charity," exclaimed the pedes 
 trian. " I thought you were crazy ; I laughed at you
 
 198 THE FREEBURQERS. 
 
 with the rest of the world. But I make the confes 
 sion : you have done far better than I have I, who 
 am also a wanderer like you." 
 
 The old man started to speak again ; the frankness 
 of his companion seemed to draw from hiui a deeper 
 secret. He spoke in a lower voice : " 1 said that to 
 plant was life to me. But really it is something more 
 than life. It is not a mere sacrifice but a continuous 
 reward." 
 
 Here he stopped, as if on the threshold of some 
 thought, which he, in fear, kept to himself. The 
 pedestrian did not press him to tell. But after a short 
 silence, the old man went on of his own accord : 
 
 " Only through this way of doing have I been able 
 to work off Fate, which had its hand upon me, and 
 still threatens me at times from the near future." 
 
 ' I thought Fate was inexorable," said the pedes 
 trian. 
 
 "No, it can be controlled," affirmed the old man 
 with great decision. " Its severest blow can be warded 
 off. It has sought to grasp me: the fiend has had 
 hold of me, he lurks around me still. I can see him 
 clutch for me just now, when I think of him." 
 
 "Oldman," said the pedestrian, "I see thee trying 
 to hold back that which thou must reveal, which all 
 thy nature is driving thee to tell. Speak it out and 
 get relief; thou canst no longer keep it back; the 
 secret, however dreadful, I shall guard in sacred 
 silence." 
 
 "You are right," he replied, " at certain times 
 I must confess to men my danger, my secret, and thus 
 obtain a new respite. Fate smote me once, I was in-
 
 FROM THE LIFE OF THE OLD SINGER. 199 
 
 sane ; the marks of the stroke are on me still, and 
 will remain during life. I have to be going, always 
 going ; the price of my sanity is to-day this activity. 
 I am in a perpetual fight with the dragon, and I dare 
 not cease resistance. But my activity must be of a 
 certain kind not for myself, but for others. I have 
 to move on a line with Providence, else my reason 
 falls out of its orbit. I cannot attend to business, I 
 dare not make money ; I must work for others, in 
 order to save myself. The reward is the greatest 
 possible nothing less than rationality. In my self 
 ishness, I must embrace the whole world, before I can 
 reach myself." 
 
 " Still people think you are not altogether of sound 
 mind, roaming about the country and planting apple 
 seeds," said the pedestrian. 
 
 " I do not blame them, that is the way of the world. 
 They call me Johnny Apple-seed ; you have addressed 
 me thus ; the nickname is my highest honor. I would 
 wear it as my badge of glory, if I dared. But I must 
 not have these deeds of mine publicly proclaimed ; I 
 beg you not to speak of them. Their best lesson is, 
 that they be unknown to the recipient of the blessing ; 
 let them come to him, like the workings of Provi 
 dence, from beyond. Men should feel that they are 
 held by the inscrutable ; knowledge is not all, the un 
 known is the other very necessary half of life. Ignor 
 ance is bad, but to feel, yea, to know the unknown as 
 a factor of existence is good. Besides, I do not claim 
 to be so unselfish in the matter ; I have my reward, my 
 great reward I have my supreme relief. Let me 
 seem crazy ; in seeming so, I get rid of craziness ;
 
 200 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 but people cannot understand that the outer ap 
 pearance is not only not the disease, but may be the 
 very medicine of the disease." 
 
 The pedestrain felt strongly the force of these 
 words, they threw him into meditations on his own 
 life. The same charge of craziness had been often 
 made against him by men who could not understand 
 him, and who took this method of showing their own 
 sanity. He was regarded as a strange being, whose 
 oddity seemed at times to threaten to pass over into 
 downright madness. Now he saw that he had applied 
 this epithet to a man who had not only not deserved it, 
 but deserved just the opposite. He was rarely in the 
 mood of confession, but at present his self-esteem had 
 been humbled to the point of acknowledgment. He 
 exclaimed : 
 
 " I have seen the sun rise and set on unsown places 
 all my life, I have wandered over man}' fertile portions 
 of the globe ; I have not left a plant, I have not put 
 into the earth a single seed, unless it fell by chance 
 upon the soil out of the fruit which I was then con 
 suming, and which was the gift of others. I never 
 thought of the wayfarer who was to come after me ; 
 I took the food which others had placed before me, 
 never seeing the hand that reached out to my neces 
 sities, or thinking to reach out my hand to others' 
 necessities. I have never sought to restore to men 
 what men have given to me: I am the world's spend 
 thrift debtor." 
 
 The pedestrian stopped a moment, cast his look up 
 into the Tall Apple Tree, and then continued: "In 
 my life I have only endeavored to see and to know ;
 
 FROM THE LIFE OF THE OLD SINGER. 201 
 
 my sole aspiration has been to remove my ignorance ; 
 action has been no part of my being godlike action. 
 I have not shared what I received, and gained the 
 world by giving it away. O could I again have my 
 years ! I confess to you, my friend, I am the fool, if 
 not the insane man." 
 
 V. 
 
 The old- singer in the meantime turned toward the 
 setting sun with a cheerful smile, which seemed to echo 
 the beams that were falling upon his face. He looked 
 at the luminary with so much sympathy, nay, kinship, 
 that the pedestrian was led to ask: "I notice you 
 peering often into the sun, it seems to furnish you 
 your inner light as well as your outer." 
 
 "Yes," he replied, " it is for me not only the source 
 of physical but of mental vision ; I see by it not only 
 this external world of nature, but the secrets of the 
 spiritual kingdom. It shines upon the realm of wis 
 dom, and makes it not merely luminous, but self- 
 luminous." 
 
 The pedestrian also looked into the sinking lumin 
 ary ; he felt his eye recoil powerless, and spoke : 
 ' ' Light is for me the grand riddle of this world, not 
 darkness, which is merely the absence of light ; day 
 has the true mystery which I would solve, not night. 
 Sincerity is the hardest mask to penetrate, not hy 
 pocrisy, which always tells its own secret. I should 
 say the present existence is -the unintelligible thing, 
 not futurity. The Now is the oracle of which the Fu 
 ture is but an explanation, if it is to be explained."
 
 202 THE FREEBURGEKS. 
 
 The old singer did not reply directly, but continued 
 in his own vein, with face still turned toward the ra 
 diant body, and illuminated from it: " The sun is the 
 ever-present Vision of Truth the first source of all 
 utterance, and, I think, of all religion. It is the 
 foundation of poetry, the basis of language, the 
 ground of the seeing and the seen; man stands in 
 deepest relation to it, has a dependence upon it, which 
 shoots its image through the universe. To me the 
 face of yonder sun illuminates the countenance of 
 Deity." 
 
 He reached for his instrument, as the thought seemed 
 to expand out of his reach ; he touched the chords for 
 his own attunement, and then chanted these lines : 
 
 The eye was begotten a Sun-seer, 
 Else it could never see the light; 
 
 The soul was begotten a God-seer, 
 Else it could never see the right. 
 
 A faint rustle in the bushes behind them caused both 
 to look around. A sweet little face peeped out of the 
 flowers and leaves, with a streaming head of hair that 
 turned to golden strands, in the last rays of the sun. 
 That wreathed countenance seemed to be a part of the 
 bushy plot. Nature was there shooting up into a 
 flower-face, which became a person. It was little 
 Trolla, who showed by her longing glances that she 
 wished to come out of her leafy concealment into full 
 sunlight, and join the old singer, under whose strains 
 she had already unfolded put of her floral existence. 
 
 But when she saw the face of the pedestrian, with 
 its long nose hung out in derision of the world, and
 
 FROM THE LIFE OF THE OLD SINGER. 203 
 
 with its scoffing lines, though now much subdued in 
 the presence of the old singer, turned towards her, 
 she could go no further ; and when his two small, un 
 easy eyes with a sudden demonic sparkle fell upon her, 
 she ducked back into the copse, and was lost to sight. 
 Both men saw her vanish, but said nothing. The old 
 singer would have gladly had her come nearer, but 
 when she hid, he recognized the cause, and looked 
 away in another direction. 
 
 The attention of both men, when they had turned 
 around and no longer beheld Trolla, seemed to light 
 upon the same object in the landscape. The pedes 
 trian spoke : 
 
 " Do you know what building that is? " 
 
 "Is it the village school-house," replied the old 
 man, who had already inquired about it with much in 
 terest on his first arrival in Freeburg. 
 
 "I have been observing it from the beginning," the 
 pedestrian began to say, " and I somehow feel it has 
 an affinity to this spot where we are now sitting. How 
 mightily it forces itself into the landscape ! How neces 
 sary its presence just here ! Behold it now, its windows 
 and walls, even to the top of its belfry ! it is one blaze 
 of light ! it is transfigured in the setting sun ! " 
 
 " It too is a plant," said the old man, "and a very 
 important one, from what I see and hear. It may be 
 called the second tree after the first, under which we 
 now are the spiritual brother of my plant. Such, 
 at least, is my feeling about it, and, I judge, you 
 have a similar impression. I take delight in conrifect- 
 ing these two objects ; there is in them a certain in 
 timacy which, I believe, lies not in my fancy alone,
 
 204 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 but in their situation and appearance. The food of 
 the body should be the first care, then the food of the 
 mind ; both sorts of nourishment are here represented. 
 I am glad, too, that the school-house overlooks this 
 plant, and, indeed, the whole town. But the two have 
 something in common, I feel their secret kinship by 
 some tie which I cannot explain." 
 
 At this moment the white lady moved slowly past a 
 window of the school -house ; she turned her head and 
 cast a look out toward the tree, then disappeared. 
 Both men saw her, and gazed in silence, yet in won 
 der ; they were not startled, because it seemed in order 
 that some such object should pass before them just 
 then and there ; unconsciously they expected it, the 
 event simply ran in its pi*e-established path, which 
 was also marked out in their souls. The fact flashed 
 into the consciousness of both at the same moment. 
 
 The old man said : ' ' Do you know that I anticipated 
 that appearance? " 
 
 The pedestrian replied : " And I too, along with you. 
 Our spirits are flowing together and are receiving a 
 common impress from the future." 
 
 The old man added: " That experience occurs to 
 me often ; I have a feeling beforehand that something 
 is coming, and it comes in the appointed waj'. I 
 recollect afterward that I expected it, but it does not 
 rise into my conscious thought before it arrives." 
 
 In this premonitory state, the old singer had passed 
 from his prosaic into his poetic mood ; he reached for 
 his instrument, and struck the strings, in preparation 
 for a song. But before he began, he threw in a re 
 mark: "This is the mood which song utters best for
 
 FROM THE LIFE OF THE OLD SINGER. 205 
 
 me ; it is the miraculous side of our nature, which has 
 in it the unattainable and unfathomable ; it is the 
 Kingdom of the Unknown, which is in us and around 
 us everywhere, and which speech can only hint from 
 afar, but not express or explain." 
 
 This statement gave to the pedestrian the opportun 
 ity which he had long sought. At once he asked in 
 great eagerness: "Tell me, if you dare reveal the 
 secret, why do you sing under what compulsion are 
 you to be a wandering minstrel? " 
 
 The old man laid aside his instrument and began to 
 speak in a reflective manner: " It is a necessity with 
 me, it is a part of my conquest of Fate. I plant and 
 sing ; I must do both, they belong together, are the 
 complementary parts of my being, and neither could 
 exist in me without the other. I plant, and thereby in 
 action I master my destiny ; I sing, and thereby in 
 feeling I master nay destiny. The deed alone would 
 leave my inner life either empty or discordant ; but 
 this inner life, without the deed, would leave me ex 
 posed to the assaults of the external world, and thus 
 my outer life would be either empty or discordant. I 
 must not only plant, but I must also sing, though no 
 body listen. O friend, two worlds assail me, the 
 world within and the world without ; both are a fate to 
 me, unless I plant and sing." 
 
 The old man after tuning his instrument carefully, 
 played in the strings with his fingers for a few mo 
 ments, then he ceased, and resumed his talk : 
 
 " Mere activity may be fate, mere emotion may be 
 fate. Each must be transcended, in fact, each must
 
 206 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 transcend the other. There is a height of life where 
 both become one." 
 
 He swept the strings of his violin with his entire 
 hand, trying them and teasing them, as if he were test 
 ing his own mood for an appropriate song. Soon he 
 seemed to find what he sought, and then he chanted 
 the following versicle : 
 
 Be not held by what thou art, 
 
 But by what thou art to be, 
 Break the limit of thy deed, 
 
 And reach over destiny. 
 
 The notes ceased, the pedestrian remained silent in 
 his thought. Intellectually he understood these ex 
 periences, it was his special gift to reach things most 
 alien to him, through his head, never through his heart. 
 But now he began to show a change, he had fallen into 
 a mood which could be played upon ; his feelings had 
 become chords, which the old fiddler attuned delicately, 
 as if they were the strings of his own instrument an 
 swering his tenderest touch. 
 
 " Old man," cried the pedestrian at this point, with 
 his whole inner being in vibration, "you have ex 
 pressed more of the inexpressible to me than I have 
 ever before heard from human lips. There is some 
 thing in your words which comes from beyond words, 
 something in your thought which drives the spirit be 
 yond thinking. Yours is the function of the poet, who 
 is to conquer new domains from the unutterable and 
 make it the uttered ever afterwards. What he speaks 
 could not have been spoken till he has said it ; what he
 
 FROM THE LIFE OF THE OLD SINGER. 207 
 
 does, before him had no existence, nay, was an im 
 possibility." 
 
 There was a short mutual silence, after which the 
 old man went on : "I dare not sink away into feeling, 
 else I were lost ; I dare not plunge myself into activity, 
 else I were lost. I have to put into harmony my heart 
 and my deed ; they must not jar in me, but make one 
 music. Both I throw into an outer rhythm and meas 
 ure, which is life to me, though it may be death to the 
 hearer." 
 
 After this little flash of humorous self -depreciation, 
 in which the old man showed a momentary relief from 
 the burden of his thoughts, he again grew serious and 
 continued: "You are right; all utterance which 
 reaches the height of excellence, has in it the unutter 
 able, by way of suggestion at least. The same is true 
 of every lofty human soul ; to be truly itself, it must 
 be more than itself. There is in us something which 
 joins us to the Beyond ; we can hear supernal tones in 
 unconscious moments ; we can hear them always in our 
 own genuine song, though nobody else can. I hold 
 that the spirit world can whisper to us unspeakable 
 words in the sounding of sweet strains. Music at its 
 best is the melodious incarnation of the Beyond, and 
 song is a re-embodiment of the voices of heaven." 
 
 While he was pronouncing this last sentence, an un 
 speakable longing seemed to come over the old man ; 
 he was ready to show in himself an example of his 
 own doctrine. He rose in a restless movement, and 
 peered into the darkening air of evening. The white 
 lady, dim and shadowy in the distance, opened the 
 door of the school-house, and prepared to come
 
 208 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 forth. He grasped the pedestrian by the hand and 
 said : 
 
 " Friend, let me say good-bye for to-night. There 
 are times in which I feel I must be left alone. I 
 hope we shall soon meet again. This afternoon has, 
 indeed, brought us closer together." 
 
 The pedestrian, who felt the same desire of being 
 left to himself, had already made a motion to start. 
 The two separated in a glow of fraternal feeling very 
 different from the state of mind in which they had met 
 that day. Dusk was settling over all ; the soul, in its 
 mood of sympathy, took the tint and tone of Nature. 
 In the gloaming, the white figure came out upon the 
 veranda, and stood a moment against a pillar in its 
 former attitude. The old man who had stayed under 
 the Tall Apple Tree, rose and approached the school- 
 house ; that white form seemed a spirit flitting through 
 the twilight ; he hastened his pace to overtake it, but 
 it was out of sight, when he reached the building. He 
 strained his vision to behold the vanished shape ; his 
 feelings overcame him, he sat down upon the steps of 
 the school-house, and eased his heart by a song, 
 which seemed to blend his present experience into 
 some shadowy remembrance of a former sorrow. 
 
 I stretch my hands to hold her, 
 
 Though shadow too I seem; 
 In arms I will infold her, 
 
 A dream within a dream. 
 
 In arms I will infold her, 
 
 She comes a ghostly gleam ; 
 My soul, embrace her bolder, 
 
 A dream within a dream.
 
 FROM THE LIFE OF THE OLD SINGER. 209 
 
 My soul embrace her bolder, 
 
 Thy lost one now redeem, 
 Ere we to love grow colder, 
 
 A dream within a dream. 
 
 Ere we to love grow colder, 
 
 Who now two shadows seem, 
 I in my arras infold her, 
 
 A dream within a dream. 
 
 I in my arms infold her, 
 
 Whom my own soul I deem; 
 Oh, Death! I could not hold her, 
 
 A dream within a dream. 
 
 Oh, Death ! I could not hold her, 
 
 Beyond she sped a gleam; 
 But still my love I told her, 
 
 A dream within a dream, 
 
 H
 
 CHAPTER SIXTH. 
 
 LEAVES OF HOPE WINSLOW'S HISTOKJ. 
 I. 
 
 The lady in white who had appeared to the old 
 singer in the distance, was, we need hardly say, the 
 school-mistress, Miss Hope "Winslow. Under the pres 
 sure of some task, she had been kept late at work, 
 till she glided home through the dark from the school- 
 house. She was very much occupied at this time, 
 both with herself and with her affairs; she was under 
 going a great internal change, and was meditating a 
 great external change, both of which were counterparts 
 of one experience. 
 
 The cast of the stone remained as much of a mys 
 tery as ever. The next morning after that fateful 
 event, the Sun shone bright, and he had already 
 found many a little opening, through which he could 
 fling a handful of rays into the bed room of Miss Win- 
 slow as she lay asleep, though the windows, which 
 were made for the entrance of light, were carefully 
 guarded by curtain and shutter. At last she woke, 
 full of dissatisfaction with herself, and asking certain 
 questions : Who could have cast that stone ? What 
 does it all mean? She turned the matter over in her 
 (210)
 
 LEAVES OF HOPE WINSLOW'S HISTORY. 211 
 
 mind many times ; the cause and motives of the act 
 she could not divine, though she had repeatedly a 
 fleeting suspicion ; this suspicion, however, would not 
 settle itself into positive conviction. 
 
 But there was one feeling which seemed to remain 
 and wind through all her fluctuations : the occurrence 
 was a warning. It took place just at a given moment, 
 under given circumstances ; in it she read a hand 
 writing very significant, possibly prophetic. She felt 
 a sudden shudder ; she turned over and looked at a 
 small patch of sunshine which fell upon a red figure in 
 the carpet ; it seemed to raise a finger of blood. 
 
 She quickly put down this little outbreak of super 
 stition ; she was a woman of reason and will, and yet 
 she was a woman. Certain dark undercurrents would 
 start to flowing once in a while, especially in reference 
 to matters of heart. But now came a mighty wave of 
 self-reproach ; she had allowed her emotions to run 
 away with her judgment, behold the sudden penalty. 
 Yes, after all she was but a woman, and woman's 
 friendship for youths has an unaccountable tendency 
 to turn over into something warmer than ice-cold dis 
 cretion. Really, she had never known herself before. 
 She had, moreover, committed an impropriety ; it was 
 horrible, soul-crushing. Her conscience asked her 
 the first question : What must I now think of myself? 
 Something else crept in slyly, and asked her the 
 second question : What must Henry think of me now ? 
 
 Then some old buried memories rose up from the 
 past like ghosts, and intruded themselves into the 
 throng of recent events. Her mind was a wild battle 
 of love and disgust, of premonitions and reminiscences ;
 
 212 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 she was the victor and the vanquished, the slayer and 
 the slain, that morning ; but in victory or defeat, in life 
 or death, she was still Hope Winslow, and knew not 
 whither to flee from that very persistent personality. 
 
 Soon after she had risen, and before she had quite 
 finished her moderate toilet, she heard the door bell 
 ring below, and a man mention her name. The land 
 lady came to her room, and told her that there was in 
 the parlor an officer of the law who wished to see her 
 as soon as possible. She felt a little wonder and a 
 little fright at such an announcement, but she was 
 soon ready, and bravely marched into the uncertain 
 presence. The man turned out to be the village con 
 stable, who saluted Miss Winslow, and told at once his 
 errand. 
 
 " The town," says he, " has heard of the outrage 
 committed at the house of Mr. Herman Firestone, and 
 the offender is still unknown. I am come to ask your 
 aid in bringing him to justice, since you possibly may 
 have seen him, or may have some clew to his discovery. 
 Before we can punish him, we must catch him, you 
 know, and in furtherance of this object, I have made 
 such an early call this morning." 
 
 Miss Winslow now learned, with some surprise, that 
 all the village knew the whole occurrence, and much 
 more than the whole of it. No sooner is the event 
 born in such a place, especially the event streaked with 
 possible scandal, than the insect takes wings, and flies 
 into every house, nay, into every head, where it begins 
 to buzz, to the exclusion of every other sound, till the 
 community itself becomes one vast swarm of surmise, 
 suspicion, and downright lying.
 
 LEAVES OF HOPE WINSLOW's HISTORY. 213 
 
 " Is anybody suspected? " Miss Winslow asked the 
 question with great interest, but with affected coolness. 
 
 The constable replied: " There are many shakings 
 of the head, but, as yet, no proof. I cannot find a 
 single trace of the perpetrator ; once or twice I thought 
 I had glimpses of him, but he ran straightway into 
 darkness, and refused to show himself in daylight." 
 . Just then the door bell rang again ; after a moment's 
 lapse Cudjo Bell appeared, with a note in his hand, 
 at the entrance to the parlor. He said, with a some 
 what embarrassed grin : "I have been told to deliver 
 in person this writing into your hand. That is the 
 reason why I come in myself." 
 
 " Be seated for a minute," said Miss Winslow. 
 Cudjo sat down near the door, and looked shyly at the 
 constable, who, at a nod from Miss Winslow, continued 
 his story. 
 
 " There is an old fiddler whom a few persons take 
 to be the guilty man. I have noticed him in the 
 neighborhood for some days ; I have questioned him 
 several times ; but I hold him to be innocent, though 
 unbalanced in mind." 
 
 Miss .Winslow could not help smiling as she thought 
 to herself: This must be Henry's ancient singer. 
 But she suppressed her smile at once, and said : 
 
 " Of him I think I have heard." 
 
 The constable went on : " There is also a wandering 
 sort of a fellow in town, whose name nobody can find 
 out, and whom nobody can quite understand. He has. 
 excited attention in various ways, and is certainly an 
 oddity in his face and in his talk. Some think he is 
 not here for any good purpose ; but, as far as I can
 
 214 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 discover, he has no purpose at all, good or bad, in 
 staying any- where upon the globe." 
 
 Cudjo listened to this statement and he said to him 
 self : This is my prophet, whom I heard on the Public 
 Square the other day. But it was hard for Cudjo to 
 keep his tongue quiet when there was an impulse in 
 his heart, so he spoke out : " I do not believe he is the 
 man you want." 
 
 "Nor I," said the constable, throwing a glance upon 
 Cudjo, not very searching, but enough to make the 
 negro duck a little. The official then continued : 
 
 " There is a third conjecture, which seems to me the 
 most plausible. The deed is the child of political hate, 
 engendered in the last election. Some bitter partisan 
 of the old Judge must have hurled the missile, as Mr. 
 Firestone was one of the most active workers in oppo 
 sition to the latter 's re-election." 
 
 Cudjo jumped up and laughed with a sort of inward 
 explosion ; either his teeth were whiter and larger than 
 ever before, or he showed them off to greater advan 
 tage. Then, in a subdued titter of self-satisfied cun 
 ning, he said : 
 
 "I must leave you; I am not the man you are 
 hunting ; you know I was on the side of the new judge 
 in the last election, and worked against my em 
 ployer." 
 
 The negro delivered the note, which he had kept in 
 his hand up to this time, and at once left the room, 
 without looking back. Miss Winslow broke the seal 
 and read the following message : - 
 
 "I learn that you were a witness, and possibly a 
 victim, of the recent outrage committed at the house
 
 LEAVES OF HOPE WINSLOw's HISTORY. 215 
 
 of Mr. Herman Firestone. Some people are trying to 
 fasten the guilt of that act upon my followers, and 
 even upon me. I hereby offer you my legal services 
 free, for the prosecution of the offenders. 
 
 " Your obedient servant, 
 
 "JAMES ALLWORTHT." 
 
 In this press of unusual events, Miss Winslow did 
 not lose her balance. She at once told the constable 
 that she would have to think over all these unexpected 
 matters, before she started to act. At this hint, the 
 officer left and went in search of some innocent partisan 
 in the last political contest, upon whom he might turn 
 the present overwhelming current of popular suspicion. 
 
 Miss Winslow passed to her room and sat down to 
 deliberate. Her first impulse was to aid in catching 
 the villain who had changed her sweetest moment to 
 an eternity of gall. She rose and paced the room in 
 an outburst of vengeance ; moreover, she too had her 
 secret suspicion, different from any that she had heard. 
 But suddenly a thought struck her, struck her hard, 
 and again she sat down. What if she found the of 
 fender, and brought him before the court of law! 
 What could he not describe, as he looked through the 
 window shutter or some cranny ! Then she would have 
 to go on the witness-stand herself, and tell the whole 
 truth and nothing but the truth, under oath ! Henry 
 also would be forced to add his unwilling testimony. 
 Three versions of the same scene would be served up 
 in open court to the public of Freeburg ; it would be 
 the rarest present to her enemies, and a grand free 
 banquet to scandal-mongers in general, no inconsider 
 able portion of every community.
 
 216 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 It is no wonder that now she did not wish to have 
 the villain hunted down and prosecuted ; on the con 
 trary, she wished him absolute success in secrecy ; she 
 would even aid him, if she could, in hiding himself. 
 She called the matter before her conscience and asked : 
 What good is to be found in such an exposure? Evi 
 dently none at all; it would only produce evil. It 
 would foster gossip and breed ill-will every-where ; it 
 would even throw a cloud upon the work of education, 
 with which she was connected, and possibly upon the 
 great national cause of freedom. Again Miss Win- 
 slow found the universal good exactly identical with 
 her particular interest. 
 
 She, therefore, in her quiet, disguised way, dis 
 countenanced all efforts to bring the offender to jus 
 tice. She declined Judge Allworthy's offer, and had, 
 indirectly, the constable called back from pursuit. So 
 skillfully was her work done, that, in a time of uni 
 versal suspicion, nobody suspected her of doing what 
 she really did. After a few days the excitement 
 ceased, and Freeburg dropped back into a windless, 
 if not altogether wordless, calm. Now and then some 
 suspicious soul would shake the head and say, voicing 
 a proverb of the race, that some woman would yet be 
 found at the bottom of the fracas. 
 
 II. 
 
 When the excitement of the community had sub 
 sided, and the outer buzzing had almost ceased, an 
 inner turmoil and perturbation of mind began again 
 to rise in Miss Winslow. The warning had been
 
 LEAVES OF HOPE WINSLOW'S HISTORY. 217 
 
 given, sbe had resolved to follow it, and slowly sever 
 her connection with the Firestones. Then she began 
 to repent of her resolution, and this repentance was of 
 the kind that always runs along with the dearest wish 
 of the heart, and is, accordingly, followed by prompt 
 action. After all, the stone may have been hurled by 
 some careless urchin at something in the dark ; it was 
 a mere accident anyhow, and by chance it dropped in 
 at the window. In a few days she had argued that 
 cast of the stone out of existence, not, however, 
 without some shrewd counterstrokes of reasoning from 
 the other side. 
 
 It has already been stated, that Henry had long been 
 the favorite pupil of Miss Winslow. She gave him 
 additional instruction, which was both in good faith 
 and a pretext. He took delight in staying after school, 
 and reciting some special, study not in the course. 
 He sought often to be near her ; he felt a little pang 
 of jealousy if any other boy was taken to do her 
 errand. He well knew that she was several years his 
 senior a difference sufficient to cause a seeming 
 maladjustment ; but youths have a faculty of falling 
 in love with women older than themselves, and then 
 falling out again, the intensity of the passion being 
 often in proportion to the distance of the ages apart. 
 Henry, however, was well aware that he was going 
 toward his future, while Miss Winslow was in the full 
 present, and slipping slowly, but perceptibly, into the 
 past. Already she had made history, or a small 
 fragment thereof, in Freeburg. Under her eye he 
 had grown to be a 3 T oung man, or perchance he was
 
 218 THE FREKBURGERS. 
 
 somewhere in the last quarter of the lunar period 
 called youth. 
 
 Miss Winslow could not with justice be considered 
 old and ugly, and she was not young and beautiful, 
 though she had a surprising gift of becoming so in the 
 inspiration of a lesson. She had flesh and blood, yet 
 she was still more an idea, and a very vigorous one at 
 that. With what trait of her character was Henry 
 charmed? It would seem that he cared more to hear 
 her than to see her. A very uncommon thing may be 
 said of her : silence was her fatality. Her words had 
 no age. Still there was something which he did not 
 like hi her speech her satire. She did not spare 
 him, the sharp weapon had to cut even what it loved ; 
 the fine jet of gall was always secreted under her 
 tongue. One little dash would cool the boy down, and 
 often he was glad to escape, though he always wished 
 to return. But, in his case, ambition to know over- 
 towered every emotion. 
 
 But how was it with Miss Winslow? Her love had 
 been a growth, an evolution, somewhat slow, but 
 maintaining every inch of ground once gained. When 
 she saw the boy's thirst for knowledge and his ability 
 to acquire, she had great regard for the pupil ; but 
 when she looked into the wide-devouring eye of fire, 
 and saw the blaze reflected in the cheek, and extend 
 ing flashes of crimson to the white of the neck, she 
 beheld the young man, and not the pupil. Still she 
 appeared to herself to discountenance any tender feel 
 ing ; it would be a violation of all propriety. So she 
 tried to hide herself from herself and succeeded for a
 
 LEAVES OF HOPE WINSLOW's HISTORY. 219 
 
 time. In reality, however, by piling wood on the fire 
 to smother the flame, she gave it all the fuel it needed. 
 She was old enough and experienced enough to know 
 that obstacles are the very food of love. But age and 
 experience are not satisfied with the first or second 
 time, often not with the hundredth time. A gentle 
 restraint is but a dry log thrown on a glowing bed of 
 coals. She preached to herself many an excellent 
 sermon derived from the archives of her own life, and 
 then subtly shirked the personal application, like many 
 another hearer. Willing, unwilling, she shunned the 
 river by getting just in the way of its current, and was 
 delightfully borne along, holding her face always up 
 stream. 
 
 Miss Winslow, as the reader may conjecture, had 
 not attained her present maturity without tasting the 
 bitter-sweet draught of love. In her own New En 
 gland she had passed through courtship and betrothal, 
 but she had been turned back by fate ere she had 
 reached the altar. The result was she had to take the 
 cup of renunciation, instead of happy fulfillment. 
 She renounced domestic life, she left her home and 
 devoted herself to instruction. Henceforth she vowed 
 to impart what was best of herself to others ; she 
 would rear children of her soul, if not of her body. 
 This was to her a consecration, a living sacrifice ; her 
 life was in a sense to be that of a nun. To be sure, 
 she was not cloistered, she was not inclosed in high 
 walls ; she was strong enough to be her own cloister. 
 She had intense motherly instinct, and it had to have 
 an outlet, though piercing the strong fortress of her 
 pride. Sbe found the middle ground of harmony and
 
 220 THE FREE BURGERS. 
 
 comfort in training the offspring of the less gifted 
 mothers ; thus she became the spiritual mother of a 
 whole community. 
 
 It was still love which dominated the life of Miss 
 Winslow, but love transformed and elevated into hu 
 manity instead of the family. The Great West with 
 its boundless stretch of territory, had become the seed- 
 field of these women ; we may call it the convent of 
 New England nuns who had taken vows, not necessa 
 rily of celibacy, but of duty, not the less strong be 
 cause made to themselves. By a life of activity the 
 school-mistress had obtained the sacred marriage, 
 dwelling among people and not apart in some holy 
 inclosure. The unfortunate, if they have obtained 
 the true value of their discipline, are those who are 
 best trained to help the unfortunate. And Miss 
 Winslow was one whom misfortune could only purify, 
 and nerve to still greater endeavor. The single trace 
 of destiny in her character was the slight satirical ten 
 dency which she could not extract from her soul. It 
 was apparently the one bitter drop in her disposition 
 remaining over from disappointment. 
 
 Her gift for satire was particularly called into play by 
 the attentions of a certain Dr. Skinflint, who was the 
 only Yankee man in the village, though there were some 
 Yankee farmers in the country around. Skinflint lived 
 mainly by selling patent medicines, and by practicing 
 a little in the medical profession, though people were 
 distrustful of him as a physician. He also dealt in 
 religion, and once he declared that Miss Winslow was 
 an infidel. When all things failed, he would take to 
 peddling clocks. He knew a good deal, but his knowl-
 
 LEAVES OF HOPE WINSLOw's HISTORY. 221 
 
 edge was blasted by an inveterate tendency to charla 
 tanism ; everybody and everything would turn to a 
 kind of delusion under his hands, because he was such 
 a delusion himself. The Yankee humbug had in him 
 a glorious representative. 
 
 He showed his character by making fun, at first, of 
 the Yankee school-mistress, his country-woman. But 
 revenge came in a peculiar form ; sarcasm met sar 
 casm, and in satirizing her he fell in love with her, so 
 deftly was he beaten at his own game. A touch of 
 her tongue caused him to wilt, but it made him demo 
 niac with that hate which has underneath it as impelling 
 cause, love. 
 
 But Henry Firestone was without a rival. The affair 
 between him and the school-mistress had given rise to 
 a little gossip in the village, and to one or two insipid 
 jests. It was also felt somewhat in the household, 
 especially on the ominous night when the stone was 
 thrown. But the great enemy was Trolla ; she seemed 
 to be racked with throes of jealousy whenever she saw 
 Miss Winslow in the house. We have already seen 
 how easily she was roused by the presence of the 
 school-mistress. But that cast of the stone remained a 
 mystery. Was it, too, the result of some secret jeal 
 ousy? Nobody had a solution of the riddle. It may 
 now be told that Miss Winslow suspected Skinflint, 
 but without adequate reason. 
 
 There is no doubt that Miss Winslow often opened 
 her eyes to the true state of things in her relation to 
 Henry, but she would close them again. Her bright 
 est hour was when he came alone to recite his lesson. 
 All her most pleasant thoughts outside of that hour
 
 222 THE rREEBURGERS. 
 
 were to make the lesson agreeable and instructive. 
 She found herself dropping her plain, neat, nun-like 
 costume ; the well-starched and well-ironed calico dress 
 was exchanged for a garment of higher pretensions, 
 she could not help trying to please some eye by an or 
 nament or two, which had "before been eschewed. 
 Strange how she was changing from her rigid suppres 
 sion of outer display! Little dainties in the way of 
 food she would happen to have and to bring out on 
 such occasions ; most of these she would prepare her 
 self and let the fact be known to Henry, to see if the 
 relish were not thereby increased. Even a new adjust 
 ment of the furniture in the room, as well as certain 
 little additions of bric-a-brac were noticeable. In fine, 
 she was involuntarily building round Henry the home, 
 with its atmosphere, of which, in all its comforts and 
 delights, she was to be the center. This instinct still 
 lived in her, though for a long time it had not been 
 called forth. In many ways she showed that her whole 
 nature was beginning to turn back again toward do 
 mestic life. 
 
 III. 
 
 Miss Winslow had advised Henry to go to college, 
 and had assisted him in his studies with that end in 
 view. But now an unexpected eddy of feeling set in ; 
 the advice began to cost her a good deal of pain, 
 though she hid it with a kind of shame. She would 
 gladly have kept the youth unwinged down on the earth 
 before her eyes, but she had reared the fledgling to fly 
 and aspire the clouds. He was going, he could not
 
 LEAVES OF HOPE WINSLOW's HISTORY. 223 
 
 be stopped ; the next thing was to direct his flight, by 
 some invisible cord attached to his wings. 
 
 It was now her problem to find for him the right in 
 stitution of learning. She would have preferred one 
 of the educational establishments of her own New 
 England, where, she believed, was the fountain-head of 
 truth. It is best, she thought, to drink at the source, 
 if possible; these Western runnels are insignificant and 
 generally muddy. But she knew that the very thought 
 of such a scheme would produce consternation among 
 the Firestones, and new trouble for Henry. The dis 
 tance was great, his means moderate, his preparation 
 probably inadequate. He had better stay on this side 
 of the Alleghanies. Miss Winslow was still the New 
 England woman, but the broad free West had worked 
 off something of her provincialism, especially in cases 
 of necessity. She cast about her for an institution not 
 far from home. 
 
 It was not hard to find. In every part of the West 
 new colleges were budding out in all the green fresh 
 ness of vernal vegetation. Each religious sect had its 
 school, in which the whole range of Science, Art and 
 Literature, was to be taught in a grand scheme of 
 studies that often had no students, and often no pro 
 fessors. Many of these seats of erudition were un 
 certain enough, and their heaviest stockholder was the 
 imagination ; but they excited interest in their locali 
 ties and in their respective denominations; they roused 
 a mighty aspiration to learn, if not much learning. 
 From their catalogues, announcements, and advertise 
 ments there blew over the land a great wind, which, 
 at least, was refreshing.
 
 224 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 That so many colleges and academies were shooting 
 up on all sides, was a sign of the times ; men had re 
 ceived an impulse to know their past as the true way 
 of reaching their future. No single luminary shone 
 with an intense brilliancy, the educational heaven 
 broke out into numberless small points of light, and 
 showed a kind of Milky Way, without any star of the 
 first or even of the third magnitude breaking into the 
 lacteal monotony. 
 
 Miss Winslow had become interested in a school 
 distant but some dozens of miles from Freeburg, and 
 urged Henry to go thither. It was a peculiar institu 
 tion, not devoted to erudition so much as to an imme 
 diate practical scholarship. It had two tenets which 
 turned out prophecies ; it maintained that the woman 
 should have as complete an education as the man, and 
 should receive instruction with him that is, equal 
 and joint education of the sexes ; it also maintained 
 that the African, man and woman, should have the 
 same rights in education and in every other matter as 
 the white race. It had other peculiarities : the relig 
 ious enthusiam of the school often transformed study 
 into a long prayer, the humanities into a revival, 
 while the entire community might be called a theoc 
 racy, the law of God being above human law, and 
 generally in contradiction to it. It was a great train 
 ing-school of the time ; it had the seeds of war and 
 revolution secretly germinating in its bosom. The 
 special character of its discipline was to throw man 
 back upon his Conscience in any conflict with Institu 
 tions. 
 
 There was a person in town who had shown a good
 
 LEAVES OF HOPE WIN SLOW 's HISTORY. 225 
 
 deal of interest in Henry's culture it was Judge 
 Allworthy. He recommended an educational estab 
 lishment altogether different to the young man one 
 which was not very far from Freeburg ; it had been 
 patterned after an English University and named 
 from a British lord. It was a quiet scholarly place, 
 with large libraries, and very erudite professors, who 
 took little interest in that part of the universe which 
 lay outside of their books. One could there delight 
 fully repose in the shades of learning, and live after 
 the established order in State, Church and Society, 
 while the thunders of the world rumbled in the dis 
 tance. 
 
 It was a little conflict again. The Judge called 
 Henry, who was passing, into his office one day. 
 
 u I hear that you intend going to school to Howard- 
 town? " 
 
 " It is not yet fully decided." 
 
 " I distrust that place in politics, religion and edu 
 cation. I distrust, too, its New England origin. 
 Women and men, white and black, make a mixture 
 hostile to study, and I think hostile to morals. Strange 
 stories are told of the doings there. At least you 
 ought to have quiet, if you wish to learn. That town 
 is in a continued whirl of political, religious and social 
 excitement. Besides, it is the leader in the new 
 fanaticism, which threatens the peace of the whole 
 country." 
 
 " Do you really think so?" asked Henry inno 
 cently ? 
 
 "Certainly, look at our elections." The Judge 
 still showed a streak of sourness over his defeat, in 
 
 15
 
 226 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 which he sometimes saw the ruin of the nation. 
 Henry, who had taken sides with the party which had 
 sent the Judge into retirement, felt in a disagreea 
 ble position, and turned the subject back into the 
 former channel. 
 
 " Miss Winslow recommends Howardtown col- 
 lege." 
 
 "Ah, yes, Miss Winslow, the Yankee school-mis 
 tress ! I do not know what to make of that woman, I 
 find her every- where and nowhere." 
 
 Therewith the conversation ended, and Henry with 
 drew after politely expressing Iris thanks for the ad 
 vice. The Judge had again run upon the chief fact 
 of the town the secret working of Miss Hope Win- 
 slow in this small matter of choosing a college for 
 a youth. Herein, too, the Judge was beaten, as well 
 as anticipated by the Yankee school-mistress. And it 
 is time now to state another fact: the Judge, in the 
 last election was really defeated by Miss Hope Win- 
 slow, though at the time he did not know it. But now 
 he has begun to have a stray inkling of the true state 
 of affairs. It may be said with respect, that the Judge 
 too has been sent to school to her, the Yankee school 
 mistress, and is in a fair way of learning something, 
 even at his time of life. 
 
 Miss Winslow had been the chief instructor in the 
 town of Freeburg for a number of years, in fact, the 
 sole instructor in the higher matters of education. 
 She had come from New England to the West to pour 
 out freely the oil of life in order to give light to the 
 wilderness. She was a spiritual frontierswoman, and a 
 physical one too ; in a group of log cabins she first ap-
 
 LEAVES OF HOPE WINSLOW's HISTORY. 227 
 
 peared, with an idea in her head and a horn-book in 
 her hand. 
 
 Her school-house, made of the trees of the primitive 
 forest which were chipped off on the sides and smoothed 
 down with some care by the broad-axe, was the first 
 one in Freeburg. After a short time she had the logs 
 weather-boarded, and the roof covered with shingles 
 instead of clapboards, so that it put on the more re 
 fined appearance of a frame house. The brick struct 
 ure, which we have often noticed, came in due time, 
 being built on the prominent ground which Miss Win- 
 slow herself had selected. She met with some opposi 
 tion, but she was always staunchly supported by Judge 
 Allworthy, then the most influential man of the town. 
 
 The best school in the whole surrounding region for 
 many miles was hers, and every boy and girl of strong 
 aspiration, who had wished a better education than 
 their immediate neighborhood afforded, flocked to her 
 instruction. Thus she had trained the flower of the 
 youth in that locality ; the generation of young men 
 and women just entering the active career of life had 
 felt her forming hand. Her influence, though quite 
 unrecognized in its deepest and subtlest phase, was the 
 chief one in moulding public opinion upon the ques 
 tions of the hour. It is true that she inculcated in her 
 school no distinctive set of religious, .political, or so 
 cial doctrines ; still she taught, in the most unequivocal 
 and effective manner, what underlies them all. 
 
 She imparted her instruction not only in educational 
 branches as such, but she always showed a tendency 
 to pass over into morals ; and morals in a hidden way 
 reached out into politics, and started a fermentation.
 
 228 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 It was she, in particular, who roused the dormant Con 
 science ; she appealed to it, developed it, all her les 
 sons went toward it, and ended in it, as the true home 
 of the soul. But not only by way of instruction was 
 this result brought about ; in the very management of 
 her school she threw her pupils back upon Conscience, 
 and he who failed in it was the black sheep of the flock, 
 though in study he might be the first of his class. She 
 had little or no external regulation in her method of 
 control, though order was almost perfect ; the pupil 
 had to be judge of his own conduct' for the day, and, 
 at the end of the diurnal session, pass decision pub 
 licly upon himself, in the presence of his fellows. It 
 was a severe test, under which the weak often broke 
 down, and those secretly false became open liars ; 
 but, in the main, it trained the man to be a law unto 
 himself, and much more to be law, judge, jury, and 
 executioner unto himself. Her whole school might be 
 called a Conscience organized. 
 
 There is no doubt that a certain re-action often 
 manifested itself in this method of education. As 
 already hinted, it made the bad worse in unfavorable 
 temperaments ; but, in the best souls even, it had a 
 tendency to beget a spiritual pride which could see 
 only its own Tightness and the utter wrongness of the 
 rest of the world. Without his intending it, without 
 his knowing it, the pupil when a man came to ignore 
 the commandment, the statute, the word of authority, 
 unless supplemented by his personal insight and ap 
 proval. Even institutions were regarded as something 
 wholly external to the person, and dispensable, or, at
 
 LEAVES OF HOPE WINSLOw's HISTORY. 229 
 
 most, as a necessary evil. Foundations, long-estab 
 lished, began to shake, but of the inner man there was 
 a great awakening just through the commotion ; no 
 body can sleep in the rumblings of an earthquake, 
 with the ground rolling and whirling beneath the feet. 
 A great internal light was indeed kindled, but it 
 threatened to set the world on fire and burn it up. 
 
 In this way one could see developed in Miss Wins- 
 low's school, both as a whole and in every particular 
 mind of her school, that conflict which we have beheld 
 in the community. It has already been stated that 
 the recent election turned upon the question: Is Con 
 science or Law supreme? 
 
 Judge Allworthy, the champion of legality, we have 
 seen defeated for the first time in his life. The 
 change had occurred, and great was the surprise ; 
 nobody knew the source of it altogether, but, in real 
 ity, the conflict of principles engendered in the school 
 was passing into society. Harvey Conington, the 
 young advocate who had gained the victory, was one 
 of Miss Winslow's earliest pupils. After her training 
 he studied law, and carried into the very fortress of 
 the enemy, -the spirit of his teacher. It is not too 
 much to say that Miss Hope Winslow was the real 
 power that overwhelmed Judge Allworthy and his 
 whole party ; she had done it effectually and had done 
 it forever. But in this case and in other cases, the 
 power was hidden which was moving the spiritual 
 clock-work of Time toward the hour when the great 
 change was to strike.
 
 230 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Thus that lone woman had brought light to the little 
 town of Freeburg, insignificant enough on the map of 
 the world, containing less than one thousand souls. 
 She had bestowed upon it the implements of all cul 
 ture, the common branches of education ; with them 
 she gave, too, a moral conscience, which at once took 
 a political rather than a religious bias. She was 
 greater than any minister of the gospel, though there 
 were seven churches in the place, one to a sect, and 
 several sects without any church. These various de 
 nominations were engaged in rivalries of one sort or 
 other, chiefly in the matter of revivals, and in vehe 
 ment discussion of their respective dogmas. But the 
 ministers had to stop long enough tc take sides on the 
 question of the hour, and they were pretty evenly 
 divided at first. But the most of them became un 
 conscious followers of Miss Winslow, who, in this re 
 spect, too, showed her tact and secretiveness. She, 
 with no little artifice, visited, in turn, all the churches, 
 said her prayers, and praised the preaoher, but at 
 tached herself to none. It was for this reason that 
 Skinflint called her an infidel. 
 
 But in the mind of Judge Allworthy, who had given 
 her much encouragement and financial support in 
 several enterprises, she felt suspicion to be brewing. 
 She resolved to call upon him in person. She took, 
 as a pretext, the little piece of paper on which was the 
 statement of his annual dues to the town library, 
 which she had organized. They met in the Judge's
 
 LEAVES OF HOPK WINSLOW's HISTORY. 231 
 
 drawing-room ; the free courtesy of the old Virginia 
 gentleman was indeed a contrast to the somewhat stiff , 
 self-suppressive politeness of the Yankee lady ; the 
 one seemed to flow spontaneously outwards, the other 
 seemed to be forced back by an effort of will inwards. 
 After the compliments the Judge glanced at the paper, 
 and then wrapped it around his thumb in a thought 
 ful mood. 'He had never done so before. First was 
 a little pause, then the question came: 
 
 " Who selects the books for this library? " 
 
 Miss Winslow answered it by another question : 
 
 " Would Judge Allworthy like to make a choice of 
 some works?" 
 
 " I suppose it is Miss Winslow who makes the se 
 lection," said the Judge, in a little satirical banter. 
 
 "If nobody else does," she replied. 
 
 " Your books come mainly from New England, I 
 presume." 
 
 " From what other quarter could they come? " 
 
 "Certainly," replied the Judge with unaffected 
 candor. 
 
 " But I hope that Freeburg will yet produce its 
 printed work," said Miss Winslow. 
 
 " It has already begun to print, I imagine," said 
 the Judge mysteriously. He continued: " I see you 
 have pamphlets, magazines, newspapers the litera 
 ture of the day." 
 
 " Oh, yes," she replied," "we belong to our own 
 time, and are trying to live in it." 
 
 u And you make the selection of what we shall 
 read," repeated the Judge. 
 
 Miss Winslow, with all her self-control, would grow
 
 232 THE FREEBURQER8. 
 
 a little tart at times. Her question now was slightly 
 acidulous : ' ' Does Judge Allworthy wish to withdraw 
 his subscription from the library? " 
 
 He, turning to her with complete openness and po 
 liteness, said : 
 
 " Oh, no, not at all ; I, too, am in the stream." 
 
 Thereupon he handed her the money, and had again 
 surrendered to the school-mistress. 
 
 But there is no doubt he had come upon an impor 
 tant fact in the life of the town, a fact to which he 
 had been blind before. She was not only mistress of 
 the school, but mistress of the printed page in Free- 
 burg. She made the library an instrument for direct 
 ing the reading of the people ; she first taught them 
 how to read, then furnished them what to read. To 
 be sure, her power was hidden in this case too, at 
 least not obtrusive; she never commanded, never in 
 terfered directly ; she simply laid down the spiritual 
 lines, and everybody moved in them without further 
 prompting. Even the Judge could not free himself of 
 the net-work of her influence ; nay, she had made him 
 unconsciously contribute the very means for his own 
 defeat. 
 
 Even her personal peculiarities impressed themselves 
 curiously upon the village. The younger generation 
 talked a modified Yankee dialect, as pronounced by 
 Miss Winslow, and made it a kind of test of educa 
 tion, and even of character. The angular handwrit 
 ing of the school-mistress was transmitted to all her 
 pupils ; particularly the young ladies imitated it, and 
 carried the converging lines of her letters to the point 
 of piercing acuteness. Some girls, too, appropriated
 
 LEAVES OF HOPE WINSLOW's HISTORY. 233 
 
 the sarcastic tinge of her speech without her redeem 
 ing qualities ; the important matter for them was to be 
 bright, keen, witty ; thus her school turned out some 
 pretty bitter specimens of the satirical female. Also 
 boys of this sort were not wanting ; Dick Turnover, 
 soon to be met with in his chosen calling, has been 
 already mentioned as the young scoffer of the town. 
 
 She put under training not only the youth of the 
 village, but also the people of middle-age, espe 
 cially the women who had any aspiration for self- 
 development, and who sought to find the wisdom of 
 what has been written. She started a literary club, 
 called " Every Saturday," with whose members she 
 began a special discipline, which has since that time 
 extended far and wide. The great books of universal 
 literature, products of many diverse ages and peoples, 
 were studied and commented upon, not as works of 
 erudition, not simply as treasuries of beautiful ex 
 pression, but as lights for right living. It was found 
 that all these books had the pulse-beat of humanity, 
 which was felt in them more distinctly than in any 
 other work of man ; they were in unison with the great 
 movement of the time, and uttered the prophecy of 
 its outcome, were they but rightly read. Miss Win- 
 slow saw in them the perennial struggle for freedom ; 
 she also saw in them the sway of conscience, and made 
 the best Freeburgers see it there too. The World's 
 literature she beat into a sword for her cause. 
 
 The school and the library and the literary club were, 
 however, not the limits of Miss Winslow's employment 
 of the printed page. To her can be traced the origin 
 of the Freeburg Banner, a newspaper edited by one of
 
 234 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 her first pupils, who had a tendency to be an immoral 
 moralizer, and whom she had inspired with the idea of 
 a journalistic career. Rumor had it that she wrote 
 many of the leading articles, or at least suggested their 
 outlines. Be this as it may, the school-mistress knew 
 the full meaning of the printing-press in our modern 
 life, and she employed it as one of her spiritual weapons. 
 The Freeburg Banner had a strong political, nay, 
 partisan tendency, but every- where on it was inscribed 
 that word Conscience, which could be read in the lines, 
 anjj between the lines, and sometimes in the very ad 
 vertisements, for on certain conditions it was for sale. 
 It could be narrow, unfair, and blacken private char 
 acter to attain its ends, while it preached the great 
 doctrines of liberty and humanity. It had been caught 
 in a lie in one column, while parading its lofty motives 
 in another. It proclaimed the duty of sacrifice to the 
 great cause, while secretly scrambling for the loaves 
 and fishes of office. The universal good was always 
 blazoned in the largest type and biggest words, in order 
 to cover up the personal end. It gave its readers no 
 peace, but lashed them into introspection and self-ex 
 amination without mercy, that they might find in them 
 selves what was the right, and where was freedom. 
 But in right and freedom, it never failed to discover 
 its own little corner of self-interest. Miss Winslow, 
 of course, was not responsible for the excesses of the 
 Freeburg Banner; it had diabolized that leading trait 
 of hers, which has already been observed, namely, the 
 ability to see always the general welfare in the partic 
 ular advantage. 
 
 But the enemy soon learns to appropriate the most
 
 LEAVES OF HOPE WINSLOW's HISTORY. 235 
 
 effective weapon ; so it was not long before the Free- 
 burg Watchman appeared, a newspaper devoted to op 
 position. The character of this sheet was a curious 
 mixture of abuse and apology ; it assailed bitterly and 
 excused feebly ; when it was not findtng fault, it was 
 compelled to stand on the defensive. It was a nega 
 tive newspaper, a denier tatooed in printer's ink. It 
 very sharply censured the current, because it could 
 not swim up stream ; it berated the spirit of the time 
 for not consulting its interest or tendency. Meanwhile 
 the aggressive newspaper, the Banner, kept extending 
 its territory, and had, in the recent election, come into 
 possession of the spoils of office. 
 
 The editor of the opposition journal, a man of native 
 cunning, began to suspect who was really the chief ad 
 versary, and he inserted some sly thrusts at the school 
 mistress. Miss Winslow resolved to disarm him ; she 
 straightway went and offered to write for his paper. 
 She entered his den through piles of old papers and old 
 dust, and said: "I have come to help you a little. 
 Would you not like to have me make for you a sum 
 mary of foreign news every week ? I notice you have 
 none." 
 
 The editor looked puzzled, as he well might, to hear 
 her make such an offer. But he rallied and asked: 
 " What are your charges? " 
 
 " Oh, nothing, I would do it for my own informa 
 tion. I wish to make such a summary for myself, and 
 you might as well have it." 
 
 " Why do you not take it to the other office? " 
 
 " I wish you to have it." 
 
 The editor no longer resisted. Every week European
 
 236 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 news, especially the European political movement in 
 its liberal phase, was a part of the Watchman, and a 
 part whose spirit did not always agree with the spirit 
 qf the editorial column. Many little favors she did ; 
 she wrote the obituary notices, on which the editor had 
 already exhausted himself ; she inserted little bits of 
 poetry, with her name attached, that the world might 
 see for which newspaper she was writing, as her 
 name never appeared in the Banner. During the 
 recent political campaign, while the Banner smote 
 mightily for conscience and the young advocate, 
 and for the public printing, Miss Winslow published 
 in the columns of the Watchman an unusually long 
 and learned article on the " Wanderings of the Gyp 
 sies." 
 
 It was while she was at the office of the Watchman 
 that she met Dick Turnover, the nicknamer of Free- 
 burg, who was just entering upon his career as mon 
 grel between reporter and printer's devil. Though still 
 young, he had found his vocation ; it was part of his 
 duty to invent facts for the newspaper, and make 
 them funny. It was not necessary for Dick to be 
 present at any meeting in order to give a full account 
 of all that was said and done ; he could also write a 
 minute personal description of people whom he had 
 never seen. He always thought the picture just as 
 good, indeed just the same as the reality. Yet he had 
 talent and information ; he was bright, witty, com 
 prehended easily. But the fundamental fact of char 
 acter remained ; he could not tell the difference be 
 tween a lie and the truth, and this trait of his he 
 was now putting to masterful use in journalism. He
 
 LEAVES OF HOPE WINSLOW's HISTORY. 237 
 
 was one of Miss Winslow's former pupils, but her 
 moral training had landed him on the other side of 
 morals. 
 
 V. 
 
 In all this work Miss Winslow was happy, yet a 
 note of dissatisfaction began to make itself heard in 
 her soul -a note, however, which she rigidly sup 
 pressed to the outer world. That she, the maker of 
 votes, should be no voter herself, began to be an an 
 omaly in her eyes. Gradually the thought dawned 
 upon her, that a change must be made in the political 
 and economic condition of woman ; but this thought 
 she kept down in the press and stress of another great 
 cause. She heard, too^ from her New England home, 
 that her sex were moving for what they deemed 
 their rights, chief of which was the right to vote. 
 
 The town of Freeburg was surprised one day by a 
 poster stating that Mrs. Strikeback, Mrs. Mehitable 
 Strikeback, the famous female orator and controver 
 sialist, would speak in the Public Hall on the subject 
 of Woman's Eights. Everybody turned out to hear 
 of the new reform ; some of the men were inclined to 
 look on it with favor, though the most, even the ad 
 vanced spirits, laughed at it in an amused sort of way, 
 as if querying, Well, what next? But the women of 
 Freeburg went further, they scorned the new doctrine, 
 they ridiculed their own wrongs, they became bitterly 
 satirical against the sister who had dared to stir them 
 up about their rights. And it must be confessed that 
 Mrs. Strikeback had some unlovely traits, and excited 
 universal inquiry about her husband, his present con-
 
 238 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 dition and future prospects. Was he at home taking 
 care of the children ? She had evidently brooded over 
 the grievances of her sex, till she herself became an in 
 tolerable grievance, and upoa the men of her audience 
 she paid back many an old score for past acts of man's 
 tyranny to woman. 
 
 Miss Winslow kept doggedly silent; with all her 
 strength she loved womanliness in woman. Whatever 
 her sympathy with the cause, she shunned any deal 
 ings with its advocate. She may, too, have thought 
 that she had enough to do for the present ; if she took 
 any more seed in her hands, it would simply overflow 
 and be wasted. 
 
 But there was one decided outspoken convert in 
 Freeburg, it was the good and gentle Aunt Polly, in 
 most things the opposite of Mrs. Strikeback. It was 
 strange how such a mind as the latter had, could take 
 possession of that mild, sweet woman's soul. Aunt 
 Polly met Miss Winslow coming out the lecture, and 
 said: 
 
 " Is not this a glorious revelation? " 
 
 Miss Winslow replied: " Do you think so." 
 
 " The best speech I ever heard in the town." 
 
 "Ha, indeed!" 
 
 "What do you think of our cause?" asked Aunt 
 Polly with zeal. 
 
 " I have not yet made up my mind," the school 
 mistress answered. 
 
 " How can you delay in such an important matter?" 
 
 " Time teaches me to go slow." 
 
 "You are worthy of being enslaved," said Aunt 
 Polly with heat. " Just think how we have been out-
 
 LEAVES OF HOPE WINSLOW's HISTORY. 239 
 
 raged! " This subject appeared to destroy her nat 
 ural mildness. 
 
 Miss "Winslow kept silent, as she turned to put in 
 order a cuff slightly displaced. Aunt Polly went so 
 far as to intimate that the school-mistress had not the 
 courage of her opinions. " It will come," cried Aunt 
 Polly, " it will come," and she stated that she was 
 going to declare at once for the new reform. 
 
 " I think you have already declared," said Miss 
 Winslow in parting. 
 
 Aunt Polly was one of the most self-sacrificing of 
 women, her whole life had been given for others, but 
 now she somehow began to think that she was oppressed, 
 wronged, deprived of her rights or, that her sex had 
 thus suffered. All her thoughts, ambitions, econo 
 mies were to serve her brother's children ; no compensa 
 tion, not even gratitude, was asked in return for her de 
 votion. She was withal quite modest, shrinking, outside 
 of her household ; she could not be induced to speak 
 in meeting, or pray in public, even when her church 
 put it upon her. It seemed a riddle ; but the truth is, it 
 requires a strong individuality to surrender one's in 
 dividuality. Aunt Polly was not an ardent politician, 
 though she took sides with the party of Conscience, 
 but a word about "Woman's Rights would set her on 
 fire. She would not stand any jesting, however mild, 
 on the subject. Henry laughed at her a little at first, 
 but he soon felt the heat of her heart in strong speech, 
 and thereafter desisted from mentioning the matter. 
 
 Still, in regard to the woman question, the battle 
 opened in Freeburg, not on its political, but on its 
 economic side. The rival store to Firestone's took a
 
 240 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 lady clerk ; it was not a very important matter, yet 
 it was an innovation, and the little buzz began. At a 
 tea-party, the affair was talked over: " How bold! " 
 said one matron. " I shall not trade with any woman 
 in a store," said another. " I shall not go to the 
 store," said the third. Aunt Polly, who was present, 
 heard these comments in silence. But as soon as she 
 could, she excused herself from the company, seized 
 her wallet, and went straight to the store of her 
 brother's competitor, into which she had never set her 
 foot before. Once there, she asked for the lady clerk 
 specially, and traded with her to the extent of five 
 dollars, though she could have obtained the same ar 
 ticles at her brother's store for nothing. She finished 
 her purchases with the strong exhortation to the 
 woman to stand firm and assert the rights of her sex. 
 
 " It will come, it will come," cried Aunt Polly, 
 as she was leaving the store, " it will come, if not in 
 one way, then in another. Mark the prophecy, I say, 
 it will come. Woman must have freedom too, and in 
 woman's way, not in man's; if it be not suffrage, 
 then it will be something else just as good, or better 
 than suffrage. But mark my words, it will come." 
 
 Aunt Polly was far oftener in the practical than 
 in the prophetic mood, but this time her face seemed 
 lit with the flash of inspiration. 
 
 This little ripple had ceased to babble, when the 
 same question rose anew and stirred the town to the 
 bottom. Dr. Grimes, the leading physician of the 
 place, took a prominent young lady, Miss May 
 Underwood, into his office to study medicine. At 
 first the pretext was given out that she was only an
 
 LEAVES OF HOPE WINSLOw'S HISTORY. 241 
 
 assistant ; but as she was seen delving in the books of 
 his medical library, and poring over horrible wood 
 cuts in the " Outlines of Anatomy," it was justly in 
 ferred that she was studying these pictures not for 
 their beauty, but for their utility. The secret came 
 out with an explosion: Miss May Underwood was 
 going to be a doctor. Oh horror ! She was beautiful, 
 very capable, of excellent education, of one of the 
 best families. What could induce her to such a 
 career ? 
 
 The first cause was not far to seek, though carefully 
 secreted it was none other than Miss Hope Wins- 
 low. The latter had educated Miss May, had given 
 her private lessons in Latin that she might know the 
 meaning of the names of the bones and muscles, and 
 understand the nomenclature of science generally. 
 The school-mistress had inspired the pupil with a new 
 right the right to a choice of vocation, to which 
 taste, training and genius led. The woman is not to 
 be excluded from the fullest and truest activity of 
 which she is capable. Miss Winslow herself was the 
 living example of success in one great profession ; 
 Miss Underwood, with her guidance and advice, 
 reached out for another. Economic freedom had 
 dawned on the women of Freeburg, though under 
 their own strong protest that the sun ought not to 
 rise. Dr. Skinflint, the quack, in particular was 
 opposed to letting women enter the medical profes 
 sion. He would again have to start peddling clocks. 
 
 One of the curious turns of this affair was, that Dr. 
 Grimes was a Southerner and a conservative, but he 
 clung with a Kentuckian's chivalry to the young lady 
 
 16
 
 242 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 whom he had taken as his pupil. His intimate friend, 
 Judge Allworthy, remonstrated with him, and ended 
 with a terrible prophecy : ' ' These women will yet come 
 into the legal profession." "It might improve you, 
 if they did," responded the Doctor. But the Judge 
 soon recovered himself, and with a genial smile, de 
 clared : "Yes, we are all in the stream, borne forward, 
 though resisting." Judge Allworthy, that oldest pu 
 pil of the school-mistress in the village, is learning his 
 lesson, learning it well, and may yet, in spite of his 
 years, reach the head of the class. But the young 
 advocate, Harvey Conington, whom we have seen as 
 the successful candidate in the recent election, seems, 
 after getting his hand on the plow, to be looking back. 
 When he heard of this new breaking of old shackles, 
 he was actually startled, and exclaimed with a puz 
 zled look: " Where is this thing going to end? What 
 sort of a world will it be when we all get emanci 
 pated black and white, man and woman, old and 
 young? " This was the ardent orator who had helped 
 let in the deluge ; but a few weeks of his office, the 
 judgeship, in which he had to stand by what was es 
 tablished, or be dashed to pieces at once upon an 
 ocean of caprice, had already sufficed to color his way 
 of thinking. On the contrary, Judge Allworthy, 
 freed from official trammels, was slowly passing into a 
 new horizon of vision. 
 
 In this way it may with truth be declared, that the 
 Yankee school-mistress had taken spiritual possession 
 of Freeburg, and had inoculated it with all her tenden 
 cies, which were, moreover, the tendencies of the time. 
 Education was her open, direct employment, but with
 
 LEAVES OF HOPE WINSLOW'S HISTORY. 243 
 
 it she coupled her hidden vocation, which extended its 
 influence to the public affairs of the community, nay, 
 of the commonwealth, as well as reached down into 
 the private workings of every individual soul. She 
 had stamped her mind and character upon the town 
 far more than any other person in it ; she had really 
 transformed it into a school of which she was the 
 mistress. Indeed, the world is always a vast educa 
 tional establishment, good or bad, and is ruled by 
 some invisible pedagogue with his birch, whereof the 
 little cosmic shred called Freeburg is at present a 
 burning example. 
 
 The light of knowledge shone into every soul of the 
 community ; nobody was excluded, in fact, there was 
 strong invitation to come and partake of the common 
 property of mankind called intelligence. Yet there 
 was one exception. There was one individual who 
 had no invitation, no chance, no right to share in the 
 general illumination. It was Cudjo Bell, the African, 
 reputed runaway slave, whom law and prejudice did 
 not permit to be educated, even in Freeburg. His 
 black skin showed not only the darkness of the poor 
 negro, but still more the darkness of the community, 
 of the whole land. As long as he remained ignorant, 
 light was not universal ; and as long as the citizens 
 compelled o,r even permitted him to remain ignorant, 
 they were in the dark, and they had yet to learn the 
 chief lesson of education. That one human being, 
 Cudjo -Bell, stood in the sunlight which beneficently 
 fell from heaven, and, like a portentous black colossus, 
 cast a shadow over all Freeburg.
 
 244 THE FREEBDRGERS. 
 
 Miss Winslow was the person who saw that shadow 
 most distinctly, and the person who felt its chill most 
 strongly. She resolved to remove it at all hazards ; 
 she turned over in her mind this scheme and that, but 
 kept her secret. Her work was not done till that 
 darkness was driven out of Freeburg, and till even the 
 brain of the African should be, not a light-obstructor, 
 but a light-bearer. Her resolution was fixed, but the 
 means were not clear, when a little turn of chance 
 brought the plan to sudden consummation. She hap 
 pened to meet Cudjo one day, and observed that he 
 was trying to learn something, in a playful manner, 
 from the school-children. She saw at once that she 
 could have a willing pupil. She told him to come to 
 her school, under the pretext of wishing him to do 
 some work ; there, after school hours, the lessons be 
 gan which were to banish the Ethiopian night of Free- 
 burg. The two, the African man and the Caucasian 
 woman, were alone together in secrecy, day after day 
 wrestling with Powers of Darkness. 
 
 The conduct of Miss Winslow in this matter was not 
 strictly according to law, written and unwritten. The 
 established order of the country, social and political, 
 was against her, but she secretly defied it, and went 
 ahead. The enactment against light and humanity, 
 especially against conscience, she met with her own 
 inner legislation. There was still a party in opposi 
 tion, though it had been recently defeated in Freeburg, 
 and Miss Winslow was forced at times to hear its 
 voice. She would even query, now and then, in her 
 own heart: "What is going to become of the law?
 
 LEAVES OF HOPE WINSLOW's HISTORY. 245 
 
 Is it a phantom which will disappear? I look upon 
 Cucljo Bell and see it annihilated ; he lives here in 
 despite of it, and moves forward to light against all 
 its powers. Where is it just now? " 
 
 VI. 
 
 About this time a traveler alighted at the inn of the 
 village, and made himself as comfortable as possible 
 under the circumstances. He was the second stranger 
 in Freeburg, and showed a strong contrast with the 
 first one, the pedestrian, who still remained in town. 
 The new man was dressed carefully, but not obtru 
 sively ; he was tall and fine-looking ; his appearance 
 was that of an educated man ; indeed he looked as if 
 his fathers before him might have been people of 
 education. There was an ancestral air of ease and 
 refinement about him, which plainly declared that he 
 did not owe all of himself to himself. He had a 
 certain reserve in his manner, though he was always 
 courteous ; he would respond with candor to any 
 question, if it did not pertain to himself. Personal 
 talk he shunned ; it was found to be very hard to 
 penetrate the outer armor in which he encased his 
 personality. 
 
 There was something settled in his bearing and 
 look something long-established and transmitted ; 
 whatever else he might be, he was certainly not an up 
 start. On the whole, he seemed satisfied with himself 
 and at peace with the present state of the world ; at 
 least he was not going to turn it upside down in 
 order to improve it, and to get himself into difficulty.
 
 246 THE FKEEBURGERS. 
 
 He was sitting on an easy-chair in the doorway of 
 the little inn, showing all the repose of his philosophy, 
 when with an air of business a black fellow entered, 
 out of whose coat pocket the edges of a spelling- 
 book peeped just far enough to show the wish for con 
 cealment, yet to catch the eye of the stranger. The 
 latter, after noticing the book, cast a sharp glance into 
 the black face, which, we need hardly say, belonged to 
 Cudjo Bell, the sole African in Freeburg, who had 
 just come from Miss Winslow's lesson, and was now 
 doing one of her little errands. 
 
 Cudjo returned the man's glance, passed on some 
 yards, then stopped to reflect a few minutes, and came 
 back again. This time the man eyed the negro very 
 closely, and showed that he recognized him. Cudjo 
 went up to the stranger, and spoke : 
 
 " You look like a man I once saw in old Virginia." 
 
 The negro took off his hat and politely bobbed his 
 pate up and down ; the stranger replied in a dignified 
 but not haughty manner: 
 
 " Indeed! I know there are such resemblances. I 
 came from the East." 
 
 Cudjo had heedlessly told on himself, and confirmed 
 the suspicion of the stranger, who spoke with a 
 Southern accent, but seemed for the present inclined 
 to hide his place of residence. He gave out that he 
 was from the East, a statement which, if not exactly 
 true, was not exactly false. He apparently wished, 
 for some reason, to take a little glance at Freeburg 
 under cover, and to see with his own eyes the pro 
 gress of the Great West. 
 
 Cudjo passed on and was soon out of sight. The
 
 LEAVES OF HOPE WINSLOw's HISTORY. 247 
 
 man continued to keep his easy-chair, but seemed 
 to be studying with himself about something. He 
 was not much disturbed, still there was in him 
 enough oscillation to cause him to break over the 
 dead point of his philosophic composure. He rose 
 from Ms seat, and went upstairs to his room. There 
 he sat down at a table and began to write a letter, 
 which was dated at Freeburg and ran as follows: 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND I am quite certain that I noticed 
 your black servant in this town to-day. I first saw 
 him when I visited you at the Wolds, on your planta 
 tion not far from Richmond. You will recollect that 
 you then spoke of him to me as a negro of unbroken 
 will, who might at any time take it into his head to 
 run away. Through our conversation, my attention 
 was particularly directed to his appearance, and I do 
 not believe I am mistaken. I recognized him chiefly 
 by a large long scar on the forehead, which made an 
 acute angle with the left eye. 
 
 Yours, as ever, 
 
 CHARLES TODRNEFORT. 
 
 It may be stated that Mr. Tournef ort wrote this let 
 ter without scruple, yet without malice. He had no 
 ill-will against the negro, much less any design of 
 gain. He did not think of doing wrong, yet not of 
 doing right. It was a spontaneous act of courtesy, a 
 generous impulse to serve a friend, in a case where no 
 question of morals was involved. Mr. Tournefort 
 would have resented the idea of being a negro-catcher, 
 but he was one, doubtless in spite of himself. He be 
 lieved that the law had settled the matter, and that his
 
 248 . THE FREEBURGERg. 
 
 duty was not only to obey the law, but to accept it as 
 the final standard of right and wrong. To be sure, in 
 the present case there was no obligation upon him to 
 write the letter, yet there was no obligation upon him 
 not to write it. 
 
 But It was written, and he went out to take it to the 
 post-office. As he threw it down, a lady entered, and 
 seemed unconsciously to cast her eye upon the ad 
 dress. Then she turned and looked at Mr. Tourne- 
 fort, who received a keen shot from her glance ; in 
 spite of himself he had to twinge a little. He somehow 
 began to think of what he had done, but soon dismissed 
 the thought as unworthy of detention. The lady in 
 quired for her postal matter, received quite a large 
 quantity for herself and for the town library, then 
 hastened away. It was evident that she had many 
 lines of connection with the world outside of the little 
 town. 
 
 Mr. Tournefort went out upon the street and 
 walked ; he was still somewhat perturbed, and could 
 not regain the philosophic calm which was his by 
 right of having nothing to do. He passed by the 
 large school-house, surveyed it with care, wondering 
 what it was. He continued his walk; he was not 
 aware of following the lady, till she, giving a quick 
 turn, darted into a dwelling, and was lost to his vision. 
 He went on, but soon turned round and came back ; 
 he looked particularly at the house where he saw the 
 lady enter ; he asked a passing citizen whose it was. 
 He gave a sudden jerk of surprise, followed by a gaze 
 of satisfaction, when he heard the answer: 
 
 "It is the residence of Mr. Herman Firestone."
 
 LEAVES OF HOPE WINSLOW's HISTORY. 249 
 
 VII. 
 
 The lady who had entered Mr. Firestone's dwelling 
 was Miss Winslow. After the incidents following the 
 mysterious cast of the stone, she had resolved not to 
 be seen going thither so often, and for a short time, 
 she had kept her resolution. Moreover, there was 
 still an under-current of gossip flowing through the 
 empty heads of the town, and it might break out to 
 the surface in unexpected places. This afternoon, 
 however, she found it absolutely necessary to return 
 a book which she had borrowed, and which might be 
 needed in the household ; but she was going to stay 
 only one minute and then hurry away. 
 
 Aunt Polly was in the rear of the house, when Miss 
 Winslow was announced. She spoke to Trolla, who 
 stood in the back yard not far away, and bade her run 
 to the garden to fetch a little bouquet for the school 
 mistress, who was very fond of flowers. But Trolla' s 
 refusal was stronger than ever before. 
 
 " Why, Trolla, what ails you? " 
 
 " I cannot, Aunt Polly." 
 
 " How is it that you cannot?" 
 
 "The flowers," said Trolla, with a pale look that 
 begged for mercy, " are myself, and I cannot give 
 them to Miss Hope." 
 
 Aunt Polly reproved the child with more than usual 
 severity, when the latter placed her hands on her 
 breast and spoke : 
 
 "It will kill me." 
 
 This conversation, of course, did not take place in
 
 250 THK FKEEBURQEKS. 
 
 the presence of Miss Winslow, who, however, had 
 now passed out of the reception room, and had joined 
 the little company in the back yard. She playfully 
 ran after Trolla, but the latter was too fast for her, 
 and scurried off through the bushes, which the school 
 mistress could not penetrate. There the child hid, 
 and would not come out, even for Aunt Polly's re 
 peated calls. So long did the little runaway remain 
 concealed, that there began to be real alarm in the 
 household. Trolla was a strange child, Aunt Polly 
 said, and nobody could tell what she might do she 
 might even make away with herself in one of her spells. 
 A search began, the leading person in the search being 
 Miss Winslow, who could not suppress her strong 
 agitation. "Another counterstroke of my fiend in 
 this fateful spot," she thought to herself, as she pushed 
 through the bushes in much discomfort; " every visit 
 of mine to this house becomes a visitation, and yet 
 I return. Let the demon catch me when I come 
 again." 
 
 She was in an impatient mood ; Henry had nowhere 
 appeared, and still she had fallen into trouble, with 
 out even the satisfaction of a glimpse of what she 
 went for. She was now in a condition to write a 
 stinging satire upon herself. 
 
 She kept up her search through many a bramble 
 and briar, till at last she saw the edge of a garment 
 hanging out from a clump of bushes in a distant 
 corner of the garden. No path led to it, but Miss 
 Winslow pushed herself to the spot by main force, 
 and clutched the shred of clothing ; she pulled it with
 
 LEAVES OF HOPE WINSLOW'S HISTORY. 251 
 
 energy, and out came Trolla, though squirming to get 
 back into her hiding-place. Miss "Winslow cried : 
 
 " Why, Trolla, how can you act in this way?" 
 
 Trolla still wriggled, and sought to free herself of 
 the tight grip of the school-mistress. 
 
 " Aunt Polly has called you, and you never an 
 swered. We have all been so frightened about you." 
 
 But Trolla still tried to crawl into her bushy cover, 
 exclaiming : 
 
 " O, leave me here alone !" 
 
 Miss Winslow began to relax her hold, and said 
 with a touch of sorrow : 
 
 " What have I done, child, that you should fear me 
 thus?" 
 
 Trolla was moved, and began to desist from her 
 struggles ; she turned about, as if in some effort of 
 self-mastery, and looked into the face of Miss Win- 
 slow who went on: "Tell me, for what have I de 
 served this treatment at your hands? You began it 
 long ago, and have continued it till now, increasing in 
 bitterness. Tell me, what have I done to you?" 
 
 Trolla tried no longer to go back to her hiding- 
 place ; in fact, she was now free to go where she 
 pleased. She braced herself up for her supreme exer 
 tion of strength, and then said : " O Miss Hope, you 
 must not take Harry away." 
 
 " Why do you say that, foolish girl? What strange 
 notion has got into your head about Harry ? I shall 
 not take him away ; I am going off myself and leave 
 you all." 
 
 With this answer, Miss Winslow quit the child and 
 hurried through the garden ; she had shown unques-
 
 252 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 tionably certain signs of rising wrath. But she sooa 
 took the second thought, and began to change to some 
 thing akin to pity ; she had felt her own pang in the 
 little girl's heart; she saw a sudden image of herself 
 in the sorrows of a child, and could not withhold her 
 sympathy. She looked back several times, but con 
 tinued to walk ahead. 
 
 The words of Trolla had, indeed, cut home, through 
 every layer, thick and thin, of disguise. Miss Win- 
 slow soon reached the house, where she left word that 
 she had found Trolla in the garden. She at once ex 
 cused herself from staying longer, and passed out of 
 the front door, as Trolla entered at the rear, with a 
 look by no means joyous. She, too, had felt her own 
 pang in the heart of the school- mistress; each had dis 
 covered the other by passing through a strange scale 
 of jealousy, anger, pain, recognition. 
 
 Trolla received much reproof from Aunt Polly for 
 her behavior in this matter ; but she deigned to give 
 no reply in regard to the cause of her action. At 
 present, she uttered not a syllable of complaint 
 against Miss Winslow, and afterwards she steadfastly 
 maintained her silence. 
 
 In this mood, Trolla went to her room, and began 
 to think over the situation. She knew that Henry was 
 going to college, and she was resigned to the separa 
 tion. She thought, too, of Miss Winslow, and felt a 
 sympathy never experienced before. She looked at 
 the things she had taken out of the old boxes the 
 supposed mementos of her unknown parents. She 
 thought of her lot, thought of what she had to en 
 dure; but did not others have to suffer? She picked
 
 LEAVES OF HOPE WINSLOw's HISTORY. 253 
 
 up the crucifix and pressed it unconsciously to her 
 breast. In her pain she resolved to give no more 
 pain ; her sorrow had brought her so early to under 
 stand the sorrows of others. The child had felt the 
 soul-freeing touch of charity. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Miss Winslow felt that she had received another 
 lesson, quite as impressive in certain respects as 
 the cast of that stone of destiny. She had really 
 made her recent visit for the purpose of seeing Henry ; 
 this she could not deny to herself, though she might 
 deny it to others. The house of the Firestones had 
 again been a trap into which her secretest heart had 
 been enticed by a sweet hope, when it was caught in 
 the act and rudely exposed. 
 
 She could not help acknowledging to herself, that 
 she had already begun to repent of the advice she had 
 given Henry about going to college ; she felt a care 
 fully disguised unwillingness to see him leave her 
 side. In her special love, she had lost a good share of 
 her universal love, though she still held up to herself 
 her high motives. She was almost ready to keep the 
 youth for herself against his welfare, though she 
 was beginning to persuade hfirself , that it was now his 
 welfare to remain at home. She thought she might 
 give him a better training than the college, whereupon 
 her imagination started to build a portentous air-castle 
 of duty. Many were the excuses which she made 
 against her own reproaches, many the self-defenses 
 against her own attacks.
 
 254 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 But the little word of a child had blown her grand 
 citadel of disguise to atoms, and her soul stood naked 
 before her eyes. She beheld herself under her veil, 
 and she was startled at the view. There is a conven 
 tional drapery with which people cover the nude soul, 
 lest they see it too plainly for comfort. Miss Winslow 
 tore away that drapery, it had suddenly become hate 
 ful to her ; she was no longer to let herself deceive 
 herself. She exclaimed: "O no! it cannot be! 
 There is the difference of age, of circumstances, of 
 temperament! Then there is Destiny's hand, always 
 tlmisting itself in between us! No, it cannot be." 
 
 In such moments the spirit looks backward through 
 life, to get the line of its career. Miss Winslow be 
 gan to review her past history: "Why should this 
 demon of love haunt me, wherever I go? Through 
 all changes of place and all transformations of mind it 
 pursues me and finds me. I thought I left it behind 
 when I quit my home in New England. I fled from 
 the habitation of my fathers, and crossed half a conti 
 nent to get rid of it, but here it comes after me, rising 
 up with new fury. It curses me, it makes me frantic. 
 Would that my heart's blood once for all might be 
 drunk by the vampyre ! " 
 
 Saying these hot words, she went up and down the 
 room in agony. But with utterance came mitigation, 
 and a wave of reflection rolled into that tempest of 
 passion. She thought: " Why does this fiend pursue 
 some and not others? Why is it impossible to escape 
 him? Flee to the ends of the earth, he is in pursuit; 
 go up to the top of the mountain, he is there ; descend 
 into the depths of the sea, he is there. I see it, there
 
 LEAVES OF HOPE WINSLOW's HISTORY. 255 
 
 can be but one reason : I take him along, the fiend is 
 within me, else he could never be outside of me." 
 
 She was turning back and taking a peep at herself 
 and at the world beneath all disguise and all appear 
 ance ; she was finding, indeed had found the primitive 
 sources. It was but a step to the next conclusion, 
 and she easily took it : " Yes, I must think so ; it was 
 sent upon me before, that I might renounce it. I did 
 renounce it, but it comes again ; it has taken up its old 
 abode within me. Is another lesson needed? Must I 
 renounce again, and still again? Is the whole road of 
 my life to be lined on both sides with these painful 
 crucifixions? " 
 
 There could be only one answer to all these ques 
 tions ; in fact, they were asked because they had already 
 been answered. Miss Winslow saw the necessity 
 of making a new renunciation. She was ready ; she 
 would give up the beloved object and the love. She 
 spoke more calmly: " I see this is my pathway, and I 
 must walk in it ; I must leave again, I must do over 
 elsewhere what I have already done." 
 
 Her excitement increased with the thought. How 
 gladly would she have called in a friend to help her 
 through this trial ! But what friend could understand 
 her situation? Her battle had both its contending 
 sides in the walls of her heart ; her deepest talk could 
 only be to herself, in the form of a dialogue with her 
 self. She paced her room more rapidly, she ran out 
 into the air for breath ; the room and the world were 
 getting too close, and were stifling her. Under the 
 open sky, with the stars above her, she involuntarily 
 raised both hands and cried out : ' ' Here in this' pres-
 
 256 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 ence I proclaim it, and bind my soul with an oath : I 
 do renounce." 
 
 She at once found relief. The resolution being un 
 alterably made, the highest bound is leaped and the re 
 action sets in. Miss Winslow seldom wept, never in 
 her most painful moments, she had too much forti 
 tude. But now the release was felt, the tension re 
 laxed suddenly, and the tears began to fall, when the 
 reason for them no longer existed. The thunderbolt 
 often strikes without an accompanying raindrop ; after 
 the clap the eased tempest spends itself in a mild 
 shower. Miss Winslow went back to her room, it was 
 getting late ; she undressed herself and lay down upon 
 her bed, thinking the crisis was past. But somehow 
 she could not sleep ; thoughts kept rolling and gather 
 ing through her mind, like clouds ; she soon saw signs, 
 in her spiritual horizon, that another storm was brew 
 ing- 
 She had, it is true, renounced ; the deed was sincere 
 and solemn. But no renunciation is fruitful, till it be 
 comes active and starts to sowing seed. Merely to 
 give up and be silent is not enough, and may be a 
 mockery. Even to endure is only a passivity ; though 
 it be beautiful, it ends in no result. There must be 
 some actual doing in endurance itself, if it be at all en 
 durable. To hold out with fortitude under calamity, 
 is necessary, but that is only a preparation. It is 
 when the unfortunate moves forth to succor the unfor 
 tunate, that affliction has risen above endurance into 
 activity, has really risen above itself and cured the 
 wound of its own making. Stoicism cannot be the 
 end, a savage indifference to pain cannot be the true
 
 LEAVES OF HOPE WINSLOW's HISTORY. 257 
 
 philosophy, which ought rather to convert pain into a 
 double ministry, both unto ourselves and our fellow- 
 man. Sorrow finds our own heart, but it must, 
 through the same discovery, find the heart of others. 
 The transfiguration of pain, in whatever form it may 
 appear, is the divine part of life. 
 
 Some such process was taking place in Miss Win- 
 slow, as she lay thinking ; the river dashed hither and 
 thither, with many a current, eddy, and counter-cur 
 rent, but all the stream was sweeping onward, banks 
 full, toward the goal. The lost love will bring the 
 death-dealing pang, which must be endured, mid throes 
 and tears and fateful outcries ; but the suffering trains 
 and transfigures out of death into life, that is, if we 
 draw from it its true discipline. Behold ! That un 
 stinted affection which goes out toward one and only 
 one, has dashed against the limit of its world, and is 
 reeling backwards in agony. Then behold again! 
 The transformation begins ; the love rises up from its 
 blow in still vaster, nay, in universal proportions, and 
 reaches aloft to heaven ; now it goes out toward all, 
 and begins to take on its celestial shape. Such 
 thoughts as these made Miss Winslow spring from her 
 bed in exaltation of spirit ; she paced her room, trying 
 to compress their infinite meaning into poor, over 
 burdened words. 
 
 Many years before the present time, Miss Winslow 
 had mastered her first heart-break ; the struggle had 
 been deep and long, but she had taken its training and 
 
 obtained the fruition. Trial brought her into a more 
 
 
 perfect existence ; she consecrated herself to the new 
 iove, which after a period of quiescence, flamed up out 
 
 J7
 
 258 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 of the ashes of the old love. It has already been told 
 how she moved to the West, and gave the light of her 
 life to the new world there emerging out of darkness. 
 Education was the means, humanity was the goal, of 
 her endeavor. 
 
 But now she found that she must make the same 
 sacrifice again. She must leave Freeburg, her first 
 seed-field ; she had performed her mission. In think 
 ing over these matters, she exclaimed: "I feel my 
 work here is done ; others can take it from my hands 
 and carry it on my spiritual sons and daughters, 
 whom I have reared in these years. The oil of that 
 first sacrifice has burned out, I have become selfish 
 again, soon I shall give no light. The second sacrifice 
 must be made, the victim is chosen, self-chosen ; look 
 down, ye Powers, I am ready." 
 
 She went to the window and threw it open ; she 
 gazed upwards into the starry canopy and felt a strange 
 congeniality with those eyes of eternity. . Again a calm 
 set in, coming apparently from the spheres beyond, 
 and, for a time she sank away into that vast celestial 
 sea of silence above her. 
 
 Already she had, in sober, retrospective moments, 
 experienced some such presentiment of a work done ; 
 she had heard the clock of her soul striking the hour 
 for a fresh dejiarture. The new trial of love was but 
 an indication sent in advance, a sign-board set up on 
 her life-road and pointing out the way. She looked 
 further and drew the conclusion, that she had become 
 inharmonious with the present order around her, that 
 she was no longer internally fitted to remain in her old 
 place, and that she must go through the second purify-
 
 LEAVES OF HOPE WINSLOW's HISTORY. 259 
 
 ing process or stay forever stunted in growth. She 
 brooded somewhat, and examined herself ; in this con 
 dition, conscience came to the aid of her new resolu 
 tion with a decisive power. 
 
 It thus became clearer and clearer to her mind that 
 she must make one more remove. She resolved, when 
 she had quietly settled her affairs, to proceed with the 
 grand wagon train of civilization, to pass beyond the 
 Mississippi, and to reach out for the frontier where she 
 might find a new and wilder set of nurslings. There 
 was need of her ; villages were everywhere springing 
 up on the border, like Freeburg when she found it. 
 But Freeburg had been left far behind, and was grow 
 ing old in comparison with these younger children of 
 the West. She heard the call to go and scatter the 
 seeds of light afresh ; love had opened her eyes, and 
 given new resolution. She had nursed her first set of 
 spiritual children ; they must now be weaned and made 
 to walk of themselves. In fact they could no longer 
 be held back ; nature would force them to throw off 
 the mother, and to be independent, self-acting indi 
 viduals. 
 
 These thoughts bore her out of her sorrow, far away 
 into a happy new world of activity. She now spoke 
 with herself as if wholly reconciled to her lot : "I shall 
 go again to the West, I shall do there what I have 
 done here, I shall do it better. I shall implant another 
 generation, I shall train another village, making it over 
 into the image of the true and the good. I shall en 
 dow a new community with a conscience ; I shall trans 
 form its youth and stir up its old people with the great 
 liberating idea of the time, so that when the grand
 
 60 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 struggle of the ages arrives, all will be ready, in spirit 
 and in deed, to fall into line and to march, even to 
 fight. I look back upon Freeburg, and see what I can 
 do once more at least, and how much I can improve 
 the doing of it in the light of experience. This very 
 year the town has declared by a decisive vote, what it 
 is and what it will perform. I am satisfied, my work 
 is done ; to stay here longer would be a wasted life ; 
 I am going." 
 
 In these exalted momencs Miss Hope Winslow iden 
 tified herself with the great movement of her people, 
 and, indeed, of her race. She became one, as it were, 
 with the hidden spirit of the World, and heard its 
 voice ; she seemed to have its vision, and to speak its 
 speech. She beheld herself in imagination marching at 
 the head of that great army which has moved from 
 East to West since the earliest Aryan migration, span 
 ning continents, overleaping oceans, bearing the sacred 
 fire to new worlds. 
 
 It was thus that her head spoke and argued with 
 convincing clearness; but her heart, in its turn, be 
 gan to say something else, in fact, to enter a protest 
 against this new plan. Was emotion nothing? Had 
 it no right? In an age of charity should it alone be 
 crushed without mercy? The reaction, however, was 
 not of long duration ; she was a well-schooled school 
 mistress. After her purpose was formed, feelings 
 surged and dashed around it ; passion lightened and 
 thundered, filling her heaven with a furious tumult; 
 for a moment she seemed compelled to take refuge 
 from the storm in her breast by running away from her 
 resolution. But the ocean-tossed ship of duty re-
 
 LEAVES OF HOPE WINSLOW's HISTORY. 261 
 
 mained staunch to the end, and conscience clung to 
 the rudder. 
 
 Her struggle was now over ; she could look back 
 upon it and exclaim: "Defeat maybe transformed 
 into a stepping-stone to the higher victory. It is love, 
 impossible love, which fills cloisters, clears the wilder 
 ness, illumines the earth, peoples heaven ; it drives 
 the thwarted human soul to renunciation, and thus 
 saves that soul through an universal activity; it gives 
 up self, and thereby attains supreme selfhood, that of 
 very Providence." 
 
 To renounce the personal fruition of love, and yet 
 to preserve its flame in the total conduct of life 
 such was the height which Miss Winslow now had 
 reached. Through her countenance, made transpar 
 ent by self-sacrifice, shone the light within, which the 
 understanding searches after in vain. Once more she 
 had taken the vow and become a nun ; but the vow 
 was her own, spoken to her own soul, and she lived in 
 the cloister whose walls she had built herself. It was 
 already far toward morning, a glint of dawn shot 
 through the eastern sky ; she rose from her seat on the 
 bed, the chains fell off, she was free. 
 
 When, after long doubt and struggle, the gleam 
 comes at last, and with it the new consecration, the 
 world changes on the spot. Before this moment, 
 the circumstances of daily life counteracted and 
 often overwhelmed Miss Winslow ; they were her 
 crushing fate. But now these same circumstances 
 were converted into the means for carrying out her 
 end. Love itself may be the destroyer, may sweep 
 down upon its victim like an avenging Fury and make
 
 262 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 him tragic. But it may also be not only the source of 
 existence, but the great upholder, nay the very instru 
 ment of man's freedom. The outside has a corre 
 spondence with the inside ; nobody can hear the voice 
 of the divinity, till the divine be within him. Life 
 had become for Miss Winslow a lofty Jacob's ladder 
 whose steps reached to heaven, towards which she 
 was climbing, as she dropped out of her thoughts into 
 sleep. 
 
 Her dream continued her new plan, and filled it with 
 the. happy consummation, weaving round it capri 
 ciously a frame-work of many figures and flowers, that 
 curled over in multitudinous caresses and embraced the 
 one unchanging picture. When she woke, she had re 
 turned from a pleasant journey, without any of the 
 incumbrances or vexations of travel ; she had gone far 
 over blooming prairies and crossed an enormous turbid 
 stream, and settled in a great plain filled with cities, 
 where she dwelt a million of years. 
 
 The sun was high, and shone in full splendor into 
 her room ; she sprang out of bed into light and life once 
 more ; it seemed another birth, verily she was another 
 person. She said to herself, in the consciouness of 
 her destiny : " Now I have to make this trip of fancy 
 real. Many a hint it has thrown out before me for my 
 guidance ; many ages of futurity I passed through in 
 a second, till eternity seemed to have lost its duration. 
 I see that life sweeps round the Heaven-high column of 
 Time in C} 7 cles ; here within me now begins a fresh 
 cycle. I appear to be going over a road which I have 
 already traveled, yet under very different conditions ; 
 I am living a former life once more, I am making an
 
 LEAVES OF HOPE WINSLOW's HISTORY. 263 
 
 old journey into a new one, and I, the person, am re 
 newed. Yesterday was crucifixion and death, to-day 
 is life and resurrection." 
 
 * IX - 
 
 So complete was Miss Winslow's victory over her 
 self, that she felt a permanent mastery ; she resolved, 
 while she remained in the village, to make no inter 
 ruption in her visits to the house of the Firestones. 
 She knew that she must not run away from her own 
 weakness, but grapple it at the point of its own advan 
 tage ; the final victory over passion is obtained, not by 
 fleeing from it, but by putting it down in its very 
 stronghold. With such a resolution in her heart, she 
 felt that she could assume a new relation toward every 
 body in the family. 
 
 She went the next day, and, as soon as she entered 
 the house, Trolla appeared alone, with a bunch of 
 roses in her hand. She sank down before the school 
 mistress, and, with a look of reconciliation, offered the 
 flowers. Trolla spoke not a word, her floral emblem 
 was her declaration, more significant than speech. 
 
 Miss Winslow caught the child in her arms, and re 
 ceived the token with manifest emotion. Trolla did 
 net now try to wriggle out of her embrace, but seemed 
 contented to rest there, for a time at least ; the child 
 evidently tried to make good all that it had previously 
 clone to annoy Miss Winslow. Both their spirits had 
 undergone a change ; they had been marvelously 
 brought into harmony. 
 
 Trolla held carefully in her hand the crucifix, which
 
 264 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 she had found in her search among the old boxes ; she 
 often carried it with her, it was growing more and 
 more into the living fact of her soul. Still, she sought 
 at present to conceal it, but Miss Winslow noticed it 
 and asked : 
 
 " What do you do with that? " 
 
 " I keep it^ind look at it." 
 
 " What does it mean to you? " 
 
 " I never ask myself." 
 
 Miss Winslow looked at it intently, and examined 
 the inscription. After some moments of silence, she 
 asked : 
 
 "Whose is it?" 
 
 " I do not know," said Trolla, who then told where 
 she had found it. Miss Winslow was much interested 
 in the story ; she continued to gaze upon the object 
 with a strange touch of sympathy. Such a feeling she 
 had never known before ; it seemed to become suddenly 
 a part of her life, and to speak to her much that was 
 previously unspoken. She again remained silent for 
 a time, but finally woke out of her musing and 
 asked : 
 
 " Who is that upon the cross? " 
 
 Trolla looked at her for a minute with a great, open- 
 eyed glance, which seemed to reveal both the seeing 
 and the seen, and then answered: 
 
 " I think it looks like you." 
 
 Footsteps were heard approaching, Aunt Polly en- 
 teied the room. The latter was not in her usual 
 buoyant spirits ; she had an air of anxiety, which at 
 once found expression in this question : 
 
 "Do you not think that Trolla looks ill?"
 
 LEAVES OF HOPE WINSLOW's HISTORY. 265 
 
 Miss Winslow replied: "She is not in her usual 
 color? " 
 
 Both directed a glance of investigation towards 
 Trolla, who leaned against a small table, and appeared 
 pale and thin ; every now and then she gave a deep 
 cough. Aunt Polly turned to one side to get rid of an 
 unexpected tear, then, controlling herself, assumed an 
 unwilling smile, and s"aid: 
 
 " Let us not talk of that." 
 
 There had been in the household too much conver 
 sation about Trolla' s illness in the hearing of the little 
 sufferer. Aunt Polly's good sense had tried to stop 
 it, though she sometimes, in the fullness of her heart, 
 could not help violating her own principle. Too often 
 Trolla had been asked about her health, and about her 
 origin. She had become brooding and introspective, 
 and her mind seemed to nurse her bodily ailment into 
 deep-seated disease. 
 
 Aunt Polly now said : " Sing for Miss Winslow the 
 little song you have put together." 
 
 The old lady supposed that Trolla would sing that 
 former song of the flowers, which had excited so much 
 surprise in the family. In fact, Aunt Polly did not 
 know that Trolla had any other complete song of 
 several verses. Great was her astonishment when the 
 latter lightened up with a vivid gleam in her eye, and 
 began a wholly new song. It showed the heart of 
 the little singer beating witli an unsatisfied longing ; 
 it showed, too, the thoughts which occupied her mind, 
 and which were consuming her life at its sources. 
 Her look and tone were long remembered by those
 
 266 THE FREKBURGER8. 
 
 who heard her s ; ,ng, as revealing that higher expres 
 sion, which carries words beyond the meaning of 
 words. 
 
 Miss Winslow listened with the deepest sympathy, 
 and the cup of reconciliation was filled to overflowing 
 in those two natures, which had before so often shown 
 themselves antipathetic. They had, indeed, felt a 
 common bond ; it was love, love unfulfilled, and there 
 in transformed into a new consecration of itself. They 
 had shown to each other the common pang, and both 
 from that hour knew charity. 
 
 But of this feeling, the one most deeply hidden in 
 their hearts, neither would speak. Miss Winslow 
 sought to give consolation in another matter, which, 
 she preceived deeply affected Trolla :, " My dear 
 child, " she cried, " I too have lost my parents, I 
 am an orphan. But my poor father! he may not 
 be dead, though I fear it; he may still be a homeless 
 wanderer over the land, in strange fulfillment of his 
 lot." 
 
 Trolla gave a grateful look for the sympathy, but 
 made no reply. The two cases were, indeed, widely 
 different, but they showed the common blow which all 
 mortals must take in one way or another. Trolla, 
 though becoming more and more feeble as the days 
 passed, seemed to feel an increased need of musical 
 utterance. Apparently her body was vanishing into a 
 voice. After she had taken a little rest, she began to 
 sing her new song again, it gave her comfort, it re 
 lieved her heart. It was her soul's response to all 
 questions about her health, her people and herself.
 
 LEAVES OF HOPE WINSLOW's HISTORY. 267 
 
 It seemed to be made up of broken gleams out of her 
 inner life. 
 
 ask me not if I am well, 
 I know not how I do; 
 
 How gladly would I to thee tell, 
 If what I am I knew. 
 
 Who father was and who was mother, 
 
 I often pray to know; 
 To see if I can find a brother, 
 
 Beyond I long to go. 
 
 But where they are, I cannot say, 
 I know not whence I came; 
 
 1 know the God to whom I pray, 
 But know not my own name. 
 
 So young, and yet I am so old, 
 
 The evening is my morn; 
 I go down to the silent fold 
 
 Let me again be born.
 
 CHAPTER SEVENTH. 
 
 ON ANCESTRAL LINES. 
 I. 
 
 For some time an uncle from Virginia had been ex 
 pected to pay his first visit to the Firestone family. 
 This uncle had always kept up the habit of correspond 
 ing with the children of the household after the death 
 of their -mother, who was his sister. He took a kindly 
 interest in his nephews and nieces, who lived far away 
 in the West, and through his liberality he had im 
 pressed upon their minds a lofty notion both of his 
 wealth and his goodness. The rich, unmarried uncle 
 was the very jewel in the golden ring of kindred, and 
 always sparkled dazzlingly in the bright conversation 
 round the hearth-stone. Henry went down to the inn 
 to see if he had arrived by stage, but could find no trace 
 of him. While the youth was peering through the 
 door and inquiring, another person, who was lolling 
 in an arm-chair at complete ease^ caught his attention. 
 It was the pedestrian, whom he had already seen a 
 number of times, and had heard talk once in thunder 
 bolts which smote him dumb. 
 
 There is no denying the fact, that when Henry be 
 held this marvelous being he forgot all about the kind, 
 1268^
 
 OX ANCESTRAL LINES. 269 
 
 wealthy uncle. He approached and sought to entice 
 some more words from that miraculous mouth, but it 
 was now filled with a large meerschaum pipe, which 
 hung out of his lips, bent round his chin, and rested 
 with great gravity upon his stomach. The man was 
 washed and combed, and sleeked up a little every 
 where about himself ; still there was a wildness in the 
 look that sprang out of him ; there was in him an un 
 tamed spirit, which, if it attracted, also repelled, and 
 even terrified. He sat with his feet raised to a level 
 with his head and perched upon a table before him, 
 while he drew very deliberate puffs from the pipe 
 which scattered through the room the venerable odor 
 of long service. He exerted a strange fascination 
 over Henry ; indeed, there can be no doubt that some 
 secret affinity had made itself felt between them. The 
 hidden chain that united their spirits was not now dis 
 coverable ; still it was moving and slowly pulling them 
 together, being drawn by its unseen but irresistible 
 windlass. The youth circled several times round the 
 chair in which the man was sitting, till the little gleam 
 ing eyes rushed out of their lair and seized him in 
 their glance of fascination. 
 
 " Well, young man, what do you think of the con 
 flict to-day? Does it show signs of settling down into 
 quiet? " 
 
 Henry drew near and replied: "I have pondered 
 your words a good deal ; they have at least left an im 
 pression." 
 
 "You will still have occasion to ruminate upon 
 them, if all indications do not fail." 
 
 Both stopped a moment, and the pedestrian took a
 
 270 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 slow puff from his pipe. Henry said peusively: 
 "Something, I feel, is going to happen something 
 grtfat and terrible." 
 
 "I should not wonder," said the pedestrian, now 
 drawing a few lively breaths through his meerschaum, 
 which threatened to go out. He then settled back, 
 and drove through his lips a long, horizontal column 
 of smoke, followed by words which seemed to the 
 young man to be on fire : " The volcano is now smoth 
 ering, thundering, smoking ; soon the lava will begin 
 to flow over the sides red-hot." Again he puffed forth 
 a long'white line from his mouth, as if in imitation of 
 a crater in eruption. His lips curled in a smile at bis 
 own symbolic act, which he repeated several times, 
 looking at his own smoke with amusement. He then 
 laid down his pipe on the table, cleared his throat, 
 threw back his head, and shook his locks, saying with 
 eyes turned slightly upwards: "The Time-Spirit is 
 beginning to show his mighty hand out of the clouds 
 of circumstance." He was again talking to himself 
 more than to the person beside him, as was his habit. 
 After a pause he uttered another reflection : ' ' The 
 greatest act in the World's History is preparing. " 
 
 These words were spoken with much gravity, as well 
 as with a certain introversion. They made a strong 
 impression upon Henry, who noticed again the foreign 
 accent which fell upon certain words specially, and 
 even upon certain thoughts ; these thoughts, appar 
 ently, could not be expressed in English without 
 showing a tinge of dialect which was not native. 
 Again the stranger began, after changing his posi 
 tion :
 
 ON ANCESTRAL LINES. 271 
 
 "Young man, you were born at the right moment. 
 You are swinging on the great hinge of History. 
 You are carried, swaddled up in events, like a babe, 
 around the turning-point of Time." He drew down 
 his large features into a serio-comic look, his mon 
 strous nose gradually sharpened and hooked over, he 
 both startled and mystified, and then -showed delight 
 in the shudder and the mystery he inspired. Yet his 
 words and his manner were not purely a caprice, they 
 came as if autfoprized by the spirit of the thing of 
 which he spoke. 
 
 " I say," he continued, " the grand conflict of ages 
 is in you, in this town, in us all, and there is no escap 
 ing it. We shall have to let blood. Civilization is a 
 bold surgeon with a sharp knife, and he has no hesita 
 tion to cut when the time is sick." Henry noticed 
 a peculiar change in that big face, out of which shot 
 two small intense eyes. The man seemed with these 
 last words, to take on the aspect of a North American 
 Indian, showing the wild look of the woods. He 
 was aware that he scared and confounded the youth, 
 yet he had his little chuckle in being able to inspire 
 some terror and confusion. 
 
 Meanwhile the second stranger had entered the inn, 
 and had taken a seat not far from the two who were 
 engaged in conversation. He caught some words 
 which excited his interest, and he began to listen in a 
 clandestine way, to the talk. As he looked into the 
 face of the youth, he wondered ; he thought he saw 
 some features which seemed familiar. For the pedes 
 trian he felt at first a strong repulsion, which, how 
 ever, contained a sort of weird fascination ; the two
 
 272 THE FRKEBUKGERS. 
 
 were so opposite that they had to come together. 
 But the stranger kept aloof for the present, and in 
 clined his head to listen politely yet furtively. 
 
 Henry at last summoned his courage afresh, and 
 spoke to the pedestrian : 
 
 " May I inquire of what country you are? " 
 
 "That is not so easy to tell, I. hardly know myself. 
 I was born in Europe. I have lived on the frontier, 
 at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, face to face with 
 ferocious nature and ferocious mar. Some people 
 think I carry both with me, wherever I go." He 
 took down his feet from the table, drew himself up in 
 his chair, reached out his long arm, and gave a full 
 semi-circular sweep with it over his head, saying: " I 
 bestride two continents ; I am a child of the old 
 world, yet I roam the plains and forests of the new ; 
 this earth is getting too small for me." 
 
 The man brought down his hand and finished the 
 sweep ; Henry unconsciously dodged, not so much at 
 the blow as at the thought. He was indeed puzzled ; 
 there was an authority in what the man uttered, that 
 he had never felt before ; it was not a mere opinion, it 
 was not a repetition of something which another person 
 had said ; it was original, it came from the primitive 
 sources. Every word was at first hand, nothing at 
 second hand ; even the trite thought became strangely 
 new in passing through his utterance. Yet he was rude, 
 uncouth ; he seemed in part a savage. The extremes of 
 civilization and barbarism met in him ; the culture of 
 Europe and the untamed nature of America were 
 married in him and were keeping house. The pair
 
 ON ANCESTRAL LINES. 273 
 
 often quarreled and separated, but they always made 
 up again and kissed. 
 
 The man ceased smoking, he knocked the ashes 
 and tobacco out of the bowl of his pipe upon the palm 
 of his hand ; he stood up from his chair, and straight 
 ened out very tall ; to Henry he seemed for a moment 
 to rise to the clouds like a mountain. He strode out 
 of the door. Henry followed, as if by charm ; the 
 man turned about, and, when he saw the youth still 
 hovering timidly near him, he spoke in a very cordial 
 tone: " Let us take a walk." They continued to go 
 together, with an occasional word, till they came 
 before the Firestone dwelling. 
 
 Henry asked him to come in, saying: " I would like 
 to show you a book of ours. It came from abroad too, 
 like yourself ; but we know little else about it. We 
 are curious to find out its mystery ; perhaps you who 
 have told us so much, can tell us something about its 
 contents and character." 
 
 "Very well," said the man, "I shall be glad to 
 go in with you. But I shall give you now my 
 opinion. Books usually do not amount to much ; 
 they are mostly new dilutions of the primal fountain 
 of the soul, very insipid to my taste. I love to read 
 directly out of the book of life, but most people, I find 
 cannot learn its alphabet. Events are, too, letters 
 printed upon the scroll of time, as it unrolls ; these 
 letters put together aright form words, which the wise 
 alone can understand in all ages. When translated 
 into books the meaning seems very inadequate ; only 
 the primordial spoken word, quaffed directly from 
 
 18
 
 274 THE FRKEBURGERS. 
 
 this first source, can convey the sense. I tell you I 
 do not read books." 
 
 "Well, you may find this book as unwilling to be 
 read, as you are unwilling to read it," replied Henry. 
 
 By this time they had entered the house and reached 
 the book-case. When the stranger came into the 
 sitting-room, where the family had their common life, 
 he looked around him with manifest pleasure ; nay, 
 he had a glance of recognition as if he had 
 met an old friend. The ancient clock still tick 
 ing off the years, and certain pieces of antiquated fur 
 niture he looked at curiously. He sat down in an 
 ancestral chair, kept as an heir-loom, as if he were at 
 home. The spirit of the hearth he saluted on familiar 
 terms, and ere he knew it, he spake out : "I have 
 been here before." 
 
 Henry heard him speak, but did not understand what 
 he said, and inquired " I beg pardon, what did you 
 say?" 
 
 The man avoided an answer, but said, " Let me 
 see your book." Henry handed him an old volume, 
 which he took and whose leaves he turned over care 
 lessly. 
 
 " Can you read the print? " asked Henry. 
 
 " No, I cannot," replied the man with apparent 
 indifference. 
 
 "Then there is something which you do not 
 know." 
 
 "Yes, I suppose so. Probably it is not worth 
 knowing." 
 
 " But do you not chafe at the restraint which igno 
 rance puts upon you ? "
 
 ON ANCESTRAL LINES. 275 
 
 At this question of Henry's the man looked a little 
 vexed. But he curled the lip and still affected indif 
 ference. Henry continued his questioning: "Have 
 you no desire to remove this boundary of 3'our world? 
 I confess, it is my strongest aspiration." 
 
 The youth saw the shadows playing across the face 
 of the man, but hardly was aware of the internal 
 struggle which he was calling up in the breast of his 
 visitor. With a kind of violence toward himself, 
 which found expression in loud speech, the man cried 
 out: "Away with your musty learning! What is 
 there in it? Nothing but the dung of time, manuring a 
 little only the most barren brains!" As he somewhat 
 contemptuously shut the book, the front lid fell open, 
 and a manuscript, which had been fastened before the 
 title-page, lay exposed to view. This was the strange 
 handwriting which Henry could not decipher, and over 
 whose meaning he had indulged in so many dreams. 
 The man grasped for the written leaves, his face kin 
 dled, and he began to read as if he understood the 
 manuscript. He exclaimed : " Why, what is this ?" 
 Henry responded: " I do not know, it has always 
 been there. You seem to be reading it, tell me, what 
 kind of writing is it? " 
 
 " It is written in German, and has the old style of 
 letters." 
 
 " Do you know whence it came? " asked the youth 
 eagerly. 
 
 "It is dated in my native village in the old 
 country." 
 
 " Who could have written it? "
 
 276 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 The man turned the leaves over, and soon replied : 
 
 " I do not 3'et know, but it speaks of a Major Von 
 Feuerstein, who was an officer in the Thirty Years' 
 War, and fought under Gustavus Adolphus." 
 
 "I recollect that war from our study of history 
 under Miss Winslow," said Henry. " It was a relig 
 ious war ; she especially dwelt upon the great conflict 
 of it, which lay between the right of conscience, rep 
 resented by the Protestants, and the right of authority 
 represented by the Romanists." 
 
 "And who is Miss Winslow," asked the pedestrian, 
 looking up with interest. 
 
 " She is our school-mistress." 
 
 " Yes, 1 see now ; I have met her traces in this vil 
 lage before. Indeed ! That is what she read to you 
 out of that famous war, is it? " 
 
 " Certainly," said Henry. "And then she made 
 some applications." 
 
 "Applications to what? " 
 
 "To the present." 
 
 "The Devil you say," blurted out the stranger. 
 He would drop an oath, by the way, to point his sur 
 prise, or to touch up the emphasis, when ordinary 
 speech drooped in weakness. "And she has been 
 teaching here a gpod many years? " 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "You tell me an important fact of this community. 
 But let us return to our manuscript." 
 
 The man again began to read, and thumb the leaves, 
 mumbling strange, unintelligible words, which Henry 
 did not try to catch. His interest grew with each
 
 ON ANCKSTRAL LINES. 277 
 
 page. At last be said: "It is a kind of biography, 
 written, I should judge, by a son or grandson. This 
 Major was a courageous fighter for his faith. He was 
 also, as I see here, in the very last year of the war with 
 the famous General Koenigsmark, and was present at 
 the taking of Prague, the last important feat of arms 
 before the peace of Westphalia." 
 
 "That peace which secured, for certain portions of 
 Germany, freedom of worship, and with it the right of 
 conscience," said Henry, showing himself again the 
 apt school-boy of Miss Winslow. 
 
 The stranger continued to read with great and in 
 creasing absorption. He dropped the conversation ; 
 Henry stood a while in silence, and then made a motion 
 as if he intended to go out. The man rose and 
 asked : 
 
 " Will you loan me this manuscript and book for a 
 day or two? You shall have them back again." 
 
 Henry hesitated, tried to turn the conversation into 
 another channel, for he was now more curious than 
 ever about the book. But he was too full of his own 
 thoughts to disguise his wish. He soon asked : " Why 
 do you want it? " 
 
 " I cannot now tell you ; but it has a line of con 
 nection with me too. What you and I have felt be 
 tween us may here find its remote cause." 
 
 Henry stared at the marvelous man, who now looked 
 at htm steadily, saying: "I have as yet refrained 
 from asking you questions about yourself. I shall 
 put one to you at this time: What is your name?" 
 
 " My name is Henry Firestone." 
 
 It was the man's turn to be astonished, and his as-
 
 278 THE FREEBUROERS. 
 
 tonishment again broke out into a little oath, which 
 need not be repeated. He drew himself up into his 
 lofty manner, and began, showing a much stronger 
 tinge of Germanism in his speech than usual : 
 
 "Youth, this is the writing of thy European an 
 cestor. By a strange destiny it has strayed over the 
 world, till at last it falls into my hands, not without 
 purpose. I must see its contents ; in due season I 
 shall speak of it with thee further. But I tell thee 
 here, thou must learn to read it thyself. What it 
 says, can be truly imparted only by its own tongue. 
 The speech, lost by thy people the old speech of 
 thy fathers thou must recover, if thou wouldst truly 
 find thyself. A man is what his ancestors are, or, 
 more truly said, what his race is. Hast thou never 
 heard that old Teutonic legend of Sigfrid, who could 
 have no rest till he had found out his origin, though 
 he had to endure every kind of trial and hardship in 
 the search? Thou, too, art a young Sigfrid trans 
 planted to another continent, far away from the 
 beautiful Rhine and old Nifland." 
 
 "But will you not read it to me now?" asked 
 Henry eagerly. 
 
 "It would be at present foolish, quite useless," 
 said the man, " to tell thee what is here written. The 
 main thing is for thee to find it out thyself. But so 
 much may be told : thou must now be here in America 
 all that thy forefathers were in the old land soldier, 
 scholar, statesman in a small way or large, accord 
 ing to the stuff that is in thee." 
 
 The man continued to turn the leaves and to take 
 passing glances, as if he might be trying to pry into
 
 ON ANCESTRAL LINES. 279 
 
 the Book of the Past and Future. Henry also strained 
 his eyes for a peep, but had no vision for the message. 
 But his soul was stretched to its farthest bound, he 
 crossed the Atlantic to the home of his people. The 
 old singer had set his thoughts going in a different 
 direction, yet toward what had been ; the stranger had 
 driven them still further backward. The youth cried 
 out, " Am I, then, a child of that old world? " 
 
 The man answered in his familiar tone, and quite 
 resumed the English accent in his speech : 
 
 "Undoubtedly. The uarne of the county and of 
 the very town can be given ; you can see that town 
 still to-day. And you ought to see it some time ; it 
 will help tell you what you are, and what you are to 
 be. You may find some of your kindred there still, 
 quite in the same conditions in which your fathers 
 were hundreds of years ago." 
 
 This was another egg laid in Henry's young brain, 
 and destined to hatch out into a buzzing idea with 
 tireless wings. He must go abroad to the cradle of 
 his ancestors. Can we wonder that he was rapt in 
 study? He was whirled back across the ocean, till his 
 eyes began to swim away in day-dreams. He was 
 awakened by the stranger asking: " Can I not take 
 the book with me to my room ? I would like to look 
 it through carefully." 
 
 Henry was averse to parting with such a treasure, 
 even for a short time. What if it should be lost? 
 He felt as if he would be cut off from his whole ances 
 tral existence, which was waxing strong in him. Then 
 he had a dim feeling of uncertainty about the stranger, 
 who hardly seemed governed by the ordinary laws of
 
 280 THE FREEBURGERS, 
 
 mortals. But the man overpowered him. Against his 
 own will he assented, when he looked into that strong 
 face which had a demon in it. This was the first time 
 that Henry had come under the spell of such a strange 
 person; he felt the mighty attraction of the man, yet 
 there was in him a terror, a secret backstroke of re 
 pulsion, too. 
 
 The youth could not let the man go without asking 
 one more question: "You have read this old hand 
 writing, it is wonderful ; I feel I can live several cen 
 turies more in my short life, through this knowledge. 
 But have you noted the body of this book? It is 
 printed in a language far more ancient than that of the 
 written leaves, a language spoken by peoples long be 
 fore the birth of Christ, who were the forerunners of 
 our civilization. Have you no desire to reach back 
 and take them into your life and knowledge, reading 
 what they thought in the very words which they 
 spoke ? ' ' Henry held up the volume at this point and 
 repeated the question: " Have you no desire to read 
 the print of this book ? " 
 
 The man turned away with a sudden contortion of 
 the face, and said impatiently, " No! " 
 
 Yet the answer was forced, was indeed false. It 
 was the man's pride that responded, not his candor. 
 The youth saw that the man was trying to put down 
 something, was telling an unveracity to his own soul. 
 Henry now felt that he was uppermost in this integrity 
 toward himself. He added : " I am going to learn it ; I 
 am going to college as soon as I can." 
 
 "To what college?" asked the stranger, with sup 
 pressed eagerness.
 
 ON ANCESTRAL LINES. 281 
 
 "1 think, to Howardtown." 
 
 Henry, moreover, informed him of the character of 
 that institution of learning. The man listened, changed, 
 seemed to be more patient with himself. Without say 
 ing a word, he rose, picked up the book, and marched 
 out of the house, as if not only the book, but also the 
 house were his own. 
 
 But the man had taken a lesson ; in spite of his 
 egotism, he had been compelled to confess his igno 
 rance. He felt the restraint of not knowing that book. 
 His pride made him speak of such knowledge with 
 contempt ; but that was his weakness. He always 
 condemned most what he understood least. Such 
 condemnation, however, really had in it a silent sur 
 render, which he sought to cover up at the moment, 
 but which he would afterwards show by his conduct. 
 Truly the pedestrian, with all his wisdom, has been put 
 to school at Freeburg ; that is the real reason of his 
 stay. The old singer brought home to him one limit; 
 now he seems to have rubbed against another. 
 
 In this respect Henry Firestone's character was the 
 opposite of that of the pedestrian ; the youth sought 
 to find out his ignorance and to remove it on all sides. 
 To-day had been a great joy to him ; he had pushed 
 himself far beyond his former bounds ; his horizon had 
 expanded, so that it seemed to take in a large part of 
 the world. The very blood in his veins ran tingling 
 back to old times and lands, but above all to old con 
 flicts, in which he shared personally, through his an 
 cestors. What he had regarded as a far-off occurrence, 
 even under the inspiration of Miss Hope Winslow's 
 teaching, he now felt to be a strand of his life ; he was
 
 282 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 himself an event of history, and an important one too. 
 His grandfather and Aunt Polly had only told him of 
 his immediate antecedents ; to-day he had taken a 
 prodigious leap backwards across two centuries, 
 over the ocean. What next? Yet there was a huge gap 
 between these two landing-places of his paternal an 
 cestry will it be filled ? 
 
 These thoughts naturally caused him to turn to his 
 mother's people. Of them he knew almost nothing. 
 Yet they must have had ancestors, too, and those an 
 cestors must have had both the spirit of migration and 
 of fight in them, to have come to America at an early 
 period. His mother, the natural annalist of her side of 
 the house, had died when he was a child. Here rose 
 another limit of ignorance, which began to chafe him, 
 and which he longed to clear away. But he knew not 
 what to do. 
 
 II. 
 
 Henry continued to ruminate on these matters in 
 some perplexity ; he rose and took a walk in the garden. 
 He had been there but a short time, when little Trolla 
 sprang into his presence with great joy, and shouted : 
 "Uncle Charley has come." 
 
 It was the long-expected Virginia uncle. He had 
 arrived at Freeburg two or three days previously, 
 had put up at the inn, and had secretly taken his own 
 little glance at the town. But the main object of his 
 visit was to see the children of his sister, in whom he, 
 though absent and far away, had always taken a deep 
 interest. 
 
 Charles Tournefort of Virginia was a tall, dignified
 
 ON ANCESTRAL LINES. 283 
 
 gentleman dressed in decorous broadcloth, with the 
 unobtrusive air of good breeding and easy life. He 
 was a man of fair education, but not deeply learned ; 
 his social polish showed off somewhat in contrast with 
 his brother-in-law, the elder Firestone. Mr. Tournefort 
 had maintained the traditions of his family, he was 
 well versed in its history ; in fact, it was one of the 
 more serious employments of his leisure to follow up 
 the genealogy of his kindred, wherever he might find a 
 trace. There could be no doubt concerning his ances 
 try ; he could track his line to the very spot in Old 
 England, whence they originally emigrated. Very 
 different was the case of the Firestones, who had, to a 
 large extent, lost their connection with the past. 
 
 During the evening old matters were talked over 
 with much zest, political affairs dropped out of the con 
 versation, domestic history received chief attention. 
 The uncle was in his best humor, and occupied in his 
 special field ; he traced for the inquiring children the 
 ancestral line of their mother. " The Tourneforts," he 
 said, "were settled in the valley of the James during the 
 time of Oliver Cromwell. The founder of the Ameri 
 can branch of the family, Colonel Tournefort, was a 
 Cavalier, had fought valiantly for King Charles I., in 
 the Great Rebellion of England, and had lost his es 
 tate in the royal cause. This misfortune drove him 
 into a still deeper reaction against the liberating spirit 
 of the time. He refused to live in his native country 
 during the Protectorate, which had displaced the 
 rightful ruler, and set up in his stead a usurper. He 
 went to the Continent, and became a violent enemy of 
 the Protestant cause at least in its political aspect ; he
 
 284 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 drew his sword in the Thirty Years' War on the side of 
 the Imperialists, though it is not known that he ever 
 turned over to their religion." 
 
 During the narrative of the uncle, Henry rose and 
 walked about, and in other ways betrayed signs of de 
 cided excitement. He drew the attention of every 
 body; when a lull came, he broke out: " Tell me, do 
 you think Colonel Tournefort was at the taking of 
 Prague? " 
 
 " When? during the last year of the war? " asked 
 the uncle. 
 
 " Just at that time," said Henry. 
 
 Uncle Charles slowly drew his hand across his fore 
 head and answered : " The records of the family in my 
 possession show that he was there and was wounded 
 in that engagement." 
 
 Henry exclaimed : " What a strange conjuncture! 
 Do you know that I have just learned to-day that 
 Major Von Feuerstein was also in that battle on the 
 side of the Protestants? " 
 
 All were astonished at Henry when he told his in 
 formation, and the manner in which he had obtained 
 it. The old book acquired new value, but it was gone. 
 The fact, however, became still more stunning upon a 
 little reflection. The maternal and paternal ancestor 
 had met on opposite fields of battle centuries before, 
 and neither family had ever known of it till now. The 
 discovery had been made far from the scene of the 
 battle, far from the Eastern Continent, in fact, far 
 from the place where the first settlements had been 
 formed in the Western Continent. 
 
 Uncle Charles, indulging in a very pleasant smile,
 
 ON ANCESTRAL LINES. 285 
 
 resumed his talk with a conjecture: "Possibly the 
 sturdy old German Major may have dealt the blow 
 which felled the chivalrous English Colonel. What 
 do j-ou say?" 
 
 The family present divided upon this obscure point, 
 some taking sides with the Colonel, some with the 
 Major. " I see, " said Uncle Charles, " that the old 
 division still exists in you." To be sure, he said this 
 in a humorous way ; but even in himself the remark 
 cut deeper than he thought. It was perfectly natural, 
 therefore, for him to speak the next sentence in a 
 serious, unconsciously prophetic tone: " Who knows 
 but that this same division may some time be called up 
 in us all again?" The members of that household 
 were silent for a moment ; they knew that, in their 
 case, the prophecy was already fulfilled. 
 
 Uncle Charles picked up the thread of his narrative 
 again : ' ' The peace of Westphalia left Colonel Tourne- 
 fort no hope for the old world, which persisted in 
 going wrong. He had been driven out of England, 
 now he was driven out of Europe ; but there was one 
 more continent on which to make a last stand against 
 the new spirit. He resolved to emigrate, he preferred 
 the wilderness of America to the civilization of Europe 
 with its tendency at that time. Little did he think 
 that the demon which he shrank from, had already 
 crossed the ocean before him. But he was not troubled 
 long ; the year after his arrival his family came just 
 in time to perform the last rites due from the living 
 to the dead. 
 
 " In the valley of the James, the Tourneforts re 
 mained many years; some of them are still there.
 
 236 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 But the more enterprising branch had the lust of mi 
 gration so common in this country ; they moved north 
 ward into the valley of the Shenandoah, where they 
 remained several generations. A new strange cur 
 rent met them coming down this valley. It was the 
 stream of German migration, which had overflowed 
 from Pennsylvania, crossed Maryland, and passed into 
 Virginia. An industrious, thrifty, home-spun class of 
 people, evidently from the humbler stations of life " 
 here Uncle Charles checked himself, as he suddenly 
 thought who were before him. He brought his tale to 
 a rapid close: " There, where the two currents united 
 with each other and embraced, sometimes in love and 
 sometimes in repugnance, Mary Tournefort and Her 
 man Firestone, representatives of the two different 
 populations, met and were married in a small town not 
 far from the Potomac." 
 
 What was manifest from several little indications in 
 the uncle's story, may be declared openly: the wife's 
 kindred had higher pretensions to lineage than the 
 husband's. These pretensions of birth were still 
 maintained in the earlier settlement of America. 
 The frontier, however, was a great leveler. The arti 
 ficial distinctions of society could not avail much to 
 the possessor, in the presence of nature and the hos 
 tile Indian. But it was agreed that Mary Tournefort 
 married a worthy man. 
 
 The more important fact, however, was, that the 
 old contest of the ancestors on both sides was still in 
 the family. It glowed in new forms, new events, new 
 catchwords, but the struggle at bottom was the same. 
 The conservative and the progressive tendencies we
 
 ON ANCESTRAL LINES. 287 
 
 may call them, if we choose ; but whatever their name, 
 they took a religious form in the seventeenth century, 
 and a political form in the nineteenth. The two strands 
 were interwoven in families and divided the children 
 into parties from birth, nay, even before they were 
 born. Wedlock is something that reaches out of the 
 present, sweeps backward in time, and draws into 
 itself the mightiest events of the past ; one marries a 
 whole history, nay, a whole race with its conflicts, and 
 has to take the consequences ; one can not, indeed, 
 marry at all without some such world-embracing ven 
 ture. 
 
 It has been already noticed how the Firestone family 
 divided within itself upon these ancestral lines, yet 
 without the members knowing the fact ; some of the 
 children seemed to follow one set of the fathers, some 
 another set. A little discussion arose which brought 
 out the difference ; Conscience and Law had a little 
 domestic combat in the presence of Uncle Charles, as 
 they had had hundreds of times before. It was very 
 moderate, however, and soon stopped out of respect 
 for his supposed opinions. But it gave him a fleeting 
 glimpse into the heart of the present, though he seemed 
 hardly aware of the struggle taking place there ; he 
 thought it was settled two hundred years ago. It is 
 no wrong to him to say that he was behind the time ; 
 in Virginia this intense wrestle of the spirit was not 
 known. It is true that Mr. Tournefort had heard 
 much of the Abolitionists at a distance, and barely 
 knew of their spiritual principle called Higher Law, 
 but he never came into living contact with it, and 
 watched it as an active spring in a human soul. In
 
 288 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 the present family, his own story had secretly roused 
 it, and given it a foundation in an antecedent period. 
 
 Mr. Tournefort during his visit walked forth into 
 the town. "What activity!" he exclaimed; "we 
 have no such life as this in the towns of Virginia ; they 
 seem dead in comparision. What conflict! They 
 have but the one side of that which here has two sides. 
 Why the strife, and yet with it the progress? " So it 
 was in matters of business ; on the whole, he did not 
 like the character of what he saw, but he was open- 
 eyed and open-souled ; accordingly, he took deeper 
 glances, some of which went to the very heart of this 
 village activity. "There is a nerve, yes, a principle, 
 which enters into all I can see. What is it? " His 
 serene philosophic calm had been stirred up from the 
 bottom, and made turbid with much questioning. 
 
 In a short time, Mr. Tournefort had formed the ac 
 quaintance of Judge Allworthy, an old Virginian, whom 
 he asked about the cause of this wonderful activity. 
 But the Judge was in the dark about it himself ; he 
 had felt the power, he knew that it was at work, but he 
 did not understand it. He could only say that the 
 chief influence was climate. It was too hot down in 
 Virginia to be active. Then the Yankee spirit is 
 money-loving, and pushes in every direction for the 
 dollar. Yet these reasons hardly satisfied Mr. Tourne 
 fort. 
 
 One day not long after his arrival Miss Winslow hap 
 pened to call at the house and was introduced to the 
 Virginia uncle. When the latter heard that the school 
 mistress was from New England, he began with a little 
 playful banter: "Well, I suppose your ancestors
 
 ON ANCESTRAL LINES. 289 
 
 came over in the Mayflower? " She replied, " I can not 
 say ; I have so many ancestors, I can not tell whence 
 they all came. It would take the whole earth to hold 
 them a thousand years back." 
 
 " But do you not find pleasure and pride in your 
 pedigree?" 
 
 " Yes, a little. But I have not the time to trace it, 
 the task is too great. One of my forefathers is known 
 to have come over in the Mayflower, but there must 
 be a hundred others of whom I know nothing." 
 
 Uncle Charles was not altogether gratified at the 
 slight put- upon his favorite study of genealogy, but 
 he appreciated the keenness of that Yankee woman. 
 
 He went on and made, with a certain pride, the re 
 mark: "Your stock is, I judge, Puritan, mine is Cav 
 alier." 
 
 She replied: " I have one ancestor in whom I take 
 much delight. He fought at Marston Moor and helped 
 win the great victory; he was among the troops of 
 Oliver Cromwell." 
 
 Mr. Tournefort answered courteously: " I had also 
 an ancestor in that battle, Col. Tournefort, but he 
 fought on the other side, and lost everything but his 
 honor." 
 
 " Honor indeed !" said the school-mistress, whose 
 sarcastic vein was at once on tap. But she immedi 
 ately bethought herself and suppressed her look and 
 tone, while Mr. Tournefort was politely silent. Still 
 it was plain that each had blood enough to fight the 
 battle of Marston Moor over again on the banks of the 
 Sassaquatchie. Charles Tournefort was chivalrous, 
 and he began to admire the spirit of the woman. They
 
 290 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 fell into pleasant meaningless talk, which, however, 
 veered gradually round to the great topic of the day in 
 Freeburg. At last Miss Winslow put the question 
 squarely : " Do you believe in slavery? " 
 
 Mr. Tournef ort replied : l ' I have never fully 
 known what I believed about that much discussed 
 subject; .it is quite possible that I do not believe in 
 slavery abstractly, but we have the right to this kind 
 of property, the negroes are here on our hands and 
 we need them. Law has settled the matter for us; 
 why should we trouble ourselves further? " 
 
 Miss Winslow grew animated in her reply : " No ; 
 law can not settle the matter for you, there is another 
 deeper, stronger factor. I have already heard you ask 
 in wonder why we are so active here, while the towns 
 and communities in your State seem to be lagging. I 
 shall tell you my opinion : it is because we have not 
 only Law, but also Conscience, between whose interplay 
 come all the great energies in the human breast. 
 Conscience is forever seeking to correct Law by its ideal 
 standard of right. This gives an eternal movement, a 
 progress toward a higher goal, which reaches through 
 every part of the community and extends to every 
 kind of -activity, even down into business." 
 
 It was a view of the matter which Mr. Tournefort 
 had never heard, or, if he had heard it, he had never 
 comprehended its meaning before. He leaned back in 
 his chair, absorbed in his thoughts. Miss Winslow 
 saw her advantage and followed it up: "With you 
 Law seems to settle all, Conscience little or nothing ; 
 with us Conscience quickens, transforms Law, it strives 
 and keeps striving till it makes itself legal. Think
 
 ON ANCESTRAL LINES. 291 
 
 what you have just said ; your conviction you smother 
 by statute, and the fountain of your moral being goes 
 dry. Law deadens Conscience, if it be allowed to be 
 the final arbiter. " 
 
 Thus the keen school-mistress was craftily instilling 
 into Uncle Charles the doctrine of the Higher Law ; he 
 began to feel in himself the conflict which was waged in 
 the community. He could not, moreover, help having 
 a decided admiration for the woman who could say 
 and do all these things ; she was indeed the chief 
 phenomenon of the town. As she rose to go away, the 
 courteous Virginian paid her some delicate but very 
 effective compliments ; he confessed to her that she 
 had given him much to think about. Like the Vir 
 ginian of the olden time, he was fond of political 
 thought ; he had strong conservative leanings, yet an 
 open eye for what was taking place, as well as an ac 
 cessible heart. The great struggle of the time began 
 to dawn upon him in proportion as he felt it rising in 
 himself. Its chief manifestation was in politics, but 
 he could perceive the same sharp edge cutting every 
 where, even in commerce. The spirit was so different 
 from what he had been used to at home. Nor could 
 he keep out of mind that wonderful woman, the su 
 preme miracle of the village. 
 
 III. 
 
 Mr. Tournefort had not been long in Freeburg, be 
 fore he began taking little trips into the surrounding 
 country ; he examined the nature of the soil, and its 
 products, but chiefly he sought to discover the charac-
 
 292 THK FREEBURGERS. 
 
 ter of the people, and the secret of their social life. 
 He made inquiries into the origin of the inhabitants, 
 his mental tendency led him back to their ancestors, 
 in order to see what the descendants were doing or 
 were likely to do. He could not help laying much 
 stress on blood and birth ; he thought he had found 
 out the man, when he had found out the grandfather. 
 
 As a result of these investigations he learned that 
 the town of Freeburg, as well as the entire belt of 
 country in which it was but a little dot, had a very 
 composite population. Yet it was almost wholly 
 American, coming from the Eastern States ; the great 
 overflow from abroad had hardly touched it, certainly 
 had not affected it perceptibly. Mr. Tournefort was 
 at first somewhat confused by the many little runnels 
 of migration that crossed and re-crossed one another 
 in a complicated net-work of human streams rolling 
 westward. But at last he discerned that there were 
 three main channels, each bringing a certain tendency 
 and character, and all uniting into one vast current 
 that swept onward to the Mississippi, and even surged 
 over the mighty river, finding its way toward the Rocky 
 Mountains. 
 
 The first of these three great streams of migration 
 westward was the Southern one, chiefly from Virginia, 
 but with accessions from Maryland and Kentucky. 
 There were many reasons assigned for leaving these 
 States : there was the universal one, applicable on all 
 occasions, namely, American restlessness ; then came 
 the desire of seeking a fortune in a new country, a de 
 sire very strongly animating young breasts. But in 
 such cases migration naturally followed the same lines
 
 ON ANCESTRAL, LINES. 
 
 of latitude on which it started. Here, however, there 
 was a great turn of the Southern stream northward, in 
 the direction of Freeburg. What was the cause of 
 this change of course? Mr. Tournefort felt dimly 
 the reason, though he did not give it much attention. 
 There can be no doubt, however, that this deflection 
 was largely on account of some dissatisfaction with 
 the prevailing institutions and social life of the South. 
 Often the feeling was but a dumb instinct, a mere wish 
 or curiosity to go into a free State, in order to see if 
 matters went better there. Such people seldom had 
 any scruples about slavery ; often they were its defend 
 ers in their new homes. Still these Virginia emi 
 grants, leaving their old abode, and turning aside from 
 the easy and natural line of migration, were, as a body, 
 ready for new views, feady at least, to hear a protest 
 against the old system, which protest, in fact, they 
 had themselves unconsciously made by their very 
 journey* Doubtless they retained to the last some 
 thing of their native conservatism and strong respect 
 for legality, as we have witnessed in the case of Judge 
 Allworthy. They could, however, be trained for the 
 germ was present into an equal respect for con 
 science. Under this training they were put in Free- 
 burg, and in every part of the North. 
 
 The second of these great streams of population was 
 the Pennsylvania German, moving mainly on straight 
 parallel lines to the West, as it had no cause to de 
 flect. This stream swept very strongly into Freeburg 
 and all its environment, which lay right in its course. 
 These people, indeed, were hard to turn, and they 
 moved slowly, retaining in the keen, nerve-making air
 
 294 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 of America a good deal of their phlegmatic character. 
 They were mostly agricultural, and very prosperous ; 
 they were famed for having larger and better barns 
 than dwelling-houses. They shunned trickery, and 
 had little of the shrewdness of the trader ; they did 
 their work with their own hands, and would uphold the 
 dignity of labor. Industry, frugality, and an honest 
 simplicity of life were their bright but homely traits. 
 They had little ambition or taste for public affairs , 
 and their ability seemed to -correspond ; they left, for 
 the most part, the administration of the State and its 
 offices to their Northern and Southern neighbors. But 
 they had a germ which could be nursed into great 
 activity, and which joined them to the mighty move 
 ment of the time. Nearly all of them were descend 
 ants of people who had been driven from one conti 
 nent to the other by persecution for religious opinions, 
 and who had given up home and country for a life in 
 the wilderness, where they could have freedom of con 
 science. The children had still in them the dormant 
 might of conviction, which could be waked, and could 
 stir their heavy forms into a thrilling energy. Such 
 was Herman Firestone ; it was not to no purpose that 
 his ancestors had been dragonnaded out of Europe. 
 But, on the whole, these people stood in the middle 
 between North and South ; they moved rather unwill 
 ingly, they were the balance-wheel in the social and 
 political mechanism. 
 
 The third stream of migration was from New En 
 gland, bending a little southward around the great 
 lakes, and penetrating inland till it met and crossed 
 rivulets coming from other directions. This element,
 
 ON ANCESTRAL LINES. 295 
 
 in the locality before us, was the least of the three as 
 regards the number of emigrants ; still a good many 
 scattering families were to be found in the towns and 
 their rural neighborhoods taken together. But New 
 England had in Freeburg one representative, who, for 
 formative power, surpassed every other influence in 
 the community. This was Miss Hope Winslow, the 
 school- mistress. She had, as already shown, in her 
 hands directly or indirectly, all the effective instru 
 ments of information and culture ; books, newspapers, 
 magazines she gave out to the people through the 
 town library, which she controlled ; the education of 
 the entire region was her special work, and under her 
 guidance. She ruled the idea ; that is, she ruled the 
 ruler. She never said much about her home, it might 
 excite prejudice against her, for the Yankee was, on 
 the whole, not popular in other sections of the coun 
 try. She had tact, and easily took the lead ; the Vir 
 ginian and the Pennsylvanian followed in her footsteps, 
 were moulded by her discipline, and at last heard their 
 children talk her accent. The soil was, indeed, ready, 
 but not cultivated ; the time had furnished a good 
 seed-field, which the school- mistress at once entered 
 and sowed with all her might in every direction. The 
 Puritan, in his cold rocky home, had developed the 
 spiritual fact which was to conquer ; and the daughter 
 of the Puritan was really his spiritual child more than 
 his son, who was too often bribed by the gains of com 
 merce, or the prizes of professional life to turn aside 
 into some vocation which had little or nothing to do 
 with that of a light-bearer for a continent. 
 
 It was felt, however, that these three streams of
 
 296 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 migration had something in common, which lay be 
 neath all differences. The ancestors had fled from 
 the old world for some form of freedom ; they all had 
 shown their innar strength by facing the perils of a 
 stormy ocean and a wild continent ; they were sifted 
 out of the whole of Europe, by a law which never 
 failed to select the liberty-loving, the strong-hearted, 
 and the conscientious. Then a second sifting had 
 taken place ; the descendants, wishing a deeper free 
 dom, as well as an improved well-being, left the old 
 part of the new world, which had become a little 
 trammeled by conventionality and by law. A com 
 mon tendency we see in all these movements a bar 
 rier-bursting, freedom-seeking spirit ; and this is the 
 spirit which Freeburg has inherited from the ages, 
 and which it is just now showing in forms not hitherto 
 seen in the world. 
 
 Such were some of the thoughts, which, with more 
 or less distinctness, came home to Mr. Charles Tourne- 
 fort, while studying the people and their origin. To 
 be sure, he knew vaguely most of these facts before, 
 he had read them in history; but they had always 
 remained pale and evanescent, little shadows of mem 
 ory ; at present, however, they were full of the red 
 blood of life, and challenged the world. Great was 
 his surprise to see these old events still alive and 
 at work in the events of to-day. His study of 
 ancestry had yielded him its best fruit. The ge 
 nealogy of the family he had often traced, and he had 
 suffered somewhat from its exclusive tendency, its 
 too great fostering of pride of blood and birth. But 
 at present, he had been led to follow out a far deeper
 
 ON ANCESTRAL LINES. 297 
 
 genealogy than that of any family the genealogy of 
 a great principle, which holds Families and even 
 States and Ages in its sweep. 
 
 Thus, that little town of Freeburg on the rivulet 
 Sassaquatchie had been thrown up to the surface of 
 Time by mighty revolutions, whose fires still burned 
 in its heart, unquenchable. It had inherited the 
 strifes of great antecedent epochs, as well as their 
 principles. The long desperate discipline of its race 
 lay in it, as well as back of it ; the battles fought cen 
 turies ago, were still lurking in its bosom, and had to 
 be fought again, though under a new standard. All 
 history seemed to flow through this one obscure set 
 tlement in the backwoods, to mould it, to predeter 
 mine its destiny. It took the whole world to produce 
 Freeburg, and Freeburg in its turn was a link, one 
 little link, in the chain that upheld the world. What 
 if that link snap ! But there was no danger of such a 
 thing taking place in Freeburg. Its people had no 
 name marked in large bright letters on the scroll of 
 Time, but they were called on anew to fight Time's 
 battle, and they were preparing to obey the summons. 
 They could be seen at this moment in the process of 
 making up their minds ; they were not yet quite ready, 
 perhaps, but they would be, when the clock of the 
 ages began to strike the hour for marching. They 
 were keeping firm pace with the advance guard of the 
 cause, and it was certain that they would be on hand, 
 when the conflict opened. 
 
 The civil wars of England during Cromwell's time, 
 and of Germany during the Thirty Years before the 
 Peace of Westphalia, were about to begin again
 
 298 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 among the children of the men who fought in those 
 wars. The old battle was to be tried afresh in new 
 forms, in new peoples, in a new world. In fact, the 
 three great currents of population which have been 
 traced were they not thrown hitherwards mainly 
 through those wars ? Freeburg was a child of those 
 European conflicts by a spiritual as well as physical 
 descent. The genealogy was written down in great 
 events and could be read of all men. 
 
 A chief point of connection with the past was the 
 Reformation with all the struggles, inner and outer, 
 to which it gave rise. The Reformation, with its 
 right of private judgment, and with its additional 
 claim to worship God according to the dictates of indi 
 vidual conscience, ruled in Freeburg, and made the 
 spiritual atmosphere of the place. The consequences 
 of such a claim were also witnessed in the tendency 
 to religious division. There were in that little town 
 seven sects which had churches, and more than seven 
 others which had none. Yet there was no representa 
 tive of the old Mother Church, the Roman Catholic, 
 the refuge of unity, the home of authority. 
 
 But the ecclesiastical spirit of the previous ages 
 was becoming more and more secular ; the conflict of 
 the time was also secular, though playing deeply into 
 the religious consciousness. The political life of the 
 country was absorbing ; the State was the great bat 
 tle-ground, not the Church, except by way of inter 
 lude. The ministers of the various sects still fought 
 and squabbled over fine points in theology, but the 
 congregations were, in the main, languid in such dis 
 putes, at least that was the case in Freeburg. It is
 
 ON ANCESTRAL LINES. 299 
 
 true that the different churches, sought, by yearly 
 revivals, to galvanize the great unconverted mass till 
 it might give forth a little spark of religion ; but, upon 
 the absorbing issues of the day, which made the vital 
 distinction of the time into two great parties, the 
 churches divided like the rest of the world. Prayers 
 equally fervent and sincere were heard upon both sides ; 
 as they rose heavenward, they seemed to collide and 
 counteract each other somewhere in mid air, and to 
 fall back to the earth, before they had reached the 
 throne of the Supreme Disposer. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Wherever Mr. Tournefort went, he was sure to find 
 traces of the school-mistress. The truth is, he took a 
 secret pleasure in hunting them up and bringing them 
 to light if they were not visible on the surface. What 
 he sought for, he found, as usual ; and the finding 
 made him seek again with greater zest. She was in 
 his mind during his perambulations, and had a tend 
 ency to remain fixed there ; the whole growth of Free- 
 burg gathered round her image, and all its light 
 seemed to go back to her as the center of radiation. 
 It is true that he heard words of detraction concern 
 ing her, but they were such as to show the more 
 strongly her influence. Jealousy had not failed to 
 pick flaws in her career and character. She had 
 crushed too many monsters not to arouse a hiss. Mr. 
 Tournefort asked his Virginia friend, Judge Allworthy, 
 about her life and her disposition ; but the Judge blew 
 hot and cold, he could give no rational account of the
 
 300 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 woman, for he was by no means at one with himself in 
 regard to her work. After a good deal of balancing 
 for and against, wherein he always showed a judicial 
 impartiality, he would at last break out into a pleas 
 ant smile and say-: " I, too, am in the stream." 
 
 A few days after his first interview with her, Mr. 
 Tournefort, in one of his strolls, was passing the 
 school-house, which he had come to know well as alto 
 gether the most prominent light-point of the village. 
 He thought he would take a peep inside for himself, 
 and see what was going on. It is true that the hours 
 of school were over, he could not have the pleasure of 
 seeing the pupils and of hearing them recite. This 
 pleasure, however, he thought would be compensated 
 by the satisfaction of finding Miss Winslow alone and 
 unoccupied, since he had a secret wish to hear a little 
 of her conversation, when nobody was present. 
 
 Several times he walked up and down the street in 
 front of the building holding some little argument with 
 himself. At last he went up the -steps and knocked at 
 the door ; he was surprised to feel a quick thrill run 
 through his body at the sound of his own rap. He 
 was at once ushered into the presence of Miss Winslow, 
 who rose and stood before him majestically, the queen 
 of this castle of learning. But great was the astonish 
 ment of Uncle Charles ; not far from her sat a big, 
 burly negro with a book in his hand, evidently in the 
 act of receiving instruction. Miss Winslow spoke : 
 
 " Now, Mr. Bell, you may stop a few moments." 
 
 What a colossal disillusion for the lofty Virginian! 
 The thrill in his bosom now started in another direc 
 tion. But she received him with great courtesy ; she
 
 ON ANCESTRAL LINES. 301 
 
 spoke a few words, and plainly enjoyed his embarrass 
 ment. If before she had enchanted him, she now was 
 the disenchantress, and was delighted to play the part. 
 She grasped a book and put it into the hands of the 
 negro, and had him read, or rather declaim a particu 
 lar passage. It was an eloquent appeal taken from a 
 well-known anti-slavery orator of New England. The 
 negro entered into the spirit of the piece, and spoke it 
 with great fluency and energy. Mr. Tournefort 
 noticed that his pronunciation was quite free of the 
 African accent ; he also noticed that the black fellow 
 had fully imbibed the idea, and ideas are not easy to 
 put into chains. 
 
 The teacher dismissed her pupil, whom Mr. Tourne 
 fort recognized as the 'negro who had addressed him 
 at the inn. The thought of that letter to his friend 
 near Richmond, came into his mind. What had he- 
 come of it? What a turmoil it might cause! But he 
 let these uncomfortable reflections drop without further 
 troubling himself. What is the use of chasing down 
 remote possibilities, when mighty facts are staring you 
 in the face ! 
 
 The negro went out of the door with apparent un 
 willingness, and left the two alone together. As he 
 passed, he darted an unfriendly glance at the visitor, 
 and he uttered a low guttural sound, like a growl, 
 which caught the ear of Miss Winslow, and sent a 
 slight shiver through her frame ; she had heard some 
 thing of the kind before. But she turned to the 
 stranger, and showed herself ready for interrogation. 
 
 Mr. Tournefort perceived what was expected of him,
 
 302 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 and, without any strong inner call, he asked: " Is that 
 one of your pupils?" 
 
 " I give him some lessons after school." 
 "Is it permitted here to teach negroes? " 
 " I do so, and have not yet been disturbed." 
 " Do you think they can learn anything? " 
 " You heard what this one can do in the way of 
 reading." 
 
 " How long have you instructed him?" 
 " A few months." 
 
 "That darkey's face seems familiar to me," said 
 Mr. Tournefort. 
 
 " He is said to be a runaway slave, and to have 
 come from your part of the country," observed Miss 
 Winslow. 
 
 Both were silent, each had a thought which stopped 
 the tongue. Mr. Tournefort reflected that his last re 
 mark might point him out, in case of any trouble, as a 
 man who had come to catch the negro ; his letter also 
 made him a little uneasy. Miss Winslow considered 
 that she had told something which might turn to the 
 detriment of the poor fugitive. Both were ill at ease. 
 Mr. Tournefort had suppressed his feelings and lan 
 guage, but he felt the strain to be too great, he wished 
 to take breath after such an effort. He parted from 
 the school-mistress very politely, and left the room. 
 She felt the tempest in the soul of her visitor, at the 
 same time she admired his self-command and his 
 courtesy. She asked him to come again ; to which in 
 vitation he nodded his head. 
 
 As Mr. Tournefort went out, he was surprised to
 
 ON ANCESTRAL LINES. 303 
 
 see the negro springing away from the door just in 
 advance of him, and moving off toward the village in 
 a great hurr}'. Mr. Tournefort thought the incident 
 curious, but his mind was too much occupied with 
 what he had just seen, to dwell upon such a trivial 
 matter. Still he could not help noticing that every now 
 and then the negro indulged in a wild gesticulation, 
 showing that his African blood for some cause was 
 ebullient with strong passion. Cudjo disappeared be 
 hind the houses of the village, and Mr. Tournefort 
 continued his walk nowhitherwards, to see if he 
 could not there get rid of his qualms.
 
 CHAPTER EIGHTH. 
 
 THE AFRICAN IN FREEBURG. 
 I. 
 
 It has become plain that Cudjo Bell, the African 
 and runaway slave, shared profoundly in the aspira 
 tion for knowledge which had been kindled in the 
 town of Freeburg, chiefly through the efforts of Miss 
 Hope Winslow, the Yankee school-mistress. The 
 negro, soon after his arrival, in an unconscious way 
 felt the pulse of the place ; he found it beating with 
 more than usual violence against the walls of its own 
 arteries," as if it sought to break out of its established 
 channels and run freely wherever it listed. Soon he 
 perceived that he was in the same condition as the 
 rest of the Freeburgers. His desire for liberty had 
 already impelled him to surge upon, and finally to 
 dash over, one mighty barrier ; now another barrier, 
 more subtle and almost greater, presented itself, with 
 bars stronger than iron, and was holding him a pris 
 oner in a new slavery. 
 
 He was too shrewd not to see that the power of 
 
 the time lay with the men who know. But knowledge 
 
 had been forbidden him ; just for this reason he felt 
 
 that he must sweep away the prohibition, and stretch 
 
 (304)
 
 THE AFRICAN IN FREEBURG. 305 
 
 forth his hand for the cup of learning. One more 
 limit between himself and the white man he would 
 pull down, and assert in a new way his equality. 
 Could he stop in his career? He had attained with 
 single-handed courage his bodily freedom; now he 
 must reach out for his mental enfranchisement. The 
 negro could not help falling in with the barrier-burst 
 ing spirit which ruled in Freeburg, and was whirling 
 it rapidly onward into some unknown horizon of the 
 social firmament. 
 
 The task, however, seemed difficult. Where could 
 he get his starting-point? Where find instruction to 
 give him the first little push that would overcome the 
 dead still-stand of ignorance? And if he could ob 
 tain that first lesson, would not this circumstance re 
 veal his plan, and possibly rouse suspicion? With 
 all its progress, Freeburg was not yet ready to accept 
 the education of the black man, though it would 
 affirm his liberty. Cudjo knew the prejudice of the 
 community, and was discreet in not wishing to exact 
 too much at once. It tolerated his freedom, it might 
 not endure his aspiration. Every body said that the 
 negro should know his place, and keep in it ; but his 
 place was just that which Cudjo was going to trans 
 cend by one supreme effort. 
 
 He quietly looked about himself some weeks, nay, 
 some months ; then he began to carry out his scheme. 
 He laid hold of a cast-off spelling-book ; by playing 
 school with a boy, he secretly learned his letters. In 
 fact, his great means of instruction were the children, 
 from whom he gained his coveted information by 
 stealth. The best teachers are often the little ones in 
 
 20
 
 306 THE FREE BURGERS. 
 
 their plays arid games, which Cudjo artfully turned 
 to his own profit. The big burly negro became as a 
 little child and obtained the reward. 
 
 As soon as he had learned to spell short and simple 
 words, he began to practice writing, his instructors 
 still being the children, who were entertained by his 
 mirth, his singing, above all by his story- telling. A 
 mythical fountain was in him and kept flowing. The 
 strange tales of the Southern negro, giving in childlike 
 narration the history and discipline of the black race, 
 became the property of the white children of Freeburg. 
 
 " You cannot make a ' g,' " he said to a school-boy, 
 with whom he was engaged in some sport. " Yes, I 
 can," and Cudjo beheld the letter written on a fence 
 board with a piece of chalk. " Now you can't make 
 a ' q.' " The second letter was at once written along 
 side of the other. Thus Cudjo learned a distinction 
 which had troubled him for some days In this way 
 he established a kind of play-school, in which the 
 wildest hilarity was directed and filled with an earnest 
 purpose of instruction. 
 
 From the same source he began to take lessons in 
 pronunciation. He had not been in Freeburg a week, 
 before he had resolved to get rid of his African ac 
 cent. It was a badge of distinction of race, if not of 
 servitude. The children again were his unconscious 
 teachers ; he trained his ear to their pure utterance, 
 and then practiced his tongue after the same model. 
 In a short time comparatively, his speech seemed to 
 have been dipped into the primitive well of English un- 
 defiled, and to have had a new birth from the baptism. 
 
 One day he was overheard in an effort of this kind
 
 THE AFRICAN IN FREEBURG. 307 
 
 by Miss Winslow, who happened to be passing, and 
 who at once divined his purpose. She had noticed 
 him previously ; she saw the dark shadow which he 
 cast upon the village ; he was the sole man upon whom 
 the light of knowledge was not permitted to shine. 
 She was already thinking of some plan by which she 
 might remove the obscuration ; the little incident 
 which now came under her notice, and in which she 
 saw the poor ignorant black man in disguise seeking 
 illumination, caused her to form her resolution on the 
 spot. Moreover, Cudjo knew the source of light in 
 the village, but he was afraid of going directly to it ; 
 still he had learned to see much by its reflection, and was 
 prepared for the greater luminary. Thus both sides 
 were not only ready, but eager. 
 
 Miss Winslow went up to him and spoke : 
 
 "They call you Cudjo Bell, I believe?" 
 
 " Yes, madam," the darkey replied, with his hat 
 removed and obsequiously ducking his head. 
 
 "Would you like to do a little work for me?" 
 
 " I am already quite busy." 
 
 " I can take you at odd hours." 
 
 "What is the work?" 
 
 "Tell me, can you get off a while every day from 
 your regular duties?" 
 
 ' ' If you wish so ; my regular duties are not very 
 regular." 
 
 " I want you very much." 
 
 Cudjo still did not understand. Miss Winslow 
 came nearer and spoke in lower tones : 
 
 " Bring your spelling-book along. To-morrow 
 afternoon at four o'clock."
 
 308 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 Cudjo now had an inkling of what she meant. He 
 did not fail at the appointed hour. 
 
 She gave him apparent employment in the way of 
 some little brushing, sweeping and cleaning, but his 
 real employment was to learn to read and write. The 
 instruction continued till it began to -rise into the 
 realm of thought. Thus the school-mistress dis 
 pelled the sole remaining cloud of ignorance that hung 
 over Freeburg ; she dispelled it in spite of the town. 
 Her action was perhaps not strictly legal ; certainly it 
 was contrary to public sentiment, which was shocked 
 at a white woman teaching a negro. But the world 
 of ideas as communicated from mind to mind by the 
 printed page, was now thrown open to the humblest 
 man in the community. The dark shadow upon it, if 
 not wholly removed, had turned to a kind of pale 
 flickering moonshine, which at least foretold the 
 coming of the sun. But, chiefly, Cudjo's brain was 
 beginning to be a little self-luminous. Moreover he 
 commenced to show great affection for his teacher. 
 
 In the course of time, the negro had passed to the 
 study of geography. The idea of putting down on 
 paper the whole earth, to be seen at a glance, was at 
 first very stunning, but in the end very enlightening, 
 to the African. He seemed now to know for the first 
 time where he was and where he was not. But Miss 
 Winslow specially trained him in studying the local 
 ities of the Southern States ; he turned to them again 
 and again, after she had completed her instruction ; 
 by a kind of instinct he had impressed them upon his 
 brain, feeling that he might have use for that sort of 
 geographical knowledge. He once had fled thence
 
 THE AFRICAN IN FREEBURG. 309 
 
 without such knowledge ; he now followed the de 
 vious path of his flight on the map with intense inter 
 est. He traced a second path which he would take, 
 if he should ever be compelled to make the same 
 journey again. 
 
 Great vacant Africa, in those days blank and un 
 known, he stared at, then wondered why it was not 
 filled with towns and cities, like other countries. 
 " That is the home of your people," said Miss Wins- 
 low. Cudjo's face was suddenly crossed with lines of 
 dislike and disgust; he turned over the leaf, and 
 never asked to look at Africa again. But, in spite of 
 his aversion, he could not help dreaming now and then 
 of his own continent and race. 
 
 The directions on the map of the United States 
 East, West, North, South were his special study. 
 His curiosity was often childish, but he located himself 
 in the universe, which now circled about him as a 
 center. Great was the sense of freedom thus ac 
 quired ; he had ideally subjected to himself all space 
 and all that space contains; he had now gained a 
 higher personality. What a vast unfolding comes 
 through the study of geography to the infantile human 
 soul ! Space is the first devil whom we have to put 
 down, and a shred of him hangs over us to the end. 
 
 " But " said he to Miss Winslow one evening, " sup 
 pose I should by some chance wake up in the midst of 
 a dark wood how could I know which way is North, 
 or which way is East?" The heavens were bright; 
 Miss Winslow took him to the window and showed him 
 the North star. " Ah, yes, " he cried, " I know that 
 bright boy, I have often traveled by his light."
 
 310 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 She said with a smile: "You may have to do -so 
 again." 
 
 " But it is sometimes cloudy by night and also by 
 day," said Cudjo. 
 
 Miss "Winslow, rising at once, took a candle, and 
 went to a shelf of a case which stood in the room. 
 She searched a few moments, and soon found the ar 
 ticle which she wanted. It was a small pocket-com 
 pass. She explained its use. showed how it pointed 
 always in one direction. She then gave it to the puz 
 zled African, " Take and keep it." Cudjo was just a 
 little startled : " Do you think I shall have to use it?" 
 
 " I do not know why do you ask ? " 
 
 " I have been in situations in which I needed it, and 
 may be again," said Cudjo. 
 
 " Nobody can tell what will happen. Take it and 
 learn to understand it." 
 
 The head of Cudjo buzzed with strange fantastic 
 queries, as he went home that night. He kept the 
 precious instrument, and tested it often ; he found it 
 always true, and it became to him not merely a physi 
 cal pointer, but rose to be a kind spiritual guide, a 
 symbol of direction, which is unalterable and eternal. 
 He made a special pocket for it in a secret part of his 
 under garment, and he would never allow it to leave 
 his person. In fact, he let nobody know that he had 
 such an instrument. He treasured it, he played with 
 it, he loved it as if it were human. He came to regard 
 it as a special token of the school-mistress, and thus 
 it became his most precious, though carefully hidden 
 possession. 
 
 Some of these incidents, however, had not alto-
 
 THE AFRICAN IN FREEBURG. 311 
 
 gather escaped the eyes of Cud jo's employer, Judge 
 Allworthy. He -had observed the change in the 
 darkey's pronunciation ; the proud Virginian found 
 the Yankee accent of Miss Winslow creeping into his 
 very household. Next he discovered the negro trying 
 to read in secret. He asked : - 
 
 "What are you doing with that book, Cudjo? " 
 
 " Just glancing into its little black eyes," and he 
 put it aside. 
 
 " Let me take it," said the Judge. 
 
 It was a much-thumbed Second Reader ; nobody in 
 the house had any use for such a book, except Cudjo. 
 
 "I see, I see," said the Judge. "How did you 
 learn, Cudjo?" 
 
 " I learned myself." 
 
 " It rained down into your woolly pate, did it? " 
 
 The darkey grinned, not without a little terror. 
 He could not exactly forecast what might be the 
 outcome of such a discovery, both for himself and for 
 the school- mistress. He relied much upon the liberal 
 spirit of the Judge, who now continued : 
 
 " You, too, have been going to school in Freeburg 
 as well as myself." 
 
 "Yes, I suppose that is so," replied Cudjo. 
 
 The Judge again began to reflect: "The truth is, 
 we ure all learning our lesson from the Yankee school 
 mistress. I sometimes wonder if she lias nothing to 
 learn from us. Has the discipline of life nothing for 
 her case ? ' ' 
 
 The Judge did not think of making any trouble with 
 Cudjo ; at present he simply let the matter pass ; he 
 seemed to regard the whole affair as tin unavoidable
 
 312 THE FREEBURGER8. 
 
 destiny in which he and the time were caught and 
 carried forward. As he went away from Cudjo, he 
 said : " We are all in the stream." 
 
 This had become his utterance of resignation, which, 
 however, was by no means devoid of hope. 
 
 "We are indeed," echoed Cudjo, when his em 
 ployer was out of hearing. 
 
 H. 
 
 Miss Winslow had often noticed Cudjo' s effort to 
 get rid of his negro pronunciation, which seemed to 
 bother him more than anything else. Every word was 
 a sting upon his tongue, as Jong as that taint affected 
 his speech. As Cudjo loved to talk, he was stung 
 many times a day. But he succeeded well in master 
 ing the difficulty, in fact, too well ; he betrayed his 
 school-mistress in his new language. His imitative 
 gift enabled him to catch not only her tones and in 
 flections, but also her expressions. The Southern 
 negro, too, began to talk the Yankee dialect in Free- 
 burg. His careful enunciation, often recalled and 
 corrected, had a touch of the grotesque, but he dog 
 gedly followed the pattern. All the younger genera 
 tion of Freeburgers had that same tinge of her 
 tongue, as well as the cast of her thought. Even the 
 trick of her handwriting, as already observed, was 
 stamped upon the written words of every young lady 
 in the village ; Cudjo could not be blamed if he fol 
 lowed such bewitching examples. He overdid his 
 imitation, and often rendered the school-mistress and 
 her pupils comic, his caricature was so earnest.
 
 THE AFRICAN IN FREEBURQ. 313 
 
 At her lesson one day, she asked him directly: 
 ' ' Why do you try so hard to get rid of your manner 
 of talking?" 
 
 " I am going to speak like' white folks." 
 
 ' ' What reason have you for that ? Do you not love 
 your race? " 
 
 " I can not say that I do," replied Cudjo. 
 
 " You ought to love all men, "'she said. 
 
 " But if the white m'an is the best man, I want to be 
 a white man." 
 
 Miss Winslow, in justice to herself, could not help 
 admiring the negro's strong desire for what is most 
 excellent, though it seemed now to militate against her 
 doctrine of equality. Cudjo relentlessly thrust at her 
 one of her own sayings : " I have often heard you de 
 clare that we should strive after the best; for that 
 reason I want to be a white man." 
 
 Miss Winslow, feeling the edge of her own apothegm, 
 could only say: "So you are trying to change your 
 speech, are you, Cudjo? " 
 
 The African fired up again with new flashes from 
 his eye: " Yes, and I am going to change my name, 
 too ; that detestable name Cudjo which you have just 
 used." 
 
 "Tell me, how is that? What do you intend to 
 do?" said the woman, wondering at the crisis which 
 was transpiring in the man. 
 
 He answered: " Cudjo is the name of a nigger; I 
 brought it with me from slavery, it is my disgrace, but 
 I shall throw it off, it belongs to me no more." 
 
 " In what way can you bring that about?" asked 
 Miss Winslow.
 
 314 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 "I intend to quit this place in order to get rid of 
 it; I can never be free of its stain while I stay here." 
 
 " I suppose that is so," said Miss Winslow. " You 
 intend to go away then ; but tell me, to what part of 
 the country? " 
 
 " I am going off to school." 
 
 " "Where? " demanded Miss Winslow, with increased 
 curiosity at the new ambition of her black pupil. 
 
 "To Howardtown, a school in which all are equal," 
 said the African in a tone of elevation. 
 
 " Who told you about that place? " 
 
 "Henry Firestone. He intends going himself, and 
 has offered to help me. I shall begin over again, 
 change my name, get an education, and be another 
 man. He has promised never to mention my present 
 name, when we are there together." 
 
 Miss Winslow was surprised to find her own advice 
 and instruction cropping out in such a strange soil. 
 She bad cast many seeds to the winds, but this was 
 her "most miraculous, most unexpected plant. There 
 is no doubt she was pleased. The negro, too, was 
 pleased, especially with her pleasure. A strong 
 passion had already entered his heart for his pale- 
 faced instructress. How could he help it? 
 
 After some little rumination, she began again: 
 "Well, Cudjo," but the African at once broke in, 
 with sweet pleasure turning sour: "There I shall 
 have another name." Miss Winslow observed the 
 offense which she had unintentionally given, and 
 begged the negro's pardon with her most winning 
 look. She saw that to him the change was to be a new 
 baptism, accompanied with a new designation for him-
 
 THE AFRICAN IN FREEBURG. 315 
 
 self; he seemed to be entering a religious order in 
 which the old secular name was left behind. 
 
 If Miss Winslow was astonished, she was also 
 amused ; she spoke with a smile which sought to call 
 forth a laugh from him in response: "When your 
 name is changed from that of a black man, do you 
 think too, that your cuticle will turn white?" The 
 darkey did not show the expected laugh in reply to 
 this question, which had been asked once before by the 
 pedestrian. In reply he stiffened himself up and 
 seemed to summon all his strength ; putting on at the 
 same time his most serious look, he answered: " Even 
 that; yes, just that." 
 
 Miss Winslow was a little puzzled, perhaps a little 
 frightened at the determined appearance of the man ; 
 he evidently deemed himself at that moment capable of 
 rising to any height, social or intellectual. She 
 caught a, glimpse of the boundless aspiration of his care 
 fully disguised soul ; she did not know what he might 
 aspire for next. She secretly felt his rising am 
 bition ; in her trepidation she took a step backward 
 and cast her glances aside, somewhere on the floor. 
 
 Cudjo, on his part also, was somewhat startled at 
 his own boldness. But, as he had spoken the in 
 most thought of his heart, it must stay spoken ; the 
 time had come for him to declare what was in him. 
 He rose and paced the floor for a moment ; he came 
 back and braced himself up courageously ; he had re 
 solved to confess to Miss Winslow the hidden article 
 of his faith. He laid his forefinger across the corner 
 of his mouth, he gave a mysterious look into her eyes, 
 and began almost in a whisper after casting some
 
 316 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 glances around the room. These motions did not tend 
 to Miss Winslow's comfort, though her curiosity was 
 as yet greater than her terror. 
 
 The story which the negro now told, we shall, while 
 keeping it in the first person, have to abridge and 
 modify somewhat, as it was expanded to great length, 
 and was tricked out with many wild flowers of African 
 fancy. There was in him a strong mythical element ; 
 his experiences, when they deepened beyond ordinary 
 life, had a tendency to assume the form of the fairy 
 tale. His spirit, if fully aroused, could not help taking 
 a flight into Wonderland ; though even there, in the 
 realm of fiction, it was telling the profoundest fact of 
 itself. But in the present case, Cud jo's story was an 
 actual occurrence, with little golden threads of fable 
 running through it and holding it together. Somehow 
 in this fashion it ran : 
 
 ' ' Far away in the South dwells the Black Prophet of 
 the Swamp, who once told me that I was to become a 
 white "man. Ever since that moment I have treasured 
 what he said to me, as the very purpose of my own 
 existence. He lived in a great swamp ; in the middle 
 of it was an island which was so thickly covered with 
 trees and brushwood, that it seemed set there like night 
 in the day-time. But in the center of the island was a 
 small cleared spot, and in the middle of this spot 
 stood a little cabin, in which he stayed alone, since he 
 permitted no human being to share permanently his 
 solitude. The sun shone full upon his lonely habita 
 tion, while everywhere around it the light was cut off 
 and darkness reigned. He was not molested, in fact 
 his place was not known to a single white man, though
 
 THE AFRICAN IN FREEBURG. 317 
 
 the people of the surrounding districts had he,ard 
 strange stories about him, which they attributed to Af 
 rican superstition. 
 
 " The blacks, however, knew him well, and kept up. a 
 regular communication with him, though very few paid 
 him a personal visit. One or two of the hardiest 
 spirits would stealthily go to his abode at stated inter 
 vals, and bring thence his utterances. He told to his 
 people the future. He directed their movements in 
 important matters. Whatever was common to them 
 all went back to him as the center. He was the heart 
 of his race, and sent out to them the life-blood of 
 hope. 
 
 " Above all things, he inculcated patience, which, 
 he said, was the strongest weapon of the African. He 
 would not permit insurrections ; more than once he 
 has stopped them when they were on the point of 
 breaking out. He made laws, he uttered prophecies ; 
 he said the black race mast serve out its time, and 
 then it would be set free. He also declared that the 
 moment of deliverance was rapidly coming, and that it 
 could not be reached by resistance but by endurance. 
 
 " He had learned to read and write, but nobody knew 
 when or how. He coined proverbs for his people and 
 sent them abroad through his visitors. He was also a 
 great maker of tales, many of which are still told by 
 the hearth in the negro's hut. Even verses he could 
 produce ; a few of these you can hear in the cotton 
 field and in the camp meeting. He had some books ; 
 at least I saw two or three in his cabin, but I could 
 not then read even their titles. 
 
 " I once went to his island ; in spite of the frightful
 
 318 THE FREEBURGERS . 
 
 accounts of the way thither, I started alone, resolved 
 to behold with my own eyes the Black Prophet and to 
 hear his prophecy. To do so had become the first 
 need of my life. I made a light canoe, and passed one 
 day into the swamp, carrying it on my back. I waded 
 through the heavy grass and shallow waters ; then I 
 came to a place where I had to use my canoe. The 
 cypress hung above me and shaded me like night ; 
 vast masses of foliage drooped from a leafy ceiling of 
 intertwining limbs ; matted vines bearing huge flowers 
 were suspended on the trees and fell down into the 
 water, thus dividing that vast palace of the swamp 
 into many thousand rooms, whose walls were made of 
 green tapestry. What toil ! what terror ! what beauty ! 
 
 " But the plants and the waters were the least 
 obstacle. Wild animals stood on my path, which I 
 had to frighten away and sometimes to kill ; poisonous 
 snakes reared their heads and hissed, or lay hid in the 
 grass and coiled up ready for a spring upon the in 
 truder. Little insects, the fly, the gnat, the mosquito, 
 that had sucked up all the venom of the swamp, stung 
 me till the swollen hand could hardly pull the oar. It 
 was a dark, fearful journey on which black men had 
 often perished. I shall never forget it, yet I would 
 undertake it again to see that man's face and to hear 
 his voice once more. 
 
 "At last I reached the border of the island. But 
 the sun had gone down ; a wall of night, filled with a 
 dense undergrowth of shrub, limb and leaf, even with 
 wild beasts and reptiles, closed me around ; I crouched 
 down in silence and waited for the morning. I pushed 
 the branches aside ; I came to a vast cane-brake, in
 
 THE AFRICAN IN FREEBURG. 319 
 
 which I was for a time lost ; but I cut a pole and 
 dragged it, that I might keep in the same direction 
 till I reached the end. Bears and panthers would 
 crash around me in the reeds, but I escaped and came 
 to the clearing in which stood the little hut. 
 
 "Here all was changed. The light of day fell upon 
 the face of the earth once more, the soil smiled with 
 cultivation, the plants and the animals, instead of 
 fighting man, were mild and sought his friendship. 
 Nature was transformed in look ; she now saluted me, 
 and offered to help me. Everything spoke of a new 
 world attained after a long dark wandering. I could 
 not help shouting, Glory ! 
 
 " Before the door of the hut sat the old man ; it was 
 said that he was more than one hundred years of age. 
 His voice was slill firm ; he stood up erect to receive 
 me. His long white hair hung down his shoulders ; 
 his beard, like the silent snow, fell upon his breast and 
 lay there ; his face and hands were also white. His 
 venerable face saluted me with a cordial welcome, ere 
 his lips stirred to speak ; he invited me to a repast in 
 his first words. He lived on the simplest food, which 
 he freely offered to his famished guest, who ate it and 
 felt a new sense of life. How absolute the peace ! 
 The rank jungle around him, the bear, the snake, the 
 insect, even the ferocious vegetation, seemed to be 
 subdued by his presence. 
 
 " I had always heard him called the Black Prophet, 
 but it were truer to call him the White Prophet of the 
 blacks. I expressed my surprise at his color. He 
 said to me : 'I was once a negro and a slave, but as 
 long as I remained in that condition I was black. My
 
 320 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 heart began to stir within me, I resolved to throw off 
 my bonds, and to reach freedom ; I fled to the swamp ; 
 after days of wandering, I passed through it, and came 
 to this island, where I cleared the land and put up 
 this, dwelling. The transformation at once began in 
 me, and continued for. hundreds of moons ; I secretly 
 went back to my people and told them the news ; the 
 Lord has washed me white as snow in this life. What 
 I have lived through, all blacks must live through ; 
 what my many years have done for me, many ages 
 will do for my people ; I am the forerunner and the 
 foreteller of my race. ' 
 
 "After hearing his words, my soul was full; I felt 
 the courage to return through the swamp, whose hard 
 ships and terrors had made me wilt with cowardice. 
 I had been where no white man had ever penetrated ; 
 I had heard the voice of the Black Prophet, and was 
 thrilled with his message, which has stayed with me 
 ever since." 
 
 Miss Winslow listened with much wonder and no 
 little incredulity to the wild story of the African. 
 She asked : ' ' How does it come that they did not 
 pursue the fugitive ? ' ' 
 
 Cudjo answered : "The white people knew little of 
 him ; his master, a Southerner of the good old type, 
 said that even the black man must follow his call, 
 and if his call be to run away, let him go by all 
 means. It was also a principle, with some conscien 
 tious slaveholders in those days, not to have unwilling 
 slaves ; thus they said that there was no involuntary 
 servitude in their household. Moreover the Prophet, 
 well knowing his people, preached a passive submis-
 
 THE AFRICAN IN FREEBURG. 321 
 
 sion to their great trial a doctrine well suited not 
 only to the cringing negro, but to domineering 
 master. ' ' 
 
 In these last words Cudjo showed a little touch of 
 bitterness, in spite of his veneration for the Black 
 Prophet. Miss Winslow caught him up at this point, 
 and put a question to him : 
 
 " But you, it seems, ran away before you had 
 patiently served out your time ; why did you do so? " 
 
 Cudjo chuckled: "I came to the conclusion that 
 my time was up." 
 
 "Did the Black Prophet tell you so? " 
 
 Cudjo squirmed a little and answered: "No, not 
 exactly. He told me if I ran off, they would try to 
 catch me ; try often, and fail. 
 
 " Is that all he said to you? " 
 
 Cudjo was silent a moment in thought. At last he 
 spoke: "He told me that they would finally seize 
 me and put me back into my former condition. I can 
 still see the old man's eyes, as he looked at me and 
 through me, saying: 'You are not yet ready ; you 
 have not ended your discipline ; something is yet to 
 be trained out of you by servitude.' But that part of 
 the prophecy has not yet come to pass," added Cudjo 
 with a gratified giggle. 
 
 " Do you believe it will be fulfilled," asked Miss 
 Winslow. 
 
 The negro responded in a flippant vein, which 
 he had not yet shown: " 1 do not intend to let it. 
 Some prophecies must be fulfilled and man cannot 
 stop them ; others will be fulfilled unless you stop 
 them."
 
 322 THE FREEBURGERS. . 
 
 " What was the last thing the Black Prophet said to 
 you?" 
 
 " As I was leaving he took me by the hand and 
 spoke in a very certain tone : ' I shall see you again, 
 you will have to come back to me. ' But I have not yet 
 gone, and I think I shall not. In that matter I can be 
 my own prophet." 
 
 There is no doubt that Cudjo Bell, while giving this 
 account, underwent a change. His first words concern 
 ing the Black Prophet were rapt, full of reverence ; 
 the last turned to doubt, almost to a sneer. He had 
 fallen into a kind of insolence which is of itself pro 
 phetic, and often brings fulfillment of what it defies. 
 
 Miss Winslow observed the transformation, and in 
 cidentally remarked: "Your faith is not, then, very 
 strong in your seer. Like many other followers of 
 the sages, you. believe what you like, and what you 
 dislike you throw away." 
 
 Cudjo recovered himself a little and grew more 
 serious: "One thing I treasure; the Black Prophet 
 said I was to become a white man." 
 
 He rose and cast a strange glance at the white 
 woman . who felt in him some mighty but indefinite 
 aspiration, the nature of which she did not fully un 
 derstand. It was getting late ; she seized her bonnet 
 and started homewards ; the negro loitered at the door 
 till she passed by him ; he followed behind at an equal 
 pace and sought to converse with her still ; once he 
 . stepped up to her side, when she darted rapidly ahead, 
 and soon glided into the door of her dwelling. When 
 she was in her room, she reviewed all the occurrences 
 of the afternoon ; she felt the tendency of the African,
 
 THE AFRICAN IN FREEBURG. 323 
 
 and the need of training him in a new branch of edu 
 cation. After all she was not yet quite ready for his 
 unreserved companionship. She had given him a 
 lesson in reading hints, which lesson few men, white 
 or black, can learn at the first trial. 
 
 
 III. 
 
 Cudjo had been, for a good while, the sole black 
 man in Freeburg. But another darkey had come into 
 the neighborhood, though he did not stay in the vil 
 lage. Miss Winslow met him one day, and full of her 
 new mission asked him to call and do some errands. 
 This was but a pretext, in order to get hold of him and 
 start him on the road to light. She was going to do 
 for Sambo what she had already done for Cudjo. A 
 beginning was made with the second negro ; but a day 
 or so afterward, late in the evening, a short distance 
 from the school-house, he was fallen upon and beaten 
 by a man in a mask. He was allowed to go, on 
 promising that he would that night leave the country. 
 He suddenly disappeared and was seemingly not 
 missed by anybody but the school-mistress. 
 
 Meanwhile Cudjo had begun to read books. Un 
 doubtedly the mental girth of the African slowly ex 
 panded ; but his gift of speech grew prodigiously, out 
 of all proportion to his increase of ideas. Some of 
 these, however, sent vivid flashes through his dark 
 Ethiopian brain. The Bible was put into his hands 
 the supreme book of consolation. It has more hope 
 for the oppressed, more elevation for the lowly, than 
 any other writ. Its two greatest stories those of
 
 324 THE FREERURGEKS. 
 
 Moses and of Christ wrought upon the negro's 
 mind with unequal power. The Old Testament, nearer 
 to the childhood of the race, was emphatically Cudjo's 
 book. The account of the Egyptian captivity and the 
 deliverance of Israel by the hand of the Lord in a 
 miraculous manner, started and always will start a 
 mighty response in the African imagination, which 
 seems therein to go back to its old home, not far from 
 the land of Egypt. Especially the passage of the Red 
 Sea, since made into an emblem for a thousand such 
 passages spiritually and physically, raised an oceanic 
 pulsation in Cudjo's heart. But the children of Israel, 
 though free, were still in the wilderness, and longed 
 for the flesh-pots of Egypt. This part of the story 
 the black man did not understand so well, yet he felt 
 it too. 
 
 The account of Christ, the highest, the son of God , 
 who became the humblest, was touching and enkind 
 ling to the poor soul. But that he should give him 
 self as a sacrifice to those who crucified him, was not 
 a clear case to Cudjo. Moreover, this negro felt no 
 desire of sacrificing himself for his race, as he believed 
 his race was unworthy of him ; he sought to become a 
 white man. and all negroes ought to have the same 
 purpose, and thus make themselves vanish. 
 
 The most peculiar and the most contradictory trait 
 in Cudjo Bell, the most difficult thing to understand 
 fully, was his dislike, his utter contempt for his own 
 race ; in fact this feeling often amounted to positive 
 hatred. He was inhuman at this point ; his good 
 nature, ordinarily playful as a kitten, would turn acrid 
 at the sight of a black face. He hated his own skin ;
 
 THE AFRICAN IN FREEBURG. 325 
 
 he would have flayed himself alive, if he had believed 
 he could thereby have changed its color. He was de 
 termined, in his heart, to remain the sole black man 
 in Freeburg, till he had become white. 
 
 Just as little would he tolerate the black woman. 
 No greater insult could be offered him than to intimate 
 that such a person might be his wife. To continue 
 the black race was not only a wrong in his eyes, but a 
 kind of diabolism. His view of the black woman was 
 very candid. Said he: "She does not want a black 
 man, when a white man is around. She wishes her 
 child to be white, or as near so as possible. And why 
 should she not seek to bear a better son than she is? " 
 
 " Then, Cudjo," said a by-stander once (it was not 
 Miss "Winslow who now was talking), " you ought not 
 to despise her." 
 
 " I do not despise this trait," he replied, "it is the 
 best thing about her, she will not have a black man if 
 she can help it." 
 
 In this matter, Cudjo was a practical Darwinist. 
 He saw the struggle for existence going on in the race, 
 and the fittest surviving. Nature strove for the ex 
 cellent, and selected the white in preference to the 
 black. To be sure, this process took place through 
 moral violation, but nature often worked out her pur 
 poses in defiance of morality. Cudjo was inclined to 
 regard the negro woman in the main as faithless to the 
 family, but obedient to instinct. As far as he was 
 concerned, he had renounced the family in his own 
 race. The spark of love had never entered his bosom 
 but once ; in youth the fiery eyes of an octoroon had 
 roused a sudden emotion ; but when he came to his
 
 326 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 senses, even she was too dark for him, and he re 
 nounced. 
 
 One day Miss Winslow succeeded in getting from 
 him his views concerning his own ancestry, about which 
 he was in the habit of keeping silent. " My father," 
 said Cud jo, "was captured in war, and brought from 
 Africa, where he was a king. He was sold and car 
 ried to a plantation in chains, but he would not work; 
 he fought his master, broke the head of his overseer, 
 and made a spring for the woods, where he lived in 
 defiance of his pursuers. At last a compromise 
 reconciled him, he was acknowledged a king and al 
 lowed to exercise roj^alty. He was appointed over 
 seer, and given authority, which he exercised without 
 control and without mercy. The black men and women 
 he regarded as slaves, and treated them as such. Now 
 he worked and made others work ; he won distinction, 
 but all, both white and black, feared him. Finally he 
 claimed his master's daughter ; he thought he had 
 earned a white wife by his merit." 
 
 Cudjo stopped a moment, and Miss Winslow asked 
 with interest: " How did it turn out? " 
 
 The negro replied with a strange energy in his 
 words: " When she afterward married another man, 
 who was white, in a fit of jealousy he slew himself 
 after trying to kill her and her husband. " 
 
 Cudjo told this story in a way that showed he en 
 tered into its spirit fully. >It sounded, especially at 
 the end, as if he had his father in himself. Miss Win- 
 slow again felt a little startled ; she had called up the 
 sleeping demon in the African, and had seen the fire 
 flash from his eyes ; she was terrified at a look, which,
 
 THE AFRICAN IN FREEBURG. 327 
 
 she felt, might turn to the savage glare of jealousy. 
 But she was courageous, she went on with the in 
 struction ; there was, however, at times some misgiv 
 ing. 
 
 The other negro had not come to take a lesson for 
 several days ; she wondered, as he had seemed eager 
 to learn ; finally she asked Cudjo where Sambo was. 
 He said he did not know. But his manner indicated 
 that he did know, or was much interested in not 
 knowing. Miss Winslow pressed the question, when 
 Cudjo gave that wild African gleam from the eye, 
 which belongs not to the descendants of slaves, but 
 of princes. He mumbled sullenly, " I am not his 
 keeper." 
 
 "Yes, Cudjo," replied Miss Winslow, "you are 
 your brother's keeper, and within your ability to 
 help him, you are responsible for him." 
 
 The negro shrugged his shoulders, but said nothing. 
 Miss Winslow went on : 
 
 " You have read in the Old Testament. You know 
 who once asked this same question. It was Cain, the 
 first murderer, who slew his brother out of envy." 
 
 Miss Winslow did not know where or how severely 
 she had struck her pupil, who went off in silence. As 
 he passed out of the door, she thought she heard him 
 mutter something to himself a thing which he had 
 never done before in her presence. But she certainly 
 saw him make a gesture which caused her to shiver ; 
 she felt that she had seen that gesture before in some 
 strong terror, but she eould not, at the moment, 
 remember when or where.
 
 328 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 IV 
 
 Cudjo still kept up his reading, and appropriated 
 words in a wonderful way, if not always the corre 
 sponding ideas. He had found a locked book-case in 
 the house ; it contained his employer's library of choice 
 English books. The Judge had already discovered 
 that the black fellow could read, having at various 
 times come upon him with a book or with a newspaper 
 in his tyand, and having commanded him to pronounce 
 certain sentences which stood in print. The Judge 
 would say: "This is some of Miss Winslow's work 
 again." Cudjo would look anxious, but never denied 
 the statement. Judge James Allworthy, however, was 
 not the man to lag in generosity, not the man to smother 
 aspiration in an humble soul. He said, on one of these 
 occasions, unlocking his library: "I must not fall 
 behind the school-mistress in giving you a chance. Do 
 you see those books ? ' ' 
 
 "I see them plainly," said Cudjo. 
 
 " They are yours as far as you wish to use them. 
 Help yourself." The Judge threw open the door of the 
 book-case, and the negro bowed and expressed his 
 gratitude. 
 
 "What book do you want?" asked the Judge. 
 . Cudjo's eye ran over the titles of volumes on a 
 shelf, he settled upon one, and said : 
 
 " This is a book about which I have often heard ; I 
 would like to try it." 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " The works of William Shakespeare."
 
 THE AFRICAN IN FREEBURG. 329 
 
 ' ' Take it with you ; there is much wisdom in the 
 book if you can get it out." 
 
 The African carried the volume to his room above 
 the stable, prizing it as a rare treasure. He turned 
 over its leaves and found it full of illustrations. One 
 of the pictures showed a dark woolly head and a beau 
 tiful white woman in a position not by any means antag 
 onistic to each other. Underneath, he saw the printed 
 words : Othello and Desdemona. His gaze was long and 
 dreamful upon the cut, which spoke to him in a strange 
 way. He had vaguely heard of their story before, 
 and it floated through his imagination in cloudy out 
 lines, into which his own history seemed often to 
 blend. 
 
 He noticed the play to which the picture belonged, 
 and began his first reading of the great dramatist. 
 The wild fancy at once-caught his African nature ; it 
 seemed to have traces of the untamed tropical jungle, 
 which produces the ferocious monsters of the earth 
 serpents, tigers, anthropoids. He loved those mighty 
 words of the poet, even when he did not know their 
 meaning ; in them he heard the roar and the hiss and 
 the howl of a long-suppressed nature. He was su 
 premely fascinated with the leading character, who 
 seemed to have all Africa inside of him, yet with 
 Europe's polish on the outside. Cud jo saw himself, 
 saw his father in that black prince, and felt the truth' 
 of Shakespeare. He could not leave the book, he 
 absorbed it, though much of it he could not under 
 stand. The language, word for word, he was not 
 always able to explain, still he knew the whole, knew 
 it well. He felt the poetic genius crash through all
 
 330 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 the intervening obstacles ; not only the sound of the 
 words, but their very look on the page could start 
 the earthquake. He pored over the book, caressed it, 
 slept with it, and finally carried it to Miss Winslow, 
 that she might help him out with the meaning of cer 
 tain expressions. 
 
 Miss Winslow was, of course, surprised. " What !" 
 she cried " reading Shakespeare already, the most 
 difficult English classic! Even our Literary Club 
 finds it hard to get anything out of him, or, rather, to 
 put anything into him. I think you ought not to try 
 to read such an author at present. But go ahead, let 
 us see what you can do with him. Make your own 
 selection." 
 
 The negro chose, without any prompting, the 
 speech of Othello before the Venetian Senate. 
 
 Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors, 
 My very noble, and approved good masters, 
 That I have ta'en away this old man's daughter, 
 It is most true ; true I have married her. 
 
 Cudjo showed at once that he had the piece by 
 heart. What a revelation to Miss Winslow ! What a 
 thoroughgoing emphasis at the vital points ! What a 
 real thing was the whole delivery, even in its mis 
 takes! What a significant look he gave along with 
 that magic word married ! 
 
 It showed the black man in his glory, the hero, the 
 prince, the foremost general of the land, the African, 
 pleading before the aristocratic Senate, for his white 
 wife, daughter of one of the Senators, the white wife 
 whom he had won by his merits. And he carries her
 
 THE AFRICAN IN FREEBURG. 331 
 
 off in the very presence of the State and of her 
 father. Heavens ! what a triumph ! 
 
 Cudjo rose and swelled with a new importance 
 when he wound up that speech. Yet Miss Winslow 
 heard in it an ominous undertone, which portended 
 some great upheaval ; in the very words lay a pre 
 sentiment of the reckoning to come. 
 
 The two chatted together for a while, when she, 
 testing him, said: " That marriage, however, was not 
 the end of the story." 
 
 " I know it well," said Cudjo. 
 
 " That which you read," continued Miss Winslow. 
 " was the comic or happy part; then, when the pair, 
 Othello and Desdemona I mean, were left to them 
 selves, the tragedy followed." 
 
 "Othello was right," said Cudjo, with a little flash 
 from the eye. 
 
 "What ! in killing Desdemona? " 
 
 "Yes, my lady." 
 
 ' : How can you think that? " 
 
 Miss Winslow seemed to be led by an evil spirit 
 to walk upon the very ground which she wished to 
 avoid. She had already felt the rising demon in Cudjo, 
 had felt it repeatedly, and still a sort of fatality drove 
 her onward to provoke what she sought to allay. The 
 negro walked excitedly up' and down the room, and 
 then let out the words that were burning within 
 his bosom : 
 
 " I would do the same deed, were I in Othello's 
 place." 
 
 "You may be in his place at some time," spake 
 that fatal tongue of the school-mistress.
 
 332 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 "Possibly I am now." 
 
 Through these dark words there flashed from Cudjo's 
 eyes a fierce light, which made their meaning lumin 
 ous. He snatched up the book, and again began to 
 read in a sort of frenzy. It was the passage where 
 Othello, in a paroxysm of jealousy and doubt, seizes 
 his torturer, lago, by the throat, and exclaims : 
 
 "Villain, be sure thou prove 
 Be sure of it; give me the ocular pro of, 
 Or, by the worth of man's eternal soul, 
 Thou hadst been better have been born a dog, 
 Than answer my wak'd wrath." 
 
 In giving these words, the negro twisted and coiled 
 and bellowed. He was frightful to behold ; he seemed 
 not merely to show the characteristics, but also to 
 utter the sounds of the African jungle the roar of 
 the lion, the hiss of the anaconda, the click of the 
 ape ; along with them he had the stealthy spring of 
 the tiger. 
 
 But there was one special note in this scale of ani 
 mal music, which caused Miss Winslow the strongest 
 shudder. When Cudjo pronounced the word villain 
 in the above passage, she heard the same unearthly 
 growl which came through the broken window-pane, 
 on the night when the stone was hurled. The cause 
 of that act had remained a mystery. It flashed 
 through her mind that she now had before her the doer 
 of that piece of mischief. Gradually, too, she had 
 begun to perceive the motive which led to the act. 
 But her thoughts were all in a turmoil of excitement 
 and terror ; none stayed long in her whirling brain.
 
 THE AFRICAN IN FREEBURG. 333 
 
 She retained, however, an external calmness of 
 manner ; she begged him to stop reading, and gently 
 took the book from his hand. But he grasped for it 
 with all his might, it was the food which nourished his 
 passion, the intoxicating cup which he would not sur 
 render. The poet roused in him alt the emotions, and 
 even the actions which the drama set forth. Cudjo 
 took the writ literally and proposed to carry it out to 
 the last point of horror. He never reflected that such 
 a passion is tragic, and is so portrayed by the author. 
 The very frenzy of jealousy was for him a drunken 
 ecstacy, which he quaffed from the words of the play. 
 He threw himself into it, soul and body ; he would go 
 through the whole convulsion of Othello, and die with 
 him at the end. 
 
 He started to read again, it was at the point where 
 Othello falls down in a fit, and Cudjo was plainly go 
 ing in the same direction, when Miss Winslow laid 
 hold of his arm, and gentty forbad him to proceed, 
 looking him in the eye. She spoke to him soothingly, 
 but did not take away her hand or her glance ; the 
 fellow stopped his reading and began to weep like a 
 child. This lasted some moments, she kept her con 
 trol, and at last he seemed calm. Miss Winslow, how 
 ever, had just commenced to see the nature and extent 
 of her task in this new field of African education. She 
 still retained her presence of mind, though little 
 shivers of terror were running through it everywhere. 
 
 She sought to divert his thought from its present 
 bent, and to direct it into a different channel. In the 
 most innocent manner she asked him when he had seen 
 Sambo. It was the most fatal question she could have
 
 334 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 thought of ; it was inspired by her evil genius mask 
 ing in good intention. Again she heard that awful 
 growl, more fierce and grating than ever before ; she 
 saw a human shape writhing and curling up in anger, 
 jealousy and madness. He choked in his utterance, 
 he foamed at the mouth, he spluttered the unintelligible 
 sounds of a beast in trying to speak. At last he suc 
 ceeded in ejecting certain short words in short 
 sentences : 
 
 " I hid in the woods, I saw him come here with 
 his book, I saw him go out, I caught, I beat, I kicked, 
 till he fell, I made him promise to leave that night and 
 never show himself in this town again." 
 
 There is no doubt that Miss Winslow felt her courage 
 rise with the emergency, indignation gave strength. 
 She said: "How could you do so great a wrong to 
 one of your own kind, who is seeking to learn as you 
 are?" 
 
 "No nigger shall ever take a lesson from you." 
 
 " If that depends on your consent, perhaps you will 
 begin to stop white people as well." 
 
 Cudjo showed a throe of a new spell, he shed con 
 vulsively a few tears and growled out: "I have be 
 gun to stop them too, and I shall go ahead." 
 
 Miss Winslow was feeling the man's character in a 
 new way. She, too, was developing a trait, hitherto 
 unknown to herself . She demanded haughtily : "Tell 
 me, what do you mean by such a threat? " 
 
 "I shall tell you. I saw you and Henry Firestone 
 through the window ; I saw what you did. I threw 
 the stone that stopped you in a hurry." With this 
 declaration he gave the same growl, which she had
 
 THE AFRICAN IN FRKEBURG. 335 
 
 heard after the cast of the stone, and by which she 
 had already identified him as the doer of the deed. 
 
 The mystery was now solved, and the motive was 
 likewise made plain. But the crisis was by no means 
 past, though she felt the spirit rising in her equal to 
 the new task. Her demon at once grappled with that 
 of the African, and she began: " This is the reward 
 for my efforts to make a man of you. For your sake 
 I have scorned prejudice, I have even defied law; I 
 have given you freely my time, I was ready with my 
 life, if necessary. This is your gratitude. Leave me, 
 and never come into my presence again, thou black 
 beastly son of Ham." 
 
 But the negro's spirit was not yet down. He rose 
 above her like a frenzied animal, and ground his teeth : 
 "I'll kill you." 
 
 Miss Winslow had no time to lose. She grasped his 
 arm vigorously, and poured her firm glance like a 
 burning stream into his eye. He stopped and sank 
 back upon himself, muttering, " And I'll kill myself." 
 
 Cudjo had weakened, he really no longer resisted in 
 spirit." But Miss Winslow rose in strength, a dark 
 power came up in her, which she herself had hardly 
 suspected. Her benevolence had departed, and the 
 consecration of a life was suddenly swallowed by the 
 fiend of vengeance. In this mood she spoke : " Cudjo 
 Bell, be accursed of yourself, and of all men ; you are 
 unworthy of freedom, unregenerate, ingrate ; go back 
 to ignorance, go back to slavery, drink again of the 
 bitter cup of toil and degradation. What your own 
 Bick Prophet foretold will come to pass, you have not 
 yet had the full training of servitude ; you must re-
 
 336 THE FREE BURGEES. 
 
 turn, and take another dip in the waters of humiliation. 
 Under the scourging of the overseer's whip, perchance 
 in the mouths of the ferocious blood-hounds tearing 
 your limbs, you will be taught humanity toward your 
 brother. Begone, leave my presence, depart to dam 
 nation and take with you my curse." 
 
 Miss Winslow had risen to a prophetic height, and 
 it may be added, to a prophetic fury. Never had she 
 felt such a possession before. In the dark corners of 
 her nature also lurked a dragon, as well as in Africa. 
 She had never seen the eyes of the monster so plainly 
 as at present. A moment after her utterance she was 
 affrighted at herself. Somehow she thought of her last 
 and greatest renunciation, from whose dizzy height 
 she had suddenly dropped, and was still whizzing 
 downwards with an infernal gravitation. 
 
 Cudjo was overawed, he shrank, withered, fell, till 
 he almost crawled out of the door. The doom came 
 like a thunderbolt, he felt its certainty, nay, its 
 necessity, because the judgment really lay within him. 
 The vision and the words of the Black Prophet, .whom 
 he had that day scorned, came back to him along with 
 the terrible monsters of the swamp. He was completely 
 unnerved, and resigned to whatever might come. 
 
 It was already night. As he slunk off in the dark, 
 his stalwart form slopped down as limp as a rag. He 
 had to go through a patch of trees not far off ; in the 
 midst of it three men sprang out of a dark clump of 
 bushes and seized him ; it was the identical spot where 
 he had waylaid poor Sambo. He at once knew the 
 meaning of the whole occurrence ; he turned and 
 fought, but not with his old strength, the curse was
 
 THE AFRICAN IN FREEBURG. 337 
 
 working. He felt a pair of hand-cuffs slipping over 
 his wrists, he gave one spring, but somebody was on 
 his back and dragged him down. He yelled once, but 
 a gag was immediately thrust into his mouth. 
 
 Miss Winslow heard dimly the sounds of the scuffle, 
 and wondered ; then she heard the cry and came to 
 the door and listened ; all was quiet in the distance. 
 She was still in a tremor of excitement, and she ha,d 
 to go home in the dark. As she passed down the 
 road, she thought she saw some human figures gliding 
 mysteriously through the trees ; then she thought she 
 heard a deep muffled groan of somebody in pain, very 
 different from that growl which had wound such a 
 dark ominous thread into her life. A little later she 
 was certain that a wagon was driven rapidly away 
 through the dark. With a feeling of deep inner dis 
 cord and general uneasiness she entered the house 
 which she called her home. The next day Cudjo Bell 
 did not appear at his lesson.
 
 CHAPTER NINTH. 
 
 THE CELEBRATION. 
 I. 
 
 The boom of a small cannon was heard reverberat 
 ing from the Public Square. The conversation round 
 the hearth of the Firestone family went on, though 
 everybody engaged in it was struck by the sudden 
 report, and started a little. All present were in the 
 midst of an animated discussion, which could not then 
 stop. The relative merits and prospects of the North 
 and the South were in the process of being set forth 
 with much spirit; the great question was: Which of 
 the two is to have possession of the future ? Which 
 will mould the nation ? What are to be the means ? 
 Can political unity be preserved in such a vast and 
 ever- widening territory ? The former interest in an 
 cestry had given way to the deeper interest in nation 
 ality. There was good feeling, but a great difference 
 of opinion. At last Mr. Tournefort declared some 
 what pensively : ' ' The tendencies of the two sections 
 are growing more diverse every day, and are slowly but 
 surely moving toward separation." 
 
 Again the boom of the cannon echoed through the 
 house ; it entered the conversation and mingled with 
 (338)
 
 THE CELEBRATION. 339 
 
 that last word of the Virginian. He was startled for 
 a moment at the sound, but soon went on with his re 
 marks: "The economical life, as well as the social, 
 are different ; institutions are not only distinct, but 
 are becoming incompatible, nay, hostile." 
 
 More loud and penetrating than before was the re 
 port of the cannon ; it shook the window ; it seemed 
 to be an immediate and emphatic response to Mr. 
 Tournefort' s declaration. The talk was interrupted, 
 the members of the household ran to the window and 
 looked out toward the source of the noise. 
 
 "What does that firing mean?" Mr. Tournefort 
 asked in some surprise. 
 
 " There is a celebration to-day, the railroad is com 
 pleted," said Mr. Firestone. 
 
 " Which way does it go? " 
 
 " It runs north and south from this point," replied 
 Mr. Firestone. 
 
 "Is it possible! " exclaimed Mr. Tournefort, whose 
 astonishment did not result from ignorance of the ex 
 istence of the railroad, but fro in a sudden presenti 
 ment of its significance. 
 
 " How is it with your old town in Virginia, where 
 you and your ancestors have lived so long has it such 
 means of communication? " asked Mr. Firestone. 
 
 " There again I must grant that you are ahead of 
 us," was the ready reply. 
 
 " I suppose so," continued Mr. Firestone. " But do 
 you know that we had a hard time in getting it." 
 
 " What was the matter? " 
 
 " People divide upon this question as up on all 
 others."
 
 340 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 " Then the railroad also has split you into two 
 parties," observed Mr. Tournefort. 
 
 "Certainly," was the somewhat uncertain response 
 of Mr. Firestone, since he was divided in himself upon 
 this very point. 
 
 That had been a time of great excitement in Free- 
 burg when the first railroad began to be talked of. 
 The little town, which had been depressed from vari 
 ous causes and had remained far behind its own ap 
 preciation of itself, "was suddenly filled with hope that 
 floated it upwards into high air like a balloon. It be 
 came inflated with untold ambitions and thought itself 
 a great city on the spot. Land rose, buildings shot 
 up, speculation entered the sturdy bosom of the agri 
 culturist and swelled it to a monstrous girth ; for the 
 first time imagination became a factor in the life of 
 the community. The prosiest man turned poetical 
 and was again a believer in myths. It was a spiritual 
 change, which, on the whole, must be pronounced un 
 healthy; a fever, not necessarily fatal, but dan 
 gerous. 
 
 Yet all this took place not without much opposition 
 and argument, as Mr. Firestone had hinted. The 
 farmers of the surrounding districts were in the habit 
 of coming to town and discussing the railroad on the 
 Public Square. One would say : " It cuts my farm in 
 two." Another would reply: "But it gives you a 
 market at home and makes the rest of your land more 
 valuable." Still others would speak of the reckless 
 ness with which it killed pigs, cows, horses ; even men 
 would not be spared by the death-dealing locomotive. 
 "But it will pay you," was always the final argument
 
 THE CELEBRATION. 341 
 
 that paralyzed the opponent, " it will pay you for all, 
 even for your life." What more could be asked when 
 mortality itself brought a price ? 
 
 The man most noisy in opposition was old Johnny 
 Foggey, who always planted himself in the way of the 
 railroad, though his land lay several miles from the 
 proposed track. In the shirt sleeves of honest but 
 untidy toil, with trousers stuffed into the tops of his 
 heavy boots, with face unshorn and hair unkempt, he 
 would come to town daily, take position on the Public 
 Square, and do battle against the incoming new-fang 
 led iron horse. There was much discussion, a good 
 deal of ignorance, no little froth and some anger; 
 once or twice there was an actual grapple of sinew by 
 the boldest contestants, all to no purpose, however. 
 Steam had made up its mind to go where it pleased, 
 had quietly taken possession, and was now preparing 
 to celebrate its victory. 
 
 The majority of the people were friendly. They 
 saw the immediate profit, they felt that this new kind 
 of road with its own huge, swift wagons and carriages 
 meant some great change, certainly economical, pos 
 sibly social. It was, indeed, too vast a thing for 
 them to grasp fully, but it was new, and they believed 
 in progress. They undoubtedly showed a little touch 
 of curiosity, perchance of anxiety, along with their 
 hopes ; they felt a small thrill of terror at the sight of 
 the mighty behemoth of mechanism. 
 
 Its growth was a miraculous legend, more miracu 
 lous than the ancient story of Hercules, the world- 
 tamer; it was the modern myth, which persists in 
 being simply a deed, and refuses to utter itself as yet
 
 342 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 in song. Unknown men called surveyors suddenly 
 appeared, having n^-sterious instruments ; they drove 
 stakes into the ground along certain lines, they ascer 
 tained heights and depths of hill and valley. The 
 people turned out to look at the strangers going 
 through their possessions at will, without their con 
 sent, yet with some higher authority ; they sometimes 
 protested, generally favored, but all at last submitted. 
 It seemed the decree of a stronger power than them 
 selves, of a new agency which was going its own way 
 without human permission. The only thing to do was 
 to fall in and help along the pre-determined order, and 
 thus, perchance, get a free ride all the way. 
 
 After the staking of the lines, the grading began ; 
 the people came und helped with their teams at good 
 wages ; they cut the wooden ties and hauled them to 
 the road-bed at much profit. The new work brought 
 prosperity from the start. Then came the long iron 
 rails, which were laid down in two parallel lines run 
 ning in opposite directions out of sight toward in 
 finity. 
 
 Finally, to-day the locomotive has arrived, the 
 climax of mechanical contrivance; with it the whole 
 thing at once takes life. Behold, the machine now is 
 not merely moved, but moves itself ; it can run at a 
 wild speed and carry man, the contriver, along in its 
 bosom. But the question will rise : Has not man now 
 made something greater than himself, which may turn 
 and swallow him in his very triumph ? We shall have 
 to wait and see. Meanwhile so much is clear: Old 
 Kronos, the Time-God, has brought forth another son, 
 the new Zeus, who will again fling his parent down
 
 THE CELEBRATION. 343 
 
 into murky Tartarus, and coop him up in far narrower 
 limits than ever before. 
 
 Surely a great day for Freeburg and for the world ; 
 let everybody rejoice and celebrate. A wonderful 
 transformation of the earth and all distance takes 
 place, like the sudden shifting of a fairy-tale. The 
 capital of the State is now distant but a few hours' 
 ride ; yesterday the same journey took as many days. 
 To-day Freeburg has become its suburb. All produce, 
 the result of toil, has now some demand, which is set 
 tled at the world's commercial center. New York and 
 London, vast electric piles which galvanize conti 
 nents, have sent a small current along the iron bars 
 into this petty place, which responsively leaps up in 
 a thrill. Freeburg, with its rural environs seemed an 
 isolated spot on the map ; in a day it has become an 
 intimate necessary part of the globe, whose whole life 
 it begins to feel. No wonder the little town swells and 
 exalts itself, having the throb oi the entire earth in its 
 bosom. It has looked at itself in the mirror of the 
 future, it sees itself magnified one hundredfold in a 
 single wink of the eye. 
 
 Each individual felt the mighty pulse of the time, 
 bringing with it untold multiplication of wealth ; then 
 he tried to confine the pulse, as much as possible to 
 himself. It was the counter-stroke to the great bless 
 ing ; the average man became selfish, uncontrollable ; 
 he lost out of view the public advantage, in trying to 
 turn the golden stream into his own pocket. The re 
 straint of morals and of law became no restraint, even 
 religion was drawn into the whirlpool and lost her 
 divine charity. On one side of the town dwelt Deacon
 
 344 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 Huffey, a Presbyterian of the soundest orthodoxy, who 
 wished the railroad to pass through his cow-pasture, 
 else he would give nothing and oppose it in the bar 
 gain. On the other side of the town dwelt Elder Stickle- 
 berry, a Baptist of the hardest kind of shell, who 
 declared that the railroad must go through his back 
 yard, else he would drive it out of Freeburg. The 
 controversy was carried into their respective churches, 
 and the members took sides with much bitterness, 
 which threw the whole town for a time into confusion 
 and uproar. Heavenly peace took her flight, the hell 
 ish legions held a carnival right in the sanctuary. 
 
 Meanwhile the railroad ran its own way through 
 another part of the town, and left both deacon and 
 elder out in the cold. It had its own purposes and its 
 own means. Freeburg as a whole rejoiced in the out 
 come ; it cried shame upon the selfishness of the two 
 individuals who would jeopardize the interests of the 
 whole community in their petty quarrel. And there 
 was danger. The managers of the railroad threatened 
 to pass by Freeburg altogether, and lay the track 
 through Snaptown, its great rival. This is just what 
 had happened many years before when the canal was 
 built. The Freeburgers quarreled about its location, 
 one party thwarted the other, the channel was turned 
 aside to a small village five miles distant, which at 
 once became a competitor. Even now Freeburg was 
 not without a twinge of anxious selfishness. Other 
 towns were springing up along the track of the rail 
 road, each had as great hopes as Freeburg, each began 
 a tilt against all its neighbors, each had an imagination 
 like a magnifying lens, through which it looked at its
 
 THE CELEBRATION. 345 
 
 own image, and always beheld the same in colossal 
 proportions. 
 
 But Freeburg, like most places, was full of human 
 nature ; every man and woman had a little of it. 
 After sharply reproving the selfishness of those two 
 religious men, the deacon and the elder, the town 
 would give a chuckle of selfish delight over its humil 
 iated rival Snaptown. Exultation, ridicule, malice 
 were poured upon the neighboring village for seeking 
 what others sought, namely, its own advantage. But 
 it was doomed. The town of the canal could not stand 
 against the town of the railroad. Thirty miles an 
 hour swallowed easily three miles an hour. Still there 
 had been a fierce contest, which lasted through years, 
 and represented two great stages of transportation, it 
 may be said, of civilization. 
 
 H. 
 
 The faithful historian must not fail to give some 
 account of the war which once broke out between 
 Freeburg and Snaptown, though he have to go back a 
 little in time, and bring the past down into the present. 
 He well knows that this war has an important place in 
 American history, and ought to have a special interest 
 for every citizen of a free country, who may from its 
 record draw a lesson for his own community. More 
 over it is the necessary prelude to the celebration 
 which is about to take place in Freeburg. 
 
 When the canal first came to Snaptown, it was a 
 place without any significance whatever. The ditch 
 was dug, and the miracle followed ; the muddy village
 
 346 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 sprang at once into an importance as great as that of 
 Freeburg. Houses rose by magic, streets were made, 
 parks were laid out, and the whole district was turned 
 into town-lots. It soon demanded the county-seat, 
 which had been for a long time located at Freeburg ; 
 this demand started bad blood not only in the latter 
 place, but over the whole county. As usual, two 
 parties arose, one for and one against the removal. 
 The old political organizations were submerged in this 
 new cataclysm; the rising conflict of the time was 
 hushed, Conscience lost her power, and Law was often 
 stripped of her majesty. Every candidate from Snap- 
 town was defeated by Freeburg, and every candidate 
 from Freeburg sank to the bottom under the weight 
 of the hostile votes of Snaptown. 
 
 It was, indeed, a time of multitudinous confusions. 
 But the one great question which rose above all others 
 and disturbed every small neighborhood, was, Shall 
 Freeburg or Snaptown sell groceries and dry goods to 
 this part of the country ? Emissaries from both places 
 were everywhere present, and fought their battles 
 with bolts of muslin and calico, with sacks of sugar 
 and coffee, and sometimes with the solid fists. But 
 the chief weapon on both sides was the tongue, which 
 now seemed to have even a greater power of calling 
 up those gorgeous phantoms named lies, than it had 
 ever before had in the history of the world. 
 
 The conflict entered the social circle in both places. 
 Freeburg claimed the old high-bred aristocracy, which 
 went back in a few cases one generation at least an 
 antiquity that gave a divine right of birth. The Snap- 
 town people, on the other hand, were new intruders,
 
 THE CELEBRATION. 347 
 
 pretenders, parvenus ; they had no ancestry. The two 
 towns called each other hard names, charged each 
 other with plebeian peculiarities of mind and body ; 
 the ladies especially grew hot at the insinuation of hav 
 ing big ears, big hands, big feet. The new town always 
 reproached the old one with being slow, sleepy, sod 
 den, behind the times ; the old town always reproached 
 the new one with being fast, unsteady, unprincipled, 
 altogether too far ahead of old-fashioned honesty. 
 The newspapers took up the battle, and throve from 
 it, like swine in the swill-tub ; Snaptown had also its 
 sheet compounded of black printer's ink and blacker 
 blackguardism. The editorial coruscations illuminated 
 the entire county with a sort of devil's flare of wit and 
 drivel. The writers shunned all appearance of reason, 
 they belittled one another, they lied, they pawed dirt 
 like mad bulls ; their divine inheritance they seemed 
 bent on turning into a madhouse. 
 
 But the chief difficulty arose when the enumeration 
 of the inhabitants of the two towns was to be taken. 
 Each declared its numbers trebled on the spot, and 
 ridiculed the estimates of its rival. At last came the 
 official figures, which both tried to falsify, but which 
 told the truth. It gave a desperate shock to both ; 
 each denied the correctness of the enumeration, and 
 took its own census over again. The expected com 
 fort never arrived ; the fact would come out that the 
 two places were nearly equal in numbers , in wealth, 
 in churches and in lying. 
 
 There were many attempts to harmonize the con 
 flicting claims, and to tone down the savage spirit of 
 commercial jealousy and competition. It was felt by
 
 348 THE FREEBURGEKS. 
 
 their best people that the two towns were relapsing 
 into barbarism. Judge Allworthy, revered by both 
 sides, sought to interpose his calm judicial saws 
 between the parties ; but they sounded like the notes 
 of a flute in the whirlwind. Still he plead for moder 
 ation, he held up before everybody the law, he threat 
 ened the penalties of its breach. With difficulty he 
 kept the two factions from an open rupture on several 
 occasions. 
 
 At last after much seething and frothing, the tur 
 bulent waters were turned into a peaceful channel, 
 nay, into the stream of love. A marriage was arranged 
 between a scion of Freeburg's most ancient aristoc 
 racy, proud but poor, and one of Snaptown's wealth 
 iest heiresses, whose father was a butcher and had 
 made his money in pork. 
 
 The cream of the cream of society in both places 
 was invited, and mighty was the bustle of preparations 
 and congratulations and expectations. The wedding 
 was to take place at the country seat of the bride's 
 father, Mr. Hezekiah Snapper, of Snaptown, situated 
 about half way between the two places, a little across 
 the border line toward Freeburg. When the rich 
 butcher built his palace there, it was regarded as an 
 impertinence and a taunt by the Freeburgers, and 
 started ill-feeling among those whose ill-feeling was 
 ready to start. But now it was to be the scene of a 
 happy union a marriage not only between two rep 
 resentatives of the towns, but between the towns 
 themselves. 
 
 The guests had assembled, the music was playing, 
 the cooks were busy, the corks were popping, the
 
 THE CELEBRATION. 349 
 
 plates were rattling, the preacher had arrived, when 
 some question of precedence arose between two hot 
 youths, a Freeburger and an heir of Snaptown. Sharp 
 words passed, blows followed, each side was re-inforced 
 by friends, each town took part with its man, the ill- 
 healed wound was broken open afresh, and the festal 
 company of itself split into two angry, gesticulating, 
 loud-talking sets of combatants. In the midst of 
 them appeared Judge Allworthy, the man of law, who 
 was present in full dress as an honored guest ; beside 
 him stood the preacher in white neck-tie with his evan 
 gel of peace. Both sought to allay the excitement, 
 they could not be understood in the din, both were 
 swept away in the turmoil. Loud thumps could be 
 heard, cracks over the skull thudded heavily in the 
 uproar, curses rose which had the happy effect of 
 drowning one another. 
 
 The trouble started in the large yard, but it soon 
 reached the house, where the bride and bridegroom 
 stood in tremulous expectancy, ready for the ceremony. 
 The bride, a plucky girl, ran to the door, when she 
 heard the noise ; she saw the conflict, saw the separa 
 tion into two parties. She at once left her betrothed 
 and joined her side, in full train switching around, and 
 sending a volley back at him : ' ' There, your perfidious 
 people are beginning again." Whereat he beat a quick 
 retreat out the back way, and joined his party. Thus 
 the peace-promising marriage was cleft in twain, while 
 the knot was in the process of being tied, and the bride 
 and bridegroom, in wedding dress and kid gloves, 
 took ranks on opposite sides of the battle. 
 
 By this time the valiant Freeburgers had driven their
 
 350 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 enemies back into the house, up whose steps the lat 
 ter rushed in a sort of panicky flight. The victors 
 now halted, and bethought themselves ; they were re 
 minded of their trespass against the laws of hospi 
 tality. Moreover, when they saw the bridegroom among 
 them, gloved, hatless, in white vest, they began to 
 scent comedy and turned to laughter; good humor 
 came back as they asked : 
 
 "Are you married? " 
 
 The bridegroom, who was beside himself with ex 
 citement, replied: " I don't know." 
 v " Did the minister say anything to you? " 
 
 "Not a word." 
 
 "Well, then, we might as well go home. This thing 
 is wound up." 
 
 By a common impulse the Freeburgers filed out of 
 the yard and went home where they created no little 
 surprise and merriment. Those who had not been in 
 vited now had their revenge. Everybody asked : 
 
 "Where is the bride? " 
 
 " We could not carry her off; she was the best 
 fighter in Snaptown." 
 
 " But where is the bridegroom? " 
 
 All looked around, expecting him to report at the 
 call, but he was missing. It was known that he had 
 started home with the rest of the company. Where 
 could he be ? A shout went up with a laugh : ' ' Where 
 is the bridegroom? " 
 
 But at this point the affair assumed a serious phase. 
 A rumor went through the crowd who started it no 
 body knew that all Snaptown was in arms, and on 
 the road to avenge the insult. There was but one thing
 
 THE CELEBRATION. . 351 
 
 to be done: that was, to muster on the Public Square, 
 and make ready to meet the foe. A nucleus was fur 
 nished fortunately by the small military company un 
 der the command of Capt. Charles Firestone. Soon a 
 second report was brought by a man who came run 
 ning breathless from the fields, shouting that the whole 
 of Snaptown was just outside with pistols, guns, and 
 a small cannon. 
 
 At once the fright began and with it the flight. 
 Women and children ran to and fro with cries and 
 tears ; timid men quickly dragged forth their wagons, 
 or hired vehicles for rapid transportation, giving large 
 sums of money, to be taken out of town in a direction 
 opposite to Snaptown. Of course these men had to 
 go along to look after their families, and did not come 
 back. Other men went into the ranks, unwilling for 
 the most part, and damned the wedding which had 
 caused the war. Altogether about one hundred sud 
 den soldiers shouldered arms and filed out to the crest 
 of the hill by the Snaptown road, and there stood in 
 line of battle waiting for the enemy. 
 
 Meantime what was occurring in Snaptown ? The 
 defeated wedding-party, when they beheld the Free- 
 burgers withdrawn from the yard and nowhere to be 
 seen, ventured out of the house into which they had 
 been driven, slipped stealthily into the road almost 
 without looking behind themselves, and ran pell-mell 
 into Snaptown, taking with them the owner of the 
 mansion, Mr. Hezekiah Snapper. Only one person 
 refused to leave the house; it was the stout-hearted 
 bride. She declared that she would stay, and if worst 
 came to worst, fight out the battle alone. The people
 
 352 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 of Snaptown, roused by the stories of the panting 
 fugitives, and observing no pursuers, were stirred to 
 the highest pitch of wrath, and swore that they would 
 punish the indignity. 
 
 While they were valiantly hurling these mighty 
 threats, a horseman came riding into town at full gal 
 lop, with hat off, showing plain signs of consternation. 
 As he spurred through the streets, he shouted in an 
 excited splutter that all Freeburg had mustered, and 
 was at that moment on the march, with the avowed 
 purpose of taking, sacking and burning Snaptown. 
 The Freeburgers had declared also that they intended 
 to cut open the heart of the town and let_ its blood. 
 This dire threat was generally interpreted to mean 
 that they would make a breach in the canal and let its 
 water run out, since the canal was considered the heart, 
 if not the soul of Snaptown. 
 
 " Did you see them coming? " 
 
 " No, but I saw the man who did." 
 
 The report caused new deliberation ; on the whole 
 it was not regarded improbable, the ill-will of Freeburg 
 was well known. Then that military company had al 
 ready created suspicion, now its purpose was clearly 
 seen. The more the people thought, the more certain 
 became the prospect of an immediate attack. The 
 consternation grew uncontrollable ; horses and wagons, 
 even dirt- carts, were in sudden demand; the families 
 of Snaptown began to drive out rapidly on the road 
 which led in an opposite direction to Freeburg. Some 
 men were seen running through the fields, toward the 
 woods. 
 
 But there were courageous people in Snaptown. A
 
 THE CELEBRATION. 353 
 
 few bold spirits took their fowling pieces and stationed 
 themselves behind trees near the bridge, which the 
 invaders would have to cross. There they awaited 
 with perfect patience the onslaught. Darkness came 
 on with all its terrors, still they held their ground ; 
 they mounted guard, though in absolute silence. In 
 the middle of the night the frightened sentinel blazed 
 away at a post, which he took for a creeping enemy. 
 Crack, crack went the two barrels of his shotgun, and 
 then he ran ; the remaining people all ran after him, 
 and the bridge was left in peaceable possession of 
 itself. 
 
 Great was the terror in both towns. It seized and 
 affected the strongest spirits, they could not shake it 
 off. These were brave men, but what is the use of 
 fighting against that stealthy sneaking deity called 
 Panic ! None at all. Wait and he will leave of him 
 self. And this is what happened. In such a time 
 people become superstitious. An omen was seen by 
 the Freeburgers which more than anything else re 
 stored confidence. In an orchard, before the eyes of 
 all the citizens who remained in town, a big, lubberly 
 pup gave chase to a bull-calf. The latter ran, and 
 throwing up its hoof in running, happened to hit the 
 pup on the snout. Thereat the pup gave an unearthly 
 yelp, turned and ran in the other direction, with tail 
 between his legs. The yelp frightened more than 
 ever the calf, which now began to bellow. Thus the 
 two continued to run with all their might in opposite 
 ways, terrified by each other's terror. 
 
 It has already been noticed that when the Free- 
 burgers arrived home from the wedding, there was 
 
 23
 
 354 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 one man missing the bridegroom. Where was he ? 
 Nobody knew just when or where he had slipped out 
 of the ranks. Had he played the traitor for his sweet 
 heart? Impossible; his courage and his patriotism 
 were not to be doubted. The next day all was quiet 
 on the road which the Freeburgers guarded, not a 
 soul had passed. Toward evening two people afoot 
 were seen slowly approaching in the distance, and 
 created great wonder. Nobody could recognize them 
 at first ; as they seemed peaceably inclined, they were 
 allowed to advance without molestation. Behold, the 
 bride and the bridegroom ! they had come from the 
 country mansion. The bridegroom told his story. 
 He was not going to be cheated out of his bride by 
 the quarrels of parents or of towns ; he repented 
 leaving her behind, he slipped away at a good oppor 
 tunity, went back and found her alone. 
 
 Then began a struggle of persuasion, endearment, 
 promises. She held out for a time ; but the result in 
 good season followed. He persuaded her to walk with 
 him back to Freeburg, where she was henceforth going 
 to stay. Great applause rose in response to this state 
 ment. A shout of victory broke forth: "We have 
 the bride ! We have the bride ! ' ' People shook hands, 
 sprang into the air, yelled with joy: "The war is 
 over, and we have the bride." The military company 
 at once broke ranks, the guard was withdrawn, the 
 guns were stacked mid shouts: " The war is over, 
 and we have the bride." 
 
 The thoughtful Judge Allworthy, so legal and yet 
 so charitable, did not forget, mid all this jubilee, Snap- 
 town and its possible condition. What Freeburg
 
 THE CELEBRATION. 355 
 
 had just passed through, it might still be painfully 
 enduring. He slipped out of the crowd to his stable, 
 quietly mounted his horse, and rode off^tapidly to 
 Snaptown, whose people he calmed and restored to 
 order. He furthermore made the announcement to 
 the parents and to the public generally, that the bride 
 was safe in Freeburg, where she had declared her in 
 tention of staying. All of Snaptown that remained 
 gathered round him, leaped upon him, and cried for 
 joy: " The war is over, let us have peace." 
 
 It may be added that Freeburg acquired great pres 
 tige by this incident, and it clung to its advantage. 
 Shortly afterwards it obtained by a vote of the county 
 a new court-house and a new jail ; the seat of justice 
 and of punishment remained fixed thereby for an in 
 definite time. Still Snaptown continued to be an ag 
 gressive place, and upheld its commercial importance, 
 which had kept alive the old jealousy to the present 
 time. It had even schemed to get the railroad, but 
 that project had been a failure, of which fact the pres 
 ent celebration was the most convincing proof. 
 
 III. 
 
 The little cannon had kept up its booming and had 
 given the emphasis to certain contested points in the 
 conversation at the Firestories. The railroad was dis 
 cussed with all its causes and consequences ; it too 
 made a division in the household. The elder Firestone 
 was uncertain about its results ; he was inclined to 
 doubt its advantage and to question its good influence. 
 " There is no telling," he said, " what kind of a mon-
 
 356 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 ster we are letting loose among us." But he had a 
 thread of denial woven through his whole nature a 
 strong blaclrthread which always drew him aloof from 
 the common opinion at first. A certain melancholy 
 vein caused him to declare: " I am afraid it will do 
 us no good." 
 
 But Aunt Polly, his sister, was a zealous champion 
 of the railroad. Its importance, as well as its profit, 
 seemed to be divined by her instinct ; she took several 
 shares in it and urged others to take them. The wo 
 man was the seeress, even in this matter of commerce, 
 apparently so remote from her life. " It is part of 
 these progressive times," she cried; " I am going to 
 live in the head and not in the tail of the age." Al 
 ready we have noticed her tendency to glance toward 
 what lay in the future ; she saw it, furthered it, took 
 delight in it. To-day was, accordingly, a great day 
 for Aunt Polly ; she seemed to consider it a turning- 
 point in her life. She wished to share in the celebra 
 tion, and to help make it a success. Charles Tourne- 
 fort was astonished at her talk, it was so different 
 from anything he had been used to hearing at home 
 from the housekeeping sisterhood. Still there was a 
 kind of approval in his astonishment. He wondered, 
 too, at the new mighty instrument of the country's 
 development ; but his greatest surprise was reserved 
 for what was taking place in the souls of these vil 
 lagers. 
 
 A knock was heard at the door, which was at once 
 opened ; a citizen with a ribbon in the button -hole of 
 his coat entered and inquired for Mr. Tournefort, who 
 was then introduced. He addressed the Virginia gen-
 
 THE CELEBRATION. 357 
 
 tleman as follows : "lam deputed by the Committee 
 of Arrangements, in accord with a suggestion from our 
 eminent townsman, Judge All worthy, to invite you to 
 be present at our celebration to-day, and to request 
 you to make some remarks upon the occasion. I per 
 sonally hope you will not fail us. It will be interesting 
 to have you tell us what is transpiring in your part of 
 the country. We have heard many comparisons be 
 tween the North and the South from Northerners ; it 
 will doubtless be to our profit to hear one to-day from 
 a Southerner. 
 
 This was a new surprise for Mr. Tournefort. He 
 mused a moment without giving a response ; he was 
 taking his own time ; at last he looked up to make an 
 inquiry, when he saw the committeeman passing out of 
 the door. He heard the parting words from those van 
 ishing lips : "I wish you good morning." 
 
 Mr. Tournefort asked with a shade of vexation: 
 " Why did he not wait? He has not received my an 
 swer. What does he mean? " 
 
 Aunt Polly replied : "Nobody waits here for any 
 body." 
 
 " Courtesy is not much cultivated in these parts, I 
 imagine," said Uncle Charles. 
 
 "Too busy, too busy," retorted Aunt Polly. 
 " Everybody has the railroad inside of him and runs 
 to the minute." 
 
 Mr. Tournefort laughed, saying: " Well, they might 
 wait at least till I got on the train, and I would then 
 go along. ' ' 
 
 "No, you must be on time, else the train will leave 
 you behind,"
 
 358 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 "Then I must send my message after the man. I 
 shall make a short address, though oratory be not my 
 wont ; I have a few reflections which I shall try to put 
 together. I would not be true to my American birth 
 right unless I made a speech when I had a chance." 
 
 Word was sent to the committee ; the family circle 
 broke up, Uncle Charles retired to his room to cogi 
 tate. Shortly after noon all came together again, 
 partook of a hasty lunch, and then hurried off to the 
 Public Square, on which the speaking was to take 
 place. 
 
 IV. 
 
 During these days there was a good deal of excite 
 ment in the Firestone household as well as in the whole 
 community. The visit of the uncle made a continual 
 stir in the family ; the preparations for the railroad 
 celebration were the source of incessant bustle in the 
 town. Everybody seemed so full of great affairs 
 that no special attention could be given to any ordinary 
 matter. 
 
 In the background of all this tumult and pre-occu- 
 pation of the family, little Trolla still lingered, pale 
 and ill ; the perfect physical form had already lost its 
 elastic echo, and much of its strength had departed. 
 She often kept her room while the younger members of 
 the household went on some excursion or to some 
 festivity. 
 
 She was more and more thrown back upon herself, 
 and turned inward for her help and her entertainment. 
 Stilt she took an eager interest in all that was going 
 on ; especially she listened with deep participation to
 
 THE CELEBRATION. 359 
 
 what concerned Henry. She had one supreme relief, 
 as well as one final utterance : she made songs and 
 hummed their melodies ; they rose up from the hidden 
 currents of her being and burst like bubbles filled with 
 fragrance on the air, without much attention being 
 paid to them. 
 
 In honor of the approaching holiday, she had asked 
 to be attired in festal costume. A white dress, such 
 as she liked, was made according to her directions ; 
 pretty shoes tied with ribbons were to show off in neat 
 contrast to the upper garment. But the new straw hat 
 of golden color was her special delight. She wished to 
 trim it herself with a becoming wreath ; for this pur 
 pose she visited the garden which had once been al 
 most her home, but which she had been forced to 
 abandon on' account of increasing weakness. Great 
 was the joy of her floral friends as she appeared once 
 more among them ; she said that they clapped their 
 hands as she entered, and saluted her in their flower 
 language, with many fragrant words of delight. It 
 was her last visit ; the effort exhausted her, she sank 
 down on the door-sill as she returned to the house. 
 
 The next day she was better ; it happened to be the 
 day of the great railroad celebration ; she was dressed 
 in her festal garments. She had to stay at home, but 
 she asked to be placed out in the yard under the trees, 
 as it was fair weather. She said : "I like to look up 
 into the leaves and hear them talk and sing. I shall 
 celebrate my birthday, though I never had any." Poor 
 Trolla determined to have a little festival of her own, 
 ere she left the fair earth and the dear people upon it. 
 
 A young clergyman entered who had taken a great
 
 360 THE FREEBURGER8. 
 
 interest in the little sufferer ; he had studied her case 
 with much sympathy and had sought to impart com 
 fort in various ways. He was an expert in medicine ; 
 he believed it to be his duty to heal the sick physically 
 and mentally ; he was body-curer as well as soul-curer ; 
 in fact, he declared that the two callings went to 
 gether. Trolla had become attached to him, though 
 he, in his searchings and probings, often made her 
 wince with pain. But he never tried to wrench her out 
 of her own clear pathway into some road of his own, 
 nor did he indulge in the painfully stereotyped forms 
 of clerical condolence. He took an interest in the 
 human soul for its own sake ; he did not seek to tor 
 ture it into some opinion alien to it, in the name of re 
 ligion, but he endeavored to unfold it on its own course 
 into its own true being. 
 
 To-day he had come to see the sick and lone child 
 instead of joining the multitude on the streets. He 
 gave a little respite to Aunt Polly, who had been 
 closely confined to the house by Trolla' s illness, and 
 who would not leave her without some company. 
 Good Aunt Polly was eager to go out a little while, for 
 she had a very keen interest in the new railroad, and 
 in the success of the celebration. The result was, the 
 clergyman and Trolla were left together ; they talked, 
 the festal noise would rumble through their words ; 
 she became excited, a hectic flush spread over her 
 face. She tried to walk about in the yard, leaning on 
 the clergyman's arm ; but she was soon fatigued, and 
 lay back in her chair, clad in all her holiday raiment. 
 Her eyes filled with tears, the clergyman tried to divert 
 her thoughts into some quiet, pleasant channel, but her
 
 THE CELEBRATION. 361 
 
 breast heaved as if her heart would break out of its 
 walls. 
 
 She said : "I know you do not think it best for me 
 to sing, but I have something in my mind which runs 
 of itself into a song." 
 
 "You had better not exert yourself," said the kind 
 adviser in a soothing tone. 
 
 " I wish in that way to tell you something which 
 you may like to know," said Trolla with a confiden 
 tial look. 
 
 " The doctor gave orders that you should keep calm 
 and not sing." 
 
 "But I must." 
 
 " Well, then, that is best," said the clergyman. 
 
 She raised herself up in her chair, and, with a per 
 fect simplicity, she sang her song, which was a sort of 
 musical confession to her spiritual friend. 
 
 let me sing while I am here, 
 One birth-day would I keep; 
 
 And though I drop the silent tear, 
 I know not why I weep. 
 
 1 have no want, I have no care, 
 The world to me is good, 
 
 And yet there comes a pain to bear, 
 I know not what I would. 
 
 I love thee well, thou pretty earth, 
 Be thou my mother blest, 
 
 give me back once more my birth, 
 While sleeping on thy breast. 
 
 Thy silent house I do not dread, 
 Nor fear its well built wall; 
 
 1 know I shall rise from my bed, 
 When once I hear t-hy call.
 
 362 THE FREEBURQERS. 
 
 She had hardly ended her song, and fallen back into 
 her chair in a relaxed position, when she saw the 
 old singer gliding in at the gate. He held his instru 
 ment under his arm, and it was clear from his face that 
 he had brought his singing mood along. He quickly 
 joined the little company, and spoke to Trolla : "I 
 had a strange longing to see you to-day. Indeed you 
 have never been out of my heart since I saw you under 
 the Tall Apple Tree. I could not remain in the crowd, 
 its tumultuous uncertainty confused me, its noises deaf 
 ened the ears of my soul. I sauntered along the road 
 out of the way, I heard your singing, you drew me in 
 with irresistible power." 
 
 Trolla was delighted to see the old man ; her excite 
 ment, great as it was, seemed now to pass under some 
 strong control. She cried out with a look that shot 
 rays of joy almost with violence upon their object: 
 " I had dreamed of this, but never expected it. The 
 moment has come ; we, too, can have a festival just 
 here under the listening leaves. It will be of music 
 and song; it will be very different from that noisy 
 celebration of the railroad outside in the town. The 
 fancy had struck me before, but I never expected it 
 to spring out of my brain into something real just be 
 fore me, as it has done now." 
 
 The two men were surprised at the declaration of 
 Trolla, who seemed to be so mature in her experience 
 and thought. She spoke again : "Let us not delay. 
 Good father, give me a song ; this air of Freeburg to 
 day distracts me, sing some harmony into it, that it 
 be not altogether confusion." 
 
 The old singer joyfully drew forth his instrument,
 
 THE CELEBRATION. 363 
 
 saying: "I am eager to do what you wish? I feel 
 like celebrating my good fortune to-day, while others 
 are celebrating theirs, and that of the town." He 
 broke at once boldly into his song : 
 
 II I but go into the wood, 
 
 I hear it touch a note ; 
 It starts to play a tuneful mood, 
 
 Then sings within my throat; 
 And if I walk along the shore, 
 
 The sea rolls to my feet; 
 Beneath its everlasting roar, 
 
 'Tis giving me the beat. 
 
 O'er hill and dale the song I sing, 
 
 It makes the world a lover ; 
 The sky drops from her breast the spring, 
 
 The earth peeps out her cover ; 
 From every little plot of ground 
 
 There comes a.merry clinking ; 
 You find, if you but catch the sound, 
 
 That nature is a-thinking. 
 
 And so around the world I roam, 
 
 My feast is but the air, 
 I live in music as my home, 
 
 My house is any where ; 
 Then let me pipe my minstrelsy, 
 
 Or twang the thridded string; 
 A rover only would I be 
 
 And to the sunlight sing. 
 
 The old man thus expressed his great love of song 
 and the freedom of song. There was a note in his 
 strain that was unusually gay ; it showed him in a new 
 mood, as well as gave a glimpse into his heart, which 
 could also be inspired by the happy love of Euphro-
 
 364 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 syne. The life of the roving minstrel was not now a 
 fateful necessity, but a free choice. 
 
 The clergyman, with that strong interest in every 
 human soul, which has been noticed as his chief trait, 
 was stimulated to great curiosity. He had not seen 
 the old singer before, whose wanderings he inquired 
 about and whose purpose he endeavored to probe, 
 without much success. But that which fascinated him 
 was the art of the singer ; it seemed so spontaneous 
 and yet so careful, while the delivery was natural and 
 yet full of grace. 
 
 They began conversing. The clergyman said : " Old 
 man, you have become dear to me through your skill. 
 I can see that you have not only sung much, but you 
 have thought much about your singing. Is it not so ? " 
 
 " My art and my thought are one," said the old 
 man. 
 
 " It is the tendency, perchance unfortunate, of my 
 mind," added the clergyman, " to demand that thought 
 be put into the limits of the word before I can grasp it. 
 There is one thing, however, which I have never been 
 able to define. Will you explain it to me? It is 
 plainly the inmost kernel of your life and living. Tell 
 me what is poetry ? ' ' 
 
 " Do you expect me to define the indefinable?" 
 
 " Possibly you may be able to do something of the 
 sort." 
 
 " Can I put that into the bonds of speech which 
 frees the soul of all bonds ? ' ' 
 
 " My answer is still that you sing." 
 
 The old man reached for his violin and touched the 
 strings gently with thumb and forefinger, which was
 
 THE CELEBRATION. 365 
 
 often his method of ptting himself into tune before he 
 started into utterance. He spoke as it were to himself . 
 " What is poetry ? What is it to me ?" 
 
 'Tis a shooting star 
 
 Born of another world; 
 
 Into our air it is whirled 
 And takes fire from afar, 
 
 Just at its birth, 
 
 True child of Heaven and Earth, 
 A flash out of night into night, 
 Leaving a long track of light, 
 Whose beginning and end reach out of our sight. 
 
 The old man had scarcely concluded this little 
 snatch of verse, when Henry came into the yard and 
 saw the company sitting in a pleasant group under the 
 shade of the trees. He had also heard notes of the 
 song in the distance, but not the words. The youth's 
 face beamed joy and hope ; he had just received bis 
 father's consent to go to college, and he had in his 
 pocket Aunt Polly's first supply of funds. The cele 
 bration in the village did not take hold of him 
 strongly ; his spirit felt itself breaking out of the egg 
 shell after long brooding, and promised itself soon to 
 have wings. Each member of the group turned toward 
 him, and reflected back into his face the delight of his 
 words, as he cried out exultingly at some distance : 
 " I am going." 
 
 But Trolla's look was peculiar; it was made up of 
 delight and despair. She showed a sudden flush, a 
 strong internal commotion; but her self-command 
 bore down with all its power, she even calmed herself, 
 and spoke in a sort of musical undulation, as if her
 
 366 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 words could hardly be restrained from breaking into 
 melody: " I have a song which I have been trying to 
 piece together for some days. I could not quite reach 
 it before, but now I believe I can." Without a 
 moment's delay, she looked up and began to sing: 
 
 I stand upon a mountain high, 
 
 And look beyond the dale ; 
 A starry face is in the sky, 
 
 And pulls aside its veil. 
 
 What pang is thine, thou bonny Miss, 
 
 Tears on thy cheek now shine? 
 I cannot help but weep for bliss 
 That never will be mine. 
 
 My star, O star, why gleam so high, 
 
 Yet tarry in my view? 
 My love, O love, why me deny 
 
 Just when I feel thee true? 
 
 I turn from that high mountain top, 
 
 A lower path I take ; 
 I see a piece of Heaven drop, 
 
 And rest in yon clear lake. 
 
 I see a star fall in it too, 
 
 And twinkle there below; 
 I now look down on Heaven's blue, 
 
 While to the lake I go. 
 
 Bend hither, bonny maid, to play ; 
 
 I quit my throne above 
 To dream with thee the world away, 
 And give thee back thy love. 
 
 The waters rise and roar afar, 
 
 Around the maid they rave ; 
 She bends her o'er to kiss the star, 
 
 Then sinks' beneath the wave.
 
 THE CELEBRATION. 367 
 
 The clergyman was somewhat puzzled by the uncer 
 tain allusions in this song. He did not fully sympa 
 thize with its vein at first ; still, he tried on the spot to 
 think it over honestly, and to study it from the inside 
 and not altogether from the outside. He was inclined 
 to regard it as the utterance of a soul somewhat in 
 clined to mysticism, and crushed inwards upon itself 
 by destiny. 
 
 Henry at first hardly listened to the song, he was 
 so full of his new plan and of himself. But one note 
 quickly touched his interest, then another went to his 
 heart, till he began to feel her meaning. He recog 
 nized certain hints of old ballads which he had read 
 in times past to Trolla ; his surprise was great to see 
 how she had absorbed and reproduced in her own way 
 certain little turns of thought and manner in these 
 musical pulsations of the people's mighty heart. He 
 had never done anything of the kind himself, much as 
 he enjoyed the reading of that old poetry. The end 
 of her song threw him wholly out of one world into 
 another. He also pondered upon her look, and the 
 peculiar intonation of her voice. "What secret thought 
 could she have in her soul to make such a song? 
 
 But the person who most completely caught its weird 
 influence, as well as its rhythmical swing and poetic 
 sense was the old singer. He was supremely respon 
 sive to Trolla's mood ; both their natures rose and 
 flowed together in a common stream through the upper 
 world of poetry. He had been the main instrument 
 of making her closed flower-life open into its first 
 burst of song. He seemed now to penetrate her mys 
 tery, and to sympathize with her dark struggles. He
 
 368 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 changed at oncefromthe rollicking vagabondism of his 
 first strain, and pi eked up the same tune and measure 
 and form of verse which Trolla had employed, so that 
 in certain respects it seemed a continuation of her song. 
 Of course he screwed up the strings and put his violin 
 in tune with his new emotion ; then he cast his eyes 
 over the heads of his little company and beyond, his 
 voice meanwhile swaying up and down in a lofty roll: 
 
 I swim into the loving sea, 
 
 The Sun has gone to rest; 
 The Moon and Stars now swim with me, 
 
 They play upon my breast. 
 
 I see the wooing sky descend 
 
 Out of her airy home, 
 And round me in the water bend, 
 
 And build a liquid dome. 
 
 The Moon has, too, in smiles come down, 
 
 I splash into her face, 
 I make it ripple to a frown, 
 
 And then her form embrace. 
 
 I boldly swim from star to star, 
 
 The beaked Moon bestride, 
 The shining shapes I can not mar; 
 
 How swiftly runs the tide ! 
 
 Then rose the Lady of the Mere, 
 
 Just where the billow stirred ; 
 She pressed the water from her hair 
 
 And sang a magic word . 
 
 Swim, further swim into the sea, 
 
 And further into night ; 
 The Moon and Stars will swim with thee, 
 
 Till dawn drop into sight.
 
 THE CELEBRATION. 369 
 
 The company were not in a critical mood ; they ex 
 pressed their sincere satisfaction at this little lay of 
 the old singer. The clergyman spoke: "How like 
 your song is to Trolla's, and yet how different! You 
 have caught her gait, her imagery, even her mystery; 
 your look and tone at times appeared to me to suggest 
 hers. Still you were yourself, you seemed to pick her 
 up where she was lost in the roar of the waters, and to 
 swim with her out to shore ; you were in song her res 
 cuer." 
 
 In the meantime the noise of the celebration outside 
 had increased. There were heard the shouts of men, 
 the clatter of wagons, the roar of cannon ; the great 
 boisterous world swept into that little spot, and seemed 
 almost to engulf it, but the old singer's voice persisted 
 the more, and finally rode triumphantly above the 
 mad tumult of the day. In song as well as in life he 
 had shown himself the fate-compeller. 
 
 Trolla felt the mighty stir of the time, she grew 
 more excited, though her two previous efforts had taxed 
 her above her strength. She had no Aunt Polly pres 
 ent to moderate her intensity ; she looked as if she 
 was trying to escape her earthly bonds, and go beyond. 
 She declared that the poetic festival must continue, 
 and assert itself as equal to the railroad celebration. 
 Several times she placed the two in comparison with 
 each other, and they seemed to run together in her 
 mind. By chance three men on horseback rode by, 
 one behind the other, and seemed to look at her while 
 passing, as if they would speak to her. She caught 
 the sudden suggestion from seeing them, and there 
 came into her memory certain touches of the old bal- 
 
 24
 
 370 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 lad, which delights in the number three. In this mood 
 she declaimed rather than sung the following verses: 
 
 Three men came riding swiftly by, 
 
 And greeted me, All hail ! 
 Why droops to earth thy weary eye? 
 Why turns thy face so pale ? 
 
 To earth must droop my weary eye, 
 
 My face must turn so pale, 
 When I shall hear three men ride by, 
 
 And shout to me, All hail ! 
 
 From West to East, from. East to West, 
 
 We ride o'er hill and dale ; 
 We bid the worst, we bid the best; 
 Pale child, what doth thee ail? 
 
 One looked behind, one looked ahead, 
 
 While passing down the vale ; 
 One looked at me, as on he sped, 
 
 And whispered low, All hail! 
 
 I come to bid thee to the feast, 
 
 Be present without fail. 
 The horsemen rode into the East, 
 Still shouting, Hail, all hail ! 
 
 The child so pale sprang from its bed, 
 
 And followed on their trail ; 
 As through a gate of clouds it sped, 
 
 Beyond was heard, All hail! 
 
 The last words were uttered in a strange supernat 
 ural cry, with a look peering on vacancy. In a 
 sort of hysterical scream she rose from the couch, and 
 started to go as if she would follow the real, or per 
 chance the spectral horsemen. She was evidently out
 
 THE CELEBRATION. 371 
 
 of her senses for a moment, her excited imagination 
 had shifted her from the moorings of reason. Henry 
 seized her by the arm and tried to soothe her troubled 
 soul ; he spoke to her in a caressing tone : 
 
 "Trolla, stay." 
 
 At once she stood still, when she heard the sound of 
 his voice pronouncing her name with so much tender 
 ness. Her festal hat had fallen off, he replaced it 
 carefully ; the wreath too lay on the ground, he grace 
 fully put it around the hat again. She looked very 
 pale and exhausted, but smiled and said: 
 
 " O how much trouble I give." 
 
 " We are glad to help you," said the clergyman. 
 
 " I am much better. Nothing is the matter with 
 me now." She spoke in order to divert further atten 
 tion from her physical condition. 
 
 The report of a cannon again sounded through the 
 air. She turned to the ancient singer, who stood near 
 her with a look of deep sympathy; she spoke to him: 
 " Let us go on with our festival too. We must have 
 another song and you must sing it. Do you not re 
 member the verse which you once sang under the Tall 
 Apple Tree?" 
 
 " I have sung many verses there. Can you not tell 
 me what it was about?" 
 
 " O, yes ; it had in it a rainbow that bent over from 
 the tops of the hills. I often see that rainbow." 
 
 " I think I remember," said the old man. 
 
 "Then it had aline, 'O Shepherd, come over to 
 me,' which often starts to singing of itself through my 
 mind, when I am alone." 
 
 "I know what you mean," said the singer. He
 
 372 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 carefully attuned his instrument, played a short pre 
 lude and then began : 
 
 The Shepherd came into the city, 
 
 And wandered up and down; 
 There rang in his ear a ditty, 
 
 Through all the din of the town. 
 
 From the hill-tops a rainbow is bending, 
 
 It reaches far over the sea ; 
 And a song I hear with the ending : 
 
 Shepherd, come over to me. 
 
 I know not what is the matter, 
 
 That song rushes into my head, 
 Its music floats over the clatter, 
 
 But she who once sang it has fled. 
 
 I see my old flock on the mountain, 
 
 As it grazes in pasture up high; 
 I look at her face in the fountain, 
 
 1 there see myself, too, and sigh. 
 
 Still the rainbow yonder is bending, 
 
 It reaches far over the sea, 
 And a song I hear with the ending: 
 
 O Shepherd, come over to me. 
 
 The old man's voice quivered at this point, he 
 stopped, he was for a moment mastered by his feel 
 ings. Trolla said : 
 
 " You sing yourself as well as me in that song." 
 
 The clergyman spoke up to relieve the company 
 from the weight of emotion : " Jt is another of those 
 ballads, which have in them often such strange sugges 
 tions of the supersensible world." 
 
 Trolla said to the old man : " I notice you have sung 
 several new verses ; could you not add some more? "
 
 THE CELEBRATION. 373 
 
 " Your instinct," said the singer, " is right; there 
 are more when it is complete." 
 
 " Will you not give me a copy? " asked the clergy 
 man. "I notice there is a refrain in it suitable for 
 children's voices, which I happen just now to be train 
 ing in chorus." 
 
 " We shall speak of that together hereafter," re 
 sponded the old man. He rose to depart. 
 
 Trolla laid herself back upon the pillow of her little 
 couch, she spoke more calmly than she had at any time 
 before during the day: "I wish you to complete that 
 song and sing it over when I atn laid to rest." 
 
 The company was startled, yet deeply affected by 
 these words. They seemed like a last request ; they 
 carried with them the unquestioned tone of certain 
 prophecy. Trolla observed the effect of her speech, 
 and wished to soften the sad expectancy of her hear 
 ers ; she put on her most joyous air, she detained the 
 company which was about to break up, exclaiming: 
 " Do not go, the festival is not yet over ; there is 
 something still to be celebrated." To the old singer 
 she spoke: "You and I must sing a strain together. 
 We have hitherto sung separately, now it must be in 
 unison at last, and let that be the end." 
 
 The old man looked at her in perplexity and ex 
 claimed: " How can it be done? " 
 
 " Do 3'ou not remember the verse you once sang to 
 me about the rising and the setting sun ? I have not 
 forgotten it, and especially I cherish the end which 
 said that both were the same." 
 
 " Ah, yes ; I call it to mind." 
 
 "Sing that."
 
 374 THE FREEBURGEKS. 
 
 The old man turned back to Trolla and prepared to 
 obey her request. He looked at her with a sympathy 
 which reached down to the sources of their common 
 existence, and then repeated the lines which he had 
 once before sang to her in a deeply congenial 
 mood : 
 
 Bright child, thy rising sun 
 
 May seem my setting one, 
 But if we look beyond to whence they came, 
 The rising and the setting sun are both the same. 
 
 But no sooner had he started to sing the first word, 
 than Trolla also began and sang to the same measure 
 and tune. She had caught up the strain from memory, 
 or perchance from a foreboding suggestion deeper than 
 memory. Her notes as well as her manner and gest 
 ures strangely corresponded to those of the old singer, 
 and formed a duet of melodious action upborne on the 
 sweet waves of song. Her words were in the begin 
 ning a little different from his, but they were in the 
 end just the same, so that the two voices fell into 
 complete unison in the final couplet. Thus her whole 
 verse ran : 
 
 Old man, thy setting sun 
 
 May seem my rising one, 
 But if we look beyond to whence they came, 
 The rising and the setting sun are both the same. 
 
 The last two lines they sang in perfect concord and 
 with great heartiness, yet with a deep sense of peace. 
 So strong was this feeling that a repetition of the final 
 couplet followed quite unconsciously on the part of
 
 THE CELEBRATION. 375 
 
 both, and held the two suns in unity here a few 
 moments longer. 
 
 As the last note died away, Aunt Polly was seen 
 coming through the gate. She called out to Trolla 
 from the distance not to exert herself by singing. 
 The old man at once bade the company good-bye, 
 saying: " Now I must go to the other celebration ; it 
 has for me an attraction which I did not feel before." 
 Trolla was helped to her room, though she cast back 
 repeated glances toward the little group, which soon 
 had scattered in various directions. The poetical 
 tournament of the old and the young singer had come 
 to an end. 
 
 V. 
 
 In the meantime, during the afternoon, the speaking 
 took place on the Public Square before a great multi 
 tude of people, who had come from the surrounding 
 country. All predicted a cloudless future for Free- 
 burg ; the glory of Snaptown had set forever. Some 
 citizens from the latter town were present ; their long 
 faces gave a silent echo to the loud huzzas of the 
 happy Freeburgers. 
 
 The first speech was made by a young attorney, 
 who had been already engaged by the railroad. He 
 defended it, he praised it, he lampooned its enemies ; 
 then he took a flight on the wings of splendor. He 
 wreathed the track and the iron horse in festoons of 
 flowery rhetoric ; he pictured the ditch of dirty water ; 
 he showed it running dry gradually, until the canal 
 boat stuck fast in the mud, while in the distance is 
 seen the new engine of civilization, puffing dense fumes
 
 376 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 into the clear air, and rushing over everything that 
 stands in its way. The young orator knew his audi 
 ence ; he gave many little side thrusts at Snaptown, 
 which were answered with cheers and laughter. 
 
 On such an occasion Judge Allworthy could not be 
 left out. He took the platform with great dignity, and 
 spoke in well-selected words his most careful periods. 
 He shared in the general enthusiasm, but he did not 
 leave his caution at home. He had great hopes, but 
 with them were mingled certain premonitions, of which 
 he would not then speak. The revolution in commer 
 cial, and consequently in social life, was too far-reach 
 ing for him to fathom at the start. " We shall gain 
 much," he said, "but we shall lose something; our 
 simple way of living and thinking we must expect to 
 see depart forever." 
 
 Thus the Judge continued to speak, perspicuously, 
 impartially, judicially ; his decision, after much bal 
 ancing, was, on the whole, in favor of the railroad. At 
 the close of his address, he said: " Fellow-citizens, we 
 have among us, on a visit, a gentleman of distinguished 
 family belonging to the Old Dominion. I would ask 
 you to call for Mr. Charles Tournefort." 
 
 A hearty shout was given in response, when Mr. 
 Tournefort rose, and began to talk in a familiar, one 
 may say, domestic manner: "My friends, you must 
 not expect a speech. I am no orator. But I would 
 like to recall to your minds my native State, so dear 
 to me, and hint what you owe to her you who are 
 heirs of the great new life springing up in this part of 
 the world. I speak of Virginia." 
 
 At this moment he cast his eyes over the audience
 
 THE CELEBRATION. 377 
 
 and saw, not far away, Miss Hope Winslow, listening 
 intently. She threw at him a strong look. He seemed 
 to bend his head and turn aside a little, then he went on : 
 " I see two tendencies in this Nation from the begin 
 ning ; the one comes from New England, the other from 
 Virginia. The people of New England are those who 
 stir up the inner man, who cherish and cultivate the 
 moral spirit ; they are always stirring up themselves and 
 their neighbors; they are the agitators, fomenters, 
 quickeners of duty. They doubtless brought on the 
 old American Revolution, and will bring on the new." 
 Here he looked at Miss Winslow. He was really 
 speaking to her, and to her alone. He felt it, he re 
 solved to change the current of his thought and 
 speech. He turned by sheer force to another part of 
 the audience and continued: "But when independ 
 ence was won, when the separation from the mother 
 country had taken place and the old order was over 
 thrown, who established the new order out of the 
 chaos? It was the Virginia statesmen, those who had 
 the chief hand in forming the Constitution. It was 
 the early Virginia Presidents, who put this Anglo- 
 Saxon portion of the Western world under law and a 
 stable government, which the Spanish Republics have 
 not yet succeeded in doing completely. It was a Vir 
 ginia Chief Justice, John Marshall, who, if he did not 
 make, interpreted and confirmed the Constitution, 
 which, like the oracles of Delphi, needed an interpreter 
 before it could be put into practice. Will you blame me 
 if I still feel attached to my old home and its spirit?" 
 At once there broke forth from the audience a thun 
 derous no, as a good many Virginians were present.
 
 378 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 The speaker had again involuntarily turned around 
 to Miss Winslow. "But," said he, "this spirit of 
 Virginia can be reconciled with that of New England. 
 There should be no antagonism, but a complete union 
 and co-operation for the good of the whole country." 
 He again became aware of that persistent personality 
 which he was addressing. But, as the applause had 
 broken off his remarks, he thought it a fair opportunity 
 to conclude, and he sat down. 
 
 When he had taken his seat, his eyes flew across the 
 audience, and could not help lighting upon Miss Wins- 
 low, whose face was illuminated with a very pleasing 
 smile streaked with tinges of red. He thought she 
 seemed more handsome than usual ; certainly there 
 was a recognizing sparkle in her eye. He also thought 
 he saw her stealthily applauding that last remark of 
 his ; but she was the soul of propriety and very secre 
 tive ; probably his imagination in this matter played 
 him a little trick. Still, whether true or false, it 
 gave him greater pleasure than all the other approba 
 tion combined. 
 
 While the speaking continued, he slipped down from 
 the platform to catch a breath of fresh air, and began 
 to take a stroll away from the crowd. He went off to 
 one side where he saw a small group of men surround 
 ing somebody who was singing. The notes seemed to 
 calm his agitated feelings and he advanced toward the 
 spot, thinking of that persistent face which he always 
 saw before him during his speech. 
 
 He paced along rather oblivious, when suddenly 
 there stood before him a female figure ; he looked up 
 half startled, it was Miss Winslow who had also sought
 
 THE CELEBRATION. 379 
 
 relief in the same way from the pressure of the crowd. 
 She smiled and spoke in friendly tones : 
 "I congratulate you upon your speech." 
 Mr. Tournefort gave a grimace which tried to show 
 his disapproval of a welcome compliment, then 
 added : 
 
 " Speech-making is not my strong point." 
 " I would not measure you by that standard alone," 
 she said with a humorous self-possession, which dashed 
 Mr. Tournefort. " But it was a very good beginning." 
 she continued, "you will advance further before the 
 end." 
 
 There was an indefinable mastery about her ; it was 
 one of her supreme moments. Charles Tournefort 
 declared to himself as he looked upon her complete 
 self-possession that she was beautiful, a very sure sign 
 that he was going blind, while keeping his eye-sight 
 a well-known malady which the oculist cannot cure. 
 
 The two had come to the edge of the small group 
 who had formed a circle around an old man who sang 
 and played the fiddle. He held that little company 
 by his music and song, while the great mass listened 
 to the speakers who talked of commerce, money, rail 
 roads. It was the old singer who had but a little 
 while before arrived from Trolla's festival. He had 
 been previously invited to show his art and compose a 
 poem in honor of the occasion, but he had abruptly 
 declined. Gain was not to be sung for or sung about, 
 according to his view. He would not celebrate the 
 might of steam and coal, which were so disfiguring the 
 beautiful face of nature, that she was becoming a hor 
 ror. The iron-horse did not strike his imagination.
 
 380 THE FBEEBURGERS. 
 
 His small audience loved the songs of the olden time ; 
 so he always had some listeners. Thus it is that the 
 poet in all this wealth of modern life is the beggar. 
 
 The old man had just completed a short verse as he 
 saw the couple approach. He gazed first upon the 
 woman with a wonder which for a time held his hand 
 from his instrument. Then he looked at the man, 
 then at both, as they stood there before him. The 
 crowd turned to see what had attracted his attention, 
 and eyed the pair. When he observed that he had 
 made them objects of an unpleasant curiosity, he 
 turned away his glance in the opposite direction, and 
 addressed the company : "I can now sing you a little 
 song of the railroad : " 
 
 There is a city of the head, 
 
 A city of the heart, 
 Though often they have tried to wed, 
 
 As oft they grow apart. 
 
 The lover then a railroad throws 
 
 Between the cities twain ; 
 
 . The greater now each city grows, 
 
 The faster runs the train. 
 
 When he had finished the last verse, he raised his 
 eyes in a sly way toward the couple, who had taken a 
 stolen look at each other. The little group of by 
 standers hardly understood the song, but they inter 
 preted it by the direction of the old man's eyes. 
 Again the pair were subject to a small shower of gazes, 
 not dangerous but not comfortable. It was a little 
 dilemma, but suddenly everybody's attention was at 
 tracted by the loud laughter of the large crowd around
 
 THE CELEBRATION. 381 
 
 the speaker's stand. The uproar continued, all ran 
 to see what was going on, the little group was torn 
 asunder by curiosity, even the old singer put up his 
 instrument and moved forward to observe the new 
 entertainment. 
 
 A strange sight was seen upon the platform. It 
 seems that volunteer speeches had been called for, 
 when a man with an odd face, on which protruded a 
 big nose, came forward, slowly ascended the stand 
 and began to speak. He had a grotesque humor not 
 merely in his words, but also in his actions, which 
 made every person in the audience titter, though no 
 body quite understood what he meant. He spoke at 
 first in broken English, which still further set off his 
 comic lineaments, a little stammer often clammed up 
 the stream of his talk, which then would break out in 
 one vast overflow of huge fragments, carrying away 
 the whole audience in a great laugh. It could not be 
 fully ascertained whether the fellow was in jest or in 
 earnest. He would assume a serious cast of the 
 features, speak profoundly, even feelingly of the most 
 important matters of life ; then he would make faces, 
 start to playing the clown, roar with his leonine voice, 
 and drive his hands through his long hair. 
 
 But his chief peculiarity was his mystical way of 
 speaking. His talk would run along perfectly clear, 
 pellucid as the brook, then it would take a sudden dive 
 underground, disappear wholly to the common eye, 
 and leave his audience groping in the dark for some 
 fleeting sense. He would string together a strange 
 medley of long words, which, singly taken, were plain 
 English, but, united into a sentence, had no meaning
 
 382 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 to his hearers. Sometimes they thought he was mak 
 ing game of the whole audience, and secretly having 
 the fun all to himself, so imperturbable, so infallible, 
 so well-satisfied with himself did he appear. Still he 
 made the speech of the occasion, in fact, he impressed 
 all persons as the man of genius ; every other utter 
 ance seemed but a stale common-place alongside of 
 what he said. 
 
 Mr. Tournefort and Miss Winslow came up to the 
 border of the crowd and listened. "There," said 
 Tshe, " that is our mysterious stranger, who has exer 
 cised such fascination over your nephew Henry. I 
 have an aversion for him." 
 
 The response given by Mr. Tournefort was: 
 " Listen." He drew his note-book and took the fol 
 lowing report, hap-hazard, from what he heard. The 
 man continued his remarks, as follows: " You have, 
 in this railroad, turned loose among you a mighty 
 animal, far stronger than any in Nature, tamed to 
 carry your burdens and moving at a prodigious velo 
 city ; still there is an untamed streak in him, which 
 may yet throw yon who ride on his back. He has a 
 wild trait, unreclaimed by civilization ; he will yet run 
 into your social system. Not his collision with pigs, 
 sheep, horses, or even with men do I fear, but his 
 collision with institutions." 
 
 At this point the speaker made a dive out of sight, 
 and the reporter, Mr. Tournefort, could not follow 
 him. For it requires a man to understand well in 
 order to report well. The time for setting down the 
 words was spent in the vain attempt to fathom their 
 meaning. The speaker had lost his audience, but he
 
 THE CELEBRATION. 383 
 
 soon rose to the surface again with a thought which 
 they all understood : 
 
 " I say that these iron bands have a higher purpose 
 than commerce. The hand of man has laid them down 
 upon the wrinkled face of the earth, but the hand of 
 Providence may also be seen fastening these rails with 
 spikes which are to stay forever. This double hoop 
 in our presence runs north and south, it will reach 
 from the Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, and bind this 
 country into an indissoluble union. Every blow struck 
 upon a nail to fasten these mighty bars is a blow struck 
 upon a nail in the coffin of disunion." 
 
 A little ghastly this, but further utterance was 
 drowned by the welkin-smiting cheers of the multitude. 
 Mr. Tournefort had time to jot a remark in his note 
 book: " I do not believe it." Miss Winslow at his 
 side whispered: "He has hit the nail on the head 
 this time, though the nail be in a coffin." 
 
 The speaker, after the noise had subsided, went on : 
 " I hear that Northern capital has built this road into 
 the distant South. In such great works of construc 
 tion, which mark new epochs, there are always two 
 designs, the conscious and the unconscious ; I for my 
 part must see both. Above all planning, there is an in 
 stinct at work which has made this railroad ; its build 
 ers have builded wiser than they knew ; their conscious 
 design was to carry cotton and merchandise, but the 
 unconscious design written everywhere upon it is to 
 transport armies." 
 
 Murmurs here arose, decided marks of disapproba 
 tion followed these words. The audience, composed 
 of both political parties, would not listen to such a
 
 384 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 hint, they resented even a prophecy of that sort. Mr. 
 Tournefort lost at once his admiration for the man, 
 and Miss Winslow became positively acrid. The 
 speaker felt that he had put his hearers out of tune 
 by the discordant buzzing and interruption. Finally 
 his roaring voice rose above the chaos of sound, as he 
 gave a new turn to an old figure, which brought with 
 it a relapse into burlesque grimaces and comic at 
 titudes ; for just when the locomotive approached, he 
 shouted : 
 
 " Behold the huge monster, foreshadowed in ancient 
 imagination by the fire-breathing Chimsera now a 
 reality. See, it is self-moving, like an animate being, 
 yet it is a machine the new complete mechanism 
 running on its own legs, driven from within somewhere 
 like man himself. Those mighty obstructions weigh 
 ing down the Universe Space and Time it lightly 
 tosses out of its way, on its cow-catcher, and rolls 
 ahead upon its predestined track, inevitable as Provi 
 dence. Who dares stand before it in act of resist 
 ance? No, jump on rather, it will fleet thee out of the 
 old world into the new. Methinks, it is the veritable 
 modern giant, not any of the ancient ones, not Her 
 cules, not Sampson ; it is the new Titan striking with 
 huge sinews of steel day and night, and never getting 
 tired through toil. Or it may be the very Devil 
 with plenty of fire in his belly, sending forth into this 
 upper world steam and smoke in prodigious belches ; 
 possibly it is Hell itself, which is going to burn up 
 some people, if they do not take care." 
 
 At this point the lurid imagery was lost in the smoke 
 which it had created, and the man seemed to turn a
 
 THE CELEBRATION. 385 
 
 fiend in his grinnings, contortions, and bellowings. 
 The curious fact is, that the people enjoyed mightily 
 the diabolic spectacle ; they laughed and howled, and 
 hooted, and leaped into the air, as if possessed by 
 that magic presence ; they were be-deviled by the 
 demoniac spirit before them. Women were frightened, 
 brave Miss Winslow was a picture of horror. The 
 speaker looked at his audience, and suddenly grew 
 calm ; he seemed to see his own image and to shrink 
 back from it ; his face took on its serene prophetic 
 look, the people followed his face and were soon again 
 serene. A little whistling of the tempest was heard, 
 when he began once more : 
 
 " You have installed to-day a new ruler greater than 
 President, King, or Emperor ; it is a ruler who makes 
 the price of everything you produce, who settles what 
 you shall wear, eat, and drink, how you shall live, how 
 die and how be buried. It has the mightiest authority, 
 autocratic, not limited by any law but its own ; it will 
 require a new transformation of the legislative, execu 
 tive, and judicial power to subject its despotic sway. 
 It puts the value, I say, upon your house, your farm, 
 your labor, your life. Veritably it is the new Mon 
 arch will it be a tyrant? Will its rule be just or 
 unjust? Furthermore will it respect Law and the 
 Constitution? Will it respect even Conscience? Or 
 does it not threaten look at its mighty movement 
 to break through them all, smiting earth-shaking 
 blows with its thews of iron? " 
 
 The people here turned and looked at the locomotive, 
 and the man continued: " On all sides one beholds 
 forces arming against the established order. I see the 
 
 25
 
 386 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 onslaught in this locomotive; is a demon or a deity? 
 Certainly it is a despot, not a political one perchance, 
 but a commercial one, subjecting every man by con 
 trolling each mouthful of his food. Oh my friends, 
 I am afraid it is too great for our present institu 
 tions; we have made an engine mightier than our 
 ability to control ; it will assail, or buy out, or defy 
 the Law, it will intimidate or purchase the Legislator, 
 the Judge, the President himself. I repeat, it threatens 
 all institutional order, and it threatens your new God, 
 Conscience, who also is threatening Law." 
 
 Here there were both merriment and disapproval. 
 The coupling together of the Locomotive and Con 
 science made a grotesque team, which aroused the 
 humor of a part of the audience. But another part 
 of it were scandalized at the manner in which the 
 speaker treated what they regarded as their most 
 sacred possession. Both seemed to be set down by 
 him as the great law-breakers of the time. Miss 
 Winslow, in particular, had her aversion aroused to the 
 highest pitch, and she began to grow unlovely in satire. 
 Mr. Tournefort, however, had recovered his interest; 
 the speech had touched a profound chord in his soul. 
 
 When the audience had become somewhat quiet, the 
 speaker began afresh: "The railroad means a new 
 world. This State is reduced at a blow to one-fourth 
 its size, to such a degree has Space sunk away into 
 Time. Ten years hence it will not have one-tenth of 
 its present magnitude. Still you will possess all your 
 acres, but increased tenfold in value. This planet 
 with its girdle of 25,000 miles is rapidly diminishing to 
 a point. But how shall we put this great instrument
 
 THE CELEBRATION. 387 
 
 under Law, nay, under Conscience, which " at this 
 point the people broke out into impatience, and the end 
 of the sentence was lost in a buzz of words and in a 
 general breaking up of the crowd. They did not wish 
 to hear prophecy, the present was their all-engrossing 
 fact. It was a joyous celebration, let the future take 
 care of its devils, we have enough of our own. Thus 
 the prophet was cut off in the middle of his sentence, 
 just in the act of giving the warning and proposing the 
 remedy, while the people broke out everywhere into a 
 frenzy of jubilation. He went down from the plat 
 form ; as he descended the last step, he remarked to 
 the few who stood around him and still listened : "I 
 shall complete that sentence some time in the next de 
 cade ; then I think you all will be ready to hear me." 
 In spite of every drawback, the speech of the 
 stranger, who, the reader doubtless understands, is 
 none other than our heavy-shod pedestrian, made a 
 strong impression, especially upon the thinking part of 
 the audience. It is true, that Miss Winslow, with a 
 violence and prejudice quite unusual with her, was 
 ready to pronounce the man immoral, if not crazy. 
 Possibly there might be in her a tinge of jealousy ; his 
 genius seemed to spurn her power, and often ran 
 counter to her influence ; he wrought strongly upon her 
 favorite pupil, Henry Firestone, who "was present to 
 day, and who vaguely felt the purport of the speech. 
 Mr. Tournefort was perhaps more deeply moved than 
 any other listener. The speaker had voiced many of 
 his thoughts, many of his presentiments, and had also 
 roused many new thoughts and many new presenti 
 ments. In this state of mind he turned and looked
 
 388 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 again at Miss Winslow ; she was no longer so beauti 
 ful. He begged permission to leave her, and started 
 on his way home. 
 
 The speaker was moving through the crowd, and 
 was everywhere exciting a silent attention by his stal 
 wart form and strong features. He passed near Mr. 
 Tournefort, who eyed him closely, and was surprised 
 to find in him the strange fellow who had been loiter 
 ing about the inn. Mr. Tournefort could not help 
 thinking of the letter which he wrote there ; he dodged 
 into the crowd away from the sight of the man and 
 from his own uneasiness. 
 
 The speaker had reached the border of the assem 
 blage; he had still his rapt, nay, prophetic look. 
 There he found the old singer standing alone and 
 gazing upon the multitude. The two approached and 
 saluted each other with great heartiness ; there was a 
 deep recognition of their spirits. The old man had 
 ceased his song, and had put up his violin ; but he 
 leaned over, and recited in a low tone : 
 
 The Prophet is never a Prophet 
 
 Unless he be stoned; 
 The King of Kings is no King 
 
 Till he has been dethroned ; 
 And Virtue itself hath no virtue 
 
 Till it has been atoned ; 
 Of Virtue, Prophet and King, 
 
 Now I can sing. 
 
 The .pedestrian looked at the old man and began to 
 laugh ; his face was transmuted on the spot into that 
 of a clown ; his prominent features fell flat into an 
 impish grin, as he started to speak: " Dear old fel-
 
 THE CELEBRATION. 389 
 
 low, the whole thing is a comedy, in which I and the 
 audience are actors, and we cannot help ourselves. 
 Do you not see that something has a hold of us, and is 
 dragging us on? Prophecy too has its comic mask. 
 You force me for the first time in my life to be guilty 
 of a verse of poetry. Here it runs : 
 
 Men stone the Prophet and then bemoan him, 
 But this is not the whole story of it ; 
 
 For every fool, if men but stone him, 
 Will think that he too is the Prophet." 
 
 A low modest laugh was heard, the pedestrian 
 looked up and found that it came from Henry Fire 
 stone, who had joined the little group. The man 
 spoke to the youth: "Come to my room to-morrow 
 and get your book." With these words he started 
 off; the old singer had already slipped quietly away; 
 Henry bent his steps slowly homewards. 
 
 VI. 
 
 The afternoon was declining toward evening ; the 
 various members of the Firestone family had gathered 
 at their residence, wearied with the excitement of the 
 day. Still the conversation could not be repressed by 
 fatigue. -Mr. Tournefort began praising the speech 
 of the stranger. 
 
 " What part of it did you like? " asked Mr. Fire 
 stone. 
 
 '' I was particularly impressed by that portion in 
 which he portrayed the influences at work here among 
 you in hostility to the established order of society. I
 
 390 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 have felt the same thing myself, and I was glad to find 
 my feeling confirmed," said Mr. Tournefort. 
 
 "I must confess the general tenor of his speech 
 did not please me. It seemed to me to be hostile to 
 the most sacred principles of the human heart," de 
 clared Mr. Firestone with some intensity. 
 
 "The man was repugnant to me," Miss Wanda 
 added. 
 
 "Nothing good can come from such a source," in 
 terjected Mr. Firestone. 
 
 "Never mind the man," said Mr. Tournefort. " The 
 question for you and me is, Did he tell us the truth? 
 Did his candle give us some light, even if the grease 
 of which it was made, was a little rancid and mal-odor- 
 ous?" 
 
 " 1 judge the word by the man," retorted the young 
 lady. 
 
 " I am afraid that is woman's way generally," said 
 Uncle Charles with a smile. 
 
 "My dear daughter," interrupted Mr. Firestone, 
 " personal considerations cannot determine principles. 
 Now I am free to say that I dislike the principles 
 which the man expressed." 
 
 " I must confess," responded Mr. Tournefort, " he 
 was bold ; he told you unpleasant truths about }*our- 
 selves to your faces. That is, I grant, by most peo 
 ple unforgivable." 
 
 "What, for instance?" asked Mr. Firestone with 
 some heat. 
 
 Mr. Tournefort replied at once: " He said to you 
 plainly that your Conscience was subverting Law, and
 
 THE CELEBRATION. 391 
 
 therein he implied that you were violating your most 
 sacred obligations to your country." 
 
 " Are you ready to sanction every wrong done in 
 the name of legality? " demanded Mr. Firestone. 
 
 " I shall obey the Law," said the Virginian. 
 
 Mr. Tournefort was going on to illustrate this posi 
 tion, and to enforce it by some apt citations, when a 
 loud noise was heard in the street, a mighty clatter of 
 voices arose from the distance, and a party of men 
 passed by the house in great excitement running 
 toward the railroad station. Fire-arms were seen in the 
 hands of several persons, and the shout went up : 
 
 " Come on, follow, quick, bring your guns." 
 
 " What is the trouble?" 
 
 " Cud jo Bell has been captured by slave-hunters, 
 and is now on the train going South." 
 
 Nobody inquired further. At once all the Fire- 
 stones, men and women, rushed out of the house 
 toward the station. People were hurrying from every 
 direction, the whole town was on fire in a moment. 
 It seemed to be a powder magazine, to which the 
 match had been applied, and which was just now in 
 the flash of explosion. 
 
 Charles Tournefort went along, by a kind of neces 
 sity ; he heard in the mad shouts of the people the re 
 sponse to those last words of his, which he had uttered 
 to Mr. Firestone. As he was borne forward by the 
 increasing multitude, he felt inside of himself a mill- 
 wheel making heavy revolutions, which caused his 
 frame to quiver in the shock. With the external excite 
 ment, his internal agitation seemed to be keeping pace.
 
 392 THE FREEBURGER8. 
 
 It has already been stated that the negro, Cudjo 
 Bell, though living unmolested in Freeburg, had long 
 been known to be a runaway slave. It seems that the 
 United States Marshal of the district, having secretly 
 learned of the negro's whereabouts and habits, and hav 
 ing armed himself with the authority of the law, and be 
 ing aided by his sworn assistants, had laid a trap for 
 the unfortunate African on the fatal evening when he 
 returned from Miss Winslow's lesson, overwhelmed 
 with her curse. The officers spirited him away in a 
 wagon under cover of night, and hid in the woods, till 
 they could hail the passing train, which, they knew, 
 was coming. The secret was discovered by some 
 passengers, who told it with circumspection to a few 
 citizens, when the train came into Freeburg. But 
 not a long time elapsed, before the town was apprised 
 of the facts. The captive was barricaded in a car, 
 over which armed men stood guard. 
 
 The crowd was becoming larger every moment, they 
 shouted and threatened the officers. Undoubtedly it 
 ran against the grain to see a human being, known to 
 every person of the community, hurried off to slavery. 
 Men of both political parties were melted into a com 
 mon sentiment of humanity ; all declared that he must 
 be released ; they said he had been kidnaped. This 
 was denied by the officers, who showed their papers ; 
 these were examined by Judge Airworthy, who was on 
 the spot early, and who pronounced them to be legal 
 and in due form. The new Judge, Harvey Conington, 
 was also present, and declared that he would set the 
 man free by Habeas Corpus, if produced in his court. 
 But Judge Allworthy answered : ' ' You would violate
 
 THE CELEBRATION. 393 
 
 the Constitution of the United States." Mr. Coning- 
 ton at such a prospect kept silent ; he was glad in his 
 heart that the case was not before him for decision. 
 The old Judge counseled forbearance, though he felt 
 in himself more strongly than ever before the counter- 
 current to such advice ; he saw one whom he deemed 
 a member of his own household fast in the clutches 
 of enemies. How gladly would he have found some 
 means of release! He summoned his strength and 
 said that the law must have its course, but he said it 
 with faltering lips and in strong emotion. 
 
 The response to the advice of the old Judge was 
 given in angry shouts. The multitude, growing in 
 numbers and violence, proposed to release the cap 
 tive, law or no law. Mr. Firestone, senior, was one 
 of the most urgent, but in reality nobody in the crowd 
 seemed to object. Miss Winslow was also present; 
 she declared that no human being should be dragged 
 to slavery from Freeburg. The officers said nothing 
 to the threats and abuse of the people, but they looked 
 determined ; they did not draw their fire-arms, but let 
 them be seen. 
 
 Charles Tournefort was roused at the spectacle ; he 
 felt the pulse of the community ; he could not forbear 
 sympathy. He pushed through the crowd till he was 
 close to the car ; he thought he saw a face which he 
 knew among the officers. He addressed the man in a 
 low tone : 
 
 4 'Are you not from Virginia? " 
 
 "Yes," said the man in a whisper, "but how do 
 you know?" 
 
 " I have seen you before. "
 
 394 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 "On the plantation of my friend, Col. Forsythe, 
 near Richmond." 
 
 "Indeed! Then I judge you are the man who 
 wrote him the letter which brought about this arrest." 
 
 The mill-wheel in Charles Tournefort's bosom made 
 rapid revolutions. He asked : 
 
 " How comes it that you are here? " 
 
 " I was sent to identify the negro and to get the 
 papers. Then I was sworn in as deputy." 
 
 "How do you know about what I wrote? " 
 
 The man reached to his pocket, drew from it a letter 
 and handed it to Mr. Tournefort, who saw his own 
 handwriting, and read afresh the information which 
 he had given concerning the runaway. An agony 
 seized him, a shudder ran through his body. He 
 begged urgently: 
 
 " Can I not see the negro? " 
 
 " It is now impossible." 
 
 " I shall take all the consequences." 
 
 " The consequences we intend to keep for ourselves. " 
 
 "I am willing to buy him; I agree to pay Col. 
 Forsythe, whom I know well, the full value of the 
 slave." 
 
 " It cannot be done." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 %; These people must be shown that the Law is to be 
 executed." 
 
 At this point the Marshal came up, Mr. Tournefort 
 made an appeal to him. He replied: "It cannot be 
 done ; the Law must take its course." 
 
 Meantime the crowd was preparing to drive away
 
 THE CELEBRATION. 395 
 
 the guard by a shower of stones, and to batter down 
 the door of the car. The bell rung, the whistle was 
 heard and the train started ; nobody could stop the 
 iron horse and he soon bore the anxious officers and 
 their prey beyond the reach of the mob, which con 
 tinued to increase in size and anger after its purpose 
 had been frustrated. The first train had carried a 
 man back to slavery ; such a deed could not have been 
 done but for this new railroad, whose completion the 
 people had just celebrated. Is this its use? It be 
 came at once unpopular, it was the object of many 
 bitter curses. As plain as day is the fact that the 
 railroad has no conscience. 
 
 Law, as we have often seen, had been already ques 
 tioned in Freeburg ; on this occasion it was more than 
 questioned, it was publicly damned. It had seemed to 
 conspire with the railroad in doing a deep wrong. 
 Even the Constitution of the United States became un 
 popular, and the old Judge, who had simply voiced it, 
 sank under a weight of maledictions ; he could not 
 have been elected constable in that community, yet he 
 felt for the miserable captive as strongly as any man 
 in the country. 
 
 But what were the feelings of Charles Tournefort? 
 He had now himself an attack of Conscience accom 
 panied by certain indefinite twinges of remorse. He 
 had felt the struggle in his bosom ; he had seen an 
 entire community rise in mass against what he had 
 always deemed not only legal but rightful. But he 
 bore on his person a document which had been the 
 cause of this excitement ; were it known what he had 
 done, he would probably be torn to pieces. Yet he
 
 396 THE rREEBURGERS. 
 
 had intended nothing wrong in writing that letter. 
 What a lesson ! The mob could not lacerate his body 
 worse than his thoughts were lacerating his soul. To 
 be the instrument of sending a poor fellow back to 
 slavery, possibly to torture ! The civil war had begun 
 in him as in many others ; it would not be long ere 
 the whole nation would be writhing in the same pangs. 
 Bleeding internally, he came to Miss Hope Winslow. 
 She had an unearthly pallor in the face, violent 
 twitches ran through her lips into her cheeks ; she, 
 too, seemed in mortal agony. She began to have her 
 struggle, when she saw the negro fulfilling her curse 
 to the letter. That mighty power, her conscience, 
 was now wielding the sword of remorse, and was 
 slashing her soul to pieces. The life of renunciation, 
 bravely maintained so many years, appeared to have 
 been lost in a moment. The two wretched beings 
 looked at each other, but said not a word ; they 
 mutually saw the picture and withdrew. 
 
 Mr. Tournefort soon came upon his relatives, the 
 Firestones, in a little group ; he was met with aversion. 
 His brother-in-law, hot with excitement, did not spare 
 him ; he felt himself smitten upon his very wound, 
 and soon slipped away from them in silence. Yet they 
 did not know the worst ; they were aided in their re 
 buke of him chiefly by his own self-reproach. He 
 went to the inn, obtained a room, and threw himself 
 upon the bed, feeling himself to be innocent, yet a 
 guilty man. 
 
 Among those most noticeable in the crowd was the 
 stalwart form of the stranger. As he stood towering 
 above the rest of the multitude, the people remembered 
 the warnings that he gave in his speech concerning the
 
 THE CELEBRATION. 397 
 
 railroad. They remembered vaguely that they had 
 broken him off in the midst of a sentence which seemed 
 to bear a prophetic admonition. They now with one 
 voice called for him again, as if he was the man, the 
 only man, who could speak the missing word. He 
 complied, and standing upon a low plank said: 
 " Friends, I did not expect to be called upon to com 
 plete my last sentence so soon. I thought I would 
 have to wait years, but the sun has not yet set upon 
 our jubilee ere the counter-stroke has come. You all 
 feel it, you curse the instrument. But do you know 
 who is wielding it? Be patient, the railroad goes both 
 ways, if it runs Southward, it also runs Northward, 
 and will surely bring the negro back." 
 
 The speaker here stopped, he cast his eyes toward 
 a train just then rolling into the station in a direction 
 opposite to the last one, which had carried off the 
 African. The people all with one impulse turned their 
 faces the same way, and looked with eagerness. There 
 was an instantaneous feeling of relief, there was hope, 
 though no Cudjo Bell appeared. The word of the 
 speaker brought a balm, it gave patience ; it satisfied 
 for a time the hunger of the soul, though there was no 
 doubt that the soul would get hungry again. All seemed 
 reconciled once more to the iron monster, whose power 
 had been so painfully felt on its first visit, but which 
 now gave far-reaching promises of mighty help. A 
 number of passengers entered the train going North, 
 and were borne off mid loud huzzahs. Henry Fire 
 stone gazed at that train with a radiant face till it had 
 vanished in the distance. When he turned around, 
 the people had left the station, and were going home; 
 the celebration was at an end.
 
 CHAPTER TENTH. 
 
 THE END WHICH IS THE BEGINNING. 
 
 I. 
 
 Mid all this tumult of celebration, young Henry 
 Firestone was preparing to leave for college. He had 
 one point of interest in the r iilroad ; it was to carry 
 him northward to his new life. His mind was filled 
 with visions of the unbounded horizon which at pres 
 ent rose before him. Thus he began to soliloquize to 
 himself: " Now I am to free myself of the trammels 
 of ignorance. I feel as if I could rise out of the 
 hardest limits of nature and assert my own supremacy. 
 Knowledge, whose boundary line is infinity, now lies 
 before me in its ever-broadening expanse. Enter, 
 take possession ; move onward and still again take 
 possession, and so keep doing. It is all mine, if I can 
 seize it, and seize it I shall. This narrow village life 
 is to be expanded into the whole world, into the whole 
 universe. My hope is to be fulfilled, I shall no longer 
 be a dreamer of impossible things." 
 
 Yet he felt now and then the tide moving in a con 
 trary way. He had moments of sad retrospection, in 
 which he wistfully looked at what he was leaving be 
 hind. Still he would cry out: " But I must go, the 
 time has come, I must seize opportunity when golden, 
 (398)
 
 THE END WHICH IS THE BEGINNING. 399 
 
 else it will turn to dross and weigh me down. I know 
 I have to quit much that has been of value to me ; I 
 shall have to pay for the gain with some loss. This 
 life in Freeburg has had its great reward, but I must 
 give it up." 
 
 But that which caused him more distress than any 
 thing else, was the continued illness of little Trolla. 
 If he left her behind, he felt that he would hardly see 
 her again. Whenever his departure was spoken of, 
 she would flush in her face, as if with an inner convul 
 sion, and then she would settle down into a quiet resig 
 nation. She now seldom left her bed during the day, 
 though she wished always to be dressed ; she would 
 sometimes rise and walk out into the midst of the family 
 with a smile on her face, to greet them once more to 
 gether. But she soon would grow so weary that she 
 had to go back to her bed. These sudden visits were 
 like those of a spirit which flitted into the room with 
 a blessing, and left an impression sad yet consolatory. 
 She took pleasure in giving now and then a surprise to 
 the family, who were getting used to her absence from 
 table and hearth, and in this way she inspired the 
 feeling that, though gone, she would return. 
 
 Henry would often go to her bedside to see her ; 
 there he would talk and play with her as of old. She 
 had her chief delight in humming low snatches of mel 
 ody with lines of her own ; her whole being appeared 
 to be passing into music, which gathered round a few 
 words of some song. She had apparently given up 
 terrestrial relations, yet she at times seized upon them 
 eagerly and transformed them into images of what she 
 fancied lay beyond. She in certain moments longed
 
 400 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 for death, and had come to regard this grisly King of 
 Terrors as the great Releaser. Yet she clung to her 
 earthly emblems with strong affection, and declared 
 that she was going to carry them with her beyond, till 
 the dream was over. These thoughts she would turn, in 
 exalted moments, into little graceful lines and verses, 
 which often had peculiar intimations of what she 
 thought would be her future life and occupation. 
 
 She insisted upon retaining her festal attire, as she 
 lay on her little couch. Aunt Polly asked to help her 
 remove her white dress ; but Trolla said she would 
 wear this at her own festival, which was shortly com 
 ing. Somebody offered to lift up the hat whose brim 
 seemed to be in the way of her head as 4t rested on the 
 pillow, but she would not permit this favorite article 
 to be taken away. The wreath, too, she declared was 
 her own company, made up of her little garden guests, 
 whom she would not allow to be sent off. There she 
 lay upon the bed ; her celebration was going to be, she 
 said, one very different from the noisy bustle outside. 
 The repeated requests to let her attire be removed had 
 caused a protest which gradually transformed itself 
 into a song ; this song she put together evidently after 
 a verse here and there had been composed : 
 
 let me keep my folds of white, 
 They lie so light upon my breast ; 
 
 1 go down to the House of Night, 
 
 And there I would be brightly dressed. 
 
 This golden shining hat I wear 
 
 Will sun my brow beyond the day; 
 Sweet flowers o'er me I shall hear 
 
 Take not my blooming wreath away.
 
 THE END WHICH IS THE BEGINNING. 401 
 
 When I have reached my silent home, 
 Their little tongues will speak, and tell 
 
 How once on earth I went to roam, 
 And talk with them I loved so well. 
 
 Till angels come, there shall I dream ; 
 
 They will not ask me whence I came, 
 They see me all, how e'er I seem, 
 
 They know me well without my name. 
 
 There shall I leave my dress, my flowers, 
 Though what I was, I still shall be ; 
 
 O save me from my life, ye Powers! 
 And let me once again go free. 
 
 This was her last song, the wish with which it ended 
 was soon to be fulfilled. Her freedom, for such she 
 deemed this fulfillment, was shortly to be a reality. 
 She sang with a heartfelt intensity which went home to 
 every listener ; one could feel the premonition subtly 
 lurking in the notes of her voice. 
 
 Henry, when he heard her, was deeply affected ; he 
 went out of the room into the street, and wandered 
 aimlessly; somehow little Trolla overwhelmed him 
 with the sadness of fate and the mystery of existence. 
 He seemed crushed for the moment not only in his 
 emotions, but in his will. As he turned a corner, he 
 chanced to meet the old singer. Both were alone. 
 Henry cried out: 
 
 " How glad I am to see you ! Your presence gives 
 me relief at once ; a word from you will be restora 
 tion." 
 
 The old man looked at him with a silent glance 
 which seemed to pierce to the heart of the youth, and 
 there take a moment's survey. Then he withdrew his 
 
 26
 
 402 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 eyes and turned their look forward. In this attitude, 
 with much decision he spoke the following lines : 
 
 Here is the oak, and thou must split it 
 
 With the maul and the wedge ; 
 Here is the iron and thou must hit it 
 
 With the anvil and sledge ; 
 Here is the plank and thou must fit it 
 
 With the tool of keen edge. 
 
 O when will the house be done, be done? 
 My home, how does it speed? 
 
 Good Friend, thy home is already won ; 
 It is built of thy deed. 
 
 The youth felt the fresh life return and throb in 
 his bosom. He thought again of his new plan and his 
 grand resolution. He drew out a small album which 
 he carried in his pocket, and handed it to the old man 
 saying : "I expect soon to go away to college ; I 
 would like to take with me a few chosen words from a 
 person who has so deeply influenced me in various 
 ways. There is something about you which I would 
 like to carry along with me in a permanent shape. 
 Can you not put it down in writing for me ? " 
 
 The old man replied: "I am not in the habit of 
 putting into writing what I sing, or even what I utter. 
 I love to plant my seeds directly into the soil, or into 
 the soul, as the case may be. There is something in 
 the moment which cannot be transferred to writing ; I 
 should say, the very aroma of the expression is lost, 
 when it is taken out of the circumstance which begot 
 it."
 
 THE END WHICH IS THE BEGINNING. 403 
 
 Henry said in response: " I can always remember 
 the circumstance better than the word, which, if it be 
 the poet's word, has in it something more than the 
 matter which it merely tells. There ought to be, as I 
 have heard you say, an element everlasting in the 
 fleeting moment. Fix that for me now in a written 
 word." 
 
 " What subject do you wish me to take? " 
 
 " Give me any verse you choose. I shall look at it 
 often upon this page and remember you." 
 
 The old man was evidently racking his brains to find 
 a few lines which he might deem appi-opriate. But he 
 failed, he even looked miserable in his failure. He 
 who was usually so full and so spontaneous when the 
 occasion spoke, could not make a line to order. At 
 last he drew his instrument from its bag and picked it 
 a little, then he asked : 
 
 "Are you going forth to witness a new life? " 
 
 " It will be new to me, I suppose," said Henry. 
 After a few moments of thought, the old man spoke : 
 ' You will yourself have to write out what I say to 
 you. If I should take that pen in hand, it would 
 weigh me down like lead, it would crush every idea 
 out of my brain. Even in your fingers, I feel it is too 
 heavy for me." 
 
 Again there was silence. He still continued to pick 
 the strings, and tune them, but nothing would flow 
 to music. Finally he put up his instrument, and 
 looked down on the earth in reflection. Soon he 
 began to speak ; he raised his forefinger and ut 
 tered the following verse in a series of rapid, broken
 
 404 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 jets of utterance, now pointing inwards, now out 
 wards: 
 
 Inner freedom, outer dependence ; 
 
 Mind untrammeled, the world's hindrance ; 
 
 Man's free-will, God's providence ; 
 
 The flight of soul, the fall of sense; 
 
 The oneness of one, the twoness of two, 
 
 Oldest of old and newest of new, 
 
 Thou art the riddle and thou must guess it, 
 
 All of thy life is just to express it. 
 
 Henry had written the words and was putting up his 
 book when the old man asked to see them. He read 
 them over, and handed back the album with a look of 
 disgust. 
 
 "Are they not correct? " asked the youth. 
 
 " Yes and no," said the old man. 
 
 " How is that? You are now the riddle." 
 
 "I spoke those words, I suppose," added the old 
 man, " but I never can read my own lines without feel 
 ing that the letter killeth. My own poetry would slay 
 me if I had to read it. I wonder it does not kill other 
 people." 
 
 Henry took the album and began to read the verse 
 aloud with care. 
 
 " O stop," said the old man. 
 
 " What is the matter? " asked the youth. 
 
 " You are crucifying on my own cross." 
 
 But Henry completed the lines, and then said: 
 
 " I am not certain that I fully understand them." 
 
 " Understand them ! Nor do I," cried the old man. 
 " I have been trying all my life to understand them." 
 
 ' ' What then can I do ? " asked Henry.
 
 THE END WHICH IS THE BEGINNING. 405 
 
 " If you fully understood them, you would not need 
 them, you could quietly throw them away. In fact, 
 you would not need to go to college ; I think you would 
 hardly need to live your life." 
 
 The youth was puzzled at the old man's manner and 
 language. He knew not what to say. He had obtained 
 the prize ; but what its value was he could not then 
 tell. He read it again to himself, and the old man went 
 on to make an observation: 
 
 " You are in the beginning of your intellectual life, 
 you can hardly yet understand the middle of it, much 
 less the end. Get rid of that subtle egotism which 
 thinks that all things are clear at the first glance. 
 Speech is not necessarily obscure, because somebody 
 does not understand it. Take now the verse, you will 
 in time learn its meaning ; fragments will come to you 
 by living, as they have to me." 
 
 The youth said: "I can wait. But can you not 
 give me a little scrawl of your writing? " 
 
 "Yes," said the old man with readiness, "now I 
 can. A moment ago I was unable to write a verse, but 
 my mood has changed in the intervening tick of time. 
 The reason is, the occasion has whispered something 
 to me. You are going to college, you say ; do you 
 know the intellectual danger which haunts such places? 
 The youth comes to know before he is wise, and sets 
 up within himself the Last Judgment for the whole 
 Universe. But knowledge is only a part of that of 
 which wisdom is the whole. Give me the pen ; now I 
 can write ; now I must write." 
 
 Henry filled the pen with ink from a small bottle 
 which he took from his pocket. The old man put the
 
 406 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 album against a fence board, seized the pen with a 
 kind of spasmodic jerk, and wrote with many a splash 
 and dash, and with such speed that one would think 
 that a demon was driving his arm. In a moment 
 he had finished ; he dropped the album into the 
 youth's hand, and without saying a word he hurried 
 away. 
 
 Henry took the book and tried to read the inscrip 
 tion. He puzzled over it, spelled it out here and there, 
 and corrected it ; often he had to correct his own cor 
 rection. He looked around, the old man was out of 
 sight, and he was left to himself in his labor. He 
 slowly walked down the street trying to decipher the 
 strange letters ; it was a riddle in chirography, if not 
 in meaning. Not till after he had been some time at 
 college, was he able to unravel the complicated turns 
 of the handwriting. This was the verse which he suc 
 ceeded at last in spelling out of chaos : 
 
 Tell me, O Wisdom, thou God, 
 What is thy hardest command? 
 
 Never to judge or condemn 
 What you do not understand. 
 
 II. 
 
 There was another man in town whom Henry was 
 eager to see and to speak with before his departure. 
 It was the pedestrian, a person who, as well as the old 
 singer, had woven a new thread into his existence. 
 The strange speech of this man, as well as his words 
 to the mob afterwards had been the culmination of
 
 THE END WHICH IS THE BEGINNING. 407 
 
 his power; the whole town could only talk of him, 
 and of the thwarted attempt to rescue Cudjo Bell. 
 But the pedestrian too had gone. The influence 
 which seemed to be driving everybody out of Free- 
 burg at this time, had seized him also and had sent 
 him off. 
 
 Henry went to the inn, and on inquiring after him, 
 learned that he had set out alone very early in the 
 morning, nobody knew whither or by what road. He 
 left no means behind him for finding out his direction. 
 In some surprise and anxiety, the youth asked after 
 the book which the man had borrowed, but the 
 innkeeper could give no information about it. The 
 two went to the room which he had occupied, in order 
 to make a search. There they beheld a table strewn 
 with smoking tobacco, and the fragments of a cob- 
 pipe ; matches with burnt ends and paper cinders lay 
 around in abundance. In the midst of all this litter, 
 the book was found in bad condition. Its leather 
 cover was broken, its leaves were turned inward and 
 battered at the edges, and still it had not been read. 
 It may be fairly inferred from its appearance that 
 these few days in the hands of the stranger had left 
 deeper and more lasting traces on the book than two 
 centuries in the Firestone family, with all the floods, 
 fires, and migrations it had passed through. 
 
 But the real vexation came when Henry found that 
 the manuscript in front of the book had been removed. 
 This is what had especially drawn the attention of the 
 stranger, and which had, through his interpretation, 
 obtained great value in Henry's eyes. What could 
 such conduct mean? In place of the much-desired
 
 408 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 sheets lay a note, which contained the following 
 words scratched in pencil : 
 
 My Dear Youth : I find this manuscript really belongs 
 at present to me. I have read it through carefully 
 and need it for certain purposes. As it is mine, I have 
 taken it without further ceremony ; I alone of all men 
 on this earth at this moment can read and understand 
 it. Yet you too have a right in the document a 
 right which I now acknowledge, and will hereafter 
 make doubly valid to you. Have faith ; it will come 
 back in due season, probably just at the moment when 
 you are ready to receive it. The world takes care of 
 such things, and gives them to the right person at the 
 right time. It has been preserved so long for me, and 
 has reached me in the most marvelous way ; it will be 
 kept for you too. Doubt not. Throw open the win 
 dows and look in all directions. Farewell." 
 
 The whole transaction made a very unpleasant im 
 pression upon young Henry Firestone, who felt that he 
 had been deprived of the most important part of his 
 ancestral heritage. The man, with all his intellectual 
 acuteness, failed to make one very clear and important 
 distinction : the distinction between meum and tuum. 
 At least he had so failed in the present case. Yet 
 Henry felt the fascination of the man, felt it even 
 now ; that was a person who could charm in his ab 
 sence and through all dislike. The youth found him 
 self unconsciously defending the culprit against his 
 own charges. 
 
 "Perhaps," reflected Henry, "he had a right to 
 those papers after all. He may have found in them
 
 THE END WHICH IS THE BEGINNING. 409 
 
 some ancient claim, in advance of ours. Who can 
 tell? Let us wait and see." 
 
 The same day Henry received the following letter 
 by mail from the stranger, who seemed more familiar 
 and open in this writing than he had ever been in his 
 personal intercourse : 
 
 ' ' I shall see thee again under changed circum 
 stances, my dear young friend, and I shall now con 
 fide the fact to thee that I am making preparations for 
 another stay with thee. Not without purpose have I 
 wandered into Freeburg, though I had no purpose. 
 That visit to thy house was a weighty event in my life ; 
 not only did it bring me to the knowledge of the in 
 valuable manuscript which I still carry with me, but 
 it made me aware of my own insufficiency. Thou 
 hast driven me upon my own weakness with far greater 
 power than thou couldst suspect at the time ; thou 
 didst make me feel that I too must set about removing 
 my self-satisfied boundaries. O, youth, who hast the 
 gift of making others transcend their narrow land 
 marks, who art thyself one who is always rising above 
 thyself, and causing others to do the same, good-bye 
 f or to-day ; I shall see thee again." 
 
 And still no name appended! Henry, in his per 
 plexity, knew not what to make of this letter. It 
 seemed friendly, yes, confidential, but was there not 
 something under this appearance? He asked himself 
 with proper modesty: " Can I mean anything to such 
 a man, who means so much to me? " 
 
 He was aware that the stranger was a subtle humor 
 ist. Was not this letter a phase of his sportive mood,
 
 410 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 which often appeared quite unfathomable? Was it 
 not a part of his grotesque demeanor, which had re 
 peatedly turned him into a clown? Is the thing in 
 jest or in earnest? The youth could not tell, nobody 
 could tell. The thought would peep through all 
 serious argument that the man was playing one of his 
 Olympian jokes, and that he had assumed the mask of 
 Providence for some of his own inscrutable ends. 
 Yet beneath all these questionings lay Henry Fire 
 stone's faith that some day the mask would suddenly 
 be removed, and the true fact of the man be revealed. 
 
 HI. 
 
 In stirring about the inn, Henry came upon his 
 uncle, Mr. Charles Tournefort, who showed that he 
 was making preparations to leave Freeburg. 
 
 "Are you going, uncle?" asked the youth with 
 some surprise. 
 
 ' ' Yes, I think I haye had my visit out for this 
 time," replied the uncle. 
 
 Mr. Tournefort was evidently not in his light-hearted 
 mood. Could a glance have been thrown into his 
 mind, one would have seen a worried man. Certain 
 ideas were troubling him, even having a little battle 
 inside his usually serene brain. But, chiefly, he had 
 a feeling, hitherto unknown, for the negro, Cudjo 
 Bell. That unconscious act of his had shown conse 
 quences which harried him and hunted him like blood 
 hounds. 
 
 Henry asked: "Are you not coming to see us before 
 you leave ? ' '
 
 THE END WHICH IS THE BEGINNING. 411 
 
 " Certainly ," said he, with his Virginia courtesy 
 waking up. " I shall go with you now, if you are 
 ready." 
 
 Both started together for the house of the Fire- 
 stones. There was a formal interview and leave-tak 
 ing ; but something was the matter. Some obstacle 
 interposed itself ; an invisible but heavy weight 
 clogged the heartiness of both sides. Everybody was 
 glad to escape from the strain as soon as possible. 
 Mr. Tournefort, as he withdrew, was not wanting in 
 ceremonious politeness. Henry accompanied him 
 back to the inn. 
 
 " You are going off to college, are you? " asked the 
 uncle. 
 
 " Very soon," said Henry. 
 
 " Where is the place?" 
 
 " It is called Howardtown." 
 
 " I have heard of that seat of learning and its curi- 
 ious ideas," said the uncle. " Its fame has penetrated 
 to Virginia and has there received some attention which 
 cannot be called very flattering." 
 
 " Indeed !" exclaimed the youth. 
 
 "I think I shall visit you there," continued Mr. 
 Tournefort. 
 
 " I shall be glad to see you," said Henry. 
 
 Mr. Tournefort could not help giving a little turn 
 to the talk and inquiring after Miss Winslow. Henry 
 answered : " She toojs going to leave Freeburg." 
 
 Mr. Tournefort ejaculated: " Is it possible! What 
 will the town be without her! But where is she 
 going?" 
 
 " I do not know," was the response.
 
 412 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 Mr. Tournefort gazed a moment at the youth, but 
 suppressed all further inquiries. He seemed to be 
 struck dumb by that piece of news. The two had 
 arrived at the inn, and they bade each other farewell 
 with hearty expressions of good-will. 
 
 The internal conflict continued to rage in the breast 
 of Mr. Tournefort. It was a very composite battle. 
 His emotions had been roused ; they surged up into 
 his head, which was generally in a philosophic calm, 
 and they caused a great perturbation there. The re 
 sult, however, was that a permanent precipitate of 
 thought was left behind. Feeling is likely to be 
 transitory, but _it often leaves a principle which is 
 lasting. 
 
 Amid all his fluctuating emotions. Mr. Tournefort 
 felt strongly in his own bosom the same struggle which 
 he had before noticed in the community. He had 
 been long enough in Freeburg to carry its conflict 
 away with himself. Moreover, he had had an ex 
 perience which stirred him to the depths in the case 
 of Cudjo Bell. 
 
 When the individual conscience is fully aroused, 
 there is going to be a fight, often two fights an inner, 
 in which the man settles the question with himself, 
 and an outer, in which he settles it with the world. 
 The inner conflict was now in progress throughout all 
 the so-called North- Western territory, which was the 
 real battle ground of the war.of principle ; this war 
 was antecedent to the grand clash of arms. In every 
 hamlet there was discussion, which resulted in a stir 
 ring up of the soul and a settling down into conviction. 
 That territory, devoted to freedom by Thomas Jeffer-
 
 THE END WHICH IS THE BEGINNING. 413 
 
 son, a Virginian, was at present the great object of 
 spiritual possession for the two contending principles. 
 It became the drilling-ground, in which the hosts 
 were prepared by the World-Spirit for the actual 
 battle. Mr. Tournefort obtained an inkling of what 
 was going on by what he saw in Freeburg. He de 
 sired to extend his view, and to behold these mighty 
 forces in their full sweep. He determined to continue 
 his journey still further Westward and North -West 
 ward. 
 
 It was a new experience for the Virginian. The 
 South would not entertain this inner struggle. The 
 good Southerner, if he had it, was expected to smother 
 it, while the State in the South repressed its open mani 
 festation. Public opinion would not wait in this case 
 for the tardy process of justice, but ran in advance 
 with violence. Yet it was often felt that this conflict, 
 even in the South, if not allowed to settle itself by 
 inner conviction, would have to be settled by outer war. 
 
 Thus it came about that the Puritan and the Cavalier 
 were again getting ready to cross swords in a new 
 world, and in a new cause. Yet it was the old cause 
 too. Their descendants in a straight line were here, 
 and their ideas also, though these ideas had taken on 
 a fresh disguise in the grand masquerade of Time. 
 
 There had been a second great migration of men and 
 ideas from the sea-coast, a second sifting of a much 
 sifted people. In the West, in the vast Mississippi 
 Valley, the conflicting elements had met, and the ques 
 tion of all questions at that moment was : Which idea 
 shall possess the new Eden? Upon its possession in 
 deed hung the future. Mr. Charles Tournefort began
 
 414 THE FKEEBUKGERS. 
 
 to see very distinctly the meaning of the political strug 
 gle, and the source of its intensity. 
 
 To be sure, there were many differences, many pro 
 tests, many counter-currents in the great movement 
 onwards. The agricultural, phlegmatic Pennsylvania 
 German did not wish his regular peaceful life to be 
 disturbed ; he sought some balance between the op 
 posing ideas, and resisted innovation ; but the time 
 came when he had to take sides. He was hard to 
 move, but when he did move he threw himself into the 
 party lines of the Puritan, though he was in many re 
 spects the opposite in sentiment and in character. 
 
 With Parson Pcabody, most of whose ancestors had 
 landed on Plymouth Rock, slavery was a moral horror, 
 and the struggle was a Puritanic fight with the dragon. 
 His sentiment was very strong for the black man at a 
 distance. Undoubtedly the parson was shocked to the 
 last degree by the thought that any human being should 
 have to submit his conscience to a master. The sum 
 of wickedness was, that man's very selfhood should be 
 handed over to another. Such a view, however, made 
 no impression upon Mr. Charles Tournefort, for it 
 could not reach a person who was so firmly intrenched 
 in the forms of legality. He felt, moreover, from his 
 daily contact with the negro, that the latter was happier 
 and better-off in slavery than in freedom. 
 
 But Mr. Tournefort had a growing conviction that 
 the injury of slavery to the white race and to the re 
 public was greater than the injury to the black race. 
 He was ready to see from his own experience, that no 
 man lording it even mildly over a human soul, is fit to 
 be a citizen cf a free country. The most eminent Vir-
 
 THE END WHICH IS THE BEGINNING. 415 
 
 ginians of former times held the same opinion, though 
 they were slaveholders. Not the moral, not the sen 
 timental, but the national view was naturally upper 
 most with him and with all these men, so full of the 
 institutional spirit. George Washington himself had 
 expressed some such conviction. 
 
 Mr. Charles Tournefort started on his journey. 
 Freeburg had brought home to him his most obstinate 
 limitation, against which he fretted, and which drove 
 him still further into the new land. He had been well 
 shaken up during his visit ; he had done a legal deed, 
 which he soon tried in every way to undo, in obedience 
 to an inner law ; he had heard the protest in th'e com 
 munity, he had heard it in himself. But his effort to 
 cancel his own action was fruitless, the consequence 
 remained. Forth he must go and forth he has gone ; 
 there is no doubt that he will find much to free him of 
 his old limits in the spirit of the broad West. 
 
 IV. 
 
 As Henry was sauntering homewards at leisure, he 
 met Miss Winslow on the street. He stopped, but she 
 seemed inclined not to tarry. Her greeting was 
 friendly, but there was a cloud of trouble in her face. 
 She spoke to the youth: "I hope to see you again 
 before you go." 
 
 She was, indeed, in a state of tribulation, which her 
 secretive nature could not altogether hide. The fact 
 which oppressed her was, she had cursed Cudjo Bell, 
 and, as if in immediate fulfillment of her imprecation, 
 he had been seized and hurried off to the South. On
 
 416 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 that fatal night she had heard the scuffle ; the groan 
 of the captive still sounded through her ears. It was 
 a call for human help, but she cowardly ran on, over 
 come with terror. She could not forgive herself, she 
 was ready to turn the curse upon herself. She felt 
 unworthy of life ; indeed it was not fit to have, unless 
 it could be transformed. 
 
 Nor must another thought of hers be hidden from 
 anybody who wishes to know the workings of her soul. 
 It was a thought which she hardly dared speak aloud 
 to herself, but which came up before her as she met 
 Henry Firestone. She was experiencing the same 
 pang which wrought such terrible torture in the negro's 
 breast the pang of disappointed love. She looked 
 back and saw herself in poor Cudjo ; she began to 
 feel a sympathy and a remorse more intense than ever. 
 It is true that the African had been unable to control 
 his passion, and to renounce an impossible affection. 
 But why curse him? Nay, by cursing him had she 
 not in that very act cursed herself? She felt that she 
 had been unequal to this last sudden test put upon 
 her ; she had uttered a malediction against the negro 
 because he was not as strong as she was. Therein, 
 however, lay a deeper weakness of hers ; she had lost 
 her charity in the trial. More profoundly than ever 
 she felt that her whole life must be purified by a new 
 renunciation. 
 
 In such a mood she condemned herself for the little 
 lurking sentiment which she had felt rising in her 
 heart for Mr. Tournefort, a slaveholder. Some how, 
 too, she thought of the first time she saw him at the 
 Post-office, then she remembered the letter which she
 
 THE END WHICH IS THE BEGINNING. 417 
 
 noticed him depositing there ; she recalled too her 
 faint glimpse of its address. "Was he the cause of 
 Cudjo Bell's capture? No, she was herself the cause, 
 she had cursed him, she would not cast the blame 
 upon anybody else. 
 
 Life had become a knot which she could no longer 
 disentangle in her present environment. Already she 
 had felt her work to be finished ; now she was smoth 
 ering to death in the little world she had built. 
 "Yes," she cried, "I must be off. Everything op 
 presses me here. It seems as if I cannot stir without 
 being rubbed to the quick. Freeburg, no longer the 
 wide expanse of my free activity, has become for me 
 a prison. Its walls threaten to fall in and crush me, 
 unless I escape." 
 
 Still she was conscious that the prison was largely 
 inside and not outside of herself. "I know," she 
 said to her own argument, " that people often think, 
 by changing their abode, to change their disposition. 
 I know that I must take all my cares and struggles 
 with me. But the advantage is, they will be mine 
 alone, and I can grapple with them by myself, external 
 chance at least will be largely banished into the dis 
 tance ; I shall not run the danger of meeting what I 
 shun every moment on the street." 
 
 She had now arrived at the school-house where she 
 intended to gather a few remaining articles and pack 
 them up. It was a sad task to bid good-bye to the build 
 ing which she had herself erected, and in which she had 
 presided so long. That structure meant much ; it stood 
 not only of brick and mortar, but it was the intellectual 
 edifice of the surrounding country. It was peculiarly 
 
 27
 
 418 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 her own habitation ; now she was to quit it forever. 
 The very walls seemed to cry out, and wail. The old 
 clock, the well-worn text-books, the desks were 
 melancholy ; she went and sat down in the seat which 
 Henry Firestone had occupied several years. She 
 picked up a little bit of his writing which happened to 
 lie there ; it was a copy of one of her own aphorisms : 
 Throw open the doors and look out upon a new world 
 every day. 
 
 Just then she heard the notes of an instrument and 
 the voice of song outside. Those soft musical tones 
 came to her like a promise ; she opened the door and 
 looked forth. She beheld the old singer again under 
 the Tall Apple Tree ; she listened to his strain, which 
 told of a time of tender memories, of painful separa 
 tions, yet of strong self-mastery. She came out and 
 stood upon the veranda. 
 
 The old man, when he saw her, stopped his song, and 
 seemed to give way to his thoughts. Miss Winslow 
 resolved this time to go out and talk with him ; she 
 unconsciously grappled for the golden cord which ap 
 peared in some way to join them together. She had 
 already heard from Henry many eulogies of the old 
 man; she had felt his secret power of attraction. 
 She went up to him and turned on him the smile of 
 welcome. She was melted ; all the hardness of her 
 features and her stiff manner had vanished in looks 
 which tenderness softened into the most responsive 
 glances. 
 
 The old singer rose up before her in amazement, he 
 stood and stared as if he saw an apparition. After a 
 moment, that figure began to address him ; it had a
 
 THE END WHICH IS THE BEGINNING. 419 
 
 voice long unheard, yet it was different from the old 
 note which he once knew so well. Familiar tones 
 mingled with strange accents. 
 
 She first spoke : - " Your song has attracted me 
 hither. I seem to know it, yet I cannot tell when it 
 first fell upon my ear." 
 
 The sound of these words was somehow not strange 
 to him ; they had an intonation which he thought he 
 had heard before, but he knew he had not. After 
 some moments of wonder, he spoke: " When you talk, 
 it is a well-known voice that I hear, yet I am sure I 
 never heard you speak before." 
 
 The old man had seen her several times at the 
 school-house, he had noticed her with surprise at the 
 celebration. To-day he had been drawn to the Tall 
 Apple Tree to see her again, as she once appeared to 
 him in form, gesture and apparel. There was some 
 bond connecting them, he felt it strongly but secretly 
 compelling him. In her face was one of the mys 
 teries he knew not what perhaps of his own life. 
 He tried his song upon her; that was his touchstone, 
 and she always responded. In their talk fragments of 
 each other's history began to rise to the surface. 
 
 " Tell me," said he, " why did you come so often 
 to the window when I sang here not long ago? " 
 
 She answered : "I was carried back to my old home, 
 and to my earliest childhood, when I must have heard 
 that voice, I might almost say that I was drawn back 
 ward to a time antecedent to birth. I felt myself go 
 ing into a primitive condition of memory and of the 
 soul." 
 
 He responded quickly: " I had a similar feeling in
 
 420 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 regard to the movements of your arm and body. Cer 
 tain tricks of the voice I notice now, which are yours, 
 yet not yours. ' ' 
 
 The two were indeed coming together. She asked 
 him: "Sing again that last verse." She was not 
 much given to emotional poetry, but this had touched 
 her. 
 
 He sang it, saying, "A simple ballad of human 
 sorrow and hope." 
 
 "Yes," she said, " but it contains touches of my 
 life." 
 
 " Perhaps of all life," he replied. 
 
 "Does it of yours? " 
 
 "Ah, of mine too, else I would not sing it." 
 
 She even began to hum with him the little chorus 
 which speaks of a voice calling the Shepherd from over 
 the sea. She said : "It has been a long time since I 
 even crooned a note ; you have again charmed it from 
 me. Once I sang much, that was in my childhood ; 
 but sterner things have stifled my music ; my spoken 
 words are even harsh, I think." 
 
 The old man replied : " That voice of yours is not 
 discordant to me now. More and more it is a whisper 
 from beyond." 
 
 Miss Winslow looked at the old singer, whose lips 
 quivered and whose voice trembled. She felt strongly 
 his secret and threw in a word : 
 
 " When I begin to sing, a new destiny is over me. 
 You have broken, good father, the seal of these Jips. 
 What further is hidden, I know not." 
 
 The old man gazed at her and asked : 
 
 ' ' Have you a father ? ' '
 
 THE END WHICH IS THE BEGINNING. 421 
 
 " Once I had, but I know not where he is now; I 
 never expect to see him again." 
 
 " You may yet," he replied. 
 
 " I hardly dare hope so. Long since the blow of 
 fate smote him and drove him forth to wander ; he has 
 vanished without a trace." 
 
 The old man looked into the branches of the Tall 
 Apple Tree with upturned eyes, and said : 
 
 " Possibly he has left some trace, by which you can 
 seek him." 
 
 "It would seem impossible." 
 
 " Be firm in faith. Have you a mother? " 
 
 Miss Winslow in her tender mood was not wholly 
 able to restrain her emotion. 
 
 "I have one memory, one look of hers with me 
 a loving face bending over me, then closing the eyes 
 forever." 
 
 She reached her hand to her bosom, and drew out a 
 little golden heart attached by a chain. She said : 
 
 " This is hers, this is from her neck, this little keep 
 sake which I still wear. It has in it a faded picture." 
 
 " My daughter," cried the old man, " we have met 
 once more." They were soon in each other's arms. 
 
 A youth sprang over the fence not far from the Tall 
 Apple Tree, and seemed in great haste. He came 
 from the direction of the Firestone dwelling ; he was 
 talking to himself and sobbing. He was so occupied 
 with himself that he did not notice the pair till he 
 almost stumbled upon them. Miss Winslow rose, sh: 
 saw before her Henry Firestone. She asked: 
 
 " What is the matter? " 
 
 "Trolla is dying."
 
 422 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 "Tell us about her, Henry." 
 
 "She was in her usual spirits a few minutes ago. 
 She heard the song over here, she longed to come, she 
 rose and then fell down in a convulsion. She died to 
 the song of the Shepherd." 
 
 Already he had left, saying: " I must run for the 
 doctor." He disappeared soon behind the school 
 house, toward the residence of the physician. 
 
 The news fell upon both with horror ; it came at a 
 moment of happiness, it seemed to smite the blow of 
 fate. Miss Winslow, since the day of reconciliation, 
 had felt a deepening harmony with Trolla's nature. 
 The old man had become strongly attached to the little 
 singer, he regardc-d her with a kind of awe, yet with 
 love. She was an embodiment of his own genius, and 
 would respond to the lightest beat of his wings ; she 
 could enter, as none other, into the world behind and 
 beyond his songs, which were but an outer drapery of 
 his inner being. He spoke : 
 
 "O my daughter, though our tie be so close, so 
 new, we must separate again. I must go and plant ; 
 I cannot even give my last old years to you without 
 the fateful counter-stroke. 1 feel it in the word just 
 spoken, in the event just transpired; I read it in 
 everything around me. Only by activity can I over 
 come the world that crushes me within and without. 
 In this village I have been held by your dear image, 
 seen the first day on this spot ; the memory would not 
 let me depart, but now I must rally and go. I cannot 
 rest with reminiscence, till I be done with doing." 
 
 Miss Winslow replied: "I am in that too your 
 child ; I must go and plant, it is my only dower from
 
 THE END WHICH IS THE BEGINNING. 423 
 
 you, and my best. My hour has struck, this day I 
 was about to leave. On all sides the restraint of life 
 is closing me in and compelling me to burst its chains. 
 There is no longer any freedom in Freeburg for me." 
 
 "It is fitting," said the father, "that we wait till 
 to-morrow, and pay the last rites to little Trolla, who 
 was more than a stranger here, and who has already 
 traveled further than we into the Beyond. Soon it 
 must be my turn to follow her thither." 
 
 The daughter replied: " I shall remain, O father, 
 and pass, in delightful intercourse with you, the in 
 tervening hours. After their lapse, we shall depart." 
 
 " It is well," said the old man. 
 
 Miss Winslow continued : ' ' When the bell ceases 
 tolling over Trolla' s grave, I shall be off to the new 
 life." 
 
 The two arose and went slowly toward the house of 
 death. They walked in silence through the garden 
 and the yard, over which the departed spirit seemed 
 still to hover. They found a small gathering, chiefly 
 of children, around the door ; Aunt Polly came out 
 and gave a friendly salutation through her tears ; she 
 said that the little sufferer a few minutes before had 
 breathed her last. 
 
 V. 
 
 The obsequies of Trolla were held at the house of 
 Mr. Firestone, in the midst of the family with which 
 she had passed her life. The garden seemed almost 
 to have been transferred to the room where she lay, 
 her coffin was hid in wreaths of flowers, out of which
 
 424 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 still peered her face with a slight smile, yet in deep 
 repose. Her head gently rested in her hat of golden 
 straw, round -which was twisted a fresh garland. She 
 was the center and the very bloom of all this floral 
 magnificence, her friends of the garden had not been 
 forgotten in the last rites of one who almost appeared 
 their human representative. 
 
 The neighbors assembled ; there was much talk in 
 low tones about the life of the strange child. Every 
 body had some story to tell of her marvelous actions ; 
 there were many conjectures in regard to her origin, 
 and many suppositions as to the cause of her death. 
 But no person had any light to throw upon her mani 
 fold mysteries, she had gone as she had come 
 a streak of sunshine diving out of one cloud into 
 another. 
 
 The young clergyman, who had felt such an interest 
 in the deceased child, had been selected to take charge 
 of the ceremonies. He came forward, and, after a 
 short rite, began to speak: "Of all the souls with 
 which it has been my lot to hold communion, the soul 
 of this departed one was most deeply wedded to the 
 Unknown. Her life dropped into our village out of 
 the Unknown ; now she has returned to the Unknown. 
 This element entered into her character, into all her 
 words and deeds ; she was a mystery to others and to 
 herself. The common boundaries of life's horizon 
 were never settled in her case ; the unfolding of her 
 spirit was its closing ; one could never exactly tell 
 whether she was a grown person or a child." 
 
 At this moment a band of children, dressed in white
 
 THE END WHICH IS THE BEGINNING. 425 
 
 and bearing in their hands offerings of immortelles, 
 entered the room and formed a circle round the flowery 
 bank, in which the fair countenance slept embosomed. 
 After them came the old singer, his hat was removed, 
 the white hair and beard fell over his shoulders and 
 his breast ; he bore his instrument under his arm, and 
 his face was already a song of deep sympathy and 
 veneration. Behind him stood Miss Hope Winslow, 
 the daughter ; everybody marked her position and 
 look; she seemed the same that she was before, yet 
 somehow changed ; she showed an outer resemblance 
 to the old singer, but still more, an inner harmony 
 with his feeling and character. Soon she moved 
 from her place and stepped forward ; she bent over 
 the lifeless form, and put her warm lips to the chill 
 face. 
 
 When Miss Winslow had risen and retired, the 
 clergyman continued: "The departed one desired 
 that a favorite song, which she had heard under 
 peculiar circumstances, be sung over her ere she be 
 consigned to her last resting-place. The ancient 
 friend is present to whom she owed so many hours of 
 happiness and consolation, through his musical gift. 
 He has consented to offer that song to us accompanied 
 by a chorus of children most of whom are still at her 
 period of life." 
 
 The old singer stood forth, and held up his instru 
 ment to his breast ; his look of benevolence and his 
 reverential attitude produced in every beholder kin 
 dred emotions. He began, in a clear but tremulous 
 voice, the song ; it was a simple thing, but he sang
 
 426 THE FREERUROERS. 
 
 his heart and his life into his strain, and everybody 
 could feel the beat. 
 
 The Shepherd came into the city, 
 
 And wandered up and down ; 
 There rang in his ear a ditty 
 
 Through all the din of the town. 
 
 From the hill-tops a rainbow is bending, 
 
 It reaches far over the sea, 
 And a song I hear with the ending : 
 
 Shepherd, come over to me. 
 
 This last verse the chorus of children took up and 
 repeated with a strong outpour of fresh youthful 
 voices. There was, indeed, almost a playfulness in 
 their tones ; they spoke of life, not of death, in spite 
 of the occasion ; they seemed unconsciously a prom 
 ise of the future. Their singing made a strong con 
 trast with the aged voice of the singer, who felt that 
 fresh breath of youth, and stood up more erect, as he 
 started a new verse : 
 
 I know not what is the matter, 
 
 That song rushes into my head, 
 Its music floats over the clatter, 
 
 But she who once sang it has fled. 
 
 I see my old flock on the mountain, 
 
 As it grazes in pasture up high, 
 I look at her face in the fountain, 
 
 1 there see myself too, and sigh . 
 
 Still the rainbow yonder is bending, 
 
 It reaches far over the sea, 
 And a song I hear with the ending: 
 
 O Shepherd, come over to me.
 
 THE EXD WHICH IS THE BEGINNING. 427 
 
 When the chorus had repeated this last verse with 
 even greater fullness and power than before, yet with 
 the same child-like joyousness, the clergyman rose and 
 said: "I have been asked to give some glimpse of 
 the life of this young soul, but I have little or nothing 
 to offer. She kept to herself her secret, because, 
 probably, she was a secret to herself. If I were to 
 state the disease of which she died, I would say that 
 this youthful heart was burned up in its own fires. She 
 had felt earthly disappointment, but from it she had 
 drawn its divine lesson ; through it she had risen into 
 a feeling of celestial charity. But the shock was great, 
 too great for a nature so delicately attuned, for an 
 imagination so warmly colored. In her last days she 
 turned with a strong attachment to the symbols of 
 religion, from which she derived a blessed solace. She 
 clung with special fondness to a little emblem of the 
 crucifixion, which, as she supposed, had been a posses 
 sion of her unknown parents, and an object of their 
 worship. But, in her intense nature, love could not 
 survive its own fever ; in spite of affectionate care, so 
 lavishly bestowed by her foster mother, she withered, 
 as it were in her own sunlight, and at last had to be 
 surrendered to the destroyer. 
 
 " The most unusual trait of her character, as it ap 
 pears to me, was her intimate relation to the Beyond, to 
 what transcends the bounds of our ordinary life. She 
 had a strange reach out of this finite existence which 
 surrounded her and sought to hold her in ; thus she 
 was peculiar, quite inexplicable to us who so con 
 tentedly dwell in our own little horizon. But now she 
 has gone beyond, with her own fullest consent, I am
 
 428 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 convinced. I would not call her back to these bonds of 
 life which she found so heavy while she wore them." 
 The speaker was no longer able to utter his words 
 freely on account of his emotion ; he gave a nod to 
 the old singer that the song should proceed. The 
 latter at once began : 
 
 The dwelling is empty yonder, 
 The sougstress has gone far away, 
 
 And I in the world have to wander, 
 At home I no longer can stay. 
 
 I hark on my path by the hour, 
 
 The heart of the hills is so full, 
 The earth brings many a flower, 
 
 But none I stoop over to pull. 
 
 Still above me the rainbow is bending, 
 
 It reaches far over the sea, 
 And a song I hear with the ending: 
 
 O Shepherd, come over to me. 
 
 The old man, in singing for others, could not help 
 singing for himself. The last line he could scarcely 
 bring to an end, his voice broke into sobbing frag 
 ments, and his song ran out into tears". But the 
 chorus, that happy outburst of youth and life, caught 
 up the verse and made it reverberate with soul-elevat 
 ing notes of joy and hope. Some of the audience had 
 already learned those lines which had been repeated 
 several times, new voices swelled the chorus with a 
 heavy accession of sound, and deep bass notes were 
 heard mingling among the lighter tones of children 
 and giving to them a massive foundation. 
 
 The old singer had collected himself, his voice was
 
 THE END WHICH IS THE BEGINNING. 429 
 
 again firm, and he sang in a more quiet manner the 
 concluding verses : 
 
 The Shepherd went out of the city, 
 
 Still wandering np and down ; 
 But always he hears the same ditty 
 
 He heard in the din of the town. 
 
 That ditty has always the ending : 
 
 O Shepherd, come over to me ; 
 And always a rainbow is bending 
 
 That reaches far over the sea. 
 
 The children again sang the final stanza in chorus, 
 and all the audience seemed to join in the last two 
 lines, being transformed for the time into the spirit of 
 hope and aspiration. The clergyman once more rose 
 and began to speak : 
 
 " It is a divine dispensation that the young at times 
 must go on in advance of the old ; the children are 
 called before the parents. The spring wanes at its 
 most beautiful moment, the flowers wilt at their high 
 est bloom ; it is because the season of fruits is ap 
 proaching. Thus I have thought of this fair being : 
 she has had her wonderful period of bloom, has passed 
 it and now enters a new and higher development. O 
 friends, decay is not death but a part of life. Fair be 
 the new flowers that spring over her tomb ! " 
 
 The time had come for consigning to the elements 
 what was left of little Trolla. All cast a final look 
 upon her as she lay in her white festal dress and golden 
 hat amid the banks of flowers. Aunt Polly came for 
 ward, arranged some of the floral surroundings anew, 
 and then smoothed down the pale brow for the last
 
 430 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 time. She had bravely endured her trial, but at this 
 final moment the sob broke out, she fell upon Trolla's 
 face, and exclaimed: "O my Trolla, farewell!" 
 Then she firmly rose and gave orders that the lid be 
 closed. 
 
 The children marched out in front, they were not 
 wholly able to restrain their little gambols and prat- 
 tlings on their way to the House of Silence. Gentle 
 hands bore the lifeless shape, now hidden, to rest in 
 the bosom of the primeval mother. How desolate 
 seemed the dwelling after Trolla had been carried out ! 
 
 Somebody asked after the old singer. But he had 
 quietly left the house and shunned the crowd, he was 
 nowhere visible. Miss Winslow also had gone her 
 way, and was not seen again. Father and daughter 
 had vanished. 
 
 VI. 
 
 When the last scene has been played, the curtain 
 ought to drop. But it may be added, by way of epi 
 logue, that the world goes on, though the story comes 
 to an end. The reader naturally asks, What became 
 of these persons afterward? They undoubtedly had 
 their history, but it does not lie in the scope of the 
 present narrative. The town of Freeburg and the in 
 dividuals in it have completed a cycle of existence, 
 the end of which is, however, but the beginning of an 
 other cycle, and might be the beginning of another 
 novel. 
 
 The community, after these experiences, seemed 
 for a time to sink back exhausted. The aspiration,
 
 THE END WHICH IS THE BEGINNING. 431 
 
 which so strongly characterized the little town, had 
 driven it up against the very bounds of its existence, 
 with which it had heavily collided. There had taken 
 place something like a spiritual explosion, which scat 
 tered its strong characters toward the four quarters 
 of the globe. To be sure, these characters had the 
 explosive material in them, and opportunity simply ap 
 plied the match. Freeburg was emptied of its power 
 ful, limit-breaking individuals, by a banishment from 
 within and not from an outer power. The people who 
 remained had peace, but with peace came a time of 
 lethargy. They could have the consolatory privilege 
 of saying that the great cities of the world Athens, 
 Florence, Rome had known a similar period, which 
 produced mighty characters and then lost them a 
 period of aspiration, conflict, decline. 
 
 The town, in the unfolding of its institutional life, 
 had turned an epoch. It had driven Conscience upon 
 Law, and, as we have seen, had forced the latter into 
 the background. Therewith everything fixed, perman 
 ent, established, in every domain of the spirit's 
 sovereignty, began to shake and rattle. In time, 
 however, came the harsh counter- stroke ; the Free- 
 burgers had to pass through the bitter experience that 
 to Conscience there was a limit, at least an outer limit, 
 which they could not cross. A hand of gigantic 
 strength had reached into their midst, and had seized 
 Cudjo Bell ; he had not been rescued, and he could 
 not now be rescued. Law celebrated its triumph in 
 Freeburg, though with merely an external authority. 
 No wonder its people were dazed at the blow, and fell
 
 432 THE FREEBURGERS. 
 
 into a kind of sullen apathy, which for a time lets the 
 world run as it will. 
 
 But they had not renounced their principle, though 
 for the moment vanquished. In this state of quies 
 cence they were gathering new volcanic fire, and it 
 soon became plain that the conflict had not been 
 solved, but deepened.
 
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