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THE GOLDEN JUSTICE
BY
WILLIAM HENRY BISHOP
AUTHOR OF "THE HOUSE OF A MERCHANT PRINCE," "DETMOLD'
"CHOY SUSAN," AND OTHER STORIES
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
1890
Copyright, 1887,
V WILLIAM HENRY BISHOP.
All rights reserved.
Tht Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A.
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company
CONTENTS.
PAGE
I. THE GOLDEN JUSTICE is RAISED ALOFT . . 1
n. A MAN OF THE WORLD 16
III. MBS. VAREMBERG 35
IV. A TRUER PICTURE OF MRS. VAREMBEKG . . 57
V. A NEW PARTNER AT BARCLAY'S ISLAND . . 84
VI. " TAUGHT BY MISFORTUNE, I PITY THE UN-
HAPPY" 105
VII. A RANDOM PROPHECY 133
/III. A MEETING AT THE FOOT OF THE GOLDEN
JUSTICE 152
IX. A WINSOME APPARITION 188
, X. A NAVAL ENGAGEMENT 220
XI. MRS. VAREMBERG is RELEASED 241
^ III. "THE PEOPLE'S CANDIDATE" ...... 259
II. THE ELECTION OF A MAYOR 283
(V. THE CONTESTED ELECTION 295
, IV. DAVID LANE'S ATTEMPT AT FREEDOM . . . 312
VI. THE POWERS OF THE AIR 335
\v
II. ASTRJSA REDUX 367
C'
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
I.
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE IS RAISED ALOFT.
THERE were many theories about the disastrous
collision at the Chippewa Street bridge; but not a
word was spoken against that eminent citizen, David
Lane.
The place of the event was Keewaydin, a high
northern city, on the shores of Lake Michigan, that
superb inland sea, which stretches a long arm down-
ward from the general chain of the American Great
Lakes. Keewaydin named for the Northwest
Wind had a population of somewhat more than
one hundred thousand souls. It was of a prosper-
ous, comely aspect, and solidly built of an indige-
nous yellow brick, the cool warmth of which seemed,
somehow, in keeping with the northerly latitude.
Through its midst flowed a smooth, canal-like river,
which, with tributaries, and basins dredged out in
certain marshes, afforded some twenty miles of wharf-
age for shipping. This river was spanned, at the foot
of nearly every other street, by a draw-bridge,
now opening to the bustling traffic by water, now
forming again a junction with the solid land, to ao
2O617G2
2 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
commoclate the desultory cavalcade of foot-passengers
and teams.
The large propeller, Pride of the West, had struck
one of these bridges, and two lives had been lost.
The story might have been heard exhaustively
told at that favorite resort of vessel men and marine
gossips, the Johannisberger House, an old, high-por-
ticoed edifice by the river-side, which had once been
a family mansion of some note.
" As I understand it," said an engineer of the Owl
Line steam-tugs, summing up the part of it that re-
lated to David Lane, " as I understand it, David
Lane, he was on the bridge at the time "
" On the draw," growled the captain of a tug of
the rival Diamond Jim Line.
" On the dra\v, of course. Where could he ha'
been ? " retorted the other, as though only a person
very like an idiot could have insisted upon so fine a
distinction. " He was on the draw, and the propeller
was a-comin' through. All to once, he see Zelinsky,
the bridge-tender, drop in a kind o' fit. Lane rushes
forrard, to lend a hand ; but what could he do ? It
was this here paytent new-fangled turnin' apparay-
tus"
"They never had n't ought to be used on the
bridges, nohow ; or else they 'd ought to have more
men to 'em," interpolated a schooner's captain.
" She struck, and he was most killed, himself, for
his trouble. And now he's lyin' on his back with
half his bones broken, and no telliif when he '11 be
round again," concluded the Owl Line engineer.
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 3
" He 's a man that ain't never been afraid to lend
a hand in most any way," said the schooner's captain,
with hearty emphasis. " He 's a whole-souled feller
free with his time and free with his money, one
of the kind that ought to have money, I 've always
said ; and I 'm glad he 's got a pile of it. I s'pose he
could buy and sell 'most any one else in Kee way-
din."
" Pretty free with his temper, too, eh ? " put in a
skeptical lake steward, temporarily out of employ-
ment.
" Well, what if he is ? What does it amount to ?
All of us has to blow off a little steam sometimes ; I
do myself." It was the gruff skipper of the Diamond
Jim Line, who again spoke.
" Nobody gets over it quicker than him, and no-
body 's quicker to make it up to a man, afterwards, if
he's ben wrong," said the schooner's captain. "I've
worked for him, gents, and I claim to know. Now,
gents, what shall it be ? "
And the talk was moistened once more, after the
fashion at the Johannisberger House, with beverages
served by the hands of mine host, Christian Idak,
in person.
Such was the account that obtained final accept-
ance, and such was the excellent repute enjoyed by
David Lane. The most censorious, seeking for flaws
in his conduct, could find nothing to urge against
him save a trivial over-hastiness of temper. But let
us look a little into the real circumstances of the
case.
4 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
David Lane strode forth, that day, from the office
of the Northwestern Navigation Company, in a tow-
ering rage. lie may have hidden it, to some extent,
in the office of the company itself, but, once more on
West Water Street, without, he gave it full headway.
He arrived at the Chippewa Street bridge, by which
he was to cross to his own side of the town, in a
mood that ill beseemed so. respectable a gentleman.
Nevertheless, he considered himself to have ample
justification for it.
He had just heard, from the mouth of the plausi-
ble Shadwell, its president, the final refusal of the
company to grant him such terms for the carrying of
material from his iron mills as would have enabled
him to compete with Eastern rivals for a large and
desirable building contract. Why this concession
was refused need not here be entered into. Such
favors are sometimes done one another by the pala-
dins of trade and finance in a place like Keewaydin,
and then again are denied ; jealousies, rivalries, long-
standing grudges, waiting an opportunity to strike,
are all to be considered. If any one had been wait-
ing to strike at David Lane, perhaps this was rather
a favorable time. The capitalist was staggering un-
der some unusually heavy financial burdens, and
could ill afford any diminution of either profit or
prestige. Wounded pride, self-interest, and local pa-
triotism for he would have been glad, in the ambi-
tious Western way, that the town should have had
the work, even apart from any personal advantage of
his own combined to make up his present state
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 5
of mind. Added to the rest, he was suffering of late
from a malarious attack, and had slept but little for
several nights.
He set foot upon the draw just as it had begun to
swing, and he went round with it, its only passenger,
on its brief excursion. Something aroused him from
the bitter preoccupation in which he was at first
plunged, and he became somehow aware that it was
a craft of the hostile company for which the draw
was turning. Hardly had the reflection passed
through his mind, when the bridge-tender uttered a
painful, choking cry. " Help ! " he called, and again
" Help ! " and fell prone beneath his capstan bar.
He might have been overcome by heart disease or
apoplexy, or was, perhaps, only drunk.
The first thought of Lane was to complete the
turning of the bridge ; that was the thing of pressing
importance, the man could be looked to afterwards.
He rushed to the spot and laid hold upon the cap-
stan. But at this moment he was seized by a new
impulse.^ so wild and incredible as to resemble a
prompting of madness, a veritable frenzy, which
remained ever afterwards as much a mystery to him-
self as it could have been to any of those who knew
him.
With all his might he dragged back upon the lever,
instead of expediting its movement, and thus nar-
rowed, instead of enlarging, the passage.
The Pride of the West was returning to her dock
after one of her usual voyages on the lakes. Bulky,
massive, standing high up out of water, she forged
6 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
ahead with all the momentum of her ample size.
"\Vitli a carelessness born of long immunity, she had
left herself just margin enough to pass if all went
well, and not an inch more, and it was too late for her
to stop.
Take that ! " muttered David Lane, through his
set teeth, as if addressing an actual person, and not
the mere inanimate hulk of a vessel.
Crash ! crash !
Jets of escaping steam, whirling wreaths of smoke,
splinters, dust, and over all, the sickening sound of
the rending and crunching of human handiwork
never meant for such ruinous ordeals.
The bridge was overthrown from its basis of glib-
moving wheels, and tilted upward at an awkward
angle. From beneath two of its heavy fallen
trusses were taken out, when help arrived, Stanislaus
Zelinsky. the bridge-tender, dead, and David Lane
seriously injured.
Furthermore, the propeller was penetrated by a
sharp timber, which, held like a lance in rest, cruelly
impaled in his cabin a passenger, who had gone down
to throw together a few traps, preparatory to step-
ping ashore, and left him mangled and dead against
its further wall. He was one Christopher Barclay,
of the city of New York, who had come out to look
after property in these regions purchased many years
before.
This was the story told David Lane when he had
recovered consciousness after the shock of his
injuries. lie had even known the passenger, this
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 1
Christopher Barclay, tnown, at least, of his stand-
ing and consideration in the world. He knew that
this victim was cut off, in the prime of life, from a
career of usefulness and honor, and had left behind
him a family, dependent upon him, if not for support,
at least for the proper direction of their careers.
" Merciful Father in heaven ! " he breathed, in an
agony of mind yet sharper than his physical pains,
"have I done this? Oh, no, I will not believe it !
Have I, henceforth, the guilt of the blood of two of
my fellow-creatures upon my soul ? It cannot be ; I
will not have it so. It is a greater punishmeut than
I can bear."
His purpose flew straight towards confession.
" It was I," he began. " It was I. I turned "
The attendants thought he raved, distracted by his
hurts.
" Yes, yes," they said, soothingly, " it was all seen
from the vessel's deck." (But as a matter of fact
it had not been accurately seen from anywhere.)
" You were not to blame ; you did all you could.
The surgeons think you had better not talk now.
You must try to compose yourself, and lie as quiet as
you can."
This repression but hastened the fever it was in-
tended to avert ; the patient fell off into a raging
delirium, and hovered between life and death for
three months. In this state he seemed to himself to
declare his crime, and to suffer almost every con-
ceivable form of expiation for it.
When he became rational again, the thought of
8 '////: dOLDEN JUST 1C K.
confession resumed its sway. As he lay convales-
rin<f lie even meditated the form of words which his
avowal ought to take. But by this date the disaster
at the Chippewa Street bridge was long of the past ;
so many other things had happened in the mean time
that it would have required a certain effort of the
public imagination to go back to it.
There, too, by his bedside, stood his cherished wife,
his beloved daughter. Must he bring disgrace upon
them ? Must he tell them the kind of husband and
father he had been to them ? Was it required of
him, now that the harm was irreparable, and disclos-
ure could be of no avail to the dead ?
It was this daughter, Florence Lane, who proved
the strongest of all his deterring motives. She was.
the dearest being in the world to him. She was tall,
slender, and willowy, almost a woman now, and she
promised to be a beautiful, as well as a good and
clever one. She should have a very happy and brill-
iant future before her. Was he to mar it by his in-
famy ? Oh, no, he could not do it.
Hers was the first face upon which his eyes rested
when they recovered their calmer vision. She bent
down and kissed him, with a tender solicitude, lest
even this unwonted excitement might be to his detri-
ment.
"It is delightful to see you almost well again,
dear papa," she said, in the most tuneful of young
voices, marked by inflections of fondness.
They had always been the best of friends. The
daughter had brought to her father all her troubles,
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 9
all her childish and girlish interests. Nothing could
have been warmer, more complete, and pleasanter to
see than the devotion subsisting between the two.
" Why are you here ? " demanded the invalid,
feebly.
" I came home to be with you. I could not bear
to be far away when you were so ill. I am studying
again with Mrs. Miltimore," she replied.
The time passed ; David Lane at first vacillated,
then postponed his avowal, then wholly abandoned
it, and adopted a settled policy of concealment. He
set out, and traveled far and wide, for the restoration
of his impaired health and vigor. When he came
back, he was graver, gentler, quieter, than ever be-
fore. This change in character was laid to the acci-
dent, from the effects of which, it was supposed, he
had never fully recovered.
Among the first duties which he took upon himself
was that of the support of the family of the deceased
bridge-tender. He tried to persuade himself that
this death, at least, did not lie at his door, but that
the man had, even before the collision, succumbed to
some fatal malady. Nevertheless, the doubt always
existed, and it was upon this doubt that he acted.
His proceeding was looked upon as a pure piece of
benevolence, and called for the more praise, since a
prejudice had arisen against Zelinsky, as having been
intoxicated and responsible for the disaster, and
others might not have been so willing to extend help.
The family consisted of but two members, a wife and
infant daughter. The wife did not long survive.
10 TV//: GOLDEN JUSTICE.
The Polish child, prettily named " Stanislava," after
the " Stanislaus " of her father, was then taken
charge of by some humble German relatives, with
whom she lived, supported by a modest allowance
from David Lane.
He next found means to more than make up both
to the city and the Northwestern Navigation Com-
pany the damage they had sustained at his hands.
He took surreptitious steps also to advance the inter-
ests of the heirs of Christopher Barclay's estate. By
docking and dredging in its vicinity, in Che Menomee
Marsh, he gave a particular value, for instance, to a
waste bit of ground, which came to be known as Bar-
clay's Island, and to be the site of several flourish-
ing industries. He founded, at about this date, the
Lane Public Library, the Lane system of Industrial
Schools, and the Lane Free Hospital, and gave as
well to every private charity that made demands upon
his purse.
He had been well liked before, and he now became
an object of enthusiastic public favor. He was made
mayor, and then, for several terms, governor of the
State. He accepted these offices, proposing to make
of them, by an assiduous devotion to the public good
such as is rarely seen, a certain atonement.
In the midst of all this he was pursued by the in-
satiate terrors of remorse. He flouted, at times, in
bitter scorn, all his own devices.
" So, too, the robber barons of the Middle Ages,"
he would say, " endeavored to buy immunity for their
crimes by indulgence in petty charities."
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 11
It was a harrowing thought to him that the very
measures intended for reparation but added to his
own prosperity. Never had he been so flourishing
in all his affairs, never so prominent in the world.
What a whited sepulchre, what a wolf in sheep's
clothing, he called himself. He to live esteemed and
admired of his fellow-men when he should have had
only chastisement and contempt. He turned back
again to religion, of the formal sort, which, after a
fashion not uncommon with men of bustling and
active affairs, he had long neglected. He had the
Rev. Edward Brockston, of St. Jude's, a clergyman
of a serious and ascetic vein, one who preached eccle-
siastical celibacy and the like, to dine with him, made
him the almoner of many private bounties, and gave
him a new tower for his church. He thought of lay-
ing the whole case before this good man, and offering
to abide by his counsel ; but, at the last resort, he
could not bring himself to it. The very height to
which he had risen in the mean time was an added
obstacle ; it but made the distance which he had to
fall the greater.
Still he felt always upon him a resistless pressure
towards confession ; the mystery of the destruction
of two innocent human lives seemed to imperiously
demand accounting for. He was under something
like that powerful urgency from which the saying
has arisen that " murder will out." He even medi-
tated the woful resource of suicide, and contemplated
with a certain deliberation all of its forms.
At last, however, David Lane found a method of
12 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
relief, of a bizarre sort, which perhaps none but he,
and he only in the most morbidly eccentric of his
moods, would ever have hit upon.
At about this time Keewaydin was to place a figure
of Justice on the dome of its city hall, a mammoth,
expensive edifice, which had dragged its slow length
along for many years, and was now at last com-
pleted. The statue was to be its final touch of orna-
ment. It was of plates of beaten zinc, handsomely
gilded, well stayed from within, and was, like the
famed Athena Parthenos, about " six times the height
of a man."
It was the proposition of some ingenious spirit in
the board of aldermen that the figure should be made
a place used for the deposit of papers, like a corner-
stone. The idea was said to be borrowed from the
steeple of the most exemplary meeting-house in town,
the gilt ball of which so the rumor ran con-
tained whiskey and playing-cards, deposited there by
graceless wags at the time of its construction. How-
ever this may have been, the plan was now utilized
most unobjectionably. David Lane, a distinguished
townsman, who had had to do with the erection of
the building, and was at the time governor of the
State, was asked to honor the occasion and deliver
the dedicatory address, and he consented to do so.
The civic pile, become that day the centre of public
interest, stood in a little green park, near the business
centre of the place, but removed from its bustle.
The square was flanked on three sides by private
dwellings, standing comfortably back in their own
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 13
door-yards, aud on the fourth by a cathedral with
schools, having a tall clock-tower, from which the
hours were pleasantly chimed. The new city hall
was of an imposing Renaissance design, built in the
main of good red sandstone from the Lake Superior
quarries, but this supplemented, in the great porticoes
and elsewhere, after a cheap American way, with
iron work, to which painting and sanding gave 'only
a far-off imitation of the more solid material. It
would never make even a passable ruin supposing
its architect, like Martiuus Scriblerus, to have de-
signed his building, not for present use, but its aspect
in decay. Only that which has been fairly substan-
tial and honest in life can be impressive in death.
Before it, at full length, on the grass, lay the Golden
Justice. Trammeled up in her hoisting tackle, and
surrounded by the crowds of spectators, she seemed
like captive Gulliver in Lilliput, or the great statue
of Diana '' which fell down from Jupiter," at Ephe-
sus. or some palladium of the liberties of Keewaydin
temporarily overthrown. She was of a fair, serene,
and noble aspect, and well worthy of her destination.
Her eyes were not blindfolded, in the usual way ; the
brows were deeply shaded by a martial helmet, rest-
ing upon the loosely-bound tresses that rippled away
on either side ; on her thigh was a long, straight-
hilted sword, and in her hand, gathered up with the
drapery, the conventional scales. There was some-
thing else about the golden goddess, something that,
had he noted it, might perhaps have stayed the cu-
rious project of David Lane, even in the moment of
14 THE GUl.UEX JUSTICE.
its execution, but lie was too full of his own agitated
thoughts, and it escaped him.
In his address to-day he surpassed himself. He
spoke with a genuine eloquence that was a surprise
to all who knew him. His words were of a moving
force, his views of the austerest purity. He had the
look of some stoic sage of the antique mould.
" Fiat justitia, ruat coelum ! " he thundered ; and
then, again, for the benefit of the vulgar, " Let jus-
tice be done, though the heavens fall ! "
With this his oration was over, and the moment
had come to deposit the papers. He dropped into
the receptacle prepared for them the various public
documents. Then, with cruelly shaking hand and
a heart that beat so loudly it seemed a wonder the
bystanders did not hear it, he dropped in a paper
strangely different, indeed, from all the rest.
It was a written confession, in full, of his crime.
" If it be required, by the eternal fitness of things,
that this be known," he breathed forth above it, " let
the paper come down. If it do not come down, by
that testimony I shall know that I am absolved at
least before men, and my punishment awaits me
hereafter. I commit myself to the hands of eternal
justice ; to her I leave my fate."
The baud struck up, shrill cheers rent the air, and
salutes of guns were fired. The great statue was
hoisted to her feet, tottered a little in the air,
in which attitude she might be thought to have a cer-
tain recognition of the responsibility of her situation,
slid along ways prepared for her on the roofs, and
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 15
was set securely in her place on the high central
dome.
And there, aloft, a shining mark from far and
near before the eyes of all men, stood henceforth the
Golden Justice, with the secret of David Lane in its
keeping.
This was in his first term as governor. In his last
term having enjoyed the intimacy of the Presi-
dent, and being of the stuff of which such dignita-
ries are made he was sent as minister to one of the
most important European courts. His wife died, and
a sister of his own took charge of his household.
His daughter, Florence Lane, arrived at woman's es-
tate, and made a brilliant foreign marriage, much
talked of in its time. He prolonged his stay abroad
many years. At intervals he almost forgot all that
was behind him, but there, far back across the sea, in
the place of his abode, was the Golden Justice, and
his secret, always awaiting him.
n.
A MAN OF THE WORLD.
OXE day, some ten years after the raising aloft of
the Golden Justice, the Chippewa Street draw was
again on the swing.
The bridge-tender at present in charge was a short,
stout man, with a florid complexion, little, round, pro-
truding gray eyes, and big, coarse fists. He evi-
dently had a very good idea of his own importance.
Ludwig Trapschuh laid claim, in fact, to an exhaus-
tive acquaintance with all people and things in the
vicinity of his bridge. Not exactly of the solid land,
nor yet altogether of the water, but belonging in part
to both, he prided himself on a sort of amphibious
character and a sovereignty over the double domain.
Added to this, he had outside irons in the fire, small
ventures, generally unsuccessful, which kept him in
straits for money, but the failure of one never abated
his willingness to engage in others of the same sort.
He had just slipped an arm into one sleeve of his
coat, and was about to go off his post on some private
affairs of his own. He was leaving his final instruc-
tions with a new assistant, from the Milesian Third
Ward, and he intermingled with these a quantity of
gossip. The assistant, with an impressed air, yielded
an ample deference to all that he said.
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 17
" You must not let more as fifteen catties go over
at once," said Ludwig Trapschub ; " and you must
not let dem teams crowd ahead mit demselves too
much, one by de oder. De draw cannot be open
more as ten minyutes. Den must you show de red
signal, or, if it was night, de red lantern, and
no more vessels can pass. You und'stand ? "
" I belayve you, I do."
" Sometimes she go round yust so easy as noding
at all ; and sometimes she jump like she was crazy,"
pursued Ludwig Trapschuh, explaining with a gusto
the traits of his bridge. " You look out for her."
" Niver fear ! "
" Well, now, I got to go and see me a couple o'
dem South Side aldermens. Dem aldermens do yust
what I tell 'em, every time, so quick like rollin' round
a log."
" It 's a grand political in/?z<ence you have, en-
tirely."
" Well," responded the other complacently, " I
guess I was a pretty smart feller for my age. I live
'moug dem Polanders, and got plenty influenz mit
dem, anyhow. If some managers wants dem, dey
know dey got to get me, first, eh ? I bet you no one
understand dem Polanders better as what I do."
" The Polacks is different to the regular Dutch, I
belayve ? " said the assistant with an air of ethno-
logic speculation.
" They bin worse as Mecklenbergers ; they bin not
good for much except saw wood and work by rail-
roads. I am a Pomeranian, but my sister, she got
18 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
married with a Polander Zelinsky. If he was a smart
man, he don't get killed on this bridge, so mauy years
ago."
" Well, now ! well now ! "
" They build their houses round by me, and when
my brother-of-law die I bring my niece-of-law, Stan-
i.-luva Zelinsky, to live by me, and we get kind o'
used to 'em and stay mit 'em," said Trapschuh, desir-
ous to explain how it was he came to abide in the
large Polish settlement on the South Side.
There now came by, driving a shabby express-
wagon, one of those rowdy young fellows, a type of
a certain kind of foreigners of the second generation,
who have acquired all the American vices, with
none of the virtues, adding them to the ample
stock already possessed of their own. He spoke
English perfectly well, or perfectly ill, in the way of
its commonest slang. This was one " Barney " Trap-
schuh, hopeful son of the bridge-tender.
" The South Side Belle 's comin' down the river,"
said this person, pointing a coarse thumb back over
his shoulder.
" Where you seen her ? "
" Oh, up there along the docks."
With this he drove on. His father presently
turned his attention to a rusty-looking, small sloop
that made her appearance at the draw.
" Bah, the South Side Belle ! " he exclaimed with
contempt. " Billy Alfsen 's goin' across the lake af-
ter another' load o' them peaches. I wish he sink
himself to the bottom in his leaky old tub."
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 19
A well-built young man, the William Alfsen re-
ferred to, stood on the deck of the sloop with a defi-
ant air, as if conscious of the unfriendly scrutiny to
which he was subjected. The whole remaining crew
consisted of a single tow-headed boy of fifteen.
" That last load of peaches what he bring was all
spoiled ; the fruit inspector throw 'em out," grumbled
Trapschuh. " He make nothing since he give up his
place in the Stamp- Ware Works, and he got to
take care of his old father, besides. He own not
even that old sloop ; some ones hold mortgage on it."
" Is that so ? "
" He 's no good. What he mean by South Side's
Belle, any way ? He mean my niece-of-law, Stanis-
lava. He hang around that girl all time he can, but
I don't let it, see ? "
" I do," answered the listener, with his continued
air of admiration, though he had heard the same story
before, and even more than once, in his short term of
service.
" She got no hurry to bin married, but she must
get married with some feller with a few dollars in his
pocket, see ? "
He would now at last have taken his departure,
but the Pride of the West was seen once more com-
ing up the stream. He professed a peculiar nervous-
ness about this boat to which he owed his situation,
for David Lane had got it for him on account of his
relationship to the slain Zelinsky, and he stayed to
see her through, himself. The bridges below were
seen opening and closing for, her, like parts of some
20 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
single. glib-working machine. She signaled twice, by
the customary whistle. As she drew near, Trapschuh,
out of his large acquaintance, identified a little knot
of persons standing on her forward deck, by the rail.
" That 's Jim DeBow," said he, " he 's a big fel-
ler on 'Change. And that 's Mrs. DeBow ; and that
stylish young lady is his daughter, Miss DeBow. I
see it in the papers that they bin in Chicago. But
that young feller, with them good clothes and such a
fine kind o' look, I don't know him ; I guess he
bin a stranger round here."
Then a bit of vivid excitement occurred that took
away opportunity for further gossip. When this was
over, he looked around reproachfully, as if the effort
had been made by some one to remove him, Trap-
schuh, from his post of duty at a peculiarly critical
moment, and he knew not what would have happened
if he had gone. Making a general rule of two oc-
currences, separated by at least fifteen years, he ex-
claimed,
" That boat is always doin' something at this
bridge."
The group at the rail, so far as identified, had been
correctly described. It was the DeBow family, and,
with them, a new acquaintance, one they had made on
the voyage itself, returning from Chicago.
This stranger was a man of somewhat more than
thirty, but appearing younger. He was considerably
above the middle height, of robust frame, closely but-
toned into a well-fitting suit of Scotch tweeds, and he
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 21
stood squarely on his feet, looking with interest at all
about him. His skin, browned by healthy exposure,
contributed with other details to give him a foreign
and traveled air. His expression conveyed a latent
geniality, combined with dignity, experience of the
world, and a certain importance in it, while his slight-
ly reserved bearing was free from any shade of pre-
tense. He was called, his companions had learned,
Paul Barclay.
He had conversed chiefly with Miss Justine De-
Bow. He had been tacitly left to her by the elders,
who, following a provincial tradition, felt that the
young, as a matter of course, belonged to each other,
and could not be expected to interest themselves out-
side their own ranks. The girl was young and pret-
ty, and not far past her school-days. She had a very
symmetrical little figure, an almost purely classic
profile, and a proudly curling upper lip. She was un-
usually petite, to atone for which she seemed to af-
fect a certain stateliness of manner, which was at
times of an amusing incongruity. She had a formal,
precise -way of speaking, taking care to use the Boston,
or English, broad a. She had not been brought up to
this, but had acquired it at the Keewaydin Female
College, of which institution she had been valedicto-
rian, as she let fall, and where she had been known
as a smart, ambitious, spirited little person.
This Paul Barclay had impressed her from the first
as some one very different from the ordinary run of
new-comers to Keewaydin. He had let fall chance
expressions which opened to her vistas into an ample
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
fxperience. She said to herself that he was the
near^t realization she had yet seen of " a man of the
world ; " and a man of the world was at present Miss
Justine DeBow's ideal of all that was superlatively
admirable. She had tired already, as is not so uncom-
mon at a certain date with maidens of her years, of
the callow youth of her acquaintance ; she sighed for
one who had seen all, could do all, and might take her
away to form part of a more complete and splendid
society than any she had ever known.
He had spoken admiringly of the view of the town
from the water, as they came into the harbor, and of
the two long breakwater piers with their light-houses.
With the common enough ignorance of one to the
manner born, she knew even less of many things
about her home than he. It was he who had hud to
tell her that the Great Lakes were " a step-mother to
ships," offering no natural refuge in all their thou-
sands of miles of coast, and that the harbors were
formed by utilizing the mouths of the small rivers
that make into them. He asked her to point out to
him Barclay's Island, and gazed at certain factory
buildings upon it, clustered around a mammoth brick
chimney, with a good deal of attention.
Have you relatives here?" inquired his comely
young cicerone, attracted by the coincidence of names.
" Yes, the Thornbrooks."
The Thornbrooks were an excellent old couple, liv-
ing in a large square house near the centre of the
town, who their children now all married off
were passing their declining years in placid comfort.
TEE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 23
This led up to nothing in particular, though even
this, had her memory gone somewhat further back,
or had she applied to her father for information,
might have given her certain interesting clews.
DeBow himself occasionally took some share in
the talk. No derogation was meant in calling him
" Jim " DeBow. The name was used alike by those
who knew and those who did not know him, and was
a complimentary adoption of him by the general pub-
lic, such as often happens to local magnates of his
sort. Though so " big a fellow on 'Change," after
the description of Trapschuh, he was small of stat-
ure, in this respect his daughter took after him.
He showed a jovial tendency, and had a large, ex-
pansive way of talking, of the kind often thought
peculiarly " Western." His rhetoric had wings, and
he followed it as far as possible by rising on his toes.
He spoke of the commerce of Keewaydin, and claimed
that more actual tonnage came to the port than to
Boston, Baltimore, or Philadelphia.
" We are the American Odessa," he went on.
" Wheat is our great staple ; we beat the world on
wheat. This wonderful great northwestern country
stretching back of us gives a hard, firm grade of
cereal that makes men of brain and men of muscle."
" And you naturally eat a good deal of it, at
home?"
" Oh, yes, ha, ha, very good ! We eat it, at
home, lots of it ; you 'd better believe we eat it."
" Is it your first visit to our section ? " he asked
presently.
'_' 1 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
"My first visit."
" I shall take great pleasure in showing you 'round
on 'Change, or anywhere else, if you will give me a
call."
" I shall be glad to accept your polite offer, should
iny engagements permit."
As to Mrs. DeBow, a faded-looking lady, she ap-
peared to be one of those American mothers, of a cer-
tain class, who are left behind by the too rapid move-
ment of the world, and can make no effort to keep up
with the development of new and brilliant ideas on
the part of their juniors. She seemed to efface her-
self with an even more than common humility, but
Barclay took care to address her some trifling atten-
tions, from which a student of character would at
once have inferred in him a natural kindness of
heart, together with the habit of prompt and com-
prehensive courtesy. The good lady replied to him,
" Yes, sir," and " No, sir," in a sort of fluttered def-
erence.
" Mamma is a great invalid," said Justine, manag-
ing to draw him away from her at the earliest mo-
ment. There were things in both her parents she
did not approve of. She might have explained, had
she been willing to, that she was driven to her own
hauteur of manner as a reaction and protest.
The coffee-colored river was full of animation, at
this favorable season for traffic, the last months be-
fore the annual close of navigation. All the marine
flock that roamed the wide water pastures were com-
ing and going on the peaceful river lane.
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 25
The huge steamer for the extreme end of Superior
cut across the bows of that for Mackinaw and the
lakes eastward. The Owl vied in speed with the
Diamond Jim, and the Little Moses with the Ajax
and the Excalibur. A wrecking-tug was going out
to look after a bark ashore at Whitefish Bay ; a steam-
barge, laden with flour, tangled itself up with the
steam-dredge Vulcan, poking along the channel in its
customary morose-looking way. Their agile turnings
whirled the water into seething eddies. Schooners,
sloops, barks, and brigantines lay alongside the great
wheat elevators, and these structures, bulky and im-
posing as basilicas of some Titantic race, poured into
their holds, through wooden troughs, streams of grain
as golden as the sands of the Pactolus. "Warehouses
of yellow brick, reflected in its depths, rose along the
margins of the river. The merchant on the water
streets had his ship at his rear door like his drays
at the front. The mellow haze of autumn, boldly
broken now and then by a black hull, a red smoke-
stack, a bright pennant, and the clustering spars,
brooded over the whole, which, though so American
in kind, had almost the picturesque interest of a
canal of Rotterdam.
The revenue cutter appointed to look after the gov-
ernment's interests in these waters passed our travel-
ers, going the same way. The officer in command of
her glanced up, when alongside, and sought, with evi-
dent anxiety, the recognition of Miss DeBow.
That young lady murmured to herself presently,
" The Florence Lane."
_M; rut: GOLDEN JUSTICE.
Her companion, whose attention had been for the
moment elsewhere, turned, and repeated, with a sharp
tone of inquiry, " Florence Lane ? Florence Lane?"
She had simply been reading the name, as he could
now do for himself, on the stern-post of the receding
cutter.
" Oh, I knew a person of that name once," he
thought good to state, in explanation. " I recollect
that she was from this place. It is natural enough
that it should be preserved here, where she was born
and brought up. The family was a very prominent
one, I believe."
" Oh, you knew Mrs. Varemberg Florence Lane
that was?" asked his companion, hailing with pleas-
ure this fresh note in a conversation that was begin-
ning to flag. " Abroad, I suppose ?"
' Yes, I met them abroad.'.'
" Yes, indeed, hers has always been a prominent
family here. The boat was called after her by some
friend of her father's while he was governor. Ah,
she was a remarkable woman," with envious admira-
tion ; " accomplished, beautiful, one of the greatest
of our belles. And yet not exactly a belle, either :
I mean it always seemed that she could have been
more than that she wanted to be. Florence Lane was
always my ideal ; I used to look up at her, when a
child, with ecstatic adoration."
She dropped naively, in her impulsiveness, to the
more natural manner of her age, and even forgot
more than once to pronounce the Boston broad a.
" But tell ma how she seemed to you," she went on.
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 27
" The first I ever saw of her was at the entertain-
ment of a high functionary, in Paris," replied Paul
Barclay, with some air of constraint, and yet of will-
ingness, after all, to furnish this reminiscence of a
traveler. " I arrived at an official palace in the Rue
de Varennes, where two statue-like cuirassiers sat on
horseback in the court-yard. At the foot of a grand
staircase a chamberlain in black velvet, with a ribbon
and medal about his neck, waved you up to another,
who announced you in the reception-rooms. I re-
marked a lady of a grace and distinction far beyond
all others present. ' There,' said I, ' is surely the true
type of a Montmorency or La Rochejaquelein ; there
is the vielle roche, the very flower of patrician love-
liness.' I was still in my first days abroad, and full
of romantic notions. I asked who she was, and they
told me, ' The daughter of the American minister.' "
" Then, of course, you knew all about her wedding,
too, and were probably present at it ? The society
papers were full of it at the time. They gave long
lists of guests of rank and distinction. There were
even presents from crowned heads, on account
of her father's position, I suppose. Let me see : it
was a Belgian she married, I think?"
" Yes, Varemberg was a Belgian."
" He was not titled himself, but had grand connec-
tions, and was very rich ? "
" Varemberg was supposed to be a person of for-
tune. He was an accomplished, entertaining fellow.
I recollect he professed an especial liking for Ameri-
cans."
28 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
It was called a very brilliant affair. What a
pity it turned out so badly ! "
She sighed, as if in pity that it ever had to be said
that brilliant things turned out badly.
Barclay looked at her with a glance of rising curi-
" She is so changed now one would scarcely know
her," went on the informant. " She is not the same
person at all, since her return."
* Her return ? She has been here, then ? "
Why, she lives here. She returned not very
long after her father was recalled from his post."
Mrs. Varemberg is here ? "
-' To be sure she is, though one scarcely ever sees
her. She keeps a close seclusion ; it is partly on ac-
count of her troubles, I suppose, and then, too, she is
a good deal of an invalid."
" And her husband ?""
She has left him."
The recipient of this intelligence showed a disturb-
ance of manner over it that would hardly have been
occasioned by an ordinary piece of gossip.
What seemed to be the trouble?" he asked.
" People do not know exactly what happened ; it
has all been kept very quiet."
By way of withdrawing attention from any unus-
ual agitation he may have exhibited, the young man,
upon this, affected a new interest in things on the
river. Justine DeBow was dying to know if he were
likely to fetay, and if she should meet him in the
society of the place. She ventured to ask him.
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 29
" I am here only on a brief business errand," he
responded.
The Chippewa Street bridge was at hand, where
Ludwig Trapschuh was making his observations. A
tug, puffing near the bow of the Pride of the West,
put on an extra pressure, of steam to drag out a
heavy flour-scow it had iu tow. The strain proved
too much for a defective portion of the machinery.
Bang ! With a sharp explosion, off blew a cylinder
head ; her smoke-stack and part of her cabin roof
came flying against the propeller's side as if shot
from a catapult, and carried away some stanchions of
the rail, close by our couple. It was over in an in-
stant, and no serious harm was done, but Justine was
affected by a nervous panic, and Barclay was obliged
to reassure her till her parents came up and her own
better sense prevailed.
He himself showed no signs of fear, but seemed
strangely thrilled by another cause. He exclaimed,
" History repeats itself ! My father was killed at
this same place."
It was all in the papers of the same afternoon, and
particularly in that very enterprising sheet the Kee-
waydin Index. This paper " interviewed " James
DeBow, and endeavored to do as much for Paul Bar
clay, but could not find him. It also put at the head
of its column the motto, " History repeats itself."
Then, following a smart journalistic practice of print-
ing everything apropos of the occasion, it rehearsed
the whole history of the tragedy at the Chippewa
Street bridge, of years before, with full notes of the
inquests and sketches of the principal participants.
30 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
However it was to others, his paper that day was
extremely interesting reading to ex-Mayor, ex-Gov-
ernor, and ex-Minister David Lane, living now in his
handsome mansion on the bluff, above the lake shore.
Paul Barclay landed, and was driven to the princi-
pal hotel, the Telson House, the trim facade and spa-
cious corridors of which were the especial pride of
Keewaydin. He left the hotel again for the office of
a law firm known as Mackintosh and Rand, in Kee-
waydin Block. Mackintosh was dead, it appeared,
but he was received by the surviving partner, a man
of gaunt, bony figure and not too prepossessing coun-
tenance. He was led through an anteroom, where a
pallid clerk was writing at a desk, and a stout, mid-
dle-aged gentleman was seated with a weary air of
dancing attendance.
" I was expecting you, Mr. Barclay," said Rand.
"The death of our Mr. Mackintosh, who had your
matters particularly in charge, embarrassed me a
little, of course, but I have caught up, and you '11 find
everything ready for your inspection, whenever you
please to go over it."
" If quite convenient, then, I should like to do so
at once. I am on my way to New York, and anxious
to be off again as soon as possible."
" So I judged by your letter from San Francisco.
Sit down. I '11 be with you immediately."
The lawyer went out to the anteroom, and returned
with a tin box, labeled with a list of its contents.
These were spread upon a large table, and the two
men sat down to their examination.
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 31
It was a question of timber lands in Eau Claire
County, mineral deposits near Escanaba, a water
privilege and saw-mills on the Chippewa River, a
large tract in Marathon County, on which there
was a proposition to establish a colony of Danes,
and some city blocks and the like in Keewaydin.
This was property left by the original Barclay, and
his son had now for the first time, at the request of
his family, stopped to look into it.
" By the way," said he, " they have also forwarded
another letter, which was sent to me in their care."
He drew from his pocket a bulky communication,
which proved to be a pathetic appeal, from a Kee-
waydin correspondent, to be saved from impending
bankruptcy. The attorney glanced at it with a con-
temptuous shrug.
" Oh, yes," said he, " it is Maxwell, again, about
that Barclay's Island property and his Stamped- Ware
Works. So he gets at you, too ? He has all but
talked me to death with his plea for an extension,
but I don't see that we can do anything for him."
" Tell me about the affair and this Maxwell.
What is he like ? Is he honest ? "
" Oh, honest enough, I dare say, as far as that
goes," with a clear implication that there are much
more important things in the world than honesty.
" He is over-sanguine, a poor calculator, and weighed
down by a large family, too, and has been making a
losing fight of it all along."
" And what are the merits of the case ? "
" Why, just this: the factory is in excellent condi-
32 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
tion, and if \ve foreclose now we have a very good
thing of it ; while if we wait, and let him run along,
everything will go to rack, and will hardly be worth
taking. He has put a lot of money into improve-
ments, and we can get the whole for a mere song."
" Are such things really done ? " asked the young
man, in surprise.
" My dear sir, very few of us are so well off in
this world's goods as to be able to afford to actually
throw money away, and that is what it is doing to
neglect a chance like this. I speak as one business
man to another. You would hardly wish me to be
less devoted to your interests than my own."
My business experience has been of rather limited
extent up to this time."
" Naturally, naturally, and you do well. Why
should a young gentleman of your fortune and posi-
tion bother his head about such matters ? "
"It is your judgment, then, that the mortgage
should be foreclosed ? "
" Certainly it is. Maxwell has nobody to blame
but himself; he would tell you so frankly. He is
outside there now, I see ; his time is up to-morrow,
and I suppose he has come in for some sort of final
palaver."
"With this he. appeared satisfied that he had laid
any trifling scruples there might be in the mind of
his patron entirely at rest.
" I will see Maxwell," said Barclay, impassively.
The attorney touched a bell, and the pallid clerk
ushered iu the dejected-looking gentleman from the
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 33
anteroom. Maxwell went over his story again, in
person. Once only, yielding to a touch of a natural
hopefulness, he said,
" With a little more money, that factory could be
made one of the best paying properties in the world."
The lawyer directed at his principal shrewd smiles
and winks of commiseration, and glances, as who
should say, " Shall I cut him short ? Have we had
enough of this nonsense ? " So sure was he of the
result that he even took it upon himself to save his
patron the trouble of replying.
" It won't do, Maxwell," said he. " You have no
new considerations of any business kind to offer.
Mr. Barclay has been kind enough to hear you him-
self, and now you ought to be satisfied, but you see
as well as I do things have got to take their course."
The manufacturer turned in a broken way to de-
part. He seemed from the first to have expected lit-
tle else.
" Hold on ! " cried Paul Barclay, suddenly throw-
ing off his impassiveness. " I will extend the mort-
gage."
Maxwell dropped into a chair, and, like Rand,
stared at him at first in open-mouthed astonishment.
" But I thought we had agreed " began Rand,
in expostulation.
" I do not wish to make money in any such detes-
table way," said Barclay, with indignation. " And
for the future," he added, " I beg to take the man-
agement of my affairs into my own hands."
He was apparently a person not afraid to make
34 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
enemies, at least in a good cause, a quality already
somewhat rare in our too enervating civilization.
The change of management he proposed, it may here
be told, would reduce the income of his property, but
it would add to the comfort of many persons, for
everybody on the Barclay estate had long been hav-
ing a very hard time of it.
When all was concluded he went out with Max-
well.
Tears of emotion filled the eyes of the grateful
manufacturer, if, indeed, they did not wholly over-
flow.
" It seems too good to be true ! " he exclaimed.
" I was all ready for ruin ; my family were waiting
to be turned into the street."
" By the bye," said Barclay, in parting with him,
" let me have some figures about the factory in writ-
ing. If it be as you say, some little further capital
may perhaps be found for it."
He went next to find his relatives, the Thorn-
brooks, and then spent some time musingly looking
off at the water from the Chippewa Street bridge.
In the evening he left his hotel once more, and
drove to see the Mrs. Varemberg of whom he had
heard on the steamer, at the house of her father,
David Lane.
III.
MRS. VAREMBERG.
DAVID LANE'S house was spacious and comfort-
able, but, with its peculiar tower and general orna-
mentation of the capricious irregularity that too often
marks the American striving after architectural ef-
fect, it could hardly be accounted anything more. It
dated from a period long before his going abroad, and
he would perhaps have done much better now, but
he had not thought it worth while to build again.
He had only added, at the entrance to the grounds,
a tall, handsome, wrought-iron gateway, like that of
some foreign chateau. A row of conservatories
flanked the house on the right hand, and graceful
clumps of shrubbery on the left.
The interior, on the contrary, was in excellent
taste ; here everything accorded with an intelligent
understanding of luxury. As Paul Barclay waited
in one of the drawing-rooms, while his card was
taken above, his eyes rested upon warm and harmo-
nious coloring, tapestries, pictures, and carvings,
and many trophies of travel and rare souvenirs that
would naturally belong to a family like this.
Mrs. Varemberg rustled down to him presently in
a becoming toilette, that seemed perhaps to be a trifle
too much in relief, however, as if the frail figure of
36 TllK GOLDEN JUSTICE.
the wearer had shrunk away from it. She was clasp-
ing on her wrist a bracelet of curious pattern, from
which tinkled some small, golden ornaments.
" Is it indeed you ? Is it actually Paul Barclay ? "
she asked, with much animation.
" Yes, I think there can be little doubt of it.
There must be a certain solidity about me, even
now."
There was no lack of it in the strong, manly pres-
sure of the hand he gave to hers, which she held out
to him in welcome.
"You have grown stouter," she said, beginning
with the merest commonplaces.
" It is the effect of the long journey. I shall have
to train down again. And you "
" Oh, do not look at me. I am a mere bundle of
aches and pains."
She was tall, for a woman, not very far below
Barclay's own height. Large, dark, softly lustrous
eyes, with long lashes, illuminated most expressively
a countenance full of intelligence. A piquant nose
and a mobile, lovable mouth, seemingly meant for
happier things, were contradicted by a pervading air
of sadness. The corners of the mouth tended too
much downward, and there were sombre shadows of
care and illness, which were not wholly thrown off
even with the vivacity of manner she now assumed.
Upon her slender and graceful neck turned a head of
peculiar distinction, the excellent shape of which her
dark-brown hair, in a simple knot at the back, well
became. Her voice was charmingly sweet, the
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 37
voice of Florence Lane of old, modified now by tones
of deeper meaning, derived from an eventful expe-
rience.
She had at times a harassing little cough, that
awakened the concern of the hearer. There was a
latent pathos in her smile, an elusiveuess in her
glance. The languor of weakness appeared in her
movements, and an impaired vitality in the touch of
her beautiful white hand. Her manner was refine-
ment itself, without a trace of stiffness.
" Fading, distinctly fading," said the visitor to him-
self ; " and at this age ! These are time's revenges
ah, but I did not wish to be revenged."
" Let me see," said Mrs. Varemberg, reflectively :
" the last I distinctly saw of you must have been when
you stopped at our chateau of Varemberg not very
long after my marriage." She slightly hesitated on
the last words, and Barclay winced. " Always impa-
tient, always full of the true American unrest ! The
place in itself was rambling and curious enough to
detain you a little longer ; but, no, nothing would
induce you to stay over more than a single train.
Since then, I fear I have scarcely even known whether
you were living or dead."
" And might one suppose that you had cared a
trifle ? "
" Why, yes, I will frankly admit that I cared. I
suppose yon have been practicing some one of your
learned professions, in the mean time, you had
more than one, and forgot all about us. When
did you leave New York ? "
38 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
"I left Jerusalem, Calcutta, Cape Town, Tama-
tave, the isles of the sea, but not New York."
" I do not quite understand."
" I have been making a tour of the world for the
past four years, and am now on my way home."
' You must have seen pretty much everything that
is rare and curious, in that time ? "
" I have been at some few out-of-the-way places,
sometimes so far from civilization as to know very
little of its doings. I cannot profess, even now, a
very exhaustive acquaintance with them."
There was some hidden meaning in this last, but
she did not yet know what it was.
" And this formidable air of man of the world,
with which you have come back, do I like it, or do
I not ? " she said, putting her head critically a little
on one side, in a playful way. " Yes, I think I do.
Do you mind my saying that ? "
" Not if you can conscientiously be so flattering."
" Oh, I can for once in a way."
" This is the second time to-day I have been re-
ferred to as a man of the world. I must get back my
natural look of student and recluse ; these false pre-
tenses will not do."
" You will never get it back again ; and you had
more of it, too, than you may think, for all of your
fling at it. It was a charming look Yes, you
have changed."
" Yes, I have changed," he admitted, and smiled
with a certain pleasure at the effectiveness of his new
panoply.
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 39
" Who was the other that called you a man of the
world ? "
" A little Miss DeBow, whom I met on the
steamer."
" Ah, you came on the steamer, then ? "
" Did you not know it ? "
" How should I have known it ?"
" It was in the papers," he said simply.
" I do not always even read the papers ; I live so
quietly."
No further mention was made of the accident, and
it was not till later that she knew of it and its real
significance. She was thinking, too, of other things
in his regard, and yielded to the momentary inadver-
tence of a mind that, though perfectly courteous in
intent, has been a little strained and wearied.
" Miss Justine DeBow is one of our local beauties
of the younger generation, whom I observe from afar
off," she next said. " I believe she holds herself on
quite a high and peculiar pedestal of her own."
" On what does her unusual claim to distinction
rest, if one might inquire ? "
" Ah, that is it, she holds herself so, that is all.
When one makes claims of that kind, persistently
enough, one generally ends by getting them granted.
She has her little ambitions. Did she not treat you
very graciously ? She is by no means gracious to all,
I am told."
" I can hardly complain of my treatment."
" You are one of the kind she would naturally like.
Did you lose your heart to her ? You will be made
-10 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
imidi of by all the Keewaydin belles, and notables of
t Vfi-y kind, if you will stay. Learned travelers and
ilHi'ttinit; are by no means common among us But
I forgot: probably there is a Mrs. Barclay, by this
time ? "
" There is no Mrs. Barclay."
The visitor mentally accused her of a lack of fine-
ness. This was not her natural manner, as he had
known it ; she seemed to have borrowed another for
the occasion, and from a stratum lower down. It
was well to skim over the surface of things, to pre-
tend that nothing of unusual moment had taken place
between them, and treat the past as irrevocably set-
tled ; that was what he had meant to do, that was
what he was doing. But need she have gone so far
out of her way to put her finger on a wound which,
for aught she knew, might still be open and bleed-
ing ? She was not supposed to know that it had en-
tirely healed.
" Then you will stay ? " she rattled on. " I assure
you, as a resident, that our city will feel only too
flattered to be added to your collection. May I ask
how it already answers to your expectations? "
" It could hardly have surpassed them ; the excep-
tional charms of Mrs. Varemberg had given me too
high an idea of it for that," he replied, with one of
those courtly-satirical bows used in this kind of par-
ley. " You may remember, in the old times, that I
always wanted to see it. I have relatives here, the
Thornbrooks. absent, by the way, just now, and
my father died here. But it is a matter of business
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 41
that brings me at present. I shall have to be off
again to Eau Claire and Marathon County, to-mor-
row. I may stop a few days, on my return, but even
that is uncertain."
" It was doubly good of you to come and find me,
under the circumstances. But tell me, lost so long
in the jungles of the antipodes as you were, how did
you know where I was ? How did you hear of me ?"
" I have to confess that I really knew much less
than you may suppose. I followed your name up the
river, on the revenue cutter, and the young girl I
have mentioned began to talk of Mrs. Varemberg."
*' And then you went over the list of V's, and said,
' Dear me ! it seems as if I do remember knowing a
person of that name once.' "
" Yes, that is, naturally, what one would say."
Again the forced note, the slight jar on his sensibili-
ties. Was it bravado, was it defiance, lest he should
gloat over her sufferings ? For that she had suffered,
mentally and physically, no one could look at her and,
deny. Far, indeed, was it from him to think of gloat-
ing over her. He was grieved beyond measure at
her invalid aspect and the hint of her misfortunes he
had heard. He would once have given his life to
spare her uneasiness ; and nothing that had happened,
or could ever happen, could set aside the fundamen-
tal regard he had entertained for her, or replace it by
small personal pique.
He was facing his past, the central episode of his
existence, the woman who had disrupted his life, like
one of those cataclysms that leave nothing as it had
42 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
previously stood. He had said long since, " It is for
the best. Everything that is is right ; " and he was
tempted to add to it now, " We would never have
done for each other. It is very clear."
When something terrible has happened to one in
this world, he does not necessarily go about rending
his garments and crying it at the top of his voice.
He need not do this even at the time of its occur-
rence ; still less when he has wholly recovered, and
feels himself reconciled to his fate. It was not that
Barclay had been formally jilted. He had not pro-
posed and been rejected in so many words ; pride,
diffidence, a multitude of circumstances, had pre-
vented that. But he had loved and lost the Florence
Lane whom he had described to Justine DeBow. He
had seen her become the wife of another, when he
thought she must have known of his own absorbing
devotion and desire to offer her his hand. His re-
mote visit to the chateau referred to had been an
attempt to harden himself to the sight of her new
happiness, a desperate remedy which he could not
endure. He had fled from it, and, unsettled in all his
habits, views, and plans, had begun desultory wander-
ings over the face of the earth, which had lasted till
now.
He had long since considered himself cured. He
felt quite callous to his pain, and cynically disposed
to make light of it as a small matter, something
very commonly happening to young men, and no
doubt wisely intended to give their sentimental na-
tures a proper exercise. It was probably better than
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 43
not for him to have gone through such an experi-
ence.
He had been uncertain, even, which hemisphere
contained her when he found her here. He said to
himself that, in this brief visit, he wante&only to see
how she looked ; what she had become ; how she. on
her side, had stood all these years and her altered
fate. There was pathos, it is true, in the fragment
of her story he had heard, and he was moved by it,
but, apart from this, he believed himself stirred by
no warmer motive than a calm, retrospective interest.
The interview was going to have a kind of pensive
luxury for him; he was going to conjure up a faint,
sweet spectre of his buried hopes. It would be like
tracing the path of some imminent danger he had
escaped, or walking, convalescent, on a battle-field
where he had been left for dead.
He had both a better opinion of himself than for-
merly, and a worse. He put down his slight feeling
of irritation, and said to her in effect, if not in so
many words,
" It was by no means a person to be regretted that
you have missed. I have had ample experience of
him in the mean time, and can speak with authority."
They began to chat of many common reminiscences
of their life abroad. A listener must have gathered
that they had once been on most excellent terms.
" Do you remember," Mrs. Varemberg asked, " our
rides in the forest of Saint Germain, how we used
to go out in our habits, dine at the Pavilion Henri
Quatre, and return on the top of the train ? "
44 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
" And do you remember," her companion rejoined,
"our evening at the fete foraine, on the exterior
boulevards ? "
Yes ; you had dined with us at the Legation, and
you made us go, on the pretext that it was ' local
color ' and characteristic foreign life. My poor aunt,
Mrs. Clinton, nearly caught her death of cold, with
your local color, and your tombolas, and the ' Four
Horrible Tortures ' "
" And the ' Bird Lottery,' and the ' Torpedo
Girl ' "
" And the ' Man of Fire.' ' Entrez, Mesdames et
Messieurs ! Moi, je suis 1'Homme du Feu,' " she
said, quoting. u ' Pas dix sous, pas huit sous ' "
" Pas six sous, not even five sons, only four
miserable sous, to come in and see the most
wonderful, the most incredible, phenomenon in the
world," added Barclay, promptly completing the jar-
gon.
" You were forever trying to drag us about to
some crumbly old ruin or other, or some impossible
rookery with a lot of queer people in it."
" I must do you the justice to say you did not al-
ways come."
" Of course I did not. I remember you always
picked out even your hotel by its picture, and would
rather have one that had been a mediaeval donjon
than another with the cuisine of a Vatel or Blot."
" You speak with the proper American contempt
of such things."
" Still, I shall never quite know how much yon
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 45
had to do with influencing my destiny, by inspiring
in me the same sort of unprofitable fancies."
She laughed, but her laugh was broken by the har-
assing cough.
Influencing her destiny ? Had he, then, ever in-
fluenced it in the slightest degree ? Ah, if she could
but know how she had influenced his ! As he sat
there, it gave him an involuntary thrill to look back
upon such an absolute waste and devastation.
" And now that you have returned to your native
land, no doubt you have some extraordinary avoca-
tion in view ? "
" None of the ordinary avocations greatly attract
me, to tell the truth. I do not seem to care much
for the honors they have to give, and I have money
enough for my moderate wants."
"Naturally, with your many opportunities for en-
joyment, you will avail yourself of them, and be a
man of leisure," Mrs. Varemberg amended, as in po-
lite deference to his probable intention.
" Why, no. I had thought of taking up some
form of business."
u Now it is you that are American, the greed
for gain, after all, ' the ruling passion strong in
death.' "
" Who was that celebrity," asked Barclay, ac-
knowledging this only by a smile of indulgence, " who
said that but for his accursed thirst for glory, how
contented he could be in private life ? "
" It was not /, at any rate, perhaps it was Fred-
erick the Great."
46 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
" Well, I am like him ; I have an ambitiou."
"Ah, he has an ambition/'^she repeated after him
in soft raillery.
" I wish to put in a stroke for the good of human-
ity."
" That is an ambition, indeed."
" Yes. How does something in the manufacturing
way strike you ? "
" Like Alice in Wonderland, I 'm afraid I don't
quite understand. Do you mean to manufacture some
article of such exceeding use that the whole level of
human comfort will be raised ? Let me see, it
will hardly be pianos ; perhaps it will be waffle-irons.
I am told that something of that kind is in great de-
mand."
" You are a scoffer ; the bears will some time come
out of the woods and eat you up. The fact is that I
have a certain interest in the working classes."
" Really ! "
" I fell in, on my travels, with a sage who interested
me in these questions."
Barclay went on to give some account of a man,
half dreamer, half keen, original thinker, whom he
had met with amid the orange groves of southern
California. He had already written a treatise that
had made a wide stir in the world ; and Barclay had
been admitted to his confidence while he was compos-
ing a new work. " He finds that poverty keeps pace
with progress, and is even promoted by it. Compe-
tition is forcing even the prudent and industrious to
take the bread out of one another's mouths. And,
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 47
on the surface, it all seems to be nobody's fault, only
the slow, grinding effect of natural Jaws."
" Your sage tells nothing we have not heard of be-
fore, it seems to me."
" No, but the difference is that he is hopeful about
it ; he thinks something can be done."
" I supposed it was a kind of dispensation of Prov-
idence ; that is the usual way of looking at it."
" I had rather not think so meanly of Providence.
I prefer to lay it to the greed and indifference of
men."
" And you are going to put your philosopher's rem-
edy into operation ? "
" Hardly that, though I believe I was almost a
convert to it once. It seems rather too simple and
straightforward to be true. It is state ownership of
the land and that sort of thing. My conservatism
got the upper hand ; I concluded only to be a fellow
investigator, and devote myself to finding out the con-
ditions of the problem, the problem of our age and
the immediate future."
" There are too many people, that is the trouble ;
I have heard it proved at my father's dinner-table."
" There are not too many people, and there never
will be till all the waste places of the earth are made
to blossom as the rose. Is there not created with
every mouth a pair of hands to feed it ? "
" Why, yes, it would seem reasonable to suppose
so."
" Every man's labor ought to add a value to every
other man's. Under a proper state of things, we
4S THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
ought to look upon one another, even in the most
swarming crowds, with a friendly warmth, and con-
sider that we all directly benefit one another's exist-
ence. We should hear no more of the profane vul-
gar and of keeping them at a distance."
Nobody could have had a more pleasing modesty
than he in the statement of his views. There was
not a trace of the prig or egotist about him. At the
least sign of wearying the attention or appearing to
make high-flown pretensions, he was ready to stop,
turn aside, and laugh, even at himself.
" It sounds beautifully," said Mrs. Varemberg.
*' And how is this connected with your manufac-
tory ? "
" In an establishment of one's own, you know, he
can study the character, habits, needs, and possibili-
ties of his working people at first-hand ; he need no
longer hear them from demagogues or task-masters.
Some sort of political career might be the best way
of putting his information in practice. Why should
I not take a little different career from others, if I
choose ? Am I not one of the kind that can afford
it ? " he asked, as if defending himself.
" What will you do for me in your millennium ? "
his companion broke in.
" Anything that is possible. What shall it be ? "
"Ah, that is hard to say, unless it be to recom-
mend me a new doctor. Everybody recommends me
a new doctor ; it is really quite remiss in you not to
have done so already."
" Ah, you are not well ! " exclaimed Barclay, with
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 49
deep sympathy. " Let us talk no more of these va-
garies. Tell ine of yourself! What is the meaning
of this distressing cough ? "
" It is only a cold I took, at the theatre at Brus-
sels, and I do not seem to quite shake it off. It may
have touched some pulmonary organ a little. But
it is not an interesting subject."
" You must be cured ; this will not do."
" Then there is need of the physician who can
' minister to a mind diseased.' "
It was the first reference to her troubles.
" I feel awkwardly in speaking of it," said Barclay,
hesitating, " but may I say how pained and shocked
I have been to hear of the unfortunate circumstance,
of the the termination of "
" Oh, do not think I complain," she rejoined has-
tily. " Having chosen one kind of life, why should
I find fault because it is not another ? "
"I find it hard to understand. You seemed so
adapted to each other, you seemed so content with
him."
" He lost his money, and I left him," said Mrs.
Varemberg, looking at her visitor fixedly.
" What ! " he cried, incredulous.
" Did he not promise to endow me with all his
worldly goods, and if he had none why should I have
stayed with him ? "
This was clearly perversity. No really mercenary
nature would accuse itself thus openly of its base-
ness. But was there, too, an atom of truth in it ?
Had she become mainly hard and flippant, taken all
50 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
the worse instead of the better turnings, and suc-
cumbed to a thorough-going worldliness, concerning
which, he remembered, he had once entertained mis-
givings? Or was this but the pathetic bravado of
one who would not display her sufferings? He was
puzzled, and could not determine.
" Ton have changed, too," he sighed.
" How ? " she asked, prepared to receive a serious
answer.
But he thought best to turn it aside lightly
with,
" Oh, in your liking for personal ornaments.
* Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes,' " he
quoted. " Once your taste was simplicity itself ; jew-
elry was your pet aversion."
" It is my poor attempt to conceal the ravages of
time," she replied, clasping again the bangle with its
tinkling ornaments. She had seized it in a nervous
way, at the last moment, as she came down. " The
years are passing, my friend."
They had risen, and made a few steps towards the
door, when a noise drew Mrs. Varemberg's attention
to the library, adjoining.
" Papa," she called, awaiting the answer in a lis-
tening attitude, " this is Mr. Barclay. Will you not
come and see him ? "
She went to the portiere which separated the rooms,
and drew it aside.
David Lane was there, stock still, but he now
moved a little towards them. He looked old and
broken; his face was phenomenally seamed with
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 51
wrinkles. He almost glared at Barclay, and breathed
in stertorous fashion.
" You are quite well, I trust ? " he said, in a stiff,
formal way. " It is many years since we last met
you."
He had risen but now from his meditations over
the evening paper. The journal still lay as it had
fallen from his hand on a richly-draped table, by which
stood his chair, protected from draughts by a high,
folding screen.
There was also present an elderly lady, Mrs. Clin-
ton, David Lane's sister, the manager of his house-
hold. She was dressed in some sort of durable black
stuff, after her usual custom. She had a buxom fig-
ure, a peculiarly florid complexion, and a good deal of
" manner," as the saying is. She would beam sud-
denly on her visitor as if overjoyed, but the next
moment this rapture was apt to die out and leave a
certain blankness, as if she had already forgotten his
existence. She was a mistress of all the arts of rou-
tine, a person of good judgment in the more ordinary
affairs of life, but without any marked individuality,
and she remained as she began, a figure of minor im-
portance in these affairs.
How well Barclay remembered the last meeting
with David Lane at Paris ! His brief retrospect took
in substance the following form :
" I went to him for counsel, in my distracted state.
I had met his daughter in the heyday of her youth
and beauty. She had a prestige in two hemispheres.
Suitors of title and fortune had offered themselves.
52 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
The great Bradbrook himself, reputed for his eccen-
tricity and his millions, had come over expressly from
New York in his own yacht to win her, and been re-
jected. She gave me her friendship, happy that I
was ! and next, I aspired to nothing less than her-
self, dazzling though her prospects were. I was then
self-critical, self-torturing, full of scruples, squeam-
ishness, and an unpractical reverence. I saw in her
every excellent quality of head and heart, and her
beauty possessed me with a perfect madness. How
well and strong, how lithe and round and fine at
every point, she was ! How her white teeth sparkled !
What a fascinating malice in her smile, innocent,
nevertheless, of conscious guile ! The siren had
sung to me, and my bones were bound to bleach on
the shores of her island. I harrowed my soul with
devices for testing her favor. Now I said, ' She loves
me.' Now, ' She loves me not.' In despair, I flew
at last to her father, and asked his good offices.
" ' Do not for one moment think of it ! ' he replied.
'You will but incur the pain of a certain refusal. I
can now speak only vaguely, but she is not free.
Other views are entertained for her, and I beg you,
as a gentleman, to do nothing to embarrass a course
that is in accord both with her own inclinations and
her best good and happiness.'
" These ' other views ' must have been Varemberg.
I had no idea that he had already made such headway
in her affections. He was of brilliant parts, a hand-
some presence, and at home in all the usages of so-
ciety. He seemed to amuse her. She had met him
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 53
with her father in their travels, and been entertained
by him at his quaint, time-honored chateau. They
had met, also, at the court of Berliu, a sister of his,
married to a chief lord in waiting, and this proud
dame, an associate of all the Radziwills, the Hatz-
felds, the Trachenbergs, and princes of Thurn and
Taxis, had, no doubt, contributed to her bedazzle-
ment. This match was pushed rapidly forward.
As in a kind of paralysis, I stood and saw it go on.
Surely she must have known my feelings towards
her. she must have heard from her father what I had
said to him."
" Mr. Barclay has magnificent ideas," explained
Mrs. Varemberg to the others ; " he is going to re-
form the universe."
" There is so much questioning now of all that
custom had considered once settled," sighed her aunt
drearily.
" Perhaps some divine rights of custom will have
to go, like the divine right of kings," rejoined the
new humanitarian.
" I 'm afraid you are rather dangerous," com-
mented the aunt, casting at him a look of certain sus-
picion.
This good lady herself did not indulge in drollery,
and comprehended only the most conventional aspect
of things.
"Oh, he is dangerous," insisted Mrs. Varemberg:
" he thinks there ought to be charities to keep people
out of the gutter, instead of lifting them when they
54 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
are in it. And the worst of it is, he has all but
brought me around to the same way of thinking."
" My brother," said Mrs. Clinton, " has done a good
deal in that way, by means of his public library, in-
dustrial schools, and the like."
David Lane had taken but small part in the con-
versation ; he appeared preoccupied, and watched the
young man in a keen, nervous way, apart. With a
final civil commonplace or two to the visitor, he with-
drew, and Mrs. Clinton, summoned by some house-
hold care, soon followed him.
" I never quite get over the impression that your
father does not like me," said Barclay.
" Why should he not ? "
" How can I tell ? I have felt this adverse influ-
ence when near him, and yet he has done me many
favors when at a distance. It puzzles me."
" He has the best heart in the world. Allow us
our little eccentricities."
There stood a large geographical globe in the
room. Placing a hand upon it, Mrs. Varemberg re-
volved it, nonchalantly, and said,
" Show me where you have been ! "
Barclay pointed out a few of the places of his more
remote expeditions. He said he had at one time
thought of mining in South Africa; and again, of
planting coffee in Mexico ; and again, sugar in the
Sandwich Islands.
" But you came back, after all."
* Why, yes, I came back. This is the field for
new experiments, this is the country of the future."
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 55
" I do not quite understand your interest in the
working classes. Why should a young man of f5r-
tune bother his head about the working classes ? "
Barclay could not tell her his true motive. It was
not in order; it would now, probably, never be in
order. He could not say to her that the pain she
had made him suffer had softened, not hardened, his
heart, and turned him to observing the miseries of
others. If he had formulated his motto, it might
have been, " Taught by misfortune, I pity the un-
happy."
The interview was now at an end. Barclay's im-
agination sighed over this lost love of his more than
he had deemed possible. It was all just as he had
expected, but he had not meant his philosophy to
be so much disturbed. He wished he had not to go
away and leave her thus suffering; then he should
have been much easier in his mind.
" Good-by," he said.
" Good-by," said Mrs. Varemberg. " You have
drawn me out of myself ; you have been a distrac-
tion to me. Sometimes I scarcely see a living soul
from one month's end to another. Now I shall re-
turn to my medicine-bottles with a new zest."
And she rounded out with a smile of latent pa-
thos a poor fiction, as if her illness were really one
of the most agreeable things in the world.
David Lane, meanwhile, had gone to his chamber,
and sat down, in deep melancholy, by a window that
commanded a view of the Golden Justice afar. Even
56 TI1E GOLDEN JUSTICE.
at night some wandering gleams of radiance sought
hSr out, and it was rare that she was not visible.
" She does not forget," he muttered ; " she is still
waiting for me."
What fatal portent is it that brings this young
man here?" he said, again.
Some hours later, when the house was dark and
presumably sunk in slumber, he made his way along
the wide halls, and knocked at the door of his daugh-
ter's chamber.
" Are you well ? Are you warm enough ? " he
asked. " I was afraid the furnace was not working
as it should."
Receiving replies in the affirmative, he added, as if
by the way, in turning to depart,
- Will this young Mr. Barclay stay long in the
place ? "
" Oh, no, he is only passing through ; he goes to-
morrow."
With this, he went back, easier in his mind, to his
own apartment, to seek the repose that had fled from
his pillow.
IV.
A TRUER PICTURE OF MRS. VAREMBERG.
PAUL BARCLAY departed, next day, on his journey
to the upper part of the State, as he had proposed.
On his return, he found himself detained at Keeway-
din rather longer than he had expected. The scheme
of establishing a colony on his lands in Marathon
County had much taken his fancy ; he closed with ail
offer made him, and was obliged to wait for and con-
fer more or less with the leading parties to the trans-
action. Then there were new adjustments to make
in regard to his city property, now that he had taken
the management of it into his own hands ; and there
was Maxwell. Maxwell, half forgotten meantime,
but by no means himself forgetful, had prepared a
written statement, carefully carried out in detail, dis-
playing the condition and prospects of the Stamped-
Ware Works, and had been several times to his hotel
in his absence to seek him. The rescued manufac-
turer talked a great deal, with a warm enthusiasm
natural to him, and finally induced Barclay to go
down to the factory and look at it for himself.
" It needs only a little more money," he said, " to
set all these wheels going again to their utmost ca-
pacity. Supposing, merely for the sake of the argu-
ment," he suggested in fine, " that you should feel
58 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
disposed to join us, and put in the mortgage you hold
on the concern as your share of the capital : why,
that alone would float us, and a most profitable fu-
ture would be insured."
Curiously enough, Barclay was rather impressed,
in the sequel, with the representations made him, and
thought good to advise upon this, together with some
other of his affairs, with his relative Thornbrook, who
had been au excellent and conservative man of busi-
ness in his day.
" It looks well, in some aspects very well," said
Thornbrook. " If you could stay here and look after
such an enterprise, or personally take a hand in it, I
should see no objection to it at all ; but to go away,
and leave it behind you as a mere investment in the
charge of. another person, is a very different matter,
and that I should by no means recommend."
The unforeseen duration of Barclay's stay in the
place made it incumbent on him, or at least furnished
him an excellent reason, to renew his visits to Mrs.
Varemberg. With his limited acquaintanceship, and
the but slight demands on his time in the hours when
he was not engaged in his business matters, it would
have been strange indeed if he had not gone to in-
quire again after her health ; he assured himself that
it would not have been even civil not to do so.
Mrs. Varemberg welcomed him in pleasant sur-
prise, and showed a friendly interest in all -his re-
cent doings. Her father, she said, was absent at the
East ; he had been called away, and would not return
for a month.
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 59
Under her encouragement, Barclay described his
journey at full length. All his knocking about the
world and his trying experiences had not yet spoiled
a receptive and impressionable nature, nor made him
a blase traveler. He had still a large fund of freshness
and could be depended on to find almost everywhere
even in places the most unpromising some en-
tertaining or picturesque feature or novel matter for
reflection. On the present occasion, he went on to
speak of the high and healthy farming region he had
traversed ; of the hardy, thriving inhabitants ; of vil-
lages of polyglot foreigners, Germans, Scandinavians,
Dutch, Poles, and Swiss, keeping up their own man-
ners and customs and languages ; of the sturdy lum-
bermen, rafting their logs down the swift Chippewa
and Wisconsin to the Mississippi ; and of the un-
broken forests of his own remote domain. He had
come upon a pretty spot that had once been picked
out by an eccentric Prince Paul of Wiirtemberg to
be the retreat of his old age ; and, again, an Indian
reservation, where the wrinkled old chief, Yellow
Thunder, squatted and sunned himself at his wigwam
door, like some archaic image in bronze.
All this he told her, with a certain enthusiasm and
a vivid way he had of making the most of small de-
tails when he chose to exercise it ; but he did not tell
her how much she had filled his thoughts in the mean
time. Some notion of offering himself as a medium
in effecting a reconciliation between her and her hus-
band had even floated vaguely through his brain.
For his part, he recollected Varemberg as a very
60 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
pleasant fellow. Varemberg had endeavored, in those
times, to he particularly civil to him; and though he
could not accept these overtures, it was a date when
he had been easily touched by kindness, and he cher-
ished a grateful remembrance of them. He knew
that these domestic ruptures are too often but the
result of some wretched misunderstanding, trivial in
the beginning, and widened to a tragic gulf by willful-
ness and lack of judgment on both sides. There were
such cases, at least, whether this were one of them
or not, and a sympathetic mediator, acting with pru-
dence, might do a great deal towards repairing them.
He made bis first suggestions, however, in regard
to her health. Some remedies that had proved bene-
ficial in cases rather like hers occurred to him, and he
ventured to recommend them to her. He recom-
mended also exercise ; he was a great believer in it on
his own account, had always much to say in its favor,
and was inclined to regard motion as the sovereign
panacea.
" If you only keep moving actively enough," said
he, " the reaper Death, who goes but a hobbling gait
with his scythe, will have a long chase, and hard
work to catch up with you."
No doubt he was rather unpractical in some of
his ideas. Mrs. Varemberg smiled at propositions
offered by his robust physique to hers, but she con-
ceded somewhat to his theory by saying with a cer-
tain bravado,
" Illness, after all, is the only real misfortune."
Barclay showed a considerable bent towards taking
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 61
charge of things, and had the limit of his proposed
stay permitted he would perhaps have endeavored to
take charge of her, in this particular direction.
When he came to trench, delicately, on the subject
of her domestic unhappiness, she adhered to the same
tone of audacious flippancy she had adopted at first ;
she seemed to take a perverse pleasure in trying to
put herself before him in the worst possible light.
" By your own showing," said he lightly, availing
himself of the license she thus gave him, " we must
admit you have treated Varemberg rather badly."
" Of course I have treated him badly. Has it taken
you all this time to arrive at that brilliant conclu-
sion?"
She was certainly amusing in this mood, if it were
taken entirely from the worldly point of view, but
Barclay went away from these interviews with doubt
and sadness in his heart. It was the devastation of
an exceptionally fine character that he seemed to
witness ; the searing over of tender sensibilities, in
the loss of which no delicate moral nature could sur-
vive.
But he was shortly to be undeceived. He sat on
one of the cushioned sofas in the lobby of his hotel,
where a business acquaintance had just left him, and
was occupied with a paper, when he heard himself
hailed in a hearty way. Looking up, he saw an old
acquaintance.
It was Ives Wilson, the chief editor of the Index.
Barclay had found cards of this gentleman left for
him on two successive occasions. Ives Wilson bus-
62 TIJE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
tied out from a little group standing by the elevator
shaft, and shook hands with him in a vigorous, pump-
handle fashion, still keeping hold of the arm of a third
party, whom he dragged forward with him, and in-
troduced, as if he did not consider it fair to abandon
one friend without giving him the advantage of the
acquaintance of another. This was Lieutenant Gregg,
and it seemed that he was a regular boarder at this
same hotel when he was ashore. Lieutenant Gregg
was a somewhat awkward, diffident man, not fluent
iu conversation. He had come up from a low origin,
made his own very good position entirely for himself,
and was not as fully at home in all the minor social
observances as he would no doubt finally become.
He stayed but a few moments, withdrawing after
the exchange of some sentences about the tugboat
explosion.
" You had a close call, that day," said he admiringly.
" It would have suited me much better to make
my debut like an ordinary private citizen," responded
Barclay.
" Well," began Ives Wilson, when Gregg had gone,
" I had about given you up ; I never expected to find
you." Then, seating himself comfortably, "A lit-
tle different this from old Andover, eh ? Ton have
n't changed much, though. Here you are, as large
as life and twice as natural."
They had been schoolmates, in the remote past, at
one of the large preparatory schools of New England,
arid might have met once or twice since, yet Ives
Wilson inclined to presume upon this as if it had
been friendship of the most intimate sort.
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 63
He seemed a person so permeated with his profes-
sion that it showed all over him ; left tangible signs
upon him, just as the shoemaker has a particular
stoop, the hod-carrier one shoulder higher than the
other, and the baker his hands calloused in a certain
way. It was perhaps the great nervous energy by
which he was characterized that had left so little flesh
on his bones. He was dressed neither well nor very
ill. When he took off his easy felt hat you might
have seen his hair bristling and awry. From the
apex of his head waved back one particularly rebellious
lock, which had served as a sort of oriflamme in many
a political convention and the like. In other respects,
when you came to know about him, language seemed
to be for him only an ingenious medium to juggle
with ; the severest allegations had for him no real
and lasting significance, but only served his tempo-
rary purpose. All, or nearly all, with him, was pro-
fessional ; the individual, or private, aspect of his life
but a very small fraction. He was regarded in some
quarters, whither his interference and powers of in-
vective had been particularly directed, as a monster
of ferocity ; but in reality nobody was less ferocious
than he. He would have shaken hands the next mo-
ment with the most roundly abused of his opponents,
had the human nature in the rest of the community
been like his own. In strictly private life he did
many amiable things, for which he did not always get
the credit that was his due.
Paul Barclay had the standing interest in human
nature that made him, up to a certain point, well
64 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
within the limits of boredom, an excellent listener.
Added to this, perhaps unconsciously, was the quest
for the unexpected, the possible novel revelation,
from some unforeseen quarter, that might have a for-
tunate bearing on his own destiny. He was rather
fond of letting people exhibit themselves. It was no
hardship for him, therefore, to let Ives Wilson go on,
as the latter was disposed to do. He gave an ac-
count of his migration to the West, his various strug-
gles and successes, and his rise to his present exalted
position. The history included the late establish-
ment of an evening edition of the Index. " We had
to give the papers away at first, and then go into the
streets and buy them ourselves," said he ; " but now
they go off like hot cakes."
He explained the rules he bad adopted for the guid-
ance of his paper, and laid down, ex cathedra, the im-
mutable laws of journalism.
" Always have somebody to abuse ; hit hard and
hit all the time," said he ; " have at least one new
sensation every day. You, for instance, were a god-
send to us, the day you were all but blown up by the
tug. Never back down ; support the paradox, or the
unexpected, people are sure to come round to you
in time ; and claim to be infallible," he concluded.
" If you are going in for infallibility, why not earn
it by avoiding the errors instead of glorying in them ? "
suggested Barclay. " And then, all this bragging,
is it strictly necessary ? It sometimes seems as if a
newspaper expected to flourish on everything a gen-
tleman would not want to do."
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 65
" Good ! " exclaimed Ives Wilson. " There 's a
point in that for our first column paragraphs. But
it 's clear you don't speak from practical experience.
Readers expect a journal to have a proper respect for
itself; and there is nothing so fatal as backing down.
Readers don't want it ; readers don't understand it ;
they won't have it. No, sir, the Index has stood
more than one libel suit rather than back down, and
it proposes to stand plenty more."
No one, apparently, could have been less offended
by an onslaught on his favorite views than Ives Wil-
son ; on the contrary, he welcomed it with jovial
cheerfulness, and made a hasty note of it, as above,
for use in his paper.
" If any of our men could have found you in time,
the day of your arrival, we should have had at least
a half column more about the accident, an inter-
view, you know."
" Oh, I assure you, I am quite as well content."
" You may, or may not, have noticed how well that
report was done," continued the editor, airing a tech-
nical pride ; " how spreadingly, if I may coin a word,
and how fully, for an afternoon paper. A few more
little things like that will put the evening edition
where we want it. It was a big ' scoop ' even on the
morning papers. The full reprint we gave of all the
particulars connected with your father's death left
them hardly anything to say. All they could do was
copy from us. It gave me a chance, too, to put in
a good word for a man that I always like to oblige
when it comes in my way, David Lane. He
66 TEE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
showed up well in that affair, trying to work the
bridge, and so on, and I guess he was glad to have
us remember it. They say the Index is hard on its
enemies ; well, it 's good to its friends, whenever they
give it an opportunity."
" David Lane is fortunate, as a politician, to stand
so well with the press," said Barclay tentatively.
" Oh, if / had money, / 'd have a reputation from
here to Timbuctoo. I 'd just lay out a little sum an-
nually on the papers, liberal advertising, special
articles, and that sort of thing, and they 'd look
after me ; see ? It need n't cost a great deal, either.
But this is not a case in point. Lane is not in poli-
tics now ; he 's had the best of everything, and there
is n't anything else that could tempt him. Besides,
he has a genuine record, that does n't need any puff-
ing ; he was one of the best officials ever known in
these parts."'
" And it is on his own merits you praise him ? "
" Yes, and because he gave me a lift when I was
starting in the management of the paper. I don't
mind telling you that he held stock in my name, so I
could control the leading interest. Oh, yes, the In-
dex stands by David Lane, every time."
The editor discoursed further of his patron, touched
lightly on the business matters with which he occu-
pied himself now that he was out of public life, and
finally of Mrs. Varemberg. Barclay had felt, with
inward agitation, that this topic was approaching.
' Here is a man," he had reflected, " who, with the
least encouragement in the world, will speak freely of
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 67
her. It is his business to be a repository of informa-
tion, and he will know all that has been said and all
that can be known about her."
Up to this time he had learned no more of her
affairs than on the first day of his arrival ; he had
asked no one about her, sought no information, but,
on the contrary, scrupulously refrained from it. He
shrank from discussing her sorrows with an outsider
almost as a species of desecration, and how much
more so when it promised but to make a certainty of
the vague, disagreeable imputations she had cast upon
herself ! His way of thinking had not changed, but
now, as in a sort of spell, he sat and listened to com-
ments nonchalantly volunteered without a word of in-
vitation from himself, and even against an effort he
made to turn them aside.
" His daughter, Mrs. Varemberg, is a mighty fine
woman, a lovely woman ; she is one that was born
to shine," said Ives Wilson. " It 's a pity all this
trouble of hers seems to keep her from taking the
place that rightfully belongs to her."
Upon a word or two further, the early reluctance
of the listener was turned to an eager thirst for en-
lightenment. It proved to be no tale of cynical
heartlessness he was called upon to hear, but one
that had imposed a tone of sympathy and respect
even upon the careless tongue of public gossip.
" Her husband was one of the greatest villains
unhung," said Ives Wilson. " Lane told me a little
about it, at the time, but it was naturally a subject on
which he would n't want to talk much."
G8 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
" And Varemberg treated her badly ? "
" He did pretty much everything but kill her out-
right."
" That polished, entertaining Varemberg ? " mut-
tered Barclay, in wonderment ; but the other went
on, not heeding him.
" He had a devilish disposition that you would n't
find again in a million times. He had made a very
plausible show in the beginning, it seems, but he soon
dropped that, and went from bad to worse, till there
was no living with him."
" I had a vague impression, from st>me source, that
that the difficulty was of a financial sort."
"Varemberg never had any money to speak of;
he was tangled up in every direction, and relied upon
what he got with her to straighten him out a little.
When he had made away with that, he took to reck-
less courses that got him into trouble, put other
people's signatures to paper, and finally had to
leave his country for his country's good. He dropped
out of sight entirely, and at one time they thought
he was dead ; but he turns up again every once in a
while, and whenever they hear of him it is in some
new deviltry."
" He does not dare come here ? " And the ques-
tioner's eye flashed fire.
" Oh, no, that would be a little too brazen ; he
would hardly try that, I think, where she is so well
protected. Added to which, he has nothing to gain
by it."
" It was not she who left him, then ? "
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 69
" Very far from it. As I have said, he ran away ;
he left her behind him, the prey of his angry credit-
ors, in a gloomy old rookery of a chateau. She was
moping herself to death, when her father came and
took her away. She was ashamed of her situation
and tried to conceal it, and it was more by accident
than her own disclosure that it got out. I happened
to see her when she first got home ; you would hardly
have expected her to live a month."
" I suppose there are divorce proceedings pend-
ing ? " threw out Paul Barclay in a nonchalant way.
" Why, no, not at all ; and it 's singular, too, when
you come to think about it. They say she does n't
believe in it ; they say she 'd stand almost anything
rather than resort to that."
" Oh ! "
" Bah ! life is too short not to take advantage of
all the opportunities it affords. I wish it were my
say whether a divorce should be got or not, that 's
all," concluded the editor vigorously.
In the course of this talk, Ives Wilson asked Bar-
clay questions, in a casual way, on a variety of sub-
jects, to which replies were as easily returned. All
was grist that came to the journalistic mill, and most
of this appeared in next day's Index, in the form of
the conventional "interview." It was meant to be,
and no doubt was, a considerable tribute to Barclay's
importance. It was written in the form of question
and answer. He was represented as a world-wide
traveler, an Eastern capitalist, temporarily sojourn-
ing at the Telson House. His views of Keewaydin
70 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
and the State were given. He was made -to speak in
a very eulogistic way of Keewaydin, and to foresee
a grand future for it. And finally this thrown in
quite gratuitously he was said to favor the Index's
candidate for governor.
Barclay next brought up the name of Mrs. Varem-
berg before his relatives the Thornbrooks, and led
them, as discreetly as possible, to speak of her. With
beating heart he listened to what they could recall of
her history. They spoke in a sedate and measured
way, with the cool pulses of their age, and their feel-
ing, as far as they understood the case, was wholly
in her favor.
It happened that there came in, the same evening,
still another person, who added emphatic testimony
of the same kind. This was Mrs. Miltimorc, the
principal of the seat of learning locally esteemed of
an august character, the Keewaydiu Female Insti-
tute. Old Mr. Thornbrook, it appeared, was the
president of its board of trustees.
" Florence Varemberg, or Florence Lane," said
this lady, turning to Barclay, with a certain stiff man-
ner of her calling, " was our favorite pupil and a
great credit to us, in her time. She was a lovely
character, as lovely in mind as in person ; and no
matter what may happen, I never have believed, and
never shall believe, anything ill of her."
" The separation, then, is not to be regarded as her
own fault ? "
"Her own fault? If there ever was a cruelly
wronged woman in the world, it is Florence Varem-
berg."
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 71
With how different a feeling did Barclay now has-
ten back to the object of his interest. How callow
and besotted must he be, how prone to bad motives
himself, since he was so ready to credit them in oth-
ers ! He had been all but persuaded of the truth of
her assumed venality and heartlessness. He looked
at her with new eyes, but carefully refrained from
any change in his manner that should betray to her
the new light of which he was in possession.
They made two or three brief excursions together,
about the town and environs. Mrs. Varemberg drove
him in her own phaeton. She assumed the duty of
hospitality.
" You are the stranger within our gates," said she,
" and, in my father's absence, I must see that you are
not neglected. You must be shown the points of
view on which Keewaydin rests her claim to emi-
nence."
She had a pair of large, well-broken horses, Castor
and Pollux, in whom she took a friendly interest, as
she seemed to do in pets of almost any kind. Cas-
tor and Pollux were fortunate enough to have a per-
sonal visit from her sometimes in their stable, and
she, had them brought to her nearly every day, and
daintily fed them lumps of sugar, from the porch, with
her own hand.
She drove Barclay first to a little park, a grassy
esplanade, on the margin of the more fashionable res-
idence part of the town, with steep, neatly turfed
bank extending down to the water's edge. It af-
forded a most charming prospect, with a great sense
72 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
of openness and light, over the wide expanse of Lake
Michigan. Keewaydin was seen, hence, to spread
out thickly along the central shore of a great bay,
curved like a not too tautly bent bow. There were
the two long breakwater piers, with their small light-
houses on the ends. High on the bluff, far to the
northward, was a larger light-house, and behind it
the great green slope of a reservoir, resembling a for-
tification. Southward, the most prominent feature,
amid thick-clustering roofs, was the shining tin spires
of the Polish church of St. Stanislaus. Then, details
fading into indefmiteness, and long lines of black
smoke drifting seaward from the blast-furnaces of
the suburb of Bay View.
" It is magnificent, magnificent ! " pronounced the
young man, drawing a deep breath of satisfaction at
the sight. " Here is a place to exclaim, like the
Greeks of old Xenophon, ' Thalatta! thalatta!'. It
is very like the sea, your lake."
" But more cruel and treacherous, somehow ; we
live by it, but never seem to get very well acquainted
with it. A man could be chilled to death, in its cold
waters, even in midsummer."
" Are you not going to astonish me with some state-
ments about the place where we now stand having
lately been a howling wilderness ? I have been led
to suppose that was the Western custom, and I miss
it."
" The place where we now stand was all simple
bluff, and forest, and tamarack swamp, say thirty
or forty years ago. A hardy French trapper came
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 73
along and built a block-house here, to trade peltries
with the Indians, and behold Keewaydin ! "
" And he married the Indian princess, of course,
the last of her race ? "
"No, the engagement must have been broken off.
Princess Pearl Feather came to make a very unro-
mantic figure about the streets of Keewaydin, in her
last days ; she took to drink and died in the county
poor-house."
" Alas, our fond illusions ! .But I don't quite be-
lieve this is real, you know," he went on ; " it may
give us the slip. To one accustomed to the Eastern
way, a city like this, solidly built as it appears, is
suspiciously like Jonah's gourd. At the East it takes
the procession a couple of hundred years to pass a
given point, as it were, and then it never reaches it."
" Will you believe there were once such fierce
jealousies between the different divisions of the town
that the West Side cut down the only bridge unit-
ing it with the East Side, and planted a cannon to
prevent its being rebuilt ? "
" I will try and do so, for this once, if you will
tell me further what it was all about."
" They thought there never could be settlers enough
for both, and, as the boat from Buffalo landed on their
side, they wanted to keep a monopoly of the new ar-
rivals."
But now the thriving city stretched for long miles
on either side of its petty dividing stream, which
seemed a mere canal. The once envious West Side
climbed, in long lines of compact streets, to a consid-
74 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
erable rising ground. Our friends mounted thither,
and looked back from the heights at the spires of the
section they had left, the dome of the city hall,
with its figure, most prominent among them, cut
out in a strongly serrated edge against the lake, which
gleamed behind them like a strip of silver. On their
return, they came to the city hall, in its quiet, grassy
square.
"Here is our Plaza, Place d'Armes, Piazza,
the focus of the civic life of a mighty past of thirty-
five years," said Mrs. Varemberg, in lively travesty
of the descriptions of foreign market-places.
" I know it already ; the Thornbrooks live over
there," said Barclay. Pie indicated, with a gesture,
a large, comfortable-looking house, with a consider-
able space of door-yard before it. " But as to tradi-
tions, associations, is n't it really heart-breaking, now,
that the central square of a populace of more than one
hundred thousand souls, should be utterly without
them, absolutely unworthy of interest ?"
"It is true that no counts Egmont and Horn have
been beheaded here, nor any Mark Antonys, Rieuzis,
or Van Arteveldes aroused sedition by their stirring
harangues," replied his companion, in the same lively
vein ; " but our best people cross the square, the
most influential ladies of the Seventh Ward traverse
it to do their shopping, and our most eminent store-
keepers to and from their dinners in the middle of the
day. What can you have more worthy, more thor-
oughly American, than that?"
"Are we to decide that interest in tradition is a
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 75
form of entertainment entirely gone out, and to look
for something else to take the place of it? Perhaps
something in the way of ornamental effects, buildings,
and so on, finer than any that have yet been seen,
will ultimately be substituted. The worst of it is that
we not only have no traditions, but are not even in
process of forming them. Day after day passes over
this grassy square, and what does it add, in that re-
spect ? Not an iota, not a hair's breadth, of romance.
If there were only some weird, remarkable story,
even of modern date, hanging about it, that would
be something to be thankful for."
" A weird, remarkable story hanging about an
American city hall ? That would be rather too much
to expect."
" Come, there might be a worse scene for some-
thing romantic even than this," maintained Barclay.
Their conveyance was now proceeding very slowly.
" That Mexican-looking cathedral, over there, is n't
so bad, as an accessory, and trees and shrubbery
are always good; and then the city hall itself has
its good points, first among which /am inclined to
put the Golden Justice, up there on her dome. Do
you know, I have taken quite a fancy to the Golden
Justice."
" Have you, indeed ? You would little guess whose
head she has on her shoulders, whose likeness she is
supposed to present."
" The French trapper," he replied, promptly.
" Nonsense."
" Pearl Feather, then."
76 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
She looked at him reproachfully, and affected to
move her own profile this way and that, as if to throw
it into greater relief, for his inspection.
" It is so far off Surely not you ? " said he,
looking inquiringly from the fair model, who thus
offered herself to view, up to the image, glinting re-
splendent and yellow in the soft, hazy autumn atmos-
phere, and then looking back again. The Golden
Justice appeared like some visitant from a celestial
sphere, new lighted on the heaven-kissing dome.
" I suppose it might be called a distant resem-
blance, from here, but it was meant for me, never-
theless."
" It dazzles me so, but that is only the more
like the original. I shall verify it at the first oppor-
tunity with a field-glass. And so it was modeled
after you ? "
" It is a long story."
" The longer the better, since you are to tell it."
" Oh. if you take it in that amiable way, I will cut
it very short."
They had come to a stand-still for a few moments,
and now drove on again.
" The Golden Justice," she began, " was a prolific
source of discord in its early stages. It was like the
wooden horse of Troy. Dissensions commenced over
her that have scarcely died out even yet."
" And how could that have been ? "
" The contest in the first place was as to what the
subject of the statue should be. The early pioneer,
the French trapper, was proposed. With his rifle and
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 77
hatchet and his costume of fringed deer-skin, you see,
he would have done very well."
" Ah, I was not as stupid as it appeared."
" But other pioneers had claims also. The question
of race came up, and it was held, by zealous parti-
sans, that the first German, Irish, and purely Ameri-
can pioneers had as good a right to the place as he.
Still another party supported Pearl Feather."
"Why, I was divination itself!" protested Bar-
clay.
The narrator smiled, indulgently. "This party
threw a romantic light around Pearl Feather. It was
chiefly a committee of ladies, with Mrs. Rantoul, our
leading strong-minded agitator, at their head. They
thought it would be an additional step towards vin-
dicating the true position of woman, to have a fem-
inine statue. Bear in mind, also, that there was a
South Side party, which wanted no statue at all, be-
cause it could not be well seen from that part of the
town ; and lastly, a party of economy, that begrudged
the expense."
" I begin to see," said Barclay.
" Oh, no ; you may think so, but you don't half
begin to see yet. The question of nationality came
up in connection with the choice of the sculptor, or
designer, of the figure, and then of those who were to
have the contracts for casting and setting up the work.
The local residence of these persons and the relative
advantage to be gained by the different sections were
next considered. The South Side would have had
the casting sent abroad, to be done at Munich, be-
78 TDE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
cause it had no foundry of its own, but the West Side
had one, and secured it. You must get my father
to tell you about the effect in the elections, and the
like."
" It is more like the history of a Bellona, goddess
of strife, than of a peaceful Justice."
" The Justice was a compromise. There are law-
courts in the building, so it is appropriate. And it is
conventional and safe. Just then a young sculptor
happened to arrive from abroad, on a visit. You may
remember him, Schwartzmann. He used to come
to our house, sometimes, in Paris."
" Schwartzmann ? I remember him very well. I
have been at his studio in the Rue d'Enfer. He has
done some first-rate work."
" Well, he did this. He was looked upon as a prod-
uct of home manufacture, and got the order. My
father had helped him to go abroad and prosecute his
studies, and out of gratitude he wanted to make a
bust of my humble self. Of course I was only too
delighted. At that age for you must remember
that this was at an early date a provincial young
woman, who had seen little or nothing of the fine
arts of any sort, would naturally be taken by the
idea of having her poor features put in monumental
form."
Barclay recollected a winning unconsciousness of
her own loveliness, even in its brightest day, as one
of her greatest charms.
" But this Schwartzmann was an original sort of
person," she continued.
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 79
" I recollect him, myself, in connection with some
cranky doings."
" He prepared for us a surprise, which he intended
as an extraordinary compliment. What do you think
it was ? From the study he had made of my head
he modeled that of his statue, and added more or less
of my figure. He let no one know till it was com-
plete and set in its place, and then triumphantly
called upon us to observe the distinguished honor he
had paid me in raising me thus aloft, six times as
large as life, a couple of hundred feet above the pave-
ment. Neither my father nor any others had made
the discovery ; most people are very unobservant
abouf such things, unless their attention is especially
called to them."
" I, for one, feel greatly obliged to your original
sculptor for his pretty idea."
" My father did not by any means take it so amia-
bly. He was angry at Schwartzmann for not having
consulted him, and would have nothing to do with
him for a good while afterwards. I was not quite
sure, myself, that I liked being exalted so conspicu-
ously before high heaven ; but when I came to see
how little attention was paid to the matter of the
likeness by anybody else, I became reconciled, and
duly appreciative of the honor."
" My interest in the Golden Justice is at last in-
telligible," said Barclay.
" I suppose you are going to gallantly pretend that
you knew this all the time?"
" Not at all, but I assure you there has been a cer-
tain rapport between us from the first."
80 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
The statue with its surroundings was by this time
well behind them. They followed the sylvan upper
reaches of the Keewaydin River, favored of swim-
mers and the light skiffs of merry-makers in the
pleasant summer time ; thence, by a winding road,
through the rich autumn woods, full of the pensive-
ness of the season ; and struck the lake again, a con-
siderable distance above the city, at a charming cove
and fishing -station known as the Whitefish Bay.
They stopped a little at this place, to watch the fish-
ermen drawing their nets. The water was placid
and silvery, and the fish leaped in it, as the seines
shoaled under them, and turned their pink and silver
sides to the light.
The air was impregnated with a peculiar smoki-
ness and fragrant smell of burning said to come from
distant forest fires. Indeed, that season the forest
fires to the northward had destroyed a populous
town, and burned to death many of its inhabitants,
while standing up to their chins in the river, to which
they had fled for refuge. The road homeward lay
along the line of the bluffs. In the fields the corn
was bivouacked in russet sheaves, while at the door
of every tent, like a goblin sentinel, squatted a yel-
low pumpkin. On the other side stretched out the
lake, azure blue and boundless as the ocean, veiled
by scattering, thin-stemmed trees, with foliage exqui-
sitely dyed.
" In one particular you are not in the least like
the Golden Justice," said Barclay, returning again to
this subject.
TUE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 81
" So much the worse for her, then ; statues should
resemble models, not models statues."
" Why are you, who serve as the emblem of jus-
tice to others, so unjust to yourself ? "
" It was not I who assumed the post of emblem,
remember ; it was an accident. No one who' knew
would ever have chosen me."
" Ah, no, you are better than that. I knew it, I
knew it ; I did not believe it," he protested strongly.
" I have at last heard the other side of your story."
" What do you mean ? What have you heard ? "
she demanded, turning towards him, startled and
flushed.
" That you have suffered innocently, with a heroic
fortitude ; that your career has been a cruel martyr-
dom."
" Let me hear no praises, no compliments, on that
score, I beg of you. I scarcely know what I did.
It has all passed, like a troubled dream. But you
speak of your discovery- as something recent; is it
possible that you did not know of this of all this
before ? "
" Only in the vaguest mention, on the first day of
my arrival. Nor do I now know any of the details.
I did not wish to talk with others about you ; it
seemed an irreverence, a profanation. And then, you
had almost made me afraid to ask. You had almost
made me think Why did you delight to so mis-
represent yourself? "
" It is a way we women of the world have of talk-
ing," she replied, with a hollow gayety.
S'J THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
'Was it quite fair?" he urged, gently. "We
were friends once ; you might have trusted me a lit-
tle more. Instead of sympathy, you tried to ex-
cite "
" Did I want sympathy ? No, I will not have it,"
she interrupted, almost fiercely. " Do you suppose I
am not ashamed to think of what is passing in the
minds of all those who used to know me ? And I
thought you knew ; I thought I had been the gossip
of two hemispheres." Then, in a sudden revulsion
of feeling, with tears starting to her eyes, which she
vainly turned away to hide, " Ah, what a life ! what
a fate ! And I who had expected so much ! "
They were again in the streets of the town. Bar-
clay saw that, with the best intentions in the world,
he had struck a false note. They remained silent a
while, then spoke of indifferent things, and were pres-
ently at her own door.
So far from being an absolute recluse, Barclay
found that Mrs. Varemberg showed in many ways a
feverish activity. She drove about on charitable er-
rands, visited her father's industrial schools, and took
a certain oversight of his public library. At parting,
on this day, she said she had charge of preparing a
somewhat better exhibit than usual for the " art de-
partment " of a state fair, which was about to hold
its annual session on its grounds in the western out-
skirts of the city.
" I am to go there to-morrow," she said. " Would
it interest you to accompany me, and see what a state
fair is like ? "
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 83
" Nothing would interest me more than to see what
a state fair is like," he responded.
So a new appointment was made between them
for an early hour the next afternoon.
V.
I
A NEW PARTNER AT BARCLAY'S ISLAND.
WHEN Paul Barclay went to keep his appointment
for the State Fair, he met in the porch of the house
a young girl, of modest appearance, just taking her
leave of Mrs. Varemberg. The girl wore a long,
dark cloth coat, of a kind in vogue with the shop-
women of the day, fitting closely to a trim figure.
From beneath a round hat projected, in front, a fluff
of strongly growing, dark hair, and she had a smooth,
olive complexion and a pair of hazel eyes, demurely
bright.
" I thank you so very much, Mrs. Varemberg,"
Barclay heard her say, in a voice with a trace of for-
eign accent.
" This is our little friend Stanislava Zelinsky,
from the Polish settlement," said the lady, present-
ing the visitor.
Barclay touched his hat to her. He had seen
something of her country and its people, and recol-
lections drawn from his travels would have enlisted
his interest, even had her being Mrs. Varemberg's
protegee with her own pretty face, not sufficed. She
made a timid response to his bow.
" Stanislava has many accomplishments," contin-
ued her patroness ; " she is never idle. Besides do-
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 85
ing all kinds of house-work, she can embroider, paint
flowers, play the church organ, and has a most excel-
lent handwriting. Have you not a beautiful hand-
writing, Stanislava ? "
" Well, I don't know. They get me to write the
books of the Polish Benevolent Society, though,
what keeps the names of all the families in the
church," replied the girl, half disclaiming yet accept-
ing the eulogy.
" And how do they get on now at the church ? It
seems to me they are not always as amiable, down
there, as they ought to be."
She referred, no doubt, to a late disturbance, in
which the schoolmaster, the leading trader, the pas-
tor, and the militia organization known as the Sobi-
eski Guards had all been mixed up in a confused
combat that had not been straightened out even at
the police court itself, to which it had come as a last
resort.
" Oh, that was mostly the Warsaw men and the
Cracow men," said Stanislava, referring to some an-
cient feud of locality, like that of Cork and Kerry
among the Irish.
" Pronounce your pretty name for us," said Mrs.
Varemberg.
The girl did so, in a very soft and pleasing way.
Being urged, she followed with a few further expres-
sions in the speech of her fatherland.
" How charming ! You must give us lessons in
the Polish language," said' Barclay, playfully.
"No American person wants to know the Polander
86 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
lan<nia<ie;" and she showed her fine white teeth iu a
o o *
smile at the exquisite absurdity of his idea.
When she had gone and they were in the carriage,
Mrs. Varemberg explained : " She is the child of the
bridge-tender who was killed at the same time my
father received his own injuries. He has had a fancy
to look after her ever since."
A decidedly new touch of interest was added by
this to what Barclay had already shown. He won-
dered, 1 as he had often wondered before, and was on
the point of saying aloud :
" Why was not this motive a source of equal con-
sideration, on David Lane's part, for me ? "
" She has just come to me on a rather singular er-
rand. She has arrived at her eighteenth birthday,
and for the first time has begun to be troubled with
compunctions about the money she receives. She
inquires what it is for. She thinks she ought not to
accept it any longer without doing some service in
return."
" A commendable spirit, surely."
" I urged her to save it against her wedding-day.
She did not seem satisfied, and I promised to see my
father about it on his return, and find her something
to do, if possible."
From the Fair ground, as they drew near, they
heard issuing forth a strident music of barrel-organs
and the orchestras of side-shows, and they could see,
above the far-stretching, high white palisade that en-
compassed it, the crests of pavilions, booths, and tents,
decked with gayly floating banners. Within were
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 87
parked the dusty vehicles of country folk, who looked
upon the occasion as a wonderful festival, and the
equipages of wealthy city people, who, like our friends,
had made it the terminus of an afternoon's drive.
The praises of the Learned Pig mingled with those
of the Wild Australian Children, the lowing of ani-
mals with the shuffle and clatter of agricultural appa-
ratus, and the steam and whir and thud of falling
stamps in Machinery Hall. A knot of committee-
men trudged, with important air, among the stalls
arranged around the outer circuit of the inclosure,
distributing medals and ribbons to favored live stock.
Something could be seen of a sham battle in progress
on an elevated green common without ; and from
time to time a man with a red sash and stentorian
voice announced trials of speed on the trotting track.
Ives Wilson was there, in a kiosk specially erected
for the Daily Index. He seemed even unusually
full of business. With profuse enthusiasm he handed
out to our friends a copy of his special State Fair
Edition. Thousands of copies of it were being dis-
tributed gratis, containing excellently-paid puffs of the
Eureka farm pump, the Little Giant harvester, the
Pearl Feather windmill, and the like. He broke
away to confer with two notables known as the " Hop
King " and the " Cranberry King," and to receive
subscriptions from small country politicians, who made
it a point to come and pay in person, at this time, to
keep the eye of the Index favorably fixed upon
them during the ensuing year. He hurried back, and
threw into the lap of Mrs. Varemberg, till it resem-
88 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
bled the lap of Abundance, specimens of mammoth
fruits and vegetables. Such abnormal objects were
donated him as an editor, and hence their most fitting
recipient.
" What energy ! what zeal ! " said Barclay.
"I should not wonder if he even went to sleep
with greater energy than other people," responded
his companion. " I have an idea he shuts his eyes
with an actual snap, and proposes to show the world
one of the most vigorous examples of sleeping on
record."
The Art Pavilion, to which they were bound, was
found to be a rather rudely finished structure of pine
boards, octagonal in shape. On one side was ar-
ranged, by itself, the little collection sent by Mrs.
Varemberg, consisting chiefly of some choice textile
stuffs and bright foreign pictures of the modern
schools, from her own home, together with some few
other specimens of merit, loaned by their owners with
reluctance, and only upon the personal representa-
tions of one so influential tis herself. The contribu-
tion next in importance was that of a certain refined
Radbrook family, of whom she spoke incidentally with
warm admiration.
" They have almost everything," she said : " money
enough for every refined taste, health, good looks,
charming children, and fondness for each other. It
is a most enviable household. The chief pleasure of
the master of it is music. It is not for display or ap-
plause, in a common way ; on the contrary, he prefers
to be alone ; and there is something poetic and gentle
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 89
in the way he sits, by the hour, in his music-room,
fingering over to himself his difficult compositions.
His wife protects this taste, but does not share it.
They are amiable and gay in the world, but pay no
weak deference to it, and do not let it invade their
genuine, self-centred happiness."
There were indications of her own ideal of domes-
tic life to be gathered from this.
Another class of pictures, very smoothly varnished
copies after the old masters, in very brightly gilded
frames, complacently displayed by one of the latest
of the class of new rich, perhaps met with the most
favor from the spectators. The former were spoken
of as " too gaudy," and doubts entertained of their
being in good taste. Ingenuous school-girls and the
like sought the latter with eagerness. They had read
of the originals in their text books, and felt that here
they were reveling with proper sentiment over the
grandest creations of art.
Then followed dull portraits and leaden landscapes
by practitioners who eked out a bare subsistence in
the place by the aid of teaching ; woodeny prize cat-
tle, painted broadside on, to please their owners ; a
figure-piece by a one-armed veteran of the Soldiers
Home ; a smudged crayon drawing " by a boy of thir-
teen," who spent the greater part of his time before
it in rapt admiration ; and chromos, lithographed cir-
culars and bill-heads, and a mammoth St. George and
the Dragon, executed in Spencerian penmanship.
A number of people they knew were met with in
passing through. Miss Justine DeBow, accompanied
90 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
by Lieutenant Gregg of the revenue cutter, gave Bar-
clay a gracious nod. Mrs. Varemberg sank down on
a bench with fatigue.
" You see the cause of art has not yet made enor-
mous strides in Keewaydin," she said, summing up.
" Yes, I suppose that is a safe statement."
" But it is advancing, it is coming this way ; it is,
really. I myself am old enough to have seen won-
derful changes in my time."
" Let it come by itself, then. Let its tottering
steps be supported by some more vigorous shoulder
than yours." He had noted an unusually pallid and
worn look overspread her face. " Good heavens, why
have I let you so overtax your strength ? How can
I have been so stupid ? "
" It is nothing. It is not my proceedings to-day
that tire me ; the bare exertion of getting these few
things together had already done it."
" Then why did you have anything to do with it?"
he asked, in energetic reproof.
" I suppose I was weak, and let myself be per-
suaded. They told me I ought to share my superior
advantages with others less fortunate. They said I
was a leader ; and when one is a leader one ought to
lead, you know."
" But in all these ways you dissipate vital force you
can ill spare. You ought to lead the calmest, most
untroubled life possible."
" ' Calm ' and ' untroubled ' are good. Well, there
is sometimes a certain need of distraction. And was
it not you who were only lately counseling me ath-
letic sports ? "
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 91
" This is not athletic sport, and now I counsel you
rest," he said, looking into her eyes with deep ear-
nestness. " Come ! we must get you well."
" There will be all eternity to rest in."
But this sincere concern in her well-being had
evidently awakened her gratitude. As if with com-
punction for her conduct of yesterday, she returned,
of her own accord, to the point at which they had
then left off.
" I repulsed your interest in my affairs yesterday.
I fear I was very rude to you," she said, with much
gentleness. " Now I would like to tell you all you
may care to know."
" No, no ; it was unpardonable in me to trench
upon the subject at all. Pray try to forgive and for-
get it."
" But I want to tell you," she insisted, with a gen-
tle imperiousness.
Upon this they took their carriage again and drove
homeward. Restive Castor and Pollux had been
fuming under the unwonted sounds and phantasma-
goria of the Fair, and did not recover their customary
gait till the inclosure was left well behind them.
The drill of the local militia was still in progress.
The American Light Guard, the Irish Emmet Guard,
the German Jagers, and the Polish Sobieskis marched
and countermarched before one another in gallant
style. When the bayonets of the caterpillar-like
squads twinkled faintly at a distance, and the smoke
of their volleys floated on the air like puffs of thistle-
down, Mrs. Varemberg began her story.
92 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
" Under Varemberg's gay and frank demeanor,"
said she, " a superficial veneer adopted only for so-
ciety, he covered a morose and barbarous nature. He
developed, in particular, a phenomenal cruelty of
disposition wliich in recollection seems incredible."
Who would have credited it?"
" Something strange seemed to come between us
from the very outset. There was no companionship,
not a feeling nor thought in common. It was too
hideous. At first I used to persuade myself it was my
fault, and try to dispel it. The more I humiliated
myself, the harder and more brutal he became."
' There are natures," said Barclay, " like that Al-
pine rose, the type of ingratitude, which, compara-
tively tame in its pastures, bristles the more with
thorns the more it is cultivated."
" His native trait of cruelty was exercised on
horses, dogs, inferiors, and all around. I was a daily
witness to unmerited suffering. It was an outbreak
of this kind that first alienated me from him, even
before it had been wreaked on myself."
" And we esteem ourselves judges of character ! "
said Barclay.
" A poor soldier who had been guilty of some of-
fense, which though certainly a breach of military
discipline was not a crime, had been condemned to
death, by court-martial. The circumstances were so
peculiar that they had attracted much attention. The
soldier was from our own village, where his detach-
ment was stationed at the time. A stroiif feelino- of
O O
sympathy was aroused for him among his neighbors
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 93
and comrades. He was led out the first time to be
shot, and the platoon would not fire. The villagers
rushed between, and bared their breasts, crying, ' You
shall not harm him ; you shall kill us first ! ' He was
led back to his prison, and they came to me, among
others, to invoke my intercession with my husband.
' If he can but obtain a reprieve, and the case be car-
ried to the higher authorities,' they pleaded, ' he will
surely have justice done him, and be saved.' "
" You had identified yourself well with your vil-
lage, then ? "
" Yes, one would naturally do so. A woman's
country, you know, is that where she loves." (Her
companion winced.) " Though that motive endured
but so short a time, I had early found a sort of dis-
traction in the place. My husband was connected, in
some retired or supernumerary way, with the army,
yet was one of those, though not the principal one,
who had to do with the execution of the sentence.
When I spoke to him, he repulsed my interference
with insulting sarcasms. No reprieve was obtained.
The man was once more led out to die."
She paused a moment, and covered her eyes with
her hand, as if to shut out a terrible recollection.
Barclay waited in respectful silence for her to go on.
" I found myself by accident near the open pa-
rade-ground, that morning, quite ignorant of what
was to take place. The peasants again ran to me,
with streaming eyes, as a melancholy procession came
down the village street. I took a few steps, in a
confused way, towards it. I was close to both my
94 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
husband and the prisoner. Hardly knowing what I
did, I reached forth and laid a hand on Varemberg's
arm. It seemed to inspire in him a rage like actual
madness. He seized a revolver from his holster, and
ran and placed it against the head of the prisoner.
'A million devils,' he cried, 'can we never get this
vagabond shot ! ' and he fired.
" I was so near that the blood of the poor victim
scattered over me, and his pleading eyes directed into
mirte their last glance on earth."
Barclay's breath came thick and fast, as he listened
with horror to this recital.
" After such an event, what more could there ever
be between us? He terrified me inexpressibly. I
did not know at what moment I might meet a similar
fate. His appearance, which I had once thought so
gallant and handsome, seemed sinister to the last de-
gree, and his smile froze me. He saw my aversion,
and was pleased at first to make some small efforts
to overcome it, and be like his former self. But if
this shocking deed were not sufficient, others of a
like nature followed. Then I began to learn of glar-
ing infidelities. He twice demanded of my father
large sums in addition to what had been paid as my
wedding portion. He had been a bankrupt from
the very start ; and finally his transactions in money
were such that he had to leave the country. In the
midst of it, too, my child had died. Ah, if I had had
but that solace, I think I might have endured all the
rest. How lonely I was in the great foreign ho.use,
far from all I had ever known ! My father came
there and took me home."
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 95
" It puzzles me beyond measure, his pretext for
turning to such courses ; his motive in throwing away
such happiness as his."
" He must have followed a natural bias that had
been hidden from us. It could not have been the
beginning of it we witnessed. Much of his conduct
seemed without motive, his cruelty pure wantonness ;
perhaps it would be most merciful to suppose it in-
sanity. There were such characters in history, who
delighted in torture for its own sake. His seemed
one of those natures that at a certain point had to go
wholly and irremediably to the bad."
' " But how, but why did such a dreadful mistake
ever arise ? " exclaimed Barclay excitedly.
" I suppose I chose with a young girl's want of
reflection. I must have been very thoughtless, even
for my age. Truly, I had formed but a dim concep-
tion of what it was to be married, and of the need of
a true affection. Varemberg interested, even dazzled
me. He told me, too, that no one could ever love
me as much as he, and I think I allowed myself to
believe it."
" And yet it ought not to have been so difficult
to love you, in those times," broke in Barclay, with
a sad sort of bitterness. " I sometimes used to won-
der that everybody who knew you did not do it."
He had yielded momentarily to an emotion against
which he vainly struggled. Surely it was evident
now that her father had never told her of his pro-
posal, and she had never known the true state of his ,
feelings. Such naivete of statement, as unconscious
% THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
as her former flippancy, would otherwise have been
impossible.
She turned towards him a look of genuine surprise.
" Truly," she said, " you have come back an accom-
plished flatterer. Once, praise from you was praise
from Sir Hubert, to be esteemed indeed."
" Whatever I have come back, it is no flatterer."
" Then it only remains to set you down as mis-
guided. I was far from certain in my own mind
about this marriage," she went on presently, " but my
father reassured me, and laid my scruples at rest."
Your father ? "
" Yes, alas ! he too was deceived."
Paul Barclay's surmise, to which so many indica-
tions had pointed, was confirmed. Her father had
been the* author of the match, she only a consenting
party. He groaned in spirit to think that all his
agony had passed even unnoted, and to recall his own
words of consuming passion unspoken, when it ap-
peared how easily the glib sophistries of the foreigner
had prevailed with her.
" Bear with me," he resumed, after some casual
interruption from the sights and scenes around them.
" And after all this, they tell me, you will not avail
yourself even of the poor remedy of the law."
" Oh no, not that ; never ! " she ejaculated, in a
sort of horror.
"And why?"
"There is but one thing for a woman to do in a
situation like mine, and that is to accept the conse-
quences of her folly gracefully, and conceal them
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 97
from the public eye as far as possible. No new trials,
no farther experiments for me ! "
" But even apart from further experiments," he
reasoned with her, grieved at the terms, " is it not
irksome to drag a ball and chain five or ten thousand
miles long?"
" There are international aspects to the case, and
it is not certain that release could be obtained, valid
in both countries, did I desire it never so much. And
where is the great harm in a ball and chain, if one
does not wish to dance ? " with a melancholy smile.
" I have not heard it was dancers only to whom
those appendages were hateful. One would always
like to walk unimpeded, even at the slowest pace."
"No, I have firm convictions against what you
suggest," she persisted.
" And so had I till now. Or rather, I fear my at-
tention has never been closely turned to it. But
surely the step was never better justified."
" Whom God hath joined together, he only can put
asunder. That is what I have always been taught
to believe. That is what my father believes, with
me. Alas ! in many things I no longer know what
my convictions are. Varemberg shook my faith, in
our early days, with his brilliant, hateful skepticism ;
that harm he did me with the rest. But, in all my
uncertainties, on this point I have never wavered."
Barclay abandoned the argument with a sigh. He
afterwards felt greatly his temerity in entering on it.
He sighed over his companion in many ways.
" Ah, that such a fate," he said, " should have been
98 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
hers, so made as she was for sunshine, for distinction !
Ah, that yonder wretch should have been allowed to
throw away this treasure of affection and loveliness,
when I I would have given my heart's blood to
save her from an instant's pain ! "
A week after this, the statement was current that
a new partner had gone into the management of the
Stamped-AVare Works. The news was brought to
the Johannisberg House, which stood at no great dis-
tance from Barclay's Island, on the main land, by the
South Side letter-carrier, Peter Stransky.
It was a quiet afternoon at that respectable cara-
vansary. There were visible a collection of shells
and a full-rigged ship, behind the bar of the long,
neatly sanded room. A little platform crossed one
end of this room, on which a quartette of Tyroleans,
with zither accompaniment, sometimes sang the na-
tional yodel. The wall behind it was painted with a
mammoth Alpine scene, with a door in the centre ;
so that the performers, on taking leave, seemed to
disappear into the heart of the mountain, like a spe-
cies of kobolds. Christian Idak, grown older and
confirmed in that important air of the small landlord
who is better off than most of his guests, still moved
about in his shirt-sleeves. Frau Idak sat knitthif in
O
a corner, and a child by her side was doing sums on
its slate. The usual marine gossips were at their
posts, recounting hair-breadth escapes and curious
happenings, which are even more common, perhaps,
in the lake navigation than that of the salt ocean.
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 99
One had told of cruising in Lake Superior, in
June, amid fields of floating ice, twenty feet thick.
Another had told how, once, when wrecked, he had
seen the ghost of a former captain swimming by him
in the water. The mysterious questions of a tide
and subterranean outlets for the lakes had been
touched upon.
" All I know is," said a tug-man, " that a precious
sight more water goes down that Saint Lawrence
River than ever gets out o' the lakes fair and above-
board."
" Most anywhere out Waukesha way, where I
hail from," added a skipper, corroborating him, " if
you bore down into the solid rock you get water
comin' up, with live fish in it. And ' cisco,' which is
a Lake Superior fish, and nothin' else, appears in
Genevy Lake a few days every year, and then disap-
pears again, so you can't find one for love nor money.
Now what does all that mean if it ain't that there 's
underground channels ? "
The " hard times," supposed to be existing, next
came in for their fair share of attention.
An engineer of the Owl Line complained that
they did not get one trip now where they formerly
got a dozen.
" It is the same way with us," added a rival of the
Diamond Jim Line : " the big craft is eatin' up all
the small ones, in the carryin' trade. And even
they don't make no very heavy pile out of it."
"The bloated money kings and monopolist sharks
is at the bottom of it," cried a vigorous exponent of
100 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
the '' greenback " school of finance. " This conn-
O
try '11 never see a well day again till it gets a poor
man's currency, and makes it ekil to the wants o'
trade."
It was about this time that the South Side letter-
carrier came in, on his swift rounds, with his leather
satchel slung over his shoulder.
" The Stamped- Ware Works is one place that don't
show much signs o' hard times," said he, imbibing
a glass of Keewaydin's excellent beer. "I've just
come from there. They 've got a new partner, and
are puttin' on a new lot of hands, and everything 's
boomin'."
"Who?" "What?" "How?" greeted the an-
nouncement, from all sides, with a lively interest.
" Who 's the new partner ? "
" Name 's Barclay, a New York feller, with loads
o' money ; same one what his father used to own the
island afore him." And he was off again, on his
route, down to the remote precincts of Wincllake
Avenue and Muckwonago Road.
The little notary public, Kroeger, who spent most
of his time here, having little to detain him at his
own office, and who obtained a repute for wisdom
and insight by a policy of cynical smiling and dispar-
agement, commented sagely :
" I guess Maxwell he got bigger ideas as what he
know how to do business."
Akins, the foreman of the Works, came in pres-
ently, with a hard-pressed air, and confirmed the in-
telligence, with additions.
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 101
" Of course the concern was solid," said he, " and
no need o' changin', but a little more money don't
never do no harm. Mr. Barclay, he was lookin'
round for a job, and bein ' as we suited him, and the
island was his, any way, what more natural than that
we should strike up a bargain ? "
Mrs. Varemberg derived her first authentic infor-
mation from Barclay himself. Some rumor of it had
already reached her. She received it with an open
enthusiasm.
" You are going to stay ? " she exclaimed.
" Yes, I am going to stay."
" It seems one of those things really too good to
be true."
" It appears that the too-good-to-be-true sometimes
happens," he replied, smiling.
He surprised in himself a certain tremor, at her
pleasant excitement, but quickly dismissed it. She
had had really nothing to do with his staying, he as-
sured himself. She was in the place, it is true, and
was weak and suffering, and he might be of some
small solace and'assistance to her, as he should be
glad to be to any friend in like situation in whom he
felt an interest, but that was all.
" Maxwell put the matter in such a light that I
could not decline his offer," he explained. " If I
were in earnest in my ideas, and I assure you I
was, here was an opening just suited to my pecul-
iar case, and, strangely enough, ready to my hand.
Why should I search further ? "
And so indeed he thought. He had yielded to
lO'J THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
tliat subtile warping by inclination and sympathy
which sometimes has its way even with the clearest
of consciences. He had not the faintest notion in
the world of being that equivocal figure, the mascu-
line consoler of an unhappy wife. He was endowed
with excellent Anglo-Saxon common sense, and he
felt himself to be, now, with his ample experience,
a person of a sturdy temperament, upon which the
imagination could play but few of its tricks. Was
he not heart-whole ? And have we not seen lovers
meeting in after years, and even exchanging con-
gratulations on their fortunate escape from each
other ? It was his general purpose in life to set his
face resolutely against all those courses of conduct
requiring extenuation or apology, and he had no in-
tention of departing from it in this instance.
When David Lane returned, after the absence we
have noted, he found Paul Barclay fairly settled in
Keewaydin.
" What does this mean ? " he demanded of his
daughter, with a face of ominous and rigid severity,
of which she by no means comprehended the occa-
sion.
NVhat could it mean, papa ? I do not understand
you," she responded, in strong astonishment.
" This young man must needs follow us about the
world, and now he comes hither, and even makes a
pretext of engaging in business."
" And why should he not go into a business here ?
I do not understand you, papa. As to his following
us about the world, surely you remember that it is a
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 103
good four years since we have seen him, and it was
but by the merest accident he knew I was here."
David Lane, in his first access of consternation, had
made a very false step. He hastened to repair its
consequences as best he could.
" I was only thinking, dearest," he began, in a con-
fused way, " if it should be said that a former admirer
had followed you here, at this particular time "
" But he is not my ' former admirer,' " she inter-
rupted, impatiently. " He was a very staunch friend,
whom I should like to keep. At the worst, we hardly
have the right to turn out of Keewaydin all those who
have been my admirers, if we can suppose any so
misguided. I do not understand you at all. Was not
Paul Barclay, at Paris, one of our most esteemed ac-
quaintances ? "
"I I have nothing against him," stammered the
wretched man. " Only, your position, just at this
time, requires a great deal of circumspection."
Under the influence of her brother, Mrs. Clinton,
in her turn, offered a feeble counsel, on the same
subject.
" He is a most gentlemanly man, and all that could
be desired in every way, I am sure," she said, depre-
catingly ; " but, since he is now going to remain here,
it seems to me I would not see quite so much not
too much of him, Florence, dear."
" You know my views and practice on all those
matters ; you have' even urged me to modify them,
make them less severe. Why do you now become
more loyal than the queen ? "
I
104 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
" Your situation is one requiring a great deal of
circumspection," said the aunt, repeating her brother's
words.
" My situation is one requiring a good cup of tea
and a night's rest," returned the object of these ex-
postulations, and she retired to her own chamber.
VI.
" TAUGHT BY MISFORTUNE, I PITY THE UNHAPPY."
AT an early day after taking the important step
described, Barclay went to New York to settle up
certain of his affairs awaiting him there, and to finally
conclude, by a brief visit to his family, his long tour
round the world.
He found himself glad, on reaching New York
again, to have chosen Keewaydin as his field of ac-
tion. The great metropolis would have been too vast,
its influence too discouraging for his simple experi-
ment. An individual like himself would have been
swallowed up in its Babel of conflicting interests, and
could not have hoped to make the faintest impression.
The city had changed much, even during the few
years of his absence. The great apartment-houses
had begun to tower up above the level of ordinary
life, some even surpassing the tops of the churches.
His own family, meantime, had moved far up town,
near Central Park, choosing their new abode in a
quarter that had been in his day but a waste of desert
lots, and abandoning the old one on Fifth Avenue to
the encroachments of trade. His sisters one day
told mournfully how they had made purchases over
the counter in the chambers sacred to the most inti-
mate memories of their childhood.
106 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
Old acquaintances, whom he met at the clubs,
where he still kept his membership, were inclined to
joke him about the " wilds " where he had taken
up his new habitat ; but they were respectful about
it, too, identifying it more or less with the cattle
ranches of Dakota and Montana, to which various
friends, " swell " young Englishmen and the like, had
taken lately, and they asked him questions about
stock-raising, and begged him to bear them in mind
if he should meet with opportunities for money-mak-
ing he himself might not be able to use.
Paul Barclay returned to Keewaydin, and took up
his quarters in the spacious residence of his kinsfolk,
the Thornbrooks, a pleasant old couple, quite free
from the crabbedness of age, who insisted upon it
with a pressing hospitality. They had their own
primitive ideas and habits, they said, but these should
in no way be allowed to interfere with his conven-
ience. They promised him an exaggerated liberty.
They insisted that there was room enough, and to
spare, for all ; and so indeed it seemed, when Bar-
clay came to inspect the large, comfortable chambers
placed at his disposal. The Thornbrooks proceeded
forthwith to give an entertainment, with the view of
introducing him to the society of the place, and nearly
everybody of note assembled to do him honor. There
came, among the rest, his traveling-companions, Jim
DeBow, who rose once more on his toes, and Miss
Justine DeBow. This time she asked him to come
and see her at her home.
But he began his labors immediately in earnest.
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 107
Establishing a regular routine, he rose and break-
fasted early ; then drove, in a buggy he had set up,
or sometimes walked, for the benefit of the more
active exercise, down to the Works, where he spent
a long, busy day. He crossed the Chippewa Street
bridge, where Ludwig Trapschuh soon came to add
him to the large list of acquaintance he claimed. It
was the purpose of Barclay to post himself thor-
oughly in all parts of his enterprise before he should
set out upon any novel schemes. Accordingly, he
studied the great books of account, the systems of
sales and credit, the character and source of supply
of the raw materials, then the processes of manufac-
ture, and finally the shipment of the completed prod-
uct to many and distant markets.
His " office " was a small wooden house, with
platform-scales beside it. It had worn cocoa matting
on the floor ; it contained a great iron safe, a low
desk, and a high one with a tall stool beside it. On
the wall was a capacious frame filled with specimens
of the smaller wares turned out by the factory, with
price-list attached. The hum of a distant planing-
mill rose unceasingly on the ear, like some homely
song forever celebrating the plodding industries of
the quarter.
The main buildings were partly of brick and partly
of wood ; their roofs were covered with a preparation
of asphalt, which, with the tan-bark, from a not far
distant tannery, laid on the road of approach, gave
out distinctive odors when heated by the sun. Over
the principal doorway was the legend : " No Admis-
108 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
sion Except on Business." All around was a litter
of piece-moulds, old castings, and general debris, and
against the walls leaned some mammoth gear-wheels,
quiet so long from their swift revolutions that the
slow rust and cobwebs had overtaken them.
The dry, unsentimental nature of his surroundings
by no means chilled the early ardor of Barclay ; if
anything, it even increased it.
" The mine itself does not shine," said he ; " it is
only the product from its gloomy depths."
There was even a certain romance in their utter
commonplaceness. It was a reaction, no doubt, a
form of the testimony of respect that the studious,
scholarly temperament pays to the more rugged sort
that makes the money and carries on the practical
affairs of the world. Barclay felt that he had been
too long a mere loiterer and looker-on, and he now
took a manly delight in knowing himself, at last, a
part of the great, stirring, useful, workaday world.
He had conceived, as we have seen, an ideal of duty
towards his men far beyond that of the mere payment
of wages. If he were to be the autocrat of their des-
tinies, he meant to be at least an autocrat of the be-
neficent type. So he was fond of watching them, when
he thought them unaware of it, at their work. He
found a kind of grotesque pathos, as well as humor,
in their smudged faces, their flannel shirts of red and
blue, stained with oil, all the vagaries of their grimy
costume. He wondered to himself how he would
have stood such a life as theirs, had it been forced
upon him. The flowers that bloomed for them were
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 109
the flames and molten metal from the furnaces ; the
stars that shone for them were the scintillations of
the forging ; the birds that sang for them were the
clink of the hammers ; and the grass that grew under
their feet was the waste of slag and cinders.
If the men observed him at this study, they thought
it only the sharp eye of the task-master bent upon
them, to see that they neglected no duty touching his
pocket. There was range enough of character. He
had timid spirits and bold, the gay and the morose,
the faithful at their tasks and the chronic shirkers,
sycophants who would have curried favor with him by
spying upon the rest, and surly independent ones who
seemed even to go out of their way to seek occasion
for offense.
Instead of some episode of the humanitarian sort,
to which he aspired, curiously enough one of the first
experiences he had was to deal with a fractious and
rebellious hand. This man, a dangerous character
as well as inefficient workman, after having been dis-
charged, returned again, under the influence of drink,
and, in the long main shop, fired twice at Barclay
with a revolver, at almost point-blank range.
" "You 'd 'a' thought the boss kind o' liked it,"
said belligerent young Johnny Maguire, of the pack-
ing-room, commenting on the occurrence. " He kep'
as cool as a cucumber all the time. Oh, he 's got
plenty of sand in his gizzard, and don't you forget
it."
This proceeding, so questionable, perhaps, as phi-
lanthropy, stood Barclay in good stead in other re-
110 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
spects. His coolness under fire and indifference to
danger won him the respect of the rude class with
which he had to deal as the manifestation of no other
kind of qualities at first would have done. In the
long run it lightened his management in many wavs,
and gave his labors and influence the more telling
efficacy.
The news of it came to Mrs. Varemberg, as that of
the steamer accident had done, only from outsiders
and after a considerable time. She was alarmed, and
said to him,
" Is it not dangerous for you to mix with such
rough characters, and go among them as freely as
you do ? They may knock you on the head some
day" for revenge, or robbery ; who knows ? "
" The only fear is that none of them will be so
obliging," he replied, in a way that much puzzled her.
Barclay aimed, too, with an all-embracing ambi-
tion, to acquaint himself thoroughly with Keewaydin.
He studied its map, its topography, its past and pres-
ent. He designed to grasp all the elements of its
population ; its social life, the sources and prospects
of its trade, the method of its government, policing,
lighting, heating, water supply, protection from fire ;
its courts, schools, churches, and cemeteries. There
was a definite satisfaction to him in the compactness,
the moderate compass, of the city, large, important,
and flourishing though it was. He found it agreeable
to have become part of a place in which it would be
possible to rise to the top, and even, should he so
desire, to be one of its controlling spirits.
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. Ill
" The leaven is working," he said to Mrs. Varem-
berg. " I feel within me the makings yet of a bitter
East or West or South Sider."
He went on 'Change. He wondered if the same
wrinkles of shrewdness did not begin to appear about
his own eyes as about those of the business people he
met there.
Jim DeBow welcomed him cordially, and dis-
coursed as before on the present and prospective
greatness of Keewaydin. Ives Wilson, who was ex-
tending the range of his infallibility at the moment
to the domain of grain and pork, touched up Jim De-
Bow a little on the subject of a recent large opera-
tion of the latter's in winter wheat, a " corner," in
fact, of such extent as to have caused Chicago to
claim with pride to be the birthplace of its manipu-
lator. Both leaned nonchalantly back against one
of the long tables, and munched grains of wheat as
they talked.
" Speaking of winter wheat," said the editor par-
enthetically, " you '11 see winters out here that '11
make your hair curl. Why, back in the country
where this comes from," and he tossed a few more
grains into his mouth, " when the thermometer 's only
up to zero, the people put their summer clothes on."
On 'Change seemed a sort of commercial club.
Vessel-men, agents of freight lines and insurance
companies, attorneys, builders, and money-lenders re-
sorted thither, to look for business. Telegraphic in-
struments clicked, messengers ran hither and thither,
and from time to time the secretary mounted to an
112 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
upper gallery, and, like a muezzin summoning to
pruvers, gave out the latest quotations of foreign
markets, the shouting circle around a small plat-
form in the centre pausing briefly in their turmoil to
listen.
There Barclay met also David Lane. In his role
of capitalist, the ex-governor stood about on the outer
edge of the circle, supporting his dignified, stocky
figure on a cane, and speaking an occasional word
with one of the more active members. He was rheu-
matic now, and at times could walk only with exceed-
ing difficulty.
Ives Wilson came up, and, half presenting Barclay
to Lane, in his offhand fashion, said of him,
" He has become one of us, I 'm glad you know
each other. I tell you, little by little Keewaydin is
going to gather in all the brains, capital, and indus-
try of the country. By the way," to Barclay, " I 'm
thinking of sending a man down to write up your
place. I think I '11 have Goff, our Assistant Local,
do it ; he 's particularly good at those things."
" To write up my place ? "
" Yes, a column article, you know, under the head
of Keewaydin's Industries. We give you a hundred
copies, free, to distribute round among your friends,
and you let us have a hundred - dollar advertise-
ment, see ? "
David Lane's manner to the young manufacturer
was cold and repellent, the manner he so well re-
membered in the old times. It added to his sense of
a confirmed hostility, a feeling vividly aroused by the
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 113
revelation of Mrs. Varemberg. In the difficulty of
forming, at present, any more general programme,
and while awaiting the development of events, David
Lane had taken refuge in moroseness. The young
man should at least have no countenance from him ;
he would not invite him to his house, nor show any
willingness to receive him ; he would not encourage,
if he could not put an end to, this most ominous in-
vasion.
" It shall never be, it shall never be ! " he mut-
tered. But even those who saw him glance fiercely
after the retiring figure of Barclay could have had lit-
tle idea of all the tragic thoughts passing in his mind.
His most imminent danger had come back, the
danger, too, he had once thought forever averted, by
the most cautious of planning, the most doleful of
sacrifices. Was it to have been imagined that his
punishment would follow him in this of all other
forms follow him through his daughter? Nothing
was more probable than that the violent end of Va-
remberg would be heard of at any moment. And
here was this honorable lover, to whom his daughter
had never been indifferent, returned and ready to re-
new his suit.
" Heaven knows it is no malice of mine, but his
own interest. I must and will always oppose him! "
he cried despairingly. " Have I not done him harm
enough ? He shall never marry her."
Some others, perhaps, might think it the best of all
reparations that the son of the man who was slain
should be allowed to wed his heart's desire, the
114 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
daughter of the slayer, a noble and lovable creature
in lierself, and the dearest thing in life to her father.
Sell-protection, too, would have dictated this policy
to David Lane, but he had never inclined to it.
There was an element of the exalted and unpractical
in his course ; he was not seeking his personal safety.
He would have no marriage with such a Nemesis on
its track ! Barclay ought not to be allowed to unite
himself with them. He would awake some day to
the discovery that his wife had been used as a bait
and a snare to tie his hands against the just retribu-
tion he would have demanded, awake perhaps to
loathe as much as he had once fancied he loved her.
This feeling, misguided perhaps, and fraught al-
ready with the bitter consequence of the foreign mar-
riage, had been the ruling force and motive of the
destiny of David Lane for years, and he still grimly
adhered to it. It was his bias of mind, his whim, his
hallucination or mania, perhaps ; but so he was con-
stituted, so he had begun, and he could not change.
It must be counted with as an inevitable part of his
character.
He went to his home by way of the City Hall
Square, and, as he hobbled along the promenade he
turned his eyes upward to the Golden Justice. There
had been times, during his stay abroad, when he had
afl but forgotten its existence, with both his crime
and his eccentric reparation. It would be recalled to
him, perchance, by some accident of travel, some
faint resemblance to this in a foreign building, or
some gilded saint gleaming afar, as from the basilicas
TUB GOLDEN JUSTICE. 115
on the plain of Lombardy. Even at home it had
often lapsed into a certain vagueness. But now, since
the arrival of this young man, his memory ,was jogged
indeed ; his sense of what the image conveyed was re-
newed in all its vividness.
" I gave my pledge to Justice to respond whenever
she should call me. Is the fulfillment of the pledge
about to be exacted ? " he speculated mournfully.
Often, too, had he wished the fateful paper down
again and safe in his own possession, and now, as he
gazed, this feeling was intensely revived. His burn-
ing glance seemed as if it would go straight to the
heart of the secret, and consume it where it lay.
" Dry rot has perhaps destroyed it by this time,"
he speculated ; " or moisture penetrated to it, through
some crevice, and caused it to disappear in mildew and
mould."
Then he returned to his house, and sat by his win-
dow, as was so often his wont, and still gazed wist-
fully at the Golden Justice, showing above the forest
of shade trees interspersed among the dwellings.
Paul Barclay looked up one day from his writing,
and inspected a card handed him by a very light-com-
plexioned young man, of energetic aspect, wearing a
slouch hat and cloak. The card bore the inscrip-
tion, " Welby B. Goff, Local Ed. Keewaydin Index."
This visitor spoke first of the general state of the
country, of the approaching close of navigation, the
quantity of wheat in store, and the heavy condi-
tion of the country roads, that rendered collections
116 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
difficult, then finally came down to the business he
had in hand.
" The Index is getting up a series of articles on the
* Industries of Keewaydin,' " said he, " and your place
will naturally figure among the most prominent. We
make it a point always to send to headquarters for
our information. The Index, as you know, has a cir-
culation larger than all its contemporaries combined,
and it aims to be strictly accurate."
Barclay recollected the hint he had already got
from the editor-in-chief, and good humoredly acceded
to the scheme, partly because the Index was Ives
Wilson's paper, and partly because he was not really
averse to having his new enterprise described in print
in a form which he might send to some of his friends
at a distance. He therefore accompanied the reporter
about the factory in person, and took great pains to
supply him with the proper information. He was also
led to consider having an advertisement of much lar-
ger size than the one first proposed ; and when an in-
genuous new proprietor once begins to " figure " with
a wily agent in this kind of wares, he is extremely
likely to do very much more than he expected.
" The price draws blood," said Welby Goff, as he
put up his pencil, after booking a highly profitable
contract, ' but I 've done it, and I '11 stick to it. Only
I '11 ask you as a special favor not to mention it to
any one else ; it would ruin us."
In due time the article appeared. It proved a
tissue of exaggerations from beginning to end ; every
figure was at least doubled, and hardly an adjective
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 117
was used under the superlative degree. The stamped-
ware factory was called " one of the marvels of the
age," and the new partner, " Paul Barclay, Esq.,"
was said to have " prepared himself expressly for
his present duties by a long arid exhaustive course of
travel, study, and scientific research among similar es-
tablishments."
Barclay hurried round to the Index, in a rage, and
found Ives Wilson immersed to the eyes in scissored
" exchanges," in a stuffy little office. The editor at
first thought he had come to make a complaint of the
totally opposite character.
" My own idea of an article of this kind," said he,
when undeceived, "is that the person it is written
about should be ashamed to read it. I told Goff to do
the handsome thing by you, and I suppose he has put
it fairly strong."
f " But it is absurd ; we are made ridiculous," pro-
tested Barclay. " We have n't half that number of
men at the factory ; they do not work ' night and
day ; ' the total product turned out is not "
" Readers want statements of a bold, impressive,
well-rounded sort ; they have no real taste for little
matters, but want to hear about things on a great
scale. We give them what they ask for, and they
are quite capable of making their own discounts."
This was all .the satisfaction to be obtained, and
Barclay was fain to content himself with suppressing
his part of the edition, and resolving to see to it that
any future literature of the kind, of which he might
have need, should be conceived after a less highly
US THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
florid model. While at the office of the Index, on
this visit, he met with one further instance of what
readers might " expect " that tended to amuse and to
distract him from his own annoyance. A small Eng-
lish-looking man, of a shabby look, wearing a hat
many seasons out of the mode, came rushing in an-
grily, and extended a copy of the paper at full length
with one hand, while he tapped a certain article in it
with the other. The article bore the flaming "head-
lines, " A Much-Married Impostqr of the South Side.
A Bogus Doctor Skips the Town."' It referred to
him, it appeared ; it had met his eye as far away as
Kansas City, and he had come back, he said, to deny
the unwarranted aspersion, and spend, if need be,
his last dollar in the prosecution of its author. Ives
Wilson, in a diplomatic way, begged the visitor to sit
down, which he indignantly refused to do. The ed-
itor then whistled up the speaking-tube to the cona-
posing-room for Welby Goff to ascertain the true
status of the offending article. Welby Goff, coming
down, wrinkled his brows, as in reflection.
" I seem to recollect something of this," said he,
" and yet, again I don't know. Surely there must
be some means of tracing it. I know we can. Would
you kindly step in again in a few days ? "
" Days ? " cried the complainant, with a fierce
glare.
" Or a week, then," blandly. " If it should prove
that the Index has done you injustice, if this article
has been contributed by an outsider, if we have been
imposed upon by any personal enemy of yours, of
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 119
course the the Index will see you righted. Do
you know," confidentially, "the abuses that some-
times creep into the press in these matters are simply
infamous. In your case, my dear sir, I should prob-
ably feel exactly as you do."
The visitor, who was really a person of question-
able standing, no doubt with certain shady features
in his record, was little by little mollified by treat-
ment of this sort, and left the office, agreeing to wait
till justice was done him.
" I wrote it myself," said Welby Goff, gleefully, to
Barclay, as soon* as the man's back was turned.
" It 's the gospel truth, too, at least, I think it is.
Any way, there 's a certain amount of truth in it.
Of course I had to put him off a little at first, being
tackled all at once, that way. I '11 keep it up for a
while, till I can look up some more information to
lay him out with. I 'm pretty sure I can, and then
we '11 give him a worse deal than before."
Barclay saw comparatively little of Mrs. Varem-
berg in these earliest days. His new status as a res-
ident of the place did not seem to warrant a contin-
uance of the close intimacy of the brief preliminary
visit. The coolness of his relations with her father,
his real devotion to his new undertaking ; together
with the natural considerations of pi'opriety and good
judgment that would occur to Mrs. Varemberg as
well, all contributed to this result.
The window of his chamber gave upon the quiet
City Hall Park, where he could descry her likeness,
in the guise of the Golden Justice. He now got out
.ir>Ticr.
his field-glass an exceptionally good one that had
served him well in his travels, had looked at macro-
cosms and microcosms, at a famous beauty in her
opera-box, and down into the seething heart of a vol-
cano and added to the many sights, both fair and
wondrous, it had taken in, a close study of this statue.
He would take up the glass sometimes when at his
books, and direct at it a long and earnest gaze. The
Golden Justice was his exalted companion in the
brief hours of daylight he passed at this window,
engaged in a heavy course of reading he had begun.
He was reviewing and extending his acquaintance
with socialistic works of all kinds, his quick good
sense detecting their fallacies, while his imagination
often sighed over the Utopias of human happiness
they presented. His thoughts would shoot off. arrow-
like, to that shining mark, and glancing thence fall
to Mrs. Varemberg, often crossing, no doubt, those
of David Lane, similarly occupied.
Barclay said to himself that he was glad she was
there, glad she should be thus raised aloft above
the city, as its emblem of right and justice. There
was something grand in the apotheosis; it was in
keeping with his worship of her, his enchantment of
other days, and it added dignity to that far-off love.
He distinguished with his glass the proud and noble
poise of the head, under its golden helmet, the subtle,
reassuring smile that wreathed the features. They
were the features of her blooming, untroubled girl-
hood, showing a character far less deep and serious,
less tempered by experience, than at present; but
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 121
she was for that reason only the more goddess-like,
since a traditional property of the gods is untroubled
calm. Nor was it needed that the model who had so
well served the artist as his inspiration should have
herself possessed all the grave and tragic qualities he
would depict ; were it so, the plastic arts must soon
come to a stand-still. She had been a point of de-
parture such as is rarely met with, and the imagina-
tion of the spectator was to do the rest.
With the passing of the seasons, with the varying
days and times of day, and perhaps even the personal
moods of the looker-on, the Golden Justice seemed
to take many different aspects. Now she half melted
into the delicious skies of autumn, now showed
through light mists, like flame behind a screen of
gauze. She was harsh and coppery in the cold bleak-
ness of November ; she seemed yellow, burnished
gold against the background of some opaque blue fir-
mament of winter; she glared lurid and threatening
as an angel of wrath in the red sunsets ; and, again,
would twinkle as with merriment, under the shifting
lights and shadows of the glorious clbud-masses of the
spring-time. Even on obscure nights, as has been
said, some wandering star-beam, some vestige of the
radiance that is never wholly extinguished from the
universe, would seek her out and indicate her posi-
tion. Barclay noted, as a peculiar feature, that she
was the most distinctly seen on dark days ; every lin-
eament and fold of her drapery then came out against
the favoring ground of leaden gray, while in clear
sunshine she was apt to be obliterated in a general
duzzte.
122 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
"That is as it should be," said he. "Justice should
show the most clearly in time of adversity and trial ;
if she conceal her face at all, let it be when all goes
well."
He little knew, as yet, the stake she held for him,
and what it really might have been, even apart from
the features of his lost love, that led him to the close
study of this figure and the discovery of all these fine
distinctions.
If he did not see Mrs. Vavemberg often, their
friendship and a wholesome feeling of good-comrade-
ship between them were certainly renewed. Mrs.
Varemberg seemed to find an unusual content in -this
element that had come into her life, and an unwonted
animation arising out of it perhaps accounted, on
some of her " well days," for an ephemeral recovery
of her looks, an aspect almost of health, that was to
be noted in her. She still appeared to Barclay, in
truth, a beautiful, lovable woman. Her type, marked
by its perpetual pensiveness or sadness, reminded him
of those sweet, candid, and noble figures of Raphael's
earlier period. By some inspiration of natural grace,
she seemed to him to fall always into the attitudes
most becoming to her. She did everything with a
certain refined deliberation, an absence of excitability,
growing partly out of her invalidism, and partly out
of an innate dignity, that gave all her movements an
indescribable, fascinating quality of rhythm.
She bantered him about his enthusiasms and his
project, called him Wat Tyler and Caius Gracchus,
pretended that he was an incendiary person, about to
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 123
upheave the foundations of society. But she was se-
cretly pleased, notwithstanding, with all he told her ;
for, after living so long in darkness, apathy, distrust,
and skepticism, she was disposed to be pleased with
anything that was believing, strong, positive, and
hopeful.
"Yours is not the indulgent ear into which a re-
former could pour all his pet follies," Barclay had
objected, to her at first.
" Try me," she answered gayly ; " you do not half
know how indulgent I can be."
She soon became, in fact, the trusted confidante of
most of his doings. By her own wish, she one day,
accompanied by her aunt, paid a visit to the Works.
To Barclay she seemed to consecrate the dry, rude
place, and ever after he thought better of his oflice,
since she had blessed it with the charm of her pres-
ence, since she had sat upon the high stool and toyed
with the heavy ruler.
" You speak as one having authority. You say
' go,' and he goeth ; and ' come,' and he cometh," she
said to him in raillery, noting the many subordinates
who came to make reports and receive orders from
him, and the profound deference with which he was
treated on all hands. " I declare I don't know whether
it is quite safe to trust you with such arbitrary pow-
ers ; I am not sure you do not begin to have an
odiously overbearing way with you already."
" There is no pressing danger of any unnecessary
conceit." And he proceeded to describe to her some
of his difficulties, traditions arising out of the asso-
124 TUE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
elation with trades-unions, and the like, which the
most despotic of authority could not overcome.
" I warn you to expect plenty of ingratitude," his
young visitor cautioned him, in a mentor-like way.
'Ingratitude is a part of the disease; they are
probably too much absorbed in their own troubles,
as yet, to have much time for anything else. I look
neither for gratitude nor ingratitude ; I take the peo-
ple as I find them."
" It would sometimes be much better to leave
them as you find them. You may have to come to
that. But I refuse to quarrel with you. Are you
not going to show me your favorite proteges ? "
So Barclay took the ladies about, and indicated to
them a few persons ,upon whom he had already cast
an eye with a view to the improvement of their con-
dition. In the first place, there was one Martin
Krieg, a small apprentice lad, black as a powder-
monkey, who concealed a real shyness under a quaint
imitation of the surly manner affected by some of the
older workmen. Barclay had Martin Krieg show a
specimen of drawing he had made quite without in-
struction, and said he thought of giving the boy ad-
vantages for cultivating the decided bent he seemed
to show in that direction. Next was McClary, a
hollow-chested, round-shouldered young man, with a
sickly face, who stood in a stooping position, engaged
in filing brass work.
" He is a good workman and an honest fellow,"
said Barclay ; " he is temperate, economical, indus-
trious with an assiduity that spares himself least of
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 125
all, but look at him. Ho files away, like that, day
in and day out ; takes night work, too, whenever he
can get it ; and even asks for more to take home over
holidays."
" Why, he is killing himself by inches."
" Almost by feet, rather."
" Why will he do it ? "
" It is a misguided ambition. It is a good enough
motive at bottom ; I quite appreciate it. He aspires
to a shop and house of his own, and says there is no
other way to get them. He married a trim, nice-
looking girl, who worked in a paper-box factory.
With their two small children they live in two poor
rooms in a tenement-house, and his wife ekes out
their scanty subsistence by taking a couple of me-
chanic boarders. But you are not interested in these
petty details ? "
" Oh, yes, I find them very interesting."
" I hear of a touch of jealousy, too, arising out of
one of these boarders. The wife, fast losing her good
looks, and becoming a mere drudge, was driven to
seek a bit of relaxation in some quarter, I suppose,
and let this man take her to the theatre a few times.
Her husband was wild about it."
" That is one of the dangers of such a situation, I
suppose ? "
" Under the pressure of his fierce ambition, Mc-
Clary is probably as penurious with her as with him-
self, and, with his poor health added, cannot be the
most agreeable companion in the world. And this
McClary, I want you to observe, is one of the better
class of workmen."
126 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
*' Why don't you talk to him ? "
" I have talked to him."
" Well, what are you going to do ? "
" What would you do ? What do you advise ? "
he asked, trying her.
" Raise his pay ? " she suggested, doubtfully. " But
dear me ! don't ask me anything ; I have n't a parti-
cle of imagination."
" We have stretched a point in that direction ; but
to pay a man more than he is really worth can be no
permanent resource. Oh, this monster of political
economy, how inexorable it is ! Absolute right of
every workman to sell his labor for all he can get,
absolute right of every employer to buy labor for as
little as he can pay, nobody to blame, and yet
what a slaughter of happiness and lives ! "
" The improvement of his health would seem to be
the first thing to attend to ; then, his family arrange-
ments."
" Good ! so it seemed to me, also. He is to be
drafted into the packing-room at easier work, and I
have arranged to move them out of their tenement-
house into a cottage, which they can have at even
lower rent, and where they can get rid of the board-
ers."
These may be received as fair ordinary examples
of the way the young proprietor aimed to lend a
helping hand to those who helped themselves, to ex-
tend it at the proper time, and to keep his proteges
out of the gutter instead of waiting till they were
fairly in it to raise them. If his partner, Maxwell,
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 127
was disposed to criticise any of this as unbusiness-
like, he gladly paid the extra cost from his own pock-
et ; and he defended it on the ground that, by ren-
dering the hands thoroughly contented, he would
bring them up to a greatly improved standard of effi-
ciency, and get more work out of them than had ever
been known before.
There are usually " characters " of one sort and
another in an establishment of the kind. Under this
head of a " character," one Fahnenstock was pre-
sented to the guests. He was a slow-speaking, rusty
old fellow, the veteran of the shops. In long years
of service he had never become a thoroughly skilled
workman, nor indeed risen but a few steps above the
point at which he started.
" Some of 'em can't," said the foreman, Akins, in
explanation. " It 's like playin' a good game o' bill-
iards, or anything o' that kind ; it takes knack ;
some has got it in 'em, and some has n't, and you
can't put it there. Most of 'em that I deal with get
just about so fur, and there they stick, and forty
yoke of oxen could n't drag 'em an inch ahead."
Akins had all the confidence of a rudely success-
ful man, and showed but little patience with his less
efficient and less fortunate brethren.
" It's no trick at all to get a livin'," said he. "It 's
never been so to me ; I 've always found it easy
enough. There 's parties round here, with a crazy
German paper, that tells the men it is n't, and they
ought to strike, and make folks that 's got more than
they have divide up with 'em. My idee is that that
128 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
style o' papers ought to be shut up. I s'pose. though,
it 's a good deal like blowiu' off powder iu an open
lot ; it can't hurt nobody. Hoolan, over there," in-
dicating a saturnine-looking man at a work-bench,
" he 's one o' them red-flag fellers, I guess."
Foreman Akins went on to say, furthermore, that,
in his belief, things were better for the workingman
when times were rather hard and wages compara-
tively low. " He knows he can't get a place most
anywheres, then," said he, " and he sticks to the one
he has. You can depend onto him more ; he 'tends
steadier to his work ; and if he don't make quite so
much money, he don't drink up so much o' what he
has got as when times is flush."
Old Fahnenstock, being induced to talk, aired,
among other things, some peculiar religious views of
his own. His cardinal doctrine was the speedy de-
struction of the world. He would argue this topic
by the hour, expounding from the law and the proph-
ets, chiefly the prophet Daniel. The beast with
the ten horns, the one with teeth and claws of iron,
the little horn that sprung out from the greater, the
ram that pushed against the west, Alexander, Caesar,
Napoleon, the Pope, the Sultan, and the Czar, all
had their place in his system, together with contem-
porary portents of all kinds, great and small.
" I don't see how we can last longer than this year
or next any way," he said. " The Rooshian
is going to drive the Turk out o' Europe. Ain't he
doin' it now? And ain't it as clear as crystil that
that 's the last waruin' sign ? "
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 129
His comrades reported that he had more than once
already fixed the date, and gone up on the roof of
his boarding-house and flapped his arms in imitation
of wings, endeavoring to fly, but part of this may
have been only their waggish invention.
In curious contrast with his dismal prognostics for
the universe was his desire to possess a certain small
house and bit of land at Whitefish Bay. It was an
aspiration for which he had long hoarded his sav-
ings ; he meant to fish, to cultivate vegetables there,
and make the spot the retreat of his old age, when
he should retire from the factory. This small prop-
erty, sometimes in the market, and then withdrawn
again, had advanced in value at a greater pace than
his accumulations, and was now about a thousand
dollars ahead of him.
" I should like to ha' married, too, if it was so 's
I could. I can't say I 've ever had what I should ha'
considered the best in this world," he went on, with
a kind of patient smile that Mrs. Varemberg consid-
ered pathetic. " They call them improvident that
plunges into it whether or no, but sometimes I 've
thought may be / 'd better ben improvident, too ;
there 's just about so much trouble to live through,
no matter which way you fix it. But all that 's too
late now, for an old party like me."
" Oh, I 'm sure, Mr. Fahnenstock, you 're still a
very young-looking man," protested Mrs. Varemberg.
"Well, marm," said the veteran, much pleased, at
least, if not convinced, " I 'm glad there 's them as
thinks so. I suppose it would n't do for us to have
i:;o THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
things just as we wanted 'em in this mundane spear,
or we would n't want to leave it. But I tell you
we 've got to do it pretty quick now, and in short
order."
The talk was rather more sober when they went
over to Hoolau, described as one of the "red-flag
fellers." He was a small, spare man, with high
cheek-bones, and skin yellowed as by jaundice. He
was distrustful and disposed, at first, to waive all dis-
cussion. He thought it idle, so far as the conver-
sion of persons with such fixed and supercilious opin-
ions as these, and also personally dangerous for one
in his situation. He was lured into it, however, by
pleasant arts and small controversial traps slyly set
for him by Mrs. Varemberg. When asked as to the
condition and prospects of the laboring man, he drew
but a gloomy picture.
" The mechanic don't live out half his days," he
said. " He 's old before his time, good for nothing to
work, and- ready to be planted away, just as others
is gettin' ready to live. Look at Fahnenstock. He
ain't more than fifty yet, but you 'd take him for sev-
enty."
" And how is old age provided for? " Mrs. Varem-
berg inquired.
" It ain't provided for. If a man has had a family
to bring up, he has n't had no chance to save any-
thing ; and, by that time, his children have all they
can do to take care of themselves. So when he is
too old to work, he 's turned out to starve. May be
he gets a light place somewhere as night-watchman
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 131
for a while, but more like he goes to the poor-
house."
" What means had you thought of by which things
could be made better ? "
" Congress ought to pass a law."
He was evidently unwilling to let out any of the
more violent socialistic theories he was said to enter-
tain.
" What kind of a law ? "
" A law to give every man a fair day's wages for a
fair day's work."
" Would that not be a rather difficult matter for
Congress to determine ? "
" Yes, made up of money kings, as it is now : but
the workin' classes has got to get control of legis-
lation themselves. Labor has got to be unified and
stand together."
Hoolan went on to complain of " piece-work " as
an agency particularly hard on the men, and largely
responsible for their crippled condition. It over-
stimulated effort, he said, drove them up to an im-
possible standard. The employers would try it long
enough to find out what they could do, and then, re-
turning to the old plan, tried to make this the rule
for an ordinary day's work ; and so the pressure was
increasing to an intolerable degree, while wages as
constantly declined.
" I had often wondered what became of the older
mechanics," said Mrs. Varemberg ; " you so rarely
see any of them about."
" No," responded the saturnine Hoolan ; "all you
see is precious young and frisky ones."
132 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
' I 'm sure I don't half see what it 's all about,"
said Mrs. Clinton, wearily, as they went away ; but
Mrs. Varemberg carried with her an interest in these
men, and a new appreciation of the problem, that
made her a much more valuable assistant to Barclay.
VII.
A RANDOM PROPHECY.
SOMEWHAT like Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia,
Barclay aspired also " to grow acquainted with all
who had anything unusual in their fortune or con-
duct." The many foreign nationalities represented in
the place appeared to him a considerable source of
interest. Recollections of their scenery and tradi-
tions at home invested even the poorest of them with
a touch of romance, whereas he found the common
order of Americans looking down upon all alike with
an ignorant prejudice and disdain.
He went to the German theatre, and an amateur
play at the Bohemian Turn-halle. He passed, in his
observing way, among the small, neat shops and cot-
tages of the German quarter, tenanted by a most
industrious and thrifty population. A part of this
district was on the way to the factory. The sign
" English spoken here " was sometimes seen, and
pots of flowers in the cottage windows showed that
humble striving after beauty amidst adverse surround-
ings that appeals to the kindly heart. A broom-
maker had set up three crossed brooms on a post be-
fore his door, recalling the sign of that Dutch admiral
who swept the seas. Next him, an ancient lightning-
rod and weather-vane maker exhibited, in his small
l.'U THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
window, gilded yachts, birds, and fishes, the famous
Dexter trotting at full speed, leaping stags, short-
horn cows, and a profusion of other specimens of his
handiwork.
Barclay, having occasion to order something con-
nected with the lightning-rods of his factory, entered
this latter establishment. He found the proprietor
to be a Dane, one Ole Alfsen, a garrulous old fellow,
who professed to be a weather-prophet, and was much
inclined to boast of his exploits of former days. A
son of his, William Alfsen, came in while Barclay
was there, to bid his father good-by. He was just
setting off, as it appeared, for a voyage in his own
sloop, the South Side Belle.
" I have try first to make that boy a mechanic,"
said the father, taking the pains incidentally to ex-
plain some traits of this son, " but I have to give it
up ; he bin a natural-born sailor. It come by his
mother's family. William used to sail round with his
uncle, what was a captain and brother of my wife, in
the old country, when he was a small kid ; and once
he was a couple o' years in one o' them navy-yards,
workin' round the big guns."
" He 's a strong, manly-looking young fellow," said
Barclay. " I trust he is successful."
" Well, he was pooty successful at first, but not so
good now. He used to go over, with a load o' small
goods, to them Fox and Manitou Islands aud Boy
Blank [Bois Blanc] way, and Grand Traverse Bay,
and Point Betsey, you know, what got no stores on
'em. He would blow his horn when he come in, and
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 135
all them folks would come down to the dock and buy
everything what he bring."
" That was an interesting business."
" Yes, but he lose his vessel ; he went to help some
other fellers, and his boat got away from him and
foundered. Since then he got awful hard times. I
lose my money in her, too, what I saved up, but I
don't say nothing about that."
The next day, Barclay, being obliged to drivedown
towards the Polish quarter, saw the same young man
walking before him, and recognized him from the
peculiar impression he had made. He had not yet
sailed, then ?
The Polish settlement consisted of an area of yet
poorer and more sparsely scattered shops and cot-
tages than those of the Germans, which they adjoined.
It was grouped around a few tall, unpainted wooden
tenement-houses, containing many families each, and
a solid, rather imposing ecclesiastical edifice of yellow
brick, the church of St. Stanislaus, which had twin
steeples, terminating in little domes covered with
shining tin, in the Muscovite manner. Near the bor-
der-line, where the two nationalities overlapped, be-
gan a small ravine, with neither grading nor side-
walks, but dignified with the name of Sobieski Street.
Upon this irregular site, driven to it by the stress of
economy, immigrants had pitched their poor huts and
cabins. Among them ran a variety of meandering
paths, the right of way on which was disputed with
human beings by the goats, geese, and swine. At the
top of the ravine, where it joined a civilized thor-
136 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
ou:hfare again, stood a neat cottage of two stories,
the lower unpainted, which gave a suggestion as of a
cellar above ground, the residence of our worthy
friend Ludwig Trapschuh. Barclay chanced to see
William Alfsen steal cautiously up Sobieski Street,
and disappear in the neighborhood of this dwelling.
This Polish immigration, he recalled, as he drove
on, was the outgrowth chiefly of the later Russian
persecutions, dating from about 1864. Partly as the
last arrived, and partly on account of the uncouthness
of their speech, they were generally rated lower than
any others in the social scale. They were for the
most part but common laborers. There were to be
seen pouring forth from this district, every morning,
a swarm of men, who proceeded to Market Square to
wait for jobs of wood-cutting, or to distribute them-
selves on the railroads and public works of the city.
They wore something like a uniform of military-look-
ing homespun frock-coats, full in the skirts, big top-
boots, round caps bordered with astrakhan, and, if it
were cold, comforters and thick mittens. They had
been serfs, or something very near it, at home, and
still retained their thoroughly peasant-like aspect.
They had constituted here, in a small way, an un-
trammeled new Poland : they came not from Russia
alone, but from Prussia, and from that Austrian Ga-
licia where Metternich boasted that he had secured
" fifty years of tranquillity by three days of blood."
But the oppressors who had partitioned their country
had contrived to partition their spirits as well. They
were found full of violent prejudices and ancient local
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 137
feuds : the Warsaw man fell out with him of Cracow,
and the peasant of Lithuania with the peasant of Po-
dolia or Ukraine.
William Alfsen entered a poorer cottage than that
of Ludwig Trapschuh, the rear of which it adjoined.
A considerable piece of back-yard intervened be-
tween the two. He greeted there a heavy, dull-look-
ing woman, who was Susanka Kraska, the mother of
his tow-headed cabin-boy, Nicodem Kraska.
" Nick a good boy, make good sailor ! " he bawled,
for Susanka was deaf.
" You don't let it get drown ? " she bawled in re-
turn. Her English was very defective, and even at
its best had to be supplemented with some words of
German.
" No, I don't let him get drownded." And with
little more ado he went and sat down at a window
which commanded the back-yard before mentioned.
He presently saw appear there a person for whom he
sought, Stanislava Zelinsky. She no longer wore
the trim dress in which he was wont to see her, but
a linsey-woolsey petticoat and a bright handkerchief
over her bosom. There rested on her shoulders a
heavy wooden yoke, with a water-pail at either end,
which she was going to the well to fill.
He hurried out, and ensconced himself, as furtively
as possible, behind a tall pile of wood, whence he whis-
tled and called in a way to attract her attention. The
girl discovered liim.
" I did n't know you was here. I thought you was
sailed away," she said ; refraining, after a first start-
138 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
led glance, from looking towards him, so as to betray
any recognition of his presence.
" I want to see you once more, Stanislava. I got
something to say with you. I make believe go off.
I sail through the bridge in big style, so your father
and Barney think I gone away ; then I tie up the
boat down by the harbor mouth, leave Nicodem take
care of her, and come here. You must come right
away out and take walk."
" Wait till I make done my work and get good
excuse. They don't watch me now, because they
think you was gone."
They arranged to meet at the corner of a certain
vacant lot, on distant Windlake Avenue. Alfsen
waited patiently till she had finished her household
tasks, and sallied forth ; then he stole down the ra-
vine again, and joined her at the trysting-place. If
the dull Dame Kraska regarded this manoeuvre at
all, possibly she thought it only a part of the neces-
sary business of employing her lazy son Nicodem as a
cabin-boy, or possibly she winked at it because she
had no great love for her neighbor, Ludwig Trap-
schuh.
" What happen you, Stanislava ? " asked Alfsen,
at once. " Why you wear that kind o' dress ? "
" I got to ; I must, all time, do housework now."
" And you don't like milliner business no more ?
Why you leave Morgenroth's store ? "
" I guess I was too sassy. When they say some-
thing against the Polanders, I say something back
again, and they turn me out."
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 139
" Oh, no, you could n't be too sassy, Stanislava.
Was that, sure, the reason ? "
" Well, my uncle and aunt don't want me to do
no more such work," she admitted. " They stop me
from everything. Once, you know, I was setting
types in a German paper, and once I was painting
them canisters in the stamped -ware factory, and
once "
' ! I don't forget paintin' them canisters. Did n't
I first see you when I used to work there, too?"
broke in the young mariner, interrupting her. " But,
Stanislava, you have that money what you get from
Governor Lane to pay your board. You must not
pay your board and work so like a servant, too."
" They got big expenses, and they was my family,"
she answered, simply.
" By jinks \ that was a swindle. I would keep that
money, if it was me, or I would do what I please."
" How I can keep it ? My uncle get it himself ;
I never get it in my hands."
" I would tell Governor Lane, then. Or I would
tell Mrs. Varemberg ; you say she 's such a nice
lady."
" They was my uncle and my aunt," reiterated the
girl ; alleging this in a naive way, as if it were so
convincing a reason that nothing could by any pos-
sibility be urged against it. " I wonder what he give
me that money for, any way ? " she added, presently.
" Oh, he got plenty." Alfsen was little enough
troubled on this score, to which, indeed, he had never
paid an instant's attention. " I had something very
140 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
partiklar to say with you, Stanislava," he began anew,
hesitatingly. '' What I got to say is, I guess you
must give me up, Stanislava."
" Give you up, Willie ? " she cried, as with sudden
horror.
" Yes ; you must get married with some smart fel-
ler what can take good care of you. I got no good
luck any more, no better luck that last trip as be-
fore. So I go down the lower lakes to look for some
new kind o' job, and perhaps I stay there, and don't
never come back. What 's the use ? "
" Willie, you must come back ! " she exclaimed, in
frightened protest. "I don't give you up, you
und'stand ? I don't give you up."
" But if I 'm no good no more ? "
" I keep company with you, all the same," she per-
sisted obstinately.
Reassured by this display of constancy, he next
broached, in a sheepish way, another matter he had
been turning over in his mind.
" We might get married right away by Pas-
tor Freitag," he suggested, " and no one know noth-
ing about it. Then if they was to treat you too bad
I could stop it. I would try to take you away the
soonest possible."
The girl seemed startled this tkne in a different
way.
" / would n't be married by no Pastor Freitag,"
she responded, with a decided toss of the head, in
spite of her recent avowal of affection. It was evi-
dent that she cherished a feminine ideal of something
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 141
very much more elaborate in the way of a wedding
than a clandestine ceremony by Pastor Freitag.
This was a little man, a minister of the Lutheran
sect, who lived a bachelor existence doing all his
own cooking in the basement of his chapel, on one
of the minor side streets. He was very latitudinarian
in his theology, and accommodating in all his views ;
offering, for instance, to marry a couple " either with
or without a God." His chapel was, as it were, a
local Gretna Green, and no small part of his scanty
income was derived from expediting wedlock for per-
sons disposed to be slightly informal in their arrange-
ments.
But little further time was allowed for the discus-
sion of Pastor Freitag or anything else. The pair,
who had wandered, Jenny and Jessamy fashion, quite
at their ease, and sometimes hand in hand, were sud-
denly confronted by a formidable apparition. It was
no less than Ludwig Trapschuh. He had left his
bridge, again, on one of his expeditions to see South
Side aldermen, and the like, and found himself at the
moment in precisely that part of the town. The sight
struck consternation to their souls. His niece gave
a faint, involuntary shriek, while Alfsen could only
affect a dogged sort of smile.
" Did n't I tell you I won't let it ? " cried Trap-
schuh, in a choking fury, addressing himself first to
the young girl. Then, turning to Alfsen, he said,
" So-o-o you walk yourself with my niece-of-law ? If
I catch it again, I guess I knock you over the heels
by the head."
142 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
Before any violence could be done, however, Paul
Barclay once more appeared upon the scene. Though
he was but passing by, driving homeward, his pres-
ence no doubt acted as a restraining influence. It
was evident to him that a drama of some kind was
in progress : the young sailor had a defiant air, Stan-
islava was downcast and tearful, and Ludwig Trap-
schuh made the most typical of stern, low-comedy
fathers. Barclay unavoidably gave it his attention
through his recognizing the participants. As if this
were only a signal for their breaking up, the little
group, immediately after, dispersed. William Alfsen
hurried down to the port, this time to cast off and put
to sea without further artifice ; Stanislava was dragged
home by her irate guardian, and, arrived there, scolded
roundly again, and all but beaten, by him and her
aunt. The occurrence, however, sank deep into her
recollection ; Alfsen's advice had its effect, and she
manifested for the first time a spark of something
like the true American independence. When pressed
hard, she threatened to go to David Lane, say to him
that she was able and anxious to earn her own liv-
ing, and have the stipend stopped.
" Don't do it, Stanislava," begged Trapschuh, in
great alarm. " We got big expenses, and we could n't
bring you up without that money. Remember I was
a poor man, and I was your uncle."
" You must give me freedom, then ; I must do
what I like."
Her uncle was thus in some degree brought to
terms. She utilized her privilege by exchanging
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 143
the rude, domestic drudgery in which she had been
engaged for occupations more congenial to her taste.
She appeared at the Stamped- Ware Works, to solicit
once more the stenciling of patterns on light boxes
and canisters, which she had formerly done, a
kind of work sometimes to be taken home with her,
and sometimes done at the shop ; and Barclay, to
whom she addressed herself, was glad enough to ac-
cede to her request. He had a pleasant word more
than once for this flower of the Polish settlement,
partly as Mrs. Varemberg's protegee, and partly
through the pensive recollection of the death of the
fathers of both by the same untimely fate.
The rigorous northern winter came on, and set its
seal of ice on the navigation of the Great Lakes, not
to be opened again till another spring. The last be-
lated vessels came skurrying into port ; some were
embargoed at places where the sudden freezing up
of the harbors found them. The storm-flag was fly-
ing almost constantly on its high perch, on the roof
of the building of the Keewaydin Insurance Com-
pany. This square of vivid scarlet up in the gray
sky indicated now snow-storms that blocked the rail-
roads, now wind at forty miles an hour, and now
blizzards of extreme cold that swept down into the
streets, often driving all human life in-doors, and put-
ting a stop to business. The windows of the shops
were sometimes as thickly covered with hoar frost
as if by plates of zinc. The lake, impressive in every
aspect, was frozen as far as the eye could see, and no
one could say how much farther. What mysterious
144 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
dramas were enacting in the long, dead winter out
amid the winds and currents of that great deserted
sea ? Amid its roughened and broken ice could be
seen here and there forbidding channels of lead-col-
ored green or purple water. On the farther verge,
as it vanished under the brooding sky, there seemed
great breakers tossiag, and icebergs moving in slow
procession.
The South Side Belle did not return to port, even
among the belated craft, but some time afterwards
the boy Nick Kraska made his way homewards, and
related that she had been lost off the rough upper
Michigan shore. Alfsen was laid up in hospital over
there with various injuries, including a broken arm.
He had been injured in going back after Nicodem,
who was afraid to strike out alone, through a
heavy sea full of floating lumber ; keeping thus the
promise made to the mother to look after the boy's
safety.
"The sloop was as rotten as an old pumpkin,"
said a critic of the occurrence, at the Johannisberger
House. " She was loaded with a cargo of boards,
and these thrashed around, broke through her sides,
and scuttled her by themselves the very minute a
good thumping sea set in."
Later on, William Alfsen appeared, one day, in
person, at the Stamped- Ware Works, pale and ema-
ciated, his arm still in a sling, and accompanying
Stanislava, whom he had met, on some errand con-
nected with her work.
Foreman Akins pointed him out, and described
the case to Barclay.
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 145
" There 's a feller that used to be a smart hand to
work," said he. " He never 'd orter left ; he did n't
know when he was well off."
" Why not give him his place back again ? "
" That arm o' his would.n't let him be no use now.
Unless, may be, it was some light job in the packin'-
room," he added.
In due time, however, Barclay stopped, on his way
up town, to offer the son of the aged weather-vane
maker some light work in the packing-room. The
young man was rather disposed to resent it at first,
as savoring of charity, but he was made to feel that
his services were really in demand.
During the interview, old Alfsen took occasion, as
usual, to air his views on the weather and other
topics.
"I make predictment," said he, " that this is not a
easy windter, but a strong, cold, and enduring one."
Lightning-rods were the favorite subject of his dis-
course. It appeared that he was fond of assembling
the children of the neighborhood round him to hear
his stones of the mysterious element with which he
had had so much to do. He would tell of the shat-
tering of the masts of vessels by lightning. Once,
he said, a great wheel of St. Elmo's fire as large as
a millstone had come rolling along the waves and
pierced a ship in three places. Again, a ball of blue
flame as large as a man's fist had leaped from an
electrometer and killed its operator, leaving a red
mark on his forehead and his shoes burnt from his
feet.
146 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
" Some will be believing rods to be no use, because
bringing down more lightning as what they can carry
off," he said, in his odd dialect, " but I beg to differ
much with the believings of said persons."
"Your experience has taught you differently,
then?" said Barclay, not unwilling to lead him on a
little.
" Sure ; only they must be good put up. How
much power you think got one o' them clouds 'bout
ten thousand acres big, eh? All rod joints must be
tight and not rusty, and the ends must be branched
out in the ground, with plenty charcoals around it,
else everything get tore up."
" You have no doubt done some very important
work in that line, yourself ? "
"I was the best lightnin'-rods feller what you
never see," returned the old man boastfully. " I did
ought to put up all that big work on the city hall,
too, when it was build, but I did n't get enough po-
litikle influence."
" And it took political influence for that, even
when you were so good a workman ? "
" I bet you it take it ; if you got no aldermans on
your side, you get no job. When I was mad about
it, they give me a small, little box to make, to put
some papers in, in that statue; that job didn't
amount to nothing at all. I bet you see her come
down some day, and scatter them papers all round."
" You think the figure is not secure ? "
" I make predictment what she come down. Yes,
sir, plenty times already see I her shake in the wind."
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 147
" Oh, anything shakes in a high wind."
" Well, but I guess the lightning some time hit
her, any way. Them other fellers what put up the
rods on the big dome and that golded statue of Jus-
tice don't know nothing about it," he said, still cher-
ishing his resentment of years before. " I was the
best feller for fixing up the right kind o' rods, and
if she don't got 'em, of course she must come down."
William Alfsen proved a faithful person in the
minor duties assigned him, and an intelligent one as
well, from whom Barclay gathered many useful opin-
ions about the needs and views of the working class.
He made friends with him by degrees, and took him,
more or less, as a companion and guide in what Mrs.
Varemberg was pleased to call his "explorations
among all different races and conditions of men."
They went together, one night, to a meeting of
rabid socialists and unifiers of labor, held in the dis-
trict somewhere near the factory. There was a
speaker who had a strange way of perking out his
chin, and appeared about to choke with each sentence,
a huge man, who made but mild suggestions.
There was another, a diminutive man, in an over-
coat with ragged edges, and wide pantaloons flapping
over little feet like a woman's, who proposed, in a
piping voice, the most sanguinary measures. Hoolan,
from the factory, was present, among others, and made
a speech. Remarking Barclay in the audience, he
addressed to him personally some questions intended
to be posers of a very crushing sort. It was much
out of Barclay's line, but he rose, nevertheless, and
148 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
answered these and some other of the dangerous fal-
lacies he had heard. He displayed before them in a
few well-chosen, forcible words some economic doc-
trines, of the simple elementary sort, but novel and
original enough in an assembly like that, little given
to considering more than one side of a question.
There were groans and hisses, but Hoolan stood by
him ; on the whole, they gave him fair play, and he
derived from this incident a reputation for oratory, as
he had already for courage.
And yet again Barclay went with Alfsen to a Po-
lish ball, of which the latter had apprised him. It
was a celebration of the military company, and was
held in a rude wooden building, in a grove of leafless
trees, dignified with the name of a " park," near the
southern city limits. It was on a clear winter's night.
As they drew near the place, the moon shone down
upon the Polish quarter, touching with a sparkle the
bright tin domes of the church of St. Stanislaus, and
gleaming white on the fields of driven snow all round
about it, with much such an effect as might have been
presented by an actual village of the steppes.
Within, the Sobieski Guards moved about, re-
splendent in their uniforms of blue and red ; and
young women, with hands and wrists roughened by
work, sat in rows on benches, their hats and shawls
hung on pegs behind them. Stanislava Zelinsky was
there, very charming in white muslin, with blue rib-
bons in her hair. So jealously guarded was she by
her uncle, assisted by the rowdy Barney, that Will-
iam Alfsen could only look at her from afar with
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 149
longing and disconsolate eyes. Ludwig Trapschuh,
to tell the truth, cherished no peculiar prejudice
against Alfsen ; he would have felt the same way to-
wards any other who threatened to take away from
him his niece and source of revenue. But precau-
tions as to others were needless, for she showed them
no favor.
Barclay, however, was a visitor who was treated
with august consideration by his pleasing young em-
ployee, among the rest, and he talked with her at
considerable length. She could tell him something
of the traditions of her country : the wolf-hunting in
the Carpathians; the ancient serpent- worship in
marshy Lithuania ; the tarantuss with a trotting and
two galloping horses harnessed abreast ; the wodki,
or potato brandy ; and a certain famous plum jam,
made in great kettles set in the ground, and stirred
about with wooden shovels. Finally, she induced
the musicians to play for his especial benefit the sweet
and plaintive Kalina and some other national airs.
The dancing was marked by great zest and facility.
" Why, indeed, should it not be ? " remarked Bar-
clay, as he went back to his companion. " Where,
allowing for the rudeness of the company, should we
expect to find more grace and spirit than here ? Do
we not owe them all the modern dances ? What is
Polka but the word that means ' a Polish woman ' ?
The Mazurka was the native dance of the Mazours,
the Cracovienne that of Cracow, and the Varsovienne
that of Warsaw."
He paused, as he was leaving the place, to watch
150 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
a waltz, in which the couples separated at a given sig-
nal, pointed mocking fingers at each other, clapped
hands and stamped feet, then joined again and went
on as before, all in harmonious rhythm. On the way
home Alfsen deferentially confided to him his feel-
ings about Stanislava, of which his listener had al-
ready heard something. " Some o' the girls gets
married because they 're tired o' workin', and often
gets a harder time than what they had before," said
he. " I don't want any o' that ; I don't want any
girl what marries me to be scrubbin' all the time at
the wash-tub." He took so dark a view of his own
prospects that no one was readier to admit the justice
of the opposition of Trapschuh than himself.
" But your arm will soon be well again," returned
his employer sympathetically ; " then you can get
your old place back, earn good wages, and things will
go all right with you."
u Yes, but I don't know if I can make good me-
chanic any more," hesitatingly. " I 'm better on some
kind of a boat. Only when a man lose his boat
and I lose two he don't easy get no other one. If
I could get on the revenue cutter, I like it," he added
wistfully. " Them government jobs pay pretty good,
and you 're sure you get your pay."
" On the Florence Lane ? What sort of a place
would you want ? "
" Well, may be to watch around her, while she 's
laid up for the winter ; and, after that, to work on
her most any way, I could learn all. I would n't
care much whether it was sailin' or takin' care o'
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 151
the guus ; I understand most all that kind o' busi-
ness."
Barclay began to speculate whether there was any
reason why he should not get a deserving fellow, with
a taste for the work, a government appointment on
a revenue cutter. He apparently found none, for he
said,
" I '11 speak to Lieutenant Gregg about it."
But it so happened that peculiar circumstances
arose to prevent his speaking to Lieutenant Gregg
about it in person, and to lead him to turn the mat-
ter over to other hands, instead.
VIII.
A MEETING AT THE FOOT OF THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
BARCLAY had first his popular period, theu some-
thing very like an unpopular period, in the social life
of Keewaydin. Looked upon as a person of excep-
tional distinction, he was bidden to all the- usual en-
tertainments and many especially devised in his honor.
Keewaydin, like most other American towns, did not
frankly engage in pleasure for pleasure's sake ; there
was generally an apologetic air about it. Still, some-
body coming or somebody going, a notable stranger
in town, a charitable object to be furthered, furnished
occasion for sufficient gayeties.
"The typical occasion, I should say," Mrs. Varem-
berg explained to him, " is the visit of some young
girl who was formerly school-mate, say, of a friend
residing in this place. As soon as it is known that
such a person has arrived, all the acquaintances of the
family hasten to the house, and steps begin at once
to be taken for her entertainment."
" This inter-visiting of school friends, now that
railroad fares are cheap, and the remotest points are
really but a few days apart, seems one of the great
North American agencies for unifying civilization,"
said- Barclay, as if philosophically. "The boarding-
school ought to be set upon a lofty pedestal of honor,
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 153
as a leading factor in the modification of types and
the settlement of race problems. What is the fre-
quent upshot of these visits ? The young stranger,
flattered and feted, appears at her best. The young
men are taken with the novelty ; some one of them
asks her to marry him, and she stays. She has been
blown afar and taken root, just as the seeds of exotic
plants are blown by the winds to spring up on coral
islands."
" You are undoubtedly correct. But how beauti-
fully poetical you are getting, in these late days ! "
"Oh, I have to be rather poetical, as a relaxation
from the factory. Besides, I am a bit of the drift
from distant shores, myself."
" Then we must have you follow the usual career.
Who is to be the happy agent of your taking root
and flowering on our coral reef? Naturally Miss Tel-
son, our greatest fortune, whose money will be use-
ful to you in your philanthropic enterprises. A phil-
anthropist, you know, can never have too much."
Barclay objected to Miss Telson. She was the
daughter of the leading capitalist of the place, for
others, in the mean time, had surpassed David Lane.
She was a particularly dull, uninteresting girl ; it was
said of her even now that she did not know how to
spend her income.
" Miss Shadwell, then," said Mrs. Varemberg.
This young woman, a grand-daughter of Shadwell of
the Navigation Company, and probably the second in
the list of fortunes, was a little midget scarcely out of
her teens, with a face that already resembled a with-
154 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
ered apple. She had a rather terrible reputation ;
she was a law unto herself, and was in the habit of
making very pert and mischievous remarks. A Miss
Minford, who came third in the trio of heiresses, mis-
takenly endeavored to render herself attractive by an
elegant fragility ; she thought it charming to profess
to be utterly unable to do about everything anybody
would have liked to have her do.
" No," said Barclay decisively, " I should not take
kindly to so much invalidism. I could not quite sink
out of sight my ideal of blooming health."
" You do not like invalids, then ? " said Mrs. Var-
emberg, with sadness in her voice.
" Not the amateur kind ; all my sympathy and
admiration are reserved for the real article," he
returned, with cheerful promptness, endeavoring to
atone for his stupid slip of the tongue.
" Ah, I see your desideratum is beauty, not mon-
ey," she rattled on, when she had recovered from this
shock, or hidden her feeling. She affected to survey
the field next from this point of view.
She pretended many times thereafter, in a teasing
way, to consider him a person who was sagely and
maturely deliberating upon the choice of a wife from
among the eligible candidates. She would affect to
send him forth as a champion to the fray, to equip
him with her best counsels, comfort him in his disap-
pointments. She represented his heart as wavering
in the direction now of this fascinating fair one, now
of that. But when, after a considerable time, no re-
sults appeared from the campaign, she accused him of
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 155
phlegmatic insensibility. She said he had a heart
made in compartments, like those of an ocean steam-
er ; one or more of them might be broken with impu-
nity, leaving the rest as good as ever.
" You will find a great deal of good blood in Kee-
waydin," said Mrs. Clinton, taking her part also in his
social education. " Many young men of the best fam-
ilies of New York and New England came here, in
the early times, to better their circumstances or their
health. My brother was one of them. You natu-
rally belong to this congenial element, and I would
advise you to confine your acquaintanceship as much
as possible within it. Of course we know your fa-
ther's name well, but your mother was a Ridgewood.
The moment I heard your mother's name was Ridge-
wood, I knew all about you."
"We are very - remarkable on the mother's side,
also," said Mrs. Varemberg. " We are Bushwicks.
The Bushwicks let me see : they all married and
had large families. Oh, yes, they were very extraor-
dinary. There is a book about them ; I am going to
read it some time."
" Florence ! " protested Mrs. Clinton severely.
" Well, we shall not let Mr. Barclay have all the
credit on his side."
" I hardly supposed such distinctions amounted to
much here," said Barclay.
" They do not," insisted Mrs. Varemberg. " There
are really none except those of the pocket-book.
Whoever has made his fortune is given a little time,
it is true, to wash off the dust of the conflict, but he
156 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
is not kept out of any of the proper rewards of it."
Again the aunt protested.
" You two are such a pair of radicals and scoffers,"
said she, classing them together. But to be classed
with Mrs. Varemberg in any category was subtly
grateful to Barclay.
There proved to be quite distinctions enough, how-
ever, of one sort and another. To supplement the
rest, the sectional divisions of East and West Sides
and the like were carried into social life ; each as-
sumed to be all but sufficient to itself, and represen-
tatives of the one went to the other only on the oc-
casion of some notable funeral or wedding.
A " society paper " and " society columns " in the
regular papers recorded the doings of a Shakespeare
Club, a highly accomplished one, devoted to pri-
vate theatricals. Clubs for the cultivation of music
of many varieties especially flourished. The inspira-
tion seemed to come in the first place from the large
German population, so gifted in this art ; and it might
have been remarked that it was through a common
interest in music that the two races began to over-
come their early estrangement, and to intermingle
and marry. The leading troupes of performers of
all kinds, on their travels, were wont to play a night
or two at the Grand Opera House or the Academy
of Music. Neither theatre was quite so grand as its
name. Barclay went to some houses where were
played " rhyming crambo " and like games, in a half-
romping way, often pleasanter than the more set en-
tertainments. There were many interiors fitted up
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 157
with charming taste, and these had inmates who
showed themselves nervously anxious to keep at the
level of the latest acquirements in literature, art, and
general culture. They lamented their small advan-
tages as compared with the favored denizens of the
metropolis, but they often have given the best of
these latter, who are apt to be distracted from read-
ing, study, and most else that is useful by too great
a whirl of affairs, in their complex life, a wholesome
lesson, instead.
Barclay had the simplest, most unostentatious of
manners, whenever he moved, and it was by no means
his own fault if he became a centre of attraction.
The young women were perhaps a little overawed
at first by his unusual eligibility, accomplishments,
and good looks. Even the more reserved had their
sweetest blandishments for him, while others threw
themselves daringly at his head. All alike proved
without avail ; they found him impervious, and, af-
ter a sufficient attempt, they drew off in despair.
Justine DeBow assumed, on the strength of their
early acquaintance, closer intimacy with him than
most of the others, an assumption which he, to a
certain extent, conceded. " Are you never coming
to see me ? " she had asked him, more than once.
He made short visits of ceremony and " party calls,"
visiting large, handsome houses, where the young
hostesses for it was the young, for the most part,
who conducted all these matters came down to re-
ceive him. They sat with hands crossed in their
laps, talked of Wachtel's concert, Ristori, their Euro-
158 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
pean tours, and their trips to New York and to the
Eastern seaboard in summer. In time he dropped
in at Justine DeBow's among the rest. She lived
in a large wooden house, nearly square, painted in
brownish tones. In the low fence, surrounding its
door-yard, was a gate swinging both ways, which
clicked complacently to itself for some time after
one had passed through.
Barclay courteously asked after her mother, and
received the reply that she would have come down,
but her health was far from good, and she rarely saw
visitors.
" What are your impressions of Keewaydin now ? "
his young entertainer asked him, hastening to change
the subject.
"I still find it highly interesting."
"My idea of an interesting place is something
very different," she returned, with an almost offended
air. " It would be a long way off, for one thing, and
it would furnish rather more to keep one from dying
of utter stagnation."
" I have not stagnated yet, with all my Germans
and miscellaneous foreigners to explore. I Ve been
round the world a second time since my arrival. But
perhaps I am still too much in my first enthusiasm to
advance any opinions of consequence."
She looked at him in surprise. " We don't see
anything of the Germans," she said. " Some of the
young men go to the Germania Society, though, I
believe, on Sunday nights, to see the beautiful Jewess
Rosa Blumenthal I would, if I were they ; I would
do most anything to keep alive."
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 159
In this mood she was not at all like the formal
little person he had first met on the steamer.
' She is pretty, as we have agreed," said Barclay,
reporting the visit afterwards to Mrs. Varemberg,
" but I have not often seen a greater budget of dis-
content in so small a compass."
" Which means that she interests you. I recol-
lect an unusual character or situation was always
sure to do it."
" Ah, well, my interests are so vast and varied
nowadays that some of them will have to be neg-
lected."
The verdict that Barclay was indifferent, and even
incorrigible, iu the sentimental way, was rendered at
St. Bartholomew's Guild, a charitable association of
select young ladies of the place, and was confirmed
at the Saturday Morning Club, a society, after the
Boston model, devoted to their intellectual improve-
ment.
" Oh, he is fastidiously polite, and all that ; no
one could be more so. He looks at you in an ap-
preciative way, and gives the most careful attention
to all you say," pronounced a fair speaker, at the
Guild, more frank than the rest, removing a score of
pins from her mouth, to be the more untrammeled in
the expression of her opinion. " But what does it
all amount to ? You feel, somehow, always kept at
a distance. He is thoroughly cold; it is probably
constitutional."
" I could never conceive of his falling in love,"
said another ; ." he is the kind of man to whom it
would be impossible."
160 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
It was measurably certain that he had not fallen
in love with any of them, and yet Justine DeBow
held her peace. Neither was this authoritative judg-
ment pronounced till forbearance had, as it were,
ceased to be a virtue. Ample time had been allowed
for revision of judgment, and the decision, coming
from such a source, might be considered final.
Paul Barclay also ran the gauntlet, with like im-
perturbability, of a " married set," which had lately
introduced, as something of a novelty in Keewaydin,
certain "fast" practices of enjoying life, derived
from New York and foreign models, carried into
eifect, as is often apt to be the case with imitations
in even exaggerated form. Barclay had seen the
world, and was considered amply eligible for this set,
which was inclined to look upon him as a marked
acquisition, and made him gracious overtures. It
was noted for dashing little suppers with plenty of
champagne ; the calling of one another by their first
names ; and the dancing of attendance upon the wives
of others by gallant cavaliers, while the husbands
showed the most agreeable complaisance in the world.
A certain Mrs. Rycraft, a siren of the buxom sort,
by no means without good looks, took the lead in
the overtures to Barclay. Perhaps in order to be
beforehand with the others, she carried them to no-
table lengths. She talked in a pensive way of the
unsatisfactoriness of life, and confided to him that,
gay as she seemed, she was often oppressed by moods
of melancholy. He found her woes but a curious
parody of the real and poignant ones of Mrs. Varem-
berg.
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 161
She permitted herself a good deal of sympathy,
she said, for men who are sometimes spoken of as
bad men ; they were often very much maligned, and
they had many redeeming traits. She thought men
ought not to marry ; if she were a man, she would
never think of it.
" But perhaps you make too little allowance for
the human nature and the weakness of the mascu-
line heart," said Barclay, affecting to humor her.
" Oh, he should fall in love. I would not put any
countermand upon that," she rejoined, as in a kind
of consternation.
" Nothing is easier as I have heard than to
fall in love a little with each successive pretty
woman ; but in falling in love, as some philosopher
says, the first thing to do is to foresee the end. Per-
haps it is not always so easy to get out of it. Have
you any recipe to cover that ? "
" Oh, don't ask me for recipes. You must find the
right person, and then you will not want to get out."
And she left it but a transparent mystery who the
right one was.
Not long after this, he received a very agitated-
looking note, signed only with an initial. It was
couched somewhat in these terms :
" Such a strange, unaccountable feeling has taken
possession of me. It is so pleasant to think of your
beins here How dare I write this? I will not
O
send it yes, I will. But you must forget that it
was ever written. Never speak of it, never think of
it, I adjure you."
162 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
Paul Barclay extricated himself from this entangle-
ment with all the discretion possible, though perhaps
no amount of discretion is ever sufficient, in such
. to avoid making an enemy, who has but the
greater power for harm, the more consideration that
is used.
After a varied collection of such small experiences,
he inclined to withdraw himself altogether from the
social arena. But for the frigid atmosphere created
by her father, he would have gone more and more
often to Mrs. Varemberg's. Even as it was, his
visits began to attract comment. Why had those
two so much to say to each other? Did they hold
themselves aloof in assumed superiority ? the gossips
asked. And this Barclay, had he none of the nat-
ural impulses of his youth, that he showed no eyes
and ears for the conceded beauties of the place ?
There were some, in truth, fair enough to move an
anchorite, but they failed to attract him.
As to all this, even the young man was often sorely
puzzled at his own state of mind. A warm and im-
pulsive blood really rau in his veins ; few had a
quicker eye than he for any beauty of face or form,
a readier appreciation of all the attractions that go
to make up the surpassing feminine charm. But, in
some strange way, all virtue seemed to have gone out
of this now. It pleased him to associate only with
this weak and crippled existence ; all other women
had grown hardly more than tolerable to him.
" Am I not," he would ask himself, in trying to
account for it, " the widower of buried hopes ; is not
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 163
my past of such a sort that I have no right to the
ordinary present, and the future is no longer open to
me ? " And, " Why should I not use what is left to
me as I choose ? " he asked.
A chivalrous ideal of remaining always at her side,
without hope of change or reward, began to frame
itself vaguely in his mind. Why might he not make
a career of such disinterested friendship ? He would
let no word or act of his trouble her peace of mind ;
the most perfect prudence should guard her against
any aspersion by evil tongues ; he would only wait,
wait indefinitely, and offer such poor solace as his
presence might afford.
" Do you never go to see any people ? Do you
take no part in these festivities at all ? " he was moved
to ask her, after a time.
I ? How can I ? How should I act if I did ? If
I were gay, the malicious would say I did not ap-
preciate the gravity of my situation ; if I were sad,
that I was posing for their sympathy, or, worse
yet, would give it to me, and that I could not en-
dure."
"Not even that of your Radbrooks, of whose life
you have given me such attractive accounts ? I have
seen something of them myself, by the way, and
think you are right. Only, after all, another person's
happiness seems a tame affair, compared to what one
pictures for himself."
" To such places I can go least of all ; they bring
the tears to my eyes. Shall I confess to you that it
is one of my peculiarities to weep at the sight of hap-
164 THE GO Lit UN JUSTICE.
piness? I cannot bear it. I have often turned away
from happy couples, out-of-doors, and taken a differ-
ent street to avoid them. You will laugh at a person
so weak and ridiculous, will you not ? "
But Barclay was far indeed from any disposition
to merriment. At this rare admission that her suf-
fering was mental as well as physical, he had no little
pains to disguise his own emotion, which brought a
decided lump into his throat. Yet, as there seemed
nothing of permanent avail to be done it became his
role to save her in some way from herself, to aid her
to pass her days more cheerfully. He sometimes
tried a raillery like her own. As she had called him
Wat Tyler and Gracchus, he dubbed her the Exile,
the Prisoner of the Lake, and by many similar high-
sounding titles.
"You must watch a spider, day by day, spinning
its web in a corner of your cell ; some little flower
peeping up through a joint in the paving-stones, for
your comfort, like your illustrious prototypes,"
he said.
" As to the cobweb," she returned, " I hardly think
our tidy Swedish housemaids will have left one, but
the conservatory is the most likely place for the flow-
ers. Let us go and look."
Perhaps the prismatic glitter of all these conserva-
tories did more than any other feature to give the or-
dinary passer-by his idea of the magnificence of David
Lane and the unclouded happiness that must necessa-
rily prevail in so splendid an establishment. But the
ordinary passer-by, unfortunately, is not an accurate
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 165
judge of the realities of things from their appear-
ance ; he does not always know sufficient of the wants
of him who appears to want the least, and how, after
all the needs of the body are gratified, there may yet
remain the even more imperious needs of the heart
and mind.
Mrs. Varemberg, pretending to seek the proper
flower, culled one here and there, and then formed
them all into a bouquet for her companion. How
charming, he thought, was the touch of her light, de-
liberate hand upon them ; how privileged the object,
inanimate or animate, that might receive the beuison
of her caress !
" All this is rather my father's taste than my own,
the room for orchids, particularly," said she. " A
conservatory is not greatly to my liking."
" Nor to mine either, to tell the truth. This heaven
of glass instead of the blue sky, this tepid, enervat-
ing atmosphere instead of the free air of nature, are
but poor substitutes for the originals."
" The plants, in their artificial existence, so care-
fully screened from every draught and inequality,
remind me too much of my own. They too have a
cowed and disconsolate air."
" You must give me some of the bolder of them,
when I begin my landscape-gardening, to see what
they will do out-of-doors."
."Your landscape-gardening?"
" Yes ; I have been waiting to break it to you.
Barclay's Island is going to be ' a bower of roses by
Bendermeer's stream.' And the planing-mill ' sings
106 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
round it all the day long,' he added. Oh, I assure
you, you won't know it."
'He outlined for her some of his proposed innova-
tions : he meant to paint the buildings, let in the
honest light of day at the windows unimpeded bv the
time-honored cobwebs and grime, put up an orna-
mental stone gateway at the entrance to the grounds,
clear away all the rubbish, and replace the slag and
cinders by grass-plats varied with some few flower-
beds, about all that could be done without tearing
down the whole establishment.
" You will be the most original of manufacturers."
' Oh, no ; they do these things in Mexico and Cen-
tral America," he responded. " It is charming, the
way they have of caressing their industrial establish-
ments down there. A man is no more ashamed to
live alongside his cotton-mill or foundry than if it
were a model stock-farm with us. As you ride along,
you come, all at once, upon some imposing, castellated
affair, with its gardens, terraces, fountains, statues,
and mediaeval-looking chapel, and find it to be simply
a sugar-refinery or ore-reducing works, with the pro-
prietor's residence added."
" And you propose to introduce all this here ? "
" Oh, we can't expect to equal the Central Ameri-
cans all at once, but we shall probably work up to it
by degrees."
" But Paul, you know and an island, and
such a paradise," broke in his companion, as if struck
by a sudden reflection, " it is quite idyllic. You
ought to have some sort of a Virginia, also. You
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 167
must find some beautiful maiden of the island, who
will go about clad in coarse stuffs of Bengal, and
Paul must bring her bird's-nests, and shelter her from
the rain under a huge banana leaf."
" And we must tell the seasons only by their fruits
and flowers, and the hours of the day only by the
shadows," added Barclay, readily entering into the
spirit of it. " Will you not deign to be our Virginia,
for the time being ? "
He drew down over her head the leaf of a large
plantain they chanced to be in close proximity to at
the moment, after the manner of the well-known pic-
ture.
David Lane had entered his conservatory, to walk
briefly, as he was given to doing, among his orchids,
that poised their curious shapes of butterfly and bird
in the air like living things, and was a witfaess of
this scene. It seemed to him to show a peculiarly in-
timate relationship between the pair. It was at last
time for him to act, unless he would abandon all
without a struggle. He scowled darkly by himself,
but when they came up to him made a lame pre-
tense of civility. When Barclay had gone, he took
his daughter aside, and, without any reference to his
real motive, spoke to her earnestly of her health, and
strongly advised her to go at once on a visit to New
York that had been before proposed. He himself
would go with her. Her physicians had recom-
mended it, for the benefit of the change, even if it
should be only a short one. Her inertia was at last
overcome. It is supposable, too, that the absence
168 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
may, for certain reasons, have appealed to the better
judgment of Mrs. Varemberg as desirable. Those
two, accordingly, soon departed.
There came about, however, a friendly correspond-
ence, of a desultory sort, during the separation. It
was sometimes grave, sometimes gay. The little fic-
tion of Paul and Virginia, originated as described,
was further continued. Mrs. Varemberg had a ready
gift in the humorous way with her pencil, and she
drew in the corners of her notes little caricatures, to
which Barclay responded in kind as best he could.
She showed the island, with its palms and plaintains,
always standing in the conventional conservatory
tubs ; Paul as a barefoot little urchin, with a very
wise and knowing look, surrounded by his storks and
turtles ; old Fahnenstock as the faithful negro Do-
mingo ; and Virginia a most demure and innocent lit-
tle maiden in a striped cotton gown. Barclay on the
other hand, in his sketches, endeavored to make her
something of an arrant little coquette.
The thousand miles of distance intervening be-
tween them seemed to make the expression of certain
sentiments easier ; they sometimes wrote more freely
than they had talked.
" I want to say to you," wrote Barclay, " that your
friendship, your intelligent sympathy with my plans,
have been a great assistance and happiness to me. I
do not know what I should have done without you.
I think it has been more your kind encouragement
than anything else that has made me go on."
In one letter he described to her a new plan for a
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 169
pension fund for his workmen that he was endeavor-
ing to put into practice. The fund was to be made
up of a small sum reserved from the earnings of
each week, supplemented by a beneficent provision
arranged by the management. Then, when a man
had completed his labors, he would have something
to take care of him in his old age. " But these are
mere fag ends and side issues," he complained.
" Why am I not thoughtful ? Why do I not make
the grand discovery that will produce for all a robust
and plentiful happiness ? You will think so poorly
of a person who can do no better than this. You
will cross him off your books in disgust."
" Were your achievements greater than those of
Wilberforce, or Adam Smith, or Peter Cooper, I
don't know but I am making a rather mixed cata-
logue," she replied, " I should always like the man
better than the philanthropist. It seems to me al-
ready a great discovery that you have found out how
a master can add to the comfort of individuals under
him But perhaps these are only the simple ideas
of a poor, untutored VIRGINIA."
She wrote him once from New York of meeting
his sisters at a reception.
" They opened on me with quite a fire of questions
about you," she said. " Is it possible that you have
told me more of your affairs than you have them ? I
am, naturally, much flattered at the suggestion. I
was prepared to preserve your confidence as much as
possible, but we were dragged apart by the crowd,
and meantime, if I meet them again, what am I to
tell them ? "
170 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
" Do not tell them anything, too ingenuous Vir-
ginia," he wrote back in alarm. '' The fact is, that
they are of rather an interfering turn. I will tell
them, myself, as much as is for their good, when I
get around to it."
He sent once a rude sketch as of Virginia, in this
new life, surrounded by admirers, who vied for the
honor of holding their respective banana leaves above
her head, while Paul sulked on the island, with his
own trailing idly beside him, and the tortoises and
flamingoes looking on in sympathy at his dejection.
David Lane, in this absence, would have had her
be gay, amused, as different as possible from her
usual self. It would have pleased him to see her
accept the small attentions of new admirers. As to
his own objection to her divorce, to tell the truth, it
would have been by no means insuperable, could he
have been sure that, after her release, she would
marry any other than Paul Barclay. His wish was
but poorly gratified. She was offered dinners, flow-
ers, opera boxes, by old friends and new. " But what
humor am I in for all this ? " she asked. She could
not adapt herself to distractions. Her depression was
increased, too, by some fresh news concerning her
husband from an authentic quarter. Under the im-
mediate influence of this, she poured herself out to
Barclay with a poignant sadness (and yet with an" ef-
fort at self-repression) that wrung his heart.
" I am glad I am not with you, to heap the burden
of my sorrows on you, in my selfish way, even more
heavily," her words ran. " Oh, I was made for hap-
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 171
piness, and cannot reconcile myself to life without it.
I must have been wrong from the first ; why have I
not tried to be good instead of to be happy ? " Thus
she accused herself, she whom he thought the best
of human beings in every thought and impulse. " I
suppose such as I are needed as an example to the
others of the evils of ill-assorted marriage, just as the
helots of Sparta were made drunk and shown to the
patrician youth, as a warning against intemperance."
She had heard that Varemberg had gone some-
times under assumed names, sometimes retaining his
own to Algiers, South Africa, Tonquin, and finally
the Pacific Islands, and carried with him everywhere
his reckless and abandoned courses. She seemed af-
flicted at length with something almost like nostalgia ;
it was evident that her sojourn was doing her no good,
and David Lane, having no excuse for detaining her
away indefinitely, brought her home.
Barclay was privileged to see her almost immedi-
ately on her return. Three days later he saw her again,
under peculiar circumstances. A break had occurred
in the machinery at the factory, and while this was
being repaired he was not in active demand, and set
out, one morning, to gratify a curiosity he had long
felt to penetrate to the interior of the city hall, op-
posite, climb to the dome, a favorite point of view
with strangers, and visit the Golden Justice at
qlose quarters. The mysterious green weather-doors
of the city hall were continually on the swing. They
admitted a motley group of officials, attorneys, hang-
ers-on about all the departments, teachers to see the
172 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
superintendent of schools, citizens to pay or protest
against their taxes, the aldermen with their charac-
teristic air of importance, and, once a month, the
county supervisors, who left their rusty-looking wag-
ons, with rusty buffalo-robes thrown over the seats,
at the curb-stones, all day long ; and this movement
was in progress to-day as usual.
There had been a day and night of successive rain,
hail, thaw, renewed freezing, and then a light snow-
fall. It was one of those occasions when Nature
produces from her simplest materials effects of daz-
zling splendor that surpass Aladdin's cave, or any
fabled bowers of enchantment. The trees, encased
in a panoply of ice to their most infinitesimal twigs,
were woven together in exquisite traceries, as of
crystal, pearl, and silver. A sky of pure, deep blue
stretched overhead a canopy in rich harmony with
the rest. A brief truce had been struck with the
rigors of winter, and the atmosphere was of an al-
most balmy mildness.
Within the square, on the diagonal path crossing
it, Barclay suddenly met Mrs. Varemberg. She, too,
had been drawn forth by the fascination of the morn-
ing, and was taking a short walk for exercise. Bar-
clay involuntarily noted her elegantly simple raiment
of dark cloth, fitted close to her figure, and a small
bonnet of like material, a pompon at the side of which
supplied the only touch of color. She was cut out
sharply against the carpet of snow behind her. The
air and exercise, with perhaps also the excitement of
the unexpected meeting, gave her cheek an unwonted
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 173
color, her spirits an unusual animation. An ex-
traordinary change was already manifest, in the short
interval since her return. It impressed Barclay some-
what as when the light is suddenly kindled in one of
those oriental lanterns that, without illumination, are
dull and opaque. The fountain in the centre of the
square, standing by, frozen in the natural shapes of
its running water, assisted at their conference, like
some afrite out gf a fairy tale, Broken icicles, from
the trees, crackled under Mrs. Varemberg's small
heels. Barclay asked her gallantly,
" Are you the princess who let fall from her lips
showers of brilliants, wherever she moved ? "
" Can you doubt it ? I have been talking to my-
self as I came along," she rejoined, laughing. " But
these are only a poor affair : had I known the prince,
in person, would be abroad this morning, there
should have been some far more worthy of him."
" The prince was about to explore the city hall
and mount to the dome, a point of view much rec-
ommended to novices in the sights of Keewaydin,
I hear. Will you not go up, too, and chatter a little
there, for the benefit of your subjects, and to keep
the Golden Justice in countenance ? It must be
long since you have seen each other."
" I feel quite capable of it on such a glorious morn-
ing, but I think it would hardly do. Besides, I
was on my way to my father's office."
" Then perhaps the prince may go, too, as far as
your father's office."
" No," she objected hesitatingly. " I fear it would
174 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
be rather conspicuous, our walking together in the
public streets. To speak frankly, it is not at all
an agreeable subject to talk about, some unpleas-
ant comments have been made. I heard them even
before I went away. 'They come principally, I be-
lieve, from a Mrs. Rycraft, the pleasure of whose
acquaintance I do not possess/'
Barclay raged inwardly at this evidence of lurking
malice. " But life is too short," he exclaimed, " to
let our conduct be regulated by nonentities and busy-
bodies. They have no rewards to bestow, worth the
having, even if we conform ; not one of them would
step out of his way a hair's breadth for one's real
pleasure or benefit. It is simply that if we do not
conform, their energy is actively devoted to trying
to make us uncomfortable."
' Even a sentiment founded on so unreasonable
a basis, I suppose, ought to be more or less deferred
to," his hearer replied. " ' A man ought to know
how to defy opinion, a woman to submit to it.' It
is the old problem, mooted in Delphine, you know."
" Bah ! " ejaculated Barclay, at first ; but he soon
endeavored to check the expression of his discontent,
for in his heart he knew she was right.
Mrs. Varemberg though this too was perhaps
rather conspicuous let him stroll with her to the
posts at the corner where the path took its exit upon
the public streets.
" How lovely it all is ! " she broke off in a rhap-
sody. " It is as if Nature had powdered her hair, in
the Pompadour fashion. you see I must use femi-
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 175
nine comparisons, and put on all her laces and dia-
monds."
" And you, too, it makes you look so much bet-
ter, so strong and blooming, one almost forgets "
" I will not be told I look ' better,' " she inter-
rupted saucily ; " that implies that at some time I
have not looked well, and no self-respecting princess,
who drops jewels from her lips, will admit that."
"At any rate, I shall always find it difficult here-
after to believe that there is anything really serious
in your illness."
"It is only the coming home," she said more seri-
ously. " It is only a little temporary rally. Even
my exile here somehow seems now preferable to any-
thing else ; the captive hugs her chains. Traveling
tired me ; I seemed to get all 'of its discomforts and
none of its pleasures. You must know I have had
flattering doctors tell me I might even get well, if I
were at peace with myself, at rest within. But that
is a very practical recipe, is it not ? They might as
well recommend me to get to the moon."
" And you wear your life out in this cruel way for
what? It is like the millions spent to maintain the
great standing armies in peace." But he discreetly
checked with this his far-off reference to a form of
relief he had once before proposed to her.
" I am reliably informed," said Mrs. Varemberg,
as they parted, " that you have been a misanthrope
and recluse during my absence. You do not go near
the people who have been polite to you. This will
never do ; I shall be held partly responsible for it.
We must put a stop to it."
176 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
" The reproach shall be no longer deserved ; a
proper consideration for the feelings of Mrs Rycraft
alone demands it," responded Barclay. With that
his charming companion went on, smiling at his sar-
casm, which she did not look upon as severe, while
he disappeared within the echoing, marble corridors
of the city hall.
Its two principal corridors crossed each other at
right angles, and their junction was a rotunda, open
to the dome above, from which it was somewhat too
obscurely lighted. Over the first door encountered
in the rotunda, to the right, was to be read the sign,
" Mayor's Office." Through open doors down the
long halls were seen the officials nonchalantly at
work, or idle. The comptroller came out, in his
shirt-sleeves, with a Budget of vouchers, and entered
the office of the county clerk, for the county, also,
had its share in the costly building. A knot of con-
tractors were gathered about the door of the Board
of Public Works, discussing a disagreeable circum-
stance, and Barclay heard, in passing, some part of
their discourse. It seemed that Keewaydin was a
city that had enacted a prohibition against the in-
crease of its municipal indebtedness beyond a certain
per cent, of its total property valuation, and it had
been suddenly discovered that this limit was already
reached. A paralyzing doubt had been set afloat by
the press, whether further expenditure of any kind
would be lawful till another year's taxes were in.
Ives Wilson now came out of the city attorney's
office, gave Barclay his hand, in his bustling way. and
cheerfully accosted the waiting group.
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 177
" There '11 be no letting of contracts to-day, boys,"
said he. " You may as well go home, and make
yourselves comfortable. I have it from the mayor
and the city attorney ; they '11 tell you themselves
presently. There '& no money in the treasury, and
there is n't going to be any, so you '11 have to get
your healths without it." He seemed to have a fa-
miliar acquaintance with all these men, Irish, Ger-
man, or American, as the case might be, and to be
as much at home in this stratum of society as any
other.
" But we heard that Lane, or Jim DeBow, or some
o' them rich fellers, would put up the money till the
next taxes was in," said the German contractor, Klau-
serman, eagerly.
" So they have. David Lane offered to do it, but
Jim DeBow got in ahead of him. But that is to be
used for necessary expenses ; without it we might
have had to turn off the gas and water, discharge the
police, and shut up the public schools. There 's
no telling whether he '11 ever get his money back,
either.''
" It 's yeer paper, so it was, that sprung it on us,
and made all the hullabaloo ! " cried one Donlan, em-
phatically. " If yez had left it alone, nobody would
have known the limit was up."
" Of course it was," assented the journalist glee-
fully. " When you want the news, come to the In-
dex. The rest of them will give you your ancient
history and dead languages. The Index deals in facts
of the present day."
ITS THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
" Stop my paper, ye divil ! " said Donlan, a con-
tractor of leading importance.
'" We could n't think of it, John. We would n't
let you do yourself a damage you 'd never recover
from."
The circle, though indignant, remained perhaps but
the more imbued with the mysterious reverence with
which the common mind invests the newspaper pro-
fession. Ives Wilson and his Index which were,
besides, clearly in the right of it in the present
case were by uo means to be judged by common
rules.
Barclay had sent to the janitor for the key, but
now learned that it was already in use. It had been
taken by some other visitors, who had preceded him
to the dome. He set out, therefore, on his climb up
the broad, principal iron staircase. He reached first
the story of the handsome council chamber, the county
court, where one Moses Levy was on trial for the
firing of his store, to get the insurance money ; and
the circuit court of coordinate jurisdiction, where a
recess was being taken to procure the attendance of
a witness. He had to ascend next a narrower, more
winding staircase. He passed through a great attic,
where the ribs and braces of the construction plainly
showed, and, opening, finally, a small door, stepped
out into a sudden glare of light, and to a narrow bal-
cony and promenade extending around the dome.
When he had recovered his eyesight and taken his
bearings a little, he was disappointed to find himself
still so far remote from the Golden Justice. He had
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 179
not been able to estimate its height while climbing,
and this level, to which the general public were re-
stricted, was at a long remove even from the lowest
part of her pedestal. He looked down at the view,
and again upward to catch some clearer glimpse of
the details of the figure. Passing slowly round the
promenade in this way, he came upon a figure lean-
ing on the railing, with that musing air that a balcony
tends to impart, and recognized, with a start, David
Lane.
But the elder man was far more startled than he,
and wore almost a detected, guilty air. Barclay had
never seen him quite thus before. His presence here
was extraordinary ; a person of his sort would by no
means be expected to bring up hither the weight of
his age and infirmities, and at such a season of the
year, for his own pleasure. Yet strange as it was,
the wonderment of Barclay was not so extreme as to
give it its impressiveness ; it was the trouble in his
own conscience.
They two were alone on the dome, with but small
probability of being interrupted. David Lane aimed
to recover his usual composure, but, even when he
had done so, to reassume his late churlishness was
out of the question.
" I had some business with the mayor on this finan-
cial imbroglio, and when that was over the notion
took me, for once in a way, to come up here, for
for the benefit of the exercise. I am not beyond the
need of a bit of exercise yet," he explained.
It was thus he endeavored to disguise the prompt-
180 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
ings of an uneasy mind that sometimes drew him to
the place, as the murderer is drawn to revisit the
scene of his crime. He had been, too, if Barclay
did but know it, to a very much higher level than this
at which they now stood ; he had climbed by a steep
and recondite way, with many a gasp and breathing
spell, to see that the lower fastenings of the Golden
Justice were still secure.
" The financial difficulty you speak of has inter-
ested me very much," said Barclay affably, puzzled
by, yet trying to ignore, the apparent confusion of
the other. . " I have come to realize, I think for the
first time, that there may be over-sanguine, improv-
ident, bankrupt cities as well as people."
" Yes, there are many of them in the West, and I
believe they are not unknown in the East. There is
a notable instance in this vicinity of a town so mort-
gaged to railroads (that have never been built, by
the way) that it has for years been subject to be sold
out under the hammer, only no legal body could be
found to serve the papers on. As soon as there is
any move of the sort the city council disbands, or
holds its meetings in hiding."
"And was it some flagrant piece of corruption
that caused Keewaydin to adopt its present provi-
sion ? "
" No, it was mainly a piece of prudent forethought,
derived from the experience of others. I do not
think Keewaydin has ever been a very corrupt place.
The many rival elements keep too strict a watch on
each other for that. We have our talk of 'rings,'
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 181
and ' bosses,' it is true, but I sometimes fancy our pa-
pers only borrow the terms with a certain pride, to
give us a metropolitan air."
They were now looking down on the city, and they
exchanged some few comments about it. Its masses
looked smaller than usual, reduced to their lowest
terms, as it were, by being cut out against the inter-
spaces of snow. The telegraph wires connected all
parts of it together, like the exposed nerves of some
living organism. From the white streets the faint
jingle of sleigh-bells came up to them ; on the after-
noon of such a day all the world would be on run-
ners. Barclay could contemplate his own lodging
in the square below ; at a distance could be discerned
the chimneys of his factory, and David Lane's house
at a distance. The mysterious lake spread its ex-
panse afar, with here and there some bank of mist or
low-lying cloud, out of which came an occasional
twinkle of the ice, as if some celestial lance had been
splintered there.
" And you," said David Lane, " what brings you
up so high, if one may ask ? "
" This view, which alone repays one, but still
more, to speak frankly, the Golden Justice. She
has allured me from a distance, and I had just been
saying to myself, when I met you, how disappointed
I was not to find myself nearer ; I had hoped to come
out at her very foot."
Oh, fatality! to see the Golden Justice? Alas,
that he should be met with here on such an errand !
" This is as high as one can get," said David Lane
182 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
coldly. ' A special permit is needed to go further,
and even that is of no avail. It is a painful climb,
and there is no egress but by a trap-door ; nor any
means of approaching the statue itself, after that, un-
less one should use a scaling ladder."
No one knew better than he whereof he spoke.
" And why has the Golden Justice allured you ? "
he went on to ask.
" I have an eye for the decorative, and she ap-
pealed to me as a pleasing object, shining so golden
yellow against her field of deep blue ; but when I
heard that the features were those of Mrs. Varem-
berg I found my interest at last fully accounted for."
Barclay was not averse to bringing on an explana-
tion of the anomalous condition of affairs, since the
time and circumstances were favorable for it. David
Lane seemed to incline in the same direction.
"Mrs. Varemberg still much occupies your thoughts,
then ? " he asked, gravely attentive.
" You know how much she once occupied them.
Well, all that is past and gone ; destiny was opposed
to it, and, with time, my views have changed. Since
she honors me with her friendship, I trust there is
nothing in what has passed to make me withhold
from her the tribute of my most respectful esteem,
admiration, and sympathy, and my desire to be of
service to her in any possible way."
Barclay dwelt with emphasis on the high-minded,
disinterested character of his regard, hoping to vin-
dicate himself from suspicions that he sometimes
thought might be at the bottom of the opposition of
THE U OLD EN JUSTICE. 183
David Lane. Possibly the latter knew him better
than, at this time, he knew himself.
"Yes, the features are those of my daughter Flor-
ence," said the ex-governor. " We did not know,
aiid were not wholly pleased with the resemblance at
first ; it was the artist's eccentric way of paying us a
compliment." He answered soberly, but not resent-
fully. He was in fact in a sort of daze, and made
no offer to continue the conversation. An awkward
pause ensued.
Barclay looked up again at the huge bulk of the
figure, from the drapery of which broad reflections
glinted down into their eyes.
" It seems she was utilized somewhat like a corner-
stone," said he, in the most cursory way. " I have
been told that documents were sealed up in her."
Lane was as if thunderstruck. He fell to trem-
bling, with an agitation such as even he had rarely
known, and to hide it he altered his position, moving
a little further along the railing.
"It is a curious instance; I don't know that I
ever heard of one before," pursued Barclay, in the
same easy tone. " It seems reserved for Keewaydin
to do original things, in a number of ways. The
whole matter of deposits in corner-stones sometimes
impresses one curiously. We leave dispatch-boxes,
as it were, along the roadside, to be opened by those
who come after us, to give them news of us and our
times. It is a little odd, however, considering all the
corner-stones that are dedicated, how rarely you hear
of one being opened. Is it because it is too soon
184 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
yet for our buildings to have begun to tumble down,
flimsy though so many of them are? Or is there
really no interest in the contents, these being so very
trite when reached ? "
"No doubt it is due to the comparative unimpor-
tance of the matters generally on deposit," replied
David Lane, in a voice scarcely audible, struggling
manfully to retain the mastery of himself.
" It would be more considerate, though, if one gen-
eration would arrange little surprises for the next.
What was it, for instance, you put into the Golden
Justice ? "
Oh, fatality I fatality ! Was it not enough that
this young man, of all others in the world, should
have found them out in Europe, and become a suitor
for his daughter's hand? Was it not enough that
avoidance of this should have precipitated such la-
mentable unhappiness? No, he must follow them
here, establish himself in the place, even interest
himself in the statue, mount to the dome, and be met
with to-day under its very aegis. Nor this alone ; for
now at last, with an unconsciousness that but made it
the more startling, he must put the finger of specula-
tion on the very box and'its contents, on the confes-
sion itself. To what but one fatal result could all
this concentration of events, all these successive ap-
proaches, this remorseless narrowing of the circle, be
tending ? The utmost efforts had availed to hinder
no single step of its progress.
" It was very long ago," replied David Lane. " At
this distance of time it is not easy to remember,
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 185
reports, statistics, the newspapers, I suppose ; they
could hardly have been anything of great moment."
"Alfsen, an old weather-prophet in my vicinity,
the other day predicted that the Golden Justice would
come down, and I should see the deposit scattered
about my feet. I shall naturally be on the lookout
for it with interest."
" He predicts that the Golden Justice will fall ? "
repeated the elder man in horror. He involuntarily
cast another glance up at the mammoth, figure tower-
ing above them. She was certainly secure enough
at present.
" Oh, a piece of garrulous nonsense. He keeps
up some old grudge for not having been allowed to
do all the work he wanted to on the city hall. Even
prophecy, it appears, cannot free itself from the bias
of personal motives."
David Lane made something like a half circuit of
the short promenade, then turned back upon his
track, with a very altered bearing : as well as one
so much troubled in mind and so reserved by recent
habit could do so, he assumed towards the young man
an open and friendly demeanor.
" I am glad to have met you here," he began.
"This situation, apart by ourselves, and free from
danger of interruption, gives me almost my first op-
portunity of welcoming you to the place. I seem to
have seen far too little of you since your arrival. I
trust it is not too late to express the real interest I
feel in you and your affairs, and to ask if there is
any way in which I can be of service."
186 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
'* I confess I had sometimes thought your feelings
towards me were quite of an opposite sort," returned
Barclay, much surprised.
"Oh, no; why should you think so? Why should
it be so? You are a young man, and I an old one.
I have many cares and troubles, and perhaps, some-
times, an unfortunate manner."
Had Barclay desired to justify his opinion, he
would have cited the rejection of his suit, together
with a long course of marked coldness. But of what
avail? And what warrant had he, after all, for
questioning a father's disposition of his daughter's
hand, in the supposed interest of her happiness, even
by means of a certain subterfuge ? To re-open the
subject, furthermore, he feared might arouse distrust
anew, and defeat the greater freedom of action that
seemed promised him.
" Will you tell me about your enterprise and your
present prospects ? " asked David Lane.
Barclay, thus encouraged, proceeded to give a
brief, orderly account of the whole, from the first.
This statement added to Lane's sense of an inevita-
ble fatality pursuing him. The investment was one
such as might have commended itself to the judgment
of any shrewd cool-headed man of business. It was
no mere pretext for remaining, and the circumstances
were such that, given Barclay's peculiar requirements,
it would have been almost reprehensible not to have
entered into it
They descended the stairs together. Lane offered
Barclay his hand, at parting, with a cordiality in
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 187
which, however, was mingled an indescribable shrink-
ing. He wished him to come and dine, but it hap-
pened that day that Barclay could not. Thereafter,
for a considerable time, it was not alone Mrs. Va-
remberg's invitations and friendly offices he accepted,
but her father's as well. The two men were seen
amicably together on the street and on 'Change, and
the wise business head of David Lane offered coun-
sels that even brought profit to the Stamped-Ware
Works.
And what did it all mean ? Why, simply this :
when the hapless Montezuma knew that the invading
Spaniards, the Children of the Sun, destined to be
the destroyers of himself and his people, had landed
on his coasts, he sent costly presents, to endeavor to
turn them aside from their march to his capital. So
David Lane haplessly aimed to propitiate the mes-
senger by means of whom Destiny seemed stretching
forth a long arm for his destruction. It was not that
he was more reconciled to his fate than before, or
saw clearly, as yet, the means of its accomplish-
ment ; but in the mood in which he found himself for
the time being, further struggle, further resistance,
seemed useless.
IX.
A WINSOME APPARITION.
THE retirement in which Mrs. Varemberg lived
had no doubt contributed to keep the full measure of
her intimacy with Barclay from the public observa-
tion. It took place at her father's house, under the
eye of her father and aunt, and could not be charged
with impropriety. The intrusive tongue of gossip
began at last to wag, however, and Barclay, in a
punctilious devotion to the interests of his friend,
thought best to take cognizance of it. He would
have been sorry, furthermore, to have really deserved
the reproach of ingratitude for the courtesies that
had been shown him in the place ; and so, on many
accounts and in spite of the improved opportunity
open to him by the allayed opposition of David Lane,
he for a while saw considerably less of Mrs. Varem-
berg and more of general society.
The snow, at Keewaydin, lay white and firm on the
ground for many months, and, instead of an enemy,
was made to be an ally and friend in all the daily af-
fairs of life. There was coasting down the long, steep
streets, followed by dancing and suppers, in which
some elderly persons of prominence, as well as the
young, took part. Barclay did not hold himself above
this diversion. He joined more than once the merry
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 189
procession of sleigh-riders on Grand Avenue. He.
went by invitation, to a session of the young women's
Saturday Morning Club, and finally he even selected
a partner to accompany him to that most brilliant so-
cial event of the winter, the annual Charity Ball.
The choice of this partner was determined by an
incident at the Saturday Morning Club. He was one
of a few masculine visitors admitted to these favored
precincts on some rare occasons, as that of a lecture
or the like. Justine DeBow was there, among the
others. She was seized with a sudden dizziness.
Barclay happened to be beside her, and aided her.
It was held by some that this fainting was but as-
sumed, on the part of Miss DeBow, to draw attention
to herself and monopolize the services of the admired
guest of the occasion, and several others wished they
had bethought them of the same opportune device.
The elfish Miss Shadwell, with a face like a withered
apple, found opportunity to approach him about Jus-
tine. She would have liked to do so about Mrs.
Varemberg, also, but that she felt compelled to re-
serve to another time.
" We all like and admire Justine so much," she
said. " She has only one drawback."
" And what is that ? "
" You never see her mother."
" I have not observed that American mothers are
ever unnecessarily visible," he returned, wondering to
what this tended.
" Oh, yes, I know they are a retiring class, who
think it is not their bright eyes visitors come to see ;
190 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
but this is something different. DeBow, when quite
young, married a very common, ungrammatical sort
of a person, a servant in a hotel, in fact. They
say he was captivated by her good looks, but she has
bravely got over them. They keep her discreetly in
the background, under pretense that "
" I do not find it an interesting subject ! " exclaimed
Barclay impatiently.
" Oh, people do not snap me up," said Miss Shad-
well ; " It 's of no use. I say things, you know :
others think them."
But her hearer had already turned away, as ab-
ruptly as might be without marked rudeness.
This, then, was one cause of the reserve and dig-
nified little airs assumed by Justine DeBow. Her
hauteur was but a manifestation of sensitiveness, a
species of defensive armor. He construed it quite
as favorably as it probably deserved, and it added a
touch of interest to her case. Largely in protest
against her spiteful little assailant, yielding to a quix-
otic impulse of the moment, he begged her to be his
companion at the coming Charity Ball.
When the evening of the ball arrived, he called
for her towards nine o'clock, in a carriage of his
own providing, after the custom of the place. They
had no chaperon, and they might return at whatever
hour they would in the same simple fashion. He
waited for her in the parlor, while she above put
some finishing touches to a much more elaborate
toilette than usual. Good Mrs. DeBow took this
occasion to come in and greet him. She entered in
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 191
a diffident way, making a pretext of seeing that an-
other gas-burner was lighted ; then sat down on the
edge of a chair and talked to him. She had heard
his inquiries after her at various times, and felt within
herself that he was one who appreciated her. She
had said to her daughter more than once that he was
a real gentleman, and not a mere imitation, like so
many who came there. She was by no- means con-
vinced in her own mind that her discourse was wor-
thy of the severe repression with which it was cus-
tomarily visited in the house. It was at present full
of solecisms, but there was also an attempt in her
manner at an elegant formality, of which Justine's
was a curious echo.
This conversation was in full progress when Jus-
tine came down. Her brow grew dark at the sight ;
she knew what naturally must have happened. Tears
of mortification sprang to her eyes. At the front
door she wavered, seeking if there, were not some
pretext on which she could refuse to set forth, but it
was too late to retreat.
Barclay saw this, in spite of himself, and did his
utmost to reassure her. He employed a peculiar
fineness of manner, neither too easy nor formal. He
appeared neither to overlook the circumstance by
which she was troubled, nor to be impressed by it.
You would have said he had never talked to mothers
who comported themselves any differently.
" Ah," thought the girl with gratitude, " he does
not mind it."
This unusual beginning of the evening no doubt
192 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
had its influence on the whole course of it ; there
seemed a certain need of continuing the same air of
reassurance and devotion. Two persons looked on
at this with unquiet minds. The one was Lieutenant
Gregg, who had long been enamored of Justine. A
fierce displeasure afflicted the excellent officer at the
appearance of so good an understanding between the
couple. The other was Mrs. Varemberg, who a
thing highly unusual for her had come to the ball,
to remain a short time as a spectator. When Bar-
clay went to pay his respects to her, in the box where
she sat with her father, she received him but coldly.
She resented his slowness in coming, and also what
she deemed his whole neglect of her of late, based
though this was, as we have seen, upon his prudent
regard for her own fair fame. Is it, then, credible
that jealousy, some trace of which perhaps lurks,
tiger-like, in even the softest of feminine breasts, had
sprung up in that of Mrs. Varemberg, she who had
no worldly future, no warrant to her own freedom,
nor right to be the slightest check upon that of any
other ? Alas, what new calamity did this dangerous
feeling portend? She resolved, as soon as she was
sensible of it, that she would tear it from her heart ;
it should have no real foothold there. She pleaded
an indisposition, and very soon withdrew.
Thenceforth, for some time, she adopted a new role
of conduct, a stricter seclusion than before, and de-
nied herself even to Barclay as well as the others.
Her father, witnessing with astonishment this repulse
of Barclay, felt for the first time something like posi-
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 193
tive cheerfulness. The bugbear that had so dismayed
him seemed, after all, to have no real existence ; the
alarming friendship had fallen to pieces of its own
accord, by its own weight.
Barclay marveled, during this time, that Mrs. Var-
emberg should be moved to carry his own purpose to
so much greater an extreme ; but he was used to con-
struing her favorably, and, if his glance, in their rare
meetings, sought hers in involuntary questioning, he
made no open question of her conduct. In his eyes
whatever she did was right. He was first apprised
of the embittered state of mind of Lieutenant Gregg
through some quite offensive conduct towards him, on
the lieutenant's part, at that ambitious social organ-
ization, an imitation of prototypes in larger cities,
the Keewaydin Club.
It was thus, among other things, that Barclay came
to know that he could not apply in person to Gregg
for. aid in the case of William Alfsen.
The unpleasantness was finally settled through the
good offices of Ives Wilson.
Such misconception of Barclay's small courtesies
to Justine DeBow was absurd. Nevertheless, he de-
termined to give no further occasion for it. As he
seemed to have made so bad a business of his at-
tempt to show local society a proper recognition of its
favors, he turned away from it all with a new in-
difference, and gaVe to his factory a yet more com-
plete attention.
The lieutenant was now left the clearest possible
field in the quarter to which his aspirations extended.
1)4 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
Miss Justine DeBow, however, put her own construc-
tion upon what she deemed Barclay's avoidance of
her. It was not long before she approached her
mother, and in a painful scene one of not unusual
occurrence in that household said to her:
" It was because you went into the parlor, and he
heard you talk, that he stays away. He is not used
to it ; he will never come here any more."
" I know I ought not to have done it. I will not
disgrace you again," returned the mother, accepting
the charge with a full measure of abject humility.
"I I did not mean that," said the daughter, a
little staggered herself at this way of putting it.
" But oh, why would you not learn, when I tried so
hard with you ? " and she broke into hysterical sobs,
" Not to use long words, and not to say ' I done it '
and ' I seen it ' and ' them are,' and and just a
few others," thus she summed up the educational
system with which she had sought to alleviate her
chagrin.
" Don't cry so, deary. I will try, I will try,"
protested her listener, who, fair enough though she
was in the other relations of life, an especially tender
mother, and a person, too, of a certain good judg-
ment, was so obtuse in her faculties through early
neglect of them as never to have been able to master
even the simple educational system outlined above.
Her husband had undertaken it with a will shortly
after his imprudent marriage, and so had her children
in turn as they arrived at years to be mortified by it,
but all alike had proved in vain.
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 195
New Year's Day one of the old-fashioned sort
soon arrived. The custom of making calls, since
fallen into abeyance, was kept up at Keewaydin with
great spirit. To call was almost a religious obser-
vance. The streets were gayly alive all day with
sleigh-loads of men, in couples and quartettes, going
to and from the houses of friends, each priding him-
self on filling the largest list. Nor was it the young
alone who ventured forth ; there were elderly bach-
elors in the concourse ; husbands, growing lax about-
social observances, were laughingly driven out by
their helpmeets from their comfortable firesides ; and
even urchins, arrayed in their best, began a society
career by making their dancing-school bows in the
parlors of friends of the family.
Barclay counted on finding Mrs. Varemberg at
home on that day, if on no other ; and so it proved.
Her father's house was open, as became his position,
but without parade, and it was she who had mainly to
do the honors of hospitality. When Barclay arrived,
she sat, in reverie, before a wood fire, in a temporary
lull of the calling. It was between daylight and
dark, and the lamps were not yet lighted ; the short
winter afternoon had yet been further shortened by a
lowering sky, and snow-flakes were beginning to whirl
coldly down. The thick, soft carpet gave so little
response to the step of the visitor that he was beside
her before she knew it.
" What do you see in the fire ? " he asked, after
he had touched, in an easy way, on some of the
events of the day. " That is a question always in
196 TEE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
order when one is discovered looking so fixedly at
it."
" I see you there, among other things."
" I trust I have not been tried in your crucible and
found wanting ? "
" That remains to be ascertained. I was thinking
that I was rather tired of seclusion, and had perhaps
been overdoing it, and that I might send for you, if
you did not happen in. Would you have come, if I
had ? "
" Oh, no ; of course nothing would have induced
me to," he replied, seating himself beside her. " But
now that it is proper to speak of it, I don't quite un-
derstand what it was all about. "We have scarcely
met long enough to exchange two words since the
Charity Ball."
" We can stand so little pleasure, in this life, that
we have to make up for it by long periods of depres-
sion afterwards."
" I should hardly have thought the ecstasy of a
Keewaydin Charity Ball so great as that."
"Well, then, it was one of my moods, that is
all : you must know I have them sometimes ? "
And this was all the explanation given till a
long time after. She had fought the battle out with
herself, and determined to throw open her doors
again, and reap from this friendship, which filled so
important a place in her life, whatever solace it was
capable of affording, while it was still vouchsafed to
her. She talked now of friendship ; made a theory,
as people are given to doing, to strengthen them-
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 197
selves in insecure positions, that friendship was the
greatest good, and quite sufficient for human happi-
ness without any admixture of the warmer sentiment.
" The quiet stars alone," she said, using this as a
comparison, " supply a great part of the heat of our
globe."
" They raise its temperature from nothing at all
to one hundred degrees below zero, and the sun does
the rest ; but few of us would care to remain perma-
nently even at one hundred below zero," Barclay re-
turned, promptly. " I have read the same scientific
article, you see."
Now, too, that Mrs. Varemberg had reached this
new position, it was shown almost immediately how
baseless and fantastic the one she abandoned had
been.
Barclay soon came, in the course of talk, to the
case of William Alfsen. He told her of his desire to
get him a place on the revenue cutter.
"Why do you not ask Lieutenant Gregg? " she
inquired.
" My hated rival ? No, indeed ; that would never
do."
" You and Lieutenant Gregg rivals ? And on
what subject ? "
" It seems to have been supposed to be for the fa-
vor of the fascinating Justine DeBow."
" How interesting ! " exclaimed Mrs. Varemberg,
but her countenance fell, in spite of herself. It
brightened again remarkably, however, when she
heard from him a full account of this little episode.
198 TUK GOLltEX JUSTICE.
" To show that I have not the least design in the
world against his peace of mind," went on Barclay,
" I have let his sweetheart, with society in general,
perhaps somewhat brusquely alone. Still, there may
be a lurking acrimony on his part, and I am not the
one to beg him to do anybody favors."
"And there was really nothing in it? What with
your eye for good looks and your interest in situ-
ations out of the common, how could one tell that
your intentions were not serious?"
" Was it likely ? " he responded : " I am devoted
to to eternal celibacy, like the Rev. Edward
Brockston."
" Then, let me take charge of the application in
Alfsea's favor," she suggested with alacrity. " I will
speak to Lieutenant Gregg about it at the first oppor-
tunity. Perhaps he will do what you want, on my
recommendation."
Upon this a new-comer entered, no less a per-
son than Schwartzmann, the designer of the Golden
Justice, who had come home for a visit, after a long
absence in Europe. There was an exhibition of his
works at present, at Fogle& Stein's, the leading mu-
sic and stationery store of the place. Schwartzmann
showed something of his profession in his looks. He
had a high, narrow forehead, bushy brows, and
meagre, bristling beard ; his clothes were openly of
the ready-made sort, and he wore them carelessly.
There was a trace in his manners of the rudeness of
the lower stratum from which he had sprung, yet this
was far more than balanced by the refinement of his
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 199
ideas, helped by familiar association with refined peo-
ple. He was a bright, intelligent man, with the as-
sured briskness and confidence of a successful one.
He was very buoyant and gay in his talk about mat-
ters of art, his own life abroad. Barclay, on going
away, left him there.
Lieutenant Gregg came in, later in the day, and
Mrs. Varemberg approached him on the subject of
which she had assumed charge. He promised it, in
fact, his most favorable consideration.
A brief period, of a new sort, now began for our
couple. David Lane no longer opposed ; they had
laid at rest their scruples of conscience, persuading
themselves by one sophistical argument or another of
the rectitude of their intentions ; there seemed never
to have been a better understanding between them,
never a calmer, more satisfying, more thorough
friendship, and friendship alone.
They planned together new devices for the factory.
Mrs. Varemberg manifested a keen desire to be made
of use, a touching eagerness to put herself under di-
rection, that she might be utilized for any worthy end.
On one occasion she brought down a collection of
valuable trinkets she had. Barclay facetiously dubbed
these the Crown Jewels, as if she were some beauti-
ful and hapless princess in exile ; and he sat on an
ottoman at her feet, while she handed out to him in
turn these trophies of her days of earlier youth, and
of hope and happiness at a brilliant foreign court.
Again, they joined the sleigh-riders on Grand Ave-
nue. Barclay wore a seal-skin cap, pulled low down
200 TIIE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
aver his ears ; his companion, well wrapped in furs,
with a bird's wing standing straight up in her hat,
sometimes held her muff before her face, roseate from
the tingle of the keen air. They went slowly up the
right hand of the broad avenue, and then came flying
down the left at headlong speed, in company with
others, as many as four abreast, while clods of snow
spurned gayly backward from the heels of their
horses.
Mrs. Varemberg was a person of changeable moods,
and by no means to be depended upon for unvarying
uniformity. In her present contentment at the un-
wonted appreciation and companionship she enjoyed,
she sometimes surprised Barclay by an exhibition of
a child-like amenability to his influence, an almost
Griselda-like meekness. It was a pathetic testimony
to her hard usage to the chilling rebuffs with which
her naturally affectionate nature had been met. It
afforded, too, a glimpse into that mysterious trait of
feminine character which finds it a sort of luxury to
be dominated over, and even to be thwarted, by one
it loves. She would express, after some simple oc-
casion, perhaps his merely having dined with them
en famille, in the most uneventful way, a pleasure
out of all proportion to the event.
" But why ? but how ? " once queried Barclay, puz-
zled. " Nothing remarkable happened."
" It is not necessary for remarkable things to hap-
pen. I have not been maltreated, I have not been
beaten ; that is all."
After some random critical remarks of his, in a
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 201
gay discussion on furnishing, he was astonished, on
his next visit, to find the position of some important
articles, a leading picture, and even the arrangement
of an entire room quite altered.
" I shall be afraid to open my mouth next," he
protested, in whimsical expostulation. " What right
have I to interfere with your surroundings, or put you
to any trouble whatever ? "
" I like to please you " she said ; and there was a
thorough-going completeness in this abject submis-
sion and a cooing gentleness in the tones of her voice
that made his heart beat high with a mysterious joy
and trouble. What might not these peculiar marks
of favor be construed to mean ?
" Perhaps you would enjoy being beaten, after
all ? " he said.
" Perhaps I would," she replied sweetly.
But this mood was as brief as it was phenomenal ;
however she may have still adhered to it in spirit, it
was far too tame to comport with such self-assertion
and charming bold caprice as were naturally hers.
In their talk Mrs. Varemberg was much the more
animated, and contributed the greater share of it.
" It is a dangerous trait in you," she would say to
him, " that you are so good a listener."
But when her spirits were down, she had her si-
lent moods, also. She was known to fade away so
completely into the region of her own griefs and
fancies that it was impossible to recall her from it,
and her friend could only withdraw, and leave her to
the restorative influence of time. Sometimes, under
202 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
less depression than this, she would try to have him
talk uninterruptedly which was a difficult thing
for him to do for her distraction. One day she
insisted, in such fashion, with a ray of humor in it,
that he should tell her some long story from his
travels, to relieve her ennui.
" But you have heard all about my travels already ;
I can think of nothing further," he demurred. " And
you yourself are quite capable of talking to-day."
" Once when I was in the Sandwich Islands," she
threw out, as if quoting in advance the opening sen-
tence of his narrative.
"But I tell you"
" Once when I was in the Sandwich Islands," she
persisted inexorably.
" Have you any particular reason for selecting the
Sandwich Islands ? " he asked, struck by a startling
recollection.
" I select them quite at random, but that is no
reason why" she answered with an imitation of
capricious tyranny.
" Then, by heaven ! " cried Barclay excitedly,
" once when I was in the Sandwich Islands I saw
your husband there. It was Varemberg, as sure as
I 'm alive. It must have been. I know it was."
" What do you mean ? " demanded his auditor,
aghast. She had no trace of ennui, either real or
pretended, now.
" It all comes back to me. I did not know at the
time he was in that part of the world, or even that
there was any rupture between you. I do not know
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 203
why I did not think of this the other day, when you
told me of his having been heard of in the South
Seas."
" Tell me all that you saw and know."
" I went into a court, to see something of the ad-
ministration of justice in those latitudes. I observed
it was in the prisoner's dock a man bearing a
singular resemblance to Varemberg."
" Oh ! could it have been ? Did you speak to
him ? Did you identify him ? "
" Not by name, certainly. I asked the by-standers
about him and his case. They returned a different
name, one I had never heard of. I thought it but
one of those coincidences that are so common. I
sometimes think we are all cut out only upon a
dozen patterns, or so, and everywhere you go you
find people who closely resemble those you have left
behind. But now all hangs together. The offense
for which he was on trial exactly corresponds with
what you have told me of his violent character. And
then, certain peculiarities of his manner, his sharp
glance, yes, I could not have been mistaken; it
was he."
" What had he done ? " asked the unfortunate
wife, trembling.
" He was accused of killing one of the coolies who
had worked for him on a sugar plantation."
" And was he convicted ? "
" No, I afterwards heard he was not. One poor
cooly was not of much consequence, after all ; and the
defense was mutiny and self-preservation, though
L'<>4 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
it was alleged, on the other hand, that the disturl>-
ance or uprising was due to intolerable cruelty on the
part of the master."
" How long ago was all this ? "
"Just before I left for San Francisco; a bare six
weeks, say, before my arrival here."
Mrs. Varemberg gave a convulsive shudder.
" Ah," she said, " if he was so near, it was but a
step for him to San Francisco, and what is to pre-
vent his coming here ? "
" He would never dare ! " and Barclay started to
his feet, his eye blazing indignation. " No, it is im-
possible."
He had not thought of it in that light. He saw
that his story had alarmed her. Distressed at her
agitation, he endeavored to repair the effects of what
he deemed his imprudence. His surprise at the
strange coincidence had inadvertently betrayed him
into it. He pretended that he might, after all, have
been mistaken. But it was too late. The story had
made a deep impression on its hearer. It accented
also the bondage, sometimes half forgotten, that held
her, and the irreparable distance fixed between her
and others. It was a warning of personal danger to
Barclay, too, like the discovery by Crusoe of the first
foot-print on the sands, and, as with Crusoe's foot-
print, it was long before uneasiness from this source
was allayed.
Even with the utmost allowance for mental blind-
ness and for good intentions, it is evident that such
a situation as that between the pair could not last.
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 205
The days went by, and their awakening from their
self-imposed delusion rapidly approached.
Barclay made many a furtive study of the looks of
his companion, and, though she could certainly not
have been much better, was surprised to find himself
thinking of her but little as an invalid. There were
certain aspects of her appearance now it was a
poise of the head, now the curves of her eyebrows
and lids which he would say to himself, when
alone, were too perfect to be real ; but on going back
to see them again he would find, to his astonishment,
that the fact far surpassed his recollection. He had
some singular moments, in looking at her, when she
seemed to swim before him in a sort of luminous
haze. It had a magnetic quality ; it emanated from
her eyes, and was full of the sweetness of her glance
and her smile, and he could not see her quite clearly.
He would draw forth some small treasures, of her
personal belonging, that he possessed, and sit in
reverie or rapture before them, quite in the usual
lover-like way. These were a glove, a bit of lace
from her gown, a card on which she had scribbled
some words, a faded rose, the common trumpery
paraphernalia.
What! to reverence such treasures, and yet re-
main only a friend?
" Yes," he made answer, in specious sophistry ;
" all such homage need not be given over to the
lover alone. The warm friend, too, may start at the
opening door, tremble at seeing a dear presence afar,
watch for a window light, turn pale and red at the
206 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
receipt of a letter, at the little touch of a hand, or
even at the tones of a voice."
The thoughts of Mrs. Varemberg, on the other
hand, were forever hovering about Barclay. His
interests were almost the only ones that occupied
her ; he filled her long musings by day, her dreams
at night. It was his very merits that constituted his
baneful influence ; it was not because he was bad,
but because he was good, that he was secretly draw-
ing her away from allegiance to her most firmly set-
tled convictions. She was forever making idle con-
trasts.
" Why could it not have been ? " she said, bemoan-
ing her fate. " With him, I should have had a ca-
reer ; I should have been a useful being in the world,
and not the poor, forlorn creature I am."
Through all this she kept an inexorable watch
upon her tongue ; she meant to let fall no word that
might betray her state of feeling. One afternoon in
the late winter, when there was a new premonition
of snow in the soft, calm air, some errand took her
to the South Side of the town. She passed Barclay's
factory at a distance, on the way, and she said to
herself that she felt a certain joy to be even so near
to him as that, though she did not see him. A deft
artistic hand might have drawn the Polish settle-
ment, as it appeared to her in its winter dress, in a
few lines and washes of gray and sepia, on a bit of
white paper. At the church, with its twin towers
and domes of shining tin, a festival was evidently
being made ready for the ensuing Sunday: a large
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 207
quantity of carpets, painted images, and tall vases
with paper flowers were being conveyed in ; the en-
trance doors were wide open, and the sexton and a
number of assistants were busy about the altar. Mrs.
Varemberg recollected that this church had been
recommended by Barclay as one of the minor curios-
ities discovered in his search for the unusual ; and
the notion took her, in passing, to enter it. Silken
banners of benevolent societies were planted by the
chancel rail, and on the walls were a few eikons, or
sacred pictures, the face and hands sunk into a gilded
ground, while the rest was painted on the surface,
nothing of any real importance, but only interesting
because they had interested him. Fatigued, this un-
usual visitor sat down in one of the front pews ; pres-
ently she half knelt, and remained a considerable
time with her face buried in her hands. She was
aroused by finding Paul Barclay standing beside her.
" I was driving by," he said, " and could not very
well avoid recognizing your sleigh, with your man
waiting on the box, so I came in on the chance of .
finding you. Have you gone over to the Polish form
of worship ? "
" Do not taunt me with my unreasonableness ; if
you once begin, you will never stop. I do not know
but I have been trying to pray."
" St. Jude's would have been nearer for the pur-
pose, and it is rather more affected by your friends."
" Any temple is good enough for a petition that
will not and probably ought not to be granted."
" Will you tell me what you have prayed about ? "
'JOS THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
" Oh, general wretchedness," she answered, at first
evasively; then, looking at him directly, and as if
under an emotion she could not control, " For simple,
sweet earthly happiness. Eternity is too, too long to
wait for. But it cannot be granted, and it is wicked
even to ask for it."
" Poor child ! " he murmured under his breath. An
absorbing tenderness welled up in his heart ; then, in
a louder tone, full of reassurance, " Patience ; all must
yet come right."
" No ; all will come right for others, but not for
me," she responded, desperately.
Barclay was on the eve of some great outburst
In another moment he would have given expression
to the feelings with which his whole being had long
been pervaded. But his companion herself first re-
covered her lost control. She stepped lightly along
the aisle, and threw her wraps around her, prepara-
tory to going forth into the colder air. She hastily
read aloud a placard, in amusing English, affixed to
the wall of the vestibule.
" No person who has not a pew (seat)," it said, "is
not allowed to enter the same, for we have not got
that church for nothing. By so doing they will oblige
every holder of a pew, as it would deprive them of
their respective place."
When Barclay would have recommenced at the
serious point where they had left off, a second diver-
sion was created by William Alfsen, who caught sight
of them in the portal, and came running up the steps
to thank them gratefully for their efficacious service
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 209
in securing him the coveted place on the revenue cut-
ter. He had been inducted into his new duties, it
appeared, a week before, but this was the first op-
portunity he had had to get off long enough to see
anybody. He had been intending, he said, to call on
them both.
" And now, I suppose," said Barclay, as the sailor
was withdrawing, "you can marry Stanislava?"
" I don't know about that," replied Alfsen, scratch-
ing his head dubiously. " The old man, he don't let
up on us yet ; and Stanislava, she 's one o' them kind
what don't make no trouble in her family. I guess
we got to wait a while yet."
This over, Mrs. Varemberg drove away home-
ward. The lighter note had opportunely been struck,
and a most dangerous moment averted.
David Lane could hardly fail to note, of late, that
his daughter was more disturbed in mind than usual,
even for her. She was growing paler and thinner.
He thought good to let fall a suggestion to the Rev.
Edward Brockston that the latter should take occasion
to talk with her, and help bring her to a more recon-
ciled feeling with existence. This man of wise coun-
sel did so to the best extent he could. He showed
her yet further, in the usual way, that this life is to
be regarded as of no real importance in itself, but is
only a preparation for another. Perhaps he had
some shrewd perception of how the land lay, for he
was not an obtuse person, and so he managed to touch
delicately, too, upon the church doctrine of divorce.
210 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
He aimed to strengthen her belief in the binding force
and obligation of the marriage contract by as cogent
words as possible. " The house that God has not
built," he said, concluding this topic, " is not built
at all."
A public entertainment was to be given, known as
a Peasants' Carnival. He urged her to take part in
this, both to aid the charitable object for which it was
intended, and also as a distraction from the perhaps
rather morbid state of mind into which she was al-
lowing herself to drift. Contrary to what might
have been expected of her and to her usual practice,
she consented to do so. She was not strong enough
to enlist herself in the active work of the carnival
proper, but it was finally arranged that she should
accept.^ character in some tableaux vivantes projected
in connection with it, a role in which her noble and
distinguished bearing could be well turned to account.
The sculptor Schwartzmann first aided some of the
members individually, then allowed himself to be im-
pressed into the service as general manager of the
whole. Barclay found him advising Mrs. Varem-
berg about her costume. He saw her working at a
profusion of soft tissues and stuffs of cloth of gold.
One evening, on which he endeavored to draw from
her what her character was to be, he chanced to be
so posted that he could see her not only directly in
front, but also reflected sidewise in one of the pier-
glasses of the drawing-room. The mirror duplicated
all the shining stuffs, just as it duplicated her grace-
fully bent, slender figure. She was clad in a soft
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 211
black silk, with a camel' s-hair scarf about her shoul-
ders. As he gazed, his fancy was comparing her to
some mediaeval chatelaine, some Lady of Shalott,
weaving a fabric of intertwisted threads of fate. The
identity of the characters was not to be disclosed,
however, till the performance itself, and Barclay, in
spite of his humorous guesses, was left in the dark,
like the others.
On the opening of the carnival, the interior of the
Academy of Music was found filled with small, gayly
decorated booths, arranged around the outer circum-
ference of the auditorium, which was floored over.
Swiss chalets stood alongside Norwegian cottages, of
varnished logs, and German foresters' huts. There
was an old English inn, with pots of roses on the
window ledges and a stout host in the vine-clad porch.
There were a Spanish posada, and a chic auberge
taken bodily from a French opera bouffe.
Paul Barclay, on his arrival, found himself in an
atmosphere thick with smiles, bows, and compli-
ments, the choice perfume of civilization. The eye
was greeted by pyramids of fantastic objects for sale,
baskets and arches of exotic flowers, and glitter of
china and silver, brought out to serve dainty refresh-
ments upon. There were belles in the ordinary cos-
tume of society : some of the demure, high-necked
sort, and other sirens in low dresses, making a fasci-
nating display of neck and arms through their gauzes.
All the pretty, frail peasants, in their coquettish caps
and aprons, would have evoked only laughing scorn
from the buxom originals in the mother country, but
212 TEE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
they were none the less fair to see for that. The
masculine Tyroleans, Troubadours, and Highlanders,
young business men of Keewaydin, concealed with
but little success their daily indentification with the
affairs of East and "West Water streets.
Barclay had made the rounds to a certain extent,
and was buying some trifle of a pretty girl, who rep-
resented the Belle Chocolatiere of the Dresden Gal-
lery, when he suddenly found himself next to Justine
DeBow. She wore a quaint old embroidered white
satin wedding-dress, handed down from some ances-
tor on her father's side, with powder and patches to
match. She looked handsomer than ever before, but
there was a cloud of trouble on her brow. After re-
ceiving her greeting, Barclay would have passed on
from her, also, with some few of the usual polite
forms, but she said to him in a low tone :
" Will you not take me for a short walk ? There
was something I wanted to say to you."
He offered her his arm, and they strolled about a
little, and then withdrew to a point near the stage,
somewhat remote from observation, where there was
a bower, In which were constructed mossy green
banks of baize. Miss DeBow made as if she would
have entered this bower, but he did not follow her
lead. The young woman then stood still, faced
him, and, first drawing a long, gasping breath, de-
manded :
"Is it on account of my mother on account of
what you you heard that evening, that you no
longer wish to associate with me ? "
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 213
" Not associate Could you think me capable of
it ? " he protested, at first not comprehending her
meaning, and then shocked and pained both for her
and himself.
" Then why have you so changed ? " she exclaimed.
" Why are you so cruel to me ? Why do you stay
away ? "
This was a case requiring far more delicacy of
treatment and tender consideration than that of Mrs.
Rycraft. In brief, she made love to him outright.
She shed tears, and showed all the signs of a genuine
emotion. The roles of the sexes are, on some rare
occasions, thus reversed. All this might, perhaps,
have been only a deliberate plan, of an unmaidenly
sort, a last throw, on the chance of winning him ; or
it might have been the spontaneous outburst of an
ill-regulated nature, yielding to a spell its own imagi-
nation had woven.
" Oh, I love you ! I want you to take me for
yours ! " she said to him passionately. " You are so
different from all the others I have ever known. I
want to be with you always."
Paul Barclay was surprised indeed to find how
callous he could remain to even such an appeal, how
efficacious was the panoply by which he was pro-
tected.
" I must not let you talk so. You are not quite
yourself in this," he answered her, gently. " You
will smile at your own folly, I am sure, when you
look back upon it, after a little time."
" At least you will not betray me," she asked,
214 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
when she was at last convinced that her effort was of
no avail.
" You have given me a great proof of your confi-
dence," he said, " and it shall be most sacredly re-
spected."
A little bell rang sharply : all eyes were turned
towards the stage ; the coquettish peasants left their
booths, and stood forward, taking attitudes of uncon-
scious grace. The little bell rang again, and the cur-
tain went slowly up on the first of the tableaux.
"What a sight it was on the stage that met the aston-
ished eyes of Barclay !
A vivid lime-light streamed full upon the figure of
the Golden Justice. It was Mrs. Varemberg, clad
in severe, straight-falling draperies of cloth of gold.
On her head was a golden helmet, by her side a long,
straight-hiked golden sword, and in her hands a pair
of golden scales. She was raised upon a pedestal
resembling that to which the statue was actually at-
tached, and she stood against a deep Hue ground,
representing the sky. Her hair and eyes and the
smooth flesh of face and hands mingled a warm hu-
man element with the imitation of metal. She re-
called one of the famous chryselephantine statues, of
ivory, ebony, gems, and gold. It was of such pre-
cious materials, instead of the bare, cold marble, that
the sculptors of antiquity delighted to fashion their
choicest works.
A murmur of surprise, increasing to admiration,
ran around the hall. " How striking, how original ! "
was the comment. " Who would have thought that
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 215
the image from our own city ball, apparently so void
of romance, could be made to figure in sucb a way?"
The Golden Justice was a greater success than all
the Cleopatras, Dorotheas, and Priscillas of the occa-
sion. It was voted a triumph of ingenuity on the
part of. both Schwartzmann and the eminent lady
who carried out the conception they had planned to-
gether, and it gave to Mrs. Varemberg a new acces-
sion of prestige.
The apparition stood immovable, an epitome of
serene majesty and loveliness. It was gloriously
bright, like the seraph Uriel, or Gabriel, chief of the
angel guards of heaven. Barclay gazed, breathless,
as if- any motion of his might cause it to vanish be-
fore its time. The young girl beside him saw the
rapture in his glance, and knew at last that all was
hopeless for her, and why it was.
" It is she," she said, desperately. " Ah, she does
well to use her arts of a woman of the world against
a poor girl ! "
" Hush ! " said Barclay ; " you must not speak
against her. She is the, best, the dearest, being in
the world."
At the same time the statue seemed to direct at
him, where he stood in his ill-assorted companion-
ship, a glance as of a certain reproach. He broke
away, left the hall almost fiercely, and went to allay
his turbulent agitation in the little park by the lake
shore, which had become a favorite resort with him.
His moment of thorough awakening had come. He
knew, without a shadow of disguise, that the fiction
216 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
of a disinterested friendship he had been so long
cherishing was an utter mockery. He knew that he
was as wildly in love with Florence Lane as ever in
the maddest moment of the earlier time. And there
was now this singular thing about it that, whereas in
former days his ideal of her had been compounded
of blooming health and strength, and had been made
of the elements of a schoolboy's fancy had hardly
been of flesh and blood at all, but of sugar and spice,
the rose, the lily, honey, perfume, alabaster, coral, and
jade now his tender sympathy and love embraced
her with an equal ardor in all her human weakness
and decay. He conceived a union of souls and es-
sences, from which the body with all its imperfec-
tions might be eliminated and yet his affection remain
unchanged.
The discovery caused him the keenest pain. He
did not want to admit to himself that it was so. The
situation was such that the feeling ought not to be
disclosed. Should he conceal it and suffer in silence ?
To suffer heroically was part of a Spartan discipline
he had marked out for himself, but he knew that
in fact his state of mind could not be hidden. He
groaned aloud as he paced the esplanade in the
darkness.
" Is this to be the end ? " he asked. "Am I to put
myself in antagonism with all those social laws which
it should have been my part rather to strengthen
and enforce ? Am I to join the wretched band of
strugglers with illicit passion ? No ; one thing a man
can save when all else is lost, his honor. I must
go away from here, and never return."
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 217
That same night, Mrs. Varemberg, fatigued and
depressed by the unusual exertion she had under-
gone, drove home as soon as her own part was over.
On alighting she inquired for her father, and learned
that he was then at home, and in his library. He
had not gone to the carnival, as he had intended,
having been detained, at the last moment. The se-
cret had been kept from him as well as the others,
and his daughter wished now that he should see her
in full paraphernalia before it should be permanently
laid aside. She threw a veil of light tissue, there-
fore, over her features, which both added to the stat-
uesque effect and concealed her identity, and went
to present herself before him in the library. The
door was ajar. She glided in.
David Lane looked up from his writing, and saw
the Golden Justice in his presence. Whether it was
the apparition itself, as something really uncanny,
or that he feared he was becoming a prey to danger-
ous hallucinations, or only the sudden suggestion of
all that the figure contained for him, his heart gave a
terrible throb ; he become very white ; he staggered
to his feet, gasping, and leaned on a corner of his
desk for support.
" Why, papa, am I really so formidable ? " cried
his daughter gayly. She had reason to be alarmed
at her unlooked-for success.
"I I am very nervous," he stammered, abating
the rigid fixity of his attitude, and sinking back again
into his seat. " You should have given me a little
notice. I was so occupied I did not hear you come
in."
218 TUB GOLDEN JUSTICE.
" It seems to me I make almost too good a ghost.
It is like the statue of the commander walking in to
Don Juan. But you are no Don Juan, poor papa."
Of all possible conceits in the range of imagina-
tion, who could have foreseen that this would be
chosen to torture him with ? Destiny, he said to
himself, which meant to destroy him, had descended
to petty tricks of detail, to a malicious ingenuity.
It was playing with his heart-strings as a cat with a
mouse.
But he mustered his calmness again. He began to
compliment his daughter on her improved appear-
ance. He said he thought it would be well if she
would often take part in some such affairs, and try to
see a little more of the social world than she was in
the habit of doing. Mrs. Varemberg's golden helmet
and emblems of office were now laid aside ; her hair
flowed freely over her shoulders ; she extended her-
self in an arm-chair, and had more than ever the as-
pect of some seraph of the bright hosts of the Para-
dise Lost, some warrior saint of Palma Vecchio.
She spoke of her usual avocations, of her ennui and
longing. The storm must have been long in gather-
ing, but it now broke out as if from a clear sky.
" I will have a divorce V she suddenly cried. " I
will be free. I can stand this life no longer."
" Is it this man, this Barclay, who is at the bottom
of it ? " demanded her father, sternly.
" It is it is I cannot explain," she responded,
not able to be quite ingenuous, even in the midst of
her vehemence, which this question tended to abate.
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 219
" I bear a uame identified with all that is hateful ; is
not that enough ? "
" And you will abandon your most cherished con-
victions ? "
" Oh, is it so irreparable f Is there no honorable
relief ? Must I drink the cup of wretchedness to the
very dregs ? " she cried, passionately. " You do not
know what I have suffered. If it had been only pov-
erty, how gladly I would have shared it with him !
If it had been only sickness, how devotedly I would
have nursed him ! I had such a thirst for affection.
I us'ed to go sometimes and kiss him in his sleep,
and beg his forgiveness, because I dared not ad-
dress him thus when awake, though it was not I
who was in fault. But oh, papa, when he does not
want me, and never wanted me when I can ben-
efit neither him nor myself when all can do no
good "
So she spoke, standing flushed and panting before
him in her shining garb. David Lane was aroused,
never to be mistaken more, from the false security
into which he had lulled himself. He could only
murmur, just as Barclay had done before him,
" Try to be patient, dear ! All will yet be well."
"Yes," said Mrs. Varemberg humbly, at length,
" you are right. I hardly know what I am saying.
I will try to be patient ; I must be patient."
A NAVAL ENGAGEMENT.
THE position of Paul Barclay in Keewaydin thus
seemed untenable. His passion for Florence Lane
was renewed in all its original intensity. In sweep-
ing away the sophistries in which he had lately im-
mersed himself, he was harshly unjust to the purity
of his early motives.
" She alone was my object in settling here ! " he
exclaimed fiercely. " My pretense of a regular avo-
cation has been but the most wretched piece of hy-
pocrisy."
At his factory he contemplated his men in their
shops, as he had often done before, but now with a
new feeling. He contrasted again the dingy interior
in which they worked with the parlors, full of light
and color and rare bibelots, which employers, himself
like the rest, enjoyed from the product of this labor.
But, after all, he reflected, these men had compensa-
tions in their work. They took a pride in their feats
of strength and skill. They did not mind the grime,
nor tread gingerly over it, but they we.re prepared
for it in a rough-and-ready dress it could not spoil.
What, indeed, in the last analysis, are dirt and grime ?
They are but particles of the general matter of which
the universe is made ; at the very worst, but one of
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 221
its phases of transformation. Under the microscope,
the ash-heap and even the gutter are as full of crys-
tals of loveliness as the snow. As he looked around,
he could feel that he had benefited in a small way
many of these employees. His stay there had not
been altogether in vain, so far as they were con-
cerned. For instance, he had aided old Fahnenstock
to secure the long-coveted cottage and bit of land at
Whitefish Bay ; he had established the ambitious
too hard-working McClary in a shop of his own ; he
had seen the boy Martin Krieg apprenticed to an
architect, and making an excellent beginning in that
profession ; he had ameliorated the lot and somewhat
brightened the views even of the saturnine Hoolan,
and given a set or two of useful books to Hassler,
who had a taste for reading, and so the story went.
Few but were the better in some way for having
known him. But their troubles now moved him less
than formerly ; care for their hardships was lost in
that for his own, which, though different in kind,
seemed not less in degree. He found himself saying
in a summarizing way,
" It is not the special situation in life that is im-
portant ; it is the character, the disposition, of the
man. To every lot is attached its pains, as well as
its compensations, and it may well be that the pains
of the higher station are often the keenest."
So far as he had had any definite intentions to
make himself an authority on the laboring classes,
and to enter into practical philanthropy in that
field, in his despondency he doubted if he had
222 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
really had any such intentions, they might at some
time be prosecuted elsewhere.
He passed several days of mental conflict and wa-
vering, and nights of broken slumbers. Then he ar-
rived at an inflexible resolve, confirming that towards
which he had tended at first, as the solution of the
difficulty. Heroic resolutions are said to be those
which are preferred in love, because they are impos-
sible of fulfillment. At last his shilly-shallying was
at an end. He determined to see no more of Mrs.
Varemberg, to withdraw from the partnership with
Maxwell, and to leave Keewaydin at the earliest pos-
sible moment. Yes, there seemed nothing for it but
that he must go.
Spi-ing was wont to be slow in coming to Keeway-
din, and it was as yet only the beginning of March,
but there was a spell of exceptionally mild weather.
The winter had been an eccentric one in many ways,
but the oldest inhabitants the ancient weather-vane-
maker, Ole Alfsen, among them said that nothing
like this had been seen in a good twenty years at
least.
On the morning of the final resolve referred to,
Barclay hurried away from his untasted breakfast.
Instead of taking a more straightforward route to
his factory, he repaired thither by the way of his fa-
vorite promenade along the lake shore. Once there,
he lingered awhile, giving way to his discontent and
melancholy, enhanced by the subtle mildness of the
air. Like another Achilles, he paced by the sound-
ing sea, and grieved his noble heart for beautiful lost
Briseis.
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 223
" I who aimed to play the providence in the lives
of others," he lamented, " what have I done for my
own ? " And he went on : " Where next shall I
turn ? What next, in the world, shall I do ? "
Patches of snow were melting, and the water from
them was running gayly away in the gutters, simula-
ting all the antics of the mightiest streams. A few
tender shoots of grass had put forth their green heads
from under the snow, perhaps astonished at their own
temerity. Down on the margin of the lake, under
the steep incline, some children were playing boldly
on the floating ice ; making believe that the broken
cakes, from one to another of which they leaped with
the aid of poles, were their boats and islands. The
great body of the ice in the bay was loosened, and
going out under the impulse of favoring winds from
the south. Detached masses of it flecked the blue
expanse far and wide, like shining islands of the
blessed.
There was to be noted in the offing a large bark,
making her way in, and acting strangely. She
proved to be the Ocean Wanderer, a vessel loaded
with jute and paraffine, which had been winter-bound,
above, by the sudden close of navigation in the fall,
and was now availing herself of the first opportunity
to run for her port. Barclay was to see her again,
later in the day, under strange circumstances indeed.
While he followed, scarce wittingly, the motions of
this vessel, Ives Wilson drove by in a bespattered
buggy, and hailed him.
" Oho, spring fever," said the editor, characterizing
'J'J 1 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
his air of listlessness ; " but you are forcing tbe sea-
son a good two months. There is a great deal more
chilliness, too, in this air than you may be aware of."
He insisted on taking Barclay up and carrying him
a part of the way on his journey ; and the latter, who
had already loitered a good deal longer than he had
meant to, accepted the accommodation.
" I am flying around, seeing my aldermen, super-
visors, and that sort of people," said Wilson. " The
elections are coming on soon, and the city and county
printing has got to be looked after. I always make
it a point to attend to those things myself."
" Is there any danger, then, of your losing your
profitable contracts ? "
Well, no ; the Index always sticks to a good
thing when it has it, and of course it will now. Our
readers expect it of us. Of course it 's all right, but
I go round once in a while and keep our friends up
to the mark."
" I hear Jim DeBow is going into politics, and is
likely to be our next mayor," said Barclay, by way
of keeping up the conversation."
" Going in ? It would be more of a novelty if he
would keep out. He 's always been in, more or less,
under the surface. Yes, this time he wants an office
for himself, though, to tell the truth, it 's not so
much for himself, either. He wants to help Ross-
more to the senatorship, at the next session of the
legislature, you know. If DeBow is mayor, he '11
work the city employees and contractors for his friend
Rossmore, and against Gulmore, for all they are
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 225
worth. Well, that 's all right. I 'm for Rossmore,
too."
" You give me an interesting inside view of things."
" Oh, that 's nothing ; you '11 be in politics your-
self, some day, and then you '11 see the real inside.
Why don't you use the popularity you 've got down
there among the factory hands, and run for some-
thing now ? The Index will back you, you can de-
pend upon that."
" Considering that I have not been a resident long
enough, and for some few other reasons, I hardly
think I will," said Barclay dryly.
" Oh, as to residence, our law is a little peculiar.
In order to .encourage the investment of capital, it
makes a manufacturing enterprise like yours equiva-
lent to a period of residence, you know. You are a
citizen in good and regular standing, and can run for
any office you please."
" Thank you ! It is worth knowing." Little his
interlocutor thought of the brief space of his remain-
ing stay.
" By the by," began Ives Wilson again, " there 's
a man down your way Idak, the landlord of the
Johannisberger House whose vote I'd like to se-
cure, in case he 's nominated for alderman. Our read-
ers want the Index to have Idak's vote, of course,
but the fact is we've had to haul him over the coals a
good deal, show him up as a corruptionist and that
sort of thing, and he probably don't feel very friend-
ly towards us. You don't think you could let him
understand that the custom of your hands would de-
pend on his giving the Index his vote, do you ? "
_'_'', THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
" No, I don't think I could."
" Oh, a mere suggestion ; no offense," said the
other, with the greatest good-nature. " He wants to
go into the board only to get another lamp-post in
front of his house, I understand, and most likely we
can block him any way, if he is n't with us."
The river, as well as the land, showed the unusual
forwardness of the season. Several of its bridges
had begun to turn, for passing vessels, with considera-
ble frequency. People who were hindered by them
did not give vent to their impatience in the ordinary
way, but lingered, and noted gladly the stir on the
water, which furnished such tangible evidence that
the long embargo of winter was broken, and the
genial spring at hand. The sail-lofts and block and
cordage shops were open, active repairs were in prog-
ress, and the smell of tar, oakum, and fresh pine
shavings pervaded the docks.
Regular navigation was by no means yet open,
but several craft in the river had taken advantage
of the occasion to change their moorings from one
point to another, in tow of the stout little steam-tugs.
The lower works of many, which were for the first
time visible, now that they were fairly denuded of
the ice, presented a battered and rusty appearance
after their hard usage by the winter. The circle
of gossips, who had too long hibernated round the
large stove in the main room of the Johannisberger
House, were glad to come forth to the porch and see
a little of actual marine affairs out-of-doors. One
Coffee John, on the street hard by, threw open for
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 227
the first time his booth, the shutters of which blos-
somed out like the leaves of some dusty sort of
Victoria Regina.
The cutter Florence Lane, among the other craft,
had pulled out, and taken a brief turn beyond the
mouth of the Straight Cut, with its two long piers,
and was now lying at her wharf, with steam partly
up. She was short-handed, as yet her complement
of men, furloughed for the winter, not having been
recalled to duty ; but she had limbered up her engines
a bit to prepare for the coming season. Barclay
heard this, in passing, from William Alfsen, who was
bustling about her in an important way. His chief
superior was absent that day, serving as groomsman
at a wedding, and the second was temporarily ill ;
leaving him in the position of leading care-taker, and
he seemed very much in his element.
Ives Wilson set Barclay down at the Chippewa
Street bridge, the latter insisting upon his doing
so, and went his way. Worthy Ludwig Trap-
schuh, at that place, had resumed his full air of
bumptious arrogance, kept a little in abeyance during
the winter. He was accustomed to look at Barclay
with gangrened vision. He had heard of peculiar
doings on the part of this manufacturer, to which,
as a conservative person, he did not give his ap-
proval, but it was the aid to the Alfsens that was
chiefly offensive to him. Not only had the son se-
cured, lately, the place on the cutter, but the old man,
his father, so it was stated, had been given a
very profitable job of ornamental copper-work to do
228 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
for the factory itself. But Trapschuh was accus-
tomed to give this regular passenger a semi-respect-
ful nod, nevertheless. As he did so to-day in the
usual way, he said,
" Some kind o' circus goin' on over by your fec-
toree, ain't it ? "
Barclay looked, and saw that a disturbance was in
progress on the Island. The aspect of it grew more
serious as he approached. A rioting mob of long-
shoremen, in fact, were trying to prevent the unload-
ing of a vessel, recently arrived at the coal and wood
yards of Miller & Blake, some neighbors with whom
he had a slight acquaintance. Matters had reached
a dangerous pass by the time he set foot in the midst
of them. The foremost rioters were already ex-
changing fisticuffs with the men on the vessel, and
some of the latter had drawn long knives and stood
on the defensive. His eye caught that of Fahnen-
stock, who was in a small assemblage of spectators
on the sidewalk, at a safe distance from the fray.
The old man stepped promptly forth in response to
his inquiry. A number of the other men and boys
from his factory were there as well ; were watching
with interest the issue of events. The police had
been sent for, but had not yet come.
"What is the matter?" asked Paul Barclay.
" What is going on ? "
" Supply and demand is the matter. The unifyin'
o' labor is the matter," responded the usually quiet
employee, indulging in mild sarcasm, something very
unusual for him. " If Hoolan was only here, he 'd
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 229
give you all the outs and ins of it. It 's a strike,'*
he went on. " The coal-heavers would n't work for
the wages offered 'em, and the owners put on a gang
o' Polacks in their place, and now the men are tryin'
to drive the Polacks away."
" The Polacks is takin' the bread out of our
mouths ! " the cry here arose. " D n 'em, we '11
club 'em ; we '11 throw 'em into the river ! "
Barclay hurried forward. He would have been
sorry to see his neighbors or their property come
to any harm. Blake, the junior partner, a small,
weak man, emerged from his office, near the wharf,
and, mounting a temporary rostrum, attempted an
address.
" I tell you, men," he began, " the rate we offer is
better than that paid in Buffalo, Detroit, or Cleve-
land to-day."
" Down with him! Give us our money! Put up
or shut up ! " shouted the unruly mob, interrupting
him wildly.
All at once a shower of sticks and stones filled the
air. A rush was made for the orator ; he was over-
turned from his brief prominence, and it would with-
out doubt have fared hardly with him but for the
protecting arm of Barclay, who had forced his way
through the crowd in the nick of time, followed zeal-
ously by some of his own men. The young rescuer
had a sort of leonine, intrepid air he was seldom
seen to wear. He took the rostrum himself. He
was already known, and his reputation for fearless-
ness commanded respect. His words put the matter
230 Til K GOLDEN JUSTICE.
in a reasonable light, and he was allowed to speak
without molestation.
" One swallow does not make a summer, my men,"
he said in substance, " nor one day of thaw like this
a season's marine traffic. You have here but a soli-
tary vessel. She has worked her way through the
ice with great difficulty, and there are not likely to
be any others for a long time to come. Even sup-
posing the pay be not all you think you are fairly
entitled to, is it worth while to quarrel about so
small a matter ? Come, I ask you to look at it like
sensible men. Is it not better to wait till the Straits
of Mackinaw are open ? When the fleet comes
through, and there are plenty of vessels and plenty
of work, that is the time to settle the question of
wages for the coming season."
His own men, patriotically standing by " the boss,"
set up a shrill cheering, in which some of the strikers
faintly joined. The disturbance was checked, at any
rate, and during its time of vacillation a platoon of
police arrived at double quick, and took possession
of the ground. The sight of the guardians of the
peace renewed the irritation of the strikers and made
them think anew of their grievances, but it was now
too late. They dispersed and stood in small knots
along the bridges leading to the mainland, and in
front of the small saloons there, then by degrees*
disappeared altogether, and danger of further rioting
was at an end.
On reaching his Works, Barclay returned again to
the momentous subject he had on his mind. He
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 231
meant to announce to Maxwell his resignation from
the partnership. But Maxwell was not there. On
the contrary, he was met by a request from Maxwell
who had been a little indisposed for two or three
days past to go over and see him at his house as
soon as convenient, and thither he hastened to Max-
well.
He found his elderly partner rising up in bed, sup-
ported by pillows, surrounded in a solicitous way by
his family, and presenting the appearance of quite a
sick man. The Maxwell family never concealed their
appreciation of the fact that Barclay had been their
salvation from ruin, and their manner to him on the
present occasion was not less full of affectionate grat-
itude than usual.
Maxwell feebly put out his hand to take that of
the visitor.
" Well, here I am," said he, affecting a certain
cheerfulness, as invalids do. " Here I am, laid up in
dry-dock, and hardly not likely ever to get afloat again,
enough to be worth mentioning."
o o
" Don't say that ! What seems to be the trouble ? "
" The same old trouble, liver and kidneys, I sup-
pose. Perhaps I 've never said quite enough about
it to you. Never fear, it is n't going to finish me
this time. I thought, one while, it was. There 's
one simple little straightforward thing, though, that 's
got to be done, and that 's why I 've sent for you."
{' Let us do this simple little straightforward thing
at once, then, by all means," returned the younger
partner smilingly.
232 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
" I have got to give up business. You must run
the factory alone."
" What ! " cried Barclay, astonished to find his own
very proposition thus taken out of his mouth, in the
reverse sense, and used against him. " I cannot
think of it."
" You must. There is no alternative. It 's either
dissolution of the partnership or a dissolution of the
partner. The doctors told me to stop work long ago,
or it would stop me. I did n't do it, and this is what
it has come to."
" I leave all my interests in your hands," he went
on presently. " You shall give me what you please.
All we have in the world, any way, comes from you,
and why should I not trust it to you with the most
unlimited confidence ? "
" You magnify a very small matter," protested his
hearer modestly.
" It 's so. and sometimes I want you to be willing
to hear it. I have no fear but the business will pros-
per, and all of us with it. You have got to prosper ;
you are too good not to, if there 's any justice go-
ing. I have no fear of your not being able to run the
factory alone ; you are a born manager and a great
success. You are the very man for it."
Careful inquiry and conference with the medical
advisers and the family but served to confirm the
truth of the state of things herein outlined. Retire-
ment from the partnership was no mere whin^ of
Maxwell's, but an inexorable necessity. Barclay saw
that he would be obliged to remain in the place until
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 233
a proper winding tqp of the responsibilities thus fall-
ing to his charge could be effected. He would not
have hesitated, by hasty action, to sacrifice his own
financial interests, but the others could not be lightly
treated. He must remain till there was a sale and
transfer of the business, and an equitable division of
the proceeds.
As he left the house, his heart partly sank with
added depression, partly fluttered with new elation at
this enforced change of plan, and all that might hap-
pen during the lengthened period of his stay. An-
other change 01 temperature had occurred ; the brief,
unseasonable touch of spring weather was already
over. The wind now blew from the northeast, driv-
ing the brief ethereal mildness before it, and bringing
cutting snowflakes on its wings. While still at Max-
well's house, Barclay had heard, in the muffled way
in which it is conveyed to close interiors, the din of
the fire tocsin. He now heard the brazen clangor
taken up by one bell after another, till it reached the
dimensions of a general alarm. Many persons were
running excitedly towards the river ; he followed, and
when he reached a rising ground, saw fire at a number
of points along the water's edge. The most consid-
erable blaze was surely near his own property on
Barclay's Island. He remembered the events of the
morning, suspected incendiarism on the part of the
dissuaded strikers, and hurried in hot haste towards
the scene.
This is what had happened. The bark Queen
Wanderer had come into the harbor with everything
234 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
drawing, and something so abnormal in her handling,
so nervous in her haste, that calamity seemed an-
nounced in advance. She did not lower any sail, but
tore through the Straight Cut at her swiftest pace.
Her steering was so erratic that the light-keeper
thought it a miracle she was not dashed in pieces
even against the entrance piers. He saw a part of
her small crew lying on her decks, as if utterly ex-
hausted, while others furiously worked the deck
pumps. A speed of four miles an hour was dec-
orously prescribed as the maximum for vessels in the
river, but this, together with all other marine regu-
lations, she disregarded. The harbor master's depu-
ties marked her with wondering eyes, and, recovering
themselves, followed her along the docks, to arrest
and subject her to condign punishment. But she was
not easily overtaken ; she had no idea of stopping.
Some small craft in her way avoided her with diffi-
culty, and their amazed crews hurled imprecations
after her. The lower bridges flew open before her
to avoid collision, and she entered the wide, open ex-
pause, or basin, by Barclay's Island in the heart of
the city. Where vessels were so numerous, to escape
entanglement was impossible. She barely missed a
schooner, carrying away a yawl from its davits, but
the next moment struck a luckless brigantine, head
on, and sent it to the bottom. Some of her men,
meanwhile, danced about, called and signalled, and
finally jumped overboard.
The mystery of her strange conduct was out.
From the yawning seams, opened by the shock, leaped
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 235
forth tongues of flame, which licked quickly up the
sides of the hull, and seized the shrouds and sails. The
Ocean Wanderer was on fire. The hatches had been
battened down, to keep the air from it, and the crew
had fought bravely, hoping to save the cargo, and
bring their vessel within reach of assistance, but at
the last moment, had been too exhausted even to
shorten sail, or properly direct her course.
A patrol from a harbor fire-boat got aboard, and
let go an anchor ; but the flames so wreathed the
tackles that the sails could not be interfered with,
and the bark still drove onward, with such a momen-
tum as snapped the chain. A hawser was then hur-
riedly made fast, and an enterprising tug undertook
to draw her away from further mischief, and detain
her where she could be effectively dealt with, but
this burned off almost immediately. The heat be-
came so intense that all alike were now obliged to
seek their own safety, and leave her to her fate.
When Barclay arrived in the vicinity, he found
that the coal-yards of Miller & Blake, with the dis-
puted vessel of the morning, and his own principal
buildings as well, had been kindled by sparks from
the floating fire-bug, and were wellnigh consumed.
Foreman Akins, with a few assistants, was passing
buckets of water to save a few of the minor struc-
tures, but the factory proper was beyond recall. Old
Fahnenstock was muttering, as he worked, apt quota-
tions from the Book of Daniel and the Apocalypse.
The singular agent of destruction grew momenta-
rily more threatening. The sheets of flame streamed
236 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
yet higher and more wildly from her inflammable
cargo. Her sails still drew, and the breezes that
filled them, made the more capricious by the heat of
the conflagration, caused her to tack and veer about
the basin as with a kind of malignant deliberation.
One would have said a crew of demons on board di-
rected her movements that she might do the great-
est possible harm. The fire-bells on shore were
ringing continuously, and all the engines were out, in
active use. The citizens thronged to the waterside
by thousands, to witness the unheard-of spectacle.
The news had been brought to William Alfsen by
vessels hastily changing their moorings and escaping
up the river. Lieutenant Gregg, as has been said,
was serving as groomsman at a wedding, and about
this very time was pacing up the central aisle of St.
Jude's. The beautiful bridesmaid on his manly arm
was no other than Justine DeBovv. Whether it was
only pique on her part, or genuine liking for the lieu-
tenant, suddenly developed, together with reconcile-
ment to her disappointment, as we must all become
reconciled to the inevitable, it is certain that she
had never treated the commander of the cutter so
well as now. And again whether this idea had
already entered her head, or was only to take form
there by slow degrees it may be told here as well
as elsewhere that she was to walk beside him as a
principal in a similar procession before the year was
out.
The organ of St. Jude's pealed forth the rich
strains of the wedding march. A modish bride in
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 237
white satin and orange blossoms, beside a groom who
looked a trifle stiff and embarrassed, paced back
again down the aisle ; four handsome bridesmaids in
tea-rose and pink, with four gallant groomsmen,
Justine DeBow was making a mental note of the
whole, and resolving that her own wedding should be
very nearly like it, followed them ; and four pretty
children, with baskets of flowers, brought up the rear
of the procession. In the church porch Lieutenant
Gregg was apprised by a messenger, sent by Alfsen,
of what was taking place on the river. The man
had waited a little, not having dared to interrupt him
at an earlier stage of the proceedings. There were
festivities still to take place, rice and old shoes to be
thrown after the bride as she started on her wedding
journey ; but the honest lieutenant's duty lay else-
where. If his vessel were lost, he knew it would be
no valid excuse to the government that he had been
assisting even at the most distinguished of marriage
ceremonies.
When he reached the wharf the cutter was gone.
Alfsen, in fact, finding him so long in coming, had
not waited for him. As the panic in the river in-
creased, he had put on a full head of steam, to be
prepared for emergencies. Information was brought
him that the destruction below was appalling ; all
efforts to check it were vain ; the whole town might
be burned. An original inspiration all at once took
possession of him. He hastily recruited a force of
assistants from the shore, cast off his lines, and turned
his bow down stream.
238 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
Ludwig Trapscliuh opened the bridge before for
him, staring very hard indeed ; a lively curiosity
mingled both with his dislike and the excitement of
the moment.
" What he 's goin' down stream for, instead of
up ? " he wondered aloud. " And what he 's goin'
to do with all them guns ? "
The Florence Lane was a side-wheel steamer, of
some four hundred tons burden, carrying two light
deck guns forward and two more aft. Alfsen shifted
the guns to the same side, and prepared for action.
The multitude of other witnesses around the margin
of the basin where the cutter appeared shared the
curiosity of Trapschuh. Why was she coming down
to actually court the danger, instead of seeking safety
in flight ? But occasion for doubt was soon dis-
pelled. The Florence Lane, after passing the bridge,
wore round, manoeuvred to windward, then ran down
daringly close to the burning vessel, and poured a
telling broadside into her. An enthusiastic cheer
from the shores filled the air : the plan was under-
stood ; a promising form of deliverance had at last
appeared.
A naval battle now ensued, singular indeed for
this quiet stream, in the very midst of the town.
The cutter's pieces were of but small calibre, and the
marauder, though staggered and checked by their
fire, was not yet disposed of. Barclay saw her turn
towards her assailant, as if actuated by a definite and
conscious purpose of revenge. The cutter glibly
evaded her, and again manoeuvred for a place of van-
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 239
tage. A fickle current of air that had made the fire-
ship follow the other now abandoned her, and, ap-
pearing to disdain to chase further so cowardly an
antagonist, she veered once more towards the shore.
She gathered speed as she went. She seemed to
threaten in a direct line the most dangerous of all
the points yet selected, a group of the imposing
wheat elevators. One touch of her fiery beak upon
them, one blast of her burning breath, and they were
gone beyond hope of rescue.
At this moment Lieutenant Gregg arrived, having
followed his missing cutter down the river. He
shouted hoarsely to Alfsen through his coupled
hands, and then ran about in search of a boat in
which to put off to him. The subordinate made no
apparent change in bis purposes. He steamed after
the receding bark, and fired into her another broad-
side, this time astern. She reeled under this even
more than the former, but still kept on her menacing
course. The distance between her and the shore
rapidly diminished.
Once more Alfsen ran boldly near her, to wind-
ward, and trained his guns, loaded now with chain
cable, on her quarter. The roar of this final report
went forth from all the brazen throats at once. The
death wound was inflicted ; the bark's side was stove
in. She gave a violent lurch downward ; the waters
poured over her ; and with dense, suffocating clouds
of steam rising from the conflict of fire and water,
she sank heavily out of sight. Only a portion of her
spars and cordage still remained above the surface,
crackling and snapping awhile till consumed.
240 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
The danger of further loss of property averted,
William Alfsen was the hero of the hour. A purse
was started for his benefit, but this, not being com-
pleted at the moment, languished, after the manner
of such subscriptions, and never amounted to any-
thing tangible. A more real reward, in the shape of
promotion from Washington, was also kept back for
some time through the enmity of Lieutenant Gregg.
That commander could not reconcile himself to see-
ing another reap the honors of the occasion ; he was
inclined even to make charges against his subordi-
nate. But this ill-will was eventually withdrawn,
and Alfsen was duly advanced and came to be es-
teemed a man in the way of yet higher promotion.
Paul Barclay, having seen the Stamped - Ware
Works reduced to ashes, turned away. Little time
now was needed for any cumbrous adjustment of af-
fairs ; it was only a question of collecting the insur-
ance money. His philanthropic experience and his
agitating quandary were ended alike in the most ef-
fective of ways, and he was free to go when he
would.
He put any small matters of his own that might
yet need attention into the hands of a reliable agent.
He made provision for the hands thrown out of work,
that they need not suffer till they had had ample
time to find employment elsewhere. Then, when all
was complete, and the last preparations for his de-
parture made, he went to pay his final respects to
Mrs. Varemberg.
XI.
MRS. VAREMBERG IS RELEASED.
MRS. VAREMBERG'S first explanation to herself of
Barclay's visit was that he had been moved by the
exciting events last described to abandon the peculiar
reserve he had manifested of late, and had comeback
to her somewhat in the old way.
She had sat down at once and written him a note
of sympathy, as soon as she had learned by public
hearsay something of the circumstances of the case.
" It is fortunate you were so well insured," she
said ; " the fire will not prove an unmixed calamity,
after all. You can now rebuild, and incorporate in
the new factory all your favorite ideas."
" I do not think of rebuilding," he replied, in a
grave way, in which she already found something
ominous.
" Not rebuild ? You are surely not going to give
up your plans, and allow a business of such impor-
tance to lapse entirely ? "
" The partnership had been dissolved even before
the fire took place. Maxwell was obliged to with-
draw, by the condition of his health, and I could not
go on alone. I had already prepared to wind the
business up, or transfer it to other hands. I have no
longer any pretext for staying. I am going away
from Keewaydin for good."
242 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
\\\< companion gave him a startled, pathetic glance
that seemed to search his very soul. Then she af-
fected to receive the news of his departure, as Barclay
hud tried to convey it, with a decorous calmness.
" And your army of hands," she said, " thus thrown
out of employment, it will be a severe blow to
them ; but of course you could not be expected to
stay on their account alone."
" I have done what I could for them. I trust they
will not suffer, but will obtain places in other shops."
" Well, we shall all be sorry you are going ; you
will be much missed. Yes, this has been an unfor-
tunate fire indeed."
Her lips trembled, and her eyes fell uneasily to
the floor instead of meeting his. The conversation
seemed already to languish ; there appeared to be
little more to say.
Barclay had come in with his hat and stick, and sat
on the edge of a sofa, with a sort of temporary air, as
if momentarily about to move. Mrs. Varemberg sat
near him in a high-backed, carved-oak chair. She
leaned back presently, and found a support for her
head against it, as with a patient languor of suffering.
Her lover involuntarily noted this pose, as he had so
often studied before every varied phase of her aspect.
Was it really some transcendent charm in her, that
was visible to all others as well, or was it only the
glamour of his affection ? for she was always beau-
tiful to him. In every attitude, whether sitting,
standing, reclining, whether moving or at rest, he
could have called to her with delight to stay and be
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 243
pictured so. There was nothing bizarre or operatic
in her type ; she was full of a gentle repose. In her
weakness she had seemed to him like a flower that
the dew and sunshine might yet wholly revive ; bent
on its stalk, but not broken.
" Must I leave thee, Paradise, leave these happy
walks and shades ? " Barclay half quoted to himself,
as he wistfully gazed. He knew well that it would
have been far better not to have come to pay his re-
spects in person. He ought to have followed his first
intention, and only written to her : he could have
pretended that some sudden business exigency had
prevented him from doing anything else.
They talked in the wretched, perfunctory way that
people do who have, on every ground of prudence, to
avoid the one topic on which their thoughts are burn-
ingly alive. But when it appeared that all Barclay's
preparations were complete and he was to leave town
the very next day, Mrs. Varemberg started with an
agitation she could not overcome. She said to her-
self that she had counted upon more time. Not that
a little time more or less, or a few more meetings,
should have made any great difference, it is true ; but
she thought that, with a proper interval, while he was
still in the place, she might somehow have better rec-
onciled herself to the idea.
" Men are fortunate," she commented, in a dreary
tone . " they can go ; life is full of distractions for
them. It is always women who must remain."
" Come, why need we take a serious tone ? " re-
joined Paul Barclay, assuming a brisk cordiality, to
'-Mi THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
cover the critical moment of the good-by. " There ! "
taking both her hands into his, and giving them a
hearty pressure, " we shall meet again, of course ;
people always do, you know. It will probably not be
long till then."
Mrs. Varemberg had arisen, and stood by a scroll-
fashioned end of the sofa, and she now leaned against
it for support.
" See what a little sympathy and companionship
can do," she said. " It seems as if I could not bear
to have you go." She affected a plaintive smile, but
her look was pitifully wistful and forlorn.
This was fatuous conduct, if there were any real
intention to adhere to the proprieties, to part without
explanation, but it was involuntary. A tide of feel-
ing was rising beyond the power of either to control.
Barclay had nerved up all his fortitude against him-
self, but he had not expected to have to contend
against her weakness as well.
" I have been a little distraction to you ; is not that
all, dear Virginia ?" he said, taking affectionately the
name they had used in their familiar correspondence.
He spoke coaxingly, soothingly, like some strong
elder brother. " You will find others who will answer
the purpose just as well. We know how it is in these
cases ; it is not so much the particular person, as some
one, any one, to fill a sort of weary, aching void. Atn
I not right ? "
" I wonder if it be so ? Yes, perhaps it is so," she
answered in a dreamy way, and there were tones in
her voice that suggested the sighing of the wind
through lonesome pines.
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 245
This partial agreement with him, even though he
had sought it, gave him an acute pang. A violent
struggle was going on within him. It was not what
he had wished to hear.
" So, then, good-by ! " he resumed. " I expect soon
to hear that you have got rid of all your troubles, and
are the gayest of the gay."
"We were such good friends," she said in a retro-
spective way, disregarding this at first. " We seemed
to have so many things in common. Do you know, it
has often been a pleasure to me to know that you
were in the place, even when I never saw you. And
I am such a poor creature of habit ; the few things
that are agreeable in my life take such a hold on me.
What shall I do without you ? I shall die ; that is
the way I shall come to the end of my troubles."
Tears, or almost tears, for him, from such a source ?
It was incredible, bewildering. The final stage was
reached. Overcome by his emotions, Paul Barclay
found no further obstacles potent enough to resist the
extremes to which he was led. He threw aside all his
austere resolutions, or rather he fell upon them as a
defeated Roman general fell upon his sword.
" Can it be, dear child, that you love me ? " he
demanded passionately. " Can it be that,' after all
this time, I have won the priceless treasure of your
affection ? "
" Love you ? Yes, it must be that I do, I love
you dearly. Why should I not tell you, since my
heart is so full of it ? And you you have cared
for me, too ? "
246 THE GULDEN JUfTl<
'' Oh, I adore you, I worship you. Why do I not
find words to tell you all that I feel ? You are all
that is loveliest and best in womankind."
Forgetful of all else but this moment of rapture,
he called her " precious " and " darling " and " sweet
one-" He caressed with soft touches of infinite ten-
derness the fine hair growing upon her temples, and
mingled half-murmured words and kisses indistin-
guishably.
" Ah, why could not this have been years before ? "
she asked him presently. " You said to me once you
wondered that all others did not love me in those
times : why, then, did not you ? "
" Did you not know that I did ? Ah, no, I have
been but too plainly assured by your conduct that you
did not, fool aud novice that I was. I knew little
how to gain the favor of women. You were my only
thought. To have won you would have been the
paradise of my wildest dreams, and to lose you has
been the ruin of my whole existence."
" And I thought you were only my friend. How
unobservant I too must have been ! Shall I tell you
that I used to wish it were otherwise ? Shall I even
confess that it was to try you I first made a pretense
of encouraging Varemberg ? But then there came a
time when you seemed to grow utterly indifferent
towards me, and I let myself be drawn, without any
proper consideration, into this match that many things
conspired to foster."
" That must have been in my period of pique aud
moping. After I had gone, in my turmoil of mind,
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 247
to ask your father's consent and aid to make you a
formal proposal of marriage, and been refused by
him, I cared little, and perhaps hardly knew, what I
did."
" You made my father a proposal for my hand,"
exclaimed his listener, in extreme astonishment, "and
I was never told of it ? Oh, when, when was th,is ? "
Barclay recalled the date, and, by a comparison of
times and seasons, they found that it must have been
much before the Varemberg affair was at all ad-
vanced.
" And all these wicked, wasted years might have
been spared ! " commented Mrs. Varemberg in stupe-
faction and dismay. Oh, what ruin, what ruin !
" And it is true, dearest, that you might have loved
me even then ? " Barclay soon recommenced.
" I am sure that I might, that I did. I feel so to-
wards you now that I cannot conceive -of ever having
felt any differently. And yet perhaps I was wayward
in those times, and you were a little over-reserved
with me. I think I was a trifle afraid of you, as if
you were looking down at me from a superior height.
But your fine qualities had impressed me, your con-
sideration for me had touched me, even then. Others
my father should have been wise for me. Oh,
Paul, why were we so baffled and misled ? Why was
I not guided aright ? I can never forgive him."
Barclay essayed to reassure her. " He would
never have deliberately planned his own daughter's
unhappiness," he said. " He too must have been de-
ceived. It is easily supposable that he may have
-I s THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
thought there were many more desirable suitors for
your hand than myself," said Barclay.
Did he need any amends to a wounded self-love
for the past, surely he must have felt that he had
them now. He found himself advanced to the post
of honor, not only at present, but beyond all compet-
itors from the first. He was not merely a solace and
refuge in the troubles of her life, though, in his
unselfish devotion to her, he was prepared to be con-
tent with even that, but the first choice of her
heart, in all its freshness.
\\ hat was now to be done ? The inexorable pres-
sure of the situation returned upon them.
"Must you go? "asked Mrs. Varemberg, in per-
suasive tones, soft as the cooing of a ring -dove.
" Wlty must you go ? Ah, yes, you have no pretext
for staying. You need a pretext for staying ; I alone
am not sufficient Do not mind me ! " she broke
off ; " it is only my weakness that talks in this wav."
" Listen to me, dearest Florence," said the lover
gravely. " After what has happened I must surely
go, even if there had not existed the most imperative
of reasons before ; we both know it. As to me,
when I leave here, I cannot say what I shall do or
where I shall go. I must not see you, nor scarcely
communicate with you. But this one thing is certain
beyond change : you have become a vital part of my
life, and I can never hereafter separate you from it.
Let us do this : let us agree to be true to each other,
to wait for each other. Perhaps Heaven, in its mercy,
will yet be propitious to us."
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. ' 249
' You must not make such a promise," protested
Florence, in a kind of horror. " You must not tie
yourself to one with so hopeless a future as mine. It
is folly ; it is wickedness. I beg of you not to do it ;
I beg of you to go and forget me."
" Do not fancy it will be hard," went on Barclay,
disregarding her in his turn. " To be true to your
memory, though you should never be mine, will be
sweeter to me than to win the favor of all the world
beside. I have loved you once and forever ; if I may
never have you, I will die as I have lived, but I will
not lower the standard of my ideal."
" Paul, dear Paul, you must not wait for me," she in-
sisted. " The world is so wide ; I am, not vain enough
to think it does not contain a great many more at-
tractive than I. You are one to inspire, as to give,
the truest affection. You will meet some one who is
far more worthy of you than I. I shall cease to be
the baneful influence I have been in your life; I shall
fade into a mere phantom, and you will be happy, as
you deserve."
" What you ask me to do would not be in my power,
even if I wished it. Do I not know myself ? Have
I not been tried by too many tests already ? "
" But why must you go ? " she pleaded weakly.
" Why can we not be only friends, and all go on as
before ? "
"The tongues of calumny have already begun to
wag. In staying, even if it were possible, I should
do you great harm in public repute. No, there is
'nothing else but for me to go. You and I are clear-
250 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
headed ; we are not of that weak class who allow
themselves to be blinded by passion, entangled by
wretched sophistries."
" What if I were to say I do not care ? I do not
care, I do not care. What spell has this feeling
cast over me ? I cannot "see my way any longer as
to what is right and what is wrong. Why are we
made so ? Must the deepest and truest affection be
forever balked? "
/
" It is said," answered Barclay ruefully, " that an
honorable man ought to protect a woman even against
herself."
" Perhaps that is what he says when he does not
love her," she rejoined, with a reckless skepticism.
" That is what he says, darling, when he loves her
in the purest and holiest way as I love you."
" And you will go ? Oh, you are still here we
are talking together I cannot realize it. But to-
morrow ! to wake and find you gone, and to know that
I shall never see you again ! And then, all the to-
morrows, to-morrows, to-morrows ! "
" Our fate is hard ! " cried Barclay in response.
He was stirred beyond measure by this pathetic la-
ment for him. He was but human ; he abandoned
his self-control, so hardly maintained, and began to
rage, in his turn, at the toils in which they found
themselves taken. " I must run away with you or
from you," he said. He proposed that she should fly
with him. He beset her again on the subject of
divorce. He broke out into violent expressions
against David Lane and against Varemberg. " He
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 251
will die, he must die ! " he exclaimed excitably, in
reference to the latter. " It is not just. Why does
such vileness cumber the earth ? "
His companion recoiled. The vehemence of Bar-
clay restored to her in a certain degree her own
calmer and better judgment. In a brief flash of
intuition perhaps both had a glimpse, as it were, into
the crimes to which weak and struggling souls are
driven by the pressure of circumstances not unlike
their own.
" He is still young," said Mrs. Varemberg. " Per-
haps he will yet live to reform and become a useful
and honorable member of society. And, dear Paul,
life is too short for us both not to be in the right."
" Give me, then, what words of comfort you can,"
said Barclay, gloomily resigned, " for my exile ; for I
am going."
"Dear Paul " she began, hesitatingly.
"I have asked you for a promise," he broke in
again. " Let us agree that we will be true to each
other as long as we live, and that you will be mine if
it ever be possible."
" How can I resist your entrancing words ? How
can I really refuse anything you ask me ? Yes, I will
promise ; I will be yours, with what joy and hap-
piness ! if I am ever free, if Heaven ever permits
it to be so."
Barclay held her for a brief instant more in his
arms, as if he would, somehow, by this last embrace
have protected her from the hardship of her destiny.
Then he went quickly out at the door, looking
252 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
neither to the right nor the left. In the hall was
David Lane, who had just come down the stairs, and
who cast at him a glance of keen and singular sus-
picion.
liarclay hurried away, without a word, to his own
abode in the grassy square under the regis of the
Golden Justice. He had already said his farewells
to the good Thornhrooks, who expressed a genuine
sorrow at having him leave the place. By daylight
of the next morning he was on board the train, and
had ostensibly taken his last look on Keewaydin.
He was to pay a brief visit to the colony established
on his lands in Marathon County ; he meant to go
round the city, on his return, and proceed to the
East by another way.
David Lane seemed either to have witnessed or
divined something of their manner of parting just de-
scribed. He entered the drawing-room, with a stern-
ly resentful air, and stood above the form of his
daughter, who had thrown herself down, overcome
with grief, in a corner of the sofa. Her eyes were
red with weeping, but when she caught the gaze of
her father she showed no trace of embarrassment ;
her look was even more stern and resentful than his
own.
" Is this man your lover ? " demanded David Lane.
" Yes," she answered simply.
" You tell me this in your sober senses, and you
suffer him to embrace you ? "
" Yes."
" Do you mean to drag our name in the mire of
disgrace ? "
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 253
The irony of the question smote upon him even
as he asked it. Well indeed did it become him to
frame reproaches on the subject of the family honor,
he who had done so much to preserve it !
"We love each other," she answered, smiling
proudly, " but do not fear that I shall disgrace our
name. It is only now for the first time that he has
.spoken to me, and he is going away ; I shall proba-
bly never see him again. I do not know why I
should hold to any scruples for your sake, since you
have had so few where my happiness was con-
cerned," she went on ; " but do not be alarmed, for
I repeat, I shall do our name no discredit."
" What am I to understand from these words ? "
David Lane queried, trembling. It was evident that
the exalted principles of his daughter had to some
extent failed in the ordeal ; that an explanation
always to have been dreaded had at last taken
place between these two. But to what extent had
it gone ? What had it involved ?
" It was you who wrecked my life, you who
ought to have been strong and wise for me. Why
did you do it ? Why did you conceal from me the
offer of marriage this man had made ? "
" Would it have made a difference ? " he demanded
eagerly. " Would you have married him ? "
" I am sure I loved him even then. If you had
told me, we should both have been happy."
Her father could give her no valid reasons for his
conduct ; he could by no means allege the real one,
so he took refuge in tergiversation. " Much that
_C4 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
happened in those times is now vague to me," he
said. " I was full of anxieties and cares in other
ways. I suppose I could not have attached the real
importance to it. I had long thought of you as one
who knew your own mind ; and if Barclay had not
made his feelings clear to you, it did not seem as if
any formal statement by me could have much effect.
Surely I was mistaken. I meant to act for the best."
He followed his strenuous disclaimers of wrong
intent with warm protestations of fatherly affection
which came from a full and agonized heart. Like
Jephthah, he had sacrificed his daughter. Like Jeph-
thah, he might have said, " Alas, my daughter ! thou
hast deceived me and art thyself deceived."
Mrs. Varemberg now gave way to convulsive weep-
ing, in which her resentment disappeared. Only an
overburdening sense of the sadness of her lot re-
mained. She went broken from the room, her father
conducting her to the door, and pressing a kiss upon
her cold forehead.
David Lane was prepared for a renewal of her
petition for divorce. He did not know how he could
now resist it. With some wretched design, perhaps,
of being beforehand with her in it, when he next saw
her, he introduced the subject himself. He was all
but completely broken at this time, and ready to
accede to anything she might propose. But, curi-
ously enough, it was now she herself who stood firm.
" No," she said, in opposition ; " what is not justi-
fied by natural right and justice cannot be justified
by my poor human weakness."
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 255
Her father was proud of her spirit and high stand-
ard of conduct, which made him but the more re-
morseful and compassionate of her pains. But would
she always remain as firm on this point ? A radical
change in her situation almost immediately occurred,
and put this question forever aside. Barclay had
been gone but a single day, when the mail brought
Mrs. Varemberg a letter in a familiar handwriting.
She found it beside her plate at the breakfast table.
It was post-marked San Francisco. She turned pale
at sight of it, and did not dare to open it in person,
but passed it on to her father, and listened to hear
what he should tell her of its contents.
" My poor child ! " he said, glancing sympatheti-
cally across at her, and began to read. The letter
was substantially as follows :
" I find myself rather unexpectedly in your part
of the world. It is not so near, it is true, and yet
not so far away, either. I have lately arrived here
from the Sandwich Islands. The climate there did
not suit me, and there were various disagreeable ad-
ventures But all that is a long story, like a good
deal more that is behind me, and of which you will,
no doubt, be glad to hear in due time. Finding my-
self thus favored in my whereabouts, the idea occurs
to me of dropping down upon you, by way of a little
surprise. It will interest me to see the pleasant re-
tirement to which you betook yourself from Bel-
gium, without the formality of asking my permis-
sion, be it remembered. This note is by way of
announcement that I shall set out immediately by
256 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
rail, and I trust that you will be ready, on my ar-
rival, with some pleasant proposition for settling our
late small differences, and again establishing for
ourselves the customary domestic hearth. Naturally,
you are still my wife ; I have not relinquished any
claim to you. I tire of living this Bohemian life ;
it has many discomforts ; and I have no doubt that
you will be glad to join with me in the plan of mak-
ing of ourselves once more a comfortable pair of
bons bourgeois. I am sure these domestic tastes will
commend themselves to your most respectable father,
to whom please convey the assurance of my high
consideration, and he will lend us a trifle of pe-
cuniary aid to carry them into effect."
The letter was signed by Varemberg.
" It is infamous ! " said the reader of it, in hot
indignation. " He dares to threaten us ? He will
come this way ? But do not fear him, Florence. He
shall rue the day ; he shall have a warm reception
awaiting him."
But his words fell upon unconscious ears ; she
who should have beard them had fallen into a piti-
able swoon, and Mrs. Clinton and the maid were
actively applying restoratives.
Nor was this the last of the malign intruder from
a past life. On the contrary, it was but the begin-
ning of a speedy end. The same night, a loud ring-
ing aroused the house some time after it had retired
to slumber. A telegraphic despatch was brought in
and handed up to David Lane, who came to the top
of the stairs to receive it. The servants felt sure
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 257
that the master of the house had received bad news.
He read his despatch with but a sombre visage, turned
towards Mrs. Varemberg's apartments, turned away
again, then turned back once more, and went heavily
and knocked at his daughter's door.
A friend and neighbor, from Keewaydin, had in-
formed him further of a fatal railroad accident, al-
ready briefly mentioned in the afternoon papers. An
Eastern-bound overland train had been precipitated
down a lofty embankment near Omaha, through the
snapping of a rail in the severe cold, and several
lives had been lost. Among the dead the sender of
the despatch had recognized the son-in-law of David
Lane, having known him slightly abroad, and had
fully identified him by means of papers found on the
body.
Thus the tragic incubus was removed. Varemberg
was no more, and his widow was free, to live, to mar-
ry, as she pleased.
Saved as she was from the very spring of the tiger,
Mrs. Varemberg was yet afflicted by a certain re-
morse, as if she were somehow responsible for this
dreadful taking-off of the ill-fated partner who had
been her nightmare and her bane. She had allowed
her thoughts to dwell, though never so remotely, on
this consummation, and it was as if her wish had
been forged into a weapon with which the deed was
done. Broken by so many shocks, she succumbed to
an acute illness. During its continuance she was by
no means in a condition to communicate with Barclay,
258 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
had she so desired. Added to this, it would have
been extremely difficult for any one to say, in this
his first impetuous plunge away from all the inter-
ests by which he had so long been bound, where he
was.
XII.
THE " PEOPLE'S CANDIDATE."
PAUL BARCLAY had formed no definite programme
for his flight or his future. In seeking first the re-
mote colony on his wild lands in the upper part of
the State, he but obeyed the instinct that so often
drives the unhappy to the refuge of solitude and na-
ture.
His colony now presented to view a number of log
houses and a considerable space of cleared land. The
shriek of a portable saw-mill rose upon the ear, to-
gether with the dull thud of fthe woodman's axe ; and
the stumps of the felled pine-trees, scattered numer-
ously in and about the new settlement, showed
through the snow which still lay deep on the
ground in this northerly latitude like a species of
envious fangs, snarling at the growth of this humble
little Carthage.
Barclay remained at this lonely spot nearly a fort-
night. In his fierce need of action and change, he
took the axe into his own hands, and smote ringing
strokes upon the great trees. Again, with his gun,
he followed large wild game through the forest long
days together, till, at night, he was ready to drop
with fatigue, and was incapable of thought.
The sociable agent of the colony tried his best to
260 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
entertain him, but his resources were few. He
brought home some newspapers, from long rides he
took to the nearest hamlet, and read out bits of these
in the evening. Politics were beginning to be inter-
esting. The municipal caldron at Keewaydin was
bubbling actively, and nominations for mayor were
in order. Barclay had little concern with all these
things. But, among the rest, as they sat around the
stove one evening, in the rude main cabin, just be-
fore their usual primitive hour for bed, the agent hit
upon a bit about the railway accident and the fate of
Varemberg.
" Tough times for travelers, these days," said he,
" the cold spells snappin' the rails so. I see that for-
eign son-in-law of David Lane's is dead ; killed out
Omaha way."
Then, indeed, his listener paid attention. He
bounded to his feet, and seized the paper with his own
hands. Yes, it was so. Varemberg was dead ! She
was free ! But the date of the paper was almost ten
days back. Why had he not heard from her? Why
had she not sent to him in all this time? How could
she ? Had he not purposely buried himself in these
inaccessible wilds ?
Night though it was, the best horse of the camp
was got out, and he had himself driven off on the
instant. He made a railway connection at daybreak,
and by night of the next day was again in Keeway-
din.
The dress of Mrs. Varemberg confirmed the truth
of the news he had heard. She was in mourning of
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 261
the lighter sort, following in a purely formal way the
conventional customs made and provided. She had
recovered from her illness, but was still weighed upon
by the effects of it and the experiences she had passed
through. She was grave, undemonstrative, not like
her former self. She gave the full details of the
catastrophe. She said her father had been in person
to Omaha, found the remains of her husband, given
them decent burial, forwarded his papers to his sur-
viving relatives in Europe, and offered, by <;able, to
hold himself at their disposition for any further
orders. All was absolutely over wellnigh a week
before.
" And now ! now ! now ! " exclaimed Barclay joy-
ously, when he thought he had listened to sufficient
on this subject.
His reference to their last meeting and all that it
implied was unmistakable, but Mrs. Varemberg did
not yet respond to his ardor. She had fallen, in fact,
into a pensive and morbid condition, in which she
thought the planning of any attractive manner of life
for herself henceforth all but criminal.
" You did not send for me ? You did not wish to
have me with you at once ? " said her lover, in re-
proachful questioning.
" I did not know where you were. I knew that
you would hear."
" You have changed. What is this ? I do not un-
derstand you."
" I cannot pretend to feel any sorrow for him,
that would be too much, but his dreadful fate
262 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
shocked me so that it seemed to leave no place for
other and softer feelings. It seems as if 1 had done
it. Oh," she broke out, " after all that has happened,
with such memories behind us, is it not too late?
Can there be any happy future possible to one so
wretched as I ? No, no, let us abandon the thought
of it."
Barclay hastened to combat these gloomy views
with all his might. "The future is wholly ours;
with it we will redeem the past," he protested, vigor-
ously. " Oh, think of all we may yet do ! "
" Think of all we must both remember ! "
" In the olden times," he argued, " beautiful tem-
ples were thrown down, and their fragments incor-
porated into other buildings. We have a record of
one mediaeval cathedral built upon a foundation en-
tirely of lovely broken statues. From such a seed,
as it were, could hardly fail to spring perfections of a
new order. Let us try to regard our lives hereafter
as something like that, but the more valuable and the
sweeter for the weird hopes, the lost illusions, that
underlie them."
The warmth of his convictions gradually impressed
itself upon her, and kindled her own anew.
" Our union must not be delayed beyond the ear-
liest feasible moment," he urged. " We must con-
cede only the most imperative delays. We have so
little time now in which to be happy, and we must
not lose a moment of it."
The two arrived at a complete understanding, and
then they wished to have the consent of David Lane
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 263
to their formal engagement. It was not necessarily
to be made public till a decorous period of mourning
had passed. Mrs. Varemberg was willing to make
this concession to what popular opinion was assumed
to be, though she had in very truth been widowed
several years ; but on all other accounts, the peace of
mind of both, the comfort of Barclay in his footing
in the house, it was desirable that in the eyes of
David Lane they should be finally and once for all
betrothed. As soon as was convenient and seemly,
therefore, they presented themselves before him for
that purpose.
That unhappy man had expected such a visit from
the moment of the arrival of the telegram acquaint-
ing him with Varemberg's fate ; he was alive to its
importance, and in a measure prepared to meet it.
Though driven so near to the wall, he proposed to
resist his perverse fate to the last. Even now, could
he see this couple united ? Nothing had changed in
the main situation, his motive power for so many
years. Was it not for their own sakes he had op-
posed and must still oppose them ? His horror of
their union rested upon the dread that his confession
must one day come down from the Golden Justice,
and ruin them all. Could any one have assured him
of the folly of this foreboding, they might have mar-
ried and welcome, the sooner the better, for it had
often wrung his heart to see them suffer. But who
could assure him of this ? The thought was his con-
stant companion, the source of his never-ending men-
tal turmoil. He met the applicants, therefore, with a
grave front of firm denial.
264 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
"Do you think I will let my daughter go?" he
said, in the course of talk, turning directly towards
Barclay. " Do you ask me to give up my only real
companion, the mainstay of my declining years ? "
" But we need not go, papa," appealed his daugh-
ter, answering in person. " "We will both stay with
you, if you desire it. You will only have two chil-
dren instead of one."
The pair were astonished, discomfited, at a refusal
they had had no reason to expect. The discussion
grew almost acrimonious. Barclay withdrew. He felt
that, for his own part, he could no longer continue
in it with dignity. Mrs. Varemberg remained, and
prosecuted the argument further. David Lane was
quibbling, evasive, and morose. Driven from one
position to another, he began to take on a much-bad-
gered, hunted sort of manner. He called the propo-
sition to which they had desired to obtain his consent
one showing unseemly, almost indecent, haste.
His daughter, looking at him, wondering, with her
large, grave eyes, demanded,
" Tell me your real reasons for opposing us ! "
But he was still elusive. " I am not convinced that
you really love him," he said. " Most likely it is
only a matter of passing association and habit. You
have injudiciously allowed him to come here too
much ; you have seen no one else. But now that you
are going out into the world again, you will meet with
others ; you will find some one "
His listener stopped him short, indignant, and
keenly hurt that the sincerity of her love could be
questioned.
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 265
" I love him devotedly," she said ; " he has every
quality to win the admiration and esteem of a woman.
After all that I have told you, do not still try to treat
me like a child. If I do not marry him, I shall never
marry at all." *
" Well, then, I see my way clearly. I cannot con-
sent," he answered doggedly, as if returning his ulti-
matum. " All this is for your own good, if you did
but know it."
" Then we must act without your consent. We are
of an age to regulate our own affairs."
" Florence ! " he appealed, pathetically.
" Give me some reasons for this most extraordinary
conduct. I am willing to hear and overcome them
all."
" Let me think. Give me time to think," he re-
joined. " We will return to this subject again."
He dashed his hand across his forehead in a dis-
tracted way, and left the house.
No sooner was he without than he directed his
steps in search of Ives Wilson, and found the editor
at the latter's office in the building of the Morning
Index.
" I wish to be mayor," said Lane, entering ab-
ruptly, and broaching the subject with hardly more
ado.
The editor of the Index was proof against many
surprises, but this was beyond him. A proposition so
considerably outside of his usual category took away
his breath.
" The place has already been promised to DeBow;
266 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
he is as good as elected," he urged, deprecatingly, in
order to gain time to collect his scattered ideas.
" I wish to be mayor," repeated his patron and
benefactor. " Let us understand that positively,
that is settled ; let us talk only of how it is to be
done."
" We might sow discord in the nominating conven-
tions, I suppose, and organize a bolt," said the editor,
with the air of bending his whole mind to the prob-
lem, since to dismiss it was impossible. " I have it,"
he added, presently. " What do you say to a Peo-
ple's Candidate ? "
" A ' People's Candidate ' ? "
" Yes ; we can thunder against the ' rings,' corrup-
tion in municipal affairs, and the like. We can call
for a cleaning out of the Augean stables, and the
uniting of all good citizens, without distinction of
party, upon a reform nominee, a citizen of high char-
acter, like yourself. We might make it appear that
the movement had been a long time maturing."
" Good ! " assented David Lane. " Let it be that
or whatever else you like, so that the object is surely
accomplished."
He attended but little to the vein of cynical humor
in which the other outlined his plan.
'* Expenses, no doubt, will be heavier than usual,
but you shall have an ample margin. Do not hold
back from anything that may be necessary, on that
account."
" It is gratifying to see you again in the political
field." said Ives Wilson, " but I confess I don't quite
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 267
understand it on the instant. At one time, we used
to beg and implore you to take much more important
offices than this, and you would not do it ; and now,
after 'all the high honors you have held, you seek a
smaller one of your own accord."
" I am tired of rusting out in idleness. I want
occupation."
This was all the explanation ever vouchsafed ; and
it really mattered very little to this adviser what the
true reason was, since it was made to his advantage.
But had he guessed for a thousand years he would
never have hit upon it. He would never have di-
vined the wild, extraordinary resource that remained
to David Lane, in taking the office of mayor, a re-
source which he was at last driven to use by the sight
of his daughter's distress and the sound of her re-
proaches in his ears.
There had always been a bare possibility that the
confession might be recovered from the Golden Jus-
tice, and David Lane had sometimes revolved it
dimly, with other vagrant thoughts on the subject.
But by what agency could it be done? It was a
mission too delicate to entrust to the most confiden-
tial employee in the world. To so entrust it would
be but to subject one's self to blackmail, with the
certainty of the ultimate disclosure of the secret be-
sides. No, none but himself must touch the paper.
If he could pass a night in the building, he might,
under cover of darkness, climb to the dome, and,
with good fortune, effect an opening into the statue
and possess himself of the confession. Now, he could
268 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
not conceal himself in the edifice, nor could he ask
permission to remain. He must have the right to
stay unquestioned. But who had the right to stay?
In the first place, the janitor, an honest German. An-
ton Klopp, who had long held this post. Next, the
city officers, mayor, comptroller, city clerk, and
the like. The only one of these positions he could
allow himself to seek and fill without too strong ec-
centricity and suspicion was that of mayor.
"We have seen that he had taken steps to be made
once more mayor of Keewaydin. "Would he, then,
with all his honors, his years, and infirmities heavy
upon him, attempt in person so wild and hazardous
an undertaking as that hinted at ? "With his hands
by his sides he had felt the muscles of his legs, as he
came along to the interview with the editor, tested
them again by long strides, and nerved himself for
the feat with Spartan determination.
There was no time to lose. Ives Wilson, a Mach-
.iavellian wire-puller of great vigor, initiated the cam-
paign forthwith. The Index began at once to con-
tain letters, written in the office, be it understood,
signed " Many Tax-Payers," " Many Citizens,"
" Veritas," and " Justitia," demanding that the Au-
gean stables be cleaned out and the era of corruption
be brought to its close; that the party slates be
broken, and a man of conspicuous probity be placed
in the field. A People's Candidate was called for,
and the name of David Lane suggested. The editor
affected to think it no more than fair to give these
>
indications of popular ferment the courtesy of print.
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 269
The clamor in the office of the Index in-
creased, till it seemed impossible to resist. Then the
paper took the air of putting itself formally at its
head. Ives Wilson now privately convened a little
knot of skillful persons, with whom he had been
much in the habit of working in matters of this de-
scription ; these communicated the impetus to a
larger coterie, and this to others in turn, so that pres-
ently the ward primaries were feeling the influence
profoundly. The " slate " was not broken, in the
convention of the principal party, as had been pro-
posed ; the new movement had begun too late to be
able to capture the nomination from DeBow ; but
David Lane's followers organized a bolt. They went
to the weaker political faction, which, being already
prepared for defeat any way, was found only too
glad to strike hands with the bolters, and make Lane
the nominee of both, on a fusion ticket.
Some of his old associates came to him regret-
fully, and urged him not to allow himself to be used
as an instrument for disrupting the party with which
they had together so long been identified. But they
little knew how slight a matter party fealty had now
become to him they addressed, under the stimulus of
his new motives.
" I have put myself in the hands of my friends,"
he responded, with artful dissimulation. " I should
not now consider it fair to them to withdraw, with-
out their express command."
When all this was settled, he returned to the mo-
mentous subject which had come up between him
and his daughter.
270 TllE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
" I am tired of rusting in idleness," he said. " If
there is a possibility of losing you, I must have new
occupations. I am going to run for mayor. Let the
matter of which you have spoken to me stand till
that is over."
"But I cannot see the slightest connection be-
tween the two."
" Leave it to me. You will find me reasonable.
Success brings good temper," he rejoined ; and when
she still urged her point, he added, positively, "I
will not decide till the election is over."
Still, this was something tangible to tell. The
period of delay would not be long. Mrs. Varemberg
reported it to her impatient lover, and they were fain
to wait, possessing their souls in comparative pa-
tience.
A large store that happened to be vacant in Tel-
son's Block, on the principal thoroughfare, was taken
for David Lane's headquarters, and a canvas banner,
with the usual atrocious portrait of the candidate,
was hung across the street, in front of it. From this
nucleus a great activity was organized. Printed cir-
culars and free editions of the Index were mailed in
profusion. There were kept in stock the flaming
yellow and pink sheet posters for the fences and
dead-walls. A great wagon, papered with these same
sheet posters, and containing a deep-toned bell, pa-
trolled the streets by day, distributing documents,
and made the campaign headquarters its rendezvous.
From there, also, torchlight processions were sent
forth at night. The managers, with hats tilted very
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 271
much backward or very much forward, as the case
might be, sat around a long table covered with an
untidy litter of papers, as was the floor, with cigar
stumps added, or anon received visitors confiden-
tially in small boxes, temporarily partitioned off with
pine boards, at the rear.
Here maps were spread open, and the sectional in-
terests of the town studied, district by district; What
motives might be best appealed to ? What springs
of tradition, habit, self-interest, local pride or preju-
dice, caste or nationality, might be played upon
as the musician plays upon his instrument to catch
votes ?
One ward was well to do and "aristocratic," and
another composed largely of small mechanics ; one
was German, another Polish ; one had a large free-
thinking element clustered around the turner-halls,
another was Lutheran, another Irish Catholic.
" Shall we stir up the religious question again ? "
demanded Ives Wilson, with a cheerful nonchalance,
in these consultations. On the whole, it was decided
to do so. " We have more to gain than lose by it,"
he said.
Some old " Know Nothing " record, as it was
called, of Jim DeBow's was unearthed. He was as-
serted to have been hostile to immigration at an early
day, and to have said in public that he wished an
ocean of fire rolled between us and all Europe, that
foreigners might be kept out. He was said to have
made remarks a propos of a request for a subscrip-
tion to a church fair insulting to the religious
opinions of a large and worthy section of voters.
272 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
In every ingenious wsty, in short, Ives Wilson ex-
emplified, in the Index, what he had meant by his
principle of hitting hard. DeBow's party, on the
other hand, were no novices in tactics of this kind,
and they returned the onslaught with interest. It
was made a reproach to David Lane, at one and the
same time, that he was a drunkard, hecause he had
wine on his table, and a " temperance fanatic," inas-
much as he had at one time signed a request for
some sort of limited restriction of the number of sa-
loons and the demoralizing sale of liquor. For his
injury with the proletariat, he was shown to be a
monopolist ; was charged, since his residence abroad,
with foreign ideas, and with entertaining aggrandiz-
ing designs against the liberties of the place which
could scarcely have been carried out by any other
than a Russian despot, at the head of all his legions.
In this campaign, too, the early marriage of James
DeBow below his station was, oddly enough, sought
to be turned to account. It was suggested in some
artful, demagogical way that this marriage had been
deliberately contracted with the express desire of al-
lying himself the more thoroughly with the great,
warm democratic heart of the people.
So the fray raged ; sophistries, criminations, and
recriminations filled the air, and the preliminary pa-
pers in numerous libel suits were served.
The managers no doubt laughed in their sleeves,
like the augurs of old, at the credulity they utilized,
the passions they fomented ; while the masses, poor
souls, wrangled, fought, and vituperated, sowing seeds
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 273
of bitterness that would not be extirpated till a bet-
ter education should show their descendants the flim-
siuess of the means by which they had been duped.
The Golden Justice for she was at the bottom
of all this, like Bellona, the goddess of discord, in-
stead of the symbol of rectitude and peace be-
came once more the cause of a violent municipal
upheaval. The stir extended afar, to the august
Senate at Washington, and might even alter the des-
tinies of the nation ; for it so happened that if Ross-
more whose election depended upon that of James
DeBow were not returned, the balance of power
in the Senate would be changed, and the complexion
of several measures of leading importance altered.
Paul Barclay, having such a vital issue depending
upon it, was naturally very keenly alive to Lane's
success in the contest. He now confronted political
life, for the first time, in a personal way and at close
quarters. As a student of republican institutions, he
saw much to shock the fastidious and make the judi-
cious grieve. During the campaign he continued to
see Mrs. Varemberg more or less frequently, but al-
ways under the shadow of the restraint and opposi-
tion that hampered them. His visits galled David
Lane. Perhaps they even goaded him on, with the
view of insuring absolute success in his project, to
measures to which he might not otherwise have been
driven. Ives Wilson aimed to lose no point that in-
defatigable effort could secure him ; but perhaps it is
only fair to suppose that the candidate did not know
all that was done in his name.
274 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
David Lane's uame headed a call to the Hon. Franz
Hofnagel, of Minnesota, to fix a day when he would
deliver his famous address on the German Father-
land, and another asking the eloquent Father Finne-
gan for his oration on Hibernian Saints and Heroes.
Subscriptions were made to worthy objects, goods not
at all needed were bought of deserving tradesmen,
and small sums of money were loaned, or otherwise
judiciously placed, where they would do the most
good.
Barclay had set the considerable force of men re-
maining under his orders, by way of keeping them
in occupation, to clearing up the debris at Barclay's
Island, and otherwise putting it to rights. It began
to look as though the burned factory might yet be re-
placed by a new and more imposing one. Ives Wil-
son took occasion to apprise him, one day, that a
number of these men, unless prevented, were going
to vote for Jim DeBow, with whose party all their
affiliations lay.
" What are you going to do about it ? " Wilson
asked.
" I had not thought of doing anything. What do
you advise ? "
" I would have a special run of work on election
day for that particular class of men. I would ask
them to stay home from voting and help me out.
They could do that much, any way ; it 's a mighty
poor hand that won't help his employer over a tight
pinch now and then. If there were any that did n't
want to do it, I 'd let it get gently insinuated into
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 275
their minds, somehow, that their services would be
dispensed with altogether at the earliest opportunity."
There was an element of the amusing in this, as in
most else that Ives Wilson did. He passed in such
a light, airy, birdlike way over all things, both good
and evil, that it was difficult to attribute iniquity to
him, even when most perverse ; it was almost as if he
belonged to some different and less responsible order
of beings.
" But see here, Wilson," said Barclay, " there 's an
original bent of mental and moral obliquity about you
that I have often noticed, and I won't say that it is
not at times quite entertaining; but, once for all,
leave me out of your crooked propositions. I 've had
enough of them. You 've favored me with a good
deal too much of them, in fact."
" Oh ! " said Wilson, slightly sobered.
" Do you want to know what my individual opin-
ion about these matters is ? "
" Certainly, my dear fellow, certainly."
" Well, it is this : considering that the suffrage is
the only safeguard of the society in which we live,
and that without it no redress of the most heinous
evils is possible, those who tamper with it are the
greatest rascals in the entire category, and their of-
fense ought to be visited with the severest penalties
known to the law, which ought, indeed, to enact
new ones for their especial benefit."
" But, see here," said the editor, in his turn, " I
thought you were on David Lane's side in this mat-
ter."
270 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
"I am." and he half muttered to himself, thinking
of the white arras that awaited him, as the prize of
victory. " You would hardly doubt it if you knew
what I had at stake." He went on, " But my men
are going to vote as they please, for all that."
" My dear boy," Wilson concluded, reserving his
imperturbable good - nature, " my dear boy, of
course one would not do anything off-color, to aid
what he positively knew to be wrong ; but where
the cause is a good one. like this, where it 's a cause
that ought to prevail any way, why, that makes it a
very different thing, don't yon see ? ' Use all the
weapons at your hand ! Fight the devil with fire ! '
say I. Besides, voters, like readers, ought to be in-
fluenced : they expect it ; they require it ; they don't
understand anything else."
Ives "Wilson thought so well of this episode that he
took occasion to report it to his principal, David Lane,
setting it forth as the fantastic notions of a novice in
politics, and "one of the humors of the campaign."
The voters referred to were saved to David Lane,
however, by a different means. All at once a com-
mittee, very rough and ready in appearance, com-
prising the sardonic Hoolan among its numbers, waited
upon Barclay, and tendered him a nomination for al-
derman. The regular nominee for the district had
been discovered at the last moment to be ineligible
by reason of having neglected to take out his full
naturalization papers. A semi-official meeting had
been held, largely influenced, it afterwards appeared,
by Barclay's own workingmen ; his name had been
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE, 277
broached in this meeting, and acclaimed with enthu-
siasm, and a duly appointed committee came to offer
him the candidacy. Barclay was astonished at the
unexpected honor. He wavered, deliberated, took
time for his answer. He found himself brought face
to face with the first step in what might be the en-
lightened political career of which he had once
thought. A position as alderman must certainly
give him experience of an intimate practical sort,
that would prove useful as he went farther on.
There could be little doubt, too, that he could find
useful measures enough with which to occupy himself
during his actual term of service, if he should stay ;
and if he should not stay, well, one can always
resign. It gave him a sort of modest thrill that the
office still an honorable one in a community not
yet greatly corrupted had sought him without the
slightest intimation on his part that he had desired
political preferment. On the expiration of the hour
he had reserved to make his decision, he returned
his acknowledgments to the honest committee, de-
clared himself greatly flattered at this manifestation
of their favor, and accepted their nomination. Once
" the young boss," as they called him, was in the field,
his men identified themselves warmly with his whole
campaign, and no solicitation was needed to obtain
their support for any interests he was known to
favor.
As soon as he was put in nomination, he began to
be besieged, in the usual way, by that horde of good-
for-nothings, political " strikers " of one sort and an-
278 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
other, who seek their profit from aspirants for office.
Keepers of small saloons desired funds, as they said,
to distribute among their respective clienteles. A
foreign-looking man, calling himself a professor of
music, declared himself possessed of such potent in-
fluence among his fellow-countrymen that he had but
to hand them a certain ticket to have it voted with-
out question. He was willing, for a consideration, to
hand them the tickets of Barclay. Some members of
the Twilight Social Club asserted that the club meant
to vote " the right ticket " in any event, but were
certain it could not be brought out to anything like
a full strength without funds. Two separate individ-
uals, each on his own account, offered to dicker for
the entire vote of a populous mechanics' boarding-
house. A hand-to-hand conflict wellnigh arose be-
tween the two men, who had inadvertently happened
in at the same time. The right to dispose of their
pretended merchandise was first claimed by a small,
puny man, whose name, it appeared, was 7%-omas
Madigan, and who was the keeper in person of the
boarding-house. But this claim was fiercely contested
by a burly, unshaven Dennis Tully, who was, or had
been, an assistant of his.
"It's me as the place belongs to. Who else but
me cud put them boys to work ? " protested Madigan,
plaintively. " Who else but me wud have the \nflu-
ence ? "
"He's a greenhorn, so he is," explained Tully
contemptuously. " It was me learned him the board-
in'-house business. Nobody can put them boys to
work but me."
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 279
But Barclay sent all these to the right-about, and
they departed, breathing threatenings and slaughter.
They were to use the influence he had refused to his
total ruin, but, after all, they did him no great harm.
Some repaired with their grumbling to campaign head-
quarters, where perhaps they met with a certain sol-
ace from Ives Wilson, who was universally affable at
this time.
The final act of the campaign was a " grand cen-
tral rally " at the Exposition Building. At this meet-
ing, Barclay was given a seat among the important
guests on the platform, and he found his name en-
tered as one of the long list of vice-presidents.
An orator, introduced as " a business man," first
demanded, " What is leather worth ? What is lum-
ber worth ? What are any commodities worth, in
times like these ? The rascals," he said, " have stolen
us poor. The mills and workshops must be reopened,
the wheels of industry must once more go round."
Next an ex-postmaster, who had a certain ready-
made trick of enthusiasm in his oratory, declared that
he had just risen from a sick-bed, to be present at
this meeting. " My heart was in the cause," he said,
" and no mortal power could have kept me away.
Hot words of burning indignation rise unbidden to
my lips, as I think of the issues of this hour. This is
no ordinary crisis, no small or mean occasion. We
are here, in our might, to grapple the entrenched
forces of corruption in a last, desperate, life-and-death
struggle. Nor are we alone in this contest : other
eyes are turned to us from afar ; other hearts will
280 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
take courage from us to shake off the chains of their
bondage, or, should we be so recreant to ourselves as
to fail, will sink down into the night of Plutonian
darkness."
The speaker indulged in gurglings, whisperings,
bellowings, and lachrymose breakings of the voice, in
prodigious risings on the toes and heels and bendings
of the knees, and in poundings of an emphatic fist.
The audience cheered, howled, and cut into him, at
times, with random interruptions.
He was followed by Ives Wilson, who " reviewed
the situation " and " pictured the wants of the hour,"
phrases from the press report in his paper. " Why
does the reckless faction of our opponents spend
money like water? " he demanded.
" O tempora ! O mores ! " murmured Paul Barclay
to himself, in his seat among the honorary vice-presi-
dents of the meeting.
' Why are they making this desperate fight to re-
tain their grip upon the public treasury ?" Wilson
went on.
It happened that, when he was asking why the ene-
my had not, during their tenure of office, done certain
very rose-colored things, which he represented as de-
sirable, an interrupting voice cried out, " Because
they have n't got the brains, begod ! "
' ; My friend says, because they have not the brains,"
he went on, proposing to turn the distraction to ora-
torical account in a usual way ; " but I will show my
good friend that he is wrong. I deny that it is brains
they lack ; it is the common honesty to apply them."
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 281
" Always deny a fact ! " shouted the disturber, who
now elbowed his way hastily to the front.
The audience, at sight of him, recognized a famil-
iar figure, a Tony Scoville, one of those harmless im-
beciles or lunatics once a man of prominence in
the place of which almost every locality has its
own specimen, who was, as it were, the municipal jes-
ter in ordinary to Keewaydin. His specialty of late
was public meetings. He was repulsed from the
front, but with a good deal of kindness, and genially
expelled from the building. Wilson, crestfallen at
having condescended to argue with this kind of oppo-
nent, presently sat down.
David Lane was naturally the central figure of the
rally. He sat for a considerable time, with an ab-
stracted air, listening to the glowing panegyrics
which were pronounced upon him by Wilson and
others.
When some fervid speaker had demanded, " Why
are we here ? Why do I see this vast concourse of
my fellow-citizens, this assemblage representing all
that is best and grandest in Keewaydin, drawn to-
gether ? " the answer, " Why, indeed ? " had echoed
pathetically in the dark depths of his inner conscious-
ness. His thoughts had lingered incessantly upon
his real purpose. When introduced to the audience
he seemed rather dazed by the crowd and hubbub.
His address was but brief.
" I am not a man of many words," said he. " I
should greatly prefer to be known to you as a man
of action. Nor am I a stranger among you. As an
282 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
earnest of what I will try to be in the future, I can
only refer you to my record in the past. [This rec-
ord, as we know, was of the most exemplary.] I can-
not expect to have wholly escaped some enemies,
some calumniators, in my long residence here of forty
years, but I shall make no attempt to refute their
aspersions now. I am content to be judged by my
friends and neighbors ; I leave myself with confidence
in your hands."
Finally, great rounds of applause went up that
made the roof-tree ring. The assemblage poured out
into the streets, carrying their enthusiasm with them.
The campaign was over, and the Index characterized
it next day, in its most florid head-lines, as having
ended in " A Blaze of Glory," " A Magnificent Re-
form Demonstration for David Lane, the People's
Candidate."
XIII.
THE ELECTION OF A MAYOR
ELECTION DAY, when it at last arrived, was over-
cast, raw, and cold. The ice in the bay, after hav-
ing once gone out, apparently for good, had returned
again, locked vessels in its embrace, and given an
aspect of almost Arctic desolation. The ticket-ped-
dlers of either side stood about the booths, stamping
their chilly feet for warmth. To guard against
dreaded imitations, they had not been served with
their ballots which had been carefully bunched and
ready, at headquarters, the night before till day-
break ; but even this precaution, in the sequel, did
not prove wholly effectual.
The opening hours were like those combats of
picket and skirmish lines of armies that precede a
general engagement. A few honest laborers, who
did not propose to utilize the occasion as a holiday,
were the first to deposit their votes, which they did
en route to their regular day's work. Then came a
lull, and then, soon after the comfortable breakfast-
time of the well-to-do classes, the action began in
earnest.
In the course of the morning, rumors of defec-
tions, betrayals, treasons, stratagems, and spoils, af-
284 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
feeling both sides, grew rife. Split tickets, scratched
tickets, and pure counterfeits rudely executed, it
is true, but calculated to deceive the unwary made
their appearance in the field. Discarded ballots
strewed the ground around the polling places as
thick as leaves at Valombrosa. Cripples and octo-
genarians were ferreted out, and brought to the polls
in hacks. Mr. Welby Goff, of the Index, proved an
excellent hand at this kind of service. He trium-
phantly secured the whole boarding-house of Madigan
against both rival claimants, and next aided to save
the votes of a large omnibus -load of Bohemians,
brought down by their foreman, from the Eagle File
Works. Some of DeBow's agents endeavored to
snatch away from these last, as they alighted, the
Lane ballots with which they were already supplied,
and substitute their own in place of them, crying,
" You are free men. You need n't vote any ticket
only the one you please."
This attempt was strenuously resisted; the Bo-
hemian foreman shouted to his men various strong
adjurations, of which conflicting accounts were after-
wards given. There was a spirited contest, which
almost came to an exchange of blows, but the vic-
tory remained with the Lane party, as aforesaid.
This was a halcyon day for the floating population
of nondescript characters who waited on street cor-
ners for odd jobs. The most obscure figure in the
community now took on a real importance, through
his possession of the proud gift of the suffrage.
Blithe agents went about with more funds in their
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 285
pockets than they needed for their own wants, and
showed themselves most amiably disposed to make
all things merry wherever they moved. Like band-
masters, they raised their batons for a peculiar music
at which all the idle and conscienceless might dance.
There were pocket-money and refreshments galore,
with but very slight service to render in return..
It leaked out that Ludwig Trapschuh, who had
been extremely noisy in the meeting for the nomina-
tion, was among the backsliders from the Lane party.
What! Not that Ludwig Trapschuh of the Chip-
pewa Street bridge, who owed his very place to
David Lane, and whose niece had been so long the
recipient of the magnate's bounty ? It was not pos-
sible ! Yes, tell it not in Gath nor dwell upon
it too long in Askelon, so it was. The bridge-
tender, in his usual financial straits, and lured by a
liberal gratuity in ready money from the DeBowites,
had proved recreant. Early in the day he had en-
tered upon a course of dissimulation. His treachery
was intended at first to be only wily and foxlike, but,
by little and little, as the heat of the day drew on,
the trammels of prudence were more and more
thrown off, and it resembled open rebellion and de-
fiance. He was found to have distributed with his
own hands, and to be a centre of supply for, bogus
Lane ballots. These counterfeited a peculiar design,
of an axe in a bundle of fasces, adopted as a bor-
dering for the express purpose of protecting the
ticket from imitation, and also put up at the head
the name of James DeBow as the People's Reform
286 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
Candidate, instead of that of David Lane. It was a
rude affair, it is true, but still sufficient to impose
upon the unwary. He was proved, among other
things, to have accosted a group of Mecklenberger
wood-sawyers in Market Square, and reproached
them, with affected surprise, for hanging about there
and waiting for jobs, instead of availing themselves
of the high privilege of citizenship on a day like this.
" How we can vote ? " their spokesman inquired
of him in reply. " We bin not long enough in that
country."
"Oh, that's all right; I make it all right, all
right," he had answered cheerfully.
With the aid of his hopeful son Barney and some
other henchmen appointed to do his bidding, he had
made them pass their time agreeably, and seen, in
the course of the day, that they voted in one pre-
cinct or another. They were sworn in, under the
forms of law, by fraudulent affidavits.
He led the half-grown boy, Nicodem Kraska, to
deposit a ballot, as though of full age. He endeav-
ored to induce one of the more active ticket-peddlers
for David Lane (it was through this man's fidelity
that his treason was first disclosed) to go home and
" lie down into bed," so his expression was framed,
offering for this service the sum of twenty dollars.
For the making of voters by affidavit, notaries-
public were stationed at most of the voting precincts,
in the interest of both sides. This was done for the
benefit of all those who had not been able to register
properly on the days appointed by law, and who
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 287
could give a valid excuse for their absence. Little
Notary-Public Kroeger, one of the gossips of the
Johannisberger House, was also a renegade to Lane's
cause. It had been arranged that he should play
into Ludwig Trapschuh's hands in all this important
part of the proceedings. The voters who were made
by him, in his ostensible work for David Lane, were
supplied, to a man, with DeBow tickets.
In this process, the would-be voter was required
to make oath that he was a lawful elector and a resi-
dent of the ward and precinct, and he must show
sufficient cause for not having presented himself be-
fore. This paper must then be further guaranteed
under oath by some person being a householder in
the same ward and precinct.
Trapschuh and his son Barney stretched their wide
acquaintance to the utmost. The obscurity of the
field with which they dealt, the uncouth names and
speech and peculiar manners and customs of the Pol-
ish and lower German element, which was their chief
constituency, promoted the success of their plans, and
no doubt also added an element of recklessness in car-
rying them out. Most of the electors thus made were
of so rude a character as only to be able to affix a
rude cross-mark to their affidavits, instead of their
names.
The modus operandi was afterwards shown, in evi-
dence, to be somewhat as follows. A group would
be brought iu by their purveyor, for instance, to the
back room of Chezef ski's saloon, at the Railroad
Avenue precinct, in which back room Notary Kroeger
288 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
was at his work. The front room of the same estab-
lishment was occupied us the polling-place.
" Well, why did n't you register ? " asked the no-
tary, when this part was reached in its order, paus-
ing a moment, with pen raised in air, for the reply.
The applicant was often too stupid to allege even
the simplest excuse.
" Was you sick ? " prompted the notary, in a cut-
and-dried way.
"Yes, I was sick," returned the man, full of won-
der at the brilliant invention that could suggest so deft
a plea.
One of the Trapschuhs, or their assistants, certified
to this, as a householder and a resident of this, that,
or the other ward and precinct, as the case might be.
When there came an apparent hitch, and a knot of
unidentified persons stood irresolutely about the room,
needing a sponsor, at a nod from Ludwig Trapschuh
one Weuzel Haller, a teamster from the House of
Correction, stepped forward, and cried in a hearty
way,
" Hello ! I know all these men. They want to
vote for DeBow. Why don't you swear 'em in ? "
" You are a householder ? " asked Kroeger, pro-
ceeding expeditiously to do so.
" Yes, of course, I 'm a householder. That 's just
what I am, a householder, every time."
A new batch was brought in by Joe Skinsky, a
Polish butcher, but the teamster Haller, possibly
with some remote fear of consequences, now objected
to being utilized any further. " Let somebody else
know these," he said doggedly. " I done enough."
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 289
" You know me, any way, Haller," said one of
the men confidently, pushing his way to the front,
prompted by Trapschuh.
" Where I seen you before ? " inquired the team-
ster, blinking at him in far more than doubt.
" Oh, down by the city limits," was the answer, in
a large way, generously covering a sufficient field.
" Well, I sign this one," consented Haller, grum-
bling; " but, by jinks ! that's all."
He sat down, and began once more to affix his sig-
nature, laboriously thrusting out his tongue in the
process.
"Ah a a! sign 'em up, sign 'em up! Don't
wait till next Christmas ! " cried Barney Trapschuh,
in his rowdy way.
"Sign 'em yourselluf!" exclaimed Haller, jump-
ing up in dudgeon, upon this, and refusing to have
anything more to do with his task.
This was gleefully taken, however, as a genuine
permit ; and on no better authorization, in fact, as
was shown in court, a dozen more affidavits were
framed and signed by the notary and others, as Hal-
ler's agents, all certifying that the persons respectively
named within were qualified electors, residents of the
proper ward and precinct, and had been totally inca-
pacitated by illness from registering.
Paul Barclay was at general headquarters several
times during the day. Once as he came out, in the
afternoon, he met Mrs. Varemberg. Her presence
there seemed like a breath of some rare fragrance
that had wafted from a higher region into the rude
290 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
turmoil of this exclusive strife of men. She had just
pulled up at the curbstone, in her phaeton, and George
Woodburn a young lawyer, who was having his
first practice to-day in active politics had gone to
her, to give her what scanty news might as yet be
had of the fortunes of the day. Young Woodburn
resigned his place to Barclay, as one calculated to
speak with greater authority than himself, and left
him with her.
" I was so impatient and nervous," said the fair
driver, " that I could not stay in the house. I had
to come out and try to get some idea of how things
are going. My father has kept himself closely shut
up in his room, and has not given me a scrap of in-
formation/'
She had not, of late, had the common feminine atti-
tude of scorn towards politics, and it was a pleasure to
talk to her on that subject as on others. She insisted
on Barclay's getting into the phaeton beside her, and
desired an intelligent opinion on the causes making
for or against success.
" It is too early for anything of value," returned
Barclay. " There is a rumor of trouble for us in the
Polish quarter, which was supposed to be sound for
your father, without question, on account of its nat-
ural party affiliations. What the extent of it will be
it is impossible to say. The DeBowites have been
working there under the surface. It is even said that
a sermon was preached in DeBow's favor in the
church. It is a district where a great deal of crook-
edness can be covered up."
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 291
They drove some little while together, looking on,
from a distance, at characteristic sights of the elec-
tion. Mrs. Varemberg's anxiety indicated the ex-
tent of the interest she felt to be depending, for them,
upon the result. Since her father was so set upon
the post of mayor, she thought nothing ought to be
neglected that could take away the pretext for op-
posing them further on that score. Barclay alighted
near the Railroad Avenue precinct. He stood a mo-
ment to murmur blessings after her dear figure, as she
drove away, and then, in accordance with a promise
he had made to her, plunged into the thick of the fray,
to see what mischief he could discover and frustrate
in person. It was he who, acting upon information
conveyed to him, finally unmasked the Trapschuhs.
The counterfeit Lane ballots, made as heretofore de-
scribed, were traced from son to father. When con-
fronted with his part in this knavery, the latter indig-
nantly denied it. He held that Barney had been
imposed upon, through not being, as he said, " a good-
educated " person. He showed how he had nothing
but Lane ballots, and all marked with a peculiar
Polish mark of his own, so that ignorant voters who
received them from him might be sure they were
voting the right ticket, even though they could not
read it. Johnny Maguire and another stalwart hand
of Barclay's, however, dexterously sprang upon him,
at the risk of a breach of the peace, and "in the
twinkling of a bed-post," as the former expressed it,
searched his pockets, and found them full of the
bogus Lane ballots, all marked in precisely the same
manner.
292 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
This particular precinct was found given over, well-
nigh wholly, to the hands of the enemy. As it trans-
pired, the DeBowites had secured, at the beginning,
two of the three inspectors, and these had finally in-
duced their colleague of the Lane persuaskm to go
home on plea of illness, and leave them to fill the
vacancy and retain the unquestioned control of affairs.
This defection, though important, was but a small
portion of the Polish quarter, the bulk of which held
to David Laue.
As the lines of voters lengthened before the poll-
ing places towards evening, the DeBow managers
might have sighed, like Wellington at Waterloo,
" for night or Bliicher." Anything in the nature of
delay or obstruction of votes was to their advantage.
Their inspectors at the Railroad Avenue precinct
adopted the Fabian policy with all their art. One of
them put his head out of the window at noon, and
cried, " Hear ye ! hear ye ! the polls are closed for
half an hour ; " and they took this time for a com-
fortable luncheon, while the electors waited. On two
separate occasions, later, a head was again put out,
a voice called, " Hear ye ! hear ye ! " and the polls
were closed a considerable time, while they listened
to confused wrangling of the friends of some men
unable to show their full citizen papers, whom they
admitted by a back door. Once, Skinsky, the
butcher, came out rubbing his hands, and gleefully
announced,
" They are turning the house the top-side on the
bottom, in there."
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 293
The delayed voters, suspecting artifice, but unable
to prevent it, fumed without. They jostled and
pushed, jeered the inspectors, shouted that they were
free men, and that they would not be kept there all
day. All at once a cry went up :
" Them men from down Muckwonago Road has
got the small-pox among 'em ! "
A mob, in affected horror, hustled the persons thus
indicated who had no small-pox, but were simply
good DeBow voters, for all the trickery was not con-
fined to one side, as has been said out of the line,
and promptly filled their places, which had been near
the front.
This mano3uvre came too late, however, to have
any political effect. The day was well on towards
its close at the time, and it presently expired as if
with a tangible noise. Boom ! came the sound of a
distant signal gun, the piece regularly fired on the
grounds of the fine Soldiers' Home, on the outskirts,
to mark the exact time of sunset. Its report had not
fully died away before the polling-window shut with
a bang. The election was over, and the waiting vot-
ers without sent up yells of rage and discomfiture.
Long past the customary time, that evening, the
returns of the election were not yet in. Even those
who waited in hope till a very late hour of the night
were forced at last to go to bed without them. Nor
did the papers of the next day, nor even of the next,
contain them. The result as to some of the minor
officers was known, it is true. Paul Barclay, for
294 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
instance, was elected alderman of Keewaydin, and
Christian Idak, landlord of the Johannisberger
House, was defeated. But a deal of close scrutiny
was needed before it should be known who was to be
the next mayor.
During these days, the rain fell almost continu-
ously, beating in a sodden way the political banners,
not yet taken in, as if it said, " A plague o' both
your houses ! " and adding to the depression of
those spirits that had already sufficient to make them
gloomy. After noon, on the fourth day, Mrs. Var-
emberg was with her father, when a messenger ar-
rived with all speed, bringing him an announcement.
" Is it good news, papa ? Tell me quickly," de-
manded Mrs. Varemberg, scanning his features,
upon which no ray of elation appeared, and un-
able to await his slow words.
" I am elected," he answered impassively.
" You are elected ? You are successful, and yet
you show no pleasure in it ? " she said, uneasy
and alarmed.
" My majority is of but nine votes. They will
not let me rest easy with it. So slender a margin
offers too great a premium for contest. It will be
disputed."
XIV.
THE CONTESTED ELECTION.
DAVID LANE was right in his premonitions : his
slender majority offered too great a premium to ob-
jectors. He was presently served with the pi-oper
notices, and his election was formally contested.
The testimony in this case was taken in a long
upper room of the Johannisberger House, sometimes
used as a lodge-room, for assemblies and the like. It
was at no great distance from the Polish quarter,
and was deemed a convenient place for procuring
the attendance of the persons interested. There had
been an active stirring among the dry-bones when it
was known that these proceedings would take place.
Naturally, investigation would not be confined to one
side only. Irregular characters of all sorts were has-
tily moved to embark on steamers and gravel trains,
while others, of a higher class, with standing to main-
tain, who could not so easily take flight, quaked with
even greater trepidation. In the sequel, develop-
ments reached far beyond even the utmost that was
expected. The principal legal talent of Keewaydin
was enlisted. There were writs quo warranto and
certiorari, mandamuses, injunctions, demurrers, ap-
peals, all the law's delays, voluntary and involuntary.
Should all the surprises, feats of legal skill, hardihood,
290 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
and chicanery, and store of legal learning poured
forth, be here set down, after the Homeric fashion,
this simple account could be extended to unheard-of
length. With the vital interests they held at stake,
each side strained every nerve. Paul Barclay, who
himself bore no unimportant part in the proceedings,
formed a habit of reporting to Mrs. Varemberg, at
frequent intervals, for her information and pleasure,
all their stages, the humors, exciting episodes, and
glimpses into new and quaint phases of life which this
unexpected upheaval afforded.
The case for the contestant, Jim DeBow, was
chiefly managed by that astute person, Counselor
Rand, the same who had once had Barclay's prop-
erty in charge. He proved, on this trial, to be a
man of shrewd, quick invention, an' adept in the
sophistry that makes the worse appear the better rea-
son. He had a ready gift of gab, was skilled both in
irony and invective, and was well versed generally in
all the unscrupulous resources of his art. In his open-
ing speech he outlined his proposed policy. He said
in substance :
" I offer to prove, and shall establish beyond the
shadow of a doubt, that there were cast for David
Lane, in the various wards, not less than one hun-
dred and twenty irregular and fraudulent votes.
These are to be deducted from his total vote, as be-
ing wholly null and void. A clear title to the high
and honorable office of mayor of Keewaydin will
thereupon rest with my client, James Sapperthwaite
DeBow, Esq." (This middle name created a certain
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 297
sensation in the court-room. It was perhaps the first
time DeBow had ever been known to have any mid-
dle name at all, or any other prefix than the custom-
ary " Jim.") " I shall show that these irregular and
fraudulent votes," Rand went on, " were cast by the
following persons, to wit :
" Aliens, or persons not qualified by sufficient res-
idence in the country to exercise the right of suffrage
as American citizens.
" Others who had not resided in the State for the
one year next prior to election, as required by law.
"Others not resident in, or qualified electors of, the
wards and precincts in which they assumed to vote.
" Others vouched for by persons not householders,
and therefore not competent to act as sponsors.
" Finally, I allege that a large number of votes
were manufactured outright, and corresponded to no
persons having an actual existence."
Rand charged, furthermore, bribei-y, corruption,
and undue influence of many kinds. He glared about
the court-room as he spoke, and preserved through-
out a sonorous rhetoric and air of august indignation,
as if he had been another Edmund Burke impeach-
ing a Warren Hastings of high crimes and misde-
meanors, in the great hall of William Rufus. He put
Ludwig Trapschuh on the stand, as an expert in the
habits, manners, and customs of the Polish people.
The bridge-tender proceeded to recollect names,
dates, and circumstances with a prodigious facility.
His own belief was that all was utterly lost to him
henceforth, so far as concerned the favor of David
298 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
Lane, even, probably, to the stipend of Stanislava,
and his only salvation must be in deserving the
gratitude of the opposition to the utmost.
Mr. Welby Goff next made a considerable figure,
under examination, iu describing his part in the
wrangle over the 'bus-load of Bohemian workmen, as
before mentioned.
" Did you not distinctly hear their foreman threaten
to discharge them unless they obeyed orders ? " de-
manded counsel for the contestant.
" How could I have understood him. if he was Bo-
hemian ? " returned witness, parrying.
" Answer my question. Did you not distinctly hear
him make that threat in English?"
" What I want to know, in that case, is how the
men could have understood him, if they were Bohe-
mians," said Welby Goff.
This was characterized by Rand as impudent and
evasive quibbling, as no doubt it was, and when
DeBow's side finally rested their case the prospect
looked dark for David Lane. It was plainly evident
that Ives Wilson and some of his friends, acting with"
an ill-judged zeal, to put the most favorable construc-
tion upon it, had done things that would not at all
bear the clear light of investigation.
When Lane's counsel took the floor, however, the
case assumed a very different complexion. It was
shown that the DeBow party had engaged in the
same, and even more iniquitous, practices. The issue
seemed to resolve itself into one more of quantity
than quality.
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 299
Paul Barclay was called to testify as to an expedi-
tion consisting of himself, one Peter Stransky, the
Polish letter-carrier, and a German interpreter he
ha'd energetically organized of his own motion, to go
about, on the South Side, searching for the numerous
missing voters by affidavit for DeBow. He testified
that he had taken a copy of the poll-list, and at sev-
eral of the addresses given had found no houses at all,
nor any such numbers on the streets ; and at numer-
ous others, no trace whatever of the pretended voters
named, nor of any persons who had ever known them.
He was attacked by Rand with all the arts permit-
ted the unscrupulous cross-examiner. That individ-
ual had, for the first time, found an opportunity to
wreak in a small way the malice he still cherished
from the date of their former dealings together. He
sought to impugn Barclay's reputation for truth and
veracity. He sought next to show that the little
band of searchers were not qualified for their mission,
that they had been frightened away from certain ten-
ement-houses by fear of small-pox, that their search
was but a mere pretense at best, that they had no real
desire to find the voters, but had increased the mysti-
fication, and distorted facts for their own partisan pur-
poses. He changed from the browbeating to the pat-
ronizing, from the menacing to the genially sarcastic ;
he threw in plentiful taunts and innuendoes, calcu-
lated to enrage the callow in this kind of experience,
to his own entanglement and destruction. The red
color of resentment, in fact, mantled the cheek of Paul
Barclay at the first few stings, and his eye kindled
300 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
in a way that might have indicated danger to his tor-
mentor. But he very soon recovered his self-control,
and, adopting a far more effectual policy, began to re-
turn cool, baffling, sometimes half-amused replies, that
showed him to be no tyro in linguistic conflicts, but
one amply able to defend himself. Hand fell back
from some of his more biting answers, much as the
wild bull might fall back, from violent onslaughts, on
the keen rapier of the toreador.
You have lived a long time in Poland, no doubt ? "
he said, sneeringly. " You are thoroughly familiar
with the language ? "
" I have spent a short time in Poland. I have a
certain idea of its pronunciation."
The questioner was flustered ; he had not expected
any such evidence of fitness.
He entered next upon questions of pronunciation
at great length. He chose to impugn the competency
of Peter Stransky a renegade Pole, he said, whom
his countrymen refused to associate with and the
German interpreter. " Will you kindly describe to
us," he demanded, " your method of asking for these
voters ? "
Where the person named was taken to be Polish,
he was inquired for through the Polish interpreter ;
where he was taken to be German, through the Ger-
man interpreter."
" How did you know whether the person was Pol-
ish or German ? "
" I judged of his nationality from the name."
"Are you a first-class expert in judging of the
nationality of a man from his name ?"
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 301
" I am perhaps about a third-class expert," replied
Barclay, smiling, " but the combined expertness of
the party must certainly have been pretty near the
proper standard."
" Did you not know that if you did not find these
men it would be more to the advantage of David
Lane than if you did ? "
" Why, yes, we must take that for granted, just as
the learned counsel knows that bluster and imperti-
nence may take the place of argument and evidence,
when he has none in his case," returned Barclay, for
once meeting the insult somewhat in kind.
Upon this, the court pounded with its gavel, and
insisted on rather better order on both sides ; but
Rand continued to thunder that the whole inquiry
was a delusion and an intentional fraud, and that all
the persons inquired for really existed, and could
have been found by any honest and competent au-
thorities. He next recalled Trapschuh to sustain
his position, which this man did with a preposterous
effrontery.
" I ask you, as a person well versed in the pecul-
iarities of the Polish people," he said, putting the
bridge-tender a long hypothetical question. " Sup-
posing a number of strange men, one an American,
one a German, and one a Pole, should go about to-
gether through the Polish quarter, asking a great
variety of questions, such as who lived in a house,
whether such and such persons lived there, and the
like, what sort of treatment would such a band be
likely to meet with ? "
302 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
"They would meet with no treatment at all. It
would be lucky for them if they did n't get licked."
" And they would not get any information ? "
" No : parties would run on ahead and tell other
parties they was coming, and, when they got there,
they would ask them what they wanted to know for ;
and no matter what they asked, they would not tell
them anything."
" Now as to the Polish women. I ask you, as a
person well versed in the peculiarities of the Polish
people, what would be the course of the Polish wo-
men, if their husbands or other male relatives were
absent from home, when such a band of men came
prowling about. Would they give information ? "
" No ; the men would n't let 'em. Besides, all
them Polish women lie like the devil ; they don't
ever answer no questions right."
A slight cry was heard, upon this. Trapschuh,
looking round, saw his niece, Stanislava Zelinsky, in
the court. He wondered at her being there, but
supposed it was only as a spectator, like the rest.
The room was packed, several rows deep, all around
its borders, with men, for the most part of the labor-
ing sort, in rough, ill-smelling clothing, drawn there
by their personal interest, or that of immediate
friends, in the proceedings. The girl was being led
up to a more favored position, it is true, apart from
this crowd, and not far from the counsel for David
Lane ; but Trapschuh did not approve of the degree
of forwardness and curiosity that could have brought
her to such a place. He meant to have more to say
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 303
of this anon, though by no means, as yet, suspecting
the real cause of it.
" Have you met with many instances, in your ex-
perience, where the Polish women would not tell the
truth ? " he was asked.
" Yes, more as two hundred, more as one thou-
sand," he replied, with a nonchalant recklessness.
Stanislava involuntarily lamented aloud once more
at this wholesale aspersion. The glib perjuries of
her uncle made her breath come thick and fast, with
astonishment and grief. She wondered that the floor
did not open and swallow him up. She looked
around the circle, as if all present were somehow
responsible, too, and almost as bad as he, inasmuch
as they did not stop it on the instant, but calmly sat
there instead, and listened to it go on. The true
history of her coming into court was as follows :
David Lane, following with painful intensity all
the stages of the trial, went to his daughter, one
day, when it was well advanced, and said,
" You say this Polish girl, whom I have benefited,
once told you she wished to be of service to me.
Now is her opportunity, if she will use it. She
seems an intelligent, observing person, and she has
undoubtedly seen something of the true facts in the
case ; she may be got to deny the wild fabrications of
this man, even though he be her relative. She can
hardly wish to aid the combination against me, I am
sure.''
Mrs. Varemberg had immediately sought the girl,
and found her ready to speak the truth. She had
304 TI1E GOLDEN JUSTICE.
sent her to Barclay, and he, in turn, to the discreet
counsel in the case, and an arrangement had been
effected by which, keeping suspicion averted till the
last moment, she was to appear.
Such hard swearing as that of Trapschuh and his
mates produced conviction in the humbler portion of
the audience, who stood about in awe, and thought
that egregious asseveration like this must make even
those things to be which had not been. It had its
effect even in higher quarters, not too well versed
as yet in distinguishing facts from protestation. The
production of Stanislava, therefore, was a decided
coup. It was rare that any woman entered the do-
main of these political turmoils, and here was a very
young, pretty, and apparently ingenuous one. A
little hubbub arose as she took the stand, which re-
quired some time to quell. The protruding little
eyes of Ludwig Trapschuh started from his head
with amazement.
She controverted his outrageous statements, tried
to vindicate her humble country-women from the
sweeping charge of mendacity, and traced Polish
families and individual voters. She often knew the
exact date of their arrival in the country, through
having entered them as applicants for assistance and
employment on the books of the benevolent societies.
The excellent handwriting on which we have heard
her complimented now stood her in good stead.
Most important of all, casting a look of appeal
at her uncle, as if to beseech him not to withhold his
favor from her, even though she performed a duty
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 305
which her conscience and the interests of truth clear-
ly demanded, she testified to having overheard the
conspiracy between him, Barney, and Notary Kroe-
ger, whereby, though appearing to act always for
David Lane, they were covertly to procure and
manufacture votes for Jim DeBow. She was timid
and flushed with fevered nervousness, at first, but
gained confidence as she proceeded, and her answers
were of a clear positiveness that crosscut-examina-
tion could not shake. Her whole manner carried
conviction with it.
A recall of Trapschuh, based upon her evidence,
followed, and resulted in his utter collapse. He tan-
gled himself up in a new tissue of preposterous false-
hoods. Shown an " exhibit " that purported to be
the affidavit of the voter Wozer Chezefski, he was
asked if he knew Chezefski.
" Yes," he replied, " I know him very well. He
belong from Prussia Poland."
Shown "exhibit 23," the affidavit of the pretended
voter Wenzel Vai, he was asked, " Do you know
Wenzel Vai ? "
" Yes, I know a man like that. He's a Bohemian
man."
Shown the affidavit of the pretended voter Andreas
Lanick, he said,
" Yes, I know him."
" How long ? "
" Since twenty-five years ago."
Shown a great number of other ex-affidavits of the
same general description,
306 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
" Yes, I know each and every one of them." He
had caught up stray bits of the legal phraseology.
" And you could find these men if you wished to ? "
" Yes, unless they moved away since election
day."
" What makes you think they would move away
since election day ? "
" More as two, three, hundred Polander families
moved away since election time," he asserted, in
round numbers.
" Does not that estimate seem a little high ?"
" No, it is not high ; it is low," he insisted dog-
gedly.
" Now, will you tell us what you understand by a
family ? "
" I und'stand a man, his wife, some children, and
maybe a few cousins and uncles."
" Why do you think so many families would sud-
denly leave Keewaydin ? "
" If them Polanders can live cheaper by goin'
away as by stayin' at home, they will go away, in
Minnezota, Illinois, and Michigan."
Counsel amiably appeared to accept this as quite a
philosophical answer and explanation, and Trapschuh
was much pleased with his own ingenuity.
" Will you, now, kindly give a description of the
Andreas Lanick before mentioned ? "
" He had a a slouched hat and a kind o'
old coat," stammered Trapschuh. " I know him
very well ; " more promptly.
" Give us a description of Wenzel Vai."
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 307
" He 's a kind o' sandy man, not very short. I
done some figurin' with him once."
" Please describe Wozer Chezefski."
" He 's not very tall. He wears a slouched hat,
too," the witness returned, nearly at the end of his
invention.
" Give us a description of Mike Matelski."
" The description of each and every Polauder is
mostly alike."
" Tell us where Mike Matelski lived."
" Down by Muckwonago Road. I guess I don't
remember the number."
" In what street ? "
" It was a wood house, kind o' red color, with
green blinds," he answered evasively.
" Where did Wozer Chezefski live ? "
" His house was kind o' blue color."
The witness began to mop his forehead furiously
with a handkerchief.
" What was the age of your friend Andreas La-
nick ? "
" Oh, he was a younk man, he 's about twenty-
two years old."
" Your memory is perfectly good ? "
" Nobody has so better a memory as what I got,"
he replied, resenting any imputations upon it.
" Well, then, how does it happen that you remem-
ber Andreas Lanick for the past twenty-five years,
when you say he is but twenty-two years old ? "
The witness's jaw dropped. He was aghast ; but
presently seemed recovering himself, in a surly way,
for new efforts.
308 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
"Now, as to this large number of families that
you say moved away : did you personally see them
go?"
" I seen some go, and parties told me about the
others."
" What were the names of those you saw go ? "
" One's name was Lijeski ; I guess the man's front
name was Antony. Another's name was Molicheck.
Another's name was Lexau."
" Those are three ; how as to the rest of the three
hundred ? "
" I don't remember all the names."
" Nor any more of them ? "
"No."
"Who were the parties who told you they had
seen the families leave the city ? "
"I don't remember their names."
" Give a description of some of those who told you
they had seen the families go."
" One was a big feller with a slouched hat."
" When did you see him last ? "
The witness began to glare at his ruthless tor-
mentor. It was hopeless to think of finding answers
to such a remorseless torrent of questions.
" On election day. I sent for him to come over,"
he added, by way of embroidering with a detail as
opportunity offered.
" How did you send for him to come, if you did
not know his name ? "
"I asked parties if parties over that way had
voted," was the reply, in an open fury which the
presiding magistrate sternly repressed.
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 309
"And you swear that this is as true as any other
part of your testimony ? "
" I swear that it is all true. All of them men bin
voters ; they belong from Prussia Poland ; each and
every one of 'em got his right citizen papers, and I
know 'em all very well," he returned, in a final all-
embracing burst.
" Oh, he makes me tired," Welby Goff was heard
to exclaim, in the slang of the day, affecting to fall
dramatically on the back of his chair. Even hard-
ened counsel sighed, in a pensive way. But Trap-
schuh was not yet released ; he had still to be ques-
tioned as to making the boy Nicodem Kraska vote.
He brazenly insisted that Nicodem was of age.
When asked how he knew, he said " because he
looked so." The boy's mother, Suzanka, was in
court, and it was even after her testimony that Trap-
schuh perpetrated his effrontery. Suzanka set up a
loud wailing, and, being suppressed, seemed to await
his coming down from the witness-stand with the
O
purpose of doing him a bodily injury.
" Have you advised with your counsel as to what
you were to say in this case ? " Lane's counsel
thought good to ask, humorously, to cast part of the
odium of Trapschuh's lying upon Rand.
" No, he advised with me," returned Trapschuh,
meaning to be surly, but really aiding, the design in
view even more than was expected.
Upon this he was allowed to retire, and he stepped
down, abashed, into obscure private life, from the
depths of which it was long indeed before he again
emerged.
310 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
Barney Trapschuh, among others, was examined
in las turn. Being asked why he signed affidavits as
a householder, when he was not one, he said naively
that he had understood by a householder " a person
what lived in a house." At this, Welby Goff nearly
fell on the floor, once more.
Peter Haller. the teamster, testified that he had
certified to affidavits of a large number of persons
he had never seen before, because " they looked
honest."
The self-sufficient little notary, Kroeger, when his
turn came, was found to have resisted the summons
first sent out by the court, and to have been brought
in under arrest.
"You said you could not be bothered coming
here," said the presiding magistrate to him, in severe
reproof. " You went to a wedding, instead."
" I knew I was all right, and there was n't no need
for me to come," he responded sullenly.
" That remains to be seen," said the judge. And
it was so effectually seen that Kroeger was shown to
be one of the most heinous offenders on the entire
list. It appeared that, through informalities in the
taking out of his commission, he was not even a qual-
ified notary-public, nor competent to certify any affi-
davits whatever. Here at the very Johannisberger
House, the seat of his majestic egotism and claims to
oracular wisdom, the little man was so thoroughly
impugned in all the sources of his authority that he
could never hold his head aloft again. In fine, the
cases of the voters delayed by the arts of the inspec-
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 311
tors at the Railroad Avenue precinct were taken up,
and argued at great length. It was claimed that
there had been over forty of these men, all provided
with Lane ballots, so that, by the fraudulent prac-
tices named, many votes were lost to that candidate.
Without doubt, the enterprise of Barclay and the
testimony of Stanislava had been the two elements,
in these complications, that had carried the balance
to the side of David Lane, and procured the final
verdict in his favor. He was forced to owe his tri-
umph to the children of those victims of the Chip-
pewa Street bridge whose death was the cause even
of this political strife.
XV.
DAVID LANE'S ATTEMPT AT FREEDOM.
AT the customary time, as fixed by the city char-
ter, it was towards the end of April, Paul Bar-
clay took his seat in the new board of aldermen. His
reputation for the active, managing sort of ability, as
well as for financial soundness, had preceded him.
He was well received, and put at once upon some of
the more important standing committees.
Among other matters, at this first regular meeting
of the year, a combination was discovered to take
away the city printing from Ives Wilson and his In-
dex. Set on foot by his usual adversaries in the other
papers, it was aided by some as a punishment for his
course in bolting the nominations of his party con-
vention, and by others who had been made the ob-
jects of some of his embittered journalism. That
sprightly person was alive to his danger, however,
and fought it tooth and nail. It almost seemed as if
he could be in half a dozen places at once, as, with
the lock of hair streaming back from the apex of his
head like an oriflamme, he moved from desk to desk
among the aldermen, in whose part of the council
chamber, by the way, he had no business to be at all,
strengthening the weak, joking with his firmer
friends, and even making propositions for their sup-
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 313
port to the less pronounced of his enemies. When
the vote was taken, he had retained his patronage by
a majority of but two. This was so close that his
contemporaries of the press assured him that it ought
to be a terrible warning to him, at least, henceforth
to keep a civil point to his pen and less gall in his
inkstand. But Ives Wilson did not take it at all in
this light. He announced his success, in the Index,
as a triumphant " vindication," and he began imme-
diately a more trenchant course of abuse than ever
before.
An interregnum of something like two months now
ensued. Pending the contest between the rival claim-
ants for mayor, the president of the aldermen con-
tinued to govern the city. What with all the delays
incident to the decision, it was nearly July, instead of
April, before the right of David Lane was finally
recognized, and he was installed in his chair.
While his fate had still hung in the balance he had
perceptibly wasted, and grown older and feebler.
The two months of suspense were among the keener
forms of his punishment. For a while it had ap-
peared that he was not to have even the desperate
chance of attempting his wild and difficult project.
During this time he had thought vaguely whether he
might not cause to be introduced into the board of
aldermen a resolution calling for the repair of the
Golden Justice ; counting that, when once scaffold-
ings were up, some laborer might be corrupted, and
induced to seize the ardently coveted paper for him.
He had thought, also, of engaging the janitor ; but
314 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
the worthy Anton Klopp was a wheezy individual,
even less capable, physically, than himself. And then
the statue needed no repairing; it would easily be
discovered to be in excellent condition. And, again,
even if it were not, he had decided, years before, that
he dared trust his secret to no one. But behold him,
at last, in possession of the poor vantage-ground he
had sought, and relieved of this source of anxiety.
The inauguration of a mayor, always a stirring af-
fair in political circles, was made especially important
on the present occasion by the character of the events
that had preceded it. There were deferred appoint-
ments to office to be made, and a mass of difficult
business had also been diplomatically deferred, to fall
upon the shoulders of the new incumbent.
A general amnesty had been tacitly decreed for
the irregularities of the late election. Both sides had
so equally participated in them that all might be
considered as tarred with the same stick. Measures
of legislation were at once introduced, however, to
prevent the recurrence of such abuses in the future.
With as sharp a feeling of self-reproach as his pre-
occupation left him for anything less engrossing,
David Lane recognized how largely he, the assumed
model of probity, had been responsible for this cor-
ruption of the public virtue. All evil deeds seemed
to follow upon his first, in direct sequence, as if he
were another Macbeth. He delivered his brief in-
augural address in the chamber of the aldermen, then
gravely received some hand-shakings of congratula-
tion as he stepped from the tribune, and then with-
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 315
drew to his office. He was followed thither by some
persons connected with the accumulated business, and
for a considerable time had to hold a levee in the
spacious room ; but one by one these visitors dropped
off, and, as the twilight drew on, he was at last quite
alone.
He gave a long, heavy sigh, conveying both re-
lief and a newly arising form of trouble, and threw
himself down in his chair. The first step in his pro-
posed deliverance was accomplished. He was free to
come and go, and to remain and plan his projects in
the building without question from any quarter. Soon
he bent forward again, and, leaning his arm on his
desk and his face on his hand, remained a long time
in that position, suggesting the brooding Lorenzo,
who looks down from above the famous tombs of the
Medici at Florence. He had brought with him, even
on this first day, some of the tools for his exploit.
He placed these safely in a drawer of the desk. On
the morrow he would bring the others. He paced
the floor meditatively, and lightly tested, by turns, the
muscles of his legs and arms, as he had done once
before, on a previous occasion. On the morrow, too,
there would be delivered to him here a light grap-
pling-ladder, already ordered ; tall enough, as he said,
to reach to the uppermost of his high book-shelves.
For the next few days, as he walked to the city
hall for his appointed tasks, and in many a slow
jaunt about the square, for the special purpose, his
eye fearfully sought the Golden Justice ; his brain
estimated heights, distances, times, and forecast the
316 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
position of his ladder and all his own movements
when at last he should find himself there aloft, where
he had so long desired to be. Now, when actually
face to face with his undertaking, its sheer physical
obstacles loomed up before him with the most for-
midable difficulty. " I am an old, old man ! " he
would mutter. He put off its execution yet another
day, and another, and at last he was taken with a sort
of paralysis of supreme discouragement; he revolted
against the problem before him in utter despair. The
shining figure seemed to mock him ; high aloft there
in the blue empyrean, it swam before his eyes, hope-
lessly unattainable by any puny efforts of his.
" I cannot do it, I will not do it ! " he cried out
to himself, all but demented. " It is impossible. Let
them wait."
His manner at home, during a great part of this
long delay, had been strained, abstracted, and uncom-
fortable. Barclay had come there rather upon suf-
ferance than as a welcome guest, and had repiued
and fumed under the situation with ever-increasing
impatience. Lane had made no concession to the
object for which the lovers were waiting ; he had
held obstinately to the letter of his words. Mrs.
Varemberg had once or twice taken the initiative
upon herself, and addressed him a few words, but
only to be repulsed. He had answered her that he
was thinking of it.
"Are you indeed thinking of it deeply? Does it
require so much consideration ?" she had demanded.
" Yes, believe me, I am considering it deeply."
THE G OLDEN J UU TICE. 317
On the momentous day, when he came home op-
pressed by utter lassitude and despair, as described,
it chanced that she spoke to him again. She had,
up to that time, preserved a very long silence. They
had only their own company at dinner, Mrs. Clinton
being absent.
" Papa," began Mrs. Varemberg.
Her father knew at once what was coming, and
he evaded her large and earnest eyes, which were
raised appealingly to his.
" I did not think I should have to be the one to
speak first," she said, " but a week has now passed
since you became mayor ; the condition upon which
you insisted is fulfilled, and yet and yet " She
arose before she added more, and, coming in a coax-
ing way around to his side of the table, rested her
hand on his shoulder. " And yet," she went on,
" you say nothing of the subject that is the nearest
and dearest to the heart of Paul and myself."
He affected at first not quite to know what she
was talking about.
" I mean your promise, papa, that you would de-
cide as soon as you were elected. Paul and I have
been waiting so patiently. Will you not let me send
him word of your favorable answer to-day ? I know
you have been doing all this only to try us, to see
if we are really earnest in our affection."
David Lane was suffering the tortures of the
damned. He repulsed her caressing hand from his
shoulder almost rudely, arose, moved back from his
chair in a staggering, stupefied way, and then, collect-
318 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
ing his faculties, said, " Yes, I recall the matter now.
Well, I have decided against it. I cannot consent."
" You cannot consent ? " Mrs. Varemberg mur-
mured, trembling, incredulous.
" I cannot give my approval to your marriage with
Paul Barclay."
" Oh, what is this ? What does it all mean ? " she
gasped.
He seemed to feel it necessary to give some answer,
and, casting about, he found a wretched excuse.
" He was opposed to my election. I I have it
from the very best authority."
And he proceeded to cite the episode, reported by
Ives Wilson, of Barclay's having refused to brow-
beat his men in their voting.
"I have heard that story, too. I honor him,
rather, as you would once have done, for having been
one of the few to resist political corruption, even
in his own interest. For your interest was his.
Was he not one of your strongest supporters ? What
would you have done without him, in the contest ? "
" Perhaps I am harsh, unrelenting, but I have
made up my mind. I I cannot forgive him."
" Forgive him ? May Heaven forgive you all the
harm you have done us both," rejoined his daughter,
with a noble air of indignation and contempt, and
she prepared to withdraw from the room. " I call
you no longer my father. I do not know what your
motives can be, but my father would never have
acted so. Let this be my farewell. I shall leave
your house as soon as is possible."
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 319
' Where will you go ? What will you do ? " he
demanded in alarm, aroused to his full faculties, as
an intoxicated man is often sobered by some sudden
shock.
" I do not know. I will place myself under pro-
tection, and when a suitable time has expired I will
marry Paul Barclay."
" Will you go to him without money ? Will you
throw yourself as a burden upon him ? "
She was staggered a moment by this consideration,
but, recovering herself, she answered,
" Yes ; he loves me. He alone of all the world
wishes me well ; to him alone my happiness is dear.
He will not look at it so."
" Florence ! " cried David Lane, and this time he
stretched out his arms towards her pleadingly. She
had opposed to him at last an obstinacy and hardness
of heart equal to his own. This unnatural casting
off by his own daughter wholly unnerved and broke
him down. "This from you," he said, "my dar-
ling, my child, the one always so dear to me ; you
whom I held in my arms as a baby, whom I nursed
through sickness ; you who made me the confidant
of all your joys and troubles, who were always so
sure of my affection, as you must be sure of it even
now ? "
" Then why, papa ? then why, papa ? " she asked,
incoherently. She was easily touched, and quick to
forgiveness and reconciliation.
David Lane then had the impulse to tell her all
of his sad story. But he only exclaimed again, much
as he had on a former occasion,
320 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
" I must have yet a little time. Wait till you see
me again. To-morrow perhaps it will be different.
Oh, I assure you, you shall have reasons to-morrow."
The die was cast. No more vacillations, no more
shilly-shally. He had determined once for all that
his attempt at freedom should be carried into effect
that very night.
When all the other public officials had left the city
hall, the conscientious new mayor was still at his
office, and apparently plunged up to the eyes in the
mass of unfinished business there accumulated.
He was still immersed in it, when the janitor made
his rounds to close up the building, towards ten
o'clock. That rotund functionary put his head in
once more in a deferential way, at eleven o'clock,
having waited up expressly an hour later than usual
to see if anything might be wanted of him.
"No, no, Klopp, don't mind me," returned David
Lane cheerily. " I '11 probably be through in a few
minutes. Go to bed. I '11 let myself out by the
small door. And, in any event, don't let me give
you the least bit of trouble."
" He 's a pretty good feller, and a hard-workin'
feller for mayor, zure," soliloquized Klopp to him-
self.
He gladly availed himself of the permission ac-
corded him, and after banging a door or two and
rattling a great poker in the vicinity of the furnaces,
in the regions below-stairs, he was soon snoring in
the midst of his family, who occupied the quarters
assigned them in the basement.
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 321
For perhaps an hour longer the mayor bent over
his official tasks. He paused from time to time, to
listen. Finally he swept his papers aside, rose, and
began to pace the floor, pressing a hand upon his
heart, as if to check its accelerated beatings. He had
already drawn the shades and tightly closed the shut-
ters of the apartment, that no curious eye, if any
were so disposed, might look in upon his proceedings.
He now took from their place of deposit the tools he
had prepared, an array of sharp-cutting drills and
saws, unhooked the new grappling-ladder from the
high shelf, and lighted and extinguished once or
twice a small dark lantern, to see that it was in
working order.
Then he divested himself of a part of his clothing
and put on shoes of listing, for greater celerity and
stealthiness in his proposed movements. Thus par-
tially disrobed, it could be seen that his was indeed
no figure for great athletic undertakings. The work
before him was of a kind to try even youthful and
robust capacity, and he looked, as he was, old and
crippled in his joints by his maladies. The excite-
ment of the occasion gave him an unwonted briskness
and color, it is true, and he gathered further strength
from another source. Pie drew forth a flask, and
took a long pull at it. At the last moment, another.
So there ! aid from any quarter is welcome in the
supreme effort of one's life.
He heard a sudden dash of rain against his win-
dows, followed by the rumble of distant thunder, and
immediately after the cathedral clock struck one.
322 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
The moment for action had come. Rain ? So much
the better ! Under the cover of storm and darkness,
his movements must be hidden from any possible ob-
servation, his expedition must be doubly secure.
He opened the door of his apartment, and set foot
in the corridor without, but, on the instant, stepped
back again in affright. The vacant halls seemed full
of stealthy whisperings and light footsteps. Surely
they were stealing along there to spy upon him. A
dread haunted him of some ghostly circle of witnesses
gathered around the balcony of the rotunda of the
central dome, and waiting to flash a full light of rec-
ognition upon him and break out into jeers and
laughter at his attempt. He stood for some time
within, listening with painful intentness. At last he
made sure that all this was but the sound of the rain
and the draughts of air which wandered uninter-
rupted at night through the empty spaces of the
great city hall.
Thereupon he set forth with a renewed confidence.
He passed in turn the office-doors of the comptroller,
the tax commissioner, the treasurer. What would
his trusty subordinates have thought of him, their
mayor, could they have but seen him thus, gliding by
like some phantom of the night? He recalled the
story of that German burgomaster, who was wont to
prowl in the dark, armed with a long knife, over the
roofs of the houses, committing robberies and mur-
ders, and the next day, in his staid official capacity,
to conduct the inquiries as to the best means of seiz-
ing the assassins. He likened himself to him, and
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 323
apprehended a similar exposure. He had to sit down
arid rest several times, overcome with fatigue, as he
mounted the principal staircase.
" An old, old man ! " he would murmur ; but it
was in a patient, almost mechanical way now, and
with no thought of relinquishing his undertaking.
Once arrived in the upper stories, he breathed
more freely ; the danger of any personal encounter,
at least, seemed here got rid of. He gave himself,
too, a fuller benefit of his lantern than he had hith-
erto dared to do. Once, however, he hastily dashed
the dark slide across it, and crouched against the
wall, while his heart leaped into his mouth. He was
on the second staircase, which he had partially
mounted, and distinctly heard a step coming down it.
Who could it be ? Who could possibly be abroad at
such an hour ? Was it perhaps one of Klopp's chil-
dren, dispatcher! thither on some unheard-of errand ?
Was it some somnambulist, walking in those regions
in his sleep ? Was it an apparition ? Old supersti-
tious stories of his childhood, in which he did not in
the least believe, came back to David Lane, and for
the nonce took a certain reality.
The footstep still came downward, dropping from
stair to stair with an uncertain sort of tread. The
presence, whatever it was, was close at hand, was
passing him. He struck out, in uncontrollable af-
fright, in the direction whence it sounded, and en-
countered nothing. But at the same moment a leap-
ing and tumbling as of some animal was heard below
him, and, flashing his dark lantern, he saw a large
324 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
rat. It had been coming down with a billet of wood,
which was attached to a scrap of leather, and, being
discovered, it scurried precipitately away into one of
the great dusty attics at the side. He had no sur-
plus force to stand such useless drains, but he soon
collected himself, and climbed on.
At the balcony where he had once held his inter-
view with Paul Barclay, he stopped a moment, to
look out upon the night. It was raining steadily,
and the darkness was even thicker than he could
have desired. Thence onward again, passing through
a minor door or two, which he opened with duplicate
keys and locked behind him, to a region where dust
and cobwebs were rarely disturbed. Thence up
lengths of ladder-like stairway, up a spiral one twin-
ing interminably round a central post, and, at length,
a steep ladder, which ended at the small trap door
through which he must make his final" exit upon the
dome. Twice he painfully climbed this last, once to
throw open the trap door, and again to bring up his
scaling-ladder and general budget.
At this point, he stood with his head and shoulders
the rain falling upon him unhindered projecting
through a small opening in the roof of the cupola
which surmounted the principal dome. He was just
above the level of its cornice, which constituted a
flat ledge of considerable width. Above him, close at
hand, but raised a considerable distance still, by her
globular base, towered the long-sought Golden Justice.
David Lane thrilled at the strange proximity, and
it was some time before he could exert himself to
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 325
find a safe place for his effects, on the cornice.
Next, raising himself by means of his hands and
arms, he accomplished the feat that would have
seemed all but incredible to disabilities like his of
climbing out through the opening. He stretched
himself briefly to rest. The cathedral clock beside
him in the air struck two, he had consumed an
hour in making the ascent. He had been drenched
to the skin in the very first few moments, and the
ledge where he lay would have required steady
nerves to remain comfortably upon it even in broad
daylight.
He delayed only for a short breathing space, but
soon planted his scaling-ladder against the foot of the
statue, catching its hooks in the folds of the drapery
as best he could. The wind and rain beat violently
upon him as he mounted it, as if in remonstrance, as
wild birds beat back with their wings the bold ma-
rauder who has climbed to rifle their nests.
The ladder slipped a trifle, but caught again, and
in this instant he had a paralyzed sense or vision of
himself, found, the next morning, dashed to pieces
on the roofs below, with the paraphernalia of his
mission about him. He saw the profound sensation
he created among his neighbors, and could even fore-
cast the columns of moving description, accompanied
by diagrams in illustration, in which the newspapers
the Index in particular would indulge. He ar-
rived safely, nevertheless, at the base of the statue.
Examining it with his lantern, he found, as well as
his memory could serve him, after the lapse of so
326 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
many years, the vicinity of the place where the pa-
per had been sealed up. Steadying himself more
firmly on the top round of the ladder, he began his
search. He first effected an opening through the
metal, and then began to enlarge this with his chisels
aud saws. He thought well to give the edges of the
opening an irregular aud ragged appearance.
" Should investigation ever arise," he said to him-
self, ' the cut will be attributed to lightning."
His saw presently ran against a stout brace inside
the metal sheathing. It incommoded him greatly, in
the section he was trying to cut out, and, unable to
avoid it, he at length cut squarely across it, dividing
it. From time to time, as he wrought, an illuminat-
ing flash of lightning showed him the city, spread out
far below his dizzy height, and anon the darkness
swallowed it up again, as if it had been only a vision.
By turns his hand seemed endowed with an unnatural
strength by the stimulus of the reward so near at
hand, and again it was all but nerveless and incapable.
A long probe he carried finally struck something
hard within, which he knew to be the box containing
the documents. The focus of his hopes and fears, the
pivotal point of his imagination and his destiny for
so long a period, was reached. He had but to stretch
forth and grasp the" prize. He drew back a little to
wipe his brow, braced himself more firmly, and pre-
pared to do so.
But at this very moment his forces failed, and he
succumbed to an overpowering sense of exhaustion.
Overtasked nature could do no more. If the prom-
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 327
ised reward had been infinitely greater, he could not
have secured it. Hardly knowing how, he slipped
and fell, rather than climbed, down his ladder, and lay
supine, more dead than alive, on the narrow cornice
ledge once more. The rain still pelted him, but he
paid it no heed.
He rose, after a time, and feebly renewed the strug-
gle ; but the conviction was remorselessly forced up-
on him that his labors were vain, and the attempt
must be put off to another occasion. By what miracle
was it that he was able at last to effect his retreat ?
He decorously covered, too, all his tracks, taking great
pains to hide his ladder and other properties in the
vacant attics, where they would be secure from sight.
He made his way painfully downward by the same
long and devious route, stole as before along the great
dark corridors, and entered once more his own office.
He was so exhausted by overwhelming fatigue that^
he had scarce left in his body capacity for any effort,
or in his brain for a lucid idea. Hardly was he there,
when, throwing himself down, he was lost in pro-
found slumber.
Paul Barclay, as a means of tiding over the dreary
period of probation, had thrown himself most energet-
ically, of late, into the duties of his new official posi-
tion. All was arranged between him and Mrs. Var-
emberg ; they belonged to each other, and nothing
could ever sunder them, but still they were kept
apart. Each day in succession he had hung upon the
prospect of hearing some favorable tidings from her,
328 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
and day after day had been disappointed. So long a
time had elapsed, with all these delays, that his pri-
vate view \vus that the narrow conventionality which
would have prevented the announcement of their en-
gagement to the world, provided they had received
the coveted permission, need have little further bind-
ing force ; but this permission was still withheld.
Mrs. Varemberg had checked her lover's impatience,
more than once, with her appeal : " Let us be wiser
than he, dear Paul. It is for a lifetime."
It seemed fair, at least, to await the end of these
political complications, but Barclay was vaguely op-
pressed by fears and premonitions of new forms of evil.
He found himself affected by somewhat the same un-
easy feeling as the commander who, though sending
his squadrons in pursuit of a flying enemy, cannot be
wholly sure that the victory may not yet be wrested
from him, in some unexpected quarter.
On a certain night, he had returned to his lodging
at a late hour. He was fatigued with a hard day's
work in inspecting the scene of proposed street open-
ings in the northern part of the town, and had more
of the same awaiting him on the morrow, but he was
unable to sleep. To relieve his wakefulness, he arose
at intervals, and read and wrote, or meditatively
paced the floor. It so happened, on this account,
that he was at the window of his chamber towards
the hour of three in the morning. He threw up the
sash, though it was raining heavily, and looked forth
into the night, to cool the fever in his head. He said
to himself complaiuingly that there was something
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 329
oppressive and portentous in the atmosphere, some-
thing sultry even in the rain. He distinctly felt cur-
rents of air blow alternately warm and cool on his
face. There had been many things, in fact, rather ab-
normal about the season. There had been not only a
peculiar spring, but a peculiar summer. Nothing, he
thought, seemed any longer as it used to be. There
had been, of late, eclipses, solar and lunar, and ex-
traordinary auroral displays. A large, greenish me-
teor had passed over, and burst with a loud report.
Tornadoes had been noted in the lower part of the
State, considerably out of their usual course. Fortu-
nately, they never came to Keevvaydin. These por-
tents, it may be said, in passing, seemed to warm the
very cockles of the heart of old Fahnenstock. That
veteran workman appeared almost gleeful in the con-
viction that the world was now coming to its end, in
very short order, albeit he was himself enjoying the
most comfortable existence he had ever known, in
the little cottage at Whitefish Bay, to which he had
been assisted by Paul Barclay.
But of Fahnenstock more anon. As Barclay now
looked from his window, raising his eyes aloft, he all
at once fancied he saw gleams of reddish light playing
about the base of the Golden Justice. It was not
lightning : it was much too feeble and too deliberate,
even while fitful, for that. He had looked out at the
time when David Lane was cautiously availing him-
self of his dark lantern.
" Can it be electric fires ? Is the air so full of elec-
tricity as that ? " speculated Barclay.
330 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
The storm centre was moving hither. There came
presently some flashes of real lightning, flashes of
an unusually vivid sort, that made all the raindrops
glitter on the background of the night like showers
of falling diamonds. Its illumination showed, too,
the little park across the way, and the city hall in
every detail. The statue on its dome was as effulgent
as at noonday ; and then strange illusion ! there
was the figure of a man with a ladder, crouched dark-
ly at the foot of it. Barclay rubbed his eyes in as-
tonishment, and waited for new flashes. He took up
his field-glass, which lay conveniently at hand, and
devoted himself to a steady examination. For a little
time, by the fitful illuminations, the shape seemed
still there ; and, stranger yet, wilder yet (was there
ever a madder conceit ? ), it had a far-off resemblance
to David Lane. The coruscations of lightning grew
farther apart, as Barclay watched so eagerly. The
sky cleared somewhat behind the statue, and aided
the view ; but now, rub his eyes as he would, he could
see nothing of the figure; it had disappeared.
" Pshaw ! " he muttered, turning away. " It was
some deceptive trick of the light, or of my own imag-
ination."
He soon went back to bed, and, to make up for
his late vigils, he slept heavily in the morning, and
did not awake till an advanced hour. He had a drive
of considerable extent before him, to inspect, as mem-
ber of the aldermanic committee, a right of way to be
acquired for the purpose of bringing in a small, clear
lake at the northward, to add to the water supply of
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 331
the city. Just as he had completed his preparations
for it, a message was brought him from Mrs. Var-
emberg, anxiously worded, and asking him to come
to her as soon as possible. He accordingly drove
to her house before he should set out upon his ex-
pedition.
Meanwhile, the rosy-fingered Aurora, and the less
rosy-fingered hours of the later morning as well, had
looked in upon David Lane, and passed over his
lethargic slumbers without awaking him. There
might even have been some heavy knocks at his door,
and fumbling by the janitor's duplicate key, without
his hearing them. When he again set foot in the
corridors of the city hall all the ordinary business of
the day had long been in progress. Those halls
showed no trace of his expedition ; it had passed
through them like a bad dream. Lane himself could
hardly believe it. But its reality was impressed upon
him anew, when, evading the demands that presented
themselves to his attention, he went forth, and again
looked up at the Golden Justice. His head was yet
heavy, and he was sore in all his bones. The hard
ordeal was to be repeated.
" Courage ! " he tried to say to himself bravely.
" The prize is so nearly won, and this is to be the
end of it all."
He sent home word that he had passed the night at
his office at the city hall, and was still detained by a
press of important business. Not precisely rejoicing
like a strong man to run his race, he yet proceeded
to treat himself like an athlete in training. He
332 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
breakfasted at the Telson House, took a warm bath
later on, and then went to the office he kept for his
private business. He locked himself in there, and
went to sleep again ; and, thus refreshed, finally re-
turned, in the afternoon, to his duties as mayor, to
await the opportunity for his new attempt. It was
his intention to go no more to his own house and
not to face his daughter again till the deed was done.
Then he should meet with her on a far different
footing.
Mrs. Varemberg tearfully related to Barclay, when
he reached her, the interview at which we have as-
sisted. She had conceived a harrowing new fear,
arising from her father's conduct throughout, and
especially from the circumstances attending his last
agitated departure from the house.
" Surely no one in his right mind would act so,"
she said. " It is not like him. I hardly dare tell
you what I dread. His bodily infirmities, the elec-
tion, all these heavy burdens he has chosen to take
upon himself Oh, he is, he must be, very ill. I
cannot but think, terrible as it is to have to suggest it
to you, or to admit it to myself, that his faculties are
failing, and may already be permanently overthrown,
"tt ill you not go to him ? Perhaps you can ascertain
his condition. He passed the night at his office at the
city hall, and has not returned."
" He passed the night at the city hall?" said Bar-
clay, echoing her words.
" Yes," she returned. "Ah, you see I was right
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 333
to be alarmed. Will you not go and try to do some-
thing to keep him from such extremes ? "
But Barclay was thinking of his vision or halluci-
nation of the night before. It was a startling coinci-
dence, to say the least. He was on the point of tell-
ing her the whole story, but something checked it on
his lips. Could it be that David Lane was insane,
and the most mystic and desperate of somnambulists ?
No_, that figment of the night was too utter a piece
of folly in every aspect, and he dismissed it from his
mind.
Nor was he greatly disposed to share her misgiv-
ings as to her father's sanity. His bitterness ready,
finally, to break over all bounds attributed it rather
to the prejudice of which he had so long been the
object.
The business upon which Barclay was bound was
of an exacting sort, that could not be neglected. But
after that was over, upon his return, he would endure
no more shilly-shally, suspense, persecution, in the
principal affair of his life. The election was over ;
filial deference had already been carried to an un-
warrantable extreme ; the time for decided and vigor-
ous action was at hand.
" Can you not come with me ? " he asked. " We
have so much to talk over together, all our future to
plan."
In the midst of their deliberations a new message
arrived from David Lane, to say that he was quite
well ; that he need not be expected to dine or sup at
home that day, but no one was to have a moment's
334 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
uneasiness on bis account. The entirely sane and
easy character of the wording decided Mrs. Yarem-
berg.
" I will go with you," she said.
The conveyance of Barclay was exchanged for her
own, and Castor and Pollux once more drew them.
Mrs. Clinton, who dared not object, though even
kept in the dark as she was to the graver aspects of
the affair she thought she ought to, said, with a
feeble affability, that perhaps they would see some-
thing of Mrs. Radbrook's out-of-door fete at Inge-
brand's on the Lake.
It was very long since the couple had been out
together, and they were now soon bowling along the
pleasant upper country roads, much in their old way.
XVI.
THE POWERS OF THE AIR.
A KEEN enjoyment of nature was one of the ties
that bound them together, and there was much in the
drive to-day to gratify this taste. Dismissing their
graver cares at times, they reveled almost like chil-
dren in the short respite thus granted them, and
talked of the blue lake, the trivial sights and figures
met with by the way, and of the wealth of the June
roses.
Their last excursion had been a very brief one,
when the orchards were in flower. They recalled it
now. It was the season of paradise upon earth, if
paradise there ever be. How lovely the branches of
fragrant blossoms had been, flung broadcast against
the blue lake ; how enchanting the rolling clouds, the
fresh pastures, the grayish-green fields of grain ruf-
fled by the breeze !
The country was now in the full luxuriance of sum-
mer. The clouds to-day again were particularly fine,
and, as our friends drove onward, it was no small part
of their pleasure to watch, piled up before them, those
airy peaks, stupendous cliffs and gorges, dazzling min-
arets and domes, and fantastic shapes of animal life,
that realize the phantasmagoria of dreams.
" Perhaps one should live only amid the most
336 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
beautiful scenery," began Barclay, in a speculative
way he had, which generally meant nothing more
than some ingenious theory of the moment. " Per-
haps he ought to pick out the most attractive spot on
earth, and spend his days there exclusively. If this
should not happen to consist with the other so-called
duties of life, so much the worse for them. There
ought always to be mountains on the horizon : it is
like having a high ideal in sight, even though we
never reach it. Thus the hours of the day would
pass like the stanzas of a beautiful poem."
" And how as to society, in this etysium, provided
it could be managed? "
" There ought to be absolute solitude," he declared
positively ; " that is to say, solitude a deux. The
philosopher he I for you see I speak for
myself ought to have only the dearest being in ex-
istence beside him. as I have now, and all the other
billions of the population might cease to exist."
Certain random verses came into his head, and he
quoted from Theocritus :
" Not Pelops' realm be mine, nor heaps of gold,
Nor speed fleet as the wind, but by this rock
To sing, and clasp my darling, and behold
The sea's blue reach and many a pasturing flock."
He accentuated the end with a caress.
He had a way of making love to her a tender-
ness mingling with his manly strength, and height-
ened, perhaps, by his reputation for reserve with
others, of which we have spoken that inexpress-
ibly charmed her. He had, for her. ways and epi-
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 337
thets of devotion that lingered in her memory long
after he had gone, and sometimes caused her to fall
into moods of delicious day-dreaming, with half-shut
eyes. There were times when her heart went out to
him with such an ineffable expansion that it would
have seemed positive pleasure to endure tortures for
his sake. Nor, though kept apart in reality, had they
been so in mind and soul, during their period of pro-
bation. They could not sufficiently embrace each
other in ardent written words. The privilege of
pouring out to each other in this way their long
pent-up feelings was too precious a one to be fore-
gone. Tender epistles had constantly been exchanged
between them.
" I am like the historical lover, who went away
from his mistress to write to her," wrote Barclay on
one occasion. " I observe that I stay as long as pos-
sible, however, before going, and he no doubt did the
same thing."
" I am sure the post-office is positively ashamed of
me" said Mrs. Varemberg. " I should never dare
face my letter-carrier, and I trust he has little idea
of what kind of a person it is who sits trembling
above-stairs while the missives are brought up by the
servant, whom I have induced to be discreet about
them, that they may not be too much scrutinized by
the rest of the household. Do you suppose he could
possibly find out who it is that deposits the principal
contents of his letter-box at the corner ? "
There had been letters and notes at irregular hours,
and in all sorts of informal shapes. There had been
338 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
some dated at midnight, others at two and three
o'clock in the morning, and at daylight. The writ-
ers set forth their last waking thoughts at night or
first in the morning, or took the occasion of many
sleepless vigils to dwell upon some new phase or de-
tail of their absorbing passion. There had been a
long one, chiefly anxious and melancholy, from 31 rs.
Varemberg, in the journal form, some part of it be-
ing done in nearly every successive hour of the day.
Once, when Barclay was absent from town, there had
arrived from him, three all at once. These had been
mailed by him at different times, but were brought, as
it chanced, from the small place where he was, at the
same time.
" I had no means of distinguishing one from the
other, at first," the dear recipient had told him, " so I
opened and read them one by one. Then I read
them again in their proper order, getting thus a double
and unexpected pleasure from them, don't you see ?
And oh! then I read them over again a hundred
times, as I always do, and kissed them, and thanked
God for his goodness to me, and my heart was full to
overflowing with my pride and delight in you and the
love you bear me."
In this delicious intoxication, which is said to
be even sweeter to be possessed by than to inspire,
a rapture with pain in ils pleasure, they wished well
to each other with an intensity far beyond the poor
limit of mere human expression or performance.
It was natural enough, on a day like this, that there
should be iteration of these words of fondness, for-
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 339
ever trite, yet touched with living fire, though for-
mal propriety was imposed upon their actions by the
public gaze. They passed from grave to gay. They
began to formulate their plan of life. Barclay said
they were no longer children, to be kept apart by the
caprices of others. He would seek David Lane, in a
filial interview, when he got back, his ire awoke at
the recollection, and after that they would endure
no further opposition. Florence must be his own ;
he insisted upon it. Let the world at last know it.
They dwelt upon the future in detail. It had always
been one of Barclay's ideas to build a house, and in-
corporate into it his favorite notions. They would
do that. They thought they would arrange their life
somewhat like that of the Radbrooks. They would
not know too many people. They pronounced it
frittering and destructive of the best objects of social
intercourse. A part of their time they would give to
travel. Paul Barclay wished to revisit with her some
of the places where he had been so unhappy on her
account, to remove, as it were, an undeserved stigma
he had attached to them. And, then, they both
meant to be better, morally. It is one of the aspira-
tions of such an affection that it aims to secure not
only time, but eternity. They meant to keep their
minds only upon high and noble things.
" I shall help you in all your projects and labors,"
insisted Mrs. Varemberg. " You must make a name,
and be known far and wide for your abilities and
your goodness of heart, as I know you."
But oh, best of all! oh, inexpressible delight!
they were to be always together.
340 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
" Every day, on my return," thought Barclay, with
subtle thrills of rapture, " I shall find her there await-
ing me." He could only think of her as an influence
to dissipate every sorrow and redouble every joy.
She in like manner thought of those comings-
home, when she was to tell him all the events of the
day, even to those of no importance. The prospect
had all the keener zest for her, from her previous
unhappy experience. She dreamed the sweet, femi-
nine dream of the inseparable companion and friend,
the strong protector who would banish fear. She
would look her best, talk her best ; she meant to tell
him everything ; she would prepare loving surprises
for him. Ah, yes, much as he had seen, she knew
some ingenuity would remain to her to do this. In '
his strength her weakness and trouble would disap-
pear, her past would be forgotten.
" We will rule the world, my loved one, my sweet
one," pronounced Barclay, in one of his moments
of high enthusiasm. " Yes, we will yet throne it to-
gether, like Antony and Cleopatra."
" Dear heart, I fear I shall play but a sorry Cleo-
patra to your highness's Antony. I often have to
think what a poor, weak creature I am still ; and,
after all, I suppose even happiness will not impera-
tively cause one's health and strength to be restored."
"I will see to it; I take it upon myself," he re-
turned, with the heartiest reassurance. " You are
going to be young and strong and blooming. Trust
me with it ; it is not longer your affair. We have
most of life yet before us. All shall go well. Noth-
ing shall keep our happiness from us."
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 341
" I have often thought of asking you to put me
out of your life, even now, and to forget me," peiv
sisted Mrs. Varemberg, half despondently. There
seemed to be something in the air that furthered it.
' ; Who knows what misfortunes will yet happen ?
I distract you from your own best interests and from
useful work. I am not worth it."
"You do not love me when you talk so. I have
no interests but you. I could not forget you."
" If I thought you could I should die. I will try
to be all that you desire. I shall not be what you
ought to have, but you must have patience with me."
The business that brought Barclay to the vicinity
of the little rural inland lake was duly finished, and
they turned homeward. The -clouds they had so
much admired, on their way up, had, for some time
past, been acting rather strangely. The tops of all
the battlements and peaks were blown off, and their
general mass was driven about in confusion, as by
strong upper currents, while the air at the surface of
the earth was abnormally calm. There was a cer-
tain oppressiveness at intervals, almost a difficulty in
breathing, that recalled to Barclay his feelings of the
night before.
They had planned to stop a moment, in passing, at
the new cottage of Fahnenstock, on the Whitefish
Bay road, considering that it was exactly in their
way. A peculiarly interesting family was assembled
there just at present. Besides old Fahnenstock him-
self, who, being a bachelor, could not very well at-
tend to his own comfort, it comprised the Me-
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
Clarys, whom lie had brought there to keep house
for him during the summer months. It was an ex-
cellent place for the babies, who were already fat
and rosy. The young wife, whom we have seen
pinched and faded, was recovering her spirits and
good looks. The enterprising McClary had set up
the little shop for which he had wished, near the
city limits, and was now absent there. And then
there was a spinster sister of Mrs. McClary, a person
apparently of much executive ability and natural
thrift. She had but lately come to these parts, hav-
ing been blown out of house and home, it was said,
by a tornado in Missouri or Kansas, where her fam-
ily had lived. It appeared that Fahnenstock was
quite taken with this spinster sister, and some of the
waggish thought that, after all his long years of bach-
elorhood, the two might yet make a match of it.
But even more important figures than these were
a young bridal couple, William Alfsen and his wife.
Yes, Alfsen and Stanislava Zelinsky were at last
united, and, as it happened, were passing a day or
two of their honeymoon here. It had come about
through Ludvvig Trapschuh. Furious at her for hav-
ing given evidence against him at the trial, he had
made her life so unendurable that she had finally
left her home and sought a refuge elsewhere. She
had repaired first to Mrs. Varemberg, who received
her kindly, and found her occupation, and a tempo-
rary abiding-place with the McClarys. During all
this time, however, she would not marry her lover.
"With some curious ideas of the binding force of re-
THE GOLDEN JU STICK. 343
lationship, she obstinately refused him till the consent
of her uncle, her guardian and the authoritative head
of her family, could be obtained, and there was no
prospect whatever that that irate person would con-
sent. Her sighing swain was in despair ; but cir-
cumstances had favored him, the obstacle had disap-
peared of its own accord, and they had married two
days before. David Lane had seen to it that they
had a handsome gift from him, disguising it partly as
a subscription to the fund to Alfsen for his services
in the great river fire.
The impolicy and fruitlessness of opposition grad-
ually impressed Trapschuh. Reports of the growing
prosperity of Alfsen reached his ears. Still, he was
not thoroughly humbled till he lost his place on the
Chippewa Street bridge. Though no political pro-
scription was declared, as has been said, an example
was made of a few of those holding public office, who
had been most prominent in the frauds, and the of-
fense of Trapschuh had been so flagrant that no one
could say anything in his favor. At the moment
that he was coming out of the Board of Public
Works, after hearing his sentence of dismissal, it
was on the day succeeding David Lane's installation,
he met Alfsen face to face. He all at once as-
sumed before him as humble an air as Haman, after
his overthrow, might have taken before Mordecai.
" I always bin friend o' yours, Billy," he. said ob-
sequiously, " though sometimes I guess may be you
don't always know it. I never got no sure objections
that you get married with Stanislava. She got pretty
o-l 1 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
bad temper, that 's so ; but she can come back to my
house, if she want, and you can get married with her
any time what you like. I say, Billy, you could n't
get a feller out o' work some kind o' good job, could
you ? "
Alfsen let no grass grow under his feet, but imme-
diately proceeded to have this authorization confirmed
in the presence of his sweetheart, and they were mar-
ried forthwith.
This case, among the rest, had made conversation
for Barclay and Mrs. Varemberg, as they approached
the cottage. The ppposition of Ludwig Trapschuh
struck them both as a sort of parody of that to which
they too had been so long subjected. They recognized
an echo, as it were, of the same note.
" I wonder if we shall have to wait till David Lane
is overthrown and wrecked, in some wholesale col-
lapse, before we can expect to have his objections
withdrawn ? " suggested Barclay, with half-humor-
ous lightness. " That would need a long delay in-
deed."
All the men of the house were, at present, away at
their work ; only the women were at home. But
the women warmly did the honors of the place.
They ran into the garden and plucked its fairest
flowers, with a reckless hospitality, to press upon the
visitors. There had been bushes of fragrant svriuea
i O
and lilacs already in the yard, and the new tenants
had added roses, and especially a double row of tu-
lips, flanking the path from the gate to the door.
These flowers, vividly glowing with their various
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 345
hues of scarlet and yellow, were most trimly kept,
and every foot of the small domain gave evidence
that pains were being taken to develop its utmost
capabilities.
Hardly was this cottage reached, however, when
there came on a thunder-storm, that had been for
some time threatening, and all were driven for a
brief space within-doors. The rain very slight in
quantity was accompanied by violent hail ; the
dash of cold in the sherbet of the summer day. The
flower-beds, so shapely but a few moments before,
were much broken down, and presented to view
numbers of the charming tulips sadly hanging their
heads. Hailstones had fallen, on this occasion, of
sizes variously estimated according to the current
way of measuring at from " as large as a hen's
egg to as large as a man's fist." In the suburbs of
the town, at the same time, one mass of compacted ice
had fallen, estimated to be as large as a man's head.
When the guests came forth to resume their jour-
ney, the storm had passed over ; the sun was shining
through broken clouds, still in turmoil, and all nature
looked fresher and greener for its late ablutions.
The enterprising spinster sister of Mrs. McClary
came out with them. Looking up at the heavens,
shading her wrinkling forehead with her hand, she
felt moved to say, " 'Pears as if them clouds looked
like some we used to have down in our couutry.
There 's a kind o' curious feelin' in the air, these last
few days, anyway. Down there, we should V called
it tornader weather."
346 THI-: GOLDEN JUSTICE.
" But we do not have them, fortunately," said Bar-
clay. " You must not let that make you uneasy here."
" No, of course not ; but the wind 's ben to the
south'ard so long, till to-day, when it come round,
an' no rain, though the clouds has gathered up every
day and tried to give some, that it 's looked to me
more 'n once just as it used to down in Kansas. But
of course they don't get as far north as this," she
concluded.
Getting under way again, Mrs. Varemberg and
Barclay came presently to the spot, at no great dis-
tance from town, where Mrs. Radbrook was giving
O O
the garden-party mentioned by Mrs. Clinton. This
was Ingebrand's on the Lake, a pretty spot, left
much in its condition of natural wildness, which was
patronized in a quiet way by people driving out from
town. It was distinguished from Ingebrand's on the
River, another resort of the same kind, much fre-
quented by pleasure-parties of rowers, whereas there
was but little rowing on the Jake, which was gener-
ally esteemed too rough and uncertain for that sport.
A touch of romance hung about Ingebrand's on the
Lake, some legend of a countess who had once oc-
cupied the rural dwelling on the grounds, when it
was a simple farm-house. It appeared that this Mrs.
Radbrook was noted for originality in her entertain-
ments, which she but rarely gave, and which were
the more highly esteemed on that account. Follow-
ing some precedent abroad, she had taken this pleas-
ant spot to-day for her exclusive use, and promised
to turn its attractions, together with those of the sea-
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 347
son, to account, in a charming fete champetre. She
had set up a number of pretty tents and pavilions, of
gayly decorated canvas. In a large pavilion, open
to the water, an attractive collation was prepared.
The tents and waving pennants, with the summer
costumes of the ladies intermingled, upon the back-
ground of the moor and varied shrubbery, made a
gay and dainty scene, such as a Rossi, of the Span-
ish-Roman school, might have painted.
Our friends had already met some representatives
from the fete, taking merry drives farther up the
road. They had been adjured not to miss it, and
now civilly stopped at it, but only for the very brief-
est moment. Mrs. Varemberg was in mourning, and
had no need to plead any excuse for not participating
further in the entertainment. Their presence to-
gether was gossiped about, as it would naturally be
in such a company, but there was no severity in the
tone. The true state of the case had begun to get ,
abroad, as, in some mysterious way, such things
always will, and people invested them with a certain
poetry and pleasant interest. That is to say, it was
known that Barclay was an old lover, that he had
been unhappy, and that he had been true and high-
minded as well throughout most trying circumstances.
The critics at the Saturday Morning Club and the
charitable guild now admitted that he was probably
a man of flesh and blood, like others, and they se-
cretly admired him the more for his stout fidelity to
a forlorn, almost desperate ideal.
The two had left the fete but a little behind, when
348 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
the threatening aspect of the weather impressed itself
upon them. No engrossment with their own affairs
could have wholly withdrawn their attention from the
amazing panorama that began to unroll itself in the
heavens.
It was no ordinary storm that was impending.
The entire masses of broken clouds had gathered and
distributed themselves into two hostile camps, over
against each other, in opposite quarters of the sky.
After gathering thus, a most turbulent commotion
broke out among them, and they began to approach
each other as in battle-array. Their rate of motion
increased, and, as they drew near, lightnings darted
from one to the other.
" Look ! look ! " suddenly exclaimed Mrs. Varem-
berg, in consternation. They had been urging their
pace to the utmost, to seek a place of safety. Blasts
of hot air had smitten their faces, followed immedi-
ately by others so cold that they involuntarily drew
their wraps closer around them.
" Oh ! oh ! " cried Barclay, unable to refrain from
almost as much agitation as his fair companion.
They were in the presence of the dread tornado.
The spinster sister of the McClarys, whose words
had, perhaps, seemed even to herself only desultory
chatter, was right. One of those rare visitants had
come far to the northward of its usual course, and,
like some fell marauder, seeking new and untried
fields to foray, was about to swoop down, bringing
ruin and dismay upon a locality that had hitherto
given no thought to this form of danger.
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 349
The great plain of the Mississippi Valley is the
theatre where these mighty forces, created by the
torrid winds from the equator and the cold from the
poles, meet and struggle for the mastery. That vast
unimpeded stretch, the inhabitants of which pay a
woful price in lives and treasure for the gladiatorial
shows they witness, is the " battle-ground of the tor-
nadoes." Here the detail of the phenomenon was
the same as it was wont to be there. Rain had been
lacking for a very long time past : a veritable drought
had been threatened. The barometer, to-day, stood
remarkably low. A swift current of wind in the up-
per air was blowing southward, while that at the sur-
face of the earth was northward.
The sudden sharp exclamation of Mrs. Varemberg
had been drawn forth by the meeting of the great
opposing cloud-masses. From their point of junc-
tion dropped down a strange and ominous funnel of
dark and murky vapor. Some described it as shaped
like a wicker basket ; others, as like a snake, the head
of which was held up in the sky, while the body
writhed and lashed about below. At any rate, this
definite form began to turn round upon itself, with a
rapid gyratory motion, and at the same time to pro-
gress in a right line, taking its direction towards the
northeast. A violent boiling movement could be ob-
served within it, and it was presently filled with flying
debris of every kind, caught up by the suction into
its destroying vortex. The small end of its funnel
dangled just above the ground, and it had a way of
striking and rebounding as if highly elastic.
350 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
The domes of Keewaydin were now visible, but no
promising point of escape from such a peril appeared
over a wide intervening stretch. The couple drew
up, upon a high ground, the better to mark the route
of the tornado, and thus determine their own. The
dread scourge struck the city, here and there, as in
selected spots, under their very eyes. It was like
some stinging whip-lash of the gods, whirled with an
avenging purpose. Wherever it touched, devastation
followed. Steeples and turrets were seen to go down,
and the fragments of roofs to whirl into the air.
Bells struck of themselves, with a lugubrious sound.
There was smoke, as from the shells of a bombard-
ment ; but the thickest of this was when some of the
flouring-mills along the river were wrecked, and a
choking white powder filled the air.
There were no buildings easy of access for the
refugees, and perhaps shelter ought not to be sought,
at such a time, even in the most solid of buildings.
It was uncertain what direction the desolating force
might finally take. Its rate of progress, now faster,
now slower, and again, for brief periods, coming to
almost an absolute stand-still, could be plainly traced ;
but what rule was to be laid down, by novices, for
this gigantic eddy in the ocean of air that beats on
the whole round world? Mrs. Varemberg sat pale
and trembling, her hand clasped in that of her lover.
They saw much to excite a reverent awe and dismay,
but fortunately they could not see all that was passing
in the town.
The tornado fell first upon the sparsely settled
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 351
region below the city limits on the South Side. There
it uprooted orchards, and beat down the soft earth of
gardens and ploughed lands till it seemed as if they
had been macadamized. It wrenched the very grass
from the ground, as by ravening teeth. It was not a
widespread and all -devouring force, however, but
moved in a narrow and well-defined path. Its area
of widest destruction was hardly more than three
hundred yards, while that of its greatest energy was,
perhaps, a hundred. It was in evidence afterwards
that at a quarter of a mile away one would not have
known what was in progress, and only a gentle breeze
fanned the brow. Next, it touched the line of the
city proper, and, as if at a given signal, every chim-
ney and turret went down.
Presently a minor funnel was seen to separate it-
self from the main one, and go whirling away on a
career of its own. This followed the ravine of So-
bieski Street to the right, unroofing or shattering to
pieces the Polish houses. Had the addresses of cer-
tain voters been looked for now, they would have
been missing indeed. The house of Ludwig Trap-
schuh was rapt into the air bodily, as on a magic
praying-carpet of the Arabian Nights ; and the pro-
prietor, not knowing it was in transit, for in the
few moments of the immediate passage of the storm-
cloud all was Plutonian darkness, attempting, in a
panic, to step out of his own front door, fell headlong
to the ground, a distance of some twenty feet, and
broke a leg and various ribs.
All the ordinary operations of the law of gravita-
352 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
tion seemed suspended. All movable objects flew, as
if possessed by witchcraft, to an imperative centre of
attraction : heavy benches and tool-chests rose from
the ground, furniture and bedding leaped from .the
doors and windows, to join in the mad carnival. A
few hapless animals feeding in suburban pastures
suffered wofully. Cows and horses were driven,
dragged, and rolled away, against their utmost v resist-
ance, the hoof-marks in the ground showing, after-
wards, the desperate opposition they had made, and
were found with bones broken, or beaten to jelly and
left in a shapeless mass. Nor was it brute animals
alone that perished ; there were many human victims
as well. One of the poor Polish women, among
others, was found battered and dead, with her hair
twisted from her head, and lying in a sort of rope
beside her. The very soles of her shoes were torn
from her feet.
Many corpses were naked, and so ecchymosed,
the surgical term came to be freely used, discolored
by numberless bruises, that they might have been
taken for those of negroes.
Among the comic incidents, in this quarter, may be
mentioned that of the graceless young Barney Trap-
schuh. He was sitting loaferishly on a fence at the
time ; he made a long excursion into the air, leaving
shreds of his clothing on the roofs of houses and
trees over which he passed, and was cast down, cov-
ered with black mud, in a distant field. This was a
mud peculiar to the tornado : it was of the consist-
ency of paint, and was forced into the eyes, ears, and
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 353
nostrils, aud even the very pores of the skin so ener-
getically that it took weeks to eradicate.
The lesser funnel reached the shore. It danced
and spun there, for a brief space, among the sand-
dunes, like merry Pau-Puk-Keewis ; then, as a part-
ing bit of malice, wrecked a luckless shallop or two
it found abroad on the water, and was finally dissi-
pated in the lake.
The principal storm-cloud, however, kept on its
original course. A tithe of all its eccentric doings
could not be described. It lifted one of the German
turn-halls from its base, made it plough the ground for
many feet, and racked it completely to pieces. It cut
in two a railroad freight-house as cleanly as if with a
saw, leaving one half standing intact. A row of
boards, which had belonged to the other half, was
found set up in a circle, firmly driven iuto the ground,
some four miles from the original point of departure.
It did not respect even the time-honored Johaunis-
berger House. It raised up one end of that worthy
caravansary so high that the terrified inmates, who
had taken refuge in the cellar, reported that they had
glimpses of the prospect without, between the sill
and foundations ; but to make amends, it set it down
again nearly as good as ever.
The tornado apparently did not think all objects
alike deserving of its attention. It seemed to pick
and choose, and strike at notable points, as if to de-
cide the day by the fall of certain leaders, as in the
old combats of classic and mediaeval days.
:;.-. 1 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
" There goes St. Jude's ! " exclaimed Barclay, as
they saw its prominent spire enveloped in the fog, and,
the moment after, the distant jangle of bells came to
their ears.
And so it was. A small, panic-stricken congrega-
tion had assembled in the church of the Rev. Edward
Brockston, much as the early inhabitants of Brit-
ain fled to their sanctuaries for refuge from the fury
of the Northmen, on their coasts, when the whole
massive structure was rapt from over their heads, for-
tunately doing the inmates but little harm. With a
few mighty gyrations, the edifice was wrenched into
a tall pyramid of interwoven iron, timbers, stones, and
bricks, a more impressive monument of the resistless
power that had done it than any of the others left be-
hind. Next, the ruin of one of the mammoth grain
elevators co'uld be distinguished, and the yellow wheat
from it floated on the river and bay for many days
thereafter. The Chippewa Street bridge, in the vi-
cinity, though this they could not see, followed
suit. It was twisted, like the church, into a chaotic
mass of materials, and the whole unceremoniously
dumped into the stream. When it came to be rebuilt,
it may be here mentioned, it was on a new and hand-
somer model ; for a sentiment had arisen for making
these so necessary but unsightly bridges, of which the
lake towns are full, somewhat more in keeping with
the comely buildings and effects of street perspective
which abut upon them.
The very river-bed itself was exposed to view, and
a heavy column of water was lifted from it and pre-
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 355
cipitated over the most proper district of the city,
the trim Seventh Ward itself. The sides of many
buildings in that quarter were so encrusted with river
slime, weeds, and shells that they took a decidedly
venerable and submarine aspect. It might have re-
called the story of the turbid douche given by the of-
fended elephant to the tailor who pricked his trunk
with a needle.
The storm-cloud, which had once or twice wavered
towards the city hall, and again away from it, was
now plainly seen to swoop down upon that important
structure, as if finally to claim it for its own. How
could the building fail to succumb ? Mrs. Varem-
berg's filial thoughts flew in terror to her father. At
such a moment every resentful impulse vanished be-
fore the dread of his personal danger. She stretched
forth her hand mutely in his direction, as to save him.
The turbulence and obscurity cleared away from
the point in question, and the civic building was seen
still standing. There was but one change, but this
a notable one, the twinkling Golden Justice had
disappeared from its dome.
" It stands firm, but I do not see the Golden Jus-
tice," said Barclay, straining his eyes painfully.
"Yes, it is surely gone," said his companion.
" There is not a trace of it. It is too bad, is it not ? "
Little time was afforded for comment on this or
any other phenomenon. The tornado, either satisfied
with its achievement or having met with a foe beyond
its strength, had the look of intending a new depart-
ure. It made one, in fact. It greatly increased its
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
rate of speed, and shaking off the dust of the town
from its feet, as it were, advanced upon the suburbs
and the open country northward. Our lookers-on rec-
ognized two men who came running breathlessly up
the slope. These were Fahnenstock and Alfseu, mak-
ing for their cottage, to be with the inmates in their
time of danger.
" Fly, fly for your lives ! " they shouted, in voices
hoarse with alarm, to those who lingered. " It is
coming this way."
Barclay had already turned the heads of the trem-
bling horses away from the tempest. A decisive
move now seemed necessary. He lashed Castor and
Pollux to their utmost speed, hoping to reach a certain
cross-road, which turned to the left, at a little distance.
Following this, they might cross the path of the dan-
ger, now that they distinctly knew what it was, and
place themselves out of its reach on the other side.
Looking, fearfully, back over their shoulders, how-
ever, they saw the tornado advancing by gigantic leaps
and bounds. It was evident that the cross-road could
not be reached in time. They came to a place where
a score or more of fugitives from Mrs. Radbrook's
o
fete were huddled confusedly, not knowing what to
do next. The fete had been stricken by panic. The
principal pavilion had been blown down, by a sudden
gust, upon the very heads of the banqueters, turning
the revelry into a Belshazzar's feast. Many had fled,
with a blind purpose of reaching town ; but arrived
thus far, they had stopped, and were awaiting the is-
sue in terrified suspense.
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 357
The destroying force had at first followed the line
of the Keewaydin River ; then broken away from it,
and veered more to the eastward. Woe to any pleas-
ure skiffs abroad on the quiet, sylvan current that
day ! Woe to the vegetation, the gardens, the sum-
mer chalets, along the banks ! The very bluffs shook
under its tread. A roar as of ten thousand railway
trains, momentarily increasing, filled the air.
The couple alighted, and Barclay, loosing the
horses from the conveyance, quickly secured them to
a rail fence. Fahneustock and Alfsen had time to
come up and join them. The monstrous funnel cloud,
looming perhaps five hundred feet in the air, was so
near at hand that its texture could be plainly studied
by any bold eyes that dared to gaze upon it. Part of
it was fleecy white, as if the sun were shining in the
midst of it ; but the greater part was murky, lurid, or
of a greenish hue, like the thick, unwholesome smoke
of factories or chemical works.
" To the lake ! to the lake ! " cried alarmed voices.
Forthwith, a general stampede took place to an open
field. Most of the fugitives hurried to its verge,
above the lake shore, and there threw themselves on
the ground. Barclay tenderly aided the steps of her
who leaned upon him, and urged their pace to the ut-
most.
" Courage ! courage ! " he said, reassuringly. " A
moment more and we are safe. It will not follow
there ; I am sure of it."
" I am not afraid," she responded more than once.
" You are with me."
TUB GOLDEN JUSTICE.
Perhaps through the minds of both there passed
the same thought, that if this were to be indeed the
end of all things, it would he sweet to die together.
They would mitigate with their warm hand-clasps
the chill and dreary way to eternity.
The noise of the tempest increased to an awful
roar. Drops of a warm, viscid, loathsome mud fell
in their faces and on their clothing. Green leaves,
rent from their parent stems, were thicker in this
blast than are withered ones in autumn, and inter-
mingled with them were broken twigs, blossoms,
dead birds, and wraiths of mist. . A semi-obscurity
enveloped the refugees, while a vast wall of murky
blackness seemed about to overwhelm them. Bulky
objects, brought from afar, the impact of which would
have been sudden death, fell around them. There
were the figure-head and part of the forecastle of the
brig Orphan Boy, the cupola of the Johannisberger
House, and the refreshment-booth of Coffee John, a
great section of the metal cornice of the city hall,
and the tongue and wheels of a heavy baggage wa^on.
Though the wall of gloom at no time wholly over-
spread the party, it was night instead of day around
them. It seemed a time of almost Apocalyptic ter-
rors. The books of judgment were about to be
opened, and all the vials of wrath poured forth.
Old Fahnenstock began to pray aloud, possibly
with a trace of exultation, even in the midst of his
terror, that his appalling forecasts were at last about
to be realized.
"O all ye lightnings and clouds," he said, "bless
the Lord ; praise and exalt him above all forever ! "
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 359
" I am here," murmured Paul Barclay to his be-
loved companion.
" I do not fear," she returned.
If she trembled, it was with some involuntary phys-
ical tremor, but with none of the mind or heart. She
rested her head against his shoulder, and they waited
in the darkness.
" We are but as the chaff of the threshing floor,
before thee," Fahnenstock went on, sonorously. " He
made the midst of the furnace like a blowing wind.
Thy kingdom hath consumed all these kingdoms, and
it shall stand forever."
The tornado wrecked many large trees around the
field, so that their upper portions were found, after-
wards, whipped to shreds. William Alfsen, who was
a little in advance of the rest, and nearer to it, was
violently seized by a wandering gust, whirled twice or
thrice round a sapling to which he clung for support,
and was thrown to the ground. With this, however,
it seemed to have reached its farthest point. It was
perhaps checked in part by a stout quickset hedge,
bordering the other side of the highroad, with which
it wrestled furiously, and over which it paused for
some time, as if recognizing an enemy rather worthy
of its steel. A woful snapping and crackling, such as
might have been made by fire, was heard in this
hedge, and also a loud, sucking noise as the plants
were drawn bodily from the ground. They were par-
ticularly old and tough, and it was estimated by com-
petent judges that a greater force was required to
uproot them than the strongest oaks.
360 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
The air again grew lighter. The baffled or capri-
cious visitant distinctly turned aside, struck a new
course, and began to move off to the northwestward.
The little group of fugitives dared not at once rise
from the ground, or credit the reality of their de-
liverance ; but when it was certain, they exchanged
the most joyful words and hand-shakings of congrat-
ulation.
The danger over and dazed faculties grown calmer,
the sky again appeared to threaten rain, and soon all
was haste and confusion to be back again in town.
Barclay found the horses he had tethered to the fence
severely maimed by falling debris, and rendered
wholly unserviceable. He was casting about to
make some disposition of Mrs. Varemberg, when the
Radbrooks drove up and offered her a vacant seat in
their carriage. They had waited not far from the
scene of the fete itself, and had escaped with perhaps
less inconvenience than any of their friends. Having
seen Mrs. Varemberg safely bestowed, Barclay, left
to his own resources, set out to walk. He had pro-
ceeded but a little way, when he was overtaken by a
man in a light spring wagon, who offered to take him
in. It proved to be Welby Goff, of the Index. Mi-.
Goff was in a very affable, chatty mood, and appar-
ently anxious to find some one to talk to about what
they had both witnessed.
" I Ve been canvassing a nursery and garden-seeds
place, out this way," he said, by way of explaining
his presence on the road. " I struck it for an article
and advertisement, and got 'em, too. After that, I
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 361
was just going to start over Wauwatosa way, where
I 've had a party on the string for some time, when I
saw this coming, and turned round. I 've watched it
all along the road, and had solid comfort out of it. I
knew from the first it was n't near enough to do me
any harm."
" You are a person of judgment."
" Judgment ? A newspaper man has to be. He 's
got to see how close he can run to some lively new
sensation all the time, and then stand out from under
before it has a chance to fall on him."
" We shall see some curious sights when we get to
town," suggested Paul Barclay.
" It will be a circus, and no mistake. I would n't
miss it for a farm. I 've seen some of the biggest
things there is, in my time, I make it a point to
keep posted, but probably this will lay way over
any of ? em."
" You don't let it depress your spirits, I see ? "
" Well, hardly. There 'snot much depress about
this ; it 's the biggest chance to pick up news items
that was ever struck. You want to look out for the
extra Index, these next few days, that 's all. It
will make your hair curl."
The retreating tornado moved slowly and in ever-
widening circles. As if fatigued with rapine and too
heavily gorged with all the spoil it had gathered, it
was continually throwing out, over its upper rim, a
rain of the smaller articles it had carried up to a great
height.
" Chucks 'em out in a kind o' lazy way, now that
362 TUE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
it has n't any more use for 'em," commented the
amateur in large sights, in terms that well enough
described the phenomenon. " A fellow could prob-
ably pick up stuff of a good deal of value, if he had
time to attend to it," he went on ; " but /'ve got to
get back to town."
His eyes were actively on the alert, however, among
these objects, and he could not forbear getting down,
now and then, to forage a little. He made a pretext
of tightening a buckle or adjusting a strap on the
harness, as often as he did so.
There were, indeed, marvelous items to be told of
this day. The Index was to revel in them, and the
Johannisberger House to have stories for its gossips
for many a year to come. Miracles of delicacy as
well as incredible force had been wrought. Locomo-
O
tives had been raised into the air and mill-stones
broken asunder, at the same time that the fragile jars
of colored liquid in a druggist's window had been
spared, though buried under jagged rubbish. There
were startling anecdotes to be told of letters, of legal
documents, and of a packet of bank-bills wrenched out
of a safe. One of the parties to a lawsuit was as good
as served with a process of court that properly be-
longed to him. A long-remiss debtor, in Sheboygan
County, had his account brought by the wind from
the wrecked place of business of his creditor
thrown into his door-yard. Conscience-stricken, as
if at the direct interposition of Providence, he at last
hastened to town and paid it. A tin-type likeness
of a pretty girl, whisked from her home, was found
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 363
stuck by a sharp corner into the bark of a tree, far
away in the country. It happened that it was found
by a man of romantic tendencies, who was greatly
interested in the circumstance, and hunted up the
original of the picture, with such good results that a
marriage eventually took place between the two.
But all this was in the future, and yet to be col-
lected, wondered at, and dilated upon.
The newspaper man got down finally to pick up a
packet of official-looking documents that lay in the
road. A part of them had become loosened, and
were about to blow away. These eluded his grasp,
as he first stooped for them, but, persevering, secured
them with the rest.
"No great find here," he said, disappointedly, after
looking them over as he walked back to the wagon.
" Latest news from fifteen years ago. Here 's a
copy of the old Keewaydin Advertiser, ain't even
published now. Did you ever see it? Here's a
venerable old Chamber of Commerce report. These
must be some of the documents that were deposited
in the statue on the city hall. I recollect when she
was dedicated. They 've come quite a journey."
He tossed them all carelessly into Barclay's lap,
while he went round to the other side, to give a blow,
with a stone, to a bolt that had begun to shake it-
self loose.
Paul Barclay turned over these papers with a cer-
tain reverence and interest. The random prediction
of the old weather-vane maker, ridiculous as it
seemed, had come true, after all. The Golden Justice
364 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
had fallen, and scattered her contents broadcast, and
here was the bulk of them, tossed at his very feet.
There was no doubt as to their identity ; each was
plainly marked with a stamp showing its origin.
Here was the copy of the school census, here the
Chamber of Commerce report, here the copy of the
ancient Examiner, here Suddenly he uttered a
smothered exclamation. He had come upon some-
thing interesting indeed.
He brushed away most of the others with an in-
voluntary movement, and devoted himself with all
his eyes to a paper bearing in a plain hand the in-
scription, The Confession of a Repentant Man. Be-
low this, as a secondary head, in equally legible
writing, was, Being a True Account of the Connec-
tion of David Lane with the Disaster at the Chip-
pewa Street Bridge, and the Deaths of Christopher
Barclay and Stanislaus Zelinsky.
" What 's the matter ? " asked his companion, who
had again mounted to his place beside him.
" I thought we were going to get another jolt,"
said Barclay, and quickly changed the subject. The
wreck of a once beautiful dwelling, that lay close at
hand, afforded a ready diversion. A part of its ma-
terial was piled up like veritable cord-wood. The
ornamental trees in its spacious door-yard had been
torn to strings by the fury of the gale, and a few
pitiful rags of clothing fluttered from their bare
stems. Barclay screened his paper from observation
among the others, and managed to read it piecemeal.
He read it twice more, without exciting suspicion,
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 365
studied every sentence intently, and then secreted it
about his person.
How violently his heart beat as he read ! What
new light this strange history, so miraculously brought
to his knowledge, cast back over all the past ! How
many things it explained !
And now what should he do ? Had the instrument
been delivered to him as the means of a just retribu-
tion ? Was he to arise, like another Hamlet, and
signally avenge the slaying of his father, and the
unmerited suffering so long visited upon himself ?
Whatever may have been his meditations, at the
conclusion of them his eyes gazed lovingly in the
direction in which Mrs. Varemberg had disappeared.
He involuntarily stretched out his hand towards her,
as she had to her father, from the hill-top.
" Where shall I set you down ? " his companion
asked him, after a time, arousing him from reverie.
" I will not take you out of your way," returned
Barclay.
" It 's all the same to me. One place is as good
as another. There will be items enough every-
where."
" At the city hall, then, if quite convenient."
Meantime, the acute disturbance of the air, that
had wrought so much havoc, had grown heavy and
sluggish in its movements, and was fast losing its dis-
tinctive character. It proceeded now at some little
distance above the ground, to which it seldom de-
scended to do further harm.
During the time of its most furious energy it had
366 TEE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
absorbed into itself all other forces, but now crinkling
lightnings began to play in its track, like satellites
around the triumph of some truculent monarch.
It ceased to be a hurricane, and then swept on some
twenty miles further across the country, as a violent
storm of rain and hail. The wind at Keewaydin
shifted round and blew from the north, and the
wounded who lay unattended where they fell began
to groan anew, under the pain of their stiffening
wounds.
The cold was so severe that night that thin ice
formed on the ponds, and the heaviest hoar frost
known in years grievously damaged all the fruit
crop.
XVII.
ASTR^EA REDUX.
DAVID LANE had returned to his office, as we have
seen, to await the coming of night, and the renewal
of his attempt.
While there he busied himself with his papers,
received visitors, and attended to the other duties of
his usual routine. Ives Wilson dropped in, and
talked awhile on the happy results of the late elec-
tion. He was getting up a column of " City Hall
Notes," for the nonce, in place of TVelby Goff. He
had a fancy for setting all departments of his paper
in turn an example of the way in which he himself
would manage their respective specialties.
The next visitor was Schwartzmann, the sculptor
of the Golden Justice. He came to pay his respects
previous to starting for Europe, where he had some
artistic commissions to execute for David Lane,
among others.
" Do you know," said he, in the course of con-
versation, "that the Justice, on the dome, above
there, pleases me about as well as anything I ever
did ? There are some mighty good things about that
figure, if I say it myself. I 've just been looking at
it again, from different points of view. There 's a
'go' about it that I 'm not always certain of getting
nowadays even when I want to the most."
368 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
He had a sort of business-like and at the same
time almost impersonal and naive manner of praising
his own work that mainly relieved it of its offensive-
ness.
" But where could one have found such another
model as I had ? " he went on. " Your charming
daughter too has changed since then she is more
spin'tuelle of course even lovelier than before,"
he hastened to add, by way of disclaiming disparage-
ment, " but just that precise union of soul and phy-
sique that makes the true goddess type, I hardly
ever expect to meet with again."
" Yes, she has changed," assented her father, ab-
stractedly.
This criticism served to bring vividly before him
anew his daughter's features, her situation, the Gold-
en Justice, the dizzy height to which he must climb,
the whole painful ordeal awaiting him. Why did
the talk, the actions, of all the world, even the most
indifferent, now seem to harp on but this single
theme ?
" I don't know as there 's more than one small
detail I 'd alter if I was doing the work over again,"
pursued Schwartzmann. " I think I should now put
the figure on a cone-shaped base, instead of that glob-
ular one, and have it, say, a few feet lower. If she
should ever come down for anything, I 'd like to be
allowed to make that change."
O
A futile suggestion of hope, such as some others
he had formerly indulged, flitted through the mind
of the mayor. Might not he possibly encourage
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 369
Schwartzruann to head a movement for having the
O
Golden Justice taken down, and set up again on a
cone-shaped pedestal, some feet lower? The fancy
was but a passing one. Ah, no ; the emendation
proposed would be looked upon by the hard-headed
devotees of economy as the veriest trifle ; they would
appropriate no funds for such a purpose.
Schvvartzmann presently took his departure. The
mayor was immersed to the eyes in his papers, when
the same gust of rain and hail that devastated the
flowers at Fahnenstock's cottage smote upon the city
hall. The hail broke some lights of glass in the
dome of the rotunda, and rattled briskly down upon
the marble pavement. The janitor hastened anx-
iously up from his basement regions, to lend a hand,
like a stout beaver coming to the top when his dam
is assailed by trappers.
The sun shone out anew, but presently the air
grew obscure and yet more obscure. Even David
Lane, preoccupied as he tried to be, could not long
remain unaware that some portentous atmospheric
disturbance was impending. As the tornado drew
near, the mayor heard a distant sound like the roar
of the sea, which gradually increased in volume.
Hasty footsteps were heard in the halls without, and
voices speaking in alarm. The roar grew' nearer
and louder, till it became an infernal din. David
Lane rose and hurried to look out of his window.
For one brief lurid instant he had a vision as of
chaos come again. Trees uprooted iu the square,
twisting around one another like serpents or strands
370 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
of rope, were coming towards him, on the wings of
the furious gale. The atmosphere, choked with dust,
torn leaves, miscellaneous small debris of every kind,
resembled turbulent clouds of dark smoke. The shock
of the mighty force impinged upon the fagade of the
building, and, at the same moment, all was enveloped
in the blackness of the night, which the tornado car-
ried in its bosom. A riven tree trunk burst through
the window, carrying sash and frame with it, and,
drenched with mud and weeds, lay in the midst of
the floor like a snag from the Mississippi. The city
hall rocked to its foundations. The lights were ex-
tinguished. The plastering of the room fell in large
sections, and electric sparks played upon its ceiling
and walls, like scintillations from an emery wheel.
The mayor, in this pandemonium, had turned away
with an instinctive impulse to escape, and groped his
way to the door. As he' laid a hand upon it, and
before he had time to make any effort of his own, it
suddenly flew open, yielding to a resistless, expansive
force within the building, and struck him a violent
blow. He was burled backwards, and fell, stunned
and bleeding, to the floor.
As he lay thus prone, in stupor, he knew not how
long, his fancy renewed the scene, of years long past,
at the Chippewa Street bridge. He thought that it
was by the collision with the propeller Pride of the
West that he was once more hurled down, crushed,
and suffering in every limb. Then he thought he
was again awakening from his heavy sleep, as in the
morning just past. The traces of havoc around him
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 371
struck on his sight at first like a part of his troubled
dreams. But then, with an effort, he remembered
where he was, the convulsion of nature that had
passed over, and all that had befallen him. His first
anxious thought was for the Golden Justice, and the
mission yet awaiting him. All was now still. It
was light again. The great building no longer vi-
brated. He seemed to have been lying there a very
long time. In reality, it was some three quarters of
an hour.
He rose from the floor, gathering his battered
frame painfully together. " Surely," he said to him-
self, " the dome has gone ; the statue can never have
weathered it." And he thought with sinking heart
of the fate of the papers he had made such herculean
efforts to obtain.
As he sallied forth, the inmates of the building,
who had fled in a general stampede, were cautiously
venturing back again, and marveling aloud to find
that so little damage had been done their offices and
the structure as a whole. David Lane overheard
one of them saying to another,
" The yellow gal from the dome looks as if she
were laid out for her wake, eh, piled up there among
that lot of trees. What kept the whole upper works
from coming down with her is more than I can see,
blest if it ain't ! " It was thus that the Golden Justice
was designated, as is perhaps the irreverent way of
the Americans with their statues generally, which,
to be sure, do not often deserve greater consideration.
David Lane knew well what was meant. " Oh, my
372 TEE GOLDEN JUSTICE
prophetic soul ! " he might have exclaimed. His
worst premonitions were verified. The Golden Jus-
tice was down. And now those papers, could
they be still intact in their box ? or into whose hands
had they already fallen ? The people who were com-
ing in tried to detain him, to tell him of their in-
dividual experiences and inquire his own, to demand
his theories, to ask directions from him; but he
pushed them aside, and went on his way.
It was twilight now. Rather the diffused storm-
clouds, a mass of which had settled in the west in
heavy leaden strata, which the sunset enlivened only
with a few dull red bars, had created an artificial twi-
light. The mayor looked back and up at the city hall.
The tornado had either found it too stout an antago-
nist, or had not well planned the attack. It had been
shaken as with a mighty hand, it is true, and in cer-
tain spots had taken on a ragged, half-archaic appear-
ance ; one of the lesser domes of the wings, a great
iron column from one of the porticoes, and liberal
sections of its iron cornices, for instance, had gone ;
but, in the main, it had stood the ordeal. ' After some
profitable days' work by the ingenious race of con-
tractors, it would be about as good as ever. Its cen-
tral dome did not appear to have suffered in the least;
the cupola, or lantern, upon it was intact ; only the
Golden Justice, from its apex, had gone.
The eyes of the man whose destiny was so bound
up with hers roved wildly, pathetically, about. He
soon caught a trace of the figure. A gleam from her
shining surface came to him from above a formidable
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 373
mass of wreckage. Going thither, he found her lying
as in state, a little inclined, her head supported on
the ruined fountain. The uprooted tree trunks, as
they had been tossed together, inclosed her on three
sides in a bristling chevaux-de-frise, resembling some-
what an early Indian redoubt.
The tempest had used a certain consideration or
gallantry in dealing with the statue ; respected, as it
were, the very charming person it represented. It
had brought it down lightly, leaving the comely feat-
ures calm and smiling still, and but little distorted
by fractures. The chief damage appeared about the
lower portion of the drapery, where it had joined
with the supporting pedestal. Here considerable por-
tions of the metal had been rent away, exposing the
mechanical devices of the interior construction.
David Lane, bending above the figure, discerned
plainly the trace of Jus tampering with it the night
before. Breathless with anxiety and dread, he saw
that the metal box of the receptacle was shattered,
and its precious contents were missing.
His forces deserted him, and he seated himself,
bowed with dismay, upon a projecting fragment of
the debris. " Alas ! " he said, " it has been carried
away by the four winds of heaven. From what quar-
ter will detection overtake me ? "
Later, he tried to argue with himself : " Why may
it not have fallen in the lake, or in some ploughed
field, some swamp or piece of lonely woods, where it
will rot undisturbed, and no human eye ever rest up-
on it?"
374 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
He searched the vicinity with eager eyes, but no
vestige of any of the papers appeared. They had
probably been loosed and taken flight like a flock of
birds while still far aloft. He was roused by the
voices of Schwartzmann the sculptor and Ives Wil-
son the editor who had climbed over an end of the
rugged barricade. The latter was rapidly possessing
himself, note-book in hand, of all the striking details
of the sights and scenes around him, having senf
Welby Goff off on a more distant mission. Like his
subordinate, whom he had well trained, he was brim-
ming over with interest, not to say enthusiasm. He
meant to make the Tornado Edition of the Index the
event of his lifetime.
" As to the statue, the head is unharmed, you see.
It can be set up again, about as good as ever, at no
great expense," Lane heard Schwartzmann saying ;
" and this time, I would like it to have a little differ-
ent pedestal."
" Here is a curious thing," said Ives Wilson, stoop-
ing to examine it. " Here is a place that looks as if
it had been regularly cut out with a saw. A brace
is cut, too, looks as fresh as if done yesterday. It
beats everything what pranks the lightning can
play."
"If it was done by the lightning, 'yesterday' is
rather an ancient date, is it not?" said the first
speaker. " But the fact is that tornadoes have noth-
ing to do with electricity. It used to be thought
necessary to thus account for their capers, but the idea
is exploded. They are purely atmospheric force."
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE, 375
Wilson disputed this, Schwartzmanu reaffirmed it.
They caught sight of David Lane, and deferred their
controversy to him ; but he evaded them, and re-
newed, instead, his disconsolate quest about the vicin-
ity for some trace of the missing document. He set
out perhaps beside himself, and not quite conscious
of all he did to pick his steps first away from, and
then towards, the Golden Justice by many different
paths.
This, then, was the end of all his diplomacy, his
arts, his indomitable perseverance, his sufferings, his
feats of physical strength. He was betrayed by the
very elements. He would have called back the
pledge he had given to justice, but the opportunity
was taken from him. As if the wish to do so had
served as a signal, the secret was placed forever be-
yond his reach and recall. It was launched into
space, published broadcast. The wretched evil-doer
was now to face the obloquy of the world, and to be
visited, as well, with the condign punishment of the
law due his crime. He could formulate no plan for
his next immediate actions. Could he ever meet his
family again ? He hardly even thought of the perils
they also might have met with in the tornado. That
great convulsion itself was all but forgotten. Should
he fly and hide his shame in a foreign dominion ?
No, he could only dumbly await his fate.
Paul Barclay alighted at his house in the city hall
square. His inquiring eye missed the Golden Justice
from her accustomed place, and, ranging around, soon
376 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
caught a glimpse of her, as David Lane had done, ly-
ing on her funeral pyre, or amid the stockade-like
heap of rubbish. He thought good to hasten at first
to see how his relations, the amiable Thornbrooks, h:ul
met the dangers of these exciting times. He found
them well and unharmed ; the hurricane had passed
by them, on the other side of the park. He then re-
paired to his room, hurriedly made some much-needed
changes in his damaged attire, sat down and read the
confession over again, word by word, with the most
sedulous care, and once more sallied forth.
He did not yet know what he should do with the
document so providentially conveyed to his hands.
His ideas were still in a whirl over this most singular
O
of situations.' It was now likely that he would see
David Lane ; indeed, it was with that object that he
had come hither. What should he say to him?
But his thoughts continually mingled together the
father and the daughter. He had suffered a grievous
wrong, his life had been marred, his mother and sis-
ters had been bereft of their mainstay and comforter.
What punishment did not the perpetrator of all this,
the cause of so much suffering, deserve, in spite of
his bizarre attempt at satisfaction, in spite of his hav-
ing committed himself to a fantastic ideal of justice ?
These had been his gloomy ponderings, at first, as he
rode along to town. But now he did not seem a
man struggling wholly with bitter resentment. He
had permitted himself even a speculative interest. It
was all so very long ago, this story. What a strange
revelation into the character of David Lane was it
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 377
not! Was Barclay, then, recreant to the memory of
his own dearly loved parent ? Ah, no ; but at present
the sweet affection by which he was held gave to all
other opinions and feelings, even this, an exceeding
remoteness. No doubt, too, the scenes of devastation
and death through which he had passed by the way,
and the recent memory of the mighty force of nature,
so dwarfing to all sublunary things, had their effect
upon his state of mind.
He directed himself towards the overthrown Gold-
en Justice, in which he had held so tremendous a
stake. His interest in it was now fully accounted for,
above and beyond all past explanations. He descried
David Lane pursuing his wistful search, and quickly
divined its object. The latter, raising his head at the
sound of approaching footsteps, suddenly discovered
the one man of all others who should have been far
from him at such a time, the man with whom fate
had brought him into such astounding relations.
Surely, however, it was but a coincidence. It would
be miraculous to suppose that Barclay had already
become possessed of his secret. It would come, no
doubt, but not so directly as this. For the time be-
ing, and until the blow should fall, this visitor might
be regarded like any other, in whose eyes he, the
mayor, was still the honored citizen, the figure of
unimpeached standing, the model of probity. He
thought that the younger man would recall only the
match with his daughter, to which the pair were
awaiting his consent. Alack ! his consent or his re-
fusal, what did it matter now ? All honorable pro-
378 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
ceediugs in the world were henceforth to take place
without him.
" It has been a terrible day," he said, to make
talk, not daring to evade this new-comer as he had
the others, " but the worst is surely over."
" You have lost something ? You seem to be
searching," began Paul Barclay, in a vibrating voice.
"I searching? I have lost Oh, no," stam-
mered the other. " There are no doubt many ar-
ticles of value scattered about, but, but one has
not time for that as yet. I have much to do. I was
examining the state in which the city hall was left.
The damage is not extreme. It is nothing like so
great as I had expected. It might have been much
worse."
Still his eyes involuntarily sought the ground,
over which they wandered, at moments, with such a
feverish energy as if they would have burned the
spot on which they rested.
Barclay paused. The gaze which he fixed upon
the averted head of the man before him was full of
commiseration.
" She came down, as my weather-prophet predicted
she would," he said, as they stood together beside
the fallen Golden Justice.
Schwartzmann and Ives Wilson were still heard,
at the further end of the inclosure, continuing their
argument.
" You don't suppose anybody has been cutting up
the image for the value of the metal, since the
storm, or climbed up there to do it before?" de-
manded "Wilson.
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 379
" Well, no, it is n't very likely."
" The way of it was this," went on the editor.
" The opening was made and the brace broken by
the lightning. That let in the wind, and gave it its
powerful purchase inside the figure. If it had n't
been weakened by the cutting of the brace, it would
n't have come down at all. It stands to reason.
You can see for yourself. Notice how that light
cupola stood it, if you don't think so."
Barclay's vision of the night the man, with a
ladder, crouched against the pedestal in the fitful
flashes of the storm once more came before him.
He could no longer doubt that it was real. David
Lane, too, had heard the words. His very effort to
escape had brought the image down.
" I don't believe it was ever done by lightning,"
persisted Schwartzmann.
Upon this the two walked away, disappearing
through a gap in the chevaux-de-frise at the other end
of the unwieldy bulk, where they had been posted.
" I must go and look after my my house. I
have not been near it yet," said the mayor, apologiz-
ing for a move of withdrawal. He had roused him-
self from his preoccupation, and perhaps really har?
bored some such intention. But with what front was
he to present himself again at his home? "Would that
he had died, rather, by the fury of the hurricane !
" Your daughter is safe and well," said Paul
Barclay.
" She is safe ? You have seen her ? "
" Yes, I have but just left her. She has come to
no harm."
380 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
" Thank God for that ! "
There could be no doubt of the fatherly interest
that spoke in such a voice. He still continued, how-
ever, his movement to withdraw. He pleaded, also,
public duties that would soon demand his attention.
Barclay watched him depart a few steps ; then, re-
luctantly,
" I spoke of a loss. What if I had found the ob-
ject of your search ? "
" A loss ? " said the mayor, turning sharply.
" Have I not said "
But his glance, which had risen to meet that of
Barclay, discovered something stern and mysterious
there. It fell again before it, and he left the sen-
tence unfinished.
" Give yourself no further concern for its destina-
tion. I have found it," said the younger man.
" Oh, no, you have not found that for which I
was looking. .It may be so later, but not yet, not yet.
You speak of other things."
" Shall I describe it to you ? Was it not a certain
document which had been sealed up in this statue ?
Was it not indorsed in a most legible hand, The Con-
fession of a Repentant Man ?"
"God! Ton have found it? You know all?"
cried the mayor, with a shudder of indescribable
anguish and dismay.
" Was it not called further, A True Account of
the Connection of David Lane with the Disaster at
the Chippewa Street Bridge, and the Deaths of
Christopher Barclay and Stanislaus Zeliiisky ? "
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 381
" How can it be possible that it has come into
your hands, you who should have been the last in
the world to hear it "
Barclay silently drew forth the paper, and ex-
tended it towards the other, for the conviction which
the sight of it must overwhelmingly produce. The
character and superscription were plainly visible.
David Lane fixed his eyes upon it with a pitiful
intensity. Then he opened wide his hands, with a
gesture of self-abasement and overthrow.
" What will you do with me ? " he asked simply.
It is not the habit of Anglo-Saxons, trained to ab-
horrence of " scenes," to express emotion in the mel-
odramatic way. When something important is in
progress, they do not saw the air, nor violently con-
tort their bodies. An even greater impassiveness of
manner than usual may take the place of demonstra-
tion. The voice, instead of being raised, is as likely
to be sunk yet lower. So any spectators who might
have looked on would by no means have divined the
tragic nature of the interview in progress between
the two men. Flushings and paleness would not be
repressed, it is true, and there were crispations of the
hands, and some subtle penetrating tones that seemed
to vibrate from the very inmost depths of the heart ;
but, for the most part, they faced each other, and
talked with portentous calm of the momentous situa-
tion in which they found themselves involved. David
Lane, indeed, broken by his previous labors and ter-
rors, had small force remaining for effort of any
kind.
382 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
Paul Barclay did not directly reply to the question
last put to him, nor as yet exhibit his purpose. He
led on his interlocutor to speak of the history of the
affair.
" You have made some attempts to relieve your-
self of this heavy burden ? " he finally asked. There
was a definite significance in his words, and yet he
was hardly prepared, even now, to hear so complete
a corroboration of his vision as that laid before him
in reply.
"Yes, last night I endeavored to recover the con-
fession. I climbed to the dome, and had reached the
box, when my strength failed me. But for the wind
and rain I should have succeeded. I made the open-
ing and cut the brace of which those men were
speaking."
" I knew it."
" How could you possibly have known it ? "
" I was awake, and, from my window,! saw a man
on the dome. I learned that you had passed the
night at the city hall, and I found the paper. Then
all was explained."
" I should have gone back and finished the work
to - night," said the mayor mournfully. " With the
paper once more in my own hands, I should have
been free. It would have been better for all of us.
But Providence willed otherwise."
"And had you made no efforts of the kind be-
fore ? "
" Never. There had never been the same over-
powering stimulus, nor had there been an opportu-
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 383
nity. But at last I could endure no more. It was for
this alone I became mayor. In no other way could
I have remained in the city hall by night without
awakening suspicion."
This was yet a new revelation to Barclay. The
involvement in the affair of the destinies of a great
city and its inhabitants, the struggles and uncertain-
ties of the political contest through which they had
just passed, gave to it an enlarged and more dignified
aspect. It took the air of some strange epic, with
vast ramifications, centring round the fortunes of him-
self, David Lane, and Mrs. Varemberg. He saw
David Lane, broken with age and infirmities as never
before, bowed in humiliation to him, the younger man.
The pathos of such a situation, the recollection of
what the labors of the past night must have been,
and the thought of the many and varied tortures,
even if deserved, of all the years gone by, combined
with his affection to sweep away from his heart the
last lingering traces of resentment. Even the crime
itself seemed to him the unreasonable act of one, for
the time being, of some weaker, less responsible order
of humanity. He was all ready to say,
" It is the motive that is to be judged, and not the
consequence. Surely you have suffered enough."
But before he could open his mouth to this purport,
David Lane anticipated him with,
" I await your orders. You will exact ample ex-
piation : it is your due."
" Yes, I shall exact ample expiation."
" I am ready. I shall make no complaint at what-
384 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
ever you please to demand," rejoined David Lane,
with a melancholy smile.
" Give me, then, your daughter's hand in mar-
riage ! " exclaimed the young man passionately.
" My daughter ? You can still demand her ? " re-
turned the other, with a wholly astounded air. Was
this the punishment for which he had sullenly braced
himself ? " You do not hate us unutterably ? You
do not let this weigh with you ? "
" There has never been a moment from the first
when this wretched secret would have weighed with
me. Oh, why did you not make it known ? I loved
her more than life, more than family, more than any
and all other interests whatever. There has never
been a moment, even if the guilt were a hundred-fold
greater, when it could have diminished my loving re-
gard for her, or induced me to bring discredit upon
one whose fair fame and standing were bound up in
hers. If you would have been really safe, why did
you not tell me ? It was that way most of all that
safety lay."
" Believe me, it was not my own safety I consult-
ed," protested the mayor, with tearful earnestness.
"Ah, what a lamentable error! Each successive
step of it led to the next. I thought it a matter of
conscientious duty to keep you apart. Believe me,
it was but a misguided desire for your welfare and
hers that prompted it. I dreaded what would hap-
pen when you should one day come to know, and find
yourself indissolubly bound to poor Florence."
" Let us talk of it no more. Come, let us go to
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 385
her," said Barclay, persuasively, passing his arm
through that of David Lane. It is doubtful if the
elder man could have sustained himself, so weak had
he grown, or even risen from his seat, without this aid.
He let himself be taken possession of, and even went
on a little way in this fashion ; but then, all at once,
he demurred, and drew back with horror.
" No," he said, " I cannot go, I cannot meet her.
She was the dearest in the world to me, and I sacri-
ficed her health and her happiness. My treatment of
her was infamous. How shall I face the scorn and
bitterness of my daughter when she knows the kind
of a father I have been to her ? "
" She knows nothing, and never shall know," said
Barclay, and his manner had the solemnity of one
registering a vow. " I had already thought it over.
It is best for her own peace of mind and happiness,
best on every account, that no word of this should
ever be spoken to her."
" But how can it be, if others if justice surely
do you mean that the paper will not be given to
will not be disclosed ? " exclaimed David Lane, gasp-
ing and confounded at the possibility of so amazing
a consummation.
For his sole reply, Paul Barclay began to slowly
tear the confession into fragments, and scatter them
about him.
David Lane grasped his hand with the warmth of
excessive gratitude.
" It is your secret and mine," said Barclay ; " let
it rest forever with us alone. It seems that you have
386 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
suffered as much as we. Justice must be satisfied.
Let Florence be the bond of forgiveness and union
between us."
" Oh ! " cried the other abjectly, " for this I will be
your slave. I will do whatever you wish."
At that moment, Mrs. Varemberg herself was seen
approaching, from a conveyance that had stopped at
the curbstone. She came on with a light, gliding
tread, very quick and elastic for her. She had paused
at home only long enough to throw over her tempest-
tossed attire the first enveloping mantle found at
hand, an ample gray wrap, and to add to this a gray
Tyrolean hat with a white wing in it. The gray,
with the dash of white, in the gathering dusk of
evening, gave him a faint suggestion of some pensive
heron visiting a haunted spring.
The site was that, by the fountain, where Barclay
had once called her the princess of the pearls and
diamonds. As she drew near, he was scattering to
the winds the last fragments of the destroyed confes-
sion. David Lane precipitated himself upon the
hand that did this, and pressed it to his lips in a
fervor of reverent gratitude.
" I will be your humble slave forever," he said.
" Henceforth I will be and do whatever you com-
mand."
Tears of joy filled his eyes at the thought that
he was not to be disgraced in the sight of his daughter.
Mrs. Varemberg saw that something of no common
import had taken place between the two men. Nor
did it seem to be of an unfriendly nature.
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 387
" You are safe, you are not harmed ? " she cried,
addressing her father in a voice full of anxious affec-
tion. The Radbrooks had broken their harness in
driving to town, and she had been delayed ; but on
arriving at home and finding her father not there, she
had hastened at once to seek him.
There was still a certain constraint in the manner
in which he received her, but her lover came to her,
and took her tenderly in his arms. It was done
openly, in the presence of the other. There was no
need of concealment, then, no opposition any longer ?
" Our troubles are over, my darling," said Barclay,
in answer to her wondering looks. " You are mine.
The last obstacles have vanished."
"You are friends?" she exclaimed, looking from
one to the other, while prayers of gratitude welled up
from her heart. " You are reconciled ? "
" Yes, we are friends. Let us speak no more of
it ; there have been troubles enough in this tragic
day And yet our happiness, dearest, has sprung
out of the very midst of them."
He drew her a little nearer to her father, who
took one of her hands also, so that they were all
three united.
" We had misunderstood each other, that is all,"
said David Lane, embarrassed, offering the only ex-
planation of the past that was given.
" Ah yes, you had misunderstood each other," she
murmured, glad of any consummation that had ended
it all, and oblivious as yet of details.
" That will happen, even where intentions are of
388 TEE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
the best," Barclay hastened to add, with all his cheer-
fulness ; " and, once begun, such things are often hard
to set right But luckily it is all over, and now we are
going to be as happy as we can, all three together.
Tornado or no tornado, this will always be the most
blissful day of my life."
Nor had Mrs. Varemberg's spirits wholly deserted
her. She soon began to examine with interest the
fallen statue which lay in the midst of them, the sub-
ject and basis of their conference. " One can no
longer exclaim, * Great is Diana of the Ephesians,' "
she said, quoting lightly, " but rather, ' Her ' mag-
nificence is destroyed whom all Asia and the world
worshiped.' "
" Not so ; she is in an excellent state to set up
again, better than ever," rejoined Barclay. " We
have just heard Schwartzmann say so."
" Well, I do not find myself too beautiful on so
mammoth a scale. Thirty-six feet of loveliness is
rather paralyzing. I feel as if I saw myself distorted
in a vast magnifying mirror."
" For my part," said Barclay gallantly, " I could
find it in my heart to be in love with her were she a
hundred times as big. There never can be too much
of so sweet a model."
The fair, helmeted features did not seem to indi-
cate, even thus fallen, broken hopes or gloomy pros-
pects. They smiled up a definite reassurance, in-
stead. It was as if the trio were consulting some
beautiful sphinx, who foretold for them all a prosper-
ous destiny.
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 389
People now began to come and invade the stock-
ade, which had hitherto given their interview privacy.
The mayor was in demand to put himself at the head
of affairs. Urgent measures of relief were necessary.
Loss of life and tragic devastation had taken place in
many quarters of the city, particularly, perhaps, on
the outskirts, and messengers were now beginning to
arrive from those districts in hot haste, with pressing
appeals for aid.
Mrs. Varemberg seemed aroused the most keenly
of all to the duties of the hour, forgotten for the mo-
ment in the engrossment of their own affairs. " We
will go with you," she said to her father. " We will
celebrate our new-found happiness by doing some-
thing for these sufferers around us. We will help
you. You must make us your lieutenants."
All three went to the mayor's office. There were
ambulances to be sent forth, ruins to be cleared away,
food, clothing, and shelter to be provided. Medicines
and surgery were needed for the injured, and deco-
rous burial for the slain. David Lane, in his enfee-
bled condition of mind and body, would never have
been equal, unaided, to the heavy responsibilities thus
suddenly thrust upon him. It was really Barclay
who assumed the heat and burden of the day, while
Mrs. Varemberg, up to the furthest limit of her moder-
ate strength, acted as a private secretary, full of sym-
pathy and resource. And all opened liberally their
purses as well as their hearts.
In considerate labors like these their new existence
began. It was not a question of the toil of one night
390 TllE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
or oue day alone, but of several. Such terror had
been struck by the tornado that many of the people
anxiously watched every passing cloud and puff of
air, and sat up at night, ready dressed and with lan-
terns burning, dreading a return of its devastations.
The excitement of such a time had already taken
something away from the sharpness and vividness of
those of our friends. Their future at once com-
menced to blend imperceptibly with the past. It is
a rapidly moving world of ours, that does not pause
long in amazement before any crises, even the most
stupendous, nor in wonder at any individual fortunes,
however remarkable. And so their fate began to be
woven again into the general pattern, from which it
had a little departed or rather departed only in
seeming ; for if we pick up a portion of the web, and
avert our eyes momentarily from the rest, it is not
that we have discovered a separate and complete pat-
tern, but that we may see the better in this close in-
spection the strangeness and richness of the design
we call life, in one of its parts, and thus come to a
clearer understanding of the whole.
Shall it be told here that Paul Barclay went on in
the career of enlightened political usefulness he had
marked out for himself ? He rebuilt his factory, and
incorporated into it all his original favorite ideas, so
that its fame spread far and wide. His popularity, ob-
tained by his able and sympathetic efforts in relieving
the suffering caused by the hurricane, soon made him,
in his turn, the mayor of the city. He next served
in legislative bodies by degrees approaching the
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 391
highest in the nation. It \vas thought that few were
better equipped than he, by reason of his extensive
reading and sound judgment, his good heart and pro-
gressive views, to play a useful part in all current in-
dustrial questions. He would seem, too, one of those
to whom the country might best turn for aid on the
greater economic matters, the conflicts of capital and
labor, the vast antagonisms of social classes even
to the point of taking arms in their hands, arid threat-
ening the perpetuity of free institutions and civili-
zation itself that loom up as the most pressing
questions of the times and the immediate future.
And, if ever combatant in the rude fray of life had
tender nurse to bind up his wounds, if ever philan-
thropist and rising public man had worthy consort to
grace his home, and win the stronger support to his
measures by her engaging personal charm, surely
Paul Barclay had all this in Florence Lane the
sweet model of that Golden Justice, which gleamed
again as the crowning ornament, and symbol of im-
partial right, of Keewaydin.
The new relation that sprang up between Paul
Barclay and David Lane was a strange one. There
was now manifested as warm regard as there had
once been hostility and estrangement. The mayor's
daughter was greatly touched by this, and, with inno-
cent self-complacency, ascribed it to her own influence.
Her heart swelled with joy and gratitude that their
affection for her had thus brought them together, and
joined them in bonds of enduring amity.
392 THE GOLDEN JUSTICE.
By no word or implication of the younger man's was
the secret ever referred to, though David Lane, in
the earlier days, often fell into his self-accusing spirit,
and would have renewed the expression of his re-
morse. Paul Barclay would have none of it, but put
down, with friendly insistence, all painful recallings
from the past.
Thus the reunited household lived seemingly in an
atmosphere of perfect harmony and peace. But
David Lane did not long survive, to enjoy this altered
condition of affairs. He was gnawed within by his
sense of self-abasement and repentance, and perhaps
but suffered the more for the enforced suppression of
them. Within two years he passed away, leaving
his daughter to the sincerest regret, unalloyed by any
stigma upon his memory.
At the beginning of her married life, she had asked
her husband, it is true, " How could our happiness
have arisen, as you said, out of the very calamities of
that disastrous day ? "
Barclay had put her off with a careless answer,
and, so too, as often as the subject was brought up,
he used that kind prevarication of which perhaps the
recording angel makes but his lightest note. He
made it appear that there had never been any real
difference between her father and himself, save some
slight bickerings by reason of their different ages and
temperaments, and possibly an unfortunate manner
on both sides. Perhaps he had not been very happy
in his way of proposing for her hand, in the first
place. Their tragic experiences in the tornado had
THE GOLDEN JUSTICE. 393
naturally made these bickerings seem petty, and rec-
onciliation had been easy when the opportunity
offered. With such words as these the topic was
dropped, and was soon wellnigh wholly forgotten.
It was only after many years had rolled away, and
all possibility of shock or pain from it seemed obvi-
ated, that Paul Barclay at last disclosed the secret to
his wife. In his heart he had felt that he could not
bear to be permanently separated from her united
as they were in bonds of the most tender confidence in
every other way even by reticence on such a sub-
ject. They were sitting, when he told her, on the
grass-grown tomb of David Lane, in the cemetery,
and the tears flowed freely down the cheeks of Flor-
ence, as she listened, but it was, then, with hardly
more than such a pensive and gentle sadness as might
be evoked by some mere far-off, unreal and fanciful
tale.
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