LOVERS SAINT RUTH S 
 
 SE IMOGEN GUINEY 
 
 CO 
 
I vj 
 
LOVERS SAINT RUTH S 
 
 And Three Other Tales 
 
 BY 
 
 LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 COPELAND AND DAY 
 MDCCCXCV 
 
COPYRIGHT BY COPELAND AND DAY 1895 
 
TO CLARENCE J. BLAKE AND FRANCES 
 H. BLAKE, A BOOK FINISHED ON THEIR 
 OWN WILD ACRES OF THE MAINE COAST. 
 
 October, 1894. 
 
AUTHOR S PREFACE. 
 
 THE contents of this book have, hith 
 erto, never been printed nor published. 
 One chapter among them, The Provider, 
 is based very literally on a tragic thing 
 which happened, some years ago, in Dub 
 lin, and which, figuring as a cable de 
 spatch of some ten lines in a Boston daily 
 newspaper, fell under my eye, to be re 
 membered, and afterwards cast into its 
 present form. In the September (1895) 
 number of Harpers Magazine, little Fa 
 ther Time and his adopted brother, in 
 Hearts Insurgent, end their innocent lives 
 from Hughey s strange motive, though 
 not in his manner. It is perhaps worth 
 while to state that my story was finished 
 and laid by, prior to the appearance of 
 the novel in its serial form, lest I should 
 seem fain to melt my waxen wings in the 
 
Contents 
 
 Lovers Saint Ruth s 
 
 Our Lady of the Union 29 
 
 An Event on the River 63 
 
 The Provider 93 
 
2 LOVERS SAINT RUTH S. 
 
 me better than ever when he found what 
 genuine interest I took in his quiet hid 
 den corner of shire, whither I came 
 
 from London to pass a memorable night 
 and day with him, after a sixteen years 
 separation ; for his boyhood had been 
 spent in my own Maryland, his mother s 
 family being Americans. It was a little 
 sober, pastoral place, this Orrinleigh, with 
 its straw-browed cottages bosomed in roses, 
 sitting all in a row upon the overshaded 
 lane, and, from the height where we stood, 
 looking like so many sepia-tinted mush 
 rooms in the broad green world. Just 
 beyond us, in the near neighborhood of 
 Orrinleigh House, the gray sham-Grecian 
 porch of his ritualistic Tudor church 
 skulked in the faint May sun. "What 
 do you call that?" I said. cc It is the 
 one ugly thing hereabouts." He smiled. 
 " Of course it is ugly, structurally," he 
 answered in an apologetic tone; " Saint 
 Ruth s was built in King James the 
 First s time ; I do not pride myself on 
 that. But you should see the ruin, Hoi- 
 den ! a darling bit of Early Decorated. 
 Walk over there now with me. We have 
 the time to give ; and it is only a couple 
 
LOVERS SAINT RUTH S. 3 
 
 of miles away." And off he started at 
 his brisk bachelor pace, fixing his shovel- 
 hat well on his forehead, for we were in 
 the teeth of the inland breeze. "This 
 enormity," I remarked, casting a sportive 
 thumb over my shoulder, "has an odd 
 name: Saint Ruth s." He corrected me 
 in his most amiable fashion. " The title 
 is not unique ; and it has every precedent, 
 pre-Christian as it is. Have you never 
 heard, good sceptic, of Saint Joachim? 
 nay, of Saint Michael, another person 
 who might have proved an alibi if he ever 
 came up for Roman canonization ? Be 
 sides, the name has ancient local sanction. 
 This Saint Ruth s-on-the-Hill continues 
 the dedication of the other to which we 
 are going: Lovers Saint Ruth s." "Lov 
 ers Saint Ruth s ? " I exclaimed, keen at 
 the scent. " Come now, Nasmith, there s 
 some legend back of that ; you know 
 there is. Let us have it." And that is 
 how I heard the story. 
 
 He told it not without reluctance, as 
 if it were a precious thing he could not 
 easily part with, even to an old friend. 
 All along the road, as we went between 
 the pleasant farm-lands, stepping over 
 
4 LOVERS SAINT RUTH S. 
 
 golden pools of primroses between the 
 wheel-tracks, little silences broke into 
 his talk. Nasmith s heart is truly in the 
 past; and humbly happy indeed it keeps 
 him. We had been through the gallery 
 before breakfast, and he reminded me of 
 it, by way of prelude. " Do you remem 
 ber how pleased you were with the great 
 Vandyck on the east wall ? " The grouped 
 portrait of a blonde man, a blonde wo 
 man, and a child unlike either; how 
 beautiful it was ! the two unforgettable 
 melancholy faces contrasting oddly with 
 the ruddy dark-eyed boy in a yellow 
 doublet, playing with his dog before them 
 on the floor. 
 
 cc Well, you saw there the Lord Rich 
 ard, and his wife, the Lady Eleanor. He 
 was the third Earl s only son, born in the 
 year 1606. The house of Orrinleigh was 
 founded by his grand-uncle, on murder 
 and fraud. Richard, almost the only 
 Langham with a conscience, had it in 
 too great a degree, and grew up, one 
 knows not why, with a diseased sense of 
 impending retribution ; and, therefore, 
 when misfortune for a while overwhelmed 
 him and his, it found him not unpre- 
 
LOVERS SAINT RUTH S. 5 
 
 pared. His mother was a Neville ; he 
 had great prospects and possessions. 
 Lady Eleanor was a sweet lass of hon 
 orable blood, a good squire s daughter, 
 and the youngest of a family of eight. 
 She belonged over there in Frambleworth, 
 where you see the twin spires. From 
 boyhood and girlhood these two clung 
 to each other. I wonder if one ever 
 sees such fast love now-a-days : so sim 
 ple, so deep, so long-suffering, all made 
 of rapture and grief! They were be 
 trothed early, with a kiss given under 
 the shadow of the king yew in the old 
 church-yard ; they both cherished the 
 place to the end, and there lies their dust. 
 You see, the original Saint Ruth s was a 
 monastic chapel ; and it was stripped, and 
 left to fall to pieces, by the greed of the 
 rascally Reformers, (excuse me ; that s 
 what I must call them ! " muttered my 
 filial High Churchman), " and it was 
 nearly as much of a ruin in Lord Richard s 
 youth as it is to-day. For a whole gen 
 eration, Orrinleigh had no Christian ser 
 vices at all, and dropped into less than 
 paganism ; for which nobody seemed to 
 care, until the architectural hodge-podge 
 
6 LOVERS SAINT RUTH S. 
 
 on the hill was raised by the old Earl, 
 and the people were gradually gathered in 
 to learn all about a new code of moral 
 beauty from the nakedest, dullest, and 
 vulgarest object in the three kingdoms. 
 As I was saying, the two young people 
 made their tryst by the priory wall, 
 secretly, as it had to be ; for the Earl 
 would not hear of penniless Eleanor 
 Thurlocke for his heir s bride ; and the 
 squire, a staunch Elizabethan Protestant, 
 favored young Kit Brimblecombe, or his 
 cousin Austin, for her suitor, and held 
 aloof from the Lord Richard, whom he 
 suspected of having reclaimed his ances 
 tors faith and become a Papist, while at 
 Oxford. That, as it happened, was true 
 enough; and, moreover, the girl herself 
 had followed her lover back into the old 
 religion : so that there were disadvantage 
 and danger of all kinds, in those days, 
 behind them and before. The little 
 church meant much to them both, the 
 pathetic ghost of what had been so fam 
 ous and fair. There they used to meet, 
 when luck served, for what great comfort 
 they could still reap out of their narrow 
 ing lives, shedding tears on each other s 
 
LOVERS SAINT RUTH S 7 
 
 breasts over that outlook which seemed 
 so cruelly hopeless. But a terrible trag 
 edy broke up and changed their youth, 
 and it was at Lovers Saint Ruth s that 
 it happened. 
 
 "Eleanor was barely past eighteen, and 
 Richard not one-and-twenty. It was 
 spring twilight, when he rode down alone 
 to the valley, galloping, because, for once, 
 he was a little late to meet his maid. She 
 also had started on foot, across the dewy 
 field-path from Frambleworth, having for 
 company part of the way an old market- 
 woman and her goodman, who would not 
 have betrayed the object of her journey 
 for worlds. They left her at the lonely 
 cross-roads, whence she gayly took her 
 way west, with Orrinleigh Church, as it 
 was still called, almost in sight. The 
 next morning their bodies were found, 
 not fifty rods away ; and it is clear to me, 
 that, hearing Eleanor s first stifled call, 
 they had turned back to her rescue, and 
 so perished at the hands of the wicked. 
 With whom the guilt lay, none ever 
 knew ; the blame was laid upon the gyp 
 sies, I think unjustly, and three of them 
 were hanged on these very downs. It was 
 
8 LOVERS SAINT RUTH S. 
 
 a wild time ; and desperate men, singly, 
 or in bands, mad for food and plunder, 
 and reeling drunk from cellar to cellar, 
 were over this peaceful county. The 
 squire s ewe lamb, whom, in his senses, 
 a devil might have spared with a blessing 
 on her sweet looks, was foully waylaid, 
 and worse than murdered. In the face of 
 agony and humiliation, her spirit fainted 
 away. Hours later, when all was still, 
 and the dazzling moon was up over the 
 sycamores, Eleanor Thurlocke awoke, 
 and, with her last spasmodical strength, 
 dragged herself to the end of the lane, 
 and on to the hollow stone step of the 
 church, to die. It was past midnight. 
 Who should be within those crumbling 
 walls, even then, but her own Richard, 
 kneeling in his satin dress, with a lighted 
 hand-lamp by his side, his brow raised to 
 Heaven? He had missed her; and he 
 knew not what to think for disappoint 
 ment and anxious love ; and, sleep being 
 far from him, there had he waited until 
 now before the fallen altar-stone where 
 they had so often prayed together. As 
 dejectedly he swung back the outer door, 
 he saw his dear, her thick gold locks un- 
 
LOVERS SAINT RUTH S. 9 
 
 bound, her vesture in disorder, her hands 
 chilled and bleeding from the stony travel 
 and the briers. Without a question, for 
 he was ever a ready courageous lad, he 
 put out the lantern, and cast it under a 
 bush ; and, gathering Eleanor into his 
 strong arms, first making the sign of the 
 cross upon her brow, he climbed the hill 
 slowly, steadily, and bore her straight 
 into Orrinleigh House, and into his dead 
 mother s chamber. He made no sound; 
 but he left her long enough to get restora 
 tives, and then hurried back, and laid her 
 tenderly in the high-canopied bed there, 
 radiant in the moonshine; and, keeping 
 his own heart smothered, so that it could 
 utter no least cry, placed the door ajar, 
 and began to pace, soft as a tiger, to and 
 fro, to and fro, to and fro, outside. 
 When the white of dawn appeared, he 
 crept in and crouched low beside the pil 
 lows. She opened her eyes, and, with 
 his haggard cheek close to hers, stam 
 mered to him, piteously, as best she 
 could, her knowledge of what had be 
 fallen. He did not speak nor move for 
 a long while, partly because he feared so 
 for her jarred mind. But he knew the 
 
io LOVERS SAINT RUTH S. 
 
 house would be stirring with the day, and 
 events lay in his hands. It was a strange, 
 inconsistent thing, but entirely in har 
 mony with the Lord Richard s fatalistic 
 character, that neither then, nor ever after, 
 would he proclaim the true fact. To 
 save her from certain slander, to wall her 
 in with reparation on every side, was his 
 one passionate impulse. He knew that 
 having carried her by night to Orrinleigh, 
 he must bear the burden of his own deed. 
 He made his resolve to explain nothing, 
 for her sake, and to act as became the 
 overmastering affection he had for her. 
 He breathed quickly and firmly in her 
 ear: ( Nell ! She smiled faintly at 
 him. Nell, darling, this must be our 
 bridal-morn/ A low groan, such as 
 made him shiver like the air around a 
 fire, was her only answer; such a heart 
 rending groan of pure unreasoning hor 
 ror as his ears had never heard. But he 
 could not flinch now ; the morn was 
 breaking, fresh and undelayed, over his 
 altered world. With the still force which 
 was in him, and which, from his boyhood, 
 could compel every one he knew, the 
 Lord Richard said: Yes. < Yes ! she 
 
LOVERS SAINT RUTH S. u 
 
 echoed, after a while, as if in a weary 
 dream, and fell unconscious again. Then 
 he rose, and called old Stephen Bowles, 
 the servant whom he could best trust, 
 and despatched him, on his own horse, 
 ere the sun was up, for a priest eleven 
 miles away. And there, in his dead 
 mother s chamber, with one only witness, 
 and in such wretchedness, the two were 
 hastily wed, Eleanor lying quietly, since 
 they dared not raise her, and the hope of 
 Orrinleigh kneeling with his curly bronze 
 head buried in her white little hands. 
 When the others had gone, for he had set 
 himself much to do, he sought his father. 
 Sealing his lips thenceforward against the 
 mystery which had hurried his action, he 
 spoke out, and told him he had married 
 Eleanor Thurlocke, and that he hoped 
 he might be forgiven if he had seemed 
 undutiful ; and before the old Earl, who 
 was dressing, could show his rage, quietly 
 walked away, and rode over to Framble- 
 worth, and made almost the same speech, 
 in Eleanor s behalf, to the squire. Such 
 wrath, and curiosity, and excitement, and 
 upbraiding were never in this neighbor 
 hood before; for the two young people 
 
12 LOVERS SAINT RUTH S. 
 
 lived in the eyes of many who wished 
 them well, and who looked for a great 
 wedding, with masques, and dancing, and 
 holiday arches, and public largesses of 
 drink and money, such as had riot been 
 in mid-England for a generation. Won 
 derful as it seemed, the turmoil soon 
 passed; and the two, never stirring from 
 the very heart of the disturbance and 
 opposition, somehow lived on, and were 
 not parted, and slowly established a peace 
 with their angry kindred. Malice itself 
 could not hold out long against the Lord 
 Richard s winning ways ; and ever, as he 
 grew older, he became sadder and gentler, 
 and more to be honored by all men. But 
 the Lady Eleanor lost the merry laughter 
 she once had, and shrank, in great mis 
 trust, even from her own family, so that 
 it was plain at times that her reason was 
 shaken. None on earth, meanwhile, save 
 the lovers themselves, held the clew to 
 their blighted lives. He never left her ; 
 he never travelled, nor went to court, as 
 became his station, but sat patiently 
 awaiting, at home, the crowning distress 
 which he now knew must come upon 
 them. Gossip broke out again, ere long, 
 
LOVERS SAINT RUTH S. 13 
 
 as much as it dared, in the village tav 
 erns ; and there was a lifting of willing 
 eyebrows among the gentry dwelling near, 
 when, in the autumn, the incarnate disas 
 ter, the child in the Vandyck picture, 
 was born. They rang the joy-bells from 
 the church-tower, and the tenantry came 
 under the eaves and cheered until faithful 
 old Stephen threatened them with his 
 blunderbuss, and drove them away. The 
 Earl was sitting at his cards, with his bad 
 foot on a stool before him, when the Lord 
 Richard came in, with a silken parcel in 
 his arms, followed only by a couple of 
 his sniffing hounds. c Well, what hast 
 thou there, Dick? cried the big bluster 
 ing man, not unkindly. * Father, said 
 the young stricken Lord Richard, in his 
 impassioned fidelity, holding the parcel 
 forth, * I have my son. And there 
 upon such a mortal paleness came upon 
 him, and his knees shook so under him, 
 for the deceit, that he scarce could stand. 
 Seeing him quake, the old Earl, a rough 
 jolly creature in his better moods, laughed 
 long and loud. 
 
 " And so it seemed to the only ones 
 who sat tongue-tied amid the great rejoic- 
 
14 LOVERS SAINT RUTH S. 
 
 ing, as if the divine wrath had indeed spent 
 itself upon their house; the doom of the 
 iniquity of the forefathers, as the Lord 
 Richard would say to himself. What 
 fresh and mistaken thinking there was to 
 do, the miserable lad, being sane, did for 
 both, believing that a curse was upon 
 them, and that they must endure it, and 
 accept the torture of that alien child s 
 presence for some purpose hidden from 
 human eyes. Their pact and horrible 
 habit of silence weighed upon their hearts; 
 and had not one constrained the other, 
 she was very fain at times to confess, and 
 go, if needs be, into disgrace for the lie. 
 They would wander sometimes on the 
 terrace, hand-in-hand, without speech, 
 looking like brother and sister under a 
 common ban. It seems impossible to 
 understand this deliberate choice of a 
 wrong attitude towards life, except in the 
 light of that mysticism, 
 
 With shuddering, meek, submitted thought, 
 
 which ruled the Lord Richard s nature. 
 Meanwhile the infant changed to a noisy, 
 bounding rogue with black eyes, whom 
 his young mother hated. They called him 
 
LOVERS SAINT RUTH S. 15 
 
 Ralph, a name not borne before by any 
 of the Langham race. From his cradle, 
 the poor waif clung to the Lord Richard, 
 as to his only friend; and that saintly 
 soul, as one might take sweetly a bitter 
 penance, reared him in right ways, and 
 encouraged or chided him at need, and 
 won from him an awe and gratitude affect 
 ing to see. But the Lady Eleanor would 
 never have him so much as touch her 
 gown, which the maids about the manor 
 laid to her troubled wits, and felt sorry 
 for, without more ado. The old Earl, 
 who liked the boy s health and pluck, 
 had the portrait painted for the gallery ; 
 and even there you will notice that Ralph 
 is far away from her, and at her husband s 
 feet. Years of dereliction, therefore, these 
 were to the Lord Richard, having no 
 child of his own, and watching his intrud 
 ing heir gaining daily some virtue and 
 seemly knowledge, and coming, either by 
 nature or by his careful breeding, fully to 
 deserve those things to which he had no 
 right before God and the king. And the 
 boy grew, and was worthy to be loved, so 
 brave he was, and so truth-speaking, and 
 so tractable, despite his fits of temper. 
 
16 LOVERS SAINT RUTH S. 
 
 When he had passed his tenth birthday, 
 he was sent to Meldom School ; and his 
 first absence lifted, as it were, the black 
 load from his mother s spirit ; and the be 
 ginning of her recovery, after all that she 
 had endured, was from that day. There 
 came soon to her and the Lord Richard 
 an unexpected happiness ; for the year 
 1636 saw the birth of their own little 
 Vivian. You may believe that his father, 
 perplexed by the fresh aspect of the prob 
 lem before him, tried to solve it by 
 prayer and patience ; the good heart, 
 chastened ever with much sorrow, and 
 melted away with thinking, thinking. 
 His wife, free of his morbid scruples, 
 cried out at last irresistibly for the vin 
 dication of her little one. But the Lord 
 Richard was visited by a prophetic dream, 
 and was wrung with misgivings, less like 
 a man s than a woman s, in searching to 
 divine his duty. For he foresaw, of a 
 surety, in his sleep, what a poor vicious 
 thing his son was to be. All the estates, 
 being entailed, were to pass to the ac 
 knowledged eldest, passing, therefore, by 
 unjust consent, in this case, to an inter 
 loper, to the detriment of the true in- 
 
LOVERS SAINT RUTH S. 17 
 
 heritor; and to maintain Ralph s right 
 would be a legal crime. On the other 
 hand, the great power and responsibility 
 of which he promised to make such fair 
 use, what if these should become, in the 
 hands of that other to whom they would 
 be intrusted, engines for havoc in the 
 world, since then to disown Ralph were 
 a moral crime? Lord Richard wrestled 
 hard with his demon of doubt, to no 
 avail. In good time, alas, as it was or 
 dained, when Vivian was a bonny babe 
 in his third summer, the unforeseen de 
 liverance came. Ralph Langham was 
 thrown from his pony at Long Meldom 
 Cross, and brought home for dead. He 
 never spoke a word, but passed to eter 
 nity with his fingers clasped tight on the 
 Lord Richard s compassionate hand, and 
 a great tear rolling down his round brown 
 cheek. His short career had been like a 
 cheerful cloud swimming in the sun, and 
 itself casting damp and darkness on the 
 hills below. The strangest thing of all 
 was the ungoverned joy which came, at 
 the news, upon the Lady Eleanor, a joy 
 dreadful, at that time, to those about; 
 but when it faded away, all the evil else 
 2 
 
1 8 LOVERS SAINT RUTH S. 
 
 linked with it seemed to fade too, and 
 very shortly she was wholly restored, and 
 became her own comely, gracious self 
 again, even as she was when first the 
 beardless Lord Richard had told her his 
 love. So that the liberty of those hunted 
 young spirits was established in the 
 grave of him whom heraldry yet names 
 as their first-born. They laid him yon 
 der, in Lovers Saint Ruth s. Where else 
 but there? as if in unuttered thanksgiving 
 that mercy had reached them at last upon 
 its fatal threshold. There is the tower, 
 Holden, and the broken top mullion (is it 
 not graceful ?) of the great west window." 
 We swung into the prettiest open space 
 imaginable, close to a glassy lake, and 
 found the fourteenth-century church, with 
 its yews and leaning stones, before us. 
 I went silently in at Nasmith s heels. 
 The flooring was the perfect plush of 
 English grass; the roof of the nave was 
 living boughs. For a single huge ash- 
 tree had rooted itself there generations 
 ago, and grown much larger round than 
 our four arms could span, and lifted 
 its spread of leaves nearer heaven than 
 the level of the walls. Ivy hung on 
 
LOVERS SAINT RUTH S. 19 
 
 the chancel arch, and many bright- 
 colored wildflowers, whose seeds had 
 lodged in the crevices and in the blank 
 windows, filled the whole enclosure, bay 
 after bay, with a riot of color and fra 
 grance. Soft green daylight everywhere 
 caressed the eye. The chancel roof, of 
 exquisitely groined limestone, was still 
 unfallen, though it had a rift or two; and 
 on either side, where the monks stalls 
 must have stood a dozen deep, there 
 were crumbling tombs, with effigies in 
 alabaster. I went directly up one step to a 
 plain small brass over against the piscina, 
 and pushed the weeds aside. Nasmith 
 knew I should not be able to decipher the 
 inscription, on which the rain of three 
 hundred summers had been sifted in. 
 Leaning his head against one of the piers, 
 a good distance down, he looked over at 
 me, and began to recite, in an agreeable 
 monotone : " c Here lieth Ralph, thirteen 
 years old, heir while he lived to Orrin- 
 leigh and Gaynes ; whom do thou, O 
 Lord ! receive among the innocent. 
 
 For Time still tries 
 
 The truth from lies, 
 
 And God makes open what the world doth blind. 
 
20 LOVERS SAINT RUTH S. 
 
 A. D. 1639. Do you recognize the 
 verse ? Robert Greene s. The choice 
 of it was so significant it must have been 
 the Lord Richard s doing. You will 
 notice that the epitaph is sensitively 
 worded ; it is pure fact, and nothing else; 
 and it has, too, an affectionate sound 
 which has always been a sort of satis 
 faction to me." "How immensely dra 
 matic the upshot might have been if he 
 had lived!" I said. "The poor little 
 fellow, infelix natu^ felicior morte." I was 
 astonished to find a slight mist over my 
 eyes. "Tell me of these others next 
 him, Nasmith : a knight and his lady 
 side by side, recumbent, and therefore 
 pre-Reformation." Nasmith s slow, radi 
 ant, indulgent smile was upon me, as he 
 moved forward from the light to where I 
 stood. " No," he said. " Look at the 
 armor and the fashion of the dress, not 
 at the attitude, which is unusual, of 
 course, for the Caroline period. Those 
 are the blessed twain of whom I have 
 been telling you. See! " He pointed 
 to the discolored raised Latin text which 
 ran around the wide slabs beneath. I 
 traced it out. " Pray for the souls of 
 
LOVERS SAINT RUTH S. 21 
 
 Richard Esme Vivian Langham, Vis 
 count Gaynes, and of Eleanor his adored 
 wife, neither of them ripe in years, who 
 together, in this venerable sanctuary, 
 suffered calamity, and sought repose in 
 Christ." There were no dates. I waited 
 for Nasmith to go on. He did so, in 
 that tone of grave personal interest which 
 he reserves for these "old, unhappy, far- 
 off things." 
 
 "They had to lead very private lives, 
 on account of their proscribed creed; 
 a constraint which to them was not 
 unwelcome. Their good works, how 
 ever, were known over the whole coun 
 tryside, which is loyal to their memory. 
 She was the first to die, in 1640, con 
 tracting a fever, and fading gradually 
 away. There were two young children 
 to remember her and take pattern after 
 her, (would that they had done so!) 
 Vivian and Joan. When the civil wars 
 began, the old Earl was feeble and near 
 his end; and the Lord Richard, whose 
 principles and natural sympathies were 
 all for King Charles, joined the unani 
 mous Catholic gentry, and sought with 
 eagerness the only use that seemed left 
 
22 LOVERS SAINT RUTH S. 
 
 to him. His bright beloved presence 
 graced the camp but a little while, for in 
 his thirty-seventh year he was killed at 
 the second battle of Newbury, while car 
 rying the royal standard. They brought 
 him back to the old chapel where he 
 wished to be buried, and where none of 
 his house have been buried since. Both 
 these figures were made under his own 
 eye, when his wife s dust was laid below. 
 Are they not nobly and delicately wrought, 
 and full of rest ? His hand holds hers; 
 he had always said they should lie so, 
 as his namesake king and Anne of 
 Bohemia, long ago, lay in the Abbey at 
 Westminster. The ruin has taken its 
 traditional distinctive name of Lovers* 
 Saint Ruth s from them. All my parish 
 maids steal in on Hallowe en to kiss these 
 joined hands, and wish themselves good 
 fortune, and hundreds of shire sweet 
 hearts have plighted their troth here, 
 under the stars. It has always been a 
 place of pilgrimage, though its full 
 history is not even guessed at. Saint 
 Ruth s-on-the-Hill, my friend, can never 
 buy or borrow such a charm as this." 
 As he paused, we heard the plaintive 
 
LOVERS SAINT RUTH S. 23 
 
 interruptive note of a pair of wood-doves 
 in the ash. He looked at me again. " I 
 forgot to say that they were content to 
 die, my martyr hero and heroine of Orrin- 
 leigh, for they had won four years, at the 
 end, of absolute unbroken bliss. They 
 used to come down here every evening for 
 a talk, or a hymn to Our Lady, arm in 
 arm, and happy as children all the way. 
 Their day of storms was brief, and it had 
 a lovely sunset/ "Ah, Nasmith," I 
 exclaimed, like a sentimental girl, " I 
 am glad of that. How did you know ? " 
 He drew his foot idly through the soft 
 sward as he spoke. " I had the whole 
 story in the Lord Richard s own hand. 
 He wrote it out during the last night he 
 spent at the manor, with his spurs and 
 sword lying by him ready for the mor 
 row : the whole tender, tragic story, with 
 his curious mental struggles laid bare. 
 He thought the truth due to his father, 
 and to his dead stainless Eleanor, to clear 
 her memory from erring rumor which 
 had early got abroad. The manuscript 
 was put away under a seal ; and as soon as 
 his son s will was opened, the Earl knew 
 where to find it ; I have seen it all scorched 
 
24 LOVERS SAINT RUTH S. 
 
 and stained with the old man s tears. 
 No eye, from his to mine, has read it 
 since. You see, the next and fourth Earl, 
 Vivian, grew up a graceless cynic repro 
 bate in London, never visited his estates, 
 and cared nothing for his lineage. His 
 sister was little better. I ought to spare 
 her and her second husband any vitupera 
 tions, since they did me the courtesy of 
 becoming my great-great-great-great-grand 
 parents ! Did I never tell you ? The 
 Langhams, bad enough in the beginning, 
 have been a worse crew than before, since 
 the Lord Richard s time. Almost every 
 inch that is not fool is rogue/ as Dryden 
 says of his giant. Francis, the ninth of 
 the line, lately dead, and his Countess, 
 being my very distant relatives, and im 
 pressed with my virtues, which were then 
 being wasted on the desert air, offered me 
 the benefice. The first thing I did, after 
 setting Saint Ruth s in order, was to look 
 about for materials for a history of the 
 parish from a period before the Conquest. 
 During the summer, they put a world of 
 papers, grants, charters, registries, and 
 so on, into my way, which had been 
 heaped in some old chests in the tool- 
 
LOVERS SAINT RUTH S. 25 
 
 house. One of these papers was that 
 letter, a pearl in sea-kelp. I took it 
 promptly over to Orrinleigh. The Earl 
 was in his hunting-coat, swearing, over 
 his glasses, at some excellent Liberal 
 news in his morning journal. " Read 
 this," I said; " it is one of your ancestral 
 romances, and ought to be reverently pre 
 served." He laid it by. A few days 
 afterwards, while I was gathering fruit 
 and vines for a Harvest Sunday, he 
 pulled it from his pocket, and threw it 
 at me over the garden wall, remarking 
 that as my reverend appetite was for 
 musty parchments, he did not know but 
 what I had best have this one, especially 
 as his wife and niece, having glanced at 
 it, would not give it house-room ! So I 
 had the keepership of that mournful 
 secret of the Lord Richard s wonderful 
 love and patience, which came near alter 
 ing the local annals I was to write. It 
 was like the unburied dead; it tormented 
 me. Not one of those vulgarians to 
 whom it really belonged was fit to touch 
 it, much less understand it; and I did 
 not wish to add it to any collection, mine 
 or another s. I hesitated a good bit, and 
 
26 LOVERS SAINT RUTH S. 
 
 then I stole off, on a chilly Martinmas 
 eve, and piously burned it here in Lovers 
 Saint Ruth s, on this tomb, and scattered 
 the ashes into the grass." A gust of 
 wind came into the choir, and the clock 
 half a mile away struck one. At the 
 sound, we reached for our hats, which we 
 had instinctively laid aside, and crossed 
 the little transept to the door, Nasmith 
 first, I following, as we had entered. 
 Once more, as we left the porch, dark 
 with ivy and weather-stains, we heard the 
 wood-doves, over our heads in the nave, 
 utter a slow musical moan, one to the 
 other. " Their souls," I whispered sud 
 denly. " Peace to all such, after pain," 
 said poetic Cyril. "Amen" I answered. 
 We both smiled. How we two were 
 enjoying our renewed society, back in a 
 bygone England ! 
 
 Hardly had we gained the road, when 
 a carriage rolled by, with a single figure 
 on horseback clattering alongside. A 
 black-bonneted girl in mourning, hand 
 some, if furtive, under her parasol, and 
 both her companions, the younger of 
 whom sat beside her, saluted Nasmith in 
 what I thought to be a cold, perfunctory 
 
LOVERS SAINT RUTH S. 27 
 
 manner. I guessed something, for his 
 honest cheek flushed. " I fear these are 
 the great folk of Orrinleigh," I remarked. 
 " The men have selfish, stupid faces, 
 more s the pity." "Yes," hereplied; "you 
 have seen some of the Lord Richard s 
 degenerate descendants. I once meant to 
 give his manuscript to Audrey to the 
 young lady in the carriage. I hoped she 
 might value it. But, as I said, I de 
 stroyed it instead. You are the only per 
 son to whom I ever repeated the tale, and 
 almost in the original words. Go put it 
 in a book, if you like, Holden ; make 
 what you can of it; develop and pro 
 portion it ; I trust your handling." I 
 thanked him. " No. Your chivalrous 
 Cavalier is too complex a subject for 
 me," was my frank reply ; " I feel safer 
 with a history than with a mystery." I 
 was a hardened republican novelist even 
 then, and his senior, and not blind to the 
 "human document," neither of the seven 
 teenth century, nor of the nineteenth. 
 " Nasmith," I began cunningly, " you 
 were in love with the Honorable Audrey, 
 and she refused you. How fortunate for 
 you ! Yours was the neatest and most 
 
28 LOVERS SAINT RUTH S. 
 
 spiritual revenge I ever heard of: to keep 
 from her what might have helped trans 
 form her woman s nature, stifled in an ill 
 atmosphere, the knowledge that she was 
 of the blood of the saints, 
 
 Tho fallen on evil days, 
 On evil days tho fallen, and evil tongues/ " 
 
 He gave my hand a half-humorous pres 
 sure, his head turning neither to right nor 
 to left, dear old Nasmith! He must be 
 past forty now, and they tell me, more 
 over, that he is a Benedictine monk at 
 Downside : he will care nothing what I 
 say of him. And thus we climbed the 
 balmy downs, back to our lunch at the 
 vicarage, without another word. 
 
OUR LADY OF THE UNION. 
 
 THE Surgeon and the Chaplain had 
 been bidden to roast beef and mashed 
 potatoes in the great tent; and the former, 
 leaving its pleasant firelight, had come 
 out through the night air a little before 
 taps, to spread himself and his triumphs 
 in the eyes of the officers mess. The 
 Surgeon was a widower in his early prime, 
 and tenderly condescending to the known 
 ways of women. He talked much of the 
 two who in that camp represented all in 
 scrutable womankind, Miss Cecily Car 
 ter and Mrs. Willoughby. They had 
 come from New York on a visit, Brale- 
 ton being just then in profound quiet. 
 The Surgeon adored Miss Cecily, in 
 which mood he was by no means alone ; 
 but he had his own opinion of her sister, 
 the Colonel s wife. <c The Sultan has 
 hinges in him, and can unbend," he 
 would say; " but the Sultana O Jeru- 
 
30 OUR LADY OF THE UNION. 
 
 salem, my Happy Home ! " He had 
 also discovered that the train of trunks 
 at the sutler s, objects of deep and inces 
 sant objurgation, were hall-marked " A. 
 W.," and that Miss Cecily came to the 
 war with one hand-bag. His auditors sat 
 long astride their chairs, each in his hood 
 of good government tobacco-smoke. The 
 Adjutant s silver-coated hound was asleep 
 on the boards, still as a little mountain- 
 tarn among thunder-clouds. The gusts 
 of genial mirth were suddenly interrupted 
 from without by the even voice of the 
 orderly: " Sergeant Blanchard is wanted at 
 the Colonel s quarters." 
 
 A young man playing chess in the 
 corner arose at once, and followed. All 
 along the company streets, the lamp-light 
 streamed through the chinks in the tents ; 
 charming tenors and basses, at the far 
 end, were laying them down and deeing 
 for Annie Laurie ; and from the long sheds 
 nigh, in the grove, came the subdued 
 pawing and tossing of the horses. Robert 
 Blanchard saluted, and stood outside in 
 the dark, for the Colonel was in his door 
 way. " They have sent another com 
 mission for you/ he said shortly. "You 
 
OUR LADY OF THE UNION. 31 
 
 deserve it ; your behavior has been ad 
 mirable, a source of immense pride to me, 
 and to all my men." The Sergeant looked 
 at him with a visible gladness. " I thank 
 you. You know I prefer not to be pro 
 moted." " I have humored you no fewer 
 than three times before," resumed the 
 Colonel, in an altered tone; " I can t do 
 it always. You are known ; the General 
 has complimented you. The rise of a 
 man of your stamp can t be prevented, 
 even by himself. You are meant, if you 
 live, to move rapidly, and go high. This 
 second-lieutenantship is the lowest step ; 
 mount it, in Heaven s name, and don t 
 maunder." 
 
 The other hesitated, silent. Then he 
 said : " May I have my condition, if I 
 accept, may I remain color-bearer? " " I 
 can promise nothing of the kind. I fear 
 it would be unusual, to say the least; it 
 has no precedent in any service that I 
 ever heard of. Don t ask me that again." 
 Blanchard, in sober fashion, brought 
 his hand to his cap. fc Good-evening, 
 Colonel." The superior officer was exas 
 perated. " Bob," he exclaimed discur 
 sively, "you re a fool. God bless you !" 
 
32 OUR LADY OF THE UNION. 
 
 The drums began, quick and light ; it 
 was nine o clock. The Sergeant went 
 back, cheerful as Cincinnatus refusing 
 empery. Before he confided himself to 
 his blanket, lumped on boughs, he made 
 sure that a fold of old bunting on a 
 provisionary stick was slanted securely 
 against the canvas ; for he had a senti- 
 
 O 
 
 mental passion for the flag. When it 
 was hauled down at sunset, it went into 
 his hands until daybreak. He had borne 
 it in the van since his first bloody day at 
 Little Bethel ; it had been riddled, stained, 
 smoke-blackened, snapped from its sup 
 port ; but he had never dropped it, not 
 when a minie-ball fizzed through his 
 shoulder, not when, fresh from the hos 
 pital, he had fallen face downward from 
 his dying horse, in Beauregard s plung 
 ing fire of shell. In this lad of twenty- 
 two there burned a formal loyalty so 
 intense, so rooted in every fibre of his 
 grave character, that his comrades, for 
 whom military routine had lost much of 
 its glamour, loved him for it, envied him, 
 and consistently nagged the life out of 
 him with the nickname of Our Colored 
 Brother, and other nicknames based on 
 
OUR LADY OF THE UNION. 33 
 
 other puns more or less felicitous. Be 
 cause in New York, they had several dear 
 friends in common, the Colonel, on the 
 morning of the ladies arrival at Braleton, 
 had asked him to lunch with them. 
 " My Sergeant, Adela," so James Wil- 
 loughby, in his eagles, presented him to 
 the wife of his bosom, " my Sergeant ; 
 and such a Sergeant!" For he read in 
 her tacticianary social eye that a Sergeant 
 was a minnow indeed for a Colonel s 
 friend and guest, even if he were a gen 
 tleman, a cousin of the Windhursts, and 
 the hero of his corps. And she won 
 dered at him the more that he should be 
 a mere color-bearer ; a spirited able-bodied 
 creature two years in the army, with 
 nothing to show for it ! He had no ex 
 planation to give her, but he had an un 
 accountable hunger, from the first, to 
 confide his secret to Cecily. He had 
 seen her from a distance, and his heart 
 stood still there in the grass ; when he 
 came nearer, it gave him, for a certain 
 reason, the veriest wrench in all his life, 
 such as True Thomas may have felt 
 when the sweet yet awful call came to 
 him at last in the market-place, that it 
 3 
 
34 OUR LADY OF THE UNION. 
 
 was time to say good-bye to earth, and 
 go back to fairyland ; to leave for the 
 things which can never be the things 
 that are. He often found her sewing 
 on a silken tri-color, and working its 
 correct number of stars in a pattern. 
 She had begun it in her father s house, 
 for her brother-in-law s regiment, and 
 none too soon, for the flag in use was 
 aging fast. Robert Blanchard never saw 
 her head bent over that bright glory, rill 
 ing her lap and falling around her feet, 
 without a tightening of the throat. And 
 when she nodded to him going by, with 
 that candid, affectionate grace which never 
 changed, it reminded him inevitably of 
 something which made him happy and 
 unhappy. He could not remember, he 
 said to himself, when he had not loved 
 her, and yet they had never met until this 
 Virginian winter of 1863. 
 
 Cecily had taken up her abode in a wee 
 log-house built for her as an ell from the 
 Colonel s tent, delighting much in its fru 
 galities and small hardships. She was be 
 coming attached to the sights and sounds 
 of camp-life : the tags and tassels, the 
 shining accoutrements, and the endless 
 
OUR LADY OF THE UNION. 35 
 
 scouring and brushing thereof; the rosy 
 drummer-boy; the company drills in the 
 rain ; the hollow pyramids of the stacked 
 short bayonets ; the muddy wells on the 
 bluish andreddish lowlands; the loud sing 
 song of the little bearded Corporal inter 
 ruptedly reading David Copperfield to a 
 ring of enraptured privates ; the welcome 
 drone of the cook announcing his menu ; 
 the arrival of despatches, with the thunder 
 ing and jingling of the cavalry heard a mile 
 away ; even the occasional alarms. The 
 long inactions under McClellan, hateful 
 to her mettlesome brother-in-law and 
 to his men, proved pleasant enough to 
 Cecily ; she never lacked entertainment. 
 While Adela was at her accurate toilets, 
 and the Colonel, a severe disciplinarian, 
 busy with his troops, she, active and 
 curiously adventurous, walked or rode 
 about alone. 
 
 The nine-hundred-acred Brale house 
 topped the hill not far away; the owner, 
 a fine old planter, lived there with the 
 survivors of his family. Six months 
 before, an infantry regiment had biv 
 ouacked on the place. A lieutenant, 
 sent on the reasonable suspicion that a 
 
36 OUR LADY OF THE UNION. 
 
 number of escaped Confederates were har 
 bored on the premises, clattered up, with 
 an escort, to demand them. The eldest 
 son, with true sullen Confederate pluck, 
 refused him admission. After no long 
 parley, the infantry lieutenant, losing con 
 trol of himself, shot him dead: a pro 
 ceeding, which, when it came to the ears 
 of the authorities, cost the bully his com 
 mission. The two other sons, Julian and 
 Stephen, were then in the Southern army; 
 the younger had since perished from fever. 
 To this doomed and outraged household, 
 shut in from the world, hopelessly embit 
 tered against the Government in whose 
 
 O 
 
 name murder and devastation stalked, 
 Colonel Willoughby appeared as a new 
 
 and strange being;. He made it his busi- 
 
 11 
 
 ness to see that there were no trespass- 
 ings, and that the Brales lived not only 
 in peace, but in comfort. He rode out 
 repeatedly to the picket-lines, where a 
 goodly quantity of commissary supplies, 
 spirits, flour, tobacco, tea, and coffee, and 
 divers other necessaries difficult to ob 
 tain, were handed over to the slaves in 
 exchange for the chickens, milk, and eggs. 
 On several occasions, he had ridden as far 
 
OUR LADY OF THE UNION. 37 
 
 as the door, once to give the married 
 daughter her pass through the lines; once 
 to bring her little girl, who was ill, some 
 delicacies sent in a hamper from his own 
 home. These things broke the proud 
 Brale hearts. They barely thanked him; 
 his Federal uniform was like a dagger in 
 their eyes. But a while ago, when they 
 heard that his wife and his sister were 
 coming to Braleton from the north, the 
 stately old squire had sent him a royal 
 gift, with a short letter in the style of the 
 last century. The gift was Molly, the 
 beautiful black, famous all over the coun 
 try for her strength and speed; and on 
 her back was a saddle of magnificent 
 workmanship, with a movable pommel, 
 which might be adjusted to suit the ladies. 
 While these were in camp, therefore, the 
 Colonel rode Messenger, his stocky sor 
 rel, and Adela or Cecily sat majestically 
 enthroned upon the majestic Molly. The 
 former was a horsewoman of experience, 
 erect, neat, orthodox, approved of con 
 noisseurs everywhere. But the regiment 
 was in this, as in other things, all for the 
 favorite; and when she came in sight, 
 (with the dare-devil mare going it, six leaps 
 
38 OUR LADY OF THE UNION. 
 
 to a mile,) lying flat forward, like her own 
 cavalrymen, with breathless, laughing face, 
 and hair shaken loose along Molly s mane 
 like the sun on a torrent, such a cheer 
 as would go up from the distracted Elev 
 enth ! Cecily and Molly, in the tingling 
 pine-odorous Braleton air, made a famil 
 iar and joyful spectacle. 
 
 South from the mansion lay an Episco 
 pal chapel, now dismantled, with a squat, 
 broad, mossy roof pulled down over its 
 eaves like a garden-hat ; and around it 
 spread the small old churchyard, with its 
 stones neck-deep in freshening grass and 
 clover. From this point there was a most 
 lovely view over the melancholy land 
 scape, silvered midway with a winding 
 stream. Hither Cecily loved to climb, 
 tying Molly in the copse below, to lie 
 upon the shaded escutcheoned tomb of 
 one Reginald Brale, "borne in Salop in 
 olde Ingland," and to muse long and 
 happily, forgetful of battles, on 
 
 "The great good limpid world, so still, so still ! " 
 
 She and Robert Blanchard had had 
 much constant companionship; it was 
 natural that these musings should turn 
 
OUR LADY OF THE UNION. 39 
 
 much, and indeed more and more, upon 
 him. Surely, he was like no one else ; 
 and his presence gave Cecily a sense of 
 infinite rest. She, too, had her obedient 
 energies and controlled fervors. A great 
 crisis like this, holding great issues, 
 brought the two so sensitive to it very 
 near together. She felt under her, even 
 as he did, the tide-wave of patriotic emo 
 tion, sweeping the more generous spirits 
 from all our cities out upon its fatal 
 crest. She had seen the companies march 
 ing to the front through awe-stricken 
 crowds, watched for the bulletins, worked 
 for the hospitals, heard the triumphal 
 never-to-be-forgotten eloquence and music 
 sacred to the returning dead at home, and 
 felt to the full the heartache and enthu 
 siasm of all the early war. These things 
 had formed her, pervaded her, pro 
 jected her out of herself, and brought her, 
 lingeringly a child, into thought and 
 womanhood. Before she knew herself 
 for an abolitionist, the day of Sumter 
 swept over her like a flood, and diverted 
 all the little idle streams of her being. 
 Her brothers found her against the old 
 tree in the garden, the newspaper in her 
 
40 OUR LADY OF THE UNION. 
 
 hand, like one entranced ; and one of 
 them, soon to devote his youth to the 
 cause of Michael against Lucifer, for 
 bade her being teased to account for her 
 mood. Unlike Robert, Cecily came of a 
 soldier race, and from swords drawn, each 
 in its generation, at Naseby, at Brandy- 
 wine, at Monterey. That fortune seemed 
 good to her which had led her to Vir 
 ginia, a ground balancing in the scales 
 of fate, and rich already with hallowed 
 graves. To the living men about her, 
 she was as march-music never out of their > 
 ears, to hold them to their vows. Sub 
 dued from common cares, Cecily was in 
 the current of the national peril, inspir 
 ing and inspired, and open to every 
 warmth and chill of it as if it were indeed 
 her own. 
 
 She was on the hills, reading, in 
 balmy February weather, when she be 
 came aware of a low whinny at her ear. 
 The Brale paddocks were on the other 
 side of the fence. A young colt was 
 there, startled and timid, stretching to 
 wards her ; then another came as near, 
 and another, and the heads of the older 
 horses, confiding, appealing, crowded 
 
OUR LADY OF THE UNION. 41 
 
 over these. She patted their tremulous 
 nostrils, divining instantly that something 
 had occurred to alarm them. She raised 
 herself from Reginald Brale s venerable 
 slab, and listened ; the sharp ping! ping! 
 of blank cartridges struck the oak-leaves 
 on her left. Standing, and peering down 
 the steeper side of the incline, she saw 
 the familiar moving glitter of gold braid, 
 far below ; and, stripping a bough, and 
 knotting her handkerchief, she made a 
 signal of distress, and waved it vigor 
 ously. The shout that followed told her 
 that danger was over, both for the gentle 
 intelligent creatures in the enclosure, and 
 for her ; the reports ceased. A moment 
 after, a man sprang over the churchyard 
 wall from the road. It was the Sergeant, 
 more excited than he dared show. 
 
 "Miss Carter!" His heart-thuds made 
 it hard for him to be punctilious. "Are 
 you hurt? Idiots that we were to choose 
 this place! We might have known. Tell 
 me you re not hurt, Miss Carter." "I 
 am not hurt at all," she answered gayly, 
 "nor even frightened. It was these dear 
 four-legged rebs who were frightened." 
 She slipped her book in her pocket, and 
 
42 OUR LADY OF THE UNION. 
 
 took up her gloves and the dainty whip 
 which Molly had never felt, save when it 
 flicked a fly from her ear. "You are a 
 brave soul ! " the Sergeant said. Cecily 
 took refuge in the significant flippancy of 
 gamins: "You re another! " which was so 
 apposite that they both laughed. As they 
 descended the rough foot-path, the Ser 
 geant longed to offer his arm ; but he knew 
 her stoicisms, her natural physical savoir- 
 faire, and he chivalrously refrained. How 
 nimble and graceful, how fawn-like she 
 was ! He noted the wide lace collar and 
 the brooch at her chin ; the sober Gordon 
 plaid gown, not too long; the firm lit 
 tle wrist ; the beautiful hair parted, and 
 looped low. 
 
 " What were you doing just now ? " 
 
 "A party of us were enjoying our 
 selves, shooting." 
 
 " Birds ? " in a cold, regretful tone. 
 
 " Birds ! No. A soldier, unless he is 
 spoiling with garrison idleness, won t waste 
 his genius for killing on innocent birds 
 and their like. Besides, the artillery fel 
 lows over yonder have scared them away 
 from the whole neighborhood. We were 
 target-shooting with pistols. Oh, if you 
 
OUR LADY OF THE UNION. 43 
 
 knew the hot coals and icicles I had to 
 swallow when I recognized you up there ! " 
 He looked ahead, and saw with joy that 
 his companions had departed. " Here is 
 Molly, and my bay is behind the rock. 
 May I ride home with you ?" He helped 
 her to mount, and sprang into his own 
 saddle. The lonely, lovely earth and sky 
 were theirs together ; they went slowly, 
 slowly down to the ford. Molly was 
 thirsty, or else perverse; for she paused, 
 lowered her aristocratic little head, and 
 began to drink. Presently Saladin, the 
 bay, standing by her on the brink, did 
 the same ; and the two riders sat, perforce, 
 conscious of their like silent sympathy 
 and society. An impulse rushed on each 
 to lean over towards the other also, to 
 lay cheek to happy cheek over the shal 
 low water, in their youth, in the sun. 
 The Sergeant stiffened himself with an 
 effort. 
 
 "Although it is a holiday," he said, 
 scanning the distance, cc and although 
 there s no end of jollity afoot, greased 
 poles, football, leap-frog, hurdle-races, 
 and all that and did you know that 
 Mrs. Willoughby, escorted by the Colonel 
 
44 OUR LADY OF THE UNION. 
 
 and the Adjutant, had gone for the day? 
 There are to be charming diversions at 
 the infantry camp, and a ball to wind 
 up with. You were asked, too, I hear; 
 but you missed it, straying off to your 
 hermitage." 
 
 (( I am glad I did ! Please finish your 
 sentence." 
 
 <c Oh, I forgot. I was going to add 
 that this sort of relaxation, just now, 
 might be risky, when Old Glory and I 
 may be ordered out before morning to 
 waltz to fife-music ! " 
 
 "A battle? Do you truly think it 
 likely?" 
 
 " I half believe it. I don t mind tell 
 ing you I have a premonition of it, in 
 volving another premonition regarding 
 myself. But what of it? Our old friend 
 Cicero, I think it was, used to say that 
 we are born not for ourselves, but for the 
 Republic." He laughed, as if he had 
 said a jocund thing. He had not meant 
 then to test her feeling for him ; but he 
 had allies in the hour and its emo 
 tion. Cecily rejoiced in his cheerful 
 acceptances, and remembered her imper 
 sonal pride in the circumstances of his 
 
OUR LADY OF THE UNION. 45 
 
 enlistment, of which she had heard on all 
 sides at home. Her voice fell, unawares, 
 into its shy inflections, its little wild spon 
 taneous minors, as she said, seeing the 
 horses rear their heads : " Will you please 
 tell me, Sergeant Blanchard, how you 
 came to join the army ? All that I know 
 is that you were abroad, and that you 
 gave up your pleasure, and came back." 
 
 He began quietly, as they passed the 
 stream and made for higher ground : 
 
 "It is quite a story. I was off on 
 a tour through India and Egypt, with 
 my college chum, my dear old Arthur 
 Hughes. Neither of us had any notion 
 of returning home, and we were in the 
 middle of the best time two fellows ever 
 had on this earth, when I had a queer 
 sort of warning. We were both curled 
 up on the window-sill of my room, in 
 our hotel at Cairo, one hot night, sleep 
 less, and enjoying a smoke. Suddenly, 
 above the street, among the shadows 
 and spangled points of all those near 
 domes and pinnacles, I saw what I 
 thought was our national flag, hanging, 
 hardly stirring. It seemed to spring up 
 out of nothing, in its familiar, varied 
 
46 OUR LADY OF THE UNION. 
 
 colors, to startle my eye. Then, in a 
 moment, I perceived that it was no flag, 
 but a living spirit, a genius, a guardian 
 angel, whatever you like to call it, 
 which bore the oddest resemblance to 
 one. There before me was the dreamiest 
 figure; a tall beautiful young woman in 
 a helmet, the moon shining on the little 
 spike of it. A long blue veil, bluer than 
 the atmosphere, covered her face, and was 
 blown about her shoulders, not so heavy 
 of texture but that the jewels in her 
 flowing hair flashed through it with won 
 derful lustres ; and her garment fell away 
 in long alternate whites and reds, like the 
 liquid bars we sometimes see flushing 
 and paling in our own sky in the north, 
 when the aurora borealis comes in the 
 March evenings. There she floated many 
 minutes before fading away ; and once 
 she raised her veil and beckoned, and her 
 eyes dwelt on me so imploringly that they 
 have become more real to me than any 
 thing else in my life. I tell you it shook 
 my heart. . . . Miss Carter, if you will 
 allow me, I must say that the vision was 
 like, was very like," the Sergeant 
 choked a little, " like you. When I 
 
OUR LADY OF THE UNION. 47 
 
 first saw you, I was so startled, it gave 
 me, well, almost a swoon. That is a 
 novel word, and ludicrous, perhaps, but 
 I can use no other. At any rate, the re 
 semblance has drawn me towards you, I 
 can t say how strongly or how much. 
 Please forgive me." For Cecily s wild- 
 rose face was warm. 
 
 " I had forgotten all about Arthur. 
 But when I turned to clutch him in my 
 excitement, my first glance told me that 
 he had not seen the phantom, and that 
 he would deride my faith in it. So I 
 tried to laugh off my sudden attack of 
 second-sight; but it was of no use. I 
 dropped into silence when it was my turn 
 to speak, and abandoning presently the 
 effort to seem indifferent, I parted from 
 him, and went to bed. 
 
 " It was the only ghostly thing that 
 had ever happened to me, and it im 
 pressed me tremendously. For my part, 
 I could get no rest by day or night ; that 
 influence was over me like a bad star. I 
 racked my brain to explain it by natural 
 agencies, and it only set me thinking the 
 more of our blessed country being in some 
 terrible trouble. When I came to that, I 
 
48 OUR LADY OF THE UNION. 
 
 jumped up and started for the bath, to 
 cool off, and then changed my mind, and 
 struck first for the ticket-office. Whom 
 should I knock into on the way but old 
 Arthur in his fez, fierce as a lion. Bob/ 
 he said, dragging me into a booth, c it s 
 war, war ! President Lincoln is calling 
 for men, and I m going home to spite 
 the devil. There s no choice. I am 
 going home anyhow/ I said. * What 
 news is there ? 
 
 cc The little which had travelled that far, 
 I heard from him. Sumter was being 
 fired upon, on the nth of April, 1861, 
 when I saw Our Lady of the Union. I 
 call her that ; but I never spoke of her 
 to Arthur, or to any one. Before June 
 set in we arrived in New York, and we 
 volunteered. Arthur has distinguished 
 himself right and left. He is in Ander- 
 sonville now, dear fellow. I should hate 
 to end there." 
 
 " A martyr is a martyr ; the place mat 
 ters nothing," the girl replied. 
 
 <c I know," he said; <c I did not mean 
 to speak lightly; but I am one of those 
 who cannot always avoid it when they 
 feel much." 
 
OUR LADY OF THE UNION. 49 
 
 The Sergeant s cheeks were burning 
 too, and he quickened his pace. Cecily 
 did not speak, following the bounding 
 bay. But a loneliness which she could 
 not define came upon her ; a resent 
 ment of the sacred ideal which could 
 yet be to her friend his divinity, his 
 beauty, his bride, in a world from which 
 she was shut out as an irrelevance. And 
 almost as soon, she questioned herself 
 whether because of a tie dearer than 
 the human, this golden-hearted Robert 
 must lose, she in him must lose what? 
 For answer, the noble and foolish tears 
 welled up from the depths, and fell into 
 the folds across her knee. Her com 
 panion drew his own rein, and laid his 
 hand upon Molly s. 
 
 " Oh, why do you cry ? I can t bear 
 it. What have I done ? " 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 " I did not intend to disturb you, to 
 make you care about it, or pity me ; I 
 am much happier since that happened. 
 Could it be oh, could it be " He 
 gazed a moment upon her, absorbedly 
 and absorbingly, and she turned away. 
 For who can make conscious preparation 
 
 4 
 
50 OUR LADY OF THE UNION. 
 
 for the imminent ? Sudden ever is the 
 finger of Death, to the watchers ; sud 
 den also is Love. 
 
 They were under the shade of some 
 giant pines. The young man vaulted 
 lightly to the ground, close to Molly s 
 satin stirrupless flank, his hands clasped, 
 his head thrown back, fired with adoring 
 hope. When Cecily inclined towards 
 him again, he saw in her (or was it his 
 bewitched fancy ?) the remote, incredible 
 radiance of his old day-dream. The great 
 flush rolled responsive to his own clear 
 brow. He shook himself free, and found 
 his voice. "Cecily," he said simply, " I 
 love you ; you must know that I love 
 you. Such a love has no beginning and 
 no end. You understand that and me. 
 Of myself I have nothing to say. You 
 have seen me only among Willoughby s 
 recruits ; but I never wished to be else 
 where. Judge of me, as we two are, now 
 and here. Can you, do you think you 
 could be my wife, by and by ? Tell 
 me. Tell me ! " Then Cecily, simple 
 too, in the same tremor of exaltation, 
 put out her right hand. He caught at it 
 with both his own, and buried his face 
 
OUR LADY OF THE UNION. 51 
 
 there. His wide hat had fallen ; the 
 warm light was on his clustering hair. 
 With a sweet instinct like motherli- 
 ness, his maid, bending over, kissed it 
 in benediction. 
 
 It was two o clock when they crossed 
 the ford, and the late afternoon found 
 them still pacing on their roadless way, 
 like the lost enchanted knight and lady 
 of the Black Forest. They were less 
 than a mile from Braleton, on the rocks, 
 in sight of the tents, when they unsad 
 dled and tethered the horses, and made 
 the last halt. " Dearest," the Sergeant 
 had said, lying at her feet, his elbow in 
 the grass, " dedicate my sword." Rais 
 ing himself, he made a motion as if 
 drawing it, and held it towards her and 
 the sunset ; Cecily, in the same pretty 
 pantomime, touched her lips to the view 
 less blade, priestess of a new investiture. 
 "One thing we both love better than our 
 selves ; is it not so ? " She was not 
 jealous now. " These United States, 
 right or wrong ! " 
 
 " Oh, no ! " The soldier sheathed his 
 sacred weapon. " Say justice, liberty, the 
 rights of man ; the things our United 
 
52 OUR LADY OF THE UNION. 
 
 States ought to stand for." Then the 
 light heart in him laughed ; and Concrete 
 and Abstract blessed each other. Happy 
 and silent, they lingered on the brow of 
 the pine copse ; a breeze sprang up ; vast 
 and gorgeous sky-colors spread and deep 
 ened. The Sergeant s uplifted face was 
 fixed upon his betrothed. She seemed to 
 dissolve away before him, or before him, 
 rather, to be vivified and set free. Slowly 
 between her and him, transubstantiating 
 her touching beauty, gathered a solemn, 
 changeful, wavering cloud-splendor of 
 ivory, rose, and sapphire, gathered out 
 of the land of myths into recognized and 
 unforgotten fact. For a quarter of an 
 hour he endured that mystical glory ; 
 then his head dropped forward on her 
 knees. A thing seen was yet upon him : 
 once more Our Lady of the Union, but 
 with a smile as if of one assured at last 
 of ransom, and ineffably content. When 
 Cecily touched him, wondering, he shud 
 dered, and brushed an imagined film 
 from his eyes. She sat there, innocent 
 of any magic, unaware in what potter s 
 hand her spirit was so much fine clay. 
 From the depths of the vale the croak 
 
OUR LADY OF THE UNION. 53 
 
 of frogs arose, faint here and shriller there, 
 then long-drawn and general: ever a 
 most mournful, homesick, and foreboding 
 sound to our armies in the South. The 
 distant camp seemed ominously quiet ; 
 but on the outskirts of it was a dissolv 
 ing shadow, a moving dark clot, there, 
 a moment back, between them and the 
 scarce-fluttering flag, and still there, now 
 that the flag was hauled down, its bright 
 hues effaced against the more vivid even 
 ing air. Presently the group of men, for 
 such it was, scattered. Cecily s keen sight 
 read what was written afar; the familiar 
 figure of the one-armed brisk Lieutenant- 
 Colonel in the saddle coming towards the 
 hill, with others following on the gallop 
 behind. 
 
 "You are needed," she said without 
 preamble; "you must go to them." 
 With emphasis and authority, slight and 
 quick, yet irrevocable, she spoke. He 
 turned about, and sprang to his feet from 
 his enchantment at her side ; for the 
 divine day, the Sergeant s field-day, was 
 over. " Is this, the way of women, or 
 only your way ? You send me from you 
 on a supposition, a scruple," he answered, 
 plaintively. 
 
54 OUR LADY OF THE UNION. 
 
 "Go." She repeated it softly, and with 
 closed eyes, lest she should look upon 
 her own heart-break. " It is unneces 
 sary, as you know," he replied; "but 
 if you make it a point of honor, I am 
 glad to obey." He held out his hands, 
 and she took them, cherishing, steadfast, 
 as in a pact. Her voice and step were 
 strangely unsteady ; they held up the 
 mirror, as it were, to his. What was 
 there in a commonplace incident to move 
 them so to the depth ? In a passionate 
 presentiment, he drew her closer to him. 
 " Are we to be given to each other only 
 that we may be severed, and suffer the 
 more ? What if the end should be now? 
 Cecily ! " 
 
 But the young heroic mettle rose to 
 meet his. " Beloved, you are mine and 
 not mine. You are consecrated for the 
 term of the war ; so am I. I will always 
 give you up to your task. Perhaps you 
 may measure by that whether I love 
 you." He looked down with a grateful 
 sigh on her who so mysteriously held him 
 to his sacrifice, and shared it, and through 
 her and in her, on the old, old fate which 
 he knew now was driving him to the cliff. 
 
OUR LADY OF THE UNION. 55 
 
 " If there is to be a fight, I want your 
 flag, the flag you made ! " he whispered, 
 grasping at anything to hide this rending 
 in him of the spirit from the flesh. " How 
 ever, whenever I fall, I want to be buried 
 in it. Is it done ? May I take it 
 for mine, before it is presented to the 
 regiment ? " 
 
 " Yes. You shall carry my colors here 
 and in heaven. I will pray for my 
 knight," 
 
 He kissed her once, twice, for the be 
 trothal, and yet again for the farewell. 
 
 He took Molly, the fresher animal of 
 the two, and spurred to the open ground 
 below, breaking out from the wood-path, 
 ready for any duty, on time. He looked 
 illumined, detached, transfigured: a Saint 
 Michael to be remembered after by his 
 companions in the moral crises of their 
 lives. The Lieutenant-Colonel drew rein, 
 relieved. " I was wishing for you, of all 
 people," he said; "I feared you were far 
 away. There has been an alarm; we must 
 sleep under arms. The Colonel and most 
 of the officers have not returned. I will 
 go back now. Take these six with you, 
 and cross the railway tracks to Palmer s. 
 
56 OUR LADY OF THE UNION. 
 
 It is a rough road, and a long journey; 
 but report as soon as you can." The Ser 
 geant started with his bayoneted caval 
 cade in a dash westward. Cecily, appre 
 hensive of something unusual, saw the 
 slow-rising dust, and, ahead of it, the 
 erect leader, scaling the horizon, and van 
 ishing into the yet glowing sky. A pang 
 unutterable tore her ; but, uttered, it 
 would have been none other than Amen. 
 
 Poor Saladin was tired enough, having 
 been out all day long ; and Cecily led 
 him carefully to the plain. Every clap 
 ping leaf, every crackling twig underfoot, 
 struck a chill into her bosom, on the over 
 shadowing hill-slopes. She had played 
 too brave a part under her mental tur 
 moil, and in the presence of her lover, 
 himself too easily enamoured of death. A 
 spell greater than any he had felt was over 
 her, breathing a blackness between her 
 and the light. Now her ample courage 
 was fast giving out. She saw a face in 
 the thicket, and was barely able to nerve 
 herself not to scream. A man, in a 
 military dress she did not know, came 
 forward, and raised his cap. It was 
 Major Julian Brale, free at last to do 
 
OUR LADY OF THE UNION. 57 
 
 some scouting over his ancestral acres, 
 alone, and with hot revenges in his heart. 
 He was sorry for her, and angry at her 
 discovery. He apologized briefly, and 
 helped her to mount, not without con 
 cern, but with a scornful coldness of man 
 ner which he could not help. When she 
 had gone, he returned to the bushes, 
 cursing the Eleventh ; for he had recog 
 nized the saddle on the bay. The two 
 forces were on the brink of battle ; but he 
 was not an expert sharp-shooter for noth 
 ing, and if he could but get sight of that 
 thief, that coward, that hell-born villain 
 who had taken his old father s precious 
 Molly from him A moonbeam strag 
 gled in where he bent over, priming his 
 rifle, and he moved from it into the dark. 
 Dinnerless, supperless, much too over 
 wrought to go to bed, Cecily Carter sat 
 in the Colonel s empty tent. For com 
 pany, she had shaken out her great silken 
 banner over the lounge, where the fire 
 light, falling on it, seemed to praise its 
 divine destroying loveliness with a poet s 
 Pentecostal tongue. Once she murmured 
 prayerfully: "Dear Robert, dear Robert." 
 Something not herself had bade him go, 
 
58 OUR LADY OF THE UNION. 
 
 and he was gone ; there was all of herself 
 now in these fears. The little parting 
 from him which she was enduring became 
 magnified and abiding, so that she looked 
 upon him slain, and thought with a sort 
 of joyous satisfaction how under the but 
 tons of his old blue jacket, where nobody, 
 not even his mother, knew of them, were 
 rose-leaves all about the open wound next 
 his heart ; rose-leaves pressed most fer 
 vently, one by one, to her lips, and laid 
 there. Other caress she could not give 
 him ; though she was his, he was the Re 
 public s, for ever and ever. Again, she 
 saw him carried on a howitzer to a green 
 lonely place. A stone reared itself be 
 fore her, and she read upon it an odd 
 inscription : If ye seek the summit of true 
 honor, hasten with all speed into that heav 
 enly country. She started up. Was her 
 brain indeed giving way? Who had 
 spoken ? Where had she heard those 
 words? How piercing a beauty they 
 had ! Were they in the Church ritual ? 
 What did they mean ? Why should 
 they hound her from her rest ? 
 
 The Colonel s little ormolu clock struck 
 eleven. Almost on the stroke, the de- 
 
OUR LADY OF THE UNION. 59 
 
 layed revellers entered. Adela could not 
 fail to notice her sister s nervousness, but 
 attributed it to anxiety for herself. The 
 Sultana of the Surgeon s christening had 
 been prodigally feasted and flattered ; 
 she had come home with an armful of 
 hothouse flowers, effulgent with gratifi 
 cation, and in a talking mood. The 
 Colonel s boy brought in the lamps. 
 When the Colonel himself followed, 
 grown grim with the sudden tension and 
 commotion about, his remark was to the 
 point. " I m afraid you women will have 
 to get out of camp, quick. I smell powder. 
 It is likely to be damned disagreeable." 
 His handsome, worldly wife, coming, but 
 terfly-like, in yellow, out of her dark 
 wrappings, fixed him with her censorious 
 eye. " James Willoughby ! You have 
 been drinking." He was wont, on such 
 occasions, to cast a comical appealing 
 glance at Cecily, of whom he was fond. 
 She did not smile in return, and her pal 
 lor touched him ; so that he went over to 
 her at once. " What s the matter, child ? " 
 he asked, with affectionate anxiety. But 
 an approaching clang and clatter, and the 
 challenge of the sentry without, took 
 
60 OUR LADY OF THE UNION. 
 
 from him what he meant to say; he left 
 Cecily to her sister, and hurried into the 
 air. His going added to her trouble ; and 
 yet she would have had no solace in keep 
 ing a friend near. Oh, the stress and 
 strain of dull daily incident upon that in 
 ner universe, frangible as a bubble, where 
 she and Robert had begun to live! she 
 and Robert, and the Love of Country 
 alone, for between this and them must be 
 union everlasting. Oh, the tyranny of all 
 that is, laid upon him, faithful in his place; 
 upon her, faithful in hers; the speechless 
 dealings of lonely lovers with the Lone ! 
 Private Cobbe, being foremost, saluted 
 breathlessly : C( Colonel, the pickets are 
 being driven in ; the enemy is advanc 
 ing." The gallant fellow pressed his 
 hand to his thigh ; he was wounded, and 
 he was soldier enough to feel that wound 
 an ignominy which had been received 
 obscurely, and elsewhere than on the field. 
 Immediately, all along the tents, arose 
 the multitudinous yet unconfused cries of 
 " Form ! " and cc Fall in ! " from the 
 captains; the flapping guidons were borne 
 hither and thither to their places, and the 
 thousand horses, wheeling on their danc- 
 
OUR LADY OF THE UNION. 61 
 
 ing hoofs by the gleam of lantern and 
 torch under the watery moon, began to 
 make huge, fantastic shadows along the 
 old parade-ground. The Colonel, drawing 
 on his gauntlets, and still afoot, noticed 
 for the first time that Cobbe and McGrath 
 held between them, each with an arm 
 around him, an officer. For an instant, 
 in the imperfect light, he thought him 
 some prisoner, until he recognized, in a 
 flash, Molly with her great liquid, excited 
 eyes, Molly with her even mane hanging 
 wet and limp, confronting him. Private 
 McGrath had held in until now. He 
 blurted: " I m afraid he s gone, sir." 
 The Colonel took a step forward, as if it 
 were into eternity. The Surgeon, stand 
 ing by, echoed after him: "My God!" 
 
 They lifted their friend down together, 
 and carried him in, and laid him with 
 extreme gentleness where by chance the 
 new flag, a kingly winding-sheet, was 
 above him and under. The Surgeon 
 bent very low for a while over the lounge. 
 The many in the tent, used to calamity 
 less great than the loss of their best, held 
 their breath ; the Adjutant s dog, close to 
 his master s legs, lifted his long gray 
 
62 OUR LADY OF THE UNION. 
 
 throat and crooned softly and mournfully, 
 as the band outside, far down the dispart 
 ing columns, broke into a loud, thrilling 
 strain, impatient for victory. The Ser 
 geant was dead, with a ball in his breast. 
 No one moved until Cecily groaned and 
 dropped. 
 
AN EVENT ON THE RIVER. 
 
 MORNING lay over Portsmouth and 
 her great stretches of opaline sea. The 
 little islands, north to the Maine shore, 
 and east to the harbor-buoys, were ablaze 
 with red and yellow bushes to the water- 
 brink ; the low-masted gunlows were 
 beating out like a flock of dingy gulls ; 
 and from afar, pleasantly, musically, 
 sounded the bugle at the Navy Yard. 
 The Honorable Langdon Openshaw, 
 standing among ruinous warehouses and 
 wharves, built by the Sheafes in the hour 
 of their commercial glory under the sec 
 ond George, looked down upon the clear 
 Piscataqua at full flood, breathing be 
 tween its day-long, Samson-like tugs at 
 the yet enduring piers. It was a lonely 
 spot ; the wind had a way there, some 
 times, of waking momentary, half-im 
 agined odors, the ghosts of the cargoes 
 of wines and spices in the prodigal past. 
 
64 AN EVENT ON THE RIVER. 
 
 His own solitude, the washing tide, the 
 one towering linden yonder, the gambrel 
 roofs and ancient gardens, the felt neigh 
 borhood of the dear wild little graveyard 
 where his forbears slept, steeped his heart 
 in overwhelming melancholy. He had 
 already passed a week at the Rockingham. 
 It was a strange date to choose, out of all 
 his free and prosperous life, for a first 
 visit since childhood to the fair old New 
 England borough where he was born. A 
 sort of morbid home-sickness had driven 
 him back now, in his distresses, to her 
 knee. For the Honorable Langdon 
 Openshaw, innocent of the astounding 
 crime with which he was charged, was out 
 on bail. 
 
 The accusation was the most inexpli 
 cable of things. His chief characteristic 
 had been an endearing gentleness, which 
 brought him the popular favor he cared 
 nothing for. He was the captain citizen 
 of his town; he had held, in turn, every 
 office public esteem could give him ; he 
 was president of a wealthy corporation 
 which controlled a bank. It was this 
 treasury which he was said to have rifled, 
 and its cashier whom he was said to have 
 
AN EVENT ON THE RIVER. 65 
 
 murdered. No living creature was there 
 in all Connecticut but laughed aloud 
 when the report began to spread ; but 
 time and circumstantial proof sobered 
 them, and increased the breed of cynics 
 and sceptics the country over. The 
 philanthropist, the good man, the Sun 
 day-school paragon, forsooth, once again 
 exposed in all his gangrened sanctity ! 
 Two sickening circumstances, in the dark 
 designs of Providence, pointed at him 
 with deadly ringer. One was, that at the 
 time of the robbery, there was an im 
 pending crash in his vested finances, 
 since wholly and finally averted by his 
 foresight and skill ; the other, that some 
 time before, in the discharge of duty, he 
 had incurred the enmity of the victim. 
 Was it not possible, during Mr. Open- 
 shaw s interval of anxiety, he, that is, 
 any other than he, might have dared re 
 trieve his fortune, and silence the witness 
 of his crime, George Wheeling, found 
 unexpectedly at his desk at midnight over 
 his accounts, and thrown down the stair 
 into the vaults ? But there was a more 
 certain and horrible evidence. He had 
 been seen escaping; he had been recog- 
 5 
 
66 AN EVENT ON THE RIVER. 
 
 nized. The scuffle had roused the occu 
 pants of houses near; and these, looking 
 forth by the city lamplight, saw the flying 
 figures, one of them, alas, inconceivably, 
 yet unmistakably, so help us God ! the 
 Honorable Langdon Openshaw. Had 
 they not a perfect unanimous knowledge, 
 for many years, of his face, his unique 
 gait, his uncommon stature? Where 
 was there another such odd and definite 
 physical personality ? As to the confed 
 erates, well, there were reasons, no doubt, 
 why bravos should be hired. 
 
 Wearily, wearily, he parted his gaze 
 from the alluring eternity in the river, 
 and strolled a little distance to the warm 
 wall, and sat down in the late September 
 grasses against it, like the broken man he 
 was. He took off his hat, a character 
 istic dark soft felt such as he always wore, 
 and the air was good upon his brow. His 
 thoughts reverted to old times. He had 
 no kindred except a sister living in Santa 
 Barbara with her family of daughters, and 
 between them there had never been any 
 marked natural affection. The distant 
 cousin of his own whom he had married, 
 had borne him no children, and she was 
 
AN EVENT ON THE RIVER. 67 
 
 dead: a gentle, negative soul, to whom he 
 confided little of what touched him most. 
 He had formed no intimate companion 
 ships. No one save his mother, whom 
 he lost in his boyhood, and whose maiden 
 name he bore, had ever possessed much 
 influence over him. He was a man s 
 man, as the saying is, hitherto of any age 
 he chose, and rich in all resources. But 
 he had strong dormant affections, shame 
 facedly expended on public orphanages 
 and hospitals, and on the Society for the 
 Prevention of Cruelty to Animals ; and 
 he felt rightly that he could have been 
 fatherly, brotherly, even filial, with a 
 son. Ah, if he but had a son ! Bul 
 warked about with modern conveniences, 
 that, his one necessary, he had missed. 
 And here, in strange opprobrium, was 
 the end of his career and of his name. 
 " Lover and friend hast Thou put far 
 from me ! " he breathed to himself, feel 
 ing, for the first time since his calamity, a 
 profound submission of the soul. 
 
 He heard voices in the windless air. 
 He did not rise, for they were not ap 
 proaching him. He could not help dis 
 tinguishing the animated words. 
 
68 AN EVENT ON THE RIVER. 
 
 " This is as far as I ought to go. I 
 guess I 11 say good-bye." 
 
 "They will miss you notta yet. Oh, 
 please do, please do stay ! I starve if I 
 am absent. Come, one kissa more." 
 
 cc No ; wait till to-morrow, you great 
 baby. Go away now, and do your best 
 to be good." 
 
 " Alia righta ; if you give to me one 
 little song." 
 
 " Truly ? " 
 
 cc Truly, Anita mia. I desire indeed, 
 this hour, the mandolin. But no mat 
 ter : sing. All is quiet : see ! it can 
 i > 
 begin. 
 
 Then the girl s thin bird-like voice 
 soared alone, not in any expected love- 
 lyric of the seaport, streets, but in a 
 Christian folk-song of artless beauty. 
 
 "All in the April evening, 
 April airs were abroad ; 
 The sheep with their little lambs 
 Passed me by on the road. 
 
 " The sheep with their little lambs 
 
 Passed me by on the road : 
 All in the April evening 
 
 I thought on the Lamb of God. 
 
AN EVENT ON THE RIVER. 69 
 
 " The lambs were weary, and crying 
 
 With a weak human cry : 
 I thought on the Lamb of God 
 Going meekly to die. 
 
 " Up in the blue, blue mountains, 
 
 Dewy pastures are sweet, 
 With rest for the little bodies, 
 And rest for the little feet. 
 
 " But for the Lamb of God, 
 
 Up on the hill-top green, 
 Only a Cross of shame, 
 
 Two stark crosses between! 
 
 " All in the April evening, 
 April airs were abroad ; 
 I saw the sheep with their lambs : 
 I thought on the Lamb of God." 1 
 
 There was a pause after. Then Openshaw 
 sighed. He knew they were in each 
 other s arms, the morning heaven bless 
 ing them ; but with him it was spirit 
 ual darkness, and bitter evenfall. A boat 
 passed below, the oarsmen curious ; and 
 the young loiterers on the old wharf stood 
 apart. 
 
 " My angel, my sainta ! " 
 
 " Hush ! It is twelve already : I must 
 be off." 
 
 1 Katharine Tynan Hinkson. 
 
70 AN EVENT ON THE RIVER. 
 
 "Ah, the time is so short ! Cruel ! " 
 cc Dear, you are nicest when you are 
 good." 
 
 " Behold, I am." 
 
 At last the farewells and vacancy ; and 
 then footsteps making towards the angle 
 of the wall. Mr. Openshaw s stately head, 
 crowned with the abundant glossy black 
 and gray which gave it such distinction in 
 a land of bald pates, arose upon the sur 
 prised view of the new-comer. He, on 
 his part, with no question as to a gentle 
 man s supposed midday slumbers, stooped, 
 and offered Mr. Openshaw his hat. The 
 two, confronted, smiled a little ; both 
 tall, aquiline, clean-shaven. 
 
 c< I thank you. Perhaps you would 
 rather have me say, molte grazie. You are 
 an Italian, are you not? " 
 
 The other, wonderingly, but with native 
 grace, assented. " I am a Florentine." 
 How he said it ! Where did he get that 
 gypsy princeliness, his clear pallor, the 
 nameless magic that takes the heart ? 
 " You speak English fairly." 
 cc I have been in youra country long." 
 ct And I in yours, many years ago." 
 Now Openshaw was dallying, and con- 
 
AN EVENT ON THE RIVER. 71 
 
 sciously. What impelled him to open 
 sociabilities with such an one, he did not 
 know. This stripling of another grade 
 reminded him dimly of something, and 
 teased his eye. " What a bearing the 
 fellow has ! " he thought again. Having 
 snapped every tie with his own life, he 
 could afford to be interested in that of 
 others. He took pleasure in the diverting 
 accent and idiom, and the abandon with 
 which the loose, rough clothes were worn. 
 
 " Florence is the most beautiful of 
 cities. You ought almost to go back/ 
 It relieved his heart somehow, the fool 
 ish commonplace, as might the colloquy 
 about the weather among aristocrats in 
 the tumbrils of the French Revolution. 
 All time hung a mortal weight upon his 
 hands ; nor did the un-Americanized 
 stranger seem to be in a hurry. But now 
 he started a little. 
 
 "Go back? Santa Maria! I suffer: 
 I go back so soona that I can ! " As he 
 spoke, with the soft round harp-like Tus 
 can tone which the east wind of New Eng 
 land had not rasped, he glanced around 
 apprehensively. " With money, nexta 
 month, I sail on the sea, and I arrive." 
 
72 AN EVENT ON THE RIVER. 
 
 "Well, that might be worse," said the 
 elder man, indulgently. " May I ask 
 your name?" 
 
 " Ralph Power." 
 
 "Ralph Power? That is not an 
 Italian name." 
 
 " Sir, I know. My mother, she have 
 the marriage name Potenza. Rodolfo, 
 that is mine. I translate the two, and 
 that is Ralph Power, whicha make it easy 
 for the tongue of many." 
 
 Mr. Openshaw had drawn his hand 
 over his eyelids, as if feeling the sting of 
 memory. 
 
 " What do you do for a living here ? " 
 
 " I serva the market. Once I assist 
 to builda boats for the Capitan, but now 
 he work no more ; the beautiful Anne, 
 she is his daughter. Ah, signor ! " In 
 genuously, boyishly, he sighed. 
 
 " How old are you ? " 
 
 "Twenty-two." 
 
 "How many questions I have asked 
 you ! I am afraid I have kept you from 
 your duties. Pray go now." 
 
 The other bowed, and turned town- 
 wards. But Openshaw felt on the in 
 stant a sort of loneliness. " Rodolfo . " 
 
AN EVENT ON THE RIVER. 73 
 
 he exclaimed, "do me the favor to 
 spend this." He slipped a coin into 
 an uninviting hand, partly, as he would 
 have said himself, from natural depravity, 
 partly, from the sheer luxury of his own 
 incognito, and that of giving away to a 
 young man what no young man could in 
 herit. "It may help you out of your 
 trouble. Trouble is very hard to bear, 
 sometimes." 
 
 If he were aware of expecting anything 
 in return, from a poor Italian, it was the 
 usual ecstatic thankful benediction of poor 
 Italians in like luck. Once he had lived 
 among them on their own soil ; he knew 
 the simple-hearted, engaging, vagabond 
 breed through and through. But this spe 
 cimen of it flushed and scowled, while try 
 ing to seem courteous ; and his would-be 
 benefactor was puzzled. As they stood 
 opposite, they were of equal height ; for 
 the younger had drawn himself up a good 
 inch. 
 
 " I am afraid you are proud. You 
 have picked that up in New England." 
 
 Rodolfo answered resentfully : " Sir, I 
 have the blood of New England also, and 
 it is for me the destiny to earn my money, 
 
74 AN EVENT ON THE RIVER. 
 
 most of all after what I promise to the 
 beautiful Anne." 
 
 As he said it, warming thus into his 
 very self, the eyes of Openshaw, watch 
 ing him, were dazzled, as one may be 
 who crosses an alcove towards a door in 
 plain sight, and finds that seeming door 
 a mirror. A little alarum-bell rang in his 
 brain. He shuddered, for all the forces 
 within him were rallying together: tri 
 umph, hate, revenge, deadly delight ; 
 things he had not known were possible 
 to him swarmed into his spirit with a 
 clang. He recognized, at a stroke, that 
 this vagrant youth, this common work 
 man, looking at him with no smile now, 
 bore a violent resemblance to himself. 
 He searched for details, lightning-quick, 
 and devouringly. Yes ! there were the 
 dark, fine, pendulous hair, the small, 
 close ear, the strong nose and jaw, even 
 the large, slender hand toil had hardly 
 scarred, the back of it smooth and hard 
 as veined marble; how like the Open 
 shaw hand, plain in the old Lely portrait, 
 plainer yet in the Stuarts, on the melan 
 choly walls of his own home ! And what 
 followed ? The voice, significant, pro- 
 
AN EVENT ON THE RIVER. 75 
 
 phetic, of the demon of self-preservation 
 in his ear: "This may be the man who 
 killed George Wheeling. This must be 
 the man. Impeach him; clear yourself!" 
 Openshaw, in his calmer mood, a few 
 moments back, had measured the char 
 acter before him. Whatever else it was, 
 it was not astute. He foresaw no trouble 
 in worming the secret out of him. 
 
 "Very well," he replied, as if seons on 
 aeons of thought had not passed since he 
 spoke last. " I will take the gold-piece 
 back,on your own condition: I will see 
 that you earn it. Have you business on 
 hand ? " 
 
 ct Oh, no. The venerable butcher, the 
 fever kills him ; we bury him, and locka 
 the door for all day/ Rodolfo was sullen 
 yet. 
 
 " Then, will you kindly go into the 
 square, buy me cheese, pilot bread, two 
 quart bottles of Sauterne, and two glasses, 
 and return by way of Daniels Street ? I 
 shall be waiting at the landing. I should 
 like to hire a boat for an hour, and have 
 you row me up river. Will you do 
 
 so? 
 
 The lad hesitated. Finally, touched, 
 
76 AN EVENT ON THE RIVER. 
 
 or put upon his mettle by a seeming confi 
 dence, he set out, with the greenback in his 
 pocket which Mr. Openshaw had given 
 him. The latter, at this pause in their 
 colloquy, was made aware that he was suf 
 fering keenly. He had exceeding self- 
 control ; his successes in life had sprung 
 from it. But every mastered nerve in his 
 body, having already undergone so much, 
 and having so much to undergo, was hum 
 ming like a beehive. He could not stand 
 still. He wandered about, meeting few 
 pedestrians, across Water Street, up Man 
 ning Street to Puddle Dock with its 
 liberty pole, and again past the grave 
 yard, lingering wherever he could com 
 mand a view of the broad glorious 
 anchorage, tragic with the exposed ribs of 
 rotting ships. Into the happier neigh 
 borhoods near, he would not penetrate ; 
 this one had been happy too, when he 
 was a child. There he saw but visions of 
 greatness gone, of comfort broken, and 
 an hour ago, could have laid his cheek to 
 the old flaggings, and wept. But he had 
 now a terrible just purpose, and for that 
 he must save his strength. 
 
 He was at the landing later than 
 
AN EVENT ON THE RIVER. 77 
 
 Rodolfo, who sat in a white wherry bal 
 lasted with his purchases, the oars already 
 in hand. Openshaw rested his cane on 
 the gunwale, and stepped quietly into the 
 stern ; they backed out of the cramped 
 spaces, and shot away. The surface of 
 the harbor was dimpling, little by little, 
 with the great hidden swirls of the turn 
 ing tide ; deceptively glassy between its 
 deflected banks, it gleamed like the thin 
 ice which forms in November, and over 
 which boys send pebble after pebble, and 
 laugh to hear them chirruping. But 
 Rodolfo had learned long since how to 
 cajole the fierce Piscataqua ; and tacking 
 artfully by St. John s Point, he labored 
 through the end arch of the great bridge, 
 and gained the blue highway beyond. A 
 train thundered overhead. Two women 
 in the footpath, leaning over the rail, 
 stared fixedly at the little boat, and from 
 one sensitive face to the other, and again 
 at their contrasted attire. They were 
 Rodolfo s neighbors, and pleased that he 
 had fallen in v/ith a gentleman. 
 
 The cruisers were not back within the 
 hour, nor within three hours. The whole 
 world was to change strangely for them 
 
78 AN EVENT ON THE RIVER. 
 
 both, meanwhile. The order of what 
 Langdon Openshaw had intended to say 
 and do came to naught, because what hap 
 pens to happen is lord over the strongest 
 human will. He had prepared his cun 
 ning questionings, as if to force his own 
 fate, forgetting that the aggregation of 
 outer circumstance which we call fate is 
 itself an irresistible vortex ; the trapper, 
 and not the trapped. Up stream, by 
 Frank s Fort, under a sapphire sky, while 
 as yet little had been said, he found that 
 his watch had run down, and he asked 
 for the correct time. _ Rodolfo set him 
 right from a cheap timepiece. As he 
 handled it, there appeared, linked to the 
 guard, an artistic bit of bronze, a tiny 
 Renaissance figure, with bow and hound, 
 the blown draperies minutely fair. Open 
 shaw saw it, and the whole universe was 
 not so manifest to him as that small 
 ominous curio within it. 
 
 "The Diana! On your soul, where, 
 how, did you get that ? " It was familiar 
 to him ; he knew it, though he had not 
 seen it for more than a score of years. 
 The rower dropped it back into his breast, 
 definitely. 
 
AN EVENT ON THE RIVER. 79 
 
 " It is mine, and dear to me. My 
 mother who gave it, she is dead." 
 
 " Did you say your mother s name was 
 Potenza ? Was it Agata Potenza ? Agata 
 Boldoni once? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 There was a thronging pause. 
 
 "When did she die?" 
 
 "It was sixa years ago ; I proceed to 
 America." 
 
 " Have you brothers and sisters ? " 
 
 " I have, in Italy, twin brothers, older; 
 their lame-a father, Niccola Potenza, live 
 with them. But he is notta mine." 
 
 Quick, loud, sure, the queries and the 
 answers fell, like the hammer-strokes of 
 a coffin in the making. 
 
 " Your father was ? " 
 
 "How can I know? They tell me 
 he was vera handsome, vera rich, and 
 from this America. Malfattorel He 
 steal away, and I am born after ; and she 
 see him not in her life, I see him not in 
 
 mine." 
 
 The crew had apparently hurt the 
 passenger, for the latter heaved against 
 the thwarts. 
 
 " Once more. Was your mother 
 ever married to your father ? " 
 
8o AN EVENT ON THE RIVER. 
 
 Rodolfo knit his brows, and set his 
 teeth. " No." 
 
 For a long, long time there was no 
 sound but the little singing keel on its 
 joyous flight, and Openshaw s head was 
 hidden in his hands. Rodolfo, of his own 
 vigorous accord, took the way of Dover 
 Bridge, across the noble inland bay, and 
 branched up the shallowing Oyster. 
 There by the bank, in the stiller soli 
 tudes, he shipped his oars, and, reaching 
 forth, touched the bowed shoulder, not 
 without compassion. 
 
 " IllustrissimO) look up ! Tell me/ 
 Then did Openshaw begin, steadily, but 
 hardly above his breath, intent the while 
 on the image of his own youth before him, 
 as if from that only he might draw cour 
 age to confess. 
 
 " I have a dear friend who, when he 
 was no older than you are now, went to 
 Italy. He spent his best years in a de 
 lusion, for he thought then he might 
 become a great painter. His character, 
 such as it was and is, turned to the things 
 of good report ; he was an orphan, with a 
 competence; but he had had no home, and 
 no moral training. Being something of 
 
AN EVENT ON THE RIVER. 81 
 
 a recluse, he developed late and slowly. 
 At a time when the storm-clouds in most 
 young men s lives are lifting, his were 
 surcharging themselves, and getting ready 
 to burst. On his thirtieth birthday, in 
 Ferrara, he " 
 
 " In Ferrara, yes ! " broke the eager 
 interruption. 
 
 " He persuaded another man s wife to 
 run away with him. She was a peasant, 
 very young and innocent, with a sweet 
 pensive Perugino face ; she had been 
 his model, up to her marriage with Nic- 
 cola Potenza." 
 
 There was a sharp affirmative breath 
 from the listener. 
 
 " Niccola Potenza was a cooper, with 
 good prospects. He was considered 
 quite a match for the girl ; but he turned 
 out to be dull, silent, and preoccupied. 
 Little Agata was romantic ; and her 
 thoughts ran easily back to my friend. 
 The fault was, assuredly, all his. He 
 thought that he loved her, and so, in 
 deed, he did ; although he loved better, 
 alas, the adventure and the rebellion. At 
 any rate, he took her away boldly from 
 her husband and her babes, and set up 
 6 
 
82 AN EVENT ON THE RIVER. 
 
 life in his old studio, in Florence. The 
 cooper, sworn to revenge himself, had 
 nearly hunted my friend down, when on 
 Easter Day he fell from a crowded and 
 festooned inn-balcony, and broke his 
 thigh. Somehow, after that, his fury 
 failed him; and he sank, under his misfor 
 tune, into a sort of apathy. Things went 
 wrong also with the lovers. Agata kept 
 only for a while her soft, joyous, docile 
 ways, and then grew restless and wretched, 
 with the canker of a good heart spoiled, 
 which nothing on earth can cure. She 
 would spend hours in the chapel near by, 
 her face covered, thinking and weeping; 
 and then she would go back to her little 
 household tasks, and move about in my 
 friend s sight, her pale penitent face driv 
 ing him wild more effectually than any 
 audible reproach could have done. Of 
 course he saw what was in her soul : the 
 struggle between her foolish passion for 
 him, and mortal home-sickness for the 
 inner peace which had attended her old 
 honorable life. He, on his part, resented 
 the moral awakening in her, and stamped 
 down both her conscience and his own. 
 Against the voice within which bade him, 
 
AN EVENT ON THE RIVER. 83 
 
 since he had done her an irretrievable 
 wrong, to take the legal burden of it 
 upon himself, and make her his wife in 
 America, arose his tyrannous social 
 cowardice. He dared not; he had a de 
 praved but intelligent dread of discord 
 and incongruities. And so, as many 
 another man as weak has done, he served 
 his aesthetic sense, and threw honor to 
 the winds. He was never, I think, wil 
 fully unkind to Agata; his selfishness 
 would seem to me now less diabolic had 
 he tried to estrange her from him. But 
 as soon as their first apprehensive year 
 together had passed, without any talk on 
 the subject, he left her. Before he took 
 his train, that night in May, my friend 
 drew up a paper for poor Agata s main 
 tenance. The sum was small, but much 
 more than she had been accustomed to 
 call her own. I know he had no fore 
 warning of of his child; he provided 
 for her alone." Mr. Openshaw was speak 
 ing with some difficulty. " When were 
 you born ? " 
 
 " On the feast of San Stefano, the 
 twenty-sixta of December, eighteen hun 
 dred sixta-five." 
 
84 AN EVENT ON THE RIVER. 
 
 Rodolfo had been listening under a 
 strain keener than that of physical deaf 
 ness. The more nervously overwrought 
 of the two at this particular moment, he 
 was likewise the more restrained. A 
 certain question was hot in his throat. 
 Though he had not understood all of 
 Mr. Openshaw s melancholy monologue, 
 he had apprehended the heart of it only 
 too well. But he said nothing further. ^ 
 
 A flock of pioneer blackbirds, in deli 
 rious chatter, were gathering overhead for 
 their autumn migration, darkening^ the 
 narrow sky-space with their circling wings. 
 Openshaw looked up. 
 
 " Those birds go from pole to pole to 
 find what? So did he. His youth was 
 killed in him ; and before long, neverthe 
 less, he was cheerful and active again, and 
 courted by the world. He came home to 
 his own honest and normal life, and after 
 a while he married. He had no tidings 
 of Agata, and had actually resolved once 
 to try to find her, when he heard what 
 must have been a false report, that she 
 had died ; and he did not doubt it, for 
 he used to see her faithful patient little 
 face in all his dreams. From what I have 
 
AN EVENT ON THE RIVER. 85 
 
 learned of late, I believe that he is most 
 miserable, and near his own end. He 
 does not deserve to hear of her last days. 
 But if by letting me know, you can pun 
 ish him through me, do not spare him. 
 I will not, I promise you." 
 
 Rodolfo sat in the boat, immovable, 
 the thin leaves of the bowery wild-grape 
 flapping overhead, and flickering him with 
 elfin light and shade. "My mother," he 
 began in a low voice, " did the best : the 
 grace of God was in her. Niccola was sick; 
 the trade was gone, and then was mucha 
 poverty. With me in her amiable arms, 
 she return on the feet to Ferrara, and 
 petition him; and, lo ! the good cripple 
 man, he pardon. There us four in one 
 family, we flourish. The American money 
 she could notta help, go among all till all 
 are grown ; she die of the fever sixa year 
 ago, with many candles and masses for 
 her soul ; and because it is notta fit that 
 my brothers spend on me, I ask Niccola s 
 blessing, and come to America. That is 
 the end." 
 
 Openshaw inquired presently, when he 
 could do so: " Had you any education, 
 as a child ? Can you read and write, 
 Rodolfo?" 
 
86 AN EVENT ON THE RIVER. 
 
 " No." He sat sheepishly for a mo 
 ment, then seized his oars. 
 
 " How have you prospered over here ? 
 Have you been able to save a little ? You 
 spoke of wishing to return." 
 
 Rodolfo quivered. " It musta be." 
 
 tc Why so ? " There was genuine ten 
 derness in the two words. 
 
 " There is nothing of hope for me. I 
 am in a greata fix. I leave, I go ; I can 
 not stay. I have a sin also. Only my 
 beloved, she know how it was I trans 
 gress, so thatta perhaps my guilt is not 
 for eternity." 
 
 Openshaw laid the tip of his stick 
 upon the rowlock, with authority. <c Do 
 not start yet ; let the boat drift. You 
 must be hungry with this long exercise. 
 Pray pass me those things near you, and 
 the wine ; and while you lunch, I hope 
 you will be as frank with me, Rodolfo, as 
 I have been with you. ... I look upon it 
 as a miracle of mercy that at the eleventh 
 hour we have found each other." He 
 knew that the young man s blazing black 
 eyes were full upon him. cc I can help 
 you. Only keep nothing back." He filled 
 one of the glasses from the fizzing bottle, 
 
AN EVENT ON THE RIVER. 87 
 
 and passed it. But it was struck aside, 
 and the cry that followed was so sincere it 
 gave the rudeness dignity. 
 
 "Ah! No, no, no. Sir, I touch the 
 spiritual drink no more till I die. I vow 
 to Anita mia, after the terrible night. 
 For see ! The evil ones, companions, take 
 me on a burst in a city notta this, Harta- 
 ford, and thieve." His voice dropped 
 under the excitement, like a file of infan 
 try under fire. "They thieve a banka; 
 and I watch, in gin so drunk as Bacco ; 
 and when the invisible man arise pugna 
 cious, I throttle him, and curse, and rolla 
 him down to the cellar. He moan and 
 expire, so that we go down to thieva 
 more ; but the city she hears, there is a 
 sound, then a sound on top of him, and we 
 fly, fly, fly, this streeta, that streeta, till I 
 come back awake to this Portsmouth, and 
 fall on my knee to Anne, and cry tears. 
 Ah, my sainta ! she comfort me in char- % 
 ity, and talk to me, and keepa me from 
 the bad ; and for penance I go vera dry 
 always, not to be damn. I tell it not to 
 Niccola at home when I go ; and I pray 
 to go soon, that the Statesa Prison notta 
 hanga me." 
 
88 AN EVENT ON THE RIVER. 
 
 Such is the equilibrium between the 
 infinite and folly, that at this juncture, 
 as he recalled afterwards, Mr. Openshaw 
 was eating his cheese. He answered, 
 marvelling at his own composure. 
 
 cc I read about it in the newspapers. 
 You are in great danger, my poor boy. 
 Now listen. There is a ship sailing for 
 Genoa from New York next Saturday ; 
 and on her I wish you to engage your 
 passage. That will give you a week to 
 adjust your little affairs here ; and you 
 must, moreover, see your excellent sweet 
 heart, and persuade her to marry you and 
 go with you. Will you do that?" 
 
 Rodolfo opened his fine eyes very wide, 
 and then closed them. " Oh, volup 
 tuous as it would be, I cannot. The 
 Capitan he make Anne deny me until I 
 shall have many riches. She is a hand 
 maid of domestic service on Pleasanta 
 Street ; but the old one, he is proud for 
 her, and with the mosta reason in all the 
 world. I shall coop with thesea my broth 
 ers cooping always in Ferrara, and do my 
 parta with my soul. For bye-and-bye 
 we make a marriage; and then she will be 
 content to live in the sympathetic Italy, 
 where safeness is for me. * 
 
AN EVENT ON THE RIVER. 89 
 
 " But we mean to mend all that, Ro- 
 dolfo. Your father, whom I know very 
 well, is growing old, and has a great deal 
 of property with no one to share it. 
 The least he can do for you (I am sure 
 he feels that), is to put you out of the 
 reach of want. He will not ruin you, 
 nor throw you into temptations of a kind 
 other than those you have undergone; 
 for you are his son, and as such he must 
 love you. But he will hope to hear by 
 next spring, that you have bought a farm 
 and vineyard, and that your kind kins- 
 people at home, and your wife, some 
 times pray for him ; yes, and for me. 
 Trust me ; we need say no more about it. 
 He will have it all settled by law as soon 
 as he is able, but certainly within a 
 month/ He passed his hand over his 
 hair, absently, and resumed. " You will 
 go across the ocean now ; and if my friend 
 lives, he may come to you ; but he may 
 not live, and he may not come. It is his 
 punishment not so much to lose you, or 
 what you might, after all, be to him, as 
 to recognize that his awful breach of duty 
 has established between you what I may 
 call, perhaps, in the long run, an incom- 
 
90 AN EVENT ON THE RIVER. 
 
 patibility." Poor Openshaw, on the rack 
 of his own candor, groaned aloud. 
 
 Once more they were crossing Green 
 land Bay, and the lone and lovely miles 
 seaward. Rodolfo crept up quietly to his 
 strange benefactor, who was absently gaz 
 ing far away, so quietly that the wherry 
 moved not a muscle under him. 
 
 "It is you," he said. "The friend is 
 a made-up. I know. Padre^ si!" He 
 threw his arms about Mr. Openshaw, his 
 old hatred melted away, and lay there 
 on his knees like a little boy, sobbing, 
 sobbing. "It is for nothing at all," he 
 explained with his endearing semblance 
 of good-breeding; "but the gentle gooda- 
 ness of God. The beautiful Anne, O 
 you musta see her, and letta yourself be 
 thank in so harmonious the voice of sev 
 enteen ! she will taka me. Behold, I am 
 so vera, vera happy." Quite overcome, 
 he did not even raise his head when he 
 was spoken to. 
 
 "Am I forgiven, Rodolfo? Can you 
 forgive me for your poor mother s 
 sake ? " 
 
 For answer, the lad covered the hand 
 he held with kisses of southern fervor, 
 
AN EVENT ON THE RIVER. 91 
 
 and pressed into it the little delicate 
 charm from his watch-string. 
 
 At the touch of it, the tyranny of yes 
 terday and to-morrow, and all his suffer 
 ing present and to come, departed from 
 Openshaw. A divine felicity began now 
 to possess him ; he was grateful, he was 
 at peace ; whatever his retribution was to 
 be, he embraced it, in spirit, like a bride. 
 In his revery, he seemed to stand before 
 the everlasting tribunal, with inscrutable 
 truth on his lips: " Of this that was 
 mine I was heedless. Because of my heed- 
 lessness, Poverty and Ignorance and In 
 feriority and Exile took him by the hand, 
 and led him to the pit. He is rescued 
 from the worst ; he will cling to the high 
 est which he sees, with an elected soul to 
 help him ; but what he might have been 
 he can never be. It was I that sowed ; 
 let it be mine to reap. The indelible 
 blood that is shed is on my hands, not 
 on his. Visit Thy wrath upon me, for 
 here is it due. With body and soul, 
 will, sense, and understanding, from first 
 to last, in every fibre of my being, I 
 affirm me accountable for this thing." 
 To the tribunal on earth, its magnate of 
 
92 AN EVENT ON THE RIVER. 
 
 unblemished reputation had no explana 
 tion to offer. He foresaw only his ar 
 raignment, and the words with which to 
 clinch it: "Gentlemen of the jury, I 
 plead guilty." 
 
 Rodolfo spoke first. " I am so glad I 
 guess, I guess from the teara in your eye, 
 that time." 
 
 The tears welled up again as the other 
 replied : cc There is something else you 
 will never guess, thank God." 
 
 " No ? " 
 
 " No, my boy." 
 
 Rodolfo looked up, and smiled, with 
 out irrelevant curiosity. He was too 
 content, afloat there. 
 
 The Honorable Langdon Openshaw 
 took charge of the tiller, the son to whom 
 he had twice given life still at his feet. 
 With neither oar nor sail the guided boat 
 came home from the upper waters to 
 the port, in the mellowing afternoon, 
 borne on the mighty ebb-tide of the 
 Piscataqua. 
 
THE PROVIDER. 
 
 NORA cried out : " T is so pretty to 
 day ! " The barefooted children were 
 threading the slopes of Howth towards 
 Raheny. Far-off, the city, with its lights 
 and stretches of glorified evening water, 
 was lying there lovely enough between 
 the mountains and the sea. It was 
 Nora s tenth birthday, and, to please her, 
 they had been on the march all after 
 noon, their arms full of rock-born speed 
 well and primrose. " T is so pretty ! " 
 echoed little Winny, with enthusiasm. 
 But the boy looked abroad without a 
 smile. " T d be prettier when things is 
 right," he answered severely. Hughey 
 was a man of culture; but his speech was 
 the soft slipshod of the south. The three 
 trudged on in silence, for Hughey was a 
 personage to his small sisters ; and 
 Hughey in a mood was to be respected. 
 He, alas, had been in a mood too long. 
 
94 THE PROVIDER. 
 
 He had carried Winny over the roughest 
 places, and shown her Ireland s Eye, and, 
 alongshore, the fishing-nets and trawls ; 
 he had given his one biscuit to be shared 
 between them all ; and lying in the vel 
 vet sward by the Druid stone, he had 
 told them all he knew of the fairy-folk 
 in their raths, for the seventieth time. 
 But he was full of sad and bitter brood 
 ing the while, thinking of his mother, his 
 poor mother, his precious mother, work 
 ing too hard at home, for whom there 
 never seemed to be any birthdays or out- 
 of-door pleasures. 
 
 Hugh was nearly twelve now, and 
 mature as the eldest child must always be 
 among the poor. He could remember 
 times in the county Wexford, before his 
 father, who was of kin to half the gentry 
 in the countryside, died; times when life 
 had a very different outlook, and when 
 his peasant mother, with short skirts and 
 her sleeves rolled up, would go gayly be 
 tween her great stone-flagged kitchen and 
 the well or the turkey-hen s nest under the 
 blackthorn hedge, singing, singing, like a 
 lark. They had to leave that pleasant 
 farm, and the thatched roof which had 
 
THE PROVIDER. 95 
 
 sheltered them from their fate, and move 
 up to cloudier Dublin, to a stifling garret 
 over a beer-shop ; and it was a miserable 
 change. Malachi O Kinsella, the cheer 
 ful thriftless man, with his handsome 
 bearing and his superfluous oratory, was 
 gone; and his Hughey was too young 
 to be of service to those he left behind. 
 A fine monument, with Glory be to God on 
 it, had to be put up over him in the old 
 churchyard, two years ago ; and there 
 had been since the problem of schooling, 
 feeding, and clothing Hughey, Nora, 
 and Winny. Then Rose, three years old, 
 fell into a lime-kiln, and was associated 
 with the enforced luxury of a second 
 funeral ; and Dan, the baby, born after his 
 father s death, was sickly, and therefore 
 costly too ; and now the rent had to be 
 paid, and the morrow thought of, on just 
 nothing a week ! All of which this 
 Hugh, with his acumen and quick sym 
 pathy, had found out. He worshipped 
 his mother, in his shy, abstinent Irish 
 way ; his heart was bursting for her sake, 
 though he but half knew it, with a sense 
 of the mystery and wrong-headedness of 
 human society. 
 
96 THE PROVIDER. 
 
 That April Tuesday night, when the 
 wildflowers were in a big earthen basin 
 
 O 
 
 on the table, like streaks of moonlight 
 and moon-shadow, and the girls were in 
 bed, Hughey blew out his candle, shut 
 up his penny Gulliver, and went over to 
 the low chair in their one room, where 
 his mother was crooning Dan to sleep on 
 her breast. It shocked him to see how 
 thin she was. Her age was but three- 
 and-thirty ; but it might have been fifty. 
 She wore a faded black gown, of decent 
 aspect once in a village pew ; her thick 
 eyelashes were burning wet. Outside 
 and far below, were the polluted narrow 
 cross-streets, full of flaring torches, and 
 hucksters hand-carts, and drunken voices; 
 and beyond, loomed the Gothic bulk of 
 Saint Patrick s, not a star above it. 
 
 cc Mother ! t is not going to school any 
 more Oi 11 be." His tired, unselfish 
 mother swallowed a great sigh, but said 
 nothing. " Oi 11 worruk for ye, mother; 
 Oi 11 be your man. Oi can do t." 
 
 There was another and a longer pause; 
 and then Moira O Kinsella suddenly bent 
 forward and kissed her first-born. Like 
 all the unlettered class in Ireland, she 
 
THE PROVIDER. 97 
 
 adored learning from afar, and coveted it 
 for her offspring. That he should give 
 up his hope of " talkin Latin " touched 
 her to the quick. " God love ye, Hughey 
 darlint ! Phwat can a little bhoy do?" 
 But she slept a happier woman for her 
 knight s vow. 
 
 As for Hughey, there was no sleep for 
 him. By the first white light he could 
 see the two pathetic pinched profiles side 
 by side, the woman s and the babe s, 
 both set in the same startling flat oval of 
 dark locks. The faces on the mattress 
 yonder were so round and ruddy ! They 
 had not begun to think, as Hughey had; 
 even scant dinners and no warmth in 
 winter had not blighted one rose as yet 
 in those country cheeks. Up to yester 
 day, he had somehow found his mother s 
 plight bearable, thanks to the natural 
 buoyancy of childhood, and the hope, 
 springing up every week, that next week 
 she would have a little less labor, a few 
 more pence. Besides, it was spring ; 
 and in spring hearts have an irrational 
 way of dancing, as if a fairy fiddler had 
 struck up Garry owen. But now Hughey 
 was sobered and desperate. 
 7 
 
98 THE PROVIDER. 
 
 There was no breakfast but a crust 
 apiece. The McCarthy grandmother, on 
 the stairs, gave Nora, starting for school, 
 some fresh water-cresses. Just then Mrs. 
 O Kinsella happened to open the door. 
 Poor Nora had yielded to temptation and 
 filled her mouth, and pretended, holding 
 her head down, to be much concerned 
 about a bruise on her knee. She could 
 not look in her mother s honest eyes, 
 ignorant as these were of any blame in 
 Nora. Mrs. O Kinsella went wearily to 
 her charing, and seven-year-old Winny set 
 up housekeeping with Dan, the primroses 
 and a teapot-shaped fish-bone for their 
 only toys. Hughey had already gone, nor 
 was he at his desk in the afternoon, when 
 his teacher and Nora looked vainly for 
 him ; nor did he return to his lodgings 
 until after sundown. When he came, he 
 brought milk with him, earned by hold 
 ing a gentleman s horse at the Rotunda; 
 and with that and some boiled potatoes, 
 there was a feast. Hughey s vocation, it 
 would appear, had not yet declared itself. 
 He had haunted Stephen s Green and its 
 sumptuous purlieus in vain. He had 
 not been asked to join partners with 
 
THE PROVIDER. 99 
 
 Messrs. Pirn, nor to accept a Fellowship 
 at Trinity. The next day s, the next 
 month s history was no more heroic. 
 There were so many of those bright, deli 
 cate-featured, ragged-shir ted boys in Dub 
 lin, coming about on foggy mornings 
 with propositions ! The stout shop 
 keepers were sated with the spectacle 
 of the unable and willing. 
 
 The days dragged. An affable police 
 man who had known Hughey s mother 
 at home in New Ross, seeing him once 
 gazing in a junk-shop door, finally pre 
 sented him to the proprietor : " Toby, 
 allow me t inthroduce a good lad wants 
 a dhrive at glory. Can ye tache um the 
 Black Art, now ? He can turrun his 
 hand to most anythin , and his pomes, 
 Oi hear, do be grand, for his age." 
 
 The junk-man, good-naturedly scan 
 ning Hughey, saw him burst into tears, 
 and beat the air, though the giant of the 
 law had passed on. That his chief and 
 most secret sin should be mentioned aloud, 
 to prejudice the world of commerce against 
 him, was horrible. His mother had told 
 on him ! She must have found some lines 
 on Winny s slate last Sunday, entitled 
 
ioo THE PROVIDER. 
 
 Drumalough: a Lament for the Fall of the 
 Three Kings, Written at Midnight. Worra, 
 worra ! Hughey was descended, on the 
 paternal side, through a succession of 
 ever- falling fortunes, from a good many 
 more than three kings, and used to won 
 der where their crowns and sceptres were, 
 not that he might pawn them, either. 
 The O Kinsellas were a powerful abori 
 ginal sept in the old days, and lived in 
 fortress castles, and playfully carried off 
 cattle and ladies from their neighbors of 
 the Pale. Malachi O Kinsella s mother, 
 a heroine of romance who ran away with 
 a jockey lover, and never throve after, 
 was of pure Norman blood, and most 
 beautiful, with gray eyes, water-clear, like 
 Hughey s own, and the same bronze- 
 colored hair ; and it was said she could 
 play the harp that soft it would draw 
 the hearing out of your head with ecs 
 tasy ! Now the junk-man was fatherly, 
 and presented Hughey, in default of a 
 situation, with a consolatory coin ; but 
 foregoing events had been too trying for 
 the boy s nerves : he dropped it, and 
 fled, sobbing. He simply could n t live 
 where his po try was going to rise up 
 
THE PROVIDER. 101 
 
 against him, and wail like a 1 B.anshee- i ti 
 the public ear. He charged, in his 
 wrath and grief, across the crowded 
 bridge, and down the line of quays east 
 of it, straight into a fat, gray-headed, 
 leather-aproned person directing a group 
 of sailors unloading a boat. 
 
 This person, sent of Heaven, with mi 
 raculous suddenness, and with musical 
 distinctness, exclaimed: " Ave n t I been 
 a-wishin of im, and directly e runs into 
 me harms ! Crawl into that barrel, sonny, 
 and if you old it steady, I 11 eave you 
 tuppence." Hughey, foreordained like 
 wise, crawled in. When he came out, Mr. 
 J. Everard Hoggett looked him over, from 
 his moribund hat to his slight patrician 
 ankle. <c I likes a boy wot s andy, and 
 as little to sy, like you." He resumed 
 critically, " E don t appear to be from 
 any of Er Marjesty s carstles, e don t. 
 Perhaps e might like to ang about ere, 
 and earn three bob a week ? " Hughey 
 hugged his twopenny piece, blushed, 
 trembled, twisted his legs in the brown 
 trousers too big for him, and replied in 
 gulps: "O sir! Yes, sir." Whereby 
 his annals begin. 
 
102 THE PROVIDER. 
 
 \ 
 
 " This- perfectly amazing luck befell to 
 wards the end of May. Mr. Hoggett, 
 going home, beckoned him, took him 
 into a little eating-house, sat him down, 
 paid for a huge order, and departed. 
 "There s a couple o lion cubs hinside 
 wot ought to be your westcot, needs am 
 and heggs. Fill em full ; and mind you 
 come to-morrow at a quarter to ight. 
 I 11 ave no lyzy lubbers alongside o me." 
 With which fierce farewell, and disdain 
 ing thanks, Mr. Hoggett faded wholly 
 away. 
 
 Hughey, half-dazed, sat at a table 
 alone, sniffing celestial fragrances from 
 the rear, with the joy in his breast jump 
 ing like a live creature in a box. To 
 quiet it, while he waited, he took up a 
 torn journal which was lying on the near 
 est chair. At first, what he read seemed 
 to have no meaning, but when some 
 moments had passed, still odorous only, 
 and non-flavorous, Hughey s collected 
 and intelligent eye had taken in the dra 
 matic political crisis, the stocks, the Afri 
 can news, the prospects of Irish literature, 
 and the latest London wife-beating. On 
 the advertisement page, one especial para- 
 
THE PROVIDER. 103 
 
 graph in sensational print rooted his at 
 tention. This was it: 
 
 "SERVANTS AND APPRENTICES, 
 ATTENTION ! Here is the best Chance of 
 your lives. It will Never come again. Trade 
 with us, and you lay the FOUNDATION of 
 your FORTUNE ! With every sixpenny worth 
 of goods bought of us on any Saturday night, 
 we give a COUPON on the Ninth anti-Sas 
 senach Bank of Belfast. Fifty of these entitle 
 the Bearer at the end of the year to a gift of 
 TEN POUNDS IN GOLD! ! Honesty 
 the best Policy our motto. Best Material at 
 Lowest Prices ; come and see. Do not Neglect 
 your own GOOD. McClutch & Gullim, Linen- 
 drapers, No. 19 St." 
 
 Hughey, the innocent prospective capi 
 talist, took a stubby pencil from the only 
 sound pocket in his habiliments, and be 
 gan to figure on the margin of the paper ; 
 for he had an inspiration. " Mother 
 would be thundherin rich ! " was what 
 flashed into his mind. Before he had 
 done with his emergency arithmetic, ham 
 and eggs, with all their shining train, 
 were set before him. With them, he 
 gallantly swallowed his conscience, for 
 Hughey, like a nobler Roman before him, 
 
104 THE PROVIDER. 
 
 was resolving to be gloriously false, and, 
 for piety s sake, to trade his soul. He 
 foresaw vaguely that he would not be al 
 lowed, out of his royal wages of three 
 shillings, to spend full half every Satur 
 day night, at McClutch and Gullim s ; 
 yet to do it was the imperative thing now, 
 and that he felt impelled to do it was his 
 own super-private business, and his war 
 rant. Therefore would he keep his 
 secret close, and make what excuse he 
 might. He could not even think of ask 
 ing advice ; how should any one else be 
 able to realize how he must act towards 
 his mother ? The angels had given her 
 into his hands ; and he knew at last 
 what was to be done for her. She should 
 be rich and gay, and have a coach, per 
 haps, like a real lady ; and Danny should 
 have a goat, and a sash with stripes in it, 
 like the little twin Finnegans ; and the 
 Misses Honora and Winifrid O Kin- 
 sella should walk abroad with parasols ! 
 Proper manoeuvring now would fetch 
 twenty-five pounds sterling next sum 
 mer. But he would hide away what he 
 bought, and never tell until the beatific 
 hour when his mother should have the 
 
THE PROVIDER. 105 
 
 money, and the linen, and the truth about 
 them, all together ! 
 
 Hughey went home in a series of 
 hops and whirls, like a kitten s. He 
 brought a flood of riotous sunshine in 
 with him. It was supper-time; the 
 children had each a ha penny bun, and 
 some tea. Mrs. O Kinsella was lying 
 down, with an ache between her lungs 
 and her spine, after a long day s lifting 
 and scrubbing. She felt the good news, 
 before the child spoke. " O mother ! 
 t is the most illigant thing s happened: 
 ye niver heard the loike." Hughey s 
 pale comely little face was radiant. 
 
 " Phwhere is ut, and phwhat d ye get, 
 dear?" Then Hughey screwed up his 
 courage, and told his only, his masterly 
 lie: " North Wall, mother; and a shil- 
 lin* and six every week." " A shillin and 
 six ! " shrieked Nora. " O Hughey ! " 
 But the critic for whose opinion he cared 
 was not quite so enraptured. She smiled, 
 and praised him, but took it too tamely, 
 her son thought. However, he reflected 
 that she little knew the felicities in store. 
 
 In the morning, his career began, and 
 it maintained itself with vigor, inasmuch 
 
io6 THE PROVIDER. 
 
 as by the autumn he was of real value to 
 his employers. He had many duties 
 and some trusts. His orders all came 
 directly from the benevolent bluff Mr. 
 Hoggett, or from his mild reflection and 
 under-study, a small, bald, capable head- 
 clerk from the north, who was known 
 as Jibtopsails ; for what reason, Hughey 
 could never divine, unless it was that his 
 ears were uncommonly large and flapping. 
 Jibtopsails sent him here and there with 
 parcels and messages, and he had been 
 faithful ; he had made no grave mistake 
 yet, nor had he been unpunctual. But 
 every Saturday of his life saw him posing 
 
 as a purchaser at 19 Street, where 
 
 a hard-featured old woman, supposed 
 mother of the supposed junior partner, 
 served him always with the same ironi 
 cally deferent, " Good day, sir ; and what 
 can I show you ? " Jibtopsails inquired 
 occasionally after the health of Hughey s 
 family, particularly after Hughey had 
 told him that Mrs. O Kinsella was not so 
 well as she used to be. For the rest, the 
 sympathy of that gentle cynic made the 
 child s blood run cold : he had such a 
 paralyzing fear that Jibtopsails might call 
 
THE PROVIDER. 107 
 
 there at the house, and talk to his mother, 
 and say something about three shillings 
 a week ! Kind people in the parish, if 
 they knew, would bring her in wood, and 
 coal, and wine ; but again, in the hallucin 
 ation of his jealous determined heart, the 
 boy prayed passionately that they might 
 not know, and that he alone should be the 
 deliverer. The dread of his secret being 
 found out, little by little made his life in 
 tolerable. He had grown older since he 
 had that to cherish in his bosom, and it 
 seemed less delicious than while as yet it 
 was nothing but a dream. 
 
 His mother broke down, and could 
 toil no longer. Mrs. Drogan, who lived 
 downstairs, began to come up with her 
 mending, and sit between the bed and 
 the window. Nora was clever, for so 
 young a girl; but she stumbled a great 
 deal in her roomy charity boots, and had 
 to be scolded for awkwardness by Mrs. 
 Drogan, who had brought up sixteen 
 rebels, and was disposed to command. 
 As for Winny and Dan, they made a 
 noise, and therefore had to be exiled to 
 the street, foul and dangerous as it was, 
 almost all day, while the invalid slept the 
 
1 08 THE PROVIDER. 
 
 sleep of utter exhaustion. It occurred 
 often to Hughey, and with increasing 
 force, that to secure a future good, he 
 was doing a very vicious wrong; that it 
 would be far better for his mother to 
 have the money now, to provide com 
 forts and make her well, than for her to 
 do without it now, and be too feeble in 
 consequence to enjoy it when it would 
 come, all in a lump. Heavy and sharp 
 was this dilemma to the little fellow 3 as he 
 labelled the great bales, or set Mr. Hog- 
 gett s dusted ledgers back on their shelves. 
 "Phwhat ought I be doin ?" he would 
 groan aloud, when he was alone. If he 
 confessed to his mother, and handed over 
 hereafter the total of his wages, there was 
 an end to the big income sprouting and 
 budding wondrously at Belfast, the in 
 come which would be hers yet, with ever 
 so little patience. But if he should not 
 confess, and, meanwhile, if she should not 
 recover, what would all the world s 
 wealth be then to poor Hughey? 
 
 October was damp and dispiriting ; 
 Mrs. O Kinsella coughed more, but ap 
 parently suffered little. Hughey still 
 brought her, week by week, his pittance 
 
THE PROVIDER. 109 
 
 of a shilling and sixpence. Ill as she was, 
 her alert instinct divined that something 
 ailed him ; she pitied him, and worried 
 about him, and kissed his tears away with a 
 blessing, very often. Doctor Nugent was 
 called in for the first time, one rainy 
 noon. He told Mrs. Drogan, lacon 
 ically, that his patient was going to die, 
 and stopped her gesture of remonstrance. 
 " Say nothing to those children of hers," 
 he added, aside, on the threshold ; "there 
 is no immediate need of it, and the eldest 
 looks melancholy enough without it." 
 
 But the eldest was at his elbow. With a 
 still ardor painful to see, he raised himself 
 close to the tall doctor, and whispered into 
 his ear. " Phwhat wud save me mother? 
 Wudn t money do it, MONEY?" 
 The boy looked so thrillingly, impres 
 sively earnesfthat the doctor rose to the 
 occasion. " Perhaps ! That is, a win 
 ter in France or Italy might delay the 
 end. But dear me ! how on earth " 
 His voice wavered, and he hurried down. 
 
 On the way back to the office, Hughey 
 crossed Augier Street, and stalked into 
 McClutch and Gullim s. He had busi 
 ness with the old woman, imminent busi- 
 
i io THE PROVIDER. 
 
 ness. Would the Ninth anti-Sassenach 
 Bank of Belfast advance half of an 
 annual interest ? that is, would they al 
 low him, Hugh O Kinsella of Dublin, 
 merchant s errand-boy, what was due on 
 his receipts of purchases up to date ? 
 He found that circumstances over which 
 he had no control prevented his waiting 
 until May : please might he draw out the 
 eleven odd pounds now ? The old woman 
 had recently had other queries of that 
 nature, which proved that the victims 
 were getting restless ; that it would soon 
 be advisable, in short, to strike camp, 
 and betake herself and her nefarious con 
 cerns to Leeds or Manchester. Her sour 
 ness vented itself promptly on Hughey. 
 Decidedly, the Ninth anti-Sassenach Bank 
 would do nothing of the sort ; it was 
 against the rules ; it never advanced cash 
 except in case of death, when coupons 
 from McClutch and Gullim s would hold 
 good for a life-insurance policy to the 
 corpse s relatives. "And now g long to 
 the divil wid ye, ye limb ! " concluded 
 Mrs. Gullim, in a burst of vernacular 
 indignation. 
 
 Hughey fairly reeled out to the pave- 
 
THE PROVIDER. in 
 
 ment, with wheels humming in his brain, 
 and a large triangular rock, sharper than 
 knives and smeared with poison (a not 
 unfamiliar rock, of late), lodged in the 
 middle of his throat. As he turned 
 down the windy North Wall, among 
 the sleek cattle waiting for exportation, 
 and pushed open the warehouse door 
 by the Liffey, Jibtopsails took his pen 
 from behind his capacious ear, and peered 
 over his spectacles. 
 
 " Cead mille failthe^ Brian Boruihme ! 
 
 and how is the royal fam ." He got 
 
 no further; the young face opposite was 
 so awry with the spirit s mortal anguish 
 that Jibtopsails was truly sorry he had 
 tried to be jocose. It was almost a first 
 offence. 
 
 And now, with much introspection, 
 and heart-searching, and resolve, Hughey s 
 tragedy gathered itself together. On 
 Sunday, after church, he had occasion 
 to go out of town. As he wished to 
 deal with Nora, he offered to give her a 
 ride on the tram : a species of entertain 
 ment which she accepted with enthu 
 siasm. When they were at the end of 
 their route, they set forth on foot, up-hill, 
 
ii2 THE PROVIDER. 
 
 over two miles of exquisite moorland, to 
 the house of the retired first mate of the 
 Grace Greeley, who was summoned by 
 the firm of Hoggett as witness in a law 
 suit. Nora was in her usual spirits, and 
 her brother tried to wait until they should 
 show signs of flagging. O the heavenly 
 freedom of the country ! the pleasant 
 smell of damp leaves ! But Hughey s 
 heart would not rise. As they passed 
 the sheep-folds, the pretty huddled crea 
 tures made Nora laugh, standing still, 
 agape, in her blue faded frock ; and he 
 grabbed her roughly by the arm, albeit 
 his sad forbearing tone was not rough. 
 " D ye love me at all, Nora ? " 
 
 "That Oi do, Hughey O Kinsella; 
 and ye need n t be scrunchin of me to 
 foind ut out." 
 
 "Nora!" 
 
 "Phwhat is ut ? " 
 
 " There s somethin Oi do be bound 
 to say to ye." A pause. 
 
 ce Can ye keep a secret ? " 
 
 " Shure, Oi can." 
 
 " Tis tumble." 
 
 "Niver ye moind, Oi ll keep ut ! " 
 said the loyal other. 
 
THE PROVIDER. 113 
 
 Hughey lifted his face to the sweet 
 blowy autumn afternoon, took breath, 
 and increased his pace. " Mother is 
 loike to be doyin soon. Maybe ye 
 did n t hear o that. But she cud live 
 a hunderd year if ut was n t so cruel 
 poor we are. Oi ve been a-thinkin 
 wan reason of ut is she has too many 
 childher. Tis good little Rosy is with 
 the saints. Childher all eats and wears 
 clothes, and isn t much use. If mother 
 wasn t ill, there d be nothin the mat- 
 ther wid me ; we cud go on along, and 
 Oi d have power to do the beautiful 
 things, Nora dear. Ye d all be proud as 
 paycocks o me whin next the cuckoo 11 
 be in the green bush down be the Bar 
 row ; only mother wud be undher the 
 ground. So t is long before that Oi 
 must be doin phwhat Oi m meanin to 
 do. Now s the toime for her to be 
 cured, and the toime for me to behave 
 the usefullest to her is to-morrow, just 
 afther Oi m dead." 
 
 The younger child was bewildered, 
 over-awed. tc May the Lorrud have 
 mercy upon your sowl, Hughey ! " she 
 murmured with vague solemnity, taking 
 
ii 4 THE PROVIDER. 
 
 in the legendary word cc dead " and noth 
 ing else. Her light feet ran unevenly 
 beside his, up the slope and down the 
 hollow, and over stiles and pasture-walls, 
 bright with their withering vines. She 
 was all ear when her brother began again, 
 irrelevantly and more softly, on his tre 
 mendous theme, so old now to his 
 thoughts that he was conscious of no 
 solecism in the abrupt utterance of it. 
 " Whin ye dhrown, ye niver look bad at 
 a wake. A man kilt in the battle looks 
 bad, but not a dhrowned man. T is 
 grand to be a marthyr to your counthry ; 
 howsomiver, the guns is n t convanient, 
 and Oi must hould to the wather. The 
 rest Oi can t tell, becaze ye re a woman, 
 and wud n t undhersthand ; but there s 
 pounds and pince in ut, and t is the 
 foine thing intoirely for mother." He 
 turned upon her his most searching gaze. 
 " Ye 11 be constant and koind to her, 
 now ? Ye 11 be runnin and bringin her 
 a chair, and takin the beef out o your 
 mouth for her as long as ye live ? 
 (Shure Oi forgot there s goin to be tons 
 o beef for yez all.) Promus me, Nora." 
 She looked at him, and her wide blue 
 
THE PROVIDER. 115 
 
 eyes filled ; and presently she sank down 
 all in a heap, her face in the grass, her 
 heels in the air. It looked like revolt ; 
 but it was regret, or rather the utter 
 helplessness of either. The boy never 
 flinched. " Promus me, Nora." " Oh, 
 Oi do, brother Hughey, Oi do ! " she 
 sobbed. He stood by her a moment, 
 then with firmness followed the path out 
 of sight, his slender withdrawing figure 
 significant against the sky. 
 
 When he came back, the anxious 
 Nora was on the road, whence she 
 could see far and wide. Little was said 
 as they returned home, through ways 
 thickening with cabs and passers-by. 
 But skirting Dean Swift s dark Cathe 
 dral, they heard the treble voices at even 
 song in the choir, and the grave sweetness 
 of Tallis old music seemed to thaw 
 Hughey s blood. He drew his sister 
 closer as they walked, and bent his curls 
 over her. He had received a fresh illu 
 mination since he spoke last. 
 
 " You re what mother needs," he whis 
 pered, " and so s Dan, seein he s no 
 bigger than a fairy. But Oi d be bet- 
 ther away, and so d Winny, for the 
 
ii6 THE PROVIDER. 
 
 sake o leavin plenthy to eat and plen- 
 thy o room. Ye 11 give me Winny in 
 her little coat whin Oi ax ye to-noight, 
 will ye, Nora ? " The child glanced up 
 mournfully at her ruling genius, without 
 a word, but with a look of supernatural 
 submission. They went up the rickety 
 stairs, arm in arm. 
 
 Mrs. O Kinsella, who had had a trying 
 day, had just said to Mrs. Drogan, rising 
 with a view to supper for her husband : 
 <c Oi m of that moind meself. Johanna 
 Carr d be a widdy contint in her ould 
 age, if she d had childher, if she d had a 
 son loike Hughey. Me blessid darlint! 
 he s gould an dimonds. By the grace 
 o God Almighty, Oi cud bow me head 
 if He tuk the rest away from me, but 
 He cud n t part me and the bhoy, me 
 and the bhoy." She began to cough 
 again. 
 
 Her son asked to sit up late. " Oi d 
 be writin , mother," he pleaded. Her 
 pride in him came to her poor thin 
 cheeks. " T is a Bard ye 11 be yet, 
 loike the wans your father read about in 
 the histhory ! " Hughey knew he had 
 been misunderstood ; but trifles were 
 
THE PROVIDER. 117 
 
 trifles, and must be ignored, now that 
 the hour of action had struck. 
 
 Having taken off his shoes, he sat down 
 in the broken chair by the table, with his 
 pencil, and the paper which Jibtopsails 
 had given him. The inmates of the room 
 were all unconscious in half an hour, ex 
 cept himself and Nora. She, in a fever 
 of excitement, kept vigil, lying as usual 
 since consumption had come openly under 
 their roof, between Winny and the baby. 
 Winny, dirty, hungry, and tired out 
 with dancing to a hurdy-gurdy, had 
 fallen asleep in her clothes. Nora did 
 not require her to undress. These were 
 the three letters which Hughey wrote. 
 
 Mr. Everard Hoggett, Limited. 
 
 DEAR SIR : Thank you for being kind to 
 me. 1 was fond of you. I hope you won t be 
 out of a boy long. There do be a very honest 
 boy named Mickey McGooley goes to my 
 school I used to go to. He has a iron foot, 
 but he is good-looking in the rest of him. I 
 think he would come if you asked him. Please 
 tell the other gentilmen I won t forget him 
 either. 
 
 Your respeckful friend, 
 
 HUGH. 
 
ii8 THE PROVIDER. 
 
 Ninth Anti-Sassenach Bank, Belfast, Ireland. 
 
 SIR : My mother she is named Mrs. M. 
 O Kinsella, will send you the papers from 
 McClutch and Gullim. As I will be dead you 
 pay my money please to her. I let you know 
 now so that it will be all rite. It began last 
 May 28th and stops Saturday, October 2ist. 
 Yours truly, hoping you will send it soon, 
 Yours, 
 
 H. O KlNSELLA. 
 
 ji ST., DUBLIN. 
 
 October 22nd, 1893. 
 
 DEAR MOTHER : You must cheer up and not 
 cough. You can go to France or somewhere. 
 You will find a heap of lengths of linen stuff in 
 a box under the steps of old Tom s shop. He 
 doesn t know about it. It is mine and the 
 nicest they is, and if you don t be wanting it, 
 you can sell it. Then you look in the lining 
 of Danny s cap, and find some bank papers, 
 and you send them to the Ninth anti-Sassenach 
 Bank in Belfast and it will send you nigh twelve 
 pound gold. You will find Winny and me by 
 Richmond Bridge, and it will not be so expen- 
 cive without us. I hope you won t be low for 
 me, for Nora says she will be good. Dear 
 mother, I dident know any other way to make 
 you happy and well at this present. Goodbye 
 from your loving son, 
 
 HUGH CORMAC FITZEUSTACE LE POER 
 
 O KlNSELLA. 
 
THE PROVIDER. 119 
 
 After that laborious signature, he folded 
 and addressed the first two sheets, and 
 after a plunge into the recesses of his 
 pocket, stamped them. The last one he 
 slipped beneath his mother s pillow. He 
 looked at her wistfully, lying there on the 
 brink of all compensation, at last ! She 
 turned over, and sighed feebly: " Go to 
 bed, Hughey dear." He did not dare 
 to kiss her, for fear she should become 
 wide awake. Back into the shadow he 
 shrank, and so remained a long time. A 
 dim sense of defeat stole over him, like 
 a draught through a crack, from a wind 
 which pushes vainly without. But he had 
 never in his life hugged any thought 
 whose interest centred in himself; and 
 immediately his whole being warmed 
 again with the remembrance that his de 
 feat meant victory for a life dearer to him 
 than his own. When the great bell out 
 side had struck two, he crept across the 
 room. 
 
 " Is she ready, Nora ? " 
 
 "She is, Hughey." 
 
 He stooped to the floor, and gathered 
 the drowsy body in his arms. On the 
 landing, one floor below, the little sister 
 
120 THE PROVIDER. 
 
 cried aloud. <c No, no, no, no ! " he 
 crooned, in a passion of apprehension : 
 <c Brother will show Winny the bright 
 moon. 3 
 
 They came safely to the street; the 
 moon indeed was there, flooding the 
 world with splendor. When Nora had 
 buttoned Winny s coat, and the boy had 
 posted his letters, they took her by either 
 hand, and started. 
 
 Hughey had planned out his difficult 
 campaign to the end, and his brain was 
 quiet and clear. Passing through Church 
 Street, he raised his hat with reverence, 
 as he had always done since he came to 
 Dublin, to a blank stone on the south 
 side in the ancient yard of Saint Michan s; 
 for under that stone, according to a tradi 
 tion, Robert Emmett s sentinel dust re 
 poses. There on the old Danish ground, 
 at the crisis, Winny s fiery Gaelic temper 
 came again to the fore. Struck with the 
 solitude and the dark, the dread faces of 
 unusual things, and jostled by the wind 
 which pounced at her from its corner lair 
 on the north bank of the river, she hung 
 back and rebelled. <c Let me go, let me 
 go! Hughey! Oh ! . . ." The lit- 
 
THE PROVIDER. 121 
 
 tie silver lisp arose in very real, in irre 
 sistible alarm. 
 
 Never once, in all his mistaken plan 
 ning, had Hughey paused to consider 
 that she had a voice in the matter. If 
 she were unwilling to die for his dear- 
 est, why, what right had he, Hughey, 
 though scornful and disappointed be 
 cause of it, to compel her ? After all, 
 she was only seven, and silly ! He 
 looked at Nora over the capped head 
 between them. Then he fetched a deep, 
 deep sigh, and the tears came to his eye 
 lids, burned, and dried. 
 
 They went on, ever slower; and at 
 Richmond Bridge Hughey spoke to 
 Winny, as he felt that he could do at 
 last, tenderly, and even with humorous 
 understanding. "Now t is the end o 
 your walk, an ye 11 trot home wid Nora, 
 and niver moind me at all, dear. Some 
 day she 11 be tellin ye phwhat ye missed." 
 But to Nora herself he said softly : 
 
 "Take care o mother, mavourneen." 
 
 "Oi will, Hughey." 
 
 She kissed him twice; her smooth 
 cheek against his was cold as a shell. He 
 
 O 
 
 made a gesture of dismissal, which she 
 
122 THE PROVIDER. 
 
 did not disobey; and he watched them go, 
 without further sign. The two childish 
 figures were swallowed by the blue-black 
 shadows, and the pavement under their 
 naked feet gave forth no receding sounds. 
 Yet Hughey, bereft of them so quickly 
 and utterly, listened, listened, tiptoeing to 
 the central arch of the bridge. 
 
 The autumnal Sabbath breath of the 
 slumbering capital floated in a faint white 
 mist against the brick and stone. Every 
 high point was alive with light : the masts 
 in port, the roof of the King s Inns, the 
 Park, the top of the Nelson monument, 
 the Castle standard, the nigh summits 
 of the gracious Wicklow hills. Below 
 were the dim line of Liffey bridges, pro 
 cessional to the sea, and the sad friendly 
 wash of the chilly water. Clear of any 
 regret or self-pity, he would have his fare 
 well grave and calm, and he would set out 
 with the sign of faith. So he knelt down, 
 in prayer, for a moment, and with his eyes 
 still closed, dropped forward. 
 
 In another eternal instant, he came 
 into the air. He had a confused sense of 
 being glad for Winny, and otherwise quite 
 satisfied and thankful. There, next the 
 
THE PROVIDER. 123 
 
 wall, was a rotten abandoned raft, a chance 
 of life within clutch ; he saw it, and 
 smiled. Then Hughey sank, and the 
 black ebb-tide took him. 
 
 Nora s knowledge, meanwhile, was too 
 torturing to be borne. No sooner had 
 she left her brother than she caught the 
 heavy little one into her slight arms, and 
 ran. Breathless, and choked with sor 
 row, she told her mother all she knew, 
 and roused the Drogans, who in turn 
 called up the Smiths, the Fays, the Hola- 
 hans, the McCarthys. From right and 
 left the neighbors swarmed forth on a 
 vain and too familiar trail : the Spirit of 
 Poverty flying unmercifully ever to the 
 rescue of her own, she 
 
 "that would upon the rack of this rough world 
 
 Stretch them out longer." 
 
 Two of Hughey s letters had to go un 
 delivered : one belonging to a corporation 
 which never existed, and one to a heart 
 broken woman who set sail for the Isles 
 of Healing, before the dawn. 
 
 THE END. 
 
THIS BOOK HAS BEEN PRINTED DURING 
 DECEMBER 1895 BY JOHN WILSON AND 
 SON OF CAMBRIDGE MASSACHUSETTS 
 
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