by j. w. deforest.

upid and psyche! the young man and the young woman who are in love with each other! the couple which is constantly vanishing and constantly reappearing; which has filled millions of various situations, and yet is always the same; symbolizing, and one might almost say embodying, the doctrine of the transmigration of souls; acting a drama of endless repetitions, with innumerable spectators!

what would the story-reading world—yes, and what would the great world of humanity—do without these two figures? they are more lasting, they are more important, and they are more fascinating than even the crowned and laurelled images of heroes and sages. when men shall have forgotten alexander and socrates, napoleon and humboldt, they will still gather around this imperishable group, the youth and the girl who are in love. without them our kind would cease to be; at one time or another we are all of us identified with them in spirit; thus both reason and sympathy cause us to be interested in their million-fold repeated story.

[57]

we have the two before us. the girl, dark and dark-eyed, with oriental features, and an expression which one is tempted to describe by some such epithet as imperial, is bessie barron, the orphan granddaughter of squire thomas lauson of barham, in massachusetts. the youth, pale, chestnut-haired, and gray-eyed, with a tall and large and muscular build, is henry foster, not more than twenty-seven years old, yet already a professor in the scientific department of the university of hampstead. they are standing on the edge of a rocky precipice some seventy feet in depth, from the foot of which a long series of grassy slopes descends into a wide, irregular valley, surrounded by hills that almost deserve the name of mountains. in the distance there are villages, the nearest fully visible even to its most insignificant buildings, others showing only a few white gleams through the openings of their elms, and others still distinguishable by merely a spire.

there has been talk such as affianced couples indulge in; we must mention this for the sake of truth, and we must omit it in mercy. “lovers,” declares a critic who has weight with us, “are habitually insipid, at least to us married people.” it was a man who said that; no woman, it is believed, could utter such a condemnation of her own heart: no woman ever quite loses her interest in the drama of love-making. but out of regard to such males as have drowned their sentimentality in marriage we will, for the present, pass over the words of tenderness and devotion, and only listen when professor foster becomes philosophical.

“what if i should throw myself down here?” said[58] bessie barron, after a long look over the precipice, meanwhile holding fast to a guardian arm.

“you would commit suicide,” was the reply of a man whom we must admit to have been accurately informed concerning the nature of actions like the one specified.

slightly disappointed at not hearing the appeal, “o my darling, don’t think of such a thing!” bessie remained silent a moment, wondering if she were silly or he cold-hearted. did she catch a glimmering of the fact that men do not crave small sensations as women do, and that the man before her was a specially rational being because he had been trained in the sublime logic of the laws of nature? doubtful: the two sexes are profoundly unlike in mental action; they must study each other long before they can fully understand each other.

“i suppose i should be dreadfully punished for it,” she went on, her thoughts turning to the world beyond death, that world which trembling faith sees, and which is, therefore, visible to woman.

“i am not sure,” boldly admitted the professor, who had been educated in germany.

in order to learn something of the character of this young man, we must permit him to jabber his nondescript ideas for a little, even though we are thereby stumbled and wearied.

“not sure?” queried bessie. “how do you mean? don’t you think suicide sinful? don’t you think sin will be punished?”

she spoke with eagerness, dreading to find her lover[59] not orthodox,—a woful stigma in barham on lovers, and indeed on all men whatever.

“admitting thus much, i don’t know how far you would be a free agent in the act,” lectured the philosopher. “i don’t know where free agency begins or ends. indeed, i am so puzzled by this question as to doubt whether there is such a condition as free agency.”

“no such thing as free agency?” wondered bessie. “then what?”

“see here. out of thirty-eight millions of frenchmen a fixed number commit suicide every year. every year just so many frenchmen out of a million kill themselves. does that look like free agency, or does it look like some unknown influence, some general rule of depression, some law of nature, which affects frenchmen, and which they cannot resist? the individual seems to be free, at every moment of his life, to do as he chooses. but what leads him to choose? born instincts, conditions of health, surroundings, circumstances. do not the circumstances so govern his choice that he cannot choose differently? moreover, is he really an individual? or is he only a fraction of a great unity, the human race, and directed by its current? we speak of a drop of water as if it were an individuality; but it cannot swim against the stream to which it belongs; it is not free. is not the individual man in the same condition? there are questions there which i cannot answer; and until i can answer them i cannot answer your question.”

we have not repeated without cause these bold and crude speculations. it is necessary to show that foster[60] was what was called in barham a free-thinker, in order to account for efforts which were made to thwart his marriage with bessie barron, and for prejudices which aided to work a stern drama into his life.

the girl listened and pondered. she tried to follow her lover over the seas of thought upon which he walked; but the venture was beyond her powers, and she returned to the pleasant firm land of a subject nearer her heart.

“are you thinking of me?” she asked in a low tone, and with an appealing smile.

“no,” he smiled back. “i must own that i was not. but i ought to have been. i do think of you a great deal.”

“more than i deserve?” she queried, still suspicious that she was not sufficiently prized to satisfy her longings for affection.

he laughed outright. “no, not more than you deserve; not as much as you deserve; you deserve a great deal. how many times are you going to ask me these questions?”

“every day. a hundred times a day. shall you get tired of them?”

“of course not. but what does it mean? do you doubt me?”

“no. but i want to hear you say that you think of me, over and over again. it gives me such pleasure to hear you say it! it is such a great happiness that it seems as if it were my only happiness.”

before bessie had fallen in love with foster, and especially before her engagement to him, there had been a time when she had talked more to the satisfaction of the male critic. but now her whole soul was absorbed in[61] the work of loving. she had no thought for any other subject; none, at least, while with him. her whole appearance and demeanor shows how completely she is occupied by this master passion of woman. a smile seems to exhale constantly from her face; if it is not visible on her lips, nor, indeed, anywhere, still you perceive it; if it is no more to be seen than the perfume of a flower, still you are conscious of it. it is no figurative exaggeration to say that there is within her soul an incessant music, like that of waltzes, and of all sweet, tender, joyous melodies. if you will watch her carefully, and if you have the delicate senses of sympathy, you also will hear it.

are we wrong in declaring that the old, old story of clinging hearts is more fascinating from age to age, as human thoughts become purer and human feelings more delicate? we believe that love, like all other things earthly, is subject to the progresses of the law of evolution, and grows with the centuries to be a more various and exquisite source of happiness. this girl is more in love than her grandmother, who made butter and otherwise wrought laboriously with her own hands, had ever found it possible to be. an organization refined by the manifold touch of high civilization, an organization brought to the keenest sensitiveness by poetry and fiction and the spiritualized social breath of our times, an organization in which muscle is lacking and nerve overabundant, she is capable of an affection which has the wings of imagination, which can soar above the ordinary plane of belief, which is more than was once human.

consider for an instant what an elaboration of culture[62] the passion of love may have reached in this child. she can invest the man whom she has accepted as monarch of her soul with the perfections of the heroes of history and of fiction. she can prophesy for him a future which a hundred years since was not realizable upon this continent. out of her own mind she can draw shining raiment of success for him which shall be visible across oceans, and crowns of fame which shall not be dimmed by centuries. she can love him for superhuman loveliness which she has power to impute to him, and for victories which she is magician enough to strew in anticipation beneath his feet. it is not extravagance, it is even nothing but the simplest and most obvious truth, to say that there have been periods in the world’s history, without going back to the cycles of the troglodyte and the lake-dweller, when such love would have been beyond the capabilities of humanity.

it must be understood, by the way, that bessie was not bred amid the sparse, hard-worked, and scantily cultured population of barham, and that, until the death of her parents, two years before the opening of this story, she had been a plant of the stimulating, hot-bed life of a city. into this bucolic land she had brought susceptibilities which do not often exist there, and a craving for excitements of sentiment which does not often find gratification there. consequently the first youth who in any wise resembled the ideal of manhood which she had set up in her soul found her ready to fall into his grasp, to believe in him as in a deity, and to look to him for miracles of love and happiness.

well, these two interesting idiots, as the unsympathizing[63] observer might call them, have turned their backs on the precipice and are walking toward the girl’s home. they had not gone far before bessie uttered a speech which excited harry’s profound amazement, and which will probably astonish every young man who has not as yet made his conquests. after looking at him long and steadfastly, she said: “how is it possible that you can care for me? i don’t see what you find in me to make me worthy of your admiration.”

how often such sentiments have been felt, and how often also they have been spoken, by beings whose hearts have been bowed by the humility of strong affection! perhaps women are less likely to give them speech than men; but it is only because they are more trammelled by an education of reserve, and by inborn delicacy and timidity; it is not because they feel them less. this girl, however, was so frank in nature, and so earnest and eager in her feelings, that she could not but give forth the aroma of loving meekness that was in her soul.

“what do you mean?” asked foster, in his innocent surprise. “see nothing to admire in you!”

“o, you are so much wiser than i, and so much nobler!” she replied. “it is just because you are good, because you have the best heart that ever was, that you care for me. you found me lonely and unhappy, and so you pitied me and took charge of me.”

“o no!” he began; but we will not repeat his protestations; we will just say that he, too, was properly humble.

“have you really been lonely and sad?” he went on, curious to know every item of her life, every beat of her heart.

[64]

“does that old house look like a paradise to you?” she asked, pointing to the dwelling of squire lauson.

“it isn’t very old, and it doesn’t look very horrible,” he replied, a little anxious as he thought of his future housekeeping. “perhaps ours will not be so fine a one.”

“i was not thinking of that,” declared bessie. “our house will be charming, even if it has but one story, and that under ground. but this one! you don’t see it with my eyes; you haven’t lived in it.”

“is it haunted?” inquired foster, of whom we must say that he did not believe in ghosts, and, in fact, scorned them with all the scorn of a philosopher.

“yes, and by people who are not yet buried,—people who call themselves alive.”

the subject was a delicate one probably, for bessie said no more concerning it, and foster considerately refrained from further questions. there was one thing on which this youth especially prided himself, and that was on being a gentleman in every sense possible to a republican. because his father had been a judge, and his grandfather and great-grandfather clergymen, he conceived that he belonged to a patrician class, similar to that which englishmen style “the untitled nobility,” and that he was bound to exhibit as many chivalrous virtues as if his veins throbbed with the blood of the black prince. although not combative, and not naturally reckless of pain and death, he would have faced heenan and morrissey together in fight, if convinced that his duty as a gentleman demanded it. similarly he felt himself obliged “to do the handsome thing” in money matters;[65] to accept, for instance, without haggling, such a salary as was usual in his profession; to be as generous to waiters as if he were a millionaire. furthermore, he must be magnanimous to all that great multitude who were his inferiors, and particularly must he be fastidiously decorous and tender in his treatment of women. all these things he did or refrained from doing, not only out of good instincts towards others, but out of respect for himself.

on the whole, he was a worthy and even admirable specimen of the genus young man. no doubt he was conceited; he often offended people by his bumptiousness of opinion and hauteur of manner; he rather depressed the human race by the severity with which he classed this one and that one as “no gentleman,” because of slight defects in etiquette; he considerably amused older and wearier minds by the confidence with which he settled vexed questions of several thousand years’ standing; but with all these faults, he was a better and wiser and more agreeable fellow than one often meets at his age; he was a youth whom man could respect and woman adore. to noble souls it must be agreeable, i think, to see him at the present moment, anxious to know precisely what sorrows had clouded the life of his betrothed in the old house before him, and yet refraining from questioning her on the alluring subject, “because he was a gentleman.”

the house itself kept its secret admirably. it had not a signature of character about it; it was as non-committal as an available candidate for the presidency; it exhibited the plain, unornamental, unpoetic reserve of a[66] yankee puritan. whether it were a stage for comedy or tragedy, whether it were a palace for happy souls or a prison for afflicted ones, it gave not even a darkling hint.

a sufficiently spacious edifice, but low of stature and with a long slope of back roof, it reminded one of a stocky and round-shouldered old farmer, like those who daily trudged by it to and from the market of hampstead, hawing and geeing their fat cattle with lean, hard voices. a front door, sheltered by a small portico, opened into a hall which led straight through the building, with a parlor and bedroom on one side, and a dining-room and kitchen on the other. in the rear was a low wing serving as wash-house, lumber-room, and wood-shed. the white clapboards and green blinds were neither freshly painted nor rusty, but just sedately weather-worn. the grounds, the long woodpiles, the barn and its adjuncts, were all in that state of decent slovenliness which prevails amid the more rustic farming population of new england. on the whole, the place looked like the abode of one who had made a fair fortune by half a century or more of laborious and economical though not enlightened agriculture.

“i must leave you now,” said foster, when the two reached the gate of the “front-yard”; “i must get back to my work in hampstead.”

“and you won’t come in for a minute?” pleaded bessie.

“you know that i would be glad to come in and stay in for ever and ever. it seems now as if life were made for nothing but talking to you. but my fellow-men no[67] doubt think differently. there are such things as lectures, and i must prepare a few of them. i really have pressing work to do.”

what he furthermore had in his mind was, “i am bound as a gentleman to do it”; but he refrained from saying that: he was conscious that he sometimes said it too much; little by little he was learning that he was bumptious, and that he ought not to be.

“and you will come to-morrow?” still urged bessie, grasping at the next best thing to to-day.

“yes, i shall walk out. this driving every day won’t answer, on a professor’s salary,” he added, swelling his chest over this grand confession of poverty. “besides, i need the exercise.”

“how good of you to walk so far merely to see me!” exclaimed the humble little beauty.

until he came again she brooded over the joys of being his betrothed, and over the future, the far greater joy of being his wife. was not this high hope in love, this confidence in the promises of marriage, out of place in bessie? she has daily before her, in the mutual sayings and doings of her grandfather and his spouse, a woful instance of the jarring way in which the chariot-wheels of wedlock may run. squire tom lauson does not get on angelically with his second wife. it is reported that she finds existence with him the greatest burden that she has ever yet borne, and that she testifies to her disgust with it in a fashion which is at times startlingly dramatic. if we arrive at the lauson house on the day following the dialogue which has been reported, we shall witness one of her most effective exhibitions.

[68]

it is raining violently; an old-fashioned blue-light puritan thunder-storm is raging over the barham hills; the blinding flashes are instantaneously followed by the deafening peals; the air is full of sublime terror and danger. but to mrs. squire lauson the tempest is so far from horrible that it is even welcome, friendly, and alluring, compared with her daily showers of conjugal misery. she has just finished one of those frequent contests with her husband, which her sickly petulance perpetually forces her to seek, and which nevertheless drive her frantic. in her wild, yet weak rage and misery, death seems a desirable refuge. out of the open front door she rushes, out into the driving rain and blinding lightning, lifts her hands passionately toward heaven, and prays for a flash to strike her dead.

after twice shrieking this horrible supplication, she dropped her arms with a gesture of sullen despair, and stalked slowly, reeking wet, into the house. in the hall, looking out upon this scene of demoniacal possession, sat bessie lauson and her maiden aunt, miss mercy lauson, while behind them, coming from an inner room, appeared the burly figure of the old squire. as mrs. lauson passed the two women, they drew a little aside with a sort of shrinking which arose partly from a desire to avoid her dripping garments, and partly from that awe with which most of us regard ungovernable passion. the squire, on the contrary, met his wife with a sarcastic twinkle of his grim gray eyes, and a scoff which had the humor discoverable in the contrast between total indifference and furious emotion.

“closed your camp-meeting early, mrs. lauson,” said[69] the old man; “can’t expect a streak of lightning for such a short service.”

a tormentor who wears a smile inflicts a double agony. mrs. lauson wrung her hands, and broke out in a cry of rage and anguish: “o lord, let it strike me! o lord, let it strike me!”

squire lauson took a chair, crossed his thick, muscular legs, glanced at his wife, glanced at the levin-seamed sky, and remarked with a chuckle, “i’m waiting to see this thing out.”

“father, i say it’s perfectly awful,” remonstrated miss mercy lauson. “mother, ain’t you ashamed of yourself?”

miss mercy was an old maid of the grave, sad, sickly new england type. she pronounced her reproof in a high, thin, passionless monotone, without a gesture or a flash of expression, without glancing at the persons whom she addressed, looking straight before her at the wall. she seemed to speak without emotion, and merely from a stony sense of duty. it was as if a message had been delivered by the mouth of an automaton.

both the squire and his wife made some response, but a prolonged crash of thunder drowned the feeble blasphemy of their voices, and the moving of their lips was like a mockery of life, as if the lips of corpses had been stirred by galvanism. then, as if impatient of hearing both man and god, mrs. lauson clasped her hands over her ears, and fled away to some inner room of the shaking old house, seeking perhaps the little pity that there is for the wretched in solitude. the squire remained seated, his gray and horny fingers drumming on the arms of the[70] chair, and his faded lips murmuring some inaudible conversation.

for the wretchedness of mrs. lauson there was partial cause in the disposition and ways of her husband. very odd was the old squire; violently combative could he be in case of provocation; and to those who resisted what he called his rightful authority he was a tyrant.

having lost the wife whom he had ruled for so many years, and having enjoyed the serene but lonely empire of widowhood for eighteen months, he felt the need of some one for some purpose,—perhaps to govern. once resolved on a fresh spouse, he set about searching for one in a clear-headed and business-like manner, as if it had been a question of getting a family horse.

the woman whom he finally received into his flinty bosom was a maiden of forty-five, who had known in her youth the uneasy joys of many flirtations, and who had marched through various successes (the triumphs of a small university town) to sit down at last in a life-long disappointment. regretting her past, dissatisfied with every present, demanding improbabilities of the future, eager still to be flattered and worshipped and obeyed, she was wofully unfitted for marriage with an old man of plain habits and retired life, who was quite as egoistic as herself and far more combative and domineering. it was soon a horrible thing to remember the young lovers who had gone long ago, but who, it seemed to her, still adored her, and to compare them with this unsympathizing master, who gave her no courtship nor tender reverence, and who spoke but to demand submission.

“in a general way,” says a devout old lady of my[71] acquaintance, “divine providence blesses second marriages.”

with no experience of my own in this line, and with not a large observation of the experience of others, i am nevertheless inclined to admit that my friend has the right of it. conceding the fact that second marriages are usually happy, one naturally asks, why is it? is it because a man knows better how to select a second wife? or because he knows better how to treat her? well disposed toward both these suppositions, i attach the most importance to the latter.

no doubt benedict chooses more thoughtfully when he chooses a second time; no doubt he is governed more by judgment than in his first courtship, and less by blind impulse; no doubt he has learned some love-making wisdom from experience. a woman who will be patient with him, a woman who will care well for his household affairs and for his children, a woman who will run steadily rather than showily in the domestic harness,—that is what he usually wants when he goes sparking at forty or fifty.

but this is not all and not even the half of the explanation. he has acquired a knowledge of what woman is, and a knowledge of what may fairly be required of her. he has learned to put himself in her place; to grant her the sympathy which her sensitive heart needs; to estimate the sufferings which arise from her variable health; in short, he has learned to be thoughtful and patient and merciful. moreover, he is apt to select some one who, like himself, has learned command of temper and moderation of expectation from the lessons of life.[72] as he knows that a glorified wife is impossible here below, so she makes no strenuous demand for an angel husband.

but squire thomas lauson had married an old maid who had not yet given up the struggle to be a girl, and who, in consequence of a long and silly bellehood, could not put up with any form of existence which was not a continual courtship. furthermore, he himself was not a persimmon; he had not gathered sweetness from the years which frosted his brow. an interestingly obdurate block of the puritan granite of new england, he was almost as self-opinionated, domineering, pugnacious, and sarcastic as he had been at fifteen. he still had overmuch of the unripe spirit which plagues little boys, scoffs at girls, stones frogs, drowns kittens, and mutters domestic defiances. if mrs. lauson was skittish and fractious, he was her full match as a wife-breaker.

in short, the squire had not chosen wisely; he was not fitted to win a woman’s heart by sympathy and justice; and thus providence had not blessed his second marriage.

we must return now to miss mercy lauson and her niece bessie. they are alone once more, for squire lauson has finished his sarcastic mutterings, and has stumped away to some other dungeon of the unhappy old house.

“you see, bessie!” said miss mercy, after a pinching of her thin lips which was like the biting of forceps,—“you see how married people can live with each other. bickerings an’ strife! bickerings an’ strife! but for all that you mean to marry henry foster.”

[73]

we must warn the reader not to expect vastness of thought or eloquence of speech from miss mercy. her narrow-shouldered, hollow-chested soul could not grasp ideas of much moment, nor handle such as she was able to grasp with any vigor or grace.

“i should like to know,” returned bessie with spirit, “if i am not likely to have my share of bickerings and strife, if i stay here and don’t get married.”

“that depends upon how far you control your temper, elizabeth.”

“and so it does in marriage, i suppose.”

miss mercy found herself involved in an argument, when she had simply intended to play the part of a preacher in his pulpit, warning and reproving without being answered. she accepted the challenge in a tone of iced pugnacity, which indicated in part a certain imperfect habit of self-control, and in part the unrestrainable peevishness of a chronic invalid.

“i don’t say folks will necessarily be unhappy in merridge,” she went on. “merridge is a divine ord’nance, an’ i’m obleeged to respect it as such. i do, i suppose, respect it more ’n some who’ve entered into it. but merridge, to obtain the divine blessing, must not be a yoking with unbelievers. there’s the trouble with father’s wife; she ain’t a professor. there, too, ’s the trouble with henry foster; he’s not one of those who’ve chosen the better part. i want you to think it all over in soberness of sperrit, elizabeth.”

“it is the only thing you know against him,” replied the girl, flushing with the anger of outraged affection.

“no, it ain’t. he’s brung home strange ways from[74] abroad. he smokes an’ drinks beer an’ plays cards; an’ his form seldom darkens the threshold of the sanctuary. elizabeth, i must be plain with you on this vital subject. i’m going to be as plain with you as your own conscience ought to be. i see it’s no use talking to you ’bout duty an’ the life to come. i must—there’s no sort of doubt about it—i must bring the things of this world to bear on you. you know i’ve made my will: i’ve left every cent of my property to you,—twenty thousand dollars! well, if you enter into merridge with that young man, i shall alter it. i ain’t going to have my money,—the money that my poor god-fearing aunt left me,—i ain’t going to have it fooled away on card-players an’ scorners. now there it is, elizabeth. there’s what my duty tells me to do, an’ what i shall do. ponder it well an’ take your choice.”

“i don’t care,” burst forth bessie, springing to her feet. “i shall tell him, and if it makes no difference to him, it will make none to me.”

here a creak in the floor caught her ear, and turning quickly she discovered henry foster. entering the house by a side door, and coming through a short lateral passage to the front hall, he had reached it in time to hear the close of the conversation and catch its entire drift. you could see in his face that he had heard thus much, for healthy, generous, kindly, and cheerful as the face usually was, it wore now a confused and pained expression.

“i beg pardon for disturbing you,” he said. “i was pelted into the house to get out of the shower, and i took the shortest cut.”

[75]

bessie’s oriental visage flushed to a splendid crimson, and a whiter ashiness stole into the sallow cheek of aunt mercy. the girl, quick and adroit as most women are in leaping out of embarrassments, rushed into a strain of light conversation. how wet professor foster was, and wouldn’t he go and dry himself? what a storm it had been, and what wonderful, dreadful thunder and lightning; and how glad she was that he had come, for it seemed as if he were some protection.

“there’s only one who can protect us,” murmured aunt mercy, “either in such seasons or any others.”

“his natural laws are our proper recourse,” respectfully replied foster, who was religious too, in his scientific fashion.

bessie cringed with alarm; here was an insinuated attack on her aunt’s favorite dogma of special providences; the subject must be pitched overboard at once.

“what is the news in hampstead?” she asked. “has the town gone to sleep, as barham has? you ought to wake us up with something amusing.”

“jennie brown is engaged,” said foster. “isn’t that satisfactory?”

“o dear! how many times does that make?” laughed bessie. “is it a student again?”

“yes, it is a student.”

“you ought to make it a college offence for students to engage themselves,” continued bessie. “you know that they can hardly ever marry, and generally break the girls’ hearts.”

“have they broken jennie brown’s? she doesn’t[76] believe it, nor her present young man either. i’ve no doubt he thinks her as good as new.”

“i dare say. but such things hurt girls in general, and you professors ought to see to it, and i want to know why you don’t. but is that all the news? that’s such a small matter! such an old sort of thing! if i had come from hampstead, i would have brought more than that.”

so bessie rattled on, partly because she loved to talk to this admirable professor, but mainly to put off the crisis which she saw was coming.

but it was vain to hope for clemency, or even for much delay, from aunt mercy. grim, unhappy, peevish as many invalids are, and impelled by a remorseless conscience, she was not to be diverted from finishing with foster the horrid bone which she had commenced to pick with bessie. you could see in her face what kind of thoughts and purposes were in her heart. she was used to quarrelling; or, to speak more strictly, she was used to entertaining hard feelings towards others; but she had never learned to express her bitter sentiments frankly. unable to destroy them, she had felt herself bound in general not to utter them, and this non-utterance had grown to be one of her despotic and distressing “duties.” nothing could break through her shyness, her reserve, her habit of silence, but an emotion which amounted to passion; and such an emotion she was not only unable to conceal, but she was also unable to exhibit it either nobly or gracefully: it shone all through her, and it made her seem spiteful.

as she was about to speak, however, a glance at bessie’s[77] anxious face checked her. after her painful, severe fashion, she really loved the girl, and she did not want to load her with any more sorrow than was strictly necessary. moreover, the surely worthy thought occurred to her that heaven might favor one last effort to convert this wrong-minded young man into one who could be safely intrusted with the welfare of her niece and the management of her money. hailing the suggestion, in accordance with her usual exaltation of faith, as an indication from the sublimest of all authority, she entered upon her task with such power as nature had given her and such sweetness as a shattered nervous system had left her.

“mr. foster, there’s one thing i greatly desire to see,” she began in a hurried, tremulous tone. “i want you to come out from among the indifferent, an’ join yourself to us. why don’t you do it? why don’t you become a professor?”

foster was even more surprised and dismayed than most men are when thus addressed. here was an appeal such as all of us must listen to with respect, not only because it represents the opinions of a vast and justly revered portion of civilized humanity, but because it concerns the highest mysteries and possibilities of which humanity is cognizant. as one who valued himself on being both a philosopher and a gentleman, he would have felt bound to treat any one courteously who thus approached him. but there was more; this appeal evidently alluded to his intentions of marriage; it was connected with the threat of disinheritance which he had overheard on entering the house. if he would promise[78] to “join the church,” if he would even only appear to take the step into favorable consideration, he could remove the objections of this earnest woman to his betrothal, and secure her property to his future wife. but foster could not do what policy demanded; he had his “honest doubts,” and he could not remove them by an exercise of will; moreover, he was too self-respectful and honorable to be a hypocrite. after pondering aunt mercy’s question for a moment, he answered with a dignity of soul which was not appreciated,—

“i should have no objection to what you propose, if it would not be misunderstood. if it would only mean that i believe in god, and that i worship his power and goodness, i would oblige you. but it would be received as meaning more,—as meaning that i accept doctrines which i am still examining,—as meaning that i take upon myself obligations which i do not yet hold binding.”

“don’t you believe in the god of abraham, isaac, and jacob?” demanded miss mercy, striking home with telling directness.

“i believe in a deity who views his whole universe with equal love. i believe in a deity greater than i always hear preached.”

miss mercy was puzzled; for while this confession of faith did not quite tally with what she was accustomed to receive from pulpits, there was about it a largeness of religious perception which slightly excited her awe. nevertheless, it showed a dangerous vagueness, and she decided to demand something more explicit.

“what are your opinions on the inspiration of the scriptures?” she asked.

[79]

he had been reading colenso’s work on genesis; and, so far as he could judge the bishop’s premises, he agreed with his conclusions. at the same time he was aware that such an exegesis would seem simple heresy to miss mercy, and that whoever held it would be condemned by her as a heathen and an infidel. after a moment of hesitation, he responded bravely and honestly, though with a placating smile.

“miss lauson, there are some subjects, indeed there are many subjects, on which i have no fixed opinions. i used to have opinions on almost everything; but i found them very troublesome, i had to change them so often! i have decided not to declare any more positive opinions, but only to entertain suppositions to the effect that this or that may be the case; meantime holding myself ready to change my hypotheses on further evidence.”

although he seemed to her guilty of shuffling away from her question, yet she, in the main, comprehended his reply distinctly enough. he did not believe in plenary inspiration; that was clear, and so also was her duty clear; she must not let him have her niece nor her money.

now there was a something in her face like the forming of columns for an assault, or rather like the irrational, ungovernable gathering of clouds for a storm. her staid, melancholy soul—a soul which usually lay in chains and solitary—climbed writhing to her lips and eyes, and made angry gestures before it spoke. bessie stared at her in alarm; she tried, in a spirit of youthful energy, to look her down; but the struggle of prevention was useless; the hostile words came.

[80]

“mr. foster, i can’t willingly give my niece to such an one as you,” she said in a tremulous but desperate monotone. “i s’pose, though, it’s no use forbidding you to go with her. i s’pose you wouldn’t mind that. but i expect you will care for one thing,—for her good. my will is made now in her favor. but if she marries you i shall change it. i sha’n’t leave her a cent.”

here her sickly strength broke down; such plain utterance of feeling and purpose was too much for her nerves; she burst into honest, bitter tears, and, rushing to her room, locked herself up; no doubt, too, she prayed there long, and read solemnly in the scriptures.

what was the result of this conscientious but no doubt unwise remonstrance? after a shock of disagreeable surprise, the two lovers did what all true lovers would have done; they entered into a solemn engagement that no considerations of fortune should prevent their marriage. they shut their eyes on the future, braved all the adverse chances of life, and almost prayed for trials in order that each might show the other greater devotion. the feeling was natural and ungovernable, and i claim also that it was beautiful and noble.

“do you know all?” asked bessie. “grandfather has never proposed to leave me anything, he hated my father so! it was always understood that aunt mercy was to take care of me.”

“i want nothing with you,” said foster. “i will slave myself to death for you. i will rejoice to do it.”

“o, i knew it would be so!” replied the girl, almost faint with joy and love. “i knew you would be true to me. i knew how grand you were.”

[81]

when they looked out upon the earth, after this scene, during which they had been conscious of nothing but each other, the storm had fled beyond verdant hills, and a rainbow spanned all the visible landscape, seeming to them indeed a bow of promise.

“o, we can surely be happy in such a world as this!” said bessie, her face colored and illuminated by youth, hope, and love.

“we will find a cloud castle somewhere,” responded the young man, pointing to the western sky, piled with purple and crimson.

bessie was about to accompany him to the gate on his departure, as was her simple and affectionate custom, when a voice called her up stairs.

“o dear!” she exclaimed, pettishly. “it seems as if i couldn’t have a moment’s peace. good by, my darling.”

during the close of that day, at the hour which in barham was known as “early candle-lighting,” the lauson tragedy began to take form. the mysterious shadow which vaguely announced its on-coming was the disappearance from the family ken of that lighthouse of regularity, that fast-rooted monument of strict habit, aunt mercy. the kerosene lamp which had so long beamed upon her darnings and mendings, or upon her more ?sthetic labors in behalf of the barham sewing society, or upon the open yellow pages of her scott’s commentary and baxter’s saints’ rest, now flared distractedly about the sitting-room, as if in amazement at her absence. nowhere was seen her tall, thin, hard form, the truthful outward expression of her lean and sickly soul; nowhere[82] was heard the afflicted squeak of her broad calfskin shoes, symbolical of the worryings of her fretful conscience. the doors which she habitually shut to keep out the night-draughts remained free to swing, and, if they could find an aiding hand or breeze, to bang, in celebration of their independence. the dog might wag his tail in wonder through the parlor, and the cat might profane the sofa with his stretchings and slumbers.

at first the absence of aunt mercy merely excited such pleasant considerations as these. the fact was accepted as a relief from burdens; it tended towards liberty and jocoseness of spirit. the honest and well-meaning and devout woman had been the censor of the family, and, next after the iron-headed squire, its dictator. bessie might dance alone about the sober rooms, and play operatic airs and waltzes upon her much-neglected piano, without being called upon to assume sackcloth and ashes for her levity. the cheerful life which seemed to enter the house because aunt mercy had left it was a severe commentary on the sombre and unlovely character which her diseased sense of duty had driven her to give to her unquestionably sincere religious sentiment. it hinted that if she should be taken altogether away from the family, her loss would awaken little mourning, and would soon be forgotten.

presently, however, this persistent absence of one whose very nature it was to be present excited surprise, and eventually a mysterious uneasiness. search was made about the house; no one was discovered up stairs but mrs. lauson, brooding alone; then a neighbor or two was visited by bessie; still no aunt mercy. the[83] solemn truth was, although no sanguinary sign as yet revealed it, that the lauson tragedy had an hour since been consummated.

the search for the missing aunt mercy continued until it aroused the interest and temper of squire lauson. determined to find his daughter once that he had set about it, and petulant at the failure of one line of investigation after another, the hard old gentleman stumped noisily about the house, his thick shoes squeaking down the passages like two bands of music, and his peeled hickory cane punching open doors and upsetting furniture. when he returned to the sitting-room from one of these boisterous expeditions, he found his wife sitting in the light of the kerosene lamp, and sewing with an impatient, an almost spiteful rapidity, as was her custom when her nerves were unbearably irritated.

“where’s mercy?” he trumpeted. “where is the old gal? has anybody eloped with her? i saw deacon jones about this afternoon.”

this jest was meant to amuse and perhaps to conciliate mrs. lauson, for whom he sometimes seemed to have a rough pity, as hard to bear as downright hostility. he had now and then a way of joking with her and forcing her to smile by looking her steadily in the eye. but this time his moral despotism failed; she answered his gaze with a defiant glare, and remained sullen; after another moment she rushed out of the room, as if craving relief from his domineering presence.

apparently the squire would have called her back, had not his attention been diverted by the entry of his granddaughter.

[84]

“i say, bessie, have you looked in the garden?” he demanded. “why the devil haven’t you? don’t you know mercy’s hole where she meditates? go there and hunt for her.”

as the girl disappeared he turned to the door through which his wife had fled, as if he still had a savage mind to roar for her reappearance. but after pondering a moment, and deciding that he was more comfortable in solitude, he sat slowly down in his usual elbow-chair, and broke out in a growling soliloquy:—

“there’s no comfort like making one’s self miserable. it’s a —— sight better than making the best of it. we’re all having a devilish fine time. we’re as happy as bugs in a rug. hey diddle diddle, the cat’s in the fiddle—”

the continuity of his rough-laid stone-wall sarcasm was interrupted by bessie, who rushed into the sitting-room with a low shriek and a pallid face.

“what’s the matter now?” he demanded. “has the cow jumped over the moon?”

“o grandfather!” she gasped, “i’ve found aunt mercy. i’m afraid she’s dead.”

“hey!” exclaimed the squire, starting up eagerly as he remembered that aunt mercy was his own child. “you don’t say so! where is she?”

bessie turned and reeled out of the house; the old man thumped after her on his cane. at the bottom of the garden was a small, neglected arbor, thickly overgrown with grape-vines in unpruned leaf, whither aunt mercy was accustomed to repair in her seasons of unusual perplexity or gloom, there to seek guidance or relief[85] in meditation and prayer. in this arbor they found her, seated crouchingly on a bench near the doorway, her arms stretched over a little table in front of her, and her head lying between them with the face turned from the gazers. the moon glared in a ghastly way upon her ominously white hands, and disclosed a dark yet gleaming stain, seemingly a drying pool, which spread out from beneath her forehead.

“good lord!” groaned squire lauson. “mercy! i say, mercy!”

he seized her hand, but he had scarcely touched it ere he dropped it, for it was the icy, repulsive, alarming hand of a corpse. we must compress our description of this scene of horrible discovery. miss mercy lauson was dead, the victim of a brutal assassination, her right temple opened by a gash two inches deep, her blood already clotted in pools or dried upon her face and fingers. it must have been an hour, or perhaps two hours, since the blow had been dealt. at her feet was the fatal weapon,—an old hatchet which had long lain about the garden, and which offered no suggestion as to who was the murderer.

when it first became clear to squire lauson that his daughter was dead, and had been murdered, he uttered a sound between a gasp and a sob; but almost immediately afterward he spoke in his habitually vigorous and rasping voice, and his words showed that he had not lost his iron self-possession.

“bessie, run into the house,” he said. “call the hired men, and bring a lantern with you.”

when she returned he took the lantern, threw the[86] gleam of it over his dead daughter’s face, groaned, shook his head, and then, leaning on his cane, commenced examining the earth, evidently in search of footmarks.

“there’s your print, bessie,” he mumbled. “and there’s my print. but whose print’s that? that’s the man. that’s a long slim foot, with nails across the ball. that’s the man. don’t disturb those tracks. i’ll set the lantern down there. don’t you disturb ’em.”

there were several of these strange tracks; the clayey soil of the walk, slightly tempered with sand, had preserved them with fatal distinctness; it showed them advancing to the arbor and halting close by the murdered woman. as bessie stared at them, it seemed to her that they were fearfully familiar, though where she had seen them before she could not say.

“keep away from those tracks,” repeated squire lauson as the two laborers who lived with him came down the garden. “now, then, what are you staring at? she’s dead. take her up—o, for god’s sake, be gentle about it!—take her up, i tell you. there! now, carry her along.”

as the men moved on with the body he turned to bessie and said: “leave the lantern just there. and don’t you touch those tracks. go on into the house.”

with his own hands he aided to lay out his daughter on a table, and drew her cap from her temples so as to expose the bloody gash to view. there was a little natural agony in the tremulousness of his stubbly and grizzly chin; but in the glitter of his gray eyes there was an expression which was not so much sorrow as revenge.

“that’s a pretty job,” he said at last, glaring at the[87] mangled gray head. “i should like to l’arn who did it.”

it was not known till the day following how he passed the next half-hour. it seems that, some little time previous, this man of over ninety years had conceived the idea of repairing with his own hands the cracked wall of his parlor, and had for that purpose bought a quantity of plaster of paris and commenced a series of patient experiments in mixing and applying it. furnished with a basin of his prepared material, he stalked out to the arbor and busied himself with taking a mould of the strange footstep to which he had called bessie’s attention, succeeding in his labor so well as to be able to show next day an exact counterpart of the sole which had made the track.

shortly after he had left the house, and glancing cautiously about as if to make sure that he had indeed left it, his wife entered the room where lay the dead body. she came slowly up to the table, and looked at the ghastly face for some moments in silence, with precisely that staid, slightly shuddering air which one often sees at funerals, and without any sign of the excitement which one naturally expects in the witnesses of a mortal tragedy. in any ordinary person, in any one who was not, like her, denaturalized by the egotism of shattered nerves, such mere wonder and repugnance would have appeared incomprehensively brutal. but mrs. lauson had a character of her own; she could be different from others without exciting prolonged or specially severe comment; people said to themselves, “just like her,” and made no further criticism, and almost certainly no remonstrance. bessie herself, the moment she had exclaimed, “o grandmother![88] what shall we do?” felt how absurd it was to address such an appeal to such a person.

mrs. lauson replied by a glance which expressed weakness, alarm, and aversion, and which demanded, as plainly as words could say it, “how can you ask me?” then without uttering a syllable, without attempting to render any service or funereal courtesy, bearing herself like one who had been mysteriously absolved from the duties of sympathy and decorum, she turned her back on the body of her step-daughter with a start of disgust, and walked hastily from the room.

of course there was a gathering of the neighbors, a hasty and useless search after the murderer, a medical examination of the victim, and a legal inquest at the earliest practicable moment, the verdict being “death by the hand of some person unknown.” even the funeral passed, with its mighty crowd and its solemn excitement; and still public suspicion had not dared to single out any one as the criminal. it seemed for a day or two as if the family life might shortly settle into its old tenor, the same narrow routine of quiet discontent or irrational bickerings, with no change but the loss of such inflammation as formerly arose from aunt mercy’s well-meant, but irritating sense of duty. the squire, however, was permanently and greatly changed: not that he had lost the spirit of petty dictation which led him to interfere in every household act, even to the boiling of the pot, but he had acquired a new object in life, and one which seemed to restore all his youthful energy; he was more restlessly and distressingly vital than he had been for years. no indian was ever more intent on avenging a[89] debt of blood than was he on hunting down the murderer of his daughter. this terrible old man has a strong attraction for us: we feel that we have not thus far done him justice: he imperiously demands further description.

squire lauson was at this time ninety-three years of age. the fact appeared incredible, because he had preserved, almost unimpaired, not only his moral energy and intellectual faculties, but also his physical senses, and even to an extraordinary degree his muscular strength. his long and carelessly worn hair was not white, but merely gray; and his only baldness was a shining hand’s-breadth, prolonging the height of his forehead. his face was deeply wrinkled, but more apparently with thought and passion than from decay, for the flesh was still well under control of the muscles, and the expression was so vigorous that one was tempted to call it robust. there was nothing of that insipid and almost babyish tranquillity which is commonly observable in the countenances of the extremely aged. the cheekbones were heavy, though the healthy fulness of the cheeks prevented them from being pointed; the jaws, not yet attenuated by the loss of many teeth, were unusually prominent and muscular; the heavy roman nose still stood high above the projecting chin. in general, it was a long, large face, grimly and ruggedly massive, of a uniform grayish color, and reminding you of a visage carved in granite.

in figure the squire was of medium height, with a deep chest and heavy limbs. he did not stand quite upright, but the stoop was in his shoulders and not in his loins, and arose from a slouching habit of carrying himself[90] much more than from weakness. he walked with a cane, but his step, though rather short, was strong and rapid, and he could get over the ground at the rate of three miles an hour. at times he seemed a little deaf, but it was mainly from absorption of mind and inattention, and he could hear perfectly when he was interested. the great gray eyes under his bushy, pepper-and-salt eyebrows were still so sound that he only used spectacles in reading. as for voice, there was hardly such another in the neighborhood; it was a strong, rasping, dictatorial caw, like the utterance of a gigantic crow; it might have served the needs of a sea-captain in a tempest. a jocose neighbor related that he had in a dream descended into hell, and that in trying to find his way out he had lost his reckoning, until, hearing a tremendous volley of oaths on the surface of the earth over his head, he knew that he was under the hills of barham, and that squire lauson was swearing at his oxen.

squire lauson was immense; you might travel over him for a week without discovering half his wonders; he was a continent, and he must remain for the most part an unknown continent. bringing to a close our explorations into his character and past life, we will follow him up simply as one of the personages of this tragedy. he was at the present time very active, but also to a certain extent inexplicable. it was known that he had interviews with various officials of justice, that he furnished them with his plaster cast of the strange footprint which had been found in the garden, and that he earnestly impressed upon them the value of this object for the purpose of tracking out the murderer. but he had other[91] lines of investigation in his steady old hands, as was discoverable later.

his manner towards his granddaughter and his wife changed noticeably. instead of treating the first with neglect, and the second with persistent hostility or derision, he became assiduously attentive to them, addressed them frequently in conversation, and sought to win their confidence. with bessie this task was easy, for she was one of those natural, unspoiled women, who long for sympathy, and she inclined toward her grandfather the moment she saw any kindness in his eyes. they had long talks about the murdered relative, about every event or suspicion which seemed to relate to her death, about the property which she had left to bessie, and about the girl’s prospects in life.

not so with mrs. lauson. even the horror which had entered the family life could not open the hard crust which disease and disappointment had formed over her nature, and she met the old man’s attempts to make her communicative with her usual sulky or pettish reticence. there never was such an unreasonable creature as this wretched wife, who, while she remained unmarried, had striven so hard to be agreeable to the other sex. it was not with her husband alone that she fought, but with every one, whether man or woman, who came near her. whoever entered the house, whether it were some gossiping neighbor or the clergyman or the doctor, she flew out of it on discovering their approach, and wandered alone about the fields until they departed. this absence she would perhaps employ in eating green fruit, hoping, as she said, to make herself sick and die, or, at least, to[92] make herself sick enough to plague her husband. at meals she generally sat in glum silence, although once or twice she burst out in violent tirades, scoffing at the squire’s management of the place, defying him to strike her, etc.

her appearance at this time was miserable and little less than disgusting. her skin was thick and yellow; her eyes were bloodshot and watery; her nose was reddened with frequent crying; her form was of an almost skeleton thinness; her manner was full of strange starts and gaspings. it was curious to note the contrast between her perfect wretchedness of aspect and the unfeeling coolness with which the squire watched and studied her.

in this woful way was the lauson family getting on when the country around was electrified by an event which almost threw the murder itself into the shade. henry foster, the accepted lover of bessie barron, a professor in the scientific college of hampstead, was suddenly arrested as the assassin of miss mercy lauson.

“what does this mean!” was his perfectly natural exclamation, when seized by the officers of justice; but it was uttered with a sudden pallor which awakened in the bystanders a strong suspicion of his guilt. no definite answer was made to his question until he was closeted with the lawyer whom he immediately retained in his defence.

“i should like to get at the whole of your case, mr. foster,” said the legal gentleman. “i must beg you, for your own sake, to be entirely frank with me.”

“i assure you that i know nothing about the murder,”[93] was the firm reply. “i don’t so much as understand why i should be suspected of the horrible business.”

the lawyer, mr. adams patterson, after studying foster in a furtive way, as if doubtful whether there had been perfect honesty in his assertion of innocence, went on to state what he supposed would be the case of the prosecution.

“the evidence against you,” he said, “so far at least as i can now discover, will all be circumstantial. they will endeavor to prove your presence at the scene of the tragedy by your tracks. footmarks, said to correspond to yours, were found passing the door of the arbor, returning to it and going away from it.”

“ah!” exclaimed foster. “i remember,—i did pass there. i will tell you how. it was in the afternoon. i was in the house during a thunder-storm which happened that day, and left it shortly after the shower ended. i went out through the garden because that was the nearest way to the rivulet at the bottom of the hill, and i wished to make some examinations into the structure of the water-bed. a part of the garden walk is gravelled, and on that i suppose my tracks did not show. but near the arbor the gravel ceases, and there i remember stepping into the damp mould. i did pass the arbor, and i did return to it. i returned to it because it had been a heavenly place to me. it was there that i proposed to miss barron, and that she accepted me. the moment that i had passed it i reproached myself for doing so. i went back, looked at the little spot for a moment, and left a kiss on the table. it was on that table that her hand had rested when i first dared to take it in mine.”

[94]

his voice broke for an instant with an emotion which every one who has ever loved can at least partially understand.

“good heavens! to think that such an impulse should entangle me in such a charge!” he added, when he could speak again.

“well,” he resumed, after a long sigh, “i left the arbor,—my heart as innocent and happy as any heart in the world,—i climbed over the fence and went down the hill. that is the last time that i was in those grounds that day. that is the whole truth, so help me god!”

the lawyer seemed touched. even then, however, he was saying to himself, “they always keep back something, if not everything.” after meditating for a few seconds, he resumed his interrogatory.

“did any one see you? did miss barron see you, as you passed through the garden?”

“i think not. some one called her just as i left her, and she went, i believe, up stairs.”

“did you see the person who called? did you see any one?”

“no one. but the voice was a woman’s voice. i took it to be that of a servant.”

mr. patterson fell into a thoughtful silence, his arms resting on the elbows of his chair, and his anxious eyes wandering over the floor.

“but what motive?” broke out foster, addressing the lawyer as if he were an accuser and an enemy,—“what sufficient motive had i for such a hideous crime?”

“ah! that is just it. the motive! they will make a great deal of that. why, you must be able to guess[95] what is alleged. miss lauson had made a will in her niece’s favor, but had threatened to disinherit her if she married you. this fact,—as has been made known by an incautious admission of miss bessie barron,—this fact you were aware of. the death came just in time to prevent a change in the will. don’t you see the obvious inference of the prosecution?”

“good heavens!” exclaimed foster, springing up and pacing his cell. “i murder a woman,—murder my wife’s aunt,—for money,—for twenty thousand dollars! am i held so low as that? why, it is a sum that any clever man can earn in this country in a few years. we could have done without it. i would not have asked for it, much less murdered for it. tell me, mr. patterson, do you suppose me capable of such degrading as well as such horrible guilt?”

“mr. foster,” replied the lawyer, with impressive deliberation, “i shall go into this case with a confidence that you are absolutely innocent.”

“thank you,” murmured the young man, grasping patterson’s hand violently, and then turning away to wipe a tear, which had been too quick for him.

“excuse my weakness,” he said, presently. “but i don’t believe any worthy man is strong enough to bear the insult that the world has put upon me, without showing his suffering.”

certainly, foster’s bearing and the sentiments which he expressed had the nobility and pathos of injured innocence. were it not that innocence can be counterfeited, as also that a fine demeanor and touching utterance are not points in law, no alarming doubt would seem to[96] overshadow the result of the trial. and yet, strange as it must seem to those whom my narrative may have impressed in favor of foster, the sedate, puritanic population of barham and its vicinity inclined more and more toward the presumption of his guilt.

for this there were two reasons. in the first place, who but he had any cause of spite against mercy lauson, or could hope to draw any profit from her death? there had been no robbery; there was not a sign that the victim’s clothing had been searched; the murder had clearly not been the work of a burglar or a thief. but foster, if he indeed assassinated this woman, had thereby removed an obstacle to his marriage, and had secured to his future wife a considerable fortune.

in the second place, foster was such a man as the narrowly scrupulous and orthodox world of barham would naturally regard with suspicion. graduate of a german university, he had brought back to america, not only a superb scientific education, but also what passed, in the region where he had settled, for a laxity of morals. professor as he was in the austere college of hampstead, and expected, therefore, to set a luminously correct example in both theoretical and practical ethics, he held theological opinions which were too modern to be considered sound, and he even neglected church to an extent which his position rendered scandalous. in spite of the strict prohibitory law of massachusetts, he made use of lager-beer and other still stronger fluids; and, although he was never known to drink to excess, the mere fact of breaking the statute was a sufficient offence to rouse prejudice. it was also reported of him, to the honest horror of many serious[97] minds, that he had been detected in geologizing on sunday, and that he was fond of whist.

how apt we are to infer that a man who violates our code of morals will also violate his own code! of course this germanized american could not believe that murder was right; but then he played cards and drank beer, which we of barham knew to be wrong; and if he would do one wrong thing, why not another?

meantime how was it with bessie? how is it always with women when those whom they love are charged with unworthiness? do they exhibit the “judicial mind”? do they cautiously weigh the evidence and decide according to it? the girl did not entertain the faintest supposition that her lover could be guilty; she was no more capable of blackening his character than she was capable of taking his life. she would not speak to people who showed by word or look that they doubted his innocence. she raged at a world which could be so stupid, so unjust, and so wicked as to slander the good fame and threaten the life of one whom her heart had crowned with more than human perfections.

but what availed all her confidence in his purity? there was the finger of public suspicion pointed at him, and there was the hangman lying in wait for his precious life. she was almost mad with shame, indignation, grief, and terror. she rose as pale as a ghost from sleepless nights, during which she had striven in vain to unravel this terrible mystery, and prayed in vain that heaven would revoke this unbearable calamity. day by day she visited her betrothed in his cell, and cheered him with the sympathy of her trusting and loving soul.[98] the conversations which took place on these occasions were so na?ve and childlike in their honest utterance of emotion that i almost dread to record them, lest the deliberate, unpalpitating sense of criticism should pronounce them sickening, and mark them for ridicule.

“darling,” she once said to him, “we must be married. whether you are to live or to die, i must be your wife.”

he knelt down and kissed the hem of her dress in adoration of such self-sacrifice.

“ah, my love, i never before knew what you were,” he whispered, as she leaned forward, caught his head in her hands, dragged it into her lap, and covered it with kisses and tears. “ah, my love, you are too good. i cannot accept such a sacrifice. when i am cleared publicly of this horrible charge, then i will ask you once more if you dare be my wife.”

“dare! o, how can you say such things!” she sobbed. “don’t you know that you are more to me than the whole universe? don’t you know that i would marry you, even if i knew you were guilty?”

there is no reasoning with this sublime passion of love, when it is truly itself. there is no reasoning with it; and heaven be thanked that it is so! it is well to have one impulse in the world which has no egoism, which rejoices in self-immolation for the sake of its object, which is among emotions what a martyr is among men.

foster’s response was worthy of the girl’s declaration. “my love,” he whispered, “i have been bemoaning my ruined life, but i must bemoan it no more. it is success enough for any man to be loved by you, and as you love me.”

[99]

“no, no!” protested bessie. “it is not success enough for you. no success is enough for you. you deserve everything that ever man did deserve. and here you are insulted, trampled upon, and threatened. o, it is shameful and horrible!”

“my child, you must not help to break me down,” implored foster, feeling that he was turning weak under the thought of his calamity.

she started towards him in a spasm of remorse; it was as if she had suddenly become aware that she had stabbed him; her face and her attitude were full of self-reproach.

“o my darling, do i make you more wretched?” she asked, “when i would die for you! when you are my all! o, there is not a minute when i am worthy of you!”

these interviews left foster possessed of a few minutes of consolation and peace, which would soon change into an increased poverty of despair and rage. for the first few days of his imprisonment his prevalent feeling was anger. he could not in the least accept his position; he would not look upon himself as one who was suspected with justice, or even with the slightest show of probability; he would not admit that society was pardonable for its doubts of him. he was not satisfied with mere hope of escape; on the contrary, he considered his accusers shamefully and wickedly blameworthy; he was angry at them, and wanted to wreak upon them a stern vengeance.

as the imprisonment dragged on, however, and his mind lost its tension under the pressure of trouble, there came moments when he did not quite know himself.[100] it seemed to him that this man, who was charged with murder, was some one else, for whose character he could not stand security, and who might be guilty. he almost looked upon him with suspicion; he half joined the public in condemning him unheard. perhaps this mental confusion was the foreshadowing of that insane state of mind in which prisoners have confessed themselves guilty of murders which they had not committed, and which have been eventually brought home to others. there are twilights between reason and unreason. the descent from the one condition to the other is oftener a slope than a precipice.

meanwhile bessie had, as a matter of course, plans for saving her lover; and these plans, almost as a matter of course too, were mainly impracticable. as with all young people and almost all women, she rebelled against the fixed procedures of society when they seemed likely to trample on the dictates of her affections. now that it was her lover who was under suspicion of murder, it did not seem a necessity to her that the law should take its course, and, on the contrary, it seemed to her an atrocity. she knew that he was guiltless; she knew that he was suffering; why should he be tried? when told that he must have every legal advantage, she assented to it eagerly, and drove at once to see mr. patterson, and overwhelmed him with tearful implorations “to do everything,—to do everything that could be done,—yes, in short, to do everything.” but still she could not feel that anything ought to be done, except to release at once this beautiful and blameless victim, and to make him every conceivable apology. as for bringing[101] him before a court, to answer with his life whether he were innocent or guilty, it was an injustice and an outrage which she rebelled against with all the energy of her ardent nature.

who could prevent this infamy? in her ignorance of the machinery of justice, it seemed to her that her grandfather might. notwithstanding the little sympathy that there had been between them, she went to the grim old man with her sorrows and her plans, proposing to him to arrest the trial. in her love and her simplicity she would have appealed to a mountain or to a tiger.

“what!” roared the squire. “stop the trial? can’t do it. i’m not the prosecutor. the state’s attorney is the prosecutor.”

“but can’t you say that you think the proof against him is insufficient?” urged bessie. “can’t you go to them and say that? won’t that do it?”

“lord bless you!” replied squire lauson, staring in wonder at such ignorance, and dimly conscious of the love and sorrow which made it utter its simplicities.

“o grandfather! do have pity on him and on me!” pleaded bessie.

he gave her a kinder glance than she had ever received from him before in her life. it occurred to him, as if it were for the first time, that she was very sweet and helpless, and that she was his own grandchild. he had hated her father. o, how he had hated the conceited city upstart, with his pert, positive ways! how he had rejoiced over his bankruptcy, if not over his death! the girl he had taken to his home, because, after all, she was a lauson by blood, and it would be a family shame[102] to let her go begging her bread of strangers. but she had not won upon him; she looked too much like that “damn jackanapes,” her father; moreover, she had contemptible city accomplishments, and she moped in the seclusion of barham. he had been glad when she became engaged to that other “damn jackanapes,” foster; and it had been agreeable to think that her marriage would take her out of his sight. mercy had made a will in her favor; he had sniffed and hooted at mercy for her folly; but, after all, he had in his heart consented to the will; it saved him from leaving any of his money to a barron.

of late, however, there had been a softening in the squire; he could himself hardly believe that it was in his heart; he half suspected at times that it was in his brain. a man who lives to ninety-three is exposed to this danger, that he may survive all his children. the squire had walked to one grave after another, until he had buried his last son and his last daughter. after mercy lauson, there were no more children for him to see under ground; and that fact, coupled with the shocking nature of her death, had strangely shaken him; it had produced that singular softening which we have mentioned, and which seemed to him like a malady. now, a little shattered, no longer the man that he so long had been, he was face to face with his only living descendant.

he reached out his gray, hard hand, and laid it on her glossy, curly hair. she started with surprise at the unaccustomed touch, and looked up in his face with a tearful sparkle of hope.

[103]

“be quiet, bessie,” he said, in a voice which was less like a caw than usual.

“o grandfather! what do you mean?” she sobbed, guessing that deliverance might be nigh, and yet fearing to fall back into despair.

“don’t cry,” was the only response of this close-mouthed, imperturbable old man.

“o, was it any one else?” she demanded. “who do you think did it?”

“i have an idea,” he admitted, after staring at her steadily, as if to impress caution. “but keep quiet. we’ll see.”

“you know it couldn’t be he that did it,” urged bessie. “don’t you know it couldn’t? he’s too good.”

the squire laughed. “why, some folks laid it to you,” he said. “if he should be cleared, they might lay it to you again. there’s no telling who’ll do such things, and there’s no telling who’ll be suspected.”

“and you will do something?” she resumed. “you will follow it up? you will save him?”

“keep quiet,” grimly answered the squire. “i’m watching. but keep quiet. not a word to a living soul.”

close on this scene came another, which proved to be the unravelling of the drama. that evening bessie went early, as usual, to her solitary room, and prepared for one of those nights which are not a rest to the weary. she had become very religious since her trouble had come upon her; she read several chapters in the bible, and then she prayed long and fervently; and, after a sob or two over her own shortcomings, the prayer was all for[104] foster. such is human devotion: the voice of distress is far more fervent than the voice of worship; the weak and sorrowful are the true suppliants.

her prayer ended, if ever it could be said to end while she waked, she strove anew to disentangle the mystery which threatened her lover, meanwhile hearing, half unawares, the noises of the night. darkness has its speech, its still small whisperings and mutterings, a language which cannot be heard during the clamor of day, but which to those who must listen to it is painfully audible, and which rarely has pleasant things to say, but threatens rather, or warns. for a long time, disturbed by fingers that tapped at her window, by hands that stole along her wall, by feet that glided through the dark halls, bessie could not sleep. she lost herself; then she came back to consciousness with the start of a swimmer struggling toward the surface; then she recommenced praying for foster, and once more lost herself.

at last, half dozing, and yet half aware that she was weeping, she was suddenly and sharply roused by a distinct creak in the floor of her room. bessie had in one respect inherited somewhat of her grandfather’s iron nature, being so far from habitually timorous that she was noted among her girlish acquaintance for courage. but her nerves had been seriously shaken by the late tragedy, by anxiety, and by sleeplessness; it seemed to her that there was in the air a warning of great danger; she was half paralyzed by fright.

struggling against her terror, she sprang out of bed and made a rush toward her door, meaning to close and lock it. instantly there was a collision; she had thrown[105] herself against some advancing form; in the next breath she was engaged in a struggle. half out of her senses, she did not scream, did not query whether her assailant were man or woman, did not indeed use her intelligence in any distinct fashion, but only pushed and pulled in blind instinct of escape.

once she had a sensation of being cut with some sharp instrument. then she struck; the blow told, and her antagonist fell heavily; the fall was succeeded by a short shriek in a woman’s voice. bessie did not stop to wonder that any one engaged in an attempt at assassination should utter an outcry which would almost necessarily insure discovery and seizure. the shock of the sound seemed to restore her own powers of speech, and she burst into a succession of loud screams, calling on her grandfather for help.

in the same moment the hope which abides in light fell under her hand. reeling against her dressing-table, her fingers touched a box of waxen matches, and she quickly drew one of them against the wood, sending a faint glimmer through the chamber. she was not horror-stricken, she did not grasp a comprehension of the true nature of the scene; she simply stared in trembling wonder when she recognized mrs. lauson.

“you there, grandmother!” gasped bessie. “what has happened?”

mrs. lauson, attired in an old morning-gown, was sitting on the floor, partially supported by one hand, while the other was moving about as if in search of some object. the object was a carving-knife; she saw it, clutched it, and rose to her feet; then for the first time[106] she looked at bessie. “what do you lie awake and pray for?” she demanded, in a furious mutter. “you lie awake and pray every night. i’ve listened in the hall time and again, and heard you. i won’t have it. i’ll give you just three minutes to get to sleep.”

bessie did not think; it did not occur to her, at least not in any clear manner, that this was lunacy; she instinctively sprang behind a large chair and uttered another scream.

“i say, will you go to sleep?” insisted mrs. lauson, advancing and raising her knife.

just in the moment of need there were steps in the hall; the still vigorous and courageous old squire appeared upon the scene; after a violent struggle the maniac was disarmed and bound. she lay upon bessie’s bed, staring at her husband with bloodshot, watery eyes, and seemingly unconscious of anything but a sense of ill-treatment. the girl, meanwhile, had discovered a slight gash on her left arm, and had shown it to the squire.

“sallie,” demanded the cold-blooded old man, “what have you been trying to knife bessie for?”

“because she lay awake and prayed,” was the ready and firm response of downright mania.

“look here, sallie, what did you kill mercy for?” continued the squire, without changing a muscle of his countenance.

“because she sat up and prayed,” responded mrs. lauson. “she sat up in the garden and prayed against me. ever so many people sit up and lie awake to pray against me. i won’t have it.”

[107]

“ah!” said the old man. “do you hear that, bessie? remember it, so as to say it upon your oath.”

after a second or two he added, with something like a twinkle of his characteristic humor in his hard gray eyes, “so i saved my life by not praying!”

thus ended the extraordinary scene which brought to light the murderer of miss mercy lauson. it is almost needless to add that on the day following the maniac was conveyed to the state lunatic asylum, and that shortly afterward bessie opened the prison gates of henry foster, and told him of his absolution from charge of crime.

“and now i want the whole world to get on its knees and ask your pardon,” she said, after a long scene of tenderer words than must be reported.

“if the world should ask pardon for all its blunders,” he said, with a smile, “it would pass its whole time in penance, and wouldn’t make its living. human life is like science, a sequence of mistakes, with generally a true direction.”

one must stick to one’s character. a philosopher is nothing if not philosophical.