“I don't remember. Some paper, I rather think. It 's
one of those good things that get about without anybody's
knowing who says 'em. Sounds like Coleridge.”

“That 's what I call a compliment worth having,” said
Byles Gridley to himself, when he got home. “Let me
look at that passage.”

He took down “Thoughts on the Universe,” and got
so much interested, reading on page after page, that he
did not hear the little tea-bell, and Susan Posey volunteered
to run up to his study and call him down to tea.

p607-067 CHAPTER V. THE TWINS.

[figure description] Page 050.[end figure description]

MISS SUSAN POSEY knocked timidly at his door,
and informed him that tea was waiting. He rather
liked Susan Posey. She was a pretty creature, slight,
blonde, a little too light, a village beauty of the second or
third grade, effective at picnics and by moonlight, — the kind
of girl that very young men are apt to remember as their
first love. She had a taste for poetry, and an admiration
of poets; but, what was better, she was modest and simple,
and a perfect sister and mother and grandmother to the
two little forlorn twins who had been stranded on the
Widow Hopkins's door-step.

These little twins, a boy and girl, were now between
two and three years old. A few words will make us acquainted
with them. Nothing had ever been known of
their origin. The sharp eyes of all the spinsters had been
through every household in the village and neighborhood,
and not a suspicion fixed itself on any one. It was
a dark night when they were left; and it was probable
that they had been brought from another town, as the
sound of wheels had been heard close to the door where
they were found, had stopped for a moment, then been
heard again, and lost in the distance.

How the good woman of the house took them in and
kept them has been briefly mentioned. At first nobody
thought they would live a day, such little absurd attempts
at humanity did they seem. But the young doctor came,

[figure description] Page 051.[end figure description]

and the old doctor came, and the infants were laid in cotton-wool,
and the room heated up to keep them warm,
and baby-teaspoonfuls of milk given them, and after being
kept alive in this way, like the young of opossums and
kangaroos, they came to a conclusion about which they
did not seem to have made up their thinking-pulps for
some weeks, namely, to go on trying to cross the sea of
life by tugging at the four-and-twenty oars which must be
pulled day and night until the unknown shore is reached,
and the oars lie at rest under the folded hands.

As it was not very likely that the parents who left their
offspring round on door-steps were of saintly life, they
were not presented for baptism like the children of church-members.
Still, they must have names to be known by,
and Mrs. Hopkins was much exercised in the matter.
Like many New England parents, she had a decided taste
for names that were significant and sonorous. That which
she had chosen for her oldest child, the young poet, was
either a remarkable prophecy, or it had brought with it
the endowments it promised. She had lost, or, in her own
more pictorial language, she had buried, a daughter to
whom she had given the names, at once of cheerful omen
and melodious effect, Wealthy Amadora.

As for them poor little creturs, she said, she believed
they was rained down out o' the skies, jest as they say
toads and tadpoles come. She meant to be a mother to
'em for all that, and give 'em jest as good names as if they
was the governor's children, or the minister's. If Mr.
Gridley would be so good as to find her some kind of a
real handsome Chris'n name for 'em, she 'd provide 'em
with the other one. Hopkinses they shall be bred and
taught, and Hopkinses they shall be called. Ef their

[figure description] Page 052.[end figure description]

father and mother was ashamed to own 'em, she was n't.
Could n't Mr. Gridley pick out some pooty-sounding names
from some of them great books of his. It 's jest as well to
have 'em pooty as long as they don't cost any more than if
they was Tom and Sally.

A grim smile passed over the rugged features of Byles
Gridley. “Nothing is easier than that, Mrs. Hopkins,”
he said. “I will give you two very pretty names that I
think will please you and other folks. They 're new names,
too. If they should n't like to keep them, they can change
them before they 're christened, if they ever are. Isosceles
will be just the name for the boy, and I 'm sure you won't
find a prettier name for the girl in a hurry than Helminthia.

Mrs. Hopkins was delighted with the dignity and novelty
of these two names, which were forthwith adopted. As
they were rather long for common use in the family, they
were shortened into the easier forms of Sossy and Minthy,
under which designation the babes began very soon to
thrive mightily, turning bread and milk into the substance
of little sinners at a great rate, and growing as if they were
put out at compound interest.

This short episode shows us the family conditions surrounding
Byles Gridley, who, as we were saying, had just
been called down to tea by Miss Susan Posey.

“I am coming, my dear,” he said, — which expression
quite touched Miss Susan, who did not know that it was a
kind of transferred caress from the delicious page he was
reading. It was not the living child that was kissed, but
the dead one lying under the snow, if we may make a
trivial use of a very sweet and tender thought we all remember.

[figure description] Page 053.[end figure description]

Not long after this, happening to call in at the lawyer's
office, his eye was caught by the corner of a book lying
covered up by a pile of papers. Somehow or other it seemed
to look very natural to him. Could that be a copy of
“Thoughts on the Universe”? He watched his opportunity,
and got a hurried sight of the volume. His own
treatise, sure enough! Leaves uncut. Opened of itself
to the one hundred and twentieth page. The axiom Murray
Bradshaw had quoted — he did not remember from
what, — “sounded like Coleridge” — was staring him in
the face from that very page. When he remembered how
he had pleased himself with that compliment the other day,
he blushed like a school-girl; and then, thinking out the
whole trick, — to hunt up his forgotten book, pick out a
phrase or two from it, and play on his weakness with it,
to win his good opinion, — for what purpose he did not
know, but doubtless to use him in some way, — he grinned
with a contempt about equally divided between himself and
the young schemer.

“Ah ha”! he muttered scornfully. “Sounds like Coleridge,
hey? Niccolo Macchiavelli Bradshaw!”

From this day forward he looked on all the young lawyer's
doings with even more suspicion than before. Yet
he would not forego his company and conversation; for he
was very agreeable and amusing to study; and this trick he
had played him was, after all, only a diplomatist's way of
flattering his plenipotentiary. Who could say? Some
time or other he might cajole England or France or Russia
into a treaty with just such a trick. Shallower men than
he had gone out as ministers of the great Republic. At
any rate the fellow was worth watching.

p607-071 CHAPTER VI. THE USE OF SPECTACLES.

[figure description] Page 054.[end figure description]

THE old Master of Arts had a great reputation in the
house where he lived for knowing everything that was
going on. He rather enjoyed it; and sometimes amused
himself with surprising his simple-hearted landlady and
her boarders with the unaccountable results of his sagacity.
One thing was quite beyond her comprehension. She was
perfectly sure that Mr. Gridley could see out of the back
of his head, just as other people see with their natural
organs. Time and again he had told her what she was
doing when his back was turned to her, just as if he had
been sitting squarely in front of her. Some laughed at this
foolish notion; but others, who knew more of the nebulous
sciences, told her it was like 's not jes' so. Folks
had read letters laid ag'in' the pits o' their stomachs, 'n'
why should n't they see out o' the backs o' their heads?

Now there was a certain fact at the bottom of this belief
of Mrs. Hopkins; and as it would be a very small thing
to make a mystery of so simple a matter, the reader shall
have the whole benefit of knowing all there is in it, — not
quite yet, however, of knowing all that came of it. It was
not the mirror trick, of course, which Mrs. Felix Lorraine
and other dangerous historical personages have so long
made use of. It was nothing but this. Mr. Byles Gridley
wore a pair of formidable spectacles with large round
glasses. He had often noticed the reflection of objects behind
him when they caught their images at certain angles,

[figure description] Page 055.[end figure description]

and had got the habit of very often looking at the reflecting
surface of one or the other of the glasses, when he seemed
to be looking through them. It put a singular power into
his possession, which might possibly hereafter lead to
something more significant than the mystification of the
Widow Hopkins.

A short time before Myrtle Hazard's disappearance,
Mr. Byles Gridley had occasion to call again at the office
of Penhallow and Bradshaw on some small matter of business
of his own. There were papers to look over, and he
put on his great round-glassed spectacles. He and Mr.
Penhallow sat down at the table, and Mr. Bradshaw was
at a desk behind them. After sitting for a while, Mr.
Penhallow seemed to remember something he had meant
to attend to, for he said all at once: “Excuse me, Mr.
Gridley. Mr. Bradshaw, if you are not busy, I wish you
would look over this bundle of papers. They look like
old receipted bills and memoranda of no particular use;
but they came from the garret of the Withers place, and
might possibly have something that would be of value.
Look them over, will you, and see whether there is anything
there worth saving.”

The young man took the papers, and Mr. Penhallow sat
down again at the table with Mr. Byles Gridley.

This last-named gentleman felt just then a strong impulse
to observe the operations of Murray Bradshaw. He could
not have given any very good reason for it, any more than
any of us can for half of what we do.

“I should like to examine that conveyance we were
speaking of once more,” said he. “Please to look at this
one in the mean time, will you, Mr. Penhallow?”

Master Gridley held the document up before him. He

[figure description] Page 056.[end figure description]

did not seem to find it quite legible, and adjusted his spectacles
carefully, until they were just as he wanted them.
When he had got them to suit himself, sitting there with
his back to Murray Bradshaw, he could see him and all
his movements, the desk at which he was standing, and
the books in the shelves before him, — all this time appearing
as if he were intent upon his own reading.

The young man began in a rather indifferent way to
look over the papers. He loosened the band round them,
and took them up one by one, gave a careless glance at
them, and laid them together to tie up again when he had
gone through them. Master Gridley saw all this process,
thinking what a fool he was all the time to be watching such a
simple proceeding. Presently he noticed a more sudden
movement: the young man had found something which
arrested his attention, and turned his head to see if he was
observed. The senior partner and his client were both
apparently deep in their own affairs. In his hand Mr.
Bradshaw held a paper folded like the others, the back of
which he read, holding it in such a way that Master Gridley
saw very distinctly three large spots of ink upon it,
and noticed their position. Murray Bradshaw took another
hurried glance at the two gentlemen, and then quickly
opened the paper. He ran it over with a flash of his
eye, folded it again, and laid it by itself. With another
quick turn of his head, as if to see whether he were observed
or like to be, he reached his hand out and took a volume
down from the shelves. In this volume he shut the document,
whatever it was, which he had just taken out of the
bundle, and placed the book in a very silent and as it were
stealthy way back in its place. He then gave a look at
each of the other papers, and said to his partner: “Old

[figure description] Page 057.[end figure description]

bills, old leases, and insurance policies that have run out.
Malachi seems to have kept every scrap of paper that had
a signature to it.”

“That 's the way with the old misers, always,” said Mr.
Penhallow.

Byles Gridley had got through reading the document he
held, — or pretending to read it. He took off his spectacles.

“We all grow timid and cautious as we get old, Mr.
Penhallow.” Then turning round to the young man, he
slowly repeated the lines, —


“`Multa senem circumveniunt incommoda, vel quod
Quœrit et inventis miser abstinet, ac timet uti;
Vel quod res omnes timide, gelideque ministrat —'
You remember the passage, Mr. Bradshaw?”

While he was reciting these words from Horace, which
he spoke slowly as if he relished every syllable, he kept
his eyes on the young man steadily, but without betraying
any suspicion. His old habits as a teacher made that
easy.

Murray Bradshaw's face was calm as usual, but there
was a flush on his cheek, and Master Gridley saw the slight
but unequivocal signs of excitement.

“Something is going on inside there,” the old man said
to himself. He waited patiently, on the pretext of business,
until Mr. Bradshaw got up and left the office. As
soon as he and the senior partner were alone, Master Gridley
took a lazy look at some of the books in his library.
There stood in the book-shelves a copy of the Corpus Juris
Civilis, — the fine Elzevir edition of 1664. It was bound
in parchment, and thus readily distinguishable at a glance
from all the books round it. Now Mr. Penhallow was not

[figure description] Page 058.[end figure description]

much of a Latin scholar, and knew and cared very little
about the civil law. He had fallen in with this book at an
auction, and bought it to place in his shelves with the other
“properties” of the office, because it would look respectable.
Anything shut up in one of those two octavos might
stay there a lifetime without Mr. Penhallow's disturbing
it; that Master Gridley knew, and of course the young
man knew it too.

We often move to the objects of supreme curiosity or
desire, not in the lines of castle or bishop on the chess-board,
but with the knight's zigzag, at first in the wrong
direction, making believe to ourselves we are not after the
thing coveted. Put a lump of sugar in a canary-bird's
cage, and the small creature will illustrate the instinct for
the benefit of inquirers or sceptics. Byles Gridley went
to the other side of the room and took a volume of Reports
from the shelves. He put it back and took a copy of
“Fearne on Contingent Remainders,” and looked at that
for a moment in an idling way, as if from a sense of having
nothing to do. Then he drew the back of his forefinger
along the books on the shelf, as if nothing interested him in
them, and strolled to the shelf in front of the desk at which
Murray Bradshaw had stood. He took down the second
volume of the Corpus Juris Civilis, turned the leaves over
mechanically, as if in search of some title, and replaced it.

He looked round for a moment. Mr. Penhallow was
writing hard at his table, not thinking of him, it was plain
enough. He laid his hand on the FIRST volume of the
Corpus Juris Civilis. There was a document shut up in
it. His hand was on the book, whether taking it out or
putting it back was not evident, when the door opened and
Mr. William Murray Bradshaw entered.

[figure description] Page 059.[end figure description]

“Ah, Mr. Gridley,” he said, “you are not studying the
civil law, are you?” He strode towards him as he spoke,
his face white, his eyes fixed fiercely on him.

“It always interests me, Mr. Bradshaw,” he answered,
“and this is a fine edition of it. One may find a great
many valuable things in the Corpus Juris Civilis.”

He looked impenetrable, and whether or not he had seen
more than Mr. Bradshaw wished him to see, that gentleman
could not tell. But there stood the two books in their
place, and when, after Master Gridley had gone, he looked
in the first volume, there was the document he had shut up
in it.

p607-077 CHAPTER VII. MYRTLE'S LETTER. — THE YOUNG MEN'S PURSUIT.

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“YOU know all about it, Olive?” Cyprian Eveleth
said to his sister, after a brief word of greeting.

“Know of what, Cyprian?”

“Why, sister, don't you know that Myrtle Hazard is
missing, — gone! — gone nobody knows where, and that
we are looking in all directions to find her?”

Olive turned very pale and was silent for a moment.
At the end of that moment the story seemed almost old to
her. It was a natural ending of the prison-life which had
been round Myrtle since her earliest years. When she got
large and strong enough, she broke out of jail, — that was
all. The nursery-bar is always climbed sooner or later,
whether it is a wooden or an iron one. Olive felt as if she
had dimly foreseen just such a finishing to the tragedy of
the poor girl's home bringing-up. Why could not she have
done something to prevent it? Well, — what shall we do
now, and as it is? — that is the question.

“Has she left no letter, — no explanation of her leaving
in this way?”

“Not a word, so far as anybody in the village knows.”

“Come over to the post-office with me; perhaps we may
find a letter. I think we shall.”

Olive's sagacity and knowledge of her friend's character
had not misled her. She found a letter from Myrtle to
herself, which she opened and read as here follows: —

“My dearest Olive: — Think no evil of me for what

[figure description] Page 061.[end figure description]

I have done. The fire-hang-bird's nest, as Cyprian called
it, is empty, and the poor bird is flown.

“I can live as I have lived no longer. This place is
chilling all the life out of me, and I must find another home.
It is far, far away, and you will not hear from me again
until I am there. Then I will write to you.

“You know where I was born, — under a hot sun and
in the midst of strange, lovely scenes that I seem still to
remember. I must visit them again: my heart always
yearns for them. And I must cross the sea to get there,—
the beautiful great sea that I have always longed for
and that my river has been whispering about to me ever so
many years. My life is pinched and starved here. I
feel as old as Aunt Silence, and I am only fifteen, — a
child she has called me within a few days. If this is to be
a child, what is it to be a woman?

“I love you dearly, — and your brother is almost to me
as if he were mine. I love our sweet, patient Bathsheba,—
yes, and the old man that has spoken so kindly with
me, good Master Gridley; I hate to give you pain, — to
leave you all, — but my way of life is killing me, and I
am too young to die. I cannot take the comfort with you,
my dear friends, that I would; for it seems as if I carried
a lump of ice in my heart, and all the warmth I find in
you cannot thaw it out.

“I have had a strange warning to leave this place,
Olive. Do you remember how the angel of the Lord appeared
to Joseph and told him to flee into Egypt? I
have had a dream like that, Olive. There is an old belief
in our family that the spirit of one who died many
generations ago watches over some of her descendants.
They say it led our first ancestor to come over here when

[figure description] Page 062.[end figure description]

it was a wilderness. I believe it has appeared to others
of the family in times of trouble. I have had a strange
dream at any rate, and the one I saw, or thought I saw,
told me to leave this place. Perhaps I should have stayed
if it had not been for that, but it seemed like an angel's
warning.

“Nobody will know how I have gone, or which way I
have taken. On Monday, you may show this letter to my
friends, not before. I do not think they will be in danger
of breaking their hearts for me at our house. Aunt Silence
cares for nothing but her own soul, and the other
woman hates me, I always thought. Kitty Fagan will cry
hard. Tell her perhaps I shall come back by and by.
There is a little box in my room, with some keepsakes
marked, — one is for poor Kitty. You can give them to
the right ones. Yours is with them.

“Good by, dearest. Keep my secret, as I told you, till
Monday. And if you never see me again, remember how
much I loved you. Never think hardly of me, for you
have grown up in a happy home, and do not know how
much misery can be crowded into fifteen years of a young
girl's life. God be with you!

Olive could not restrain her tears, as she handed the
letter to Cyprian. “Her secret is as safe with you as with
me,” she said. “But this is madness, Cyprian, and we
must keep her from doing herself a wrong. What she
means to do, is to get to Boston, in some way or other,
and sail for India. It is strange that they have not tracked
her. There is no time to be lost. She shall not go out
into the world in this way, child that she is. No; she

[figure description] Page 063.[end figure description]

shall come back, and make her home with us, if she cannot
be happy with these people. Ours is a happy and a
cheerful home, and she shall be to me as a younger sister, —
and your sister too, Cyprian. But you must see
her; you must leave this very hour; and you may find
her. Go to your cousin Edward, in Boston, at once; tell
him your errand, and get him to help you find our poor dear
sister. Then give her the note I will write, and say — I
know your heart, Cyprian, and I can trust that to tell you
what to say.”

In a very short time Cyprian Eveleth was on his way
to Boston. But another, keener even in pursuit than he,
was there before him.

Ever since the day when Master Gridley had made that
over-curious observation of the young lawyer's proceedings
at the office, Murray Bradshaw had shown a far livelier
interest than before in the conditions and feelings of Myrtle
Hazard. He had called frequently at The Poplars to
talk over business matters, which seemed of late to require
a deal of talking. He had been very deferential to
Miss Silence, and had wound himself into the confidence
of Miss Badlam. He found it harder to establish any
very near relations with Myrtle, who had never seemed to
care much for any young man but Cyprian Eveleth, and
to care for him quite as much as Olive's brother as for any
personal reason. But he carefully studied Myrtle's tastes
and ways of thinking and of life, so that, by and by, when
she should look upon herself as a young woman, and not as
a girl, he would have a great advantage in making her more
intimate acquaintance.

Thus, she corresponded with a friend of her mother's in
India. She talked at times as if it were her ideal home,

[figure description] Page 064.[end figure description]

and showed many tastes which might well be vestiges of
early Oriental impressions. She made herself a rude
hammock, — such as are often used in hot climates, — and
swung it between two elms. Here she would lie in the
hot summer days, and fan herself with the sandal-wood
fan her friend in India had sent her, — the perfume of
which, the women said, seemed to throw her into day-dreams,
which were almost like trances.

These circumstances gave a general direction to his
ideas, which were presently fixed more exactly by two
circumstances which he learned for himself and kept to
himself; for he had no idea of making a hue and cry, and
yet he did not mean that Myrtle Hazard should get away
if he could help it.

The first fact was this. He found among the copies of
the city newspaper they took at The Poplars a recent
number from which a square had been cut out. He procured
another copy of this paper of the same date, and
found that the piece cut out was an advertisement to the
effect that the A I Ship Swordfish, Captain Hawkins, was
to sail from Boston for Calcutta, on the 20th of June.

The second fact was the following. On the window-sill
of her little hanging chamber, which the women allowed
him to inspect, he found some threads of long, black, glossy
hair caught by a splinter in the wood. They were Myrtle's
of course. A simpleton might have constructed a
tragedy out of this trivial circumstance, — how she had
cast herself from the window into the waters beneath
it, — how she had been thrust out after a struggle, of
which this shred from her tresses was the dreadful witness, —
and so on. Murray Bradshaw did not stop to
guess and wonder. He said nothing about it, but wound

[figure description] Page 065.[end figure description]

the shining threads on his finger, and, as soon as he got
home, examined them with a magnifier. They had been
cut off smoothly, as with a pair of scissors. This was
part of a mass of hair, then, which had been shorn and
thrown from the window. Nobody would do that but she
herself. What would she do it for? To disguise her sex
of course. The other inferences were plain enough.

The wily young man put all these facts and hints together,
and concluded that he would let the rustics drag
the ponds and the river, and scour the woods and swamps,
while he himself went to the seaport town from which she
would without doubt sail if she had formed the project he
thought on the whole most probable.

Thus it was that we found him hurrying to the nearest
station to catch the train to Boston, while they were all
looking for traces of the missing girl nearer home. In
the cars he made the most suggestive inquiries he could
frame, to stir up the gentlemanly conductor's memory.
Had any young fellow been on the train within a day or
two, who had attracted his notice? Smooth, handsome
face, black eyes, short black hair, new clothes, not fitting
very well, looked away when he paid his fare, had a soft
voice like a woman's, — had he seen anybody answering
to some such description as this? The gentlemanly conductor
had not noticed, — was always taking up and
setting down way-passengers, — might have had such a
young man aboard, — there was two or three students one
day in the car singing college songs, — he did n't care how
folks looked if they had their tickets ready, — and minded
their own business, — and, so saying, he poked a young
man upon whose shoulder a ringleted head was reclining
with that delightful abandon which the railroad train
seems to provoke in lovely woman, — “Fare!”

[figure description] Page 066.[end figure description]

It is a fine thing to be set down in a great, over-crowded
hotel, where they do not know you, looking dusty, and for
the moment shabby, with nothing but a carpet-bag in your
hand, feeling tired, and anything but clean, and hungry,
and worried, and every way miserable and mean, and to
undergo the appraising process of the gentleman in the
office, who, while he shoves the book round to you for
your name, is making a hasty calculation as to how high
up he can venture to doom you. But Murray Bradshaw's
plain dress and carpet-bag were more than made up for by
the air and tone which imply the habit of being attended
to. The clerk saw that in a glance, and, as he looked at
the name and address in the book, spoke sharply in the
explosive dialect of his tribe, —

“Jun! ta'tha'genlm'n'scarpetbag'n'showhimupt'thirtyone!”

When Cyprian Eveleth reached the same hotel late at
night, he appeared in his best clothes and with a new
valise; but his amiable countenance and gentle voice and
modest manner sent him up two stories higher, where he
found himself in a room not much better than a garret,
feeling lonely enough, for he did not know he had an
acquaintance in the same house. The two young men
were in and out so irregularly that it was not very strange
that they did not happen to meet each other.

The young lawyer was far more likely to find Myrtle if
she were in the city than the other, even with the help of
his cousin Edward. He was not only older, but sharper,
better acquainted with the city and its ways, and, whatever
might be the strength of Cyprian's motives, his own were
of such intensity that he thought of nothing else by day,
and dreamed of nothing else by night. He went to work,
therefore, in the most systematic manner. He first visited

[figure description] Page 067.[end figure description]

the ship Swordfish, lying at her wharf, saw her captain,
and satisfied himself that as yet nobody at all corresponding
to the description of Myrtle Hazard had been seen
by any person on board. He visited all the wharves,
inquiring on every vessel where it seemed possible she
might have been looking about. Hotels, thoroughfares,
every place where he might hear of her or meet her, were
all scarched. He took some of the police into his confidence,
and had half a dozen pairs of eyes besides his own
opened pretty widely, to discover the lost girl.

On Sunday, the 19th, he got the first hint which encouraged
him to think he was on the trail of his fugitive. He
had gone down again to the wharf where the Swordfish,
advertised to sail the next day, was lying. The captain
was not on board, but one of the mates was there, and he
addressed his questions to him, not with any great hope of
hearing anything important, but determined to lose no
chance, however small. He was startled with a piece of
information which gave him such an exquisite pang of
delight that he could hardly keep the usual quiet of his
demeanor. A youth corresponding to his description of
Myrtle Hazard in her probable disguise had been that
morning on board the Swordfish, making many inquiries as
to the hour at which she was to sail, and who were to be
the passengers, and remained some time on board, going all
over the vessel, examining her cabin accommodations, and
saying he should return to-morrow before she sailed, —
doubtless intending to take passage in her, as there was
plenty of room on board. There could be little question,
from the description, who this young person was. It was
a rather delicate-looking, dark-haired youth, smooth-faced,
somewhat shy and bashful in his ways, and evidently

[figure description] Page 068.[end figure description]

excited and nervous. He had apparently been to look about
him, and would come back at the last moment, just as the
vessel was ready to sail, and in an hour or two be beyond
the reach of inquiry.

Murray Bradshaw returned to his hotel, and, going to
his chamber, summoned all his faculties in state council to
determine what course he should follow, now that he had
the object of his search certainly within reaching distance.
There was no danger now of her eluding him; but the
grave question arose, what was he to do when he stood
face to face with her. She must not go, — that was fixed.
If she once got off in that ship, she might be safe enough;
but what would become of certain projects in which he was
interested, — that was the question. But again, she was
no child, to be turned away from her adventure by cajolery,
or by any such threats as common truants would find sufficient
to scare them back to their duty. He could tell the
facts of her disguise and the manner of her leaving home to
the captain of the vessel, and induce him to send her ashore
as a stray girl, to be returned to her relatives. But this
would only make her furious with him; and he must not
alienate her from himself at any rate. He might plead with
her in the name of duty, for the sake of her friends, for the
good name of the family. She had thought all these things
over before she ran away. What if he should address her
as a lover, throw himself at her feet, implore her to pity
him and give up her rash scheme, and, if things came to
the very worst, offer to follow her wherever she went, if
she would accept him in the only relation that would render
it possible. Fifteen years old, — he nearly ten years
older, — but such things had happened before, and this was
no time to stand on trifles.

[figure description] Page 069.[end figure description]

He worked out the hypothesis of the matrimonial offer
as he would have reasoned out the probabilities in a law
case he was undertaking.

1. He would rather risk that than lose all hold upon her.
The girl was handsome enough for his ambitious future,
wherever it might carry him. She came of an honorable
family, and had the great advantage of being free from a
tribe of disagreeable relatives, which is such a drawback on
many otherwise eligible parties. To these considerations
were to be joined other circumstances which we need not
here mention, of a nature to add greatly to their force, and
which would go far of themselves to determine his action.

2. How was it likely she would look on such an extraordinary
proposition? At first, no doubt, as Lady Anne
looked upon the advances of Richard. She would be startled,
perhaps shocked. What then? She could not help
feeling flattered at such an offer from him, — him, William
Murray Bradshaw, the rising young man of his county, at
her feet, his eyes melting with the love he would throw
into them, his tones subdued to their most sympathetic
quality, and all those phrases on his lips which every day
beguile women older and more discreet than this romantic,
long-imprisoned girl, whose rash and adventurous enterprise
was an assertion of her womanhood and her right to
dispose of herself as she chose. He had not lived to be
twenty-five years old without knowing his power with women.
He believed in himself so thoroughly, that his very
confidence was a strong promise of success.

3. In case all his entreaties, arguments, and offers made
no impression, should he make use of that supreme resource,
not to be employed save in extreme need, but

[figure description] Page 070.[end figure description]

which was of a nature, in his opinion, to shake a resolution
stronger than this young girl was like to oppose to it?
That would be like Christian's coming to his weapon called
All-prayer, he said to himself, with a smile that his early
readings of Bunyan should have furnished him an image
for so different an occasion. The question was one he
could not settle till the time came, — he must leave it to
the instinct of the moment.

The next morning found him early waking after a night
of feverish dreams. He dressed himself with more than
usual care, and walked down to the wharf where the
Swordfish was moored. The ship had left the wharf, and
was lying out in the stream. A small boat had just reached
her, and a slender youth, as he appeared at that distance,
climbed, not over-adroitly, up the vessel's side.

Murray Bradshaw called to a boatman near by and
ordered the man to row him over as fast as he could to
the vessel lying in the stream. He had no sooner reached
the deck of the Swordfish than he asked for the young person
who had just been put on board.

“He is in the cabin, sir, just gone down with the captain,”
was the reply.

His heart beat, in spite of his cool temprament, as he
went down the steps leading to the cabin. The young person
was talking earnestly with the captain, and, on his
turning round, Mr. William Murray Bradshaw had the
pleasure of recognizing his young friend, Mr. Cyprian
Eveleth.

p607-088 CHAPTER VIII. DOWN THE RIVER.

[figure description] Page 071.[end figure description]

LOOK at the flower of a morning-glory the evening before
the dawn which is to see it unfold. The delicate
petals are twisted into a spiral, which at the appointed
hour, when the sunlight touches the hidden springs of its
life, will uncoil itself and let the day into the chamber of
its virgin heart. But the spiral must unwind by its own
law, and the hand that shall try to hasten the process will
only spoil the blossom which would have expanded in
symmetrical beauty under the rosy fingers of morning.

We may take a hint from Nature's handling of the
flower in dealing with young souls, and especially with
the souls of young girls, which, from their organization
and conditions, require more careful treatment than those
of their tougher-fibred brothers. Many parents reproach
themselves for not having enforced their own convictions
on their children in the face of every inborn antagonism
they encountered. Let them not be too severe in their
self-condemnation. A want of judgment in this matter
has sent many a young person to Bedlam, whose nature
would have opened kindly enough if it had only been trusted
to the sweet influences of morning sunshine. In such
cases it may be that the state we call insanity is not always
an unalloyed evil. It may take the place of something
worse, — the wretchedness of a mind not yet dethroned,
but subject to the perpetual interferences of
another mind governed by laws alien and hostile to its

[figure description] Page 072.[end figure description]

own. Insanity may perhaps be the only palliative left
to Nature in this extremity. But before she comes
to that, she has many expedients. The mind does
not know what diet it can feed on until it has been
brought to the starvation point. Its experience is like
that of those who have been long drifting about on rafts
or in long-boats. There is nothing out of which it will not
contrive to get some sustenance. A person of note, long
held captive for a political offence, is said to have owed
the preservation of his reason to a pin, out of which he
contrived to get exercise and excitement by throwing it
down carelessly on the dark floor of his dungeon, and then
hunting for it in a series of systematic explorations until
he had found it.

Perhaps the most natural thing Myrtle Hazard could
have done would have been to go crazy, and be sent to
the nearest asylum, if Providence, which in its wisdom
makes use of the most unexpected agencies, had not made
a special provision for her mental welfare. She was in
that arid household as the prophet in the land where there
was no dew nor rain for these long years. But as he had
the brook Cherith, and the bread and flesh in the morning
and the bread and flesh in the evening which the ravens
brought him, so she had the river and her secret store of
books.

The river was light and life and music and companionship
to her. She learned to row herself about upon it,
to swim boldly in it, for it had sheltered nooks but a little
way above The Poplars. But there was more than that
in it, — it was infinitely sympathetic. A river is strangely
like a human soul. It has its dark and bright days, its
troubles from within, and its disturbances from without.

[figure description] Page 073.[end figure description]

It often runs over ragged rocks with a smooth surface,
and is vexed with ripples as it slides over sands that are
level as a floor. It betrays its various moods by aspects
which are the commonplaces of poetry, as smiles and dimples
and wrinkles and frowns. Its face is full of winking
eyes, when the scattering rain-drops first fall upon it, and
it scowls back at the storm-cloud, as with knitted brows,
when the winds are let loose. It talks, too, in its own
simple dialect, murmuring, as it were, with busy lips all
the way to the ocean, as children seeking the mother's
breast and impatient of delay. Prisoners who know what
a flower or an insect has been to them in their solitary
cell, invalids who have employed their vacant minds in
studying the patterns of paper-hangings on the walls of
their sick-chambers, can tell what the river was to the
lonely, imaginative creature who used to sit looking into
its depths, hour after hour, from the airy height of the
Fire-hang-bird's Nest.

Of late a thought had mingled with her fancies which
had given to the river the aspect of something more than
a friend and a companion. It appeared all at once as a
Deliverer. Did not its waters lead, after long wanderings,
to the great highway of the world, and open to her the
gates of those cities from which she could take her departure
unchallenged towards the lands of the morning or of
the sunset? Often, after a freshet, she had seen a child's
miniature boat floating down on its side past her window,
and traced it in imagination back to some crystal brook
flowing by the door of a cottage far up a blue mountain
in the distance. So she now began to follow down
the stream the airy shallop that held her bright fancies.
These dreams of hers were colored by the rainbows of an

[figure description] Page 074.[end figure description]

enchanted fountain, — the books of adventure, the romances,
the stories which fortune had placed in her hands,—
the same over which the heart of the Pride of the
County had throbbed in the last century, and on the
pages of some of which the traces of her tears might still
be seen.

The literature which was furnished for Myrtle's improvement
was chiefly of a religious character, and, however
interesting and valuable to those to whom it was
adapted, had not been chosen with any wise regard to its
fitness for her special conditions. Of what use was it to
offer books like the “Saint's Rest” to a child whose idea
of happiness was in perpetual activity? She read “Pilgrim's
Progress,” it is true, with great delight. She liked
the idea of travelling with a pack on one's back, the odd
shows at the House of the Interpreter, the fighting, the
adventures, the pleasing young ladies at the palace the
name of which was Beautiful, and their very interesting
museum of curiosities. As for the allegorical meaning, it
went through her consciousness like a peck of wheat
through a bushel measure with the bottom out, — without
touching.

But the very first book she got hold of out of the hidden
treasury threw the “Pilgrim's Progress” quite into
the shade. It was the story of a youth who ran away
and lived on an island, — one Crusoe, — a homely narrative,
but evidently true, though full of remarkable adventures.
There too was the history, coming much
nearer home, of Deborah Sampson, the young woman who
served as a soldier in the Revolutionary War, with a portrait
of her in man's attire, looking intrepid rather than
lovely. A virtuous young female she was, and married

[figure description] Page 075.[end figure description]

well, as she deserved to, and raised a family with as good
a name as wife and mother as the best of them. But
perhaps not one of these books and stories took such hold
of her imagination as the tale of Rasselas, which most
young persons find less entertaining than the Vicar of
Wakefield, with which it is now-a-days so commonly
bound up. It was the prince's discontent in the Happy
Valley, the iron gate opening to the sound of music, and
closing forever on those it admitted, the rocky boundaries
of the imprisoning valley, the visions of the world beyond,
the projects of escape, and the long toil which ended in
their accomplishment, which haunted her sleeping and
waking. She too was a prisoner, but it was not in the
Happy Valley. Of the romances and the love-letters we
must take it for granted that she selected wisely, and read
discreetly; at least we know nothing to the contrary.

There were mysterious reminiscences and hints of her
past coming over her constantly. It was in the course of
the long, weary spring before her disappearance, that a
dangerous chord was struck which added to her growing
restlessness. In an old closet were some sea-shells and
coral-fans, and dried star-fishes and sea-horses, and a natural
mummy of a rough-skinned dog-fish. She had not
thought of them for years, but now she felt impelled to look
after them. The dim sea odors which still clung to them
penetrated to the very inmost haunts of memory, and called
up that longing for the ocean breeze which those who have
once breathed and salted their blood with it never get over,
and which makes the sweetest inland airs seem to them at
last tame and tasteless. She held a tiger-shell to her ear,
and listened to that low, sleepy murmur, whether in the
sense or in the soul we hardly know, like that which had

[figure description] Page 076.[end figure description]

so often been her lullaby, — a memory of the sea, as Landor
and Wordsworth have sung.

“You are getting to look like your father,” Aunt Silence
said one day; “I never saw it before. I always thought
you took after old Major Gideon Withers. Well, I hope
you won't come to an early grave like poor Charles, — or,
at any rate, that you may be prepared.”

It did not seem very likely that the girl was going out
of the world at present, but she looked Miss Silence in the
face very seriously, and said, “Why not an early grave,
aunt, if this world is such a bad place as you say it is?”

“I 'm afraid you are not fit for a better.”

She wondered if Silence Withers and Cynthia Badlam
were just ripe for heaven.

For some months Miss Cynthia Badlam, who, as was
said, had been an habitual visitor at The Poplars, had
lived there as a permanent resident. Between her and
Silence Withers, Myrtle Hazard found no rest for her
soul. Each of them was for untwisting the morning-glory
without waiting for the sunshine to do it. Each had her
own wrenches and pincers to use for that purpose. All
this promised little for the nurture and admonition of the
young girl, who, if her will could not be broken by imprisonment
and starvation at three years old, was not likely to
be over-tractable to any but gentle and reasonable treatment
at fifteen.

Aunt Silence's engine was responsibility, — her own responsibility,
and the dreadful consequences which would
follow to her, Silence, if Myrtle should in any way go
wrong. Ever since her failure in that moral coup d'état
by which the sinful dynasty of the natural self-determining
power was to be dethroned, her attempts in the way of

[figure description] Page 077.[end figure description]

education had been a series of feeble efforts followed by
plaintive wails over their utter want of success. The face
she turned upon the young girl in her solemn expostulations
looked as if it were inscribed with the epitaphs of hope and
virtue. Her utterances were pitched in such a forlorn
tone, that the little bird in his cage, who always began
twittering at the sound of Myrtle's voice, would stop in his
song, and cock his head with a look of inquiry full of pathos,
as if he wanted to know what was the matter, and
whether he could do anything to help.

The specialty of Cynthia Badlam was to point out all the
dangerous and unpardonable transgressions into which young
people generally, and this young person in particular, were
likely to run, to hold up examples of those who had fallen
into evil ways and come to an evil end, to present the most
exalted standard of ascetic virtue to the lively girl's apprehension,
leading her naturally to the conclusion that a
bright example of excellence stood before her in the irreproachable
relative who addressed her. Especially with
regard to the allurements which the world offers to the
young and inexperienced female, Miss Cynthia Badlam
was severe and eloquent. Sometimes poor Myrtle would
stare, not seeing the meaning of her wise caution, sometimes
look at Miss Cynthia with a feeling that there was
something about her that was false and forced, that she had
nothing in common with young people, that she had no
pity for them, only hatred of their sins, whatever these
might be, — a hatred which seemed to extend to those
sources of frequent temptation, youth and beauty, as if they
were in themselves objectionable.

Both the lone women at The Poplars were gifted with a
thin vein of music. They gave it expression in psalmody,

[figure description] Page 078.[end figure description]

of course, in which Myrtle, who was a natural singer, was
expected to bear her part. This would have been pleasanter
if the airs most frequently selected had been cheerful
or soothing, and if the favorite hymns had been of a sort to
inspire a love for what was lovely in this life, and to give
some faint foretaste of the harmonies of a better world to
come. But there is a fondness for minor keys and wailing
cadences common to the monotonous chants of cannibals
and savages generally, to such war-songs as the wild, implacable
“Marseillaise,” and to the favorite tunes of lowspirited
Christian pessimists. That mournful “China,”
which one of our most agreeable story-tellers has justly
singled out as the cry of despair itself, was often sung
at The Poplars, sending such a sense of utter misery
through the house, that poor Kitty Fagan would cross herself,
and wring her hands, and think of funerals, and wonder
who was going to die, — for she fancied she heard the
Banshee's warning in those most dismal ululations.

On the first Saturday of June, a fortnight before her
disappearance, Myrtle strolled off by the river-shore, along
its lonely banks, and came home with her hands full of
leaves and blossoms. Silence Withers looked at them
as if they were a kind of melancholy manifestation of
frivolity on the part of the wicked old earth. Not that
she did not inhale their faint fragrance with a certain
pleasure, and feel their beauty as none whose souls are
not wholly shrivelled and hardened can help doing, but
the world was, in her estimate, a vale of tears, and it was
only by a momentary forgetfulness that she could be moved
to smile at anything.

Miss Cynthia, a sharper-edged woman, had formed the
habit of crushing everything for its moral, until it lost its

[figure description] Page 079.[end figure description]

sweetness and grew almost odious, as flower-de-luces do
when handled roughly. “There 's a worm in that leaf,
Myrtle. He has rolled it all round him, and hidden himself
from sight; but there is a horrid worm in it, for all it
is so young and fresh. There is a worm in every young
soul, Myrtle.”

“But there is not a worm in every leaf, Miss Cynthia.
Look,” she said, “all these are open, and you can see all
over and under them, and there is nothing there. Are
there never any worms in the leaves after they get old and
yellow, Miss Cynthia?”

That was a pretty fair hit for a simple creature of fifteen,—
but perhaps she was not so absolutely simple as one
might have thought.

It was on the evening of this same day that they were
sitting together. The sweet season was opening, and it
seemed as if the whispering of the leaves, the voices of the
birds, the softness of the air, the young life stirring in
everything, called on all creatures to join the universal
chorus of praise that was going up around them.

“What shall we sing this evening?” said Miss Silence.

“Give me one of the books, if you please, Cousin Silence,”
said Miss Cynthia. “It is Saturday evening.
Holy time has begun. Let us prepare our minds for the
solemnities of the Sabbath.”

She took the book, one well known to the schools and
churches of this nineteenth century.

“Book Second. Hymn 44. Long metre. I guess
`Putney' will be as good a tune as any to sing it to.”

The trio began, —

“With holy fear, and humble song,” —

[figure description] Page 080.[end figure description]

Then came the second verse: —

Myrtle's voice trembled a little in singing this verse, and
she hardly kept up her part with proper spirit.

“Sing out, Myrtle,” said Miss Cynthia, and she struck
up the third verse: —

This last verse was a duet, and not a trio. Myrtle
closed her lips while it was singing, and when it was done
threw down the book with a look of anger and disgust.
The hunted soul was at bay.

“I won't sing such words,” she said, “and I won't stay
here to hear them sung. The boys in the streets say just
such words as that, and I am not going to sing them.
You can't scare me into being good with your cruel hymn-book!”

She could not swear: she was not a boy. She would
not cry: she felt proud, obdurate, scornful, outraged. All
these images, borrowed from the Holy Inquisition, were
meant to frighten her, and had simply irritated her. The
blow of a weapon that glances off, stinging, but not penetrating,
only enrages. It was a moment of fearful danger
to her character, to her life itself.

Without heeding the cries of the two women, she sprang
up stairs to her hanging chamber. She threw open the
window and looked down into the stream. For one

[figure description] Page 081.[end figure description]

moment her head swam with the sudden, overwhelming,
almost maddening thought that came over her, — the impulse
to fling herself headlong into those running waters
and dare the worst these dreadful women had threatened
her with. Something — she often thought afterwards it
was an invisible hand — held her back during that brief
moment, and the paroxysm — just such a paroxysm as
throws many a young girl into the Thames or the Seine —
passed away. She remained looking, in a misty dream,
into the water far below. Its murmur recalled the whisper
of the ocean waves. And through the depths it seemed
as if she saw into that strange, half-remembered world of
palm-trees and white robes and dusky faces, and amidst
them, looking upon her with ineffable love and tenderness,
until all else faded from her sight, the face of a fair
woman, — was it hers, so long, long dead, or that dear
young mother's who was to her less a recollection than
a dream?

Could it have been this vision that soothed her, so that
she unclasped her hands and lifted her bowed head as if
she had heard a voice whispering to her from that unknown
world where she felt there was a spirit watching over her?
At any rate, her face was never more serene than when
she went to meeting with the two maiden ladies on the following
day, Sunday, and heard the Rev. Mr. Stoker preach
a sermon from Luke vii. 48, which made both the women
shed tears, but especially so excited Miss Cynthia that she
was in a kind of half-hysteric condition all the rest of the
day.

After that Myrtle was quieter and more docile than
ever before. Could it be, Miss Silence thought, that the
Rev. Mr. Stoker's sermon had touched her hard heart?

[figure description] Page 082.[end figure description]

However that was, she did not once wear the stormy look
with which she had often met the complaining remonstrances
Miss Silence constantly directed against all the
spontaneous movements of the youthful and naturally vivacious
subject of her discipline.

June is an uncertain month, as everybody knows, and
there were frosts in many parts of New England in the
June of 1859. But there were also beautiful days and
nights, and the sun was warm enough to be fast ripening
the strawberries, — also certain plans which had been in
flower some little time. Some preparations had been going
on in a quiet way, so that at the right moment a decisive
movement could be made. Myrtle knew how to use her
needle, and always had a dexterous way of shaping any
article of dress or ornament, — a natural gift not very rare,
but sometimes very needful, as it was now.

On the morning of the 15th of June she was wandering
by the shores of the river, some distance above The Poplars,
when a boat came drifting along by her, evidently
broken loose from its fastenings farther up the stream. It
was common for such waifs to show themselves after heavy
rains had swollen the river. They might have run the
gauntlet of nobody could tell how many farms, and perhaps
passed by half a dozen towns and villages in the night, so
that, if of common, cheap make, they were retained without
scruple, by any who might find them, until the owner called
for them, if he cared to take the trouble.

Myrtle took a knife from her pocket, cut down a long,
slender sapling, and coaxed the boat to the side of the bank.
A pair of old oars lay in the bottom of the boat; she took
one of these and paddled it into a little cove, where it could
lie hid among the thick alders. Then she went home and

[figure description] Page 083.[end figure description]

busied herself about various little matters more interesting
to her than to us.

She was never more amiable and gracious than on this
day. But she looked often at the clock, as they remembered
afterwards, and studied over a copy of the Farmer's
Almanae which was lying in the kitchen, with a somewhat
singular interest. The days were nearly at their longest,
the weather was mild, the night promised to be clear and
bright.

The household was, to all appearance, asleep at the usual
early hour. When all seemed quiet, Myrtle lighted her
lamp, stood before her mirror, and united the string that
bound her long and beautiful dark hair, which fell in its
abundance over her shoulders and below her girdle.

She lifted its heavy masses with one hand, and severed
it with a strong pair of scissors, with remorseless exaction
of every wandering curl, until she stood so changed by the
loss of that outward glory of her womanhood, that she felt
as if she had lost herself and found a brother she had never
seen before.

“Good by, Myrtle!” she said, and, opening her window
very gently, she flung the shining tresses upon the running
water, and watched them for a few moments as they floated
down the stream. Then she dressed herself in the character
of her imaginary brother, took up the carpet-bag in
which she had placed what she chose to carry with her,
stole softly down stairs, and let herself out of a window on
the lower floor, shutting it very carefully so as to be sure
that nobody should be disturbed.

She glided along, looking all about her, fearing she
might be seen by some curious wanderer, and reached the
cove where the boat she had concealed was lying. She

[figure description] Page 084.[end figure description]

got into it, and, taking the rude oars, pulled herself into
the middle of the swollen stream. Her heart beat so that
it seemed to her as if she could hear it between the strokes
of the oar. The lights were not all out in the village, and
she trembled lest she should see the figure of some watcher
looking from the windows in sight of which she would
have to pass, and that a glimpse of this boat stealing along
at so late an hour might give the clew to the secret of her
disappearance, with which the whole region was to be busied
in the course of the next day.

Presently she came abreast of The Poplars. The house
lay so still, so peaceful, — it would wake to such dismay!
The boat slid along beneath her own overhanging chamber.

“No song to-morrow from the Fire-hang-bird's Nest!”
she said. So she floated by the slumbering village, the
flow of the river carrying her steadily on, and the careful
strokes of the oars adding swiftness to her flight.

At last she came to the “Broad Meadows,” and knew
that she was alone, and felt confident that she had got
away unseen. There was nothing, absolutely nothing,
to point out which way she had gone. Her boat came
from nobody knew where, her disguise had been got together
at different times in such a manner as to lead to
no suspicion, and not a human being ever had the slightest
hint that she had planned and meant to carry out the enterprise
which she had now so fortunately begun.

Not till the last straggling house had been long past,
not till the meadows were stretched out behind her as well
as before her, spreading far off into the distance on each
side, did she give way to the sense of wild exultation
which was coming fast over her. But then, at last, she
drew a long, long breath, and, standing up in the boat,

[figure description] Page 085.[end figure description]

looked all around her. The stars were shining over her
head and deep down beneath her. The cool wind came
fresh upon her cheek over the long grassy reaches. No
living thing moved in all the wide level circle which lay
about her. She had passed the Red Sea, and was alone
in the Desert.

She threw down her oars, lifted her hands like a priestess,
and her strong, sweet voice burst into song, — the
song of the Jewish maiden when she went out before the
chorus of women and sang that grand solo, which we all
remember in its ancient words, and in their modern paraphrase, —

The poor child's repertory was limited to songs of
the religious sort mainly, but there was a choice among
these. Her aunt's favorites, beside “China,” already
mentioned, were “Bangor,” which the worthy old New
England clergyman so admired that he actually had
the down-east city called after it, and “Windsor,” and
“Funeral Hymn.” But Myrtle was in no mood for these.
She let off her ecstasy in “Ballerma,” and “Arlington,”
and “Silver Street,” and at last in that most riotous of
devotional hymns, which sounds as if it had been composed
by a saint who had a cellar under his chapel, —
“Jordan.” So she let her wild spirits run loose; and then
a tenderer feeling stole over her, and she sang herself into
a more tranquil mood with the gentle music of “Dundee.”
And again she pulled quietly and steadily at her oars, until
she reached the wooded region through which the river
winds after leaving the “Broad Meadows.”

The tumult in her blood was calmed, yet every sense

[figure description] Page 086.[end figure description]

and faculty was awake to the manifold delicious, mysterious
impressions of that wonderful June night. The stars were
shining between the tall trees, as if all the jewels of heaven
had been set in one belt of midnight sky. The voices of
the wind, as they sighed through the pines, seemed like
the breath of a sleeping child, and then, as they lisped
from the soft, tender leaves of beeches and maples, like
the half-articulate whisper of the mother hushing all the
intrusive sounds that might awaken it. Then came the
pulsating monotone of the frogs from a far-off pool, the
harsh cry of an owl from an old tree that overhung it, the
splash of a mink or musquash, and nearer by, the light
step of a woodchuck, as he cantered off in his quiet way to
his hole in the nearest bank. The laurels were just coming
into bloom, — the yellow lilies, earlier than their fairer
sisters, pushing their golden cups through the water, not
content, like those, to float on the surface of the stream
that fed them, — emblems of showy wealth, and, like that,
drawing all manner of insects to feed upon them. The
miniature forests of ferns came down to the edge of the
stream, their tall, bending plumes swaying in the night
breeze. Sweet odors from oozing pines, from dewy flowers,
from spicy leaves, stole out of the tangled thickets,
and made the whole scene more dream-like with their
faint, mingled suggestions.

By and by the banks of the river grew lower and
marshy, and in place of the larger forest-trees which had
covered them stood slender tamaracks, sickly, mossy,
looking as if they had been moon-struck and were out of
their wits, their tufts of leaves staring off every way from
their spindling branches. The winds came cool and damp
out of the hiding-places among their dark recesses. The

[figure description] Page 087.[end figure description]

country people about here called this region the “Witches'
Hollow,” and had many stories about the strange things
that happened there. The Indians used to hold their
“powwows,” or magical incantations, upon a broad mound
which rose out of the common level, and where some old
hemlocks and beeches formed a dark grove, which served
them as a temple for their demon-worship. There were
many legends of more recent date connected with this spot,
some of them hard to account for, and no superstitious
or highly imaginative person would have cared to pass
through it alone in the dead of the night, as this young
girl was doing.

She knew nothing of all these fables and fancies. Her
own singular experiences in this enchanted region were
certainly not suggested by anything she had heard, and
may be considered psychologically curious by those who
would not think of attributing any mystical meaning to
them. We are at liberty to report many things without
attempting to explain them, or committing ourselves to
anything beyond the fact that so they were told us. [The
reader will find Myrtle's “Vision,” as written out at a later
period from her recollections, at the end of this chapter.]

The night was passing, and she meant to be as far away
as possible from the village she had left, before morning.
But the boat, like all craft on country rivers, was leaky,
and she had to work until tired, bailing it out, before she
was ready for another long effort. The old tin measure,
which was all she had to bail with, leaked as badly as the
boat, and her task was a tedious one. At last she got it in
good trim, and sat down to her oars with the determination
to pull steadily as long as her strength would hold out.

Hour after hour she kept at her work, sweeping round

[figure description] Page 088.[end figure description]

the long bends where the river was hollowing out one
bank and building new shore on the opposite one, so as
gradually to shift its channel; by clipper-shaped islands,
sharp at the bows looking up stream, sharp too at the
stern, looking down, — their shape solving the navigator's
problem of least resistance, as a certain young artist had
pointed out; by slumbering villages; by outlying farmhouses;
between cornfields where the young plants were
springing up in little thready fountains; in the midst of
stumps where the forest had just been felled; through
patches where the fire of the last great autumnal drought
had turned all the green beauty of the woods into brown
desolation; and again amidst broad expanses of open
meadow stretching as far as the eye could reach in the
uncertain light. A faint yellow tinge was beginning to
stain the eastern horizon. Her boat was floating quietly
along, for she had at last taken in her oars, and she was
now almost tired out with toil and excitement. She rested
her head upon her hands, and felt her eyelids closing in
spite of herself. And now there stole upon her ear a low,
gentle, distant murmur, so soft that it seemed almost to
mingle with the sound of her own breathing, but so steady,
so uniform, that it soothed her to sleep, as if it were the
old cradle-song the ocean used to sing to her, or the lullaby
of her fair young mother.

So she glided along, slowly, slowly, down the course of
the winding river, and the flushing dawn kindled around
her as she slumbered, and the low, gentle murmur grew
louder and louder, but still she slept, dreaming of the murmuring
ocean.

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VIII. MYRTLE HAZARD'S STATEMENT.

[figure description] Page 089.[end figure description]

“A Vision seen by me, Myrtle Hazard, aged fifteen, on
the night of June 15, 1859. Written out at the request
of a friend from my recollections.

“The place where I saw these sights is called, as I
have been told since, Witches' Hollow. I had never been
there before, and did not know that it was called so, or
anything about it.

“The first strange thing that I noticed was on coming
near a kind of hill or mound that rose out of the low
meadows. I saw a burning cross lying on the slope of
that mound. It burned with a pale greenish light, and did
not waste, though I watched it for a long time, as the boat
I was in moved slowly with the current and I had stopped
rowing.

“I know that my eyes were open, and I was awake
while I was looking at this cross. I think my eyes were
open when I saw these other appearances, but I felt just
as if I were dreaming while awake.

“I heard a faint rustling sound, and on looking up I
saw many figures moving around me, and I seemed to see
myself among them as if I were outside of myself.

“The figures did not walk, but slid or glided with an
even movement, as if without any effort. They made
many gestures, and seemed to speak, but I cannot tell
whether I heard what they said, or knew its meaning in
some other way.

“I knew the faces of some of these figures. They
were the same I have seen in portraits, as long as I can

[figure description] Page 090.[end figure description]

remember, at the old house where I was brought up, called
The Poplars. I saw my father and my mother as they look
in the two small pictures; also my grandmother, and her
father and mother and grandfather, and one other person,
who lived a great while ago. All of these have been long
dead, and the longer they had been dead the less like substance
they looked and the more like shadows, so that the
oldest was like one's breath of a frosty morning, but
shaped like the living figure.

“There was no motion of their breasts, and their lips
seemed to be moving as if they were saying, Breath!
Breath! Breath! I thought they wanted to breathe the
air of this world again in my shape, which I seemed to see
as it were empty of myself and of these other selves, like
a sponge that has water pressed out of it.

“Presently it seemed to me that I returned to myself,
and then those others became part of me by being taken
up, one by one, and so lost in my own life.

“My father and mother came up, hand in hand, looking
more real than any of the rest. Their figures vanished,
and they seemed to have become a part of me; for I felt
all at once the longing to live over the life they had led, on
the sea and in strange countries.

“Another figure was just like the one we called the
Major, who was a very strong, hearty-looking man, and
who is said to have drank hard sometimes, though there
is nothing about it on his tombstone, which I used to read
in the graveyard. It seemed to me that there was something
about his life that I did not want to make a part of
mine, but that there was some right he had in me through
my being of his blood, and so his health and his strength
went all through me, and I was always to have what

[figure description] Page 091.[end figure description]

was left of his life in that shadow-like shape, forming a
portion of mine.

“So in the same way with the shape answering to the
portrait of that famous beauty who was the wife of my
great-grandfather, and used to be called the Pride of the
County.

“And so too with another figure which had the face of
that portrait marked on the back, Ruth Bradford, who
married one of my ancestors, and was before the court, as
I have heard, in the time of the witchcraft trials.

“There was with the rest a dark, wild-looking woman,
with a head-dress of feathers. She kept as it were in
shadow, but I saw something of my own features in her
face.

“It was on my mind very strongly that the shape of
that woman of our blood who was burned long ago by the
Papists came very close to me, and was in some way made
one with mine, and that I feel her presence with me since,
as if she lived again in me; but not always, — only at
times, — and then I feel borne up as if I could do anything
in the world. I had a feeling as if she were my
guardian and protector.

“It seems to me that these, and more, whom I have not
mentioned, do really live over some part of their past lives
in my life. I do not understand it all, and perhaps it can
be accounted for in some way I have not thought of. I
write it down as nearly as I can give it from memory, by
request, and if it is printed at this time had rather have
all the real names withheld.

NOTE BY THE FRIEND.

“This statement must be accounted for in some way, or

[figure description] Page 092.[end figure description]

pass into the category of the supernatural. Probably it
was one of those intuitions, with objective projection, which
sometimes come to imaginative young persons, especially
girls, in certain exalted nervous conditions. The study of
the portraits, with the knowledge of some parts of the history
of the persons they represented, and the consciousness
of instincts inherited in all probability from these same
ancestors, formed the basis of Myrtle's `Vision.' The
lives of our progenitors are, as we know, reproduced in
different proportions in ourselves. Whether they as individuals
have any consciousness of it, is another matter. It
is possible that they do get a second as it were fractional
life in us. It might seem that many of those whose blood
flows in our veins struggle for the mastery, and by and by
one or more get the predominance, so that we grow to be
like father, or mother, or remoter ancestor, or two or more
are blended in us, not to the exclusion, however, it must
be understood, of a special personality of our own, about
which these others are grouped. Independently of any
possible scientific value, this `Vision' serves to illustrate
the above-mentioned fact of common experience, which is
not sufficiently weighed by most moralists.

“How much it may be granted to certain young persons
to see, not in virtue of their intellectual gifts, but through
those direct channels which worldly wisdom may possibly
close to the luminous influx, each reader must determine
for himself by his own standards of faith and evidence.

“One statement of the narrative admits of a simple
natural explanation, which does not allow the lovers of the
marvellous to class it with the quasi miraculous appearance
seen by Colonel Gardiner, and given in full by Dr.
Doddridge in his Life of that remarkable Christian soldier.

[figure description] Page 093.[end figure description]

Decaying wood is often phosphorescent, as many readers
must have seen for themselves. The country people are
familiar with the sight of it in wild timber-land, and have
given it the name of `Fox-fire.' Two trunks of trees in
this state, lying across each other, will account for the fact
observed, and vindicate the truth of the young girl's story
without requiring us to suppose any exceptional occurrence
outside of natural laws.”

p607-111 CHAPTER IX. MR. CLEMENT LINDSAY RECEIVES A LETTER, AND BEGINS HIS ANSWER.

[figure description] Page 094.[end figure description]

IT was already morning when a young man living in
the town of Alderbank, after lying awake for an hour,
thinking the unutterable thoughts that nineteen years of
life bring to the sleeping and waking dreams of young
people, rose from his bed, and, half dressing himself, sat
down at his desk, from which he took a letter, which he
opened and read. It was written in a delicate, though
hardly formed female hand, and crossed like a checkerboard,
as is usual with these redundant manuscripts. The
letter was as follows: —

“Oxbow Village, June 13, 1859.

“My dearest Clement, — You was so good to write
me such a sweet little bit of a letter, — only, dear, you
never seem to be in quite so good spirits as you used to be.
I wish your Susie was with you to cheer you up; but no,
she must be patient, and you must be patient too, for you
are so ambitious! I have heard you say so many times
that nobody could be a great artist without passing years
and years at work, and growing pale and lean with thinking
so hard. You won't grow pale and lean, I hope; for I do
so love to see that pretty color in your cheeks you have
always had ever since I have known you; and besides, I do
not believe you will have to work so very hard to do something
great, — you have so much genius, and people of
genius do such beautiful things with so little trouble. You

[figure description] Page 095.[end figure description]

remember those beautiful lines out of our newspaper I
sent you? Well, Mr. Hopkins told me he wrote those lines
in one evening without stopping! I wish you could see
Mr. Hopkins, — he is a very talented person. I cut out
this little piece about him from the paper on purpose to show
you, — for genius loves genius, — and you would like to
hear him read his own poetry, — he reads it beautifully.
Please send this piece from the paper back, as I want to
put it in my scrap-book, under his autograph: —

“`Our young townsman, Mr. Gifted Hopkins, has proved himself worthy of the
name he bears. His poetical effusions are equally creditable to his head and his
heart, displaying the highest order of genius and powers of imagination and fancy
hardly second to any writer of the age. He is destined to make a great sensation
in the world of letters.'

“Mrs. Hopkins is the same good soul she always was.
She is very proud of her son, as is natural, and keeps a
copy of everything he writes. I believe she cries over
them every time she reads them. You don't know how I
take to little Sossy and Minthy, those two twins I have
written to you about before. Poor little creatures, — what
a cruel thing it was in their father and mother not to take
care of them! What do you think? Old bachelor Gridley
lets them come up into his room, and builds forts and
castles for them with his big books! `The world 's coming
to an end,' Mrs. Hopkins said the first time he did so. He
looks so savage with that scowl of his, and talks so gruff
when he is scolding at things in general, that nobody
would have believed he would have let such little things
come anywhere near him. But he seems to be growing
kind to all of us and everybody. I saw him talking to the
Fire-hang-bird the other day. You know who the Fire-hang-bird
is, don't you? Myrtle Hazard her name is. I
wish you could see her. I don't know as I do, though.
You would want to make a statue of her, or a painting, I

[figure description] Page 096.[end figure description]

know. She is so handsome that all the young men stand
round to see her come out of meeting. Some say that
Lawyer Bradshaw is after her; but my! he is ten years
older than she is. She is nothing but a girl, though she
looks as if she was eighteen. She lives up at a place called
The Poplars, with an old woman that is her aunt or something,
and nobody seems to be much acquainted with her
except Olive Eveleth, who is the minister's daughter at
Saint Bartholomew's Church. She never has beauxs
round her, as some young girls do — they say that she is not
happy with her aunt and another woman that stays with
her, and that is the reason she keeps so much to herself.
The minister came to see me the other day, — Mr. Stoker
his name is. I was all alone, and it frightened me, for he
looks, O, so solemn on Sundays! But he called me `My
dear,' and did n't say anything horrid, you know, about my
being such a dreadful, dreadful sinner, as I have heard of
his saying to some people, — but he looked very kindly at
me, and took my hand, and laid his hand on my shoulder like
a brother, and hoped I would come and see him in his
study. I suppose I must go, but I don't want to. I don't
seem to like him exactly.

“I hope you love me as well as ever you did. I can't
help feeling sometimes as if you was growing away from
me, — you know what I mean, — getting to be too great a
person for such a small person as I am. I know I can't always
understand you when you talk about art, and that you
know a great deal too much for such a simple girl as I am.
O, if I thought I could never make you happy!....
There, now! I am almost ashamed to send this paper so
spotted. — Gifted Hopkins wrote some beautiful verses one
day on `A Maiden Weeping.' He compared the tears

[figure description] Page 097.[end figure description]

falling from her eyes to the drops of dew which one often sees
upon the flowers in the morning. Is n't it a pretty thought?

“I wish I loved art as well as I do poetry; but I am
afraid I have not so much taste as some girls have. You
remember how I liked that picture in the illustrated magazine,
and you said it was horrid. I have been afraid since
to like almost anything, for fear you should tell me some
time or other it was horrid. Don't you think I shall ever
learn to know what is nice from what is n't?

“O, dear Clement, I wish you would do one thing to
please me. Don't say no, for you can do everything you
try to, — I am sure you can. I want you to write me
some poetry, — just three or four little verses To Susie.
O, I should feel so proud to have some lines written all on
purpose for me. Mr Hopkins wrote some the other day,
and printed them in the paper, `To M—e.' I believe
he meant them for Myrtle, — the first and last letter of
her name, you see, `M' and `e.'

“Your letter was a dear one, only so short! I wish you
would tell me all about what you are doing at Alderbank.
Have you made that model of Innocence that is to have
my forehead, and hair parted like mine! Make it pretty,
do, that is a darling.

“Now don't make a face at my letter. It is n't a very
good one, I know; but your poor little Susie does the best
she can, and she loves you so much!

“Now do be nice and write me one little bit of a mite of
a poem, — it will make me just as happy!

“I am very well, and as happy as I can be when you are
away.

[figure description] Page 098.[end figure description]

The envelope of this letter was unbroken, as was before
said, when the young man took it from his desk. He did
not tear it with the hot impatience of some lovers, but cut
it open neatly, slowly, one would say sadly. He read it
with an air of singular effort, and yet with a certain tenderness.
When he had finished it, the drops were thick on
his forehead; he groaned and put his hands to his face,
which was burning red.

This was what the impulse of boyhood, years ago, had
brought him to! He was a stately youth, of noble bearing,
of high purpose, of fastidious taste; and, if his broad forehead,
his clear, large blue eyes, his commanding features,
his lips, firm, yet plastic to every change of thought and
feeling, were not an empty mask, might not improbably
claim that Promethean quality of which the girl's
letter had spoken, — the strange, divine, dread gift of
genius.

This poor, simple, innocent, trusting creature, so utterly
incapable of coming into any true relation with his aspiring
mind, his large and strong emotions, — this mere child, all
simplicity and goodness, but trivial and shallow as the little
babbling brooklet that ran by his window to the river, to
lose its insignificant being in the swift torrent he heard
rushing over the rocks, — this pretty idol for a weak and
kindly and easily satisfied worshipper, was to be enthroned
as the queen of his affections, to be adopted as the companion
of his labors! The boy, led by the commonest instinct,
the mere attraction of biped to its female, which accident
had favored, had thrown away the dearest possession of
manhood, — liberty, — and this bawble was to be his lifelong
reward! And yet not a bawble either, for a pleasing
person and a gentle and sweet nature, which had once

[figure description] Page 099.[end figure description]

made her seem to him the very paragon of loveliness,
were still hers. Alas! her simple words were true, —
he had grown away from her. Her only fault was that
she had not grown with him, and surely he could not reproach
her with that.

“No,” he said to himself, “I will never leave her so
long as her heart clings to me. I have been rash, but she
shall not pay the forfeit. And if I may think of myself,
my life need not be wretched because she cannot share all
my being with me. The common human qualities are
more than all exceptional gifts. She has a woman's
heart; and what talent of mine is to be named by the
love a true woman can offer in exchange for these divided
and cold affections? If it had pleased God to mate me
with one more equal in other ways, who could share my
thoughts, who could kindle my inspiration, who had wings
to rise into the air with me as well as feet to creep by my
side upon the earth, — what cannot such a woman do for a
man!

“What! cast away the flower I took in the bud because
it does not show as I hoped it would when it opened? I will
stand by my word; I will be all as a man that I promised
as a boy. Thank God, she is true and pure and sweet.
My nest will be a peaceful one; but I must take wing
alone, — alone.”

He drew one long sigh, and the cloud passed from his
countenance. He must answer that letter now, — at once.
There were reasons, he thought, which made it important.
And so, with the cheerfulness which it was kind and becoming
to show, so far as possible, and yet with a little
excitement on one particular point, which was the cause
of his writing so promptly, he began his answer.

Alderbank, Thursday morning, June 16, 1859.

[figure description] Page 100.[end figure description]

“My dear Susie, — I have just been reading your
pleasant letter; and if I do not send you the poem you
ask for so eloquently, I will give you a little bit of advice,
which will do just as well, — won't it, my dear? I was
interested in your account of various things going on at
Oxbow Village. I am very glad you find young Mr. Hopkins
so agreeable a friend. His poetry is better than some
which I see printed in the village papers, and seems generally
unexceptionable in its subjects and tone. I do not believe
he is a dangerous companion, though the habit of writing
verse does not always improve the character. I think I have
seen it make more than one of my acquaintances idle, conceited,
sentimental, and frivolous, — perhaps it found them
so already. Don't make too much of his talent, and particularly
don't let him think that because he can write verses
he has nothing else to do in this world. That is for his
benefit, dear, and you must skilfully apply it.

“Now about yourself. My dear Susie, there was something
in your letter that did not please me. You speak of
a visit from the Rev. Mr. Stoker, and of his kind, brotherly
treatment, his cordiality of behavior, and his asking you to
visit him in his study. I am very glad to hear you say
that you `don't seem to like him.' He is very familiar,
it seems to me, for so new an acquaintance. What business
had he to be laying his hand on your shoulder? I
should like to see him try these free-and-easy ways in my
presence! He would not have taken that liberty, my
dear! No, he was alone with you, and thought it safe
to be disrespectfully familiar. I want you to maintain
your dignity always with such persons, and I beg you
not to go to the study of this clergyman, unless some older

[figure description] Page 101.[end figure description]

friend goes with you on every occasion, and sits through
the visit. I must speak plainly to you, my dear, as I have
a right to. If the minister has anything of importance to
say, let it come through the lips of some mature person.
It may lose something of the fervor with which it would
have been delivered at first hand, but the great rules of
Christian life are not so dependent on the particular individual
who speaks them, that you must go to this or that
young man to find out what they are. If to any man, I
should prefer the old gentleman whom you have mentioned
in your letters, Father Pemberton. You understand me,
my dear girl, and the subject is not grateful. You know
how truly I am interested in all that relates to you, —
that I regard you with an affection which — ”

Help! Help! Help!

A cry as of a young person's voice was heard faintly,
coming from the direction of the river. Something in the
tone of it struck to his heart, and he sprang as if he had
been stabbed. He flung open his chamber window and
leaped from it to the ground. He ran straight to the bank
of the river by the side of which the village of Alderbank
was built, a little farther down the stream than the house in
which he was living.

Everybody that travels in that region knows the beautiful
falls which break the course of the river just above
the village; narrow and swift, and surrounded by rocks
of such picturesque forms that they are sought and admired
by tourists. The stream was now swollen, and rushed in
a deep and rapid current over the ledges, through the
rocky straits, plunging at last in tumult and foam, with
loud, continuous roar, into the depths below the cliff from
which it tumbled.

[figure description] Page 102.[end figure description]

A short distance above the fall there projected from the
water a rock which had, by parsimonious saving during a
long course of years, hoarded a little soil, out of which a
small tuft of bushes struggled to support a decent vegetable
existence. The high waters had nearly submerged it,
but a few slender twigs were seen above their surface.

A skiff was lying close to this rock, between it and the
brink of the fall, which was but a few rods farther down.
In the skiff was a youth of fourteen or fifteen years, holding
by the slender twigs, the boat dragging at them all the
time, and threatening to tear them away and go over the
fall. It was not likely that the boy would come to shore
alive if it did. There were stories, it is true, that the
Indians used to shoot the fall in their canoes with safety;
but everybody knew that at least three persons had been
lost by going over it since the town was settled; and more
than one dead body had been found floating far down the
river, with bruises and fractured bones, as if it had taken
the same fatal plunge.

There was no time to lose. Clement ran a little way
up the river-bank, flung off his shoes, and sprang from the
bank as far as he could leap into the water. The current
swept him toward the fall, but he worked nearer and
nearer the middle of the stream. He was making for the
rock, thinking he could plant his feet upon it and at the
worst hold the boat until he could summon other help by
shouting. He had barely got his feet upon the rock, when
the twigs by which the boy was holding gave way. He
seized the boat, but it dragged him from his uncertain footing,
and with a desperate effort he clambered over its side,
and found himself its second doomed passenger.

There was but an instant for thought.

[figure description] Page 103.[end figure description]

“Sit still,” he said, “and, just as we go over, put your
arms round me under mine, and don't let go for your
life!”

He caught up the single oar, and with a few sharp paddle-strokes
brought the skiff into the blackest centre of the
current, where it was deepest, and would plunge them into
the deepest pool.

“Hold your breath! God save us! Now!”

They rose, as if with one will, and stood for an instant,
the arms of the younger closely embracing the other as he
had directed.

A sliding away from beneath them of the floor on which
they stood, as the drop fails under the feet of a felon. A
great rush of air, and a mighty, awful, stunning roar, — an
involuntary gasp, a choking flood of water that came bellowing
after them, and hammered them down into the
black depths so far that the young man, though used to diving
and swimming long distances under water, had wellnigh
yielded to the fearful need of air, and sucked in his
death in so doing.

The boat came up to the surface, broken in twain, splintered,
a load of firewood for those who raked the river
lower down. It had turned crosswise, and struck the rocks.
A cap rose to the surface, such a one as boys wear, — the
same that boy had on. And then — after how many
seconds by the watch cannot be known, but after a time
long enough, as the young man remembered it, to live his
whole life over in memory — Clement Lindsay felt the
blessed air against his face, and, taking a great breath, came
to his full consciousness. The arms of the boy were still
locked around him as in the embrace of death. A few
strokes brought him to the shore, dragging his senseless
burden with him.

[figure description] Page 104.[end figure description]

He unclasped the arms that held him so closely encircled,
and laid the slender form of the youth he had almost died
to save gently upon the grass. It was as if dead. He
loosed the ribbon that was round the neck, he tore open
the checked shirt —

The story of Myrtle Hazard's sex was told; but she was
deaf to his cry of surprise, and no blush came to her cold
cheek. Not too late, perhaps, to save her, — not too late
to try to save her, at least!

He placed his lips to hers, and filled her breast with the
air from his own panting chest. Again and again he renewed
these efforts, hoping, doubting, despairing, — once
more hoping, and at last, when he had almost ceased to
hope, she gasped, she breathed, she moaned, and rolled her
eyes wildly round her, — she was born again into this
mortal life.

He caught her up in his arms, bore her to the house,
laid her on a sofa, and, having spent his strength in this
last effort, reeled and fell, and lay as one over whom have
just been whispered the words, “He is gone.”