It was a sultry forenoon, and the windows and doors
of the building were open. The humming of insects was
heard in the silence, and broken lights and shadows of the
poplar-leaves were sprinkled upon the steps and sills.
Outside there were glimpses of quiet groves and orchards,
and blue fragments of sky,—no more semblance of life in
the external landscape than there was in the silent meeting
within. Some quarter of an hour before the shaking
of hands took place, the hoofs of a horse were heard in
the meeting-house yard—the noise of a smart trot on the
turf, suddenly arrested.

The boys pricked up their ears at this unusual sound,
and stole glances at each other when they imagined themselves
unseen by the awful faces in the gallery. Presently
those nearest the door saw a broader shadow fall over
those flickering upon the stone. A red face appeared for
a moment, and was then drawn back out of sight. The
shadow advanced and receded, in a state of peculiar restlessness.
Sometimes the end of a riding-whip was visible,
sometimes the corner of a coarse gray coat. The boys
who noticed these apparitions were burning with impatience,
but they dared not leave their seats until Abraham
Bradbury had reached his hand to Henry Donnelly.

Then they rushed out. The mysterious personage was
still beside the door, leaning against the wall. He was a
short, thick-set man of fifty, with red hair, round gray
eyes, a broad pug nose, and projecting mouth. He wore
a heavy gray coat, despite the heat, and a waistcoat with
many brass buttons; also corduroy breeches and riding

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

boots. When they appeared, he started forward with open
mouth and eyes, and stared wildly in their faces. They
gathered around the poplar-trunks, and waited with some
uneasiness to see what would follow.

Slowly and gravely, with the half-broken ban of silence
still hanging over them, the people issued from the house.
The strange man stood, leaning forward, and seemed to
devour each, in turn, with his eager eyes. After the young
men came the fathers of families, and lastly the old men
from the gallery seats. Last of these came Henry Donnelly.
In the meantime, all had seen and wondered at
the waiting figure; its attitude was too intense and selfforgetting
to be misinterpreted. The greetings and remarks
were suspended until the people had seen for whom
the man waited, and why.

Henry Donnelly had no sooner set his foot upon the
door-step than, with something between a shout and a
howl, the stranger darted forward, seized his hand, and
fell upon one knee, crying: “O my lord! my lord! Glory
be to God that I've found ye at last!”

If these words burst like a bomb on the ears of the
people, what was their consternation when Henry Donnelly
exclaimed, “The Divel! Jack O'Neil, can that be
you?”

“It's me, meself, my lord! When we heard the letters
went wrong last year, I said `I'll trust no such good news
to their blasted mail-posts: I'll go meself and carry it to
his lordship,—if it is t'other side o' the say. Him and
my lady and all the children went, and sure I can go too

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

And as I was the one that went with you from Dunleigh
Castle, I'll go back with you to that same, for it stands
awaitin', and blessed be the day that sees you back in
your ould place!”

“All clear, Jack? All mine again?”

“You may believe it, my lord! And money in the
chest beside. But where's my lady, bless her sweet face!
Among yon women, belike, and you'll help me to find her,
for it's herself must have the news next, and then the
young master—”

With that word Henry Donnelly awoke to a sense of
time and place. He found himself within a ring of staring,
wondering, scandalized eyes. He met them boldly,
with a proud, though rather grim smile, took hold of
O'Neil's arm and led him towards the women's end of the
house, where the sight of Susan in her scoop bonnet so
moved the servant's heart that he melted into tears. Both
husband and wife were eager to get home and hear
O'Neil's news in private; so they set out at once in their
plain carriage, followed by the latter on horseback. As for
the Friends, they went home in a state of bewilderment.

Alice Donnelly, with her brother Henry and Joel
Bradbury, returned on foot. The two former remembered
O'Neil, and, although they had not witnessed his first interview
with their father, they knew enough of the family
history to surmise his errand. Joel was silent and troubled.

“Alice, I hope it doesn't mean that we are going back,
don't you?” said Henry.

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

“Yes,” she answered, and said no more.

They took a foot-path across the fields, and reached
the farm-house at the same time with the first party. As
they opened the door Sylvia descended the staircase dressed
in a rich shimmering brocade, with a necklace of amethysts
around her throat. To their eyes, so long accustomed
to the absence of positive color, she was completely
dazzling. There was a new color on her cheeks, and
her eyes seemed larger and brighter. She made a stately
courtesy; and held open the parlor door.

“Welcome, Lord Henry Dunleigh, of Dunleigh Castle!”
she cried; “welcome, Lady Dunleigh!”

Her father kissed her on the forehead. “Now give us
back our memories, Sylvia!” he said, exultingly.

Susan Donnelly sank into a chair, overcome by the
mixed emotions of the moment.

“Come in, my faithful Jack! Unpack thy portmanteau
of news, for I see thou art bursting to show it; let
us have every thing from the beginning. Wife, it's a little
too much for thee, coming so unexpectedly. Set out the
wine, Alice!”

The decanter was placed upon the table. O'Neil filled
a tumbler to the brim, lifted it high, made two or three
hoarse efforts to speak, and then walked away to the window,
where he drank in silence. This little incident touched
the family more than the announcement of their good
fortune. Henry Donnelly's feverish exultation subsided:
he sat down with a grave, thoughtful face, while his wife
wept quietly beside him. Sylvia stood waiting with an

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abstracted air; Alice removed her mother's bonnet and
shawl; and Henry and Joel, seated together at the farther
end of the room, looked on in silent anticipation.

O'Neil's story was long, and frequently interrupted.
He had been Lord Dunleigh's steward in better days, as
his father had been to the old lord, and was bound to the
family by the closest ties of interest and affection. When
the estates became so encumbered that either an immediate
change or a catastrophe was inevitable, he had been
taken into his master's confidence concerning the plan
which had first been proposed in jest, and afterwards
adopted in earnest. The family must leave Dunleigh Castle
for a period of probably eight or ten years, and seek
some part of the world where their expenses could be reduced
to the lowest possible figure. In Germany or Italy
there would be the annoyance of a foreign race and language,
of meeting of tourists belonging to the circle in
which they had moved, a dangerous idleness for their sons,
and embarrassing restrictions for their daughters. On
the other hand, the suggestion to emigrate to America
and become Quakers during their exile offered more advantages
the more they considered it. It was original in
character; it offered them economy, seclusion, entire liberty
of action inside the limits of the sect, the best moral
atmosphere for their children, and an occupation which
would not deteriorate what was best in their blood and
breeding.

How Lord Dunleigh obtained admission into the sect
as plain Henry Donnelly is a matter of conjecture with

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the Londongrove Friends. The deception which had
been practised upon them—although it was perhaps less
complete than they imagined—left a soreness of feeling
behind it. The matter was hushed up after the departure
of the family, and one might now live for years in the
neighborhood without hearing the story. How the shrewd
plan was carried out by Lord Dunleigh and his family,
we have already learned. O'Neil, left on the estate, in
the north of Ireland, did his part with equal fidelity. He
not only filled up the gaps made by his master's early
profuseness, but found means to move the sympathies of
a cousin of the latter—a rich, eccentric old bachelor,
who had long been estranged by a family quarrel. To
this cousin he finally confided the character of the exile,
and at a lucky time; for the cousin's will was altered in
Lord Dunleigh's favor, and he died before his mood of
reconciliation passed away. Now, the estate was not only
unencumbered, but there was a handsome surplus in the
hands of the Dublin bankers. The family might return
whenever they chose, and there would be a festival to welcome
them, O'Neil said, such as Dunleigh Castle had
never known since its foundations were laid.

“Let us go at once!” said Sylvia, when he had concluded
his tale. “No more masquerading,—I never
knew until to-day how much I have hated it! I will not
say that your plan was not a sensible one, father; but I
wish it might have been carried out with more honor to
ourselves. Since De Courcy's death I have begun to appreciate
our neighbors: I was resigned to become one of

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

these people had our luck gone the other way. Will
they give us any credit for goodness and truth, I wonder?
Yes, in mother's case, and Alice's; and I believe both of
them would give up Dunleigh Castle for this little farm.”

“Then,” her father exclaimed, “it is time that we
should return, and without delay. But thee wrongs us
somewhat, Sylvia: it has not all been masquerading. We
have become the servants, rather than the masters, of our
own parts, and shall live a painful and divided life until
we get back in our old place. I fear me it will always be
divided for thee, wife, and Alice and Henry. If I am
subdued by the element which I only meant to asssume,
how much more deeply must it have wrought in your natures!
Yes, Sylvia is right, we must get away at once.
To-morrow we must leave Londongrove forever!”

He had scarcely spoken, when a new surprise fell
upon the family. Joel Bradbury arose and walked forward,
as if thrust by an emotion so powerful that it transformed
his whole being. He seemed to forget every
thing but Alice Donnelly's presence. His soft brown
eyes were fixed on her face with an expression of unutterable
tenderness and longing. He caught her by the
hands. “Alice, O, Alice!” burst from his lips; “you
are not going to leave me?”

The flush in the girl's sweet face faded into a deadly
paleness. A moan came from her lips; her head dropped,
and she would have fallen, swooning, from the chair
had not Joel knelt at her feet and caught her upon his
breast.

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

For a moment there was silence in the room.

Presently, Sylvia, all her haughtiness gone, knelt beside
the young man, and took her sister from his arms.
“Joel, my poor, dear friend,” she said, “I am sorry that
the last, worst mischief we have done must fall upon you.”

Joel covered his face with his hands, and convulsively
uttered the words, “Must she go?”

Then Henry Donnelly—or, rather, Lord Dunleigh, as
we must now call him—took the young man's hand. He
was profoundly moved; his strong voice trembled, and
his words came slowly. “I will not appeal to thy heart,
Joel,” he said, “for it would not hear me now. But thou
hast heard all our story, and knowest that we must leave
these parts, never to return. We belong to another station
and another mode of life than yours, and it must come to
us as a good fortune that our time of probation is at an end.
Bethink thee, could we leave our darling Alice behind us,
parted as if by the grave? Nay, could we rob her of the
life to which she is born—of her share in our lives? On
the other hand, could we take thee with us into relations
where thee would always be a stranger, and in which a
nature like thine has no place? This is a case where
duty speaks clearly, though so hard, so very hard, to
follow.”

He spoke tenderly, but inflexibly, and Joel felt that
his fate was pronounced. When Alice had somewhat
revived, and was taken to another room, he stumbled
blindly out of the house, made his way to the barn, and
there flung himself upon the harvest-sheaves which, three

[figure description] Page 105.[end figure description]

days before, he had bound with such a timid, delicious
hope working in his arm.

The day which brought such great fortune had thus a
sad and troubled termination. It was proposed that the
family should start for Philadelphia on the morrow, leaving
O'Neil to pack up and remove such furniture as they
wished to retain; but Susan, Lady Dunleigh, could not
forsake the neighborhood without a parting visit to the
good friends who had mourned with her over her firstborn;
and Sylvia was with her in this wish. So two
more days elapsed, and then the Dunleighs passed down
the Street Road, and the plain farm-house was gone from
their eyes forever. Two grieved over the loss of their
happy home; one was almost broken-hearted; and the
remaining two felt that the trouble of the present clouded
all their happiness in the return to rank and fortune.

They went, and they never came again. An account
of the great festival at Dunleigh Castle reached Londongrove
two years later, through an Irish laborer, who
brought to Joel Bradbury a letter of recommendation
signed “Dunleigh.” Joel kept the man upon his farm,
and the two preserved the memory of the family long
after the neighborhood had ceased to speak of it. Joel
never married; he still lives in the house where the great
sorrow of his life befell. His head is gray, and his face
deeply wrinkled; but when he lifts the shy lids of his
soft brown eyes, I fancy I can see in their tremulous
depths the lingering memory of his love for Alice Dunleigh.

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p711-114 JACOB FLINT'S JOURNEY.

[figure description] Page 107.[end figure description]

IF there ever was a man crushed out of
all courage, all self-reliance, all comfort
in life, it was Jacob Flint. Why this
should have been, neither he nor any
one else could have explained; but so
it was. On the day that he first went
to school, his shy, frightened face marked him as fair
game for the rougher and stronger boys, and they subjected
him to all those exquisite refinements of torture
which boys seem to get by the direct inspiration of the
Devil. There was no form of their bullying meanness or
the cowardice of their brutal strength which he did not
experience. He was born under a fading or falling star,—
the inheritor of some anxious or unhappy mood of his
parents, which gave its fast color to the threads out of
which his innocent being was woven.

Even the good people of the neighborhood, never accustomed
to look below the externals of appearance and
manner, saw in his shrinking face and awkward motions
only the signs of a cringing, abject soul. “You'll be no

[figure description] Page 108.[end figure description]

more of a man than Jake Flint!” was the reproach which
many a farmer addressed to his dilatory boy; and thus
the parents, one and all, came to repeat the sins of the
children.

If, therefore, at school and “before folks,” Jacob's
position was always uncomfortable and depressing, it was
little more cheering at home. His parents, as all the
neighbors believed, had been unhappily married, and,
though the mother died in his early childhood, his father
remained a moody, unsocial man, who rarely left his farm
except on the 1st of April every year, when he went to
the county town for the purpose of paying the interest
upon a mortgage. The farm lay in a hollow between two
hills, separated from the road by a thick wood, and the
chimneys of the lonely old house looked in vain for a
neighbor-smoke when they began to grow warm of a
morning.

Beyond the barn and under the northern hill there
was a log tenant-house, in which dwelt a negro couple,
who, in the course of years had become fixtures on the
place and almost partners in it. Harry, the man, was the
medium by which Samuel Flint kept up his necessary intercourse
with the world beyond the valley; he took the
horses to the blacksmith, the grain to the mill, the turkeys
to market, and through his hands passed all the incomings
and outgoings of the farm, except the annual interest on
the mortgage. Sally, his wife, took care of the household,
which, indeed, was a light and comfortable task, since
the table was well supplied for her own sake, and there was

[figure description] Page 109.[end figure description]

no sharp eye to criticise her sweeping, dusting, and bedmaking.
The place had a forlorn, tumble-down aspect,
quite in keeping with its lonely situation; but perhaps
this very circumstance flattered the mood of its silent,
melancholy owner and his unhappy son.

In all the neighborhood there was but one person
with whom Jacob felt completely at ease—but one who
never joined in the general habit of making his name
the butt of ridicule or contempt. This was Mrs. Ann
Pardon, the hearty, active wife of Farmer Robert Pardon,
who lived nearly a mile farther down the brook. Jacob
had won her good-will by some neighborly services, something
so trifling, indeed, that the thought of a favor conferred
never entered his mind. Ann Pardon saw that it
did not; she detected a streak of most unconscious goodness
under his uncouth, embarrassed ways, and she determined
to cultivate it. No little tact was required, however,
to coax the wild, forlorn creature into so much confidence
as she desired to establish; but tact is a native quality
of the heart no less than a social acquirement, and so she
did the very thing necessary without thinking much about it.

Robert Pardon discovered by and by that Jacob was a
steady, faithful hand in the harvest-field at husking-time,
or whenever any extra labor was required, and Jacob's
father made no objection to his earning a penny in this
way; and so he fell into the habit of spending his Saturday
evenings at the Pardon farm-house, at first to talk over
matters of work, and finally because it had become a welcome
relief from his dreary life at home.

[figure description] Page 110.[end figure description]

Now it happened that on a Saturday in the beginning
of haying-time, the village tailor sent home by Harry a
new suit of light summer clothes, for which Jacob had
been measured a month before. After supper he tried
them on, the day's work being over, and Sally's admiration
was so loud and emphatic that he felt himself growing
red even to the small of his back.

“Now, don't go for to take 'em off, Mr. Jake,” said
she. “I spec' you're gwine down to Pardon's, and so you
jist keep 'em on to show 'em all how nice you kin look.”

The same thought had already entered Jacob's mind.
Poor fellow! It was the highest form of pleasure of which
he had ever allowed himself to conceive. If he had been
called upon to pass through the village on first assuming
the new clothes, every stitch would have pricked him as
if the needle remained in it; but a quiet walk down the
brookside, by the pleasant path through the thickets and
over the fragrant meadows, with a consciousness of his
own neatness and freshness at every step, and with kind
Ann Pardon's commendation at the close, and the flattering
curiosity of the children,—the only ones who never
made fun of him,—all that was a delightful prospect. He
could never, never forget himself, as he had seen other
young fellows do; but to remember himself agreeably was
certainly the next best thing.

Jacob was already a well-grown man of twenty-three,
and would have made a good enough appearance but for
the stoop in his shoulders, and the drooping, uneasy way
in which he carried his head. Many a time when he was

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alone in the fields or woods he had straightened himself,
and looked courageously at the buts of the oak-trees or in
the very eyes of the indifferent oxen; but, when a human
face drew near, some spring in his neck seemed to snap,
some buckle around his shoulders to be drawn three holes
tighter, and he found himself in the old posture. The
ever-present thought of this weakness was the only drop
of bitterness in his cup, as he followed the lonely path
through the thickets.

Some spirit in the sweet, delicious freshness of the
air, some voice in the mellow babble of the stream, leaping
in and out of sight between the alders, some smile of
light, lingering on the rising corn-fields beyond the meadow
and the melting purple of a distant hill, reached to
the seclusion of his heart. He was soothed and cheered;
his head lifted itself in the presentiment of a future less
lonely than the past, and the everlasting trouble vanished
from his eyes.

Suddenly, at a turn of the path, two mowers from the
meadow, with their scythes upon their shoulders, came
upon him. He had not heard their feet on the deep turf.
His chest relaxed, and his head began to sink; then, with
the most desperate effort in his life, he lifted it again, and,
darting a rapid side glance at the men, hastened by.
They could not understand the mixed defiance and supplication
of his face; to them he only looked “queer.”

“Been committin' a murder, have you?” asked one
of them, grinning.

“Startin' off on his journey, I guess,” said the other.

[figure description] Page 112.[end figure description]

The next instant they were gone, and Jacob, with set
teeth and clinched hands, smothered something that
would have been a howl if he had given it voice. Sharp
lines of pain were marked on his face, and, for the first
time, the idea of resistance took fierce and bitter possession
of his heart. But the mood was too unusual to last;
presently he shook his head, and walked on towards Pardon's
farm-house.

Ann wore a smart gingham dress, and her first exclamation
was: “Why, Jake! how nice you look. And so
you know all about it, too?”

“About what?”

“I see you don't,” said she. “I was too fast; but it
makes no difference. I know you are willing to lend me
a helping hand.”

“Oh, to be sure,” Jacob answered.

“And not mind a little company?”

Jacob's face suddenly clouded; but he said, though
with an effort: “No—not much—if I can be of any
help.”

“It's rather a joke, after all,” Ann Pardon continued,
speaking rapidly; “they meant a surprise, a few of the
young people; but sister Becky found a way to send me
word, or I might have been caught like Meribah Johnson
last week, in the middle of my work; eight or ten, she
said, but more may drop in: and it's moonlight and warm,
so they'll be mostly under the trees; and Robert won't
be home till late, and I do want help in carrying chairs,
and getting up some ice, and handing around; and,

[figure description] Page 113.[end figure description]

though I know you don't care for merry-makings, you can
help me out, you see—”

Here she paused. Jacob looked perplexed, but said
nothing.

“Becky will help what she can, and while I'm in the
kitchen she'll have an eye to things outside,” she said.

Jacob's head was down again, and, moreover, turned
on one side, but his ear betrayed the mounting blood.
Finally he answered, in a quick, husky voice: “Well, I'll
do what I can. What's first?”

Thereupon he began to carry some benches from
the veranda to a grassy bank beside the sycamore-tree.
Ann Pardon wisely said no more of the coming surpriseparty,
but kept him so employed that, as the visitors arrived
by twos and threes, the merriment was in full play
almost before he was aware of it. Moreover, the night
was a protecting presence: the moonlight poured splendidly
upon the open turf beyond the sycamore, but every
lilac-bush or trellis of woodbine made a nook of shade,
wherein he could pause a moment and take courage for
his duties. Becky Morton, Ann Pardon's youngest sister,
frightened him a little every time she came to consult
about the arrangement of seats or the distribution of
refreshments; but it was a delightful, fascinating fear,
such as he had never felt before in his life. He knew
Becky, but he had never seen her in white and pink, with
floating tresses, until now. In fact, he had hardly looked
at her fairly, but now, as she glided into the moonlight
and he paused in the shadow, his eyes took note of her

[figure description] Page 114.[end figure description]

exceeding beauty. Some sweet, confusing influence, he
knew not what, passed into his blood.

The young men had brought a fiddler from the village,
and it was not long before most of the company were
treading the measures of reels or cotillons on the grass.
How merry and happy they all were! How freely and
unembarrassedly they moved and talked! By and by all
became involved in the dance, and Jacob, left alone and
unnoticed, drew nearer and nearer to the gay and beautiful
life from which he was expelled.

With a long-drawn scream of the fiddle the dance
came to an end, and the dancers, laughing, chattering,
panting, and fanning themselves, broke into groups and
scattered over the enclosure before the house. Jacob was
surrounded before he could escape. Becky, with two
lively girls in her wake, came up to him and said: “Oh
Mr. Flint, why don't you dance?”

If he had stopped to consider, he would no doubt
have replied very differently. But a hundred questions,
stirred by what he had seen, were clamoring for light, and
they threw the desperate impulse to his lips.

“If I could dance, would you dance with me?”

The two lively girls heard the words, and looked at
Becky with roguish faces.

“Oh yes, take him for your next partner!” cried one.

“I will,” said Becky, “after he comes back from his
journey.”

Then all three laughed. Jacob leaned against the
tree, his eyes fixed on the ground.

[figure description] Page 115.[end figure description]

“Is it a bargain?” asked one of the girls.

“No,” said he, and walked rapidly away.

He went to the house, and, finding that Robert had
arrived, took his hat, and left by the rear door. There
was a grassy alley between the orchard and garden, from
which it was divided by a high hawthorn hedge. He had
scarcely taken three paces on his way to the meadow,
when the sound of the voice he had last heard, on the
other side of the hedge, arrested his feet.

“Becky, I think you rather hurt Jake Flint,” said the
girl.

“Hardly,” answered Becky; “he's used to that.”

“Not if he likes you; and you might go further and
fare worse.”

“Well, I must say!” Becky exclaimed, with a laugh;
“you'd like to see me stuck in that hollow, out of your
way!”

“It's a good farm, I've heard,” said the other.

“Yes, and covered with as much as it'll bear!”

Here the girls were called away to the dance. Jacob
slowly walked up the dewy meadow, the sounds of fiddling,
singing, and laughter growing fainter behind him.

“My journey!” he repeated to himself,—“my journey!
why shouldn't I start on it now? Start off, and
never come back?”

It was a very little thing, after all, which annoyed him,
but the mention of it always touched a sore nerve of his
nature. A dozen years before, when a boy at school, he
had made a temporary friendship with another boy of his

[figure description] Page 116.[end figure description]

age, and had one day said to the latter, in the warmth of
his first generous confidence: “When I am a little older,
I shall make a great journey, and come back rich, and buy
Whitney's place!”

Now, Whitney's place, with its stately old brick mansion,
its avenue of silver firs, and its two hundred acres of
clean, warm-lying land, was the finest, the most aristocratic
property in all the neighborhood, and the boy-friend could
not resist the temptation of repeating Jacob's grand design,
for the endless amusement of the school. The betrayal
hurt Jacob more keenly than the ridicule. It left a wound
that never ceased to rankle; yet, with the inconceivable
perversity of unthinking natures, precisely this joke (as
the people supposed it to be) had been perpetuated, until
“Jake Flint's Journey” was a synonyme for any absurd
or extravagant expectation. Perhaps no one imagined
how much pain he was keeping alive; for almost any other
man than Jacob would have joined in the laugh against
himself and thus good-naturedly buried the joke in time.
“He's used to that,” the people said, like Becky Morton,
and they really supposed there was nothing unkind in the
remark!

After Jacob had passed the thickets and entered the
lonely hollow in which his father's house lay, his pace became
slower and slower. He looked at the shabby old
building, just touched by the moonlight behind the swaying
shadows of the weeping-willow, stopped, looked again,
and finally seated himself on a stump beside the path.

“If I knew what to do!” he said to himself, rocking

[figure description] Page 117.[end figure description]

backwards and forwards, with his hands clasped over his
knees,—“if I knew what to do!”

The spiritual tension of the evening reached its climax:
he could bear no more. With a strong bodily shudder
his tears burst forth, and the passion of his weeping
filled him from head to foot. How long he wept he knew
not; it seemed as if the hot fountains would never run dry.
Suddenly and startlingly a hand fell upon his shoulder.

“Boy, what does this mean?”

It was his father who stood before him.

Jacob looked up like some shy animal brought to bay,
his eyes full of a feeling mixed of fierceness and terror;
but he said nothing.

His father seated himself on one of the roots of the
old stump, laid one hand upon Jacob's knee, and said
with an unusual gentleness of manner, “I'd like to know
what it is that troubles you so much.”

After a pause, Jacob suddenly burst forth with: “Is
there any reason why I should tell you? Do you care any
more for me than the rest of 'em?”

“I didn't know as you wanted me to care for you particularly,”
said the father, almost deprecatingly. “I always
thought you had friends of your own age.”

“Friends? Devils!” exclaimed Jacob. “Oh, what
have I done—what is there so dreadful about me that I
should always be laughed at, and despised, and trampled
upon? You are a great deal older than I am, father:
what do you see in me? Tell me what it is, and how to
get over it!”

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The eyes of the two men met. Jacob saw his father's
face grow pale in the moonlight, while he pressed his hand
involuntarily upon his heart, as if struggling with some
physical pain. At last he spoke, but his words were
strange and incoherent.

“I couldn't sleep,” he said; “I got up again and came
out o' doors. The white ox had broken down the fence
at the corner, and would soon have been in the cornfield.
I thought it was that, maybe, but still your—your mother
would come into my head. I was coming down the edge
of the wood when I saw you, and I don't know why it was
that you seemed so different, all at once—”

Here he paused, and was silent for a minute. Then
he said, in a grave, commanding tone: “Just let me know
the whole story. I have that much right yet.”

Jacob related the history of the evening, somewhat
awkwardly and confusedly, it is true; but his father's brief,
pointed questions kept him to the narrative, and forced
him to explain the full significance of the expressions he
repeated. At the mention of “Whitney's place,” a singular
expression of malice touched the old man's face.

“Do you love Becky Morton?” he asked bluntly, when
all had been told.

“I don't know,” Jacob stammered; “I think not; because
when I seem to like her most, I feel afraid of her.”

“It's lucky that you're not sure of it!” exclaimed the
old man with energy; “because you should never have her.”

“No,” said Jacob, with a mournful acquiescence, “I
can never have her, or any other one.”

[figure description] Page 119.[end figure description]

“But you shall—and will! when I help you. It's true
I've not seemed to care much about you, and I suppose
you're free to think as you like; but this I say: I'll not
stand by and see you spit upon! `Covered with as much
as it'll bear!' That's a piece o' luck anyhow. If we're
poor, your wife must take your poverty with you, or she
don't come into my doors. But first of all you must make
your journey!”

“My journey!” repeated Jacob.

“Weren't you thinking of it this night, before you took
your seat on that stump? A little more, and you'd have
gone clean off, I reckon.”

Jacob was silent, and hung his head.

“Never mind! I've no right to think hard of it. In
a week we'll have finished our haying, and then it's a fortnight
to wheat; but, for that matter, Harry and I can
manage the wheat by ourselves. You may take a month,
two months, if any thing comes of it. Under a month I
don't mean that you shall come back. I'll give you twenty
dollars for a start; if you want more you must earn it
on the road, any way you please. And, mark you, Jacob!
since you are poor, don't let anybody suppose you are
rich. For my part, I shall not expect you to buy Whitney's
place; all I ask is that you'll tell me, fair and
square, just what things and what people you've got acquainted
with. Get to bed now—the matter's settled; I
will have it so.”

They rose and walked across the meadow to the house.
Jacob had quite forgotten the events of the evening in the

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new prospect suddenly opened to him, which filled him with
a wonderful confusion of fear and desire. His father said
nothing more. They entered the lonely house together at
midnight, and went to their beds; but Jacob slept very
little.

Six days afterwards he left home, on a sparkling June
morning, with a small bundle tied in a yellow silk handkerchief
under his arm. His father had furnished him
with the promised money, but had positively refused to
tell him what road he should take, or what plan of action
he should adopt. The only stipulation was that his absence
from home should not be less than a month.

After he had passed the wood and reached the highway
which followed the course of the brook, he paused to
consider which course to take. Southward the road led
past Pardon's, and he longed to see his only friends once
more before encountering untried hazards; but the village
was beyond, and he had no courage to walk through
its one long street with a bundle, denoting a journey, under
his arm. Northward he would have to pass the mill
and blacksmith's shop at the cross-roads. Then he remembered
that he might easily wade the stream at a point
where it was shallow, and keep in the shelter of the woods
on the opposite hill until he struck the road farther on,
and in that direction two or three miles would take him
into a neighborhood where he was not known.

Once in the woods, an exquisite sense of freedom
came upon him. There was nothing mocking in the soft,
graceful stir of the expanded foliage, in the twittering of

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the unfrightened birds, or the scampering of the squirrels,
over the rustling carpet of dead leaves. He lay down
upon the moss under a spreading beech-tree and tried to
think; but the thoughts would not come. He could not
even clearly recall the keen troubles and mortifications
he had endured: all things were so peaceful and beautiful
that a portion of their peace and beauty fell upon men
and invested them with a more kindly character.

Towards noon Jacob found himself beyond the limited
geography of his life. The first man he encountered was
a stranger, who greeted him with a hearty and respectful
“How do you do, sir?”

“Perhaps,” thought Jacob, “I am not so very different
from other people, if I only thought so myself.”

At noon, he stopped at a farm-house by the roadside
to get a drink of water. A pleasant woman, who came
from the door at that moment with a pitcher, allowed him
to lower the bucket and haul it up dripping with precious
coolness. She looked upon him with good-will, for he
had allowed her to see his eyes, and something in their
honest, appealing expression went to her heart.

“We're going to have dinner in five minutes,” said
she; “won't you stay and have something?”

Jacob stayed and brake bread with the plain, hospitable
family. Their kindly attention to him during the
meal gave him the lacking nerve; for a moment he resolved
to offer his services to the farmer, but he presently
saw that they were not really needed, and, besides, the
place was still too near home.

[figure description] Page 122.[end figure description]

Towards night he reached an old country tavern, lording
it over an incipient village of six houses. The landlord
and hostler were inspecting a drooping-looking horse
in front of the stables. Now, if there was any thing
which Jacob understood, to the extent of his limited experience,
it was horse nature. He drew near, listened to
the views of the two men, examined the animal with his
eyes, and was ready to answer, “Yes, I guess so,” when
the landlord said, “Perhaps, sir, you can tell what is the
matter with him.”

His prompt detection of the ailment, and prescription
of a remedy which in an hour showed its good effects, installed
him in the landlord's best graces. The latter
said, “Well, it shall cost you nothing to-night,” as he led
the way to the supper-room. When Jacob went to bed
he was surprised on reflecting that he had not only been
talking for a full hour in the bar-room, but had been
looking people in the face.

Resisting an offer of good wages if he would stay and
help look after the stables, he set forward the next morning
with a new and most delightful confidence in himself.
The knowledge that now nobody knew him as “Jake Flint”
quite removed his tortured self-consciousness. When he
met a person who was glum and ungracious of speech, he
saw, nevertheless, that he was not its special object. He
was sometimes asked questions, to be sure, which a little
embarrassed him, but he soon hit upon answers which
were sufficiently true without betraying his purpose.

Wandering sometimes to the right and sometimes

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to the left, he slowly made his way into the land, until, on
the afternoon of the fourth day after leaving home, he
found himself in a rougher region—a rocky, hilly tract,
with small and not very flourishing farms in the valleys.
Here the season appeared to be more backward than in
the open country; the hay harvest was not yet over.

Jacob's taste for scenery was not particularly cultivated,
but something in the loneliness and quiet of the
farms reminded him of his own home; and he looked at
one house after another, deliberating with himself whether
it would not be a good place to spend the remainder of
his month of probation. He seemed to be very far from
home—about forty miles, in fact,—and was beginning to
feel a little tired of wandering.

Finally the road climbed a low pass of the hills, and
dropped into a valley on the opposite side. There was
but one house in view—a two-story building of logs and
plaster, with a garden and orchard on the hillside in the
rear. A large meadow stretched in front, and when the
whole of it lay clear before him, as the road issued from
a wood, his eye was caught by an unusual harvest picture.

Directly before him, a woman, whose face was concealed
by a huge, flapping sun-bonnet, was seated upon a
mowing machine, guiding a span of horses around the
great tract of thick grass which was still uncut. A little
distance off, a boy and girl were raking the drier swaths
together, and a hay-cart, drawn by oxen and driven by a
man, was just entering the meadow from the side next the
barn.

[figure description] Page 124.[end figure description]

Jacob hung his bundle upon a stake, threw his coat
and waistcoat over the rail, and, resting his chin on his
shirted arms, leaned on the fence, and watched the haymakers.
As the woman came down the nearer side she
appeared to notice him, for her head was turned from time
to time in his direction. When she had made the round,
she stopped the horses at the corner, sprang lightly from
her seat and called to the man, who, leaving his team,
met her half-way. They were nearly a furlong distant,
but Jacob was quite sure that she pointed to him, and
that the man looked in the same direction. Presently
she set off across the meadow, directly towards him.

When within a few paces of the fence, she stopped,
threw back the flaps of her sun-bonnet, and said, “Good
day to you!”

Jacob was so amazed to see a bright, fresh, girlish
face, that he stared at her with all his eyes, forgetting to
drop his head. Indeed, he could not have done so, for
his chin was propped upon the top rail of the fence.

“You are a stranger, I see,” she added.

“Yes, in these parts,” he replied.

“Looking for work?”

He hardly knew what answer to make, so he said, at a
venture, “That's as it happens.” Then he colored a
little, for the words seemed foolish to his ears.

“Time's precious,” said the girl, “so I'll tell you at
once we want help. Our hay must be got in while the
fine weather lasts.”

“I'll help you!” Jacob exclaimed, taking his arms
from the rail, and looking as willing as he felt.

[figure description] Page 125.[end figure description]

“I'm so glad! But I must tell you, at first, that we're
not rich, and the hands are asking a great deal now.
How much do you expect?”

“Whatever you please?” said he, climbing the fence.

“No, that's not our way of doing business. What do
you say to a dollar a day, and found?”

“All right!” and with the words he was already at
her side, taking long strides over the elastic turf.

“I will go on with my mowing,” said she, when they
reached the horses, “and you can rake and load with my
father. What name shall I call you by?”

“Everybody calls me Jake.”

“`Jake!' Jacob is better. Well, Jacob, I hope you'll
give us all the help you can.”

With a nod and a light laugh she sprang upon the
machine. There was a sweet throb in Jacob's heart,
which, if he could have expressed it, would have been a
triumphant shout of “I'm not afraid of her! I'm not
afraid of her!”

The farmer was a kindly, depressed man, with whose
quiet ways Jacob instantly felt himself at home. They
worked steadily until sunset, when the girl, detaching her
horses from the machine, mounted one of them and led
the other to the barn. At the supper-table, the farmer's
wife said: “Susan, you must be very tired.”

“Not now, mother!” she cheerily answered. “I was,
I think, but after I picked up Jacob I felt sure we should
get our hay in.”

“It was a good thing,” said the farmer; “Jacob don't
need to be told how to work.”

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Poor Jacob! He was so happy he could have cried.
He sat and listened, and blushed a little, with a smile on
his face which it was a pleasure to see. The honest people
did not seem to regard him in the least as a stranger;
they discussed their family interests and troubles and
hopes before him, and in a little while it seemed as if he
had known them always.

How faithfully he worked! How glad and tired he
felt when night came, and the hay-mow was filled, and the
great stacks grew beside the barn! But ah! the haying
came to an end, and on the last evening, at supper,
everybody was constrained and silent. Even Susan looked
grave and thoughtful.

“Jacob,” said the farmer, finally, “I wish we could
keep you until wheat harvest; but you know we are poor,
and can't afford it. Perhaps you could—”

He hesitated; but Jacob, catching at the chance and
obeying his own unselfish impulse, cried: “Oh, yes, I
can; I'll be satisfied with my board, till the wheat's
ripe.”

Susan looked at him quickly, with a bright, speaking
face.

“It's hardly fair to you,” said the farmer.

“But I like to be here so much!” Jacob cried. “I
like—all of you!”

“We do seem to suit,” said the farmer, “like as one
family. And that reminds me, we've not heard your family
name yet.”

“Flint.”

[figure description] Page 127.[end figure description]

“Jacob Flint!” exclaimed the farmer's wife, with sudden
agitation.

Jacob was scared and troubled. They had heard of
him, he thought, and who knew what ridiculous stories?
Susan noticed an anxiety on his face which she could not
understand, but she unknowingly came to his relief.

“Why, mother,” she asked, “do you know Jacob's
family?”

“No, I think not,” said her mother, “only somebody
of the name, long ago.”

His offer, however, was gratefully accepted. The
bright, hot summer days came and went, but no flower of
July ever opened as rapidly and richly and warmly as his
chilled, retarded nature. New thoughts and instincts
came with every morning's sun, and new conclusions were
reached with every evening's twilight. Yet as the wheat
harvest drew towards the end, he felt that he must leave
the place. The month of absence had gone by, he scarce
knew how. He was free to return home, and, though he
might offer to bridge over the gap between wheat and
oats, as he had already done between hay and wheat, he
imagined the family might hesitate to accept such an offer.
Moreover, this life at Susan's side was fast growing to be
a pain, unless he could assure himself that it would be
so forever.

They were in the wheat-field, busy with the last
sheaves, she raking and he binding. The farmer and
younger children had gone to the barn with a load.
Jacob was working silently and steadily, but when they

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had reached the end of a row, he stopped, wiped his wet
brow, and suddenly said, “Susan, I suppose to-day finishes
my work here.”

“Yes,” she answered very slowly.

“And yet I'm very sorry to go.”

“I—we don't want you to go, if we could help it.”

Jacob appeared to struggle with himself. He attempted
to speak. “If I could—” he brought out, and then
paused. “Susan, would you be glad if I came
back?”

His eyes implored her to read his meaning. No doubt
she read it correctly, for her face flushed, her eyelids fell,
and she barely murmured, “Yes, Jacob.”

“Then I'll come!” he cried; “I'll come and help
you with the oats. Don't talk of pay! Only tell me I'll
be welcome! Susan, don't you believe I'll keep my
word?”

“I do indeed,” said she, looking him firmly in the
face.

That was all that was said at the time; but the two
understood each other tolerably well.

On the afternoon of the second day, Jacob saw again
the lonely house of his father. His journey was made,
yet, if any of the neighbors had seen him, they would
never have believed that he had come back rich.

Samuel Flint turned away to hide a peculiar smile
when he saw his son; but little was said until late that
evening, after Harry and Sally had left. Then he required
and received an exact account of Jacob's experience

[figure description] Page 129.[end figure description]

during his absence. After hearing the story to the end,
he said, “And so you love this Susan Meadows?”

“I'd—I'd do any thing to be with her.”

“Are you afraid of her?”

“No!” Jacob uttered the word so emphatically that
it rang through the house.

“Ah, well!” said the old man, lifting his eyes, and speaking
in the air, “all the harm may be mended yet. But there
must be another test.” Then he was silent for some time.

“I have it!” he finally exclaimed. “Jacob, you must
go back for the oats harvest. You must ask Susan to be
your wife, and ask her parents to let you have her. But,—
pay attention to my words!—you must tell her that
you are a poor, hired man on this place, and that she can
be engaged as housekeeper. Don't speak of me as your
father, but as the owner of the farm. Bring her here in
that belief, and let me see how honest and willing she is.
I can easily arrange matters with Harry and Sally while
you are away; and I'll only ask you to keep up the appearance
of the thing for a month or so.”

“But, father,”—Jacob began.

“Not a word! Are you not willing to do that much
for the sake of having her all your life, and this farm after
me? Suppose it is covered with a mortgage, if she is all
you say, you two can work it off. Not a word more! It
is no lie, after all, that you will tell her.”

“I am afraid,” said Jacob, “that she could not leave
her home now. She is too useful there, and the family is
so poor.”

[figure description] Page 130.[end figure description]

“Tell them that both your wages, for the first year,
shall go to them. It'll be my business to rake and scrape
the money together somehow. Say, too, that the housekeeper's
place can't be kept for her—must be filled at
once. Push matters like a man, if you mean to be a complete
one, and bring her here, if she carries no more with
her than the clothes on her back!”

During the following days Jacob had time to familiarize
his mind with this startling proposal. He knew his
father's stubborn will too well to suppose that it could be
changed; but the inevitable soon converted itself into the
possible and desirable. The sweet face of Susan as she
had stood before him in the wheat-field was continually
present to his eyes, and ere long, he began to place her,
in his thoughts, in the old rooms at home, in the garden,
among the thickets by the brook, and in Ann Pardon's
pleasant parlor. Enough; his father's plan became his
own long before the time was out.

On his second journey everybody seemed to be an
old acquaintance and an intimate friend. It was evening
as he approached the Meadows farm, but the younger
children recognized him in the dusk, and their cry of,
“Oh, here's Jacob!” brought out the farmer and his
wife and Susan, with the heartiest of welcomes. They
had all missed him, they said—even the horses and oxen
had looked for him, and they were wondering how they
should get the oats harvested without him.

Jacob looked at Susan as the farmer said this, and
her eyes seemed to answer, “I said nothing, but I knew

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you would come.” Then, first, he felt sufficient courage
for the task before him.

He rose the next morning, before any one was stirring,
and waited until she should come down stairs. The sun
had not risen when she appeared, with a milk-pail in each
hand, walking unsuspectingly to the cow-yard. He waylaid
her, took the pails in his hand and said in nervous
haste, “Susan, will you be my wife?”

She stopped as if she had received a sudden blow;
then a shy, sweet consent seemed to run through her heart.
“O Jacob!” was all she could say.

“But you will, Susan?” he urged; and then (neither
of them exactly knew how it happened) all at once his
arms were around her, and they had kissed each other.

“Susan,” he said, presently, “I am a poor man—only
a farm hand, and must work for my living. You could
look for a better husband.”

“I could never find a better than you, Jacob.”

“Would you work with me, too, at the same place?”

“You know I am not afraid of work,” she answered,
“and I could never want any other lot than yours.”

Then he told her the story which his father had prompted.
Her face grew bright and happy as she listened, and
he saw how from her very heart she accepted the humble
fortune. Only the thought of her parents threw a cloud
over the new and astonishing vision. Jacob, however,
grew bolder as he saw fulfilment of his hope so near.
They took the pails and seated themselves beside neighbor
cows, one raising objections or misgivings which the

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other manfully combated. Jacob's earnestness unconsciously
ran into his hands, as he discovered when the impatient
cow began to snort and kick.

The harvesting of the oats was not commenced that
morning. The children were sent away, and there was a
council of four persons held in the parlor. The result of
mutual protestations and much weeping was, that the farmer
and his wife agreed to receive Jacob as a son-in-law;
the offer of the wages was four times refused by them, and
then accepted; and the chance of their being able to live
and labor together was finally decided to be too fortunate
to let slip. When the shock and surprise was over all
gradually became cheerful, and, as the matter was more
calmly discussed, the first conjectured difficulties somehow
resolved themselves into trifles.

It was the simplest and quietest wedding,—at home,
on an August morning. Farmer Meadows then drove the
bridal pair half-way on their journey, to the old country
tavern, where a fresh conveyance had been engaged for
them. The same evening they reached the farm-house in
the valley, and Jacob's happy mood gave place to an anxious
uncertainty as he remembered the period of deception
upon which Susan was entering. He keenly watched his
father's face when they arrived, and was a little relieved
when he saw that his wife had made a good first impression.

“So, this is my new housekeeper,” said the old man.
“I hope you will suit me as well as your husband does.”

“I'll do my best, sir,” said she; “but you must have

[figure description] Page 133.[end figure description]

patience with me for a few days, until I know your ways
and wishes.”

“Mr. Flint,” said Sally, “shall I get supper ready?”

Susan looked up in astonishment at hearing the name.

“Yes,” the old man remarked, “we both have the
same name. The fact is, Jacob and I are a sort of relations.”

Jacob, in spite of his new happiness, continued ill at
ease, although he could not help seeing how his father
brightened under Susan's genial influence, how satisfied
he was with her quick, neat, exact ways and the cheerfulness
with which she fulfilled her duties. At the end of a
week, the old man counted out the wages agreed upon for
both, and his delight culminated at the frank simplicity
with which Susan took what she supposed she had fairly
earned.

“Jacob,” he whispered when she had left the room,
“keep quiet one more week, and then I'll let her know.”

He had scarcely spoken, when Susan burst into the
room again, crying, “Jacob, they are coming, they have
come!”

“Who?”

“Father and mother; and we didn't expect them, you
know, for a week yet.”

All three went to the door as the visitors made their
appearance on the veranda. Two of the party stood as
if thunderstruck, and two exclamations came together:

“Samuel Flint!”

“Lucy Wheeler!”

[figure description] Page 134.[end figure description]

There was a moment's silence; then the farmer's wife,
with a visible effort to compose herself, said, “Lucy Meadows,
now.”

The tears came into Samuel Flint's eyes. “Let us
shake hands, Lucy,” he said: “my son has married your
daughter.”

All but Jacob were freshly startled at these words.
The two shook hands, and then Samuel, turning to Susan's
father, said: “And this is your husband, Lucy. I
am glad to make his acquaintance.”

“Your father, Jacob!” Susan cried; “what does it all
mean?”

Jacob's face grew red, and the old habit of hanging his
head nearly came back upon him. He knew not what to
say, and looked wistfully at his father.

“Come into the house and sit down,” said the latter.
“I think we shall all feel better when we have quietly and
comfortably talked the matter over.”

They went into the quaint, old-fashioned parlor, which
had already been transformed by Susan's care, so that
much of its shabbiness was hidden. When all were seated,
and Samuel Flint perceived that none of the others knew
what to say, he took a resolution which, for a man of his
mood and habit of life, required some courage.

“Three of us here are old people,” he began, “and
the two young ones love each other. It was so long ago,
Lucy, that it cannot be laid to my blame if I speak of it
now. Your husband, I see, has an honest heart, and will
not misunderstand either of us. The same thing often

[figure description] Page 135.[end figure description]

turns up in life; it is one of those secrets that everybody
knows, and that everybody talks about except the persons
concerned. When I was a young man, Lucy, I loved you
truly, and I faithfully meant to make you my wife.”

“I thought so too, for a while,” said she, very calmly.

Farmer Meadows looked at his wife, and no face was
ever more beautiful than his, with that expression of generous
pity shining through it.

“You know how I acted,” Samuel Flint continued,
“but our children must also know that I broke off from
you without giving any reason. A woman came between
us and made all the mischief. I was considered rich then,
and she wanted to secure my money for her daughter. I
was an innocent and unsuspecting young man, who believed
that everybody else was as good as myself; and
the woman never rested until she had turned me from my
first love, and fastened me for life to another. Little by
little I discovered the truth; I kept the knowledge of the
injury to myself; I quickly got rid of the money which
had so cursed me, and brought my wife to this, the loneliest
and dreariest place in the neighborhood, where I
forced upon her a life of poverty. I thought it was a just
revenge, but I was unjust. She really loved me: she was,
if not quite without blame in the matter, ignorant of the
worst that had been done (I learned all that too late), and
she never complained, though the change in me slowly
wore out her life. I know now that I was cruel; but at
the same time I punished myself, and was innocently punishing
my son. But to him there was one way to make

[figure description] Page 136.[end figure description]

amends. `I will help him to a wife,' I said, `who will
gladly take poverty with him and for his sake.' I forced
him, against his will, to say that he was a hired hand on
this place, and that Susan must be content to be a hired
housekeeper. Now that I know Susan, I see that this
proof might have been left out; but I guess it has done
no harm. The place is not so heavily mortgaged as people
think, and it will be Jacob's after I am gone. And
now forgive me, all of you,—Lucy first, for she has most
cause; Jacob next; and Susan,—that will be easier; and
you, Friend Meadows, if what I have said has been hard
for you to hear.”

The farmer stood up like a man, took Samuel's hand
and his wife's, and said, in a broken voice: “Lucy, I ask
you, too, to forgive him, and I ask you both to be good
friends to each other.”

Susan, dissolved in tears, kissed all of them in turn;
but the happiest heart there was Jacob's.

It was now easy for him to confide to his wife the
complete story of his troubles, and to find his growing
self-reliance strengthened by her quick, intelligent sympathy.
The Pardons were better friends than ever, and the
fact, which at first created great astonishment in the
neighborhood, that Jacob Flint had really gone upon a
journey and brought home a handsome wife, began to
change the attitude of the people towards him. The old
place was no longer so lonely; the nearest neighbors began
to drop in and insist on return visits. Now that Jacob
kept his head up, and they got a fair view of his face,

[figure description] Page 137.[end figure description]

they discovered that he was not lacking, after all, in sense
or social qualities.

In October, the Whitney place, which had been leased
for several years, was advertised to be sold at public sale.
The owner had gone to the city and become a successful
merchant, had outlived his local attachments, and now
took advantage of a rise in real estate to disburden himself
of a property which he could not profitably control.

Everybody from far and wide attended the sale, and,
when Jacob Flint and his father arrived, everybody said
to the former: “Of course you've come to buy, Jacob.”
But each man laughed at his own smartness, and considered
the remark original with himself.

Jacob was no longer annoyed. He laughed, too, and
answered: “I'm afraid I can't do that; but I've kept half
my word, which is more than most men do.”

“Jake's no fool, after all,” was whispered behind him.

The bidding commenced, at first very spirited, and
then gradually slacking off, as the price mounted above
the means of the neighboring farmers. The chief aspirant
was a stranger, a well-dressed man with a lawyer's
air, whom nobody knew. After the usual long pauses
and passionate exhortations, the hammer fell, and the auctioneer,
turning to the stranger, asked, “What name?”

“Jacob Flint!”

There was a general cry of surprise. All looked at
Jacob, whose eyes and mouth showed that he was as
dumbfoundered as the rest.

The stranger walked coolly through the midst of the

[figure description] Page 138.[end figure description]

crowd to Samuel Flint, and said, “When shall I have the
papers drawn up?”

“As soon as you can,” the old man replied; then seizing
Jacob by the arm, with the words, “Let's go home
now!” he hurried him on.

The explanation soon leaked out. Samuel Flint had
not thrown away his wealth, but had put it out of his own
hands. It was given privately to trustees, to be held for
his son, and returned when the latter should have married
with his father's consent. There was more than enough
to buy the Whitney place.

Jacob and Susan are happy in their stately home, and
good as they are happy. If any person in the neighborhood
ever makes use of the phrase “Jacob Flint's Journey,”
he intends thereby to symbolize the good fortune
which sometimes follows honesty, reticence, and shrewdness.

p711-146 CAN A LIFE HIDE ITSELF?

[figure description] Page 139.[end figure description]

I HAD been reading, as is my wont from
time to time, one of the many volumes of
“The New Pitaval,” that singular record
of human crime and human cunning, and
also of the inevitable fatality which, in every
case, leaves a gate open for detection.
Were it not for the latter fact, indeed, one would turn
with loathing from such endless chronicles of wickedness.
Yet these may be safely contemplated, when one has discovered
the incredible fatuity of crime, the certain weak
mesh in a network of devilish texture; or is it rather the
agency of a power outside of man, a subtile protecting
principle, which allows the operation of the evil element
only that the latter may finally betray itself? Whatever
explanation we may choose, the fact is there, like a tonic
medicine distilled from poisonous plants, to brace our faith
in the ascendancy of Good in the government of the world.

Laying aside the book, I fell into a speculation concerning
the mixture of the two elements in man's nature.
The life of an individual is usually, it seemed to me, a

[figure description] Page 140.[end figure description]

series of results, the processes leading to which are not
often visible, or observed when they are so. Each act is
the precipitation of a number of mixed influences, more
or less unconsciously felt; the qualities of good and evil
are so blended therein that they defy the keenest moral
analysis; and how shall we, then, pretend to judge of
any one? Perhaps the surest indication of evil (I further
reflected) is that it always tries to conceal itself, and the
strongest incitement to good is that evil cannot be concealed.
The crime, or the vice, or even the self-acknowledged
weakness, becomes a part of the individual consciousness;
it cannot be forgotten or outgrown. It follows a
life through all experiences and to the uttermost ends of
the earth, pressing towards the light with a terrible, demoniac
power. There are noteless lives, of course—lives
that accept obscurity, mechanically run their narrow round
of circumstance, and are lost; but when a life endeavors
to lose itself,—to hide some conscious guilt or failure,—
can it succeed? Is it not thereby lifted above the level
of common experience, compelling attention to itself by
the very endeavor to escape it?

I turned these questions over in my mind, without approaching,
or indeed expecting, any solution,—since I
knew, from habit, the labyrinths into which they would
certainly lead me,—when a visitor was announced. It
was one of the directors of our county almshouse, who
came on an errand to which he attached no great importance.
I owed the visit, apparently, to the circumstance
that my home lay in his way, and he could at once relieve

[figure description] Page 141.[end figure description]

his conscience of a very trifling pressure and his pocket
of a small package, by calling upon me. His story was
told in a few words; the package was placed upon my
table, and I was again left to my meditations.

Two or three days before, a man who had the appearance
of a “tramp” had been observed by the people of a
small village in the neighborhood. He stopped and looked
at the houses in a vacant way, walked back and forth
once or twice as if uncertain which of the cross-roads to
take, and presently went on without begging or even speaking
to any one. Towards sunset a farmer, on his way to
the village store, found him sitting at the roadside, his
head resting against a fence-post. The man's face was
so worn and exhausted that the farmer kindly stopped
and addressed him; but he gave no other reply than a
shake of the head.

The farmer thereupon lifted him into his light countrywagon,
the man offering no resistance, and drove to the
tavern, where, his exhaustion being so evident, a glass of
whiskey was administered to him. He afterwards spoke
a few words in German, which no one understood. At
the almshouse, to which he was transported the same
evening, he refused to answer the customary questions,
although he appeared to understand them. The physician
was obliged to use a slight degree of force in administering
nourishment and medicine, but neither was of any
avail. The man died within twenty-four hours after being
received. His pockets were empty, but two small
leathern wallets were found under his pillow; and these

[figure description] Page 142.[end figure description]

formed the package which the director left in my charge.
They were full of papers in a foreign language, he said,
and he supposed I might be able to ascertain the stranger's
name and home from them.

I took up the wallets, which were worn and greasy
from long service, opened them, and saw that they were
filled with scraps, fragments, and folded pieces of paper,
nearly every one of which had been carried for a long
time loose in the pocket. Some were written in pen and
ink, and some in pencil, but all were equally brown, worn,
and unsavory in appearance. In turning them over, however,
my eye was caught by some slips in the Russian
character, and three or four notes in French; the rest
were German. I laid aside “Pitaval” at once, emptied
all the leathern pockets carefully, and set about examining
the pile of material.

I first ran rapidly through the papers to ascertain the
dead man's name, but it was nowhere to be found. There
were half a dozen letters, written on sheets folded and
addressed in the fashion which prevailed before envelopes
were invented; but the name was cut out of the address
in every case. There was an official permit to embark
on board a Bremen steamer, mutilated in the same way;
there was a card photograph, from which the face had
been scratched by a penknife. There were Latin sentences;
accounts of expenses; a list of New York addresses,
covering eight pages; and a number of notes, written
either in Warsaw or Breslau. A more incongruous collection
I never saw, and I am sure that had it not been for

[figure description] Page 143.[end figure description]

the train of thought I was pursuing when the director
called upon me, I should have returned the papers to him
without troubling my head with any attempt to unravel
the man's story.

The evidence, however, that he had endeavored to
hide his life, had been revealed by my first superficial examination;
and here, I reflected, was a singular opportunity
to test both his degree of success and my own power
of constructing a coherent history out of the detached
fragments. Unpromising as is the matter, said I, let me
see whether he can conceal his secret from even such unpractised
eyes as mine.

I went through the papers again, read each one rapidly,
and arranged them in separate files, according to the
character of their contents. Then I rearranged these
latter in the order of time, so far as it was indicated; and
afterwards commenced the work of picking out and threading
together whatever facts might be noted. The first
thing I ascertained, or rather conjectured, was that the
man's life might be divided into three very distinct
phases, the first ending in Breslau, the second in Poland,
and the third and final one in America. Thereupon I
once again rearranged the material, and attacked that
which related to the first phase.

It consisted of the following papers: Three letters, in
a female hand, commencing “My dear brother,” and terminating
with “Thy loving sister, Elise;” part of a diploma
from a gymnasium, or high school, certifying that
[here the name was cut out] had successfully passed his

[figure description] Page 144.[end figure description]

examination, and was competent to teach,—and here
again, whether by accident or design, the paper was torn
off; a note, apparently to a jeweller, ordering a certain
gold ring to be delivered to “Otto,” and signed “B. v.
H.;” a receipt from the package-post for a box forwarded
to Warsaw, to the address of Count Ladislas Kasincsky;
and finally a washing-list, at the bottom of which was
written, in pencil, in a trembling hand: “May God protect
thee! But do not stay away so very long.”

In the second collection, relating to Poland, I found
the following: Six orders in Russian and three in French,
requesting somebody to send by “Jean” sums of money,
varying from two to eight hundred rubles. These orders
were in the same hand, and all signed “Y.” A charming
letter in French, addressed “cher ami,” and declining, in
the most delicate and tender way, an offer of marriage
made to the sister of the writer, of whose signature only
“Amélie de” remained, the family name having been
torn off. A few memoranda of expenses, one of which
was curious: “Dinner with Jean, 58 rubles;” and immediately
after it: “Doctor, 10 rubles.” There were, moreover,
a leaf torn out of a journal, and half of a note which
had been torn down the middle, both implicating “Jean”
in some way with the fortunes of the dead man.

The papers belonging to the American phase, so far
as they were to be identified by dates, or by some internal
evidence, were fewer, but even more enigmatical in
character. The principal one was a list of addresses in
New York, divided into sections, the street boundaries of

[figure description] Page 145.[end figure description]

which were given. There were no names, but some of the
addresses were marked +, and others?, and a few had
been crossed out with a pencil. Then there were some
leaves of a journal of diet and bodily symptoms, of a very
singular character; three fragments of drafts of letters, in
pencil, one of them commencing, “Dog and villain!” and
a single note of “Began work, September 10th, 1865.”
This was about a year before his death.

The date of the diploma given by the gymnasium at
Breslau was June 27, 1855, and the first date in Poland
was May 3, 1861. Belonging to the time between these
two periods there were only the order for the ring (1858),
and a little memorandum in pencil, dated “Posen, Dec.,
1859.” The last date in Poland was March 18, 1863, and
the permit to embark at Bremen was dated in October of
that year. Here, at least, was a slight chronological
framework. The physician who attended the county
almshouse had estimated the man's age at thirty, which,
supposing him to have been nineteen at the time of
receiving the diploma, confirmed the dates to that extent.

I assumed, at the start, that the name which had been
so carefully cut out of all the documents was the man's
own. The “Elise” of the letters was therefore his sister.
The first two letters related merely to “mother's health,”
and similar details, from which it was impossible to extract
any thing, except that the sister was in some kind of
service. The second letter closed with: “I have enough
work to do, but I keep well. Forget thy disappointment

[figure description] Page 146.[end figure description]

so far as I am concerned, for I never expected any thing;
I don't know why, but I never did.”

Here was a disappointment, at least, to begin with. I
made a note of it opposite the date, on my blank programme,
and took up the next letter. It was written in
November, 1861, and contained a passage which keenly
excited my curiosity. It ran thus: “Do, pray, be more
careful of thy money. It may be all as thou sayest, and
inevitable, but I dare not mention the thing to mother,
and five thalers is all I can spare out of my own wages.
As for thy other request, I have granted it, as thou seest,
but it makes me a little anxious. What is the joke?
And how can it serve thee? That is what I do not
understand, and I have plagued myself not a little to
guess.”

Among the Polish memoranda was this: “Sept. 1 to
Dec. 1, 200 rubles,” which I assumed to represent a salary.
This would give him eight hundred a year, at least
twelve times the amount which his sister—who must
either have been cook or housekeeper, since she spoke
of going to market for the family—could have received.
His application to her for money, and the manner of her
reference to it, indicated some imprudence or irregularity
on his part. What the “other request” was, I could not
guess; but as I was turning and twisting the worn leaf in
some perplexity, I made a sudden discovery. One side
of the bottom edge had been very slightly doubled over
in folding, and as I smoothed it out, I noticed some diminutive
letters in the crease. The paper had been worn

[figure description] Page 147.[end figure description]

nearly through, but I made out the words: “Write very
soon, dear Otto!”

This was the name in the order for the gold ring,
signed “B. v. H.”—a link, indeed, but a fresh puzzle.
Knowing the stubborn prejudices of caste in Germany,
and above all in Eastern Prussia and Silesia, I should
have been compelled to accept “Otto,” whose sister was
in service, as himself the servant of “B. v. H.,” but for
the tenderly respectful letter of “Amélie de—,” declining
the marriage offer for her sister. I re-read this letter
very carefully, to determine whether it was really intended
for “Otto.” It ran thus:

“Dear Friend,—I will not say that your letter was
entirely unexpected, either to Helmine or myself. I
should, perhaps, have less faith in the sincerity of your
attachment if you had not already involuntarily betrayed
it. When I say that although I detected the inclination
of your heart some weeks ago, and that I also saw it was
becoming evident to my sister, yet I refrained from mentioning
the subject at all until she came to me last evening
with your letter in her hand,—when I say this, you
will understand that I have acted towards you with the
respect and sympathy which I profoundly feel. Helmine
fully shares this feeling, and her poor heart is too painfully
moved to allow her to reply. Do I not say, in saying
this, what her reply must be? But, though her heart
cannot respond to your love, she hopes you will always
believe her a friend to whom your proffered devotion was
an honor, and will be—if you will subdue it to her deserts—
a grateful thing to remember. We shall remain in
Warsaw a fortnight longer, as I think yourself will agree

[figure description] Page 148.[end figure description]

that it is better we should not immediately return to the
castle. Jean, who must carry a fresh order already, will
bring you this, and we hope to have good news of Henri.
I send back the papers, which were unnecessary; we
never doubted you, and we shall of course keep your secret
so long as you choose to wear it.

The more light I seemed to obtain, the more inexplicable
the circumstances became. The diploma and the
note of salary were grounds for supposing that “Otto”
occupied the position of tutor in a noble Polish family.
There was the receipt for a box addressed to Count Ladislas
Kasincsky, and I temporarily added his family name
to the writer of the French letter, assuming her to be his
wife. “Jean” appeared to be a servant, and “Henri” I
set down as the son whom Otto was instructing in the castle
or family seat in the country, while the parents were
in Warsaw. Plausible, so far; but the letter was not such
a one as a countess would have written to her son's tutor,
under similar circumstances. It was addressed to a social
equal, apparently to a man younger than herself, and for
whom—supposing him to have been a tutor, secretary, or
something of the kind—she must have felt a special sympathy.
Her mention of “the papers” and “your secret”
must refer to circumstances which would explain the mystery.
“So long as you choose to wear it,” she had written:
then it was certainly a secret connected with his
personal history.

Further, it appeared that “Jean” was sent to him with

[figure description] Page 149.[end figure description]

“an order.” What could this be, but one of the nine orders
for money which lay before my eyes? I examined
the dates of the latter, and lo! there was one written
upon the same day as the lady's letter. The sums drawn
by these orders amounted in all to four thousand two hundred
rubles. But how should a tutor or secretary be in
possession of his employer's money? Still, this might be
accounted for; it would imply great trust on the part of
the latter, but no more than one man frequently reposes
in another. Yet, if it were so, one of the memoranda
confronted me with a conflicting fact: “Dinner with Jean,
58 rubles.” The unusual amount—nearly fifty dollars—
indicated an act of the most reckless dissipation, and in
company with a servant, if “Jean,” as I could scarcely
doubt, acted in that character. I finally decided to assume
both these conjectures as true, and apply them to the
remaining testimony.

I first took up the leaf which had been torn out of a
small journal or pocket note-book, as was manifested by
the red edge on three sides. It was scribbled over with
brief notes in pencil, written at different times. Many of
them were merely mnemonic signs; but the recurrence
of the letters J and Y seemed to point to transactions with
“Jean,” and the drawer of the various sums of money.
The letter Y reminded me that I had been too hasty in
giving the name of Kasincsky to the noble family; indeed,
the name upon the post-office receipt might have no
connection with the matter I was trying to investigate.
Suddenly I noticed a “Ky” among the mnemonic signs,

[figure description] Page 150.[end figure description]

and the suspicion flashed across my mind that Count Kasincsky
had signed the order with the last letter of his
family name! To assume this, however, suggested a secret
reason for doing so; and I began to think that I had
already secrets enough on hand.

The leaf was much rubbed and worn, and it was not
without considerable trouble that I deciphered the following
(omitting the unintelligible signs):

“Oct. 30 (Nov. 12)—talk with Y; 20—Jean. Consider.

“Nov. 15—with J—H—hope.

“Dec. 1—Told the C. No knowledge of S—therefore
safe. Uncertain of — C. to Warsaw. Met J. as
agreed. Further and further.

“Dec. 27—All for naught! All for naught!

“Jan. 19, '63—Sick. What is to be the end? Threats.
No tidings of Y. Walked the streets all day. At night
as usual.

“March 1—News. The C. and H. left yesterday. No
more to hope. Let it come, then!”

These broken words warmed my imagination powerfully.
Looking at them in the light of my conjecture, I
was satisfied that “Otto” was involved in some crime, or
dangerous secret, of which “Jean” was either the instigator
or the accomplice. “Y.,” or Count Kasincsky,—and
I was more than ever inclined to connect the two,—also
had his mystery, which might, or might not, be identical
with the first. By comparing dates, I found that the entry
made December 27 was three days later than the date
of the letter of “Amélie de —”; and the exclamation

[figure description] Page 151.[end figure description]

“All for naught!” certainly referred to the disappointment
it contained. I now guessed the “H.” in the second
entry to mean “Helmine.” The two last suggested
a removal to Warsaw from the country. Here was a little
more ground to stand on; but how should I ever get
at the secret?

I took up the torn half of a note, which, after the first
inspection, I had laid aside as a hopeless puzzle. A closer
examination revealed several things which failed to impress
me at the outset. It was written in a strong and rather
awkward masculine hand; several words were underscored,
two misspelled, and I felt—I scarcely knew why—
that it was written in a spirit of mingled contempt and
defiance. Let me give the fragment just as it lay before
me:

[figure description] Page 152.[end figure description]

Here, I felt sure, was the clue to much of the mystery.
The first thing that struck me was the appearance of a new
name. I looked at it again, ran through in my mind all possible
German names, and found that it could only be “Johann,”—
and in the same instant I recalled the frequent
habit of the Prussian and Polish nobility of calling their
German valets by French names. This, then, was
“Jean!” The address was certainly “Baron,” and why
thrice underscored, unless in contemptuous satire? Light
began to break upon the matter at last. “Otto” had
been playing the part, perhaps assuming the name, of a
nobleman, seduced to the deception by his passion for the
Countess' sister, Helmine. This explained the reference
to “the papers,” and “the secret,” and would account for
the respectful and sympathetic tone of the Countess' letter.
But behind this there was certainly another secret,
in which “Y.” (whoever he might be) was concerned, and
which related to money. The close of the note, which I
filled out to read, “Your friend or not, as you may decide,”
conveyed a threat, and, to judge from the halves of
lines immediately preceding it, the threat referred to the
money, as well as to the betrayal of an assumed character.

Here, just as the story began to appear in faint outline,
my discoveries stopped for a while. I ascertained the

[figure description] Page 153.[end figure description]

breadth of the original note by a part of the middle-crease
which remained, filled out the torn part with blank paper,
completed the divided words in the same character of manuscript,
and endeavored to guess the remainder, but no
clairvoyant power of divination came to my aid. I turned
over the letters again, remarking the neatness with
which the addresses had been cut off, and wondering why
the man had not destroyed the letters and other memoranda
entirely, if he wished to hide a possible crime. The
fact that they were not destroyed showed the hold which
his past life had had upon him even to his dying hour.
Weak and vain, as I had already suspected him to be,—
wanting in all manly fibre, and of the very material which
a keen, energetic villain would mould to his needs, — I felt
that his love for his sister and for “Helmine,” and other
associations connected with his life in Germany and Poland,
had made him cling to these worn records.

I know not what gave me the suspicion that he had
not even found the heart to destroy the exscinded names;
perhaps the care with which they had been removed; perhaps,
in two instances, the circumstance of their taking
words out of the body of the letters with them. But the
suspicion came, and led to a re-examination of the leathern
wallets. I could scarcely believe my eyes, when feeling
something rustle faintly as I pressed the thin lining of
an inner pocket, I drew forth three or four small pellets
of paper, and unrolling them, found the lost addresses!
I fitted them to the vacant places, and found that the first
letters of the sister in Breslau had been forwarded to

[figure description] Page 154.[end figure description]

“Otto Lindenschmidt,” while the letter to Poland was
addressed “Otto von Herisau.”

I warmed with this success, which exactly tallied with
the previous discoveries, and returned again to the Polish
memoranda. The words “[Rus]sian officers” in “Jean's”
note led me to notice that it had been written towards the
close of the last insurrection in Poland—a circumstance
which I immediately coupled with some things in the note
and on the leaf of the journal. “No tidings of Y” might
indicate that Count Kasincsky had been concerned in the
rebellion, and had fled, or been taken prisoner. Had he
left a large amount of funds in the hands of the supposed
Otto von Herisau, which were drawn from time to time by
orders, the form of which had been previously agreed
upon? Then, when he had disappeared, might it not have
been the remaining funds which Jean urged Otto to divide
with him, while the latter, misled and entangled in deception
rather than naturally dishonest, held back from such
a step? I could hardly doubt so much, and it now required
but a slight effort of the imagination to complete
the torn note.

The next letter of the sister was addressed to Bremen.
After having established so many particulars, I found it
easily intelligible. “I have done what I can,” she wrote.
“I put it in this letter; it is all I have. But do not ask
me for money again; mother is ailing most of the time,
and I have not yet dared to tell her all. I shall suffer
great anxiety until I hear that the vessel has sailed. My
mistress is very good; she has given me an advance on my

[figure description] Page 155.[end figure description]

wages, or I could not have sent thee any thing. Mother
thinks thou art still in Leipzig: why didst thou stay there
so long? but no difference; thy money would have gone
anyhow.”

It was nevertheless singular that Otto should be without
money, so soon after the appropriation of Count
Kasincsky's funds. If the “20” in the first memorandum
on the leaf meant “twenty thousand rubles,” as I conjectured,
and but four thousand two hundred were drawn by
the Count previous to his flight or imprisonment, Otto's
half of the remainder would amount to nearly eight thousand
rubles; and it was, therefore, not easy to account for
his delay in Leipzig, and his destitute condition.

Before examining the fragments relating to the American
phase of his life,—which illustrated his previous history
only by occasional revelations of his moods and feelings,—
I made one more effort to guess the cause of his
having assumed the name of “Von Herisau.” The initials
signed to the order for the ring (“B. v. H.”) certainly
stood for the same family name; and the possession of
papers belonging to one of the family was an additional
evidence that Otto had either been in the service of, or
was related to, some Von Herisau. Perhaps a sentence
in one of the sister's letters—“Forget thy disappointment
so far as I am concerned, for I never expected any thing”—
referred to something of the kind. On the whole, service
seemed more likely than kinship; but in that case
the papers must have been stolen.

I had endeavored, from the start, to keep my

[figure description] Page 156.[end figure description]

sympathies out of the investigation, lest they should lead me to
misinterpret the broken evidence, and thus defeat my object.
It must have been the Countess' letter, and the
brief, almost stenographic, signs of anxiety and unhappiness
on the leaf of the journal, that first beguiled me into
a commiseration, which the simple devotion and self-sacrifice
of the poor, toiling sister failed to neutralize. However,
I detected the feeling at this stage of the examination,
and turned to the American records, in order to get
rid of it.

The principal paper was the list of addresses of which
I have spoken. I looked over it in vain, to find some indication
of its purpose; yet it had been carefully made out
and much used. There was no name of a person upon it,—
only numbers and streets, one hundred and thirty-eight
in all. Finally, I took these, one by one, to ascertain if
any of the houses were known to me, and found three, out
of the whole number, to be the residences of persons whom
I knew. One was a German gentleman, and the other
two were Americans who had visited Germany. The riddle
was read! During a former residence in New York,
I had for a time been quite overrun by destitute Germans,—
men, apparently, of some culture, who represented themselves
as theological students, political refugees, or unfortunate
clerks and secretaries,—soliciting assistance. I
found that, when I gave to one, a dozen others came within
the next fortnight; when I refused, the persecution
ceased for about the same length of time. I became convinced,
at last, that these persons were members of an

[figure description] Page 157.[end figure description]

organized society of beggars, and the result proved it; for
when I made it an inviolable rule to give to no one who
could not bring me an indorsement of his need by some
person whom I knew, the annoyance ceased altogether.

The meaning of the list of addresses was now plain.
My nascent commiseration for the man was not only
checked, but I was in danger of changing my rôle from
that of culprit's counsel to that of prosecuting attorney.

When I took up again the fragment of the first draught
of a letter commencing, “Dog and villain!” and applied
it to the words “Jean” or “Johann Helm,” the few lines
which could be deciphered became full of meaning. “Don't
think,” it began, “that I have forgotten you, or the trick
you played me! If I was drunk or drugged the last night,
I know how it happened, for all that. I left, but I shall
go back. And if you make use of” (here some words
were entirely obliterated).... “is true. He gave me
the ring, and meant”.... This was all I could make
out. The other papers showed only scattered memoranda,
of money, or appointments, or addresses, with the exception
of the diary in pencil.

I read the letter attentively, and at first with very little
idea of its meaning. Many of the words were abbreviated,
and there were some arbitrary signs. It ran over
a period of about four months, terminating six weeks before
the man's death. He had been wandering about
the country during this period, sleeping in woods and
barns, and living principally upon milk. The condition
of his pulse and other physical functions was scrupulously

[figure description] Page 158.[end figure description]

set down, with an occasional remark of “good” or “bad.”
The conclusion was at last forced upon me that he had
been endeavoring to commit suicide by a slow course of
starvation and exposure. Either as the cause or the result
of this attempt, I read, in the final notes, signs of an
aberration of mind. This also explained the singular demeanor
of the man when found, and his refusal to take
medicine or nourishment. He had selected a long way
to accomplish his purpose,but had reached the end at last.

The confused material had now taken shape; the dead
man, despite his will, had confessed to me his name and
the chief events of his life. It now remained—looking at
each event as the result of a long chain of causes—to
deduce from them the elements of his individual character,
and then fill up the inevitable gaps in the story from
the probabilities of the operation of those elements. This
was not so much a mere venture as the reader may suppose,
because the two actions of the mind test each other.
If they cannot, thus working towards a point and back
again, actually discover what was, they may at least fix
upon a very probable might have been.

A person accustomed to detective work would have
obtained my little stock of facts with much less trouble,
and would, almost instinctively, have filled the blanks as
he went along. Being an apprentice in such matters, I
had handled the materials awkwardly. I will not here
retrace my own mental zigzags between character and
act, but simply repeat the story as I finally settled and
accepted it.

[figure description] Page 159.[end figure description]

Otto Lindenschmidt was the child of poor parents in
or near Breslau. His father died when he was young;
his mother earned a scanty subsistence as a washerwoman;
his sister went into service. Being a bright, handsome
boy, he attracted the attention of a Baron von Herisau,
an old, childless, eccentric gentleman, who took him
first as page or attendant, intending to make him a superior
valet de chambre. Gradually, however, the Baron
fancied that he detected in the boy a capacity for better
things; his condescending feeling of protection had grown
into an attachment for the handsome, amiable, grateful
young fellow, and he placed him in the gymnasium at
Breslau, perhaps with the idea, now, of educating him to
be an intelligent companion.

The boy and his humble relatives, dazzled by this opportunity,
began secretly to consider the favor as almost
equivalent to his adoption as a son. (The Baron had
once been married, but his wife and only child had long
been dead.) The old man, of course, came to look upon
the growing intelligence of the youth as his own work:
vanity and affection became inextricably blended in his
heart, and when the cursus was over, he took him home
as the companion of his lonely life. After two or three
years, during which the young man was acquiring habits
of idleness and indulgence, supposing his future secure,
the Baron died,—perhaps too suddenly to make full
provision for him, perhaps after having kept up the appearance
of wealth on a life-annuity, but, in any case,
leaving very little, if any, property to Otto. In his

[figure description] Page 160.[end figure description]

disappointment, the latter retained certain family papers
which the Baron had intrusted to his keeping. The ring
was a gift, and he wore it in remembrance of his benefactor.

Wandering about, Micawber-like, in hopes that something
might turn up, he reached Posen, and there either
met or heard of the Polish Count, Ladislas Kasincsky,
who was seeking a tutor for his only son. His accomplishments,
and perhaps, also, a certain aristocratic grace
of manner unconsciously caught from the Baron von
Herisau, speedily won for him the favor of the Count and
Countess Kasincsky, and emboldened him to hope for
the hand of the Countess' sister, Helmine —, to whom
he was no doubt sincerely attached. Here Johann Helm,
or “Jean,” a confidential servant of the Count, who looked
upon the new tutor as a rival, yet adroitly flattered his
vanity for the purpose of misleading and displacing him,
appears upon the stage. “Jean” first detected Otto's
passion; “Jean,” at an epicurean dinner, wormed out of
Otto the secret of the Herisau documents, and perhaps
suggested the part which the latter afterwards played.

This “Jean” seemed to me to have been the evil
agency in the miserable history which followed. After
Helmine's rejection of Otto's suit, and the flight or captivity
of Count Kasincsky, leaving a large sum of money
in Otto's hands, it would be easy for “Jean,” by mingled
persuasions and threats, to move the latter to flight, after
dividing the money still remaining in his hands. After
the theft, and the partition, which took place beyond the

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Polish frontier, “Jean” in turn, stole his accomplice's
share, together with the Von Herisau documents.

Exile and a year's experience of organized mendicancy
did the rest. Otto Lindenschmidt was one of those
natures which possess no moral elasticity—which have
neither the power nor the comprehension of atonement.
The first real, unmitigated guilt—whether great or small—
breaks them down hopelessly. He expected no chance
of self-redemption, and he found none. His life in America
was so utterly dark and hopeless that the brightest
moment in it must have been that which showed him the
approach of death.

My task was done. I had tracked this weak, vain,
erring, hunted soul to its last refuge, and the knowledge
bequeathed to me but a single duty. His sins were balanced
by his temptations; his vanity and weakness had
revenged themselves; and there only remained to tell
the simple, faithful sister that her sacrifices were no longer
required. I burned the evidences of guilt, despair and
suicide, and sent the other papers, with a letter relating
the time and circumstances of Otto Lindenschmidt's
death, to the civil authorities of Breslau, requesting that
they might be placed in the hands of his sister Elise.

This, I supposed, was the end of the history, so far as
my connection with it was concerned. But one cannot
track a secret with impunity; the fatality connected with
the act and the actor clings even to the knowledge of the
act. I had opened my door a little, in order to look out
upon the life of another, but in doing so a ghost had

[figure description] Page 162.[end figure description]

entered in, and was not to be dislodged until I had done its
service.

In the summer of 1867 I was in Germany, and during
a brief journey of idlesse and enjoyment came to the
lovely little watering-place of Liebenstein, on the southern
slope of the Thüringian Forest. I had no expectation or
even desire of making new acquaintances among the gay
company who took their afternoon coffee under the noble
linden trees on the terrace; but, within the first hour of
my after-dinner leisure, I was greeted by an old friend,
an author, from Coburg, and carried away, in my own despite,
to a group of his associates. My friend and his
friends had already been at the place a fortnight, and knew
the very tint and texture of its gossip. While I sipped
my coffee, I listened to them with one ear, and to Wagner's
overture to “Lohengrin” with the other; and I
should soon have been wholly occupied with the fine orchestra
had I not been caught and startled by an unexpected
name.

“Have you noticed,” some one asked, “how much attention
the Baron von Herisau is paying her?”

I whirled round and exclaimed, in a breath, “The
Baron von Herisau!”

“Yes,” said my friend; “do you know him?”

I was glad that three crashing, tremendous chords
came from the orchestra just then, giving me time to collect
myself before I replied: “I am not sure whether it
is the same person: I knew a Baron von Herisau long
ago: how old is the gentleman here?”

[figure description] Page 163.[end figure description]

“About thirty-five, I should think,” my friend answered.

“Ah, then it can't be the same person,” said I: “still,
if he should happen to pass near us, will you point him
out to me?”

It was an hour later, and we were all hotly discussing
the question of Lessing's obligations to English literature,
when one of the gentlemen at the table said: “There
goes the Baron von Herisau: is it perhaps your friend,
sir?”

I turned and saw a tall man, with prominent nose,
opaque black eyes, and black mustache, walking beside
a pretty, insipid girl. Behind the pair went an elderly
couple, overdressed and snobbish in appearance. A carriage,
with servants in livery, waited in the open space
below the terrace, and having received the two couples,
whirled swiftly away towards Altenstein.

Had I been more of a philosopher I should have
wasted no second thought on the Baron von Herisau.
But the Nemesis of the knowledge which I had throttled
poor Otto Lindenschmidt's ghost to obtain had come
upon me at last, and there was no rest for me until I had
discovered who and what was the Baron. The list of
guests which the landlord gave me whetted my curiosity
to a painful degree; for on it I found the entry: “Aug.
15.—Otto v. Herisau, Rentier, East Prussia.”

It was quite dark when the carriage returned. I
watched the company into the supper-room, and then,
whisking in behind them, secured a place at the nearest

[figure description] Page 164.[end figure description]

table. I had an hour of quiet, stealthy observation before
my Coburg friend discovered me, and by that time I was
glad of his company and had need of his confidence.
But, before making use of him in the second capacity, I
desired to make the acquaintance of the adjoining partie
carrée. He had bowed to them familiarly in passing, and
when the old gentleman said, “Will you not join us, Herr—?”
I answered my friend's interrogative glance with
a decided affirmative, and we moved to the other table.

My seat was beside the Baron von Herisau, with whom
I exchanged the usual commonplaces after an introduction.
His manner was cold and taciturn, I thought, and there
was something forced in the smile which accompanied his
replies to the remarks of the coarse old lady, who continually
referred to the “Herr Baron” as authority upon
every possible subject. I noticed, however, that he cast
a sudden, sharp glance at me, when I was presented to
the company as an American.

The man's neighborhood disturbed me. I was obliged
to let the conversation run in the channels already selected,
and stupid enough I found them. I was considering
whether I should not give a signal to my friend and
withdraw, when the Baron stretched his hand across the
table for a bottle of Affenthaler, and I caught sight of a
massive gold ring on his middle finger. Instantly I remembered
the ring which “B. v. H.” had given to Otto
Lindenschmidt, and I said to myself, “That is it!” The
inference followed like lightning that it was “Johann
Helm” who sat beside me, and not a Baron von Herisau!

[figure description] Page 165.[end figure description]

That evening my friend and I had a long, absorbing
conversation in my room. I told him the whole story,
which came back vividly to memory, and learned, in return,
that the reputed Baron was supposed to be wealthy,
that the old gentleman was a Bremen merchant or banker,
known to be rich, that neither was considered by those
who had met them to be particularly intelligent or refined,
and that the wooing of the daughter had already become
so marked as to be a general subject of gossip. My
friend was inclined to think my conjecture correct, and
willingly co-operated with me in a plan to test the matter.
We had no considerable sympathy with the snobbish parents,
whose servility to a title was so apparent; but the
daughter seemed to be an innocent and amiable creature,
however silly, and we determined to spare her the shame
of an open scandal.

If our scheme should seem a little melodramatic, it
must not be forgotten that my friend was an author. The
next morning, as the Baron came up the terrace after his
visit to the spring, I stepped forward and greeted him politely,
after which I said: “I see by the strangers' list that
you are from East Prussia, Baron; have you ever been in
Poland?” At that moment, a voice behind him called
out rather sharply, “Jean!” The Baron started, turned
round and then back to me, and all his art could not prevent
the blood from rushing to his face. I made, as if by
accident, a gesture with my hand, indicating success, and
went a step further.

“Because,” said I, “I am thinking of making a visit

[figure description] Page 166.[end figure description]

to Cracow and Warsaw, and should be glad of any information—”

“Certainly!” he interrupted me, “and I should be
very glad to give it, if I had ever visited Poland.”

“At least,” I continued, “you can advise me upon
one point; but excuse me, shall we not sit down a moment
yonder? As my question relates to money, I should
not wish to be overheard.”

I pointed out a retired spot, just before reaching
which we were joined by my friend, who suddenly stepped
out from behind a clump of lilacs. The Baron and he
saluted each other.

“Now,” said I to the former, “I can ask your advice,
Mr. Johann Helm!”

He was not an adept, after all. His astonishment
and confusion were brief, to be sure, but they betrayed
him so completely that his after-impulse to assume a
laughty offensive air only made us smile.

“If I had a message to you from Otto Lindenschmidt,
what then?” I asked.

He turned pale, and presently stammered out, “He—
he is dead!”

“Now,” said my friend, “it is quite time to drop the
mask before us. You see we know you, and we know
your history. Not from Otto Lindenschmidt alone;
Count Ladislas Kasincsky—”

“What! Has he come back from Siberia?” exclaimed
Johann Helm. His face expressed abject terror;
I think he would have fallen upon his knees before

[figure description] Page 167.[end figure description]

us if he had not somehow felt, by a rascal's instinct,
that we had no personal wrongs to redress in unmasking
him.

Our object, however, was to ascertain through him the
complete facts of Otto Lindenschmidt's history, and then
to banish him from Liebenstein. We allowed him to
suppose for awhile that we were acting under the authority
of persons concerned, in order to make the best possible
use of his demoralized mood, for we knew it would
not last long.

My guesses were very nearly correct. Otto Lindenschmidt
had been educated by an old Baron, Bernhard
von Herisau, on account of his resemblance in person to
a dead son, whose name had also been Otto. He could
not have adopted the plebeian youth, at least to the extent
of giving him an old and haughty name, but this the
latter nevertheless expected, up to the time of the Baron's
death. He had inherited a little property from his benefactor,
but soon ran through it. “He was a light-headed
fellow,” said Johann Helm, “but he knew how to get the
confidence of the old Junkers. If he hadn't been so
cowardly and fidgety, he might have made himself a
career.”

The Polish episode differed so little from my interpretation
that I need not repeat Helm's version. He
denied having stolen Otto's share of the money, but could
not help admitting his possession of the Von Herisau
papers, among which were the certificates of birth and
baptism of the old Baron's son, Otto. It seems that he

[figure description] Page 168.[end figure description]

had been fearful of Lindenschmidt's return from America,
for he managed to communicate with his sister in Breslau,
and in this way learned the former's death. Not until
then had he dared to assume his present disguise.

We let him go, after exacting a solemn pledge that he
would betake himself at once to Hamburg, and there
ship for Australia. (I judged that America was already amply
supplied with individuals of his class.) The sudden departure
of the Baron von Herisau was a two days' wonder
at Liebenstein; but besides ourselves, only the Bremen
banker knew the secret. He also left, two days afterwards,
with his wife and daughter—their cases, it was reported,
requiring Kissingen.

Otto Lindenschmidt's life, therefore, could not hide
itself. Can any life?