[figure description] Page 344.[end figure description]

MEANWHILE the Muse is impatient to be elsewhere.
Off she goes like a fox to the mountain;
and we, pursuing swiftly, are just in time to see
her whisk into a hole.

A dungeon-like place, full of Tartarean smoke and gloom;
the ante-chamber of Hades, one would think. In at one end,
from above, steals the light of heaven; at the opposite end
flickers an obscure bluish glare, like gleams from the other
place. Here we find the Muse, prying into crevices at the
extremity of the cavern, in company with a nose which must
be Mr. Murk's.

Recovering from our surprise a little, we begin to see where
we are. These purplish gleams are of burning candles stuck
in chinks of the cave. The smoke and smell are disagreeably
suggestive of blasting-powder. These irregular narrow walls
are of rock; of solid, jagged, unstratified rock, the rude floor,
and the low broken roof, which has jammed Mr. Murk's hat.
The cavern is boot-shaped, and we are in the toe of it. The

[figure description] Page 345.[end figure description]

old shaft of the money-diggers answers to the leg; and this is
the foot, which our friends have been all winter laboriously
excavating, and with which they expect now, at every pulse
of the blast, to kick a hole through into the silver-mine of the
Spaniards. A boot sublime, gigantic; but so very expensive
an article, that some are sorry they ever put their foot in it.

Hence the anxiety with which Mr. Murk, the Muse, and
another individual, are peering into the dim cavity before the
smoke of the last explosion has cleared away. To any but
the faithful, the aspect would be extremely discouraging. The
obdurate igneous rock defies the drills. Only a few fragments
can be blown away at a blast; and often the charge
shoots out, as from a gun-barrel, without breaking the rock.
This is of the kind called “trap,” abhorred by miners. It
keeps two smiths perpetually employed sharpening the bits.
Not one of the workmen believes there is silver in the mountain;
and you might see them secretly grin at human credulity
as they ploddingly earn their day's wages, and pocket
the pay.

They are now clearing the fragments from the foot of the
boot; filling therewith a large bucket, or tub, which plies up
and down the cavity of the leg. It is lifted by a windlass at
the top, emptied, and lowered again. Suppose we step into
it as it rises; for the patch of blue heaven visible above there
appears inviting. Daylight brightens around us as we ascend;
and, lo! we stand on the mountain summit, the broad
dome of the sky arched above us, and the azure ocean of the
world circling around.

[figure description] Page 346.[end figure description]

The heaps of excavations have grown considerably since
autumn. The forge blazes, the anvil rings; little Job blowing
the bellows. Jehiel and another work at the windlass:
the rocks rattle as they empty the bucket. To add to the picturesqueness
of the scene, Jack the crow sits on the roof of
the shed which covers the forge from the weather, philosophically
contemplating the world from his commanding perch.

Suddenly Jack flaps his wings, and utters his half-human
laugh.

“Ha, ha! laugh, Jack! Mad's come home!”

Job glances over his shoulder; and, sure enough, there is
the junior Biddikin approaching, over the rocks and among
the sparse and stunted trees of the summit, from the south.

Pale is Madison, as if he had kept long out of the sun.
But he is fat and swaggering, and his eye glitters with its old
fire. The crow, flying to meet him, perches on his shoulder,
fluttering, bobbing his head, and gossiping unintelligibly.

“Glad to see a feller, old Jack?” says Mad, touched by
this unexpected welcome. “But there's some that won't be
so glad!” he mutters, as the thought of his imprisonment
comes burningly back, and the desire for vengeance kindles.
“Hello, Job! Where's the old man?”

“Gone to jail for you,” says simple little Job, staring.

Mad winces, cursing copiously the jail, and those who put
him in it, as he swaggers towards the windlass.

“You'd better slack up a little,” suggests Jehiel, raising
the tub. “You don't know who hears you.”

[figure description] Page 347.[end figure description]

“What do I care who hears? Show me the man that dares
stop my mouth! Where's Elphaz Pelt, with his fines, and
his cross-eyed villain's face that's waiting to be knocked off
when I” — Mad stops and stares.

Up comes the bucket from the shaft; but, instead of a heap
of rubbish, he sees emerge a pair of small gloved hands holding
the rope, a jaunty juvenile cap, frock-coat, trousers, and
a pale, peculiar face, which he has a tantalizing sense of having
seen before, but can't guess when or where. It is the
person whom the Muse found with Mr. Murk in the mine,
and whom Mad may well be excused for not recognizing. He
is staring and wondering; when the unknown steps from the
tub, pulls a soiled glove from a white jewelled hand, draws a
handkerchief from the tail of the frock-coat, and, observing the
jail-bird, says curtly, —

“Please dust me.”

The glance of those eyes, the tones of that perfectly feminine
voice, bring electric recollection, and flush his bleached
cheeks.

“It's the woman with the devil in her!” he says to himself
as he dusts.

“What's the matter?” she asks, taking the handkerchief
again.

“I don't know — there's something about you — my arm
tingles to the elbow! By George! what is it?”

“It isn't the devil,” is the significant response; and the
youth, thinking she must have read his thoughts, is still more
troubled.

[figure description] Page 348.[end figure description]

“Ah! who have we here?” said a voice from the shaft;
and the philanthropist's head and shoulders appeared, coming
up in the tub. “A new brother?”

“Do you mean to say you don't know me?” cried Mad,
regaining some of his lost impudence. “Your nose is longer
than your memory.”

“Personally, I recalled your features; spiritually,” added
Mr. Murk, “I marvelled. Long confinement has rendered
you susceptible to impressions. I perceive that the influence,
which was strong on Sister Christina in the shaft, has gone
from her to you; and, I pray you, don't resist it.” The Socratic
arm began to wag. “Is our brother prepared to join us?”
he asked of the invisibles. “He is, — or nearly so; for that
peculiar shake” — Mr. Murk illustrated — “means doubtful,
or not immediately.”

In the mean time, Mad was regarding Christina with absorbing
admiration, tempered by a certain awe and reverence
which he had never before felt for any woman.

“I shall have hopes of him,” she said with knit brow,
“when I see him set to work. What are you going to do,
young man, now you have got out of jail? Loaf about the
taverns? quarrel with your father? get drunk, as usual?”

Mad writhed under her scorn: but his audacity, even the
power of resentment, was taken from him; and, so far from
answering with his customary insolence, he could not answer
at all.

“Come, Mad,” then said Christina, her tones changing

[figure description] Page 349.[end figure description]

to sympathy and pity; and she laid her hand gently on his
arm, leading him aside. “Let's have a little talk together.
You think I am hard on you?”

“If any man had said it” —

“Yes, I know: you would have done some rash thing. But
I might have said much more, and spoken only God's truth,
at which no one has a right to be offended. O young man!”
she said sadly, “on this glorious mountain-top, in the light
of this beautiful day, look at yourself, — at your past life,
at your future; and consider well. I know the good that is
in you; and, when I see you going the way of corruption, I
grieve, I am angry.”

“I do well enough when folks will let me alone,” muttered
the youth.

“Nobody hinders you from doing well but yourself. If
you are lazy, licentious, revengeful, reckless, and so become
a miserable, sottish, rotten-hearted, despised old man, or die
early in your sins, it is your own fault, and nobody's else, let
me tell you.”

Whatever the power that inspired her, whether of devil, or
of angel, or of woman only, it was too much for Mad, who
stood aghast at the revelation of himself which it suddenly
opened within him.

“That's the programme,” said Christina. “Are you going
to live by it? Here, this day, make your choice, and
soon; for I have no time or words to throw away on the
filthily inclined. But if you mean to be a man, if you feel

[figure description] Page 350.[end figure description]

the good that is in you, and resolve to turn your powers to
some worthy use, I am the friend to stand by you and help
you.”

“If you will,” said Madison, struggling with himself, —
“I know what I have been, and what I am capable of being, —
you shall see!”

“Your hand on that!” exclaimed Christina. “Now show
that you are in earnest by going to work.”

“I'm willing,” said Mad humbly: “only give me something
to do.”

“Can you turn that windlass?”

“Yes, if you say so.”

“Very well: turn it.”

Mad immediately stripped off his coat, and went to assist
Jehiel.

Christina seated herself in the door of the hut, with an anxious
countenance, pondering unspeakable things, when a brisk
little old man tripped by her. He was dapper; he was prim:
he wore a new suit of shining broadcloth, a new shining beaver,
and an air of complaisant gentility, which made the seeress
knit her brows, and sigh.

“How goes the blasting? Any discoveries, Mr. Murk?
What! Madison!” he exclaimed in amazement. “My son
Madison!”

“I got the start of you,” said Mad, leaning on the spokes
of the windlass. “I footed it 'cross lots to try my legs.”

The doctor's delight at meeting his son was marred by
decided displeasure.

[figure description] Page 351.[end figure description]

“You did wrong!” he exclaimed emphatically. “I had
a carriage for you, and a new suit of clothes which I were
taking to you for the occasion. You should have come away
in style, like a gentleman and a gentleman's son. I were
grievously disappointed. And” — sharply — “what are
you doing here?”

“Earning my living,” said Mad.

“Earning your living!” ejaculated the doctor. “Degrading
yourself, you should say! Your coat off, — making a
Paddy of yourself! I am ashamed of you!”

“Come, Mad,” said Jehiel: “bear a hand.”

Mad obeyed, and the bucket rose in the shaft; the doctor
looking on with disgust.

“To be ordered about by that man, like a common laborer!
Don't submit to it! — you, the heir to a tenth part of the treasure,
and the son of a gentleman! Come!” — authoritatively
pulling Mad's sleeve.

Mad answered with a backward kick (which took effect on
the paternal shins), and continued laboring at the windlass.

“Kick your father, do you?” cried the exasperated Biddikin,
seizing him. “I command you, I command you, sir, to
come away!”

Mad quietly assisted in landing the tub; then turned upon
the senior, gave his neck a sudden tweak, and sent him reeling
from the shaft. The way was rough: the old man's legs
were not competent to travel it in that abrupt fashion; and,
naturally, he fell. Christina now came forward, flamingly indignant.

[figure description] Page 352.[end figure description]

“You sor that!” cried the doctor angrily. “That's his
gratitude; that's the treatment I receive from my son!” —
brushing the dirt from his new clothes.

“Is this what you promised me!” said Christina, levelling
a glance at the jail-bird. Then turning to the doctor, —
“Biddikin! remember!”

Mad, abashed and repentant, returned to his work; while
the old man stood trembling and chattering.

“I — I were wrong, perhaps. But he is my son, and I
am not willing he should disgrace himself.”

“A son of yours disgrace himself by honest labor!” exclaimed
the seeress. “Has he inherited so stainless a name
from his father? You called him a Paddy; but I tell you,
Doctor Biddikin, an industrious Paddy is more respectable in
my eyes than a would-be gentleman.”

“Certainly; and — I — I beg your pardon,” said the old
man, looking singularly pale and unwholesome in his new
clothes. “I forgot myself.”

Christina turned to the son. “Attend to your business,
Mad; and never,” — in a low tone, — “never lay hands on
that poor old man again.”

“Right!” cried the doctor. “Let him work: it may do
him good. How — how near are we to the treasure?”

“As soon as we are all simple and unselfish, the treasure
will appear; but, at this rate, I despair!” And Christina
returned to her seat by the door of the hut.

Appearances in the shaft that morning had filled her mind

[figure description] Page 353.[end figure description]

with disquiet; which was now aggravated by a contempt for
human nature, such as sensitive souls are apt to feel in their
dealings with weak men.

Disgust and bitter doubts assailed her; and for a moment
she distrusted not her companions only, but herself also, her
mediumship, her heavenly guardians, and her God.

She did not see Guy approaching. He came and leaned
by the hut, and heaved a deep sigh of relief as he gazed
around at the picture of the world painted by the April sun
and haze.

“What illusion!” murmured Christina, looking at the
shaft.

But Guy saw only the sky, the horizon, the mountains, forrests,
and farms, transfigured by distance and the shining
miracle of the day; and, remembering how lately he had felt
the vulgarities and vexations of that lower glorified world, he
answered, with a tinge of sarcasm in his tones, —

“It is the kind poetry is made of. When in the world, and
of it, one sees all its hard outlines, its meanness and literalism;
but, to poets on the peaks of life, every thing appears
softened, and swimming in color.”

“That is not the illusion I meant,” said Christina. “Guy
Bannington, come here. Comfort me; for my heart is
heavy.”

“What comfort can I give? I have felt very little myself
to-day, till the mountain breeze blew some of the dust from

[figure description] Page 354.[end figure description]

my soul, and I saw that the earth continued glorious in spite
of us.”

“Letters?”

“A curious batch of 'em.” Guy seated himself on the
rock by her side. “Here is one from our worthy merchantprince,
Robert Green.”

“Empty?” said Christina, looking for money.

“Empty of every thing but excuses. He has had losses,
like Dogberry; notes to pay, and so forth. Besides, he thinks
he has already contributed his share towards the work, and
says I must call on the other directors for help,” said Guy
with disappointment and disdain.

“So much for him!” exclaimed Christina, casting the letter
on the ground. “Show me the millionnaire whose humanity
is half as deep as his pocket!”

“He is as solemnly pledged to this work as any of us,”
said Guy. “But expenses are formidable, and faith is weak.
He is not the only caitiff.”

“Why, who now?”

“Deacon Pitman, the good deacon, the fat and pious deacon!
I won't show you his letter; 'tis too base! There he
goes to the winds!” — tearing it, and scattering the fragments
on the rocks.

Christina turned pale. “Has he, too, deserted? — become
poverty-stricken just when money is wanted?”

“Not poverty-stricken, but conscience-stricken. It takes a
millionnaire to make the excuse of want of means; it takes

[figure description] Page 355.[end figure description]

a deacon to make the excuse of a suddenly awakened moral
sense. As long as there was a prospect of getting the treasure
with but little trouble, all was well; but, as difficulty
increases, faith decreases. And what do you think? The
excellent man has just discovered that my connection with
Lucy is scandalous, and concluded that he ought not to compromise
his respectability by continuing associated with me. As
it would have required some courage to tell me this to my face,
he wrote it, and dropped the letter in the post-office, and ran.”

“Well, well! what next?”

“The worst news of all.”

“Don't tell me there is worse! I shall give up humanity;
I shall give up the ghost!”

Guy unfolded a letter. “The old patriarch, — Haddow, —
the blessed saint!” interposed Christina. “Don't tell me
he has failed us! I can't believe it. A muddy-souled deacon,
a pusillanimous merchant, — I don't care for them; but
that beautiful old man! — he has contributed more than all
the rest, and you shouldn't have asked him for money.”

“I have not, and he has not refused. The news is sadder
than that. See what Mrs. Governor Smith writes. She has
been to visit him.”

“In a mad-house!” articulated Christina. She read the
letter; then folded her hands, and regarded Guy with mute
horror and indignation.

“Of course,” said Guy, “he is just as insane as we are, —
as every person is whose belief is not popular, — who

[figure description] Page 356.[end figure description]

sacrifices property and respectability for humanity's sake. The
world can't understand such sacrifices, and votes the man mad.
But I'm afraid there's foul play in Haddow's case. 'Twas
his own family that sent him to the asylum, — to secure his
property, it appears.”

“I am sick of life! Don't tell me any more.”

“It will refresh you to know that I have two letters from
the Hon. Cephas.”

She looked up anxiously. The expression of Guy's face
boded no good of her friend.

“This one is to me. He says he is coming up here in a
few days, and will try to bring some money: but he has none
to send; for which he is very sorry, and overflows with amiable
regrets. This other is to you.”

Christina took it eagerly, read it with a scowl, and crushed
it up. “Show me yours.” She read that also. “Now
look!” she exclaimed: “if 'tisn't enough to make one's soul
blush scarlet! He has no money for the cause of humanity,—
the cause he is pledged to support; but see what he sends
to me unasked!”

Guy unrolled a crumpled paper which had come in her letter.
It was a draft for seventy-five dollars.

“I asked for only fifty,” he said with a cold sneer. “It
takes you to thaw Snow.”

“And did you think he cared for humanity?” she cried
with a bitter laugh. “You don't know Cephas. I'll enlighten
you. He is a vampire that feeds on women's
hearts.”

[figure description] Page 357.[end figure description]

“'Tis well you've found him out,” said Guy significantly.

“Yes! — well! — after I have placed myself under obligations
to him that cannot be cancelled. People talk of the
slavery of the marriage-tie. There's a worse slavery than
that, — the slavery of obligations; when you have accepted
favors you can't repay, and find your relations with the giver
grown irksome.”

“Why have you not warned me of the character of this
man?” Guy demanded.

“Because I have allowed his professions to have weight
with me; taking his word before the testimony of my own
heart. His purse was always open to me. He protested
that he had no personal object in view, no motive but to benefit;
and — I was weak. But 'tis clear now. Take it: I'll
none of it!” — refusing the draft.

The face of Guy was troubled. “Is this the stuff our
brothers are made of? Are these the reformers worthy to inaugurate
the new and divine order of things? Christina, we
stand almost alone!”

She fixed her eyes steadily upon him. “And what if it
is all delusion?”

“It isn't possible!” he exclaimed with a nervous, glittering
look. “Christina, tempt me not! I haven't undertaken
this work without deep and terrible convictions. Now, though
all desert me, I will stay. Though I was to have no pecuniary
responsibility in the matter, and though I now find that
entire responsibility settling on my shoulders, I will not shrink.

[figure description] Page 358.[end figure description]

I relied upon the pledges of others when I hired these men.
They shall be paid. The work shall go on. I'll know if
there is treasure in these rocks, and no obstacle shall stop me
short of the absolutely insurmountable.

“Then all is well!” said Christina, kindling at his fire. “I
haven't been deceived. I have seen silver in the mountain:
it was not delusion. One true soul restores to me my faith.
Guy!” — she leaned towards him with a look of passionate
adoration, — “you have comforted me! If all the world
should go, and only you and I were left, I should be comforted.”

“Perhaps you will be put to that test,” said Guy. “Difficulty
is a sieve which only the finest natures can pass: the
coarser stop in the meshes. When all the rest are left behind,
you and I will have the world to ourselves, Christina.”

He looked seriously and kindly upon her. She repaid him
with a gaze of burning love.

p730-364

Previous section

Next section