Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

“You might suppose there wasn’t enough to go around; but you must remember that it was not such a very big army. How large should you say, Walter?”

“Probably not a larger number than would be included in two what in our last war were considered good-sized regiments. Hardly that, for I believe Greene left quite a force behind at his post on the Pedee river, when he pushed across country to join Morgan; and his whole command united couldn’t have amounted to more than two thousand.”

“Just think of it! And that wee little army, half-starved and poorly clothed, held in check the thousands of Cornwallis! No wonder the orators grow eloquent over our forefathers, is it, Marie?”

“But about Kate? Did that horrid old Tory of an uncle shut her up in her room after that?”

“Take care, Miss Marie, that ‘horrid old Tory of an uncle’ was a distant relative of ours.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to say anything against your relations, Mr. Walter; but then everybody knows you aren’t a bit like him, if you _are_ a tease!”

“No,” Kate goes on, “they didn’t shut her up in her room, but she was treated very coolly all around the board, and as for her uncle, I believe he never spoke to her again. What made him particularly indignant was, that the British prisoners would insist that he was at the bottom of it all, and had set the trap for them himself. They had reason to be suspicious, for in that section one never could be certain who were Tories and who were not, so many of the people wavered in their opinions, favoring the royal cause one day and the rebels the next. Well, to wind up my story, Kate was so unhappy there, that she went to live with an aunt in Charleston till some two or three years after, when the war was all over, and she married—”

“Oh, wait, let me guess who!—the American Captain, now, didn’t she? How romantic! Then he was your great-great-grandfather!”

“Yes, and they came North, and lived and died right where Uncle Robert lives now—in the same house, only it has been altered several times since.”

The mention of “Uncle Robert” reminds Harry to ask if Kate has had any more letters lately from her little correspondent. Whereupon she produces this one, which she received to-day!

“DEAR COZEN KATE AND WALTER:—to-moros the forth but my
Firecrackers are all used up alreddy but I don’t care I don’t
feal much like sellibrating ennyway you see Dick Deen and
Jimmy Jeffers an me we thot wed have sum fun so we toock a
hunting horn with sum powder in it an emptyd it onto a stone an
set a match to it but it didnt go off so i run up to see what
was the matter and pop off it went rite into my face tel yoo it
made me hop an everryboddy screemd an run for the Docter an he
cum an sed it wood get well after a while and then he an papa
both giggld but i coodnt see whare the fun was nor mama eether
she sed i must rite an tel you about it it wood divurt my mind
but to be careful about my Speling an the rest so I was.

Affexshuntly

BOB.”

“Plucky little chap, ain’t he!” and Harry giggles too. “Divert his mind! ha, ha! But you don’t know anything about how it burns. I got my hand peppered that way once, and went into the cellar where it was cool, and walked the floor for three hours. I didn’t want any one to find out about it, for fear of a scolding, for I expect I was old enough to know better.”

But Marie, who has been quietly meditating meanwhile, suddenly breaks forth with, “I wish _I_ had lived in the time of the Revolution! Then I would have had a chance to do something brave.”

“You!” laughs Harry. “I’ll warrant it would scare you half to death to hear a mouse nibble in the wall at night.” Which Marie, blushing guiltily, cannot deny.

“Well, anyhow, I’m going over home to find out if _I_ haven’t got a great-great-grandmother, or something.”

IN THE WOODS.

“Do you think there are any places in heaven like this?”

It is little Bessie who whispers the question, as she lies in the grass at Kate’s feet, looking up at the glimpses of sky among the branches—glimpses as blue as her eyes.

Kate looks up, too. Feathery-fine are those branches, swaying lazily in the sunlight; lower down they grow darker and heavy with green, till, here where she sits beneath, everything is in shadow. She glances around. Long, leafy avenues lead down the glens into blackness, and up the slopes into blackness, and away, away into blackness—the blackness of massed foliage that shuts out the world beyond. Can the grand old cathedrals they tell of compare with this—nature’s temple? Here are the lofty columns—not hewn by hands, indeed; here are the airy arches, rich with leaf-work tracery—not carved by hands, ’tis true. This velvety turf—can any mosaic pavement surpass it in beauty? Hardly can windows of stained glass let in a light more mellow than this which enters from above. She listens. Here and there a tiny rill tinkles along the ledges; thousands of little birds are flitting to and fro, caroling and calling one another; and, like the sound, when heard far off, of billows surging on the beach, she hears the never-ceasing sough of the wind among the trees. Ah, this wind, how cool it is, how fragrant! stooping to finger her hair. And there is the sultry, breathless August down in the city below.

Are there any places like this in heaven? “Yes,” she answers at last, “I like to think so. Indeed,” she adds, “it seems to me sometimes as though this world might almost be heaven itself, if it weren’t for some of the people in it.”

Just now, as if to give force to the remark, one of those jarring voices that make discord in the music of life, is overheard, saying:

“Look at Bessie Barton, off there with Kate. I _do_ wish that child would learn to hold her head up! If _I_ had the management of her I’d cure her of her bashfulness in short order!”

Kate glances down. Has Bessie heard? No; her thoughts are ever so far away.

“Oh, Bessie,” says the other, quickly, lest there is more to come, “I see some cardinal-flowers down there by the brook. Won’t you go bring me some, please?”

And as the child flies away on the errand, Kate joins the companions from whom they have strayed, and confronts the owner of the voice with—

“Now you shall not say anything against Bessie. She’s a little angel.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t have dared to say a word, Kate, if I had thought you were within earshot. She’s a particular pet of yours, I believe. But how you can find anything interesting in her, I can’t see. She’s plain, and so shy and lackadaisical! I don’t see how she’s ever going to get through the world without a little more _vim_.”

“Ah, you’ll see. But as to her being plain, now I don’t think so. What rosy cheeks she has! and her eyes—why, they’re lovely. And she’s not what I should call lackadaisical, in the least. Why, she’s the busiest little body alive! always doing something for somebody. And then she has talent—a wonderful eye for figure. I think she’s going to make an artist.”

“Oh, Kate!” laughs Aunt Sophia, “what remarkable people all your friends are, the younger ones especially. There’s that scapegrace of a boy, my nephew Harry; what do you think of _him_? No doubt you’ll say he’s the pink of propriety. Harry, Harry! come down out of that tree, this minute, and stop tearing about so, or you’ll be all in rags by night!”

“What do I think of him? I think he’s just magnificent!”

“As black as the ace of spades.”

“Yes, he’s tanned up beautifully this summer, and so full of health and spirits, with a heart as big as all out-of-doors.”

“If he would only take to books more.”

“Oh, books are well enough (I wouldn’t, for the world, speak slightingly of them); but books are not everything. Of what good is all the learning if one hasn’t the life—the strength to put it to use? Ah, those sinewy fists! they remind me of the old Greeks. Bless him!—the young Hercules!—when the work comes for him to do he is going to be strong and able to do it.”

“Oh, he has a mission to fulfill, then! What may it be, I wonder? Lassoing wild horses on the pampas?”

“Oh, he’s going to do something splendid, by and by, that will make you all proud of him.”

“Well, you _are_ encouraging. And there’s that little popinjay, Marie Maross, with her saucy eyes (by the way, I never could make out which they are, gray or black), and her _stringlets_—I can’t conscientiously call them ringlets (I suppose they would have been _wavelets_ if she had only known over night she was coming)—and her white dress as limp as if it hadn’t come fresh from the laundry this very morning. Do look at the grass-stains and mud on it, and half the ruffles on one side torn off! (I don’t see how her mother has any kind of patience with her; but then she’s an easy old shoe.) And her sash awry, and her ribbons flying, and her bracelets rattling, and those half-dozen strings of beads around her neck—”

“Oh, not half-a-dozen!”

“At any rate, enough to be always jingling wherever she goes, like the old woman in the nursery rhyme:

‘With a ring on her finger and a bell on her toe.’

Well, how are you going to dispose of _her_? Is she to be a second—a sort of feminine Rubenstein, or a Pauline Lucca—or are you going to send her as missionary to the Feejee Islands?”

“I’m sure the cannibals would not have the heart to eat her up,” Kate answers, laughingly. “The gay little thing! I like to watch her, over there in the garden, fluttering about among the flowers, prattling to her grandfather, keeping him company. I always think of the butterflies—harmless, pretty little creatures, meant, it would seem, only to rollick in the sunbeams and enjoy themselves, and brighten the landscape.”

“But her everlasting chatter! If, instead of living opposite, you were right next door to them, as we are, I’m sure _you_ would tire of it sometimes,—especially in summer, when the doors and windows are all open. Oh, I assure you, her tongue is going from morning till night. It fairly drives me wild, sometimes.”

“But with all her prattle one hardly ever hears her say anything really ill-natured.”

“And it’s just as uncommon to hear her say anything with any sense to it!”

“Well, _somebody_ must do the chattering. If none of us ever spoke but to say something sensible, what a fearfully hushed, melancholy sort of world this would be. That little brook purling among the stones, there seems to be no meaning in what it says, yet Mother Nature doesn’t bid it keep quiet; and if all these little birds should stop singing, though we can detect but little sense in their merry songs, how we should miss the music!—There!” Kate pauses, alarmed at her own boldness, for it is like treading on matches to argue with Aunt Sophia! “I didn’t mean to speechify; I beg your pardon.”

“Ah, well, you and I never will agree. And here comes your angelic protégée.” Namely, Bessie, just now approaching with Monsieur Maross, who has been helping her gather the cardinal-flowers.

Did you over see any of those, lads and lasses? There is no color richer or more beautiful than the deep, glowing scarlet of their corollas. It is this which gives them the name.

“Figure to yourselves,” says M. Maross, who is a naturalist and a foreigner, as you perceive, “figure to yourselves some missionary priest of the early days, as he journeys through the wilderness from one Indian village to another. Passing some moist and shady nook he first spies this superb blossom. He admires it. Instantly he is reminded of _les chapeaux rouges_.[1] Behold, _lobelia cardinalis_ is no longer at loss for a title.” Monsieur also goes on to state that the flower alluded to—“Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow”—was of this rich, vivid color. Whereupon the listeners exclaim in surprise. They had supposed it was white.

“Yes, that is the general impression, but erroneous. I have myself seen the flower growing in that country. Had it been of white the concluding words would not have been so peculiarly applicable: ‘Even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.’ _Comprenez?_”

“Ah, yes; I see. If we only knew more about the East how many of those passages would gain in force and clearness that now one somehow cannot get at the pith of.”

“You speak truly, Mees.”

Presently, under some spreading beeches, the friends and neighbors who have come to these woods, as is their wont in sultry weather, for a few hours of recreation, gather together for luncheon—without ceremony of table or table-cloth, for this is “no stiff affair,” as some one complacently remarks, but quite “all in the familee,” as Harry says, bringing forth from its hiding-place an unexpected treat. And now everybody understands why so little has been seen of him to-day. Doesn’t he know these miles of woodland by heart? Is there any tree so tall he hasn’t climbed it, or any stream so small he hasn’t traced it to its source? He can show you all the crows’ nests and all the rabbit burrows, and even hint to you mysteriously that a fox dwells hereabout. He knows the banks where the strawberries reddened in June, and the hill-sides where the chestnuts will burst their burs in October, and it is only he who could surprise the company with this heaping basket of blackberries, so fresh and ripe and luscious, still wet with last night’s dew.

“Hal, you’re a brick!” exclaims a youth of his own age, piling his plate with the proffered fruit.

“Oo is weal dood, Hawy, I lite oo!” lisps the infantile voice of Maggie McAllister, two wee, dimpled fists making a successful dive into the basket.

“You ah the light of me eyes and the joy of me haaht!” murmurs a recent graduate from a boarding-school, languidly inserting a dessert-spoon the while she regards this young man—not yet far advanced in his teens, to be sure—as benignly as if he were about the size of Maggie, there.

“Let ’em help themselves,” he mutters in disgust, setting down the basket directly, and joining Marie where she is seated at the foot of a tree. “I can stand half a day in a swamp and poke amongst blackberry briers till my hands resemble the map of Germany done in red chalk, but I can’t go that sort of thing. Let’s wish.”

Master Harry has not been many seconds in divesting of its edible surroundings that part of the fowl which is known to all as the “wish-bone,” and which the slender fingers of the “popinjay” always manage to break in her favor.

“Say, now, what did you wish? (You have to tell, you know.) That there would be another war or revolution right off, so you could have a chance to show your courage?”

“Now you needn’t make any more fun of my courage. But I don’t care if you do think I’m a coward. I belong to somebody that was brave as a lion. He was a duke, or marquis, or something. For, you see, we didn’t live in this country in the time of the Revolution.”

“Oh!”

“No, we lived in France, and belonged to the nobility. I’ve been asking grandpa all about it, and he told me such a _splen_did story.

“Grandpa” (she has approached the old gentleman in a pause of the debate he is having with the Lieutenant and some others, on the subject of French politics), “Grandpa, won’t you tell us that story you told me one evening, about your great-uncle, who was a duke, or marquis, or something?”

Just now a sunbeam, resting on the little head, turns the long raven “mane” to purple. Purple hair! Strange Aunt Sophia never noticed it before, all these years! She leans forward with a sudden look of interest. Must Marie owe it to the dukes and marquises that she is to grow in favor with that lady?

“Let us not speak of dukes and marquises, my Marie,” her grandfather has answered, “lest our good friends shall conclude that we are of that class of people who, not being of perceptible merit themselves, endeavor to make up for the deficiency by boasting of their ancestors. Whereas,” with a twinkle of the eye, “if we only trace back far enough, we shall find that we all have the honor of descending from the same illustrious tribe—the monkeys.”

“Oh, you wicked grandpa, to tell such fibs!”

“But, no, Mademoiselle, it is even true what I say. At least so we are informed by the celebrated Mr. Darwin.”

“Well, then, I don’t think much of that Mr. Darwin!”

“Nor I!” cries Kate. “Nor I!” “Nor I!” “Nor I!” echo several voices. And here, in the midst of an American forest, Darwin and his theories, after a heated discussion, are, by vote of the majority, consigned to oblivion.

But during this discussion, Harry, happening to glance that way, discovers Kate, who has just left the group, kneeling on the brink of a deep ravine a few yards distant, and looking down with a very pale face. Catching his eye, she beckons. He is beside her in an instant. “What is it, Katy?” he questions, wonderingly. She motions to be silent, and to look down. On this side, for a space, the wall of the ravine is almost perpendicular. At its base, fifty feet below, a stream gurgles along over broken ledges of rock. Peering over, he sees bashful Bessie Barton working her way up this wall by aid of the shrubbery rooted in the crevices, which latter serve for foothold; and as she climbs she shifts from one arm to the other the little bundle of innocence which answers to the name of Maggie, the dimpled hands clasped about her neck. In the flash of an eye he comprehends it all. While the grown-up people were disputing, the child must have slipped away, and only Bessie noticing her absence, has come to search. How little three-year-old ever crept down there, cannot be explained. These tiny creatures will worm themselves into the most astonishing places! Harry’s coat is off directly. He is going to the rescue. But “No,” Kate whispers, “she doesn’t see there’s any one looking on. The least sound or motion may startle her, and she will lose her hold, and—and there are the rocks below!”

What agony, to watch some one in peril when you may not lift a finger to save! Harry never knew such torture as at this moment.

Slowly the little heroine works her way up. Will her strength give out?

Oh, you Aunt Sophias, take care how you deride the bashful people! And did you ever hear what the wag said to the philosopher? “Why don’t you hold your head up, as I do?” And this is what the philosopher said to the wag: “If you will examine the heads of wheat in yonder field you will find that only those which are erect are empty.”

To those watching, the moments seem like hours. Ah, Bessie sees them at last. Wait!—now—quick! Four hands are reached to her, grasp her, lift her with her burden up over the brink. And now that there is no further need of exertion, she sinks back, weak and helpless, in Kate’s arms.

“Take the child to her mother, Harry, and bring me water—water!”

“Why, where have you been, darling?” asks Mrs. McAllister, suddenly remembering her, now that Darwin is disposed of.

“Me did do to find mo’ bewies.”

What with laving her forehead, and the fanning, and the cool drink, Bessie soon revives. “She had got down a good ways when I saw her first. I had to follow so still, for fear of frightening her.” So she explains. “It was her hat that lay here made me think to look down.”

“What does it mean?” “What has happened?” “Did she faint away?” ask one and another, hurrying up; for all but the two witnesses are still ignorant of that fearful scene.

“You tell them, Harry,” says Kate; “tell it to them all! tell it to them all! We’ll have it put in the morning papers. We’ll trumpet it from the house-tops and the corners of the streets.” And hugging the little girl, “Ah, my sweet, you needn’t blush so! I mean they shall appreciate you.”

And noting the cries of wonder and admiration which follow the boy’s announcements, and the crowd that presses around her shy little friend, and cannot make enough of her, Mademoiselle is overheard saying softly to herself: “Why one can be brave, even in these days.”

[1] The red hats worn by cardinals.

THE OLD MONSIEUR’S STORY.

“Lieutenant, they want I should ask you for a story.”

“They” are the dozen or more of lads and lasses who, in the pleasant summer twilights, have frequently been seen, as now, gathered before the house where the blind soldier lives. The sparrows soon learn to know that door or window where they are welcome, and where crumbs are scattered for them. They flock about it, fearless, chirping cheerily, and make themselves at home there. Thus these stone steps leading up to the porch have become a favorite resort of the youngsters of the neighborhood; for here they may meet unmolested, and chatter and laugh to their hearts’ content; here crumbs, in the shape of stories, are now and then thrown out for bait; and partly they may be drawn hither by the presence of the amused listener to their random talk; tacitly understanding that to him, who is denied the sight of their bright young faces, the sound of their clear young voices is doubly sweet. But he is not the only one who is entertained. Sometimes one of his older friends will join the merry group—often the venerable Frenchman who resides across the street. It so happens that he approaches just now, as Harry is making that time-worn request—“a story”; and the other says, “I think that is Monsieur, coming? Perhaps _he_ will tell us one.”

“Yes, now, grandpapa,” coaxes Marie, “tell us about Gabrielle.”

“_Bien_,” and he accepts the proffered arm-chair; “I will tell, then, the story of Gabrielle.

“Without doubt, my dear children, some of you have heard of that event in the history of France which is termed the Revolution? I do not speak of those more recent troubles which have distracted my native land, but of that memorable Revolution which blackened the closing years of the last century—a period at which you gaze as upon a sky filled with the darkness of clouds, and the threatening thunder, and the fierce lightning-flashes.

“Ah, my children, you are happy to be of a nation which has not that wild and horrible dream to remember. And here I will say to you, I, that you are truly fortunate to live in a land most free, where there is less of oppression than in any other; where one can say what he will, do what he will. If but he keep the laws he is secure. He may be of whatever party he chooses. Nobody is going to harm him. He may, if so ill-disposed, say whatever _désagréables_ he please of those who believe not as he. He will not be obliged to fly and to take refuge among strangers, as I myself, long time ago, for that, in company with others, I preferred a king to an emperor, and was not sufficiently secret about it. Deserving, indeed, of gratitude are they who, defending this beautiful country, have preserved to it peace and freedom.

“Alas! if poor France had not been for so long burdened with oppressions, this Revolution could not have occurred. That was the reaction, the recoil. Let me illustrate. I will remove from my pocket-book this band elastic which confines it. I stretch it with my two hands to its full length. With one hand I release it. It flies back. Ugh! it makes me wince. (That is a very homely illustration, is it not?) Now for a long time the nations of Europe had been engaged in wars in which France took a leading part. It requires money to conduct wars. To procure it the people are taxed. Also, there was no court so gay and luxurious as that of France. To support this luxury and splendor required money. Still again taxes. When taxes are great the cost of living is increased. Thus while there was feasting and revelry in palaces, in hovels there was famine and misery. The little ones moaned and sobbed for bread, and there was no bread to give them. The people were full of wrath at this state of affairs. Force was required to keep them in subjection. Now there came to the throne a good and merciful king, who in peaceful times would have been much revered. But, in this situation, great wisdom as well as justice was needful. From his unsteady grasp the reins of government slipped, as you have seen the elastic slip from mine. Behold the recoil—most terrible!—which destroyed the king, the queen, and all who believed in the royalist cause. The people who had so long suffered might now take revenge. They who had yearned for liberty were filled with hope. Their land was to be free, like that one beyond the ocean.

“Alas! the despotism which had been called a monarchy was succeeded by a despotism far worse, which was called a republic. This was truly the Reign of Terror. The guillotine was never idle. ‘Madame Guillotine,’ it was entitled—that deadly machine invented for those days, when victims were so numerous it was necessary that they be dispatched in the swiftest manner possible. This cruel slaughter was chiefly confined to the metropolis, to Paris, until here a province and there a city, disapproving of their deeds, refused submission to the party in power—the Jacobins. Armies were sent to subdue them. The city of Lyons made the resistance most notable. Thousands of royalists, fleeing for their lives, had taken shelter there, and were zealous in the defense. They hoped by this resistance to inspire other towns, and perhaps all France, to arise and check the course of this Revolution—this monster, ever thirsting for blood. Alas! it was impossible. Besieged by the republican troops, all supplies prevented, for lack of food and ammunition the city was at length obliged to surrender, after a brave and desperate struggle. For any who had taken up arms against the republic there was now no safety but in flight. Flight was nearly useless. They were pursued, captured. The country was searched for leagues around. Within the city, paid informers were everywhere seeking whom they might report as guilty. For the head of a priest or noble the price was doubled. The prisons were filled, crowded. Madame Guillotine could not work sufficiently fast. The Reign of Terror had now begun in Lyons also.

“I must not pain you, dear children, with a recital of the horrors of those days.

“Among the unfortunate royalists who had taken shelter in Lyons was the Marquis de Rochemont. In one of the fierce conflicts during the siege he had been seriously wounded, and at the time of the surrender was unable to attempt an escape. Nevertheless, he had taken the precaution to remove from his former quarters, and had established himself in a garret of a lofty but dilapidated tenement facing upon an unfrequented court-yard. There concealed, in a manner which would least betoken his rank, his sole companions his motherless little daughter and a faithful servant, he thought to avoid the vigilance of the spies. Often, from his hiding-place, he would hear the explosions of gunpowder, followed by the crash of falling buildings.

“What were those buildings?

“The residences or the property of Lyonnese, who had engaged in the defense. The Jacobins, in their fury, were reducing the city to ruins.

“One evening, as the attendant was dressing his wounds, the Marquis asked, ‘What is the matter, Antoine? you are pale. Your hands tremble.’

“The other responded; ‘Just now, as I came up the stairs, I saw some person listening and peering at the key-hole. As I approached he glided away. It is enough. I fear we are discovered.’

“After discussing this matter it was decided that Antoine go out, and obtain, if possible, a uniform like that worn by the soldiers of the republic. Disguised in this, the Marquis would depart in the night, and await in a forest not far from the city, there to be joined by the servant with the child, and to proceed thence toward the mountains and the country of the Swiss, where there were relatives and friends who had quitted France upon the fall of the king.

“Scarcely had Antoine set forth upon that errand when two _gens d’armes_ appeared. They had come to arrest the Marquis. To be arrested, that was the cell, the mock trial. After these—the scaffold. Had they come in the name of law and order he would have resigned himself to that fate. They came in the name of disorder and opposition to law. _Bien!_ Disabled as he was, rising, he drew his sword. They supposed to overpower him. Sword met sword. The hunted stag brought to bay is dangerous. One of those intruders was slain. The other, wounded, fled. Soon he would return with assistance; accompanied, perhaps, by the mob. No time was to be lost.

“Seizing his little daughter, who had been a terrified witness of that scene, the Marquis hastened away, along a low passage leading to the stairs. A ray of the moon lighted an apartment as he passed. He saw through the open door heaps of rags. The ragman lay sleeping in their midst. Near by were his tattered coat, his wooden shoes, his greasy cap, his basket. The basket was furnished with a lid. One thinks rapidly on such occasions. The Marquis entered, arrayed himself in the coat, the cap, the shoes, forgetting not to leave some gold coins in their place, as compensation. The basket would contain the child.

“‘Fear not, my little Gabrielle,’ he said, as he concealed her in it, ‘but remain quiet while I carry thee away where those terrible men cannot find us.’

“With this basket upon his head, thus shadowing his face, he descended through the building to an entrance in the rear, which opened upon an alley. There he hurried along. Already he could hear the shouts and cries of people gathering in the court-yard. He quickened his steps. Not far distant was the bridge which spans the Rhone. He arrived there without interruption. To proceed, to attempt to traverse the extensive plains beyond? Already, doubtless, pursuers were upon his track. In no disguise was there security. At the same time the earth seemed to be whirling about. There was a ringing in his ears. He saw some boats upon the bank below. He approached and shoved one of them into the water. He lifted Gabrielle from her concealment and placed her in it. He then rowed out into the midst of the river. There, no need of oars. The current is swift, strong. It rushed with them away from danger and the doomed city. He laid himself down in the bottom of the boat. In the moonbeams Gabrielle saw his face very white. She saw his lips move. His hands reached out to her. She crept to him. Then all was silent. ‘He sleeps,’ she said. Soon she slept also.

“When Gabrielle opened again her eyes the sun was shining; the boat was no longer afloat, but lodged on the sands under willow trees. A rough voice was saying, ‘What’s this?’ and Gabrielle saw a man in rough clothes bending over.

“‘It is my father,’ she said. ‘He is very weary. That is why he sleeps so long. You must not wake him.’

“‘That would be difficult,’ muttered the voice.

“True. The Marquis had received a sword-thrust in that encounter with the _gens d’armes_, and had expired from loss of blood.

“The rough man went away to a cluster of cottages near by. Soon he returned with several people, men and women. One of the latter offered sweet-cakes to Gabrielle. She had a pleasant face, too, but there were tears in her eyes. Gabrielle was hungry. When the sweet-cakes were gone she asked for more.

“‘If you will come with me to my house,’ said the good woman, ‘I will give you all you wish.’

“Gabrielle went home with her. After the dame had amused her some hours she desired to return to the boat. Her father was not there.

“‘Where is he?’ she demanded, weeping.

“The good dame pointed to a mound with the soil fresh upon it. ‘When people sleep a very long time,’ she said, ‘they always are laid to rest in such places. They sleep better there. No one can disturb them. Once I had a little girl who is sleeping thus. I miss her. Will _you_ be my little girl?’

“‘Yes,’ answered Gabrielle, ‘until she wakens and my father wakens. Then I will have mine, I, and you will have your own.’

“After, she learned better to understand those matters. Also, as she grew older, she learned to be very useful. She could drive the cow from the pasture and assist in tending the garden. She could make the soup, the bread. She learned to sew, to knit, and to spin. Sometimes she heard them talk of a wonderful person upon the throne, who was conquering all the world. They called him Napoleon. The Revolution was finished. France was no longer a republic.

“One day, as Gabrielle stood at her spinning-wheel before the door, two travelers rode by. One of them gazed at her attentively. He addressed a few words to the other. They halted and accosted a villager who was passing.

“‘Who is that young girl?’ they asked.

“The villager—it was he with the rough voice—related how the waves had brought her to them, how that he had found her—a sleeping child in the arms of the dead. ‘The man was clad in rags,’ said he, ‘but he was provided with a purse containing much gold, and with a sword.’

“‘It is true,’ said the stranger who had first observed Gabrielle, and who seemed to be the attendant. ‘There was a collector of rags who lodged near us, and who in the crowd, after the escape of my master, complained of the loss of his coat.’

“They requested to see the sword. When it was shown to them, the attendant said, ‘It is the sword of the Marquis. I recognize it by the carving of the hilt.’ Then gazing once more at Gabrielle, he exclaimed, ‘How she is like her mother!’ (She had grown very beautiful.)

“He approached, and seizing her hands, covered them with kisses and with tears. ‘Dost thou not remember me?’ he asked, ‘me, old Antoine?’

“She had not forgotten entirely of that Antoine.

“‘And I,’ said the other, embracing her, ‘I am thy father’s brother. It is a long time that we have searched and made inquiry for thee.’

“It was my grandfather. He took her far away to his home. But the good dame was presented with the purse, filled with gold, which she had been keeping for Gabrielle’s dowry.

“And the sword? My dear children, if any of you have intention to some time visit France, I can indicate where you will find an ancient chateau, in which is a gallery—a place of armor—where, among shields, and helmets, and coats of mail, and spears, and tattered banners, and other relics of past centuries, still is to be seen this sword. It was Gabrielle herself who pointed it out to me, many years ago, when I was a young boy like Master Harry, and she was a marchioness, and presided over the same chateau. And she it was who at the same time told me this story.”

BUTTERNUT AND BLUE.

“Mr. Walter, where did you find this great, nice, beautiful dog?” asks Marie, who has been having a romp around the room with Ponto.

“I didn’t find him; he came to me.”

“Came to you! Oh, now there’s some story about him! And you are going to tell it to me?”

“No, Marie, it’s all about a battle. Girls don’t like to hear about battles.”

“Oh, yes, they do, sometimes. And you know you never will tell us anything about the war;—does he, Katy?”

But Katy has quietly left the room.

“Well, Marie, once I woke up after a battle, and something, I couldn’t see what, was tugging at my coat. There was a sun in the sky the last I could remember. Now it was night, and a very dark night. I reached out to feel what sort of creature this was. Then I first discovered that my right hand was gone. But with the other I could feel the head and long silken ears of a dog. He seemed pleased to have me notice him, licked my face, and gamboled about, then commenced to tug at my clothes again. He seemed to want something of me. I finally got up and tried to follow him—tried, I say, because it is no easy matter to walk about the field of battle the night after it has taken place. One is apt to find obstacles in his way. As I groped along, and my eyes became accustomed to the darkness, I could just distinguish from the surrounding shadows the figure of this strange guide of mine. It was a monster of a dog—a black, moving mass. I had known of one other like him. An idea occurred to me. Perhaps this and that dog were the same. That dog’s name was Ponto. So I called—‘Ponto?’ to try him. Back he came bounding, directly, leaping upon me, and seemed quite delighted. I was pretty certain this was the dog I knew. As I went along talking to him, some one spoke from among the shadows—‘Is that you, Walt?’ There was only one person who had been wont to address me after that fashion. He had recognized _my_ voice. Now I recognized _his_. And it would have been strange, surely, if we had not known each other’s voice. We were together at college for four years, and great friends—‘most intimate,’ that is the expression, I believe. I sometimes went home and spent vacation with him. (He lived in Virginia, among the mountains.) And sometimes he came home with me. You would hardly remember him; yet, when a very small carriage, containing a very small child, used to stop at our door, he was always on hand to lift out that little Mademoiselle and bring her in—only a dainty bundle of embroideries, apparently, till two bright eyes peeped forth, and pretty soon two little pink fists that would get at his hair and pull it, and _that_ used to tickle him immensely. Yes, as I said, we were the best of friends. Then suddenly there was a great gulf between us; and we saw, and heard, and knew no more of each other. It appears that, though we were not aware of it, we had been fighting against each other that very day. But now Ponto had brought us together again, and we were glad enough to meet. So glad we could forget, at last, that he belonged to the army of the South, and I to the army of the Union. We had a great many matters to talk over, not having seen each other in some time. Ah, but we _couldn’t_ see, as you know. So we had to be content with saying our farewells in the dark. For that was the way our talk ended, Marie. He passed away, there in the night, I supporting him as best I could. Ponto was his dying gift. Come here, old fellow.” And the Lieutenant hides his face against the dog’s shaggy shoulder.

Marie steals softly from the house and toward home. And when, a moment after, Kate comes down the hall stairs and into the room, Ponto lifts to her great, gentle, human, sympathizing eyes. Perhaps he guesses she, too, has a share in those remembrances. For who shall deny that he has thoughts?

A SECRET.

“Why, _you_, Harry? I didn’t know you had come home!” Kate, glancing up from the book from which she had been reading aloud, has only at this moment noticed the boy’s entrance.

“I haven’t been home yet. I wanted to consult you first. You see I’m expelled.” (Harry, you must know, has been away at school since early in September.) “Thought I’d tell you on the start, so you wouldn’t feel imposed upon. Why, you take it all as a matter of course! You don’t look a bit surprised!’

“To tell the truth, we’re _not_ very. And how do you do, you blessed boy? You don’t know how we’ve missed you!” And Kate seizes his two hands with a heartiness that proves her faith in him is still unshaken.

“Miss Katy! if you’ve got a particle of respect left for me, won’t you give me some supper? I’m hungry as a bear. Just got in on the train. Haven’t had a mouthful to eat since noon!”

“The poor child! So he _should_ have some supper. I’ll go directly and see about it.”

“This was the way it happened,” Harry explains, over the waffles and coffee. “You see, when I first went there the boys were a solemncholy lot, oh, I tell you! studious as owls, got to improve each shining hour, and all that. Well, I thought if that sort of thing was going to last I shouldn’t survive long. So I went to work and got ’em stirred up after awhile, and things got to be kind of lively. But Tabby—that’s the Principal—the way he hangs his eye out’s a caution. Oh, no, Miss Katy; that’s only a nickname we gave him; he’s got such a cattish way of prowling around nights to see if there’s any doings going on. Anything but a sneak! Well, I thought I’d be even with ’im; so last night I laid torpedoes all along the hall; oh, Miss Katy, nothing but those little paper wads that never hurt anybody in the world. Well, the last bell rung and we put out the lights, and lay still and listened. By’n by—pop! pop! pop! Tabby was coming to see if everything was all right. Ha, ha! guess his moccasins must ’ave run against every identical one. You’d ’ave thought he was having a Fourth of July celebration out there all by himself. But wasn’t he hoppin’ mad, though! Called me into the study this morning right after breakfast.”

“‘Did you place those torpedoes in the hall last night?’ says he.

“‘Yes, sir,’ says I.

“‘What was your object?’

“‘Fun,’ says I.

“Well, he gave me a long lecture, said he didn’t like my influence in the school, that he’d had more trouble during the few weeks I’d been there than in any five years before. Well, the long an’ short of it was I’d got to leave. That was just what I wanted. So off I come, and here I am, with a letter for father in my pocket that gives me an awful setting out, I expect.” (Harry’s countenance grows suddenly grave.) “I wouldn’t care if it was only father I’d got to chalk up to; but Aunt Sophi’!” (No use trying to describe the tone in which that name is uttered.) “I thought, Katy—I thought, maybe you’d be willing to go over there, and—well, kind of talk her around, you know—why, kind of smooth matters, that is, so she won’t be quite so hard on a fellow. Won’t you, now? If you will I’ll go back there to old Williams, and I’ll study like anything! I will, now, and behave myself; oh, you shall see! if you’ll only go this once.”

Kate doesn’t like to get up a reputation for being meddlesome; but she recalls how kind and attentive this boy has been to her brother, and it is not in her heart to refuse. So she leaves the two chatting by the fireside and crosses the street to spend an evening with Aunt Sophia.

“I don’t know what possesses me, sometimes,” says Harry, at length, waxing confidential as usually when alone with the Lieutenant. “I believe it’s the Old Nick! I was always getting into scrapes ever since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. Now, some fellows find it smooth sailing all along, never get into trouble. I wonder why?”

“Perhaps they are not so blessed with animal spirits.”

“Well, I don’t see how it’s to be called a blessing.”

“The river flowing through our town is a mischievous river, sometimes, especially in spring, when the snow is melting, and, overfed by the streams from the hills, it comes rushing along, sweeping away dams and bridges, and tearing about generally, in a very unreasonable fashion. Yet farther on, at Factoryville, where it plunges over the rocks, it keeps the mills going all the year round. In fact, there would be no mills there if it were not for our brave little river ‘putting its shoulder to the wheel.’ Besides, we must admit, it is quite an important feature in the landscape, winding among the woods and fields, flashing and shimmering in the sunlight. And how often you and I have stopped to listen to the plash and ripple of its waters as we walked along the banks. I remember what company that music was to me, one dark night, a good while ago, when I was returning from a long tramp up the valley. Just so, since the loss of my eyesight has made for me continual night, you scarcely would believe, Harry, how many times I have been cheered by your merry flow of spirits. As sister says, we have missed you. It is no small thing to be missed by one’s friends when he is away from them. Nor is such a good-for-nothing, stove-up piece of humanity as myself the only one you can find to cheer, if you will look about you. Life is full of shadows. It is a sorrowful sort of night to multitudes of people. Such natures as yours were meant to make the darkness less dreary, and when you come to the mill-wheels to turn them.”

“But the mill-wheels? I don’t exactly understand about that.”

“Well, for instance, the weather is growing cold; winter is not far off. We sit here by a fire and find it very comfortable. There are a good many to-night who haven’t any fire. We have had our supper. There are a good many who must go without. If you will notice in the streets to-morrow, you will see little feet shoeless, stockingless. People who go without food, and fire, and sufficient clothing, get sick, have fevers, diphtheria, what not? But, unfortunately, the fevers, and so forth, won’t stay shut up in alleys and tumble-down tenements; they creep out, out into the broad streets, into the fine mansions of brick and stone, and all over the city, hunting for the cunning little Ediths, the pretty Maries.”

“Oh, I never thought of that!”

“People who haven’t food, and fire, and warm clothing, often attempt to steal them, or the wherewithal to pay for them. People who steal, if they are caught at it, go to prison. When they come out again nobody will trust them or employ them. Since they cannot find work, and have got to live somehow, what must they do? Steal. So it comes about that a great many people steal for a living. And where did all this crime commence? Like the fevers, with the lack of food, and fire, and clothing. As Tennyson’s ‘Northern Farmer’ says:—

“‘’Tisn’ them as ’as munny as breäks into ’ouses an’ steäls,
Them as ’as coäts to their backs and taäks their regular meäls.
Noä, but it’s them as niver knaws wheer a meäl’s to be ’ad.’”

“That puts me in mind of the fellow that broke into our house.”

“This is the first I have heard of it.”

“Why, you see, one night last winter I thought I heard somebody in the dining-room. So down I went. There ’e was at the sideboard. He’d got it open, and was taking the silver out. Well, I pitched at ’im—you know I’m some on the muscle—and got hold of his revolver, and there I had ’im. But my! he looked so starved, and kind of forlorn, and hollow-eyed, I opened the front door for ’im and let ’im go. Expect I ought to ’ave handed ’im over to the police. Guess I never told of it before. It might scare the women-folks, you know. But wouldn’t it give Aunt Sophi the fidgets? After that I used to sleep with one ear open. She didn’t know she was sending away her watch-dog when she hustled me off to school in such a hurry.”

The Lieutenant reflects. Here is a boy who does not hesitate to cope with a burglar, who has been known to risk his own life to rescue a drowning companion, and yet is loth to enter his home from dread of an Aunt Sophia’s tongue.

“Then turning the mill-wheels,” Harry resumes, “that means helping the poor?”

“Partly, yes. Though, as one thinks about it, it seems to imply much more.”

“But where’s a body to begin? There’s poverty enough, I suppose; but some are so proud you can’t get at ’em, and some, but they’ve got the cheek! dogging you and sticking their paws out for a penny every turn you take. I always think they’re sham.”

“It might be a good way to exercise one’s ingenuity finding out. As for the pride, you’ve read in the story-books of the needfuls that found their way mysteriously to empty cupboards. It sounds rather fanciful; yet there are people who take great delight in putting romance into real life, and a generous deed is none the worse for being delicately done.”

“But that _would_ be jolly, now! Jinks! I’d go at it to-morrow if I only knew where to begin.”

“Sister could give you more information on that subject than I can. You two will have to put your heads together and talk it over. Ah, yes! and I have in mind a little newsboy to whom you can be of service. I really believe our rollicking Harry would be better satisfied with himself for using some of his extra energy and pocket-money in these ways. Come, let him give the Tabbies, and Old Williamses, as he calls them, a rest. There’s something better for him to do than worrying them. As I heard said once: ‘There is so much to be done in this world! There are so few to do it.’ You are going to be one of those few, surely. A rich man’s son has it in his power to set a great many wheels in motion. You see the Lieutenant is quite a sermonizer when he gets fairly started. But I have taken this opportunity to be earnest, for once, and before it is too late.”

Before it is too late! Harry, who has been wondering, the while, at this serious language, so uncommon from his genial friend, wonders still more at that expression. What does he mean? He asks, finally.

“I’m half sorry I let the words escape me; but now that I have aroused your curiosity, and since you trust me with your secrets, well, yes, I will tell you. You know one mustn’t expect to engage in battles and come out whole and sound. One day a small, round piece of lead discharged from a rifle took lodgings in my shoulder, and has since been slowly working its way down towards my heart. So it seems that a bullet is to be the death of me after all.”

Harry stares at the Lieutenant in mute amazement. Death! He suddenly becomes aware how strong are the cords of love which bind him to the blind man. To lose him, his best friend! No more confidential talks, him no more to come to in trouble, and doubt, and perplexity, and lay open all one’s thoughts! he who first discovered good in the wayward nature—a little, tender plant, so covered by the dust that others could not see, and helped it to grow and thrive in spite of the trampling that else would have destroyed it.

“Oh, Lieutenant! it isn’t true! Something can be done!”

No, it appears from the reply, nothing can be done.

“Nobody knows? Katy doesn’t know?” the boy asks, at length, in a husky, tremulous voice.