Round Anvil Rock A Romance

III

“PHILIP AL­STON, GEN­TLE­MAN”

Philip Al­ston still stood be­fore the can­dle-​stand. His gaze rest­ed on the girl's ra­di­ant face with wist­ful ten­der­ness. It was plain that he thought noth­ing of all these rich, rare gifts which he had giv­en her, save on­ly as they gave her plea­sure and might win from her an­oth­er lov­ing look, an­oth­er but­ter­fly kiss on his cheek.

As he stood there that night in the great room of Cedar House, be­fore the fire­light and un­der the beams of the swing­ing lamps, he scarce­ly ap­peared to need the help of any gift in win­ning a wom­an's love. His was a pres­ence to hold the gaze. He was very tall and straight and slen­der, yet most fine­ly pro­por­tioned. The heavy hair, falling back from his hand­some face and tied in a queue, must once have been as black as Ruth's own; sure­ly, no paler shade could have be­come so sil­very white. His eyes, al­so, were as blue as hers, and none could have been bluer. His skin was al­most as fair and smooth as hers, his man­ner as gen­tle and kind, his voice as soft and his smile as sweet. He was el­egant­ly dressed, as he al­ways was, his fine long coat of for­est green broad­cloth had a wide vel­vet col­lar and large gold but­tons. His vel­vet knee-​breech­es and the wide riband which tied his queue were of the same rich shade of dark green. The most del­icate ruf­fles filled the front of his swan's-​down vest and fell over his hands, which were re­mark­ably white and small and ta­per-​fin­gered, like a fine la­dy's. His white silk stock­ings and his low shoes were held by sil­ver buck­les. So looked Philip Al­ston, Gen­tle­man,--and so he was called,--as he stood in the great room of Cedar House on that night of Oc­to­ber, near­ly a hun­dred years ago. And thus he is de­scribed in the few rare old his­to­ries which touch the ro­mance of this re­gion when he ruled it like a king, by the pow­er of his in­tel­li­gence and the might of his will.

He was fore­most in the pol­itics of the time as in ev­ery­thing else, and he and William Press­ley had been dis­cussing this sub­ject at the mo­ment of Ruth's ap­pear­ance, which had in­ter­rupt­ed their con­ver­sa­tion. Philip Al­ston had for­got­ten the un­fin­ished top­ic, but William Press­ley had not. He, al­so, had been pleased to look on for a while at the girl's ra­di­ant de­light; and he, al­so, had en­joyed the charm­ing scene. But there was a lull now, and he at once turned back to the mat­ter in which he was most deeply in­ter­est­ed. Am­bi­tion for po­lit­ical prefer­ment was the theme which most ab­sorbed his mind, and am­bi­tion was the one thing which could al­ways light a spark of fire in his cold, hard, shal­low hazel eyes. This was not for the rea­son that he cared es­pe­cial­ly for pol­itics in it­self, which he did not. But he turned to it in pref­er­ence to war­fare, since the choice of the am­bi­tious young men of the wilder­ness lay be­tween the two. Pol­itics seemed to him to open the surest and short­est road to the promi­nence which he craved above ev­ery­thing else. He was one of those un­for­tu­nates who can nev­er be hap­py on a lev­el--even with the high­est--and who must look down in or­der to be at all con­tent with life. Yet with this over­ween­ing and in­sa­tiable crav­ing for dis­tinc­tion and promi­nence, he had been giv­en no tal­ent by which dis­tinc­tion may be won; had been grant­ed no qual­ity, men­tal, moral, or phys­ical, by which he might rise above the mass of his fel­lows. It was a cru­el trick for Na­ture to play, and one that she plays far too of­ten. The suf­fer­ers from it are cer­tain­ly far more to be pitied than blamed, and it is harm­ful on­ly to the af­flict­ed them­selves, so long as it meets, or still ex­pects, a mea­sure of grat­ifi­ca­tion. When they are per­mit­ted to reach any height from which to look down, the ter­ri­ble crav­ing ap­pears to be tem­porar­ily ap­peased; and they be­come kind, and even gen­er­ous, to all who look up with will­ing, un­wan­der­ing gaze. It is on­ly when the suf­fer­ers fail to reach any height, or when they lose what lit­tle they may have at­tained, or when the gaze of the world wan­ders, that they be­come hard, sour, bit­ter, and mer­ci­less to­ward all who have suc­ceed­ed where they have failed. The on­ly mer­cy that Na­ture has shown them in their af­flic­tion, is to make most of them slow to re­al­ize that they can nev­er gain the one thing they crave. And this mis­er­able awak­en­ing had not yet come to William Press­ley. On that evening he had ev­ery rea­son to be con­tent and well pleased with him­self. The fu­ture promised all that he most earnest­ly wished for. He was al­ready mod­er­ate­ly suc­cess­ful in the prac­tice of his pro­fes­sion. This was main­ly ow­ing to his un­cle's in­flu­ence, but he was far from sus­pect­ing the fact. His do­mes­tic life, al­so, was ad­mirably set­tled; he was fond of Ruth and proud of her, as he was of ev­ery­thing be­long­ing to him­self. But the thing which made him hap­pi­est was a sug­ges­tion of Philip Al­ston's, first of­fered on the pre­vi­ous day; and it was to this that he now re­curred at the first op­por­tu­ni­ty.

He spoke with an ea­ger­ness cu­ri­ous­ly apart from his words:

“There seems to be no doubt that the Shawnees are re­al­ly gone. Men, wom­en, and chil­dren, they have all dis­ap­peared from their town on the oth­er side of the riv­er. A hunter who has been over there told me so yes­ter­day. It ap­pears rea­son­ably cer­tain that the war­riors are gath­er­ing un­der the Prophet at Tippeca­noe.”

“Yes, it is un­doubt­ed­ly true that the In­di­ans are ris­ing,” replied Philip Al­ston, still look­ing at Ruth. “Well, it was bound to come,--this last de­ci­sive strug­gle be­tween the white and the red race,--and the soon­er the bet­ter, per­haps. I hear, too, that the troops are al­ready mov­ing up­on the Shawnee en­camp­ment.”

“Have you heard any­thing more about the at­tor­ney-​gen­er­al's of­fer­ing his ser­vices? Is it de­cid­ed that he will go?” asked William Press­ley.

He spoke more quick­ly and with more spir­it than was com­mon with him. And he sank back with an in­vol­un­tary move­ment of dis­ap­point­ment when Philip Al­ston shook his head.

“How­ev­er, there is lit­tle doubt that he will go. He is al­most sure to,” Philip Al­ston went on. “It is his way to put his own shoul­der to the wheel. You re­mem­ber, judge--”

“What's that!” cried the judge, start­ing up from his doze.

“We are talk­ing about Joseph Hamil­ton Daviess,” said Philip Al­ston.

“A great man. A great lawyer--the first lawyer west of the Al­legha­nies to go to Wash­ing­ton and plead a case be­fore the Supreme Court,” said the judge.

“He has cer­tain­ly been un­tir­ing and fear­less in the dis­charge of his du­ty as the Unit­ed States At­tor­ney,” Philip Al­ston said warm­ly. “I was just go­ing to re­mind you of the jour­ney that he made across the wilder­ness from Ken­tucky to St. Louis to find out, if he could, at first hand, what trea­son Aaron Burr was plot­ting over there with the com­man­dant of the mil­itary post as a tool. He didn't find out a great deal. That old fox knows how to cov­er his tracks. But the at­tor­ney-​gen­er­al did more than any one else could have done. He hauled Burr to tri­al, al­most sin­gle-​hand­ed, and against the great­est pub­lic clam­or. He leaves noth­ing un­done in the pur­suit of his du­ty. I un­der­stand that he is to be here soon. He thinks that some­thing should be done to put down the law­less­ness of this coun­try as An­drew Jack­son has sub­dued it in his ter­ri­to­ry.”

“But he must, of course, re­sign the of­fice, if he in­tends go­ing to Tippeca­noe,” said William Press­ley.

He was so in­tent up­on this one point of in­ter­est to him­self that he had scarce­ly heard what had been said. He now turned with dig­ni­fied im­pa­tience when his aunt broke in, speak­ing from the hearth. Miss Pene­lope al­ways spoke with a greater or less de­gree of sud­den­ness and ir­rel­evance. She com­mon­ly said what she had to say at the in­stant that the thought oc­curred to her, re­gard­less of what oth­ers might be talk­ing or think­ing about. The tenor of near­ly ev­ery­thing that she said was sin­gu­lar­ly gloomy. Her mind was full of su­per­sti­tion of a home­ly, do­mes­tic kind. She was a great be­liev­er in signs, and the signs with which she was most fa­mil­iar were usu­al­ly fore­warn­ings of some great and mys­te­ri­ous pub­lic or pri­vate calami­ty. Her voice was re­mark­ably soft, low, and sweet, so that to hear these alarm­ing threats and these ap­palling prophe­cies ut­tered in the tones of a coo­ing dove, was very sin­gu­lar in­deed.

“'Pon my word!” she now ex­claimed, fac­ing the room, but still keep­ing close to the cof­fee-​pot. “How you all can ex­pect any­thing but ter­ri­ble trou­bles and aw­ful mis­for­tunes is more than I can un­der­stand. The warn­ing of that comet sent a-​fly­ing wild across the heav­ens is enough for me.”

No one no­ticed what she said--which cer­tain­ly seemed to re­quire no no­tice; but it nev­er made any dif­fer­ence to Miss Pene­lope whether her re­marks were warm­ly or cool­ly re­ceived. Af­ter stoop­ing to turn the cof­fee-​pot round on its triv­et she faced the room again.

“Yes, the warn­ing is plen­ty plain enough for me!” she cooed. “And just look at the dread­ful things that have hap­pened al­ready! Just look at what came to pass be­tween the time we first heard of that comet ear­ly in the sum­mer, and the time we first saw it ear­ly in Septem­ber. Didn't all the wasps and flies go blind and die soon­er than com­mon, right in the mid­dle of the hottest weath­er? Who ev­er heard of such a thing be­fore? And look at the fruit crop,--the ap­ple trees, the peach trees, all kind of fruit trees--and the grape-​vines a-​bend­ing and a-​break­ing clear down to the ground be­cause they can't bear the weight.”

“It is prob­able that the ear­ly dy­ing of the wasps and flies may have had some­thing to do with the fine­ness of the fruit,” said William Press­ley, quite se­ri­ous­ly, with for­mal po­lite­ness and a touch of im­pa­tience at the in­ter­rup­tion.

Miss Pene­lope took him up tart­ly in her soft­est tone: “Then, William, may I ask why the peo­ple all over the coun­try are call­ing this year's vin­tage 'comet wines'? For that's the way they are mark­ing it, and ev­ery­body is putting it to it­self--as some­thing very un­com­mon. But nev­er mind! I am used to hav­ing what I say mocked at in this house. It's noth­ing new to me to have my words passed over as if they hadn't been spo­ken. I can bear it and it don't al­ter my du­ty. I am bound to go on a-​do­ing what I be­lieve to be right just the same, how­ev­er I am treat­ed. I can't sit by and say noth­ing when I know that I ought to lift up my voice in warn­ing. So I say again--you can mark my word or not as you think best--that we are all a-​go­ing to see some mighty wild sights be­fore we see the last of that comet's tail.”

“Pooh! Pooh! Pooh!” cried the wid­ow Broad­nax, rough­ly and hoarse­ly, as she near­ly al­ways spoke, and sit­ting up sud­den­ly among her cush­ions. “Who's afraid of a comet with on­ly one tail? I'll have you to know, sis­ter Pene­lope, that my grand­moth­er--my own grand­moth­er and Robert's own grand­moth­er, not yours--could re­mem­ber the fa­mous comet of sev­en­teen hun­dred and forty-​four, and that had six tails.”

Miss Pene­lope was daunt­ed and si­lenced for the mo­ment. She did not mind the greater num­ber of the ri­val comet's tails. It was not that which made her feel her­self at a dis­ad­van­tage. It was the slur at her less­er re­la­tion­ship to the mas­ter of the house. Any ref­er­ence to that was a blow which nev­er failed to make her flinch; and one which the wid­ow nev­er lost a chance to deal. But Miss Pene­lope had not yield­ed an inch through the cease­less con­tention of years, and held her ground now; since there was noth­ing to say in re­ply, she ig­nored the taunt as she had done all that had gone be­fore. She turned up­on William Press­ley, how­ev­er, as we are prone to turn up­on those whom we do not fear, when we dare not at­tack those with whom we are re­al­ly of­fend­ed.

“Well, William, maybe you think that the ear­ly dy­ing and the go­ing blind of the wasps and the flies caused the break­ing out of the 'Jerks,' too. You and the rest all think you know bet­ter than I do. I don't com­plain--maybe you all do know bet­ter. But some day, when I am dead and gone, some day, and it mayn't be very long, when my hands are stone cold and crossed un­der the cof­fin-​lid, you will think dif­fer­ent­ly about a good many mat­ters,” she cooed, as if say­ing the mildest, pleas­an­test things in the world. “The Jerks have brought many a proud head low. Oth­ers be­sides my­self will see a warn­ing in the Jerks be­fore they are gone. And now here are the Shawnees a-​com­ing to wel­ter us in our blood. And the Cold Plague al­ready come to shake the life out of the few that are left. But it is their own fault. There's no­body but them­selves to blame. It's easy enough to keep from hav­ing the plague,” Miss Pene­lope added con­fi­dent­ly. “Any­body can keep from hav­ing it, if they will on­ly take the trou­ble to blow re­al hard three times on a blue yarn string be­fore break­fast.”

William Press­ley turned grave­ly and was about to protest against such ab­surd su­per­sti­tion, but Philip Al­ston in­ter­fered tact­ful­ly, to as­sure the la­dy that she was quite right, that it could not fail to ben­efit al­most any one to breathe on any­thing, es­pe­cial­ly if the breath­ing were very deep and very ear­ly in the morn­ing.

“And then the new doc­tor knows how to cure the plague, aunt Pene­lope, dear,” said Ruth, sud­den­ly look­ing up from the things on the can­dle-​stand. She was al­ways the peace­mak­er of the fam­ily. “The Sis­ters told me. They are not afraid now that he has come. They were nev­er afraid for them­selves; it was for the chil­dren--the or­phans. They said that lit­tle ones were dy­ing all over the wilder­ness like frozen lambs.”

“This new doc­tor is a most pre­sump­tu­ous per­son,” said William Press­ley, with the chilly de­lib­er­ation which in­vari­ably marked his ir­ri­ta­tion. “He re­fus­es to bleed his pa­tients or to al­low them to be bled. These un­heard-​of ob­jec­tions of his are lev­elled at the fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples of the es­tab­lished prac­tice and cal­cu­lat­ed to un­der­mine it. Ev­ery physi­cian of rep­utable stand­ing will tell you that bleed­ing is the on­ly ef­fi­ca­cious treat­ment for the Cold Plague, and that it is en­tire­ly safe if no more than eight ounces of blood be tak­en at a time, and not of­ten­er than once in two or three hours.”[1]

[Foot­note 1: “Med­ical Repos­ito­ry,” 1815, p. 222.]

No one said any­thing for a mo­ment. When William Press­ley spoke in that tone, which he fre­quent­ly did, there seemed to be noth­ing left for any one else to say. The sub­ject ap­peared to have been done up hard and fast in a bun­dle and laid away for good and all. The judge was doz­ing again, Philip Al­ston was still gaz­ing at Ruth, Miss Pene­lope was busy over the cof­fee-​pot, and the wid­ow Broad­nax was watch­ing ev­ery move­ment that she made. It was Ruth who replied af­ter a mo­men­tary pause. She nev­er lacked courage to stand by her own opin­ions, timid and gen­tle as they were; and she spoke now firm­ly though gen­tly:

“But, William, just think! These were lit­tle bits of ba­bies. Such poor, weak, blood­less lit­tle mites any­way. And it is said that the great­est pain and dan­ger from the plague is from weak­ness and cold. The strongest men shiv­er and shiv­er till they freeze out of the world.”

William Press­ley bent his head in the cour­tesy that stings more than rude­ness. He nev­er ar­gued. He had spo­ken; there was no need to say any­thing more. So that with this bow to Ruth he turned to Philip Al­ston and again took up the top­ic which he was so anx­ious to re­sume. It had al­ready been in­ter­rupt­ed, he thought, by far too much unim­por­tant talk. Ruth looked at him ex­pec­tant­ly when he start­ed to speak, but he was look­ing at Philip Al­ston and spoke to him.

“You have, I sup­pose, sir, men­tioned to my un­cle what you so kind­ly sug­gest­ed to me, in the event that the at­tor­ney-​gen­er­al should re­sign on go­ing to Tippeca­noe.”

The deep­est feel­ing that Ruth had ev­er heard in his voice thrilled it now. She in­vol­un­tar­ily bent for­ward. Her ea­ger lips were apart, her ra­di­ant eyes were up­on him. Was he go­ing with the at­tor­ney-​gen­er­al to Tippeca­noe? She was afraid, glad, fright­ened, proud, all in a breath. She had for­got­ten the beau­ti­ful gifts that lay be­fore her. The mere men­tion, the mer­est thought of the no­ble and the great, stirred her heart like the throb of mighty drums.

“No, but I will speak to him about it now,” replied Philip Al­ston. “Judge, Judge Knox!” rais­ing his voice.

The judge, aroused, sat up, look­ing round. But William Press­ley spoke again be­fore Philip Al­ston could ex­plain.

“If the at­tor­ney-​gen­er­al re­al­ly in­tends to go, he must re­sign. There will, of course, be many ap­pli­cants for the place, and we can hard­ly be too prompt in ap­ply­ing for it, if I am to suc­ceed him.”

Ruth sank back in her chair. The fab­ric which she had held un­con­scious­ly now dropped un­heed­ed from her hand. She could not have told why she felt such a shock of re­vul­sion and dis­ap­point­ment. She had known some­thing like it be­fore, when this man who was to be her hus­band had shown some strange in­sen­si­bil­ity to great things which had moved her own heart to its depths. But the feel­ing had nev­er been so strong as it was now; had nev­er come so near re­veal­ing to her the re­al char­ac­ter of him with whom her whole life was to be spent; and she was still more be­wil­dered and per­plexed than shocked or dis­tressed. She thought that she must have mis­un­der­stood; that he could not have meant thus to pass over this great na­tion­al cri­sis,--this no­ble of­fer­ing of a great man's life to the ser­vice of his coun­try,--in un­feel­ing haste to grasp some self­ish prof­it from it. She looked at him won­der­ing­ly, with all the light gone out of her face. Be­ing what she was, she could not see that he was just as true to his na­ture as she was to hers; that he was fol­low­ing it with en­tire sin­cer­ity in look­ing at the no­blest things in life and the great­est things in the world, sole­ly as they af­fect­ed him­self and his own in­ter­ests. It was not for a na­ture like hers ev­er to un­der­stand that a na­ture like his would, if it could, bend the whole uni­verse to his own ends with­out a doubt that such was its best pos­si­ble use.

Philip Al­ston, al­so, was re­gard­ing William Press­ley with rather an in­scrutable look. But his es­ti­mate and un­der­stand­ing were fair­er than Ruth's, for the rea­son that he could come near­er to giv­ing the young man his due. He knew that William Press­ley was hon­est and sin­cere in his van­ity and con­ceit, and was as­sured that these traits were the worst he pos­sessed. Philip Al­ston knew men, and he had found that those who hon­est­ly thought high­ly of them­selves usu­al­ly had some­thing, more or less, to found the opin­ion up­on. He had nev­er known a bad man who sin­cere­ly thought him­self a good one. He knew that many dull men re­al­ly be­lieved them­selves to be in­tel­li­gent,--but that was a com­par­ative­ly harm­less mis­take,--and he had nev­er ob­served that a wom­an thought less of a man who thought well of him­self. Aside from this sur­face weak­ness William Press­ley was a most wor­thy young fel­low; far more wor­thy to be Ruth's hus­band than any one else in that rough and thin­ly set­tled coun­try. The near­er the time for the mar­riage ap­proached, the more Philip Al­ston came to be­lieve that he had cho­sen wise­ly in se­lect­ing William Press­ley. Ful­ly con­vinced at last that he could not do bet­ter for her fu­ture than to in­trust it to this se­ri­ous, con­sci­en­tious young man, who was un­ques­tion­ably fond of her and to whom she was much at­tached, he now rest­ed con­tent. He still found, to be sure, some amuse­ment in the young man's es­ti­mate of him­self; but he nev­er doubt­ed its sin­cer­ity or ques­tioned its harm­less­ness. It did not oc­cur to him that Ruth might be trou­bled by these mat­ters which mere­ly made him smile.

There would have been a warn­ing for him in the look which she now gave William Press­ley had he seen it. But he was look­ing at the judge, who could not grasp the mean­ing of what had been said; and he tried again to put the facts be­fore him, but the judge would not al­low him to fin­ish.

“Who says Joe Daviess is go­ing away?” he de­mand­ed ex­cit­ed­ly. “Why, he can't leave. It's out of the ques­tion. There is no­body to take his place. We can't spare him. It is pre­pos­ter­ous to think of his go­ing to be slaugh­tered by those red dev­ils. A man like that! when there are plen­ty of no-​ac­count wretch­es good enough to make food for pow­der. He mustn't go. The coun­try needs him more here than there--or any­where. And I will see him to-​mor­row, for he is com­ing; tell him so, by ----!”

“You will have your trou­ble for noth­ing, then, sir,” said Philip Al­ston, qui­et­ly, in­ter­rupt­ing him. “The at­tor­ney-​gen­er­al is not a man to let an­oth­er man tell him what to do or not to do. And we are mere­ly con­sid­er­ing the prob­abil­ity of his go­ing. If he should go, some one must, of course, take his place. In that case I can think of no one more fit than William here,” lay­ing his hand on the young man's arm. “With his qual­ifi­ca­tions, backed by your in­flu­ence and mine, there should not be much dif­fi­cul­ty. But we must press his claims in time; the no­tice will be short.”

The idea was new to the judge and startling. He turned quick­ly and looked at his nephew blankly for a mo­ment, and then his left eye­brow went up. His opin­ion was easy enough to read on his open, rugged face as it al­ways was, and Philip Al­ston read it like large print; but it did not suit him to show that he did, and no one else saw it. Ruth's face was buried in her hands as she sat with her el­bows on the can­dle-​stand. William was look­ing at the floor with the qui­et air of one who is calm­ly con­scious of his own mer­its, and can af­ford to await their recog­ni­tion, even though it may be tardy. The ladies were deeply ab­sorbed in the du­ties bind­ing them to the hearth. The cof­fee was now ready, and Miss Pene­lope lift­ed the pot from its triv­et, and, car­ry­ing it to the ta­ble, called ev­ery­body to sup­per. No af­fairs of state ev­er were, or ev­er could be, of suf­fi­cient im­por­tance in her eyes to jus­ti­fy let­ting the cof­fee get cold.

Philip Al­ston went to her side with his def­er­en­tial air, and told her that he could not stay for the evening meal. He ex­plained that he was ex­pect­ing sev­er­al friends that night over the Wilder­ness Road. It was pos­si­ble that they might al­ready have ar­rived and were now await­ing him in his cab­in. He must has­ten home­ward as fast as pos­si­ble. So say­ing he took her bony lit­tle hand and bowed over it, and made an­oth­er bow of pre­cise­ly the same cer­emo­ny over the wid­ow Broad­nax's pudgy fin­gers. He al­ways brought his finest tact to bear up­on his ac­quain­tance with these ladies.

He looked around for Ruth and held out his hand. She came to him, and went with him to the door. They stood close to­geth­er for a mo­ment, talk­ing with one an­oth­er while the oth­ers were set­tling around the ta­ble. When he had mount­ed his horse and set out, she still stood gaz­ing af­ter him till the judge's voice, ex­claim­ing, caused her to turn.

“Call Al­ston back, if he isn't out of hear­ing!” he said.

Ruth shook her head. Philip Al­ston al­ways rode very fast. He was al­ready out of sight in the falling night.

“Pshaw! I nev­er seem able to keep my mind on any­thing these days,” the judge said, fret­ted with him­self. “I ful­ly meant to ask Al­ston to take that mon­ey to the salt-​works. It wouldn't have been much out of his way. I don't know what makes me so for­get­ful late­ly--and al­ways so drowsy. I promised faith­ful­ly to pay for that car­go of salt to-​day, so that it would be on the riv­er bank ready for load­ing when the flat­boat comes to-​mor­row. The own­er of the boat sent the mon­ey yes­ter­day. I've got it here in my pock­et. And the salt was to be de­liv­ered for cash; it will not be sent till it is paid for.” He paused a mo­ment in trou­bled thought. “David! Call that boy. He's al­ways hid­den off some­where.”

“Here, sir,” said David, stand­ing up and com­ing out of the shad­ow be­neath the stairs.

“You will have to help me in this mat­ter, my lad,” said the judge, kind­ly, for­get­ting his mo­men­tary ir­ri­ta­tion. “I'll have to send the mon­ey by you.”

He drew from his pock­et a queer-​look­ing roll which he called his wal­let. It was a strip of thin, fine deer­skin, bound with a nar­row black riband and tied with a leath­ern string. The bank-​notes were rolled in this, and the gold pieces and the “bits”--which were small wedges of coin cut from sil­ver dol­lars--were in two pouch­es sewed across the end of the strip. It was very sel­dom that this wal­let of the judge's con­tained so large a sum of mon­ey as on that night, for salt was dear in the wilder­ness. It re­quired eight hun­dred gal­lons of the weak salt wa­ter and many cords of fire-​wood, and the work of many men for many days, to make a sin­gle bushel of the pre­cious ar­ti­cle. It was still scarce and hard to get there­abouts at five dol­lars a bushel, so that a large sum was need­ed to pay for an en­tire car­go. Drops of per­spi­ra­tion stood on the judge's fore­head as he count­ed out the bank-​notes, the gold, and the cut mon­ey. He cared lit­tle for his own mon­ey, and he rarely had much at a time; but he was scrupu­lous­ly care­ful in his han­dling of oth­er peo­ple's. And he knew that his eyes were not very clear that night, and that his fin­gers were not so sure as they should be of any­thing that they touched. Ruth saw how it was with a ten­der pang at her heart, for she knew how hon­est he was and how good, and she loved him. She knelt down at his side and helped him count the mon­ey, over which his clum­sy hands were fum­bling pa­thet­ical­ly, so that there might be no er­ror in the count­ing.

“There!” he said, ty­ing the string round the wal­let, which was now al­most emp­ty, and putting it back in his pock­et. “I want you, David, to take this and go over to the salt-​works very ear­ly in the morn­ing, as soon af­ter day­break as you can see your way. Take two of the best black men with you,--they will take care of you and the mon­ey, too,” he added, with his easy-​go­ing laugh. And then he grew sud­den­ly sobered with a touch of shame. “I wouldn't give you the mon­ey to-​night, my boy,” he said hes­itat­ing­ly, “but--I am hard to wake in the morn­ing. I am afraid you couldn't wake me ear­ly enough for me to give you the mon­ey in time to get you off by dawn. And my client will be here with his boat, wait­ing for the car­go, if you are any lat­er in start­ing. But you can take just as good care of the mon­ey as I could. You are not so like­ly to lose it.”

“I will do my best, sir,” said the boy, qui­et­ly.

He took the mon­ey and put it away in his safest pock­et. When he had eat­en sup­per with the fam­ily, he went back to his shad­owed cor­ner un­der the stairs. But he could not read his book; his mind was too full of thoughts which were fast be­com­ing a pur­pose. Ruth looked at him and at his book now and then, while she talked to the oth­ers, and her teas­ing glances has­tened his de­ci­sion. She would nev­er laugh at him again for dream­ing over ro­mances, if he could prove that he was able to do an earnest man's part in the world. Yes, this was the chance which he had been wish­ing for. He would go to the salt-​works at once--that very night--with­out wait­ing for day­light and with­out call­ing the black men. The judge would not care; he nev­er cared for any­thing that did not give trou­ble, and he need not know un­til af­ter­ward. David stood up sud­den­ly in the shad­ows un­der the stairs. He had de­cid­ed; he would go as soon as he could get away from the great room and put his sad­dle on the pony. Even Ruth must ac­knowl­edge that a night's ride over the Wilder­ness Road was the work of a man--the work of a strong, brave man.