George Bedillion's Knight: A Story in Two Parts. Part I

CHAPTER I.

TARRYTOWN is a market village n Western Pennsylvania.

It rained in Tarry town. All the world was wet. The September day, when the farm-horns blew for dinner, had been pulseless with heat ; the air, if you walked through it in the stubble-fields and orchards sloping down the hills, seemed to be full of sunshine, like motes of gold-dust; and the sweet, muggy smell of the corn, and the clean, fruity smell from the vats near the vineyards, followed you as if you had stirred them out of the heat. As evening came on, however, the sky paled. The winds stood still and waited. So did the two low, humpbacked wooded hills between which the little village cuddled down like a blackbird in a huge osprey’s nest; — the Sloan Creek, in the gap below, sliding and shining over its blue stone bottom. So did the indistinct, melancholy shadow which marked the far Alleghany range, and the sweep of open country which made up the space out to it, —flat and bright green arable land, dotted here and there by clumps of underbrush or dusky orchards.

At sundown there was a sure sign of rain : clouds of opaque, dark purple, with a gap between them and the yellow sky, ramparting themselves around the horizon in towering peaks, and then closing down and in, until village and open country and mountain range grew near and distinct, each part to part, as in a photograph.

Quickly a damp wind struck out from the cloud, the royal purple faded into muddy brown, creeping over the sky, and downwards, until the rain began to fall, slow and persistently.

Nobody, at first, seemed much the worse for it. The sun gave a sudden, red, good-humored wink as he went out ; the birds chirped comfortably at home, under the dry side of the forest leaves ; and people who were coming up the darkening village street could catch the scent of suppers cooking, or of the full-uddered cows in the barnyards. shivering in the rapidly dogging air. But after these protests, farms and village and hills gave themselves up to a rainy night. Tarry town and the world were not only wet: in an hour or two they were soaked, pulpy; the stars went out miserably ; barn-yards reeked ; the clay road gaped into slimy chasms; a belated Conestoga wagon, coming through the forest, sunk into a rut below Kearns’s place and remained there until morning ; (it was the grocer Aikens’s load in it; he was reported to have lost a matter of twenty dollars in sugars alone;) in all the farms, from Squire Daniel Barker’s to the Dunkards’, under the mountains, they slaked down the kitchen fires, and went to bed by seven o’clock.

Tarrytown rebelled against the general depression. People just now had too much to talk of, in the approaching crisis about Kearns’s will, to go to bed because of a murky night. Besides, Judge Atwater, the executor, from Philadelphia, was expected to arrive that night. Leonard Bedillion had gone to U-, with Barker’s buggy, to meet and bring him over. Everybody was on the qui vive, as Sharpley, the innkeeper, remarked, to catch the first look at him. Sharpley had lit tiie candles behind the yellow and green papered panes of the front window, which had been arranged for last Fourth of July. It would have been a sharp eye, indeed, which could have told them from stained glass.

There was quite a crowd in at Sharpley’s that night, discussing the affair, — four young men, at least, besides Barnes the storekeeper and old Pollard. Squire Barker and Mr. W atson, the clergyman, were at the drug-stoie. The inn meeting had a disreputable flavor about it, which they shunned, although, to be just, Sharpley s was a temperance tavern.

However, the current ot talk ran pretty much in the same channel in both places ; and In both it lingered over the rain, and foreboded all the evil it would bring. It was a hard night at sea, they said ; and Pollard, whose nephew, Joe, was part owner of the vineyard, suggested that it would injure the flavor of the late grapes.

“ Then there 'll be a double quantity of your sherries and the rest ot them foreign wines run in,’’ chewing tobacco, spitefully. “ It \s cursed hard to get ahead of these old countries of Europe, sir. We ’re a young people, — young. 5

It did not occur to any of them that outside of the half-moon made by the mountains yonder the ground might be dry. When it rained at Tarrytown the world was wet.

When Sim Wicks, the watchmaker, dropped in at both places of rendezvous, eager and bustling as ever, people looked at him with new interest; ior by this time it was no longer a secret that Judge Atwater was to occupy one of the spare rooms which Wicks rented out over his shop.

As the night wore on towards nine o'clock", the hour when all law-abiding citizens usually closed their houses, it was proposed, and the proposition was received with acclaim, that, as the buggy might be looked for in an hour, no one should retire until it came. Sharpley trimmed the kerosene-oil lamps freshly ; the young fellows furtively unbuttoned their coats to show the sprigged terry-velvet waistcoats beneath, rushed tumultuously to the door, and stood poking each other in the ribs, and joking about Jenny Aikens, who had just gone up stairs ; the two older men gravely filled and lighted their pipes. But all were conscious of indulging in a certain reckless dissipation, which it would not be wise to carry too far. Presently, at Sim Wicks’s suggestion, Sharpley took them out to see the supper that Bedillion had ordered for the Judge and himself on their return.

11 Pa’tridges, and briled turkey devil, and spiced oysters,” said Sharpley. “ Nothing niggardly there, gentlemen ! ” shutting up the Dutch oven with a Jrimnpluint nod. The young fellows nodded back significantly.

“ There :s nothing mean about Leonard Bedleon,” said Phil Barker.

“ Len always was a free-handed one,” said another.

So the word went round, to Sharpley’s delight; for none of them was as loyal to Len as the old fellow himsell.

Wicks had stolen out from them, and went back to his shop, as usual, not joining in the laudation of Leonard, which the boys noticed. The village was jealous of any slight put upon its hero.

However, it could not have been dislike of that young gentleman that kept Sim’s tongue quiet ; for his first job of work, on going home, was to rebuild Len’s fire, and sweep up his hearth again. Bedillion occupied the room next to that reserved for the stranger, over the shop.

Sim came down the stairs again, whistling “Wind your horn,” shrill and clear, as he went about his nightly work of tidying up his shop and the little cubby closet of a chamber inside. It was already specklessly neat, tor Sim was as orderly as any old maid. He was a little stout fellow, with a bald spot on the top of his head and a fringe of reddish hair and whisker about his round, good-humored face. When all was done, bis night-shirt laid out, and shoes blacked for morning, he pulled on his green knit-yarn sack, and, putting one hand on each knee, sat down before the fire, still whistling, but taking the alto now, so as to be able to catch the sound of the buggy wheels through the noise of the pelting rain. For the rain drove heavier than before against the shutters ot the shop, and shook the door on its hinges. The Cannel coal burned and flashed more fiercely in the open grate, shooting out jets of clear yellow flame. It was pleasant to see it brighten the queer little triangular shop, with its whitewashed, walls, its bit of counter covered with green leather and brass nails, the shining case of tools, the shining cheap rings and brooches, the half-dozen turnip-shaped watches that hung on the wall, brought in for repair, their cases shining red and round, and Sim’s face in the midst, hot from the tire and brighter than any. A brown earthen pitcher, in front of the grate, sweated out some spicy fragrance. Two glasses beside him, on a little tray, waited for it; for nobody had so many guests as the little silversmith, from morning till night. Somebody was sure to drop in, atter a while, and drink a good-night cup with him.

Apparently there was some one whom Wicks especially looked for : the toddy had an extra dash of Jamaica rum in it, and the roasted apples, brown and juicy, bobbed up and down in the pitcher, as the rich, spicy liquid bubbled and frothed with the heat. Sim Wicks’s apple-toddy was famous in Tarrytown. He stopped whistling now and then to listen, polishing the tumblers and stirring the toddy. But so sharp was the plash of the rain against the windows that the buggy dashed up unheard through the mud to Sharpley’s door, and two muffled figures hurried in, out of the dark and wet, to the cheerful little bar-room and its zealous-mouthed spectators ; and the first tiling that roused him was the abrupt opening of the shop door, and Ten Bcdillion’s face thrust over the counter with a loud “ Ilillo ! ”

“ Hillo 1 Back a’ready, Mr. Bedleon ? ” Sim turned, spoon in hand, towards the frank, handsome face, framed by brown curly hair and beard, and wet with the rain.

‘■Yes. You’re up late, Sim. The Judge has gone up to his room, to change his wet clothes, and I ran over to tell you we were home safely.”

“ And ” — he hesitated —"and — all right, Mr. Bedleon, eli ? ”

“ Surely, surely ! ” But Leonard’s face clouded with the words. He knew well enough that every man and boy in the village knew that the next day or two would be a crisis in his life, and that they all ielt a sort of tender sympathy for him,—lie being, in a manner, a demigod amongst them. It annoyed him. He would have put his shoulder to the wheel to help Black Joe, the hostler, or Sim here, through the mire ; but that Sim or joe should want a helping finger in his trouble was a different affair.

Probably Sim caught liis look ; for he asked no further questions about the ride, but stooped, whistling, over the jug until his face was in a blaze.

“Yer room’s well het, Mr. Bedleon ; and I took up a pail of hot water, in case you :cl like to soak yer feet. Nothin’ like a soak for keepin’ off a cold, — except grog,”—pouring out a mugful of toddy, and holding it out over the counter.

It there had ever been anything racy in Sim Wicks’s queer little figure and gossip for Len, his afternoon’s talk to the town-bred stranger had dulled his taste for it. He listened with a forced smile.

“ Many thanks, Wicks, ■— many thanks,” with a somewhat lordly wave of the hand. “ But I 'll only take time to run a comb through my hair, and then back again. Sharpley lias a neat little supper gotten up for us. And I ’ve asked a half dozen of fellows I found there to join us. Atwater expressed a wish to meet some of the people,—taking them just as he found them. It’s a new section of country to him ; so I asked them to join us.”

He stopped short, coloring. Wicks was a good, handy fellow, friend to everybody in Tarrytown, invaluable at weddings or funerals. Leonard had done like the rest,—-made a half companion, half servant of him. But surely nobody would look for this ! How could he ask Atwater to sit down with an ex-barber and cow-doctor? — for out of all of these depths had Wicks arisen. But it Sim was hurt, no hint of it appeared in the red, round face smiling across the counter.

“ So I’d best be off,” said Len, pulling down his shirt-cuffs nervously. “ It’s a cursed bore. Though Atwater is a man who has seen the world. Great information, — immense resources. But he wants a central poise. He is a man without a theory of life, -— without a theory.” Then, remembering that Sim Wicks was his sole auditor, he coughed and stopped abruptly. “ I ’ll go now. Don’t sit up for me, Simeon.”

“ No. I :11 leave the dead-latch down.”

Bedillion wondered as he crossed the muddy street, the rain driving down his umbrella, why Wicks had not offered him the toddy again. Was it because he felt for his confusion, and would not add to it by forcing his own kindness upon him ? Pish ! Women might have fancies so delicate ; but hardly cow-doctors, in Tarrytown.

Sim, barring the shutters, saw the jovial little party assembled in Sharpley’s dining-room, through the window, — Len as host, at the head of the table, the black-coated stranger (whose clothes, even at this distance, revealed a new and marvellous cut to his eyes) at his right. Sim had nursed most of those fellows in their fall agues, off and on ; he knew every crook and by-path in their sheepish love-affairs or shrewd bargains ; it was no wonder if he should feel a bit solitary here, alone, his eyes fixed blankly vacant on Len’s face. However, there were differences. Wicks understood them.

Pie began to whistle “Wind your horn ’■ again, and, remembering that Peck would call for his watch in the morning, put it rip in a paper box, the tune growing lively as a jig as he neatly tied the last knot of red tape, with his mouth pursed complacently. But after he had drawn off Ids green watnus, and shoes and socks, he sat a long time toasting his bare feet, and looking into the fire with serious gray eyes, while the glasses of untasted toddy grew cold behind him.

CHAPTER II.

JUDGE ATWATER, going to bed that night in Wicks’s snug little chamber, smiled to himself quietly more than once. He had thoroughly enjoyed his journey out in the stage-coach across the mountains, and this odd primitive little hamlet in which it had terminated. His artist’s eye had been gratified by novel and fine combinations in the hillscenery ; yet even more than that he relished the new “effects” in human nature which he already saw among these people.

The whole affair had the zest of an escapade from the somewhat stately routine of home ; it brought up the free, racy flavor of the sketching tours which he and one or two Bohemians used to make on foot, before he was married. After all, there was a boyish relish in leaving wife and children quite out of the day’s programme.

And the Judge looked quizzically at his shrewd, kindly face in the glass, before he laid aside the iron-gray scratch with which lie covered the bald top of his head. He meant to make the best of his holiday. He only was sorry that the nature of his business would throw him so much in contact with the young college whelp who had driven him over. The Judge was a little sore under the infliction of a whole afternoon of Len’s company. Poor Leonard, like most ungenerous boys fresh from college, was drunken with his new knowledge, and the glimpses which his youth gave him of a broader religion and politics than that taught in the schools. So, as they all are, he was ready to dribble out His opinions to the first comer with a vanity and gasconade disgusting enough.

“ Raw wine ! raw and muddy ! ” the Judge muttered, as some of Len’s oracular sentences came back while he undressed and turned into the neat little bed. The fire-light flickering over the red calico counterpane brought to his mind just such a quilt, which used to be his boyish admiration. It was in the house of Len’s grandfather, down on the head-waters of Sloan Creek. For the Judge had been born in the backwoods, here ; Leonard’s father, Knapp Bedillion, and he had been school-boys and young men together. He remembered seeing Knapp once after his marriage, and his wife and son. But the boy’s name was not Leonard, — how was that ? There were two children then. Surely, when Knapp and his wife died, a few years later, he had heard that there were two children left orphans and penniless ? Why was Len the only claimant under this will then ? Lie must inquire into it in the morning; and with that the pattern of the red calico began to tangle itself into the matter, and he soon wras asleep.

When the cold mountain air crept through the cracks of the window in the morning, the quiet about him surprised him wide awake. He got up and threw open the shutter. Instead of rumbling milk-carts, screaming fishwomen, and muddy pink clouds in gaps of sky above solid blocks of brick houses, here was a great colorless space between him and heaven, in which there was nothing but the cold winds, and a tinge here and there of clean, pearly gray ; off to the east, a nebulous white light behind the black mountain line ; down the long valley to the mountains, a wavering sheet of mist, dyed violet, where it rose in ragged bits of vapor up the hillsides; far off, coming through the mist, the lowing of cows going off to pasture ; the cheery sound of a farm-horn breaking the silence and dying out of it, frightened ; close at hand the half-dozen village houses, sleepily wakening, cocks crowing, smoke creeping shivering away from the warm kitchen hearths off into the frosty air; but the dew still sparkling untouched on the cornfields about each house, and the dahlias and orange tiger-lilies in the gardens with their flowers still closed and hanging limp.

The Judge loitered near the window until the day was clear. Lie had not seen a sunrise (except in some of Hamilton’s marine views) for years. It recalled some of the boyish days in his life, which had begun for him with dawn, when he and Knapp Bedillion had risen with the first break of night to finish their day’s work, and so have time for the ride with the girls to the apple-paring or quilting in the afternoon. It brought up Knapp more vividly to his mind than all the annoyance of this business had done, and made him determine that justice should be done to his sons, if it was in his power to obtain it. It was little enough, he felt, for him to resolve. The truth was, the Judge and Bedillion had sworn friendship at the age which, in Len, he now called crude and frothy; but when they separated, one man was shrewd and practical, the other visionary and a dyspeptic; as usual, the clock of the world was set back or forward apparently to suit the purposes of the one ; it hurried the other through his useless, miserable hours, and made haste to ring his death-bell before he had reached the noon of his life. Atwater, when he heard that the children of his old crony were left beggars, had determined to help them; but they were out in the backwoods ; every day and hour was crowded with work for him ; the matter had easily escaped him.

There was an old Scotch pecller, —Kearns by name, “Beeswax Jim” by nickname, — who had gone up and clown the country since the memory of man began with his wagon and horse ; himself dirtier, yellower, and older than any part of the concern, — a silent, miserly old boor, with neither kinsfolk nor friends, — putting out a claim to humanity, however, when he died, in an odd morbid gratitude which he had cherished to the memory of Knapp Bedillion.

“What he done for me,” he told Squire Barker, “concerns nobody. But I was a man, and he treated me as such. 1 don’t forget. More than money stuck to ‘Beeswax1; every good or ill word I got, I held on to. His children shall not be keepit on charity long, it’s my resolve.”

The pedler had invested his savings in a little farm on the outskirts of the village. It grew in value. Now when Leonard was of age, and ready to enter into possession, it was of sufficient value to give him a place among the heaviest landholders in the county. Atwater, who had been made executor, had made the matter a pretext lor his first visit to his old home. Bedillion yesterday had hinted at some obstacle in the way to his obtaining possession of the property, which he would explain to the Judge to-morrow.

While the old gentleman was yet busied with nail-brush and towels, there was a tap at the door, and Len came in, with his smiling morning face and outstretched hand. He had his salutation ready to cover his uneasiness ; it would not do to suffer the Judge to suspect him of loutish diffidence. “ Shakespeare himself could not wish you ‘ fairer good-morrow,” seating himself easily on a trunk near the open window. “ I thought I would call in and have a few words on business while the morning air cleared our brains.”

“Unmannerly cub!” thought the Judge, thrusting his spectacles on his nose. “ Go on, Leonard. I am willing to serve your father’s son as far as I can.”

Len, whose breeding had furnished him with no reasons to suspect that any man should court privacy while only dressed in trousers and shirt, crossed his legs with careless grace, and curled the end of his mustache.

“We have a beautiful Nature here, sir?”

“ Did you get up at this hour in the morning to talk to me about Nature, eh ? ” said the old man, viciously tugging at his shirt-collar. “ Has that town cant come out here? Young people read Byron and Tennyson, and prate about Nature, when they can’t tell a hemlock from a horse-chestnut, and don’t care a curse whether a spider runs or flies,—which does f eh ? ’

“ I don’t know,” said Bedillion with a mild look of amazement.

“ Let Nature alone. Never boast of the friendship of people whom you don’t know by sight. Listen. Bcdillion. I ’ll start fair with you. I 'll give you advice when you need it. You 're your father’s son, or I would not take the trouble. Turn your back on poetry. There is not a sign of the poet in an angle of your tace or head ; you are only poetical. There's not an atom of the hero in your nature, yet you can just understand when a man has made a ten-strike in the world. You have not a minute to lose ; you ’ll have to fight yourself, till your death, to make a useful, practical man of yourself, or you will spend your days pining and whimpering for what you never will be. Now, to business,” buckling his suspenders tighter.

Len did not reply. He bit his lower Up until the blood came. He had not time to find the old man rude or coarse, — first came the fear that his words were true. They put some old suspicions of his own into shape. There is no college boy who does not hope to be a something in the world.

“ Perhaps you are right,” he said, getting up irresolutely and trying to laugh. “ You were my father’s friend, and have a right to speak plainly. If a man is a shallow-brained fool,. the sooner lie knows it the better. ’

“ Not so bad as that. Not so bad,” half shutting his protruding eyes to see better. “ There’s better stuff in you than I thought, or you would not have answered in that fashion. Better stuff. We ’ll know each other better by and by,” prancing from trunk to looking-glass uneasily in his bald head and shirt-sleeves, pushing the spectacles up and down. He began to think that, if lie had had his wig on his head and breakfast in his stomach, he would not have been so sharp with the boy.

“ But to business,” brushing the scratch as he held it up on his left fist. “What do you mean to make ot yourself? 1 ’d like to give you a push it I could. And I Ye got influence, — influence. But first, how does it come that you are the only claimant for old Kearns’s property. You had a brother.-’ At the word a curious change came over the young fellow, and Atwater, on whom nothing was lost, saw how the conceit suddenly dropped off, and how keen and eager his face grew with some line emotion in it which he could not understand.

“ 1 have a brother. Older than I am. George.”

“How? eh? Why don’t he enter a claim, then ? ”

“It is a long story,” Ids face growing hot and cold with excitement. “ Have you time to hear it now ?”

“Yes. I’ll hear it now.” Thinking that when it was told he would know all that was in tins fellow. He had touched the pith, somehow, now.

“When my father died, we were literally beggars, you know ? ”

The Judge growled assent.

“I was raised by charity. Old Joe Blenfeers, God bless him, gave me my bite and sup until I was ten years old. I learned to plough and fodder stock with his own boys. George had better luck. He was a clear-eyed, curlyhaired little fellow. A Spanish merchant from New Orleans happened to see him and adopted him. I have never seen him since.”

Leonard's eyes grew bigger and fuller of meaning. The boy might be weak-brained, but the words brother, friend, enemy, would import much to him, Atwater saw.

“ * Adopted child, — nobody’s child.’ What did the Spaniard make of him ?”

“ A gentleman,” raising his head and looking out of the window. “ I think my brother George must be different from any man I have known or read of. More of a man.”

“How s that?” sharply looking up from the boot he was drawing on. “That is a girl's fancy. You" have never seen him, you say.”

No ; nor do I want to see him yet. I must make something of myself first. I tell you, sir,” — vehemently, getting UP -md coming towards the old man, — I have had nothing to look forward to in life but the meeting with George,_ nothing to hope for or to give me a motive for struggling to be other than the boors about me. I have struggled, I 've studied hard. But since 1 was a boy I never learned a lesson, or tried to catch a hint about manners cr dress, that it was not with the hope of making myself a man ot whom lie would not be ashamed when we met. God knows how it will be when he sees me,” looking down, resting his hands on his knees.

“Tut! tut! Well, barring a little conceit — Judicious advice would help you most. I’m willing to do my share. But how had you the chance for study' and college, eh ? Blenkers’s boys are farmers, you told me.”

Bcdillion’s face glowed. “ I thought I had told you. Through George. When I was ten years old Squire Barker began to receive sums of money for my use from my brother; trifling at first, but enough even then to buy me books. I studied at night. Afterwards they increased in amount. They have been enough for five years to clothe and board me, and enable me to go down to Jefferson College in the winter sessions. If I ever am a man, I shall owe it to him.”

I he Judge’s curiosity was roused. “ Where is your brother now ? When are you to go to him ? ”

Leonard’s face clouded. “ I don’t complain. He does not know how I have thought of him all my life, or perhaps I would know more. The letters have always been postmarked at New Orleans ; they contain very few words, written in a constrained manner and hand, as if by a person unfamiliar with the language. He lias deferred coming to sec me from year to year. But he has his reasons, doubtless,” — with a half-defiant air.

“Yes,” with a puzzled look. “That is all you know ? ”

“I know,” with some heat, “that George is a man of curious refinement and tenderness. I see it in every word or act ot his. There have been other gilts than money, — books, new music, little articles ol vertu^ engravings, — such things as never find their way here, and would be of little purpose if they did. But the selection betrays a critical taste skilled and delicate. 1 know, too,” his voice falling, “ I am Bearer to George than any other living man. His few words tell me that.”

“Well, well!” said the Judge, putting a finishing stroke to the bow of his cravat. “ I am glad you have a brother of whom you can be so justly proud, Leonard.”

Bedillion colored high with pleasure. “/ am glad. It has saved me the trouble of making an ideal model of a man, as other young fellows do. Mine was given to me.”

“ But Kearns's property?”

Leonard stood up, a sort of triumph dilating his figure. “ You will understand what George is, when 1 tell you that on last Christmas he sent me a release, properly signed and witnessed, of his share of the estate.”

“ I understand,” coolly, “ that he either has no need of money, or is a fool to part with it until he knows into whose hands it will fall.”

“ Men define folly differently,” haughtily. “ My brother is a pure man, in a pure social atmosphere, I fancy, tie has judged me or. his own level.”

Judge Atwater stared, and then laughed, clapping Len On the shoulder. “ Save me from the silly innocence of youth,” lie said; to which Bedillion made no reply.

“ To breakfast now. This mountain air has set my very teeth on edge. How do these people bring in a steak? Fried, 1 ’ll warrant.”

“ I ought to have told you,” stammered Leonard, “that Barker fears some want of legal technicality in the transfer, which will render it void. That was the point 1 spoke of yesterday.”

“Ohol” stopping short. Now the Judge, in his secret soul, believed this brother who flung fortunes into Christmas boxes, and for whom Bedillion cherished a reverence like that ot a Catholic woman for the Virgin, was no better nor worse than a Nev,r Orleans “leg,” who was about to play some sharp game on poor Len. “ But he will scarcely blind Phil Atwater’s eyes,” he mumbled.

“ Where is the transfer ? ”

“In the safe below, belonging to the silversmith. I have it there for safety.”

“ Very right. I ’ll look at it, after breakfast.”

They turned again to go, when the old man, passing the window, glanced down into the yard, and stopped with a quick “Eh?” of surprise. “Who’s that ? Belong to the village ? ”

Len’s face grew scarlet. He put his hand up to his mustache uneasily.

“Oho!” said the Judge again, with a different tone.

“ .She belongs to the village,” said Bedillion with needless gravity. “ She is the orphan daughter of old Barr the carpenter. She lives in the little house next to this, and supports herself and her brother by dyeing faded stuffs,—women’s wear. That is her brother with her. There ’s nothing classical in her face, I think,” — hesitating, with a look of alarm at the Judge’s admiration.

“ Classic ! Pshaw ! But it’s a face a man would like to see at his breakfast-table every day,” jogging Bedillion in the ribs.

“ Classic ! What a prig the fellow is ! ” said the old man, as he went carefully clown the shaking wooden stairs. “ The girl Is too good for him. Such quiet and comfort in her face ! ”

Len had left him to go over to breakfast alone ; something in the last few words had discomposed him ; he had turned into his own room, and shut himself up.

The Judge stumbled by mistake into Sim Wicks’s triangular little shop; and when he was once in, be shut the door behind him, and took off his hat, with lbs old-fashioned bow, smiling queerly.

The morning sunshine came in all over the white, cheery little room, and the tray on the counter of tools and silver wire where Sim had been at work ; there was a red fire in the grate, the jolliest for its size ever made ; the frosty October wind blew the smell of the garden herbs, sage and sweet-marjoram, in at the window, and shook the purple and crimson morning-glories vining all about the sill. There was a little table near the lire, with a white cloth and dark blue delft cups and plates on it. Hetty Barr was placing a coffee-pot and rasher on it, and Sim Wicks stood by, looking on.

“ Upon my soul,” said the Judge, “ I ’ve not seen so heartsome a place since I was a boy. My landlord, hah ? Mr. Wicks P ”

For Atwater was a ward politician, and never forgot a name. While he shook bands with Sim, his protruding eyes took in all the room, especially i etty, with her blue gingham dress, and soft brown hair tucked up under a black ribbon.

‘•My landlord, eli ? ” and then the eyes made a focus of Sim's face with an odd, startled look. “ Wicks ? Mrs. Wicks ? ”

1 am only a neighbor,” said little Het, seeing how strangely Sim stood staring at the carpet, and boorishly silent. “ I help Sim with his cooking a bit,” blushing, and putting down a plate as if it burned her.

“ Don't tempt me nearer the coffee by telling me that you made it, little girl. The smell alone is too much for a breakfastless man.” The judge’s face lost its smile as it turned from Hetty to Sim, and gathered again an obvious bewilderment. “ Yonder lies my way to the tavern?”

“ Onless you will come nearer and try Hester’s cookery? You don’t look rugged for as sized a man as you arc ; mebbe it hut be as will not to face the hill fogs so early in the mornin’.” The little ex-barber was himself again. He came up to the Judge with the ugly friendly face and uneasy finical manner that made him the butt as well as the favorite of Tarrytown. He stood holding by one band on the back of a chair, while he balanced himself, heel and toe, sopping the top of his bald head with a red bandanna handkerchief as he spoke, an honest, sincere smile brightening the mawkish insignificant features.

Atwater acted oddly for a man invited to share another’s meal. He put on his spectacles, and looked fixedly at him. The truth was, he thought he had a clew to this man’s former life, and that he was a cursed humbug. It might suit the fellow’s purposes to pass himself off simply as an honest mechanic in tin's out-of-the-way corner of the world ; but he knew him otherwise. He was determined that justice should be done. Pie would grapple with him at once.

“Wicks,” he said, “did you ever chance to know a man named Billy Furness ? You bear a strongresemblance to him, — a curious resemblance.”

The color went out of the little man’s face, leaving the sandy eyebrows more strongly marked, and the upturned nose pinched at the nostrils. He put up his hand, began to speak once or twice, but the words choked in his throat.

The Judge’s lips moved, uttering some word, and Sim’s eves fell. The whole man seemed to wilt and shrink. If ever conscious guilt stamped itself on every line of a figure and face, it did upon the figure and face of the little silversmith. He muttered, “Give me time,” without lifting his eves from the floor: and the judge nodded.

All of this by-play had occupied but a minute.

“ Yes, I will eat with you,” said the old man, after a moment’s pause, affecting a sudden heartiness of manner.

Plettv, who had seen none of the byplay, flushed. Judge Atwater was the lion ot Tarrytown : this little matter would confer distinction on her friend Sim.

So much distinction, that Leonard Bedillion stood aghast when he entered the door five minutes later and saw the Judge and Wicks sitting opposite each other, drinking the hot coffee apparently at ease, while Hetty Barr bustled in front the spring-house to the table, in a pretty motherly way she had, bringing crisper biscuit or additional pats of yellow butter. Somehow one never thought of little Ilet as a girl, but always as a young mother with a baby in her arms.

Len sat clown by the fire, a little cowed, remembering last night. Yet he thought Sim, under all his attempted carelessness, looked ill and pale.

“ A new-laid egg now is somethin’ you ken’t buy for money in town,” he said, and forthwith was off to the stable, and in a minute a couple of milk-white balls were put in the hot water, with the color Faintly showing through them.

So the breakfast went on. Once, when the door made a noise, slamming in the wind, Len thought he overheard the Judge sav sternly, swearing a great oath.

“ I3y-, you bear it off well.”

“ What can I do ? ” muttered Wicks, his lips colorless.

After that lie sat crumbling his bread, laughing shrilly at the Judge’s jokes to Leonard and Hetty.

But they might have seen a pitiful eagerness in his watchful eyes, and a curious fine pain under all his ludicrous fantastic grimaces, when he looked at them as if lie feared some gulf which the next hour might open between himself and them. They might have seen it, if they had cared to watch him. But Leonard and the girl, as the old man noted, were miserably conscious of each other's presence, growing cold when the air stirred between them, as it it had brought their flesh in contact. It hindered them from remarking the close scrutiny which, through all the joking and eating, the Judge never lifted from the little man opposite to him, sipping his coffee with shaking lingers. He scanned the squat, solid figure, from the ragged edging of red hair and whisker, to the suit of freshlooking, snuff-colored clothes. The fantastic liftings of the eyebrow and gestures which Sim made when speaking, the drawling country accent, the oldfashioned earnest honesty in his round glassy eyes, moved Atwater’s wonder as an exquisite bit of acting might do. He could restrain it no longer.

“ How long have you lived in Tarrytown, Mr. Wicks ? ” he said at last, with an amused smile.

“Ten years come next sheep-shearing. I travelled round considerable before that, cow-doctoring.”

“Outside of this watch business, what occupation can you find here?” with the same significant twinkle.

Len laughed patronizingly. “ Our friend Sim is the most useful personage in Tarrytovvn, Judge. He orders all weddings, funerals, or picnics ; he is adviser-general ; he hears all loveaffairs and disputes about pig - trespasses ; and he keeps a register of the births and deaths in the village since the time of Jacob Beeabout, eighty years ago, to Polly Aikens’s boy, who was born last week.”

“ It’s tolcr’blc accurate, I guess, that register,” said Sim, gravely. “ Only it was Jacob Beebout was the first settler, Leonard. Droppin’ the a

“ Wicks is a precise antiquarian in names,” replied Len, with an annoyed laugh. “ He docks my name of a syllable.”

The Judge turned sharply to Sim, who reddened with a surly frown.

“ I ’ve a prej’dice in favor of ‘ Bcdleon.’ It’s the old way, — yer father's. You kin alter it ef you choose, Mr. Leonard. There :s none called by it but you.”

“ Except the bead of the family, George. That poor fellow has a head full of hobbies,” he said, as Sim hurried out into the garden to close the gate after Hetty, who had gone out.

“ Yes, -— hobbies.”

“ An ignorant fellow, but well meaning. The people here are strangely attached to him,” — intending to humor this whim of Atwater’s about the silversmith.

Sim coming in at the moment, he asked him for his safe-key. “ 1 put a paper there lately, Wicks.”

While Leonard turned to open the safe, Sim, keeping a troubled eye on him, sidled up close to the Judge. “I must see you alone,” he said, in a piping whisper. “ I have not been safe these twenty years to bear findin’ out now quietly. I—”

“ Your secret is safe for to-day. But it is my business to see tlrat justice is done.”

They had time for nothing more. Len turned with the paper, and he and the judge bustled out. What with their shiny black clothes, and the old man’s portentous chain and seals, and Len’s easy swagger and cheap perfume, they seemed quite to absorb the air when they were in the room, and to leave it vacant when they went out, with only Sim gathered up into the corner by the fireplace, looking as limp and imbecile as a child’s rag-doll. Leonard, glancing back at him, nodded kindly. It flashed on him how paltry and meagre the little silversmith’s aims and life were, compared with his own, rounded and impelled as he felt them to be by education and heroic impulses. Then, as he walked with the Judge down the village street in the brilliant early sunshine, he forgot poor Sim in thinking how, when this money and firm footing were assured to him, he would show to these poor villagers what a truly noble life was, — how fixed in purpose and generous in extent. The sott, straightforward, brown eyes of little Hetty Barr rose before him then, and made his blood tingle hotly. They walked out into a quiet field where there was nothing to disturb them, except a few red and brown sleepy cows wading through a pool below, or standing knee-deep in the. uncut grass ; and then Atwater suddenly jerked out the paper. Leonard watched him eagerly.

“Well, sir ?”

“It is illegal, owing to the ignorance of the conveyancer who drew it with our State forms. It has been done in Louisiana. Y'our brother must attest it, and put his name here,” pointing to a place in the paper.

“ It will involve a long delay?” said Leonard, vexed.

“ Perhaps. He makes over the whole property? ’ •' reservation ? ” glancing over it, has

“ None.”

“ Well, well. Leave the paper with me, I ’ll look it over again, and see if nothing can be done. I will take a saunter down the Race now. I remember it when I was a boy, and I ’d like to stretch my legs a bit,”

Bedillion, understanding himself dismissed, bowed, coloring a little. The boy had not meant to be intrusive, and resented the snubbing, boy-like.

“And, Bedleon, Bedillion, — how do you call yourself? — send that fellow, Wicks, down here to me, when you go back. I want a word or two with him.”

The old man, after Len’s retreat, improvised a line and hook, dug for worms, and fished for minnows quietly, until he heard the queer, jerking step of the little silversmith coming up behind him. Then he thrust the hook and line in his trousers - pocket, washed his fingers clear of bait, and, turning, bowed to him gravely.

The little brown-coated man, standing on the edge of the creek, with his hands clasped behind him, balancing himself in his usual fashion on his heels and toes, roused the look of curious wonder on the Judge’s face again. He drew out the deed which Leonard had just given to him, and unfolded it, still peering at Wicks from under his glasses as he did so.

“ You’ve played out this farce as a good actor, Mr. Bedleon,” lie said. “ I never knew a cleverer stroke of work, unless it was the finding of it out,” with a chuckle.

Sim was in no mood for chuckling ; the gray, glassy eyes flashed. “ You’ve found out my secret. What are ye goin’ to do with it.”

“ I ’ll tell you, — I ’ll tell you. Patience. You never saw your uncle, old Billy Furness ? That was ray first clew. Bill}and 1 ran together as boys, — and a stirring team we were ! When I saw you, there ’s Furness’s ghost or his bastard, thinks I. Then it come on me like a flash ! Here was young Bedleon’s Spanish hero under his nose, blacking his boots for him. I never turned up such a joke in my life. Never. 1 've a rod in pickle for the young cub that will make his back smart.”

“You mean by that, that you will tell him that I am his brother ? ”

Something in the tone made Atwater lower the paper and turn his round, big eyes on Sim. It was that of a hurt animal or woman.

Neither spoke for a moment. The old man’s face dropped its grin, and grew grave and earnest. Sim put out his big, freckled hand deprecatingly.

“It ’s allays been bitter to me to think that the worst news I could tell Leonard was that I was his kin, — most of all, the brother iie sets such store by. He ’s got sech a picter made out of George, and he’s struv fur years to be like it. Now, to find it ’s nothin’ but old Sim ! I :ve clone all 1 could to better myself, for fear it ’ud be found out. I quit barberin’ and cow-doctorin’. But there ’s some tilings as ain’t in me. Only I ’m fond of Leonard, and — and one or two more.”

“Is It possible that you do not see the difference between yourself and that boy yonder, Mr. Bedleon?”

“Y'es. I allays seen it. It was that started me on kcepin’ hid.”

“What could have induced you to keep up such a deception ? ”

“It was part by accident, I didn’t mean to do it ; lies is like a hornet’s nest, — when you let one slip, there’s no knowin’ how many ’ll foller it. It was this way it begun. You see, Mr. Leroux kerried me as fur as the Mon’gahela with his plan of adoptin’ me ; but by that time, I s’pose my temper showed itself, or some’at, for he got rid of me at a toll-house-keeper’s, named Streed. I grow’d up there into a big lout of a boy, farmin’ and the like, and then I made my way to Tarryfown to hunt out Len ; for lie’d been in my mind all the time. He was all I bed to keer for, you see. I had tight papers of it at Streed’s. Well, I took a different name, so 7s to surprise the boy, an’ then I found out bow his heart was set on this rich brother down in Orleens. There was a fellow 1 knew, Joe Jordan, on the Mon’gahcla, who’d gone down to Orleens as raftsman, meanin’ to stay; so it occurred to me to send some money I ’d saved, and hcv’ it sent back to Len from ther’. When it delighted the boy so, I lied n’t the heart to say differently at fust; so it went on from one tiling to another, till it’s got to be what it lias. The books and bits of marble, you understand, Joe got a friend of his to choose down ther’. Some of them Len never showed me, an’ them he did seemed triflin’ things to me. But they pleased him.”

“ You have sent him a great deal of money ? ”

“Putting one time with another, yes. But I ’m tough, and work does me good.”

“ And this ? ” tapping the deed with his finger, and coming a step nearer to hear better. “ This is a fortune, according to the way things go out here.”

The silversmith grew uneasy, pulled nervously at his ragged red beard. “ It does seem a lot. But I give it to Len with good will, God knows. Et Kearns, who was a miserly old pcdler, left it to us for a good turn my father did him, why should n’t I give it to my brother ? ”

The old man looked meaningly at the younger one. “But have you no plans for yourself? Most men at your time of life look forward to a house of their own, a wife, children. You give up the chance of much solid comfort, if the.se things should ever be yours, with this money.”

“ I know that.”

He stood with his hands clasped behind him, looking down into the edge of the water lapping the shore. The unshapely hands trembled, hold them tightly as he would ; and the small, insignificant features grew stern and set with pain. Looking up at last, and forcing a smile, he said : “ Let that pass. I ’ll never have wife or child of my own. Len will have them with the rest. If that had been different, — if I had been able to marry, — it would hev been the same about this money. He ’s got wants and tastes I don’t keer for ; I ve been responsible for that in a measure. His bringin’ up suits money; mine don't, But there 5s another reason now why I 'll give it. Ef he had it, he ’d ask the girl he loves to marry him, and they would be happy together. 1 ’d like them to owe that to me, — unbeknownst.”

“ That can hardly be,” turning his eyes from Sim’s face to the paper. The wording of Kearns's will will force you to attest this instrument in Pennsylvania, this State. If you insist upon your gift, it will be impossible to make the transfer and keep your secret. I want you to take to-day to consider the matter.”

" That is not needed,” in his slow, monotonous way. ‘‘ The money must go to Leonard, cost what it will. Mebbe the boy ’ll not resent it on me ; though he ’d rather keep the brother he :s fancied than hev ten times the money I kin give. But he must marry. Lot must hev wife and children of his own.”

I intended,” said the Judge, folding up the paper and returning it to his pocket, "to tell the fellow the truth this evening. Barker, your squire, has asked us there to supper ; and there will be your leading men there too, as I suppose you call them. I mean to clear up the matter there. Stop! it’s my business, Bedleon, to see justice done to both of your father’s sous, and justice don't lie altogether in the dividing of money. But I want you to consider the matter over, as 1 said ; and if you persist in it, let me know your decision before dark.”

■‘ S ye please, Judge. There’s a chore to be done in the matter yet. But, day or nightfall, my mind’s made up.”

“ I ’ll stop before I go to Barker’s with the deed. Take your time. I — I wish you saw Bedillion with my eyes.”

But Sim had turned hastily away.