From Generation to Generation: Part I

THERE was a young gentleman in Montpier who attracted to himself considerable attention, not a hundred years ago. Two sad hearts in the town were sad because of him. One was his own, the other Ellen Hepworth’s.

After he had declined the partnership with his old employers, Smithby & Co., because, as he had the courage, or rather the impertinence, to tell them, he could not approve of their way of doing business, he surprised everybody by the course of dissipation upon which he entered.

It really seemed as if he had exhausted his virtues when that decision in reference to the partnership so long looked forward to was made. Nobody pretended to understand him, least of all Ellen Hepworth. This “ careering ” was so unlooked for that she finally concluded that it partook of the nature of the whirlwind, and so must spend itself, and remain among the facts forever inexplicable. The instinct of self-preservation she would not allow a hearing. Is the sun to be less honored, because for an hour eclipsed ? “ For better, for worse, until death doth us part,” she said.

When the lover came to the hard pass of apology and repentance, which would yet be repented of, and sought to excuse his wild wanderings, the young lady said, looking into a face that was not in the least like the face of any one of the gods that have swayed in their day the hearts of women and men, but a face that had, nevertheless, a portion of beauty, which was intended to represent some sort of divine order: “ You understand me perfectly, and I go with you. Take me down to ruin if you please. Where you choose to go, I go.”

It was wild talk for a well-behaved young person, unless she had discovered that somewhere in the heart of Alexander was an unsunned depth which a ray of heavenly light might reach yet, and therein work its wonders.

She believed she had discovered as much. The indifference he had shown to mere gain, must it not have proceeded from a dislike to everything that was a discredit to human nature ? Nevertheless, all Montpier saw that Alexander was going to the dogs.

This constancy on the part of his Ellen rather annoyed him when he began to understand it. It arose, he perceived, from no misconception with regard to his conduct. Once he had held the opinion that nothing in life would be worth having without Ellen Hepworth. Now he began to see that it was likely^she would be accounted a martyr, and his feelings took a turn. A fellow was a great fool to put his head into a noose, and his feet into the stocks, and give himself over day by day to hard work and decency, just for the sake of others. A rich girl who had money to make life easy to a man was another matter. That was a kind of marriage to be thought of patiently ; but Ellen Hepworth had n’t a dollar in her own rights. She was merely a good girl, bright enough ; yes he would say for her, bright as the day, and pretty enough, — in fact, handsome as a rose. He had proved, though, to Plummer, the saint, that he could carry off before his eyes the finest girl in Montpier, that sufficed.

Still, here she was, solemn as a nun, lecturing him, by her sad looks only, it was true, on his shocking habits, yet averring to her friends, who were out of all patience with her, that nothing would induce her to give him up. He would see as to that. He would bring her to the point, perhaps. He would n’t have people saying of any girl, that she was a sacrifice to him.

In short, it was clear to the one girl who loved him that Alexander was not himself; some sort of nature his, and not his, had got the better of him, and her heart went into deep mourning over his captivity. And his heart, too, as I have said, and as everybody in Montpier might have known, — his heart, too, was sad.

Ellen’s sole consolation now was Mr. Smithby, of the firm. She had known him all her life. She owned her grief to him.

He said to her: " I am as much surprised as anybody by this conduct, but don’t worry. Alexander will come out of it. He has his whims, like all the rest of us. This one is as unaccountable to him, I have no doubt of it, as it is to you or me. There’s just one thing clear to me. He may say what he pleases, but we ’ll have him back with us. I ’ll not quite say he may come on his own terms, but I believe my partner would ; he’s daft about Alexander; he don’t say much, but if the boy were his own flesh and blood he could not be more anxious or more patient. You could n’t make him see this, may be ? He has n’t been near us for a month.”

Ellen Hepworth was a happy woman when she walked out of Mr. Smithby’s counting-room.

As she went homeward she turned over in her mind what had been said, doubting whether it would be worst or best just now to go to Alexander with this message from his former employer. It might incense him to suspect that she had been consulting with anybody on his case ; or he might say to himself, “ See how all these people run after me ” ; and so the day of humiliation and repentance would be perhaps fatally postponed.

Meantime, while she hesitated, the object of her doubts and fears, attired in a handsome white linen suit, was riding in a stage-coach towards Flagg River Forks, admiring the scenery, and rather glad, on the whole, that he had broken away from Montpier, and especially enjoying in prospect the consternation with which by to-morrow or next day people would begin to make inquiries for him.

As he goes we may read the letter which has put him into the white linen suit and within the stage-coach. It is dated

BOLTING, 25th 7th mo, 18—.

SIR : — Thee has an aged relative living in this place who names thee as his heir. He sends for thee by my hand. If thee will come here directly, thee may find him alive, and this he looks for. I may say he prays for thee to come. And thee must come alone ; he says so. His mind wanders a little. It has wandered more or less for a long time, but it is clear he wants thee.

Thy friend,

OWEN HAPPY.

But urgent though the tone of the letter was, Alexander had let twentyfour hours slip by, and had changed his mind as many times, before he decided that he would attend to the summons.

Of course he did not understand the letter. What aged relative had he ? His mother, who had married a second time, and now lived abroad with a husband and children whom he had never seen, had never told him that he or she had any relative living in the land. This man might be of his father’s kindred. He did n’t know. He didn’t care. He doubted the story. Yet why should any one invent anything so stupid ? And where upon earth was Bolting ? Finally, his curiosity got the better of him ; he thought that here possibly might be a tide in the affairs of men ! So he left Montpier without exchanging a word with any person on the subject.

Montpier then said what it pleased. It got up a dark suspicion of debt and involvement, and Smithby & Co. were obliged to declare, in the most open manner, that there wasn’t a word to be said against the business honesty and uprightness of their late bookkeeper, and that the place of responsibility and trust he had long occupied awaited him any day he would return to it. Then Montpier lamented ; it was ten thousand pities a man should prove so great an enemy to himself; but Ellen Hepworth said, “ All this is a freak,”and she waited for the day when her love should have justified itself. There was something in this confidence quite sublime.

The inhabitants of Bolting lived in the midst of their gardens between the north and east branches of Flagg River, in the fear of God, the love of the Brotherhood, and the honor of the President. The spirit of the place was stamped upon it, and even the driver who had brought the doubting heir over from the Forks, entertaining him by the way with a humorous account of the simple-hearted folk who flourished in the community, touched his horse with a gentler stroke, and spoke in a softened voice, as they passed up the street.

As they approached the village pump the young gentleman decided that it was time to make inquiries ; so he threw away his cigar and asked a boy who had his hand on the pump-handle if he could tell him where Owen Happy lived.

The lad pointed across the street to a house which resembled every other small white cottage on the line beneath the shade of the great elm-trees, only perhaps in the yard sweet peas and yellow marigolds bloomed more abundantly.

“ I will get out here, then.” And having paid the driver for his service, Alexander slowly crossed the street, not impressed profoundly by a sense of the mystery which enveloped the place and himself. His destiny might hang now, as they say, trembling in the scale ; but his opinion was, as he looked around him, that it would not be a bad thing for any man to fall heir to a bit of real estate in Bolting !

The longer his mind dwelt on this thought, the less prominent became his speculation in regard to the probable commercial value of one of those white houses and its surrounding garden. It was even suggested to him as he walked along, — and he did not resent the suggestion, — that Ellen Hepworth would clap her hands with satisfaction at the prospect of a home in the country like that, as he had seen her do sometimes, poor girl ! Yes, and the last time he had seen her do it was when he told her that he had explained to Smithby & Co. that he preferred to decline partnership rather than do business in the manner they were doing it! Did n’t she understand then that he had thrown up his great chance ?

They had been looking for him in that little house, anxiously looking, all day. But, before they could say to the old man who was dying, “He has come,” Owen Happy heard his wife saying, “ He has gone,” meaning that the breath of life had floated out of the body before them to return no more.

Thus they met the young gentleman, whose appearing and whose presence not a little surprised them, with this salutation, “ Thee has come too late. What a pity! He wanted to see thee so. It was the only wish he had.”

Then and there, in the entry of the little white house, before they could speak a word further, this new-comer repented the hours four-and-twenty he had wasted in his indifferent hesitation. He was capable, therefore, of repentance.

Passing from this Eden of a Bolting, where, though there is no almshouse there must be a grave-place, to Hemlock Creek the way is long, and few persons, self-guided, would be likely to go swiftly and directly from one point to another.

The reader will be pleased to spread his wings, pass over miles of level sandy roads and stretches of hills, until he comes to the Bald Eagle Inn on Hemlock Creek, and there alight.

It is high noon, and the sun looks with an almost malignant eye on Bynner’s tavern, every hatefulness of the place is so remorselessly exposed. In the early morning, when mists creep along the creek and up the hillsides, the little house, surrounded by tall hemlock-trees, looks like a bower fit for romance. So also at twilight the charm of the spot is irresistible. Travellers have been known to indite poems in the best room of the Bald Eagle, from the fulness of the satisfaction felt on being set down at the end of a fatiguing day in that beautiful, shadowy dell. But at high noon, in midsummer, when the shade of the hemlocks becomes as a vain pretence, and the low walls of the whitewashed cottage are seen in the glare which betrays their poverty, it is a place to pass quickly, and forget as soon as may be.

Still, Mark Bynner, who stands on the doorstep waiting for the stagehorn, has no need to seek the favor of stage-drivers; they all know that a good meal awaits them at Bynner’s.

The stage is now about three minutes behind time. Why does n’t it come ? The potatoes and the fish and the coffee are ready to serve, and the passengers approaching can never know how Nanny Bynner has fought for that mess of string-beans with her geese, ducks, hens, and turkeys, since the 1st of June! Bread and butter, milk, eggs, and wild berries, all of the best, wait upon the table ; why doesn’t the sound of the horn come floating down from the top of the hill ? Ah, there it is !

The driver, Anthony, is on the road to-day, guides the horses down the rather steep declivity at a quicker pace than usual, throws the reins over the horses’ backs in his beststyle, and jumps from his elevated seat ; in all these proceedings conforming to a line of conduct altogether familiar to the keeper of the inn. But when he has gone so far, his action takes a turn. He does not begin to shout at man and beast according to custom, nor does he throw open the stage door with a flourish, and the yard gate with a bang. Instead, he quietly goes to the stage box, and after a slight delay, which may indicate some hesitation in his purpose or reluctance in his hands, he assists a passenger to alight, who seems incapable of helping himself ; then he produces a small black trunk from under the seat, places it beside the gate-post, and says to Mr. Mark Bynner that the folks in the coach are in a desperate hurry to get to the Corners by six o’clock, and he has promised to put ’em through. He watered his horses in the creek t’ other side of the hill, and nobody wants dinner but himself; he does confoundedly, but he shall have to wait. There is that gentleman, though ; he don’t feel able to go on, and so he must stay behind.

While he makes these statements the driver is taking his seat on the box again, and gathering up the reins ; Mark Bynner has hardly time to ask a question before Anthony nods, as if in answer, and drives on.

Nothing was to be done, then, but to invite the stranger into the house. The innkeeper accordingly went to the gate and picked up the trunk, shouldered it, and glancing at the owner said, “ This way, sir.” He might as well have given the direction to one of the hemlocks. Looking back, after he had proceeded a few paces toward the house, he saw that the gentleman, in attempting to follow him, had fallen back against the fence and leaned there, incapable of helping himself.

It was high time to call his wife. But she had already come to the door to ascertain what was going on, the delay in ordering the dinner was so unusual.

“ See here,” he said when he saw that she stood there looking at him, “there isn’t anybody to eat, but this sick man is going to stay over.” He fixed an eye full of sharp inquiry on his wife while he spoke, and was not surprised when he saw her lift both hands and exclaim, “ Good gracious, Mark, it’s small-pox ! ”

“ I thought likely,” he returned. “ Blast that Anthony ! He ’s just turned him in on to us. What’ll we do ? ”

“ We can’t leave him here,” said she. “Fritz is gone; we might give him the shed chamber; but—good gracious ! ”

“ Yes,” said her husband. “ Just so. And who’s going to take care of him ? ”

“ We must.”

“We may as well shut shop then ! ”

“It can’t be helped.”

But during this brief and rapid conversation the behavior of the husband and the wife had not been in the least like that of persons who halted in their opinion as to the course they must pursue.

The innkeeper had already set the trunk down in the entry, and now he was assisting the stranger into the house with as little shrinking in his touch as though he had been merely a cripple or a paralytic, and so incapable of helping himself.

As they entered the dining-room the eyes of the stranger fell on the neatly spread dinner - table. Mark Bynner, true to his calling, would have placed a chair for him ; but he shook his head, and said, and for the first time they heard his voice, “ All I want is a bed,” and his head drooped as if he were incapable of another word.

There was a little bedroom off the dining-room. With a sudden kindly impulse, Nanny Bynner, who was full of kindly impulses and quite capable of working herself to death in anybody’s service, opened the door and looked in ; but a second thought led her to close the door again, and she said, — her way was to express her thoughts aloud, even when quite alone, — “ It will be too warm and noisy in there. He would hear all that was going on, and the drivers don’t know what they’re about, always.”

The stranger startled her by making an answer, in the peremptory manner of desperate sickness, “ Put me anywhere you like, but be quick about it. Let me lie down. I think I shall die in about five minutes.”

This was bringing matters to a point. The eyes of the sick man had lost their dull stupor ; as he spoke it seemed as if the conviction that his death approached made him attempt to arrest the work of destruction for a moment. Out of the kindest and sweetest of brown eyes he looked at Nanny Bynner, and said : “ I see. It’s too bad ; but you must send the trunk on. Mother and Zeb — ”

There he stopped. After a moment he tried to continue ; then he shook his head and would have fallen, but the innkeeper and his wife closed round him, a supporting wall.

“ He’s dying ! ” exclaimed Nanny, her voice unsteady with feeling.

“ I think not,” returned her husband, and for a moment he became as forgetful as she that small-pox within the house would be likely to send dinnerparties ten miles on.

If Nanny intended to conduct the stranger to the north bedroom, they must lose no time.

To the north chamber, therefore, they conveyed the young man, and five minutes passed, but he still breathed.

The driver who had left the passenger at the gate did not stop to inquire after his health on his return trip, neither did he drive on, chiefly careful to avoid further risk. That ride, beside contagion from Culver’s Creek to Bynner’s, had done the business for him, he said, and he hurried back to the Culverstown Hospital to die there within a fortnight. Mark Bynner was not sorry when he heard of it; the driver had tossed a load on to his shoulders which he had no mind to bear.

The stranger at the inn lingered one month. The greater part of the time he was delirious, and during his few lucid intervals apparently incapable of thought or of speech. Still, more than once his eyes fixed on Nanny Bynner with a gratitude in them which she never could forget.

What a north chamber that was during those four weeks ! and what a multitude of horrors was concealed by a door from the stage-coach passengers who came and went up and down the narrow stair ! What a life that gentle nurse and that woman of all work lived, from the Saturday noon when the sick man came, to the Saturdaynight a month later, when he died !

And the poor young man ! Hemlock Creek then was his destination when he set out on his journey ! But whence had he come, for what place had he started ? These were questions which naturally suggested themselves, but who could answer them ? Nanny and Mark Bynner might say to themselves that they had done their duty, all that could be asked of the best of good Samaritans, but they would have liked an answer to their questions.

On Sunday after the burial had been accomplished, and the north room had been whitewashed and cleansed for the reception of Monday’s travellers, the innkeeper sat down to examine the contents of the trunk. Nanny was with him, and the business in hand was, evidently, the business to be performed, otherwise how should they ever know whom they had sheltered underneath their roof? The sick man had communicated no information whatever with regard to himself, and the only occasion on which he had attempted to express a wish he had as good as failed to do so.

From the contents of the trunk it began to dawn on the mind of the chief explorer that the traveller must have been on his way from some mining region, and that he was going to leave the country. In his trunk were beautiful specimens of ore and crystals, and a few vials of gold-dust, besides clothes marked with initials, and a quantity of papers and letters, all of which were addressed to, or bore the name of, Ephraim Butler.

He, then, was Ephraim Butler who had died. Mark said so to Nanny, and she said so to herself, — “ Ephraim Butler.” Besides wearing apparel and the papers mentioned, there was a good deal of money in a wallet, — money in coin and in bank-notes.

The innkeeper reserved this for consideration until after the papers, letters, and other documents, which were carelessly tied together with a cord, should be disposed of. “We have got off very well,” he said; “but if we leave these things lying around, the children will be coming down with small-pox first we know.” Therefore he burned the papers. But the dead man’s clothes he reserved for the pedler who once a month stopped at the tavern overnight.

It was after he had burned the papers that his wife saw him counting the money. She came into the room unexpectedly while he was thus engaged ; for an instant he appeared to be confused, but then he said : “ Come here, Miss Nan, I want your help. You can count as high as a hundred, can’t you ? ”

Nanny rather thought she could, and she sat down opposite him, and they counted coin and bank-notes until ten thousand dollars lay between them. Then Bynner laughed, and Nanny laughed because her husband did, but with something like a doubting interrogation in her face and voice, thinking of the dead young man, — not a lively theme of thought. The sounds of merriment were brief, though. Pushing the heap of wealth away from him, the innkeeper took up the seal ring which he had helped the sick man to draw from his finger when his poor hand became so swollen. Finally, from playing with it, and looking at it, he put on the little finger of his left hand, and said that it was a remarkably good fit. His wife looked still more anxious. Finally she said, “ How are we ever going to find his relations ? ”

“That’s so,” answered her husband. “ Any way,” he went on, not caring to leave his wife to the useless task of going over all that ground through which he had made for himself a short cut, — “anyway, Nanny, we know he had the best of care. There ain’t many folks who would have tended on him as we did. If he had been my own brother, I know I could n’t ’a’ done more for him.”

It was a rare thing for Nanny to entertain an opinion on any subject at variance with that held by her husband. Though in a state of bewilderment just now, she nodded as much as to say, “ It is so.” And in fact it was so ; why should n’t she nod ?

“ I ’m not going to bother myself hunting for heirs to the world’s end,” he continued. “ Good enough heirs are to be found nearer, — that’s you and me. Who has a better right ? ”

“ There ’s these — ” But Nanny had gone only thus far when she perceived that this was a piece of business which Mark would manage for himself, and that he wished not to be interfered with in the management. And of course he knew about business, and of course she did n’t. Her part was to manage the house, get up good dinners, and keep the children tidy. She must n’t be forward now, because he had asked her to help him count the money. He meant kind by her. She had best not offend Mark Bynner.

“ You ’ll let me manage this business, Nanny,” said he, not as if asking a favor. “ I would n’t ’a’ run the risk of spreading small-pox by them papers, for all Californy. What right has anybody to ask it of a man ? I’ve put away them papers. I looked at ’em, and saw they didn't tell anything I wanted to know. Could n’t make head or tail of ’em.”

Nanny looked down. She felt a chill creeping over her body. She knew now what that smell of burning papers meant, and it seemed to her like the smoke of that fire which, she had heard, ascends for ever and ever.

Perhaps her husband, who was not dull, guessed what was passing in her mind, for he hastened to speak again when she said nothing, “ You ’re no fool, Nan,” he said, in that voice of his which, kindly as now, could have led her over the earth at his pleasure. “This is a stroke of luck. It would have been a long time before we could have got a start like this. I did n’t ask for it. I never expected, as you have, ever since you joined in with me for pardnership, to see a fortune dropping from the clouds. Now it’s dropped, I ain’t going to shut my eyes. I ’ll take what’s sent.” “ Well, Mark,” said his wife, brought rapidly into consenting mood by the tone of his voice rather than by what he said,—“well, Mark, he was sent, any way. We did n’t ask the gentleman here. He came, whether or no.”

“ Yes,” he answered, evidently pleased at the turn her thoughts had taken, for it would have gone ill with him if Nanny had stood out against him in this, — the influence over him of the little plain-faced, sandy-haired woman being out of all manner of proportion to her suspicion or to the probabilities, — “ yes,” he repeated, “ and I take it as a hint that it’s time for me to get away from this. I am thirty-one years old, and no money laid up yet. We have worked hard, and see how we get on! And there’s the children ! I guess, Miss Nan, you must make up your mind to say good by to the Bald Eagle and your cooking - stove. I ’ll plant this money where it ’ll grow, and bring in a good crop. We ’ll go where there are people, and then I won’t hear you groaning that the children have n’t a chance.”

That was wisely said. Nanny was a woman who could venture and endure for her children’s sake ; and she would not forget that she had given up the north bedchamber to the poor young gentleman ; and that he had tried to express his gratitude for the care bestowed upon him, and his wonder that such care could be bestowed. Two things that Mark said at this time would also never be forgotten : one was that he felt perfectly certain that the gentleman’s property was in the hands of the persons he would have chosen to hold it ; he had seen the money of men who died without making a will, often and often had seen it, and had read of it in the newspapers besides, going into the hands of heirsat-law, who would never have touched a penny of it had the deceased been capable of expressing a wish in the matter. And, moreover, he had said, what right had these foreigners to make their wealth in the country, and then go home to spend it ? The riches of a land of right belonged to the native-born citizens !

There was a village waiting for just such a man as Mark Bynner was capable of becoming. He sold the Bald Eagle, became part proprietor of a prosperous stage-line, bought him a small house in that village, and began to expand. Erelong Howesbury recognized in him the “go ahead” she had needed, and in various ways showed that she considered him a leader. It was, of course, not at once that Mark understood this fact. When he did understand it he was not likely to be overwhelmed by timidity or a sense of unworthiness. He accepted the situation, held up his head, built an addition to his cottage, and divided the honors with his wife, who had already won a reputation as the best cook in the neighborhood.

The manner in which her husband bore himself put Nanny at her ease twice over. Her confidence in him was justified, and, whatever might be in store for them, he was more than a match for circumstances. But one thing did trouble her. Mark wore the ring which lie had helped “ the young man” to remove from his finger when his poor hands became so swollen, and so — oh! horrible recollection. It was always, at unlucky moments, recalling what she would have buried without the gates of memory, a forever unvisited grave. It was as a key which in somebody’s hands — whose hand? — would yet unlock the chamber of terrors.

By and by, when her husband’s taste began to manifest itself in strange ways of personal decoration, the ring became less conspicuous. Neck-ties and fashionable coats and diamond studs, as it were, swallowed it up, and it became evident, even to her eyes, that the ring was not the thing about Mark Bynner which would be first noticed and last recollected.

If Nanny had seen in him in other days a man to whom she was summoned by all within her to yield, it is not easy to tell what she beheld in him, now when peop'e quoted him, deferred to him, ran after him, seeking even in their church building, though he was not a professor, the aid of his judgment and his purse !

It was something to hear, the way Bynner laid down the law about fortune and the best methods of securing her favor. In his opinion, making money was easy enough as soon as a man got so far ahead as to invest a little. Of course there must be no shilly-shallying. Fortune had more common sense than anybodyJust make up your mind what you want, and she will help you to it. The talk, you perceive, of a man born to success in money-making. Certain poor men, who heard him talk in this way, regarding Bynner as a kind of oracle, were filled with despair. They understood the reason there was in the words ; but seek as they might they never hit on the path which would lead to prosperity.

Then there was Nanny, herself, and the children, Pauline and Alick ; how young and how pretty even the mother became, now that her days were no longer consumed in the cook-stove! Her kindness toward the sick, and her sympathy with the poor, gained for her a favor which extended through the length and breadth of the village. Her experience in that north bedchamber had made her wonderfully pitiful toward the helpless and the dying.

As the children grew in years and in stature, they passed through as many transformations as did the little cottage. By the time they had reached the ages of twelve and fifteen, this nest of a place had become a goodly mansion, handsomely furnished, flanked by a conservatory and a smoking-room, and was the centre of much eating and drinking and of that open-handed kind of hospitality possible to a people among whom stage-coaches prevail. The Bynners were, outside of the church, and perhaps even within it, the most conspicuous people of Howesbury ; they kept handsome horses and a carriage, and the house was as tasteful in its decorations and its ornaments as could be made merely by money and a promiscuous fondness for beautiful things. The children attended the best schools, whereof their father was a conspicuous trustee ; and Pauline bade fair to be a beauty. She had curling black hair, and a steady gray-blue eye, and there was something in her demeanor which told of cool blood and quick wit, and whithersoever she would she might lead her flexile brother. You would never have heard that girl alluding to life on Hemlock Creek.

Nanny had been troubled, I said, when her husband first decorated himself with that ring, and the trouble had been lessened when other ornaments obscured this souvenir. But it was a question which often returned to her. Had Mark forgotten, altogether, the events which she never could forget?

Often she would yield herself to a haunting remembrance which cast its shadow over her, and go over the events of the last days of “ that young man,” until she sat at the table with Mark counting the tens and the hundreds and the thousands, and then the smoke of those burning papers would ascend as from the Pit, and float upon the air. Who was Zeb ? Where was he ? And where was that young man’s mother ? Was this the way to set up an independent conscience ? For this thinking was done, of course, in secret.

And was Mark Bynner never troubled by any event of his past, because he made a point of poohpoohing a thought away which by indulgence might prove troublesome ? The growth of conscience is as easily pronounced upon as the growth of a tree. The way the sap is encouraged to run, that way swing the branches.

When their boy and girl began to take prizes at school, and it became so evident that their chances in life were equal to those of their mates, that even their mother could no longer doubt, Mark’s exultant, “ Well, old woman, what you say now ? ” was quite intelligible to her. It was an assurance over again that Fortune was on the side of the successful, and that their success was the evidence of her favor. So much more reached her ear in the words than any third person would have been able to suspect.

And if you will consider, Nanny as a mother had a great deal on which to congratulate herself. Pauline might still have been running with hot dishes from the kitchen to the table surrounded by stage folk ! this proud, handsome, Pauline ! Alick might still have been waiting, barefoot, with pails of fresh water from the spring, on passengers and on horses, the companion of drivers like Anthony and Jim and Jack ! Bynner might still have boasted before quite a different audience from that which listened to him now, of his wife’s skill in cooking, and she have been distracted and at her wits’ end when the cupboards and tables were empty, and the house full of hungry travellers. She shuddered ; where is the poor mother who, having passed up to a point of observation so commanding, would not have shuddered, looking back ! So precious seemed all they had gained, that even a higher price than they had paid must have appeared small in comparison.

But who will secure to the kings of the earth even, the darlings born to the throne ? Alick, that boy of promise and hope, that quiet and studious lad, who must have won renown indeed to have satisfied the household expectation,— Alick, Mark’s one son, was thrown from his Indian pony one Saturday afternoon and killed instantly.

They had a funeral service which was like a pagan pageant. That was Mark Bynner’s way. He directed everything, and the obsequies were worthy of reporting for the newspapers. In the compact columns of the “Witness,” it was recorded that Mr. Bynner’s only son, etc. That was the first blast of fame Mark heard from abroad, trumpeting his glory, — a deathdirge. It could not heal his wound.

Still he carried himself gallantly through his tribulations. One source of pride was cut off, but there remained Pauline, and it was in Pauline that his satisfaction found its centre.

Pauline, plotting, ambitious, and vain, willing to amuse when it would “pay,” was a girl to have lovers. Young Nathan Lester was, as people say of devoted admirers, “her shadow.” He was the one youth in Howesbury who dared aspire openly to the honors of getting himself talked about in connection with Pauline Bynner up and down the village streets. What observation should he heed, so long as he had hers !

But that was a mere affair between children, as was proved when Dr. Trenton came to town to consult Mark Bynner. There were a dozen reasons why the Doctor and Pauline should have felt a mutual attraction, and a dozen reasons why Pauline’s father should say to himself, “ He is the man.”

This gentleman had come to Howesbury inquiring for one citizen, and one only, and he was the notable stagecoach proprietor. Everybody he had talked with heretofore had advised him to go talk with Bynner of Howesbury. The impression made by his first conversation, conducted with no little tact, was that no such man as he had ever before thought it worth while to court Mark Bynner. Trenton’s purpose was to consolidate stage lines, and ward off the railroad men until such time as the railway he had himself projected should be rendered desirable. Travel in this quarter, the mode of it, and the rates of it, he intended to control, and he was confident, with that kind of confidence which convinces others, that a fortune was involved in the controlling.

Mark Bynner listened to the young man with surprise. Possibly with a little doubtful shaking of the head, at first, but the sign was not repeated.

The Doctor belonged to an order of human beings capable of winning Mark’s utmost respect. He had education and experience, and was a fearless projector. He had lived much, and in places of widely contrasted character, — in an old college town as a college graduate and a medical student and practitioner, and in California in its worst days, among the roughest of the gold-diggers. His chief desire was to be rich ; and as he was no quack, he had used his. knowledge of medicine chiefly as a friend of humanity, reaping the reward humanity usually renders for such services. From unsuccessful mining enterprises he had returned to the East, still to plan and to execute, but whether to gain the prize he sought was yet to be seen.

Some of his early friends, steadily growing in the work to which they had given themselves at the beginning of their career, were disposed to consider him erratic and visionary, and to predict no brilliant results, whatever he might attempt. But he was never more sanguine than when he went to Howesbury and found Mr. Mark Bynner. Is it not a wonderful and a beautiful spectacle, the world made over and over again for men, each time emerging out of old chaos in finer shape and fairer promise? To have heard Dr. Trenton talk, you would have lent a willing ear, Miss Reader, and have listened enchanted, as did Pauline and her father, to say nothing of the mother of the house.

The new man had everything to commend him, —a fine presence, brave eyes, and a beautiful head, stature, weight, self-possession, enthusiasm. Yet he would have said of himself to another who had won his utmost confidence, that his fortunes were desperate, that he belonged to the “ low-down people,” and that the evidence of such facts lay in his courting a family like this. Yet Pauline Bynner would make a handsome woman, and it was too late now for him to look for any other wife than one who would show well.

Suppose his inmost thoughts had been discovered as he came and went so often Bynner’s guest ! Suppose Mark, preparing to be led whithersoever the young man should lead, had, looking into his eyes, fairly met the desperate spirit looking out! Or, suppose that Mark had himself been discovered to Trenton ! Would there have been a clasping of hands, recognition, “ Hail! fellow, well met” ?

One day at the Bynner supper-table the Doctor exploded a shell so suddenly, that it was really wonderful how little came of it. Looking at his host with a surprise which reserved not a particle of itself, he exclaimed: “By George ! is that Eph Butler’s ring, Bynner ? ”

Mark was as imperturbable as a fortress with all the flags flying on a sunny day. No arsenal more innocently and serenely good-natured. It was “yes” or “ no” with him, and then to take the consequences. “ Yes,” with explanation perhaps, and an after-lile “aboveboard ” that was rather pleasant to contemplate.

But “no,” he said. That was the simplest way of disposing of “ Eph Butler.”

“ Of course not,” said the Doctor, sitting back in his chair, as if with the fire of the exclamation the electricity had all passed out of him. “ I beg your pardon. That ring you wear looks so much like the one I gave him when he left San Francisco, for an instant I thought it must be the same. I have gone so far that I may as well tell you now, it was his leaving the mines that brought me East again, — much as anything.”

While the Doctor was speaking Mark Bynner had drawn the ring from his finger ; he now handed it to his guest. The Doctor took it, and just then Nanny, who had been detained by visitors, came into the room. When she saw what was going on she stopped, and the next instant surprised her husband, and won of him an admiration which was also a surprise to him. She stopped to look at the ring, and when she recognized it, said she had supposed it was something new, and quietly took her seat at the table.

There were initials inside the ring ; “ M. B.” the Doctor read. “ There is n’t so much as a straw of hope for me to catch at,” said he. “ I begin to think I never shall hear of Butler again.”

There sat Nanny, looking a little embarrassed, by her ready sympathy, of course ; the Doctor could see how gladly she would have heard him say that he had succeeded in finding the straw. His friend’s name once spoken, it seemed as if the Doctor would never have done with it, till by his reminiscence he had compelled the presence of the absent in the midst of this little circle of friends.

By this talk they learned that Butler had amassed and lost two fortunes in the mines, and that it was because he became persuaded that the future comfort of his mother and the fortunes of a younger brother depended on the speed with which he “got out of the country” with the little money he still had left, that he determined to go back to England and invest his earnings there to their advantage.

Well ? They waited with interest for the sequel of the story, Nanny Bynner sitting at the head of her table dispensing its bounty, Mark Bynner opposite, their guest between, facing pretty Pauline. But that was all. He could tell no more ; for since he bade Ephraim Butler good by, not one word of him or from him had the Doctor heard.

Meanwhile the muffins were cooling, and other delicacies suffered from neglect. Nanny called attention to the fact; her effort to divert the thoughts of the guest were appreciated, and gradually conversation took a turn in a cheerfuller direction.

But after tea, as they sat smoking on the piazza, Mark Bynner returned to the theme.

“A ring is a ring,” said he. “One seal’s as good as another, if it answers the purpose. This one reminds you of your friend. I wish you would accept it from me. We seem to be getting mixed up quite a good deal in business. This ring will stand for a sign that all’s fair between you and me.”

This was not the first time that Dr, Trenton had found occasion to pronounce Mark Bynner an “ odd fellow,” and he was evidently pleased with his overture, and at the manner in which it was made. It showed the shrewd young man, intent on business, that there was a vein of generous sentiment in the stage-line proprietor. He therefore accepted the ring with a pleasure which his countenance expressed.

His eyes glistened, his hand was not quite steady, neither was his voice.

“ Thank you,” he said. “ I feel as if I had taken Eph by the hand again. I shall like to wear the ring for his sake. But I can’t wear a seal ring on both hands. Shall we exchange ? I bought this for myself after I had come to the conclusion that he was lost. In memory of him.”

With a reluctance which he liked not to feel, Mark slipped the ring the Doctor gave him over the finger from which he had removed the other.

“ You see now,” he said to Nanny, “we might as well have dropped that money into the sea as sent it on to be swallowed up by the British government, just as I told you. There ain t an heir alive. If there was, the Doctor would know it.”

“ Tell the Doctor all about it! ” exclaimed Nanny. Just let him know the whole. He might advertise if he saw it was worth while.”

“ Are you crazy, Miss Nan ? ”

“ Perhaps so. Do you think I am ? ” There was a tone in her voice that Mark did not like, and he hastened to say: “You are not a fool, any way, and what business is it of his ? ”

But in spite of all he might say, Mark had his misgivings ; and he admired the Doctor all the more for what he had told him while they sat and smoked, — that he had sent money to “the other side,” which had been paid unexpectedly on some old claims his friend had left in his hands, to the address of Butler’s mother, and that he had received an acknowledgment from her, with anxious inquiries after her son which he could not answer, though he had advertised in every direction for information. Mark could not, therefore, say to himself again, whatever he might say to Miss Nan, that the British government would have swallowed up the money belonging to “ the young man,” had he sent it to the address which was written on that large yellow envelope, so long since transformed into a grain of ashes.

“Speak of the Devil and he will appear at your elbow,” said the Doctor next day to Mark Bynner, when they met on the public square. “ Here ’s Zeb Butler turned up, all because I mentioned his name to you. Look at tins letter written two years ago ! It has visited every post-office in the Country, if you can judge by its look.”

Then he produced a letter which did present a travel-worn appearance indeed.

“ Written to tell me that Eph’s mother having died, Zeb was coming to the country in search of his brother. The letter has followed me till here it is. I suppose the boy came out. If he is in the hands of some of the fellows I left behind me, there could n’t anything worse happen to him. I think I shall write him to come here. If the letter ever finds him, and he wants work, I can put it in his way. The fact is, I want to see somebody who has Eph Butlers blood in his veins.”

“Never give up looking for what you want,” said Mark. “It always comes. I’ve seen it happen hundreds of times.”

But all this was perplexing. Many days of much thinking passed before Mark said to himself, “ I see.” Then he told his wife that he had made up his mind, for her sake, to pay the money which he had loaned of the Butler estate into Dr. Trenton’s hands, and so have done with it.

“ Do it,” she said eagerly, “ if it takes every dollar you have.”

When she said that, Mark thought for a moment that she must know how badly some of his investments were paying him ; but that was impossible ; there was only one of his business transactions which his wife knew all about, and the way she behaved under the influence of that knowledge was sufficient to prove to him that no woman had the nerve for money transactions. He wondered what she would say if he told her he should be obliged to mortgage the last bit of unencumbered property in his possession in order to raise the money.

Nanny now began to wonder what the Doctor would think of the transaction her husband proposed.

“ Wait till he asks for Pauline” answered Mark. “He tells me he hasn’t seen a girl like Pauline, never. And, by George ! I never saw but one.”

Caroline Chesebro'.