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ple being too poor to take Todd with him, had left him behind to shift for himself until he could send for him. All the neighborhood knew, to quote Todd's own hilarious chuckle, was that "Miss Jemima Johnsing had two mo' boa'ders; one a sick man dat had los' his job an' de udder a yaller nigger who sot up nights watchin' de hosses eat dere haids off.”

Since that time his master had had various ups and downs, but although he was still weak he was very much stronger than he had been any time since he had taken to his bed. Only once had he been delirious; then he talked ramblingly about Miss Kate and Marse Harry. This had so scared Aunt Jemima that she had determined to go to Mammy Henny and have her tell Miss Kate, so he could get a doctor-something he had positively forbidden her to do, but he grew so much better the next day that she had given it up; since that time his mind had not again given way. All he wanted now, so Todd concluded-was a good soup and "a drap o' sumpin warmin' -an' he'd pull thu'. But dere warn't no use tryin' ter git him to take it 'cause all he would eat was taters an' corn pone an' milk-an' sich like, 'cause he said dere warn't money 'nough fer de three-" whereupon Todd turned his head away and caught his breath, and then tried to pass it off as an unbidden choke-none of which subterfuges deceived Harry in the least.

When the two arrived off the green lantern and pushed in the door of the Sailors' House, Todd received another shock-one that sent his eyes bulging from his head. That Marse Harry Rutter, who was always a law unto himself, should grow a beard and wear rough clothes, was to be expected -"Dem Rutters was allus dat way-do jes's dey minter-” but that the most elegant young man of his day "ob de fustest quality," should take up his quarters in a low sailors' retreat, and be looked upon by the men gathered around its card table(some of whom greeted Harry familiarly)as one of their own kind, completely staggered him.

The pedler was particularly graciousso much so that when he learned that Harry was leaving for good, and had come to get his belongings-he jumped up and insisted on helping-at which Harry laughed and assented, and as a further mark of his

appreciation presented him with, in addition to the money he gave him, the now useless silks—an act of generosity which formed the sole topic of conversation in the resort for weeks thereafter.

This done the procession took up its return march: Harry in front, Todd, still dazed and completely at sea as to the mean ing of it all following behind; the pedler between with Harry's heavy coat, blankets, etc.-all purchased since his shipwreckthe party threading the narrow choked-up street until they reached the dingy yard, where the pedler dumped his pack and withdrew, while Todd stowed his load in the basement. Whereupon the two tiptoed once more up the stairs to where Aunt Jemima awaited them, St. George having fallen asleep.

Beckoning the old woman away from the bedroom door and into the far corner of the small hall, Harry unfolded to her as much of his plans for the next day as he thought she ought to know. Early in the morning -before his uncle was awake-he would betake himself to Kennedy Square; ascertain from Pawson whether his uncle's rooms were still unoccupied, and if such were the case-and St. George be unable to walk-would pick him up bodily, wrap him in blankets, carry him in his own arms downstairs, place him in a carriage, and drive him to his former home where he would again pick him up and lay him in his own bed: This would be better than a hundred doctors-he had tried it himself when he was down with fever and knew. Aunt Jemima was to go ahead and see that these preparations were carried out. Should Alec be able to bring his mother to Kennedy Square in the morning, as he had instructed him to do, then there would indeed be somebody on hand who could nurse him even better than Jemima. Should hismother not be there, Jemima would take her place. Nothing of all this, he charged her, was to be told St. George until the hour of departure. To dwell upon the intended move might overexcite him. Then, when everything was ready-his linen, etc., arranged-(Jemima was also to look after this)-he would whisk him off and make him comfortable in his own bed. He would, of course, now that he wished it, keep the secret of his retreat; although why St. George Wilmot Temple, Esq., or any

other gentleman of his standing should object to being taken care of by his own servants was a thing he could not understand: who would or could look after him more loyally or more tenderly? Pawson, of course, need not know-nor should any outside person-not even Gadgem if he came nosing around. To these he would merely say that Mr. Temple had seen fit to leave home and that Mr. Temple had seen fit to return again: that was quite enough for attorneys and collectors. To all the others he would keep his counsel, until St. George himself made confession, which he was pretty sure he would do at the first opportunity.

This decided upon he bade Jemima goodnight, gave her explicit directions to call him should his uncle awake (her own room opened out of his) spread his blanket in the cramped hall outside the door-he had not roughed it on shipboard and in the wilderness all these years without knowing something of the soft side of a plank-and throwing his heavy ships-coat over him fell fast asleep.

XXV

WHEN the gray dawn stole through the small window, crept down the narrow hall, and laid his chilled fingers on Harry's upturned face, it found him still asleep. His ride to Moorlands and back—his muscles unused for months to the exercise-had tired him. The trials of the day too, those with his father and his Uncle George, had tired him the more-and so he slept on as a child sleeps as a perfectly healthy man sleeps-both mind and body drinking in the ozone of a new courage and a new hope. When the first ray of the joyous sun rode full tilt across his face, he opened his eyes, threw off the cloak, and sprang to his feet. For an instant he looked wonderingly about as if in doubt whether to call the watch or begin the hunt for his cattle-to both of which he had of late turned his hand. Then the pine door caught his eye and the low, measured breathing of his uncle fell upon his ear, and he realized where he was. With a quick lift of his arms, his strong hands thumping his chest, he shook himself together: he had work to do, and he must begin at once.

Aunt Jemima was already at her duties. She had tiptoed past his sleeping body an

hour before, and after listening to St. George's breathing had plunged into her tubs; the cat's cradle in the dingy court-yard being already gay with highly respectable linen, including Harry's two flannel shirts which Todd had found in a paper parcel, and which the old woman had pounced upon at sight.

When Harry appeared, she insisted that he should wait until she made him a cup of coffee, but the young man had no time for such luxuries. He would keep on, he said, to Kennedy Square, find Pawson, ascertain if St. George's old rooms were still unoccupied; notify him of Mr. Temple's return; have his bed made and fires properly lighted; stop at the livery stable, wake up Todd, if that darky had overslept himself-quite natural when he had been up all nightengage a carriage to be at Jemima's at four o'clock, and then return to his uncle to get everything ready for the picking-up-andcarrying downstairs process.

And all this he did do; and all this he told Jemima he had done when he swung into the court-yard an hour later, a spring to his heels and a joyous note in his voice that he had not known for years. The reaction that hope brings to youth had set in. He was alive and at home; his Uncle George was where he could get his hands on him-in a minute-by the mounting of the stairs; and Alec and his mother were within reach! Was there ever such joy! Yes-he could fight everything else now!

And the same glad song was in his heart when he opened his uncle's door after he had swallowed his coffee-Jemima had it ready for him this time-and thrusting in his head cried out:

"We are going to get you out of here, Uncle George!" This with a laugh-one of his old contagious laughs that was music in the sick man's ears.

"When?" asked the invalid, his face radiant. He had been awake an hour wondering what it all meant. He had even thought of calling to Jemima to reassure himself that it was not a dream, until he heard her over her tubs and refrained from disturbing her.

"Oh, pretty soon! I have just come from Pawson's. Fogbin hasn't put in an appearance and there's nobody in the rooms. and hasn't been anybody there since you left. He can't understand it, nor can I—

and I don't want to. I have ordered the bed made and a fire started in both the bedroom and the old dining room, and if anybody objects he has got to say so to me, and I am a very uncomfortable person to say some kinds of things to nowadays. So up you get when the time comes; and Todd and Jemima are to go too. I've got money enough, anyhow, to begin on. Aunt Jemima says you had a good night and it won't be long now before you are yourself again." The radiant smile on the sick man's face blossomed into a laugh: "Yes-the best night that I have had since I was taken ill, and Where did you sleep, son?"

"Me! Oh, I had a fine time-long, well-ventilated room with two windows and private staircase; nice pine bedstead-very comfortable place for this part of the town." St. George looked at him and his eyes filled. His mind was neither on his own questions nor on Harry's answers.

"Get a chair, Harry, and sit by me so I can look at you closer. How fine and strong you are, son-not like your fatheryou're like your mother. And you've broadened out-mentally as well as physically. Pretty hard I tell you to spoil a gentleman-more difficult still to spoil a Rutter. But you must get that beard offit isn't becoming to you, and then somebody might think you disguised yourself on purpose. I didn't know you at first, neither did Jemima-and you don't want anybody else to make that kind of a mistake."

"My father did, yesterday-" Harry rejoined quietly, dropping into Jemima's chair.

St. George half raised himself from his bed: "You have seen him?”

"Yes-and I wish I hadn't. But I hunted everywhere for you and then got a horse and rode out home. He didn't know me— that is, I'm pretty sure he didn't-but he cursed me all the same. My mother and old Alec, I hope, will come in to-day-but father's chapter is closed forever, Uncle George. I have been a fool to hope for anything else."

"Drove you out! Oh, no-no! Harry! Impossible!"

"But he did-" and then followed an account of all the wanderer had passed through from the time he had set foot on shore to the moment of meeting Todd and himself.

For some minutes St. George lay staring at the ceiling. It was all a horrid nightmare to him. Talbot deserved nothing but contempt and he would get it so far as he was concerned. He agreed with Harry that all reconciliation was now a thing of the past; the only solution possible was that Talbot was out of his senses-the affair having undermined his reason. He had heard of such cases and had doubted them-he was convinced now that they could be true. His answer, therefore, to Harry's next question-one about his lost. sweetheart-was given with a certain hesitation. While the pain of Rutter's curses still lingered with him all reference to Kate's affairs-even the little he knew himself-must be made with some circumspection. For there was no hope in that direction either, but he did not want to tell Harry so outright; nor did he want to dwell too long upon the subject.

"And I suppose Kate is married by this time, Uncle George," Harry said at last in a casual tone, "is she not ?" He had been leading up to it so that there was no doubt in his uncle's mind as to his intention. "I saw the house lighted up, night before last when I passed, and a lot of people about, so I thought it might be either the wedding or the reception." He had shot the question as one shoots an arrow in the dark-hit or miss-as if he did not care which. He too realized that this was no time to open wounds, certainly not in his uncle's heart; and yet he could wait no longer.

"No-I don't think the wedding has taken place," St. George replied vaguely. "The servants would know if it had—they know everything-and Aunt Jemima would be the first to have told me. The house being lighted up is no evidence. They have been giving a series of entertainments this winter and there were more to come when I last saw Kate, which was one night at Richard Horn's. But let us close that chapter too, my boy. You and I will take a new lease of life from now on. You have already put new blood into my veins-I haven't felt so well for weeks. Now tell me about yourself. Your last letter reached me six months ago, if I remember right. You were then in Rio and were going up into the mountains. Did you go?"

"Yes-up into the Rio Abaste country where they had discovered diamonds as big

as hens' eggs-one had been sold for nearly a quarter of a million dollars—and everybody was crazy. I didn't find any diamonds nor anything else but starvation, so I herded cattle, that being the only thing I knew anything about-how to ride-and slept out on the lowlands sometimes under a native mat and sometimes under the kindly stars. Then we had a revolution and cattle raids, and one night I came pretty near being chewed up by a pumaand so it went. I made a little money in rawhides after I got to know the natives, and I'm going back to make some more; and you are going with me when we get things straightened out. I wouldn't have come home except that I heard you had been turned out neck and crop from Kennedy Square. One of Mr. Seymour's clerks stopped in Rio on his way to the River Platte and had some business with an English agent whom I met afterward at a hacienda, and who told me about you when he learned I was from Kennedy Square. And when I think of it all, and what you have suffered on account of me!"-Here Harry's voice faltered. "No!-I won't talk about it-I can't! I have spent too many sleepless nights over it: I have been hungry and half dead, but I have kept on-and I am not through: I'll pull it out yet and put you on your feet again if I live!"

St. George laid his hand on the young man's wrist but he made no answer to that part of his speech which referred to his own privations. He knew how the boy felt about it. That was one of the things he loved him for.

"And he spoke God's truth, Harry," he went on, clearing his throat. "Neck and crop is just the word! And so you started home when you heard it-" The choke was quite in evidence now. "That was just like you, you dear fellow! And you haven't come home an hour too soon. I should have been measured for a box in another week. You see I really couldn't go to Coston's. I had made up my mind to until I saw this place, and then I determined I would stop here. I could eke out an existence here on what I had left and still feel like a gentleman, but I couldn't settle down on dear Peggy Coston and be anything but a poltroon. As to my making a living at the law-that was pure moonshine. I haven't opened a law book for

twenty years and now it's too late. People of our class"-here he looked away from his companion and talked straight at the foot of the bed-" when they reach the neck and crop period are at the end of their rope. There are then but two things left—either to become an inmate of a poorhouse or to become a sponge. I prefer this box of a room as a happy medium, and I am content to stay where I am as long as we three can keep body and soul together. There is-so Pawson told me before I was taken sick-a little money coming in from a ground rent-a few months off, perhaps, but more than enough to pay Todd back he gives Jemima every cent of his wages and when this does come in and I can get out once more, I'm going to order my life so I can make a respectable showing of some kind."

He paused for a moment, fastened his gaze again on Harry, and went on:

"As to going back to Pawson's, I am not altogether sure that that is the wisest thing to do. I may have to leave again as soon as I get comfortably settled in my bed. I turned out at his bidding before and may have to again when he says the word. So don't kindle too many fires with Pawson's wood-I had none belonging to me when I left-or it may warm somebody else's shins besides mine," and a queer smile lighted up his face.

Harry burst out laughing.

"Wood or no wood, Uncle George, I'm going to be landlord now-Pawson can move out and graze his cattle somewhere else. I'm going to take charge of the hut and stock and the pack mules and provisions—and with a gun, if necessary-" and he levelled an imaginary fowling-piece with a boyish gesture.

"Don't you try to move anybody without an order of the court!" cried St. George, joining in the merriment. "What a boy he is!" he thought to himself. "With that mortgage hanging over everything and Gorsuch and your father cudgelling their brains to foreclose it, you won't have a ghost of a chance. Come to think of it, however, I might help-for a few weeks' expenses, at least. How would this do?" Here he had all he could do to straighten his face: "Attention now-Hats off in the courtroom. For sale or hire! Immediate delivery. One first-class Virginia gentleman.

Could be made useful in opening and shutting doors or in dancing attendance upon children under one year of age, or in keeping flies from bedridden folk. Apply, etc., etc.' Gadgem could fix it. He has done the most marvellous things in the last year or two-extraordinary, really! Ask Todd about it some time-he'll tell you."

They were both roaring with laughter, St. George so buoyed up by the contagious spirit of the young fellow that he insisted on getting out of bed and sitting in Aunt Jemima's rocking chair with a blanket across his knees.

All the morning did this happy talk go on:-the joyous unconfined talk of two men who had hungered and thirsted for each other through long and bitter days and nights, and whose coming together was like the mingling of two streams long kept apart, and now one great river flowing to a common outlet and a common good.

And not only did their talk cover the whole range of Harry's experiences from the time he left the ship for his sojourn in the hill country and the mountains beyond, and all of St. George's haps and mishaps, with every single transaction of Gadgem and Pawson-loving cup, dogs and all but when their own personal news was exhausted they both fell back on their friends, such as Richard Horn and old Judge Pancoast; when he had seen Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Latrobe-yes, and what of Mr. Poehad he written any more?-and were his habits any better?-etc., etc.

"I have seen Mr. Poe several times since that unfortunate dinner, Harry; the last time when he was good enough to call upon me on his way to Richmond. He was then particularly himself. You would not have known him-grave, dignified, perfectly dressed-charming, delightful. He came in quite late-indeed I was going to bed when I heard his knock and, Todd being out, I opened the door myself. There was some of that Black Warrior left, and I brought out the decanter, but he shook his head courteously and continued his talk. He asked after you. Wonderful man, Harry—a man you never forget once you know him."

St. George dragged the pine table nearer his chair and moistened his lips with the glass of milk which Jemima had set beside him. Then he went on:

"You remember Judge Giles, do you not? Lives here on St. Paul Street—yes— of course you do for he is a great friend of your father's and you must have met him repeatedly at Moorlands. Well, one day at the club he told me the most extraordinary story about Mr. Poe—this was some time after you'd gone. It seems that the judge was at work in his study one snowy night when his doorbell sounded. It was lateafter eleven o'clock—and as his servant had gone to bed he opened the door himself. There stood a man with his coat buttoned close about his throat-evidently a gentleman-who asked him politely for a sheet of paper and a pen. You know the judge, and how kind and considerate he is. Well, of course he asked him in, drew out a chair at his desk and stepped into the next room to leave him undisturbed. After a time, not hearing him move, he looked in and to his surprise the stranger had disappeared. On the desk lay a sheet of paper on which was written three verses of a poem. It was his 'Bells.' The judge has had them framed, so I hear. There was enough snow on the ground to bring out the cutters, and Poe had the rhythm of the bells ringing in his head and being afraid he would forget it he pulled the judge's doorbell. I wish he'd rung mine. I must get the poem for you, Harry-it's as famous now as 'The Raven.' Richard, I hear, reads it so that you can distinguish the sound of each bell."

"Well, he taught me a lesson," said Harry, tucking the blanket close around his uncle's knees-"one I have never forgotten, and never will. He sent me to bed a wreck, I remember, but I got up the next morning with a new mast in me and all my pumps working."

"You mean-" and St. George smiled meaningly and tossed his hand up as if emptying a glass.

"Yes-just that-" rejoined Harry with a nod. "It's so hot out where I have been that a glass of native rum is as bad as a snake bite and everybody except a native leaves it alone. But if I had gone to the North Pole instead of the equator I would have done the same. Men like you and father, and Mr. Richard Horn and Mr. Kennedy, who have been brought up on moderation, may feel as you like about it, but I'm going to let it alone. It's the devil when it gets into your blood and mine's not made

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