text: Talk:The Codes of Phoebe and Ernest

title: Talk:The Codes of Phoebe and Ernest


text:
The Queen of Far-Away

F Carow had heard the mouthful of syllables that the brakeman threw at him from the platform, he might have identified the station. As it was, he did not heed, and only glanced abstractedly out of the window as the train stopped, noticing nothing. He was glad that he would continue to have the whole coach to himself. Again he leaned comfortably back, and stretched his lithe six feet of length diagonally across the two seats that he had pre-empted. He pulled out of his pocket a little yellow-covered book and opened it. The train started. He was yawning in relief, when, suddenly, to his disgust, he heard the frou-frou of skirts coming toward him from the rear of the car.

He took his feet off the seat opposite him with a sigh.

But, after all, a woman, segregated from her kind in the solitude of the coach and an hour's railway journey, might prove interesting. Besides, the frou-frou was a remarkably pleasant thing to hear; its crisp sweep and swish was agreeably mysterious. There was a little voluntary stop, then it began again, gaining in silken volume as it approached. Just at his elbow it ceased a second time; the lady, Carow concluded without turning, was about to seat herself in the place across the way.

Instead, a voice broke the silence. It was somewhat plaintive in tone, a trifle ennuyée in expression, and delicately interrogative.

“I beg pardon,” it said, “this is Mr. Carow—Mr. Carleton Carow, is it not?” Carow turned and then jumped to his feet. In that confused instant, as he looked straight into her eyes, his annoyance vanished; instead, he found himself dazed by her beauty.

“Yes—I think so—I have every reason to believe so,” he stammered. “I give you my word I am!” he asserted, gravely, pulling himself together, with his eyes still admiringly on her.

He saw a very pretty woman graciously hovering just this side of thirty. She was either a red-haired brunette, or a dark-eyed blonde, which, he could not, at once, determine. She was, at any rate, rather tall, very slender, and extremely elegant. She was looking at him out of clear, dark eyes that brimmed with light and mischief. He noted categorically that their pupils were of ebony and their irises of amber, that they were shaded by gold-tipped, dark lashes, and accented by slender brows outlining the arch of her ivory lids, and that they were set at a distance, maddeningly piquant, from a delicate, upturned nose. Her thin upper lip raised itself, on each side of the crease in its centre, into the two little red tips that actresses, in their make-up, always create or intensify. The lower lip, on the other hand, was distinctly full. When she smiled, as she did soon, it was vouchsafed to Carow to see that her mouth was precious with pearl.

“I mean Mr. Carow, the poet, you know,” she announced prettily, smiling.

“I've even got to admit that,” he confessed, groaningly. “You won't think the less of me?” he hazarded, as she continued largessing the generous glory of her smile.

“I shall think very well of you indeed,” she asserted, “that is—if—if you—would you—will you be so kind? Could one sit with you?”

“I beg your pardon—I am beyond description felicitated—it did not occur to me—” he threw his stick, his overcoat, and his bags in a reckless heap on to the seat in front. She seated herself calmly opposite him.

She wore a long pongee outer coat, with broad cuffs, and a series of three capes; it was buttoned to the very hem with big pearl buttons. From the brim of her black straw hat hung a cobweb film of veil to just below the tip of her nose, and above that, draped over the brim, a thicker, heavier veil. She carried, in one hand, a pongee parasol and in the other, which was bare, she held a glove and something, the sight of which, even after an interval of ten years, always made Carow's heart throb faintly—a little thin book, in white and green. It was his first volume of verse.

“You will think it most extraordinary,” she said, “but frankly, I've been always curious about you—I've read your poetry—a very great deal of it, all of it, in fact—I think I own every book you've published—I've really wanted to know you, I recognized you the instant I entered the car—and the impulse seized me—if the car had been crowded, I couldn't have done it, but when I saw that you were all alone—that you were quite at my mercy—it seemed a heaven-sent opportunity.” She stopped abruptly.

Carow looked nonplussed. He glanced inquiringly at his companion. Her lips were still smiling, but a velvety pink flush had crept to the soft hair-line that outlined wavily her low forehead and her pearly temples; it even dyed the cream of her soft, creased throat.

“You'll think awfully ill of me, I fear,” she ended.

“My dear lady,” Carow answered, “it's impossible to think at all—you take my breath away. But it is with happiness, I assure you.”

“I hope I'm not interrupting anything,” she went on prettily. “Let me see,” she mused, “what could you possibly do?—you've been at the Farringtons all summer—and you're going up to town for the first time. There's nobody to whom you could talk, if I were not here—and surely you don't compose upon the trains.”

Carow's face had undergone the full gamut of its expressions of surprise.

“I sha'n't compose on this train,” he assured her.

“Of course, you might read,” she went on, “you were reading when I approached. But surely I'm better than a book.”

“You're better than anything I can think of,” he asserted, strenuously. “May I ask you how you know so many things about me?”

“That's what most emphatically you can't ask,” she answered promptly.

“You have me at your mercy,” he sighed.

Her color was receding by faint degrees. She smiled delicately and her coquettish lashes swept down, entirely obliterating the radiant eyes. “But what annoys me is—I'm afraid you won't differentiate me from others—from the crowd who—I am told, are always forcing their acquaintance upon you. I want you to remember me, to think of me as separate and distinct—and I don't mind admitting I'm bothered to death to know how to accomplish it. I shall have to be abnormally clever—but with all my efforts. I'm awfully in dread that I shall not stand out from the rest.”

“You're in no danger of such an unthinkable thing,” he announced, tranquilly; “that's the last thing in the world you need be afraid of.”

“But I fancy,” she sighed, her lips rippling into unconquerable smiles, turning the full light of her mischievous glance upon him, “I fancy there have been a great many such, haven't there?”

“Fewer than you imagine.”

“How few, and what are they like?” she asked, with airy impudence.

“If my memory serves me rightly, they have been in number exactly three,” he responded, “they have been of a sex, feminine, of a physique, thin, of an expression, vinegary, of a class, old maid. Do you recognize the type?” he asked. “Indeed I do,” she sighed. Again her white lids forced her amber-black eyes into temporary eclipse. “You might even accuse me of belonging to it,” she admitted, humbly.

“Oh, nonsense.”

“You don't believe me,” she protested.

“It's perfectly impossible.”

“I assure you I'm not married.”

“I know—I've already taken the pains to ascertain that you wear no wedding-ring.”

“When?” she demanded.

“The instant after I had looked at you.”

She laughed.

“You make it very pleasant for me—I shall assuredly spend the rest of this hour with you.” She pushed the infinitesimal veil up over the crown of her hat and unbuttoned her long coat. The delicate film of a batiste gown appeared in the opening. Then she paused. Suddenly, as if yielding to an impulse, she removed her hat.

“Would you be so good as to put it with my parasol?” she begged.

Carow took it gingerly and placed it with the maze of little pinked ruffles on the seat in front. Then he leaned his elbow on the window-sill and surveyed her critically.

“I say, it's awfully good of you—you know” he burst out.

“What's good of me?” she asked.

“To give me your company, to sit down beside me, to let me see your hair, a dozen, a million things.”

She darted a little sidewise, quizzical glance at him. “I've very nice hair—don't you think—such as it is?”

“Yes,” he admitted, “what there is of it, and you're extravagant with it.” He paused an instant.

“How am I going to break it to her?” he reflected, audibly.

“Break what?” she inquired.

“That she has the advantage of me; that I perfectly remember her face—her divinely beautiful and rememberable face—but that it is her name, her incorrigible, her mysterious, her easily forgotten name, that has slipped from my traitor memory.”

She rippled out a laugh that had the bubbling music of imprisoned water flowing out of a narrow -necked bottle. “You sha'n't catch me that way,” she mocked. “Of course, I have the advantage of you, you never saw me before in your life. Confess, you never saw me before!”

Carow looked at her. He looked at her very hard, but the undertaking did not appear to tire him. She frankly turned her full face up to his scrutiny and she even banished, for so serious an occasion, the splendors of her distracting smile. Carow gazed deep down into the black centres of the amber eyes. It was the lady who finally turned away her head.

“Confess,” she demanded.

Carow sighed. “I have never seen you before in my life,” he admitted. “Unlucky beggar that I am.”

“I can't tell you who I am,” she explained. “You see this is more or less of an adventure for me, undertaken, you understand, in the pure spirit of romance. I can't put it through except as an inconnue. You must not ask me who I am.”

“Oh, very well,” he sighed, “it shall be as you wish, of course.”

“Only—only—I beg of you don't think me” her exquisite brows bristled into a portentous array of vertical wrinkles—“pray don't think me—the wrong sort.”

“It would not be possible,” he asserted, gravely.

She looked at him curiously. Then she laughed. “When do you sail?” she added, irrelevantly.

“To-morrow.”

“To-morrow. O favored of the gods! And you had just returned in the spring—let me see—March 2d—you call that spring, don't you?”

Carow moved restlessly. “You'll drive me mad,” he murmured, “but go on and finish the job—why don't you come to Paris, too?”

“I'm too poor now—it happens; and I'm absolutely in rags—if ever a woman was hungry for Paris—I shall go in the spring, however.”

“Just as I return—oh, please don't go until the fall—I beg of you, don't go until the fall.”

She laughed. “Nonsense.”

“Don't you see—hang it—I can't get back until the spring—you're not giving me a chance.”

“Nonsense.”

“You're taking a cruel advantage of me—you're pitting your strength against my weakness—you're even hitting a man when he's down.”

“Nonsense.”

He groaned. “Heaven, I've a mind to abduct you.” He leaned forward and picked up the little book that she had carried. He glanced carelessly at the pages at which it opened, they were profusely marked and commented upon. Simultaneously, she seized the book from his hands. Involuntarily, his grip hardened.

“Please don't look at it,” she implored. He released the book immediately. She still held it tight with her two slender hands. They were very white with pink tips, and their swift contact had been marble and velvet. Carow looked at her contritely. Her transitory flush had come again, effacing completely the pearl and alabaster values of her wonderful skin.

“I beg your pardon,” he said. “You see, I always feel that it is my book.”

“I wouldn't mind,” she said, impulsively, “if it were not that the markings are Ardroe's”—she stopped abruptly.

“Ardroe's?” he questioned, quickly.

“How stupid of me,” she exclaimed. Her eyelids fell and she frowned. “I didn't mean to mention her name—or anybody's.”

“But you mean Ardroe Garland—I am very sure of that?” he questioned.

“Yes.”

Carow looked out of the window. “I used to know Ardroe Garland,” he said, and he frowned slightly, “when she was Ardroe Kenyon. We were children together. I have not seen her since the old Chesborough days when she was twelve—I have always remembered her clearly—do you mind telling me about her?”

“I see no reason why I shouldn't,” she answered. “I know her very well, after a fashion—much better than she knows me—and, I am fond of her.”

“Is she well?”

“Very.”

“And happy?”

“Oh, reasonably so—she's young—frivolous—not abjectly destitute and a widow—heaven!”

“Is she pretty?”

She laughed again. “I'm really getting jealous, why drag her into the conversation?” she asked.

“Were you one of her playmates too?” Carow queried, interestedly, in another second.

“I knew her a little when we were children, but not so well as I know her now.”

“Merciful heavens—and did I, by chance, ever see you? Did I?”

“You said a few moments ago—that you had never seen me in your life”

“Did I?”

“unlucky beggar that you were.”

“Did I?”

She turned and looked at him squarely. Her strange eyes crinkled and her lips rippled into the most delicious of smiles. She nodded finally.

“I knew you?”

“Very well.”

“Imperial Jove! Then tell me who you were.”

“I can't.”

“I entreat you.

“It is impossible.”

“But if”

“See—” she interrupted—“we're getting into Boston—there's the South Station.” She looked at him with eyes maliciously radiant. “You must leave me soon.”

“Let me take you home?”

“No.”

“Let me walk a little way with you?”

“No.”

“Let me see you to-night—don't you see—I sail to-morrow?”

“No.”

“Let me write you—or will you write me—write to me anonymously—if you wish—any way so long as you'll write—will you?”

“No.”

“He leaned back in his seat. But the train had stopped. She had been composedly putting on her hat, buttoning up the long coat, drawing on the long suède gloves. Mechanically, he gathered up her parasol and her book. Then he picked up his own belongings.

“Heavens, I'm at my wits' end,” he acknowledged. He walked beside her out of the coach.

“You may put me in a carriage,” she conceded. “I want to go to the Touraine first. I'm lunching with some friends there.”

He called a carriage and put her into it. She leaned toward him out of the still unshut door. “I've had a pleasant hour,” she admitted, tantalizingly; “it has been quite all I expected. You're very charming—you've been quite personal enough for the most womanish of women. I think you've scarcely let the conversation get off me once, even when there was a chance to turn it toward your own verse.” She laughed infectiously.

“I say,” Carow broke in, unheedingly, “don't throw me over like this. I shall be at home in the spring—let me find you. I don't ask for any clews, but pray let me earn you—you do live somewhere about where you got on the train?”

She did not assent. But, on the other hand, she did not dissent. She smiled at him again more tantalizingly than ever because at this moment there was in her smile a dangerous element, a sudden rush of sweetness. “Won't you tell the man to take me into the Touraine?” she suggested.

“One moment,” Carow dared, moving on to the carriage-step and leaning forward in the carriage. “You do give me permission to find you?”

“Yes—yes—if I'm here.”

“Give me a month after I get back, just a month. Don't go to Paris until a month after my return. Promise!”

She looked up at him. He filled the door-way. He seemed to fill the carriage. His flaming blue eyes were looking straight into hers. her scarlet lips parted and a look of alarm began to grow in her deep eyes.

“I promise,” she whispered.

Carow bent farther in—his lips were almost level with hers. He put one hand on the book in her lap, but he did not touch the little bare hand that held it. “Give me something of yours to carry with me,” he pleaded, “give me this book—think how long it will be—give me something.”

“But Ardroe” she said, weakly.

“Get her another copy. Give this to me.”

She held the book hesitatingly up to him. He took it—and as he took it, all in an instant, he brushed the whole length of the hand that held it with his lips. Then he gave her a quick little glance, jumped out and signalled the driver to go on.

The carriage disappeared around the corner, and Carow was left leaning against a lamp-post, the touch of her velvet flesh still living in fire on his lips; his blood turned suddenly molten and his heart pounded furiously against his side. He was clear only on one thing, that his lips had surprised a sudden tremble in her cool flesh, that his last glance had caught a sudden rush, not of pink but of crimson, on her delicate cheek, a sudden, passionate fire in her strange, amber-black eyes.

Carow lay all that night tossing and turning, trying to impale his childhood's past on his memory. His thoughts went rushing down again and again every path that led to the misty places of twenty years ago. He found he could remember Ardroe, not nearly so clearly as he had fancied. She had been his childish sweetheart, chosen by him because of her tomboyship—and a rather remarkable quality of camaraderie. She was a red-headed child whom in moments of rage he called “Carrots,” alive, alert, sentient, remarkably active. From the rest, Jack Garland, who had married her, stood out most prominently—the other children of the neighborhood filled the picture in varying degrees of ghostliness. No one of them suggested very clearly the lady of the morning.

The problem haunted him. He ransacked every memory of the old Chesborough days trying to find a clew out of his dilemma.

He had, more than once, had an opportunity of renewing his friendship with Ardroe, but although Chesborough was so near Mexum, where Carow spent much of his time with the Farringtons, he had never cared to run over to renew his memories. This was in part due to the fact that his first volume of verse had celebrated its lanes and ponds and hillsides, and he had an almost superstitious feeling against disturbing his early impressions. During these years he had been three times invited to Ardroe Garland's house with Tom Farrington, who went there often. The first time he was too ill to go, the second time too lazy, the third time too busy. Then the invitations had stopped.

The next morning Carow wrote to Farrington:

He took his perplexity aboard the steamer with him, and it throve on the sea air. He received a letter from Farrington soon after reaching the other side. “Have made every possible inquiry,” it ran, “but your incuonnue remains a mystery still. Went over to see Mrs. Garland the next day, and we racked our brains together. She says that she's the only pretty woman under thirty that she knows of in a radius of twenty miles. She went immediately to look for her copy of your verses which she insisted she had not lent, and found it gone. She can't possibly think who has it, but she will know, of course, when it is returned. She entertains, in one way or another, hundreds of people during the year, and it is, she finds, very hard to recall them all. Will write more as the news develops. Mother sends, etc., etc.”

Carow found very engrossing the collaborating work that had brought him to Paris. Nevertheless he discovered himself working with a strenuousness that he had never before achieved, in the superhuman effort to eat up and diminish, if possible, the months that lay between him and spring. He wrote to Tom Farrington with a constancy that deceived neither and amused them both. And he watched the mails like a detective. At Christmas-time Tom wrote him that Mrs. Garland had received a fresh copy of Carow's early verses unaccompanied by any card and directed in an unknown handwriting. But she was hoping to solve the mystery.

This little event, curiously enough, heartened him considerably, and he lived for weeks in the hope of a clew. But by the last of March Paris was ashes in his nostrils and dust in his mouth, though he worked with a dogged persistence. In the middle of April he sailed for home, two weeks ahead of time.

He went immediately to the Farringtons. Tom was away, but Mrs. Farrington welcomed him with her usual hospitality. Mrs. Garland, he found, to his disappointment, was away also, for a month; there was no help to be obtained from that quarter. He procured a map of the country and studied it minutely. He visited all the neighboring towns many times and at different times in the day. He went on foot, on horseback, by wheel, and by train. He explored their main streets, their side streets, their out-of-the-way roads, their alleys and lanes. He made all sorts of veiled and roundabout inquiries. He got out of the exploration only the conclusion that most of the inhabitants of middle Massachusetts wore goggles. He went to town twice a week on a particular train and returned on the next. As he approached Assyria his heart began always to pound against his ribs in an agony of expectation. Six weeks went by like a flash; he had gained nothing.

The last day in May Carow worked late into the evening. About eleven he threw his pencil down and left the house. He strolled slowly out of the Farrington estate to follow for a space the main-travelled road. The moon was up, covering the world with its white magic. The young, green things on both sides of the road were distilling all sorts of sweet, spring savors, and he could begin to hear faintly the boom of the sea. Presently, he turned into a narrow road, bushed heavily on either side. He followed that until it debouched upon the broad Mexum beach. He strolled the whole length of the shore until it shot barringly out from under a huge cliff into a long rocky point. He picked his way to a secluded spot and sat down. It was a comfortable nook, floored with sand and surrounded with rock. He stared out into the sea and thought.

He had lost her, of course; of that he was certain. She would sail for Europe soon. He could, of course, shadow the outgoing transatlantic steamers from Boston at least, but there was very little chance of finding her that way. Why hadn't he followed her to the Touraine that day? Why hadn't he in every way demanded a surer knowledge of her—why—a million things?

Carow stared up into the sky. The stars were faint in the brilliant wash of the moonlight, but there was a band of diamonds sparkling on the sea. The zenith was, for the moment, clear, but big, soft clouds were coming up from the horizon.

How beautiful she was! How straight and elegant her lithe figure, swaying in the muffling folds of her long cloak. Her hair. The maze of its brightness where honey-color ran into gold and then both deepened gloriously to red, its distracting ripples, the big, soft bunch, like massy gold at her neck, the fine-spun ringlets that clustered about her little ears. And such eyes! The depths of amber and gold in their irises, surrounding pupils like ebony, their look of radiant mischief, the coquettish sweep of her gold-tipped lashes.

He recalled the clear-cut, dewy corners of her lips, their luscious fulness, the two little red tips so distinctly outlined on each side of the crease in the upper lip, the line of pearl that her rippling laugh disclosed. The vision thrilled him.

He heard footsteps approaching him, a belated member of the life-saving crew, he supposed; he did not sit up. The footsteps came nearer and nearer. They stopped abruptly.

“Confound it!” he thought to himself, “have I got to talk to somebody?” He waited without looking up.

“I beg pardon,” a voice like silver broke the silence, “is this Mr. Carow, Mr. Carleton Carow?”

He turned and was on his feet like a shot. The lady of the train was standing in the moonlight in front of him. Carow did not speak, he simply stared at her, his face a little white. As before, she wore a long cloak, but this one was of heavy, black satin, with cascades of lace. She wore on her head a huge fichu of soft, creamy Spanish lace, but he could see that in her hair, built high into a marvel of waves and ripples, there were dying some little creamy garden roses. Through the opening of her cloak, it could be seen that she was wearing a light evening dress.

She burst into her rippling laugh again. “I mean Mr. Carow, the poet,” she repeated herself bewitchingly.

“Is it really you?” Carow asked simply, “Tell me I am not dreaming.”

She laughed again. “Could one sit beside you?” she asked.

Carow drew off his coat and threw it on the sand against a rock. She seated herself languidly. She drew off the scarf from her head and threw her cloak back. For a second, before she had adjusted the scarf about the neck, Carow caught dazzling glimpses of her velvet flesh. Simultaneously, a delicate stir, as of fresh violets, made itself felt in the air. His senses reeled and his head swam.

“Do tell me that you're glad to see me,” she begged with elaborate earnestness.

“Glad,” he leaned forward and looked at her, his eyes like blue flames. “Oh, the futility, the banality of words. I've absolutely no phrases—my whole vocabulary has departed. I was so afraid I'd lost you.”

“Oh, but you have lost me—you didn't find me, you know. Your month is up tonight—just five minutes ago, at twelve—and you've had two weeks added on.”

He laughed. “It will be very difficult to convince me of that,” he said, tranquilly.

“I sail Wednesday,” she remarked.

“So do I.”

“What nonsense. You've just come home.”

“I know it—and when I left, Paris was nearly as interesting as the crater of an extinct volcano. It is surprising though what glamours it takes on when I think of being there with you.”

“I've changed my mind about going,” she announced.

“It's curious;” he confessed, “so have I.”

“But you know really you haven't found me yet.”

“What do you call this?”

“I found you.”

“Oh, I'm not particular how it comes about. All I can realize is that I have got you now, I sha'n't give you up in a hurry! And besides, in the last six weeks, I have done searching enough to achieve anything.”

She dimpled, “I know it.”

“You know it. How do you know it?”

“I've seen you half a dozen times.”

“Where—by all that's holy?”

“I've always been in my carriage. When I saw you coming, I used simply to slip on a pair of black goggles.”

Carow groaned. “You fiend.”

“And twice I've been by this place at night—up there on the cliff when you were; sitting here.”

“And you didn't put me out of my misery. You—you—oh, you're unspeakable.”

“Surely you're not going to complain. This is twice I've forced myself upon you.”

Carow laughed shortly, “No, I'm not going to complain,” he said. He leaned back against a rock and folded his hands behind his head. He looked at her with steady, half-shut eyes. “I sha'n't complain.” he said again. “By the way,” he continued, pulling himself together, “how did you get here?”

“I drove—the horse is tied in the little clump of bushes at the foot of the cliff. I must go presently—in a few minutes.”

Carow smiled. “I will take you home.”

“But there's no way of your getting back.”

“I can walk.”

“And I haven't decided that I shall let you find me yet”

“My dear lady,” Carow said. “Do you think I shall permit myself to lose you again? Give me an hour. Surely, I've earned an hour after all these months.”

“Have you really thought of me in all these months in Paris?” she asked after a pause. “One read of gayeties galore and of such ovations!”

Carow looked out at sea. “I can see every line of your face,” he said dreamily, “every curve and dimple; I know just how gold are the irises of your eyes and just the exact tint of the strawberry redness of your lips. I can draw the exquisite curving line in which your hair grows on your forehead—and the surprising dips and scallops it makes on your neck.”

“Can you draw the freckles on my nose?” she inquired, interestedly.

“There were no freckles on your nose—and, by the way, it's quite the most bewitching of noses—when last I saw it. But I'm very glad they're there, they afford me a new beauty to study. Though why I should wish to add to your wiles is beyond me.”

She was silent a moment. Then she leaned more comfortably back and put her shapely clasped hands back of her little head.

“Tell me about Paris,” she said.

Carow pulled himself up and about, sitting in Turk fashion, his hands clasped about his knees, where he could look at her face. The salt wind blew coolly in from the ocean, the moon dipped lower and lower in the sky. The lady lay, her eyelids half down—their long fringes half revealing the liquid sparkle of the eyes they veiled. He talked, almost continuously, but it was not about Paris.

“Oh,” she said, at length, rousing herself, “that hour must have more than gone. Will you permit me?” she implored. His eyes permitted anything and she stretched herself delicately, turning her head to conceal her yawn. Carow, looking seaward, was suddenly conscious that the hour had indeed more than gone.

“I have kept you too long,” he said regretfully.

“Nobody knows and nobody cares,” she reassured him.

“Only,” she went on, “you must not accompany me to my home.”

“I must.”

“Please,” she begged graciously.

“I must.”

She arose and looked seriously out to sea. Suddenly she dropped her hands. “I must ask you not to persist in going home with me,” she said.

“I realize,” Carow bowed slightly, “that I have forfeited every privilege by boring you to death.”

She did not reply. They walked in silence to her carriage.

“Good-by,” she said, her foot on the step.

“Oh, don't say good-by,” Carow groaned. “Take off your d(^,” he said, imperiously. “Let me look at you.”

As though yielding, half through coquetry, half against her will, she slipped the big-sleeved cloak off, and let it fall into a glistening heap at her feet. She was wearing a cream-colored crêpe gown; there were billows of yellowish old-looking lace about the neck and sleeves. The corsage left bare a square of her delicate flesh, the sleeves uncovered bare triangles of her dazzling shoulders. There was a string of pearls about her throat.

“Heavens, how lovely she is!” Carow thought. He stooped and picked up her cloak. “Put this on,” he said, inconsistently and almost roughly, “you'll catch cold.” He held it and she slipped her arms back into the capacious sleeves. The service brought him very near to her. Carow suddenly lost his head and took her in his arms. A moment later he released her muttering a shamefaced apology. With careful precision she adjusted the yellow scarf of Spanish lace about her neck. Then she stepped into the carriage. Carow gathered up the reins and handed them to her. His face was pale as he stood looking at her.

“I suppose I have offended past forgiveness,” he said, steadily, “but remember, I don't give you up.”

She bowed formally. The horse started forward.

“Remember,” he flung after her.

There was no reply. He watched her carriage out of sight.

Carow did not sleep very well that night. He could not write the next morning; nor did he seem able to find anything to do that interested him for more than a moment. At noon he received a letter by special delivery. The writing was familiar. As he glanced at the contents, he realized in a flash that it was the same that graced the little volume of his first verse that his inconnue had permitted him to carry to Paris.

Carow accepted the invitation with alacrity and by telegram. He was reasonably sure thereby, he felt, of a few hours' freedom from himself and his thoughts. And it occurred to him in persistent reiteration, that perhaps he could discover in collaboration with Mrs. Garland, more successfully than with Tom Farrington, the identity of the unknown lady. At six o'clock the carriage had deposited him at “Five Cliffs,” Mrs. Garland's house.

A man-servant answered his ring. He was ushered into a big, low-ceilinged living-room. It was empty, and he conjectured that the other guests had not arrived. He gave his name to the man, who returned presently with Mrs. Garland's excuses and the news that she would be down presently.

Carow glanced absently about. He noticed unheedingly the scheme of the room. He approved indifferently of the low, big-raftered ceiling, stained green, and of the big fireplace, and he was critically indulgent of the pervading femininity; the window-couches and cushions, the many little tables, and the many comfortable green wicker-chairs all up holstered in a cool, forest-colored green, in leather or velours.

Suddenly he heard the silken rustle of a woman's skirt coming, evidently, down the stairs and crossing the broad hall. Involuntarily, his thoughts rushed back in memory to that day in the car when he had heard the frou-frou of another woman's skirt. His heart throbbed painfully and for a second he looked somberly off to sea, oblivious of the present.

Then he jumped to his feet and turned to meet his hostess who stood in the doorway, her hands holding each side, like a picture supporting itself in its frame.

She was dressed in a long, black gown, sequined heavily in black and silver. It left bare a rounded segment of her white neck and then it fell, moulding itself jealously to the lithe, elegant figure. Her hair was knotted in a red-gold bunch on her white neck. She was a very pretty woman graciously close on thirty. Her eyes had amber irises and ebony centres and they were radiantly mischievous in expression. Underlying this, there was, however, at that moment a look a little appealing and wistful—a look trustful and sweet—the look of a coquette who is a woman at heart.

Carow stared at her. “How—” he began, stammeringly, “you're Ardroe Garland!” he apprised her instantaneously, and he sat down very suddenly, as if the shock had been too much for him. But he rose immediately.

She laughed ringingly. “And you never guessed once?” she said, “haven't I managed well?”

“I—I—” he looked helplessly out seaward, “I can't understand or imagine or believe my eyes.”

A soft, pink flush had arisen, blotting out the pearly tones from her delicate skin, and suddenly as he looked, the mischievous brightness of her eyes was cancelled by tears. She half raised her slender, long arms. Then she dropped them again.

“Oh, what do you think of me?” she asked.

Carow walked quietly across the room to where she stood, gazing at her steadily. He closed the portière behind her. Then he led her back into the room to the couch and seated himself beside her.

“I think only that I love you, and that I have found you,” he said quietly.

Her head lay back against the green leather of the couch. Her wet lashes shone iridescently, but her lips smiled tremblingly.

He leaned forward and stared up at her, resting his elbows on his knees.

He moved restlessly toward her. She arose and seated herself in a chair.

He moved from the couch and knelt down beside her. He took her hand. “When will you marry me?” he asked, simply.

“Hear the man!” she exclaimed. She withdrew her hand, but gazed indulgently down upon him. “Since when has the word 'marriage' been entered in his dictionary? And when has one ever referred to it with him? Could it be said that one had even faintly encouraged him?” Her eyes mocked him.

Carow arose. “When will you marry me?” he asked again.

“You looked very pale and tired when I came in” she observed, seriously.

“Perhaps,” he admitted, uninterestedly. “I don't recall that I slept last night.”

“Nor I—much,” she acknowledged, “but you don't look pale now,” she went on. ^

“No,” he laughed, “I have had an elixir. When will you marry me?” he observed, for the third time, but still with the casual note in his voice.

She did not answer him.

Her big eyes gazed fascinatedly up into his. Her lips parted and her breath began to come hurriedly. Carow bent still further and kissed her full on her scarlet lips. “Answer me,” he commanded imperiously, “I'll not wait another second. Quick, now, before the rest of the people come and interrupt us!”

“There are no people coming,” she said, smiling faintly, “the dinner-party's all a myth. I've even packed Auntie away for dinner and the evening. We are to dine alone!”

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: The Queen of Far-Away


text: Talk:The Queen of Far-Away

title: Talk:The Queen of Far-Away


text:
The Lost Children

RS. MARTIN heard Phoebe's bedroom door slam with the force characteristic of that decided young person. Simultaneously her husband's chair scraped back from his late and lonely dinner. He was coming slowly through the dining-room. Phoebe was running swiftly down the two flights of stairs. They would meet in the lower hall. Mrs. Martin stopped her work and listened, anticipating amusement.

Down came Phoebe. On came Mr. Martin. Her husband slopped suddenly. Mrs. Martin knew, without seeing it, just the expression that came into his face. She heard the airy bravado of Phoebe's, "Well, father, how do you like it?"

But Mr. Martin said nothing. Came Phoebe's gay laughter sweeping like a banner through the silence; came the swift patter of her high heels as she danced toward the kitchen to show Julia her gown. Then Mrs. Martin heard her husband's step approaching.

"Well, I've lost my little girl, mother," he said from the doorway. A note of real distress quivered in his voice, and he gazed about the pleasant living-room as if that, too, had lost some of the sweetness of familiarity.

In deference to his feeling, Mrs. Martin tried to look sympathetic, but her mouth trembled slightly.

Mr. Martin sank into the Morris-chair by the big reading table. "I don't see why you had to put her in long skirts so soon," he grumbled; "she's only a child still."

A tiny smile, full of a staid, middle-aged mischief, flicked across Mrs. Martin's lips. "Why, don't you like it, Ed?" she said, drawing him out artfully. "I think she looks splendid." She pushed the big green-shaded lamp a little nearer to his side of the table, as if to call his attention to the evening paper lying there.

"Like it!" He made no move toward the paper—ordinarily he seized it with avidity. "Of course I don't like it," he protested. "Couldn't you have put it off a little longer?"

Mrs. Martin laughed outright. "Oh, Ed!" she exclaimed. "The fact is," she went on more seriously, "I've really held Phoebe back, because she was so small for her age. And the sailor suits that girls are wearing so much nowadays have kept her looking young. But this last year she's shot up so. My land, I never saw a girl grow the way she has! She's seventeen and over now, you must remember. It's time she was in long skirts. And then she's kept at me so! I guess you know as well as anybody how Phoeb' can tease."

She paused as if expecting a reply. He grunted an assent.

"Some girls hate to go into long skirts, but Phoebe has always been crazy to grow up. I'm tickled enough, she's that kind. She's always had a great eye for dress ever since she was a little girl. Oh, I was so glad when I found out she was going to be vain—well, not vain, perhaps, but particular."

"Vain will do," her husband said with a certain grimness.

"I wasn't vain enough. I never cared what I wore, but Phoeb' has always been the fussiest child. But I knew just how you'd feel about her first long dress. I warned her never to mention that princess to you until it was finished or she'd never get a chance to put it on her back."

"Do you mean to tell me. Bertha, that you want her to grow up?" Mr. Martin demanded.

"Of course I do." She dropped her sewing to shake her hands in the gesture which her family knew betokened rapturous delight. "Why, Ed, you just think what fun it's going to be for me." Mrs. Martin, with an innocent, wifely malice, was playing on his mood. "That's more than half the fun of having a daughter—watching her grow up and living all through it again with her."

"Of course you know what it means." Mr. Martin's tone was that of one who prophesies dire calamities. "She'll be going to balls next."

"Of course she will," Mrs. Martin agreed serenely. "I'm going to let her go to all the school dances this year if she's asked. Mrs. Minot and I are going together and look on from the balcony. Phoeb'll be asked easy enough. She's a real pretty girl, and a lovely dancer. The young men won't be long in finding that out."

Mr. Martin stared at her. "Every Tom, Dick and Harry will be calling on her."

"Of course they will."

"Let me catch one of them round here," Martin threatened in a stormy irritation. "She's too young for that sort of thing."

"You don't seem to mind Tug Warburton," Mrs. Martin suggested.

"Tug!" her husband repeated. "Tug!" he reiterated scathingly. "Why, Tug comes over here to see Ernest!" He glared at his wife. The mischievous smile still played about her lips. "You don't mean to tell me, mother—oh, pshaw!"

Mrs. Martin stopped her darning and looked at him.

He was a tall, big man, nearing fifty. He had been a shy, stammering boy when she married him. Raw-boned and lumbering, his appearance then gave no trace of the sterling ability which, at thirty-five, suddenly began to develop in him. Now he had the alert air of a man of affairs. But, save for his silvering hair, he looked as young as when she first saw him. Without aging, he had changed, however. His figure had filled out, and he was even handsome in a large-featured, leonine way. He had not noticed the change, although she had watched it with the pride of possession. It had never occurred to her to tell him of it, though.

She, on the contrary, was much older than the girl to whom he had become engaged at the outset of his college career. Then she was just in the bud of her fragile, blonde beauty. Now she looked his elder by at least ten years. She was thin and meager. She had false teeth and she wore spectacles. But behind the round thick lenses of her glasses her eyes were soft. Hints of the delicate coloring of her youth lingered in her complexion. And her hair, which she always wore parted in the middle and trained tn frizzed bunches over her ears, accented the daguerreotype sweetness of her face. She was one of those women who always wear a shawl in the house. But under its transparent folds her shirt-waist, fitting trimly over her still pretty, sloping shoulders, gave her a curious effect of a faded, belated girlishness.

She had never been his intellectual equal, although he did not realize this. He knew only that she had taken spiritual heights that he could not achieve; his love for her had never lost its youthful quality of veneration.

"Why, you really do care, father," she said in wonder.

"Care? Of course I care! Didn't I tell you I'd lost my little girl? I feel as if she were dead. Then beside" He stopped short, for Phoebe stood in the doorway. But it was too late. She had caught his words.

"Oh, bother you, dad! What a trial you are to me!" Phoebe scolded.

She was a tall, slim girl; she had her father's features, softened to a piquant femininity, and her mother's charming coloring, become, in the second generation, a little more vivid and permanent. Her lips were brilliant. Her gray eyes were as limpid as tiny lakes. The cream of her skin, reinforced by some shadowing admixture, seemed almost dusky. She had a spirited look, but as yet the soul of the girl had not begun to shine through these lustrous surfaces.

The offending gown was a princess dress of a delicate, pale-yellow crêpe with insertions of lace. It did its soft full best to fulfil the charming promises of her immature figure. It came quite to her toes. That trait for which her mother professed to be so grateful—her interest in her personal appearance—showed itself in the care in which her hair, a turbulent, brown-gold mass, was trained to follow the contours of her little head, in the perkiness of the bows on her shoes, in the trim adjustment of the ribbon and lace at her neck.

She swept her father a series of curtsies, very low. She perched herself on the arm of his chair and began ruffling his hair until it stood out in all directions from his head; she smoothed it down again with one of her side-combs. He submitted meekly.

"What a goose you are, dad," she continued airily. "I suppose you'd be perfectly content to have me in short clothes until I was an old maid of twenty-five and people stared at me in the streets."

"I don't like to see a child forced into womanhood," her father retorted, trying hard not to be mollified.

"Well, it's lucky for me, dad, you haven't a word to say about anything that goes on in this house," she said, with the frank impertinence that was one of her great charms for  him, "not—a—word—to—say—about—anything—that—goes—on—in—this—house," she repeated tenderly, kissing him on the end of the nose with every word. "When I get married, daddy, I'm going to keep my husband under my thumb just the way mother has kept you."

He laughed at this in spite of himself. "But I suppose you probably won't ever let me get married," she went on.

She jumped from his chair and danced about the room. His eyes, still holding the lees of discontent, followed every move of her buoyant figure.

"I suppose if I did get engaged to be married you wouldn't let me wear my wedding dress because I hadn't grown up. I'd be married in a Peter Thompson suit if you had your way." At this picture she bubbled over with laughter. "I'd either have to wear a Peter Thompson or elope. That's what a father like you does—you drive a girl to eloping. Oh, father"—she interrupted herself suddenly with true feminine inconsequence—"the game this afternoon was great. There's a little junior at guard—Molly Tate—and she's a corker—dandy, I mean," she corrected herself under his reproving eye. "If we play Tyndal Hall next week, couldn't you come over with me? I want you to see"

Mrs. Martin, smiling a little to herself, went on darning. She was thinking how doggedly her husband had fought every maturing change that she had made in Phoebe's attire Even when she was a baby he had resented her first short clothes. And from that time on he had examined every new thing she bought the little girl. He always had convictions about her hats, her boots, the way her hair was done. Phoebe was almost four before Mrs. Martin could persuade him to let her have the child's long curls cut. He protested against each of the subsequent cuttings which Mrs. Martin insisted were necessary to strengthen and thicken it. The truth of the matter was that he did not like anything that made her look boyish or mature. It was the little girl in her that he adored, and after each new metamorphosis he was unhappy until he rediscovered that little girl again.

He had been quite different with Ernest, their son. He wanted to make a man of Ernest as soon as he could, Mrs. Martin reflected, with the surge of an old resentment. He never liked the little dresses she made for him, and Ernest had gone into trousers at three, skipping entirely the kilt epoch, upon which Mrs. Martin was depending to prolong his boyhood. When Ernest was three, without consulting her at all, Mr. Martin had the child's soft golden curls hacked off in what he called a "fighting cut." Again Mrs. Martin throbbed reminiscently with a sense of that injury. Up-stairs in her top bureau drawer still lay those curls. Mr. Martin had had presence of mind to bring them placatingly home from the barber's.

Phoebe was twisting before the mirror, one admiring eye on the unbroken line of the back of her princess gown; also she was talking. "Tug Warburton translated Timneo Danaos el dona ferentes, 'I fear the Greeks and their gifts something fierce.' You ought to have heard Mr. Ballington laugh. He said when he was at college somebody translated it 'I fear the Greeks and their fierce gifts,' but Tug held the record up to date.

"Oh, and, father, Mr. Ballington brought an edition of Plutarch to school to-day that he bought in Rome last summer, and let us all look at it. Printed in 1516, bound in parchment, and all marked up with the comments of some old bughouse—funny old scholar, I mean. Oh, it was perfectly lovely! I was just crazy about it."

Mrs. Martin was listening, but she did not interrupt. She had become accustomed to playing the silent auditor to Phoebe's long daily talks with her father. It was one of their family jokes that Phoebe was the apple of his eye and that her distinguished looking father was Phoebe's supreme family pride. Mrs. Martin took a great deal of delight in the friendship that supplemented their natural devotion. Sometimes she herself felt a little awe of the daughter who chattered so nimbly about Latin and Greek, was glad that Mr. Martin at least could meet Phoebe on an equal intellectual footing. Although she had never formulated it to herself, she knew this absorbed devotion to the girl-fruit of their union was the highest tribute he could pay her, his wife. He liked to indulge Phoebe as he had never been able to indulge her mother. The gold locket, for instance, which Phoebe was wearing at that moment. She knew that when he gave these things to Phoebe he was really giving them to her; he was trying to make up for the lean years when she had toiled and economized for him.

And when he was extravagant for Phoebe it was always at his own expense. Nothing, Mrs. Martin knew, could induce him to break into the monthly sum that he was putting away for Ernie's college education. Mr. Martin could no more have borrowed from this fund—Ernest's inherent right as the son of a Harvard man—than Mrs. Martin, to make presentable the ever-shabby Ernest, could have pilfered from the generous dress allowance which was Phoebe's' inherent right as an American girl.

"Here's Ern," Phoebe broke into these meditations suddenly; "I wonder what he'll say about my dress. Some knock, all right. Ern!" The door closed, but there was no footstep in their direction. "Ern! come in here!" she called again.

From where she sat Mrs. Martin could see her son reflected in the long hall mirror. From force of habit she watched him through the process of taking off his coat. He hung it up; paused for a moment as if in deep thought. Then, after a furtive, irresolute look about, he put his hand into a side pocket and brought out two or three small bundles. It was then precisely that Phoebe's peremptory "Ern!" rang out.

Ernest started as if it had been a bullet. Turning quickly, he thrust the bundles back into his coat pocket. Then he shambled into the living-room, tripping over the rug at the door.

Taller and bigger than Phoebe, though he was fifteen and she seventeen, Ernest was downy-cheeked and broad-shouldered, all nose, hands, and feet. In society his gray eyes always sulked. This was the only defense he had against the world. When he walked, especially if he fancied himself under observation, his arms and legs flew at all kinds of angles from his body. His voice broke at unexpected intervals.

When Phoebe looked at him she saw him exactly as he was—a gawky youth, his hands rough and dirty, his hair bristling, his clothes perpetually shabby.

When Mr. Martin looked at him he saw him exactly as he was—just boy, with the makings of a fine, athletic physique in his big, bulky body.

When Mrs. Martin looked at him she never saw him as he was. Sometimes she saw the cherubic, curly-headed baby of a dozen years ago, sometimes the stalwart, handsome, clear-cut youth of a few years ahead.

He advanced to the doorway and stood there, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

"What d'yer want, Phoeb'?" he asked huskily.

"What do you think of my new dress?" his sister demanded, for his expression showed no change.

"Oh, all right, I guess." Then, with true masculine conservatism: "Say, but your hair looks fierce that new way."

"Oh, of course," Phoebe returned, taking fire over the criticism she had invited. "You always hate any new way I do my hair, Ern Martin. Nothing I wear ever pleases you."

This was not at all true. Ernest was, in fact, exceedingly proud of his pretty sister, She was two grades ahead of him in High School, president and social arbitress of her class. It was openly asserted that she would be valedictorian. Ernest knew she was much admired by the boys. He realized that he held a certain standing among the seniors simply because he was Phoeb' Martin's brother. And aside from his admiration of the quality of leadership in her, he really thought her a pretty girl. More than once he had steered his "gang" a block out of the way for the secret purpose of intercepting her and showing her off to his friends. A deep, shy satisfaction came over him at the admiring silence which fell upon these lower classmen as they approached her, at the punctiliousness of their salutes. But, to make up to him for this weakness, his "Hullo, Phoeb'!" and his poke at his visor cap were carefully perfunctory.

Phoebe complained of this to her mother. "You tell Ernest, mother, that he is to take his hat entirely off his head when he meets me on the street or I sha'n't recognize him," she had threatened loftily.

This, transmitted to Ernest, elicited something unintelligible in defense and defiance. He would have died rather than confess, even to his mother, how much he admired his sister.

So at this moment Ernest thought her very pretty; but his ethics of boyhood forbade him to tell her so.

"What you would like me to do," Phoebe concluded, "is to wear it wound around my head like Molly Tate."

Ernest stiffened. "Aw, cut it out! I dunno how Molly Tate wears her hair," he returned hotly.

"Oh, no; of course you don't!" Phoebe jeered. "Carrying her books to school for her every day and"

"I don't, neither," Ernest contradicted. "I guess I've got something better to do than to be carryin' books for a lot of girls. I jes happened to be passing her house that morning, and she had such a lot of books she asked me to help her. I guess you needn't talk. Everybody's on to Tug Warburton hanging around the corner every morning for a half hour to carry your books."

"Toland is very kind about carrying everybody's books," Phoebe said in her most grown-up manner a manner whose labored loftiness and condescending sweetness she knew always infuriated her brother. "He not only carries my books for me, but occasionally he carries them for Molly. He is always to be relied on. He never loses them on the way, and as he washes his hands occasionally he returns them in the same condition in which he receives them." This was the retort sisterly and four-pronged. Her "Toland" rebuked him for the use of the nickname that Toland's mother was vainly beseeching that engaging scapegrace to live down. Any allusion on her part to "clean hands" always provoked a battle. Also, Ernest had lost one of Molly Tate's books and dropped one of his sister's in the mud.

To defend himself against this series of stings was like beating off a swarm of bees. Ernest shifted the attack to Toland. "Well, I'm glad I'm not like that sissy," he retorted, casting the foulest aspersion he knew.

"Stop this quarreling, children," interrupted Mrs. Martin. It came over her that Mr. Martin might send Ernie to his room if the discussion went any further. "It does seem to me, Phoebe, that you pick on Ernie an awful lot."

"Well, I guess if I didn't call him down once in a while there'd be no living with him. You think he's perfect, mother Martin." Phoebe, without waiting for a reply, ran out of the room and up-stairs.

Mrs. Martin reflected irritably that she was always the buffer in their microscopic family rows. She was eternally peace-making between Phoebe and her father, between Ernie and Phoebe, between Ernie and his father. If there was one thing she could criticize in Edward Martin it was his treatment of Ernie. Indulgent as he was to Phoebe, he kept a sharp and minatory eye on his son. Whenever he had any criticism to make of his daughter's conduct it was conveyed to her, properly softened, through his wife. But with Ernie he came straight out in unchastened language. Mrs. Martin was forever trying to anticipate his complaints, forever putting Ernest on his guard. It was always a surprise to Mrs. Martin when she came upon Ernest's underlying admiration for his father.

In the past Ernest had come to her whenever he wanted something from his father. Now—she remarked it with no sense of rancor, more with another prideful recognition of the bond between father and daughter—Ernie always went to his sister. And Phoebe, although she used the opportunity to drive bargains with her brother, invariably did her best.

At least, Mrs. Martin reflected gratefully, Phoebe and she never had to have any go-betweens. That was the joy of having a daughter. You always knew what a daughter was doing and thinking. Now a son

That little scene in the hall was the first overt evidence that something was wrong with Ernie. There had been something wrong for three days. She knew it absolutely, although wild horses would not have drawn the admission from her so long as what was verity in her mind could be only suspicion in another's. Something was wrong—she did not know what. Something was wrong—how she knew it she could not have told. With just the same impalpable organs of perception she had foreseen their troubles and feelings when they were babies—known long before anyone else noticed it when they were going to be sick.

If it had been Phoebe, her instincts would have told her all about it long before this. Phoebe was a girl creature—her daughter—part of herself. There had never been any need of explanations between them. She read Phoebe's mind as she read her own face in a mirror. But Ernie was alien. There lay between them a barrier—a barrier as delicate and intangible as mist or fog, a barrier strong as adamant—the insuperable barrier of sex. She could not know things about Ernie. She could only sense them. Some day, she told herself, she could not know so much of Ernie's life as she knew now, when she must guess, conjecture, surmise. That time must come. It was right that it should come, she assured herself fiercely.

Had it come?

It might be, this impalpable change of the last few days, only a sense of guilt. Boys of his age, she knew as well as anyone else, often committed minor peccadillos as impossible to the simplicities of an earlier age as to the maturity of a later one. She had seen him through much. She had cured him of lying and swearing, although she had been at her wits' ends to devise punishments for these crimes. At fourteen he had smoked his first cigar; she had not needed to punish him for that: Nature, to his father's grim delight, had taken the responsibility from her. He had not always been docile. There was the dreadful summer when be had gone in swimming repeatedly and against her orders. This was one of her absolute defeats; for he became so proficient in the end that his father had prevailed on her to repeat a law which was dead-letter from its inception. There was the next summer, even more dreadful, when he had learned how to sail a boat. She spent that summer on the back porch of their seaside cottage because it did not command a view of the water.

Like all boys, he had broken windows playing baseball; he had robbed orchards. Once, soon after he entered High School, the principal, Mr. Ballington, visited upon Ernest the supreme disgrace of sending for his mother. It appeared that her boy had been organizing pitched battles between his class and the one above it. Yes, Ernie had done the things that all boys do; but he had never done anything mean. His crimes had been honorable, the inevitable outcome of his hard young health and his boyish mischief.

What could it be now?

Ernest had been trimming a hanging piece of leather from the sole of his boot. He finished, hurled the trimmings (miraculously) into a waste-basket, and his voice broke into his mother's meditations.

"I'm going over to Tom's to-night, mother; Father won't kick, will he, if I stay a little late?"

"No," answered Mrs. Martin. "Be sure you don't let the cat out when you come in." Her voice and manner were tranquil; but when he hurried out of the room she watched his reflection in the mirror. He went straight to the bulging pocket of his coat. She saw him fumble an instant. Then, concealing his bundles with his hands flat against his chest, he dashed up-stairs to his room. In another moment he came running down, dove into his coat, and raced out into the street.

What had he taken up to his room? Mrs. Martin's heart beat fast. She had an impulse to turn to her husband and confide in him. But, obeying that instinct which compels mothers to shield their boy young as long as possible, she checked it.

Phoebe, the sweetest of girlish visions, came floating down the stairs. Over her princess gown she wore a long blue evening cape, on her soft hair a big, frilly blue scarf.

Mrs. Martin kissed her mechanically. Mechanically Mrs. Martin watched her link her arm in her father's and trip down the street, talking busily. But she did not see either of them. Even after they had turned the corner she stood for a moment staring abstractedly after them. Then a blinding terror sent her scurrying to Ernest's room. It was a big, square chamber. It was filled with the litter that accumulates out of the successive collecting manias of a growing boy. The big black-walnut book-case, long ago rejected from the living-room, was filled with minerals and shells laboriously labeled, with birds' nests and birds' eggs, with stamp albums and picture postal cards. His trunk, his tool chest and his closet all ran over. Mrs. Martin stood looking about her with the air of one who has never seen the place before. The idea came to her to make a thorough search of his things. But even as she moved toward the bureau something held her back. She struggled with herself. She repeated to herself over and over that she, Ernie's mother, had the right to see anything that was his. But the something still held her back. It was as though the ghost of Ernie's manhood stood on guard there. It came to her that her right had gone. Suddenly she turned and walked out of the room.

Mr. Martin was just coming in. "Well, I have lost my little girl," he remarked again, But this time his despair was comic. "What do you think she told me? She said I needn't come after her to-night. Tug Warburton is going to bring her home."

It was after eleven when Ernest came home. Phoebe, returning promptly at eleven, had gone to bed and to sleep long ago. Mr. Martin, secure in his wife's statement that she had told Ernest he could stay out later than usual, was sleeping tranquilly. Mrs. Martin lay quiet, but tense and wide-eyed, listening. It seemed as though Ernest would never come.

At last she heard steps coming up the asphalt walk, steps creaking stealthily over the piazza, steps tiptoeing into the house. Some of her tension relaxed, but she listened as breathlessly as ever.

Mrs. Martin could never sleep so long as any member of the family was out. Dozens of times she had lain just so, waiting for Ernie. Now as always she visualized his actions.

The steps she heard next were taking him into the hall closet. In the pause which succeeded he was hanging up his coat and hat. Now he was going into the kitchen. She could hear him moving ponderously about there, making efforts, boyishly awkward, to muffle his noise. Now be was getting out the molasses jug. Now he was cutting the half-dozen thick slices of bread that would reduce one of Julia's creamy loaves to a heel. For the first time she failed to smile at his childish love of bread and molasses. Then came another pause.

She listened.

He was not sitting down to his bread and molasses; he was moving about. She could hear him jingling about the gas stove. Could it be possible that he was cooking something? No, that was not probable. Ernie had never cooked anything in his life. Besides, there were cookies, pie, cake, any number of things for him to eat if he was unusually hungry. No, something mysterious was going on down there. She pictured him bending over the stove, a slice of bread, dribbling molasses, in his hand. What could he be doing? Another moment and she heard him filling the tea-kettle. He was heating water. What on earth

Could it be that he felt ill? But her instinct rejected this; told her that, whatever he might be doing, it was connected with the mystery of the last two or three days. Now was her chance to find out. Involuntarily she sat straight up in bed. Should she go down there and confront him? Something held her back. Something compelled her to wait.

A long time went by.

Then she heard him come, quietly for him, out of the kitchen and up the stairs. He came with care and caution. She continued to visualize the scene. She sat up, her hand to her forehead, and it seemed to her that her soul walked with him. That extra sense in mothers flashed the truth to her. He was carrying something which had to be managed with skill and delicacy. Should she get up and meet him?

Something held her back. Something compelled her to wait.

She heard him fumble at the door of his room. She heard the door open. She heard it shut.

And then, quite suddenly, the thing which had been holding her back fettered her no longer. So quietly that she made no sound, she rose and slipped into her bed slippers. Her door was open. Still soundless, she crept down the hall to Ernie's room.

It occurred to her that this was the most awful moment she had known since her mother died. What might come of it? She dared not speculate on that, for she must go on. Every instant a fresh impulse held her back. Every instant a stronger one hurried her forward.

Noiselessly she knelt in front of Ernest's door and looked through the keyhole.

At the farther end of the room, his back to her, was Ernest standing before a hand mirror that dangled from the flaring gaslight. He was shaving.

Mrs. Martin never knew what happened immediately afterward. But presently she found herself clinging to the doorway of her chamber. Mr. Martin was bending over her.

"What's the matter, Bertha?" he asked in alarm.

"Oh, Edward," she wailed, "I can't bear it—I can't bear it! Now I understand how you felt about Phoebe. I've lost my little boy. I've lost Ernie."

"Lost Ernie, mother! What do you mean?"

"He's shaving," Mrs. Martin sobbed.

If Mr. Martin's man sense of humor showed him that the situation was comic, he concealed it immediately. "Don't cry any more, mother," he begged, patting her gently on the shoulder. "You've not lost him—he's only changed. It's all right."

"Oh, I know it's all right," Mrs. Martin said, clinging to him. "Of course it's all right. But, oh, I'm glad of one thing. You don't change."

title: The Lost Children


text: Talk:The Lost Children

title: Talk:The Lost Children


text: Crotchet Castle/Chapter 10

title: Crotchet Castle/Chapter 10


text:
Page:Crotchet Castle - Peacock (1831).djvu/213

 him in a day or two. This is the little song I spoke of:


text:
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 sells his daughter, that he may continue to sell his country. But you were inquiring for a guide to the ruined castle in this vicinity; I know the way, and will conduct you.

The proposal pleased Mr. Chainmail, and they set forth on their expedition.


text:
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 interesting combination to the eye of the young antiquary.

Mr. Chainmail had to pass half round the castle, on the land side, before he could reach the entrance: he coasted the dry and bramble-grown moat, crossed the unguarded bridge, passed the unportcullised arch of the gateway, entered the castle court, ascertained the tower, ascended the broken stairs, and stood on the ivied wall. But the nymph of the place was gone. He searched the ruins within and without, but he found not what he sought: he haunted the castle day after day, as he had done the lake, but the damsel appeared no more.


text:
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 Her eyes were yet to be seen; but how could he doubt that their opening would be the rising of the sun, when all that surrounded their fringy portals was radiant as "the forehead of the morning sky?"


text:
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 accepting the farmer's hospitality till morning. The evening set in with rain: the fire was found agreeable; they drew around it. The young lady made tea; and afterwards, from time to time, at Mr. Chainmail's special request, delighted his ear with passages of ancient music. Then came a supper of lake trout, fried on the spot, and thrown, smoking hot, from the pan to the plate. Then came a brewage, which the farmer called his nightcap, of which he insisted on Mr. Chainmail's taking his full share. After which, the gentleman remembered nothing, till he awoke, the next morning, to the pleasant consciousness, that he was under the same roof with one of the most fascinating creatures under the canopy of heaven.


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 be kept; the essence of a safe and economical currency being an interminable series of broken promises. There seems to be a difference among the learned as to the way in which the promises ought to be broken; but I am not deep enough in their casuistry to enter into such nice distinctions."

In a few days there was a wedding, a pathetic leave-taking of the farmer's family, a hundred kisses from the bride to the children, and promises twenty times reclaimed and renewed, to visit them in the ensuing year.


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 est of female virtues, for she superintends the household, and looks after her husband's dinner. I believe she was a mountaineer:, as Nonnus sweetly sings.


text:
Page:Fact Sheet on U.S. Security Assistance to Ukraine June 9, 2023.pdf/2

 * Equipment to integrate Western air defense launchers, missiles, and radars with Ukraine’s air defense systems;
 * Equipment to sustain Ukraine’s existing air defense capabilities;
 * High-speed Anti-radiation missiles (HARMs);
 * Precision aerial munitions;
 * Over 6,000 Zuni aircraft rockets;
 * Over 7,000 Hydra-70 aircraft rockets;
 * Munitions for Unmanned Aerial Systems;
 * 20 Mi-17 helicopters;
 * 31 Abrams tanks;
 * 45 T-72B tanks;
 * 120mm and 105mm tank ammunition;
 * 109 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles;
 * Four Bradley Fire Support Team vehicles;
 * Over 2,000 High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWVs);
 * Over 100 light tactical vehicles;
 * 68 trucks and 124 trailers to transport heavy equipment;
 * Eight logistics support vehicles and equipment;
 * 89 heavy fuel tankers and 105 fuel trailers;
 * 90 Stryker Armored Personnel Carriers;
 * 300 M113 Armored Personnel Carriers;
 * 250 M1117 Armored Security Vehicles;
 * Over 500 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles (MRAPs);
 * Six armored utility trucks;
 * Mine clearing equipment;
 * Over 35,000 grenade launchers and small arms;
 * Over 200,000,000 rounds of small arms ammunition and grenades;
 * Over 100,000 sets of body armor and helmets;
 * Switchblade Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS);
 * Phoenix Ghost UAS;
 * CyberLux K8 UAS;
 * Altius-600 UAS;
 * Jump-20 UAS;
 * Puma UAS;
 * Scan Eagle UAS;
 * Two radars for UAS;
 * Laser-guided rocket systems and munitions;
 * Unmanned Coastal Defense Vessels;
 * Over 70 counter-artillery and counter-mortar radars;
 * 20 multi-mission radars;
 * Counter-Unmanned Aerial Systems and equipment;
 * Counter air defense capability;
 * 21 air surveillance radars;
 * Two Harpoon coastal defense systems;
 * 62 coastal and riverine patrol boats;
 * Port and harbor security equipment;


text:
Page:Fact Sheet on U.S. Security Assistance to Ukraine June 9, 2023.pdf/3

 * M18A1 Claymore anti-personnel munitions;
 * Anti-tank mines;
 * C-4 explosives, demolition munitions, and demolition equipment for obstacle clearing;
 * Obstacle emplacement equipment;
 * Tactical secure communications systems and support equipment;
 * Four satellite communications antennas;
 * SATCOM terminals and services;
 * Thousands of night vision devices, surveillance systems, thermal imagery systems, optics, and laser rangefinders;
 * Commercial satellite imagery services;
 * Explosive ordnance disposal equipment and protective gear;
 * Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear protective equipment;
 * 200 armored medical treatment vehicles;
 * Medical supplies to include first aid kits, bandages, monitors, and other equipment;
 * Electronic jamming equipment;
 * Field equipment, cold weather gear, generators, and spare parts;
 * Support for training, maintenance, and sustainment activities.

The United States also continues to work with its Allies and partners to provide Ukraine with additional capabilities to defend itself.


text:
Page:Fact Sheet on U.S. Security Assistance to Ukraine June 9, 2023.pdf/1

In total, the United States has committed more than $40.4 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of the Biden Administration, including more than $39.7 billion since the beginning of Russia’s unprovoked and brutal invasion on February 24, 2022.

United States security assistance committed to Ukraine includes:

 * Over 1,700 Stinger anti-aircraft systems;
 * Over 10,000 Javelin anti-armor systems;
 * Over 60,000 other anti-armor systems and munitions;
 * Over 160 155mm Howitzers and over 2,000,000 155mm artillery rounds;
 * Over 7,000 precision-guided 155mm artillery rounds;
 * Over 14,000 155mm rounds of Remote Anti-Armor Mine (RAAM) Systems;
 * 100,000 rounds of 125mm tank ammunition;
 * 10,000 203mm artillery rounds;
 * Over 50,000 152mm artillery rounds;
 * Approximately 40,000 130mm artillery rounds;
 * 40,000 122mm artillery rounds;
 * 60,000 122mm GRAD rockets;
 * 72 105mm Howitzers and over 500,000 105mm artillery rounds;
 * Over 300 tactical vehicles to tow weapons;
 * 54 tactical vehicles to recover equipment;
 * 30 ammunition support vehicles;
 * 18 armored bridging systems;
 * 38 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems and ammunition;
 * 47 120mm mortar systems;
 * 10 82mm mortar systems;
 * 67 81mm mortar systems;
 * 58 60mm mortar systems;
 * Over 345,000 mortar rounds;
 * Over 4,000 Tube-Launched, Optically-Tracked, Wire-Guided (TOW) missiles;
 * Rocket launchers and ammunition;
 * Over 1,800,000 rounds of 25mm ammunition;
 * Precision-guided rockets;
 * 10 command post vehicles;
 * One Patriot air defense battery and munitions;
 * Eight National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) and munitions;
 * HAWK air defense systems and munitions;
 * RIM-7 missiles for air defense;
 * 20 Avenger air defense systems;
 * Nine c-UAS gun trucks and ammunition;
 * 10 mobile c-UAS laser-guided rocket systems;
 * Anti-aircraft guns and ammunition;


text:
Page:Fact Sheet on U.S. Security Assistance to Ukraine June 13, 2023.pdf/3

 * M18A1 Claymore anti-personnel munitions;
 * Anti-tank mines;
 * C-4 explosives, demolition munitions, and demolition equipment for obstacle clearing;
 * Obstacle emplacement equipment;
 * Tactical secure communications systems and support equipment;
 * Four satellite communications antennas;
 * SATCOM terminals and services;
 * Thousands of night vision devices, surveillance systems, thermal imagery systems, optics, and laser rangefinders;
 * Commercial satellite imagery services;
 * Explosive ordnance disposal equipment and protective gear;
 * Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear protective equipment;
 * 200 armored medical treatment vehicles;
 * Medical supplies to include first aid kits, bandages, monitors, and other equipment;
 * Electronic jamming equipment;
 * Field equipment, cold weather gear, generators, and spare parts;
 * Support for training, maintenance, and sustainment activities.

The United States also continues to work with its Allies and partners to provide Ukraine with additional capabilities to defend itself.


text:
Page:Fact Sheet on U.S. Security Assistance to Ukraine June 13, 2023.pdf/2

 * Equipment to integrate Western air defense launchers, missiles, and radars with Ukraine’s air defense systems;
 * Equipment to sustain Ukraine’s existing air defense capabilities;
 * High-speed Anti-radiation missiles (HARMs);
 * Precision aerial munitions;
 * Over 6,000 Zuni aircraft rockets;
 * Over 7,000 Hydra-70 aircraft rockets;
 * Munitions for Unmanned Aerial Systems;
 * 20 Mi-17 helicopters;
 * 31 Abrams tanks;
 * 45 T-72B tanks;
 * 120mm and 105mm tank ammunition;
 * Over 120 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles;
 * Four Bradley Fire Support Team vehicles;
 * Over 2,000 High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWVs);
 * Over 100 light tactical vehicles;
 * 68 trucks and 124 trailers to transport heavy equipment;
 * Eight logistics support vehicles and equipment;
 * 89 heavy fuel tankers and 105 fuel trailers;
 * 100 Stryker Armored Personnel Carriers;
 * 300 M113 Armored Personnel Carriers;
 * 250 M1117 Armored Security Vehicles;
 * Over 500 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles (MRAPs);
 * Six armored utility trucks;
 * Mine clearing equipment;
 * Over 35,000 grenade launchers and small arms;
 * Over 200,000,000 rounds of small arms ammunition and grenades;
 * Over 100,000 sets of body armor and helmets;
 * Switchblade Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS);
 * Phoenix Ghost UAS;
 * CyberLux K8 UAS;
 * Altius-600 UAS;
 * Jump-20 UAS;
 * Puma UAS;
 * Scan Eagle UAS;
 * Two radars for UAS;
 * Laser-guided rocket systems and munitions;
 * Unmanned Coastal Defense Vessels;
 * Over 70 counter-artillery and counter-mortar radars;
 * 20 multi-mission radars;
 * Counter-Unmanned Aerial Systems and equipment;
 * Counter air defense capability;
 * 21 air surveillance radars;
 * Two Harpoon coastal defense systems;
 * 62 coastal and riverine patrol boats;
 * Port and harbor security equipment;


text:
Page:Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Vol 15.djvu/7

 OF THE

11, 1866, 23, 1867

VOL. XV.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY TAYLOR AND FRANCIS,

RED LION COURT, FLEET STREET.

MDCCCLXVII.


text:
Page:Clotel (1853).djvu/167

 was possessed of a large fortune; and his high spirit would not, for a moment, allow him to place himself in a position to be regarded as a fortune-hunter. The young girl hinted, as best she could, at the probable future; but all to no purpose. He took nothing to himself. True, she had read much of "woman's rights;" and had even attended a meeting, while at the North, which had been called to discuss the wrongs of woman; but she could not nerve herself up to the point of putting the question to Carlton, although she felt sure that she should not be rejected. She waited, but in vain. At last, one evening, she came out of her room rather late, and was walking on the piazza for fresh air. She passed near Carlton's room, and heard the voice of Sam. The negro had just come in to get the young man's boots, and had stopped, as he usually did, to have some talk. "I wish," said Sam, "dat Marser Carlton an Miss Georgy would get married; den, I 'spec, we'd have good times." "I don't think your mistress would have me," replied the young man. "What make tink dat, Marser Carlton?" "Your mistress would marry no one, Sam, unless she loved them." "Den I wish she would lub you, cause I tink we have good times den. All our folks is de same 'pinion like me," returned the negro, and then left the room with the boots in his hands. During the conversation between the Anglo-Saxon and the African, one word had been dropped by the former that haunted the young lady the remainder of the night—"Your mistress would marry no one unless she loved them." That word awoke her in the morning, and caused her to decide upon this important subject. Love and duty triumphed over the woman's timid nature, and that day Georgiana informed Carlton that she was ready to become his wife. The young man, with grateful

title: Page:Clotel (1853).djvu/167


text:
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 tears, accepted and kissed the hand that was offered to him. The marriage of Carlton and Miss Peck was hailed with delight by both the servants in the house and the negroes on the farm. New rules were immediately announced for the working and general treatment of the slaves on the plantation. With this, Huckelby, the overseer, saw his reign coming to an end; and Snyder, the Dutch preacher, felt that his services would soon be dispensed with, for nothing was more repugnant to the feelings of Mrs. Carlton than the sermons preached by Snyder to the slaves. She regarded them as something intended to make them better satisfied with their condition, and more valuable as pieces of property, without preparing them for the world to come. Mrs. Carlton found in her husband a congenial spirit, who entered into all her wishes and plans for bettering the condition of their slaves. Mrs. Carlton's views and sympathies were all in favour of immediate emancipation; but then she saw, or thought she saw, a difficulty in that. If the slaves were liberated, they must be sent out of the state. This, of course, would incur additional expense; and if they left the state, where had they better go? "Let's send them to Liberia," said Carlton. "Why should they go to Africa, any more than to the Free States or to Canada?" asked the wife. "They would be in their native land," he answered. "Is not this their native land? What right have we, more than the negro, to the soil here, or to style ourselves native Americans? Indeed it is as much their homes as ours, and I have sometimes thought it was more theirs. The negro has cleared up the lands, built towns, and enriched the soil with his blood and tears; and in return, he is to be sent to a country of which he knows nothing. Who fought more bravely for American independence than the blacks? A

title: Page:Clotel (1853).djvu/168


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 negro, by the name of Attucks, was the first that fell in Boston at the commencement of the revolutionary war; and, throughout the whole of the struggles for liberty in this country, the negroes have contributed their share. In the last war with Great Britain, the country was mainly indebted to the blacks in New Orleans for the achievement of the victory at that place; and even General Jackson, the commander in chief, called the negroes together at the close of the war, and addressed them in the following terms:—

"And what did these noble men receive in return for their courage, their heroism? Chains and slavery. Their good deeds have been consecrated only in their own memories. Who rallied with more alacrity in response to the summons of danger? If in that hazardous hour, when our homes were menaced with the horrors of war, we did not disdain to call upon the negro to assist in repelling invasion, why should we, now that the danger is past, deny him a home in his native land?" "I see," said

title: Page:Clotel (1853).djvu/169


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 Carlton, "you are right, but I fear you will have difficulty in persuading others to adopt your views." "We will set the example," replied she, "and then hope for the best; for I feel that the people of the Southern States will one day see their error. Liberty has always been our watchword, as far as profession is concerned. Nothing has been held so cheap as our common humanity, on a national average. If every man had his aliquot proportion of the injustice done in this land, by law and violence, the present freemen of the northern section would many of them commit suicide in self-defence, and would court the liberties awarded by Ali Pasha of Egypt to his subjects. Long ere this we should have tested, in behalf of our bleeding and crushed American brothers of every hue and complexion, every new constitution, custom, or practice, by which inhumanity was supposed to be upheld, the injustice and cruelty they contained, emblazoned before the great tribunal of mankind for condemnation; and the good and available power they possessed, for the relief, deliverance and elevation of oppressed men, permitted to shine forth from under the cloud, for the refreshment of the human race."

Although Mr. and Mrs. Carlton felt that immediate emancipation was the right of the slave and the duty of the master, they resolved on a system of gradual emancipation, so as to give them time to accomplish their wish, and to prepare the negro for freedom. Huckelby was one morning told that his services would no longer be required. The negroes, ninety-eight in number, were called together and told that the whip would no longer be used, and that they would be allowed a certain sum for every bale of cotton produced. Sam, whose long experience in the cotton-field before he had been taken into the house, and whose general intelligence justly gave him the

title: Page:Clotel (1853).djvu/170


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 first place amongst the negroes on the Poplar Farm, was placed at their head. They were also given to understand that the money earned by them would be placed to their credit; and when it amounted to a certain sum, they should all be free.

The joy with which this news was received by the slaves, showed their grateful appreciation of the boon their benefactors were bestowing upon them. The house servants were called and told that wages would be allowed them, and what they earned set to their credit, and they too should be free. The next were the bricklayers. There were eight of these, who had paid their master two dollars per day, and boarded and clothed themselves. An arrangement was entered into with them, by which the money they earned should be placed to their credit; and they too should be free, when a certain amount should be accumulated; and great was the change amongst all these people. The bricklayers had been to work but a short time, before their increased industry was noticed by many. They were no longer apparently the same people. A sedateness, a care, an economy, an industry, took possession of them, to which there seemed to be no bounds but in their physical strength. They were never tired of labouring, and seemed as though they could never effect enough. They became temperate, moral, religious, setting an example of innocent, unoffending lives to the world around them, which was seen and admired by all. Mr. Parker, a man who worked nearly forty slaves at the same business, was attracted by the manner in which these negroes laboured. He called on Mr. Carlton, some weeks after they had been acting on the new system, and offered 2,000 dollars for the head workman, Jim. The offer was, of course, refused. A few days after the same gentleman called again, and made an offer of double the sum that he had on the former

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. Mr. Parker, finding that no money would purchase either of the negroes, said, "Now, Mr. Carlton, pray tell mo what it is that makes your negroes work so? What kind of people are they?" "I suppose," observed Carlton, "that they are like other poople, flesh and blood." "Why, sir," continued Parker, "I have never seen such people; building as they are next door to my residence, I see and have my eye on them from morning till night. You are never there, for I have never met you, or seen you once at the building. Why, sir, I am an early riser, getting up before day; and do you think that I am not awoke every morning in my life by the noise of their trowels at work, and their singing and noise before day; and do you suppose, sir, that they stop or leave off work at sundown? No, sir, but they work as long as they can see to lay a brick, and then they carry up brick and mortar for an hour or two afterward, to be ahead of their work the next morning. And again, sir, do you think that they walk at their work? No, sir, they run all day. You see, sir, those immensely long ladders, five stories in height; do you suppose they walk up them? No, sir, they run up and down them like so many monkeys all day long. I never saw such people as these in my life. I don't know what to make of them. Were a white man with them and over them with a whip, then I should see and understand the cause of the running and incessant labour; but I cannot comprehend it; there is something in it, sir. Great man, Sir, that Jim; great man; I should like to own him." Carlton here informed Parker that their liberties depended upon their work; when the latter replied, "If niggers can work so for the promise of freedom, they ought to be made to work without it." This last remark was in the true spirit of the slaveholder, and reminds us of the fact that, some years since, the overseer of General

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 Wade Hampton offered the niggers under him a suit of clothes to the one that picked the most cotton in one day; and after that time that day's work was given as a task to the slaves on that plantation; and, after a while, was adopted by other planters.

The negroes on the farm, under "Marser Sam," were also working in a manner that attracted the attention of the planters round about. They no longer feared Huckelby's whip, and no longer slept under the preaching of Snyder. On the Sabbath, Mr. and Mrs. Carlton read and explained the Scriptures to them; and the very great attention paid by the slaves showed plainly that they appreciated the gospel when given to them in its purity. The death of Currer, from yellow fever, was a great trial to Mrs. Carlton; for she had not only become much attached to her, but had heard with painful interest the story of her wrongs, and would, in all probability, have restored her to her daughter in New Orleans.

title: Page:Clotel (1853).djvu/173


text: Clotel/Chapter 18

title: Clotel/Chapter 18


text:
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 breathed the air of freedom. A few weeks later, and, on the same road, two slaves were seen passing; one was on. horseback, the other was walking before him with his arms tightly bound, and a long rope leading from the man on foot to the one on horseback. "Oh, ho, that's a runaway rascal, I suppose," said a farmer, who met them on the road. "Yes, sir, he bin runaway, and I got him fast. Marser will tan his jacket for him nicely when he gets him." "You are a trustworthy fellow, I imagine," continued the farmer. "Oh yes, sir; marser puta a heap of confidence in dis nigger." And the slaves travelled on. When the one on foot was fatigued they would change positions, the other being tied and driven on foot. This they called "ride and tie." After a journey of more than two hundred miles they reached the Ohio river, turned the horse loose, told him to go home, and proceeded on their way to Canada. However they were not to have it all their own way. There are men in the Free States, and especially in the states adjacent to the Slave States, who make their living by catching the runaway slave, and returning him for the reward that may be offered. As the two slaves above mentioned were travelling on towards the land of freedom, led by the North Star, they were set upon by four of these slave-catchers, and one of them unfortunately captured. The other escaped. The captured fugitive was put under the torture, and compelled to reveal the name of his owner and his place of residence. Filled with delight, the kidnappers started back with their victim. Overjoyed with the prospect of receiving a large reward, they gave themselves up on the third night to pleasure. They put up at an inn. The negro was chained to the bed-post, in the same room with his captors. At dead of night, when all was still, the slave arose from the floor upon

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 which he had been lying, looked around, and saw that the white men were fast asleep. The brandy punch had done its work. With palpitating heart and trembling limbs he viewed his position. The door was fast, but the warm weather had compelled them to leave the window open. If he could but get his chains off, he might escape through the window to the piazza, and reach the ground by one of the posts that supported the piazza. The sleeper's clothes hung upon chairs by the bedside; the slave thought of the padlock key, examined the pockets and found it. The chains were soon off, and the negro stealthily making his way to the window: he stopped and said to himself, "These men are villains, they are enemies to all who like me are trying to be free. Then why not I teach them a lesson?" He then undressed himself, took the clothes of one of the men, dressed himself in them, and escaped through the window, and, a moment more, he was on the high road to Canada. Fifteen days later, and the writer of this gave him a passage across Lake Erie, and saw him safe in her Britannic Majesty's dominions.

We have seen Clotel sold to Mr. French in Vicksburgh, her hair cut short, and everything done to make her realise her position as a servant. Then we have seen her re-sold, because her owners feared she would die through grief. As yet her new purchaser treated her with respectful gentleness, and sought to win her favour by flattery and presents, knowing that whatever he gave her he could take back again. But she dreaded every moment lest the scene should change, and trembled at the sound of every footfall. At every interview with her new master Clotel stoutly maintained that she had left a husband in Virginia, and would never think of taking another. The gold watch and chain, and other glittering presents which he purchased for her, were all

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 laid aside by the quadroon, as if they were of no value to her. In the same house with her was another servant, a man, who had from time to time hired himself from his master. William was his name. He could feel for Clotel, for he, like her, had been separated from near and dear relatives, and often tried to console the poor woman. One day the quadroon observed to him that her hair was growing out again. "Yes," replied William, "you look a good deal like a man with your short hair." "Oh," rejoined she, "I have often been told that I would make a better looking man than a woman. If I had the money," continued she, "I would bid farewell to this place." In a moment more she feared that she had said too much, and smilingly remarked, "I am always talking nonsense." William was a tall, full-bodied negro, whose very countenance beamed with intelligence. Being a mechanic, he had, by his own industry, made more than what he paid his owner; this he laid aside, with the hope that some day he might get enough to purchase his freedom. He had in his chest one hundred and fifty dollars. His was a heart that felt for others, and he had again and again wiped the tears from his eyes as he heard the story of Clotel as related by herself. "If she can get free with a little money, why not give her what I have?" thought he, and then he resolved to do it. An hour after, he came into tho quadroon's room, and laid the money in her lap, and said, "There, Miss Clotel, you said if you had the means you would leave this place; there is money enough to take you to England, where you will be free. You are much fairer than many of the white women of the South, and can easily pass for a free white lady." At first Clotel feared that it was a plan by which the negro wished to try her fidelity to her owner; but she was soon convinced by his

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 earnest manner, and the deep, feeling with which he spoke, that he was honest. "I will take the money only on one condition," said she; "and that is, that I effect your escape as well as my own." "How can that be done?" he inquired. "I will assume the disguise of a gentleman and you that of a servant, and we will take passage on a steamboat and go to Cincinnati, and thence to Canada." Here William putin several objections to the plan. He feared detection, and he well knew that, when a slave is once caught when attempting to escape, if returned is sure to be worse treated than before. However, Clotel satisfied him that the plan could be carried out if he would only play his part.

The resolution was taken, the clothes for her disguise procured, and before night everything was in readiness for their departure. That night Hr. Cooper, their master, was to attend a party, and this was their opportunity. William went to the wharf to look out for a boat, and had scarcely reached the landing ere he heard the puffing of a steamer. He returned and reported the fact. Clotel had already packed her trunk, and had only to dress and all was ready. In less than an hour they were on board the boat. Under the assumed name of "Hr. Johnson," Clotel went to the clerk's office and took a private state room for herself, and paid her own and servant's fare. Besides being attired in a neat suit of black, she had a white silk handkerchief tied round her chin, as if she was an invalid. A pair of green glasses covered her eyes; and fearing that she would be talked to too much and thus render her liable to be detected, she assumed to be very ill. On the other hand, William was playing his part well in the servants' hall; he was talking loudly of his master's wealth. Nothing appeared as good on the boat "as in his master's fine mansion. "I don't like dees

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 no how," said William; "I hope when marser goes on a journey agin he will take do carriage and de hosses." Mr. Johnson (for such was the name by which Clotel now went) remained in his room, to avoid as far as possible, conversation with others. After a passage of seven days they arrived at Louisville, and put up at Gough's Hotel. Here they had to await the departure of another boat for the North. They were now in their most critical position. They were still in a slave state, and John C. Calhoun, a distinguished slave-owner, was a guest at this hotel. They feared, also, that trouble would attend their attempt to leave this place for the North, as all persons taking negroes with them have to give bail that such negroes are not runaway slaves. The law upon this point is very stringent: all steam-boats and other public conveyances are liable to a fine for every slave that escapes by them, besides paying the full value for the slave. After a delay of four hours, Mr. Johnson and servant took passage on the steamer Rodolph, for Pittsburgh. It is usual, before the departure of the boats, for an officer to examine every part of the vessel to see that no slave secretes himself on board, "Where are you going?" asked the officer of William, as he was doing his duty on this occasion. "I am going with marser," was the quick reply. "Who is your master?" "Mr. Johnson, sir, a gentleman in the cabin." "You must take him to the office and satisfy that captain that all is right, or you can't go on this boat." William informed his master what the officer had said. The boat was on the eve of going, and no time could be lost, yet they knew not what to do. At last they went to the office, and Mr. Johnson, addressing the captain, said, "I am informed that my boy can't go with mo unless I give security that he belongs to me." "Yes," replied the captain,

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