initial commit of ebook 5435HEAD main

author: Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> 2025-10-15 05:25:34 -0700
committer: Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> 2025-10-15 05:25:34 -0700
commit: b59cae3808b6810ecaa69929aa6cad66025a6a12 (patch)
tree: 5238ae75e569b011b46c9507866e6c29968c2ed5 /5435-h
1 files changed, 8806 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/5435-h/5435-h.htm b/5435-h/5435-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..14932bd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/5435-h/5435-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,8806 @@
+<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"
+"http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd">
+<html>
+<head>
+<title>The Stillwater Tragedy by Thomas Bailey Aldrich</title>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content=
+"text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
+</head>
+<body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's The Stillwater Tragedy, by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Stillwater Tragedy
+
+Author: Thomas Bailey Aldrich
+
+Release Date: April, 2004  [EBook #5435]
+Posting Date: July 11, 2010
+[This file last updated on July 21, 2010]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STILLWATER TRAGEDY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by This eBook was created by Charles Aldarondo
+(pg@aldarondo.net).
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<h1 align="center">The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Stillwater
+Tragedy, by Thomas Bailey Aldrich</h1>
+
+<h2 align="center">(#8 in our series by Thomas Bailey
+Aldrich)</h2>
+
+<h1>The Stillwater Tragedy</h1>
+
+<p>By Thomas Bailey Aldrich</p>
+
+<h2>I</h2>
+
+<p>It is close upon daybreak. The great wall of pines and
+hemlocks that keep off the west wind from Stillwater stretches
+black and indeterminate against the sky. At intervals a dull,
+metallic sound, like the guttural twang of a violin string, rises
+form the frog-invested swamp skirting the highway. Suddenly the
+birds stir in their nests over there in the woodland, and break
+into that wild jargoning chorus with which they herald the advent
+of a new day. In the apple-orchards and among the plum-trees of
+the few gardens in Stillwater, the wrens and the robins and the
+blue-jays catch up the crystal crescendo, and what a melodious
+racket they make of it with their fifes and flutes and
+flageolets!</p>
+
+<p>The village lies in a trance like death. Possibly not a soul
+hears this music, unless it is the watchers at the bedside of Mr.
+Leonard Tappleton, the richest man in town, who has lain dying
+these three days, and cannot last until sunrise. Or perhaps some
+mother, drowsily hushing her wakeful baby, pauses a moment and
+listens vacantly to the birds singing. But who else?</p>
+
+<p>The hubbub suddenly ceases,--ceases as suddenly as it
+began,--and all is still again in the woodland. But it is not so
+dark as before. A faint glow of white light is discernible behind
+the ragged line of the tree-tops. The deluge of the darkness is
+receding from the face of the earth, as the mighty waters receded
+of old.</p>
+
+<p>The roofs and tall factory chimneys of Stillwater are slowly
+taking shape in the gloom. Is that a cemetery coming into view
+yonder, with its ghostly architecture of obelisks and broken
+columns and huddled head-stones? No, that is only Slocum's Marble
+Yard, with the finished and unfinished work heaped up like
+snowdrifts,--a cemetery in embryo. Here and there in an outlying
+farm a lantern glimmers in the barn-yard: the cattle are having
+their fodder betimes. Scarlet-capped chanticleer gets himself on
+the nearest rail-fence and lifts up his rancorous voice like some
+irate old cardinal launching the curse of Rome. Something crawls
+swiftly along the gray of the serpentine turnpike,--a cart, with
+the driver lashing a jaded horse. A quick wind goes shivering by,
+and is lost in the forest.</p>
+
+<p>Now a narrow strip of two-colored gold stretches along the
+horizon.</p>
+
+<p>Stillwater is gradually coming to its senses. The sun has
+begun to twinkle on the gilt cross of the Catholic chapel and
+make itself known to the doves in the stone belfry of the South
+Church. The patches of cobweb that here and there cling
+tremulously to the coarse grass of the inundated meadows have
+turned into silver nets, and the mill-pond--it will be steel-blue
+later--is as smooth and white as if it had been paved with one
+vast unbroken slab out of Slocum's Marble Yard. Through a row of
+button-woods on the northern skirt of the village is seen a
+square, lap-streaked building, painted a disagreeable brown, and
+surrounded on three sides by a platform,--one of seven or eight
+similar stations strung like Indian heads on a branch thread of
+the Great Sagamore Railway.</p>
+
+<p>Listen! That is the jingle of the bells on the baker's cart as
+it begins its rounds. From innumerable chimneys the curdled smoke
+gives evidence that the thrifty housewife--or, what is rarer in
+Stillwater, the hired girl--has lighted the kitchen fire.</p>
+
+<p>The chimney-stack of one house at the end of a small
+court--the last house on the easterly edge of the village, and
+standing quite alone--sends up no smoke. Yet the carefully
+trained ivy over the porch, and the lemon verbena in a tub at the
+foot of the steps, intimate that the place is not unoccupied.
+Moreover, the little schooner which acts as weather-cock on one
+of the gables, and is now heading due west, has a new top-sail.
+It is a story-and-a-half cottage, with a large expanse of roof,
+which, covered with porous, unpainted shingles, seems to repel
+the sunshine that now strikes full upon it. The upper and lower
+blinds on the main building, as well as those on the extensions,
+are tightly closed. The sun appears to beat in vain at the
+casements of this silent house, which has a curiously sullen and
+defiant air, as if it had desperately and successfully barricaded
+itself against the approach of morning; yet if one were standing
+in the room that leads from the bed-chamber on the
+ground-floor--the room with the latticed window--one would see a
+ray of light thrust through a chink of the shutters, and pointing
+like a human finger at an object which lies by the hearth.</p>
+
+<p>This finger, gleaming, motionless, and awful in its precision,
+points to the body of old Mr. Lemuel Shackford, who lies there
+dead in his night-dress, with a gash across his forehead.</p>
+
+<p>In the darkness of that summer night a deed darker than the
+night itself had been done in Stillwater.</p>
+
+<h2>II</h2>
+
+<p>That morning, when Michael Hennessey's girl Mary--a girl
+sixteen years old--carried the can of milk to the rear door of
+the silent house, she was nearly a quarter of hour later than
+usual, and looked forward to being soundly rated.</p>
+
+<p>"He's up and been waiting for it," she said to herself,
+observing the scullery door ajar. "Won't I ketch it! It's him for
+growling and snapping at a body, and it's me for always being
+before or behind time, bad luck to me. There's no plazing
+him."</p>
+
+<p>Mary pushed back the door and passed through the kitchen,
+nerving herself all the while to meet the objurgations which she
+supposed were lying in wait for her. The sunshine was blinding
+without, but sifted through the green jalousies, it made a gray,
+crepuscular light within. As the girl approached the table, on
+which a plate with knife and fork had been laid for breakfast,
+she noticed, somewhat indistinctly at first, a thin red line
+running obliquely across the floor from the direction of the
+sitting-room and ending near the stove, where it had formed a
+small pool. Mary stopped short, scarcely conscious why, and
+peered instinctively into the adjoining apartment. Then, with a
+smothered cry, she let fall the milk-can, and a dozen white
+rivulets, in strange contrast to that one dark red line which
+first startled her, went meandering over the kitchen floor. With
+her eyes riveted upon some object in the next room, the girl
+retreated backward slowly and heavily dragging one foot after the
+other, until she reached the gallery door; then she turned
+swiftly, and plunged into the street.</p>
+
+<p>Twenty minutes later, every man, woman, and child in
+Stillwater knew that old Mr. Shackford had been murdered.</p>
+
+<p>Mary Hennessey had to tell her story a hundred times during
+the morning, for each minute brought to Michael's tenement a
+fresh listener hungry for the details at first hand.</p>
+
+<p>"How was it, Molly? Tell a body, dear!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be asking me!" cried Molly, pressing her palms to her
+eyes as if to shut out the sight, but taking all the while a
+secret creepy satisfaction in living the scene over again. "It
+was kinder dark in the other room, and there he was, laying in
+his night-gownd, with his face turned towards me, so, looking
+mighty severe-like, jest as if he was a-going to say, 'It's late
+with the milk ye are, ye hussy!'--a way he had of spaking."</p>
+
+<p>"But he didn't spake, Molly darlin'?"</p>
+
+<p>"Niver a word. He was stone dead, don't you see. It was that
+still you could hear me heart beat, saving there wasn't a drop of
+beat in it. I let go the can, sure, and then I backed out, with
+me eye on 'im all the while, afeard to death that he would up and
+spake them words."</p>
+
+<p>"The pore child! for the likes of her to be wakin' up a
+murthered man in the mornin'!"</p>
+
+<p>There was little or no work done that day in Stillwater
+outside the mills, and they were not running full handed. A
+number of men from the Miantowona Iron Works and Slocum's
+Yard--Slocum employed some seventy or eighty hands--lounged about
+the streets in their blouses, or stood in knots in front of the
+tavern, smoking short clay pipes. Not an urchin put in an
+appearance at the small red brick building on the turnpike. Mr.
+Pinkham, the school-master, waited an hour for the recusants,
+then turned the key in the lock and went home.</p>
+
+<p>Dragged-looking women, with dishcloth or dustpan in hand,
+stood in door-ways or leaned from windows, talking in subdued
+voices with neighbors on the curb-stone. In a hundred far-away
+cities the news of the suburban tragedy had already been read and
+forgotten; but here the horror stayed.</p>
+
+<p>There was a constantly changing crowd gathered in front of the
+house in Welch's Court. An inquest was being held in the room
+adjoining the kitchen. The court, which ended at the gate of the
+cottage, was fringed for several yards on each side by rows of
+squalid, wondering children, who understood it that Coroner
+Whidden was literally to sit on the dead body,--Mr. Whidden, a
+limp, inoffensive little man, who would not have dared to sit
+down on a fly. He had passed, pallid and perspiring, to the scene
+of his perfunctory duties.</p>
+
+<p>The result of the investigation was awaited with feverish
+impatience by the people outside. Mr. Shackford had not been a
+popular man; he had been a hard, avaricious, passionate man,
+holding his own way remorselessly. He had been the reverse of
+popular, but he had long been a prominent character in
+Stillwater, because of his wealth, his endless lawsuits, and his
+eccentricity, an illustration of which was his persistence in
+living entirely alone in the isolated and dreary old house, that
+was henceforth to be inhabited by his shadow. Not his shadow
+alone, however, for it was now remembered that the premises were
+already held in fee by another phantasmal tenant. At a period
+long anterior to this, one Lydia Sloper, a widow, had died an
+unexplained death under that same roof. The coincidence struck
+deeply into the imaginative portion of Stillwater. "The Widow
+Sloper and old Shackford have made a match of it," remarked a
+local humorist, in a grimmer vein than customary. Two ghosts had
+now set up housekeeping, as it were, in the stricken mansion, and
+what might not be looked for in the way of spectral progeny!</p>
+
+<p>It appeared to the crowd in the lane that the jury were
+unconscionably long in arriving at a decision, and when the
+decision was at length reached it gave but moderate satisfaction.
+After a spendthrift waste of judicial mind the jury had decided
+that "the death of Lemuel Shackford was caused by a blow on the
+left temple, inflicted with some instrument not discoverable, in
+the hands of some person or persons unknown."</p>
+
+<p>"We knew that before," grumbled a voice in the crowd, when, to
+relieve public suspense, Lawyer Perkins--a long, lank man, with
+stringy black hair--announced the verdict from the doorstep.</p>
+
+<p>The theory of suicide had obtained momentary credence early in
+the morning, and one or two still clung to it with the tenacity
+that characterizes persons who entertain few ideas. To accept
+this theory it was necessary to believe that Mr. Shackford had
+ingeniously hidden the weapon after striking himself dead with a
+single blow. No, it was not suicide. So far from intending to
+take his own life, Mr. Shackford, it appeared, had made rather
+careful preparations to live that day. The breakfast-table had
+been laid over night, the coals left ready for kindling in the
+Franklin stove, and a kettle, filled with water to be heated for
+his tea or coffee, stood on the hearth.</p>
+
+<p>Two facts had sharply demonstrated themselves: first, that Mr.
+Shackford had been murdered; and, second, that the spur to the
+crime had been the possession of a sum of money, which the
+deceased was supposed to keep in a strong-box in his bedroom. The
+padlock had been wrenched open, and the less valuable contents of
+the chest, chiefly papers, scattered over the carpet. A
+memorandum among the papers seemed to specify the respective sums
+in notes and gold that had been deposited in the box. A document
+of some kind had been torn into minute pieces and thrown into the
+waste-basket. On close scrutiny a word or two here and there
+revealed the fact that the document was of a legal character. The
+fragments were put into an envelope and given in charge of Mr.
+Shackford's lawyer, who placed seals on that and on the drawers
+of an escritoire which stood in the corner and contained other
+manuscript.</p>
+
+<p>The instrument with which the fatal blow had been dealt--for
+the autopsy showed that there had been but one blow--was not only
+not discoverable, but the fashion of it defied conjecture. The
+shape of the wound did not indicate the use of any implement
+known to the jurors, several of whom were skilled machinists. The
+wound was an inch and three quarters in length and very deep at
+the extremities; in the middle it scarcely penetrated to the
+cranium. So peculiar a cut could not have been produced with the
+claw part of a hammer, because the claw is always curved, and the
+incision was straight. A flat claw, such as is used in opening
+packing-cases, was suggested. A collection of the several sizes
+manufactured was procured, but none corresponded with the wound;
+they were either too wide or too narrow. Moreover, the cut was as
+thin as the blade of a case-knife.</p>
+
+<p>"That was never done by any tool in these parts," declared
+Stevens, the foreman of the finishing shop at Slocum's.</p>
+
+<p>The assassin or assassins had entered by the scullery door,
+the simple fastening of which, a hook and staple, had been
+broken. There were footprints in the soft clay path leading from
+the side gate to the stone step; but Mary Hennessey had so
+confused and obliterated the outlines that now it was impossible
+accurately to measure them. A half-burned match was found under
+the sink,--evidently thrown there by the burglars. It was of a
+kind known as the safety-match, which can be ignited only by
+friction on a strip of chemically prepared paper glued to the
+box. As no box of this description was discovered, and as all the
+other matches in the house were of a different make, the charred
+splinter was preserved. The most minute examination failed to
+show more than this. The last time Mr. Shackford had been seen
+alive was at six o'clock the previous evening.</p>
+
+<p>Who had done the deed?</p>
+
+<p>Tramps! answered Stillwater, with one voice, though Stillwater
+lay somewhat out of the natural highway, and the tramp--that
+bitter blossom of civilization whose seed was blown to us from
+over seas--was not then so common by the New England roadsides as
+he became five or six years later. But it was intolerable not to
+have a theory; it was that or none, for conjecture turned to no
+one in the village. To be sure, Mr. Shackford had been in
+litigation with several of the corporations, and had had legal
+quarrels with more than one of his neighbors; but Mr. Shackford
+had never been victorious in any of these contests, and the
+incentive of revenge was wanting to explain the crime. Besides,
+it was so clearly robbery.</p>
+
+<p>Though the gathering around the Shackford house had reduced
+itself to half a dozen idlers, and the less frequented streets
+had resumed their normal aspect of dullness, there was a strange,
+electric quality in the atmosphere. The community was in that
+state of suppressed agitation and suspicion which no word
+adequately describes. The slightest circumstance would have
+swayed it to the belief in any man's guilt; and, indeed, there
+were men in Stillwater quite capable of disposing of a
+fellow-creature for a much smaller reward than Mr. Shackford had
+held out. In spite of the tramp theory, a harmless tin-peddler,
+who had not passed through the place for weeks, was dragged from
+his glittering cart that afternoon, as he drove smilingly into
+town, and would have been roughly handled if Mr. Richard
+Shackford, a cousin of the deceased, had not interfered.</p>
+
+<p>As the day wore on, the excitement deepened in intensity,
+though the expression of it became nearly reticent. It was
+noticed that the lamps throughout the village were lighted an
+hour earlier than usual. A sense of insecurity settled upon
+Stillwater with the falling twilight,--that nameless apprehension
+which is possibly more trying to the nerves than tangible danger.
+When a man is smitten inexplicably, as if by a bodiless hand
+stretched out of a cloud,--when the red slayer vanishes like a
+mist and leaves no faintest trace of his identity,--the mystery
+shrouding the deed presently becomes more appalling than the deed
+itself. There is something paralyzing in the thought of an
+invisible hand somewhere ready to strike at your life, or at some
+life dearer than your own. Whose hand, and where is it? Perhaps
+it passes you your coffee at breakfast; perhaps you have hired it
+to shovel the snow off your sidewalk; perhaps it has brushed
+against you in the crowd; or may be you have dropped a coin into
+the fearful palm at a street corner. Ah, the terrible unseen hand
+that stabs your imagination,--this immortal part of you which is
+a hundred times more sensitive than your poor perishable
+body!</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of situations the most solemn and tragic there
+often falls a light purely farcical in its incongruity. Such a
+gleam was unconsciously projected upon the present crisis by Mr.
+Bodge, better known in the village as Father Bodge. Mr. Bodge was
+stone deaf, naturally stupid, and had been nearly moribund for
+thirty years with asthma. Just before night-fall he had crawled,
+in his bewildered, wheezy fashion, down to the tavern, where he
+found a somber crowd in the bar-room. Mr. Bodge ordered his mug
+of beer, and sat sipping it, glancing meditatively from time to
+time over the pewter rim at the mute assembly. Suddenly he broke
+out: "S'pose you've heerd that old Shackford's ben murdered."</p>
+
+<p>So the sun went down on Stillwater. Again the great wall of
+pines and hemlocks made a gloom against the sky. The moon rose
+from behind the tree-tops, frosting their ragged edges, and then
+sweeping up to the zenith hung serenely above the world, as if
+there were never a crime, or a tear, or a heart-break in it
+all.</p>
+
+<h2>III</h2>
+
+<p>On the afternoon of the following day Mr. Shackford was duly
+buried. The funeral, under the direction of Mr. Richard
+Shackford, who acted as chief mourner and was sole mourner by
+right of kinship, took place in profound silence. The carpenters,
+who had lost a day on Bishop's new stables, intermitted their
+sawing and hammering while the services were in progress; the
+steam was shut off in the iron-mills, and no clinking of the
+chisel was heard in the marble yard for an hour, during which
+many of the shops had their shutters up. Then, when all was over,
+the imprisoned fiend in the boilers gave a piercing shriek; the
+leather bands slipped on the revolving drums, the spindles leaped
+into life again, and the old order of things was
+reinstated,--outwardly, but not in effect.</p>
+
+<p>In general, when the grave closes over a man his career is
+ended. But Mr. Shackford was never so much alive as after they
+had buried him. Never before had he filled so large a place in
+the public eye. Though invisible, he sat at every fireside. Until
+the manner of his death had been made clear, his ubiquitous
+presence was not to be exorcised. On the morning of the memorable
+day a reward of one hundred dollars--afterwards increased to five
+hundred, at the insistence of Mr. Shackford's cousin--had been
+offered by the board of selectmen for the arrest and conviction
+of the guilty party. Beyond this and the unsatisfactory inquest,
+the authorities had done nothing, and were plainly not equal to
+the situation.</p>
+
+<p>When it was stated, the night of the funeral, that a
+professional person was coming to Stillwater to look into the
+case, the announcement was received with a breath of relief.</p>
+
+<p>The person thus vaguely described appeared on the spot the
+next morning. To mention the name of Edward Taggett is to mention
+a name well known to the detective force of the great city lying
+sixty miles southwest of Stillwater. Mr. Taggett's arrival sent
+such a thrill of expectancy through the village that Mr. Leonard
+Tappleton, whose obsequies occurred this day, made his exit
+nearly unobserved. Yet there was little in Mr. Taggett's physical
+aspect calculated to stir either expectation or enthusiasm: a
+slender man of about twenty-six, but not looking it, with
+overhanging brown mustache, sparse side-whiskers, eyes of no
+definite color, and faintly accentuated eyebrows. He spoke
+precisely, and with a certain unembarrassed hesitation, as
+persons do who have two thoughts to one word,--if there are such
+persons. You might have taken him for a physician, or a
+journalist, or the secretary of an insurance company; but you
+would never have supposed him the man who had disentangled the
+complicated threads of the great Barnabee Bank defalcation.</p>
+
+<p>Stillwater's confidence, which had risen into the nineties,
+fell to zero at sight of him. "Is <i>that</i> Taggett?" they
+asked. That was Taggett; and presently his influence began to be
+felt like a sea-turn. The three Dogberrys of the watch were
+dispatched on secret missions, and within an hour it was ferreted
+out that a man in a cart had been seen driving furiously up the
+turnpike the morning after the murder. This was an agricultural
+district, the road led to a market town, and teams going by in
+the early dawn were the rule and not the exception; but on that
+especial morning a furiously driven cart was significant.
+Jonathan Beers, who farmed the Jenks land, had heard the wheels
+and caught an indistinct glimpse of the vehicle as he was feeding
+the cattle, but with a reticence purely rustic had not been moved
+to mention the circumstance before.</p>
+
+<p>"Taggett has got a clew," said Stillwater under its
+breath.</p>
+
+<p>By noon Taggett had got the man, cart and all. But it was only
+Blufton's son Tom, of South Millville, who had started in hot
+haste that particular morning to secure medical service for his
+wife, of which she had sorely stood in need, as two tiny girls in
+a willow cradle in South Millville now bore testimony.</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't been cutting down the population <i>much,"</i> said
+Blufton, with his wholesome laugh.</p>
+
+<p>Thomas Blufton was well known and esteemed in Stillwater, but
+if the crime had fastened itself upon him it would have given
+something like popular satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>In the course of the ensuing forty-eight hours four or five
+tramps were overhauled as having been in the neighborhood at the
+time of the tragedy; but they each had a clean story, and were
+let go. Then one Durgin, a workman at Slocum's Yard, was called
+upon to explain some half-washed-out red stains on his overalls,
+which he did. He had tightened the hoops on a salt-pork barrel
+for Mr. Shackford several days previous; the red paint on the
+head of the barrel was fresh, and had come off on his clothes.
+Dr. Weld examined the spots under a microscope, and pronounced
+them paint. It was manifest that Mr. Taggett meant to go to the
+bottom of things.</p>
+
+<p>The bar-room of the Stillwater hotel was a center of interest
+these nights; not only the bar-room proper, but the adjoining
+apartment, where the more exclusive guests took their
+seltzer-water and looked over the metropolitan newspapers. Twice
+a week a social club met here, having among its members Mr.
+Craggie, the postmaster, who was supposed to have a great
+political future, Mr. Pinkham, Lawyer Perkins, Mr. Whidden, and
+other respectable persons. The room was at all times in some
+sense private, with a separate entrance from the street, though
+another door, which usually stood open, connected it with the
+main salon. In this was a long mahogany counter, one section of
+which was covered with a sheet of zinc perforated like a sieve,
+and kept constantly bright by restless caravans of lager-beer
+glasses. Directly behind that end of the counter stood a Gothic
+brass-mounted beer-pump, at whose faucets Mr. Snelling, the
+landlord, flooded you five or six mugs in the twinkling of an
+eye, and raised the vague expectation that he was about to grind
+out some popular operatic air. At the left of the pump stretched
+a narrow mirror, reflecting he gaily-colored wine-glasses and
+decanters which stood on each other's shoulders, and held up
+lemons, and performed various acrobatic feats on a shelf in front
+of it.</p>
+
+<p>The fourth night after the funeral of Mr. Shackford, a dismal
+southeast storm caused an unusual influx of idlers in both rooms.
+With the rain splashing against the casements and the wind
+slamming the blinds, the respective groups sat discussing in a
+desultory way the only topic which could be discussed at present.
+There had been a general strike among the workmen a fortnight
+before; but even that had grown cold as a topic.</p>
+
+<p>"That was hard on Tom Blufton," said Stevens, emptying the
+ashes out of his long-stemmed clay pipe, and refilling the bowl
+with cut cavendish from a jar on a shelf over his head.</p>
+
+<p>Michael Hennessey sat down his beer-mug with an air of
+argumentative disgust, and drew one sleeve across his glistening
+beard.</p>
+
+<p>"Stevens, you've as many minds as a weather-cock, jist! Didn't
+ye say yerself it looked mighty black for the lad when he was
+took?"</p>
+
+<p>"I might have said something of the sort," Stevens admitted
+reluctantly, after a pause. "His driving round at daybreak with
+an empty cart did have an ugly look at first."</p>
+
+<p>"Indade, then."</p>
+
+<p>"Not to anybody who knew Tom Blufton," interrupted Samuel
+Piggott, Blufton's brother-in-law. "The boy hasn't a bad streak
+in him. It was an outrage. Might as well have suspected Parson
+Langly or Father O'Meara."</p>
+
+<p>"If this kind of thing goes on," remarked a man in the corner
+with a patch over one eye, "both of them reverend gents will be
+hauled up, I shouldn't wonder."</p>
+
+<p>"That's so, Mr. Peters," responded Durgin. "If my
+respectability didn't save me, who's safe?"</p>
+
+<p>"Durgin is talking about his respectability! He's joking."</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, Dexter," said Durgin, turning quickly on the
+speaker, "when I want to joke, I talk about your
+intelligence."</p>
+
+<p>"What kind of man is Taggett, anyhow?" asked Piggott. "You saw
+him, Durgin."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe he was at Justice Beemis's office the day Blufton
+and I was there; but I didn't make him out in the crowd.
+Shouldn't know him from Adam."</p>
+
+<p>"Stillwater's a healthy place for tramps jest about this
+time," suggested somebody. "Three on 'em snaked in to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"I think, gentlemen, that Mr. Taggett is on the right track
+there," observed Mr. Snelling, in the act of mixing another Old
+Holland for Mr. Peters. "Not too sweet, you said? I feel it in my
+bones that it was a tramp, and that Mr. Taggett will bring him
+yet."</p>
+
+<p>"He won't find him on the highway yonder," said a tall,
+swarthy man named Torrini, an Italian. Nationalities clash in
+Stillwater. "That tramp is a thousand miles from here."</p>
+
+<p>"So he is if he has any brains under his hat," returned
+Snelling. "But they're on the lookout for him. The minute he
+pawns anything, he's gone."</p>
+
+<p>"Can't put up greenbacks or gold, can he? He didn't take
+nothing else," interposed Bishop, the veterinary surgeon.</p>
+
+<p>"Now jewelry nor nothing?"</p>
+
+<p>"There wasn't none, as I understand it," said Bishop, "except
+a silver watch. That was all snug under the old man's
+piller."</p>
+
+<p>"Wanter know!" ejaculated Jonathan Beers.</p>
+
+<p>"I opine, Mr. Craggie," said the school-master, standing in
+the inner room with a rolled-up file of the Daily Advertiser in
+his hand, "that the person who--who removed our worthy townsman
+will never be discovered."</p>
+
+<p>"I shouldn't like to go quite so far as that, sir," answered
+Mr. Craggie, with that diplomatic suavity which leads to
+postmasterships and seats in the General Court, and has even been
+known to oil a dull fellow's way into Congress. "I cannot take
+quite so hopeless a view of it. There are difficulties, but they
+must be overcome, Mr. Pinkham, and I think they will be."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, I hope so," returned the school-master. "But there
+are cases--are there not?--in which the--the problem, if I may so
+designate it, has never been elucidated, and the persons who
+undertook it have been obliged to go to the foot, so to
+speak."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, yes, there are such cases, certainly. There was the
+Burdell mystery in New York, and, later, the Nathan affair--By
+the way, I've satisfactory theories of my own touching both. The
+police were baffled, and remain so. But, my <i>dear</i> sir,
+observe for a moment the difference."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Pinkham rested one finger on the edge of a little round
+table, and leaned forward in a respectful attitude to observe the
+difference.</p>
+
+<p>"Those crimes were committed in a vast metropolis affording a
+thousand chances for escape, as well as offering a thousand
+temptations to the lawless. But we are a limited community. We
+have no professional murderers among us. The deed which has
+stirred society to its utmost depths was plainly done by some
+wayfaring amateur. Remorse has already arrived upon him, if the
+police haven't. For the time being he escapes; but he is bound to
+betray himself sooner or later. If the right steps are
+taken,--and I have myself the greatest confidence in Mr.
+Taggett,--the guilty party can scarcely fail to be brought to the
+bar of justice, if he doesn't bring himself there."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, indeed, I hope so," repeated Mr. Pinkham.</p>
+
+<p>"The investigation is being carried on very closely."</p>
+
+<p>"Too closely," suggested the school-master.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh dear, no," murmured Mr. Craggie. "The strictest secrecy is
+necessary in affairs of this delicate nature. If Tom, Dick, and
+Harry were taken behind the scenes," he added, with the air of
+one wishing to say too much, "the bottom would drop out of
+everything."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Pinkham shrunk from commenting on a disaster like that,
+and relapsed into silence. Mr. Craggie, with his thumbs in the
+arm-holes of his waistcoat, and his legs crossed in an easy,
+senatorial fashion, leaned back in the chair and smiled
+blandly.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't suppose there's nothing new, boys!" exclaimed a fat,
+florid man, bustling in good-naturedly at the public entrance,
+and leaving a straight wet trail on the sanded floor from the
+threshold to the polished mahogany counter. Mr. Wilson was a
+local humorist of the Falstaffian stripe, though not so much
+witty in himself as the cause of wit in others.</p>
+
+<p>"No, Jimmy, there isn't anything new," responded Dexter.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you didn't hear that the ole man done somethin'
+handsome for me in his last will and testyment."</p>
+
+<p>"No, Jemmy, I don't think he has made any provision whatever
+for an almshouse."</p>
+
+<p>"Sorry to hear that, Dexter," said Willson, absorbedly chasing
+a bit of lemon peel in his glass with the spoon handle, "for
+there isn't room for us all up at the town-farm. How's your
+grandmother? Finds it tol'rably comfortable?"</p>
+
+<p>They are a primitive, candid people in their hours of unlaced
+social intercourse in Stillwater. This delicate <i>tu quoque</i>
+was so far from wounding Dexter that he replied carelessly,--</p>
+
+<p>"Well, only so so. The old woman complains of too much
+chicken-sallid, and hot-house grapes all the year round."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Shackford must have left a large property," observed Mr.
+Ward, of the firm of Ward &amp; Lock, glancing up from the columns of
+the Stillwater Gazette. The remark was addressed to Lawyer
+Perkins, who had just joined the group in the reading-room.</p>
+
+<p>"Fairly large," replied that gentleman crisply.</p>
+
+<p>"Any public bequests?"</p>
+
+<p>"None to speak of."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Craggie smiled vaguely.</p>
+
+<p>"You see," said Lawyer Perkins, "there's a will and no
+will,--that is to say, the fragments of what is supposed to be a
+will were found, and we are trying to put the pieces together. It
+is doubtful if we can do it; it is doubtful if we can decipher it
+after we have done it; and if we decipher it it is a question
+whether the document is valid or not."</p>
+
+<p>"That is a masterly exposition of the dilemma, Mr. Perkins,"
+said the school-master warmly.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Perkins had spoken in his court-room tone of voice, with
+one hand thrust into his frilled shirt-bosom. He removed this
+hand for a second, as he gravely bowed to Mr. Pinkham.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing could be clearer," said Mr. Ward. "In case the paper
+is worthless, what then? I am not asking you in your professional
+capacity," he added hastily; for Lawyer Perkins had been known to
+send in a bill on as slight a provocation as Mr. Ward's.</p>
+
+<p>"That's a point. The next of kin has his claims."</p>
+
+<p>"My friend Shackford, of course," broke in Mr. Craggie.
+"Admirable young man!--one of my warmest supporters."</p>
+
+<p>"He is the only heir at law so far as we know," said Mr.
+Perkins.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," said Mr. Craggie, reflecting. "The late Mr. Shackford
+might have had a family in Timbuctoo or the Sandwich
+Islands."</p>
+
+<p>"That's another point."</p>
+
+<p>"The fact would be a deuced unpleasant point for young
+Shackford to run against," said Mr. Ward.</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly."</p>
+
+<p>"If Mr. Lemuel Shackford," remarked Coroner Whidden, softly
+joining the conversation to which he had been listening in his
+timorous, apologetic manner, "had chanced, in the course of his
+early sea-faring days, to form any ties of an unhappy
+complexion"--</p>
+
+<p>"Complexion is good," murmured Mr. Craggie. "Some Hawaiian
+lady!"</p>
+
+<p>--"perhaps that would be a branch of the case worth
+investigating in connection with the homicide. A discarded wife,
+or a disowned son, burning with a sense of wrong"--</p>
+
+<p>"Really, Mr. Whidden!" interrupted Lawyer Perkins witheringly,
+"it is bad enough for my client to lose his life, without having
+his reputation filched away from him."</p>
+
+<p>"I--I will explain! I was merely supposing"--</p>
+
+<p>"The law never supposes, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>This threw Mr. Whidden into great mental confusion. As coroner
+was he not an integral part of the law, and when, in his official
+character, he supposed anything was not that a legal supposition?
+But was he in his official character now, sitting with a glass of
+lemonade at his elbow in the reading-room of the Stillwater
+hotel? Was he, or was he not, a coroner all the time? Mr. Whidden
+stroked an isolated tuft of hair growing low on the middle of his
+forehead, and glared mildly at Mr. Perkins.</p>
+
+<p>"Young Shackford has gone to New York, I understand," said Mr.
+Ward, breaking the silence.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Perkins nodded. "Went this morning to look after the
+real-estate interests there. It will probably keep him a couple
+of weeks,--the longer the better. He was of no use here. Lemuel's
+death was a great shock to him, or rather the manner of it
+was."</p>
+
+<p>"That shocked every one. They were first cousin's weren't
+they?" Mr. Ward was a comparatively new resident in
+Stillwater.</p>
+
+<p>"First cousins," replied Lawyer Perkins; "but they were never
+very intimate, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"I imagine nobody was ever very intimate with Mr.
+Shackford."</p>
+
+<p>"My client was somewhat peculiar in his friendships."</p>
+
+<p>This was stating it charitably, for Mr. Perkins knew, and
+every one present knew, that Lemuel Shackford had not had the
+shadow of a friend in Stillwater, unless it was his cousin
+Richard.</p>
+
+<p>A cloud of mist and rain was blown into the bar-room as the
+street door stood open for a second to admit a dripping figure
+from the outside darkness.</p>
+
+<p><i>"What's</i> blowed down?" asked Durgin, turning round on
+his stool and sending up a ring of smoke which uncurled itself
+with difficulty in the dense atmosphere.</p>
+
+<p>"It's only some of Jeff Stavers's nonsense."</p>
+
+<p>"No nonsense at all," said the new-comer, as he shook the
+heavy beads of rain from his felt hat. "I was passing by Welch's
+Court--it's as black as pitch out, fellows--when slap went
+something against my shoulder; something like wet wings. Well, I
+was scared. It's a bat, says I. But the thing didn't fly off; it
+was still clawing at my shoulder. I put up my hand, and I'll be
+shot if it wasn't the foremast, jib-sheet and all, of the old
+weather-cock on the north gable of the Shackford house! Here you
+are!" and the speaker tossed the broken mast, with the mimic
+sails dangling from it, into Durgin's lap.</p>
+
+<p>A dead silence followed, for there was felt to be something
+weirdly significant in the incident.</p>
+
+<p>"That's kinder omernous," said Mr. Peters,
+interrogatively.</p>
+
+<p>"Ominous of what?" asked Durgin, lifting the wet mass from his
+knees and dropping it on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sorter queer, then."</p>
+
+<p>"Where does the queer come in?" inquired Stevens, gravelly. "I
+don't know; but I'm hit by it."</p>
+
+<p>"Come, boys, don't crowd a feller," said Mr. Peters, getting
+restive. "I don't take the contract to explain the thing. But it
+does seem some way droll that the old schooner should be wrecked
+so soon after what has happened to the old skipper. If you don't
+see it, or sense it, I don't insist. What's yours, Denyven?"</p>
+
+<p>The person addressed as Denyven promptly replied, with a fine
+sonorous English accent, "a mug of 'alf an' 'alf,--with a head on
+it, Snelling."</p>
+
+<p>At the same moment Mr. Craggie, in the inner room was saying
+to the school-master,--</p>
+
+<p>"I must really take issue with you there, Mr. Pinkham. I admit
+there's a good deal in spiritualism which we haven't got at yet;
+the science is in its infancy; it is still attached to the bosom
+of speculation. It is a beautiful science, that of psychological
+phenomena, and the spiritualists will yet become an influential
+class of"--Mr. Craggie was going to say voters, but glided over
+it--"persons. I believe in clairvoyance myself to a large extent.
+Before my appointment to the post-office I had it very strong.
+I've no doubt that in the far future this mysterious factor will
+be made great use of in criminal cases; but at present I should
+resort to it only in the last extremity,--the very last
+extremity, Mr. Pinkham!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, of course," said the school-master deprecatingly. "I
+threw it out only as the merest suggestion. I shouldn't think
+of--of--you understand me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is it beyond the dreams of probability," said Mr. Craggie,
+appealing to Lawyer Perkins, "that clairvoyants may eventually be
+introduced into cases in our courts?"</p>
+
+<p>"They are now," said Mr. Perkins, with a snort,--"the police
+bring 'em it."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Craggie finished the remainder of his glass of sherry in
+silence, and presently rose to go. Coroner Whidden and Mr. Ward
+had already gone. The guests in the public room were thinning
+out; a gloom, indefinable and shapeless like the night, seemed to
+have fallen upon the few that lingered. At a somewhat earlier
+hour than usual the gas was shut off in the Stillwater
+hotel.</p>
+
+<p>In the lonely house in Welch's Court a light was still
+burning.</p>
+
+<h2>IV</h2>
+
+<p>A sorely perplexed man sat there, bending over his papers by
+the lamp-light. Mr. Taggett had established himself at the
+Shackford house on his arrival, preferring it to the hotel, where
+he would have been subjected to the curiosity of the guests and
+to endless annoyances. Up to this moment, perhaps not a dozen
+persons in the place had had more than a passing glimpse of him.
+He was a very busy man, working at his desk from morning until
+night, and then taking only a brief walk, for exercise in some
+unfrequented street. His meals were sent in from the hotel to the
+Shackford house, where the constables reported to him, and where
+he held protracted conferences with Justice Beemis, Coroner
+Whidden, Lawyer Perkins, and a few others, and declined to be
+interviewed by the local editor.</p>
+
+<p>To the outside eye that weather-stained, faded old house
+appeared a throbbing seat of esoteric intelligence. It was as if
+a hundred invisible magnetic threads converged to a focus under
+that roof and incessantly clicked out the most startling
+information,--information which was never by any chance allowed
+to pass beyond the charmed circle. The pile of letters which the
+mail brought to Mr. Taggett every morning--chiefly anonymous
+suggestions, and offers of assistance from lunatics in remote
+cities--was enough in itself to exasperate a community.</p>
+
+<p>Covertly at first, and then openly, Stillwater began seriously
+to question Mr. Taggett's method of working up the case. The
+Gazette, in a double-leaded leader, went so far as to compare him
+to a bird with fine feathers and no song, and to suggest that
+perhaps the bird might have sung if the inducement offered had
+been more substantial. A singer of Mr. Taggett's plumage was not
+to be taught by such chaff as five hundred dollars. Having killed
+his man, the editor proceeded to remark that he would suspend
+judgment until next week.</p>
+
+<p>As if to make perfect the bird comparison, Mr. Taggett, after
+keeping the public in suspense for six days and nights, abruptly
+flew away, with all the little shreds and straws of evidence he
+had picked up, to build his speculative nest elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>The defection of Mr. Taggett caused a mild panic among a
+certain portion of the inhabitants, who were not reassured by the
+statement in the Gazette that the case would now be placed in the
+proper hands,--the hand so the county constabulary. "Within a few
+days," said the editor in conclusion, "the matter will
+undoubtedly be cleared up. At present we cannot say more;" and it
+would have puzzled him very much to do so.</p>
+
+<p>A week passed, and no fresh light was thrown upon the
+catastrophe, nor did anything occur to rattle the usual surface
+of life in the village. A man--it was Torrini, the Italian--got
+hurt in Dana's iron foundry; one of Blufton's twin girls died;
+and Mr. Slocum took on a new hand from out of town. That was all.
+Stillwater was the Stillwater of a year ago, with always the
+exception of that shadow lying upon it, and the fact that small
+boys who had kindling to get in were careful to get it in before
+nightfall. It would appear that the late Mr. Shackford had
+acquired a habit of lingering around wood-piles after dark, and
+also of stealing into bed-chambers, where little children were
+obliged to draw the sheets over their heads in order not to see
+him.</p>
+
+<p>The action of the county constabulary had proved quite as
+mysterious and quite as barren of result as Mr. Taggett's had
+been. They had worn his mantle of secrecy, and arrested the
+tramps over again.</p>
+
+<p>Another week dragged by, and the editorial prediction seemed
+as far as ever from fulfillment. But on the afternoon which
+closed that fortnight a very singular thing did happen. Mr.
+Slocum was sitting alone in his office, which occupied the whole
+of a small building at the right of the main gate to the marble
+works. When the door behind him softly opened and a young man,
+whose dress covered with stone-dust indicated his vocation,
+appeared on the threshold. He hesitated a second, and then
+stepped into the room. Mr. Slocum turned round with a swift,
+apprehensive air.</p>
+
+<p>"You gave me a start! I believe I haven't any nerves left.
+Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Slocum, I have found the man."</p>
+
+<p>The proprietor of the marble yard half rose from the desk in
+his agitation.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is it?" he asked beneath his breath.</p>
+
+<p>The same doubt or irresolution which had checked the workman
+at the threshold seemed again to have taken possession of him. It
+was fully a moment before he gained the mastery over himself; but
+the mastery was complete; for he leaned forward gravely, almost
+coldly, and pronounced two words. A quick pallor overspread Mr.
+Slocum's features.</p>
+
+<p>"Good God!" he exclaimed, sinking back into the chair. "Are
+you mad?"</p>
+
+<h2>V</h2>
+
+<p>The humblest painter of real life, if he could have his
+desire, would select a picturesque background for his figures;
+but events have an inexorable fashion for choosing their own
+landscape. In the present instance it is reluctantly conceded
+that there are few uglier or more commonplace towns in New
+England than Stillwater,--a straggling, overgrown village, with
+whose rural aspects are curiously blended something of the
+grimness and squalor of certain shabby city neighborhoods. Being
+of comparatively recent date, the place has none of those
+colonial associations which, like sprigs of lavender in an old
+chest of drawers, are a saving grace to other quite as dreary
+nooks and corners.</p>
+
+<p>Here and there at what is termed the West End is a neat brick
+mansion with garden attached, where nature asserts herself in
+dahlias and china-asters; but the houses are mostly frame houses
+that have taken a prevailing dingy tint from the breath of the
+tall chimneys which dominate the village. The sidewalks in the
+more aristocratic quarter are covered with a thin, elastic paste
+of asphalt, worn down to the gravel in patches, and emitting in
+the heat of the day an astringent, bituminous odor. The
+population is chiefly of the rougher sort, such as breeds in the
+shadow of foundries and factories, and if the Protestant pastor
+and the fatherly Catholic priest, whose respective lots are cast
+there, have sometimes the sense of being missionaries dropped in
+the midst of a purely savage community, the delusion is not
+wholly unreasonable.</p>
+
+<p>The irregular heaps of scoria that have accumulated in the
+vicinity of the iron works give the place an illusive air of
+antiquity; bit it is neither ancient nor picturesque. The oldest
+and most pictorial thing in Stillwater is probably the marble
+yard, around three sides of which the village may be said to have
+sprouted up rankly, bearing here and there an industrial blossom
+in the shape of an iron-mill or a cardigan-jacket manufactory.
+Rowland Slocum, a man of considerable refinement, great kindness
+of heart, and no force, inherited the yard from his father, and at
+the period this narrative opens (the summer of 187-) was its sole
+proprietor and nominal manager, the actual manager being Richard
+Shackford, a prospective partner in the business and the
+betrothed of Mr. Slocum's daughter Margaret.</p>
+
+<p>Forty years ago every tenth person in Stillwater was either a
+Shackford or a Slocum. Twenty years later both names were nearly
+extinct there. That fatality which seems to attend certain New
+England families had stripped every leaf but two from the
+Shackford branch. These were Lemuel Shackford, then about
+forty-six, and Richard Shackford, aged four. Lemuel Shackford had
+laid up a competency as ship-master in the New York and Calcutta
+trade, and in 1852 had returned to his native village, where he
+found his name and stock represented only by little Dick, a very
+cheerful orphan, who stared complacently with big blue eyes at
+fate, and made mud-pies in the lane whenever he could elude the
+vigilance of the kindly old woman who had taken him under her
+roof. This atom of humanity, by some strange miscalculation of
+nature, was his cousin.</p>
+
+<p>The strict devotion to his personal interests which had
+enabled Mr. Shackford to acquire a fortune thus early caused him
+to look askance at a penniless young kinsman with stockings down
+at heel, and a straw hat three sizes too large for him set on the
+back of his head. But Mr. Shackford was ashamed to leave little
+Dick a burden upon the hands of a poor woman of no relationship
+whatever to the child; so little Dick was transferred to that
+dejected house which has already been described, and was then
+known as the Sloper house.</p>
+
+<p>Here, for three of four years, Dick grew up, as neglected as a
+weed, and every inch as happy. It should be mentioned that for
+the first year or so a shock-headed Cicely from the town-farm had
+apparently been hired not to take care of him. But Dick asked
+nothing better than to be left to his own devices, which,
+moreover, were innocent enough. He would sit all day in the lane
+at the front gate pottering with a bit of twig or a case-knife in
+the soft clay. From time to time passers-by observed that the
+child was not making mud-pies, but tracing figures, comic or
+grotesque as might happen, and always quite wonderful for their
+lack of resemblance to anything human. That patch of
+reddish-brown clay was his sole resource, his slate, his
+drawing-book, and woe to anybody who chanced to walk over little
+Dick's arabesques. Patient and gentle in his acceptance of the
+world's rebuffs, this he would not endure. He was afraid of Mr.
+Shackford, yet one day, when the preoccupied man happened to
+trample on a newly executed hieroglyphic, the child rose to his
+feet white with rage, his fingers clenched, and such a blue fire
+flashing in the eyes that Mr. Shackford drew back aghast.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, it's a little devil!"</p>
+
+<p>While Shackford junior was amusing himself with his primitive
+bas-reliefs, Shackford senior amused himself with his lawsuits.
+From the hour when he returned to the town until the end of his
+days Mr. Shackford was up to his neck in legal difficulties. Now
+he resisted a betterment assessment, and fought the town; now he
+secured an injunction on the Miantowona Iron Works, and fought
+the corporation. He was understood to have a perpetual case in
+equity before the Marine Court in New York, to which city he made
+frequent and unannounced journeys. His immediate neighbors stood
+in terror of him. He was like a duelist, on the alert to twist
+the slightest thing into a <i>casus belli</i>. The law was his
+rapier, his recreation, and he was willing to bleed for it.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile that fairy world of which every baby becomes a
+Columbus so soon as it is able to walk remained an undiscovered
+continent to little Dick. Grim life looked in upon him as he lay
+in the cradle. The common joys of childhood were a sealed volume
+to him. A single incident of those years lights up the whole
+situation. A vague rumor had been blown to Dick of a practice of
+hanging up stockings at Christmas. It struck his materialistic
+mind as a rather senseless thing to do; but nevertheless he
+resolved to try it one Christmas Eve. He lay awake a long while
+in the frosty darkness, skeptically waiting for something
+remarkable to happen; once he crawled out of the cot-bed and
+groped his way to the chimney place. The next morning he was
+scarcely disappointed at finding nothing in the piteous little
+stocking, except the original holes.</p>
+
+<p>The years that stole silently over the heads of the old man
+and the young child in Welch's Court brought a period of wild
+prosperity to Stillwater. The breath of war blew the forges to a
+white heat, and the baffling problem of the medi&aelig;val
+alchemists was solved. The baser metals were transmuted into
+gold. A disastrous, prosperous time, with the air rent
+periodically by the cries of newsboys as battles were fought, and
+by the roll of the drum in the busy streets as fresh recruits
+were wanted. Glory and death to the Southward, and at the North
+pale women in black.</p>
+
+<p>All which interested Dick mighty little. After he had learned
+to read at the district school, he escaped into another world.
+Two lights were now generally seen burning of a night in the
+Shackford house: one on the ground-floor where Mr. Shackford sat
+mouthing his contracts and mortgages, and weaving his webs like a
+great, lean, gray spider; and the other in the north gable, where
+Dick hung over a tattered copy of Robinson Crusoe by the flicker
+of the candle-ends which he had captured during the day.</p>
+
+<p>Little Dick was little Dick no more: a tall, heavily built
+blond boy, with a quiet, sweet disposition, that at first offered
+temptations to the despots of the playground; but a sudden
+flaring up once or twice of that unexpected spirit which had
+broken out in his babyhood brought him immunity from serious
+persecution.</p>
+
+<p>The boy's home life at this time would have seemed pathetic to
+an observer,--the more pathetic, perhaps, in that Dick himself
+was not aware of its exceptional barrenness. The holidays that
+bring new brightness to the eyes of happier children were to him
+simply days when he did not go to school, and was expected to
+provide an extra quantity of kindling wood. He was housed, and
+fed, and clothed, after a fashion, but not loved. Mr. Shackford
+did not ill-treat the lad, in the sense of beating him; he merely
+neglected him. Every year the man became more absorbed in his law
+cases and his money, which accumulated magically. He dwelt in a
+cloud of calculations. Though all his interests attached him to
+the material world, his dry, attenuated body seemed scarcely a
+part of it.</p>
+
+<p>"Shackford, what are you going to do with that scapegrace of
+yours?"</p>
+
+<p>It was Mr. Leonard Tappleton who ventured the question. Few
+persons dared to interrogate Mr. Shackford on his private
+affairs.</p>
+
+<p>"I am going to make a lawyer of him," said Mr. Shackford,
+crackling his finger-joints like stiff parchment.</p>
+
+<p>"You couldn't do better. You <i>ought</i> to have an attorney
+in the family."</p>
+
+<p>"Just so," assented Mr. Shackford, dryly. "I could throw a bit
+of business in his way now and then,--eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"You could make his fortune, Shackford. I don't see but you
+might employ him all the time. When he was not fighting the
+corporations, you might keep him at it suing you for his
+fees."</p>
+
+<p>"Very good, very good indeed," responded Mr. Shackford, with a
+smile in which his eyes took no share, it was merely a momentary
+curling up of crisp wrinkles. He did not usually smile at other
+people's pleasantries; but when a person worth three or four
+hundred thousand dollars condescends to indulge a joke, it is not
+to be passed over like that of a poor relation. "Yes, yes,"
+muttered the old man, as he stooped and picked up a pin, adding
+it to a row of similarly acquired pins which gave the left lapel
+of his threadbare coat the appearance of a miniature harp, "I
+shall make a lawyer of him."</p>
+
+<p>It had long been settled in Mr. Shackford's mind that Richard,
+so soon as he had finished his studies, should enter the
+law-office of Blandmann &amp; Sharpe, a firm of rather sinister
+reputation in South Millville.</p>
+
+<p>At fourteen Richard's eyes had begun to open on the situation;
+at fifteen he saw very clearly; and one day, without much
+preliminary formulating of his plan, he decided on a step that
+had been taken by every male Shackford as far back as tradition
+preserves the record of his family.</p>
+
+<p>A friendship had sprung up between Richard and one William
+Durgin, a school-mate. This Durgin was a sallow, brooding boy, a
+year older than himself. The two lads were antipodal in
+disposition, intelligence, and social standing; for though
+Richard went poorly clad, the reflection of his cousin's wealth
+gilded him. Durgin was the son of a washerwoman. An intimacy
+between the two would perhaps have been unlikely but for one
+fact: it was Durgin's mother who had given little Dick a shelter
+at the period of his parents' death. Though the circumstance did
+not lie within the pale of Richard's personal memory, he
+acknowledged the debt by rather insisting on Durgin's friendship.
+It was William Durgin, therefore, who was elected to wait upon
+Mr. Shackford on a certain morning which found that gentleman
+greatly disturbed by an unprecedented occurrence,--Richard had
+slept out of the house the previous night.</p>
+
+<p>Durgin was the bearer of a note which Mr. Shackford received
+in some astonishment, and read deliberately, blinking with weak
+eyes behind the glasses. Having torn off the blank page and laid
+it aside for his own more economical correspondence (the rascal
+had actually used a whole sheet to write ten words!), Mr.
+Shackford turned, and with the absorbed air of a naturalist
+studying some abnormal bug gazed over the steel bow of his
+spectacles at Durgin.</p>
+
+<p>"Skit!"</p>
+
+<p>Durgin hastily retreated.</p>
+
+<p>"There's a poor lawyer saved," muttered the old man, taking
+down his overcoat from a peg behind the door, and snapping off a
+shred of lint on the collar with his lean forefinger. Then his
+face relaxed, and an odd grin diffused a kind of wintry glow over
+it.</p>
+
+<p>Richard had run away to sea.</p>
+
+<h2>VI</h2>
+
+<p>After a lapse of four years, during which he had as completely
+vanished out of the memory of Stillwater as if he had been lying
+all the while in the crowded family tomb behind the South Church,
+Richard Shackford reappeared one summer morning at the door of
+his cousin's house in Welch's Court. Mr. Shackford was absent at
+the moment, and Mrs. Morganson, an elderly deaf woman, who came
+in for a few hours every day to do the house-work, was busy in
+the extension. Without announcing himself, Richard stalked
+up-stairs to the chamber in the gable, and went directly to a
+little shelf in one corner, upon which lay the dog's-eared copy
+of Robinson Crusoe just as he had left it, save the four years'
+accumulation of dust. Richard took the book fiercely in both
+hands, and with a single mighty tug tore it from top to bottom,
+and threw the fragments into the fire-place.</p>
+
+<p>A moment later, on the way down-stairs, he encountered his
+kinsman ascending.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, you have come back!" was Mr. Shackford's grim greeting
+after a moment's hesitation.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Richard, with embarrassment, though he had made up
+his mind not to be embarrassed by his cousin.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't say I was looking for you. You might have dropped me
+a line; you were politer when you left. Why do you come back, and
+why did you go away?" demanded the old man, with abrupt
+fierceness. The last four years had bleached him and bent him and
+made him look very old.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't like the idea of Blandmann &amp; Sharpe, for one thing,"
+said Richard, "and I thought I liked the sea."</p>
+
+<p>"And did you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir! I enjoyed seeing foreign parts, and all that."</p>
+
+<p>"Quite the young gentleman on his travels. But the sea didn't
+agree with you, and now you like the idea of Blandmann &amp;
+Sharpe?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not the least in the world, I assure you!" cried Richard. "I
+take to it as little as ever I did."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps that is fortunate. But it's going to be rather
+difficult to suit your tastes. What <i>do</i> you like?"</p>
+
+<p>"I like you, cousin Lemuel; you have always been kind to
+me--in your way," said poor Richard, yearning for a glimmer of
+human warmth and sympathy, and forgetting all the dreariness of
+his uncared-for childhood. He had been out in the world, and had
+found it even harder-hearted than his own home, which now he
+idealized in the first flush of returning to it. Again he saw
+himself, a blond-headed little fellow with stocking down at heel,
+climbing the steep staircase, or digging in the clay at the front
+gate with the air full of the breath of lilacs. That same
+penetrating perfume, blown through the open hall-door as he
+spoke, nearly brought the tears to his eyes. He had looked
+forward for years to this coming back to Stillwater. Many a time,
+as he wandered along the streets of some foreign sea-port, the
+rich architecture and the bright costumes had faded out before
+him, and given place to the fat gray belfry and slim red chimneys
+of the humble New England village where he was born. He had
+learned to love it after losing it; and now he had struggled back
+through countless trials and disasters to find no welcome.</p>
+
+<p>"Cousin Lemuel," said Richard gently, "only just us two are
+left, and we ought to be good friends, at least."</p>
+
+<p>"We are good enough friends," mumbled Mr. Shackford, who could
+not evade taking the hand which Richard had forlornly reached out
+to him, "but that needn't prevent us understanding each other
+like rational creatures. I don't care for a great deal of fine
+sentiment in people who run away without so much as thank you."</p>
+
+<p>"I was all wrong!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's what folks always say, with the delusion that it makes
+everything all right."</p>
+
+<p>"Surely it help,--to admit it."</p>
+
+<p>"That depends; it generally doesn't. What do you propose to
+do?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hardly know at the moment; my plans are quite in the
+air."</p>
+
+<p>"In the air!" repeated Mr. Shackford. "I fancy that describes
+them. Your father's plans were always in the air, too, and he
+never got any of them down."</p>
+
+<p>"I intend to get mine down."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you saved by anything?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a cent."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought as much."</p>
+
+<p>"I had a couple of hundred dollars in my sea-chest; but I was
+shipwrecked, and lost it. I barely saved myself. When Robinson
+Crusoe"--</p>
+
+<p>"Damn Robinson Crusoe!" snapped Mr. Shackford.</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I say," returned Richard gravely. "When Robinson
+Crusoe was cast on an uninhabited island, shrimps and soft-shell
+crabs and all sorts of delicious mollusks--readily boiled, I've
+no doubt--crawled up on the beach, and begged him to eat them;
+but <i>I</i> nearly starved to death."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course. You will always be shipwrecked, and always be
+starved to death; you are one of that kind. I don't believe you
+are a Shackford at all. When they were not anything else they
+were good sailors. If you only had a drop of <i>his</i> blood in
+your veins!" and Mr. Shackford waved his head towards a faded
+portrait of a youngish, florid gentleman with banged hair and
+high coat-collar, which hung against the wall half-way up the
+stair-case. This was the counterfeit presentment of Lemuel
+Shackford's father seated with his back at an open window,
+through which was seen a ship under full canvas with the
+union-jack standing out straight in the wrong direction. "But
+what are you going to do for yourself? You can't start a
+subscription paper, and play with shipwrecked mariner, you
+know."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I hardly care to do that," said Richard, with a
+good-natured laugh, "though no poor devil ever had a better
+outfit for the character."</p>
+
+<p>"What <i>are</i> you calculated for?"</p>
+
+<p>Richard was painfully conscious of his unfitness for many
+things; but he felt there was nothing in life to which he was so
+ill adapted as his present position. Yet, until he could look
+about him, he must needs eat his kinsman's reluctant bread, or
+starve. The world was younger and more unsophisticated when manna
+dropped from the clouds.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Shackford stood with his neck craned over the frayed edge
+of his satin stock and one hand resting indecisively on the
+banister, and Richard on the step above, leaning his back against
+the blighted flowers of the wall-paper. From an oval window at
+the head of the stairs the summer sunshine streamed upon them,
+and illuminated the high-shouldered clock which, ensconced in an
+alcove, seemed to be listening to the conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"There's no chance for you in the law," said Mr. Shackford,
+after a long pause. "Sharpe's nephew has the berth. A while ago I
+might have got you into the Miantowona Iron Works; but the
+rascally directors are trying to ruin me now. There's the Union
+Store, if they happen to want a clerk. I suppose you would be
+about as handy behind a counter as a hippopotamus. I have no
+business of my own to train you to. You are not good for the sea,
+and the sea has probably spoiled you for anything else. A drop of
+salt water just poisons a landsman. I am sure I don't know what
+to do with you."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't bother yourself about it at all," said Richard,
+cheerfully. "You are going back on the whole family, ancestors
+and posterity, by suggesting that I can't make my own living. I
+only want a little time to take breath, don't you see, and a
+crust and a bed for a few days, such as you might give any
+wayfarer. Meanwhile, I will look after things around the place. I
+fancy I was never an idler here since the day I learnt to split
+kindling."</p>
+
+<p>"There's your old bed in the north chamber," said Mr.
+Shackford, wrinkling his forehead helplessly. "According to my
+notion, it is not so good as a bunk, or a hammock slung in a tidy
+forecastle, but it's at your service, and Mrs. Morganson, I dare
+say, can lay an extra plate at table."</p>
+
+<p>With which gracious acceptance of Richard's proposition, Mr.
+Shackford resumed his way upstairs, and the young man
+thoughtfully descended to the hall-door and thence into the
+street, to take a general survey of the commercial capabilities
+of Stillwater.</p>
+
+<p>The outlook was not inspiring. A machinist, or a mechanic, or
+a day laborer might have found a foot-hold. A man without
+handicraft was not in request in Stillwater. "What is your
+trade?" was the staggering question that met Richard at the
+threshold. He went from workshop to workshop, confidently and
+cheerfully at first, whistling softly between whiles; but at
+every turn the question confronted him. In some places, where he
+was recognized with thinly veiled surprise as that boy of
+Shackford's, he was kindly put off; in others he received only a
+stare or a brutal No.</p>
+
+<p>By noon he had exhausted the leading shops and offices in the
+village, and was so disheartened that he began to dread the
+thought of returning home to dinner. Clearly, he was a
+superfluous person in Stillwater. A mortar-splashed hod-carrier,
+who had seated himself on a pile of brick and was eating his
+noonday rations from a tin can just brought to him by a
+slatternly girl, gave Richard a spasm of envy. Here was a man who
+had found his place, and was establishing--what Richard did not
+seem able to establish in his own case--a right to exist.</p>
+
+<p>At supper Mr. Shackford refrained from examining Richard on
+his day's employment, for which reserve, or indifference, the boy
+was grateful. When the silent meal was over the old man went to
+his papers, and Richard withdrew to his room in the gable. He had
+neglected to provide himself with a candle. However, there was
+nothing to read, for in destroying Robinson Crusoe he had
+destroyed his entire library; so he sat and brooded in the
+moonlight, casting a look of disgust now and then at the
+mutilated volume on the hearth. That lying romance! It had been,
+indirectly, the cause of all his woe, filling his boyish brain
+with visions of picturesque adventure, and sending him off to
+sea, where he had lost four precious years of his life.</p>
+
+<p>"If I had stuck to my studies," reflected Richard while
+undressing, "I might have made something of myself. He's a great
+friend, Robinson Crusoe."</p>
+
+<p>Richard fell asleep with as much bitterness in his bosom
+against DeFoe's ingenious hero as if Robinson had been a living
+person instead of a living fiction, and out of this animosity
+grew a dream so fantastic and comical that Richard awoke himself
+with a bewildered laugh just as the sunrise reddened the panes of
+the chamber window. In this dream somebody came to Richard and
+asked him if he had heard of that dreadful thing about young
+Crusoe.</p>
+
+<p>"No, confound him!" said Richard, "what is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It has been ascertained," said somebody, who seemed to
+Richard at once an intimate friend and an utter stranger,--"it
+has been ascertained beyond a doubt that the man Friday was not a
+man Friday at all, but a light-minded young princess from one of
+the neighboring islands who had fallen in love with Robinson. Her
+real name was Saturday."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, that's scandalous!" cried Richard with heat. "Think of
+the admiration and sympathy the world has been lavishing on this
+precious pair; Robinson Crusoe and his girl Saturday! That puts a
+different face on it."</p>
+
+<p>"Another great moral character exploded," murmured the shadowy
+shape, mixing itself up with the motes of a sunbeam and drifting
+out through the window. Then Richard fell to laughing in his
+sleep, and so awoke. He was still confused with the dream as he
+sat on the edge of his bed, pulling himself together in the broad
+daylight.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he muttered at length, "I shouldn't wonder! There's
+nothing too bad to be believed of that man."</p>
+
+<h2>VII</h2>
+
+<p>Richard made an early start that morning in search of
+employment, and duplicated the failure of the previous day.
+Nobody wanted him. If nobody wanted him in the village where he
+was born and bred, a village of counting-rooms and workshops, was
+any other place likely to need him? He had only one hope, if it
+could be called a hope; at any rate, he had treated it tenderly
+as such and kept it for the last. He would apply to Rowland
+Slocum. Long ago, when Richard was an urchin making pot-hooks in
+the lane, the man used occasionally to pat him on the head and
+give him pennies. This was not a foundation on which to rear a
+very lofty castle; but this was all he had.</p>
+
+<p>It was noon when Richard approached the marble yard, and the
+men were pouring out into the street through the wide gate in the
+rough deal fence which inclosed the works,--heavy, brawny men,
+covered with fine white dust, who shouldered each other like
+cattle, and took the sidewalk to themselves. Richard stepped
+aside to let them pass, eying them curiously as possible
+comrades. Suddenly a slim dark fellow, who had retained his paper
+cap and leather apron, halted and thrust forth a horny hand. The
+others went on.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo, Dick Shackford!"</p>
+
+<p>"What, is that you, Will? <i>You</i> here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Been here two years now. One of Slocum's apprentices," added
+Durgin, with an air of easy grandeur.</p>
+
+<p>"Two years? How time flies--when it doesn't crawl! Do you like
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"My time will be out next--Oh, the work? Well, yes; it's not
+bad, and there's a jolly set in the yard. But how about you? I
+heard last night you'd got home. Been everywhere and come back
+wealthy? The boys used to say you was off pirating."</p>
+
+<p>"No such luck," answered Richard, with a smile. "I didn't prey
+on the high seas,--quite the contrary. The high sea captured my
+kit and four years' savings. I will tell you about it some day.
+If I have a limb to my name and a breath left to my body, it is
+no thanks to the Indian Ocean. That is all I have got, Will, and
+I am looking around for bread and butter,--literally bread and
+butter."</p>
+
+<p>"No? and the old gentleman so rich!"</p>
+
+<p>Durgin said this with sincere indignation, and was perhaps
+unconscious himself of experiencing that nameless, shadowy
+satisfaction which Rochefoucauld says we find in the adversity of
+our best friends. Certainly Richard looked very seedy in his suit
+of slop-shop clothes.</p>
+
+<p>"I was on my way to Mr. Slocum's to see if I could do anything
+with him," Richard continued.</p>
+
+<p>"To get a job, do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, to get work,--to learn <i>how</i> to work; to master a
+trade, in short."</p>
+
+<p>"You can't be an apprentice, you know," said Durgin.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Slocum has two."</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose he should happen to want another? He might."</p>
+
+<p>"The Association wouldn't allow it."</p>
+
+<p>"What Association?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Marble Workers' Association, of course."</p>
+
+<p><i>"They</i> wouldn't allow it! How is that?"</p>
+
+<p>"This the way of it. Slocum is free to take on two apprentices
+every year, but no more. That prevents workmen increasing too
+fast, and so keeps up wages. The Marble Workers' Association is a
+very neat thing, I can tell you."</p>
+
+<p>"But doesn't Mr. Slocum own the yard? I thought he did."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he owns the yard."</p>
+
+<p>"If he wished to extend the business, couldn't he employ more
+hands?"</p>
+
+<p>"As many as he could get,--skilled workmen; but not
+apprentices."</p>
+
+<p>"And Mr. Slocum agrees to that?" inquired Richard.</p>
+
+<p>"He does."</p>
+
+<p>"And likes it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not he,--he hates it; but he can't help himself."</p>
+
+<p>"Upon my soul, I don't see what prevents him taking on as many
+apprentices as he wants to."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, the Association, to be sure," returned Durgin, glancing
+at the town clock, which marked seven minutes past the hour.</p>
+
+<p>"But how could they stop him?"</p>
+
+<p>"In plenty of ways. Suppose Slocum has a lot of unfinished
+contracts on hand,--he always has fat contracts,--and the men was
+to knock off work. That would be kind of awkward, wouldn't
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"For a day or two, yes. He could send out of town for hands,"
+suggested Richard.</p>
+
+<p>"And they wouldn't come, if the Association said 'Stay where
+you are.' They are mostly in the ring. Some outsiders might come,
+though."</p>
+
+<p>"Then what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, then the boys would make it pretty hot for them in
+Stillwater. Don't you notice?"</p>
+
+<p>"I notice there is not much chance for me," said Richard,
+despondingly. "Isn't that so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Can't say. Better talk with Slocum. But I must get along; I
+have to be back sharp at one. I want to hear about your knocking
+around the worst kind. Can't we meet somewhere tonight,--at the
+tavern?"</p>
+
+<p>"The tavern? That didn't used to be a quiet place."</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't quiet now, but there's nowhere else to go of a
+night. It's a comfortable den, and there's always some capital
+fellows dropping in. A glass of lager with a mate is not a bad
+thing after a hard day's work."</p>
+
+<p>"Both are good things when they are of the right sort."</p>
+
+<p>"That's like saying I'm not the right sort, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I meant nothing of the kind. But I don't take to the tavern.
+Not that I'm squeamish; I have lived four years among sailors,
+and have been in rougher places than you ever dreamed of; but all
+the same I am afraid of the tavern. I've seen many a brave fellow
+wrecked on that reef."</p>
+
+<p>"You always was a bit stuck up," said Durgin candidly.</p>
+
+<p>"Not an inch. I never had much reason to be; and less now than
+ever, when I can scarcely afford to drink water, let alone beer.
+I will drop round to your mother's some evening--I hope she's
+well,--and tell you of my ups and downs. That will be pleasanter
+for all hands."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, as you like."</p>
+
+<p>"Now for Mr. Slocum, though you have taken the wind out of
+me."</p>
+
+<p>The two separated, Durgin with a half smile on his lip, and
+Richard in a melancholy frame of mind. He passed from the
+grass-fringed street into the deserted marble yard, where it
+seemed as if the green summer had suddenly turned into white
+winter, and threading his way between the huge drifts of snowy
+stone, knocked at the door of Mr. Slocum's private office.</p>
+
+<p>William Durgin had summed up the case fairly enough as it
+stood between the Marble Workers' Association and Rowland Slocum.
+The system of this branch of the trades-union kept trained
+workmen comparatively scarce, and enabled them to command regular
+and even advanced prices at periods when other trades were
+depressed. The older hands looked upon a fresh apprentice in the
+yard with much the same favor as workingmen of the era of
+Jacquard looked upon the introduction of a new piece of
+machinery. Unless the apprentice had exceptional tact, he
+underwent a rough novitiate. In any case he served a term of
+social ostracism before he was admitted to full comradeship. Mr.
+Slocum could easily have found openings each year for a dozen
+learners, had the matter been under his control; but it was not.
+"I am the master of each man individually," he declared, "but
+collectively they are my master." So his business, instead of
+naturally spreading and becoming a benefit to the many, was kept
+carefully pruned down to the benefit of the few. He was often
+forced to decline important contracts, the filling of which would
+have resulted to the advantage of every person in the
+village.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Slocum recognized Richard at once, and listened kindly to
+his story. It was Mr. Slocum's way to listen kindly to every one;
+but he was impressed with Richard's intelligence and manner, and
+became desirous, for several reasons, to assist him. In the first
+place, there was room in the shops for another apprentice;
+experienced hands were on jobs that could have been as well done
+by beginners; and, in the second place, Mr. Slocum had an
+intuition that Lemuel Shackford was not treating the lad fairly,
+though Richard had said nothing to this effect. Now, Mr. Slocum
+and Mr. Shackford were just then at swords' points.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't suppose I could annoy Shackford more," was Mr.
+Slocum's reflection, "than by doing something for this boy, whom
+he has always shamelessly neglected."</p>
+
+<p>The motive was not a high one; but Richard would have been
+well satisfied with it, if he could have divined it. He did
+divine that Mr. Slocum was favorably inclined towards him, and
+stood watching that gentleman's face with hopeful anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>"I have my regulation number of young men, Richard," said Mr.
+Slocum, "and there will be no vacancy until autumn. If you could
+wait a few months."</p>
+
+<p>Richard's head drooped.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't do that? You write a good hand, you say. Perhaps you
+could assist the book-keeper until there's a chance for you in
+the yard."</p>
+
+<p>"I think I could, sir," said Richard eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"If you were only a draughtsman, now, I could do something
+much better for you. I intend to set up a shop for ornamental
+carving, and I want some one to draw patterns. If you had a knack
+at designing, if you could draw at all"--</p>
+
+<p>Richard's face lighted up.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you <i>have</i> a turn that way. I remember the queer
+things you used to scratch in the mud in the court, when you were
+a little shaver. Can you draw?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, that is the one thing I can do!" cried Richard,--"in a
+rough fashion, of course," he added, fearing he had overstated
+it.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a rough fashion that will serve. You must let me see
+some of your sketches."</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't any, sir. I had a hundred in my sea-chest, but that
+was lost,--pencillings of old archways, cathedral spires, bits of
+frieze, and such odds and ends as took my fancy in the ports we
+touched at. I recollect one bit. I think I could do it for you
+now. Shall I?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Slocum nodded assent, smiling at the young fellow's
+enthusiasm, and only partially suspecting his necessity. Richard
+picked up a pen and began scratching on a letter sheet which lay
+on the desk. He was five or six minutes at the work, during which
+the elder man watched him with an amused expression.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a section of cornice on the fa&ccedil;ade of the Hindoo
+College at Calcutta," said Richard, handing him the paper,--"no,
+it's the custom-house. I forget which; but it doesn't
+matter."</p>
+
+<p>The amused look gradually passed out of Mr. Slocum's
+countenance as he examined the sketch. It was roughly but clearly
+drawn, and full of facility. "Why, that's very clever!" he said,
+holding it at arms'-length; and then, with great gravity, "I hope
+you are not a genius, Richard; that would be too much of a fine
+thing. If you are not, you can be of service to me in my
+plans."</p>
+
+<p>Richard laughingly made haste to declare that to the best of
+his knowledge and belief he was not a genius, and it was decided
+on the spot that Richard should assist Mr. Simms, the bookkeeper,
+and presently try his hand at designing ornamental patterns for
+the carvers, Mr. Slocum allowing him apprentice wages until the
+quality of his work should be ascertained.</p>
+
+<p>"It is very little," said Mr. Slocum, "but it will pay your
+board, if you do not live at home."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not remain at my cousin's," Richard replied, "if you
+call that home."</p>
+
+<p>"I can imagine it is not much of a home. Your cousin, not to
+put too fine a point on it, is a wretch."</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry to hear you say that, sir; he's my only living
+kinsman."</p>
+
+<p>"You are fortunate in having but one, then. However, I am
+wrong to abuse him to you; but I cannot speak of him with
+moderation, he has just played me such a despicable trick. Look
+here."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Slocum led Richard to the door, and pointing to a row of
+new workshops which extended the entire length of one side of the
+marble yard, said,--</p>
+
+<p>"I built these last spring. After the shingles were on we
+discovered that the rear partition, for a distance of
+seventy-five feet, overlapped two inches on Shackford's meadow. I
+was ready to drop when I saw it, your cousin is such an
+unmanageable old fiend. Of course I went to him immediately, and
+what do you think? He demanded five hundred dollars for that
+strip of land! Five hundred dollars for a few inches of swamp
+meadow not worth ten dollars the acre! 'Then take your
+disreputable old mill off my property!' says Shackford,--he
+called it a disreputable old mill! I was hasty, perhaps, and I
+told him to go to the devil. He said he would, and he did; for he
+went to Blandmann. When the lawyers got hold of it, they bothered
+the life out of me; so I just moved the building forward two
+inches, at an expense of seven hundred dollars. Then what does
+the demon do but board up all my windows opening on the meadow!
+Richard, I make it a condition that you shall not lodge at
+Shackford's."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing could induce me to live another day in the same house
+with him, sir," answered Richard, suppressing an inclination to
+smile; and then seriously, "His bread is bitter."</p>
+
+<p>Richard went back with a light heart to Welch's Court. At the
+gate of the marble yard he met William Durgin returning to work.
+The steam-whistle had sounded the call, and there was no time for
+exchange of words; so Richard gave his comrade a bright nod and
+passed by. Durgin turned and stared after him.</p>
+
+<p>"Looks as if Slocum had taken him on; but it never can be as
+apprentice; he wouldn't dare do it."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Shackford had nearly finished his frugal dinner when
+Richard entered. "If you can't hit it to be in at your meals,"
+said Mr. Shackford, helping himself absently to the remaining
+chop, "perhaps you had better stop away altogether."</p>
+
+<p>"I can do that now, cousin," replied Richard sunnily. "I have
+engaged with Slocum."</p>
+
+<p>The old man laid down his knife and fork.</p>
+
+<p>"With Slocum! A Shackford a miserable marble-chipper!"</p>
+
+<p>There was so little hint of the aristocrat in Lemuel
+Shackford's sordid life and person that no one suspected him of
+even self-esteem. He went as meanly dressed as a tramp, and as
+careless of contemporary criticism; yet clear down in his liver,
+or somewhere in his anatomy, he nourished an odd abstract pride
+in the family Shackford. Heaven knows why! To be sure, it dated
+far back; its women had always been virtuous, and its men, if not
+always virtuous, had always been ship-captains. But beyond this
+the family had never amounted to anything, and now there was so
+very little left of it. For Richard as Richard Lemuel cared
+nothing; for Richard as a Shackford he had a chaotic feeling that
+defied analysis and had never before risen to the surface. It was
+therefore with a disgust entirely apart from the hatred of Slocum
+or regard for Richard that the old man exclaimed, "A Shackford a
+miserable marble-chipper!"</p>
+
+<p>"That is better than hanging around the village with my hands
+in my pockets. Isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know that anybody has demanded that you should hang
+around the village."</p>
+
+<p>"I ought to go away, you mean? But I have found work here, and
+I might not find it elsewhere."</p>
+
+<p>"Stillwater is not the place to begin life in. It's the place
+to go away from, and come back to."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I have come back."</p>
+
+<p>"And how? With one shirt and a lot of bad sailor habits."</p>
+
+<p>"My one shirt is my only very bad habit," said Richard, with a
+laugh,--he could laugh now,--"and I mean to get rid of that."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Shackford snapped his fingers disdainfully.</p>
+
+<p>"You ought to have stuck to the sea; that's respectable. In
+ten years you might have risen to be master of a bark; that would
+have been honorable. You might have gone down in a gale,--you
+probably would,--and that would have been fortunate. But a
+stone-cutter! You can understand," growled Mr. Shackford,
+reaching out for his straw hat, which he put on and crushed over
+his brows, "I don't keep a boarding-house for Slocum's
+hands."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'm far from asking it!" cried Richard. "I am thankful
+for the two nights' shelter I have had."</p>
+
+<p>"That's some of your sarcasm, I suppose," said Mr. Shackford,
+half turning, with his hands on the door-knob.</p>
+
+<p>"No, it is some of my sincerity. I am really obliged to you.
+You weren't very cordial, to be sure, but I did not deserve
+cordiality."</p>
+
+<p>"You have figured that out correctly."</p>
+
+<p>"I want to begin over again, you see, and start fair."</p>
+
+<p>"Then begin by dropping Slocum."</p>
+
+<p>"You have not given me a chance to tell you what the
+arrangement is. However, it's irrevocable."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to hear. I don't care a curse, so long as it is
+an arrangement," and Mr. Shackford hurried out of the room,
+slamming the door behind him.</p>
+
+<p>Then Richard, quite undisturbed by his cousin's
+unreasonableness, sat himself down to eat the last meal he was
+ever to eat under that roof,--a feat which his cousin's appetite
+had rendered comparatively easy.</p>
+
+<p>While engaged in this, Richard resolved in his mind several
+questions as to his future abode. He could not reconcile his
+thought to any of the workingmen's boarding-houses, of which
+there were five or six in the slums of the village, where the
+doorways were greasy, and women flitted about in the hottest
+weather with thick woolen shawls over their heads. Yet his
+finances did not permit him to aspire to lodgings much more
+decent. If he could only secure a small room somewhere in a quiet
+neighborhood. Possibly Mrs. Durgin would let him have a chamber
+in her cottage. He was beginning life over again, and it struck
+him as nearly an ideal plan to begin it on the identical spot
+where he had, in a manner, made his first start. Besides, there
+was William Durgin for company, when the long nights of the New
+England winter set in. The idea smiled so pleasantly in Richard's
+fancy that he pushed the plate away from him impatiently, and
+picked up his hat which lay on the floor beside the chair.</p>
+
+<p>That evening he moved from the Shackford house to Mrs.
+Durgin's cottage in Cross Street. It was not an imposing
+ceremony. With a small brown-paper parcel under his arm, he
+walked from one threshold to the other, and the thing was
+done.</p>
+
+<h2>VIII</h2>
+
+<p>The six months which followed Richard's installment in the
+office at Slocum's Yard were so crowded with novel experience
+that he scarcely noted their flight. The room at the Durgins, as
+will presently appear, turned out an unfortunate arrangement; but
+everything else had prospered. Richard proved an efficient aid to
+Mr. Simms, who quietly shifted the pay-roll to the younger man's
+shoulders. This was a very complicated account to keep, involving
+as it did a separate record of each employee's time and special
+work. An ancient bookkeeper parts lightly with such trifles when
+he has a capable assistant. It also fell to Richard's lot to pay
+the hands on Saturdays. William Durgin blinked his surprise on
+the first occasion, as he filed in with the others and saw
+Richard posted at the desk, with the pay-roll in his hand and the
+pile of greenbacks lying in front of him.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you'll be proprietor next," remarked Durgin, that
+evening, at the supper table.</p>
+
+<p>"When I am, Will," answered Richard cheerily, "you will be on
+the road to foreman of the finishing shop."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," said Durgin, not too graciously. It grated on him
+to play the part of foreman, even in imagination, with Dick
+Shackford as proprietor. Durgin could not disconnect his friend
+from that seedy, half-crestfallen figure to whom, a few months
+earlier, he had given elementary instruction on the Marble
+Workers' Association.</p>
+
+<p>Richard did not find his old schoolmate so companionable as
+memory and anticipation had painted him. The two young men moved
+on different levels. Richard's sea life, now that he had got at a
+sufficient distance from it, was a perspective full of pleasant
+color; he had a taste for reading, a thirst to know things, and
+his world was not wholly shut in by the Stillwater horizon. It
+was still a pitifully narrow world, but wide compared with
+Durgin's, which extended no appreciable distance in any direction
+from the Stillwater hotel. He spent his evenings chiefly there,
+returning home late at night, and often in so noisy a mood as to
+disturb Richard, who slept in an adjoining apartment. This was an
+annoyance; and it was an annoyance to have Mrs. Durgin coming to
+him with complaints of William. Other matters irritated Richard.
+He had contrived to replenish his wardrobe, and the sunburn was
+disappearing from his hands, which the nature of his occupation
+left soft and unscarred. Durgin was disposed at times to be
+sarcastic on these changes, but always stopped short of actual
+offense; for he remembered that Shackford when a boy, amiable and
+patient as he was, had had a tiger's temper at bottom. Durgin had
+seen it roused once or twice, and even received a chance sweep of
+the paw. Richard liked Durgin's rough wit as little as Durgin
+relished Richard's good-natured bluntness. It was a mistake, that
+trying to pick up the dropped thread of old acquaintance.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the permanency of his position was assured, and his
+means warranted the step, Richard transported himself and his
+effects to a comfortable chamber in the same house with Mr.
+Pinkham, the school-master, the perpetual falsetto of whose flute
+was positively soothing after four months of William Durgin's
+bass. Mr. Pinkham having but one lung, and that defective, played
+on the flute.</p>
+
+<p>"You see what you've gone and done, William," remarked Mrs.
+Durgin plaintively, "with your ways. There goes the quietest
+young man in Stillwater, and four dollars a week!"</p>
+
+<p>"There goes a swell, you'd better say. He was always a proud
+beggar; nobody was ever good enough for him."</p>
+
+<p>"You shouldn't say that, William. I could cry, to lose him and
+his cheerfulness out of the house," and Mrs. Durgin began to
+whimper.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait till he's out of luck again, and he'll come back to us
+fast enough. That's when his kind remembers their friends. Blast
+him! he can't even take a drop of beer with a chum at the
+tavern."</p>
+
+<p>"And right, too. There's beer enough taken at the tavern
+without him."</p>
+
+<p>"If you mean me, mother, I'll get drunk tonight."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!" cried Mrs. Durgin, pleadingly, "I didn't mean you,
+William, but Peters and that set."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you couldn't mean me," said William, thrusting his
+hands into the pockets of his monkey-jacket, and sauntering off
+in the direction of the Stillwater hotel, where there was a
+choice company gathered, it being Saturday night, and the monthly
+meeting of the Union.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Slocum had wasted no time in organizing a shop for his
+experiment in ornamental carving. Five or six men, who had worked
+elsewhere at this branch, were turned over to the new department,
+with Stevens as foreman and Richard as designer. Very shortly
+Richard had as much as he could do to furnish the patterns
+required. These consisted mostly of scrolls, wreaths, and
+mortuary dove-wings for head-stones. Fortunately for Richard he
+had no genius, but plenty of a kind of talent just abreast with
+Mr. Slocum's purpose. As the carvers became interested in their
+work, they began to show Richard the respect and good-will which
+at first had been withheld, for they had not quite liked being
+under the supervision of one who had not served at the trade. His
+youth had also told against him; but Richard's pleasant, off-hand
+manner quickly won them. He had come in contact with rough men on
+shipboard; he had studied their ways, and he knew that with all
+their roughness there is no class so sensitive. This insight was
+of great service to him. Stevens, who had perhaps been the least
+disposed to accept Richard, was soon his warm ally.</p>
+
+<p>"See what a smooth fist the lad has!" he said one day holding
+up a new drawing to the shop. "A man with a wreath of them acorns
+on his head-stone oughter be perfectly happy, damn him!"</p>
+
+<p>It was, however, an anchor with a broken chain pendent--a
+design for a monument to the late Captain Septimius Salter, who
+had parted his cable at sea--which settled Richard's status with
+Stevens.</p>
+
+<p>"Boys, that Shackford is what <i>I</i> call a born genei."</p>
+
+<p>After all, is not the one-eyed man who is king among the blind
+the most fortunate of monarchs? Your little talent in a
+provincial village looms a great deal taller than your mighty
+genius in a city. Richard Shackford working for Rowland Slocum at
+Stillwater was happier than Michaelangelo in Rome with Pope
+Julius II. at his back. And Richard was the better paid, too!</p>
+
+<p>One day he picked up a useful hint from a celebrated sculptor,
+who had come to the village in search of marble for the base of a
+soldiers' monument. Richard was laboriously copying a spray of
+fern, the delicacy of which eluded his pencil. The sculptor stood
+a moment silently observing him.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you spend an hour doing only passably well what you
+could do perfectly in ten minutes?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose it is because I am stupid, sir," said Richard.</p>
+
+<p>"No stupid man ever suspected himself of being anything but
+clever. You can draw capitally; but nature beats you out and out
+at designing ferns. Just ask her to make you a fac-simile in
+plaster, and see how handily she will lend herself to the job. Of
+course you must help her a little."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I am not above giving nature a lift," said Richard
+modestly.</p>
+
+<p>"Lay a cloth on your table, place the fern on the cloth, and
+pour a thin paste of plaster of Paris over the leaf,--do that
+gently, so as not to disarrange the spray. When the plaster is
+set, there's your mold; remove the leaf, oil the matrix, and
+pour in fresh plaster. When that is set, cut away the mold
+carefully, and there's your spray of fern, as graceful and
+perfect as if nature had done it all by herself. You get the very
+texture of the leaf by this process."</p>
+
+<p>After that, Richard made casts instead of drawings for the
+carvers, and fancied he was doing a new thing, until he visited
+some marble-works in the great city.</p>
+
+<p>At this period, whatever change subsequently took place in his
+feeling, Richard was desirous of establishing friendly relations
+with his cousin. The young fellow's sense of kinship was
+singularly strong, and it was only after several repulses at the
+door of the Shackford house and on the street that he
+relinquished the hope of placating the sour old man. At times
+Richard was moved almost to pity him. Every day Mr. Shackford
+seemed to grow shabbier and more spectral. He was a grotesque
+figure now, in his napless hat and broken-down stock. The metal
+button-holes on his ancient waistcoat had worn their way through
+the satin coverings, leaving here and there a sparse fringe
+around the edges, and somehow suggesting little bald heads.
+Looking at him, you felt that the inner man was as threadbare and
+dilapidated as his outside; but in his lonely old age he asked
+for no human sympathy or companionship, and, in fact, stood in no
+need of either. With one devouring passion he set the world at
+defiance. He loved his gold,--the metal itself, the weight and
+color and touch of it. In his bedroom on the ground-floor Mr.
+Shackford kept a small iron-clamped box filled to the lid with
+bright yellow coins. Often, at the dead of night, with door
+bolted and curtain down, he would spread out the glittering
+pieces on the table, and bend over them with an amorous glow in
+his faded eyes. These were his blond mistresses; he took a
+fearful joy in listening to their rustling, muffle laughter as he
+drew them towards him with eager hands. If at that instant a
+blind chanced to slam, or a footfall to echo in the lonely court,
+then the withered old sultan would hurry his slaves back into
+their iron-bound seraglio, and extinguish the light. It would
+have been a wasted tenderness to pity him. He was very happy in
+his own way, that Lemuel Shackford.</p>
+
+<h2>IX</h2>
+
+<p>Towards the close of his second year with Mr. Slocum, Richard
+was assigned a work-room by himself, and relieved of his
+accountant's duties. His undivided energies were demanded by the
+carving department, which had proved a lucrative success.</p>
+
+<p>The rear of the lot on which Mr. Slocum's house stood was shut
+off from the marble yard by a high brick wall pierced with a
+private door for Mr. Slocum's convenience. Over the kitchen in
+the extension, which reached within a few feet of the wall, was a
+disused chamber, approachable on the outside by a flight of steps
+leading to a veranda. To this room Richard and his traps were
+removed. With a round table standing in the center, with the
+plaster models arranged on shelves and sketches in pencil and
+crayon tacked against the whitewashed walls, the apartment was
+transformed into a delightful atelier. An open fire-place, with a
+brace of antiquated iron-dogs straddling the red brick hearth,
+gave the finishing touch. The occupant was in easy communication
+with the yard, from which the busy din of clinking chisels came
+musically to his ear, and was still beyond the reach of
+unnecessary interruption. Richard saw clearly all the advantages
+of this transfer, but he was far form having any intimation that
+he had made the most important move of his life.</p>
+
+<p>The room had two doors: one opened on the veranda, and the
+other into a narrow hall connecting the extension with the main
+building. Frequently, that first week after taking possession,
+Richard detected the sweep of a broom and the rustle of drapery
+in this passage-way, the sound sometimes hushing itself quite
+close to the door, as if some one had paused a moment just
+outside. He wondered whether it was the servant-maid or Margaret
+Slocum, whom he knew very well by sight. It was, in fact,
+Margaret, who was dying with the curiosity of fourteen to peep
+into the studio, so carefully locked whenever the young man left
+it,--dying with curiosity to see the workshop, and standing in
+rather great awe of the workman.</p>
+
+<p>In the home circle her father had a habit of speaking with
+deep respect of young Shackford's ability, and once she had seen
+him at their table,--at a Thanksgiving. On this occasion Richard
+had appalled her by the solemnity of his shyness,--poor Richard,
+who was so unused to the amenities of a handsomely served dinner,
+that the chill which came over him cooled the Thanksgiving turkey
+on his palate.</p>
+
+<p>When it had been decided that he was to have the spare room
+for his workshop, Margaret, with womanly officiousness, had swept
+it and dusted it and demolished the cobwebs; but since then she
+had not been able to obtain so much as a glimpse of the interior.
+A ten minutes' sweeping had sufficed for the chamber, but the
+passage-way seemed in quite an irreclaimable state, judging by
+the number of times it was necessary to sweep it in the course of
+a few days. Now Margaret was not an unusual mixture of timidity
+and daring; so one morning, about a week after Richard was
+settled, she walked with quaking heart up to the door of the
+studio, and knocked as bold as brass.</p>
+
+<p>Richard opened the door, and smiled pleasantly at Margaret
+standing on the threshold with an expression of demure defiance
+in her face. Did Mr. Shackford want anything more in the way of
+pans and pails for his plaster? No, Mr. Shackford had everything
+he required of the kind. But would not Miss Margaret walk in?
+Yes, she would step in for a moment, but with a good deal of
+indifference, though, giving an air of chance to her settled
+determination to examine that room from top to bottom.</p>
+
+<p>Richard showed her his drawings and casts, and enlightened her
+on all the simple mysteries of the craft. Margaret, of whom he
+was a trifle afraid at first, amused him with her candor and
+sedateness, seeming now a mere child, and now an elderly person
+gravely inspecting matters. The frankness and simplicity were
+hers by nature, and the oldish ways--notably her self-possession,
+so quick to assert itself after an instant's forgetfulness--came
+perhaps of losing her mother in early childhood, and the
+premature duties which that misfortune entailed. She amused him,
+for she was only fourteen; but she impressed him also, for she
+was Mr. Slocum's daughter. Yet it was not her lightness, but her
+gravity, that made Richard smile to himself.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not interrupting you?" she asked presently.</p>
+
+<p>"Not in the least," said Richard. "I am waiting for these
+molds to harden. I cannot do anything until then."</p>
+
+<p>"Papa says you are very clever," remarked Margaret, turning
+her wide black eyes full upon him. <i>"Are</i> you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Far from it," replied Richard, laughing to veil his
+confusion, "but I am glad your father thinks so."</p>
+
+<p>"You should not be glad to have him think so," returned
+Margaret reprovingly, "if you are not clever. I suppose you are,
+though. Tell the truth, now."</p>
+
+<p>"It is not fair to force a fellow into praising himself."</p>
+
+<p>"You are trying to creep out!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, there are many cleverer persons than I in the
+world, and a few not so clever."</p>
+
+<p>"That won't do," said Margaret positively.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't understand what you mean by cleverness, Miss
+Margaret. There are a great many kinds and degrees. I can make
+fairly honest patterns for the men to work by; but I am not an
+artist, if you mean that."</p>
+
+<p>"You are not an artist?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; an artist creates, and I only copy, and that in a small
+way. Any one can learn to prepare casts; but to create a bust or
+a statue--that is to say, a fine one--a man must have
+genius."</p>
+
+<p>"You have no genius?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a grain."</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry to hear that," said Margaret, with a disappointed
+look. "But perhaps it will come," she added encouragingly. "I
+have read that nearly all great artists and poets are almost
+always modest. They know better than anybody else how far they
+fall short of what they intend, and so they don't put on airs.
+You don't, either. I like that in you. May be you have genius
+without knowing it, Mr. Shackford."</p>
+
+<p>"It is quite without knowing it, I assure you!" protested
+Richard, with suppressed merriment. "What an odd girl!" he
+thought. "She is actually talking to me like a mother!"</p>
+
+<p>The twinkling light in the young man's eyes, or something that
+jarred in his manner, caused Margaret at once to withdraw into
+herself. She went silently about the room, examining the tools
+and patterns; then, nearing the door, suddenly dropped Richard a
+quaint little courtesy, and was gone.</p>
+
+<p>This was the colorless beginning of a friendship that was
+destined speedily to be full of tender lights and shadows, and to
+flow on with unsuspected depth. For several days Richard saw
+nothing more of Margaret, and scarcely thought of her. The
+strangle little figure was fading out of his mind, when, one
+afternoon, it again appeared at his door. This time Margaret had
+left something of her sedateness behind; she struck Richard as
+being both less ripe and less immature than he had fancied; she
+interested rather than amused him. Perhaps he had been partially
+insulated by his own shyness on the first occasion, and had
+caught only a confused and inaccurate impression of Margaret's
+personality. She remained half an hour in the workshop, and at
+her departure omitted the formal courtesy.</p>
+
+<p>After this, Margaret seldom let a week slip without tapping
+once or twice at the studio, at first with some pretext or other,
+and then with no pretense whatever. When Margaret had disburdened
+herself of excuses for dropping in to watch Richard mold his
+leaves and flowers, she came oftener, and Richard insensibly
+drifted into the habit of expecting her on certain days, and was
+disappointed when she failed to appear. His industry had saved
+him, until now, from discovering how solitary his life really
+was; for his life was as solitary--as solitary as that of
+Margaret, who lived in the great house with only her father, the
+two servants, and an episodical aunt. The mother was long ago
+dead; Margaret could not recollect when that gray headstone, with
+blotches of rusty-green moss breaking out over the lettering, was
+not in the churchyard; and there never had been any brothers or
+sisters.</p>
+
+<p>To Margaret Richard's installation in the empty room, where as
+a child she had always been afraid to go, was the single
+important break she could remember in the monotony of her
+existence; and now a vague yearning for companionship, the blind
+sense of the plant reaching towards the sunshine, drew her there.
+The tacitly prescribed half hour often lengthened to an hour.
+Sometimes Margaret brought a book with her, or a piece of
+embroidery, and the two spoke scarcely ten words, Richard giving
+her a smile now and then, and she returning a sympathetic nod as
+the cast came out successfully.</p>
+
+<p>Margaret at fifteen--she was fifteen now--was not a beauty.
+There is the loveliness of the bud and the loveliness of the
+full-blown flower; but Margaret as a blossom was not pretty. She
+was awkward and angular, with prominent shoulder-blades, and no
+soft curves anywhere in her slimness; only her black hair,
+growing low on the forehead, and her eyes were fine. Her profile,
+indeed, with the narrow forehead and the sensitive upper lip,
+might fairly have suggested the mask of Clytie which Richard had
+bought of an itinerant image-dealer, and fixed on a bracket over
+the mantel-shelf. But her eyes were her specialty, if one may say
+that. They were fringed with such heavy lashes that the girl
+seemed always to be in half-mourning. Her smile was singularly
+sweet and bright, perhaps because it broke through so much somber
+coloring.</p>
+
+<p>If there was a latent spark of sentiment between Richard and
+Margaret in those earlier days, neither was conscious of it; they
+had seemingly begun where happy lovers generally end,--by being
+dear comrades. He liked to have Margaret sitting there, with her
+needle flashing in the sunlight, or her eyelashes making a rich
+gloom above the book as she read aloud. It was so agreeable to
+look up from his work, and not be alone. He had been alone so
+much. And Margaret found nothing in the world pleasanter than to
+sit there and watch Richard making his winter garden, as she
+called it. By and by it became her custom to pass every Saturday
+afternoon in that employment.</p>
+
+<p>Margaret was not content to be merely a visitor; she took a
+housewifely care of the workshop, resolutely straightening out
+its chronic disorder at unexpected moments, and fighting the
+white dust that settled upon everything. The green-paper shade,
+which did not roll up very well, at the west window was of her
+devising. An empty camphor vial on Richard's desk had always a
+clove pink, or a pansy, or a rose, stuck into it, according to
+the season. She hid herself away and peeped out in a hundred
+feminine things in the room. Sometimes she was a bit of
+crochet-work left on a chair, and sometimes she was only a
+hair-pin, which Richard gravely picked up and put on the
+mantel-piece.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Slocum threw no obstacles in the path of this idyllic
+friendship; possibly he did not observe it. In his eyes Margaret
+was still a child,--a point of view that necessarily excluded any
+consideration of Richard. Perhaps, however, if Mr. Slocum could
+have assisted invisibly at a pretty little scene which took place
+in the studio, one day, some twelve or eighteen months after
+Margaret's first visit to it, he might have found food for
+reflection.</p>
+
+<p>It was a Saturday afternoon. Margaret had come into the
+workshop with her sewing, as usual. The papers on the round table
+had been neatly cleared away, and Richard was standing by the
+window, indolently drumming on the glass with a
+palette-knife.</p>
+
+<p>"Not at work this afternoon?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was waiting for you."</p>
+
+<p>"That is no excuse at all," said Margaret, sweeping across the
+room with a curious air of self-consciousness, and arranging her
+drapery with infinite pains as she seated herself.</p>
+
+<p>Richard looked puzzled for a moment, and then exclaimed,
+"Margaret, you have got on a long dress!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Margaret, with dignity. "Do you like it,--the
+train?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's a train?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Margaret, standing up and glancing over her left
+shoulder at the soft folds of maroon-colored stuff, which, with a
+mysterious feminine movement of the foot, she caused to untwist
+itself and flow out gracefully behind her. There was really
+something very pretty in the hesitating lines of the tall,
+slender figure, as she leaned back that way. Certain unsuspected
+points emphasized themselves so cunningly.</p>
+
+<p>"I never saw anything finer," declared Richard. "It was worth
+waiting for."</p>
+
+<p>"But you shouldn't have waited," said Margaret, with a
+gratified flush, settling herself into the chair again. "It was
+understood that you were never to let me interfere with your
+work."</p>
+
+<p>"You see you have, by being twenty minutes late. I've finished
+that acorn border for Stevens's capitals, and there's nothing
+more to do for the yard. I am going to make something for myself,
+and I want you to lend me a hand."</p>
+
+<p>"How can I help you, Richard?" Margaret asked, promptly
+stopping the needle in the hem.</p>
+
+<p>"I need a paper-weight to keep my sketches from being blown
+about, and I wish you literally to lend me a hand,--a hand to
+take a cast of."</p>
+
+<p>"Really?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think that little white claw would make a very neat
+paper-weight," said Richard.</p>
+
+<p>Margaret gravely rolled up her sleeve to the elbow, and
+contemplated the hand and wrist critically.</p>
+
+<p>"It is like a claw, isn't it. I think you can find something
+better than that."</p>
+
+<p>"No; that is what I want, and nothing else. That, or no
+paper-weight for me."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, just as you choose. It will be a fright."</p>
+
+<p>"The other hand, please."</p>
+
+<p>"I gave you the left because I've a ring on this one."</p>
+
+<p>"You can take off the ring, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I can take it off."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, do."</p>
+
+<p>"Richard," said Margaret severely, "I hope you are not a
+fidget."</p>
+
+<p>"A what?"</p>
+
+<p>"A fuss, then,--a person who always wants everything some
+other way, and makes just twice as much trouble as anybody
+else."</p>
+
+<p>"No, Margaret, I am not that. I prefer your right hand because
+the left is next to the heart, and the evaporation of the water
+in the plaster turns it as cold as snow. Your arm will be chilled
+to the shoulder. We don't want to do anything to hurt the good
+little heart, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not," said Margaret. "There!" and she rested her
+right arm on the table, while Richard placed the hand in the
+desired position on a fresh napkin which he had folded for the
+purpose.</p>
+
+<p>"Let your hand lie flexible, please. Hold it naturally. Why do
+you stiffen the fingers so?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't; they stiffen themselves, Richard. They know they are
+going to have their photograph taken, and can't look natural. Who
+ever does?"</p>
+
+<p>After a minute the fingers relaxed, and settled of their own
+accord into an easy pose. Richard laid his hand softly on her
+wrist.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't move now."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll be as quiet as a mouse," said Margaret giving a sudden
+queer little glance at his face.</p>
+
+<p>Richard emptied a paper of white powder into a great yellow
+bowl half filled with water and fell to stirring it vigorously,
+like a pastry-cook beating eggs. When the plaster was of the
+proper consistency he began building it up around the hand,
+pouring on a spoonful at a time, here and there, carefully. In a
+minute or two the inert white fingers were completely buried.
+Margaret made a comical grimace.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it cold?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ice," said Margaret, shutting her eyes involuntarily.</p>
+
+<p>"If it is too disagreeable we can give it up," suggested
+Richard.</p>
+
+<p>"No, don't touch it!" she cried, waving him back with her free
+arm. "I don't mind; but it's as cold as so much snow. How
+curious! What does it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose a scientific fellow could explain the matter to you
+easily enough. When the water evaporates a kind of congealing
+process sets in,--a sort of atmospheric change, don't you know?
+The sudden precipitation of the--the"--</p>
+
+<p>"You're as good as Tyndall on Heat," said Margaret
+demurely.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Tyndall is well enough in his way," returned Richard,
+"but of course he doesn't go into things so deeply as I do."</p>
+
+<p>"The idea of telling me that 'a congealing process set in,'
+when I am nearly frozen to death!" cried Margaret, bowing her
+head over the imprisoned arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Your unseemly levity, Margaret, makes it necessary for me to
+defer my remarks on natural phenomena until some more fitting
+occasion."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Richard, don't let an atmospherical change come over
+<i>you!"</i></p>
+
+<p>"When you knocked at my door, months ago," said Richard, "I
+didn't dream you were such a satirical little piece, or may be
+you wouldn't have got in. You stood there as meek as Moses, with
+your frock reaching only to the tops of your boots. You were a
+deception, Margaret."</p>
+
+<p>"I was dreadfully afraid of you, Richard."</p>
+
+<p>"You are not afraid of me nowadays."</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit."</p>
+
+<p>"You are showing your true colors. That long dress, too! I
+believe the train has turned your head."</p>
+
+<p>"But just now you said you admired it."</p>
+
+<p>"So I did, and do. It makes you look quite like a woman,
+though."</p>
+
+<p>"I want to be a woman. I would like to be as old--as old as
+Mrs. Methuselah. Was there a Mrs. Methuselah?"</p>
+
+<p>"I really forget," replied Richard, considering. "But there
+must have been. The old gentleman had time enough to have
+several. I believe, however, that history is rather silent about
+his domestic affairs."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then," said Margaret, after thinking it over, "I would
+like to be as old as the youngest Mrs. Methuselah."</p>
+
+<p>"That was probably the last one," remarked Richard, with great
+profundity. "She was probably some giddy young thing of seventy
+or eighty. Those old widowers never take a wife of their own age.
+I shouldn't want you to be seventy, Margaret,--or even
+eighty."</p>
+
+<p>"On the whole, perhaps, I shouldn't fancy it myself. Do you
+approve of persons marrying twice?"</p>
+
+<p>"N--o, not at the same time."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I didn't mean that," said Margaret, with asperity.
+"How provoking you can be!"</p>
+
+<p>"But they used to,--in the olden time, don't you know?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't."</p>
+
+<p>Richard burst out laughing. "Imagine him," he cried,--"imagine
+Methuselah in his eight or nine hundredth year, dressed in his
+customary bridal suit, with a sprig of century-plant stuck in his
+button-hole!"</p>
+
+<p>"Richard," said Margaret solemnly, "you shouldn't speak
+jestingly of a scriptural character."</p>
+
+<p>At this Richard broke out again. "But gracious me!" he
+exclaimed, suddenly checking himself. "I am forgetting you all
+this while!"</p>
+
+<p>Richard hurriedly reversed the mass of plaster on the table,
+and released Margaret's half-petrified fingers. They were
+shriveled and colorless with the cold.</p>
+
+<p>"There isn't any feeling in it whatever," said Margaret,
+holding up her hand helplessly, like a wounded wing.</p>
+
+<p>Richard took the fingers between his palms, and chafed them
+smartly for a moment or two to restore the suspended
+circulation.</p>
+
+<p>"There, that will do," said Margaret, withdrawing her
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you all right now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, thanks;" and then she added, smiling, "I suppose a
+scientific fellow could explain why my fingers seem to be full of
+hot pins and needles shooting in every direction."</p>
+
+<p>"Tyndall's your man--Tyndall on Heat," answered Richard, with
+a laugh, turning to examine the result of his work. "The mold is
+perfect, Margaret. You were a good girl to keep so still."</p>
+
+<p>Richard then proceeded to make the cast, which was soon placed
+on the window-ledge to harden in the sun. When the plaster was
+set, he cautiously chipped off the shell with a chisel, Margaret
+leaning over his shoulder to watch the operation,--and there was
+the little white claw, which ever after took such dainty care of
+his papers, and ultimately became so precious to him as a part of
+Margaret's very self that he would not have exchanged it for the
+Venus of Milo.</p>
+
+<p>But as yet Richard was far enough from all that.</p>
+
+<h2>X</h2>
+
+<p>Three years glided by with Richard Shackford as swiftly as
+those periods of time which are imagined to elapse between the
+acts of a play. They were eventless, untroubled years, and have
+no history. Nevertheless, certain changes had taken place. Little
+by little Mr. Slocum had relinquished the supervision of the
+workshops to Richard, until now the affairs of the yard rested
+chiefly on his shoulders. It was like a dream to him when he
+looked directly back to his humble beginning, though as he
+reflected upon it, and retraced his progress step by step, he saw
+there was nothing illogical or astonishing in his good fortune.
+He had won it by downright hard work and the faithful exercise of
+a sufficing talent.</p>
+
+<p>In his relations with Margaret, Richard's attitude had
+undergone no appreciable change. Her chance visits to the studio
+through the week and those pleasant, half-idle Saturday
+afternoons had become to both Richard and Margaret a matter of
+course, like the sunlight, or the air they breathed.</p>
+
+<p>To Richard, Margaret Slocum at nineteen was simply a charming,
+frank girl,--a type of gracious young womanhood. He was conscious
+of her influence; he was very fond of Margaret; but she had not
+yet taken on for him that magic individuality which makes a woman
+the one woman in the world to her lover. Though Richard had scant
+experience in such matters, he was not wrong in accepting
+Margaret as the type of a class of New England girls, which,
+fortunately for New England, is not a small class. These young
+women for the most part lead quiet and restricted lives so far as
+the actualities are concerned, but very deep and full lives in
+the world of books and imagination, to which they make early
+escapes. They have the high instincts that come of good blood,
+the physique that naturally fits fine manners; and when chance
+takes one of these maidens from her island country home or from
+some sleepy town on the sea-board, and sets her amid the
+complications of city existence, she is an unabashed and
+unassuming lady. If in Paris, she differs from the Parisiennes
+only in the greater delicacy of her lithe beauty, her innocence
+which is not ignorance, and her French pronunciation; if in
+London, she differs from English girls only in the matter of rosy
+cheeks and the rising inflection. Should none of these fortunate
+transplantings befall her, she always merits them by adorning
+with grace and industry and intelligence the narrower sphere to
+which destiny has assigned her.</p>
+
+<p>Destiny had assigned Margaret Slocum to a very narrow sphere;
+it had shut her up in an obscure New England manufacturing
+village, with no society, strictly speaking, and no outlets
+whatever to large experiences. To her father's affection,
+Richard's friendship, and her household duties she was forced to
+look for her happiness. If life held wider possibilities for her,
+she had not dreamed of them. She looked up to Richard with
+respect,--perhaps with a dash of sentiment in the respect; there
+was something at once gentle and virile in his character which
+she admired and leaned upon; in his presence the small
+housekeeping troubles always slipped from her; but her heart, to
+use a pretty French phrase, had not consciously spoken,--possibly
+it had murmured a little, incoherently, to itself, but it had not
+spoken out aloud, as perhaps it would have done long ago if an
+impediment had been placed in the way of their intimacy. With all
+her subtler intuitions, Margaret was as far as Richard from
+suspecting the strength and direction of the current with which
+they were drifting. Freedom, habit, and the nature of their
+environment conspired to prolong this mutual lack of perception.
+The hour had sounded, however, when these two were to see each
+other in a different light.</p>
+
+<p>One Monday morning in March, at the close of the three years
+in question, as Richard mounted the outside staircase leading to
+his studio in the extension, the servant-maid beckoned to him
+from the kitchen window.</p>
+
+<p>Margaret had failed to come to the studio the previous
+Saturday afternoon. Richard had worked at cross-purposes and
+returned to his boarding-house vaguely dissatisfied, as always
+happened to him on those rare occasions when she missed the
+appointment; but he had thought little of the circumstance. Nor
+had he been disturbed on Sunday at seeing the Slocum pew vacant
+during both services. The heavy snow-storm which had begun the
+night before accounted for at least Margaret's absence.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Slocum told me to tell you that he shouldn't be in the
+yard to-day," said the girl. "Miss Margaret is very ill."</p>
+
+<p>"Ill!" Richard repeated, and the smile with which he had
+leaned over the rail towards the window went out instantly on his
+lip.</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. Weld was up with her until five o'clock this morning,"
+said the girl, fingering the corner of her apron. "She's that
+low."</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's a fever."</p>
+
+<p>"What kind of fever?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't mind me what the doctor called it. He thinks it come
+from something wrong with the drains."</p>
+
+<p>"He didn't say typhoid?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that's the name of it."</p>
+
+<p>Richard ascended the stairs with a slow step, and a moment
+afterwards stood stupidly in the middle of the workshop.
+"Margaret is going to die," he said to himself, giving voice to
+the dark foreboding that had instantly seized upon him, and in a
+swift vision he saw the end of all that simple, fortunate
+existence which he had lived without once reflecting it could
+ever end. He mechanically picked up a tool from the table, and
+laid it down again. Then he seated himself on the low bench
+between the windows. It was Margaret's favorite place; it was not
+four days since she sat there reading to him. Already it appeared
+long ago,--years and years ago. He could hardly remember when he
+did not have this heavy weight on his heart. His life of
+yesterday abruptly presented itself to him as a reminiscence; he
+saw now how happy that life had been, and how lightly he had
+accepted it. It took to itself all that precious quality of
+things irrevocably lost.</p>
+
+<p>The clamor of the bell in the South Church striking noon, and
+the shrilling of the steam-whistle softened by the thick-falling
+snow, roused Richard from his abstraction. He was surprised that
+it was noon. He rose from the bench and went home through the
+storm, scarcely heeding the sleet that snapped in his face like
+whip-lashes. Margaret was going to die!</p>
+
+<p>For four or five weeks the world was nearly a blank to Richard
+Shackford. The insidious fever that came and went, bringing
+alternate despair and hope to the watchers in the hushed room,
+was in his veins also. He passed the days between his lonely
+lodgings in Lime Street and the studio, doing nothing, restless
+and apathetic by turns, but with always a poignant sense of
+anxiety. He ceased to take any distinct measurement of time
+further than to note that an interval of months seemed to
+separate Monday from Monday. Meanwhile, if new patterns had been
+required by the men, the work in the carving departments would
+have come to a dead lock.</p>
+
+<p>At length the shadow lifted, and there fell a day of soft May
+weather when Margaret, muffled in shawls and as white as death,
+was seated once more in her accustomed corner by the west window.
+She had insisted on being brought there the first practicable
+moment; nowhere else in the house was such sunshine, and Mr.
+Slocum himself had brought her in his arms. She leaned back
+against the pillows, smiling faintly. Her fingers lay locked on
+her lap, and the sunlight showed through the narrow transparent
+palace. It was as if her hands were full of blush-roses.</p>
+
+<p>Richard breathed again, but not with so free a heart as
+before. What if she had died? He felt an immense pity for himself
+when he thought of that, and he thought of it continually as the
+days wore on.</p>
+
+<p>Either a great alteration had wrought itself in Margaret, or
+Richard beheld her through a clearer medium during the weeks of
+convalescence that followed. Was this the slight, sharp-faced
+girl he used to know? The eyes and the hair were the same; but
+the smile was deeper, and the pliant figure had lost its extreme
+slimness without a sacrifice to its delicacy. The spring air was
+filling her veins with abundant health, and mantling her cheeks
+with a richer duskiness than they had ever worn. Margaret was
+positively handsome. Her beauty had come all in a single morning,
+like the crocuses. This beauty began to awe Richard; it had the
+effect of seeming to remove her further and further from him. He
+grew moody and restless when they were together, and was wretched
+alone. His constraint did not escape Margaret. She watched him,
+and wondered at his inexplicable depression when every one in the
+household was rejoicing in her recovery. By and by this
+depression wounded her, but she was too spirited to show the
+hurt. She always brought a book with her now, in her visits to
+the studio; it was less awkward to read than to sit silent and
+unspoken to over a piece of needle-work.</p>
+
+<p>"How very odd you are!" said Margaret, one afternoon, closing
+the volume which she had held mutely for several minutes, waiting
+for Richard to grasp the fact that she was reading aloud.</p>
+
+<p>"I odd!" protested Richard, breaking with a jerk from one of
+his long reveries. "In what way?"</p>
+
+<p>"As if I could explain--when you put the quotation suddenly,
+like that."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't intend to be abrupt. I was curious to know. And then
+the charge itself was a trifle unexpected, if you will look at
+it. But never mind," he added with a smile; "think it over, and
+tell me to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I will tell you now, since you are willing to wait."</p>
+
+<p>"I wasn't really willing to wait, but I knew if I didn't
+pretend to be I should never get it out of you."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, then; your duplicity is successful. Richard, I was
+puzzled where to begin with your oddities."</p>
+
+<p>"Begin at the beginning."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I will take the nearest. When a young lady is affable
+enough to read aloud to you, the least you can do is to listen to
+her. That is a deference you owe to the author, when it happens
+to be Hawthorne, to say nothing of the young lady."</p>
+
+<p>"But I <i>have</i> been listening, Margaret. Every word!"</p>
+
+<p>"Where did I leave off?"</p>
+
+<p>"It was where--where the"--and Richard knitted his brows in
+the vain effort to remember--"where the young daguerreotypist,
+what's-his-name, took up his residence in the House of the Seven
+Gables."</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir! You stand convicted. It was ten pages further on.
+The last words were,"--and Margaret read from the book,--</p>
+
+<p>"'Good-night, cousin,' said Phoebe, strangely affected by
+Hepsibah's manner. 'If you being to love me, I am glad.'"</p>
+
+<p>"There, sir! what do you say to that?"</p>
+
+<p>Richard did not say anything, but he gave a guilty start, and
+shot a rapid glance at Margaret coolly enjoying her triumph.</p>
+
+<p>"In the next place," she continued soberly, after a pause, "I
+think it very odd in you not to reply to me,--oh, not now, for of
+course you are without a word of justification; but at other
+times. Frequently, when I speak to you, you look at me so,"
+making a vacant little face, "and then suddenly disappear,--I
+don't mean bodily, but mentally."</p>
+
+<p>"I am no great talker at best," said Richard with a helpless
+air. "I seldom speak unless I have something to say."</p>
+
+<p>"But other people do. I, for instance."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you, Margaret; that is different. When you talk I don't
+much mind what you are talking about."</p>
+
+<p>"I like a neat, delicate compliment like that!"</p>
+
+<p>"What a perverse girl you are to-day!" cried Richard. "You
+won't understand me. I mean that your words and your voice are so
+pleasant they make anything interesting, whether it's important
+or not."</p>
+
+<p>"If no one were to speak until he had something important to
+communicate," observed Margaret, "conversation in this world
+would come to a general stop." Then she added, with a little
+ironical smile, "Even you, Richard, wouldn't be talking all the
+time."</p>
+
+<p>Formerly Margaret's light sarcasms, even when they struck him
+point-blank, used to amuse Richard, but now he winced at being
+merely grazed.</p>
+
+<p>Margaret went on: "But it's not a bit necessary to be circular
+or instructive--with me. I am interested in trivial matters,--in
+the weather, in my spring hat, in what you are going to do next,
+and the like. One must occupy one's self with something. But you,
+Richard, nowadays you seem interested in nothing, and have
+nothing whatever to say."</p>
+
+<p>Poor Richard! He had a great deal to say, but he did not know
+how, nor if it were wise to breathe it. Just three little words,
+murmured or whispered, and the whole conditions would be changed.
+With those fateful words uttered, what would be Margaret's
+probable attitude, and what Mr. Slocum's? Though the line which
+formerly drew itself between employer and employee had grown
+faint with time, it still existed in Richard's mind, and now came
+to the surface with great distinctness, like a word written in
+sympathetic ink. If he spoke, and Margaret was startled or
+offended, then there was an end to their free, unembarrassed
+intercourse,--perhaps an end to all intercourse. By keeping his
+secret in his breast he at least secured the present. But that
+was to risk everything. Any day somebody might come and carry
+Margaret off under his very eyes. As he reflected on this, the
+shadow of John Dana, the son of the rich iron-manufacturer,
+etched itself sharply upon Richard's imagination. Within the week
+young Dana had declared in the presence of Richard that "Margaret
+Slocum was an awfully nice little thing," and the Othello in
+Richard's blood had been set seething. Then his thought glanced
+from John Dana to Mr. Pinkham and the Rev. Arthur Langly, both of
+whom were assiduous visitors at the house. The former had lately
+taken to accompanying Margaret on the piano with his dismal
+little flute, and the latter was perpetually making a moth of
+himself about her class at Sunday-school.</p>
+
+<p>Richard stood with the edge of his chisel resting idly upon
+the plaster mold in front of him, pondering these things.
+Presently he heard Margaret's voice, as if somewhere in the
+distance, saying,--</p>
+
+<p>"I have not finished yet, Richard."</p>
+
+<p>"Go on," said Richard, falling to work again with a kind of
+galvanic action. "Go on, please."</p>
+
+<p>"I have a serious grievance. Frankly, I am hurt by your
+preoccupation and indifference, your want of openness or
+cordiality,--I don't know how to name it. You are the only person
+who seems to be unaware that I escaped a great danger a month
+ago. I am obliged to remember all the agreeable hours I have
+spent in the studio to keep off the impression that during my
+illness you got used to not seeing me, and that now my presence
+somehow obstructs your work and annoys you."</p>
+
+<p>Richard threw his chisel on the bench, and crossed over to the
+window where Margaret was.</p>
+
+<p>"You are as wrong as you can be," he said, looking down on her
+half-lifted face, from which a quick wave of color was subsiding;
+for the abruptness of Richard's movement had startled her.</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad if I am wrong."</p>
+
+<p>"It is nearly an unforgivable thing to be as wide of the mark
+as you are. Oh, Margaret, if you had died that time!"</p>
+
+<p>"You would have been very sorry?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sorry? No. That doesn't express it; one outlives mere sorrow.
+If anything had happened to you, I should never have got over it.
+You don't know what those five weeks were to me. It was a kind of
+death to come to this room day after day, and not find you."</p>
+
+<p>Margaret rested her eyes thoughtfully on the space occupied by
+Richard rather than on Richard himself, seeming to look through
+and beyond him, as if he were incorporeal.</p>
+
+<p>"You missed me like that?" she said slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"I missed you like that."</p>
+
+<p>Margaret meditated a moment. "In the first days of my illness
+I wondered if you didn't miss me a little; afterwards everything
+was confused in my mind. When I tried to think, I seemed to be
+somebody else,--I seemed to be <i>you</i> waiting for me here in
+the studio. Wasn't that singular? But when I recovered, and
+returned to my old place, I began to suspect I had been bearing
+your anxiety,--that I had been distressed by the absence to which
+you had grown accustomed."</p>
+
+<p>"I never got used to it, Margaret. It became more and more
+unendurable. This workshop was full of--of your absence. There
+wasn't a sketch or a cast or an object in the room that didn't
+remind me of you, and seem to mock at me for having let the most
+precious moments of my life slip away unheeded. That bit of
+geranium in the glass yonder seemed to say with its dying breath,
+'You have cared for neither of us as you ought to have cared; my
+scent and her goodness have been all one to you,--things to take
+or to leave. It was for no merit of yours that she was always
+planning something to make life smoother and brighter for you.
+What had you done to deserve it? How unselfish and generous and
+good she has been to you for years and years! What would have
+become of you without her? She left me here on purpose'--it's the
+geranium leaf that is speaking all the while, Margaret--'to say
+this to you, and to tell you that she was not half appreciated;
+but now you have lost her.'"</p>
+
+<p>As she leaned forward listening, with her lips slightly
+parted, Margaret gave an unconscious little approbative nod of
+the head. Richard's fanciful accusation of himself caused her a
+singular thrill of pleasure. He had never before spoken to her in
+just this fashion; the subterfuge which his tenderness had
+employed, the little detour it had made in order to get at her,
+was a novel species of flattery. She recognized the ring of a
+distinctly new note in his voice; but, strangely enough, the note
+lost its unfamiliarity in an instant. Margaret recognized that
+fact also, and as she swiftly speculated on the phenomenon her
+pulse went one or two strokes faster.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you poor boy!" she said, looking up with a laugh, and a
+flush so interfused that they seemed one, "that geranium took a
+great deal upon itself. It went quite beyond its instructions,
+which were simply to remind you of me now and then. One day,
+while you were out,--the day before I was taken ill,--I placed
+the flowers on the desk there, perhaps with a kind of premonition
+that I was going away from you for a time."</p>
+
+<p>"What if you had never come back?"</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't think of that if I were you," said Margaret
+softly.</p>
+
+<p>"But it haunts me,--that thought. Sometimes of a morning,
+after I unlock the workshop door, I stand hesitating, with my
+hand on the latch, as one might hesitate a few seconds before
+stepping into a tomb. There were days last month, Margaret, when
+this chamber did appear to me like a tomb. All that was happy in
+my past seemed to lie buried here; it was something visible and
+tangible; I used to steal in and look upon it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Richard!"</p>
+
+<p>"If you only knew what a life I led as a boy in my cousin's
+house, and what a doleful existence for years afterwards, until I
+found you, perhaps you would understand my despair when I saw
+everything suddenly slipping away from me. Margaret! the day your
+father brought you in here, I had all I could do not to kneel
+down at your feet"--Richard stopped short. "I didn't mean to tell
+you that," he added, turning towards the work-table. Then he
+checked himself, and came and stood in front of her again. He had
+gone too far not to go further. "While you were ill I made a
+great discovery."</p>
+
+<p>"What was that, Richard?"</p>
+
+<p>"I discovered that I had been blind for two or three
+years."</p>
+
+<p>"Blind?" repeated Margaret.</p>
+
+<p>"Stone-blind. I discovered it by suddenly seeing--by seeing
+that I had loved you all the while, Margaret! Are you
+offended?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Margaret, slowly; she was a moment finding her
+voice to say it. "I--ought I to be offended?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not if you are not!" said Richard.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I am not. I--I've made little discoveries myself,"
+murmured Margaret, going into full mourning with her
+eyelashes.</p>
+
+<p>But it was only for an instant. She refused to take her
+happiness shyly or insincerely; it was something too sacred. She
+was a trifle appalled by it, if the truth must be told. If
+Richard had scattered his love-making through the month of her
+convalescence, or if he had made his avowal in a different mood,
+perhaps Margaret might have met him with some natural coquetry.
+But Richard's tone and manner had been such as to suppress any
+instinct of the kind. His declaration, moreover, had amazed her.
+Margaret's own feelings had been more or less plain to her that
+past month, and she had diligently disciplined herself to accept
+Richard's friendship, since it seemed all he had to give. Indeed,
+it had seemed at times as if he had not even that.</p>
+
+<p>When Margaret lifted her eyes to him, a second after her
+confession, they were full of a sweet seriousness, and she had no
+thought of withdrawing the hands which Richard had taken, and was
+holding lightly, that she might withdraw them if she willed. She
+felt no impulse to do so, though as Margaret looked up she saw
+her father standing a few paces behind Richard.</p>
+
+<p>With an occult sense of another presence in the room, Richard,
+turned at the same instant.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Slocum had advanced two steps into the apartment, and had
+been brought to a dead halt by the surprising tableau in the
+embrasure of the window. He stood motionless, with an
+account-book under his arm, while a dozen expressions chased each
+other over his countenance.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Slocum," said Richard, who saw that only one course lay
+open to him, "I love Margaret, and I have been telling her."</p>
+
+<p>At that the flitting shadows on Mr. Slocum's face settled into
+one grave look. He did not reply immediately, but let his glance
+wander from Margaret to Richard, and back again to Margaret,
+slowly digesting the fact. It was evident he had not relished it.
+Meanwhile the girl had risen from the chair and was moving
+towards her father.</p>
+
+<p>"This strikes me as very extraordinary," he said at last. "You
+have never given any intimation that such a feeling existed. How
+long has this been going on?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have always been fond of Margaret, sir; but I was not aware
+of the strength of the attachment until the time of her illness,
+when I--that is, we--came near to losing her."</p>
+
+<p>"And you, Margaret?"</p>
+
+<p>As Mr. Slocum spoke he instinctively put one arm around
+Margaret, who had crept closely to his side.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know when I began to love Richard," said Margaret
+simply.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't know!"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps it was while I was ill; perhaps it was long before
+that; may be my liking for him commenced as far back as the time
+he made the cast of my hand. How can I tell, papa? I don't
+know."</p>
+
+<p>"There appears to be an amazing diffusion of ignorance
+here!"</p>
+
+<p>Margaret bit her lip, and kept still. Her father was taking it
+a great deal more seriously than she had expected. A long,
+awkward silence ensued. Richard broke it at last by remarking
+uneasily, "Nothing has been or was to be concealed from you.
+Before going to sleep to-night, Margaret would have told you all
+I've said to her."</p>
+
+<p>"You should have consulted with me before saying
+anything."</p>
+
+<p>"I intended to do so, but my words got away from me. I hope
+you will overlook it, sir, and not oppose my loving Margaret,
+though I see as plainly as you do that I am not worthy of
+her."</p>
+
+<p>"I have not said that. I base my disapproval on entirely
+different ground. Margaret is too young. A girl of seventeen or
+eighteen"--</p>
+
+<p>"Nineteen," said Margaret, parenthetically.</p>
+
+<p>"Of nineteen, then,--has no business to bother her head with
+such matters. Only yesterday she was a child!"</p>
+
+<p>Richard glanced across at Margaret, and endeavored to recall
+her as she impressed him that first afternoon, when she knocked
+defiantly at the workshop door to inquire if he wanted any pans
+and pails; but he was totally unable to reconstruct that crude
+little figure with the glossy black head, all eyes and beak, like
+a young hawk's.</p>
+
+<p>"My objection is impersonal," continued Mr. Slocum. "I object
+to the idea. I wish this had not happened. I might not have
+disliked it--years hence; I don't say; but I dislike it now."</p>
+
+<p>Richard's face brightened. "It will be years hence in a few
+years!"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Slocum replied with a slow, grave smile, "I am not going
+to be unreasonable in a matter where I find Margaret's happiness
+concerned; and yours, Richard, I care for that, too; but I'll
+have no entanglements. You and she are to be good friends, and
+nothing beyond. I prefer that Margaret should not come to the
+studio so often; you shall see her whenever you like at our
+fireside, of an evening. I don't think the conditions hard."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Slocum had dictated terms, but it was virtually a
+surrender. Margaret listened to him with her cheek resting
+against his arm, and a warm light nestled down deep under her
+eyelids.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Slocum drew a half-pathetic sigh. "I presume I have not
+done wisely. Every one bullies me. The Marble Workers'
+Association ruins my yard for me, and now my daughter is taken
+off my hands. By the way, Richard," he said, interrupting himself
+brusquely, and with an air of dismissing the subject, "I forgot
+what I came for. I've been thinking over Torrini's case, and have
+concluded that you had better make up his account and discharge
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, sir," replied Richard, with a shadow of dissent in
+his manner, "if you wish it."</p>
+
+<p>"He causes a deal of trouble in the yard."</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid he does. Such a clean workman when he's
+sober!"</p>
+
+<p>"But he is never sober."</p>
+
+<p>"He has been in a bad way lately, I admit."</p>
+
+<p>"His example demoralizes the men. I can see it day by
+day."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish he were not so necessary at this moment," observed
+Richard. "I don't know who else could be trusted with the frieze
+for the Soldiers' Monument. I'd like to keep him on a week or ten
+days longer. Suppose I have a plain talk with Torrini?"</p>
+
+<p>"Surely we have enough good hands to stand the loss of
+one."</p>
+
+<p>"For a special kind of work there is nobody in the yard like
+Torrini. That is one reason why I want to hold on to him for a
+while, and there are other reasons."</p>
+
+<p>"Such as what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I think it would not be wholly politic to break with
+him just now."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not now as well as any time?"</p>
+
+<p>"He has lately been elected secretary of the Association."</p>
+
+<p>"What of that?"</p>
+
+<p>"He has a great deal of influence there."</p>
+
+<p>"If we put him out of the works it seems to me he would lose
+his importance, if he really has any to speak of."</p>
+
+<p>"You are mistaken if you doubt it. His position gives him a
+chance to do much mischief, and he would avail himself of it very
+adroitly, if he had a personal grievance."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe you are actually afraid of the fellow."</p>
+
+<p>Richard smiled. "No, I am not afraid of him, but I don't
+underrate him. The men look up to Torrini as a sort of leader;
+he's an effective speaker, and knows very well how to fan a
+dissatisfaction. Either he or some other disturbing element has
+recently been at work among the men. There's considerable
+grumbling in the yard."</p>
+
+<p>"They are always grumbling, aren't they?"</p>
+
+<p>"Most always, but this is more serious than usual; there
+appears to be a general stir among the trades in the village. I
+don't understand it clearly. The marble workers have been holding
+secret meetings."</p>
+
+<p>"They mean business, you think?"</p>
+
+<p>"They mean increased wages, perhaps."</p>
+
+<p>"But we are now paying from five to ten per cent more than any
+trade in the place. What are they after?"</p>
+
+<p>"So far as I can gather, sir, the finishers and the
+slab-sawers want an advance,--I don't know how much. Then there's
+some talk about having the yard closed an hour earlier on
+Saturdays. All this is merely rumor; but I am sure there is
+something in it."</p>
+
+<p>"Confound the whole lot! If we can't discharge a drunken hand
+without raising the pay of all the rest, we had better turn over
+the entire business to the Association. But do as you like,
+Richard. You see how I am bullied, Margaret. He runs everything!
+Come, dear."</p>
+
+<p>And Mr. Slocum quitted the workshop, taking Margaret with him.
+Richard remained standing awhile by the table, in a deep study,
+with his eyes fixed on the floor. He thought of his early days in
+the sepulchral house in Welch's Court, of his wanderings abroad,
+his long years of toil since then, and this sudden blissful love
+that had come to him, and Mr. Slocum's generosity. Then he
+thought of Torrini, and went down into the yard gently to
+admonish the man, for Richard's heart that hour was full of
+kindness for all the world.</p>
+
+<h2>XI</h2>
+
+<p>In spite of Mr. Slocum's stipulations respecting the frequency
+of Margaret's visits to the studio, she was free to come and go
+as she liked. It was easy for him to say, Be good friends, and
+nothing beyond; but after that day in the workshop it was
+impossible for Richard and Margaret to be anything but lovers.
+The hollowness of pretending otherwise was clear even to Mr.
+Slocum. In the love of a father for a daughter there is always a
+vague jealousy which refuses to render a coherent explanation of
+itself. Mr. Slocum did not escape this, but he managed,
+nevertheless, to accept the inevitable with very fair grace, and
+presently to confess to himself that the occurrence which had at
+first taken him aback was the most natural in the world. That
+Margaret and Richard, thrown together as they had been, should
+end by falling in love with each other was not a result to
+justify much surprise. Indeed, there was a special propriety in
+their doing so. The Shackfords had always been reputable people
+in the village,--down to Lemuel Shackford, who of course was an
+old musk-rat. The family attributes of amiability and honesty had
+skipped him, but they had reappeared in Richard. It was through
+his foresight and personal energy that the most lucrative branch
+of the trade had been established. His services entitled him to a
+future interest in the business, and Mr. Slocum had intended he
+should have it. Mr. Slocum had not dreamed of throwing in
+Margaret also; but since that addition had suggested itself, it
+seemed to him one of the happy features of the arrangement.
+Richard would thus be doubly identified with the yard, to which,
+in fact, he had become more necessary than Mr. Slocum
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>"He has more backbone with the men than I have," acknowledged
+Mr. Slocum. "He knows how to manage them, and I don't."</p>
+
+<p>As soft as Slocum was a Stillwater proverb. Richard certainly
+had plenty of backbone; it was his only capital. In Mr. Slocum's
+estimation it was sufficient capital. But Lemuel Shackford was a
+very rich man, and Mr. Slocum could not avoid seeing that it
+would be decent in Richard's only surviving relative if, at this
+juncture, he were to display a little interest in the young
+fellow's welfare.</p>
+
+<p>"If he would only offer to advance a few thousand dollars for
+Richard," said Mr. Slocum, one evening, to Margaret, with whom he
+had been talking over the future--"the property must all come to
+him some time,--it would be a vast satisfaction to me to tell the
+old man that we can get along without any of his ill-gotten
+gains. He made the bulk of his fortune during the war, you know.
+The old sea-serpent," continued Mr. Slocum, with hopeless
+confusion of metaphor, "had a hand in fitting out more than one
+blockade-runner. They used to talk of a ship that got away from
+Charleston with a cargo of cotton that netted the share-holders
+upwards of two hundred thousand dollars. He denies it now, but
+everybody knows Shackford. He'd betray his country for fifty
+cents in postage-stamps."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, papa! you are too hard on him."</p>
+
+<p>In words dropped cursorily from time to time, Margaret
+imparted to Richard the substance of her father's speech, and it
+set Richard reflecting. It was not among the probabilities that
+Lemuel Shackford would advance a dollar to establish Richard, but
+if he could induce his cousin even to take the matter into
+consideration, Richard felt that it would be a kind of moral
+support to him circumstanced as he was. His pride revolted at the
+idea of coming quite unbacked and disowned, as well as
+empty-handed, to Mr. Slocum.</p>
+
+<p>For the last twelve months there had been a cessation of
+ordinary courtesies between the two cousins. They now passed each
+other on the street without recognition. A year previously Mr.
+Shackford had fallen ill, and Richard, aware of the inefficient
+domestic arrangements in Welch's Court, had gone to the house out
+of sheer pity. The old man was in bed, and weak with fever, but
+at seeing Richard he managed to raise himself on one elbow.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it's you!" he exclaimed, mockingly. "When a rich man is
+sick the anxious heirs crowd around him; but they're twice as
+honestly anxious when he is perfectly well."</p>
+
+<p>"I came to see if I could do anything for you!" cried Richard,
+with a ferocious glare, and in a tone that went curiously with
+his words, and shook to the foundations his character of Good
+Samaritan.</p>
+
+<p>"The only thing you can do for me is to go away."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll do that with pleasure," retorted Richard bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>And Richard went, vowing he would never set foot across the
+threshold again. He could not help having ugly thoughts. Why
+should all the efforts to bring about a reconciliation and all
+the forbearance be on his side? Thenceforth the crabbed old man
+might go to perdition if he wanted to.</p>
+
+<p>And now here was Richard meditating a visit to that same house
+to beg a favor!</p>
+
+<p>Nothing but his love for Margaret could have dragged him to
+such a banquet of humble-pie as he knew was spread for his
+delectation, the morning he passed up the main street of
+Stillwater and turned into Welch's Court.</p>
+
+<p>As Richard laid his hand on the latch of the gate, Mr.
+Shackford, who was digging in the front garden, looked up and saw
+him. Without paying any heed to Richard's amicable salutation,
+the old man left the shovel sticking in the sod, and walked
+stiffly into the house. At another moment this would have amused
+Richard, but now he gravely followed his kinsman, and overtook
+him at the foot of the staircase.</p>
+
+<p>"Cousin Shackford, can you spare me five or ten minutes?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't know as I can," said Mr. Shackford, with one foot on
+the lower stair. "Time is valuable. What do you want? You want
+something."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, or I wouldn't think of trespassing on your
+time."</p>
+
+<p>"Has Slocum thrown you over?" inquired the old man, turning
+quickly. A straw which he held between his thin lips helped to
+give him a singularly alert expression.</p>
+
+<p>"No; Mr. Slocum and I agree the best in the world. I want to
+talk with you briefly on certain matters; I want to be on decent
+terms with you, if you will let me."</p>
+
+<p>"Decent terms means money, doesn't it?" asked Mr. Shackford,
+with a face as wary and lean as a shark's.</p>
+
+<p>"I do wish to talk about money, among other things," returned
+Richard, whom this brutal directness disconcerted a
+little,--"money on satisfactory security."</p>
+
+<p>"You can get it anywhere with that."</p>
+
+<p>"So I might, and be asking no favor; but I would rather get it
+of you, and consider it an obligation."</p>
+
+<p>"I would rather you wouldn't."</p>
+
+<p>"Listen to me a moment."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'm listening."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Shackford stood in an attitude of attention, with his head
+canted on one side, his eyes fixed on the ceiling, and the straw
+between his teeth tilted up at an angle of forty degrees.</p>
+
+<p>"I have, as you know, worked my way in the marble yard to the
+position of general manager," began Richard.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't know," said Mr. Shackford, "but I understand. You're
+a sort of head grave-stone maker."</p>
+
+<p>"That is taking a rather gloomy view of it," said Richard,
+"but no matter. The point is, I hold a responsible position, and
+I now have a chance to purchase a share in the works."</p>
+
+<p>"Slocum is willing to take you in, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Then the concern is hit."</p>
+
+<p>"Hit?"</p>
+
+<p>"Slocum is going into bankruptcy."</p>
+
+<p>"You are wrong there. The yard was never so prosperous; the
+coming year we shall coin money like a mint."</p>
+
+<p>"You ought to know," said Mr. Shackford, ruminatively. "A
+thing as good as a mint must be a good thing."</p>
+
+<p>"If I were a partner in the business, I could marry
+Margaret."</p>
+
+<p>"Who's Margaret?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Slocum's daughter."</p>
+
+<p>"That's where the wind is! Now how much capital would it take
+to do all that?" inquired Mr. Shackford, with an air of affable
+speculation.</p>
+
+<p>"Three or four thousand dollars,--perhaps less."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I wouldn't give three or four cents to have you marry
+Slocum's daughter. Richard, you can't pull any chestnuts out of
+the fire with my paw."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Shackford's interrogation and his more than usual
+conciliatory manner had lighted a hope which Richard had not
+brought with him. Its sudden extinguishment was in consequence
+doubly aggravating.</p>
+
+<p>"Slocum's daughter!" repeated Mr. Shackford. "I'd as soon you
+would marry Crazy Nan up at the work-house."</p>
+
+<p>The association of Crazy Nan with Margaret sent a red flush
+into Richard's cheek. He turned angrily towards the door, and
+then halted, recollecting the resolve he had made not to lose his
+temper, come what would. If the interview was to end there it had
+better not have taken place.</p>
+
+<p>"I had no expectation that you would assist me pecuniarily,"
+said Richard, after a moment. "Let us drop the money question; it
+shouldn't have come up between us. I want you to aid me, not by
+lending me money, but by giving me your countenance as the head
+of the family,--by showing a natural interest in my affairs, and
+seeming disposed to promote them."</p>
+
+<p>"By just seeming?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is really all I desire. If you were to propose to put
+capital into the concern, Mr. Slocum would refuse it."</p>
+
+<p>"Slocum would refuse it! Why in the devil should he refuse
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because"--Richard hesitated, finding himself unexpectedly on
+delicate ground--"because he would not care to enter into
+business relations with you, under the circumstances."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Shackford removed the straw from his mouth, and holding it
+between his thumb and forefinger peered steadily through his
+half-closed eyelids at Richard.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't understand you."</p>
+
+<p>"The dispute you had long ago, over the piece of meadow land
+behind the marble yard. Mr. Slocum felt that you bore on him
+rather heavily in that matter, and has not quite forgiven you for
+forcing him to rebuild the sheds."</p>
+
+<p>"Bother Slocum and his sheds! I understand him. What I don't
+understand is <i>you</i>. I am to offer Slocum three or four
+thousand dollars to set you up, and he is to decline to take it.
+Is that it?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is not it at all," returned Richard. "My statement was
+this: If you were to propose purchasing a share for me in the
+works, Mr. Slocum would not entertain the proposition,
+thinking--as I don't think--that he would mortify you by the
+refusal of your money."</p>
+
+<p>"The only way Slocum could mortify me would be by getting hold
+of it. But what are you driving at, anyhow? In one breath you
+demand several thousand dollars, and in the next breath you tell
+me that nobody expects it, or wants it, or could be induced to
+have it on any terms. Perhaps you will inform me what you are
+here for?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is what you will never discover!" cried Richard. "It is
+not in you to comprehend the ties of sympathy that ought to hold
+between two persons situated as we are. In most families this
+sympathy binds closely at times,--at christenings, or burials, or
+when some member is about to take an important step in life.
+Generally speaking, blood is thicker than water; but your blood,
+cousin Shackford, seems to be a good deal thinner. I came here to
+consult with you as my sole remaining kinsman, as one authorized
+by years and position to give me wise counsel and kindly
+encouragement at the turning point in my fortune. I didn't wish
+to go among those people like a tramp, with neither kith nor kin
+to say a word for me. Of course you don't understand that. How
+should you? A sentiment of that kind is something quite beyond
+your conception."</p>
+
+<p>Richard's words went into one ear and out the other, without
+seeming for an instant to arrest Mr. Shackford's attention. The
+idea of Slocum not accepting money--anybody's money--presented
+itself to Mr. Shackford in so facetious a light as nearly to
+throw him into good humor. His foot was on the first step of the
+staircase, which he now began slowly to mount, giving vent, as he
+ascended, to a series of indescribable chuckles. At the top of
+the landing he halted, and leaned over the rail.</p>
+
+<p>"To think of Slocum refusing,--that's a good one!"</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of his jocularity a sudden thought seemed to
+strike Mr. Shackford; his features underwent a swift
+transformation, and as he grasped the rail in front of him with
+both hands a malicious cunning writhed and squirmed in every
+wrinkle of his face.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir!" he shrieked, "it was a trap! Slocum would have taken
+it! If I had been ass enough to make any such offer, he would
+have jumped at it. What do you and Slocum take me for? You're a
+pair of rascals!"</p>
+
+<p>Richard staggered back, bewildered and blinded, as if he had
+received a blow in the eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"No," continued Mr. Shackford, with a gesture of intense
+contempt, "you are less than rascals. You are fools. A rascal has
+to have brains!"</p>
+
+<p>"You shameless old man!" cried Richard, as soon as he could
+get his voice.</p>
+
+<p>To do Mr. Shackford justice, he was thoroughly convinced that
+Richard had lent himself to a preposterous attempt to obtain
+money from him. The absence of ordinary shrewdness in the method
+stamped it at once as belonging to Slocum, of whose mental
+calibre Mr. Shackford entertained no flattering estimate.</p>
+
+<p>"Slocum!" he muttered, grinding the word between his teeth.
+"Family ties!" he cried, hurling the words scornfully over the
+banister as he disappeared into one of the upper chambers.</p>
+
+<p>Richard stood with one hand on the newel-post, white at the
+lip with rage. For a second he had a wild impulse to spring up
+the staircase, but, controlling this, he turned and hurried out
+of the house.</p>
+
+<p>At the gate he brushed roughly against a girl, who halted and
+stared. It was a strange thing to see Mr. Richard Shackford, who
+always had a pleasant word for a body, go by in that blind,
+excited fashion, striking one fist into the palm of the other
+hand, and talking to his own self! Mary Hennessey watched him
+until he wheeled out of Welch's Court, and then picking up her
+basket, which she had rested on the fence, went her way.</p>
+
+<h2>XII</h2>
+
+<p>At the main entrance to the marble works Richard nearly walked
+over a man who was coming out, intently mopping his forehead with
+a very dirty calico handkerchief. It was an English stone-dresser
+named Denyven. Richard did not recognize him at first.</p>
+
+<p>"That you, Denyven!... what has happened!"</p>
+
+<p>"I've 'ad a bit of a scrimmage, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"A scrimmage in the yard, in work hours!"</p>
+
+<p>The man nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"With whom?"</p>
+
+<p>"Torrini, sir,--he's awful bad this day."</p>
+
+<p>"Torrini,--it is always Torrini! It seems odd that one man
+should be everlastingly at the bottom of everything wrong. How
+did it happen? Give it to me straight, Denyven; I don't want a
+crooked story. This thing has got to stop in Slocum's Yard."</p>
+
+<p>"The way of it was this, sir: Torrini wasn't at the shop this
+morning. He 'ad a day off."</p>
+
+<p>"I know."</p>
+
+<p>"But about one o'clock, sir, he come in the yard. He 'ad been
+at the public 'ouse, sir, and he was hummin'. First he went among
+the carvers, talking Hitalian to 'em and making 'em laugh, though
+he was in a precious bad humor hisself. By and by he come over to
+where me and my mates was, and began chaffin' us, which we didn't
+mind it, seeing he was 'eavy in the 'ead. He was as clear as a
+fog 'orn all the same. But when he took to banging the tools on
+the blocks, I sings out, ''Ands off!' and then he fetched me a
+clip. I was never looking for nothing less than that he'd hit me.
+I was a smiling at the hinstant."</p>
+
+<p>"He must be drunker than usual."</p>
+
+<p>"Hevidently, sir. I went down between two slabs as soft as you
+please. When I got on my pins, I was for choking him a bit, but
+my mates hauled us apart. That's the 'ole of it, sir. They'll
+tell you the same within."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you hurt, Denyven?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only a bit of a scratch over the heye, sir,--and the nose,"
+and the man began mopping his brow tenderly. "I'd like to 'ave
+that Hitalian for about ten minutes, some day when he's sober,
+over yonder on the green."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid he would make the ten minutes seem long to
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir, I'd willingly let him try his 'and."</p>
+
+<p>"How is it, Denyven," said Richard, "that you and sensible
+workingmen like you, have permitted such a quarrelsome and
+irresponsible fellow to become a leader in the Association? He's
+secretary, or something, isn't he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir, he writes an uncommonly clean fist, and then he's
+a born horator. He's up to all the parli'mentary dodges. Must
+'ave 'ad no end of hexperience in them sort of things on the
+other side."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt,--and that accounts for him being over here."</p>
+
+<p>"As for horganizing a meeting, sir"--</p>
+
+<p>"I know. Torrini has a great deal of that kind of ability;
+perhaps a trifle too much for his own good or anybody else's.
+There was never any trouble to speak of among the trades in
+Stillwater till he and two or three others came here with foreign
+grievances. These men get three times the pay they ever received
+in their own land, and are treated like human beings for the
+first time in their lives. But what do they do? They squander a
+quarter of their week's wages at the tavern,--no rich man could
+afford to put a fourth of his income into drink,--and make windy
+speeches at the Union. I don't say all of them, but too many of
+them. The other night, I understand, Torrini compared Mr. Slocum
+to Nero,--Mr. Slocum, the fairest and gentlest man that ever
+breathed! What rubbish!"</p>
+
+<p>"It wasn't just that way, sir. His words was, and I 'eard
+him,--'from Nero down to Slocum.'"</p>
+
+<p>"It amounts to the same thing, and is enough to make one
+laugh, if he didn't make one want to swear. I hear that that was
+a very lively meeting the other night. What was that nonsense
+about 'the privileged class'?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there is a privileged class in the States."</p>
+
+<p>"So there is, but it's a large class, Denyven. Every soul of
+us has the privilege of bettering out condition if we have the
+brain and the industry to do it. Energy and intelligence come to
+the front, and have the right to be there. A skillful workman
+gets double the pay of a bungler, and deserves it. Of course
+there will always be rich and poor, and sick and sound, and I
+don't see how that can be changed. But no door is shut against
+ability, black or white. Before the year 2400 we shall have a
+chrome-yellow president and a black-and-tan secretary of the
+treasury. But, seriously, Denyven, whoever talks about privileged
+classes here does it to make mischief. There are certain small
+politicians who reap their harvest in times of public confusion,
+just as pickpockets do. Nobody can play the tyrant or the bully
+in this country,--not even a workingman. Here's the Association
+dead against an employer who, two years ago, ran his yard
+full-handed for a twelvemonth at a loss, rather than shut down,
+as every other mill and factory in Stillwater did. For years and
+years the Association has prevented this employer from training
+more than two apprentices annually. The result is, eighty hands
+find work, instead of a hundred and eighty. Now, that can't
+last."</p>
+
+<p>"It keeps wages fixed in Stillwater, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"It keeps out a hundred workmen. It sends away capital."</p>
+
+<p>"Torrini says, sir"--</p>
+
+<p>"Steer clear of Torrini and what he says. He's a dangerous
+fellow--for his friends. It is handsome in you, Denyven, to speak
+up for him--with that eye of yours."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't love the man, when it comes to that; but there's
+no denying he's right smart," replied Denyven, who occasionally
+marred his vernacular with Americanisms. "The Association
+couldn't do without him."</p>
+
+<p>"But Slocum's Yard can," said Richard, irritated to observe
+the influence Torrini exerted on even such men as Denyven.</p>
+
+<p>"That's between you and him, sir, of course, but"--</p>
+
+<p>"But what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir, I can't say hexactly; but if I was you I would
+bide a bit."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I think Torrini's time has come."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't make bold to advise you, sir. I merely throws out the
+hobservation."</p>
+
+<p>With that Denyven departed to apply to his bruises such herbs
+and simples as a long experience had taught him to be
+efficacious.</p>
+
+<p>He had gone only a few rods, however, when it occurred to him
+that there were probabilities of a stormy scene in the yard; so
+he turned on his tracks, and followed Richard Shackford.</p>
+
+<p>Torrini was a Neapolitan, who had come to the country seven or
+eight years before. He was a man above the average intelligence
+of his class; a marble worker by trade, but he had been a
+fisherman, a mountain guide among the Abruzzi, a soldier in the
+papal guard, and what not, and had contrived to pick up two or
+three languages, among the rest English, which he spoke with
+purity. His lingual gift was one of his misfortunes.</p>
+
+<p>Among the exotics in Stillwater, which even boasted a
+featureless Celestial, who had unobtrusively extinguished himself
+with a stove-pipe hat, Torrini was the only figure that
+approached picturesqueness. With his swarthy complexion and
+large, indolent eyes, in which a southern ferocity slept lightly,
+he seemed to Richard a piece out of his own foreign experience.
+To him Torrini was the crystallization of Italy, or so much of
+that Italy as Richard had caught a glimpse of at Genoa. To the
+town-folks Torrini perhaps vaguely suggested hand-organs and
+eleemosynary pennies; but Richard never looked at the
+straight-limbed, handsome fellow without recalling the
+Phrygian-capped sailors of the Mediterranean. On this account,
+and for other reasons, Richard had taken a great fancy to the
+man. Torrini had worked in the ornamental department from the
+first, and was a rapid and expert carver when he chose. He had
+carried himself steadily enough in the beginning, but in these
+later days, as Mr. Slocum had stated, he was scarcely ever sober.
+Richard had stood between him and his discharge on several
+occasions, partly because he was so skillful a workman, and
+partly through pity for his wife and children, who were unable to
+speak a word of English. But Torrini's influence on the men in
+the yard,--especially on the younger hands, who needed quite
+other influences,--and his intemperate speeches at the
+trades-union, where he had recently gained a kind of ascendancy
+by his daring, were producing the worst effects.</p>
+
+<p>At another hour Richard might have been inclined to condone
+this last offense, as he had condoned others; but when he parted
+from Denyven, Richard's heart was still hot with his cousin's
+insult. As he turned into the yard, not with his usual swinging
+gait, but with a quick, wide step, there was an unpleasant
+dilation about young Shackford's nostrils.</p>
+
+<p>Torrini was seated on a block of granite in front of the upper
+sheds, flourishing a small chisel in one hand and addressing the
+men, a number of whom had stopped work to listen to him. At sight
+of Richard they made a show of handling their tools, but it was
+so clear something grave was going to happen that the pretense
+fell through. They remained motionless, resting on their mallets,
+with their eyes turned towards Richard. Torrini followed the
+general glance, and pause din his harangue.</p>
+
+<p>"Talk of the devil!" he muttered, and then, apparently
+continuing the thread of his discourse, broke into a strain of
+noisy declamation.</p>
+
+<p>Richard walked up to him quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"Torrini," he said, "you can't be allowed to speak here, you
+know."</p>
+
+<p>"I can speak where I like," replied Torrini gravely. He was
+drunk, but the intoxication was not in his tongue. His head, as
+Denyven had asserted, was as clear as a fog-horn.</p>
+
+<p>"When you are sober, you can come to the desk and get your pay
+and your kit. You are discharged from the yard."</p>
+
+<p>Richard was standing within two paces of the man, who looked
+up with an uncertain smile, as if he had not quite taken in the
+sense of the words. Then, suddenly straightening himself, he
+exclaimed,--</p>
+
+<p>"Slocum don't dare do it!"</p>
+
+<p>"But I do."</p>
+
+<p>"You!"</p>
+
+<p>"When I do a thing Mr. Slocum backs me."</p>
+
+<p>"But who backs Slocum,--the Association, may be?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly the Association ought to. I want you to leave the
+yard now."</p>
+
+<p>"He backs Slocum," said Torrini, settling himself on the block
+again, "and Slocum backs down," at which there was a laugh among
+the men.</p>
+
+<p>Richard made a step forward.</p>
+
+<p>"Hands off!" cried a voice from under the sheds.</p>
+
+<p>"Who said that?" demanded Richard, wheeling around. No one
+answered, but Richard had recognized Durgin's voice. "Torrini, if
+you don't quit the yard in two minutes by the clock yonder, I
+shall put you out by the neck. Do you understand?"</p>
+
+<p>Torrini glared about him confusedly for a moment, and broke
+into voluble Italian; then, without a warning gesture, sprung to
+his feet and struck at Richard. A straight red line, running
+vertically the length of his cheek, showed where the chisel had
+grazed him. The shops were instantly in a tumult, the men
+dropping their tools and stumbling over the blocks, with cries of
+"Keep them apart!" "Shame on you!" "Look out, Mr. Shackford!"</p>
+
+<p>"Is it mad ye are, Torrany!" cried Michael Hennessey, hurrying
+from the saw-bench. Durgin held him back by the shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Let them alone," said Durgin.</p>
+
+<p>The flat steel flashed again in the sunlight, but fell
+harmlessly, and before the blow could be repeated, Richard had
+knitted his fingers in Torrini's neckerchief and twisted it so
+tightly that the man gasped. Holding him by this, Richard dragged
+Torrini across the yard, and let him drop on the sidewalk outside
+the gate, where he lay in a heap, inert.</p>
+
+<p>"That was nate," said Michael Hennessey, sententiously.</p>
+
+<p>Richard stood leaning on the gate-post to recover he breath.
+His face was colorless, and the crimson line defined itself
+sharply against the pallor; but the rage was dead within him. It
+had been one of his own kind of rages,--like lightning out of a
+blue sky. As he stood there a smile was slowly gathering on his
+lip.</p>
+
+<p>A score or two of the men had followed him, and now lounged in
+a half-circle a few paces in the rear. When Richard was aware of
+their presence, the glow came into his eyes again.</p>
+
+<p>"Who ordered you to knock off work?"</p>
+
+<p>"That was a foul blow of Torrini's, sir," said Stevens,
+stepping forward, "and I for one come to see fair play."</p>
+
+<p>"Give us your 'and, mate!" cried Denyven; "there's a pair of
+us."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks," said Richard, softening at once, "but there's no
+need. Every man can go to his job. Denyven may stay, if he
+likes."</p>
+
+<p>The men lingered a moment, irresolute, and returned to the
+sheds in silence.</p>
+
+<p>Presently Torrini stretched out one leg, then the other, and
+slowly rose to his feet, giving a stupid glance at his empty
+hands as he did so.</p>
+
+<p>"Here's your tool," said Richard, stirring the chisel with the
+toe of his boot, "if that's what you're looking for."</p>
+
+<p>Torrini advanced a step as if to pick it up, then appeared to
+alter his mind, hesitated perhaps a dozen seconds, and turning
+abruptly on his heel walked down the street without a
+stagger.</p>
+
+<p>"I think his legs is shut off from the rest of his body by
+water-tight compartments," remarked Denyven, regarding Torrini's
+steady gait with mingled amusement and envy. "Are you hurt,
+sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only a bit of a scratch of the heye," replied Richard, with a
+laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"As I hobserved just now to Mr. Stevens, sir, there's a pair
+of us!"</p>
+
+<h2>XIII</h2>
+
+<p>After a turn through the shops to assure himself that order
+was restored, Richard withdrew in the direction of his studio.
+Margaret was standing at the head of the stairs, half hidden by
+the scarlet creeper which draped that end of the veranda.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you doing there?" said Richard looking up with a
+bright smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Richard, I saw it all!"</p>
+
+<p>"You didn't see anything worth having white cheeks about."</p>
+
+<p>"But he struck you ... with the knife, did he not?" said
+Margaret, clinging to his arm anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"He didn't have a knife, dear; only a small chisel, which
+couldn't hurt any one. See for yourself; it is merely a
+cat-scratch."</p>
+
+<p>Margaret satisfied herself that it was nothing more; but she
+nevertheless insisted on leading Richard into the workshop, and
+soothing the slight inflammation with her handkerchief dipped in
+arnica and water. The elusive faint fragrance of Margaret's hair
+as she busied herself about him would of itself have consoled
+Richard for a deep wound. All this pretty solicitude and
+ministration was new and sweet to him, and when the arnica turned
+out to be cologne, and scorched his cheek, Margaret's remorse was
+so delicious that Richard half wished the mixture had been
+aquafortis.</p>
+
+<p>"You shouldn't have been looking into the yard," he said. "If
+I had known that you were watching us it would have distracted
+me. When I am thinking of you I cannot think of anything else,
+and I had need of my wits for a moment."</p>
+
+<p>"I happened to be on the veranda, and was too frightened to go
+away. Why did you quarrel?"</p>
+
+<p>In giving Margaret an account of the matter, Richard refrained
+from any mention of his humiliating visit to Welch's Court that
+morning. He could neither speak of it nor reflect upon it with
+composure. The cloud which shadowed his features from time to
+time was attributed by Margaret to the affair in the yard.</p>
+
+<p>"But this is the end of it, is it not?" she asked, with
+troubled eyes. "You will not have any further words with
+him?"</p>
+
+<p>"You needn't worry. If Torrini had not been drinking he would
+never have lifted his hand against me. When he comes out of his
+present state, he will be heartily ashamed of himself. His tongue
+is the only malicious part of him. If he hadn't a taste for drink
+and oratory,--if he was not 'a born horator,' as Denyven calls
+him,--he would do well enough."</p>
+
+<p>"No, Richard, he's a dreadful man. I shall never forget his
+face,--it was some wild animal's. And you, Richard," added
+Margaret softly, "it grieved me to see you look like that."</p>
+
+<p>"I was wolfish for a moment, I suppose. Things had gone wrong
+generally. But if you are going to scold me, Margaret, I would
+rather have some more--arnica."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not going to scold; but while you stood there, so white
+and terrible,--so unlike yourself,--I felt that I did not know
+you, Richard. Of course you had to defend yourself when the man
+attacked you, but I thought for an instant you would kill
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"Not I," said Richard uneasily, dreading anything like a
+rebuke from Margaret. "I am mortified that I gave up to my anger.
+There was no occasion."</p>
+
+<p>"If an intoxicated person were to wander into the yard, papa
+would send for a constable, and have the person removed."</p>
+
+<p>"Your father is an elderly man," returned Richard, not
+relishing this oblique criticism of his own simpler method. "What
+would be proper in his case would be considered cowardly in mine.
+It was my duty to discharge the fellow, and not let him dispute
+my authority. I ought to have been cooler, of course. But I
+should have lost caste and influence with the men if I had shown
+the least personal fear of Torrini,--if, for example, I had
+summoned somebody else to do what I didn't dare do myself. I was
+brought up in the yard, remember, and to a certain extent I have
+to submit to being weighed in the yard's own scales."</p>
+
+<p>"But a thing cannot be weighed in a scale incapable of
+containing it," answered Margaret. "The judgment of these rough,
+uninstructed men is too narrow for such as you. They quarrel and
+fight among themselves, and have their ideas of daring; but there
+is a higher sort of bravery, the bravery of self-control, which I
+fancy they do not understand very well; so their opinion of it is
+not worth considering. However, you know better than I."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I do not," said Richard. "Your instinct is finer than my
+reason. But you <i>are</i> scolding me, Margaret."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I am loving you," she said softly. "How can I do that
+more faithfully than by being dissatisfied with anything but the
+best in you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I wasn't at my best a while ago?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Richard."</p>
+
+<p>"I can never hope to be worthy of you."</p>
+
+<p>But Margaret protested against that. Having forced him to look
+at his action through her eyes, she outdid him in humility, and
+then the conversation drifted off into half-breathed nothings,
+which, though they were satisfactory enough for these two, would
+have made a third person yawn.</p>
+
+<p>The occurrence at Slocum's Yard was hotly discussed that night
+at the Stillwater hotel. Discussions in that long, low bar-room,
+where the latest village scandal always came to receive the
+finishing gloss, were apt to be hot. In their criticism of
+outside men and measures, as well as in their mutual
+vivisections, there was an unflinching directness among Mr.
+Snelling's guests which is not to be found in more artificial
+grades of society. The popular verdict on young Shackford's
+conduct was as might not have been predicted, strongly in his
+favor. He had displayed pluck, and pluck of the tougher fibre was
+a quality held in so high esteem in Stillwater that any
+manifestation of it commanded respect. And young Shackford had
+shown a great deal; he had made short work of the most formidable
+man in the yard, and given the rest to understand that he was not
+to be tampered with. This had taken many by surprise, for
+hitherto an imperturbable amiability had been the leading
+characteristic of Slocum's manager.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't think he had it in him," declared Dexter.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, ye might," replied Michael Hennessey. "Look at the
+lad's eye, and the muscles of him. He stands on his own two legs
+like a monumint, so he does."</p>
+
+<p>"Never saw a monument with two legs, Mike."</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't ye? Wait till ye're layin' at the foot of one. But
+ye'll wait many a day, me boy. Ye'll be lucky if ye're supploid
+with a head-stone made out of a dale-board."</p>
+
+<p>"Couldn't get a wooden head-stone short of Ireland, Mike."
+Retorted Dexter, with a laugh. "You'd have to import it."</p>
+
+<p>"An' so I will; but it won't be got over in time, if ye go on
+interruptin' gintlemen when they're discoorsin'. What was I
+sayin', any way, when the blackguard chipped in?" continued Mr.
+Hennessey, appealing to the company, as he emptied the ashes from
+his pipe by knocking the bowl in the side of his chair.</p>
+
+<p>"You was talking of Dick Shackford's muscle," said Durgin,
+"and you never talked wider of the mark. It doesn't take much
+muscle, or much courage either, to knock a man about when he's in
+liquor. The two wasn't fairly matched."</p>
+
+<p>"You are right there, Durgin," said Stevens, laying down his
+newspaper. "They weren't fairly matched. Both men have the same
+pounds and inches, but Torrini had a weapon and that mad strength
+that comes to some folks with drink. If Shackford hadn't made a
+neat twist on the neckerchief, he wouldn't have got off with a
+scratch."</p>
+
+<p>"Shackford had no call to lay hands on him."</p>
+
+<p>"There you are wrong, Durgin," replied Stevens. "Torrini had
+no call in the yard; he was making a nuisance of himself.
+Shackford spoke to him, and told him to go, and when he didn't go
+Shackford put him out; and he put him out handsomely,--'with
+neatness and dispatch,' as Slocum's prospectuses has it."</p>
+
+<p>"He was right all the time," said Piggott. "He didn't strike
+Torrini before or after he was down, and stood at the gate like a
+gentleman, ready to give Torrini his chance if he wanted it."</p>
+
+<p>"Torrini didn't want it," observed Jemmy Willson. "Ther' isn't
+nothing mean about Torrini."</p>
+
+<p>"But he 'ad a dozen minds about coming back," said
+Denyven.</p>
+
+<p>"We ought to have got him out of the place quietly," said Jeff
+Stavers; "that was our end of the mistake. He is not a bad
+fellow, but he shouldn't drink."</p>
+
+<p>"He was crazy to come to the yard."</p>
+
+<p>"When a man 'as a day off," observed Denyven, "and the beer
+isn't narsty, he 'ad better stick to the public 'ouse."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you!" exclaimed Durgin. "Your opinion don't weigh. You
+took a black eye of him."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I took a black heye,--and I can give one, in a
+hemergency. Yes, I gives and takes."</p>
+
+<p>"That's where we differ," returned Durgin. "I do a more
+genteel business; I give, and don't take."</p>
+
+<p>"Unless you're uncommon careful," said Denyven, pulling away
+at his pipe, "you'll find yourself some day henlarging your
+business."</p>
+
+<p>Durgin pushed back his stool.</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen! gentlemen!" interposed Mr. Snelling, appearing
+from behind the bar with a lemon-squeezer in his hand, "we'll have
+no black eyes here that wasn't born so. I am partial to them
+myself when nature gives them; and I propose the health of Miss
+Molly Hennessey," with a sly glance at Durgin, who colored, "to
+be drank at the expense of the house. Name your taps,
+gentlemen."</p>
+
+<p>"Snelling, me boy, ye'd win the bird from the bush with yer
+beguilin' ways. Ye've brought proud tears to the eyes of an aged
+parent, and I'll take a sup out of that high-showldered bottle
+which you kape under the counter for the gentle-folk in the other
+room."</p>
+
+<p>A general laugh greeted Mr. Hennessey's selection, and peace
+was restored; but the majority of those present were workmen from
+Slocum's, and the event of the afternoon remained the uppermost
+theme.</p>
+
+<p>"Shackford is a different build from Slocum," said
+Piggott.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess the yard will find that out when he gets to be
+proprietor," rejoined Durgin, clicking his spoon against the
+empty glass to attract Snelling's attention.</p>
+
+<p>"Going to be proprietor, is he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Some day or other," answered Durgin. "First he'll step into
+the business, and then into the family. He's had his eye on
+Slocum's girl these four or five years. Got a cast of her fist up
+in his workshop. Leave Dick Shackford alone for lining his nest
+and making it soft all round."</p>
+
+<p>"Why shouldn't he?" asked Stevens. "He deserves a good girl,
+and there's none better. If sickness or any sort of trouble comes
+to a poor man's door, she's never far off with her kind words and
+them things the rich have when they are laid up."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, the girl is well enough."</p>
+
+<p>"You couldn't say less. Before your mother died,"--Mrs. Durgin
+had died the previous autumn,--"I see that angil going to your
+house many a day with a little basket of comforts tucked under
+her wing. But she's too good to be praised in such a place as
+this," added Stevens. After a pause he inquired, "What makes you
+down on Shackford? He has always been a friend to you."</p>
+
+<p>"One of those friends who walk over your head," replied
+Durgin. "I was in the yard two years before him, and see where he
+is."</p>
+
+<p>"Lord love you," said Stevens, leaning back in his chair and
+contemplating Durgin thoughtfully, "there is marble and marble;
+some is Carrara marble, and some isn't. The fine grain takes a
+polish you can't get on to the other."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, he is statuary marble, and I'm full of seams and
+feldspar."</p>
+
+<p>"You are like the most of us,--not the kind that can be worked
+up into anything very ornamental."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you for nothing," said Durgin, turning away. "I came
+from as good a quarry as ever Dick Shackford. Where's Torrini
+to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody has seen him since the difficulty," said Dexter,
+"except Peters. Torrini sent for him after supper."</p>
+
+<p>As Dexter spoke, the door opened and Peters entered. He went
+directly to the group composed chiefly of Slocum's men, and
+without making any remark began to distribute among them certain
+small blue tickets, which they pocketed in silence. Glancing
+carelessly at his piece of card-board, Durgin said to
+Peters,--</p>
+
+<p>"Then it's decided?"</p>
+
+<p>Peters nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"How's Torrini?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's all right."</p>
+
+<p>"What does he say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing in perticular," responded Peters, "and nothing at all
+about his little skylark with Shackford."</p>
+
+<p>"He's a cool one!" exclaimed Durgin.</p>
+
+<p>Though the slips of blue pasteboard had been delivered and
+accepted without comment, it was known in a second through the
+bar-room that a special meeting had been convened for the next
+night by the officers of the Marble Workers' Association.</p>
+
+<h2>XIV</h2>
+
+<p>On the third morning after Torrini's expulsion from the yard,
+Mr. Slocum walked into the studio with a printed slip in his
+hand. A similar slip lay crumpled under a work-bench, where
+Richard had tossed it. Mr. Slocum's kindly visage was full of
+trouble and perplexity as he raised his eyes from the paper,
+which he had been re-reading on the way up-stairs.</p>
+
+<p>"Look at that!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," remarked Richard, "I have been honored with one of
+those documents."</p>
+
+<p>"What does it mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"It means business."</p>
+
+<p>The paper in question contained a series of resolutions
+unanimously adopted at a meeting of the Marble Workers'
+Association of Stillwater, held in Grimsey's Hall the previous
+night. Dropping the preamble, these resolutions, which were
+neatly printed with a type-writing machine on a half letter
+sheet, ran as follows:--</p>
+
+<p><i>Resolved,</i> That on and after the First of June proximo,
+the pay of carvers in Slocum's Marble Yard shall be $2.75 per
+day, instead of $2.50 as heretofore.</p>
+
+<p><i>Resolved,</i> That on and after the same date, the rubbers
+and polishers shall have $2.00 per day, instead of $1.75 as
+heretofore.</p>
+
+<p><i>Resolved,</i> That on and after the same date the millmen
+are to have $2.00 per day, instead of $1.75 as heretofore.</p>
+
+<p><i>Resolved,</i> That during the months of June, July, and
+August the shops shall knock off work on Saturdays at five P.M.,
+instead of at six P.M.</p>
+
+<p><i>Resolved,</i> That a printed copy of these Resolutions be
+laid before the Proprietor of Slocum's Marble Yard, and that his
+immediate attention to them be respectfully requested. <i>Per
+order of Committee M. W. A.</i></p>
+
+<p>"Torrini is at the bottom of that," said Mr. Slocum.</p>
+
+<p>"I hardly think so. This arrangement, as I told you the other
+day before I had the trouble with him, has been in contemplation
+several weeks. Undoubtedly Torrini used his influence to hasten
+the movement already planned. The Association has too much
+shrewdness to espouse the quarrel of an individual."</p>
+
+<p>"What are we to do?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you are in the same mind you were when we talked over the
+possibility of an unreasonable demand like this, there is only
+one thing to do."</p>
+
+<p>"Fight it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Fight it."</p>
+
+<p>"I have been resolute, and all that sort of thing, in times
+past," observed Mr. Slocum, glancing out of the tail of his eye
+at Richard, "and have always come off second best. The
+Association has drawn up most of my rules for me, and had its own
+way generally."</p>
+
+<p>"Since my time you have never been in so strong a position to
+make a stand. We have got all the larger contracts out of the
+way. Foreseeing what was likely to come, I have lately fought shy
+of taking new ones. Here are heavy orders from Rafter &amp; Son, the
+Builders' Company, and others. We must decline them by to-night's
+mail."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it really necessary?" asked Mr. Slocum, knitting his
+forehead into what would have been a scowl if his mild pinkish
+eyebrows had permitted it.</p>
+
+<p>"I think so."</p>
+
+<p>"I hate to do that."</p>
+
+<p>"Then we are at the mercy of the Association."</p>
+
+<p>"If we do not come to their terms, you seriously believe they
+will strike?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do," replied Richard, "and we should be in a pretty
+fix."</p>
+
+<p>"But these demands are ridiculous."</p>
+
+<p>"The men are not aware of our situation; they imagine we have
+a lot of important jobs on hand, as usual at this season.
+Formerly the foreman of a shop had access to the order-book, but
+for the last year or two I have kept it in the safe here. The
+other day Dexter came to me and wanted to see what work was set
+down ahead in the blotter; but I had an inspiration and didn't
+let him post himself."</p>
+
+<p>"Is not some kind of compromise possible?" suggested Mr.
+Slocum, looking over the slip again. "Now this fourth clause,
+about closing the yard an hour early on Saturdays, I don't
+strongly object to that, though with eighty hands it means, every
+week, eighty hours' work which the yard pays for and doesn't
+get."</p>
+
+<p>"I should advise granting that request. Such concessions are
+never wasted. But, Mr. Slocum, this is not going to satisfy them.
+They have thrown in one reasonable demand merely to flavor the
+rest. I happen to know that they are determined to stand by their
+programme to the last letter."</p>
+
+<p>"You know that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have a friend at court. Of course this is not to be
+breathed, but Denyven, without being at all false to his
+comrades, talks freely with me. He says they are resolved not to
+give an inch."</p>
+
+<p>"Then we will close the works."</p>
+
+<p>"That is what I wanted you to say, sir!" cried Richard.</p>
+
+<p>"With this new scale of prices and plenty of work, we might
+probably come out a little ahead the next six months; but it
+wouldn't pay for the trouble and the capital invested. Then when
+trade slackened, we should be running at a loss, and there'd be
+another wrangle over a reduction. We had better lie idle."</p>
+
+<p>"Stick to that, sir, and may be it will not be necessary."</p>
+
+<p>"But if they strike"--</p>
+
+<p>"They won't all strike. At least," added Richard, "I hope not.
+I have indirectly sounded several of the older hands, and they
+have half promised to hold on; only half promised, for every man
+of them at heart fears the trades-union more than No-bread--until
+No-bread comes."</p>
+
+<p>"Whom have you spoken with?"</p>
+
+<p>"Lumley, Giles, Peterson, and some others,--your pensioners, I
+call them."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, they were in the yard in my father's time; they have not
+been worth their salt these ten years. When the business was
+turned over to me I didn't discharge any old hand who had given
+his best days to the yard. Somehow I couldn't throw away the
+squeezed lemons. An employer owes a good workman something beyond
+the wages paid."</p>
+
+<p>"And a workman owes a good employer something beyond the work
+done. You stood by these men after they outlived their
+usefulness, and if they do not stand by you now, they're a shabby
+set."</p>
+
+<p>"I fancy they will, Richard."</p>
+
+<p>"I think they had better, and I wish they would. We have
+enough odds and ends to keep them busy awhile, and I shouldn't
+like to have the clinking of chisels die out altogether under the
+old sheds."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor I," returned Mr. Slocum, with a touch of sadness in his
+intonation. "It has grown to be a kind of music to me," and he
+paused to listen to the sounds of ringing steel that floated up
+from the workshop.</p>
+
+<p>"Whatever happens, that music shall not cease in the yard
+except on Sundays, if I have to take the mallet and go at a slab
+all alone."</p>
+
+<p>"Slocum's Yard with a single workman in it would be a pleasing
+spectacle," said Mr. Slocum, smiling ruefully.</p>
+
+<p>"It wouldn't be a bad time for <i>that</i> workman to strike,"
+returned Richard with a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"He could dictate his own terms," returned Mr. Slocum,
+soberly. "Well, I suppose you cannot help thinking about
+Margaret; but don't think of her now. Tell me what answer you
+propose to give the Association,--how you mean to put it; for I
+leave the matter wholly to you. I shall have no hand in it,
+further than to indorse your action."</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow, then," said Richard, "for it is no use to hurry up
+a crisis, I shall go to the workshops and inform them that their
+request for short hours on Saturdays is granted, but that the
+other changes they suggest are not to be considered. There will
+never be a better opportunity, Mr. Slocum, to settle another
+question which has been allowed to run too long."</p>
+
+<p>"What's that?"</p>
+
+<p>"The apprentice question."</p>
+
+<p>"Would it be wise to touch on that at present?"</p>
+
+<p>"While we are straightening out matters and putting things on
+a solid basis, it seems to me essential to settle that. There was
+never a greater imposition, or one more short-sighted, than this
+rule which prevents the training of sufficient workmen. The
+trades-union will discover their error some day when they have
+succeeded in forcing manufacturers to import skilled labor by the
+wholesale. I would like to tell the Marble Workers' Association
+that Slocum's Yard has resolved to employ as many apprentices
+each year as there is room for."</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't dare risk it!"</p>
+
+<p>"It will have to be done, sooner or later. It would be a
+capital flank movement now. They have laid themselves open to an
+attack on that quarter."</p>
+
+<p>"I might as well close the gates for good and all."</p>
+
+<p>"So you will, if it comes to that. You can afford to close the
+gates, and they can't afford to have you. In a week they'd be
+back, asking you to open them. Then you could have your pick of
+the live hands, and drop the dead wood. If Giles or Peterson or
+Lumley or any of those desert us, they are not to be let on
+again. I hope you will promise me that, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"If the occasion offers, you shall reorganize the shops in
+your own way. I haven't the nerve for this kind of business,
+though I have seen a great deal of it in the villages, first and
+last. Strikes are terrible mistakes. Even when they succeed, what
+pays for the lost time and the money squandered over the
+tavern-bar? What makes up for the days or weeks when the fire was
+out on the hearth and the children had no bread? That is what
+happens, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"There is no remedy for such calamities," Richard answered.
+"Yet I can imagine occasions when it would be better to let the
+fire go out and the children want for bread."</p>
+
+<p>"You are not advocating strikes!" exclaimed Mr. Slocum.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you were for fighting them."</p>
+
+<p>"So I am, in this instance; but the question has two sides.
+Every man has the right to set a price on his own labor, and to
+refuse to work for less; the wisdom of it is another matter. He
+puts himself in the wrong only when he menaces the person or the
+property of the man who has an equal right not to employ him.
+That is the blunder strikers usually make in the end, and one by
+which they lose public sympathy even when they are fighting an
+injustice. Now, sometimes it <i>is</i> an injustice that is being
+fought, and then it is right to fight it with the only weapon a
+poor man has to wield against a power which possesses a hundred
+weapons,--and that's a strike. For example, the smelters and
+casters in the Miantowona Iron Works are meanly underpaid."</p>
+
+<p>"What, have they struck?"</p>
+
+<p>"There's a general strike threatened in the village;
+foundry-men, spinners, and all."</p>
+
+<p>"So much the worse for everybody! I did not suppose it was as
+bad as that. What has become of Torrini?"</p>
+
+<p>"The day after he left us he was taken on as forgeman at
+Dana's."</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad Dana has got him!"</p>
+
+<p>"At the meeting, last night, Torrini gave in his resignation
+as secretary of the Association; being no longer a marble worker,
+he was not qualified to serve."</p>
+
+<p>"We unhorsed him, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rather. I am half sorry, too."</p>
+
+<p>"Richard," said Mr. Slocum, halting in one of his nervous
+walks up and down the room, "you are the oddest composition of
+hardness and softness I ever saw."</p>
+
+<p>"Am I?"</p>
+
+<p>"One moment you stand braced like a lion to fight the whole
+yard, and the next moment you are pitying a miscreant who would
+have laid your head open without the slightest compunction."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I forgive him," said Richard. "I was a trifle hasty
+myself. Margaret thinks so too."</p>
+
+<p>"Much Margaret knows about it!"</p>
+
+<p>"I was inconsiderate, to say the least. When a man picks up a
+tool by the wrong end he must expect to get cut."</p>
+
+<p>"You didn't have a choice."</p>
+
+<p>"I shouldn't have touched Torrini. After discharging him and
+finding him disposed to resist my order to leave the yard, I
+ought to have called in a constable. Usually it is very hard to
+anger me; but three or four times in my life I have been carried
+away by a devil of a temper which I couldn't control, it seized
+me so unawares. That was one of the times."</p>
+
+<p>The mallets and chisels were executing a blithe staccato
+movement in the yard below, and making the sparks dance. No one
+walking among the diligent gangs, and observing the placid faces
+of the men as they bent over their tasks, would have suspected
+that they were awaiting the word that meant bread and meat and
+home to them.</p>
+
+<p>As Richard passed through the shops, dropping a word to a
+workman here and there, the man addressed looked up cheerfully
+and made a furtive dab at the brown paper cap, and Richard
+returned the salute smilingly; but he was sad within. "The
+foolish fellows," he said to himself, "they are throwing away a
+full loaf and are likely to get none at all." Giles and two or
+three of the ancients were squaring a block of marble under a
+shelter by themselves. Richard made it a point to cross over and
+speak to them. In past days he had not been exacting with these
+old boys, and they always had a welcome for him.</p>
+
+<p>Slocum's Yard seldom presented a serener air of contented
+industry than it wore that morning; but in spite of all this
+smooth outside it was a foregone conclusion with most of the men
+that Slocum, with Shackford behind him, would never submit to the
+new scale of wages. There were a few who had protested against
+these resolutions and still disapproved of them, but were forced
+to go with the Association, which had really been dragged into
+the current by the other trades.</p>
+
+<p>The Dana Mills and the Miantowona Iron Works were paying
+lighter wages than similar establishments nearer the great city.
+The managers contended that they were paying as high if not
+higher rates, taking into consideration the cheaper cost of
+living in Stillwater. "But you get city prices for your wares,"
+retorted the union; "you don't pay city rents, and you shall pay
+city wages." Meetings were held at Grimsey's Hall and the subject
+was canvassed, at first calmly and then stormily. Among the
+molders, and possibly the sheet-iron workers, there was cause for
+dissatisfaction; but the dissatisfaction spread to where no
+grievance existed; it seized upon the spinners, and finally upon
+the marble workers. Torrini fanned the flame there. Taking for
+his text the rentage question, he argued that Slocum was well
+able to give a trifle more for labor than his city competitors.
+"The annual rent of a yard like Slocum's would be four thousand
+or five thousand dollars in the city. It doesn't cost Slocum two
+hundred dollars. It is no more than just that the laborer should
+have a share--he only asks a beggarly share--of the prosperity
+which he has helped to build up." This was specious and taking.
+Then there came down from the great city a glib person disguised
+as The Workingman's Friend,--no workingman himself, mind you, but
+a ghoul that lives upon subscriptions and sucks the senses out of
+innocent human beings,--who managed to set the place by the ears.
+The result of all which was that one May morning every shop,
+mill, and factory in Stillwater was served with a notice from the
+trades-union, and a general strike threatened.</p>
+
+<p>But our business at present is exclusively with Slocum's
+Yard.</p>
+
+<h2>XV</h2>
+
+<p>"Since we are in for it," said Mr. Slocum the next morning,
+"put the case to them squarely."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Slocum's vertebr&aelig; had stiffened over night.</p>
+
+<p>"Leave that to me, sir," Richard replied. "I have been shaping
+out in my mind a little speech which I flatter myself will cover
+the points. They have brought this thing upon themselves, and we
+are about to have the clearest of understandings. I never saw the
+men quieter."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't altogether admire that. It looks as if they hadn't
+any doubt as to the issue."</p>
+
+<p>"The clearest-headed have no doubt; they know as well as you
+and I do the flimsiness of those resolutions. But the thick heads
+are in a fog. Every man naturally likes his pay increased; if a
+simple fellow is told five or six hundred times that his wages
+ought to be raised, the idea is so agreeable and insidious that
+by and by he begins to believe himself grossly underpaid, though
+he may be getting twice what he is worth. He doesn't reason about
+it; that's the last thing he'll do for you. In this mood he lets
+himself be flown away by the breath of some loud-mouthed
+demagogue, who has no interest in the matter beyond hearing his
+own talk and passing round the hat after the meeting is over.
+That is what has happened to our folks below. But they <i>are</i>
+behaving handsomely."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and I don't like it."</p>
+
+<p>Since seven o'clock the most unimpeachable decorum had reigned
+in the workshops. It was now nine, and this brief dialogue had
+occurred between Mr. Slocum and Richard on the veranda, just as
+the latter was on the point of descending into the yard to have
+his talk with the men.</p>
+
+<p>The workshops--or rather the shed in which the workshops were,
+for it was one low structure eighteen or twenty feet wide and
+open on the west side--ran the length of the yard, and with the
+short extension at the southerly end formed the letter L. There
+were no partitions, an imaginary line separating the different
+gangs of workers. A person standing at the head of the building
+could make himself heard more or less distinctly in the remotest
+part.</p>
+
+<p>The grating lisp of the wet saws eating their way into the
+marble boulder, and the irregular quick taps of the seventy or
+eighty mallets were not suspended as Richard took his stand
+beside a tall funereal urn at the head of the principal workshop.
+After a second's faltering he rapped smartly on the lip of the
+urn with the key of his studio-door.</p>
+
+<p>Instantly every arm appeared paralyzed, and the men stood
+motionless, with the tools in their hands.</p>
+
+<p>Richard began in a clear but not loud voice, though it seemed
+to ring on the sudden silence:--</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Slocum has asked me to say a few words to you, this
+morning, about those resolutions, and one or two other matters
+that have occurred to him in this connection. I am no
+speech-maker; I never learned that trade"--</p>
+
+<p>"Never learned any trade," muttered Durgin, inaudibly.</p>
+
+<p>--"but I think I can manage some plain, honest talk, for
+straight-forward men."</p>
+
+<p>Richard's exordium was listened to with painful attention.</p>
+
+<p>"In the first place," he continued, "I want to remind you,
+especially the newer men, that Slocum's Yard has always given
+steady work and prompt pay to Stillwater hands. No hand has ever
+been turned off without sufficient cause, or kept on through mere
+favoritism. Favors have been shown, but they have been shown to
+all alike. If anything has gone crooked, it has been straightened
+out as soon as Mr. Slocum knew of it. That has been the course of
+the yard in the past, and the Proprietor doesn't want you to run
+away with the idea that that course is going to be changed. One
+change, for the time being, is going to be made at our own
+suggestion. From now, until the 1st of September, this yard will
+close gates on Saturdays at five P.M. instead of six P.M."</p>
+
+<p>Several voices cried, "Good for Slocum!" "Where's Slocum?"
+"Why don't Slocum speak for himself?" cried one voice.</p>
+
+<p>"It is Mr. Slocum's habit," answered Richard, "to give his
+directions to me, I give them to the foremen, and the foremen to
+the shops. Mr. Slocum follows that custom on this occasion. With
+regard to the new scale of wages which the Association has
+submitted to him, the Proprietor refuses to accept it, or any
+modification of it."</p>
+
+<p>A low murmur ran through the workshops.</p>
+
+<p>"What's a modificashun, sir?" asked Jemmy Willson, stepping
+forward, and scratching his left ear diffidently.</p>
+
+<p>"A modification," replied Richard, considerably embarrassed to
+give an instant definition, "is a--a"--</p>
+
+<p>"A splitting of the difference, by--!" shouted somebody in the
+third shop.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," said Richard, glancing in the direction of his
+impromptu Webster's Unabridged. "Mr. Slocum does not propose to
+split the difference. The wages in every department are to be
+just what they are,--neither more nor less. If anybody wishes to
+make a remark," he added, observing a restlessness in several of
+the men, "I beg he will hold on until I get through. I shall not
+detain you much longer, as the parson says before he has reached
+the middle of his sermon.</p>
+
+<p>"What I say now, I was charged to make particularly clear to
+you. It is this: In future Mr. Slocum intends to run Slocum's
+Yard himself. Neither you, nor I, nor the Association will be
+allowed to run it for him. [Sensation.] Until now the Association
+has tied him down to two apprentices a year. From this hour, out,
+Mr. Slocum will take on, not two, or twenty, but two hundred
+apprentices if the business warrants it."</p>
+
+<p>The words were not clearly off Richard's lips when the foreman
+of the shop in which he was speaking picked up a couple of small
+drills, and knocked them together with a sharp click. In an
+instant the men laid aside their aprons, bundled up their tools,
+and marched out of the shed two by two, in dead silence. That
+same click was repeated almost simultaneously in the second shop,
+and the same evolution took place. Then click, click, click! went
+the drills, sounding fainter and fainter in the distant
+departments; and in less than three minutes there was not a soul
+left in Slocum's Yard except the Orator of the Day.</p>
+
+<p>Richard had anticipated some demonstration, either noisy or
+violent, perhaps both; but this solemn, orderly desertion dashed
+him.</p>
+
+<p>He stepped into the middle of the yard, and glancing up beheld
+Margaret and Mr. Slocum standing on the veranda. Even at that
+distance he could perceive the pallor on one face, and the
+consternation written all over the other.</p>
+
+<p>Hanging his head with sadness, Richard crossed the yard, which
+gave out mournful echoes to his footfalls, and swung to the large
+gate, nearly catching old Giles by the heel as he did so. Looking
+through the slats, he saw Lumley and Peterson hobbling arm in arm
+down the street,--after more than twenty-five years of kindly
+treatment.</p>
+
+<p>"Move number one," said Richard, lifting the heavy cross-piece
+into its place and fastening it with a wooden pin. "Now I must go
+and prop up Mr. Slocum."</p>
+
+<h2>XVI</h2>
+
+<p>There is no solitude which comes so near being tangible as
+that of a vast empty workshop, crowded a moment since. The busy,
+intense life that has gone from it mysteriously leaves behind
+enough of itself to make the stillness poignant. One might
+imagine the invisible ghost of doomed Toil wandering from bench
+to bench, and noiselessly fingering the dropped tools, still warm
+from the workman's palm. Perhaps this impalpable presence is the
+artisan's anxious thought, stolen back to brood over the
+uncompleted task.</p>
+
+<p>Though Mr. Slocum had spoken lightly of Slocum's Yard with
+only one workman in it, when he came to contemplate the actual
+fact he was struck by the pathos of it, and the resolution with
+which he awoke that morning began to desert him.</p>
+
+<p>"The worst is over," exclaimed Richard, joining his two
+friends on the veranda, "and everything went smoother than I
+expected."</p>
+
+<p>"Everything went, sure enough," said Mr. Slocum, gloomily;
+"they all went,--old Giles, and Lumley, and everybody."</p>
+
+<p>"We somewhat expected that, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I expected it, and wasn't prepared for it."</p>
+
+<p>"It was very bad," said Richard, shaking his head.</p>
+
+<p>The desertion of Giles and his superannuated mates especially
+touched Mr. Slocum.</p>
+
+<p>"Bad is no word; it was damnable."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, papa!"</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me, dear; I couldn't help it. When a man's pensioners
+throw him over, he must be pretty far gone!"</p>
+
+<p>"The undertow was too strong for them, sir, and they were
+swept away with the rest. And they all but promised to stay. They
+will be the very first to come back."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course we shall have to take the old fellows on again,"
+said Mr. Slocum, relenting characteristically.</p>
+
+<p>"Never!" cried Richard.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I had some of your grit."</p>
+
+<p>"I have none to spare. To tell the truth, when I stood up
+there to speak, with every eye working on me, like a half-inch
+drill, I would have sold myself at a low figure."</p>
+
+<p>"But you were a perfect what's-his-name,--Demosthenes," said
+Mr. Slocum, with a faint smile. "We could hear you."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe Demosthenes ever moved an audience as I did
+mine!" cried Richard gaily. "If his orations produced a like
+effect, I am certain that the Grecian lecture-bureau never sent
+him twice to the same place."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think, Richard, I would engage you over again."</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure Richard spoke very well," interrupted Margaret.
+"His speech was short"--</p>
+
+<p>"Say shortened, Margaret, for I hadn't got through when they
+left."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I will not jest about it. It is too serious for jesting.
+What is to become of the families of all these men suddenly
+thrown out of employment?"</p>
+
+<p>"They threw themselves out, Mag," said her father.</p>
+
+<p>"That does not mend the matter, papa. There will be great
+destitution and suffering in the village with every mill closed;
+and they are all going to close, Bridget says. Thank Heaven that
+this did not happen in the winter!"</p>
+
+<p>"They always pick their weather," observed Mr. Slocum.</p>
+
+<p>"It will not be for long," said Richard encouragingly. "Our
+own hands and the spinners, who had no ground for complaint, will
+return to work shortly, and the managers of the iron mills will
+have to yield a point or two. In a week at the outside everything
+will be running smoothly, and on a sounder foundation than
+before. I believe the strike will be an actual benefit to
+everybody in the end."</p>
+
+<p>By dint of such arguments and his own sanguine temperament,
+Richard succeeded in reassuring Mr. Slocum for the time being,
+though Richard did not hide from himself the gravity of the
+situation. There was a general strike in the village. Eight
+hundred men were without work. That meant, or would mean in a few
+days, two or three thousand women and children without bread. It
+does not take the wolf long to reach a poor man's door when it is
+left ajar.</p>
+
+<p>The trades-union had a fund for emergencies of this sort, and
+some outside aid might be looked for; but such supplies are in
+their nature precarious and soon exhausted. It is a noticeable
+feature of strikes that the moment the workman's pay stops his
+living expenses increase. Even the more economical becomes
+improvident. If he has money, the tobacco shop and the tavern are
+likely to get more of it than the butcher's cart. The prolonged
+strain is too great to be endured without stimulant.</p>
+
+<h2>XVII</h2>
+
+<p>During the first and second days of the strike, Stillwater
+presented an animated and even a festive appearance. Throngs of
+operatives in their Sunday clothes strolled through the streets,
+or lounged at the corners chatting with other groups; some
+wandered into the suburbs, and lay in the long grass under the
+elms. Others again, though these were few, took to the turnpike
+or the railroad track, and tramped across country.</p>
+
+<p>It is needless to say that the bar-room of the tavern was
+crowded from early morning down to the hour when the law
+compelled Mr. Snelling to shut off his gas. After which, John
+Brown's "soul" could be heard "marching on" in the darkness,
+through various crooked lanes and alleys, until nearly
+daybreak.</p>
+
+<p>Among the earliest to scent trouble in the air was Han-Lin,
+the Chinaman before mentioned. He kept a small laundry in Mud
+Lane, where his name was painted perpendicularly on a light of
+glass in the basement window of a tenement house. Han-Lin
+intended to be buried some day in a sky-blue coffin in his own
+land, and have a dozen packs of firecrackers decorously exploded
+over his remains. In order to reserve himself for this and other
+ceremonies involving the burning of a great quantity of gilt
+paper, he quietly departed for Boston at the first sign of
+popular discontent. As Dexter described it, "Han-Lin coiled up
+his pig-tail, put forty grains of rice in a yallar bag,--enough
+to last him a month!--and toddled off in his two-story wooden
+shoes." He could scarcely have done a wiser thing, for poor
+Han-Lin's laundry was turned wrong side out within thirty-six
+hours afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>The strike was popular. The spirit of it spread, as fire and
+fever and all elemental forces spread. The two apprentices in
+Brackett's bakery had a dozen minds about striking that first
+morning. The younger lad, Joe Wiggin, plucked up courage to ask
+Brackett for a day off, and was lucky enough to dodge a piece of
+dough weighing nearly four pounds.</p>
+
+<p>Brackett was making bread while the sun shone. He knew that
+before the week was over there would be no cash customers, and he
+purposed then to shut up shop.</p>
+
+<p>On the third and fourth days there was no perceptible fall in
+the barometer. Trade was brisk with Snelling, and a brass band
+was playing national airs on a staging erected on the green in
+front of the post-office. Nightly meetings took place at
+Grimsey's Hall, and the audiences were good-humored and orderly.
+Torrini advanced some Utopian theories touching a universal
+distribution of wealth, which were listened to attentively, but
+failed to produce deep impression.</p>
+
+<p>"That's a healthy idea of Torrini's about dervidin' up
+property," said Jemmy Willson. "I've heerd it afore; but it's
+sing'ler I never knowd a feller with any property to have that
+idea."</p>
+
+<p>"Ther' 's a great dale in it, I can tell ye," replied Michael
+Hennessey, with a well-blackened Woodstock pipe between his teeth
+and his hands tucked under his coat-tails. "Isn't ther', Misther
+Stavens?"</p>
+
+<p>When Michael had on his bottle-green swallow-tailed coat with
+the brass buttons, he invariably assumed a certain lofty air of
+ceremony in addressing his companions.</p>
+
+<p>"It is sorter pleasant to look at," returned Stevens, "but it
+don't seem to me an idea that would work. Suppose that, after all
+the property was divided, a fresh shipload of your friends was to
+land at New York or Boston; would there be a new deal?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir! by no means!" exclaimed Michael excitedly. "The
+furreners is counted out!"</p>
+
+<p>"But you're a foreigner yourself, Mike."</p>
+
+<p>"Am I, then? Bedad, I'm not! I'm a rale American Know
+Nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Mike," said Stevens maliciously, "when it comes to a
+reg'lar division of lands and greenbacks in the United States, I
+go in for the Chinese having their share."</p>
+
+<p>"The Chinese!" shouted Michael. "Oh, murther, Misther Stevens!
+Ye wouldn't be fur dividin' with thim blatherskites!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, with them,--as well as the rest," returned Stevens,
+dryly.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the directors and stockholders of the various mills
+took counsel in a room at the rear of the National Bank. Mr.
+Slocum, following Richard's advice, declined to attend the
+meeting in person, or to allow his name to figure on the list of
+vice-presidents.</p>
+
+<p>"Why should we hitch our good cause to their doubtful one?"
+reflected Richard. "We have no concessions or proposals to make.
+When our men are ready to come back to us, they will receive just
+wages and fair treatment. They know that. We do not want to fight
+the molders. Let the iron-mills do their own fighting;" and
+Richard stolidly employed himself in taking an account of stock,
+and forwarding by express to their destination the ten or twelve
+carved mantel-pieces that happily completed the last
+contract.</p>
+
+<p>Then his responsibilities shrunk to winding up the office
+clock and keeping Mr. Slocum firmly on his legs. The latter was
+by far the more onerous duty, for Mr. Slocum ran down two or
+three times in the course of every twenty-four hours, while the
+clock once wound was fixed for the day.</p>
+
+<p>"If I could only have a good set of Waltham works put into
+your father," said Richard to Margaret, after one of Mr. Slocum's
+relapses, "he would go better."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor papa! he is not a fighter, like you."</p>
+
+<p>"Your father is what I call a belligerent non-combatant."</p>
+
+<p>Richard was seeing a great deal of Margaret these days. Mr.
+Slocum had invited him to sleep in the studio until the
+excitement was past. Margaret was afraid to have him take that
+long walk between the yard and his lodgings in Lime Street, and
+then her father was an old man to be without any protection in
+the house in such untoward times.</p>
+
+<p>So Richard slept in the studio, and had his plate at table,
+like one of the family. This arrangement was favorable to many a
+stolen five minutes with Margaret, in the hall or on the
+staircase. In these fortuitous moments he breathed an atmosphere
+that sustained him in his task of dispelling Mr. Slocum's
+recurrent fits of despondency. Margaret had her duties, too, at
+this period, and the forenoons were sacred to them.</p>
+
+<p>One morning as she passed down the street with a small wicker
+basket on her arm, Richard said to Mr. Slocum,--</p>
+
+<p>"Margaret has joined the strikers."</p>
+
+<p>The time had already come to Stillwater when many a
+sharp-faced little urchin--as dear to the warm, deep bosom that
+had nursed it as though it were a crown prince--would not have
+had a crust to gnaw if Margaret Slocum had not joined the
+strikers. Sometimes her heart drooped on the way home from these
+errands, upon seeing how little of the misery she could ward off.
+On her rounds there was one cottage in a squalid lane where the
+children asked for bread in Italian. She never omitted to halt at
+that door.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it quite prudent for Margaret to be going about so?"
+queried Mr. Slocum.</p>
+
+<p>"She is perfectly safe," said Richard,--"as safe as a Sister
+of Charity, which she is."</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, Margaret might then have gone loaded with diamonds
+through the streets at midnight. There was not a rough man in
+Stillwater who would not have reached forth an arm to shield
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"It is costing me nearly as much as it would to carry on the
+yard," said Mr. Slocum, "but I never put out any stamps more
+willingly."</p>
+
+<p>"You never took a better contract, sir, than when you agreed
+to keep Margaret's basket filled. It is an investment in real
+estate--hereafter."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope so," answered Mr. Slocum, "and I know it's a good
+thing now."</p>
+
+<p>Of the morals of Stillwater at this time, or at any time, the
+less said the better. But out of the slime and ooze below sprang
+the white flower of charity.</p>
+
+<p>The fifth day fell on a Sabbath, and the churches were
+crowded. The Rev. Arthur Langly selected his text from St.
+Matthew, chap. xxii, v. 21: "Render therefore unto C&aelig;sar
+the things which are C&aelig;sar's." But as he did not make it
+quite plain which was C&aelig;sar,--the trades-union or the
+Miantowona Iron Works,--the sermon went for nothing, unless it
+could be regarded as a hint to those persons who had stolen a
+large piece of belting from the Dana Mills. On the other hand,
+Father O'Meara that morning bravely told his children to conduct
+themselves in an orderly manner while they were out of work, or
+they would catch it in this world and in the next.</p>
+
+<p>On the sixth day a keen observer might have detected a change
+in the atmosphere. The streets were thronged as usual, and the
+idlers still wore their Sunday clothes, but the holiday buoyancy
+of the earlier part of the week had evaporated. A turn-out on the
+part of one of the trades, though it was accompanied by music and
+a banner with a lively inscription, failed to arouse general
+enthusiasm. A serious and even a sullen face was not rare among
+the crowds that wandered aimlessly up and down the village.</p>
+
+<p>On the seventh day it required no penetration to see the
+change. There was decidedly less good-natured chaffing and more
+drunkenness, though Snelling had invoked popular contumely and
+decimated his bar-room by refusing to trust for drinks. Bracket
+had let his ovens cool, and his shutters were up. The treasury of
+the trades-union was nearly drained, and there were growlings
+that too much had been fooled away on banners and a brass band
+for the iron men's parade the previous forenoon. It was when
+Brackett's eye sighted the banner with "Bread or Blood" on it,
+that he had put up his shutters.</p>
+
+<p>Torrini was now making violent harangues at Grimsey's Hall to
+largely augmented listeners, whom his words irritated without
+convincing. Shut off from the tavern, the men flocked to hear him
+and the other speakers, for born orators were just then as thick
+as unripe whortleberries. There was nowhere else to go. At home
+were reproaches that maddened, and darkness, for the kerosene had
+given out.</p>
+
+<p>Though all the trades had been swept into the movement, it is
+not to be understood that every workman was losing his head.
+There were men who owned their cottages and had small sums laid
+by in the savings-bank; who had always sent their children to the
+district school, and listened themselves to at least one of Mr.
+Langly's sermons or one of Father O'Meara's discourses every
+Sunday. These were anchored to good order; they neither
+frequented the bar-room nor attended the conclaves at Grimsey's
+Hall, but deplored as deeply as any one the spirit that was
+manifesting itself. They would have returned to work now--if they
+had dared. To this class belonged Stevens.</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you come up to the hall, nights?" asked Durgin,
+accosting him on the street, one afternoon. "You'd run a chance
+of hearing me hold forth some of these evenings."</p>
+
+<p>"You've answered your own question, William. I shouldn't like
+to see you making an idiot of yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"This is a square fight between labor and capital," returned
+Durgin with dignity, "and every man ought to take a hand in
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"William," said Stevens meditatively, "do you know about the
+Siamese twins?"</p>
+
+<p>"What about 'em,--they're dead, ain't they?" replied Durgin,
+with surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe so; but when they was alive, if you was to pinch
+one of those fellows, the other fellow would sing out. If you was
+to black the eye of the left-hand chap, the right-hand chap
+wouldn't have been able to see for a week. When either of 'em
+fetched the other a clip, he knocked himself down. Labor and
+capital is jined just as those two was. When you've got this fact
+well into your skull, William, I shall be pleased to listen to
+your ideas at Grimsey's Hall or anywhere else."</p>
+
+<p>Such conservatism as Stevens's, however, was necessarily swept
+out of sight for the moment. The wealthier citizens were in a
+state bordering on panic,--all but Mr. Lemuel Shackford. In his
+flapping linen duster, for the weather was very sultry now, Mr.
+Shackford was seen darting excitedly from street to street and
+hovering about the feverish crowds, like the stormy petrel
+wheeling on the edges of a gale. Usually as chary of his
+sympathies as of his gold, he astonished every one by evincing an
+abnormal interest in the strikers. The old man declined to put
+down anything on the subscription paper then circulating; but he
+put down his sympathies to any amount. He held no stock in the
+concerns involved; he hated Slocum, and he hated the directors of
+the Miantowona Iron Works. The least he hoped was that Rowland
+Slocum would be laid out.</p>
+
+<p>So far the strikers had committed no overt act of note, unless
+it was the demolition of Han-Lin's laundry. Stubbs, the provision
+dealer, had been taught the rashness of exposing samples of
+potatoes in his door-way, and the "Tonsorial Emporium" of
+Professor Brown, a colored citizen, had been invaded by two
+humorists, who, after having their hair curled, refused to pay
+for it, and the professor had been too agitated to insist. The
+story transpiring, ten or twelve of the boys had dropped in
+during the morning, and got shaved on the same terms. "By golly,
+gen'l'men!" expostulated the professor, "ef dis yah thing goes
+on, dis darkey will be cleaned cl'ar out fo de week's done." No
+act of real violence had been perpetrated as yet; but with bands
+of lawless men roaming over the village at all hours of the day
+and night, the situation was critical.</p>
+
+<p>The wheel of what small social life there was in Stillwater
+had ceased to revolve. With the single exception of Lemuel
+Shackford, the more respectable inhabitants kept in-doors as much
+as practicable. From the first neither Mr. Craggie nor Lawyer
+Perkins had gone to the hotel to consult the papers in the
+reading-room, and Mr. Pinkham did not dare to play on his flute
+of an evening. The Rev. Arthur Langly found it politic to do but
+little visiting in the parish. His was not the pinion to buffet
+with a wind like this, and indeed he was not explicitly called
+upon to do so. He sat sorrowfully in his study day by day,
+preparing the weekly sermon,--a gentle, pensive person, inclined
+in the best of weather to melancholia. If Mr. Langly had gone
+into arboriculture instead of into the ministry, he would have
+planted nothing but weeping-willows.</p>
+
+<p>In the mean time the mill directors continued their
+deliberations in the bank building, and had made several abortive
+attempts to effect an arrangement with the leaders of the union.
+This seemed every hour less possible and more necessary.</p>
+
+<p>On the afternoon of the seventh day of the strike a crowd
+gathered in front of the residence of Mr. Alexander, the
+superintendent of the Miantowona Iron Works, and began groaning
+and hooting. Mr. Alexander sought out Mr. Craggie, and urged him,
+as a man of local weight and one accustomed to addressing the
+populace, to speak a few words to the mob. That was setting Mr.
+Craggie on the horns of a cruel dilemma. He was afraid to
+disoblige the representative of so powerful a corporation as the
+Miantowona Iron Works, but he equally dreaded to risk his
+popularity with seven or eight hundred voters; so, like the
+crafty chancellor in Tennyson's poem, he dallied with his golden
+chain, and, smiling, put the question by.</p>
+
+<p>"Drat the man!" muttered Mr. Craggie, "does he want to blast
+my whole political career! <i>I</i> can't pitch into our adopted
+countrymen."</p>
+
+<p>There was a blot on the escutcheon of Mr. Craggie which he was
+very anxious not to have uncovered by any chance in these latter
+days,--his ancient affiliation with the deceased native American
+party.</p>
+
+<p>The mob dispersed without doing damage, but the fact that it
+had collected and had shown an ugly temper sent a thrill of
+apprehension through the village. Mr. Slocum came in a great
+flurry to Richard.</p>
+
+<p>"This thing ought to be stopped," said Mr. Slocum.</p>
+
+<p>"I agree to that," replied Richard, bracing himself not to
+agree to anything else.</p>
+
+<p>"If we were to drop that stipulation as to the increase of
+apprentices, no doubt many of the men would give over insisting
+on an advance."</p>
+
+<p>"Our only salvation is to stick to our right to train as many
+workmen as we choose. The question of wages is of no account
+compared with that; the rate of wages will adjust itself."</p>
+
+<p>"If we could manage it somehow with the marble workers,"
+suggested Mr. Slocum, "that would demoralize the other trades,
+and they'd be obliged to fall in."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see that they lack demoralization."</p>
+
+<p>"If something isn't done, they'll end up by knocking in our
+front doors or burning us all up."</p>
+
+<p>"Let them."</p>
+
+<p>"It's very well to say let them," exclaimed Mr. Slocum,
+petulantly, "when you haven't any front door to be knocked
+in!"</p>
+
+<p>"But I have you and Margaret to consider, if there were actual
+danger. When anything like violence threatens, there's an honest
+shoulder for every one of the hundred and fifty muskets in the
+armory."</p>
+
+<p>"Those muskets might get on the wrong shoulders."</p>
+
+<p>"That isn't likely. You do not seem to know, sir, that there
+is a strong guard at the armory day and night."</p>
+
+<p>"I was not aware of that."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a fact all the same," said Richard; and Mr. Slocum went
+away easier in his mind, and remained so--two or three hours.</p>
+
+<p>On the eighth, ninth, and tenth days the clouds lay very black
+along the horizon. The marble workers, who began to see their
+mistake, were reproaching the foundry men with enticing them into
+a coalition, and the spinners were hot in their denunciations of
+the molders. Ancient personal antagonisms that had been
+slumbering started to their feet. Torrini fell out of favor, and
+in the midst of one of his finest perorations uncomplimentary
+missiles, selected from the animal kingdom, had been thrown at
+him. The grand torchlight procession on the night of the ninth
+culminated in a disturbance, in which many men got injured,
+several badly, and the windows of Brackett's bakery were stove
+in. A point of light had pierced the darkness,--the trades were
+quarreling among themselves!</p>
+
+<p>The selectmen had sworn in special constables among the
+citizens, and some of the more retired streets were now patrolled
+after dark, for there had been threats of incendiarism.</p>
+
+<p>Bishop's stables burst into flames one midnight,--whether
+fired intentionally or accidentally was not known; but the giant
+bellows at Dana's Mills was slit and two belts were cut at the
+Miantowona Iron Works that same night.</p>
+
+<p>At this juncture a report that out-of-town hands were coming
+to replace the strikers acted on the public mind like petroleum
+on fire. A large body of workmen assembled near the railway
+station,--to welcome them. There was another rumor which caused
+the marble workers to stare at each other aghast. It was to the
+effect that Mr. Slocum, having long meditated retiring from
+business, had now decided to do so, and was consulting with
+Wyndham, the keeper of the green-house, about removing the
+division wall and turning the marble yard into a peach garden.
+This was an unlooked-for solution of the difficulty. Stillwater
+without any Slocum's Marble Yard was chaos come again.</p>
+
+<p>"Good Lord, boys!" cried Piggott, "if Slocum should do
+that!"</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Snelling's bar had been suppressed by the
+authorities, and a posse of policemen, borrowed from South
+Millville, occupied the premises. Knots of beetle-browed men, no
+longer in holiday gear, but chiefly in their shirt-sleeves,
+collected from time to time at the head of the main street, and
+glowered threateningly at the single policeman pacing the porch
+of the tavern. The Stillwater Grays were under arms in the armory
+over Dundon's drugstore. The thoroughfare had ceased to be safe
+for any one, and Margaret's merciful errands were necessarily
+brought to an end. How the poor creatures who had depended on her
+bounty now continued to exist was a sorrowful problem.</p>
+
+<p>Matters were at this point, when on the morning of the
+thirteenth day Richard noticed the cadaverous face of a man
+peering into the yard through the slats of the main gate. Richard
+sauntered down there, with his hands in his pockets. The man was
+old Giles, and with him stood Lumley and Peterson, gazing
+thoughtfully at the sign outside,--</p>
+
+<center>NO ADMITTANCE EXCEPT ON BUSINESS.</center>
+
+<p>The roughly lettered clapboard, which they had heedlessly
+passed a thousand times, seemed to have taken a novel
+significance to them.</p>
+
+<p><i>Richard</i>. What's wanted there?</p>
+
+<p><i>Giles. [Very affably.]</i> We was lookin' round for a job,
+Mr. Shackford.</p>
+
+<p><i>Richard</i>. We are not taking on any hands at present.</p>
+
+<p><i>Giles</i>. Didn't know but you was. Somebody said you
+was.</p>
+
+<p><i>Richard</i>. Somebody is mistaken.</p>
+
+<p><i>Giles</i>. P'rhaps to-morrow, or nex' day?</p>
+
+<p><i>Richard</i>. Rather doubtful, Giles.</p>
+
+<p><i>Giles. [Uneasily.]</i> Mr. Slocum ain't goin' to give up
+business, is he?</p>
+
+<p><i>Richard</i>. Why shouldn't he, if it doesn't pay? The
+business is carried on for his amusement and profit; when the
+profit stops it won't be amusing any longer. Mr. Slocum is not
+going to run the yard for the sake of the Marble Workers'
+Association. He would rather drive a junk-cart. He might be
+allowed to steer that himself.</p>
+
+<p><i>Giles</i>. Oh!</p>
+
+<p><i>Richard</i>. Good-morning, Giles.</p>
+
+<p><i>Gikles</i>. 'Mornin', Mr. Shackford.</p>
+
+<p>Richard rushed back to Mr. Slocum.</p>
+
+<p>"The strike is broken, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"The thing has collapsed! The tide is turning, <i>and has
+washed in a lot of dead wood!"</i></p>
+
+<p>"Thank God!" cried Mr. Slocum.</p>
+
+<p>An hour or so later a deputation of four, consisting of
+Stevens, Denyven, Durgin, and Piggott, waited upon Mr. Slocum in
+his private office, and offered, on behalf of all the
+departments, to resume work at the old rates.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Slocum replied that he had not objected to the old rates,
+but the new, and that he accepted their offer--conditionally.</p>
+
+<p>"You have overlooked one point, Mr. Stevens."</p>
+
+<p>"Which one, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"The apprentices."</p>
+
+<p>"We thought you might not insist there, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"I insist on conducting my own business in my own way."</p>
+
+<p>The voice was the voice of Slocum, but the backbone was
+Richard's.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, sir, the Association don't object to a reasonable
+number of apprentices."</p>
+
+<p>"How many is that?"</p>
+
+<p>"As many as you want, I expect, sir," said Stevens, shuffling
+his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, Stevens. Go round to the front gate and Mr.
+Shackford will let you in."</p>
+
+<p>There were two doors to the office, one leading into the yard,
+and the other, by which the deputation had entered and was now
+making its exit, opened upon the street.</p>
+
+<p>Richard heaved a vast sigh of relief as he took down the beam
+securing the principal entrance.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-morning, boys," he chirped, with a smile as bright as
+newly minted gold. "I hope you enjoyed yourselves."</p>
+
+<p>The quartet ducked their heads bashfully, and Stevens replied,
+"Can't speak for the others, Mr. Shackford, but I never enjoyed
+myself worse."</p>
+
+<p>Piggott lingered a moment behind the rest, and looking back
+over his shoulder said, "That peach garden was what fetched
+us!"</p>
+
+<p>Richard gave a loud laugh, for the peach garden had been a
+horticultural invention of his own.</p>
+
+<p>In the course of the forenoon the majority of the hands
+presented themselves at the office, dropping into the yard in
+gangs of five or six, and nearly all were taken on. To dispose
+definitely of Lumley, Giles, and Peterson, they were not taken on
+at Slocum's Yard, though they continued to be, directly or
+indirectly, Slocum's pensioners, even after they were retired to
+the town farm.</p>
+
+<p>Once more the chisels sounded merrily under the long shed.
+That same morning the spinners went back to the mules, but the
+molders held out until nightfall, when it was signified to them
+that their demands would be complied with.</p>
+
+<p>The next day the steam-whistles of the Miantowona Iron Works
+and Dana's Mills sent the echoes flying beyond that undulating
+line of pines and hemlocks which half encircles Stillwater, and
+falls away loosely on either side, like an unclasped girdle.</p>
+
+<p>A calm, as if from out the cloudless blue sky that arched it
+day after day, seemed to drift down upon the village. Han-Lin,
+with no more facial expression than an orange, suddenly
+reappeared on the streets, and went about repairing his laundry,
+unmolested. The children were playing in the sunny lanes again,
+unafraid, and mothers sat on doorsteps in the summer twilights,
+singing softly to the baby in arm. There was meat on the table,
+and the tea-kettle hummed comfortably at the back of the stove.
+The very winds that rustled through the fragrant pines, and
+wandered fitfully across the vivid green of the salt marshes,
+breathed peace and repose.</p>
+
+<p>Then, one morning, this blissful tranquility was rudely
+shattered. Old Mr. Lemuel Shackford had been found murdered in
+his own house in Welch's Court.</p>
+
+<h2>XVIII</h2>
+
+<p>The general effect on Stillwater of Mr. Shackford's death and
+the peculiar circumstances attending the tragedy have been set
+forth in the earlier chapters of this narrative. The influence
+which that event exerted upon several persons then but
+imperfectly known to the reader is now to occupy us.</p>
+
+<p>On the conclusion of the strike, Richard had returned, in the
+highest spirits, to his own rooms in Lime Street; but the quiet
+week that followed found him singularly depressed. His nerves had
+been strung to their utmost tension during those thirteen days of
+suspense; he had assumed no light responsibility in the matter of
+closing the yard, and there had been moments when the task of
+sustaining Mr. Slocum had appeared almost hopeless. Now that the
+strain was removed a reaction set in, and Richard felt himself
+unnerved by the fleeing shadow of the trouble which had not
+caused him to flinch so long as it faced him.</p>
+
+<p>On the morning and at the moment when Mary Hennessey was
+pushing open the scullery door of the house in Welch's Court, and
+was about to come upon the body of the forlorn old man lying
+there in his night-dress, Richard sat eating his breakfast in a
+silent and preoccupied mood. He had retired very late the
+previous night, and his lack-lustre eyes showed the effect of
+insufficient sleep. His single fellow-boarder, Mr. Pinkham, had
+not returned from his customary early walk, and only Richard and
+Mrs. Spooner, the landlady, were at table. The former was in the
+act of lifting the coffee-cup to his lips, when the school-master
+burst excitedly into the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Old Mr. Shackford is dead!" he exclaimed, dropping into a
+chair near the door. "There's a report down in the village that
+he has been murdered. I don't know if it is true.... God
+forgive my abruptness! I didn't think!" and Mr. Pinkham turned an
+apologetic face towards Richard, who sat there deathly pale,
+holding the cup rigidly within an inch or two of his lip, and
+staring blankly into space like a statue.</p>
+
+<p>"I--I ought to have reflected," murmured the school-master,
+covered with confusion at his maladroitness. "It was very
+reprehensible in Craggie to make such an announcement to me so
+suddenly, on a street corner. I--I was quite upset by it."</p>
+
+<p>Richard pushed back his chair without replying, and passed
+into the hall, where he encountered a messenger from Mr. Slocum,
+confirming Mr. Pinkham's intelligence, but supplementing it with
+the rumor that Lemuel Shackford had committed suicide.</p>
+
+<p>Richard caught up his hat from a table, and hurried to Welch's
+Court. Before reaching the house he had somewhat recovered his
+outward composure; but he was still pale and internally much
+agitated, for he had received a great shock, as Lawyer Perkins
+afterwards observed to Mr. Ward in the reading-room of the
+tavern. Both these gentlemen were present when Richard arrived,
+as were also several of the immediate neighbors and two
+constables. The latter were guarding the door against the crowd,
+which had already begun to collect in the front yard.</p>
+
+<p>A knot of carpenters, with their tool-boxes on their
+shoulders, had halted at the garden gate on their way to Bishop's
+new stables, and were glancing curiously at the unpainted
+fa&ccedil;ade of the house, which seemed to have taken on a
+remote, bewildered expression, as if it had an inarticulate sense
+of the horror within. The men ceased their whispered conversation
+as Richard approached, and respectfully moved aside to let him
+pass.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing had been changed in the cheerless room on the ground
+floor, with its veneered mahogany furniture and its yellowish
+leprous wall-paper, peeling off at the seams here and there. A
+cane-seated chair, overturned near the table, had been left
+untouched, and the body was still lying in the position in which
+the Hennessey girl had discovered it. A strange chill--something
+unlike any atmospherical sharpness, a chill that seemed to exhale
+from the thin, pinched nostrils--permeated the apartment. The
+orioles were singing madly outside, their vermilion bosoms
+glowing like live coals against the tender green of the foliage,
+and appearing to break into flame as they took sudden flights
+hither and thither; but within all was still. On entering the
+chamber Richard was smitten by the silence,--that silence which
+shrouds the dead, and is like no other. Lemuel Shackford had not
+been kind or cousinly; he had blighted Richard's childhood with
+harshness and neglect, and had lately heaped cruel insult upon
+him; but as he stood there alone, and gazed for a moment at the
+firmly shut lips, upon which the mysterious white dust of death
+had already settled,--the lips that were never to utter any more
+bitter things,--the tears gathered in Richard's eyes and ran
+slowly down his cheeks. After all said and done, Lemuel Shackford
+was his kinsman, and blood is thicker than water!</p>
+
+<p>Coroner Whidden shortly appeared on the scene, accompanied by
+a number of persons; a jury was impaneled, and then began that
+inquest which resulted in shedding so very little light on the
+catastrophe.</p>
+
+<p>The investigation completed, there were endless details to
+attend to,--papers to be hurriedly examined and sealed, and
+arrangements made for the funeral on the succeeding day. These
+matters occupied Richard until late in the afternoon, when he
+retired to his lodgings, looking in on Margaret for a few minutes
+on his way home.</p>
+
+<p>"This is too dreadful!" said Margaret, clinging to his hand,
+with fingers nearly as icy as his own.</p>
+
+<p>"It is unspeakably sad," answered Richard,--"the saddest thing
+I ever knew."</p>
+
+<p>"Who--who could have been so cruel?"</p>
+
+<p>Richard shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"No one knows."</p>
+
+<p>The funeral took place on Thursday, and on Friday morning, as
+has been stated, Mr. Taggett arrived in Stillwater, and installed
+himself in Welch's Court, to the wonder of many in the village,
+who would not have slept a night in that house, with only a
+servant in the north gable, for half the universe. Mr. Taggett
+was a person who did not allow himself to be swayed by his
+imagination.</p>
+
+<p>Here, then, he began his probing of a case which, on the
+surface, promised to be a very simple one. The man who had been
+seen driving rapidly along the turnpike sometime near daybreak,
+on Wednesday, was presumably the man who could tell him all about
+it. But it did not prove so. Neither Thomas Blufton, nor William
+Durgin, nor any of the tramps subsequently obliged to drop into
+autobiography could be connected with the affair.</p>
+
+<p>These first failures served to stimulate Mr. Taggett; it
+required a complex case to stir his ingenuity and sagacity. That
+the present was not a complex case he was still convinced, after
+four days' futile labor upon it. Mr. Shackford had been
+killed--either with malice prepense or on the spur of the
+moment--for his money. The killing had likely enough not been
+premeditated; the old man had probably opposed the robbery. Now,
+among the exceptionally rough population of the town there were
+possibly fifty men who would not have hesitated to strike down
+Mr. Shackford if he had caught them <i>flagrante delicto</i> and
+resisted them, or attempted to call for succor. That the crime
+was committed by some one in Stillwater or in the neighborhood
+Mr. Taggett had never doubted since the day of his arrival. The
+clumsy manner in which the staple had been wrenched from the
+scullery door showed the absence of a professional hand. Then the
+fact that the deceased was in the habit of keeping money in his
+bedchamber was a fact well known in the village, and not likely
+to be known outside of it, though of course it might have been.
+It was clearly necessary for Mr. Taggett to carry his
+investigation into the workshops and among the haunts of the
+class which was indubitably to furnish him with the individual he
+wanted. Above all, it was necessary that the investigation should
+be secret. An obstacle obtruded itself here: everybody in
+Stillwater knew everybody, and a stranger appearing on the
+streets or dropping frequently into the tavern would not escape
+comment.</p>
+
+<p>The man with the greatest facility for making the requisite
+searches would of course be some workman. But a workman was the
+very agent not to be employed under the circumstances. How many
+times, and by what strange fatality, had a guilty party been
+selected to shadow his own movements, or those of an accomplice!
+No, Mr. Taggett must rely only on himself, and his plan forthwith
+matured. Its execution, however, was delayed several days, the
+cooperation of Mr. Slocum and Mr. Richard Shackford being
+indispensable.</p>
+
+<p>At this stage Richard went to New York, where his cousin had
+made extensive investments in real estate. For a careful man, the
+late Mr. Shackford had allowed his affairs there to become
+strangely tangled. The business would detain Richard a
+fortnight.</p>
+
+<p>Three days after his departure Mr. Taggett himself left
+Stillwater, having apparently given up the case; a proceeding
+which was severely criticized, not only in the columns of The
+Stillwater Gazette, but by the townsfolks at large, who
+immediately relapsed into a state of apprehension approximating
+that of the morning when the crime was discovered. Mr. Pinkham,
+who was taking tea that evening at the Danas', threw the family
+into a panic by asserting his belief that this was merely the
+first of a series of artistic assassinations in the manner of
+those Memorable Murders recorded by De Quincey. Mr. Pinkham may
+have said this to impress the four Dana girls with the variety of
+his reading, but the recollection of De Quincey's harrowing paper
+had the effect of so unhinging the young school-master that when
+he found himself, an hour or two afterwards, in the lonely,
+unlighted street he flitted home like a belated ghost, and was
+ready to drop at every tree-box.</p>
+
+<p>The next forenoon a new hand was taken on at Slocum's Yard.
+The new hand, who had come on foot from South Millville, at which
+town he had been set down by the seven o'clock express that
+morning, was placed in the apprentice department,--there were
+five or six apprentices now. Though all this was part of an
+understood arrangement, Mr. Slocum nearly doubted the fidelity of
+his own eyes when Mr. Taggett, a smooth-faced young fellow of one
+and twenty, if so old, with all the traits of an ordinary workman
+down to the neglected fingernails, stepped up to the desk to have
+the name of Blake entered on the pay-roll. Either by chance or by
+design, Mr. Taggett had appeared but seldom on the streets of
+Stillwater; the few persons who had had anything like familiar
+intercourse with him in his professional capacity were precisely
+the persons with whom his present movements were not likely to
+bring him into juxtaposition, and he ran slight risk of
+recognition by others. With his hair closely cropped, and the
+overhanging brown mustache removed, the man was not so much
+disguised as transformed. "I shouldn't have known him!" muttered
+Mr. Slocum, as he watched Mr. Taggett passing from the office
+with his hat in his hand. During the ensuing ten or twelve days
+Mr. Slocum never wholly succeeded in extricating himself from the
+foggy uncertainty generated by that one brief interview. From the
+moment Mr. Taggett was assigned a bench under the sheds, Mr.
+Slocum saw little or nothing of him.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Taggett took lodging in a room in one of the most crowded
+of the low boarding-houses,--a room accommodating two beds
+besides his own: the first occupied by a brother neophyte in
+marble-cutting, and the second by a morose middle-aged man with
+one eyebrow a trifle higher than the other, as if it had been
+wrenched out of line by the strain of habitual intoxication. This
+man's name was Wollaston, and he worked at Dana's.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Taggett's initial move was to make himself popular in the
+marble yard, and especially at the tavern, where he spent money
+freely, though not so freely as to excite any remark except that
+the lad was running through pretty much all his small pay,--a
+recklessness which was charitably condoned in Snelling's
+bar-room. He formed multifarious friendships, and had so many
+sensible views on the labor problem, advocating the general
+extinguishment of capitalists, and so on, that his admittance to
+the Marble Workers' Association resolved itself into merely a
+question of time. The old prejudice against apprentices was
+already wearing off. The quiet, evasive man of few words was now
+a loquacious talker, holding his own with the hardest hitters,
+and very skillful in giving offense to no one. "Whoever picks up
+Blake for a fool," Dexter remarked one night, "will put him down
+again." Not a shadow of suspicion followed Mr. Taggett in his
+various comings and goings. He seemed merely a good-natured,
+intelligent devil; perhaps a little less devilish and a trifle
+more intelligent than the rest, but not otherwise different.
+Denyven, Peters, Dexter, Willson, and others in and out of the
+Slocum clique were Blake's sworn friends. In brief, Mr. Taggett
+had the amplest opportunities to prosecute his studies. Only for
+a pained look which sometimes latterly shot into his eyes, as he
+worked at the bench, or as he walked alone in the street, one
+would have imagined that he was thoroughly enjoying the
+half-vagabond existence.</p>
+
+<p>The supposition would have been erroneous, for in the progress
+of those fourteen days' apprenticeship Mr. Taggett had received a
+wound in the most sensitive part of his nature: he had been
+forced to give up what no man ever relinquishes without a
+wrench,--his own idea.</p>
+
+<p>With the exception of an accident in Dana's Mill, by which
+Torrini's hand had been so badly mangled that amputation was
+deemed necessary, the two weeks had been eventless outside of Mr.
+Taggett's personal experience. What that experience was will
+transpire in its proper place. Margaret was getting daily notes
+from Richard, and Mr. Slocum, overburdened with the secret of Mr.
+Taggett's presence in the yard,--a secret confined exclusively to
+Mr. Slocum, Richard, and Justice Beemis,--was restlessly awaiting
+developments.</p>
+
+<p>The developments came that afternoon when Mr. Taggett walked
+into the office and startled Mr. Slocum, sitting at the desk. The
+two words which Mr. Taggett then gravely and coldly whispered in
+Mr. Slocum's ear were,--</p>
+
+<p>"RICHARD SHACKFORD."</p>
+
+<h2>XIX</h2>
+
+<p>Mr. Slocum, who had partly risen from the chair, sank back
+into his seat. "Good God!" he said, turning very pale. "Are you
+mad?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Taggett realized the cruel shock which the pronouncing of
+that name must have caused Mr. Slocum. Mr. Taggett had meditated
+his line of action, and had decided that the most merciful course
+was brusquely to charge young Shackford with the crime, and allow
+Mr. Slocum to sustain himself for a while with the indignant
+disbelief which would be natural to him, situated as he was. He
+would then in a manner be prepared for the revelations which, if
+suddenly presented, would crush him.</p>
+
+<p>If Mr. Taggett was without imagination, as he claimed, he was
+not without a certain feminine quickness of sympathy often found
+in persons engaged in professions calculated to blunt the finer
+sensibilities. In his intercourse with Mr. Slocum at the
+Shackford house, Mr. Taggett had been won by the singular
+gentleness and simplicity of the man, and was touched by his
+misfortune.</p>
+
+<p>After his exclamation, Mr. Slocum did not speak for a moment
+or two, but with his elbows resting on the edge of the desk sat
+motionless, like a person stunned. Then he slowly lifted his
+face, to which the color had returned, and making a movement with
+his right hand as if he were sweeping away cobwebs in front of
+him rose from the chair.</p>
+
+<p>"You are simply mad," he said, looking Mr. Taggett squarely
+and calmly in the eyes. "Are you aware of Mr. Richard Shackford's
+character and his position here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Precisely."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know that he is to marry my daughter?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am very sorry for you, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"You may spare me that. It is quite unnecessary. You have
+fallen into some horrible delusion. I hope you will be able to
+explain it."</p>
+
+<p>"I am prepared to do so, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you serious?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very serious, Mr. Slocum."</p>
+
+<p>"You actually imagine that Richard Shackford--Pshaw! It's
+simply impossible!"</p>
+
+<p>"I am too young a man to wish even to seem wiser than you, but
+my experience has taught me that nothing is impossible."</p>
+
+<p>"I begin to believe so myself. I suppose you have grounds, or
+something you consider grounds, for your monstrous suspicion.
+What are they? I demand to be fully informed of what you have
+been doing in the yard, before you bring disgrace upon me and my
+family by inconsiderately acting on some wild theory which
+perhaps ten words can refute."</p>
+
+<p>"I should be in the highest degree criminal, Mr. Slocum, if I
+were to make so fearful an accusation against any man unless I
+had the most incontestable evidence in my hands."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Taggett spoke with such cold-blooded conviction that a
+chill crept over Mr. Slocum, in spite of him.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the nature of this evidence?"</p>
+
+<p>"Up to the present stage, purely circumstantial."</p>
+
+<p>"I can imagine that," said Mr. Slocum, with a slight
+smile.</p>
+
+<p>"But so conclusive as to require no collateral evidence. The
+testimony of an eye-witness of the crime could scarcely add to my
+knowledge of what occurred that Tuesday night in Lemuel
+Shackford's house."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, it is all so clear! But of course a few eye-witnesses
+will turn up eventually," said Mr. Slocum, whose whiteness about
+the lips discounted the assurance of his sarcasm.</p>
+
+<p>"That is not improbable," returned Mr. Taggett.</p>
+
+<p>"And meanwhile what are the facts?"</p>
+
+<p>"They are not easily stated. I have kept a record of my work
+day by day, since the morning I entered the yard. The memoranda
+are necessarily confused, the important and the unimportant being
+jumbled together; but the record as it stands will answer your
+question more fully than I could, even if I had the time--which I
+have not--to go over the case with you. I can leave these notes
+in your hands, if you desire it. When I return from New
+York"--</p>
+
+<p>"You are going to New York!" exclaimed Mr. Slocum, with a
+start. "When?"</p>
+
+<p>"This evening."</p>
+
+<p>"If you lay a finger on Richard Shackford, you will make the
+mistake of your life, Mr. Taggett!"</p>
+
+<p>"I have other business there. Mr. Shackford will be in
+Stillwater to-morrow night. He engaged a state-room on the Fall
+River boat this morning."</p>
+
+<p>"How can you know that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Since last Tuesday none of his movements have been unknown to
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to say that you have set your miserable spies
+upon him?" cried Mr. Slocum.</p>
+
+<p>"I should not state the fact in just those words," Mr. Taggett
+answered. "The fact remains."</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me," said Mr. Slocum. "I am not quite myself. Can you
+wonder at it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not wonder."</p>
+
+<p>"Give me those papers you speak of, Mr. Taggett. I would like
+to look through them. I see that you are a very obstinate person
+when you have once got a notion into your head. Perhaps I can
+help you out of your error before it is irreparable." Then, after
+hesitating a second, Mr. Slocum added, "I may speak of this to my
+daughter? Indeed, I could scarcely keep it from her."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps it is better she should be informed."</p>
+
+<p>"And Mr. Shackford, when he returns to-morrow?"</p>
+
+<p>"If he broaches the subject of his cousin's death, I advise
+you to avoid it."</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I?"</p>
+
+<p>"It might save you or Miss Slocum some awkwardness,--but you
+must use your own discretion. As the matter stands it makes no
+difference whether Mr. Shackford knows his position to-day or
+to-morrow. It is too late for him to avail himself of the
+knowledge. Otherwise, of course, I should not have given myself
+away in this fashion."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," said Mr. Slocum, with an impatient movement of
+his shoulders; "neither I nor my daughter will open our lips on
+this topic. In the mean while you are to take no further steps
+without advising me. That is understood?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is perfectly understood," returned Mr. Taggett, drawing
+a narrow red note-book from the inner pocket of his workman's
+blouse, and producing at the same time a small nickel-plated
+door-key. "This is the key of Mr. Shackford's private workshop in
+the extension. I have not been able to replace it on the
+mantel-shelf of his sitting-room in Lime Street. Will you have
+the kindness to see that it is done at once?"</p>
+
+<p>A moment later Mr. Slocum stood alone in the office, with Mr.
+Taggett's diary in his hand. It was one of those costly little
+volumes--gilt-edged and bound in fragrant crushed Levant
+morocco--with which city officials are annually supplied by a
+community of grateful taxpayers.</p>
+
+<p>The dark crimson of the flexible covers, as soft and slippery
+to the touch as a snake's skin, was perhaps the fitting symbol of
+the darker story that lay coiled within. With a gesture of
+repulsion, as if some such fancy had flitted through his mind,
+Mr. Slocum tossed the note-book on the desk in front of him, and
+stood a few minutes moodily watching the <i>reflets</i> of the
+crinkled leather as the afternoon sunshine struck across it.
+Beneath his amazement and indignation he had been chilled to the
+bone by Mr. Taggett's brutal confidence. It was enough to chill
+one, surely; and in spite of himself Mr. Slocum began to feel a
+certain indefinable dread of that little crimson-bound book.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever it contained, the reading of those pages was to be a
+repellent task to him; it was a task to which he could not bring
+himself at the moment; to-night, in the privacy of his own
+chamber, he would sift Mr. Taggett's baleful fancies. Thus
+temporizing, Mr. Slocum dropped the volume into his pocket,
+locked the office door behind him, and wandered down to Dundon's
+drug-store to kill the intervening hour before supper-time.
+Dundon's was the aristocratic lounging place of the village,--the
+place where the only genuine Havana cigars in Stillwater were to
+be had, and where the favored few, the initiated, could get a
+dash of hochheimer or cognac with their soda-water.</p>
+
+<p>At supper, that evening, Mr. Slocum addressed scarcely a word
+to Margaret, and Margaret was also silent. The days were dragging
+heavily with her; she was missing Richard. Her own daring travels
+had never extended beyond Boston or Providence; and New York,
+with Richard in it, seemed drearily far away. Mr. Slocum withdrew
+to his chamber shortly after nine o'clock, and, lighting the pair
+of candles on the dressing-table, began his examination of Mr.
+Taggett's memoranda.</p>
+
+<p>At midnight the watchman on his lonely beat saw those two
+candles still burning.</p>
+
+<h2>XX</h2>
+
+<p>Mr. Taggett's diary was precisely a diary,--disjoined, full of
+curt, obscure phrases and irrelevant reflections,--for which
+reason it will not be reproduced here. Though Mr. Slocum pondered
+every syllable, and now and then turned back painfully to
+reconsider some doubtful passage, it is not presumed that the
+reader will care to do so. An abstract of the journal, with
+occasional quotation where the writer's words seem to demand it,
+will be sufficient for the narrative.</p>
+
+<p>In the opening pages Mr. Taggett described his novel
+surroundings with a minuteness which contrasted oddly with the
+brief, hurried entries further on. He found himself, as he had
+anticipated, in a society composed of some of the most
+heterogeneous elements. Stillwater, viewed from a certain point,
+was a sort of microcosm, a little international rag-fair to which
+nearly every country on earth had contributed one of its shabby
+human products. "I am moving," wrote Mr. Taggett, "in an
+atmosphere in which any crime is possible. I give myself seven
+days at the outside to light upon the traces of Shackford's
+murder. I feel him in the air." The writer's theory was that the
+man would betray his identity in one of two ways: either by
+talking unguardedly, or by indulging in expenditures not
+warranted by his means and position. If several persons had been
+concerned in the crime, nothing was more likely than a
+disagreement over the spoil, and consequent treachery on the part
+of one of them. Or, again, some of the confederates might become
+alarmed, and attempt to save themselves by giving away their
+comrades. Mr. Taggett, however, leaned to the belief that the
+assassin had had no accomplices.</p>
+
+<p>The sum taken from Mr. Shackford's safe was a comparatively
+large one,--five hundred dollars in gold and nearly double that
+amount in bank-notes. Neither the gold nor the paper bore any
+known mark by which it could be recognized; the burglar had
+doubtless assured himself of this, and would not hesitate to
+disburse the money. That was even a safer course, judiciously
+worked, than to secrete it. The point was, Would he have
+sufficient self-control to get rid of it by degrees? The chances,
+Mr. Taggett argued, were ten to one he would not.</p>
+
+<p>A few pages further on Mr. Taggett compliments the Unknown on
+the adroit manner in which he is conducting himself. He has
+neither let slip a suspicious word, nor made an incautious
+display of his booty. Snelling's bar was doing an unusually light
+business. No one appeared to have any money. Many of the men had
+run deeply into debt during the late strike, and were now
+drinking moderately. In the paragraph which closes the week's
+record Mr. Taggett's chagrin is evident. He confesses that he is
+at fault. "My invisible friend does not <i>materialize</i> so
+successfully as I expected," is Mr. Taggett's comment.</p>
+
+<p>His faith in the correctness of his theory had not abated; but
+he continued his observation in a less sanguine spirit. These
+observations were not limited to the bar-room or the workshop; he
+informed himself of the domestic surroundings of his comrades.
+Where his own scrutiny could not penetrate, he employed the aid
+of correspondents. He knew what workmen had money in the local
+savings-bank, and the amount of each deposit. In the course of
+his explorations of the shady side of Stillwater life, Mr.
+Taggett unearthed many amusing and many pathetic histories, but
+nothing that served his end. Finally, he began to be
+discouraged.</p>
+
+<p>Returning home from the tavern, one night, in a rather
+desponding mood, he found the man Wollaston smoking his pipe in
+bed. Wollaston was a taciturn man generally, but this night he
+was conversational, and Mr. Taggett, too restless to sleep, fell
+to chatting with him. Did he know much about the late Mr.
+Shackford? Yes, he had known him well enough, in an off way,--not
+to speak of him; everybody knew him in Stillwater; he was a sort
+of miser, hated everybody, and bullied everybody. It was a wonder
+somebody didn't knock the old silvertop on the head years
+ago.</p>
+
+<p>Thus Mr. Wollaston grimly, with his pores stopped up with
+iron-fillings,--a person to whom it would come quite easy to
+knock any one on the head for a slight difference of opinion. He
+amused Mr. Taggett in his present humor.</p>
+
+<p>No, he wasn't aware that Shackford had had trouble with any
+particular individual; believed he did have a difficulty once
+with Slocum, the marble man; but he was always fetching suits
+against the town and shying lawyers at the mill directors,--a
+disagreeable old cuss altogether. Adopted his cousin, one time,
+but made the house so hot for him that the lad ran off to sea,
+and since then had had nothing to do with the old bilk.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed! What sort of fellow was young Shackford? Mr. Wollaston
+could not say of his own knowledge; thought him a plucky chap; he
+had put a big Italian named Torrini out of the yard, one day, for
+talking back. Who was Torrini? The man that got hurt last week in
+the Dana Mill. Who were Richard Shackford's intimates? Couldn't
+say; had seen him with Mr. Pinkham, the school-master, and Mr.
+Craggie,--went with the upper crust generally. Was going to be
+partner in the marble yard and marry Slocum's daughter. Will
+Durgin knew him. They lived together one time. He, Wollaston, was
+going to turn in now.</p>
+
+<p>Several of these facts were not new to Mr. Taggett, but Mr.
+Wollaston's presentation of them threw Mr. Taggett into a
+reverie.</p>
+
+<p>The next evening he got Durgin alone in a corner of the
+bar-room. With two or three potations Durgin became
+autobiographical. Was he acquainted with Mr. Shackford outside
+the yard? Rather. Dick Shackford? His (Durgin's) mother had kept
+Dick from starving when he was a baby,--and no thanks for it.
+Went to school with him, and knew all about his running off to
+sea. Was near going with him. Old man Shackford never liked Dick,
+who was a proud beggar; they couldn't pull together, down to the
+last,--both of a piece. They had a jolly rumpus a little while
+before the old man was fixed.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Taggett pricked up his ears at this.</p>
+
+<p>A rumpus? How did Durgin know that? A girl told him. What
+girl? A girl he was sweet on. What was her name? Well, he didn't
+mind telling her name; it was Molly Hennessey. She was going
+through Welch's Court one forenoon,--may be it was three days
+before the strike,--and saw Dick Shackford bolt out of the house,
+swinging his arms and swearing to himself at an awful rate. Was
+Durgin certain that Molly Hennessey had told him this? Yes, he
+was ready to take his oath on it.</p>
+
+<p>Here, at last, was something that looked like a glimmer of
+daylight.</p>
+
+<p>It was possible that Durgin or the girl had lied; but the
+story had an air of truth to it. If it were a fact that there had
+recently been a quarrel between these cousins, whose uncousinly
+attitude towards each other was fast becoming clear to Mr.
+Taggett, then here was a conceivable key to an enigma which had
+puzzled him.</p>
+
+<p>The conjecture that Lemuel Shackford had himself torn up the
+will--if it was a will, for this still remained in dispute--had
+never been satisfactory to Mr. Taggett. He had accepted it
+because he was unable to imagine an ordinary burglar pausing in
+the midst of his work to destroy a paper in which he could have
+no concern. But Richard Shackford would have the liveliest
+possible interest in the destruction of a document that placed a
+vast estate beyond his reach. Here was a motive on a level with
+the crime. That money had been taken, and that the fragments of
+the will had been carelessly thrown into a waste-paper basket,
+just as if the old man himself had thrown them there, was a
+stroke of art which Mr. Taggett admired more and more as he
+reflected upon it.</p>
+
+<p>He did not, however, allow himself to lay too much stress on
+these points; for the paper might turn out to be merely an
+expired lease, and the girl might have been quizzing Durgin. Mr.
+Taggett would have given one of his eye-teeth just then for ten
+minutes with Mary Hennessey. But an interview with her at this
+stage was neither prudent nor easily compassed.</p>
+
+<p>"If I have not struck a trail," writes Mr. Taggett, "I have
+come upon what strongly resembles one; the least I can do is to
+follow it. My first move must be to inspect that private workshop
+in the rear of Mr. Slocum's house. How shall I accomplish it? I
+cannot apply to him for permission, for that would provoke
+questions which I am not ready to answer. Moreover, I have yet to
+assure myself that Mr. Slocum is not implicated. There seems to
+have been also a hostile feeling existing between him and the
+deceased. Why didn't some one tell me these things at the start!
+If young Shackford is the person, there is a tangled story to be
+unraveled. <i>Mem:</i> Young Shackford is Miss Slocum's
+lover."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Slocum read this passage twice without drawing breath, and
+then laid down the book an instant to wipe the sudden
+perspiration from his forehead.</p>
+
+<p>In the note which followed, Mr. Taggett described the
+difficulty he met with in procuring a key to fit the wall-door at
+the rear of the marble yard, and gave an account of his failure
+to effect an entrance into the studio. He had hoped to find a
+window unfastened; but the window, as well as the door opening
+upon the veranda, was locked, and in the midst of his operations,
+which were conducted at noon-time, the approach of a servant had
+obliged him to retreat.</p>
+
+<p>Forced to lay aside, at least temporarily, his designs on the
+workshop, he turned his attention to Richard's lodgings in Lime
+Street. Here Mr. Taggett was more successful. On the pretext that
+he had been sent for certain drawings which were to be found on
+the table or in a writing-desk, he was permitted by Mrs. Spooner
+to ascend to the bedroom, where she obligingly insisted on
+helping him search for the apocryphal plans, and seriously
+interfered with his purpose, which was to find the key of the
+studio. While Mr. Taggett was turning over the pages of a large
+dictionary, in order to gain time, and was wondering how he could
+rid himself of the old lady's importunities, he came upon a
+half-folded note-sheet, at the bottom of which his eye caught the
+name of Lemuel Shackford. It was in the handwriting of the dead
+man. Mr. Taggett was very familiar with that handwriting. He
+secured the paper at a venture, and put it in his pocket without
+examination.</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes later, it being impossible to prolong the
+pretended quest for the drawings, Mr. Taggett was obliged to
+follow Mrs. Spooner from the apartment. As he did so he noticed a
+bright object lying on the corner of the mantel-shelf,--a small
+nickel-plated key. In order to take it he had only to reach out
+his hand in passing. It was, as Mr. Taggett had instantly
+surmised, the key of Richard's workshop.</p>
+
+<p>If it had been gold, instead of brass or iron, that bit of
+metal would have taken no additional value in Mr. Taggett's eyes.
+On leaving Mrs. Spooner's he held it tightly clasped in his
+fingers until he reached an unfrequented street, where he halted
+a moment in the shadow of a building to inspect the paper, which
+he had half forgotten in his satisfaction at having obtained the
+key. A stifled cry rose to Mr. Taggett's lips as he glanced over
+the crumpled note-sheet.</p>
+
+<p>It contained three lines, hastily scrawled in lead-pencil,
+requesting Richard Shackford to call at the house in Welch's
+Court at eight o'clock on a certain Tuesday night. The note had
+been written, as the date showed, on the day preceding the
+Tuesday night in question--the night of the murder!</p>
+
+<p>For a second or two Mr. Taggett stood paralyzed. Ten minutes
+afterwards a message in cipher was pulsing along the wires to New
+York, and before the sun went down that evening Richard Shackford
+was under the surveillance of the police.</p>
+
+<p>The doubtful, unknown ground upon which Mr. Taggett had been
+floundering was now firm under his feet,--unexpected ground, but
+solid. Meeting Mary Hennessey in the street, on his way to the
+marble yard, Mr. Taggett no longer hesitated to accost her, and
+question her as to the story she had told William Durgin. The
+girl's story was undoubtedly true, and as a piece of
+circumstantial evidence was only less important than the elder
+Shackford's note. The two cousins had been for years on the worst
+of terms. At every step Mr. Taggett had found corroboration of
+Wollaston's statement to that effect.</p>
+
+<p>"Where were Coroner Whidden's eyes and ears," wrote Mr.
+Taggett,--the words were dashed down impatiently on the page, as
+if he had sworn a little internally while writing them,--"when he
+conducted that inquest! In all my experience there was never a
+thing so stupidly managed."</p>
+
+<p>A thorough and immediate examination of Richard Shackford's
+private workshop was now so imperative that Mr. Taggett resolved
+to make it even if he had to do so under the authority of a
+search-warrant. But he desired as yet to avoid publicity.</p>
+
+<p>A secret visit to the studio seemed equally difficult by day
+and night. In the former case he was nearly certain to be
+deranged by the servants, and in the latter a light in the
+unoccupied room would alarm any of the household who might chance
+to awaken. From the watchman no danger was to be apprehended, as
+the windows of the extension were not visible from the
+street.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Taggett finally decided on the night as the more
+propitious time for his attempt,--a decision which his success
+justified. A brilliant moon favored the in-door part of the
+enterprise, though it exposed him to observation in his approach
+from the marble yard to the veranda.</p>
+
+<p>With the dense moonlight streaming outside against the
+window-shades, he could safely have used a candle in the studio
+instead of the screened lantern which he had provided. Mr.
+Taggett passed three hours in the workshop,--the last hour in
+waiting for the moon to go down. Then he stole through the marble
+yard into the silent street, and hurried home, carrying two small
+articles concealed under his blouse. The first was a chisel with
+a triangular piece broken out of the centre of the bevel, and the
+other was a box of safety-matches. The peculiarity of this box of
+matches was--that just one match had been used from it.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Taggett's work was done.</p>
+
+<p>The last seven pages of the diary were devoted to a review of
+the case, every detail of which was held up in various lights,
+and examined with the conscientious pains of a lapidary deciding
+on the value of a rare stone. The concluding entries ran as
+follow:--</p>
+
+<p><i>"Tuesday Night</i>. Here the case passes into other hands.
+I have been fortunate rather than skillful in unmasking the chief
+actor in one of the most singular crimes that ever came under my
+investigation. By destroying three objects, very easily
+destroyed, Richard Shackford would have put himself beyond the
+dream of suspicion. He neglected to remove these dumb witnesses,
+and now the dumb witnesses speak! If it could be shown that he
+was a hundred miles from Stillwater at the time of the murder,
+instead of in the village, as he was, he must still be held, in
+the face of the proofs against him, accessory to the deed. These
+proofs, roughly summarized, are:--</p>
+
+<p><i>"First</i>. The fact that he had had an altercation with
+his cousin a short time previous to the date of the murder,--a
+murder which may be regarded not as the result of a chance
+disagreement, but of long years of bitter enmity between the two
+men.</p>
+
+<p><i>"Secondly</i>. The fact that Richard Shackford had had an
+appointment with his cousin on the night the crime was committed,
+and had concealed that fact from the authorities at the time of
+the coroner's inquest.</p>
+
+<p><i>"Thirdly</i>. That the broken chisel found in the private
+workshop of the accused explains the peculiar shape of the wound
+which caused Lemuel Shackford's death, and corresponds in every
+particular with the plaster impression taken of that wound.</p>
+
+<p><i>"Fourthly</i>. That the partially consumed match found on
+the scullery floor when the body was discovered (a style of match
+not used in the house in Welch's Court) completes the complement
+of a box of safety-matches belonging to Richard Shackford, and
+hidden in a closet in his workshop.</p>
+
+<p>"Whether Shackford had an accomplice or not is yet to be
+ascertained. There is nothing whatever to implicate Mr. Rowland
+Slocum. I make the statement because his intimate association
+with one party and his deep dislike of the other invited inquiry,
+and at first raised an unjust suspicion in my mind."</p>
+
+<p>The little red book slipped from Mr. Slocum's grasp and fell
+at his feet. As he rose from the chair, the reflection which he
+caught of himself in the dressing-table mirror was that of a
+wrinkled, white old man.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Slocum did not believe, and no human evidence could have
+convinced him, that Richard had deliberately killed Lemuel
+Shackford; but as Mr. Slocum reached the final pages of the
+diary, a horrible probability insinuated itself in his mind.
+Could Richard have done it accidentally? Could he--in an instant
+of passion, stung to sudden madness by that venomous old
+man--have struck him involuntarily, and killed him? A certain
+speech which Richard had made in Mr. Slocum's presence not long
+before came back to him now with fearful emphasis:--</p>
+
+<p><i>"Three or four times in my life I have been carried away by
+a devil of a temper which I couldn't control, it seized me so
+unawares."</i></p>
+
+<p>"It seized me so unawares!" repeated Mr. Slocum, half aloud;
+and then with a swift, unconscious gesture, he pressed his hands
+over his ears, as if to shut out the words.</p>
+
+<h2>XXI</h2>
+
+<p>Margaret must be told. It would be like stabbing her to tell
+her all this. Mr. Slocum had lain awake long after midnight,
+appalled by the calamity that was about to engulf them. At
+moments, as his thought reverted to Margaret's illness early in
+the spring, he felt that perhaps it would have been a mercy if
+she had died then. He had left the candles burning; it was not
+until the wicks sunk down in the sockets and went softly out that
+slumber fell upon him.</p>
+
+<p>He was now sitting at the breakfast-table, absently crumbling
+bits of bread beside his plate and leaving his coffee untouched.
+Margaret glanced at him wistfully from time to time, and detected
+the restless night in the deepened lines of his face.</p>
+
+<p>The house had not been the same since Lemuel Shackford's
+death; he had never crossed its threshold; Margaret had scarcely
+known him by sight, and Mr. Slocum had not spoken to him for
+years; but Richard's connection with the unfortunate old man had
+brought the tragic event very close to Margaret and her father.
+Mr. Slocum was a person easily depressed, but his depression this
+morning was so greatly in excess of the presumable cause that
+Margaret began to be troubled.</p>
+
+<p>"Papa, has anything happened?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, nothing new has happened; but I am dreadfully disturbed
+by some things which Mr. Taggett has been doing here in the
+village."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought Mr. Taggett had gone."</p>
+
+<p>"He did go; but he came back very quietly without anybody's
+knowledge. I knew it, of course; but no one else, to speak
+of."</p>
+
+<p>"What has he done to disturb you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I want you to be a brave girl, Margaret,--will you promise
+that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes," said Margaret, with an anxious look. "You frighten
+me with your mysteriousness."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not mean to be mysterious, but I don't quite know how to
+tell you about Mr. Taggett. He has been working underground in
+this matter of poor Shackford's death,--boring in the dark like a
+mole,--and thinks he has discovered some strange things."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean he thinks he has found out who killed Mr.
+Shackford?"</p>
+
+<p>"He believes he has fallen upon clews which will lead to that.
+The strange things I alluded to are things which Richard will
+have to explain."</p>
+
+<p>"Richard? What has he to do with it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not much, I hope; but there are several matters which he will
+be obliged to clear up in order to save himself from very great
+annoyance. Mr. Taggett seems to think that--that"--</p>
+
+<p>"Good heavens, papa! What does he think?"</p>
+
+<p>"Margaret, he thinks that Richard knew something about the
+murder, and has not told it."</p>
+
+<p>"What could he know? Is that all?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, that is not all. I am keeping the full truth from you,
+and it is useless to do so. You must face it like a brave girl.
+Mr. Taggett suspects Richard of being concerned, directly or
+indirectly, with the crime."</p>
+
+<p>The color went from Margaret's cheek for an instant. The
+statement was too horrible and sudden not to startle her, but it
+was also too absurd to have more than an instant's effect. Her
+quick recovery of herself reassured Mr. Slocum. Would she meet
+Mr. Taggett's specific charges with the like fortitude? Mr.
+Slocum himself had been prostrated by them; he prayed to Heaven
+that Margaret might have more strength than he, as indeed she
+had.</p>
+
+<p>"The man has got together a lot of circumstantial evidence,"
+continued Mr. Slocum cautiously; "some of it amounts to nothing,
+being mere conjecture; but some of it will look badly for
+Richard, to outsiders."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course it is all a mistake," said Margaret, in nearly her
+natural voice. "It ought to be easy to convince Mr. Taggett of
+that."</p>
+
+<p>"I have not been able to convince him."</p>
+
+<p>"But you will. What has possessed him to fall into such a
+ridiculous error?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Taggett has written out everything at length in this
+memorandum-book, and you must read it for yourself. There are
+expressions and statements in these pages, Margaret, that will
+necessarily shock you very much; but you should remember, as I
+tried to while reading them, that Mr. Taggett has a heart of
+steel; without it he would be unable to do his distressing work.
+The cold impartiality with which he sifts and heaps up
+circumstances involving the doom of a fellow-creature appears
+almost inhuman; but it is his business. No, don't look at it
+here!" said Mr. Slocum, recoiling; he had given the book to
+Margaret. "Take it into the other room, and read it carefully by
+yourself. When you have finished, come back and tell me what you
+think."</p>
+
+<p>"But, papa, surely you"--</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe anything, Margaret! I don't know the true
+from the false any more! I want you to help me out of my
+confusion, and you cannot do it until you have read that
+book."</p>
+
+<p>Margaret made no response, but passed into the parlor and
+closed the folding-doors behind her.</p>
+
+<p>After an absence of half an hour she reentered the breakfast
+room, and laid Mr. Taggett's diary on the table beside her
+father, who had not moved from his place during the interval.
+Margaret's manner was collected, but it was evident, by the dark
+circles under her eyes, and the set, colorless lips, that that
+half hour had been a cruel thirty minutes to her. In Margaret's
+self-possession Mr. Slocum recognized, not for the first time,
+the cropping out of an ancestral trait which had somehow managed
+to avoid him in its wayward descent.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" he questioned, looking earnestly at Margaret, and
+catching a kind of comfort from her confident bearing.</p>
+
+<p>"It is Mr. Taggett's trade to find somebody guilty," said
+Margaret, "and he has been very ingenious and very merciless. He
+was plainly at his wits' ends to sustain his reputation, and
+would not have hesitated to sacrifice any one rather than wholly
+fail."</p>
+
+<p>"But you have been crying, Margaret."</p>
+
+<p>"How could I see Richard dragged down in the dust in this
+fashion, and not be mortified and indignant?"</p>
+
+<p>"You don't believe anything at all of this?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do <i>you?"</i> asked Margaret, looking through and through
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"I confess I am troubled."</p>
+
+<p>"If you doubt Richard for a second," said Margaret, with a
+slight quiver of her lip, "that will be the bitterest part of it
+to me."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't give any more credit to Mr. Taggett's general charges
+than you do, Margaret; but I understand their gravity better. A
+perfectly guiltless man, one able with a single word to establish
+his innocence, is necessarily crushed at first by an accusation
+of this kind. Now, can Richard set these matters right with a
+single word? I am afraid he has a world of difficulty before
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"When he returns he will explain everything. How can you
+question it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not wish to; but there are two things in Mr. Taggett's
+story which stagger me. The motive for the destruction of
+Shackford's papers,--that's not plain; the box of matches is a
+puerility unworthy of a clever man like Mr. Taggett, and as to
+the chisel he found, why, there are a hundred broken chisels in
+the village, and probably a score of them broken in precisely the
+same manner; but, Margaret, did Richard ever breathe a word to
+you of that quarrel with his cousin?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"He never mentioned it to me either. As matters stood between
+you and him, nothing was more natural than that he should have
+spoken of it to you,--so natural that his silence is positively
+strange."</p>
+
+<p>"He may have considered it too unimportant. Mr. Shackford
+always abused Richard; it was nothing new. Then, again, Richard
+is very proud, and perhaps he did not care to come to us just at
+that time with family grievances. Besides, how do we know they
+quarreled? The village is full of gossip."</p>
+
+<p>"I am certain there was a quarrel; it was only necessary for
+those two to meet to insure that. I distinctly remember the
+forenoon when Richard went to Welch's Court; it was the day he
+discharged Torrini."</p>
+
+<p>A little cloud passed over Margaret's countenance.</p>
+
+<p>"They undoubtedly had angry words together," continued Mr.
+Slocum, "and we are forced to accept the Hennessey girl's
+statement. The reason you suggest for Richard's not saying
+anything on the subject may suffice for us, but it will scarcely
+satisfy disinterested persons, and doesn't at all cover another
+circumstance which must be taken in the same connection."</p>
+
+<p>"What circumstance?"</p>
+
+<p>"His silence in regard to Lemuel Shackford's note,--a note
+written the day before the murder, and making an appointment for
+the very night of it."</p>
+
+<p>The girl looked steadily at her father.</p>
+
+<p>"Margaret!" exclaimed Mr. Slocum, his face illuminated with a
+flickering hope as he met her untroubled gaze, "did Richard tell
+<i>you?"</i></p>
+
+<p>"No," replied Margaret.</p>
+
+<p>"Then he told no one," said Mr. Slocum, with the light fading
+out of his features again. "It was madness in him to conceal the
+fact. He should not have lost a moment, after the death of his
+cousin, in making that letter public. It ought instantly to have
+been placed in Coroner Whidden's hands. Richard's action is
+inconceivable, unless--unless"--</p>
+
+<p>"Do not say it!" cried Margaret. "I should never forgive
+you!"</p>
+
+<p>In recapitulating the points of Mr. Taggett's accusation, Mr.
+Slocum had treated most of them as trivial; but he had not been
+sincere. He knew that that broken chisel had no duplicate in
+Stillwater, and that the finding of it in Richard's closet was a
+black fact. Mr. Slocum had also glossed over the quarrel; but
+that letter!--the likelihood that Richard kept the appointment,
+and his absolute silence concerning it,--here was a grim thing
+which no sophistry could dispose of. It would be wronging
+Margaret to deceive her as to the vital seriousness of Richard's
+position.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, why did he hide it!" Mr. Slocum persisted.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not see that he really hid it, papa. He shut the note in
+a book lying openly on the table,--a dictionary, to which any one
+in the household was likely to go. You think Mr. Taggett a person
+of great acuteness."</p>
+
+<p>"He is a very intelligent person, Margaret."</p>
+
+<p>"He appears to me very short-sighted. If Richard were the
+dreadful man Mr. Taggett supposes, that paper would have been
+burnt, and not left for the first comer to pick up. I scorn
+myself for stooping to the suggestion!"</p>
+
+<p>"There is something in the idea," said Mr. Slocum slowly. "But
+why did Richard never mention the note,--to you, or to me, or to
+anybody?"</p>
+
+<p>"He had a sufficient reason, you may be sure. Oh, papa, how
+ready you are to believe evil of him!"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not, God knows!"</p>
+
+<p>"How you cling to this story of the letter! Suppose it turns
+out to be some old letter, written two or three years ago? You
+could never look Richard in the face again."</p>
+
+<p>"Unfortunately, Shackford dated it. It is useless for us to
+blindfold ourselves, Margaret. Richard has managed in some way to
+get himself into a very perilous situation, and we cannot help
+him by shutting our eyes. You misconceive me if you imagine I
+think him capable of coolly plotting his cousin's death; but it
+is not outside the limits of the possible that what has happened
+a thousand times may have happened once more. Men less impulsive
+than Richard"--</p>
+
+<p>"I will not listen to it!" interrupted Margaret, drawing
+herself up. "When Richard returns he will explain the matter to
+you,--not to me. If I required a word of denial from him, I
+should care very little whether he was innocent or not."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Slocum threw a terrified glance at his daughter. Her lofty
+faith sent a chill to his heart. What would be the result of a
+fall from such a height? He almost wished Margaret had something
+less of that ancestral confidence and obstinacy the lack of which
+in his own composition he had so often deplored.</p>
+
+<p>"We are not to speak of this to Richard," he said, after a
+protracted pause; "at least not until Mr. Taggett considers it
+best. I have pledged myself to something like that."</p>
+
+<p>"Has Richard been informed of Mr. Taggett's singular
+proceeding?" asked Margaret, freezingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet; nothing is to be done until Mr. Taggett returns from
+New York, and then Richard will at once have an opportunity of
+clearing himself."</p>
+
+<p>"It would have spared us all much pain and misunderstanding if
+he had been sent for in the first instance. Did he know that this
+person was here in the yard?"</p>
+
+<p>"The plan was talked over before Richard left; the details
+were arranged afterwards. He heartily approved of the plan."</p>
+
+<p>A leisurely and not altogether saint-like smile crept into the
+corners of Margaret's mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he approved of the plan," repeated Mr. Slocum. "Perhaps
+he"--Here Mr. Slocum checked himself, and left the sentence
+flying at loose ends. Perhaps Richard had looked with favor upon
+a method of inquiry which was so likely to lead to no result. But
+Mr. Slocum did not venture to finish the suggestion. He had never
+seen Margaret so imperious and intractable; it was impossible to
+reason or to talk frankly with her. He remained silent, sitting
+with one arm thrown dejectedly across the back of the chair.</p>
+
+<p>Presently his abject attitude and expression began to touch
+Margaret; there was something that appealed to her in the thin
+gray hair fallowing over his forehead. Her eyes softened as they
+rested upon him, and a pitying little tremor came to her under
+lip.</p>
+
+<p>"Papa," she said, stooping to his side, with a sudden rosy
+bloom in her cheeks, "I have all the proof I want that Richard
+knew nothing of this dreadful business."</p>
+
+<p>"You have proof!" exclaimed Mr. Slocum, starting from his
+seat.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. The morning Richard went to New York"--Margaret
+hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"Well!"</p>
+
+<p>"He put his arm around me and kissed me."</p>
+
+<p>"Well!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" repeated Margaret. "Could Richard have done
+that,--could he have so much as laid his hand upon
+me--if--if"--</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Slocum sunk back in the chair with a kind of groan.</p>
+
+<p>"Papa, you do not know him!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Margaret, I am afraid that that is not the kind of
+evidence to clear Richard in Mr. Taggett's eyes."</p>
+
+<p>"Then Richard's word must do it," she said haughtily. "He will
+be home to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he is to return to-night," said Mr. Slocum, looking away
+from her.</p>
+
+<h2>XXII</h2>
+
+<p>During the rest of the day the name of Richard Shackford was
+not mentioned again by either Margaret or her father. It was a
+day of suspense to both, and long before night-fall Margaret's
+impatience for Richard to come had resolved itself into a pain as
+keen as that with which Mr. Slocum contemplated the coming; for
+every hour augmented his dread of the events that would
+necessarily follow the reappearance of young Shackford in
+Stillwater.</p>
+
+<p>On reaching his office, after the conversation with Margaret,
+Mr. Slocum found Lawyer Perkins waiting for him. Lawyer Perkins,
+who was as yet in ignorance of the late developments, had brought
+information of his own. The mutilated document which had so
+grimly clung to its secret was at last deciphered. It proved to
+be a recently executed will, in which the greater part of Lemuel
+Shackford's estate, real and personal, was left unconditionally
+to his cousin.</p>
+
+<p>"That disposes of one of Mr. Taggett's theories," was Mr.
+Slocum's unspoken reflection. Certainly Richard had not destroyed
+the will; the old man himself had destroyed it, probably in some
+fit of pique. Yet, after all, the vital question was in no way
+affected by this fact; the motive for the crime remained, and the
+fearful evidence against Richard still held.</p>
+
+<p>After the departure of Lawyer Perkins, who had been struck by
+the singular perturbation of his old friend, Mr. Slocum drew
+forth Mt. Taggett's journal, and re-read it from beginning to
+end. Margaret's unquestioning faith in Richard, her prompt and
+indignant rejection of the whole story, had shaken her father at
+moments that morning; but now his paralyzing doubts returned.
+This second perusal of the diary impressed him even more strongly
+than the first. Richard had killed Lemuel Shackford,--in
+self-defense, may be, or perhaps accidentally; but he had killed
+him! As Mr. Slocum passed from page to page, following the dark
+thread of narrative that darkened at each remove, he lapsed into
+that illogical frame of mind when one looks half expectantly for
+some providential interposition to avert the calamity against
+which human means are impotent. If Richard were to drop dead in
+the street! If he were to fall overboard off Point Judith in the
+night! If only anything would happen to prevent his coming back!
+Thus the ultimate disgrace might be spared them. But the ill
+thing is the sure thing; the letter with the black seal never
+miscarries, and Richard was bound to come! "There is no escape
+for him or for us," murmured Mr. Slocum, closing his finger in
+the book.</p>
+
+<p>It was in a different mood that Margaret said to herself, "It
+is nearly four o'clock; he will be here at eight!" As she stood
+at the parlor window and watched the waning afternoon light
+making its farewells to the flower-beds in the little square
+front-gardens of the houses opposite, Margaret's heart was filled
+with the tenderness of the greeting she intended to give Richard.
+She had never been cold or shy in her demeanor with him, nor had
+she ever been quite demonstrative; but now she meant to put her
+arms around his neck in a wifely fashion, and recompense him so
+far as she could for all the injustice he was to suffer. When he
+came to learn of the hateful slander that had lifted its head
+during his absence, he should already be in possession of the
+assurance of her faith.</p>
+
+<p>In the mean while the hands in Slocum's Yard were much
+exercised over the unaccountable disappearance of Blake. Stevens
+reported the matter to Mr. Slocum.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, yes," said Mr. Slocum, who had not provided himself with
+an explanation, and was puzzled to improvise one. "I discharged
+him,--that is to say, I let him go. I forgot to mention it. He
+didn't take to the trade."</p>
+
+<p>"But he showed a good fist for a beginner," said Stevens. "He
+was head and shoulders the best of the new lot. Shall I put
+Stebbins in his place?"</p>
+
+<p>"You needn't do anything until Mr. Shackford gets back."</p>
+
+<p>"When will that be, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"To-night, probably."</p>
+
+<p>The unceremonious departure of Blake formed the theme of
+endless speculation at the tavern that evening, and for the
+moment obscured the general interest in old Shackford's
+murder.</p>
+
+<p>"Never to let on he was goin'!" said one.</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't say good-by to nobody," remarked a second.</p>
+
+<p>"It was devilish uncivil," added a third.</p>
+
+<p>"It is kind of mysterious," said Mr. Peters.</p>
+
+<p>"Some girl," suggested Mr. Willson, with an air of tender
+sentiment, which he attempted further to emphasize by a
+capricious wink.</p>
+
+<p>"No," observed Dexter. "When a man vanishes in that sudden way
+his body is generally found in a clump of blackberry bushes,
+months afterwards, or left somewhere on the flats by an ebb
+tide."</p>
+
+<p>"Two murders in Stillwater in one month would be rather
+crowding it, wouldn't it?" inquired Piggott.</p>
+
+<p>"Bosh!" said Durgin. "There was always something shady about
+Blake. We didn't know where he hailed from, and we don't know
+where he's gone to. He'll take care of himself; that kind of
+fellow never lets anybody play any points on him." With this
+Durgin threw away the stump of his cigar, and lounged out at the
+street door.</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't get anything out of the proprietor," said Stevens;
+"but he never talks. May be Shackford when he"--Stevens stopped
+short to listen to a low, rumbling sound like distant thunder,
+followed almost instantly by two quick faint whistles. "He's
+aboard the train to-night."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Peters quietly rose from his seat and left the
+bar-room.</p>
+
+<p>The evening express, due at eight, was only a few seconds
+behind time. As the screech of the approaching engine rung out
+from the dark wood-land, Margaret and her father exchanged rapid
+glances. It would take Richard ten minutes to walk from the
+railway station to the house,--for of course he would come there
+directly after sending his valise to Lime Street.</p>
+
+<p>The ten minutes went by, and then twenty. Margaret bent
+steadily over her work, listening with covert intentness for the
+click of the street gate. Likely enough Richard had been unable
+to find any one to take charge of his hand-baggage. Presently Mr.
+Slocum could not resist the impulse to look at his watch. It was
+half past eight. He nervously unfolded The Stillwater Gazette,
+and sat with his eyes fastened on the paper.</p>
+
+<p>After a seemingly interminable period the heavy bell of the
+South Church sounded nine, and then tolled for a few minutes, as
+the dismal custom is in New England country towns.</p>
+
+<p>A long silence followed, unrelieved by any word between father
+and daughter,--a silence so profound that the heart of the
+old-fashioned time-piece, throbbing monotonously in its dusky
+case at the foot of the stairs, made itself audible through the
+room. Mr. Slocum's gaze continued fixed on the newspaper which he
+was not reading. Margaret's hands lay crossed over the work on
+her lap.</p>
+
+<p>Ten o'clock.</p>
+
+<p>"What can have kept him?" murmured Margaret.</p>
+
+<p>"There was only that way out of it," reflected Mr. Slocum,
+pursuing his own line of thought.</p>
+
+<p>Margaret's cheeks were flushed and hot, and her eyes dulled
+with disappointment, as she rose from the low rocking-chair and
+crossed over to kiss her father good-night. Mr. Slocum drew the
+girl gently towards him, and held her for a moment in silence.
+But Margaret, detecting the subtile commiseration in his manner,
+resented it, and released herself coldly.</p>
+
+<p>"He has been detained, papa."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, something must have detained him!"</p>
+
+<h2>XXIII</h2>
+
+<p>When the down express arrived at Stillwater, that night, two
+passengers stepped from the rear car to the platform: one was
+Richard Shackford, and the other a commercial traveler, whose
+acquaintance Richard had made the previous evening on the Fall
+River boat.</p>
+
+<p>There were no hacks in waiting at the station, and Richard
+found his politeness put to a severe test when he saw himself
+obliged to pilot his companion part of the way to the hotel,
+which lay--it seemed almost maliciously--in a section of the town
+remote from the Slocums'. Curbing his impatience, Richard led the
+stranger through several crooked, unlighted streets, and finally
+left him at the corner of the main thoroughfare, within
+pistol-shot of the red glass lantern which hung over the door of
+the tavern. This cost Richard ten good minutes. As he hurriedly
+turned into a cross-street on the left, he fancied that he heard
+his name called several times from somewhere in the darkness. A
+man came running towards him. It was Mr. Peters.</p>
+
+<p>"Can I say a word to you, Mr. Shackford?"</p>
+
+<p>"If it isn't a long one. I am rather pressed."</p>
+
+<p>"It is about Torrini, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"What of him?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's mighty bad, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I can't stop to hear that," and Richard quickened his
+pace.</p>
+
+<p>"The doctor took off his hand last Wednesday," said Peters,
+keeping alongside, "and he's been getting worse and worse."</p>
+
+<p>Richard halted. "Took off his hand?"</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't you know he was caught in the rolling-machine at
+Dana's? Well, it was after you went away."</p>
+
+<p>"This is the first I've heard of it."</p>
+
+<p>"It was hard lines for him, sir, with the woman and the two
+children, and nothing to eat in the house. The boys in the yard
+have done what they could, but with the things from the
+drug-store, and so on, we couldn't hold up our end. Mr. Dana paid
+the doctor's bill, but if it hadn't been for Miss Slocum I don't
+know what would have happened. I thought may be if I spoke to
+you, and told you how it was"--</p>
+
+<p>"Did Torrini send you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Lord, no! He's too proud to send to anybody. He's been so
+proud since they took off his hand that there has been no doing
+anything with him. If they was to take off his leg, he would turn
+into one mass of pride. No, Mr. Shackford, I came of myself."</p>
+
+<p>"Where does Torrini live, now?"</p>
+
+<p>"In Mitchell's Alley."</p>
+
+<p>"I will go along with you," said Richard, with a dogged air.
+It seemed as if the fates were determined to keep him from seeing
+Margaret that night. Peters reached out a hand to take Richard's
+leather bag. "No, thank you, I can carry it very well." In a
+small morocco case in one of the pockets was a heavy plain gold
+ring for Margaret, and not for anything in the world would
+Richard have allowed any one else to carry the bag.</p>
+
+<p>After a brisk five minutes' walk the two emerged upon a broad
+street crossing their path at right angles. All the shops were
+closed except Stubbs the provision dealer's and Dundon's
+drug-store. In the window of the apothecary a great purple jar,
+with a spray of gas jets behind it, was flaring on the darkness
+like a Bengal light. Richard stopped at the provision store and
+made some purchases; a little further on he halted at a fruit
+stand, kept by an old crone, who had supplemented the feeble
+flicker of the corner street lamp with a pitch-pine torch, which
+cast a yellow bloom over her apples and turned them all into
+oranges. She had real oranges, however, and Richard selected half
+a dozen, with a confused idea of providing the little Italians
+with some national fruit, though both children had been born in
+Stillwater.</p>
+
+<p>Then the pair resumed their way, Peters acting as pioneer.
+They soon passed beyond the region of sidewalks and curbstones,
+and began picking their steps through a narrow, humid lane, where
+the water lay in slimy pools, and the tenement houses on each
+side blotted out the faint starlight. The night was sultry, and
+door and casement stood wide, making pits of darkness. Few lights
+were visible, but a continuous hum of voices issued from the
+human hives, and now and then a transient red glow at an upper
+window showed that some one was smoking a pipe. This was
+Mitchell's Alley.</p>
+
+<p>The shadows closed behind the two men as they moved forward,
+and neither was aware of the figure which had been discreetly
+following them for the last ten minutes. If Richard had suddenly
+wheeled and gone back a dozen paces, he would have come face to
+face with the commercial traveler.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Peters paused in front of one of the tenement houses, and
+motioned with his thumb over his shoulder for Richard to follow
+him through a yawning doorway. The hall was as dark as a cave,
+and full of stale, moldy odors. Peters shuffled cautiously along
+the bare boards until he kicked his toe against the first step of
+the staircase.</p>
+
+<p>"Keep close to the wall, Mr. Shackford, and feel your way up.
+They've used the banisters for kindling, and the landlord says he
+shan't put in any more. I went over here the other night," added
+Mr. Peters reminiscentially.</p>
+
+<p>After fumbling several seconds for the latch, Mr. Peters
+pushed open a door, and ushered Richard into a large, gloomy rear
+room. A kerosene lamp was burning dimly on the mantel-shelf, over
+which hung a coarsely-colored lithograph of the Virgin in a pine
+frame. Under the picture stood a small black crucifix. There was
+little furniture,--a cooking-stove, two or three stools, a broken
+table, and a chest of drawers. On an iron bedstead in the corner
+lay Torrini, muffled to the chin in a blanket, despite the hot
+midsummer night. His right arm, as if it were wholly disconnected
+with his body, rested in a splint on the outside of the covering.
+As the visitors entered, a tall dusky woman with blurred eyes
+rose from a low bench at the foot of the bed.</p>
+
+<p>"Is he awake?" asked Peters.</p>
+
+<p>The woman, comprehending the glance which accompanied the
+words, though not the words themselves, nodded yes.</p>
+
+<p>"Here is Mr. Shackford come to see you, Torrini," Peters
+said.</p>
+
+<p>The man slowly unclosed his eyes; they were unnaturally
+brilliant and dilated, and seemed to absorb the rest of his
+features.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't want him."</p>
+
+<p>"Let by-gones be by-gones, Torrini," said Richard, approaching
+the bedside. "I am sorry about this."</p>
+
+<p>"You are very good; I don't understand. I ask nothing of
+Slocum; but the signorina comes every day, and I cannot help it.
+What would you have? I'm a dead man," and he turned away his
+face.</p>
+
+<p>"It is not so bad as that," said Richard.</p>
+
+<p>Torrini looked up with a ghastly smile. "They have cut off the
+hand that struck you, Mr. Shackford."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose it was necessary. I am very sorry. In a little
+while you will be on your feet again."</p>
+
+<p>"It is too late. They might have saved me by taking the arm,
+but I would not allow them. I may last three or four days. The
+doctor says it."</p>
+
+<p>Peters, standing in the shadow, jerked his head
+affirmatively.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not care for myself," the man continued,--"but she and
+the little ones--That is what maddens me. They will starve."</p>
+
+<p>"They will not be let starve in Stillwater," said Richard.</p>
+
+<p>Torrini turned his eyes upon him wistfully and doubtfully.
+"You will help them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I and others."</p>
+
+<p>"If they could be got to Italy," said Torrini, after
+meditating, "it would be well. Her farther," giving a side look
+at the woman, "is a fisherman of Capri." At the word Capri the
+woman lifted her head quickly. "He is not rich, but he's not
+poor; he would take her."</p>
+
+<p>"You would wish her sent to Naples?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"If you do not pull through, she and the children shall go
+there."</p>
+
+<p>"Brigida!" called Torrini; then he said something rapidly in
+Italian to the woman, who buried her face in both hands, and did
+not reply.</p>
+
+<p>"She has no words to thank you. See, she is tired to death,
+with the children all day and me all night,--these many
+nights."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell her to go to bed in the other room," said Richard.
+"There's another room, isn't there? I'll sit with you."</p>
+
+<p>"You?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your wife is fagged out,--that is plain. Send her to bed, and
+don't talk any more. Peters, I wish you'd run and get a piece of
+ice somewhere; there's no drinking-water here. Come, now,
+Torrini, I can't speak Italian. Oh, I don't mind your scowling; I
+intend to stay."</p>
+
+<p>Torrini slowly unknitted his brows, and an irresolute
+expression stole across his face; then he called Brigida, and
+bade her go in with the children. She bowed her head
+submissively, and fixing her melting eyes on Richard for an
+instant passed into the adjoining chamber.</p>
+
+<p>Peters shortly reappeared with the ice, and after setting a
+jug of water on the table departed. Richard turned up the wick of
+the kerosene lamp, which was sending forth a disagreeable odor,
+and pinned an old newspaper around the chimney to screen the
+flame. He had, by an odd chance, made his lampshade out of a copy
+of The Stillwater Gazette containing the announcement of his
+cousin's death. Richard gave a quick start as his eye caught the
+illuminated head-lines,--Mysterious Murder of Lemuel Shackford!
+Perhaps a slight exclamation escaped Richard's lips at the same
+time, for Torrini turned and asked what was the matter. "Nothing
+at all," said Richard, removing the paper, and placing another in
+its stead. Then he threw open the blinds of the window looking on
+the back yard, and set his hand-bag against the door to prevent
+it being blown to by the draught. Torrini, without altering the
+rigid position of his head on the pillow, followed every movement
+with a look of curious insistence, like that of the eyes in a
+portrait. His preparations completed for the night, Richard
+seated himself on a stool at the foot of the bed.</p>
+
+<p>The obscurity and stillness of the room had their effect upon
+the sick man, who presently dropped into a light sleep. Richard
+sat thinking of Margaret, and began to be troubled because he had
+neglected to send her word of his detention, which he might have
+done by Peters. It was now too l ate. The town clock struck ten
+in the midst of his self-reproaches. At the first clang of the
+bell, Torrini awoke with a start, and asked for water.</p>
+
+<p>"If anybody comes," he said, glancing in a bewildered, anxious
+way at the shadows huddled about the door, "you are not to leave
+me alone with him."</p>
+
+<p>"Him? Whom? Are you expecting any one?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; but who knows? one might come. Then, you are not to go;
+you are not to leave me for a second."</p>
+
+<p>"I've no thought of it," replied Richard; "you may rest
+easy.... He's a trifle light in the head," was Richard's
+reflection.</p>
+
+<p>After that Torrini dozed rather than slumbered, rousing at
+brief intervals; and whenever he awoke the feverish activity of
+his brain incited him to talk,--now of Italy, and now of matters
+connected with his experiences in this country.</p>
+
+<p>"Naples is a pleasant place!" he broke out in the hush of the
+midnight, just as Richard was dropping off. "The band plays every
+afternoon on the Chiaia. And then the <i>festas,</i>--every third
+day a festa. The devil was in my body when I left there and
+dragged little Brigida into all this misery. We used to walk of
+an evening along the Marinella,--that's a strip of beach just
+beyond the Molo Piccolo. You were never in Naples?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not I," said Richard. "Here, wet your lips, and try to go to
+sleep again."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I can't sleep for thinking. When the Signorina came to
+see me, the other day, her heart was pierced with pity. Like the
+blessed Madonna's, her bosom bleeds for all! You will let her
+come to-morrow?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes! If you will only keep quiet, Margaret shall
+come."</p>
+
+<p>"Margherita, we say. You are to wed her,--is it not so?"</p>
+
+<p>Richard turned down the wick of the lamp, which was blazing
+and spluttering, and did not answer. Then Torrini lay silent a
+long while, apparently listening to the hum of the telegraph
+wires attached to one end of the roof. At odd intervals the
+freshening breeze swept these wires, and awoke a low &aelig;olian
+murmur. The moon rose in the mean time, and painted on the
+uncarpeted floor the shape of the cherry bough that stretched
+across the window. It was two o'clock; Richard sat with his head
+bent forward, in a drowse.</p>
+
+<p>"Now the cousin is dead, you are as rich as a prince,--are you
+not?" inquired Torrini, who had lain for the last half hour with
+his eyes wide open in the moonlight.</p>
+
+<p>Richard straightened himself with a jerk.</p>
+
+<p>"Torrini, I positively forbid you to talk any more!"</p>
+
+<p>"I remember you said that one day, somewhere. Where was it?
+Ah, in the yard! 'You can't be allowed to speak here, you know.'
+And then I struck at you,--with that hand they've taken away! See
+how I remember it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you bother your mind with such things? Think of just
+nothing at all, and rest. Perhaps a wet cloth on your forehead
+will refresh you. I wish you had a little of my genius for not
+keeping awake."</p>
+
+<p>"You are tired, you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have had two broken nights, traveling."</p>
+
+<p>"And I give you no peace?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, no," returned Richard bluntly, hoping the admission
+would induce Torrini to tranquilize himself, "you don't give me
+much."</p>
+
+<p>"Has any one been here?" demanded Torrini abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a soul. Good Heaven, man, do you know what time it
+is?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know,--I know. It's very late. I ought to keep quiet; but,
+the devil! with this fever in my brain!... Mr. Shackford!"
+and Torrini, in spite of his imprisoned limb, suddenly half
+raised himself from the mattress. "I--I"--</p>
+
+<p>Richard sprung to his feet. "What is it,--what do you
+want?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing," said Torrini, falling back on the pillow.</p>
+
+<p>Richard brought him a glass of water, which he refused. He lay
+motionless, with his eyes shut, as if composing himself, and
+Richard returned on tiptoe to his bench. A moment or two
+afterwards Torrini stirred the blanket with his foot.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Shackford!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am as grateful--as a dog."</p>
+
+<p>Torrini did not speak again. This expression of his gratitude
+appeared to ease him. His respiration grew lighter and more
+regular, and by and by he fell into a profound sleep. Richard
+watched awhile expectantly, with his head resting against the
+rail of the bedstead; then his eyelids drooped, and he too
+slumbered. But once or twice, before he quite lost himself, he
+was conscious of Brigida's thin face thrust like a silver wedge
+through the half-open door of the hall bedroom. It was the last
+thing he remembered,--that sharp, pale face peering out from the
+blackness of the inner chamber as his grasp loosened on the world
+and he drifted off on the tide of a dream. A narrow white hand,
+like a child's, seemed to be laid against his breast. It was not
+Margaret's hand, and yet it was hers. No, it was the plaster
+model he had made that idle summer afternoon, years and years
+before he had ever thought of loving her. Strange for it to be
+there! Then Richard began wondering how the gold ring would look
+in the slender forefinger. He unfastened the leather bag and took
+out the ring. He was vainly trying to pass it over the first
+joint of the dead white finger, when the cast slipped from his
+hold and fell with a crash to the floor. Richard gave a shudder,
+and opened his eyes. Brigida was noiselessly approaching
+Torrini's bedside. Torrini still slept. It was broad day. Through
+the uncurtained window Richard saw the blue sky barred with
+crimson.</p>
+
+<h2>XXIV</h2>
+
+<p>"Richard did come home last night, after all," said Mr.
+Slocum, with a flustered air, seating himself at the breakfast
+table.</p>
+
+<p>Margaret looked up quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"I just met Peters on the street, and he told me," added Mr.
+Slocum.</p>
+
+<p>"Richard returned last night, and did not come to us!"</p>
+
+<p>"It seems that he watched with Torrini,--the man is going to
+die."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," said Margaret, cooling instantly. "That was like
+Richard; he never thinks of himself first. I would not have had
+him do differently. Last evening you were filled with I don't
+know what horrible suspicions, yet see how simply everything
+explains itself."</p>
+
+<p>"If I could speak candidly, Margaret, if I could express
+myself without putting you into a passion, I would tell you that
+Richard's passing the night with that man has given me two or
+three ugly ideas."</p>
+
+<p>"Positively, papa, you are worse than Mr. Taggett."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not say another word," replied Mr. Slocum. Then he
+unfolded the newspaper lying beside him, and constructed a
+barrier against further colloquy.</p>
+
+<p>An hour afterwards, when Richard threw open the door of his
+private workshop, Margaret was standing in the middle of the room
+waiting for him. She turned with a little cry of pleasure, and
+allowed Richard to take her in his arms, and kept to the spirit
+and the letter of the promise she had made to herself. If there
+was an unwonted gravity in Margaret's manner, young Shackford was
+not keen enough to perceive it. All that morning, wherever he
+went, he carried with him a sense of Margaret's face resting for
+a moment against his shoulder, and the happiness of it rendered
+him wholly oblivious to the constrained and chilly demeanor of
+her father when they met. The interview was purposely cut short
+by Mr. Slocum, who avoided Richard the rest of the day with a
+persistency that must have ended in forcing itself upon his
+notice, had he not been so engrossed by the work which had
+accumulated during his absence.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Slocum had let the correspondence go to the winds, and a
+formidable collection of unanswered letters lay on Shackford's
+desk. The forenoon was consumed in reducing the pile and settling
+the questions that had risen in the shops, for Mr. Slocum had
+neglected everything. Richard was speedily advised of Blake's
+dismissal from the yard, but, not knowing what explanation had
+been offered, was unable to satisfy Stevens' curiosity on the
+subject. "I must see Slocum about that at once," reflected
+Richard; but the opportunity did not occur, and he was too much
+pressed to make a special business of it.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Slocum, meanwhile, was in a wretched state of suspense and
+apprehension. Justice Beemis's clerk had served some sort of
+legal paper--presumably a subpoena--on Richard, who had coolly
+read it in the yard under the gaze of all, and given no sign of
+discomposure beyond a momentary lifting of the eyebrows. Then he
+had carelessly thrust the paper into one of his pockets and
+continued his directions to the men. Clearly he had as yet no
+suspicion of the mine that was ready to be sprung under his
+feet.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly after this little incident, which Mr. Slocum had
+witnessed from the window of the counting-room, Richard spoke a
+word or two to Stevens, and quitted the yard. Mr. Slocum dropped
+into the carving department.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is Mr. Shackford, Stevens?"</p>
+
+<p>"He has gone to Mitchell's Alley, sir. Said he'd be away an
+hour. Am I to say he was wanted?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," replied Mr. Slocum, hastily; "any time will do. You
+needn't mention that I inquired for him," and Mr. Slocum returned
+to the counting-room.</p>
+
+<p>Before the hour expired he again distinguished Richard's voice
+in the workshops, and the cheery tone of it was a positive
+affront to Mr. Slocum. Looking back to the week prior to the
+tragedy in Welch's Court, he recollected Richard's unaccountable
+dejection; he had had the air of a person meditating some
+momentous step,--the pallor, the set face, and the introspective
+eyes. Then came the murder, and Richard's complete prostration.
+Mr. Slocum in his own excitement had noted it superficially at
+the time, but now he recalled the young man's inordinate sorrow,
+and it seemed rather like remorse. Was his present immobile
+serenity the natural expression of a man whose heart had suddenly
+ossified, and was no longer capable of throbbing with its guilt?
+Richard Shackford was rapidly becoming an awful problem to Mr.
+Slocum.</p>
+
+<p>Since the death of his cousin, Richard had not been so much
+like his former self. He appeared to have taken up his
+cheerfulness at the point where he had dropped it three weeks
+before. If there were any weight resting on his mind, he bore it
+lightly, with a kind of careless defiance.</p>
+
+<p>In his visit that forenoon to Mitchell's Alley he had arranged
+for Mrs. Morganson, his cousin's old housekeeper, to watch with
+Torrini the ensuing night. This left Richard at liberty to spend
+the evening with Margaret, and finish his correspondence.
+Directly after tea he repaired to the studio, and, lighting the
+German student-lamp, fell to work on the letters. Margaret came
+in shortly with a magazine, and seated herself near the round
+table at which he was writing. She had dreaded this evening; it
+could scarcely pass without some mention of Mr. Taggett, and she
+had resolved not to speak of him. If Richard questioned her it
+would be very distressing. How could she tell Richard that Mr.
+Taggett accused him of the murder of his cousin, and that her own
+father half believed the accusation? No, she could never
+acknowledge that.</p>
+
+<p>For nearly an hour the silence of the room was interrupted
+only by the scratching of Richard's pen and the rustling of the
+magazine as Margaret turned the leaf. Now and then he looked up
+and caught her eye, and smiled, and went on with his task. It was
+a veritable return of the old times. Margaret became absorbed in
+the story she was reading and forgot her uneasiness. Her left
+hand rested on the pile of answered letters, to which Richard
+added one at intervals, she mechanically lifting her palm and
+replacing it on the fresh manuscript. Presently Richard observed
+this movement and smiled in secret at the slim white hand
+unconsciously making a paper-weight of itself. He regarded it
+covertly for a moment, and then his disastrous dream occurred to
+him. There should be no mistake this time. He drew the small
+morocco case from his pocket, and leaning across the table
+slipped the ring on Margaret's finger.</p>
+
+<p>Margaret gave a bewildered start, and then seeing what Richard
+had done held out her hand to him with a gracious, impetuous
+little gesture.</p>
+
+<p>"I meant to give it you this morning," he said, pressing his
+lip to the ring, "but the daylight did not seem fine enough for
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you had forgotten," said Margaret, slowly turning
+the band on her finger.</p>
+
+<p>"The first thing I did in New York was to go to a jeweler's
+for this ring, and since then I have guarded it day and night as
+dragonishly as if it had been the Koh-i-Noor diamond, or some
+inestimable gem which hundreds of envious persons were lying in
+wait to wrest from me. Walking the streets with this trinket in
+my possession, I have actually had a sense of personal
+insecurity. I seemed to invite general assault. That was being
+very sentimental, was it not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, perhaps."</p>
+
+<p>"That small piece of gold meant so much to me."</p>
+
+<p>"And to me," said Margaret. "Have you finished your
+letters?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet. I shall be through in ten minutes, and then we'll
+have the evening to ourselves."</p>
+
+<p>Richard hurriedly resumed his writing and Margaret turned to
+her novel again; but the interest had faded out of it; the
+figures had grown threadbare and indistinct, like the figures in
+a piece of old tapestry, and after a moment or two the magazine
+glided with an unnoticed flutter into the girl's lap. She sat
+absently twirling the gold loop on her finger.</p>
+
+<p>Richard added the address to the final envelope, dried it with
+the blotter, and abruptly shut down the lid of the inkstand with
+an air of as great satisfaction as if he had been the fisherman
+in the Arabian story corking up the wicked afrite. With his
+finger still pressing the leaden cover, as though he were afraid
+the imp of toil would get out again, he was suddenly impressed by
+the fact that he had seen very little of Mr. Slocum that day.</p>
+
+<p>"I have hardly spoken to him," he reflected. "Where is your
+father, to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"He has a headache," said Margaret. "He went to his room
+immediately after supper."</p>
+
+<p>"It is nothing serious, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"I fancy not; papa is easily excited, and he had had a great
+deal to trouble him lately,--the strike, and all that."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder if Mr. Taggett has been bothering him."</p>
+
+<p>"I dare say Mr. Taggett has bothered him."</p>
+
+<p>"You knew of his being in the yard?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not while he was here. Papa told me yesterday. I think Mr.
+Taggett was scarcely the person to render much assistance."</p>
+
+<p>"Then he has found nothing whatever?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing important."</p>
+
+<p>"But anything? Trifles are of importance in a matter like
+this. Your father never wrote me a word about Taggett."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Taggett has made a failure of it, Richard."</p>
+
+<p>"If nothing new has transpired, then I do not understand the
+summons I received to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"A summons!"</p>
+
+<p>"I've the paper somewhere. No, it is in the pocket of my other
+coat. I take it there is to be a consultation of some kind at
+Justice Beemis's office to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"I am very glad," said Margaret, with her face brightening.
+To-morrow would lift the cloud which had spread itself over them
+all, and was pressing down so heavily on one unconscious head.
+To-morrow Richard's innocence should shine forth and confound Mr.
+Taggett. A vague bitterness rose in Margaret's heart as she
+thought of her father. "Let us talk of something else," she said,
+brusquely breaking her pause; "let us talk of something
+pleasant."</p>
+
+<p>"Of ourselves, then," suggested Richard, banishing the shadow
+which had gathered in his eyes at his first mention of Mr.
+Taggett's name.</p>
+
+<p>"Of ourselves," repeated Margaret gayly.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you must give me your hand," stipulated Richard, drawing
+his chair closer to hers.</p>
+
+<p>"There!" said Margaret.</p>
+
+<p>While this was passing, Mr. Slocum, in the solitude of his
+chamber, was vainly attempting to solve the question whether he
+had not disregarded all the dictates of duty and common sense in
+allowing Margaret to spend the evening alone with Richard
+Shackford. Mr. Slocum saw one thing with painful
+distinctness--that he could not help himself.</p>
+
+<h2>XXV</h2>
+
+<p>The next morning Mr. Slocum did not make his appearance in the
+marble yard. His half-simulated indisposition of the previous
+night had turned into a genuine headache, of which he perhaps
+willingly availed himself to remain in his room, for he had no
+desire to see Richard Shackford that day.</p>
+
+<p>It was an hour before noon. Up to that moment Richard had been
+engaged in reading and replying to the letters received by the
+morning's mail, a duty which usually fell to Mr. Slocum. As
+Richard stepped from the office into the yard a small boy thrust
+a note into his hand, and then stood off a short distance
+tranquilly boring with one toe in the loose gravel, and
+apparently waiting for an answer. Shackford hastily ran his eye
+over the paper, and turning towards the boy said, a little
+impatiently:</p>
+
+<p>"Tell him I will come at once."</p>
+
+<p>There was another person in Stillwater that forenoon whose
+agitation was scarcely less than Mr. Slocum's, though it greatly
+differed from it in quality. Mr. Slocum was alive to his
+finger-tips with dismay; Lawyer Perkins was boiling over with
+indignation. It was a complex indignation, in which astonishment
+and incredulity were nicely blended with a cordial detestation of
+Mr. Taggett and vague promptings to inflict some physical injury
+on Justice Beemis. That he, Melanchthon Perkins, the confidential
+legal adviser and personal friend of the late Lemuel Shackford,
+should have been kept for two weeks in profound ignorance of
+proceedings so nearly touching his lamented client! The explosion
+of the old lawyer's wrath was so unexpected that Justice Beemis,
+who had dropped in to make the disclosures and talk the matter
+over informally, clutched at his broad-brimmed Panama hat and
+precipitately retreated from the office. Mr. Perkins walked up
+and down the worn green drugget of his private room for half an
+hour afterwards, collecting himself, and then dispatched a
+hurried note to Richard Shackford, requesting an instant
+interview with him at his, Lawyer Perkins's, chambers.</p>
+
+<p>When, some ten minutes subsequently, Richard entered the
+low-studded square room, darkened with faded moreen curtains and
+filled with a stale odor of law-calf, Mr. Perkins was seated at
+his desk and engaged in transferring certain imposing red-sealed
+documents to a green baize satchel which he held between his
+knees. He had regained his equanimity; his features wore their
+usual expression of judicial severity; nothing denoted his recent
+discomposure, except perhaps an additional wantonness in the
+stringy black hair falling over the high forehead,--that pallid
+high forehead which always wore the look of being covered with
+cold perspiration.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Shackford," said Lawyer Perkins, suspending his
+operations a second, as he saluted the young man, "I suppose I
+have done an irregular thing in sending for you, but I did not
+see any other course open to me. I have been your cousin's
+attorney for over twenty-five years, and I've a great regard for
+you personally. That must justify the step I am taking."</p>
+
+<p>"The regard is mutual, I am sure," returned Richard, rather
+surprised by this friendly overture, for his acquaintance with
+the lawyer had been of the slightest, though it had extended over
+many years. "My cousin had very few friends, and I earnestly
+desire to have them mine. If I were in any trouble, there is no
+one to whom I would come as unhesitatingly as to you."</p>
+
+<p>"But you are in trouble."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my cousin's death was very distressing."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not mean that." Mr. Perkins paused a full moment. "The
+district attorney has suddenly taken a deep interest in the case,
+and there is to be a rigorous overhauling of the facts. I am
+afraid it is going to be very unpleasant for you, Mr.
+Shackford."</p>
+
+<p>"How could it be otherwise?" asked Richard, tranquilly.</p>
+
+<p>Lawyer Perkins fixed his black eyes on him. "Then you fully
+understand the situation, and can explain everything?"</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I could. Unfortunately, I can explain nothing. I don't
+clearly see why I have been summoned to attend as a witness at
+the investigation to be held to-day in Justice Beemis's
+office."</p>
+
+<p>"You are unacquainted with any special reason why your
+testimony is wanted?"</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot conceive why it should be required. I gave my
+evidence at the time of the inquest, and have nothing to add to
+it. Strictly speaking, I have had of late years no relations with
+my cousin. During the last eighteen months we have spoken
+together but once."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you had any conversation on this subject with Mr. Slocum
+since your return from New York?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I have had no opportunity. I was busy all day yesterday;
+he was ill in the evening, and is still confined to his
+room."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Perkins was manifestly embarrassed.</p>
+
+<p>"That is unfortunate," he said, laying the bag on the desk. "I
+wish you had talked with Mr. Slocum. Of course you were taken
+into the secret of Taggett's presence in the marble yard?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes; that was all arranged before I left home."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't know the results of that manoeuvre?"</p>
+
+<p>"There were no results."</p>
+
+<p>"On the contrary, Taggett claims to have made very important
+discoveries."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed! Why was I not told!"</p>
+
+<p>"I can't quite comprehend Mr. Slocum's silence."</p>
+
+<p>"What has Taggett discovered?"</p>
+
+<p>"Several things, upon which he builds the gravest
+suspicions."</p>
+
+<p>"Against whom?"</p>
+
+<p>"Against you."</p>
+
+<p>"Against me!" cried Richard, recoiling. The action was one
+altogether of natural amazement, and convinced Mr. Perkins, who
+had keenly watched the effect of his announcement, that young
+Shackford was being very hardly used.</p>
+
+<p>Justice Beemis had given Mr. Perkins only a brief outline of
+the facts, and had barely touched on details when the old
+lawyer's anger had put an end to the conversation. His disgust at
+having been left out in the cold, though he was in no
+professional way concerned in the task of discovering the
+murderer of Lemuel Shackford, had caused Lawyer Perkins instantly
+to repudiate Mr. Taggett's action. "Taggett is a low, intriguing
+fellow," he had said to Justice Beemis; "Taggett is a fraud."
+Young Shackford's ingenuous manner now confirmed Mr. Perkins in
+that belief.</p>
+
+<p>Richard recovered himself in a second or two. "Why did not Mr.
+Slocum mention these suspicions to me?" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps he found it difficult to do so."</p>
+
+<p>"Why should he find it difficult?"</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose he believed them."</p>
+
+<p>"But he could not believe them, whatever they are."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, suppose he was not at liberty to speak."</p>
+
+<p>"It seems that you are, Mr. Perkins, and you owe it to me to
+be explicit. What does Taggett suspect?"</p>
+
+<p>Lawyer Perkins brooded a while before replying. His practice
+was of a miscellaneous sort, confined in the main to what is
+technically termed office practice. Though he was frequently
+engaged in small cases of assault and battery,--he could scarcely
+escape that in Stillwater,--he had never conducted an important
+criminal case; but when Lawyer Perkins looked up from his brief
+reverie, he had fully resolved to undertake the defense of
+Richard Shackford.</p>
+
+<p>"I will tell you what Taggett suspects," he said slowly, "if
+you will allow me to tell you in my own way. I must ask a number
+of questions."</p>
+
+<p>Richard gave a half-impatient nod of assent.</p>
+
+<p>"Where were you on the night of the murder?" inquired Lawyer
+Perkins, after a slight pause.</p>
+
+<p>"I spent the evening at the Slocums', until ten o'clock; then
+I went home,--but not directly. It was moonlight, and I walked
+about, perhaps for an hour."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you meet any one?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not that I recollect. I walked out of town, on the
+turnpike."</p>
+
+<p>"When you returned to your boarding-house, did you meet any
+one?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I let myself in with a pass-key. The family had retired,
+with the exception of Mr. Pinkham."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you saw him?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, but I heard him; he was playing on the flute at his
+chamber window, or near it. He always plays on the flute when he
+can't sleep."</p>
+
+<p>"What o'clock was that?"</p>
+
+<p>"It must have been after eleven."</p>
+
+<p>"Your stroll was confined to the end of the town most remote
+from Welch's Court?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I just cruised around on the outskirts."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you had spoken with somebody that night."</p>
+
+<p>"The streets were deserted. I wasn't likely to meet persons on
+the turnpike."</p>
+
+<p>"However, some one may have seen you without your knowing
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Richard curtly. He was growing restive under these
+interrogations, the drift of which was plain enough to be
+disagreeable. Moreover, Mr. Perkins had insensibly assumed the
+tone and air of a counsel cross-examining a witness on the other
+side. This nocturnal cruise, whose direction and duration were
+known only to young Shackford, struck Lawyer Perkins
+unpleasantly. He meditated a moment before putting the next
+question.</p>
+
+<p>"Were you on good terms--I mean fairly good terms--with your
+cousin?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Richard; "but the fault was not mine. He never
+liked me. As a child I annoyed him, I suppose, and when I grew up
+I offended him by running away to sea. My mortal offense,
+however, was accepting a situation in Slocum's Yard. I have been
+in my cousin's house only twice in three years."</p>
+
+<p>"When was the last time?"</p>
+
+<p>"A day or two previous to the strike."</p>
+
+<p>"As you were not in the habit of visiting the house, you must
+have had some purpose in going there. What was the occasion?"</p>
+
+<p>Richard hung his head thoughtfully. "I went there to talk over
+family matters,--to inform him of my intended marriage to
+Margaret Slocum. I wanted his good-will and support. Mr. Slocum
+had offered to take me into the business. I thought perhaps my
+cousin Lemuel, seeing how prosperous I was, would be more
+friendly to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you wish him to lend you capital?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't expect or wish him to; but there was some question
+of that."</p>
+
+<p>"And he refused?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rather brutally, if I may say so now."</p>
+
+<p>"Was there a quarrel?"</p>
+
+<p>Richard hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I don't press you," said Mr. Perkins, with some
+stiffness. "You are not on the witness stand."</p>
+
+<p>"I began to think I was--in the prisoner's dock," answered
+Richard, smiling ruefully. "However, I have nothing to conceal. I
+hesitated to reply to you because it was painful for me to
+reflect that the last time I saw my cousin we parted in anger. He
+charge me with attempting to overreach him, and I left the house
+in indignation."</p>
+
+<p>"That was the last time you saw him?"</p>
+
+<p>"The last time I saw him alive."</p>
+
+<p>"Was there any communication between you two after that?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"None whatever?"</p>
+
+<p>"None."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you quite positive?"</p>
+
+<p>"As positive as I can be that I live and have my senses."</p>
+
+<p>Lawyer Perkins pulled a black strand of hair over his
+forehead, and remained silent for nearly a minute.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Shackford, are you sure that your cousin did not write a
+note to you on the Monday preceding the night of his death?"</p>
+
+<p>"He may have written a dozen, for all I know. I only know that
+I never received a note or a letter from him in the whole course
+of my life."</p>
+
+<p>"Then how do you account for the letter which has been found
+in your rooms in Lime Street,--a letter addressed to you by
+Lemuel Shackford, and requesting you to call at his house on that
+fatal Tuesday night?"</p>
+
+<p>"I--I know nothing about it," stammered Richard. "There is no
+such paper!"</p>
+
+<p>"It was in this office less than one hour ago," said Lawyer
+Perkins sternly. "It was brought here for me to identify Lemuel
+Shackford's handwriting. Justice Beemis has that paper!"</p>
+
+<p>"Justice Beemis has it!" exclaimed Richard.</p>
+
+<p>"I have nothing more to say," observed Lawyer Perkins,
+reaching out his hand towards the green bag, as a sign that the
+interview was ended. "There were other points I wished to have
+some light thrown on; but I have gone far enough to see that it
+is useless."</p>
+
+<p>"What more is there?" demanded Richard in a voice that seemed
+to come through a fog. "I insist on knowing! You suspect me of my
+cousin's murder?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Taggett does."</p>
+
+<p>"And you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am speaking of Mr. Taggett."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, go on, speak of him," said Richard desperately. "What
+else has he discovered?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Perkins wheeled his chair round until he faced the young
+man.</p>
+
+<p>"He has discovered in your workshop a chisel with a peculiar
+break in the edge,--a deep notch in the middle of the bevel. With
+that chisel Lemuel Shackford was killed."</p>
+
+<p>Richard gave a perceptible start, and put his hand to his
+head, as if a sudden confused memory had set the temples
+throbbing.</p>
+
+<p>"A full box of safety matches," continued Mr. Perkins, in a
+cold, measured voice, as though he were demonstrating a
+mathematical problem, "contains one hundred matches. Mr. Taggett
+has discovered a box that contains only ninety-nine. The missing
+match was used that night in Welch's Court."</p>
+
+<p>Richard stared at him blankly. "What can I say?" he
+gasped.</p>
+
+<p>"Say nothing to me," returned Lawyer Perkins, hastily
+thrusting a handful of loose papers into the open throat of the
+green bag, which he garroted an instant afterwards with a thick
+black cord. Then he rose flurriedly from the chair. "I shall have
+to leave you," he said; "I've an appointment at the
+surrogate's."</p>
+
+<p>And Lawyer Perkins passed stiffly from the apartment.</p>
+
+<p>Richard lingered a moment alone in the room with his chin
+resting on his breast.</p>
+
+<h2>XXVI</h2>
+
+<p>There was a fire in Richard's temples as he reeled out of
+Lawyer Perkins's office. It was now twelve o'clock, and the
+streets were thronged with the motley population disgorged by the
+various mills and workshops. Richard felt that every eye was upon
+him; he was conscious of something wild in his aspect that must
+needs attract the attention of the passers-by. At each step he
+half expected the leveling of some accusing finger. The pitiless
+sunshine seemed to single him out and stream upon him like a
+calcium light. It was intolerable. He must get away from this
+jostling crowd, this babel of voices. What should he do, where
+should he go? To return to the yard and face the workmen was not
+to be thought of; if he went to his lodgings he would be called
+to dinner, and have to listen to the inane prattle of the
+school-master. That would be even more intolerable than this
+garish daylight, and these careless squads of men and women who
+paused in the midst of their laugh to turn and stare. Was there
+no spot in Stillwater where a broken man could hide himself long
+enough to collect his senses?</p>
+
+<p>With his hands thrust convulsively into the pockets of his
+sack-coat, Richard turned down a narrow passage-way fringing the
+rear of some warehouses. As he hurried along aimlessly his
+fingers encountered something in one of his pockets. It was the
+key of a new lock which had been put on the scullery door of the
+house in Welch's Court. Richard's heart gave a quick throb. There
+at least was a temporary refuge; he would go there and wait until
+it was time for him to surrender himself to the officers.</p>
+
+<p>It appeared to Richard that he was nearly a year reaching the
+little back yard of the lonely house. He slipped into the
+scullery and locked the door, wondering if his movements had been
+observed since he quitted the main street. Here he drew a long
+breath and looked around him; then he began wandering restlessly
+through the rooms, of which there were five or six on the
+ground-floor. The furniture, the carpets, and all the sordid
+fixtures of the house were just as Richard had known them in his
+childhood. Everything was unchanged, even to the faded
+peacock-feather stuck over the parlor looking-glass. As he
+regarded the familiar objects and breathed the snuffy atmosphere
+peculiar to the place, the past rose so vividly before him that
+he would scarcely have been startled if a lean, gray old man had
+suddenly appeared in one of the doorways. On a peg in the front
+hall hung his cousin's napless beaver hat, satirically ready to
+be put on; in the kitchen closet a pair of ancient shoes, worn
+down at the heel and with taps on the toe, had all the air of
+intending to step forth. The shoes had been carefully blacked,
+but a thin skin of mould had gathered over them. They looked like
+Lemuel Shackford. They had taken a position habitual with him.
+Richard was struck by the subtile irony which lay in these
+inanimate things. That a man's hat should outlast the man, and
+have a jaunty expression of triumph! That a dead man's shoes
+should mimic him!</p>
+
+<p>The tall eight-day clock on the landing had run down. It had
+stopped at twelve, and it now stood with solemnly uplifted
+finger, as if imposing silence on those small, unconsidered
+noises which commonly creep out, like mice, only at midnight. The
+house was full of such stealthy sounds. The stairs creaked at
+intervals, mysteriously, as if under the weight of some heavy
+person ascending. Now and then the woodwork stretched itself with
+a snap, as though it had grown stiff in the joints with remaining
+so long in one position. At times there were muffled
+reverberations of footfalls on the flooring overhead. Richard had
+a curious consciousness of not being alone, but of moving in the
+midst of an invisible throng of persons who elbowed him softly
+and breathed in his face, and vaguely impressed themselves upon
+him as being former occupants of the premises. This populous
+solitude, this silence with its busy interruptions, grew
+insupportable as he passed from room to room.</p>
+
+<p>One chamber he did not enter,--the chamber in which his
+cousin's body was found that Wednesday morning. In Richard's
+imagination it was still lying there, white and piteous, by the
+hearth. He paused at the threshold and glanced in; then turned
+abruptly and mounted the staircase.</p>
+
+<p>On gaining his old apartment in the gable, Richard seated
+himself on the edge of the cot-bed. His shoulders sagged down and
+a stupefied expression settled upon his face, but his brain was
+in a tumult. His own identity was become a matter of doubt to
+him. Was he the same Richard Shackford who had found life so
+sweet when he awoke that morning? IT must have been some other
+person who had sat by a window in the sunrise thinking of
+Margaret Slocum's love,--some Richard Shackford with unstained
+hands! This one was accused of murdering his kinsman; the weapon
+with which he had done it, the very match he had used to light
+him in the deed, were known! The victim himself had written out
+the accusation in black and white. Richard's brain reeled as he
+tried to fix his thought on Lemuel Shackford's letter. That
+letter!--where had it been all this while, and how did it come
+into Taggett's possession? Only one thing was clear to Richard in
+his inextricable confusion,--he was not going to be able to prove
+his innocence; he was a doomed man, and within the hour his shame
+would be published to the world. Rowland Slocum and Lawyer
+Perkins had already condemned him, and Margaret would condemn him
+when she knew all; for it was evident that up to last evening she
+had not been told. How did it happen that these overwhelming
+proofs had rolled themselves up against him? What malign
+influences were these at work, hurrying him on to destruction,
+and not leaving a single loophole of escape? Who would believe
+the story of his innocent ramble on the turnpike that Tuesday
+night? Who could doubt that he had gone directly from the
+Slocums' to Welch's Court, and then crept home red-handed through
+the deserted streets?</p>
+
+<p>Richard heard the steam-whistles recalling the operatives to
+work, and dimly understood it was one o'clock; but after that he
+paid no attention to the lapse of time. It was an hour later,
+perhaps two hours,--Richard could not tell,--when he roused
+himself from his stupor, and descending the stairs passed through
+the kitchen into the scullery. There he halted and leaned against
+the sink, irresolute, as though his purpose, if he had had a
+purpose, were escaping him. He stood with his eyes resting
+listlessly on a barrel in the further corner of the apartment. It
+was a heavy-hooped wine-cask, in which Lemuel Shackford had been
+wont to keep his winter's supply of salted meat. Suddenly Richard
+started forward with an inarticulate cry, and at the same instant
+there came a loud knocking at the door behind him. The sound
+reverberated through the empty house, filling the place with
+awful echoes,--like those knocks at the gate of Macbeth's castle
+the night of Duncan's murder. Richard stood petrified for a
+second; then he hastily turned the key in the lock, and Mr.
+Taggett stepped into the scullery.</p>
+
+<p>The two men exchanged swift glances. The bewildered air of a
+moment before had passed from Richard; the dullness had faded out
+of his eyes, leaving them the clear, alert expression they
+ordinarily wore. He was self-possessed, but the effort his
+self-possession cost him was obvious. There was a something in
+his face--a dilation of the nostril, a curve of the under
+lip--which put Mr. Taggett very much on his guard. Mr. Taggett
+was the first to speak.</p>
+
+<p>"I've a disagreeable mission here," he said slowly, with his
+hand remaining on the latch of the door, which he had closed on
+entering. "I have a warrant for your arrest, Mr. Shackford."</p>
+
+<p>"Stop a moment!" said Richard, with a glow in his eyes. "I
+have something to say."</p>
+
+<p>"I advise you not to make any statement."</p>
+
+<p>"I understand my position perfectly, Mr. Taggett, and I shall
+disregard the advice. After you have answered me one or two
+questions, I shall be quite at your service."</p>
+
+<p>"If you insist, then."</p>
+
+<p>"You were present at the examination of Thomas Blufton and
+William Durgin, were you not?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was."</p>
+
+<p>"You recollect William Durgin's testimony?"</p>
+
+<p>"Most distinctly."</p>
+
+<p>"He stated that the stains on his clothes were from a certain
+barrel, the head of which had been freshly painted red."</p>
+
+<p>"I remember."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Taggett, <i>the head of that barrel was painted
+blue!"</i></p>
+
+<h2>XXVII</h2>
+
+<p>Mr. Taggett, in spite of the excellent subjection under which
+he held his nerves, caught his breath at these words, and a
+transient pallor overspread his face as he followed the pointing
+of Richard's finger. If William Durgin had testified falsely on
+that point, if he had swerved a hair's-breadth from the truth in
+that matter, then there was but one conclusion to be drawn from
+his perjury. A flash of lightning is not swifter than was Mr.
+Taggett's thought in grasping the situation. In an instant he saw
+all his carefully articulated case fall to pieces in his hands.
+Richard crossed the narrow room, and stood in front of him.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Taggett, do you know why William Durgin lied? He lied
+because it was life or death with him! In a moment of confusion
+he had committed one of those simple, fatal blunders which men in
+his circumstances always commit. He had obliterated the spots on
+his clothes with red paint, when he ought to have used blue!"</p>
+
+<p>"That is a very grave supposition."</p>
+
+<p>"It is not a supposition," cried Richard. "The daylight is not
+a plainer fact."</p>
+
+<p>"You are assuming too much, Mr. Shackford."</p>
+
+<p>"I am assuming nothing. Durgin has convicted himself; he has
+fallen into a trap of his own devising. I charge him with the
+murder of Lemuel Shackford; I charge him with taking the chisel
+and the matches from my workshop, to which he had free access;
+and I charge him with replacing those articles in order to divert
+suspicion upon me. My unfortunate relations with my cousin gave
+color to this suspicion. The plan was an adroit plan, and has
+succeeded, it seems."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Taggett did not reply at once, and then very coldly: "You
+will pardon me for suggesting it, but it will be necessary to
+ascertain if this is the cask which Durgin hoped, and also if the
+head has not been repainted since."</p>
+
+<p>"I understand what your doubt implies. It is your duty to
+assure yourself of these facts, and nothing can be easier. The
+person who packed the meat--it was probably a provision dealer
+named Stubbs--will of course be able to recognize his own work.
+The other question you can settle with a scratch of your
+penknife. You see. There has been only one thin coat of paint
+laid on,--the grain of the wood is nearly distinguishable through
+it. The head is evidently new; but the cask itself is an old one.
+It has stood here these ten years."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Taggett bent a penetrating look on Richard. "Why did you
+refuse to answer the subpoena, Mr. Shackford?"</p>
+
+<p>"But I haven't refused. I was on my way to Justice Beemis's
+office when you knocked. Perhaps I am a trifle late," added
+Richard, catching Mr. Taggett's distrustful glance.</p>
+
+<p>"The summons said two o'clock," remarked Mr. Taggett, pressing
+the spring of his watch. "It is now after three."</p>
+
+<p>"After three!"</p>
+
+<p>"How could you neglect it,--with evidence of such presumable
+importance in your hands?"</p>
+
+<p>"It was only a moment ago that I discovered this. I had come
+here from Mr. Perkins's office. Mr. Perkins had informed me of
+the horrible charge which was to be laid at my door. The
+intelligence fell upon me like a thunder-clap. I think it
+unsettled my reason for a while. I was unable to put two ideas
+together. At first he didn't believe I had killed my cousin, and
+presently he seemed to believe it. When I got out in the street
+the sidewalk lurched under my feet like the deck of a ship;
+everything swam before me. I don't know how I managed to reach
+this house, and I don't know how long I had been sitting in a
+room up-stairs when the recollection of the subpoena occurred to
+me. I was standing here dazed with despair; I saw that I was
+somehow caught in the toils, and that it was going to be
+impossible to prove my innocence. If another man had been in my
+position, I should have believed him guilty. I stood looking at
+the cask in the corner there, scarcely conscious of it; then I
+noticed the blue paint on the head, and then William Durgin's
+testimony flashed across my mind. Where is he?" cried Richard,
+turning swiftly. "That man should be arrested!"</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid he is gone," said Mr. Taggett, biting his
+lip.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean he has fled?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you are correct--he has fled. He failed to answer the
+summons to-day, and the constable sent to look him up has been
+unable to find him. Durgin was in the bar-room of the tavern at
+eight o'clock last night; he has not been seen since."</p>
+
+<p>"He was not in the yard this morning. You have let him slip
+through your fingers."</p>
+
+<p>"So it appears, for the moment."</p>
+
+<p>"You still doubt me, Mr. Taggett?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't let persons slip through my fingers."</p>
+
+<p>Richard curbed an impatient rejoinder, and said quietly,
+"William Durgin had an accomplice."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Taggett flushed, as if Richard had read his secret
+thought. Durgin's flight, if he really had fled, had suggested a
+fresh possibility to Mr. Taggett. What if Durgin were merely the
+pliant instrument of the cleverer man who was now using him as a
+shield? This reflection was precisely in Mr. Taggett's line. In
+absconding Durgin had not only secured his own personal safety,
+but had exonerated his accomplice. It was a desperate step to
+take, but it was a skillful one.</p>
+
+<p>"He had an accomplice?" repeated Mr. Taggett, after a moment.
+"Who was it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Torrini!"</p>
+
+<p>"The man who was hurt the other day?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"You have grounds for your assertion?"</p>
+
+<p>"He and Durgin were intimate, and have been much together
+lately. I sat up with Torrini the night before last; he acted and
+talked very strangely; the man was out of his head part of the
+time, but now, as I think it over, I am convinced that he had
+this matter on his mind, and was hinting at it. I believe he
+would have made disclosures if I had urged him a little. He was
+evidently in great dread of a visit from some person, and that
+person was Durgin. Torrini ought to be questioned without delay;
+he is very low, and may die at any moment. He is lying in a house
+at the further end of the town. If it is not imperative that I
+should report myself to Justice Beemis, we had better go there at
+once."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Taggett, who had been standing with his head half bowed,
+lifted it quickly as he asked the question, "Why did you withhold
+Lemuel Shackford's letter?"</p>
+
+<p>"It was never in my possession, Mr. Taggett," said Richard,
+starting. "That paper is something I cannot explain at present. I
+can hardly believe in its existence, though Mr. Perkins declares
+that he has had it in his hands, and it would be impossible for
+him to make a mistake in my cousin's writing."</p>
+
+<p>"The letter was found in your lodgings."</p>
+
+<p>"So I was told. I don't understand it."</p>
+
+<p>"That explanation will not satisfy the prosecuting
+attorney."</p>
+
+<p>"I have only one theory about it," said Richard slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"What is that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I prefer not to state it now. I wish to stop at my
+boarding-house on the way to Torrini's; it will not be out of our
+course."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Taggett gave silent acquiescence to this. Richard opened
+the scullery door, and the two passed into the court. Neither
+spoke until they reached Lime Street. Mrs. Spooner herself
+answered Richard's ring, for he had purposely dispensed with the
+use of his pass-key.</p>
+
+<p>"I wanted to see you a moment, Mrs. Spooner," said Richard,
+making no motion to enter the hall. "Thanks, we will not come in.
+I merely desire to ask you a question. Were you at home all day
+on that Monday immediately preceding my cousin's death?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," replied Mrs. Spooner wonderingly, with her hand still
+resting on the knob. "I wasn't at home at all. I spent the day
+and part of the night with my daughter Maria Ann at South
+Millville. It was a boy," added Mrs. Spooner, quite irrelevantly,
+smoothing her ample apron with the disengaged hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Then Janet was at home," said Richard. "Call Janet."</p>
+
+<p>A trim, intelligent-looking Nova Scotia girl was summoned from
+the basement kitchen.</p>
+
+<p>"Janet," said Richard, "do you remember the day, about three
+weeks ago, that Mrs. Spooner was absent at South Millville?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied the girl, without hesitation. "It was the day
+before"--and then she stopped.</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly; it was the day before my cousin was killed. Now I
+want you to recollect whether any letter or note or written
+message of any description was left for me at this house on that
+day."</p>
+
+<p>Janet reflected. "I think there was, Mr. Richard,--a bit of
+paper like."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Taggett riveted his eyes on the girl.</p>
+
+<p>"Who brought the paper?" demanded Richard.</p>
+
+<p>"It was one of the Murphy boys, I think."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you hand it to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Mr. Richard, you had gone out. It was just after
+breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>"You gave it to me when I came home to dinner, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," returned Janet, becoming confused with a dim perception
+that something had gone wrong and she was committing herself.</p>
+
+<p>"I remember, I didn't come home. I dined at the Slocums'. What
+did you do with that paper?"</p>
+
+<p>"I put it on the table in your room up-stairs."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Taggett's eyes gleamed a little at this.</p>
+
+<p>"And that is all you can say about it?" inquired Richard, with
+a fallen countenance.</p>
+
+<p>Janet reflected. She reflected a long while this time. "No,
+Mr. Shackford: an hour or so afterwards, when I went up to do the
+chamber-work, I saw that the wind had blow the paper off of the
+table. I picked up the note and put it back; but the wind blew it
+off again."</p>
+
+<p>"What then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then I shut up the note in one of the big books, meaning to
+tell you of it, and--and I forgot it! Oh, Mr. Richard, have I
+done something dreadful?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dreadful!" cried Richard. "Janet, I could hug you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mr. Richard," said Janet with a little coquettish
+movement natural to every feminine thing, bird, flower, or human
+being, "you've always such a pleasant way with you."</p>
+
+<p>Then there was a moment of dead silence. Mrs. Spooner saw that
+the matter, whatever it was, was settled.</p>
+
+<p>"You needn't wait, Janet!" she said, with a severe, mystified
+air.</p>
+
+<p>"We are greatly obliged to you, Mrs. Spooner, not to mention
+Janet," said Richard; "and if Mr. Taggett has no questions to ask
+we will not detain you."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Spooner turned her small amiable orbs on Richard's
+companion. That silent little man Mr. Taggett! "He doesn't look
+like much," was the landlady's unuttered reflection; and indeed
+he did not present a spirited appearance. Nevertheless Mrs.
+Spooner followed him down the street with her curious gaze until
+he and Richard passed out of sight.</p>
+
+<p>Neither Richard nor Mr. Taggett was disposed to converse as
+they wended their way to Mitchell's Alley. Richard's ire was
+slowly kindling at the shameful light in which he had been placed
+by Mr. Taggett, and Mr. Taggett was striving with only partial
+success to reconcile himself to the idea of young Shackford's
+innocence. Young Shackford's innocence was a very awkward thing
+for Mr. Taggett, for he had irretrievably committed himself at
+head-quarters. With Richard's latent ire was mingled a feeling of
+profound gratitude.</p>
+
+<p>"The Lord was on my side," he said presently.</p>
+
+<p>"He was on your side, as you remark; and when the Lord is on a
+man's side a detective necessarily comes out second best."</p>
+
+<p>"Really, Mr. Taggett," said Richard, smiling, "that is a
+handsome admission on your part."</p>
+
+<p>"I mean, sir," replied the latter, slightly nettled, "that it
+sometimes seems as if the Lord himself took charge of a
+case."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly you are entitled to the credit of going to the
+bottom of this one."</p>
+
+<p>"I have skillfully and laboriously damaged my reputation, Mr.
+Shackford."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Taggett said this with so heavy an air that Richard felt a
+stir of sympathy in his bosom.</p>
+
+<p>"I am very sorry," he said good-naturedly.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I beg of you!" exclaimed Mr. Taggett. "Any expression of
+friendliness from you would finish me! For nearly ten days I have
+looked upon you as a most cruel and consummate villain."</p>
+
+<p>"I know," said Richard. "I must be quite a disappointment to
+you, in a small way."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Taggett laughed in spite of himself. "I hope I don't take
+a morbid view of it," he said. A few steps further on he relaxed
+his gait. "We have taken the Hennessey girl into custody. Do you
+imagine she was concerned?"</p>
+
+<p>"Have you questioned her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; she denies everything, except that she told Durgin you
+had quarreled with the old gentleman."</p>
+
+<p>"I think Mary Hennessey an honest girl. She's little more than
+a child. I doubt if she knew anything whatever. Durgin was much
+too shrewd to trust her, I fancy."</p>
+
+<p>As the speakers struck into the principal street, through the
+lower and busier end of which they were obliged to pass, Mr.
+Taggett caused a sensation. The drivers of carts and the
+pedestrians on both sidewalks stopped and looked at him. The part
+he had played in Slocum's Yard was now an open secret, and had
+produced an excitement that was not confined to the
+client&egrave;le of Snelling's bar-room. It was known that
+William Durgin had disappeared, and that the constables were
+searching for him. The air was thick with flying projectures, but
+none of them precisely hit the mark. One rumor there was which
+seemed almost like a piece of poetical justice,--a whisper to the
+effect that Rowland Slocum was suspected of being in some way
+mixed up with the murder. The fact that Lawyer Perkins, with his
+green bag streaming in the wind, so to speak, had been seen
+darting into Mr. Slocum's private residence at two o'clock that
+afternoon was sufficient to give birth to the horrible
+legend.</p>
+
+<p>"Mitchell's Alley," said Mr. Taggett, thrusting his arm
+through Richard's, and hurrying on the escape the Stillwater
+gaze. "You went there directly from the station the night you got
+home."</p>
+
+<p>"How did you know that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was told by a fellow-traveler of yours,--and a friend of
+mine."</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove! Did it ever strike you, Mr. Taggett, that there is
+such a thing as being too clever?"</p>
+
+<p>"It has occurred to me recently."</p>
+
+<p>"Here is the house."</p>
+
+<p>Two sallow-skinned children, with wide, wistful black eyes,
+who were sitting on the stone step, shyly crowded themselves
+together against the door-jamb to make passage-way for Richard
+and Mr. Taggett. Then the two pairs of eyes veered round
+inquiringly, and followed the strangers up the broken staircase
+and saw one of them knock at the door which faced the
+building.</p>
+
+<p>Richard's hasty tap bringing no response, he lifted the latch
+without further ceremony and stepped into the chamber, Mr.
+Taggett a pace or two behind him. The figure of Father O'Meara
+slowly rising from a kneeling posture at the bedside was the
+first object that met their eyes; the second was Torrini's placid
+face, turned a little on the pillow; the third was Brigida
+sitting at the foot of the bed, motionless, with her arms wrapped
+in her apron.</p>
+
+<p>"He is dead," said the priest softly, advancing a step towards
+Richard. "You are too late. He wanted to see you, Mr. Shackford,
+but you were not to be found."</p>
+
+<p>Richard sent a swift glance over the priest's shoulder. "He
+wanted to tell me what part he had played in my cousin's murder?"
+said Richard.</p>
+
+<p>"God forbid! the wretched man had many a sin on his soul, but
+not that."</p>
+
+<p>"Not that!"</p>
+
+<p>"No; he had no hand in it,--no more than you or I. His fault
+was that he concealed his knowledge of the deed after it was
+done. He did not even suspect who committed the crime until two
+days' afterwards, when William Durgin"--</p>
+
+<p>Richard's eyes lighted up as they encountered Mr. Taggett's.
+The priest mistook the significance of the glances.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Father O'Meara, indicating Brigida with a quick
+motion of his head, "the poor soul does not understand a word.
+But even if she did, I should have to speak of these matters here
+and now, while they are fresh in my mind. I am obeying the solemn
+injunctions of the dead. Two days after the murder William Durgin
+came to Torrini and confessed the deed, offering to share with
+him a large sum in gold and notes if he would hide the money
+temporarily. Torrini agreed to do so. Later Durgin confided to
+him his plan of turning suspicion upon you, Mr. Shackford;
+indeed, of directly charging you with the murder, if the worst
+came to the worst. Torrini agreed to that also, because of some
+real or fancied injury at your hands. It seems that the implement
+which Durgin had employed in forcing the scullery door--the
+implement which he afterwards used so mercilessly--had been
+stolen from your workshop. The next morning Durgin put the tool
+back in its place, not knowing what other disposition to make of
+it, and it was then that the idea of shouldering the crime upon
+you entered his wicked heart. According to Torrini, Durgin did
+not intend to harm the old gentleman, but simply to rob him. The
+unfortunate man was awakened by the noise Durgin made in breaking
+open the safe, and rushed in to his doom. Having then no fear of
+interruption, Durgin leisurely ransacked the house. How he came
+across the will, and destroyed it with the idea that he was
+putting the estate out of your possession--this and other details
+I shall give you by and by."</p>
+
+<p>Father O'Meara paused a moment. "After the accident at the
+mill and the conviction that he was not to recover, Torrini's
+conscience began to prick him. When he reflected on Miss Slocum's
+kindness to his family during the strike, when he now saw her
+saving his wife and children from absolute starvation, he was
+nearly ready to break the oath with which he had bound himself to
+William Durgin. Curiously enough, this man, so reckless in many
+things, held his pledged word sacred. Meanwhile his wavering
+condition became apparent to Durgin, who grew alarmed, and
+demanded the stolen property. Torrini refused to give it up; even
+his own bitter necessities had not tempted him to touch a penny
+of it. For the last three days he was in deadly terror lest
+Durgin should wrest the money from him by force. The poor woman,
+here, knows nothing of all this. It was her presence, however,
+which probably prevented Durgin from proceeding to extremities
+with Torrini, who took care never to be left alone."</p>
+
+<p>"I recollect," said Richard, "the night I watched with him he
+was constantly expecting some one. I supposed him to be wandering
+in his mind."</p>
+
+<p>"He was expecting Durgin, though Torrini had every reason for
+believing that he had fled."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Taggett leaned forward, and asked, "When did he go,--and
+where?"</p>
+
+<p>"He was too cunning to confide his plans to Torrini. Three
+nights ago Durgin came here and begged for a portion of the
+bank-note; previously he had reclaimed the whole sum; he said the
+place was growing too warm for him, and that he had made up his
+mind to leave. But Torrini held on to the money, having resolved
+that it should be restored intact to you. He promised Durgin,
+however, to keep his flight secret for three or four days, at the
+end of which time Torrini meant to reveal all to me at
+confession. The night you sat with him, Mr. Shackford, he was
+near breaking his promise; your kindness was coals of fire on his
+head. His agony, lest he should die or lose his senses before he
+could make known the full depth of Durgin's villainy, must have
+been something terrible. This is the substance of what the poor
+creature begged me to say to you with his dying regrets. The
+money is hidden somewhere under the mattress, I believe. A better
+man than Torrini would have spent some of it," added Father
+O'Meara, waving a sort of benediction in the direction of the
+bed.</p>
+
+<p>Richard did not speak for a moment or two. The wretchedness
+and grimness of it all smote him to the heart. When he looked up
+Mr. Taggett was gone, and the priest was gently drawing the
+coverlet over Torrini's face.</p>
+
+<p>Richard approached Father O'Meara and said: "When the money is
+found, please take charge of it, and see that every decent
+arrangement is made. I mean, spare nothing. I am a Protestant,
+but I believe in any man's prayers when they are not addressed to
+a heathen image. I promised Torrini to send his wife and children
+to Italy. This pitiful, miserable gold, which cost so dear and is
+worth so little, shall be made to do that much good, at
+least."</p>
+
+<p>As Richard was speaking, a light footfall sounded on the
+staircase outside; then the door, which stood ajar, was softly
+pushed open, and Margaret paused on the threshold. At the rustle
+of her dress Richard turned, and hastened towards her.</p>
+
+<p>"It is all over," he said softly, laying his finger on his
+lip. Father O'Meara was again kneeling by the bedside.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us go now," whispered Richard to Margaret. It seemed fit
+that they should leave the living and the dead to the murmured
+prayers and solemn ministration of the kindly priest. Such later
+services as Margaret could render to the bereaved woman were not
+to be wanting.</p>
+
+<p>At the foot of the stairs Richard Shackford halted abruptly,
+and, oblivious of the two children who were softly chattering
+together in the doorway, caught Margaret's hand in his.</p>
+
+<p>"Margaret, Torrini has made a confession that sets at rest all
+question of my cousin's death."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean that he"--Margaret faltered, and left the
+sentence unfinished.</p>
+
+<p>"No; it was William Durgin, God forgive him!"</p>
+
+<p>"William Durgin!" The young girl's fingers closed nervously on
+Richard's as she echoed the name, and she began trembling.
+"That--that is stranger yet!"</p>
+
+<p>"I will tell you everything when we get home; this is no time
+or place; but one thing I must ask you now and here. When you sat
+with me last night were you aware that Mr. Taggett firmly
+believed it was I who had killed Lemuel Shackford?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Margaret.</p>
+
+<p>"That is all I care to know!" cried Richard; "that consoles
+me!" and the two pairs of great inquisitive eyes looking up from
+the stone step saw the signorina standing quite mute and
+colorless with the strange gentleman's arms around her. And the
+signorina was smiling!</p>
+
+<h2>XXVIII</h2>
+
+<p>One June Morning, precisely a year from that morning when the
+reader first saw the daylight breaking upon Stillwater, several
+workmen with ladders and hammers were putting up a freshly
+painted sign over the gate of the marble yard. Mr. Slocum and
+Richard stood on the opposite curbstone, to which they had
+retired in order to take in the general effect. The new sign
+read,--Slocum &amp; Shackford. Richard protested against the
+displacement of its weather-stained predecessor; it seemed to him
+an act little short of vandalism; but Mr. Slocum was obstinate,
+and would have it done. He was secretly atoning for a deep
+injustice, into which Richard had been at once too sensitive and
+too wise closely to inquire. If Mr. Slocum had harbored a
+temporary doubt of him Richard did not care to know it; it was
+quite enough to suspect the fact. His sufficient recompense was
+that Margaret had not doubted. They had now been married six
+months. The shadow of the tragedy in Welch's Court had long
+ceased to oppress them; it had vanished with the hasty departure
+of Mr. Taggett. Neither he nor William Durgin was ever seen again
+in the flesh in Stillwater; but they both still led, and will
+probably continue for years to lead, a sort of phantasmal,
+legendary life in Snelling's bar-room. Durgin in his flight had
+left no traces. From time to time, as the months rolled on, a
+misty rumor was blown to the town of his having been seen in some
+remote foreign city,--now in one place, and now in another,
+always on the point of departing, self-pursued like the Wandering
+Jew; but nothing authentic. His after-fate was to be a sealed
+book in Stillwater.</p>
+
+<p>"I really wish you had let the old sign stand," said Richard,
+as the carpenters removed the ladders. "The yard can never be
+anything but Slocum's Yard."</p>
+
+<p>"It looks remarkably well up there," replied Mr. Slocum,
+shading his eyes critically with one hand. "You object to the
+change, but for my part I don't object to changes. I trust I may
+live to see the day when even this sign will have to be altered
+to--Slocum, Shackford &amp; Son. How would you like that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can't say," returned Richard laughing, as they passed into
+the yard together. "I should first have to talk it over--with the
+son!"</p>
+
+<center>
+<h3>The End</h3>
+</center>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Stillwater Tragedy, by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STILLWATER TRAGEDY ***
+
+***** This file should be named 5435-h.htm or 5435-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/5/4/3/5435/
+
+Produced by This eBook was created by Charles Aldarondo
+(pg@aldarondo.net).
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+
+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
+
+
author	Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>	2025-10-15 05:25:34 -0700
committer	Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>	2025-10-15 05:25:34 -0700
commit	b59cae3808b6810ecaa69929aa6cad66025a6a12 (patch)
tree	5238ae75e569b011b46c9507866e6c29968c2ed5 /5435-h